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diff --git a/40271-0.txt b/40271-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..88c40ca --- /dev/null +++ b/40271-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4582 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40271 *** + +LONDON BEFORE THE CONQUEST + + + + +[Illustration: LONDON AND THE THAMES, FROM SPEED'S MAP, 1610] + + + + + LONDON BEFORE + THE CONQUEST + + + BY W. R. LETHABY + + + "Now would I fain + In wordys playn, + Some honoure sayen, + And bring to mynde + Of that auncient cytie + That so goodly is to se." + --_Fabyan._ + + + LONDON + MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + MCMII + + _All rights reserved_ + + + + + "_Lundres est mult riche cite, + Meliur n'ad en Cristienté + Pur vaillance, ni melx assisé, + Melx gaurnie, de grant prisee; + Al pe del mur li curt Tamise + Pur li vent la marchandise + Des tutes les qui sunt + U marcheans Crestiens vient._" + _Roman de Tristan._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + INTRODUCTION 1 + + + CHAPTER I + ORIGINS--THE LEGEND OF LONDON--THE BRITISH CHURCH--THE + ENGLISH COME TO LONDON--ALFRED'S LONDON 6 + + + CHAPTER II + RIVERS AND FORDS 38 + + + CHAPTER III + ROADS AND THE BRIDGE 52 + + + CHAPTER IV + THE WALLS, GATES, AND QUAYS 74 + + + CHAPTER V + THE CITADEL--SOUTHWARK--THE DANES' QUARTER--THE + PORTLANDS AND CNIHTENGILD 101 + + + CHAPTER VI + THE WARDS AND PARISHES--THE PALACE 126 + + + CHAPTER VII + STREETS--CRAFT GILDS AND SCHOOLS--CHURCHES 145 + + + CHAPTER VIII + THE GUILDHALL--LONDON STONE--TOWN BELL AND FOLKMOTE 175 + + + CHAPTER IX + THE GOVERNMENT OF EARLY LONDON 187 + + + CHAPTER X + LONDINIUM 198 + + + APPENDIX + ON MATERIALS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF MAPS OF EARLY + LONDON 212 + + + + +NOTES ON FIGURES + + + London and the Thames, from Speed's Map, 1610 _Frontispiece_ + + PAGE + + FIG. 1.--Goddess of Hope. (Roman bronze found in London). + Restored from Roach Smith's _Collectanea_. About + two-thirds full size 4 + + FIG. 2.--Stone Weapons, from the Thames at Westminster. From + the Roach Smith Collection 7 + + FIG. 3.--Centre of Celtic Bronze Shield, from the Thames at + Wandsworth. Now in the British Museum 8 + + FIG. 4.--Celtic Bronze Swords 9 + + FIG. 5.--Coin of Cunobeline. Enlarged 10 + + FIG. 6.--Bronze Lamp, Roman, found in London 11 + + FIG. 7.--Coin of Claudius and another of Constantius, the + latter inscribed London (P. LON). Enlarged. The first shows + an equestrian statue over a triumphal arch lettered DE + BRITANN; the second an altar to Peace, inscribed BEAT + TRANQLITAS 18 + + FIG. 8.--Christian Monogram from Cakes of Pewter found at + Battersea. Now in the British Museum. One, in addition to + the [Greek: CHR], has the words SPES IN DEO; the other + [Greek: A·Ô·] 21 + + FIG. 9.--Bronze Bracelet found in London; ornamented with a + Cross. Now in the British Museum 23 + + FIG. 10.--Head of a Pin found in London. Now in the British + Museum. A little less than full size. The subject seems to + represent Constantine's vision of the Cross 24 + + FIG. 11.--Enamelled Plate of Bronze, about half size of + original, found in London. Now in the British Museum. From + Roach Smith's collection 25 + + FIG. 12.--Cross from Mosaic Pavement found in London. Now in + the British Museum. It forms the centre of a geometrical + pattern 27 + + FIG. 13.--Saxon Spear found in London, and now in the + British Museum 29 + + FIG. 14.--Coin of Halfdan, with Monogram of London. From a + unique example in the British Museum. It seems to have been + coined on the taking of London by the Dane leader in 872 35 + + FIG. 15.--Saxon Swordhilt, of pierced bronze. Now in the + British Museum. Found in London 36 + + FIG. 16.--Earliest printed view of London, from the _Cronycle + of Englonde_, Pynson, 1510 39 + + FIG. 17.--London and the Roman Roads: The Watling Street + through Greenwich and Edgware; the Erming Street through + Merton and Edmonton, called also the Stone Street south of + London; the Here Street through Brentford and Stratford 53 + + FIG. 18.--Roman Wall of London. Restored after the facts + given by Roach Smith; the battlements and ditch added 75 + + FIG. 19.--Detail of Roman Wall of London. From a drawing of + Roach Smith's 77 + + FIG. 20.--From the Common Seal. Reverse, enlarged, 1224. See + also Fig. 23; it shows the city wall with battlements and + turrets 78 + + FIG. 21.--Section of Roman Wall and Ditch. Restored from + excavation near Aldersgate recorded in _Archæologia_ 80 + + FIG. 22.--From Matthew Paris, 1236. From MS. in the British + Museum, describing the route to Jerusalem. It gives the names + of six gates, the spire of St. Paul's, etc., and refers to + the legend of "Troie la Nuvela" 83 + + FIG. 23.--The Common Seal of London, 1224. It shows St. Paul + patron of the City, such as he was figured on the City + banner, rising behind one of the gates; right and left the + Tower and Baynard's Castle 85 + + FIG. 24.--Fragment found in the South Wall, against the + river. From Roach Smith's _Collectanea_. It looks late work, + but is of marble 91 + + FIG. 25.--Fragment found in South Wall with the last 93 + + FIG. 26.--Danish Sword from the Thames at London. Recently + shown in the New Gallery. The hilt was inlaid in precious + metal. There are similar swords in the British Museum, called + the Scandinavian type 112 + + FIG. 27.--Plan showing the relation of the Central Wards and + the principal Streets; also the extent of the extra-mural + liberties. Notice especially how Bridge, Langbourne, and + Bishopsgate Wards lie over the two great streets, and meet at + the Fourways of the great Roman Roads. See Fig. 17 127 + + FIG. 28.--Saxon Brooch found in Cheapside. Of lead; nearly + full size. In the British Museum 153 + + FIG. 29.--Coin of Alfred, with Monogram of London. Enlarged. + The name in the field is that of the moneyer. Compare + monogram with Fig. 14, from which it seems to have been + copied 155 + + FIG. 30.--Tomb of King Ethelred, 1017. In Old St. Paul's. + From Hollar's drawing in Dugdale 162 + + FIG. 31.--Ninth or Tenth Century Tombstone from St. Paul's + Churchyard. Inscribed in runes. Now in the Guildhall Museum 164 + + FIG. 32.--Saxon Tomb from St. Benet Fink. Restored from + fragment in the British Museum; compared with one found at + Cambridge, like the entire figure 166 + + FIG. 33.--Head of Cross from St. John's, Walbrook. Now in the + British Museum 168 + + FIG. 34.--Saxon Coffin-lid from Westminster Abbey, North + Cemetery, now by entrance to Chapter-House. It had been added + to a Roman sarcophagus 170 + + FIG. 35.--Roman Pavement found in Threadneedle Street. Drawn + _in situ_ by Fairholt, 1854. From the original in the + author's collection 199 + + FIG. 36.--Roman Brick, inscribed London, about one-twelfth + full size. From Roach Smith 203 + + FIG. 37.--Inscriptions from Roman Brick. P·BRI·LON 203 + + FIG. 38.--Roman Tomb from outside of the East Walls. Restored + from fragments found together, and now in the British Museum 205 + + FIG. 39.--Inscription from Roman Tomb. Now in the British + Museum 206 + + FIG. 40.--End of a Roman Tomb found in London. Now in the + British Museum. From a drawing by W. Archer 207 + + FIG. 41.--Leaden Cist for funereal use, found in London, and + now in the British Museum 207 + + FIG. 42.--Plate of Figured Glass for Decoration, about + two-thirds full size. Now in the British Museum. Found in + London. Figure restored. From Roach Smith 208 + + FIG. 43.--Roman Inscription, from Clement Lane, E.C.; now + lost. About two feet high 209 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + A great burh, Lundunaborg, which is the greatest and most famous of + all burhs in the northern lands.--_Ragnar Lodbrok Saga._ + + +Of the hundreds of books concerning London, there is not one which treats +of its ancient topography as a whole. There are, it is true, a great +number of studies dealing in an accurate way with details, and most of the +general histories incidentally touch on questions of reconstruction. Of +these, the former are, of course, the more valuable from the topographical +point of view, yet even an exhaustive series of such would necessarily be +inadequate for representing to us the ancient city in a comprehensive way. + +In an inquiry as to the ancient state of a city, a general survey, besides +bringing isolated details into due relation, may suggest new matter for +consideration in regard to them, and offer fresh points of proof. For +instance, the extra-mural roads were directed to the several gates, the +gates governed the internal streets, while these streets ran through +wards, and gave access to churches and other buildings. + +The subject of London topography is such an enormous one, and the +involutions of unfounded conjecture are so manifold, that an approximation +to the facts can only be obtained by a critical resifting of the vast +extant stores of evidence. In the present small essay I have, of course, +not been able to do this in any exhaustive way; but I have for years been +interested in the decipherment of the great palimpsest of London, and, in +trying to realise for myself what the city was like a thousand years ago, +I have in some part reconsidered the evidences. The conclusions thus +reached cannot, I think, be without some general interest, although from +the very nature of my plan they are presented in the form of notes on +particular points, and discussions of opinions commonly held, with little +attempt at unity, and none at a pictorial treatment of the subject. + +Of mistaken views still largely or nearly universally accepted which will +be traversed here, I may mention a few salient examples. For instance, +Stow's opinion that London Bridge before the twelfth century was far to +the east of the later bridge, and that the mural ditch was a mediæval +work; Stukeley's opinion that the old approach through Southwark pointed +on Dowgate, that Old Street was the great west-to-east Roman road, and +that Watling Street in the city carries on the name of a street which +formerly lay across its course, running from London Bridge to Newgate. +From more recent writers, I may cite Mr. J. E. Price's idea that the Cheap +was not at an early time a thoroughfare; Mr. J. R. Green's views,[1] as +given in his _Conquest of England_, that Saxon London "grew up on ground +from which the Roman city had practically disappeared"; that the Roman +north gate and the north-to-south street were considerably to the east of +the line of Bishopsgate and Gracechurch Street; and that the Tower of +London was built by the Conqueror on "open ground only recently won from +the foreshore of the river." The plan which accompanies these views is +equally visionary; a large quarter of the city east of St. Paul's is +lettered "The Cheap"; there is no Aldgate Street (now Leadenhall Street), +the Langbourne appears as a stream, and there is a curious selection of +churches, amongst which is St. Denis, for which we are referred to a note +in Thorpe's _Ancient Laws_, regarding a gift of London property to the +monastery of _St. Denis in Francia_. Mr. Loftie holds that Aldgate was +first opened in the time of Henry I., and that no mediæval gate exactly +occupied a Roman site; that the eastern road turned off outside +Bishopsgate; that Ludgate was still more recent than Aldgate, and that it +only opened on the Fleet river; that the Strand was not a route before +mediæval days; that there was a Roman citadel on the high ground from the +Walbrook to Mincing Lane, and that the Langbourne was a ditch to this +stronghold. In the last book on the subject, called _Mediæval London_, we +are again told of the oblique Roman Watling Street; Cheap is described as +"a great square"; and it is assumed that not only the Langbourne, but the +equally mythical Oldbourne, supplied the city with water. + +[Illustration: FIG. 1.--GODDESS OF HOPE + +(ROMAN BRONZE FOUND IN LONDON).] + +I have here only rapidly set down a few of the opinions which are still +current[2]--views which are repeated, embellished, and amplified to +distraction in more popular writings, and set out with much appearance of +exactitude in most misleading maps. + +The whole question, indeed, of the early topography of London is +overloaded on a quite insufficient basis of fact, and quakes and gives way +under the least pressure of examination. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +ORIGINS--THE LEGEND OF LONDON--THE BRITISH CHURCH--THE ENGLISH COME TO +LONDON--ALFRED'S LONDON + + Like as the Mother of the gods, they say, + Old Cybele, aray'd with pompous pride, + Wearing a diademe embattild wide + With hundred turrets, like a turribant: + With such an one was Thamis beautifide; + That was to weet the famous _Troynovant_. + _The Faerie Queen._ + + +_Origins._--The earliest historic monument of London is its name. The name +Londinium first appears in Tacitus under the date of A.D. 61 as that of an +_oppidum_ "not dignified with the name of a colony, but celebrated for the +gathering of dealers and commodities." + +Dr. Guest propounded the theory that the city was founded by Plautius, the +general of Claudius: "When in 43 he drew the lines round his camp, he +founded the present metropolis.... The name of London refers directly to +the marshes."[3] Dr. Guest is here apparently in agreement with Godfrey +Fausett's view that the name London represents Llyn-din, the Lake-fort.[4] +Many attempts have been made to explain the name, by Camden and others, +from other Welsh roots, but nothing is more uncertain than the origin of +place-names.[5] + +[Illustration: FIG. 2.--STONE WEAPONS FROM THE THAMES.] + +The tradition given by Geoffrey of Monmouth was that London was called +Caer-Lud after a King Lud. Recent writers compare this name with Lydney, +on the Severn, where a temple has been found dedicated to Nodens (or Lud), +and say that London means Lud's-town,[6] thus coming round to +Geoffrey.[7] This Nodens, who was worshipped at Lydney "as god of the +sea," appears "in Welsh as Nudd and Lludd, better known in English as +Lud."[8] Another Celtic deity, Lug or Lleu, is said to have left his name +in a similar way to Lyons, Leyden, and Laon, "each originally a Lugdunum +or Lugo's Fort."[9] + +[Illustration: FIG. 3.--CENTRE OF CELTIC BRONZE SHIELD FROM THE THAMES.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 4.--CELTIC BRONZE SWORDS.] + +All these derivations seem mere conjectures, but the last from Lud is at +least in harmony with tradition. Yet that very tradition may be founded on +an attempt to provide an origin for the name, according to the principles +which derived Gloucester from Claudius and Leicester from the Welsh +Lyr.[10] + +[Illustration: FIG. 5.--COIN OF CUNOBELIN (ENLARGED).] + +It is difficult to see why under Dr. Guest's theory of Roman foundation, +which is accepted in Green's _Making of England_, London should have had a +Celtic name at all. Dr. Rhys says that the name was so ancient that the +Roman attempt to change it to Augusta failed. That it was a local +habitation before the Roman occupation seems to be almost proved by the +prehistoric and early objects found on the site, amongst which are four or +five inscribed coins of Cunobelin (Cymbeline) found in the city and +neighbourhood; and it seems unlikely that a mere camp in 43 would have +grown in 61 to the important place celebrated by Tacitus. Green says that +the chief argument against its antiquity is the fact that the great +Watling Street[11] passed wide of the city through Westminster, but surely +there might be settlements below the lowest convenient passage of the +river. The Watling Street, if earlier than the settlement, _did not in any +case_ cause the town to be built on its course, and, if later, it _did +not_ pass through the settlement. The argument, indeed, goes only to prove +that either the Watling Street or London could not be where they are. Or, +at most, it might be contended that the road was more likely to go to the +town than the town was to settle on the road, and as they are not +together, that the road may be earlier than the town; but of actual time +the argument can show nothing. Altogether, nothing can be got out of this +argument, and we are free to conclude that London is at least as old as +our era. + +[Illustration: FIG. 6.--BRONZE LAMP, ROMAN, FOUND IN LONDON.] + + * * * * * + +_The Legend of London._--Geoffrey of Monmouth's history of the Britons, +written about 1130, contains a legend of the founding of London, which +tells how Brutus, migrating from Troy to this western island, formed the +design of building a city. On coming to the Thames he found on its bank a +site most suitable for his purpose, and building the city there, he called +it New Troy--_Troiam Novam_, "a name afterwards corrupted into +Trinovantum." Here King Belinus afterwards built a prodigious tower and a +haven for ships under it, which the citizens call after his +name--Billingsgate--to this day. Still later King Lud surrounded the city +with strong walls and towers, and called it Caer Lud; when he died his +body was buried by the gate which is called in the British tongue +Porthlud, and in the Saxon Ludesgata. + +All this was received as firm history, until, with the critical reaction +against "mere legend," it was all cast aside as fiction and forgery. From +this extreme position there is again a reaction, and Geoffrey is allowed +to have founded on earlier writings, now in part lost, and to have +embodied genuine folk-stories and lays of British origin.[12] + +The Britons like all peoples must have had a legend of their origin, and +this one falls in too well with the general type of such legends for it to +be anything else than true folk-lore. Indeed, the legend of the derivation +from Brutus, and of his Trojan antecedents, appears centuries before +Geoffrey in Nennius, and the steps of its evolution can be easily +retraced. The Britons required an eponimous founder for their race as much +as the Israelites required an Israel, or the Romans a Romulus. This +founder (a supposititious Brittus) was at some time equated with Brutus, +and Britain, like so many cities in Italy, was said to be founded by a +fugitive from Troy. From Cæsar we learn that a tribe of the Trinobantes +was found by him near the north bank of the Thames. This true name of a +tribe was in the legend made to yield a city, Trinovantum, and this step +had been made before Bede and Nennius, who say that Julius defeated the +Britons near a place called Trinovantum. This name in turn was explained +by Geoffrey as being "a corruption" of Troy-novant. Thus "New Troy" again +quite naturally connects "Brutus" (or Brittus) with "Old Troy," and the +whole scheme may date back to Romano-British days. + +This is the natural genesis of the myth of the founding of London, and it +is evident on the face of it that it is not the clever work of a +romance-writer embroidering on Nennius, but genuine folk-lore or imperfect +science. + +In the twelfth century the story was accepted as gospel in London. The +(so-called) Laws of the Confessor provide that the Hustings Court should +sit every Monday, for London was founded after the pattern of Great Troy, +"and to the present day contains within itself the laws and ordinances, +dignities, liberties, and royal customs of ancient Great Troy."[13] +FitzStephen refers back to the same origins, and the same were adduced in +a dispute with the Abbot of Bury as to market privileges which the +Londoners claimed dated from the foundation of the city before Rome was +founded.[14] Perhaps there is no absolutely certain proof that the Troy +story was told in London before Geoffrey's time, but it seems likely, +judging from the number of detailed London allusions in Geoffrey's work, +that there was a British and Arthurian tradition current there before he +wrote. Of the latter, at least, one positive scrap of confirmation may be +offered. Amongst the names appended to a deed at St. Paul's dated 1103 is +that of Arturus, a canon. This carries back the use of the name Arthur to +the time of the Conquest, and we may be certain that where the name was +in use, there the story of the "noble King of the Britons" was told.[15] +There was a strong contingent of the Celts of Brittany in the Conqueror's +army, and to them the invasion must have seemed a re-conquest of Britain, +and stories of the time before the Saxons took the "crown of London" must +have been revived and spread abroad. + +There is some slight possibility that when Geoffrey tells us that Belinus +made a wonderful structure at the quay called after him Billingsgate, he +was not merely playing on the name of "some Saxon Billings," as has been +said, for Belinus is recognised as the best known of the Celtic gods, and +the name has been found in many inscriptions.[16] Geoffrey again tells us +that Belinus constructed the great Roman roads in Britain, and we cannot +be asked to suppose that the Roman roads were said to be the work of +Belinus because the same Saxon Mr. Billings kept a posting-house.[17] The +weight of evidence seems to allow of the view that there really were some +remarkable Roman structures at the Tower and Billingsgate which tradition +pointed to as the work of the Celtic culture-god Belinus, or of a king who +bore his name. Some remnants of a building seem to have had the myth +attached to them in the Middle Ages. Harrison, giving a version of the +story, says of the Tower, "In times past I find this Belliny held his +abode there, and thereunto extended the site of his palace in such wise +that it extended over the Broken Wharf and came farther into the city, in +so much that it approached near to Billingsgate, and as it is thought, +some of the ruins of his house are yet extant, howbeit patched up and made +warehouses, in that tract of ground in our times" (Holinshed). Belinus +seems at times to have been confused with Cæsar, and so we get the Cæsar's +Tower of Shakespeare and other writers. Stow, writing of the same "ruins," +says, "The common people affirm Julius Cæsar to be the builder thereof, as +also of the Tower itself." + +Nennius uses the name Belinus for Cassibelaunus, which latter, indeed, is +evidently derived from the former; for he speaks of Belinus +(Cassibelaunus) fighting against Cæsar. A parallel passage in Geoffrey +gives Belinus the command of the army of Cassibelaunus, but in the account +of the battle which follows we have no word of Belinus, but "Nennius," a +brother of Cassibelaunus and Lud, takes his place and perishes from a blow +of Cæsar's sword, _Crocea Mors_. "Nennius" was then buried at the North +Gate of "Trinovantum" with the sword that had slain him.[18] All this is +too confused to work out in detail, but it almost looks like a repeated +echo of some legend which made Cassibelaunus fall in a _personal_ +encounter with Cæsar. At bottom perhaps it may have been some inscription, +or coin, lettered Cuno-belin, which associated the name of Belinus with a +gate of London. Such coins have been found in London. We can only be +certain that at the beginning of the twelfth century the existing name of +the gate was explained by a Celtic word. + +[Illustration: FIG. 7.--COIN OF CLAUDIUS AND ANOTHER OF CONSTANTIUS, THE +LATTER INSCRIBED LONDON (P.LON.). ENLARGED.] + +As to Geoffrey's other story, which put a brazen man on a brazen horse +over Ludgate, it would appear to be a variation on the story of the +brazen horse of Vergilius, but I think we may find the origin of its +localisation at Ludgate in the well-known coin of Claudius, which shows an +equestrian image above an arch of triumph lettered DE BRITANN. This coin +is one of those occasionally found in England, and we may suppose ancient +antiquaries reasoned thus about it: "It must represent a city gate in +Britain; the most important is the gate of London--Ludgate." Why was the +brazen horse put there? "For a terror to the Saxons" (so in Geoffrey). Who +put it there? "King Lud himself, or Cadwaladr, the last British king." +When did it disappear? "When the Saxons entered the city"--as in the +Prophecy of Merlin, "The brazen man upon a brazen horse shall for long +guard the gates of London.... After that shall the German Worm (dragon) +be crowned and the Brazen Prince be buried." It was supposed to have been +the palladium of Caer Lud, "and the sygte ther of the Saxons aferde."[19] + +For me the old British Solar God lights up the squalor of Billingsgate. +The Sea God, Lud, and the brazen horse give me more pleasure than the +railway bridge at Ludgate. Cæsar's sword at Bishopsgate and the head of +Bran buried on Tower Hill are real city assets. London is rich in romantic +lore. In her cathedral Arthur was crowned and drew the sword from the +stone. Here Iseult attended the council called by King Mark. From the quay +Ursula and her virgins embarked; Launcelot swam his horse over the river +at Westminster, and from it Guinevere went a-maying. Possibly some day we +may be as wise as Henry the Third, and put up statues to Lud and his sons +at the gate which bears his name for a memorial of these things. + +The British legend of the foundation of London has left one tangible +legacy to us even to this day in the Guildhall giants, Gog and Magog, who +represent the Gogmagog of Geoffrey, a giant of the primitive people +overcome by the Britons--the Magog of the Bible, who stands for the +Scythian race. Thus the Guildhall Magog really represents the Ivernian +race in Britain. + +So much for the legend. My final opinion is that the story of Caer Lud +arose in an attempt to bring together the names of London, Ludgate, and +Lludd, a Welsh god, and this may have been Geoffrey's work. I cannot find +that the form Caer Lud was used in Welsh documents of an earlier date, +although in a recent history of Wales London is so called throughout. If a +single instance of "Caer Lud" could be adduced it would be different, but +till that is done all derivations from Ludd must go by the board. The +association of Belinus with London may in a similar way have been brought +about by false etymology.[20] + +_The British Church in London._--It is not proposed to deal with the age +of Roman occupation here, but we may devote a few lines to the British +Church as a link between Roman and Saxon days. Before the imperial forces +were withdrawn from Britain the dwellers in the cities would have been +completely Romanised in manners and speech, and must have shared in some +degree in the general change of aspect towards Christianity. + +[Illustration: FIG. 8.--CHRISTIAN MONOGRAM FROM CAKES OF PEWTER FOUND AT +BATTERSEA.] + +The subject of British Christianity has lately been re-examined by Mr. +Haverfield[21] and by Dr. Zimmer, the great Celtic scholar. The legend +given by Bede as to the introduction of Christianity by a King Lucius is +thought to have arisen in Rome about the beginning of the seventh century. +It is, however, held that there must have been a gradual infiltration of +the Gospel during the third century at latest, and that in the next +century there was in Britain a fully organised Church in contact with, and +a lively member of, the Church in Gaul. At the beginning of the fifth +century there was an overwhelming majority of Christians, and Dr. Zimmer +shows good reasons for thinking that Ireland had already been evangelised +by the first great wave of monasticism before St. Patrick went there as +its first bishop in 432. Patrick himself was born in 386, some 70 or 80 +miles from London along the Watling Street, at Bannaventa. His family had +been Christians for generations; his great-grandfather was a presbyter. + +The story of St. Alban, the existence of whom there is little reason for +doubting, carries us back to the end of the third century. Dr. Zimmer +considers that the edict of Leo the Great (454) as to celebrating Easter +reached the Church in Britain and Ireland before it was cut off from +dependence on the Roman see. Latin must have continued in use in the +Church in such places as Exeter and Bodmin, and in Wales, Strathclyde, and +Ireland, from the time when it was current as a Romano-British speech. + +According to Geoffrey there were three archbishoprics in Britain: London, +York, and the city of Legions (Caerleon), representing South and North +Britain and Cambria respectively. In the year 314 the names of three +British bishops are given as being present at the Council of Arles: +Eborius of York, Restitutus of London, and Adelfius, "de civitate colonia +Londinensium." Haddan and Stubbs accept the record; so also do Haverfield +and Zimmer, who substitute Lincoln for the last. Many British bishops +were also at the Council of 359. Guitelin, a bishop of London in the fifth +century, is mentioned by Nennius. + +[Illustration: FIG. 9.--BRONZE BRACELET.] + +According to Geoffrey, again, the Archbishops Theon of London and Thadiock +of York fled from their charges about 586. Now a small scrap of evidence +has been recently brought to light as to the existence of these bishops by +Mr. Round, who shows that a church dedicated to a St. Thadiock remained at +Monmouth in the twelfth century. Again, Jocelyn of Furness (cited by +Stow), a writer of the twelfth century, gives a list of the British +Bishops of London, which Bishop Stubbs is inclined to accept.[22] From +Bede, moreover, we gather that Pope Gregory at first intended to establish +the southern archbishopric, not at Canterbury, but at London. Then finally +we have the curious claim made by St. Peter's, Cornhill, to be the first +church in the kingdom. This legend appears in Jocelyn of Furness. Bishop +Foliot at the same time made the former dignity or London the basis of a +claim against Canterbury. + +[Illustration: FIG. 10.--HEAD OF A PIN.] + +It is often assumed that British London fell violently, and that the old +institutions were obliterated, but a comparison of evidence gathered from +the British legends with the Saxon Chronicle suggests that it is just +possible that the English may have entered the city on terms, as at +Exeter, where Briton and Saxon long dwelt side by side. + +Of the time after the English invasion Bishop Stubbs writes: "There were +still Roman roads leading to the walls and towers of empty cities; camps, +villas, churches were become, before the days of Bede, mere haunted ruins. +It is not to be supposed that this desolation was uniform; in some of the +cities there were probably elements of continuous life: London, the mart +of the merchants; York, the capital of the North; and some others, have a +continuous political existence, although they wisely do not claim an +unbroken succession from the Roman municipality." Freeman held a similar +view: "London is one of the ties ... with Celtic and Roman Britain." Mr. +Coote believed that Roman institutions survived all changes, and Thomas +Wright says: "We have no reason for believing that this city, which was a +powerful commercial port, was taken and ravaged by the Saxon invaders; a +rich trading town, it appears to have experienced no check to its +prosperity." + +[Illustration: FIG. 11.