Shakespeare: Life In Shakepearean Times

• You probably wouldn’t have lived very long. About one in three children died before reaching their teenage years.

• The average total lifespan was only about 35-40 years.

• In Shakespeare’s family, only he and his younger sister Joan lived past 50 – his other six brothers and sisters died much younger.

• In Elizabethan times, the economic class you were born into was where you remained all your life.

• The wealthy were the nobility and land-owners. (This was only three percent of the English population).

• Middle classes included farmers, tradesmen, and clergy.

• The poor were the servants, orphans, hired laborers, and soldiers returning from the wars.

• Catastrophic diseases like malaria, syphilis, typhus and smallpox killed tens of thousands each year. Bubonic plague wiped out nearly half of London during two outbreaks in the late 1590s.

• Medicine was very primitive, with most doctors treating illnesses with bleeding, and applying various homemade herbs and poultices.

• Broken bones were not set, since it was believed that such accidents were the result of immoral behavior and were a punishment from God. If you broke your leg, there was a good chance you would never walk again.

• Only the wealthy and middle classes were educated. The wealthy were taught in their homes by private tutors, while the middle classes attended “public schools” which were in reality, private schools which you had to pay to attend.

• In school you learned to read and write Latin and French. Other subjects might include dancing, drawing, theology, fencing, and an archaic study of the sciences.

• Generally, only boys attended school. Girls stayed home and learned cooking, sewing, and other household duties. Wealthy young girls might be taught reading, drawing, and dancing.

• The poorer you were, the more chance you had of choosing your own husband or wife. If you were wealthy, your marriage was arranged by your parents, in order to secure the family fortune.

• The legal age to marry in Elizabethan times was fourteen for boys, and twelve for girls! But it was common for most men to wait until they were 25-26, and girls until they were 23. This was when most boys had finished their apprenticeships and could afford to take a wife.

• If you were an apprentice, you began in your late teens and continued until age 25.

• Apprenticeships lasted for at least seven years, and apprentices are not allowed to marry until their apprenticeship was done.

• Job included: clothiers, woolen cloth weavers, tuckers, fullers, cloth workers, sheermen, dyers, hosiers, tailors, shoemakers, tanners, pewterers, bakers, brewers, glovers, cutlers, smiths, farriers, curriers, sadlers, spurriers, turners, sappers, hatmakers, feltmakers, bowyers, fletchers, arrowhead makers, butchers, cooks, or millers.

• Lunchtime (“Supper”) was the main meal of the day.

• Foods included roasted meats (usually cooked with fruits), breads and cheese of varying kinds, and wine, beer or ale to drink.

• Potatoes had not yet been widely discovered, so turnips and parsnips were the common vegetables. Tomatoes were new, and regarded as possibly poisonous!

• Chocolate and vanilla were almost completely unknown. Almond, cinnamon, and honey was the common flavoring for sweets.

• In England, there was only ONE Protestant church, (The Church of England) and everyone was required to be a member of it.

• By law, you had to attend church at least once a month, or you would be reported and fined.

• Catholicism, which was seen as being complicit with England’s enemies Italy and Spain, was strictly forbidden, although it is rumored that Shakespeare’s father, and William himself, were secret Catholics.

• London during Shakespeare’s life was the center of politics, art, literature, and theater.

• It was also a brutal place to live, with raw sewage running down the streets, and infested with plague-carrying rats.

• Because everyone drank alcohol, and everyone carried a blade, swordfights were common, and often deadly.

• Queen Elizabeth would display the severed heads of criminals above the gates of the city, and this was usually the first sight that greeted visitor’s eyes.

• Generally, only the middle and upper classes had time and opportunity for recreation.

• Tennis, lawn-bowling, archery, fencing, hunting, riding, wrestling, badminton, and billiards were popular sports.

• Singing, painting, going to the theatre, attending a bear-baiting, playing cards, chess, backgammon, and checkers were also common past times.

• The London when Shakespeare lived was a dangerous, primitive place by modern standards, and yet a vast expansion in ideas, exploration, language and art occurred during this era.

• It’s a paradox to think that despite living in such a deadly, dark, brutal time, some of the world’s most beautiful poetry and immortal plays were written, and survived to our day.

A NUTSY THE SQUIRREL PRODUCTION

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