It could be said that ideals travel more quickly than material goods, but even so, the Renaissance cultural shift did not reach England until the late 15th century. The European Renaissance is commonly described as beginning in Italy in the 14th century, meaning it took a hundred years (or more) for these ideas of rebirth, scholarship, and the arts to travel from the Mediterranean to the British Isles.

The English Renaissance primarily differs from the continental cultural shifts in terms of the forms of art which really flourished. On the continent, visual arts such as painting and sculpture underwent a production boom, in addition to a number of advances in the sciences. In English, literature, music, and architecture were far more in style- or should I say changing style- in response to popular aesthetics.

Though today the effects of the Renaissance are readily visible in Italy and other continental European nations, the effects in England were later overshadowed by attitudes and work of the Tudor (for literature, music, performance) and Georgian (for architecture) periods.