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Age of Shakespeare Family and Town
- 1. England: Age of Shakespeare Act I, Scene 1, 1564
- 2. Windsor Castle, depicted in 1670 North Terrace (left) built by Elizabeth
- 3. Beginnings of a Golden Age Birth of a writer Birth of a reign When we are born we cry that we are come.. to this great stage of fools. Lear At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. As You Like It
- 4. New Year's Gifts for Queen Elizabeth: 1564-1565 By the said mary Graye a Spone and Fforke of siluer guilte poz 1 oz By the Lady Margerett Straunge a Hatte of vellat enbrauderid with golde and siluer wth a ffether and a Skarfe of sipers with a frenge of venice golde and siluer
- 5. More Gifts Busshoppes By the Archebusshoppe of Canterburye in a purse of crymsen taphata in dimy Soueraignes By the Archebusshoppe of Yorke in a purse of crymsen Satten in Dimy Soueraignes Gentlewomen By Mrs Asteley cheif gentilwoman of the preuy Chamber A Smocke wrought with blacke silke onely with a square coller
- 6. From staff (Gentlemen and Gentlewomen) By George Webster Master Cooke a Marchepane By John Bettes Srgaunte of the Pastry a pye of Quinces By Lewis Stockwell Surveior of the Works one table paynted of the Tombe for King Henry Theight By Mrs Smythson Launderis one night Rayle wrought wth blake silke
- 8. Stratford-on-Avon • 16th century population 1500-2000 – 13% die in 1564 from plague • 1269 Predecessor of Guild of the Holy Cross founded; • Market town
- 9. Stratford-on-Avon Government • Founded by the bishop of Worcester and overseen by the bishop’s manor court – Governed through Stratford College • Guild of the Holy Cross becomes semi-official governing body – Major property owner • Edward VI
- 10. Edward VI and Stratford • College abolished (process begun under Henry VIII • 1553 Incorporated by Edward VI – Grammar school refounded as King Edward’s School – Government replaced by Stratford Council
- 12. Sheldon Tapestry, detail, Stratford and Snitterfeld
- 13. Stratford Area and Shakespeare’s family
- 14. Walter de Arden, of Park Hall (~1435-1502) John Arden (1467-1526) William Arden (1509-1545 Edward Arden (1542-1583) Thomas Arden of Wilmcote (1469- 1546) Robert Arden (?-1556) Mary Arden (1537-1608) The Ardens ?
- 15. Robert Arden 1501 Named in a property trust by his father, Thomas 1517-18 Member of the Guild of the Holy Cross • Marriage to ? – Eight daughters, no sons 1548 Second marriage to Agnes Hill – 2 step-daughters and 2 step-sons
- 16. Alcock, N. W., and Robert Bearman. "Discovering Mary Arden's House: Property and Society in Wilmcote, Warwickshire." Shakespeare Quarterly 53.1 (2002): 53-82 Glebe Farm, reconstruction Mary Arden’s House
- 17. Estate of Robert Arden 1556
- 18. Glebe Hall based on probate records
- 20. Palmer’s Farm, formerly identified as Mary Arden’s
- 21. House at Wilmcote, identified as Robert Arden’s
- 22. Palmer’s Farm, formerly identified as Arden House
- 23. Painted Cloths Quickly: I must be fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers. Falstaff Glasses, glasses is the only drinking: and for thy walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or the German hunting in water-work, is worth a thousand of these bedhangings and these fly-bitten tapestries. Henry IV. II.1. 157-63
- 24. Painted Cloths • Insulation • Add color to bare walls • Middle and lower class equivalent to tapestries • Moral sayings and emblems • Guilds – Combined in 16th century – Painters painting in oil and size upon timber, stone, iron and such like, – Staynors for cloth, silk and such like.
