That Shakespeare Life

After the image of William Shakespeare himself, perhaps the most famous objects associated with William Shakespeare has to be the quill pen, but was this pen actually made of goose feathers, and if so, how was it made? Of course the quill pen is far from the only use for geese in the 16-17th century, as reflected in Shakespeare’s plays where the bard mentions geese well over a dozen times, talking about them being taken to market, people getting in trouble for stealing them, and as you might expect, there’s even references to plucking feathers. We have seen portraits of 16th century geese being used for elaborate meals, but you may not be as familiar with the process of getting from goose to table, or what kinds of products were made in the 16-17th century from geese, and what kind of people were in charge of overseeing this creation. Our guest this week is an expert in the history of early modern geese, having performed archaeological research that investigates how geese were kept, what they ate, and their uses in society for Shakespeare’s lifetime. We are delighted this week to welcome Dale Serjeanston to the show to share with us the history of the goose for Shakespeare’s England.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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The Clown in Alls Well That Ends Well talks about picking his teeth, and Coriolanus gives an admonishment about hygiene when he says “Bid them wash their faces And keep their teeth clean.” John Holland in Henry VI Part 2 talks about having teeth pulled, and in the Winter’s Tale the clown talks about being able to identify a nobleman by how he picks his teeth. Of the more than 50 references to teeth in Shakespeare’s plays, most of them are using idiomatic expressions for strength or determination, like to set your teeth against a problem, for example, but a few of the toothy references we can find from the bard demonstrate that when it comes to oral hygiene, Renaissance society had established methods for cleaning your teeth, and even for prescribing oral surgery. Here today to talk to us about 16th century toothbrushes, mouthwash, oral surgery, and exactly why it was considered noble to pick food out of your teeth is our guest and author of “‘Carry Not a Picke-Tooth In Your Mouth’: An Exploration of Oral Health in Early-Modern Writings” Dr. Laura Kennedy.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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You may be surprised to learn that marriage in the 16th century was not required, nor a foregone conclusion, for all women of this time period. In addition to spinsters, who were older women that had never been married, there were widows that lost their husband, women who were divorced or separated from their husbands, and still some women who our guest this week calls “never married” women. A “never-married” woman chose never to get married at all, and provided for themselves financially. While Shakespeare doesn’t use the phrase “never married” he does talk about spinsters, widows, prostitutes, and even divorce, reflecting the society of his time period. While all versions of single women in Shakespeare’s lifetime operated outside of what we generally expect for the 16th century, the reality is that being single, and even women who were independently made, occupied a much larger section of society than you may have assumed. Here today to tell us about all the single ladies of the 16th century, and what life was like for a women who never married, is our guest, Amy Froide.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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To live in England during Shakespeare’s lifetime was to be Protestant, or at least as far as the Queen was concerned. The lack of religious freedom in early modern England doesn’t mean alternate belief systems did not exist, only that they were hidden. One powerful belief system that riled up conservative members of society and incited objection pamphlets to be written is atheism. Here today to discuss the real people from Shakespeare’s lifetime who were atheists, the punishment if your belief system were found out, and the role of playing companies in spreading atheism is our guest, Peter Herman.  

 

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Deaths were a common occurrence on stage for Shakespeare’s characters, but the wild and often macabre deaths we see in his plays were not actually far off from the deaths that occurred in real life for the 16-17th century. From poisonings to beheadings, one person who knew a lot about how people died in Shakespeare’s lifetime was the coroner who job it was to catalog deaths and keep track of any that seemed suspicious. Our guest this week has done a great deal of research into accidental deaths for Shakespeare’s lifetime and joins us today to introduce us to the job of 16th century coroner in Shakesepare’s England, tell us about some of the more bizarre ways people died, and how all of these incidents connect to William Shakespeare. To learn all these things, and more this week, we are delighted to welcome Steven Gunn to the show today.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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It is a frequent misconception that people from Shakespeare's lifetime believed the world was flat. In fact, the publication of the world on a spherical globe was not only well established across Europe by Shakespeare’s lifetime, but there are numerous portraits from the 16-17th century showing individuals owning and displaying spherical globes. The first English person to create a spherical globe published it in 1592, just 7 years before William Shakespeare chose “The Globe” as the name for his newly relocated circular theater in Southwark. Here today to walk us through the history of displaying the Earth as a globe, the artisans who undertook this task, the materials they used, and where they got their data to map out the world on a giant physical ball, is our guest, Sylvia Sumira.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Even William Shakespeare had to take out the garbage. In his hometown of Stratford Upon Avon, public waste was managed through a system of piles known as muck hills. In 1552, William Shakespeare’s father, John Shakespeare, was charged a fine for one of these muck hills that was kept across the street from his home on Henley Street. For a long time, scholars have thought this fine meant that John Shakespeare was keeping the dung heap illegally, or perhaps using it inappropriately, but recent research into how muck hills operate and the history of public sanitation in Stratford Upon Avon have caused us to see this record of John Shakespeare in a new light. Here today to share with us how taking out the garbage worked for Shakespeare’s lifetime is our guest, Elizabethan Tavares.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In the late 16th to early 17th century, a medical movement saw a meteoric rise in popularity known as Paracelsianism. Based on the writings of a physician who had died in 1541, the movement developed quite a cult following, with many claiming Paracelsus was able to work miracles of healing. Debate over the legitimacy of Paracelsus’ work became so heated that some Europeans were executed just for owning on of his books. Shakespeare takes aim at this cultural divide in his play, Alls Well That Ends Well, when in Act II Scene 3, Lafeu and Parolles have a conversation about miracles, and arguments, with Lafeu saying “They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless.” Parolles calls this perspective the “the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times.” with Lafeu responding it is of “Both Galen and Paracelsus.” This scene is Shakespeare’s only use of the word Paracelsus, while Galen gets used elsewhere repeatedly, even alongside Hippocrates in Merry Wives of Windsor. As a reflection of the culture of his day, Shakespeare’s plays suggest that while Galen was the established foundation of medicine for this period, Paracelsus made a significant mark on the medical landscape. Here today to introduce us to Paracelsus, the medical movement launched by his followers, and what we should know about why Parolles would call this “The rarest argument of wonder” is our guest and author of “Renaissance Medicine“, Vivian Nutton.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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William Shakespeare’s mother, Mary, was Mary Arden before she married her husband, John Shakespeare. Mary’s possible connection to the gentry Arden family has fascinated scholars and Shakespeare fans for many years. The Arden family was an established English gentry family in Warwickshire, and 1 of a handful of Tudor families in England who could trace their lineage back to the Anglo-Saxons. The family took their name from the Forest of Arden, used as a setting in Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It. In 1583, when William Shakespeare was 19, the head of the family, Edward Arden was executed, having been convicted of treason. Here today to share with us more history about the Arden family and Edward in particular is our guest, Cathryn Enis.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In 1616, the year that William Shakespeare died, anatomist Helikiah Crooke published a book of medical diagrams that included a surprisingly high level of detail about human anatomy for a society that didn’t yet have powerful instruments like a microscope. However, noticeably absent from his medical drawings are any anatomically correct terms for the female body. For example, Crooke’s drawings correctly name many parts of the male anatomy, like the epididymis, peritoneum, penis, and the testicles, but when it comes to the female anatomy diagram, even though he has the fallopian tubes correctly drawn in the picture, he labels them as “Spermatical veins.” In another diagram, the uterus is definitely drawn in the shape of a man’s primary sexual organ, only it is labeled as a “womb,” with no mention of the cervix or the vagina. Shakespeare’s plays give us some examples of how this level of medical knowledge was known by general society because in his works Shakespeare uses anatomical terms like ‘urine” as well as “sperm” and even “Nerves and veins”, so we can see that some knowledge of human anatomy was broadly available in Shakespeare’s lifetime, but Helikiah Crooke’s diagrams raises some major questions about not only the medical understanding of women’s bodies, but exactly what kind of medical care was available for women in Shakespeare’s lifetime. In order to explore the 16-17th century understanding of human reproduction, and what the hyper-masculinization of women’s bodies meant for women’s medicine and gynecological care in Shakespeare’s lifetime, we are talking today with Roz Sklar.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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It wasn’t only people who served as performers in Shakespeare’s lifetime, animals, too were often trained to perform in street demonstrations, and one very unique animal captured the hearts of the popular entertainment word as a famous dancing horse named Morocco. Morocco was famous during Shakespeare’s lifetime, with over 70 woodcuts published showcasing his talents at entertaining crowds of all sizes. He and his owner traveled across England and even internationally displaying circus feats, tricks, and even magic. Here today to share with us the history of Morocco the horse, including where his story overlaps with that of William Shakespeare, is our guest, Natalia Pikli. 

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When Shakespeare mentions ballads in his plays, he uses adjectives like odious and woeful, mentioning both the ballad makers in Coriolanus, and the people who sell them, known as the ballad mongers, in Henry IV Part 1. Shakespeare’s has over 20 references to ballads throughout his works, all of which tell us that these songs were written in ink, published by printers, and performed in songs that not only rhymed, but that could be just as merry as it was painful, particularly if the ballad was sung out of tune, as Cleopatra complains in Antony and Cleopatra. Here today to share with us some of the exact ballads that were popular for Shakespeare’s lifetime, as well as the history of how they were created, and performed, is our guests, and masterminds behind the 100 Ballads Project that seeks to recreate and preserve ballads from the 17th century, Angela McShane, Chris Marsh, and Andy Watts.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Throughout his works, Shakespeare references math terminology that goes well beyond the artithmetic education we expect him to have received at grammar school. There’s history behind the references that shares not only where Shakespeare would have learned about higher mathematics, but Shakespeare’s choices for specific math terms reflect major changes in England for the numerals that were being used to record data, as well as official acts of parliament that were being passed to define and standardize lengths and measures for the very first time. Here today to share with us some of the history behind a few of Shakespeare’s mathematical terms is our guest and author of the book Much ADo ABout Numbers, Rob Eastaway.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Shakespeare talks about unbuttoning your sleeve in As You Like It, King Lear undoes a button in Act V of that play, and Moth talks about making a buttonhole lower in Love’s Labour’s Lost. We’ve talked about clothes here on the show previously, but what about the buttons that hold things like sleeves together, and various buttonholes. What were buttons like for Shakespeare’s lifetime, who was making them, and what material was used? How are 16th century buttons different from the ones we have today, and would we find buttons in the expected places, or were there unusual ways to use buttons in Shakespeare’s lifetime? To find out the answers to these questions, we are talking with the Renaissance Tailor, who specializes in recreating 16-17th century clothing, Tammie Dupuis.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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From Hamlet’s father being murdered by poison, to Romeo killing himself when he drinks poison, and several instances of hemlock, dragon’s scales, hebenon and others in between, Shakespeare utilizes poison as a dramatic device in several of his works. The use of poison was not just an easy tool for a plot twist, however, since poison was both a pervasive fear at all levels of society as well as a convenient and readily available method to dispatch someone, given that poison was incredibly hard to trace back to the criminal that administered it. The fear of poison was exacerbated by a broad ignorance of chemistry, resulting in many of the accepted treatments for illness being, in themselves, poison (Syphilis was routinely treated with mercury, for example, which is toxic.) Doctors, as well as monarchs, developed elaborate and unusual tactics for prevention and cure for poison, while those seeking to overthrow a monarch, or take out their enemy, used poison to come up with some sophisticated and complex designs for murder. Here today to share with us the history of real poisons from Shakespeare's lifetime used for medical and criminal application, as well as some ordinary items no one knew was trying to kill them, is our guest and author of The Royal Art of Poison: Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul. We’re delighted to welcome Eleanor Herman to the show today.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Ep 320 | Phil Withington Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Shakespeare’s plays, he uses the word “glass” over 80 times, including to talk about specific kinds of glass like a pilot’s glass in Alls Well That Ends Well, and “the glasses of my sight” in Coriolanus. We can see from the surviving building of Shakespeare’s Birthplace in Stratford Upon Avon, that window glass existed, and there was even an old glass house in the Blackfriars where the Blackfriars theater was located, but how was all this glass made? What materials were used? What other products might have been made from glass, and what colors of glass were available or even most popular? To find out the answers to these questions and explore the history of glass for Shakespeare’s lifetime, we are delighted to welcome Allen Loomis to the show today.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Throughout Shakespeare’s plays, he references the mind over 400 times including talking about having a quick mind, an unclean mind, and even being out of your mind. Understanding how your brain worked, and what you as an individual could do to control it, and respond to it, was a hot topic for Shakespeare’s lifetime. The rise in books meant that works by authors exploring this topic of the mind, melancholy, and reason were widely available, even directly influencing the works of playwrights like William Shakespeare. Here today to help us understand what the 16th century minds understood about neurology, dreams, and the imagnation is our guest, and author of the book, The Elizabethan Mind, Helen Hackett.

 

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British sign language has existed in some form among deaf communities at least since the 15th century, when some of the earliest records of sign language reveal descriptions of specific signs, many of which are still in use today. However, for Shakespeare’s lifetime, sign language was far from formalized among the Deaf, and certainly not widely accepted by the hearing community. Similarly, education of the deaf, in terms of schools established to educate the Deaf, Mute, or otherwise alternatively abled, would not take root in England until after Shakespeare’s lifetime, and that wasn’t until well into the 18th century. To help us understand what life was like for a deaf person in Shakespeare’s lifetime, as well as what signs existed, and what records we have from the late 16th and early 17th century for deaf people, sign language, and the deaf community for Shakespeare’s lifetime is our guest, Mary Lutze.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Before William Shakespeare was the great playwright of the age, he was “just Will” fromStratford Upon Avon. The one person in the world who not only loved him before he wasfamous, but walkedbeside him for the entire journey from young man with nothing but relentlessoptimism to successful playwright patronized by the monarchy of England, was his wife, AnneHathaway. Anne married William in 1582, and by the time Shakespeare was skyrocketing tofame in the 1590s with plays like his Henry VI series, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Romeoand Juliet, the couple were parents to three children, including one set of twins. In honor of theperson who quite literally kept the home fires burning so that theman who conquered the worldwith his work would have somewhere, and someone, to come home to, our guests this weekhave compiled a poetic tribute to Anne Hathaway called the Anne-thology. The collectionfeatures poetry and sonnets by modern scholars of Anne Hathaway as well as a few written byAnne’s children. In our first ever group interview here on That Shakespeare Life, we are pleasedto welcome our friends Chris Laoutaris, Katherine Scheil, Aaron Kent, and Paul Edmondson tothe show to tell us more about Anne Hathaway and the making of this memorial poetrycollection Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Close to 300 years before Shakespeare’s birth, in the year 1290, King Edward I expelled anyone of Jewish descent from England all together. It would not be until 40 years after Shakespeare’s death that Jews would be allowed to return to England. This law makes it somewhat confusing to find over 100 references to Jews and “Jewry” in Shakespeare’s plays. How did he know about Jewish people if there weren’t any in England? Additional history further muddies the waters with the story of Roderigo Lopez, a Spanish Christian of Jewish ancestry that worked as a private physician to Elizabeth I. Ultimately, Lopez was executed, his sentence being influenced heavily by rampant antisemitism in England at the time. Lopez was not the only Jew in England for Shakespeare’s lifetime, but his story shines a light on the plight of racial Jews as well as anyone seeking to practice the Jewish religion, who lived during the life of William Shakespeare. Here with us to tell us more about Lopez’s life, Jews in early modern England, and the references to Jews found in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice are our guests, Rhona Silverbush and Sami Plotkin.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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There is something uniquely fascinating about the place where someone famous was born and grew up. As many of us travel long distances just for the chance to visit the birthplace of one of our heroes, we seem to recognize the importance of home as the foundation for future greatness. William Shakespeare’s home is no exception. WilliamShakespeare’s life journey began at his birthplace, making it an essential part of his history and the foundation of what he would go on to become. Here today to share with us the history of Shakespeare’s birthplace, how it was built, and what we know about how the property was used before, and after, Shakespeare’s residence there, is our guest, and author of the first book in the world specifically examining the history ofShakespeare’s Birthplace, Richard Shook Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In October of 2023, the Norfolk Guildhall at King’s Lynn, London was undergoing a bigrefurbishment when 600 year old oak floorboards were discovered beneath the floor. A religioushouse in the 15thcentury, the site became a performance venue by 1593, hosting, amongothers, Shakespeare’s acting company according to company accounts. That discovery meansthat these newly discovered floorboards could have held the footsteps of William Shakespearehimself. Here today to tell us about the floorboards, the history, and what’s going on with thefind today, is our guest, and create director at the guildhall, Tim Fitzhingham Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Shakespeare’s lifetime, sound was often relied upon by playwrights to let an audience know a battle was taking place, an army was taking action, or a particular military event was about to occur. Some of these military sound cues are found in the stage directions of Shakespeare's plays when we see him indicate musicians should sound specific pieces. For example, the musicians are directed to “sound a parley” in Coriolanus Act I, and to play an “Alarum to battle” in Henry IV Part I. Here today to share with us the 16th century military history behind these sounds, is our guest Christian Dahl.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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All total, Shakespeare includes 21 Clowns and Fools in his works, that frequency wasn’tjust personal preference. It was, as you may have guessed, a reflection of actualhistory. The Fool dates all the way back to the Romansas an appointed member ofsociety whose job it was to entertain with honesty, mockery, and behavior that wouldhave been foolish for anyone else. Since it is April Fool’s Day today, that makes it theperfect time to explore the history of fools, which iswhy today, we’re meeting with TimFitzhigham, who is currently completing his PhD on Robert Armin, the man who is mostfamous for playing some of those Clowns and Fools you see in Shakespeare’s plays.Tim joins us today to help us unpack the history behindthe Fools of Shakespeare, thereal people who served as fools in the royal court for Shakespeare’s lifetime, the role ofRobert Armin had in developing the role of Shakespeare’s fools, and to share with uswhat we should know about the 16-17thcentury history of clowns, jesters, and foolswhen we see them in Shakespeare’s plays. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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One the of the most significant influences on Shakespeare’s works is the Holy Bible. There are references to biblical characters and even specific Bible verses found throughout Shakespeare’s works. Of course the original Bible was not written in English, but famous translators of the Bible including John Wycliffe who created the first modern English translation of the Bible produced from the original Biblical languages. During Shakespeare’s lifetime, the Protestant Reformation fueled more Bible translations to be created, including Erasmus’s version, who wrote a New Testament in 1519, which was the source book for Protestant reformist Martin Luther when he translated the text into German in the mid-16th century. Subsequent editions of Erasmus’ text also provided source material for William Tyndale whose English translation of the Bible has been called the most influential single translation of the Bible ever made into English, an opinion backed up by the fact that King James’ version of the Bible, published in 1611, is over 90% copied straight from the Tyndale Bible. All together, there were at least 9 English Bible Translations completed in the early modern period, and of those, three were published during Shakespeare’s lifetime. Here today to take us back to the 16th century and explore the history of the Bibles being translated, and their significance, are experts in the history of Bible translations, Jacobus and Cynthia Naudé. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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For centuries, the construction method of wattle and daub has been used to contruct buildings.For Shakespeare’s lifetime, the Tudor style of house became famous for this form of construction because Tudor homes featured exposed beams held together in the wattle anddaub style. For the uninitiated, however,you may not know what constitutes a wattle or a daub, or how this method of construction was accomplished. Here today to answer these questionsand share with us not only how the process was completed for Shakespeare’s lifetime, but what methods modern preservationist use when recreating this method on conservation projects thattry to save old buildings from ruin is our guest, and expert in wattle and daub, DrTony Graham Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Shakespeare uses the word “spectacles” 8 times across his works, and talks about glass eyes in King Lear. In A Winter’s Tale Leontes is talking with Camillo when he indicates Camillo should have seen something clearly because of the thickness of his eye glass. It makes sense to think that people in the 16-17th century would have suffered from near sighted ness or farsighted ness and other opthamlogic disorders, but what does the historical record show about how these sight related issues were dealt with in Shakespeare’s lifetime? Were there glasses that people wore on their face, and if so, who was making them, and out of what? To help us explore the history of eye glasses, spectacles, and the science of improving your vision forShakespeare’s lifetime, we are talking today with Dr. Neil Handley who is not only a historian of eye ware specifically, but serves as Curator of the British Optical Association Museum at theCollege of Optometrists in London.

