The Name of The Wall
The name of the wall (first recorded in c.1665) is unlikely to relate to Leicester's medieval Jewish community, which was never large and which was expelled from the town by Simon de Montfort in 1231. One theory, which has achieved widespread currency, is that the name bears some relation to the 24 jurats of early medieval Leicester, the senior members of the Corporation of Leicester, who were said to have met in the town churchyard – possibly that of St. Nicholas. However, it seems more likely that the name in fact derives from a broader folk-belief attributing mysterious ruins of unknown origin to Jews. Such attributions are found at a number of other sites elsewhere in England and in other parts of Europe.
Read more about this topic: Jewry Wall
Famous quotes containing the words the wall, the name, the and/or wall:
“At the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful fortress’d house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.
Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper,
Set ope the doors O soul.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“There is the name and the thing; the name is a sound which sets a mark on and denotes the thing. The name is no part of the thing nor of the substance; it is an extraneous piece added to the thing, and outside of it.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Some day I’ll claim to you how all used up
I am because of you but in the meantime the ride
Continues. Everyone is along for the ride,
It seems. Besides, what else is there?”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Something inspires the only cow of late
To make no more of a wall than an open gate,
And think no more of wall-builders than fools.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)