Reply to E. A. J. Honigmann:
“Catholic Shakespeare? A Response to Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel,” Connotations, Vol. 12.1 (2003/2004), S. 52-60.
The English Shakespeare scholar E. A. J. Honigmann has taken the trouble to express an opinion of my Shakespeare biography William Shakespeare. Seine Zeit - Sein Leben - Sein Werk [William Shakespeare. His time - his life - his work]. [1] For this I am very grateful to him. I am also grateful for his clear definition of his own position with regard to a “Catholic Shakespeare” and for his comparative description of the differing standpoints of the author and reviewer. I will go into both in more detail later.
Honigmann’s basic criticism of my Shakespeare biography is that it puts too much stress on the significance of Shakespeare’s Catholicism, and in this respect he writes disparagingly of “a major preoccupation” (52). My assumption that Shakespeare must have been educated at a Catholic college Honigmann calls “wishful thinking” (57). Instead he cites — and apparently agrees with — the English playwright and Shakespeare editor Nicholas Rowe, who claimed at the beginning of the eighteenth century that John Shakespeare, glover and shopkeeper, had been unable to provide his son William with any better education than his own — “as was usual at this time” (57). However, it was already usual at the beginning of the sixteenth century for the sons of English farmers, craftsmen and merchants to study at the English universities. That Shakespeare must have had such an education is apparent not only from the academic knowledge contained in his works but also from the record that he had been a schoolmaster in the country in his youth. It was, of course, Honigmann who, in Shakespeare. The ‘lost years’ [2] took up the schoolmaster claim again and convincingly substantiated it. In William Shakeshafte, repeatedly singled out for positive mention in the 1581 will of Alexander de Hoghton, a Catholic, Honigmann saw the young teacher (and musician) William Shakespeare. It was Honigmann who first recorded in print that Sir Bernard de Hoghton, a Catholic and current owner of Hoghton Tower, had spoken to him of an oral family tradition according to which Shakespeare had lived in the aristocratic Catholic household of his ancestors for two years. [3] One is thus bound to ask how he (Honigmann) views his own research findings. Was Shakespeare uneducated or had be been trained at a college? He must, of course, have attended a college, and this must have been abroad. Honigmann knows this. For it is established that the dramatist did not attend either of the English universities. Honigmann also knows that for an illegal private teacher in an aristocratic Catholic household in the Elizabethan era there was only one possible educational institution — the Collegium Anglicum, because it was at that time the only Catholic college for young English Catholics, enjoyed immense popularity and was able to register a rapid increase in the number of pupils within a very short time. [4]
After thorough study of the historical sources, the discovery of new (or newly interpreted) contemporary textual and pictorial evidence — in the evaluation of which numerous experts in other disciplines assisted — and continual discussion with colleagues in my field who checked the plausibility of my findings, I unreservedly maintain my contention that Shakespeare was a Catholic and that his religion is even the key to understanding his life and work. [5] I find further confirmation of this in the fact that my thesis fits in with a theory that has been debated for some time among distinguished historians of the early modern era and is now generally accepted, the so-called Konfessionalisierungsthese. According to this thesis religion played a central role in the life of every individual at that time. [6] Shakespeare’s contemporaries were fully aware of this. For example, Michel de Montaigne (1533-92), who is known to have exerted a strong influence on Shakespeare, remarked: “Nothing is more subject unto a continuall agitation then the laws. I have, since I was borne, seene those of our neighbours, the English-men, changed and re-changed three or foure times, not only in politike subjects, which is that some will dispense of constancy, but in the most important subject that possibly can be, that is to say, in religion: whereof I am so much the more ashamed, because it is a nation with which my countriemen have heretofore had so inward and familiar acquaintance ....” [7]
I should now like to consider in detail criticism put forward by the reviewer:
Honigmann’s position
The reviewer attempts to reduce Shakespeare’s Catholicism to just a few phases in the dramatist’s life — childhood, adolescence, the lost years and the final phase — and even these he questions: “What is the evidence for this ‘Catholic Shakespeare’?” The “Catholic Shakespeare”, he says, can only be established on the basis of two kinds of circumstantial evidence: (1) the known or presumed “Catholic sympathies” of the dramatist’s family, friends and patrons and (2) the “Catholic attitudes” embedded in the plays.