--ENAMELLED PLATE.] + +On the question of a Roman Church in Britain, however, Thomas Wright took +up a position of extreme scepticism, stating that there were no remains, +that historical references were forgeries, or flourishes of rhetoric, that +Gildas was a pretence, and that it was impossible to say how Christianity +reached Cornwall and Wales. The more recent position would be the opposite +of all this, and considerable material evidence can be produced, which has +been crowned within the last few years by the discovery of the foundations +of a Roman church at Silchester, which may be the cathedral of the city, +for there Geoffrey says Manganius was bishop in 519. The later Irish, +Cornish, and Welsh Churches are only parts of the common British +Christianity, which ultimately got shut up into the corners of the land by +the English invasion, but originally formed part of the one Church which +was an offshoot from the Church of Gaul, the original centre of which was +at Lyons. As Lyons derived from Rome, and London from Lyons, so the +Church in the western and northern provinces of England derived from +London, and the western provinces in turn handed on the faith to Ireland. +Even the Celtic rule as to Easter was the Roman use up to the middle of +the fifth century. + +[Illustration: FIG. 12.--CROSS FROM MOSAIC PAVEMENT FOUND IN LONDON.] + +The monumental evidences, certain or doubtful, for the British Church +found in London are:-- + +(1) Eight small cakes of pewter found at Battersea, and stamped with the +[Greek: CHR] monogram. They are now in the British Museum. There are two +varieties of stamps; one has the letters [Greek: A.Ô.] added to the +monogram; in the other the words SPES IN DEO surround it. These most +interesting inscriptions are supposed to be of the fourth century (Fig. +8). + +(2) A chain bracelet of bronze with a simple cross attached, now in the +British Museum (Fig. 9). + +(3) A disc forming the head of a pin, on it an imperial head and a cross; +probably Constantine's vision, as suggested by Roach Smith (Fig. 10). + +(4) An enamelled plate on which two beasts appear drinking from a vase, as +so often found in early Christian art; probably, as suggested by Roach +Smith, of the fifth or sixth century (Fig. 11). + +(5) An ornamental cross on a mosaic pavement (Fig. 12). The last three +have been figured by Roach Smith, and are also in the British Museum. + +(6) A lead funeral cist found in Warwick Square with the [Maltese Cross X] +monogram, or possibly only a star form, now in the British Museum. + +There is every probability that St. Germain of Auxerre, on his way to St. +Albans, preached to the British citizens of London against the heresy of +their countryman Pelagius about 429. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: FIG. 13.--SAXON SPEAR.] + +_The English come to London._--It is generally held that London was walled +towards the end of the fourth century. Mr. Green suggests, indeed, that +it and the fortresses of the Saxon shore mentioned in the _Notitia_ were +fortified as a provision against the attacks of Picts and Saxons. The need +for such protection was soon made evident, for the only event chronicled +in regard to London during the early period of the English Conquest is +that in 457, after the battle of "Creganford," the Britons fled from Kent +to London. Then comes silence for a century and a half, until 604, when it +is told how Mellitus, a companion of St. Augustine, was sent to preach to +the East Saxons, whose king, Sebert, a nephew of Ethelbert, gave Mellitus +a bishop's stool in London. Although there is no definite statement as to +when the English entered the wonderful walled city that was to become +their capital, yet by following converging lines of evidence we may +determine the point of time with almost certain accuracy. We have for this +purpose (1) the chronicle of the conquests of the several branches of the +Angle and Saxon peoples; (2) the British accounts and legends; (3) the +traditional history, as given by such writers as Henry of Huntingdon and +William of Malmesbury, of the succession of kings in the "Heptarchy." + +(1) Up to _c._ 500 we have the conquests of Kent, Sussex, and Wessex, the +first two confined to the present county limits, and the last with its +centre at Winchester, only reaching Sarum in 552, and striking north-east +to Aylesbury and Bedford in 571. According to Dr. Guest and Mr. Green, the +great fortress of London and its bridge up to this time barred the natural +approach of the invaders up the Thames valley. Another horde, who became +the East Saxons, had, in the meantime, effected a settlement in the county +yet called after them. These reached Verulam about 560, for Gildas (_c._ +516 to 570) deplores the loss of that city, but says nothing of London. It +was by the Wessex advance of 571 that the frontier between itself and +Essex was defined; and as London, which is so near the boundary line, +belonged (at a later time at least) to the latter, we may suppose that it +had already before 571 been taken possession of by the East Saxons. Again, +the men of Kent, in 568, attempted to press on over Surrey, but were +beaten back by the men of Wessex. Mr. Green well suggests that this +attempted advance was an immediate consequence of the reduction of London, +which had hitherto held Kent back. + +(2) The British legends given by Geoffrey of Monmouth refer to several +incidents in London during the sixth century, culminating in the flight of +Theon, its archbishop, in the second half of the century--Hovenden says in +586. + +(3) Bede says that London was the metropolis of the East Saxons. Henry of +Huntingdon tells us that Ella _founded_ Sussex; Wessex was _founded_ by +Cerdic in the year 519; and the kingdom of Essex--that is, of the East +Saxons--was _founded_ by Erchinwin, whose son Slede married the sister of +Ethelbert, king of Kent. This Slede's son was Sebert, the first king of +Essex converted to the Christian faith. Now we know that when Augustine's +mission came in 597 Ethelbert was still reigning in Kent, and his nephew +ruled in London when Mellitus brought the Gospel there in 604. If, then, +we put the "foundation" of the kingdom of Essex by Sebert's grandfather +some thirty or forty years before this time, we again reach the date of +the probable occupation of London, which we may put provisionally about +570. + +It was probably early in the sixth century that the Saxons began to get a +footing in what became Essex, as in 527, according to Huntingdon, large +bodies of men came from Germany and took possession of East Anglia, +various chiefs of whom "contended for the occupation of different +districts." We may suppose that Colchester first fell, then Verulam, and +that London was entered only after its complete isolation, and as the +culmination of the English Conquest of South Britain, just as was the case +in the Norman Conquest exactly five hundred years later. All Celtic +tradition looks back to London as the British capital. Dr. Rhys quotes a +story from the Welsh Laws to the effect that "the nation of the Kymry, +after losing the crown and sceptre of London and being driven out of +England, assembled to decide who should be chief king."[23] In the story +of Bran in the Mabinogion, which Celtic scholars say is untouched by any +influence so late as Geoffrey's, it is told that the seven men journeying +with the head of the Blessed Bran were told that Caswallawn the son of +Beli "has conquered the Island of the Mighty and is crowned king in +London." + +_Alfred's London._--In endeavouring to trace the topographical vestiges of +London, as far as any sufficiently clear indications will allow, it will +be found that we can easily carry back a great number of wards, streets, +and churches to the century which followed the Conquest. More patient +research allows of pushing still further a large number of "origins" to a +time anterior to the Conquest, but subsequent to the Roman evacuation of +the city. As the greatest of all London events in this space of time was +the resettlement of the city by Alfred, less than two centuries before +Duke William entered within its walls, and as London may readily be +supposed to have altered very little in that time, we may well take the +reign of the great king, who died exactly a thousand years ago, as the +centre of gravity of the whole period, and the pages which follow might +very well be called an account of London in the time of Alfred. + +The strife with the Danes in the Thames valley raged from before the time +of Alfred's birth. Stow and others have supposed that London was wrecked +in 839, and lay waste until Alfred restored it; but it has been shown that +the first attack on the city must have been in 842.[24] In 851 a great +host of the pagans came with 350 ships to the mouth of the river Thames, +and sacked Canterbury "and also the city of London, which lies on the +confines of Essex and Middlesex, but the city belongs of right to +Essex."[25] Before this time London had become subject to the overlordship +of Mercia, and Behrtwulf the Mercian was killed in its defence. + +There is a charter of Burgred, king of Mercia, relating to London, 857; in +872-74 the city was taken by Halfdan the Dane, and Burgred, king of +Mercia, was ejected from his kingdom. In the coin room of the British +Museum there is a remarkable coin which bears the legend ALFDENE +RX[Maltese Cross], and on the reverse the monogram of London which was +later used by Alfred on his coins (Fig. 14). The obverse bears the same +type as that used on the coins of Ceolwulf, whom Halfdan set up as his +creature in Mercia: it cannot be doubted that Halfdan's coin was struck as +a memorial of his wintering in London in 872-73, as described in the +Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. All now was confusion, "down and up, and up and +down, and dreadful," till at the peace of Wedmore, in 878, Alfred made a +division of the country with the Danish leader Guthrum, by a boundary +defined in the agreement as "upon the Thames along the Lea to its source, +then right to Bedford and upon the Ouse to Watling Street." London thus +fell to Alfred, who repaired it in 886 and made it again habitable, and +gave it into the hands of his son-in-law Ethered.[26] Ethered was +Ealdorman of Mercia, so London was still practically the Mercian capital, +and remained so till the death of Ethered. London all the time was the +chief city in the kingdom, but it then had to enter into competition with +Winchester, the local capital of the dominating kingdom. + +[Illustration: FIG. 14.--COIN OF HALFDAN WITH MONOGRAM OF LONDON.] + +In 893 there was a fresh attack by the Danes, but they were defeated +outside the city by the men of London, led by Ethered. In the account of +this raid from the south coast through Farnham and northwards across the +Thames, as given in Ethelweard's Chronicle, the Danes are said to have +been besieged on Thorney Isle (_Thornige Insula_), the site of the abbey +of Westminster. The Danes then passed eastward and took up positions at +Mersea, Shoebury, and probably Welbury, near the Lea, in all of which +places there are traces of earthworks.[27] + +[Illustration: FIG. 15.--SAXON SWORDHILT.] + +Since the resettlement of London in 886 there has been no interruption of +the continuity of city life and customs, and it is very probable that +some of the institutions shaped by the great organiser, whom William +Morris called the one man of genius who has ever ruled in England, remain +to this day. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +RIVERS AND FORDS + + And dream of London, small and white and clean, + The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green. + _The Earthly Paradise._ + + +The city of London, when the Roman garrison was withdrawn from its walls, +occupied two hills on the north river-bank, between which ran the +Walbrook. The river, which still retains its British or pre-British name +of Thames,[28] spread, as may be seen from a geological map, over wide +tracts of morass, which at an early time began to be protected by +embankments, which are "no less than 50 feet above low water, and, +counting side creeks, 300 miles long." + +The Chronicle of Bermondsey records of a flood in 1294-95:--"Then was made +the great breach at Retherhith; and it overflowed the plain of +Bermundeseye and the precinct of Tothill." The French Chronicle, written +some two generations afterwards, shows that this was still remembered as +"Le Breche." Edward I. at once issued a mandate that the banks from +Lambeth to Greenwich should be viewed and repaired. Stow, under +Westminster, says that in 1236 the river "overflowing the banks made the +Woolwich marshes all on a sea" and flowed into Westminster Hall; and again +in 1242 "drowned houses and fields by the space of six miles" on the +Lambeth side. In 1448 "the water brake in out of Thames beside Lymeost and +in another place."[29] Howel (1657) writes: "The Thames often inounds the +bankes about London, which makes the grounds afterwards more fertile." + +[Illustration: FIG. 16.--EARLIEST PRINTED VIEW OF LONDON FROM THE +CHRONYCLE OF ENGLONDE, PYNSON 1510.] + +The embankments seem to have been called walls. The names of Bermondsey +Wall and Wapping Wall still survive opposite one another; and "wall" +enters into the names of several places bordering on the river, as +Millwall and Blackwall, and St. Peter's on the Wall, at Bradwell, Essex, +where the north bank ends. At Lambeth Pennant noted that the name Narrow +Walls occurred. The general opinion is that these banks are either Roman +or pre-Roman work. Wren thought Roman.[30] + +Before the locks were made on the river the tide ran up past Richmond to +near the inlet of the Mole.[31] London held the jurisdiction over the +river from Yanlet to Staines from the twelfth century at least. The limit +at either end is marked by a "London Stone." + +FitzStephen calls the river "the great fish-bearing Thames." Howel in his +_Londinopolis_ says: "The Thames water useth to be as clear and pellucid +as any such great river in the world, except after a land flood, when 'tis +usual to take up haddocks with one's hand beneath the Bridge." Harrison +(1586) writes: "What should I speak of the fat and sweet salmons daily +taken in this stream, and that in such plenty after the time of smelt be +past, as no river in Europe is able to exceed it." Even in the last +century stray whales and porpoises used to find their way up on the tide. +The Saxon foredwellers must have had their fill of fish. Even the Thames +swans can be traced back to the fourteenth century in a document relating +to the Tower.[32] William Dunbar in 1501 wrote:-- + + Above all ryvers thy Ryver hath renowne + Whose beryall stremys, pleasant and preclare + Under thy lusty wallys runneth down + Where many a Swanne doth swymme with winges fare. + +Stow's account of the smaller streams "serving the city" is the most +unfortunate in the classic survey, and entirely untrustworthy. + +In the hollow some distance west of Ludgate was a tidal inlet; a part of +its bed has (in 1900) just been exposed in New Bridge Street; the name +Fleet, indeed, must express a tidal creek. Early in the twelfth century +the district beyond it is called _ultra Fletam_.[33] The inlet gave its +name to the bridge and street passing over it from Ludgate. Rishanger +calls the latter Fleet-Bridge Street. Henry II. gave to the Templars a +site for a mill _super Fletam Juxta Castelum Bainard_, and all the course +of the water of Fleet and a messuage _juxta pontem de Flete_. A messuage +on the Fleet was also given to them by Gervase of Cornhill, _Teintarius_, +and this record is interesting as giving us the calling of the great +Londoner treated of so fully by Mr. Round.[34] Gervase was one of the most +important personalities in twelfth-century London, and it is not commonly +realised that members of the crafts so early held power. + +Into the Fleet, down the still well-marked valley by Farringdon Road, ran +a stream sometimes called the Fleet River; it is plotted on some of the +earlier maps, and its course has been traced in detail by Mr. Waller.[35] +In an agreement as to the land of the nunnery at Clerkenwell, made at the +end of the twelfth century, this stream is unmistakably called the +Hole-burn; its valley ran north and south by Clerkenwell, and the river +and gardens of the Hospitallers of Jerusalem are said to have been upon +it.[36] It gave its name to Holborn Bridge and to some extra-mural +cottages near by, on the road which passed over it. The modern name should +mean Hole-burn-Bridge Street, just as Fleet Street meant Fleet-Bridge +Street. Holeburn Street is found in 1249.[37] Cottages at "Holeburne," +which had existed in the time of the Confessor, are mentioned in Domesday, +and we may conclude that the Holeburn and Fleet had these names not only +in King Edward's day, but in Alfred's. The upper part of the stream was +also called Turnmill brook; it was the mill stream of London. + +Stow also gives the name of the River of Wells to this western stream just +described, saying: "That it was of old called of the Wells may be proved +thus: William the Conqueror in his charter to the College of St. Martin le +Grand hath these words, 'I do give and grant ... all the land and the Moor +without Cripplegate, on either side of the postern, that is to say, from +the north corner of the wall as the river of the Wells, there near +running, departeth the same moor from the wall, unto the running water +which entereth the city.'"[38] He goes on to say that the stream +(Hole-burn) was still called Wells in the time of Edward I., citing the +Parliament and Patent Rolls of 1307; but on referring to the calendars of +these documents I find that this name of Wells appears in neither. The +first speaks of "the water-course of Fleet running under the bridge of +Holburn," and the second of them calls it "the Fleet River from Holburn +Bridge to the Thames." Moreover, the Hole-burn was far away from the north +corner of the city wall by Cripplegate, and the land granted cannot have +extended all the way to the present Farringdon Road (the bed of the old +stream) and have included Smithfield. The land of "Crepelesgate," taken by +William Rufus and restored to St. Martin's by Henry I., is probably the +same, and to-day it may be represented by the parish of St. Giles. Surely +the whole construction of the passage requires that the north-west angle +of the walls should be the western limit of the land granted. + +The Conqueror's Latin charter is given in Dugdale, and in the passage used +by Stow the stream is spoken of as _rivulus foncium_. Mr. Stevenson, in +publishing a Saxon version of the same charter 1068 A.D.,[39] shows that +_rivulus foncium_ was a translation of the O.E. _Wylrithe_, meaning a +small stream (_rithe_) issuing from a spring (_wyl_). This +"Well-brook"[40] must surely have been intended, not for the western +stream at all, but for the upper part of the "broke" running into the +"burh" directly afterwards mentioned in the charter, the present Walbrook. +Outside the walls the stream possibly ran in a west-to-east direction, and +so formed the north boundary of the property against the moor. + +Mr. Stevenson appears not to have been of this view himself, as he speaks +of the Walbrook as "probably nameless" when the charter was written; but +he points out that it was called Walebroc in a charter of Wulfnoth +(1114-33)--"probably the Wulfnoth whose name is recorded in St. Mary +Woolnoth." This is a Ramsey charter (in Rolls series), and the terms are +most precise by which Wulfnoth of Walebroc, London, sold a piece of land +in Walebroc, "whence he was called Wulfnoth of Walebroc," with a house of +stone and a shop, for ten pounds of pence.[41] + +St. John "super Walebroc" is mentioned about the same time in the St. +Paul's documents, and that Walbrook was then a proper name of some +antiquity seems to be conclusively proved by Geoffrey of Monmouth's legend +that it was called after Gallus by the Britons, "and in the Saxon +Gallembourne." Altogether it can hardly be doubted that the Wyl- of the +charter represents the modern Wal- in Walbrook.[42] + +Within the walls the Walbrook ran right through the midst of the city from +north to south, and divided the eastern wards from the western. It +remained an open stream well into the Middle Ages; in 1286 an order was +given to cleanse it "from the Moor of London to the Thames." Its course is +well defined by three churches, St. John's, St. Stephen's (formerly on a +different site to the west, Stow), and St. Mildred's, all "super +Walbrook." St. Margaret Lothbury also stood above it on vaults. Its +relation to the present street is made clear in a document of 1291 +regarding a tenement "between the course of the Walbrook towards the west, +and Walbrook Street towards the east."[43] The arch under which it entered +the city through the wall seems to have been discovered. Roach Smith +describes this opening thus: "Opposite Finsbury Circus, at a depth of 19 +feet, a well-turned Roman arch was discovered, at the entrance of which on +the Finsbury side were iron bars placed apparently to restrain the sedge +and weeds from choking the passage."[44] + +The bed of the brook has frequently been found in city excavations, and +its course has been laid down by Mr. T. E. Price.[45] It was of course +crossed by many bridges; in 1291 there was an inquiry held as to the +repair of one of them near the "tenement of Bokerelesbery."[46] This +stream was probably the first water supply of London, and it must have +been a most important factor in the division of the wards and the laying +out of the streets. + +The Langbourne described by Stow is entirely mythical. As he named Holborn +from a merely supposititious "Old-burn" running east and west, so also his +Lang-burn has its only origin, as will be shown, in the corruption of a +name (see p. 132). Here I need only say that its supposed bed occupies +high ground, and no evidence of it has been found in excavations. Mr. +Price points out that Stow himself allowed that the name was the only sign +of it, and adds that the levels demonstrate that no such stream can ever +have flowed there; indeed, excavations have shown that its supposed course +was one of the most populous parts of the early city.[47] + +Stow connects with it still another equally mythical stream, the +Share-burne, on the site of Sherborne Lane, but I find this called +Shitteborwe in 1272, and the last syllable must be "bury," not "burn." + + * * * * * + +_Fords._--The best account of the Thames fords is given by Dr. Guest.[48] +Cæsar tells us that the river called Thames was passable on foot only in +one place, and this ford was defended against him by stakes. Bede says +that the remains of the stakes were to be seen there "to this very day." +Camden suggested that the site of this ford was Coway Stakes, near Walton; +King Alfred, however, in an addition he made to Orosius, says that Cæsar, +after defeating the "Bryttas in Cent-land," fought again "nigh the Temese +by the ford called Welinga-ford." Wallingford, where the Icknield Way +crossed the river, was certainly the chief ford below Oxford. Dr. Guest +showed that a place near Coway Stakes is called Halliford, and argued that +although a Roman army, that of Claudius, may have crossed at Wallingford, +Cæsar's passage of the river was at the stakes, and the two passages of +the river came to be confused in the tradition. The general argument is +too subtle to go into here, but it is less than convincing to make Bede's +account of a ford where stakes yet remained in the river apply to Cæsar +and the Coway Stakes, while Alfred's applied to Wallingford and the army +of Claudius, especially as we may suppose that a principal ford would be +fortified if a lesser one were. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, +Sweyn's army passed the river at Wallingford; here William the Conqueror +also crossed; and here too it seems likely that the English invaders also +first crossed.[49] + +Another place nearer to London which is named from a ford is Brentford, +but Dr. Guest thought that the ford so named was over the Brent instead of +the Thames. He allows that the English army here twice crossed over the +Thames in 1016, as recorded in the Chronicle, but argues that there was +only a "shallow" in the Thames at this point, and that the _ford_ was +over the Brent. William of Malmesbury, however, seems to have anticipated +all this by saying very distinctly "the ford called Brentford" and the +"ford at Brentford" when speaking of the crossings of the Thames in 1016. +Gough in his edition of Camden says that the Thames was easily passed here +at low water. + +Of a ford at Westminster, which from a mere unsubstantial hypothesis has +swollen into quite a big myth in the pages of Sir W. Besant, there is not +a scrap of evidence. There was, however, throughout the Middle Age a ferry +here, and the name still survives in Horseferry Road. The Roman bridge at +Staines (_Pontes_) may be the one, the existence of which is implied in +the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1013, and in 1009 we are told that the army +went over the river at Staines.[50] In the Middle Ages there was a bridge +between Staines and London on the river at Kingston, and Horsley thought +that Cæsar crossed by a ford here. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ROADS AND THE BRIDGE + + Upon thy lusty brigge of pylers white + Been merchauntis full royall to behold: + Upon thy stretis goeth many a semely Knyght + Arrayit in velvet gownes and cheynes of gold. + WILLIAM DUNBAR. + + +_Roads._--The Roman roads of the Antonine Itinerary which affect London +are: Iter 2, the great road from Canterbury to London and St. Albans and +beyond (the Watling Street); Iter 5, London to Colchester, and from thence +to Lincoln; Iter 6, London to Lincoln, starting by the Watling Street; +Iter 7, from Chichester through Silchester and passing the river at +Staines (_Pontes_), through Brentford to London.[51] + +[Illustration: FIG. 17.--LONDON AND THE ROMAN ROADS.] + +In the (so-called) Laws of Edward the Confessor, a clause treats of the +King's peace on the four great roads, _Watlingestrete_, _Fosse_, +_Hekenildestrete_, and _Ermingestrete_, two of which are said to run +through the length of the realm and two across.[52] In the British legends +given by Geoffrey, the making of these roads is ascribed to Belinus, and +they are said to have been paved with stone and mortar; the four are +evidently the chief Roman roads in the island. The identification of the +Watling Street is certain, for Bede says that St. Albans was called +Watlingcester, and Saxon charters show that Hampstead and Paddington were +on it; it is the modern Edgware Road. Henry of Huntingdon tells us that +the Watling Street ran from the south-east to the north-west, and that +Erming Street ran from north to south. Higden, in the fourteenth century, +says that the Watling Street began at Dover and passed through Kent and +"over the Thames at London, west of Westminster," then to St. Albans, +Dunstable, Stratford, etc.[53] Camden says: "The Roman road commonly +called Watling Street leads straight to London over Hampstead Heath, +whence is a fine prospect of a beautiful city and cultivated country." + +The best reasons that can be given for the position of the Watling Street +are that it was first formed before London became of much importance, that +it avoided the great Essex forest, and passed over the Thames at a point +convenient for a ferry on its way to and from Dover. + +Such prehistoric traffic as there was, by a sort of commercial drainage, +gathering together in a stream directed on Dover, must have tended to pass +the river with the least possible deflection. Whether or not the great +Watling Street is entirely of Roman date, a ferry at Westminster may have +superseded the Brent-ford. The actual passage was probably from Tothill +Street to Stangate on the south side of the river: "Stangate" is still +used as the name of a Roman road in the North by Hadrian's Great Wall. +After the Palace of Westminster was built, the ferry must have been +diverted by the Horseferry Road, and Higden may refer to this position. + +Clark suggests that "the Tothill" was a Saxon military mound, as such +mounds are sometimes called "toot-hills"; if so, it was a protection +overlooking the Watling Street, and may very well have been a mound +raised by Alfred in the Danish struggle.[54] "Le Tothull" is mentioned in +1250, when Henry III. granted the Abbey to hold a fair there. Hollar's +view shows a mound. The Tothill was common ground, and everything points +to its having been formerly a defensive work. The west gate of Westminster +was "towards Tothill" (1350), and Vincent Square now represents Tothill +Fields. The Lang ditch, which nearly surrounded Westminster, and which can +be traced back to the twelfth century, was probably a dyke of defence. + +Stukeley, writing in 1722, when material evidence was not so hard to find, +says that the Watling Street crossed over another Roman road (now Oxford +Street), which passed by the back of Kensington into the great road to +Brentford and Staines, "a Roman road all the way." The Watling Street then +went across the end of Hyde Park, and by St. James's Park to the street +near Palace Yard called the Wool Staple, and crossed to Stangate on the +opposite side of the river. The southward continuation of the road then +passed over St. George's Fields to Deptford and Blackheath; "a small +portion of the ancient way pointing to (or from) Westminster Abbey is now +the common road: ... from the top of Shooters' Hill the direction of the +road is very plain both ways: ... beyond the hill it is very straight as +far as the ken reaches: on Blackheath is a tumulus." + +From the Watling Street, on Blackheath, was obtained the first prospect of +London, where travellers during the Middle Age paused, as visitors to Rome +paused on their way only half a century agone. The mayor with all the +crafts of the city, in 1415, rode out thus far to meet Henry V. returning +from France. + + The King from Eltham sone he cam, + Hys prisenors with hym dede brynge, + And to the Blak-heth ful sone he cam. + He saw London withoughte lesynge; + Heil, ryall London, seyde our Kyng, + Crist the Kepe evere from care.