“He who desires to study Shakespeare must […] be able to bind Elizabethan London to the Athens of Pericles, and to learn

Shakespeare’s true position in the history of European drama of the world”

Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist (1891)

“At age 436, His Future Is Unlimited”New York Times headline, 23 April 2000

…my gentle verse,Which eyes not yet created shall o’er-read,

And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,When all the breathers of this world are dead,You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)

Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.

(Sonnet 81)

Holy Trinity Church Register records Gulielmus filius Johannes Custom: 26 April 1564 as baptism / 23 April

as birthday “Three-day rule” in 18th century link to St.

George 1599 baptismal practices St. Mark’s Day: unlucky?

Two April 23rds Mid-sixteenth century Julian calendar 10

days behind solar year 1582, Pope Gregory XIII’s “name change” European change versus anti-papal English 1752—stability (2 Sept, 14 Sept) 1564, then: 23 April = 3 May

Age five Petty Abecedarius READ Grammar school after two years, ‘til the age

of 14 LONG DAYS and Sabbath observances

• King’s New School• University graduates• Scholarly acclaim • 1569 Walter Roche 1571 Simon Hunt

1575 Thomas Jenkins 1579 John Cottom• Only SEVEN, after all… (Roche out)• No Cottom• 1576, John’s financial straits, Hunt and

Jenkins

• WHIPPING• Buttocks have a purpose in language

learning?• Time-honored and entrenched practice• Final exam “fitness”• Learning Latin = male puberty rite• Terence, Plautus, language learning by

acting• Unknown if it happened in Stratford• But hard to dispute its influence…

Hornbooks (appears in to Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Two Noble Kinsmen)

The cross-row (appears in Richard III) ABC books (appears in King John)

• Rough estimates from 1600 place pop at no more than 2,500—probably less

• Growing from 1550 estimates (Countryside to town)

• Villages still present (market town, though, by 1600 conventions)

• 1200 grid pattern• Wood Street/Bridge Street axis• Filled in by Shakespeare’s time (row of bldgs up

Bridge Street) Shakespeare was writing in a new idea of “enterprise”

• Shops balanced with open areas/countryside• The parish church of Holy Trinity

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• Travel more than walking was possible in Shakespeare’s time

• Five mile radius dependence for farmers• Such need prompted fairs and weekly

markets in Stratford and other towns• Many merchants, many trades• Thursday market day• Market’s influence on town• Stratford conveniently located• Malting

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Charter of Incorporation (1553) Form of Town Council, High Baliff Properties formerly of the Guild of the Holy

Cross Constructed Shakespeare’s Stratford Nominated, not elected John Shakespeare’s presence there

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• Entirely separate church court from the Corporation (Town Government—a psuedo-American church/state division)

• Surprisingly, Bishop oversaw adherence to many matters

• Exception in Stratford—Vicar• Religious upheaval—the English Reformation and its

consequences • Stratford’s quarrel with religion by the end of the

16th century• Catholics against Puritan reformers—NO BISHOPS!• Corporation slow to respond to Protestant energy,

though they came to a head with the Vicar in the 1620s and 30s

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• Tainted water and hygiene concerns• No formal sanitation (livestock)• The Corporation’s response? Muckheaps• Policies against littering from local

merchants• Staggering survival rates as Will’s born• BUBONIC PLAGUE• FAMINE (1590s) resultant riots/protests• Malsters’ grain use restricted• ‘Noate of corn and malt’ of 1597, Will and

New Place

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• Exacerbated famine and sanitation issues in 1594 and 1595

• No equipment to combat such a force (a constant hazard)

• Buildings of timbre and thatch• At least 120 houses destroyed in these two years

(perhaps a quarter of the housing stock)• The blamed cause: Shoddy backland developments to

protect poor migrant drifters• 700 paupers—1/3 of the population!• Caused increased enforcement against vagrants• Regulations against abettors• Never really improved during Shakespeare’s lifetime– 1608 smallpox, 1614 fire, 1616 disease breakout (probably

typhus)

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NO MERRY AGE OF ENGLAND IN WHICH OUR WILL FOUND HIMSELF

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