Honigmann’s comparative description of the differing standpoints of reviewer and author
“Like Hammerschmidt-Hummel”, Honigmann writes, “I favour a Catholic Shakespeare, though with a difference: her Shakespeare studied at the English College Rheims ..., visited the English College in Rome in 1585, 1587, 1589, 1591, under various assumed names (‘Arthurus Stratfordus Wigorniensis,’ ‘Gulielmus Clerkue Stratfordiensis’ etc. 72), which, with much else, follows from her certainty that his parents were Catholics. My Shakespeare was probably (but by no means certainly) brought up as a Catholic, probably continued as a Catholic in his ‘lost years,’ and possibly returned to his Catholic faith on his death-bed, after (probably) converting to the Church of England when or soon after he started his career in the theatre. Even though it seems incredible that a writer so curious about other nations should never visit any, I know of no hard evidence that he did - which is not to say that he could not have done so” (54).
The author’s reply
There is not only circumstantial evidence, as the reviewer thinks, but also definite proof of the strict Catholicism of the dramatist’s parents and the whole environment into which he was born. His mother, Mary Arden, came from the collateral line of a family of arch-Catholic gentry that was involved in a Catholic plot. Edward Arden of Parkhall, the head of the family, was hanged as a traitor in 1583. The dramatist’s father, John Shakespeare, possessed a so-called Borromeo testament, a personal written profession of the Catholic faith, each paragraph of which contained his name. The preformulated text was the work of the cardinal of Milan, Carlo Borromeo (1538-84), who gave copies to the leaders of the Jesuit mission, Father Edmund Campion and Father Robert Parsons. Campion und Parsons distributed large numbers of these testaments to English Catholics. Raids were carried out by borough councillors (“aldermen”) with the aim of seizing these professions of faith, as they were sufficient grounds for a charge of high treason and condemnation by the courts. John Shakespeare must have concealed his copy in the rafters of his house, where it was discovered by chance around 250 years later. Honigmann withholds this piece of evidence, as he does the fact that both the dramatist’s father and his eldest daughter, Susanna, were on the list of recusants, who refused Anglican services, especially holy communion.
In the 1560s, John Shakespeare, as treasurer of the borough of Stratford, paid salaries to illegal (evidently Catholic) teachers without entering them in the accounts. Among these teachers was one William Allen, who is presumably identical with the founder of the Collegium Anglicum at Douai (or, temporarily, at Rheims). [8] Allen’s surname is on the plaque bearing the names of the Stratford schoolmasters — but his Christian name was left out [9].
It should be mentioned here that John Shakespeare must have learnt reading, writing and arithmetic. Honigmann questions this — primarily on the basis of Samuel Schoenbaum’s reasoning, but Schoenbaum’s arguments are not convincing. He wrongly interpreted John Shakespeare’s trade mark, a cross, which the dramatist’s father used as a signature, as a sign that he was illiterate. But his exemplary facsimile reproductions of individual pages from John Shakespeare’s accounts [10] ought to have convinced him of the exact opposite. It is amazing that Schoenbaum should not have asked himself how the dramatist’s father (if illiterate) could pay out the Stratford schoolmaster’s salary and enter it in the accounts. Incidentally, it was John Shakespeare’s trade mark, discernible on the gloves of Tobias, that gave strong support to my thesis that in the mural in the White Swan at Stratford John Shakespeare, mayor, glover, and devotee of the theatre, is depicted as an amateur actor. [11] Honigmann withholds this important detail.
Honigmann considers it “very likely” (56) that the young Shakespeare was taught by the Catholic schoolmaster Simon Hunt. He also mentions that Hunt fled to Douai in 1575 and later became a Jesuit (cf. 56), but he withholds other important information — for instance that Shakespeare’s teacher had a successful career as a Jesuit priest at Rome, becoming English penitentiary (confessor) at the Holy See, in succession to Robert Parsons, mentioned above, one, if not the leading, mind among English Catholics in exile and an arch-enemy of the English crown. Hunt was thus an influential Catholic personality from the dramatist’s Stratford environment and probably made a deep impression on the young Shakespeare. Incidentally, he did not go to Douai alone but took one of his pupils with him — Robert Debdale from Shottery, a neighbour of Anne Hathaway, who became Shakespeare’s wife in 1582. In 1585, when a further rigorous anti-Catholic penal law came into force, Debdale died a martyr’s death in England. In the same year Simon Hunt died in Rome. Shakespeare himself left his home town of Stratford abruptly in February 1585. In April 1585 there is an entry for one ”Arthurus Stratfordus” from the diocese of Worcester at the pilgrims’ hospice of the English college at Rome. Besides this first entry there are others using the name of Stratford that point to Shakespeare. In addition, the whole historical context suggests that he was bound up in the network of English Catholics in exile.
