Karen Lyon

See education in Shakespeare’s day through the eyes of Ben Jonson: learning ABCs and the Lord’s Prayer with hornbooks, and drilling Latin grammar endlessly.

What did William Shakespeare think of marriage, based on how he wrote about it in his plays and what we know about his union with Anne Hathaway?

Books on manners became so popular during the Elizabethan period that it was only a matter of time before someone satirized them.

“Manners maketh man” was the motto of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Would your own table manners pass inspection?

In Shakespeare’s England, those wearing clothes adjudged to be above their station were subject to fines or imprisonment under sumptuary laws.

Renaissance fashion was unquestionably distinctive, especially among the upper class, who favored clothing with luxurious fabrics and dramatic silhouettes.

Education was increasingly important in the early modern period with the rise of social mobility, but children were also put to work around the household.

What did people think about childhood and parenting in early modern England? Did parents express fondness for their children? How did they discipline them?

  The Ancient Greeks may hold the franchise on Olympic wrestling—but how would they have fared against a 17th-century British shin-kicker? In 1612 in the tiny village of Chipping Campden, Robert Dover opened the first Cotswold Olympicks, ushering in a…

Q: I know about Queen Elizabeth I’s summer progresses, but how did ordinary people spend their summers in Shakespeare’s time? A: For most Elizabethans, summer presented little opportunity for a vacation from regular work routines. There were still farms to tend,…

Elizabeth I arriving at Nonsuch, Franz Hogenberg after Georg Hoefnagel. Hand-colored engraving from Braun and Hogenberg’s Civitates Orbis Terrarum, ca. 1598. Folger Shakespeare Library. (Click the image to see a zoomable version in the Folger’s digital image collection.) You thought you had…