Jacobethan Consensus…

…I’m unsure as to whom the first term belongs, maybe John Barton’s of RSC fame? But it holds Elizabethan and Jacobean together concisely. Jacobethan.
Sounds too late to be early and too early to be late.
Consensus is a slippery word and despite others opinions, i’m down with it.
Now if only this meant something.

Int: Office set-up as booths where a local Amsterdams Underworld Penose typetjes are screaming into mobiles telling people on the dam to sing the Wilhelmus! and go buy me a Rembrandt joint!
All the while directing their spies in the field to plant the next assignment.
Yes folks this is the world of office and company outings.
And there hidden from the boss’s eyes, I’m highlighting in front of me:

Gary Schmidgall’s ‘Shakespeare and the Poet’s Life’
which provided me with a handful of big words.

Cynosure,
nonarmigerous,
suasoria,
exargastic
maculate.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Close-up: p.129 of said book, chapter four “Chameleon Muse”

‘Consider, first, the pyramid of English society.
The overwhelming majority of turn-of-the-century population of over
4,000,000 – including farmers, laborers, menial servants,
apprentices, the jobless, itinerant, and dregs –
made up the lowest echelon.

Above these was a class comprising an estimated
160,000-260,000 individuals who in some way were
privileged by landhold, rent, accumulated assets, or domicile.

Next above this class were the approximately
16,000 persons who constituted the lesser country gentry,
followed by the still more affluent class comprising

1,000-2,500 members of the greater country gentry
(wealthy, established families and holders of knighthoods,
deputy lieutenancies, commissions of the peace, and shrieval offices)
and the most powerful commercial and professional figures in London.

Above them towered the
60 or so peers of the realm
and, at the apex,
the
royal
family
and
1 King or Queen.

The Court itself was a kind of miniature version of the entire pyramid.
“the Court,”

as Wallace MacCaffrey has summarized,

“comprehended the chamber, the household, the gentlemen pensioners,
and the yeoman guards, and accounted for at least a
1,000 persons.

it was divided, on the one hand,
into an elite of peers, knights, ladies and gentlemen,

and, on the other,
into a mass of of household servants, guards,
hunting or stable attendants, and artficers.

The line of division between the two was a sharp one,
and advancement across it uncommon in Elizabeth’s time.”

MacCaffrey estimates that, in 1567, the elite consisted of perhaps

175 men and
12 or a dozen women,

and it is doubtful that the figure grew very much under
Queen Elizabeth. (1558-1603).

The court in the Shakespearean canon is approximately faithful to the social conflux that MacCaffrey describes.’

So the answer to the question where did Shakespeare acquire his knowledge of Court is: as the stable boy did, although sporting a kindlier wit perhaps. Har har har. Piss boy, get me my bucket!

shot ends and pulls back to reality and a 2 year old destroying the kitchen.