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Shakespeare of Stratford
Shakespeare's Ancestry
Shakespeare's Parents
Shakespeare's Birth
Shakespeare's Siblings

Shakespeare's Childhood
Shakespeare's Lost Years
Shakespeare's Marriage
Shakespeare's Children

Shakespeare as Actor and Playwright Four Periods of Shakespeare's Life
Shakespeare's Influence
Shakespeare's Language

Portraits of Shakespeare
Quotes About Shakespeare
Shakespeare in Court
Shakespeare and the Gunpowder Plot

Was Shakespeare Shakespeare?
Was Shakespeare Italian?
Shakespeare's Death
Shakespeare's Burial

No Eulogy for Shakespeare?
Shakespeare's Will
Shakespeare Timeline
Richard Burbage (Actor)

Edward Alleyn (Actor)
William Kempe (Actor)
Shakespeare's Boss
Shakespeare's Lasting Impact

Shakespeare's Sexuality
Shakespeare's Power of Assimilation
Preface to The First Folio
Classification of Shakespeare's Work

Shakespeare Q & A
Shakespeare's Pathos
Shakespeare's Portrayal of Youth
Shakespeare on Old Age

Shakespeare's Heroines
Shakespeare's Attention to Details
Shakespeare's Portrayals of Sleep
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Bardolatry

"The fact is, Shakespeare was not sectarian; he pleaded nobody's mission, he stated nobody's cause. He has written with a view to be a mirror of things as they are; and shows the office of the true poet and literary man, which is to re-create the soul of man as God has created it, and human society as man has made it."
George Dawson (1821-1876), Shakespeare and Other Lectures

Bard Bite

Shakespeare's friend and fellow actor, Richard Burbage, amazed and delighted audiences with his stirring interpretation of the outrageous villain Richard III. On March 13, 1602, a lawyer and diarist named John Manningham recorded a now-famous anecdote about Shakespeare and Richard Burbage:

"Upon a time when Burbage played Richard the Third there was a citizen grew so far in liking with him, that before she went from the play she appointed him to come that night unto her by the name of Richard the Third. Shakespeare, overhearing their conclusion, went before, was entertained and at his game ere Burbage came. Then, message being brought that Richard the Third was at the door, Shakespeare caused return to be made that William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third."

More Bard Bites

The Chamberlain's Men was an acting company created in early 1594. Shakespeare himself joined the troupe later that year and remained a key player and partner for the rest of his career. In 1603 the newly crowned King James I, a lover of the theatre, became the patron of the Chamberlain's Men, and thus the company was thenceforth known as the King's Men.
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In 1613, the King's Men twice performed a play called Cardenio, based on a story from Miguel de Cervantes' work. In 1653, an editor named Mosley published the play and said that the authors were Shakespeare and Fletcher. We have no surviving copies of the play so we cannot judge for ourselves. Interestingly, William Shakespeare and Cervantes, the most celebrated writer in Spanish literature, died on the same date - April 23, 1616.
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Shakespeare's England
Daily Life in Shakespeare's London
Shakespeare's Wealth and Income
Back in Time: Visit the Globe
What Did Shakespeare Read?

Life in Stratford (structures and guilds)
Life in Stratford (trades, furniture, hygiene)
Shakespeare's Scandal in 1601
Allusions to his Profession

An Elizabethan Christmas
Clothing in Elizabethan England
Queen Elizabeth: Shakespeare's Patron
James I of England: Shakespeare's Patron

Southampton: Shakespeare's Patron
Going to a Play in Elizabethan London
Ben Jonson and the Decline of the Drama
Publishing in Elizabethan England

Shakespeare's Audience
Religion in Shakespeare's England
Alchemy and Astrology in Shakespeare's Day
Entertainment in Elizabethan England

London's First Public Playhouse
Shakespeare Hits the Big Time
Essential Globe Information
Shocking Elizabethan Drama

The King's Men
Games in Shakespeare's England [A-L]
Games in Shakespeare's England [M-Z]
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On Shakespeare's Humanity

"Shakespeare's gentleness toward the evil in human nature is his rarest quality. We seem to find in every line of him a sentiment which he has put, strangely enough, in the mouth of Henry V:

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.
He can hardly bear to draw a villain. In some cases, where the plot calls for a villain, as in Hamlet, The Tempest, or the Merchant of Venice, - cases in which any other playwright would have given us wickedness, - Shakespeare draws a weak or unfortunate character. In Hamlet the wicked King is half repentant. In the Merchant of Venice Shylock is a much-injured and very human person. In the Tempest Caliban is convincingly good and unconvincingly bad, a rudimentary half-soul. Prospero, to be sure, considers the creature ungrateful; but we do not think him ungrateful, we think of him as a creature who has never had half a chance, and we almost love him."
John Jay Chapman (1862-1933). A Glance Toward Shakespeare

In the Spotlight

Playing Fast and Loose with Shakespeare's Name

The Elizabethans cared as little for spelling as they did for the Spanish and nowhere is their comical disregard for simple consistency more evident than in their treatment of the surname Shakespeare. And how did Shakespeare spell his own name, anyway? Find out...

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Shakespeare's Contemporaries: Top 5 Most Fascinating

Shakespearean England was a treasure-trove of historical giants - Elizabeth I, Ben Jonson, the Earl of Essex, Edward Alleyn, John Lyly, William Kempe - to name a few. It was hard to choose, but here is a list of those five contemporaries of the Bard whose lives are most intriguing. See if you agree.

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Worst Diseases in Shakespeare's London

From a disease standpoint, Shakespeare was living in arguably the worst place and time in history. Shakespeare's overcrowded, rat-infested, sexually promiscuous London, with raw sewage flowing in the Thames, was the hub for the nastiest diseases known to mankind. Here are the worst of the worst.

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What Did Shakespeare Drink?

A rich and sweet wine brought to England from Greece in the 16th century, Malmsey is now produced on the island of Madeira. Shakespeare writes about Malmsey in Love's Labour's Lost (5.2.240) and 2 Henry IV (2.1.36), but the most famous reference to Malmsey in all of literature can be found in Richard III. Read on...

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Quick Quote

My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night;
Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about
The other four in wondrous motion.
King John (4.2), Hubert

Although Shakespeare would have not even known the planet Uranus existed, 24 of its 27 known moons are named after his characters. Bianca and Umbriel are named after characters in Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock and, surprisingly, John Herschel named the brightest moon of Uranus, Ariel, after the character in Pope's work, not the more famous Ariel in Shakespeare's The Tempest.

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On Shakespeare's Imagination

"Shakespeare is, above all, imagination. Now - and this is a truth to which we have already alluded, and which is well known to thinkers - imagination is depth. No faculty of the mind penetrates and plunges deeper than imagination; it is the great diver. Science, reaching the lowest depths, meets imagination. In conic sections, in logarithms, in the differential and integral calculus, in the calculations of sonorous waves, in the application of algebra to geometry, the imagination is the coefficient of calculation, and mathematics becomes poetry....The poet philosophizes because he imagines."
Victor Hugo (1802-1885). William Shakespeare

New Book: Imagining Shakespeare's Wife

Shakespeare fans will enjoy Katherine West Scheil's book exploring the cultural depictions of Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway, throughout the centuries. You can find out more by visiting the Cambridge University Press website (non affiliate link).

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shakespeare shakespear richard burbage william kempe anne hathaway shakespeare's birthplace shakespeare's education hamlet tudor life elizabethan theatres

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Shakespeare's Biography: Information on Shakespeare's Parents, Siblings, Career as Actor, Children, Marriage, Death, Will, Influence, and Much More

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Shakespeare's Ancestry Shakespeare's Parents Shakespeare's Birth Shakespeare's Siblings Shakespeare's Childhood Shakespeare's Lost Years Shakespeare's Marriage Shakespeare's Children Shakespeare as Actor and Playwright Four Periods of Shakespeare's Life Shakespeare's Influence Shakespeare's Language Portraits of Shakespeare Quotes About Shakespeare Shakespeare in Court Shakespeare and the Gunpowder Plot Was Shakespeare Shakespeare? Was Shakespeare Italian?

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Elizabethan England had four main classes: the Nobility, the Gentry, the Yeomanry, and the Poor. A person's class determined how they could dress, where they could live, and the kinds of jobs people and their children could get.

A nobleman was rich and powerful and therefore during the reign of Elizabeth as well as the reigns of her father and grandfather Henry VIII and Henry VII, the monarch rarely appointed new nobles. They viewed the noble class as a threat to their power and liked to keep their numbers small. A person could become a noble either by birthright or by grant from the king or queen. Nobility could lose their fortune, but it took a high crime like treason to lose their title.

The gentry were knights, squires, gentlemen and gentlewomen whose fortunes were great enough that they did not have to work with their hands for a living. Their numbers grew rapidly, and became the most important class during Elizabethan time. They could start as a knight and through generations and marriages they could gradually build a wealth and title. Most of the important people of this time came from this class.

The Yeomanry were the 'middleclass'. They could live comfortably with the little savings they built up, but at any moment, be it illness or famine, could lose everything. While the gentry spent their wealth building large homes, the yeomen used their wealth more simply and instead worked to expand their land and improve it.

At the bottom were the Poor who for some reason or another found themselves without money, food, or shelter. Because their numbers were increasing, the Poor Laws were passed to assist them. Any Poor person found guilty of being able to do an honest day's work but who chose not to, could be sentenced to death.

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Elizabethan England had four main classes: the Nobility, the Gentry, the Yeomanry, and the Poor. A person's class determined how they could dress, where they could live, and the kinds of jobs people and their children could get.

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Elizabethan Citizens and Social Structure

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Elizabethan Citizens and Social Structure

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Elizabethan England had four main classes: the Nobility, the Gentry, the Yeomanry, and the Poor. A person's class determined how they could dress, where they could live, and the kinds of jobs people and their children could get.

A nobleman was rich and powerful and therefore during the reign of Elizabeth as well as the reigns of her father and grandfather Henry VIII and Henry VII, the monarch rarely appointed new nobles. They viewed the noble class as a threat to their power and liked to keep their numbers small. A person could become a noble either by birthright or by grant from the king or queen. Nobility could lose their fortune, but it took a high crime like treason to lose their title.

The gentry were knights, squires, gentlemen and gentlewomen whose fortunes were great enough that they did not have to work with their hands for a living. Their numbers grew rapidly, and became the most important class during Elizabethan time. They could start as a knight and through generations and marriages they could gradually build a wealth and title. Most of the important people of this time came from this class.

The Yeomanry were the 'middleclass'. They could live comfortably with the little savings they built up, but at any moment, be it illness or famine, could lose everything. While the gentry spent their wealth building large homes, the yeomen used their wealth more simply and instead worked to expand their land and improve it.

At the bottom were the Poor who for some reason or another found themselves without money, food, or shelter. Because their numbers were increasing, the Poor Laws were passed to assist them. Any Poor person found guilty of being able to do an honest day's work but who chose not to, could be sentenced to death.

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Elizabethan England had four main classes: the Nobility, the Gentry, the Yeomanry, and the Poor. A person's class determined how they could dress, where they could live, and the kinds of jobs people and their children could get.

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Food in Elizabethan England

The wealthiest Elizabethans ate lavish meals of many courses, while many poorer people didn't even have their own ovens, and some of the poorest survived on leftover scraps from the rich. Liza Picard describes how class, religion and politics all influenced how Elizabethans shopped for food, cooked and ate.

Fish days

An Elizabethan's diet was ruled by the calendar. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays were fish days, so was the whole of Lent and various other days - almost a third of the year. But 'fish' included veal, game and poultry, and if you really couldn't do without beef you could buy a 'flesh-eater's licence', or get round the rules in other ways.

In the words of an Act of 1563, fish days were 'for the better maintenance and increase of the Navy...and not for any superstition...(nor) for the saving of the soul of man' - as they had been in the previous reign. In the 1588 Armada crisis, only 34 ships out of the total English fleet of 226 belonged to the Queen. All the rest were merchantmen manned by fishermen and Thames watermen, with other civilian mariners. So the fishermen were kept in employment by all this fish eating.

Shopping

Generally only freemen of London were allowed to sell in the markets. Countrymen from outside London had very limited rights. There were markets scattered throughout London; a housewife did not have far to walk to do her daily food shopping. The markets were all controlled by the Lord Mayor, who kept an eagle eye out for any offences, especially any kind of profiteering. They were open six days a week, from 6 to 11 in the morning and 1 to 5 in the afternoon. Sunday trading was limited to perishables such as milk, fruit and vegetables, in the early morning.

