Blood Sport and Elizabethan Era

Times were very difficult during the Elizabethan era. Because of their hardships, their entertainment was very important to them. During the Elizabethan times they had a wide variety of things that entertained them. These forms of entertainment varied greatly. These forms of entertainment ranged from singing and dancing, to blood sport. Social classes also might have determined what type of sports or games you played. The poor lower class would play games, invent stories, dance, play music, watched performers, went to plays, celebrated rites of passage, and observed blood sports.
The Elizabethan era also consisted of many card, board, and dice games. Some of these games were Chess, One & Thirty (blackjack), and Hazard (Craps). Citizens would gamble on dice games regularly. Many experienced gamblers would trick new players out of their money. Some of the games they had, developed into games we played today. Most dice games were played by the lower class while some of the board games such as chess were played by the more intellectual higher class. One very popular card game was Maw. Maw was popular to the Elizabethans because it was one of the only card games for them to play, it was also easy for them to gamble on. MAny new players may not have known the rules and the experts would trick them into betting by saying they would not cheat (which they did anyways). This was a game played mainly by lower class citizens, Plays were one of the most favorable forms, of entertainment during this time period. Influential playwrights such as Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and John Fletcher were alive during the Elizabethan Era. People would watch plays regularly as a major form of entertainment. Playhouses were very popular during this time period. Elizabethan theatres often attracted crowds of up to 3000 people. One of the most important theatres during this era “The Globe” was where most of the top playwrights would conduct their plays. This theater was modeled