How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England: A Guide for Knaves, Fools, Harlots, Cuckolds, Drunkards, Liars, Thieves, and Braggarts

by Ruth Goodman

Overview

Offensive language, insolent behavior, slights, brawls, and scandals come alive in Ruth Goodman’s uproarious history for mischievous Anglophiles.

With this “impeccable” (BBC History) chronicle, acclaimed popular historian Ruth Goodman reveals a Renaissance Britain particularly rank with troublemakers. From snooty needlers who took aim with a cutting “thee,” to lowbrow drunkards with revolting table manners, Goodman’s “gleeful and illuminating” (Booklist, starred review) portrait of offenses most foul draws upon advice manuals, court cases, and sermons. Wicked readers will delight in learning why quoting Shakespeare was poor form, and why curses hurled at women were almost always about sex (no surprise there). “Accessible, fun, and historically accurate” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), How to Behave Badly is a celebration of one of history’s naughtiest periods, when derision was an art form.

“Oh, how I wish Ruth Goodman could be my tutor. But settling in for one of her history lessons is better than second best.” — Alicia Becker, New York Times Book Review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631496240
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	10/22/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	151,422
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Ruth Goodman is the author of multiple books including How to Be a Victorian. An historian of British life, she has presented a number of BBC television series, including Tudor Monastery Farm. She lives in the United Kingdom.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Offensive Speech 9

Chapter 2 Insolent, Rude and Threatening Gestures 61

Chapter 3 Mockery 106

Chapter 4 Outright Violence 147

Chapter 5 Disgusting Habits 201

Chapter 6 Repulsive Bodies 238

Conclusion: The Complete Scoundrel 281

Bibliography 295

Acknowledgements 300

List of Illustrations 302

Index 307

Editorial Reviews

"Anyone who has ever tried to learn a new language knows that it is the rude words that somehow stick in the memory." Oh, how I wish Ruth Goodman could be my French tutor. But settling in for one of her history lessons is better than second best.

The New York Times Book Review - Alida Becker

★ 08/27/2018
This entertaining, excellent book from Goodman (How to Be a Tudor) provides a window into the nitty-gritty of daily life for merchants, street sellers, and others listed in the subtitle in 1550–1660 England. Goodman writes conversationally about both pointedly bad behavior—for example clarifying in frank terms the meanings of insults based on body parts and functions—and contrasting attempts to keep up with trendy continental manners. She details the clothing and etiquette trends drifting in from Spain and France and the peculiarities wrought by the English Civil War and its effects on propriety. As in her previous work, Goodman’s scholarship is exemplary, and she sets the record straight on modern misperceptions of 16th- and 17th-century life; despite stereotypes to the contrary, for example, cleanliness and surprisingly precise meal etiquette were standard for most people. Illustrations depict such phenomena as complicated bows and fights between women in which the goal was to uncover each other’s hair—and imply the opponent was of loose moral character. Accessible, fun, and historically accurate, this etiquette guide will yield chuckles, surprises, and a greater understanding of everyday life in Renaissance England. Illus. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Gleeful and illuminating.... Goodman deftly combines anecdotes and examples that illustrate each topic and clear explanations of why certain behavior matters socially and philosophically in that time and place. Both a highly readable and very funny treatment of a popular historical period and an invitation for readers to think about their own understandings of social etiquette."

Sara Jorgensen

"Oh, how I wish Ruth Goodman could be my tutor. But settling in for one of her history lessons is better than second best... Although 21st-century Americans aren’t likely to be hauled into court, as some 16th-century Britons were, for deploying a pungent epithet like ‘a turd in your teeth’ or engaging in the criminal offense of ‘scolding,’ Goodman need hardly remind us that ‘manners, power and insult are intricately linked.’"

Alida Becker

2018-06-18
With exhaustive research and in gleeful detail, Goodman (How to Be a Tudor, 2016, etc.) explores the gamut of misconduct in Stuart and Tudor England, including offensive speech and gestures, the perverse delights of mockery and ridicule, the ripostes of physical violence, and a gallery of repellent habits and repulsive displays of bodily functions.The author has a wicked taste for the objectionable and the wit to deliver it in a wholly enjoyable, even educational way. However, there is a more serious undertone to all of this impropriety, one that regards appropriate comportment and courtesy rituals as the lubrication of societal harmony. Likewise addressed are gender-based double standards (some of which still persist), the religious and public health basis of many of our behavioral prohibitions, dueling, expectations within hierarchies, power dynamics and, not least, British class consciousness. The book overflows with historical curiosities, interesting asides, and eyebrow-raising aha moments. Goodman also shows how one period's grave insult, verbal or gestural, was trifling to the next, even within the space of a generation or two. "Different behaviors shifted from good to bad and back again with disconcerting frequency," writes the author, requiring a chameleon's adaptability. Goodman's voice is tongue-in-cheek as often as scholarly, revealing how much of today's uncouth and loutish behavior has its antecedents in Elizabethan times. The book also is a primer for modern-day mischief-makers who can't resist thumbing their noses at the social mores of the "respectables." The author posits that bad behavior can be far more revealing of a time and culture than the exercise of rectitude, largely because history has reckoned with it far more eagerly. She demonstrates this truism with a wealth of amusing evidence. Still, it can be a bit much; even Miss Manners might tire of so much minutiae.Etiquette, it seems, is a complex and involved business, but Goodman helps us navigate the shoals of another era's sensibilities in a way that is also illuminating of our own.

Kirkus Reviews