Hoof, Boat, & Shoe: Travel in Shakespeare's England
That Shakespeare Life
In Shakespeare’s lifetime, travel wasn’t reserved for grand tours or royal progresses — it was woven into daily life. Ordinary Elizabethans crossed rivers, walked muddy roads, boarded boats, hired horses, and rode in wagons for business, family visits, market days, court appearances, and worship. England was constantly in motion. But how did people without titles or servants actually get from place to place, and what did it cost them in time, money, and effort? Today we’re joined by Dr. Charmian Mansell, Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Sheffield and award-winning...
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Second Hand Shops: How Old Wares Were Redistributed in Shakespeare's England
That Shakespeare Life
In Shakespeare’s play, The Winter’s Tale, Autolycus talks about “selling all my trumpery.” The reference made me wonder if Autolycus was packing up all his attic junk and random periphery collected over the years to sell them in what might be considered a yard sale for Elizabethan England. Did Shakespeare’s England have garage sales where people sold their gently used items to their peers and neighbors? And what about the potential for the Renaissance equivalent of a Goodwill wtore, a thrift store, or even a consignment or pawn shop? Was it possible that people in Shakespeare’s...
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Henry Wotton and the Invention of Diplomacy
That Shakespeare Life
There are many men who lived alongside William Shakespeare in turn of the 17th century England, but today's featured contemporary is a man who served as King James' ambassador to Venice in the 1600s. This man was named Henry Wotton. At grammar school, he received the same humanist education as Shakespeare, but unlike Shakespeare, Henry went on to university, studying at Oxford where he was tutored by Alberico Gentili, the man who was just then publishing the first handbook on international diplomacy. After graduation, Wotton spent five years travelling across Europe, stacking up experience...
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Much Ado About Cooking
That Shakespeare Life
From delectable marchpane in Romeo and Juliet, and the herbs of the Merchant of Venice to stew’d prunes of Henry IV, and carving capons in Love’s Labour’s Lost, there is a wide gambit of meals consumed in Shakespeare’s plays that span from bawdy feasts to elite noble banquets, and even popular meals eaten as much to control your behavior as they were seen as nourishment. The details about food found throughout Shakespeare’s plays reflect the real foods enjoyed from the peasants to the royalty of Shakespeare’s life. This week we are diving into these delectable delights...
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The Real Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
That Shakespeare Life
When Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, he gave the melancholy Dane two university friends with peculiarly Danish names—Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. For many centuries, audiences assumed these were simply fictional creations. Yet history reveals that Frederik Rosenkrantz and Knud Gyldenstierne were real men—Danish noblemen who traveled to England during Shakespeare’s lifetime as part of an official embassy from the Danish court. Their visit took place during a fascinating moment of cultural diplomacy: King James VI of Scotland’s marriage alliance with Denmark, his 1589 voyage to meet...
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What Did “Weird” Mean to Shakespeare? The Strange History of Macbeth’s Weird Sisters
That Shakespeare Life
When Shakespeare called the sisters in Macbeth “weird,” he did not mean what we mean by the word today. In early modern England, “weird” carried deep associations with fate, prophecy, and supernatural power—ideas rooted in classical mythology, medieval folklore, and Renaissance belief. In this episode of That Shakespeare Life, we explore what “weird” really meant in the 16th and early 17th centuries, and how that meaning reshapes our understanding of one of Shakespeare’s most famous groups of characters. Joining me are Dr. Anne-Maree Wicks and Professor Laurie Johnson,...
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New Year’s Gifts at the Court of Elizabeth I
That Shakespeare Life
Today, we think of Christmas as the season of giving—but in Shakespeare’s England, it was New Year’s Day that reigned supreme as the biggest gift-giving holiday of the entire year. Shakespeare himself alludes to this entrenched tradition in The Merry Wives of Windsor, where Falstaff quips: “I’ll have my brains ta’en out and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new-year’s gift.” It’s a grotesque image—thank you, Falstaff—but it reveals just how deeply the practice of New Year’s gifting permeated society, to the point where even dogs might expect a...
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Arthurian England: How the Tudors Used Myth to Build a Nation
That Shakespeare Life
When we think of King Arthur, many of us imagine medieval romance—knights in shining armor, enchanted swords, or chivalric quests. But for the Tudors, Arthur wasn’t just storybook material. In the 16th century, Arthurian legend was a political tool, a national symbol, and—for some—an actual piece of English history. From Henry VII naming his heir “Prince Arthur,” to Elizabeth I being welcomed at Kenilworth with Lady-of-the-Lake imagery, the Tudors used Arthurian myth to define their dynasty, elevate their authority, and shape the emerging idea of English nationalism. This week,...
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“What Masque? What Music?” Ben Jonson & the Art of Court Spectacle
That Shakespeare Life
"Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?
What masque? what music? How shall we beguile
The lazy time, if not with some delight?"
— A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene 1
There are over a dozen mentions of masques, masquers, and masquing in Shakespeare's plays, and when it came to masques in England for the 16-17th century, no one did them better than Ben Jonson, who was known for staging truly spectacular
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“What Masque? What Music?” Ben Jonson & the Art of Court Spectacle
That Shakespeare Life
"Say, what abridgement have you for this evening? What masque? what music? How shall we beguile The lazy time, if not with some delight?" — A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene 1 There are over a dozen mentions of masques, masquers, and masquing in Shakespeare's plays, and when it came to masques in England for the 16-17th century, no one did them better than Ben Jonson, who was known for staging truly spectacular feats of gradeur at the court of James I. Our guest is Martin Butler, Professor of Renaissance Drama at the University of Leeds, Fellow of...
info_outlineIn All’s Well That Ends Well, a character is described as “That with the plume: ’tis a most gallant fellow” (III.5), and in Love’s Labour’s Lost, the Princess of France mockingly asks, “What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter?” (IV.1), revealing how feathers could both elevate and satirize their wearer.
Feathers might seem like a simple decoration today, but in the 16th and early 17th centuries, feathered clothing—especially feathered hats—spoke volumes about a person’s status, identity, and even their participation in the expanding global economy.
To better understand the culture behind feathers in clothing for Shakespeare’s lifetime, we're sitting down this week with Professor Ulinka Rublack, whose article Befeathering the European investigates the history of feathers in clothing, to help us explore where the feathers come from, what they looked like, and how they were used.