As Elizabeth's golden age fades, a new century rises in silk and uncertainty. This episode traces the transformation of England from the rigid brilliance of the Elizabethan court to the reflective opulence of hte Jacobean world. Explore how power, faith, and fashion softened under King James I, as the farthingale gave way to flowing lace, adn performance became politics. From court masques to shifting gender expectations, we follow the threads that weave a kingdom's identity and glimpse the first shimmer of the Cavalier's poised rebellion on the horizon.

Trade, faith, and fear wove the fabric of the sixteenth century. In this episode of Threads Through Time, George Curry traces how the Mid-Renaissance transformed humanism in hierachy, how velvet and black dye became instruments of faith, and how power found expression through symetry and spectacle. From Luther's hammer at Wittenberg to the ruffs of Spance and Frnace, beauty became regulation, and the body, architecture.

This is the age of splendor, when appearance became authority and discipline defined beauty.

When the Gothic world finally exhaled, it did so in sunlight. The Early Renaissance learned to measure the world in the splendor of light. In newfound cities, artisans turned their gaze not away from heaven, but toward the divinity within the human form. This was a rebirth not only of art and learning, but of self-expression. Merchants, tailors, and artists all sought harmony between flesh and form, between soul and surface. In this episode of Threads Through Time, George Curry explores how light, line, and fabric shaped the first modern vision of beauty and the return to the human experience.