Bread was strictly controlled, both in quality and price. A good place for fish was Billingsgate Market, near London Bridge, where you might pick up some Kentish fruit in the season, too, or some salt from France. There were rows of butchers' stalls within reach, everywhere. Non-perishables such as the sand used for household cleaning, and sugar planed off a sugar-loaf in the quantity and quality needed, were sold in shops. Some shops were tiny, only a yard wide. But the customer would not expect to go in - there would hardly be room for her if she were wearing a farthingale. She would stand outside, telling the apprentice what she wanted.

Paintings of London in the friendship album of Michael van Meer, c. 1614-1615

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Three women return home after visiting a London market.

Street sellers

She might prefer to wait at home until a street seller came round. They sold fish, and fruit, and fresh vegetables and sausages, and baked apples and highly seasoned pies.

Paintings of London in the friendship album of Michael van Meer, c. 1614-1615

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Men carry meat and other wares through the streets of London.

Fast food

For a poor person living in one room, with only a small open fire if she was lucky, fast food from a cookshop must have been a blessing. Oysters fresh from the boats moored midstream by Billingsgate were sustaining, and cheap.

Eating out

The best place for a really good meal was a livery company. The Drapers' Feast in 1564 lasted for three days. The members and their 89 guests disposed of 40 bucks (male deer), a sturgeon, and miscellaneous birds, from swans to larks, as well as exotic jellies and sweetmeats.

The main meal in wealthy households was midday dinner. Nobles, gentlemen and merchants would sit down about eleven o'clock. The table would be set with 'the first course' of soup, boiled and roast meat, chickens and pies and a sweet custard. They were replaced with another course, perhaps roast lamb and capons, rabbit, venison and a tart. Then in case anyone was still hungry, quails and larks and deer pasties and gingerbread and fritters. How anyone could contemplate, let alone consume, such a meal is incredible to the modern mind. And I haven't mentioned the rich sauces with each dish, nor the vegetables and fruit.

But, undeterred, they sat down again at six, for supper.

At least the 'full English breakfast' had not yet arrived. People 'broke their fast' (the origin of the word 'breakfast') in the morning with a little weak beer, and a slice of bread and butter.

Cooking

Not every house had an oven. It was quite usual for the housewife to send a pie or a cake round to the baker, when she heard the baker's apprentice shouting 'come to the bakehouse', while his master's ovens were still warm from baking the day's bread. She might also take him a joint which she had wrapped in a hard 'coffin' of pastry, not intended for eating but to stop the joint from drying out, as we would use foil wrap. In her own kitchen, she cooked at the open fire, spiking joints and birds on to spits strong enough for a whole swan, or small enough to hold larks. The spits were turned by a small boy, or a dog running endlessly round in a wheel, or by an ingenious device called a spit-jack, using the heat of the fire. Vegetables were boiled in a cauldron over the fire. Fish were fried in butter. The cook needed long-handled spoons and skimmers and ladles. For special little dishes she would use a small 'chafing-dish' over a brazier.

Everything was highly seasoned. It is sometimes suggested that the seasoning was to disguise the taste of food that had begun to rot, in those pre-refrigeration days; but perhaps the Elizabethans simply enjoyed the taste of sugar and ginger and cinnamon with cream, in a pudding, and oranges, sugar, cloves, mace, pepper and more cinnamon, with a chicken.

The poor

How did poor people fare? Even pies and tarts from a street seller could be beyond their means. In the old days they could have relied on the leftovers from monasteries and convents, now long gone. But the remains of meals in the big houses and the livery halls were still distributed to the poor, once all the servants had had their pick, and trimmings and oddments might be given away at the end of the trading day, by the fishmongers and the butchers.

Table manners

Forks were still rare. Everyone would carry a small knife for use at table, and there would be a spoon at each place. Water and a towel were ready for you to wash your hands before sitting down. Be careful to sit in the right place. In rich households there would be an elaborate salt cellar on the table, sometimes in the form of a ship a foot high or more. The master and his guests and family sat 'above' the salt, at the top of the table. Lesser mortals sat further down.

After grace, a gentleman's upbringing was tested; he had to know how to carve all the birds and joints and fishes on the table. Not only that, he had to know the right terms to describe the process - 'rear that goose, alay that pheasant, undertranch that porpoise...'

Drink

Ale or beer (ale flavoured with hops) was safer to drink than water, and probably tasted better. Most households brewed their own. Wine was drunk at formal meals. The custom was to 'pledge' a fellow guest, who thanked you by pledging (toasting) you back. There was no glass at your place. You asked the servitor for wine, he filled a glass and gave it to you, you drank and handed it back. The servitor rinsed it in a wooden basin and replaced it on the 'buffet' (sideboard). The wood was to protect the glass. Delicate Venetian glass was more highly prized than gold or silver cups.

Wine was imported from Spain, Greece, France, Madeira and other countries. Some was produced from English vineyards.

Queen Elizabeth was fond of metheglin, distilled from honey and herbs. Mead was metheglin without the herbs. Cows' and ewes' milk were good for old men and children, but not for those who have 'gurgulations in the belly'.

Broadside ballad 'A Bill of Fare'

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A 17th-century song about a feast.

Liza Picard researches and writes about the history of London. She spent many years working in the office of the Solicitor of the Inland Revenue and lived in Gray's Inn and Hackney, before retiring to live in Oxford.

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Food in Elizabethan England | The British Library

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The wealthiest Elizabethans ate lavish meals of many courses, while many poorer people didn't even have their own ovens, and some of the poorest survived on leftover scraps from the rich. Liza Picard describes how class, religion and politics all influenced how Elizabethans shopped for food, cooked and ate.

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Some Elizabethan entertainments, such as theatre and football, are still popular today. Others, such as animal-baiting, now seem shocking. Liza Picard takes a look at common 16th-century pastimes.

Plays and play-going

The great names of the Elizabethan stage - Shakespeare, Marlowe, Dekker, Ben Jonson - still retain their richness and power today. These plays could be bought to read at home, but it was much more fun to attend one of the several playhouses, such as the Globe, that had sprung up on the south bank of the river. The usual shape of the playhouse was, as Shakespeare put it, a 'wooden O', open to the sky, with the stage at one side of it and galleries all around. Refreshments of fruit and nuts were sold throughout the performance, and came in useful as missiles if the audience disapproved of the play. Most of the audience stood, or walked about, in front of the stage. The more select could pay for a seat in one of the galleries, or even on the stage itself, where they could smoke their tobacco pipes, and gossip, and generally draw attention to themselves, and torment the unfortunate actors. The cast was all male, women's parts being taken by boys. There was no scenery, but the costumes were often sumptuous, since it was the custom for the clothes of rich people sometimes to be given to the players after their death. Performances had to be given during daylight hours, because there was no stage lighting except by candles, which glinted on the gold lace and velvets of the costumes, and caused frequent fires.

Animal baiting

A modern audience would find this shocking, to put it mildly. Queen Elizabeth was a well-educated renaissance lady, yet in 1559, just a year after coming to the throne, she gave the French ambassador a special treat - a royal baiting of bulls and bears in her palace of Whitehall. The populace regularly attended the rings on the south bank, where they could watch various animals trying to kill each other - dogs against horses, sometimes with monkey riders for the dogs to bite, bears against the famous English mastiffs, mastiffs against bulls... The bears were well known to Londoners by their nicknames, rather like modern football stars.

There were probably many cock-pits scattered throughout London. There was, of course, one in royal Whitehall, but the common people patronised one near Smithfield, where the sessions could last four or five hours, and the betting was fast and furious.

View of London in Civitates Orbis Terrarum

On the south bank of the river can be seen two rings, one for 'Bowll bayting' the other for 'Beare bayting'.

Paintings of London in the friendship album of Michael van Meer, c. 1614-1615

At the cockpit, spectators bet gold coins on which cock will win. The seated man with the beard and hat is probably King James.

The Lottery

Someone in Government must have spotted this passion for betting, and decided that it could raise some revenue for the Treasury. In 1567 the first lottery promised as first prize the astronomical sum of £5,000.

They would be paid partly in 'ready money' and partly in plate, tapestries and 'good linen cloth'. Tickets cost 10 shillings each - far too much for the ordinary citizen to afford. To encourage as many people as possible to buy tickets, all ticket holders were promised freedom from arrest for all crimes other than murder, felonies, piracy or treason. If it had worked as planned the Government would have made £100,000. But alas, it didn't. Investors were slow in buying their tickets. Another lottery was tried in 1585, when Elizabeth was desperately trying to raise cash for her various wars. But I have found no record of any significant prizes.

Sports

Bowling greens were everywhere. Archery was losing ground to small arms shooting, but Elizabeth still required every male between seven and 60 to possess, and be able to use, bows and arrows. Wrestling and football were popular with young men. In a hot summer they could cool off by a refreshing dip in the Thames.

Recreational drugs

Tobacco was smoked everywhere, in taverns and inns, at playhouses and in homes. It began as a medicinal remedy for coughs and colds, but soon became known for its pleasant narcotic effect. A foreign tourist remarked that 'their preachers cry out on them for their self-destruction', but when did good advice ever stop a determined smoker?

Cannabis and opium poppies provided useful home remedies for earache and pain relief. Surely some gardeners found them an enjoyable means of relaxation?

The Queen

Elizabeth was expert at public relations, never missing a chance to remind her people of her status as their rightful monarch. She could be seen, and cheered, on her way down the river in the royal barge to visit friends, or to spend the summer in her favourite palace at Greenwich. When she came back to London from her frequent 'progresses' (tours) round the country, many hundreds turned out to greet her. If it was late in the evening her cavalcade was lit by a thousand torch-bearers. When she attended St Paul's Cathedral to give thanks for the victory over the Armada, she was carried in a 'chariot throne', bejewelled, painted, wearing sumptuously embroidered robes. No Catholic image could have outdone her in splendour: a fitting monarch for her adoring people.

Books

Pliny's The Secrets and Wonders of the World provided children with vivid descriptions of dragons and olipohants (elephants). For more serious tastes, Plutarch's Lives and Chapman's Homer were both available. The best seller of the time was Foxe's Book of Martyrs, published in 1563, describing Mary Tudor's persecution of her Protestant subjects, all too graphically illustrated with blood-curdling pictures.

The adventures of Francis Drake and his fellows fuelled an appetite for travel books. The Most Famous Travels of Marcus Paulius (otherwise known as Marco Polo) was published in English in 1579, describing the journey of three Genoese merchants by the overland route to (modern) Beijing, through the vast empire of Kublai Khan. Richard Hakluyt published the second edition of his The Principal Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation... between 1598 and 1600. Hakluyt was noted for his meticulous research. The same could not be said of the 14th-century author of Mandeville's Travels, a highly fantastical account of travels in the Middle and Far East that included stories of men with eyes in their shoulders, and of weeping crocodiles. They still made a good read, and Walter Ralegh assured his readers that they were absolutely true in his 1596 publication The Discoverie of the Large Rich and Bewtiful Empire of Guiana, with a Relation [description] of the Great and Golden City of Manoa (which the Spanish call El Dorado), a shameless piece of advertising 'spin'.

Illustrated pornographic works, often Italian, were flooding the market. Ballads and pamphlets, too, could be fairly filthy. But some, imported secretly from the Continent, preached pro-Catholic subversion, the penalty for which could be death.

The Elizabethan poets, such as Edmund Spenser or John Donne, discovered the rich potential of the English language for simple, moving poetry.

Music

Any gentleman would be expected to play an instrument, such as a lute or one of the viols, which came in sets, or 'chests', varying from a small version of a modern violin through to an unwieldy version of a double bass. (It took Italians such as Stradivarius, in the next century, to fix for all time the shape and potential of the family of violins and their cousins.) Equally, most of the leisured classes could sing part songs such as madrigals. A Roman Catholic family needed a small-scale sung mass to perform in their house, with only the voices of the family, the priest and perhaps one or two brave neighbours. Surprisingly, some composers managed to compose sacred music for Catholic masses as well as for the new Protestant religion.

Usage terms

Public Domain in most countries other than the UK.

Queen Elizabeth prided herself on her mastery of the keyboard instrument known as the virginals. She even arranged to be 'surprised' playing, all alone and unaware of his presence, when the French ambassador came to call.

At the other end of society, there was a brisk trade in ballads, which supplied news and scandal rather as the popular press does today. During Elizabeth's reign, 3,000 ballads poured out of the printing presses. They cost a penny each, and told of all kinds of popular subjects.

Liza Picard researches and writes about the history of London. She spent many years working in the office of the Solicitor of the Inland Revenue and lived in Gray's Inn and Hackney, before retiring to live in Oxford.

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amusements and pastimes in elizabethan england

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Amuseuments and pastimes in Elizabethan England

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Some Elizabethan entertainments, such as theatre and football, are still popular today. Others, such as animal-baiting, now seem shocking. Liza Picard takes a look at common 16th-century pastimes. The great names of the Elizabethan stage - Shakespeare, Marlowe, Dekker, Ben Jonson - still retain their richness and power today.

