This lecture, presented by Professor Catherine Richardson, offers an introduction to the findings of a 5-year investigation into the cultural lives of a key group, to which famous writers like Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe belonged, but of whose day-to-day existence we know very little. What were their interests, what possessions did they own, in what kind of spaces did they spend their days and what activities did they undertake there? In doing so, it raises questions about placemaking and provincial cultures, about the extent and location of leisure practices at this social level, and the ways in which we might construct lived experience of the past in an age of gaming technology.
If you are interested to think through questions of early modern status in advance, you are welcome to try out the Status Calculator (a light hearted way into some of the questions!): https://middlingculture.com/status-calculator/
Image credit: Harvard House, Stratford-upon-Avon
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harvard_House,_Stratford.jpg