Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language.

This is Episode 152, as the saying goes.

In this episode, we're going to explore two developments that took place in the first

half of the 1500s in England.

The first is the collection of popular sayings and words of advice by several notable

writers during this period.

Most of those sayings and proverbs had been around for centuries, but around this time

they started to be assembled into extensive collections to illustrate the wit and wisdom

of the ages.

The other development concerned a new type of dramatic performance.

For centuries, English drama had been confined to religious and morality plays, but during

the early 1500s a new type of drama emerged that was both secular and humorous.

Both of these developments had one thing in common, and that common element was a poet

named John Haywood.

He was both a playwright who contributed to the development of English comedy and a

proverb collector who assembled the first great collection of English sayings and proverbs.

So in this episode we'll look at both of those developments, and we'll also look at the

final years of the reign of Henry VIII.

But before we begin, let me remind you that the website for the podcast is HistoryofEnglishPodcast.com

and you can sign up to support the podcast and get bonus episodes at patreon.com slash

HistoryofEnglish.

Now last time we looked at sickness and disease in Tudor, England, and in that episode

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