Religion Around Shakespeare

Chapter 2: Around Shakespeare

2 around shakespeare Early Identifying some of the religions around the realm—the last chapter ’s task—was not at all as challenging as deciding which features of each likely surfaced in the conversations of ordinary yet alert subjects. Retrieving the religion around Shakespeare—this chapter ’s assignment—would be easier if it were not so difficult to locate him, particularly in the years after he finished formal schooling and, later, as he moved about London and Southwark. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire in 1564, educated there in the 1570s, and married nearby. Of that we can be sure. He was in London or outside the city walls in Shoreditch by the late 1580s, occasionally returning to Stratford to visit his family and then to retire a few years before his death in 1616. But, in London, he gets lost—lost to us, that is. We cannot tell where he first lodged. Plausibly, Shoreditch, because the theaters were there, and many players lived where they worked. But glovers, his father’s London colleagues, congregated in Bishopsgate Ward, so he might have joined them upon coming to the { 48 } r e l i g i o n a r o u n d s h a k e s p e a r e city—orlater.WeknowonlythathechangedresidencesfromBishopsgate to Bankside by 1599 and that he moved back across the Thames to Cripplegate ward on Silver Street soon after.1 Beyond the above, we are left with questions. What routes did he take to the theater districts? How often did he pass St. Paul’s Cathedral ?DidhepausetohearpartsoftheoutdoorsermonsatPaul’sCross or to see what the booksellers in the churchyard stocked? He eventually purchased the gatehouse at Blackfriars, yet there is no evidence that he ever lived there. Did he spend leisure time among playgoers in Holborn or with barristers at the Inns of Court? Where did he drink? Where, if at all, did he pray? We shall find Shakespeare—and religion—in London in due course. First, to Stratford! Shakespeare’s parents were two of the twelve hundred or so souls inStratfordduringthesecondhalfofthesixteenthcentury.Hisfather, John, was elected constable six years before his birth and, four years later, served a single term as the town’s high bailiff or mayor. By then, theseniorShakespearewasaprosperousglover,buthetradedinmore than just leather goods. John profited particularly from real estate transactions.2 He and his wife, Mary (Arden), may have been fond of the old faith, although, if so, they were discreet, for Catholicism in Warwickshire during the 1560s and 1570s diminished one’s chances for solvency and political influence. Religiously reformed notables Thomas Lucy and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, maintained homes nearby and were vigilant, as was Edwin Sandys, a reformist, when he was bishop of Worcester. John Whitgift, in the same see somewhat later, was equally watchful. All four were intolerant of Catholics. The religiously reformed, vigilant, and intolerant had ample opportunities to watch John Shakespeare. For his part, as constable, coroner, alderman, and bailiff at various times, he could hardly afford to be dismissive of the established church’s commissions. On his watch, the images of Saints Helena, George, and Thomas à Becket on the interior walls of Stratford’s parish church were painted over. Perhaps he was following orders, opting to appease and please his religiously reformed and influential neighbors while secretly sharing the faith of other locals who sent their sons abroad to study for the Catholic priesthood. Perhaps he winked or looked the other way as local A r o u n d S h a k e s p e a r e { 49 } Catholics opened their homes to—and hid—priests returning from the Continent to keep alive enthusiasms for the old faith.3 We can only guess, but we know that the Shakespeares’ home on Henley Street had nothingcomparabletothepassagesandcompartmentsinstalledelsewheretokeepfugitivepriestsfrompursuers .Nonetheless,theShakespeare residence could very well have concealed a critical document for two centuries, a will with John’s signature that reportedly was discovered by a repairman working between the rafters in the eighteenth century. Expatriate Jesuit missionaries, crossing from the Continent in the late 1570s and thereafter, were known to distribute unsigned copies of the text that told the testators’ families and friends to pray for the souls of their dear departed and that suggested the effectiveness of such prayers in getting the deceased through purgatory more speedily.4 Unfortunately, the signed will was lost after it was...