Society, Culture, and Fashion in Jacobean England

Politics and Policy in the Jacobean Period

King James' reign in the Jacobean era was marked by intense conflict between protestant and catholic states across Europe. One of the bloodiest wars in European history, the Thirty Years War, was fought between 1618 and 1648. While the war began over religion, its lasting impact would be about the sovereignty of individual states in Europe.

Early in King James's reign, a group of English Catholics led by Guy Fawkes attempted to destroy Parliament and assassinate the king in what became known as the Gunpowder Plot. Since King Henry VIII, the monarch of England was head of the state and the protestant Church of England. During the reign of James' predecessors Queen Elizabeth and Henry VIII, England broke from the Catholic church and adopted Protestantism, known as the Reformation. The protestant Church of England became the official religion, and the reigning monarch the head of the church. Following the reformation Catholics were marginalized and excluded from public office, they were forced to worship in secret. By King James' reign many Catholics who had not converted to Protestantism wished to see the monarchy restored to the catholic faith. So on November 5, 1605 Guy Fawkes and a small group of conspirators planted barrels of gunpowder under the parliament building in an attempt to blow it up. The plot was exposed, and the conspirators were arrested, tried, and hanged for treason against the crown.

In 1607, with a charter from King James, the Virginia Company of London established the first permanent English settlement in North America. In honor of the reigning monarch, they called this site Jamestown, and named the colony ''Virginia'' after Queen Elizabeth, known as the virgin queen. Jamestown was the first successful attempt to establish a colony in North America and marked the beginning of English colonization. Jamestown would also be the first site of democracy in North America, following the first meeting of the House of Burgess in 1619.

Society and Culture in Jacobean England

Jacobean England was a hierarchical society with strict social classes arranged in tiers like a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid were members of the English aristocracy, the royal court, and landowners, and at the bottom were servants, everyday workers, and farmers who did not own the land they worked on. There was also a middle class of skilled tradespeople and merchants. Gender roles in Jacobean society were also fairly strict. Men could own property, land, and hold political positions but women could not if they were married. Women in the lower classes could rarely read and write, but wealthy women were educated and had leisure time to learn music and foreign languages. Women of all classes took care of children and ran the household.

Religion was integrated into all aspects of life. The Church of England reigned supreme, and most English citizens were Anglican. Catholics who wished to practice their faith had to do so in secret. Superstitions were widely believed including belief in witchcraft. King James himself attended witchcraft trials and supervised the torture of women accused of witchcraft. He wrote a tract about the threat of witchcraft entitled Daemonologie in 1597, that inspired Shakespeare witches in Macbeth.

Illustration of witches from Daemonologie (1597)

Culture and Art in the Jacobean Era

Culture and art flourished in Jacobean England and developments in science, literature, art, and architecture had a lasting impact on English society.

In science during the Jacobean period, the Copernican revolution introduced the concept that the earth and planets revolved around the sun. Copernicus, an Italian astronomer, upended previous thoughts that the universe revolved around the earth. He also argued that the earth rotated on an axis and gradually shifted resulting in different seasons.

Francis Bacon, an English writer and philosopher, contributed to the development of the scientific method and inductive reasoning. He wrote, 'For no one successfully investigates the nature of a thing in the thing itself; the inquiry must be enlarged to things that have more in common with it," meaning that the scientist could induce broader conclusions from their observations.

In literature, William Shakespeare wrote many of his best known tragedies during King James's reign. John Donne was a prominent poet, and is often considered the greatest poet in the English Language from this time. Perhaps the most lasting impact in literature was the development of the King James Version of the bible, printed in 1611, which would be the dominant protestant religious text until the 20th century.

Architecture in the Jacobean period was more extravagant than the previous era, with larger and taller exterior facades and elaborately carved wood panel interiors. Architect and designer Inigo Jones is notable for introducing renaissance characteristics into his design of the banqueting house at Whitehall, London. Renaissance design included realistic portrayals of people and objects in art, and balanced proportions and symmetry in architecture. While the advancements in artistic realism of the renaissance continued, baroque art and architecture appealed to the viewer's emotions as well as intellect, and brought more drama and movement. A great example is Jacobean furniture which was large and heavy, usually of oak wood, and included bulbous columns and intricate carvings. Even embroidery on clothing, accessories, and furniture upholstery followed the ornate style with layers of flowery and intricate designs.