Many details had already been fully presented in my book Die verborgene Existenz des William Shakespeare [The hidden existence of William Shakespeare] (2001), as Honigmann must have known. It is thus hard to understand why he should be so intent on casting doubt on Shakespeare’s schooling at Stratford and further education at the college in Rheims: the relevant Stratford school records have disappeared, he argues, and so we do not know whether William was taught there or not (cf. 56-57). To this one can only reply that things which can be taken for granted need no specific proof. For it can, of course, be taken for granted that John Shakespeare, who became mayor of the town in 1568 and a justice of the peace, would have sent his eldest son to the local grammar school, re-founded in 1553.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century a surprising number of the young sons of the English bourgeoisie were already attending the new grammar schools, subsequently becoming theologians, lawyers, doctors or teachers. This was no different from what happened in the rest of Europe. Hans Luther, a miner and not exactly wealthy, sent his son Martin to a grammar school at the tender age of five (in 1488). The boy even had to be carried to school, because his legs were too weak. Later, his father sacrificed the first money he had saved to enable him to study at the University of Erfurt. In England, too, as has been mentioned, the sons of the middle class aspired to higher education. [12] In 1516 the humanist Richard Pace exhorted England’s aristocracy not to leave the study of literature to the sons of farmers.
There are a number of indications that justify the contention that the young Shakespeare received a basic academic education at the Jesuit-oriented Collegium Anglicum at Douai/Rheims. It was a typical feature of the careers of young English Catholics to avail themselves of this Catholic college, as they avoided Oxford and Cambridge on account of the compulsory Oath of Supremacy. It is astonishing that no one should hitherto have come up with the obvious idea that the Shakespeares, too, may have chosen this path for their son. The reason for this might be that in mainstream English historiography the view had predominated that the college had served exclusively to train priests, but this was not the case. The Collegium Anglicum offered an alternative, because a Catholic academic education was no longer possible in England. When William reached college age the Shakespeares mortgaged a considerable part of their property — presumably to finance their son’s expensive studies. The Douai diaries contain partly erased entries that also suggest Shakespeare’s presence. Furthermore, as is apparent from certain passages in his plays, Shakespeare was familiar with the nomenclature of the classes at the Collegium Anglicum and even mentions Rheims as a seat of learning. [13] Most of this evidence Honigmann ignores.
The young Shakespeare may have obtained his post as an illegal teacher (and musician) in the aristocratic Catholic household at Hoghton Tower through close contacts that existed between William Allen and Sir Thomas de Hoghton. Sir Thomas, who went into exile in Flanders, had helped Allen to found the college. “William Shakeshafte”, who is referred to in Alexander de Hoghton’s will of 1581, has been identified — as mentioned above — as the young Shakespeare.
I succeeded in revealing a secret organization (with precise rankings and payment) in Alexander de Hoghton’s will. This organization was founded for a particular good purpose, which, however, is nowhere clearly described. [14] At this point Honigmann has capitulated. [15] In his review he mentions neither my decoding nor my interpretation that — a year after the beginning of the Jesuit mission in England, when a further rigorous anti-Catholic penal law had come into force, the testator’s primary concern was probably to protect the mission priests known to have been at Hoghton Tower, who were hunted as traitors. It is certain that the Jesuit priest and subsequent martyr Edmund Campion, once celebrated at Oxford as “England’s Cicero”, preached at Hoghton Tower in the summer of 1580, when the young Shakespeare was probably already employed there. At any rate, Alexander de Hoghton mentions him more than once in 1581 and is concerned for his well-being.
