The Elephant
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The Elephant
The Elephant was located in the ward of Southwark, south of the Thames and west of the London Bridge. It was part of a row of twelve licensed brothels or stewhouses along Bankside that reopened after Henry VII closed them
for a seasonin 1506 (Stow). It is not located on the Agas map.
The Elephant is alternatively known as The Olyphaunt, The Oliphant, The Olyphante, and The Olyphant. Although The Elephant’s exact location is unknown within the row of Bankside stews, E.J. Burford looks to the Token Books for the parish of 1598 to suggest that it was located in between The Hart (a brothel)
and The Horseshoe (an inn), and next to Elephant Alley (Burford 150-151). Much later in his 1720 additions to Stow’s Survey, John Strype describes Elephant Alley as
a narrow dirty Passage into Maiden Lane , having only a Brewhouse in it(Strype). Brothels, inns, and brewhouses were often conflated in Early Modern London, due to the presence of disreputable people engaging in illicit activities, so it is possible that the brewhouse to which Strype refers in his Survey is indeed The Elephant, serving as a brothel, inn, brewhouse, or any combination of the three.1
John Stow’s Survey of London makes no specific mention of The Elephant or any of its name variants, instead listing
the Boares heade, the Crosse keyes, the Gunne, the Castle, the Crane, the Cardinals Hat, the Bel, the Swanne &c.(Stow). It is possible that The Elephant was contained in the
&cthat Stow uses to refer to the unnamed brothels numbering as many as twelve.
Shakespeare mentions a lodging house called
The Elephantin Twelfth Night in a conversation between Antonio and Sebastian:
In the south suburbs at the Elephant, / Is best to lodge(TLN 1508-1509). Twelfth Night is set in Illyria rather than London, but Shakespeare could be using a local establishment to generate a world that would be somewhat familiar to his audience watching the performance in the playhouses of Southwark. Although the lodging house in the Twelfth Night is not described as a brothel, Yu Jin Ko proposes that The Elephant in Illyria is similar to the Bankside brothel in more than just name. Ko comments on the
arch insinuation in Antonio’s remark(Ko 71) when he gives Sebastian his purse should his
eye light upon some toy(3.4.48). Given that references to prostitution often used the language of commodities, it is possible that the toy to which Antonio refers is a prostitute.
Notes
- For more information see
Prostitution and Brothels in Early Modern London.
(EPA)↑
References
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Citation
Burford, Ephraim John. Bawds and Lodgings: A History of the London Bankside Brothels, c. 100-1675. London: Owen, 1976.This item is cited in the following documents:
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Citation
Ingram, William, and Alan H. Nelson, eds. The Token Books of St. Sabiour Southwark. London Metropolitan Archives. Open.This item is cited in the following documents:
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Citation
Ko, Yu Jin. Mutability and Division on Shakespeare’s Stage. Newark: U of Delaware Press, 2004.This item is cited in the following documents:
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Citation
Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night. Ed. David Carnegie and Mark Houlahan. Internet Shakespeare Editions. Open.This item is cited in the following documents:
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Citation
Stow, John. A Survey of London. Reprinted from the Text of 1603. Ed. Charles Lethbridge Kingsford. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1908. [Also available as a reprint from Elibron Classics (2001). Articles written before 2011 cite from the print edition by volume and page number.]This item is cited in the following documents:
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Citation
Strype, John. A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster: Containing the Original, Antiquity, Increase, Modern Estate, and Government of those Cities. London, 1720. Reprint. as An Electronic Edition of John Strype’s A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster. Ed. Julia Merritt (Stuart London Project). Version 1.0. Sheffield: hriOnline, 2007. Web.This item is cited in the following documents:
