I’m a little late to the story about the National Archives’ discovery of legal documents related to Shakespeare’s father.  (I have an excuse, I was right in the middle of several towns being evacuated for a gas explosion catastrophe.  But! Everybody’s safe and sound in my world, so we’re very lucky to be back to our normal life sooner than a lot of people).

Are the original documents being published somewhere?  Not that many of us can read secretary hand, but still. It’d be fun to try and decode the clues.  (UPDATE – Looks like they’ll be available as part of Shakespeare Documented!)

Let me see if I can pull some bullet points from the article:

The documents Parry found include multiple writs against John Shakespeare, and record his debts to the Crown, including one for £132 – around £20,000 today.

That’s a pretty big number. I always thought that we’d been talking about petty amounts, like creditors chasing down somebody who stopped paying his credit cards.

A lot of people grumbled but settled [with “professional informers”]. For some reason in two cases John Shakespeare did not, and ended up targeted by the Exchequer collection system, which damaged his local credit.

I hate that “for some reason” is still in there.  That’s kind of a big point.  Seems like a downward spiral of getting yourself into debt in a way that doesn’t allow you to ever get out of it. But we still don’t know why he was targeted in the first place.

William grew to adulthood in a household where his father had fallen in social and economic rank, which sociologists and psychologists tell us leads to anger. They call it ‘downranking’.

Kind of puts Shakespeare’s desire for a coat of arms into a new perspective, doesn’t it?

What does everybody think? I know that there’s always a loony or two running around with a fancy new theory that will shed some light on Shakespeare’s life, and they always have a book to promote. But I’ve seen some respectable sources reporting on this, and it looks like these discovered documents could be the real thing?  Has anybody explored in more depth?

Walking past the elevator the other day, I see coworker Nate. He does that thing I always love where something dawns on him and he says, “Oh! I’ve bee meaning to tell you!” because I know what’s coming next – something Shakespeare. I just never know what. But it’s always awesome, because it means people are spotting Shakespeare out in the world because of me.

“I was at the liquor store near my house the other day,” he continues. My immediate thought is that he’s going to mention “Oberon” wine. But then I think, does Nate follow Shakespeare enough that he’d spot a Midsummer Night’s Dream reference in the wild.  “I saw this beer that had something Shakespeare on it…”

“You saw ShakesBeer?” I asked, getting excited.

I first spotted the existence of ShakesBeer this summer at Richard III. They are based out of Hingham, Massachusetts which is close enough to me to feel like it’s in my backyard, but realistically far enough away that I won’t be making any casual trips down there anytime soon.

“I know exactly who that is, and I’ve been looking for it,” I tell him. “I haven’t been able to find it where I live. They more south of the city.”

“I was going to get some for you but I didn’t know if you were a craft beer drinker,” says Nate.

“If you tell me you spotted it here in town I’m going to get in my car right now, put it that way,” I tell him.

“Unfortunately no, it was closer to where I live, down in Foxboro. When I’m back at that store I’ll have to get you some now that I know you’re into it.”

I agree with this plan and tell him that I’ll happily reimburse him should he find some.

But wait, it gets better!  That was on a Friday. That weekend, Dave (who happens to work in Nate’s department) sends me an actual picture of ShakesBeer because he too has discovered it (and he, too, knows that if Shakespeare’s spotted in the wild, the first thing you do is contact me ;)). I ask him as well whether he found it in town, and he says that no, he found it in Plymouth.  Unlike Nate he got some for himself, and tells me it’s quite good.

Later I ask Nate if he and Dave were discussing it and he tells me that, nope, that was entirely unrelated.  The universe really wants me to find this beer!