Those who were the main focus of de Hoghton’s concern seem indeed to have been the persecuted priests. In his will they are innocuously referred to as “players”. From this it follows that “play clothes” is not a reference to costumes but means chasubles and “instruments belonging to musics” are not musical instruments but liturgical instruments. It is inconceivable that de Hoghton would have made such a complicated set of agreements, with the origin, distribution and supervision of the money secured by the appointment of trustees, solely to provide for a company of actors. A legal expert opinion I commissioned with regard to Shakespeare’s purchase of a building in Blackfriars in 1613 - together with three trustees - confirms that the setting up of such a trust always served a particular purpose. The trustees appointed by Shakespeare were enabled to continue to use the property after his death - in accordance with his wishes. [16] However, this purpose is not mentioned in the stipulations for the trust - evidently for reasons of caution.
This extremely valuable historical document gives us information not only about Shakespeare’s first — illegal — employment but also about his involvement in the Catholic underground. For he was in the first rank of de Hoghton’s secret organization and was paid for life. Honigmann makes no mention of these significant circumstances or of the fact that Shakespeare, who would then have been about eighteen, was possibly the author of a moving lament on the martyrdom of Edmund Campion [17], which runs:
The scowling skies did storm and puff apace,
They could not bear the wrongs that malice wrought;
The sun drew in his shining purple face;
The moistened clouds shed brinish tears for thought;
The river Thames awhile astonished stood
To count the drops of Campion's sacred blood.
Nature with teares bewailed her heavy loss;
Honesty feared herself should shortly die;
Religion saw her champion on the cross;
Angels and saints desired leave to cry;
E'en heresy, the eldest child of hell,
Began to blush, and thought she did not well.
The evidence I discovered in the pilgrims’ book of the pilgrims’ hospice at the English college in Rome in October 2000 Honigmann does mention in passing (“‘Arthurus Stratfordus Wigorniensis,’ ‘Gulielmus Clerkue Stratfordiensis’ etc.”), but he plays down its significance. He does not mention that the pseudonym “Stratfordus”, which in the period from 1580 to 1640 is only used in the “lost years” (1585-92) and then once again in 1613, points very clearly to Shakespeare. Incidentally, for 1591 I did not find the pseudonym (as Honigmann claims), but only a damaged place where a name had (later) been carefully scratched out. In 1613, when Shakespeare concluded his literary career, he must have travelled to Rome once again. This time he again used the name of his home town - and with it the Christian name of his brother Richard, who had died in February 1613. The entry thus reads “Ricardus Stratfordus”. [18]
In my Shakespeare biography I present two new pieces of evidence that confirm Shakespeare’s links with the Catholic underground, his travels on the Continent and his use of Catholic institutions. Unfortunately, Honigmann has overlooked both. It had already been observed by the English historian A. L. Rowse that in Robert Greene’s autobiographical prose tract A Groatsworth of Wit (1592) a self-assured young actor who has also written (morality) plays and has just arrived in London must be Shakespeare. [19] Re-examining this source, I noticed that the stranger tells us — in coded form — something about the nature of his activities in the period from 1585 to 1592 (identical with the “lost years”), saying that in these seven years he was “an absolute Interpreter to the puppets”. “Puppets” reminds one of the “players” in Alexander Hoghton’s will. Both terms were probably references to priest. If this interpretation is correct, the new arrival (Shakespeare) is saying that for the previous seven years he was a mediator or translator for the priests (“puppets”). We thus have additional written evidence that for seven years, from 1585 to 1592, the dramatist played an important but extremely dangerous role as a mediator in the Catholic underground, i.e. the forbidden Catholic mission in the country, and was thus obliged to observe the greatest possible vigilance and caution in every respect and probably to cover his tracks. [20]
Honigmann has unfortunately confused this crucial, highly informative, less familiar passage with the better-known one [21] in A Groatsworth of Wit where Robert Greene roundly abuses Shakespeare as an “vpstart Crow” and where the actors (“puppets”) are not spared either. He mistakenly claims that I interpreted “puppets” — here quite clearly used to mean actors — as meaning priests, and reacts with irritation: “ ‘puppets’ means ‘priests,’ a point repeated again and again, we may ask why, if this is correct, Greene ... did not call them priests” (59).
The second piece of written evidence newly interpreted by me but overlooked by Honigmann is L’Envoy to Narcissus (1595) by Thomas Edwardes. [22] There it is said of Shakespeare that he “differs much from men” and pitches his tents under monastery roofs (“Tilting under Frieries”). Monasteries had previously been a prominent feature in English landscapes and towns, especially in London, but in Shakespeare’s day there were none left in England. Under Henry VIII they had been dissolved, destroyed or rebuilt as homes for the nobility or gentry. Thus the dramatist can only have stayed at monasteries on the Continent.
