Popular Culture

Created by: TaylorYS
Created on: 13-05-19 11:39

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Popular Culture
- Urban and Rural Culture
  - Urban
    - Population Growth
    - Moving from Rural to Urban for employment
    - Festivals
      - Feast of Fools
        Brought the classes together through the sharing of drinking culture/feasts
        
        Safety Valve
        Temporary appeasement to stem rebellion
      - Processions/Pageants to celebrate those high up in society (royalty/nobility)
    - The printing press was quicker to permeate urban culture
      - Literacy rates became higher in these areas
      - Books (both religious and non-religious) became easier to purchase
        Easier spread of news/knowledge through broadsheets, letters and books
      - Supernatural and religious explanations for events became less common in urban areas, due to natural explanations becoming understood
  - Rural
    - 90% of the population lived in the countryside
    - Lower levels of literacy
      - Less access to books
        Superstition was rife for longer in rural areas due to the lack of other explanations for events/knowledge
    - Less access to books
      - Superstition was rife for longer in rural areas due to the lack of other explanations for events/knowledge
    - Smaller, more local. gatherings
    - Festivals
      - Feast of Fools
        Brought the classes together through the sharing of drinking culture/feasts
        
        Safety Valve
        Temporary appeasement to stem rebellion
      - Harvest Festival in particular was important in rural culture
        Also religous festivals such as All Saints Day were popular
- Elite Culture
  - The Nobles
    - Landowners, the wealthy, those with a role in central/local government
    - Royal Families at the top of society
    - Masques
      - Music, dancing, singing, acting
      - Political messages/themes
        Often alienated/offended Puritans in England
        
        Catherine de'Medici ordered that all nobles should hold a ball
  - The Learned Elites
    - University scholars and churchmen
      - 17th Century - the ideas of these two really began to conflict (Galileo)
      - 16th Century - Scholars had mostly broken free from religious influence
    - Masques
      - Music, dancing, singing, acting
      - Political messages/themes
        Often alienated/offended Puritans in England
        
        Catherine de'Medici ordered that all nobles should hold a ball
  - Withdrawal of the Elite
    - Reformation/Counter-Reformation focused on morality and godliness.
      - Festivals of misrule etc. were seen to promote disorder
        Dangerous to the fabric of soceity
      - Marking of saints days was seen as superstitious and pagan
    - Godly reformers demanded a more learned clergy
      - Council of Trent demanded a better educated, higher status of priest
    - Nobility influenced by the Renaissance
      - Became more refined, withdrew from interaction with the peasants
- Significance of Ritual
  - Christianity was perhaps the most consistent aspect of popular culture
    - Baptisms/weddings/funerals
    - Compulsory attendance to church on Sundays
    - Saints Days
- Pageants and Festivals
  - Associated with ecclesiastical events or farming
    - Often put on by guilds, or rulers/lords
  - Opportunity for excess (often before periods of abstinence)
    - Carnival
      - Usually began Jan/Feb
      - All social classes enjoy the pleasures of flesh
        Topsy-Turvy roles
  - Opposition
    - Came from the educated elites
    - Religious leaders opposed overindulgence and immorality
    - Potential for disruption and violence
      - May Day Riots London 1517
      - Anti-Catholic parades in Germany 1520s/1530s
  - Safety Valve
    - Reinforce existing order by allowing an escape from everyday life
    - Express resentment for authority without danger of rebellion
- Public Humiliation
  - Punishment of Women
    - Challenge to the patriarchal society
      - Dissuaded others from challenging patriarchy
    - Punishment for scolding, adultery, and prostitution
    - Examples
      - England
        Ducking Stool
        
        Skimmingtons
        
        Stocks
      - France
        Chivavri
      - Germany
        Whipping in the streets
      - Branding
      - Execution
- Moral Regulation
  - Morals regulated by the Church (particularly puritans)
    - Catholic "Council of Trent" pushed for stricter controls on public behaviour
      - Wanted to limit Saints Day celebrations as they were 'being exploited'
    - Protestants attacked festivals as pagan/Catholic/distracting
  - 1540-1660 'Crisis of Order' in England
    - Gambling, prostitution, drunkenness on the up
    - Peasant revolts and high murder rates
- Magic in Society
  - Black Magic
    - Magic that caused harm
      - Particular concern in rural areas due to reliance on crops
      - Maleficium
        'Diabolical pact with the devil' became a common explanation in the 16th/17th centuries
        Accepted as part of popular culture
  - White Magic
    - Cunning Folk
      - Produced good spirits for recovery/protection from evil spirits
      - Older, single women usually
  - Superstition
    - Rife due to a lack of education
    - Used as an explanation for periods of upheaval
  - The Church
    - Offered protection against evil through rituals
- Challenges to Popular Culture
  - Printing Press
    - Invented in the 1440s
      - By 1500, over 1000 printing shops in Europe
        Tens of thousands of titles had been published by the 1700s
        A fine library was a status symbol in the 15th century
        
        Textbooks, histories, poetry etc.
        
        Pamphlets, religious tracts and ballads
        Newspapers began to appear in the 17th Century
        
        Woodcuts made print more accessible to unlearned readers
    - Print Revolution
      - For
        Increased European global output of texts (lower cost)
        As books became cheaper, education became more accessible, vast increase in number of schools
        
        Intrinsic to the reformation through religious pamphlets
        Particularly undermined the catholic church in Germany, Switzerland, and Netherlands
        
        Allowed radical political movements
        
        A third of Englishmen were literate by 1630
        Print became a form of entertainment, as well as education
      - Against
        Scribal production was not suddenly replaced by printing, still flourishing until the late 17th Century
        
        Literacy rates improved slowly, especially in Southern Europe, amongst women, and rural areas
        
        Often, printing helped to reinforce government of religion rather than undermine it
  - Religious Change
    - Protestant Change
      - Aim to create a godly society
        Values of decency, diligence, gravity, modesty, orderliness, sobriety
      - Believed festivals were acts of popery
        Attacked all holy days other than Sundays
      - Differences
        Lutherans/Anglicans
        More tolerant of popular culture
        
        Calvinists
        Sought the end of traditional popular culture
        Critical of plays and performances
        
        Made the bible available to ordinary people; put on sermons; sung psalms
        
        Puritans
        Despised and forbade profane culture
        People often went against the abolishment of festivals by making new ones
    - Counter-Reformation
      - Council of Trent
        Reform aimed to purify the church
        Religious ceremonies under new regulations
        
        Feast of Fools came to an end without the support of the Elite
        
        Dances/fairs forbidden on church grounds
      - Fighting against immorality and superstition
        Wanted reform for festivals, not abolishment
      - Fighting against protestantism
        Used ritual to convince people of the wrongness of Protestantism
  - Political Change
    - Rebellions and Civil Wars were common across Europe
    - Flood of political pamphlets in the 1640s, encouraged spread of new political ideas
    - Spread of political consciousness
    - Traditional secular elites generally retained power
      - Governments often aligned with churches to create a godly state
        Quasi-Ecclesiastical states such as Bamberg
  - Economic/Social Change
    - Huge population growth between 1500 and 1800
    - Urbanisation
    - Subsistence farming became farming for the ubran market
    - Communications and trade expanded
    - By 1800 people were generally more well off and healthy
    - Groups began to adapt to new economical situations
      - Businessmen began to see leisure activities as a good investment

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