Copyright held by
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Further details of licences are available from our
Licences page. For more
information, contact the project director,
Originally built as a Roman fortification for the provincial city of Londinium in the second century C.E., the London Wall remained a material and spatial boundary for the city throughout the early modern period. Described by high and great
(Stow 1:8), the London Wall dominated the cityscape and spatial imaginations of Londoners for centuries. Increasingly, the eighteen-foot high wall created a pressurized constraint on the growing city; the various gates functioned as relief valves where development spilled out to occupy spaces "outside the wall".
Farringdon Without Ward is west of Farringdon Within Ward and Aldersgate Ward and is located outside the Wall. This ward is called "Without" or "Extra" because the ward is located without
Newgate and Ludgate and to differentiate it from Farringdon Within Ward. Farringdon Without Ward and its counterpart within the Wall are both named after
The city of London, not to be confused with the allegorical character (
The Fleet, known as "Fleet River", "Fleet Ditch", "Fleet Dike", and the "River of Wells" due to the numerous wells along its banks, was London’s largest subterranean river (Stow 1598, sig. C4r). It flowed down from Hampstead and Kenwood ponds in the north, bisecting the Ward of Farringdon Without, as it wended southward into the Thames (Weinreb, Hibbert, Keay, and Keay 298).
Aldersgate was one of London’s four original gates (Stow 1598, sig. C7r), labelled Alders gate
on the Agas map. The gate was likely built into the Wall of London during the Roman Conquest, marking the northern entrance into the city.
Located between Horsepool and the Fleet River, the Elms, as Le elmes
or le two elmys
. By
Bow Lane ran north-south between Cheapside Street and Old Fish Street in the ward of Cordwainer Street. At Watling Street, it became Cordwainer Street, and at Old Fish Street it became Garlick Hill. Garlick Hill-Bow Lane was built in the 890s to provide access from the port of Queenhithe to the great market of Cheapside Street (Sheppard 70–71).
Holborn ran east-west from the junction of Hosier Lane, Cock Lane and Snow Hill to St. Giles High Street, and passed through Farringdon Without Ward and Westminster.
Cow Lane, located in the Ward of Farringdon Without, began at Holborn Street, and then curved north and east to West Smithfield. Smithfield was a meat market, so the street likely got its name because cows were led through it to market (Bebbington 100). Just as Ironmonger Lane and Milk Street in Cheapside Market were named for the goods located there, these streets leading into Smithfield meat market were named for the animals that could be bought there.
Also known as Smithfield Pond.
Tyburn is best known as the location of the principal gallows where public executions were carried out from the late twelfth century until the eighteenth (Drouillard, Wikipedia). It was a village to the west of the city, near the present-day location of Marble Arch (beyond the boundary of the Agas Map). Its name derives from a stream, and its significance to In the yeare
Westminster Hall is the only surviving part of the original Palace of Westminster
(Weinreb and Hibbert 1011) and is located on the west side of the Thames. It is located on the bottom left-hand corner of the Agas map, and is labelled as Weſtmynſter hall
. Originally built as an extension to
As the only bridge in London crossing the Thames until
A priory of Augustinian canons once encompassing St. Bartholomew the Great, St. Bartholomew the Less, and St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Dissolved by
St. Paul’s Cathedral was—and remains—an important church in London. In
For information about the Hope, a modern map marking the site where the it once stood, and a walking tour that will take you to the site, visit the
Whitehall Palace, the Palace of Whitehall or simply Whitehall, was one of the most complex and sizeable locations in the entirety of early modern Europe. As the primary place of residence for monarchs from [i]t lay on the left bank of the Thames, and extended from nearly the point where Westminster Bdge. now crosses the river to Scotland Yard, and from the river back to St. James’s Park
(Sugden 564-565).
PLACEHOLDER LOCATION ITEM. The purpose of this item is to allow encoders to link to a location item when they cannot add a new location file for some reason. MoEML may still be seeking information regarding this entry. If you have information to contribute, please contact the MoEML team.
