imate of number of 439
love-sonnets issued
between 1591 and 1597
II. Sonnets to patrons, 440
1591-1597
III. Sonnets on philosophy 440
and religion
X--BIBLIOGRAPHICAL
NOTE ON THE SONNET IN
FRANCE, 1550-1600
Ronsard (1524-1585) 442
and 'La Pleiade'
The Italian 442_n_.
sonnetteers of the
sixteenth century
Philippe Desportes 443
(1546-1606)
Chief collections of 444
French sonnets
published between
1550 and 1584
Minor collections of 444
French sonnets
published between
1553 and 1605
INDEX 447

I--PARENTAGE AND BIRTH

Distribution of the name.

Shakespeare came of a family whose surname was borne through the middle
ages by residents in very many parts of England--at Penrith in
Cumberland, at Kirkland and Doncaster in Yorkshire, as well as in nearly
all the midland counties. The surname had originally a martial
significance, implying capacity in the wielding of the spear. {1a} Its
first recorded holder is John Shakespeare, who in 1279 was living at
'Freyndon,' perhaps Frittenden, Kent. {1b} The great mediaeval guild of
St. Anne at Knowle, whose members included the leading inhabitants of
Warwickshire, was joined by many Shakespeares in the fifteenth century.
{1c} In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the surname is found far
more frequently in Warwickshire than elsewhere. The archives of no less
than twenty-four towns and villages there contain notices of Shakespeare
families in the sixteenth century, and as many as thirty-four
Warwickshire towns or villages were inhabited by Shakespeare families in
the seventeenth century. Among them all William was a common Christian
name. At Rowington, twelve miles to the north of Stratford, and in the
same hundred of Barlichway, one of the most prolific Shakespeare families
of Warwickshire resided in the sixteenth century, and no