Summary:
This article explores the use of perfume in Elizabethan England.The prestige and respect afforded to different fragrances and flowers is considered in terms of romance,health,hygeine, heraldry and the history of the English throne.
Elizabethan tastes are contrasted with some of the big fragrance names of today.

Details or Sample:
Scent, Seduction and Sedition In Shakespeare’s Time

The Elizabethans in England may not have been perfume sophisticates by the modern standards of our fragrance industry today, but their lives were more intertwined with those of scented plants than many of ours will ever be. The scents and properties of herbs and flowers colored almost every living breathing moment, from dawn, through mealtimes to dusk, and beyond. From earliest times fragrance and perfume had been associated with the richness of a full love life, illustrated well in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

‘but earthlier happy is the rose distill’d,
than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives and dies, in single blessedness.”

For the Elizabethans, Romance was more Rosewater than Ralph Lauren. Although they had yet to discover the technical breakthrough of using alcohol in its pure form to manufacture perfume, herbal scents and essences were utilised by everyone, from palace to kitchen garden. They could be preserved either by placing in lard as ‘enfleurage’ or in wine as ‘maceration.’

Queens, earls and amorous courtiers of course, would have also had access to the new aromatic oils arriving in trade from the east through France and Italy, making good use of them in the courtly arts of flattery and flirtation. Long before Calvin Klein, some courtiers were even said to resort to perfumed gloves to aid their seductive efforts. In turn, Ladies-in-Waiting tried sewing rose petals into their skirts in an effort to impress. Nowadays it’s more likely to be Chanel and a little black Prada.

Elizabeth 1 herself, was said to have treasured the ultimate must-have haberdashery item. This was a pair of everlastingly perfumed gloves, of the softest kid leather, with a scented secret hidden within. Ingeniously crafted by the Moors in the East and in Spain, these delicate items were double-skinned and fashioned from the most expensive Spanish leather. Between the skins was secreted a sachet of an opulent perfume powder. The Queen’s gloves were decorated with little roses woven from silk. Like any girl ‘Worth’ her ‘Salt’, she showed them off at every opportunity, even having her portrait painted to highlight her hands. It is said that the Earl of Oxford, who brought them to her from Italy, was very highly favored for his unique and clever gift and Ladies-In-Waiting were said to ‘Covet’ them.

Impressed as she was by the perfumed delights of the Orient and the Mediterranean, Queen Elisabeth 11, like her countrymen, had a soft spot for the perfume bouquet of the flowers of the English Country Garden. Rose was always a favorite of royalty and ragged alike. The queen ordered a cannon of roses to be fired to mark the arrival of the Duke of Anjou and Edward V1 had his private chamber filled with red roses. Indeed, the distillation of scents such as Rose Water was not the sole preserve of the rich. Even the scantiest cabbage and herb patch contained flowers, as these were not thought of as a luxury but as a necessary medicinal and household ingredient.

The goodwives of the parish would pride themselves upon their ability to distil scents from the flowers to use not just for perfumes, but as medicines, infusions, ointments, air fresheners, moth balls, laundry fresheners, insect repellents and ingredients in meals and drinks. Wines and meads would be prepared, candied flowers fashioned and even a favourite paste made for the queen to use at table. Apparently she loved lavender relish and liked to have it available at meal times, to add savour and an appetising aroma to roast meats such as lamb. The merry wives would have had a still room in which to prepare these delights, as with no refrigeration, a cool atmosphere was required and the perfumes had to be made up fresh every morning. It was more Do It Yourself than Diorissimo.

Edward V1 and his penchant for red roses night and day must have raised another dilemma. One wonders how he coped without his measure of rose perfume in the winter. We of course, have warm homes and enchanting fragrances all year. The Elizabethans had to use their ingenuity. In an effort to overcome the unpleasant chilly climate challenges, they came up with a new expertise. They became masters at the art of bringing the perfume of summer into the house even in the depths of winter. Using pot pourri, scented apple log fires, pungent herbs and flowers on the hearth, and strewn meadow hay and garden herbs on their floors, they kept their winter homes sweetly scented with summer. Winter’s Twelfth Night was the highlight of this season.

