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Date: 1571-2

Made in: London

Made by: Unknown

Material: Silver

Size: Cup H:127mm, W:72mm Paten H:32mm, W:76mm Ìý

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For Elizabethans, the communion cup was central to the Protestant religious service. Every parishioner was obliged to sip from it: a new communal experience, and one that everybody had to join in.

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This silver communion cup is from Holy Trinity Church in Stratford upon Avon. It was brought to Stratford when Shakespeare was a boy as part of a nationwide campaign to tell England that Catholicism was out – and the Protestant reformation under Elizabeth was back and here to stay.

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An object like this takes us closer to Shakespeare's daily life – he may even have drunk from it – and helps us imagine what life was like when private belief and practice was inseparable from national politics.

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This object is from the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford upon Avon

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'Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine./Here's to thy health!/Give him the cup.'

Hamlet, Act 5 Scene 2 Ìý Ìý

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'It is the poisoned cup. It is too late.'

Hamlet, Act 5 Scene 2

• Shakespeare could conceivably have taken communion from this cupÌý
• Shakespeare seems never to have left Stratford, in the sense that his family and main home remained there (he lived in relatively inexpensive lodgings in London)Ìý
• His wealth came from his position as actor and sharer in the company, not as a playwrightÌýÌý
• Shakespeare's two daughters were married in Holy Trinity Church. His son, Hamnet, was buried in the churchyardÌý
• Shakespeare is buried in front of the altar alongside his wife, Anne Hathaway

How does a highly religious society cope when almost every aspect of its religious practice is changed? Melvyn Bragg investigates the effect of the Reformation on ordinary people.

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Re-examining the myth that the lives of Puritans were uneventful, Dr Justin Champion investigates their ambitions for social reform and the dream of 'Godly cities'.

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Will explores the monarch's relationship with the church through the centuries, seeing how hard successive rulers have worked to make sure religion stayed on their side.

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James Naughtie visits Hampton Court to tell the story of how and why King James commissioned a translation of the Bible that has become our "national epic".

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Neil MacGregor is exploring the co-existence of faiths around 400 years ago. Today - a woodblock print marking a hundred years of the Protestant reformation.

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