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Elizabethan Witches and Superstitions - flying, broomsticks, familiars, potions and old crones

Elizabethan Superstitions - Sneezing, Eclipse and the 7th son,of a seventh son, Peacock Feathers, Shoes, Spilling Salt and Pepper, Touch wood, Ladders and Black cats
Elizabethan Superstitions

Picture of Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabethan Witchcraft and Witches The Elizabethan Period - Elizabethan Superstitions

Many superstitions during the Elizabethan period dated back to traditions and beliefs from much earlier times. The superstitions were also steeped in the belief in old magic and the mystical properties of animals and herbs.

Elizabethan superstitions also related to special chants, omens and names and numbers. Many traditional English customs are based on the mythical relationship to superstitions dating back to the Dark Ages and even further back to the Romans and their Gods and Goddesses.
Elizabethan Superstitions
The origins of many superstitions are based on trust in magic or chance. An irrational belief that an object, or action, or circumstance which are not logically related to a course of events can influence its outcome.

Ignorance and fear of the unknown combined with a false conception of causation and cessation resulted in many Elizabethan superstitions. Fear of the supernatural and forces of nature or God resulted in the belief of superstitions during the Elizabethan era.
Elizabethan Witches and Superstitions
New Elizabethan superstitions arose due to the fear of witchcraft and the persecution of witches. Women were those most often accused of being witches. There were 270 Elizabethan witch trials of 247 were women and only 23 were men. During the Elizabethan era people blamed unexplainable events as the work of witches - the Bubonic Plague, unexplained deaths or unpleasant illnesses, bad harvests or crop failures, the death of animals and unexplained fires. Those accused of witchcraft, or being a witch, were generally Old, Poor and Unprotected Single women, widows or 'wise women' (many kept pets for company - their 'familiars'). The fear of witches and their supernatural abilities led to the following superstitions:

Superstition 1 - Witches were able to fly ( this explained how witches could move quickly across impossible distances. A broomstick was then added to the superstition as these became common household articles used by women)

Superstition 2 - A witch was often portrayed as an old crone or hag ( with no man to defend her against accusations of witchcraft)

Superstition 3 - Witches are closely associated with living alone ( house in the wood)

Superstition 4 - Witches were known to keep animals like the Cat, Frog, Pig, Raven, Goat, Wolf, Goose, Crow, Bat and Mouse which were believed to be the forms adopted by a Witches Familiar (an evil spirit, in animal form, who was used by the witch to perform evil deeds and cast malevolent spells)

Superstition 5 - Witches brewed magic potions over a cauldron (Wise women had knowledge of herbs such as mandrake, datura, monkshood, cannabis, belladonna, henbane and hemlock)

Superstitions in Elizabethan Period and Time
Here are a selection of superstitions which affected the daily lives of Elizabethans:

Saying "God Bless You" following a sneeze - Elizabethans believed that the devil could enter your body when you opened your mouth to sneeze - the blessing warded off the Devil

An eclipse was seen as an omen of evil

It was unlucky for a black cat to cross your path ( Black is the color associated with evil magic and a cat was strongly associated with a witch's familiar

The 'seventh son of a seventh son' was believed to possess supernatural powers

It was unlucky to keep the feather of a peacock ( the eye-shape on the feathers of peacocks were seen as the 'Evil-eye')

Pin bay leaves to your pillow on the Eve of St Valentine, one at each corner and one in the middle and you will then dream of your future husband

Touch wood to guard against bad luck. This Celtic superstition dates back to the Dark Ages when it was believed that a tree possessed magical powers

Not to walk under ladders - considered bad luck as ladders are associated with the gallows and executions

Shoes on a table - If you put shoes on a table it was very bad luck - inviting an imminent death

Spilling Salt or pepper - Seen as bad luck - the cost of these spices were extremely expensive during the Elizabethan era

Elizabethan Superstitions
Details, facts and information about the Elizabethan Witches during the Elizabethan Period can be accessed via the Elizabethan Era Sitemap or the above link.

Elizabethan Superstitions

Interesting Facts and information about Elizabethan Superstitions in the Elizabethan Period

Elizabethan Witches and Superstitions

Elizabethan Witches and Superstitions - flying, broomsticks, familiars, potions and old crones

Elizabethan Superstitions - Sneezing, Eclipse and the 7th son,of a seventh son

Elizabethan Superstitions - Peacock Feathers, Shoes, Spilling Salt and Pepper

Elizabethan Superstitions - Touch wood, ladders and Black cats

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Queen Elizabeth's Coat of Arms

Elizabethan Superstitions

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Elizabethan Witches and Superstitions - flying, broomsticks, familiars, potions and old crones Elizabethan Superstitions - Sneezing, Eclipse and the 7th son,of a seventh son, Peacock Feathers, Shoes, Spilling Salt and Pepper, Touch wood, Ladders and Black cats Picture of Queen Elizabeth I Elizabethan Witchcraft and Witches The Elizabethan Period - Elizabethan Superstitions Many superstitions during the Elizabethan period dated back to traditions and beliefs from much earlier times.

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The playhouses in Shakespeare's time, such as The Globe, were very different to today. Without props or scenery, actors had to rely on lavish costumes and their ability to perform to entertain an audience. The theatres had trap doors in the stages, above and below, and cannons were sometimes fired to signify battle scenes, sometimes with even more dramatic results than expected. The actors were not allowed to leave the theatre in costume and could be fined if they did.

Could be useful for thinking about how the plays are staged, comparing conditions for performance then and now. Students could try out three versions of a scene - one in which they have no props or scenery at all; one in which they have limited props and scenes; and one in which they have access to costume, props, lights and as much technology as they like. Consider how the actors would need to work differently in each version to convey the essential meaning.

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About Shakespeare - performance - KS3 English - BBC Bitesize

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The playhouses in Shakespeare's time, such as The Globe, were very different to today. Without props or scenery, actors had to rely on lavish costumes and their ability to perform to entertain an audience. The theatres had trap doors in the stages, above and below, and cannons were sometimes fired to signify battle scenes, sometimes with even more dramatic results than expected.

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Sir, Shakespeare's family was not working-class (report, "Class war over Shakespeare's identity", June 1). His father, though apparently illiterate, was a reasonably successful businessman. His mother was an Arden, one of only three English families prominent before the Norman Conquest, and even in Will's day still pretty big cheeses in Warwickshire.

Surely Will was of yeoman stock, a now vanished class but in his day lying between lesser gentry and upper peasantry, sometimes rising to the former, sometimes sinking to the latter. This pivotal position arguably gave him his understanding of all ranks of mankind.

From Mr D. B. Welbourn

Sir, In the mid-1920s my eldest brother worked underground as a graduate mining engineer in the Warwickshire coalfield. He said that...

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Yeoman Shakespeare and his plays of class

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Sir, Shakespeare's family was not working-class (report, "Class war over Shakespeare's identity", June 1). His father, though apparently illiterate, was a reasonably successful businessman. His mother was an Arden, one of only three English families prominent before the Norman Conquest, and even in Will's day still pretty big cheeses in Warwickshire.

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Shakespeare's audiences :: Life and Times :: Internet Shakespeare Editions

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yet your Genius ought to live with an honest soule indeed. It should be like the Never-too-well read Arcadia, where the Prose and Verce, (Matter and Words) are like his Mistresses eyes, one still excelling another and without Corivall; or to come home to the vulgars Element, like Friendly Shake-speares Tragedies, where the Commedian rides, when the Tragedian stands on Tip-toe.

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Globe Theatre, famous London theatre in which after 1599 the plays of William Shakespeare were performed.

Early in 1599 Shakespeare, who had been acting with the Lord Chamberlain's Men since 1594, paid into the coffers of the company a sum of money amounting to 12.5 percent of the cost of building the Globe. He did so as a chief shareholder in the company, and by doing so he helped to establish a uniquely successful form of commercial operation for the actors of the time. This investment gave Shakespeare and the other leading actors both a share in the company's profits and a share in their playhouse.

At this time, officially approved playhouses and officially approved acting companies had been in existence in London for only five years. The Lord Chamberlain's Men was one of only two companies licensed to perform within the London city limits. (For more on this subject, see Sidebar: Shakespeare and the Liberties.) The other company used the Rose playhouse, owned by an impresario and his ex-actor son-in-law.

The second best playhouse

Shakespeare's company built the Globe only because it could not use the special roofed facility, Blackfriars Theatre, that James Burbage (the father of their leading actor, Richard Burbage) had built in 1596 for it inside the city. The elder Burbage had a long history as a theatrical entrepreneur. In 1576 he had built the first successful amphitheatre, known as The Theatre, in a London suburb. Twenty years later, when the lease on The Theatre's land was about to expire, he built the theatre in Blackfriars as its replacement. But the wealthy residents of Blackfriars persuaded the government to block its use for plays, so Burbage's capital was locked up. He died early in 1597, his plans for the future of theatre in London frustrated.

Thus, the members of the Lord Chamberlain's Men were forced to rent a playhouse. At the end of 1598, they decided to build one for themselves. Because the inheritance of Burbage's sons, Cuthbert and Richard, was tied up in the Blackfriars, they formed a consortium with Shakespeare and four other actors, who became co-owners of the new Globe. The same shortage of cash made the consortium reluctant traditionalists; they gave up the idea of an indoor theatre in the city. The old playhouse was one of their few remaining resources, but they could not use it in situ because the lease had expired, so they dismantled it, took the timbers (illegally) to make the skeleton of their new amphitheatre, and kept the basic auditorium shape of The Theatre for the new building.

The success of the Globe

For all its hurried construction in 1599, the Globe proved a triumph. Its first decade of use made it a favourite not just with subsequent generations of theatregoers but with the company itself. In later years the troupe paid a lot to keep it going. At least two circumstances provide evidence for this statement. In 1608, when the company could finally fulfill James Burbage's original plan for the Blackfriars, the members chose, extravagantly, to operate the two theatres together, using the open-air Globe in the summer and the roofed Blackfriars in the winter. Had they chosen to, they easily could have rented one of the buildings to another company, since there was a shortage of playhouses in London in this period. But they kept both for themselves. They were given a second chance to transfer full-time to the Blackfriars in 1613, when the Globe burned to the ground, its thatch accidentally set alight by a cannon during a performance of Henry VIII. By then the Blackfriars was already beginning to bring better profits than the Globe, since the smaller house size was more than compensated by its higher prices. Instead, bearing the cost out of sentiment and traditional loyalty, the company members dug deep into their own pockets and rebuilt the Globe more splendidly than before.

Technically, the 1599 Globe and its 1614 replacement span an era in the history of theatre design. The first Globe, based on the skeleton of the original Theatre of 1576, was unique not just as the most famous example of that peculiar and short-lived form of theatre design but because it was actually the first to be built specifically for an existing acting company and financed by the company itself. Shakespeare designed As You Like It, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Othello, All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Pericles, and The Winter's Tale, not to mention Troilus and Cressida and Timon of Athens, for performance there.

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Globe Theatre | Definition, History, & Facts

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Globe Theatre, famous London theater in which after 1599 the plays of William Shakespeare were performed. The Globe was pulled down in 1644, two years after the Puritans closed all theaters. A reconstructed Globe opened at the original's location in 1997.

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This post will help you to plan a trip to one of the most famous theatres in all of London. In addition to an overview with information about the venue, we will also include details about where it is, how to take their tour, and how to see a show at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

Perhaps one of the most famous theatres in the entire United Kingdom, the Globe Theatre is best known as home to William Shakespeare's playing company. Although the original Globe Theatre was lost to fire, today a modern version sits on the south bank of the River Thames.

A tourist attraction for visitors from across the globe (no pun intended!), Shakespeare's Globe Theatre is now a huge complex holding a reconstructed original outdoor theatre, a winter theatre, a museum, and an education centre.

In the following sections, we will explain how to find the theatre and take a tour to learn about its history. Even if you decide not to take a tour, you can learn more about the venue by reading our theatre history section. We will also cover details about how to see a show at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

Tours and admission to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre are included with both the London Pass and the Explorer Pass. You can also save money on tickets with the London City Pass.

Where is the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

The original Globe Theatre was built in 1599 and stood very near the location of the modern-day version. The site of the original was not certainly known until 1989 when the foundations were discovered in a car park. However, the foundations lie underneath a listed building, so no excavations can take place. A plaque and information panel are in place near 67-70 Anchor Terrace on Park Street to commemorate this original location.

The modern-day theatre is located on the south bank of the River Thames. The nearest London Underground Station is London Bridge (Northern and Jubilee lines), but you could also access it by walking over the Millennium Bridge from St. Paul's Cathedral. We recommend using this link for directions to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre from anywhere in the London region.