One of the most important pieces of evidence of the poet’s active involvement in the illegal Catholic scene of his day in England is a document confirming his purchase of the eastern gatehouse at Blackfriars in London in 1613. This gatehouse was the secret meeting place for fugitive Catholics. Legally protected by a trust deed, which was similar to that of Alexander de Hoghton, the specific use of the gatehouse was safeguarded for the time after Shakespeare’s death. This new knowledge relating to Shakespeare’s house purchase, gained with the help of experts in other disciplines, fits in perfectly with the general context of Elizabethan politics and religion but is unfortunately ignored by Honigmann. Instead, he criticizes the fact that it does not conform with Schoenbaum’s version (“Something has gone badly wrong with her [Hammerschmidt-Hummel’s] version of the Blackfriars Gatehouse conveyance [260-61], compared with Schoenbaum’s” - 56). This is annoying in that Schoenbaum’s view that the purchase was purely an investment is not at all convincing. For the astounding degree of complexity in this rust arrangement, which contains stipulations that extend far beyond Shakespeare’s lifetime, [23] shows that the poet was making a considerable personal contribution to the survival of the old religion.
Unfortunately, Honigmann fails to mention that not only was Shakespeare’s eastern gatehouse on the site of the old Blackfriars monastery precisely located, with the aid of written historical sources and an architect, as was, for the first time, the Blackfriars Theatre, but that for several decades it had been used as an institution of the Catholic underground and as the London bridgehead of the English College at St Omer. He also fails to mention the role played by this building in connection with the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. All this is precisely described in my Shakespeare biography. While Henry Garnett, the superior of the English Jesuits, was seized, put on trial, condemned and hanged, the second man at the top of the English Jesuit order, John Gerard, a pupil of the Collegium Anglicum and the same age as Shakespeare, succeeded in finding shelter and help in escaping to the Continent, in this very building. Gerard was in disguise, wearing a false beard and false hair. [24]
As regards the dramatist’s patrons (Lord Strange and the earl of Southampton), Honigmann doubts whether they were “pillars of Catholicism”. In the case of Lord Strange it is indeed difficult to decide. It does seem plausible that Strange, influenced by his training at court, should have inclined towards the new religion and consequently come into conflict with his arch-Catholic family (especially his father), as demonstrated by Park Honan. [25] On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that the English Catholics in exile, under the leadership of Sir William Stanley, considered him to be a Catholic and on this basis, and because he was closely related to the royal line, offered him the English crown. [26]
In the case of the earl of Southampton, however, it can be stated with certainty that he came from a staunchly Catholic family, that his father had been imprisoned in the Tower for his Catholic faith, and that at both his country seat of Titchfield Abbey and his London residence priests came and went and were concealed. Important information about him from the 1590s onward, incidentally, comes from the pen of Henry Garnett, subsequently the Jesuit superior. Southampton, Shakespeare’s patron, friend and rival, was indeed one of the pillars of Catholicism — at least until, a few years after the accession of James I, he became a protestant, at the urging of the king and much to the annoyance of English Catholics.
Furthermore, I reject the accusation that the historical personages are drawn in terms of black and white. I should like to point to a number of discriminating profiles of figures depicted against the background of the turbulent religious and political situation of the Shakespearean era, among them the earl of Essex, Robert Cecil, Anthony Bacon, Francis Bacon and Robert Shirley. [27] I would also mention the bizarre life story of Anthony Tyrrell. [28] I admit, however, that the English crypto-Catholics and Catholics in exile are often very elusive, because they formed a secret network. In the case of Shakespeare Honigmann concedes: “To be fair, let us mention that Shakespeare’s evasiveness is puzzling and calls for an explanation” (55). Such an explanation can be offered from a consideration of the dramatist’s will. Shakespeare bequeathed his sword to a young lawyer, Thomas Combe (1589-1657). No interpretation had previously been found for this symbolic act. As Combe later campaigned against the puritans at Stratford and in 1640/41 was on the list of recusants — as a Catholic — [29] it becomes clear why Shakespeare chose this young man to leave his sword to.