- 26. The Shakespeares Richard Shakespeare Henry (-1596) John (1531-1601) 1528 Richard leases land at Snitterfeld from Robert Arden Henry remains a tenant farmer in Snitterfeld John leaves the farm and moves to Stratford
- 27. Guild of the Holy Cross - buildings
- 28. Guild Hall, South Wing Counting House (lower); Council Chamber (upper)
- 29. Chapel, Guild of the Holy Cross 1563 Paintings whitewashed under the supervision of Richard Shakespeare; 1804 Rediscovered and drawn
- 30. Doom E. W. Tristram, 1929
- 31. Guild Chapel Last Judgment
- 32. Decapitation of the pagan King of Persia by the Christian King Heraclius
- 33. John Shakespeare ~1551 Moves to Stratford working as a glover 1556 Buys Henley Street House – Fined for having a dung heap in front of his house 1556 Buys house on Greenhill Street 1556 and 1565 Involved in 17 civil cases; plaintiff in 11 and defendant in 6 1557 Marries Mary Arden – Purchases house adjacent to Henley St. house
- 34. 34
- 35. John Shakespeare, civic leader 1557 Appointed ale-taster 1562 Elected Chamberlain of Stratford 1565 Elected Alderman 1568 Elected Bailiff 1570 Elected Chief Alderman
- 36. John & Mary Shakespeare’s family 1558 Joan, dies of plague 1562 Margaret, dies 1563
- 37. 1564 William Shakespeare baptized
- 38. John and Mary Shakespeare 1566 Gilbert 1569 Joan 1571 Anne 1574 Richard 1579 Daughter, Anne, dies 1580 Edmund
- 39. John Shakespeare – Decline in fortune • 1569 Applies for a coat of arms – Denied • 1570s Cases involving lending and sale of wool • 1576 Stops attending Stratford Council meetings – 1586 Removed for non attendance
- 40. Financial problems • Began selling property to a cousin of Mary Arden • Part of home leased as an inn • Court cases for debt • Charges for illegal dealing in wool? • No known problems after 1593
- 41. Birth Practices of the period Many condemned by reformers • Wrap girdle around church bell; holy girdles • Praying to saints • Using charms
- 42. A birthing scene and birthing stool (after Rueff). Dunn P M Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2001;85:F222- F224 Copyright © BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. All rights reserved. Jakob Rueff De Conceptu 1554 Translated as The expert Midwife, 1637
Editor's Notes
- Sipers – cypress, a fine silk Listed in order of rank
- Mulryne, James R., ed. The Guild and Guild Buildings of Shakespeare's Stratford: Society, Religion, School and Stage. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2013. Following the suppression of the Guild of the Holy Cross, King Edward VI granted a charter of incorporation to Stratford-upon-Avon on 28 June 1553. On 8 October, 1331, John Stratford, then bishop of Winchester, founded a chantry in the chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr in the south aisle of the parish church of Stratford-on-Avon, which he had recently rebuilt. (fn. 1) For the maintenance of this chantry of five priests in the town of his birth, the bishop settled a messuage in Stratford-on-Avon, together with the manor of Ingon in that parish. They were to celebrate daily at the altar of St. Thomas for the good estate of the founder and of his brother Robert, afterwards bishop of Chichester, and for the souls of Robert and Isabel, their parents. They were also to pray for the good estate of Edward III and for the bishop of Worcester for the time being, and also for the souls of all the kings of England and bishops of Worcester deceased. The charter conferred on the inhabitants a borough constitution comprising a Bailiff, the name was later changed to Mayor and a Common Council consisting of 14 Aldermen and 14 councillors, called Capital Burgesses. They were empowered to appoint two sergeants-at-mace, constables and other officers, and to make ‘good and wholesome’ by-laws for the regulation of the town and its inhabitants. The right to hold, and collect tolls from, a weekly market and two annual fairs was also granted to the new body, as was a Court of Record, with jurisdiction over cases of debt and personal actions worth not more than £30. To enable it to finance its activities, the charter also granted to the newly constituted corporate body the revenues and properties which had formerly belonged to the guild and college on condition that the grammar school and almshouses should be maintained and the salaries of the schoolmaster and vicar paid.
- Making of the Sheldon Tapestry In 1570, Ralph Sheldon’s father, William Sheldon, set up a tapestry weaving venture at Barcheston in Warwickshire. He made provision in his will for Richard Hyckes to have the family’s manor house at Barcheston rent-free, on condition that he wove tapestries and a range of other textiles. Sheldon also set up a fund, to be lent at fixed amounts, to employees of Hyckes. At that time, Flemish weavers were the most skilful. They were employed in the royal tapestry repair department in London from the 1490s onwards. Between 1559 and 1619 more than 110 weavers emigrated from Holland and Belgium to England, and many of them worked for Queen Elizabeth I. Richard Hyckes acted both as Sheldon’s manager, and held the title of Queen’s ‘Arrasmaker’. It has been suggested that Richard Hyckes was an Englishman, but this is unlikely, as the position of Queen’s Arrasmaker had always been held by Flemish weavers. Sheldon Tapestry The idea of making a tapestry map probably came from the series of engraved maps of English counties produced by Christopher Saxton between 1574 and 1579. For the most part his maps were closely followed, and the tapestry even reproduces several of Saxton’s mistakes – for example ‘Barford’ is named ‘Bearfoote’. There is quite a lot of new pictorial material on the tapestry that isn’t present on the Saxton maps – for example, trees, hills, church towers and spires. Roads, mills, houses, and the sketches of towns, such as Warwick and Stratford, were also new additions. The towns were always shown from the south, the common cartographic practice of the time.