TAKE A TOUR OF SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE THEATRE
Whether or not you plan to see a show, you can still get a good look inside Shakespeare's Globe Theatre by taking a guided tour. This service includes access to an exhibition detailing Shakespeare's life in London and his accomplishments as an artist. As you walk through the venue, a guide will provide information about the history of the theatre and what the city was like when it became famous.

This tour is offered all year long, so you can take it just about anytime regardless of the weather. That being said, it's worth noting that this is an open-air theatre, so weather might play a role in your enjoyment of the experience.

If you can't manage to secure tickets until the day of your trip, you will have the option to simply walk up and ask about any available tour spots. Chances are that they will be able to accommodate you even if you can't get tickets before arriving.

Tickets: £17/Adults | £15.50/Seniors | £10/Kids

Student Tickets: £13.50

Availability: Daily (except for holidays)

Schedule: Hourly from 10 am - 5 pm

Duration: 1 ½ hours

Purchase tickets or learn more

If you're interested in taking this tour, keep in mind that it is included with the London Pass, the London City Pass, and the Explorer Pass. Visitors who are planning to do a lot of sightseeing may want to use one of these services to save a lot of money on this and many other activities in the city. Alternatively, you can also use Discount London to get your tickets for less.
SEE A SHOW AT SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE THEATRE
No matter how old this venue gets, it's still one of the best places in London to enjoy a theatrical performance. The Globe Theatre is an open-air playhouse, so most shows will take place between the months of April and October. At the start of each theatre season, a new schedule will be posted on their site.

You can learn more about the next available show by visiting their What's On page. Although the guided tour is available throughout the year, other performances and activities will only be offered for a short time.

There are only 857 seats, so tickets can be difficult to obtain. Thankfully, there are 700 standing room tickets available for each show and they only cost £5 per person, so this doesn't have to be an expensive activity. That said, at half the size of the original theatre, we recommend purchasing tickets well ahead of time to avoid missing out.
HISTORY OF SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE THEATRE
The Globe was constructed in 1599 and the first production here was likely either Henry V or Julius Caesar although no firm record exists. The theatre was owned by a number of Shareholders - and Shakespeare himself was just one of the people in this group.

It is estimated that Shakespeare's ownership in the Globe eventually diminished to just 7% throughout the course of his career. Although today we heavily associate The Globe with Shakespeare, many other playwrights had work performed at this theatre. In fact, the first recorded performance of a play at the Globe Theatre was not a Shakespeare play at all, but Every Man out of His Humour by Johnson.

Although the exact dimensions of the original theatre are not known, the structure and design of the building have been researched heavily throughout the centuries and primary sources leave enough information that the construction of the Globe can be accurately estimated.

The Globe was a three-story open-air amphitheatre with a diameter of around 100ft (30m) and could hold upwards of 3,000 spectators. Although imagined as a circular shape (a "wooden O" as referenced in Shakespeare's Play Henry V), it is likely that the theatre was a polygon of around 20 sides.

The base of the stage held a yard where - for a single penny - spectators could buy a ticket to become a 'groundling' who would stand on the dirt floor throughout the performance. This yard was surrounded by three levels of stadium-style seats, a more luxurious option for wealthier patrons.

Above the stage was a filing known as the "heavens" which was painted like the sky with clouds and stars. The heavens contained a trap door with which actors could descend and ascend when required. A trap door built into the stage also allowed for movement of actors on and off the stage.

Destruction

During a performance of Henry VIII on the 29th of June 1613, a fire sparked by the firing of a theatrical cannon lit the wooden beams and thatching of the theatre alight. Although the theatre was destroyed, nobody was injured in the tragic event (aside from a single man whose breeches were on fire, but the flames were put out with a bottle of ale).

Modern Recreation

In 1970, American actor and director Sam Wanamaker founded the Shakespeare Globe Trust and the International Shakespeare Globe Centre with the idea that a faithful recreation of Shakespeare's Globe should be built near its original position on the banks of the river. No easy task, Wanamaker fought detractors who believed a faithful reconstruction would not be possible, those who insisted that the new building would be a fire hazard, and those who said the recreation would not be a viable tourist attraction.

Despite the criticism, Wanamaker persevered and (with minor exceptions such as external staircases and fire sprinklers) a faithful reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was eventually designed and built, using exactly the same materials as the original. Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was then opened to the public in 1997 - 4 years after Wanamaker died.

Performances here are staged to duplicate the original environment of the Globe. This means there are no spotlights, and where possible plays are staged in the daylight. There are also no microphones or speakers of any sort. All music accompaniment is performed live and the close proximity of the actors to the spectators makes performances appear more accessible and intimate. Although the outlay is the same, seating capacity in the modern Globe is 857 with 700 more standing - giving it around half the capacity of the original Theatre.

Built of English Oak like the original, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was constructed with absolutely no structural steel. The thatched roof of the new Globe was a subject of much debate as roof thatching had been outlawed after the Great Fire of London in 1666. Wanamaker fought long and hard to utilize the thatch and this is the first - and only - permitted thatched roof in London since 1666!

Today, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre stands around 230m (750ft) from the original Globe site. The design of the theatre is the same as the original with a stage surrounded by a circular yard (where 'groundlings' can still view performances!) and three tiers of raked seating. Because the theatre is circular, there is no roof over the centre of the structure, so plays are only staged during the summer.

Originally, women were not allowed on stage, and during Shakespeare's lifetime, it would have been only men who performed his work. Occasionally the Globe harkens back to this era, putting on entire performances where all roles are played by men. However, both genders are on stage regularly throughout the seasons.

In addition to the recreated Globe Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe's Trust now also houses the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse - a 17th-century style indoor theatre. Although not an exact reconstruction of an original building, the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse loosely resembles the nearby Blackfriars Theatre which had been built in 1566.

Much like Shakespeare's Globe, the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse was built using period-accurate materials and building styles, and similarly, as well, the Playhouse uses beeswax candles to light the stage rather than modern day lighting fixtures. The Playhouse houses around 340 seats and hosts productions throughout the winter and spring months.

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Shakespeare's Globe Theatre | Free Tours by Foot

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This post will help you to plan a trip to one of the most famous theatres in all of London. In addition to an overview with information about the venue, we will also include details about where it is, how to take their tour, and how to see a show at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

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Elizabethan Playhouses, Actors, and Audiences

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In Shakespeare's time, a stage wasn't just one type of space; plays had to be versatile. The same play might be produced in an outdoor playhouse, an indoor theater, a royal palace-or, for a company on tour, the courtyard of an inn.

In any of these settings, men and boys played all the characters, male and female; acting in Renaissance England was an exclusively male profession. Audiences had their favorite performers, looked forward to hearing music with the productions, and relished the luxurious costumes of the leading characters. The stage itself was relatively bare. For the most part, playwrights used vivid words instead of scenery to picture the scene onstage.

Playhouses and the Globe | Theaters and Palaces | Audience Experiences | Actors, Costumes, and Staging | Stage and Screen after Shakespeare

In 1576, when Shakespeare was still a 12-year-old in Stratford, James Burbage built the Theatre just outside London. The Theatre was among the first playhouses in England since Roman times. Like the many other playhouses that followed, it was a multi-sided structure with a central, uncovered "yard" surrounded by three tiers of covered seating and a bare, raised stage at one end of the yard. Spectators could pay for seating at multiple price levels; those with the cheapest tickets simply stood for the length of the plays.

Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, was one of several to perform at the Theatre, appearing there by about 1594. A few years later, the Burbages lost their lease on the Theatre site and began construction of a new, larger playhouse, the Globe, just south of the Thames. To pay for it, they shared the lease with the five partners (called actor-sharers) in the Lord Chamberlain's company, including Shakespeare.

The Globe, which opened in 1599, became the playhouse where audiences first saw some of Shakespeare's best-known plays. In 1613, it burned to the ground when the roof caught fire during a performance of Shakespeare's . A new, second Globe was quickly built on the same site, opening in 1614.

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In Shakespeare's time, a stage wasn't just one type of space; plays had to be versatile. The same play might be produced in an outdoor playhouse, an indoor theater, a royal palace-or, for a company on tour, the courtyard of an inn.

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Melissa Thomas 2009

Long before the invention of modern technologies, such as radios and televisions, movies, video game systems and the ever popular internet, people in the Elizabethan age created an elaborate system of activities and events to keep themselves entertained. "...they were expressive and eloquent, ostentatious and pleasure-loving, not industrious or hardworking, but bold and self-confident, markedly fearless of death, mercurial and inconsistent, loving change, above all, passionate" (Rowse 353). And one of their main passions was theatre.

Theatre was for people in Early Modern England what television is for us today. People went to the theatre to be entertained, and the poor and the rich alike gathered in playhouses in the afternoon to see plays performed. Shakespeare was one of the most popular playwrights of this time and often if you were going to go see a play performed it was most likely written by him. Henry IV was one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, mainly because people of this time loved the character of Falstaff(Weil 4).

Going to a play in early modern England not only involved the actual act of going to see the play, but it was also about paying money to enter the playhouse and mingle with observe and be observed by people of both sexes and many different social classes(Howard 73). There was a wide range of social and educational levels in Shakespeare's audience, especially since the brothels of London were close to where the theatres were built. (Best).

Even though most everyone went to theatre productions there were not many theatre's actually built in London. Theatres were instead built on the South bank of the Thames River. This was to avoid the strict regulations of London at the time. The city of London did not approve of theatre because public performances were thought to be a breeding ground for the plague and for unseemly behavior (Howard 73). The theatre often served as a place for prostitutes and their customers, and many people did not like the fact that the theatre allowed several different social groups to mix together (Howard 75). Also since theatre performances took place in the middle of the day they took worker's away from their jobs which was frowned upon (Greenblat 32). There were no toilet facilities in the theatres and people relieved themselves outside. Sewage was buried in pits or disposed of in the River Thames, this improper sanitation could have been responsible for outbreaks of the plague, which was the only time when then there was less of an audience at the theatres ( Elizabethan Era).

Even though theatres moved out of London to avoid certain persecution they were still censored. There was a government branch called the Office of the Revels that's job was to make sure that plays did not present politically or socially sensitive material (Greenblat 18). Before every theatre performance an official would read a manuscript of the play, taking out any material they deemed offensive (Greenblat 19). This would become difficult for plays such as Henry IV or any other history play that was essentially about the government.

Theatres in Early Modern England were not like the theatres we have today, they were open-air which means they were much like our modern sports stadiums (and the audience tended to act much like modern sports spectators). The plays were lighted mainly by natural light, and could not take place at night or in bad weather (Hodges 43).

As seen in the picture to the left of the Globe Theatre, the rectangular stage thrust out into a circular area called the pit. When audiences were purchasing tickets for a play they could choose to either sit here in the pit or to sit in the balconies (Albright 47). Elizabethan general public or people who were not nobility were referred to as groundlings. They would pay one penny to stand in the Pit of the Globe Theater (Howard 75). The upper class spectators would pay to sit in the galleries often using cushions for comfort. Rich nobles could watch the play from a chair set on the side of the Globe stage itself, so an audience viewing a play may often have to ignore the fact that there is a noble man sitting right on the stage( Elizabethan Era).

Theatre performances were held in the afternoon, because there was no artificial lighting, this required the imagination of the audiences during scenes that were to take place at night ( Elizabethan Era). Men and women attended plays, but often the prosperous women would wear a mask to disguise their identity ( Elizabethan Era). Even though women did attend theatre, and even Queen Elizabeth herself loved the theatre women who attended theatre were often looked down upon. In fact if a woman was attending the theatre it was generally assumed she was a prostitute. This is because the theatre was considered an unseemly place, and most people thought that women should be at home with their children (Howard 76).

Since most theatre performances were often three hours long ( Henry IV would have been somewhere around two and a half), the behavior of the audience became very rowdy, the audiences did not keep quiet, or arrive on time, or remain for the whole performance they would simply get up and leave whenever they felt like it. They joined in on the action occurring on stage, interrupted the actors, and even sometimes got on the stage.

They also talked during dull moments, and threw rotting vegetables, especially tomatoes at the actors ( Elizabethan Era). A performance of Henry IV was probably very distracting in a Shakespearian theatre. Shakespeare must have thought so too, moving his play company out of open-air theatres in 1609 to perform at Black-friars which were an indoor theatre that was supposed to produce a more refined audience ( Elizabethan Era).

It's thought that while the upper class theatre goers were better behaved that the groundlings they were not without their streaks of bad behavior. The upper class spectators probably cheered for upper class characters in plays such as Westmorland or Prince Hal. And of course lower class spectators would cheer for lower class characters, and if these two social classes were ever dueling in a play, it was practical pandemonium in the theatre ( Audiences). The audiences would also cheer for the good guys, and boo the bad ones.

Though we know a little bit about the behavior of theatre audiences we do not know much about the actual Elizabethan stage, however because plays of this time were written expressly for this stage, we can get an idea by looking at the stage directions in the play(Albright 38).