Jacobean interior of Kirklees Park Yorkshire with ornate woodwork and high style carved furniture

Clothing and Fashion in the Jacobean Period

Clothing styles changed quickly in the decades of James's reign. Wealthy men and women wore heavily embellished colorful fabrics, jewels, and the ruffs and lace collars of the Elizabethan era. Working men and women wore locally made clothing of cheaper linen, wool, and leather. Children were dressed in smaller versions of adult clothing.

Clothing for Women in the Jacobean Era

Hair was worn high over the head, often with a small lace cap. Headdresses and caps would be adorned with ostrich plumes, pearls, or jewels. Women would accessorize with long strands of pearls and layer necklaces. The first layers of clothing for women included a long linen shift, covered by a corset stiffened with a busk of wood or whalebone.

Bodices for women came to a long point below the waist and generally had low rounded necklines. By the 1610s bodices often had tabs around the waist which were meant to lay flat across the bum-roll, a padded roll worn around the waist to accentuate the hips. Sleeves were straight and tight around the arm, often with flat lace around the cuff.

Dresses, or skirts were full and came to floor length, often in dark and heavily embellished or embroidered fabrics. Skirts might be open in the front to reveal a different color petticoat. In addition to the bum-roll to widen the hips, ladies might wear a farthingale, or boned hooped petticoat, to create a fuller and rounder shape to the skirt.

Lady Penelope Wriothesley wears a dress over a farthingale and low pointed bodice with rounded collar and lace cuffs.

Clothing for Men in the Jacobean Era

Men wore their hair to shoulder length, sometimes with a single longer piece called a ''love lock''. Pointed beards and mustaches were also worn. Men wore hats, with the most popular being a tall conical hat called the capotain, sometimes with ostrich plumes. Men of the aristocracy would wear long heavy gold chains trimmed with pearls and precious stones over their clothing. Other accessories included leather gloves, ribbon garters tied under the knee, and swords and daggers belted around the waist.

The first layer of clothing for men was a linen shirt. A doublet, a type of tight fitting jacket, was worn over the shirt, with many small buttons closing the jacket in the front and coming to a point in the front. The doublet often had tabs extending over the hips, similar to women's fashions. Sleeves were also close fitting and had lace cuffs and small wings extending over the shoulders. Men wore ruff-like collars early in the period or a stiffened wired collar called a whisk, and later flat falling lace collars. Over the doublet might be worn a short hip length cape, fashionably slung over one shoulder.

Men wore knee length trousers called breeches that were fuller around the hips and tapered to the knee. They were tied to the doublet using points, or short laces with metal tips. Breeches were buckled at the knee and worn over hose, often made of silk.

King James I is wearing a doublet and breeches with a cape

Lesson Summary

The Jacobean period coincides with the reign of King James I of England. His reign is marked by political and civil unrest between Anglican Protestants and Catholics, including the infamous Gunpowder Plot and Thirty Years War. King James' support of English Colonization in Virginia at Jamestown paved the way for the expansion of the English empire in North America. Culture and Society was hierarchical and one's social class dictated their education status, opportunities for work, and clothing. Gender roles were clearly defined with men working out of the house in trades, business, or politics, and women were in charge of housework and children. While society still believed in the superstition of witchcraft, new scientific discoveries led by the Copernican Revolution and philosophy of Francis Bacon were changing intellectual ideas.

In Jacobean England, art, music, literature, and architecture was dominated by the Baroque style. In clothing, women wore elaborate costumes with many layers including bum rolls, farthingale hoops, petticoats, bodices, lace ruffs, jewelry, and decorated headdresses. Men wore stiff doublets that covered the chest, breeches tied with points to the doublet, stockings, capes and high capotain hats. The Baroque style can be identified by its ornateness from flowery embroidery to highly carved furniture.