| Is commercialized leisure a mere by-product of industrialism? The existing English historiography, led by J. H. Plumb, tends to view leisure as an incontestable sign of the growth of industrialism in eighteenth-century Britain. The pursuit of recreational activities, however, is not the exclusive product of industrialism, but universal human behavior, as individuals have always carried out recreational activities in different social systems, simply implementing them in different forms. My study challenges eighteenth-century determinism in the history of commercialized leisure, examining the rise of English spas in the mid-sixteenth century and their subsequent commercial development throughout the latter sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The advent of the spa--a highly commercialized arena of leisure--was one of the most significant results of the secularization of society promulgated by the Reformation. By reinterpreting Max Weber's and R. H. Tawney's notions concerning the impact of the Reformation on English society, I examine the effects of the Reformation on leisure activity, which promoted the active commercialization of spas. When the Reformation prohibited pilgrimage, the major form of the disguised recreational journey during the Middle Ages, the English were forced to create new, legitimate excuses and destinations to fulfill their continuing desire for leisure activities. Under the light of Renaissance science, spas replaced the former pilgrimage centers with the new legitimate reasoning of hydrotherapy, thus attracting numerous secular pilgrims who sought both cure and entertainment.;After the Reformation, various physicians and spa localities quickly recognized mineral water as a valuable source of profit and vigorously developed their communities as leading and fashionable resorts. The spread of a market economy brought about distinct segregation and exclusion of undesirable and non-profitable elements--i.e., the poor--from the center of such commercialized resorts. Under the pretense of water-cure, visitors could purchase and indulge in various entertainment at these extremely hedonistic arenas of leisure. During the Tudor-Stuart period, spas were firmly established as the ultimate sphere for recreation in English society. My study will provide a broader understanding of the gradual emergence of leisure in human life and the intertwining role of leisure both in capitalism and in cultural traditions. |