Though the theatre seems rudimentary compared to our theatres today, Shakespearian plays were not without special effects. Special effects were a spectacular addition at the Elizabethan theaters thrilling the audiences with smoke effects, the firing of a real canon, fireworks (for dramatic battle scenes) and spectacular flying entrances from the rigging in the heavens( Elizabethan Era).The stage also featured trap doors to serve as graves, or to allow ghosts to rise from the earth.

There was a wall covered with a curtain that separated the back of the stage from the actor's dressing room, this wall was called the arras, in Act II, Scene 4 of Henry IV, the prince tells Falstaff to hide from the Sheriff by hiding "behind the arras", this would have been where the actor hid. Not all theatres were set up like this, there were some indoor theatre's that had a pit that was filled with chairs, but because only the very wealthy could afford admission to these theatres they were often considered private(Hodges 55).

Even though theatres in Shakespearian England did not employ the use of scenery, theatre companies put a lot of effort into developing their costumes with great care. An acting company held their costumes to be their most valuable items (Hodges 54). The costumes however became a subject of controversy when some aristocrats felt that actors could use them to disguise their social status, outside of the play-house (Howard 145). Costumes were also used to disguise the genders of actors. All actors in the theatre during Shakespeare's time were men, so young boys were playing female's parts, and they needed costumes that made them believable as females.

Even though Historians have managed to reconstruct the appearance of original theatres, even building the New Globe in London, much of the information on how plays were performed during this time has been lost, the only thing that gives us an idea as to how these plays were performed is the stage directions found in the text. We don't know much about the actors and how they chose to play the parts, except from what is written in first hand accounts of the plays (Howard 48).

The plays were performed daily with a different play every day; because the plays changed daily they needed some way to advertise what was to be shown that afternoon, so Flags were put up on the day of the performance which sometimes displayed a picture advertising the next play to be performed. Color coding was also used to advertise the type of play to be performed - a black flag meant a tragedy, white a comedy, and red a history ( Elizabethan Era).

Just as we don't know much about the theatre, or about the way the plays were actually performed we don't know much about when King Henry IV was actually performed. It is generally assumed that the play was written and in performance by 1597(Lamb 9), this is not documented. The earliest performance we are certain of took place in 1600 when the play was acted in court for the Flemish ambassador. There were other court performances in 1612 and 1625(Lamb 15). These performances would have been considerably different than the performances described above. They took place in the houses of nobility, and at best a play company was asked to perform for "royals" about a dozen times a year (Gurr 25).

When they did perform for the court, there was a considerable amount of money paid for special effects, and scenery that would not have been used in the normal theatre performances. But the biggest difference in these performances is that they were of course inside and not nearly as crowded and members of nobility were considerably better behaved than the commoners that were found at the play-houses. So when plays took place at court there was typically no rotten vegetable throwing, and no shouting out by the audience members (Gurr 27).

Henry IV does not appear to have been popular as a play in court, so when it was seen it was probably with the distractions described earlier. However, it appears that the distractions were not distracting to theatre goers of the time; this play was actual one of Shakespeare's more loved plays (Lamb 17). The play was printed in 1598, 1599,1604,1608,1613, 1622, 1623, 1632 and 1639 (Lamb 17). This huge number of printings means that the play was frequently performed and was a "commercial success". So more often than not when a red flag was flying over a theatre it meant you were in for a performance of Henry IV. This is thought to be because audiences loved the character of Falstaff, more likely than not they cheered when he was on stage, and laughed at him profusely (Lamb 17). In fact the character was such a crowd pleaser that Shakespeare put him in two more plays.

We may not know much about the way that Shakespearian plays were acted or performed or what the theatre looked like exactly. Nor do we actually know precisely how the audiences acted, but thanks to the scripts of the plays, and historical journals we can make some educated guesses.

Works Cited

Albright, Victor. The Shakespearian Stage. New York: Columbia University Press, 1926.

Alchin, L.K. "History of the Elizabethan Era." Elizabethan Era. 04 MAR 2008. Elizabethan Era. 11 Nov 2008 < http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/history-of-the-elizabethan-theatre.htm>.

Best, Michael. "Shakespeare's Life and Times." Internet Shakespeare Editions. 2005. University ofVictoria:Victoria. 01 Nov 2008 < http://ise.uvic.ca/Library/SLT.com>.

Greenblatt, Stephen. " Shakespeare's world." Norton Shakespeare. New York: W.W. Norton and Co.,1997.

Griffing, Jessica. "Audiences." 2006. 09 Nov 2008 < http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/theatre/jess.html>.

Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage, 1574-1642: 1574-1642. Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Hodges, Walter. The Globe Restored. New York: Coward McCann Inc.,

Howard, Jean. The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Lamb, Sidney. Cliff's Complete Shakespeare's King Henry IV Part 1. Foster City CA: IDG Books Worldwide, 2000.

Rowse, A.L. The Elizabethan Renaissance. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972.

Weil, Herbert and Judith Weil. The First Part of King Henry IV, New Cambridge Shakespeare, 1997.

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Melissa Thomas 2009 Long before the invention of modern technologies, such as radios and televisions, movies, video game systems and the ever popular internet, people in the Elizabethan age created an elaborate system of activities and events to keep themselves entertained.

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To fully appreciate Shakespeare, it's best to see his plays live on stage. It's a sad fact that today we typically study Shakespeare's plays out of books and forego the live experience. It's important to remember that the Bard was not writing for today's literary readership, but for a live audience.

Shakespeare was not writing for just any live audience but was writing for the masses in Elizabethan England, many of whom couldn't read or write. The theater was usually the only place the audiences to his plays would be exposed to fine, literary culture. To better understand Shakespeare's works, today's reader needs to go beyond the texts themselves to consider the context of these works: the details of the live theater experience during the Bard's lifetime.

Theater Etiquette in Shakespeare's Time

Visiting a theater and watching a play in Elizabethan times was very different from today, not just because of who was in the audience, but because of how people behaved. Theatergoers were not expected to be still and silent throughout the performance as modern audiences are. Instead, Elizabethan theater was the modern equivalent of a popular band concert. It was communal and even, at times, raucous, depending on the subject matter of a given performance.

The audience would eat, drink, and talk throughout the performance. Theaters were open air and used natural light. Without the advanced technology of artificial light, most plays were performed not in the evening, as they are today, but rather in the afternoon or during the daylight.

Furthermore, plays during that era used very little scenery and few, if any, props. The plays usually relied on language to set the scene.

Female Performers in Shakespeare's Time

The laws for contemporary performances of Shakespeare's plays banned women from acting. Female roles were thus played by young boys before their voices changed in puberty.

How Shakespeare Changed Perceptions of the Theater

Shakespeare saw the public's attitude towards theater shift during his lifetime. Prior to his era, the theater in England was considered to be a disreputable pastime. It was frowned upon by Puritan authorities, who were worried that it might distract people from their religious teachings.

During the reign of Elizabeth I, theaters were still banned within the city walls of London (even though the Queen enjoyed the theater and frequently attended performances in person). But over time, the theater became more popular, and a thriving "entertainment" scene grew on Bankside, just outside the city walls. Bankside was considered to be a "den of iniquity" with its brothels, bear-baiting pits, and theaters. The place of theater in Shakespeare's time widely diverged from its perceived role today as high culture reserved for the educated, upper classes.

The Acting Profession During Shakespeare's Time

Shakespeare's contemporary theater companies were extremely busy. They would perform around six different plays each week, which could only be rehearsed a few times before the performance. There was no separate stage crew, as theater companies have today. Every actor and stagehand helped to make costumes, props, and scenery.

The Elizabethan acting profession worked on an apprentice system and therefore was strictly hierarchical. Playwrights themselves had to rise up through the ranks. Shareholders and general managers were in charge and profited the most from the company's success.

Managers employed their actors, who became permanent members of the company. Boy apprentices were at the bottom of the hierarchy. They usually began their careers by acting in small roles or playing the female characters.

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The context of Shakespeare's theater and the theater experience in Shakespeare's lifetime is key to a fuller understanding of his plays.

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The Globe Theater Costumes were remarkable - luxurious materials, vibrant colors as well as exceptionally expensive. The costumes did not consistently show the right time and age of the Play.

The Globe actors normally put on the outfit of their own time. Some were especially made for the stars and some were contributed by rich patrons.

The Globe plays had to be made in a terrific hurry in order to make sure a rapid turnover of new material and efficiencies for the pressing Elizabethan audience and to defeat the competition from competing theaters.

Not enough time was available to accumulate an all set made store of costumes which mirrored the correct age of the play. The clothing in a play, such as Julius Caesar, would certainly have been simpler to develop as togas are relatively simple to make.In this occasion a mix of Roman clothing and also Elizabethan apparel could well have actually been viewed with each other.

Source: http://www.shakespeareincostume.com

Shakespeare Costumes for Character Recognition and Personality

Elizabethans recognized the meaning of different tinted clothing in regard to position and also status. This principle is totally alien in our contemporary age where we are allowed freedom of choice.

However, we would identify that purple was the color associated with royalty throughout the days of the Roman Emperors.

Yet nearly every color of garments had its very own significance in relation to status and ranking during the Elizabethan age! And these definitions were totally recognized by the audience.

The colors, materials as well as styles of the Globe Theater outfits consequently shared a substantial amount of details as soon as the star walked on to show business!

Quick Link: http://www.pinterest.com/sagerific/shakespeare-costumes-props-ideas-etc/

When a personality strolled on show business the textile as well as color of his clothes would indicate the part of the personality he was playing.

The character and also ranking of an actor wearing a Globe Theater costume made of velvets, furs, silks or lace would certainly be promptly recognized as a member of the Upper Class. Cottons and also taffeta would show a much reduced condition

Renting Shakespearean Costumes

The attractive costumes are dazzling ideas to personality function and play ambience and also are built for long-lasting use both in schools as well as on the stage. We highlight one item per character to motivate teaching via performance in the class.

If more comprehensive hosting is required, we offer complete dress concept listings to complement our outfits. Each play showcases its own look and shades, with shade, specifically, used to highlight parts and also teams to make sure that personalities can be quickly identified and also remembered. Our outfits are one size fits all.

Unique Shakespearean Costumes

"Exactly what makes these Shakespeare productions unique is that we are utilizing initial practices," said the programs' make-up manager, Christina Grant, a nine-year pro of Broadway, movie and TV. "Basically, every facet of these 2 outfittings are being done with techniques as well as materials that people from Shakespeare's time would have utilized.".

"A lot of the Globe programs do just what they call original methods to give contemporary audiences the possibility to view exactly what it resembled in Shakespeare's time," Grant said. "In London, you're in a replica of the actual movie theater, so you probably believe that a whole lot more like you are in then, however even below, it's an excellent encounter as well as a fun past history session for the audience.".

Makeup for Shakespeare Characters

Refined Females of Shakespearean time preferred a which they thought suggested the aristocracy. The Elizabethan female did not have the benefits of makeup produced from risk-free components.

Source: http://makeupmag.com/

White Face Make-up was attained by mixing white lead as well as vinegar, a dangerous cosmetic to wear.

Shakespeare as author, director, manufacturer, costume designer as well as make-up artist more than likely utilized the very same mixture to accomplish the white face make-up for his entertainers.

To prepare, Terry Grant began try out things in her cooking area up until it was time to comply with the actors. She also searched the Web for ideas. One failed experiment entailed egg yolks. "Egg tempera is generally made out of egg yolk, pigment as well as water," she said. "We experimented with it on among the actors, however it was fairly difficult to work with. It dries very quick, so obtaining a stunning blended appearance was really tough to do.

Plus after it had dried it kind of broken as well as had a strange structure on the skin. It was enjoyable to experiment with it, yet it was not functional for the visual or the operating of the show.

"I never, ever had to make my very own makeup just before, as well as to be around this setting was entirely brand-new to me," she added. "It's nice to try something brand-new, flex the abilities and also keep knowing.".

Grant learned that if you are on collection as well as need makeup you do not have in your package, you can pick up products from the craft services table that might function.

"We were instructed the best ways to think on your feet, which is an actually essential skill as a cosmetics artist, particularly if you want to do film as well as TV," she stated. "I employed by Saturday Night Live for a period, as well as half the moment I didn't understand just what I would be doing and needed to improvise.".

Cosmetics creation for these shows is one thing- longevity is an additional. The cosmetics needs to last for 3 hours while the actors do the show.

Even without corroboration from other duration sources, one can start to catch a glimpse of the optimal Elizabethan girl: brilliant eyes, snow-white , and also lips, as well as .

