The Clink

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Entrance to The Clink Prison Museum

The Clink was a prison in Southwark , England that operated from the 12th century until 1780. The prison served the Liberty of the Clink , an area outside the City of London , which was under the Bishop of Winchester rather than the ruling monarch. As the owner of the Liberty, the bishop received all taxes from it and could throw people in jail for failure to pay their obligations. As a bishop, he could also have heretics locked up. Clink Prison was adjacent to the Winchester Palace bishop's residence , not far from the banks of the Thames . It was also possibly the oldest male and female prison in England.

It is unclear whether the prison got its name from or bestowed its name on the Liberty. The origins of the name could be onomatopoeic , such as the sound of chains dragging behind prisoners or the banging of the bolt on prison doors. The name became, similar to the German "Knast", a colloquial and generic word for prison or prison cell.

history

The blue plaque at the local museum

Since the year 860 there was already a prison in one form or another within the control of the Bishop of Winchester, but at the beginning it consisted only of a lockable cell in the seminary. Until 1076, an archbishop had also allowed light types of punishment: flagellation with the rod and solitary confinement with bread and water.

The Bishop of Winchester, whose diocese was in Hampshire on the English south coast, built the chapel and manor house of Winchester Palace a short time after purchasing the property in Southwark between 1144 and 1149 , making it a residence in the vicinity of his London government duties to have. The prison set up immediately afterwards consisted of a number of buildings within the palace area. The inmates, some of them high-profile, owed their internment to the status of the Bishop of Winchester as a high-ranking member of the government, usually as Lord Chancellor , who could have the accused tried for heresy or other religious offenses in his ecclesiastical court. In 1485 King Henry VII ordered the bishops to imprison priests for adultery, incest and fornication so that the prison could generate additional income. Maria I ascended the throne in 1553 and a few years later used the clink to imprison Protestants. Food was withheld, penned in overcrowded cells or chained to the pillory; those prisoners who did not starve were later executed. Her successor Elizabeth I learned of the Puritans ' overturning plans , had the leaders thrown into Clink Prison and ordered the harshest punishments. Dozens of Puritans were starved to death.

Since the prison guards were paid very poorly, they found ways to supplement their income: Wealthy prisoners, or their supporters outside the prison walls, paid the guards to make their stay in prison more pleasant. The guards gave better cells, beds, bedding, candles, and kerosene to those who could afford them. Additional food and drink were charged at twice the price. They could also be rewarded for attaching lighter iron shackles or even removing them completely. For a fee, prisoners were even allowed to leave the prison to beg or even work for the money to be paid to the guards. With the support of the guards, prostitutes ran a regular brothel in the building. Poor prisoners, on the other hand, had to beg at the bars that led to the street and sell everything they owned, including their clothes, to pay for their meals. They were sometimes forced to do this by the sadistic guards if they wanted to avoid the abuse and hunger. The mistreatment, but also the ordered torture, consisted of blows and kicks, iron and shackles attached to prevent sleep or paralysis, and prisoners had to stand in the water until their feet were seriously damaged. Fights and murders were not uncommon. Authorized tortures included hanging by the arms (see hanging on stakes ), cycling, or crushing the body under heavy weights.

In 1450, the Winchester house was raided by demonstrators protesting the Statute of Laborers . They viewed the clergy as tax collectors and murdered them. They freed all prisoners from the clink and burned it down. The uprising was put down, however, and Winchester House rebuilt and expanded, including a new prison.

Originally only people who had broken the rules of Liberty were imprisoned there; From the 16th century it was mainly used as a prison for actual or alleged heretics , or persons who held opposing views to the bishops. In its final years, The Clink acted primarily as a guilty prison .

Decline

In 1649 the Winchester Palace and grounds were sold to a real estate developer and converted into shops, rental apartments and dye works. The cell wing was temporarily shut down as taxpayers complained about its maintenance costs; the pillory for corporal punishment , however, was still in operation. In 1707 this was no longer used due to the maintenance costs and so there were only two registered inmates in 1732. In 1745, another temporary prison was used because the clink had become too dilapidated; In 1776, however, debtors were accepted there again. In 1780 it was finally burned down again in the course of the Gordon Riots and not rebuilt.

Famous inmates were u. a. Anne Askew and John Hooper .

The Clink Prison Museum

The Clink Prison Museum is just off Clink Street, adjacent to the original prison on Bankside in Southwark. The museum tries to show visitors the conditions in the old prison as vividly as possible.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Clink Prison Museum
  2. ↑ Anthony D. Mills: Oxford Dictionary of London Placenames page 50, Oxford University Press 2001 ISBN 0-19-280106-6
  3. ↑ Free dictionary
  4. ↑ a b c The Clink Prison Museum, Clink Street, London on h2g2
  5. ^ Matthew Lewis: Medieval Britain in 100 Facts , Amberley Publishing Limited, ISBN 978-1-4456-4735-7 in the Google Book Search
  6. ↑ Martha Carlin 'Medieval Southwark' London 1999.
  7. ↑ Burford, EJ In the Clink: Story of England's Oldest Prison , New English Library, 1978
  8. ↑ VIPA Clink Prison Museum .
  9. ↑ Mitchel P. Roth, Prisons and Prison Systems: A Global Encyclopedia, Greenwood Press, Westport CT, 2006 ISBN 0-313-32856-0 in the Google Book Search
  10. ^ Walford in Old and New London, Volume 6.

literature

  • Ephraim John Burford: In the Clink: Story of England's Oldest Prison , New English Library 1978, ISBN 978-0-450-03217-2

Web links

The Clink Museum

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 25.5 ″  N , 0 ° 5 ′ 31 ″  W.