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In 1571, William Shakespeare was only 7 years old, but the naval battle that occurred that year was pivotal forEngland, and indeed the Christian world, that continued to be celebrated and written about for centuries afterShakespeare. The Battle of Lepanto is the last naval battle fought exclusively with rowing vessels, known as galley warfare, and overall was a surprising naval victory for Catholics. Even James VI wrote poetry titledLepanto, that was in high demand as printed literature in England well into the start of the 17th century. Here today to discuss with us the geopolitics of the day and the Ottoman Empire that Shakespeare refers to as “the general enemy Ottoman” in 1603, is our guest and author of the book titled Battle of Lepanto, 1571, Nic Fields Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Explore the real life of Henry VIII against some of the stories inside Shakespeare's play, All is True, with our guest, Kat Marchant. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Did you know there were romantic fiction publications in Shakespeare's lifetime? Of course they weren't romance novels, because the novel as a format was not invented, but the romance genre was a live and well. You may recognize chivalric romances, which include knights in shining armor, fighting dragons, overcoming giants, and other quest-worthy elements. In Shakespeare's lifetime, there were romantic tales as well, but as you might expect from the Renaissance era, 16-17th century romance stories had their own unique spin on things. Surprisingly, Shakespeare never uses the word itself, "romance," in his plays despite featuring a myriad of love stories. To help us sort out what "romance" meant for the 16th century, and exactly what we should know about the romance genre when it comes to prose fiction in Shakespeare's lifetime, is our guest, and expert in 16-17th century literature, Helen Hackett.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In the play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, as well as Hamlet and Richard III, the phrase “declension of pronouns” that comes up as a description of language. That’s not a phrase that I remember being taught in English class, and instead relates to Latin, the language of education for Shakespeare’s lifetime, and indeed across Europe. Here today to explain for us exactly what a “declension” might be, how to use them, and what it helps to understand about things like nouns, pronouns, and spelling for 16th century English when you explore Shakespeare’s plays, is our friend, and returning guest here to That Shakespeare Life, Professor David Crystal Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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One of the most famous criminals of Shakespeare’s lifetime was Mary Frith, known as MollCutpurse. Her character is featured in several plays contemporary to Shakespeare, and itseems her real life persona was even more flamboyant than those represented onstage. MollCutpurse was a notorious pickpocket who made a name for herself in early modern England asa thief and an entertainer, who stood out from the crowd because she liked to dress, and act,like a man. Challenging cultural norms was Moll’s bread and butter. She wore men’s clothing,smoked a pipe, and operated as both a thief and a pimp, being hired to find lovers for men andwomen among London’s middle class. Here today to share with us the colorful real life history ofa woman whose shock value continues to impress those that learn about her, is historian andauthor ofMary Frith, Moll Cutpurse and the Development of an Early Modern Criminal CelebrityFor the Journal of Early Modern Studies, Lauren Liebe. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Plague is the horrible sickness that reoccurs throughout the life of William Shakespeare, and many listeners will know that plague is to blame for several closings of playhouses around London throughout the 16-17th century. However, what does that word mean, precisely? What symptoms did people have when afflicted with plague, and how was it transmitted from person to person? The play Romeo and Juliet offers some evidence of plague responses when we see the messenger detained by confinement in a plague house, but our guest this week shares that there were some much more surprising—and dangerous--- remedies utilized in cities like London, including canon fire, to try and prevent spread of plague. To better understand what plague is, how it was treated in the 16-17th century, what the medical community understood (and didn’t) about microorganisms, and why in the world shooting off canons in the city was considered an essential part of plague prevention, we have invited our guest, and author of “Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe” for Cambridge University Press, Dr. Mary Lindemann to the show today, to answer these questions.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Mary Queen of Scots and her son, James VI of Scotland, brought an urgency to England for sharing news about what was happening in Scotland. From 1580 onwards, the same years Shakespeare was writing about Scotland in plays like Henry VI Part 1 and later Macbeth, which features Scotland prominently, the rate of news about events in Scotland being published in England skyrocketed. This increase can be attributed to an expansion in news publications over a broader landscape, but events involving Mary Queen of Scots and her son future James VI, including rumors that Elizabeth I of England wanted to kidnap the baby James and England sending an army to Scotland, all added fuel to the fire of political relationships between the two countries that was written about furiously in this period. Shakespeare’s works reflect this cultural moment when we see Lepidus in Antony and Cleopatra is saying, “Here’s more news” from Act I Scene 4, in the early 1600s, along with over 300 additional references to “new” in Shakespeare’s plays. Here with us today to share with us what news stories were the biggest headlines for this period, as well as what the surviving printed works of news tell us about the relationship between Scotland and England for the late 16th and early 17th century is our guest and author of “Newes from Scotland” in England, 1559–1602 for the Huntington Library Quarterly, Amy Blakeway.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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“Pregnant” is a word Shakespeare uses in his plays, but it always appears in connection with ideas, grief, or even trauma, but never as a word to describe a woman that is carrying an unborn baby. Instead, whenever a woman is carrying a child in her uterus in Shakespeare’s works, the phrase used is “with child.” This divergence between Shakespeare’s language and how we are accustomed to using the word “pregnant” today is just one way Shakespeare’s plays help shed light on the surprising world of pregnancy and childbirth for Shakespeare’s lifetime. During the 16-17th century, there were many unusual beliefs about how a woman could become pregnant, the right way to prepare for giving birth, and details on the process of labor. Here today to help us explore the history of pregnancy, childbirth, and midwives from Shakespeare’s lifetime are our guests, Michelle Ephraim and Caroline Bicks.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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William Shakespeare was just two years old when Mary Queen of Scots was removed from power in 1567. The Queen was put under confinement in Lochleven Castle and forced to abdicate the throne in favor of her young son, James VI, the future James I of England. Mary and her supporters, however, did not go quietly. Mary would escape from prison one year later and incite her followers to confront their enemies in a vicious civil war known as the Marian Civil War. Mary herself left Scotland after the Battle of Langside in 1568, seeking refuge from her cousin, Elizabeth I. Mary would be placed under confinement in England for 19 years, until she was finally executed in 1587, when William Shakespeare was 23 years old, and just starting to make a name for himself in London. Mary was a powerful figure, and her story from Queen to executed criminal played a prominent role in the cultural backdrop of William Shakespeare’s formative years, making it an important event to understand when you’re trying to get to know what life was like for William Shakespeare. Our guest this week is the author of an article on the Marian Civil War history for the Centre for Scottish Culture at the University of Dundee, Dr. Allan Kennedy. 

 

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For Shakespeare’s lifetime, the concept of welcoming hospitality was considered a uniquely English virtue. We see this opinion reflected in the play, As You Like It, when Shakespeare’s character Corin suggests that doing deeds of hospitality was one way to get to heaven. Nowhere was hospitality reflected more clearly, or extended more often, than at the country house estate. Now before you think of a small cottage in the countryside, when I say it was a Country House Estate, an example of a famous one is Kenilworth Castle where Queen Elizabeth was welcomed and entertained by Robert Dudley in 1575. In homes like this one, nobility were expected to keep the grounds and the interior rooms in prime condition with supplies on hand to provide accommodation, meals, and entertainment for both travelers as well as visiting dignitaries who visited as a part of official negotiations for both local and national politics. Here today to help us understand the world of Country House Estates and the sorts of entertainments that were offered there by the hosts, is our guest and author of the award-winning book, The Elizabethan Country House Entertainment, Elizabeth Kolkovich.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Merry Christmas! I am thrilled you are spending a piece of your Christmas holiday here with us today. That’s a lovely gift in and of itself to have you on the other side of the speakers today as we explore the Christmas tradition of gift giving in 17th century England, and exactly what Shakespeare would have received as a Christmas gift in December over 400 years ago. We are also going to explore what kinds of gifts were popular to be given throughout society for the Christmas holidays from the peasants all the way to the Queen. We are delighted to be speaking with an expert in gift giving for Shakespeare’s lifetime, and the author of The Power of Gifts: Gift-exchange in Early Modern England, Dr. Felicity Heal.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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This Christmas season we are celebrating the holidays Shakespeare style by bringing out some traditional Tudor ghosts tories. For the 16-17th century, one popular time to tell ghost stories was during the Christmas holidays. A more accurate term for these stories might be “ghost narratives” because they are different than the stories we think of today as “ghost stories”Instead of being fictional tales for the purpose of entertainment, ghost narratives fromShakespeare’s lifetime were factual tales (or at least witness accounts) people would tell about encountering ghosts or other supernatural beings. Our guest, Dr. Francis Young, is here thisweek to tell us about these stories, their association with Christmas, and the details surrounding some evidence that suggests Mamillius might be about to tell one of these ghost narratives in Shakespeare’s play,The Winter’s Tale Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Tudor England, it was a tradition to tell ghost stories to celebrate Christmas, particularly on Christmas Eve. One of the people about whom ghost stories might have been shared is none other than Anne Boleyn. If the legends are true, Anne Boleyn’s ghost must be the most traveled ghost in Britain, with stories of her spirit wandering across the country in at least 7 different locations. These stories were told after Anne’s death and survived not only through Shakespeare’s lifetime but persist even today. Here today to tell us about some of these ghost stories, including ones that might have been told around the Christmas fireside for Shakespeare’s lifetime is our guest, historian, and author of The Final Year of Anne Boleyn, Natalie Grueninger.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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During the reign of Elizabeth I, which was 1558-1603 and spans most of Shakespeare’s lifetime, England was experiencing the English Renaissance, a time when all forms of art were seeing a shift in popularity, but music, in particular moved from being something you would hear only in a church to being popular at more secular events. In fact, not only did Elizabeth I herself enjoy playing music, but as an art form, music was widely applied in early modern plays, like those of William Shakespeare, for both comedies and tragedies as a way to heighten the drama, almost exactly like what you think of as a movie soundtrack today. While instrumental music like that of the viringal or the lute were popular, one particular form of vocal performance known as the madrigal rose to prominence in early modern England as an adaptation of earlier Italian poetry set to music, which English composers transformed into a uniquely English genre. The madrigal became a popular way to celebrate major events, including Christmas celebrations, for Shakespeare’s lifetime. Here today to share with us the history of the madrigal is our guest, historian, and Early music specialist, Tasmin Lewis.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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William Shakespeare’s father, John Shakespeare, spent a great deal of time in trouble with the government over his illegal sale of wool. Several court documents show that John Shakespeare was investing in wool then selling it on to others. He didn’t have a license to sell the wool, which is why he was so regularly in trouble. What the records of his dealings demonstrate is that the wool was valuable enough a commodity in England that John Shakespeare that he felt it was worth both the risk and the fines he had to pay, in order to deal in wool. Wool was one of England, and later the UK’s, major exports, and Stratford Upon Avon, Shakespeare’s hometown. was home to sheep farmers who produced the wool that could be sold internationally. In fact, some finished wool products like Monmouth caps, for example, were so well known for their quality, that they are even referenced by name in Shakespeare’s play, Henry V, when Fluellen talks about wearing leeks in your Monmouth cap. Here today to tell us more about the wool industry, the farmers who were raising the sheep, products made of wool in the 16-17th century, and exactly why one should wear a leek inside your Monmouth cap, is our guest, Jane Malcolm-Davies.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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The Pilgrim Psalter (originally titled “The Book of Psalms, Englished in Prose and Meter”) was produced by Henry Ainsworth in 1612. Ainsworth was a Hebrew scholar and Bible teacher among the English Separatists in Amsterdam, Holland. The work is called a Psalter because it is a translation of the Hebrew Psalms which between 1010 and 930 BC during the time of David and his son Solomon. Ainsworth’s translations of the Psalms are musical, set to tunes popular in Reformation era, and are remembered today for being remarkably faithful to the original Hebrew text. When the English Pilgrims fled to Holland in an attempt to escape religious persecution in England, they adopted this Psalter and they carried it with them on the Mayflower. Here today to share with us the history of the Pilgrim Psalter and the journey it took across the ocean at the start of the 17th century is our guest and historian of the 1616 Psalter, Mary Huffman.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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When we sit down to a formal dinner here in the United States, there are manners you are expected to follow like sit up straight, push your chair in, place your napkin in your lap. All of this small niceties are called collectively dining etiquette and they represent the rules for how we are to operate socially when eating a meal. Which begs the question: What about Shakespeare? When the bard sat down a meal with his friends, perhaps at the Mermaid Tavern, or even for a state dinner somewhere like Whitehall Palace, were there conventional behaviors he was supposed to follow when eating a table for a formal dinner? To find out Maura Graber, Director of the RSVP Institute for Etiquette is back with us again this week, to share the history of dining and proper behavior at the table for the 16th century.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Shakespeare’s plays refer to a napkin at least 20 times, including As You Like It where Rosalind mentions a bloody napkin, in Hamlet the title character is offered a napkin to “rub thy brows.” In Henry IV Part 1, Falstaff talks about someone’s shirt being made of “two napkins” sewn together, Merry Wives of Windsor scorns the greasy napkin, while Othello complains that Desdemona’s napkin is too small. When it comes to sizes, shapes, material, and uses for napkins in Shakespeare’s lifetime, we are looking to Maura Graber, Director of the RSVP institute for Etiquette, and the founder of Etiquipedia, the online encyclopedia of Etiquette, to walk us through the history of napkins and their uses for Shakespeare’s lifetime. Maura is here for two episodes with us on dining and etiquette for the 16th century. Today is Part 2 in our series with Maura on Table History, we’ll have links to Part 1 in the show notes of the episode.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Far before the time of Shakespeare, there was a prevalent belief in the creatures known as werewolves, or lycanthrope, as they were called in the Ancient world. This belief saw a large increase by the 16th century, with people believing werewolves were humans capable of shape shifting into the form of a large and evil wolf, desiring to consume other humans, particularly children, by the light of a full moon. The legend of werewolves today is dismissed by the popular mindset and relegated to the halls of horror films, tv shows, and of course, Halloween costumes. However, in Shakespeare’s lifetime, there was not only an established belief in actual werewolves, but documented cases of real people convicted of being werewolves, like the Werewolf of Dole in 1573, Peter Stumpp in 1589, and A Geneva man was convicted of killing 16 children when he had changed himself into a wolf on October 15, 1580, when Shakespeare was just 16 years old. Here today to share with us the history of the werewolf in Shakespeare’s England, and details about some of the surviving documentation we have about real werewolf cases in Europe is our guest and author of Werewolves, Witches, and Wandering Spirits, Kay Edwards. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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William Shakespeare refers to the legend of Robin Hood in his play, As You Like it with the old Duke exiled to the Forest of Arden with a group of Merry Men who “live like the old Robin Hood of England” (Act I, scene i). In his play, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare again mentions the Robin Hood legend when an outlaw exclaims “By the bare scalp of Robin Hood’s fat friar.” The accompanying characters of the Robin Hood story find their place in Shakespeare’s plays, when in Henry IV Part I and Henry IV Part 2 Falstaff talks about Maid Marian and Falstaff’s companion Justice Silence sings a song about “And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.” What these references tell us is that the legend of Robin Hood was an active part of the history of William Shakespeare and the pop culture of the time period to whom he was writing. But the legend of Robin Hood is quite fluid throughout history with it being used as a symbol for good as well as a symbol for insurrection and a general debate about who he was, whether he was based on a real person, and whether he was a hero or a villain. Here today to tell us about the history of Robin Hood from Shakespeare’s lifetime is our guest and expert Robin Hood historian, Allen Wright.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In the year 1623, close to a decade after William Shakespeare died, the First Folio was published, which is a collection of some of Shakespeare’s plays selected by his friends and a group of business investors involved in the project. What makes it a Folio, as opposed to simply a book, is the way in which it is physically bound. Here today to help us explore the materials used in making the Folio, including details about the paper used and the intricate binding, along with how the plays were chosen that were included in the final publication, and what ultimately happened to the copies that were printed, is our guest and Head of the Printed Heritage Collections at the British Library, Adrian Edwards.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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ForShakespeare's lifetime, ghosts and spiritual manifestations were fixture in pop culture publications like songs, ballads, and of course, plays like Shakespeare’s that feature ghosts such as Banquo, Hamlet’s Father, and even a string of dead victims that visit Richard III on the eve of Battle in Shakespeare’s Richard III. They were as haunting as ever in Shakespeare’s lifetime, but what was the purpose, place, and reception of ghosts for Shakespeare’s lifetime?Did people believe ghosts were real? As we head into October, the month of all things haunted and spooky, we are sitting down with our guest, Savannah Jensen, to explore not only what people believed about ghosts but one specific piece of 16th century popular culture where ghosts were a mainstay in Shakespeare’s lifetime and that’s the haunted lover’s ballad, or songs written specifically for the lovers among us, and, surprisingly, featured ghosts as the main character Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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During his voyage around the world in 1577-1580, Sir Francis Drake captained a ship named the Golden Hinde. On this ship lived a woman named Maria, whose plight we only know about because of a record kept by an anonymous sailor who mentions her in one line of a manuscript currently housed at the British Museum in London. The line is short, but the history it references is immense. The line reads ““Drake tooke… a proper negro wench called Maria, which was afterward gotten with child between the captaine and his men pirates, and sett on a small iland to take her adventure.” Some historians believe that Shakespeare was inspired by this report to write the character Sycorax in his play The Tempest, since Sycorax is also an African woman, abandoned by sailors on an island while heavily pregnant. Here today to share with us the history of Maria, her story, and how much we can learn about whether her plight overlaps that of Shakespeare’s play, is our. Guest, and author of On Wilder Seas, the book that imagines what Maria’s story might have been based on the history we can know about her. 