Modern products can help to protect the skin of actors who need to wear Shakespearean makeup. All natural products such as Aloe Vera, Jojoba Oil and Apple Cider Vinegar can be used as tools as a base for makeup and as a makeup remover. These products will also prevent breakouts and acne from clogged skin pores as the result of wearing the makeup products. The skin can be cleansed using a product such a Clarisonic Mia along with cleansers from The Acne Project's list of ingredients, using all in one products such as from Exposed Skin Care. The creative use of modern natural ingredients along with traditional Elizabethan makeup products will protect and nourish the skin during productions.

As an example a reasonable approximation of this ideal can be found in Lettice Knollys, Countess of Leicester and also relative to Queen Elizabeth herself, that was widely regarded as among the most attractive ladies at court.

Primarily was her exceedingly pale skin- a requirement for a courtly beauty.

The mannerism portraits of the late 16th century all portrayed their lady (as well as male) topics with alabaster complexions, doing not have also the rosy radiance that became preferred throughout the next century.

Pale skin was a sign of nobility, wealth, and also (for women) special, and also was sought after by several.

In a time when skin disorders and the pox were prevalent, sunscreen unheard of, and skin lotions as well as ointments unreachable for all but the prosperous, smooth, unblemished as well as pale skin was a rarity.

This dull skin could possibly be accomplished by a variety of ways, one of the most prominent being ceruse, a mix of white lead as well as vinegar that was favored by the nobility and also by those who could possibly manage it.

This white foundation was applied to the neck as well as breast too. The initial record of this skin-whitener was found in 1519 in Horman's "Vulgaria puerorum", as well as by the time of Elizabeth's power was well-established as an essential thing for the fashionable female.

Normally, spreading out lead upon one's skin triggered a selection of skin troubles; some writers of the moment warned against it, explaining exactly how it made the skin "grey as well as wrinkled", and suggesting various other preferred combinations such a paste of alum as well as tin ash, sulpher, and also a selection of foundations used steamed egg white, talc, as well as various other white products as a base.

Egg white, raw, could possibly also be used to "glaze" the skin tone, producing a smooth shell and also assisting to conceal skin wrinkles.

Shakespearean costumes and makeup still after hundreds of years continue to fascinate and thrill audiences of all ages from around the world.

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COSTUMES AND MAKEUP FOR SHAKESPEAREAN PRODUCTIONS

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The Globe Theater Costumes were remarkable - luxurious materials, vibrant colors as well as exceptionally expensive. The costumes did not consistently show the right time and age of the Play. The Globe actors normally put on the outfit of their own time. Some were especially made for the stars and some were contributed by rich patrons.

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It is generally considered foolish to marry for love, although love may occur in marriage.

Your parents and friends are better equipped than you are to look out for your best interests, being mature and experienced in the world. Let them negotiate and recommend and you're much more likely to be happy in marriage.

Just because a marriage is arranged doesn't mean you've never met the other person. Except among the lofty nobility, most people arrange their children's marriages with the children of neighbors and friends.

The lower on the social scale you are, the more likely you are to have a choice in the matter.

Exemplary (and disastrous) love matches: Robert Dudley and Amy Robsart; Lord Darnley and Mary Queen of Scots; Edward earl of Oxford and Anne Cecil.

Rare successful love matches: the 7th Baron and Lady Berkeley; the 2nd Earl of Bedford and his 3rd countess.

Children

Everyone wants (and expects) to have children.

Children are the property of their parents, and give them the respect a servant gives his master. Or else.

Wives

Wives are the property of their husbands. See previous admonition.

Some women are more independent than others, and some fear marriage. However, every woman expects to be married, and to depend on her male relatives throughout her life.

Of course, not everyone is in a hurry to get married, but marriage means being in charge of your own home.

Women who would have been drawn to convent life in the old days no longer have that option, and must either marry or be a burden to their families.

Widows

Widows can own property and run their own businesses.

A widow is entitled to 1/3 of her husband's estates (after the bills are paid), if he has heirs. All of it if he does not. This "widow's third" is separate from and in addition to her jointure. It is still considered a good idea to re-marry to protect one's interests, however, and the interests of minor children.

Since there are tedious problems to do with whether a woman's word or signature is legally binding, she really must have a husband.

If she doesn't, her friends will worry about her being taken advantage of by sharp servants. This worry increases if she wants to marry one of them.

Men

In general, every man wants to marry too, or at least acknowledges that he must.

If he is not noble, he must be married to become the legal head of a household and eligible to hold public or ecclesiastical office and other positions of civic responsibility.

When he is widowed, a man also looks to remarry, especially if he has children. The traditional waiting period is called a month's mind. To marry again after a month is not considered hasty.

Divorce is actually more difficult to obtain in the protestant regime than in the Catholic, even with cause. Since you can't apply to the Pope anymore, you have to get an Act of Parliament! That's a lot more people to buy.
Sources
Cressy: Birth, Marriage, and Death
Duffy: Voices of Morebath
Pearson: Elizabethans at Home

Weddings and Betrothals
Naming the Baby
Children & Childhood
Heirs & Inheritance
More Wedding Customs
The Marriage Ring
Funerals & Mourning

25 March 2008 mps

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Everyday life in Tudor England - Marriage, family, and love matches in the time of Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare.

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The Classroom | Empowering Students in Their College Journey

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Marriage in Elizabethan times appeared to be similar to marriages of today, in that some of the traditions have remained constant; however, a closer look reveals many key differences. For example, it was considered foolish to marry for love, and strangely enough, those who were of lower classes were more likely to have a choice in who they married.

Identification

Elizabethan women had very little choice in husbands. Marriages were arranged by their families in order to bring prestige or wealth to the families involved. This is why poor women could sometimes choose their spouses. Women were required to be subservient to their husbands and to men in general. They were taught that men were more intelligent than women. Many young men and women didn't meet their spouses until their wedding day. Marriage was considered more of a business arrangement between the families than a relationship between a man and a woman.

Features

Elizabethan law gave men full control over their wives. Married women were basically considered to be the property of their husbands and were expected to bring a dowry or marriage portion to the marriage. This would consist of property, money and various goods. Elizabethan wives were also required to run the household and give their husbands children. Though most often uneducated academically, they were taught housekeeping and even herbal medicine by the older women in their families.

Benefits

Marriage in Elizabethan times was considered a necessity by both men and women. Women who didn't marry were considered witches by their neighbors, and for lower class women, the only alternative was a life of servitude to wealthier families. Marriage allowed them social status and children. While the husbands received the marriage portion from their wives, marriage allowed a woman to maintain a certain status even if she became a widow. Widows were allowed to own property and run businesses.

Significance

Marriage was dictated by the church, and couples were required by law to follow the religion dictated by the queen at the time. While Queen Elizabeth I favored the Protestant religion, her predecessor and sister Queen Mary I was a fervent Catholic who burned Protestants for their beliefs. This earned her the nickname of "Bloody Mary." All wedding ceremonies were held in the Queen's churches and were performed by a minister. While the religions varied, the basic process was the same.

Types

Wealthy and noble Elizabethan women sometimes received an education, but poor women did not. While noble women often had house servants to help with the chores and welfare of their families, poorer women did it single-handed until their female children were old enough to help. Marriage was legal for girls at the age of 12 and boys at 14, but it was rare for couples to marry at these ages. Average ages of marriage were 20 to 29.

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Marriage in Elizabethan times appeared to be similar to marriages of today, in that some of the traditions have remained constant; however, a closer look reveals many key differences.

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Elizabethan Food and Diet : Tudor Cooking : Page 1

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Food, feasts, cooking, baking, recipes, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), tudor diet and eating.

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In addition to the beer you've probably heard about being popular in the 16-17 th century England (due to the poor sanitation of the water) Shakespeare's lifetime saw a flurry of culinary oddities grace the tables of nobility and civilians alike. It wasn't uncommon to see such surprises as hedgehogs, fish pies, and even fried peacock that's recorded as appearing at court before Queen Elizabeth.

These culinary experiments would amuse and delight us if found on dinner tables today. Culinary amazements like hedgehogs did not turn up on the ordinary Englishman's table, however. The culinary rules established by Elizabeth I were not only vast, but detailed, and it was inappropriate to the point of imprisonment to eat outside your station. So if he wasn't dining on fried peacock at dinner, what did William Shakespeare eat?

Here is a list of 10 Elizabethan foods that someone like William Shakespeare might have really eaten at lunch, then called dinner, the main meal of the day for Elizabethan England.

1. Shrewsberry Cakes

Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night roars out,

Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous,
there shall be no more cakes and ale?

Using culinary references including tins like the one in this picture, which date back to within reasonable distance of Shakespeare's lifetime, historians believe the cakes Sir Toby was talking about were Shrewsberry Cakes. They were round cakes, flavored with rose or sometimes lemon. In the book, 'The Compleat Cook' by 'WM', 1658, there's a recipe for Shrewsberry Cakes that included flavoring the cake with Rose Water.

2. Gooseberry Foyle

In Henry IV Part II, Falstaff declares,

...all the other gifts appertinent man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry.

While only mentioned once in Shakespeare's plays, the gooseberry Foyle, also called Gooseberry Fool, is a type of cream pudding featuring gooseberries and some mint. Served with shortbread cookies, this pudding made an excellent Elizabethan dessert.

3. Periwinkles

Orlando in As You Like It, declares: "Of a snail!" (IV.1) He might as well have put it as a question. If you're from the United States, you likely expected these guys to be a type of flower. In the UK, however, Periwinkles are a type of snail that lives on the coast, attaching itself to rocks and ships and other flat surfaces where they can eat the algae that grows there. It's a common snack across parts of Spain and France as well.

For Shakespeare, these were likely cooked up and served as a kind of snack. Sir Kenelm Digby in 1669 called them Blew-Buttons. They were believed to be an aphrodisiac, and were thought to be good for skin troubles. According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (2013), the small periwinkles absorb less toxins than their bi-valve relatives and therefore do not require a permit to harvest them. Who knew?

4. Ambergis

Mistress Ford in Merry Wives of Windsor is ranting about someone having lied to her, but she talks about ambergris indirectly when she says,

What tempest, I trow, threw this whale,
with so many tuns of oil in his belly,
ashore at Windsor?
MWW II.1

Ambergis is whale vomit. That's right. The Sperm Whale tosses his lunch (sometimes it comes out the other end. It's technically a whale excretion) and it was used in Elizabethan England to season their food. I'm not kidding, and it's not even that old of a thing, actually. There's a huge industry around ambergris, with the rare Sperm Whale secretion being used for perfumes and could also be used to dilute alcohol. (Which might explain why Elizabethans could drink so much beer?)

5. Wild Boar

I'm not sure if Mecaenas is accusing Antony and Cleopatra of eating too much, or throwing small parties, but either way, this breakfast menu sound (sarcastically) delightful:

Eight wild boars roasted whole at breakfast,
and but twelve person's there; is this true?
II.2

A very dangerous prey, and hunted only by men on foot with dogs and spears, this addition to the meal was seen not only as a delicacy, but as an accomplishment.

6. Marchpane

The forerunner of modern day marzipan, this edible treat was used to make ornate center pieces at events. In Romeo and Juliet, the First Servant sings it's praises:

Away with the joint-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate.
Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me,
let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.
Act I Scene V

Marchpane was a popular dessert item, often involving almonds ground into a flour, made into a paste, and used as a kind of pie with various fruits.

7. Posset

Posset is another dessert. This one is mentioned four times in Shakespeare's works, with my favorite being this invitation from the Page in the Merry Wives of Windsor:

Yet be cheerful knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house;
Act V Scene 5

Posset was often flavored with Ambergis (according to a recipe found in an old Elizabethan cookbook which suggests that once completed, you can put in "ambergreece" to keep the flavor.) Posset is made with sugar, eggs, and white wine, all combined into a type of pudding.

8. Sallet

Sallet is another spelling for salad. It is mentioned in Shakespeare's plays three times, with the most favorable review of sallet coming from Jack Cade in Henry VI Part I:

I climbed into this garden, to see if I can eat grass, or pick a sallet another while, which is not amiss to cool a man's stomach this hot weather. And I think this word "sallet" sallet, my brainpan had been cleft with a brown bill; and, many a time, when I have been dry and bravely marching, it hath served me instead of a quart pot todrink il and now the word "sallet' must serve me to feed on.
Act IV Scene 10

Another word spelling for "Salad," sallet was used for a variety of dishes, but one popular one was salmon sallet to be fixed on the days Queen Elizabeth required everyone to eat fish. It was made by mixing onions, violets, and salmon to make a "salmon sallet."

9. Warden Pies

Made with brick hard pears, called Warden pears, these pies were open face tarts. They were often colored with spices to make the food bright, which was a Tudor era favorite. This need to make sure the pie was brightly colored is echoed in the direction of the Clown from The Winter's Tale when he declares:

I must have saffron to colour the warden pies;
Act IV Scene 3

The Warden pears are even thought to have been part of soldier's rations for the troops at the Battle of Agincourt, the battle featured in Shakespeare's Henry V.

