Elizabethan times part two

Crime and Punishment

Despite the finery and dedication to fashion and the arts, punishment in the Elizabethan era may seem cruel and barbaric by modern standards. Minor punishments, for misdemeanours such as larceny (stealing) or amoral behaviour, involved public shaming and humiliation. More serious felonies, such as treason, murder, rape and witchcraft involved public hangings, public torture and even the mutilation of corpses. Horrific modes of torture were sometimes used against convicted felons in an attempt to seek out accomplices and information. Many of the tortures occurred in the infamous Tower of London. The dead bodies of executed criminals were positioned visibly around London to deter crimes. Trials were quick and judgements were heavy handed.

Punishment	Description
The pillory	Pillories were contraptions in which a sentenced criminal was placed, their hands tied in metal shackles and their head locked into position facing a jeering crowd who would often throw mud and other objects at the person.
The stocks	The stocks were a punishment similar to the pillory, but in this case only the feet were bound.
Ducking stools	A punishment for women. The victim was strapped to a chair and dunked into freezing cold water. This process would be carried out for as long as the torturer saw fit.
Whipping	A public whipping was painful as well as humiliating. It was also possible to be sentenced to a whipping that was carried out on a cart, so that the whipping could take place all over London.
The drunkards cloak	A person convicted of crimes of public drunkenness would be placed in an empty beer barrel and forced to walk the streets so that the public could humiliate them.
The brank	A device used for women also known as the 'Scold's Bridle'. A metal helmet encompassed the head. Another piece of metal protruded into the convicted woman's mouth. This piece often had barbs embedded in it, so that, apart from making it impossible to talk, she would also severely cut the inside of her mouth. The convicted woman would be forced to walk through the streets to be humiliated in public.
The rack	The victim was placed on a wooden rack, their hands shackled to a roller at one end and their feet to a roller at the other. These rollers were turned to slowly stretch and then dislocate the victim's limbs.
The scavenger's daughter	An English invention, The scavenger's daughter was the opposite principal of the rack. The victim was placed in a sitting position surrounded by metal bars that compressed the victim until they began to bleed through the nose and ears.
Hung, drawn and quartered	A severe punishment mainly, and famously, used on traitors. The sentenced criminal was drawn through the city on a rough sled, hanged almost to death and then their body cut into quarters, all in full public view. After this, their limbs and organs were burned and their remains positioned around London as a deterrent.
Others	Hanging, burning at the stake and boiling in hot water or lead were other cruel and unusual punishments used in the Elizabethan era.

Refer to the animation Elizabethan crime and punishment for more insight on Elizabethan crime and punishment.

Medicine

The average lifespan of a person living in the Elizabethan era is believed to have ranged from between 20-25 in the poorer areas and 30-35 in wealthier parts of London. Very wealthy men are recorded as having lived into their 50s and Queen Elizabeth lived until she was about 70. Clearly, health and medicine were not as advanced in Elizabethan times as in contemporary times. Medical science had not improved greatly since the times of Hippocrates (470BC-410BC) and Aristotle (384BC-322BC). The main theories in medicine involved the theory of humours and astrology, although there was an increasingly strong interest in herbal remedies. These three theories are littered throughout Shakespeare's plays.

The theory of the humours was based on the idea that there were four humours that determined a person's personality. For a person to be healthy, these humours needed to be in balance. If an imbalance occurred, resulting in illness or disease, a physician would let blood in the hope of returning the balance. This theory dates back to the time of Hippocrates who linked the four elements of the Earth with elements within humans. The theory of the humours is also associated with Galen (150AD) who sorted the humours into temperaments. It is from this theory that we now describe somebody as being in 'good' or 'ill' humour and use the words sanguine, melancholy and phlegmatic to describe a person's mood.

Humour	Humour (human)	Personality
Air	Blood	sanguine: friendly, liberal and bold.
Water	Phlegm	phlegmatic: dull and unintelligent.
Fire	Choler (yellow bile)	choleric: envious, cruel and underhanded.
Earth	Melancholy (black bile)	melancholic: solitary, soft and fearful.

You will come across many characters in Shakespeare's plays who are described as being 'imbalanced' or of ill 'humour' as well as references to yellow and black bile, choler and melancholy.

Also in Shakespeare's plays you will come across many references to the stars, the moon and fate. Many Londoners believed absolutely in astrology and felt that an astrologer could tell their future.

Other characters in Shakespeare's plays are apothecaries who deal with making potions, poisons and cures from herbs and flowers. The Elizabethans believed in a concept know as the Great Chain of Being. This was a belief that, because God created all things, everything on Earth was created with an intended use and in a strict hierarchical order. Apothecaries therefore explored the qualities of plants and their characteristics and these were used as cures for illnesses.

The Plague

In Shakespeare's plays you will also find many references to the plague or to The Black Death. In modern times the disease is known as bubonic plague. Plague is spread by rats, other rodents and ticks. Ticks carried by rats attached themselves to humans and spread the disease. The particularly dangerous form of plague, 'pneumonic plague' can be spread from human to human, through the air. In the 14th century, around a third of Europe died in an epidemic of plague called The Black Death. The fact that it was spread across continents from rats and ticks demonstrates a point about the living standards and hygiene at the time. Plague is still endemic (common) in many poorer regions around the world. These days it can be cured and with proper diagnosis and treatment, epidemics can be avoided.

In Elizabethan times, there was no cure for the plague. Unsanitary living conditions and a prevalence of rats at wharves and granaries meant that the plague was very common in London. Victims of plague were isolated within their houses and when they died all their possessions were burned. If a victim of plague was allowed out of their house then they would have to carry a metre-long white stick to indicate that they were infected so that people could give them a wide berth. The plague was a very frightening prospect for Elizabethans.