Hola, all.
Taking a day off (well, the entire weekend actually) to attend the Southern California Writers Conference, so not much today save for this:
Shakespeare has been none to throw in an anachronism or two in his plays (a clock in Julius Caesar, for example), and we have one here in King John, as well. When Eleanor and Constance are raging against one another before Angiers, King John tries to quiet them, crying, “Bedlam, have done” (II.i.183). He calls the women lunatics, as if they deserve imprisonment in the famed asylum of St. Mary of Bethlehem (Bedlam)…
Only one problem, the site didn’t open as a priory until 1247, and didn’t start treating the mentally ill until 1330. And this scene takes place in 1200.