Pudding Lane is most famously known as the
starting point of the Great Fire of 1666. Pudding Lane ran south from Little Eastcheap down to Thames Street, with New Fish Street
(Newfyshe Streat) framing it on the west and
Botolph Lane on the east. The only
intersecting street on Pudding Lane is St. George’s Lane, and the nearby parishes include
St. Margaret (New Fish Street), St.
Magnus, St. Botolph (Billingsgate), St. George (Botolph Lane), and St.
Leonard (Eastcheap). On Ekwall’s map it is labeled as Rother (Pudding) Lane
after
Smithfield was an open, grassy area located outside the Wall. Because of its location close to the city centre, Smithfield was used as a site for markets, tournaments, and public executions. From
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 New Style (NS). Years run from January 1 through December 31.
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 @calendar="regnal", and provide an equivalent date using a more systematic calendar (usually Julian) in a custom dating attribute.
Most MoEML documents, or significant fragments with @xml:id attributes, can
be addressed using the mol: prefix and accessed through the web application
with their id + .xml.
The molagas prefix points to the shape representation of a location on MoEML’s OpenLayers3-based rendering of the Agas Map.
Links to page-images in the Chadwyck-Healey
Links to page-images in the
The mdt (MoEML Document Type) prefix used on <catRef>/@target points to a central taxonomy in the includes file.
The mdtlist (MoEML Document Type listing) prefix used in linking attributes points to a listings page constructed from a category in the central MDT taxonomy in the includes file. There are two variants, one with the plain @xml:id of the category, meaning all documents in the specified category, and one with the suffix _subcategories
, meaning all subcategories of the category.
The molgls (MoEML gloss) prefix used on <term>/@corresp points to a a glossary entry in the GLOSS1.xml file.
This molvariant prefix is used on <ref>/@target attributes during automated generation of gazetteer index files. It points to an element in the generated variant spellings listing file which lists all documents which contain a particular spelling variant for a location.
This molajax prefix is used on <ref>/@target attributes during the static build process, to specify links which point to MoEML resources which should not be loaded into the source page during standalone processing; instead, these should be turned into links to the XML source documents, and at HTML page load time, these should be turned into AJAX calls. This is to handle the scenario in which a page such as an A-Z index of the whole site would end up containing virtually the whole site inside itself.
The molstow prefix is used on @facs attributes to link to the HCMC verison of the Stow facsimiles. Usually the first group is the year (1633) and then last is the image number (0001).
The molshows prefix is used on @facs attributes to link to the copies of page-images from mayoral shows stored in the london account on the HCMC server. The first group is the year (1633), the second is the source repository, and then last is the image file name.
The sb prefix is used on <ref>/@target attributes to link to Stow’s Books URLs at UToronto.
Our editorial and encoding practices are documented in detail in the Praxis section of our website.
Smithfield is located in Faringdon Without Ward, which was the farthest ward westward of London, right outside the city walls. Initially the large open pasture, from which the locality receives its name, stretched to the eastern bank of the River Fleet. One of the main streets that ran through Smithfield to Aldersgate was Long Lane. According to from long lane ende to the Bars is inclosed with Innes, Brewhouses, and large tenements
(Stow 1598, sig. X4r). From the Elms, Smithfield extended from Bow Lane to Holborn to Cow Lane, ending where Cock Lane met Pie Corner (Stow 1598, sig. U8v).
