Elizabethan Age
Elizabethan Age (1558-1603)
Queen Elizabeth I. The artist used AI to generate the image. Source: https://mymodernmet.com/nathan-shipley-historical-ai-portraits/
Introduction
According to M.H. Abrams, Elizabethan Age in the history of Britain refers to “the period of the reign of Elizabeth I” from 1558 to 1603. However, the term “Elizabethan,” is often used loosely to refer to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, even after the death of Elizabeth (281). This extended usage is due to the lasting influence of the cultural, social, and political developments that characterised the Elizabethan era. Elizabethan age has been referred to as the “golden age,” and is characterised by relative peace and prosperity and by a flourishing of artistic, literary, and intellectual culture to such a degree that it (along with the succeeding reign of James I) is sometimes designated as the “English Renaissance.” It was a period of rapid development in English commerce, maritime (means “naval”) power, and nationalist feeling; and also a great era (in drama the greatest) in the history of English literature (Abrams 281).
Historical Context
The Elizabethan Age started when Tudor Elizabeth became queen in 1558. In 1559, she introduced the Elizabethan Religious Settlement through the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity.
Act of Supremacy
The Act of Supremacy, enacted in 1534 by the English Parliament, acknowledged Henry VIII as the “Supreme Head of the Church of England.” This law mandated that English subjects take an oath of allegiance (means “loyalty” or “commitment”), recognizing Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. Although repealed in 1555 under Mary I, a new Act of Supremacy was introduced by Parliament in 1559 during the reign of Elizabeth I.
Act of Uniformity
The Act of Uniformity 1558, passed in 1559 by the Parliament of England, aimed to standardize the way prayer, worship, and rituals were conducted in the Church of England. The Act was part of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement in England brought about by Elizabeth I, who wanted to unify the church. This involved following the guidelines laid out in the attached 1559 Book of Common Prayer.
Priests, government officials, and individuals pursuing university degrees had to pledge allegiance to the royal supremacy or risk losing their positions. Skipping Sunday church service resulted in fines, and royal commissioners worked to ensure adherence to doctrinal and liturgical standards. While many nobles and common people remained loyal to the traditional faith, Protestants dominated key government and church roles. They used patronage, persuasion, and propaganda, along with threats, to ensure outward compliance with the religious settlement.
The Beginning of Tudor Rule
England emerged from the Wars of the Roses with a new dynasty in power, the Tudors. To continue the dynasty rule, the greatest of the Tudor Monarchs, King Henry VIII (whose reign lasted from 1509 to 1547), needed a male heir. In his attempt to father a son, he married six times. But his six wives gave him only one son, King Edward VI, and two daughters, Queen Marry I and Elizabeth I.
King Edward VI
Edward was raised as a Protestant, but he died at fifteen in 1553 before reaching maturity. It was during his Regency that Protestantism was established for the first time in England. Although, his half-sister, Mary, a Catholic, reversed Edward’s Protestant reforms during her reign, but Elizabeth restored them in 1559.
Henry wanted to annul his marriage with his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, which brought him in direct conflict with the Catholic church that was preventing him to do so. In reaction to the Catholic church’s rulings, Henry took a decisive step which was to profoundly influence every aspect of British life and culture from that time onwards. He broke away from the Catholic church, dissolved the monasteries—which had long been centres of learning and culture—and established himself both the head of the church and head of state.
This move, commonly known as the Reformation, was important as it drastically changed centuries of religious beliefs and attitudes in a short time. England adopted Protestantism, leading to the need to redefine the nation’s political and religious identity. Protestantism, which had originated with Martin Luther’s 95 Theses in Wittenberg in 1915, became the official national religion, and the King as the “Defender of the Faith” became the closest person to God, (rather than the Pope in Rome) and the head of the church. England started to have its own unique identity, separate from Europe. This was mainly seen in two key historical events: building a vast Empire through conquest and establishing dominance over the seas, notably during the reign of Henry’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth I.
