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  • Historic Elizabethan Dice and Dice Games

    Historic Elizabethan Dice and Dice Games
    2025/03/31
    On previous episodes of That Shakespeare Life, we have talked about the numerous early modern card games that show up in Shakespeare’s plays, and even that Ferdinand and Miranda are playing the game of Chess in the Tempest. What you may be surprised to learn is that another form of early modern game playing—the game of dice—comes up over half a dozen times across Shakespeare’s works, with references to playing the game, using them to predict the future, and of course, losing at the game of dice. Dice was a huge sport for Elizabethan, and later Jacobean, England and here today to share with us about this history, what games were played, and some specifics on the history of the playing pieces themselves is Historic Games expert, Charles Knutson. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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    24 分
  • Food Macbeth, the real Scottish King, would have eaten

    Food Macbeth, the real Scottish King, would have eaten
    2025/03/24
    In Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, there’s a famous banquet scene, with a huge food spread and of course, a few ghosts because what’s a party without a few spectres, right? This scene is fictional, but it is based on a real historical person, the real King Macbeth of Scotland, and holding banquets in a castle absolutely happened. Here today to share with us what foods would have been eaten at the real banquet of the actual Macbeth is historical chef, and host of Tasting History on YouTube, Max Miller. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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    29 分
  • Judith Quiney Shakespeare, in her later years

    Judith Quiney Shakespeare, in her later years
    2025/03/17
    The last time we talked about Judith Quiney was to discuss her youth as the younger sister of Susanna Shakespeare, the twin of Hamnet, and the overall blacksheep of her famous family due to her husband’s excommunication and the marriage scandal causing her father, William Shakespeare, to re-write his will to exclude Judith. The details of Judith Quiney’s life are as sparse, as they are tantalizing, and historical fiction has jumped on the opportunity to try and piece together the fragments. We welcome one such writer this week, Grace Tiffany, having just completed her second book on Judith Quiney, that offers a fictionalized rendering of what was possible for Judith in the second half of hr life, where she not only far outlived her scandalous youth, but she lived far beyond the life of her famous father, dying at the old age of 77 in 1662, close to 50 years after the death of Shakespeare himself. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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    41 分
  • Code Breaking Mary Queen of Scots Lost Cipher Letters

    Code Breaking Mary Queen of Scots Lost Cipher Letters
    2025/03/10

    In As You Like It, Orlando says “Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.” that’s one of a dozen references to ciphers in Shakespeare’s plays, which reflects the place of ciphers as a common way to keep secrets, particularly among the elite, for Shakespeare’s lifetime. One of the most famous ciphers for Shakespeare’s lifetime was written between 1578 and 1584, while Shakespeare was just getting his career started in London as a playwright, when they were written by none other than Mary, Queen of Scots. For 19 years prior to her execution, Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned in England, and during that time, she wrote extensively, including letters in code. It was known that between 1578 and 1584, just 3 years before her death, Mary wrote a series of letters in code to the French ambassador, but those letters were considered to have been lost. Surprisingly, the letters survived, but because they consist of unreadable encoded text, no one knew what they were about, and they were stored away in unrelated collections in the National Library of France, where they went unexplored, until 400 years later. In 2023, an international team of codebreakers happened to stumble upon the documents when they were looking for historical ciphers in order to crack them. They not only found Mary’s lost letters, but managed to decode them, and present the contents to the world for the first time in almost half a millennia. Lead author and Israeli computer scientist, George Lasry, is here today to tell us about the team’s efforts, the decoding process, what Mary wrote, and why it was so important for the letters to be in cipher in the first place.


