Picture of Blackfrairs Playhouse
 

Elizabethan Entertainment

  • Interesting Facts and information about Elizabethan Entertainment and Elizabethan Sports
  • Elizabethan Entertainment &  Entertainers
  • Sports, Tournaments, Games, Gaming &  Gambling, Hawking, Hunting, Bear and Bull Baiting, Plays and the Theatres
  • Fairs, Festivals, Banquets and Feasts

Picture of Blackfrairs Playhouse

Elizabethan Entertainment

Elizabethan Entertainment
Elizabethan Entertainment was extremely important to people who lived in the Elizabethan era. The lives of Elizabethans were hard, the mortality rate was high due to frequent outbreaks of the Bubonic Plague and life expectation was low. Elizabethan entertainment was popular whenever there was something to celebrate. A betrothal, wedding, victories and festivals. Court entertainment was regular, often a nightly occurrence combined with feasts, jousts and banquets often accompanied by music and dancing.

 
 
 

But the poor people enjoyed entertainment from acting troupes, tournaments, dancing, trained animals, mummers (dancers), mystery plays, jugglers and strolling players. Tournaments, Games, Sports, Gaming and Gambling also played an important part in Elizabethan entertainment.

Types of Elizabethan Entertainment
There were many different types of Elizabethan Entertainment many of which are detailed as follows:

  • Feasts - A large, elaborately prepared meal, usually for many persons and often accompanied by court entertainment. Often celebrated religious festivals
 
  • Banquets - A ceremonial dinner honoring a particular guest
  • Fairs - The Annual Summer Fair was often a bawdy affair
  • Plays - Starting 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 amphitheatres built in the same style as the Roman Coliseum ) and then the introduction of indoor theatres called Playhouses
  • Mystery Plays - Re-enacting stories from the Bible
  • Festivals - Celebrating Church festivals
  • Dancing - Elizabethan dances enjoyed by the Upper Classes, Royalty and Nobility included the Cinque-pace, Galliard, Pavane, Roundel, Tordion and the Volta
  • Jousts / Tournaments - A series of tilting matches between knights
  • Games and Sports - Sports and games which included archery, bowling, cards, dice, hammer-throwing, quarter-staff contests, quoits, skittles and wrestling
  • Animal Sports - Including Bear and Bull baiting. Dog and Cock fighting
  • Hunting - Sport followed by the nobility often using dogs
  • Hawking - Sport followed by the nobility with hawks
 
 

For additional information about the sporting forms of entertainment click the following Link to Elizabethan Sportsand for information about Elizabethan plays click Elizabethan Theatre

Elizabethan Entertainers

The Names and Types of Elizabethan Entertainment were as follows:

  • Jesters - A fool or buffoon at Elizabethan courts
  • Mummers - A masked or costumed merrymaker or dancer especially at a festival
  • Minstrels - Travelling musician who sang of legends (declined in the Elizabethan era)
  • Troubadours - Travelling musician who sang of courtly love (declined in the Elizabethan era)
  • Acting Troupes - Travelling actors
  • Jugglers - Also used tricks, deception, or fraud

Elizabethan Entertainment - Religious Feasts, Fairs and Festivals

Elizabethan people loved entertainment. The more entertainment the better. Feasts Fairs and Festivals were all common occurrences and were celebrated during specific times of the year most of which were dictated by the Church and religious festivals. A calendar of Elizabethan entertainment in terms of religious feasts, fairs and festivals can be accessed by clicking the following link Elizabethan Customs and Festivals

Interesting Facts and Information about Elizabethan Entertainment
This section regarding Elizabethan entertainment provides a full over-view of facts and information about of Elizabethan Merry making.

Elizabethan Elizabethan Entertainment
Details, facts and information about the Elizabethan Entertainment and Elizabethan Sports can be accessed via the Elizabethan Era Sitemap.

 

Elizabethan Entertainment

  • Interesting Facts and information about Elizabethan Entertainment
  • Elizabethan Entertainment - the types of entertainment and the Elizabethan Entertainers
  • Sports and Tournaments
  • Games, Gaming and Gambling
  • Bear and Bull Baiting
  • Hawking and  Hunting
  • The Plays and the Theatres
  • Fairs, Festivals, Banquets and Feasts
 
 

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 Elizabethan Era
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Elizabethan Entertainment

 

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