Elizabethan era

Elizabethan Era

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Elizabethan era

The Elizabethan era is associated with Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was List of English monarchs and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the House of Tudor....
's reign (1558–1603) and is often considered to be the golden age

Golden Age (metaphor)

A golden age is a period in a field of endeavour when greatness tasks were accomplished. The term originated from early ancient Greece and ancient Rome poets who used to refer to a time when mankind lived in a utopia and was pure ....
in English history

History of England

The history of England did not begin until the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, when the partition of Britain into several countries largely began. It was the history of Britain that began in the prehistoric during which time Stonehenge was erected....
.

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Encyclopedia

style="padding-top:0.9em; font-size:170%;"| **Elizabethan Era**
1558–1603
Preceded by	Tudor period Tudor period The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII of England ....
Followed by	Jacobean era Jacobean era The Jacobean era refers to the period in England and Scotland history that coincides with the reign of King James I of England of England, who was also James VI of Scotland....
Monarch	Queen Elizabeth I

The Elizabethan era is associated with Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

Golden Age (metaphor)

History of England

English Renaissance

The English Renaissance was a Cultural movement and Art movement in England dating from the early 16th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in northern Italy in the 14th century....
and saw the flowering of English poetry

English poetry

The history of English poetry stretches from the middle of the 7th century to the present day. Over this period, English poets have written some of the most enduring poems in European culture, and the language and its poetry have spread around the globe....
and literature

English literature

The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian, V.S....
. This was also the time during which Elizabethan theatre flourished and William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English people poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
and many others, composed plays that broke free of England's past style of plays and theatre. It was an age of exploration and expansion abroad, while back at home, the Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a Christian reform movement in Europe. It is thought to have begun in 1517 with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses and may be considered to have ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648....
became the national mindset of all the people.

The Elizabethan Age is viewed so highly because of the contrasts with the periods before and after. It was a brief period of largely internal peace between the English Reformation

English Reformation

The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th century England by which the Church of England first broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
and the battles between Protestants

Protestantism

Protestantism is a movement within Christianity that originated in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. It is considered to be one of the three principal traditions of Christianity, together with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy....
and Catholics

Catholicism

Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its Theology and doctrines, its Catholic liturgy, Ethics, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
and the battles between parliament

Parliament of England

The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. Its roots can be traced back to the early medieval period. In a series of developments, it came increasingly to constrain the power of the King of England, and went on after the Act of Union 1707 to merge with the Parliament of Scotland and form the main basis of the Pa...
and the monarchy

Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which supreme power is absolutely or nominally lodged in an individual, who is the head of state, often for Life tenure or until abdication, and "is wholly set apart from all other members of the state." The person who heads a monarchy is called a monarch....
that engulfed the seventeenth century. The Protestant/Catholic divide was settled, for a time, by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement

Elizabethan Religious Settlement

The Elizabethan Religious Settlement was Elizabeth I of England?s response to the religious divisions created over the reigns of Henry VIII of England, Edward VI of England and Mary I of England....
, and parliament was not yet strong enough to challenge royal absolutism. England was also well-off compared to the other nations of Europe. The Italian Renaissance

Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe....
had come to an end under the weight of foreign domination of the peninsula. France was embroiled in its own religious battles that would only be settled in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes

Edict of Nantes

The Edict of Nantes was issued on 13 April 1598 by Henry IV of France to grant the Calvinism Protestants of France substantial rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholicism....
. In part because of this, but also because the English had been expelled from their last outposts on the continent, the centuries long conflict between France and England was largely suspended for most of Elizabeth's reign.

The one great rival was Spain, with which England clashed both in Europe and the Americas

Americas

The Americas are the region of the Western hemisphere that consists of the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions....
in skirmishes that exploded into the Anglo-Spanish War

Anglo-Spanish War (1585)

The Anglo?Spanish War was an intermittent conflict between the kingdoms of Spain and Kingdom of England that was never formally declared. The war was punctuated by widely separated battles, and began with England's unsuccessful military expedition in 1585 to the Netherlands under the command of the Earl of Leicester in support of the resista...
of 1585–1604. An attempt by Philip II of Spain

