Elizabeth's London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London

by Liza Picard

'Reading this book is like taking a ride on a marvellously exhilarating time-machine, alive with colour, surprise and sheer merriment' Jan MorrisElizabethan London reveals the practical details of everyday life so often ignored in conventional history books. It begins with the River Thames, the lifeblood of Elizabethan London, before turning to the streets and the traffic in them. Liza Picard surveys building methods and shows us the interior decor of the rich and the not-so-rich, and what they were likely to be growing in their gardens. Then the Londoners of the time take the stage, in all their amazing finery. Plague, smallpox and other diseases afflicted them. But food and drink, sex and marriage and family life provided comfort. Cares could be forgotten in a playhouse or the bull-baiting of bear-baiting rings, or watching a good cockfight. Liza Picard's wonderfully skilful and vivid evocation of the London of Elizabeth I enables us to share the delights, as well as the horrors, of the everyday lives of our sixteenth-century ancestors.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, London, British Literature, Tudor Period, 16th Century, Historical

543 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Liza Picard was born in 1927. She read law at the London School of Economics and qualified as a barrister, but did not practise. She spent many years working in the office of the Solicitor of the Inland Revenue and lived in Gray’s Inn and Hackney, before retiring to live in Oxford.

Her legal training encouraged her to seek original evidence, rather than rely on other peoples' research. This she says ‘is always to be recommended. It’s hard work but can be fascinating.’ Restoration London, the result of many years' interest and research into London life, was her first book.

Reviews

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I dream at night I hope to dream of two things: 1) cherry pies, snicker bars & chocolate chip cookies or 2) Elizabeth's London.

This is not a dry text book (no offense to text book junkies). Liza Picard brings Elizabethan London to life with details small and large. As some of you have heard, her description of an Elizabethan traffic jam has pretty much changed the way I look at rush hour. And who knows why they started wearing the famous "ruff"- well, liza does and now I do too. Liza also interjects with her own commentary which is witty, intelligent, funny and at times wonderfully catty.

I miss walking down her London streets and think I may just have travel there with Liza again soon.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read 2016 I love Liza Picard's history books they're ones that I read again and again. I enjoy reading about the everyday life of an era. How they worked, ate, lived and what they wore, used etc. The book is older and getting to the end of its usefulness as accepted research material, but I still think it's great, and will likely re-read it many more times.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this a lively though not very scholarly guide to London in the time of Elizabeth I. Picard adopts a chatty tone which is very readable and often funny, and she includes lots of quotes from primary sources. However, I often wanted her to try to go deeper into her subject. For instance, after spending an entire chapter on the poor of London and concluding that "there was a splendid, comprehensive, welfare system in place," she quotes a primary source which wonders why "the streets yet swarm with beggars," and says that she has no answer. It seems as though this should be the starting point, not the ending. But I'm probably asking too much of a work of popular history, and even with that quibble, I did enjoy Picard's evocation of Elizabethan London and would certainly read her books on London in other time periods.

[Emily Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually began reading this when I was on my first trip to England in 2011. Perfect accompaniment, of course.

Liza Picard has an ingenious knack for the kind of detail-heavy writing that doesn't feel weighed down or stuffy (she has also written guides to Victorian and Restoration London). This is both accessible for someone who may not have a thorough knowledge of 16th century England and the reader who can tell you exactly what street you would find a particular vendor in London during a particular year in the deacade of the 1570's. For those of us in between those two types and leaning ever so slightly to the "expert" status, Picard's book fills in the gaps so that one may be only a step closer to Tudor geekery.

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

workaday mp3



blurbification - Liza Picard's Elizabeth's London completes a trilogy of books on London throughout history, starting with Restoration London and followed by Dr Johnson's London. From the outset, Picard admits that Elizabethan London proved an even greater challenge to reconstruct, as "few buildings survive", and "artefacts and clothes from the time are rare". Nevertheless, through painstaking detail, Picard wonderfully recreates the crowded chaotic sights and smells of everyday life in late 16th-century London.
Her journey starts, like so many admirers of the city from Chaucer to Ackroyd, on the river Thames, "a uniform opaque grey" in Elizabeth's time, but "fairly unpolluted, judging from all the fish in it," and "a superb processional route between the royal palaces." From here Picard surveys London life, from its main streets, its water supply and its civic buildings of timber and stone, to the houses, people, clothes, food, drink and entertainment that defined one of the most prosperous cities in 16th-century Europe.

