2. Both Sources E and G refer to the theatres being dangerous because of the plague. These sources differ in explaining the link between theatre-going and the plague because Source E is a logical/rational reason whereas Source G is a religious reason.
Source E explains that theatre going and the plague are linked because the theatre was a place where lots of people came together therefore the plague could be easily spread between them. It says theatres would be shut down as long as there were more than thirty people a week dying in the City. It shows us that when more and more people gather together, they are close to each other and therefore the plagues are spread through close contact in the theatres, which is a logical reason.
However Source G argues the link between theatre-going and the plague is that God causes the plague if people are sinful. The plays were seen as sinful because the theatre was seen as “a continual monument of London’s prodigality and folly” which meant that it was an extravagant waste of time as people paid money for enjoyment, this was comprehended as sinful because it was not godly. Therefore if plays were sinful the cause of the plague was plays.
The difference between these Sources is that Source E is a practical reason and Source G is a religious reason. This might be because source G was said by a puritan who is religious and therefore believed that the plague was caused by sin. On the other hand Source E is a diary entry of a politician so he sees the problem in a more practical way as he works in the London Government. He is going to have a different opinion to a puritan because he will think of the good of everyone and want to help the whole community; he sees it in a more practical way.
3. Source G is useful to a historian today studying the way in which different people thought at that time about the theatre. It tells us the views of very strict Christians – Puritans. The source was written by a puritan to try to persuade people not to attend the theatres as it was a disgraceful place against religions. He is only doing a one sided opinion to make people listen to him and realise the theatres were bad places. It says that the plays were the causes of plagues as they were very sinful and a very extravagant waste of money and time which could have been spent on doing Godly things. “Behold the sumptuous theatre houses, a continual monument of London’s prodigality and folly.” So God sent down the plague as a punishment. However it only shows the views of very strict Christians rather than some viewpoints of other people from the public. This also might not be the viewpoint of all puritans and might be just a bias opinion. In conclusion this source is not very useful because it does not show view points of various other people it just explains that the theatre is all bad and it does not tell historians why people visited the theatre.
4. Sources A, B, C and H, shows evidence that the theatre acted as a social leveller. Source A is a scene at an Elizabethan theatre, there is bull baiting and bear baiting. This acted as a social leveller because many different groups of people came there. The rich and the poor all watched it; however they sat in different places which separated the different classes. The top seats were for the poor as they could only afford the cheap seats. The bottom seats were for the rich people as they could afford more. The seats at the top were for poorer people as they paid less. We can tell this from Source A because the seats at the top are more crowded so they would have paid less to sit in a crowded place. The seats lower were for richer people and the seats right at the bottom were for the richest people.
Source B shows us evidence that the theatre acted as a social leveller because of the same reasons as Source A, it shows us that they all came together in one big place. However it is not as much of social levellers because everyone sits separately and the poorest people do not even get a seat as in Source B we can see that there is a big space for people to stand in and the rich people all sit at the top. Therefore they did not interact with each other as they all sat separately.
Source C shows that the theatre acted as a social leveller because the Queen, who was the richest person in the country, went to the theatre and approved of it as she said it was a “harmless spender of time”. That made the theatre a posh high status place which encouraged rich people to go there which meant that they got to mix with poor people and it meant that poor people went to the same high status place as the Queen and other rich people.
Source H shows that the theatre acted as a social leveller because it says that the audience included audiences of all classes. However it was not a big social leveller because they all sat separately as the rich people could pay more money to sit in the more comfortable seats at the top with cushions, which the poor people could not afford and therefore had to stand at the bottom and they all went in through different doors to get into the different class seats, so therefore the poor only saw the rich sitting at the top from the bottom and therefore did not get to interact with each other.
Overall there is some evidence to show that the theatre acted as a social leveller because everyone came together in one big place and watched the same show. The fact that the Queen approved of it and that poor people went to it; it meant that it was a place that everyone went to. However, although they all sat together it was still not much of a social leveller because the poor and rich people sat separately and went in through different entrances because they all paid different prices to sit in different seats.
