Scriveners drew up legal documents, arranged mortgages, handled
property transactions, and put borrowers in touch with lenders.
They and the goldsmiths and merchants developed promissory notes,
checks, and private paper money.
The influx of silver from the New World was a major factor in the
second great inflation in England and in the devaluation of money
to about one third of what it had been. Also contributing to the
inflation was an outracing of demand over supply, and a debasement
of the coinage. This inflation benefited tenants to the detriment
of their lords because their rents could not be adjusted upward.
There was an increase in bankruptcies.
The Elizabethan love of madrigal playing gradually gave way to a
taste for instrumental music, including organs and flutes. The
violin was introduced and popular with all classes. Ballads were
sung, such as "Barbary Allen", about a young man who died for love
of her, after which she died of sorrow. When they were buried next
to each other, a rose from his grave grew around a briar from her
grave. The ballad "Geordie" relates a story of a man hanged for
stealing and selling sixteen of the king's royal deer. The ballad
"Matty Groves" is about a great Lord's fair young bride seducing a
lad, who was then killed by the Lord. In the ballad "Henry
Martin", the youngest man of three brothers is chosen by lot to
turn pirate to support his brothers.
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