By Carol Symes, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Prisons were ubiquitous features of the urban landscape in the medieval period. By the end of Shakespeare’s lifetime, London had 18 prisons in an area of about a square mile or so, out of which only three had been established since the accession of Henry VII in 1485—the event that is usually taken to be the end of the medieval period in England.
Prisons in England
Walking the length of London, from the oldest and most prominent of the prisons, the Tower, via Eastcheap to Fleet Street and the Strand, one could pass all the prisons in less than half an hour.
Or one could get in a boat with Shakespeare’s younger contemporary, a working-class member of the waterman’s guild, John Taylor, who called himself ‘The Water Poet’. Taylor would row along the Thames and point them out, just as he does in his poem ‘The Praise and Vertue of a Jayle and Jaylers’.
Of the three prisons established since the end of the medieval period in England, Wood Street Compter, which Taylor dates to 1555, takes its name, compter or counter, from a place of ‘account’ where malefactors are held for small infractions, such as debt or drunkenness. Another is so new that it did not have a name when Taylor published his poem around 1630, and later came to be called just the New Prison. The third, Bridewell, the prison that gave its name to a new kind of lockup for vagrants and petty criminals, is said to have been built by King Henry VIII as a royal residence and that his son, Edward VI, “Gaue it away to be an Hoſpitall … but yet for Vagabonds and Runnagates, For Whores, and idle knaues, and ſuchlike mates.”
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Famous Prisons
The remaining 15 prisons listed and precisely historicized by Taylor range in age from time-out-of-mind—the Tower, Ludgate, and the Clink—to those associated with the reigns of specific medieval kings and used for specific purposes.
The Marshalsea, a notorious debtors’ prison, was a place where well-healed ruffians or white-collar criminals took up residence as though it were a hotel, rather than enduring the discomforts of exile.
Another notorious medieval prison, the Fleet, was organized in a similar way: one side was for common criminals and debtors while, in the other, “for lodgings and for bowling, there’s large space”, because the men there paid rent for better accommodations and were even allowed “the liberty of the Fleet”, meaning that they could walk abroad in the neighborhood until an established curfew. They could even entertain guests and arrange for conjugal visits.
Giovanni da Nono’s Account
This public institution is indeed central to the genre of textual and pictorial representations known as laudes civitatum, ‘praises of the city’.
In his writings, the 14th century Paduan notary, Giovanni da Nono, imagines an angel taking the city’s legendary ancient founder on a tour of the future cityscape—that is, the Padua of his own time, with its strong walls, beautiful buildings, and busy markets. The angel also points out “a terrible, fetid place, called Basta, where men will be placed who owe money to others, and almost all the criminals”. In contrast to this older prison, whose nickname, basta, suggests that its inmates have had enough of its hospitality, the angel gestures toward a reformed prison complex that would be more judicious and rational in its treatment of wrongdoers—“It will be called the New Prison, and it will be very strong.”
Da Nono writes:
This palace will be divided into three parts. The first will contain men who owe money to others or to the commune of Padua for fines or taxes. And this part can be likened to Limbo. In the second will be those who have committed crimes, and this can be equated to Purgatory. In the third will be placed homicides, thieves, plunderers, and other criminals, after their offences are made known to the Podestà [city magistrate]. And this third, dark part, where no light will ever penetrate, you could truly compare to Hell.
Old Versus New Prisons
Although this might hardly seem to be a more humane type of institution, from our perspective, one of the key features of medieval prisons is the fact that they were central components of the cityscape; as such, they were open to public scrutiny and did not create the impression that those imprisoned had ceased to be part of the community. For better and for worse, they stood as advertisements or condemnations of the city’s governance.
This is perhaps the most surprising aspect of the medieval prisons—their intimate integration into the life of the communities that endowed them. It is also the aspect that most obviously distances the medieval prison from its modern offspring, at least in the United States. There is no denying that incarceration is often a terrible punishment, made worse for those who are the victims of other structural inequities in any society.
Common Questions about Prisons and Punishment in the Medieval Era
The Marshalsea was a notorious debtors’ prison. It was a place where well-healed ruffians or white-collar criminals took up residence as though it were a hotel, rather than enduring the discomforts of exile.
In his writings, the 14th century Paduan notary, Giovanni da Nono, imagines an angel taking the city’s legendary ancient founder on a tour of the future cityscape—that is, the Padua of his own time, with its strong walls, beautiful buildings, and busy markets. The angel also points out “a terrible, fetid place, called Basta, where men will be placed who owe money to others, and almost all the criminals”.
One of the key features of medieval prisons was the fact that they were central components of the cityscape; as such, they were open to public scrutiny and did not create the impression that those imprisoned had ceased to be part of the community. For better and for worse, they stood as advertisements or condemnations of the city’s governance.
