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What did the Tudors do for fun?

Our lives today are filled with ready-made entertainment - television, computers, music centres etc. In the Tudor period people had to make their own entertainments. Hours of work were long and without electric light or the benefit of being able to read, many people simply went to bed when it got dark. The time for entertainment was on a Sunday or Saint's day or when there was a great public event - Royal wedding or public execution.

Sports
Sports were very popular in the Sixteenth Century. Some of the most popular are still played today:

*Jousting
*Pitching the Bar
*Throwing the Sledgehammer
*Leaping
*Shin-kicking (with iron-tipped boots)
*Sword fighting
*Performing headstands
*Fox Hunting
*Hare Coursing
*Dancing to bagpipes

Eating
Banquets were a popular form of entertainment for the rich, but the poorer folk would also hold feasts on special occasions. If there was a great public event such as a royal wedding then the monarch would pay for wine and food to be placed in the streets for the poor people to join in the celebrations. The diners would be entertained by mummers, jugglers, jesters or fire eaters.


The Theatre
The popularity of the theatre rose with both rich and poor alike, during the sixteenth century. This popularity was helped by the rise of great playwrights such as Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare as well as the building of the Globe theatre in London.

Execution
A public execution was an event not to be missed and people would queue through the night to get the best places. There was always a carnival atmosphere and a good trade was done by pie sellers, ale merchants and producers of execution memorabilia. Public executions always produced a carnival-like atmosphere with large crowds attracting peddlers, minstrels, jugglers and other street performers anxious to use this ready-made audience.



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Probably because the times were brutal. Disease, infection, childbirth and many other things could pick you off at any time. People in those times hadn't considered human rights, and animal rights even less. In an age where executions and punishments included chopping off heads, hands; hanging, drawing and quartering where you were cut down from the noose while still alive and had your entrails cut out and burnt; and other vicious punishments, as well as being able to go and see them for your entertainment, it's no surprise that sports were violent too.

Hunting was the sport of the upper classes. So was jousting and taking part in tournaments. For the poorer classes (and probably some of the upper classes as well) there was bear baiting; also bull and monkey baiting, and co ck fighting.

Life itself was dangerous then, and many people walked the streets with a weapon like a sword or dagger.

You lived a short life then; people were not molly-coddled as we are today, with anaesthetics for even the smallest operations. I wonder what we would think today, as we attend a public hanging instead of going to see a film - "I'm glad it's not me!", perhaps!

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