Shakespeare's Life and Biography

SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE
Shakespeare was born on the 23rd April, though the precise date of his birth is unknown, and was the oldest son of Mary and John Shakespeare. He had three brothers and two sisters, however one dies when she was seven. John was a leatherworker who specialized in white leather. He worked up through local offices in Stratford to become the town bailiff. By this point he was married to Mary. Because of his father's reputation, Shakespeare attended the Stratford Grammar School until the age of 15 where he studied Latin classics including writing and acting in Latin plays. Once he left, he married Anne Hathaway, she was 26 at the time. In 1585, they had their first child Susanna and three years later had twins, Judith and Hamnet, who died at 11. Shakespeare eventually moved to London while Anne and the children lived in Stratford. There are no records of how Shakespeare made a living whilst living in Stratford after the birth of his children. The next record of Shakespeare is him as an established actor and playwright in 1592. His play, Henry IV was performed at the Rose theatre, and afterwards he continued to write around 40 plays. He also became a business partner in an acting company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. In Hanuary 1616, Shakespeare died and was buried in the Holy Trinity church in Stratford-upon-Avon.

William was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, a town in Warwickshire. It was best known for it's weekly market that was held on Stratford High Street in the center of the town. It had a population of less than five million. The town itself was surrounded by countryside and woodlands. In Elizabethan England, the wool trade was growing, which meant the fields where peasants worked, were now being used to keep sheep which needed less workers. Amongst other things, John Shakespeare was a wool trader, which explains why he moved to Stratford. In Shakespeare's time, the country was suffering form an outbreak of the bubonic plague, fortunately none of his family died from it. Life for people in Stratford was easy as there was no reason for a person to travel further than half a day's walk. Everything was available within the Stratford area. Water wasn't clean so people drank ale which was brewed and sold in Stratford. John Shakespeare's first civic duty was Ale-tasting. Other trades in Stratford included wool and farm produce. However, money was tight so people would exchange things in order to get what they needed.

Setting Scene - Life in Elizabethan England

references: http://www.elizabethanenglandlife.com/elizabethan-england-superstitions.html
QUESTION: What sense do you get of what life was like in Elizabethan England? Try to include information on: The population, entertainment, religion, superstition, money, jobs, medicine, theatre.

CLASS SYSTEM
1. monarch 

2. nobility

3. gentry

4. merchants

5. laborers 

The queen was believed to be God's representation here on Earth.

If you were poor in the Elizabethan time, you would have one of three jobs:

yeoman - owns or rents his farm and employes workers

husbandman - rents the land that he works on

labourer - work on other peoples farms

working day starts at dawn and ends at sunset, and a labourer would earn a fourpence for that whole day. On that wage someone could by bread, a small amount of cheese and butter per week; four small pieces of meat and fish per week; and some ale because water is polluted. However they would usually buy less in order to pay for rent and wood for fire, moreover, this would be split between a husband, a wife, and their family, leaving each person with hardly any food at all. The population of Elizabethan England was 4.1 million and the average life expectancy was 47, but most wealthy people lived a little bit longer as the could afford medicine.


EDUCATION
At the age of five, boys would be sent to 'pretty school', which was a house run by trained housewives, who taught children in exchange for money. They would have lessons on behavior as well as how to read and write. Christianity was also largley involved in the education system as England was a catholic country. Petty schools would use horn books, which is a printed version of the alphabet in lower and upper case letters, stuck onto a board of wood.

You had to be higher in the social triangle to be able to afford to go to school. There were five main schools which offered further education:

University Faculty of the arts which taught Philosophy, Poetics, Rhetoric as well as Natural History among others.

University Faculty of Liberal Arts might have included Grammar, Music, Logic, Arithmetic and Geometry as well as Astronomy education. 

University Faculty of Theology which taught religious education.

The University Faculty of Medicine which included the study of Hippocrates, Galen, as well as Jewish and Arabic medical texts. 

University Faculty of Law.


SUPERSTITION
There were many superstitions in the Elizabethan era and some are still believed in today.
One is that when you sneeze with your mouth open, your giving the devil a chance to enter your body, so people say bless you in order to stop that from happening. Another is that a pot stirred counter-clockwise brings bad luck and also ruins the food being made in it. The seventh son is believed to have supernatural powers. Any encounter with a cat is associated with witches. Withes were really feared in Elizabethan time and people were persecuted if they were found out to be one. It was believed that witches brought evil spirits that caused murders. It was also believed that if you touched a man about to be executed, if a cow breathed on you or if you spit into a fire, then you will have good luck.


THEATRE
William Shakespeare was the biggest playwrite of the Elizabethan era as his plays usually focused on controversial topics of that time. Most other play writes would center their writing around religion an would have a strong moral message. However, London authorities didn't like theatre and wouldn't allow plays to be performed in the city, so theatre's opened up in Southwark by the thames. Before the first theatre was built in 1579 in Shoreditch, plays were performed in inns or upper class people's houses. If a play were held in a house, the owner had to make sure it wasn't controversial in order to keep his reputation. But once the first theatre was built, more open air theatres were built including the Rose in 1587 and the Globe in 1599 which was built by Shakespeare's company. People stood whilst watching theatre unless they were rich enough to sit in one of the seating areas. All shows were in the afternoon because they had to use natural light. Some women attended plays, although well recognised women would wear masks to hide their identity in order to protect their reputation. Moreover, women were not allowed to perform in plays, and women parts were often played by young boy


RELIGION
Queen Elizabeth wanted a church that appealed to both protestants and catholics because the queen who reigned before her was strictly catholic which resulted in many protestants leaving England in fear of their lives. Even though Elizabeth was brought up protestant and believed in her faith, she didn't think that this should stop catholics believing in theres, "There is only one Christ, Jesus, one faith". However, the people she worked with didn't agree and she had to adopt harsher rules towards catholics then she intended to. She disagreed with protestant extremists and wanted the church to be more appealing so that the catholic religion would naturally die out as people moved towards her church.


ENTERTAINMENT
Entertainment was popular in elizabethan times because at the time one third of the population was dying of the plague and any attempt to keep spirits high was widely popular. Day to day people would play games like chess, cards and tennis. The upper class would go hunting or fencing and attend tournaments. Another form of entertainment was bear baiting which involved the torment of a bear by dogs and often the bear would be blind. There were also people who provided entertainment for the rich, their jobs included:             Jesters - people who made a fool of themselves for comical entertainment
Mummers - dancers at festivals who wore masks and dark costumes
Troubadours - musicians who travelled round the country singing love songs
Acting Troupes - travelling actors
Jugglers - who also did magic tricks


MEDICINE
Most illnesses in the Elizabethan time were due to the unsanitary conditions people lived in. There were open sewers which were rarely empties, and when they were they were thrown into rivers. There was also no running water, just water pumps. Medicine was very basic as there was no real understanding of disease and prevention at that time. The plague was treated by pricking the buboe and applying warm butter, onion and garlic. Vinegar was used to clean wounds and believed to kill infection. Most other aches and pains were treated with herbs, for example, lavender, sage, and bay for head pains. Depending on what class you were in, you had access to different kinds of doctor figure. The richest would hire a Elizabethan Physician which cost one gold coin work 10 shillings. An Apothecary was most people's options and they gave out drugs as treatments. The poor would either turn to the church for comfort or the local wise woman for advise, but neither of them gave them treatment to help the sickness they were experiencing.