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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:

Plays Performed at Universities and How They Competed with the Playhouses Feb 06, 2023

Show notes

The theaters of the Globe, the Curtain, and the Swan all resided in parts of London considered outside of the law and housing disreputable players. In a strange twist of irony for Shakespeare's England, however, one of the most highbrow places in society also held dramatic performances in high esteem and that is the university. New establishments for England, colleges like Cambridge and Oxford produced so many professional playwrights for the 16th century that several of them banded together to become known as the university wits. Here this week to help us understand the role of players at major universities as well as who it was that performed there, and how these dramatic presentations interacted with those of Shakespeare is our guest and author of a new publication on University Dramas in Early Modern England, Daniel Blank.

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Did your barn float away? Floods, Storms, and Frozen Rivers in the 17th Century Jan 30, 2023

Show notes

Shakespeare mentions a "weather-cock" in his plays Merry Wives of Windsor, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Love's Labour's Lost, which is a kind of weather vane used for measuring wind direction. During Shakespeare's lifetime, astronomers Tycho Brahe and David Fabricus kept daily weather diaries noting details like the rain, snow, and temperature for their respective parts of Europe. But these two astronomers were far from the only people watching the weather in the late 16th and early 17th century. Other diarists including Haller Wolfagang, and Ralph Josselin, would keep similar diaries. From these notes we learn a description of the weather on specific days as well as exactly when and where major weather events like floods or even solar eclipses would have occurred. Since keeping data about the weather in the 16th century was happening before instruments like weather radar were in existence, it's fascinating to look back and discover how the study of weather and even weather predictions were happening for Shakespeare's lifetime. Here this week to share with us the details of meteorology for turn of the 17th century is our guest and expert historian on weather, Martin Rowley.

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Mandrakes That Scream and Look Like People Was An Elaborate 16th Century Scam Jan 23, 2023

Show notes

Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet, talks about the shrieking mandrake while Henry IV and Henry VI use the word mandrake as an insult. These very real plants took on legendary qualities due in part to the chemicals in their makeup which make them useful for anesthetics. Our guest this week is an expert in historical plants and historical methods of growing them and we are delighted this week to welcome Michael Brown to the show, the self-styled Historic Gardner, to share with us about the history of mandrakes.

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Writing letters in Renaissance England using special tricks and antiquated tools Jan 16, 2023

Show notes

There are many examples of letter writing from Shakespeare's plays, including letters getting lost in transit and even examples of letter forgery! While many of the examples from Shakespeare's plays about letters are amplified to be more entertaining on stage, they represent real history about how letters were written and delivered for the life of William Shakespeare. Here today to help us explore the tools used to write a letter, and special tricks like letter locking and sealing a letter, is our guest and co-curator of the Letterwriting in Renaissance England exhibit at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Alan Stewart.

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The Astronomically High Deaths on the First Voyages of the East India Trading Company Jan 09, 2023

Show notes

In April of 1601, four ships set out from England with hopes of establishing trade with Asia. Remembered by history as the first voyage of the East India Company that launched a momentous relationship between what would become Britain and Asia, the first, as well as the subsequent three, voyages by this group were wrought with danger, disease, and completed at great personal sacrifice. On all of these journeys, the captains and sailors battled illness, poor living conditions, and perilously low morale. While the East India Company launched the missions with a set of rules designed to help alleviate the most significant hurdles, our guest this week, Cheryl Fury, shares in her recent publication that the human cost of these voyages remained astronomically high.

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Twelfth Night Celebrations Every January Including Music and Misrule Jan 02, 2023

Show notes

This Thursday, January 5, is Twelfth Night, the official end of the 12 Days of Christmas. For Shakespeare's lifetime, celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas was a huge occasion, and one which included merriment right up until the very last day. In Shakespeare's plays, we see many of the Twelfth Night customs come to play including the complete upheaval of established social order where we have boys dressed in mock religious processions, lots of alcoholic drinking alongside elaborate meals, as well as bouts of parody and general misrule against moral order.And of course, for Shakespeare, all of these moments of wild abandon are accompanied by song and dance. To help us understand what Twelfth Night was and why it was celebrated with such crazy antics is our guest and author of a new book on Twelfth Night customs, Rachel Aanstad

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Cony Trapper with Ari Friedlander Dec 26, 2022

