Shakespeares London 8 Womens Lives Jane Stevenson Campion

Shakespeare’s London 8: Women’s Lives Jane Stevenson Campion Hall

Religion was an all-pervasive aspect of an individual’s life. Atheism was extremely rare and morally abhorrent; confessional identity was an essential aspect of personal identity. Miniature prayer book to be attached to one’s girdle https: //www. theanneboleynfiles. com/anne-boleyns-girdle-book-bysandra-vasoli/ Most women seem genuinely to have believed in something called ‘family honour’; to set value on themselves as wives and mothers, guardians of collective property. Family honour resided in women; calling a woman a ‘whore’ was an insult to the group as a whole.

Middle-class English women and a farmer’s wife, 1574 https: //commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File: Lucas_de_Heere_London_G entlewomen_and_a_countrywoman_%28 color%29. jpg

Women from Michel van Meer’s album https: //www. bl. uk/collection-items/a-virginian-indian-in-st-jamesspark-from-the-friendship-album-of-michael-van-meer

Wedding portraits When Simon Forman the astrologer married in 1599, he spent £ 50 on a new gown, breeches, cloak and cap for himself, and new clothes for his wife, then they sat for their portraits. Portrait of unknown couple probably by William Larkin https: //upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/3/3 e/Circle_of_William_Lar kin. jpg

Fashion at the start of Elizabeth’s reign. She wears: Shift next to the skin: starched ruff, at this date, attached to the shift & perhaps part of it Stockings (secured with ribbon garters) ‘a pair of bodies’ (a corset) Several petticoats, at least one of them stiffened, probably secured with drawstring tapes. Purse hanging round her waist Possibly a bum-roll to improve the silhouette Decorative front panel for skirt (attached to gown with ties) Kirtle (fitted to snugness with pins) Decorative oversleeves, pinned in place, with starched cuff ruffles Several necklaces, rings, perhaps brooches Coif Shoes https: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Margaret_Audley, _Duchess_of_Norfolk#/media/File: Margar et. Audley. jpg

A ‘waiting gentlewoman’ tries to get dressed in a hurry Prudence [a maid]: Mistress Jolye! My Ladye calleth you in great hast. Jolye: Good Lord! What shall I doe? She will chide me, I pray thee sweet heart, help me a little to put on my gowne, give me that Rebato [collar] now as it is, I will pin it anone [later], I have not leisure to doe it now. I cannot find my Kertle nor my aprone, I give you great thankes, I will an other time, doe so much for you. Prudence: Mend that same a little, that hangeth behind you. Jolye: I am well enough, I will dress myself better anone. Let me goe, I heare my Ladye call.

Bum rolls, masks, ruffs https: //www. metmuseum. org/art/collection/search/82615 Elizabeth Vernon, getting ready to go out: her ruff is pinned to the bed curtain till it’s wanted. https: //commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File: Elizabeth_Vernon_big. jpg

Ruffs They have great and monsterous ruffes, made either of Cambrick, holland, lawn or els of some other the finest cloth that can be got for money, whereof some be a quarter of a yard deep, yea some more, very few lesse. So that they stand a full quarter of a yarde (and more) from their necks hanging over their shoulder poynts, insted of a vaile. But if Aeolus with his blasts, or Neptune with his stormes, chaunce to hit uppon the crasie bark of their bruised ruffes, then they goe flip flap in the winde like rags flying abroad, and lye upon their shoulders like the dishcloute of a slutte. Philip Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses

Satirical print of monkeys making, starching, and selling ruffs https: //www. pinterest. co. uk/pin/411797959649611110/visual-search/

Ruff management the one arch or piller wherby [the devil's] kingdome of great ruffes is vnderpropped is a certaine kinde of liquide matter which they call Starch, wherin the deuill hath willed them to wash and drye his ruffes wel, which when they be dry wil then stand stiffe and inflexible about their necks. The other piller is a certain deuice made of wyers, & this hée calleth a supportasse or vnderpropper. This is to be supplyed round about their necks vnder the ruffe, to beare vp the whole frame & body of the ruffe, from falling and hanging down. Poking stick and supportasse http: //blog. carlynbeccia. com/2008/03/

Luxury clothing when knitted silk stockings first came in in the 1560 s, they cost perhaps £ 8 a pair, and were still around £ 3 a pair by 1582. A labourer was paid sixpence a day. https: //www. flickr. com/photos/qunospotter/5634347138/in/set 72157626406059437

