For most Elizabethans the day began just before dawn, at cockcrow--or,
strictly speaking, third cockcrow, since the cock would crow first at
midnight and again about halfway to dawn. Artificial light was expensive
and generally feeble, so it was vital to make the most of daylight. This
meant, of course, that the daily schedule varied from season to season,
dawn being at around 3:30 in the summer and 7 in the winter. According
to law, from mid-September to mid-March laborers were supposed to
begin work at dawn, and in other months at 5. Markets typically opened
at dawn, and businesses at 7.

Portable clocks and watches were available to the Elizabethans, but
they were expensive. Most people marked time by the hourly ringing of
church and civic bells; there were also public sundials and clock towers.
Time was invariably reckoned by the hour of the clock: normally only the
hour, half-hour, quarter-hour, and sometimes the eighth-hour were
counted, rather than the hour and minute--in fact, clocks and watches had
no minute hands. In the country, people were more likely to reckon time
by natural phenomena--dawn, sunrise, midday, sunset, dusk, midnight,
and the crowing of the cock.

Mornings were always cold. Fire was the only source of heat, and
household fires would have been banked from the previous night as a
precaution against burning down the house. If there were servants in the
house, they rose first and rekindled the fires before their employers left
the warmth of their beds; the servants might even warm their employers'

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