class

Last week, the University of Kent’s Middling Culture Project released a fun Social Status Calculator for determining (as the name suggests) the social status of 16th and 17th century English people. Although The Taming of the Shrew is nominally set in Italy, it’s safe to say that when considering issues of class and marriage, Shakespeare is almost always really writing about England. So let’s quiz Petruchio on his social status.

they procured her to be rescued by the way as she went thither

And the time appointed, she changed herself into man’s Apparel, which she had in her said Master’s house, being about two of the clock after Midnight, and came away, and so came to Paul’s Wharf