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| It's that time, again! It's Tudor Trivia Tuesday! |
1) At least some Tudor authors appear to have classified
lice as “worms”. Therefore, of the
chimpanzee’s habit of mutual grooming we learn: “the Ape eateth all manner of
meats and unclean things, and therefore he seeketh and looketh worms in men's
heads, and throweth them into his mouth, and eateth them.” [Natural History in Shakespeare’s Time, 13.]
2) In the Corporation Records at Liverpool for 1571, it is
ordered that a charge of 5s. shall be levied for use of the common hall
of the town for any “weddyng diners or pleyes of dawnsyng” in order to offset
the cost of “the damagyng, decayng, or falling of the floore of the same.”
3) On September 5th, 1550, William Cecil was made
Secretary of State to King Edward VI.
4) William Cecil’s wife, Mildred, kept up a correspondence in
Greek with their friend, Sir Thomas Morysine, the English Ambassador to the
Emperor, and with the learned Joannes Sturmius of Strasburg.
5) ‘The "Statutes of the Streets," in the time of
Elizabeth, were careful enough for the preservation of silence in some things.
They prescribed that "no man shall blow any horn in the night, or whistle
after the hour of nine o'clock in the night, under pain of imprisonment;"
and, what was a harder thing to keep, they also forbad a man to make any
"sudden outcry in the still of the night, as making any affray, or beating
his wife.’ [fr. Cries of London]
6) Andrew Boorde, ‘of physicke doctour,’ seems to have been
a sanitary reformer of his day, and about 1547 published some very sensible advice
(which does not seem to have been generally acted upon) on house-building. As for the layout of water channels on the
property “in no-wyse let the fylth of the kytchyn descende into the mote.”
7) According to
Harrison’s Description of England, a man could convert 12 acres of
moorland into hop-yards (c. 1580) and net 133l.
6s. 8d. per year.
8) According to Harrison’s Description of England, “About
the first yeare of Queen Elizabeth, [17 Nov. 1558, to 16 Nov. 1559], began the
planting and growing of Licoras in Englande.”
9) In the late 16th century, scarecrows were
called “crow-keepers”.
10) To make a marchpane [marzipan] according to Delightes for Ladies
(1608): "Take two poundes of almonds being blanched, and dryed in a sieve over the
fire, beate them in a stone mortar, and when they bee small mixe them with two
pounde of sugar beeing finely beaten, adding two or three spoonefuls of
rosewater, and that will keep your almonds from oiling ; when your paste is
beaten fine, drive it thin with a rowling pin, and so lay it on a bottom of
wafers, then raise up a little edge on the side, and so bake it, then yce it
with rosewater and sugar, then put it in the oven againe, and when you see your
yce is risen up and drie, then take it out of the oven and garnish it with
prettie conceipts, as birdes and beasts, being cast out of standing moldes.
Sticke long comfits upright in it, cast bisket and carrowaies in it and so
serve it ; guild it before you serve it: you may also print of this marchpane
paste in your moldes for banqueting dishes. And of this paste our comfit makers
at this day make their letters, knots, armes, escutcheons, beasts, birds and
other fancies."
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- The Fascinating Itinerary of the Gelosi Troupe, 1576. June 10, 2019. “The Spanish soldiers had not been paid and unpaid soldiers tend to rob and loot. The citizens were prepared to give them a fight. Violent flare ups were occurring everywhere.”
- A Thousand Years of English Terms. June 2, 2019. ‘One person did not say to another, “Meet you at three o’clock”. There was no clock to be o’. But the church bell rang the hour of Nones and you arranged to meet “upon the Nones bell”.’
- A Most Curious Account of the Funeral of Queen Elizabeth I: April 28, 1603. April 28, 2019. “Once it was clear that James I would face no serious challenges, Cecil and the others could begin to give attention to the matter of the Queen’s funeral.”
- The Battle Over Shakespeare's Early and Late Plays. September 24, 2018. “The answers to the post-Oxford dilemma, of course, are three.”
- Stratford Shakespeare’s Undersized Grave. July 22, 2018. “Mr. Coll’s considers this evidence to support an old rumor that Shakspere’s head had been stolen in 1794. But I submit that he is merely making his observation based upon a coincidence.”
- Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
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