• Fools: Court jesters or fools were usually owned by English monarchs for entertainment.

• Masques: Amateur actors (men & women) performed in court masques. The costumes, script, music, etc. were left to the professionals.

• Minstrels: Town musicians (a.k.a "waits") played for the watch and also gave public concerts. Their main instruments were the shawm and sackbut. The lone waits played bagpipes.

• Mummings: Mummings were small plays, popular on Christmas and May Day.

• Mystery Plays: Mysteries were not the same in Elizabethan times as they are today. A mystery was a trade or a skill. Each "mystery" guild in a town was obligated to perform a story from the Bible on a pageant wagon.

• Plays: Actors were more commonly known as "players". Companies of players would set up a portable stage in guild halls or innyards and would perform. The first theater built specifically for plays was in Shoreditch in 1576. (Click here to see Shakespeare's Globe Theater.) Famous playwrights at this time (besides Shakespeare) were Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, and Elizabeth Tanfield.

• Puppet Shows: Puppet shows were also called "motions". Puppeteers were considered obscene and were sometimes paid not to perform.

• Wonders: Wonders were anything odd shown for money. They ranged from animals, to Siamese twins, to Native Americans.

• Archery: Done with either a longbow or a crossbow.

• Ballon (Wind Ball): A game similar to football; played with an inflated bladder.

• Bowling (Bowls): Played on village greens and private grounds.

• Card Games: Some of the popular card games of this time were triumph (a.k.a. whist), primero,noddy, gleek, and Pope July.

• Checkers: In England, checkers was called "draughts". The earl of Leicester had checkers made of crystal.

• Chess: Chess was not played for money. The earl of Leicester had an ebony chess board. The chess pieces were also made of crystal, like his checker pieces.

• Dancing: Some of the popular dances were the roundel, the trenchmore, and the dump. The pavene and the brawl were a couple of the court dances of the time.

• Dice: Backgammon, hazard, and "pass-dice" were popular. The dice was made out of either gold, silver, ivory, wood, or bone.

• Fencing and Dueling: In 1599, the most popular instructor in London was Rocco Bonetti. In 1613, a law was passed stating that it was murder to cause death during a duel.

• Football: Football went by several different names over the years: football, campball, "knappan", and bottle-kicking. It was played with a bladder in a leather casing. The game usually resulted in bloodshed and broken bones.

• Pall-Mall: This game was an early version of croquet. A boxwood ball would be hit through an iron ring. Both men and women played pall-mall.

• Swimming: During Queen Elizabeth's reign, courtiers wanted to hold a swimmming race from Westminster to London Bridge, but the Queen said it would be too dangerous. People who swam in the rivers probably used bladders as a flotation device.

• Tournaments: The Queen would watch tournaments from a window in her gallery. The public was admitted for twelvepence each to watch a tournament.

• Wrestling: Wrestling matches usually took place in cock-pits. Rules varied from county to county.

Source: The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Renaissance England. By: Kathy Lynn Emerson