 

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Shakespeare uses the word “apple” in his works a total of 9 times, including references to crab apples, rotten apples, and the apple of your eye, among others. The word apple was used to describe the round, edible, fruit we know today, but could also apply to other fruits. In fact, some 16-17th century references use “apple” as a generic term for any fruit that included a nut. There’s even one expression from the Middle ages called “appel of paradis” which refers to a banana. The apple fruit features prominently in religious artwork for the 16th century, as well as being useful for cooking, apple cider, and of course, the famous Christmas beverage enjoyed in Shakespeare’s lifetime, Apple Wassail. To explore the history of apples in England, we are excited to welcome Nigel Deacon to show today, who will be sharing with us not only how apples are cooked for Shakespeare’s lifetime, but other more surprising places you might find them in the 16-17th century as well.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Shakespeare’s lifetime, the game we call soccer today, known as football in Europe, was a popular in Shakespeare’s lifetime. In fact, some sources say the game of football was invented in England during the Middle Ages. These original forms of football were called “mob football” and would be played in towns and villages, involving two opposing teams, that would struggle by any means possible to drag an inflated pig’s bladder to markers at each end of town. Shakespeare mentions this game twice in his plays. In Comedy of Errors, Dromio says “Am I so round with you as you with me, That like a football you do spurn me thus?” Then in King Lear, the Earl of Kent references football again saying, “Nor tripp'd neither, you base football player?” One of these inflated pig’s bladders was actually found, in tact, in the rafters of Stirling Castle. This surviving football dates to the 16th century, and could have belonged to Mary Queen of Scots. Here today to tell us more about 16th century football, the artifact discovered at Stirling Castle, and to share the results if his own scientific experiments comparing ancient football artifacts to modern soccer balls, is our guest, historian, and scientist, Henry Hanson.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Act III, Sir Toby Belch uses the Great Bed of Ware in England as a measuring stick for something that is impossibly large. The Great Bed of Ware is a real bed, as it was in Shakespeare’s lifetime, that was made for travelers to use when staying at an inn. The bed itself is, as Sir Toby suggests, impossibly large, with sleeping capacity for up to 9 people! Here today to tell us about the history and importance of The Great Bed of Ware, is our guest and Curator, Furniture and Woodwork 1300-1700 at the Victoria and Albert Museum where the Great Bed of Ware is part of the collections, Nick Humphrey.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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When we look back at the study of Shakespeare’s plays, the question always come to mind about how much can we know about the actual William Shakespeare from the pieces of artwork, plays, and even legal documents that survive about his life. No one has done more study of the plays of William Shakespeare nor understands more about his life in turn of the 17th century England than our guest today, Stanley Wells, President of Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, who joins us to share about his latest book answering the question “What was Shakespeare Really Like”  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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A short notice for you ahead of today’s episode, I apologize for the general gruff sounding voice today, I am recovering from a cold and struggling through a horrible cough that threatens to take my voice completely. But never fear! As a true performance professional, the show must go on! Therefore, I am armed with three cups of chamomile tea, a large bottle of water, and an excellent audio editor who will remove any coughs. Therefore, without more ado, let’s dive in to the history. Profanity is a term we use to describe naughty words, but as a definition, profanity is anything that happens when specific religious terms get stolen from their original intent and applied with manipulated meaning. Think of words like damn or hell. They are appropriate when used in context of their biblical meaning, but offensive when you hear them in an action movie, for example. When it comes to the origin of curse words, the Latin term “profanus” actually meant “outside the temple” to signify terms that desecrated what was held sacred. If you’ve watched the tv show, Becoming Elizabeth, which is set in 16th century England, the f-word gets used liberally on that show, which surprised me and made me wonder if the f-word was, in fact, historically accurate, or if that had been added for modern flare. To find out exactly what words were expletives for Shakespeare’s lifetime, and which ones were normal for him but highly offensive to us today, we are sitting down with our guest, Jesse Sheidlower to explore the colorful world of Elizabethan language and profanities.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In the play, Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff declares “Let the sky rain potatoes!” what’s unique about this quote, despite Falstaff calling for root vegetables to rain down from the sky which is of course, weird on its’ own, but potatoes on the whole were brand new to England at the exact time Shakespeare was including this quote in his play. Merry Wives of Windsor was written towards the end of the 16th century—between 1597 and 1601. Potatoes are thought to have arrived in the late 1580s or early 1590s. Once the potato arrived in Europe it was used for medicine, grown by some gardeners for their flowers, and in 1597, the same time frame we think Merry Wives of Windsor was writtne, John Gerard added the first printed picture of the potato to Herball (although he thought that the potato was native to Virginia). Here today to help us sort through what it was like to see a potatoe for the first time, as well as how potatoes were used in Shakespeare’s lifetime is our guest and expert in the history of plants, Sally Cunningham.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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After we published our episode here on That Shakespeare Life about the Duncan portrait of William Shakespeare, I received an email from Steve Wadlow, telling me about the history of a portrait that had been hanging in his family home for years that a visiting Shakespeare scholar indicated might be William Shakespeare, and suggested Steve look into the provenance further. With no prior experience in Shakespeare history or indeed even the art world, Steve dove headlong into finding out where this painting had come from originally and exactly who the person in the picture was, since the image was strikingly similar to the Cobbe portrait of William Shakespeare. Here today to tell us what he found out and whether or not this painting is of William Shakespeare is our guest, and newly minted art historian, Steve Wadlow.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Shakespeare’s in Henry IV, Part 2, Falstaff has the line: “his wit's as thick as Tewkesbury Mustard” (Act 2, Scene 4). Falstaff is describing his friend Ned Poins, but it presents the question of what was Tewkesbury Mustard? Turns out this particular mustard developed in a small town of England called Tewkesbury, and it was not only popular in Shakespeare’s lifetime, but during the 17th century it was considered a staple condiment in kitchens of this time period. Amazingly, the mustard has not only survived the centuries but is still being made exactly the way it was for Shakespeare’s lifetime right in Tewkesbury at the Tewkesbury Mustard Company. We are delighted to have Robin Ritchie who is founder and Mustard Master Emeritus at the Tewkesbury Mustard Company to share with us the history of this mustard, how it is made, and how you can enjoy some for yourself. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Shakespeare’s play, Measure for Measure, there’s a fictional court case against Claudio for extra-marital misconduct. The play separately asks the audience to pass judgement on Angelo regarding a marriage pre-contract that was known as a “Spousal” contract for Shakespeare’s lifetime. In 1604, when Measure for Measure was first performed, these cases of immoral behavior were being tried in real life in what were known as “ecclesiastical courts,” or colloquially, the “Bawdy Courts.” Many of the real people that had been brought up on charges in these bawdy court cases were members of the audience being addressed by the play’s fictional court portrayal. It was this same year that church courts started cracking down on engaged couples who were becoming secretly engaged or “bethrothed” to one another without witnesses or parental consent. Here today to tell us about the battle between civil and canon law that governed couples intending to get married and the specific changes to the canonical law that occured in 1604, is our guest and theatrical historican, Cynthia Greenwood.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In his 1611 English to French dictionary, Randle Cotgrave defines the exclamation point as “the point of admiration and detestation” While credit for the original creation of the exclamation point is given to Alpoleio da Urbisaglia, the current version of the exclamation point that we know today developed between 1400-1600, during the time WIlliam Shakespeare was penning over 6000 uses of exclamation points we can find in his works. In the absence of emojis, punctuation was the way that writers communicated varying emotion and called attention to important sections of a play or story that needed to be given more oomph. Our guest this week, Florence Hazrat, has completed the book “An Admirable Point: a Brief History of the Exclamation Point” and joins us today to share some of the history of where this bit of English grammar originated and how it was being used in Shakespeare’s lifetime.  

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When it comes to stepping back into the life of William Shakespeare and walking around the streets of London to see what the sights, sounds, smells, people and places were really like, no one does that better than a time traveler. In order to take just such a trip and take a short jaunt down a London street during the 16th century, we are delighted to welcome a man who is a listener favorite and longtime listener-requested guest, the history time traveler himself, and author of The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England, Ian Mortimer, to the show today.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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One of Shakespeare’s strongest characters is Queen Margaret who, as a consequence of her husband’s bouts with insanity, finds it necessary to lead not only a country, but to stand at the helm of an entire army, leading England’s military into battle and winning. It is an important story in the history of the War of the Roses, and one that Jared Kirby and Hudson Classical Theater decided to take on this year. Jared is a celebrated fight director and took on the challenge of staging entire battle scenes on stage for this production, and he joins us today to talk with us about how Shakespeare would have staged these battle scenes in the 16th century and how it works to stay true to history when staging these plays today.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In the 16th century, one man from Norwich, Thomas Sotherton, wanted to encourage these refugees to settle in Norfolk, specifically, because the immigrant’s skills in textile weaving made them valuable to the economy. To that end, he setup what became known as Stranger’s Hall, where the immigrants could live and work. The property was owned by people who would have used the property for business and living accommodation, which was common practice for mediaeval merchants’ dwellings. Therefore, Strangers’ wasn’t built or established for the Strangers arriving in 1565 but was used by them as an available property. Only one known family lived in the Hall from 1567. The letter written by the family lodging at Strangers refers to it as Master Sotherton’s property in the High Street. The hall is a museum today that and we are delighted to welcomemuseum's assistant curator of social history, Bethan Holdrige, to the show today to tell us about the history of Stranger’s Hall and the impact of the influx of refugees to the area during Shakespeare’s lifetime.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In 1584, Spain dominated the coasts of Central and South America, the Carribean, and modern day Florida. England, under the rule of Elizabeth I, sought to disrupt and overthrow this control by establishing colonies in the New World. Not only would these colonies help provide a buffer against Spain’s control, but it also helped set up a home base for England’s privateering, which allowed English ships to attack Spanish ships, stealing treasure and gaining control of Spanish trade routes in the region. One of England’s most famous privateers, Sir Walter Raleigh, with the blessing of Queen Elizabeth, sent a reconnaissance expedition to the New World in April, 1584, they arrived in present day North Carolina in July of 1584, and would go on to establish the first English colony in the united States, Roanoke Colony, in 1587. At this site today, Fort Raleigh, named after Sir Walter Raleigh, preserved the history of Roanoke Colony and National Park Guide Josh Nelson joins us to today to tell us about the Elizabethan history of Raleigh, North Carolina, and to share some of the archaeological finds still there today that you can see from Shakespeare’s lifetime.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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During his lifetime, only about half of Shakespeare’s plays were available in printed versions.That meant that there were several of Shakespeare’s plays that weren’t available in printed form at all while the bard was alive. So how do we know about those plays today if there weren’t any written records? They survive through a book called the First Folio. There are at least 18 plays from Shakespeare’s works that we only have today because of the printing of the First Folio that happened in 1623. If you have heard about the printing of the first Folio then you’ll probably recognize the names Heminges and Condell, Shakespeare's friends and colleagues, who are often regarded as the authors of the First Folio. What the history shows us, however is that the making of First Folio was not done solely by two men, but instead was a collective work done by a large network of individuals that were friends, and fans of Shakespeare, as well as business men looking to capitalize on an opportunity. Our guest this week, Chris Laoutaris, has done in-depth investigative research into the history behind the making of the First Folio, that he shares in his latest book titled Shakespeare’s Book, that’s out now. We’re delighted to have Chris here today to discuss his book and to reveal a fresh perspective and some new discoveries about the people and the history that gave us the First Folio.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Today we’re talking about undergarments! 16th –17th century fashion was rife with gorgeous and elaborate outerwear, but the underwear, hose, and supportive under clothing was just as intricate. Shakespeare’s plays from this period suggest that clothing styles were a way to identify a man’s nationality. In Much Ado About Nothing Don Pedro talks about being able to identify the Dutch, French, German, and Spanish by the cut of their clothes. While slops and short cloaks are called out in Much Ado About Nothing and the Henry plays, women’s clothing and specifically their scandalous undergarments, are mentioned, too, when Shakespeare writes about a pair of bodies, hose and sleeve, and a farthingale. 16th century English men and women had underclothing designed to deal with the practical realities of using the restroom, avoiding body odor, supportive garments like bras & menstrual pads, and there’s even record of 16-17th century lingerie. Here today to walk us through the history of undergarments for men and women in Shakespeare’s lifetime as well as night clothes, and specialty styles of practical linen for Shakespeare’s lifetime is our guest and clothing historian, Sarah Bendall.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In his plays, Richard III, in his Henry Plays, and even in macbeth, Shakespeare writes about medical disabilities and phsyical deformities like a hunchback, madness, blindness, and being lame. We can tell form these references that disability was present in Shakespare’s lietime but what exactly was the understanding of what a disability meant for a real person in Shakespeare’s lifetime? In order to understand the reaction of society, whether accomodations were made for disabilities, what those would have been, and how organizations like Bedlam Hopsital for the insane fit into this understanding, we are sitting down today with Jeffrey R. Wilson, author of Richard III's Bodies from Medieval England to Modernity: Shakespeare and Disability History to examine how uderstanding 16th century medical history helps characters like Richard III make more sense.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Shakespeare mentions “covenants drawn between’s” in Cymbeline, and mentions covenants again in Henry VI when the King is negotiating a marriage to Lady Margaret, and then it concept comes up further in both Richard II and and in Taming of the Shrew. Covenants were a key player in the Protestant Reformation that was going on in Shakespeare’s lifetime, but it was also a word that could meant to promise or form a contract. The history of the time period tells us that Swiss Reformed theologian Johannes Oecolampadius (1482–1531) was teaching in the 1520s what would later become known as “the covenant of redemption” A few years later Heinrich Bullinger (1504–75) published the first Protestant book devoted to explaining the covenant of grace, and of course there’s John Calvin, who died the year Shakespeare was born, writing about the covenant of redemption, the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. All of these concepts heavily influenced not only the Church of England, but also The Kirk, the Church of Scotland in defining what it meant to be Protestant. In 1560, The Scottish Parliament designated the kirk as the sole form of religion in Scotland, and adopted the Scots Confession, rejecting Catholic teachings and practices. James VI argued the king was also head of the church, governing through bishops appointed by himself, and in 1603 when he became King of England, he also became head of the Church of England. Eventually Scotland would adopt what’s known as the National Covenant, springing from different perspectives on who held ultimate authority over the church, and this National covenant incorporated the text of another famous covenant that was drafted when Shakespeare was just 17 years old, known as the Negative Confession (1581). Its authors used pieces from the sixteenth-century covenant ideas involving familiar actions and assigned gestures as part of the ritual of what it meant to take a covenant. Our guest this week is an expert on the history of 16th century covenanting and we are delighted to welcome Neil McIntyre to the show to help us unpack the religious history that was finding its’ feet during Shakespeare’s lifetime, as well as to help us understand what Shakespeare would have been referring to or what his audience would have expected to see when they heard and saw the ideas of covenanting appearing in plays like Henry VI and Cymbeline.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In this week’s episode you’ll hear me learn about how to pronounce this week’s topic correctly—it is the Huguenots (and not Huguenots as I had been saying and which you may have been tempted to say as well). This week we’re exploring the arrival of Huguenots to England in Shakespeare’s lifetime. During Catherine de Medici’s reign as Queen consort in France, the country was anything but hospitable to Protestants. The St. Bartholomew Day’s Massacre in the late 16th century saw thousands of Huguenots rounded up and slaughtered. That was only one event where Huguenots were proven unwelcome, and in danger, to remain in France. Throughout the reigns of Edward VI, Elizabeth I, and on into the 18th century reigns of James II, and beyond, England as a Protestant nation became a safe haven for refugee French Calvinists. During Shakespeare’s lifetime, the impact of the arrival of Huguenots seems to have been significant, with Shakespeare writing about “strangers” over 70 times across his works, often using the term to describe someone from another country, who may not speak English, and is simultaneously in need of a welcome, and to be viewed with necessary suspicion. We see plays like Hamlet extending a hand of friendship when Hamlet says in Act I “And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.” And yet, in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V, Rosaline being much less accomodating, saying, “Since you are strangers and come here by chance, We'll not be nice“ While these references could refer to any international Immigrant, many believe that Shakespeare commented directly on the plight of the Huguenots from France, with one impassioned speech about how to treat so called Strangers, that is given in the historical play Sir Thomas More. Furthermore, we know that William Shakespeare had direct personal connections to Huguenots, having lived for a time as a lodger in London with Christopher and Mary Mountjoy, a French Huguenot couple. Here today to tell us more about the plight of refugee French Calvinists in the life of William Shakespeare is our guest and Fellow of the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Joyce Hampton.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Ulisse Aldrovandi is considered by many scientists, including Carl Linnaeus, the man who formalized the modern system of naming animals, to be the father of natural history studies. During Shakespeare’s lifetime, until his death in 1605, Aldrovandi collected a vast amount of specimens for his cabinet of curiosities, gathering over 7000 artifacts, organizing multiple expeditions to collect plants, and illustrating thousands of bizarre natural history phenomenon into at least 12 publications, some of which were compiled posthumously. Today, Aldrovandi’s work is preserved at the University of Bologna. However, in 2020, one painting was discovered that claims to be a lost Aldrovandi painting of a young girl that suffered from hypertrichosis, a condition that covers the body in excess hair. We have talked about this girl, Antoinetta Gonzales, on our show previously. That episode, we mentioned that paintings of the Gonzales family were often copied and distributed around Europe for inclusions in cabinets of curiosities, like the one that Aldrovandi compiled in Italy. Today, our guest, Daniel Dawson Gordon of Norfolk Reclamation Center in England, is here to talk about one such painting that belonged to Ulisse Aldrovandi, who at the time was one of the highest ranking members of Italian society. Daniel is here to share about Aldrovandi’s work, the painting of Antoinetta Gonzales, and the story of how it was discovered beneath another a famous art painting that been painted over the original of Antionetta.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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The fruit today known as a tomato was first introduced to Europe during Shakespeare’s lifetime. As many new things were, this fruit was received at first with skepticism, considered a kind of curiosity. It was called a golden apple, as well as a “pomi d’oro” in Italy, where many considered the fruit dangerous, poisonous, and something that was pleasing to the eye, but secretly treacherous. Shakespeare echoes this sentiment in his play, Pericles, when he writes about "golden fruit but dangerous to be touched.” Today we are going to explore the arrival, reception, cultivation, and use of tomatoes for 16th century Italy, Germany, and Belgium, with our guest and author of the article “Sixteenth-century tomatoes in Europe: who saw them, what they looked like, and where they came from, Tinde van Andel.  

