How To Be a Tudor Quotes

“Right next door to the bear gardens on the south bank of the Thames in the last years of Elizabeth's reign sat the main theatres of the day. Permanent theatres were brand sparking new, the very first not appearing until 1576. Throughout the reigns of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I, theatre had been a mobile activity, and a largely amateur one.”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Their link with the sex trade at a time when syphilis, almost unknown before 1490,”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Shakespeare made up thousands of words, over 1,700 of which are still with us. Both moonbeams and mountaineers are his, and if you were to sit in your bedroom and submerge yourself in lacklustre chat as you hobnob with those you have friended, you would still be talking his language. His phrases, too, fall from the mouths of people who might claim to hate his work: to be as dead as a doornail or up in arms, to come upon something all of a sudden and decide that it’s a foregone conclusion. These are everyday idioms that pepper our common tongue.”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Once the gathering had chosen and crowned a summer Lord of Misrule, or king of the revels, his group of retainers were appointed. They dressed in the brightest coats they could find:”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“stately homes of Britain. Trerice in Cornwall not only has its bowling alley still, but an original Tudor set of kayles, which are rather fat-bellied skittles, or bowling pins, to play with. And whether it really happened or not, Sir Francis Drake is reputedly said to have refused to break off his game of bowls when the Spanish Armada was finally sighted, a story that gains its credibility from the popularity of the game among gentlemen. The city of London had public bowling alleys, both indoor and outdoor.”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Christabel Allman made cheese in Nottinghamshire for the Willoughby family at Wollaton Hall.”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“begin to see the occasional recipe that could have been produced for dinner in the cottages of labourers. My personal favourite is the one entitled ‘To Frye Beanes’. First soak your beans, then boil them until they are cooked through. Next put a large lump of butter into a frying pan, along with two or three finely chopped onions, add the beans and fry it all together until it begins to brown, then sprinkle on a little salt and serve. Another recipe book adds large handfuls of chopped parsley towards the end of the cooking, which I think is an improvement.”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“I have had the pleasure – and it really has been a pleasure – to cook in a large number of both real surviving period ovens and historic reconstructions. The reconstructions have been invaluable for highlighting the technical aspects of the originals that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“The young swashbuckler about town, dressed in gaudy colours, his sword audibly swashing against the buckler (a small hand shield) suspended from his belt, could sport the most outrageous of codpieces with impunity.”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Henry VII had been largely content to simply reiterate the sumptuary laws of his predecessor;”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“the word ‘banquet’ in the Tudor period meant sweets, cakes, cheese, nuts and fruit with a glass or two of wine).”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“set out to try and work it out for myself: hunting up period recipes and trying them out; learning to manage fires and skin rabbits; standing on one foot with a dance manual in one hand, trying to make sense of where my next move should”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“bottom of the pile consisted of labourers paid by the day.”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Other merchants formed the next”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“For our tiny urban population the hierarchy was a little different, with international merchants occupying the top spots,”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Below them were the labourers”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Next came the husbandmen,”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Far more numerous were the yeomen.”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Beneath them sat the gentry,”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Hens did not lay during the winter (we use artificial light to stimulate them into laying all year round), and cows had a dry period from late September through to the spring,”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Enormous genetic changes have occurred in varieties of bread wheat over the past 400 years, affecting the look, the yield and the nutritional make-up of the plants.”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“When the Lord Keeper visited Ipswich in 1568, the town laid on a banquet (not a feast with meat and veg: the word ‘banquet’ in the Tudor period meant sweets, cakes, cheese, nuts and fruit with a glass or two of wine).”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Within a twenty-first-century household, food costs consume typically around 17 per cent of the total income, but within a Tudor context food dominated most people’s expenses, taking around 80 per cent.”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

“Not all clothing had to wait for its aristocratic owner’s demise to be sold on to playhouses. Fashion at court changed rapidly, and that which had cost the equivalent of a large town house to buy could appear upon the back of the most ambitious only a handful of times before appearing passé. For those like Robert Dudley, patron of one of the acting companies, handing on such clothes could form part of his financial support package, perhaps in lieu of cash for private performances. It was also possible for such public display of his recently worn clothing to be seen as advertising and promoting his standing among the populace. The stage was a fashion show and a window on to the rarefied world of court and courtiers. It held much the same appeal as the Hollywood glamour films of the 1930s and the more modern celebrity lifestyle shows. The”
― Ruth Goodman, How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life