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The Cardinal’s Hat was located south of the Thames and west of the London Bridge in the ward of Southwark. It was part of a row of twelve licensed brothels or stewhouses along Bankside that were permitted by
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The Cardinal’s Hat was located south of the Thames and west of the London Bridge in the ward of Southwark. It was part of a row of twelve licensed brothels or stewhouses along Bankside that were permitted by considering that the dissolute and miserable persons who have been suffered to dwell beside London and elsewhere in places called the Stewes
(proclaimed by sound of Trumpet, no more to be priuiledged, and vsed as a common Bordell,
they continued to operate beyond
Although the Cardinal’s Hat is not located on the Agas Map, Martha Carlin maps out Bankside circa based in part
on Plate 59 of
There is yet on the Bankside an alley called(Toone 80). Indeed, the address No. 49 Bankside looking out over the Thames is considered the precise location of the former brothel (Cardinal Cap Alley, from the sign of one of the brothels beingThe Cardinal’s Cap
old Elizabethan structure ofthe house was1579 remains,
rebuilt in whole or in part inaccording to a1710 ,
These allowed Stew-houses had signes on their fronts, towards the Thames, not hanged out, but painted on the wals as Boares head, the Crosse keyes, the Gunne, the Castle, the Crane, the Cardinals Hat, the Bell, the Swanne, &c.(Stow 1598, sig. Y6v). In addition to the Southwark brothel, though, several other places of business, such as inns and taverns, also operated under the name
an inn called the Cardinal’s Hat in Southwark, not in the Stews but in the High Street, across from the Cross Keys Inn. It was later called the Pope’s Head, and then, by(Kelly 357). Thus, documents mentioning a place called the1542 , the King’s Head
The Cardinal’s Hat is said to have had a continuous existence since sporadic openings and closings
over the centuries (Kelly 369). Nor is it clear that the establishment by this name was always a brothel. Early mentions of the Cardinal’s Hat describe it as simply a tenement
(stew
(Kelly 355). Although ponds maintained by fishmongers
(Kelly 351). The earliest recorded usage of the word rolls of
(Kelly 353). No references to stews before this date can confidently be translated as brothels.
A Cardinal’s Hat was in voyd ground
by gap in history
before the Cardinal’s Hat appears again in a lease to
What new what news But at [he] naked stewes I vnder stande how that The syne of the Cardynall hat That Inne is now shyt vp With gup whore gup/now gup
The economic history of Bankside is fluid and often unclear. Properties changed hands frequently
from erected in what had been gardens,
which led to the creation of alleys mostly running from Bankside through to Maiden Lane
(Burford 148-149). It is thus possible that during this time, Cardinal’s Cap (or Hat) Alley came into existence. Following
once with business associates and another time with the vestrymen of St. Savior’s parish(
Even though the its history is at times unclear, there are frequent allusions to prostitution associated with the Cardinal’s Hat in early modern literature. Beyond
Have you not seen a Bathol’mew Baby(
prostitute sight(
They talk’t of his having a Cardinalls Hat, / They’d send him as soon an Old Nuns Twat(
Stand back thou manifest conspirator. Thou that contrived’st to murder our dead lord, Thou that giv’st whores indulgences to sin, I’ll canvas thee in thy broad cardinal’s hat If thou proceed in this thy insolence
Winchester goose(Shakespeare 421), which is yet another term used to describe prostitutes, since the
Despite the uncertainty surrounding it, the many allusions to the Cardinal’s Hat as a brothel suggest that, even if it was not continually in business as a brothel over the centuries, it made enough of an impression on contemporary writers that it permeates their works as a known cultural reference.