# Compter

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A **compter**, sometimes referred to as a **counter**, was a type of small [English](/source/England) [prison](/source/Prison) controlled by a sheriff.[1] The inmates were usually civil prisoners, for example [dissenters](/source/Dissenter) and debtors. Examples of compters include [London](/source/London)'s [Wood Street Compter](/source/Wood_Street_Compter), [Poultry Compter](/source/Poultry_Compter), [Giltspur Street Compter](/source/Giltspur_Street_Compter) and [Borough Compter](/source/Borough_Compter) and the lock-up over the [Abbey Gateway](/source/Abbey_Gateway,_Reading), next to St Laurence's church, in [Reading, Berkshire](/source/Reading,_Berkshire) (this was the Compter Gate and the lock-up was known as the Compter).

*[The Compter's Commonwealth](/source/The_Compter's_Commonwealth)* (1617), by [William Fennor](/source/William_Fennor), was a work written from the author's experience of imprisonment at London's [Wood Street Compter](/source/Wood_Street_Compter),[2] and is regarded by many historians as one of the principal primary sources for assessment of English 16th-century prison conditions.[citation needed]

## References

1. Phillip Shaw (1947). The Position of Thomas Dekker in Jacobean Prison Literature. *[PMLA](/source/Publications_of_the_Modern_Language_Association_of_America)* 62 (2): 366–391 JSTOR [459268](https://www.jstor.org/stable/459268)

1. [The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume IV. Prose and Poetry: Sir Thomas North to Michael Drayton. XVI. London and the Development of Popular Literature. § 23. Discoverie of the Knights of the Poste.](http://www.bartleby.com/214/1623.html)

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