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Entertainment
What did people do for enjoyment in the 17th Century? Social class, as always, determined what types of leisure activities a person was likely to participate in. Regardless of whether he was Marquis, Merchant or Mendicant, he was serious about having a good time. Europeans were a rough and rowdy lot, and even 'refined' gentlemen of the upper classes enjoyed active, often crude entertainments.
Royalty and aristocracy lived to hunt. All-day expeditions in search of deer, wild boar, game birds and wolves were a passion rivalled only by gambling at cards. More than one nobleman had to pawn his family's jewellery to pay his debts to a high class gambling house. As the stakes were so high in these intense gaming sessions cheating, alone or with a partner, became an art form. Other popular games and sports included : Jeu de Paume, a form of indoor tennis very popular with the French, Croquet, Pell-Mell, a variant of croquet where the hoops were suspended, Bowling, Billiards (no pockets on the table and the cue had a flat end like a shuffleboard paddle), Chess, Horse Racing and Backgammon (known as tric-trac in France).
When sick, it was fashionable for the sick to visit provincial resorts. In these spas the illicit love affairs were often as hot as the mineral water baths.
Almost all men and women of quality learned to sing or play a musical instrument, and there were a number of amusements for the musically inclined. Balls, Concerts and Masques were popular. Masques, were allegorical skits featuring bizarre costumes and sophisticated music and scenery. Ballet was becoming a French institution. Cardinal Mazarin introduced Italian Opera to French concert halls. Music critics and audiences raved about the productions with a hysteria not too different from that rock groups received in 1960's America. Popular home instruments included the guitar, the spinet (harpsichord), the recorder and the clavecin (piano).
The upper middle class tried to imitate the aristocrats' musical and athletic pursuits. They also devoted their free time to scientific, political and literary discussions whilst sipping the exotic drinks from the New World such as coffee and Hot Chocolate in clubs and homes. Private libraries increased in number and it seemed that every educated woman was writing a novel - perhaps based on their experiences and those of their friends at the spas. Romance novels rapidly joined tobacco and hot chocolate as a gentleman's addictions. The average novel had 500 copies printed on the first run and earned its author 300 Livres. Bestsellers could earn between 1000 and 3000 Livres.
Newspapers sold too, started in London in 1622, major cities soon had their own broadsheets.
Most people, the farmers, craftsmen and labourers typically worked six days a week at an average of 16 or more hours a day. What leisure time available to them was to be found on Sundays and religious holidays. The Church did not have a monopoly however and competed with the theatre and the alehouse as a community social centre. Traditional bards were alive and well as were travelling musicians, storytellers and conjurers, frequenting taverns, inns and fairs. During the period when Cromwell ruled England these pleasures, simple and not so simple were severely restricted and strolling players and bards were often arrested. Staging plays and the public playing of intruments were banned - where possible. Parts of Wales, theoretically under control of Cromwell, were still only loosely Christian. The Lord Protector had better things to do than pursue witches into the shadowy mountains of Wales. He left that to determined hunters from within the ranks of the Puritans.
Spectator sports for those with a particularly savage taste included cock fighting, bear & bull baiting as well as the traditional bull fighting in the southern parts of Europe. Of course most of these pleasures were forbidden in Puritan England and Wales.
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The 17th century comes before the 18th.
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It is the 17th century. Looking at the number, 1600 years have gone, which is 16 centuries and it is 9 years into the next century, so it is the 17th century.
What century are you living in?
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