The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer

her, and escort her back to where he found her before the dance. In case you are wondering, ladies are permitted to ask gentlemen to dance. Note that it is bad manners to refuse an invitation. 52
    The galliard and coranto, both of which are types of haute dance , are more exciting than the slow processional dances. The pair dance around the hall a couple of times together to the quick tempo of the music and then they separate, so they can each show off their dancing skills with hops, half-steps, fast steps, twists, side-steps and leaps. Men might be seen to perform high kicks, jumps and turns of 180 degrees or even 360 degrees in mid-air. Ladies, encumbered by their skirts, cannot leap very high and it would not be seemly for them to kick; but they are expected to keep up with the fast-moving men. Obviously you cannot improvise such moves: you will need to go to one of the many Italian dancing masters who have settled in London. Alternatively, after 1574 you can seek tuition in the various London dancing schools, which are now open again (having been closed down by Queen Mary in 1553). The queen dances galliards to keep fit, often completing six or seven of them in the morning. However, it is unlikely that you will see her dancing a variation on the galliard called la volta : in this fast dance the gentleman lifts the lady by placing his left hand on her far hip and his right hand at the bottom of her corset, beneath her legs. It is no surprise that Philip Stubbes sharpens his quill and vents his spleen against ‘the horrible vice of pestiferous dancing in England … What clipping, what culling, what kissing and bussing, what smouching and slabbering of one another: what filthy groping and unclean handling is not practised everywhere in these dancings?’ Stubbes would have women dance only with women and men dance only with men, ‘because otherwise it provoketh lust and the fire of lust, once conceived … bursteth forth into the open action of whoredom and fornication’. Despite such censure, even he has to acknowledge that dancing ‘in England … is counted a virtue and an ornament to man, and the only way to attain promotion and advancement, as experience teacheth’. 53
    A masque brings together music and dance. If invited to attend one, you should wear a suitable costume, such as the dress of a foreigner or something fantastical. Moors and blackamoors are common subjects for masques, as are the ancient Roman gods and medieval knights and queens with their maidens. Torches will illuminate the night and people will process in their costumes, with their faces covered. Sometimes there is scenery and actors are hired to play specific parts: don’t worry, you won’t be called upon to speak impromptu. Masques are always ceremonial and symbolic: they do not have moments ofhigh drama, and no serious acting is ever included. After the spoken parts are complete, the court dances begin; and after the dancing comes the banquet. At the end guests remove their masks to reveal their identities to the people with whom they have been dancing, speaking and eating. Few things in Elizabethan England are certain, but you can be wholly confident that your partner at a masque will not turn out to be Philip Stubbes.
    Literature
    The explosion in the number of books published over the course of the reign means that you will find reading material on almost every conceivable subject. And people do love to read. In 1576 William Carnsew records reading a history of the Turks, an account of the Protestant martyrs Ridley and Latimer, assorted sermons, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs , Humphrey Gilbert’s A discourse of a discoverie for a new passage to Cataia , an account of the Acts of the Council of Basel, Calvin’s letters and De Triplice Vita by the Italian humanist Marsilio Ficino. 54 Well-educated people also love to read the ancient classics, such as Homer and Virgil, both in the original and in translation, and quite a few classic medieval