Geoffrey Chaucer, Workes, 1602 - The Knight's Tale, Fol. 1, B1r.
The source for Shakespeare and Fletcher's play The Two Noble Kinsmen.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in which pilgrims each contribute a story to entertain their fellow travelers, begins with the ...
Geoffrey Chaucer, Workes, 1602 - title page, p.a1r
A Shakespeare source in England’s mediaeval poetry.
Geoffrey Chaucer’s works, written in the time of Richard II, at the end of the 13th century, were known and admired by Elizabethan contemporaries ...
Geoffrey Chaucer, Workes, 1602 - The Booke of Troilus begins. Fol.143, Bb5r
Chaucer’s Troilus, a source for Shakespeare.
Shakespeare’s debt to the work of Geoffrey Chaucer is primarily to the poem Troylus & Creseyde, which is a direct source for the play of Troilus ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail - decorative title panel
'Londinium': ancient capital of Shakespeare's England.
London had been founded on the banks of the River Thames when the Romans established their fortress at what became the Tower of London. The Latin ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail
A merchant’s wife and her companion in Shakespeare's London.
Shakespeare's leading ladies frequently reflect contemporary practice by having a companion, or housekeeper, who is not a servant ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of a citizen and his servant
An alderman and his servant in Shakespeare's London.
The Londoner's fashionable gown with hanging sleeves is 'guarded' [edged] with fur. His servant carries a sword and buckler as a sign that he will ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of city walls on the north-west.
London's City walls and the fields beyond in Shakespeare's time.
Close beyond the city walls lay fields and orchards. The engraving shows the wooden frames on which laundresses would hang fabric to ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of descriptive panel
A printer describes his map of Shakespeare's London.
The French printer of this map of London used a corner to describe the city and the River Thames. Although it is in Latin this description would ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of London Bridge
London’s bridge in Shakespeare's time.
London Bridge was lined with houses and shops, and was a route regularly travelled by Shakespeare from his lodgings in the city to his work across the river ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of Londoners
Townsfolk of Shakespeare's England.
For country merchant class people such as the Shakespeare family the fashions of the city were slow to be adopted. Shakespeare was swift to comment in his plays ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of Southwark district
Southwark: site of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
When Shakespeare arrived in London, aged about eighteen, he found work, possibly as a tender of horses outside a playhouse known as The Theatre ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of Southwark district
Southwark: a place for entertainment in Shakespeare's time.
The southbank of the river Thames in London was reached from the city only by boat, or across London Bridge. This area, called Southwark, ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - detail of St Paul's and the 'city'
Shakespeare's city home.
Shakespeare lodged in Bishopsgate in the 1590s, and later on the corner of Silver Street in Cripplegate. He would have been familiar with the many printers and bookshops in ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c. 1572 - Westminster (site of the Houses of Parliament) and on the opposite bank Lambeth Palace.
Westminster, and Whitehall Palace in Shakespeare's time.
To the west of the city of London, reached by road through semi-rural suburbs or by river boat, lay the centre of government at Whitehall Palace ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c.1572 - detail -The Tower of London.
The Tower of London in Shakespeare's time.
The fortress on the banks of the tidal river Thames was a royal palace, and a prison stronghold. It also housed the royal armoury and a public menagerie. ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c.1572 - A contemporary hand-coloured map of London
London: capital city of Shakespeare's England.
William Shakespeare came to London, England's capital city, about 1588. His career in the next twenty years was centred here, as he became the most popular ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium, c.1572 - 'Elizabethan' map of London
The walled City of London in Shakespeare's time.
Elizabethan London was surrounded by ancient walls, with entrances at Ludgate, Billingsgate, Newgate and Bishopsgate. The medieval maze of streets within ...
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Londinium,c. 1572 - detail - the east of the city and St. Paul's cathedral
St Paul's and the city of London: known by Shakespeare.
The city of London, to which Shakespeare travelled in the 1580s, lay within an almost semi-circular wall, bordered to the south by the River ...