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Provider: University of Victoria
Database: The Map of Early Modern London
Content: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
TY - ELEC
A1 - Watson, Jacqueline
A1 - Takeda, Joey
ED - Jenstad, Janelle
T1 - Ram Alley
T2 - The Map of Early Modern London
ET - 6.6
PY - 2021
DA - 2021/06/30
CY - Victoria
PB - University of Victoria
LA - English
UR - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/RAMA1.htm
UR - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/xml/standalone/RAMA1.xml
ER -
There’s Meat and Money Too: Rich Widows and Allegories of Wealth in Jacobean City Comedy
Fleet Street runs east-west from Temple Bar to Fleet Hill or Ludgate Hill, and is named for the Fleet River. The road has existed since at least the
Fetter Lane ran north-south between
Holborn Street and Fleet Street, in the ward of Farringdon Without, past the east side of the
church of Saint Dunstan’s in the West. Fewtars Lane
, Fewter Lane
, or Fewters Lane
(Stow 2:21, 2:22), and claimed that it was so called of Fewters (or
idle people) lying there
(Stow 2:39).
Inner Temple was one of the four Inns of Court
According to Walter George Bell, Hare House was a property in Ram Alley left by upon trust for 1,000 years, that every Sunday thirteen pennyworth of bread should be given to thirteen poor people of the parish after service in St. Dunstan’s church
(Bell 296).
This page points to the district known as Whitefriars. For the theatre, see Whitefriars Theatre.
The city of London, not to be confused with the allegorical character (
Edward H. Sugden describes the Maidenhead in Ram Alley as the worst of all dens of infamy in that notorious court
(Sugden 328).
One of the lesser known halls or private playhouses of Renaissance London, the Whitefriars, was home to two different boy playing companies, each of which operated under several different names. Whitefriars produced many famous boy actors, some of whom later went on to greater fame in adult companies. At the Whitefriars playhouse in 1607–1608, the Children of the King’s Revels catered to a homogenous audience with a particular taste for homoerotic puns and situations, which resulted in a small but significant body of plays that are markedly different from those written for the amphitheatres and even for other hall playhouses.
The four principal constituents of the Inns of Court were:
Fuller’s Rents (also known as Fulwood’s Rents) was a gated court north of Holborn, opposite Chancery Lane (Strype). It was not established until the
Middle Temple was one of the four Inns of Court
Ram Alley, now known as Hare Place, was a small alley that ran north-south off of Fleet Street, opposite Fetter Lane. Once a conventual sanctury
, Ram Alley developed into a chartered abode of libertinism and roguery
(Beresford 46).
The Julian calendar, in use in the British Empire until September 1752. This calendar is used for dates where the date of the beginning of the year is ambigious.
The Julian calendar with the calendar year regularized to beginning on 1 January.
The Julian calendar with the calendar year beginning on 25 March. This was the calendar used in the British Empire until September 1752.
The Gregorian calendar, used in the British Empire from September 1752. Sometimes
referred to as
The Anno Mundi (year of the world
) calendar is based on the supposed date of the
creation of the world, which is calculated from Biblical sources. At least two different
creation dates are in common use. See Anno Mundi (Wikipedia).
Regnal dates are given as the number of years into the reign of a particular monarch.
Our practice is to tag such dates with
Programmer, 2018-present. Junior Programmer, 2015-2017. Research Assistant, 2014-2017. Joey Takeda was a graduate student at the University of British Columbia in the Department of English (Science and Technology research stream). He completed his BA honours in English (with a minor in Women’s Studies) at the University of Victoria in 2016. His primary research interests included diasporic and indigenous Canadian and American literature, critical theory, cultural studies, and the digital humanities.
Data Manager, 2015-2016. Research Assistant, 2013-2015. Tye completed his undergraduate honours degree in English at the University of Victoria in 2015.
Director of Pedagogy and Outreach, 2015–present. Associate Project Director, 2015–present. Assistant Project Director, 2013-2014. MoEML Research Fellow, 2013. Kim McLean-Fiander comes to
Janelle Jenstad is Associate Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director of
Jackie Watson completed her PhD at Birkbeck College, London, in 2015, with a thesis looking at the life of the Jacobean courtier, Sir Thomas Overbury, and examining the representations of courtiership on stage between 1599 and 1613. She is co-editor of
Programmer at the University of Victoria Humanities Computing and Media Centre (HCMC). Martin ported the MOL project from its original PHP incarnation to a pure eXist database implementation in the fall of 2011. Since then, he has been lead programmer on the project and has also been responsible for maintaining the project schemas. He was a co-applicant on MoEML’s 2012 SSHRC Insight Grant.
Dramatic character in
Playwright and pirate.
Playwright.
Playwright, printer, and pamphleteer.
Playwright.
King of England and Ireland
Poet and playwright.
Dramatic character in
Dramatic character in
Playwright and poet.
Playwright. Buried at St. Saviour (Southwark).
Playwright and writer.
Historian and author of
Dramatic caracter in
Dramatic character in
Brewery owner. Purchased the Star and Ram Inn from
Poet and playwright.
Resident of Ram Alley charged with harbouring foreigners.
French foreigner. Resided in the residence of
Dramatic character in
Writer and bookseller.
