Elizabethan Households (1995)

This article is currently a draft.

Elizabethan Households, one of the Exhibitions at the Folger, opened on February 13, 1995 and closed on May 20, 1995. Curated by the Folger's Executive Director of the Folger Institute Lena Cowen Orlin, the exhibition aimed to open a fresh investigation of domestic life in Elizabethan England and to demonstrate some of the ways in which it is possible to pursue such an investigation using the Folger's collections.

Curation

From 1982 to 1996, Lena Cowen Orlin coordinated postdoctoral seminars and conferences at the Folger Shakespeare Library as Executive Director of the Folger Institute.

Contents of the Exhibition

Exhibition Highlights

[list highlights here]

Gallery Layout

The exhibition took place in the Great Hall of the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Case 1: The Great Rebuilding

The period 1570 to 1640 has been called "The Great Rebuilding" because so many English men and women built new houses, added dining rooms and parlors to their great halls and bedchambers, and achieved new standards of domestic comfort and luxury. Chimneys replaced open hearths, staircases supplanted ladders, glass was installed in windows, wainscoting warmed interior walls, and wall paintings and woven hangings added color and design. Meanwhile, Elizabethan and Jacobean courtiers created an impressive legacy with their country houses, built under the inspiration of new Continental ideas.

Items Included

Johann Amos Comenius. Orbis sensualium pictus...Visible world. Translated into English, by Charles Hoole. London: Printed for Charles Mearne, his Majesties bookseller at the Kings Arms at Charing-Cross, 1685. Call number: C5525; displayed p. 146-147.
- This little book for children illustrates different parts of the natural and material world as a means of conveying Latin vocabulary. In 1685, Charles Hoole translated the original Dutch version of 1664 into English. Plate 66 shows the parts of a house, each numbered to correspond to the appropriate word.
A Briefe Declaration for What Manner of Special/Nusance Concerning Private Dwelling Houses, a Man May Have his Remedy by Assise. London: By Thomas Cotes for William Cooke, 1639. Call number: STC 6454; displayed sig. B2.
- Building in the 16th and 17th centuries, like that today, was not accomplished without difficulties. First published in 1636, this tract presents the conflicting arguments of four lawyers in a case from over half a century earlier. One Master Hales had sued his neighbor, J. S., for constructing a house that blocked his light.
Pierre Le Muet (1591-1669). Maniere de Bastir pour Touttes Sortes de Personnes. Paris: Chez Melchior Tavernier, 1623. Call number: Folio NA2515 .L35 1623 Cage; displayed pp. 100-101.
- "Architecture" as we know it was not a profession in the 16th century. It was an avocation, principally for gentlemen. By contrast, "building" was a trade, with methods passed down from one generation to another of carpenters and masons. As new architectural ideas were imported from the Continent, new means of communication were required, including architectural manuals like this one once owned by John Evelyn.
Robert Plot (1640-1696). The Natural History of Staffordshire. Oxford: Printed at the Theater, 1686. Call number: 136- 592f; displayed plate between 358-359.
- Changing fashions in English domestic architecture are strongly marked in this illustration of Tixall Hall, with its irregular late-medieval house and symmetrical 17th-century gatehouse. Robert Plot, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum and Professor of Chemistry at Oxford, clearly prefers the later style.
Hartmann Schopper (b. 1542). Panoplia Omnium llliberalium Mechanicarum Woodcuts by Jost Amman. Frankfurt: Georg Corvinus for Sigismund Feyerabend, 1568. Call number: GT5770 .S4 Cage.
- Brick was necessary for replacing open hearths with chimneys, an important aspect of the Great Rebuilding. The builder of a great house might have to establish a stoneworks, a brick kiln, an iron foundry, and a glass manufactory near his construction site. With construction complete, these enterprises might then remain as local resources for less wealthy builders.
Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury (1520-1608). Letter to Richard Bagott. From Hardwick Hall, 19 September 1594.
- Hardwick Hall was so famous that it lent its name to a popular jingle ("Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall"), as well as to its builder, Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, better known as "Bess of Hardwick." Despite her experience with other building ventures, she confronted a problem still familiar today, a "lewd," or bungling, workman who had not completed the work she had paid for. Here she seeks legal recourse from the county Justices of the Peace.
Companion to Georg von Schwartzstat, Baron von Offenbach. Journal of Travels in The Netherlands, England, France, and Germany. Manuscript, 1609. Call number: V.a.316-317.
- The only Tudor monarch to do much building was Henry VIII, but with Nonsuch, in particular he set architectural standards for a century. The keeper of this diary pasted in an illustration of the palace from John Speed's map of Surrey. The motto reads: Since they have not its like the Britons/Often are wont to praise this, and call it Nonsuch by name."
Paving Tiles. London, 1600-1650. White tin glaze decorated in blue, green, yellow, and tan.
- Because these tiles were kiln wasters, found at a pottery site in Pickleherring, near London, we know that they represent English work. Much ceramic work was imported from The Netherlands. The camel on one tile shows the Elizabethan fascination with exotic beasts. The other tile is one of a set of four that together form the image of a Tudor rose. Lent by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

Case 2: The Householder

The Elizabethan household was a political institution, described as "a little commonwealth," with many points of analogy to the larger realm. Just as the English constitution was monarchic so the household was patriarchal with the householder enjoying absolute authority in his domestical kingdom." So strong was the belief that ' every man is king at home that it was extremely rare for a man to start a family under his parents' roof. Instead he set up his own establishment, where his wife, children, and servants were enjoined to be submissive and obedient to him. Of course, notions of domestic governance worked better in theory than in practice.