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Title: The Story of London
Author: Wheatley, Henry B. (Henry Benjamin)
Language: English
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_The Story of London_
_The Mediæval Town Series._
*ASSISI. By LINA DUFF GORDON. _5th Edition._
+BRUGES. By ERNEST GILLIAT-SMITH. _3rd Edition._
+BRUSSELS. By ERNEST GILLIAT-SMITH.
+CAIRO. By STANLEY LANE-POOLE. _2nd Edition._
+CAMBRIDGE. By CHARLES W. STUBBS, D.D.
+CHARTRES. By CECIL HEADLAM. _2nd Edition._
*CONSTANTINOPLE. By WM. H. HUTTON. _3rd Edition._
+DUBLIN. By D. A. CHART, M.A.
+EDINBURGH. By OLIPHANT SMEATON, M.A.
+FERRARA. By ELLA NOYES.
+FLORENCE. By EDMUND G. GARDNER. _8th Edition._
+LONDON. By HENRY B. WHEATLEY. _2nd Edition._
LUCCA. By JANET ROSS.
MILAN. By ELLA NOYES.
*MOSCOW. By WIRT GERRARE. _2nd Edition._
*NUREMBERG. By CECIL HEADLAM, M.A. _5th Edition._
+OXFORD. By CECIL HEADLAM, M.A.
PADUA. By C. FOLIGNO.
+PARIS. By THOMAS OKEY.
*PERUGIA. By M. SYMONDS and LINA DUFF GORDON. _6th Edition._
PISA. By JANET ROSS and NELLY ERICHSEN.
*PRAGUE. By COUNT LUTZOW. _2nd Edition._
+ROME. By NORWOOD YOUNG. _5th Edition._
+ROUEN. By THEODORE A. COOK. _3rd Edition._
+SEVILLE. By WALTER M. GALLICHAN.
+SIENA. By EDMUND G. GARDNER. _2nd Edition._
*TOLEDO. By HANNAH LYNCH. _2nd Edition._
+VERONA. By ALETHEA WIEL. _3rd Edition._
+VENICE. By THOMAS OKEY. _3rd Edition._
_The prices of these (*) are 3s. 6d. net in cloth, 4s. 6d. net in
leather; marked (+) 4s. 6d. net in cloth, 5s. 6d. net in leather._
[Illustration: LONDON IN 1588
(FROM WM. SMITH'S MS. IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM).]
_The Story of London=
by Henry B. Wheatley_
_Illustrated by W. H. Godfrey
K. Kimball, H. Railton etc._
[Illustration]
_London: J. M. Dent & Co.
Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford Street
Covent Garden W.C. 1909_
_First Edition, May 1904._
_Second Editon, August 1905._
_Third Edition, October 1909._
_All rights reserved_
To the Memory
OF A LIFE-LONG FRIEND
DANBY PALMER FRY
(_late Legal Adviser to the Local Government Board_)
I dedicate this little book as a slight expression of the debt of
gratitude I owe to him, and of the great loss I, in common with
all his friends, have suffered by his death.
I especially wish to associate his honoured name with this book because
he took the greatest interest in its evolution, and I have had the
benefit of his acumen and wide knowledge in the consideration of most
of the subjects discussed in its pages.
H. B. W.
PREFACE
'History! What is history but the science which teaches us to see
the throbbing life of the present in the throbbing life of the
past.'--JESSOPP'S _Coming of the Friars_, p. 178.
There can be no doubt that our interest in the dim past is increased the
more we are able to read into the dry documents before us the human
character of the actors. As long as these actors are only names to us we
seem to be walking in a world of shadows, but when we can realise them
as beings like ourselves with the same feelings and aspirations,
although governed by other conditions of life, all is changed, and we
take the keenest interest in attempting to understand circumstances so
different from those under which we live.
The history of London is so varied and the materials so vast that it is
impossible to compress into a single volume an account of its many
aspects.
This book therefore is not intended as a history but as, to some extent,
a guide to the manners of the people and to the appearance of the city
during the mediæval period.
An attempt is here made to put together some of the ample materials for
the domestic history of the city which have been preserved for us.
The City of London possesses an unrivalled collection of contemporary
documents respecting its past history, some of which have been made
available to us by the late Mr. H. T. Riley, and others are being edited
with valuable notes by Dr. Reginald Sharpe.
The Middle Ages may be considered as a somewhat indefinite period, and
their chronology cannot be very exactly defined, but for the purposes of
this book the portion of the mediæval period dealt with is that which
commences with the Norman Conquest and ends with the Battle of Bosworth.
It is impossible to exaggerate the enormous influence of the Norman
Conquest. The Saxon period was as thoroughly mediæval as the Norman
period, but our full knowledge of history begins with the Conquest
because so few historical documents exist before that event. Moreover,
the mode of life in Saxon and Norman London was so different that it
would only lead to confusion to unite the two in one picture.
In order, however, to show the position of the whole mediæval period in
the full history an introductory chapter is given which contains a short
notice of some of the events during the Saxon rule, and a chapter at the
end is intended to show what remains of the mediæval times were left
when Shakespeare lived and Johnson expressed his opinion of the
pre-eminent position of London.
It is necessary for the reader to bear in mind that London means the
city and its liberties up to the end of the eighteenth century. The
enlarged idea of a London in the north and the south, the east and the
west, is a creation of the nineteenth century.
The City of London is still the centre and heart of London, and the only
portion of the town which has an ancient municipal history.
Other cities have shifted their centres, but London remains as it always
was. The Bank, the Royal Exchange and the Mansion House occupy ground
which has been the 'Eye of London' since Roman times.
There is no greater mistake than to suppose that things were quiescent
during the Middle Ages, for these pages at least will show that that was
a time of constant change, when great questions were fought out.
The first seven chapters of this book refer to life in the Old Town.
Here we see what it was to live in a walled town, what the manners of
the citizens were and what was done to protect their health and morals.
The following five chapters deal with the government of the city. Some
notice is taken of the governors and the officials of the Corporation,
the tradesmen and the churchmen.
The subject of each chapter is of enough importance to form a book by
itself, and it is therefore hoped that the reader will not look for an
exhaustive treatment of these subjects. There is more to be said in each
place, but I have been forced to choose out of the materials that which
seemed most suitable for my purpose.
During the editing of this volume a vivid picture of the mediæval life
has ever been before my mind, and I can only regret that it has been so
difficult to transfer that picture to paper. I can only hope that my
readers may not see the difference between the conception and the
performance so vividly as I do myself.
In the preparation of these pages I have received the kind assistance of
more friends than I can mention here, but I wish especially to thank Mr.
Hubert Hall, Mr W. H. St. John Hope, Mr. J. E. Matthew, General Milman,
C.B., Mr D'Arcy Power, Sir Walter Prideaux, Sir Owen Roberts, Mr. J.
Horace Round, Dr Reginald Sharpe and Sir William Soulsby, C.B.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
_Introduction: Early History of London to the Norman Conquest_ 1
CHAPTER II
_The Walled Town and its Streets_ 21
CHAPTER III
_Round the Town with Chaucer and the Poets of
his Time_ 71
CHAPTER IV
_The River and the Bridge_ 90
CHAPTER V
_The King's Palace--The Tower_ 108
CHAPTER VI
_Manners_ 131
CHAPTER VII
_Health, Disease and Sanitation_ 161
CHAPTER VIII
_The Governors of the City_ 218
CHAPTER IX
_Officials of the City_ 264
CHAPTER X
_Commerce and Trade_ 277
CHAPTER XI
_The Church and Education_ 330
CHAPTER XII
_London from Mediæval to Modern Times_ 375
_Index_ 405
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
_Map of London in 1588, from William Smith's
MS. of the 'Description of England' (Reproduced
in Colours by Lithography)_ _Frontispiece_
_Heading to Chapter I_ 1
_Norden's Plan of London, 1593_ _facing_ 21
_Aldgate and Priory of the Holy Trinity, from
Newton's Map of London_ _facing_ 28
_Chaucer's Pilgrims issuing from the Tabard, from
Pennant's 'London'_ 71
_Old St. Paul's, from a Drawing by Walter H.
Godfrey, reconstructed from information
obtained from leading authorities_ _facing_ 86
_Visscher's View of London, 1616_ " 90
_Old London Bridge from St. Olave's Church, from
a Drawing by Herbert Railton_ _facing_ 102
_The Tower of London, from a Drawing by Hanslip
Fletcher_ 108
_St. John's Chapel in the Tower, from a Drawing
by Katharine Kimball_ 122
_Duke of Orleans in the Tower, from a copy of MS.
in British Museum_ _facing_ 126
_North or Inside View of Traitor's Gate, from a
Drawing by Herbert Railton_ 129
_Cheapside Cross, from a Painting of the sixteenth
century_ 138
_Seal of St. Bartholomew's Hospital and Obverse
of the Common Seal of the City of London,
cir. 1225_ _facing_ 180
_Rahere's Tomb in St. Bartholomew's Church,
from a Drawing by Hanslip Fletcher_ 184
_St. Giles' in the Fields, from Plan in the British
Museum_ 193
_'London Stone,' Cannon Street, from a Drawing
by Walter H. Godfrey_ 230
_Seal of Fitz-Ailwin, first Mayor of London_ 231
_Seal of Robert Fitz-Walter_ 269
_The Crypt of the Guildhall, from a Drawing by
Walter H. Godfrey_ 273
_Cloth Fair, from a Drawing by Katharine Kimball_ 283
_Sir William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, Temple
Church, from a Drawing by Hanslip Fletcher_ 330
_Paul's Cross, from an Original Drawing in the
Pepysian Library, Cambridge_ _facing_ 336
_Interior of Old St. Paul's, from a Drawing by
Walter H. Godfrey, reconstructed from information
obtained from leading authorities_ 339
_Doorway, St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, from a Drawing
by Hanslip Fletcher_ 346
_St Helen's, Bishopsgate, from a Drawing by
Walter H. Godfrey_ 347
_Bow Church Crypt, from a Drawing by Walter
H. Godfrey_ 349
_Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, from a
Drawing by Hanslip Fletcher_ 350
_Hall of the Charterhouse, from a Drawing by
Herbert Railton_ 353
_The Temple Church--The Round, from a Drawing
by Hanslip Fletcher_ 357
_St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, from a Drawing by
Herbert Railton_ 361
_The Crypt, St. John's, Clerkenwell, from a Drawing
by Walter H. Godfrey_ 369
_Charing Cross, from the Crace Collection, British
Museum_ _facing_ 375
_Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, from a Drawing
by Herbert Railton_ 377
_The Gate House and Church Tower, Lambeth
Palace, from a Drawing by J. A. Symington_ 379
_Norden's Plan of Westminster, 1593_ _facing_ 385
_Butcher Row and Temple Bar, from a Drawing
by Herbert Railton_ 390
_Lincoln's Inn Gateway, Chancery Lane, from a
Drawing by Hanslip Fletcher_ 393
_Gray's Inn Hall, from a Drawing by Katharine
Kimball_ 395
_Staple Inn, from a Drawing by Herbert Railton_ 397
_Sir Paul Pindar's House, from a Drawing by
Herbert Railton_ 399
[Illustration: DOMINE DIRIGENOS]
The Story of London
CHAPTER I
_Introduction: Early History of London to the Norman Conquest_
The question as to the great antiquity of London has formed a field for
varied and long-continued disputes. An elaborate picture of a British
London, founded by Brut, a descendant of Æneas, as a new Troy, with
grand and noble buildings, was painted by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The
absurdity of this conception, although it found credence for centuries,
was at last seen, and some antiquaries then went to the opposite extreme
of denying the very existence of a British London.
The solid foundation of facts proving the condition of the earliest
London are the waste, marshy ground, with little hills rising from the
plains, and the dense forest on the north--a forest that remained almost
up to the walls of the city even in historic times, animal remains,
flint instruments, and pile dwellings. All the rest is conjecture. We
must call in the aid of geography and geology to understand the laws
which governed the formation of London. The position of the town on the
River Thames proves the wisdom of those who chose the site, although the
swampiness of the land, caused by the daily overflowing of the river
before the embankments were thrown up, must have endangered its
successful colonisation. When the vast embankment was completed the
river receded to its proper bed, and the land which was retrieved was
still watered by several streams flowing from the higher ground in the
north into the Thames.
Animal remains, very various in character, have been found in different
parts of London. Examples of mammoth, elephant, rhinoceros, elk, deer,
and many other extinct as well as existing species are represented. Of
man, the mass of flint instruments in the 'Palæolithic floor' which
prove his early existence is enormous.
General Pitt Rivers (then Colonel Lane Fox) in 1867 made the discovery
of the remains of pile dwellings near London Wall and in Southwark
Street. The piles averaged 6 to 8 inches square, others of a smaller
size were 4 inches by 3 inches, and one or two were as much as a foot
square. They were found in the peat just above the virgin gravel, and
with them were found the refuse of kitchen middens and broken pottery of
the Roman period. There is reason to believe that the piles were sunk by
the Britons rather than by the Romans, and General Pitt Rivers was of
opinion that they are the remains of the British capital of
Cassivellaunus, situated in the marches, and, of necessity, built on
piles.[1] Dr. Munro, however, who alludes to this discovery in his book
on Lake Dwellings, believes that these piles belong to the post-Roman
times, and supposes that in the early Saxon period these pile dwellings
were used in the low-lying districts of London.[2]
The strongest point of those who disbelieve in a British London is that
Julius Cæsar does not mention it, but this negative evidence is far from
conclusive.
We learn from Tacitus that in A.D. 61 the Roman city was a place of some
importance--the chief residence of merchants and the great mart of
trade--therefore we cannot doubt but that to have grown to this
condition it must have existed before the Christian era. The Romans
appear to have built a fort where the Tower of London now stands, but
not originally to have fortified the town. London grew to be a
flourishing centre of commerce, though not a place capable of sustaining
a siege, so the Roman general, Paullinus Suetonius, would not run the
risk of defending it against Boadicea. Afterwards the walls were
erected, and Londinium took its proper position in the Roman Empire. It
was on the high road from Rome to York, and the starting-point of half
the roads in Britain.
Bishop Stubbs wrote: 'Britain had been occupied by the Romans, but had
not become Roman.' Probably few Romans settled here. The inhabitants
consisted of the Governor and the military officers and Romanised
Britons. When the Roman legions left this country Londinium must have
had a very mixed population of traders. There were no leaders, and a
wail went up from the defenceless inhabitants. In the year 446 we hear
of 'The groans of the Britons to Aetius, for the third time Consul,'
which took this form of complaint: 'The savages drive us to the sea, and
the sea casts us back upon the savages; so arise two kinds of death,
and we are either drowned or slaughtered.'[3]
In this place, however, we have not to consider the condition either of
British or Roman London, for the Middle Ages may be said to commence
with the break up of the Roman Empire. Saxon London was a wooden city,
surrounded by walls, marking out the same enclosure that existed in the
latest Roman city. We have the authority of the Saxon Chronicle for
saying that in the year 418 the Romans collected all the treasures that
were in Britain, and hid some of them in the earth.
From the date of the departure of the Roman legions to that of the
Norman Conquest nearly six centuries and a half had elapsed. Of this
long period we find only a few remains, such as some articles discovered
in the river, and some entries in that incomparable monument of the
past--the Saxon Chronicle. All we really know of Saxondom we learn from
the Chronicle, Bede's _Ecclesiastical History_, and the old charters.
The history of England for the greater portion of this time was local
and insular, for the country was no longer a part of a great empire.
Professor Earle tells us that the name London occurs fifty times in the
Chronicle, and Londonburh thirteen times, but we do not know whether any
distinction between the two names was intended to be indicated.
The Chronicler tells us of the retreat of the Roman legions, and how
Hengist and Horsa, invited by Vortigern, King of the Britons, landed in
Britain. Then comes the ominous account of the Saxons, who turned
against the friends that called upon them for succour and totally
defeated the British at Crayford in Kent:--
'457. This year Hengist and Æsc, his son, fought against the Britons at
the place which is called Crecganford, and there slew four thousand men;
and the Britons then forsook Kent, and in great terror fled to
Lundenbyrg.'
Then for a century and a half there is no further mention of London in
the Chronicle. We are not told what became of the fugitives, nor what
became of the city; as Lappenberg says: 'No territory ever passed so
obscurely into the hand of an enemy as the north bank of the Thames.'
It is as difficult to suppose what some have supposed--that the city was
deserted and remained desolate for years--as to imagine that trade and
commerce continued in the city while all around was strife. There may
have been some arrangement by which the successful Saxon who did not
care to live in the city agreed that those who wished to do so should
live there. But all is conjecture in face of this serious blank in our
history.
If there had been a battle and destruction of the city we should
doubtless have had some account of it in the Chronicle. Gradually the
Saxons settled on the hithes or landing places on the river side, and at
last overcame their natural repugnance to town life and settled in the
city. When London is again mentioned in the Chronicle it appears to have
been inhabited by a population of heathens still to be converted. Under
the date 604 we are told:--
'This year Augustine consecrated two bishops; Mellitus and Justus. He
sent Mellitus to preach baptism to the East Saxons, whose King was
called Sebert, son of Ricole, the sister of Ethelbert, and whom
Ethelbert had then appointed King. And Ethelbert gave Mellitus a
bishop's See in Lundenwic, and to Justus he gave Rochester, which is
twenty-four miles from Canterbury.'
The Christianity of the Londoners was of an unsatisfactory character,
for after the death of Sebert, his sons, who were heathens, stirred up
the multitude to drive out their bishop. Mellitus became Archbishop of
Canterbury, and London again relapsed into heathenism. In this, the
earliest period of Saxon London recorded for us, there appears to be no
relic left of the Christianity of the Britons which at one time was well
in evidence. Godwin recorded a list of sixteen ecclesiastics, styled by
him Archbishops of London, and Le Neve adopted the list in his _Fasti
Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ_, on the authority of Godwin.
The list begins with Theanus during the reign of Lucius, King of the
Britons in the latter half of the second century. The second is Eluanus,
who was said to have been sent on an embassy to Eleutherius, Pope from
A.D. 171 to 185. The twelfth on the list is Restitutus, whose name is
found on the list of prelates present at the Council of Arles in the
year 314.
Perhaps the answer to the question as to the extinction of British
Christianity in London is to be found in Geoffrey of Monmouth's
statement that when the Saxons drove the British fugitives into Wales
and Cornwall, Theon, the sixteenth and last on this list of British
bishops, fled into Wales with the Archbishop of Caerleon, the Bishop
Thadiac of York, and their surviving clergy. The traditional date of
this flight is A.D. 586, not many years before the appearance of
Mellitus. Geoffrey of Monmouth is not a very trustworthy authority, but
there is no reason to doubt his belief in his own story, and it is
interesting to note that he specially mentions Theonus. At all events,
we know from other sources that there were Bishops of London during the
Roman period.
The bold statement that King Lucius founded the Church of St. Peter,
Cornhill, can scarcely be said to find any credence among historians of
the present day, but a reference to the doings of this ancient King will
be found imbedded in the Statute Book of St. Paul's Cathedral:--'In the
year from the Incarnation of the Lord one hundred and eighty-five, at
the request of Lucius, the King of Greater Britain, which is now called
England, there were sent from Eleutherius the Pope to the aforesaid King
two illustrious doctors, Fagnus and Dumanus, who should incline the
heart of the King and of his subject people to the unity of the
Christian faith, and should consecrate to the honour of the one true and
supreme God the temples which had been dedicated to various and false
deities.'[4]
To return from the wild statements of tradition to the facts of sober
history, we find that London, after the driving out of Mellitus,
remained without a bishop until the year 656, when Cedda, brother of St.
Chad of Lichfield, was invited to London by Sigebert who had been
converted to Christianity by Finan, Bishop of the Northumbrians. Cedda
was consecrated Bishop of the East Saxons by Finan about 656, and held
the See till his death on the 26th October 664. The list of bishops from
Cedda to William, who is addressed in the Conqueror's Charter, is a long
one, and each of these bishops apparently held a position of great
importance in the government of the city.
In the seventh century the city seems to have settled down into a
prosperous place and to have been peopled by merchants of many
nationalities. We learn that at this time it was the great mart of
slaves. It was in the fullest sense a free trading town; neutral to a
certain extent between the kingdoms around, although the most powerful
of the Kings successively obtained some authority over it, when they
conquered their feebler neighbours.[5] As to this there is still more to
be said. During the eighth century, when a more settled condition of
life became possible, the trade and commerce of London increased in
volume and prosperity. A change, however, came about towards the end of
the century, when the Scandinavian freebooters, known to us as Danes,
began to harry our coasts. The Saxons had become law-abiding, and the
fierce Danes treated them in the same way that in former days they had
treated the Britons. Freeman divided the Danish invasions into three
periods:--
1. 787-855. A period when the object was simply plunder.
2. 902-954. Attempts made at settlement.
3. 980-1016. During this period the history of England was one record of
struggle with the power of Denmark till Cnut became undisputed King of
England.[6]
We still have much to learn as to the movements of the Danes in this
country, and when the old charters are more thoroughly investigated we
shall gain a great accession of light. Thus we learn from an Anglo-Saxon
charter, printed in De Gray Birch's _Cartularium Saxonicum_ (Nos. 533,
534), that in the year 872 a great tribute was paid to the Danes which
is not mentioned in the Chronicle. London was specially at the mercy of
the fierce sailors of the North, and the times when the city was in
their hands are almost too numerous for record here.
Even when Alfred concluded with Guthrun in 878 the Treaty of Wedmore, as
it is still commonly called,[7] and by which the country was divided
between the English and the Danes, London suffered much.
With the reign of Alfred we come to the consideration of a very
difficult question in the history of London. It has been claimed for
this King that he rebuilt London. Mr Loftie expresses this view in the
very strongest terms. He writes:--
'So important, however, is this settlement, so completely must it be
regarded as the ultimate fact in any continuous narrative relating to
the history of London, that it would be hardly wrong to commence with
some such sentence as this; "London was founded exactly a thousand years
ago by King Alfred, who chose for the site of his city a place formerly
fortified by the Romans, but desolated successively by the Saxons and
the Danes."'
There is certainly no evidence for so sweeping a statement. Nothing in
the Chronicle can be construed to contain so wide a meaning. The passage
upon which this mighty superstructure has been formed is merely this:--
'886. In the same year King Alfred restored (_gesette_) London, and all
the Angle race turned to him that were not in the bondage of the Danish
men, and he then committed the burgh to the keeping of the Alderman
Æthered.'
The great difficulty in this passage is the word _gesette_, which
probably means occupied, but may mean much more, as founded or settled.
Some authorities have therefore changed the word to _besaet_, besieged.
Professor Earle proposed the following solution of the problem, which
seems highly probable. London was a flourishing, populous and opulent
city, the chief emporium of commerce in the island, and the residence of
foreign merchants. Properly it had become an Angle city, the chief city
of the Anglian nation of Mercia, but the Danes had settled there in
great numbers, and they had many captives whom they had taken in the
late wars. Thus the Danes preponderated over the free Angles, and the
latter were glad to see Alfred come and restore the balance in their
favour. It was of the greatest importance for Alfred to secure this
city, not only the capital of Mercia, but able to do what Mercia had not
done, to bar the passage of pirate ships to the Upper Thames.
Accordingly, Alfred in 886 planted the garrison of London, _i.e._,
introduced a military colony of men, and gave them land for their
maintenance, in return for which they lived in and about a fortified
position under a commanding officer. Professor Earle would not have
_Lundenburh_ taken as merely an equivalent to London. Alfred therefore
founded not London itself but the burh of London.[8]
Under Athelstan we find the city increasing in importance and general
prosperity. There were then eight mints at work, which shows great
activity and the need of coin for the purposes of trade. The folkmoot
met in the precincts of St. Paul's at the sound of the bell, which also
rang out when the armed levy was required to march under St. Paul's
banner. For some years after the decisive Battle of Brunanburh (937) the
Danes ceased to trouble the country. But one may affirm that fire was
almost as great an enemy as the Dane. Fabyan, when recording the entire
destruction of London by fire in the reign of Ethelred (981), makes this
remarkable statement: 'Ye shall understande that this daye the cytie of
London had most housynge and buyldinge from Ludgate toward Westmynstre,
and lytell or none wher the chief or hart of the citie is now, except
[that] in dyvers places were housyng, but they stod without order.'[9]
The good government of Athelstan and his successors kept the country
free from foreign freebooters, but when Ethelred II., called the Unready
(or rather the Redeless), came to the throne, the Danes saw their
opportunity. In 991 he tried to bribe his enemies to stay away, and was
the first English King to institute the Danegelt, which was for so many
years a severe tax upon the resources of the country. The bribe was
useless, and the enemy had to be bought off again. A Danish fleet
threatened London in 992, and in 994 Olaf (or Anlaf) Trygwason (who
appears first as harrier of English soil in 988), with Sweyn, the Danish
King, laid siege to London, but failed to take it. They then harried,
burned and slew all along the sea coasts of Essex, Kent, Sussex and
Hampshire. The English paid £10,000 to the Danes in 991, and in 994 they
had to produce the still larger sum of £16,000 in order to purchase
peace. Olaf then promised never again to visit England, except in peace.
Subsequently Ethelred brought disaster upon himself and his country by
his treachery. In 1002 he issued secret orders for a massacre of all the
Danes found in England, and in this massacre Gunhild, sister of Sweyn,
was among the victims. In consequence of Ethelred's conduct the Danes
returned in force to these shores and had to be bought off with a sum of
£36,000. They came again and made many unsuccessful assaults upon
London, upon which the Chronicler remarks: 'They often fought against
the town of London, but to God be praise that it yet stands sound, and
they have ever fared ill.'
In 1010 Ethelred took shelter in London, and in 1013 Sweyn again
attacked the city without success, but having conquered a great part of
England the Londoners submitted to him, and Ethelred fled to Normandy.
After Sweyn's death, in 1014, Ethelred was invited to return to England,
as the country was not willing to receive Sweyn's son Cnut as its King.
When Ethelred returned to England he was accompanied by another Olaf
(Anlaf Haroldson) who succeeded by a clever manoeuvre in destroying
the wooden London Bridge, and taking the city out of the hands of the
Danes. The story is told in Snorro Sturleson's _Heimskringla_ (The
Story of Olaf the Holy, the son of Harold): 'Olaf covered the decks of
his ship with a roof of wood and wicker work to protect them from the
stones and shot which were ready to be cast at them by the Danes. King
Olaf and the host of the North-men rowed right up under the bridge, and
lashed cables round the poles that upheld the bridge, and then they fell
to their oars and rowed all the ships down stream as hard as they might.
The poles dragged along the ground, even until they were loosened under
the bridge. But inasmuch as an host under weapons stood thickly arrayed
on the bridge, there were on it both many stones and many war-weapons,
and the poles having broken from it, the bridge broke down by reason
thereof, and many of the folk fell into the river, but all the rest
thereof fled from the bridge, some into the city, some into Southwark.
And after this they made an onset on Southwark and won it. And when the
towns-folk saw that the River Thames was won, so that they might not
hinder the ships from faring up into the land, they were afeard, and
gave up the town and took King Ethelred in.'[10]
The later life of Olaf was one of adventure. He was driven by Cnut from
his kingdom of Norway, and took shelter in Sweden. Here he obtained
help, and in the end regained his throne. At the Battle of Sticklestead
he was defeated and slain (1030). His body was hastily buried, but was
afterwards taken up, and, being found incorrupt, was buried in great
state in a shrine at Drontheim. He was canonized, and several English
churches are dedicated to him. There are four parishes bearing the name
of St. Olave in London, one of the churches is in Tooley Street which
also preserves the name of St. Olave in a curiously corrupted form.
After this Ethelred succeeded in driving Cnut out of England back to
Denmark. Of this success Freeman enthusiastically wrote: 'That
true-hearted city was once more the bulwark of England, the centre of
every patriotic hope, the special object of every hostile attack.'[11]
There was, however, little breathing space, for Cnut returned to England
in 1015, and Ethelred's brilliant son, Edmund Ironside, prepared to meet
him. Edmund's army refused to fight unless Ethelred came with them, and
unless they had 'the support of the citizens of London.' Before,
however, Cnut arrived Ethelred died, England was in the hand of the
Dane, and London only remained free. Edmund was elected King by the
Witan, united with the inhabitants of the city, and thus the Londoners
first asserted the position which they held to for many centuries--of
their right to a voice in the election of the King.
Cnut was determined now to succeed, and he at once sailed up the Thames.
He was, however, unable to pass the bridge, which had been rebuilt. He
therefore dug a trench on the south side of the river, by which means he
was enabled to draw some of his ships above the bridge. He also cut
another trench entirely round the wall of the city. In spite of his
clever scheme, the determined resistance of our stubborn forefathers
caused it to fail.[12]
Edmund Ironside was successful in his battles with Cnut till his
brother-in-law, Eadric, Alderman of Mercia, turned traitor, and helped
the Danish King to vanquish the English army at Assandun (now Assenton
in Kent). Edmund was now forced to agree to Cnut's terms, and it was
therefore settled that Edmund should retain his crown, and take all
England south of the Thames, together with East Anglia, Essex and
London, Cnut taking the rest of the kingdom. On the 30th November 1016
Edmund died, and Cnut became King of the whole of England. His reign was
prosperous, and he succeeded in gaining the esteem of his subjects, who
appreciated the long-continued peace which he brought them. Dr. Stubbs
describes him as one of the 'conscious creators of England's greatness.'
He died in November 1035 at the early age of forty.
We may now pass over some troubled times, caused by the worthless
successors of Cnut, and come to the period when the West Saxon line was
restored in the person of Edward the Confessor, who, being educated at
the Norman Court, became more a Norman than an Englishman, and prepared
the way for the Conqueror's success. The Confessor was but an
indifferent King, although he holds a more distinguished place in
history than many a more heroic figure as the practical founder of
Westminster Abbey, where his shrine is still one of its most sacred
treasures. When Edward died, the Witan which had attended his funeral
elected to succeed him, Harold, the foremost man in England, and the
leader who had attempted to check the spread of the far too wide Norman
influence.
After conquering his outlawed brother, Tostig, and Harold Hardrada, King
of Norway, at Stamford Bridge, he had to hurry back to meet William Duke
of Normandy, which he did on a hill on the Sussex Downs, afterwards
called Senlac. He closed his life on the field of battle, after a reign
of forty weeks and one day. Then the Conqueror had the country at his
mercy, but he recognised the importance of London's position, and moved
forward with the greatest caution and tact.
The citizens of London were possibly a divided body, and William,
knowing that he had many friends in the city, felt that a waiting game
was the best for his cause in the end. His enemies, led by Ansgar the
Staller, under whom as sheriff the citizens of London had marched to
fight for Harold at Senlac, managed to get their way at first. They
elected Edgar Atheling, the grandson of Edmund Ironside, as King, but
this action was of little avail.
When William arrived at Southwark the citizens sallied forth to meet
him, but they were beaten back, and had to save themselves within the
city walls. William retired to Berkhamsted,[13] and is said to have sent
a private message to Ansgar asking for his support.[14] In the end the
citizens, probably led by William the Bishop, who was a Norman, came
over to the Conqueror's side, and the best men repaired to Berkhamsted.
Here they accepted the sovereignty of William, who received their oath
of fealty.
Thus ends the Saxon period of our history, and the Norman period in
London commences with the Conqueror's charter to William the Bishop and
Gosfrith the Portreeve, supposed to be the elder Geoffrey de Mandeville.
In the foregoing pages the main incidents of the history of Saxon London
are recited. These are, I fear, rather disconnected and uninteresting,
but it is necessary to set down the facts in chronological order,
because from them we can draw certain conclusions as to the condition
of London before the Norman Conquest. Unfortunately our authorities for
the Saxon period do not tell us much that we want to know, and, in
consequence, many of the suggestions made by one authority are disputed
by another. Still we can draw certain very definite conclusions, which
cannot well be the subjects of contention.
The first fact is the constant onward march of London towards the
fulfilment of its great destiny. Trouble surrounded it on all sides,
but, in spite of them all, the citizens gained strength in adversity, so
that at the Conquest the city was in possession of those special
privileges which were cherished for centuries, never given up, but
increased when opportunity occurred. Patient waiting was therefore
rewarded by success, and London by the endeavours of her men grew in
importance and stood before all other cities in her unique position.
The Governor who possessed the confidence of Londoners, although all the
rest of the country was against him, needed not to despair, while he who
had the support of the rest of the country, but was opposed by London,
could not be considered as triumphant.
The so-called Heptarchy was constantly changing the relative positions
of its several parts, until Egbert, the King of Wessex, became 'Rex
totius Britanniæ' (A.D. 827). The seven kingdoms were at some
hypothetical period
1. Kent, }
2. Sussex, } South of the Thames.
3. Wessex, }
4. Essex, }
5. East Anglia, } North of the Thames.
6. Mercia, }
7. Northumbria } North of the Humber,
(including Deira } and as far north as the
and Bernicia), } Forth.
The walled city of London was a distinct political unit, although it
owed a certain allegiance to one of the kingdoms, which was the most
powerful for the time being. This allegiance therefore frequently
changed, and London retained its identity and individuality all through.
Essex seems seldom to have held an independent position, for when London
first appears as connected with the East Saxons the real power was in
the hands of the King of Kent. According to Bede, Wini, being expelled
from his bishopric of Wessex in 635, took refuge with Wulfhere, King of
the Mercians, of whom he purchased the See of London. Hence the Mercian
King must then have been the overlord of London. Not many years
afterwards the King of Kent again seems to have held some jurisdiction
here. From the laws of the Kentish Kings, Lhothhere and Eadric, 673-685,
we learn that the Wic-reeve was an officer of the King of Kent, who
exercised a jurisdiction over the Kentish men trading with or at London,
or who was appointed to watch over their interests.[15]
There is a very interesting question connected with the position of the
two counties in which London is situated. It is necessary to remember
that London is older than these counties, whose names, viz., Middlesex
and Surrey, indicate their relative position to the city and the
surrounding country. We have neither record of their settlement nor of
the origin of their names. Both must have been peopled from the river.
The name Middle Saxons clearly proves that Middlesex must have been
settled after the East and West Saxons had given their names to their
respective districts.
There has been much discussion as to the etymology of Surrey, more
particularly of the second syllable. A once favourite explanation was
that Surrey stood for South Kingdom (A.S. _rice_), but there is no
evidence that Surrey ever was a kingdom, and this etymology must surely
be put aside.
In Elton's _Origins of English History_ there is the following note, p.
387: 'Three Underkings concur in a grant by the King of Surrey.--Cod.
Diplom. 987.' This is a serious misstatement, for the document cited
says: 'Ego Frithuualdus prouinciae Surrianorum subregulus regis Wlfarii
Mercianorum ... dono concedo,' etc.
Frithwald is here described as 'subregulus' (under-king), subject to the
King of the Mercians; and in the attestation clause it is added: 'Et
isti sunt subreguli qui omnes sub signo suo subscripserunt.' Their names
are Fritheuuold, Osric, Wigherd and Ætheluuold. Each is described as
'testis' merely. This does not seem to imply concurrence; but, even if
it does, the title 'subregulus' does not mean an independent sovereign.
In the description of the boundaries of the granted land, which is in
Anglo-Saxon, the grantor is certainly described as 'Fritheuuold King,'
but this cannot mean king in the full sense, and the Anglo-Saxon clause
in the charter could not have been intended to contradict the Latin,
which designates Frithwald as 'subregulus' throughout.
Dr. Stubbs (_Constitutional History_, vol. i. p. 189), after describing
the gradual disappearance of the smaller sovereignties, and pointing out
that 'the heptarchic King was as much stronger than the tribal King as
the King of United England was stronger than the heptarchic King,'
wrote: 'In Wessex, besides the Kings of Sussex, which has a claim to be
numbered among the seven great States, were Kings of Surrey also.' The
note to this, however, only refers to Frithewold, 'subregulus or
ealdorman of Surrey,' and no mention is made of any ruler who was
capable of making Surrey into a kingdom.
The form of the name used by Bede, 'in regione Sudergeona' (_Hist.
Eccles._, iv. 6), may suggest a derivation quite different from any yet
suggested.
Surrey was originally an integral part of Kent, and when it was severed
from that county it became apparently an independent district, a sort of
republic under its own alderman. In later times it became subject to the
neighbouring kingdoms. At the date of this charter it was under Mercia.
It was never reckoned as a separate member of the heptarchy.
London fought an uphill fight with Winchester for the position of chief
city of Southern England. Under Egbert London grew in importance, but
Winchester, the chief town of Wessex, was still the more important place
politically. In the trade regulations enacted by Edgar in the tenth
century London took precedence of Winchester: 'Let one measure and one
weight pass such as is observed at London and at Winchester.' In the
reign of Edward the Confessor London had become the recognised capital
of England.
Some dispute has arisen respecting the position of the lithsmen, who
appear at the election in Oxford of Cnut's successor, and subsequently.
Freeman (_Norman Conquest_, vol. i. p. 538) describes them as
'seafaring' men of London, while Gross (_The Gild Merchant_, vol. i. p.
186) writes: 'The lithsmen (shipowners) of London, who, with others,
raised Harold to the throne, were doubtless such "burg-thegns."'
Another important point to be noted is the prominent political position
of the bishop. As early as A.D. 900 'the bishop and the reeves who
belong to London' are recorded as making in the name of the citizens
laws which were confirmed by the King, because they had reference to the
whole kingdom. Edward the Confessor greeted William Bishop, Harold Earl,
and Esgar Staller. So that William the Conqueror followed precedent when
he addressed his charter to Bishop and Portreeve.
Foreigners in early times occupied an important position in London, but
there were serious complaints when Edward the Confessor enlarged the
numbers of the Normans. The Englishman always had a hatred of the
foreigner, and this dislike grew as time went on, and the English tried
to obtain the first place and succeeded in the attempt.
Other points, such as government by folkmoots and gilds, which will be
discussed in the following chapters, find their origin in the Saxon
period. The government of London under the Saxons was of a simple
character, approximating to that of the shire, and so it continued until
some years after the Conquest. When the Commune was extorted from the
Crown a fuller system of government was inaugurated, which will be
discussed in a later chapter.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II
_The Walled Town and its Streets_
In the mediæval city the proper protection of the municipality and the
citizens largely depended upon the condition of the walls and gates. The
government of town life was specially congenial to the Norman, and the
laws he made for the purpose were stringent; while the Saxon, who never
appreciated town life, preferred the county organisation. Thus it will
be found that, as the laws of the latter were too lax, those of the
former were too rigorous.
Riley, referring to the superfluity of Norman laws, describes them as
'laws which, while unfortunately they created or protected few real
valuable rights, gave birth to many and grievous wrongs.' He proceeds to
amplify this opinion, and gives good reason for the condemnation he felt
bound to pronounce: 'That the favoured and so-called _free_ citizen of
London, even--despite the extensive privileges in reference to trade
which he enjoyed--was in possession of more than the faintest shadow of
liberty, can hardly be allowed, if we only call to mind the substance of
the ... enactments and ordinances, arbitrary, illiberal and oppressive:
laws, for example, which compelled each citizen, whether he would or no,
to be bail and surety for a neighbour's good behaviour, over whom it was
perhaps impossible for him to exercise the slightest control; laws which
forbade him to make his market for the day until the purveyors for the
King, and the "great lords of the land," had stripped the stalls of all
that was choicest and best; laws which forbade him to pass the city
walls for the purpose of meeting his own purchased goods; laws which
bound him to deal with certain persons and communities only, or within
the precincts only of certain localities; laws which dictated, under
severe penalties, what sums and no more he was to pay to his servants
and artisans; laws which drove his dog out of the streets, while they
permitted "genteel dogs" to roam at large: nay, even more than this,
laws which subjected him to domiciliary visits from the city officials
on various pleas and pretexts; which compelled him to carry on a trade
under heavy penalties, irrespective of the question whether or not it
was at his loss; and which occasionally went so far as to lay down rules
at what hours he was to walk in the streets, and incidentally, what he
was to eat and what to drink.'[16]
We see from this quotation that the position of the inhabitant of a
walled town was not a happy one. Still he was more favoured than his
neighbour who lived in the country. A few examples will show us what the
city life was, and these specific instances are necessary, for so many
centuries have passed since Englishmen lived in a walled town that
without them it is barely possible for us to conceive what this life of
suspicion and fear of danger was really like.
The one thing which we do see distinctly is the gradual emancipation of
the Englishman from the wearing thraldom of his position. He went on
gradually in his course, always bearing towards the light, and he gained
freedom long before the citizens of other countries. In the fifteenth
century we find that galling laws here in England were allowed to fall
into desuetude in favour of freedom, while the same rules were retained
in foreign countries. Some of our countrymen objected to this, and
English merchants were irritated to find that while the regulation
enjoining every alien merchant during his residence in London to abide
in the house of a citizen assigned to him as a host by the magistrates
had fallen into abeyance, the restriction was rigidly enforced abroad.
The writer of the remarkable _Libelle of Englyshe Polycye_ (1437)
alludes to this feeling:--
'What reason is't that we should go to host in these countries and in
this English coast they should not so, but have more liberty than we
ourselves?'[17]
The citizens had to put up with constant surveillance. The gates were
closed early in the evening, and at curfew all lights, as well as fires,
had to be put out. Night-walkers, male and female, and roysterers
generally had a bad time of it, but probably they were very ill-behaved,
and in many cases they doubtless deserved the punishment they received.
In the year 1100 Henry I. relaxed these stringent regulations, and
restored to his subjects the use of lights at night. The streets were
first lighted by lanterns in 1415.
London within the walls was a considerable city in the Middle Ages,
although it only contained the same area that was walled in during the
later Roman period. The relics of this wall, continually renewed with
the old materials, are so few, and the old area is so completely lost
sight of in the larger London, that it is necessary to point out the
line of the walls before dealing further with the habits of the
Londoners. It was long supposed that the Ludgate was the chief entrance
to the city from the west, but, in spite of its name, there can be
little doubt that for some centuries the great western approach was made
through Newgate. We will therefore commence our walk round the walls
with that gate.
Although there can be no doubt that here was a gate in the Roman period,
we have little or no record of its early history. One of its earlier
names was Chamberlain's Gate. The 'new' gate was erected in the reign of
Henry I., and in a Pipe Roll of 1188 it is mentioned as a prison. In
1414 the prison was in such a loathsome condition that the keeper and
sixty-four of the prisoners died of the prison plague. In consequence of
this it was decided to rebuild the gate. Richard Whittington was the
moving spirit in this rebuilding, and it is supposed that he paid the
expenses. In the course of excavations made in 1874-1875 for the
improvement of the western end of Newgate Street, the massive
foundations of Whittington's gate were discovered several feet below the
present roadway.
The wall passed north through the precincts of Christ Church (Christ's
Hospital), formerly occupied by the Grey Friars (or Franciscans). The
town ditch, which was outside the walls, and arched over about the year
1553, ran through the Hospital grounds. The wall then turned round to
the north of Newgate Street, and passed into St. Martin's-le-Grand,
where, in 1889, the foundations of several houses on the west side were
exposed while the excavations for the latest addition to the General
Post-Office were being proceeded with.
The great bell of the Collegiate Church of St. Martin's tolled the
curfew hour when all the gates of the city were to be shut. The great
gates were shut at the first stroke of the bell at St. Martin's and the
wickets opened; at the last stroke the wickets were to be closed, and
not to be opened afterward that night unless by special precept of the
Mayor. The ringing of the curfew of St. Martin's was to be the signal
for the ringing 'at every parish church, so that they begin together
and end together.'[18] In an Ordinance (37 Edward III., 1363) the bell
at the Church of our Lady at Bow was substituted for that at St.
Martin's.
Outside the walls were Smithfield, where the tournaments were held, and
Giltspur Street, where the knights bought their spears, and armour might
be repaired when tournaments were going on.
Within the gate were the Grey Friars, Stinking Lane (now King Edward
Street), and the Butchers' Shambles in Newgate Street.
St. Paul's had its enclosed churchyard, so that the main thoroughfare
for centuries passed round it from Newgate Street to Cheapside. The name
of Cheap tells of the general market held there, and the names of
several of the streets out of Cheapside tell of the particular
merchandise appropriated to them, as Friday Street (Friday's market for
fish), Milk Street and Bread Street. At the west end of Cheapside was
the Church of St. Michael le Querne (or at the Corn), which marked the
site of the Corn Market. It was destroyed in the Great Fire. At the east
end of this church stood the Old Cross, which was taken down in the year
1390, and replaced by the Little Conduit, which is described as standing
by Paul's gate. There is an engraving of this church and the conduit,
with the water-pots of the water-carriers dotted about.
The wall passed north along the side of St. Martin's-le-Grand till it
came to Aldersgate, close by the Church of St. Botolph. The exact spot
is marked by No. 62 on the east side of the street. Stow's etymologies
of London names are seldom very satisfactory, but he never blundered
worse than when he explained Aldgate as old gate and Aldersgate as the
older gate; but his explanation has been followed by many successive
writers, who do not seem to have seen the impossibility of the
suggestion. One of the earliest forms of the name is Aldredesgate,
showing pretty conclusively that it was a proper name.
The wall proceeds east to Cripplegate, with an outpost--the Watch-Tower
or Barbican. The Rev. W. Denton has explained the name of Cripplegate as
due to the covered way between the postern and the Barbican or
Burgh-kenning (A.S., _crepel_, _cryfle_ or _crypele_, a burrow or
passage under ground). The name occurs also in the Domesday of
Wiltshire, where we read: 'To Wansdyke, thence forth by the dyke to
Crypelgeat.'[19] If this etymology be accepted, we have here the use of
the word gate as a way. In the north this distinction is kept up, and
the road is the gate, while what we in the south call the gate is the
bar. For instance, at York, Micklegate is the road, and the entrance to
the wall is Micklegate bar.
It may be noted that St. Giles was the patron saint of Cripples, but the
first church was not built until about 1090 by Alfune, the first
Hospitaller of St. Bartholomew's, so that the dedication may have been
owing to a mistaken etymology at that early date. In the churchyard is
an interesting piece of the old wall still in position. The course of
the wall to the east is marked by the street named London Wall, from
Cripplegate to Bishopsgate Street. Here it bore south to Camomile and
Wormwood Streets, where stood till 1731 the gate.
The distance between Cripplegate and Bishopsgate is not great, and much
of the space outside the walls was occupied by Moorditch. Still, in
1415, Thomas Falconer, then Mayor, opened a postern in the wall, where
Moorgate Street now is, for the benefit of the hay and wood carts coming
to the markets of London. He must also have made a road across the
morass of Moorfields, for that place was not drained until more than a
century afterwards. The site of Bishopsgate is marked by two tablets on
the houses at the corners of Camomile and Wormwood Streets respectively
(Nos. 1 and 64 Bishopsgate Street Without), inscribed with a mitre, and
these words, 'Adjoining to this spot Bishopsgate formerly stood.'[20]
Bishopsgate was named after Erkenwald, Bishop of London (d. 685), son of
Offa, King of Mercia, by whom it was erected. At first the maintenance
of the gate was considered to devolve upon the Bishop of London, but
after an arrangement with the Hanse Merchants it was ruled that the
bishop 'is bound to make the hinges of Bysoppsgate; seeing that from
every cart laden with wood he has one stick as it enters the said gate.'
The liability was limited to the hinges, for after some dispute it was
(1305) 'awarded and agreed that Almaines belonging to the House of the
Merchants of Almaine shall be free from paying two shillings on going in
or out of the gate of Bishopesgate with their goods, seeing that they
are charged with the safe keeping and repair of the gate.' The line of
the wall bears southward to Aldgate, and is marked by the street named
Houndsditch.
The earliest form of the name Aldgate appears to have been Alegate or
Algate, and, therefore, has nothing to do with Old, the _d_ being
intrusive. Within the walls was the great house of Christ Church,
founded by Queen Maud or Matilda, wife to Henry I., in the year 1108,
and afterwards known as the Priory of the Holy Trinity within Aldgate.
In 1115 the famous Cnichtengild, possessors of the ward of Portsoken
(which was the soke without the port or gate called Aldgate), presented
to the priory all their rights, offering upon the altars of the church
the several charters of the guild. The King confirmed the gift, and the
prior became _ex officio_ an alderman of London. This continued to the
dissolution of the religious houses, when the inhabitants of the ward
obtained the privilege of electing their own alderman. Stow tells us
that he remembered the prior riding forth with the Mayor as one of the
aldermen. 'These priors have sitten and ridden amongst the aldermen of
London, in livery like unto them, saving that his habit was in shape of
a spiritual person, as I myself have seen in my childhood.'
The old name of Christ Church is retained in St. Katherine Cree or
Christ Church, on the north side of Leadenhall Street, which was built
in the cemetery of the dissolved priory. This church was taken down in
1628, and the present building erected in 1630.
The wall led south by the line of the street now called the Minories to
the Tower, thus dividing Great Tower Hill, which was within the wall,
from Little Tower Hill, which was outside. The Abbey of Nuns of the
Order of St. Clare, which was situated outside the city walls, gave its
name of Minoresses to the street. When William the Conqueror built the
Tower he encroached upon the city ground, a proceeding which was not
popular with his subjects. Near Tower Hill, that is out of George
Street,
[Illustration: ALDGATE AND PRIORY OF THE HOLY TRINITY.
(_From Newton's Map of London._)]
Trinity Square, there is a fine fragment of the old London wall.
We must now turn westward and follow the course of the river from the
Custom House to the Blackfriars, as this forms the southern boundary of
the city.
A little to the west of the Tower gate was Galley Quay, where, according
to Stow, 'the gallies of Italie and other parts were used to unlade and
land their merchandises and wares.' These strangers, inhabitants of
Genoa and other parts, lodged, says Stow, in Galley Row, near Mincing
Lane. They 'were commonly called galley-men, as men that came up in the
galleys, brought up wines and other merchandises, which they landed in
Thames Street, at a place called Galley Key; they had a certain coin of
silver amongst themselves which were halfpence of Genoa, and were called
galley halfpence; these halfpence were forbidden in the 13th of Henry
IV., and again by Parliament in the 4th of Henry V.... Notwithstanding
in my youth I have seen them pass current, but with some difficulty, for
that the English halfpence were then, though not so broad, somewhat
thicker and stronger.' Next Galley Quay was Bear Quay, appropriated
chiefly to the landing and shipment of corn.
The first Custom House of which we have any account was built by John
Churchman, Sheriff of London in 1385, and stood on 'Customer's Key,' to
the east of the present building, and therefore much nearer Tower Wharf.
Another and a larger building was erected in the reign of Elizabeth, and
burnt in the Great Fire of 1666. Wren designed the third building, which
was completed in 1671 and destroyed by fire in 1718. Ripley's building,
which succeeded this, was destroyed in the same way in 1814. The present
is therefore the fifth building devoted to the customs of the country.
Billingsgate must be of great antiquity, but it has not always held its
present undisputed position. In early times Queenhithe and Billingsgate
were the chief city wharfs for the mooring of fishing vessels and
landing their cargoes. The fish were sold in and about Thames Street,
special stations being assigned to the several kinds of fish. Queenhithe
was at first the more important wharf, but Billingsgate appears to have
gradually overtaken it, and eventually to have left it quite in the
rear, the troublesome passage of London Bridge leading the shipmasters
to prefer the below-bridge wharf. Corn, malt and salt, as well as fish,
were landed and sold at both wharfs, and very strict regulations were
laid down by the city authorities as to the tolls to be levied on the
several articles, and the conditions under which they were to be
sold.[21]
In 1282 a message was sent from Edward I to the Serjeants of
Billingsgate and Queenhithe commanding them 'to see that all boats are
moored on the city side at night'; and in 1297 the order was repeated,
but it was now directed to the warden of the dock at Billingsgate, and
the warden of Queenhithe, who were 'to see that this order is strictly
observed.'
Opposite to Billingsgate, on the north side of Lower Thames Street, the
foundations of a Roman villa were discovered in 1847 when the present
Coal Exchange was built. A spring of clear water which supplied the
Roman baths was found running through the ruins at the time of the
excavations. This was the spring which supplied the boss, fountain or
jet by the corner of an opening, of old called Boss Alley, where a
reservoir was erected by Sir Richard Whittington, or his executors,
expressly for the use of the inhabitants and market people.
We now come to London Bridge, the great southern approach to London, and
the most important strategical position, as when that was fortified the
inhabitants were safe from attack on the south. Passing westward from
the bridge we come to the Old Swan Stairs, the Steelyard, Coldharbour,
Dowgate and the Vintry, and then we come to Queenhithe, said to have
been named after Eleanor, widow of Henry II., to whom it belonged. It
was previously known as Edred's hithe. Passing Paul's Wharf, we come to
the vast building known as Baynard's Castle, built by Humphry, Duke of
Gloucester, in 1428. This mansion had an eventful history until it was
destroyed in the Great Fire. A previous Baynard's Castle was situated on
the Thames nearer the Fleet River, and was named after Ralph Baynard,
one of the Norman knights of William the Conqueror. It afterwards came
into the possession of Robert Fitzwalter, chief bannerer or castellan of
the city of London. When the Dominicans or Black Friars removed from
Holborn to Ludgate they swallowed up in their precincts the Tower of
Mountfichet and Castle Baynard, which were the strongholds built at the
west end of the city. Edward I. allowed the friars to pull down the city
wall and take in all the land to the west as far as the River Fleet.
Moreover, the King intimated to the Mayor and citizens his desire that
the new wall should be built at the cost of the city. We here pass up to
Ludgate, which does not appear to have been a gate of much importance
until the beginning of the thirteenth century. The idea that it is named
after a mythical King Lud is, of course, exploded now, and there are at
present two etymologies to choose from. Dr. Edwin Freshfield supposes
the name to be derived from the word lode, a cut or drain into a large
stream. The main stream of the Fleet passes from the Thames to the foot
of Ludgate Hill, but a short branch went in a north-eastward direction
to Ludgate, joining there the town ditch. Mr. Loftie explains Ludgate as
a postern, and supposes it to have existed in the Saxon period as a
postern gate.
All along the river front of London originally there was a wall, remains
of which have been found at various times. Fitz-Stephen, writing in the
twelfth century, says: 'London formerly had walls and towers ... on the
south, but that most excellent river the Thames, which abounds with
fish, and in which the tide ebbs and flows, runs on that side, and has
in a long space of time washed down, undermined and subverted the walls
in that part.'[22]
Outside Ludgate the road to the west was not much frequented. Fleet
Street and the Strand were not the important thoroughfares during the
Middle Ages that Holborn was. The roads were much neglected, and no one
traversed them who could travel by boat on the Thames, which was
literally the Silent Highway of London.
When the gates of London were closed at eight o'clock at night, and the
inhabitants were ruled with an iron hand, it was somewhat a sign of
reproach to live outside the walls. This feeling continued for
centuries, and the name of 'suburbs' was long held in little respect. In
spite of this stigma, the main avenues leading to the several gates
became inhabited, and in course of time were added to the city of London
as liberties. The extent of these liberties was marked by bars--thus
outside Ludgate was Temple bar, outside Newgate, Holborn bars, outside
Aldersgate, Aldersgate bars, outside Bishopsgate, Bishopsgate bars, and
outside Aldgate, Aldgate bars. After this arrangement the liberties were
no longer suburbs, and the disreputable neighbourhood was therefore
pushed farther out. The suburbs outside Cripplegate were unlike those of
any of the other gates. There was no main road straight north, but a
village with a church and a Fore Street grew up outside the walls.
There is a great deal of information respecting the protection of the
walls and the city gates in the important series of 'Letter Books'
preserved among the city archives and in Riley's _Memorials_. The
authorities were allowed by the King to levy a tax called Murage from
time to time on goods entering the city to enable them to keep the wall
and gates in a state of efficiency. In 1276 Edward I. called upon the
citizens to devote a portion of the dues to the rebuilding of the city
wall by the house of the Blackfriars, and eight years after the grant of
murage was renewed to the Mayor and citizens on condition that they
built this wall, so that for some years the city gained no particular
advantage from the King's license. The Hanse Merchants were freed from
payment of murage on account of their engagement to keep Bishopsgate in
order.
In 1310 a royal writ was issued for the punishment of those who injured
the city walls, gates and posterns.[23] Two years before this date
special orders were issued as to the guard of the gates. The Wards
adjoining each gate had to supply a certain number of men-at-arms.
Newgate was supplied with 26 men; Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Ludgate and
Bridgegate with 24 each; Cripplegate and Aldersgate with 20 each.
The authorities were often very parsimonious, and we find in Riley this
curious entry under the date of 1314: 'Removal of an elm near
Bishopsgate and purchase of a cord for a ward hook with the proceeds of
the sale thereof.'
Some of the gates were let as dwelling-houses, Chaucer's tenancy of
Aldgate being a familiar instance; but this practice was found to be
very inconvenient and objectionable, and in 1386 an enactment was issued
forbidding the grant in future of the city gates or of the
dwelling-houses there.[24]
There must have been accommodation at the gates (even when let as
dwelling-houses) for the serjeants who performed the duty of opening and
closing the gates. One of the orders that these serjeants had to carry
into effect was to prevent the admission of lepers into the town. Money
was collected at the gates for the repair of the roads, a charge which
was in addition to murage. The serjeants had also to see that a fugitive
bondman did not enter the city, because if one gained admittance and
resided in a chartered town for a year and a day he obtained freedom and
was entitled to the franchise. In small towns it was easier to keep out
the fugitive, but in a large city like London he could often escape
notice, although the authorities might be against him. In Letter Book A
we read this notice: 'Pray that the said fugitives may not be admitted
to the freedom of the city'; and Pollock and Maitland write: 'The
townsmen were careful not to obliterate the distinction between bond and
free, and did not admit one of servile birth to the citizenship.'[25]
There can be little doubt that there was much laxity in keeping the
gates at various times, and in cases where there was fear of invasion
the King sent special orders to the Mayor to see to the protection of
the city.
In spite of the singular freedom of England from invasion the English
have constantly been overwhelmed with panic, fearing the worst which
never came. In 1335 an alarm was raised of a French invasion. The King
at the beginning of August wrote to order all men between sixteen and
sixty to be arrayed, and a Council to be immediately held in London.
Leaders of the Londoners were appointed who were to defend the city in
case the enemy landed. Again in 1370 preparations were made for an
expected attack upon the city, and in 1383 false reports were circulated
from the war in Flanders, for the circulation of which an impostor was
punished.[26] Three years later the citizens were in great terror on
account of a widespread report that the French King was about to invade
England. There seems to have been something in the report, because Harry
Hotspur believed it, and having waited impatiently for the French King
to besiege Calais, returned to England to meet him here. Stow, however,
was very satirical about the English fears. He wrote: 'The Londoners,
understanding that the French King had got together a great navie,
assembled an armie, and set his purpose firmely to come into England,
they trembling like leverets, fearefule as mise, seeke starting holes to
hide themselves in, even as if the citie were now to bee taken, and they
that in times past bragged they would blow all the Frenchmen out of
England, hearing now a vaine rumour of the enemies comming, they runne
to the walles, breake downe the houses adjoyning, destroy and lay them
flat, and doe all things in great feare, not one Frenchman yet having
set foote on shipboard, what would they have done, if the battell had
been at hand, and the weapons over their head.'[27]
No improvement in the condition of houses in London appears to have
taken place until long after the Conquest, and the low huts, closely
packed together, which filled the streets during the Saxon period, were
continued well into the thirteenth century. These houses were wholly
built of wood, and thatched with straw, or reeds.
All mediæval cities were fatally liable to destruction by fire, but
London appears to have been specially unfortunate in this respect. In
the first year of the reign of Stephen a destructive fire spread from
London Bridge to the Church of St. Clement Danes, destroying St. Paul's
in the way. This fire caused some improvements in building, but special
regulations were required, and one of the early works undertaken by the
newly established 'Commune' was the drawing up, in 1189, of the famous
Assize of Building, known by the name of the first Mayor as
Fitz-Ailwyne's Assize.
In this document the following statement was made: 'Many citizens, to
avoid such danger, built according to their means, on their ground, a
stone house covered and protected by thick tiles against the fury of
fire, whereby it often happened that when a fire arose in the city and
burnt many edifices, and had reached such a house, not being able to
injure it, it there became extinguished, so that many neighbours' houses
were wholly saved from fire by that house.'[28]
Various privileges were conceded to those who built in stone, and these
privileges are detailed in the Assize of 1189. No provision, however,
was made as to the material to be used in roofing tenements. This
Assize, which has been described as the earliest English Building Act,
is of the greatest value to us from an historical point of view, and
much attention is paid to it in Hudson Turner's _Domestic Architecture_,
where a translation of the Assize is printed. Turner points out that it
is evident from this specimen of early civic legislation that although
citizens might, if it so pleased them, construct their houses entirely
of stone, yet they were not absolutely required to do more than erect
party walls 16 feet in height, the materials of the structure built on
such walls being left entirely to individual choice, and there can be no
doubt that in the generality of houses it was of wood. This assumption
is justified by the fact that, in deeds of a much later period, houses
constructed wholly of stone are frequently named as boundaries, without
any further or more special description than that such was the substance
of which they were built. Turner adds that it is obvious such a
description would have been vague and insufficient in a district where
houses were generally raised in stone, and he therefore supposes that
the Assize of 1189 had no more direct effect than in regulating the
method of constructing party walls, and then only in cases where
individuals were willing to build in stone.[29]
There can be no doubt that the Assize had but little effect, for in 1212
a still more destructive fire occurred which destroyed part of London
Bridge--then a wooden structure--and the Church of St. Mary Overy,
Southwark. It raged for ten days, and it is calculated that 1000
persons--men, women and children--lost their lives in the fire.
This fire had a striking effect upon the authorities, for at once they
set to work to enact a new ordinance which introduced certain compulsory
regulations. This is known as Fitz-Ailwyne's Second Assize, 1212; and
thus the first Mayor, about whom little else is known, is associated
with two important Acts, one issued at the beginning and the other near
the end of his long mayoralty. Thenceforth everyone who built a house
was strictly charged not to cover it with reeds, rushes, stubble or
straw, but only with tiles, shingle boards, or lead. In future, in order
to stop a fire, houses could be pulled down in case of need with an
alderman's hook and cord. For the speedy removal of burning houses each
ward was to provide a strong iron hook, with a wooden handle, two chains
and two strong cords, which were to be left in the charge of the bedel
of the ward, who was also provided with a good horn, 'loudly sounding.'
It was also ordered that occupiers of large houses should keep one or
two ladders for their own house and for their neighbours in case of a
sudden outbreak of fire. Also, they were to keep in summer a barrel or
large earthen vessel full of water before the house, for the purpose of
quenching fire, unless there was a reservoir of spring water in the
curtilage or courtyard.[30]
Ancient lights are not provided for, and chimneys are not mentioned.
They were not general in Italian cities in the fourteenth century, but
in London they were comparatively common by the year 1300. In the
_Rotuli Hundredorum_, date 1275, a chimney is mentioned as built against
a house in St. Mary-at-Hill made of stone, a foot or more in breadth,
and projecting into the street.
Most of the houses consisted of little more than a large shop and an
upper room or solar. The latter was often merely a wooden loft. When an
upper apartment was carried out in stone it was described in deeds as
_solarium lapideum_. In the fourteenth century houses were built of two
and three storeys, and in some cases each storey was a distinct
freehold. This seems to have caused a large number of disputes. It is an
interesting fact that at a certain period there was the possibility of
London becoming a city of flats. One cannot but feel that it is strange
that flats should be general abroad and in Scotland, while it is only
lately that they have become at all popular in England. Some reason for
this diversity of custom must exist if we could only find it out.
Cellars were entered from the street; and possibly, in those cases where
separate floors belonged to different tenants, the upper storeys were
entered by stairs on the outside.
Sometimes a householder was allowed to encroach upon the road, and in
Riley's _Memorials_ we find patents of leave for building a _hautpas_,
that is, a room or floor raised on pillars and extending into the
street. Such a grant was made to Sir Robert Knolles and his wife
Constance in the year 1381. Penthouses are frequently mentioned in the
city ordinances, and they were to be at least 9 feet in height, so as to
allow of people riding beneath. It was enacted, for the benefit of
landlords, that penthouses once fastened by iron nails or wooden pegs to
the timber framework of the house should be deemed not removable, but
fixtures, part and parcel of the freehold.[31]
Shops were open to the weather, and the need of a better place of
protection for certain property was felt, which caused the erection of
selds--sheds or warehouses--which were let out in small compartments for
the storing of cupboards or chests. These served in their day the
purpose fulfilled in ours by Safe Deposit Companies.
Several of these selds are mentioned in the city books; thus there was
the Tanner's Seld, in or near St. Lawrence Lane, and Winchester Seld,
near the Woolmarket of Woolchurch, also another in Thames Street. In the
Hustings Roll we hear of the 'Great Seld of Roysia de Coventre in the
Mercery,' known as the Great or Broad Seld. In 1311 we find tenants
surrendering to Roysia, wife of Henry de Coventre, space for the
standing of a certain chest in the seld called 'La Broselde,' in the
parish of St. Pancras, in the ward of Cheap.
Windows are mentioned in the Assize, but glass was only used by the most
opulent. The windows of the citizens in the reign of Richard I. were
mere apertures, open in the day, crossed, perhaps, by iron stanchions,
and closed by wooden shutters at night. Glass is mentioned as one of the
regular imports into this country in the reign of Henry III., and in the
time of Edward III. glaziers (_verrers_) are mentioned as an established
gild.[32]
The buildings were constantly improved as time passed, and there is
reason to believe that London was much in advance of continental cities
as to comfort and cleanliness, in spite of some unflattering pictures
that have come down to us. We have reason to believe that the standard
idea of Englishmen as to comfort and decency was always higher than that
of his neighbours. This point, however, will be more fully considered in
the seventh chapter on Sanitation.
It took some time to establish the principle that an Englishman's house
is his castle, and some of our Kings tried hard to override the rights
of the faithful citizens. Mr. Riley makes the following remarks on this
point: 'In the times of our early Kings, when they moved from place to
place, it devolved upon the Marshal of the King's household to find
lodgings for the royal retinue and dependants, which was done by sending
a billet and seizing arbitrarily the best houses and mansions of the
locality, turning out the inhabitants and marking the houses so selected
with chalk, which latter duty seems to have belonged to the
Serjeant-Chamberlain of the King's household. The city of London,
fortunately for the comfort and independence of its inhabitants, was
exempted by numerous charters from having to endure this most abominable
annoyance at such times as it pleased the King to become its near
neighbour by taking up his residence in the Tower. Still, however,
repeated attempts were made to infringe this rule within the precincts
of the city.'
Henry III. instituted some specially tyrannical proceedings in the year
1266, which naturally gave great offence. The particulars are related in
Stow's Chronicle: 'Henry III. came to Westminster, and there gave unto
divers of his householde servants about the number of threescore
householdes and houses within the city, so that the owners were
compelled to agree and redeem their houses, or else to avoyde them. Then
he made Custos of the city Sir Othon, Constable of the Tower, who chose
Bayliffs to be accountable to him. After this the King tooke pledges of
the best men's sons of the city, the which were put in the Tower of
London, and there kept at the costs of their parents.'
To meet such violations of the liberties of the city an enactment was
promulgated apparently in the reign of Edward I. to the effect 'that if
any member of the royal household or any retainer of the nobility shall
attempt to take possession of a house within the city, either by main
force or by delivery [of the Marshal of the royal household]; and if in
such attempt he shall be slain by the master of the house, then and in
such case the master of the house shall find six of his kinsmen who
shall make oath, and himself making oath as the seventh, that it was for
this reason that he so slew the intruder, and thereupon he shall go
acquitted.'
In spite of this, Edward II. tried to carry out a similar piece of
tyranny, but he was thwarted by John de Caustone, one of the sheriffs,
who proved himself a stalwart leader of the citizens. Alan de Lek,
serjeant-harbourer (provider of lodgings), prosecuted John de Caustone,
and said 'that whereas his lordship the King, with his household, on the
Monday next after the Feast of the Translation of Saint Thomas the
Martyr, in the nineteenth year of the said King then reigning, came to
the Tower of London, there at his good pleasure to abide; and the said
Alan, the same day and year, as in virtue of his office bound to do,
did assign lodgings unto one Richard de Ayremynne, secretary to his said
lordship the King, in the house of the aforesaid John de Caustone,
situate at Billyngesgate, in the city of London, and for the better
knowing of the livery so made, did set the usual mark of chalk over the
doors of the house aforesaid, as the practice is; and did also place men
and serjeants, with the horses and harness of the said Richard, within
the livery so made as aforesaid.'
The sheriff knowing this to be an illegal exercise of royal privilege,
boldly rubbed out the obnoxious marks and turned the King's men and
serjeants out of his house. When he was brought to trial the Mayor and
citizens appeared for him and pleaded the rights of the city. Caustone
successfully defended himself before the Steward and Marshal of the
King's household sitting in the Tower in judgment upon him, and he came
off scot-free.[33]
When we consider the smallness of the houses in the early period of the
Middle Ages and the insufficient accommodation for families we see that
the greater part of the population must of very necessity have
constantly filled the streets, and the Londoners appear, from accounts
that have come down to us, to have been rather a turbulent body.
The watch and ward arranged for the protection of the city was efficient
enough in quiet times, but when the inhabitants were troublesome it was
quite insufficient. The regulations were strict, but the streets were
crowded, as more than half of them were used as market-places, and every
moment occasions for quarrelling arose, of which the young bloods were
only too ready to avail themselves.
Punishments and fines were frequent. Cheats and fraudulent tradesmen
were promptly punished, and those who had a sharp tongue soon found that
the free use of it was dangerous. The authorities, who had the making of
the laws, had no fancy for being maligned. Such entries as these are
frequent in Riley's _Memorials_: Process against Roger Torold for
abusing the Mayor, 1355; Punishment or imprisonment for reviling the
Mayor, 1382; Pillory and whetstone for slandering the Mayor, 1385;
Pillory for slandering an alderman, 1411; Punishment for insulting
certain aldermen; Pillory for insulting the Recorder, 1390. The pillory
was freely used for cheats, users of false dice, false chequer boards
(1382), swindlers, forgers of title-deeds, bonds, papal bulls, etc.,
impostors pretending to be dumb, etc. False measures, false materials
and unwholesome food were confiscated and publicly burnt. Dishonest
tradesmen appear to have been very reckless, and punishment was
constantly awarded for the sale of putrid fish, food and meat. Enhancers
of the price of wheat were specially obnoxious to the citizens, and some
of the cheats connected with bread-making were curious, such as
inserting iron in a loaf to increase the weight (1387), and stealing
dough by making holes in the baker's moulding-boards (1327). The seller
of unsound wine was punished by being made to drink it (1364).
