In the 16th century plague impacted Shakespeare’s daily life through regular closings of the theater due to the fear of disease spreading in enclosed spaces. In addition to large crowds gathering together in the theater, contemporary science warned against one particular threat of contagion: the laundry. It was believed that certain materials could spread disease by their relationship to the body. For example, linen was thought to be protective against disease by wicking the sweat and body odor away from the wearer. While linen was protective, other fabrics were deemed more dangerous while washing techniques, including using soaps like lye- a highly caustic cleanser made from wood ash, could help prevent disease. Our guest this week, Stephanie Bennett, is the author of “Cloth, Contact, and Contagion: Touching Disease of the Past and Present” for the Social History Society. Stephanie joins us today to talk about the 16th century understanding of disease and how proximity, material, and the interactions between the skin and clothing were thought to prevent or transmit disease. Get bonus episodes on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laundry and Touching Disease with Steph Bennett (Ep 205)

Hosted by Cassidy Cash, That Shakespeare Life takes you behind the curtain and into the real life of William Shakespeare. Get bonus episodes on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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In Shakespeare’s plays, he uses the word “glass” over 80 times, including to talk about specific kinds of glass like a pilot’s glass in Alls Well That Ends Well, and “the glasses of my sight” in Coriolanus. We can see from the surviving building of Shakespeare’s Birthplace in Stratford Upon Avon, that window glass existed, and there was even an old glass house in the Blackfriars where the Blackfriars theater was located, but how was all this glass made? What materials were used? What other products might have been made from glass, and what colors of glass were available or even most popular? To find out the answers to these questions and explore the history of glass for Shakespeare’s lifetime, we are delighted to welcome Allen Loomis to the show today.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Glass and Glass Making

Throughout Shakespeare’s plays, he references the mind over 400 times including talking about having a quick mind, an unclean mind, and even being out of your mind. Understanding how your brain worked, and what you as an individual could do to control it, and respond to it, was a hot topic for Shakespeare’s lifetime. The rise in books meant that works by authors exploring this topic of the mind, melancholy, and reason were widely available, even directly influencing the works of playwrights like William Shakespeare. Here today to help us understand what the 16th century minds understood about neurology, dreams, and the imagnation is our guest, and author of the book, The Elizabethan Mind, Helen Hackett.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Elizabethan Mind

British sign language has existed in some form among deaf communities at least since the 15th century, when some of the earliest records of sign language reveal descriptions of specific signs, many of which are still in use today. However, for Shakespeare’s lifetime, sign language was far from formalized among the Deaf, and certainly not widely accepted by the hearing community. Similarly, education of the deaf, in terms of schools established to educate the Deaf, Mute, or otherwise alternatively abled, would not take root in England until after Shakespeare’s lifetime, and that wasn’t until well into the 18th century. To help us understand what life was like for a deaf person in Shakespeare’s lifetime, as well as what signs existed, and what records we have from the late 16th and early 17th century for deaf people, sign language, and the deaf community for Shakespeare’s lifetime is our guest, Mary Lutze.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign Language and Deaf Culture in 16th Century England

Before William Shakespeare was the great playwright of the age, he was “just Will” fromStratford Upon Avon. The one person in the world who not only loved him before he wasfamous, but walkedbeside him for the entire journey from young man with nothing but relentlessoptimism to successful playwright patronized by the monarchy of England, was his wife, AnneHathaway. Anne married William in 1582, and by the time Shakespeare was skyrocketing tofame in the 1590s with plays like his Henry VI series, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Romeoand Juliet, the couple were parents to three children, including one set of twins. In honor of theperson who quite literally kept the home fires burning so that theman who conquered the worldwith his work would have somewhere, and someone, to come home to, our guests this weekhave compiled a poetic tribute to Anne Hathaway called the Anne-thology. The collectionfeatures poetry and sonnets by modern scholars of Anne Hathaway as well as a few written byAnne’s children. In our first ever group interview here on That Shakespeare Life, we are pleasedto welcome our friends Chris Laoutaris, Katherine Scheil, Aaron Kent, and Paul Edmondson tothe show to tell us more about Anne Hathaway and the making of this memorial poetrycollection Get bonus episodes on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anne Hathaway, her life and her legacy

Close to 300 years before Shakespeare’s birth, in the year 1290, King Edward I expelled anyone of Jewish descent from England all together. It would not be until 40 years after Shakespeare’s death that Jews would be allowed to return to England. This law makes it somewhat confusing to find over 100 references to Jews and “Jewry” in Shakespeare’s plays. How did he know about Jewish people if there weren’t any in England? Additional history further muddies the waters with the story of Roderigo Lopez, a Spanish Christian of Jewish ancestry that worked as a private physician to Elizabeth I. Ultimately, Lopez was executed, his sentence being influenced heavily by rampant antisemitism in England at the time. Lopez was not the only Jew in England for Shakespeare’s lifetime, but his story shines a light on the plight of racial Jews as well as anyone seeking to practice the Jewish religion, who lived during the life of William Shakespeare. Here with us to tell us more about Lopez’s life, Jews in early modern England, and the references to Jews found in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice are our guests, Rhona Silverbush and Sami Plotkin.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laundry and Touching Disease with Steph Bennett (Ep 205)

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