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    35 分
  • Last Will and Testaments

    Last Will and Testaments
    2025/03/03
    A “Last Will and Testament” is a document listing out the instructions for how to handle your remaining worldly goods after your death. It is an opportunity for the living to share their wishes from beyond the grave. In As You Like It, Orlando mentions this practice by saying “...give me the poor allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go buy my fortunes.” In Julius Caesar the group cries out “The will! the testament!” Again in In Timon of Athens, the Painter says “performance is a kind of will or testament which argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it.” Obviously, Shakespeare’s making a metaphorical statement in that last use of will or testament, but the references declare a history here to documenting one’s final wishes and the process of carrying out your bequests. Here today to help us explore what wills and testaments were like for the 16-17th century, who wrote them, what they included, and taking a look at the details of Shakespeare’s own will and testament, is our guest and expert in the history of wills and testaments from the 16th all the way to the 19th centuries, Laura Sangha. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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    53 分
  • Funerals, Memorials, and Burials

    Funerals, Memorials, and Burials
    2025/02/24
    With all the death in Shakespeare’s works, you may not be shocked that the word “Funeral” comes up in Shakespeare’s plays over 20 times, but what is surprising is that funeral ceremonies are used by Shakespeare in multiple plays to serve a specific role, almost a character in and of themselves for how they impact the plot. Most notably, and my apologies here for any spoilers, the play is still worth seeing, but there’s an elaborate funeral for Hamlet ordered by Fortinbras at the end of the play. This funeral is said to mirror the real funeral of English poet, Sir Philip Sydney that had happened in 1587.If we’re going to appreciate Shakespeare’s portrayal of Hamlet’s funeral, then it becomes important to understand how funerals worked for Shakespeare’s lifetime, what the steps and rights were involved in an official, or unofficial, service and what constituted a fitting tribute to the dead. Here today to take us through what funerals involved for the 16-17th century, why Sir Philip Sydney’s service was so remarkable, and what all of this history means we should notice when we see funerals used for dramatic impact in Shakespeare’s plays, is our guest, and author of “Death, Religion, and the Family in England 1480-1760", Ralph Houlbrooke. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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    52 分
  • The Curtain Theater Excavation

    The Curtain Theater Excavation
    2025/02/17
    The Curtain Theatre was built in 1577 in a section of London called Shoreditch. Constructed only about 200 yards, or 600 feet, away from The Theater, which is the building James and Richard Burbage built as the first purpose built theater in London. For context, this distance about half a city block in Manhattan, and little less than 1 city block in Chicago. In 1585, the Burbages took advantage of this close proximity and struck a deal with the owner of The Curtain to use it as a second performance venue. From 1597-1599, The Curtain was home to the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and saw the staging of some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays including Romeo and Juliet, and Henry IV Part 1 and 2. The Curtain also staged contemporary plays by John Marston and even one production of Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour in 1598, which is a significant production for Shakespeare history, since William Shakespeare was listed as a member of the cast, making The Curtain theater a place we know Shakespeare would have performed himself. There are no records of the Curtain after 1627, so historians are unclear what happened to cause the theater space to be closed down, but a recent development of a square in Shoreditch is bringing The Curtain back to life by having uncovered remains of The Curtain theater that have not only been preserved, but are being showcased as the new Museum of Shakespeare in London, that will allow patrons to literally stand where Shakespeare once stood. Here today to share with us the details behind the dig, and how you can visit the Museum of Shakespeare, is our guest, and lead archaeologist for the excavation with the Museum of London Archaeology, Heather Knight. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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    24 分
  • Food Preservation in the 16-17th Century

    Food Preservation in the 16-17th Century
    2025/02/10
    In Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona, Proteus says “Here's too small a pasture for such store of muttons.” Proteus is speaking metaphorically here, but the phrase refers to the relationship between animals raised in a field, and then processed for food to be stored away in a cache that can be drawed upon for consuming later. Stephano, in the Tempest, shares the location of his store of wine, saying “The whole butt, man: my cellar is in a rock by the sea-side where my wine is hid.” Indicating that a cellar was one place to store bottles of wine long term. Both of these references demonstrate for us that 16th-17th century society was familiar with the idea of storing fresh food for the winter, but it leaves us with the question of what exactly was a “store of muttons,” for example? I mean, Shakespeare and his contemporaries didn’t have refrigeration, so what methods were used to keep fresh meat from going rancid? Back with us again this week, to help us understand Tudor and Renaissance England food preservation methods, as well as storage options, like cellars, is our guest and food historian, Neil Buttery. Get bonus episodes on Patreon

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    42 分