{{short description|Street name in England in the Middle Ages}} {{featured article}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2017}} {{EngvarB|date=June 2017}} [[File:Magpie lane.jpg|right|upright|thumb|200px|Magpie Lane in Oxford, once known as Gropecunt Lane]] '''Gropecunt Lane''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɡ|r|oʊ|p|k|ʌ|n|t|}}) 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 in about 1230, appears to have been derived as a compound 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, changes in attitude resulted in its replacement by more innocuous versions such as Grape Lane. A variation of Gropecunt was last recorded as a street name in 1561.
==Toponymy== thumb|left|Grope Lane, Bristol, 1542 Variations include Gropecunte, Gropecountelane, Gropecontelane, Groppecountelane and Gropekuntelane. There were once many such street names in England, but all have now been bowdlerised.{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|pp=202–203|ps=none}} In the city of York, for instance, Grapcunt Lane—{{Lang|ang|grāp}} is the Old English word for grope<ref name=OEDGrope>{{citation |title=grope |series=Oxford English Dictionary |url=http://dictionary.oed.com/ |publisher=Oxford University Press |edition=2nd |year=1989 |access-date=6 April 2009 }}</ref>—was renamed as Grape Lane.<ref>{{cite web|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|title=Snickelways-YorkWalk|url=http://mediafiles.thedms.co.uk/Publication/YK/cms/pdf/12-media-culture-Snickleways%202013.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201204044407/http://mediafiles.thedms.co.uk/Publication/YK/cms/pdf/12-media-culture-Snickleways%202013.pdf|archive-date=4 Dec 2020|website=VisitYork}}</ref> Bristol's 'Gropecount Lane', recorded by that form in the late fifteenth century<ref>[https://archive.org/details/bristol-record-society-51/page/26/mode/2up Frances Neale (ed.), ''William Worcestre: The Topography of Medieval Bristol'' (Bristol Record Society Publications, Vol. LI, Bristol, 2000), p. 26]</ref> had been contracted to Grope Lane by the 1540s, sometimes then being euphemised to 'Grape Lane'.<ref>[https://www.bgas.org.uk/tbgas_bg/v129/bg129155.pdf Richard Coates, ‘Some Local Place-Names in Medieval and Early-Modern Bristol’, ''Transactions of the Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society'', vol. 129 (2011), pp 162–163]</ref> The first record of the word ''grope'' being used in the sense of sexual touching appears in 1380; ''cunt'' has been used to describe the vulva since at least 1230, and has cognates in many Germanic languages, although its precise etymology is uncertain.<ref name=OEDCunt>{{citation |title=cunt |series=Oxford English Dictionary |url= http://dictionary.oed.com/ |publisher=Oxford University Press |edition=2nd |year=1989 |access-date=6 April 2009 }}</ref>
==Prostitution== [[File:Bread street ward and Cordwainer ward 1720 john stow with streets highlighted.jpg|right|thumb|A 1720 map of Bread Street 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.{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|p=206|ps=none}} Little Fryday Street [sic] (Pissing Alley) is visible on the left.]]{{See also|Prostitution in the United Kingdom#Medieval period}} Under its entry for the word ''cunt'', the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' reports that a street was listed as Gropecuntlane in about 1230, the first appearance of that name.<ref name=OEDCunt /> According to author Angus McIntyre, 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.{{sfnp|McIntyre|2006|pp=255–256|ps=none}} 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 Cokkes Lane{{efn|In passus 5 of ''Piers Plowman'' the writer mentions a "Clarice of Cokkeslane and the Clerk of the chirche".}} (now known as Cock Lane) and in 1285 French prostitutes in Montpellier were confined to a single street.{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|pp=204–205|ps=none}}
It was normal practice for medieval street names to reflect their function, or the economic activity taking place within them (especially the commodities available for sale), hence the frequency of names such as The Shambles, 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;{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|pp=204–205|ps=none}} in ''A survey of London'' (1598) John Stow describes Love Lane as "so called of Wantons".{{sfnp|Stow|1842|p=111|ps=none}} The more graphic Gropecunt Lane, however, is possibly the most obvious allusion to paid sexual activity,{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|pp=201–202|ps=none}} although Bristol's Hoorstrete (Whore's Street) also seems unambiguous.<ref>[https://www.bgas.org.uk/tbgas_bg/v129/bg129155.pdf Richard Coates, ‘Some Local Place-Names in Medieval and Early-Modern Bristol’, ''Transactions of the Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society'', vol. 129 (2011), pp 163–164]</ref> By contrast, Fucking Grove in Bristol lay in a secluded and rural part of the medieval town lands.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjm189 | doi=10.1093/notesj/gjm189 | title=Fockynggroue in Bristol | year=2007 | last1=Coates | first1=R. | journal=Notes and Queries | volume=54 | issue=4 | pages=373–376 }}</ref> Sexual activity there may thus have been more recreational than transactional.
