The Early Years
It is commonly agreed that England's greatest poet and playwright was born April 23, 1564, and that he died on the same day of the same month, St. George's Day, April 23, 1616. Hospice workers today report men and women from all classes often cling to life until a special date. Given Shakespeare's obvious love of symmetry, it seems likely he would try to shape his ending to match his beginning, giving scholars further reason to believe he was born on April 23. His birthplace was Stratford-upon-Avon, in the county of War-wickshire, about 100 miles north of London.
In the mid-sixteenth century, Stratford was a market town of some 1,500 people and was considered a large town. In the agrarian society of the time, villages were limited in size by the productivity of the surrounding countryside. As rising business centers, such towns made use of rivers and streams to transport local produce such as wool, cheese, and grain. The population of London at the time of Shakespeare's birth was about 200,000 and rapidly growing. By his death, more than 400,000 people lived in London.
Shakespeare's Family
Shakespeare was the eldest son of a glove maker and prosperous merchant, John Shakespeare, and the third child of eight. John was an established glove maker and leather dresser. Shakespeare's mother's maiden name was Mary Arden, and her family was from the gentry — that is, they were landlords rather than tenants and lived off the income of their real estate. Along with the properties that Mary brought to the marriage, and the income of John's leather and tanning business, which was a respectable trade, they were comparatively well off.
John was active in local government and was appointed to jobs of increasing responsibility, culminating in his election as bailiff, or mayor, of Stratford. Then, John's fortunes began to decline. In 1586 he was replaced as an alderman. By 1592, he was being rebuked in writing for not attending church and was in fear of being jailed for debt.
Historians speculate that John may have held onto old Roman Catholic beliefs (his mother was from a Catholic family) and suffered for it. England had broken with the Roman Catholic Church. Henry VIII declared himself the head of state and the “Church of England,” what we now call Anglicanism in England and Episcopalianism in the United States. Henry began tearing down monasteries and reclaiming Church property. After Henry died, his son Edward VI attempted to introduce the more radical Protestantism of the Reformation. He began executing Roman Catholics. Edward, however, died after four years on the throne. His older sister began her reign as Queen Mary in 1553. In a bloody upheaval, Mary tried to reintroduce Catholicism by executing many Protestants. After Mary's death in 1558, her half sister Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, became queen. Queen Elizabeth embraced the Church of England as the national religion with herself, like her father Henry VIII, as the head of state and religion. Unlike her half siblings Edward and Mary, Elizabeth strove for religious moderation. She would reign over England for forty-five years, leaving the throne to her cousin James in 1603.
Were Shakespeare's parents educated?
John, in his position as Stratford's bailiff, should have been able to read and write, but he signed all documents with his glover's mark (two compasses) instead of his name. Scholars, however, now speculate that such trade marks may have carried more weight than a signature and so do not necessarily reflect illiteracy. Mary Shakespeare used as her mark a running horse. Though she came from a prosperous family, given the status of women when she was born, it is unlikely she was literate by today's standards.
Shakespeare's Education
As the son of a local official, Shakespeare would have been entitled to free schooling (mandatory schooling was not yet the law), and it is likely he was educated at Stratford Grammar School, which had a reputation as an excellent school. After a few years of training in basic literacy, boys of well-off families spent the rest of their education learning to read, recite, and speak Latin and possibly some Greek. The influence of Latin authors such as Pliny, Ovid, Seneca, Plautus, and Terence as well as Greek authors Homer and Plutarch, are clear in Shakespeare's plays.
Young William did not go on to a university, but the grammar school curriculum should have given him a formidable linguistic and literary education. As was common at the time, he attended classes from dawn to dusk six days a week and was probably whipped if he was inattentive or lazy in his studies. Some researchers think that the character of Sir Hugh Evans, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, is a caricature of Shakespeare's old headmaster, Thomas Jenkins.
Ben Jonson, who received honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, and who would become Shakespeare's close friend in later years, once referred to Shakespeare's grammar schooling by saying, “He had small Latin and less Greek.” Jonson, however, would have made that judgment against very high standards.