--LYDGATE. + +In his letter to Wren Dr. Woodward says that in several places lying near +by in a line, particularly on this side of Shooters' Hill, where the +country is low, there remained a raised highway 40 feet wide and 4 feet +high. According to Allen's history a portion of the Roman way leading to +Stangate was found just north of Newington Church in 1824. + +Stukeley thought that the west-to-east road, over the present Oxford +Street, originally passed to the north of London into Essex (by Old +Street), "because London was not then considerable, but in a little time +Holborn was struck out from it, entering the city at Newgate, and so to +London-Stone, the _Lapis Milliaris_, and hence the reason why the name of +Watling Street is still preserved in the city." + +There can be no doubt that Stukeley's account of the Roman roads is +generally true, but the theory of the great road by Old Street seems +unlikely, although the latter is quite certainly a Roman way, and was +called Ealde Street in the twelfth century.[55] The Roman road has been +found 11 feet below the surface, together with Roman coins.[56] There +cannot be a doubt that, in late Roman days at least, the great +west-to-east road passed through the city and by the Mile End Road through +Stratford and the other places named from "street" to Chelmsford and +Colchester. Besides the great Roman roads there were of course many local +ways. The High Street from Aldersgate to Islington, also mentioned in the +twelfth century,[57] is probably, like the gate through which it passed, +Roman too. Stow's hypothesis that Old Street branched away from the top of +Aldersgate Street seems best to meet the case. Stukeley's suggestion about +the naming of "Watling Street" in the city, which has been so embroidered +upon by recent writers, seems, as we shall show (p. 150), to be a mistake. + +It is asserted in a fourteenth-century document quoted by Lysons that the +great east road passed the Lea by Old Ford before Matilda built Bow +Bridge; but this has no weight in excluding the road by Aldgate against +the evidence of the great road itself. The name Stratford is mentioned as +Strachford in a charter of the Conqueror.[58] In the life of St. Erkenwald +given in the Golden Legend, it is said that his body was brought to London +from Barking through Stratford after a miraculous passage of the Lea. +There _may_ have been a road by Old Street and Old Ford, but there _must_ +have been a road by Holborn and Whitechapel through Newgate and +Aldgate.[59] + +The branch from the great Watling Street to the city, by Tyburn and St. +Andrew's Holborn, is described in a charter giving in Saxon the boundaries +of Westminster, dated 951, but not original. This charter, even if forged, +can hardly be later than the era of the Conquest, when the coterminous +manor of Eya was given to the Abbey by Geoffrey de Mandeville; and the +names found in it must then have been of immemorial antiquity. Mr. +Stevenson, in a recent criticism of the document, accepts it as genuine +and proposes the date 971.[60] It reads: "First up from the Thames along +Merfleet to Pollenstock, so to Bulinga Fen, and along the old ditch to +Cuforde. From Cuforde along the Tyburn to the _Here Straet_, and by it to +the Stock of St. Andrew's Church, then in London Fen south to Midstream of +Thames, and by land and strand to the Merfleet." _Here Street_ is the +usual Saxon name for a Roman road, but it will be convenient to use it in +this case as a proper name. + +The stream of Tyburn crossed Oxford Street just west of Stratford Place, +and ran through the Green Park, and so to the west of Westminster. Cufford +I find again, _temp._ Edward I., as in, or near, the _Campis de Eya_--now +Hyde Park and St. James's.[61] This Cowford was probably where Piccadilly +"dip" crosses the Tyburn valley. A bridge is shown here in Faithorne's +map. The Here Street or military road is of course Oxford Street and +Holborn, and London-Fen is the Fleet valley.[62] + +The manor of Tyburn appears in Domesday. There can be no doubt as to the +identification of the Here Street, for a document of 1222 gives as the +boundaries of St. Margaret's, Westminster, the water of Tyburn running to +the Thames and the _Strata Regia_ extending to London past the garden of +St. Giles [in-the-Fields], and Roman remains have been found in Holborn. +The Here Street has been traced between Silchester and Staines through +Egham, and on this side of Staines, not far from Ashford, it has been +found.[63] An under road to Kensington, etc., by Knightsbridge must also +have been ancient. Knightsbridge is named in a twelfth-century charter, +and it seems to be the same as the Kingsbridge in a charter of the +Confessor.[64] + +From the fact that the Antonine Itinerary gives two routes to +Lincoln,--one round to the west by the Watling Street, and one to the east +by Colchester,--it seems probable that the direct Erming Street was made +in the later Roman era. + +The best critical account of the four Roman ways is in _Origines Celticæ_ +and the _Archæological Journal_ for 1857, in which Dr. Guest, working from +charters, verifies their position. He considers that the portion of the +Erming Street between London and Huntingdon was not a Roman paved road, +although "it must have existed in the days of Edgar, and perhaps as early +as the times of Offa." "Tracks of an ancient causey may still be found +alongside the turnpike road which leads from London to Royston," beyond +which the road passes straight on over the fens to a place called +Ermingford in Domesday and Earmingaford in a charter of Edgar. To the +south of London he lays down a "Stone Street" from Chichester through +Bignor (Roman villa) and Dorking. In vol. ix. of _Archæologia_, Bray, the +co-author of the _History of Surrey_, traces this "Roman road through +Sussex and Surrey to London." "That there was a great road from Arundel +which ran north and north-east to London is very certain, considerable +remains of it being now (1788) visible in many places." Another road from +the south seems to have passed through Croydon and Streatham, which in a +charter of the Confessor is called Stratham.[65] Near Ockley the former +was called "Stone Street Causeway," and Camden speaks of it as "the old +military road of the Romans called Stone Street." It was "some 30 feet +broad and some 4 or 5 feet thick of stones." Considerable vestiges of this +Roman road may even now be traced on the Ordnance Survey; approaching +London it evidently passed through Epsom, Ewell, Merton, Tooting, and +Clapham. Here then we have a great road from Chichester through Surrey +over London Bridge and by Stamford Hill to Lincoln--the Erming Street. It +seems impossible that such a work could have been undertaken in the time +of the "Heptarchy," and it must be a Roman road made subsequently to the +Antonine Itinerary. + +When London Bridge was built, or when a regular ferry over the Thames was +established on this line, a new connection with the Canterbury Road +(Watling Street) was evidently called for, and this link was provided by +Kent Street (now Great Dover Street). Bagford, in his letter to Hearne, +says that the Roman approach and military way led along Kent Street on the +left-hand side, "and pointed directly to Dowgate by the Bishop of +Winchester's stairs, which to this day is called Stone Street." I cannot, +however, accept the inference as to the name Stone Street in this place, +as it ran directly through what was Winchester Palace, where, as old views +show, there cannot have been a street in the Middle Ages. The highway from +the bridge going southwards really ran straight through the borough (Burh +or South-work), and deflected on to Kent Street at St. George's Church, +which stood here early in the twelfth century (see Southwark, below, p. +110). + +The English invaders came up the Watling Street and were unsuccessfully +met at Crayford. At Ockley on the Stone Street there was a great battle +with the Danes. William the Conqueror, after the battle of Hastings, took +Dover and Canterbury and came to London by the Watling Street; then +burning Southwark, but not venturing to assault the walled city, he moved +down the Stone Street and across to Farnham and Wallingford, and then +north-east, by the Icknield Way, and so commanded the northern Watling +Street and Erming Street and cut off retreat. A recent study of his route +made from Domesday Book makes him pass through Camberwell, Merton, +Guildford, and Farnham. Then crossing the river by both Wallingford and +Streatley, he approached London by Little Berkhamstead, Enfield, and +Tottenham.[66] + +A final consideration of the roads in relation to the city shows two great +routes: (1) from west to east, through Staines to Colchester; and (2) from +south to north, from Chichester to Lincoln. These roads, entering the city +by Holborn and the bridge, and issuing by Aldgate and Bishopsgate, were +throughout the Middle Ages the great market streets, and their +intersection at Leadenhall formed the "Carfax" of London. + +The best elucidation of the names of the roads we have been concerned with +is given by Dr. Guest. One is the street of the Ermings or Fenmen, who +gave their name to places on its course. The Icknield Way, which he gives +good reasons for thinking was a British road, led to the district of the +Iceni (compare Dr. Rhys, _Celtic Folklore_, p. 676). The Watling Street he +supposes to be the Irishmen's road, from Welsh +_Gwythel_--_Goidel_--Irishman. These derivations seem to be a little over +symmetrical. Other roads than that through St. Albans were called Watling +Street, which almost seems to be a generic term, just as in Wales the +Roman ways are called Sarn Helen. In the story of Maxen Wledig (Maximus +Emperor) we are told that the Empress Helen made the roads. It is probably +a similar legend where Florence says that old tradition had it that London +was walled by Helen. Florence says that the Watling Street was called so +from the sons of King Weatla: Can this be a corruption of Wledig, or can +the reference be to the British prince Guithlin, who seems to have been in +power about the time of the coming of the Saxons?[67] + +Horsley and others have thought that these roads were laid down for the +most part immediately after the Roman conquest by Claudius, and there can +hardly be a doubt of their early existence when we consider the great +works of Agricola as far off as the Roman Wall.[68] Moreover, one or two +milestones which have been found bear the name of Hadrian. The antiquity +of our place-names, roads, and bridges is well brought out in a +seventh-century charter to Chertsey Abbey. The land boundary, beginning at +the mouth of the Wey, passed by Weybridge, then by the mill-stream to the +old Here Street and along it to Woburn Bridge, etc. This Here Street is +doubtless the present road on the south bank of the Thames; it probably +led from Southwark, through Clapham--called Cloppaham in the ninth +century--by Wandsworth, where was a church in the tenth century, and by +Kingston, the royal town and crowning place of the later Saxon kings.[69] + + * * * * * + +_The Bridge._--We hear of the existence of the bridge about seventy years +after Alfred's time in connection with the punishment of a woman who was +to be taken and "a-drownded at Lundene-brigce."[70] In a poem on Holy Olaf +the King of Norway, by a contemporary, he is said to have broken down +London Bridge in an attack on the Danes in the interest of Ethelred about +1014.[71] It is curious that the English Chronicles do not speak of this, +and it is difficult to fit in, but in any case the story is almost +contemporary. + +An extended but later account of the incident is given in the +_Heimskringla_: "Now first they made for London and went up the Thames +with the host of the ships, but the Danes held the city. On the other side +of the river there is a great Cheaping-town called Southwark (Sudurvirke); +there the Danes had great arrayal; they had dug great dykes, on the inner +side whereof they had built a wall of turf and stone.... A bridge was +there across the river betwixt the city and Southwark, so broad that +waggons might be driven past each other thereover. On the bridge were made +strongholds, both castles and bulwarks, looking down stream, so high that +they reached a man above his waist; but under the bridge were pales stuck +into the bottom of the river. And when an onset was made the host stood on +the bridge all along it and warded it. King Ethelred was mickle mind-sick +how he was to win the bridge." King Olaf made wooden shelters over his +boats, "and the host of the Northmen rowed right up under the bridge and +lashed cables round the pales which upheld the bridge, and they fell to +their oars and rowed down stream as hard as they might, ... and the pales +having broken from under it, the bridge broke down by reason thereof; ... +and after this they made an onset on Southwark and won it. And when the +townsfolk [of London] saw that the river Thames was won, so that they +might not hinder ships from faring up into the land, they were afeared, +and gave up the town and took King Ethelred in. So says Ottar the Swart:-- + + O battle-bold, the cunning + Of Yggs storm! Yet thou brakest + Down London Bridge: it happed thee + To win the land of snakes there." + +This verse is sometimes translated so as to read "London Bridge is broken +down" in the first line, like the well-known children's song; but there +have been many breakings down since the time of Olaf, and it is +unnecessary to force such a remote origin for the ditty. As to the bridge +itself, the account just given as to its being of wood agrees with the +fact that no piers seem to have been preserved when it was rebuilt in the +twelfth century. That it should have been fortified agrees with +contemporary events, for Charles the Bald had built a fortified bridge at +Paris to stop the pirates going up the river. + +The bridge, as we have seen, was required by the Roman roads, and must +have been of Roman origin. Roach Smith, indeed, even considered that it +might have been the bridge by which Claudius is said to have crossed the +river, and points out that the Itinerary shows that bridges were not +uncommon in Britain.[72] "This presumptive evidence" [as to London Bridge +being of early Roman origin] "is supported by recent discoveries. +Throughout the entire line of the old bridge, the bed of the river was +found to contain ancient wooden piles; and when these piles, subsequently +to the erection of the new bridge (about 1835), were pulled up to deepen +the channel of the river, _many thousands_ of Roman coins, with abundance +of Roman tiles and pottery, were discovered; and immediately beneath some +of the central piles, brass medallions of Aurelius, Faustina, and +Commodus. All these remains are indicative of a bridge. The enormous +quantity of Roman coins may be accounted for by the well-known practice of +the Romans to use them to perpetuate the memory of their conquests and +public works. They may have been deposited either upon the building or +repair of the bridge. The great rarity of the medallions is corroborative +of this opinion." Many bronzes and other works of art were also found.[73] + +I incline to the view that the bridge may with greatest probability be +assigned to the century when the Romans were consolidating their work in +Britain, from the arrival of Agricola in A.D. 78. Within this period falls +the date of the earliest medals found and the great building age of +Hadrian, who reared the "Roman Wall." It is tempting to suggest that the +fine head of Hadrian, in 1863 found in the Thames, may have formed a part +of a statue placed on the bridge to commemorate his visit. Bronze has +always been too valuable a material for the head to have been wilfully +cast away. Moreover, we have evidences of two bridges by the Roman Wall +which were the work of Hadrian. That at Newcastle, called after him, Pons +Ælii, had a history curiously parallel with London Bridge, for it gave way +to a mediæval bridge in 1248, which was destroyed in the flood of 1771. +During the rebuilding parts of the Roman structure were found. Near +Hexham, where the line of the wall crosses the North Tyne, there are still +vestiges of a bridge which seems to have lasted down to 1771; it has three +piers of masonry, having angular cut-waters up-stream. The spans were 35 +feet, the piers about 16 feet transversely; the roadway was about 20 feet +wide; at the ends, standing over the masonry abutments, were towers +through which the roadway passed. "The platform of this bridge was +undoubtedly of timber. Several of the stones which lie on the ground have +grooves in them for admitting the spars. No arch-stones have been +found."[74] + +Old London Bridge crossed the river just east of the existing bridge. Stow +thought that the original bridge was still farther east, because St. +Botolph's Port is mentioned in connection with the bridge in a charter of +the Conqueror. Notwithstanding that this conjecture was disproved so fully +when the old bridge was destroyed, the theory still appears in standard +books and on maps which profess to represent Old London. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE WALLS, GATES, AND QUAYS + + On board his bark he goes straight to London, beneath the bridge; his + merchandise he there shows, his cloths of silk smoothes and opens + out.--_Roman de Tristan._ + + +_Walls._--The walls and gates of London are frequently mentioned +incidentally by the chroniclers of the Saxon period. In the charter given +by William the Conqueror to St. Martin's le Grand, the city guarded by +them is called the Burh, and the defences themselves are called +Burhwealles. Their complete circuit can be accurately traced from existing +remnants, old plans and records. Some years ago a fragment of the east +wall of Roman date was found, which still exists a few yards east of the +south-east angle of the Keep of the Tower, at a point which must be very +near to the original junction with the south or river wall, which probably +ran in the line of the present south wall of the inner ward of the Tower. +The city wall passed north by Aldgate to the N.E. angle; then on the +north by Bishopsgate and Cripplegate to the N.W. angle, and, after making +an inset by Aldersgate, it formed another N.W. angle; thence it passed +straight south by Ludgate to the river. It was only at the end of the +thirteenth century that the south-west angle of the city was extended to +take in Blackfriars. Ample evidence of Roman workmanship has been found +for the whole extent of the north and east sides, but until recently some +have doubted whether any remains of Roman date had been found on the west; +a portion, however, was discovered between Warwick Square and Old Bailey +some twenty years ago, and in 1900 other portions were found at Newgate +Prison. Still earlier in 1843, as Roach Smith pointed out in _Collectanea +Antiqua_ (vol. i.), a portion of the city wall was found near +Apothecaries' Hall in Playhouse Yard. It was 10 feet thick, and the stones +were bedded in mortar mixed with powdered brick. In the walls of some part +of the old Blackfriars buildings found in 1900, I noticed that a +considerable quantity of the small cubical Roman stones had been re-used +in the Friary after the destruction of the south portion of the western +wall of the city. Roach Smith pointed out that the steep fall in the +ground just south of the _Times_ office and St. Andrew's Church showed +that the river wall passed along here. There is no doubt that Alfred's +London included the whole of the Roman city with the exception of the +Blackfriars extension. + +[Illustration: FIG. 18.--ROMAN WALL OF LONDON.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 19.--DETAIL OF ROMAN WALL OF LONDON.] + +The city wall seems to have been uniformly built throughout its circuit of +small stones, 6 or 7 inches square on the face, bonded about every sixth +course with two or three courses of large flat tiles nearly 18 inches by +12 inches, and 1-1/2 inches thick. The core was rough rubble; it was +about 8 to 10 feet thick and probably 20 to 25 feet high. FitzStephen +(_c._ 1180) describes it as "the high and great wall of the city having +seven double gates and towered to the north at intervals; it was walled +and towered in like manner on the south, but the Thames has thrown down +those walls." There is evidence for a square Roman wall-tower having +existed in Houndsditch, and for others, semicircular in form. It would +always have had, as we know it had at a later time, a walk all round, a +parapet, and battlements. A part of the late wall which still shows the +walk and battlements is yet in London Wall. The turrets (of the later wall +at least) were higher than the wall. + +[Illustration: FIG. 20.--FROM THE COMMON SEAL. REVERSE, ENLARGED, 1224.] + +According to Stow, the ditch of the city wall was begun in 1211, and the +same writer, speaking of the Walbrook entering the city, as mentioned in +the Conqueror's charter, adds "before there was any ditch." This is a +mistake, for notices of Houndsditch appear before 1211, and the name is +used in the _Liber Trinitatis_ in a way that infers its existence before +1125. A few years ago an excavation at Aldersgate exposed a complete +section of the ditch outside the wall. It was 14 feet deep, 35 feet wide +at bottom, and 75 feet wide at the top of the sloping sides. The top of +the inner slope was 10 feet from the wall. This is drawn and described in +vol. lii. of _Archæologia_, and a comparison subsequently made with the +ditch at Silchester showed that, like it, it was certainly of Roman work. +In each there was found a raised foundation in the bed of the ditch for a +trestle bridge crossing from the gate (Fig. 21). + +After the ruins of the fire (of five or six years ago) at Cripplegate were +cleared away, it was evident that the basements of the houses in the +street running north and south outside the west end of St. Giles's +churchyard, by the angle bastion of the wall which still stands there, +were built in the old ditch. A length of embanked stream which fed the +ditch ran by the east of Finsbury Circus.[75] It is shown in the so-called +Aggas plan. + +[Illustration: FIG. 21.--SECTION OF ROMAN WALL AND DITCH.] + +Many considerations suggest the likelihood that the first Roman walled +city was smaller in extent than it became at a later time. Roach Smith +thought that this earlier city was confined to the east side of the +Walbrook, the approach from London Bridge forming its centre. The great +wall, according to him, was "probably a work of the later days of the +Romano-British period." With this view J. R. Green agrees, and argues that +the wall was built in haste under Theodosius, when the attacks of Picts +and Saxons made walls necessary for the security of British towns.[76] +Henry of Huntingdon, writing early in the twelfth century, tells us that +"tradition says that Helen, the illustrious daughter of Britain, +surrounded London with the wall which is still standing." + + * * * * * + +_Gates._--Opposite the entrance to the city by the bridge was the _North +Gate_, called Bishopsgate. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Cæsar's +sword "Yellow Death" was buried here with a Briton who had been slain by +it. This legend is at least enough to show that the gate was ancient at +the beginning of the twelfth century. Bishopsgate is mentioned in +Domesday: "The canons of St. Paul's have _ad portam episcopi_ ten cottages +as in the time of King Edward." Outside the gate the Erming Street +stretched away to the north over the moor. + +The _East Gate_--Aldgate (generally written Algate or Alegate)--is +mentioned in the foundation charters of Holy Trinity Priory in 1108. Stow +says he found it named in a charter given by King Edgar to the Cnihten +Gild, but it seems that he founded this on a later legend which professed +to recite the terms of such a charter. However, the Saxon Chronicle, +giving an account of the dispute between the Confessor and Godwine in +1052, says that some of the Earl's party _gewendon ut æt Æst geate_ and +got them to Eldulfsness (Walton-on-the-Naze). Mr. W. H. Stevenson, in an +interesting note on personal names associated with town gates, cites an +eleventh-century life of St. Edmund, in which it is called Ealsegate, and +suggests that it may be named from one Ealh; the East Gate of Gloucester +was called Ailesgate from Æthel.[77] A survey of Holy Trinity precinct +made about 1592, and now at Hatfield, gives the plan of the gate as it +then existed (possibly in part Roman), and a length of the city wall with +its semicircular bastions.[78] Outside this gate the great Roman road +reached away to Chelmsford and Colchester. + +The principal _West Gate_ is clearly Newgate, as standing opposite the +East Gate and at the end of Cheap. Fabyan calls it West Gate. In the Pipe +Roll for 1188 it is called Newgate, and it was then already a prison. +Earlier in the twelfth century it seems to have been called Chamberlain's +Gate,[79] and this name is probably explained by an entry in Domesday, +where it is noted that two cottagers at Holeburn were dependent on the +sheriff of Middlesex in the time of the Confessor, and that William the +_Chamberlain_ rendered six shillings for his vineyard [there] to the +King's sheriff. That is, the Chamberlain held property outside Newgate in +1086, and the name Chamberlain's Gate probably goes back as far. An +eleventh-century text of a charter dated 889[80] describes a property, +"Ceolmundingehaga, not far from Westgetum." Possibly Coleman Street is +named after the same citizen, who may be none other than the Ealdorman of +Kent who died in 897. Outside this gate the Roman road ran west, as we +have seen, to the Tyburn, beyond which it crossed the Watling Street. + +[Illustration: FIG. 22.--FROM MATTHEW PARIS, 1236.] + +_Ludgate_ must have been reputed to be very ancient when Geoffrey of +Monmouth wrote, early in the twelfth century. He speaks of it as "the gate +which to this day is called in the British tongue Porth-Lud and in the +Saxon Ludesgata." On it had been "a brazen man," said to be Cadwaladr. Dr. +Rhys thinks that Geoffrey was here using ancient tradition. There is no +conclusive reason why the gate should not have preserved a British name +and a Roman statue, and at least the legend has a legend's worth. The next +earliest mention I find of it is in the St. Paul's documents, about the +middle of the twelfth century.[81] Ludgate Street without the gate is +spoken of not long after. A reference cited by Fabyan, however, probably +takes us back to the days of the Conquest (see below, p. 112). The Strand, +leading from Westminster past St. Clement Danes to Ludgate, must be an +ancient street: it may indeed represent the earliest of all paths to +London from the passage of the river by the great Watling Street. St. +Clement's Church, as we shall see, is pre-Conquest; Sir H. Ellis, in his +introduction to Domesday, says a charter by the Conqueror refers to St. +Clement Danes "in the Strand," but the actual words are not cited (vol. +ii. p. 143). A street outside the western walls--"Aldwych"--is frequently +mentioned from the twelfth century; it is represented by Wych Street and +by Drury Lane; it turned north-west from the Strand and joined the great +western highway at St. Giles, where a hospital came to be built in the +Middle Ages. Lambard says Ludgate meant, in Saxon, a postern, and this +meaning is found in the A.S. dictionaries. Mr. W. H. Stevenson has lately +again suggested that this gate is called from a Ludd or Ludda, like +Billingsgate from Billing, but on all the evidence we must conclude that +the Saxon word for postern must hold the field, especially as the opposite +gate in the east wall was called the Postern up to Stow's time. + +[Illustration: FIG. 23.--THE COMMON SEAL OF LONDON, 1224.] + +_Ealdredesgate_ and _Cripelegate_ are both named about the year 1000 in +Ethelred's Laws (Thorpe). The first is evidently called after one Ealdred. +As we have seen above, in p. 79, an excavation outside Aldersgate exposed +a section of the old Roman ditch, and gave evidence of a trestle bridge +which crossed it from the ancient gate, which consequently must itself +have been Roman.[82] Stow says that Cripplesgate is mentioned in a life of +St. Edmund, which tells that the Saint's body was brought through this +gate about 1010; but see Aldgate above. It is named the postern of +Cripplesgata in the Conqueror's charter to St. Martin's. In a slightly +later charter it is called Porta Contractorum (Stow).[83] These six, with +the South or Bridge Gate, make up the seven historic gates of London, and +the conclusion cannot be resisted that they all date back at least to the +time when Alfred repaired the walls of the city, and most, if not all of +them, to Roman days. Roach Smith held that the principal gates were then +Ludgate, Aldgate, and Bishopsgate. Referring to the finding of inscribed +stones near to Ludgate, he says that they doubtless belonged to a cemetery +which stood outside the gate. Hatton says that some Roman coins were found +at Aldgate on its destruction in 1606. Price says that no evidence of the +ancient wall having crossed Bishopsgate Street was found when a deep sewer +was carried along the street, and hence we may infer a Roman opening in +the wall at this point. Direct evidence has been found of Aldersgate, as +just said, and Newgate is implied by the evidence of the Roman road found +by Wren at St. Mary le Bow. FitzStephen says the city gates were double, +and a rough drawing of the city in the MS. Matthew of Paris represents +each gate as having two arches (Fig. 22). Stow also says that Aldgate was +double. The Roman gates at Chesters and other important posts on Hadrian's +Wall have coupled openings between towers containing guard chambers; the +great West Gate at Silchester was similar,[84] and we may take this gate +as a type for Roman London. + +We may thus form a very clear idea of what London must have looked like +when the Norman Conqueror came and viewed the city walls from the other +side of the river, as described by Guy of Amiens. + +The assertions and contradictions in recent books, and maps founded on +them,[85] are difficult to follow. According to Mr. Loftie, the north road +from Bishopsgate "joined the road to Colchester and Lincoln afterwards +called Erming Street" (Erming Street to Colchester); "We find both Watling +and the Erming Streets going off at a tangent when they have passed out" +(on plan both shown perfectly straight);[86] "Aldgate--properly +Algate--was opened about the beginning of Henry's [I.] reign"; "Aldgate +has nothing to do with 'Old' or Eald, for the simple reason that the +eastern road ran not from Aldgate but from Bishopsgate, and not to +Stratford but to Old Ford"; "Whitechapel Road--the Vicenal Way ... +answered to the street of tombs without the gate at Pompeii" (in the plan +a road going east from Bishopsgate is named Vicenal Way). It is impossible +to say what such roads were, or where they went, or how the author knew. +In the other plans mentioned above, London Bridge is shown near +Billingsgate, with the north and south street _east_ of St. Magnus and the +north gate much to the east of Bishopsgate. Watling Street is shown on a +diagonal line from Bridge end to Newgate, and Leadenhall Street and +Aldgate are omitted. + + * * * * * + +_Quays._--FitzStephen, as we have seen, says that London "was walled and +towered" to the south against the river. And there cannot be a doubt that +the citizens were protected in this way, when we read that they shut +themselves within their walls against the Danes, for land walls alone +would little have availed against the water-borne hordes. Stow, Wren, and +other authorities have accepted these river walls, and indeed analogy with +other water-side towns calls for them. It is evident on referring to a map +that Thames Street, Upper and Lower (above Bridge and below), must follow +the course of this wall, and that the street was outside the wall, forming +a "strand" giving access to the quays, as does the way along the Golden +Horn at Constantinople. When in 1863 Thames Street was excavated, the +Roman level appeared at 20 to 25 feet below the modern surface; the whole +was found to have been piled and cross-timbered right across the street; +this "doubtless formed the old water line and embankment fronting the +south portion of Roman London." The piling turned up the course of the +Walbrook towards Cannon Street.