When Shakespeare wrote Othello, he set his Moorish general against the “general enemy Ottoman.” Elsewhere in his plays, he invoked “Turks,” “Saracens,” and “infidels”—terms that reveal just how present the Islamic world was in the English imagination. From Elizabeth I’s diplomatic exchanges with Persia to the cultural impact of the Ottoman Empire, the Islamic world loomed large in the politics, religion, and drama of Shakespeare’s England.

This week, we’re joined by Dr. Chloe Houston (University of Reading), a leading authority on Persia in early modern drama, and Dr. Mark Hutchings (University of Valladolid), whose research explores England’s engagement with Islam on the Renaissance stage. Together, they unpack how Elizabethans understood the Ottomans, Persians, and North Africans, and how those encounters shaped both history and Shakespeare’s works.

Discover how global trade, diplomacy, stereotypes, and real-life ambassadors influenced depictions of Moors, Persians, and “Turks” onstage, and why Shakespeare’s audiences would have found these references powerful, familiar, and sometimes unsettling.

Listen now and explore the fascinating world of Elizabethan encounters with Islam in Shakespeare’s plays.

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When Falstaff cries, “Let the sky rain potatoes” in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare’s audience heard more than a vegetable—they heard novelty, superstition, and even scandal. In Elizabethan and Jacobean England, the potato was still a strange newcomer from the Americas, rumored to be an aphrodisiac, a medicine, and an oddity of the garden.

This week, historian and food scholar Rebecca Earle (University of Warwick), author of Feeding the People, joins us to explore the early history of potatoes in England. Together we trace how this humble tuber arrived on English soil, why it carried bawdy associations in Shakespeare’s plays, and what it meant for early modern diets, folklore, and global trade.

From Sir Walter Raleigh myths to potato pies at aristocratic tables, discover how Shakespeare’s world first encountered the vegetable that would one day feed nations.

Listen now and dig into the surprising story of potatoes in Shakespeare’s lifetime.

Show notes and extras: www.cassidycash.com/ep388

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For Shakespeare and his contemporaries, the line between history and myth was often delightfully blurred. Legends of King Arthur and the fabled Holy Grail captured the imaginations of 16th-century England, weaving their way into royal propaganda, courtly entertainments, and even the education of young scholars. Elizabeth I herself was likened to the Grail Maiden, and stories of sacred relics mingled with Renaissance curiosity and Protestant skepticism.

While Shakespeare doesn’t mention the Grail directly in his plays, the ideas and imagery surrounding it would have been well known to his audiences. In a world shifting from medieval tradition to early modern innovation, what did the Holy Grail mean in Shakespeare’s England?

To help us explore this fascinating blend of myth, politics, and early modern belief, we’re joined today by historian and author Sean Munger.

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