Gropecunt Lane

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Magpie Lane in Oxford, once known as Gropecunt Lane

Gropecunt Lane (pronounced /ˈgroʊpkʌnt leɪn/) was a street name found in English towns and cities during the Middle Ages, believed to be a reference to the prostitution centred on those areas; it was normal practice for a medieval street name to reflect the street's function, or the economic activity taking place within it. Gropecunt, the earliest known use of which is about 1230, appears to have been derived from a straightforward conjunction of the words "grope" and "cunt". Streets with that name were often in the busiest parts of medieval towns and cities, and at least one appears to have been an important thoroughfare.

Although the name was once common throughout England,^[1] changes in attitude resulted in it being replaced by more innocuous versions such as Grape Lane. Gropecunt was last recorded as a street name in 1561.

[edit] Toponymy

Variations include Gropecunte, Gropecountelane, Gropecontelane, Groppecountelane, and Gropekuntelane. There were once many such street names in England, but all have now been bowdlerised.^[2] In the City of York, for instance, Grapcunt Lane—grap or gráp is the Old English word for grope^[3]—was renamed as the more acceptable Grape Lane.

The first record of the word "grope" being used in the indecent sense of sexual touching appears in 1380;^[3] "cunt" has been used to describe the female external genital organs since at least 1230, and corresponds to the Old Norse kunta, although its etymology is uncertain.^[4]

[edit] Prostitution

A 1720 map of Breadstreet and Cordwainer wards included in a 19th-century edition of John Stow's Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster. The routes of three extinct streets are highlighted in blue, Puppekirtylane on the left, "Grope Countlane" in the middle, and Bordhawlane on the right. The location is opposite the modern-day Mercers' Hall.^[5] Little Friday Street (Pissing Alley) is visible on the left.

Under its entry for the word "cunt", the Oxford English Dictionary reports that a London street was listed as Gropecuntlane about 1230, the first appearance of that name.^[4] Organised prostitution was well-established in London by the middle of the 12th century, initially mainly confined to Southwark in the southeast, but later spreading to other areas such as Smithfield, Shoreditch, Clerkenwell and Westminster.^[6] The practice was often tolerated by the authorities, and there are many historical examples of it being dealt with by regulation rather than by censure; in 1393 the authorities in London allowed prostitutes to work only in Cocks Lane,^[7] and in 1285 French prostitutes in Montpellier were confined to a single street.^[8]

It was normal practice for medieval street names to reflect their function, or the economic activity taking place within them, hence the frequency of names such as Silver Street, Fish Street, and Swinegate (pork butchers) in cities with a medieval history. Prostitution may well have been a normal aspect of medieval urban life;^[8] street names such as Petticoat Lane offer testimony to the popularity of the trade,^[9] and in A survey of London (1598) John Stow describes Love Lane as "so called of Wantons".^[10] The more graphic Gropecunt Lane is possibly the most obvious allusion to sexual activity however.^[11]

[edit] Changing sensibilities

John Speed's 1605 map of Oxford, with Gropecunt Lane, by then Grope or Grape Lane, highlighted in blue.^[12] The major road it connects to is High Street, and north is at the bottom.

The Oxford English Dictionary lists the word "cunt" as "Applied to a person, esp. a woman, as a term of vulgar abuse",^[4] but during the Middle Ages the word was often considered merely vulgar, having been in common use in its anatomical sense since at least the 13th century. In The Miller's Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer writes "And prively he caughte hire by the queynte" (and intimately he caught her by her crotch),^[13] and Philotus (1603) mentions "put doun thy hand and graip hir cunt".^[14] Gradually though the word became used more as the obscenity it is generally considered to be today. In Wandring Whore II (1660) the word is applied to a woman, specifically a whore—"this is none of your pittiful Sneakesbyes and Raskalls that will offer a sturdy C— but eighteen pence or two shillings, and repent of the business afterwards".^[15][16] Francis Grose's A Classical Dictionary of The Vulgar Tongue (1785) lists the word as "C**t. The chonnos of the Greek, and the cunnus of the Latin dictionaries; a nasty name for a nasty thing: un con Miege."^[17] Grose's implied derivation from the Greek and Latin is probably incorrect; the word more likely derives from a common Mediterranean language now unknown, evidenced by the Ancient Egyptian qefen-t and ka-t, meaning vulva.^[18]

