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That Shakespeare Life — History
That Shakespeare Life

Hosted by Cassidy Cash, That Shakespeare Life takes you behind the curtain and into the real life of William Shakespeare.

Latest Episodes:

Table Manners for Shakespeare's England Nov 13, 2023

Show notes

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

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Napkins in Shakespeare's England Nov 06, 2023

Show notes

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

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The Legends and Folklore of Werewolves for 16th century England Oct 30, 2023

Show notes

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

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The 16th Century Legend of Robin Hood Oct 23, 2023

Show notes

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

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How Was the First Folio Physically Made? Oct 16, 2023

Show notes

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

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Haunted Lover's Ballads Oct 09, 2023

Show notes

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

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Maria on Board the Golden Hind Oct 02, 2023

Show notes

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

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The History of English Apples Sep 25, 2023

Show notes

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

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The Science of a 16th Century Football Found at Stirling Castle Sep 18, 2023

Show notes

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

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The 16th Century Bed That Sleeps 12 People Sep 11, 2023

Show notes

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

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