What were the religious beliefs at the time of shakespeare?

Answer 1

In Shakespeare's time it was complusory to visit church, and that meant the Protestant Church of England, or you paid a fine or even went to jail. Some people held very strong religious beliefs, both those that leasned toward the Catholics and those that favoured a more radical Protestantism, the Puritans. The government and the clergy tried to keep a middle line between these extremes. Evidence suggests that Shakespeare may have had Catholic sympathies, as his parents had them, but his behaviour was strictly orthodox during his lifetime, as he was baptised, married and buried in the Church in Stratford according to the Established Church.

Answer 2

It depends, of course, upon what part of the world you are discussing. In the England of Shakespeare's time, everyone by law had to belong to the Church of England, but a large number were secret Roman Catholics and a significant number also belonged to "nonconformist sects", more rabidly Protestant than the official church. These included the "Pilgrim fathers" who emigrated to America on the Mayflower only four years after Shakespeare's death.

Needless to say, large portions of Europe were Roman Catholic (France, Spain, Italy, Southern Germany), Lutheran (Northern Germany and Scandinavia) and Greek Orthodox (Russia and the Ukraine), as well as Muslim (The Ottoman Empire).

Answer 3

In Shakespeare's England you could only legally belong to one religion: the Anglican Church. He did. Whether he had other private views, we don't know, because he kept them private.