When Honigmann — without giving specific reasons — expresses the view that the dramatist’s works contain only ”Catholic attitudes” and that Shakespeare had possibly become a protestant when he commenced his theatrical career in London (cf. 54), this is simply not tenable. Shakespeare’s plays are particularly rich in Catholic thought, Catholic rituals, strikingly positive depictions of priests and monks, and invocations of the Virgin Mary and numerous saints. Since the nineteenth century this has led many scholars to suppose that Shakespeare must have been Catholic. The late Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne, for many years a patron of the Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, devoted a chapter of his autobiography to this question, and once said in a lecture that “it could be demonstrated with a fair degree of certainty from his works that he was very sympathetic towards things Catholic, in particular monasticism.” [30] But one couldn’t actually prove Shakespeare’s Catholicism this way.
My book Das Geheimnis um Shakespeares ‘Dark Lady’. Dokumentation einer Enthülllung [The secret around Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’. Documentation of disclosing a mystery], [31] which a number of other scholars have studied thoroughly, fully confirming my findings, [32] draws very disparaging comment from Honigmann, but it is clear that he has not in fact read it. Otherwise he would have known that all the theses put forward in the book were very carefully worked out and verified on the basis of new textual and pictorial sources, that several experts in other disciplines were involved, and that the revelation of the connection between Shakespeare and the Spencers was just a minor, incidental result which I would have preferred not to mention. [33] Regrettably, the findings in my book were passed on, without my approval, to the British press, which published them without my authorization, making the connection with the British royal family the main point of interest.
Conclusions
It should be clear from the above that Honigmann’s contentions that the Shakespeares merely had “Catholic sympathies” and that the plays did not detect anything more definite than “Catholic attitudes” are untenable. All the known sources, if one takes heed of them, show that both Shakespeare himself and his parents, relatives, teachers, friends and patrons professed the Catholic faith — often at the risk of their lives — and that in the plays not only “Catholic attitudes” can be found but also numerous specific references to Catholicism that in the Elizabethan era would not have been made by any protestant dramatist or one who inclined to protestantism. [34]
Honigmann evidently fails to appreciate that in my Shakespeare biography I keep strictly to the historical facts and to new or newly interpreted textual and pictorial sources. He also, it seems, fails to appreciate that in difficult cases I always relied on the expertise and judgement of competent scholars and scientists of other disciplines. My view of Shakespeare (as opposed to Honigmann’s) — and this also applies to the role Shakespeare’s religious faith plays in his life and work — is thus supported by a large number of different contemporary sources and current expert opinions.
Honigmann, who unfortunately ignores even unequivocal historical evidence (such as John Shakespeare’s Borromeo testament or William Shakespeare’s purchase of the secret contact point for hunted Catholic priests at Blackfriars) clings in many cases to a state of research that is essentially that represented by Samuel Schoenbaum and has now been superseded by new findings. In this, if I may say so, he resembles those early modern scholars who rejected new scientific discoveries because they were contrary to the teaching of Aristotle.
Notes
[1] (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2003).
[2] (Manchester University Press, 1985, repr. 1998). With this book Honigmann created an international stir among scholars. However, English Shakespeare experts remained reticent. The book received hardly any mention. While Katherine Duncan-Jones has four entries for the name Honigmann in the index to Ungentle Shakespeare. Scenes from his Life (London: Thomson Learning, 2001), though in each case in connection with other works by him, the index to Shakespeare. For All Time by Stanley Wells (London/Basingstoke/Oxford, 2002) makes no mention of him at all.
During a long telephone conversation in early April 2003 Honigmann told the author he was persona non grata in Stratford-upon-Avon. In the course of the summer of 2003, however, contact was resumed. Honigmann’s review “Catholic Shakespeare? ... “appeared in Connotations in December 2003.
[3] Cf. Shakespeare: The ‘lost years’ 28-30. Sir Bernard confirmed this to me by telephone in November 2002.
[4] Cf. my book Die verborgene Existenz des William Shakespeare: Dichter und Rebell im katholischen Untergrund (Freiburg im Breisgau: Verlag Herder, 2001) 71ff.
[5] See my lecture “Katholische Minderheitenkultur in England von 1580 bis 1650 mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von Shakespeare” [“Catholic Minority Culture in England from 1580 to 1650 with particular Reference to Shakespeare”], given at the interdisciplinary international colloquium ”Religion und Kultur in Europa im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert” [“Religion and Culture in Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”] at Mainz (24-27 March 2003). In the subsequent discussion it became surprisingly apparent that the rigorous anti-Catholic penal laws of the Shakespearean era and their disastrous consequences for the Catholic population were virtually unknown, even to experts. As a consequence the Vienna historian Alfred Kohler concluded that the protestant-defined image of Elizabethan England would now have to be deconstructed.