 

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During the 16th century in Europe, the Portuguese dominated the African slave trade. European ships were first exposed to African slaves when privateering vessels would find enslaved  Africans packed alongside Atlantic trade goods in the hulls of the captured ships. The Spanish were the first to try and break up the Portuguese monopoly on slaves, establishing a system known as the asiento de negros in the 16th century which was an agreement between the Spanish crown and a private person or granting a monopoly in supplying African slaves for the Spanish colonies in the Americas. The Dutch would use similar contracts to compete in this market, and it wasn’t long before the British and French followed suit. We see glimpses of this history in Shakespeare’s plays when he mentions the word “slave” over 170 times, the word “negro” specifically in his play Merchant of Venice, and he refers to “an African” in the play The Tempest. Here today to help us understand the start of the Atlantic Slave Trade and the place of Africans, and understanding of black skinned people, and even white skinned slaves for Shakespeare’s England, is our guest and author of Transformations of Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa Paul Lovejoy.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Prior to Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries in 1538, the section of London known as Blackfriars was as major religious institution extending along the bank of the Thames River. In its’ entirety, Blackfriars was second in size only to St. Paul’s Churchyard. After the Reformation, Blackfriars was located in what’s known as a Liberty, which meant it was just outside the reach of the mayoral law. Being outside the mayor’s jurisdiction made Blackfriars especially attractive to entrepreneurs like The Burbages and their star writer, William Shakespeare, who wanted to open a theater that wasn’t subject to the tighter restrictions of London proper. Blackfriars wasn’t only attractive to innovative theater professionals, however, it was also attractive to immigrants and the highly religious who were seeking freedom from the regulation of guilds. At the time that Shakespeare and the Burbages were looking at Blackfriars as a home for their theater, the parish of St Anne, Blackfriars, was dominated by godly clergy and parishioners, the people we usually think of as the enemies of theater. Here today to explain to us how Blackfriars theater was able to survive and thrive in this section of London is our guest, Chris Highley.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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 It’s Shakespeare’s Birthday this week! Happy Birthday Shakespeare! To celebrate, we’re going to paly some card games! From Noddy and Maw to Laugh and Lie Down, card games were popular for Shakespeare’s lifetime, with records from the court of King James and Elizabeth I outlining games played, losses incurred, and even insults traded between dignitaries all over the playing of card games. Shakespeare himself mentions a few of these games in his plays by name including Noddy, Primrose, and Laugh and Lie Down. When it comes to early modern card games, no one knows more about the games, their history, and how to play them than internationally renowned game expert David . If you are an Experience Shakespeare patron on PAtreon or followed meon YouTube where we have played some of these early modern games for ourselves, you will be familiar with David ’s name, having seen and heard me mention his work as we relied on his research to put together those activities. I am very honored and quite delighted to welcome David  to the show today to share with us some of the history of card games, how they were played, and their place in society for the life of William Shakespeare.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Whether it’s a diary entry or a side note in a ledger or account book, history leaves us records of plays that were performed during Shakespeare’s lifetime, but their scripts never survived to the present day in any form that’s recognizable as a complete play. Other than the occasional snippet of a line or two here and there, we cannot read these plays, and we certainly can’t perform them, but we know they were real, and that they had a place in the life of William Shakespeare. This entire group of work is called collectively “Lost Plays” and even bard himself has a few titles that we know he wrote, but we no longer have anything but a passing record to tell us their contents. Researching and cataloging the collection of historical breadcrumbs that piece together a story of a lost play is the purpose of The Lost Plays Database, which is an online collection of the records and research being done into the theatrical works now lost to history. Their database records plays from as early as 1570 and as late as 1658. Our guest this week knows better than most the history of Lost Plays, because she is one of the editors at The Lost Plays Database, and a pioneer in the field of repertory study. We are delighted to welcome Roslyn Knutson.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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The difference in Shakespeare’s plays between a tragedy and a comedy is defined as whether or not the characters end in marriage or end in death. The comedies often showcase the promise of a marriage, or even sometimes multiple marriages, with proposals happening in the midst of fun and elaborate parties including songs, dances, and frivolity. Then of course those happy marriages are starkly contrasted with those we see in Shakespeare’s tragedies where marital relationships are marred by jealousy, suspicion, or betrayal. Shakespeare’s works give us a glimpse into what marriage customs were for turn of the 17th century England, but they are far from providing any kind of definition what was normal. In order to explore the history of marriage customs for Shakespeare’s lifetime and understand better what we could expect to see if we had attended a 17th century marriage in England, we are sitting down today with our guest, and expert in the history of marriage traditions, George Monger.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Of all the history we know about William Shakespeare and what it was like to live in turn of the 17th century England, one of the hardest things to know for sure about the bard is what he looked like. There are only two verified portraits of William Shakespeare, one is the bust available at his funerary monument in Stratford Upon Avon, and the other is known as the Droeshout portrait, which is an engraving on the title page of the First Folio that was published in 1623. Aside from these two depictions, there have been at least 9 paintings that claimed to be life-like representations of William Shakespeare, all of which were hotly contested, and a few that were outright disproven. One painting, however, has risen to the top through rigorous investigation as a contender for another verified portrait of the bard and it’s known as the Danby Portrait. The Danby portrait was owned by the Danby family for years, until it was sold by Christie’s in a house contents sale in 1975. At that time the painting was misattributed and has since been shown to be a painting by Robert Peake, a professional artist from Shakespeare’s lifetime who not only knew about William Shakespeare, but actually worked with him directly in theater. Our guest this week, Duncan Phillips, is the art gallery owner who recently displayed the Danby Portrait, and he joins us to share about the history of the Danby Portrait, it’s connections to Shakespeare, and the recent evidence that’s been uncovered that suggests the portrait is not only of William Shakespeare, but that it was likely painted from life.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In 1594 and 1595, when William Shakespeare was 31 years old, fires tore through his hometown of Stratford Upon Avon, causing such destruction that this natural disaster is one of the few major events in Stratford Upon Avon that was recorded for posterity. The fires were known as The Great Fires and in the aftermath of the devastation the town gathered together to rebuild the timbers of their homes and businesses. Many of these rebuilt structures survive through to today, and with the help of a recently awarded research grant from Historic England, the Stratford Society lead by historian Robert Bearman, look to investigate how the timber frame buildings were rebuilt following the fires in 1594, 1595, and another one that occurred later in 1614. Dr. Bob Bearman joins us today to tell us about the history of the fires and to share a look inside the Stratfire Project.    Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In the late 16th century, William Shakespeare was in his 30s, and staging plays like As You Like It, where Rosalind mentions the “howling of Irish wolves against the moon.” (That’s from Act V scene ii). While scholars today debate whether or not that’s a reference to the legend of werewolves, we know from a painting completed in 1595 that there was at least one family whose hereditary disease made many in Europe believe in that werewolves might be real. The Gonzales family carried a rare genetic condition that is known today as hypertrichosis, but it's more common name is “werewolf syndrome”, so called because the people afflicted with it have hair growing over their entire faces, making them look exactly like pictures of werewolves that we have in pop culture and folklore. Here today to help us understand the history of the Gonzales family and what their lives were like living with this condition in  the 16th century is our guest, and author of the book “The marvelous hairy girls : the Gonzales sisters and their worlds”, Merry Wiesner-Hanks.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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The Lord Chamberlain’s Men is known as “Shakespeare’s playing company” and was a group of actors for which Shakespeare wrote plays most of his career. By 1603, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men were so popular that James I himself chose to patronize the company making it The King’s Men. Today we are going to look at the man who made the company The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, and that’s Henry Carey, the First Lord Hudson, and the Lord Chamberlain who patronized The Lord Chamberlain’s Men when it was founded by Elizabeth I in 1594. This week we are delighted to welcome historian Stephanie Kline to the show to share with us the life and history of Henry Carey and his role in the career of William Shakespeare.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In her latest book, Mortal Monarchs: 1000 Years of Royal Deaths Suzie Edge writes about the deaths of several of England’s monarchs who died in grotesque, weird, or elaborate ways. A former medical doctor now turned history, Suzie takes an indepth look at the sciene behind the deaths of Kings and Queens of England across a thousand years of history. Today, Suzie joins us on the show today to share with us the stories of the deaths of some of the most famous monarchs whose lives and deaths touched on the life of William Shakespeare including Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, and James I of England. 

 

This week’s episode contains frank medical discussions of gore and violence, including disease and specifics about human demise. While our discussion is both entertaining and academic in nature, the content may be inappropriate for younger listeners. If you are listening in a classroom or where there are child ears present, we recommend you listen to the episode first before sharing it.   

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In 1567, a young English sailor named David Ingram signed up to work on a ship captained by English privateer John Hawkins. They would travel up and down the coasts of Africa and Mexico raiding and trading goods. In November of 1567, Ingram found himself and close to a hundred of his fellow crewmates stranded off the coast of Mexico, in a city called Tampico, just south of the present day Texas/Mexico border. Seeking to avoid capture by the Spanish, Ingram and close to two dozen of his shipmates started walking North. By October of 1568, a French fishing vessel picked up Ingram and just two of his original party of travellers off the coast of Nova Scotia. 13 years later, Ingram’s account of what happened to himself and those travellers from Tampico to Nova Scotia was written down by Sir Francis Walsingham and published by Richard Hakluyt in his bookThe Principall Navigations Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation of 1589. Since then, the veracity of Ingram’s story has been debated by scholars across the globe. Today, our guest, Dean Snow, is here to share his research into Ingram and the famous walk from Mexico to Nova Scotia that defends Ingram’s journey as accurate, all of which is cataloged in Dean’s latest book, The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In his latest book, Shakespeare’s Tutor, Darren Freebury Jones explores the unsung history of Thomas Kyd as a master playwright who belongs in the canon of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Lyly as one of the greatest playwrights of the Elizabethan Era. Darren writes that along with Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, specifically, paved the way for Shakspeare to be a successful playwright. While it makes sense for a newcomer on the scene, as Shakespeare was in the 1580s, to reach for adaptations of the work of established playwrights to launch his career, Darren points out that William Shakespeare continued to use and be influenced by the work of Thomas Kyd not only after Kyd’s death in 1594, but even after Shakespeare was independently established as a successful playwright in London. To share with us the often overlooked history of Thomas Kyd, and his influence on Shakespeare, is our returning guest, and respected friend, Darren Freebury Jones