[87] Similar embankments were found when +the approach to new London Bridge was made, and still further east; it is +said as many as five lines were found when the present Custom House was +built. Roach Smith describes the foundations of a part of the river wall +which was found extending from Lambeth Hill to Queenhythe, and again by +Queen Street, along the north side of the street.[88] And we have seen +that the south-east and south-west angles of the wall were just on this +line. Several quay basins were formed along the river shore outside the +wall. The most famous of these was Billingsgate, which in the traditions +of Geoffrey of Monmouth took its name from Belinus, the British Apollo. In +the Laws of Ethelred (979-1015)[89] there is an item "concerning the Tolls +given at Bilingesgate." It is probably the Lundentuneshythe named in a +charter of 749[90] and the Roman Wharf of London. + +[Illustration: FIG. 24.--FRAGMENT FOUND IN THE SOUTH WALL.] + +The next most important quay is Queenhythe, otherwise, as Stow says, +"called Edredshithe because it at first belonged to one called Edred." +This is confirmed by the name of the Church of St. Michael "Ædredeshuda" +found about 1148 in the St. Paul's documents; about 1220 it appears as St. +Michael's de Hutha Regina in the same. The queen who gave her name to this +quay was Matilda, wife of Stephen; in the Cotton Charters (xvi. 35) is a +grant from her of the hospital by the Tower and rents from Edredshythe to +Holy Trinity Aldgate. In the Close Rolls of 21 Henry III. (1237) are two +entries in regard to the Necessary House formerly built by Matilda, late +Queen, at Queenhythe for the common use of the city; it was to be made as +long as the quay of Alan Balun, so that it might have a free course of +water. Dugdale cites a grant (_temp._ Henry II.) of a rent-charge on Ripa +Reginæ called "Aldershithe" [?] to St. Giles. In 1247 the wharf was +granted to the city at a farm of £50 a year.[91] From a charter of King +Alfred himself, dated 899, we find that the Edred who gave his name to +this wharf was none other than Ethered, Alfred's son-in-law and his +lieutenant in London (died 912).[92] In a second version of the charter +given in Birch's collection it is called Rethereshythe, but the +Peterborough Chronicle again names it correctly and gives the further +interesting fact that Harold held land near this quay: "_Comes Harold +dedit terram in London juxta monaster. S. Pauli juxta Portum qui vocatur +Etheredishithe_".[93] In a survey of the quays and approaches given in the +_Liber Custumarum_ a Retheresgate appears, and in a will of 1279 +Retheresgate and the lane of St. Margaret near it are mentioned. The lane +was later Rethers Lane and then Pudding Lane. I cannot explain the +confusion as to the two sites and names. Edredshythe was walled, and the +public way leading to it is mentioned. It is of great interest that its +actual basin yet remains to us. If the city were not given over to all the +horrors of "riches," we might hope to see a statue of the great king +erected at this quay. It is of romantic interest that we can associate +with this site the names of the husband of Alfred's daughter Ethelfleda, +Lady of Mercia and of London, and Harold, last of the English. + +[Illustration: FIG. 25.--FRAGMENT FOUND IN SOUTH WALL.] + +_Botolph's Wharf._--According to Stow, the Conqueror confirmed to +Westminster Abbey "the gift which Almundus of the port of St. Botolph +gave ... with the house and one wharf which is at the head of London +Bridge ... as King Edward granted." + +_Dowgate._--In a charter of 1150-51 which Henry II. as Duke of the Normans +gave to the citizens of Rouen, he grants that the men of Rouen who are +free of the Merchants' Gild shall be quit of all dues save for wine and +craspisce. "And the citizens of Rouen shall have at London the port of +Douuegate as they have had from the time of King Edward." After warning +other ships off the wharf, they were free to cut them adrift.[94] "Here +then we have evidence that even before the Conquest the citizens of Rouen +had a haven at the mouth of the Walbrook."[95] A chapter in the Laws of +Æthelred names the traders who were free to come to the Port of London, +and amongst these appear men of Flanders, France, and the Emperor's men. +The men of Rouen, then, as in 1150, brought wine and craspisce (dried +sturgeon or whale). From the fact that the Walbrook issued here, Dowgate +has been derived from the Celtic _Dwr_, water; this would be a very +interesting fact, if there were any certainty in it. + +_Steelyard and the Vintry Wharf._--In the privileges of the Emperor's men +just mentioned we seem to have, as Dr. Sharpe suggests,[96] the beginnings +of the Gilda Teutonicorum, the great mediæval Hanse by Baynard's Castle +called at a late time the Steelyard. In the time of Henry II. the House of +the Cologne Merchants in London is mentioned, and Richard I., when passing +through Cologne, remitted the rent-charge on their Gildhall.[97] This +privilege was confirmed by John in 1213.[98] + +We can probably trace the port of "the Flanders men" of Æthelred's laws in +a charter granted by the Conqueror to the Abbey of St. Peter's, Ghent, in +1081, granting Lewisham, Woolwich, etc.: and within London, the land which +King Edward [the Confessor] gave, namely, a portion of Waremanni-Acra with +the wharf belonging to it, with its market rights, stalls, shops, and +dues, and that all merchants who have landed in the Soke of St. Peter [of +Ghent in London] shall return and enjoy his protection. This charter is +witnessed amongst others by Deorman, Leofstan, and Alward _grossus_ of +London.[99] In a later confirmation of 1103-09 the ground is called +Wermanacre, and this name must be preserved in St. Martin's "de +Beremanescherche" (date 1257);[100] for Stow says St. Martin in the Vintry +was sometimes called "St. Martin de Beremund Church." Kemble gives a copy +of the original charter of the Confessor, granting to St. Peter of Ghent +the above-named places, also within London the land which _anglice_ is +called Wermanecher, with the wharf and all rights and customs. Mr. Round +shows from other documents that the Confessor visited St. Peter's, Ghent, +in 1016, and then promised to restore to the monks their possessions in +England, and that Lewisham, etc., had first been given to the monastery as +early as 918. The gift was confirmed by Edgar, with its "churches, land, +and crops," at the prayer of Dunstan, who ruled St. Peter's for some time +when exiled from England. + +_Fish hythe_, in the western part of London, is named in the Saxon charter +718 of Kemble's collection. Riley, in his introduction to the _Liber +Custumarum_, which contains a valuable mediæval survey of the wharves, +puts Fish hythe near the bottom of Bread Street. _Ebbegate_, which is +mentioned in twelfth-century documents, is, Riley says, the same as Swan +Wharf.[101] + +There must, even in Alfred's time, have been some sort of customs house, +for there were quay dues, and a charter of 857 speaks of the place in +London where the weighing and measuring of the port was done.[102] + +We thus have a picture of a busy river front, the shore, backed by the +city walls and gates, indented with a series of docks crowded with +shipping. Says FitzStephen, "To this city from every nation under heaven +merchants delight to bring their trade by sea. The Arabian sends gold, ... +Gaul her wines." And Robert of Gloucester, characterising the fame of +several towns, says, "London for ships most." Camden likens the docks to a +floating forest. + +The principal trade of the port seems to have been in slaves. A law of +_c._ 685 relates to the buying of chattels in London-wic, and the traffic +is frequently mentioned. Fifty years after the Conquest it was unsafe to +go near the ships in Bristol harbour for fear of being kidnapped, as was +young Tristram in the story. Gildas, looking back to the commerce of the +Roman period, likened the noble rivers Thames and Severn to two arms by +which foreign luxuries were of old brought in. In our period a multitude +of craft must have filled these basins and lined the river bank--dromonds +from the Mediterranean, "long ships and round ships" from the north, and +slavers from Rouen and Dublin, with many a splendid war "dragon" like Olaf +Tryggvison's--"Foreward on it was a dragon's head, but afterwards a crook +fashioned in the end as the tail of a dragon; but either side of the neck +and all the stem were overlaid with gold. That ship the King called the +Worm, because when the sail was aloft then should that be as the wings of +the dragon." The ships of Cnut's English fleet were "wondrously big; he +himself had that dragon which was so mickle that it told up sixty benches, +and on it were heads gold bedight, but the sails were banded of blue and +red and green."[103] There were also pilgrim ships, for we hear that Offa +"purchased a piece of land in Flanders in order to build a house where the +English pilgrims on landing might find refreshment."[104] According to the +legend St. Ursula and her virgins embarked at London. + +Of Alfred we are told that he built ships to fight the Danish _ashes_, +"full twice as large as they, some with sixty oars, some with more." Only +last year (1900) a clinker-built boat, thought to be Danish, was found on +the Lea, 50 feet long and 9 feet beam. It must have been a wonderful sight +when the English fleet assembled at London, as in 992, or when a great +host of Northmen sailed up on the tide. + + Think that below bridge the green lapping waves + Smite some few keels that bear Levantine staves, + Cut from the yew wood on the burnt-up Hill, + And pointed jars that Greek hands toiled to fill, + And treasured scanty spice from some far sea, + Florence gold-cloth, and Ypres napery, + And cloth of Bruges, and hogsheads of Guienne. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CITADEL--SOUTHWARK--THE DANES' QUARTER--THE PORTLANDS AND CNIHTENGILD + + Their dyke the Vikings warded, + But some deal of the war-host + Held booths in level Southwark. + OLAF THE HOLY in the _Heimskringla_. + + +_The Citadel._--The Saxon Chronicle under the year 886 reads: "In this +year _gesette_ Alfred _Lundenburh_ and gave the _burh_ to Æthered the +ealdorman to hold." This is usually understood to mean that Alfred +restored the city wall, but Mr. John Earle in a note on the passage argues +that the _burh_ was a citadel. He points out that Æthelweard's Latin +paraphrase reads, "_dux Æthered ... custodiendi arcem_"; he says further +that _gesette_ meant "founded," "peopled," and concluding that the passage +means that Alfred established a military colony with an endowment of land, +he suggests that we have here an account of the military occupation of +Tower Hill.[105] I cannot think that the suggestion as to the limited +meaning of _burh_ is made out;[106] but the endowment of a garrison as +suggested would give a perfect point of departure for the "English Cnihten +gild," an association to which a part of the portlands adjoining the east +wall was granted, Stow says, by King Edgar. Moreover, the resumption by +Alfred of London from the Danes would not only make such a body of +soldiers especially necessary, but give good reason for their being called +"English"; besides, it is known that Alfred did set up town garrisons. Mr. +Coote has already suggested that the relinquishment in 1125 by the members +of the gild of the lands which they held seems to have been in consequence +of the Conqueror's garrison at his new Tower having taken over their +duties. A traditional connection between the city guard and the Portsoken +seems to be suggested also by the account in the _Liber Custumarum_ of how +the city host was wont to assemble at the west end of St. Paul's, and then +march to Aldgate, where the banner of St. Paul was presented to them. The +council of this force, moreover, was held in Holy Trinity, which in 1125 +took over the endowment of the gild.[107] + +Since writing the above I find that Mr. Oman has also argued that the +Cnihten gilds of London and some other places were the military +associations which Alfred and his immediate successors placed in their +burhs. "That the system started with Alfred, rather than his son, seems to +follow from two passages in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where, under the +year 894, we hear of "the King's thegns who were at home in the +fortresses," and again of "the fyrd being half in the field and half at +home, besides those men that held the burhs."[108] + +It is likely enough that a great city like London would have had a +citadel, and Tower Hill, situated at the angle of the wall by the river, +seems itself to proclaim that from Roman days it has been a site of +military importance. It has been doubted whether Roman buildings actually +occupied the site, but some excavations in 1898-99 laid bare some remnants +about three yards away from the south-west angle of the keep, together +with a portion of a hypocaust.[109] Again, in the British Museum there is +an ingot of silver found in the eighteenth century on the site of the +Tower, and inscribed + + EX OFFI + HONORII. + +A similar inscribed ingot was found not long since in the _castrum_ at +Richborough, and this goes to raise the old theory of a treasury at the +Tower again. + +The account given by William of Poitiers seems to show that the Conqueror +took over and added to an existing stronghold (see Freeman), and Geoffrey +of Monmouth, writing within the lifetime of those who were living at the +Conquest, and when the Norman Tower was barely finished, attributes the +"prodigiously big tower" by Billingsgate to Belinus. Elidure, a descendant +of Belinus, he tells us, was shut up in the Tower at Trinovantum +(London). All tradition is in favour of its having been a stronghold +before the Conquest, and Henry of Huntingdon, _c._ 1130, says that +Eadric's head after his execution by Cnut was placed on the highest +battlement of the Tower of London. Again, there is no tradition of the +Conqueror having taken land from the city for the foundation of his Tower. +"Who built the Tower of London?" asks Dr. Maitland. "Let us read what the +chronicler says of the year 1097: 'Also many shires which belonged to +London for work were sorely harassed by the wall that they wrought around +the Tower, and by the bridge, which had been nearly washed away, and by +the work of the King's Hall that was wrought at Westminster.' There were +shires or districts which from of old owed work of this kind to +Londonbury."[110] + +According to the Welsh story, Bran the Blessed, King of Britain, "exalted +from the crown of London," when wounded in battle commanded that his +followers should cut off his head. "'And take you my head,' said he, 'unto +the White Mount in London and bury it there with the face towards France.' +And they buried the head in the White Mount. It was the third ill-fated +disclosure when it was disinterred, as no invasion from across the sea +came to this island while the head was in concealment." The White Hill is +always explained to mean the Tower of London.[111] + +In the story of Bran we get the constantly recurring idea of a palladium. +It seems to be referred to again in Merlin's prophecy, "Till the buried +kings be exposed to view in London." Some object like the statue of Pallas +in Troy, and the shield of Numa in Rome, was, as it were, the soul of a +city. In Geoffrey of Monmouth a brazen horse on Ludgate figures as the +protecting talisman; London Stone may have had some such mystical meaning +attached to it by the Saxons (see p. 181), and the Shrine of Erkenwald in +St. Paul's was the sacred heart of the city in the Middle Age. That the +idea of a palladium was known in Britain is proved by the case of the +sacred stone of Scone--the Coronation Stone. A similar story is told of +the tomb of Iver in the Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok. William the Conqueror had +to break it down before he got the victory at Hastings. + +_Southwark or the Borough._--The Burgal Hidage, a document which has +recently been critically examined,[112] containing "a list of ancient +fortresses," which dates from "the days of Edward the Elder at the +latest," gives us the earliest reference to Southwark. "It sets forth, so +we believe, certain arrangements made early in the tenth century for the +defence of Wessex against the Danish inroads. It names divers strongholds, +and shows how in the great age of burh-building they had wide provinces +which were appurtenant to them." + +Amongst the burhs named comes Sutheringa-geweorc, in a position which is +satisfied by Southwark.[113] Dr. Maitland concludes generally that the +boroughs had their origin in such royal burhs founded for national +defence. "The borough belongs to the genus villa (_tun_), but it was in +its inception royal." The South-work was evidently a _tête-du-pont_, and +became a royal borough. By means of special privileges such burhs, like +the bastides of Edward I., attracted a heterogeneous population of +traders, and Southwark became the great "cheaping town" of the +_Heimskringla_, and "the Borough" _par excellence_ to this day. In the +Pipe Roll of 1130 it stands with Guildford as the second borough in +Surrey, and it returned members to Parliament from the first. It must have +been protected by a ditch, and remains of this, or of Cnuts dyke, might +have given rise to the tradition recorded by Stow that the course of the +Thames had been altered when the bridge was built by a trench cast from +Rotherhithe to Battersea. The older Maitland seems to have gathered some +evidence of its palisaded bank.[114] Even in the time of the Confessor the +"burghers" are spoken of. Some coins of Ethelred II. bear the mint mark of +Southwark: this also is a sign of being a royal burh. The whole of Surrey +seems to have been under contribution for the maintenance of Southwark and +Eashing [bridge?]. The churches of Southwark are of considerable +antiquity. The parish church of St. Olave is mentioned 1096, and St. +George's and St. Margaret-on-the-Hill can be traced back to about 1100. +Margaret Hill is the continuation of Borough High Street to St. George's +Church; the name may mark a military mound. + +In Domesday it appears that Southwark had been subject to the Confessor +and Godwine.[115] The men of Southwark testified that in King Edward's +time no one took toll on the Strand or in the Water Street save the king. +Godwine had a house here, and he must have held the burh. In the dispute +of 1051-52 between the Confessor and Godwine, the earl carried his forces +up the river to Southwark, the burghers of which followed his cause and +supported him by land. The king's navy and land force faced him from the +north. The Londoners sympathised with the earl, but officially it was a +case of Southwark against the city.[116] + +It would probably be possible even now to lay down the course of the +"walls" (of earth, like Wareham and Wallingford) by comparing the boundary +of the old manor or "town" with street lines and names and other +evidence.[117] Godwine's holding seems to have coincided with the +gildable manor which extended along the river from St. Mary Overie's dock +to Haywharf in the east, and southward nearly to St. Margaret Hill. Two +other adjoining manors were included in the parliamentary area. Even the +site of the great earl's manor house can, with some probability, be +pointed to.[118] Excavations have shown that before Saxon days there was a +considerable Roman settlement on the site of Southwark, and that the +present High Street lies over the Roman approach to London. Roach Smith +says that substantial remains of Roman houses have been found, +particularly on both sides of the High Street up to the vicinity of St. +George's Church, in which district the wall paintings and other evidence +indicated villas of a superior kind. Nearer the river, where the ground +had been subject to inundation, the houses were built upon piles. + +In 1016 Cnut, to turn the flank of the bridge, dug a "mickle dyke" on the +south, and dragged his ships to the west side of the bridge. Sir W. Besant +has shown that quite a little dyke a few yards long would go round the +bridge end and take a Danish ship, but he has not considered the +preliminary forcing of the South-work which would have been necessary. As +to the probable course of the dyke, see Allen's _History of London_, vol. +i., and Faithorn's map, 1658, which shows a considerable stream flowing +into St. Saviour's dock. It was required more for the investment of the +stronghold than for the ships (which, as at Constantinople, could have +been dragged over land), as shown by the complete passage: "They dug a +great ditch on the south side, and dragged their ships to the west side of +the bridge, and then afterwards ditched the city around, so that no one +could go either in or out." + + * * * * * + +_The Danes and their Quarter._--London Bridge was not only a roadway over +the river: it was a fortification linking the walled city to the +South-work and barring progress up the river. The _Knytlinga Saga_ refers +to this when it says: "King Cnut went with all his host to Tempsa (the +Thames). In the river was built a large castle, so that a ship-host might +not go up the river." + +It was natural that a suburb should spring up under the shelter of the +bridge along the Strand, which is probably a Roman way. + +[Illustration: FIG. 26.--DANISH SWORD FROM THE THAMES.] + +In Fabyan's Chronicle is the following curious passage referring to the +reign of Ethelred: "In the third year [982] a great part of the city was +wasted by fire. But you shall understand that the city of London had most +building from Ludgate towards Westminster, and little or none where the +heart of the city is now, except in divers places was housing, but without +order, so that many cities in England passed London in building, as I have +known by an old book sometime at Guildhall named Domysdaye." From another +passage quoted below (p. 189) it would appear that this book was about the +age of the great Domesday (1087). + +FitzStephen also tells us that the Palace of Westminster was joined to the +city by a _populous suburb_. In early thirteenth-century documents the +Strand is sometimes called _Vico Dacorum_. The church still called St. +Clement Danes certainly, as we shall see, dates from before the Conquest, +and in some special way was the church of the Danes. The early existence +of this western suburb would explain satisfactorily the name of +Westminster, and possibly its origin. We first hear of the Abbey, +independently of its own documents, towards the end of the tenth century, +when in 997 Elfwic signs a charter as abbot of Westminster.[119] It is +probable that Cnut was the first to choose Westminster for a royal +residence, and Harold I. was buried here. All these facts go to show that +the Strand in Cnut's day had become the Danish quarter. And London itself +had become so Danish that Malmesbury says Harold I. was elected by the +Danes and the citizens of London, who from long intercourse with these +barbarians had almost entirely adopted their customs. + +An account in the _Jomsvikinga Saga_, however inaccurate in detail, +contains some interesting allusions to the Danes in London. + +We are told that Sweyn made warfare in the land of King Ethelred and drove +him out of the land; he put "_Thingamannalid_" in two places. The one in +"Lundunaborg" was ruled by Eilif Thorgilsson, who had sixty ships in the +"Temps," the other was north in Slesvik. The Thingamen made a law that no +one should stay away a whole night. They gathered at the Bura church every +night when a large bell was rung, but without weapons. He who had command +in the town [London] was Eadric Streona. Ulfkel Snilling ruled over the +northern part of England [East Anglia]. The power of the Thingamen was +great. There was a fair there [in London] twice in every twelvemonth, one +about midsummer, and the other about midwinter. The English thought it +would be the easiest to slay the Thingamen while Cnut was young (he was +ten winters old) and Sweyn dead. About Yule waggons went into the town to +the market, and they were all tented over by the treacherous advice of +Ulfkel Snilling and Ethelred's sons. Thord, a man of the Thingamannalid, +went out of the town to the house of his mistress, who asked him to stay, +because the death was planned of all the Thingamen by English men +concealed in the waggons, when the Danes should go unarmed to the church. +Thord went into the town and told it to Eilif. They heard the bell +ringing, and when they came to the churchyard there was a great crowd, who +attacked them. Eilif escaped with three ships and went to Denmark. Some +time after, Edmund was made king. After three winters Cnut, Thorkel, and +Eric went with eight hundred ships to England. Thorkel had thirty ships, +and slew Ulfkel Snilling, and married Ulfhild his wife, daughter of King +Ethelred. With Ulfkel was slain every man on sixty ships, and Cnut took +Lundunaborg. + +The massacre of the Danes at the "Bura church" must be the same event as +is noticed by Stow in his account of St. Clement Danes, and also by +Matthew of Westminster under the year 1012. Stow seems to suggest that it +was in consequence of an attack on Chertsey Abbey. Messrs. Napier and +Stevenson, in a recent reference to this story in their _Crawford +Charters_, are "inclined to think that this account of the fate of the +Jomsborg Thingamenn is based on real events." They have found Eilif and +Thordr signing charters for Cnut. The fight with Ulfkel was at Ringmere, +near Thetford. + +The fact of Cnut's drawing his ships above the bridge, as described in the +English Chronicles, when taken together with the above, would seem to +suggest as a possibility that the intention was to reach an English fleet +lying there. The Thingamannalid appears to have manned a fleet of +occupation; it seems to have been none other than the original of the +company of the Lithsmen of London mentioned in the English Chronicles, and +about which such various opinions have been held.[120] + +Even the details of the fairs, the covered waggons, and the church-bell +have some historical value. It seems probable that the Danish occupation +of this quarter outside the walls of the city may date from the +arrangement made between Guthrum and Alfred. + + * * * * * + +_Portlands and Cnihten Gild._--London was surrounded by a wide zone of +common land, the boundary of which in its late and probably lessened +extent was defined by bars on the several roads, such as Temple Bar, +Holborn Bar, Spital Bar, Red Cross Bar, and the bars without Aldersgate +and Aldgate. These bars can be traced back to the twelfth century.[121] +In 1181-88 the land or the canons of St. Paul's without the bar beyond +Bishopsgate is mentioned.[122] + +The "bars" seem to have been posts; those at the limit of Bridge Ward +against Southwark were called "stulpes" (by Stow) or "stoples" (in 1372, +Riley's _Memorials_). In the Hundred Roll of Edward I. we hear of a +citizen who had put "stapellos" in front of his house.[123] From these +analogies I had come to the conclusion that Staples Inn was the inn at +Holborn Bars, or Staples, and I find that this suggestion has already been +made because "staple" is Saxon for "post."[124] The land out to the bars +is called suburbs by FitzStephen, and later, franchises or liberties. I +cannot but think that the whole of this land was at times included under +the designation Portsoken, which more particularly is given to that part +outside the east wall of the city; thus the charter of Henry II. grants +liberties "within the city and Portsoken thereof"; and the 1212 Assize of +Building regulated buildings _infra Civitatem et Portsokna_. The wider +liberties of the city seem to be without guarantee unless Portsoken had +this extended meaning.[125] + +In any case the suburbs may represent a zone of common pasture and +tillage.[126] A consideration of its boundaries, however, suggests that +its present form must have been governed by the growth of extra-mural +population; this is also shown by the way in which extensions of boundary +overlie the main roads. The Portsoken Ward must formerly have been part of +this _pomærium_ of the city, and it occupied most of the eastern side. Mr. +Coote, in the authoritative article on the subject, calls it the city +manor. The Cnihten Gild, which held it until 1125, possessed a charter of +Edward the Confessor confirming to them the customs which they had in +King Edgar's day.[127] + +On the north side of the city the common land was called the Moor, and we +have seen how a part of this "Moor" outside Cripplegate was granted to St. +Martin le Grand, the rest remaining a common playground as described by +FitzStephen. A mandate of Henry III. of 1268 in the Close Rolls, however, +commands the mayor and commonality "not to disturb Walter de Merton in +possession of a Moor on the north side of the wall of London which the +King gave to St. Paul's in consequence of the late disturbances."[128] It +was fen land; FitzStephen tells how the citizens skated here, and bone +skates of pre-Conquest date have been found in Moorfields. It is possible +that all the common land surrounding the city was called the Fen or Moor, +as a boundary on the west side against the land of Westminster was said at +an early time to be in London Fen (see p. 60).