10. Junkets

In the Tudor period of history, gelatin was hard to come by. You had to boil down bones to extract the gelatin, and it was a time consuming process. This meant that delicacies like jellies, and junket, were prized culinary items.

Baptista Minola in The Taming of the Shrew mentions junket as a dessert at the wedding:

Neighbours and friends, thou bride and bridegroom wants For to supply the places at the table, You know there wants no junket at the feast.
Act III Scene 2

Junket, a type of jam, was popular and well liked, albeit not often used at common tables. Junket is made by mixing gelatin, sugar, and cream then molding the mixture into a wine glass to make a wobbly dessert not unlike jello or more closely resembling flan.

When we explore Shakespeare's plays, we learn that the Tudor period of history contains a wide variety of fun culinary surprises from junkets to snails that is delightful both for the food enthusiast as well as the brave adventurer.
About the Author Cassidy Cash is That Shakespeare Girl. Cassidy believes that in order to successfully master Shakespeare's plays, understanding the history of William Shakespeare the man is essential. She writes for a vibrant community of Shakespeareans at her blog and produces weekly episodes for her YouTube channel, Did Shakespeare. Connect with Cassidy at her website www.cassidycash.com or on Twitter @ThatShakespeare

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10 Foods From Shakespeare's Plays That Shakespeare (Probably) Ate Himself

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In addition to the beer you've probably heard about being popular in the 16-17 th century England (due to the poor sanitation of the water) Shakespeare's lifetime saw a flurry of culinary oddities grace the tables of nobility and civilians alike.

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Here's an entertaining tip from the pages of a 16th-century English cookbook: Bake a hollow deep-dish pie, and slip in a handful of live birds. That way, when your guest of honor cuts into it, the birds will fly out into the room and surely delight your dinner guests.

(If the birds are troublesome, the cookbook author might suggest, try substituting live snakes or frogs.)

Such was the kind of dish that William Shakespeare might have been served while attending feasts at the royal court or noblemen's homes where his plays were performed.

"Just like some of his plays are so hilarious, back then, dinner ... was really hilarious," said Francine Segan, food historian and author of "Shakespeare's Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook." Hosts delighted in presenting amusing dishes meant to entertain-and guests were expected to reciprocate by preparing jokes for the occasion. Etiquette books of the time were full of suggestions.

In her book, Segan documents and reproduces recipes from Shakespeare's time, drawn from extensive research into the foods and dining customs of the English Renaissance.

"I [wanted] to try to imagine, 'What did Shakespeare eat?'" she said. She studied the dishes that would've been served at royal feasts during the height of his fame.

Shakespeare lived during the Elizabethan era (1558-1603), often considered the golden age of English history and the height of the English Renaissance. The wealthy indulged in lavish feasts held in the castle, rife with extravagant foods, live musicians, and performances between courses.

Guests were greeted by servants armed with pitchers of delicate chamomile- or rosemary-scented water to wash their hands, then were carefully escorted to their tables. Seating arrangements were strict. Even at the feast, "there was a hierarchy," Segan explained. Salt, for instance, was expensive and thus only graced the wealthiest tables, and the best, prettiest dishes were reserved for the richest.

Do Play With Your Food

Feasts were considered a form of entertainment, with amusement and presentation equally as important as taste. Chefs pulled out all the stops for the show.

"With every single course, there'd be something that was funny," Segan said. That might be a roast suckling pig carrying a flag-bearing capon on its back.

Or it could be essentially an edible taxidermy swan swimming across the banquet table.

A chef might bake up a swan pie, and then top it with a roast swan carefully re-dressed with its skin and feathers. Once plated, servants would be sent under the table to slowly pull the platter, which was attached to a long chain, toward the guest of honor, as if the bird were swimming to him.

"It all comes out of the idea that when you're entertaining, you're showing off," Segan said. "You're showing your wealth, you're showing the talent of your court, of your chefs. You're both honoring your guests and showing off."

Salads were adorned with gilded bay leaves, pie crusts were embellished to hint at their fillings, and desserts were dyed vibrant colors with saffron or wine.

Masters of culinary disguise, Elizabethans loved "making stuff look like other stuff," Segan said.

Meatballs, for instance, might be shaped into pears, garnished with sage "leaves," and stuffed with whole grapes. Marzipan, bread, and cookies were formed into elaborate shapes, from fruits and animals to the crest of the guest of honor, or even a miniature of the guest of honor himself-the Elizabethan predecessor of our gingerbread men. Intricate replicas of the hosting castle predated our gingerbread houses, while sugar figurines of the king and queen atop desserts, made to honor them, gave rise to our bride and groom wedding cake toppers.

Some variations were more creative, if sometimes morbidly so. One, reserved for the wealthiest of guests, consisted of a dinner roll shaped like a deer and filled with red wine jelly. The insides would spill out in blood-like fashion when cut.

Bold Flavors

Amidst all the fanciful flourishes, though, flavor was not forgotten. Renaissance cooking was bold and the ingredient lists were long and varied.

"They were big into meats," Segan said, including all sorts of wild game and fancy fowl. Aside from swan, there were also venison, rabbit, boar, peacock, pigeon, and even seal. No part of an animal went to waste-hooves, udders, and cockscombs were all fair game. And cookbooks had entire sections dedicated to preparing "head of beast."

With Shakespeare's time predating imports from the New World, products like chocolate, corn, potatoes, and tomatoes had yet to make it to English pantries. But they were not missed. Pasta, for instance, wildly popular even without the classic tomato sauce we know, was mixed with butter and Grana Padano cheese from Italy or sauced with savory stewed fruit: earthy figs, berries, or prunes slow-simmered in red wine.

Meanwhile, spices like mace, cloves, cinnamon, and black pepper abounded, contributing depth and extra punch to everything from meats to sweets.

Spices less familiar to us-but still available in specialty markets today-included cubeb, long pepper, and grains of paradise, all heavily prized and used liberally in meat dishes. Segan describes them as next-level peppers of sorts, with a familiar heat and peppery notes, but a deeper complexity and more layers of flavor. Cubeb, Segan's personal favorite, teases hints of cinnamon and nutmeg.

And when it comes to these bold aromatics, there's a myth Segan wants to bust: that in a time of no refrigeration, Elizabethan cooks only went heavy on the spices to cover up rancid meat.

A survey of cookbooks proves otherwise. Many recipes included meticulous instructions on the timing of food preparation, such as how many hours in advance to slaughter an animal before an intended feast so that rotten meat was out of the question.

Spices also weren't cheap. According to Segan, two heads of nutmeg could cost as much as a skilled carpenter made in a week. Chefs would never waste such precious ingredients on rotten meat; they had to know what they were doing.

Sweet and Savory

For more evidence of such mastery, look to desserts. All kinds of interesting ingredients made their way into Elizabethan sweets, like saffron, rose petals, and, very commonly, black pepper. Segan gushed over candied orange peels simmered in a bit of vinegar and pepper, and a four-ingredient cookie consisting of only almonds, honey, flour, and black pepper. The bite of the pepper riffs beautifully off the sweetness of the honey, Segan said, forming a complex flavor profile that's rather "Top Chef-y" for a 500-year-old recipe.

Across all courses, cooks were by no means shy about experimenting with flavors. One of the recipes in Segan's cookbook is a fish pie with an unusual filling: a medley of salmon, oysters, grapes, pistachios, and asparagus.

"This is an example of how crazy these people were. They're mixing so many flavors," Segan recalled thinking when she was testing recipes for the book. "This is going to be like mud."

She dared only make one to serve her guests, as nothing more than an amusing demonstration-but everybody asked for more. To her surprise, the pie was a delicious hit. There was a method to their madness after all.

A Page From History

Just as Shakespeare's plays have endured throughout the ages, so have elements of Elizabethan cooking.

Much of their feast food has persisted as our holiday fare, carried over to America by English settlers. Turkey with oyster stuffing is "totally Elizabethan," Segan said, and while cranberry sauce is distinctly American, it may have taken inspiration from the other fruit sauces that Elizabethans commonly ate with meat.

Meanwhile, we see echoes of the Elizabethan affinity for crafting food into figures in the traditions of marzipan sculpting found across the world.

Some elements go beyond the food, too. Our custom of making a toast, for instance, has Elizabethan origins: The English used to drop a piece of bread into their wine before drinking, to filter out impurities absorbed from the wooden casks in which wine was imported from Southern Europe. The practice gave rise to the expression "drink to the toast"-the bottom of the glass-which then evolved into our act of making a "toast."

And much of the Elizabethans' feasting philosophy still holds true: a meal should be entertaining, a time to celebrate and indulge in good food and laughter alike.

Though perhaps the re-feathered swans and surprise snake pies are best left to the history (cook)books.
Try these Elizabethan recipes from "Shakespeare's Kitchen":
Celebrating the Bard's Birthday

In honor of Shakespeare's birthday on April 23, Francine Segan will be giving a talk, "Shakespeare's Kitchen: Elizabethan Daily Life in Food," on the food, etiquette, and dining customs of the bard's time. Samples of Elizabethan eats and entertainment-the bawdy jokes and riddles told between courses-will both be served.

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Here's an entertaining tip from the pages of a 16th-century English cookbook: Bake a hollow deep-dish pie, and slip in a handful of live birds. That way, when your guest of honor cuts into it, the birds will fly out into the room and surely delight your dinner guests.

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In Elizabethan Times it was a time of peace in England. This would cause the Prince in the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet to not want a feud between two families disrupting the peace. Even...

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1. was probably written around 1594 or 1595. In 1916, a silent film version of the play was made. In 1936, an early sound version first appeared. A more recent film, which presented the story as an historical re-creation, appeared in 1968, directed by Franco Zeffirelli.

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The violence of Romeo and Juliet | The British Library

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Romeo and Juliet is not only a love story. Andrew Dickson describes how the play reflects the violence and chaos of Shakespearean London - and how, more recently, directors have used it to explore conflicts of their own time.

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The Italian vendettas, or blood-feuds, were a long-standing tradition that most cities and towns tried to break. It was a difficult task since, by Italian standards, the honour of a family required that adequate vengeance be sought for the injury or death of a family member.

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The 13th century was arguably the darkest period of Italian history, marked by bloody struggles between rival political factions. The 15th century (the so-called Age of Warlords) was likewise replete with unscrupulous Italian despots who ruled with a refined cruelty, from Giangaleazzo Visconti to Cesare Borgia, but at least it was also a time of great creative achievement - the Renaissance.

In contrast, the 13th century was generally a time of unmitigated violence. Entire families were expunged in escalating blood feuds reminiscent of vendettas among the Mafia families in more recent times. The tragedy of Romeo Montecchi and Juliet Capuleti (made famous by William Shakespeare's play in 1595) took place in that time.

The game of power made every northern Italian town a theater of civil wars. A family backing a particular political party often controlled a neighborhood adjacent to one controlled by a family belonging to a rival party. The year 1198 saw the beginning of two such political parties-the Guelphs and Ghibellines. (The Montecchis were Ghibellines; the Capuletis were Guelphs.) The names are of German origin. At that time, German emperors also reigned over Italy, through a parallel kingdom built up by the Unrochingi, which by 888 was the first dynasty of the world whose rulers wore crowns considered holy by the Church.

The Guelphs became the upholders of papal supremacy, while the Ghibellines supported the political claims of German emperors and kings of Italy. Later, the Guelphs split into two factions: the Blacks (extreme Guelphs) and the Whites (moderate Guelphs). Ghibellines came to be regarded as the party of noblemen, Black Guelphs the faction of the upper middle class, and White Guelphs the faction of the lower middle class. The truth, however, was that all of those parties and factions steadily degenerated into gangs without any ideology who fought for the hegemonic ambitions of their own bosses to control local businesses and rackets.

In the middle of the 13th century, northern Italy, the so-called kingdom of Italy, was a myriad of independent city-states-more than 60, not counting smaller villages and excluding the independent republic of Venice. Central Italy was made up of the Papal States, from which the popes vied for rule over European Christendom with the Holy Roman Empire.

Southern Italy and the island of Sicily made up the kingdom of Sicily, whose ruling Norman Altavilla dynasty was replaced in 1194 by the Swabian dynasty-officially through a joyful marriage, but also by killing all the upholders of the Altavillas who did not agree with the change. As a child, William III, the last offspring of the Altavillas, was maimed by the Swabian thugs and then disappeared (it seems he died in what is now western Austria). An unusual fiefdom within the Sicilian domain was the town of Lucera, which was an autonomous Islamic republic allied with the Swabians.