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The theaters of the Globe, the Curtain, and the Swan all resided in parts of London considered outside of the law and housing disreputable players. In a strange twist of irony for Shakespeare’s England, however, one of the most highbrow places in society also held dramatic performances in high esteem and that is the university. New establishments for England, colleges like Cambridge and Oxford produced so many professional playwrights for the 16th century that several of them banded together to become known as the university wits. Here this week to help us understand the role of players at major universities as well as who it was that performed there, and how these dramatic presentations interacted with those of Shakespeare is our guest and author of a new publication on University Dramas in Early Modern England, Daniel Blank.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Shakespeare mentions a “weather-cock” in his plays Merry Wives of Windsor, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Love’s Labour’s Lost, which is a kind of weather vane used for measuring wind direction. During Shakespeare’s lifetime, astronomers Tycho Brahe and David Fabricus kept daily weather diaries noting details like the rain, snow, and temperature for their respective parts of Europe. But these two astronomers were far from the only people watching the weather in the late 16th and early 17th century. Other diarists including Haller Wolfagang, and Ralph Josselin, would keep similar diaries. From these notes we learn a description of the weather on specific days as well as exactly when and where major weather events like floods or even solar eclipses would have occurred. Since keeping data about the weather in the 16th century was happening before instruments like weather radar were in existence, it’s fascinating to look back and discover how the study of weather and even weather predictions were happening for Shakespeare’s lifetime. Here this week to share with us the details of meteorology for turn of the 17th century is our guest and expert historian on weather, Martin Rowley.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, talks about the shrieking mandrake while Henry IV and Henry VI use the word mandrake as an insult. These very real plants took on legendary qualities due in part to the chemicals in their makeup which make them useful for anesthetics. Our guest this week is an expert in historical plants and historical methods of growing them and we are delighted this week to welcome Michael Brown to the show, the self-styled Historic Gardner, to share with us about the history of mandrakes.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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There are many examples of letter writing from Shakespeare’s plays, including letters getting lost in transit and even examples of letter forgery! While many of the examples from Shakespeare’s plays about letters are amplified to be more entertaining on stage, they represent real history about how letters were written and delivered for the life of William Shakespeare. Here today to help us explore the tools used to write a letter, and special tricks like letter locking and sealing a letter, is our guest and co-curator of the Letterwriting in Renaissance England exhibit at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Alan Stewart.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In April of 1601, four ships set out from England with hopes of establishing trade with Asia. Remembered by history as the first voyage of the East India Company that launched a momentous relationship between what would become Britain and Asia, the first, as well as the subsequent three, voyages by this group were wrought with danger, disease, and completed at great personal sacrifice. On all of these journeys, the captains and sailors battled illness, poor living conditions, and perilously low morale. While the East India Company launched the missions with a set of rules designed to help alleviate the most significant hurdles, our guest this week, Cheryl Fury, shares in her recent publication that the human cost of these voyages remained astronomically high.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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This Thursday, January 5, is Twelfth Night, the official end of the 12 Days of Christmas. For Shakespeare’s lifetime, celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas was a huge occasion, and one which included merriment right up until the very last day. In Shakespeare’s plays, we see many of the Twelfth Night customs come to play including the complete upheaval of established social order where we have boys dressed in mock religious processions, lots of alcoholic drinking alongside elaborate meals, as well as bouts of parody and general misrule against moral order.And of course, for Shakespeare, all of these moments of wild abandon are accompanied by song and dance. To help us understand what Twelfth Night was and why it was celebrated with such crazy antics is our guest and author of a new book on Twelfth Night customs, Rachel Aanstad Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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There were several pamphlets published during Shakespeare's lifetime featuring a menacing giant rabbit, sometimes even wielding a sword and looking very scary. It would be easy to think this character the pamphlet calls a “cony catcher” was invented for marketing purposes, except that we see the phrase “cony catcher” come up several times throughout Shakespeare’s plays including Merry Wives of Windsor, Taming of the Shrew, and even in Henry VI Part 3. We can see from the passing references Shakespeare’s writes that a cony is a word for a rabbit, and it follows then that a catcher of conies is one who catches rabbits, but then why is the rabbit being used in early modern England as a fierce sword wielding villain? There are so many cultural questions to unpack with this symbol and that’s why today our guest and author of a new book about the Cony Catcher and other Shakespearean criminals and malcontents, Ari Friedlander, is here to take us through what we should understand when we discover rabbits running rampant in Shakespeare’s plays.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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It’s Christmastime again this year and our thoughts are full of sugar plums, candy canes, and hopefully some beautiful winter snow. Growing up children of the 20-21st century are very familiar with the concept of Father Christmas or Santa Claus as he’s become known today who brought gifts to good children each Christmas Eve. For William Shakespeare, however, the characters and particularly the understanding of Father Christmas would have been quite different. You see, William Shakespeare did not have Santa Claus and Father Christmas. There was one Christmas carol from the mid-15th century that described “Sir Christmas” that travelled around announcing the birth of Christ and offering drinks to passersby. There’s another record from the mid-15th century that describes a traditional Christmas battle between Christmas and Lent during which a parade of the months of the year culminates in the presentation of the King of Christmas riding a horse decorated with tinfoil. These 15th century images of Christmas and the personification of the season come well before Shakespeare’s lifetime and the strict idea we know as “Father Christmas” would not show up until after the Restoration in the mid-17th century. So what did England, and by proxy, Shakespeare, do to celebrate the holiday? Did Shakespeare have a Father Christmas? Here today to help us understand the holiday spirit and the role of characters like Father Christmas during Shakespeare’s lifetime is our guest and historian Elizabeth Norton. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Shakespeare mentions the spice of nutmeg in his plays three times, once in Henry V to comment on the color of of this spice, once in Love’s Labour’s Lost to talk about a “gift nutmeg” which was a gift given at Christmas for the 16th century, and then again in The Winter’s Tale when the clown lists nutmeg as one of the spices he needs to make warden pies, along with mace, dates, prunes, and raisins. Nutmeg not being native to England, it was not only a valuable spice that made a great gift that was popular for major celebrations like Christmastime, but it was a huge part of international relations for England because during the 1600s was when the Dutch were committing all manner of atrocities against England (and indeed the world), to maintain a monopoly on this particular spice. Here today to share with us the history of this spice and some popular recipes that used it from Shakespeare’s lifetime is our friend, culinary historian, and returning guest to the show, Brigitte Webster.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Shakespeare's play, King John, Eleanor of Aquitaine is portrayed as "Queen Elinor," who is decrepit and old, but strong willed and highly intelligent. For many Shakespeareans, the real history of this extraordinary woman is confined to this portrayal in Shakespeare's works. Our guest this week, Alison Weir, joins the show to introduce us to the real history of Eleanor of Aquitaine not only as we remember her today, but to share with us what Shakespeare would have known about her, as well as what it is important to know about her real life when encountering Shakespeare’s portrayal of her in his play.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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William Shakespeare mentions fish over 70 times in his plays including certain kinds of fish like dwarfish, a finless fish, and even a dogfish. Types of fish, being a fishmonger, and applying all manner fish metaphors were a consistent theme in many of Shakespeare’s works, which lead me to wonder about the role of fishing and fish in Shakespeare’s lifetime for not only the individual who might have gone fishing for their food, but the role of commercial fishing in the economy of England during the 16-17th century. Here today to help us explore what kinds of fish were most popular, the representations of angling/fishing in print, and exactly how and where people would have caught fish for Shakespeare’s lifetime, is our guest and author of The Poetics of Angling in Early Modern England, Myra Wright. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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One of the heroes of American history and the story of the survival of the English colonists at Plymouth in the mid 17th century is a man named Squanto. His given name was Tisquantum, but he came to be known as Squanto. He was a native American interpreter and guide for early English colonists. While little is known about his early life, some scholars believe that he was taken from home to England in 1605 by George Weymouth and returned to his native homeland with explorer John Smith in 1614–15. His almost decade long residence in London coincides with when Shakespeare was writing plays about shipwrecked colonists encountering native tribes on mysterious far away islands. Our friends, and previous guests to the show for Thanksgiving last year (see that episode here) are father and son history team, David and Aaron Bradford. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Thomas Gresham served as Royal Agent to the King t in England under Edward VI, Henry VIII, Mary, and Elizabeth I. A hugely influential man of his time, Thomas Gresham’s legacy continues today at Gresham College, the university he founded in 1597 when William Shakespeare was 33 years old. Competing with the likes of Oxford and Cambridge at the time, Gresham College was unique not only because universities themselves were a new concept in England, but because Gresham College chose to teach students in English, whereas Latin was the accepted language of universities at the time. Here to share with us how Gresham College was founded, and what the first classes were like there, is our guest and professor at Gresham College, Valerie Shrimplin. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Famously in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, the title character becomes convinced he cannot be killed because the witches tell him he cannot be killed a man “of a woman born.” It is only when it is too late that Macbeth learns his nemesis, Macduff, was “from his mother’s womb untimely ripped”, in reference to a cesarean surgery, that Macbeth learns of his ultimate fate. Shakespeare’s inclusion of cesarean section in his play comes at a time when medical science and religious doctrine were questioning the viability of this procedure in a heated public debate. In 1581, French surgeon Francois Roussett published “The Hysterotomotokie or Caesarian Birth” which argued women should have cesarean as a viable option for birth during difficult deliveries. His publication caused quite a stir in medical society, with surgeons across Europe speaking out publicly to condemn the very suggestion. The heated conversation traveled all the way to England where a man contemporary to William Shakespeare, named Simon Forman, would write about cesarean sections in his publication “Matrix and the Pain Thereof.” True to form, it seems William Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, was full of poignant and extremely timely cultural references to a huge political debate that was happening right when the play was written. Here today to help us understand the history of cesarean sections during Shakespeare’s lifetime and exactly how controversial it might have been to include cesarean sections in his play, is our guest, professor of the history of medicine and author of “Women, Health, and Healing in Early Modern Europe”, Mary Fissel. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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From 1560 until her death in 1603, Queen Elizabeth employed a group of privateers to raid, pillage, and rob ships that were acting against English interests. This group of private sailors known as sea dogs included famous naval explorers like Sir Francis Drake who circumnavigated the world, and Sir Walter Raleigh who founded the colony of Roanoke and went looking for El Dorado, the city of gold. Reports of the sea dogs and other fantastic tales of naval adventures were cataloged in 16-17th century travel diaries along with the writings of professional travel writers, all of whom sent amazing stories of wild exploits back to England where playwrights like William Shakespeare were ready to include them on stage. Our guest this week, James Seth, is the author of Maritime Musicians and Performers on Early Modern English Voyages. James joins us today to share the history of Elizabeth’s sea dogs, the musical entertainment that would have been available while traveling at sea, and exactly what real life maritime stories inspired characters from Shakespeare’s plays.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In November of 1621, English colonists celebrated what’s known today in the US as The First Thanksgiving. Indian natives and English colonists gathered around a celebration of their first successful harvest in a new land. The bounty that this feast enjoyed included one of the staple foods of Thanksgiving that’s become almost ubiquitous with Fall itself, and that’s the pumpkin. Referred to as “pumpion” in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor, and as “pompion” in Love’s Labour’s Lost, this little squash may not have been used as a jack-o-lantern for Shakespeare’s lifetime but the pumpkin nonetheless has a role to play in the life of William Shakespeare. Our guest this week is an expert in the history of pumpkins and the author of Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon. This week we welcome Cindy Ott to the show to share with us the 16-17th century history of the pumpkin.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Coffee, tea, and chocolate may be regular items in the daily lives of the English today, but for Shakespeare these items were not on the everyday menu. In fact, drinking coffee or tea was seen with much superstition and hesitancy. While Shakespeare does mention “one poor penny worth of sugar-candy” in Henry V, he would not have been talking about chocolate. Confections like chocolate and drinking tea, along with coffee houses, would not become normal in England until after Shakespeare died in 1616. However, what we can see about these items in Shakespeare’s lifetime is the process of caffeine arriving in England. It is during Shakespeare’s lifetime that coffee, tea, and chocolate was this exotic sample of foreign lands being brough to Europe by various explorers and trading companies. Here today to share with us the history of coffee, tea, and chocolate and where they were at on their journey from obscurity to popular everyday kitchen staple is our guest, Elisa Tersigni.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In William Shakespeare’s Henry V Part II, Scene 3, Pistol uses the phrase “men’s faiths are wafer-cakes.” Wafer cakes were thin baked breads that would eventually become what we know today as waffles. During the Renaissance and Middle Ages, specialty iron tongs were used to bake wafers that were served as a final blessing after the Eucharist in churches. The art of making waffles was so popular in the Netherlands that when the Pilgrims, who had spent some time in Holland, set sail for North America in 1621, it is believed that some of the Dutch who went with them took these wafer cakes on board. While waffles may not have been a staple breakfast food for Shakespeare’s lifetime, it turns out the bard not only had waffles but they came in a surprising variety of shapes and recipes. Here today to share with us the Shakespearean history of wafer cakes and waffles is our guest and expert food historian, Sam Bilton.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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One of the most common issues with Shakespare’s plays is understanding the language. He used not only words that have fallen out of fashion for today’s English language, but the pronunciation and even colloquial expressions, cultural references, and some jokes we find in the plays are all so far removed from the way we talk today that it can be hard to understand what’s going on, especially if you’re just trying to read the plays instead of seeing them performed. At least in the theater you have context clues to help you. If you are also someone who finds Shakespeare’s language hard to follow, then not only are you in good company, but this is the episode for you. It’s true that Shakespeare’s language is difficult, and it turns out the history of linguistics and the development of the English language can explain why. During Shakespeare’s lifetime is when English went through a major change called the Great Vowel Shift, and was being influenced by key events going on at the time. Here today to share with us how languages grow, and explain some of the phrases, words, and even pronunciation that was unique to English for Shakespeare’s lifetime, is our guest and professor of linguistics in the English department at University of Nevada, Reno, Valerie Fridland.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, he writes about a tumbler wearing colours in their hoop. This reference is to a specific act of theater performance called tumbling. If you’ve already studied the all-male stage we know Shakespeare had at his theater, you may be tempted to think that tumblers were men. However, as the research of the project Engendering the Stage aims to bring to light, historical records for Shakespeare’s lifetime show that in terms of the theatre industry as a whole for the late 16th and early 17th century, theater performance was far from all male. In fact, women were not only prominent players in public performance, but they weren’t entirely excluded on the basis of religion and morality, either, because we have records of distinguished women from one of the strictest religious sects in England, the Puritans, acting on stage in full costume. To help us unpack this conundrum and explore this world of the travelling street performers where elaborate and complicated feats of acrobatics, tight-rope walking, tumbling and even trapeze acts would have taken place using women at center stage, we welcome author of Women on the Renaissance Stage and contributor to the Engendering the Stage project, Professor Clare McManus.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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When I’m not recording That Shakespeare Life, I’m usually researching for DIY History, my YouTube channel where I look into games, recipes, and crafts for Shakespeare’s lifetime that you can do at home. In preparing a new episode, I was going through Hugh Plat's Good Housewives Jewel, a cookbook that was written in 1596-1597. One recipe that caught my eye called for "sweet bread." I ambitiously decided to try and make this recipe, thinking I would be diving into a cake, or perhaps some version of loaf bread. However, as I started to research the ingredients, I was surprised to discover this "sweet bread" wasn't bread at all but instead “sweet bread” was actually the 16th century phrase for the pancreas of a cow. Discovering that sweet bread was not at all a bread, but instead an organ meat, was the moment I decided we definitely needed to know more about this surprising food, and to do that, we needed to bring in an expert, which is why I reached out to our friend and returning guest to That Shakespeare Life,  expert food historian, Neil Buttery,Neil joins us today to share the history and a few recipes for how to cook 16th century sweet bread.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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When you visit Stratford Upon Avon, you can stop in and see a place called Hall’s Croft. It is right down the road from Shakespeare’s Birthplace and is the house where William Shakespeare’s oldest daughter, Susanna, lived with her husband, John Hall. John Hall was a physician in Stratford Upon Avon, and is thought to have influenced, if not outright advised, Shakespeare on the many uses of medicinal plants we see come up in his plays. A new study being led by our guest this week, Ailsa Grant Ferguson, not only aims to shed light on the kinds of plants that might have been used there at Hall’s Croft, but looks to literally re-plant them. In a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, partnering with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in collaboration with the University of Brighton, Susanna’s Garden project will plant a sensory, wellbeing garden based on the plants used for women’s health by John Hall and probably Susanna in Stratford Upon Avon that includes the same plants Ailsa’s research reveals would have been used there by the Hall family to treat family and friends in the bard’s hometown. The exciting thing about this garden is not only the opportunity to see historic plants come literally back to life, but as Ailsa Grant Ferguson joins us today to share, this garden research project specifically explores Susanna’s role in medical care as she worked alongside her husband as a healer. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Armadillos are a fascinating animal, and for the 16th century they were an object of luxury. Many members of the nobility in 16th century England made a hobby out of collecting wild and exotic specimens of animals that were being discovered and brought to Europe by explorers, travelers, and naturalists who were keen to record all the world’s animals. One animal that was new to Shakespeare’s England during his lifetime was the armadillo. One prime example of the armadillo in the culture of the 16th century is the armadillo featured in a piece of embroidery by Mary Queen of Scots. Our guest this week, Peter Mason, writes about this specific armadillo in his article, Mary’s Armadillo for New World Objects of Knowledge: A Cabinet of Curiosities. Peter joins us this week to share the history of the armadillo, where it came from originally, how it arrived in Europe, and the many difference variances from scales to fur that encompass the depictions of the armadillo we find from Shakespeare’s lifetime.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Forsooth and by the saints, we are exploring curse words today from Shakespeare’s lifetime. The changeover from Catholic to Protestant England may have changed the way people worshipped but it didn’t change the strongly religious influence of the English language, including their swear words. Today our guest, John Spurr joins us to help us expolre all the expressions of emphasis, oath, and cursing that appear in Shakespeare’s plays so that we can understand the history behind why they are there, what they mean, and what kinds of words were considered bad language for Shakespeare’s lifetime.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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The technology of explosions to celebrate or mark an occasion of jubilation that we know today as fireworks was a new thing for Shakespeare’s lifetime. Shakespeare mentions the word “firework” only twice in his works, once in relation to a fight in Henry VIII and another time in relation to a show or pageant in Love’s Labour’s Lost. Our guest this week, Simon Werrett is the author of a book on the history and science behind fireworks and he joins us today to share exactly how they worked for Shakepeare’s lifetime, which celebrations were held using fireworks, and what the people of 16th century England thought about this wild and exotic light display.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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The technology of explosions to celebrate or mark an occasion of jubilation that we know today as fireworks was a new thing for Shakespeare’s lifetime. Shakespeare mentions the word “firework” only twice in his works, once in relation to a fight in Henry VIII and another time in relation to a show or pageant in Love’s Labour’s Lost. Our guest this week, Simon Werrett is the author of a book on the history and science behind fireworks and he joins us today to share exactly how they worked for Shakepeare’s lifetime, which celebrations were held using fireworks, and what the people of 16th century England thought about this wild and exotic light display.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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When William Shakespeare talks about dragons in his plays, he mentions these creatures as fire-breathing, flying, cave dwelling, night stalking, fearsome fighters in over 20 references across his works. In today’s interview we are going to explore the real history of dragons in Shakespeare’s lifetime by asking whether there were real creatures that could have been defined as dragons, similar to how Rhinoceros and Narwhal were called "unicorns." Here to share with us the popular legends about dragons and the place of these creatures in the general pop culture mindset of the Elizabethan Era is our guest and author of Dragons and their Origins for English Heritage, Carolyne Larrington. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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When you hear the term “hobby horse” you may be tempted to recall images of toy wooden horses that children laugh and play on. For Shakespeare’s lifetime, however, this term refers to a particular kind of dance that featured in popular celebrations like May Day and Morris dances. The hobby horse dance was a characterized and often costumed representation of a person riding a horse, and it was a staple feature of these celebratory dances. Our guest this week has written extensively about the history of the hobby horse and where they would have appeared in Shakespeare’s lifetime. We are delighted to welcome Professor at Eotvos Lorand University of Budapest and the author of Shakespeare’s Hobby-Horse and Early Modern Popular Culture, Dr. Natalia Pikli. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Commercial baby formula wouldn’t hit the mass market until the 1800s, but Shakespeare’s lifetime still had to deal with babies who needed to eat but were unable, for a variety of reasons, to nurse and drink breastmilk. Here this week to help us take a look at baby formula, baby bottles, and the role of wet nurses in Shakespeare’s lifetime is our guest and author of multiple articles on the history of baby formula, Carla Cevasco. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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While King John isn’t one of the more popular Shakespeare plays performed by companies today, taking a look back at monarchs of the past was a favorite pastime for Elizabethan England. To better understand the real history behind Shakespeare’s version of this famous monarch, we’ve invited our guest and author of the book King John for The Medieval World, Ralph Turner here today to share with us the context of King John’s life, impact on the legacy of England, and exactly what led to him being so villainized for centuries to come. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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An anonymous dairy was written in 1608 cataloging the keeping of bears for the sport of bear baiting in England. Our guest today calls this diary the “Bearward Diary of 1608” and the term “bearward” is used to describe individuals whose job it was to take care of or travel with a bear (or in the case of this diary, multiple bears), for the purpose of putting on bearbaiting shows around England.The diary is a fascinating glimpse into the history of bearbaiting and the logistics behind finding, showing, and traveling with, bears in the 17th century, To help us explore the diary in more detail and understand some of the history it reveals about bears in Shakespeare’s lifetime is our guest and contributor to the Box Office Bears project, Callan Davies.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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The true example of a Renaissance Man, or a person who is great with many talents or areas of knowledge, Conrad Gessner joins the ranks of herbalists like William Turner and John Gerard as not only influences on Shakespeare, but examples of the influence of Renaissance thought on life in Elizabethan England. Gessner’s works were printed prolifically and consumed regularly in England, most likely by Shakespeare himself. Having completed over 70 publications in his lifetime, Conrad Gessner is a powerhouse of information and his surviving works provide vital links to the mindset and understanding of the world from the Renaissance. Here today to share with us what Conrad Gessner was like, the works he completed, and exactly how it is we are supposed to spell his name, is our guest Dan Hooley. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Shakespeare mentions sleep in his plays over 380 times, and the word bed over 540 times! His works mentions Truckle beds, as well as the famous Great Bed of Ware, but when it comes to the bard himself, what did he sleep on? Here this week to help us explore beds in Tudor England as well as pajamas, bedtime rituals, and the materials used to make bed sheets is our guest and author of Sleep in Early Modern England, Sasha Handley.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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One of the most accepted statements you’re liable to find about Elizabethan theater online today is that playing companies were all male companies. The idea of a woman on stage is considered forbidden, or not allowed. However, our guest today, Pamela Brown, has recently published a book called The Diva’s Gift to the Shakespearean Stage where she presents evidence that women did participate in performances on stage during Shakespeare’s lifetime. Her work challenges what I know I thought I knew about Shakespearean theater, and I’m delighted to have her here today to help clarify this part of Shakespeare’s history for you, too. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Married to Henry Valois, Catherine de Medici held considerable power and influence over the Valois Dynasty of France and was beloved of the Medici Dynasty in Italy. The year William Shakepseare was born, in 1564, Catherine de Medici offered her son, Charles IX, as a husband for Elizabeth I, and would go on to offer her other two sons, Francis and Henry, to Elizabeth I as well in a decades long effort to secure a political alliance through marriage with England. Staunchly opposed to marriage on the whole, Elizabeth I never did accept Catherine’s sons as husbands, but the interactions and rivalry between these two powerful women was a mainstay over England for the formative years in Shakespeare’s lifetime. Here today to help us explore the life of Catherine de Medici is our guest, historian, and author of the her latest book about Catherine de Medici called Blood, Fire, and Gold: The Story of Elizabeth I of England and Catherine de Medici , Dr. Estelle Paranque.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Transoceanic travel was a staple of European endeavors for the 16-17th century, with both Elizabeth I and James I spending massive amounts of money and effort to work with trading companies and explorers who traveled to other continents for trade, commerce, and colonization during Shakespeare’s lifetime. In order to reach these new and exotic places, as well as to be able to return again after the new places had been found, the sailors and explorers relied mainly on navigation by the stars and the wind to get to their destination. However, this time in history is when printed maps and manuscript charts started to be used as a fall back for navigation, and in some cases for political propaganda. It was the maps of John Smith that the Pilgrims consulted to get to the New World, and when Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe in the 16th century, a hand illustrated map of his journey was created in the 1570s. Shakespeare references a “map of the world” in Henry V, and a “map of ports, piers, and roads” in Merchant of Venice, along with 14 other references to maps and “mappery” in his plays. Here this week to help us understand how mapmaking worked for Shakespeare’s lifetime, exactly who it was that were employed as cartographers, and whether or not the maps sailors relied upon were accurate, is our guest and former Head of Map Collections at the British Library, Peter Barber. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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William Shakespeare uses the word “lottery” in his plays 8 times, often referring to a reward that comes after taking a gamble. While we may be familiar with lotteries like the Powerball or Publishing Clearinghouse here in the United States, a ticket based lottery where people could pay money for a chance to win big was brand new for England in Shakespeare’s lifetime. The first time England had seen a real lottery, was the first national lottery in 1567, instituted by Elizabeth I, when Shakespeare was just 3 years old. Here today to share with us how this lottery worked, who bought tickets, and who ultimately won it, is our guest, Elizabeth Norton. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Five times in Shakespeare’s works he refers to a specific plant called a Medlar. In As You Like It, Rosalind talks about grafting a medlar, Lucio talks about a rotten medlar in Measure for Measure, Mercutio uses the medlar tree to describe Romeo’s state of mind in Romeo and Juliet and the last two references to medlars are found in Timon of Athens when Apemantus both presents a medlar for eating, and questions whether someone hates medlars. Whether or not we should hate or love the medlar fruit is the subject of our show today. Our guest this week and author at British Food History.com, Neil Buttery, is in the studio with us to share with us the history of this plant, what it looks and tastes like, as well as what it would have been used for in Shakespeare’s lifetime. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In William Shakespeare’s play, Merry Wives of Windsor, Bardolph declares “You Banbury Cheese!” as an insult. The reason this line is an insult is because for the life of William Shakespeare, Banbury England was famous for making a particular kind of cheese that was thinner on the rind than other cheese typical of the period. Therefore, calling someone a Banbury cheese was akin to calling them a string-bean, or saying they were too thin. It works especially well as a joke for Shakespeare in the play because the character Bardolph is insulting is named, as you might expect, Slender.The joke is a highly contemporary reference by Shakespeare and in order to better understand the history of Banbury England and their famous cheese, we have invited the chair of the Banbury Historical Society, Helen Forde, to visit with us today and explain what made Banbury cheese so unique for Shakespeare’s lifetime. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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John Caius was a prominent medical professional in the 16th century. A staunch adherent to the teachings of Galen, who himself was the ultimate authority on medical knowledge for close to 15 centuries. John Caius owned a copy of Galen’s text and that original copy survives at Eton College, Berkshire, with Caius’ notes and annotations there for review. Galen’s work was essentially the Grey’s Anatomy of its time and Caius’ interest in Galen’s work was not merely being a fan, but the doing of his due diligence in medical study. However, despite the evidence to suggest he was a pillar of medical knowledge in the 16th century, training major medical figures of the period, John Caius is accused even in his own time, of being too much of a traditionalist, unable to change and grow with the rapidly evolving mindset of his time period and was even held responsible for annoying Queen Elizabeth at a medical forum that took place at court the year Shakespeare was born. As a result, about 30 years after his death in 1573, William Shakespeare satirizes his namesake through the comedic French doctor of Dr. Caius in Merry Wives of Windsor. Here today to share with us the life and accomplishments of the real Dr. Caius, is our guest, Vivian Nutton. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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From blood transfusions to replacement of legs, during Shakespeare’s lifetime was when medical science was trying to figure out the best way to replace broken or damaged body parts with transplants. Having only just discovered that the heart was a muscle, pumping at regular intervals, it was a revolution in medical science to consider each body part as a kind of piece in the mechanism that was the human body. We see these new concepts echoed in the work of our favorite playwright, William Shakespeare when characters like Hamlet and Titus Andronicus talk about the pulse keeping time and the heart beating outrageously. Our guest this week, Paul Craddock, has just published a book on the history of transplant surgery called Spare Parts, in which he details the advancements being made in the medical field during Shakespeare’s lifetime. He joins us today to explain what kinds of surgeries were being done, who the famous players were in the medical community of the day, and exactly what materials they used to accomplish these, often macabre, medical marvels. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In the year 1600, when William Shakespeare was just 36 years old, William Adams became the first Englishman to reach Japan. Adams sailed as part of a 5-ship fleet employed for the expedition by a private Dutch company. Adams would serve in Japan under Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, helping to build the first Western Style ships in Japan, and later helping Japan establish trading factories with the Netherlands and England. While Adams held significant influence in Japan during his lifetime, what was most remarkable was the friendship he cultivated with Ieyasu that would last until Ieyasu’s death.

Here today to share with us the story of this incredible Englishman contemporary to Shakespeare is author of The Shogun’s Silver Telescope: God, Art and Money in the English Quest for Japan, Timon Screech.

 

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On June 2, 1609, a ship named the Sea Venture set sail for Jamestown, Virginia. On the way, the ship was blown off course by a horrible hurricane. The storm badly damaged the ship and all hands onboard fought off the rising water until the ship ran aground on the island of Bermuda. After salvaging parts of the Sea Venture to build another ship, the stranded group set sail again for Jamestown, arriving in Virginia on May 10, 1610. 

 

News of the shipwreck and tales of the castaways traveled back to England, due in no small part to a publication by one Sea Venture traveler, William Strachey, who wrote dramatic tales about the adventure, including one incident in Bermuda involving an indentured servant named Stephen Hopkins who was accused of mutiny and narrowly escaped death. 

 

Stephen Hopkins not only survived the Sea Venture hurricane, but would travel 11 years later on the Mayflower as both a guide and the father to Oceanus, the only child born on the Mayflower while it was at sea. The dramatic life of Stephen Hopkins seems to have inspired our favorite dramatist, William Shakespeare for his play, The Tempest, and specifically the character of Stephano, which came to life in Shakespeare’s performance just one year after the cast and crew of the Sea Venture landed in Jamestown. 