Everything is told in all its raw, sensual detail, from the ways in which "the butcher's professional skills" were used to disembowel those unfortunate enough to be convicted of capital offences, to the cost of pins for dressmaking--one shilling and eight pence per thousand. At times, the sheer detail of Picard's book can be overwhelming, and there is no specific argument that unites her observations, but the sheer scale of information is extremely impressive

Great fun! Recommend all four:

3* Victorian London
4* Elizabeth's London
4* Dr Johnson's London
3* Restoration London

[Jill H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book puts the reader smack dab in the middle of Elizabeth's London of the late 14th century and it is not particularly a pretty picture. London was emerging as the center of the western world and this position was solidified by the reign on Elizabeth I. Change was slow to come and the Queen became a force in shaping the environment of a growing city, faced with many problems.

The author separates the book into chapters dealing with such issues as marriage, buildings, health, sanitation, clothes, religion, and crime. There is a plethora of information that is fascinating and sometimes chilling. London was a sordid, filthy place but was lively and exciting as well. Some of the chapters drag just a bit but for the most part this is a educational and interesting book which will provide the reader with some facts that will surprise, delight, and horrify. If you love London, this book will be of particular interest.

[Redsteve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written description of London during the reign of Elizabeth I, largely based on primary sources. Decently detailed considering the ground the author is covering here. While sticking to London and it's immediate environs, Picard does an excellent job of covering everything from the general to the very specific. The first section covers the physical structure of the city, starting with the river itself, major streets, sewerage and water, transportation, public structures, and then moving to building construction and gardens and eventually to interior decorations and furniture. The second section deals with the people of the city, from the very rich to the grindingly poor - birth, life and death, health and medicine, food and drink, clothing, money, sex, marriage, family, education, amusements, crime and punishment (and civil law), religion, and superstition. She also covers the ways in which the people of the city interacted with each other - through parishes, wards, livery companies, service and retainers - as well as "outsiders" (foreigners, dissidents, witches, and the insane). Even though corruption was endemic and family connections still important, this book really gives you an idea of how much regulation there was in 16th Century London - for example, not only did they require building permits, but exactly WHO was allowed to do the construction was also regulated; on the other end of the spectrum, while begging was permitted (and, in some cases expected as part of the system ), beggars were legally required to get licenses to do so.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting look at life in London during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Informative and entertaining. Lots of interesting facts for the history geek.

Highly recommended.

[Sarah Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This interesting history book sheds life on daily life in London as it might have been during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I from 1558 to her death in 1603. Each chapter focuses on a different area of interest, covering such topics as the River Thames, water and sewer, buildings and furnishings, gardens, health, clothes, diet, family life, education, entertainment, crime, the welfare system, and religion. Pulling from a vast range of sources, Picard gives an insightful image of what life was like for those living in London over four hundred years ago.

Rather than a dry textbook, this book is composed of brief chapters which give illuminating detail without bogging the reader down with excessive descriptions. Despite having read numerous historical fictions, histories, and biographies that focus on the time period, I learned a great deal about the practicalities of life in this book that I have never heard of before. For instance, I had never thought about the logistical issue of the need for water in the home before indoor plumbing and thought it was interesting to learn that waterbearers walked around selling water, the price of which likely varied based on whether "they had simply filled their water-vessels from the river or taken the purer water dispensed by a conduit" (38). Similarly, the popular ruff collar style of the period was not always white, even though that is how it has been preserved in popular culture. Another interesting tidbit was that on average, couples had far fewer children during this time period that families did during the later Victorian period.

This book is written in a relatively casual, conversational style and the author is clear when she isn't sure about how something worked in practice. Given that the details of ordinary life are only rarely captured in print of the time, it was little wonder that there were a few holes in the author's knowledge. The sources and examples did lean heavily on the lives of the wealthy and royalty of the time, which isn't necessarily indicative of 'everyday life' but on the other hand, those are the accounts that were preserved in writing and they still reveal many clues about ordinary life. I did have a difficult time initially getting into this book, as the early chapters are on slightly dryer subjects (layout of the city, the path of the river) compared to later chapters but it was well worth pressing onwards. Overall, I found this book extremely interesting and a fast read.