A corset (‘pair of bodies’) worn by Elizabeth I’s effigy, and probably modelled on one worn by the Queen. Made from fustian and fully-boned with whalebone. It has shoulder straps that are attached to the back piece of the bodie and fasten over the shoulder with ties, allowing for a slight adjustment in the arms, if need be. It is spiral laced at the front, and does not feature a busk; a strip of wood, whalebone or steel down the front, which would have been characteristic of an earlier Tudor corset. https: //www. westminster-abbey. org/abbeycommemorations/royals/elizabeth-i

Corset plus effigy of fully dressed queen http: //beingbess. blogspot. com/2013/03/queen-elizabeths-bodieseffigy-corset. html

Farthingale made of willow hoops In 1597, Margaret Hurdman, a fourteen year old fashionista, wanted ‘to have a French farthingale laid low before and high behind and broad on either side so I may laye mine arms on it’. She also wanted ‘a french bodie, not of Whalebone, for that is not stiffe inough, but of horne, for that will holde it out’, and ‘sleeves set out with wires for sticks will breake, and are not stiff enough’. https: //i. pinimg. com/originals/70/19/a 6/7019 a 63 fdbde 9 affccb 4 d 6 eb 4 3 ba 7 ac 3. jpg

Lady resting her arms on her farthingale, f. 45 r https: //www. bl. uk/collection-items/friendship-album-of-moyseswalens

Marriage, death, and childbirth

Marriage was for life, and separation or https: //www. historyextra. com/period/t divorce extremely difficult to achieve. udor/love-and-marriage-in-tudor. Legally, a young couple could marry england/ because they were in love, like Romeo and Juliet. Normally, parents’ permissions were asked. However, a pair of young aristocrats, Thomas Thynne of Longleat and Maria Touchet, daughter of Lord Audley, both sixteen, married secretly in 1594 on the day they met, despite the bitter enmity between their fathers. Most marriages were less romantic, and potential spouses were adjured to think carefully about their loved one’s character, talents, and social position before committing themselves.

Marriage Proverbially, ‘England is the paradise of women, the hell of horses, and the purgatory of servants’. ‘The women-folk of England have far more liberty than in other lands, and know just how to make good use of it, for they often stroll out or drive by coach in very gorgeous clothes. ’ (Thomas Platter) But husbands had the right to beat their wives.

Though some wives stood up for themselves https: //twitter. com/ejbrand/status/924773786314035202 https: //beforeshakespeare. com/2019/02/12/tudor-drama-in-modernperformance/

A good housewife’s library A booke of cookerie, otherwise called the good huswiues handmaid, 1597 Thomas Dawson, The second part of The good hus-wiues iewell where is to be found most apt and readiest wayes to distill many wholesome and sweete waters : in which (likewise) is shewed the best manner in preseruiug [sic] diuers sortes of fruites, and making of sirrops : with diuers conceites in cookerie : with The booke of carving, 1597 Hugh Plat, Delightes for ladies to adorne their persons, tables, closets, and distillatories with beauties, banquets, perfumes and waters , 1602. Richard Schorleyker, A schole-house, for the needle, 1632

The seven children of Sir Francis Carew http: //www. speel. me. uk/surrey/wimbledontramline. htm

‘two sonnes & 6 daughters’ http: //www. speel. me. uk/gp/skulls. htm

Childbirth https: //www. alamy. com/german-birthing-chair-of-the-16 th-centuryafter-jacob-rueff-1897 -image 220130605. html https: //www. medicalnewstoday. com/articles/282748. php#2

Neighbours rally round http: //blog. wellcomelibrary. org/2016/06/bawling-babies-and-theirbaths-in-early-modern-england/ https: //www. mentalfloss. com/article/50513/historical-horrorchildbirth

Women only celebrations, neighbours, friends, their children, midwife, etc. https: //earlymodernmedicine. com/birth-infanticide-and-midwifery/

From The French Garden: visiting the nursery ‘Good morrow Nurce’ ‘God give you good morrow Madame. ’ ‘How now, how doth the childe? ’ ‘He is fayre and plumpe, and doth very wel thanks be to God, saving that he hath been somewhat wayward the last night. ’ ‘Hath he so: What should aile him? It may be he hath some tooth a growing …bring him to me first that I may kisse him: God send thee good rest my little boykin. I pray you good Nurce have a care of him’ ‘Dout not of it Madame, with the grace of God. ’

Educating mothers Women were expected to concern themselves with their children’s moral education, sometimes also the first stages of learning to read and write. A letter from John Dee to Robert Cotton, with reference to a Mistress Boston: ‘I trust her wurship hath not forgotten her ryme which she tought me of Christ Crost. ’ almost certainly with reference to the ‘Criss-Cross Row’ at the top of a hornbook, a child’s first steps in learning to read. A hornbook had the alphabet, the numbers, and ‘Our Father’.