This change in meaning may be responsible for the disappearance of "Gropecunt". Although some medieval street names such as Addle Street (stinking urine, or other liquid filth; mire^[19]) and Fetter Lane (once Fewterer, meaning "idle and disorderly person") have survived, others have been changed in deference to contemporary attitudes. Sherborne Lane in London was in 1272–73 known as Shitteborwelane, later Shite-burn lane and Shite-buruelane (possible due to nearby cess pits).^[20][21] Pissing Alley, one of several identically named streets whose names survived the Great Fire of London,^[22] was in 1848 called Little Friday Street, before being absorbed into Cannon Street in 1853–1854.^[23] More recently, Rillington Place, where John Christie murdered his victims, was renamed Ruston Close.^[24] Selous Street in London was renamed as a mark of respect for Nelson Mandela, as the existing name could have been confused with the colonialist Frederick Selous, although the street was actually named after Henry Courtney Selous, the artist.^[20]

With the exception of Shrewsbury and possibly Newcastle, where a Grapecuntlane was mentioned in 1588, the use of Gropecunt as a street name seems to have fallen out of favour by the 14th century.^[25] A growing hostility to prostitution from the ruling Protestant conservative elite during the 16th century resulted in the closure of the Southwark stews in 1546, replacing earlier attempts at regulation.^[26]

[edit] Locations

London had several streets named Gropecunt Lane including one in the parishes of St. Pancras and St. Mary Colchirche, between Bordhawelane (bordello) and Puppekirty Lane (poke skirt)^[27][28] near present-day Cheapside. First recorded in 1279 as Gropecontelane and Groppecountelane,^[1][29] it was part of a collection of streets which appears to have survived as a small island of prostitution outside Southwark, where such activities were normally confined during the medieval period.^[27]

Grope Lane in Shrewsbury

The name was also used in other large medieval towns across England, including Bristol, York, Shrewsbury, Newcastle, Worcester, Hereford, and Oxford. Norwich's Gropekuntelane (now Opie Street) was recorded in Latin as turpis vicus, the shameful street.^[11] In 1230 Oxford's Magpie Lane was known as Gropecunt Lane, renamed Grope or Grape Lane in the 13th century, and then Magpie Lane in the mid-17th century. It was again renamed in 1850 as Grove Street, before once again assuming the name Magpie Lane in the 20th century.^[30] Newcastle and Worcester each had a Grope Lane close to their public quays.^[31] In their 2001 study of medieval prostitution, using the Historic Towns Atlas as a source, historian Richard Holt and archaeologist Nigel Baker of the University of Birmingham studied sexually suggestive street names around England. Their findings indicated a close association between Gropecunt Lanes and the town's principal market-place or high street. Such streets were almost always centrally located.^[5]

Gropecunt Lanes are also recorded in several smaller market towns such as Banbury, and Wells, where a street of that name existed in 1300, regularly mentioned in legal documents of the time.^[1][11][32] Parsons Street in Banbury was first recorded as Gropecunt Lane in 1333, and may have been an important thoroughfare,^[33] but by 1410 its name had been changed to Parsons Lane.^[34] Grape Lane in Whitby may once have been Grope Lane, or Grapcunt Lane.^[35] A street called Grope Countelane existed in Shrewsbury as recently as 1561, connecting the town's two principal marketplaces. At some date unrecorded the street was renamed Grope Lane, a name which it has since retained. In Thomas Phillips' History and Antiquities of Shrewsbury (1799) the author is explicit in his understanding of the origin of the name as "... [a place of] scandalous lewdness and venery", but Archdeacon Hugh Owen's Some account of the ancient and present state of Shrewsbury (1808) describes it as "called Grope, or the Dark Lane". As a result of these differing accounts, some local tour guides attribute the name to "feeling one's way along a dark and narrow thoroughfare".^[33]

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

• Shuts of Shrewsbury — photographs of Grope Lane in Shrewsbury