[cellomerl · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a big book! An exhaustive account of everyday life in Elizabethan London. The author did a terrific job of compiling the canon of knowledge on this one. Much of it is quite fascinating and even rather surprising, even though some bits are a bit of a slog as they seem to just be recitations of heaps of minute detail and lists of accounts. But the Epilogue is particularly worth the wait. If you are a student of a English history, you will enjoy this.
The book benefits hugely from the author’s droll sense of humour and her ability to turn a little anecdote (don’t miss the end notes). I’d love to meet her. She’s still alive and turning 91 this year.

[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

I was between the books I'd finished and the ones that were on hold at the library to be picked up, so I got this one off the shelf. While it is interesting, it's also filled with a lot of minutiae with facts and figures, which just make my eyes cross.

My biggest issue with this is there were references to photos and maps, but there were nowhere to be find in this book. Some others have noted that I must have gotten a copy that was revised, but if that's the case, then they should have taken the references out or told us where to find them.

[LJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent account of Elizabethan life with aspects that are not usually written about.
There was some really fascinating information and description here.
I did find some chapters a bit dry, for example, there is a section on water drainage and things like that which would be immensely helpful for anyone interested in that area and is something that I have not seen discussed before in other Tudor non-fiction books but as I say, I just found some of these sections a little slow.
Other than that very much enjoyed.

[Andrew Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant account that beautifully re-imagines what everyday life in Elizabethan London would have been like. I think people who dismiss Liza Picard's book for lack of 'scholarly' analysis are wide of the mark. The book shows exceptional scholastic ability and its theme concerns everyday life; it is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of the power struggles of that period, and it is no less a book for that as not all history has to focus on political intrigues. An outstanding piece of social history complimented by meticulous research. I look forward to reading more of her work.

[Carolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best book I've read about the Tudor period, this ranks just right about Jasper Ridley's Tudor Age, and for everyone interested in the society in the Elizabethan times this is the book for you. The title says Elizabeth's London but in truth it's a general study of Elizabethan period. Everything from fashion, mortality rates, women -upper class and lower class women- their religion, how that affected their lives and the lives of their families, houses, illness, food, the book is very thorough.

[Sallee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look into the day to day life of London in the Elizabethan times. The author covers every aspect of this. If y0u want to know how people lived through his day at that time, this is the book for you. I loved all the details. Life was not simple but very complicated with all the laws and rules.

[Abigail · Rating 2 out of 5]

Examples used were too repetitive, as though the author assumed one would read only one chapter rather than all the way through the book. Various modern references broke one out of the narrative and several side comments I found offensive.

[Patrone · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hesitate to give Ms Picard’s work only 3 stars because it’s exhaustively researched and fastidiously detailed. My issue is there’s not enough ‘why’ - what was the function of these ridiculous breastplates? What was the motivation behind X? Was the habit to do Y based on religion or vanity?

[G. Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Well written, dry, informative

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a biography of Elizabethan London. In the days of Queen Elizabeth, London was a medieval city with a population of about a hundred thousand people. The streets were tapered and tortuous, unevenly paved with stones, and ill-lighted. The houses were mostly of wood. Due to rapid growth of trade and interest in exploration, villages were becoming depopulated and people crowded in London.

How did the Elizabethans perceive London?

The author writes: “To be respectable, a city had to be old. John Stow, that devoted historian of London, began his Survey of London thus: As the Roman writers, to glorify the city of Rome, derive the original thereof from gods and demi-gods, by the Trojan progeny, so Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Welsh historian, deduceth the foundation of this famous city of London, for the greater glory thereof and emulation of Rome, from the very same original. For he reporteth that Brute, lineally descended from the demi-god Aeneas, the son of Venus, daughter of Jupiter, about the year of the world 2855, and 1108 before the nativity of Christ, built this city …

Coaches had recently been introduced from Germany and they increased the congested traffic of the narrow streets. The crowded city was kept unclean.

Epidemics like plague and small-pox frequently carried off large numbers of people. Tobacco shops were rapidly growing up and gallants smoked while witnessing the plays in the theatres. There were many inns and taverns in London that served the purpose of modern clubs.