Night-walkers (male and female) were very summarily treated, but they
must have been mostly connected with the dangerous classes, for we read
of notorious persons with swords and bucklers and frequenters of taverns
after curfew, 'contrary to peace and statutes.' We may presume that
quiet, inoffensive persons, who were known to be law-abiding citizens,
were not necessarily hauled up for being in the streets after regulation
hours. Mr. Riley, in his valuable Introduction to the _Liber Albus_,
makes special reference to these night-walkers: 'It being found that the
houses of women of ill-fame had become the constant resort of thieves
and other desperate characters, it was ordered by royal proclamation,
_temp._ Edward I., that no such women should thenceforth reside within
the walls of the city under pain of forty days' imprisonment. A list,
too, was to be taken of all such women by the authorities, and a certain
walk assigned to them. The Stews of Southwark are once, and only once,
alluded to in this volume, and the result of this enactment was no doubt
to drive the unfortunates thither.' Ordinances of later date appear to
have been still more stringent. The Tun, a round-house or prison on
Cornhill, was so called from its having been 'built somewhat in fashion
of a tun standing on the one end.' It was built in 1282 for the special
reception of night-walkers.
In spite of stringent regulations the streets were seldom free from
rioting of some kind, and the watch were kept fully employed. There is a
record of inquests or trials by juries (the jury consisting of no less
than four representatives from each of the wards), held in 1281 upon a
number of offenders 'against the King's peace and the statutes of the
city.' The offences for the most part comprise night-walking after
curfew, robbery with violence, frequenting taverns and houses of
ill-fame, and gambling.[34]
In 1304 there was an Inquisition as to persons rioting and committing
assaults by night,[35] and in 1311 a similar Inquisition and Delivery
made in the time of Sir Ricker de Repham, Mayor, as to misdoers and
night-walkers.[36]
Women of bad repute were restricted to a certain garb.[37] It was
enacted by royal proclamation of Edward I. that none of them should wear
minever (spotted ermine) or cendale (a particular kind of thin silk), on
her hood or dress, and if she broke the law in this respect the city
serjeant was allowed to seize the minever or cendale and retain it as
his perquisite. At later periods it was enacted 'that no common woman
shall wear a vesture of peltry or wool,' and again, that she shall not
wear 'a hood that is furred, except with lambs' wool or rabbit skin.'
From the Letter Books we learn that, in the middle of the fourteenth
century, most of these women were Flemings by birth.[38]
The prisons mentioned in the _Liber Albus_ are Newgate and Ludgate, the
Tun and the Compters. They could none of them have been pleasant places,
but it is probable that they were not so intolerable as they afterwards
became. It is impossible that they could have been in a worse condition
than the grossly mismanaged prisons of the eighteenth century.
It is not easy to understand what was the level of morality in the
mediæval cities and towns. In truth, we can only draw inferences from
the facts, and as most of the documents that have come down to us relate
to those who have broken the laws, we are too apt to take a low view of
the morality of the mass. Laws are not made for the law-abiding, except
for their protection, and we have reason to know that this class is by
far the most numerous.
Comfort, as we understand it, could not have existed in the Middle Ages,
but the life seems to have been fairly agreeable to those who lived it,
and it is only fair to give credence to such witnesses as Fitz-Stephen,
who knew 'the noble city of London' well, and could only write of it in
terms of hearty praise. He commences with these words, and then proceeds
to substantiate the several points mentioned: 'Amongst the noble and
celebrated cities of the world, that of London, the capital of the
kingdom of England, is one of the most renowned, possessing, above all
others, abundant wealth, extensive commerce, great grandeur and
magnificence. It is happy in the salubrity of its climate, in the
profession of the Christian religion, in the strength of its fortresses,
the nature of its situation, the honour of its citizens, and the
chastity of its matrons; in its sports, too, it is most pleasant, and in
the production of illustrious men most fortunate.'
The people must have been closely packed in some parts of London, but
gardens and open spaces within the walls were not uncommon. The
statistics of the Middle Ages are not to be relied upon, as they largely
consisted of the wildest guesses. Kings and Parliaments were continually
deceived as to the produce of a tax, owing to the impossibility of
knowing the number of the people upon whom it was to be levied.
During the latter part of the Saxon period the numbers of the population
of the country began to decay; this decay, however, was arrested by the
Norman Conquest. The population increased during ten peaceful years of
Henry III., and increased slowly until the death of Edward II., and then
it began to fall off, and it continued to decrease during the period of
the Wars of the Roses until the accession of the Tudors.
A calculation has been made of the population of England and Wales in
the last years of the reign of Edward III. (1372), which fixed the
number at two and a half millions. Macpherson adopted this as a correct
guess, but it probably errs more on the side of excess than of
deficiency. Of this population it has been estimated that those employed
in agriculture were in proportion to townspeople as eleven to one, but,
according to another estimate, it was as fifteen to one.
It is not easy to arrive at a satisfactory calculation of the
approximate population of London at different periods. At the end of the
twelfth century Peter of Blois, Archdeacon of London, in a letter to
Pope Innocent III., calculates the population at 40,000, and this is a
quite probable calculation, although Francis Drake maintains that London
was less populous than York about the time of the Conquest. York,
however, could not then have had anything like 10,000 inhabitants.
Fitz-Stephen greatly exaggerated the population of London. He wrote:
'The city is ennobled by her men, graced by her arms, and peopled by a
multitude of inhabitants, so that in the wars under King Stephen there
went out to a muster of armed horsemen, esteemed fit for war, twenty
thousand, and of infantry sixty thousand.' Hallam agrees generally with
Peter of Blois' calculation, for he supposes London to have had a
population in John's reign of at least 30,000 or 40,000.
In 1377 the population, reckoned by the poll tax, was 44,770; the number
taxed (consisting of males and females above fourteen years of age)
being 23,314. We see from these numbers how greatly the population of
London was in excess of the other great towns. From the same source we
find the population of the towns next in size were:--
York, 7248
Bristol, 6345
Plymouth, 4837
Coventry, 4817
Norwich, 3952
Londoners were fortunate in not having suffered from any severe attack
upon their fortifications, and therefore we are unable to tell how
London would have stood a prolonged siege. We know, however, that at
some periods it was very insecure. The most portentous event in England
during the Middle Ages in respect to the changed conditions of life
caused by it was the Peasants' Rising of 1381, the turning-point of
which is entirely connected with the history of London. For four days
the very existence of the city was in the direst peril. It is styled a
rising, but it was really a revolution, and it is only lately that the
full history of the movement has been presented to us in Mr. G. M.
Trevelyan's valuable book, _England in the Age of Wycliffe_ (1899).
There are two particular incidents in the history of mediæval London
which are of the first importance as illustrations of the life of the
inhabitants of a walled city. They stand alone, for no other internal
occurrences fraught with such possible evil consequences are to be found
in our history; and it is well to compare their likenesses and
distinguish their unlikenesses. For this purpose it is not necessary to
enter at all fully into the respective causes and effects of Wat Tyler's
and Jack Cade's Rebellions.
The consideration of these points belongs to the history of the country,
but a fairly full account of the proceedings of the few days in which
the city was given over to the lawless violence of the followers of Wat
Tyler and Jack Cade respectively seems to be necessary here.
In both insurrections the mob had their own way entirely at the
beginning of the outbreaks. The insurgents were allowed to enter the
city through the sympathy of many of the citizens, and in both cases the
insurgents were worsted in the end, one hardly knows how, except we
explain the cause as due to the inherent weakness of an undisciplined
mob. Both insurrections occurred owing to widespread discontent. In the
case of Wat Tyler's, from social ills of the most serious character;
while in that of Jack Cade's the evils complained of were purely
political. Again the movement in the earlier rebellion came from below,
while in the later one the prime movers were the squires.
In Wat Tyler's Rebellion the King and Court were present at all the
great events, but in Jack Cade's the King marched off to Kenilworth and
left the city to take care of itself. Other likenesses and unlikenesses
will be evident in the notices of the respective insurrections.
In order to understand the doings in London from Wednesday, June 12th,
to Saturday the 15th inst., 1381, it is necessary to take some measure
of the movement as a whole. Most of the chroniclers naturally write in
strongly condemnatory terms of Wat Tyler's Rebellion, but Stow in his
Chronicle attempts to be just, although he describes John Ball as 'a
wicked priest.' He had the advantage of consulting a manuscript account
of the Rising in 1381, written in Old French apparently by an
eye-witness.[39]
The different descriptions are full, but they vary greatly in details,
so that, though it is possible to make a complete record of events, we
cannot be sure that we are altogether correct. At this distance of time
from the occurrences we ought to be able to consider the sequence of
events with a judicial mind. Both sides in the duel are to a great
extent outside our sympathies. The rebels were exorbitant in their
demands and violent in their methods, while the Court, being completely
at the mercy of the mob, promised everything demanded, with no intention
of carrying out their pledges. They had, however, this excuse, that the
only way to save the city and its inhabitants was to get the mob into
the open country by any possible means available.
The vast concourse of persons who demanded entrance into the city was
composed of a heterogeneous mass of discontented men with different aims
to forward and different grievances calling for redress. The poll tax,
although it gave great dissatisfaction to the nation, was not the cause
of the outbreak; the great object of the majority was to obtain the
abolition of serfdom. Had this been the only demand the sympathies of
the country would have been entirely with the insurgents, but, in order
to increase the number of their followers, the leaders had gathered
around them all the disaffected persons they were able to get together,
and Wat Tyler, to enhance his importance, formulated a number of
revolutionary and socialistic demands.
It is not necessary here to discuss these demands, for their number
sufficiently condemns them. We may allow that the masses have a right to
demonstrate and urge upon their rulers a change of so fundamental a
nature as serfdom, which affected them all more or less, but an evil
which the rulers were very remiss in attempting to redress. At the same
time no government can exist if mob law is triumphant and if an
irresponsible mass of people is allowed to demand changes which require
much consideration by a legislative body, as Wat Tyler's followers did.
It is instructive to find that although the demands were first agreed to
by the King, and then the promise revoked, the serfs were gradually
freed while the other demands were quite overlooked. Serfdom was out of
date, and the change could no longer be postponed.
Richard II., a boy of ten years, came to the throne in 1377, and few
sovereigns have had to take up a more troubled inheritance. The whole
country was distressed, and the agricultural population had been driven
to the verge of rebellion. Revolutionary views, supported from the
writings of Wyclyf and Langland, had taken root among large masses of
the people. Doubtless the reformer and the poet had great influence on
the people, and although they were not themselves sowers of sedition,
their burning words were quoted with effect by the leaders of the
revolutionary movement. John Ball's democratic preaching caused the
insurrection, but he gave way to the more practical Wat Tyler, as the
leader of the rebels.
The area of the risings extended over part of the Midlands south of
Yorkshire, and the whole of the South. There was a reign of terror on
all sides. The manor houses were broken open and sacked by mobs, and it
was said that every attorney's house in the line of march was destroyed.
Lawyers were exposed to the special hatred of the rebels, who exhibited
an ignorant hatred of legal documents. The University of Cambridge
suffered severely from the lawlessness of the mob. The University chest
was robbed, and a large number of documents were ruthlessly destroyed.
Many of the colleges also suffered.
The mob that marched on London and besieged it were mostly from Kent and
Essex, and their march was marked by murder and pillage. The authorities
were paralysed, and when the mob arrived at the walls of London no
preparations had been made, save the strengthening of the gates, so the
King and the Court were cut off from communication with all outside
London. It is remarkable that we are able to record the daily
proceedings of the mob which took place more than six centuries ago;
still we can be fairly certain that the events which dovetail into one
another are to a great extent correctly reported. The chief difficulty
arises when we consider the speeches of the several actors. Chroniclers
like John Stow are very picturesque in their descriptions, and often put
words into the mouths of their puppets which are evidently written for
the purposes of effect. Even when the words are probably historical
there is some doubt as to whether they have not been attributed to the
wrong persons.
On Monday, June 10th, Canterbury had been overrun, and on Wednesday, the
12th, the main body of the rebels from Kent were crowded together on
Blackheath. John Ball preached to them from the text which has come down
to us in the familiar couplet--
'Whan Adam dalf and Eve span,
Wo was thanne a gentilman,'
and he kept his audience enthralled with his eloquence.
Messengers were sent by the King to demand the cause of the rising, and
brought back the answer that the Commons were gathered together for the
King's safety. The King's mother--Joan, Princess of Wales, and widow of
Edward, the Black Prince, who had been on a pilgrimage to the shrines of
Kent--was allowed by the rebels to enter the city.
Mr. Trevelyan tells us how a conference was proposed: 'The rebels
invited the King to cross the river and confer with them at Blackheath.
He was rowed across in a barge accompanied by his principal nobles. At
Rotherhithe, a deputation from the camp on the moor above was waiting on
the bank to receive them. At the last moment prudence prevailed, and
Richard was persuaded not to trust himself on shore. The rebels,
shouting their demands across the water, professed their loyalty to
Richard, but required the heads of John of Gaunt, Sudbury, Hales, and
several other ministers, some of whom were at that moment in the boat.
The royal barge put back to the Tower.'[40]
Stow tells us that the watchword of the peasants was 'With whom hold
you?' and the answer was 'With King Richard and the true Commons.' The
Chronicler adds: 'Who could not that watchward, off went his head.'
Mr. James Tait, the author of the excellent life of Wat Tyler in the
_Dictionary of National Biography_, mentions 'a Proclamation in Thanet
Church, on the 13th June, [which] ran in the names of Wat Tyler and John
Rackstraw, but the St. Albans insurgents who reached London on Friday
the 14th were divided as to which was the more powerful person in the
realm, the King or Tyler, and obtained from the latter a promise to come
and shave the beards of the abbot, prior and monks; stipulating for
implicit obedience to his orders.'
The men of Essex were outside Aldgate in great numbers, and as the day
advanced the leaders became fearful as to their condition. They had no
means of breaking into the city, and if they remained long where they
were they would inevitably have been starved.
'Walworth guarded the bridge, and sent to the peasants, bidding them, in
the name of the King and the city, come no nearer to London.'[41] If
there had been no treachery it would have been easy to keep the rebels
outside till they were forced by hunger to desist from their endeavours
to enter, for time was on the side of the besieged, but the peasants had
friends and well-wishers within, and the city being divided against
itself, fell.
Mr. Trevelyan writes: 'A committee of three aldermen rode out to
Blackheath to deliver [Walworth's] message. Two of them, Adam Carlyll
and John Fresh, faithfully performed their mission. But the third
alderman, named John Horn, separated himself from his two colleagues,
conferred apart with the rebel leaders, and exhorted them to march on
London at once for they would be received with acclamation into the
city. After this treachery he did not fear to return to the city, and
brought some of the peasants with him and lodged them in his house. He
even advised Walworth to admit the mob.'[42]
The rioters burnt the Marshalsea prison, situated in the High Street,
Southwark, and set the prisoners free. Others gutted Lambeth Palace to
show their hatred of the archbishop, but he was not there.
On Thursday morning, 13th June, Horn, the disaffected alderman, rode out
to Blackheath to confer with the rebels, and he urged them to come to
the bridge, where they would find friends. He had an ally in Walter
Sybyle, alderman of Bridge Ward, who in virtue of his office took
command on the bridge, and he announced that he would let the rebels in
by the bridge gate in spite of all opposition. Then Walworth, the Mayor,
finding that he was powerless, gave leave to Wat Tyler's followers to
enter the city on condition that they paid for everything they took, and
did no damage.
The Kentish rebels poured into the city over the bridge, and at the same
time the men of Essex were let in at Aldgate. The first cry of the mob
as they entered the city--their defiant answer to the Mayor's
condition--was 'To the Savoy! To the Savoy!' the house of John of Gaunt,
outside the city liberties and by the riverside, which was burnt and
entirely destroyed. In the accounts of the Savoy for 1393-1394 mention
is made of the annual loss of £4, 13s. 4d.--'the rent of fourteen shops
belonging lately to the manor of the Savoy annexed, for each shop by the
year, at four terms, 6s. 8d., the accomptant had nothing, because they
were burnt at the time of the insurrection, and are not rebuilt.' In
these accounts the Rising of 1381 is referred to as 'The Rumor.'
Sir Robert Hales, the Treasurer, was a marked man, and his manor house
at Highbury was burnt and utterly destroyed. Jack Straw's Castle, which
was built on the site of Highbury Castle, retained the name of the
second leader of the revolt almost to our own time. Later in the same
day the Priory of the Order of St. John at Jerusalem, at Clerkenwell, of
which Hales was prior, was burnt by the men of Essex, who in their march
to London had previously attacked the Priory of the Order at Cressing,
Essex.
Stow informs us that the Commons passed through the city and did no
harm, they took 'nothing from any man, but bought all things at a just
price, and if they found any man with theft they beheaded him.' This,
however, was soon changed; first they were joined by the dangerous
classes in the city who were glad of an opportunity of punishing their
enemies the Flemings by the riverside and the lawyers of the Temple;
then the prisons of Fleet, Newgate and Westminster were broken open, and
hordes of rascality were added to those contributed by the Marshalsea.
To add to these elements of disorder the men became drunk with wine
supplied by the rich citizens, and we hear no more of restraints. Gross
outrages against property and life now follow one another rapidly. Much
damage was done in Fleet Street and the Temple. The rolls and records of
the lawyers were burned or otherwise destroyed. The royal account books
suffered in the same way. Stow relates that the insurgents 'determined
to burne all Court-rolles and old muniments, that the memory of
antiquities being taken away, their lords should not be able to
challenge any right on them from that time forth.' Not content with
destroying the documents, they desired to destroy the producers of
documents. Again Stow tells us that 'they took in hand to behead all
men of law, as well apprentises as utter-barristers and old justices,
with all the jurers of the country whom they might get into their hands,
they spared none whom they thought to be learned, especially if they
found any to have pen and ink they pulled off his hood, and all with one
voice crying, "Hale him out and cut off his head."'
The only place of safety was the Tower, and here the young King watched
the flames in several parts of the city, and listened to the turbulent
cries of the mob on all sides of him. Just beneath, on the east side
near St. Katherine's Hospital, was an encampment of the rebels who
clamoured for the murder of the Chancellor and others who had taken
refuge in the Tower. This was an eventful day for all, crowded with
actions more than enough to terrify a boy suddenly called upon to act.
The Council were hurriedly called together, and after considering the
serious dangers which surrounded them, agreed to a policy of concession.
The rebels, however, were invited to meet the King at Mile End on the
following day.
On Friday, the 14th June, the King and his Court went to Mile End to
hear the demands of Wat Tyler and his followers. We learn from the Stow
MS. (referred to above), that when they arrived the Commons came to the
King, and all knelt to him, saying, 'Be welcome, our lord King Richard,
if it please you, and we will not have any other King than you; and Wat
Tighler, master and leader of them, praying to him (the King), on the
part of the Commons, that he would suffer them to take and have all
traitors that were against the King and the law.' The demands are
recited as follows in the manuscript:--
'That no man should be a serf by birth, nor do homage or any manner of
suit to any lord.
'No man should be a serf to any man except by his own will, and by
covenant duly indentured.
'To give fourpence for an acre of land.'
Stow gives the demands in fuller detail:--
'The first, that all men should be free from servitude and bondage, so
as from thenceforth there should be no bondmen.
'The second, that he should pardon all men of what estate soever, all
manner actions and insurrections committed, and all manner treasons,
fellonies, transgressions and extortions by any of them done, and to
grant them peace.
'The third, that all men from thenceforth might be enfranchised to buy
and sell in every country, city, borough town, fair, market and other
place within the realm of England.
'The fourth, that no acre of land holden in bondage or service should be
holden but for fourpence, and if it had been holden for less aforetime,
it should not hereafter be enhanced.'
Stow adds: 'These and many other things they required. Moreover, they
told him [the King] he had been evilly governed till that day, but from
that time he must be governed otherwise.'
After consultation with his courtiers the King conceded everything asked
by Wat Tyler. They agreed that serfage should be abolished, and that all
servile dues should be commuted for a rent of fourpence per acre, and a
general pardon was pronounced on all. Clerks were set to work to draw up
charters of liberation and pardon in proper legal form for every village
and manor, as well as for every shire.[43]
While these arrangements were going on, the soldiers, who could have
kept the Tower with ease, were ordered or at least permitted, to let in
the mob. This appears to have been part of the agreement, and we cannot
but brand it as a wicked compact, as it was clearly the duty of the
Court to protect its servants.
The unfortunate Leg, the farmer of the poll tax, was murdered, and a
learned friar, the friend and adviser of John of Gaunt, was torn in
pieces as a substitute for his patron. In the chapel, Archbishop Sudbury
and Hales were torn from the altar and hurried to Tower Hill, where
their heads were struck off and straightway placed on London Bridge.
John Ball was said to be among the first who entered the Tower, and to
have directed the outrages. The mob suffered the Princess of Wales to
escape by boat, when she went to the Queen's Wardrobe, which had been
given to Queen Philippa, and was afterwards called the Tower Royal in
the Vintry Ward. In some accounts it is said that she went to the
Wardrobe in Carter Lane, but this is a mistake. The King, after his
return from Mile End, joined his mother at the Queen's Wardrobe.
On Friday and Saturday, as they received their charters, the bulk of the
insurgents left London and returned to their homes, leaving the residue
and more dangerous masses behind them.
Mr. Trevelyan relates how the King and his nobles rode out from the
Queen's Wardrobe through Ludgate and Temple Bar, passed along the Strand
by the smouldering ruins of the Savoy to Westminster. This was on
Saturday the 15th of June. The royal party was met at the doors of the
Abbey by a sorrowful procession of monks in penitential garb, bearing
the Cross before them. The King dismounted and kissed the Cross. The
nobles, the courtiers and men-at-arms entered the church and performed
with unusual fervour the acts of piety. The reason why the monks were in
this subdued condition was owing to the fact that a violation of
sanctuary had just occurred.[44]
The insurgents had marched on Westminster, broken open the Exchequer,
destroyed the books and records, and violated the sanctuary. Richard or
John Inworth, warden of the Marshalsea, after the destruction of that
prison, had fled for refuge to Westminster Abbey. On their arrival the
mob found him at the shrine of Edward the Confessor, and having torn him
away carried him back to the city, where his head was struck off on the
block in Cheapside.
Stow gives a vivid account of the King's visit to the Abbey: 'The same
day (June 15), after dinner, about two of the clock, the King went from
the Wardrobe called the Royal, in London, toward Westminster, attended
only by the number of 200 persons, to visit Saint Edward's shrine, and
to see if the Commons had done any mischief there. The abbot and convent
of that Abbey, with the chanons and vicars of Saint Stephen's Chappell,
met him in rich copes with procession, and led him by the charnel-house
into the Abbey, then to the church, and so to the high altar, where he
devoutly prayed and offered. After which he spake with the anchore
[anchoret], to whom he confessed himself; then he went to the chapel
called Our Lady in the Pewe, where he made his prayers.' Froissart tells
us that the figure of the Virgin in this chapel was renowned for its
many virtues, and that the Kings of England had much faith in the
miracles performed at this shrine. When Richard left Westminster he
'made proclamation that all the Commons of the country that were in
London should meet him in Smithfield.'[45]
In the Stowe MS. there is a very full and clear record of the subsequent
proceedings: The King went to the house of the canons of Saint
Bartholomew, 'and then the Mayor of London, William Walworth, came to
the King, who commanded him to go to the Commons to make their
chieftain come to him, and when he was called by the Mayor, Wat Tighler
of Maidstone by name, he came to the King with great countenance mounted
on a small horse, so as to be seen by the Commons, and dismounted,
carrying a dagger in his hand, which he had taken from another man; and
when he was dismounted he took the King by the hand, half kneeling, and
shook his arm sharply and strongly, saying to him: "Brother, be of good
comfort," ... and the King said to the said Wat, "Why will you not go to
your country?" and the other replied with a great oath, that he and his
companions would not go unless they had their charter such as they
wished to have.'[46]
The points are then set forth in fuller particularity than they were in
the previous meeting at Mile End. Such demands as were not mentioned
previously are as follows:--
'That there should be no law outside the law of Winchester.
'That no outlawry should be by any process of law made henceforth.
'That the goods of Holy Church should not be in the hands of men of
religion, nor of the parsons and vicars, nor of others of Holy Church,
but the "avantés" should have their sustenance easily, and the remainder
of the goods should be divided among the parishioners, and no bishop
should be in England except one ... and all the lands and tenements of
the possessors should be taken from them and parted among the Commons,
saving to them their reasonable sustenance.
'To this the King replied easily, and said that he [Wat] should have all
this that he [the King] could properly grant, saving to him the rights
of his crown, commanding him [Wat] to go to his hold without more
delay.'
From this point there are differences in the accounts, and it is
difficult to be quite certain about the sequence of events which bought
about Wat Tyler's death. Stow accuses the leader of a deep-laid scheme
for which there does not appear to be any special authority. He writes:
'Wat Tyler being a crafty fellow, of excellent wit, but lacking grace,
answered that peace be offered, but with conditions to his liking,
minding to feed the King with fair words till the next day, that he
might in the night have compassed his perverse purpose, for they thought
the same night to have spoiled the city, the King first being slain, and
the great lords that cleaved to him, to have burnt the city by setting
fire in four parts thereof.'[47]
We have now to co-ordinate the different accounts of the end of Wat
Tyler. Some of these take no notice of the causes that led to Walworth's
action, but Stow's description seems in the main to make the whole scene
clear, although he does not produce a consecutive narrative, but rather
relates incidents out of their proper order.
The great open space of Smithfield, the favourite meeting-place on the
north of London, and the chosen site for the tournaments and jousts, was
crowded on all sides. Near the gate of St. Bartholomew's Priory were the
King and his Court, and farther to the west were the ranks of the
Commons set in order of battle. There had been some conference between
the leaders, but no agreement had been come to, and naturally the state
of tension was profound.
Wat Tyler threatened the King, and took umbrage at the position of Sir
John Newton or Newentone, keeper of Rochester Castle, who bore the
King's sword. He treated with much disrespect the knight, who remarked
that he recognised in the rebel leader the greatest thief and robber of
his country. This so enraged Wat Tyler that he first ordered his
followers to behead Newentone, and then attempted to strike him with his
dagger. At this Walworth came forward and requested the King to allow
him to arrest Wat, who struck at him, but without effect, as Walworth's
armour protected him. The Mayor then, in self-defence, attacked Wat, and
wounded him in the neck, and gave him a blow on the head. John Cavendish
(or, as some say, Ralph Standish) then came forward in support of the
Mayor and wounded Wat in several places. The chieftain spurred his horse
and cried to the Commons to avenge him. After riding some thirty yards
he fell off his horse, half dead, and was taken to the Hospital of St.
Bartholomew's, where he died. What purports to be the dagger with which
Walworth struck Wat Tyler is in the possession of the Fishmongers'
Company.
The suspense at this crisis must have been intense. The rebels prepared
their bows, but the arrows were not let fly, for the King spurring his
horse, rode forward across the square to the host, and cried out, 'Will
you shoot your King? I am your captain and leader, follow me.' This
brilliant display of courage by the beautiful boy of fourteen, who had
the misfortune to be King, had its effect, and the Commons followed him
peaceably into the fields of Clerkenwell.
Walworth raised a body of loyal citizens, and these marched out under
the command of Sir Robert Knolles and surrounded the rebels, who
surrendered and asked for pardon. The host was divided into companies
and sent to their respective homes under proper escort.
Now that the authorities were triumphant, the leaderless rebels fared
badly. On July 2nd the charters were revoked. John Ball fled to the
Midlands, and, according to Froissart, he was taken prisoner at Coventry
in an old ruin. On the 15th of July he was drawn, hanged and quartered,
just one month after the death of Wat Tyler. On December 13th the King
proclaimed a general pardon.
A contemporary account of the insurrection was drawn up and inserted in
the City 'Letter Book H' (fol. cxxiii.). A translation of this is
printed in Riley's _Memorials_ (pp. 449-451). It is of great interest,
but naturally no attempt at a judicial statement is made. The events are
described as 'among the most wondrous and hitherto unheard-of prodigies
that ever happened in the city of London,' and it is stated that 'hardly
was there a street in the city in which there were not bodies lying of
those who had been slain.' The traitors who let in the mob are described
as 'perfidious Commoners within the city.' The whole account is written
with spirit, and the ending of the fearful days is graphically
described: 'Therefore our Lord the King returned into the city of London
with the greatest glory and honour, and the whole of this profane
multitude in confusion fled forthwith for concealment in their
affright.' 'Our Lord the King, beneath his standard in the said field,
with his own hands decorated with the order of knighthood the said Mayor
[William Walworth], and Sir Nicholas Brembre and Sir John Philipot, who
had already been Mayors of the said city, as also Sir Robert Lamb.'
Thus ended the Peasants' Rising, which, although it ended in total
defeat to its promoters, exercised an enormous influence on the course
of English history.
The insurrection of Jack Cade was not so important an event as that of
Wat Tyler, but it must not by any means be considered merely as an
outbreak of the lower classes.
Fabyan, the alderman and sheriff, has left us particulars of the
insurrection, and some further details have been discovered by Dr. James
Gairdner, C.B., who has given a connected account in the Preface to his
authoritative edition of the _Paston Letters_, and also in the
_Dictionary of National Biography_. It is almost impossible to
understand the characters of the men who held responsible positions in
the reign of Henry VI. The uncles of the King quarrelled among
themselves, and their respective followers were hunted down by their
enemies.
William De la Pole, fourth Earl and first Duke of Suffolk, a
distinguished leader in the French wars, but a politician in later life,
was the chief opponent of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the leader of
the warlike party. Suffolk was an active agent for peace. Apparently the
English people were then very much like what they have been in later
time. Peace after a successful war has usually been unpopular, and the
unfortunate Suffolk was howled at for having given back the Provinces to
France.
'By thee Anjou and Maine were sold to France;
The false, revolting Normans thorough thee
Disdain to call us lord; and Picardy
Hath slain their governors, surpris'd our forts,
And sent the ragged soldiers wounded home.'[48]
The Londoners were strongly antagonistic to Suffolk, who was generally
accused of maladministration and malversation without definite charges.
His friends could not protect him against his enemies, and when trying
to escape to France he was intercepted in the Straits of Dover, put in a
little boat, and murdered. His body was thrown on the beach near Dover.
It was afterwards buried by order of the King. His death did not satisfy
the discontented, and other courtiers succeeded to his place in the
disfavour of the people.
Whole districts of the counties of Kent, Surrey and Sussex rose in arms
to the extent of 30,000 men, clamouring for the redress of grievances.
The masses received assistance from some of the best families of these
counties. The Chronicler Gregory says that the Captain 'compassed all
the gentles to arise with him.'
A man who called himself John Mortimer, and affirmed that he was a
cousin of the Duke of York, was chosen to be leader. His real name was
believed to be Cade. He was an Irishman, who had had some experience in
war, and showed himself a strong leader.
On the 1st of June 1450 a considerable army marched on London and
encamped at Blackheath, where they formed a regular encampment.
On hearing of this Henry VI. came from Leicester to London, where he
arrived on the 6th inst. He took up his quarters at the Hospital of St.
John's, Clerkenwell, and with him were 20,000 troops. The King sent to
know the cause of the rising, and was answered thus: 'To destroy
traitors being about him, with other divers points.' A message was then
sent by the King, and proclamation was made that loyal men should
immediately quit the field. Upon the night after all the insurgents were
gone, and the insurrection seemed to have come to an end.
On the 11th June the King proceeded to Blackheath, and he found that the
rebels had withdrawn in the nighttime. Instead of leaving well alone, it
was decided to pursue the insurgents, and a detachment of the royal
army, under Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother William, were sent in
pursuit. A battle took place on the 18th at Sevenoaks, in which both the
Staffords were killed and the rest of the party completely routed. The
followers of the King in the royal camp were dismayed, and many of them
threatened that if justice was not done on certain traitors who had
resisted the King they would go over to the Captain of Kent. One of the
chief of these unpopular courtiers was James Fiennes, Lord Saye and
Sele, a follower of Suffolk, and to please the disaffected he was sent
to the Tower.
The King withdrew to Greenwich and the whole of the army dispersed. He
returned to London by water and made preparations for removal to
Kenilworth. The Mayor and Commons beseeched him to remain in London,
offering to live and die with him and to pay half the cost of his
household, but he would not consent. The city authorities did not know
what to do, and a party among them opened negotiations with the
insurgents. Alderman Cooke passed to and fro under the safe conduct of
the Captain.
Stow prints in his Chronicle 'The safeguard and sign manual of the
Captain of Kent sent to Thomas Cocke, draper of London, by the Captain
of the great Assembly in Kent.' He also gives 'the Complaint of the
Commons of Kent,' and 'the Requests by the Captain of the great Assembly
in Kent.' These are differently worded from the 'Proclamation made by
Jack Cade,' which has been printed from a MS. in the handwriting of
Stow,[49] but the sentiments and complaints in all the documents are
essentially the same. They contain a remarkable expression of the
feelings of general unrest among the people, although they are doubtless
very unjust to the character of the Duke of Suffolk and his followers.
On the 1st of July the insurgents entered Southwark, and Jack Cade made
the White Hart Inn his headquarters. According to Fabyan, while the
Commons of Kent settled themselves in Southwark, the rebels of Essex
made 'a field upon the plain of Mile End' their resting-place. On the
2nd of July a court was held by the Mayor for the purpose of considering
the best means of resisting the entry of the rebels into the city. It
was found, however, that the majority were in their favour, so that
Alderman John Horne was committed to Newgate for opposing the views of
the malcontents. In the afternoon, about five o'clock, the insurgents
were admitted into the city and passed over London Bridge, Cade cutting
the ropes of the drawbridge with his sword. Cade then issued
proclamations in the King's name against robbery and forced
requisitions, and rode through the streets, taking the city under his
complete control. When he came to the London Stone in Cannon Street he
struck it with his sword, and said: 'Now is Mortimer Lord of this city.'
This was a circumstance of the greatest interest in the history of
London, for it shows that some special virtue was supposed, in the
popular mind, to be connected with London Stone.
Cade now gave orders to the Mayor, and returned to Southwark for the
night.
On Friday, the 3rd of July, he returned to the city, and sent for Lord
Saye and ordered him, after a mock trial, to be beheaded at the Standard
in Cheapside. Crowmer, an unpopular Sheriff of Kent, and son-in-law to
Saye, was beheaded at Mile End. As Jack Cade did not wish to be publicly
recognised by those who knew his origin, he caused one Bailey, who was
supposed to be an old acquaintance, to be beheaded at Whitechapel.
Attention to the rules of order and honesty at length tired the leader,
and Stow relates that 'he went into the house of Philip Malpas, draper
and alderman, and robbed and spoiled his house, taking from thence great
substance, and returned unto Southwark. On the next morrow he again
entered the city, and dined that day in the parish of Saint Margaret
Pattens, at one Ghersti's house, and when he had dined, like an
uncourteous guest he robbed him, as the day before he had Malpas. For
which two robberies, although the poor people drew to him and were
partners in the spoil, yet the honest and wealthy Commoners cast in
their minds the sequel of this matter, and fear lest they should be
dealt with in like manner.'
On Sunday, the 5th of July, Cade and his followers remained in Southwark
all day, and in the evening the Mayor and citizens, with a force under
the command of Matthew Gough, occupied London Bridge to prevent the
Kentish men from entering the city. Desperate fighting on the bridge
continued all through the night, from nine o'clock till nine on the
following morning. 'Sometime the citizens had the better and sometimes
the other, but ever they kept them upon the bridge, so that the citizens
never passed much the bulwark at the bridge foot, nor the Kentishmen no
farther than the drawbridge. Thus continued the cruel fight to the
destruction of much people on both sides.'[50] Matthew Gough, John
Sutton, alderman, and Roger Hoysand, citizen, were among the killed.
When the rebels got the worst of the encounter a truce was made. A
conference was arranged, and Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, and some
others, met Cade in St. Margaret's Church, Southwark. The bishop
produced two general pardons sent by the Chancellor--Cardinal Kemp,
Archbishop of York; one for the Captain himself and the other for his
followers. These were eagerly accepted, as the insurgents were disgusted
with their leader, and they were only too glad to return to their homes.
It seems to have been generally believed that Cade was entitled to the
name of Mortimer, but after this conference the truth got abroad, and
his pardon was necessarily invalidated in consequence of this discovery.
On the 12th of July, therefore, a proclamation of the King was issued
for the apprehension of Cade, and the offer of a reward of one thousand
marks to anyone who should take him alive or dead. Cade escaped in
disguise towards the woody country round Lewes. He was pursued by
Alexander Iden, and captured and mortally wounded by him at Heathfield,
Sussex, on the 13th inst. The place is known as Cade Street, and a stone
with an inscription stands on the site of the capture. Cade's body was
taken to London; his head was placed on London Bridge, and his four
quarters were sent to different parts of Kent. Thus ended this dangerous
rebellion.
The whole history of the origin of the rising is most complicated. Not
only, as already mentioned, were the gentry of Kent on the side of the
rebels, but most of the important persons in Southwark supported them.
There were Richard Dartmouth, abbot of Battle; John Danyel, prior of
Lewes, and Robert Poynings, uncle of the Countess of Northumberland and
husband of Margaret Paston. 'When the pardon time came, a goodly list of
names was recorded, with which it was thought wise to deal
leniently.'[51]
_The Second Part of King Henry VI._, which Shakespeare slightly altered
from _The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous houses of
Yorke and Lancaster_, is chiefly concerned with Cade's Rebellion; but it
is sad that such a perversion of history should in any way be connected
with the honoured name of our greatest poet. The libel against Suffolk,
'There let his head and lifeless body lie,
Until the queen his mistress bury it,'
is apparently devoid of the slightest foundation. The representation of
Cade is also a ridiculous travesty. His proclamation, which has come
down to us, will be seen to be a very clear and ingenious piece of
composition Moreover, Latin is quoted in it, and therefore the writer
is not likely to have considered it a crime to speak Latin.
Cade's description of Lord Saye: 'Thou hast most traitorously corrupted
the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school; and whereas before
our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou
hast caused printing to be used; and contrary to the King, his crown and
dignity, thou hast built a papermill,' has no foundation whatever in
history. In spite of the anachronism of the allusion to the printing
press, Gibbon was deceived by the description, and, in claiming Lord
Saye as an ancestor, styled him a martyr to learning.
Dr. Gairdner discovered in Gregory's Chronicle a very remarkable
statement, which, if true, would throw great light upon the origin of
the outbreak.
'Ande aftyr that [the Battle of Sevenoaks], uppon the fyrste day of
Juylle, the same Captayne come agayne, as the Kenttysche men sayde, but
hyt was anothyr that namyd himselfe the Captayne, and he come to the
Blacke Hethe.'[52]
Dr. Gairdner is inclined to take this as something more than a mere
rumour, but he waits for some corroboration from another source before
entirely accepting it. He adds in a note: 'The story of Jack Cade,
however, is attended with difficulties from any point of view, and it is
remarkable that when Cade's body was brought to London it was taken to
the White Hart at Southwark, where he had lodged before his entry into
the city, and identified by the woman who kept the house. We hear
nothing of its being identified by any one who had seen the leader
before the Battle of Sevenoaks.'[53]
[Illustration: CHAUCER'S PILGRIMS ISSUING FROM THE TABARD.]
CHAPTER III
_Round the Town with Chaucer and the Poets of his Time_
Having considered some of the chief conditions of life in a walled town,
and the manners of the inhabitants, we can now proceed to look at old
London through the eyes of the great English poets of the later mediæval
period, to whom we are so much indebted for the insight they give us
into the habits of a long-dead past.
That wonderful book, _Piers Plowman_, not only brings before us in the
most vivid fashion the life of the fourteenth century, but opens out to
us the thoughts and hopes of the leaders of men. One of the most
striking passages contains a description of the interior of a beerhouse
in the reign of Edward III., with the company assembled therein.[54]
This is a scene common to the whole country, but London places are also
frequently mentioned in _Piers Plowman_.
The author, William Langland, called 'Long Will,' probably from his
tallness, was an inhabitant of London, but he has little to say in its
favour. He wrote: 'I have lived long in London, but have never found
charity; all whom I have seen are covetous.'[55]
Prof. Skeat says: 'One great merit of the poem is, that it chiefly
exhibits London life and London opinions, which are surely of more
interest to us than those of Worcestershire. He does but mention Malvern
three times, and those three passages may be found within the compass of
the first eight passus of Text A. But how numerous are his allusions to
London! He not only speaks of it several times, but he frequently
mentions the Law Courts of Westminster; he was familiar with Cornhill,
East Cheap, Cock Lane in Smithfield,[56] Shoreditch, Garlickhithe,
Stratford, Tyburn and Southwark, all of which he mentions in an offhand
manner. He mentions no river but the Thames, which is with him simply
synonymous with river; for in one passage he speaks of two men thrown
into the Thames, and in another he says that rich men are wont to give
presents to the rich, which is as superfluous as if one should fill a
tun with water from a fresh river and then pour it into the Thames to
render it wetter. To remember the London origin of a large portion of
the poem is the true key to the right understanding of it.'[57]
M. Jusserand, in his interesting study of _Piers Plowman_, says of
Langland: 'He tells us what he has seen and nothing else; his sole guide
is the light that shines over the town where Truth is imprisoned.' He
continues: 'It clears the darkness of the London lanes, where, under the
pent-roof of their shops, the merchants make Gyle, disguised as an
apprentice, sell their adulterated wares; it brightens the hovel in
Cornhill where the poet lodges his emaciated body; it throws its rays on
the scared faces of sinners for whom the hour of punishment has rung. We
have here a whole gallery of portraits which stand out in an
extraordinary manner.'
M. Jusserand takes a somewhat unfavourable view of Langland's character.
He says that the poet 'blames those who go to London and sing for souls,
yet he confesses that he does the same. He blames people of a wandering
habit, yet he is a wanderer; he heaps scorn on the men who seek for
invitations at the houses of the great, yet he does so; he condemns "tho
that feynen here folis" (Bk. x. 38), and he assumes the appearance of a
"fole"; he hates lazy people, "lorels," "lolleres," yet he lives himself
as a lorel, a loller, a "spille-tyme";
'"and lovede wel fare,
And no dede to do bote drynke and to slepe."' (C. vi. 8).
The satirist and the censor cannot always be consistent, and without
deciding upon the character of Langland, gratitude to him causes us to
forgive his inconsistencies, and makes us more inclined to agree with
the high estimate of Professor Skeat, rather than with the condemnation
of Mons. Jusserand.[58]
Langland was taken by the leaders of the Peasants' Rising as the great
prophet of their movement, but he himself stood outside the political
circle. He complained of the evils that were everywhere rampant, but he
did not wish to set himself against the Government; as Dr. Skeat says:
'His Richard the Redeles is a tender and touching remonstrance to the
King, Richard II.'
Thomas Hoccleve and John Gower were Londoners,--the former a clerk in
the Privy Seal Office and the latter probably a city merchant.
Hoccleve is supposed to have taken his name from the village of
Hockliffe, Bedfordshire, on the Roman Road, 4-1/2 miles south of Woburn,
and 3-1/2 east of Leighton Buzzard. He intended at first to become a
priest, but instead he entered the Privy Seal Office in 1308, when he
was nineteen or twenty years of age. He complained of the drudgery of
copying, and seems to have been always ready to shirk his work. Dr.
Furnivall's side-notes to the autobiographical portion of the _Regement
of Princes_ show what the complaints are like: 'A copier must always
work mind, eye and hand together. He can't talk to other folk, or sing,
but must give all his wits to his work. Workmen talk, sing, and lark. We
labour in silence, stoop and stare on the sheepskin. Our copying hurts
our stomachs, our backs and our eyes. Anyone who has copied for twenty
years like I have suffers for it in every bit of his body. It's nearly
done for me. Had I always lived in poverty, I shouldn't feel it so much
now, but the change is strange. God keep me from poverty. I'd sooner die
than live miserably.'
As there were many copyists employed in London, we must hope that they
were not all so weary of their work as the poet was.
He lived at Chester Inn, which stood on part of the site of the present
Somerset House.
'At Chestre ynne, right fast be the Stronde.'
His daily occupation took him to Westminster, where the Privy Seal
Office was situated, and as the Strand was but a poor road we may
suppose that he went from home to office in a boat. He went frequently
to Paul's Head Tavern, in St. Paul's Churchyard, where he made love to
the waitresses and others. He also belonged to a dining club, called the
Temple Club, 'the court of good company.' Often after dinner, instead of
going back to the office, he took his pleasure on the Thames, being
flattered by the watermen, who fought amongst themselves for his
patronage, and called him master, because he paid them well.
He was a good Churchman, and denounced the Lollard Rising in St. Giles's
Fields in January 1414 in good set terms.
Hoccleve was not a very lively poet, and he always seems to have been in
want of money. He enjoyed the early part of his life, but when he
married and the pinch of poverty came upon him he was very dejected. In
spite of his faults we cannot but esteem him, and feel that he has a
claim on our gratitude because he was devoted to Chaucer, and was the
cause of our possessing the best portrait there is of the poet. Hoccleve
was near Chaucer in his last days. He could easily pass from Westminster
Palace to the garden of the Chapel of St. Mary. Dr. Furnivall suggests
that he was with Chaucer when the great poet died there.[59]
Dr. G. C. Macaulay, in the Introduction to his valuable and exhaustive
edition of Gower's _Complete Works_, says that the poet speaks with
special respect of the estate of merchants, which seems to suggest that
it was as a merchant he made the money which he spent in buying his
land, and this inference is supported by the manner in which he speaks
of 'our city,' and by the fact that it is with members of the merchant
class that he seems to be most in personal communication. Dr. Macaulay
supposes Gower to have been a dealer in wool, with the natural dislike
of the Londoner for foreigners. The jealousy of the Lombards which he
expresses has every appearance of being a prejudice connected with
rivalry in commerce. 'I see Lombards come,' he says, 'in poor attire as
servants, and before a year has passed they have gained so much by
deceit and conspiracy that they dress more nobly than the burgesses of
our city.'[60]
John Gower at one time lived at Southwark, and in St. Saviour's Church
his tomb still stands. One day, in the year 1390, when he had taken boat
on the Thames, he accidentally met the King (Richard II.) in his
tapestried barge. The river was the silent highway for all Londoners,
also the royal road from Westminster to the Tower, and from thence to
Greenwich. Brilliant scenes were to be seen on the river, which joined
all parts of the town in one. Here all classes were brought
together--the gentry and the working-classes--and Court pageants were
constantly being enacted.
When Richard saw Gower he commanded him to come into the royal barge,
and then charged him to write some new thing which he might read. The
poet obeyed the command, and produced the _Confessio Amantis_, with a
Prologue, in which occur these lines:--
'In our engglish, I thenke make
A bok for King Richardes sake,
To whom belongeth my ligeance
With al myn hertes obeissance
In al that evere a liege man
Unto his King may doon or can,
So perforth I me recomande
To him which al me may comande,
Preyende unto the hihe regne
Which causeth every king to regne
That his corone longe stoude.
I thenke and have it understoude,
As it bifel upon a tyde,
As thing which scholde tho betyde,--
Under the toun of newe Troye,
Which tok of Brut his ferst joye,
In Temse whan it was flowende
As I be bote cam rowende,
So as fortune hir tyme sette,
My liege lord par chaunce I mette;
And so befel, as I cam nyh,
Out of my bot, whan he me syh,
He bad me come in to his barge.
And whan I was with him at large,
Amonges othre thinges seid
He hath this charge upon me leid,
And bad me doo my besynesse
That to his hihe worthinesse
Som newe thing I scholde boke,
That he himself it mihte loke
After the forme of my writynge.
And thus upon his comandynge
Myn herte is wel the more glad
To write so as he me bad;
And eek my fere as wel the lasse
That non envye schal compasse
Without a resonable wite
To pyne and blame that I write.'
As time went on Gower lost faith in Richard. The personal reference to
the King was suppressed, and instead of
'A bok for King Richardes sake,'
he wrote
'A bok for Engelondes sake.'
The original picture is of all the more interest, because Gower's verse
is not usually allusive to the characteristics of London life.
John Lydgate was a countryman and monk of Bury, born at Lydgate, near
Newmarket, about 1370, as he himself tells us in the _Tale of Princes_.
He was not in sympathy with the doings of the city, but his _London
Lickpenny_ is an invaluable record of London life in his day; in which
are related the adventures of a poor Kentishman who comes to London in
search of justice, but cannot find it for lack of money.
First he went to Westminster Hall, and visited successively the
different courts of law--the King's Bench and the Common Pleas, and then
to the Rolls, 'before the clerks of the Chancerie.'
'Within this Hall, neither rich nor yet poor
Would do for me aught, although I should die.
Which seeing, I got me out of the door,
Where Flemings began on me for to cry,
"Master, what will you copen or buy?
Fine felt hats, or spectacles to read?
Lay down your silver and here you may speed."'
At Westminster Gate:--
'Cooke's to me they took good intent,
And proffered me bread with ale and wine,
Ribs of beef, both fat and full fine,
A faire cloth they gan for to sprede,
But wanting money I might not then speed.'
No doubt the countryman had sufficient cause for many of his complaints,
but we cannot but ask, Why should he expect to obtain things without
paying for them?
He proceeds to London and hears the various cries of the streets--'Hot
peascodes,' 'Strawberry ripe,' 'Cherries in the rise' (_i.e._, on the
bough). Some of the tradesmen offered spice, pepper and saffron. In
Cheapside he saw velvet, silk and lawn, and 'Paris thread, the fin'st in
the land.' He goes by London Stone through Cannon Street, where drapers
offered him much cloth. Others cried 'Hot sheep's feet,' 'Mackerel,'
'Rushes green.' In East Cheap there were ribs of beef, many a pie, and
pewter pots in a heap. A taverner in Cornhill took him by the sleeve:--
'Sir,' saith he, 'will you our wine assay?'
He was now tired of his excursion, and walked to Billingsgate, where he
prayed a bargeman to take him in his boat for nothing. All this is a
groundless complaint; but he was also robbed at Westminster of his hood,
in Cannon Street he was asked to buy a new one, and in Cornhill, among
much stolen property, he saw his own hood hanging up for sale. This
reminds one of the oft-repeated story of the man who, walking through
Petticoat Lane, was robbed as he entered and found the object stolen
from him ticketed for sale as he turned out of it. The countryman soon
has enough of London and its ways, and conveys himself back into Kent,
ending his account of adventures with these words:--
'Save London, and send true lawyers their meed.
For whoso wants money with them shall not speed.'
The words of the poets already referred to are of the greatest value to
us, and we are grateful for the vivid pictures of mediæval life they
have left us, but we have in Chaucer an ideal Londoner, far beyond the
others in the charm of his writing, one who loved the city in which he
lived and died.
Langland was too much occupied in denouncing the evils of his time to be
able to see the good. Lydgate, Hoccleve and Gower also took partial
views of the life around them. It is the great genius and
large-heartedness of Chaucer that enables us to see the mixed good and
evil.
Thanks to the labours of many scholars[61] we seem to know Chaucer, who
died five centuries ago, better than many great men who have lived
nearer our own days, and, strange to say, although we take him as a
representative of the Middle Ages--and he was that--he was so imbued
with the modern spirit that we cannot but feel that he is at one with us
in his views of the life around him. He was associated with all parts of
London, so that in a walk through the town with him we can illustrate
our journey from the facts known of his life and with extracts from his
works.
The facts of Chaucer's life, as written in official documents which have
been found by enthusiastic searchers, are largely illustrative of London
history, and it is only with these special facts that we are here
concerned.
Geoffrey Chaucer was the son of a citizen and vintner of the city of
London, and probably born at his father's house in Thames Street, in the
Vintry, at or near the foot of Dowgate Hill. The house came into
Geoffrey's possession after his father's death, when he sold it. There
has been much discussion as to the date of his birth. It must have been
after 1328, because we know that in that year his father was a bachelor.
There is much to be said in favour of the supposition that he was born
about 1340.
His family must have stood well in public esteem, with good connections,
as the young man was early attached to the Court, and during his
lifetime he filled several offices of distinction. His grandfather,
Robert le Chaucer, was one of the collectors at the Port of London of
the new customs upon wine, granted by the merchants of Aquitaine.
We have no information as to Geoffrey's schooling, but doubtless the
position of his father was such that he would find a place at one of the
schools that were attached to the chief religious houses of London.
Fitz-Stephen tells us that the three chief schools were connected with
St. Paul's, St. Martin's-le-Grand, and Holy Trinity, Aldgate. Neither of
these schools is far from the Vintry, and Chaucer might have gone to
either of them. St. Paul's is, of course, the nearest, but if he went to
this school there ought to be some tradition of the fact still existing.
There is no claim, however, to Chaucer set up by the historians of the
successor of the old school--the new foundation of Dean Colet.
Chaucer's early life was spent at Court and in diplomatic missions. In
June 1374 he was appointed Comptroller of the Customs and Subsidy of
wool skins and tanned hides in the Port of London. Attached to his
office was the obligation to keep the records with his own hand and to
be continuously present. In the previous May, looking out for a
convenient residence, he rented Aldgate from the city authorities.
In _The Hous of Fame_ (Bk. ii.) we have a picture of the poet at Aldgate
after a hard day's work, writing of love (with his head aching) in his
study at night:--
'That ther no tyding cometh to thee,
But of thy verray neyghèbores
That dwellen almost at thy dores,
Thou herest neither that ne this;
For when thy labour doon al is,
And hast y-maad thy rekenynges,
In stede of reste and newé thynges,
Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon,
And also domb as any stoon,
Thou sittest at another boke,
Til fully daswèd is thy looke,
And lyvest thus as an herémyte,
Although theyn abstinence is lyte.'
Here, at Aldgate, Professor Hales tells us he wrote most of the works of
his middle period.
'It was in the old Tower of Aldgate that he made himself a supreme
master of the poetic craft, and turned his mastery to immortal account
in the production of so exquisite a piece as _Troilus and Cressida_, and
in the designing of a work that should give yet ampler expression to his
manifold gifts and graces, to his maturest thought and his highest
inspiration.'[62]
In 1382 he obtained an additional comptrollership, that of the Petty
Customs of the Port of London, with leave to nominate a substitute on
the understanding that he was responsible for him. In February 1385 the
same privilege was allowed him in regard to his old comptrollership, and
soon afterwards he left the gate house of Aldgate. In October 1386 he
was elected Knight of the Shire for Kent, and then political troubles
caused him to lose both his comptrollerships.
Professor Hales finds that the premises were granted in October 1386 to
Richard Foster, possibly identical with Richard Forrester, who was one
of Chaucer's proxies when he went abroad for a time in May 1378.[63]
The date of _The Legend of Good Women_ is given as probably in the
spring or summer of 1386, and as the house in which he was then living
had a garden and an arbour, it could not have been the dwelling-house of
Aldgate. Professor Hales believes that when the poet left the latter
place he went to live at Greenwich.
'When that the sun out of the south gon weste,
And that this flower gon close and go to reste
For darkness of the night, for which she dredde,
Home to mine house full swiftly I me spedde,
To go to rest and early for to rise,
To see this flower spread, as I devise;
And in a little arbour that I have
That benched was on turves fresh ygrave,
I bad men shoulde me my couche make,
For dainty of the newe summer's sake,
I bad them strawen flowers on my bed.'[64]
The year 1387 has been fixed as the date of the framework of the
Pilgrimage to Canterbury, starting from the Tabard, fast by the Ball in
Southwark. Some of the Tales had certainly been written before this, but
then it was that they were gathered together.
A very interesting note by Professor Hales, on the date of the
_Canterbury Tales_, is printed in the _Athenæum_ (April 8, 1893), in
which some excellent reasons are given in support of this date: 'It has
been and is by some still placed as late as 1393. But the evidence for
placing it so late is extremely slight, if, indeed, there is any at all
that bears investigation; whereas assuredly many things point to the
year 1387 or thereabouts as the year of the pilgrimage and of Chaucer's
immortal description of it.'[65]
In 1389 Chaucer was Clerk of the King's Works at the Palace of
Westminster, the Tower of London and various royal manors. In 1390 he
was employed to repair St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and to erect
scaffolds at Smithfield for Richard II. and his Queen, Anne of Bohemia,
for them to view a great tournament.
He was also appointed one of the Commission for the repair of the
roadways on the banks of the river between Greenwich and Woolwich. About
this time a great misfortune overtook the poet. In the pursuit of his
duties, with the King's money in his purse to pay the workmen, he was
robbed by highwaymen twice on the same day. The first time at
Westminster of £10, and the second at Hatcham, near the 'foul oak,' of
£9, 3s. 8d. This was a serious loss, and he was forgiven the amount by
writ dated 6th January 1391.
In this same year Chaucer lost his lucrative clerkships, and we hear no
more of him from the records till 1399, when he took a lease for
fifty-three years of a tenement in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel,
Westminster (on the site of Henry VII.'s Chapel). Here he died ten
months after, on the 25th of October 1400. Thus ended the full and busy
life of the many-sided poet, who was also man of science, soldier,
esquire of the King's household, envoy on several foreign missions,
Comptroller of Customs and Member of Parliament.
From this catalogue of Chaucer's offices and official movements we can
see that a better guide to the London of his day could not be found. We
may take it for granted that he walked over the greater part of the city
continually.
As a boy he was an inhabitant of the Vintry, and from here he would walk
to school either in a north-easterly direction to Holy Trinity, Aldgate,
or in a westerly direction to St. Paul's or St. Martin's-le-Grand. Then
at about seventeen years of age he was attached to the Court, and for
some years he was a frequent attendant at the palace of Westminster.
When he settled to his duties at the Custom House he went backwards and
forwards to Aldgate. Sometimes he would walk up Spurriers' Lane (now
Water Lane), cross Tower Street, along Fenchurch Street, up Mark (then
Mart) Lane to the gate. At other times he would probably find his way to
Great Tower Hill, and pass through the Tower Postern to Little Tower
Hill. From here he would walk northward among the trees between the
wall and town ditch on the one side, and the Nunnery of the Minoresses
on the other.
In 1381, at the time of the Peasants' Revolt, Chaucer was, we may
suppose, in London, but he does not allude at all fully to the reign of
terror which for four days overshadowed the city. The men of Essex were
outside Aldgate waiting to be let in, and when the Bridgegate was opened
to the men of Kent the eastern gate was also thrown open. One would wish
to have known what Chaucer was doing then. Did he look out of the window
of his house and watch the threatening crowd, or had he gone to the
support of the King in the Tower.
He only makes a passing allusion to the murder of the Flemings in the
_Nun's Priest's Tale_:--
'Certes he Jakke Straw and his meyné,
Ne maden schoutes never half so scrille,
Whan that they wolden eny Fleming kille,
As thilke day was maad upon the fox.' (ll. 574-577.)
Chaucer must often have wandered outside Aldgate, and after a hard day's
work he would naturally stroll along the wide and pleasant Eastern Road.
He introduces the Benedictine Nunnery of Stratford atte Bowe in his
description of the prioress (Madam Eglentyne):--
'And Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly--
After the scole of Stratford atté Bowe,
For Frenssh of Parys was to hire unknowe.'
And certainly he must have passed over the bridge built by Queen Matilda
in the twelfth century--which gave its name to the village.
In 1389, after he had left Aldgate, and when he was probably settled at
Westminster, of which palace he was clerk of the works, he was often
called to the Tower (close by his old office at the Custom House), to
see to the necessary repairs. Like others, Chaucer probably used the
river as often as possible, for many of the streets were not very
pleasant to walk along, but in carrying out his many official duties he
was obliged to visit all parts of the city, and he must therefore have
left few streets within the walls untraversed.
We have chiefly noted the places on the east side of London, and we can
therefore now pass to the west.
The controversy that raged over the question of the respective claims of
the families of Scrope and Grosvenor to a certain coat-of-arms is of
high interest to the herald, but in the voluminous evidence the lover of
Chaucer, and of London, scarcely expects to find a statement by the poet
himself as to his being in Friday Street on a certain day, and what he
saw there. The whole account of the poet's examination is of the
greatest interest.
'Geffray Chaucere, Esquier, of the age of forty years and more, armed
twenty-seven years, for the side of Sir Richard Lescrop, sworn and
examined, being asked if the arms, azure a bend or, belong or ought to
pertain to the said Sir Richard by right and heritage, said, Yes; for he
saw him so armed in Fraunce [1359], before the town of Retters [qy.
Réthel], and Sir Henry Lescrop armed in the same arms with a white
label, and with banner; and the said Sir Richard armed in the entire
arms, azure a bend or, and so during the whole expedition, until the
said Geffray was taken. Being asked how he knew that the said arms
belonged to the said Sir Richard, said that he had heard old knights and
esquires say that they had had continual possession of the said arms;
and that he had seen them displayed on banners, glass painting and
vestments, and commonly called the arms of Scrope. Being asked whether
he had ever heard of any interruption or challenge made by Sir
[Illustration: OLD ST. PAUL'S.
(_From a drawing by Walter H. Godfrey, reconstructed from information
obtained from leading authorities._)]
Robert Grosvenor, or his ancestors, said, No: but that he was once in
Friday Street, London, and walking up the street he observed a new sign
hanging out, with these arms thereon, and inquired what inn that was
that had hung out these arms of Scrope? And one answered, saying: "They
are not hung out, Sir, for the arms of Scrope, nor painted there for
those arms; but they are painted and put there by a knight of the county
of Chester, called Sir Robert Grosvenor," and that was the first time he
ever heard speak of Sir Robert Grosvenor, or his ancestors, or of anyone
bearing the name of Grosvenor.'[66]
Friday Street was close by old St. Paul's, the glory of the city, which
was magnificent within and without. When Chaucer knew it, the fine tomb
of Sir John Beauchamp (d. 1358), constable of Dover Castle, in the
middle aisle of the nave, was new. This monument was the chief object in
the nave, and came to be called incorrectly Duke Humphry's Tomb, and the
nave from it was styled Duke Humphry's Walk. The stately tomb of John of
Gaunt (d. 1399), which was later on the most prominent object in the
choir, was probably not erected in Chaucer's lifetime.
The old Cathedral was full of chantries, as were the other churches of
London. The number of chantry priests gave great offence, as appears in
_Piers Plowman_, and the works of the other poets. The Poor Parson is
described in the Prologue of the _Canterbury Tales_ as attending to his
own flock, and not performing the services of the dead at other
shrines:--
'He sette not his benefice to hire,
And lette his sheep accombred in the mire,
And ran unto London, into Seint Paules,
To seken him a chaunterie for soules.'
Outside Newgate, Chaucer went up Cow Lane (now King Street) to
Smithfield, the open space appropriated to tournaments, markets and
shows, to prepare for the jousts to be held before the King and his
Queen in 1390.
Passing from London to Westminster we come to the Mews (the site of the
present National Gallery), which Chaucer had for a time under his
charge. He settled in the precincts of Westminster Abbey, and there
passed away. It has been erroneously stated, on the authority of Stow,
that Chaucer was first buried in the cloisters. This is refuted by
Caxton's distinct statement that the body was first buried in front of
the Chapel of St. Benedict. In 1555 or 1556 it was removed to its
present position in the tomb prepared for it by Nicholas Brigham, where
it has become the central object of the world-renowned Poets'
Corner.[67] The last place to be mentioned, and the one which he has
chiefly immortalised, is the High Street, Southwark, called also Long
Southwark. Here was the Tabard,[68] where gathered the Canterbury
Pilgrims, who set out on their pilgrimage under the leadership of Harry
Bailly. Bailly was a real personage, and at one time Member of
Parliament for Southwark.
Of all the pictures drawn by Chaucer, the portraits of the pilgrims in
the Prologue to the _Canterbury Tales_ are the most valuable for our
present purpose, as showing us the men and women who were to be seen
daily in the streets of London.
It is a difficult matter to appraise the relative positions of our
great authors, but probably the true test of immortality is the creation
of living characters. It is largely the dramatic power displayed in the
Prologue to the _Canterbury Tales_ which places Chaucer by the side of
Shakespeare.
CHAPTER IV
_The River and the Bridge_
The river has made London, and London has acknowledged its obligations
to the Thames. It was the Silent Highway along which the chief traffic
of the city passed during the Middle Ages, and, probably, the roads of
London would have been better if the water carriage had not been so
good. The river continued to be the Silent Highway until the nineteenth
century, when it lost its high position. With the construction of the
Thames Embankment the river again took its proper place as the centre of
London, but it did not again become its main artery.
We have seen in the previous chapter how the poet Gower met King Richard
II. near Westminster and was summoned to the royal barge.
Fitz-Stephen gives a vivid description of the sports on the Thames: 'In
the Easter holidays they play at a game resembling a naval engagement. A
target is firmly fastened to the trunk of a tree which is fixed in the
middle of the river, and in the prow of a boat, driven along by oars and
the current, a young man, who is to strike the target with his lance; if
in hitting it he break his lance, and keep his position unmoved, he
gains his point, and attains his desire; but if his lance be not
shivered by the blow he is tumbled into the river, and his boat passes
by, driven along by its own motion. Two boats, however, are placed
there, one on each side of the target, and in them a number of young men
to take up the striker when he first emerges from the
[Illustration: VISSCHER'S VIEW OF LONDON, A.D. 1616.
_Section (reduced) from the Re-production by the Topographical Society
of London._]
stream.... On the bridge, and in balconies on the banks of the river,
stand the spectators.' Four centuries after this Stow describes a
somewhat similar scene: 'I have also in the summer season seen some upon
the river of Thames rowed in wherries, with staves in their bands, flat
at the fore end, running one against another, and for the most part, one
or both overthrown, and well ducked.'
One of the most remarkable incidents in the life of the Middle Ages is
connected with the history of that highly-placed lady, the unfortunate
Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, whose enemies succeeded in
condemning her to do penance in London in three open spaces on three
several days. She was brought by water from Westminster, and on the 13th
of November 1441 was put on shore at the Temple Bridge; on the 15th at
the Old Swan; and again, on the 17th, at Queenhithe, and from these
landing-places she walked to the place of penance. The Old Swan, which
stood near London Bridge, just where its successor now stands, can be
traced further back than the reign of Henry VI., for a tavern with the
sign of the Swan is mentioned in a deed of Edward II.'s time.
The old Chronicles are full of references to what took place on the
river. Thus Edward Halle has a vivid picture of how the Archbishop of
York, after leaving the widow of Edward IV. in the Sanctuary at
Westminster, returned home to York Place at dawn of day, 'and when he
opened his windows and looked on the Thames he might see the river full
of boats of the Duke of Gloucester [Richard III.], his servants,
watching that no person should go to sanctuary, nor none should pass
unsearched.'
Cavendish, in his _Life of Wolsey_, shows us two prelates talking
confidentially in the cardinal's barge: 'Thus this court passed from
session to session, and day to day, in so much that a certain day the
King sent for my lord the breaking up one day of the court to come to
him into Bridewall. And to accomplish his commandment he went unto him,
and being there with him in communication in his grace's privy chamber
from eleven until twelve of the clock and past at noon, my lord came out
and departed from the King, and took his barge at the Black Friars, and
so went to his house at Westminster. The Bishop of Carlisle, being with
him in his barge, said unto him (wiping the sweat from his face), "Sir,"
quoth he, "it is a very hot day." "Yea," quoth my lord cardinal, "if ye
had been as well chafed as I have been within this hour, ye would say it
were very hot."'
The river swarmed with watermen, and these men had their songs and
choruses. A favourite song was in honour of Sir John Norman (Mayor in
1454), who first broke the rule of riding to Westminster on Mayor's day,
and 'rowed thither by water,' a practice which continued for many years,
and might now be revived with advantage.
'Row the boat, Norman, row to thy leman.'
We can see from this how much, both of the business and pleasure of
London, took place on the Thames. It reminds us vividly of the busy life
on the canals of Venice.
The river was the highway of business as well of pleasure, and the
intimate relations between England and Normandy after the Conquest
naturally encouraged commerce between the Continent and England, and
London rapidly became the centre of this trade. Ships came here from
Flanders, Germany, Gascony, Italy, and also from Norway. Wharves lined
the sides of the Thames, and each class of goods was landed at a wharf
set apart for a special nationality.
In Henry II.'s reign London and Bristol became the chief commercial
ports of the kingdom, the former trading with Germany and the central
ports of the Continent, and the latter with the Scandinavian countries
and with Ireland.
The Normans had special privileges, and Mr. Horace Round points out that
the charter of Henry Duke of the Normans (afterwards Henry II. of
England) to the citizens of Rouen, 1150-1151, confers to them their port
at Dowgate, as they had held it from the days of Edward the Confessor.
Mr. Round adds that this is a fact unknown to English historians.[69]
The early history of Queenhithe, for many years the chief rival to
Billingsgate, is somewhat difficult to follow. In the Saxon period it
appears to have belonged to one Edred, who gave the wharf his name, by
which it continued to be called for some years after the Conquest. It
was granted to Holy Trinity within Aldgate by William de Ypre, who
received it from King Stephen. After some time it again came into the
possession of the King, and John is said to have given it to his mother
Eleanor, Queen of Henry II., after whom it received its name of
Queenhithe. By some means not recorded the _Ripa Regina_ came into the
possession of Richard Earl of Cornwall, who in 1246 granted it to John
Gisors, then Mayor, and the Commons of London to farm at an annual rent
of £50. Henry III. confirmed this grant, and the custody of the hithe
was thereupon committed to the Sheriffs, and half a year's rent had been
allowed, as the place appears to have fallen into decay, owing probably
to the death of John de Storteford during his shrievalty. According to
Stow, 'Edward II. in the first year of his reign gave to Margaret, wife
to Piers de Gavestone, forty-three pounds twelve shillings and
ninepence halfpenny farthing out of the rent of London to be received of
the Queen's hithe.'
Queenhithe was the usual landing-place for wine, wool, hides, corn,
firewood, fish, and all kinds of commodities. It was probably to
Queenhithe that the wine fleet which brought to London the produce of
the vineyards of the banks of the Moselle was bound. In the _Liber
Custumarum_ there is a full account of the yearly visit of this fleet,
and the regulations as to its arrival at the New Wear, in the vicinity
of Yanlade (the present Yantlet Creek), at the mouth of the Medway,
which was the limit of the civic jurisdiction of the Thames. Here it was
the duty of the fleet of adventurous hulks and keels 'to arrange
themselves in due order and raise their ensign; the crews being at
liberty, if so inclined, to sing their kiriele or song of praise and
thanksgiving, 'according to the old law,' until London Bridge was
reached. Arrived here, and the drawbridge duly raised, they were for a
certain time to lie moored off the wharf.... Here they were to remain at
their moorings two ebbs and a flood; during which period the merchants
were to sell no part of their cargo, it being the duty of one of the
Sheriffs and the King's Chamberlain to board each vessel in the
meantime.... The two ebbs and a flood expired, and the officials having
duly made their purchases or declined to do so, the wine-ship was
allowed to lie alongside the wharf, the tuns of wine being disposed of
under certain regulations, apparently meant as a precaution against
picking and choosing, to such merchants as might present themselves as
customers, those of London having the priority, and those of Winchester
coming next.'[70] The boats were bound to leave London by the end of
forty days.
