Gropecunt Lane was a street name found in English towns and cities during the Middle Ages. It was believed to be a reference to the prostitution centred on those areas. The name was once common throughout England, but changes in attitude resulted in its replacement by more innocuous versions such as Grape Lane.
About Gropecunt Lane in brief
Gropecunt Lane was a street name found in English towns and cities during the Middle Ages. It was believed to be a reference to the prostitution centred on those areas. The name was once common throughout England, but changes in attitude resulted in its replacement by more innocuous versions such as Grape Lane. Prostitution may well have been a normal aspect of medieval urban life. The word may often have been considered merely vulgar, having been in common use in its anatomical sense since at least the 13th century. In John Garfield’s Wandring Whore II the word is applied to a woman, specifically a whore. In 1393 the authorities in London allowed prostitutes to work only in Cokkes Lane. In 1848 Cannon Street was absorbed into Cannon Street, before being absorbed into Little Friday Street in 1853–54. Some medieval street names such as Addle Street and Fetter Lane have survived, but others have been changed in deference to contemporary attitudes.
The meaning of Petticoat Lane, which is sometimes misinterpreted as related to prostitution, was renamed as Petticoats Lane in 1830, following complaints about the street being being used as a brothel. There were once many such street names in England but all have now been bowdlerised. 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 1230, and corresponds to the Old Norse kunta, although its precise etymology is uncertain. In the city of York, for instance, Grapcunt Lane—grāp is the Old English word for grope—was renamed as the more acceptable Grape Lane in 1561. In 1285 French prostitutes in Montpellier were confined to a single street. In A survey of London John Stow describes Love Lane as’so called of Wantons’
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This page is based on the article Gropecunt Lane published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 15, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
