1417: Shakespeare's Schoolroom & Guildhall

 

    King Edward VI School (formerly The King’s New School) is on the second floor above Guildhall. The Guildhall was built in 1417/18 according to tree ring dating of the timber. When it was built, it became the headquarters and meeting room of the Guild of the Holy Cross. The Guild of the Holy Cross was a religious organization that did things like say prayers for deceased members to get them into Heaven faster, helped its members when they were sick, supported their families when they died, and gave charity to the poor and vulnerable local people and provided housing next to the Guild Chapel. The Chapel was right next door to the Guildhall but was closed during the Reformation Period. During the Reformation period, King Edward VI dissolved religious guilds including the one in Stratford when the country changed religions from Catholicism to Protestantism. The medieval wall paintings were white-washed in 1563/1564 following orders given by Queen Elizabeth I. John Shakespeare, William Shakespeare’s father, was the one who approved these white-washes; he was the town chamberlain at the time. 

An example of a whitewashed medieval wall painting.

The same painting, how it would've originally looked.

 

The Upper Guildhall became Stratford's schoolroom in 1553. In Shakespeare's days, the 

entire class of about forty boys were taught in one room on benches that were placed 

parallel to each other on either side of the room.    

King Edward VI School is more famously known as Shakespeare's Schoolroom. Shakespeare was enrolled in Grammar School in 1571 at age 7 and left at age 14, as was customary. At grammar school, he learned how to speak Latin, Latin literature, and history. He was very well-read, and some of the stories he would have read were later used to write his own plays. Everyone at this school was expected to use the same grammar book and, along with Latin, practiced some English daily, for example grammar. Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, among others, were some works that were prevalent in Shakespeare’s education. What he learned at grammar school was the basis for his later works and shaped him into the great playwright he would become.