‘The Mermaid Tavern' was the resort of famous literary men of the day, including Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Carew, Donne, Beaumont, Fletcher and Sir Walter Raleigh. It was here that the famous wit combats between Shakespeare and Jonson, as described by Fuller, place.

The police was insufficient, but the punishment severe. All through the reign of Elizabeth, there was a rush to the towns, and London was a never-failing attraction with its court and palaces, its river and shipping, its theatres and taverns and its ceaseless life of the streets. It was a city rich in adventure, crime and disorder. Rogues and vagabonds packed the towns and haunted the countryside.

The author had divided the book into sixteen chapters plus an Epilogue:

Chapter 1: The River
Chapter 2: The Main Streets, Water Supply and Sewerage
Chapter 3: The Buildings
Chapter 4: Interiors and Furniture
Chapter 5: Gardens and Open Spaces
Chapter 6: Health, Illness and Medicine
Chapter 7: Foreigners
Chapter 8: Clothes and Beauty
Chapter 9: Food and Drink
Chapter 10: Sex, Marriage, Family Life and Death
Chapter 11: Education
Chapter 12: Amusements
Chapter 13: Networks and Boxes
Chapter 14: Crime, Punishment and the Law
Chapter 15: The Poor
Chapter 16: Religion, Superstition, Witchcraft and Magic

It was a London where travellers were exposed to a variety of risks and dangers. Organised gangs of highwaymen infested the place which was exposed.

Briefly speaking, it was an age when London pre-eminently realised the following:

a) The World-
b) The beauty and the wonder and power,
c) The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades,
d) Changes, surprises.

Even though it was an age of misery, superstition, squalor, ignorance and domestic and municipal tyranny, it was also an age when people felt proud of freedom, scornful of slavery and oppression, and with a new hope for the future.

It was truly a golden age, both in of the country and in the history of literature. It was history the best of times as well as the worst of times; it was both spring and winter, light and darkness, good and evil.

The influence of this kind of outlook had its impact on the theatre. Playwrights like Dekker and Heywood-and even the satirist Middleton-shared the moral attitude of Perkins, and wrote primarily for the London middle classes. Dekker's plays very much reflect the life of the middle classes of his time.

To conclude, the book gives us a pen-portrait of Renaissance London. It was one of the richest periods in the history of England, which witnessed the rise and growth of the feelings of patriotism and nationalism among the English people, and brought about an unprecedented progress in almost all the branches of its variegated life.

Recommended.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let us travel to a city which, in great part, no longer exists: Tudor London, much of which has been erased by time, fire, and ‘progress’, which holds burying swimming pools under concrete as a capital idea. I first read Picard a few years ago, with her Victorian London, and later visited Restoration London though I neglected to review it. Picard begins here with the physical setting of London, particularly the prominence of the Thames, and moves from a discussion of its bridges and gates into the city proper. After we’ve examined some of its notable buildings, many lost now, we move into the last two thirds of the book, which examine society during the era of Elizabeth.

This is not an easy time to be alive: not only are there the standing medieval threats of disease, war, and being executed for an impressive amount of crimes, but Elizabeth’s is zealous in the defense of her legitimacy and will brook nothing that smacks of disloyalty to the Church of England and thereby to Bess herself. (The law’s consequences are not necessarily logical: some people got death for minor things, while a servant woman who poisoned her bosses had her ears cut off, her forehead branded, and was tied to a post for some time.) I mentioned in the book on Victorian London that the mount of detail Picard brings up is impressive. That’s still the case here: there are extensive section on Tudor-era food and clothing, on sewers and schools, on the growth of the Inns of Court and of the international scene where Elizabeth is vying against the powerful Hapsburg who have holdings clear from Austria to Spain. There’s less content on the poor here than in the Victorian book, possibly because less has survived on them. Oh, they’re here — and they’re in a bad way, because Henry VIII seized all of the monasteries and seized their possessions to enrich himself and his friends, closing schools and shelters that used to house orphans and the poor. (This book provided a partial answer to my question of why people would go into service: many girls who were orphaned were taken to households to be raised as servants: as bad as being a maid working sixteen hour days is, it beats prostitution or death.) The section on the poor is more about their being poor, though, and less about their culture. I was amused to learn that beggars required a license, but not all ‘beggars’ were people dressed in rags and sitting miserably in the street: instead, they could be college students who had spent all of their money on mead parties at the ol’ bear-baiting round, or mariners who had been discharged and, having mysteriously lost their money at the local brothel, were looking for a way to get home.

