answersLogoWhite

0


Best Answer

There were few, and very limited forms of entertainment available generally, and most of the population was nearly or completely illiterate, in Mediaeval to Jacobean times. It was also a cruel, harsh society generally, so the concept of realising certain acts were cruel to animals was unknown.

Consequently spectacles like bear-baiting, and dog- and cock- fighting, were both common and very popular.

User Avatar

Wiki User

11y ago
This answer is:
User Avatar

Add your answer:

Earn +20 pts
Q: What was bear-baiting?
Write your answer...
Submit
Still have questions?
magnify glass
imp
Related questions

What is bearbaiting?

Bearbaiting is a blood sport in which dogs are set upon a trained bear.


What has bear baiting got to do with shakespeare?

It is referenced in many of his plays, usually symbolic of a character's current situation. (For example, Macbeth's "They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, but bear-like I must fight the course.") The Bear Garden, also known as the Hope Theatre, was especially constructed so as to be used for both bearbaiting and theatre. For the most part, however, the theatres were not used for bearbaiting.


Why do people still bear bait in Pakistan?

People holds bearbaiting to help their frustration, it is just like a man in anger and frustration break its utensils against the wall just to get calm down similarly few landlords satisfy the pain of their failures by practicing this brutal activity. When some of the bearbaiting organisers interviewed they responded that if we try to avoid this brutality than we will have to find some other ways to release frustration which could be even more brutal. How ever my answer was that I could not imagine any thing worst than this Fakhar


What sport did they have in shakespeare times?

They had races and competitions of various kinds, including archery competitions. Bowls (lawn bowling) were very popular. For spectator sports they had mostly blood sports such as bearbaiting or bullbaiting, or if you didn't like cruelty to animals, the public execution of criminals.


What is the main idea of the lines 'They have tied me to the stake I cannot fly but bear-like must fight the course' spoken by Macbeth from Act V of The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare?

Macbeth has been surrounded by his enemies; there is no retreat. He is like the bear in the then-popular sport of bearbaiting, where a captive bear was chained to a stake and attacked by dogs. There was no retreat for the bear either.


What were the cruel animal sports that the Elizabethan like to watch called?

animal


How was archery and bull baiting played during the Elizabethan era?

Bull or Bearbaiting: the sport of tying a bull or a bear to a post, and setting several hunting dogs to attack the bull or bear, when dogs would be killed or wounded, they would send in more dogs until the bear was dead. Archery: Archery was very popular during the Elizabethan Era, the most skilled archers would win prizes. This was an individual sport played by fit, and athletic men of all classes


In which century did William Shakespeare write his famous plays?

There were few other entertainment options in Shakespeare's day. They had their version of reality shows in public executions, their version of self-improvement courses in sermons, their version of sports in bearbaiting and cockfights, and their version of musical theatre in masques. But for drama and comedy, there was only the theatre--no movies and no television.


How many of Shakespeare's plays had animals?

Two of Shakespeare's plays require live animals. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, the character Launce has a conversation with his dog, Crab. In The Winter's Tale, there is the famous stage direction "Exit, pursued by a bear." It is likely that they borrowed an old, toothless and mild-tempered bear from the bearbaiting shows for this part. They might have used real horses, but were more likely to have called on the audience's imagination for them. As the Prologue says in Henry V "Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them printing their proud hooves i' th' receiving earth."


What other kinds of popular enterainment were there in Shakespeare's time?

A lot of entertainment was provided by people for themselves, but professional entertainers included actors, acrobats, jugglers, musicians and clowns (comedians). The entertainment took the form of plays, masques and revels.


What type of shows did they perform in the globe theatre?

The Globe Theatre, unlike some of the other theatres, was used exclusively to put on plays. Other theatres, like the Hope and the Swan, sometimes had bearbaiting and other types of entertainment. However, contrary to popular supposition, they put on a broad variety of plays, and not just plays by Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote no more than two or three new plays a year (after all, his total output was 38 plays in a 23-year career), yet the theatre companies had to premiere a new play every week or so. That means that most of the plays they put on were not by Shakespeare.


How were theatres viewed in the 1500's?

By Puritans: Tools of the devil--they kept people from going to church and reading the Bible. By Civic Fathers: Subversive of the public peace. Getting thousands of people together in one spot attracts criminals and might spread disease. Sometimes these theatre patrons caused riots. By Everone Else: Awesome. The best entertainment money could buy. Better even than bearbaiting.