John Shakespeare's Midden Heap: Stratford Court Leet, view of frankpledge taken at Stratford-upon-Avon

In April 1552 John Shakespeare was one of three Stratford residents fined for allowing a sterquinium, or muck-heap, to accumulate in Henley Street, presumably outside their front doors. This is the first recorded mention of John Shakespeare. It occurs about nine lines from the bottom of the document:

Item [iuratores] presentant super sacramentum suum quod Humfridus Reynoldes Adrianus Quyney & Johannes Shakyspere fecerunt sterquinarium in vico vocato Hendley Strete contra ordinationem Curie. Ideo ipsi in m misericordia vt patet.

Translation from Latin: Item (the jurors) present upon their oath that Humphrey Reynolds, Adrian Quyney, and John Shakyspere made a midden heap in a place called Henley Street against the ordinance of the court. Therefore they [are fined] as it appears.

Above each name appears the fine of xijd, or 12d.

Noxious refuse was often associated with butchers and tanners. While the professions of the two other men accused, Humphrey Reynolds and Adrian Quyney, are unknown, later documents reveal that John Shakespeare was both a glover  and a whittawer  (a curer of white leather). Glovers presumably dealt with clean, cured skins, but whittawers were tanners, who were notorious for polluting water and land, thus causing great stinks. Perhaps John Shakespeare had thrown scrapings from his skins outside his front door rather than carrying them to the designated “mucke hill” at the end of the street. Virtually all residents of Stratford incurred occasional fines for similar offenses. John Shakespeare incurred relatively few fines over the years, and no later fine for keeping a sterquinium.

Subsequent documents reveal that John Shakespeare resided in Henley Street to the end of his life. Whether he occupied the residence now known as The Birthplace as early as 1552 is unknown.