That Shakespeare Life

In this episode, we explore what the "Ides" actually meant in ancient Rome and how March 15th transformed from an ordinary—sometimes even festive—date on the Roman calendar into one of history's most infamous days. Jörg Rüpke explains how Romans understood their calendar, what rituals or superstitions may (or may not) have surrounded the Ides, and how news of Caesar's assassination would have spread through the city. We also examine the differences between ancient historical sources and Shakespeare's dramatic choices, from Calpurnia's ominous warnings to the political and religious tensions surrounding tyrannicide.
We then turn to Shakespeare's England, asking how Renaissance audiences would have interpreted Roman dates, costumes, and political symbolism on stage. Did Elizabethans already fear March 15th, or did Shakespeare himself help create that association? Along the way, we consider how the play reflects the delicate political climate of Elizabeth I's reign, the moral dangers of overthrowing authority, and why the assassination scene unfolds at "the Capitol" instead of the historically accurate Curia of Pompey.

In this episode, we explore how time was measured in Shakespeare's England — from weight-driven household clocks to elite pocket watches imported from Germany. With Dr. Jane Desborough, we uncover how early modern clocks tracked not only hours but lunar phases, zodiac signs, and seasons, and why "accuracy" meant something very different before minute and second hands became standard.

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 author of Female Servants in Early Modern England. Her research uncovers the practical realities of everyday travel in the 16th and 17th centuries — from routes and lodging to ferries, weather delays, and the surprising distances ordinary people were willing to go.

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 lifetime were selling their used items for profit?  

In order to explore the world of second hand clothing, thrift stores, and pawn shops of Elizabethan England I'm delighted to welcome Dr. Kate Kelsey Staples, author of "The Significance of the Secondhand Trade in Europe, 1200–1600" to join us to help us explore exactly where one would have deposited or dispatched of their superfluous household goods.

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 that gained him employment, after which he returned to England to serve as personal secretary Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. That life abruptly ended when Wotton fled England after the 'Essex Rebellion' that cost Devereux his life. But a chance encounter brought Wotton to the attention of the man who, within months, would claim the English throne. King James recalled Wotton from exile -- and immediately sent him ambassador to Venice.  
Here today to share the remarkable story of Sir Henry Wotton—a man whose real-life adventures in diplomacy were unfolding even as Shakespeare was staging ambassadors on the London stage and setting his plays amid the politics of Venice—is our guest, Professor Carol Chillington Rutter, author of Lying abroad: Henry Wotton and the invention of diplomacy. In her book, Dr. Rutter explores the extraordinary life of the man King James I called his "honest dissembler"—a maverick diplomat who fled England in disgrace, only to return and redefine the very art of diplomacy in ways that still influence international relations today.