Everlasting summer scenting was achieved by slowly drying flower petals to preserve their colour and scent. The aromatic result was called Pot Pourri. Chief among its uses, of course, was as an air freshener, as the noses of the Elizabethans were assailed on all quarters by malodorous breezes. The ‘summer flies in the shambles’ or meat markets must have been dreadful. Poor citizens! No sooner had they escaped winters grey grip and inescapable dank driving rain, then summer’s welcome golden warmth caused milk to sour, meat to rot, street latrines to smell and ladies and gentlemen to perspire! A cooling dab of Rose Toilet Water, or Lavender Cologne or even a rare but refreshing Lovage bath must have been a welcome relief!

Perhaps it is in Anthony and Cleopatra though, that we find one of Shakespeare’s most exotic and seductive references to perfume. He painted a glowing and colorful image of Queen Cleopatra clothed in gold on an opulent barge so intoxicatingly scented that even the very winds were said to be lovesick. Tantalising Mark Anthony, she managed to entrap his affections with the aphrodisiac properties and divine scent of fragrances like henna. Wafted from the centre of the barge as it slid majestically downriver, these perfumes were probably burnt like incense, then fanned out from beneath the sails, by cherubic young slaves.

The artful seductress probably had many other magical potions and unguents at her disposal in her armoury ‘d’amour’ including musk, civet, ambergris, orange oil and other perfumes with more spicy notes, such as cinnamon, clove oil, and sandalwood and essences from the Orient. These many layered delights were known to the Elizabethans too, but only available to the privileged few. How Shakespeare’s audience must have swooned at the scented Egyptian idyll he depicted, transporting them for a precious moment from their more mundane and noxious surroundings.

Unable to access these heady, exotic perfumes, the general populace would have had recourse only to more everyday air fresheners such as nosegays, or little posies of scented flowers to mask the odors of the garbage-filled streets.

Pomanders are strongly associated with the Elizabethans, yet the ones fashioned from oranges studded with cloves would have been out of the reach of the pockets of the poor. Arriving on trade ships, across dangerous seas, a cargo of oranges would have been a rare and highly priced commodity. A poor peasant child would probably never have seen a citrus fruit. Aristocratic and Merchant households however, would have enjoyed the benefits of the pungent dried oranges, permeated with rich perfumes and studded with cloves, which wafted warm spicy and citrus notes around their chambers or delicate noses.

If they happened to be unlucky enough to have to pick their way through the rotting litter in the streets, these ‘pommes d’ambers’ became items of personal luxury that could be tied around the wrist like a bracelet. Some were quite basic indeed made from spheres of wood imbued with fragrant oils that had been polished in. Others were more decorative; trinkets, fripperies, tussie-mussies, each with ribbons, bows or silver chains that would have had great appeal for the young ladies and girls of Shakespearean England, starved as they were of the delights of easy retail therapy!

One can imagine the excitement of the approach of the pedlar with his sack of goodies during these times. Youngsters that would be referred to as teens nowadays, had little access to make-up shops or stores of any description so the latest perfumes in the pedlar’s merchandise would have caused as much stir for the girls back then, as a new fragrance from Britney Spears does today.

Indeed in her absorbing book “The Artifice of Beauty” Sally Pointer tells of the young Eleanor Plantagenet, who at the tender age of ten, was reputed to have had, not one, but two orders of retail therapy delivered for her personal use. The perfume that was given such favour was Almond and Violet. The scent was released by arranging the violet petals into ground almonds. The fatty oil absorbed their scent, so that when expressed, it had also acquired the sweet fragrance of

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Written by: inspirangel
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Words: 1900