Philip II of Spain

Philip II was King of Spain from 1556 until 1598, List of monarchs of Naples from 1554 until 1598, king consort of England, as husband of Mary I of England, from 1554 to 1558, lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories, such as Duke or Count; and King of Portugal as Philip I...
to invade England with the Spanish Armada

Spanish Armada

The Spanish Armada was the Habsburg Spain fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Alonso de Guzm?n El Bueno, 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, leading to the Drake-Norris Expedition of 1589, also known as the English Armada....
in 1588 was famously defeated, but the tide of war turned against England with an unsuccessful expedition to Portugal and the Azores, the Drake-Norris Expedition of 1589

English Armada

The English Armada was a fleet of warships sent to the Iberian coast by Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1589, during the Anglo-Spanish War . It was led by Sir Francis Drake as admiral and Sir John Norreys as general, and failed to drive home the advantage England had won upon the dispersal of the Spanish Armada in the previous year....
. Thereafter Spain provided some support for Irish Catholics in a debilitating rebellion against English rule, and Spanish naval and land forces inflicted a series of reversals against English offensives. This drained both the English Exchequer and economy that had been so carefully restored under Elizabeth's prudent guidance. English commercial and territorial expansion would be limited until the signing of the Treaty of London

Treaty of London, 1604

The Treaty of London, signed in 1604, concluded the nineteen-year Anglo-Spanish War . The negotiations took place at Somerset House in London and are sometimes known as the Somerset House Conference....
the year following Elizabeth's death.

England during this period had a centralised, well-organised, and effective government, largely a result of the reforms of Henry VII

Henry VII of England

Henry VII was the Kingdom of England and Lordship of Ireland from his usurpation of the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the Tudor dynasty....
and Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was also Lordship of Ireland and claimant to the Early Modern France. Henry was the second monarch of the House of Tudor, succeeding his father, Henry VII of England....
. Economically, the country began to benefit greatly from the new era of trans-Atlantic trade.

Romance and reality

The Victorian era

Victorian era

The Victorian Era of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the period of Victoria of the United Kingdom reign from June 1837 to January 1901....
and the early twentieth century idealised the Elizabethan era. The Encyclopædia Britannica

Encyclopædia Britannica

The Encyclop?dia Britannica is a general English language encyclopedia published by Encyclop?dia Britannica, Inc., a privately held company....
still maintains that "The long reign of Elizabeth I, 1533-1603, was England's Golden Age...'Merry England

Merry England

"Merry England", sometimes archaised as "Merrie England", refers to a utopian conception of English society and culture based on an idyllic pastoral way of life that was allegedly prevalent at some time between the Middle Ages and the onset of the Industrial Revolution....
,' in love with life, expressed itself in music and literature, in architecture, and in adventurous seafaring." This idealising tendency was shared by Britain and an Anglophilic America. (In popular culture, the image of those adventurous Elizabethan seafarers was embodied in the films of Errol Flynn

Errol Flynn

Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born film actor, known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films and his flamboyant lifestyle....
.)

In response and reaction to this hyperbole, modern historians and biographers have tended to take a far more literal-minded and dispassionate view of the Tudor period. Elizabethan England was not particularly successful in a military sense during the period. The grinding poverty of the rural working class, which comprised 90 percent of the population, has also received more attention than in previous generations. The Elizabethan role in the slave trade and the repression of Catholic Ireland—notably the Desmond Rebellions

Desmond Rebellions

The Desmond Rebellions occurred in between 1569-1573 and 1579-1583 in Munster in southern Ireland.. They were rebellions of the Earl of Desmond dynasty—the Fitzgerald family or Geraldines and their allies against the efforts of the Elizabethan Era English government to extend their control over the province of Munster....
and the Nine Years' War

Nine Years' War (Ireland)

The Nine Years War in Ireland took place from 1594 to 1603 and is also known as Tyrone's Rebellion. It was fought between the forces of Gaels Irish people chieftains Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, Hugh Roe O'Donnell and their allies, against the Elizabeth I of England Kingdom of England government of Ireland....
—have also drawn historians' attention. Despite the heights achieved during the era, the country descended into the English Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Roundhead and Cavalier. The First English Civil War and Second English Civil War civil wars pitted the supporters of Charles I of England against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the Third English Civil War saw fighting between supporters...
less than 40 years after the death of Elizabeth.

