Hello everyone,

As some of you know, I am translating my third book of Peter Ackroyd (Queer City), which is full of cultural complexities I am unable to solve by myself.


The author is describing the case of a certain John Rykener, a male prostitute who used to operate in late 14th century London, specifically, as it seems, in Foul Lane or Naked Boy Alley. What I can't decide is wether these were the real names of actual streets or a colloquial way of stigmatizing them as "evil places", i. e. the lane of the "vice" or "pestilence" (foul) and the alley of young and pleasant "buggers", so to say.



If I have to deal to categorizations, names assigned to streets otherwise named officially, I can translate the words "Foul" and "Naked Boy", to give the Spanish reader the same input a native English speaker may have, but if those are names effectively given by the London Guildhall of that period the streets should stay untranslated (eliciting at most a footnote concerning the double meaning).


I am sure you'll be able to help me with that.


With my best gratitude for your interest,


CM

I very much doubt whether, in 14th century London, there was any 'official' street directory, maps or land registry. Even legal documents usually refer to "the street commonly known as .." .. whatever. The names that streets were known by did indeed often take the names of the activities conducted there, whether it be "Offal Court", "Pudding Lane", "The Poultry", ... or indeed "Naked Boy Alley" or, "Grope-C*nt Lane" ... I'll leave it to you to guess what the last was well-known for. But that is not to say these names were just local slang. As I say that's how they were referred to in official documents and indeed some of them are now the official names. Pudding Lane and The Poultry are still called that today, and although I expect "Grope-C*nt Lane" was renamed in the 19th century to protect Victorian sensibilities, I'm sure I've seen "Sodomites Walk", (a tree-lined lane crossing Finsbury Park) still clearly named as such on a published 18th century map. So in short those street names, although maybe alluding to the nefarious activities that once went on there, are as official as any other contemporary street name in London.

Hi CM. Snow listed Foul Lane as an actual name. I find no reference to Naked Boy Alley but it doesn't sound too weird for the period. Alleys were often named for the sign on the tavern on the corner and The Naked Boy was a pub near Cheapside according to the Oxford list.

That's very interesting.

I didn't know this naming habit existed in correspondence with the predominant activity. It seems to me closely similar to the customary names given to places (or persons, since those street denominations seem to be a kind of alias) in small towns —maybe even today, but surely enough in many rural areas of last century Europe. 

That makes for a good comment in a footnote, and I will study the feasibility of inserting a short digression on that theme. It really talks about the living condition of cities and customs.

Your help makes me feel great!

Far be it for me to question Ackroyd, but if 'Naked Boy Alley' was indeed named after a nearby tavern 'The Naked Boy', while that hostelry might well have acquired its name from the sordid goings-on there, it might also - and I'm only saying might to voice a word of caution - have taken its name in a different, more innocent way. For example a tavern with an inn sign showing, say, the infant Moses naked in his basket, might well have been jokingly referred to as 'The Naked Boy' rather than its real name of 'The Moses Tavern' or 'The Nile', with the joke name gradually being adopted as the official name. That is pure speculation and one would have to explore the history of the building and street to fully understand.

The plural of anecdote is not data ... but I know of a pub/tavern (in Settle, North Yorkshire) officially called 'The Golden Lion', but which has for many, many years now been referred to locally as 'The Brass Cat', even to the point that the inn sign has been repainted to depict the horse-brass of a domestic cat in place of the original heraldic golden lion. Although it has now changed its commercial name to 'The Brass Cat', it is still officially known, at least by the Post Office and Land Registry, by its very much older name of 'The Golden Lion'.

By coincidence in the same town there's another pub called 'The Naked Man' with a 17th century carving in the wall which clearly depicts a man, completely naked. There is a long history/legend associated with all this, which I'm afraid can't recall, but I'm pretty sure it has absolutely nothing to do with prostitution - male or female - nor indeed any other sexual vice.

Quite right. The Naked Boy was apparently Jesus on his mammy's lap in the sign. Or so the Oxford list of pub signs has it. A book worth buying by the way - an undergrad thesis originally which is now a library standard.

We have two local pubs, The Glynne Arms and the Waggon and Horses. Few people know them by those names, they are respectively The Crooked House and the Brick Bridge. Furthermore, at least 30 years since the Round Oak passed from the hands of James Sparkes esq, it is still known by older denizens as "Sparkies". The picture here will give an idea of why the Glynne Arms has its pseudonym. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crooked_House

It's very interesting what you say, because there can be distortion in more than one sense: a "sinful" place being considered perverse or great regardless of any objective reason; or an innocent activity being similarly judged unhealthy or morbid, and I am sure I could find more combinations.

The point of The Naked Boy as the Infant Jesus, or Baby Moses (and other examples) seems to me quite relevant in that sense. I suppose Ackroyd would have certified the perlocutionary effects of his suggestions or thesis, but it's anyway absolutely relevant to point at the eventuality of a bias.