We are lucky to know as much as we do. Shakespeare was
born just at the time when records were first kept with some
fidelity. Although all parishes in England had been ordered
more than a quarter of a century earlier, in 1538, to maintain
registers of births, deaths, and weddings, not all complied.
(Many suspected that the state’s sudden interest in information
gathering was a prelude to some unwelcome new tax.) Stratford
didn’t begin keeping records until as late as 1558—in time to
include Will, but not Anne Hathaway, his older-by-eight-years
wife.
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