The hornbook made its first appearance around the middle of the 1400 s, and rapidly became a popular teaching and instructional aid for children, who used them to help remember their basic ABCs. The 'book' is actually a parchment or paper fixed to a thin wooden support with a short handle. Sometime ivory was used instead of wood. The information was presented in a formulaic fashion, starting with the alphabet, nine digits, the Lord's Prayer and sometimes a syllabary (a list of characters representing syllables). The text was protected by a thin translucent sheet of horn, which was held in place by a frame of riveted copper strips. https: //internetshakespeare. uvic. ca/Library/SLT/life/school/hornb ook. html

Addressed to Lucy, Countess of Bedford ‘having given you, his honourable Mother, the fruit of all your great care, labour and cost you so naturally and religiously tooke, in tilling his yong heart, wherein you not only laboured by your selfe in his infancy, as another mother of the worthy Lemuel to instruct him, teaching your Timothie like another Eunice (renowned in holy writ) the Holy Scriptures of a childe, and seeking to plant in him the unfained faith which dwelleth in you his mother. But also providing for him a worthy Tutor, a man of no lesse piety than learning (o that all of your rancke would do the like, then might wee hope for more religion and piety among our Nobility) who might perfect that your sex had begun, but could not thorowly performe, and after did most plentifully rewarde him. ’ Richard Stocke, The Churches Lamentation for the losse of the GODLY (1616)

Leisure: Promenading (f. 42 r), picnicking (f. 50 r) https: //www. bl. uk/collection-items/friendship-album-of-moyseswalens embroidering and listening to music (f. 52 v) https: //www. bl. uk/collection-items/friendship-album-of-gervasiusfabricius-zu-klesheim

Jane Bostocke’s sampler The earliest surviving British example. The sampler was worked by Jane Bostocke of Langley (Shropshire) and includes the date 1598. The sampler was made to commemorate the birth of her cousin, Alice Lee, two years previously. https: //collections. vam. ac. uk/item/O 46183/sampler-bostocke-jane/ A Schole-House for the Needle is a pattern book published in 1624 by Richard Shorleyker. It includes patterns for needlework, especially embroidery and needle lace. https: //trc-leiden. nl/trc-needles/texts-films-customs-and-event/designs-anddesign-books/schole-house-for-the-needle

‘A gentlewoman yt married a yonge Gent who after forsooke [her] whereuppon she tooke hir needle in wch she was excele[n]t and worked upo[n] hir Sampler thus. ’ Come give me needle, stitchcloth, silke, & haire That I may sitt and sigh, and sew & singe For perfect collours to discribe the aire A subtile persinge changinge constant thinge No false stitch will I make my hart is true Plaine stitche my sampler is for to complaine Now men have tongues of hony, harts of rue True tongues & harts are one Men makes them twain. Giue me black silk that sable suites my hart & yet som white though white words do deceive No greene at all for youth & I must part Purple & blew, fast love & faith to weave: Mayden no more sleepeless ile go to bedd Take all away, the works in my hedd.

Pair of gloves with heavily symbolic embroidery https: //www. metmuseum. org/art/collection/search/222229

Getting about: Bourgeois women didn’t go out alone f. 146 v, women walking home from market https: //www. bl. uk/collection-items/a-virginian-indian-in-st-jamesspark-from-the-friendship-album-of-michael-van-meer Woman and her maid in Eastcheap https: //mapoflondon. uvic. ca/EAST 2. htm

Queen Anne of Denmark riding solo on a woman’s saddle with planchet https: //www. alamy. com/stock-photo/queen-anne-of-denmark. html