[129] The 12-1/2 acres of +land, mentioned in Domesday under the name of Noman's-land, and as having +been held by the Confessor, was probably some of the city land. In the +fourteenth century Charterhouse was built on ground called +Noman's-land--probably the same. + +A part of Portsoken where fairs used to be held in the time of Henry III. +was called East Smithfield; at the north-west angle of the city was +another Smoothfield where the cattle fairs were held. As says FitzStephen: +"Outside one of the gates immediately in the suburb is a field smooth in +fact as in name. Every Friday, unless it be a feast, noble horses are here +shown for sale. In another part of the field are implements of husbandry, +swine, cows, great oxen, and woolly sheep.[130] On the north side there +are pastures and pleasant meadow land, through which flow streams turning +the wheels of mills. The tilled lands of the city are not barren soil, but +fat plains producing luxuriant crops. There are also sweet springs of +water which ripple over bright stones; amongst which there are Holy Well +[Hoxton], Clerkenwell, and St. Clement's; they are frequented by many when +they go out for fresh air on summer evenings." + +It has been properly pointed out by Dr. Maitland and by Mr. Gomme that +"the tilled lands of the city" is no mere rhetorical phrase,[131] but it +referred to "the arable fields of the town of London." In the Saxon +Chronicle we gain a sight of the citizens reaping their lands: "Then that +same year [895] the Danish men who sat down in Mersey [island] towed their +ships up the Thames, and thence up the Lea. This year [896] the aforesaid +host wrought themselves a stronghold on the Lea, twenty miles above +London. And in summer a great body of the townsmen, and other folk beside, +went forth even unto this stronghold. And there were they put to flight, +and there were slain some four of the king's thanes. And after, throughout +harvest, did the king camp hard by the town [London] while the folk were +reaping, that the Danes might not rob them of their crop. Then one day the +king rode along the stream, and saw where it might be shut in, so that +never might they bring out their ships. And thus was it done. And they +wrought them two strongholds on the two sides of the stream. When this +work was done and the camps pitched thereby, then saw the host that they +might not bring out their ships. Then forsook they their ships, and fled +away across the land until they came unto Coatbridge on Severn, and there +wrought they a stronghold. And the men of London took all those ships, and +such as they might not bring away of them they brake up, and such as were +staelwyrthe them brought they to London." + +The suburbs must be the residue of the original clearing in the forest; +FitzStephen says the forest was close by London and formed a covert for +boars and wild cattle, and as late as the thirteenth century there were +wild cattle at Osterley.[132] Scattered about the forest were village +settlements, the nearest about the city mentioned in Domesday being +Stepney, Hoxton, Islington, Hampstead, St. Pancras, Kensington, Chelsea. +The bishop of the East Saxons already, in Alfred's day, had his house at +Fulham.[133] + +The citizens had their hunting rights confirmed by Henry I. "as fully as +their ancestors have had, in Chiltre, Middlesex, and Surrey." Middlesex +was peculiarly attached to London, and, in its modern form at least, must +represent the portion of the old East Saxon kingdom cut off by Alfred's +treaty with Guthrum.[134] The East Saxon kingdom, Malmesbury says, +comprised the modern Essex, Middlesex, and half Hertfordshire. The Saxon +Chronicle under 912 says: "This year died Æthered, and King Edward +[Alfred's son] took possession of London and Oxford and of all the lands +which owed obedience thereto."[135] A charter professedly dated as early +as 704 names Twickenham in the province of Middlesex, but nothing is known +to history of a Middle Saxon kingdom or people. Bede says London was a +city of the East Saxons, and the London bishopric is coextensive with the +East Saxon kingdom, including Middlesex. If we had to find a theory for an +earlier origin of Middlesex, it might be suggested that when in 571 the +West Saxons and East Saxons formed their common frontiers, London with +some dependent land was constituted a middle region accessible to both. +This might account for the peculiar circumstances whereby London passed +successively under the suzerainty of one state after another. Middlesex +was in fact the "country of London," as it is called by Capgrave. + +Besides the suburban land, there remained much common and open land in the +city itself through the Middle Ages.[136] Stocks Market, for instance, +"the middle of the city," as Stow says, was made in 1282 on "an open space +where, the way being very large and broad, had stood a pair of stocks." +This looks like the "village green" of London. In the original grant in +the _Liber Custumarum_ the vacant land is described as north of +Woolchurch, where the king's beam stood and the wool market was held. + +At the east end, near the precinct of the Tower, some ground bore the name +of Romeland, whatever that may mean:[137] at the west of the city was St. +Paul's Churchyard, with the areas where the folkmote met, and where the +city host assembled in arms. + +It was not till the centuries following the Conquest that the ground just +within the walls seems to have been appropriated; at least large sections +remained to be occupied by the monasteries of Holy Trinity, St. Helen's, +Austin Friars, and Greyfriars. The orchards and gardens of citizens are +frequently mentioned. A deed of 1316 refers to a grant of land called +Andovrefield and a house called Stonehouse by the Walbrook.[138] London +in Saxon times indeed was a walled county, and up to the sixteenth century +retained much of its character as a "garden city." + +The Cnihtengild, which till 1125 held the Portsoken, has been incidentally +dealt with in the course of this chapter (pp. 102 and 118). Of the many +problems connected with the history of London, hardly one has been more +discussed than the status of this "mysterious institution." Mr. Loftie +thought he had proved that the aldermen formed its members, and that it +was the governing gild of London. Mr. Round, however, has adversely +criticised this conclusion. It is certain that there were Cnihtengilds in +other places, as Winchester and Exeter. As all such places appear to have +been county strongholds or burhs, and as we have seen it is probable that +the Cnihts of London had the duty of defending the city, and further, as +at Cambridge the members of a gild of Thegns were called Cnihts, I +conclude the members of the London gild were originally the Thegns who +garrisoned Londonburh.[139] + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE WARDS AND PARISHES--THE PALACE + + So Hawk fared west to England to see King Athelstane, and found the + king in London, and thereat was there a bidding and a feast full + worthy. So they went into the hall thirty men in company, and Hawk + went before the king and greeted him, and the king bade him welcome. + + _Saga of Harold Hairfair._ + + +_Wards and Parishes._--The earliest lists of wards which give the present +traditional names have been printed by Dr. Sharpe in his _Calendar of +London Wills_ and his _Letter Book A_. These are of about the years 1320, +1293, and 1285. Another of 1303 is in Palgrave's _Treasury_. A patent of +1299 speaks of the mayor and twenty-four aldermen. Before this time most +of the wards were called by the names of the aldermen holding them, as +said in the _Liber Albus_. There is a list of this kind, in which only a +few of the traditional names appear, in the Hundred Rolls of 1275. This +last is particularly interesting, however, as giving the names of the +city magnates of the great time just after the war of the city with the +king, when Thomas FitzThomas, the mayor, was imprisoned--some have said +never to appear again; but I find in the Close Rolls for 1269-70 (53 Henry +III.) that in that year "Thomas son of Thomas, late Mayor of London," +entered into recognisances for a debt of £500 to Edward the king's son, +finding sureties for the same and for his fealty to the king and his +heirs. + +[Illustration: FIG. 27.--PLAN SHOWING THE RELATION OF THE CENTRAL WARDS +AND THE PRINCIPAL STREETS] + +Another list of aldermen in 1214 is printed in Madox's _Exchequer_, +together with a reference to one of 1211, which carries back the complete +list of twenty-four to within twenty years of the institution of the +mayoralty. + +An account of the property of St. Paul's made in the first half of the +twelfth century, and printed in facsimile in Price's _History of the +Guildhall_, incidentally contains a list of about twenty wards, mostly +under the names of their aldermen. Of these "_Warda Fori_" and the wards +of Aldgate, Brocesgange (Walbrook), and of the Bishop may be cited as +especially interesting; Aldresmanesberi is also mentioned. This document +is not dated, but Mr. Round has shown it to have been written about 1130. +Hugo, son of Wlgar, and Osbert, Aldermen, occur in another deed of 1115, +and Thurstan, Alderman, in 1111. Mr. Loftie has attempted to identify some +of the wards. The Ward of Herbert, in which was the land of William +Pontearch, may perhaps be Dowgate, for a charter of Stephen gave to S. M. +de Sudwerc the stone house of William de Pontearch, situated by the sheds +of Douegate (Dugdale). What is probably a still earlier group of aldermen +is given in a Ramsay document of 1114-30, which is addressed to Hugo de +Bochland, Roger, Leofstan, Ordgar, and all the other barons (_i.e._ +aldermen) of London. Another document of the same age is witnessed by +Levenoth, "Alderman." A careful comparison of these lists, together with +other sources,[140] might yield some new facts. From a cursory comparison +it seems to be evident that too much has been made of the case of the +Farndons and Farringdon Ward as evidence for hereditary _ownership_ in the +aldermanries. Most of the family names change from list to list, but a few +persist: in 1240 there is a Jacob Bland, in 1275-85 and 1293 a Rudulphus +Blond, but this may be the case in any office. On the other hand, two of +the same family name are found more than once holding different wards at +the same time, and in other cases similar names are found in different +wards in different lists; thus in 1285 there are two Ashys, two Rokesleys, +two Boxes, and two Hadstocks: a Frowick in 1285 held Cripplegate, and in +1320 a Frowick held Langbourne. The ward that can most easily be traced is +Cheap; in 1211-14 it was held by William son of Benedict, in 1275 by Peter +of Edmonton, in 1285 by Stephen Ashy, and in 1320 by Simon Paris. This is +hardly hereditary succession. But what I am concerned with is not the +tenure but the topographical origin of the wards. Many different theories +as to the origin of the wards have been put forward. Mr. Loftie, writing +of the beginning of the thirteenth century, says: "The wards, as we shall +notice more distinctly further on" (the distinctness is difficult to +find), "were in the hands originally of the landowners, and an alderman +was still very much in the position of a lord of the manor. His office was +at first always, and still usually, hereditary." After the reign of Henry +III. the aldermen no longer owned their wards. The constitution had +undergone a complete change, "and the offices became purely elective." + +Mr. Price thought that the wards were divisions dating from Roman days. +Norton believed that the wards were to the city what the hundreds were to +the shire, and this view, shared by Bishop Stubbs, seems to be confirmed, +as will be shown by an independent line of reasoning. + +The wards can be traced back to within fifty years after the Conquest, and +that they were even then of immemorial antiquity is shown by FitzStephen's +legend that, like Rome, London was founded by the Trojans, and +consequently had the same laws, and like it was divided into wards. In +Cambridge there were ten wards in 1086. + +A study of the ward boundaries in connection with the Walbrook, the +"Carrefour," and the main streets yields most interesting results. Stow +tells us that a great division between the western and eastern wards was +made by the Walbrook, which ran from the north wall to St. Margaret's +Lothbury, then under Grocers' Hall, and St. Mildred's Church, west of the +Stocks Market, through Bucklersbury, then by the west of St. John's +Walbrook and the Chandlers' Hall, and by Elbow Lane to the Thames. On +laying down the course of this stream from all obtainable data, it is +found that it was an unbroken boundary between the thirteen eastern and +eleven western wards. + +Again, the four principal cross streets form so many backbones to a series +of wards; and this in such a marked way as to show on a good map quite +certainly at a glance, that these wards were formed by aggregations of +dwellings upon either side of the roads which passed through them, exactly +as a high-road threads a village. + +Bridge Ward is a narrow strip containing the Bridge Street up to the cross +of Lombard Street. Bishopsgate Ward, beginning at this same crossways, +goes all the way to Bishopsgate, the ward street passing through its +midst. + +Lombard Street and Fenchurch Street furnish the midrib to Langbourne +Ward[141] in just as obvious a way. Stow thought that Langbourne Ward was +called from a stream, but this has been shown to be untenable for physical +reasons (see p. 48); and the plan of the wards shows instantly that here +was no water-course, like the Walbrook, _dividing_ wards, but a street +passing through the _midst_ of a ward. While deriving this _ward's_ name +from a brook, Stow says that Lombard _Street_ was so called of the +Longobard merchants about 1300. I find that the _street_ was called +Langbourne Strate at the end of the thirteenth century;[142] and in a +charter of Matilda to Holy Trinity, 1108-18, appears the Church of St. +Edmund in _Longboard Strete_. The first mention I can find of the ward is +also of the twelfth century; this is a demise by "Geoffrey, Alderman of +the Ward of Langebord," of land in Lime Street.[143] It is evident from +this that the name of the street and the ward was originally one and the +same--Langbard, Longbord, or Longford, as it occasionally appears. The +street was written "Lumbard Strete" in 1319.[144] + +The St. Paul's documents show that important Lombards were resident in +London early in the twelfth century, and they probably gave their name to +the ward and street; two of these were Meinbod and his son Picot the +Lombard. In Paris there is a Lombard Street, and other cities have the +name. And the word is written Langeberde in old English. + +Cornhill Ward, Cheap Ward, and the old Newgate Ward are just as clearly +three wards strung on the street which respectively threads them in +passing to the west gate, and properly takes the name of each ward in +passing through it. + +Lime Street and Aldgate Wards lie over Leadenhall (the old Aldgate) +Street; from the look of it we might suppose that Lime Street Ward was +formerly part of Aldgate Ward, as the _division_ line is here formed by +the street which gives its name to the ward. The backbone of Tower Ward is +Great Tower Street, which passes into Billingsgate Street as East Cheap, +and on westward as Candlewick Street. Coleman Street threads the ward of +the same name, which is possibly derived from the Coleman named on p. 83, +and Cripplegate and Aldersgate Wards are formed on the ancient streets +which went to those gates. + +This examination of the forms of the wards in relation to the ancient +streets which they overlie is enough to prove irresistibly that the main +streets of the city existed before the wards, and that these wards +originated not as "private property," but as units of population +inhabiting the houses along those streets, like so many villages or +townships. These streets, in turn, however long and unbroken, evidently +bore different names according to the wards they passed through. + +The study of the wards might be carried further in one direction by means +of a map on which the boundaries of the parishes, as well as of the wards, +were carefully laid down. Although upwards of a hundred parishes can +hardly date back so early as the institution of wards, it is possible that +certain large parishes may have had an origin identical with the +wards,[145] and most of them probably date from before the Conquest. It +would be interesting also to compare the boundaries of the suburban +parishes with the limits of the suburbs proper as defined by the bars. + +It is generally accepted that a parallel holds between the organisation of +the city and the shire, the ward and the hundred. "Hundreds and Tithings +were part of the primitive Germanic constitution." Dr. Stubbs has shown +that in Domesday several towns figure as hundreds, and the wards of the +city of Canterbury were called hundreds. Thus too, I suppose, it arose +that the reports of the wards of London were inserted in the Hundred +Rolls. + +The wards in London most probably represented the groups of citizens +belonging to several gilds; they may indeed be identical with the Peace +gilds of Athelstane's enactment, according to which the population were to +be enrolled by tens and hundreds in associations for the preservation of +peace and the suppression of theft.[146] In accordance with this idea of +accounting for every man, we find that even in the thirteenth century no +one was to stay in the city for more than two nights "unless he finds two +sureties and so puts himself in frankpledge." The aldermen were +responsible for their wards,[147] and every hosteller was likewise +responsible for his guest.[148] Dr. Maitland suggests that the Aldermen +were the military captains of the burgmen. It is certain that the defence +of the town gates was assigned to the men of the several wards. + +The wards, then, were in the main organisations for the executive +government, the ordering and policing of the city. "The ward-mote is so +called as being the meeting together of all the inhabitants of a ward in +presence of its head, the alderman, or else his deputy, for the correction +of defaults, the removal of nuisances, and the promotion of the well-being +of each ward."[149] This function, indeed, is explained by the very name +"ward," and the "frankpledge" was a survival of primitive adoption into +the tribe. Some recognition of this is made by Holinshed, who says the +city is divided into twenty-six wards or "tribes." It even seems possible +that the wards may at first have been formed by symmetrical numerical +units such as, say, a hundred freemen; or the space within the walls may +have been divided up into twenty or twenty-four parts in such a way as to +allow for density of population. Excavations in the city have shown that +the population clustered most thickly along the river and in the great +streets, and the wards are much more congested and regular in the central +part by the bridge than nearer the walls: the old churches also seem to +gravitate towards the same nucleus. + +_Wards without._--A good illustration of the formation of the interior +wards may be found in the growth of those without the walls. Bishopsgate +Without, and Aldersgate Without, were evidently formed by clusters of +dwellings springing up on either side of the roads outside the gates. +Cottages outside Bishopsgate and at Holborn are mentioned even in +Domesday, and Fleet Street appears to have been populous even earlier. The +external wards extend to the boundary of the city liberties, or common +land, and the roads passing through them had specific street-names as far +as the several "Bars." Holborn Street, as it is sometimes called, which +passed over the Hole-burn, should properly end with the city liberty, as +does Fleet Street. + +Along with the wards were a number of sokes--areas in which persons or +corporations held certain privileges. The first sokes mentioned are that +of the Cnihten Gild (pre-Conquest), and that of St. Peter of Ghent (in +1081, see p. 97). The charter of Henry I. grants that "no guest tarrying +in any soc shall pay custom to any other than him to whom the soc +belongs." They appear to have been heritable, and free to some extent from +civic jurisdiction: in the reign of Edward I. there were still upwards of +twenty in existence in London.[150] "Bury" seems to have been applied to +a manor or property surrounded by a wall or fence; "in London," says Mr. +W. H. Stevenson, "it means a large house." Bucklersbury and Bloomsbury +were the properties--post-Conquest--of one Blemund, and of the family of +Bockerel. A Saxon will makes a bequest to Paul's byrig.[151] The +termination "haw," present still in Bassishaw, is also common. A charter +of the Confessor giving Stæninghaga in London to Westminster is printed by +Kemble; Dr. Maitland in _Domesday and Beyond_ has shown that this was +occupied by the men of Staines, and that Staining Lane probably preserves +its memory even unto this day. There were forty-eight burgesses of London +who counted with Staines in 1086. He suggests that we have here a trace of +a system by which the shires garrisoned the burhs. + + * * * * * + +_The Palace._--There are but few references to a palace. Florence, writing +of 1017, says that Cnut "being in London" ordered Edric to be "slain in +the palace" and his body to be thrown from the walls--"into the Thames," +says Malmesbury. Richard of Cirencester, who wrote in the middle of the +fourteenth century, but whose testimony is of the more value as he was a +monk at Westminster, says that Cnut was keeping his Christmas "in the +castle which is now called Baynard's," and after the death of Edric took +boat for Westminster. There is every reason to think that the ruler's +house in London, as in Constantinople, Venice, Aachen, and Paris, would +have adjoined the cathedral, as Baynard's Castle did. That Baynard's +Castle should have been the old royal palace would seem to agree very well +with its subsequent history; it would also explain the existence of this +stronghold held under the king within the city walls, while none of the +chroniclers speak of its site being taken from the city, and it would +explain why early in the twelfth century Henry I. should give a part of +the site to St. Paul's; for, if it had been built after the Conquest, it +would hardly have been curtailed so early.[152] + +Henry of Huntingdon says that William Baynard was deprived of his estate +in 1110. It was then, I suppose, that it passed to the Clares. The +Fitzwalters, who held it after Baynard, belonged to the great family of +the Clares.[153] Baynard's Castle was probably dismantled under John when +the king quarrelled with Fitzwalter. In 1275 a patent was granted R. +Fitzwalter to alienate Castle Baynard near the city walls, with stone +wall, void areas, ditches, and even the tower of Fish Street Hill. Taking +this and the St. Paul's document together, the precinct seems to have +included the ground between the boundary of St. Paul's (along Carter Lane) +and the river and from the city wall to Old Fish Street. It must have been +an important castle, not a mere tower. + +Henry II. is made by Fantosme to ask how "mes baruns de Lundres ma cité" +fared in the troubles of that time, and is told that Gilbert de Munfichet +had strengthened his "castle," and that the Clares were leagued with him. +This Montfichet's Castle is mentioned by FitzStephen, and Stow says that +it was close to Castle Baynard towards the west, and on the river; but a +document given by Dugdale speaks of Munfichet Castle with its ditch as +close to Ludgate (ii. 384).[154] + +Tradition has also assigned the site of a Saxon palace close to the east +end of St. Alban's, Wood Street. It was said that King Athelstane had his +house here, which, having a door into Adel Street, "gave name to this +street, which in ancient evidences is written King Adel Street."[155] Stow +just refers to the story, but says any evidence had been destroyed, and he +was evidently disgusted at a then recent "improvement." Some accounts of +23 Henry VIII., given in the _Calendar of St. Paul's Documents_, refer to +the "clensying of certyn old ruinouse houses in Aldermanbury, sometime the +palace of Saincte Æthelbert Kyng ... and making of five new tenements." It +is curious that there is an Adle Hill, also in Castle Baynard Ward. The +records of St. Alban's show that Abbot Paul (from 1077) obtained by +exchange with the Abbot of Westminster what was said had been the chapel +of Offa's palace near the church of St. Alban's, Wood Street. This +evidently refers to the same site abutting on St. Alban's, Wood +Street.[156] It has been said that Gutter Lane is named from the residence +of Guthrum. I find it called Godron Lane in early documents, and the +tradition may possibly be true (see p. 154). + +Tower Royal was a royal residence after the Conquest; Stow says Stephen +lodged there.[157] Froissart, writing of the Wat Tyler's rebellion, tells +how the king's mother fled to "the Royal called the Queen's Wardrobe." + +We get in the _Heimskringla_ a fair picture of what the king's haga or +garth would have been in the history of King Olaf the Holy. "King Olaf let +house a king's garth at Nidoyce. There was done a big court hall with a +door at either end, but the high seat of the king was in the midmost of +the hall. Up from him sat his court-bishop, and next to him again other +clerks of his; but down from the king sat his counsellors. In the other +high seat strait over against him sat his marshal, and then the guests. By +litten fires should ale be drunk. He had about him sixty body-guards and +thirty guests. Withall he had thirty house carles to work all needful +service in the garth. In the garth also was a mickle hall wherein slept +the body-guard, and there was withal a mickle chamber where the king held +his court chambers." Of Olaf the Quiet we are told: "That was the ancient +wont in Norway that the king's high seat was midst of the long daïs, and +ale was borne over the fire. But King Olaf was the first let do his high +seat on the high daïs athwart the hall.... He let stand before his board +trencher-swains. He had also candle-swains, who held up candles before his +board. Out away from the trapeza was the marshal's stool." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +STREETS--CRAFT GILDS AND SCHOOLS--CHURCHES + + They answered and said that there were many more churches there [in + London] than they might wot to what man they were hallowed. + + HEIMSKRINGLA. + + +_Streets._--As has been said, a large number, probably most, of the +streets of London as they existed before the fire can be traced in records +back to the thirteenth century. It is evident that the extra-mural +approaches and the gates necessitated the existence of some of these at a +still earlier time; the sites of ancient churches and the formation of the +wards to which the streets serve as midribs, as above said, account for +others. That some are of Roman date positive evidence has been found. On +reviewing this cumulative evidence it seems possible that the main streets +given in Stow's _Survey_ represent ways in the Roman city. A succession +of fires slowly raising the surface with layers of debris, gradual +encroachments, and the obliteration of open spaces, have modified the old +lines in some cases considerably, but still it is certain, I believe, that +the general "squareness" and more or less symmetrical alignment of the +Roman city can be traced in the existing streets. A line from the bridge +to the north gate must always have formed a great main street, and +standing at the bottom of Bridge Street (Fish Street Hill) we may still +gain some idea of what the entrance to the city by the Roman bridge was +like. Mr. Price says of Gracechurch Street: "Recent investigations have +shown ... that no structural remains of the Roman period can have occurred +throughout its course; on either side of the street, debris of buildings +with fragments of tessellated pavements have been seen, but nothing has +existed along the actual line of road."[158] Roach Smith also testifies +that no wall has been found crossing Gracechurch Street, "a fact that +would support the opinion of its occupying the route of one of the Roman +roads."[159] The idea of J. R. Green, that the north and south street was +considerably to the east of the present line, was probably founded on +Stow's mistaken view that the bridge was of old far to the east. + +Again, for the two great longitudinal ways through the city we have +evidence. In forming the entrance into the city from New London Bridge a +section was made of the ground north of Thames Street, and three ancient +lines of embankment were found, by which ground was by degrees regained +from the Thames. One of these was formed of squared oaks. As the +excavation came to Eastcheap it crossed a raised bank of gravel 6 feet +deep and 18 wide, the crest of which was 5 feet under the present surface; +it ran in the direction of London Stone. On reaching the north-east corner +of Eastcheap the foundations of a Roman building were found, and here, +having reached the line of Gracechurch Street, the discoveries ended.[160] +Roach Smith speaks of walls having been found in Eastcheap and Little +Eastcheap, but Cannon Street, like Gracechurch Street, was free from them. + +It has been conjectured that Cheapside was not a street, that it was a +muddy marsh, an open space for market booths, and that a stream ran from +it into Walbrook, etc.[161] Two deeds, however, given in Dugdale under +Barnstaple, record the gift of a new house and land in "_Foro_" or "_Magno +Vico Londoniæ quam habuit Odone Bajocensi_" by William Gifford, Bishop of +Winchester, to S. Martin Paris, 1110-15, and this reference to the +property of Odo of Bayeux carries Cheapside right back to Conquest days. +It is not unlikely, indeed, that the east end of the "Great Street" was +the site of the Roman Forum or part of it. The "Forum" of Canterbury is +mentioned in 762.[162] Although the word Forum doubtless stands only for +the Saxon market-place, it was the proper place of assembly. According to +the _Acta Stephani_ the Empress Maud was acclaimed Lady of England in the +Forum of Winchester. There is no doubt Cheap was the Saxon High Street and +the official meeting-place of the citizens from the earliest days of the +English settlement. Early in the twelfth century Thomas à Becket was born +in his father's house in Cheap, on a site we can still identify, and +Eudo, Dapifer to the Conqueror, also appears to have had a stone house in +West Cheap, by Newchurch. + +When Wren rebuilt St. Mary le Bow, in excavating for the foundation of the +campanile, when he had sunk about 18 feet, he came to a Roman causeway of +rough stone, close and well rammed, with Roman brick and rubbish for a +foundation, all firmly cemented. This causeway was 4 feet thick, and +underneath was the natural clay. He built the tower "upon the very Roman +causeway." He was of the opinion that this highway ran along the north +boundary of the Roman city, the breadth of which was from this "causeway" +to the Thames, and "the principal middle street or Prætorian way" being +Watling Street; north of the "causeway" the ground was a morass, so that +he had to pile for building the new east front to St. Lawrence by the +Guildhall.