In 1258, King Manfredi I ruled over southern Italy and also in northern Italy, where he was regarded as the chief of the Ghibelline Party. In Italy, his allies included Ezzelino da Romano, the powerful tyrant of Venetia, called the 'Son of the Devil' because of his violent temperament. Ezzelino, who married into the Swabians, ruled over a large territory and threatened all of his neighbors. Moreover, as a Ghibelline he controlled the strategic road to Germany. Manfredi, who controlled a kingdom that was supposed to have been ruled by his nephew Conradino (Little Conrad), had stolen the crown. He then set his ambitions on becoming ruler over Germany and northern Italy. Manfredi was heavy-handed when it came to domestic politics; in southern Italy, he defended his power by sweeping away all opposition. His foreign politics were just as unscrupulous. Hoping to improve relations with the papacy (the popes hated the Swabians), he supported Pope Alexander IV when the latter decided to eliminate the tyrant Ezzelino, who was Manfredi's brother-in-law. The Guelphs' crusade against Ezzelino, who they represented as a tyrant who scorned God and all human beings, was made up of the Papacy, Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Padua, Mantua and Cremona. At the Battle of Cassano d'Adda, fought on September 19, 1259, Ezzelino was wounded, defeated and arrested. He died in the prison of Soncino a few days later. His entire family was subsequently killed.

After Cassano d'Adda, the relationship between the papacy and Manfredi did not permanently improve. The struggles also continued between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, especially in Tuscany, where the hatred between Florence (Guelph) and Siena (Ghibelline) escalated. Both towns wanted hegemony over Tuscany.

The Sienese, who knew that the Florentines wanted to destroy their town, asked Manfredi for help. In December 1259, Manfredi sent a force of 800 German knights and some Muslim noblemen from Lucera, led by his brother, Giordano d'Anglona.

In April 1260, Florence organized a great coalition to smash the Sienese. Jacopino Rangoni, the mayor of Florence, soon had 12 generals and nearly 35,000 soldiers at his disposal. All of the males of Florence aged 15 through 70 took up arms, and they were joined by troops from Genoa, Piacenza, Bologna, Lucca, Pistoia, Prato, Arezzo, Volterra, San Gimignano and the papal towns of Perugia and Orvieto. From smaller towns and from Germany, upholders of Conradino also came to fight. There were even Sienese fighting-exiled Guelphs who wanted to take power in their own town.

On the other side, Siena got additional support from Pisa (a traditional enemy of both Genoa and Florence), Cortona, and the Ghibellines of Florence (the most prominent of whom were Guido Novello and Farinata degli Uberti), who were trying to regain power in the town after 10 years in exile. In sum, the Sienese commander in chief, Aldobrandino di Santa Fiora, had about 20,000 soldiers.

September 4, 1260, a Saturday, would be the bloodiest day of the Italian Middle Ages. The 'eternal peace' signed by Florence and Siena on July 31, 1255, was only a memory, and the ongoing duel between those two towns, which had begun in 1140, was about to reach its gory climax. Near Montaperti (the 'hill of death'), a handful of houses within sight of Siena, civilians prayed in churches for victory.

The Sienese were the first to attack. Both sides concentrated their efforts on conquering the Carroccio of the enemy-the holy wagon that always accompanied medieval Italian armies, where a priest celebrated mass during the battle.

The battle lasted from dawn until sunset. Although the Ghibellines were not as numerous as the Guelphs, they were more aggressive, and Manfredi's German knights were selected troops. When sunset came and the last attempt of the Guelphs to conquer the Sienese Carroccio failed, some things occurred that finally decided the battle. First, the Count of Arras, a Ghibelline, launched an attack from Monselvoli. Then, a Florentine Ghibelline named Bocca degli Abati betrayed his own army. With his sword, he cut off the hand of the ensign-bearer of the Florentine cavalry, Jacopo dei Pazzi. The Guelphs were taken aback by that betrayal at the critical point of the battle, and while Abati and his allies (hundreds of whom had been waiting for the right moment) were attacking their former comrades-in-arms, the Ghibellines launched their final offensive.

For Florence and her allies, the Battle of Montaperti turned into a disaster. The Guelphs began to flee, and the Ghibellines, made crazy by their success, killed without restraint, including enemies who were ready to surrender. The Arbia Creek became red with Florentine blood. When night fell, 10,000 men lay dead in the field and 4,000 were missing. The Sienese and their allies took 15,000 prisoners and, of course, the Florentine Carroccio.

More than 700 years later, a cippus (monument) at Montaperti reminds passers-by of the tragedy that took place.

The Battle of Montaperti was a short-lived victory. In the short run, Florence became Ghibelline, and Manfredi's influence over Tuscany grew. But the new pope, Urban IV, called for help from Charles of Anjou, brother of the king of France, a man thirsty for power. Landing in Italy, Charles became chief of the Guelphs and, after his coronation as king of Sicily, he went from Rome to southern Italy to destroy the Swabian dynasty-once and for all.

The big battle took place at Benevento on February 26, 1266. The Anjou cavalry, helped by traitors among the Swabian troops, destroyed Manfredi's army. The Swabian regime collapsed within a few days of that defeat. The lords of manors who hitherto had always been pro-Swabian, became, as if by magic, pro-Anjou!

Manfredi was killed during the battle, and to this day the location of his tomb is still a mystery. His wife, Queen Elena, was arrested in Trani and died as a prisoner in a castle in Nocera six years later. Her children, separated from their mother, were swallowed up by the Anjou prisons. A new Pope, Clement IV, had called them 'progeny of snakes.'

Two years later, in 1268, Conradino, the last of the Swabian family, was taken prisoner by the Anjous and was beheaded in Naples, the new capital of southern Italy. Under the Anjou dynasty, southern Italy sank into the darkest feudalism. There was no place for Swabian allies: 34 years after the Battle of Benevento, the Islamic Republic of Lucera was destroyed.

The pitiless end of the Swabian dynasty had other famous consequences. In Florence and in Siena, the Guelphs regained power and started a fierce persecution of the Ghibellines. Also in Florence, the Guelphs split into Whites and Blacks under the Cerchi and the Donati families, respectively. Supported by Pope Boniface VIII, the extreme faction, the Blacks, under Corso Donati, ultimately won out. Among the Whites who felt Donati's wrath was the writer Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy. Dante, who hated the Blacks, was condemned to death by burning at the stake on March 10, 1302, but he was later able to escape before the sentence was carried out. It is a small consolation, perhaps, that the casualties in Italy's shameful era of civil strife did not include the 'father of the modern Italian language.'

This article was written by Marco Picone-Chiodo and originally published in the June 1996 issue of Military History magazine.

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Battle of Montaperti: 13th Century Violence on the Italian 'Hill of Death' | HistoryNet

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The 13th century was arguably the darkest period of Italian history, marked by bloody struggles between rival political factions. The 15th century (the so-called Age of Warlords) was likewise replete with unscrupulous Italian despots who ruled with a refined cruelty, from Giangaleazzo Visconti to Cesare Borgia, but at least it was also a time of great creative achievement - the Renaissance.

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"Arise, wicked citizens full of discord: grab sword and torch with your own hands and spread your wicked deeds...Do not delay, wretches: more is consumed in one day of war than is gained in many...

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Exploring the Question of Free Will in Shakespeare

During the Elizabethan era, one's destiny or fate was viewed by most as predetermined. "Most of the people in Shakespeare's time believed in astrology, the philosophy that a person's life was partly determined by the stars and the planets" (Bouchard). One important exception was William Shakespeare. While his writings show inferences of destiny through fate, he leaned towards Aristotle's theory that one's fate is determined in part by hamartia, or fatal flaw - by one's own errors. He definitely went against the mainstream by suggesting one's fate can be changed by one's actions (free will), but perhaps Shakespeare had the right idea.

The Elizabethan era spanned from roughly 1558 to 1603, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It was the age of the Renaissance and brought forth many new writers, artists, philosophers, and scientists. This era is known for the thirst for knowledge that many people had. As a result, many developments, inventions and new ideas were introduced during the Elizabethan era. This being said, many people of this era still held on to erroneous beliefs, such as the earth being flat and the earth as the center of the solar system. They were interested in astrology and held a belief that the stars and planets held some kind of power over man and nature. Every creation had its particular position in a hierarchy which contained everything in the world, with God at the top. There was a general fear of chaos and of upsetting the order of things in the chain of being. A vast majority of people in the Elizabethan era strongly believed in the wheel of fortune, in fate, and in superstition. The wheel of fortune is the idea that fortune varies from low to high and anything in between. The idea of one's fate being predetermined by God was a widely accepted idea during the Elizabethan era (Tillyard).

Free will involves one controlling what one does without being forced or determined by something else. Aristotle was one of the intellects of his day who countered the belief in fate with a belief in free will. He believed in alternative possibilities that involved choices and that it was up to each person whether to act on that choice or not. This belief led to an open future based on the variable choices one makes. Aristotle recorded his thoughts on tragedy in his book, Poetics. Within this book, he touched on the downfall and/or fate of a tragic hero. He believed that a hero's downfall was in part due to free choice, not the aligning of the stars or some other astronomical theory. Shakespeare adopted this theory of questioning fate through free will, but he applied it to the fate of all humans, not just to the tragic hero.

William Shakespeare references the idea of fate in many of his works. Many people believed in the power of the stars to foretell the future. Shakespeare uses this common Elizabethan idea to add excitement and anticipation to the tragedies. Romeo and Juliet displays the idea of Astrological fate from the very beginning of the play with the famous quote, "a pair of star cross'd lovers take their life" ( Romeo and Juliet, Prologue, 6). Although Shakespeare uses traditional beliefs in this quote, he also intertwines the idea of fate due to free will throughout the story. Shakespeare gives glimpses of hope throughout that this couple may overcome odds and survive as a couple. In the end, the French proverb, "One meets his destiny often in the road he takes to avoid it," holds true for this tragic pair.

The issue of fate and free will in Romeo and Juliet is a complex one as it is difficult to determine if the outcome was based on fate or if it was based on the choices the different characters made. There are obvious examples of "accidents" throughout the play. For example, the servant who unintentionally invites Romeo and Benvolio to the Capulet party, the meeting of Romeo and Juliet at a time they are both committed to someone else, the quarantine of Friar John, and the presence of Paris at Juliet's tomb when Romeo arrives. These accidents and the strong belief in the power of fate by the characters suggest that Romeo and Juliet are indeed predestined to die. There are, however, obvious circumstances in which the characters display free will through their actions. For example, the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues, the choice to enter into the bonds of marriage on the part of Romeo and Juliet when they had just met, the fight between Romeo and Tybalt, and the suicides of both Romeo and Juliet. The characters choose these actions of their own accord without force or influence from someone else. Nothing has forced their actions except their ability to choose for themselves what they desire. What, then, is the "greater power" that the characters cannot contradict? The final answer to that is the author. Shakespeare may have guided his audience to think about the idea of fate versus free will. He succeeded in intertwining both ideas into Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare succeeded in making these theories known to the public by including them in many of his plays, like Romeo and Juliet. Romeo

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Fate vs. Free Will in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"

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In this article, I analyze William Shakespeare's "Rome and Juliet" to explore the question of whether fate or free will decides our actions.

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Tragedy and Boeth

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Medieval tragedy :: Life and Times :: Internet Shakespeare Editions

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In medieval works, the tragedy of those who fell was often less the result of any failing in their lives or actions than the result of the capriciousness of Fortune. But by the Renaissance, the moral effectiveness of pointing out the dire result of vice and sin meant that the protagonists were more often shown to be responsible for their falls.

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The Elizabethans believed that fate was the main controlling factor in a person's life and was symbolized by the wheel of fortune. The wheel was used to explain the high and low points of a person's life as well as the randomness with which those points occurred.

The wheel was believed to hold the lives of all people. Those people that had obtained a high position on the wheel of fortune, such as kings or nobles, could eventually end up as beggars simply by a rotation of the wheel. The concept of a wheel of fate also was used to account for seemingly random fortuitous moments in a person's life. However, no one knew when the wheel would stop or where a person might end up on the wheel.

This concept of fate eliminated a person's ability to control his own destiny. Shakespearean tragedies such as "Macbeth" and "King Lear" make use of this concept of fate to dramatize the eventual fall of a character. In the play "Macbeth," the main character is a victim of the wheel of fate as he rises to a position of political power, and then falls into ruin and eventually dies. In "King Lear," the Earl of Kent also holds a position of power but is eventually banished by the king. The Earl returns to Kent as a beggar, symbolizing his turn upon the wheel.

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What Did the Elizabethans Believe About Fate?

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The Elizabethans believed that fate was the main controlling factor in a person's life and was symbolized by the wheel of fortune. The wheel was used to explain the high and low points of a person's life as well as the randomness with which those points occurred.

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Medicine was not scientific at this time. Oftentimes astrology and the supernatural arts were relied upon to determine the causative elements and treatment of a disease. Treatments and the gathering of drugs were based upon celestial geography. The astrological positions of the planets were also believed to cause threats or benefits to health.