ABSTRACT
The reign of Elizabeth I was a pivotal period in England’s intellectual history.Reforms and innovations introduced during these years often proved the foundation of diverse kinds of modern intellectual culture. This was a time of obvious flowering in the fields of music and English literature, but the changes were broader than this: the Elizabethan years witnessed England’s rehabilitation as an intellectual player on the European stage, the rise of a national consciousness that had implications for the development of history and science into the disciplines we recognise today, and saw an educational reform movement that surpassed anything that followed until the twentieth century. This was, in fact, the true arrival and expression of the English Renaissance in its many forms, and it was simultaneously the culmination of centuries of Latinate culture: both an ending and a new beginning. The following pages explore the various shifts in learning and thinking as expressed in formal and informal education, Latin writing, printing and the new forms of science that were appearing in England.
