With apologies to Beverley, whose appreciation of geese ( my take, previously) is something else entirely but might well have got me thinking about this in the first instance. The plaque was removed. Another appeared in its place and also removed. Some unknown soul climbed the fence and planted a small, wild garden. Friends of Cross Bones Graveyard bonded together to protect, recognize and honour those buried without comfort or care. Small notes and memorials appeared on the cemetery gates…names, dates, prayers, candles and occasionally, bottles of gin. And that lewdness was a feature of life in London when Chaucer was writing. If you were a young man who wanted some fun – you would probably take a stroll across London bridge (the only bridge in the city at that time) and enter the borough of Southwark on the south bank of the river Thames. Our readers will remember that, in the account we have given of the Stews on Bank-side, mention is made of a piece of ground, called the Single Woman’s Burying Ground, set apart as the burial place of those unfortunate females; we are very much inclined to believe this was the spot, for in early times the ceremony of consecration would certainly not have been omitted; and if it had been performed, it would doubtless have appeared by some register, either in the possession of the Bishop of Winchester, or in the proper ecclesiastical court. We find no other place answering the description given of a ground appropriated as a burial place for these women, circumstances, therefore, justify the supposition of this being the place; for it was said, the ground was not consecrated; and the ordination was that they should not be buried in any spot so sanctified. [7]

However, the more respectable etymology source Online Etymology Dictionary disagrees with this etymology: In 1351, the City of London passed an ordinance that ‘lewd or common women’ must wear a striped hood to identify themselves and refrain from beautifying their clothes with any fur trim or fancy lining. At that time, any woman not of noble birth could be described as ‘common’ so the ordinance seemed to cover almost every female in the city. London’s proud womenfolk weren’t going to have men dictating what they could wear, so most ignored the ordinance and challenged any constable to arrest them, if he dared. When Edward III added his own authority to this law three years later, he was careful to specify it applied only to were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester. (emphasis added; "Pox" was one of the names given to the disease now called Syphilis)

You can still see remains of the 12th century Winchester Palace today in Southwark. The bishop took his title from the city of Winchester, which had been the capital of England during the Saxon and early medieval period.

Set in Tudor times, during the latter years of the reign of Henry VIII, 1540, the book uses first person and, to commence, four different voices to tell a tale of love, lust, hope, marriage, desperation, loss and tragedy. The main protagonist is Winchester Goose, Joanie Toogood (great name) who, due to the death of her parents when young, gained responsibility for her two younger siblings turning to the oldest and only profession available to her as a single woman of a certain class. Big of heart, popular among locals and with oodles of common sense, Joanie is a delight. When she falls for the rather shady but young and dashing Francis Wareham, a gentleman who seems to stumble from bad choice to poorer ones, her life changes. But so does that of two other women from a completely different class who also encounter the dashing courtier: Evelyn Bourne and her sister Isabella. Was originally" might be a bit optimistic. Just change one word in the first article cited for the claim and you arrive at a factually correct statement for any case of the etymology: "the term 'goose bumps' was once (for a time) slang for the red bumps caused by venereal diseases." Kettler, Sarah Valente and Trimble, Carol. The Amateur Historian's Guide to Medieval and Tudor London, 1066-1600. London: Capital Books, p.155.Cross Bones is thought to have been established originally as an unconsecrated graveyard for prostitutes, or "single women", who were known locally as "Winchester Geese" because they were licensed by the Bishop of Winchester to work within the Liberty of the Clink. [1] [3] The area lay outside the jurisdiction of the City of London and as a consequence became known for its brothels and theatres, as well as bull and bear baiting, activities not permitted within the City itself. [4] [5] By 1769 it had become a pauper's cemetery servicing St. Saviour's parish. A gaggle is the collective noun for geese, seemingly derived from the sound they make. It’s also been used to describe groups of humans, especially if they’re Meanwhile, author John Constable, a local poet and playwright, has begun his own work at Cross Bones. As Constable tells it, he was writing late one night in November, 1996, when he felt overtaken by a character he calls “The Goose,” the spirit of a medieval prostitute. She began dictating what would later become the first poem in Constable’s Southwark Mysteries:

John Stow, in his A Survey of London (1598), made mention of a "Single Woman's churchyard" in Southwark, near the Clink: Down an unremarkable side street in Southwark, London, is a fenced lot filled with broken concrete slabs, patches of overgrown grass and the odd piece of abandoned construction equipment. Its dark history and iron gates separate this sad little patch from the outside world. Lengths of ribbon, handwritten messages and tokens weave a tight pattern through the bars of the rusty gates … all tributes to the 15,000 Outcast Dead of London. Nomenclator 439: A sore in the grine or yard, which if it come by lecherie, it is called a Winchester Goose, or a botch [F&H]. maritima, whose dense rosettes do look a little like goose tongues, I guess. Honestly, I’ve no clue about this one.

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An actor whose performance wasn’t up to scratch might describe the experience of being goosed; that is – hissed at by the crowd. Alternatively,

Pratt, David (3 October 2019). "Reg Meuross: Raw - Folk Radio". Folk Radio UK . Retrieved 29 June 2020. Hughes, Kathryn (12 August 2017). "Watling Street by John Higgs review – the myths and stories of Brexit Britain". The Guardian.The burial ground and Constable's work there has been featured in many books including 'The Spirits of Cross Bones Graveyard' by Sondra Hausner, [16] 'Watling Street' by John Higgs [17] and Cross Bones by Paul Slade [18]