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Provider: University of Victoria
Database: The Map of Early Modern London
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TY - ELEC
A1 - Smith, Joul
A1 - Rothwell, Molly
ED - Jenstad, Janelle
T1 - St. Mary Overie Stairs
T2 - The Map of Early Modern London
ET - 7.0
PY - 2022
DA - 2022/05/05
CY - Victoria
PB - University of Victoria
LA - English
UR - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/7.0/STMA10.htm
UR - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/7.0/xml/standalone/STMA10.xml
ER -
Located directly to the west of St. Saviour (Southwark) on the southern bank of the Thames, Winchester House, also known as Winchester Palace, was the London residence for the Bishops of Winchester from the twelfth century until
St. Saviour (Southwark) dates back at least
to S. Mary Owber
.
As the only bridge in London crossing the Thames until
The city of London, not to be confused with the allegorical character (
St. Mary Overie Stairs and its adjoining dock functioned as a large wharfe and landing place
on the southern bank of Thames, which provided river access to Winchester House and the Priory of St. Mary Overies (Stow 1598, sig. Y7v). While the stairs were commonly known as either Winchester Stairs or St. Mary Overie Stairs, they were sometimes referred to as St. Saviour Stairs after the Dissolution of the Monasteries (Rendle 203; Cave 225). This location is visible on the Agas map, though it is not labelled.
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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.
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.
Amy Tigner is a MoEML Pedagogical Partner. She is Associate Professor of English at the
University of Texas, Arlington, and the
Editor-in-Chief of Early
Modern Studies Journal. She is the author of
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St. Mary Overie Stairs and its adjoining dock functioned as a large wharfe and landing place
on the southern bank of Thames, which provided river access to Winchester House and the Priory of St. Mary Overies (Stow 1598, sig. Y7v). While the stairs were commonly known as either Winchester Stairs or St. Mary Overie Stairs, they were sometimes referred to as St. Saviour Stairs after the Dissolution of the Monasteries (Rendle 203; Cave 225). Howard and Godfrey note that in
St. Mary Overie Priory likely derives its provocative name from the necessary activity of crossing over the Thames in order to reach it. But the stairs more aptly evince that meaning since they would be the main point of accessing their religious namesake after crossing the river. Either way, the emphasis on crossing over to this location was very likely due to the constant traffic into the south bank in Southwark where these stairs were built. This location ironically abetted immoral permissiveness because it fell out of the jurisdiction of the City of London and into the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Winchester, whose manor, Winchester Palace, stood adjacent to St. Mary Overie Stairs. The Diocese would have collected rents and fees from the many brothels and gaming houses in that district (Livingstone and Cross,
Though these stairs do not carry any significant literary references, a plaque near the present location of the stairs, tells of the legend of St. Mary Overie, which challenges the Legend suggests that before the construction of London Bridge in the tenth century a ferry existed here. Ferrying passengers across the River Thames was a lucrative trade. The ferryman’s distressed daughter This became the priory of Saint Mary Overie, crossing over
designation:
traverse ferrie over the Thames
, made such a good living that he was able to acquire a considerable estate on the south bank of the river.thinking to kill the Devil at the first blow, actually struck out his brains
.
Aside from the rumor and legend linked to these stairs, some extant tradesman coins, which were small private tokens used for paying watermen at locations specified on the coin, hint at the popularity or necessity of these stairs for river navigation and access to Southwark. Guild regulations often dictated that no whyrrye take for his fare from
numerous nearby locations to Sayncte Marye Oueryes stayres
(Watermen’s Company 2), hence the trade tokens were used to either circumvent or maintain that restriction.Obverse inscription:
) and R.NN19814 (Reverse inscription: In / Southwarke / His. halfe / Penny / I.S.S. [in cursive script with triad of initials in Roman capitals below, in field]
).