Mr. Riley refers to the fondness of the merchants in the Middle Ages for
music on board ship, and quotes from M. Michel (_Recherches sur les
Etoffes_, etc., tome ii. p. 63) the following:--
'En mer sempaignent, et drescerent lor voilles;
Li jugleor leanz les esbanoient.'
'They put to sea, and set their sails;
The jongleurs on board amused them.'
Another passage from the _Roman de Tristan_, tome ii. p. 64, 1375-1378,
quoted by Riley, is also very much to the point:--
'A sun batel en va amunt,
Dreit a Lundres, desuz le punt;
Sa marchandise iloc descovre,
Ses dras de seie pleie e ovre.'
'On board his bark he goes straight to London, beneath the bridge;
his merchandise he there shows, his cloths of silk smooths and
opens out.'
Mr Riley gives an interesting account of the localities adjoining the
northern banks of the Thames in the fourteenth century:--
'The banks of the Thames from the Postern of Petit Wales [near the
Tower], so far probably as the Friars Preachers, or Black Friars, near
the entrance of the Fleet River, seem to have been intersected in these
times by numberless small lanes, which, themselves public property, ran
from Thames Street, by the side of a private residence or other edifice,
and led to the owner's wharf in front of his dwelling-house; these
wharfs again, in some instances, being separated by water-gates, through
which apparently the public had a right to claim, as an easement, right
of passage. From many of the wharfs there also projected bridges or
jetties into the river, for the same purposes as the stairs of modern
times.'[71]
Many of the wharves on the Thames were known as gates besides
Billingsgate, as Ebbgate, identical with the present Old Swan Lane and
Wharf, Upper Thames Street, and Oystergate, on the site of the north end
of the present London Bridge. The latter was the principal place for the
sale of shell-fish, which was only to be sold 'from the way of London
Bridge towards the west, unto the corner of the wall of the Church of
St. Mary Magdalene.'[72] Oystergate was also a place of great resort for
the sellers of rushes, who paid a small rent for their standing.
We learn from Fitz-Stephen that 'London formerly had walls and towers in
like manner in the south, but that most excellent river the Thames,
which abounds with fish, and in which the tide ebbs and flows, runs on
that side, and has in a long space of time washed down, undermined and
subverted the walls in that part.' Whether there were gates or not along
the river front of London, there can be little doubt that there were not
structures at all the places named gates, many of these were doubtless
merely ways. This use of the word gate is common enough in the South, as
in Ramsgate, Margate, Sandgate, etc.
There appear to have been constant attempts made by the landowners on
the Thames to close the lanes leading to the river, thus preventing the
free access of the public. Special complaint was made before the Mayor
and Sheriffs in 1360 against the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem for
closing the right-of-way through the Temple. This place having come into
the possession of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John after the
suppression of the Order of Knights Templars. The evidence of John de
Hydyngham and eleven others was taken--'Who say upon their oath, that
time out of mind the commonalty of the city aforesaid have been wont to
have free ingress and egress with horses and carts from sunrise to
sunset, for carrying and carting all manner of victuals and wares
therefrom to the water of Thames, and from the said water of Thames to
the city aforesaid through the great gate of the Templars, situate
within Temple Bar, in the ward aforesaid, in the suburb of London; that
the possessors of the Temple were wont, and by right ought to maintain a
bridge at the water aforesaid' [a pier or jetty for landing called
Tempelbrigge]. 'They say also, that the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem
in England, who is the possessor of the Temple aforesaid, molests the
citizens of the said city, so that they cannot have their free ingress
and egress through the gate aforesaid, as of old they were wont to
have.'[73]
The prior did not like this interference with his doings on the part of
the city, and in 1374 he obtained from Edward III. a royal order to stay
proceedings. The order, addressed to the Mayor, Recorder and Aldermen of
London, after recapitulating the terms of complaint, proceeds: 'We,
deeming it not to be consonant with reason that this matter, seeing that
it concerns you and the commonalty aforesaid, should be discussed before
you, inasmuch as a party ought not to be judge in his own cause, and
taking into consideration that if the bridge aforesaid, which has been
intended for the advantage and easement of the nobles and others coming
to our Parliaments and Councils, and wishing to reach their barges and
boats, these should be broken by the laying of stone and timber thereon,
it would be greatly to the prejudice of such persons; and desiring for
the reasons aforesaid, that this matter shall be discussed and
determined before our Council, where justice therein unto you as well as
to the prior aforesaid may speedily be done; do command you, that you
appear before our said Council at Westminster, on that day month after
Easter Day next to come.'[74] This question of the exclusion of the
common people from certain wharves and stairs continued for many years
to be a burning one. In 1417 an Ordinance of the Mayor and Aldermen was
issued forbidding this exclusion, which commences as follows: 'Whereas
heretofore, and now also from day to day, many persons dwelling in the
city and the suburbs of London, more consulting and attending to their
private profit and advantage than to the common good and convenience, do
hold certain wharves and stairs on the bank of the Thames, which are
held by encroachment upon, and are situate on, the common soil and the
course of the water, without having any licence or paying anything to
the community for the same; and then, the same being by favour obtained
and colourably appropriated, have mixed up their own and separate soil
and land therewith; and what is even worse, from day to day these
persons do make new customs and imposts upon the poor common people, who
time out of mind have there fetched and taken up their water, and washed
their clothes, and done other things for their own needs, maliciously
interfering with them in their said franchise, and demanding and taking
from such as resort thereto, from some one halfpenny, and from others
one penny, two or more, by the quarter, to the great injury of all the
commonalty, and expressly against the good usages and ancient customs of
all the city.' After this preamble, the Mayor and Aldermen, with the
assent of the Commons, 'ordained and established, for all time to come,
that no person who dwells on the bank of the Thames, or other person
whatsoever, having or holding any wharf or stair, situate or encroaching
upon the common soil, to which there has been, or been accustomed to be,
common resort of the people heretofore for such needs as aforesaid,
shall from henceforth disturb, hinder, or molest, any one in fetching,
drawing and taking water, or in beating and washing their clothes, or in
doing or executing other reasonable things and needs there; or shall
demand or take privily or openly, from any person any manner of sum or
piece of money, or other thing whatsoever for custom.'[75]
Many of these alleys and lanes were left in a very objectionable
condition, but the consideration of their state must be postponed for
chapter 7 on the Health and Sanitation of London. In spite of all the
recorded impurities of the streets the water of the river was pure, as
may be proved from the fact that fishing was general. In 1343 an
Inquisition was held before the Mayor and Aldermen as to the use of
unlawful nets, or those whose meshes were less than 2 inches wide, when
it was found that four nets were good and were to be given back to the
owners, and four were false and to be burnt. The custom of the city was
that the meshes of the nets should be two inches wide at least, so that
small fish could pass through.[76]
In the next year certain fishmongers were appointed inspectors 'to make
scrutiny as to false nets placed in the water of Thames, from the place
called "Yenlete" [Yantlet] on the east, as far as the bridge of Stanes
on the west, for taking the small fish, to the destruction of the fish
of such water; and to bring such nets to the Guildhall when found.'[77]
In another document, also of the year 1344, three nets are mentioned by
name, all of which were found to be false, and were burnt near the Stone
Cross by the north door of St. Paul's, in the high street of
Chepe--these were a draynet belonging to the Abbot of Stratford, a
second net called a codnet, belonging to Robert Pesok of Plumstede, and
third net called a kidel, claimed by no one.[78] A codnet was a net
with a cod or pouch containing a stone for sinking the net (also called
a pursnet), and a kidel was a net used in kidels or weirs. There were
several different classes of fishermen, as 'trinkermen,' who used trinks
or nets attached to posts or anchors for taking fish, and petermen, who
used a broom in fishing, 'beating the bush.'[79] There are many other
references to the burning of false nets in the City Archives. From
certain regulations of the year 1388, we learn that 'no man shall fish
in the Thames with any nets but those of the Assize ordained at the
Guildhall; and that only at the proper seasons. And that no one shall
fish near to the wharves in London, between the Temple Bridge and the
Tower, within a distance of twenty fathoms.'[80]
_The Bridge._--It is supposed that during the early years of the Roman
occupation there was a ferry across from London to Southwark, but that a
bridge was built when Roman London had become a place of importance. We
have already seen that a wooden bridge existed during the Saxon period.
This must have been constantly rebuilt, and the last wooden bridge
continued for many years after the Norman Conquest. The first stone
bridge was commenced in the year 1176, under the superintendence of
Peter de Colechurch, chaplain of St. Mary Colechurch, a building which
stood in the Old Jewry until the time of the Great Fire, when it was
destroyed. Peter died in 1205, and was buried in the crypt of the chapel
built over the centre pier of the bridge and dedicated to St. Thomas of
Canterbury. Here the chaplain's bones were found in 1832, when the old
bridge was cleared away after the opening of the new bridge. So little
public interest was taken in relics of the past at this time that the
bones were sacrilegiously, flung into a barge along with the accumulated
rubbish and destroyed by careless workmen.
The building of the stone bridge was a long operation, and in 1201 King
John entrusted its completion to a Frenchman named Isembert. The King
seems to have made a careful choice, for the Frenchman had already shown
his skill by the erection of fine bridges in the French cities of
Saintes and La Rochelle. M. Jusserand, in his _English Wayfaring Life in
the Middle Ages_, quotes from the Original Patent, published by Hearne
in his edition of the _Liber Niger Scaccarii_ (1771, vol. i. p. 470).
Jusserand also quotes from Hearne as to a series of Letters Patent
relating to the maintenance of the bridge. John ordered certain taxes to
be devoted to this purpose, and a patent of Henry III. was addressed 'to
the brothers and chaplains of the Chapel of St. Thomas on London Bridge,
and to other persons living on the same bridge,' to inform them that the
officers of St. Katharine's Hospital by the Tower would receive the
revenues and take charge of the repairs of the bridge for five years.
After the Battle of Evesham in 1265, when the city was at the King's
mercy, Henry III. granted his Queen the custody of the bridge:
'Alianore, by the grace of God, Queen of England, Lady of Ireland,
Duchess of Aquitaine, and by our lord the King Henry, Warden of the
Bridge House.' The Queen continued to enjoy the rents and lands
belonging to the bridge for nearly six years, during which time the
repair of the bridge was neglected. Realising at length how matters
stood, she restored it to the citizens, who, on 1st September 1271,
elected again their own wardens.[81]
Early in the reign of Edward I. (1281) a patent was issued ordering a
general collection throughout the kingdom on account of the bad
condition of the bridge. A tariff of tolls was also issued, and pontage
was exacted from all vessels for the passage of which the drawbridge
was raised. One William Cross, a fishmonger, was 'sworn to well and
faithfully receive all issues of rents of London Bridge, and also all
other money accruing to the said bridge from whatever cause ... and to
expend the same well and faithfully for the use and benefit of the
aforesaid bridge.'[82]
In the 26 of Edward I. the rents of a house called 'Le Hales' were
appropriated for the support of London Bridge, and this is recorded in
the _Liber Custumarum_.[83] It is not known where this house was
situated. Riley conjectures that it was a great house in Stocks Market,
but Dr. Sharpe suggests that it is just as likely to have been one of a
large number of houses which Henry le Galeys (or Waleys) erected by
licence of the King (Anno 10 Edw. I.) near Old Change and St. Paul's,
the profits of which were also devoted to the support of the bridge.[84]
A stone was fixed before each of these tenements in token of the duty of
the tenants to repair the bridge, but these appear to have been removed
in the same reign by Walter Hervy, appruator of the city, a title which
Riley translated as improver.[85]
The bridge was built on piles, and must have been solidly constructed,
for although it needed from the first a great deal of cobbling, and
underwent much alteration, it survived almost to our own day. It
consisted of twenty arches, nineteen of stone, and one of wood--the
drawbridge. By this drawbridge was the tower or storehouse, upon which
the heads of traitors were set up. This became decayed, and was taken
down in April 1577. The heads were removed and set on the gate at the
Bridge-foot towards Southwark. On the 28th August Sir John Langley, Lord
Mayor, laid the first stone of a foundation for a new tower, in the
same
[Illustration: Old London Bridge from St Olave's Church.]
place, which tower was finished in September 1579.[86] The great wonder
of the bridge was the beautiful wooden structure, called Nonesuch House,
which stood on the seventh and eighth arches from the Southwark side,
and gave its name to the Nonesuch lock.
The great weight of the buildings caused occasional sinkings and a
general insecurity. In 1481 it is recorded that a block of buildings
toppled over into the river. In 1633 a fire swept from one end of the
bridge to the other, and many of the houses were destroyed, which were
not rebuilt. In 1757-1758 all the remaining houses were cleared away in
order to make the structure more secure.
The bridge was one of the chief sights of London, and a great deal of
history has grown up about it, but it would require a volume to do
justice to these circumstances. One of the most curious of these was the
duel between Sir David Lindsay, Earl of Crawfurd, and John Lord Welles
(fifth Baron), Ambassador at the Scottish Court in 1390. Lord Crawfurd
chose the place, and, furnished with a safe conduct from Richard II.,
came from Scotland to London for this special purpose. The duel took
place in this apparently inappropriate locality in the presence of a
great concourse of sightseers.
Most of the travellers in England who have written on the subject speak
of the bridge with high praise. Frederick Duke of Wirtemberg, who
visited this country in 1592, was pleased with what he saw, and his
secretary wrote: 'Over the river at London there is a beautiful long
bridge, with quite splendid, handsome and well-built houses, which are
occupied by merchants of consequence. Upon one of the towers, nearly in
the middle of the bridge, are stuck up about thirty-four heads of
persons of distinction, who had in former times been condemned and
beheaded for creating riots and from other causes.' It will be seen from
this passage that when the new tower was built the heads which had been
removed during the rebuilding to the Bridge-foot were taken back to the
new tower. Six years later Hentzner wrote of London Bridge as 'a bridge
of stone, 800 feet in length, of wonderful work; it is supported upon 20
piers of square stone, 60 feet high and 30 broad, joined by arches of
about 20 feet diameter. The whole is covered on each side with houses,
so disposed as to have the appearance of a continued street, not at all
of a bridge.' Correr, the Venetian Ambassador in 1610, states that the
bridge was so narrow that it was very difficult for two coaches meeting
to pass each other without danger.[87]
Englishmen were not behindhand in singing the praises of the bridge;
thus Lyly wrote in _Euphues and his England_: 'Among all the straunge
and beautiful showes, mee thinketh there is none so notable as the
bridge which crosseth the Theames, which is in manner of a continuall
streete, well replenyshed with large and stately houses on both sides,
and situate upon twentie arches, whereof each one is made of excellent
free stone squared, everie one of them being three score foote in
height, and full twentie in distaunce one from another.'
The chapel on the bridge had an endowment for two priests or chaplains,
four clerks and other brethren, with certain chantries annexed. A
dwelling-house was afterwards attached to the chapel, which, at the
close of the thirteenth century, was known as the Bridge House. In the
year 1298 John de Leuesham [Lewisham], brother of the London 'Bridge
House,' was made bailiff of the manor of Lewisham, 'the proceeds of
which were then, as they still are, devoted to the maintenance and
repair of the bridge.'[88]
In the folklore of bridges the frequent practice in the Middle Ages of
building a chapel forms a special feature of the subject. There are
several instances still remaining, one of which is the chapel of the old
bridge at Bradford-on-Avon.
The waterway of the Thames was obstructed by the bridge, which formed a
sort of lock to keep the waters in the upper portion of the river. The
widest of the arches was 36 feet, and some were too narrow for the
passage of boats of any kind. The resistance caused to so large a body
of water on the rise and fall of the tide by the contraction of its
channel produced a fall or rapid under the bridge. 'With the flood-tide
it was impossible, and with the ebb-tide dangerous to pass through or
shoot the arches of the bridge.' In the latter case prudent passengers
landed above bridge, generally at the Old Swan Stairs, and walked to
some wharf, generally Billingsgate.
In 1428, according to Stow, the Duke of Norfolk was like to be drowned
passing from Saint Mary Overy Stairs through London Bridge. His barge
was overset and thirty persons drowned. In _A Chronicle of London_
(edited by Nicolas) we read 'as God wolde, the duke hymself and too or
iij othere gentylmen seeynge that myschief, leped upon the pyles and so
were saved through helpe of them that weren above the brigge, with
castyng down of ropes.' Many such accidents were constantly occurring,
so that there was probably truth in one of Ray's Proverbs: 'London
Bridge was made for wise men to go over and fools to go under.' That
boats were frequently overturned is proved by Norden's View of London
Bridge, in which boats, bottom upwards, fill the foreground.
[Illustration: THE TOWER OF LONDON.]
CHAPTER V
_The King's Palace--The Tower_
The Tower of London has existed for over eight centuries, and long
before the Conquest the site was occupied by a Roman fortification. It
is the most time-honoured building in Great Britain, and probably the
foremost building (not a ruin) in the world.
With so much in London that is new, it is a source of the deepest pride
to every Londoner that there is a relic of the past of unequalled
interest, on whose walls are written the chief incidents of the history
of England. The name has long been a puzzle, but Mr. Horace Round has
explained it, and thus thrown a fresh light upon the study of Norman
military architecture.
There were two different kinds of fortified places during the mediæval
period, viz., (1) the Roman 'castrum,' or 'castellum,' which survived
in the fortified enclosure, and (2) the mediæval 'motte,' or 'tour,'
which survived in the central keep. When the 'tour' coalesced with the
'castellum,' a name was required for the entire fortress. Sometimes the
keep was added to the castle, and sometimes the castle to the keep. It
was then a question which word should prevail,--'tour' (turris), or
chastel (castellum). Generally, the word castle has prevailed, but the
respective strongholds in the capitals of Normandy and England were the
'Tour de Rouen,' and the 'Tower of London.'[89]
Gray alludes to the 'towers of Julius,' and Shakespeare's reference to
the place is equally erroneous:--
'_Prince Edward._ I do not like the Tower of any place,
Did Julius Cæsar build that place, my lord?
_Buckingham._ He did, my gracious lord, begin that place,
Which since succeeding ages have re-edified.
_Prince Edward._ Is it upon record, or else reported
Successively from age to age, he built it?
_Buckingham._ Upon record, my gracious lord.'
(_Richard III._, act iii. sc. i.)
Of course, Julius Cæsar had nothing to do with the Tower, but the Roman
remains that have been discovered on the site prove that this grand
strategical position had been utilised from the early period of London's
history.
Mr. George T. Clark writes: 'When, having crossed the Thames, the
Conqueror marched in person to complete the investment of London, he
found that ancient city resting upon the left bank of its river,
protected on its landward side by a strong wall, a Roman work, with
mural towers and an exterior ditch.'[90]
In 1777 some Roman coins were discovered, and a double wedge of silver,
inscribed 'Ex officina Honorii,' which makes the conjecture probable,
that at this early period, as in later times, the buildings on the site
of the Tower were used as a mint.
William the Conqueror was crowned in 1066, and Mr. Clark says that 'it
was from Barking, immediately after the ceremony, that he directed the
actual commencement of the works, which were no doubt at first a deep
ditch and strong palisade; for the keep, probably the earliest work in
masonry, appears not to have been begun till twelve or fourteen years
later.'[91]
The keep (known later as the White Tower) was built by Gundulf, a monk
of Bec, who in 1077, soon after his arrival in England, was consecrated
Bishop of Rochester. We learn from the _Textus Roffensis_, written about
the year 1143, that Gundulf, while employed upon the Tower, lodged at
the house of Eadmer Anhoende, a burgess of London, but he is not
supposed to have commenced the building until 1078.
A great work such as the construction of the Tower of London took many
years to complete. It is supposed that although the Conqueror, to a
great extent, planned the fortress, he did not build more than the inner
ward. The existing 'curtain' of the inner ward (9 to 12 feet thick, and
from 39 to 40 feet high) is thought by Clark to be the work of William
Rufus.
In November 1091 there was a violent storm which did immense damage in
London. Stow says in his Chronicle that 'the Tower of London was also
broken,' and in the _Survey_ he further writes that the Tower was sore
shaken by the tempest of wind, but was repaired by William Rufus and
Henry I. Clark doubts this, but adds that the outworks, both wall and
towers, if in course of construction, with scaffolding about them,
probably suffered severely. He further writes: 'The Tower, therefore, of
the close of the reign of Rufus, and of those of Henry I., and Stephen,
was probably composed of the White Tower, with a palace ward upon its
south-east side, and a wall, probably that we now see, and certainly
along its general course, including what is known as the inner ward. No
doubt there was a ditch, but probably not a very formidable one.'[92]
Fitz-Stephen is not very full in his description of the Tower. He merely
says: 'On the east stands the Palatine Tower, a fortress of great size
and strength, the court and walls of which are erected upon a very deep
foundation, the mortar used in the building being tempered with the
blood of beasts.'
The Tower is believed to owe much to Henry III., who made extensive
alterations and additions. The new works were unpopular among the
citizens, and as some of them were unfortunate, a legend came into
existence to account for the misfortune. St. Thomas's Tower and the
'Traitor's Gate' beneath it were in course of construction in 1240, when
on St. George's night the gateway and wall fell down. They were at once
re-erected, but in the following year they again fell down. The story,
as told by Matthew Paris, is that on the night of the second fall a
certain grave and reverend priest saw a robed archbishop, cross in hand,
who gazed sternly upon the walls, with which the King was then girdling
the Tower, and striking them sharply, asked: 'Why build ye there?' on
which the newly-built work fell, as though shattered by an earthquake.
The priest, too alarmed to accost the prelate, addressed himself to the
shade of an attendant clerk: 'Who, then, is the archbishop?' 'St. Thomas
the Martyr,' was the answer, 'by birth a citizen, who resents these
works, undertaken in scorn, and to the prejudice of the citizens, and
destroys them beyond the power of restoration!' On which the priest
remarked: 'What outlay and labour of the hands he has destroyed!' 'Had
it been,' said the clerk, 'simply that the starving and needy artificers
thence promised themselves food, it had been tolerable; but seeing that
the works were undertaken, not for the defence of the realm, but to the
hurt of the citizens, even had not St. Thomas destroyed them, they had
been swept away utterly by St. Edmund, his successor.' This was Edmund
of Abingdon, who died in 1240. The works were resumed, and in spite of
the powerful opposition of St. Thomas, they were completely successful,
and the rebuilding was strong and satisfactory.
The outer ward is supposed to have been completed by Henry III. It is a
strip of from 20 feet to 110 feet in breadth, which completely surrounds
the inner ward, and is itself contained within the ditch, of which its
wall forms the scarp.
The Tower has been (1) a fortress, and so it remains to the present day;
(2) a palace, and (3) a prison. We can now consider it under these three
aspects, merely mentioning in passing that it was also a mint, an
armoury, and a record office.
_The Tower as a Fortress._--It was regarded as impregnable in the reign
of Stephen, when it was specially required by the King as a fortress,
and during the whole mediæval period it was always a place of strong
defence. It does not appear ever to have endured a siege of any
importance, but if it had, it would doubtless have successfully resisted
attack.
The Byward Tower is the great gatehouse of the outer ward, and the
Middle Tower is its outwork. There was formerly a drawbridge across the
ditch or moat, where now there is a stone bridge 130 feet wide. The
gateway to the Bloody or Garden Tower is the main entrance to the inner
ward. The inner ward is enclosed within a curtain wall having four
sides, twelve mural towers, and a gatehouse. Wakefield Tower, known
also as the Record Tower and as the Hall Tower, is, in its lower storey,
next in antiquity to the White Tower.
Commencing with Wakefield, and passing westward, the towers are Bloody
(where the Duke of Clarence is supposed to have been drowned in Malmsey,
and the two sons of Edward IV. smothered), Bell (so called from an alarm
bell in the little turret), Beauchamp (from Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of
Warwick, and also called Cobham Tower, after Lord Cobham), Devereux
(after Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, also called 'Robyn the Devyll's
Tower,') Flint, Bowyer (so called because it was the residence and
workshop of the royal maker of bows), Brick (previously Burbidge),
Martin (or Jewel, at one time styled Brick Tower), Constable's, Broad
Arrow, Salt (meaning saltpetre; in the sixteenth century it was known as
Julius Cæsar's Tower), and Lanthorn (called in 1532 the New Tower; it
was pulled down in 1788, after a fire).
The wall of the outer ward has upon it bold drum bastions at the angles
of the north front; and the south or Thames front is protected by five
mural towers, of which one covers the landgate and one the watergate,
and two others are connected with posterns. These towers are Develin
(called 'Galighmaies Tower' in 4 Ric. II.), Well, Cradle, St. Thomas's
(over Traitor's Gate), and Byward.
Mr. Clark writes: 'The Tower, at the commencement of the present
century, was an extraordinary jumble of ancient and later buildings, the
towers and walls being almost completely encrusted by the small official
dwellings by which the area was closely occupied. A great fire in 1841
removed the unsightly armoury of James II. and William III. on the north
of the inner ward, but the authorities at the time were not ripe for a
fire. The armoury was replaced by a painfully-durable Tudor barrack, and
the repairs and additions were made with little reference to the
character of the fortress. More recently, the general improvement in
public taste has made its way even into the Tower.'[93]
The Tower is still a fortress. Each night the mediæval ceremony of
locking the gates takes place; after which no one can enter without the
password, and this after the manner at fortresses is changed daily. The
password is always communicated to the Lord Mayor, who each quarter
receives a list containing the password for each day in the coming three
months. Residents in the Tower can enter until twelve midnight, when the
wickets are locked by the yeoman on 'watch duty' and no one is allowed
to enter after that hour, unless they give the password.
At a few minutes before eleven the yeoman porter takes his keys and
applies to the serjeant for the 'escort for the keys.' The serjeant
acquaints the officer, and the officer placing the guard under arms,
furnishes a serjeant and four men. Two of the men are unarmed. Their
duty is to assist in closing the gates, and to carry the ancient
lantern, which contains a tallow candle. The procession is formed, and
the yeoman porter with the keys places himself in the midst of the
escort. He goes the round of the gates, and when he returns to the main
guard, the sentry at the guard-room challenges--
'Halt! Who comes there?'
'The keys,' replies the yeoman porter.
'Whose keys?'
'King Edward's keys.'
'Advance King Edward's keys.'
The yeoman porter places himself in front of the guard. The guard
present arms and the yeoman porter says, 'God preserve King Edward,'
and the guard from the officer to the drummer answer, 'Amen.'
The keys are then carried by the yeoman porter to the King's House, to
be delivered into the charge of the officer of the Tower in command. A
similar escort is called for by the yeoman porter when the gates are
opened in the morning, but no ceremony takes place at that time, nor
does the guard turn out. Mediævalism is in our very midst, and here, at
all events, mediæval London still exists.
_The Tower as a Palace._--Most of our Kings from the Conqueror to
Charles II. used the Tower as a palace; those who feared their subjects
sheltered themselves there, but those who were popular preferred the
comfort of Westminster and Whitehall. Mr Clark says that 'the strong
monarchs employed the Tower as a prison, the weak ones as a fortress.'
After the Middle Ages had closed the sovereigns kept out of the Tower as
much as they could, and seldom visited it unless they were officially
obliged, and these visits were almost confined to a lodging there on the
day before the coronation. Charles II. was the last sovereign to carry
out this convention.
William I., William II. and Henry I., all three inhabited the Tower, but
it was not till the reign of Stephen that its value as a place of refuge
was proved.
With the Empress Matilda at Winchester and King Stephen at London the
state of public affairs, with sieges and countersieges, in which neither
party gained any great success, came to a deadlock. Stephen, in 1140,
sought safety in the Tower in close proximity to his trusty
followers--the Londoners, but in the following year he was made a
prisoner at Lincoln. The Londoners attended the synod at Winchester and
requested the King's release, but without avail. Geoffrey de Mandeville,
Constable of the Tower of London (whose faithless conduct in these
civil wars has been fully set out by Mr. Horace Round),[94] had been
made Earl of Essex by Stephen, but when the Empress came to London he
had no compunction in transferring his allegiance to her, for which
conduct she loaded him with honours. He was, however, short-sighted in
his action, for Matilda treated the Londoners with such contumely that
they rose against her and drove her from the city. They also attacked
Mandeville in the Tower, but this Mr. Facing-both-ways, finding that the
Empress Matilda had fled, and the Queen Matilda (Stephen's wife) taken
her place in London, saw no objection to supporting the latter's cause.
Stephen was soon afterwards released, and he again honoured Geoffrey de
Mandeville. No amount of special favour, however, was sufficient to keep
this man to his allegiance, and he planned a revolt in favour of the
Empress. This came to naught, and the King captured the fortifications
erected by the Earl at Farringdon and took him prisoner. Mandeville took
no more part in public affairs, and ended his life as a marauding
freebooter in September 1143. Thus ignominiously came to a conclusion
the career of a man who held a foremost place in London. He was not wise
in his conduct, because in the words of the Empress's charter to him, he
made the Londoners 'his mortal foes.' As Dr. Sharpe says of these same
Londoners, they 'throughout the long period of civil dissension were
generally to be found on the winning side, and held, as it were, the
balance between the rival powers.'[95]
In John's reign London opened its gates to the forces of the Barons,
organised under Robert Fitz-Walter, Castellan of London, as 'Marshal of
the army of God and Holy Church.' During the period that the Barons
were at war with John, Prince Louis of France lived in the Tower prior
to his renunciation of all right of sovereignty in England, and his
return to France.
Henry III., in 1236, summoned the Council to meet him in the Tower, but
the Barons had so little faith in their King that they refused to
assemble there. The King was satisfied to be safe in the Tower in 1263,
while Simon de Montfort, with the barons, pitched tents at Isleworth.
The Londoners were distinctly disloyal, and Stow tells us that 'when the
Queene woulde have gone by water unto Windsore, the Londoners getting
them to ye bridge in great numbers, under the which she must passe,
cryed out on her, using many vile reprochfull words, threwe durte and
stones at her, that shee was constrained to returne again to the
Towre.'[96]
In Edward I.'s reign Raymund Lully, the alchemist, is said to have taken
up his residence in the Tower at the King's desire, and to have
performed in the royal presence the experiment of transmuting some
crystal into a mass of diamond or adamant, of which the King is said to
have made little pillars for the tabernacle of God. The biographers of
Lully, however, express the belief that he never visited England.
Edward II. seldom visited the Tower, except when he sought shelter from
his subjects. His Queen gave birth there to her eldest daughter, who was
known as Jane of the Tower. His second son, John of Eltham, who was born
on August 15, 1316, was appointed Warden of the City of London and
Warden of the Tower when he was ten years of age. In 1328, a year after
his father's death, John of Eltham was created Earl of Cornwall, and in
1336 he himself died.
The first years of Edward III.'s reign were spent in the Tower, and the
King was forced to remain there till he had put down Mortimer and was
able to assume the government himself. He made many additions to the
buildings, and Clark supposes that he built the Beauchamp and Salt
Towers, and perhaps the Bowyer. The King took great pride in the Tower,
which he made his chief arsenal, and strongly fortified and garrisoned.
Hence his anger in 1340 when he unexpectedly returned to England and
found the Tower unguarded. His first act was to imprison the Constable
and other officers for their negligence. The Mayor, the Clerk of the
Exchequer, and many others whose duty it was to raise or receive the
subsidies which had been granted were thrown into prison.[97]
The Tower stands out very prominently in the history of the reign of
Richard II. We have already seen in the second chapter what crimes were
perpetrated there during the Peasants' Revolt in 1381.
In 1390 a grand international tournament was arranged, when many
foreigners of distinction became the guests of the King in the Tower.
On the 29th of September 1399, in the Council Room of the White Tower,
occurred that sad scene when Richard in his kingly robes, sceptre in
hand and crown upon his head, abdicated his throne, saying: 'I have been
King of England, Duke of Aquitaine and Lord of Ireland about twenty-one
years, which seigniory, royalty, sceptre, crown and heritage I clearly
resign here to my cousin, Henry of Lancaster; and I desire him here in
this open presence in entering the same possession to take the sceptre.'
So closed the career of a King whose sun rose with so much promise, only
to set in misfortune and leave behind him the recollection of one of the
greatest disappointments of history.
Henry VI. had a sorry time in the Tower, but the incidents connected
with the constant vicissitudes, which at one time raised the fortunes of
the Yorkists and at another those of the Lancastrians, caused so many
changes in the occupation of the Tower that it is impossible to note
here all that took place. When the Yorkist Earls of Salisbury, Warwick
and March returned to England in 1460 they marched on London, but the
Common Council determined to oppose their entrance into the city. This
arrangement was agreed on with Lords Scales and Hungerford who, with
others, held the Tower for King Henry. The citizens, however, after a
time began to doubt the wisdom of supporting the imbecile Henry, so on
July 2 they admitted the Yorkist earls into the city. While London was
thus on the side of the Yorkists the Tower remained true to the King,
but every effort was made to obtain the surrender of the fortress. The
Tower was invested by land and water, and the garrison was starved out
and had to surrender.
In the following year the Earl of March became King as Edward IV., and
made himself agreeable to his subjects. When in 1464 he married
Elizabeth Woodville the citizens showed their respect for the Queen by
riding out to meet her and escorting her to the Tower, besides
presenting her with a gift of 1000 marks.
A change occurred in 1470, when Edward had to fly and Henry was
restored. Henry VI., no longer a prisoner, was removed from his cell to
the palace, but soon afterwards he was taken to the Bishop of London's
palace at St. Paul's. In the following year, however, Edward recovered
the throne, and was let into London by the Recorder and some aldermen.
In May 1471, when Edward IV. was out of the city, Thomas (the natural
son of William Nevill, first Lord Fauconberg, Earl of Kent), known as
the Bastard Falconbridge, headed a rising of Kentish men and marched on
London in support of Henry VI. He was supported by a fleet in the
river. With the help of a company of shipmen and other followers he made
an attempt to force Bishopsgate, Aldgate, and the Bridge. Some of his
followers got through Aldgate, but the portcullis being let down those
who had entered were cut off from the main body and lost their lives. A
few days after this unsuccessful assault (May 21) King Henry was
murdered in the Tower.
The name of Richard III. was intimately associated with the Council
Chamber, and the consideration of the particulars of his violent methods
helps us to obtain a vivid picture of the dark passages filled with
armed men ready to do the wicked will of their employer.
The most memorable of these scenes occurred when the Council was
sitting. Suddenly there is a cry of 'Treason' from the adjoining
apartment. Gloucester rushes to the door and is met by a party of
soldiers, who at his command arrest all the Council but the Duke of
Buckingham. The astonished nobles have scarcely time to recover from
their surprise before they see from the windows of their prison Lord
Hastings beheaded on Tower Green.
In the following reign, when Henry VII. fixed the day for the coronation
of his Queen--November 25, 1487--she came by water from Greenwich two
days before, attended by the Mayor, Sheriffs and Aldermen, and many
citizens, chosen some from each craft, wearing their liveries, in barges
'freshly furnished with banners and streamers of silk.' One of the
barges, called the Bachelors', contained 'many gentlemanly pageants,
well and curiously devised to do her highness sport and pleasure.' The
King received the Queen at the Tower.
Much might be said of the doings of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queens Mary
and Elizabeth, James I. and Charles I., but there is no room in this
book for a complete history of the Tower, and we must therefore hurry
on in order to give some notice of a few of the celebrated prisoners.
There could never have been much accommodation in the White Tower (so
called on account of the white-washing it received in the reign of Henry
III.) as a suitable residence for the sovereign, so that as the
centuries passed and more comfort was expected by all classes, Kings and
Queens would naturally expect to be better cared for. A palace was
therefore built in the inner ward, and the Lanthorn Tower formed a part
of this palace, containing as it did the King's bed-chamber and his
private closet. These buildings appear to have fallen into decay in the
reign of Elizabeth, by whom or by James the great hall was removed. Some
were destroyed by Cromwell, and others by James II., to make room for a
new Ordnance office, and the remains of the Lanthorn Tower were taken
down late in the eighteenth century[98] (1788).
That royalty was not always well-housed may be seen by a recorded case
in the reign of Edward II. Johannes de Crombwelle, Constable of the
Tower, gave great offence to the citizens by reason of certain of his
high-handed actions, and in the end he was dismissed from his office,
but the reason given for his dismissal was not on account of the
offensive acts complained of, but for neglect of duties, by which the
rooms were allowed to remain out of repair, and because the rain came in
upon the Queen's bed.[99]
Some particulars are given in the _Liber Albus_ respecting the legal
position of the Tower. When the Exchequer was closed the Mayor was to be
presented at the Tower, and the Pleas of the City with the Crown were
sometimes held there; and when this was the case the city barons were to
place their own 'janitors'
[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S CHAPEL IN THE TOWER.]
outside the Tower gate, and the King's janitor was to be on the inside.
They further had an 'ostiarius' outside the door of the hall when the
pleas were held, to introduce the barons, and the King had an
'ostiarius' inside. Mr. Clark supposes the hall to have been the
building afterwards superseded by the office of Ordnance, 'and the
entrance to which is thought to have been by the modernised doorway
close east of the Wakefield Tower.'[100]
St. John's Chapel is one of the most interesting ecclesiastical
buildings in England. It is a singularly fine example of Early Norman
architecture, and many historical events are associated with it. The
triforium was used as a gallery, and it is supposed that the Queens and
their maids of honour sat there at the services.
It is traditionally reported that in front of the old altar (now
replaced by a new one) Brackenbury, when kneeling at prayer, was tempted
by the emissaries of Richard of Gloucester to make away with the young
Princes--a suggestion which he indignantly repudiated. Here also Mary I.
was betrothed to Philip of Spain.
One important appanage of the palace was the menagerie of wild beasts,
which was placed near the entrance at a very early date. Henry I. kept
lions and leopards, and Henry III. added to the collection. Stow tells
us that in the year 1235 Frederick the Emperor sent to Henry III. three
leopards in token of his regal shield of arms wherein those leopards
were pictured, since the which time those lions and others have been
kept in a part of this bulwark, now called the Lion Tower, and their
keepers there lodged. In 1255 the sheriffs built a house 'for the King's
elephant,' which was brought from France and was the first seen in
England.
Edward II., in the twelfth year of his reign, 'commanded the Sheriffs of
London to pay to the keeper of the King's leopard sixpence the day for
the sustenance of the leopard, and three halfpence a day for diet of the
said keeper.'
Edward III. appears to have taken much pride in his menagerie, and in
1364 a proclamation was issued by the King for the safe keeping of a
beast called an 'oure,' which was in danger from certain persons who
threatened to do grievous harm to the keepers, 'and atrociously to kill
the said beast.' Mr. Riley, who prints the proclamation in his
_Memorials_, supposes the animal to be either the urus, aurochs or
bison, from the east of Europe, or the Ihrwy from Morocco.
The proclamation addressed to the Mayor and Sheriff runs thus: 'We,
wishing to preserve the said keepers and the beast from injury and
grievance, do command you that in the city aforesaid and the suburbs
thereof, where you shall deem most expedient, you do cause public
proclamation to be made, and it on our behalf strictly to be forbidden,
that any person, native or stranger, of whatsoever condition he may be,
on pain of forfeiting unto us as much as he may forfeit, shall have the
audacity to do any damage, violence, misprision or grievance unto the
said keepers or to the beast, which we have so taken under our
protection and especial defence, or to any of them, or shall presume to
intermeddle for getting a sight of the said beast, against the will of
them, the keepers thereof. And if you shall know anyone to attempt the
contrary hereof, then you are so to punish them that the same punishment
may deter all others from attempting the like; and to answer unto us as
to such forfeiture, in manner as is befitting.'[101]
In later times the collection of wild beasts must have been
considerable, and Stow relates in his _Chronicle_ how trials of strength
between the animals were exhibited before the royal family. On the 23rd
of June 1609 'the King, Queene, and Prince, the Lady Elizabeth and the
Duke of Yorke, with divers great lords and manie others, came to the
Tower to see a triall of the lyon's single valour, against a great
fierce beare, which had kild a child, that was negligently left in the
beare-house. This fierce beare was brought into the open yard, behind
the lyon's den, which was the place for fight.' Two mastiffs let into
the yard passed the bear and attacked the lion. Then a stallion and six
dogs were introduced. The dogs worried the horse till three stout
bear-wards drove them off, the bear and lion looking on. The latter was
allowed to escape to his den, and other lions were brought out, but none
would attack the bear. On the 5th of July this same bear was baited to
death.
On the 10th April 1610 Prince Henry and attendant nobles went privately
to the Tower to see a fight between the great lion and four dogs. The
dogs got the better of the lion, and another lion and lioness were
brought to see if they would help the first lion, but they would not,
and all three were glad to escape to their dens.[102] The few animals
that remained in the menagerie in the nineteenth century were removed to
the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park in 1834.
_The Tower as a Prison._--It is as a State prison that the Tower is most
associated in our memories. Here have been confined some of the noblest
of English men and women, but besides these there were others who have
richly deserved their fate. Some of the prisoners lodged here only for a
time, but the majority found it to be merely the threshold of death.
The first prisoner was Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, the hated
Minister of William Rufus. On that King's death, Henry I., with the
advice of his Council, shut the bishop up in one of the topmost chambers
of the White Tower. Flambard was not very carefully guarded, and he used
the liberal allowance put aside for him in providing drink for his
keepers. He received a rope in a flagon from friends outside, and while
his gaolers were drunk, he managed to escape by its means on the night
of 4th February 1101. Although the rope proved too short, and he was
injured by his fall, he reached Normandy safely.
Five years after this, the Count of Mortain, who was taken prisoner by
Henry I., was imprisoned in the Tower, as we learn from the testimony of
Eadmer.
The Jews in large numbers were thrown into the Tower in 1282. The Welsh
next furnished victims, and then the Scots. The Battle of Dunbar in 1296
caused many prisoners, including the King, John Balliol, and a host of
his nobility to fall into the hands of Edward I. In 1303 the King's
treasury was robbed while Edward I. was in Scotland, and suspicion fell
upon the Abbot and Monks of Westminster. The sacristan, sub-prior and
others were imprisoned in the Tower. The whole affair is very difficult
to understand, but it was fully investigated by order of the King, and
there can be no doubt that some members of the monastery were deeply
implicated. It created a great scandal, and was one of the most
remarkable crimes ever committed. Mr. L. O. Pike gives a full account of
the incidents in his _History of Crime in England_, 1873 (vol. i.), and
says: 'It is quite evident that an enterprise which required more than
four months for its accomplishment could not have been successful had
there been no collusion within the abbey gates. The findings of the
various juries point to a deep-laid conspiracy between some persons in
the abbey and others in the neighbouring palace.'
Wallace in 1305 found a prison here before he was drawn through
Cheapside and executed in Smithfield.
The Order of the Knights Templar was abolished in 1313, and all the
members south of the Trent were imprisoned in the Tower, where the
master died.
The earliest drawing of the Tower which has come down to us contains a
curious picture of the building, and a representation of the incidents
of the captivity of Charles,
[Illustration: DUKE OF ORLEANS IN THE TOWER.
(_From a copy of MS. in the British Museum._)]
Duke of Orleans, who was taken prisoner at the Battle of Agincourt. This
interesting picture is in one of the MSS. (Roy MS. 16 F. 2) in the
British Museum. As was the custom of the early artists, a succession of
incidents in the life of the prisoner are depicted in the same drawing.
The duke is seen at a turret window, then writing at a desk in a large
chamber. At the foot of the White Tower he is embracing the messenger
who brings him his ransom. He is then seen mounting his horse, and he
and a friendly messenger ride away from the Tower. Lastly, we see him in
a barge with lusty rowers pulling down the stream for the boat which is
to carry him home to France.
There were two places of execution, that on Tower Hill (under the
authority of the governors of the city), and the other on Tower Green
within the Tower walls. Edward IV. set up a scaffold and gallows upon
Tower Hill, but the City of London insisted upon their ancient right of
dealing with offenders within their own precincts, so the King's
scaffold and gallows were taken down with many apologies, and the
sheriffs maintained their ancient privileges of headings and hangings
beyond the Tower walls. The city boundary existed within the Tower, and
in James I.'s reign a question arose as to whether or no Sir Thomas
Overbury's murder was committed within the city. As his apartment was
situated on the west of the boundary, the criminals came under the
jurisdiction of the city.
The place of execution on Tower Green is a spot of hallowed memories. It
was marked off and railed in by command of Queen Victoria. Lord Hastings
was probably beheaded here in 1483, and among the distinguished names of
those who suffered on this spot are Anne Boleyn in 1536; Margaret Pole,
Countess of Salisbury, daughter of the Duke of Clarence and mother of
Cardinal Pole in 1541; Katherine Howard, and Jane, Viscountess
Rochford, sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn, in 1542; Lady Jane Grey in 1554;
and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, in 1601.
The Chapel of St. Peter's ad Vincula was probably first built by Henry
II., although the earliest mention of it occurs in the year 1210. It was
burnt in 1512, and rebuilt as we see it now about 1532. The great
interest of this chapel centres round the names of the great who having
suffered in life now rest in this temple of the dead. A tablet on the
wall contains a list of the most distinguished of these names.
The Beauchamp Tower is one of the most interesting of the buildings, as
it is full of inscriptions on the walls cut by the prisoners.
Close by is the Yeoman Gaoler's lodging, where probably Lady Jane Grey
stood to see her husband taken from Beauchamp Tower to execution on
Tower Hill.
Sir Walter Raleigh was three times a prisoner in the Tower, and he was
very differently treated each time. In Elizabeth's reign he could
converse with those outside from the walk near the Bloody Tower, which
is named after him. In James's reign he had for a fellow-prisoner Henry,
ninth Earl of Northumberland, known as 'the Wizard Earl.' The great
philosopher Thomas Harriott was allowed to visit the two prisoners, and
he travelled on the Thames between the Tower and Sion House, bringing
from the latter place books out of the earl's library for the solace of
Northumberland and Raleigh.
With Traitor's Gate we end this sad eventful history. Samuel Rogers
wrote in his poem of 'Human Life':--
'On through that gate misnamed, through which before
Went Sidney, Russell, Raleigh, Cranmer, More.'
These are great names, but there are others. The
[Illustration]
Duke of Buckingham in 1521 was taken to Westminster in a barge furnished
with a carpet and cushions. After his trial and condemnation for the
crime of being too nearly related to the throne he refused the seat of
honour on his return to prison, crying: 'When I came to Westminster I
was Lord High Constable and Duke of Buckingham, but now--poor Edward
Bohun!'
The Princess Elizabeth, in her sister Mary's reign, refused at first to
land at Traitor's Gate, but agreed at last, using these words: 'Here
landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed at these
stairs, and before Thee, O God! I speak it, having none other friend but
Thee.'
What misery and what cruelty a full record of the sufferings of the
prisoners in the Tower would unfold to our view. Some of the prisoners
reaped the natural consequences of their actions, for they were on the
losing side. But others were most unnaturally treated, and among these
were noble women whose only fault was that they were related to persons
obnoxious to those in power.
In later times imprisonment became somewhat of a farce. Great nobles,
unpopular statesmen and others who were in disgrace were sent to the
Tower. It still sounded a serious punishment, but the practice gradually
fell into disfavour, because people would no longer allow of the
beheading of unpopular statesmen.
CHAPTER VI
_Manners_
Our notices of the sports of mediæval London must commence with a
reference to the curious essay of the monk Fitz-Stephen, who was the
first to describe the chief features of London history.
'Moreover, to begin with the sports of the boys (for we have all been
boys) annually on the day which is called Shrovetide, the boys of the
respective schools bring each a fighting-cock to their master, and the
whole of that forenoon is spent by the boys in seeing their cocks fight
in the schoolroom. After dinner all the young men of the city go out
into the fields to play at the well-known game of football.[103] The
scholars belonging to the several schools have each their ball, and the
city tradesmen, according to their respective crafts, have theirs. The
more aged men, the fathers of the players, and the wealthy citizens come
on horseback to see the contests of the young men, with whom, after
their manner, they participate, their natural heat seeming to be aroused
by the sight of so much agility, and by their participation in the
amusements of unrestrained youth. Every Sunday in Lent, after dinner, a
company of young men enter the fields mounted on warlike horses--
'"On coursers always foremost in the race,"
of which
'"Each steed's well-trained to gallop in a ring."
The lay sons of the citizens rush out of the gates in crowds equipped
with lances and shields, the younger sort with pikes from which the iron
head has been taken off, and there they get up sham fights and exercise
themselves in military combat. When the King happens to be near the city
most of the courtiers attend, and the young men who form the households
of the earls and barons, and have not yet attained the honour of
knighthood, resort thither for the purpose of trying their skill.'
Then Fitz-Stephen tells of the sports on the river, but these remarks
have already been referred to in the fourth chapter. The description of
the sports of summer and winter are then continued. We find a curious
account of the Londoner's delight both in sliding and skating, and his
contempt for the dangers of the sports.
'During the holydays in summer the young men exercise themselves in the
sports of leaping, archery, wrestling, stone-throwing, slinging javelins
beyond a mark, and also fighting with bucklers. Cytherea leads the
dances of the maidens, who merrily trip along the ground beneath the
uprisen moon. Almost on every holyday in winter, before dinner, foaming
boars and huge-tusked hogs, intended for bacon, fight for their lives,
or fat bulls or immense boars are baited with dogs. When that great
marsh which washes the walls of the city on the north side is frozen
over, the young men go out in crowds to divert themselves upon the ice.
Some having increased their velocity by a run, placing their feet apart
and turning their bodies sideways, slide a great way; others make a seat
of large pieces of ice like mill-stones, and a great number of them
running before, and holding each other by the hand, draw one of their
companions who is seated on the ice; if at any time they slip in moving
so swiftly, all fall down headlong together. Others are more expert in
their sports upon the ice; for fitting to and binding under their feet
the shin-bones of some animal, and taking in their hands poles shod with
iron, which at times they strike against the ice, they are carried along
with as great rapidity as a bird flying, or a bolt discharged from a
cross-bow. Sometimes two of the skaters having placed themselves a great
distance apart, by mutual agreement come together from opposite sides;
they meet, raise their poles, and strike each other; either one or both
of them fall, not without some bodily hurt; even after their fall they
are carried along to a great distance from each other by the velocity of
the motion, and whatever part of their heads comes in contact with the
ice is laid bare to the very skull. Very frequently the leg or arm of
the falling one, if he chance to light upon either of them, is broken.
But youth is an age eager for glory and desirous of victory, and so
young men engage in counterfeit battles that they may conduct themselves
more valiantly in real ones. Most of the citizens amuse themselves in
sporting with martins, hawks and other birds of a like kind, and also
with dogs that hunt in the wood.'
It was one thing to go out into the fields to play these games, but when
there was a large population within the walls it must have been very
inconvenient to the inhabitants to find the streets occupied by
footballers. The practice seems to have been allowed until it became a
public nuisance. In the year 1406 proclamation was issued forbidding
hocking in streets of London: 'Let proclamation be made that no person
of this city, or within the suburbs thereof, of whatsoever estate or
condition such person may be, whether man or woman, shall, in any
street or lane thereof, take hold of or constrain any person, of
whatsoever estate or condition he may be, within house or without, for
hokkyng on the Monday or Tuesday next, called Hokkedayes, on pain of
imprisonment, and of making fine at the discretion of the Mayor and
Aldermen.'[104]
Hock Monday and Tuesday were the Monday and Tuesday following the second
Sunday after Easter day, and Spelman describes the sport of hocking as
consisting 'in the men and women binding each other, and especially the
women the men.' Hone writes (_Every Day Book_): 'Tuesday was the
principal day, Hock Monday was for the men and Hock Tuesday for the
women. On both days the men and women alternately, with great merriment,
intercepted the public roads with ropes and pulled passengers to them,
from whom they exacted money to be laid out for pious uses. Monday
probably having been originally kept as only the vigil or introduction
to the festival of Hock-day.'
The proclamation of 1406 does not seem to have been effectual, and
therefore three years afterwards another proclamation was issued against
'Hokkyng, Foteballe and Cokthresshyng.' The prohibition of hocking is
expressed in the same terms as in the proclamation of 1406, and to this
is added the following: 'And that no person shall levy money, or cause
it to be levied, for the games called "foteballe" and "cokthreshyng"
because of marriages that have recently taken place in the said city, or
the suburbs thereof, on pain of imprisonment, and of making fine at the
discretion of the Mayor and aldermen.'[105]
Cock-throwing and football were specially in season at Shrovetide, and
at that time it was difficult for the authorities to hold the Londoners
in hand, and prevent them from making the streets their playground.
The cases of punishment already referred to are connected with
prohibitions, but in 1389 a curious case of a fine inflicted for
stopping a procession on the festival of Corpus Christi is recorded. A
citizen was brought before the Mayor, and the sheriffs, recorder, and
aldermen, to answer for having prevented a procession from passing
through his house, which the parishioners believed to be their right.
It is one thing for the inhabitants of a small town like Helstone, in
Cornwall, to pass through houses without hindrance on Furry day, and
quite another for the same right to be claimed in London, even in the
Middle Ages. The case is so remarkable that it seems well to quote the
whole statement:--
'Because that by the reputable men of the parish of St. Nicholas Acon,
Nicholas Twyford, Knight, Mayor of the City of London, was given to
understand that whereas they, time out of mind, had been wont and
accustomed to have free ingress and egress with their procession, on the
befitting and usual days, through the middle of a certain house
belonging to John Basse, citizen and draper of London, situate in the
parish of St. Mary Abbechirche, in London; the aforesaid John, together
with John Creek, draper, and others of their covin, on Thursday, the
Feast of Corpus Christi last past, armed with divers arms, guarded the
house before mentioned by main force, and would not allow the
parishioners of the Church of St. Nicholas aforesaid to enter the house
with their procession, as they had been wont to do, but grievously
threatened them as to life and limb; in breach of the peace of our Lord
the King, and to the manifest disturbance of the tranquillity of the
city aforesaid:--for the said reason the same John and John were
arrested.'
'Afterwards, on the 26th day of June, in the thirteenth year, etc., they
were brought before the said Mayor and the sheriffs, recorder, and
aldermen, in the chamber of the Guildhall, and were there questioned as
to the matter aforesaid, and were asked how they would acquit themselves
thereof; whereupon they acknowledged that they were guilty of all the
things above imputed to them, and put themselves upon the favour of the
court as to the same; and counsel having been held hereon, according to
the usage of the city in like cases, it was adjudged that the said John
Basse, as being the principal and the prime mover in the contempt
aforesaid, should have imprisonment for one year then next ensuing, to
commence from the Friday next after the Feast of St. Botolph [17th
June], namely, Friday the 18th day of June then last past; and that on
his leaving prison he should pay to the Chamberlain of the Guildhall 200
marks, to the use of the commonalty, for the contempt aforesaid; unless
he should meet with increased favour in the meantime. And that the
aforesaid John Creek, for the contempt so by him committed, should have
imprisonment for half a year after the said Friday next ensuing; and
that on his leaving prison he should pay to the aforesaid Chamberlain
100 marks to the use of the commonalty, unless he should meet with
increased favour in the meantime'[106]
These were truly exemplary damages, and we find that the imprisonment
was remitted on the same day, and the fines were respectively reduced to
£15 and 100s.[107]
Besides sports in the streets, there was a constant succession of
pageants, processions and tournaments in the Middle Ages, which made the
streets gay, and brought out most of the inhabitants to see the sights.
The royal processions arranged in connection with coronations were of
great antiquity, but one of the earliest to be described is that of
Henry III., in 1236, which was chronicled by Matthew Paris. After the
marriage at Canterbury of the King with Eleanor of Provence, the royal
personages came to London, and were met by the Mayor, aldermen, and
principal citizens, to the number of 360, sumptuously apparelled in
silken robes embroidered, riding upon stately horses.
A very interesting point is mentioned by Matthew Paris, viz., that each
man carried a gold or silver cup in his hand, in token of the privilege
claimed by the city, of the Mayor being Chief Butler of the kingdom at
the coronation. Something further respecting this claim will be found in
the eighth chapter of this book. On this occasion the streets of the
city were adorned with rich silks, pageants, and a variety of pompous
shows; and the citizens attending the King and Queen to Westminster had
the honour of officiating at the Queen's coronation. At night the city
was illuminated with an infinite number of lamps, cressets, etc.
After the death of Henry III. (1272) the country had to wait for their
new King, who was then in the Holy Land. Edward I. came to London on the
2nd of August 1274, where he was received with the wildest expressions
of joy. The streets were hung with rich cloths of silk, arras and
tapestry; the aldermen and principal men of the city threw out of their
windows handfuls of gold and silver, to signify their gladness at the
King's return; and the conduits ran with wine, both white and red. The
coronation took place on the 19th of August.
The happy married life of Edward I. and Eleanor of Castile came to an
end in 1290, and in connection with her death was arranged the most
striking and most beautiful expression of a husband's and a nation's
love in our history.
The Queen died in Harby, Lincolnshire, and the funeral procession came
slowly to London and Westminster. Beautiful crosses were afterwards
placed on the various spots where each night the body stopped. Two of
these stopping-places were in London--at Cheapside, beneath the shadow
of old St. Paul's, and at Charing Cross, on the way to Westminster,
where the Queen's beautiful tomb remains as one of the chief glories of
our wonderful Abbey Church.
[Illustration: CHEAPSIDE CROSS.]
Cheapside Cross was 're-edified' in 1441, and afterwards newly gilt and
newly burnished. Defaced and repaired at different times, little was
left of the original when the cross was cleared away in 1647, at the
same time as Charing Cross.
Only three of the original Eleanor crosses remain: two in
Northamptonshire--one at Geddington, and the other at Northampton, and
the third at Waltham Cross. Every Englishman should be proud of these
glorious records of a past age, which not only tell of the devoted love
of two sovereigns, of whom we all must be proud, but also because they
prove the high state of English art at this time. Until late years, when
certain documents were discovered containing the names of the artists,
the historians of art attempted to believe that the designs were too
good for Englishmen, and must have been made by foreigners.
In order to establish peace between England and France, King Edward
married Margaret of France, sister of the French King, at Canterbury in
1299, and in the following year she first came to London.
The citizens, to the number of 600, rode in one livery of red and white,
with the cognisance of their mistress embroidered upon their sleeves,
and received her four miles without the city, and so conveyed her to
Westminster.[108]
Edward I. was buried at Westminster on October 27, 1307, and his son on
coming to the throne recalled Piers Gaveston from banishment; he made
him Regent of the kingdom when he crossed to France to be married to
Isabella, the daughter of Philip IV. In February 1307-1308 Edward II.
returned to England with his bride, and was joyfully received by the
citizens. On the 24th they were crowned at Westminster. The King, we are
told by Stow, offered on the altar first a pound of gold made like a
King holding a ring in his hand, and then a mark of gold (8 ounces) made
like a pilgrim putting forth his hand to receive the ring. The crush was
very great at this coronation, and in it Sir John Blackwell was killed.
In November 1312, Queen Isabel announced to the Mayor her safe delivery
of a son in the following letter: 'Isabel, by the grace of God, Queen of
England, Lady of Ireland, and Duchess of Aquitaine, to our well-beloved,
the Mayor and aldermen and the commonalty of London, greeting. Forasmuch
as we believe that you would willingly hear good tidings of us, we do
make known unto you that our Lord of His grace has delivered us of a
son' [afterwards Edward III.]. The Mayor and aldermen and commonalty, on
hearing the news, 'assembled in the Guildhall at time of vespers and
carolled, and showed great joy thereat; and so passed through the city
with great glare of torches, and with trumpets and other minstrelsies.
And on the Tuesday next, early in the morning, cry was made throughout
all the city to the effect that there was to be no work, labour, or
business in shop on that day; but that everyone was to apparel himself
in the most becoming manner that he could, and come to the Guildhall at
the hour of prime, ready to go with the Mayor, together with the [other]
good folks, to St. Paul's, there to make praise and offering to the
honour of God, who had shown them such favour on earth, and to show
respect for this child that had been born.'
At the beginning of the next week all went richly costumed to
Westminster, riding on horseback, and there made offering. After dinner
in the Guildhall, 'they went in carols throughout the city all the rest
of the day and great part of the night.' The conduit of Chepe ran with
nothing but wine, and a pavilion extended in the middle of the street
near Brokencross (at the north door of St. Paul's), in which was set a
tun of wine, for all passers-by to drink of. In the following February
the Fishmongers Company caused a boat to be fitted out in the guise of a
great ship, to be drawn to Westminster and presented to the Queen. The
Fishmongers, very richly costumed, escorted the Queen through the city
on the same day, on her way to Canterbury on pilgrimage.[109]
In 1330 there was an accident during the progress of a great tournament
in Cheapside, which was part of an entertainment offered by the citizens
to the young King (Edward III.) and Queen at the birth of their first
son. The Queen Philippa displayed the same good qualities which on a
later occasion she showed after the surrender of Calais, and thereby
secured a lasting fame as a good woman. Stow relates the event as
follows: 'There was a very solemn justing of all the stout earls, barons
and nobles at London in Cheap, betwixt the great Cross and the great
Conduit nigh Soper Lane, which lasted three days, where the Queen
Philippa, with many ladies, fell from a stage, notwithstanding they were
not hurt at all, wherefore the Queen took great care to save the
carpenters from punishment, and through her prayer (which she made on
her knees) she pacified the King and Council, whereby she purchased
great love of the people.'
This accident was the cause of Edward III. ordering the construction in
stone of a shed (seldam) on the north side of Bow Church, so that the
royal party might in future be able to view the joustings and other
shows with safety. Edward III. was for some years the most popular of
our monarchs, for he was constantly conquering his enemies, and his
people were proud of him. In 1343 a great triumph was organised in his
honour, which is described in Sir William Segar's _Honour Militarie and
Civil_. The King commanded that the tournament should be proclaimed in
France, Henault, Flanders, Brabant and other places, 'giving passport
and secure abode to all noble strangers that would resort into England.'
The triumph took place in London, and continued for fifteen days.
Dr. Jessopp gives us a vivid picture of what occurred four years
afterwards 'when King Edward III. entered London in triumph on the 14th
of October 1347, he was the foremost man in Europe, and England had
reached a height of power and glory such as she had never attained
before. At the Battle of Creci, France had received a crushing blow, and
by the loss of Calais, after an eleven months' siege, she had been
reduced well-nigh to the lowest point of humiliation. David II., King of
Scotland, was now lying a prisoner in the Tower of London. Louis of
Bavaria had just been killed by a fall from his horse, the imperial
throne was vacant, and the electors in eager haste proclaimed that they
had chosen the King of England to succeed. To their discomfiture the
King of England declined the proffered crown. He "had other views."
Intoxicated by the splendour of their sovereign and his martial renown,
and the success which seemed to attend him wherever he showed himself,
the English people had gone mad with exultation.'[110]
Two years later (in 1349) the fearful pestilence, known of late years as
the Black Death, was destroying half the population of the country.
One of the most interesting of London processions was that which took
place when the chivalrous Black Prince brought his prisoners to England
in 1357. Stow's account of this historic scene is so vivid that it needs
must be transferred to these pages without paraphrase: 'Edward, Prince
of Wales, returning into England with John, the French King, Phillip,
his sonne, and many other prysoners, arrived at Plimmouth on the fifth
of May, and the foure-and-twentieth of May entered London with them,
where he was received with great honour of the cittizens, and so
conveyed to the King's pallace at Westminster, where the King, sitting
in his estate in Westminster Hall, received them, and after conveyed the
French King to a lodging, where he lay a season; and after the sayd
French King was lodged in the Savoy (which was then a pleasant place,
belonging to the Duke of Lancaster). In the winter following were great
and royal justs holden in Smithfield at London, where many knightly
sights of armes were done to the great honour of the King and realme, at
the which were present the Kings of Englande, France and Scotland, with
many noble estates of all those kingdomes, whereof the more part of the
strangers were prisoners.'
The King of France remained a prisoner for three years, but in 1360 King
Edward marched upon Paris, and peace was made to the joy of the French,
although the English gained a third of that kingdom by the Peace of
Bretigny. When the peace was confirmed Edward III. came to England, 'and
so straight to the Tower to see the French King, where he appointed his
ransome to bee three millions of florences, and so delivered him of all
imprisonment, and brought him with great honour to the sea, who then
sayled over into France.'[111]
On the 8th of June 1376, that 'flower of chivalry,' the Black Prince,
died in the Archbishop's Palace at Canterbury. His young son Richard was
then created by the King Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall, and Prince
of Wales. At Christmas the Londoners formed a torchlight procession from
the city to Kennington in honour of the Prince:--
'On the Sunday before Candlemas, in the night, one hundred and thirty
citizens, disguised and well horsed, in a mummery with sounds of
trumpets, large trumpets, horns, shealms, and other minstrels, and
innumerable torchlights of wax, rode from Newgate through Cheap over the
Bridge, through Southwark, and so to Kennington, besides Lambeth, where
the young Prince remained with his mother.... In the first rank did ride
forty-eight, in the likeness and habit of esquires, two and two
together, cloathed in red coats, and gowns of say or sandale, with
comely vizors on their faces. After them came riding forty-eight knights
in the same livery of colour and stuff. Then followed one richly arrayed
like an Emperor, and after him at some distance one stately attired like
a Pope, whom followed twenty-four Cardinals, and after them eight or ten
with black vizors not amiable, as if they had been legates from some
foreign princes.
'These maskers, after they had entered the manor of Kennington, alighted
from their horses, and entered the hall on foot, which done, the Prince,
his mother, and the Lords came out of the Chamber into the Hall, whom
the said mummers did salute, shewing by a pair of dice on the table
their desire to play with the Prince, which they so handled that the
Prince did always win when they cast them. Then the mummers set to the
Prince three jewels one after another, which were a bowl of gold, a cup
of gold, and a ring of gold, which the Prince won at three casts.
'Then they set to the Prince's mother, the duke [John of Gaunt], the
earls, and other lords, to every one a ring of gold, which they did also
win. After which they were feasted, and the music sounded; the Prince
and the lords danced on the one part with the mummers, who did also
dance, which jollity being needed they were again made to drink, and
then departed in order as they came.'[112]
On the 21st of June following (1377) Edward III., deserted by his
mistress, Alice Perress, and his courtiers, and attended by a solitary
priest, died at Shene (now Richmond). Before the breath was out of his
body the citizens waited upon the young Prince Richard, and offered
their allegiance, requesting him to come to London. In Walsingham's
Chronicle there is an account of a pageant in honour of the young King
in the following month. On the Feast of St. Swithin the Mayor and
citizens assembled near the Tower, when King Richard, clad in white
garments, came forth with a great multitude in his suite, also dressed
in white. The streets were hung with cloth of gold and silver and silken
stuff, and the conduits ran wine for three hours. At the upper end of
Cheapside was erected a castle with four towers. In the towers were
placed four beautiful virgins, of stature and age like to the King,
apparelled in white; these damsels on the King's approach blew in his
face leaves of gold and threw on him and his horse counterfeit golden
florins. When he was come before the castle they took cups of gold, and
filling them with wine at the spouts of the castle, presented the same
to the King and his nobles. On the top of the castle, betwixt the
towers, stood a golden angel, holding a crown in his hands, and so
contrived that when the King came he bowed down and offered him the
crown.
There was infinite variety in these pageants, and they were very
frequent during the Middle Ages, and long after, but the too full
description of them is likely to become monotonous. It will therefore be
sufficient to refer to some of the other rejoicings in a more succinct
manner.
On Friday after the Epiphany, 1382, the Mayor, aldermen and Commons rode
to meet the new Queen, Anne of Bohemia, and conducted her through the
city. All the crafts were charged to wear nothing but red and black.
In 1392 Richard II. wanted to borrow £1000 from the Londoners. However,
they not only refused, but killed a certain Lombard who would have lent
the sum. The King was very angry and deposed the Mayor, imprisoning him
in Windsor Castle, and the sheriffs and various prominent citizens in
other prisons. Finding that they were in a bad case, the citizens
repented and offered the King £10,000. Richard, learning that the
Londoners were 'in heaviness and dismayed,' said to his men, as Stow
tells us: 'I will go to London and comfort the citizens, and will not
that they any longer despaire of my favour.' On leaving Shene he was met
on Wandsworth Common by four hundred of the citizens on horseback, clad
in one livery, who in the most humble manner, craving pardon for their
past offences, besought him by their recorder to take his way to his
palace at Westminster through the city of London. The request having
been granted, the King pursued his journey to Southwark, where at St.
George's Church he was met by a procession of the Bishop of London, and
all the religions of every degree, and above five hundred boys in
surplices. At London Bridge a white steed and milk-white palfrey, both
saddled, bridled and caparisoned in cloth of gold, were presented to the
King and Queen. The citizens received them standing in their liveries on
each side of the street, crying: 'King Richard, King Richard.' Handsome
presents were made to the King and Queen, who proceeded to St. Paul's;
after the offerings had been made there the Mayor accompanied the King
to Westminster. On the following day the citizens again went to the
palace with presents, and received a new confirmation of their
liberties. They had, however, to present a golden tablet of the story of
Edward the Confessor for the shrine of that royal saint, and were
further mulcted in a heavy tax.
Seven years after this the principal actors were changed, and Henry,
Duke of Lancaster, approached London with Richard as a captive. He was
received in great pomp by the Mayor, aldermen and sheriffs, and all the
several companies in their formalities, with the people incessantly
crying: 'Long live the good Duke of Lancaster, our deliverer!'
On the 13th of October, in the same year (1399), Henry went in great
pomp from the Tower to Westminster, and there was crowned.
In 1413 Henry V. passed in procession from the Tower through London to
Westminster, where he was crowned. But though there was a brave show on
this occasion it was as nothing to what was provided to do honour to the
King's return from the glorious field of Agincourt in 1415. The Mayor
and aldermen, apparelled in Orient-grained scarlet, and four hundred
Commoners in murrey, well mounted, with rich collars and chains, met the
King at Blackheath; and the clergy of London, in solemn procession, with
rich crosses, sumptuous copes and many censers, received him at St.
