Episodes

  • Wine and Winemaking in Shakespeare’s England

    Wine and Winemaking in Shakespeare’s England
    Jun 23 2025

    While Shakespeare’s plays are filled with references to ale and sack, wine played a central role in both the economy and social customs of Renaissance England. In this episode, we uncork the history of winemaking in Shakespeare’s lifetime—what kinds of grapes were grown, how wine was stored and served, and why a cold snap in the 1500s forever changed England’s vineyards. Our guest, winemaker and historian Stephen Franzoi, joins us to explore the world of Elizabethan viticulture and what Shakespeare himself might have been sipping.


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    34 mins
  • History Behind Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

    History Behind Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
    Jun 16 2025
    “Romeo and Juliet” may be Shakespeare’s most famous love story—but it wasn’t entirely his own. Long before the Bard set quill to page, a tale of star-crossed lovers was already circulating in Europe. In this episode, we’re joined by filmmaker Timothy Scott Bogart, director of the new musical film Juliet & Romeo, which reimagines the lovers’ story in its earlier, 13th-century context. Together, we explore the poems, legends, and historical figures that shaped the world Shakespeare would later dramatize, and discuss how the shifting timeline—from medieval Italy to Renaissance England—changes the story we think we know.

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    31 mins
  • Puppets Offering a Window into Shakespeare History

    Puppets Offering a Window into Shakespeare History
    Jun 9 2025
    Shakespeare wrote his play Hamlet in the early 1600s and by the late 1600s, well after the death of William Shakespeare in 1616, playing troupes are taking plays including Shakespeare’s Hamlet and other works by early modern playwrights, and turning them into performance adaptations using a new medium---specifically, they’re using puppets. Puppetry, marionettes, and glove puppets perform miniature versions of their human like counterparts as a popular form of theater entertainment for the 17th century. Our guest this week, Tiffany Stern, recently gave a lecture at the University of Birmingham, outlining how the examination of these puppet performances and how exploring the puppets themselves, like one that survives from the 17th century puppet named Amleto, suspiciously similar to the name Hamlet, can not only shed light on stereotypes that carry over from Shakespeare’s lifetime, but these puppets also influence how we understand what it means to be a storyteller.

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    30 mins
  • Castles in Shakespeare's Plays

    Castles in Shakespeare's Plays
    Jun 2 2025
    Shakespeare uses the word “castle” over 40 times in his works. He talks about sieging a castle, the power of castle walls, and even mentions specific real life castles by name including Berkley Castle and “Pomfret” castle which is another name for Pontefract Castle, along with at least a dozen more. These castles were prominent features in the landscape of Shakespeare’s lifetime, playing roles both in their commanding presence on the visual horizon on the physical landscape, but also their place in society, monarchy, and the broader political landscape as well. In this week’s episode we’ll explore the castles of Shakespeare’s lifetime, looking at which castles were actively in use around England, as well as what they were used for, major events that occurred there, and which of these architectural giants survive to the present day, allowing us to visit them centuries later. Here this week to take us on a tour of the real castles mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays is our guest, Audrey Thorstad.

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    1 hr
  • Eyeglasses and Lenses Used After Cataract Surgery in the 16th Century

    Eyeglasses and Lenses Used After Cataract Surgery in the 16th Century
    May 26 2025
    In Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff says “the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass!” Burning glasses were a specific kind of lens, that allowed you to harness the sun’s rays to create fire. They were a predesessor on the road to later lens construction that allowed for the convex shape which allows someone to create prescription glasses. In Shakespeare’s lifetime, a specific kind of spectacles known as aphakic spectacles were prescriped as a matter of routine in post operative care for someone that underwent a cataract surgery .Paintings from this tim period show a variety of spectacles and eyewear that were used in this time period, and Shakespeare’s plays themselves reveal the cultural impression of glasses and how they were perceived. Here today to explain the development of lenses form Shakespeare’s lifetime, the post operative care for cataract surgery in particular, and to tell us more about special lenses like “burning glasses” and “reading stones” are our guests and ophthalmological historians, Chris Leffler and Charles Letocha.

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    30 mins
  • Church Bells, How They Are Made in the 16th Century

    Church Bells, How They Are Made in the 16th Century
    May 19 2025
    Orlando, from the play As You Like It, talks about church bells knolling, and later in that same play, the Duke talks about how we “have with holy bell been knoll'd to church.” There’s a conversation in Act II of Pericles where two fishermen discuss a parish getting swallowed by a whale, and they refer to the parish as “The whole parish, church, steeple, bells, and all.” These references demonstrate the important cultural place of bells in England for Shakespeare’s lifetime. While Moses is credited with introducing bells to Jewish religion, Italian monks are given credit for introducing bells to Europe, with Saint Bede bringing them specifically to England when he introduced their use in funerals around 700 AD. By the time of William Shakespeare, metallurgy and construction had experienced a metamorphosis, with churches in Europe adopting not only intricate design, but seeking to increase both the size and the sound of their church bells. Here this week to tell us about the history, size, shape, sound, and technical process of building a church bell in Shakespeare’s lifetime, is our guest Guthrie Stewart

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    45 mins
  • Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen

    Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen
    May 12 2025
    Elizabeth I is perhaps the most famous Queen of England, reigning from November 1558 until her death in 1603. When you study her life, you quickly learn that she was known as “the Virgin Queen” for her staunch stance against marriage. Despite directives from her court and intense peer pressure from those around her, Elizabeth faced down scandal, rumors, and suspicion throughout her reign, only to remain stalwart in her commitment to not only never marry, but to never be known as someone whose virginity was taken from her. Given that the royal lineage is so important not only in England, but in all monarchal governments, and that literal wars have been fought over the rightful heir to the throne, it is definitely a challenge to the status quo that Elizabeth not only did not produce an heir, but intentionally chose not to do so. Here this week to help us explore what this stance was like for people of England, why it was so important to Elizabeth that she risked so greatly to maintain her choice, as well what happened at her death that prevented a war from rising up with the lack of an heir, is our guest, British historian, and professional history podcaster, Carol Ann LLoyd.

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    34 mins
  • The Little Ice Age During Shakespeare's Lifetime

    The Little Ice Age During Shakespeare's Lifetime
    May 5 2025
    Since 1939, when Francios E. Matthas wrote it into scientific literature, the Little Ice Age has been known as a period in history between the 15th and 19th centuries, when the climate was significantly colder than what is typical. The history generally divides the Little Ice Age into sections, which alternate with periods of warming to create wild weather phenomena, including long frozen winters and cold, wet summers. According to the latest research from our guest this week, this Little Ice Age was delayed in England, specifically, not taking hold there until much later, in the first part of the 17th century. While continental Europeans encountered Little Ice Age conditions during the sixteenth century, the English population faced volatile seasonal variations with extremes of drought and severe storm weather and violent tidal surges. Our guest this week, Laurie Johnson, joins us to share some of the weather data he is compiling for his latest publication that looks at the impact of climate and weather on how we should understand the plays that were written as these climate phenomena were occurring, as well as the playing companies staging them.

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    40 mins