[163] Too much has been made of this morass, for remains of +Roman buildings have been found on this very ground north of Cheap 17 feet +below the surface,[164] and St. Lawrence itself had been a church from +Norman times at least. Other Roman buildings have been found in Wood +Street.[165] + +It is impossible to go behind Wren's testimony as to the Roman way through +Cheap. It has been claimed, however, that some foundations discovered by +him on the site of St. Paul's showed that Watling Street ran obliquely +from London Stone to Newgate. It was not, as we see, the opinion of Wren +himself, and it must fall. The exact words in _Parentalia_ cited for the +discovery of an oblique street are themselves enough to abolish the theory +built on them. They are as follows: "Upon demolishing the ruins [of St. +Paul's] and searching the foundations of the Quire, the Surveyor [Wren] +discovered nine wells in a row, which no doubt had anciently belonged to a +street of houses that lay aslope from the High Street [Watling Street] to +the Roman causeway [Cheapside], and this street, which was taken away to +make room for the new Quire [of 1256] came so near to the old [Norman] +Presbyterium that the church could not extend farther that way at first" +(p. 272). There is nothing in this about "a Watling Street running from +Newgate to London Stone." What is described is a way across the churchyard +from the west end of the High or Atheling Street issuing by Canon Row or +Ivy Lane. There is no evidence at all, then, for a diagonal Watling Street +which Stukeley suggested, and more recent writers have accepted as quite +proven. On the other hand, we have Wren's great authority for thinking +that Watling Street was in its present direction the "High Street" of the +ancient city. In calling it this he must have followed Leland, who says +that it was formerly called Ætheling Street, and it is so named in +thirteenth-century documents.[166] In 1212 I find _ad viam que vocatur_ +Athelingestrate. The name is one of a class of which Athelney +(Athelingey--Noble's Island) is an instance. Addle Hill, which Stow calls +Adle Street, seems to be allied to Atheling. In 1334 I find "Athele +Street in Castle Baynard Ward."[167] The earliest instance of "Watling" I +can find is at least a century later. I am speaking, of course, of the +city street; for the great Watling Street we have evidence which goes up +to the eighth century (see p. 54). + +There cannot be a doubt that the Roman street system was carried on by the +Saxons; at Rochester as early as the seventh century Southgate Street and +Eastgate Street are named in a charter. A charter of Alfred's time (889) +mentions a court and ancient stone edifice in London, called by the +citizens Hwætmundes Stone, between the _public street_ and the wall of the +city. A property in London between Tiddberti Street and Savin Street (? +Seething Lane) is mentioned as a gift of Ethelbald's.[168] The Watmund's +Stone named above may have been a house. A curious piece of topographical +embroidery has been wrought round about it, for no less an authority than +Mr. John Earle accepted the suggestion that the name might be equivalent +to Corn-basket, and that the monument now in Panyer Alley may represent +the ancient "stone edifice"! Mr. Round, in relation to this, has pointed +out that Watmund was merely a commonly used man's name. Mr. Loftie, +however, boldly says that Alfred's corn market stood to the west of Cheap, +"where there was a weighing stone for wheat."[169] + +[Illustration: FIG. 28.--SAXON BROOCH FOUND IN CHEAPSIDE.] + +The crossing of the great streets at Leadenhall Market was called the +"Carfukes of Leadenhall" in 1357.[170] This four-ways was probably marked +by a market cross like the Carfax at Oxford. At Exeter there was a +Carfax,[171] and there was also one at Paris.[172] It is thus that +Leadenhall Market sprang up at the main crossing of the city. At this +centre the continuous routes change their names after the model of the +usual north-, south-, east-, and west-gate streets of other towns: (1) +Bishopsgate Street; (2) Gracechurch Street and Bridge Street; (3) Aldgate +Street (now Leadenhall); (4) Cornhill, Cheap, and Newgate Street. The +secondary crossing at Lombard Street, Stow calls the "Four ways." At the +meeting of Cheap, Cornhill, and Lombard Street was the Stocks Market, +which Stow says was the centre of the city; here stood the stocks and +pillory. The names Cheap, and Cornhill or "Up-Cornhill," can be traced +back to about 1100. Several other streets are named in documents of the +twelfth century, as Milk Street and Broad Street (1181), Fridaie Street, +Mukenwelle or Muchwella (Monkwell) Street, Candelwrich (Cannon) Street, +Godrun Lane, East Cheap, The Jewry, Alsies (Ivy) Lane, Vico Piscaro +(1130), Lombard Street, and Lime Street. This early occurrence of Godrun's +Lane goes to confirm the tradition that it was named from the Danish +leader: there is still a Guthrum's Gate at York. Alsie was the name of the +Portreeve to whom the Confessor addressed a charter: it is interesting +that Ivy Lane (it is Dr. Sharpe's identification) may commemorate his name +to this day. Each principal street was a "King's Street" or _Via Regia_, +as in the laws of Ethelred. The laws of Athelstane provide that "all +marketing be within the port (town) and witnessed by the Portreve or other +unlying man." That is in "open market." + +[Illustration: FIG. 29.--COIN OF ALFRED WITH MONOGRAM OF LONDON. +ENLARGED.] + +From the moment when we first hear of it London has been a famous port and +market. Tacitus speaks of it as "celebrated for the resort of merchants +with their stores." "London," says Beda, speaking of the opening of the +seventh century, "was a mart town of many nations which repaired hither by +sea and land." + +In Athelstane's appointment of moneyers to the realm London was assigned +eight, this being two more than any other place. The coins of Alfred +struck in the city form a large series. The monogram of London which +fills the reverse of some of them is a quite perfect design,[173] and it +deserves to be better known and largely used (Fig. 29). + +As to the relation of Saxon and Roman London a few words may be said. Wren +held that the Roman Forum was at London Stone, while Stukeley suggested +the Stock's Market on the site of the present Exchange. Excavations at +Chesters and Silchester have shown that the forum in each case occupied a +large "insula" right in the centre of the city, and this would agree best +with Stukeley's site.[174] It is possible that it may have extended along +by the east bank of the Walbrook as far as Cannon Street. The assumption +of old writers, that Roman London would be symmetrically planned, with +streets crossing at right angles, is not necessarily true. The streets of +mediæval London in their main lines were not more irregularly laid out +than the streets of Pompeii. The recently excavated city of Silchester is +more regular, but this city was probably laid out once for all, whereas +London was just as probably the result of gradual growth. In many +respects, however, Silchester affords a close parallel to London. + +In the _Conquest of England_ Mr. Green stated the view that Saxon London +"grew up on ground from which the Roman city had practically disappeared." +He inferred this "from the change in the main line of communication" from +Newgate to the bridge. According to Mr. Loftie's last word, given in the +Memorial volume of 1899, the London recovered by Alfred was a ruined wall +enclosing nothing. The bridge stood much farther down stream than now. To +protect it the king built a tower at the south-east corner of the walls. +The Roman streets did not exist or were useless. He (why he?) made a road +diagonally from the bridge to Westgate. The old Bishopsgate was to the +east of the present one, and opened on the road to Essex, etc. My view of +Alfred's London is that the Roman city to a large degree continued to +exist, and the streets were still maintained, by the new population. Here +a Roman mansion with its mosaic floors would still be inhabited. There a +portico would be patched with gathered bricks and covered with shingles, +while by its side stood a house of wattle and daub. Here was a Roman +basilican church, while in another place would be found one of timber and +thatch. When a church is distinguished by being called a stone church +(like St. Magnus), it is evident that others were less substantial. Garden +and tillage filled up wide interspaces. In the Assise of Buildings of 1212 +it is said that "in ancient times the greater part of the city was built +of wood, and the houses were covered with straw and stubble and the like." +Daubers and mudwallers were much in request right through the Middle +Age.[175] + +Roach Smith, who had an expert's knowledge of all the data in regard to +Roman London, held that the approach was along High Street, Southwark, +that the bridge was on the site of that destroyed about 1830, that +Bishopsgate represented one of the chief gates, Aldgate and Ludgate being +others, and that the crossing of East Cheap with Gracechurch Street was +probably the centre of an earlier and smaller city. Quantities of Roman +bricks, he says, have been found re-used in the walls of early houses and +churches, and obviously taken from Roman buildings which occupied their +sites. It is probable indeed that some Roman buildings were still in use +in the Middle Age--for instance, the so-called Chamber of Diana near St. +Paul's, and "Belliney's Palace" at Billingsgate. + + * * * * * + +_Craft Gilds and Schools._--As far back as we have any body of record to +go upon we find that important men in the city were craftsmen--goldsmiths, +weavers, dyers, tailors, cobblers, tanners. They held offices and owned +land, and the only other class at once large numerically and important in +position seems to have been the clergy. Early in the twelfth century the +St. Paul's documents twice at least make use of the style "mercator," and +still earlier in Anglo-Saxon laws we have Ceipman. + +There is every probability that the craft gilds date from before the +Conquest. In the twelfth century head masons, carpenters, and other +craftsmen are called "masters," and this title of university rank was +always, I believe, formally conferred by an organised gild. Even at this +time the members of crafts were grouped together, as witness Candlewright +Street, Milk Street, and the Shambles. We hear of a weaver's gild in +1130.[176] Even before the Conquest, probably, craftsmen wrought and sold +their ordinary wares in the traditional open-fronted shops known as well +in the East as in mediæval Europe. + +FitzStephen says there were three principal schools in London when he +wrote (in the twelfth century). St. Paul's School, almost certainly, was +already established at the Conquest, and the schools of _S. Marie Archa_ +and _S. Martini Magni_ are mentioned in a mandate about 1135 (_Commune of +London_, p. 117). + + * * * * * + +_Churches._--So many churches can now be traced back to the twelfth +century that there cannot be a doubt that FitzStephen was accurate in +saying that at that time there were in London and the suburbs thirteen +larger conventual churches, besides lesser parish churches one hundred and +twenty-six. In other words, practically all the parish churches in London +and its liberties had been founded by the end of the twelfth century; and +there is every reason for supposing that many, if not most, of these +churches were even then ancient. + +_St. Paul's._--The cathedral we know from Bede was founded early in the +seventh century by Mellitus, sent from Rome in 601 and consecrated Bishop +of London by St. Augustine in 604. + +The fourth bishop in succession to the "Mellifluous Mellitus" was +Erkenwald, "Light of London," _Christi lampas Aurea_ (675-693). It is said +that he was son of Offa, the East Saxon king, who remained "paynim," but +Erkenwald "changed his earthly heritage for to have his heritage in +heaven; ... and whatsomever he taught in word he fulfilled in deed." He +founded the monasteries of Barking and Chertsey. While he was bishop he +used to preach about the city from a cart, and once, when a wheel fell +off, the cart went forward without falling, "which was against reason and +a fair miracle." He died at Barking, and the monks claimed his body, but +"a chapter of Paul's and the people" said it should be brought to London. +As they carried him to his own church there was a flood, but the waters of +the Yla (Lea) were divided and a dry path given to the people of London, +"and so they came to Stratford and set down the bier in a fair mede full +of flowers, and anon after the weather began to wax fair and the people +were full of joy." And, after, they laid and buried the body in St. +Paul's, to the which he hath been a special protection against fire, nd +time was when he was seen in the church with a banner fighting a fire +which threatened to burn the whole city, and so saved and kept his +church.[177] The shrine of Erkenwald remained from this time till the +Reformation the palladium of the city. + +[Illustration: FIG. 30.--TOMB OF KING ETHELRED IN OLD ST. PAUL'S.] + +In Saxon charters the church is styled "St. Paules mynstre on Lundene," +and the full invocation appears to have been _Beati Pauli Apostoli Gentium +Doctoris_, which in itself probably explains the choice of it for a +mission church. Like the church which Augustine built at Canterbury, it +would have been "planned in imitation of the Great Basilica of Blessed +Peter." Such a basilica of considerable size is still to be seen at +Brixworth, Northamptonshire. It would have had a narthex, a nave with +"porticoes" or aisles, and beyond the great arch a presbytery and apse. In +front would have been an atrium.[178] + +Under 961 the Saxon Chronicle says: "And St. Paul's minster was burnt and +in the same year again founded." King Ethelred was buried in St. Paul's in +1016, and his tomb, a fine stone chest, stood here till the great fire of +London. There is no reason why the tomb illustrated by Dugdale should not +be the original one of 1016 (Fig. 30). Next to it was the similar tomb of +Sebba, king of the East Saxons, who was buried at the end of the seventh +century. The only material memorial of the Saxon minster now existing is a +tombstone inscribed in runes, "Kina let this stone be set to Tuki." It was +found in 1852 in the south churchyard, 20 feet below the surface, in an +upright position, forming the headstone of a grave composed of stone +slabs. The bottom portion was irregular and untooled; this, which showed +that it was a headstone, was cut off to make it a tidy antiquity, but it +is otherwise carefully preserved in the Guildhall Museum, and bears a +sculpture of a fine knotted dragon. + +[Illustration: FIG. 31.--NINTH OR TENTH CENTURY TOMBSTONE FROM ST. PAUL'S +CHURCHYARD.] + +Wren, who was a critical observer of the evidence which came to light when +preparing the ground for the new church, gave but little credit to the +story that a temple of Diana once stood on the site. "But that the north +side of this ground had been very anciently a great burying-place was +manifest, for in digging the foundations of St. Paul's he found under the +graves of later ages, in a row below them, the burial-places of Saxon +times--some in graves lined with chalk stones, some in coffins of whole +stones. Below these were British graves. In the same row but deeper were +Roman urns--this was 18 feet deep or more." Wren thought that the +Prætorian camp had been here in Roman days.[179] + +_St. Peter's-upon-Cornhill_ claims to be the oldest church in London, and +to have been the stool or a Romano-British archbishop. The pretension +seems to have been recognised by St. Paul's in the Middle Ages, and Bishop +Stubbs was inclined to accept the archbishopric as having existed in +London. As the interval in Church continuity cannot have been long, it is +most likely that Mellitus reconsecrated some Roman temples or some of the +old churches, as Augustine is known to have done at Canterbury. In +Gregory's letter of directions to Mellitus he says that the temples of +idols ought not to be pulled down, but be consecrated and converted from +the worship of devils. The Church of St. Peter must have been very +ancient, as the legend in regard to it appears in Jocelyn of Furness, a +writer of the twelfth century. Bishop Ælfric, who died in 1038, gave in +his will a "hage into Sce Pætre binnon Lunden."[180] A beautifully written +Saxon charter in the British Museum, calendared as probably of the date +1038, records the gift of a messuage in London to St. Peter's Church.[181] +This church, seated at the Carfax of the city, has at the same time the +most important of dedications, and took precedence, Riley tells us, over +the others. + +[Illustration: FIG. 32.--SAXON TOMB FROM ST. BENET FINK. RESTORED.] + +_St. Michael, Ludgate_, is referred to by Geoffrey of Monmouth in +connection with Cadwaladr: "They also built a church under it (Ludgate) in +honour of St. Martin, in which divine ceremonies are celebrated for him" +(Cadwaladr). It must be of early foundation when such a story could be +told only some fifty years after the Conquest. + +_St. Mary Aldermary_ was so called, says Stow, because it was the oldest +church dedicated to the Virgin. It is sometimes called Elde Maria Church, +and certainly dates from before the Conquest, for in 1067 the Conqueror +confirmed the possession of the Church of _St. Mary called Newchurch_ to +Westminster, and it is evident that the title Aldermary is a comparison +with this New Mary. The latter as _Mary le Bow_ is mentioned by William of +Malmesbury as having suffered an accident in 1091. _St. Mary_, Friday +Street, is mentioned in 1105; _St. Margaret_, Lothbury, in 1104. + +Other pre-Conquest city churches confirmed to Westminster in the same +charter of 1067 are _St. Magnus_, described as the "stone church _S. Magni +Medietus_," _St. Clement_ [East Cheap], and _St. Lawrence_ [Pounteney]. + +_St. Gregory._--In 1010 the body of St. Edmund was brought to "the Church +of St. Gregory the Pope, which is situated by the Basilica of the Apostle +Paul."[182] This dedication in the name of the Pope who sent Augustine and +Mellitus from Rome is probably very ancient, and _St. Augustine's_ near by +on the east side of the churchyard may be as ancient. _St. Alban_, Wood +Street, was said to have been a chapel of King Offa's, and is mentioned +about 1077-1093 as belonging to St. Alban's Abbey.[183] The old +topographers say that there was something specially ancient in the +structure of this church, and Newcourt thought its origin was at least as +old as the time of Athelstane. + +[Illustration: FIG. 33.--HEAD OF CROSS FROM ST. JOHN'S, WALBROOK.] + +_All Hallows [Barking]_ is said to have been given by Riculphus and +Brichtwen, his wife, to Rochester before it passed into the hands of the +Barking Nuns.[184] _All Hallows_, Lombard Street, was given to Canterbury +in 1053 by Brithmer, a citizen (Newcourt). Earl Goodwin and his wife gave +to Malmesbury the Church of _St. Nicholas [Acon]_ and all their houses +in 1084 (Dugdale). + +_St. Martin's Vintry._--This church Newcourt puts at least as early as the +Conqueror's time, and its name of Bereman-Church confirms this (see p. +97). + +_St. Martin [le Grand]._--Kempe thought that this religious house was +first founded long before the Conquest, and that it was only refounded +just before by Ingelram. The canons of the house are mentioned amongst the +tenants in chief in Domesday.[185] + +_St. Helen's_, Bishopsgate, and _St. Alphage_ were thought by Newcourt to +have existed as early as the Conqueror's time, and there is ample evidence +that the former was a parish church before it was attached to a house of +nuns late in the twelfth century. It is mentioned in the St. Paul's +documents in 1148. _St. Michael_, Cornhill, is said to have been founded +before 1055. _St. Stephen_, Walbrook, was given to St. John's, Colchester, +_c._ 1100.[186] + +_St. Botolph_, Billingsgate, Stow thought, was at least as old as the +Confessor's time, as the wharf by it was even then called St. Botolph's. +In a part of the cartulary of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, in the Lansdowne MSS. +(No. 448), _St. Augustine on the Wall_, _St. Edmund_ in "Longboard" +Street, _Ecclesia de Fanchurch_ (which it is said had belonged to the Soc +of the Cnihten Gild), _St. Lawrence in Judaismo_, _All Hallows on the +Wall_, _St. Botolph extra Aldgate_, and _St. Michael, Cheapside_, are +mentioned at the beginning of the twelfth century.[187] + +[Illustration: FIG. 34.--SAXON COFFIN-LID FROM WESTMINSTER ABBEY.] + +Of material evidence little has survived. On the destruction of _St. Benet +Fink_ about fifty years ago a fragment of a Saxon grave-stone was found, +which is now in the Guildhall Museum (Fig. 32). In Roach Smith's +_Catalogue of London Antiquities_, No. 571, is the head of a Saxon cross +("of the tenth or eleventh century") which was found in the old +burial-ground of St. John-upon-Walbrook. I am able to identify this with +the cross-head in the Saxon Room at the British Museum from a sketch of +Roach Smith's, which I have, which bears the same number 571 (see the +diagram, Fig. 33). It has been said that Roman foundations have been found +under some of the churches.[188] + +Several of the churches outside the walls can be traced back so far as to +make it probable that they were founded before the Conquest. + +The Assise of 1189(?), speaking of a fire in the first year of Stephen +(1136), says it burnt from London Bridge to _S. Clementis Danorum_; in a +charter of Henry II. this church is called _S. Clementis quæ dicitur +Dacorum_ (Dugdale, under "Temple"). It was still earlier the subject of a +charter of the Conqueror's (see p. 85). According to M. of Westminster the +body of Harold I., buried at Westminster, was dug up in 1040 and thrown +into the Thames, "but it was found and buried by the Danish people in the +cemetery of the Danes"--"at S. Clement's," says R. Diceto, the London +historian who wrote in the twelfth century. This is probably the cemetery +of the Danes who were killed in London in Ethelred's reign. M. of +Westminster (under 1012) says many of the Danes fled to a certain church +in the city, where they were all murdered. Stow says they were slain in a +place called the Church of the Danes. + +_St. Mary le Strand._--Here Becket held his first cure. His biographer +FitzStephen calls it _S. Mariæ Littororiam_. _St. Andrew's_, Holborn, is +mentioned in the somewhat doubtful charter dated 951 (see p. 60). _St. +Bridget_, Fleet Street, was also of early foundation (Stow). _St. +Sepulchre's_ is mentioned in the twelfth century.[189] Of the monasteries +in the neighbourhood, _Barking_ was founded in the seventh century, +_Westminster_ not later than the tenth, and _Bermondsey_, the fine new +church of which is mentioned in Domesday, was probably only refounded by +Alwyn Childe. A "monasterium" in Southwark mentioned in Domesday may be +_St. Olave_, which is spoken of as early as 1096.[190] + +All the manors round about London probably had churches before the +Conquest, although the only one we can be certain of is that of St. +Pancras, as the place is called by that name in Domesday. Stepney Church +is said to have been rebuilt by Dunstan. It still contains a small +sculpture of the Crucifixion, which is probably eleventh-century work. +What these little churches were like we may know from the illustrations of +the Saxon church at Kingston which was destroyed at the beginning of this +century, and the log church at Greenstead, Essex, which still stands. + +A story in the _Heimskringla_ shows how London was early celebrated for +its number of churches and London Bridge for its crowds.[191] A French +cripple dreamt that an angel appeared to him and said, "Fare thou to +Olaf's church, the one that is in London." Thereafter he awoke and fared +to seek Olaf's church, and at last he came to London Bridge and there +asked the folk of the city to tell him where was Olaf's church. But they +answered and said that there were many more churches there than they might +wot to what man they were hallowed. But a little thereafter came a man to +him who asked whither he was bound, and the cripple told him, and sithence +said that man, "We twain shall fare both to the church of Olaf, for I know +the way thither." Therewith they fared over the Bridge, and went along the +street which led to Olaf's church. But when they came to the lich-gate +then strode that one over the threshold of the gate, but the cripple +rolled in over it and straightway rose up a whole man. But when he looked +around him his fellow-farer was vanished. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE GUILDHALL--LONDON STONE--TOWN BELL AND FOLKMOTE + + It is so sure a Stone that that is upon sette, + For though some have it thrette + With menases grym and greette + Yet hurt had it none. + FABYAN. + + +The Guildhall is frequently spoken of in the thirteenth century; for +instance, the Assise of Buildings of 1212 was given from "Gilde Hall." Mr. +Price, its historian, shows that at this time it must have stood near the +west end of the present hall. This agrees with Stow, who says that it "of +old time" stood on the east side of Aldermansbury, and adds that the +latter was so named from the "court there kept in their bury or court hall +now called the Guildhall." Guildhall Yard was in 1294, as now, to the east +of St. Laurence.[192] Giraldus Cambrensis tells us under 1191 how a +multitude of the citizens met in Aula Publica, which takes its name from +the custom of drinking there. This burgmote at the Guildhall in 1191 was +probably the greatest event in London's history, resulting in the removal +of Longchamp and the establishment of the mayor and commune.[193] +"Aldermanesbury" may be traced back to early in the twelfth century, and +the name carries the Guildhall with it. Mr. Round points out that the +_Terra Gialle_ mentioned in the St. Paul's document, _c._ 1130, refers to +the Guildhall,[194] and when further we find that a _Gildhalla burgensium_ +at Dover appears in Domesday we can hardly doubt that the foundation of +the London hall dates from the time of the Frith Gilds. In the laws of +Athelstane it was ordained by the "bishops and reeves of London" that the +people should be numbered in _hyndens_ (tens), and that "every month the +hynden men and those who directed the tithings should gather together for +bytt filling, ... and let those twelve men have their refection together +and deal the remains for the love of God."[195] + +The principle, says Dr. Sharpe, of each man being responsible for the +behaviour of his neighbour, which Alfred established, was carried a step +further in London under Athelstane in the formation of Peace Gilds, the +members of which were to meet once a month at an ale-drinking in their +Gildhall.[196] Similar "Gild ale-drinkings" are spoken of in the +_Heimskringla_, and we are there told in regard to the establishment of a +"Great Gild," that before it there were "turn-about drinkings." All this +goes together perfectly with what Giraldus says of the Guildhall of London +being named from the fellowship drinkings there. He who drank to any one, +Geoffrey of Monmouth tells us, said, "Wacht heil"; and he that pledged him +answered, "Drinc heil." + + * * * * * + +_London Stone._--The first mayor of London (from 1191) was, as the +Chronicle of the Mayors and Sheriffs tells us, Henry FitzEylwin of +Londene-stone. An old marginal note in the _Liber Trinitatis_ says that +"Leovistan was the father of Alwin the father of Henry the Mayor, whose +first charter is in the priory of Tortingtone."[197] The association of +London Stone with city history probably rests in great part on the fact of +the mayor's residence having been near to it. Thomas Stopleton traces, in +an introduction to the _Liber de Antiquis Legibus_,[198] the property and +descendants of FitzAlwin. The town house of the mayor was just to the +north of St. Swithin's Church, which was attached to the property. It was +bequeathed to Tortington Priory by Robert Aquillon, son of the first +mayor's grand-daughter. In Dr. Sharpe's _Calendar of Wills_ it appears +that Sir Robert Aguylun left his "mansione" in St. Swithin's parish, +together with the patronage of the church, to Tortington Priory in 1285. +At the Dissolution it was granted to the Earl of Oxford. Stow says that +Tortington Inn, Oxford Place, by London Stone, was on the north side of +St. Swithin's Church and churchyard, with a fair garden to the west +running down to Walbrook. It was "a fair and large builded house sometime +pertaining to the prior of Tortington, since to the earls of Oxford, and +now to Sir John Hart, Alderman." Munday adds, "_now_ to Master Humphrey +Smith, Alderman." At this point I visited Oxford Place and St. Swithin's +Lane, and it seemed evident that the Salters' Hall stood on the site of +Tortington Inn. Further, on turning to Herbert's _History of the +Companies_, I found that the Salters' Company purchased of Captain George +Smith in 1641 the town inn of the priors of Tortington by the description +of "the great house called London Stone, or Oxford House." The chain of +evidence for the site of FitzAlwin's house thus seems complete. + +The mysterious monument, London Stone, now represented by a small rude +fragment preserved a few yards away from its original site, has probably +borne its present name for a millenium, and its mere name shows it to have +had some institutional importance. + + _London. Candlewick Street. Enter Jack Cade and the rest, and strikes + his staff on London Stone._ + + _Cade._ Now is Mortimer lord of this city and here sitting upon London + Stone I charge, ... and now henceforward it shall be treason for any + that calls me other than Lord Mortimer.--_King Henry VI._ + +Shakespeare here accurately follows Holinshed's Chronicle as to the events +of 1450. About 1430 the Stone is mentioned by Harding, who tells us that +it marked the eastern boundary of London as built by King Lud, whose +palace was at Ludgate. About 1400-30 Lydgate, in the _London Lickpenny_, +wrote: "Then forth I went by London Stone, throughout all the Canwick +Street."