Charlie Fenton’s Reviews > Shakespeare's London on 5 Groats a Day > Status Update

‘Setting a suitable day is by no means straightforward. You may not marry in Lent. Or during Rogationtide. Or Trinity. Or Advent. Unless, of course, you can pay for a special licence of dispensation to do so. There are also another 144 days on which you may not get married. There is no scriptural basis for this whatsoever, but it is custom and zealously enforced by the Church of England.’

‘the local systems of weights and measures - which vary according to the product being sold... A penny will always buy a loaf - but the weight of a penny loaf varies with the price of grain. English-made cloth is usually sold by the ell. To Flemish visitors this means the equivalent of 27 English inches, to the Scot a shade over 10 inches longer than that. For the English, however, an ell equals 45 inches.’

‘Most Londoners were born in the city and are immensely proud of the fact. But though Londoners may be slow to acknowledge it, the city is not the healthiest of places. Every year more die than are born and at least 5,000 newcomers are needed annually just to make up the shortfall. For the city to increase in numbers, thousands more must arrive. And, except in years of plague, they do.’

‘A royal courier might post from London to Edinburgh in five days; a normal traveller should reckon on taking three times as long. The 70 miles between Dover and London should take two days for the ordinary traveller, one for a strong man riding flat out. Completing the journey in one day, rather than two, will save the expense of a night’s stay at an inn.’

‘London’s physicians stand at the apex of the profession and have, since 1518, been organised as a Royal College, empowered to regulate their number and maintain standards of practice. Admission depends upon performance in examinations which are, naturally, taken in Latin and therefore inevitably exclude women. By an Act of Parliament the cadavers of four executed criminals are provided yearly’