What was a main street called in medieval times?

Question

What was the main street in town called during medieval times, such as in a medieval town or city? And how were streets named normally? I notice today a lot of tree names (Oak, Maple, etc.)

Answer 1

As noted by previous answerer - - - Market was a popular choice. Early people, especially the English, tend to be literal. Often Main Street was simply that, the Main Street and yes that word was used a lot. But the most common name for the main road through town was the High Road - - - a term one still finds in towns big & small especially in England.

(the song, 'I'll take the High Road, you take the Low Road,' comes to mind // many towns hat two main streets, the High and the Low, with smaller lanes in between)

Another popular choice - - - Broad Street or Broad Way, and after that the ever popular King's Road or King's Way, or in Spain, El Camino Royale, the Royal Passage / Road...

As for Market - - - in a bustling port such as London and Dunkirk the various streets would be Tanner's Market, closest to river, Fish Market, Sheep Market - - - -

The American Habit of nbaming streets Oak and Elm and Yew is not taken from their heritage, truly an American Invention . Medeival Street names usually reflected the 'trade' in the area, or the direction to road was going, The South Road, the North Road, a habit carried on in New England,,,, Often a person would build a big house and a street to accomadate it, and in time his/her name would be attacjhed to the road; Drury Lane, Anna Street, Hawthorne Place. Odd words became street names Dog Path, Drover's Lane would result from a road used by men driving cattle to market..... Fort Street might indicate an old fort was once 'here.' Often Churchs were cited; St Ignatius Way, would be the road built and mostly maintained by the church of the same name. Etc

gonna throw some links at you and stuff--


http://www.smr.herefordshire.gov.uk/education/quiz,%20hereford%20street%20names.htm
"""Medieval Street Names - Quiz Answers.

1. Rodipot Way E. Wye Street
2. Frogs Lane C. Canal Road
3. Byhyndecot Street N. Friar Street
4. Serlondes Lane A. Ferrers Lane
5. Shyte Lane J. Barrell Lane
6. Pipewell Lane H. Gwynne Street
7. Bye Street K. Commercial Street
8. Grope Lane D. Gaol Street
9. Jewry Lane F. Eastern part of Maylord Street
10. Milk Lane I. St. John Street
11. Moor Street M. Coronation Row
12. Behind-the-Wall Street O. East and West Street
13. Cabbage Lane L. Church Street
14. Frenschemanne Lane G. Bewell Street
15. Narrow Caboches Lane B. Capuchine Lane """

http://www.fun-with-words.com/review_street_names_england.html
"" Almost every city, town, and village in England has had at least one local history book written about the stories behind the nearby names of places and streets. Here for the first time is a book covering the street names of the whole country.

Its author, Adrian Room, is a well-known and much-respected etymologist. He has written many other important texts on the subject and edited several more, not least the esteemed Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and The Penguin Dictionary of British Place Names.

The Street Names of England is not intended to be comprehensive – such a huge project, if it is ever undertaken, will run to very many volumes – but Room does draw examples from across the country. The origins of over 3,500 specific names are explained within its pages.

The book commences with a discussion of the many types of street, and there are far more than you might at first imagine: alley, approach, arcade, avenue, bank, boulevard, brow, buildings, causeway, circus, close, cottages, court, crescent, croft, drive, embankment, esplanade, gardens, gate, grove, hill, lane, lawn, link, mead, mews, mount, parade, passage, pavement, place, promenade, quay, road, row, side, square, street, terrace, vale, view, villas, walk, wall, way, and yard – to quote only the better-known ones!
This is far more than a book of simple lists, though, as we see in Room's discussion of the word mews:
The term is typically used of a short cul-de-sac in a fashionable area of a town or city, originally one lined by houses or apartments that have been converted from former stables. The historic reference is to The Mews, the royal stables at Charing Cross, London, in medieval times. These were so called as they had been built on the site of hawks' mews, a mew being originally a place of confinement for hawks when they were moulting (from Old French mue, from muer, 'to moult').
Following this general introductory discussion are twelve chapters, each focusing on a particular category of street name. Room begins by exploring the names of the Roman roads and ancient trackways that formed the foundations of the current system of roads in England.

In the fascinating section on self-descriptive terms, we begin to get a feel for the huge variety of names of English streets, past and present. Carfax, the central junction in Oxford, comes, we learn, from the French word for crossroads, carrefour. This originated from the Latin word quadrifurcus; literally 'four-forked'. Even more interesting are some of the streets which once had a reputation for prostitution:
The oldest and most explicit of all street names of this type has survived in Grope Lane, Bristol, Grape Lane, York and Grape Passage, Reading (Berkshire). The name is a euphemistic short form of Gropecuntelane, and this (or a form of it) was formerly found in several towns. York's Grape Lane was thus Grapecuntlane in the 14th century, while a hundred years earlier the City of London had its Gropecontelane and Oxford its Gropecuntelane. The 'four-letter word' that lies at the heart of the name is given its earliest citation by the Oxford English Dictionary (which admitted it to its pages only in 1972) from its occurrence in the Oxford street name, which dates from about 1230.
Chapters on field and water names, bridge names, religious names, and names from inns are similarly well-researched and explained with copious illustrative examples. Room amuses the reader with such delights as Shoot Up Hill in London (so called because it 'shoots up' steeply) and the curious Whip-ma Whop-ma Gate in York, which he speculates takes its name from the whipping post and pillory that once stood at the end of the street.
There are also sections covering directional names (roads named for where they lead), occupational names, names from buildings and structures, commemorative names, and names of personal origin.
In chapter 13 we learn about thematic street names: clusters of streets in a particular locality given related titles. Often the inspiration for such themes is trees, plants, birds or a famous family. More original are the streets in Northwood, northwest London, with the common theme of astronomy: Altair Way, Apollo Avenue, Aquarius Way, Aquila Close, Avior Drive, Canopus Way, Capella Road, Orion Way, Pheonix Close, and Vega Cresent. And in Bootle (Merseyside) there's over a dozen streets named after Shakespearean characters.
The book concludes with a short chapter of practical guidance on studying street names. And the series of appendices detailing a frequency study of street names in Greater London and Greater Manchester is well worth investigating. (Room informs us that there is an incredible 380 streets named Church [Road/Street...] in Greater London alone! In second place is Park. These are also the two most popular in Greater Manchester – although reversed in order.)
The volume itself is printed on long-life paper, bound in real cloth, and wrapped in an attractive full-colour dust jacket designed by artist Celia Tyler.
This pioneering work, with its new taxonomy of street names, will prove and invaluable tool for English local historians and students of English history. It is an excellent academic book, and includes a full index and bibliography for researchers. It is nevertheless a wonderfully accessible work, bound to be enjoyed by all with an interest in etymology."""

http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521789561

Pax-----------------

Answer 2

Main Street, Market Street, The High Street or King's Row.

Answer 3

They didn't have "Main Street" as we do today. The village usually consisted of bulk of run down buildings in clusters and society and revamped buildings. The Castles were set up high above everything else and basically it was a road to whatever town was on the other side, with a town square in the center and the square was where they set up there market.

Answer 4

Flat Road

Answer 5

whatever the leige lord wanted it to be named but generally referred to as the Market, as it was the street that the market would be held once or twice a week on

Answer 6

A square

Answer 7

In north India we would call it a BAZAR.

Answer 8

HIGH STREET OR KING'S ROW!!

Answer 9

**** Blvd.