5. Many people criticized and disapproved of the Elizabethan theatre. This was because they felt that it was ungodly and an extravagant wastefulness as said in Source G “a continual monument of London’s prodigality and folly.” And it was also a place where all kinds of dangerous people went to as said in Source D “places for vagrant persons, masterless men…and dangerous persons to meet.” and could discuss plots against the Queen and would not be noticed. It was also disapproved because it used to “draw apprentices and other servants from their ordinary works” as said in Source D so work didn’t get done because the servants were in the theatre. Another reason why the theatre was disapproved was because unemployed people did not spend the time to find work and “maintained idleness in such persons”. The theatre was also disapproved because it spread the plague as lots of people came together in one big place. We know this from source E as it says that the theatres had to be closed down because of the plague.
Even though it was said that the theatre caused the plague as everyone came together, this was not proved and everyone wanted to come to the theatre as it was a social leveller between rich and poor as everyone came together in one place and watched the same shows as shown in Source A in the picture of the theatre where we can see that they’re all sitting together in one place. Therefore, poor people would’ve wanted to go to the theatre because rich people went to it so they would have thought it was higher class.
In addition to this, the theatre was very popular because Queen Elizabeth approved of it. Since Queen Elizabeth was a much respected woman, it meant that her approval made the theatre a very popular high-class place to go to. Therefore, rich and poor people would have went to the theatre as it seemed as a very high-status place to go to. Also she was head of church so this made it stay religiously. Although there was religious criticism, the Queen approved of the theatres even though she was in charge of the church and attended a lot. Everyone would want to copy her, so if she went to the theatres, other people would find it alright to do so too. The Queen was like a role model, whatever event she took part in, people would want to do the same.
Another reason why the theatre was so popular was that it was very cheap so it meant that anyone could go to it both rich and poor people. Rich people paid more money to get into the more comfortable seats so they didn’t feel that they were stooping to the same level as poor people, but it still meant that everyone could go to the theatre and watch the same shows.
Furthermore the theatre was a very popular place to go to because it was very entertaining, we can tell this from Source A where we can see bull and bear baiting, which the crowd seems exited about, so people would have wanted to see entertaining plays so therefore would have went to the theatre. There was also no other forms of entertainment such as TVs and computers so this was a big interest and very exciting for everyone as it gave them something to do.
In conclusion the theatre was very popular and successful because it was a social leveller, cheap, entertaining and Queen Elizabeth approved of it which made people want to go to the theatre. It was also very popular and the place to be seen.
6. The theatre was a threat to Elizabeth and England for many reasons, such as it was anti religious and caused the plague, it was a place where dangerous people could meet, caused poor behaviour and was out of bounds of the city.
One of the reasons why the theatre was a threat to Elizabethan England was because it was anti-religious as it was an extravagant wastefulness as people paid money for their own entertainment and not anything Godly as source G describes the theatre as being “a continual monument of London’s prodigality and folly” which meant that people were being distracted from religion as they were wasting money and time on the theatre instead of going to Church. This was a threat to Elizabethan England as it meant that people were moving away from religion and not following God which meant that it would cause poor behaviour as religion teaches that stealing and other crimes are sinful, and committing them would have meant that God would punish them.
This leads on to another threat to England which was the plague. Some people felt that the plague was a punishment by God for people committing sin for example in source G it says “the cause of plagues is sin.” And because going to the theatre was seen as a sin as it says in source F that they were “learning places of ungodliness” it meant that the theatre caused the plague. People going to the theatre was believed to be a threat to Elizabethan England because the whole country was being punished for a few people’s sins of going to the theatre. However the theatre was also believed to be the cause of the plague not because of religious reasons, but because lots of people came together in one place so the plague could have easily been spread from one person to another. An example of this is in source E as it says that some theatres had to be closed down because of the plague and were only allowed to open if there were less than thirty deaths from the plague in the city. So the theatre was a threat to Elizabethan England because it helped spread the plague to a lot of people which meant that those people would have passed the plague to even more people outside the theatre.
