England was a rural society. The great majority of the people still made their livings by working the soil. Their attitudes and ambitions were to some extent limited by their narrow view of the world. Most never got any further from where they were born than they could walk in a couple of days. London, the only real city in England, was like a magnet attracting people from the farms and villages. They came seeking fame and fortune, much as Shakespeare did, and they quickly developed the city dweller's contempt for the country bumpkin, or as he was called in Shakespeare's time, a "coney" or rabbit.

But the basic values and beliefs of the country still remained in the sophisticated Londoners. So we get spirits and fairies and witches and ghosts in the plays, like A Midsummer Night's Dream and Richard III and Macbeth because people raised in the country were more likely to believe such phenomena.

Another division in the society was between the literate and the illiterate. To those who could not read, literacy was power. In church or in the law court the written word controlled their lives. Beyond simply reading and writing was knowledge of Latin, which defined the intellectual elite in society. We see this tension between the literate and illiterate handled comically in plays like Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado about Nothing.

Despite what appear to us to be the limitations of Elizabethan society, it was actually a time of growth and prosperity for many. Those who acquired wealth through trade or manufacture were becoming the new leisure class, as shown here. They could afford to play cards and be waited upon by servants. Their diet, as we can tell by the variety and quantity of food on the table, was becoming much more substantial. And it was to this group, in particular, that Shakespeare aimed his plays. It was a natural decision since Shakespeare came from this class. Merry Wives of Windsor explores in detail the lives of the middle class people as we see in the picture.