Opened 20th June 2024

Middling Culture Exhibition

Launched 20th June 2024

The Shakespearean Memory Parlour

About the Exhibition

Welcome to the Middling Culture exhibition, where we highlight the lives of England's sixteenth and seventeenth century middle class. Through curated images and artifacts, we explore their daily realities—neither wealthy nor impoverished, but socially significant.

Our exhibition is organized into thematic sections, showcasing objects that define the middling class and its communities. These items illustrate their social mobility and distinct identity amidst broader society, revealing their role in shaping England's cultural landscape.

Popular Objects

Explore our collection showcasing treasured artifacts from England's middling class, offering insights into daily life, social mobility, and cultural identity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

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Barrel

Dry coopered barrel

Carved Overmantel

Overmantel

This is a portrait of Maud Teasdale (1545-1616) from Christ�s Hospital of Abingdon dated 1612. As widow to Thomas Tesdale, an extremely wealthy maltster who died in 1610, Maud continued his record of charitable investments. In his will Thomas gave �5000 for the education of Abingdon scholars at Oxford, along with a gift to fund an Usher at Abingdon School. Maud gave various gifts to the poor of Abingdon and invested in several local churches. In her will she gave a substantial sum (�4 6s 8d) to have a picture placed near to where the bread (as doles to the poor) would be set along with a depiction of 28 poor alms men and women kneeling and receiving 28 loaves, �giving God praise for their founder�.<br />
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It is not known whether such a picture was ever created; if it was, it may have resembled this portrait bequeathed at her death to the foundation supported by her husband. Another instruction in her will for a monument to the memory of Thomas was erected following her death. While the monument�s inscription states that it was erected �by her own command & charge upon her deathbed to propagate his memory rather than her own� it lists in detail Maud�s own �charitable devotion towards ye poor� in four local parishes. Many wealthy parishioners provided investments for bread to be dispensed to the poor every Sunday �for ever�. Such donations show the importance of food as alms for the poor in this period. Many churches would have had bread tables or shelves, demonstrating the practical means through which parish churches distributed food to the poor.

Portrait of Maud Tesdale

Oil on panel

Holinshed’s Chronicles

Printed book, two volumes

This cushion is linked to the so-called �Sheldon� tapestry workshop, supposed to have been established in a village in Warwickshire by a man called William Sheldon. In recent years, further research has shown the involvement of immigrant craftspeople in the production, design, and manufacture of the so-called �Sheldon� tapestries. Indeed, tapestry weaving was not an English skill in the early 1500s. A large number of immigrant weavers came to England in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, particularly from Flemish areas on the continent. Research suggests that a man called Richard Hyckes was central to the production of these tapestries and to the work of Sheldon and his manufacturing scheme. Hyckes, like many of his colleagues, came to England from the Netherlands, bringing his skill, talent, and experience. He is also connected to the Great Wardrobe in London, part of Elizabeth I�s household. She had inherited a large number of extremely valuable tapestries from her father, Henry VIII, for which Hyckes seems to have cared. <br />
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The ownership of cloths woven with intricate patterns like this one, especially those telling Biblical or classical stories, would have been a prized aesthetic domestic feature for middling and upper-middling individuals � it would have made a clear connection to the much larger pieces in the houses of the nobility and royalty. This cushion is part of a set depicting the story of Susanna and the Elders (in the Old Testament), and shows Susanna, on her way to execution, meeting Daniel, the boy who defended her by speaking up against the Elders� slander.�Owning sets of matching small domestic textiles is a key feature of upper-middling identity. This object and ones like it stand testament to the skill and labour that came from middling European immigration, and the way it shaped middling domestic life in England.

Tapestry cushion cover

Cushion cover

This building was an extension of 43 High Street, Reigate, put up in the 1620s when the property was in the tenancy of the Wyld family. The extension was taken down in the 1980s and was subsequently re-erected at the Weald & Downland Living Museum.<br />
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From the late 1500s to the late 1600s, England went through a period often referred to now as the �Great Rebuilding�. During this time, people invested more than ever in their homes. Many built completely new houses, while others chose to substantially alter existing buildings. Some of the most popular home improvements included extensions like this, as well as the addition of fireplaces, staircases and glass windows. People also spent more money on goods with which to furnish their homes. These home renovations not only improved people�s quality of life but were key assets for middling people like the Wyld family. The alteration of their existing home in Reigate was a major investment and would have displayed the success and status of the family to the local community.<br />
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Not only did the extension provide additional living space, but its high-quality decoration (some of which remains today) also suggests that it was intended for conspicuous display: to receive and entertain guests.

Reigate house extension

Domestic Building

Funeral monument to Thomas Greene, Chester Cathedral

Monument

This small ceramic jar would have been used to store medicine like ointments, salves, or powders. It could have belonged to a household, or to a professional apothecary. Surgeons and physicians tended to the sick, but apothecaries made and sold medication. Many people working in the medical professions were middling in status. Either educated at school or university (physicians) or through an apprenticeship (surgeons and physicians), a significant amount of learning and knowledge was required to treat the sick. To become an apothecary, you had to train for roughly seven years, as was the case for many trade and craft apprenticeships. This kind of learned skill, honed through books as well as practical engagement, was a feature of new professional middling identities. <br />
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Port towns like Bristol, with excellent trade links to the rest of the world for raw materials, boasted several apothecaries � for instance Richard Woodson of St Thomas parish in Bristol left �Instruments of silver and trimmed with silver� worth �3 18s 4d, with �all his other Instruments of all sorts� worth 50s and �all his books belonging to Chururgery� at 30s, when he died in 1623. In the same town in 1642, Richard Brace, �Gent and Practioner in the Art of Phisique� had a �still house� for distilling medicinal waters, and owned silver instruments, chests of glass bottles, boxes of cordials, chemical oils, chemical salts, other tools including lances, syringes and a pair of scissors, and �one Frame of Gallipotts� like the one above. In addition to 120 books in his study (�6), he also kept Gerrard�s Herball and �Romulinus his Anotomie� with his equipment, priced separately (30 and 8s respectively).<br />
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Many of the treatments prescribed to patients were natural remedies like herbs or animal products. This meant that households often had their own ointment jars filled with salves and balms to help against all manner of illnesses and injuries. Drug jars ranged in sizes and decoration depending on their use. Those owned by the professional apothecaries could be very elaborate indeed. Often imported from Italy, the most fashionable vessels were the brightly decorated majolica jars from Venice. Most people of middling status would have been familiar with these jars, either from their own supply of medicine, or through the medication provided by an apothecary.