Stories That Words Tell UsO'Neill, Elizabeth (Elizabeth Speakman)
History
Stories That Words Tell Us
O'Neill, Elizabeth (Elizabeth Speakman)
English language -- Etymology
We may mention two other names of old London streets which take us
back to the Middle Ages. In the City we have the street called _Old
Jewry_, and this reminds us of the time when in all the more important
towns of England in the early Middle Ages a part was put aside for the
Jews. This was called the _Ghetto_. The Jews were much disliked in the
Middle Ages because of the treatment of Our Lord by their forefathers;
but the kings often protected them because, in spite of everything,
the Jews grew rich, and the kings were able to borrow money of them.
In 1290, however, Edward I. banished all the Jews from England, and
they did not return until the days of Cromwell. But the name of the
Old Jewry reminds us of the ghetto which was an important part of old
London.
Another famous City street, _Lombard Street_, the street of bankers,
got its name from the Italian merchants from Lombardy who set up their
business there, and who became the bankers and money-lenders when
there were no longer any Jews to lend money to the English king and
nobles.
As time went on London began to grow in a way which seemed alarming to
the people of the seventeenth century, though even then it was but a
tiny town in comparison with the London of to-day. The fashionable
people and courtiers began to build houses in the western "suburbs,"
as they were then called, though now they are looked upon as very
central districts. It was chiefly in the seventeenth century that what
we now know as the _West End_ became a residential quarter. Some parts
of the West End are, of course, still the most fashionable parts of
London; but some, like Covent Garden and Lincoln's Inn Fields, have
been given over to business.
Most of the best-known names in the West End date from the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. The most fashionable street of all,
_Piccadilly_, probably got its name from the very fashionable collar
called a _pickadil_ (from the Spanish word _picca_, "a spear") which
the fine gentlemen wore as they swaggered through the West End in the
early seventeenth century. _Pall Mall_ and the _Mall_ in St. James's
Park took their names from a game which was very fashionable after the
Restoration, but which was already known in the time of Charles I. The
game was called _pall-mall_, from the French _paille-maille_. After
the Restoration Charles II. allowed the people to use St. James's
Park, which was a royal park, and Londoners used to watch respectfully
and admiringly as Charles and his brother James played this game.
_Spring Gardens_, also in St. James's Park, reminds us of the lively
spirits of Restoration times. It was so called because of a fountain
which stood there, and which was so arranged that when a passer-by
trod by accident on a certain valve the waters spurted forth and
drenched him. We should not think this so funny now as people did
then.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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