English Renaissance
By the 1550s, Italy was already moving past the Renaissance into Mannerism and the Baroque. England was only starting to feel the pull of the older style. The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England, and it grew into something distinct from its Italian parent. Its greatest strengths lay in words and music rather than in painting. Its builders stretched their windows wide, and its poets and playwrights left a legacy that still shapes English. How did an idea that arrived so late take root so deeply? What did England borrow, and what did it quietly refuse to copy? And why did a country with so little painting of its own leave such a mark on the English language?
The wider Renaissance is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. England, like most of Northern Europe, saw little of it for more than a century. Historians file the English version under the Northern Renaissance. Renaissance style and ideas were slow to penetrate the country, and the movement is dated to the late 15th, 16th and early 17th centuries.
Scholars still argue about where the English story begins. Many see its start in the early 16th century, during the reign of Henry VIII. Others contend that the Renaissance was already present in England in the late 15th century.
There is firmer agreement about the peak. The Elizabethan era, in the second half of the 16th century, is usually regarded as the height of the English Renaissance. One of the forces that shaped it was a religious quarrel over who should be allowed to read the Bible.
In 1526, William Tyndale published his own English translation of the Bible. He was answering a call from the Protestant Reformation, which urged ordinary people to interpret scripture for themselves instead of accepting the Catholic Church's reading. That call helped start a strong tradition of writing in the English vernacular. The tradition grew steadily as printing in English became common by the mid-16th century.
The translation debates were tense. Translators wanted laymen to understand the text while staying faithful to God's word. They argued over how much license they could take to carry the correct meaning without sacrificing its eloquence.
In 1560, Sir Rowland Hill published the Geneva Bible. It marked the re-establishment of the Church of England at the accession of Elizabeth I. Tyndale's work and the Geneva Bible became predecessors to the King James Version.
The Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549, joined the Authorised Version of 1611 near the end of the period. Americans call the latter the King James Version. Both left enduring and profound marks on the English consciousness. Meanwhile, another early champion of English prose was busy teaching a teenage princess.
Roger Ascham, tutor to Princess Elizabeth during her teenage years, is now often called the "father of English prose." He held that speech was the greatest gift God gave to man. In his view, speaking or writing poorly was an affront.
Elizabeth I was trained in Renaissance humanism by Ascham. She wrote occasional poems at critical moments of her life, including "On Monsieur's Departure." She was not unusual among her family. All the Tudor monarchs of the 16th century were highly educated, and so was much of the nobility.
Thomas More and Francis Bacon stood among the period's philosophers and intellectuals. Bacon's approach, known as the Baconian method, carried English thought toward modern science and was a forerunner of the scientific method.
Italian literature also had a considerable following among educated English readers. It supplied the sources for many of Shakespeare's plays, and the stage was where that reading would pay off.
Edmund Spenser's verse epic The Faerie Queene had a strong influence on English literature. It was eventually overshadowed by the lyrics of William Shakespeare, Thomas Wyatt and others. Poems and plays typically circulated in manuscript for some time before they were published.
The English theatre was the most crowded in Europe. It played both to the court and nobility in private performances and to a very wide public in the theatres. Beyond a host of lesser playwrights stood three giants: Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Above all, the plays of this theatre were the outstanding legacy of the period.
The age left fingerprints on the drama. Henry VIII's declaration of independence from the Catholic Church, together with advances in sailing and cartography, is reflected in Shakespeare's generally nonreligious themes and his shipwreck adventures.
The roll of major authors runs on to John Donne, John Milton, Philip Sidney, Thomas Kyd and John Webster, among many others.
Hans Holbein was the outstanding figure among the artists of the Tudor court, and he was a foreigner. Such imported artists made up most of the court's painters until after the Renaissance ended.
The English Reformation brought a huge programme of iconoclasm. It destroyed almost all medieval religious art and all but ended the skill of painting in England. For centuries afterward, English art was dominated first by portrait painting and then by landscape.
The notable English invention was the portrait miniature. It took the techniques of the dying art of the illuminated manuscript and applied them to small portraits worn in lockets. Foreign artists, mostly Flemish, developed the form in England. Lucas Horenbout was the somewhat undistinguished founder of the tradition. By the late 16th century, natives such as Nicolas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver produced the finest work. Even then, the best larger portraits in oil still came from foreigners. By the 18th century, the portrait miniature had spread all over Europe.