When Elizabeth Became Queen
In the years since Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church, the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics created chaos in England. Mary I, who ruled before Elizabeth, tried to bring England back to Catholicism, intensifying these conflicts. Elizabeth aimed to establish a stable and peaceful environment by putting an end to direct religious persecution. She would serve as the highest authority, the “Supreme Head” in the Church of England, and partly because England aimed to keep friendly ties with influential Catholic nations, such as Spain, Catholics would not face state violence. They were granted a degree of religious freedom. However, not attending Sunday service at an Anglican church would result in government fines under the Act of Uniformity, potentially fuelling discontent and disagreement.
Over time, this relatively tolerant attitude toward Catholicism eroded significantly. In those days, there was no clear division between spiritual and governmental authority in Europe, and one’s religious affiliation, whether Protestant or Catholic, was often viewed as a political statement. Numerous organised efforts by Catholics emerged, aiming to subvert (means “destabilise”), overthrow, or even assassinate (means “murder”) Queen Elizabeth I, with the explicit goal of restoring Catholicism in England. In 1570, the Catholic Church excommunicated Elizabeth, asserting that her subjects owed her no loyalty, thereby instigating (means “triggering”) plots against her rule. Eventually, Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth’s Catholic cousin, was executed for conspiring against Elizabeth. In the mid-1580s, a war broke out between Protestant England and Catholic Spain, leading to the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Even after the war concluded in 1604, Spain continued to support Irish Catholic groups in their efforts to undermine (means “subvert”) English authority in Ireland.
During this period, acts of persecution against Catholics in England significantly increased. Persuading someone for conversion to Catholicism was declared an act of treason, punishable by execution. Similarly, questioning Elizabeth’s legitimacy as queen was also regarded as disloyalty to the state. Around the time of the war with Spain, Catholic priests were expelled from England, and those who stayed or returned were subject to execution. However, compared to the tumultuous reigns of Henry VIII and Mary I, and the turbulent years following Elizabeth’s rule, the Elizabethan Age was relatively harmonious. Despite the religious challenges, the population of England grew rapidly. Urbanisation also significantly increased. Education levels improved rapidly, partly because of the Protestant’s emphasis on individual’s ability to read and interpret the Bible independently.
London became more diverse during Elizabeth’s reign, with small Jewish and Black populations emerging. The middle class grew due to the increasing trade activity. This kind of expansion and growth emerged as a sort of challenge to the traditional medieval view of the world as a strict hierarchy established by God. According to this worldview, known as the Great Chain of Being, rulers had divine right to rule the people, and each social class and profession ranked below the monarch in a linear order. This perspective was evident in the prevalence of sumptuary laws, which specified the types of food, beverages, and clothing permissible for individuals belonging to different social classes and occupations. Sumptuary laws regulated what people could consume and wear based on their societal standing and profession.
The Renaissance
Introduction
When Did It Happen?
What Does It Mean?
1. The New Learning
The Renaissance ‘humanist’ scholars revived the knowledge of Greek language and brought back the study of ancient Greek texts, making numerous Greek manuscripts more widely available. This revitalization of ancient knowledge expanded people’s understanding of history and provided Renaissance writers with a wealth of new ideas and literary styles.
Around the mid-15th century, the invention of printing with movable type, credited to Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, Germany, made books cheaper and more abundant than ever before. Consequently, a great number of publications, both ancient and modern, flooded Europe, meeting the growing demand from the increasingly literate population.
The rapid spread of ideas, discoveries, and literary works during the Renaissance owes much to the printing press. This new technology made it possible for knowledge to spread quickly and widely. In England, printing technology arrived in 1476 with William Caxton setting up a press at Westminster. Caxton published numerous works, including Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, among others.
an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems.
