Alsatia, a cant name applied to the precinct of Whitefriars, which, until 1697, enjoyed the privilege of a debtors' sanctuary, and hence was crowded with swindlers and bullies. The name is first met with in 1623, and we have Shadwell's comedy, The Squire of Alsatia (1688), Scott's authority for some of the finest scenes in the Fortunes of Nigel.
Alsatia
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 1: A to Beaufort, p. 197
Source scan(s): p. 0212