On balance, it can be said that Elizabeth provided the country with a long period of general if not total peace, and generally increasing prosperity. Having inherited a virtually bankrupt state from previous reigns, her frugal policies restored fiscal responsibility. Her fiscal restraint cleared the regime of debt by 1574, and ten years later the Crown enjoyed a surplus of £300,000. Economically, Sir Thomas Gresham's founding of the Royal Exchange (1565), the first stock exchange in England and one of the earliest in Europe, proved to be a development of the first importance, for the economic development of England and soon for the world as a whole. With taxes lower than other European countries of the period, the economy expanded; though the wealth was distributed with wild unevenness, there was clearly more wealth to go around at the end of Elizabeth's reign than at the beginning. This general peace and prosperity allowed the attractive developments that "Golden Age" advocates have stressed.

Both from an anachronistic modern perspective and from that of 19th century humanism

Humanism

Humanism is a broad category of ethics that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appealing to universal human qualities, particularly rationalism, without resorting to the supernatural or alleged divine authority from religious texts....
, England in this era had some positive aspects that set it apart from contemporaneous continental European societies. Torture

Torture

Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is:In addition to state-sponsored torture, individuals or groups may be motivated to inflict torture on others for similar reasons to those of a state; however, the motive for torture can also be for the sadism gratification of the torturer, as was the case in the Moors M...
was rare, since the English legal system reserved torture only for capital crimes like treason—though forms of corporal punishment, some of them extreme, were practised. The persecution of witches was also comparatively rare; while some persecutions did occur, they did not reach the hysterical proportions that disfigured some European societies so severely in this period. The role of women in society was, for the historical era, relatively unconstrained; Spanish and Italian visitors to England commented regularly, and sometimes caustically, on the freedom that women enjoyed in England, in contrast to their home cultures.

Elizabeth's determination not to "look into the hearts" of her subjects, to moderate the religious persecutions of previous Tudor reigns—the persecution of Catholics under Henry VIII and Edward VI, and of Protestants under Mary

Mary I of England

Mary I , was Queen of England and Monarchy of Ireland from 19 July 1553 until her death. The fourth crowned monarch of the Tudor dynasty, she is remembered for restoring England to Roman Catholicism after succeeding her short-lived half brother, Edward VI of England, to the English throne....
—appears to have had a moderating effect on English society in general. While Elizabethan England has been characterised by one sceptic as a "brutal dictatorship," it was, as brutal dictatorships go, one of the more benign.

Science, technology, exploration

Lacking a dominant genius or a formal structure for research (the following century had both Sir Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton, Fellow of the Royal Society was an English people physicist, mathematician, Astronomy, Natural philosophy, Alchemy, and Theology and one of the the 100 in human history....
and the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence....
), the Elizabethan era nonetheless saw significant scientific progress. The astronomers Thomas Digges

Thomas Digges

Sir Thomas Digges was an England astronomer, son of Leonard Digges, and great populariser of science. After the death of his father, Thomas grew up under the guardianship of John Dee , a typical Renaissance natural philosopher....
and Thomas Harriot

Thomas Harriot

Thomas Harriot was an English astronomy, mathematician, ethnographer, and translator. Some sources give his surname as Harriott or Hariot or Heriot. He is sometimes credited with the introduction of the potato to Great Britain and Ireland....
made important contributions; William Gilbert

William Gilbert

William Gilbert, also known as Gilbard, was an English physicist and a natural philosopher. He was an early Copernican principle, and passionately rejected both the prevailing Aristotelian philosophy and the Scholastic method of university teaching....
published his seminal study of magnetism, De Magnete, in 1600. Substantial advancements were made in the fields of cartography and surveying. The eccentric but influential John Dee

John Dee (mathematician)

John Dee was a noted England mathematics, astronomy, astrology, geography, Occultism, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I of England. He also devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination, and Hermeticism....
also merits mention.

