At the north-west corner of this ward, in the said high street, standeth the fair and beautiful parish church of St. Andrew the Apostle; with an addition, to be known from other churches of that name, of the knape or undershaft; and so called St. Andrew Undershaft, because that of old time, every year on May-day in the morning, it was used, that an high or long shaft or May-pole, was set up there, in the midst of the street, before the south side of the said church; which shaft when it was set on end and fixed in the ground, was higher than the church steeple. Geffrey Chaucer, writing of a vain boaster, hath these words, meaning of the said shaft: “Right well aloft, and high ye beare your heade, The weather cocke, with flying, as ye would kill, When ye be stuffed, bet of wine, then brede, Then looke ye, when your wombe doth fill, As ye would beare the great shaft of Cornehill, Lord, so merrily crowdeth then your croke, That all the streete may heare your body cloke.” This shaft was not raised at any time since evil May-day (so called of an insurrection made by apprentices and other young persons against aliens in the year 1517); but the said shaft was laid along over the doors, and under the pentises of one row of houses and alley gate, called of the shaft Shaft alley (being of the possessions of Rochester bridge), in the ward of Lime street. It was there, I say, hung on iron hooks many years, till the third of King Edward VI., that one Sir Stephen, curate of St. Katherine Christ’s church, preaching at Paules cross, said there that this shaft was made an idol, by naming the church of St. Andrew with the addition of “under that shaft:” he persuaded therefore that the names of churches might be altered; also that the names of days in the week might be changed; the fish days to be kept any days except Friday and Saturday, and the Lent any time, save only betwixt Shrovetide and Easter. I have oft times seen this man, forsaking the pulpit of his said parish church, preach out of a high elm-tree[139] in the midst of the churchyard, and then entering the church, forsaking the altar, to have sung his high mass in English upon a tomb of the dead towards the north. I heard his sermon at Paules cross, and I saw the effect that followed; for in the afternoon of that present Sunday, the neighbours and tenants to the said bridge, over whose doors the said shaft had lain, after they had well dined, to make themselves strong, gathered more help, and with great labour raising the shaft from the hooks, whereon it had rested two-and-thirty years, they sawed it in pieces, every man taking for his share so much as had lain over his door and stall, the length of his house; and they of the alley divided among them so much as had lain over their alley gate. Thus was this idol (as he[140] termed it) mangled, and after burned.