Elizabeth I issued several proclamations during her reign concerning property, renting, and housing in England. London proper would see it’s population more than double over the course of Shakespeare’s lifetime, and there was very little in the way of any government concerning who could rent the limited available space owned in the city, what they could charge, or even basic safety regulations. Historical documents tell us that William Shakespeare himself rented property in London, with the landlord and tenant documents being some of the few tangible paper records we have at all of William Shakespeare’s life. So why was the world’s leading playwright renting a room in London not unlike a poor college student, instead of owning property outright? And what can the history of landlords in England help us learn about the life of William Shakespeare?

Here to help us explore the history of tenants and renting property in 16th century England is Callan Davies, a Research Fellow on the "Before Shakespeare" project, based at the University of Roehampton.