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Shakespeare and his immediate family were conforming members of the established Church of England. John Shakespeare was elected to several municipal offices, which required being a church member in good standing.
These culminated in 1592 when he failed to appear in church due to his growing debts—although some have interpreted this as an indication that he had dissenting Catholic views. In 1596 John was awarded a coat of arms, now displayed on the monument above the Shakespeare grave in Holy Trinity Church.
Two hundred years before Shakespeare, Holy Trinity had become an important parish church. In 1352 a house for priests and choristers was built near the churchyard by Ralph de Stratforde, Bishop of London.
Like most other people at the time, Shakespeare was a conforming member of The Church of England. Holy Trinity Church was a focal-point for the meaning of existence, for the baptisms of his younger siblings: Gilbert (1566-1612), Joan (1569-1646), Anne (1571-1579), Richard (1574-1613), and Edmund (1580-1607).
We do not know precisely when Shakespeare's father, John, was born but he would have been brought up a Roman Catholic. From 1534, however, when Henry VIII finally renounced the authority of the Pope and declared himself head of the Church of England, a new understanding of the faith began to emerge.
Shakespeare, William (1564–1616), playwright and poet, was baptized, probably by the parish priest, John Bretchgirdle (or Bracegirdle), in Holy Trinity, the parish church of Stratford upon Avon, on 26 April 1564, the third child of John Shakespeare d. 1601 [see below] and Mary Arden (d. 1608).
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Shakespeare’s theatre is the desacralized shell of dramatic illusion left over once a kernel of belief is removed. The Elizabethan theatre is the church deconsecrated.