 

Our guest this week, Andrew Buckley, is descended directly from Stephen Hopkins and has just completed a documentary film on his life. Andrew joins us today to share the story of Stephen Hopkins and walk us through the evidence that suggests Shakespeare’s character of Stephano might have been inspired by the real life of Stephen Hopkins.

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William Shakespeare uses the word “moon” over 160 times in his works, talking about the shape of the moon, the horns of the moon, and even traits of the moon like moonshine or moonbeam. For Shakespeare’s lifetime, the moon held almost as prominent a place in life as the sun, with people planning their lives around the phases of the moon. 

 

Described using a variety of names including popular feminine names like Lucina, Diana, and Cynthia, the moon was personified with attributes like good manners, while being held responsible for bad things like aging or unpleasant weather. For early modern England, it was best to consult the location of the moon to determine the best time to do everything from bringing in the harvest to getting a haircut. 

 

Given the prominence of the moon and the pervasiveness of its place in the culture, understanding how it works and its attributes becomes essential to understanding plays like A Midsummer Night’s Dream which mentions the word “Moon” close to 40 times and employs the moon, algon with madness, as a constant theme of the story. 

Our guest this week, Rachel Aanstad, writes about the place of the moon in the culture and mindset of 16th Century England in her Illustrated Handbook and Encyclopedia for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Today she joins us to explore the history and place of the moon and why it held such an important role in Shakespeare’s lifetime. 

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John Taylor is a poet contemporary to Shakespeare, but with a decidedly unique approach to the writing profession. John Taylor trained professionally as a waterman, or a river worker who taxied passengers to and from city destinations on the rivers like the River Thames in London. John Taylor used his occupation as a waterman to talk with the various playwrights, actors, and patrons while they were on the boat with him between destinations. Over the years, John Taylor used what he learned from these conversations to craft himself into a poet with the purpose of re-inventing the unglamorous and ridiculed 16th century opinion of the profession of waterman into a more glorified occupation by naming himself The Water Poet. Taylor’s work did manage to earn him a position of leadership in a waterman’s guild, and he would write elegies for not only James I, but John Taylor was the first person to write about the death of William Shakespeare, when he wrote a poem mentioning the bard in 1620. Here today to tell us about the life and exploits of this unique character from the life of William Shakespeare is our guest, Bernard Capp.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Shakespeare’s plays mention several kinds of alcoholic beverages, some of which we still have today like wine, ale, and beer, but others are more firmly situated in the past, making them pretty obscure references outside of niche historical circles that enjoy recreating beverages from antiquity. For example, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry VI, and Twelfth Night give us mentions of drinks like sack, posset, canary, and metheglin, all of which are alcoholic drinks but their substance may not be as recognizable today as it was for Shakespeare. What were these drinks made from, were they served at pubs or around the family diner table, and what did they look like?

Our guests this week, Jared and Anistatia Brown are experts in historical beverages and the owners at sipsmith.com where they research and write about the history of alcoholic drinks.

Today, Jared and Anastatia are taking us back to the 16th century to investigate these obscure drinks and introduce us to the cocktails of Shakespeare's lifetime.

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In a 16th century painting by Casper Stromayr, two men, presumably doctors, are standing behind a table on which a set of surgical instruments are laid out very neatly. In the notes for the painting we discover that some of the instruments are specifically for surgery of the eye. 

 

Cataract surgery like the one being prepared for in this painting was just becoming widespread in Shakespeare’s lifetime and was performed to remove the pearly film that developed over the surface of the eye. 

 

In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Ferdinand uses the phrase “Those are pearls that were his eyes:” Again in Rape of Lucrece, Shakespeare calls attention to pearly eyes when he writes “His eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds; Those round clear pearls of his…” 

 

Additionally, in both King Lear and Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part II, there are references in the dialogue to specific procedures and even specific diseases of the eye. The novelty of this new surgery, combined with the very public and performative nature of the procedure itself– often being performed in the street on public display– it’s plausible to think William Shakespeare may have been studying up on this new science. Based on the parallels found in Shakespeares plays, some scholars even suggest that William Shakespeare may have read Charles Estienne’s Defence of Contraries, translated from French to English in 1593, or Thomas Cooper’s 1578 medical dictionary that defines “cataractia” as “a disease of the eyes, when a tough humour like a gelly droppeth out.” 

To help us explore the history of cataract surgery as well as the references to the procedure and eye disease we see in Shakespeare’s plays is our guest and professional ophthalmologist, Dr. Chris Lefflfer.

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In the 16th century plague impacted Shakespeare’s daily life through regular closings of the theater due to the fear of disease spreading in enclosed spaces. In addition to large crowds gathering together in the theater, contemporary science warned against one particular threat of contagion: the laundry. It was believed that certain materials could spread disease by their relationship to the body. For example, linen was thought to be protective against disease by wicking the sweat and body odor away from the wearer. While linen was protective, other fabrics were deemed more dangerous while washing techniques, including using soaps like lye- a highly caustic cleanser made from wood ash, could help prevent disease. Our guest this week, Stephanie Bennett, is the author of “Cloth, Contact, and Contagion: Touching Disease of the Past and Present” for the Social History Society. Stephanie joins us today to talk about the 16th century understanding of disease and how proximity, material, and the interactions between the skin and clothing were thought to prevent or transmit disease. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Throughout Shakespeare’s lifetime there were dozens of books printed on plants called herballs. These books contained drawings of various grasses, flowers, herbs, and trees that grew in England. The drawings we have surviving today total more than 1,000 woodcuts from Shakespeare’s lifetime literally illustrating for us that the plant industry in England was big business for the same publishing houses producing Shakespeare’s plays. Our guest this week, Sarah Neville, joins us to explore this part of the publishing industry and explain where herballs came from, who wrote them, and most of all, what kind of person wanted to buy them during Shakespeare’s lifetime.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Shakespeare’s Pericles, the character Thasia gives birth on a ship at sea and, dying in childbirth, is thrown overboard in her coffin by Pericles. There’s a great deal to unpack in the story about this moment, but seeing it happen in the play lead me to wonder: Were women really traveling on board ships in the 16th century (sailing and exploration being typically a male profession, and even when the Pilgrims sailed to the New World, the Mayflower was unique in allowing both women and children aboard.) To help us understand what the place of women on ships was in the 16th C, whether there were any standards of care offered, and how births like Thasia’s might have been handled off stage and in the real 16th century world in which Shakespeare was living is our guest, Kasia Burzyńska Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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One of the byproducts of introducing disruptive innovation to the theater industry of the 16th century is that not everyone is a fan of your work. For William Shakespeare, as he and his compatriots masterminded theaters like the Globe and the Blackfriars, there was a considerable faction of Puritans in London who felt their work was corrupting the city and sought fervently to stop it. Our guest this week, Chris Laoutaris, is the author of Shakespeare and the Countess, the book that tells the remarkable story of how one woman in particular put up a memorable fight to try and stop one of the greatest theaters in history.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Many of Shakespeare’s most powerful scenes are based on physical action that isn’t directly written about in the scripts of his works. For example, when Ophelia goes mad and demonstrates her madness on stage, we know for certain what she says during that scene because her lines are written out for us but it’s unclear what her physical movements should be on stage. Similarly, in fight scenes, like brawls, riots, or acts of domestic abuse that happens within Shakespeare’s plays, it is up to interpretation of the director as to how the actors would have performed. Our guests this week, Jared Kirby and Seth Duerr, have decided to take some of the guesswork out of these scenes by investigating the history of fights, physical violence, and stage performance to determine what kind of actions should accompany the fights, assaults, struggles, and foul play in Shakespeare’s plays. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Born in the late 1480s, and dying an astonishing one hundred and fifty two years later in 1635, Old Tom Parr is famous for living longer than any man in England before or since his lifetime. Overlapping Shakespeare’s lifetime entirely, being born before the bard and living more than twenty years after the bard’s death, Old Tom Parr was born in Alderbury, England, and lived in Shropshire, where still today there is a small cottage called Old Parr’s Cottage that you can visit today. The cottage’s preservation and that of Old Tom Parr’s memory is a testament to this man’s extraordinarily long life. His longevity has been attributed to a unique diet, and specifically enjoying what one 16th Century physician called a “care free” life. To put the length of his life into perspective, Old Tom Parr would have lived through both the Battle of Bosworth, and Shakespeare’s retelling of it on the early modern stage over 100 years later. A portrait of Old Tom Parr hangs in the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery, and one of the curators there, Emma Kate Lanyon, joins us today to share the history of this portrait, as well as details into the surprising life, and death, of the longest living man from Shakespeare’s lifetime: the real Old Tom Parr Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Shakespeare references “beer” in his works 6 times, drawing attention to specific kinds of beer like “small beer” “double beer” and even one reference in Hamlet to beer barrels where the Prince of Denmark suggests that beer barrels had a stopper to keep them sealed. Drinking beer in Shakespeare’s lifetime was almost as regular as drinking water is today. So whenever you were thirsty, drinks like ale, beer, and spirits were much safer. This beer drinking reality means that there was a strong economy for beer making and distilling in Elizabethan England, including unique storage methods, containers, and even some versions of beer like small and double beer that are obsolete today. To find out exactly what the state, varieties, and industry was behind beer for Shakespeare, we have invited our guest this week, Richard Unger, expert in the beer making of Elizabethan England, and author of the book “Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance” to help us explore the history of how beer was made for the life of William Shakespeare. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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700 years before Shakespeare a man named Saint Swithun established his place in history mostly because of the miracles that surrounded his death and burial. St. Swithun would capture the imagination of writers for centuries after his death, with one of his most famous miracles being recorded in a book called Historia major from the 15th century. The early 13th century saw a shrine built to St. Swithun was not demolished until 1538, just 26 years before Shakespeare was born. This imposing figure on the English consciousness was celebrated during Shakespeare’s lifetime and continues to be celebrated today in England, every July 15. 

In exploring the history of St. Swithun’s day, I discovered one man who was potentially named after the popular St. Swithun who is not only a contemporary to William Shakespeare, but would himself go on to be canonized in the 20th century by Pope Paul VI. Swithun Wells was a Roman catholic martyr during the life of Elizabeth I. His family was known to house and shelter catholic recusants during Shakespeare’s lifetime, with Swithun Wells was executed by Elizabeth I for housing catholics. Here today to give us all these details about the holiday, how it was celebrated for Shakespeare, the history of the other Swithun from Shakespeare's lifetime, and even what science is behind how the holiday is celebrated today is expert in British History and our friend, Philippa Brewell. 

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One of the most powerful aspects of modern day theater performance is the spooky sounds, creaking doors, or the wailing noises of the witches across the moor. These same sound effects were important on stage for Shakespeare’s original performances of his plays, as well, but as you might imagine, with a decidedly less computer-based generation. While the bard’s selection of performance sound may not have been based on anything created by Steve Jobs, the technology was no less impressive with implements designed specifically to generate the sound of waves in the ocean, rain falling down, and even thunder. Here today to share with us some of the history of mechanical sound production and the use of music on stage to set the scenery in the early modern theater are our guests, and experts in original practice of Shakespeare’s plays, Chris Johnston and Alexander Sovronsky.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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One of the most remembered lines from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is when Sampson says “I bite my thumb at your sir!” It’s funny to us today partly because we don’t understand why someone would bite their thumb. We can tell from context that it's’ meant to be an insult, but do you know why it was insulting? Culture of the 16th-17th century when Shakespeare wrote lines about biting thumbs or making figs were similar gestures to giving the finger, or even milder gestures like putting your hands on your hips to indicate impatience. We recognize the cultural gestures of our own lifetime like hook ‘em horns or the “A-ok” symbol, but Shakespeare had these same kinds of specific body language communications as well that were just as well known for his audience as a facepalm might be for us today. Shakespeare uses the word “gesture” at least 10 times in his works with phrases like “there was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture” from A Winter’s Tale, or when he writes in the stage directions of the Tempest that Alonzo should use “a frantic gesture” when he comes on stage. From Sampson biting his thumb in Romeo and Juliet to the unwritten motions characters would have used when delivering their lines to indicate sarcasm, grief, insult, or shame, physical motions of the characters on stage were often just as, if not more, important to understand than the words themselves. Our guest this week has researched 16th century gestures and body language extensively and written about them in her book titled “Shakespeare’s Body Language: Shaming Gestures and Gender Politics on the Renaissance Stage.” Dr. Miranda Fay Thomas joins us this week to discuss gestures like biting thumbs but also assumptions we make about "praying hands" or "palm to palm." We are delighted to have her with us this week to explore gestures, symbols, and the culture of unspoken physical performance from Shakespeare’s lifetime.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In a series of highly political and pro-English history plays known as his “Henriad” performances, Shakespeare uses a variety of figurative words and expressions to describe the “Turks” or members of the Ottoman Empire. Almost all of Shakespeare’s references are rather negative towards the Ottomans, which at face value may lead you to believe that Shakespeare and his contemporaries were opposed to, or perhaps at war with, the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. However, historical exploration into the real political situation of England towards the then-called Ottoman Turks was far from negative. In fact, Elizabeth I saw the Ottoman Empire as an essential ally in her post-Catholic England currently at war with Spain. So how do we reconcile the essential nature of the Ottoman Empire under Elizabeth I with Shakespeare’s negative references to them by the characters in his history plays? Our guest this week, Aisha Hussain, is here to take us back to the 16th century and introduce us to the Ottoman Empire, what it meant to be Turkish, and what we need to know about the Ottomans in Shakespeare’s plays. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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When Shakespeare performed scenes like the ocean waves of the Tempest, the flying acrobatics of ghosts, or had his characters change location from the streets of verona to the castles of Kings of England, there were technologies, machines, and specialty techniques used in the 16th century to accomplish these feats of nature and fantastic visual effects on stage. 

 

Our guest this week is an expert in early modern performance illusions and the machines used to create them. We are delighted to welcome Frank Mohler, professor emeritus of the Department of Theater and Dance at Appalachian State University. He joins us today to share the history of 16th century flying machines, set changes, trap doors, and even elevators that were used in Shakespeare’s lifetime.

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When London established a new mayor every October, there was a pageant put on to celebrate the appointment and introduce the new mayor to the city known as the Lord Mayor’s Show. This event was an extravagant affair, featuring a huge parade that followed an established route through the city. In one of the earliest accounts we have of the Lord Mayor’s Show, from 1585, records indicate that part of the parade that year was a pageant known as the King Of Moor’s pageant. This pageant is described by our guest this week, Maria Shmygol, as a Moor pageant that was performed by an actor in blackface, and other such pageant devices and dark-skinned personages (variously described as ‘Moors’ and ‘black Indians’). Maria writes that this pageant and this presentation of black moors would come again in close to 10 other mayoral inaugurations across the early to mid 17th century, including 3 within Shakespeare’s lifetime. Maria Shmygol joins us today to explain the King of Moors pageant, including what we know about the actors, blackface makeup, and whether there was a distinction culturally between African, Indian, and Arabic, or if “moor” was a more general term. Since the images of the King of Moor’s pageant also includes drawings of a giant leopard, Maria will share with us the purpose and place of that specific animal in the pageant as well. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Wild carrots are indigenous to Europe and known as Queen Anne’s Lace, as well as Devil’s Plague, and Fool’s Parsley, this wild carrot variety was known primarily for its use as an herb and in medicinal recipes. The formal, cultivated carrot arrived in England by the 15th century, and right up until Shakespeare’s lifetime, carrots were mostly purple. According to the Wild Carrot Museum in the UK, orange colored carrots arrived in Europe right in the middle of Shakespeare’s lifetime, making the orange carrot a new thing for Shakespeare. In fact, one reason orange carrots are thought to have caught on so quickly in popularity is because cooking the orange carrots didn’t stain the pots nearly as bad as cooking with purple ones. The new carrot took a firm hold in the cultivation of this root vegetable and by the time British settlers arrived in North America, the carrots they brought with them were primarily orange and sometimes white. When it comes to finding carrots in Shakespeare’s plays, the word “carrot” isn’t in there. We can only partially fault Shakespeare for not giving us a nice reference to carrots for this week’s episode because the word “carrot” was just getting started in the English language. “Carrot” arrived in English around 1530, but in popular vernacular, there was a great deal of overlap between the names for root vegetables. Carrots, parsnips, and parsley were often referred to interchangeably by the same names. In fact, in Old English, there’s not a good way to distinguish between carrots and parsnips, since they were both called “moru” coming from the, fittingly, root word for “edible root.” 

 

Our guest this week is an expert in historical horticulture and he joins us today to help us understand what Shakespeare would have called this orange root vegetable, whether or not it was a regular at the dinner table, and to explain the history of what kind of carrots Shakespeare would have enjoyed. 

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Shakespeare uses the word “pearl” over 40 times across his works. He describes them as objects of high value, and in Troilus and Cressida, uses the pearl to describe a rare and valuable woman saying “she is a pearl, Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships.” The pearl trade was an industry well established under Henry VIII of England, who looked to the pearl trade as a way to strengthen England’s international relations after separation from Catholicism left them in need of some strong allies. Elizabeth I continued this pursuit, but enhanced the value of the pearl in England up to six fold, by some scholarly estimates, over the 

first 60 years in the 16th century due in part to the fact that the Queen literally wore thousands of them herself. Many of her most opulent outfits, appearing in numerous royal portraits of Elizabeth I, feature thousands of this precious gemstone. During Elizabeth’s reign, England regularly imported pearls by the shipload from countries like Morocco, Persia, and China. The imagery and symbolism of the pearl in England is associated with purity, chastity, and even, as the description for the ocular disease cataracts, which Shakespeare alludes to in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Rape of Lucrece.

 

Our guest this week is Saoirse Laarachi, a PhD candidate with the Shakespeare Institute, and author of Pearls: Trade, Beauty and North Africa for Medieval and Early Modern Orients. She joins us today to share the history of pearls in Shakspeare’s lifetime to discuss their use in general fashion, their purpose in international trade agreements, and what we should understand about Pearls from the Orient, specifically, when we find these references in Shakespeare’s plays. 

