Distaff Lane Author Janelle Jenstad Author Melanie Chernyk Encoder Melanie Chernyk Copy Editor Joey Takeda Programmer Stewart Arneil Data Manager Tye Landels Junior Programmer Joey Takeda Programmer Martin Holmes Associate Project Director Kim McLean-Fiander Project Director Janelle Jenstad The Map of Early Modern Londonhttp://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/includes.xmlVictoria, BC, Canada
Department of English P.O.Box 3070 STNC CSC University of Victoria Victoria, BC Canada V8W 3W1
2016University of Victoria978-1-55058-519-3 Janelle Jenstad london@uvic.ca

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Born digital.

Distaff Lane was in Bread Street Ward. It is not to be confused with Great Distaff Street, the street which crossed the northernmost end of Distaff Lane. There is some discrepancy in the exact length of Distaff Lane between the Agas Map and the information in Survey of London. On the Agas Map, Distaff Lane (labelled Diſtaf la.) appears to run south off Great Distaff Street, labelled Maidenhed lane, terminating before it reaches Knightrider Street. Stow tells us, in his delineation of the bounds of Bread Street Ward, that Distaff Lane runneth downe to Knightriders street, or olde Fishstreete (Stow 1:345). Our map truncates Distaff Lane before Knightrider Street.

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 Removed old geo coordinates now superceded by GeoJSON. Changed the text of the content/abstract slightly to account for the two, distinct locations being referred to as "distaff lane" Added sourceDesc information for born-digital documents. Standardized respStmts for JENS1, MCFI1, and HOLM3 and added TAKE1 as Junior Programmer. Added XInclude for listPrefixDef in the header. Added abstract element and proper respStmts. Added global publicationStmt through XInclude. Eliminated superfluous catRef elements from the header. Added catRef elements based on the place/type values in the document. Put change elements inside revisionDesc into the correct (latest first) order. Added profileDesc containing document type information expressed in catRef elements. Converted @rend to @style, through XSLT transformation. Added front element with docTitle as part of a normalization process. This will be used as the definitive page title on rendering. Various updates and fixes made through XSLT, to standardize and normalize encoding practices. Data in the old INDEX1.xml was merged into this file in the form of a facsimile element and a listPlace in the body of the text. Various markup errors were fixed, and markup was normalized to some degree, to make it valid against tei_all. Posted page. Distaff Lane
Distaff Lane Distaff Lane "geometry": {"type":"LineString","coordinates":[[-0.096536,51.512893],[-0.096717,51.512253]]}

Distaff Lane was in Bread Street Ward. It is not to be confused with Great Distaff Street, the street which crossed the northernmost end of Distaff Lane. There is some discrepancy in the exact length of Distaff Lane between the Agas Map and the information in Survey of London. On the Agas Map, Distaff Lane (labelled Diſtaf la.) appears to run south off Great Distaff Street, labelled Maidenhed lane, terminating before it reaches Knightrider Street. Stow tells us, in his delineation of the bounds of Bread Street Ward, that Distaff Lane runneth downe to Knightriders street, or olde Fishstreete (Stow 1:345). Our map truncates Distaff Lane before Knightrider Street.

Stow’s Survey also suggests some ambiguity about which street was properly known as Distaff Lane, using the same name for both Distaff Lane and Great Distaff Street, as can be seen here: In this Fryday streete on the west side thereof is a Lane, commonly called Mayden Lane, or Distaffe Lane, corruptly for Distar Lane, which runneth west into the old Exchange: and in this lane is also one other lane, on the south side thereof, likewise called Distar Lane (Stow 1:345). Slightly later in his description of Bread Street Ward, Stow reiterates and augments this information though, in this section, he is only referring to Great Distaff Street: On the west side of this Fryday Street, is Mayden lane, so named of such a signe, or Distaffe lane, for Distar lane, as I reade in record of a brewhouse, called the Lamb in Distar lane, the sixteenth of H. the sixt [1437 or 1438]. In this Distar lane, on the north side thereof, is the Cordwayners or Shoomakers hall (Stow 1.351). Kingsford’s note on this passage explains that Stow misread Distaflane as Distarlane. Kingsford also notes mentions of Distavlane in wills of 1260 and 1295. After 1301, the spelling was consistently Distaflane (Stow 2.356n.).

On the south side of Knightrider Street, opposite Distaff Lane, stood the church of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey. According to Stow, in 1396 or 1397 (20 Richard II), Thomas Barnard, Caſtle Clerke. Iohn Sonderaſh, Clerke, and Iohn Nouncy, gave to the Parſon and Church-wardens of the ſaid Church and their ſucceſſors, one Meſſuage and one Shop, with the appurtenances in Diſtaffe lane, and Old Fiſhſtreet, for the reparation of the body of the late Church, the Belfrey or Steeple, and Ornaments. (Stow 1633, sig. 2M1v).

See also: Chalfant 67.