- Shakespeare’s family http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26315/26315-h/26315-h.htm#Page_35
- Agnes is sister of Robert’s son-in-law married to daughter, Margaret
- Alcock, N. W., and Robert Bearman. "Discovering Mary Arden's House: Property and Society in Wilmcote, Warwickshire." Shakespeare Quarterly 53.1 (2002): 53-82. original construction has been dated by means of dendrochronology to 1514 or shortly thereafter.30 The house comprises a main range of three bays oriented east-west (labeled bays I–III in Figure 2), adjoining a two-bay cross-wing (bays IV–V in Figure 2); the latter is very unusual in being built with stone walls to head height, with timber-framing above Smoke-blackening on the roof timbers in the central bay of the main range and both bays of the wing identify the positions of two open hearths Land held by copy hold. He also ahd freehold Asbyes and land at Snitterfeld 3 Freehold tenure of property corresponds broadly to ownership in the modern sense. Copyhold tenure identifies property held according to the “custom of the manor,” with changes in tenants recorded in the manor court rolls, and a new tenant receiving a “copy” of the entry in the roll as his title deed. Variation in manorial custom led to there being two main types of copyholding: copyhold of inheritance, in which the rents and entry fines for new tenants were fixed at small values and could be bought, sold, or bequeathed; and copyhold for life, in which a new tenant had to pay a substantial entry fine, set by the lord according to what the market would bear. In the seventeenth century much copyhold of the latter type was converted into leasehold, as happened in Wilmcote.
- In the settlement on Robert Arden’s second marriage in 1550, Arden described himself as a husbandman, the intermediate level in village farming society between yeoman and laborer.34 Although neither his will nor his inventory gives his social status, the overall value of the latter shows that he was at the upper end of prosperity for husbandmen, overlapping that of lesser yeomen though well below that of the wealthiest yeomen.35 The size of his landholding in Wilmcote, 150 acres or more, is exceptionally large for a husbandman, who might typically be farming only 30 to 40 acres. Despite his prosperity, the inventory of Arden’s house shows only a modest level of furnishings, but this is characteristic for the period. In the early- to mid-sixteenth century all the villagers for whom probate inventories have survived (excluding the wealthiest and the poorest people) seem to have had a rather similar repertoire of household belongings; wealth might appear in extra brass, pewter, or linens, or some items of plate (surprisingly absent in this inventory), but only at the end of the sixteenth century would a well-off farmer have conspicuously more furniture than his less-prosperous neighbors.3 The “baken in the roffe” (penultimate entry), here probably hanging over the kitchen, is common in inventories for houses with open hearths; meat was cured in the smoke from the fire.
- Figure 2
- The earliest part of the existing structure is the cross-wing, for which dendrochronology has identified a felling date of winter 1568/9 for one timber. This two-story wing must have stood against an earlier hall range and provided service rooms with chambers above. In the summer of 1580 (several felling dates), the new hall was built, and a year or so later (one felling date of summer 1581), the kitchen bay was added.48 Evidence of light smoke-blackening in the roof confirms that the hall originally had an open hearth, probably situated against the stone west wall as a fireback; this was superseded by the present chimney when the upper floor was inserted. However, the kitchen was constructed with both an original chimney and an original upper floor.
- A large number of households, including those of labourers, have them entered in the wills preserved in Stratford and in the Worcester Probate Registry: Thomas Ballamy, 'labourer', had in 1597 'paynted cloths' to the value of twelve pence, and Robert Stevens, 'labourer', had 'paynted clothes in the hall' and more 'paynted clothes in this bed-chamber'.
- Sixteenth-century wills refer to painters who may have continued as specialist painters of cloths. Thomas Gammige of Walden, Essex, died in 1578; his widow, in her will of 1581, mentions 'all my frames [probably straining frames for painting the cloths on 101]with painted pictures or stories in them, together with all my [grinding] stones, colours and frames, and all other things belonging to the mystery, science or occupation of a painter' .