The revival of humanistic ideas sometimes led to pedantic (means “rigorous”) scholarly pursuits, mere imitation of ancient works and styles, and rigidly authoritarian (means “strict”) rhetoric and literary criticism. But it also brought about the gracious and tolerant humanity of figures like Erasmus, as well as the idea of a well-rounded Renaissance person, skilled in various areas like warfare, politics, athletics, philosophy, and art. This ideal person also values courtly relationships with other men and women based on a platonic love code and demonstrates effortless grace in meeting these demanding courtly standards. Leonardo da Vinci in Italy and Sir Philip Sidney in England are often seen as embodying these courtly ideals.
a form of love where any feelings of physical attraction or romantic involvement are absent or deliberately set aside. Instead, it involves a deeper connection than mere friendship.
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic theologian, educationalist, satirist and philosopher, whose enthusiasm for classical literature was a major source for the revival in classical learning. Erasmus, in his The Praise of Folly rejected strict adherence to Catholic rituals. He was not against the Pope’s authority. He only wanted to challenge the corruption in the Catholic church. He had no time for unnecessary ritual, the sale of pardons and religious relics. He wanted to go back to how things were in the early Christian church. To help with this, he produced a Greek version of the Scriptures in 1516 to replace the Latin one that was being used. Even though Erasmus’s work set the stage for Protestant changes, he wanted to clean up and change the Catholic church, not split away from it. He advocated for learning, knowledge, liberal culture, and tolerance.
2. The New Religion
The Reformation, led by Martin Luther in the 16th century, was a significant movement that challenged the institutionalism (means “structured organization”) of the Roman Catholic Church. It emphasized personal spiritual experiences and salvation through faith alone, as depicted in the Bible. This idea meant individuals could connect directly with God without the need of intermediation by church, priest, or sacrament (means “ceremony” or “ritual”). For this reason, Protestantism is sometimes said to have been an extreme manifestation of “Renaissance individualism” in northern Europe; it soon, however, developed its own type of institutionalism in the theocracy proposed by John Calvin (1509-64) and his Puritan followers. Although England separated from the Catholic Church under Henry VIII, the new Anglican Church, led by the monarch, retained many Catholic traditions while adopting Protestant beliefs. This political and theological compromise ignited debates that continued for centuries.
3. The New World
In 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail westward, believing in the ancient Greek idea that the Earth is spherical, hoping to find a new trade route to the East. However, he was surprised to encounter the barrier of a new continent—the Americas. The subsequent exploration and colonisation of this continent, along with interactions with its native populations, provided rich material for literary imagination.
Of greater significance to English literature was the economic exploitation of the newly discovered lands. This often brutal and oppressive exploitation, devastating to the native populations, shifted England from the periphery (means “margin”) to the centre of major trade routes. This shift contributed to England’s commercial prosperity, which, much like in Italy before, became a necessary impetus for the flourishing of intellectual and artistic endeavours.
4. The New Universe
Ptolemic Geocentric Model of the Universe
In medieval times, both astronomy and Christian theology followed the Ptolemaic model, based on the Greek astronomer Ptolemy. This view held that the Earth was stationary at the centre of the universe, with the moon, planets, and stars revolving around it in successive spheres. Heaven, or the Empyrean, was believed to be above these spheres, while Hell was thought to be either at the centre of the Earth (as depicted in Dante’s Inferno) or below the celestial spheres (as in John Milton’s Paradise Lost).
In 1543, Copernicus presented a new hypothesis that challenged this worldview. His theory suggested a simpler and more coherent explanation for the observed movements of celestial bodies. Instead of the Earth being at the centre, Copernicus proposed that the Sun was the centre of the solar system, with the Earth and other planets orbiting around it. This theory was a revolution in astronomy because it challenged the authority of the ancient Greeks and the Catholic Church, who both supported the Ptolemaic theory.
The Copernican theory marked a significant shift in understanding the Universe. It also changed our view of ourselves and our place in the universe. We were no longer the centre of everything, but just one of many planets orbiting a star. The Copernican theory opened the door for more discoveries and questions about the cosmos.
If you are looking forward to prepare for UGC NET/JRF, you may find this article useful.
©2024. Md. Rustam Ansari [profrustamansari@gmail.com]