Thomas of Waterings, a place on the Old Kent Road, which Chaucer's
pilgrims passed when they had gone about two miles from the Tabard. At
the entrance of London Bridge, on the top of the tower, stood a gigantic
figure, bearing in his right hand an axe, and in his left the keys of
the city hanging to a staff, as if he had been the porter. By his side
stood a woman of scarcely less stature, intended for his wife. Around
them were a band of trumpets and other wind instruments. The towers were
adorned with banners of the royal arms, and in the front of them was
inscribed--CIVITAS REGIS JUSTICIE.
Henry V. made another triumphant entry into London with his bride
Katharine of France, who was crowned at Westminster Abbey on the 14th of
February 1421. On the 31st of August following the King died in France.
On the 14th of November 1422 the infant, Henry VI., was carried through
the city to the Parliament at Westminster on the lap of his mother, who
sat in an open chair.
On the 6th of November 1429 the young King was crowned in Westminster
Abbey. The coronation was a very imposing ceremony. At the commencement
of the proceedings the Archbishop of Canterbury made proclamation at the
four corners of the scaffold on which the King sat. He spoke as follows:
'Syrys, here comythe Harry, Kyng Harry the V. ys sone, humylyche to God
and Hooly Chyrche, askynge the crowne of thys realme by ryght and
discent of herytage. Yf ye holde you welle plesyd with alle and wylle be
plesyd with hym, say you nowe, ye! and holde uppe youre hondys.' Then
all the people with one voice cried, 'Yea, yea.'[113]
Henry VI. was crowned in France on the 7th of December 1431 by Cardinal
Beaufort his uncle (Bishop of Winchester), and on his return to England
he was met at Blackheath by the Mayor and citizens on the 21st of
February 1431-1432. The Mayor and aldermen were dressed in scarlet, and
the members of the gilds in white, with the cognisances of their crafts
on their sleeves. The figure of a mighty giant, with a drawn sword,
stood at the entrance of the bridge. When the King had passed the first
gate and was arrived at the drawbridge, he found a goodly tower, hung
with silk and cloth of arras, out of which suddenly appeared three
ladies, clad in gold and silk, with coronets upon their head; of which
the first was Dame Nature, the second Dame Grace, and the third Dame
Fortune. On each side of these dames were seven virgins, all clothed in
white; those on the right presented the King with the seven gifts of the
Holy Ghost--sapience, intelligence, good counsel, strength, cunning,
pity, and dread of God; those on the left with the seven gifts of
grace--the crown of glory, the sceptre of clemency and pity, the sword
of might and victory, the mantle of prudence, the shield of faith, the
helmet of health, and the girdle of love and perfect peace.
On Cornhill was a tabernacle of curious work, in which stood Dame
Sapience, and around her the seven liberal arts--Grammar, Logic,
Rhetoric, Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy.
At the conduit in Cornhill was set a circular pageant, on the summit
whereof was a child of wonderful beauty, apparelled like a King, upon
whose right hand sat Lady Mercy, on his left Lady Truth, and over them
stood Dame Clemency embracing the King's throne.
At the conduit in Cheap there were formed several wells--the Well of
Mercy, the Well of Grace, and the Well of Pity, and at each a lady
standing who administered the water to such as would ask it, and then
the water was turned into good wine. A little further west was a tower
ornamented with the arms of England and France. By its side stood two
green trees, one bearing the genealogy of Saint Edward and the other
that of Saint Louis.
On entering St. Paul's Churchyard Henry VI. was met by a procession of
the dean and canons, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and six bishops, who
conducted him to the Cathedral, where he made his oblations. He then
took horse at the west door of St. Paul's, and so rode to Westminster,
where he was received by the abbot and taken to St. Edward's shrine. His
lords then conveyed him to his palace, and the Mayor and citizens
returned joyously to London.[113]
This was probably the most elaborate and beautiful pageant ever
performed in the streets of London.
The King married Margaret of Anjou in 1445, and on approaching London,
on the way to her coronation, the Queen was met on Blackheath by the
Mayor, aldermen and sheriffs and the principal members of the gilds,
attired in 'browne blue,' with embroidered sleeves and red hoods on
their heads, every craft having its cognisance, who brought her with
great triumph to Westminster. There were on this occasion several
pageants of a similar character to those described before.
In 1461, after the Battle of Mortimer Cross and the second Battle of St.
Alban's, Edward Earl of March came to London with his forces and was
chosen King in St. John's Field, Clerkenwell, on March 2. King Edward's
title was set forth in a sermon at Paul's Cross by the Bishop of
Exeter. After the sermon the king was conveyed in procession to
Westminster Abbey, and after having offered at St. Edward's shrine he
went to Westminster Hall and, sitting in the royal seat, was greeted
with shouts of 'Long live the King!' He then returned to St. Paul's, and
was lodged in the bishop's palace.[115] On the 26th of June the Mayor
and aldermen in scarlet, and the Commons in green, brought Edward IV.
from Lambeth to the Tower, and on the 28th inst. he was crowned with
great solemnity at Westminster.
'And on the morrow, after the King was crowned againe in Westminster
Abbey in the worship of God and S. Peter, and on the next morrow he went
crowned in Paules Church in London, in the honor of God and S. Paule,
and there an angell came downe and censed him, at which time was so
great a multitude of people in Paules as ever was seene in any
dayes.'[116]
On Whitsunday 1465 Queen Elizabeth Grey was crowned at Westminster
Abbey, having on the preceding day ridden in a horse litter through the
chief streets of London, preceded by the newly-created Knights of the
Bath, four of whom were men of London--the Mayor and three others.
Shortly after the murder of Henry VI. in the Tower (1471) Edward was met
by the Mayor, aldermen and citizens, about a mile from the city, between
Islington and Shoreditch, and in the highway he knighted the Mayor,
eleven aldermen and the recorder.
Edward IV. died on April 9, 1483, and his young son, Edward V., was
brought from Ludlow by the Greys, his relations on the mother's side.
Richard Duke of Gloucester, fearing the action of the Greys, overtook
the procession, and sent Earl Rivers and Sir Richard Grey prisoners to
Pontefract. Edmond Shaa, the Mayor, the sheriffs and the aldermen in
scarlet, with 500 horse of the citizens in violet, met the King and the
Duke at Hornsey, and, riding from thence, accompanied them into the
city, which was entered on the 4th of May. The King was lodged in the
bishop's palace, where a great Council was held, at which the Dukes of
Gloucester and Buckingham and other great lords were sworn. Edward V.
was deposed soon after this, and on the 5th of July, the day before his
coronation, Richard rode from the Tower through the city, with his son,
the Prince of Wales, three dukes, nine earls, twenty-two viscounts and
barons, eighty knights, esquires and gentlemen 'not to be numbered,'
besides the great officers of State.
After the Battle of Bosworth, Henry VII. was met at Hornsey on the 28th
of August 1485 by the Mayor (Sir Thomas Hille) and the aldermen in their
scarlet robes, accompanied by a great number of citizens on horseback,
in violet-coloured gowns, whence they conducted him to Shoreditch, where
he was received by the several companies, and then conducted to St.
Paul's, where he offered three standards, one with the image of St.
George, another with a red, fiery dragon, and the third with a dun cow.
After the singing of the _Te Deum_ he went to the bishop's palace. Less
than a month afterwards Sir Thomas Hille died of the sweating sickness.
The coronation of Henry VII., in 1485, was hurried over with less
ceremonial than usual and without any procession through the city, but
that of the Queen (Elizabeth of York), in 1487, was attended with all
the pomp customary on similar occasions. On Friday before St.
Katherine's Day the Queen came from Greenwich by water. The Mayor,
sheriffs and aldermen, with citizens chosen from every craft in their
liveries, were waiting on the river to receive her and attend her to the
Tower. On the following day she went through London to Westminster in a
litter. The houses were dressed with clothes of tapestry and arras, and
in Cheap with rich cloth of gold, velvet and silk. Along the streets,
from the Tower to St. Paul's, stood in order all the crafts of London in
their liveries, and in various places were placed singing children, some
arrayed like angels, to sing sweet songs as the Queen went by.
The Battle of Bosworth we have agreed to consider as the period of the
break up of the Middle Ages, but it was many years after this before the
shows and amusements of the people exhibited any great change. The
Tudors (especially Henry VIII.) showed a particular delight in
pageantry, and the Stuarts carried on the tradition. In fact, it was in
Elizabeth's reign that special attention was given to the arrangements
of the Lord Mayor's pageant.
George Peele, the dramatist, is the first on the list of the city poets,
although we have already seen that Lydgate was employed to write poetry
in honour of King Henry VI. The pageants prepared for the triumphant
passage of 'King James and Queen Anne, his wife, and Henry Frederick,
the Prince,' from the Tower through the city on the 15th of March
1603-1604 were of a magnificent character. Seven beautiful arches of
triumph were designed by Stephen Harrison, joiner and architect. These
were erected at the expense of the livery companies and the foreign
merchants. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the art of
pageantry was almost entirely lost. The decoration of our streets on
joyful occasions has lately considerably improved, but there is still
room for a more artistic treatment. With our knowledge of the past and
the possession of artists who are enthusiastic for the revival of a true
taste in pageantry there ought to be no difficulty in the production of
pageants that would do honour to our city. It would be well if the
authorities would consult with artists for the improvement of the Lord
Mayor's Show.[117]
We have treated of out-of-door amusements, and must now say a few words
on one of those enjoyed indoors. Music and poetry were cultivated by
certain foreign merchants in England, who established in London, at the
close of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century, a
society or brotherhood of the 'Pui,' 'in honour of God, our Lady Saint
Mary, and all Saints, both male and female; and in honour of our Lord
the King, and all the Barons of the country; and for the increasing of
loyal love. And to the end that the city of London may be renowned for
all good things in all places; and to the end that mirthfulness, peace,
honesty, joyousness, gaiety and good love, without [with?] infinity may
be maintained.'[118]
The majority of the members were foreigners, but Englishmen were not
excluded, for we find that John de Cheshunt was the third prince or
president.
Statutes and full particulars of proceedings are given in _Liber
Custumarum_, and curiously enough no other evidence of the existence of
such a fraternity in England is known. From this document we learn that
the society had received from the city great privileges in respect of
the Chapel of St. Mary, in Guildhall, which was building towards the
close of the reign of Edward I. Hence the donation in its favour for a
chaplain by Sir Henry le Waleys, 1299,[119] who had been Mayor both of
London and Bordeaux, and in the latter capacity would be likely to feel
an additional interest in this musical society of French merchants and
their English friends.
The Regulations are very full and explanatory of the various proceedings
at the Festival of the Pui, as the following extracts from Mr. Riley's
translation of the Latin original will show:--
_As to the yearly election of a Prince._--'The Prince ought to be chosen
as being good, and loyal, and sufficient, upon the oath of eleven
companions, or of the twelve, to their knowledge, upon their oath, that
the Pui may be promoted thereby, and maintained and upheld. And he who
shall be chosen for Prince, may not refuse it, upon his oath. And when
the old Prince and his companions shall leave to make a new Prince, at
the great feast, the old Prince and his companions shall go through the
room, from one end to the other, singing; and the old Prince shall carry
the crown of the Pui upon his head, and a gilt cup in his hands, full of
wine. And when they shall have gone round, the old Prince shall give to
drink unto him whom they shall have chosen, and shall give him the
crown, and such person shall be Prince.'
_Marriage, death and burial of the Members._--'If there be any one of
the companions who marries in the city of London, or who becomes a
clerk-priest, he ought to let the companions know thereof, and each
shall be there according to his oath, if he have not a proper excuse.
And the married person ought to give them chaplets, all of one kind; and
all the companions ought to go with the bridegroom to church, and to
make offering, and to return from the church to the house. And if there
be any of the companions of the brotherhood who departs this life and
dies, all the companions ought to be there, and to carry the body to
church, by leave of the kindred, and to make offering.'
_Common hutch._--'There shall be a common hutch of the company of the
Pui, in which the remembrances and the revised provisions of the company
shall be placed in safe keeping; of which hutch, in the first place, the
new Prince, each year after he is chosen, shall have one key; and two
companions, by assent of the companions, for such custody chosen, each
one key. And that this hutch shall stand in such safe place as the
companions shall ordain within the city of London.'
_Clerk and Chaplain._--'There shall be a clerk, intelligent, and
residing in London, chosen by the companions, to serve the company, and
that he be willing and able to be attendant upon, and obedient unto the
Prince, and to the twelve companions, in all matters that concern the
company.'
'That there be a chaplain, at all times singing [Mass] for the living
and the dead of the company, [and] a chapel, founded in honour of God
and our Lady, so soon as the improved means of the company, by the aid
of God and good folks, may thereunto suffice. And if the companions of
the Pui who are of sufficient means, be pressed by illness, so much as
to wish to make their testaments, the Prince is to go, with two of the
twelve companions with him, to visit the sick persons; and is to remind
them of their faith which they have pledged unto the company, and to
admonish them to devise somewhat of their property towards supplying the
chapel and chaplain aforesaid, and supporting the same.'
_The Grand Feast._--'Whereas the royal feast of the Pui is maintained
and established principally for crowning a royal song, inasmuch as it is
by song that it is honoured and enhanced, all the gentle companions of
the Pui by right reason are bound to exalt royal songs to the utmost of
their power, and especially the one that is crowned by assent of the
companions upon the day of the great feast of the Pui. Wherefore it is
here provided, as concerning such songs, that each new Prince, the day
that he shall wear the crown, and shall govern the feast of the Pui, and
so soon as he shall have had the blazon of his arms hung in the room
where the feast of the Pui shall be held, shall forthwith cause to be
set up beneath his blazon the song that was crowned on the day that he
was chosen as the new Prince, plainly and correctly written, without
default.'
'As to the serving up the feast, it is also ordained that all the
companions shall be served amply, as well the poorest as the richest, in
this form; that is to say, they shall be served with good bread, good
ale, and good wine; and then they shall be served with pottage, and with
one course of solid meat; and then after that with double roast in a
dish, and cheese, without more.'
_No ladies present._--'Although the becoming pleasance of virtuous
ladies is a rightful theme and principal occasion for royal singing, and
for composing and furnishing royal songs, nevertheless it is hereby
provided that no lady or other woman ought to be at the great [sitting]
of the Pui, for the reason that the [members] ought hereby to take
example, and rightful warning, to honour, cherish and commend all
ladies, at all times, in all places, as much in their absence as in
their presence.'
_Costume and Procession._--'The Prince ought, at his own cost, to be
costumed with coat and surcoat, without sleeves, and mantle of one suit,
with whatever arms he may please, at his own free will; so that at the
election of a new Prince, at the great feast of the Pui, he give his
mantle and his crown to the new Prince, so soon as he shall be chosen.'
'He who shall be crowned for his song upon that day may ride between the
old Prince and the new one in the procession on horseback which they
shall make throughout the city, after the feast, that they may have
knowledge of the one Prince and of the other by the suit of the
costumes.'
'Forthwith, after they have given the crown to him who shall sing the
best, they shall mount their horses and make their procession through
the city, and shall then escort their new Prince to his house; and there
they shall all alight, and shall have a dance there, by way of hearty
good-bye; and they shall then take one drink and depart, each to his own
house, all on foot.'
The fraternity took its name from Le Puy en Velay, in Auvergne, the
celebrated statue of the Virgin Mary in the Cathedral of which place was
long a popular object of pilgrimage and devotion during the Middle Ages.
M. Aymard, Administrator of the city of Le Puy en Velay, and the
historian of the Confrèries of Notre Dame du Puy, is of opinion that the
document in the _Liber Custumarum_ is at once more full and more ancient
by far than any set of regulations of a similar French fraternity which
is known to have survived to our times. Societies of the Pui flourished
in Normandy and Picardy. The place of meeting of the 'companions' is not
known, but Mr. Riley suggests that it was possibly in the Vintry. There
is some uncertainty as to how the fraternity came to an end.[120]
Londoners were better supplied with eating-houses than their neighbours
on the Continent, as we learn from the description of the street of
cookshops on the Thames side by Fitz-Stephen:--
'There is also in London, on the bank of the river, amongst the wine
shops, which are kept in ships and cellars, a public eating-house; there
every day, according to the season, may be found viands of all kinds,
roast, fried and boiled, fish large and small, coarser meat for the
poor, and more delicate for the rich, such as venison, fowls and small
birds. If friends, wearied with their journey, should unexpectedly come
to a citizen's house, and, being hungry, should not like to wait till
fresh meat be bought and cooked ... meanwhile some run to the riverside,
and there every thing that they could wish for is instantly procured.
'However great the number of soldiers and strangers that enters or
leaves the city at any hour of the day or night, they may turn in there
if they please, and refresh themselves according to their inclination;
so that the former have no occasion to fast too long, or the latter to
leave the city without dining. Those who wish to indulge themselves
would not desire a sturgeon, or a bird of Africa, or the godwit of
Ionia, when the delicacies that are to be found there are set before
them. This, indeed, is the public cookery, and is very convenient to the
city, and a distinguishing mark of civilization.'
Mr. Riley points out in his Introduction to the _Liber Custumarum_ that
the _Coquina_ of Fitz-Stephen was in reality a Cook's Row, not merely a
solitary cookshop. In Fitz-Ailwyne's Second Assize (1212) the cookshops
on the Thames were ordered to be whitewashed and plastered and the inner
partitions to be removed, from which it would appear that lodging-rooms
had been 'constructed for the harbouring of guests and travellers in
contravention of the city regulations, which at all times during the
thirteenth and two succeeding centuries strictly forbade cooks and
pie-bakers to keep hostels for the entertainment of guests. In the
fourteenth century, however, most of these cookshops had made way for
genuine hostels and herbergeries,--to be kept only by freemen, and on no
account by foreigners,--though we find mention made of one or two
cookshops lingering on the city margin of the Thames so late as the
reign of Edward the Third.'[121]
Mr. Riley adds in his glossary: 'To the celebrity which London gained at
an early period for its cookshops its citizens were not improbably
indebted for their nickname of 'cockney,' one which they have retained
throughout England to the present day. The earliest recorded instance of
its use is probably of this same period; the rhyme uttered, according to
Camden, by Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk, in reference to Henry II., the
capital of whose English dominions was London:--
'Were I in my castle of Bungay,
Upon the river of Waveney,
I would no care for the King of Cokenay.'[122]
'Keepers of wine taverns and ale-houses and victuallers (who merely sold
provisions) do not appear to have lodged their guests any more than the
cooks.' 'The persons whose business it was to receive guests for profit,
appear to have been divided into two classes, the "Hostelers" and the
"Herbergeours." The line of distinction between these two classes is not
very evident ... but it seems not improbable that it consisted in the
fact that the former lodged and fed the servants and horses of their
guests, while the latter did not. At all events, hostelers are mentioned
as supplying hay and corn for horses, but herbergeours never.' Hostelers
were also forbidden to sell drink and victuals to any other than their
guests.[123]
The established charge for a night's lodging about the time of Henry IV.
was one penny per night.
'In the times of our early Kings, when they moved from place to place,
it devolved upon the Marshal of the King's household to find lodgings
for the royal retinue and dependents, which was done by sending a billet
and seizing arbitrarily the best houses and mansions of the locality,
turning out the inhabitants and marking the houses so selected with
chalk; which latter duty seems to have belonged to the Serjeant-Chamberlain
of the King's household. The city of London, fortunately for the comfort
and independence of its inhabitants, was exempted by numerous charters
from having to endure this most abominable annoyance at such times as it
pleased the King to become its near neighbour by taking up his residence
in the town.'[124]
By an Act (7 Edw. VI.) 1553 forty taverns and public-houses were allowed
in the city and three in Westminster.
CHAPTER VII
_Health, Disease and Sanitation_[125]
When I mentioned to a friend that I intended to devote one of the
chapters of this book to the consideration of sanitation in the Middle
Ages, he hinted that as there was no such thing this would partake
somewhat of the character of the famous chapter on Snakes in the
_History of Ireland_. In this opinion I hope to prove that he is wrong.
There are many conflicting accounts of the general sanitary condition of
a walled town in the Middle Ages, but although some have painted the
condition of early London in a very unfavourable light, there is
sufficient evidence on the other side to induce us, in taking a general
survey of so large a subject, to be careful not to use too dark colours
for our picture. Probably the town was healthier in ordinary times than
the country, because the regulations were stricter, but in time of
pestilence it was doubtless worse, from the confined space and the want
of fresh air, caused by the closeness of buildings.
We do not hear much of the health of London between the periods of
pestilence, but occasional information shows how great was the mortality
among infants. The vast disproportion between the births and deaths
made the influx of immigrants from the country necessary to keep up the
population.
As a sign that the general conditions of life were unhealthier then than
now, we may note that the expectancy of life in the Middle Ages was much
shorter than at present. It is said that as large a number of persons
died at forty years of age as now live to seventy. Queen Elizabeth was
the first of the twenty-three sovereigns of England after the Conquest
who attained the age of seventy, although Edward I indeed lived to his
sixty-ninth year.
Dr. Jessopp gives a vivid picture of the frightful condition of town
populations. He writes: 'The sediment of the town population in the
Middle Ages was a dense slough of stagnant misery, squalor, famine,
loathsome disease and dull despair, such as the worst slums of London,
Paris or Liverpool know nothing of.'[126]
Dr. Charles Creighton, in his monumental work on epidemics,[127] takes
the view that we must receive with some scepticism the extremely
unsatisfactory accounts of the condition of old London. He points out
that, while Erasmus gives a most repulsive description of the state of
the houses, his contemporary and friend, Sir Thomas More, takes a much
more flattering view. Dr. Creighton says: 'Some part of the rather
unfair opinion as to the foulness of English life in former times may be
traced to a well-known letter by Erasmus to the physician of Cardinal
Wolsey. There are grounds for believing that Erasmus must have judged
from somewhat unfavourable instances.' Dr. Creighton further points out
that William Harrison (_Description of England_) gives proof enough that
the filthy floors described by Erasmus had no existence two generations
later, even among the poorer classes.
Fitz-Stephen was quite satisfied with the salubrity of the city, and he
becomes enthusiastic over the gardens and clear springs which abounded
on all sides, and made the walks of those who took the air in the summer
evenings so agreeable. In fine, he says: 'The city is delightful indeed
when it has a good governor.'
Sir Thomas More at a later period saw so little amiss that he was
content to consider London as a fair sample of what he would wish the
capital of Utopia to be. We know, at all events, that whatever its
faults it was in advance of foreign cities. It has been said that the
English word 'comfort' cannot be translated, and a curious confirmation
of this is found in the fact that in the old French contemporary account
of Wat Tyler's Rebellion the word is introduced in a French context, as
if there was no equivalent in that language.
Dr. J. W. Tripe, in 1881, took as the subject of his inaugural address
on assuming the presidential chair of the Society of Medical Officers of
Health: 'The Sanitary Condition and Laws of Mediæval London.' Referring
to this, a writer in the _Medical Times and Gazette_ says: 'His
description of the streets and houses of Old London, and of the habits
of our forefathers, though most graphic, was not new ... but few, we
think, have any idea of the antiquity of Sanitary, Nuisance Removal and
River Conservancy Acts, and Dr. Tripe has therefore done well to again
set forth the accounts of them that have been exhumed from the records
of the city. Rude as they may seem to modern notions, they ought to have
sufficed for the prevention of the epidemics which from time to time
decimated the population, if they had not, like so many more recent
enactments, been in advance of the age, and consequently remained for
the most part dead letters.'[128]
Before entering into particulars as to means taken for the protection of
the city from disease, and as to those upon whom the duty was laid of
carrying them out, it will be necessary to make a few remarks upon the
healing art in the Middle Ages.
It may be presumed that at all times large numbers suffered from
illnesses and required medical aid, yet little has come down to us
relating to the treatment adopted by the doctors. Unfortunately the
medical men of the Middle Ages do not appear to have trusted to
themselves or to their own practical knowledge. Instead they put their
whole trust in the little they knew of Greek practice which they learnt
from the Arabs. So that, even when writing on cases that came under
their own observation, they give but slight information respecting the
clinical treatment they adopted, and were afraid to express an opinion
without the authority of a great name.
Dr. Norman Moore says: 'The basis of medicine is the patient.'[129] This
being so, as the patient always exists the medicine man must always have
been required.
Those whose duty it was to combat disease among the Saxons seem to have
been of little account, if we are to judge from the Rev. Oswald
Cockayn's collection of _Leechdoms, Wort-cunning and Star Craft of Early
England_, published in the Master of the Rolls' Series (1864); and Dr.
J.F.Payne's _Fitzpatrick Lectures on the History of Medicine_, 1903.
The Saxon leech received a professional education, and was often learned
although he did not advance knowledge. He seems to have placed more
reliance upon charms and magic than upon any sensible treatment. He
compounded recipes of the most incongruous character, and paid special
attention to the use of herbs, but few instances of cures performed by
him are recorded.
It is not until after the Conquest that we are able to find the first
signs of the noble profession of to-day.
It is said that mediæval medicine first began to emerge from obscurity
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Jews and the clergy were
among the first to practise medicine. A noted Jewish physician is
recorded by William of Newburgh as practising at King's Lynn at the end
of the twelfth century, but shortly afterwards the Jews were driven out
of the country, and we hear no more of them except of an occasional
physician who managed to escape the general outlawry of his nation. The
clergy also in course of time largely gave over their noble attempts to
heal their fellow-citizens, and a medical profession was gradually
formed.
John of Salisbury (d. 1180), the friend and counsellor of Thomas à
Becket, who is called by Bishop Stubbs 'the central figure of English
learning for thirty years,' and may therefore be considered to some
extent as an authority on the subject, had a very poor opinion of the
medical profession of his day, and rated its members roundly for their
ignorance and incompetence. He affirmed that they had two maxims which
they never violated--'Never mind the poor; never refuse money from the
rich.'
There was no school of anatomy or surgery throughout England in the age
of Chaucer and Wyclyf, but the medical schools of Salerno, Naples and
Montpellier were attended by Englishmen. St. Luke is usually considered
as the patron saint of the medical profession, but in the Middle Ages he
was to a great extent dispossessed by St. Cosmas and St. Damian,[130]
two brothers, who practised as physicians in Cilicia, and were martyred
in the early part of the fourth century. These were the patron saints of
the Company of Barber Surgeons, but the Fellowship of Surgeons, whose
history has been written by Mr. D'Arcy Power,[131] kept St. Luke's Day
as well as that of St. Cosmas and St. Damian.
Chaucer found room for the 'Doctor of Physick' in his wonderful gallery
of mediæval portraits, and a very vivid picture he gives of the studies
and practice of this worthy. It is drawn with the poet's tolerant
humour, but he ends by saying that the doctor loved his gold, and all
accounts appear to corroborate this opinion.
'With us ther was a Doctour of Phisik,
In all this world ne was ther noon hym lik,
To speke of phisik and surgerye;
For he was grounded in astronomye.
He kepte his pacient a ful greet deel
In hourés, by his magyk natureel.
Wel koude he fortunen the ascendent
Of his ymáges for his pacient.
He knew the cause of everich maladye,
Were it of hoot or cold, or moyste or drye,
And where they engendred and of what humour;
He was a verray parfit practisour.
The cause y-knowe and of his harm the roote,
Anon he yaf the siké man his boote [remedy].
Ful redy hadde he his apothecaries
To sende him droggés and his letuaries,
For ech of hem made oother for to wynne.
Hir frendshipe was nat newè to begynne.
Wel knew he the oldé Esculapius
And Deyscorides and eek Rufus,
Olde Ypocras, Haly and Galyen,
Serapion, Razis and Avycen,
Averrois, Damascien and Constantyn,
Bernard and Gatésden and Gilbertyn.
Of his dieté mesurable was he,
For it was of no superfluitee,
But of greet norissyng and digestible.
His studie was but litel on the Bible.
In sangwyn and in pers he clad was al,
Lynéd with taffata and with sendal.
And yet he was but esy of dispence,
He kepté that he wan in pestilence.
For gold in phisik is a cordial,
Therefore he lovéde gold in special.'
Chaucer here shows great learning and knowledge of the history of
medicine. He gives a full list of the Greek and Arab authorities, and
also of the men living nearer to his own day. Bernard was Bernardus,
Gordonius the professor of medicine at Montpellier in Chaucer's time,
Gilbertyn was Gilbertus Anglicus and Gatesden was John of
Gaddesden.[132]
Gilbertus Anglicus, author of a _Compendium Medicinæ_ (about 1290), is
said to have been the first English practical writer on medicine, but as
Gilbert quotes a Master Richard, there may have been a still earlier
English writer on the subject. The book contains the first description
of leprosy written by a European. Little is known of the particulars of
his life, but he is said to have been Chancellor at Montpellier. He
travelled in the East at the time of the Crusades, probably during the
Third Crusade in which Richard I. took part.
John of Gaddesden (1280-1361) was a Doctor of Physick of Oxford,
graduating from Merton College, Oxford, who subsequently obtained a
large practice in London. He was in priest's orders and held a stall in
St. Paul's Cathedral. His famous medical treatise, entitled _Rosa
Anglica_, was written about the year 1305. It treats of fevers and
injuries of all parts of the body, and soon became a medical text-book
throughout Europe. In this book there is an account of his special
treatment of smallpox. He wrote: 'Let scarlet red be taken, and let him
who is suffering smallpox be entirely wrapped in it or in some other red
cloth; I did thus when the son of the illustrious King of England
suffered from smallpox, I took care that everything about his couch
should be red, and his cure was perfectly effected, for he was restored
to health without a trace of the disease.'[133] Gaddesden was court
physician to Edward II. and Edward III., and seems to have taken
advantage of his position to exact high fees. He recommended his
contemporaries to make arrangements about payment before undertaking a
case.
The clergy were forbidden by Pope Innocent III. (1215) to undertake any
operation involving the shedding of blood, and subsequently they were
forbidden to practise surgery in any form. From this cause the practice
of surgery largely came into the hands of the barbers.
We shall see later how the profession was divided between the military
surgeon and the barber surgeon, but here we have only to deal with the
physician.
We learn from Riley's _Memorials_ (p. 464) that Roger Clerk, of
Wandsworth, was placed in the pillory in May 1382 for pretending to be a
physician. He was brought before the Mayor and aldermen, and charged
with deceit and falsehood by Roger atte Hacche: 'Whereas no physician or
surgeon should intermeddle with any medicines or cures within the
liberty of the city aforesaid, but those who are experienced in the said
arts, and approved therein, the said Roger Clerk knew nothing of either
of the arts aforesaid, being neither experienced nor approved therein,
nor understood anything of letters.'
He pretended to heal Roger atte Hacche's wife Johanna of her bodily
infirmities by making her wear an old parchment leaf of a book rolled up
in a piece of cloth of gold. This being of no avail, Clerk was adjudged
to be led 'through the middle of the city with trumpets and pipes, he
riding on a horse without a saddle, the said parchment and a whetstone,
for his lies, being hung about his neck.'
This man evidently was an impostor, and was properly punished for
obtaining money under false pretences, but many of the recipes adopted
by the recognised physicians would probably be as ineffectual as the
charm of Roger Clerk. John de Gaddesden made a disgusting plaster of
dung, headless crickets and beetles, which was rubbed over the sick
parts to cure the stone, and we are told in the _Rosa Anglica_ that 'in
three days the pain had disappeared.'
It was very long before the doctors gave up the making of extraordinary
plasters and decoctions. Apparently they had the assistance of laymen on
occasions. Dr. Furnivall has printed in his edition of Vicary's
_Anatomie of the Bodie of Man_ (1888) a series of ten recipes by Henry
VIII., and his physicians, Dr. Augustyne, Dr. Butts and Dr. Cromer,
taken at random from Sloane MS. 1047 (British Museum). Among these are
'the Kinges Majesties owne plastre,' 'a black plastre devised by the
Kinges Hieghness,' 'a plastre devised by the Kinges Majestie at
Grenewich, and made at Westminstre, to take awaye inflammacions, and
cease payne, and heale excoriations,' 'a decoccioun devised by the
Kinges Majestie,' and 'a cataplasme made ungtment-lyke of the Kinges
Majesties devise, made at Westminster.'
A conjoint Faculty of Medicine and Surgery was founded in 1423. On the
15th of May 1423 the Mayor and aldermen were petitioned for this
purpose. 'The petition prays that all physicians and surgeons practising
in London may be considered as a single body of men, governed by a
Rector of Medicine, with the assistance of two surveyors of the Faculty
of Physic and two masters of the Craft of Surgery. There was to be a
common place of meeting, consisting of at least three separate houses,
one fitted with desks for examinations and disputations in philosophy
and medicine, as well as for the delivery of lectures. The second house
was for the use of the physicians, and the third for the convenience of
the surgeons.'[134]
The petition was granted, and on the 28th May 1423 Master Gilbert Kymer
was sworn before the Mayor and aldermen as Rector of the Faculty of
Medicine. Dr. Kymer was a graduate of the University of Oxford, and
physician to the household of Humphry, Duke of Gloucester, and also an
ecclesiastic. Dr. John Somerset and Dr. Thomas Southwell were sworn on
27th September to act as Supervisors of Physic. The former was also a
graduate of Oxford University and a physician to Duke Humphry. Of the
latter's history Mr. Power could find nothing. There is no record 'of
the swearing in of a Rector of Medicine after 27th September 1424, nor
is there any other indication of the continued existence of a conjoint
college after 1425.'[135]
Dr. Kymer went to the west of England in 1428, and became Dean of
Salisbury in 1449. He continued, however, to practise medicine, 'for in
June 1455 he was summoned to Windsor to attend Henry VI. in the fit of
imbecility which attacked him after the first Battle of St.
Albans.'[136] Little is known of the action of the physicians from 1427
until the College of Physicians was founded by Linacre in 1518.
_Surgeons._--Barbers were of old humble practitioners in the art of
surgery and performed minor operations such as bleeding, tooth-drawing,
and cauterization. They largely assisted the clergy, in whose hands the
practice of surgery and medicine was almost wholly confined. The action
of the Popes, already alluded to, in forbidding the clergy to interfere
in any matter connected with the shedding of blood as incompatible with
the holy office caused the clergy to devote themselves specially to
medicine, and the duties of the barbers were thereby largely extended.
Mr. D'Arcy Power has drawn attention to a matter which is of the
greatest interest in the history of the profession, viz., that two types
of surgeons flourished side by side in London during the Middle
Ages--the military surgeons who formed the aristocracy of the
profession, and the barber surgeons. As early as the Third Crusade
(1189-1192) military surgeons 'were in attendance upon the kings and
nobles, often in a purely personal capacity, but in the thirteenth
century they had formal gradations of rank and were known as "the Royal
Surgeon," the "Common Surgeon," etc.'[137]
In 1308 Richard le Barber, the first master of the Barbers' Guild, who
dwelt opposite the Church of Allhallows the Less, in Upper Thames
Street, was sworn at Guildhall, and in 1310 barbers were appointed to
keep strict watch at the city gates, so that no lepers should enter the
city.
John Arderne was an early surgeon of mark who is worthy of special
notice as one of the first English writers on surgery. He had an
extensive experience in the treatment of wounds, and it is supposed that
at one time he was attached to the English forces during the French wars
in the capacity of field surgeon. He was born in 1307, and practised at
Newark from 1349 to 1370, when at the age of sixty-three years he
settled in London.[138]
He was specially famous for his treatment of fistula, and he made his
great reputation by curing Sir Adam Everyngham of this complaint after
his case had been pronounced incurable by the chief doctors in France.
Arderne had many distinguished patients and received very large fees. In
his works he entered very fully into the history of his cases, and his
mode of treatment, and when describing 'ye mannere of ye leche' he
throws a remarkable light upon the professional ethics and habits of his
time. He was by no means reticent as to the best means of getting over
his patients and making them pay well. The surgeon is told to 'beware of
scarse askings,' and as an example, Arderne says that, if he had to do
with 'a worthy man and a great,' he charged 100 marks or £40 for a cure,
'with robez and feez of an hundred shillyns terme of lyfe, by year.' 'Of
lesse men' he would take £40 or 40 marks without feez, but he adds
'never in alle my lyf toke I lesse than an hundred shillyns for cure of
that sekeness.'
He counsels doctors to be careful in estimating the length of time of a
cure, in fact to suggest double the time he expects. If the patient
wonders at the rapidity of cure and asks, 'Why that he putte hym so long
a tyme of curyng, sithe that he helyd hym by the halfe? Answere he,
that it was for that the pacient was stony-herted and suffred wele
sharpe thingis, and that he was of gode complexion, and hadde able
fleshe to hale, and feyne he other causes pleasable to the pacient for
pacientez of syche wordez are proude and delited.'
Arderne's instructions for the guidance of doctors are very sensible,
and they help us to form a correct estimate of the manners of the public
who were patients. Dr. Poore, after giving an analysis of the surgeon's
work, writes: 'It is evident that John of Arderne was a consummate man
of the world, and knew all the tricks of his trade. His fees seem to
have been enormous, and indeed he is only one out of many examples among
our early professional forerunners who made very large professional
incomes.'[139]
Mr. Anderson, the biographer of Arderne, remarks that although he called
himself 'Chirurgus inter Medicos,' 'there is nothing to show that he
possessed a master's degree, or any formal license for the exercise of
his calling.' Mr. Anderson adds, however, 'his writings prove that he
was a man of clerkly attainments, with a good knowledge of Latin and
French, and well read in the available literature of his profession,
quoting freely from the works of the mediæval surgeons, the Arabs, and
even from the Greeks.'
Mr. Anderson notes that there are no less than twenty-two manuscripts of
the works of Arderne in the British Museum, both in the original Latin
and in early English translations, 'some repeating or overlapping
others in matter.' His book _Da curâ Oculi_ is dated from London in
1377.
It was not until the next century that a surgeon of equal distinction
had arisen in England.
There must have been many incompetent practitioners in London in the
fourteenth century, an instance of which evil we find in Riley's
_Memorials_. John le Spicer of Cornhill in 1354 attended Thomas de
Shene, who suffered from a serious wound in the jaw. Certain surgeons
sworn before the Mayor found that the 'enormous and horrible hurt on the
right side of the jaw of Thomas de Shene' was incurable, but they held
that if John le Spicer had been expert in his craft, or had called in
counsel and assistance to his aid, the injury might have been
cured.[140]
When the charter was granted to the Barbers' Company in the next century
it is expressly stated in the preamble (1462) that through 'the
ignorance, negligence and stupidity' of various barbers and other
practitioners in surgery many of the King's lieges had 'gone the way of
all flesh.'
Mr. D'Arcy Power states that 'a Guild of Surgeons, distinct from the
Guild of Barbers, existed in London from time immemorial. The guild was
always a small body, probably never more than twenty in number, and
sometimes dwindling to less than a dozen. It existed and remained
unincorporated at a time when many of the other guilds either vanished
or were converted into companies. The earliest notice of the Surgeons'
Guild occurs in 1369.'[141] This information is obtained from Letter
Book G, translated from the Latin by Riley.
'On Monday next, after the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed
Virgin Mary [2nd February 1369], Master John Dunheued, Master John
Hyndstoke, and Nicholas Kyldesby, surgeons, were admitted in full
husting, before Simon de Mordone [Mayor] and the Aldermen, and sworn, as
Master Surgeons of the city of London, that they would well and
faithfully serve the people, in undertaking their cures, would take
reasonably from them, would faithfully follow their calling, and would
present to the said Mayor and Aldermen the defaults of others
undertaking cures, so often as should be necessary; and that they would
be ready, at all times, when they should be warned, to attend the maimed
or wounded, and other persons; and would give truthful information to
the officers of the city aforesaid, as to such maimed, wounded and
others, whether they be in peril of death or not. And also faithfully to
do all things touching their calling.'[142]
There is a similar ordinance dated April 1390 in which Master John
Hynstok, Master Geoffrey Grace, Master John Brademore, and Master Henry
Suttone, surgeons, were admitted and sworn before the Mayor.[143] Mr.
Power points out that this ordinance is specially interesting, because
the inspecting master surgeons are sworn 'faithfully to follow their
calling, and faithful scrutiny to make of others, both men and _women_,
undertaking cures, or practising the art of surgery; and to present
their defaults, as well in their practice as in their medicine, to the
aforesaid Mayor and aldermen, so often as need shall be.'[144]
Mr. Power says: 'The officers thus put under an obligation to perform
certain public duties were the masters or aldermen of the Surgeons'
Guild, and it is certain that they took so wide a view of their duties
as to harass the members of the Barbers' Guild who meddled with surgery.
Thus in 1410 certain 'good and honest folk, barbers of the city,
appeared by their counsel in the private chamber of the aldermen and
sheriffs, and demanded that they should for ever peaceably enjoy their
privileges, without scrutiny of any person of other craft or trade than
barbers, and this neither in shaving, cupping, bleeding, nor any other
thing in any way pertaining to barbery, or to such practice of surgery
as is now used, or in future to be used, within the craft of the said
barbers.'[145]
In 1417 there is in the city records special reference to the wardens of
the faculty or craft of surgeons. Security was given by a surgeon to the
Chamberlain of the city to ensure due care of his patients. John
Severelle Love, surgeon, undertook to pay £20 sterling to the
Chamberlain if he 'should take any man under his care, as to whom risk
of maiming, or of his life might ensue, and within four days should not
warn the wardens of the craft of surgery thereof.' Half of this sum was
to go to the city, and the other half to the faculty of surgeons.[146]
We now arrive at the time when another great surgeon arose. This was
Thomas Morestede, surgeon to Henry V. and Henry VI., and probably
previously to Henry IV., who, Mr. Power says, made the first serious
attempt to convert surgery into a profession. When Henry V. in the
spring of 1415 entered on his campaign in France, which ended with the
victory at Agincourt on the 25th October, the medical arrangements of
the army were very complete. 'The agreement, dated 29th April 1415, is
to the effect that Nicholas Colnet was to accompany the King for a year
as physician to the forces in Guienne and France. He was to be attended
by three archers as a guard, each archer receiving sixpence a day,
whilst Colnet drew twelvepence for his own pay. Thomas Morstede, the
surgeon, had also three archers assigned to him for protection, and he
too received twelve pence a day, in addition to the usual allowance of
one hundred marks a quarter--the pay, it is stated, for thirty
men-at-arms, with a share of the plunder. Morestede was directed further
to take with him twelve of his own craft, each subordinate surgeon to
receive the pay of an archer--sixpence a day.... The scale of pay here
granted is very liberal. The ordinary day's wage of a labourer at this
time was one penny. Each archer and each surgeon was considered to be
worth the wages of six day labourers, and the two chiefs double their
assistants.... Yet in spite of these attractions the service was a
perilous one, even though it only lasted a few months. Morestede engaged
William Bredewardyne to act under him, but he had such difficulty in
securing the services of the twelve assistants that he prayed the King
'to grant his letters of Privy Seal directed to your Chancellor of
England, to cause him to deliver to your suppliant letters of commission
under your great seal, by force of which he should have power to press
twelve persons of his craft, such as he should choose to accompany him,
and to serve your most gracious sovereign lord during your
campaign.'[147] Morstede became a rich and influential London citizen,
and served as sheriff in 1436. He died in 1450, and was buried in the
Church of St. Olave Upwell, Old Jewry, where he had built 'a fair new
aisle.'[148]
Dr. Furnivall printed in his edition of Thomas Vicary's _Anatomie of the
Bodie of Man_ (Early Text Society, 1888, p. 236), a paper from a
manuscript in the British Museum (Royal M.S., 7 F., xiv., art. 24)
containing a statement of the pay of navy surgeons in the reign of Henry
VIII. _The Henry Grace de Dieu_ carried two surgeons at 23s. 4d. a
month; also _The Mary Rose_ and _The Great Gally_, with two surgeons
each at the same pay, and nineteen other vessels each with one surgeon
at 10s. a month.
To return to the Fellowship of Surgeons, Mr. Power tells us that in 1435
the surgeons, then seventeen in number, became an established body, with
a code of laws and regulations which still exist in a small vellum
volume now preserved in Barbers' Hall. In 1462 they obtained a charter
of incorporation, and in 1492 were given a grant of arms. In 1493 the
guild 'was living on friendly terms with the Barbers' Company, for in
this year the two guilds entered into a "composition," dated 12th May,
and signed by representatives of both bodies. This composition
recognised the independence of the two fellowships "of surgeons
enfranchised within the city of London," and "of barber-surgeons and
surgeon-barbers enfranchised in the said city." It was agreed that
neither body should admit any one except a regular apprentice to
practise surgery without the consent and knowledge of the other, and to
ensure this being carried into effect every stranger seeking a license
to practise in London was to be presented to the Mayor by the four
wardens of the two guilds.'[149] The end of the Fellowship of Surgeons
came in 1540, when it was united by Act of Parliament (32 Henry VIII.)
with the Company of Barbers. The granting of the charter on this
occasion was the cause of Holbein's famous picture being painted. This
picture still decorates the Barbers' Hall in Monkwell Street.
Allusion has already been made to the Barbers' Company--to its first
master in 1308, and to its incorporation by royal charter in 1462 by
Edward IV. In 1376 the gild elected two masters, and at this time the
members were sharply divided between the barbers proper and the barbers
exercising the faculty of surgery.
In 1390 four masters were sworn in in one year, but these were really
only master and wardens, as stated by Mr. Young in his most valuable and
exhaustive account of the Barber Surgeons' Company.[150]
The relative positions of the city companies has frequently changed,
thus at one time the Barber Surgeons were entitled to the seventeenth
place, but in 1516 they only ranked as the twenty-eighth. In 1537 the
Barber Surgeons formed the most numerous company in London, the number
of freemen being 185. The next in order of numbers was the Skinners with
151, then the Haberdashers with 120, the Leathersellers with 113, and
the Fishmongers with 109. The rest of the companies numbered less than
100, the Bowyers being the lowest with 19.[151] In 1745 the surgeons,
who had long chafed under the inconveniences caused by official
connection with the barbers, seceded and formed the Surgeons' Company,
under the title of 'The Masters, Governors and Commonalty of the Art and
Science of Surgery,' which was established by Act of Parliament. The
Surgeons found a temporary home at Stationers' Hall until 1751, when the
premises known as Surgeons' Hall, in the Old Bailey, were ready for
occupation.
The company came to a premature end in 1796, and it was not until 1800
that the Royal College of Surgeons was established.
HOSPITALS
_St. Bartholomew's Hospital._--We are justly proud of the hospitals of
the twentieth century, but one of them stands out from the rest on
account of its early foundation, and its enormous influence on the
growth of professional feeling. In following the incidents in the
history of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, we cannot doubt but that this is
one of the noblest institutions in London. The hospital was founded by
Rahere in 1123, and refounded in 1546. We have little history of the
earlier period, but the documents relating to the refoundation evidently
echo the sentiments formed during the earlier period.
Dr. Norman Moore in his paper on the Progress of Medicine at St.
Bartholomew's Hospital (1888), writes: 'We are in the very middle of the
sacred land of medicine, and many of the great events in the history of
medicine are connected with the particular region in which our hospital
is, or have occurred in our hospital itself.'
Rahere while building the hospital continued his labours by founding the
priory, of which all that now remains is the Church of St. Bartholomew
the Great. This consists of the choir and transept of the church of the
priory, and a part of the site of the close is marked by the present
Bartholomew Close. The hospital and the priory were independent but
connected. The relations between the two were revised by Richard de Ely,
Bishop of London in 1197; by Eustace de Fauconberg, Bishop of London in
1224: and by Simon of Sudbury, Bishop of London in 1373, and the two
foundations were finally separated on the dissolution of the priory in
1537.
There is in the British Museum (Cotton MS. Vespasian, Bk. ix.), a Life
of Rahere written by one who had known those who knew the founder. The
manuscript is a copy of an earlier one written in the reign of Henry
II., within fifty years of the foundation of the
[Illustration: OBVERSE OF THE COMMON SEAL OF THE CITY OF LONDON, _Cir._
1225.]
[Illustration: SEAL OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL.]
hospital. This work, which is of great value, is described by Dr. Norman
Moore, and analysed in Mr. Morrant Baker's _Two Foundations of St.
Bartholomew's Hospital_, A.D. 1123 _and_ A.D. 1546[152]
Rahere has been described as the King's minstrel or jester, but there is
no authority for this. The writer of his life says that he was a
frequenter of the palace, and of noblemen's houses, and made himself so
agreeable as to be highly esteemed as the leader of tumultuous
pleasures. He was, however, converted to a better state of life, but
probably, as is the wont of those who write about conversions, the
author rather darkens the picture of the courtier's early follies.
Rahere determined to go to Rome, and after visiting the shrines of St.
Peter and St. Paul, he was taken ill with a grievous sickness. He feared
that God was angry with him for his sins, and he vowed that if God would
give him health so that he might return to his own country, 'he would
make an hospital in recreation of poor men, and to them so there
gathered, necessaries minister after his power.'
In the night he saw a vision which filled him with dread. He seemed to
be borne up on high by a beast having four feet and two wings, and set
down in a high place. From this great height he looked into a deep pit,
and he feared to slide down into it. Then appeared to him a certain man
of great beauty and majesty, who fastened his eye upon him and said, 'O
man, what and how much service shouldest thou give to him, that in so
great peril hath brought help to thee?' Rahere answered: 'Whatsoever
might be of heart and of might, diligently should I give, in recompense
to my deliverer.' So the kingly man spoke again: 'I am Bartholomew, the
Apostle of Jesus Christ, that came to succour thee in thine anguish, and
to open to thee the secret mysteries of Heaven. Know me truly, by the
will and commandment of the Holy Trinity, and the common favour of the
celestial Court and Council, to have chosen a place in the suburbs of
London, at Smithfield, where in my name thou shalt found a church, and
it shall be the house of God.... My part shall be to provide
necessaries, direct, build and end this work; and this place to me
accept with evident tokens and signs, protect and defend continually it
under my wings; and therefore of this work know me the master, and
thyself only the minister; use diligently thy service, and I shall show
my lordship.'
Rahere when he got back to London made overtures to the citizens for the
purpose of obtaining the land he required for building, and the
authorities were favourable to his scheme, but they could not settle the
matter until Henry I. had been consulted, because the place at
Smithfield was within the King's market. When the petitioner applied to
the King his plea was acceded to, and he was given authority to execute
his purpose.
It is not quite clear where all the money came from for the carrying out
so vast an undertaking, but Rahere had a winning way, and from the King
downwards he appears to have obtained liberal help. Before he could
build he had to drain the land, which was nothing but a marsh, and when
he went there the only sign of civilisation about was a gibbet. The
hospital, which from the first was a hospital for the sick, and not a
mere almshouse, had a master, eight brethren and four sisters.
The first master was Alfun, an old man who had previously built the
Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, and Rahere was the first prior.
Alfun was also styled hospitaler or proctor of the poor, and the writer
of the manuscript Life of Rahere tells how it was the custom of Alfun to
go about begging for provisions and other necessaries for the poor men
that lay in the hospital, he also looked after the welfare of those who
were employed in building the church. Rahere had many troubles in his
later life, and a large number of envious enemies spoke evil of him and
did him injuries. There was a plot against his life, which failed on
account of the confession of a penitent conspirator. He had, however, a
good friend in the King, who helped him and confirmed his previous grant
by a charter which gave full liberty and great privileges to the priory
and hospital. When, therefore, Rahere died, after having been prior for
twenty-two years and six months, he left his great establishment in a
prosperous condition.
Dr. Norman Moore points out that in the Life of Rahere there is an
account of the admission of the first patients of which we have any
record. This was a man named Adwyne, who came up to London from Dunwich,
in Suffolk, in the reign of Henry II. There are many records of people
who were supposed to be healed by praying at Rahere's tomb, but this man
is described as having been admitted into the hospital, and therefore a
genuine patient. He was discharged cured, but although his condition is
described no details of his treatment are given. Dr. Moore supposes that
by long lying in bed Adwyne's muscles had become anaemic and enfeebled.
He was encouraged 'to move his limbs a little, and he found that he was
able to move them much more than he expected; he began to make small
objects, commencing with cutting and carving, and so at last was able to
work again, and to follow the craft of a carpenter.'[153]
[Illustration: RAHERE'S TOMB IN ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHURCH.]
John Mirfield, a canon of St. Bartholomew's Priory, wrote a general
treatise on medicine, entitled _Breviarium Bartholomei_, about the year
1380, when Richard Sutton was master of the hospital. This book is of
considerable interest, both as an early medical treatise written at a
time when this form of literature was not general, and for its
connection with the hospital. Dr. Moore gives a full description of the
contents, and adds: 'The picture is complete of the medical and
surgical practice in St. Bartholomew's Hospital in the reign of Richard
II.'[154]
London was doubtless well able to supply the hospital with patients, and
the dismounted knights in the jousts at Smithfield must have found it
convenient to have their wounds attended to at once. It is recorded that
when Wat Tyler fell from his horse, half dead from his wounds, he was
dragged within the hospital gate, and died in what is now the open space
between the church and the outer wall of the great hall. The body was
then laid in the master's chamber. Walworth, however, had the body
brought out and beheaded, the head being sent to London Bridge to
replace that of Archbishop Sudbury.
By a composition, dated 1373, the master of the hospital was ordered to
be presented to the Prior of St. Bartholomew's Priory after election,
and previous to presentation to the bishop. The last master was John
Brereton, who subscribed to the King's supremacy in 1534. The last
prior, Robert Fuller, surrendered the priory to the King in 1540.
About the year 1423 the famous Richard Whittington repaired the hospital
at his own expense. Little more than a century after this it was
refounded by Henry VIII., but with very little pecuniary help from the
King.
In 1538 the Mayor, aldermen and commonalty of the City of London
petitioned Henry VIII. that they might from thenceforth have the order,
rule, disposition and governance of St. Mary's Spital, St. Bartholomew's
Spital, and St. Thomas's Spital, and the new Abbey at Tower Hill, with
the rents and revenues appertaining to the same, for the only relief of
the poor, sick and needy persons. In 1544 the King confirmed by letters
patent the grant and establishment of St. Bartholomew's Hospital to the
master and chaplains, but in 1546 a deed of covenant between Henry
VIII. and the Mayor, commonalty and citizens of London respecting the
hospital was sealed, by which they came under the rule of the city. It
is stated in the deed that 'his Highness of his bountiful goodness and
charitable mind was moved with great pity for and towards the relief,
aid, succour and help of the poor, aged, sick, low and impotent people.'
Additional letters patent were issued in 1547.[155]
In 1552 was published _The Ordre of the Hospital of S. Bartholomewes in
West Smythfielde, in London_, with this text on the title, 'I Epist.
John, ij. chap. He that sayeth he walketh in the lyght, and hateth his
brother, came never as zeal in the lyght. But he that loveth his
brother, he dwelleth in the lyght.'
We have already seen how the later years of Rahere's life were darkened
by the attacks of enemies, and a curious revival of similar slanders
appears to have occurred when the hospital was refounded, and so
virulent were the slanders that it appears to have been thought that a
reply from the governing body was needed, and such a reply is found in
the Preface to the _Ordre_[156]--this commences as follows: 'The
wickednes of reporte at thys Daie, good reader, is growen to such
ranckenes, that nothing almost is able to defend it selfe against the
venyme thereof, but that, either with open slander or privie whisperyng,
it shalbe so undermyned, that it shall neither have the good successe,
which otherwyse it myght, ne the thankes whiche for the worthines it
ought.'
Henry VIII. being dead the governing body appear to have felt it
possible to tell the truth as to the little he had done in endowing the
hospital. In fact, both Henry VIII. and Edward VI. have gained credit as
founders, when they really did little more than give buildings for
public purposes that were of no use to themselves and then leave others
to find the money to support them.
The writer of the Preface says that the slanderers ought to repent and
praise both the deed and the doers so as to wipe away the slander: 'But
forasmuch as it is doubtful whether thei wil do as thei maie, and of
conscience are bounden, and the slaundre is so wide spred, that a narowe
remedy cannot amend it: It is thought good to the Lord Mayour of thys
Citie of London, as chief patrone and governour of this Hospitall, in
the name of the Citie, to publishe at this present the officiers and
ordres by hym appoincted, and tyme to tyme practysed and used by twelve
of the citizeins the moste aunciente in their courses, as at large in
the processe shal appiar, partly for the staye and redresse of such
slaundre, and partly for that it myght be an open witnesse and knowledge
unto all men howe thynges are administered there and by whom. Wherein if
any man judge more to be set forth in woorde, than in diede is folowed
there be meanes to resolve him.'
The case in abstract is as follows: For the relief of the sore and sick
of the City of London Henry VIII. was pleased to erect a hospital in
West Smithfield for a hundred sore and diseased. He endowed it with 500
marks a year, on condition that the citizens found another 500 marks.
The citizens soon discovered that the King's endowment was far under
what at first they had hoped. The 500 marks rent was to come from houses
in great decay, and some 'rotten ruinous,' so that to make them again
worth the wonted revenue was no small charge, and after paying certain
pensions, etc., there only remained towards succouring the hundred poor
sufficient for the charge of three or four harlots then lying in
childbed. The citizens therefore, to relieve their own poor and others
coming daily out of all quarters of the realm, spent above their
covenant of 500 marks yearly not much less than £1000, which enabled
them to receive the number agreed upon. In spite of this, certain busy
bodies more ready to espy occasion to blame others than skilful to
redress things blameworthy indeed, rounded into the ears of the
preachers their tender consciences. These preachers took upon them to
make known these slanders, so that the good citizens for their five
years' loathsome work done for Christ's sake received only open
detraction and the poor a greater hindrance.
During these five years (1547-1552) 800 sick folk were healed in the
hospital and 92 died. The Preface writer ends by saying that if any man
spieth aught in the Ordre worthy to be reformed he will find those at
the hospital glad and willing to reform it, and the city wish, if by any
means it is possible, to raise the number of those receiving the
benefits of the hospital from 100 to 1000.
The number of distinct paid officers is given as seven, in this
order--(1) The Hospitaller, (2) the Renter Clerk, (3) the Butlers, (4)
the Porter, (5) the Matron, (6) the Sisters (twelve), (7) the Beadles
(eight). 'There are also as in a kynde by themselves iii. chirurgeons in
the wages of the Hospitall, gevyng daily attendaunce upon the cures of
the poore.'
The charges in this little book of orders are of great interest, and
will well repay careful perusal. The surgeons are charged to the
uttermost of their knowledge to help cure the diseases of the poor
without favouring those with good friends; they are not to admit the
incurables, so as to keep out those who are curable; when they dress any
diseased person they are to advise him to sin no more and be thankful
unto God; they are to receive no gift from anyone, and never to burden
the house with any sick person, for the curing of which person they have
received any money. In conclusion, they are to report any wrongdoing to
the almoners.
The nurses of the present day would be surprised at the stringency of
the instructions in the charge to the sisters. Mr. Morrant Baker
specially refers to one command: 'And so muche as in you shall lie, ye
shall avoyde and shonne the conversacion and company of all men,' and
adds, 'An order which, I have no doubt, was as implicitly obeyed then as
any similar command would be now.'
At the end of the charges is 'A daily service for the poore,' and 'A
thankesgeving unto Almyghtie God to be said by the poore that are cured
in the hospital, at ye time of their delivery from thence, upon their
knies in the hall before the hospitaler, and twoo masters of this house,
at the least. And this the hospitaler shal charge them to learne without
the booke, before they be delivered.'
Thomas Vicary, serjeant surgeon to the King, and the foremost surgeon of
his time, was first appointed Governor of St. Bartholomew's on the 29th
of September 1548, and in January 1552 he was made governor for life. He
was the first medical officer of the hospital. Dr. Norman Moore
describes his position as 'intermediate between that of the master of
older times and that of the surgeons subsequently appointed. For some
years he seems to have had both medical and general charge of the
hospital.'[157]
At this time he had long held a distinguished position, although not
originally a trained surgeon, and at first in small practice at
Maidstone. In 1525 he was junior of the three wardens of the Barber
Surgeons' Company. In 1528 he was upper warden and one of the surgeons
to Henry VIII. On 29th April 1530 he was granted the office of serjeant
surgeon to the King 'as soon as Marcellus de la More shall die, or
resign or forfeit his post,' and in the same year he became master of
the Barber Surgeons' Company. La More died, or disappeared from England
at some time after Easter 1535, when he received his last payment.
Vicary received his first quarter's salary as serjeant surgeon on the
20th September 1535, and filled this distinguished office under Henry
VIII., Edward VI., Mary and Elizabeth. The serjeant surgeons were
originally military surgeons, whose first duty was to attend the King
upon the battlefield. John Ranby was the last to perform this duty when
he attended George II. at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743.[158]
In 1541 Vicary was appointed first master of the Amalgamated Company of
Barbers and Surgeons, and in 1548 he is said to have published for the
first time his _Anatomie of Man's Body_. This work was reprinted in 1577
by the four surgeons of St. Bartholomew's of that time--William Clowes,
Wil. Beton, Richard Story and Edward Bayly, who dedicated it to the
president and governors. The book is one of great interest, but Dr.
Payne has lately proved that it is not an original work, but merely a
_rechauffé_ of an anatomical treatise of the fourteenth century, from
which the greater portion has been transcribed word for word.[159]
The first physician of St. Bartholomew's was Dr. Roderigo Lopus, a
Portuguese Jew, who was appointed about 1567.
_St. Thomas's Hospital._--This hospital is almost of as great antiquity
as St. Bartholomew's. The original hospital belonged to the canons of
the Priory of St. Mary Overy, and was situated on the west side of the
road running south from London Bridge. In 1207 the hospital was
destroyed in the fire which devastated the borough of Southwark, but a
temporary building was erected on the old site (now occupied by the
Bridge House Hotel and the London and Westminster Bank). Peter de
Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, projected a new hospital on a more
suitable site on the east side of the road, and appealed for funds for
this purpose by means of a charter of indulgence, 1228: 'Behold at
Southwark an ancient hospital built of old to entertain the poor, has
been entirely reduced to cinders and ashes by a lamentable fire;
moreover, the place wherein the old hospital has been founded was less
appropriate for entertainment and habitation, both by reason of the
straitness of the place and by reason of the lack of water and many
other conveniences; according to the advice of us, and of wise men, it
is transferred and transplanted to another more commodious site, where
the air is more pure and calm, and the supply of water more plentiful.'
The new hospital was dedicated to St. Thomas (à Becket) the Martyr, and
became independent of St. Mary's Priory. It was frequently referred to
as Becket's Spital.
The third building was erected about 1507, and in 1535, a short time
before the dissolution of the religious houses, the custos or master,
the brethren and the three lay sisters, had the charge of forty beds for
poor and infirm people, who were to be supplied with food and firing.
The hospital was refounded in 1553 by Edward VI., and endowed with 4000
marks a year. It was dedicated to St. Thomas the Apostle, but was often
called, in honour of Edward, the King's Hospital. The parish of St.
Thomas Apostle, Southwark, contained within its limits the two hospitals
of St. Thomas and Guy's, and was often called the parish of St. Thomas's
Hospital. Thus the old name remained, but the dedication was changed
from that of the famous saint of the Middle Ages to that of the Apostle
St. Thomas.
Dr. Payne, who wrote an essay 'On some old Physicians of St. Thomas's
Hospital,' says that in old times the staff was exclusively surgical.
Dr. Eliazer Hodson, who was appointed about 1620, was the first named
that Dr. Payne could find, but he does not think that Hodson was the
first physician.
The building having fallen into disrepair was entirely rebuilt in
1701-1706, and the hospital remained on the same spot from 1228 until
1862, when the property was sold to the South Eastern Railway Company,
and a new hospital was opened on the Albert Embankment at the southern
end of Westminster Bridge.
_Lepers._--There were other mediæval hospitals in London besides those
now described, which were the two chief ones. Many smaller buildings in
the suburbs were devoted to the reception of lepers.
Dr. Creighton writes: 'The remarkable Ordinance of Edward III. in 1346
for the expulsion of lepers from London seems to have been the occasion
of the founding of two so-called Lazar-houses, one in Kent Street,
Southwark, called "the Loke," and the other at Hackney or Kingsland.
These are the only two mentioned in the subsequent orders to the porters
of the city gates in 1375, and as late as the reign of Henry VI.
[Illustration: ST. GILES' IN THE FIELDS]
they are the only two besides the ancient Matilda's Hospital in St.
Giles's fields.... Another of the suburban leper-spitals was founded at
Highgate by a citizen of 1468, and it is not until the reign of Henry
VIII. that we hear of the spitals at Mile End, Knightsbridge and
Hammersmith.'[160] Dr. Creighton adds that the Lock was doubtless the
house of the 'Leprosi apud Bermondsey,' who are designated in the Royal
Charter of 1 Hen. IV. (1399) as recipients, along with the _Leprosi_ of
Westminster (St. James's), of five or six thousand pounds.
The village of St. Giles in the Fields, as shown in the accompanying
plan, is of great interest, largely because the place still retains some
of its old special features. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century,
when the Rookery of St. Giles's was destroyed, and New Oxford Street was
built on the site, the lines of its contour were little altered since
the Hospital was founded at the beginning of the twelfth century.
The Ordinance of Edward III. (1346), and the swearing of the porters of
the city gates that they will prevent lepers from entering the city, are
printed in Riley's _Memorials_ (pp. 230, 384).
Dr. Creighton states that, as far as he knows, the Ordinance of 1346 is
the only one of the kind in English history, and adds: 'The statutes of
the realm contain no reference to lepers or leprosy from first to last;
the references in the Rolls of Parliament are to the taxing of their
houses and lands. The laws which deprived lepers of marital rights and
of heirship appear to have been wholly foreign; in England, leprosy as a
bar to succession was made a plea in the law courts.'[161]
Doubtless there were many cases of true leprosy in the Middle Ages, but
there was a great confusion of diseases under this generic term, and we
are told that, 'in some instances of leper hospitals with authentic
charters, the provision for the leprous was in the proportion of one to
three or four of the non-leprous inmates.'[162]
It was a very terrible fate for a man or woman to be accused of being a
leper, for the sufferers were driven from the haunts of men, and being
in many cases uncared for, they grew worse and worse. The disease was
largely caused by bad food, and this cause was quite neglected in many
places.
A monstrous Ordinance of the Scottish Parliament at Scone in 1386 is
recorded in the _Ancient Laws and Customs of the Burghs of Scotland_:
'Gif ony man brings to the market corrupt swine or salmond to be sauld,
they sall be taken by the bailie, and incontinent, without ony question,
sall be sent to the lepper folke; and gif there be na lepper folke, they
sall be destroyed all uterlie.' The Rev. W. Denton, in quoting this
instance of horrible cruelty, writes: 'Sir Walter Scott must have had
instances of such economy in his mind when he put into the mouth of John
Girder the directions--"Let the house be redd up, the broken meat set
by, and if there be ony thing totally uneatable, let it be gien to the
puir folk."--_Bride of Lammermuir._'[163]
Men sometimes took advantage of a charge of leprosy to injure an enemy.
In 1468, Johanna Nightyngale, of Brentwood, in Essex, was accused of
leprosy. She refused to remove herself to a solitary place, and appealed
to Edward IV., who issued a Chancery warrant for her examination by his
physicians and certain lawyers to be associated with them. The court of
inquiry reported that they found the woman to be in no way leprous, nor
to have any sign of lepra. The case is recorded in Rymer's
_Foedera_.[164]
There was another evil caused by the privilege of begging which was
accorded to lepers, for men sometimes pretended to be lepers in order to
avail themselves of this privilege.
It is worthy of mention, in passing, that the two districts of London
which have given their names to the extremes of high and low life--viz.,
St. James's and St. Giles's--both have their origin in the leper
hospitals of the Middle Ages.
_The Plague._--The greatest scourge among the epidemics which have
devastated the world is the Eastern bubonic plague, which entered Europe
for the first time in the fourteenth century. All epidemics, when they
find a new field, appear to be specially virulent, and this was the case
with the first appearance of the plague, which so terrified the
inhabitants of Europe that they applied to it this ominous name; but the
epidemic of 1349 has of late years received the new name of the Black
Death, which distinguishes it in the popular mind from the later
visitations. The name, which came from Germany, will not be found in the
old descriptions of the plague in England. A writer in the _Quarterly
Review_ says: 'The term "Der Schwarze Tod" may have been used in Germany
in the fourteenth century, but it does not seem to have been current in
England before Hecker's work [on Epidemics] was translated into English
in 1833.'[165]
The Black Death entered Dorsetshire in August 1348, moving on to
Bristol, Gloucester and Oxford. From Oxford the infection marched to
London, which city it reached at Michaelmas or November. It soon swept
over the whole country. Dr. Creighton writes: 'The Black Death may be
said to have extended over three seasons in the British islands--a
partial season in the south of England in 1348; a great season all over
England, in Ireland, and in the south of Scotland, in 1349; and a late
extension in Scotland generally in 1350. The experience of all Europe
was similar, the Mediterranean provinces receiving the infection as
early as 1347, and the northern countries, on the Baltic and North Seas,
as late as 1350.'[166]
This plague had the most momentous effect upon the history of England,
on account of the fearful mortality that it caused. It paralysed
industry, and permanently altered the position of the labourer.
Ineffectual attempts were made to neutralise these effects by the
Statute of Labourers and by enactments 'that every workman and labourer
shall do his work just as he used before the pestilence'; 'that the
servants of substantial people shall take no more than they used to
take'; and 'that labourers and workmen who will not work shall be
arrested and imprisoned.'[167]
The effects of the pestilence on the Church and on morals is seen in the
writings of Wiclif and Langland. Wiclif, who was an Oxford student, in
1348 predicted in his book, _The Last Age of the Church_, the end of the
world in 1400 at latest. The effects upon architecture has been dwelt
upon by the antiquaries; upon the growth of the country, by political
economists; and upon the general health of the country, by doctors; so
that it is not necessary here to enter into further explanations.
The statistics of the writers of the Middle Ages are of little value,
and the estimates of those who died are very various, but the statement
that half the population of England died from the plague is probably
not far from the truth.
In East Anglia, which suffered most severely, upwards of 800 parishes
lost their parsons, eighty-three of them twice, and ten of them three
times, in a few months. In Norfolk and Suffolk nineteen religious houses
were left without abbot or prior.[168]
The details of the Black Death in London are not numerous, but Riley
gives some particulars of mortality among the City Companies at this
time. In the Articles of the Cutlers (1344) the names of eight wardens
are given, and below it is stated that in the 23rd year of Edward III.'s
reign (five years after) they were all dead, and others chosen in their
place.[169] In the Articles of the Hatters (1347) six wardens are named
as being chosen on Tuesday after the Feast of St. Lucy, 13th December,
21 Edw. III., and a note is added that by the Saturday after the
translation of St. Thomas the Martyr, 7th July, 24 Edw. III., they had
all died.[170] Four wardens of the Goldsmiths' Company are recorded to
have fallen victims to the Black Death, and doubtless the other
companies suffered in a like manner.
