You Need to Read This: How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England, by Ruth Goodman

A book review cross-posted with my Goodreads page

How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England: A Guide for Knaves, Fools, Harlots, Cuckolds, Drunkards, Liars, Thieves, and Braggarts

(U.K. edition titled How to Behave Badly in Renaissance Britain)

By Ruth Goodman (a.k.a. the best historian possibly ever).

You might know Ruth Goodman from her BBC living history specials. If you do, you know that beneath her unassuming, rather grim-looking TV persona is a wickedly frank, funny, and tough field historian. When she writes about a period, she's lived it. So she can give you all the dirt on the behind-the-scenes of Elizabethan life. How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England is one of a series of books that dig into the gritty, sweaty, and surprisingly common-sensical daily habits of historical Britons.

How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England: A Guide for Knaves, Fools, Harlots, Cuckolds, Drunkards, Liars, Thieves, and Braggarts. Ruth Goodman. New York: Liveright, 2018.

In this book, you'll learn how to disgust and alienate people like a veteran time traveller. Through the lens of bad behavior, we get to see the human side of the Elizabethans. And Goodman is out to debunk a couple of myths along the way. No, people in the 16th and 17th centuries weren't all courtly love poems and elegant tournaments. (Did you know jousting was basically already historical reenactment when Henry VIII did it? Pfft, what a nerd.) But the Elizabethans also weren't the bloodthirsty, bath-fearing rubes we see in more "realistic" fiction.


The reality was that it took all sorts to make up the teeming, gossiping masses of England. And just like our society now, one day you might be judging your neighbor's gross spitting habit, while the next day YOU feel like the idiot because you went in for a hug when your brother-in-law was going for a cool-guy handshake. Goodman's guide to rudeness and awkward behavior highlights the fun weirdness of another culture, but also reminds us that we're not so different from people in the time of Shakespeare and Oliver Cromwell.


As always, Goodman's juicy material is well-researched. She's careful to note when she's speculating and when her stories are straight from the unbelievable primary sources. And as an insightful scholar, she offers persuasive theories that help explain why seemingly bizarre behavior might have seemed like a good idea at the time--and sometimes was. So while you're enjoying this quick-and-dirty history, you'll find yourself learning and thinking about a cultural time and place both foreign and familiar to our own.

Seemed like a good idea at the time

Sex, violence, teenage edge-lords, cross-dressing, and women who could out-diss a 90's rapper. Throw in some satisfyingly scathing insults, and street brawls to rival an exciting news day in Florida, and Goodman's book feels like a garbagey read--in all the best ways. 

Probably also seemed like a good idea at the time.

I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars for lewdness, hilarity, and an uncommon degree of empathy for the worst habits that make us human. You need to read this.

Find How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England on Amazon or demand it from your local library.

Other great books by Ruth Goodman, available for Kindle or through Amazon: 

• Take another dip into the real lives of historical Britons in How to Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life.
• And listen to Goodman get real about periods and split-crotch underpants in How to be a Victorian: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life.