shovegroat or shovelboard, the antecedent
of the more-modern amusement shove
ha’penny.
Bowling alleys were attached to many
alehouses; one Essex alehouse-keeper was
prosecuted, along with three of his
customers, following complaints that they
“usually play at bowls on the Sabbath day
and other days continually”. Other
alehouse-keepers got into trouble for
adding dancing to the assorted disorders
allegedly taking place on their premises.
An Essex landlord was reprimanded in 1571
for “evil rule in his house and receiving
other men’s servants in the night-time and
at other unlawful times to cards and
dancing and other unlawful games”. Suchreferences suggest that Elizabeth’s poorer
subjects indulged in a broad spectrum of
popular pastimes, pursued in defiance of
officialdom.Sound ideas
An interest that was shared across the social
spectrum, but which in Elizabethan times
seems to have taken on a special attraction
for relatively elite people, was music.
Obviously, dancing at the alehouse required
fiddlers or other musicians, and towns
frequently boasted established groups of
musicians – the ‘waits’ – which were
sometimes very accomplished musical
ensembles. But a cult of amateur music-
making, both instrumental and vocal, seemsto have flourished in Elizabethan gentry
households, and musicians might enjoy the
patronage of aristocratic patrons such as the
Earl of Leicester and Lord Burghley.
Music was, of course, a central feature of
court ceremony and entertainment, and the
period saw a revival of musical activity in
England’s cathedrals. But it is striking that
a cult of the amateur (usually gentry)
music-maker emerged in Elizabethan
England: many households brought their
members together to play music or sing
madrigals, and often employed a music
tutor both to improve their own skills and
to nurture those of their children.
Another leisure activity that flourished
widely in Elizabethan England, althoughAlehouses were
a cause of concern
to local authorities
and moralists, who
saw them as nests
of disorder and
sinfulness
BR
ID
GE
MA
N
THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT
Bear- and bull-baiting, illustrated in
a 17th-century engraving; a miniature
painting by renowned artist Nicholas
Hilliard shows Elizabeth I playing
the lute; musicians play lutes and
a virginal while a music teacher
instructs a boy, in an Italian sketch from
around the turn of the 17th century