Happily, Picard devotes a chapter to religion: one of my gripes with Ian Mortimer is that he pretends it doesn’t really exist, which — given the deep union of culture and religion — is inexplicable. Even if one is a strident secularist who doesn’t understand what religion means to people, an attempt should at least be made. I wouldn’t say Picard goes as far as trying to plumb the English religious mind, but she does knowledge its large role in English society – -especially in this period, when priests were required to remind parishioners that if they did anything papey, like pray with beads, they were damned. The dreary curse of Puritanism was also leading paintings and shrines to be destroyed. They hadn’t yet rubbed all of the fun out of life, though — have to wait for Crumwell for that — as this was the age of Shakespeare, and we take a look at leisure activities like games that are proto-sports. Elizabeth’s London is a solid survey of City life in the late-Tudor age, but readers looking for information on society in general should keep in mind that Picard keeps tightly to her subject, to London itself, and so doesn’t address European politics or the Age of Discovery.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book gets four stars. This edition gets zero stars.

I read the Phoenix Paperback edition published in 2004. THEY DID NOT INCLUDE THE PLATES FROM THE HARDCOVER. SHAME ON YOU.

Picard, on multiple occasions refers to the plates. For example, on page 22, "See the map, plate 7" or on page 50, "Construction was done in stages, floor by floor (see plate 14)." Of course, I couldn't follow her helpful recommendations because, THEY DID NOT INCLUDE THE PLATES FROM THE HARDCOVER. I bought the book online and was misled because I have the Phoenix Paperback editions of Picard's books ,"Johnson's London" and "Victorian London", and they do include the plates from the hardcover.

Shoddy job Phoenix Paperback.

The book itself, is excellent. Picard, who died last year, did four books on London through the ages. In each period she immersed herself in diaries, newspapers, business records, probate reports, visits to locations, inspections of clothing, furniture and court records to immerse herself in the daily life of the time.

She writes up her findings in a wonderful style that combines intellectual curiosity and rigor with a personal curiosity and informality. She admits when she can't figure out something. For example, she admits, "It is not easy to see what happened to refuse." There was no organized garbage collection. She also confesses when she is making an educated guess. Her footnotes have chatty stories of things like what she saw while living in Africa that reminded her of Elizabeth's London.

By definition, these books are grab bags of interesting stuff with very few grand overarching theories. A few examples;

-Leather wall hangings were preferred to tapestry in dining rooms because they did not pick up smells the way tapestries did.

-The grain which came from America was called "Turkey Corn". "Corn" was the general word for grains. Somehow in America "corn" came to refer only to 'Turkey corn."

-Doctors believed that "urine was the best indicator of health". They would hold a glass vial of urine up to a light to make a diagnosis.

-The huge neck ruffs that we see in pictures from the time were brutal to take care of. They were a silly fashion that served no purpose except conspicuous consumption. (Queen Elizabeth issued a Royal decree that ruffs could not be dyed blue, because she didn't like the look of blue ruffs.)

-There were 38 different terms for carving meat at the table. Depending on what you were carving, you would "list the swan", "splat the pike", "wing the quail", "culpon the trout" and, my favorite, "disfigure the peacock".

Piece by piece Picard builds the picture of London in the late 1500s and early 1600s. It is fascinating and amusing. I have no desire to have been there.

[Jace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed Elizabeth’s London by Liza Picard. It was informative and entertaining, though there were some chapters that were a little slow. The book gives an overview of the time period but doesn’t necessarily go into depth in particular topics.

I liked the use of a lot of primary sources. This might have been one of the most interesting aspects, just to see the language they used and the concerns they had.

There was also a lot of evocative imagery, such as the sheer amount of ferrymen and boatmen or things like the public toilets over Thames.

It was interesting learning how certain jobs were affected by the religious beliefs of the day, such as midwives duties to baptise and find out fathers of unwed married young women’s children so the church doesn’t have to pay. Or the nature of immigration in England (all the people from different places fleeing religious persecution and how they were unpopular because they didn’t follow local rules of trade). I liked reading about the laws that dictated what people could wear so that status would be more visible. Or the idea of gems used as prophylactics (eg. warding against the plague). It gives you an idea of where the idea of magic rings and such comes from in fantasy novels.