- South Wing (Figure 8) appears to have functioned at ground-floor level as a 'counting' or 'counsel' house for the Guild of the Holy Cross. It also preserves traces of original painted decoration as well as a fireplace which, although much-restored, is consistent with a 15th-century date and which may well be the chimney recorded as being constructed in the 'Cowntynhows' and the chamber above, in 1427/8 (SCLA BRT1/3/38). Following incorporation, Stratford's Corporation continued to use this 'Councell chambur' as their meeting place (Savage 1921, 64). The upper floor of the South Wing always appears to have been used as a chamber and later became known as the armoury or 'harness' chamber
- Hugh Clopton (1440-1496) was a typical example of this class of late medieval English mercantile patron. The younger son of John and Agnes Clopton, a manorial family based in the village of Clopton, just outside Stratford-upon-Avon, he became apprenticed to the London mercer, John Roos in 1456/7 and a member of the Company of Mercers in 1463/4, in which he served as a warden. He began to hold civic office within the city, being elected Alderman for Dowgate Ward in 1485, Sheriff in 1486 and Mayor in 1491. Clopton described himself as a 'citizen, mercer and Alderman of London' in his will of 9 September 1496. Although unmarried, Hugh Clopton's will left substantial legacies for his family, metropolitan mercantile brethren, and a range of charitable causes, including sums to repair bridges and 'ways' and funding for poor householders and scholars within Stratford-upon-Avon, totalling £1700 and including nine properties in Stratford-upon-Avon, together with the manors of Little Wilmcote and Clopton The images within the Guild Chapel at Stratford-upon-Avon reflected the civic pietism of Hugh Clopton, and placed particular emphasis on the devotional focus of the Holy Cross Guild itself. The overarching message, expressed in images including The Doom, The Dance of Death and the allegorical paintings in the nave , was one of the inevitability of Death and Judgement, and of the need to prepare for this by following the Ars Moriendi (Duffy 1992, 301-37), guidance on preparing for a good death. Such themes were, of course, part of the raison d'être of medieval guilds such as the Holy Cross. The first documented record of iconoclasm in the Guild Chapel is the account of the chamberlain John Shakespeare (father of William), of 2s paid, for 'defasyng ymages in ye chapell' and a further 2s paid in 1564/5 for 'takynge doune ye rood loft in ye Chapell' (Savage 1921, 128, 138). Biographers of William Shakespeare have tended to interpret this as evidence of Stratford's Catholic conservatism (Greenblatt 2004). However, as Bearman (2007, 82) has noted, Edward VI's commissioners certainly visited Stratford in 1547 and there is no reason to suppose that the churchwardens of Holy Trinity did not comply with orders to remove rood lofts and images and whitewash paintings and glass
- His posion on the council also meant that he could send his son William to the grammar school for free and, of course, the grammar school was going to be crucial to Shakespeare's educaon and his introducon into the world of literature and drama. The other thing about becoming high bailiff was that John Shakespeare could call himself Master John Shakespeare. He had become a gentleman. Social status—class—was always terribly important in Shakespeare's England, so John Shakespeare’s rise from yeoman farmer to tradesman to gentleman was of great importance to the family.
- Birthplace Late C15 and late C16, severely restored 1858, following drawing of 1769. Timber-frame and with plaster infill; rubble plinth; tile roof with rubble stacks. 4-unit plan
- Suppression of the religious Guild of the Holy Cross had left the townspeople of Stratford without their powerful backing. The charter of 1553 bought relief to the community by granting Stratford rights to hold markets, the power to set bye-laws and nominate 14 aldermen who could act on behalf of the townspeople. One of these was to be annually elected to the office of Bailiff. As high bailiff, he chaired the meengs of the town council. He served as a jusce of peace, becoming involved in judgments on local law cases, and was the figure of greatest authority and respect in the town. In addion to his glove‐making trade, he began dealing in wool on the side and that was illegal. He also became involved in moneylending — usury, as they called it. This was dangerous territory, both for legal reasons — because formally speaking, usury was illegal — but also for financial reasons. There was a credit crunch in the 1570s. John Shakespeare had overstretched himself on a loan. He got into debt.
- In addion to his glove‐making trade, he began dealing in wool on the side and that was illegal. He also became involved in moneylending — usury, as they called it. This was dangerous territory, both for legal reasons — because formally speaking, usury was illegal — but also for financial reasons. There was a credit crunch in the 1570s. John Shakespeare had overstretched himself on a loan. He got into debt. A slow decline began. He was close to being arrested on a number of occasions. In 1576, he resigned from the town council. He would have had to give back the mace.
- Mark on a sale of property. Taken by some as illiteracy Merchants of the Staple had achieved a near monopoly in this respect. However, with the development of domestic cloth manu-facture, coupled with the decline in wool exports that occurred in the mid-sixteenth century, this dominance was difficult to maintain. Instead, a growing body of entre-preneursw as buying up wool on a comparativelysm all scale and selling it directt o local manufacturers. These dealersw ere accused,n ot least by the Staplers,o f rais-ing prices to artificiallyh igh levels,a nd efforts were thereforep eriodicallym ade to limit their operations.56 Many wereg lovers,d rawni nto the tradeb y profitsf rom the sale of fell wool-wool plucked from the skins purchased for glove manufacture-and some were thought to be conducting a trade in fleece wool equal to that of some Staplers. Absent from church but probably for fear from debt
- A birthing scene (after Rueff). One of Rueff's illustrations (fig 2) shows: “ . . .a stout, complacent woman sitting on a birth-stool and being delivered by a midwife whose obstetrical instruments are in a bag fastened to her girdle and hanging behind her. A tub of water stands on the floor in readiness for the child. Two neighbors support the patient. Scissors for dividing the umbilical cord and string for tying it are on a table nearby. In the background are two men observing through a window a new moon and the stars, ready to cast the horoscope of the new arrival