The education of women during the Elizabethan period.
A.L.According to Rowse, there was a higher level of literacy among women in the Elizabethan period.It is difficult to measure literacy rates of the past.Scholars look at records like wills and court depositions to count signatures.To arrive at a percentage of people who could write, they compared that number with an estimate of the total population.
It's important for us to read and write.Estimates based on writing are likely to underestimate reading levels because they didn't in the 16th century.The poor women were not likely to be literate in this century, even though it was possible.5% of women and 15% of men were literate in 1550, increasing to 30% and 40% by 1700.The estimate is based on signatures, so we could double it.
A lot of books were printed.Many books were written for women.The 1587 Penelopes Web: Wherein a Christall Myrror of faeminine perfection represents to the viewe of every one those vertues and graces, which more curiously beautifies the mynd, was a work that was lampooned for catering to female tastes.It was a catchy title.It was a success.
Girls were admitted to some schools.Between the ages of 7 and 14 boys from the middle class studied in these schools.Shakespeare taught his sons how to do sums and Latin.Most girls would be educated at home.The photo was taken in Shakespeare's school.
If your father was a man like Sir Anthony Cooke, you would get a great education.He had five daughters who were proficient in Latin and Greek, Italian, German, and Hebrew.Their teachers were Cambridge professors.Anne was the wife of Sir Nicholas bacon, the queen's Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and the mother of Francis bacon.Is it possible that he became the Father of Science without a well-educated mother?
Ordinary girls, daughters of yeomen, merchants, and the lesser gentry, would have been taught in the parlor or hall by their father or older sibling.The ABC with the Catechism was a hit in the 16th century.
The universities and the Inns of Court were not open to women.Noble and gentle women of intellectual inclinations would hire tutors and support poets and dramatists in their homes.
The intellectual landscape was changed at the beginning of the Tudor period by women like Lady Margaret Beaufort.Edmund Spenser and Ben Jonson were both poets and patron of Mary Herbert.Lady Anne Clifford is a patron of the arts.Many women played a vital role in the intellectual and artistic life of the period.
A well-to-do merchant would have a large household to manage, which would include supervising the education of servants and apprentices.Most of the women must not have been literate.They might have a literate assistant in the household, like a priest or tutor, and they could hire a clerk or lawyer whenever they needed them.
In this period, working women did not enter into formal apprenticeship contracts, although they could be sent to learn a craft.For a period of 10 years, many girls of the lower classes went into domestic service.Female domestic servants were usually given room and board, clothing, cash wages, and training in the skills they would need to set up their own households.Most people wouldn't need literacy in their lives if they learned to read at the whim of a religious mistress.
We must never think of non-literacy as ignorant.Non-literate people heard a lot of literature and news being read.The latest broadsides and pamphlets were posted on the wall of the taverns.People were fond of listening to verbal performances.There was a lot of books in this period, from romances to religious tracts, and what we call how-to's and self-help books.Whether they read it themselves or not, women had access to this information.A woman could keep learning.
"Cressy, David."1980.The social order and literacy in Tudor and Stuart England.Cambridge University Press.