In Elizabethan times, all coins were alloyed, made of a mixture of more than one metal, as pure silver or gold is too soft to sustain as a coin. 240 pennies, or 20 shillings, equated to a pound. The distribution of this money across the nation widely benefited the upper classes, the lower classes surviving on as little as 4 pennies a day.
Life for the rich in the Elizabethan era was a stark contrast to life for the poor, a class with money at their disposal which was used for luxury and excess. The hierarchy was as follows:
The Pope
The Monarchy
The Nobles
The Merchants
The Middle Class
The Labourers (working class)
ENTERTAINMENT
The societal and rich Elizabethans enjoyed many forms of entertainment, such as jousting tournaments, banquets, and the cruel yet hugely popular practice of bear-baiting. Bear baiting was so popular with Queen Elizabeth I that she was said to have stated that no plays could be acted on Thursdays for only bear-baiting was to happen on that day.
The banquets that the rich would indulge in often would consist of 5 courses and the meals would range from stuffed chicken and venison to sugared plums and preserved fruits. The diet of an upper-class Elizabethan was rich and dominated by meats and fish, considered a delicacy, as well as cheeses, cakes, pies and pastries. Due to the lack of fruit and vegetables in a rich Elizabethan's diet, many were subject to health problems such a scurvy.
The Poor
The poor also had many forms of entertainment, theatre being a massively significant pastime for the masses. Much like in Roman times, all people would come together in the communal activity of watching plays. An example is Shakespeare's Globe in London, the richer seated and the poorer flooding the grounds, often with livestock such as chickens that they would try to sell, armed with rotten fruit they would hurl at the actors were they not successful. When London was hit with an outbreak of the bubonic plague, acting troupes would travel around the country to perform for the poor, away from the dangers of the city.
There were also many festivals for feasting and drinking, such as Midsomer's Day, and dances were popular. The poor also engaged in games such as chess, as reading was an impossibility for most. Dancing and music were present in the lives of the lower and upper class, as well as gambling.
THE THEATRE
The theatre was hugely popular during Shakespearean times as described above. 'Renaissance theatre', (or early modern English theatre) was the name given to the genre of theatre that Shakespeare was at the centre of, Cristopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson some of the other significant writers. It is often incorrectly called Elizabethan theatre, but this refers only to her reign, some of Shakespeare's plays having been written after her death in 1603, therefore in the Jacobean era. Plays written throughout this era increased in volume as popularity for theatre grew, the remaining plays we still possess today showing a huge range of 'variety, quality and extent.' Although plays were watched by both the lower and upper class, the plays were often engineered towards the upper classes and depicted stories of noblemen and women in positions of power, of heroes and heroines, kings and queens. The audience loved tragedies (e.g Shakespeare's Othello), comedies, history plays (eg. Richard III), and morality plays.
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