[199] + +The _Liber Trinitatis_ says that a great fire in the time of Ralf the +prior of Holy Trinity, 1148-67, burnt from the house of Ailwardin nigh +London Stone to Aldgate and St. Paul's. Of the Stone itself Stow says: +"The same has long continued there, namely since (or rather before) the +Conquest, for in the end of a Gospel book given to Christ Church in +Canterbury by Athelstane I find noted of lands in London belonging to the +said church one parcel described to lie near unto London Stone."[200] + +Holinshed says that the Kentish captain came from the White Hart in +Southwark and "strooke his sword on London Stone, saying, Now is Mortimer +lord of this city." Mr. Coote has claimed that this must be an ancient +ceremonial, at the same time advancing the impossible (after Wren's +acceptance of it as Roman) theory that the stone was a part of the house +of the first mayor.[201] But I have come over to this view so far as to +think it possible that its civic importance originated in its association +with the house of the first mayor. According to Stow, "some have said this +stone to be set as a mark in the middle of the city--some others have said +the same to be set for the making of payment by debtors to their +creditors, till of later times payments were more usually made at the font +in Paul's Church and now most commonly at the Royal Exchange." Mr. Gomme, +citing Brandon, says that London Stone entered into municipal procedure, +as when the defendant in the Lord Mayor's Court had to be summoned from +that spot, and when proclamations and other important business of like +nature were transacted there; and comparing Cade's action with customs +elsewhere, he seems to suggest that it was the centre for the assembly of +the Saxon folkmotes. But the proximity of the mayor's house, in which +courts might have been held, gives reason enough for its being made use of +as a place of proclamation. + +The legend given by Harding is that "Lud, king of Britain, builded from +London Stone to Ludgate and called that part Ludstowne." Here we get a +clue to its name London Stone, and the idea accounts for its having been +to some extent the palladium of the city, of which it seems to have been +regarded as the sacred and immovable foundation stone. Stow says, "On the +south side of the High Street near unto the channel is pitched upright a +great stone called London Stone, fixed in the ground very deep, fastened +with bars of iron, and otherwise so strongly set that if carts do run +against it through negligence the wheels be broken and the stone itself +unshaken." The lines from Fabyan which head this chapter refer to this +same idea of stability, and evidently imply that the stone was looked on +as a talisman. Strype says that before the fire of London it was worn down +to a stump. But it is "now" handsomely cased with stone "to shelter and +defend the old venerable one, yet so as it might be seen." An architect, +writing to the _Gentleman's Magazine_ in 1798, says: "It has often been +called the symbol of the great city's quiet state, from its being always +believed to be fixed to its everlasting seat." This idea of a stone of +foundation has many parallels. + +It was evidently a monolith, and from what Shakespeare says of Cade +sitting on it, it would seem in his time not to have been more than 3 or +4 feet high above ground. Wren's son says "London Stone, as is generally +supposed, was a pillar in the manner of the Milliarium Aureum at Rome, +from whence the account of their miles began, but the Surveyor [Sir +Christopher] was of opinion, _by reason of the large foundation_, it was +rather some more considerable monument in the Forum, for in the adjoining +ground on the south side, upon digging for cellars after the great fire, +were discovered some pavements and other extensive remains of Roman +workmanship and buildings."[202] Wren was an expert observer with a +perfect knowledge of the Roman level in the city, and Dr. Woodward says he +had made a special observation of the Roman remains in the city and +promised an account of them. His evidence must be held sufficient to prove +that the stone was of Roman origin, but was no recognisable part of a +building such as a column. It was Camden who first suggested that it was a +"miliary like that in the Forum of Rome," being at the "centre in the +longest diameter of the city." Grant Allen thought it was an early Celtic +monument preserved by the Romans. As to Mr. Coote's view that it might +have been part of FitzAlwin's house, which seems to be adopted also by Mr. +Round, it has also to be pointed out that the house was certainly to the +north of the street, while the Stone was on the south, and St. Swithin's +Church intervened. + + * * * * * + +_Town Bell and Folkmote._--An institution which must have dated from the +time of the English occupation was the great assembly of all freemen in +Folkmote, the final court which survives to-day in form at the election of +a sovereign, when the Commons, who should have free access, are asked for +their assent. Stephen was elected at the ordinary Folkmote of London, and +the charter of Henry I. recognises the assembly as an existing +institution. The place of assembly within historical times was the market +of St. Paul's (_Forum Sancto Paulo_), at the east of the cathedral against +Cheap, marked by St. Paul's Cross. + +The Chronicle of the Mayors and Sheriffs tells how Henry III. in 1257 +ordered the sheriffs to convene the Folkmote "at St. Paul's Cross, to make +inquiry of the commons" as to certain customs, when the populace answered +"with loud shouts of Nay, nay, nay." The position held by St. Paul's +Cross in civic customs in later times is thus accounted for. It was no +mere adjunct to the cathedral, but the rostrum of London, the Market Cross +at the end of Cheap. Just by it rose the city belfry (_Berefridam_), which +contained the great town bell. Such a Beffroi is an acknowledged mark of +communal liberties, and we can understand the traditional feeling which +was stirred when under Edward VI. it was destroyed. Even at this day it is +the Lord Mayor who orders the Great Bell of St. Paul's to be rung on such +an occasion as the death of the late Queen. Probably the "mote-bell" +summoned the citizens in Saxon times, as we know it did in the thirteenth +century. Dugdale says the first mention he found of the bell tower was +_temp._ Henry I., when the schoolmaster of St. Paul's was granted a house +"at the corner of the Turret (id est the Clochier); but I suppose it was a +thing of much greater antiquity, for upon a writ issued 15 Edward I., it +was certified that the citizens of ancient time held the Folkmote there +and rang the bell to summon the people." The _Gesta Stephani_ records how +the citizens assembled at the ringing of the city bells and expelled the +Empress Matilda. + +The _Heimskringla_ tells of Olaf the Quiet, the contemporary of Edward the +Confessor, that "in his days the cheaping steads of Norway hove up +much.... King Olaf let set up the Great Gild at Nidoyce and many others in +the cheaping towns, but formerly there were turn-about drinkings. Then was +Town-boon[203] the great bell of the turn-about drinkings in Nidoyce. The +Drinking Brothers let build there Margaret's stone church." One day Olaf +was merry in the Great Gild, then spake his men, "It is joy to us, lord, +that thou art so merry." He answered, "Your freedom is my glee." + +We need a town bell in London. We might set it up to Alfred's memory. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE GOVERNMENT OF EARLY LONDON + + The kynges chambre of custom men this calle.--LYDGATE. + + +_The Kings Peace._--When Alfred took over London it must have been in the +main a decayed Roman city. In giving the great burh into the hands of the +Mercian Ealdorman, Ethered, he was but restoring its capital to Mercia, +but he must also, and mainly, have had in view the need for providing +means of defence to the frontier fortress of the March country. Even so, +alongside of a supreme military rule a more domestic organisation of a +customary nature must have been carried on or reintroduced. It is probable +that this, following the shire model, was constituted with hundreds or +wards; the people met in wardmote and folkmote, and the king was +represented by a Sheriff or Portreeve. London, however, was and remained +pre-eminently a royal burh, and must have shared in all the +characteristics of the burhs, drawing on certain shires for upholding its +defences, having a Witan, coining money, having special privileges as to +residence, gilds, and markets, and being subject to the King's Peace. As +to the contributions for defence, Dr. Maitland, as we have seen on p. 105, +says, "There were shires or districts which from of old owed work of this +kind to Londonbury."[204] Regarding the King's Peace, it was provided by +the laws that every crime committed, in a street which ran right through +the city and likewise without the walls for a distance of over a league, +was a crime against the king. In London the man who was guilty had to pay +the king's burh-bryce of five pounds. The burh was to be sacred from +private quarrels--"the King's house-peace prevails in the streets."[205] +Some such fact as this is probably the origin of that almost mythical +phrase applied to the city by Lydgate and earlier writers--"the king's +chamber of London." It is to this aspect as the great model burh that the +Saxon laws of London printed by Thorpe refer. + +There must have been a Burh Witan meeting periodically. A Crediton charter +of 1018 was made known to the Witans of Exeter, Barnstaple, Lidford, and +Totness, _i.e._ the Devonshire burhs. The Witan was thus a court of record +or witness. Probably the Hustings court is a form of the same assembly. + + * * * * * + +_Portreeves._--Fabyan says that at the coming of William the Conqueror and +before, the rulers of the city were named Portgreves. "These of old time, +with the laws and customs then used within the city, were registered in a +book called Domysday in Saxon tongue then used, but of later days when the +said laws and customs altered and changed and for consideration that the +said book was of small hand and sore defaced and hard to be read or +understood, it was the less set by, so that it was embezzled or lost, so +that the remembrance of such rulers as were before the days of Richard the +First (_i.e._ the institution of the mayoralty) were lost and forgotten." + +The office of Portreeve probably goes back nearly to the first settlement +of the English. Bishop Stubbs, speaking generally of town organisation, +says, "The presiding magistrate was the gerefa." The king's wic-gerefa in +Lundonwic is mentioned in the Saxon Laws of _c._ 685 (Thorpe).[206] The +charter of the Conqueror ran, "I, King William, greet William the Bishop +and Gosfregth the Portreeve," and two of the Confessor's charters were +addressed to bishop and portreeve. In the _Judicia Civitatis Londoniæ_ of +Athelstane a reference is found to "the bishops and gereves that to London +borough belong." Norton says that these Laws show that in Athelstane's +time the bishops and reeves were the chief magistrates of London, and they +likewise presided at county courts with a jurisdiction precisely similar. +This conjunction of the spiritual and temporal powers probably explains +why it is that St. Paul's has always been linked in such a special way to +the Guildhall. At St. Paul's was kept the city banner, grants of money +from city funds are made for its repair, and the mayor is a trustee of the +church. This dual control seems to bear the mark of Alfred's thought. The +Portreeve certainly represented the king, and was responsible for the farm +of the city. In the _Blickling Homilies_ Agrippa is called Nero's +Burhgerefa. It would seem as if the bishop represented the collective +citizens. Mr. Round has recently shown that the Portreeve disappeared in +the Sheriff or Vicecomes of London and Middlesex. The Waltham Chronicle +says that the Conqueror placed Geoffrey de Mandeville in the shoes of +Esegar the Staller, and Mr. Round conjectures that this Geoffrey is the +actual "Gosfregth Portirefan" to whom the Conqueror's charter was +addressed. He also points out how the Sheriff had the custody of the +Tower; and in this we may find a further suggestion as to the probability +of a connection between the Portsoken of the Cnihten Gild, the Portreeve, +and the pre-Conquest citadel. Mr. Round seems not to have known that his +suppositions were all taken for granted by Stow, who calls the Portreeve +of the Conqueror's charter Godfrey, and then writes, "In the reign of the +said Conqueror, Godfrey de Magnaville was Portgrave (or Sheriff); ... +these Portgraves (after the Conquest) are also called Vicecounties or +Sheriffs." Mr. Round shows that the Sheriff, and by inference the +Portreeve, represented London and Middlesex taken together. "The city of +London was never severed from the rest of the shire. As far back as we can +trace them they are one and indivisible."[207] The author just quoted +accounts for this distinction between London and other county towns by the +relative importance of London; but I cannot think, as before suggested, +that Middlesex was not specially dependant on London, and probably +Ethered's authority as commandant of the great burh extended over +Middlesex. The acquisition of the farm of the county by the city may be an +echo of this. + +Stow gave a list of the Portreeves from the time of the Conquest. In the +additional matter printed by Hearne in his edition of William of Newbury +is given, from a register of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, what must be another +copy of Stow's authority for the early sheriffs for which he cited a book +"sometime belonging to St. Albans." Both may come from the old book called +"_Domysday_," by Fabyan. In the list given by Hearne the names are much +less corrupt than in Stow's list; and as it ends with the year 1222 it +must have been an early document. The Chronicle of the Mayors and Sheriffs +gives still another list from the first year of Richard onward, and so +far as they overlap, the three can be compared.[208] + +According to Hearne's list the principal governor of the citizens of +London in the days of the Confessor was Wulfgar, called _Portshyreve_. In +the reign of William Rufus, Geoffrey de Magnaville was _vicecomes_ and R. +del Parc _præpositus_. In the time of Henry I. came Hugo de Boch' +[Bochland], v., and Leofstan, p. Albericus de Ver, v., and Robertus de +Berquereola, p., followed. + +In the reign of Stephen we have the names of Gilbertus Beket, v., and +Andreas Buchuint, p. Under Henry II. Petrus filius Walteri was vicecomes, +then Johannes filius Nigelli, then Ernulfus Buchel, then Willelmus filius +Isabellæ, the last of whom was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Aldgate. + +Richard I. was crowned September 1189. In his days first began to be two +vicecomites at the same time, who were usually chosen 21st September. In +his first year they were Henricus Cornhill and Ricardus filius Reneri. + +The Chronicle of the Mayors and Sheriffs begins with these same two names +of what it calls the "first sheriffs of London, in the first year of the +reign of King Richard." It, however, places this in 1188; then follow +other pairs of names as in Stow, but all a year earlier, till 1206, when +Serlo le Mercer and Henry de Saint Auban are interpolated, probably by +mistake, unless they merely occupied the position for the portion of a +year. + +From the Pipe Rolls and St. Paul's documents many more facts as to the +sheriffs can be gathered, and Mr. Round's article on the "Early +Administration of London," in his _Geoffrey de Mandeville_, must be taken +as the starting-point for any complete inquiry. + + * * * * * + +_The first Mayor._--The institution of the mayoralty is put in the year +1188 by the Chronicle of the Mayors and Sheriffs. In Hearne's list, under +1208, is entered Henry son of Alwin son of Leofstan, first of the mayors +of London, who were chosen St. Edward's day (13th October). + +Stow agrees with the chronicle, and puts the institution of the mayoralty +in the first year of Richard I.; but under 1208 we find an echo of the +version as printed by Hearne, for Stow makes King John, in this year, +grant the citizens a patent "to chuse to themselves a mayor." Be the +explanation of this what it may, contemporary documents show that +Fitzalwin was already known as mayor in 1193; he probably took up the +office in 1191. + +Stow tells us that the first mayor was Henry Fitzalwin Fitzleofstan of +London Stone, and there is ample confirmation that his father was called +Alwin. That his grandfather was Leofstan, Stow must have learnt from the +list of sheriffs as in the copy printed by Hearne. + +There is some confusion between many Leofstans and Alwins, one of whom +signs as moneyer the coins of Henry II. about 1160--ALWIN ON LUND. Mr. +Round has shown that in 1165 a Henry Fitzailwin Fitzleofstan with Alan his +brother were landholders, apparently in Essex.[209] Stow says that +Leofstan was a goldsmith; but here he may be confusing another Leofstan, +as this fact does not seem to have been given in the list of sheriffs. +Munday contradicted Stow as to Mayor Henry's grave being at Holy Trinity, +and says he was buried at St. Mary Bothaw, and not as "avowed by Mr. +Stow." Stow's authority, however, must have been this same list of +sheriffs, for that notes that "he was buried at the entrance to the +chapter of the Church of Holy Trinity, under a marble slab." Mr. Round has +done much to clear up the history of our first mayor in the _Dictionary of +National Biography_, the _Archæological Journal_, and his _Commune of +London_; but every detail is valuable of the head of the City Republic of +whom the citizens said, "Come what will, in London we will never have +another king except our mayor, Henry Fitailwin of London Stone."[210] +Henry was mayor for nearly twenty years, and was followed in 1212 by Roger +Fitz Alan--can he have been Henry's nephew? + + * * * * * + +_Hustings._--This court is mentioned in the charter of Henry I., and in a +passage in the so-called Laws of the Confessor the Hustings Court is said +to have been founded of old in imitation of and to continue the royal +customs of Great Troy. FitzStephen also repeats the legend that the laws +of the city were derived from the Trojans, and the passage from the Laws +of the Confessor was copied into the _Liber Albus_. It was suggested +nearly three centuries since by Munday, that "Troy weight" is the ancient +standard weight of London, and carries on the legend of Brutus to this +day; but this is not borne out by the facts, although it is frequently +reasserted, as in Brewer's _Phrase and Fable_. Munday says, "The weight +used for gold and silver called Troy weight was in the time of the Saxons +called 'the Hustings weight of London,' and kept there in the Hustings. So +an ancient record in the Book of Ramsey (sect. 32, 127): 'I Æthelgiva +Countess, etc., bequeath two silver cups of twelve marks of the Hustings +weight of London.'"[211] This is interesting as an early notice of the +Hustings Court, which is thought by some to have originated under the +Danish rule; but the word "Thing" occurs in one of the earliest English +laws. It was a Court of Record; the best account of it is given by Dr. +Sharpe in his _Calendar of Wills_. + +The Court of Hustings was not, it appears, necessarily associated with the +Guildhall. A Ramsey Charter of 1114-30 speaks of a purchase of a house +being completed "in the presence of the whole Court of Hustings of London +in the house of Alfwine, son of Leofstan."[212] + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LONDINIUM + + "London was built on the first spot going up the river where any + considerable tract of dry land touches the stream. It is a tract of + good gravel, well supplied with water, not liable to flooding, and not + commanded by neighbouring higher ground."--LORD AVEBURY, _Scenery of + England_. + + +From the standing-ground of what is known of London in the Middle Ages, I +have endeavoured to reach back towards Londinium Augusta. To set out +adequately all the data that we have for reconstructing the Roman city +would require a treatise from a specialist. I can only venture here a +rapid glance in conclusion at the more salient features of the ancient +town. Much in recent years has been written as to a still earlier London +than that included within the circuit of Roman walls which held what is +now known as the City. It is at once evident that the early city must have +had a nucleus and a greater density in one part than in others; and +every evidence goes to show that this earliest centre was situated on the +east side of the Walbrook at the head of London Bridge. We have the facts +of the position of the Bridge itself, and the suitability of the site; the +evidence that important buildings were densely packed in this district, +while outside of it they were more and more scattered; and also that no +graves have been found within this area. Mr. Roach Smith thought that +certain remnants of thick walls found near Cannon Street in the south and +Cornhill in the north were probably parts of earlier city walls. He says: +"Here and there during excavations, walls of great thickness, which may be +referred to walls of circumvallation, were intersected. The extraordinary +sub-structures which were cut through in Bush Lane and Scott's Yard +indicate a south-east boundary wall with a flanking tower. In Cornhill +another thick wall which seemed to point towards the Bank of England was +met with." Then, in a passage already referred to above, he concludes that +old London Bridge pointed to the axis of this earlier Londinium, the +centre or carfax of which was at the intersection of Gracechurch Street +and East-Cheap. He was inclined to place the earlier north wall along the +course of Cornhill and Leadenhall Street, the east wall in the direction +of Billiter Street and Mark Lane, the south in the line of Thames streets, +and the west on the eastern bank of the Walbrook--an irregular square with +four gates, corresponding with Bridge Gate, Bishop's Gate, Ludgate, and +Aldgate.[213] + +[Illustration: FIG. 35.--ROMAN PAVEMENT. DRAWN IN SITU BY FAIRHOLT, 1854.] + +Possibly Wren had found some remnant of such an earlier north wall, for he +put the northward extent of the city along Cheapside and in line with +Cornhill. This earlier north wall seems to have been again found about +1897, in which year Mr. Williamson sent the following passage to the +Middlesex and Herts _Notes and Queries_:--"Very close to St. +Peter's-upon-Cornhill, _Roman_ walls of immense thickness have been +discovered, proceeding in a westerly direction from Leadenhall Market +under the Woolpack Tavern in Gracechurch Street along St. Peter's Alley, a +few feet on the south side of the churchyard of St. Peter's, continuing +under the banking-house of Messrs. Prescott, Dimsdale, & Co. (50 +Cornhill), _supposed_ to continue under the roadway of Cornhill, and +appearing again in the foundations of the new building now being erected +on the _north_ side of Cornhill (No. 70) for the Union Bank of Australia. +For what purpose, is it conjectured, were these walls at Leadenhall and +Cornhill built?" By the aid of this valuable observation, I think that the +concluding question may be safely answered by the theory of earlier walls. + +Mr. Loftie has brought forward a suggestion, or rather stated a +conclusion, that there was in the earlier days a walled castrum, like +Richborough, at the head of London Bridge, reaching northwards to the +"Langbourne." It is not usual to seat such a post on a steep hill-side, it +would be curious to pass all the Bridge traffic through it, and, finally, +I have not found a vestige of foundation for its existence--it is a +castrum in the air.[214] + +It may be held for certain that when Tacitus, writing of the insurrection +of A.D. 62, spoke of London as a wealthy and important place, no walls +existed, for of the still more important Camalodunum he tells us that it +had no defences, and the garrison could only fortify themselves in the +temple. "The Roman generals," he says, "neglecting the useful, embellished +the province, but took no care for its defence." + +However, it is reasonable to suppose that the chief centres would have +been protected a little later under the very thorough policy of Agricola, +if these shortcomings were so noticed when Tacitus wrote; and it is the +opinion of Mr. Haverfield, our best authority on things Roman, that the +walls of the sister city of Silchester, now so well known to us, go back +to this time. + +I cannot think that the greater wall of London dates back to the first +century, but it has never been proved to be later. + +[Illustration: FIG. 36.--ROMAN BRICK INSCRIBED LONDON.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 37.--INSCRIPTION FROM ROMAN BRICK.] + +Fragments of sculpture, themselves not very early, have been found in +portions of the wall, yet the Camomile Street bastion and other similar +places might be additions and repairs; and some late fragments from the +south wall found by Roach Smith seem to have come from its foundation +(Figs. 24 and 25). + +If it is difficult to offer any convincing argument as to the age of the +wall of London, it is possible to get a general idea of the walled city +and its neighbourhood with some vividness and accuracy. We have the great +tidal river, the background of forest, and the nearer fen-lands, which +seem to have almost insulated the site. There is the great white +posting-road from Canterbury and Dover, and, more remotely, from Rome, +Lyons, Chalons, Auxerre, Troyes, Rheims, Amiens, Boulogne, striking +straight from point to point. On its course are villas, like one just +discovered in Greenwich Park. The road dips towards the river, and passes +over the drained and banked marshes to the Surrey suburb. There is a +gate-tower at the end of the Bridge, then comes the long and narrow +passage over the strong, swift river to the grey walls of Londinium. Along +the river-front are several wharves formed of timbering, to the left is +the creek of the little river which ran under the west walls, and, still +further west, some water-side villas.[215] Entering the city the street +ascends steeply towards the north gate; others, parallel to its course, +lead to two other gates in the north wall, and two chief routes traverse +the city longitudinally from west gate to east gate, and from west postern +to east postern. A bridge[216] over the Walbrook gives good reason why the +street lines in the eastern half of the city converge toward this point. +The area extending from the north-gate street to the bank of the Walbrook +is covered with the principal buildings closely packed together.[217] +Beyond this central mass of buildings stand isolated villas in gardens and +orchards. In the open belt of ground outside the walls, and along the +roads, west, north, and east, are cemeteries, the graves marked with +sarcophagi and sculptured headstones, some of imported marble. A theatre +somewhat similar to those at Dorchester, Cirencester, and Silchester is +situated without the west gate, being excavated in the steep bank of the +rivulet between it and the city wall.[218] + +[Illustration: FIG. 38.--ROMAN TOMB, FROM OUTSIDE OF THE EAST WALLS. +RESTORED.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 39.--INSCRIPTION FROM ROMAN TOMB.] + +Within the walls the city is adorned by more than one bronze statue. The +sculptured ornaments of the public buildings are somewhat rude and +ponderous, but the dwellings are furnished with numerous imported works of +art, such as bronze statuettes, bowls of red Samian ware, and very +beautiful coloured glass vessels of the _millefiore_ kind. The rooms have +their walls painted in bright colours with birds, flowers, and figures, +and imitations of porphyry and verde antique, while a few are cased with +thin slabs of marble. The pavements are patterned mosaic, and raised +above hot air chambers; lead pipes supply water, the windows are glazed, +and the roofs without are covered with red pantiles. So far there seem to +be authentic data for such a picture. It would be vain to attempt in many +instances to assign the fragments found in excavations to particular +buildings. Roach Smith, however, was of opinion that a large fragment +sculptured with the three seated goddesses, the _Deae Matres_, found in +Hart Street, Crutched Friars, and now in the Guildhall, "stood on the +outside of a temple dedicated to these popular divinities." + +[Illustration: FIG. 40.--END OF A ROMAN TOMB FOUND IN LONDON.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 41.--LEADEN CIST.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 42.--PLATE OF FIGURED GLASS FOR DECORATION.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 43.--ROMAN INSCRIPTION.] + + The illustration of a tomb is made up from fragments in the British + Museum found in the east wall (Figs. 38 and 39). + +A large stone, about two feet high, found fifty years ago below Clement's +Lane, Lombard Street, bearing "a few letters of the sounding words +PROVINCIA BRITANNIAE," was thought by the same authority to have stood +above a civil basilica. This most important inscription was lodged at the +Guildhall, but has disappeared. I have Roach Smith's original sketch of +it, and a letter asking Fairholt to go and draw it more carefully. But in +his _Roman London_ he complains that it could not be found. Fortunately, +there is a second careful drawing of the stone in the Archer Collection at +the British Museum, and from this my figure is made.[219] + +Following the model of Silchester, it is quite probable that a Christian +church stood in a main street on such a site as the present St. Peter's +upon Cornhill. The Forum, as has been said, probably lay north of London +Stone, which may have been the golden milestone of London. Wren thought +that the Prætorium occupied the ground between the two west gates; but the +Tower site seems even more probable. + +Bagford refers to the discovery of some Roman water-pipes in Creed Lane +after the fire, which were "carried round a bath that was built in a round +form with niches at an equal distance for seats." + +It has been noticed that the masonry of the walls of the Roman houses +seems to have finished not far above ground as if in preparation for +timbering; other indications of this have been found, and a rough +scratching of a house on a tile shows timber construction. This has +recently been confirmed by the discovery at Silchester of houses which had +timbered framing covered with clay daubing over wattle work, the outside +surface being ornamented with zigzag patterns like mediæval pargeting, all +of brick-red colour. + +Before the Roman forces were drawn back to the heart of the empire, London +seems to have grown into the position of British Metropolis. Its position +in regard to the arterial roads when the itinerary was compiled, shows how +it tended to take precedence over the more military centres. Moreover, +while the mint marks of one or two British cities appear on coins earlier +than the mark of London, in Constantinian days London is the only British +city where money seems to have been coined.