On the name of Shakespeare

(Notes for Year 10) 

Education cannot produce a Shakespeare, it cannot create genius, but it can give genius that chance in early elementary training without which even the most adaptive minds lose their direction.

--Charles G. Harper

     

      The name of Shakespeare was not in olden times a respectable one. It signified originally one who wielded a spear; nor a chivalric and romantic knight warring with the infidel in Palestine, or jousting to uphold the claims to beauty of his chosen lady, but a common soldier, a rough man-at-war.

     (Spoiler 1) The first Shakespeare of whom we have any notice in Stratford-upon-Avon was a John of that name. He was hanged punished for robbery, and perhaps he was one of those very many unfortunate persons who have been in all ages wrongly convicted.   

     (Spoiler 2) One Shakespeare before the dramatist’s time had reached some kind of local eminence. This was Isabel Shakespeare, who became Prioress of the Priory of Baddesley Clinton.
     (Spoiler 3) Warwickshire was, in fact very rich in Shakespeares. They grew in every hedgerow, and very many of them owned the Christian name of William, but they spelled their patronymic in an amazing number of ways as a matter of taste and fancy. We will forbear the most of these. “Shaxpeare” and “Shagspeare” are the commonest forms.
      Sure and certain foothold upon genealogical fact is only reached with William Shakepspeare’s father, who established himself at Stratford-upon-Avon about 1551. John Shakespeare was a rising tradesman and became a member of the town council.