Nickname given to an unidentified sexual predator. Frequented the alleys around Fleet Street in
Resident of Ram Alley. Described in a
Possible resident of Ram Alley. Described in a
Shopkeeper in Ram Alley. Charged with selling tabacco
and alcohol throughout the night without a license. Not to be confused with
Shopkeeper in Ram Alley. Charged with selling tabacco and alcohol throughout the night without a license.
Dramatic character in
Dramatic character in
Dramatic character in
Well-known exhibitor of puppet shows. Alluded to in
Resident of Ram Alley. Alluded to in
The
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Ram Alley, a mere seven feet wide, ran southwards from Fleet Street, opposite Fetter Lane. Its end point was a footway between two legal institutions: the Inner Temple and Serjeants Inn. Edward H. Sugden also mentions that the street was well known as the rear exit from another inn, the Mitre, which fronted onto Fleet Street.
The alley was named after an inn, marked by the sign of the Star and Ram, which had originally belonged to the
An unlabelled alley in the correct location as Ram Alley appears on the Agas map. The alley is marked on both the Ogilby and Morgan map of
Ram Alley was a place of sanctuary for criminals. Those seeking to evade capture would run into Ram Alley, which, like the Whitefriars nearby, still claimed right of sanctuary: that is, the immunity from arrest. A there is a door leading out of Ram Alley to the tenement called the
(Kent 494). The freedom was requested under common law by several of the London the resort of sharpers and necessitous persons of very ill fame, and of both sexes
(Nares 719). Even in [i]t was a place of evil reputation, inhabited chiefly by cooks, bawds, tobacco-sellers, and ale-house keepers
and adds that [t]he worst of its dens was the Maidenhead, near the Temple end of it
(Sugden 426). Walter George Bell calls it Ram Alley of evil association, perhaps the most pestilent court in London
(Bell 252). Perhaps this unsavoury reputation is why it is not mentioned by
Parish records show a fear that the alley should become a refuge of the poor, with residents taking in unwelcome lodgers—particularly foreigners—into their midst. One such incident is noted in the wardmote inquests of St. Dunstan from Item, we present
(
The eponymous setting of a comic play, Ram Alley’s famous inns were invoked by And though Ramme ſtinks with Cookes and ale, / Yet ſay thers many a worthy lawyers chamber, / Buts vpon Rame-alley
(Barry sig. C1v). Later, he makes reference to the predatory sexuality for which the area was also known, demanding,
geographical and social specificity
(Hanson 233), but, in his essay on the relationship between the audience and actors in the play, Jeremy Lopez nuances this point, arguing that the play seems to be about being in Ram Alley, but it’s really about its spectators knowing that they’re not
(Lopez 202). He suggests that the play portrays the area and uses its stereotypical attributes to appeal to those playgoers who lived in the city but outside the area of the Whitefriars itself.
The alley is referred to by several other contemporary writers, who also focus on its key associations. The alley’s reputation as a place to flee the forces of the law is again shown in I need no more inſconſing now in Ram-alley, nor the Sanctuary of White-fryers, the Forts of Fullers-rents, and Milford-lane, whoſe walls are dayly batter’d wth the curſes of bawling creditors
(Brome sig. C8r), giving a list of places where men could evade pursuit. In Ille but ſtep up / Into Ram-Alley-Sanctuary, to Debtor, / That praies and watches there for a Protection
(Brome,
The Rabelaisian account of the area in a Sanctuary to all perſons whatſoever
(Head sig. A2v). It was
, he tells his reader in a prefatory epistle, an account of an imaginary journey pen’d laſt long Vacation, when all I had to do, was to hide my ſelf from the Inquiſition of my cruel Creditors; for which purpoſe I lodg’d in Ram-alley
(Head sig. A2r).
Writing the satirical
The association of the alley with food and drink is demonstrated by mine old hoſt of Ram-Alley
(Jonson 2D2v). In [t]he knaue thinkes ſtill hee’s at the cookes ſhop in Ramme-alley, / Where the Clarkes diuide and the Elder is to chooſe
(Massinger sig. E2v). but let the fiſh-wiues take heede, for if moſt of them proue not ſcoldes
(Nashe sig. B4v). Sugden suggests the fishwives may have harangued the cooks of Ram Alley because they illicitly sold flesh on Fridays or in Lent.
The provision of food is connected with the area’s predatory sexuality, which had been referred to so casually in the Woman that cries hot Gray Peaſe about the Streets, coming up Ram Alley in Fleete-ſtreet
(cold hand
, she loſt all power of Reſiſtance
, and along with it her peas, which she had afterwards to ſcrape up her Ware as well as ſhe could, for the uſe of ſuch longing Ladies as are affected with ſuch Diet
(
As well as food and drink, the area was also known for another popular vice in the early modern capital, the smoking of tobacco—the supplying or indulgence of which habit was often found unacceptable by the members of the legal profession whose property abutted the alley. The St. Dunstan’s wardmote register of Item, we present
(
laid complaint against(Timothy Louse andJohn Barker , of Ram Alley,for keeping their tobacco shoppes open all night and fyers in the same without any chimney and suffering hot waters [spirits] and selling also without licence, to the great disquietness and annoyance of that neighbourhood
Finally, in Maſter of the Motion
or puppet-master, you ſhall likewiſe ſee the amorous conceits and Love ſongs betwixt
(Day sig. G1v-G2r). Sugden notes that
The modern day Hare Place remains an alleyway cutting through to the Inner Temple from Fleet Street, and appropriately emerging next to a wine merchant.