[220] In the last days of the +occupation the city had acquired the name of Augusta. We cannot doubt that +the Roman soldiers drawn away to protect their lines of communication +marched Romeward with the intention of returning again to the city by the +Thames when the barbarian Germans and Goths had been thrust back into +their woods and plains; yet the day of Rome was done, and their retreat +was itself an incident in the advance of a new age. + + + + +APPENDIX + +ON MATERIALS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF MAPS OF EARLY LONDON + + +In bringing this topographical essay to a conclusion, it may be desirable +to note a few observations on the materials we possess for making a map of +early London, the reconstruction of which, with considerable fulness and +accuracy, is possible. We have in the Survey of Leeke, made directly after +the great fire, and engraved on two sheets by Vertue from a parchment +original, now in the MS. room of the British Museum (5415. E.I.), an +admirable starting-point. Even the widths of the streets are figured on +this plan, and the forms of St. Paul's and the other old churches are +given with fair precision. It is entitled "An Exact Survey of the Streets, +Lanes, and Churches, comprehended within the Ruins of the City of London; +first described in six platts in December, Anno Domini, 1666. By John +Leeke.... And here reduced into one entire platt by John Leeke." This +parchment was engraved by Hollar to a smaller scale, with the unburnt +portions of the city added in isometrical projection. On this plan the +ward boundaries are carefully laid down. As to the ground-plan of the +portions left uninjured by the fire, we can supplement Leeke's Survey by +the plan Wren made for reconstructing the city, now at Oxford, which +shows the streets and churches of the uninjured areas; and from Ogilvie's +large map, made only a few years later, details, such as the block-plans +of the churches in the unburnt part, can be filled in with greater +accuracy. From Faithorne's map, 1658, some additional facts, especially as +to Southwark and the suburbs, can be obtained, as it is of large +extent.[221] Putting all these together, we have an exact map of London as +it existed at the moment of the fire. Afterwards a few modifications were +made in the streets, but the plan of old London remained practically +unchanged till Southwark Bridge was built and Queen Street made to lead to +it. + +We can now check our plan and add to the names of the streets from Stow's +perambulation of every street and alley, and his account of ward +boundaries and parishes. Further than this, however, we have in the +remarkably clear plot of the city given in Braun and Hogenburghe's +_Civitates Orbis Terrarum_ (1572), a survey of the city as it existed +about 1570. It is often said that this view _must_ date back to 1561 at +least, as St. Paul's spire, which was burnt in that year, is shown in it. +But as it was known to be the intention to rebuild this famous spire at +once, it seems probable that a view even in the interim would not leave it +out. It is not quite certain who drew this admirable map. In the preface +to a copy of the book which I have examined, George Braun of Cologne, +January 1, 1575, speaks of the admirable industry of the painter +Hogenburghe, and the living portraitures he had so carefully painted, so +that the cities may be seen at a glance more easily than in reality. On +comparing the prospects of other cities, it looks almost certain that +London was drawn by the same hand which drew Paris, Brussels, etc. +Hofnagle, who it is thought may have made this prospect, is known to have +been in England in or before 1571. It is to be remarked in this connection +that the plan of London is not numbered with the rest of the plates; it is +marked A, and put in at the beginning of the series as if it came to hand +late. + +This valuable map, whoever it may have been drawn by, and whatever may be +its exact date, is delineated according to a method which is still made +use of at times--the buildings, trees, and other details being figured in +perspective. This has resulted in giving the whole such a pictorial +character, that the correctly planned basis is not at first apparent. I +have not seen it pointed out that it is properly a map and not a view, and +this method of projection may be what Braun refers to in the preface cited +above. About this same time William Smith, the herald, made some drawings +of cities; and on one of Bristol, which is drawn according to the same +method as the London map we are now considering, he writes:--"Bristow, +measured and laid in Platforme by me, W. Smith, at my being in Bristow the +30 and 31 July Ano Dni 1568" (Sloane MSS. 2596). Pictorial views of cities +had been known for centuries; this "laying in platform" is, however, new. +We may suppose that Smith, the Rouge Dragon, was not the first to make use +of this method in his Survey of Bristol, and that there must even at this +time have existed such a plan of London; it may also be pointed out that +Smith's MS. _view_ of London, which may, however, have been made later +than the one of Bristol, is plainly founded on Braun's plan, or on some +original used in common. Bagford speaks of having seen a single sheet on +copper, from Temple Bar to St. Katharine's and the Bank-side Southwark, +which seemed to him the best of old London and perhaps the most ancient. + +It is necessary to notice the large woodcut prospect usually called Aggas' +plan, if only to criticise this ascription, which is accepted in the +_Dictionary of National Biography_. It is plain on comparing it with +Braun's plan that one of them is copied from the other, or a common +original source, and this relation is made more certain when we notice +that the large woodcut, which I shall call the Anonymous plan, has been +cut down at the margins, and that it must originally have included +Westminster and St. Katharine's exactly like Braun's. As the Anonymous +woodcut plan is far inferior in workmanship to the other, and as it was +still being printed from in the seventeenth century, there seems to be +some likelihood that it is the copy, and yet, as we shall see, a "Large +Mappe" existed before 1580. Although so little is known in regard to the +Anonymous plan, there seems to be sufficient evidence to negative the idea +propounded by Vertue that it was the work of Aggas. This idea he gained +because a view of Oxford, drawn by Aggas in 1578, and published in 1588, +speaks of his having had a desire to publish a plan of London, but (in 30 +Queen Elizabeth, 1588) "meantime the measure, form, and sight I bring of +ancient Oxford." A trained surveyor like Aggas would hardly have brought +out an enlarged copy of Braun's map twenty years after the original. It is +probable indeed, considering the spelling of the names, that Bagford's +observation on the Anonymous plan, that it seemed to have been "done in +Holland," is true. Mr. Thomas Dodd, in a MS. letter in the Crace +Collection, points out a passage in Hakluyt where it is advised that the +Pit and Jackman Expedition of 1580 should take with them the map of +England and the "large Mappe of London." Mr. Dodd goes on to point out +that Hakluyt also refers to Clement Adams as an engraver on wood, and he +might have been the author of such a large map, which may be the Anonymous +woodcut plan. Mr. Overall, in his inconclusive preface to the reproduction +of the Anonymous plan, shows that Giles Godhed had submitted "the Carde of +London," in 1562, to the Stationers' Company. We might conclude that this +was a large plan on the same projection as Braun and Hogenburghe's plan, +but this is uncertain, as just at this time there was published an +engraved view of St. Paul's and the neighbourhood, of which there is a +unique copy at the Society of Antiquaries. The most beautiful plan known +to me, executed after the manner of Braun's cities, is a large plan of +Bruges, signed by Marcus Gerard, pictor, 1562. Altogether I am inclined to +think that there was such a plan of London existing before Braun's, and +that the Anonymous plan is a coarse copy of one of those made in Holland +for popular sale some time before 1580. Braun's plan, in any case, carries +us back on firm ground to the end of the mediæval period, and by its aid +we can check over our former results for an accurate plan of mediæval +London. + +Beyond this point we have an overwhelming mass of documentary evidence, by +which the names of the streets, churches, and other landmarks, can be +carried backwards by references in deeds, wills, patents, close-rolls, and +Parliament-rolls, etc. etc. I have little doubt that almost every street +and lane in London which existed in Stow's day could be carried back by +this means to the thirteenth century, and a good many can be shown to have +borne the same names in the century after the Conquest. + +Then we have the complete list of city churches in the time of Edward I. +given in the _Liber Custumarum_. The parish boundaries probably remain +much as at that time, and the wards in their present form go back as far. +It may be noted that a study of the boundaries shows that the parishes are +in the main subdivisions of wards, and not that wards are aggregations of +parishes. Such general documentary evidence can be further supplemented by +the data which we have in regard to particular buildings which are still +in part existing, or of which we have plans and other evidence. + +We can accurately reinstate the City wall with its bastions and gates, the +Bridge and the Tower of London. We have ample particulars as to the +Cathedral and precinct of St. Paul's, with the line of the Close wall, the +position of its gates, and the site of the Campanile in the north-east +corner. The boundaries of the Conventual Establishments can be plotted, +and the buildings within them can, in many cases, be laid down in detail. +The plan of the Guildhall buildings may be reconstructed, and Hollar and +Leeke's map gives the position of the Halls of the several Companies. An +attempt has been made in the body of this work to sift out what can be +learned of a still more remote London. + + +THE END + + +_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Mr. Green, from the long sections dealing with London in _The Making +of England_ and _The Conquest of England_, must be reckoned among the +specialists on London. I shall often have to criticise Mr. Loftie's +conclusions, but I do so merely because those are the views in possession +at the present time. His books have the distinction of having revived an +interest in London topography. + +[2] _E.g._ Mr. Loftie's most recent book, _London Afternoons_. + +[3] _Origines Celticæ._ + +[4] Loftie, vol. i. ch. ii. + +[5] Hearne actually says it is Long-town. + +[6] Canon Isaac Taylor, _Dict. of Place-Names_. + +[7] _Social England_, vol. i. + +[8] Rhys, _Celtic Britain_. + +[9] Ramsay, vol. i. p. 32. + +[10] See Ludgate below. + +[11] Now represented by Edgware Road. + +[12] See _Dict. Nat. Biog._, and De la Moyne Borderie. + +[13] Thorpe's _Ancient Laws_. + +[14] Joceline de Brakelonde, p. 56, cited by Wright. + +[15] _Cal. St. Paul's MSS._, Ninth Report Historic MSS. Com., p. 65. + +[16] Rhys, _Celtic Britain_; Elton's _Origins_. + +[17] Thomas Wright says the Billings, a Saxon people, settled at +Billingsgate, and Mr. W. H. Stevenson derives the name from Billing, a +Saxon name. + +[18] There is probably some fact at the bottom of this story: perhaps the +sword of St. Paul was carved on the Bishop's Gate. According to Geoffrey, +the older Belinus had been placed in a golden urn on Billingsgate. + +[19] Robert of Gloucester. + +[20] See the story of Lludd in the Mabinogion. + +[21] _English Hist. Rev._ vol. ii. + +[22] _Episcopal Succession._ + +[23] _Celtic Britain_, p. 124. + +[24] C. F. Keary, _Vikings_. + +[25] Asser. + +[26] Asser. + +[27] See Ramsay, _Foundations of England_, vol. i. p. 126. + +[28] Compare Tame, Tamar, Teme, Tean, Teign. See _Surrey Collections_, +vol. v. + +[29] _Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_, Camden Society. + +[30] See Green, _Making of England_, vol. i. p. 105; _Surrey Collections_, +vol. iii.; and _Athenæum_, 1901, No. 3838. + +[31] _Polyolbion._ + +[32] Bailey. + +[33] _Calendar of St. Paul's MSS._ + +[34] Dugdale's _Monasticon_, art. "Temple"; and Round's _Geoffrey de +Mandeville_. + +[35] _Transactions of London and Middlesex Archæological Society_, vol. +iv. + +[36] Hardy and Page, _London and Middlesex Fines_, vol. i. p. 3; see also +Dugdale. + +[37] _London and Middlesex Fines._ + +[38] Kempe translates the same passage, "From the north angle of the City +wall, where a rivulet of Springs near thereto flowing marks it out (_i.e._ +the moor) from the wall as far as the running water which entereth the +City" (_Sanctuary of St. Martin_). + +[39] _Eng. Hist. Rev._, 1896. + +[40] A.S. dictionaries give _Wylle-burn_ = Wellbrook. + +[41] Other cases of churches called by personal names are St. Benet Fink, +St. Martin Orgar, St. Martin Outwich, etc. + +[42] St. Stephen's Walbrook is mentioned in a charter of _c._ 1100. See +"Churches," below. + +[43] Dr. Sharpe, _Letter Book A_. + +[44] _Archæological Journal_, vol. i. p. 111. + +[45] _Roman Antiquities on Site of Safe Deposit_, and _Roman Pavement in +Bucklersbury_; see also _Archæological Review_, vol. iv. + +[46] _Letter Book A._ + +[47] Price, _Safe Deposit_, p. 30. + +[48] _Origines Celticæ_, vol. ii. + +[49] Sir J. H. Ramsay. + +[50] Maitland sounded the river, and thought that there had been a ford at +Chelsea; and the large number of Celtic and Roman antiquities found from +time to time at Battersea and Wandsworth incline me to the view that there +was a passage here. + +[51] Horsley's account of the Roman roads is still the best general +authority; but see the _Antiquary_ for 1901-2. The subject is being +carefully re-examined in the new Victorian County Histories. + +[52] Thorpe. + +[53] The last, like all names compounded of "street," is a significant +name wherever found. + +[54] Clark, _Military Architecture_, vol. i. p. 31. + +[55] Hardy and Page, _Fines_; and see Stow. + +[56] _London and Middlesex Archæological Society Trans._, vol. iii. p. +563. + +[57] _London and Middlesex Fines._ + +[58] Ackerman's _Westminster_, vol. i. p. 74. + +[59] For Old Ford see _London and Middlesex Archæological Society Trans._, +vol. iii. p. 206. + +[60] _Crawford Charters._ + +[61] Bentley's _Cartulary of Westminster Abbey_, p. 4. + +[62] See _Archæologia_, vol. xxvi., and, on the Tyburn, the _London and +Middlesex Archæological Society Trans._, vol. vi. + +[63] _Surrey Collections_, vol. i. + +[64] See Faulkner's _Chelsea_. + +[65] Kemble, No. 872. See also Arnold's _Streatham_. + +[66] _Eng. Hist. Rev._ 1898. + +[67] See Rhys, _Celtic Britain_. The compiler of the pseudo-itinerary of +R. of Cirencester writes Guethlin Street. + +[68] It has been argued that if the Britons had chariots they must also +have had roads; and it is generally held that the Icknield and other +"Ridgeways" are of British origin. Mr. Boyd Dawkins has recently shown, +from objects found in a camp with which the Pilgrim Way from Canterbury is +associated, that this ridge-road is early Celtic at latest. It seems +reasonable to suggest that it joined the Icknield Way, and that they +formed an early road-system crossing the river at Wallingford. + +[69] A paved way, thought to be the Watling Street, has just been found in +Edgware Road. It was 20 feet wide, 3.6 below surface, and pitched with +"boulders." A fragment was also found in Oxford Street. + +[70] Kemble, _Codex Dip._ 591. + +[71] Powell and Vigfusson's _Corpus_. + +[72] I do not share this view as to Claudius and the bridge. Sir J. H. +Ramsay even suggests that it may have been the work of Cunobeline. + +[73] Roach Smith, _Archæological Journal_, vol. i. p. 112. + +[74] Bruce, _Handbook to the Roman Wall_. + +[75] See Price's _Bucklersbury_. + +[76] _Making of England_, pp. 21, 105. + +[77] Hermann, _De Mirac. S. Edmund_, p. 43; see _Eng. Hist. Rev._ vol. +xii. p. 49. + +[78] _Home Counties Mag._ vol. i. + +[79] Leland. + +[80] Earle, _Land Charters_; and _Codex Dip._ No. 280. + +[81] _Cal._ p. 25. + +[82] _Archæologia_, lii. + +[83] In the A.S. dictionaries _Crepel_ stands for an underground passage: +there is said to be a Cripplegate on the Wansdyke. + +[84] _Archæologia_, lii. + +[85] Loftie's _London_, and _London_ in "Historic Towns" series; maps in +Green's _Short History_, and in Miss Norgate's _Angevin Kings_. + +[86] It seems necessary to notice these points in such excellent books, as +they are repeated in Sir W. Besant's _London_, p. 19, and more recent +works, as if they were settled. Mr. Loftie, in a still later book, _London +City_ (1891), writes: "We know that Aldgate was opened about sixty years +before FitzStephen's time. Aldersgate must have been made soon after the +Conquest, and Cripplegate, with its covered way to the Barbican, cannot +have been much later." In "Historic Towns" volume he says: "The +foundations of the North Gate were lately found in Camomile Street. The +massive masonry of the West Gate was also lately uncovered in Giltspur +Street." In his _London Afternoons_ Ludgate appears as probably the latest +of the gates. All this is conjecture and, as I have shown, contrary to the +evidence. + +[87] _London and Middlesex Archæological Society Trans._ vol. iii. + +[88] _Illustrations of Roman London._ + +[89] Thorpe's _Ancient Laws_. + +[90] Earle, _Land Charter_. + +[91] W. de G. Birch, _London Charters_. + +[92] Kemble, _Codex Dip._ No. 1074. + +[93] Leland, _Coll._ vol. i. + +[94] J. H. Round, _Calendar of French Documents_. + +[95] J. H. Round, _Feudal England_, p. 320. + +[96] _London and the Kingdom._ + +[97] Pauli, _Pictures of Old London_. + +[98] Price, _Hist. Guildhall_. In a deed, _temp._ Henry III., the Gildhall +of the Cologne Merchants is said to be near Hay Wharf, for which see Stow. + +[99] J. H. Round, _Calendar of French Documents_. See also _Soc de +Waremanshaker_ and St. Peter Ghent in Dugdale, vol. ii. p. 384. + +[100] _Calendar of St. Paul's Documents._ + +[101] Dugdale, vol. vi. p. 623. + +[102] _Codex Dip._ ii. p. 3. + +[103] _Heimskringla._ + +[104] C. F. Keary, _Vikings_, p. 125. + +[105] J. Earle, _Saxon Chronicles_. + +[106] It is true it has been shown by Mr. Round that about two centuries +later than this time _Arx_ was a technical word for a military tower, and +it is used by FitzStephen for the Tower of London itself: on the other +hand, passages cited in _Domesday and Beyond_, p. 187, show that earlier +it was convertible with _castrum_ or _burh_, and it is beginning to be +believed that _burh_ means a _castrum_ rather than a mound. Grants of +property run, "within Burh and without Burh, on Street and off Street." +Alfred himself writes of "Romeburh" and "Babylonburh." + +[107] It is usually said that the members of the gild entered Holy Trinity +Monastery, but this Mr. Round has shown is a misconception. + +[108] Alfred Memorial volume. + +[109] _Journal British Archæological Association_, 1900. + +[110] _Domesday and Beyond_, p. 192. + +[111] "I have been in White Hill in the Court of Cynvelyn" (Taliessin). +According to a Triad it was Arthur who disinterred the head of Bran, +disdaining to be so protected. + +[112] Dr. Maitland, _Domesday and Beyond_. + +[113] The Anglo-Saxon chronicler under 878 tells how Alfred made a +_geweorc_ at Athelney. + +[114] As to the Danes holding the burh with London, see above, p. 68. I +find London "and the Boro" mentioned together early in the thirteenth +century. + +[115] See G. R. Corner, _Archæologia_, vol. xxv. + +[116] Saxon Chronicle. + +[117] On the boundary of Paris Gardens was an embankment called the Old +Broad Wall. + +[118] See "House of Lewes Priory," _Archæologia_, vol. xxxviii. + +[119] So well informed a guide as Baedeker says the Abbey was so named +with reference to Eastminster by the Tower, which was only founded in the +fourteenth century. + +[120] See Sir J. H. Ramsay, vol. i. p. 422. + +[121] See, for example, Hardy and Page, _London and Middlesex Fines_, p. +3. This volume also shows that Norton Folgate was formerly called Norton +Folyot from a well-known family. + +[122] _Calendar of St. Paul's Documents_, p. 25. + +[123] A sixteenth-century London document has "stoop or post." + +[124] _Athenæum_, 8th July 1899. + +[125] Compare "portmeadows" and lands belonging to citizens elsewhere. At +Colchester in 1086 there was a strip eight perches wide surrounding the +town wall. As late as 1833 the borough of Bedford _included_ "a broad belt +of land." For a full account of the commonable fields of Cambridge and a +discussion of the subject generally, see Maitland's _Township and +Borough_. The London boundary was called the Line of Separation. + +[126] The common pasturage of Westminster is mentioned in a charter. + +[127] _London and Middlesex Archæological Society Trans._, vol. v. See +also for these documents Dr. Sharpe's _Letter Book C_. + +[128] See also Stow's account of the alienation of common lands. Mile-End, +according to Froissart, was "a fair plain place where the people of the +city did sport them in summer." + +[129] Fenchurch also seems to have been connected with this land, or at +least the eastern suburb. + +[130] The Friday fair of horses still lasted when Froissart wrote his +account of Wat Tyler. + +[131] _Township and Borough and Village Community._ + +[132] Hudson Turner. + +[133] _Making of England._ + +[134] See Green's _Conquest of England_. + +[135] In the summary of reigns at the end of Florence's Chronicle he +speaks more than once of "London and the adjacent country" as going +together. + +[136] See L. Gomme, _Village Community_, p. 212. + +[137] Munday. Loftie says there was another Romeland at Dowgate. + +[138] _Calendar of Ancient Deeds._ + +[139] See J. H. Round, _Commune of London_, p. 99. + +[140] Riley, Sharpe, Loftie's two books, _French Chronicle of London_, +notes. + +[141] Or Langbourne and Fenny-about, as the east and west halves of this +ward seem to have been sometimes called. + +[142] Sharpe's _Calendar of Wills_, vol. i. + +[143] _Calendar of Ancient Deeds_, vol. iii. + +[144] _Riley's Memorials._ + +[145] The _Liber Trinitatis_ states that the precinct of Holy Trinity +Aldgate was "of old" (pre-Conquest) one parish of Holy Rood. Two adjoining +parishes are mentioned in a twelfth century charter (_Commune of Lond._ p. +253)--St. Laurence de Judaismo and St. Marie de Aldermanebury. + +[146] _Judicia civitatis Londoniæ._ + +[147] _Liber Albus_, p. 80. + +[148] A document of about 1120-30 at St. Paul's gives us the name of +"Salidus, Bedellus Warde." + +[149] _Liber Albus_, p. 32. + +[150] _Archæological Journal_, vol. iv. p. 278. + +[151] Kemble, _Codex Dip._ 685. + +[152] See Dugdale, who is wrong, however, in saying it was called a +"Palatine tower." Stow applies this grant to Bridewell by mistake. + +[153] See the genealogy as given by Mr. Round. It is interesting to find +that the arms of Fitzwalter, the banner-bearer of London, a fess between +two cheverons, is but a difference from the three cheverons of Clare. + +[154] The arms of the Munfichets were similar to the arms of Clare, with +the difference only of a label of five points. From this fact we may +suppose that the families were allied. Munfichet Castle afterwards fell +into the hands of the Fitzwalters. + +[155] Howell's _Londinopolis_, 1657. + +[156] Dr. H. J. Nicholson, _History of the Abbey of St. Albans_, Newcourt, +and Maitland's _London_, vol. ii. p. 1051. + +[157] Dr. Sharpe considers that the Royal was the name of a street near +Dowgate, so called from La Reole, near Bordeaux. + +[158] T. E. Price, _Safe Deposit_, p. 29. + +[159] _Archæol._ xxix. + +[160] J. Kempe, _Archæologia_, vol. xxiv. + +[161] A large open Cheap is put in various parts by different writers. Mr. +Joseph Jacobs, in an interesting inquiry as to the Jewry, makes the ground +south of the Guildhall an open market. + +[162] _Codex Dip._ i. p. 133. The Wilton Domesday gives a _Magnus Vicus_ +at Winchester. + +[163] _Parentalia._ + +[164] _London and Middlesex Transactions_, vol. ii. + +[165] See J. E. Price, _Safe Deposit_. Price claims that the crypt found +by Wren at Bow Church and described as Roman by him is not the now +existing crypt. But the text and index of _Parentalia_ plainly prove that +the present church was built _on_ it, and therefore it was the existing +Norman structure. + +Price says that remains of a bridge were found in Bucklersbury, and that a +Roman road, possibly a continuation of that by Bow Church, passed here. + +[166] Hudson Turner's _Domestic Archr._, vol. i. App.; _Calendar of St. +Paul's Documents_, Sharpe's _Calendar of Wills_, _Calendar of Ancient +Deeds_, etc. In the last it is called Aphelingestrate in 1232. + +[167] Dr. Sharpe's _Calendar of Wills_. + +[168] Sharon Turner, _History of the Anglo-Saxons_. + +[169] Alfred Memorial volume, 1899. + +[170] Riley's _Memorials_. + +[171] Issac. + +[172] Godefroi's _Dictionary_. + +[173] It is designed on the pattern of the famous monogram of Justinian, +having for basis the letter N. + +[174] Still more recent finds at St. Albans seem to show that here also +the forum was an important building in the centre of the city. + +[175] See account of Saxon Winchester in Hudson Turner's _Domestic +Archr._, vol. i., and of _Canterbury before the Conquest_, by Geoff. +Faussett. + +[176] Winton Domesday mentions Fishmongers' Street, Tanner Street, and +Gold Street. + +[177] _The Golden Legend._ + +[178] Right through the Middle Ages the close of St. Paul's is called +_Atrium S. Pauli_. + +[179] _Parentalia._ + +[180] Thorpes' _Analecta_. + +[181] _Cotton Charters_, 11 Aug. 85. + +[182] Richard of Cirencester, also Stow. + +[183] See W. Maitland's _London_, and Green's _Conquest of England_. + +[184] _London and Middlesex Archæological Society's Trans._ vol. ii. + +[185] Sir H. Ellis, _Introduction to Domesday_. + +[186] See _Eng. Hist. Rev._ vol. xvi. + +[187] For the last see Round, _Geoffrey de Mandeville_. + +[188] For many other churches mentioned in the twelfth century see +_Calendar of St. Paul's Documents, Historical MSS. Reports_, which I have +not drawn upon in this place. Several other churches may be presumed to be +ancient from their dedication, such as St. Pancras (destroyed at the great +fire). Green (_Conquest of England_) attributes St. Augustine, St. +Gregory, St. Benet, and St. Faith, to Bishop Erkenwald. + +[189] For Strand churches see Sanders in _Archæologia_, vol. xxvi. Gibbs +found work which he thought was Roman under St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. +For an early foundation at Smithfield see Malcolm. + +[190] Dugdale, under Bermondsey. + +[191] The "Pedlar of Swaffham" and some Welsh stories refer to the bridge +in the same way. See Rhys, _Celtic Folklore_. + +[192] _Hist. MSS. Report of St. Paul's Documents_, p. 49. + +[193] See T. H. Round, _Commune of London_. + +[194] _Geoffrey de Mandeville_, p. 436. + +[195] Thorpe, pp. 97-103. + +[196] _London and the Kingdom._ In Winton Domesday is written _Chenictes +tenebat la chenictehalla ubi potabant gildam suam_. + +[197] Does this mean the lost charter constituting the mayor? + +[198] _Camden Society._ + +[199] Lick up the penny--Howell writes, "Some call London a Lickpenny, as +Paris is called a Pick-purse, because of feastings and other occasions of +expense." + +[200] Book now disappeared. See for this and Stone generally, Price's +_Roman Pavement in Bucklersbury_. It is not necessary that the note should +be as old as the book. + +[201] _London and Middlesex Archæological Society_, vol. v. + +[202] _Parentalia._ + +[203] This must be just the meaning of Berefridam--Burhfrid--Town-peace. + +[204] _Domesday and Beyond_, p. 192. + +[205] _Ibid._ p. 184. + +[206] Lincoln also had a gerefa in the seventh century (Bede, ii. 6). + +[207] _Geoffrey de Mandeville._ + +[208] Maitland's _London_ speaks of a list amongst the British Museum MSS. + +[209] See Round in _Dict. Nat. Biog._ and _Commune of London_. + +[210] F. Palgrave, _Rotuli Curiæ Regis_, vol. i. p. 12. + +[211] Skeat says the weight was called from Troyes, but gives no +conclusive reasons. See also _Notes and Queries_, 1871. Cripp's _English +Plate_ seems to prove this point. + +[212] In Rolls Series. + +[213] _Illus. Rom. Lond._ and valuable article, _Archæol._ xxix. + +[214] There may have been a tower on the Bush Lane site: I am speaking of +a large walled castrum. + +[215] Like the one which has left us its bath in Essex Street, Strand. The +1681 Catalogue of objects in the Museum of the Royal Society describes a +mosaic pavement found in Holborn near St. Andrew's. + +[216] At Bucklersbury, described by Price. + +[217] As many discoveries of walls and pavements have shown; as, for +instance, at the south end of Bishopsgate Street, in Threadneedle Street, +Lombard Street, at the Bank, the Royal Exchange, Bucklersbury, Cannon +Street, and the north side of Thames Street. + +[218] Roach Smith in _London and Middlesex Archæological Trans._ vol i. + +[219] I may say here that the drawing of the Roman pavement (Fig. 35) was +originally made for Roach Smith by Fairholt. + +[220] The mark P. LON. is first found on a coin of Diocletian. + +[221] Other plans by A. Ryther, Norden, and Porter are small, and of +little use except for giving the extent of suburban building at the moment +of the execution of each. + + + + +WORKS ON ARCHÆOLOGY AND ANTIQUITIES. + + +THE CHURCH OF ST. SOPHIA AT CONSTANTINOPLE. By W. R. LETHABY and HAROLD +SWAINSON. Illustrated. Medium 8vo. 21s. net. + +FORTY YEARS IN A MOORLAND PARISH. By Rev. Canon ATKINSON, D.C.L. Extra +Crown 8vo. 5s. net. _Illustrated Edition._ 12s. net. + +MEMORIALS OF OLD WHITBY. By the Rev. Canon ATKINSON. Illustrated. Extra +Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. + +CAMBRIDGE DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED: Being a Short History of the Town and +University. By THOMAS DINHAM ATKINSON. With an Introduction by JOHN WILLIS +CLARK, M.A. With twenty-nine Steel Plates, numerous Illustrations, and +Maps. 8vo. 21s. net. + +NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. By W. W. ROUSE BALL, +Fellow and Tutor of the College. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. + +SCOTLAND'S RUINED ABBEYS. 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