William Shakespeare: His Homes and Haunts

by S. L. Bensusan

SHAKESPEARE'S HOUSE—STRATFORD-ON-AVON

There was much to hold communities together in Elizabeth's time, much to encourage strength of purpose and resignation to troubles that were regarded as the manifestation of Divine Will, though in truth they were fruits of the people's ignorance. Unfortunately there was no real attempt to control them. Sanitation was unknown. The ground floors of the houses were of hard clay, covered with rushes; chimneys were not common. Refuse and garbage were placed in the open roads, not always in the special places appointed by the corporation. Pigs were kept close to the houses, and though the butchers were supposed to take the refuse of the slaughter-houses beyond the town, a strong wind would doubtless bring back infection. The corporation kept certain public places clean, and doubtless the citizens, or the most of them, did their best; but they had no knowledge of the price of uncleanliness, and in a town that was unpaved, undrained, and seldom cleaned, microbes must have enjoyed their life under conditions only familiar to those of us who have travelled through some of the remote cities of Africa and Asia, and known what it is to be literally unable to dismount from a horse. Street lighting was in its early infancy. In Shakespeare's time every man of substance was compelled to hang a lighted lantern outside his house from dusk to curfew, during a few weeks of midwinter, and that was all.

Of all these defects the lack of cleanliness was the vital one, and the consequences of the neglect or ignorance of the first laws of sanitation may be imagined. Plague was never far away. Every few years there would be a visitation, mild or severe, and there was no effective remedy known to the people. As in the time of the great plague of London, herbs and cooling drinks were employed, fresh air was in demand, and there was much burning of spices. Shakespeare was a baby in arms when a visitation of the plague gave nearly fifteen per cent. of the town's population to the graveyard or its substitute, the plague pit.

Now and again the Avon would overflow its banks and flood the surrounding country. Not only would such a disaster increase the ague and rheumatism that are never far removed from dwellers by the river-side, but a late summer flood might damage the crops on low-lying lands, or carry away corn that had been cut but not carted, and then, as Stratford was not readily accessible, the prices of food stuff would rise despite the corporation's efforts, and actual famine was not unknown.

Fires, too, were common. Doubtless a few arose from the overheating of corn in barns and stacks, and some from the absence of chimneys to so many houses. The corporation did what it could, but there were no resources adequate to deal with a conflagration, for all that the Avon ran at the foot of the town. They came to the conclusion in 1582 that the absence of chimneys was a fruitful source of disaster, and ordered every householder to build one. They also ordered every burgess to provide himself with a bucket. Looking back to the times, it is not easy to say that the corporation of Stratford was really backward; its members did all that the people of a little town in the heart of Warwickshire could have been expected to do, and there would seem to have been no lack of public spirit, no falling away from continuous endeavour, no shirking of onerous duties. Every man had his work to do in the public service, and those who failed were punished.

When we look round at our busy manufacturing towns in this year of grace, and remember how much we know of the best tradition of municipal work, can we say that, mutatis mutandis, the advantage is altogether with us? Plague and fire and flood have been overcome, but men and women live lives entirely undisciplined. Little or nothing binds the citizen to the State, and the adulteration of food has become so common that pure bread and pure beer are the exception, and the supervision of those who prepare the necessities of our daily life is much less strict than it was when old John Shakespeare, the poet's father, was Stratford's ale-taster, empowered to see, inter alia, that every baker sold a whole loaf of true weight for one penny.

But if the corporation ruled Stratford strictly in Elizabethan times, it encouraged all kinds of sport, to some of which the poet makes reference in his plays. Young and old knew the Maypole. Nine Men's Morris was another popular game, and Falstaff, referring to his treatment when he escaped from Ford's house disguised as the fat woman of Brentford, says, "Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipp'd top, I knew not what it was to be beaten, since lately." Goose-plucking was a particularly barbarous pastime. We know that hockey and football were played in Elizabethan England, and that the corporation of Stratford kept a bowling-alley at the municipality's expense for the free use of the town. Cock-fights were among the less reputable sports of the time, and bears or bulls were baited. Hunting, hawking, coursing, fishing, and the rest beguiled the leisure hours of those who had any, and the harvest festivals would have played their part. There were great fairs and open markets held at certain seasons of spring and summer. Within doors, cards and shovel-board would seem to have been the only kind of amusement that were not directly associated with social ceremonies.

Christening, marriage, and burial were all allied in the poet's time to more public exhibitions than obtain to-day, the wedding being preceded by a public betrothal ceremony, and the marriage itself being associated with a great many quaint customs if the contracting parties had the money wherewith to carry them out. Removed from touch with the outside world, seeing little of the life of big cities for themselves, the citizens of Stratford managed to get no small measure of simple and harmless enjoyment out of life, though even among the town council there were men whose liking for sack and good ale was notorious.

Players from London brought some added amusement in the summer, but as Stratford grew more and more puritanical, a very deliberate effort, already referred to in the preceding chapter, was made to penalise actors, and some years after Shakespeare's death it is recorded that the king's players were bribed by the corporation to leave the town without giving any performances. The gardens of Stratford were very productive. They were separated from each other by mud walls, and were carefully cultivated. Shakespeare delighted in his gardens and his plays speak of his sound knowledge of the gardener's craft. People who could afford to plant orchards took a pride in doing so; the poorer folk generally boasted a few fruit-trees, and gave no small part of their garden plot to raising herbs and simples for use against the various ailments that troubled them from time to time. The furniture in the house was primitive. Table, stools, a chair or two, and a bench would furnish a living-room. Carpets were not often met with; mattresses, bolsters, and pillows were stuffed with feathers. Sheets and table-cloths were of flax or hemp; dishes were of brass or pewter. Wooden trenchers and pewter spoons were in common use, and most houses held the necessary equipment for baking bread, brewing ale, and weaving wool. Cooking was primitive; good cooks were not required unless the occasion was an extraordinary one. People rose early and retired early; there was no temptation to be out late in filthy, ill-lighted streets, and bed was the only comfortable place in a house after nightfall. Doubtless the conditions were favourable to deep drinking among those who were not limited to the ale-house, and consequently could escape from the vigilant eye of authority.