Contemporary audiences would have recognized the joke in the play's title. In the early seventeenth century, the chances of finding a chaste maid in Cheapside were slim. Technically, Cheapside—which was also known at various points as West Cheap or simply, Cheap—was the long, wide street that ran through one of the central sections of London. It served as one of London's marketplaces where merchants like Mr. Yellowhammer, the goldsmith from the play, peddled their wares. In this area, prostitutes also peddled their wares and the area itself had an unseemly reputation.
The ambiguous morality in Cheapside and of England overall may have been the consequence of an ambiguous and constantly changing religious system. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, England underwent a Protestant Reformation.....
This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 624 words. This
study guide contains 29,710 words (approx. 99 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our A Chaste Maid in Cheapside Access Pass.
