What major disaster happened during Shakespeare's time?

Answer 1

What closed the theatres during Shakespeare's time, was The Bubonic Plague. But it is wrong to call it a "disaster" because that suggests that it was an event which happened once. Plague was a disease which had been troubling Europe for two hundred years by the time Shakespeare came along. There would be an outbreak in one town or city which would last a few months and then reoccur later. There was one outbreak at the time of Shakespeare's birth in Stratford, and a later one took the life of his younger sister Anne. When there was a plague outbreak in London the authorities closed the theatres to try to control the spread of the disease. This happened several times when Shakespeare was in the business. Usually the playing companies responded by going on tour in towns outside of London, but this was never as profitable as playing the London theatres. The plague closure of 1593-4 went on so long that it bankrupted a number of playing companies.

Answer 2

One answer is the plague. By Shakespeare's day, outbreaks of plague had been regularly recurring every few years for almost 300 years. Each successive recurrence was less virulent than the previous one. The first outbreaks, in the 14th century (which are the ones usually meant when people use the phrase "Black Death") killed one-third of the population in places, caused the collapse of the economic system and, sometimes, of local infrastructure. In the three years 1347-1350 almost a million people died of plague in England. It was a major disaster then but that was 200 plus years before Shakespeare was born, and by Shakespeare's time, although still a major cause of death, it was not considered any cause for panic. It was the AIDS of its time. If I asked you what major disaster happened in 2001 would you say AIDS? Thought not.

For disasters that occured exclusively in Shakespeare's time and were not spread out over 400 years, Mt. Kelut on the island of Java erupted in 1586, killing 10,000. Two million people died in a famine in Russia between 1601 and 1603. In England, the greatest single disaster of the time was the Bristol flood of 1607, which caused the deaths of 3000 or more people.

Answer 3

What nation are we talking about here? The French suffered a national tragedy in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre when Shakespeare was 8. The Spanish suffered a national tragedy in the defeat of the Armada in 1588 when Shakespeare was 24. In Russia, Ivan the Terrible massacred the inhabitants of Novgorod when Shakespeare was 6 and they had a famine when he was 39 that killed 30% of the population.

Comparatively speaking, England suffered no national tragedies during Shakespeare's lifetime.

Answer 4

The only two major disasters during Shakespeare's time were outbreaks of the plague. The first occurred in the years 1592-94 and the second in 1613.

Answer 5

As the word suggests, one popular theory for the reason for disasters was Astrology. The stars (Latin: astra) were wrong, and so bad things happened. The word "disaster" comes from dis+astra.

Answer 6

plagues