==Changing sensibilities== The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines the word ''cunt'' as "The female external genital organs" and notes "Its currency is restricted in the manner of other taboo-words: see the small-type note s.v. FUCK v."<ref name=OEDCunt /> During the Middle Ages, the word may have often been 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 "{{Lang|enm|And prively he caughte hire by the queynte}}" (and intimately he caught her by her crotch),<ref>{{citation |title=The Miller's Prologue and Tale – 3276 |url=http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/milt-par.htm#TALE |publisher=courses.fas.harvard.edu |access-date=13 May 2009 |archive-date=30 June 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120630230503/http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/milt-par.htm#TALE |url-status=dead }}</ref> and the comedy ''Philotus'' (1603) mentions "put doun thy hand and graip hir cunt."{{sfnp|Williams|1994|p=350|ps=none}} Gradually, though, the word became used more as the obscenity it is generally considered to be today. In John Garfield's ''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".<ref>This publication regularly abbreviates cunt to C.</ref>{{sfnp|Williams|1994|p=353|ps=none}} Francis Grose's ''A Classical Dictionary of The Vulgar Tongue'' (1785) lists the word as "C**t. The ''{{Lang|el-latn|chonnos}}'' of the Greek, and the ''{{Lang|la|cunnus}}'' of the Latin dictionaries; a nasty name for a nasty thing: ''un con Miege''."<ref>{{citation |last=Grose |first=Francis |title=1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5402 |year=1788 |publisher=gutenberg.org |access-date=6 April 2009}}</ref>
[[File:John speed 1605 map oxford gropecunt.jpg|left|thumb|John Speed's 1605 map of Oxford, with Gropecunt Lane, by then Grope or Grape Lane, highlighted in blue.{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|p=209|ps=none}} The major road it connects to is High Street, and north is at the bottom.]]Although some medieval street names such as Addle Street (stinking urine, or other liquid filth; mire<ref>{{citation |title=addle, n. and a. |url=http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50002480? |series=Oxford English Dictionary |publisher=Oxford University Press |edition=2nd |year=1989 |access-date=6 April 2009}}</ref>) 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 (possibly due to nearby cesspits).<ref name="byanyothername">{{citation |title=A street by any other name... |url=https://www.theguardian.com/money/2004/apr/18/property.homebuying1 |last=Partridge |first=Chris |date=18 April 2004 |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=6 April 2009}}</ref>{{sfnp|Harben|1918|p=10|ps=none}} Pissing Alley, one of several identically named streets whose names survived the Great Fire of London,{{sfnp|Wall|1998|pp=124–125|ps=none}} was called Little Friday Street in 1848, before being absorbed into Cannon Street in 1853–54.{{sfnp|Harben|1918|p=211|ps=none}}
As the most ubiquitous and explicit example of such street names, with the exception of Shrewsbury and possibly Newcastle (where a Grapecuntlane was mentioned in 1588) the use of Gropecunt seems to have fallen out of favour by the 14th century.{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|pp=202. pp. 206–212|ps=none}} Its steady disappearance from the English vernacular may have been the result of a gradual cleaning-up of the name; Gropecuntelane in 13th-century Wells became Grope Lane, and then in the 19th century, Grove Lane.<ref name="Briggs">{{citation |last=Briggs |first=Keith |title=OE and ME ''cunte'' in place-names |work=Journal of the English Place-name Society, 41, 26–39 |url=http://keithbriggs.info/documents/cunte_04.pdf |publisher=keithbriggs.info |date=1 April 2010 |access-date=7 July 2010}}</ref> The ruling Protestant conservative elite's growing hostility to prostitution during the 16th century resulted in the closure of the Southwark stews in 1546, replacing earlier attempts at regulation.{{sfnp|Archer|2003|pp=248–250|ps=none}}
==Locations== [[File:Grope Lane, Shrewsbury.jpg|thumb|upright|Grope Lane in Shrewsbury]] London had several streets named Gropecunt Lane, including one in the parishes of St Pancras, Soper Lane and St Mary Colechurch, between Bordhawelane (bordello) and Puppekirty Lane (poke skirt){{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|pp=207–208|ps=none}}{{sfnp|Harben|1918|p=49|ps=none}} near present-day Cheapside. First recorded in 1279 as Gropecontelane and Groppecountelane,{{sfnp|Harben|1918|p=164|ps=none}}{{sfnp|Keene|Harding|1987|pp=727–730|ps=none}} 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.{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|pp=207–208|ps=none}}
