The world of Elizabethan England was one of new ideas, change and excitement. Elizabeth I (1533-1603, queen from 1558) reigned at the height of the influence of the Renaissance. The Renaissance (1350-1600) was not merely an artistic movement on continental Europe: it had stimulated fascinating new ideas in science and magic too.

Times of Change

There were important social and religious changes around this time. The old feudal system was on the wane and a new system of capitalism was on its way in. Peasants, who tilled land belonging to the local lord, were slowly being replaced by a labour force that worked for city-based merchants and manufacturers.

The Roman Catholic Church had enjoyed a long period of dominance. People who had attempted reform, like Martin Luther (1483-1546), had broken away to form the new Protestant religion in the Reformation. There was considerable debate as to which was the true religion, especially in England where Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII (1491-1547), had broken with the Catholic church and allied England with the new Protestant religion.

Religion was enormously important in this period, and all other ideas, in science, art and magic had to fit with Christian ideas. God had made the world in the best possible way, and it was the task of science, and magic as well, to find out just how.

A Time of Discovery

New lands were discovered by explorers like Christopher Columbus, Vasco de Gama and from England Sir Francis Drake. A great deal of enthusiasm and optimism was generated by the fact that the world had quite literally become a much bigger place.

In science too there were new ideas and the first stirrings of the scientific revolution which came to full fruition in the 17th century. Nikolai Copernicus proposed that the earth was in motion and orbited the sun, opposing all previous thinking on the subject. Copernicus' views were later taken up and proved by Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler.

In anatomy, Andre Vesalius began a new investigation of the human body and found that the ancient texts were in many places wrong. His work later inspired William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood.

A Time of Creativity

Elizabethan England was a golden age for theatre. The great playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson were all writing at the same time. All of them reflect an Elizabethan pre-occupation with magic.

Ben Jonson's play The Alchemist reveals a distinct wariness toward men who dabbled in the occult arts. In Jonson's play a servant poses as a practising alchemist when his master leaves town. A farce ensues in which the servant is beset by clients whose needs are bizare - a cure for worms, a spirit guide for gambling, business advice, and the philosophers stone itself.

Alchemy was a complex of beliefs and ideas that involved chemistry, astrology and magic, with the scope to blend in ideas drawn from various religions. In Jonson's play it is this uncertainty about what alchemy actually is that gives a servant the opportunity to pose as an omnipotent magus who has the power to satisfy any request his clients throw at him.

That Shakespeare was fascinated by magic is evident from his plays The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet and Macbeth. The ghost of Hamlet's father, the witches in Macbeth and the fairies of Midsummer Night's Dream reflect different aspects of magic. But, far from the alchemical sham that Ben Jonson presents us with, Shakespeare represents a magical world full of potential and possibility. In The Tempest, Shakespeare clearly differentiates his hero and magus Prospero, from a half-respectable world of folk magic and from dubious dealings in necromancy. Prospero is a scholar magician, a wise and learned man with good intentions.

In his play Dr Faustus, Kit Marlowe warns us of the dark power inherent in magic. Faustus sells his sole to the devil in return for knowledge and worldly success but his dream is eventually shattered. For Marlowe magic is a downright dangerous practise.

A Time for Learning

In the world of art the Renaissance was a breath of fresh air. Artists such as Michaelangelo and Raphael at first tried to recreate what the ancients had done in art, and then tried to better the ancients. New theories of perspective and proportion gave their art realism and life.

Leonardo Da Vinci stood at the intersection of art and science. The Renaissance polymath (someone interested in all forms of learning) was important for the exchange of ideas between art and science. Leonardo's art incorporated the new geometrical and mathematical ideas, as did his inventions, and his work in science.

It seemed that mathematics, via the new theories of proportion and perspective, was vital for artists as they tried to depict the world. But maths hadn't been incorporated as a scientific language. Nowadays, we routinely express scientific laws using mathematics like E=mc². It wasn't used in this way until Galileo set the trend for a mathematical science, although maths had been important to magicians for some time.

A Magical Time

Magical thinkers tended to believe that everything was connected by unseen natural sympathies. Their thinking was not sharply distinguished from the science of the time. Scholars recognised the importance of mathematics, but were not quite sure how it should be utilised. Galileo's mathematical laws of nature were one possibility, while the more magical thinkers emphasised numerology and harmony. Even an important astronomer like Kepler believed that the relations between the orbits of the planets could be expressed as perfectly harmonious musical ratios.

In England, there were influential magical thinkers such as Robert Fludd and John Dee. One can see Fludd's idea of divine harmony in the proportions that God uses to create the world.

Fludds' ideas of harmony permeated his ideas on medicine too. He advocated that when someone was wounded, the weapon should be treated and not the man (because there was a sympathetic link between the weapon and the wound!).

A Time for Science

If there was a division between magic and science, it was that science dealt with what was evident to the senses, while magic dealt with what was hidden, or 'occult'. The great Elizabethan philosopher of science, Sir Francis Bacon, was in some ways critical of magic, but wished to reform it rather than simply replace it with science. He said that:

Sir Francis Bacon had a huge influence on how science was to be practised. Perhaps his most influential criticism of magic was the secrecy that surrounded it. Once scientific results were made public and scholars were able to learn about and discuss each others' work, the scientific revolution was on its way.

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