An academic from the Department of English at the University of Bristol (UK), Matthew Steggle, revealed that a long-lost document, thought to have been written by William Shakespeare’s father, actually belongs to his sister Joan, a relatively unknown figure.
Difficult times for Catholicism
The manuscript in question, called ‘Spiritual Testament’, is a religious treatise in which its author commits to having a good Catholic death. It was found by a bricklayer, hidden among the rafters of Shakespeare’s house in Stratford-upon-Avon in England, around 1770. The document was written at a time in English history when Catholicism was strongly disapproved of and people She ran the risk of being tortured for her faith.
The material was seen and described by two Shakespeare experts, and then lost. They both thought it must have belonged to Shakespeare’s father, John, who died in 1601. This would imply that John was a secret Catholic. Later researchers thought it was a forgery, designed to give the impression of being a document from John’s life.
Analysis of digital files
Steggle used Google Books and other Internet archives to locate the first editions of the text in 17th-century Italian and six other languages, in a single copy and scattered throughout the libraries of Europe. Analysis showed that the document dates from several years after John Shakespeare’s death. Steggle discovered that the only possible author is Joan Shakespeare, the sister of the famous British playwright, who lived from 1569 to 1646.
“Even 30 years ago, a researcher tackling a problem like this would have relied on a single large research library, using print catalogs and even card catalogs to try to find copies of this text. But, research libraries have made many of their resources available digitally, so that it is possible to consult many different libraries in different countries at once, and at the same time, you can consult the full text, not just the title and other details,” Steggle stressed.
A barely known figure
Joan Shakespeare was 5 years younger than her brother William. She lived in Stratford-upon-Avon all her life. She had four children and survived her brother by 30 years. “Only seven documents remain from Joan’s life, which even mention her by name,” Steggle said.
“Virginia Woolf wrote a famous essay, ‘Shakespeare’s Sister,’ about how a figure like her could never have aspired to be a writer or have her writings preserved,” he added. Furthermore, she considers the essay to have become a kind of symbol for all the lost voices of early modern women. The research was published this Tuesday in the journal Shakespeare Quarterly. With RT