Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Die Familie Shakespeare
Go deeper: the whole of Die Familie Shakespeare
About 5 h 20 min to read.Für wen es gedacht ist
This book is for readers who love family trees, old records and the small human details behind a famous name, and who want Shakespeare as a son, husband and father.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
What do a spear, a nun, a glover and a beheaded squire have in common? In this book they all belong to one family story, the family of William Shakespeare. Charlotte Carmichael Stopes wrote it around the turn of the twentieth century, first as articles and then as a book.
She sets the poet aside as a writer and looks at him as a Warwickshire gentleman with a father, a mother, a wife, children and cousins. She works from wills, court rolls, parish registers and the records of the heralds, and she admits where the evidence stops. The first part follows the Shakespeares to 1669. The second turns to his mother's family, the Ardens.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1The name points to feats of armsFree
- 2Early Shakespeares appear all over England
- 3Warwickshire is the family's home ground
- 4John Shakespeare's arms stir a heralds' quarrel
- 5The Arden arms and Mary Arden's descent
- 6Robert Arden's will and the loss of Asbies
- 7John Shakespeare rises in Stratford and then falters
- 8William Shakespeare builds a gentleman's life
- 9The poet's line ends within two generations
- 10Cousins, namesakes and the Ardens' ancient roots
Punkt 1 von 10
The name points to feats of arms
Stopes opens with the name. She argues that it was a meaningful name, given to a first bearer for courage and skill in battle, like Breakspear and Armstrong.
Verstegan and Camden both list Shakespeare among surnames drawn from what a man carried or did. If the name is made of two real words, she says, the spelling should follow those words, and in the sixteenth century spear was written speare. The poet used this form himself on his two early poems in 1593 and 1594.
She looks for a document, offers a reasonable guess, and says plainly when it is only a guess.
The name suggests warriors, and its spelling follows the word spear.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
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Go deeper: the whole of Die Familie Shakespeare
About 5 h 20 min to read.Questions about Die Familie Shakespeare
What is Shakespeare's Family by C. C. Stopes about?
It follows the Shakespeare and Arden families through wills, court rolls and registers. It covers the poet's parents, his marriage, his children, and his descendants to 1670, then traces the Ardens back to the Saxon earls of Warwick.
Did Shakespeare have any living descendants?
Stopes says no. His son Hamnet died in 1596, and his granddaughter Elizabeth, Lady Barnard, died in 1670 without children. Anyone named Shakespeare descends from other branches, not from the poet himself.
Who was Mary Arden?
She was William Shakespeare's mother, the youngest daughter of Robert Arden of Wilmecote. Stopes traces her father to a younger son of the Ardens of Park Hall and describes her inheritance of the land called Asbies.
What was the Shakespeare coat of arms?
Granted in 1596 and later defended by the heralds, it shows a gold shield with a black bend carrying a spear. The crest is a falcon holding a spear, and the motto is Non Sans Droict.
Is the book easy to follow for readers without a background in genealogy?
Yes, the chapters are short and each focuses on one family or question. The Shakespeare chapters tell clear stories of marriages, lawsuits and wills. Later lists of records work as reference material you can dip into.
Cite this edition
Stopes, Charlotte Carmichael. Shakespeare’s Family. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/shakespeares-family.
Stopes, C. C. (2026). Shakespeare’s family. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/shakespeares-family (Original work published 1901)
Stopes, Charlotte Carmichael. Shakespeare’s Family. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/shakespeares-family.
@book{stopes2026shakespeares,
author = {Stopes, Charlotte Carmichael},
title = {Shakespeare’s Family},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/shakespeares-family},
note = {First published 1901}
}