The most striking fact in respect to the mortality in London is that
recorded by Stow in his Chronicle, of 50,000 persons buried in Sir
Walter de Manny's burial place in Spittle Croft (now the Charterhouse).
Although doubtless the number is grossly exaggerated, it is certain that
it was very great. One of the victims in high places was Dr.
Bradwardine, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died at Lambeth on 26th
August 1349, just one week after he had landed at Dover from Avignon.
In January 1349 the meeting of Parliament was prorogued because 'a
sudden visitation of deadly pestilence had broken out at Westminster and
the neighbourhood.'
Dr. Creighton writes: 'For 300 years plague was the grand zymotic
disease of England--the same type of plague that came from the East in
1347-1349, continuously reproduced in a succession of epidemics at one
place or another.' He goes on to quote Peinlich's _Pest in Steiermark_
[i.e. _Styria_], 1877-1878, to show that similar cases occurred over
Europe. From 1349 to 1716 seventy years are marked in the annals of
Styria as plague years.[171]
The second great pestilence occurred in 1361, when the number of deaths
was about a third of those from the plague of 1349. The mortality was
greater among men than women. The third pestilence, of 1368-1369, is
referred to by Langland in _Piers Plowman_. The fourth was in 1375-1376,
and the fifth in 1390-1391.
Dr. Creighton describes several other plagues, and writes that 'in the
decade from 1430 to 1440 there were no fewer than four distinct
outbreaks of plague, three of them confined to London, and one of them,
that of 1439, general throughout the realm.'[172]
The constant recurrence of the plague must have taught the authorities
some mode of treatment, but although certain sanitary regulations were
made (which will be referred to later on), it is only incidentally that
we learn what was done during the earlier visitations. Probably panic
reigned generally in the time of the Black Death. Such writings as are
left us give this impression, and there is little reason for surprise
that it should have been so.
Dr. Creighton has entered very fully into the history of the various
plagues and the different expedients which were adopted to mitigate
their severity. His valuable work is so thorough in its treatment of the
subject that to a great extent I have drawn the following particulars
from his luminous pages.
The first plague order, of which the full text is extant, was issued in
1543. The following transcript is taken from an _An Abstract of several
Orders relating to the Plague_ (British Museum. Addit. MS., No. 4376):--
'35 Hen. VIII. A precept issued to the aldermen:--That they should cause
their beadles to set the sign of the cross on every house which should
be afflicted with the plague, and there continue for forty days: that no
person who was able to live by himself, and should be afflicted with the
plague, should go abroad or into any company for one month after his
sickness, and that all others who could not live without their daily
labour should as much as in them lay refrain from going abroad, and
should for forty days after [illegible] and continually carry a white
rod in their hand, two foot long. That every person whose house had been
infected should, after a visitation, carry all the straw and [illegible]
in the night privately in the fields and burn; they shall also carry
clothes of the infected in the fields to be cured.
'That no housekeeper should put any person diseased out of his house
into the street or other place unless they provided housing for them in
some other house.
'That all persons having any dogs in their house, other than hounds,
spaniels or mastiffs necessary for the custody or safe keeping of their
houses, should forthwith convey them out of the city, or cause them to
be killed and carried out of the city and buried at the common laystal.
'That such as kept hounds, spaniels or mastiffs should not suffer them
to go abroad, but closely confine them.
'That the churchwardens of every parish should employ somebody to keep
out all common beggars out of churches on holydays, and cause them to
remain without doors.
'That all the streets, lanes, etc., within the wards should be cleansed.
'That the aldermen should cause this precept to be read in the
churches.'
Dr. Creighton says that this order was a development of the measures
devised by the King or his Minister before 1518, and probably in the
plague of 1513. The wisps put out on the infected houses are replaced by
crosses, which above are described simply as 'the sign of the
cross.'[173]
On 15th November 1547 it was ordered by the Mayor, recorder and aldermen
(_vicecomites_) that 'everye howseholder of their severall wardes, which
sithe the feast of all seyntes last past hath bein vysyted with the
plage ... shall cause to be fyxed upon the uttermost post of their
strete dore a certain crosse of saynt Anthonye devysed for that purpose,
there to remain xl. dayes after the setting up thereof.'[174]
The cross of St. Anthony was a crutch, such as was used by the Crutched
Friars. It was painted in blue on canvas or board, and the legend under
or over the cross was 'Lord have mercy upon us.'
In the plague of 1563 it was ordered, on the 3rd of July, that two
hundred blue headless crosses be made with all convenient speed by the
Chamberlain, and again, on the 6th of the same month, two hundred more
were ordered. On the 8th of July blue crosses were delivered to the
Bailiff of Finsbury to be used there.[175]
Dr. Creighton says that before the plague of 1603 the colour of the
crosses had been changed to red. The white rod or wand was used in
France as well as in England, as we learn from a letter of the Venetian
Ambassador to France (20th November 1580): 'This city [Paris] I hear is
in a very fair sanitary condition, notwithstanding that as I entered a
city gate, which is close to where I reside, I met a man and a woman
bearing the white plague wands in their hands, and asking alms; but some
believe that this was merely an artifice on their part to gain
money.'[176]
The white wand was afterwards retained as the peculiar badge of the
searchers of infected houses and of the bearers of the dead. In 1603 it
had become a red wand, just as the blue cross had become a red one.
The regulation about dogs is of great interest, as it incidentally shows
that dogs were commonly kept in London houses for the purpose of
protection. It was believed that dogs carried infection in their hair.
Brasbridge, in his _Poor Man's Jewel_, 1578, relates how, 'not many
years since, I knew a glover in Oxford who, with his family, to the
number of ten or eleven persons, died of the plague, which was said to
be brought into the house by a dogge skinne that his wife bought when
the disease was in the citie.'
The plague orders contained the clause against dogs to the last, and
thousands of them were killed. A proclamation during the London plague
of 1563 was directed against cats as well as dogs.[177]
The early literature of the plague is very unsatisfactory, and we have
to come to a time much later than the mediæval period for information as
to treatment. The main points of the various regulations were isolation
of the infected and special attention to sanitation. These in principle
are in accord with the best opinion of to-day, but the way in which they
were carried out left much to be desired. Those who were imprisoned in
their houses must have felt that they were given over to death. Yet some
of these patients did recover, and we naturally ask what was the
treatment which caused these cures? Was the cure due to the doctor or to
nature alone? The answer is not easy to find.
Dr. Payne, in his Inaugural Address as President of the Epidemiological
Society in 1893, specially alludes to the literature of the plague, of
which he says: 'The number of publications relating to the plague in
Europe during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is
very large, those in Germany being probably the most numerous, while
those published in England are comparatively few. We might expect,
however, that those works published at the time of great epidemics would
furnish us with valuable material for epidemic history. It is very
disappointing, therefore, to find how very seldom these writings,
whether of continental or English origin, have any historical value.
What generally happened was this. When an epidemic broke out, or was
expected in any particular place, some local physician thought it his
business to furnish the public with a tract on the subject, and he
accordingly compiled from the best authorities a pamphlet, good or bad
as the case might be. Such a physician, if he survived, would no doubt
have been able to acquire some experience of the disease during its
continuance, and if he had chosen to put this down in plain words when
the epidemic was over he might have done some service to medical
history, but unfortunately when the disease had once disappeared the
physicians seemed to have lost all interest in the subject, and it is
only in rare instances that the medical literature of the plague
contains any account of contemporary epidemics. One exception is Guy de
Chauliac's well-known account of the "Black Death" at Avignon, but we
have nothing in English literature to compare at all with this till much
later. The only medical work on the plague in the Elizabethan times
which has much value is that of Thomas Lodge, and this cannot be called
original.... It is not till after the great plague of 1665 that we have,
in the well-known work of [Nathanael] Hodges [_Loimologia, sive Pestis
Narratio_, 1672], some attempt at a scientific description of the
epidemic.'
Dr. Furnivall has printed in his edition of Vicary some extracts from
the Guildhall Repertories relating to the appointment and payment of
surgeons and physicians to attend to the plague-stricken folk. William
King, surgeon to the Pesthouse, petitioned for a pension in 1611. He
affirms that he had shown 'great care and diligence in curinge of such
persons as have been sent thither, and by reason of his attendance and
imployment there, his friendes and former acquaintances do utterly
refuse to use him in his profession.' On September 10 the city
authorities agreed to give King a stipend of £3 a year, which does not
seem very liberal pay for his onerous services.[178]
In the British Museum there is a MS. of some importance (Sloane MS.,
349), entitled 'Loimographia, an account of the Great Plague of London
in the year 1665, by William Boghurst, apothecary.' This was first
referred to by Mr. E. W. Brayley in his edition of Defoe's _Plague
Year_, and it was analysed by Dr. Creighton in his work on Epidemics.
Dr. Payne printed an edition of the tract in 1894. Mr. Brayley reprinted
from the _Intelligencer_, July 31, 1665, the following curious
advertisement:--
'Whereas Wm. Boghurst, apothecary at the White Hart, in St. Giles' in
the Fields, hath administered a long time to such as have been afflicted
with the plague, to the number of 40, 50, or 60 patients a day, with
wonderful success, by God's blessing upon certain excellent medicines
which he hath, as a water, a lozenge, etc. Also an electuary antidote,
of but 8d. the oz. price. This is to notify that the said Boghurst is
willing to attend any person infected and desiring his attendance,
either in city, suburbs or country, upon reasonable terms, and that the
remedies above mentioned are to be had at his house or shop, at the
White Hart aforesaid.'
Boghurst gives a good deal of information in his book regarding the
signs of the disease, and its treatment; and he describes the spread of
the disease in London as follows:--
'The winds blowing westward so long together, from before Christmas
until July, about seven months, was the cause the plague began first at
the west end of the city, as at St. Giles', St. Martin's, Westminster.
Afterwards it gradually insinuated and crept downe Holborne and the
Strand, and then into the city, and at last to the east end of the
suburbs, soe that it was halfe a yeare at the west end of the city
before the east end and Stepney was infected, which was about the middle
of July. Southwark being the south suburb, was infected almost as soon
as the west end. The disease spread not altogether by contagion at
first, nor began at only one place, and spread further and further as an
eating spreading soare doth all over the body, but fell upon severall
places of the city and suburbs like raine, even at the first at St.
Giles', St. Martin's, Chancery Lane, Southwark, and some places within
the city, as at Proctor's House.'
Dr. Payne writes: 'It has always been a question whether the repeated
recurrences of plague in Europe were to be attributed to re-introduction
of the virus from the East, or to a fresh awakening of a virus already
endemic,' and then alludes to Boghurst's local explanation of the origin
of the 1665 plague. He concludes his Introduction by saying: 'It seems
probable that London still contained sufficient plague virus to start a
fresh epidemic, when the local and temporary conditions were
favourable. The only temporary conditions of this kind that we know of
are, first, the rapid growth of population in London, which caused
terrible overcrowding, and must have overtasked the ordinary measures of
sanitation; and, secondly, the long drought in the spring of 1665, which
is referred to by Boghurst. The importance of this latter fact has been
explained by Dr. Creighton, in accordance with Pettenkofer's laws, but,
on the other hand, the great plague year of 1625 was remarkably wet. The
question is still one for discussion, and it may be left to the judgment
of the reader, guided by the valuable materials which Boghurst
contributes.'
From 1348 to 1665 plague was continually occurring in London, but it has
not appeared since the last date on anything but a small scale.[179] It
has been supposed that in the Great Fire the seeds of the disease were
destroyed, but this is not a conclusive reason, and fears were expressed
as to its possible reappearance in London after the plague of Bombay in
1896-1897; and the plague of Marseilles in the summer of 1720 created a
panic throughout Western Europe. Renewed attention was paid to the
London plague of 1665, and in 1722 Defoe wrote his renowned _Journal of
the Plague Year_.
We have no thoroughly trustworthy statistics of the earlier plagues, but
Dr. Creighton gives particulars of the visitations in London in 1603,
1625 and 1665 in one table:--
Estimated Total Plague Highest
Year. Population. Deaths. Deaths. Mortality Worst Week.
in a Week.
1603 250,000 42,940 33,347 3385 25 Aug.-1 Sept.
1625 320,000 63,001 41,313 5205 11-18 Aug.
1665 460,000 97,306 68,596 8297 12-19 Sept.
To these may be added that, in 1593, 11,503 persons died of the plague.
The figures of 1603 and 1625 in some reports differ from the above.[180]
Some of the plagues devastated the whole country, so that there was no
place for the Londoner to fly to for safety, but in others the danger
was more generally confined to London. In 1665 there were many places
that the Londoner could visit with considerable chance of safety, but
Queen Elizabeth in her reign would have none of this moving about. Stow
says that in the time of the plague of 1563 'a gallows was set up in the
market-place of Windsor to hang all such as should come there from
London. No wares to be brought to, or through, or by Windsor; nor any
one on the river by Windsor to carry wood or other stuff to or from
London, upon pain of hanging without any judgment; and such people as
received any wares out of London into Windsor were turned out of their
houses and their houses shut up.'
Monke, Duke of Albemarle, and Samuel Pepys were two of the most
prominent public servants who remained in London during the plague of
1665. The clergy and the doctors fled with very few exceptions, and
several of those who stayed in town doing the duty of others as well as
their own fell victims to the disease.
Dr. Hodges, author of _Loimologia_, enumerates among those who assisted
in the dangerous work of restraining the progress of the infection the
learned Dr. Gibson, Regius Professor at Cambridge, Dr. Francis Glisson,
Dr. Nathaniel Paget, Dr. Peter Barwick, Dr. Humphrey Brookes, etc. Of
those he mentions, eight or nine fell in their work, among whom was Dr.
Wm. Conyers, to whose goodness and humanity he bears the most honourable
testimony. Dr. Alexander Burnett, of Fenchurch Street, one of Pepys's
friends, was another of the victims.[181]
_Sweating Sickness._--The sweating sickness did not appear until the end
of the Middle Ages, viz., the year 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth was
fought, and there were five outbreaks of the epidemic up to 1551, after
which date it did not appear again in England. Dr. Creighton has taken
some pains to trace the origin of the disease. He writes: 'The history
of the English sweat presents to the student of epidemics much that is
paradoxical although not without parallel, and much that his research
can never rescue from uncertainty. Where did this hitherto unheard of
disease come from? Where was it in the intervals from 1485 to 1508, from
1508 to 1517, from 1517 to 1528, and from 1528 to 1551? What became of
it after 1551? Why did it fall mostly on the great houses--on the King's
Court, on the luxurious establishments of prelates and nobles, on the
richer citizens, on the lusty and well-fed, for the most part sparing
the poor? Why did it avoid France when it overran the Continent in 1529?
No theory of the sweat can be held sufficient which does not afford some
kind of answer to each of these questions, and some harmonising of them
all.'[182]
Those who wish to follow these inquiries must consult Dr. Creighton's
book. Suffice it to say here that the author is of opinion that
suspicion falls justly upon the foreign mercenaries who landed with
Henry Tudor at Milford Haven on the 6th of August 1485 as the carriers
of the disease.[183]
Dr. Creighton found among the British Museum manuscripts (Addit. MSS.,
No. 27, 582) a treatise on the _Sudor Anglicus_, or English Sweat,
dedicated to Henry VII. by the author, Thomas Forrestier, M.D., a native
of Normandy, who lived for a time in London. Stow says that the sickness
began in London on the 21st September, and continued till the end of
October, 'of the which a wonderful number died'; but Forrestier gives
the date as the 19th.
The second sweat was in 1508, when many died in the city. In August
public prayers were made at St. Paul's on account of the plague of
sweat. The third epidemic was in 1517, and the fourth in 1528. On the
5th of June of the latter year, Sir Brian Tuke wrote to Bishop Tunstall
that he had fled to Stepney 'for fear of the infection,' a servant
having died in his house. Anne Boleyn, her brother George and her father
caught the infection and recovered. Her brother-in-law, William Cary,
died at Hunsdon. A large number of persons caught the disease, but a
very considerable proportion recovered.
The fifth and last outbreak was in 1551, and it is interesting to note
that Dr. John Caius, the famous physician, wrote a treatise on it. Dr.
Norman Moore[184] describes this as 'the first original treatise
published in England, by which I mean the first treatise in which the
modern idea of observing the disease and writing a complete account of
what was actually seen was carried out.'
In Machyn's _Diary_ it is said that 'there died in London many
merchants, and great rich men and women, and young men and old of the
new sweat'; and Sir Thomas Speke and Sir John Wallop are instanced
among others. Hancocke, a minister of Poole, Dorset, refers to 'the
posting sweat that posted from town to town thorow England, and was
named "Stop-gallant," for it spared none. For there were some dancing in
the Court at nine o'clock that were dead at eleven.'
In taking stock of diseases and epidemics in London, we may note that
many of the pestilences previous to the Black Death were due to famine.
Dr. Creighton says of the year 1258 that 'so great was the pinch in
London from the failure of the crops and the want of money that fifteen
thousand are said to have died of famine and of a grievous and
widespread pestilence that broke out about the Feast of the Trinity,
19th May.' The number is that given by Matthew Paris, and Dr. Creighton
adds: 'It suggests a larger population in the capital than we might have
been disposed to credit. The same writer says that London was so full of
people when the Parliament was sitting in the year before (1257) that
the city could hardly hold them all in her ample bosom. The Annals of
Tewkesbury put the whole mortality from famine and fever in London in
1258 at 20,000, but the whole population did not probably exceed
40,000.'[185]
Small-pox and measles were not known to the ancients, and the latter
seems to have been first noted in the fourteenth century.
Of later diseases the name of influenza is Italian of the eighteenth
century, but Dr. Creighton refers to several epidemics which may have
been the same disease as those of 1173, 1427, 1510 and 1557. The 'new
disease' of 1643 was either typhus or influenza.
SANITATION
Having considered the condition of medical practice at the hospitals and
among private patients, and having also reviewed the particulars of
some of the chief epidemics, we shall now be better able to understand
the sanitary condition of mediæval London, and the means taken to keep
it clean. There can be little doubt that strenuous attempts were made at
different periods to improve its condition.
We may allow at once that old London was not a clean or healthy town, as
we understand these words now, but there can be little doubt that it was
in advance of most other towns.
Dr. Poore is rather severe in his estimate of the health of mediæval
London; he considers the situation of the city fairly good from a
sanitary point of view. It was not healthy, however, because of its
marshy surroundings. Ague and dysentery were always present and very
fatal. Scurvy was very prevalent before the introduction of the potato
by Hawkins.[186]
William Clowes, the well-known Elizabethan surgeon of St. Bartholomew's,
was also surgeon to Christ's Hospital, and in his day twenty or thirty
children had the scurvy at a time in the latter house, a fact due to a
diet largely composed of fish and other salted provisions, with a scanty
allowance of vegetables.
'There can be no doubt that down to the commencement of the present
century London was a veritable fever-bed, the causes of death being
largely malarial fever, spotted or typhus fever, plague, small-pox,
measles, scarlet fever, and whooping cough, the two latter being
comparatively recent introductions.'[187]
Another source of the unhealthiness of London is supposed by Dr. Poore
to be due to a soil soaked with the filth of centuries, by which means
the wells were probably infected.
Dr. Creighton takes a much more favourable view of the condition of
London, and he writes: 'Nuisances certainly existed in mediæval London,
but it is equally certain that they were not tolerated without
limit.'[188] It is also probable that the polluted condition of the soil
inside and outside the houses has been greatly exaggerated.
There was overcrowding in some quarters of London, but in most parts
there were gardens and plenty of fresh air. Many of the streets were
used as markets, and they were mostly left in a very untidy state, but
attempts were made to cleanse them.
The worst parts of the town were the lanes leading down to the river.
The bad state of these places was constantly complained of, but we must
always remember that complaints and legal actions are evidence to some
extent that in the end the evils were abated.
Very little is recorded when affairs go straight, as all are contented
to let them remain as they are, but when things go wrong we are all
anxious to raise complaints, and too much weight must not be given to
the supposed universality of these evils. We do not judge of the general
manners and morals of the country by the cases in the law courts and the
police courts.
Some of the evils, of which a description has come down to us, were
doubtless the cause of remedial measures being adopted. The streets soon
after the Conquest must have been in a very rotten condition, if we are
to judge from some accounts that have come down to us.
Stow relates in his Chronicle that in the great tempest of November 17,
1090, when 606 houses were beaten down by the wind in London, the roof
of St. Mary le Bow in Cheapside 'being raised with the beames thereof
were carryed in the ayre a great while, and at the last sixe of the
sayde beames were driven with their fall so fast in the ground, that
there appeared of some of them the seventh, and of some the eyght part,
to wit, but foure foote above the ground; which beames or rafters were
seaven and twentie or eyght and twentie foote long, which was a
wonderful to see them so pierce the ground [not paved then with stone],
and there to stand in such order as the workmen hadde placed them on the
church.' There these beams remained as obstructions until they were cut
even with the ground.
Little appears to have been done in general sanitation until the reign
of Henry III., but it has been said that the sanitary reforms of the
reign of Edward I. were as great as the reforms effected in the law and
constitution. It is satisfactory to learn that it was the example of
this great King which made the use of the bath popular among his
subjects. In Riley's _Memorials_ there are several references to
sanitary ordinances at this time. In 1281 regulations were made that no
swine and no stand or timber were from henceforth to be found in the
streets. The swine were to be killed and the stands and timber
forfeited. Melters of tallow and lard were turned out of their
warehouses in Cheapside in 1283. The watercourse of Walbrook was to be
made free from dung and other nuisances in 1288. Swine still wandered
about the streets, and in 1292 four men whose names are given in Letter
Book C were elected and sworn 'to take and kill such swine as should be
found wandering in the King's highway, to whomsoever they might belong,
within the walls of the city and the suburbs thereof.' The Earl of
Lincoln complained to Parliament in 1307 as to the state of the River
Fleet, and the gist of his complaint is reported by Stow: 'Whereas in
times past, the course of water running at London under Holborne bridge
and Fleete bridge into the Thamis, had beene of such large breadth and
depth, that ten or twelve ships at once with merchandises were wont to
come to the foresaide bridge of Fleete and some of them to Holborne
bridge; now the same course (by filth of the tanners and such other) was
sore decayed. Also by raysing up of wharffes, but especially by turning
of the water, which they of ye new Temple made to their milles without
Baynard Castle, and divers other perturbations, the said shippes now
could not enter as they were wont, and as they ought, wherefore hee
desired that the Maior of London, with the Sheriffes and certaine
discreete Aldermen, might be appointed to see the course of the said
water, and that by oth of honest men all the foresaid hindrances might
be removed, and to bee made as it was wont of old time.'[189]
In the second year of Edward II.'s reign (1309) a proclamation was
issued for cleansing the streets, which were more encumbered with filth
than they used to be, and penalties were enforced against those who
neglected their duty in this matter.[190] Between forty and fifty years
after this we have evidence that one of the main thoroughfares of the
city was in a very bad state. On August 22, 1358, Isabella, the widowed
Queen of Edward II., died at Hertford Castle, and in the following
November she was buried in the Church of the Grey Friars. In order that
the passage of the body through the city should be carried out with any
decency, it was necessary to enact that Bishopsgate Street and Aldgate
Street should be cleansed of ordure and other filth.[191]
Dr. Creighton criticises the public regulations, and writes: 'There are
several orders of Edward III. relating to the removal of laystalls and
to keeping the town ditch clean, which show, of course, that there was
neglect, but at the same time disposition to correct it. It is farther
obvious that the connection between nuisances and the public health was
clearly apprehended. The sanitary doctrines of modern times were
undreamt of; nor did the circumstances altogether call for them. The
sewers of those days were banked-up watercourses, or shores, as the word
was pronounced, which ran uncovered down the various declivities of the
city to the town ditch and to the Thames. They would have sufficed to
carry off the refuse of a population of some forty or sixty thousand;
they were, at all events, freely open to the greatest of all purifying
agents, the oxygen of the air; and they poisoned neither the water of
the town ditch (which abounds in excellent fish within John Stow's
memory), nor the waters of Thames.'[192]
This seems exactly to explain the sanitary condition of the city, and we
must never forget that the streets were cleared by means of surface
drainage, which carried the refuse of the city to the river, to find its
way to the sea at last. The streets were evidently fairly well attended
to in ordinary times, and it is not for those who have polluted the
Thames and made the streams into covered sewers to point the finger of
scorn at the evils allowed by their ancestors, who at all events kept
the Thames pure.
The proclamations and ordinances issued for the proper cleansing of the
streets of London were very numerous, but the first sanitary act that
appears in the Statutes of the Realm was passed in the seventeenth year
of Richard II. (1388), the preamble of which Dr. Creighton prints.[193]
From this and other sources, it appears that one of the chief evils
complained of was due to the blood and offal in the shambles of Newgate
Street.
It is impossible to mention here all the information that has come down
to us as to what was done to secure a satisfactory sanitation, but
special reference may be made to the useful abstract in Riley's
Introduction to the _Liber Albus_.[194]
'Kennels were pretty generally made about a century after the date of
Fitz-Ailwine's Assize, on either side of the street (leaving a space for
the footpath), for the purpose of carrying off the sewage and rain
water. There were two kennels in Cheapside at a period even when nearly
the whole of the north side was a vacant space. The kennels, too, of
Cornhill are frequently mentioned. By reiterated enactments it was
ordered that the highways should be kept clean from rubbish, hay, straw,
sawdust, dung, and other refuse. Each householder was to clear away all
dirt from his door, and to be equally careful not to place it before
that of his neighbours. No one was to throw water or anything else out
of the windows, but was to bring the water down and pour it into the
street. An exception, however, to this last provision seems to have been
made in the case of fishmongers, for we find injunctions frequently
issued... that they shall on no account throw their dirty water into the
streets, but shall have the same carried to the river.'
It was the duty of each alderman to cause to be elected in Wardmote four
respectable men to keep the roads clean and free from obstructions.[195]
The same duties were carried out at another time by a Court of
Scavagers, who apparently were originally Custom House officers. The
scavagers had to see that the work was done, and the labourers who
actually cleansed the streets were called 'Rakyers.' In an Ordinance of
the time of Edward III. we learn that twelve carts, each with two
horses, were kept at the expense of the city for the removal of sewage
and refuse.[196]
CHAPTER VIII
_The Governors of the City_
'London claims the first place... as the greatest municipality, as
the model on which, by their charters of liberties, the other large
towns of the country were allowed or charged to adjust their
usages, and as the most active, the most political, and the most
ambitious. London has also a pre-eminence in municipal history
owing to the strength of the conflicting elements which so much
effected her constitutional progress.'--Stubbs, _Constitutional
History of England_, chap. xxi. par. 486.
The history of the early government of the city is full of pitfalls for
the historian. For years an account of what occurred before the
establishment of the mayoralty was generally accepted, which later
research has proved to be entirely erroneous. Careful students of early
documents have lately given us information of the greatest value, but we
still wait for more facts.
In the following pages an attempt will now be made to place before the
reader a short statement of what is known, with some indication of what
we still have to learn. Fortunately, there is no lack of students who
are constantly adding to our knowledge, and as in the last few years
considerable discoveries have been published, there is every reason to
hope that in the future other discoveries will be made equal at least in
importance to those which have been made in the past.
We know remarkably little as to how the government of London was carried
on before the Conquest, but probably the course of procedure was not
very different from what was the practice immediately after that great
event.
When William the Conqueror granted the first charter to London, he
addressed the Bishop and the Portreeve.[197] The former as
ecclesiastical governor, and the latter as the civil governor.
It has been a generally received opinion that there was a succession of
portreeves until the first appointment of a Mayor, but Mr. Round
believes that the title of portreeve disappears after the Conqueror's
charter.[198] In this opinion he is opposed to the view of both Bishop
Stubbs and Mr. Loftie. It is necessary to bear in mind that a reeve was
an officer appointed by the King, just as the sheriffs (or shire reeves)
of the various counties are still so appointed. There has been some
difference of opinion as to the meaning of the title Port-reeve. It
might at first sight be supposed to refer to the Port of London, but
this is not the received opinion. Bishop Stubbs writes: 'The word port
in port-reeve is the Latin _porta_ (not _portus_), where the markets
were held, and although used for the city generally, seems to refer to
it specially in its character of a mart or city of merchants.'[199]
The City of London obtained from Henry I. the right of appointing their
own sheriffs, which was a very great privilege, and there must have been
some very strong reason to induce the King to grant this great favour.
Bishop Stubbs writes of this charter of Henry I. to the citizens of
London: 'The privileges of the citizens of London are not to be
regarded as a fair specimen of the liberties of ordinary towns, but as a
sort of type and standard of the amount of municipal independence and
self-government at which the other towns of the country might be
expected to aim. At a period at which the other towns were just
struggling out of the condition of demesne, the Londoners were put in
possession of the ferm or farm of Middlesex, with the right of
appointing the sheriff; they were freed from the immediate jurisdiction
of any tribunal except of their own appointment, from several universal
imposts, from the obligation to accept trial by battle, from liability
to misericordia or entire forfeiture, as well as from tolls and local
exactions such as ordinary charters specify. They have also their
separate franchises secured and their weekly courts, but they have not
yet the character of a perpetual corporation or _Communa_, and thus
although possessing, by virtue of their associations in guilds, of their
several franchises, of their feudal courts, and of their shire
organisation under the sheriff, many elements of strength, consolidation
and independence, they have not a compact organisation as a municipal
body. The city is an accumulation of distinct and different corporate
bodies, but not yet a perfect municipality, nor although it was
recognised in the reign of Stephen as a _Communio_, did it gain the
legal status before the reign of Richard I.'[200] Mr. Round shows,
however, that the city possessed the privilege only for a short time:
'We see then that in absolute contradiction of the received belief on
the subject, the shrievalty was not in the hands of the citizens during
the twelfth century (_i.e._, from '1101'), but was held by them for a
few years only, about the close of the reign of Henry I. The fact that
the sheriffs of London and Middlesex were, under Henry II. and Richard
I. appointed throughout by the Crown, must compel our historians to
reconsider the independent position they have assigned to the city at
that early period. The Crown, moreover, must have had an object in
retaining this appointment in its hands. We may find it, I think, in
that jealousy of exceptional privilege or exemption which characterised
the _régime_ of Henry II. For, as I have shown, the charters to Geoffrey
remind us that the ambition of the urban communities was analogous to
that of the great feudatories, in so far as they both strove for
exemption from official rule. It was precisely to this ambition that
Henry II. was opposed; and thus, when he granted his charter to London,
he wholly omitted, as we have seen, two of his grandfather's
concessions, and narrowed down those that remained, that they might not
be operative outside the actual walls of the city. When the shrievalty
was restored by John to the citizens (1199) the concession had lost its
chief importance through the triumph of the communal principle.'[201]
Mr. Round holds that the office of Justiciar of London was created by
Henry I.'s charter, and as that officer took precedence of the sheriff
he must have been for a time the chief authority of the city. Mr.
Round's explanation of this position is of so much importance that it is
necessary to quote it here in his own words: 'The transient existence of
the local _justitiarius_ is a phenomenon of great importance, which has
been wholly misunderstood. The Mandeville charters afford the clue to
the nature of this office. It represents a middle term, a transitional
stage between the essentially _local_ shire-reeve and the _central_
justice of the King's court.... The _justitiarius_ for Essex or Herts,
or London or Middlesex, was a purely local officer, and yet exercised
within the limits of his bailiwick all the authority of the King's
justice. So transient was this state of things that scarcely a trace of
it remains.... Now, in the case of London, the office was created by the
charter of Henry I. (as I contend) towards the end of his reign, and it
expired with the accession of Henry II. It is, therefore, in Stephen's
reign that we should expect to find it in existence, and it is precisely
in that reign that we find the office _eo nomine_ twice granted to the
Earl of Essex and twice mentioned as held by Gervase, otherwise Gervase
of Cornhill.'[202]
The question of the date of the charter of Henry I. is discussed in
_Geoffrey de Mandeville_ (p. 364), and reasons are given for dating it
after 1130 instead of 1100 or 1101.
Bishop Stubbs specially refers to the foreign element in London at this
time thus: 'Richard the son of Reiner, the son of Berengar, was very
probably a Lombard by descent; the influential family of Bucquinte,
Bucca-uncta, which took the lead on many occasions, can hardly have been
other than Italian; Gilbert Becket was a Norman.' And further, in a
note, he adds: 'Andrew of London, the leader of the Londoners at Lisbon
in 1147, is not improbably the Andrew Bucquinte whose son Richard was
the leader of the riotous young nobles of the city who in 1177 furnished
a precedent for the Mohawks of the eighteenth century.'[203] Andrew, who
was present at the transference of the Cnihtengild's land to the Priory
of Holy Trinity (1125 or 1126), was one of the witnesses of the
agreement between Ramsay Abbey and Holy Trinity after that date, where
his name is written 'Bocunte.'[204] He was Justiciar of London in
Stephen's reign.[205] The Buccarelli were another Italian family whose
name is said to be preserved in Bucklersbury, and Round also mentions
Osbert Octodenarii (otherwise Huitdeniers), a kinsman and employer of
Becket.
The origin of the Commune of London has always been an exceedingly
obscure problem, but Mr. Round has succeeded in throwing a flood of
light upon the subject.
In the twelfth century there was a great municipal movement over Europe.
Londoners were well informed as to what was going on abroad, and
thoroughly dissatisfied with the existing organisation they waited and
were constantly looking for an opportunity of obtaining the privileges
of the Commune. Mr. Round points out that 'even so early as 1141, when
the fortunes of the Crown hung in the balance between rival claimants,
we find the citizens forming an effective _Conjuratio_, the very term
applied to their "Commune" half a century later by Richard of Devizes.
Moreover, earlier in the same year (April), William of Malmesbury
applies to their government the term _Communio_.[206] Miss Mary Bateson
has gone to the manuscript from which Mr. Round obtained the Oath of
Commune (B.M. Add. MS., 14,252), and her conclusion after consideration
is that 'the collection as a whole leaves the impression that "Communio
quam vocant Londoniarum" (1141), as it is styled by William of
Malmesbury, was not merely a unit in the eyes of the Exchequer, that the
jurisdictional unity of the city organised in folkmoot and husting gave
something substantial whereon the foundations of mayoralty and Commune
could be laid.'[207]
Mr. Round writes: 'The assumption that the mayoralty of London dates
from the accession of Richard I. (1189) is an absolute perversion of
history,' and he adds that 'there is record evidence which completely
confirms the remarkable words of Richard of Devizes, who declares that
on no terms whatever would King Richard or his father have ever assented
to the establishment of the _Communa_ in London.'[208]
In October 1191 the conflict between John, the King's brother, and
Longchamp, the King's representative, became acute. William of
Longchamp, Bishop of Ely (1189) and Chancellor to Richard I., was once
described by Henry II. as the 'son of two traitors.' When Richard called
a Council in Normandy in February 1190 Longchamp hurried over to the
King in advance of his enemies and returned to England as sole
justiciar. The Pope also made him Legate.
Longchamp bitterly offended the Londoners who, finding that they could
turn the scales to either side, named the Commune as the price of their
support of John.
Bishop Stubbs, in his Introduction to the Chronicle of Roger de Hoveden,
after referring to the negotiations between Longchamp and John, and
describing the hastening of the two parties to London on Monday, 7th
October, when Longchamp met the citizens in the Guildhall, writes: 'The
magnates of the city were divided--Richard Fitz-Reiner, the head of one
party, took the side of John. Henry of Cornhill was faithful to the
Chancellor. These two knights had been sheriffs at Richard's coronation,
and both represented the burgher aristocracy.' Longchamp betook himself
to the Tower, and a meeting was held at St. Paul's on Tuesday the 8th,
and the barons welcomed the Archbishop of Rouen as chief justiciar, and
saluted John as Regent. 'This done, oaths were largely taken: John, the
justiciar and the barons swore to maintain the _Communa_ of London; the
oath of fealty to Richard was then sworn, John taking it first, then the
two archbishops, the bishops, the barons, and last the burghers, with
the express understanding that should the King die without issue they
would receive John as his successor.'[209]
Mr. Round writes: 'The excited citizens, who had poured out overnight,
with lanterns and torches, to welcome John to the capital, streamed
together on the morning of the eventful 8th October at the well-known
sound of the great bell, swinging out from its campanile in St. Paul's
Churchyard. There they heard John take the oath to the "Commune" like a
French King or lord; and then London for the first time had a
municipality of her own.'[210] After this the influence of Longchamp at
once faded away. He stood a three days' blockade in the Tower, after
which he was forced to surrender, and was deposed from all secular
offices.
As to the results of this revolution Mr. Round writes: 'Of the character
of the "Commune" so granted, of its ultimate fate, and of the part it
played in the municipal development of London, nothing has been really
known. The only fact of importance ascertained from other sources has
been the appearance of a Mayor of London at or about the same time as
the grant of a "Commune." It cannot, indeed, be proved that, as has been
sometimes supposed, the two phenomena were synchronistic, for no mention
of the Mayor of London, after long research, is known to me earlier
than the spring of the year 1193. But there is, of course, the
strongest presumption that the grant of a "Commune" involved a Mayor,
and already, in 1194, we find a citizen accused of boasting that, "come
what may, the Londoner shall have no King but their Mayor.'"[211]
Mr. Round then states very clearly the divergent views of Bishop Stubbs,
Mr. Loftie and Mr. Coote on the question of the concession of the
Commune. The bishop held that it was difficult to decide with certainty
on the point, as no formal record of the confirmation of the Commune is
now preserved. Mr. Coote believed that a charter was granted in 1191,
which has been lost, and Mr. Loftie dates the mayoralty from 1189, and
deemed the Commune to have been of gradual growth, and to have been
practically recognised by the charter of Henry I.
In reply to Mr. Coote's view that in the case of London, which had
acquired all other things, the Commune expressed for its citizens the
mayoralty only, Mr. Round writes: 'We find, however, that on the
Continent the word "Commune" did not of necessity imply a Mayor, for
Beauvais and Compiègne, though constituted "Communes," appear to have
had no Mayors during most of the twelfth century. The Chroniclers,
therefore, had they only meant to speak of the privilege of electing a
Mayor, would not have all employed a word which did not connote it, but
would have said what they meant. Moreover, his theory rests on the
assumption common till now to all historians that the citizens had
continuously possessed from the beginning of the twelfth century the
privileges granted in the charter of Henry I. But I have shown in my
_Geoffrey de Mandeville_ that these privileges were not renewed by Henry
II. or Richard I., and this fact strikingly confirms the explicit words
of Richard of Devizes when he states that neither the one nor the other
would have allowed the Londoners to form a "Commune" even for a million
of marcs.'[212]
Of Mr. Loftie's argument that Glanville's words prove that London, if
not other towns as well, had already a Commune under Henry II., Mr.
Round remarks that it had been disposed of by Dr. Gross in his _Gild
Merchant_ (i. 102).[213]
We have now to refer specially to Mr. Round's remarkable discovery among
the manuscripts of the British Museum of the Oath of the Commune, which
proves for the first time that 'London in 1193 possessed a
fully-developed "Commune" of the continental pattern.'
This discovery not only gives us information which was unknown before,
but upsets the received opinions as to the early governing position of
the aldermen. From this we learn that the government of the city was at
that time in the hands of a Mayor and certain échevins (skivini).
Of the existence of these skivins in England no suspicion has previously
been expressed. Mr. Round, indeed, points out that Dr. Gross, in his
_Gild Merchant_, considers these governing officers as a purely
continental institution.
Twelve years later (1205-1206) we learn from another document, preserved
in the same volume, that '_alii probi homines_' were associated with the
Mayor and échevins to form a body of twenty-four (that is twelve
skivini, and an equal number of councillors).
In these documents there is no mention of aldermen, and further
information is required as to when the Court of Aldermen first came into
existence. This point will be discussed later on in this chapter, when
the position of the alderman as a governor is considered.
Mr. Round holds that the Court of Skivini and '_alii probi homines_,'
of which at present we know nothing further than what is contained in
the terms of the oaths, was the germ of the Common Council. He prints
the oaths and compares the oath of the twenty-four with that of the
freemen in the present day.[214]
The striking point in this municipal revolution is that the new
privileges were entirely copied from those of continental cities, and
that the names of Mayor and échevins were French, thus excluding the
aldermen who represented the Saxon element. Still, as time went on, the
aldermen obtained their natural position in the government of London,
and the foreign name of échevin sank before them.
The intimate connection between Normandy and England made it certain
that Englishmen would seek inspiration from Normandy. Mr. Round has
devoted considerable attention to Monsieur Giry's valuable work, _Les
Etablissemens de Rouen_, and shows that there is conclusive proof of the
assertion that the Commune of London derived its origin from that of
Rouen. The _vingt-quatre_ of the latter city formed the administrative
body annually elected to act as the Mayor's Council. Mr. Round further
found that the oath of this 'twenty-four' bears a marked resemblance to
the oath of the London Commune discovered by him. 'The three salient
features in common are--(1) the oath to administer justice fairly; (2)
the special provisions against bribery; (3) the expulsion of any member
of the body convicted of receiving a bribe.[215]
Much attention has been given lately to the important question of
continental influence on English municipalities, and Miss Mary Bateson
has discovered that a considerable number of boroughs in England, Wales
and Ireland drew their customs from the little Norman town of
Breteuil.[216] These are Bideford, Burford, Chipping Sodbury, Hereford,
Lichfield, Ludlow, Nether Weare, Preston, Ruyton, Shrewsbury;
Llanvyllin, Rhuddlan, Welshport; Drogheda, Dungarvan, Kildare and
Rathmore. Besides these there are eight suspected cases and a number of
derived cases.[217]
Although the fact that the Council of twenty-four seemed to exclude the
already existing aldermen from the chief government of the city was
opposed to our previous views, Mr. Round has set himself to show that a
Mayor's Council of twenty-four (not aldermen) was not unusual, and he
draws especial attention to the case of Winchester. There the Mayor had
a Council of twenty-four, who continued to exist down to the year 1835.
This Council was elected by the city as a whole and not by the wards,
and Mr. Round believes that this was also the case in London. He then
quotes from Dean Kitchin's book on Winchester (_Historic Towns_) where
it is said: 'The aldermen, in later days, the civic aristocracy, were
originally officers placed over each of the wards of the city and
entrusted with the administration of it.... It was not till early in the
sixteenth century that they were interposed between the Mayor and the
twenty-four men.' We learn from Mrs. Green (_Town Life in the Fifteenth
Century_) that there was a Council of twenty-four at Colchester,
Ipswich, Leicester, Northampton, Norwich, Oxford, Wells, and Yarmouth.
When the city obtained the long-coveted privilege of the Commune and the
power of electing their own Mayor, one would naturally expect the
electors to choose the most distinguished citizen. We cannot however say
whether Henry Fitz-Ailwin was that. At all events, he seems to have
retained the esteem of the city, as he was continued in office until his
death in 1212.
[Illustration: 'LONDON STONE,' CANNON STREET.]
Mr. Round wrote the Life of Fitz-Ailwin in the _Dictionary of National
Biography_, but he was unable to discover much of the Mayor's history.
He presumes that he was the grandson of an unidentified Leofstan, but he
rejects the view that he was the grandson of Leofstan, Portreeve of
London before the Conquest. Leofstan was a common name among the Saxons,
and two or three of the same name have been confounded by historians.
Fitz-Ailwin is described as 'of London Stone,' because his dwelling--'a
very fair house'--stood on the north side of the Church of St. Swithin,
and over against the London Stone, which was situated on the south side
of Cannon [Candlewick] Street, but afterwards removed to the north side
of the street. The advowson of the church was appropriated to the
mansion. London Stone itself is one of the most valued relics of London,
and its history is lost in antiquity. We know that in the Middle Ages
it was esteemed to possess a special value as a representative stone
monument.
The seal of Fitz-Ailwin is attached to a deed preserved among the public
records. It represents a man on horseback with a hawk perched on his
wrist. There is an inscription round the circumference of the seal, but
it is so defaced as to be illegible.[218]
The city was given the right of electing the Mayor, but we do not know
for certain who it was who first exercised this right. Bishop Stubbs
says that two years after the death of Fitz-Ailwin, King John granted to
the 'barones' of the City of London the right of annually electing the
Mayor.[219]
[Illustration: SEAL OF FITZ-AILWIN, FIRST MAYOR OF LONDON.]
The roll of Mayors is one of considerable distinction, and those who
obtained this position were mostly men of great character and authority.
Some of them were on the side of popular freedom, while others were
active in the support of the prerogatives of the privileged classes.
Sometimes the King degraded the Mayor and appointed a custos or warden
in his place. As early as 1222, twenty years after the death of
Fitz-Ailwin, in the reign of Henry III., Hubert de Burgh, chief
justiciar, superseded the Mayor and appointed a custos in his place.
Again, in 1266, William Fitz-Richard was appointed by the King warden of
the city. In November of the same year Fitz-Richard was replaced by Alan
Souche, and John Adrian and Luke de Batincourt were elected by the
citizens bailiffs of London and Middlesex. 'The bailiffs and the whole
Commune (_Communa_) of the said city' are mentioned in 1267.[220] In
1268-1269 Hugh Fitz-Otho was custos, and then follow some stirring times
in London.
Sir Walter Hervey, the predecessor of the famous Sir Henry Waleys in the
Mayor's chair, was the popular leader against the proceedings of his
successor.
Sir Henry de Waleys, Le Waleis, Le Walleis, or Le Galeys (for in all
these forms does his name appear), was elected sheriff with his
distinguished contemporary Gregory de Rokesley in 1270. His first
mayoralty was in 1273, and in 1275 he was Mayor of Bordeaux.
He was a very active chief magistrate and a good administrator; he was
also high in the royal favour. He proceeded against bakers, butchers and
fishmongers, and ordered them to remove their stalls from West Cheap. He
also came in conflict with the Barons of the Cinque Ports. The King sent
a mandate to the justices in Eyre at the Tower commanding them not to
molest Waleys for his reforms.
In the year 1285 the city again lost its franchise. Gregory de Rokesley
was deposed from the mayoralty by Edward I. for refusing to render any
account of how the peace of the city was maintained, thus omitting to
show proper respect to the King's justices at the Tower. For the next
thirteen years London was governed by a warden appointed by the King, in
the person of Sir Ralph de Sandwich or John le Breton.[221] Sir Ralph
de Sandwich is described in Letter Book A as warden of the city, as well
as warden of Cordwainer Street.
In 1297, a few months before the King restored the mayoralty to the
citizens, John le Breton who had for many years acted as the King's
warden of the city in place of the Mayor, is recorded as having summoned
the aldermen and six representatives of each ward and in their presence
to have declared, _inter alia_, that the weighing machines for weighing
corn at the mills should be abolished, and that bakers convicted of
fraud should no longer be drawn on the hurdle, but suffer instead the
punishment of the pillory.
As soon as the citizens recovered their liberties and Le Breton ceased
to be warden, Le Waleys was again elected to the chair. The charter of
restitution of the city's liberties bears date 12th April, 26 Edw. I.
[1299], and it is preserved at the Guildhall.[222] The particulars of
the various stages of these proceedings are set out fully in the city's
records. The writ was sent to the late warden on the 5th April, and the
notification to the citizens took place on the 9th. Le Waleys was
elected and admitted by the King at Fulham on the 16th.[223]
The King issued a writ to the Barons of the Exchequer from York,
notifying the restitution of the city's liberties, on 28th May, and a
proclamation followed. The day after the Mayor was sworn he was
compelled by business of his own to proceed at once to Lincoln, and
during his absence his official duties were committed to William de
Betoyne and Geoffrey de Nortone.
It is very important to bear in mind that the Mayors of London, besides
holding a very onerous office, were men of great distinction. They held
rank outside the city, and naturally took their place among the rulers
of the country. They were mostly representatives of the landed interest,
as well as merchant princes, but sometimes, as already stated, the Mayor
sided with the populace in opposition to the views of his own compeers.
Bishop Stubbs describes the struggles between the magnates and the
Commons, and shows how Thomas Fitz-Thomas favoured the latter.
'In 1249, when the Mayor and aldermen met the judges at the Temple for a
conference on rights claimed by the Abbot of Westminster, the populace
interfered, declaring that they would not permit them to treat without
the participation of the whole "Communa."... In 1262 Thomas Fitz-Thomas,
the Mayor, encouraged the populace to claim the title of "Communa
civitatis," and to deprive the aldermen and magnates of their rightful
influence; by these means he obtained a re-election by the popular vote
in 1263, the voices of the aldermen being excluded: in 1264-1265 he
obtained a reappointment, but his power came to an end after the Battle
of Evesham.'[224]
To pass on to the fourteenth century, we learn that in 1326 Queen Isabel
sent a letter to the citizens permitting them to elect a Mayor, as in
the days before the Iter of 1321. They elected Richard de Betoyne, whom
the barons had that day appointed warden of the Tower conjointly with
John de Gisors.[225]
Sometimes the sovereign, when he went abroad, endowed the Mayor with
considerable powers for the preservation of peace. This was the case in
1340 when Andrew Aubrey, the Mayor, acted on the authority of Edward
III. A conflict had taken place in the streets of the city between the
skinners and the fishmongers, which the Mayor attempted to stop. John
Hansard, a fishmonger, brandishing a drawn sword, seized Aubrey by the
throat and offered to strike him, while John le Brewere wounded one of
the city serjeants. The delinquents were at once seized, carried to
Guildhall, arraigned, found guilty, condemned to death, and beheaded in
Cheap. When the King heard of this bold proceeding he immediately wrote
to the Mayor, warmly approving of his conduct, congratulating him on his
spirit, and adopting and ratifying the deed--'_Si vous en savons très
bon gree et votre fait acceptoms et le ratifioms_.'[226]
Sir William Walworth, the most famous of Mayors, died in 1385, after a
full and strenuous life. He is said to have suppressed usury in the
city, and we have seen how important a figure he was during Wat Tyler's
insurrection. He was a prominent member of the Fishmongers' Company, and
improved the old Church of St. Michael's, Crooked Lane (in which parish
he lived), adding the Fishmongers' aisle.[227]
The end of the fourteenth century was, perhaps, the most stirring period
in the history of the London municipality. There was a deadly feud
between the leaders, who were men of strong character, endued with
courage to carry out their views to the extreme. These feuds were no
matters of merely local interest, but the incidents were followed with
the greatest attention by the Court and the whole country.
The feuds arose from the increased power of the livery companies and the
antagonism between the victualling and clothing trades. This division
existed in most of the towns of the land, but the battle was fought out
with deadly effect in the City of London. Walworth, a fishmonger, was
the chief of the victualling party, but the two prominent leaders of the
two parties were Nicholas Brembre and John of Northampton.
Doubtless the victualling companies had obtained a preponderating
influence, and it is recorded that at one time sixteen of the aldermen
belonged to the Grocers' Company, of which Brembre was a member.[228]
When John of Northampton, a draper, was elected Mayor in 1381, in
succession to Walworth, he set himself to crush the victualling party.
The Act of Edward II. having been evaded, another was passed in 1382 (6
Richard II. cap. 9), by which it was ordained that 'no victualler shall
execute a judicial place in a city or town corporate.'[229] (_See_ p.
305.)
He forced Sir John Philipot, a public-spirited man and ex-Mayor, but a
friend of Walworth's and of the King's, to resign his aldermanry. On 7th
November 1382, John Filiol, a fishmonger, was brought before the Mayor
and aldermen on a charge of having 'said that John Norhamptone, the
Mayor, had falsely and maliciously deprived the fishmongers of their
bread.' For this offence Filiol was adjudged to be 'imprisoned at
Newgate, in a place then called "Bocardo," for one year then next
ensuing, unless he should deserve more extended favour in the meantime.'
On the 6th December John Filiol 'was liberated at the instance of his
friends, on the surety of William Naufretone and others.' When the
charge was made against Filiol, Richard Fiffyde was one of those
questioned on the subject, and he 'said that he and all the other
fishmongers of London were bound to put their hands beneath the very
feet of Nicholas Extone, for his good deeds and words in behalf of the
trade aforesaid.'[230]
John of Northampton was Mayor for two years, and had held the office of
sheriff in 1377 (M.P. for the city, 1378). He was head of John of
Gaunt's supporters and a prominent follower of Wyclif in London. He was
leader of the party which sought to gain the favour of the populace, and
he encouraged the citizens to set at naught the jurisdiction of their
bishop.
He would probably have been returned again in October 1383 as the
champion of cheap food if the King had not carried the election of
Brembre by force.
Brembre was the chief supporter of Richard II. in the city, and he was
the King's financial agent in 1381. He was first elected Mayor in 1377,
and at the Parliament of Gloucester in 1378 Thomas of Woodstock, the
King's uncle, demanded his impeachment as Mayor.
From 1379 to 1386 Brembre was one of the two collectors of customs for
the Port of London, with Chaucer for his controller. He was M.P. for
London in 1383.
When he succeeded Northampton, in 1383, he set himself to undo the evil
caused by the action of his predecessor. Northampton was arrested in
1384, when returning from a riotous demonstration at Whitefriars. He was
tried at Reading, before the Council over which the King presided. After
a brief imprisonment, the condemned man was brought up for a fresh
trial, before Chief-Justice Tresilian, in the Tower of London, and was
imprisoned in Tintagel Castle, Cornwall.
Brembre was also opposed to Nicholas Twyford, who would probably have
been elected Mayor but for the high-handed proceedings of Brembre.
Twyford's party was confident of victory, and shouted at the election
'Twyford, Twyford!'; but when the voting commenced the soldiers placed
by Brembre behind the arras in the Guildhall rushed out and drove
Twyford's followers from the building. Brembre's party were allowed to
remain, and they carried the election for their candidate.
It is worthy of note that during Brembre's mayoralty, in 1378, Nicholas
Twyford, one of the sheriffs, was brought up for contumacy towards the
Mayor, and punished for the same. There had been a conflict in Cheapside
between the goldsmiths and the pepperers (grocers), and John Worsele,
one of the sheriff's suite, was brought before the Mayor as a principal
mover in the strife. Twyford refused to do the Mayor's behests as to the
imprisonment of his follower after arrest.[231]
With the fall of the King, Brembre also fell, and there was a revolution
in the government of the city as well as in that of the country.
Northampton was released from Tintagel Castle, and restored to his
property; and Brembre was tried for his life, condemned to death, and
executed in the Tower in February 1388. The companies who petitioned for
Brembre's punishment were Mercers, Cordwainers, and eight others, all
opposed to the victualling trades.
In 1387 a proclamation was made in the city, by the King's command,
forbidding, on pain of death and forfeiture of goods, all true lieges of
London to speak evil of the King and Queen. The issuing of this
proclamation in the city formed one of the charges of high treason
against Brembre and his followers.
In this same year, 1387, a book of civic regulations called _Jubile_,
promulgated by John de Northampton and his party, was ordered to be
burnt. Mr. Riley refers to the petitions in Parliament for
1386-1387,[232] where we learn from the petition of the Cordwainers
against Nicholas Brembre and his adherents that in this book of _Le
Jubile_ 'were comprised all the good articles pertaining to the good
governance of the said city, and that Nicholas Extone, the Mayor, and
all the aldermen and good Commons of the city had sworn for ever to
maintain them, to the honour of God and the profit of the common people;
but that the said Nicholas Extone and his accomplices have burnt it
without consent of the good Commons of the city, to the annihilation of
many good liberties, franchises and customs of the city.'[233]
The feuds of those days continued to agitate the city for some years,
but at last the differences between the various trades cooled down
somewhat. In 1391, however, a proclamation was issued that 'no person
shall speak or give his opinion as to either Nicholas Brembre or John
Norhamptone' on pain of imprisonment for a year and a day. The preamble
is as follows: 'Whereas many dissensions, quarrels and false reports
have prevailed in the City of London as between trade and trade, person
and person, because of divers controversies lately moved between
Nicholas Brembre, knight, and John Norhamptone, of late Mayors of the
same city, who were men of great power and estate, and had many
friendships and friends within the same; to the great peril of the same
city, and maybe of all the realm.'[234]
The names of many other Mayors who have conferred distinction on their
office might be mentioned here, but the space at our disposal will not
allow of any statement of the claims to honour of these men who have
made their mark in the history of London.
It is a curious fact that we have no authority whatever for fixing a
date for the first use of the title 'Lord Mayor,' and there can be
little doubt that it was originally assumed without any positive right.
Dr. Sharpe thinks that possibly the expression 'domino maiore,' strictly
'Sir Mayor,' may account for the origin of the Lord Mayor's title.[235]
A claim has been set up for Thomas Legge, Mayor the second time in 1354,
that he was the first Lord Mayor, but there is positively no authority
whatever for this claim, although it is boldly stated that he was
created Lord Mayor by Edward III. in this year.
One point is worthy of special attention, although it does not throw any
actual light on the matter. Bishop Stubbs says that the Mayor of York
was known as Lord Mayor in 1389 [1389]. Richard II. had in that year
presented his own sword to the Mayor, who was thence-forward known as
the Lord Mayor; and in 1393 he had given the Lord Mayor a mace.[236]
If this were so, we can scarcely believe that the Londoners, who had
always been very tenacious of their pre-eminent position, would be
content to allow their chief magistrate to continue without a title
possessed by the Mayor of York. Still, there is not the slightest
evidence that the title of Lord Mayor was used in London at this early
period, and it is possible that Bishop Stubbs's statement is too
definite. There is no doubt that the title 'Lord Mayor' was used at an
early date in York, but the prefix 'Lord' was not always applied, and as
late as 1565 there is reference in the Chamberlain's account book 'to
Mr. John Bean, Mayor.'[237]
A correspondence of some interest was printed in _The Times_ in November
and December 1901 on this point; but although Legge's claim was
disproved, few if any positive facts were brought forward. The most
satisfactory letter was one from Mr. W. H. St. John Hope, of the Society
of Antiquaries, who, as the result of a search in the city books, gave
some definite information as to the use of the title. 'Down to about
1540 the chief magistrate was invariably styled Mayor.... There are,
however, instances as early as 1519 where he is referred to as "my lorde
mayr," but seemingly in the same way as we speak of "my lord bishop" or
"my lord the King," for the same entry that refers to him as "my lorde
mayr" nowe beyng, continues "as well as all other mayres his
successours." After 1540 the use of the term "Lord Mayor" becomes
general--_e.g._, 1542, "every lorde mayer's house"; 1545, "the lorde
mayers of the same cytie"; 1546, "the lorde mayor," &c.'
We have seen how important was the office of Mayor in mediæval times,
and how like a king the holder's dignity was upheld.
The Mayor has certain very remarkable privileges, which prove the high
esteem in which he was held by the sovereign. These privileges are of
considerable antiquity, and have not yet been traced to their source.
The four principal are:--
I. The closing of Temple Bar to the sovereign.
II. The Mayor's position in the city, where he is second only to
the King.
III. His summons to the Privy Council on the accession of a new
sovereign.
IV. His position of Butler at the Coronation banquets.
_I.--The closing of Temple Bar to the Sovereign._
The gates of Temple Bar were invariably closed by the city authorities
whenever the sovereign had occasion to enter the city. A herald sounded
a trumpet before the gate--another herald knocked--a parley ensued--the
gates were then thrown open and the Mayor for the time being presented
the sword of the city to the sovereign, who graciously returned it to
the Mayor. The earliest record of this custom is connected with Queen
Elizabeth's visit to St. Paul's to return thanks for the defeat of the
Spanish Armada, but evidently the custom must be one of great antiquity,
and probably in the case of the early kings it was carried out at one of
the city gates long before the bars of the liberties were thought of,
although no records have come down to us.
Stow's account of the proceedings in his _Annales_ is as follows: 'Over
the gate of the Temple bar were placed the waites of the cittie, and at
the same barre the Lord Maior and his brethren the aldermen in scarlet
received and welcomed her Majestie to her cittie and chamber, delivering
to her hands the scepter, which after certaine speeches had, her
Highnesse redelivered to the Maior, and hee againe taking his horse,
bare the same before her. The companies of the cittie in their liveries
stoode in their rayles of tymber, covered with blew cloth, all of them
saluting her highnesse, as shee proceeded along to Paules Church.'
_II.--The Mayor's position in the City._
None of the privileges connected with the Mayor's office has been so
jealously guarded as the one upon which is founded the claim to the
Mayor's supremacy in the City of London, where the sovereign only takes
precedence of him. In Riley's _Memorials_ there is an extract from
Letter Book I (1415) which refers to Henry V.'s speech on the
contemplated invasion of France and the seat of honour accorded to the
Mayor, in presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the King's
brothers. When these notabilities met together diligent council was held
as to the order in which they ought to sit, and 'the Lords agreed
together among themselves to the effect that the Mayor, in consideration
of the reverence and honour due to our most excellent Lord the King, of
whom he is the representative in the city, should have his place, when
sitting, in the middle, and that the said Lords of Canterbury and
Winchester should be seated on his right hand, and John, Humphrey and
Edward on the left, upon seats arranged for them; these to make
declaration on behalf of our said Lord the King.'[238]
The actual right to pre-eminence was seldom challenged in the city, but
there were certain places which were supposed to be outside the Mayor's
jurisdiction, such as the Inns of Court, where misunderstandings were
frequently taking place. A very interesting instance is given in
Gregory's Chronicle, and it is well worth quoting here for the striking
light it throws upon the dignity of the office:--
'Thys yere [1465], abute mydsomyr, a[t] the ryalle feste of the
Sargentys of the Coyfe, the Mayre of London [Mathew Phylyppe] was
desyride to be at that feste. And at denyr time he come to the feste
with his offecers, agreyng and acordyng unto hys degre. For withyn
London he ys next unto the kyng in all maner thynge. And in tyme of
waschynge the Erle of Worseter was take before the mayre and sette downe
in the myddis of the hy tabelle. And the mayre seynge that hys place was
occupyd hylde hym contente, and went home agayne with-owt mete or drynke
or any thonke, but rewarde hym he dyd as hys dygnyte requyred of the
cytte. And toke with hym the substance of hys bretheryn the aldyrmen to
his place, and were sette and servyd also sone as any man couthe devyse,
bothe of sygnet and of othyr delycatys i-nowe, that alle the howse
mervelyd howe welle alle tynge was done in soo schorte a tyme, and
prayde alle men to be mery and gladde hit shulde be a-mendyd a-nothyr
tyme.
'Thenn the offesers of the feste, fulle evylle a-schamyd, informyd the
maysters of the feste of thys mysse-happe that ys be-falle. And they
consyderynge the grete dygnyte and costys and change that longgyd unto
the cytte, and anon sende unto the mayre a present of mete, brede,
wyne, and many dyvers sotelteys. But whenn they that come with the
presentys say [saw] alle the gyftys, and the sarvyse that was at the
borde, he was fulle sore a-schamyd that shulde doo the massage, for the
present was not better thenn the servyse of metys was byfore the mayre,
and thoroughe-owte the hyghe tabylle. But hys demenynge was soo that he
hadde love and thonke for hys massage, and a grette rewarde with-alle.
And thys the worschippe of the cytte was kepte, and not loste for hym. I
truste that nevyr hyt shalle, by the grace of God.'[239]
Another and a later difficulty with the lawyers is recorded by Pepys on
March 3, 1668-1669. In order to understand the cause of contention it is
necessary to bear in mind that within the city the Mayor's sword was
held up before him, but outside it was held down.
'Meeting Mr. Bellwood, did hear how my Lord Mayor [Sir William Turner]
being invited this day to dinner at the Reader's at the Temple, and
endeavouring to carry his sword up the students did pull it down, and
forced him to go and stay all the day in a private councillor's chamber,
until the Reader himself could get the young gentlemen to dinner; and
then my Lord Mayor did retreat out of the Temple by stealth, with his
sword up. This do make great heat among the students; and my Lord Mayor
did send to the King.'
On Sir William Turner's complaint, the King agreed to have the case
argued before him in council, but after hearing the evidence his Majesty
thought it best to suspend the declaration of his pleasure until the
right and privilege should be determined at law, and apparently the
question remains unsettled to the present day.
A note may here be made of the Mayor's position in the city as the chief
of the military forces within his jurisdiction, with the right of
forbidding the entry of troops without his sanction. 'The 3rd regiment
of foot, raised in 1665, known by the ancient title of the Old Buffs,
have the privilege of marching thro' London with drums beating, colours
flying, which the city disputes, not only with all other corps, but even
with the King's Guards going on duty to the Tower.'--Major R. Donkin,
_Military Collections_, New York, 1777, p. 134.
_III.--The Mayor's summons to the Privy Council on the accession of a
new Sovereign._
This is intimately connected with the claim of the city to a voice in
the election of the King, which found practical expression even before
the Conquest. There can be no doubt that in mediæval times the support
of London was eagerly sought for in cases of disputed succession. During
the nineteenth century it was the custom to belittle the Mayor and
Corporation, and Lord Macaulay in his history ignores the considerable
influence of the city in securing the succession of his hero William
III. to the throne.
At the Councils held on the accession of Queen Victoria and King Edward
VII. the respective Lords Mayor, although summoned, were not allowed to
remain to the meeting of the Council.
Little has been written upon this very important privilege of the Lord
Mayor, but its consideration opens up a very remarkable constitutional
question which requires very careful investigation. There ought to be
sufficient information available to settle the question.
On the accession of his present Majesty, the Lord Mayor (the late Mr.
Alderman Green, afterwards Sir Frank Green, Baronet) was invited to sign
the proclamation immediately after the Royal Family, the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor and his colleagues' signatures
following his lordship's.
It is said that the great Duke of Wellington laid great stress upon the
attendance of the Lord Mayor, and it was supposed that as the death of
the sovereign cancelled the appointments of Court officials, the Lord
Mayor, who continued in office, was an official of considerable
importance on the occasion of the accession of a new sovereign. The
continuance of Court appointments is now settled by an Act of
Parliament.
_IV.--The Mayor s position at the Coronation Banquets._
The privilege of assisting the chief butler at the coronations of the
Kings of England accorded to the citizens of London appears to date back
before the appointment of a Mayor. Dr. Sharpe, referring to the double
coronation of Richard I., writes: 'His first coronation had taken place
at Westminster (3rd Sept. 1189), soon after his accession, and the
citizens of London had duly performed a service at the coronation
banquet--a service which even in those days was recognised as an
"ancient service"--namely, that of assisting the chief butler, for which
the Mayor was customarily presented with a gold cup and ewer. The
citizens of the rival city of Winchester performed on this occasion the
lesser service of attending to the viands. The second coronation taking
place at Winchester [17th April 1194] and not at Westminster, the
burgesses of the former city put in a claim to the more honourable
service over the heads of the citizens of London, and the latter only
succeeded in establishing their superior claim by a judicious bribe of
200 marks.'[240]
Andrew Bokerel, Mayor in the year 1236 (21 Henry III.), claimed to serve
as butler at the coronation of Eleanor, daughter of Raymond Berengar
IV., Count of Provence, Queen of Henry III., but his claim was set
aside on this occasion by the King's command.[241]
In the remarkable record of the Court of Claims held before the
coronation of Richard II. (over which John of Gaunt presided as High
Steward), _Close Roll_, I _Ric. II. mem. 45_. (Public Record Office),
the claim of the Mayor and citizens is fully set forth: The King 'willed
and decreed that the citizens of the said city should serve in the hall
of botelry helping the chief butler, while the King himself sat at table
on the day of his coronation, and when the same our lord the King, after
dinner, entered his chamber and asked for wine, the said Mayor should
serve our said lord the King with a bowl of gold, and afterwards should
receive that bowl with the ewer appertaining to the same bowl, as a gift
from the King.'[242]
At the coronation of Henry VI. (6th November 1429), William Estfield,
the recently elected Mayor, received the customary gold cup and ewer
used on the occasion, which he afterwards bequeathed to his
grandson.[243]
The latest instance of this jealously guarded privilege occurred at the
coronation of George IV., July 19, 1821.[244]
The claim to this honourable service in the cases of the coronations of
William IV and Queen Victoria was not made because no banquet took place
on these occasions.
In the case of the coronation of his present Majesty the claim was
excluded from the consideration of the Court of Claims under the royal
proclamation. The terms of the judgment on a further claim is as
follows: 'The Court considers and adjudges that the Lord Mayor has by
usage a right, subject to His Majesty's pleasure, to attend the Abbey
during the coronation, and bear the crystal mace.'[245]
It will be seen that of these four special privileges two relate to the
Mayor's position in the city and two to his position outside the city.
The pageants connected with the election of the Mayor are of great
antiquity, but we have little information respecting the earlier ones.
It is a tradition that when the mayoralty was granted by the King, a
stipulation was made that the Mayor should be presented for approval
either to the King or his justiciar, and the processions then commenced.
In 1415 the Mayor proceeded to Westminster on horseback, but in 1453 Sir
John Norman, the Mayor, was infirm, and he introduced the custom of
making the progress from London to Westminster by barge. This continued
till the horseback procession was revived in 1657, much to the disgust
of the London watermen.
Even when the water procession was the regular practice, the procession
on horseback to the Guildhall and then to the waterside for embarkation
took place.
No Lord Mayor in a city procession used a coach before 1712, and then
only an ordinary one. The present State coach was built in 1757.
Sir John Shaa, Mayor in 1482, was the first to give the annual banquet
in the Guildhall. Previously, the feast had taken place either at
Grocers' Hall or some other convenient place. The practice of dining at
the Guildhall did not become general until 1501, when alterations were
made in the kitchen, and the requisite offices having been added the
series of annual banquets was commenced there.
There was no feeling of contempt of trade in the Middle Ages, and the
Merchant Princes of London were held in high esteem. The custom of
ridiculing the city and its rulers did not then exist, but it seems
probable that it first came into being in the reign of Elizabeth.
Richard Johnson's _Nine Worthies of London_ (1592) contains the praise
of the worthies, written by the author in a mock heroic style. Of the
nine four were Mayors, namely, Sir William Walworth, 1374, 1380; Sir
Henry Pitchard (Picard), 1356; Sir William Sevenoke, 1418; and Sir
William White, 1553.
Most of the Mayors of the Middle Ages were men of birth and position,
and it is difficult to understand how it was that the popular idea of a
poor boy coming up to London penniless, making his way here, and
eventually rising to be Mayor, first came into existence. The
elaboration of this idea in the chap-book life of Sir Richard
Whittington is entirely opposed to the facts of the case.
