The Making of Marlowe: Canterbury in the Sixteenth Century

The Making of Marlowe: Canterbury in the Sixteenth Century

🗓️ Saturday 12 September |🕑 Duration: 1.5 hours |💷 £6 / £5 (Members' price)

Talk by Catherine Richardson and Luke Farrell

Christopher Marlowe spent his formative years in one of the most important cities in Elizabethan England. As the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury and a major centre of trade, learning, and religious life, Canterbury was a place where people, goods, and ideas converged. Its streets were filled with merchants, craftsmen, clergy, scholars, refugees, and travellers, creating a lively and cosmopolitan city at the heart of the Tudor world.

But what was Canterbury really like for the people who called it home? This talk explores the city that shaped Marlowe’s early years, revealing the places, communities, and daily experiences that made up life within its walls. From the city’s streets and the routes that linked it to London, the Continent, and the surrounding region, to the rhythms of work, family life, and neighbourhood, we will uncover what it was like to live in the city. We will consider in particular what life was like for ‘middling sort’ families such as the Marlowes, using the findings of a major research project on this group to compare Canterbury with other places across the country.

By bringing together the city’s physical form with the stories of its inhabitants, the talk offers a vivid picture of life in sixteenth-century Canterbury, placing Marlowe within the wider urban world in which he grew up and offering a fresh perspective on one of England’s most remarkable Tudor cities.

Prof. Catherine Richardson is Professor of Early Modern Studies and Pro-Vice-Chancellor Arts and Humanities at University of East Anglia, and runs the Middling Culture project. Her latest book is Shakespeare’s Objects: early modern material culture and she is a General Editor of the forthcoming Oxford Marlowe: Collected Works.Luke Farrell is a doctoral researcher at the University of Kent whose research uses digital methodologies to reconstruct and interpret early modern Canterbury.

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