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,
Born digital.
Described by Weinreb as redolent of squalor and vice
(Weinreb 39), London’s Bankside district in Southwark was known for its taverns, brothels and playhouses in the early modern period. However, in approximately
Most MoEML documents, or significant fragments with 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
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 _subcategories
, meaning all subcategories of the category.
The molgls (MoEML gloss) prefix used on
This molvariant prefix is used on
This molajax prefix is used on
The molstow prefix is used on
The molshows prefix is used on
The sb prefix is used on
Our editorial and encoding practices are documented in detail in the Praxis section of our website.
The Bankside district of the Southwark borough of Greater London is situated on the south bank of the Thames River between Blackfriars and London Bridge. Described as one of England’s oldest settlements, the district’s earliest distinction was as a strategic military base. However, by the early modern period, Bankside lost its relevance as a military site and instead gained notoriety for its theatres, brothels, and other types of entertainment enjoyed by both the common and nobility classes (Brandon and Brooke).
Bankside’s military value prior to the sixteenth century is attributed to its strategic location across the Thames River from what was to become the city of London. In approximately
By the sixteenth century, Southwark, and in particular the area of Bankside, was known for entertainments rather than for battlements. These entertainments included bear-baiting [and] brothels
(Mills). In his
send for a whole coach or two of Bankside Ladies, and wee will be Ioviall !(Randolph 47). The area’s bawdy reputation made it fertile ground for the growth of public theatres which
stood cheek-by-jowlwith the brothels (Weis 129).
Perhaps the most famous Bankside theatre is the Globe, built in and vpon Saint Peters day
(Stow sig. 2M3v). The Globe was then rebuilt with the same groundplan, and hence the same size and shape, as the first
(Egan 1). River taxis transported theatregoers from the north side of the river to Bankside theatres, which could hold up to 10,000 guests (Weis 252). Remains of both the Rose and the Globe theatres were excavated in 1989, and both theatres were reconstructed in the 1990s (Egan 2). They continue to host performances today.
In addition to the patrons from across the Thames, Southwark citizens, including at least one prisoner, also enjoyed the Bankside theatres. The Clink, a Bankside prison built on to the western side of the palace of the Bishop of Winchester
in the twelfth century, was known to have lax security. Weis says [t]here is even a record of one Catholic priest, Father
(Weis 236). The Clink housed prisoners until 1780 when it was burned to the ground by rioters on the day Lord George Gordon presented a petition to repeal the Catholic Relief Act in London (Haydon).
Bankside is mentioned in a variety of genres of early modern English literature. In
[t]he ancient moderne history of(Jonson sig. L1r). InHero , andLeander , otherwise calledThe Touchstone of true Loue , with as true a tryall of friendship, betweeneDamon , andPithias , two faithfull friends o’the Bankside?
ALl that the Prologue comes for, is to say, / Our Author did not calculate this Play / For this Meridian; the Banckside, he knows, / Are far more skilfull at the Ebbes and flows / Of water, than of wit, he did not mean / For the elevation of your poles, this scene(Shirley sig. A3r).
I with my two men and a brace of boyes were embarqued with a Scullers boate first from London, and within halfe a quarter of an houre after, I past from my house neare the Beares Colledge on the Banckside, I tooke leave of some friends, and had a flagge advanced as a token of my publike departure; but some enemies gave out that I was Runne away, who I doe know (since my returne,) to be a crew of malicious Vermin
In the
A Fare on the Bankside when the play-houses haue two penny tenants dwelling in them(Dekker). These are a few of many references to Bankside in both fiction and non-fiction texts of the early modern period.
Bankside’s historical identity as a center of entertainment continues to the present day, and it is known now for visual arts as well as stage plays. In 2000, the Tate Gallery of Modern Art, England’s first national museum dedicated solely to modern art
, opened in a refurbished, decommissioned Bankside power station near the reconstructed Globe Theatre (Vaizey 53). Though Vaizey described the museum as an ambiguous symbol for a millennial Britain about to embrace the future
, she says Bankside may be London’s new Left Bank (on the right)
(Vaizey 53).