Much of this scientific and technological progress related to the practical skill of navigation. English achievements in exploration were noteworthy in the Elizabethan era. Sir Francis Drake

Francis Drake

Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral , was an England sea captain, privateer, navigation, slaver, and politics of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581....
circumnavigated the globe between 1577 and 1581, and Martin Frobisher

Martin Frobisher

Sir Martin Frobisher was an England seaman who made three voyages to the New World to look for the Northwest Passage. All landed in northeastern Canada, around today's Resolution Island and Frobisher Bay....
explored the Arctic

Arctic

The Arctic is the region around the Earth's North Pole, opposite the Antarctica region around the South Pole. The Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Greenland , Russia, the United States , Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland....
. The first attempt at English settlement of the eastern seaboard of North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
occurred in this era—the abortive colony at Roanoke Island

Roanoke Island

File:FortRalieghTheater.JPGRoanoke Island is an island in Dare County, North Carolina near the coast of North Carolina, United States.About eight miles long and two miles wide, Roanoke Island lies between the mainland and the Outer Banks, with Albemarle Sound on its north, Roanoke Sound at the northern end, and Wanchese, North Carolina c...
in 1587.

While Elizabethan England is not thought of as an age of technological innovation, some progress did occur. In 1564 Guilliam Boonen came from the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a country that is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands is located in North-West Europe, and bordered by the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east....
to be Queen Elizabeth's first coach-builder—thus introducing the new European invention of the spring-suspension coach to England, as a replacement for the litters and carts of an earlier transportation mode. Coaches quickly became as fashionable as sports cars in a later century; social critics, especially Puritan

Puritan

A Puritan of 16th and 17th century England was an associate of any number of religious groups advocating for more "purity" of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and group pietism....
commentators, noted the "diverse great ladies" who rode "up and down the countryside" in their new coaches.

Fine arts

It has often been said that the Renaissance came late to England, in contrast to Italy and the other states of continental Europe; the fine arts in England during the Tudor and Stuart eras were dominated by foreign and imported talent—from Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger was a Germans artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century....
under Henry VIII to Anthony van Dyck

Anthony van Dyck

Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque painting who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English school of painting for the next 150 years....
under Charles I. Yet within this general trend, a native school of painting was developing. In Elizabeth's reign, Nicholas Hilliard

Nicholas Hilliard

Nicholas Hilliard was an England goldsmith and limning best known for his portrait miniatures of members of the courts of Elizabeth I of England and James I of England....
, the Queen's "limner and goldsmith," is the most widely recognized figure in this native development; but George Gower

George Gower

George Gower was an English portrait painter who became Serjeant Painter to Elizabeth I of England in 1581....
has begun to attract greater notice and appreciation as knowledge of him and his art and career has improved.

Sports and entertainment

There were many different types of Elizabethan sports and entertainment:

Feasts : A large, elaborately prepared meal, usually for many persons and often accompanied by court entertainment. Often celebrated religious festivals Banquets : A ceremonial dinner honouring a particular guest Fairs : The Annual Summer Fair was often a bawdy affair Plays : Started as plays enacted in town squares followed by the actors using the courtyards of taverns or inns (referred to as Inn-yards) followed by the first theatres (great open air amphitheatre

Amphitheatre

An amphitheatre is an open-air venue for spectator sports, concerts, rallies, or theatrical performances. There are two similar, but distinct types of amphitheatres: Ancient amphitheatres, built by the ancient Rome, were large central performance spaces surrounded by ascending seating, and were commonly used for spectator sports; these comp...
s built in the same style as the Roman Coliseum) and then the introduction of indoor theatres called Playhouses Miracle Plays : Re-enactment of stories from the Bible

Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
Festivals : Celebrating Church festivals Jousts / Tournaments : A series of tilted matches between knights Games and Sports : Sports and games which included archery, bowling, cards, dice, hammer-throwing, quarter-staff contests, troco

Troco

Troco is an England lawn game played with balls, cue stick and hoops that remained popular through the Early modern period to the early 20th century....
, quoits

Quoits

Quoits is a traditional lawn game involving the throwing of a metal or rubber ring over a set distance to land over a pin in the centre of a patch of clay....
, skittles

Skittles (sport)

Skittles is an old European :Category:Precision sports, a variety of bowling, from which Ten-pin bowling, Duckpin bowling, and Candlepin bowling in the United States, and Five-pin bowling in Canada are descended....
, wrestling and mob football