The portraiture of Elizabeth I was carefully controlled. It grew into an elaborate, wholly un-realist iconic style that created enduring images. Music, by contrast, stayed in far closer touch with the continent.
In 1588, Nicholas Yonge published Musica transalpina, a collection of Italian madrigals set to English words. It began a craze for the madrigal in England. The craze was almost unmatched in the Renaissance as an instant adoption of an idea from another country, reshaped to local tastes.
The timing suited English poetry, which was at exactly the right stage of development. Forms such as the sonnet, already well developed in Italy, were uniquely suited to being set as madrigals. In the late 16th century, Italy was the musical center of Europe, and the madrigal was one of the principal forms to emerge from its burst of creativity.
Thomas Morley published collections of his own, roughly in the Italian manner but with a unique Englishness. He was the only contemporary composer to set Shakespeare whose work survives. Interest in the English Madrigal School has enjoyed a considerable revival in recent decades.
English music also survived the Reformation relatively well, even though William Byrd and other major figures were Catholic. Byrd lived from about 1539 or 1540, or perhaps 1543, until 1623. Thomas Tallis lived from about 1505 to 1585, and John Dowland from 1563 to 1626. Tallis anticipated the colossal polychoral works of the Venetian School, and Byrd had already absorbed the Palestrina style before Musica transalpina appeared. Architecture took far longer to find its Renaissance form.
Hampton Court Palace, begun in 1515 under Henry VIII, showed an early partly Renaissance style. So did the vanished Nonsuch Palace, Sutton Place and Layer Marney Tower. Soulton Hall was built under Queen Mary I. Henry VIII lived from 1491 to 1547. Even so, a true Renaissance style became widespread only with Elizabethan architecture, and it drew far more on northern Europe than on Italy.
The most famous buildings of the age were the prodigy houses. These were large show houses built for courtiers and marked by a lavish use of glass. Hardwick Hall earned the verdict "more glass than wall." Wollaton Hall, Montacute House, Hatfield House and Burghley House belong to the same group. The style continued into the early 17th century before developing into Jacobean architecture.
Older habits lingered. Little Moreton Hall and other large houses kept being built and expanded in medieval half-timbered styles until the late 16th century. Church architecture stayed in the late medieval Perpendicular Gothic style until the Reformation, then stopped almost completely. Church monuments, screens and other fittings often took classical forms from about the mid-century.
The few churches built after the Reformation were usually still Gothic. Langley Chapel, dated 1601, is one example.
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Common questions
When was the English Renaissance?
The English Renaissance ran through the late 15th, 16th and early 17th centuries. The Elizabethan era, in the second half of the 16th century, is usually regarded as its height.
Why did the English Renaissance start later than the Italian Renaissance?
The Renaissance is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century, and England, like most of Northern Europe, saw little of it for more than a century. Renaissance style and ideas were slow to penetrate England.
What were the main art forms of the English Renaissance?
Literature and music were the dominant art forms of the English Renaissance. Visual arts were much less significant than in the Italian Renaissance, and the plays of English Renaissance theatre were the outstanding legacy of the period.
Who were the major writers of the English Renaissance?
Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were the giant figures of the English theatre. Other major authors include Edmund Spenser, Thomas Wyatt, John Donne, John Milton, Philip Sidney, Thomas More and Francis Bacon.
What was the Musica transalpina in the English Renaissance?
Musica transalpina was a collection of Anglicized Italian madrigals published in England in 1588 by Nicholas Yonge. It began a vogue of the madrigal in England that was almost unmatched in the Renaissance as an instant adoption of a foreign idea.
What is a prodigy house in English Renaissance architecture?
A prodigy house is a large show house built for a courtier, characterised by lavish use of glass. Examples include Hardwick Hall, Wollaton Hall, Montacute House, Hatfield House and Burghley House.
What was the portrait miniature in the English Renaissance?
The portrait miniature was the significant English invention in the visual arts. It transferred the techniques of illuminated manuscripts to small portraits worn in lockets, and Nicolas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver produced the finest work by the late 16th century.
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6 references cited across the entry
- 6Airs, Malcolm, The Buildings of Britain, A Guide and Gazetteer, Tudor and Jacobean, especially chapters 1, 3 and 8, 1982, Barrie & Jenkins (London),