Fetter Lane
Fetter Lane ran north-south between
Holborn and Fleet Streets, in the ward of Farringdon Without, past the east side of the
church of Saint Dunstan’s in the West. Stow consistently called this street
"Fewtars Lane," "Fewter Lane," or "Fewters Lane" (2:21, 2:22), and claimed that it was "so called of Fewters (or
idle people) lying there" (2:39). The
OED defines "faitour" as "[a]n impostor, cheat; esp. a vagrant who shams
illness or pretends to tell fortunes" (OED "faitour" 1.a), and notes that the word was obsolete by 1568, which may explain why Stow
needed to gloss the term.
Kingsford notes that Fetter Lane "is
probably the Viter Lane without Newgate which occurs in 1294 and 1299" (2:363).
See also: Chalfant 76.
References
- Chalfant, Fran C. Ben Jonson’s London: A Jacobean Placename Dictionary. Athens, GA: U of Georgia P, 1978. Print.
- Kingsford, Charles Lethbridge. Introduction and Notes.A Survey of London. Reprinted from the Text of 1603. By John Stow. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1908. Rpt. N.p.: Elibron Classics, 2001. Print.
- Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012. Web. Subscr. OED.
- Stow, John. A Survey of London. Reprinted from the Text of 1603. Ed. Charles Lethbridge Kingsford. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1908. Print. [Also available as a reprint from Elibron Classics (2001). Articles written before 2011 cite from the print edition by volume and page number.]
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