Surviving side saddle Sixteenth century English side saddle of decorated leather and velvet made sometime in the 1550 s. It has a large circular padded seat with a tall vertical horn affixed in the front. The female rider would sit with her body facing entirely to the side, her feet dangling together on the horse’s barrel. She could clutch the horn with one hand for balance, but she had little to no control over horse. The padded seat, sometimes called a pillion, could be placed behind the saddle of another rider. If she was riding alone, her horse was typically led by a male servant who was walking or riding another horse. https: //www. shakespeare. org. uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/shakespeare-100 objects-side-saddle/ Woman being led https: //www. agefotostock. com/age/en/Stock-Images/Rights-Managed/IAMWHA_140_0638/1

Woman riding behind a man https: //www. bl. uk/collection-items/a-virginian-indian-in-st-jamesspark-from-the-friendship-album-of-michael-van-meer (f. 381 r)

Elizabeth I at Tilbury – sitting sideways on a led horse Not how later illustrators liked to imagine her. http: //www. luminarium. org/renlit/tilbury. htm

Litters carried by four men Woman carried by two bearers, probably in Italy https: //www. cam. ac. uk/research/features/fancy-pants-skirmishes-with -the-fashion-police-in-16 th-century-italy Elizabeth I going to Blackfriars https: //www. alamy. com/visit-of-queen-elizabeth-i-to-blackfriars-inlondon-1600 -hand-colored-image 6549285. html

Litter between two horses: the woman traveller is wearing a mask https: //www. bl. uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN. ASP? S ize=mid&Ill. ID=28788

Elizabeth on show The German traveller Lupold van Wedel saw the queen on 12 November 1584 coming to St James Palace, riding in an open gilt carriage, drawn by four horses, under a canopy of red velvet embroidered with gold and pearls. The Earl of Leicester rode beside the carriage and twenty four ladies-in-waiting followed on horseback. On 24 September, he saw the opening of Parliament. The queen arrived in a sedan-chair like a half-covered or half-roofed bed carried between two horses.

The history of the coach https: //thebeaumonde. com/main/wpcontent/uploads/2018/08/Lesson-1 -History-pre-19 th-century. pdf

Why a coach is an economy If their mistress is to ride abroad she must have six or eight serving men to attend her, she must have one to carry her cloak and hood lest it rain, another fan if she use it not herself, another box with ruffs and other necessaries, another behind whom her maid or Gentlewoman must ride, and some must be loose [available] to open gates and supply other services … there is a new invention, that she must have a coach, wherein she with her gentlewoman, maid and children and what necessaries as they … are to use, may be carried with smaller charge less cost and more credit … for one or two men at the most, besides the coachman, are sufficient for a Gentlewoman or Lady of worthy parentage. A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Serving Men (1598)

Women at the Lord Mayor’s Show ‘We noticed but few coaches and still fewer horsemen; only a few gentlewomen coming in their carriages for a view at some house in the Row belonging to their friends and relations, for the insolence of the mob is extreme. They cling behind the coaches and should the coachman use his whip, they jump down and pelt him with mud. In this way we saw them bedaub the smart livery of one coachman, who was obliged to put up with it. In these great uproars no sword is ever unsheathed, everything ends in kicks, fisty cuffs and muddy faces. ’ Horatio Busino, Venetian visitor, in 1617 ‘The Sculler told him, hee was now out of Cash, it was a hard time, he doubts there is some secrete Bridge made over to Hell, and that they steale thither in coaches, for euery Justices wife, and the wife of everie Citizen must be jolted now. ’ Thomas Dekker, Newes from hell brought by the Diuells carrier, 1606

The Duchess of Suffolk going into exile with husband, baby, and wetnurse https: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Richard_Bertie_(courtier)#/media/File: C atherine_Willoughby_exiled. jpg

From ‘The Most Rare and Excellent History of the Dutchess of Suffolkes Calamity’ That for the love of God alone, her Land Goods she left behind; Seeking still for that presious stone, the word and truth so rare to find: She with her Nurse Husband child, In poor array their sighs beguil'd. … [but even the nurse deserted them … ] And After many a weary step, all wet-shod both in dirt and mire. After much grief their hearts yet leaps, for labour doth some rest require, A Town before them they did see, But lodged there they could not be. From house to house then they did go, seeking that night where they might lye, But want of money was there woe, and still their babe with cold doth cry, With Cap and knee they courtesie make, But none of them would pitty take. Loe here a Princess of great blood, doth pray a Peasant for relief, With tears bedewed as she stood, yet few or none regard her grief, Her speech they could not understand, But gave her money in her hand. When all in vain her speeches spent, and that they could no house-room get, Into a Church Porch then they went, to stand out of the rain and wet …