Show notes

There were several pamphlets published during Shakespeare's lifetime featuring a menacing giant rabbit, sometimes even wielding a sword and looking very scary. It would be easy to think this character the pamphlet calls a "cony catcher" was invented for marketing purposes, except that we see the phrase "cony catcher" come up several times throughout Shakespeare's plays including Merry Wives of Windsor, Taming of the Shrew, and even in Henry VI Part 3. We can see from the passing references Shakespeare's writes that a cony is a word for a rabbit, and it follows then that a catcher of conies is one who catches rabbits, but then why is the rabbit being used in early modern England as a fierce sword wielding villain? There are so many cultural questions to unpack with this symbol and that's why today our guest and author of a new book about the Cony Catcher and other Shakespearean criminals and malcontents, Ari Friedlander, is here to take us through what we should understand when we discover rabbits running rampant in Shakespeare's plays.

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Father Christmas with Elizabeth Norton Dec 19, 2022

Show notes

It's Christmastime again this year and our thoughts are full of sugar plums, candy canes, and hopefully some beautiful winter snow. Growing up children of the 20-21st century are very familiar with the concept of Father Christmas or Santa Claus as he's become known today who brought gifts to good children each Christmas Eve. For William Shakespeare, however, the characters and particularly the understanding of Father Christmas would have been quite different. You see, William Shakespeare did not have Santa Claus and Father Christmas. There was one Christmas carol from the mid-15th century that described "Sir Christmas" that travelled around announcing the birth of Christ and offering drinks to passersby. There's another record from the mid-15th century that describes a traditional Christmas battle between Christmas and Lent during which a parade of the months of the year culminates in the presentation of the King of Christmas riding a horse decorated with tinfoil. These 15th century images of Christmas and the personification of the season come well before Shakespeare's lifetime and the strict idea we know as "Father Christmas" would not show up until after the Restoration in the mid-17th century. So what did England, and by proxy, Shakespeare, do to celebrate the holiday? Did Shakespeare have a Father Christmas? Here today to help us understand the holiday spirit and the role of characters like Father Christmas during Shakespeare's lifetime is our guest and historian Elizabeth Norton.

Santa Claus did not exist for Shakespeare, but happily, Sir Christmas did Dec 19, 2022

Show notes

It's Christmastime again this year and our thoughts are full of sugar plums, candy canes, and hopefully some beautiful winter snow. Growing up children of the 20-21st century are very familiar with the concept of Father Christmas or Santa Claus as he's become known today who brought gifts to good children each Christmas Eve. For William Shakespeare, however, the characters and particularly the understanding of Father Christmas would have been quite different. You see, William Shakespeare did not have Santa Claus and Father Christmas. There was one Christmas carol from the mid-15th century that described "Sir Christmas" that travelled around announcing the birth of Christ and offering drinks to passersby. There's another record from the mid-15th century that describes a traditional Christmas battle between Christmas and Lent during which a parade of the months of the year culminates in the presentation of the King of Christmas riding a horse decorated with tinfoil. These 15th century images of Christmas and the personification of the season come well before Shakespeare's lifetime and the strict idea we know as "Father Christmas" would not show up until after the Restoration in the mid-17th century. So what did England, and by proxy, Shakespeare, do to celebrate the holiday? Did Shakespeare have a Father Christmas? Here today to help us understand the holiday spirit and the role of characters like Father Christmas during Shakespeare's lifetime is our guest and historian Elizabeth Norton.

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Nutmeg: So Luxurious it was Given as a Christmas Gift to the Queen Dec 13, 2022

Show notes

Shakespeare mentions the spice of nutmeg in his plays three times, once in Henry V to comment on the color of of this spice, once in Love's Labour's Lost to talk about a "gift nutmeg" which was a gift given at Christmas for the 16th century, and then again in The Winter's Tale when the clown lists nutmeg as one of the spices he needs to make warden pies, along with mace, dates, prunes, and raisins. Nutmeg not being native to England, it was not only a valuable spice that made a great gift that was popular for major celebrations like Christmastime, but it was a huge part of international relations for England because during the 1600s was when the Dutch were committing all manner of atrocities against England (and indeed the world), to maintain a monopoly on this particular spice. Here today to share with us the history of this spice and some popular recipes that used it from Shakespeare's lifetime is our friend, culinary historian, and returning guest to the show, Brigitte Webster.

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