There were also the laws and licenses that allow people to eat meat (or for health), and how that affected people’s lives. Or the way that washing hands at the table together indicated closeness or social connection or flirtation. I also liked learning about the livery companies controlling various aspects of trade, and just how powerful their reach was.

It was also amusing to read of how easy it was to get married (making a promise with a parson nearby over dinner), and of banns being read to publicly indicate marriage. Also, I have a better understanding of why, during marriages, they ask if anyone know any reason they should not be wed, for example, if one party made a prior promise of marriage to another.

It was interesting to learn about prostitution and the desire for virgins and the use of lotion to feign virginity (plus the story of the boy who put it on his face and had his eyes and mouth sealed shut was hilarious). I was also giggling about the notion of pornographic sonnets that offended the pope.

But it was also depressing to hear details about the terrible treatment of animals (baiting bears with teeth removed, releasing rabbits on festival days for boys to chase, dog fights).

Overall, I enjoyed this book and would love to read something similar about other geographic locations.

[Marsha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was looking to find insight into a Shakespearean play and seeking information about Queen Elizabeth I seemed a good place to start. However, I got much more than I bargained for in this precise tome.

The author delved deep and searched wide to find information about this bygone era. She had the help of friendly informants who were all too happy to answer her questions, show her their files and interpret the difficult ciphers that passed for writing. From the poor to the highborn, Ms. Picard threw her net wide and pulled in amazing details for her efforts.

She split her topics into sections dealing with clothing, food, beauty, sex, marriage, crime and punishment, to name a few. They aren’t dry and dull by any means but an insightful look into the way people managed their lives. The topic of whether people stank is addressed (we may smell better now but they did provide soap, water and recipes for deodorant). The Thames was a silty river, slate gray in color rather than the pristine clear stream that poets lauded. Elizabeth suffered terribly from the toothache due to carious teeth but refused to get them pulled, insisting on pressing her finger in her mouth to relieve the pain.

Of course, the book is more than a random scattering of juicy trivia. We get historical details on everything that could be of importance, showing a vibrant people engaged in shopping for food, buying fresh groceries, going to church and insulting their neighbors.

Surprisingly, Shakespeare’s plays are mentioned only as they touch on other subjects. The author doesn’t dwell on them. Perhaps she thought that was best left to scholars of the Bard. In any case, the book brims with colorful data for the Elizabethan buff or the novice who’s just dipping their toe into learning about 16th- to 17th-century London.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

By end of this book I really had a sense of what it was like to live and work in London in the 16th Century. Everything from crime and punishment to marriage, entertainment, education, and river transportation is covered in an interesting and informative way. The only thing that might have made it even better was if I were a Londoner and could compare London as it is now with how it was then. The hardcover book has 45 pages of illustrations that were a great addition to the text.

One interesting bit was that London in the 16th Century not only suffered from an intractable homeless problem but made efforts to address it that were not all that different from what is being done now to try to make that problem go away. While it was hell to be a debtor in London since that could land you in a debtor's prison where you had to pay lodging and from which you could only get release if your debts were paid off by your family or friends, it was also true that there were social programs, both private and public, that aimed to address homelessness and poverty with charity. One could be granted a license to beg. One might be institutionalized as a child where you would be fed and educated and helped to get settled in a trade. There was medical care and bed to sleep in for these children, who tended to be abandoned children trying to live on the streets otherwise. The orphanage might actually save some of the children from the short life of a thief or a prostitute, and in any case it removed them from the streets where they would certainly cause mischief.

Another interesting fact was that prison for criminals was mostly just for holding them until trial not for punishment by a jail term. If guilty one did not go to jail, one was punished by being paraded through the city in shame, or by being pilloried and/or branded and/or having one's ear(s) cut off. One might be hung for various capital offenses, and if one committed treason one would be first hung and then drawn and quartered and one's head might be placed on a pike on London Bridge as a warning. When one were hung, ones friends could do one a mercy by tugging on your hanging legs to add weight to speed the choking and bring a quicker death. (As an aside, this must have been before the development of that well-known British reserve. In the 16th Century many greetings included kissing the daughter and wife of one's business and social connections with a mouth to mouth kiss! (p. 184). Oh, yes, and if one were a Catholic priest practicing in the country illegally--as this was protestant England once Mary died--one could expect to be burnt or boiled alive.

