General Notes

As with his parents, little specific information is available about Thomas Strode or his family. It appears he married about 1512 in Shepton Mallet and fathered at least two sons. But the name of his wife remains a mystery as does the date when both expired. At the time he was born about 1493, England was beginning to pick itself up after almost a century and a half of periodic war. Out of this dark period, however, the Renaissance finally came to England. Because of the extended period of wars, disease and natural disasters, it developed considerably later in England than continental Europe. This virtual explosion of art, science, invention, exploration and commerce had begun in Italy during the 1300's and spread to other European countries during the next two hundred years. Primary in England's early creative emergence were authors, beginning with Geoffrey Chaucer and followed over the next century by Sir Thomas More, William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon and John Milton. Other noted writers and a number of famous English painters would come more than two centuries later. More mundane matters of everyday living began to change as well. An example was the law passed in the early 1500's to stimulate greater use of linen cloth by enforcing the growth of flax, the requirement begin one rood of flax for every sixty acres of land. Preparation of flax into fine, soft cloth was a time-consuming and laborious task for the women of the house. The stems were placed in shallow water to rot (called retting), after which they were beaten until the fiber inside was cleared; after this, the flax was combed with the hetchel into long silky strands. These strands shone with a smooth luster, giving rise to the description of a blond maiden as "the girl with the flaxen hair." After spinning and weaving, the resulting linen was bleached with wood ash, urine or lime and made into shirts, smocks and sheets -- items that only the upper classes had enjoyed previously. (Taken from: A Family History, by Donovan Faust)