Shakespeare, Catholicism, and pre-Reformation culture

How the long withdrawing shadow of festive England shaped the Elizabethan stage

It is hard to overstate the volume and variety of entertainers one might have encountered on England’s roads in the early 1500s. But then, it’s a phenomenon that we’re viewing through the filter of what occurred later, around the turn of the century and after, when theatrical and performance culture was forcibly narrowed, shaped into a metropolitan elit…