The Shakespeare Book [antikvár]

Shakespeare's Stratford-upon- Avon By the time Shakespeare was born, Stratford-upon-Avon had established itself as one of Warwickshire's most important market towns and it already had appreciable contacts with the outside world. Originating as a river-crossing settlement, the site of Roman and Saxon occupation, Stratford was from early times a meeting-place of roads and under the influence of the Guild of the Holy Cross it progressed during the Middle Ages from a small agricultural community to what Camden described in 1586 as 'a proper little market town'. In 1553 the young King Edward VI granted to its inhabitants self-governing borough status. Judged by modern standards the Stratford which Shakespeare knew was very small both in size and population. Altogether its inhabitants did not total two thousand and to walk round its boundaries took little more than twenty minutes. The town comprised a compact street plan, 'well-builded of timber', as one visitor said, but with an abundance of trees, orchards and closes interspersed among the houses and shops. Apart from the Parish Church and the Guild Chapel all the buildings were half-timbered, the Forest of Arden (used by Shakespeare as the setting for Js Ton Like It) nearby providing the necessary timber. The town was a centre of schooling and varied business activity. Corn and malt particularly were sold at its market and fairs, together with agricultural produce, cattle, horses and sheep. Country crafts and trades also flourished, not the least prosperous being that of the glovers to which the poet's father, John Shakespeare, belonged. Closely linked with the Warwickshire countryside, Shakespeare's Stratford was a lively, fascinating place, whose community life typified much that was common in Elizabethan England.