Literacy and Culture Flashcards
Literary/cultural “periods”
Elizabeth I
James & Charles I
Civil War/Interregnum
Charles II/Restoration
Elizabeth I - lit/culture
Burghley/Camden (JI 2 x images, politic vs. militant)
Spenser (£50p.a. pension) (Marx - “elizabeth’s arse-kissing poet)
Knox vs Aylmer
Hale (Discourse of C/weal)
Accession Day celebrations (middleton)
John Stubbes hand (1579 ‘gaping gulf’ pamphlet on Anjou match)
Significance of rebels burning prayer books in Northern Rebellion
Charles I - lit/culture
Encouragement of literacy to allow people to read the Bible themselves.
Milton (Tenure of Kings/Magistrates; Eikonoklastes)
Mercurius Aulicus/Politicus
Civil War - lit./culture
Nehemiah Wallington (1618-54) Mercurius Politicus (Nedham); licencing under 1643 Pmt. version. No music (except church - development of oratorios combining stories with music and singing)
Charles II - lit./culture
Patronage of:
- theatre (Davenant/Killigrew); Dryden “the great apologist for king and court”
- art (John Lely - also by Countess Castlemaine - £200p.a.)
- architecture - redecorating Windsor by Verio in 1670’s
- censorship - by Sir Roger L’Estrange
Attempted to beautify the church as part of Laudianism - eg. stained glass windows in University College chapel.
Glorious Revolution - lit./culture
Samuel Jonson - trying to bring together constitution and scriptures
Swift - Gulliver’s Travels = satire on gov.
Defoe - defence of WIII (True-Born Englishman)
Other sources on literature and writing
Lady Grace Mildmay’s recipe book; Lady Margaret Hoby’s diary; Lady Katherine Ranelagh (d.1691) - female scientist and correspondent.
Hannah Woolley - first published woman - 1661 - “the ladies directory”
Pepys’ Diary! 1660. Henslowe’s Diary (d.1616) - theatrical props…
Sidney - A+S (1590) “Fool! said my muse unto me,/ look into thy heart, and write” writing “to ease a burdened heart”, “truant pen”
Herbert - The Temple (1630’s) “Lovely enchanting language, sugar-cane,/ honey of roses”
Jonson - Epicene (1609) “she hath found her tongue since she was married”
Donne - “sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls…”
Political printing
- Grand Remonstrance (1641) by pmnt for people’s approval
- Root and Branch (1640) (15,000 signatures and 1500 crowd)
Schooling
Spufford: 1/3 of 5 year olds could read before entering school at Aldenham, Hertfordshire, 1650-1708.
O’Day: 200 local parishes served by 1 schoolmaster in Staffordshire + Derbyshire. Repton = 340 pupils in 1662, 140 = tablers.
1650/4 = 60 new schools in Welsh market towns to 21 in 1660 - too rural?
Books in circulation
Spufford: 1/4 million copies of catechism circulating in the early C17
POV’s on literacy
O’Day - “specialist skills specific to certain occupations”
Uses of literacy
O’Day - 32% felons in Middlesex used benefit of clergy to escape gallows under Elizabeth I.
Literacy in occupations
O’Day: 3% Goldsmiths illiterate, vs. 46% brewers.
Curriculum content
Stone: only 1 in 11 teaching Latin in Great Yarmouth
Male literacy
Stone - educated young men: 2.5% of their age group, 1/2 peerage attended uni, 430 men leaving uni to go into religion p.a. Peak of literacy - 1640, 1/3 of London men literate.
Upper sorts - male education
Stone: Inns of Court attendance = landowning classes. Oxford Matriculation records, 1575-1639 = 50% gentry, 41% pleb, 9% clergy
Duke of Newcastle wrote to Charles II warning against too many educated unemployed u/c men.
Charity and schooling
Jordan: 1/2 of all charitable giving = to education
Charlton: Marmaduke Longdale of Dowthorpe Hall, Yorkshire, bequeathed £200 for a school in 1611.
Christ’s Hospital, founded 1552, provided basic vocational education to children.
Sunday Schools first founded under Hannah More in 1690’s.
Signature rates and literacy
CRESSY: 1530: 52% pop. in East London suburbs = illiterate vs. 24% city artisans/traders
1670’s - 78% women unable to write their names in London courts; 44% in 1720’s (print/city?)
NATIONAL stats: 90% women, 70% men illiterate in mid c17, mid c18 = 60+40%
HOUSTON - Huge disparities in English literacy - eg. 1% illiterate in London vs. 13% Middlesex in 1720’s. Cheshire/Lancs = 30 schools in 1548 and 109 in 1603. Cost of supporting an Oxford commoner for 1 year = £3-40 in 1600.
Economic factors and print/literacy
Print trade = London based.
Raymond: print = 1/18 the cost of m/s publication. No press in Wales before 1700, Scotl’s Mercurius Scoticus in 1651, Leith; Irel. had an army printed serial from 1649-50.
Johns - Stationer’s Company had 150 Book shops, and 40-60 printers. Used a Register Book to mark all prints (censorship purposes)
Key eg’s of printers - St Paul’s Churchyard.
Legislation
1529 - royal proclamation using proscribed books; listing of heretical titles (pre-break with Rome)
1543 - Act for the Advancement of True Religion - limiting of reading of the Bible by soc. status and gender.
1562 - Teachers must be subscribed to the 39 Articles.
1586 - Star Chamber decrees the regulating of the book trade
1599 - Bishop’s Ban of satire (new forms aka. cit. comedy/Jonson)
1641 - Eccl licensing breaks down with the abolition of the courts of the Star Chamber and High Commission.
1648 - Parliamentary printing ordinance
1649 - Act against Scandalous and Unlicensed books - controlled press and introduced the Mercurius Politicus as the official newspaper of the commonwealth and protectorate (Nedham).
1709 - copyright act
Henry VIII - lit/culture
Wrote Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (Defense of the Seven Sacraments) in 1521, defending the sacramental nature of marriage and the supremacy of the Pope; “Henrician Affirmation”opposed ideas of Martin Luther.
Opulence - eg. Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520). Hall’s Chronicle = 500 horsemen and 3000 foot soldiers. Tilting, fancy dress, feasting
Hall’s Chronicle (printed by Grafton 1548)
Richard Grafton = King’s printer
Richard Grafton
HVIII - accused of supporting Cromwell, fined and imprisoned.
EVI - King’s Printer
Printed the proclamation of Lady Jane Grey’s accession to the throne, signed as “printer to the queen”; was imprisoned by Mary I
Upper sorts - female education
Charlton - young girls sent to other households to learn manners/accomplishments such as singing,dancing (considered inappropriate sometimes), french, religion, housewifery. From 1637 girls could go to private, female-run schools eg. of Mrs Salmon in Hackney. Sir Thomas More’s daughters taught Latin and Greek (unusual). Other sources of education - siblings/parents. Evidence of women’s reading - diaries (eg. Lady Margaret Hoby (d.1633) - also education by Countess of Huntingdon)
Female writing conventions
Recipe books a common source of writing - eg. Lady Grace Mildmay (d.1620)
1675 - The Accomplisht Ladies Delight (market for housekeeping manuals)
Daybell - letter writing. Women petitioning the King for aid, showing their roles as estate managers and household figureheads. Showing knowledge of conventions (self-deprecation, binding in silks and carefully folding, calligraphic writing to seniors.) Women of the lower sorts writing to men such as Thomas Fulton, founder of a hospital, for financial assistance via. scribes.
