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¶ … 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. 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.
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 Indeed, Cromwell forbade leisure activities, and this was soon repealed by his successor, James 1, but each of their ideas of leisure is quite different to that which we share today.
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…
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