Mob football

Mob football is the name given to some varieties of Medieval football, which emerged in Europe during the Middle Ages.Mob football distinguished itself from other codes by typically having an unlimited number of players and fairly vague rules....
Animal Sports : Included Bear and Bull baiting, and Dog and Cock fighting Hunting : Sport followed by the nobility often using dogs Hawking : Sport followed by the nobility with hawks (otherwise known as falconry

Falconry

Falconry or hawking is an art or sport which involves the use of trained Bird of preys to hunt or pursue game for humans. There are two traditional terms used to describe a person involved in falconry: a falconer flies a falcon; an austringer flies a hawk ....
)

Elizabethan festivals, holidays, and celebrations

During the Elizabethan era, people looked forward to holidays because opportunities for leisure were limited, with time away from hard work being restricted to periods after church on Sundays. For the most part, leisure and festivities took place on a public church holy day. Every month had its own holiday, some of which are listed below:

The first Monday after Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night (holiday)

Twelfth Night or Epiphany Eve is a festival in some branches of Christianity marking the coming of the Epiphany , and concluding the Twelve Days of Christmas....
of January (any time between January 7 and January 14) was Plough Monday
Plough Monday

Plough Monday is the traditional start of the English agricultural year. While local practices may vary, Plough Monday is generally the first Monday after Epiphany , 6 January....
. It celebrated returning to work after the Christmas
Christmas

Christmas , also referred to as Christmas Day, is an annual holiday celebrated on December 25 that commemorates the birth of Jesus. The day marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts Twelve Days of Christmas....
celebrations and the New Year.
February 2: Candlemas. Although often still very cold, Candlemas was celebrated as the first day of spring. All Christmas decorations were burned on this day, in candlelight and torchlight processions.
February 14: Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day or Saint Valentine's Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14 by many people throughout the world. In the English-speaking countries, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending greeting card, Valentine's Day flowers, or offering confectionery....
.
Between March 3 and March 9: Shrove Tuesday
Shrove Tuesday

Shrove Tuesday is a term used in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia for the day preceding the first day of the Christian season of fasting and prayer called Lent....
(known as Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras

The terms "Mardi Gras" and "Mardi Gras season", in English language, refer to events of the Carnival celebrations, ending on the day before Ash Wednesday....
or Carnival on the Continent). On this day, apprentices were allowed to run amok in the city in mobs, wreaking havoc, because it supposedly cleansed the city of vices before Lent
Lent

Lent, in Christianity, is the period of the liturgical year leading up to Easter. Conventionally it is described as being forty days long, though different Christian denominations calculate the forty days differently....
.
The day after Shrove Tuesday was Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday

In the Western Christianity calendar, Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent and occurs forty-six days before Easter. It falls on a different date each year, because it is dependent on the Computus; it can occur as early as February 4 or as late as March 10....
, the first day of Lent
Lent

Lent, in Christianity, is the period of the liturgical year leading up to Easter. Conventionally it is described as being forty days long, though different Christian denominations calculate the forty days differently....
when all were to abstain from eating and drinking certain things.
March 24: Lady Day
Lady Day

This article concerns the holiday. For the Lou Reed song, see Berlin . For notable women known as "Lady Day," see Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith....
or the feast of the Annunciation, the first of the Quarter Days
Quarter days

In Great Britain and Ireland tradition, the quarter days were the four dates in each year on which servants were hired, and rents and rates were due....
on which rents and salaries were due and payable. It was a legal New Year when courts of law convened after a winter break, and it marked the supposed moment when the Angel Gabriel
Gabriel

In Abrahamic religions, Gabriel is an angel who serves as a messenger from God. He first appears in the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible. In some traditions he is regarded as one of the archangels, or as the angel of death....
came to announce to the Virgin Mary
Mary

Mary is a common female first name, the English form of Miriam.Mary may refer to the following people:...
that she would bear a child.
April 1: All Fool's Day, or April Fool's Day. This was a day for tricks, jests, jokes, and a general day of the jester.
May 1: May Day, celebrated as the first day of summer. This was one of the few Celt
Celt

Celts , is a modern term used to describe any of the European peoples who spoke, or speak, a Celtic languages. The term is also used in a wider sense to describe the Modern Celts of those peoples, notably those who participate in a Celtic culture....
ic festivals with no connection to Christianity
Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
and patterned on Beltane
Beltane