Religion lead to another reason why the theatre was a threat to Elizabethan England which was poor behaviour, because some people did not follow God as they were distracted from religion by the theatre it meant that those people acted sinfully. The theatres as said in Source D were “ordinary places for vagrant persons, masterless men…to meet together.” This meant that the theatre was a place where lots criminals came to commit more crimes as there were a lot of people together in a very crowded place, so it was very easy to steal from them without anyone noticing and the fact that they were distracted from religion made them commit even more crimes as they weren’t following God. These people stayed unemployed as they were in the theatre and even distracted other servants from their jobs as said in source D “draw apprentices and other servants from their ordinary works”. This was a threat to England because it meant that there were more unemployed people and the employed ones didn’t do their jobs properly as they were being distracted, so the economy wouldn’t have been as strong. Also because there were lots of criminals from the theatre it meant that there were more criminals in the streets committing crimes as they were unemployed and didn’t have anywhere to go to when the theatre was closed. This made it an even bigger threat as it was believed to be the cause of the Plague as people committed more sins.
The fact that the theatre was out of bounds of the city meant that those criminals were “not prevented nor discovered by the governors of the city for that they are out of the city’s jurisdiction.”. This meant that the crimes committed to innocent people were not solved and punished which made the city a dangerous place to be in as those criminals were still on the lose and not taught their lesson. This was a threat to England as it lowered peoples morale and ruined the economy as those criminals would have probably stole from business and trades men and ruined business for them.
The poor behaviour meant that there were a lot of dangerous people coming together in one place. All of these dangerous people could put all their powers together and plot big crimes against the citizens and the queen. So this was a threat to Elizabethan England because people were in threat of being victims of crimes which would’ve meant that the courts would have more work to do. The Queen could have also been in threat of being killed which would have been a big threat to England as Mary Queen of Scots would become Queen and as she was Catholic she would have changed religion from Protestant to Catholic and discrimination against Protestants would have started. At this time, there were a lot of problems going on between the two religions – Catholics and Protestants. Some people were unhappy with the Queen choosing the Protestant religion. Although she had chosen the Protestant religion, not all of the changes were protestant and this upset the people so nobody was happy.
However there were also other threats to Elizabeth and Elizabethan England. These included poverty and begging and the Spanish Armada,
Begging and poverty was one of the threats to Elizabethan England. This was because lots of people were unemployed which meant that they didn’t have enough money to support their families. This was a threat to England as it meant that lots of people were living in very poor conditions, so this helped spread the plague as people didn’t have enough money for medicine and sanitation and therefore the theatre was not entirely a threat to England because of the plague.
Another important threat to Elizabethan England was the Spanish Armada. This was a big threat to England because King Phillip of Spain was Catholic and wanted to turn England Catholic, so England was in threat because the official religion would have been changed again from Protestant to Catholic which would have caused riots and rebellion.
However England had more advanced ships than Spain, so Spain wouldn’t have been able to take over England so King Phillip joined forces with Mary Queen of Scots who also wanted England to be Catholic. England was now in threat of being taken over by the Spanish Armada and Queen Elizabeth was in threat of being captured by Spain or Mary Queen of Scots and assassinated. So Elizabeth was not as in much threat from assassination by the dangerous people in the theatre as from Mary Queen of Scots and the Spanish Armada.
In conclusion, I think the theatre was a bit of a threat and the statement is somewhat true. I think this because the theatre spread the plague as lots of people came together in one place it caused bad behaviour and distracted people from their work. On the other hand, there were other more important threats to Elizabeth and Elizabethan England such as the Spanish Armada, Mary Queen of Scots and poverty and begging in England which were not caused by the theatre.