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Metal was used in Shakespeare’s lifetime to create a variety of items including swords, armor, guns, and even horseshoes. In one reference from Henry IV Part II, Shakespeare draws attention to the fact that a “smith” the term for someone who works with metal, was responsible for creating some of these items when the character Davy says “Here is now the smith's note for shoeing and plough-irons.” That comes from Act V, Scene 1. While most of Shakespeare’s uses of the word “smith” in his plays refer specifically to a goldsmith (that term being used at least 11 times in his works), there were other kinds of smiths, like silversmiths, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, and coppersmiths who worked in Shakespeare’s lifetime. Shakespeare gives us a glimpse of this metallurgical enterprise when the character Hubert de Burgh, in King John, Act IV Scene II says “I saw a smith stand with his hammer... whilst his iron did on the anvil cool.” We can tell from what references Shakespeare leaves us that metallurgy and working with metals held common place in society for his lifetime, but seeing as how most of don’t visit the blacksmith today on a regular basis, we asked our guest, Alan Williams, an Archaeometallurgist at The Wallace Collection, to visit with us today and take us back to Shakespeare’s lifetime where we can explore exactly how the metal was acquired, used, and molded into some of these essential household items for Shakespeare’s lifetime. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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You may have heard of common superstitions like throwing salt over your shoulder when you spill some to ward off bad luck, or crossing your fingers when you tell a lie to prevent consequences of your transgression. These kinds of small acts to try and control or influence the spiritual realm around you were more than just common superstitions for the life of William Shakespeare. Even in Protestant England, where the monarchs like Elizabeth I and James I after her, were actively harsh against anything even suspected of being witchcraft, simultaneously operating in the households of families and property owners around England were those known as Cunning Folk. These people were witches, wizards, and magicians whose practices included mixing up specialty brews to cure someone of bewitchment, as well as practicing various kinds of miraculous healing. What’s surprising about these cunning folk is not only that they were tolerated in a very anti-witchcraft society like Protestant England, but that they were rampant across England, to the point of being quite common and ordinary for Shakespeare’s lifetime. Here today to explain what the cunning folk were, their place in society, and what kinds of magic they practiced is our guest and author of Cunning-Folk and the Production of Magical Artefacts Owen Davies.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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It is Thanksgiving this week here in the US where we take time to intentionally be grateful for what we’ve been given and count our blessings, but it is also the one time of year where the whole nation remembers an event that began during the life of William Shakespeare: the journey of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower. Not many people realize the story of William Shakespeare overlaps with that of the Pilgrims, due mostly to the fact that the Pilgrims wouldn’t actually set sail from Plymouth until 1620, which is 4 years after the death of William Shakespeare. However, The Puritans were a major part of Shakespeare’s life in England prior to that fateful day in 1620, including Puritans who lived within walking distance of the known residences Shakespeare took up in London. The story of the Mayflower, Pilgrims, and so-called “Strangers” that travelled with them including Miles Standish, William Brewster, and William Bradford, informs our understanding of Shakespeare’s culture and the strong religious tensions that were building up in early 17th century England.. 

 

As many countries were flocking to the New World and trying to establish colonies there, England, too was placing a mark on the new land with settlements like Jamestown being established under Captain John Smith in 1607. At the same time, the Pilgrims were seeking to go to this New World, but for a decidedly different reason. As a group of religious separatists, as they were known then, they were seeking the right to freedom of religion. The group capitalized on the popular wave of exploration under James I to secure a land patent that allowed them to travel to England and set up a new colony where they could worship, and live, in freedom. Accompanied by the Merchant Adventurers and sanctioned by the Plymouth Colony, the Pilgrims set sail on September 6, 1620. 

 

Here today to tell us about the history behind the Pilgrim’s journey from England to Plymouth and the realities of that First Thanksgiving are our guests and historians behind the 1620 Experience, David and Aaron Bradford.

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In 1593, Shakespeare wrote Venus and Adonis the play in which he writes “like the deadly bullet of a gun, His meaning struck her ere his words begun.” As our guest this week explains, “This is likely a reference to the phenomenon of a supersonic bullet hitting the target before the gunshot is heard. The Henrician arquebuses housed at the Royal Armouries in England, some dating from Shakespeare’s lifetime, were capable of 400 metres per second or more, which is supersonic. The big heavy muskets of his era and many artillery pieces were also supersonic. 'Bullet' was used for any gun projectile at the time, so Shakespeare could actually have been talking about firearms or artillery (or both) here.” Shakespeare references either the word gun or musket a total of 7 times in his works. Like so many things during this Renaissance period of history, the technology of firearms and rifles was growing and evolving rapidly in terms of their construction, accuracy, firing mechanisms, and even which countries adopted the manufacturing of these weapons. Several surviving examples of these guns from 15-17th century Germany, France, and England are held at the Royal Armories Collections and their Keeper of Firearms and Artillery, Jonathan Ferguson, is here today to talk with us about the differences between matchlock, flintlock, rifles, and muskets, and to explore exactly what kind of weapons Shakespeare would have known about when he mentions guns, bullets, and muskets in his plays.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In 1588, William Shakespeare turned 24 years old. This year is part of what we call “Shakespeare’s Lost Years” because we don’t know precisely what Shakepeare was doing at this time. Many speculations have been made that Shakespeare hopped a ride with one of the touring companies that visited his hometown of Stratford Upon Avon to make his fortunes in London. Of course, the details are not known for sure, but our guest this week brings new evidence to the discussion by investigating one major flood event that struck Stratford Upon Avon in 1588. Prior to this significant disaster, Shakespeare’s hometown was a major stop of the route of travelling playing companies across England, and after this disaster, the town seems to drop off of the itinerary, leading some to speculate that the damage and subsequent fall from its’ status as a tourist destination may have played a role in William Shakespeare leaving for London. This week we welcome our guest, Laurie Johnson to the show to share his research into the flood of 1588 to tell us what may have happened to the town of Stratford Upon Avon that led to the departure of the bard.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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When Shakespeare plays are performed on stage and the magic of witches dazzles us with lights, smoke, and mirrors, it’s easy to think these spells and incantations are just folklore, designed to be nothing more than a theater spectacle. Archaeological evidence from Shakespeare’s lifetime, however, indicates that when Shakespeare had the Second witch in Macbeth declare “Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg and owlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble” these items being listed in connection with a witches brew were more than just ingredients for a nasty smelling soup. Charms, and real life objects imbued with spells and magic were believed to be capable of causing not just harm but very real “double double toil and trouble.” To combat the evil spirits, and the rampant working of witches in the 16th century, your average man or woman in London would hide countermagic items such as witch bottles, cats, shoes, and even horse skulls in the walls of their home as good luck against very real evil spirits. Our guest this week is an expert in these charms, having written the journal article, The archaeology of counter-witchcraft and popular magic in which he set out to find the various surviving counter magic artifacts in the UK and cataloged a list of not only what kinds of items were kept to ward off evil like witches, but also where they were kept, and why. Here to share his findings with us and explain the details behind a few of the counter magic artifacts from Shakespeare’s lifetime, is our guest, Brian Hoggard Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In 1606, as Shakespeare staged Macbeth, James I had published his book on witchcraft and the supernatural called Daemonology, and witch trials were rampant across the UK bringing women of all ages and classes before a court hearing for acts of anger, revenge, and even mental illness, all of which called them under suspicion of evil magic. The presence of witches on stage was not merely theatrical for Shakespeare’s plays but also represented a cultural reality for turn of the 17th century society in which witches, spells, magic, and the consequence of delving into the supernatural were active in the lives of Elizabethan England. One particularly harsh case of witchcraft in 1578 occurred when Shakespeare was just 14 years old, and saw a woman named Elizabeth Stile brought before the court for her acts of anger, considered so threatening that Elizabeth I had her famous magus and astrologer John Dee perform acts of counter magic to defend against Elizabeth Stile. Here this week to share the story of what happened to Elizabeth Stile, why she was charged as a witch, and what these incidents tell us about Shakespeare’s presentation of witches in Macbeth and Henry VI part 2, is our guest and author of Witchcraft in Shakespeare's England for The British Library, Carole Levine. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Shakespeare’s Henry VI part II, Lord Clifford exclaims, “To Bedlam with him! Is the man grown mad?” That’s from Act V Scene 1. This use of the word Bedlam both as a place associated with madness, is because there was a real Bedlam Hospital within steps of The Curtain and Globe theaters where this play was performed in the 16th century and that hospital specialized in the care for the insane. Bedlam Hospital was a psychiatric hospital in early modern London. It was founded in the mid-13th century in service to the Church of Bethlehem, as a house for the poor. By the time Henry VIII gave administrative control of Bedlam to the city of Bethlem in 1547, it had become a hospital for the nation’s mentally ill and specifically those who were considered violent or dangerous. Initially, the term “Bedlam” was an informal namebut by the time Shakespeare was writing about Bedlam in Henry VI Part II, the word “bedlam” was part of everyday speech, defined as madness or chaos. In addition to Shakespeare's 8 uses of “bedlam” across his works, Bedlam Hospital itself was staged in many early modern plays including The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, and Bartholomew Fair by Ben Jonson, among many others during the early 1600s. One potential reason for the popularity of using Bedlam in early modern plays can be attributed to the display of insane people that began in London in 1576 as a way to raise money for the hospital. Bedlam Hospital continues in operation today as a psychiatric hospital, with one of their specialist services including the National Psychosis Unit. 

Here today to help us understand the history of Bedlam Hospital and what it is important to know when we see Shakespeare referencing this hospital in his plays is our guest, Duncan Salkeld.

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According to The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, edited by Stanley Wells and Michael Dobson, the phrase “the Clink” described a specific prison in an area of London called Bankside, where Shakespeare is known to have lived at least from 1597-1596. The prison itself was housed inside what used to be a manor house owned by the Bishop of Winchester. It was the closest prison to the theaters of Bankside, which included The Globe and the Rose theater, among others. This prison was best known for being a prison for debtors. While Shakespeare’s works do reference the word “clink” to describe the sound of metal clanging against other metal, there is no direct reference to the prison by name. However, in Cymbeline Act III Scene 3, Guidierius says “A prison for a debtor, that not dares To stride a limit.” While Shakespeare may or may not have been referring to the debtor’s prison located right down the road from his theater with this remark in the play, nonetheless, The Clink itself was a notorious house of incarceration during Shakespeare’s lifetime. Legendary as an entirely horrible place, the prison gained a reputation for being where prisoners were sent to die. Stories are told of the prisoners being left in their cells to starve to death, or even drown in the rising tide of the Thames that was nearby. This prison’s notoriety is the reason why we use the phrase “thrown into the Clink” today to mean that someone has gone to prison. No one knows the full history of The Clink prison and what it was like for Shakespeare better than the curator at The Clink Prison Museum in London, and our guest this week, Alex Lyon.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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The rise of the printing press created a precursor to the modern day newspaper, where printed publications like broadsides and pamphlets served to communicate ideas, updates, and notices about new laws, the progress of wars abroad, and even comic stories, true crime tales, and anecdotes. People who deliver letters are referred to in Shakespeare’s plays the “post” and letters are often referred to as “news” with Shakespeare using the word “news” an astonishing 326 times across his works. There’s obviously an overlap between messengers, oral tradition, news, and letters for Shakespeare’s lifetime, but what exactly was the importance of written communication and what should we understand about the system of letter delivery and communication when we see characters named only “messenger” Or “post” appear on Shakespeare’s stage? Did Shakespeare have things like envelopes, stamps, or even a postal address? Here today to take us back to the 16th and early 17th century to explore the role of letters and communication systems in Shakespeare’s lifetime is our guest and author of The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself, Dr. Andrew Pettegree. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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William Shakespeare mentions the word “book” over 140 times across his works, showing not only their prominent place in society but their popularity as well. There are several kinds of books referenced in Shakespeare’s plays including prayer books, muster books, horn books, and more but one particular kind of book seen as a novelty for Shakespeare’s lifetime that could be taken anywhere the owner themselves went was the tiny individual books collected together in what was known as a travelling library. These compact books were hardly larger than a standard pack of cards and each one  fit onto narrow shelves fashioned into a larger wood case shaped like a large book itself with a hard cover that opened and closed like a lid to both contain and protect the precious books held within. Often highly ornate, featuring elaborate paintings and even the coat of arms of those that had given or received the travelling library as a gift,  these bookcases were part of what was known as a “curiosity” for the 17th century when Jacobean English families would collect odd bits of treasure to display as a status symbol and conversation piece in their homes. As books were seen as precious items to be highly prized, owning a travelling library yourself was seen as an important privilege. One of these travelling libraries from 1617, the year after Shakespeare died, is housed at the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds. Today, we are delighted to welcome one of the curators at the Brotherton Library, Dr. Michael Brennan, as an expert in travel and travel books of Shakespeare’s lifetime to tell us about the history and purpose of this unique item.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Sandals, boots, spurs, and cobbled shoes are all mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays, found in works like Alls Well That Ends Well, Coriolanus, and even Hamlet where the Danish Prince talks about his “raz’d shoes.” All this mention of footwear in the works of the bard has us wondering exactly what kind of shoes William Shakespeare might have worn during his lifetime. While portraits of the bard don’t extend down to his toes to provide us with a visual record of Shakespeare’s actual feet, we can explore the fashion of men’s shoes in Tudor England to examine the styles, materials, and commerce of men’s shoes. This week’s guest is intimately familiar with what is involved in making 15-16th century shoes because that’s exactly what he creates in his shop, NP Historical Shoes. We are delighted to welcome artisan and historical shoemaker, Juraj Matejik to the show this week to help us explore what kind of footwear Shakespeare might have had on his feet. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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There may not have been indoor plumbing in Shakespeare’s lifetime, but going to the bathroom still involved cleaning up. One aspect you may be surprised to learn you share with William Shakespeare is that he, too, used various kinds of paper to go to the restroom. Shakespeare’s plays provide references to the jacques, jordan, and chamber pot, all options for using the restroom in Tudor England, and it turns out, we can also find references to what Shakespeare may have used in those restrooms for handling the necessary business in the lavatory, as well. Our guest this week, Tiffany Stern, is here to share with us her research into the alternatives to paper that were often used as toilet tissue for early modern London. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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When William Shakespeare was just 24 years old, a man named Timothy Bright would introduce a system of writing called charactery to England, setting off a wildfire of shorthand manuals, methods, and training where people flocked to learn this new, symbol based, system of writing that allowed the spoken word to be captured verbatim in real time. Notes and letters from philosophers and travellers in the late 16th and early 17th centuries remark that the fascination and mastery of shorthand was a skill seen internationally as uniquely English. The skill was so popular in England that it would even travel across the Atlantic with the British Colonists and find a place in the foundation of the New World, with the system of tachygraphy (created in 1626) being used by American President Thomas Jefferson in the 18th century. While many of the surviving copies of shorthand we have today exist on ink and paper, we have extant records that indicate shorthand was also useful on wax tablets, writing tables, and even with the graphite pencil. Since these alternate writing materials are designed to be temporary, their existence is something we only know about today from references we find in writings like early modern plays, including Shakespeare’s two references to “charactery” in Julius Caesar and Merry Wives of Windsor. Here today to help us explore the evolution of charactery from new fangled idea to valuable career over the course of Shakespeare’s lifetime is our guest and author of ““All the World Writes Short Hand” , Kelly McCay. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Leicester’s Men are a group of actors who formed what many consider to be the founding company of English Renaissance Theater. Established with the sponsorship of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the playing company travelled around England and abroad performing plays with the legal protection of being in the Earls’ service. The company was unique for its’ time in that they separated themselves from the traditional income model of playing companies, choosing instead to operate as an independent entity where they could generate their own income instead of getting paid by their sponsor. By 1574, five men including James Burbage, John Perkin, John Laneham, William Johnson, and Robert Wilson would be listed on a royal patent for Leicester’s Men, making their playing company the first to receive an official royal patent and, in so doing, giving these men the freedom to create what we know today as English Renaissance Theater. Playing companies, including Shakespeare’s company the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, would go on to follow the model of Leicester’s Men well into the late 16 and early 17th centuries. 

Here today to tell us the story of Leicester’s Men and the groundwork they built for future playwrights like William Shakespeare is our guest, Laurie Johnson.

