Social Distancing in Elizabethan England in the Time of the Plague
William Shakespeare
In William Shakespeare’s time, London was ravaged by the bubonic plague. Public health regulation was haphazard at best in Elizabethan England, but one official measure that people seem to understand was that isolation of plague victims seem to slow down the spread of the disease. Hence the nailing shut of quarantined houses. They grasped too the relationship between the progress of the epidemics and large crowds. Authorities did not cancel church services, but when plague deaths began to rise they did shut down the theaters. This, of course, included the Globe Theater in which Shakespeare mounted his productions. The rule of thumb to shutter the theaters was 30 deaths per week. The enemies of the theaters became even more strident in their criticism, shouting that God had sent the plague to punish London for its sins, above all whoredom, sodomy, and playacting.
The Globe Theater
Source: Will in the World, by Stephen Greenblatt
Photos: by Benn Bell
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The 1630 plague in Milan is the backdrop for several chapters of Alessandro Manzoni’s 1840 novel “The Betrothed” (Italian: “I promessi sposi”).
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Reblogged this on The Foreign Correspondent: A Site of "Revealing Interviews" of a Foreign Correspondent, the Journalist and Writer and commented:
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Hi Benn
Thanks for the follow(s) …and/or like(s)
I just realised my days are determined and lead down paths from the feedback by my readers and followers around the world, like you. So thanks for the input.
All your comments and feedback encourage (greatly), uplift and even inspire me to follow “this road less travelled”.
I love my days “interacting with you’ guys and gals’ (and anything else in these PC * days-very)”
“sleepy-head and totally non PC” craig
“the world’s fourth worst writer”
see
https://johnsphotopics.wordpress.com/2016/01/09/why-im-only-the-worlds-fourth-worst-writer/
and
https://craigsbooks.wordpress.com/2018/10/09/why-im-only-the-worlds-fourth-worst-writer-3/
* and definitely NOT a police constable)
Still
“Driven to uplift, encourage and (perhaps even) inspire”
https://craigsquotes.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/path-emerson.jpg?w=605&h=454
…”of chaos” (in the “real world”, so says “the nurse”)
https://craigsbooks.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/do-not-go-where-the-path-may-lead-go-instead-where-there-is-no-path-and-leave-a-trail-6/
Together, one mind, one life (one small step at a time), let’s see how many people (and lives) we can encourage, impact, empower, enrich, uplift and perhaps even inspire to reach their fullest potentials ¦and strive for and perhaps one sunny day even achieve their wildest dreams.
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Some sources say that this time only Shakespeare wrote the play King Lear
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Lovely blog! Really enjoyed reading it during this time… I’ve written a little blog, it takes on a different angle. https://maisarra.wordpress.com/2020/04/01/the-journey-begins/
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Thanks! I’ll check it out.
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Thank you for this post of history as I am a history buff.
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Your’e welcome! Thanks for reading!
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