Beltane is the anglicized spelling of Bealtaine or Bealltainn , the Goidelic languages names for either the month of May or the festival that takes place on the first day of May....
. It featured crowning a May Queen, a Green Man
Green Man

A Green Man is a sculpture, drawing, or other representation of a face surrounded by or made from leaf. Branches or vines may sprout from the nose, mouth, nostrils or other parts of the face and these shoots may bear flowers or fruit....
and dancing around a maypole.
June 21: Midsummer
Midsummer

Many people say that the fairies dance on midsummer's eve, and those in Ireland may even stay up all night watching for them. They re said to dance after huge feasts, then sing and play music and tell stories....
, (Christianized as the feast of John the Baptist
John the Baptist

John the Baptist was a mission preacher and a major religious figure who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River in expectation of a divine apocalypse that would restore occupied Israel....
) and another Quarter Day.
August 1: Lammas
Lammas

In some Anglophone countries in the Northern Hemisphere, August 1 is Lammas Day , the festival of the first wheat harvest of the year. On this day it was customary to bring to Church a loaf made from the new crop....
tide, or Lammas Day. Traditionally, the first day of August, in which it was customary to bring a loaf of bread to the church.
September 29: Michaelmas
Michaelmas

Michaelmas, the feast of Michael is a day in the Christian calendar which occurs on 29 September. Because it falls near the equinox, it is associated in the northern hemisphere with the beginning of autumn and the shortening of days....
. Another Quarter Day. Michaelmas celebrated the beginning of autumn, and Michael the Archangel
Michael (archangel)

Saint Michael is an archangel in Christian and Islamic tradition. He is viewed as the field commander of the Army of God.He is mentioned by name in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation....
.
October 25: St. Crispin's Day. Bonfires, revels, and an elected 'King Crispin' were all featured in this celebration. Dramatized by Shakespeare in Henry V
Henry V (play)

Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to be written in 1599. It is based on the life of King Henry V of England, and focuses on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years' War....
.
October 28: The Lord Mayor's Show, which still takes place today in London.
October 31: Halloween
Halloween

Halloween is a holiday celebrated on October 31. It has roots in the Celtic mythology of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints. It is largely a Secularity celebration, but some Christians and Paganism have expressed strong feelings about its religious overtones....
. The beginning celebration of the days of the dead.
November 1: All Saints' Day
All Saints

All Saints' Day , often shortened to All Saints, is a feast celebrated on November 1 in Western Christianity, and on the first Sunday after Pentecost in Eastern Christianity in honour of all the saints, known and unknown....
, followed by All Souls' Day.
November 17: Accession Day
Accession Day

An Accession Day is the anniversary of the date on which a Monarchy succeeds to the throne upon the death of the previous monarch. The custom of marking this day was inaugurated during the reign of Elizabeth I of England of England, and was first observed as a day of national festivities on 17 November 1570....
or Queen's Day, the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's accession to the throne, celebrated with lavish court festivities featuring jousting
Accession Day tilt

The Accession Day tilts were a series of elaborate festivities held annually at the court of Elizabeth I of England to celebrate her Accession Day, November 17, also known as Queen's Day....
during her lifetime and as a national holiday for dozens of years after her death.
December 24: The Twelve days of Christmas
Twelve Days of Christmas

The Twelve Days of Christmas, and the associated evenings of those twelve days , are the festive days beginning on Christmas Day through to the evening of the Twelfth Day of Christmas, ....
started at sundown and lasted until Epiphany
Epiphany (Christian)

File:WiseMenAdorationMurillo.pngAfterfeast: The Feast of Theophany is followed by an eight-day Afterfeast on which the normal fasting laws are suspended....
on January 6. Christmas
Christmas

Christmas , also referred to as Christmas Day, is an annual holiday celebrated on December 25 that commemorates the birth of Jesus. The day marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts Twelve Days of Christmas....
was the last of the Quarter Days for the year.

Elizabethan era

Romance and reality

Science, technology, exploration

Fine arts

Sports and entertainment

Elizabethan festivals, holidays, and celebrations

See also