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In 1603, as King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England following the death of Elizabeth I, one of the people James’ tapped to walk in his coronation parade was William Shakespeare, along with the entire Lord Chamberlain’s Men company who received the official patronage of James I to become the King’s Men. The new title and status brought big changes to the performance of plays, the subject matter selected for play writing, and gave William Shakespeare the position in society he had long sought after. Our guest this week, Lucy Munro, is here to share her research into the King’s Men and what the shift from Elizabethan into Jacobean England brought about for Shakespeare. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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The wig was first introduced to England around 1572, when Shakespeare was only 8 years old. The fashion would catch on very quickly in England, promoted by the Queen herself, who was known for wearing wigs in her older years, and defined by her naturally curly red hair in her youth. There are over 100 references to “hair” across Shakespeare’s works, many of them calling attention to the color of the hair, and assigning value not only to particular colors, but also reflecting the importance of keeping one’s hair neatly tended. In Henry V, the Duke of Burgundy says that prisoners are notable for being “overgrown with hair” and in Henry VI Part II, the Earl of Warwick defines a “ghastly” man as being recognizable by how his “well proportioned beard [is] made rough and rugged.” Later in that same play, Winchester, calls attention to the cultural importance of a well kept grooming regime when he associates a demonstrative problem with wild hair. He says, “Comb down his hair; look, look! it stands upright.” These are just a few references in Shakespeare’s plays that reveal to us the kinds of hair, combs, dye, and periwigs--the now archaic term used in Shakespeare’s lifetime to describe a wig--that were present during the life of the bard. Here to today to help us explore the vanity table of the 16th century and examine exactly what were the kind of Elizabethan wigs, hair dye, hair brushes, and toilette products used for women (and men) of turn of the 17th century London, is our guest and contributor to the Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits exhibition at the Royal Museum Greenwich, Sue Prichard. This exhibition is a collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery, London, and features 500 years of royal portraiture that offers us today a view into the story of haircare from Shakespeare’s lifetime. This exhibition is now on display at the Royal Museum Greenwich and we will link you to more information on how to see this exhibition in today’s show notes. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Bridewell Palace was built in the early 16th century as a residence for King Henry VIII. The palace was a unique structure because it deviated from the architectural designs of the time period by not having a great hall and featuring an elaborate staircase. It was also constructed around a large inner courtyard. Under Edward VI in the 1550s, Bridewell Palace was given to the City of London as a home for the city’s homeless children and a place of punishment for “disorderly women.” It was run in conjunction with Bedlam Hospital throughout Shakespeare’s lifetime and formed the blueprint for later large prisons, including the Clirkenwell Bridwell prison opened as a correctional institute for prostitutes and vagrants in 1615 and Tothill Fields Bridewell prison that was opened in 1618 in Westminster. The building itself was mostly destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, but the reputation of Bridwell would far outlast the original structure, with the term “bridewell” continuing in use around the world into the present day as a term for a city’s detention facility, usually close to a courthouse. Here today to explain the history of Bridewell Prison is our guest, Duncan Salkeld. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Born in Portugal, Dr. Roderigo Lopez fled to England in the 16th century as a Jewish refugee. His family was Jewish, forced to convert to Catholicism, and when he arrived in England he joined the Church of England to become Protestant while still practicing Jewish rituals at home. Serving at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1576, Lopez rose through the ranks as a doctor until he was the Chief Physician there. He served as doctor to some of England’s most notable dignitaries including Sir Francis Walsingham, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex, and even Queen Elizabeth herself. These highly prestigious professional connections were  a boon for Dr. Lopez’ medical career, but the danger of these connections led to Dr. Lopez being entangled with spies and ultimately to his execution on grounds of plotting an assasination against Queen Elizabeth. The scandal of Dr. Lopez’ trial in 1594 happened while Shakespeare was in London, and the cultural anti-semitism of 16th century England that played a role in Lopez’ conviction is echoed in some of the references to Jews we find in Shakespeare’s plays. Here today to tell us the story of Roderigo Lopez and his part in the life of William Shakespeare is our guest, Susan Abernethy. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Henry VI Part I, William Shakespeare presents one of history’s most famous characters, a woman, named Joan La Pucelle, known today as Joan of Arc. For the French, she was a truly holy woman, chaste, and pure. She was also a brilliant military strategist and a force to be reckoned with in battle. Nicknamed “the Maid of Orleans,” the real Joan of Arc was a heroine for France during the Hundred Years’ War and would be canonized as a saint. The depiction of Joan La Pucelle in Shakespeare’s play is an intriguing investigation because as Shakespeare was depicting this famous heroine on the 16th century stage, the Hundred Years’ War would have been recent history for the audience, and at the time it was presented, England was not friends with France. In the play, Shakespeare leaves us a pile of cultural realities to unpack with his depiction of Joan La Pucelle, with not only her overt military leadership in a society where women were not called upon to lead armies, but she is also involved in the occult, consulting demons prior to battle, and she claims she is both pregnant as well as a virgin during her trial. Our guest this week, Carole Levin, is an expert in the history of Joan La Pucelle and the depiction of her for Shakespeare’s lifetime. She joins us today to explore false pregnancy claims in early modern England and to compare the real history of Joan of Arc with Shakespeare’s fictional presentation of her.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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William Braford is most well known today as the man who served as the second governor of Plymouth Colony, leaving Europe for Virginia in 1620 aboard the Mayflower. Prior to this infamous voyage, Bradford was an Englishman whose life overlapped that of William Shakespeare, having been born in Yorkshire, England, when Shakespeare was 26 years old. There’s no evidence to suggest Shakespeare knew Bradford personally, but the life of William Bradford shines a light on a huge aspect of Shakespeare’s life: the presence and subsequent response to religious extremism in England. Queen Elizabeth restored Protestantism to England in 1559, along with requirements that everyone attend Protestant Church services. Many religious groups refused, moving to underground church services that were decidedly illegal in England. One of the people who attended such services was a young William Bradford. Relations with religious groups in England remained a tense tightwire act across two monarchs of Shakespeare’s life, a situation we can see reflected in Shakespeare’s Puritan character named Malvolio in Twelfth Night. The character is publicly humiliated while simultaneously painted as someone with whom we can sympathize. The duality of the character itself is a powerful reflection of the sentiments of England at the start of the 17th century. Efforts like the publication of the King James Bible in 1609 attempted to find a common ground with the Puritans, but peace could not be found, with arrests of religious dissenters increasing under James I and leading ultimately to groups like Bradford and the Pilgrims, leaving England entirely in the early 1600s. Here today to help us explore the life of William Bradford, explain the distinction between Puritans and Pilgrims, as well as the reality of religious extremists like the Anabaptists and Scottish Presbyterians, going on in England during Shakespeare’s lifetime is our guests, and direct descendants of William Bradford himself, David and Aaron Bradford. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Portraits of ladies and gentlemen from the late 16th century show men and women adorned in all manner of finery, including everything from flowing gowns, to magnificent swords, and even those infamous Tudor ruff collars,but what exactly did it take to get into all those fine outfits? When Shakespeare surveyed his closet in the morning before he got dressed for the day, were there certain items he needed like an undershirt or socks? This week, we are diving into the world of early modern clothing to look at what Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and his female counterparts would have worn under their clothes. Our guest this week is Tudor clothier and historical costumer, Bess Chilvers, who joins us to answer questions (some of which have been submitted by our members here at That Shakespeare Life), about what kind of underwear there would have been for people in turn of the 17th century England, including underwear, support garments, apparati needed for wigs, socks, and more.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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When we study court in Shakespeare history the phrase “appeared at court” or “performed at court” frequently gets used to describe what Shakespeare was doing at various points of his life. However, the overlap between “court” legally (as in, where you go for a legal trial) and the social phenomenon of Renaissance England where the monarch gathered their “court” together can make it hard to know what it means to go to court. This week we’ve set out to rectify this gap in knowledge with our guest, Natalie Mears, who is here to share her research into Courts, Courtiers, and Culture in Tudor England, an article which she published in The Historical Journal back in 2003. In that paper, Natalie cites a play by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville called Gorboduc that was performed in 1561-1562 at court, and that play is an example of how performances were used to not only comment on events of the day by the performers (similar to what you might think of today as an editorial cartoon) but in the case of Gorboduc, the play commented directly to Elizabeth I to try and influence her decision to marry and to comment on Robert Dudley as a potential candidate. Natalie’s work goes on to cite sermons selected by James VI and I to scold the Scottish Presbyterians at Hampton Court in 1606, as well as a sermon by Edward Dering in 1570 that “lambasted the Queen” for perceived failures at political reform. These examples have us wondering if the instances of Shakespeare appearing at court were more than just event entertainment. Were plays like Shakespeare’s similar political weapons in the same way as Gorboduc? Would Shakespeare’s plays have been brought to court for their power to influence politics and if so, does that explain why Shakespeare wrote so frequently about political issues?  Natalie Mears joins us today to answer some of these questions about Shakespeare and Court Life Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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When William Shakespeare first arrived in London sometime in the 1580s, James Burbage was already making waves in the early modern performance industry by establishing The Theater, a playhouse which the Burbages owned. After a fight with the owner of the land on which The Theater was built, the building itself would be dismantled by the Burbages and William Shakespeare who helped the Burbages clandestinely move the building timber by timber across the Thames to create the theater known as The Globe. Today, we refer to The Globe, as well as the first indoor playhouse, the Blackfriars, as Shakespeare’s theaters. Of course, the bard was intimately involved and arguably held a position of leadership in these establishments but defining terms from his lifetime like shareholder, leaseholder, and housekeeper, all help us take a closer look at who exactly owned the theater and how that was different from being an owner in a playing company. Our guest this week, Lucy Munro, is the author of the article for King’s College London, titled “Who Owned the Blackfriars Playhouse” and she is here with us today to share the mechanics behind theater and playing company ownership in the 16-17th century, as well as to answer the question of whether Shakespeare really did own the theaters we give him credit for today. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In the 1950s when Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was adapted into West Side Story, popular culture in the US resonated with the gang culture and street fighting depicted on stage because the brass knuckled “rumbles” taking place on streets like those in New York City were current events of the day. Turns out, historically, these gang fights were a real issue for Shakespeare’s lifetime as well, and scenes like Mercutio and Romeo fighting in the streets of Verona, the mob that goes after Cinna the Poet in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and the tavern brawls that break out in several scenes across Shakespeare’s works would have been viewed by Shakespeare’s 16th century audience as a reflection of their current events and realities of life on the streets of Elizabethan London. Here this week to help us explore the 16th century history, current events, street fights and even gangs that were present during Shakespeare’s lifetime as he wrote about the Capulets and Montagues being “warring families” duking it out in the streets of Verona, is our guest and expert in Elizabethan street crime and one of the Washington, DC, area's most sought-after fight coaches for stage plays, Casey Kaleba. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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It seems even William Shakespeare had household floors to keep clean. While it likely wouldn’t have been the actual William doing the majority of the sweeping in his household, one item the bard seems to have been familiar with through his nineteen uses of the word “sweep” and one use of the word “besom” across his works is the household broom used for sweeping floors. The bard uses “broom” at least 3 times in his plays, mentioning once a broom-staff, and in The Tempest, Shakespeare calls attention to a “broom-grove” suggesting there was a particular plant or tree used for growing the material to make brooms in the 16th century. Here today to help us explore the people who made brooms, exactly who was doing the sweeping in Shakespeare’s lifetime, as well as the folklore surrounding the broom also called broom-besom, is our guest and author of “Why does Puck Sweep?” the article examining the household cleaning scene of one of Shakespeare’s most famous characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Please welcome our guest, Wendy Wall.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Cymbeline, Act I Scene 1 Posthumus Leonatus says “I’ll drink the words you send though ink be made of gall” and in Twelfth Night Sir Toby Belch calls attention to a particular kind of ink when he says “Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen…” in Act III Scene 2. Both of these scenes from Shakespeare’s plays are referencing the most popular kind of ink used in Shakespeare’s lifetime and that is iron gall ink. The phrase iron gall ink was a phrase used to describe common, or standard, ink and as Sir Toby Belch illuminates with his lines, the ink was used to dip your goose-pen into to write letters or any kind of correspondence on paper you wanted to write down. The ink was made from a fermentation of oak galls which is partially where the ink gets it’s name, the other part--the iron--comes from the iron salt that is added during the fermentation process to create iron gall ink. Here today to share with us the history of iron gall ink and explain exactly how the ink of Shakespeare’s lifetime was created is historical calligrapher, chemist, and owner at Scribal Workshop, Lucas Tucker.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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Shakespeare mentions the word “crocodile” five times in his plays, but crocodiles not being native to England must have been introduced to the bard from outside his natural habitat there in London. The crocodile itself was well known in English literature, having been written about in association with Egypt and Africa by writers like Pliny the Elder centuries prior to Shakespeare. This particular beast was brought back to the forefront of popular imagination during Shakespeare’s lifetime, however, when explorers to the New World came home with stories of a new creature similar to the crocodile and unique to North America named the alligator. The alligator is mentioned only once in Shakespeare’s works in Act V Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet where it is included on a list of items on display in an apothecary shop. That reference is particularly interesting when you consider that a display of natural specimens in an apothecary shop is very likely one of the real places Shakespeare himself might have encountered one. Here to take us back to the mid 1590s as Shakespeare wrote about the alligator in Romeo and Juliet and explain for us what 16th century science believed about the alligator/crocodile is our guest, Spencer Weinreich. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Elizabethan England, the basilisk was a feared and hateful creature, capable of killing someone with just a glance. Of the 8 references to basilisks in Shakespeare’s plays, half of these invoke the reputation of being able to kill with a look. European bestiaries record the basilisk as a legendary serpent ruling as King of the reptiles and while the folklore far outpaces the science, recent historical studies of animals from Elizabethan England reveal that the basilisk may have been a term applied to a real snake that made its home across Northern Europe when Shakespeare was writing about basilisks in his plays. Our guest this week is author of The Grass Snake and the Basilisk, a research project that takes a historical perspective on how the specific attributes of human life in Elizabethan England created an ideal home for the grass snake, an animal who defends itself by creating a death like gaze. We are pleased to welcome Rob Lender to the show this week to explain the history of the real animal Shakespeare calls a basilisk. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Elizabethan England on the corner of Friday Street and Bread Street was a fine dining and drinking establishment called the Mermaid Tavern. The building itself burned down in the Great Fire of London in 1666, but the legend of this storied tavern lives on through the records of people like Ben Jonson and 17th century travel writer Thomas Coryat, who wrote about the Mermaid Tavern in the early 1600s, when Shakespeare was in his late 40s to early 50s, describing it as the meeting place of Fraternity of Sireniacal Gentlemen, a drinking club that met on the first Friday of the month and is thought to have included famous members, most with very close ties to Shakespeare. Men like Ben Jonson, John Fletcher, and Francis Beaumont, were thought to have been members and there are a few scholars who think that William Shakespeare might have been among the members of this club as well. Our guest this week, Michelle O’Callaghan, is a historical researcher into the history of English taverns, and the author of the article Patrons of the Mermaid Tavern. She joins us today to share the story of the Mermaid Tavern, what we can know about the Fraternity of Gentlemen who met there, and what her research concludes about whether Shakespeare might have attended.

 

Michelle O’Callaghan is a Professor of Early Modern Literature and currently Head of the Department of English Literature at the University of Reading. She has published extensively on early modern literature and culture, from the Inns of Court and tavern societies to women’s engagement in literary cultures. Her major books are The ‘shepheards nation’: Jacobean Spenserians and early Stuart political culture, 1612-1625 (Oxford, 2000), The English Wits: Literature and Sociability in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2007), Thomas Middleton, Renaissance Dramatist (Edinburgh, 2009), and, most recently, Crafting Poetry Anthologies in Renaissance England: Early Modern Cultures of Recreation, which was published by Cambridge University Press in December, 2020.

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In 1588, one man named Tom Bright introduced an innovative new method for quickly writing down what you hear during a live performance, publishing a manual he called “Charactery.” A term of Bright’s own invention, Charactery is the first English version of an ancient method of shorthand dating back to the time of Cicero, that allowed anyone to pirate versions of live performance, provided they had enough patience to learn the complicated system. Bright’s innovative technology applied a complicated array of symbols and characters that while intimidating to review today, was a huge hit in Elizabethan England, with several additional shorthand methods being published in England within just a few years of Bright’s work. Walking the line between illegal behavior and artistic prowess, masters of shorthand in the late 16th century are responsible for many of the surviving copies of the sermons from Shakespeare’s lifetime, and our guest this week argues in his publication, Shakespeare, Playfere, and the Pirates, that shorthand may be behind the many errors we find in Shakespeare’s Bad Quartos. The obvious question when you realize audience members at The Globe theater were writing down the play as they heard it is to wonder, how did they accomplish that feat in the age of quill pens and in wells? And did they get arrested for pirating the works of the greatest playwrights of the age? Here this week to explain the mechanics of stealing words from the air as they are spoken, what kind of impact charactery had on the theater culture of the 16th century, as well as the mechanics of Tom Bright’s 16th century disruptive innovation, is our guest Bryan Crockett.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Elizabethan England two of the most popular forms of public entertainment were animal baiting and hunting. Bull and bear baiting happened in a dedicated arena while hunting was usually done on private lands or hunting parks where private, usually very elite, groups of people would gather for the hunt. What each of these sports has in common is they both employ use of dogs. Hunting dogs were raised meticulously with manuals from Shakespeare’s lifetime outlining the detailed husbandry involved in how to build kennels, how to feed, and even how to groom hunting dogs. When it came to choosing the right dog for the job, there were specific breeds of dogs that were favored for particular sport. Shakespeare gives us a glimpse into the world of dogs and favoring specific breeds when he mentions “hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, Shoughs, water-rugs and demi-wolves” in Macbeth Act III. Shakespeare uses the word dog or hound over 200 times across his works, writing about spaniels, beagles, the Thessalian bull (considered to be an ancestor to the basset hound), and the Iceland dog in 4 additional plays. 

Here today to help us explore the husbandry of dogs popular in Elizabethan England, which ones were used for bull and bear baiting, as well as what we can know about the breeds Shakespeare calls out by name in his plays are our guests and co authors of, "Little Lions, Bull Baiters, and Hunting Hounds", Jeff Crosby and Shelley Ann Jackson. 

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Bull Ring market in Birmingham, England, UK was first known as Corn Cheaping because in the 12th century, which is when we have the first reference to Corn Cheaping, it was used as a corn market. Corn Cheaping had an iron ring setup on a grassy section of Corn Cheaping that was used as a bull baiting arena, where bulls who had been selected for slaughter would be tied and baited for entertainment before being processed into meat. That’s where the name Bull Ring Market comes from. Today, in the 21st century, Bull Ring Market is still being used as an open air market, selling fish, meat, poultry, exotic vegetables, and even household supplies. But how did the market get from the 12th century to today, and why has the original purpose survived so many centuries? Headland Archaeology discovered some answers about the history of Bull Ring Market when they conducted an archaeological dig at Beorma Quarter, close to Bull Ring Market. Today, our guest, Steve Thomson, lead archaeologist for this project, is here today to share with us what they found during Phase 1 of their excavation of Bull Ring Market and what that tells us about how the space was being used in Shakespeare’s lifetime. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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As students of Shakespeare’s lifetime, often we see the phrase “of certain status” to describe 16-17th century limitations on clothes, housing, and other material realities for various people. Particular if you study Elizabethan sumptuary laws, it seems like society was strictly controlled based on social status, and one’s place in society was decided at birth, with little mobility allowed. The life of people like William Shakespere, however, who in his own life was able to rise in the ranks of society and establish himself as a gentleman, we have evidence that social mobility was a strong force in England for the 16-17th century. One key place that contemporaries of William Shakespeare were able to show off their status, and stake their claim to a certain place in the social order was through the design, and architecture, of their homes and grand estates. Our guest this week, Matthew Johnson, is here to explain the social phenomenon of upward mobility, define the levels of society that were present for Shakespeare, and walk us through some famous architecture of the 1500s-1600s that reveals where the lines were drawn between the classes for Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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In Elizabethan England, the Queen is immortalized in woodcuts that show her fondness for the sport of hawking. By the time James I comes to the throne in 1603, hawking is surpassed by a form of hunting called par force where animals like dogs and horses are used to round up prey. While the practical aspect of hunting animals for meat was utilized in these hunting expeditions, arguably the primary function of going hunting was to establish yourself as a member of a higher order of social status and to network with powerful political connections that might advance your station. In her paper, He Cannot Be a Gentleman Which Loveth Not Hawking and Hunting, our guest, Karen Kaiser Lee writes about the popularity of hunting par force under James I and explores the specific hunting treatises that were written during his reign to both define the methods of hunting as well as regulate the kinds of people who would be permitted to participate in this exclusive sport. Karen joins us today to take us inside the world of early modern hunting to look at who was allowed to hunt, what they used for this purpose, and how it helped usher in a new era in English history where a person could move upward in society if they were disciplined enough at a new, and important, skill. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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This week is Part 2 in our 2 part series on John Harington, the man who invented the first flush toilet in England. Our guest, Bob Cromwell, is back again this week to take us back to 16th century England and explore the exciting life of John Harington beyond his invention of the flush toilet. Harington was known as a literary figure, primarily for his translation of Orlando Furioso, and was a godson to Elizabeth I as well as a courtier in the royal court. Harington’s destiny was set into motion by his father, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London alongside Elizabeth I. Harington the son would go on to tutor the son of James I during Shakespeare’s lifetime. Bob Cromwell is here to share with us some of the historical research that suggests the life of John Harington created such a splash in English society during Shakespeare’s lifetime that Shakespeare himself may have included references to Harington in his plays Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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There has been a bridge over the river Thames since the time of the Romans and the reign of Aethelred II, when the bridge was designed as a Saxon defense against the Danish. Since then, there have been at least 5 bridges either built, or repairs made to the predecessor, which have occupied the crossing of the Thames at London Bridge. The original structure we think of as the first London Bridge was located about 100 feet east of today’s London Bridge. There was a London Bridge stretched across the Thames when Shakespeare was there, it is very likely that the bard travelled upon this bridge, as did numerous travellers, pageants, and processions throughout this lifetime. A distinct difference from the London Bridge we have today, though, is that unlike today’s bridge which is focused on providing passage for cars and pedestrians, the London Bridge of Shakespeare’s day included houses, shops, and of course, because this was well before cars existed, provided passage for people on foot, horseback, and the occasional carriage. Known for being a site of production, as well as military armament, and even commercial business, the bridge of Shakespeare’s England was quite different from the bridge we have now. Here today to share with us what London Bridge was like for William Shakespeare is our guest, Tony Sharp. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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When we think of unicorns, we most often think of the mythical creature roaming forests in Europe or if you are from the UK, you’ll likely make a connection with the famous nursery rhyme about the Lion and the Unicorn. In addition to being the national animal for Scotland, and a symbol of their strength and independence, for Shakespeare and the 16th century society in Scotland, the unicorn is a type of currency.

 

Scotland's unicorn is not only a national legend and official symbol, but also a coin minted originally by James III of Scotland, and the symbol would become under James VI of Scotland, also James I of England, part of the national symbol for Britain as a whole. Here this week to help us explore the advent of the Scottish unicorn on Britain’s royal coat of arms, as well as the numismatic history of the Scottish unicorn as a coin, is our guest Dr. Crystal Lake.

Crystal B. Lake is Professor of English Language and Literatures at Wright State University in Dayton, OH. She is also the co-founder and editor of the online magazine, the-rambling.com. Crystal’s book, Artifacts, will be published in paperback by Johns Hopkins University Press in Spring 2020, and you can read more about her research at crystallakephd.com.

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