Another interesting twist was that when one was to be hung for a capital crime, ones possessions would be confiscated upon conviction and so one was executed and ones family made destitute. But you could choose to avoid this by agreeing to be killed by having heavy stones piled on one and then to slowly die of hunger, thirst, and the crushing weight of the stones, thus sparing your wealth for your family.

Interesting times to have lived in!

[Marcella Wigg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth's London is an entertaining account of everyday life in Elizabethan London. The level of interest I had varied throughout the book; I found myself less drawn into the earlier chapters about the built environment than into later chapters about Elizabethan law, the welfare system, although the information about water transportation on the Thames, the streets, and other aspects of life in the city were still interesting. Elizabethan English is entertaining to the modern ear, and Picard is liberal in her use of contemporary accounts of travelers and citizens of London, which made the book more entertaining.

Unfortunately, since there are limits on the records available from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, portions of her accounts are limited, and the tone of the book is decidedly more casual than some histories (the author's own experiences are not infrequently inserted through endnotes). But there are many sources of amusement here, from suggestions about how to handle situations like farting in front of others to fashions and the dubious medical "knowledge" of the era that make for very entertaining and memorable reading. Elizabethans really seemed captivated by "olliphants" and unicorns!

[Brian Willis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a popular history of London during the mid-15th century, well researched but written in a conversational tone at times. It fulfills an important purpose: rather than cover the courtly and political world of London, or the theatrical world of Shakespeare at the time, it focuses on the civic, social, and domestic realities of Londoners' lives. Unfolding into detail over topics such as clothing, social customs and practices, food and dining, drink, commerce, the look and smell of streets, religious belief, and many more, Picard does a good job of going into the details of London life at the the time, filling in the gaps often missed by books covering this time period other than those within the academic presses. Personally, it hit me at the level of 3 stars but others may find it worth more, particularly if these areas fascinate you. Some of them did for me but not enough to make it a consistently fun read.

[John Newton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating introduction to life in London in the 16th century; a travel book, though the travel is back in time. The various aspects of daily life that Picard covers is dazzling, from the geography of the Thames before the Victorian embankments to the religious practices of the Church of England during the period. Much of it was familiar to me in its broad terms—people didn't bathe often, bear-baiting was entertainment, a boggling variety of forms of torture were used against criminals—but quoting from primary sources, she brings the period vividly to life. Picard also described aspects of Elizabethan life that I didn't know much about until reading her book—garden design, the Elizabethan diet, details of trends in clothing (the rise and fall of the peasecod belly, for example). I am now looking forward to reading Dr. Johnson's London and Restoration London as well.

[Logan Horsford · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has managed to suck all of the passion out of history.

It is basically a retelling of some famous resource of London by some guy I can't remember the name of. You will hear it referenced plenty in the text.

In school, history is all about names and dates. Why? Easy to test on. Names and dates are why many people hate history. It is why you may come to hate history after reading this book.

History is about the passion, ego, greed, corruption and noble spirit of the people - common and not which changed the course of history and caused nations to rise and fall. History is about the stories of individuals - their successes and failures.

This book addresses none of that.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A perfectly readable book considering, in brief, the everyday life of Elizabethans. The style is informal and accessible, the chapters and subjects are well considered, and the book is thoroughly researched with a decent reliance of contemporary diaries, sermons, letters and ballads.
However, no topic is considered in any detail, and there is not much new here (although, to be fair, this is one of the earlier-published popular histories of Elizabethan society). Furthermore, there is nothing very particular to London in the book, and what applies here applies to most of Elizabethan society.
So, a pleasant read for the general reader, but not especially helpful to anyone interested in a more detailed study of life in Elizabethan London.

[Ubiquitousbastard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite already having read a few guides to Elizabethan London, this one managed to have some new information. I was reading this to go over what I knew and to see if the author had a different insight into the city. I didn't expect to find extra information but was glad to.

Other than that, it's a pretty decently written overview, but I think I would have liked it more if it was even more in-depth. Some of the topics aren't addressed very thoroughly and the section on foreigners did go on too long with unnecessary information (but that was helpful for me, so really only an issue for casual readers) that was too specific.