R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Find out what it means to thee

"Reputation, reputation, reputation! O,
I have lost my reputation! I have lost
the immortal part of myself, and what
remains is bestial!"
               
                                                Othello      (II, iii)

Shakespeare's Michael Cassio, heretofore Othello's chief lieutenant, is horrified. He's allowed the devious Iago to talk him into getting drunk, into brandishing his sword in a raucous quarrel and getting demoted by the stern general. The schemer Iago is not only evil but enigmatically so: his mere suspicion of being cuckolded by Othello and his belief that he deserved a military rank that went instead to Cassio leaves him seething, ready to do bitter business indeed. Even Machiavelli might have found his behavior to be somewhat over the top.

In Shakespeare's world, more so than in our own, reputation was everything, or almost everything. If a man was known to have sworn an oath and then broken that oath, he was destined for Hell, at least in the eyes of the God-fearing faithful. Having lost the trust of others, he'd find life more difficult in an age when England had no standing army or police force and his friends, if he had any, might be the only thing standing between him and a sudden, violent demise.

Essentially, the subject matter of the stained glass pictured above is reputation. The glass is in a window at Agecroft Hall, and shows details of the coat of arms of the Dauntesey family, who came into possession of the Agecroft manor in Lancashire through the marriage of William Dauntesey and Ann Langley in about 1569, when Shakespeare was a child. In a lower portion of the window, a Latin inscription translates into English as "Virtue Alone Conquers."

Just how virtuous or conquering the Daunteseys actually were remains uncertain.

The College of Heralds in London granted these symbols of reputation, these coats of arms, to families that had illustrious histories of service to king and country, and to families that had preposterous claims to such ancestry and service but did produce copious amounts of  money to "legitimize" those claims. On those occasions, hitherto unknown "noble" ancestors could be found coming out of the woodwork, if the price was right.

Shakespeare himself managed to secure a coat of arms for his family in 1596, after he'd found great success as a playwright in London. His father in earlier years had made an effort to acquire such a mark of distinction on the basis of his role as one of Stratford's leading citizens, but his fortunes had taken a turn for the worse and the effort had come to nothing. It isn't difficult to imagine that when Shakespeare the son finally secured a coat of arms for his family, he must have felt that his father's honor had been justifiably reestablished.

Agecroft's Dauntesey stained glass is remarkable in that it and the other glass that was shipped across the Atlantic when Agecroft Hall came from Lancashire to Richmond in the mid-1920s arrived here without a single piece being broken. Don't bet on that happening too often these days.