ALDERMEN
The consideration of the actual position of the alderman in the
government of London is one of great difficulty, and Mr. Round's
discovery of the Oath of the Commune in which aldermen are not mentioned
has made it difficult to conjecture when it was that they took their
natural place as the advisers of the Mayor.
The title 'alderman' is a survival of the Saxon period (as is also that
of 'sheriff'), but the duties of the holders of the office have
frequently been changed.
The word 'alderman' was a generic term as well as the distinctive title
of a special officer. King Alfred appointed an alderman over all London,
and the chief officer of the various guilds was originally known as an
alderman.
The various wards were each presided over by an alderman from an early
period, but, as already noted, we cannot fix the date when they were
united as a Court of Aldermen.
Bishop Stubbs writes: 'The governing body of London in the thirteenth
century was composed of the Mayor, twenty-five aldermen of the wards and
two sheriffs. All these were elective officers.'[246]
The difficulty is, that although aldermen were undoubtedly elected as
the heads of wards they are not referred to as the colleagues of the
Mayor until the very end of this century.
In March 1298-1299 letters were sent from 'the Mayor and Commune of the
City of London' to the Echevins, Jurats and Commonalty of the town of
Burges' [Bruges]; 'to the Provost, Bailiffs and Commonalty of the town
of Caen'; and 'to the Provost, Echevins and Commonalty of the City of
Comerac' [Cambray?].[247]
Although the official form of 'The Mayor and Commune' was continued
until the end of the thirteenth century, and it was not until early in
the fourteenth century that the form 'Mayor, Aldermen and Common
Council' came into existence, there is sufficient evidence to show that
the aldermen and Common Council before that time were acting with the
Mayor as governors of the city.
As already quoted from Bishop Stubbs, that authority describes the
aldermen as assistants of the Mayor as early as 1249. At all events, in
the record of the election of aldermen in 1293, they are specially
described as elected for the government of the city.
In 1299 (27 Edw. I.) 'it was agreed by Henry le Galeys, Mayor, and the
aldermen, that Strago, the sweeper of litter in the ward of Chepe,
should be taken and imprisoned until, etc., because he, the said Strago,
had scandalized the aldermen by saying that they take the money of the
commonalty at the Guildhall under pretext of wardship of orphans and
then waste such money for their own profit.' In consequence of these
unfounded charges Strago was committed to the Tun.[248]
There are in Riley's _Memorials_ about this date several other
references to aldermen acting with the Mayor, thus, on the 14th
September 1301: 'Walter Swan appeared before Sir Elias Russel, Mayor of
London, and other aldermen then present';[249] and in December 1310
Roger de Eure having insulted and assaulted Richard de Gloucestre,
alderman, the two parties 'appeared in the Guildhall before Sir Richer
[de Refham] the Mayor, and the aldermen.'[250]
In 1311 (4 Edw. II.) the form of description of the governors was 'The
Mayor, Aldermen and Common Council of the City.'[251] From this time the
general form was either this or 'The Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty.' It
is necessary, however, to mention that a congregation of Mayor and
aldermen is referred to in Fitz-Ailwin's Assize of 1189.[252]
The title of 'echevin,' as applied to a governor of the city, is at
present only known to us as used in the Oath of the Commune, found by
Mr. Round, and it may therefore have had a very short existence. It is
possible that aldermen were elected on to the Mayor's Council under the
title of 'echevins.' This, however, is not the opinion of Mr. Round, who
is inclined to believe that the body of echevins became in course of
time the Court of Common Council.
The whole question is at present one of great difficulty, and I only
state the facts here without venturing to express any confident opinion
until more evidence is forthcoming.
We may be allowed to think that too great an importance has been
ascribed to the position of the early aldermen in connection with their
wards. It is generally affirmed that the aldermen were hereditary owners
of the various wards, on account of the fact that the wards were named
after them, an instance of which practice remains in Farringdon,
Bassishaw and Basingshall. There is no evidence of this proprietorship,
and it seems improbable on the face of it. Mr. Round believes that what
an alderman inherited can only have been the aldermanry of his ward,
like, he suggests, an hereditary sheriff.
Mr. Baddeley writes that 'early in 1276 we find mention made of "the
ward of Henry de Frowyk within the Gate" (_i.e._, Cripplegate), and ten
years later (_circ._ 1285) he figures in the earliest list of aldermen
extant in the city's records as alderman of the same ward.'[253]
At the election of aldermen in 1291 (19 Edw. I.) sixteen of the wards
were named after the aldermen and eight after places. The latter being
the wards of Chepe, Castle Baynard, Walebroke, Douegate, Bridge,
Portsoken, Vintry, and Bassieshawe.
At the election two years afterwards (1293) all the wards were named
with their proper names, and not after the aldermen.
The ward of Ludgate and Neugate presented Nicholas de Farndone, it being
styled in the previous list 'the ward of William de Farndone.' Many of
the same names are found in the two lists, but they represent different
individuals of the same family.
The preamble to the list of elections in 1293 is of considerable
interest: 'Be it remembered that on Tuesday before the Feast of St.
Botolph, 21 Edw. I., in the presence of Sir John le Bretun, Warden of
London, the whole commonalty of the city aforesaid was assembled, viz.,
from each ward the wealthier and wiser men, who each by their several
wards elected for themselves aldermen freely, of good will and of their
full consent, and the aldermen so elected, they presented to the warden
aforesaid in this form, that all and singular the things which the
aforesaid aldermen of their wisdom and discretion shall do and ordain
for the government of the city and the maintenance of the King's peace,
in conjunction with the warden and their superiors for the time being
shall be straitly observed, and shall be held ratified and confirmed
before other provisions touching the commonalty without any challenge or
opposition in the future; and each ward elected its aldermen, for whom
it would answer as to all his acts affecting the city, the Commune
(_Communam_) and its estate.'[254]
It will be seen from the above that the election of aldermen was only in
the hands of a few of the 'wealthier and wiser men' of the wards, but
later on the electors were freemen of the city, 'paying scot and bearing
lot.'
There was much difference of practice in the election of aldermen.
Various orders were issued from time to time, and some of them fell out
of use.
In 1377 it was ordered that aldermen should be elected annually, as
appears from the following entry in Letter Book H (f. 58):--
'51 Edw. III. Precept (_bille_) for the men of each ward to meet on
Saturday, the 7th March, and elect an alderman other than the sitting
alderman, and to have the name of the alderman so elected endorsed on
the Bill at the Guildhall on the Feast of St. Gregory next, at eight
o'clock at the latest, under penalty.'
This precept was elaborated in an Ordinance made on Friday, 6th March,
51 Edw. III., with the assent of the Mayor, aldermen and divers
representations of the livery companies.
It was ordered that 'aldermen removed for good and reasonable cause
shall not be open for re-election, but that those who go out of office
on St. Gregory's Day and have not misconducted themselves may be
re-elected after the interval of one year.'
In 1384 the rule was modified so as to allow an alderman to be
re-elected for his ward at the expiration of his year of office without
any interval (Letter Book H, f. 173).
In 1394 the Ordinance respecting annual elections was repealed by the
King, and aldermen were henceforward elected for life.
6th March, 17 Ric. II., 'and have also ordained for the honour and
greater increase of the good government of our said city, that they who
should be chosen aldermen of our same city should not be removed out of
their offices during their lives, unless for just, reasonable and
notable cause.'
Shortly after this an order of the Mayor, aldermen and commonalty was
issued which took away the right of the wards of directly electing
their aldermen. A ward was only allowed to nominate two persons, of whom
the Mayor and aldermen were to choose one. Five years later, that is in
1402, the number of names to be nominated was raised to four, and in
1420 this order was reaffirmed.[255]
Distinct rank was accorded to aldermen; thus the Common Seal of the
Corporation bears the inscription: _Sigillum Baronum Londoniarum_, and
we are told by John Carpenter in _Liber Albus_, 'it is a matter of
experience that even since the year of our Lord 1350, at the sepulture
of aldermen, the ancient custom of interment with baronial honours was
observed; for in the church where the alderman was about to be buried a
person appeared upon a caparisoned horse, arrayed in the armour of the
deceased, bearing a banner in his hand, and carrying upon him his
shield, helmet and the rest of his arms, along with the banner, as is
still the usage at the sepulture of lords of baronial rank. But by
reason of the sudden and frequent changes of the aldermen, and the
repeated occurrence of pestilence, this ceremonial in London gradually
died out and disappeared.'[256]
When the poll tax of 1379 was imposed the Mayor was assessed as an earl
and the aldermen as barons.[257]
On August 12, 1417, a royal mandate (5 Hen. V.) was issued to the Mayor
enjoining that the aldermen shall reside within the city: 'We do
therefore will, and do command and charge you that you cause your
letters to be addressed unto each one of the said aldermen so absent
from our said city, charging them strictly thereby on our behalf that
they return unto our said city and do tarry and remain there, to support
you and to administer counsel and assistance in all that may touch the
preservation of the said peace and good governance of our said
city.'[258] This was an irksome regulation, and in the charter of Edward
IV. the aldermen were released from the obligation.
'It is well-known and manifest that those of the said city which are
elected aldermen have sustained great cost and pains for the time they
make their abode and residence in the same city, and for that cause
oftentimes do leave their possessions and places in the country that
therefore they and every of them may without fear of unquietness or
molestation peaceably abide and tarry in such their houses and
possessions, when they shall return thither for comfort and recreations
sake.'
It has sometimes been the fashion of the wits to gird at the aldermen
and other city magnates, but although some of the names on the list may
be of little account there are many which are written on the page of
history, and a large number of noble families owe their origin to famous
aldermen.
Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, Mayor in 1457, was great-grandfather to Anne
Boleyn, and therefore ancestor of Queen Elizabeth; Sir Thomas Canynge,
Mayor in 1456, was ancestor of George Canning, Earl Canning, and Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe; Sir William Loke, sheriff in 1548, the favourite
of Henry VIII., who had a key of the King's private chamber so that he
might come whenever he would, was the ancestor of John Locke, Lord
Chancellor King, and the Earl of Lovelace; John Cowper, alderman in
1551, was the ancestor of Lord Chancellor Cowper and the poet William
Cowper; Sir Edward Osborne was the ancestor of the Dukes of Leeds.
Among other distinguished men descended from aldermen may be mentioned
Bacon, Beckford, Byron, Cromwell, Howe, Marlborough, Newcastle,
Melbourne, Nelson, Palmerston, the two William Pitts, Raglan, Salisbury,
and the Walpoles.
SHERIFFS.
The government of the city by reeves dates back to a very early period
of our history, and these reeves were appointed by the King. When
William the Conqueror demanded entrance to London the joint governors
were the bishop and the portreeve. How long before the Conquest a
portreeve had been appointed and how long after his office was continued
we do not know. The sheriff to some extent took his place, but Henry I.
gave the city the right of appointing justiciars and sheriffs, and the
justiciar, according to Mr. Round, took precedence of the sheriff.
After the establishment of the Commune and the appointment of a Mayor
the sheriffs naturally lost much of their importance, and they became
what they are styled in _Liber Albus_, 'the Eyes of the Mayor.' They
often in early times were called also bailiffs. When Middlesex was in
ferm to London the two sheriffs were equally Sheriffs of London and
Middlesex. There is one instance only in the city records of a Sheriff
of Middlesex being mentioned as distinct from the sheriffs, and this was
in 1283 when Anketin de Betteville and Walter le Blond are described as
Sheriffs of London, and Gerin as Sheriff of Middlesex.[259] This
anomaly has not been explained, but Dr. Sharpe remarks respecting a writ
of 1308: 'The King to the Sheriff of Middlesex, greeting,' that this was
'presumably addressed to and the return made by the Sheriffs of London
acting as Sheriff of Middlesex according to custom.'
It was ordained and agreed in 1383 (7 Ric. II.) 'that no person shall
from henceforth be Mayor in the said city if he have not first been
sheriff of the said city, to the end that he may be tried in governance
and bounty before he attains such estate of the mayoralty.'[260]
Mr. Baddeley has very clearly described the changes made at various
times in the election of sheriffs, and I therefore quote from his book:
'Until the commencement of the fourteenth century the sheriffs were
elected by the Mayor, aldermen and commonalty of the city. In 1301 an
attempt was made to restrict the number of electors to twelve
representatives of each ward, but this, like other subsequent attempts,
proved unsuccessful. In 1347 is met with, for the first time, a new
method of procedure. In that year one of the sheriffs was elected by the
Mayor and the other by the commonalty, and this prerogative of the Mayor
for the time being to elect one of the sheriffs continued to be
exercised with few, if any, exceptions down to 1638.'[261]
This is the mode of election which is described in the _Liber Albus_:
'In the first place, the Mayor shall choose, of his own free will, a
reputable man, free of the city, to be one of the sheriffs for the
ensuing year, for whom he is willing to answer as to one half of the
ferm of the city due to the King, if he who is so elected by the Mayor
shall prove not sufficient. But if the Mayor elect him by counsel and
with the assent of the aldermen they also ought to be answerable with
him. And those who are elected for the Common Council themselves, and
the others summoned by the Mayor for this purpose, as before declared,
shall choose another sheriff for the commonalty, for whom all the
commonalty is bound to be answerable as to the other half of the ferm so
due to the King, in case he shall prove not sufficient. And if any
controversy arise between the Commons as to the election, the matter is
to proceed and be discussed.'[262]
COMMON COUNCIL.
We do not know when the Court of Common Council was first formed, but,
as already stated, Mr. Round supposes it to have grown out of the body
of echevins brought into being on the granting of a Commune. It seems
probable that the two courts--that of aldermen and that of the Common
Council--were formed about the same time, but it is remarkable that we
have at present no definite information on the subject. Now that special
attention is drawn to this matter, it is to be hoped that some facts
settling the question may be forthcoming. The number of members of the
Common Council varied greatly at different times, but the right to
determine the number was indirectly granted by the charter of Edward
III., 1341, which enables the city to amend customs and usages which
have become hard.
The preamble to an Act of Common Council, 8th May 1840 (3 Vict.), passed
to reduce the total number of Common Council, and to apportion more
equally the members to the different wards, contains the following
statement of its antiquity:--
'Whereas from time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the
contrary, there hath existed, and still doth exist, within the City of
London, a Common Council, consisting of the Mayor and aldermen of the
said city, and certain citizens, being freemen of the said city,
annually elected to be of the same Council, and called the Commons of
the said city; and whereas, under and by virtue of the ancient charters,
ordinances, statutes and customs of the said city, the power of
appointing and regulating the number of citizens to be from time to time
elected of the same Common Council hath, from time whereof the memory of
man runneth not to the contrary, belonged, and still of right doth
belong, to the Mayor, aldermen and Commons of the said city.'[263]
The Common Council were chosen by the wards until 1351 (25 Edw. III.),
when certain Companies appointed the Common Council.[264]
In 1376 (50 Edw. III.) an Ordinance was made by the Mayor and aldermen,
with the assent of the whole Commons, to the effect that the companies
should select men with whom they were content, and none other should
come to the elections of Mayors and sheriffs; that the greater companies
should not elect more than six, the lesser four, and the least two.[265]
Forty-seven companies nominated 156 members.
In 1383 the right of election reverted to the wards, but was obtained
again by the companies in 1467.
ARMS OF LONDON.
The arms of the City of London are simple and of great interest,
consisting as they do of the Cross of St. George with the Sword of St.
Paul in the dexter quarter, but unfortunately an absurd popular blunder
has been prevalent that the sword was really the dagger with which Sir
William Walworth killed Wat Tyler.
The history of these arms is fully set forth in Jewitt and Hope's
_Corporation Plate_, and there illustrated with figures of the old
common seal of London, and the first and second mayoralty seals. The
facts as there set forth are shortly stated here.
The old common seal is a fine example of the early part of the
thirteenth century. Stow in his _Survey_ dates it in 1224, and Gregory
in his _Chronicle_ in 1227-1228. Mr. Hope says that the seal may well be
of a date _circa_ 1225, and that it certainly was in use in 1246. The
obverse of the seal represents a figure of St. Paul, with a sword in his
outstretched right hand, and a banner of England in his left hand. 'The
saint is represented as standing in the middle of the city over which
he keeps guard; the spire of the cathedral church rises in front of him,
and other steeples on each side.... In front of all is the city wall
with its ditch, with lofty central gateway and two lesser flanking
towers or bastions.' The legend is: SIGILLUM BARONUM LONDONIARUM.
The first mayoralty seal bears the seated figures of St. Thomas of
Canterbury and St. Paul with his sword. The legend is _Sigillum
Maioratus London._ and the date _circa_ 1280.
The second mayoralty seal, which was produced a century after the first
one, is of very special interest. It bears seated figures of St. Thomas
and St. Paul, and in base a shield of the city supported by two lions.
The legend is _Sigil: Maioratus: Civitatis: London_. The record of the
making of this seal in 1381 is found in Letter Book K, f. cxxxijb., and
Mr. Hope's remarks on the value of this piece of evidence must be quoted
entire: 'This seal is of special interest, not only from its being a
dated example, but because it proves beyond doubt the absurdity of the
silly notion that the object in the dexter chief of the city arms is the
sword or dagger wherewith Sir William Walworth slew Wat Tyler, instead
of being, as it undoubtedly is, the sword of St. Paul. Wat Tyler was
killed on June 15, 1381, whereas the new seal of the mayoralty had been
formally adopted on April 17, two months before. This seal is also one
of the earliest authorities for the city arms. Its silver matrix is
still preserved at the Mansion House, but in so worn a condition that
little else than the deepest parts can be traced. It is only now used
for mercantile documents going abroad.'[266]
To return to the common seal, it may be noticed here that the original
reverse had 'in base a view of the city somewhat resembling that on the
obverse, surmounted by a segmental arch. On the top of the arch, seated
on a throne or chair of state, is a figure of St. Thomas of Canterbury
with cross and pall.'
In accordance with the famous proclamation of Henry VIII. (Nov. 16,
1538) which enacted 'that Thomas Becket' should no longer 'be esteemed,
named, reputed nor called a sayncte, but Bysshop Becket, and that his
ymages and pictures through the hole realme shalle be putte downe,'
etc., it was enacted in 1539 that this reverse of the common seal should
be destroyed.
'The beautiful reverse of the common seal, after doing duty for over
three centuries, was therefore broken up, and presumably its silver used
to make a new matrix. This is of the same size as its predecessor, but,
in accordance with the resolution, it bears for device simply the city
arms, _argent a cross gules and in the dexter quarter the sword of St.
Paul_, with helm, mantling and crest, _a dragon's wing expanded argent
charged with a cross gules_. The legend is: _Londini. Defende. Tuos.
Deus. Optime. Cives._'[267]
In connection with the arms it may be noticed that the supporters which
are usually described as griffins are really dragons, in allusion to St.
George.
CHAPTER IX
_Officials of the City_
The chief of the officials of the City of London was for many years
after the Conquest the Castellan and Bannerer. When William the
Conqueror obtained possession of London he built a castle on the river
at each end of the city, to intimidate the Londoners. The Tower was at
the east end, and at the west end was what according to Dugdale was
called at first _The Castle_. This was placed under the charge of
Baynard, one of the Conqueror's followers, after whom it came to be
known as Baynard's Castle. The hereditary office of Castellan was held
by the family of Fitz-Walter, by virtue of their possession of Baynard's
Castle, the key of the city. The duties attached to this office are
among the most important and interesting in the story of mediæval
London, and it is to be presumed that Baynard held the various
privileges afterwards possessed by the family of Fitz-Walter, but no
notice of this is recorded.
Robert Fitz-Richard was the first baron by tenure. He is said to have
been the younger son of Richard Fitz-Gilbert, ancestor of the Earls of
Clare. He was steward to Henry I., from whom he obtained the barony of
Dunmow, and the honour of the soke of Baynard's Castle, both which had
been forfeited to the Crown in 1111 by reason of the felony of William,
Baron of Dunmow, son of Ralph Baynard, the Norman associate of William
the Conqueror, after whom the castle was named.
In connection with this soke Robert held the hereditary office of
Standard-Bearer of the city, the duties of which will be stated further
on. He died in 1134, and was succeeded by his son, Walter Fitz-Robert.
The latter's son was Robert Fitz-Walter, the most famous member of the
family, and the one who transmitted to his descendants the permanent
surname of Fitz-Walter.
This Fitz-Walter was styled 'Marshal of the Army of God and Holy
Church.' He was one of the twenty-five barons appointed to enforce the
observance of Magna Charta obtained from King John.
An 'agreement [dated 15-25 June 1215] between King John, of the one
part, and Robert Fitz-Walter, Marshal of the Army of God and of Holy
Church in England, six earls and six barons named, and other earls,
barons and freemen, of the other part,' is preserved in the Public
Record Office, and the following description of the document is given in
the _Catalogue of MSS., &c., in the Museum of the P.R.O._ (1902): 'The
earls, barons and others shall hold the City of London, saving the royal
revenues, and the Archbishop of Canterbury shall hold the Tower of
London, saving the liberties of the city, until the Feast of the
Assumption in the seventeenth year of the reign. In the meanwhile, oaths
shall be taken throughout England to twenty-five barons, as is contained
in the charter for the liberties and security of the realm, and all
things shall be done according to the said charter; otherwise the city
and the Tower shall be held as above, until all the said things shall be
done.' It is said in a note to this document that 'none of the thirteen
persons who are thus entered into an agreement with the King are
mentioned among those upon whose advice he granted the great charter.'
The third baron was himself in trade, and he owned wine ships. He
received special privileges from John, and the story of that King's
treatment of his daughter Matilda is supposed to be an unfounded tale.
In the year 1215 the insurgent barons entered the city at Aldgate,
largely owing to the assistance of Robert Fitz-Walter, whose position
was of a commanding character. He died in 1235.
Walter Fitz-Walter succeeded his father Robert, and died in 1257. He was
succeeded by his son Robert Fitz-Walter, the fifth baron.
It is of the latter's duties and privileges that we possess an account,
written by Robert Glover, Somerset Herald in the reign of Elizabeth,
extracts from which are given by Dugdale in his _Baronage of England_,
1675, i. 200:--
'In time of war [he] should serve the city in manner following, viz.: To
ride upon a light horse, with twenty men-at-arms on horseback, their
horses covered with cloth or harness, unto the great dore of St. Paul's
Church, with the banner of his arms carried before him; and being come
in that manner thither, the Mayor of London, together with the sheriffs
and aldermen, to issue armed out of the church unto the same dore on
foot, with a banner in his hand, having the figure of St. Paul depicted
with gold thereon, but the feet, hands and head of silver, holding a
silver sword in his hand.
'And as soon as he shall see the Mayor, sheriffs and aldermen come on
foot out of the church, carrying such a banner, he is to alight from his
horse, and salute him as his companion, saying, _Sir Mayor, I am obliged
to come hither to do my service, which I owe to this city_. To whom the
Mayor, sheriffs and aldermen are to answer, _We give to you, as our
banner-bearer for this city, this banner by inheritance of the city, to
bear and carry, to the honour and profit thereof to your power_.
'Whereupon the said Robert and his heirs shall receive it into their
hands, and the Mayor and sheriffs shall follow him to the dore, and
bring him an horse worth twenty pounds. Which horse shall be saddled
with a saddle of his arms, and covered with silk, depicted likewise with
the same arms; and they shall take twenty pounds sterling, and deliver
it to the chamberlain of the said Robert, for his expenses that day,'
etc.[268]
There was a vacant ground opposite the great west door of St. Paul's
where this interesting ceremony took place. The folkmoots were held in
the churchyard at the east end of the cathedral.
In 1275 (3 Edw. I.) Robert Fitz-Walter obtained licence from the Crown
to convey Baynard Castle and the Tower of Montfichet to the Archbishop
of Canterbury for the purpose of the foundation of the House and Church
of the Friars Preachers or Blackfriars.[269] In the following year
Edward I. confirmed the grant of two lanes adjacent to 'Castle Baynard
and the Tower of Montfytchet for the purpose of enlarging the aforesaid
place on condition that the said archbishop should provide the citizens
with a more convenient way as he had now done.'[270] In 1277-1278 an
alteration was made in the wall of the friary.[271]
When Sir Robert Fitz-Walter conveyed Baynard Castle to the Archbishop he
specially reserved all his rights and privileges in the following terms:
'Provided that by reason of this grant nothing should be extinguished to
him and his heirs which did belong to his barony, but that whatsoever
relating thereto as wel in rents, landing of vessells and other
liberties and priviledges in the City of London or elsewhere without
diminution, which to him the said Robert or to that barony had antiently
appertained, should be thenceforth reserved.'[272]
We know very little of this Tower of Montfichet, but it must have been
closely connected with Baynard Castle. There is a reference to it and
its owner in the _Chronique de la guerre entre les Anglois et les
Ecossois en 1173 et 1174 par Jordan Fantosme_ (Howlett's _Chronicles of
Stephen, Henry II. and Richard I._, iii. 339. Rolls Series):
"Gilbert de Munfichet has fortified his castle,
And says that the Clares are leagued with him."
As Mr. Round points out to me this reference to the Clares must relate
to the proprietors of Baynard's Castle, who, as previously noted, were
of the same family as the Clares. Walter Fitz-Robert is also referred to
in this metrical chronicle.
The Barons Fitz-Walter possessed many privileges in time of peace, which
are set out by Dugdale, among which was the right of punishing by
drowning at Woodwharf persons guilty of treason, but it was as constable
of Barnard Castle that they enjoyed these privileges as well as the
office of bannerer to the City of London. A beautiful seal inscribed
'Sigillum Roberti Filii Walteri' was found at Stamford, Lincolnshire, in
the reign of Charles II., and is the subject of a paper by John Charles
Brooke of the Heralds' College in _Archæologia_ (vol. v. pp. 211-215):
'In this seal we see [Fitz-Walter's] horse elegantly engraved and
covered with trappings of his arms, so exquisitely represented, that
they evidently appear to be of a much finer texture than those commonly
used, the muscles of the animal being seen under them, and as much as
engraving can represent drapery, appear to be silk, as described by
Glover; and what is remarkable his arms are carved on the rest behind
his saddle, which is a rare instance, and evidently alludes to that
which the Mayor was to present to him.'
On the seal are represented the arms of Fitz-Walter's second wife
Eleanor, daughter of Robert de Ferrers, Earl of Ferrers and Derby. She
was married in 1298 and died in 1304, therefore the date of the seal is
fixed within six years. Mr. Brooke refers to another seal of Baron
Fitz-Walter which he used, 28 Edw. I. (Anno 1300), and in which the
dragon occurring in the former seal beneath the horse is used as a
supporter. Robert Fitz-Walter died in 1325, and in 1328 the wardship of
his son John was granted by the Mayor and aldermen to his widow
Johanna.[273]
[Illustration: SEAL OF ROBERT FITZ-WALTER.]
In 1347 Sir John Fitz-Walter still claimed to have franchise in the ward
of Castle Baynard, but the city entirely repudiated the claim as
'altogether repugnant to the liberties of the city.' He caused stocks to
be set up in the ward of Castle Baynard, and claimed to make deliverance
of men there imprisoned. In consequence of this action, a conference was
held by the Mayor, aldermen and commonalty, at which 'it was agreed that
the said Sir John Fitz-Walter has no franchise within the liberty of the
city aforesaid, nor is he in future to intermeddle with any plea in the
Guildhall of London, or with any matters touching the liberties of the
city.'[274]
The Recorder, the chief official of the city, is appointed for life. He
was formerly appointed by the city, but since the Local Government Act
of 1888 he is nominated by the city and approved by the Lord Chancellor.
His duties and his oath are recorded in the _Liber Albus_. In 1329
Gregory de Nortone, the then holder of the office, obtained an increase
of salary--100 shillings yearly, as also his robe of the same pattern as
the aldermen's robes.[275]
The Common Serjeant was formerly appointed by the city, but since 1888
by the Lord Chancellor. He is the recorder's principal assistant.
The next great official is the Town Clerk, who is appointed by the
Common Council and re-elected annually. John de Batequell, clerk of the
city, is referred to in Letter Book A,[276] and this is the first
recorded mention of the office afterwards known as the common clerk, and
later as town clerk. Next to the recorder the town clerk was the chief
officer in the local courts of law called the Hustings and the Mayor's
Court.
Among the distinguished men who have held the office two names stand
out, viz., John Carpenter and William Dunthorn.
Carpenter, town clerk in the reigns of Henry V. and Henry VI., was
elected in 1417. He was called also secretary of the city, a title not
applied to any other town clerk. He is best known as the compiler of the
_Liber Albus_, and as founder of the City of London school.
Dunthorn's (1462) name is associated with the _Liber Dunthorn_, which
contains transcripts from the _Liber Albus_, _Liber Custumarum_, Letter
Books, etc.
The Chamberlain or Comptroller of the King's Chamber is appointed by the
livery. He was originally a King's officer, and the office was probably
instituted soon after the Conquest. It is mentioned in documents of the
twelfth century. On June 28, 1232, the office of 'King's chamberlain of
London' was granted for life to Peter de Rivallis. His duties and
privileges as stated in the grant are very extensive and important. 'He
shall have for life the custody of the King's houses at Southampton, and
the King's prise of wine there,' 'custody of the King's Jewry, of the
mint of England,' and 'all other things pertaining to the office of
Chamberlain of London.' By another grant of the same year the said
Peter, Treasurer of Poitiers for life, was given the custody of the
ports and coasts of England, saving the port of Dover.[277] When the
office is mentioned in 1275 it was combined with the offices of Mayor
and coroner.
The functions of coroner were often exercised by the chamberlain and
sheriffs, and when the chamberlain was called away from the city by the
King he appointed a deputy coroner. The office was sometimes held by the
King's butler, to whom appertained the office of coroner.
William Trente, a wine merchant of Bergerac, was appointed King's butler
on the 25th November 1301 (30 Edw. I.)[278] He became also the King's
chamberlain of the city and coroner of London.[279]
Andrew Horn, a fishmonger by trade, who kept a shop in Bridge Street,
held the office of chamberlain for several years. He was the compiler of
_Liber Horn_, which contains charters, statutes, grants, etc. To him
also has been attributed the authorship of the law treatise of mediæval
times entitled the 'Mirror of Justice.'[280] He died in 1328.
Many attempts were made by the citizens to get the coronership into
their own hands, and at last Edward IV. sold the right to appoint a
coroner of their own, independent of the King's butler, for £7000.[281]
The Remembrancer or State Amanuensis is appointed by the Common Council.
The office was held from 1571 to 1584 by a distinguished man, Thomas
Norton, M.P., who was joint author with Thomas Sackville, Earl of
Dorset, of the tragedy of _Gorbaduc_. He left a manuscript on the
ancient duties of the Lord Mayor and Corporation, an account of which
was published by J. Payne Collier in _Archæologia_ (vol. xxxvi. p. 97).
The Common Hunt was an official mentioned in the _Liber Albus_, where we
learn that John Courtenay was appointed to the office in 1417.[282] The
office was abolished in the year 1807.
Of officers in immediate attendance on the Mayor may be mentioned the
sword-bearer and the sergeant-at-mace.
The first notice of the office of sword-bearer occurs in the _Liber
Albus_ (1419), and the first record in the minute books of the
appointment of a sword-bearer is in 4 Hen. VI., 1426. Mr. Hope remarks
that 'the absence of earlier notices is most probably due to the
[Illustration: THE CRYPT OF THE GUILDHALL.]
fact that the sword-bearer was appointed, according to the entry in the
_Liber Allus... as propres costages du Mair_, and not at the cost of the
city.'
The sword-bearer is remarkable on account of the distinctive
head-covering or 'cap of maintenance' which is appropriated to his
office.[283]
It is not known when the City of London first possessed a mace or maces,
but Mr. Hope refers to the _Liber Custumarum_ to prove that as early as
1252 there were sergeants who carried staves of some kind as emblems of
authority. 'We know this from the claim put forth on the occasion of the
_Iter_ of the pleas of the Crown held at the Tower in 1321, that the
Mayor and citizens of London should have their own porter and usher, and
their own sergeants with their staves. As it was shown that the same
claim had been successfully made in 1276-1277, and in 1252 it was
allowed' Mr. Hope quotes from Letter Book F a record of the appointment
of Robert Flambard as mace-bearer in 1338, and from this it is clear
that the office was not then a newly created one.'[284]
For the due carrying on of the business of the Corporation several new
offices have at various times been established, but the foregoing are
the officials who carried on the work of the city during the Middle
Ages. Much of interest might have been added of these men, but it is
only necessary here to refer to them generally as those to whom so much
of the history of London was due.
The chief business of the city has been carried on for many centuries in
the Guildhall, which is of unknown antiquity. It is almost certain that
the building was in existence on the same spot as early as the twelfth
century. It was rebuilt in 1411, and has been greatly altered at
different times since then. The most interesting portion of the old
building will be found in the extensive Gothic crypt which is shown in
the illustration on page 273. The open timber roof of the Hall was not
added until the alterations of 1866-1870 by the late Sir Horace Jones.
CHAPTER X
_Commerce and Trade_
The earliest trade recorded as carried on in the British Isles consisted
of the exchange of tin with the Gauls, and, perhaps, also with
Phoenician traders.
Under Roman rule the agricultural and mineral resources of Britain were
more fully developed. Julius Cæsar praised the Southdown mutton, and
Rome was supplied with oysters which came from Whitstable and Reculvers
(_Regulbium_), and were carried through the River Stour (forming the
western boundary of the Island of Thanet), and were exported from
Richborough (_Rutupiæ_). Corn was exported in large quantities, and
Londinium, the principal port for trading with Gaul, was the centre of
commerce.
There is no notice of commerce during the early Anglo-Saxon period, but
Bede, at the beginning of the eighth century, speaks of London as a
great market which traders frequented by land or sea. The letter of
protection for English pilgrims given to Offa of Mercia by Charlemagne
(A.D. 796), which refers to trade carried on by them, has been called
'the first English commercial treaty.' One remarkable fact is that this
commerce was mainly in the hands of foreigners. London in the early
times was mainly a city of foreigners. Hence the jealousy of the
natives, which grew in strength as time went on.
Commerce greatly increased during the reign of Edgar, so that Ethelred
his son deemed it time to draw up a code of laws to regulate the Customs
to be paid by the merchants of France and Flanders, as well as by the
Emperor's men, but the promulgation of the laws of Athelstane (A.D.
925-929), which ordained that a merchant who had made three sea voyages
should be of right a Thane, is a proof of the small number as well as of
the importance of such native traders.
We learn from the Colloquies of the Abbot Ælfric (eleventh century) that
most of the commodities imported into England were articles of luxury.
The port of Dowgate was granted to the City of Rouen as early as Edward
the Confessor's reign, and the right was afterwards confirmed.[285]
The Confessor also gave a portion of Waremanni-Acra within London, 'with
the wharf belonging to it, and with its market rights and places for
merchandise, its stalls and shops, its rents and dues and rights, its
toll and wharfage' to St. Peter's at Ghent, which grant was confirmed by
William I. 1081.[286]
After the Conquest, communication with Normandy naturally increased
greatly. Rouen was particularly favoured, and was granted a monopoly of
trade with Ireland and freedom of commerce in London. In the twelfth
century silver was imported in exchange for meat, fish and wool, which
were all sent to the manufacturing districts of the Low Countries. Corn
was sometimes exported, but not without a licence.
The House or Gild of the Merchants of Almaines otherwise called the
House of the Teutonics, was formed about the year 1169, though the
Germans, under the name of Easterlings, are known to have traded here,
during the Saxon period. The gild flourished in London as the Merchants
of the Steelyard till the time of Elizabeth, when their special
privileges were abolished by royal decree.
Hallam tells us that from the middle of the twelfth to the thirteenth
century the traders of England became more and more prosperous. The
towns on the southern coast exported tin and other metals in exchange
for the wines of France. Those on the eastern coast sent corn to Norway,
and the Cinque Ports bartered wool against the stuffs of Flanders.
The export, of wool and the import of cloth were prohibited in 1261, and
the prohibition was repeated in 1271. The cause of this prohibition may
be illustrated by reference to a particular import--woad, which seems to
show that a native woollen manufacture existed, although all the finer
cloth came from Flanders. The restrictions originally imposed upon the
woad merchants would not allow them a settlement in the city nor permit
them to store their woad, which they had to sell as best they could on
the wharf where it was landed. In 1237, however, the merchants of
Amiens, Corby and Nesle were allowed, by special arrangement, greater
freedom in the disposal of their woad and other wares. In the end the
woad merchants settled in Cannon Street (Candelwykstrete), the very
centre of the cloth trade in London, as Lydgate tells us in his _London
Lyckpenny_:--
'Then went I forth by London Stone,
Throughout all Canwyke Street;
Drapers mutch cloth me offered anone.'[287]
London was the seat of trade in Eastern luxuries, which became known
largely through the influence of the Crusades. Silks, fruits, spices and
Greek wines were brought here by the Italian fleets which, after 1317,
regularly visited England.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the importance of our
commerce is shown by the appearance of regulations for its promotion in
the Statute Book. The Statute of Merchants is dated 1283-1285, and the
_Carta Mercatoria_ 1303.
The trade with Bordeaux was very active, and largely carried on by
English ships from London, Bristol, Dover and Hull. Wool, herrings,
lead, copper and tin were taken out in these ships, also pilgrims as
passengers. The ships returned to England laden with wine, and corn when
the home production was short. In 1350 141 ships carried 13,429 tuns of
wine from Bordeaux to England. English merchants travelled largely, and
made their appearance at the great continental fairs.
As commerce increased the enemies of commerce also increased, and we
find therefore that the Thames and the open sea were infested by bands
of pirates. Soon after pirates had made a successful descent upon
Scarborough, John Philipot, a prominent Londoner, set himself to break
up the conspiracy. He fitted out a fleet at his own expense, and,
putting to sea, succeeded in capturing the ringleader, a feat which
rendered him so popular as to excite the jealousy of the Duke of
Lancaster and other nobles. His fellow-citizens showed their
appreciation of his character by electing him to succeed Brembre in the
mayoralty in October 1378.[288]
How serious this danger really was may be seen from the fact that not
even the King was safe. When Henry IV., in order to escape the
pestilence raging in London, crossed from Queensborough, in Sheppey, to
Leigh, in Essex, on his way to Plashey--though convoyed by Lord Camoys
with certain ships of war--narrowly escaped capture by pirates. A vessel
containing part of his baggage and retinue, together with his
Vice-Chamberlain, fell into the hands of the enemy. This scandal
naturally created a great stir, and Lord Camoys was tried on a charge of
correspondence with the enemy. He was acquitted, but his innocence
appears to have been considered doubtful.
Pirates lurked in the Thames or blockaded the mouth of the river, and to
prevent them from landing within the area of the city the streets
leading to the river were defended by chains. Still further to defend
London from privateers, John Philipot offered to build at his own cost a
stone tower 60 king's feet in height, near Ratcliff, provided the
Corporation of London would levy sixpence in the pound on the rental of
the city and build a corresponding tower on the opposite side of the
river, so that an iron chain might be stretched from one tower to the
other to protect the shipping of the river from night attack. The danger
was so imminent that the Common Council agreed to the proposal, but, as
the alarm died away, this scheme of defence was laid aside.[289]
In 1370 'the Mayor, aldermen and commonalty were given to understand
that certain galleys, with a multitude of armed men therein, were lying
off the foreland of Tanet' [Thanet], and it was therefore ordered that
'every night watch shall be kept between the Tower of London and
Billingsgate, with 40 men-at-arms and 60 archers,' which watch the men
of the trades underwritten 'agreed to keep in succession each night, in
form as follows: On Tuesday, the drapers and the tailors; on Wednesday,
the mercers and the apothecaries; on Thursday, the fishmongers and the
butchers; on Friday, the pewterers and the vintners; on Saturday, the
goldsmiths and the saddlers; on Sunday, the ironmongers, the armourers
and the cutlers; on Monday, the tawers [curriers], the spurriers, the
bowyers and the girdlers.'[290]
These pirates gave a great deal of trouble up to a much later date, and
the wardenship of the Cinque Ports (then held by Cecil) was a busy post
when, as in May 1616, pirate vessels were captured between Broadstairs
and Margate.[291]
In connection with the trade and commerce of London, fairs and markets
held a very important position, but here it will only be possible to
make a passing allusion to them.
Bartholomew Fair, Smithfield, granted to the Prior of St. Bartholomew's
by Henry II., 1133, was for several centuries the great cloth fair of
England. Its memory is kept alive by the street which is still known as
Cloth Fair. After the dissolution of the monasteries the fair was
annually opened by the Mayor, attended by the aldermen. It long outlived
its use and reputation, and was not finally abolished until the
nineteenth century had run its course for some years.
In the City Letter Books there are references to other less important
fairs; thus a fair then only recently established in Soper Lane (now
Queen Street, Cheapside), and known as Nane (or Noon) Fair, was
abolished about 1307 owing to its being the resort of thieves and
cutpurses.[292]
There was also a fair called _la novele feyre_ which was held in the
parish of St. Nicholas Acons.[293]
[Illustration: CLOTH FAIR.]
Many fairs were held at different times in Southwark, Westminster, and
other places in the neighbourhood of London. How important the great
fairs of the Middle Ages were may be seen in one instance among others
by the fact that the citizens of London resorted in such numbers to St.
Botolph's Fair, annually held at Boston, county Lincoln, on St.
Botolph's Day (17th June), that all business in the Court of Husting
ceased, and the Court was closed for a week.[294]
In the fourth book of the _Liber Albus_ there is a list of letters and
other documents relating to markets and fairs, several of which relate
to St. Botolph's Fair.[295]
In Saxon times buying and selling could only be lawfully carried out
before the _reeve_ of Folkmote, a practice which necessitated a
gathering in towns at fixed times, from which custom grew up the
practice of each town having a market day. As a rule this was on a
Sunday, and the market-place was often situated in the churchyard, close
beneath the sheltering walls of the parish church.
By the Statute Wynton (13 Edw. I.) fairs and markets were forbidden to
be held in churchyards; and the Statute 27 Henry VI., cap. 5, was the
first enactment intended to enforce a due observance of Sunday. To avoid
the scandal of holding fairs and markets on Sundays and upon high feast
days it was decreed that 'Fairs and markets shall not be holden on
Sundays or on festivals,' with the exception of four Sundays in harvest.
There is no public right of holding fairs or markets, and the privilege
emanates from the prerogative of the Crown.
From the earliest times the streets of London were occupied by the
various trades who obtained the privilege of using them as
market-places. The market of West Cheap or Cheapside was the chief of
these public places, but almost all the trades had their appointed
stations in the different streets, and in many cases the trades were not
allowed to sell their wares in other places than those assigned to them.
In the time of Edward I. it was ordered 'that all manner of victuals
that are sold by persons in Chepe, upon Cornhulle, and elsewhere in the
city, such as bread, cheese, poultry, fruit, hides, and skins, onions
and garlic, and all other small victuals, for sale as well by denizens
as by strangers, shall stand midway between the kennels of the streets
as to be a nuisance to no one, under pain of forfeiture of the
article.'[296]
'The pavement in Chepe' was a recognised market-place for corn, probably
situated near the Church of St. Michael le Quern, at the west end of
Cheapside. Stocks Market, which stood on the site of the present Mansion
House, was founded in 1283, and the rents were appropriated to the
maintenance of London Bridge. In 1324 the wardens of the bridge made
complaint that certain fishmongers and butchers had of late abandoned
the market-house, had erected sheds in the King's highway and other
adjoining places, and sold their flesh and fish there, 'whereby the
rents aforesaid, which formed the greater part of the maintenance of the
said bridge, had become immensely reduced to the great peril and damage
of the bridge and of the city, and of all passing over such bridge.'
Staples were markets where only certain goods called staple goods were
allowed to be sold. The Company of Merchants of the Staple had a
monopoly of exporting the staple commodities of England, and certain
staple towns (which were constantly changed) were appointed as centres
of the trade. The chief export was wool, 'the sovereign treasure' of
England, wherewith she was said to keep the whole world warm. In 1328,
and again in 1334, all staples were abolished and trade was free
according to the great charter. Free trade did not last long, and the
staple was fixed at Bruges in 1344.
By the Ordinance of Staple 27 Edw. III. (1353) ten staple towns were
appointed in England, Wales and Ireland, Westminster and London together
being considered as one of the ten. The staple of Bruges was removed
from Bruges to Westminster by this Act.
In 1360 part of this Act was repealed. Calais[297] remained a staple
till it was temporarily suppressed in 1369 (Statute 43 Edw. III., cap.
1). By this Act the staple of wool was in future to be confined to the
following English ports: Newcastle, Hull, Boston, Yarmouth,
Queenborough, Westminster, Chichester, Winchester, Exeter, and Bristol.
The staple towns continued to be changed, and there were great
complaints made by the English in Tudor times that the staple was fixed
abroad. We read that 'the caryage out of wolle to the stapule ys a grete
hurte to the pepul of England, though hyt be profitabul both to the
prince and to the merchant also.'[298] The changes in the wool trade in
England during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries caused
an industrial revolution, the effects of which are well marked in our
literature. The raw material was no longer exported, but in its place
the cloth made here was sent to countries which had formerly supplied us
with cloth in exchange for our wool. In consequence the number of
wealthy merchants increased. With this prosperity the country became
proud, and the lawgivers did all they could to foster the manufactures
of the country.[299] A Statute passed in 1463 (3 Edw. IV. cap. 4)
prohibited by enumeration the import of almost all wrought goods in
order that 'the English artificers may have employment.' A similar Act
was passed in the reign of Henry VIII., by which foreign books could
only be introduced in sheets, so that work should be provided for the
English bookbinders. The famous poem written by Adam de Molyneux,
Moleyns or Molins, Bishop of Chichester, and Keeper of the Privy Seal
(died 1450), which was entitled 'The Libel of English Policy' (1437),
contains a full account of commodities exchanged between the countries
of Western Europe. The full title of this important _Libellum_ shows its
object--'Here beginneth the prologe of the processe of the Libelle of
Englyshe Polycye exhorting alle Englande to kepe the see enviroun, and
namelye the narowe see, shewynge whate profete commeth thereof, and also
worshype and salvacioun to Englande and to alle Englyshe menne.'
The leading idea of the little book, as may be seen from the title, is
that which agitates the public mind at the present time, and shows how
important it is that England should keep the seas and protect the food
and clothing coming to this country.[300]
In connection with the commerce and trade of the country the official
weighing of goods was a matter of great importance. As far back as the
Saxon period standard weights and measures were preserved in the City
of London, and with these the weights and measures throughout the
kingdom had to conform. The King's great Beam or Tron was used for
weighing coarse goods by the hundredweight, and the small beam or
balance for silks, spiceries and goods sold by the pound weight.
The King's weigh-house in Fish Street Hill, London, and the Tron Church
in Edinburgh remind us of the old weighing machines of the country.
It was formerly the custom to allow a margin to buyers at the Tron.
According to the _Liber de Antiquis_, in 1305 the weigher allowed the
buyer a draft of four pounds in every hundredweight.
At the present day there is a survival of this custom in the tea trade
and some others, for the importer gives a precisely similar 'draft' to
the dealer, viz., one pound in every chest of tea of twenty-eight
pounds.[301]
Foreigners and strangers were not permitted, as a rule, to take up their
residence within the walls of London for a longer period than forty
days, and were subject to several restrictions as to trade. Exceptions
were, however, made from time to time with various foreign towns.
Natives of Denmark enjoyed the privilege of sojourning in London all the
year through: in addition to which they had a right to all the benefits
of 'the law of the City of London,' that is, they were entitled to the
right of resorting to fair or to market in any place throughout England.
Norwegians had the same right of sojourning in London all the year, but
did not enjoy 'the law of the city,' as they were prohibited from
leaving it for the purposes of traffic.[302]
In February 1303 the King, by the _Carta Mercatoria_, granted
exceptional privileges to foreign merchants, and these concessions
caused great indignation among his subjects at home. A tax was exacted
from these foreigners, and in 1309 the Friscobaldi were appointed by
the King to receive the 'new custom,' and two years later he ordered
their arrest for failing to render an account of the money received
under that head. Their detention, however, was of short duration.[303]
The Act was repealed in 1311, and again enacted in 1322, but with the
accession of Edward III. it was again repealed.
Foreign commerce is said to have been better governed than inland trade,
for the King had an arbitrary authority in the regulation of trading.
In dealing with the trade of London it is necessary to say something
about the origin of Gilds; but this is a most difficult question,
respecting which very different opinions are held by writers on the
subject.
It will be impossible to discuss these points at all fully in this
chapter, and therefore a few dates will be found sufficient for the
present purpose.
Mediæval gilds were voluntary associations established for mutual
assistance. It is quite easy to show the likeness between them and the
Roman Collegia, but to do this is futile, because few now believe in any
connection between the two institutions. Similar circumstances often
cause similar institutions to arise.
In the Middle Ages few men and women could stand alone, and combination
was a positive necessity for existence, and the people soon found that
union is strength.
The great authority on this subject is Mr. Toulmin Smith's work,
entitled _English Gilds_, which was edited by his daughter, Miss Toulmin
Smith, and published by the Early English Text Society in 1880.
Prefixed to this great work is Dr. Brentano's valuable Essay on the
History of Gilds, in which he writes: 'I write to declare here most
emphatically that I consider England the birthplace of gilds.'
Some writers have fixed upon the second half of the ninth century as the
date of the origin of gilds, but Miss Toulmin Smith points out that
among the laws of Ina (A.D. 688-725) are two touching the liability of
the brethren of a gild in the case of slaying a thief. Alfred (A.D.
871-879) still further recognised the brotherly gild spirit in his laws
as to manslaughter by a kinless man, and again where a man who has no
relatives is slain.[304]
Dr. Brentano writes: 'An already far-advanced development of the gilds
is shown by the _Judicia Civitatis Lundoniæ_, the Statutes of the London
gilds, which were reduced to writing in the time of King Athelstan. From
them the gilds in and about London appear to have united into _one_
gild, and to have framed common regulations for the better maintenance
of peace, for the suppression of violence--especially of theft and the
aggressions of the powerful families--as well as for carrying out
rigidly the ordinances enacted by the King for that purpose.'[305]
A large division of the old gilds were purely social, and there is no
trace of Merchant gilds before the Norman Conquest, while craft gilds
did not come into existence until early in the twelfth century.
Dr. Brentano writes: 'Though the merchant gilds consisted chiefly of
merchants, yet from the first craftsmen, as such, were not excluded from
them on principle, if only such craftsmen possessed the full citizenship
of the town, which citizenship--with its further development--depended
upon the possession of estates of a certain value situated within the
territory of the town. The strict separation which existed between the
merchants and the crafts probably arose only by degrees. Originally the
craftsmen, no doubt, traded in the raw materials which they worked
with.'[306]
Mr. Ashley is of opinion that Dr. Brentano exaggerated both the
independence and the economic importance of the trade gilds.[307]
He further writes: 'We do not know whether there had ever been a Gild
Merchant in London; however, in 1191, by the recognition of its Commune,
the citizens obtained complete municipal self-government, and,
consequently, the recognition of the same rights over trade and industry
as a Gild merchant would have exercised.'[308]
Dr. Gross, in his work on the Gild Merchant, says that he can find no
evidence of the existence of a merchant gild in London. Still there were
trade gilds which were aristocratic in origin, and governed by the great
merchants, who were the chief landowners of London.
Mr. C. G. Crump, however, has quite lately found direct mention of the
Gild Merchant of London in 1252 in a charter of that date (Charter Roll,
37 Hen. III. m. 20). While pointing out that this was apparently unknown
to Dr. Gross, as he decides against the existence of any such
institution, he adds: 'This charter, while it suggests a doubt on the
point, is not conclusive, because it is a very exceptional document.
There is no other charter of its kind during the whole reign of Henry
III., and a Chancery clerk endeavouring to draft a charter to convert a
Florentine merchant into a citizen of London might well have thought fit
to mention a gild merchant as a matter of common form even if none
actually existed.[309]
The year 1180 is an important one in the history of gilds, for then
these bodies were required to pay their fines or licences, in token and
recognition of their allegiance to the Crown. There were eighteen of
these, which were amerced as 'Adulterine' gilds--the Goldsmiths, the
Pepperers and the Butchers being among them. The document containing
this list is translated by Herbert in his work on the Companies,[310]
where it is suggested that the fining of these proves that the gilds
must have been numerous, because some of them only could have subjected
themselves to the penalty.
The Mercers claim an existence at a still earlier date (1172), and when
the Saddlers are mentioned immediately after the Conquest they are said
to possess 'ancient statutes.'
Gradually the influence of the craftsmen made itself felt, and the craft
gilds came into existence, but the aristocratic traders would not
recognise them.
The craftsmen found an enthusiastic patron in Thomas Fitz-Thomas, the
popular Mayor (1261-1265). His conduct disgusted Arnold Fitz-Thedmar,
the city alderman and chronicler, who complains that 'this Mayor, during
the time of his mayoralty, had so pampered the city populace, that
styling themselves the "Commons of the city," they had obtained the
first voice in the city. For the Mayor, in doing all that he had to do,
acted and determined through them, and would say to them: "Is it your
will that so it shall be?" and then if they answered "Ya, ya," so it was
done. And on the other hand, the aldermen or chief citizens were little
or not at all consulted on such matter, but were in fact just as though
they had not existed.'[311]
After the Battle of Evesham the city was taken into the King's hands
(1265-1270), and a very despotic and wicked action was perpetrated.
Fitz-Thomas and some other prominent citizens were summoned to Windsor,
and there were kept prisoners. Some of these regained their liberty,
but nothing more was heard of Fitz-Thomas, as Dr. Reginald Sharpe
writes: 'From the time that he entered Windsor Castle he disappears from
public view. That he was alive in May 1266, at least in the belief of
his fellow-citizens, is shown by their cry for the release of him and
his companions, "who are at Windleshores."'[312]
The craftsmen lost a valiant friend, but another was raised up in his
place. Walter Hervi, who was hated by the aldermen for his democratic
opinions, but loved by the Commons, was elected Mayor in 1272. Fresh
ordinances for the regulation of various crafts were drawn up, and to
these the Mayor, on his own responsibility, attached the city seal. When
his year of office expired these so-called charters were called in
question, and in 1274 they were examined in the Hustings before all the
people and declared void.[313]
The craft gilds were supposed to be defeated, but this was not really
so, for the merchants found that the struggle between the trade gilds
and craft gilds was an unequal one. They therefore with much worldly
wisdom joined the latter, and gradually gained an ascendency in them.
Mr. Ashley affirms that from the reign of Edward II. the gild system was
no longer merely tolerated, but it was fostered and extended.[314]
The years which followed the Peace of Bretigny, until war broke out
afresh in 1369, witnessed the reorganisation of many of the trade and
craft gilds.[315]
In 1376 the gilds wrested for a time from the wards the right of
electing members of the city's Council. The gilds continued to elect
until 1384, when the right of election was again transferred to the
wards.
The names of the representatives of the gilds forming the first Common
Council of the kind are placed on record in Letter Book H, ff. _46b_,
47.
The year 1388-1389 was an important one in the history of gilds. The
writs of 12 Ric. II. had important effects, and the returns form the
chief substance of Mr. Toulmin Smith's _English Gilds_. There were two
distinct writs: (_a_) the writ for returns from the social gilds; (_b_)
the writ for returns from craft gilds. Toulmin Smith printed the writs
with these side-notes: (_a_) 'The Sheriffs of London [and of every shire
in England] shall, by authority of the Parliament that lately met at
Cambridge, make proclamation calling on the master and wardens of all
the social gilds [all gilds and brotherhoods whatsoever] to send up
returns before the 2nd day of February A.D. 1388-9.
(_b_) 'The Sheriffs of London [and of every shire in England] shall, by
authority of the Parliament that lately met at Cambridge, make
proclamation calling on the masters, wardens and overlookers of all
gilds of crafts holding any charter or letters-patent to send up before
the second day of February 1388-9 copies of such charters and letters
upon penalty of forfeiture.'
The original writs were returned by the London sheriffs with this
endorsement: 'When and by whom proclamation was made in London and the
suburbs--Fleet Street in the suburbs; the Standard, in Westcheap; the
Ledenhall, Cornhill; St. Magnus Church, Bridge Street; St. Martin's
Church, Vintry; Southwark.'
In Mr. Toulmin Smith's book only three of the returns relate to London,
and these are not from craft gilds. They are the Gild of Garlekhith, the
Gild of St. Katherine, Aldersgate, and the Gild of SS. Fabian and
Sebastian, Aldersgate. It is not necessary to give extracts from these
returns, but we can obtain a good idea of the objects of these gilds
from Mr. Toulmin Smith's side-notes, which are as follows:--
_Garlekhith._--'The gild was begun in 1375 to nourish good fellowship.
All bretheren must be of good repute. Each shall pay 6s. 8d. on entry.
There shall be wardens, who shall gather in the payments and yield an
account thereof yearly. A livery suit shall be worn. The bretheren and
sisteren shall hold a yearly feast. Two shillings a year shall be paid
by each. Four meetings touching the gild's welfare shall be held in each
year. Free gifts by the bretheren. Ill-behaved bretheren shall be put
out of the gild. No livery-suit shall be sold within a year. On death of
any, all the rest shall join in the burial service and make offerings
under penalty. In case of quarrel, the matter shall be laid before the
wardens. Whoever disobeys their award shall be put out of the gild and
the other shall be helped. Weekly help to all seven-year bretheren in
old age and in sickness, and to those wrongfully imprisoned. Newcomers
shall swear to keep the ordinances. Every brother chosen warden must
serve or pay 40s.'
_St. Katherine._--'These are the ordinances of the gild: Oath on entry,
and a kiss of love, charity and peace. Weekly help in poverty, old age,
sickness, or loss by fire or water, etc. Payments by bretheren and
sisteren. Members of the gild shall go to church and afterwards choose
officers. Burials shall be attended. The gild shall bear charge of
burials. Any brother dying within ten miles round London shall have
worshipful burial. All costs thereof shall be made good by the gild.
Loans to gild-bretheren out of the gild stock on pledge or surety. Wax
lights to be found and used at times named. Further services after
death. Newcomers by assent only. Four men shall keep the goods of the
gild, and render an account yearly. Assent of all the gild to new
ordinances. The goods of the gild are a "vestement, a chalys and a
mass-book, pris of x marks."'
_SS. Fabian and Sebastian._--'Oath on entry, and a kiss of love, charity
and peace. Weekly help in poverty, old age, sickness, or loss by fire or
water, etc. The young to be helped to get work. Payments by bretheren
and sisteren. Four days of meeting in the year, when all must attend
under penalty. Burials shall be attended. The gild shall bear charge of
burials. Those dying within ten miles round London shall be fetched to
London for burial. Loans to gild-bretheren out of the gildstock on
pledge or surety. Wax lights to be found and used at times named.
Ill-behaved bretheren shall be put out of the gild. Entry of new
bretheren. Four men shall keep the goods of the gild and render an
account yearly. Assent of all the gild to new ordinances. Grant of a
house in Aldersgate worth £4, 13s. 4d. a year, less quit rent of 13s. a
year, the profits of which are applied in aid of the gild.'
These regulations with their general likeness and slight divergencies
help us to understand the gild life of the Middle Ages, which, it will
be seen, was essentially practical and helpful to the growth of good
feeling among those who were brought together in constant intercourse.
The rules of the gilds were often very strict, and men of evil life were
put out of the fraternity. Moreover, idlers and ne'er-do-weels were not
to expect to be relieved from the funds of the gild. From the ordinances
of the Gild of St. Anne in the Church of St. Lawrence Jewry, we learn
that 'if any man be of good state, and use hym to ly long in bed; and at
rising of his bed ne will not work but go to the tavern... and in this
manner falleth poor... and trust to be holpen by the fraternity: that
man shall never have good, ne help of companie, neither in his lyfe nor
at his dethe; but he shal be put off for evermore of the companie.'
Mr. Toulmin Smith's returns are taken from the originals in the Public
Record Office, and, as has already been noted, by some fatality there
are no records of the craft gilds.
The next great point in the history of gilds is connected with their
abolition by the Act of 1 Edw. VI. cap. 14 (1547), a most iniquitous
measure. Miss Toulmin Smith tells us how her father's indignation was
roused by his researches into the story of the fate of the gilds:--
'In a MS. note he remarks that for the abolition of monasteries [there
was] some colour, and after professed inquiries as to manners; moreover,
allowances [were] made to all ranks. But in case of gilds (much wider)
no pretence of inquiry or of mischief, and no allowance whatever. A case
of pure wholesale robbery and plunder, done by an unscrupulous faction
to satisfy their personal greed, under cover of law. No more gross case
of wanton plunder is to be found in the history of all Europe; no page
so black in English history.'[316]
Of course there is another side to the question, and Mr. Ashley, who
discusses very fully the consequences of the Act of Edward VI., thinks
that it has been unfairly condemned. He says that, so far as the
companies were concerned, the Bill did not propose to take from them
anything more than the revenues actually used for religious purposes;
and further, that the Statute neither 'abolished' nor 'dissolved' nor
'suppressed' nor 'destroyed' the companies, but left all their corporate
powers and rights intact, except so far as religious usages were
concerned.[317]
We must remember, however, that Mr. Toulmin Smith's indignation was
roused not so much by the forfeiture of certain trusts in the hands of
the livery companies as by the robbery of the small gilds all over the
country.
The early history of most of the city companies is rather disconnected,
and, owing to the loss and destruction of documents, the mode by which
the craft gilds were amalgamated with the livery companies is not very
easy to follow. Still, the likeness between the two institutions is so
marked, and their duties so similar, that there is no difficulty in
acknowledging the fusion. To take a single instance, it may be mentioned
that the original gild of Goldsmiths had exactly similar public duties
to perform that are now performed by the present Goldsmiths' Company.
This connection has usually been taken for granted, but it is necessary
to allude to the question here, because Mr. Loftie, a high authority on
the history of London, has strongly disputed this connection. In 1883
Mr. Loftie wrote: 'The identification of the adulterine guilds with the
later companies is scarcely possible'[318]; and again in 1887: 'The
Weavers' Company is not the only one which claims to represent directly
an ancient guild, but it is the only one whose claim has anything so
like a reasonable foundation.'[319] These are, however, only casual
remarks, but in his latest work he has elaborated his attack in the
following terms:--
'Popular errors are very difficult to deal with effectually. One of the
most persistent is that which confounds the city guilds with the city
companies. Here two widely different things are inextricably confused,
and that, too, not in mere catchpenny popular books, but in books
pretending to more or less authority. In the common run of London
histories, guild means company, and company means guild.... To begin
with, there are now no guilds in London. By an Act passed in 1557 all
religious guilds were abolished and all guildable property was
confiscated. But as there were no guilds not religious, and as the
property of guilds was held in trust to provide burials, masses, and
sometimes chantries for deceased members, the guilds and their land, and
their money and their priestly vestments, and their illuminated
manuscripts, all ceased to exist absolutely; and not only so, but it
became penal to revive them. A city company which calls itself a guild
renders itself liable to forfeiture--a penalty which would, of course,
be rather difficult to enforce.'[320]
There are two statements here which may be challenged--one that all
gilds were religious, and the other that all gilds were abolished by Act
of Parliament.
Certainly the gilds which were not instituted for purposes of trade
protection have often been styled religious, but Mr. Toulmin Smith
preferred to class them as social gilds, and I think wisely. As already
stated, their objects were entirely practical and social. Mr. Toulmin
Smith writes: 'The gilds were lay bodies, and existed for lay purposes,
and the better to enable those who belonged to them rightly and
understandingly to fulfil their neighbourly duties as freemen in a free
state.'
Religious duties were performed, but these were only incidental to the
life of the time, and consisted mostly of services connected with the
serious occasions in the life of laymen, which were general in the
periods that have been styled 'ages of faith.'
As to the second point, a reference to the Statute 1 Edw. VI. cap. 14,
will show us that the craft gilds are exempted from its operation. In
the _Statutes of the Realm_ one of the side-notes to the 'Act whereby
certain chantries, colleges, free chapells, and the possessions of the
same, be given to the King's Majesty,' runs as follows: 'All
brotherhoods or guilds and their possessions, except companies of trade
vested in the King.' The text is 'other then suche corporations,
guyldes, fraternities, companyes and felowshippes of misteryes or
craftes.'
I think we must allow that the terms of this Act strongly corroborate
the general belief that the old craft gilds and the later companies were
so closely connected as to be practically the same. Having dealt with
the general question of gilds, we can now pass on to consider the
influence of the different trades upon London life.
The origin of the companies seems to have been largely connected with
the result of a combination of the numerous sections of a particular
trade. Some trades were so important that they could stand alone; thus
the Goldsmiths' Gild became the Goldsmiths' Company; but most of the
other companies were formed by the union of more than one gild.
A marked feature of the old trades of London was the minute subdivisions
which took place among them: thus there were hatters, cappers, chapelers
(makers of caps), and hurers. The latter were makers of hures, or rough
hairy caps. The hurers and cappers were united to the hatters by charter
of Henry VII. in the sixteenth year of his reign, and again united in
the following year to the haberdashers by the King's licence under his
great seal.
The Company, subsequently known and chartered as the Clothworkers', was
first incorporated by letters-patent of Edw. IV. in 1482, as the
'Fraternity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Shearmen
of London.' The fullers were taken into union in 1528, thereby
constituting the Clothworkers' Company.
A convincing proof of the connection of the gilds with companies, and
the natural succession of the latter from the former, is seen in this
case of the Clothworkers' Company. It appears from a deed dated 15th
July 1456 that John Badby did remise, etc., unto John Hungerford and
others, citizens and sheremen of London, 'a tenement and mansion-house,
shops, cellars and other the appurtenances, lying in Minchin Lane, and
their heirs for ever.' This is the site of Clothworkers' Hall, the
Clothworkers' Company being the natural heirs of the Gild of
Shearmen.[321]
There is much interest connected with the occupation of the shearman,
who sheared the nap of wool. Woollen clothes in the Middle Ages were
expected to last a lifetime. When new the nap was very long, and as the
clothes became shabby it was customary to have them shorn, a process
which was repeated as long as the stuff would bear it. In the delightful
old ballad reprinted in Percy's _Reliques_, 'Take thy old cloak about
thee,' the old cloak that had been in wear for forty-four years was
likely to be a sorry clout at the end of that time, which would hold out
neither wind nor rain. Well might the husband resolve:--
'For once I'le new appareld bee,
To-morrow I'le to towne and spend,
For I'le have a new cloake about mee.'
But the wife's plea for thrift, and her statement--
'Itt's pride that putts this countrye downe,'
succeeds in the end, and the ballad ends,--
'As wee began wee now will leave,
And I'le take mine old cloake about mee.'
The aid of the shearman was not merely called in by the poor, for we
learn that the Countess of Leicester (Eleanor, third daughter of King
John, and wife of Simon de Montfort) in 1265 sent Hicque the tailor to
London to get her robes re-shorn.[322]
The date of the ballad was probably early, although the King alluded to
in the printed text is King Stephen, in that of the Scotch version
Robert, and in the Percy MS. a vague King Henry. The ballad must have
had a wide popularity, for Shakespeare alludes to it twice. Iago quotes
a whole stanza (_Othello_, act ii.), and Trinculo evidently alludes to
it when he says:--
'O King Stephano, O Peere: O worthy Stephano,
Looke what a wardrobe here is for thee.'
(_Tempest_, act iv. sc. i.).
The number of trades connected with clothing were singularly numerous.
Besides the shearman (or tondour) there were the feliper, pheliper or
fripperer, who dealt in second-hand clothes, and the furbur or furbisher
of old clothes.
Dr. Brentano points out that in all manufacturing countries, in England,
Flanders and Brabant, as well as in the Rhenish towns, the most ancient
gilds were those of the weavers; and Mr. Ashley writes that the first
craft gilds to come into notice were the weavers and fullers of woollen
cloth. No weaver or fuller might go outside the town to sell his own
cloth, and so interfere with the monopoly of the merchants; nor was he
allowed to sell his cloth to any save a merchant of the town.[323]
The London Gild of Weavers was recognised by Henry I., and the first
charter of incorporation was granted by Henry II. in 1184, when the seal
of Thomas à Becket was affixed to the document. The special privileges
given to this trade created a strong jealousy among the citizens, and
John was induced to suppress the gild.[324] As it had been accustomed to
pay the King eighteen marks per annum, he bargained that the citizens
should pay twenty marks so that he might not be out of pocket.
The suppression did not continue for long, and in the reign of Henry
III. we find the feud between the citizens and the gild again in full
force. When the authorities of the gild feared that the citizens would
overpower them, they delivered their 'charter into the Exchequer, to be
kept in the treasury there, and to be delivered to them again when they
should want it, and afterwards to be laid up in the treasury.'[325]
Mrs. Green says that in 1300 the Mayor had gained the right to preside
in the weavers' court if he chose, and to nominate the wardens of the
gild.[326] In the fourteenth year of Edward II. (A.D. 1320-1321) the
privileges of the weavers came before a court of law. In spite of the
distinguished position that the Gild of Weavers held in its early days,
the present Weavers' Company only stands forty-second in the order of
the livery companies.
Many of the old trades of London have been entirely lost sight of, and
their names only exist among the patronymics of the people.
The great feud between the victualling and clothing trades of London was
one of the most remarkable features of the fourteenth century. Some
allusion has been made to this in chapter viii. on the governors of the
city, but a reference must also be made here in connection with the
history of the London companies.
After the Peasants' Revolt, London was the battlefield of rival
factions. The friends of the King (Richard II.) were found among the
great merchants of the victualling trades. In one year sixteen of the
twenty-five aldermen were grocers, and Nicholas Brembre was chief of
them. The fishmongers, of whom Sir William Walworth was the leader, were
scarcely less powerful.
The victuallers were very unpopular, and the public have always
specially resented any advance in the price of food. Complaints were
rife in the chief cities of the country of the abuses of the
victuallers, and an Act (12 Edw. II. cap. 6) was passed to the effect
that "no officer of a city or borough shall sell wine or victuals during
his office."
This Act was frequently evaded, and another Act was passed in 1382 (see
_ante_, p. 236). In the end the Act of Edward II. was repealed (3 Hen.
VIII. cap. 8, 1511-1512).[327]
John of Northampton, when he became Mayor, took advantage of this Act,
and began a policy of aggression directed against the victualling
interest. He turned all his enemies off the governing body, and
victuallers were forbidden to hold office in the city. These feuds were
very serious, and the two leaders were unfortunate in their ends.
Brembre was executed in 1388, and John of Northampton was sent to the
Tower and imprisoned in Tintagel Castle.