The name was also used in other large medieval towns across England, including Bristol,<ref>[https://www.bgas.org.uk/tbgas_bg/v129/bg129155.pdf Richard Coates, ‘Some Local Place-Names in Medieval and Early-Modern Bristol’, ''Transactions of the Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society'', vol. 129 (2011), pp 162–163]</ref> York, Shrewsbury, Newcastle upon Tyne, Worcester, Hereford, Southampton<ref>{{citation |url=https://www.facebook.com/seesouthampton/posts/vyse-lane-southampton-old-townthis-ancient-narrow-lane-runs-east-to-west-from-fr/1223506284480686/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/iarchive/facebook/372893169542006/1223506284480686 |archive-date=2022-02-26 |url-access=limited|title=Vyse Lane, Southampton |work=See Southampton |access-date=14 February 2020}}{{cbignore}}</ref> and Oxford. Norwich's Gropekuntelane (now Opie Street) was recorded in Latin as ''{{Lang|la|turpis vicus}}'', the shameful street.{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|pp=201–202|ps=none}} 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.{{sfnp|Crossley|Elrington|Chance|Colvin|1979|pp=475–477|ps=none}} Newcastle and Worcester each had a Grope Lane close to their public quays.{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|p=212|ps=none}} York's survives, now bowdlerised to Grape Lane. 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. They concluded that there was a close association between a street with the name Gropecunt Lane, which was almost always in the centre of town, and that town's principal market-place or high street.{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|p=206|ps=none}} This correlation suggests that these streets not only provided for the sexual gratification of local men, but also for visiting stall-holders.{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|p=213|ps=none}}
Such trade may explain the relative uniformity of the name across the country.{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|p=213|ps=none}} Streets named Gropecunt Lane are recorded in several smaller market towns such as Banbury, Glastonbury, and the city of Wells, where a street of that name existed in 1300, regularly mentioned in legal documents of the time.{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|pp=201–202|ps=none}}{{sfnp|Harben|1918|p=164|ps=none}}<ref>{{citation |title=D\P\gla.j/17/1/2 – Grant to Church of St John the Baptist of plot of land in Gropecunt Lane |url=http://www.somerset.gov.uk/archives/ |publisher=Somerset County Council |access-date=6 April 2009 |author1=Somerset County Council |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090409185733/http://www.somerset.gov.uk/archives/ |archive-date=9 April 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Parsons Street in Banbury was first recorded as Gropecunt Lane in 1333, and may have been an important thoroughfare,{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|p=210|ps=none}} but by 1410 its name had been changed to Parsons Lane.{{sfnp|Crossley|Colvin|Cooper|Cooper|1972|pp=18–28|ps=none}} Grape Lane in Whitby may once have been Grope Lane, or Grapcunt Lane.{{sfnp|Sheeran|1998|p=38|ps=none}} Gropecunte Lane in Glastonbury, later known as Grope lane, now St. Benedicts Court, was recorded in 1290 and 1425.<ref>{{citation |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=117175 |title=Glastonbury: Town |editor=R. W. Dunning |author1=M. C. Siraut |author2=A. T. Thacker |author3=Elizabeth Williamson |work=A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 9: Glastonbury and Street |publisher=Institute of Historical Research |year=2006 |access-date=3 September 2013}}</ref> 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 it has 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".{{sfnp|Holt|Baker|2001|p=210|ps=none}}
==See also== *Place names considered unusual
==References== === Notes === {{notelist|notes=}}
===Citations=== {{reflist|25em|refs=}}
===Bibliography=== {{refbegin}} *{{citation |last=Archer |first=Ian W. |title=The Pursuit of Stability: Social Relations in Elizabethan London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CWY83oeAeRgC |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-521-52216-8}} *{{citation |last1=Crossley |first1=Alan |last2=Colvin |first2=Christina |last3=Cooper |first3=Janet |last4=Cooper |first4=N. H. |last5=Harvey |first5=P. D. A. |last6=Hollings |first6=Marjory |last7=Hook |first7=Judith |last8=Jessup |first8=Mary |last9=Lobel |first9=Mary D. |title = Banbury: Origins and growth of the town, A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 10: Banbury hundred |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.aspx?pubid=542 |year=1972 |publisher=Victoria County History, hosted by british-history.ac.uk}} *{{citation |last1=Crossley |first1=Alan |last2=Elrington |first2=C. R. |last3=Chance |first3=Eleanor |last4=Colvin |first4=Christina |last5=Cooper |first5=Janet |last6=Day |first6=C. J. |last7=Hassall |first7=T. G. |last8=Jessup |first8=Mary |last9=Selwyn |first9=Nesta |title=Street-Names, A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 4: The City of Oxford |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.aspx?pubid=10 |year=1979 |publisher=Victoria County History, hosted by british-history.ac.uk }} *{{citation |last=Glinert |first=Ed |title=The London Compendium |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-14-101213-1}} *{{citation |last=Harben |first=Henry A. |title=Historical notes of streets and buildings in the City of London, including references to other relevant sources |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.aspx?pubid=3 |publisher=Centre for Metropolitan History, hosted by british-history.ac.uk |year=1918}} *{{citation |last1= Holt |first1=Richard |author1-link=:no:Richard Holt |last2=Baker |first2=Nigel |editor-last=Bevan |editor-first=Lynne |chapter=Towards a geography of sexual encounter: prostitution in English medieval towns |title=Indecent Exposure : sexuality, society and the archaeological record |location=Glasgow |pages=201–215 |publisher=Cruithne Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-1-873448-19-9 |lang=en}} *{{citation |last1=Keene |first1=D. J. |last2=Harding |first2=Vanessa |title=St. Pancras Soper Lane 145/17', Historical gazetteer of London before the Great Fire: Cheapside; parishes of All Hallows Honey Lane, St Martin Pomary, St Mary le Bow, St Mary Colechurch and St Pancras Soper Lane |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=9293 |year=1987 |publisher=Chadwyck-Healey, hosted by british-history.ac.uk |access-date=6 April 2009}} *{{citation |last=McIntyre |first=Angus |chapter=London |editor-last=Ditmore |editor-first=Melissa |title=Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fcYq72qYRTcC |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-313-32968-5}} *{{citation |last=Sheeran |first=George |title=Medieval Yorkshire towns |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rtj3vVg1ooAC |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-1-85331-242-7}} *{{citation |last=Stow |first=John |title=A survey of London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VNkHAAAAQAAJ |editor=William John Thoms |publisher=Whittaker and Co. |year=1842 |orig-year=1598 |oclc=1394753}} *{{citation |last=Wall |first=Cynthia |title=The Literary and Cultural Spaces of Restoration London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KMOW5zL6LMwC |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-521-63013-9}} *{{citation |last=Williams |first=Gordon |title=A dictionary of sexual language and imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart literature |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2XtWDhgljvkC |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-485-11393-8}} {{refend}}
==Further reading== {{refbegin}} *{{cite journal |last=Briggs |first=Keith |title=OE and ME ''cunte'' in place-names |url=http://keithbriggs.info/cunte.html |journal=Journal of the English Place-name Society |volume=41 |pages=26–39 |year=2009 |mode=cs2 |ref=none}} *{{cite book |last=Ekwall |first=Eilert |title=Street-names of the City of London |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1954 |mode=cs2 |ref=none}} *{{cite book |last=Horsler |first=Val |title=All for Love: seven centuries of illicit liaison |publisher=National Archives |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-903365-97-7 |mode=cs2 |ref=none}} *{{cite news |first=Brian |last=Sewell |work=London Evening Standard |title=The pride of London but no gilded cage |date=11 November 2001 |mode=cs2 |ref=none}} *{{cite web |last=Walford |first=Edward |title=Bermondsey: Tooley Street (Old and New London: Volume 6) |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45269 |publisher=hosted by british-history.co.uk |year=1878 |mode=cs2 |ref=none}} {{refend}}
==External links== {{Wiktionary|cunt|grope}} * [http://www.historictownsatlas.org.uk/ British Historic Towns Atlas] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070926223828/http://shrewsburyforum.co.uk/index.php?showforum=219 Shuts of Shrewsbury]—photographs of Grope Lane in Shrewsbury
Category:Society of medieval England Category:History of Oxford Category:Red-light districts in England Category:Streets in Oxford Category:Streets in the City of London Category:Street names Category:Naming controversies Category:Works subject to expurgation