Mimicry, English Inns, Robin Hood and much more!

It's that time, again!!!
It's Tudor Trivia Tuesday!!!

1) Henry VIII made the Abbey Church of Winchester a cathedral by letters patent, dated Dec. 17, 1540.  Queen Mary restored it to a monastery in 1553.  From 1559 it has been a collegiate church.

2) In an account of a 1560 visit to England, the Dutch Dr Levinus Lemmius, M.A. recalled that “their nosegayes finely entermingled wyth sundry sortes of fragraunte floures in their bedchambers and privy roomes, with comfortable smell cheered mee up and entirelye delyghted all my sences.”

3) The distance from the port of Dover to Calais is thirty miles.  In Tudor times, with a favorable wind, it could be crossed in five or six hours’ time.

4)    On the 4th of April, 1581, Queen Elizabeth visited Captain Drake's ship, called the Golden Hind. Her Majesty dined on board, and after dinner conferred the honor of knighthood on the captain. A prodigious concourse of people assembled on the occasion, and a wooden bridge, on which were a hundred persons, broke down, but no lives were lost.

5) Until the 18^th century, The Foundry for brass ordnance for the public service was located at Moorfields, in London.

6) Queen Elizabeth I issued a proclamation to prevent price gouging of her troops at Tilbury while they awaited the possible land assault of the Spanish troops in the 1588 battle of the Spanish Armada. The following paragraph formed part of it:

Item that every souldier or other person being placed and appointed in the bande within the circuite of xx miles distant from her Highnesse Court, under the right honourable the Lord Chamberlaine her Maiesties Lieutenant of the same bande and armie, and receiving her Maiesties pay by viiid the day, having to dinner or supper good wheaten bread and drinke, beefe, mutton or veale boyled, and pigge, beefe, mutton, veale or lamb rosted or otherwise, vpon the fish dayes to have good wheaten bread and good drinke, salt fish or ling, egges, butter, pease or beanes buttered, and so having competent and suflicient thereof for the sustentation of their bodies, every man to pay for his meal iiid.

7) Mimicking the speech of Englishman in their cups, Master Estienne Perlin (Description d’Angleterre, 1558) informs his readers that “In drinking or eating they will say to you above a hundred times, drind iou, which is, I drink to you; and you should answer them in their language, iplaigiou, which means, I pledge you. If you would thank them in their language, you must say, god tanque artelay. When they are drunk, they will swear by blood and death that you shall drink all that is in your cup, and will say to you thus: bigod sol drind iou agoud oin.”

8) According to the English traveler Fynes Moryson’s Itinerary (1617), “the World affoords not such Innes as England hath, either for good and cheape entertainement after the Guests owne pleasure, or for humble attendance on passengers ; yea, even in very poore villages. . . . For assone as a passenger comes to an Inne, the servants run to him, and one takes his horse, and walkes him till he be cold, then rubs him and gives him meate, yet I must say that they are not much to be trusted in this last point, without the eye of the Master or his servant to oversee them. Another servant gives the passenger his private chamber, and kindles his fier ; the third puls of his bootes, and makes them cleane. Then the Host or Hostesse visit him ; and if he will eate with the Host, or at a common table with others, his meale will cost him sixe pence, or in some places but foure pence (yet this course is lesse honourable, and not used by Gentlemen‘);…”

9) The strut in a fireplace to hold pots in the air above the fire was generally called “the gallows”.

10) In many localities, in Tudor times, for Mayday Celebrations Robin Hood presided as Lord of the May and Maid Marian was the Lady of the May. Their companions were known as “Robin Hood's men,” and all were attired in the garb ascribed to them in “Robin Hood's Garland, and other collections of ballads relating to the merry outlaw.

Many of these facts are taken all or in part from Rye’s England as Seen by Foreigners, Harrison’s Description of England, and Cruden’s History of the Town of Gravesend, and the Medii Aevi Kalendarium.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• Zombie Apocalypse & Trick-or-Treating: Halloween through History. October 30, 2019. 'Looking closely, however, we see that this Shakespeare quote has moved the “puling” (which it was actually called) back one day to Hallowmas, All Hallows Day, rather than All Souls.  Far more important, he has actually referred to puling as a special kind of speech spoken by beggars on Hallowmas Day.'
• Malvolio’s Crow's Feet and “the new Mappe”. October 14, 2019. “Percy Allen’s candidate is not mentioned by any of these parties. The traditionalists, of course, could not consider it possible because it would suggest far too early a date for the play.”
• Who Saved Southampton from the Ax? September 2, 2019.  “One of the popular mysteries of the final years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I is why the Queen executed her favorite, the Earl of Essex, for treason, and left his accomplice, the Earl of Southampton, to languish as a prisoner in The Tower until King James I ascended the throne.”
• What Color Were Shakespeare’s Potatoes? July 27, 2019. “By the year 1599-1600, when Shakespeare’s play would seem to have been written, the potato was available in London.  It was considered a delectable treat and an aphrodisiac.”
• Check out the Medieval Topics Article Index for many more articles about this fascinating time.
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.