A few words may be said here about the classes of trades represented by
the gilds and companies commencing with--
_The Bakers._--The price of bread was regulated by law, according to the
price of wheat, and the Mayor had the right to levy a 1/2d. for every
quarter of corn sent to the mill. This tax was called pesage from pisa,
a corruption of mediæval Latin _pensa_, a weight. The right was called
in question at the _Iter_ held in the Tower in 1321, but the matter was
adjourned for the consideration of the King and his Council.[328]
The fraudulent baker had a bad time, for he was sometimes carried about
in a tumbrell, and at other times he was put in the pillory. For his
first offence the culprit was drawn upon a hurdle from Guildhall through
the most populous and most dirty streets, with the defective loaf
hanging from his neck. On a second occasion he was drawn from the
Guildhall 'through the great streets of Chepe' to the pillory, which was
usually erected in Cheap or Cheapside, and there he was exposed for one
hour. For the third offence he was again drawn on the hurdle, his oven
was pulled down, and he was compelled to forswear the trade in London
for ever. The use of the hurdle was discontinued in favour of the
pillory in the reign of Edward II. Another offence punished by exposure
in the pillory, besides short weight and bad quality was the putting of
iron in a loaf of bread to increase its weight.[329]
In the famine of 1258, when the Earl of Cornwall's sixty cargoes of
grain arrived, the first thing the King had to do was to issue an
ordinance against the greed of the middlemen, known as forestallers and
regrators.
No words appear to have been found too strong to hurl at these
unfortunate middlemen, but the regratresses or female retailers who
bought bread at the markets, and delivered it from house to house, were
contented with a small profit. These dealers were privileged by law to
receive thirteen batches for twelve, hence the expression 'a baker's
dozen.' This seems to have been the extent of their profits. It was once
the practice of the baker to give to each regratress who dealt with him
sixpence on Monday morning by way of _estrene_ or present, and
threepence on Friday as _curtasie_ money, but this was forbidden by
public ordinance, and the bakers were ordered to let all such payments
in future go towards increasing the size of the loaf, 'to the profit of
the people.'[330]
Corn used to be stored by the city and the companies against times of
scarcity, but the origin of the practice is obscure, and no obligation
to provide corn appears to have been imposed upon any of the companies
by the terms of their charters. Sir Simon Eyre, Mayor in 1435, formed a
public granary in Leadenhall. Stow and Fuller eulogise Sir Stephen
Brown, who, in 1438, was energetic in his endeavours to get corn stored
in the city granaries. In 1578 the farmers of the Bridge House divided
the store into twelve equal parts, and the same by lots were
appropriated to the twelve companies, to each of them an equal part for
the bestowing and keeping of the said corn.
Pannier (or Panyer) Alley, leading from Newgate Street to Paternoster
Row, was once the standing place for bakers with their bread panniers.
The bakers of London were divided into white bakers and brown or tourte
bakers (turturarii), who made a coarse bread of unbolted meal. No maker
of white bread was allowed to make tourte, nor a tourte baker to make
white bread. House bread was prepared by the bakers of household bread,
while hostellers, by whom it was exclusively used, were forbidden to
make it. Similar trades were the pastellers, who made pies and other
kinds of pastry, pie-bakers and cooks.
_Butchers._--The sale of butchers' meat seems to have been somewhat
limited during the Middle Ages in comparison with the population,
although the number of butchers within the city walls were quite
sufficient to create a considerable nuisance. Smithfield was then the
great cattle market, as it remained until our own time. Lean swine were
sold there, probably with the purpose of fattening them in the town. The
chief meat markets within the city walls were Stocks Market and the
flesh shambles of St. Nicholas, in Newgate Street and its vicinity. A
lease of the latter place to the butchers, in 1343, is recorded in
Riley's _Memorials_. The shocking condition of Newgate Street is
indicated by such names as Stinking Lane, St. Nicholas's Shambles, and
Blowbladder Street. There was a Butchers' Bridge on the Thames side,
near Baynards Castle, to which the offal was brought from Newgate Street
through the streets and lanes of the city, by which 'grievous corruption
and filth have been generated.' The evil, in fact, was so great that a
royal order was issued in 1369 for the removal of Butchers' Bridge.
The 'foreign' butchers, or those who did not possess the freedom of the
city, brought their meat to shambles just outside the civic boundary. On
the west, near St. Clement's Church in the Strand, there was a Butcher
Row, and in the east, immediately beyond Aldgate, was another Butcher
Row. This last still exists as 'Aldgate Market,' and consists of a row
of butchers' shops on the south side of the High Street. Formerly
imported animals were killed behind the shops.
The unfortunate tradesmen had to submit to public enactment, by which
the exact price of the commodities they sold was fixed. In the reign of
Edward I. the carcase of the best ox was sold for 13s. 4d., of the best
pig for 4s., of the best sheep for 2s. The ill-treated butcher had no
redress, for a provision was added to the order that if any person
should withdraw himself from the trade by reason of the said ordinance
he should lose the freedom of the city, and be compelled to forswear the
trade for ever.[331]
These instances of interference with trade continued for centuries, and
we learn that in 1533 it was enacted that butchers should sell their
beef and mutton by weight--beef for 1/2d. a pound, and mutton for 3/4d.
Stow, in relating this, adds that at this time, and not before,
'foreign' butchers were allowed to sell their flesh in Leadenhall
Market.
_Fishmongers._--The information relating to the sale of fish in the City
Records proves how largely the population of London in the Middle Ages
depended upon its ample supply. There was great variety, and a large
number of enactments were made as to the sale. The fish mentioned in the
_Liber Albus_ as being sold in the London market are: Sturgeon, cod,
ray, herring, bass, conger, sole, mackerel, sur-mullet, turbot,
porpoise, haddock, sea-ling, sprats, salmon, shad, eels, pike, barbel,
roach, dace, dabs, flounders, lampreys, smelts, stickelings, oysters,
mussels, cockles, whelks, scallops, and stock fish (imported from
Prussia). Of these, sprats, herrings, mussels, whelks and oysters are
most often mentioned, but lobsters, crabs and shrimps are not alluded
to.
Fish was not allowed to be sold retail upon the quays. The stalls in
Stocks Market were occupied by the fishmongers on fish days, and by the
butchers on flesh days. Other retail markets for fish were held by the
wall of St. Margaret's Church, New Fish Street, by the wall of St. Mary
Magdalen's in Old Fish Street, and in Westcheap. Stow writes of the
first of these places: 'In this Old Fish Street is one row of small
houses, placed along in the midst of Knightrider Street which row is
also off Bread Street ward. These houses, now possessed by fishmongers,
were at the first but moveable boards or stalls set out on market days
to show their fish there to be sold; but procuring license to set up
sheds, they grew to shops, and by little and little to tall houses of
three or four stories in height.' Salmon, cod, and herrings are
mentioned in the _Liber Albus_ as being sold in the shops in the
neighbourhood of Queenhithe.
Old Fish Street, and Old Fish Street Hill which run from it to the
Thames, with Queenhithe as their landing-quay, formed the chief fish
market of London before Billingsgate supplanted Queenhithe.
A curious regulation is found in a royal ordinance in existence as early
as the reign of Henry III., by which the first boat in the season with
fresh herrings from Yarmouth was forced to pay double custom at the
quay.
Fishmongers selling fish in large quantities to their customers were to
sell by the basket, such basket to be capable of containing one bushel
of oats, and, if found deficient, to be burnt in open market. Each
basket was also to contain one kind of sea-fish, and the fishmongers
were warned not to colour their baskets; or, in other words, not to put
good fish on the top and inferior beneath. Very stringent regulations
were also made with respect to the size of nets used for fishing in the
Thames, and any such which were contrary to these regulations were
ruthlessly destroyed.
The trade of the Stock fishmonger was quite distinct from that of the
ordinary fishmonger, and these belonged respectively to two separate
companies. They were united in 1537. Thames Street was formerly known as
Stockfishmonger Row. The Abbot of St. Alban's enjoyed the privilege of
buying fish directly of the fishermen, for which he paid the bailiff of
the market a fee of one mark per annum. The monks, however, appear to
have taken an undue advantage of their privilege, and an order was
issued by the Hallmote of the Fishmongers, _temp._ Edward I., 'that good
care be taken that the buyers of the abbey take out of the city fish for
the use of the abbot and convent only.'[332]
_Poulterers._--Many of the streets of London must have been almost
impassable from the stalls of the traders and the chaffering of the
buyers and sellers. This evil grew, and the complaints of obstruction
were great. Endeavours were made to provide covered markets, but so many
of the trades had special stands appropriated to them, as we see on all
sides by the names of the streets, that it was impossible to dislodge
them.
Free poulterers had several special localities appropriated to their
use. One was Cornhill--they were ordered to stand at the west side of
St. Michael's Church, and were strictly forbidden to sell to the east of
the Tun, the site of which and the Conduit are now marked by an unused
pump, nearly facing No. 30 Cornhill. Another standing was close by, and
still retains the name of the Poultry. Stow tells that it was once known
as Scalding Alley, because the poultry which the poulterers sold was
scalded there. Still another standing was in Newgate Street, close by
the butchers' shambles. 'Foreign' poulterers were ordered to sell their
wares at the corner of Leadenhall, known as the Carfukes (or Carfax).
The articles dealt in by poulterers were rabbits, game, eggs and
poultry. Eggs were brought to market in baskets on men's backs, and
poultry upon horses. The prices of poultry, like those of other food,
were assessed by the Mayor from time to time, and duly proclaimed. In
the reign of Edward I. the best hen was sold for 3d., the best rabbit,
with the skin, for 5d., and without for 4d., 100 eggs (120 to the
hundred) for 8d., a partridge for 3d., a plover for 2d., and eight
larks for 1d.[333]
The body of London citizens suffered from one great evil in marketing,
and that was that lords and great people were allowed the pick of the
market. It was a common practice for the purveyors and servants of these
great people to visit the various markets between midnight and prime (6
a.m.), after which hour the poorer classes were allowed to market. It is
thus ordered by a proclamation of Edward I., that no poulterer,
fishmonger or regrator shall buy any kind of victuals for re-sale until
prime has been run out at St. Paul's, 'so that the buyers for the King
and the great lords of the land and the good people of the city may make
good their purchases, so far as they shall need.'[334]
_Grocers._--The grocers (properly 'grossers,' or wholesale sellers in
gross) were for some time the chief of the victualling companies. They
were originally known as the pepperers of Soper Lane, and the
apothecaries were associated with the grocers until they were
incorporated as a distinct company in 1617.
By various charters and ordinances the company of grocers was entrusted
with the examining, sorting and passing of spices and drugs. They were
empowered to enter the shops of grocers, druggists, confectioners,
tobacconists and tobacco cutters within the city and three miles around
it, to seize and confiscate adulterated and unwholesome goods, and to
fine and, in default of payment, imprison delinquent dealers.
_Brewers and Vintners._--A passing allusion must be made to the sale of
drink in London, which has always been very considerable. Mr. Riley
tells us that there is no mention of milk as an article of sale or
otherwise in the _Liber Albus_, and butter must have been of very
inferior quality, for it was sold by liquid measure. The ale tavern, or
ale-house, was a distinct establishment from the wine tavern. In 1309
the number of taverns in London was 354, whilst the number of brewers
amounted to no less than 1334.[335]
The ale brewed was a very different product from what we understand by
the term now, as malt liquor was not hopped in those days. Hops were not
used in the making of beer until the early years of the sixteenth
century. Mr. Riley says that the best ale was no better than sweet wort,
and so thin that it might be drunk in potations 'pottle deep,' without
danger to the head. The smallest measure mentioned in the _Liber Albus_
is the quart, so that it was evidently drunk in large quantities. It was
used immediately after being made, as may be inferred from the fact
that, according to the _Domesday of St. Paul's_, the brewings at the
Cathedral brewery took place twice a week throughout the year.
Immediately after a brewing was finished it was the duty of the brewer
(or rather brewster, for the business was almost entirely in the hands
of women until the beginning of the sixteenth century) to send for the
ale-conner of the ward in order to taste the ale. If this officer was
not satisfied with its quality, he, with the assent of his alderman, set
a lower price upon it, which upon sale thereof was not to be exceeded.
Fine, imprisonment, and even punishment by pillory was the result of
reiterated breaches of the Assize. The Assize price of ale varied at
different periods. At one time it was 3/4d. per gallon and no more, but
later the price was 1-1/2d. for the best, and 3/4d. to 1d. for the
second quality.[336]
The vintners were an important body, and were mostly located in the
Vintry, a district which has kept its name to the present time. The
Vintners' Company consisted of _vinetarii_, or wine importers and
merchants, and _tabernarii_, tavern keepers, or retailers of wine.
The public taste in wine was not a very refined one in the Middle Ages,
or possibly the liquor did not keep very well, as new wine was preferred
to old. It was enacted that after the arrival of new wine at a tavern
none of it should be sold before the old was disposed of. There is no
allusion in the _Liber Albus_ to bottles or flasks, and all the wine
seems to have been drawn from the wood. Taverners who sold sweet wines
were forbidden to deal in other kinds. The sweet wines enumerated are
Malvesie, the modern Malmsey, a Greek wine sold in the reign of Richard
II. at 16d. per gallon; Vernage (Vernaccia), a red Tuscan wine, sold at
2s.; Crete, sold at 1s; and wine of Provence, sold at the same price,
probably a kind of Roussillon. By royal writ of 39 Edw. III., only three
taverns for the sale of sweet wines were in future to be permitted
within the city,--in Cheap, Walbrook, and Lombard Street. In the class
of non-sweet wines were Rhenish, sold in the reign of Richard II. at 8d.
per gallon, and Red (Vermaille) at 6d. Other wines came from Gascony,
Burgundy, Rochelle, and Spain.
No wine was permitted to be sold till it had been submitted to a
scrutiny, and been duly gauged. In the reign of Edward III. four
vintners were chosen yearly to assess the prices of wine. King's
Prisage, or Custom, was taken according to a certain scale on all
imported wines. The wine taverns were furnished with a pole projecting
from the gable of the house, and supporting a sign, or a bunch of leaves
at the end (the bush of the proverb, 'Good wine needs no bush'). In one
ordinance it is stated that the poles of the taverns of Cheapside and
elsewhere were of such a length as to be in the way of persons on
horseback, and so heavy as to cause the risk of greatly damaging the
houses; in consequence of this it was enacted that from thenceforth no
sign-pole should be more than seven feet in length.[337]
No ale or wine tavern was allowed to remain open after curfew.
The clothing trades are well represented among the city companies. The
Mercers head the list of the 'Twelve,' and the freemen were originally
'chapmen in small or mixed wares,' that is, those articles which were
sold retail by the little balance or small scale, in contradistinction
to those things sold by the beam, or in gross, and they did business in
the Mercery, Cheapside. Wadmal, a coarse woollen stuff, lake or fine
linen, fustian, felt, etc., were among these smallwares. Gradually the
mercers of Cheap extended their dealings, became vendors of silks and
velvets (_temp._ Henry VI.), and formed a mixed body of merchants and
shopkeepers, leaving the smallwares, or mercery proper, to the
haberdashers. Sir William Stone held the position of mercer to Queen
Elizabeth, and supplied her with her wardrobe.
The Haberdashers imported a cloth at first styled _halberject_, and in
the fourteenth century _hapertas_, from which, as Mr. Riley suggests,
the term 'haberdasher' probably originated. Subsequently the Hurers and
the Hatters joined them.
The Merchant Taylors and Linen Armourers are in some documents styled
'Mercatores Scissores,' 'Scissors of London,' 'Scissors and Fraternity
of St. John Baptist,'--titles alike pointing to their being anciently
both tailors and cutters, and also making the padding and interior
lining of armour, as well as manufacturing garments. Tailors made
dresses for both sexes, their prices, as usual, being regulated by
public enactment. By ordinance of the reign of Edward III. it is
declared that 'Tailors shall henceforth take for a robe, garnished with
silk, 18d.; for a man's robe, garnished with thread and buckram, 14d.;
also a coat and hood, 10d.; also for a lady's long dress, garnished with
silk and cendale, 2s. 6d.; also for a pair of sleeves for changing,
4d.'[338]
The Drapers' Company is the third on the list of the twelve great
companies, and the second of the clothing companies, the Mercers being
the first. Henry Fitz-Ailwin, the first Mayor of London, was a freeman
of the Drapers' Gild, to which he left by will an inn, called the
Chequer, in the parish of St. Mary Bothaw.
The Skinners represented the trade that dealt with furs. The furs
mentioned in the _Liber Albus_ as imported are, marten skins, rabbit
skins, dressed woolfels, Spanish squirrel skins, and grysoevere or grey
work. In the reign of Edward I. an enactment was made that 'no woman,
except a lady who is in the habit of using furs, shall have a hood
furred with dressed woolfel' (pelure). Women of ill-fame were forbidden
at one period to wear minever or other furs, though at a later date they
were permitted to use lambs' wool and rabbit skin. No mixed work, formed
of different kinds of skins, was allowed to be made, and no new fur was
to be worked up with the old.[339]
'The skynner unto the feeld moot also,
His hous in London is to streyt and scars
To doon his craft; sum tyme it was nat so.
O lordës, yeve unto your men hir pars
That so doon, and acqwente hem bet with Mars,
God of bataile; he loueth non array
That hurtyth manhode at preef or assay.'
(_The Regement of Princes_, by Thomas Hoccleve, II. 477-483.)
The Clothworkers' Company, formed by a junction of the Gilds of Shearmen
and Fullers, has already been alluded to.
The minor companies connected with the clothing trades require some
notice here. The Cordwainers held a prominent position, but in the reign
of Edward I. (1303) there were public complaints of frauds and
irregularities brought against them, and charges were made that they
mixed inferior with the superior leathers. They were continually at feud
with the Cobblers, and every endeavour was made to keep the two trades
distinct. The cordwainers were forbidden to mend shoes and the cobblers
to make them. Moreover, throughout the thirteenth, fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries there were fixed regulations not only that
cordwainers should use new leather in making shoes, but that cobblers
should be restricted wholly to the use of old leather in mending them.
The latter were even punished for having new leather in their
possession.[340]
In the reign of Edward III. the prices fixed for boots and shoes were: a
pair of shoes made of cordwain, 6d.; made of cow leather, 5d.; a pair of
boots made of cordwain, 3s, 6d.; made of cow leather, 3s.[341] This
shows that boots were then very dear.
In Edward IV.'s reign the cordwainers stood up for the defence of their
trade against the decree of the Pope. They were decidedly in the wrong,
but one cannot but admire their pluckiness. The story is told in William
Gregory's _Chronicle of London_, which is thus paraphrased by Dr. James
Gairdner, the editor: 'The Pope issued a Bull that no cordwainer should
make any pikes [at the toes of the shoes] more than two inches long, or
sell shoes on Sunday, or even fit a shoe upon a man's foot on Sunday, on
pain of excommunication. Neither was the cordwainer to attend fairs on a
Sunday under the same penalty; for not only were fairs held on that day,
but the cordwainer's services, it must be supposed, were required at the
fairs to adjust the dandy's _chaussure_, just as much as, in a later
age, the barber's aid was necessary to dress his wig. The papal Bull was
approved by the King's Council and confirmed by Act of Parliament; and
proclamation was consequently made at Paul's Cross that it should be put
in execution. Yet, with all this weight of authority against a silly
fashion, the dandy world had its own ideas upon the subject, and some
men ventured to say they would wear long pikes in spite of the Pope, for
"the Pope's curse would not kill a fly." The cordwainers, too, had a
vested interest in the extravagance, though some of their own body had
been instrumental in getting the Pope's interference. They obtained
privy seals and protections from the King to exempt them from the
operation of the law, which soon became a dead letter; and those who had
applied to the Pope to restrain their practices were subjected to much
trouble and persecution.'[342]
The Leathersellers had still more to do with leather than the
cordwainers, and the same complaints were made against them for passing
off inferior for superior leather. In the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries several ordinances were issued regulating the trade of the
leathersellers in the City of London, and for the prevention of deceit
in the manufacture and sale of their wares.
Pursers or Glovers were incorporated with the leathersellers in 1502,
but in 1638 a new company of glovers was formed.
The Girdlers made belts or girdles for men and women. They were also
called Ceinturiers and Zonars. In 1217 (1 Hen. III.) Benedict Seynturer
was one of the sheriffs of London. The company still exists, although it
cannot be said that the calling survived the reign of Charles II.
The Goldsmiths' Company stands almost alone, on account of the great
services to the State which it performs in connection with the important
trade it represents, and also in connection with the tryal of the gold
and silver coins in the Pyx of His Majesty's Mint, a service which has
been performed without intermission, at any-rate since the year 1281.
This history also contains a strong argument in favour of the received
opinion that the companies are the lineal descendants of the gilds, for
the craft of goldsmiths performed by Statute the same duties of assaying
vessels of gold and silver that the present company does. The Act (28
Edw. I., cap. 20) recites that: 'The wardens of the craft shall go from
shop to shop among the goldsmiths to essay if their gold be of the same
Touch that is spoken of before.'
According to Stow's _Chronicle_ a variance fell between the fellowships
of Goldsmiths and Taylors in 1268, 'causing great ruffling in the city
and many men to be slain, for which riot thirteen of the captains were
hanged.'
By the first charter (1 Edw. III., 1327), 'the company were allowed to
elect honest, lawful and sufficient men, but skilled in the trade, to
enquire of any matters of complaint, and who might, in consideration of
the craft, reform what defects they should find therein, and punish
offenders. It states that it had been theretofore ordained that all
those who were of the goldsmiths' trade should sit in their shops in the
High Street of Cheap; and that no silver or plate ought to be sold in
the City of London except at the King's Exchange, or in the said street
of Cheap amongst the goldsmiths, and that publicly, to the end that the
persons of the said trade might inform themselves whether the sellers
came lawfully by such vessel or not; whereas of late not only the
merchants and strangers brought counterfeit sterling in the realm, and
also many of the trade of goldsmiths kept shops in obscure turnings and
by-lanes and streets, but did buy vessels of gold and silver secretly,
without enquiring whether such vessel were stolen or lawfully come by,
and melting it down, did make it into plate, and sell it to merchants
travelling beyond seas, that it might be exported; and so they made
false work of gold and silver, which they sold to those who had no skill
in such things. These abuses and deceptions this charter provides
against by ordaining that no gold or silver shall be manufactured to be
sent abroad but what shall be sold at the King's Exchange, or openly
amongst the goldsmiths; and that none, pretending to be goldsmiths,
shall keep any shops but in Cheap.'
The King's Exchange for the receipt of bullion was situated in the
street leading from Cheapside to Knight-riders Street, known from the
early part of the seventeenth century as Old 'Change. The London
goldsmiths chiefly inhabited Cheapside, Old 'Change, Lombard Street,
Foster Lane, St. Martin's-le-Grand, Silver Street, Goldsmiths' Street,
Wood Street, and the lanes about Goldsmiths' Hall. That part of the
south side of Cheapside from Bread Street to the Cross was called
Goldsmiths' Row. It was described in enthusiastic terms by Stow as 'the
most beautiful frame of fair houses and shops that be within the walls
of London or elsewhere in England... the same was [re]built by Thomas
Wood, goldsmith, one of the Sheriffs of London, in the year 1491. It
containeth in number ten fair dwelling-houses and fourteen shops, all
in one frame, uniformly built four storeys high, beautified towards the
street with the goldsmiths' arms and the likeness of Woodmen, in memory
of his name, riding on monstrous beasts, all which is cast in lead,
richly painted over and gilt: these he gave to the goldsmiths, with
stocks of money, to be lent to young men having those shops. This said
front was again new painted and gilt over in the year 1594; Sir Richard
Martin being then Mayor and keeping his mayoralty in one of them.'
Sir Walter Prideaux, in his valuable _Memorials of the Goldsmiths'
Company_, says that the native and the foreign goldsmiths appear to have
been divided into classes, and to have enjoyed different privileges.
First, there were the members of the company who were chiefly, but not
exclusively, Englishmen; their shops were subject to the control of the
company; they had the advantages conferred by the company on its
members, and they made certain payments for the support of the
fellowship. The second division comprised the non-freemen, who were
called 'allowes,' that is to say, allowed or licensed. There were
'allowes Englis,' 'allowes Alicant,' 'Alicant strangers,' 'Dutchmen,'
'Men of the Fraternity of St. Loys,' etc. All these paid tribute to the
company, and were also subject to their control.
All the livery companies possessed a class of young unmarried members
called 'The Bachelors,' and in the Goldsmiths' Company a special place
was reserved for their lodging. This was known as Bachelors' Alley or
Court, and was situated between Foster Lane and Gutter Lane. The
lodgings were supplied at 'very small and easy rents,' the greatest not
to exceed 8s. per annum. The tenants could continue as long as they were
unmarried, but difficulties arose by reason of attempts at underletting
without authority, and disorderly persons gave much trouble. In 1595 an
order was promulgated 'that from henceforth no goldsmith shall have his
dwelling in any of the tenements in Bachelors' Alley before he be
admitted by the wardens for the time being; and that everyone so
admitted shall forthwith enter into a bond to deliver to the wardens, at
his departure, the key of his tenement, and quietly to quit possession
of the same.'
Sir Walter Prideaux states that at the early period of the first charter
the goldsmiths acted as bankers and pawnbrokers. They received pledges
not only of plate, but of other articles, such as cloth of gold and
pieces of napery. Saint Dunstan was the patron saint of the company, and
feasts were held on his day, when also bells were set ringing. This
saint's likeness in wood (gilt) formed the figure-head of the company's
barge. There was also a Chapel of St. Dunstan in St. Paul's Cathedral
which was attached to the company.
In the foregoing remarks there are some references to the livery
companies, but these are introduced more particularly on account of the
light thrown by them upon the trade of London. The work of the gilds was
devoted to the trades which they represented, but in course of time many
of the companies lost touch with the trades whose names they bore. This
largely came about in a quite natural way, and the privilege of
introduction to a company by patrimony caused the addition to the list
of freemen of a large number of those who were engaged in other
occupations.
The relative position in precedence of the various companies have
continually altered, and there is no information to show how the twelve
chief companies have attained that commanding position.
The feuds between the trades continued to comparatively late times.
Pepys relates, in 1664, how there was a fray in Moorfields between the
butchers and the weavers, between whom there had ever been a competition
for mastery. At first the butchers knocked down all the weavers that had
green or blue aprons, but at last the butchers were fain to pull off
their sleeves that they might not be known, and were soundly beaten out
of the field.[343]
Some note must be made here of the Jews and of the Italian moneylenders
who for so long carried on the financial business of the country.
One of the many hardships which the Jews suffered in this country was
that wherever they might dwell they were compelled to bury their dead in
London. This regulation was abolished by Henry II. in 1177.
The cruel calumny that the Jews at Lincoln crucified a Christian child
brought them into great trouble, and in 1256 one hundred and two Jews
were brought from Lincoln to Westminster charged with this crime.
Eighteen of them were hanged, and the remainder lay in prison for a long
time.
Clipping of money became very general about 1278, and the Jews were
supposed to be the chief culprits. Those who were suspected, with their
Christian accomplices, were arrested, and at the end of the trial 300
Jews were condemned to be hanged as well as three Christians. Nearly all
the goldsmiths and moneyers escaped the death penalty. In 1290 came the
final blow, when every Jew was expelled from England. It is difficult to
understand Edward I.'s motive in banishing a class of men who were so
useful to him. In Stow's _Chronicle_ it is said that as their houses
were sold 'the King made a mighty mass of money,' but the action
certainly added to his difficulties, and drove him to resort to the
Italian financiers, who were no more popular with the citizens than the
Jews. The expulsion was ascribed to the instigation of the King's
mother, Eleanor, widow of Henry III., but it certainly expressed the
will of the nation. Stow gives the number of Jews banished as 15,060,
but this is probably an exaggeration. The number of London Jews is
estimated at 2000.
The Old Jewry was originally the Ghetto of London, and the burial-place
of the Jews was on the site of Jewin Street. Mr. Joseph Jacobs, who
compiled a valuable account of the Old Jewry, is of opinion that the
Jews no longer lived in this place at the time of the expulsion. There
was a Jewry within the Liberty of the Tower in the thirteenth century,
and there is still a Jewry Street, Aldgate.
The republics of Italy during the Middle Ages were the home of finance,
and had advanced far before the other states of Europe in wealth and
civilisation. The necessities of the great countries of Europe, caused
by the Crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, were the
opportunity of companies of moneylenders, who acted as the Pope's
collectors.
Before the close of the reign of Henry III. the Italians had gained a
firm footing in England as merchants and moneylenders. Citizens of
Sienna, Lucca and Florence came here, and fought with the Jews for the
financial control of the country.
Matthew Paris relates that Roger, Bishop of London, anathematised the
Caorsins and banished them from his diocese in 1235 in spite of the
support of 'judges that were servants (_familiaribus_) to the Caorsins,
whom they had elected for their will.'[344]
In the early years of Edward I.'s reign, there were four companies of
merchants of Sienna acting under the title of 'Campsores Papæ.' In his
ninth year the keepers of the Exchange delivered £10,000 to Lombard
merchants (as they are styled in the record) in part payment of sums
they had lent to the King. It is recorded that between the twenty-third
and twenty-seventh years of his reign Edward I. contracted a debt to the
Friscobaldi alone of not less than £15,800.[345]
The King wanted much money for his wars, and, as he could no longer look
to the Jews he was forced to apply for aid to the Italians. These loans
grew so formidable that they caused considerable financial
embarrassments in the reign of Edward II.
There were a large number of companies such as the Ricciardi, the Bardi,
the Peruzzi, and the Spini, but the Friscobaldi, of which family there
were several companies, occur most frequently in London history. Amerigo
de' Friscobaldi was constable of Bordeaux in the first year of Edward
II.'s reign.
Here are two entries from the city records:--
'14 Feb. 1299-1300.--Thursday after the Feast of St. Valentine came John
de Pounteysse, goldsmith, and acknowledged himself bound to Faldo
Jamiano, of the society of Frescobaldi, in the sum of £8 and 45d.
sterling, to be paid at Easter next.'[346]
'2 Feb. 1305-6.--Andrew le Mareschal acknowledged himself indebted to
Bettinus Friscobalde and his partners, merchants of the company of
Friscobaldi, in the sum of £102, 13s. 4d.'[347]
The loans in the reign of Edward III. were very considerable, and the
unpopularity of the Italians was great. In 1376 a petition was presented
to the King by the Mayor, Aldermen and Commons of the City of London
against usurious foreign moneylenders dwelling in London, asking that
the Lombards might be forbidden from dwelling in the city, or acting as
brokers and buying and selling by retail which they alleged to be
against their ancient franchises. The King answered the petition to the
effect that if the citizens would put the city under good government for
the future no foreigner should be allowed to dwell, act as broker, or
sell by retail in London or the suburbs save and except the merchants of
the Hanse towns.[348]
On the whole we must extend our sympathy to the Italians, for the King
was not very prompt in paying his debts, and he considered it immoral to
have promised any interest. The effect was that he ruined many of these
unfortunate foreigners. The name of Lombard Street occurs in the city
books in 1382, and was in common use at the beginning of the fourteenth
century. It is a remarkable fact that the locality in which the Italian
financiers first settled in London should obtain a name which has
continued to the present day as a synonym of finance, and was used by
the late Mr. Bagehot as the title of his great work.
Matthew Paris tells us that the houses which the Italian moneylenders
built for themselves were so costly that, although at one period the
Italians were anxious to leave the kingdom to escape the persecutions
they suffered from, they were constrained to remain by the loss they
feared to incur by deserting their houses.[349]
In 1456 a serious attack was made upon the houses of the Lombards by the
mercers and other crafts led by William Cantelowe, alderman and mercer,
who was summoned before the King's Council and imprisoned. We learn also
from the Paston Letters that two of the men who joined in the attack
were hanged (ed. J. Gairdner, 1872, vol. i. p. 387). In Gregory's
_Chronicle_ it is said that the Lombards were compelled to quit London
and take up their residence in Southampton and Winchester. Dr. James
Gairdner writes of this outbreak: 'The withdrawal of the Lombard
merchants in all probability produced a sensible effect upon the
commerce of the city; for they made a bye-law among themselves that no
individual merchant of Northern Italy should henceforth go to London and
trade there.' This ordinance the Signory of Venice ratified by a decree
of the Senate, and prohibited, under a heavy fine, all Venetian vessels
from visiting the port of London.[350]
In spite of all this turmoil affairs settled down again, and the
foreigners appear to have returned to their London houses.
In connection with the introduction of Italian bankers into London, the
popular derivation of bankrupt from a broken bench is naturally called
to mind, and I have tried to find some allusion in the city records to a
broken bench in Lombard Street, but without success.
In Florio's _A New Worlde of Wordes_; or, _Dictionarie in Italian and
English_ (1598), we find the following entries:--
'Banca, a bench or a forme.
'Bancarotta, a bankrupt.'
In Torriano's edition of Florio (1650) we come upon these amplified
entries--
'Banca-rotta, a bankrout merchant, one that hath broken his credit.
'Banca fallito, a bank broken, a merchant's credit crackt.'
This is the explanation that commends itself to Dr. Murray (_New English
Dictionary_), who writes that he cannot trace the reference to a broken
bench earlier than that of Dr. Johnson, who introduced the suggestion
with the formula 'it is said.'
There is, however, an early note bearing on this derivation in Sir John
Skene's remarkable little book, _De Verborum Significatione_
(1641),[351] where we read under the words 'Dyour, Dyvour' this
explanation: 'In Latine, _cedere bonis_, quhilk is most commonly used
amongst merchandes to make bankrout, bankrupt or bankrompue; because the
doer thereof, as it were, breakis his bank, stalle or seete quhair he
used his traffique of before.'
No earlier date for the use of the word than the reign of Henry VIII.
has been found by Professor Skeat or Dr. Murray, but surely an earlier
reference must be lurking somewhere. In the First Folio of Shakespeare
the word is printed 'bankeroute' (pronounced as four syllables), but
this was altered in later editions to bankrupt. There can be no doubt
that the word is directly derived from _bancarotta_, and that the form
bankrupt is an afterthought of the learned to connect it with the Latin
language.
The point that has to be accounted for is the strange appropriation of
an expression meaning broken bench or broken bank to the individual
whose credit is broken. This one would naturally expect to be a
secondary meaning.
In concluding this chapter it is necessary to make an allusion to the
Statute merchant (11 Edw. I.) for the recovery of debts. The first two
Letter Books of the City of London are chiefly concerned with
recognisances of debts, and they are of great value as illustrating the
commercial intercourse of the citizens of London in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries with Gascony and Spain, more especially in
connection with wine and leather.
By the Statute of Acton Burnel (11 Edw. I.) it was enacted (_inter
alia_) that recognisances of debts should be taken before the Mayor and
a clerk appointed by the King. Nevertheless within a very short while
after the passing of this Statute and notwithstanding its express
provision to the contrary, we find the Mayor, sheriffs and aldermen
declaring that such recognisances should be made before the city
chamberlain, who might, if he liked, receive, as he frequently did, the
recognisances at his own house instead of at the Guildhall.[352]
It was ordered that the recognisances should bear 'the debtor's seal and
also the King's seal,' to be provided for the purpose. This latter seal
appears to be no longer in existence. From impressions of it preserved
at King's College, Cambridge, and elsewhere, it is found to have been
circular, and nearly three-quarters of an inch in diameter, with the
King's bust between two castles, with a lion of England in base.
Legend--'S^{+} Edm Reg^{+} Angl^{+} ad recogn Debitor^{+}.'[353]
The following entry from Letter Book A forms an interesting illustration
of the contents of these books:--
'Laurence de Gisors acknowledged before H. le Galeis the Mayor that he
owed Sir Philip le Taylor a cask of wine to be delivered on a certain
love day (_diem amoris_) because the said Laurence killed a dog
belonging to him.'
[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM MARSHAL, EARL OF PEMBROKE, TEMPLE CHURCH.]
CHAPTER XI
_The Church and Education_
The influence of the Church during the mediæval period was great. In
London the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's (secular canons) held the
first place after the bishop, then came other bodies of secular and
regular canons, followed by the monks and friars and officers of the
hospitals, etc. Last in rank, but most esteemed by the people, came the
rectors and vicars of the various parishes. Here was a large army of
persons forming the officials of the Church, and the buildings of the
Church occupied a very large portion of the city and of the land beyond
its walls.
Between the secular and the regular clergy a great feud always existed.
During the Saxon period the number of religious houses was few, but a
great increase occurred almost immediately after the Conquest.
Monasteries grew in number rapidly during the Norman period, but in time
the monks having grown rich and lazy the need of a revival became
evident. The great movement of evangelisation which took place during
the early Plantagenet period when the friars came from Italy to England
caused a religious revolution.
Poverty and humility were the great principles of the friars, but these
were soon forgotten, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries all
the regulars became equally obnoxious to the reformers. Wycliffe and
his followers preached against them, and writers with such different
views as Langland and Chaucer had little but evil to say of them.
Chaucer condemns monks and friars alike, and reserves his praise for the
poor parish priest.
We must first deal with the bishop and the secular clergy, and then
consider the conditions relative to the establishment of the regulars,
ending with a note on education in London during the Middle Ages.
The Cathedral Church of St. Paul's is of great antiquity, and was
established in the first period of Saxon Christianity. There have been
three buildings on the same site, and the first was erected in the
earliest years of the seventh century by Mellitus the missionary bishop
and Ethelbert, King of Kent. Although this church existed for nearly
five centuries no record whatever remains of it. Sir Gilbert Scott
wrote: 'I am not aware that we have any information as to the Cathedral
built by the companions of Augustine (Mellitus and Justus) at London and
Rochester. Curiously enough there continues to this day at Rochester,
and continued to the seventeenth century in our own St. Paul's equally
as at Canterbury, a crypt beneath the elevated sanctuary, no doubt the
lineal successor and representative of those erected by these missionary
bishops, in imitation of the great basilica at Rome, whence they had
been sent to evangelise this distant region.'[354]
Erkenwald, whose shrine stood at the back of the high altar in the
oldest church, was the fourth bishop (A.D. 675-693), and it was at his
house in London that Archbishop Theodore, the organiser of the Church of
England, was reconciled to Bishop Wilfrid after their long
estrangement.[355] Aelfun, or Alhunus, was Bishop of London in 1012,
and performed the burial service over Aelfah (or Alphage), Archbishop of
Canterbury, who was murdered by the Danes and buried in St. Paul's.
William, the chaplain of Edward the Confessor, was consecrated in 1051.
He was driven from England with the other foreign prelates in the
following year, but returned to his See and died in 1075. It was he who
was addressed as 'William Bishop' in William the Conqueror's charter to
the citizens of London.
The first Church of St. Paul's was destroyed by fire at the end of the
eleventh century, but the exact time is not certain as Matthew of
Westminster and Roger of Wendover give conflicting dates for the
rebuilding. There seems to be no doubt that the second cathedral was
commenced by Bishop Maurice, and as he was not consecrated until 1085
the date given by Dugdale, 1083, must be wrong. Probably the received
date of 1087 (the last year of William the Conqueror's reign) is more
correct. Fire again did great damage in the year 1136, but the work of
rebuilding proceeded slowly, and in 1221 the steeple was finished; the
choir was rebuilt and the whole building was nearly completed by 1283.
Old St. Paul's was a very grand building, which took a prominent
position among the cathedrals of the country. It was longer than
Winchester, and the height of the choir was the same as Westminster;
that of the nave was rather less.[356]
The crowning glory of old St. Paul's was its elegant spire, but the
building itself had many beauties, the magnificent rose window at the
east end of the Lady Chapel, with the beautiful seven-light window
beneath, being among these. This grand building, therefore, standing on
a hill in the most prominent position of city, was for several centuries
the great ornament of London, bringing in harmony all the picturesque
elements of the mediæval town.
In the year 1314 the cross fell, and the steeple of wood being ruinous,
was taken down and rebuilt with a new gilt ball. Many relics were found
in the cross, which were replaced in the new cross, and the new pommel
or ball was made of sufficient size to contain ten bushels of corn. A
Chronicle in Lambeth Palace Library contains an account of the solemn
dedication of these relics, which is quoted by Canon Benham: 'On the
tenth of the calends of June 1314, Gilbert, Bishop of London, dedicated
altars, namely those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of St. Thomas the
Martyr, and of the Blessed Dunstan, in the new buildings of the Church
of St. Paul, London. In the same year the cross and the ball, with great
part of the Campanile of the Church of St. Paul, were taken down because
they were decayed and dangerous, and a new cross, with a ball well gilt,
was erected; and many relics of divers saints were, for the protection
of the aforesaid Campanile, and of the whole structure beneath, placed
within the cross, with a great procession, and with due solemnity, by
Gilbert the bishop, on the fourth of the nones of October, in order that
the Omnipotent God and the glorious merits of His saints, whose relics
are contained within the cross, might deign to protect from all danger
of storms.'[357]
In 1444 the spire was nearly destroyed by lightning and was not repaired
until 1462. In the severe fire of 1561 the spire was destroyed and never
rebuilt, although the rest of the Cathedral was restored in 1566. The
great height of the steeple gave point to many a proverb, and in
Lodge's _Wounds of Civil War_ (1594) a clown talks of the 'Paul's
steeple of honour,' meaning by that phrase the highest point that could
be attained.[358] The choristers ascended the spire to a great height on
certain saints' days, and chanted prayers and anthems, a custom still
observed in the tower of Magdalen College, Oxford, on May Day. The last
observance of the custom at St. Paul's is said to have taken place in
the reign of Mary I.[359]
The western front was originally a plain Norman façade of great size,
which was flanked by two strong stone towers. The one on the north was
connected with the Bishop's Palace, while that on the south was called
the Lollards' Tower, and was used as the Bishop's prison 'for such as
were detected for opinions in religion contrary to the faith of the
Church' (Stow's _Survey_).[360]
St. Paul's Churchyard was formerly an enclosure, and not a thoroughfare.
The public route to Cheapside from Ludgate Hill passed up the Old Bailey
and along Newgate Street. The Cathedral Close is thus described by the
late Dr. Sparrow Simpson: 'The wall erected about 1109, and, by
letters-patent of Edward I., greatly strengthened in 1285, extends from
the N.E. corner of Ave Maria Lane, runs eastward along Paternoster Row
to the north end of Old 'Change in Cheapside, thence southward to Carter
Lane, and on the north of Carter Lane to Creed Lane, back to the Great
Western Gate. There are six entrances to the enclosure. The first is the
Great Western Gate, by which we have just entered; the second, in Paul's
Alley in Paternoster Row, leading to the postern gate of the Cathedral;
the third at Canon Alley; the fourth, or Little Gate, where S. Paul's
Churchyard and Cheapside now unite; the fifth, S. Augustine's Gate, at
the west end of Watling Street; the sixth, at Paul's Chain.'[361]
The great western gate spanned the street towards the ends of Creed Lane
and Ave Maria Lane. On entering the gate the west front of the Cathedral
came in view. The old Church of St. Gregory adjoined the main building
at the south-west corner. It stood in the same position to the first
Cathedral, and within its walls the body of St. Edmund, king and martyr,
was preserved for a time before it was carried to Bury St. Edmund's for
honourable burial. The early history of this church is lost, and it is
not known whether it was destroyed with the first Cathedral, and rose
again from its ashes like the second Cathedral, or whether it continued
for a time in its original state. It was pulled down before 1645, and
not rebuilt. On the northern side of the nave of the Cathedral stood the
Bishop's Palace, a large and gloomy building.[362]
Still further to the north (past the palace and its grounds) was the
cemetery, called Pardon Church Haugh. Here was a cloister painted with
the subjects of the Danse Macabre or Dance of Death, commonly known as
the Dance of Paul's. John Lydgate translated out of French the old
verses that explained these paintings. Over the east quadrant of the
cloister was the Cathedral Library, built by Walter Sherington,
[Illustration: PAUL'S CROSS.
(_From an original drawing in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge._)]
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in Henry VI.'s time, and Canon
Residentiary. At one time the library was 'well furnished with
fair-written books in vellum.'
In the midst of the churchyard was a chapel, first founded by Gilbert,
the father of Thomas à Becket, and rebuilt by Dean More in the reign of
Henry V. Near by was Minor Canons' Hall, and the College of Minor
Canons, or Peter's College. The Charnel House, with a chapel over it,
stood at the north-east, not far from Paul's Cross.[363] This building
existed in the reign of Edward I., and the chapel contained some
monuments and alabaster figures. Among the historians of St. Paul's
there is some little confusion respecting these various chapels.
Paul's Cross holds a very prominent position in the history of the
religious life of the Middle Ages and for many years after. In ages when
the voice of the people was largely inarticulate the preacher has often
been the man to make it heard. Stow describes the Cross as having 'been
for many ages the most solemn place in this nation, for the greatest
divines and most eminent scholars to preach at,' and Carlyle calls it a
kind of _Times_ newspaper. It is worthy of remark that the position of
Paul's Cross was near the place where the ancient folkmoots were held,
and the former continued the traditions of the latter.
At the east end of the Cathedral was St. Paul's School, founded by Dean
Colet, and the famous Bell Tower, formed of wood covered with lead, and
containing the common bell, which called the people to their folkmoots,
and afterwards four bells, known as the Jesus Bells, because they
specially belonged to Jesus Chapel, in the crypt of the Cathedral. As
the open space at the east end was claimed by the citizens as a place
for their assemblies in folkmoots, so the space at the west end was
reserved for the military displays in connection with the appearance of
Fitz-Walter as Bannerer of the city.
On the south side of the close, and to the west of the transept, was the
old octagonal Chapter House, with its own two-storeyed cloister (built
in 1332). This was a small but beautiful building.[364]
Close by stood the house of the Chancellor. On the south-west is the
Deanery, first built by Ralph de Diceto, and more westward various
houses for the use of the canons. On the south side of the Cathedral
also stood the dormitory, refectory, kitchen, bakehouse and brewery of
the college. The brewhouse became subsequently the Paul's Head tavern.
This brief list of the buildings in the old Cathedral Close will give
some idea of the arrangement of the College of Secular Canons, and the
houses which they occupied.
Having walked round the close we may now enter the Cathedral church at
the western end where were three gates or entries. The middle gate had a
massive pillar of brass, to which the leaves of the great door were
fastened. In the nave were twelve noble Norman bays with Norman
triforium and pointed clerestory windows. It is probable that originally
the roof of the nave was a flat painted ceiling, but Mr. Ferrey supposes
that a vaulted roof was
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF OLD ST. PAUL'S.]
added in 1255; apparently this was originally of wood, but that stone
vaulting was intended may be inferred from the flying buttresses in some
of the pictures of the Cathedral.
The view along the nave, as represented in Hollar's engraving is very
fine, and reminds one of the noble nave at Ely. Both the nave and choir
had twelve bays counting from the west door. The second bay of the north
side contained the Court of Convocation, and close by was the font near
which Sir John Montacute desired in his will (1388) to be buried. 'If I
die in London, then I desire that my body may be buried in St. Paul's,
near to the font wherein I was baptized.' In the tenth bay was the
Chantry Chapel of Thomas Kempe, bishop of the diocese (1448-1489), and
rebuilder of Paul's Cross.
In the eleventh bay, on the south side, was the tomb of Sir John
Beauchamp, K.G. (d. 1358), Constable of Dover Castle, and son to Guy
Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. This tomb was commonly called after Duke
Humphrey, and the nave of the church from this misnomer went by the name
of Duke Humphrey's Walk. On May Day watermen and tankard-bearers came to
the tomb early in the morning, strewed herbs upon it and sprinkled it
with water. At the foot of this tomb was the image of the Virgin, before
which a lamp was kept perpetually burning, and every morning after
matins a short office was said before it. A taper was also kept burning
before the Great Crucifix, near to the north door, fabulously said to
have been discovered by King Lucius, A.D. 140. Richard Martin, Bishop of
St. David's in the reign of Edward IV., had a special veneration for
this crucifix, and left an annual gift to the choristers that they might
sing before it _Sancte Deus fortis_.[365]
In the north aisle was the famous _Si quis_ door, on which notices were
fixed; originally these were probably purely ecclesiastical, but in
course of time all classes made their wants known there. Decker writes:
'The first time that you venture into Paul's, pass through the body of
the church like a porter, yet presume not to fetch so much as one whole
turn in the middle aisle, no, nor to cast an eye to _Si quis_ door,
pasted and plastered up with serving-men's supplications, before you
have paid tribute to the top of Paul's steeple with a single penny.'
Bishop Hall, in his _Satires_, shows that Churchmen could be hired there
too--
'Sawst thou ever _Si quis_ patched on Paul's church door,
To seek some vacant vicarage before?'
This practice is alluded to by Chaucer:--
'He sette not his benefice to hyre,
And leet his sheepe encombred in the myre,
And ran to Londoun unto Saint Paules,
To seken hym a chaunterie for soules.'
(Prologue to _Canterbury Tales_.)
Passing from the nave to the transept we notice that the central tower
was treated as a lantern internally, and was open to the base of the
spire. The choir was cut off by a screen with a central archway; on each
side of the entrance were four canopies with figures beneath them. An
ascent of twelve steps took the worshipper to the level of the choir
pavement.
The choir was naturally the most gorgeous portion of the Cathedral. The
architecture was pure and noble, and the carved woodwork of the canons'
stalls was famous for its beauty. The reredos and high altar, dedicated
in honour of St. Paul, formed the chief attraction of the choir. There
was also an altar to the north, dedicated in honour of St. Ethelbert,
king and confessor, and one to the south, dedicated to St. Mellitus. Six
more steps led to the sanctuary, from which the worshipper could pass
behind the altar screen. Eastward of the screen was the famous shrine of
St. Erkenwald. Mention has already been made of the original tomb in the
first Cathedral. Legend reports that in the fire of the eleventh century
the saint's resting-place alone remained unharmed. On 14th November 1148
his bones were transferred to a more noble tomb. Gilbert de Segrave laid
the first stone of a still more magnificent shrine in 1314, in which the
body of the saint was placed on 1st February 1326. This was for a long
period the most famous of the tombs of old St. Paul's, to which pilgrims
flocked from distant parts, and riches of all kinds were lavished upon
it. A canon of the church, Walter de Thorpe, gave to it all his gold
rings and jewels; the Dean and Chapter in 18 Edward II. presented a rich
store of gold and silver and precious stones; in the 31st of Edward III.
three goldsmiths were engaged upon it for a whole year, at wages of 8s.
a week for one and 5s. a week for each of the others. King John of
France, when he was a prisoner in England, made an offering of twelve
nobles, and Richard de Preston, citizen and grocer, presented a
remarkable sapphire in the reign of Richard II. This stone was supposed
to cure infirmities of the eyes, and the donor directed proclamation to
be made of its great virtues. Dean Evere in 1407 provided an endowment
for the lights which burned before the shrine.[366]
The choir was full of tombs and brasses, many of them of great
importance. On the north side stood the stately tomb of John of Gaunt,
Duke of Lancaster (d. 1399), with recumbent figures of the Duke and his
second wife, Constance of Castile. Special offices were performed at
several of the shrines, especially those of St. Erkenwald and St. Thomas
of Lancaster, as the grandson of Henry III. was popularly styled,
although he was never canonised. On the 28th of June 1323 Edward II.
sent a letter to Stephen Gravesend, Bishop of London, commanding him to
prohibit the reverence paid to Thomas of Lancaster in the
Cathedral.[367]
The high altar was the scene twice a year of a strange custom, which was
kept up for several centuries. Sir William le Band in 1275 commenced to
give yearly a doe in winter and a fat buck in summer to be offered at
the altar and then distributed to the resident canons. These were given
in lieu of twenty-two acres of land lying within the lordship of Westlee
in Essex, to be enclosed within his park of Toringham, so that the
knight appears to have made a very good bargain. The reception of the
buck and doe was 'till Queen Elizabeth's days solemnly performed at the
steps of the quire by the canons of this Cathedral, attired in sacred
vestments, and wearing garlands of flowers on their heads, and the horns
of the buck carried on the top of a spear in procession round about
within the body of the church, with a great noise of horn-blowers.'[368]
As already stated the choir was rebuilt early in the thirteenth century,
and in 1255 it was considerably extended. Previously a street ran close
to the east end, from Watling Street to Cheapside, and here stood the
old Church of St. Faith. The exact site of the houses was marked by
nine wells in a row which were found by Wren. When this street was built
over and the church pulled down the parishioners were provided with a
church in the Crypt. About the middle of the north side of the choir was
a low-arched door, and from this six-and-twenty steps led down to St.
Faith's, at the eastern end of which was the Jesus Chapel.[369]
We have now traced the principal features of the exterior and interior
of old St. Paul's, and a few words may be said of the body who governed
the Cathedral.
Bishop Stubbs, in the remarkable Preface which he added to the Master of
the Rolls' edition of the _Historical Works of Ralph de Diceto_, Dean of
London, at the end of the twelfth century, has given a vivid picture of
the ecclesiastical greatness of London during the reigns of Henry II.
and Richard I. Ralph was the friend of Fitz-Stephen, the biographer of
Becket, and before he became dean he had held the office of archdeacon.
Stubbs writes: 'The fact that the Cathedral of Canterbury was in the
hands of a monastic chapter left St. Paul's at the head of the secular
clergy of southern England. It was an educational centre too, where
young statesmen spent their leisure in something like self-culture.
London with its 40,000 inhabitants had 120 churches all looking to the
Cathedral as their mother. The resident canons had to exercise a
magnificent hospitality, carefully prescribed in ancient Statutes; twice
a year each of them had to entertain the whole staff of the Cathedral
and to invite the Bishop, the Mayor, the sheriffs, aldermen, justices
and great men of the Court.'
The dean was a capable head, and his government stands out in history as
one of the most successful during a very difficult period.
'Early in 1187 Ralph lost his old friend and patron, Bishop Foliot, and
the See of London was not filled up for nearly three years. Within a
few weeks after Foliot's death he had to receive the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Baldwin, who visited the church on mid-Lent Sunday, and he
took advantage of the opportunity to obtain from him an injunction
forbidding the persons who were in charge of the temporalities of the
See to interfere with the spiritual officers in the discharge of their
duties.'
[Illustration: DOORWAY, ST. HELEN'S, BISHOPSGATE.]
How important a body the Chapter of St. Paul's really was may be
inferred from the remarkable fact stated by Serjeant Pulling in his work
on _The Order of the Coif_ that among the canons in the reign of Henry
III. were as many as ten of the Judges at Westminster Hall.
The early history of the parishes of London is one of great difficulty
and complexity. Although some of the parishes must be of great
antiquity, we have little authentic information respecting them before
the Conquest. The dedications of many of the churches indicate their
great age, but the constant fires in London not only destroyed the
buildings but also the records within the buildings. The original
churches appear to have been very small, as may be judged from their
number. It is not easy, however, to understand how it was that when the
parishes were first formed so small an area was attached to each. Mr.
Loftie is of opinion that there is no proof that London was divided into
more than three or four parishes until the time of Alfred, or, indeed,
till much later.[370]
[Illustration: ST. HELEN'S, BISHOPSGATE.]
He has written a very instructive chapter on 'the Church in London' in
his _London_ (Historic Towns, 1887), but he is not able to give any very
definite information. Moreover, he doubts whether it is wise to take
for granted the early dedications of, for instance, such churches as are
named in honour of Sts. Alphage, Magnus and Olave, or of Sts. Ethelburga
and Osyth.
The parish church of which we have the most authentic notice before the
Conquest is St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, in existence many years before the
Priory of the Nuns of St. Helen's was founded. In 1010 the remains of
St. Edmund, King and Martyr, were removed from Edmundsbury in order that
they might not fall into the hands of the Danes, and deposited in the
Church of St. Helen, where they remained three years. Many of the London
churches were small, but some were of considerable size. When the
religious houses were dissolved the churches of some of these became the
most important of the parish churches.
The Church of St. Mary le Bow in Cheapside (better known as Bow Church)
is named from having been the first in London built on arches of stone,
and the Norman Crypt is of great interest. When Wren built his church he
used these arches of the old churches to support his own superstructure.
This crypt also gives its name to the Court of Arches which was held
here.
In the _Liber Albus_ there is a chapter on the periodical visits of the
Mayor to various churches on certain saints' days, such as to St.
Thomas's at the Feast of All Saints (November 1), to St. Peter's on
Cornhill on the Monday in the Feast of Pentecost, and to St.
Bartholomew's and St. Michael le Quern on other occasions.[371]
The position of the parish priest was a good one in the eyes of the
parishioners, who looked up to him as a friend, and resented the
interference with his duties by monks and chantry priests. Among the
parish priests the highest rank was conceded to the rector of St.
Peter's, Cornhill. The mediæval writers, who are mostly vituperative
when speaking of monks and friars, have little but good to say of the
parson.
The great evil of lay rectorship, which has done so much to injure the
Church, was largely introduced by the monasteries.
[Illustration]
Bishop Stubbs, in his Introduction to the Historical Works of Ralph de
Diceto, writes: 'S. Paul's stood at the head of the religious life of
London, and by its side, at some considerable interval, however, S.
Martin's-le-Grand, S. Bartholomew's, Smithfield, and the great and
ancient foundation of Trinity, Aldgate.'[372]
[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT.]
Besides the Chapter of St. Paul's, there were several other bodies of
secular canons. One of these was at the Collegiate Church of St.
Martin-le-Grand, within Aldersgate, which church was founded about A.D.
1056, and its privileges confirmed by William the Conqueror. It had
special rights as a royal free chapel, and its privileges of sanctuary
were given by Henry VIII. to the Abbot and Convent of Westminster.
Others were the College of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, founded by William
Walworth in 1380; Barking College, Holmes's College, and several other
colleges in London, besides the Collegiate Chapel of St. Stephen,
Westminster.
The canons regular of the Order of St. Austin occupied the Priory of
Christ Church or Holy Trinity, the Priory of St. Bartholomew in
Smithfield; the Priory of St. Mary Overy, in Southwark, and many
hospitals.
These canons were less strict than monks, but lived under one roof, had
a common dormitory and refectory. They were well shod, well clothed, and
well fed. Monks always shaved, but canons wore beards, and caps on their
heads.
The chief rule of the canons regular was that of St. Augustine (or
Austin), Bishop of Hippo, A.D. 395. The Order was little known until the
tenth or eleventh centuries, and was not brought to England until after
the Norman Conquest, and the designation of Austin canons was not
adopted until some years afterwards.
The Priory of Christ Church or the Holy Trinity within Aldgate was a
house of the first importance in London, and the Pope absolved it from
all jurisdiction. Norman, the first prior, was the first canon regular
of his Order in England.
The priory was founded in 1108 by Queen Maud, and in 1125 the land and
soke of Cnichten Gild (now Portsoken Ward) were assigned to it. The
prior became an alderman of London by reason of possessing the soke
without the port or gate called Aldgate, an honour continued to his
successors till the dissolution of the religious houses, when the church
was surrendered and the site of the priory granted by Henry VIII. to
Sir Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor.
The great Benedictine monastery of Black Monks was situated at
Westminster, away from the city, as was usual. This was the only
monastic house subject to the rule of St. Benedict in the neighbourhood
of London, but the houses of nuns, of which there were many dotted over
the suburbs of London, were governed by the rule of St. Benedict. Among
these may be mentioned the nunneries of Barking, Clerkenwell, Halliwell
at the eastern extremity of Finsbury Fields, St. Helen's, Bishopgate,
Kilburn and Stratford at Bow.
As time proceeded there was a widespread desire for a stricter rule
among the monks, and reforms of the Benedictine rule were instituted at
Cluni (A.D. 910), Chartreux (about 1080), and Citeaux (1098). All these
reforms were represented in London.
_Cluniac Order._--This reform was begun by Bernon, Abbot of Gigni, in
Burgundy, and perfected by Odo, Abbot of Cluni. The first charter of the
Order was dated A.D. 910. The Order was first brought to England by
William, Earl of Warren, son-in-law to William the Conqueror, who built
the first house at Lewes, in Sussex, about 1077. The Priory of
Bermondsey, in Surrey, was founded by Aylwin Child, citizen of London,
about 1082. The manor of Bermondsey and other revenues were granted by
William Rufus. The original priories were subject to the heads of the
parent foreign houses, but John Attilburgh, prior of Bermondsey, having
procured the erection of his priory into an abbacy, himself became the
first of the abbots in 1399.
If we are to believe the word of the satirist, we may judge that the
rule of the Cluniac Order was hard, for we are told that--
'When you wish to sleep they awake you,'
and
'When you wish to eat they make you fast.'
[Illustration]
There were cells attached to the Cluniac house of Bermondsey at
Aldersgate, Cripplegate and Holborn.
_Carthusians._--Bruno first instituted the Order at Chartreux, in the
diocese of Grenoble in France, about 1080. The rule was confirmed by
Pope Alexander III. about 1174. This was the most strict of any of the
religious Orders. The monks never ate flesh, and were obliged to fast on
bread, water and salt one day in every week. No one was permitted to go
out of the bounds of the monastery except the priors and procurators or
proctors, and they only upon the necessary affairs of their houses. When
the Order was brought to England in 1178 the first house was started at
Witham, in Somersetshire. In all there were nine houses of the Order in
England. One of these was the Charterhouse of London, which was not
founded until 1371 by Sir Walter Manny, K.G.
Until Henry II. founded the Carthusian house at Witham it is said that
there was no such thing known in England as a monk's cell, as we
understand the term. It was a peculiarity of the Carthusian Order, and
when it was first introduced it was regarded as a startling novelty for
any privacy or anything approaching solitude to be tolerated in a
monastery. The Carthusian system never found much favour in England.
_Cistercians._--The Cistercian Order was named after Cistertium or
Cîteaux, in the bishopric of Chalons in Burgundy, where it was founded
in 1098 by Robert, Abbot of Molesme, in that province. St. Bernard was a
great promoter of the Order, and founded an abbey at Clairvaux about
1116, and after him the members of the Order were sometimes named
Bernardines.
It was usual to plant these monasteries in solitary and uncultivated
places, and no other house, even of their own Order, was allowed to be
built within a certain distance of the original establishment. This
makes it surprising to learn that there were two separate houses of
this Order in the near neighbourhood of London.
A branch of the Order came to England about 1128, and their first house
was founded at Waverley in Surrey. Very shortly after (about 1134) the
Abbey of Stratford Langthorne, in Essex, was founded by William de
Montfichet, who endowed it with all his lordship in West Ham.
It was not until two centuries afterwards that the second Cistercian
house in the immediate neighbourhood of London was founded. This was the
Abbey of St. Mary Graces, East Minster or New Abbey, without the walls
of London, which Edward III. instituted in 1350 after a severe scourge
of plague (the so-called Black Death.)
The two great military Orders--the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of
Jerusalem and the Templars--followed the Augustinian rule, and both were
settled in London. The Knights Hospitallers were founded about 1092 by
the merchants of Amalfi, in Italy, for the purpose of affording
hospitality to pilgrims in the Holy Land. The Hospital or Priory of St.
John was founded in 1100 by Jordan Briset and his wife, Muriel, outside
the northern wall of London, and the original village of Clerkenwell
grew up around the buildings of the knights. A few years after this the
Brethren of the Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem, or Knights of the
Temple, came into being at the Holy City, and they settled first on the
south side of Holborn, near Southampton Buildings. They removed to Fleet
Street or the New Temple in 1184, when, as Spenser terms it, 'they
decayd through pride,' and the Order after much persecution was
suppressed in England, as it had been in other countries, by command of
the Pope. The house in Fleet Street was given in 1313 by Edward II. to
Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, at whose death, in 1323, the
property
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE CHURCH--THE ROUND.]
passed to the Knights of St. John, who leased the New Temple to the
lawyers, still the occupants of the district.
The Templars wore a long flowing white mantle with a red cross on the
left breast. The Knights Hospitallers originally wore a black robe with
a cross, but subsequently, when the Order was reconstructed on the model
of the Templars, they wore a red mantle with a white cross on the
shoulder. After Palestine was lost the original body passed (1) to Acre,
(2) to Cyprus, (3) to Rhodes, and (4) to Malta.
The Templars left their beautiful church to continue for centuries one
of the most interesting architectural relics of a past age. The
buildings of the Knights Hospitallers at Clerkenwell passed through more
vicissitudes, and when the religious houses were suppressed by Henry
VIII. these were mostly destroyed. The gateway which was completed in
1504 by Prior Docwra still stands, but no portion of the church or other
buildings remain above ground.
FRIARS
The enthusiasm which brought the great religious movement after the
Conquest and produced the numerous monastic institutions of the country
had cooled by the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the
remarkable evangelical revival instituted almost simultaneously by St.
Dominic and St. Francis swept over Europe.
The distinctive characteristics which at first marked them off from the
monks were poverty and care for others. The monks lived apart from the
world in order to attend first to their own souls, while the friars
placed care for others first of all duties. They preached to and visited
the masses; hence, instead of living in retired spots, they settled in
the heart of the cities. In their humility they called themselves
brothers rather than fathers, but in course of time they fell far short
of the ideals of their founders. Their property increased, and their
houses grew to be as rich as those of the monks, and in consequence they
became singularly unpopular. Mr. Trevelyan writes in his _Age of
Wycliffe_ that, while the monks were despised by the reformer, the
friars were hated.
_Black Friars._--The Spaniard, St. Dominic, founded the Order of
Preaching Friars at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Their rule,
which was chiefly that of St. Augustine, was approved of by Pope
Innocent III. in the Lateran Council, A.D. 1215, by word of mouth and by
the Bull of Pope Honorius III., A.D. 1216. They were called Dominicans
from their founder, Preaching Friars from their office to preach and
convert heretics, and Black Friars from their garments. In France they
were known as Jacobins from having their first house in the Rue St.
Jacques in Paris. This name gained a portentous meaning in the
eighteenth century from the French Revolutionists who met in the disused
friary. At first the friars used the same habit as the Austin Canons,
but about the year 1219 they took another, viz., a white cassock with a
white hood over it, and when they went abroad, a black cloak with a
black hood over their white vestments. They came to England in 1221, and
their first house was at Oxford. Shortly after this they came to London,
settled in Holborn near Lincoln's Inn, where they remained for more than
fifty years. In 1276 they removed to the neighbourhood of Baynard
Castle, where they erected a magnificent house with the help of royal,
clerical and other noble benefactors which has given a name to a London
district that it still retains. The place is thus described by Stevens,
the monastic historian: 'This monastery enjoyed all the privileges and
immunities that any religious
[Illustration:
St. John's Gate
Clerkenwell
Residence of Edward Cave.
]
house had; and having a very large extent of ground within its liberty,
the same was shut up with four gates, and all the inhabitants within it
were subject to none but the King, the superior of the monasteries and
justices of that precinct; so that neither the Mayor nor the sheriffs,
nor any other officers of the City of London, had the least jurisdiction
or authority therein. All which liberties the inhabitants preserved some
time after the suppression of the monastery.' Thomas Lord Wake is said
to have intended to bring Dominican nuns into England, and he had the
King's license for this purpose, but he does not appear to have carried
out his intention. The nuns of Dartford, in Kent, are supposed to have
been of this Order at one time.
_Grey Friars._--The Italian, St. Francis, was the founder of this Order,
whose rule he drew up in 1209. It was approved of by Pope Innocent III.
in 1210, and by the Lateran Council in 1215. His followers were called
Franciscans from their founder, Grey Friars from their clothing, and
Minor Friars from their humility.
Nine Grey Friars landed at Dover in the eighth year of Henry III.
(1223-1224), five of them settled at Canterbury, and there founded the
first house of the Order in England. The remaining four established
themselves in London, lodging for fifteen days with the Dominicans in
Holborn. These four, we learn from a Cottonian MS. (Vitellius, F. xii.,
13, fol. 45) were (1) Richard Pugworth, an Englishman, priest and
preacher; (2) Richard Senonef, English, clerk acolyte, a youth; (3)
Henry Detrews, by nation a Lombard, lay brother; (4) Monachetus, also a
lay brother.
These four men founded the great London house of Grey Friars. They
removed to Cornhill, where they erected cells, made converts, and
acquired the goodwill of the Mayor and citizens. John Ewin, mercer,
appropriated to the use of the friars a piece of ground within Newgate.
Here a noble building was erected by the help of numerous distinguished
persons, which contained a church, a chapter house, a dormitory, a
refectory, an infirmary, etc. The district was long known as Greyfriars,
and afterwards as Christ Church or Christ's Hospital.
The habit of the friars was a loose garment of a grey colour reaching
down to their ankles, with a cowl of the same, and a cloak over it when
they went abroad. They girded themselves with cords and went barefoot.
In connection with the Franciscans were the nuns of the Order of St.
Clare, founded at Assisi by St. Clare about 1212. The nuns observed St.
Francis's rule and wore the same coloured habit as the Franciscan
Friars. They were called Poor Clares and also Minoresses.
About the year 1293 Blanche, Queen of Navarre, wife to Edward, Earl of
Lancaster, Leicester and Derby, founded a house for the Minoresses on
the east side of the street leading from the Tower to Aldgate without
the walls of the city. This street is still known as the Minories. There
were only three other houses of this Order in England, viz.: at
Waterbeche and Denny in Cambridgeshire, and Brusyard in Suffolk.
_Austin Friars._--The history of the foundation of the Friars Eremites
of the Order of St. Augustine has not been given with any fulness, and
its origin is somewhat uncertain. They came to England from Italy about
1250, and a house in Broad Street ward was founded by Humphrey Bohun,
Earl of Hereford and Essex, in the year 1253. The habit of the Austin
Friars was a white garment and scapulary when they were in the house,
but in the choir and when they went abroad they had over the former a
sort of cowl and a large hood, both black; round their waist they had a
black leather girdle fastened with an ivory bone.[373]
_White Friars._--The origin of the Friars of the Blessed Virgin of Mount
Carmel is not very clear. Their rule, which was chiefly that of St.
Basil, is said to have been given them by Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem
about 1205, and to have been confirmed by Pope Honorius III. in 1224.
They were driven out of Palestine by the Saracens about 1238, and they
then sought refuge in Europe. They were brought into England by John
Vasey and Richard Gray, and had their first houses at Hulne in
Northumberland and Ailesford in Kent. At the latter place they held
their first European charter _A.D._ 1245.
The London house of the Carmelites or White Friars was founded in 1241
by Sir Richard Grey on land situated between Fleet Street and the Thames
which was given by Edward I. The garments of the friars at first were
white, but having been obliged by the infidels to change them to
parti-coloured ones, they continued these for fifty years after their
coming into England, but about the year 1290 they returned to the use of
white again.[374]
Of the four chief Orders of mendicant friars, the Carmelites ranked
last, and in official processions had to give place to the Dominicans,
Franciscans and Austin Friars.