Smithfield is believed to be a corruption of the name "Smethefeld", originally "Smethefelda", meaning "smooth or level field" from the Old English
The availability of land for grazing, and its close proximity to both the Turnmill Brook segment of the River Fleet
The horse market at Smithfield subsequently became the informal hub of the livestock trade. This concentration of livestock in turn attracted both cloth merchants and butchers. In an smooth field where every Friday there is a celebrated rendezvous of fine horses to be sold, and in another quarter are placed vendible of the peasant, swine with their deep flanks, and cows and oxen of immense bulk
(
Throughout the Middle Ages, monarchs frequently used the great open spaces of Smithfield for tournaments (Richardson). During his great and royall Iusts were then holden in Smithfield
which were attended by the kings of France and Scotland (Stow 1633, sig. 2O1r). In
In the
In addition, the Smithfield greens were also used to settle disputes between gentlemen via duel or ordeal by battle (Thornbury). Often the men battled to the point where one could kill the other. When such an occasion arose, the king would then stop the fight and forgive them both (Stow 1633, sig. 2O1v).
In
In addition to being ideal for grazing and tournaments, the open space in Smithfield also proved to be an ideal venue for the staging of public executions. Criminals and heretics were burned, boiled or hanged on Smithfield’s grounds before the gallows were moved to Tyburn during the
emasculated, eviscerated, beheaded, then divided into four parts (the four horrors)(Richardson).His head was placed on a pike atop London Bridge, which was later joined by the heads of his brother, John , andSir Simon Fraser . His limbs were displayed, separately, in Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling, and Perth
Near the
Despite its notoriously bloody character, the Smithfield area is also bound up with a rich religious tradition. The priory of St. Bartholomew the Great was established in Smithfield in
As a public gathering space, Bartholomew Fair was subject to closure during plague time. In
Three direct references to Smithfield appear in the works of
Falstaff : Where’sBardolph ?Page: He’s gone into Smithfield, to buy your worship a horse. Falstaff : I bought him in Pauls, and he’ll buy me a horse in Smithfield. An I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.
A man must not make choice of 3. things in 3. places. Of a wife in Westminster. Of a servant in Paules. Of a horse in Smithfield. Least he choose a queane, a knave, or a jade. The other two references appear in
The witch in Smithfield shall be burnt to ashes(Shakespeare 2.3.7). This detail comes directly from one of
My lord, there’s an army gathered together in Smithfield(Shakespeare 4.6.11-12). In the next scene, 4.7, which takes places in Smithfield,
Perhaps the best know literary treatment of Smithfield appears is in
lament[s] his misfortune at the hands of cutpurses(Chalfant).
if ever any Bartholomew had that luck(Jonson 4.2.67-68). Chalfant suggests thatthat I have had, I’ll be martyr’d for him and in Smithfield, too
martyr’d at Smithfieldis a reference to Smithfield’s long history of heretical executions.
The Great Fire of
Project Manager, 2022-present. Research Assistant, 2020-2022. Molly Rothwell was an undergraduate student at the University of Victoria, with a double major in English and History. During her time at MoEML, Molly primarily worked on encoding and transcribing the 1598 and 1633 editions of Stow’s
Project Manager, 2020-2021. Assistant Project Manager, 2019-2020. Research Assistant, 2018-2020. Kate LeBere completed her BA (Hons.) in History and English at the University of Victoria in 2020. She published papers in
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, 2015–2020. Associate Project Director, 2015. 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
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.
Anita Gilman Sherman is a MoEML Pedagogical Partner. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Literature at American University. She is the author of
Student contributor enrolled in
Author.
Rebel leader.
King of England
Queen of England and Ireland
Dramatic character in
Biographer and clerk.
Lawyer and historian. Not to be confused with
Dramatic character in
Dramatic character in
Dramatic character in
King of England and Ireland
King of England
King of England
King of England
King of England
Poet and playwright.
Queen of England and Ireland
Dramatic character in
King of England
Playwright and poet.
Historian and author of
Sheriff of London
Leader of the Peasants’ Revolt in
Lord Chancellor of England
Writer and Protestant martyr.
Apostle of
Founder of St. Bartholomew’s Priory. Buried at St. Bartholomew’s Priory.
Scotish knight and patriot. Key figure in the Wars of Scotish Independance. Brother of
Brother of
Author.
Scotish knight and patriot. Key figure in the Wars of Scotish Independance.
Author.
Bishop of Salisbury