[6] Cf. the conference proceedings (ed. Peter Claus Hartmann) due to be published shortly.
[7] “An Apologie of Raymond Sebond”, in: Montaigne’s Essays: Renascence Editions, Book II. E-text [www.uoregon.edu rbear/montaigne/2xii.htm], provided by Ben R. Schneider, Lawrence University, Wisconsin, ? 1998 The University of Oregon [101].
[8] Cf. William Shakespeare 31.
[9] Cf. William Shakespeare fig. 40.
[10] Cf. Samuel Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press, Scolar Press, 1975) 31-32.
[11] William Shakespeare 12-14, fig. 14 a.
[12] At the end of the sixteenth century about 40 per cent of the male population in England were literate and numerate. Around 1600 there were about 360 grammar schools in the whole of England — about one to every 13,000 people (Cf. William Shakespeare 37)
[13] Cf. Die verborgene Existenz 76-90.
[14] Cf. Die verborgene Existenz 96 ff.
[15] Honigmann, Shakespeare 26: “As I see it, the will is unclear and eccentric … and could have caused all kinds of trouble.”
[16] Cf. Die verborgene Existenz 145.
[17] Cf. Die verborgene Existenz 32-35.
[18] Cf. Die verborgene Existenz 163.
[19] Cf. William Shakespeare fn. 86.
[20] Cf. William Shakespeare 71.
[21] Cf. William Shakespeare 90.
[22] Cf. William Shakespeare 165.
[23] Cf. William Shakespeare 262 ff.
[24] Cf. Die verborgene Existenz 141.
[25] Shakespeare. A Life (Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 66-67.
[26] Cf. William Shakespeare 105-106.
[27] Cf. William Shakespeare, Part IV: “Das machtpolitische Szenario am Ende der elisabethanischen Ära und Shakespeares Wende zum Tragischen” [“The power-politics scenario at the end of the Elizabethan era and Shakespeare’s shift towards tragedy”] 171ff.
[28] Anthony Tyrrell, an apostate Catholic priest and government spy, constitutes — before and after the Armada — probably the most flagrant example of a rapid change of sides from protestantism to Catholicism and vice versa. Cf. Die verborgene Existenz 155ff.
[29] Cf. William Shakespeare 279-280.
[30] Cf. Carsten Greiwe (ngz-online, Neuss-Grevenbroicher Zeitung) (updated 12 August 2003). Greiwe is summarizing a review by Lothar Bleeker of Die verborgene Existenz des William Shakespeare, which appeared in Carbones [Wissenschaftliche Schriftenreihe der Kardinal-Frings-Gesellschaft — a scholarly series of works published by the Kardinal-Frings-Gesellschaft]. Greiwe quotes: “Die These stellt sicherlich eine der wenigen echten Sensationen in der Geschichte der Shakespeareforschung dar” [“The thesis is certainly one of the few genuine sensations in the history of Shakespeare research”] and continues that the book was a study carried out by “an established expert in accordance with the highest principles of scholarship” [eine “höchsten wissenschaftlichen Ansprüchen genügende Untersuchung einer ausgewiesenen Expertin”].
[31] (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft und Primus Verlag, 1999).
[32] See the entries on my home page (www.hammerschmidt-hummel.de): “Bücher” / “Books”: “Das Geheimnis um Shakespeares ‘Dark Lady”’, / “The secret around Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’”, “Rezensionen und Stellungnahmen / ‘Reviews and comments”.
[33] Cf. Das Geheimnis um Shakespeares ‘Dark Lady’ 115.
[34] Protestant dramatists endeavoured to present contemporary events in a light favoured by the government. Thomas Dekker, for instance, in The Whore of Babylon (1607) extolled the virtues of Elizabeth I and imputes treachery and bloody intrigues to the “Scarlet Whore of Rome”. He depicted outstanding figures of the Elizabethan era on the stage — among them, from a protestant standpoint, Edmund Campion. However, the actors (who were evidently Catholics) changed the text to suit their view. In addition, Dekker was criticized for giving a false representation of the Elizabethan age. Cf. William Shakespeare 229.
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