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TY - ELEC
A1 - Drouillard, Tara
ED - Jenstad, Janelle
T1 - The Prison System
T2 - The Map of Early Modern London
PY - 2020
DA - 2020/06/26
CY - Victoria
PB - University of Victoria
LA - English
UR - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/PRIS1.htm
UR - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/xml/standalone/PRIS1.xml
ER -
RT Web Page
SR Electronic(1)
A1 Drouillard, Tara
A6 Jenstad, Janelle
T1 The Prison System
T2 The Map of Early Modern London
WP 2020
FD 2020/06/26
RD 2020/06/26
PP Victoria
PB University of Victoria
LA English
OL English
LK https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/PRIS1.htm
The city of London, not to be confused with the allegorical character (
Located in Farringdon Within Ward, Ludgate was a gate built by the Romans (Carlin and Belcher 80). for his owne honor
(Stow 1: 1).
Bridewell, once palace, then prison, was an intriguing site in the early modern period. It changed hands several times before falling into the possession of the BrideWell
.
One of the five prisons in Southwark.
Founded by the Royal Foundation of St. Katherine, St. Katherine’s by the Tower was both a hopsital and a church. Its surrounding land became the precinct of St. Katherine’s by the Tower, which, according to Weinreb, was a precinct independent of Aldgate Ward (Weinreb 720, 778).
This article provides an overview of the prison system in early modern London, paying particular attention to how early modern playwrights such as
The Julian calendar, in use in the British Empire until September 1752. This calendar is used for dates where the date of the beginning of the year is ambigious.
The Julian calendar with the calendar year regularized to beginning on 1 January.
The Julian calendar with the calendar year beginning on 25 March. This was the calendar used in the British Empire until September 1752.
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referred to as
The Anno Mundi (year of the world
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creation dates are in common use. See Anno Mundi (Wikipedia).
Regnal dates are given as the number of years into the reign of a particular monarch.
Our practice is to tag such dates with
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.
Data Manager, 2015-2016. Research Assistant, 2013-2015. Tye completed his undergraduate honours degree in English at the University of Victoria in 2015.
Research Assistant, 2000–2002. Hypertext student and Shakespeare student at the University of Windsor in Winter 2000. Tara Drouillard received her MA in English from Queen’s University in 2003 and now works in Communications.
Research Assistant, 2012-2014. Nathan Phillips completed his MA at the University of Victoria specializing in medieval and early modern studies in April 2014. His research focused on seventeenth-century non-dramatic literature, intellectual history, and the intersection of religion and politics. Additionally, Nathan was interested in textual studies, early-Tudor drama, and the editorial questions one can ask of all sixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts in the twisted mire of 400 years of editorial practice. Nathan is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of English at Brown University.
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Playwright, poet, and author.
Dramatic character in
King of England
Dramatic character in
Queen of England and Ireland
Dramatic character in
Thief.
King of England
Dramatic character in
King of Scotland
Dramatic character in
Poet. Author of
Playwright and writer.
Dramatic character in
Dramatic character in
Playwright and poet.
Poet.
Dramatic character in
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In London and within a mile, I weene, There are of Iayles or Prisons full eighteene, And sixty Whipping-posts, and Stocks and Cages, Where sin with shame and sorrow hath due wages.
In his pamphlet until they were either
brought to trial or released
(Salgado 176). Newgate was the
only prison where the most notorious of criminals were sent to be held
before execution.
In Elizabethan times, people were arrested for many different reasons,
such as vagrancy, petty theft,
. It
was easy for a person to swear out a warrant against someone and have
him or her arrested, as long as one had the money to pay for it (Salgado 164). Constables, like
the incompetent
the least they could expect was to be burned through the gristle of the ear, branded or whipped till their backs ran blood(21). After they were punished, those who were arrested were sent to the appropriate prison (i.e., religious offenders to the Clink, both religious and maritime offenders to the Marshalsea, debtors to the King’s Bench or the Counters) (Dobb 89–90).
Each of the prisons in London had different levels of accommodation for
its prisoners. Which section of the prison that the prisoner ended up in
depended not on the offence with which he was charged, but on how much
money the prisoner was willing or able to give to various people in the
prison administration, such as gaolers, keepers, tipstaffs, and others
(Salgado 168). Dobb notes
that, officially, keepers were to charge fees only for the prisoners’
committal, discharge, and exemption from fetters (94). However, prisoners had to pay more
money if they wanted their own cell, meat and claret at every meal, and
tobacco (169). Prisoners lived
comfortably in this manner as long as they were able to pay for it. When
they could no longer afford to live at this level of the prison, they
had to move to one of the lesser but relatively comfortable areas, and
finally to the worst area of the prison, once they could no longer
afford to live in moderate comfort. Although each of the prisons had a
lowest level, at the Counters this section
was known as the Hole, where the poor prisoners were cramped together
into a small space and often died of starvation and cold (170), or from the lack of
exercise and poor sanitation (Dobb
98). The little food that was available at the common Gaol at
Newgate and the Hole at the Counters was provided by charities and
gifts from the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs, and the City companies (98).
There was no set limit for how long a person stayed in prison. Thus the
length of a prison sentence varied from prisoner to prisoner. Debtors
were not able to leave prison until they settled with their creditor(s)
(Dobb 92). Some of those
who were to be executed were able to avoid their punishment by becoming
hangmen, like
The practice of pressing, also known as
Prisoners who remained mute when asked to plead were warned three times of the punishment they would receive and given several hours to consider before they were pressed (Parry 98). The prisoner would receive the Judgement of Penance:
That you go back to the prison whence you came, to a low dungeon into which no light can enter: that you be laid on your back on the bare floor, with a cloth round your loins, but elsewhere naked; that there be set upon your body a weight of iron as great as you can bear and greater; that you have no sustenance save on the first day three morsels of the coarsest bread, on the second day three draughts of stagnant water from the pool nearest to the prison door, on the third day again three morsels of bread as before, and such bread and such water alternately from day to day till you die.
The procedure of pressing was sometimes varied so that the prisoners would have their arms and legs tied to four corners of the room where they were being pressed. Parry cites an example of a man who withstood the pressure of four hundred pounds for two hours before pleading not guilty, as well as that of another man who withstood the pressure of five hundred pounds for half an hour before agreeing to submit a plea (101, 102).
Pressure was obviously considered to be a normal practice in
Oh, I am pressed to death /Through want of speaking!(3.4.71–72), and in
Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging(5.1.533–34). These are just two examples of how
The practice of pressing, with the purpose of eliciting a plea from
prisoners, continued until the eighteenth century, when it was replaced
with the more humane practice of tying the thumbs together and twisting
the cord (Parry 102). Pressure
was officially abolished by George III, and it
was later enacted under George IV that any
prisoner standing mute would be considered to be pleading not guilty
(103).
Although
2.1.255–69ESCALUS Come hither to me, master
Elbow ; come hither, Master Constable. How long have you been in this place of constable?ELBOW Seven year and a half, sir.
ESCALUS I thought, by the readiness in the office, you had continued in it some time. You say, seven years together
ELBOW And a half, sir.
ESCALUS Alas, it hath been great pains to you. They do you wrong to put you so oft upon’t. Are there not men in your ward sufficient to serve it?
ELBOW Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters. As they are chosen, they are glad to choose me for them. I do it for some piece of money and go through with all.
Through this dialogue,
Through
I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house of profession. One would think it were4.3.1–11Mistress Overdone ’s own house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here’s young Master Rash; he’s in for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger, nine-score and seventeen pounds, of which he made five marks, ready moneyThen is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of Master Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a beggar.
In