Popular culture and leisure in early modern England

¶ … recreational activity popular, it must transcend distinctions of wealth and class. As Charles Cotton's The Compleat Gamester states "games and sports of all kinds were common recreations for the people of Tudor and Stuart England." Peter Burke defines culture as a system of shared meanings, attitudes and values, and the symbolic forms in which they are expressed or embodied[1]; by popular culture it is possible Burke's definition refers to the culture of the ordinary people or the "subordinate classes" -- those below the level of the elite. However, this paper views social history by looking at the commonality of leisure, recreation, games and sports of all kinds as the basis to determine whether there was a popular culture in early modern England. For example, cards, archery and tennis included all classes (the lower and upper) and encompassed those who devoted time to leisurely activities as well as those who spend most of their time working.

Popular culture is not necessarily an official culture or that of the educated[2] as previous scholarship has assumed because there was more than two classes in the early modern era and no individual class had a culture that could describe it as a whole. Through an examination of these familiar and popular activities, sports and games it is possible to show the existence of a popular culture in early modern England.

Definition of leisure

To have an ideas of leisure in early modern England, one first has to be able ti define this concept of 'leisure' since it may have changed radically through the ages. Indeed, Cromwell forbade leisure activities, and this was soon repealed by his successor, James 1, but each of their ideas of leisure is quite different to that which we share today.

Foucault talks about a 'conceptual break' where we supply a definition based upon our conceptual understanding and familiarity of a certain notion. Yet, this notion may not have existed at a specific epoch in history. In the same way, 'leisure' may be a non-existent nomenclature when supplied to people of early modern England (I..e the 16th or 17th century), since no concept of leisure may have then existed. The games or activities (or at least some of them) may have been present then, but since the idea and notion of leisure was only created later, applying this concept to early modern England may be an anachronism since leisures as it is understood now did not exist in their contemporary mental framework.

Seeking a definition, to define leisure as 'absence of work' may be inapplicable since the higher class (namely, nobles, lords and so forth) were in a constant state of 'non-work', and some of the lower class or other classes may have been psychologically and mentally more relaxed than they .

One can alternately define leisure as "the state of having time at one's own disposal; time which one can spend as one pleases; free or unoccupied time." (Heffner, 5) and indeed this concept existed in England as early as the 14th century as witnessed by the instance of the popular skills of archery. Robin Hood is an instance of this. Leisure, therefore, existed on two grounds; it served as 'free or unoccupied time', but this time too was served to reinforce one's pragmatic skills.

Leisure in Early England

Recreation and leisure is an important and useful part of everyday life, it plays an integral part in the culture and ideology of English society. Many written sources of the time such as diaries, letters, ballads and guidebooks discuss the lifestyle of early modern England and also talk about the merits of recreational and leisurely activities. In some accounts as seen in the diary of Arthur Annesley, Earl of Anglesey he mentions recreation in terms of diversion, sport, entertainment, exercise, pastimes, play and leisure[3]. One can decipher from this that is these were the words used in diaries to describe early modern English habits then it must have been part of their developing popular culture.

Some of the most popular leisure activies were the follwoign:

Fishing

In addition to hunting, fishing is another similar activity in that one goes in search of prey. Once again fishing as recreation and fishing to eat had different purposes, this also included the commercial side of fishing in which the primary purpose was business. Country Contentments describes fishing in a similar way to angling as it lists the best types of baits, waters and seasons for this activity.

Bowling

In the Declaration of Sports, bowling is considered a special case that was always prohibited. Henry VIII made the sport unlawful for the common folk in 1511 because bowling was becoming too popular and interfering with the popularity and practice of archery. However, a discrepancy in the Declaration stated that it was only banned on Sundays. Henry VIII himself enjoyed bowling and even built a bowling alley in the residence at Hampton Court. Country Contentments discusses the logistics of bowling such as -- flat bowles being used for closed alleys, round- baised bowles for open ground and round bowles for greens[5]. Charles Cotton describes, "bowling as healthy for the body if moderately used" and says, "practice must be your best tutor"[6] it is assumed in these books and manuals such as Country Contentments, The Declaration of Sports and The Compleat Gamester that the rules of bowling are understood. The assumed familiarity with the sport lends itself to the notion that it is a cross class activity that can be classified as part of popular culture in early modern England -- the aristocracy and the common folk, took part in bowling.

Archery

In contrast to bowling, archery was