The district which originally contained the house of the White Friars
continues still to be known by the old name. After the dissolution of
the religious houses, the privileges of sanctuary were still allowed to
the inhabitants, and in consequence the place, generally known as
Alsatia, gained a most unenviable notoriety. Other places in London
obtained an evil repute from the same cause, but Whitefriars was far
beyond all others in disgraceful associations. It is known from old
records that the bad repute of the district dates back to a period long
before the suppression of the friary.
From a Close Roll of the 20th Edw. III., it appears that persons of
ill-repute had for a considerable time made their abode so close to the
friary that the friars could not celebrate divine service in their
church in consequence of the continual clamours and outcries by which
the district was disturbed, and the Mayor and aldermen of London were
ordered, in the King's name, for the tranquility of the prior and
brethren, to remove the nuisance.
Mr. Trevelyan writes: 'Twenty years before Wycliffe's attack was made
Fitz-Ralph, Bishop of Armagh, had laid a famous indictment against the
four Orders before the Pope at Avignon. It made a great stir at the
time, but came to nothing, for the friars were under the Pope's special
protection. The bishop chiefly complained of their competition with his
secular clergy in the matter of confession and absolution.[375]
Besides the four chief Orders, several other Orders of friars were
settled in London. First in importance of these were the Crutched
Friars, from the cross forming part of the staff carried by them, which
was styled a crutch. This was afterwards given up, and a cross of red
cloth was placed upon the breast of the gown. The Order is said to have
been instituted by Gerard, Prior of St. Mary of Morella at Bologna, and
confirmed in 1169 by Pope Alexander III., who brought them under St.
Austin's rule. They came to England in 1244, and had their first house
at Colchester. It was not until about 1298 that these friars came to
London, and the house in the parish of St. Olave, Hart Street, was
founded by Ralph Hosier and William Sabernes. The memory of the friary
is kept alive in the name of the street that marks its site.
Other Orders in London were the Friars of the Penance of Jesus Christ,
or _de Sacco_, and the Friars de Areno.
The Friars of the Sac, according to Stow, first settled in a house near
Aldersgate, outside the gate. This was about the year 1257. When the
Jews were banished from England by Edward I., these friars were given
the synagogue on the south side of Lothbury, at the north corner of the
old Jewry.
The tenements which the prior and friars held in the street 'called
Colcherdistrete' were in the parishes of St. Olave in the Jewry and of
St. Margaret de Lothebury.
The friars of the Order of St. Mary de Areno were settled at Westminster
at a house near Charing Cross, given to them by Sir William de Arnaud or
Amand, 51 Henry III., and here the small house remained until the death
of Hugh de Ebor, the last friar, 10 Edw. II.
Bishop Stubbs refers to a cemetery near St. Clement's Danes, which once
belonged to the Pied Friars, a small order of mendicants which had been
suppressed in 1278.
In the revised edition of Dugdale's _Monasticon_, by Caley, Ellis and
Bandinel, there is a notice of the house of the Fratres de Pica or Pied
Friars at Norwich, from Blomefield's _History of Norfolk_, but no
mention is made of any house in London. Tanner says that there is no
mention of these friars in any public record, and Taylor, in his _Index
Monasticus_, gives no new information concerning them. Blomefield says
that the friars were called from their outward garment, which was black
and white like a magpie.
At Hounslow there was a House of Trinitarian or Maturine Friars for the
Redemption of Captives. The earliest record known of this priory is a
charter dated 1296.
Besides the religious houses, there were during the Middle Ages many
hermitages over the country, and several of these were to be found in
London. One was in Monkwell Street, Cripplegate, which was founded by
the widow of Sir Eymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who was killed in a
tournament in 1324. This was Mary de Castillon, daughter of Guy, Count
of St. Pol, third wife of the earl, and the foundress of Pembroke Hall,
Cambridge, who established the hermitage for the good of the soul of her
husband.
London was so full of religious houses, both within and without the
walls, that when the great dissolution took place in Henry VIII.'s
reign, large portions of the town were left desolate. Doubtless the time
had come for this great revolution, or, otherwise, even that King could
never have carried it through.
The popular feeling which held these great establishments in disfavour
had gradually grown. Still the number of those who were dependent upon
the religious houses was very considerable, and great evils followed the
dissolution. Multitudes were thrown out of their regular employment, and
the poor who were dependent upon the alms bestowed upon them at the
gates of the monasteries had to be considered and provided for in some
other way. The difficulties of this position certainly formed one of the
causes of the institution of the Poor Law in the reign of Henry's
daughter Elizabeth.
Most of the relics of the various religious houses which occupied so
large a portion of London and its environs have been entirely swept
away.
In the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries many
remains existed. There were then vestiges of St. Helen's Priory, and the
old hall of the Nunnery was not pulled down until 1799. Relics of
Bermondsey Abbey were standing in 1807.
[Illustration: THE CRYPT, ST. JOHN'S, CLERKENWELL.]
The grand Crypt built soon after the foundation of the house of the
Priory of St. John at Clerkenwell, which was added to and afterwards
made to form an undercroft to the choir, is now one of the most
interesting of the remains of mediæval buildings in London. It is below
the Church of St. John, Clerkenwell, and has been restored with loving
care to much of its original beauty. Other portions of the old buildings
of the Priory are to be seen in the cellars of some of the houses round
about.
The position of the old Charterhouse buildings can still be traced,
although little of the old monastery exists, but the east and south
walls of the Chapel and Washhouse Court can be seen. The latter was
built by the monks to accommodate the lay brothers who acted as
servants to the convent. The walls of the monastic refectories surround
the present Brothers' Library. Beneath this is the Monks' Cellar.
The friaries situated within the walls of old London have left little
but their names to tell the Londoner of to-day of their existence. Still
even here something of the past remains. The Church of Austin Friars is
left to us, and the position of the choir of the great Franciscan house
of Grey Friars is marked by the present Christ Church, Newgate Street.
Some traces of the buildings of the Whitefriars have also been found
underground.
_Sanctuary._--One of the privileges of the Middle Ages, which continued
on into comparatively modern times, was that of sanctuary, and in its
belated form this caused many gross scandals. There are numerous stories
connected with the College of St. Martin's-le-Grand, which was under the
jurisdiction of the Abbot of Westminster. One of these relates to
Richard III. and Lady Anne. When the Duke of Gloucester desired to marry
Anne, the betrothed of the late Edward Prince of Wales, son of Henry
VI., her brother-in-law Clarence objected and hid her away. Richard
discovered her in London, disguised as a kitchen-maid, and placed her in
sanctuary at St. Martin's-le-Grand.[376]
In 1416 a man was sentenced to the pillory for slandering an alderman,
but he escaped and found sanctuary at the monastery of St. Peter's,
Westminster.[377]
Mr. G. M. Trevelyan, in his work on the _Age of Wycliffe_, gives a full
account of the great scandal which occurred in 1378, when two prisoners
escaped from the Tower and sought sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. The
governor of the Tower, with his soldiers, entered the nave and attempted
to drag one of the prisoners, who was attending Mass, out of sanctuary.
He fled for his life, and his pursuers chased him twice round the choir.
He was stabbed to death, and one of the attendants of the church,
interfering to save him, was killed in the scuffle.
Archbishop Sudbury excommunicated the governor of the Tower (Sir Alan
Buschall) and all his aiders and abettors. Richard II. ordered the
reading of the excommunication to be stopped and the church to be
reconsecrated. The abbot refused to allow the place to be hallowed, and
the services ceased for a while. There was now an open quarrel between
Church and State, which continued till the Parliament met at Gloucester
in October, 'when the whole question of sanctuary was brought up in all
its issues.'
Mr. Trevelyan sums up the case in these words: 'In vain Wycliffe argued,
in vain the Commons petitioned and the Lords hectored. From all the
mountains of talk in the discussions at Gloucester there came forth the
most absurd legislative mouse in the shape of a Statute passed at
Westminster by the next Parliament in the spring of 1379. By this Act
the fraudulent debtor taking sanctuary was to be summoned at the door of
the church once a week for 31 days. If at the end of that time he
refused to appear, judgment was to go against him by default, and his
goods, even if they had been given away by collusion, might be seized by
his creditors. This mild measure, which was scarcely an interference
with the right of sanctuary itself, was accepted even by the staunchest
adherents of the Church.'
If a felon succeeded in taking sanctuary in a church or other privileged
place before capture, he was free from the clutches of the law for the
space of forty days. He was allowed to be supplied with food, but he was
sufficiently guarded to prevent his escape. If he elected to abjure the
realm an oath was administered to him.[378]
There seem to have been special privileges of sanctuary in the city, for
we learn that at the end of the thirteenth century it was ordered by the
aldermen that no robber, homicide, nor other fugitive in the churches
should be watched. This ordinance was for the purpose of giving a
fugitive a chance of escape out of sanctuary. In 1321 a royal pardon was
granted to the city for neglecting to keep watch on those who had fled
for sanctuary to the city churches. This was granted, however, on the
distinct understanding that in future a watch was to be kept on such
fugitives in the same manner as in other parts of the realm.[379]
In 1334 the Mayor was roundly taken to task, and made to do penance by
the Archbishop for allowing a felon to escape from the Church of
Allhallows', Gracechurch.[380]
The sanctuary men were marked by a badge representing cross keys.
_Education._--Mediæval London was well supplied with facilities for
education. We know that there were many schools in various parts of the
city, although we still require more definite information. The Church
supplied the public well with schools, although for a time these fell
into decay, and then it was that lay schools came into existence.
Bishop Stubbs writes: 'Over against the many grievances which modern
thought has alleged against the unlearned ages which passed before the
invention of printing it ought to be set to the credit of mediæval
society that clerkship was never despised or made unnecessarily
difficult of acquisition. The sneer of Walter Map, who declared that in
his days the villains were attempting to educate their ignoble and
degenerate offspring in the liberal arts proves that even in the twelfth
century the way was open. Richard II. rejected the proposition that the
villains should be forbidden to send their children to the schools to
learn "clergie"; and even at a time when the supply of labour ran so low
that no man who was not worth twenty shillings a year in land or rent
was allowed to apprentice his child to a craft, a full and liberal
exception was made in favour of learning; "every man or woman"--the
words occur in the Petition and Statute of Artificers passed in
1406--"of what state or condition that he be, shall be free to set their
son or daughter to take learning at any school that pleaseth them within
the realm."' Again: 'Schools were by no means uncommon things; there
were schools in all cathedrals; monasteries and colleges were
everywhere, and wherever there was a monastery or a college there was a
school. Towards the close of the Middle Ages, notwithstanding many
causes for depression, there was much vitality in the schools.'[381]
The larger English abbeys about the country not only had schools within
their own precincts, but others dependent upon them in the neighbouring
towns.
Fitz-Stephen, in his description of London as preserved in the city's
_Liber Custumarum_ (vol. i. p. 5), particularises the Church of St.
Martin-le-Grand as one of the principal churches of London which had
ancient and prerogative schools,[382] the others being St. Paul's and
Holy Trinity, Aldgate. In other texts of Fitz-Stephen's work the names
of the churches are not mentioned, and Stow, overlooking the text in the
city archives, gives the three schools as attached to St. Paul's, St.
Peter's Westminster, and St. Saviour's.[383]
Fitz-Stephen's patron, St. Thomas of Canterbury, received his early
education at one of the London schools after leaving the school of the
canons regular at Merton, and before proceeding to the university.
In 1447 four parish priests, in a petition to Parliament, begged the
Commons to consider the great number of grammar schools 'that sometime
were in diverse parts of the realm beside those that were in London, and
how few there be in these days.' They asked leave to appoint
schoolmasters in their parishes, to be removed at their discretion. King
Henry VI. granted the petition, but subjected the priests' discretion to
the advice of the Ordinary. During this King's reign nine grammar
schools were opened in London alone.
[Illustration: CHARING CROSS.
(_From the Crace Collection, British Museum._)]
CHAPTER XII
_London from Mediæval to Modern Times_
Mediæval London was almost entirely within the walls; but outside the
walls, to the west, there was a connecting line of mansions on the river
front leading to the village of Charing and on to Westminster, which is
almost of equal antiquity with London itself. When the body of Queen
Eleanor arrived at its last stage the funeral procession stopped a fair
way from Westminster Abbey. One might have expected that the body would
have remained under the shadow of its last resting-place, and we are,
therefore, led to inquire why the village of Charing was chosen. The
only answer to the question that can be given is, that here, on the site
of Northumberland House, now occupied by Northumberland Avenue, there
then stood a Hospital and Chapel of St. Mary, belonging to the Priory of
Rouncevall (Roncesvalles), or De Rosida Valle, in the diocese of
Pampelon, in Navarre. At the death of Eleanor this house was a
comparatively recent establishment, having been founded by William
Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, in the reign of Henry III., but it probably
afforded sufficient accommodation for the funeral procession for one
night. The house was suppressed as an alien priory in the reign of Henry
V., but restored in that of Edward IV. for a fraternity. In the Year
Books of Henry VII. the master, wardens, brethren and sisters of
Rouncevall are mentioned, and these continued until the general
suppression.
The Cross, which gives its name to the place, was erected in the years
1291-1294, and is supposed to have been the handsomest of the series. As
good a copy of the original as our imperfect information allows is to be
seen within the railings of the South-Eastern Railway terminus.
Westminster is of unknown antiquity, and was long known, from its wild
growth of underwood, as Thorney, before the Abbey and the Palace arose
to give the place a name which marked its position in relation to London
and St. Paul's. There is but little authoritative history before Edward
the Confessor and the consecration of the Abbey Church in 1065, but the
history since that time is so considerable, and of so important a
character, that it is impossible to do more than refer in these few
words to what is universally acknowledged by all Englishmen to be the
most hallowed building in the country.
On the opposite shore of the Thames is Lambeth, where is situated the
Manor House of the Archbishops of Canterbury (now called Lambeth
Palace). The site was originally given to the See of Rochester by the
Countess Goda, sister of Edward the Confessor, and wife of Eustace,
Count of Boulogne, but in the year 1197 the Bishop of Rochester made an
exchange with the Archbishop of Canterbury of this place for other
property, and Lambeth has ever since been the London residence of the
Archbishops. From here we pass over Lambeth Marsh to Southwark, a place
whose history has been intimately associated with that of the City of
London, and is now an integral part of the county.
The chief glory of the borough is the grand church of the Augustinian
Priory of St. Mary Overy, dating from the beginning of the twelfth
century, and now known as St. Saviour's.
Southwark has been from the earliest times the chief thoroughfare to and
from London and the southern
[Illustration]
counties and towns, and the cities of the Continent. From this cause it
was for centuries the quarter for famous old inns, beginning in order of
importance with the Bear at the Bridge Foot, the Tabard of Chaucer, and
following on with the King's Head, the White Hart, and the George--a
portion of the latter hostelry only remaining to the present day.
[Illustration: The Gatehouse & Church Tower Lambeth Palace]
Southwark was also notorious for its prisons--the King's Bench, the
Marshalsea, the White Lion, the Borough Compter and the Clink. The
last-named was on the Bankside, so intimately associated from the
earliest times with the rough sports of the Londoners, and in
Elizabeth's reign the chief home of the dramatic displays of that great
period. The "Bank" was then a long straggling street, extending from the
manor of Paris Garden on the west to the liberty of the Clink on the
east. Near Paris Garden was the Falcon Inn, which was once supposed to
have been the resort of Shakespeare. This apparently is an error, for at
the time of the great dramatist's death there appears to have been no
inns on the Bankside. Little or nothing actually exists now that was
there in the sixteenth century, but the contour of the street and nearly
every name have lasted in their integrity, and probably will last for
many a long year more.
Although during the reigns of the Tudor sovereigns the Renascence became
triumphant, the men and women of London still continued to live in a
town which retained its mediæval characteristics.
Two striking scenes in the history of London during the reign of Mary I.
may be alluded to here.
When the Queen made known her intention of marrying Philip of Spain, the
discontent of the nation found vent in the rising of Sir Thomas Wyat,
and the city had to prepare itself against attack. Wyat took possession
of Southwark, and expected to have been admitted into London, but
finding the gate of the Bridge closed against him and the drawbridge cut
down he marched to Kingston. Having restored the bridge there, which had
been destroyed, he proceeded towards London. In consequence of the break
down of some of his guns he imprudently halted at Turnham Green. Had he
not done this he might have obtained possession of the city. He planted
his ordnance on Hay Hill, and then marched by St. James's Palace and
Charing Cross. Here he was attacked by Sir John Gage with a thousand
men, but he repulsed them, and reached Ludgate without further
opposition. He was disappointed at the resistance which was made, and
after musing a while "upon a stall over against the Bell Savadge gate,"
he turned back. His retreat was cut off, and he surrendered to Sir
Maurice Berkeley.
To picture another striking scene, we must move from the west side of
London to the north. Outside Cripplegate was built a barbican or
watch-tower, as an outwork for observance, and the little village, with
its Fore Street, which grew up outside the walls, was sheltered behind
it. The care of this important position was naturally given to
trustworthy persons. Edward III. appointed Robert Ufford, Earl of
Suffolk, Keeper of the Barbican, and from him it descended, in course of
time, to Catherine, daughter of William Lord Willoughby de Eresby, who
married, firstly, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; and secondly,
Richard Bertie. Bertie and his wife were Protestants, and in Queen
Mary's reign their lives were in such danger that they were forced to
arrange in secrecy for their flight.
Between four and five o'clock in the morning of 1st January 1554-1555
the Duchess began her adventurous journey in a thick fog. She could
place no confidence in the bulk of her dependants, and there was great
difficulty in arranging for company and baggage. As she was leaving, one
Atkinson, a herald, issued from the house bearing a torch in his hand,
and evidently bent on discovering the cause of the unusual bustle at
this early hour. Fearing to be discovered as she stood up under a
gateway, she moved on quietly and left her baggage at the gatehouse.
Finding that the herald still followed, she bade her servants to hasten
onwards to Lion Key, where she proposed to embark. Taking with her only
two servants and her child, "she stept into Garter House, hard by."[384]
She dared not pass into the city through Cripplegate but walked on to
Moorgate. Thence she proceeded across the town to the port of
embarkation. Eventually she joined her husband, who had preceded her, in
Flanders. Soon after her escape she gave birth to a son at Wesel. He was
named Peregrine, from the circumstance of his being born in a foreign
land and during the wandering of his parents. This name was long
continued in the family. The child grew up to be one of Queen
Elizabeth's greatest generals, popularly known as the "brave Lord
Willoughby."
"But the bravest man in battel
Was brave Lord Willoughby."
There is a special fascination to us now in a picture of Elizabethan
London, for with its history are bound up some of the most interesting
incidents in the lives of the statesmen and other great men of the
spacious days of the great Queen; and have we not Shakespeare and Ben
Jonson among those who have portrayed the various places for us.
London has always appealed to the imagination of the adventurous country
youth to be the home of golden promise. If he can only get there he
believes that his successful career has commenced, but it appears that
in Elizabeth's reign there was pretty much the same difficulty in
obtaining employment as there is now. This is illustrated by a curious
account of the early life of John Sadler, a native of Stratford-on-Avon,
and one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, which has come down to us. "He
joined himself to the carrier, and came to London, where he had never
been before, and sold his horse in Smithfield, and having no
acquaintance in London to recommend him or assist him he went from
street to street, and house to house, asking if they wanted an
apprentice, and though he met with many discouraging scorns and a
thousand denials he went on till he lighted on one Mr. Brokesbank, a
grocer in Bucklersbury, who, though he long denied him for want of
sureties for his fidelity, and because the money he had (but ten pounds)
was so disproportionate to what he used to receive with apprentices, yet
upon his discreet account he gave of himself and the motives which put
him upon that course, and promise to compensate with diligent and
faithful service whatever else was short of his expectation, he ventured
to receive him upon trial, in which he so well approved himself that he
accepted him into his service, to which he bound him for eight years."
The outdoor life of his time, with the men and women who frequented the
streets, is brought vividly before our eyes in Ben Jonson's plays. The
useful and useless members of society pass across the stage. The
water-carriers who congregate around the conduits are represented by Cob
in _Every Man in His Humour_.
Before Sir Hugh Myddelton made the New River and brought to men's
houses, all water that was wanted had to be fetched from the conduits.
The men who supplied the town drew off the water into large wooden
tankards, broad at the bottom, but narrow at the top, which held about
three gallons. This vessel was borne upon the shoulder, and to keep the
carrier dry two towels were fastened over him, one to fall in front and
the other to cover his back.
The narrowness of the old London streets is strikingly shown in _The
Devil is an Ass_, where the lady and her lover speak gentle nothings to
each other from the windows of two contiguous buildings.
All the fashions of his time--the rapier fighting of the gallants, the
smoking madness of all classes at a time when tobacco was supposed to be
the panacea for all the ills of human nature, the custom of garnishing
conversation with oaths--are introduced into the books of Ben Jonson.
The poet's love of good liquor and social intercourse made him a
frequenter of inns. His acquaintance with the two rival taverns of
Cheapside--the Mermaid and the Mitre--must have commenced early, because
the names of both occur in the first quarto of _Every Man in His Humour_
(1601); in the later folio edition the Mitre is changed to the Star and
the Mermaid to the Windmill. The ever-memorable Mermaid was situated on
the south side of Cheapside, between Bread Street and Friday Street.
From the mention of this tavern in the first draft of _Every Man In His
Humour_ it may be inferred that Jonson was a frequenter before the
famous club, consisting of Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher,
Carew, Donne, Selden and others, was established by Sir Walter Raleigh
in 1603.
The Mitre was a rival house, and some writers tried to write it up at
the expense of the Mermaid. Thus Middleton has the following dialogue in
his comedy, _Your Five Gallants_ (1608):--
"_Goldstone._ Where sup we, gallants?
_Pursenet._ At Mermaid.
_Gold._ Sup there who list, I have forsworne the house.
_Pur._ Faith! I'm indifferent.
_Bungler._ So are we, gentlemen.
_Pur._ Name the place, Master Goldstone.
_Gold._ Why, the Mitre, in my mind, for neat attendance, diligent boys,
and--Push! excels it far.
_All._ Agreed. The Mitre then."
The Windmill, in the old Jewry, which occupies so prominent a position
in the revised edition of _Every Man in His Humour_, was a house with a
long history. It was first of all a synagogue for the Jews of the
neighbourhood; then it was granted by Henry III. to the prior and
brethren of the Order of friars called the Fratres de Sacca, and in 1439
it was occupied by Lord
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER.]
Mayor Robert Large. In 1492 Sir Hugh Clopton, the worthy who built
Clopton Bridge at Stratford-on-Avon, kept his mayoralty in the mansion,
which, a hundred years afterwards, was turned into a tavern.
The Devil, in Fleet Street, was one of the most famous of the places of
entertainment of the time. It is not known when Ben Jonson started the
"Apollo" Club here, but it was probably not long before 1616, when the
_Devil is an Ass_ was acted.
Herrick, in his well-known ode, mentions several other taverns to which
Ben and "his sons" resorted:--
"Ah, Ben!
Say how or when
Shall we thy guests
Meet at those lyric feasts
Made at the Sun,
The Dog, the Triple Tun?
Where we such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad;
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meal, outdid the frolic wine."
It was in Jonson's day that the suburbs, which (as previously referred
to) had long been treated with disfavour, were gradually asserting
themselves, and the poet was particularly at home in the understanding
of their peculiarities. Of the northern suburbs the fullest mention is
to be found in _A Tale of a Tub_, where we read of Totten Court, Kentish
Town, Maribone, Kilborne, Islington and Belsize, and the fields near
Pancras.
If we look for Hoxton in a modern map of London we shall find it near
Old Street, St. Luke's, not far from the centre of the present London,
but in Jonson's time it was a country place, cut off from the city by
Moorfields. Knowell's house (_Every Man in His Humour_) was at Hogsden,
which was then, according to Stow, "a large street with houses on both
sides." Master Stephen describes his uncle's property as "Middlesex
land," and he himself is called a country gull, in opposition to Master
Matthew, the town gull. Ben had reason to remember Hoxton, for it was in
the fields close by that he fought and nearly killed Gabriel Spenser.
Moorfields remained for several years in an almost impassable condition,
but in 1511 regular dykes and bridges of communication over them were
made, in order partially to drain the rotten ground.
In the play so frequently referred to we find Turnbull mentioned by
Bobadil, among other disreputable places, as one of the "skirts of the
town." Turnbull, or, more properly, Turnmill Street, was situated near
Clerkenwell Green, and was known as the haunt of ruffians, thieves and
disorderly persons. Justice Shallow boasted to Falstaff of the wildness
of his youth and the feats he had done in Turnbull Street.
On the west the Oxford Road, commencing at the village of St. Giles, was
in the country, and where Stratford Place now stands was a cottage among
trees and hedges called the Lord Mayor's Banqueting House, which was
used by the city magnates when they hunted at Bayswater and Hyde Park.
This is alluded to in _The Devil is an Ass_:--
"But got the gentlewoman to go with me
And carry her bedding to a conduit-head,
Hard by the place towards Tyburn which they call
My Lord Mayor's banqueting house."
"Eastward for Ratcliff!" is a cry in the _Alchemist_. Ratcliff, which
Stow remembered as a highway, with fair elm trees on each side, in later
times became the synonym of all that is dangerous and disreputable in
London streets.
The actor William Kemp, in describing his remarkable morris dance from
London to Norwich (1600), writes: "Being past Whitechappel and having
left fair London, multitudes of Londoners left not me, eyther to keepe a
custome which many holde, that Mile-end is no walke without a recreation
at Stratford Bow with cream and cakes, or else for love they beare
towards me, or perhaps to make themselves merry if I should chance (as
many thought) to give over my morrice within a mile of Mile-end."
Shakespeare lived outside the city walls, and although we cannot exactly
tell the position of his houses it is pretty certain that he lived both
in the parish of St. Helen, Bishopsgate, and in the Clink on the
Bankside.
Stuart London followed Tudor London, but with the death of James I. in
1625 the older history may be said to close, for there was a
considerable change during the reign of Charles I. The upper classes
moved westward to Lincoln's Inn and Great Queen Street and Covent
Garden. The great architect, Inigo Jones, built houses for them in both
these districts.
There was a certain stagnation in the movements of the population during
the period of the Commonwealth, but at the Restoration of Charles II. a
new life came into existence. The exiled Cavaliers returned to their
country and found their fathers' houses in the City of London either
occupied by others or unfitted for their reception. In consequence, they
migrated to a district far from the city. The builders were busy in
covering fields with houses, and Pall Mall, where the game of that name
had been played, was planned out as a fine street, which it remains to
the present day. Lords Clarendon, Burlington and Berkeley erected
mansions in Piccadilly, and Lord St. Albans created St. James's Square.
Many others followed the example of these leaders of Society, and the
upper classes were completely cut off from the city. The contemptuous
references to the traders of London, which are first noticed in
Elizabeth's reign, became common. The cits were laughed at, and the
courtiers poured out a torrent of abuse upon all those who lived in the
east.
The Great Fire of 1666 made an enormous change in the topography of
London, and caused great misery, but it is supposed to have been a
blessing in disguise as it cleared out many a centre of plague and
disease.
When we read of the heroism of the homeless Londoner we must feel proud
of our ancestors. They had lost everything, but they did not sit down
and wring their hands. When the streets were destroyed by fire the river
became more than ever a highway, and boats filled with the goods of the
sufferers covered the waters. Moorfields formed a handy open space, and
soon streets of huts were raised to shelter the homeless families. Wren,
England's greatest architect, John Evelyn, the most accomplished man of
his time and the model of a Royalist gentleman, and Robert Hooke, the
great philosopher, were all three, ready within a few hours of the fire
with plans for the rebuilding of the city, but none of the plans were
adopted although all had their good points, and Wren's especially would
certainly have given us fine avenues and convenient thoroughfares.
The difficulties in carrying out these schemes would no doubt have been
very great, and it is useless now to regret that a great opportunity was
lost.
Wren and Hooke were appointed to superintend the progress of the work of
making London arise anew out of its ashes. The Act of Parliament passed
to regulate the work of rebuilding was a very practical, and altogether
excellent, statute. In fact, the way in which all concerned in the
complicated business of raising a new city worked in unison is worthy of
every praise. At the same time that they proceeded with their labours
they did not allow the trade and business of the country's
[Illustration: Butcher Row]
centre to fall out of gear, and this does the greatest credit to all
concerned, both governors and governed.
While the burnt town remained a waste there must have been overwhelming
inconveniences, but no time was allowed to be lost, and in the end a new
city arose infinitely superior in comfort and convenience to that which
had gone before, although certainly it was not so picturesque.
Before passing on to take a rapid view of the later periods of London
life some mention may be made of a few of the interesting buildings that
escaped the fire and have not previously been alluded to in these pages.
Outside the confines of the city to the west grew up from early times a
district with many various associations. Curious traditions and odd
customs gather round the history of the parish of St. Clement Danes,
where Westminster and London met, which still suggest many points of
special interest well worthy of fuller investigation than they have as
yet received.
The accompanying view shows Temple Bar and the old-world houses of
Butcher Row. The first mention of Temple Bar is in a grant of land
"extra barram Novi Temple" in 1301. At that time there was no building,
but merely posts, rails and chain to mark the extent of the liberties of
London. In course of time a gate was erected, and the one which existed
at the time of the Great Fire was pulled down, and a new gate was
erected in 1670-1672 from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. This,
after existing for two centuries as one of the best-known objects in
London, was removed in the winter of 1878-1879. The stones remained
exposed to the weather for ten years before Temple Bar was re-erected at
the entrance to the late Sir Henry Meux's private grounds at Theobalds,
Waltham Cross. The erection was completed on 3rd December 1888, and the
gate in its new position and restored condition presents a very
handsome appearance, showing it to be worthy of its great architect.
The history of Butcher Row is crowded with incidents in the lives of
authors and the unfortunate hangers-on to literature. The timber-framed
house, with projecting upper storeys and barge-boarded gables, the front
decorated with _fleurs-de-lis_ and coronets, was known as Beaumont
House, and it is said that Sully, then Marquis of Rosny, supped and
slept there on his arrival in London (1603) as Ambassador to James I.
Butcher Row was pulled down in 1813, and Pickett Street was erected in
its place. This street was pulled down to make way for the new Law
Courts, and now nearly the whole northern portion of St. Clement's
parish has been cleared away. A great improvement has been made, but in
order to obtain this many picturesque houses of interest have had to be
destroyed.
Returning within the Bar to the city, and walking up Chancery Lane, we
come to Lincoln's Inn Gateway, one of the three historical gateways of
importance in London; the other two being St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell,
and the entrance to St. James's Palace. This gatehouse of brick was
built by Sir Thomas Lovell, K.G., son of the executor of Henry VII., and
bears the date upon it of 1518. This interesting building, although
perfectly sound and in good condition, was shored up a few years ago
when old chambers by the side of it were pulled down and rebuilt, and it
then narrowly escaped destruction. Efforts were successfully made to
save the gate, and it is to be hoped that it may remain to give
distinction to Chancery Lane for many years. Returning to Chancery Lane,
and crossing Holborn, we come to Gray's Inn. The fine hall, which is
full of associations of the deepest interest, was built between the
years 1555 and 1560. Of the hall which it replaced there is no record,
save that in 5 Edw. VI.
[Illustration: LINCOLN'S INN GATEWAY, CHANCERY LANE.]
(1551), it "was seiled with fifty-four yards of wainscot, at 2s. a
yard."
[Illustration: GRAY'S INN HALL]
The present hall has the great distinction, according to Mr.
Halliwell-Phillipps, of being "one of the only two buildings now
remaining in London in which, so far as we know, any of the plays of
Shakespeare were performed in his own time."[385] The other, of course,
being the Middle Temple Hall, where _Twelfth Night_ was acted on
February 2, 1601-2.
_The Comedy of Errors_ was played on the evening of Innocents' Day
(December 28), 1594, in the hall, before a crowded audience; some of the
guests from the Inner Temple created a disturbance because they were not
properly accommodated, and this led to an official inquiry. Mr. Sidney
Lee thinks it probable that Shakespeare himself was not present, as he
was acting on the same day before the Queen at Greenwich. Another
performance of the play was given in the hall by the Elizabethan Stage
Society on December 6, 1895.[386]
George Gascoigne's _Jocasta_, adapted from the Phoenissæ of Euripides,
was acted in the Refectory in 1566. Gray's Inn was famous for its
masques and revels, and on July 7, 1887, in honour of Queen Victoria's
Jubilee, the Benchers of Gray's Inn presented in the hall, to a
distinguished audience, the _Masque of Flowers_, which had been
performed before James I. on Twelfth Night, two hundred and sixty-four
years before.
Gray's Inn had a brilliant roll of members in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, but it is Bacon's spirit that seems to haunt the
whole place. He helped the students in preparing their revels, probably
wrote a masque or masques, and planted trees in the gardens, the
arrangement of which he is believed to have super-intended. His name
remains in Verulam Buildings.
Returning to Holborn, and walking a little to the west, we come to the
impressive front of Staple Inn, the most remarkable street front of old
houses still in existence in London. The origin of the place is unknown,
and nothing satisfactory has been discovered respecting the meaning of
the name, or as to what it was before it came into the occupation of the
Inn of Chancery. There is a tradition that it originally belonged to
the merchants of the Staple. It was purchased by the Benchers of Gray's
Inn in 1529, and in Elizabeth's reign there were 145 students in term,
and 69 out of term. It was bought in 1884 by the Prudential Assurance
Company for £68,000, and the Holborn front was restored and cleared from
plaster covering the timber beams.
[Illustration: Staple Inn.]
There are now very few old street fronts of interest in London, one or
two in the Strand, and some in the great roads out of London, but a few
years ago there were many still remaining in the Whitechapel and Mile
End Roads, and in Bishopsgate Street Without. In the latter street (No.
169) there was until lately the remains of the mansion of Sir Paul
Pindar, an eminent English merchant (who died in 1650), distinguished
for his love of architecture, and the magnificent sums he gave towards
the restoration of old St. Paul's Cathedral. In 1617-1618 the house was
occupied by the Venetian Embassy. In its last days it was used as a
public-house, with the sign of "Sir Paul Pindar's Head." When it was
pulled down the front was obtained for the South Kensington Museum,
where it was re-erected.
The London of Johnson and Hogarth was not a handsome city, but it was a
social one, and we owe to these two men many vivid pictures of the life
lived in it. They were both true Londoners, but they were not alone in
their love for their city, for a marked feature in the character of the
eighteenth-century Londoner was his intense feeling that here only was
life to be lived with true enjoyment. Much of the life was frivolous,
and some of it worse than that, but among the respectable classes the
opportunities for social intercourse were greater than now, when large
numbers of the workers live out of London, some in the north, and some
in the south, and it takes as long to get from Hampstead to Croydon as
to travel a hundred miles into the country.
During the eighteenth century London continued to grow, but it became
uglier every day. The original growth was along the course of the river,
but near the middle of the century a little building was commenced to
the north of Oxford Street, when Cavendish Square and the surrounding
streets were laid out. Soon afterwards the New Road from the Angel at
Islington to the Edgware Road (now re-named Pentonville, Euston, and
Marylebone Roads) was planned. The opening of this road greatly
facilitated the locomotion of the town, but it was disliked by the
dwellers in what was then thought
[Illustration: Sir Paul Pindar's House]
to be the north of London, who had their view of the country cut off.
When Queen Square was built in the reign of Queen Anne it was left open
to the north, as it has remained to this day, in order to enable the
inhabitants to have a view of Hampstead and Highgate. The gardens of
Bedford House, which stood on the north side of Bloomsbury Square, had
an uninterrupted view of the country, and the Duke of Bedford strongly
opposed in the House of Lords the Bill for making the New Road. On this
opposition Horace Walpole cynically remarked to Conway (March 25, 1756):
"A new road through Paddington has been proposed to avoid the stones;
the Duke of Bedford, who is never in town in summer, objects to the dust
it will make behind Bedford House, and to some buildings proposed,
though if he was in town he is too short-sighted to see the prospect."
The gardens of Bedford House were famous for their beauty and for the
trees which flourished there, "the ancient stems" of "the light and
graceful acacia" being specially mentioned by Walpole.
Behind Montagu House (now the British Museum) was Capper's Farm, which
extended to Tottenham Court Road. The old farmhouse still exists behind
Messrs Heal & Son's shop, No. 195 Tottenham Court Road.
Near where University College in Gower Street now stands was a wild
district known as the Field of Forty Footsteps, which had a bad repute
as the scene of a sanguinary duel about the time of the Monmouth
Rebellion between two brothers who were both killed.
No grass would grow over the footsteps trodden by the duellists, which
were said to be recognisable until the year 1800 when the ground was
built over.
A little further east, where Cromer Street now stands, was a wayside inn
named "The Boot," which is made by Dickens in his _Barnaby Rudge_ the
meeting-place of the Gordon Rioters of 1780.
The site of this inn is still occupied by a public-house with the same
sign.
Even after these fields were built upon, the air continued so good that
the gardens round about produced excellent fruit. When Lord Eldon lived
at No. 42 Gower Street at the beginning of the nineteenth century his
peaches and vegetables were famous. Nectarines were grown at 6 Upper
Gower Street in 1800, and grapes were also successfully cultivated
there.
The district north of the New Road is of a clayey soil and without a
sufficient water supply, so that the ground remained unbuilt upon until
at the beginning of the nineteenth century several new Water Companies
came into existence and the building operations were commenced. Since
that time the suburbs have continued to increase, and a great start was
given to the increased growth of the town after the holding of the Great
Exhibition of 1851. Before the middle of the nineteenth century the
growth of London had been continually increasing, but it was not until
after 1851 that the abnormal growth set in.
The Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851 bought a large property at
Brompton and the district of South Kensington sprang into existence. The
glass and iron forming the Exhibition buildings were transferred to
Sydenham, and the Crystal Palace was erected there. Soon this rural
district, where gipsies once told fortunes, was covered with houses.
This was the beginning of the onward march of bricks and mortar, which
is going on still so rapidly that on all sides we have to travel by rail
for miles before we get out of the labyrinth of buildings.
When we see on all sides of us modern buildings where interesting old
buildings once stood, we are apt to jump to the conclusion that all
signs and relics of Mediæval London have passed away, but this is not
so, for there is still much to see in out-of-the-way places if we go
about the search with intelligence. From what we see we may reconstruct
much of the old topography in our mind's eye. The first thing to do is
to follow the course of the wall, and mark out the position of the
gates. This can easily be done by studying an old map. Some remains of
the wall are still to be seen.
Many most interesting remains of Roman London will be found in the
Guildhall Museum.
There are few remains left of the Saxon period, but some bits are to be
seen at Westminster. Of Norman buildings we have portions of the Tower,
of Great St. Bartholomew's Church, the 'Round' of the Temple Church, and
the Crypt of Bow Church, Cheapside.
Of later ages there are a few relics of the religious houses which have
already been referred to. All the churches which escaped the ravages of
the Great Fire have their points of interest. Lambeth Palace, although
much of it is comparatively modern, has a most venerable appearance and
is certainly one of the most important relics of past ages that the
present London has to boast.
Westminster Hall, Abbey, Church and School are of transcendent interest,
and some relics of the old Abbey buildings still exist in connection
with the School.
Of secular buildings there are Crosby Hall, Middle Temple Hall, Gray's
Inn Hall, and some others.
It is impossible to print a detailed list of all the places that should
be visited, but these few notes will give some slight indication of what
little is left of Mediæval London.
INDEX
A
Aldermen of London, 249-257;
distinct rank accorded to, 255;
to reside in the city, 255;
use of the title, 250;
connection with the Wards, 252-255.
Aldgate, Chaucer tenant of, 34, 81, 82;
Stow's etymology, 25;
earliest form of name, 28.
Arderne (John), an early surgeon of mark, 172, 173.
Arms of London, 261-263.
Austin Friars in London, 364.
B
Bachelors, class of unmarried members of Livery Companies, 321.
Bachelors' Alley, near Goldsmiths' Hall, 321.
Bakers of London, 305-307.
Bankrupt, etymology of, 327.
Bankside, 380.
Barbican, or watch tower, 26.
Bartholomew's (St.) Hospital, 179-191;
founded by Rahere, 180;
repaired by Whittington, 185;
Wat Tyler died there, 185;
law officers, 188;
Thomas Vicary, first governor, 189;
Dr Roderigo Lopus first physician, 191.
Baynard Castle, 31;
privileges associated with its possession, 264.
Bedford House, Bloomsbury 401;
gardens, 401.
Bell Tower of St. Paul's, 337.
Benedictine Monastery of Black Monks, Westminster, 352.
---- Reforms of the Benedictines, 352-356.
Bishop of London, his prominent position, 19.
Bishopsgate, site marked by tablets, 27.
Black Death, the first great plague, 197.
Black Friars in London, 360.
Boot (The), in Cromer Street, immortalised by Dickens, 401.
Bow Church, Cheapside, 348, 349.
Brembre (Nicholas), feud with John of Northampton, 236.
Brewers of London, 313-315.
Building, Assize of, 36, 37.
Butchers of London, 307-309.
Butchers' Row, Temple Bar, 391, 392.
C
Canons regular, Order of St. Austin, 351.
Canons secular, 350-351;
Barking College, 351;
Holmes's College, 351;
Collegiate Church of St. Martin-le-Grand, 350;
College of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, 351;
Collegiate Chapel of St. Stephen, Westminster, 351.
Caorsins, company of Italian financiers banished from London, 324.
Capper's Farm, Tottenham Court Road, 401.
_Carta Mercatoria_, 1303, 289.
Carthusian Order in London, 355.
Castellan and Bannerer of London, 264.
Chamberlain or Comptroller of the King's Chamber, 271, 272
Charing Cross, 138, 375, 376.
Charterhouse, remains of, 369.
Chaucer (Geoffrey) a representative Londoner, 80-89.
---- tenant of Aldgate, 34, 81, 82.
---- his portrait of the "doctor of physick," 166, 167.
---- and poets of his time, round the town with, 71-89.
Cheapside, the market-place, 25, 286;
the cross, 138.
---- streets running out of, appropriated
to sale of different commodities, 25.
Christ Church, Newgate Street, 24.
---- town ditch ran through grounds, 24.
Christ's Hospital, deaths from plague, 209 (note).
Church and education, 330-374.
Churches, 347-351.
---- St. Bartholomew, 348;
St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, 348;
St. Martin's-le-Grand, Collegiate Church of, 348;
St. Mary le Bow, 348;
St. Michael le Querne, 348;
St. Peter's, Cornhill, 348.
Cistercian Order in London, 355.
Clergy forbidden to practise surgery, 168.
Clerkenwell, crypt of St. John's, 369.
Clothing trades, antagonism to victualling trades, 235-238, 304, 305.
Clothworkers' Company, 301-303, 317.
Cluniac Order in London, 352.
Cnut's trench on the south side of the Thames, 12.
Cobblers of London, 317.
Commerce and trade in London, 277-329.
Common Council of London, 259-261;
court of, 259;
election of, 260.
Common Hunt of London, 272.
Common Sergeant, 270.
Commune of London, origin of, 223-230;
character, 225;
oath, 227;
mayor and skivins, 227.
Cordwainers' Company, 317.
Coronation banquets, Mayor of London's position at, 246-248.
Craft gilds, 293, 294.
Cripplegate, etymology of, 26.
Crutched Friars in London, 366.
Custom-House first built in 1385, 29.
E
Eating-houses and taverns, 157-160.
Eleanor crosses, 138.
F
Fabian (St.) and St. Sebastian, gild of London, 297.
Fairs and markets, 282-288;
Bartholomew fair, 282;
Cloth fair, 282;
Nane fair, 282;
_la novele feyre_, 282;
prohibition against being held in churchyards, 285;
Stocks Market, 286.
Faith (St.), Church of, 344, 345.
Field of Forty Footsteps, 401.
Fire of London, 1666, 388-391;
schemes for rebuilding, 388-391.
Fires in London, 36, 37;
precautions for their prevention, 37, 38.
Fishmongers of London, 309-311.
Fitz-Ailwin (Henry), Mayor of London, 230;
his seal, 231;
assize of building, 36, 37;
second assize, 37.
Fitzstephen's picture of London, 32, 90, 96, 131, 163, 373.
Fitz-Walter, Castellan and Bannerer of London, 264;
his seal, 269.
Football in the streets of London, 133.
Friars in London, 359-368;
Austin, 364;
Black, 360-363;
Crutched, 366;
De Areno, 367;
Grey, 363, 364;
Maturine, 368;
Penance of Jesus Christ or _de Sacco_, 367;
Pied, 367;
White, 365, 366.
Friday Street, Chaucer in, 86.
Friscobaldi, Company of Italian financiers, 325.
G
Galley Quay by the Tower, 29.
Garlekhith, gild of, London, 296.
Gates of London, their position should be marked, 27;
as dwelling-houses, 34.
Gilbertus Anglicus, first English writer on medicine, 167.
Gild merchant, 291-293.
Gilds and Companies of London, 290-323;
bakers, 305-309;
brewers and vintners, 313-315;
fishmongers, 309-311;
grocers, 312, 313;
poulterers, 311, 312.
Giles's (St.) and the leper hospital, 195.
Girdlers' Company, London, 319.
Gloucester (Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of), her penance, 91.
Goldsmiths' Company, 319-322.
Goldsmiths' Row, Cheapside, 320.
Governors of the city, 218-263.
Gower (John), Londoner, 76-78.
Gray's Inn, 392-395.
Grey Friars in London, 363, 364.
Grocers of London, 312, 313.
Guildhall of London, 273, 274.
H
Haberdashers of London, 315.
Health, disease and sanitation of London, 161-217.
Heptarchy, changes in the so-called, 16.
Hermitages, 368;
Monkwell Street, Cripplegate, 368.
Hoccleve (Thomas), Londoner, 74, 75.
Hogarth, a true Londoner, 398.
Hospitals of London, 179-195;
St. Bartholomew's, 179-191;
St. Thomas's, 191, 192;
for lepers, 192, 197.
I
Inns of London, 384, 385;
Devil, Fleet Street, 385;
Mermaid, 384;
Mitre, 384;
Windmill, 384.
Inns of Southwark, 379;
Bear at Bridge Foot, 379;
George, 379;
King's Head, 379;
Tabard, 379;
White Hart, 379.
Italian bankers in London, papers by Bond, Rhodes and Whitwell, 325 (note).
J
Jack Cade's Rebellion, 48, 49, 63-70.
Jews in London, 165, 323, 324;
as practisers of surgery, 165;
hardships of, 323;
expelled from England, 323.
John of Gaddesden, doctor of physick, 167, 168.
Johnson (Samuel), a true Londoner, 398.
Jonson's (Ben) London, 383.
Justiciar of London created by Henry I.'s charter, 221, 222.
K
Katherine's (St.) Gild, 296.
King's household, their right to lodgings, 40;
London exempted from this charge, 40-42.
King's Palace (the Tower), 108-130.
L
Lambreth Palace, 376.
Lazar houses, 192;
"The Loke," Kent Street, Southwark, 192;
at Hackney, 192;
hospital of St Giles's, 195.
Leathersellers' Company, London, 318.
Lepers, regulations respecting, in London, 192-197.
Life, expectancy of, in the Middle Ages, 162.
Lincoln's Inn gateway, 392.
Lithsmen, their position in London, 19.
Livery Companies and the Gilds, 299-301;
feuds of the companies, 235-238, 304, 305.
Lombards, Italian financiers in London, 324-327.
London, a distinct political unit during the Saxon period, 17;
Arms of London, 261-263;
British remains, 1, 2;
centre of early commerce, 277;
Church and education, 330-374;
commerce and trade, 277-329;
Commune, 223;
condition of houses, 35;
Danish invasions, 8;
disputes as to the rebuilding by Alfred, 8;
early history of, to Norman Conquest, 1-20;
eating-houses and taverns, 157-160;
education, 372-374;
exempt from billeting of soldiers, 40, 41;
fairs and markets, 282;
feuds of Livery Companies, 235-238;
fire of 1666, 388;
fires, 36, 37;
foreign element in, 20, 222;
foreigners and strangers not permitted to reside in, 289;
free citizens of, subject to onerous laws under
the Normans, 21, 22;
gates closed at curfew, 23, 24;
Governors of the city, 218-263;
growth in eighteenth century, 398;
health, disease, and sanitation, 161-217;
Jack Cade's rebellion, 48, 49, 63-70;
large portions of town left desolate at dissolution
of religious houses, 368;
lights to be extinguished at curfew, 23;
line of the walls, 23-28;
Ludgate, chief entrance of, 23;
manners, 131-160;
Mayors of, 231-235;
first use of the title Lord Mayor, 239-241;
migration of upper classes westward, 387;
narrowness of streets, 383;
Newgate, western approach, 23, 24;
officials of the city, 264-274;
older than Middlesex and Surrey, 17;
overcrowding, 213;
pageants, processions and tournaments, 136-153;
peasants' rising under Wat Tyler, 47-63;
"Pui" brotherhood of, musical society French merchants, 153;
plans for rebuilding after Great Fire, 388;
population, 46, 47, 207;
recognised capital under Edward the Confessor, 19;
references to, in _Piers Plowman_, 71, 72;
right to a voice in selection of king during the Saxon period, 13;
round the town with Chaucer and the poets of his time, 71-89;
sanctuary, 370-372;
schools, 372-374;
seal, 261;
seat of trade in Eastern luxuries, 280;
sports, 131-136;
streets first lighted by lanterns in 1415, 23;
stringent regulations relaxed under Henry I., 23;
suburbs, 385, 386;
tower of, as a fortress, 112-114;
as a palace, 113-125;
as a prison, 125-130;
victualling and clothing trades' antagonism, 235-238;
walled town and its streets, 21-70;
water fetched from conduits, 383;
westward growth of, 387;
London and Londonburgh, use of the names in the Saxon Chronicle, 4;
Roman, 3;
Saxon Chronology, 3-20;
from mediæval to modern times, 375-403.
London Bridge, 100-107;
destroyed by Olaf, 11, 12;
wooden bridge, 100;
first stone bridge, 100;
built on piles, 102;
weight of buildings on, 105;
the chief sight of London, 105;
waterway obstructed by, 107.
London Stone, 230.
Lord Mayor, first use of title, 239-241.
Ludgate, 23, 31.
Lydgate (John), a visitor to London, 78, 79.
M
Mace-bearers of London, 272.
Manners of the Londoners, 131-160.
Markets; _see_ Fairs and markets.
Martin's (St.) le Grand, curfew tolled from the church, 24.
Mayors of London, 231-235;
position at coronation banquets, 246-248;
position in the city, 242-245;
summons to Privy Council on accession of sovereign, 245, 246.
---- pageants connected with election of, 248, 249.
---- skivins assistants to the mayor, 227.
Medical skill in the Middle Ages, 164.
Medicine and surgery, faculty of, 170, 171.
Mercers' Company, London, 315.
Merchant Taylors and Linen Armourers, London, 315.
Middle Temple Hall, 396;
_Comedy of Errors_ played in, 396.
Military orders, 356, 357;
Knights Hospitallers, 356, 357;
Templars, 356, 357.
Minoresses by Aldgate, 85, 364.
Minories, derivation of the name, 28.
Monks (Benedictines) in Westminster, 352-359.
---- Cluniac reform, 352-354;
Carthusians, 355;
Cistercians, 355, 356.
Montfichet, Tower of, 268.
Morestede (Thomas), King's surgeon, 176, 177.
Murage, a tax for keeping the walls in repair, 33;
Hanse merchants freed from payment of, 33.
Music on the ships in the Thames, 95.
N
New Road, formation of, 398.
Newgate erected in reign of Henry I., 24;
prison, 24;
its rebuilding, 24;
its earlier name Chamberlain's gate, 24.
Night-walkers in London, 43, 44.
Northampton (John of), feud with Nicholas Brembre, 236.
O
Officials of the City, 264-274;
Castellan and Bannerer, 264-270;
Chamberlain or Comptroller of the King's Chamber, 271, 272;
Common Hunt, 272;
Common Sergeant, 270;
Coroner, 271, 272;
King's Butler, 271;
Mace-bearers, 273;
Recorder, 270;
Remembrancer or State Amanuensis, 272;
Sword-bearer, 272;
Town Clerk, 270.
Olaf, London Bridge destroyed by, 11, 12.
Old Jewry, 324.
P
Pageants, processions and tournaments, 136-153.
Paul's (St.) Cathedral, 331-335;
tombs, 341;
choir, 342, 344;
nave, 341, 342;
reredos, 343;
altars, 343;
dean and chapter, 345, 346.
---- dimensions of the old cathedral, 332, 333.
Paul's (St.) Cathedral Close, buildings in, 335-338;
gates, 336, 337;
folkmoot held in the precincts, 10.
Paul's Cross, 337.
Paul's (St.) School, 337.
Peasants' rising under Wat Tyler, 47-63.
Penthouses in the streets, 39.
_Piers Plowman_, references to London in, 71, 72.
---- Professor Skeat's edition of, 73 (note).
Pile dwellings in London, 2.
Pindar's (Sir Paul) mansion, 398.
Pirates in the Thames, 280-282.
Pui, brotherhood of the, musical society of French merchants, 153-157.
---- regulations, 154-157.
Plagues in London, 197-209;
(black death, 1349), 197-200;
1361, 200;
1368-1369, 200;
1430-1440, 200;
regulations, 200-205;
statistics of deaths, 207.
Population of London, various estimates, 46.
---- of certain great towns, 47.
Port-reeve, derivation of, 219.
Poulterers of London, 311-312.
Prisons of London, 45, 379;
Borough Compter, 379;
Clink, 379;
King's Bench, 379;
Marshalsea, 379;
burnt by mob, 54;
White Lion, 379.
Privy Council, Mayor's summons to, on accession of sovereign, 245, 246.
Punishments and fines in London, 42.
Pursers or glovers of London, 318.
Q
Queenhithe, early history, 93, 94.
---- and Billingsgate, the chief wharfs, 30.
R
Rahere, founder of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, 180-183.
Recorder of London, 270.
Religious houses, dissolution of, 368.
Remembrancer or State Amanuensis of London, 272.
River, the, and the bridge, 90-107.
Roman villa, foundations of, discovered on north
side of Upper Thames Street in 1847, 30.
Round (J. Horace) on the early governors of London, 220;
views as to the justiciar, 221;
on the character of the Commune, 225.
S
Sanctuary in London, 370-372.
Sanitation of London, 211-217.
Schools of London, 372-374.
Seals: London Common Seal, 261-262;
Mayoralty seals, 262-263;
Henry Fitz Ailwin, 231;
Robert Fitz-Walter, 269;
St. Bartholomew's Hospital, 180.
Selds or warehouses in London, 39.
Serfdom, abolition of, 50.
Sheriffs of London, 219-221, 257-259;
elected by mayor, aldermen and commonalty of city, 258.
Shakespeare in London, 387, 395, 396.
Skeat (Professor), his edition of _Piers Plowman_, 73 (note).
Skinners' Company, London, 316.
Skivins, assistants to the mayor, 227.
Smithfield, tournaments held at, 25.
Southwark, chief thoroughfare from London to the South of England, 376;
St. Mary Overy, 376;
inns, 379;
prisons, 379.
Sports and pastimes in London, 131-136.
Staple, merchants of, 286; ordinance of, 287;
staple towns, 287.
Staple inn, 396.
Statute merchant of London, 328, 329
Steelyard, merchants of, 278, 279.
Streets, narrowness of, 383.
Suburbs of London, 385, 386.
Suffolk (William de la Pole, Duke of), 64.
Suffolk's (Duchess of) escape from London, 381.
Surgeons, 171;
barbers as, 171, 178, 179;
military, 171;
gild of, 174-176;
sergeant, 177 (note);
fellowship of, 178.
Surrey, etymology of, 17, 18;
formerly an integral part of Kent, 19.
Sweating sickness in London, 209-211.
Sword-bearer of London, 272.
T
Tabard (The), at Southwark, 88.
Temple, right-of-way through the, 96.
Temple Bar, 391;
closing of, to sovereign, 241, 242.
Thames (River), 90-100;
attempts of landowners to close lanes leading to, 96-99;
infested by pirates, 280-282;
sports on, 90, 91;
as a highway, 90-92;
localities adjoining northern bank, 95;
use of unlawful nets, 99.
Thomas's (St.) Hospital, 191, 192;
destroyed by fire, 191;
rebuilt, 192.
Tower of London, origin of the name, 108, 109;
fortress planned by the Conqueror, 110;
alterations and additions by Henry III., 111, 112;
additions by Edward III., 117, 118;
menagerie of wild beasts, 123, 124;
prisoners, 125-127;
ceremony of locking the gates, 114, 115;
as a fortress, 112-114;
as a palace, 113-125;
as a prison, 125-130;
King's Palace, 108-130;
St. John's Chapel, 123.
Tower Green, names of celebrities beheaded there, 127, 128.
Town Clerk of London, 270.
Town populations, conditions of, 162.
Trade and Commerce, 277-329.
Traitors' Gate, Tower of London, 129, 130.
Trevelyan (G. M.), _England in the Age of Wycliffe_ referred to, 48, 370.
V
Vicary (Thomas), famous surgeon, 177, 189.
Victualling and clothing trades, feud between, 235-238, 304, 305.
Vintners of London, 313-315.
W
Walled town and its streets, 21-70.
Wat Tyler's rebellion, 48-63;
demands of the rebels, 56, 57, 60.
Water fetched from conduits, 383.
Weavers' gild, London, 303, 304.
Weights and measures, 288;
King's great beam or tron, 289.
Westminster, 376.
White Friars in London, 365.
William the Conqueror outside London, 15;
citizens repair to him at Berkhamsted, 15.
Windows, glass only used by the opulent, 39;
mere apertures, 40.
Woad merchants in Cannon Street, 279.
Women of bad repute restricted to certain garb, 44.
Wyat's (Sir Thomas) insurrection, 380.
* * * * *
THE END
EDINBURGH
COLSTONS LIMITED
PRINTERS
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Journal, Anthropological Society, vol. v. pp. lxxi.-lxxx.
[2] _Lake Dwellings in Europe_, 1890, pp. 460-464.
[3] Elton, _Origins of English History_, p. 360.
[4] Rev. W. Sparrow Simpson, _Chapters in the History of Old St.
Paul's_, 1881, p. 3.
[5] _Archæologia_, vol. xxxii. pp. 298-311.
[6] _Norman Conquest_, vol. i. pp. 44-46.
[7] The Treaty was really made at Chippenham.
[8] _See_ Earle's edition of the Saxon Chronicle. Mr Charles Plummer,
who edited a new edition of _Two of the Saxon Chronicles, Parallel_
(Oxford, 1892-99), does not altogether agree with Earle in these
views. He holds that no distinction was meant between Lunden and
Lundenburh.
[9] Quoted in _Archæologia_, vol. xxxix. p. 56.
[10] _Heimskringla_, done into English out of the Icelandic by William
Morris and Eirikr Magnusson, vol. ii. p. 14.
[11] _Norman Conquest_, vol. i. p. 418.
[12] This device of Cnut's is one of great interest, although we have
no details of how it was carried out. The late Sir Walter Besant
contended that it was not the great work which some had supposed, and
he made an elaborate plan of his suggestion as to its construction.
(See _South London_, 1899, p. 40.)
[13] A very instructive article on 'The Conqueror's Footprints in
Domesday,' which contains an account of his movements after the Battle
of Senlac, between Enfield, Edmonton, Tottenham, and Berkhamsted, was
published in the _English Historical Review_, vol. xiii. (1898), p. 17.
[14] _See_ Dr. Reginald Sharpe's _London and the Kingdom_, to the
contents of which valuable work I am pleased to express my great
obligations.
[15] _Archæologia_, vol. xxxii. p. 305.
[16] Riley's Introduction to _Liber Albus_ (Rolls Series), 1859, vol.
i. p. cx.
[17] _Political Poems and Songs_, ed. T. Wright (Rolls Series), 1861,
vol. ii. pp. 157-205.
[18] _See_ Riley's _Memorials_, pp. 21, 93; also _Liber Albus_, p. 240.
[19] Records of St. Giles's, Cripplegate (1883).
[20] It is scarcely creditable to the city authorities that no
mark of the position of the other gates has been set up. To place
these memorials would be an easy thing to do, and this attention to
historical topography would be highly appreciated by all Londoners.
The mark of Aldgate should take the form of a statue of Chaucer,
who lived at that gate for some years. The Corporation would honour
themselves by doing further honour to the great Englishman, who was
also one of the greatest of Londoners, if they placed at the great
eastern entrance to London a full length effigy of the son of one of
London's worthy merchants. This would be in addition to the gift of a
bust to Guildhall by Sir Reginald Hanson. The line of the wall should
also be marked, but this would be a more difficult operation.
[21] _Liber Albus_, p. 603.
[22] William Fitz-Stephen's invaluable work has been printed several
times both in the original Latin and in an English translation. The
most convenient form is the reprint in Thoms's edition of Stow's
_Survey_, 1842 or 1876.
[23] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 79.
[24] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 489.
[25] _History of English Law before Edward I._, vol. i. p. 633.
[26] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 479.
[27] Stow's _Chronicle_, ed. 1615, p. 300.
[28] Quoted in Turner's _Domestic Architecture in England_, vol. i. p.
18.
[29] Quoted in Turner's _Domestic Architecture in England_, vol. i. p.
22.
[30] Riley's Introduction to _Liber Albus_, pp. xxxiii., xxxiv.
[31] Riley's Introduction to _Liber Albus_, p. xxxii.
[32] Riley's Introduction to _Liber Albus_, p. xxxiii.
[33] Translation of the _Liber Albus_, p. 263, and Riley's
Introduction to _Liber Albus_, p. lix.
[34] Letter Book B, p. i.
[35] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 54.
[36] _Ibid._, p. 86.
[37] _Ibid._, p. 458.
[38] Riley's Introduction to _Liber Albus_, p. lii.
[39] From an 'Anominalle Cronicle,' once belonging to St. Mary's
Abbey, York. The original apparently has been lost, and the copy now
existing is a late sixteenth-century manuscript of this portion of the
Chronicle in the handwriting of Francis Thynne. It is now preserved
in the British Museum (Stowe MS. 1047), and was one of the Duke of
Buckingham's MSS. in the library at Stowe, Bucks, which came into
the possession of the Earl of Ashburnham, and was sold by his son to
the nation. It was published by Mr. G. M. Trevelyan in the _English
Historical Review_, vol. xiii. (1898), p. 509. It is a curious
circumstance, that it may be referred to as the 'Stowe MS.,' because
it comes from the Stowe collection, or as the 'Stow MS.,' because it
was used by the historian, John Stow.
[40] Trevelyan, p. 226.
[41] Trevelyan, p. 227.
[42] Trevelyan, p. 227.
[43] Trevelyan, p. 234.
[44] Trevelyan, p. 240.
[45] Stow's _Chronicle_, ed. 1615, p. 288.
[46] _English Historical Review_, xiii. p. 519.
[47] Stow's _Chronicle_, p. 288.
[48] _Second Part of King Henry VI._, act iv. sc. i
[49] _Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_, ed. J. Gairdner (Camden
Society), 1880, p. 94.
[50] Stow's _Chronicle_, ed. 1615, p. 391.
[51] Rendle and Norman's _Inns of Old Southwark_, 1888, p. 134.
[52] _Historical Collections of a Citizen of London_, ed. Gairdner
(Camden Society), p. 191. The chief contents of this volume consist of
the valuable 'Chronicle of William Gregory, Skinner' (1189-1469).
[53] _Ibid._, p. xxii.
[54] Vernon Text (A), ed. Skeat, pp. vi., 60.
[55] _Piers Plowman_ (Text C), ed. Skeat, pass. xvii. II. 286-296.
[56] There was another Cock Lane near Shoreditch (now Boundary
Street), which may be the one connected with Langland.
[57] _Piers Plowman_, part iv. sect. ii. p. xliii.
[58] It is scarcely possible to keep within bounds one's enthusiasm
for the magnificent edition of _Piers Plowman_, which Professor
Skeat has placed in our hands. I feel, having watched the work from
its inception in 1866, when 'Parallel Extracts from 29 Manuscripts'
was published, that if the Early English Text Society had published
nothing else it would have worthily justified its existence. The
labour bestowed on the work by its editor is immense, and the result
is that we have for the first time a perfect text of one of the most
influential works in English literature, with all the illustrative
notes necessary to exhibit its vast effect upon English history.
[59] Hoccleve's Works, vol. i. Minor Poems, ed. by F. J. Furnivall
(Early English Text Society, Extra Series), p. 61, 1891. The editor
has gathered much fresh material for the biography of Hoccleve.
[60] _Gower's Complete Works_, ed. G. C. Macaulay, Oxford, 1899, vol.
i.
[61] Of these especial honour is due to Dr. Furnivall, who has for
years sought ceaselessly and with the greatest success for documentary
evidence of the facts of Chaucer's life.
[62] Chaucer at Aldgate, _Home Counties Magazine_, Oct. 1900, p. 259.
[63] Chaucer at Aldgate (_Folia Litteraria_, 1893, p. 87).
[64] _Folia Litteraria_, pp. 88, 89.
[65] _Folia Litteraria_, p. 100.
[66] _Scrope and Grosvenor Roll_, vol. i. p. 178 (translated from
French).
[67] _See_ letter of Prof. J. W. Hales, _Athenæum_, Aug. 9, 1902, p.
190.
[68] The Tabard was one among many inns from which travellers started
on their journeys along the road to Canterbury and to the seaports of
the South. The whole of the buildings which Chaucer knew were burnt in
the great Southwark fire of 1676.
[69] Commune, p. 246. Further consideration is given to the condition
of trade in London in the Middle Ages in chapter x.
[70] _Liber Custumarum_, ed. H. T. Riley, 1860, p. xxxvi.
[71] _Liber Custumarum_, p. cix.
[72] Inquis. 1 _Henr. V._, quoted by Riley, p. cix.
[73] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 306.
[74] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 376.
[75] _Riley's Memorials_, p. 648.
[76] _Ibid._, p. 215.
[77] _Ibid._, p. 219.
[78] _Ibid._, p. 220.
[79] Cal. Letter Book A, p. 187.
[80] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 509.
[81] _Chronicle of Mayors and Sheriffs_, pp. 146, 147, quoted in Cal.
Letter Book C, p. 61 (note).
[82] Cal. Letter Book C, p. 133.
[83] _Ibid._, p. 95.
[84] Cal. Letter Book B, p. 219.
[85] Cal. Letter Book A, pp. 178, 179.
[86] Stow's _Chronicle_, p. 681.
[87] W. B. Rye's _England as seen by Foreigners_, 1865, pp. 9, 192.
[88] _Liber Custumarum_, ed. Riley, 1860, p. ciii.
[89] Round's _Geoffrey de Mandeville_, 1892, pp. 328-346.
[90] _Mediæval Military Architecture_, 1884, vol. ii. p. 204.
[91] _Mediæval Military Architecture_, 1884, vol. ii. p. 205.
[92] _Mediæval Military Architecture_, 1884, vol. ii. p. 253.
[93] _Mediæval Military Architecture_, vol. ii. p. 271.
[94] 'Geoffrey de Mandeville.'
[95] _London and the Kingdom_, vol. i. p. 53.
[96] Stow's _Chronicle_, p. 193.
[97] Longman's _Edward III._, vol. i. p. 179.
[98] Clark's _Mediæval Military Architecture_, vol. ii. p. 271.
[99] _Liber Custumarum_, pp. 407-409.
[100] Clark's _Mediæval Military Architecture_, vol. ii. p. 264.
[101] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 320.
[102] Stow's _Chronicle_, p. 896.
[103] Proclamation was made against playing at football in the fields
near the city as early as 1314 during the mayoralty of Nicholas de
Farndone, _Liber Memorandorum_ (preserved at Guildhall), folio 66
(quoted in Riley's _Memorials_, p. 571 (note)).
[104] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 561.
[105] _Ibid._, p. 571.
[106] Riley's _Memorials_, pp. 509-510.
[107] _Ibid._, p. 510 (note).
[108] Stow's _Chronicle_, p. 208.
[109] Riley's _Memorials_, pp. 105-107.
[110] Jessopp's _Coming of the Friars_, etc., 1889, p. 177.
[111] Stow's _Chronicle_, p. 264.
[112] Stow's _Survey of London_, ed. by Strype, 1754, vol. i. p. 303.
[113] Gregory's _Chronicle_ (_Historical Collections of a Citizen
of London_, ed. J. Gairdner, Camden Society, 1876), p. 165. This
_Chronicle_ contains a full description of the coronation and of the
banquet in Westminster Hall.
[114] This description is taken from Fabyan's _Chronicle_. The
speeches in the pageant were by Lydgate, who also wrote a long poem on
the 'Coming of the King out of France to London.'
[115] The particulars respecting the sermon on Edward IV.'s title were
obtained by Dr. J. Gairdner from a Latin Chronicle, printed by the
Camden Society (_Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_, 1880, pp. xxii.
173), as also his sitting in the royal seat (_sedes regalis_), which
Dr. Gairdner supposes to be the King's Bench.
[116] Stow's _Chronicle_, p. 416.
[117] Information on London pageants can be obtained from a small
octavo volume published by J. B. Nichols & Son in 1831, and from
Nichols's _Progresses of Queen Elizabeth and James I._
[118] _Liber Custumarum_, p. 579.
[119] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 42.
[120] _See_ Mr. Riley's Introduction to the _Liber Custumarum_, pp.
xlviii.-liv.
[121] _Liber Custumarum_, p. xxxii.
[122] Glossary to _Liber Custumarum_, p. 795.
[123] Riley's Introduction to _Liber Albus_, pp. lv., lvii.
[124] Introduction to _Liber Albus_, p. lviii.
[125] In the compilation of this chapter I am much indebted to the
kindness of my friend Mr. D'Arcy Power, who has not only helped me
with information from his own great knowledge of the history of
surgery and medicine, but who also drew my attention to and lent me
books and pamphlets of which I should otherwise have been ignorant.
[126] _Coming of the Friars_, London, 1889, p. 6.
[127] _A History of Epidemics in Britain_, 2 vols. 8vo, Cambridge,
1891-1894.
[128] _Medical Times and Gazette_, November 18, 1881, p. 601.
[129] _Progress of Medicine at St. Batholomew's Hospital_, 1888, p. 5.
[130] _See_ the _British Medical Journal_, 1902, vol. ii. p. 1176.
[131] In 'How Surgery became a Profession in London.' London, _Medical
Magazine_, 1899.
[132] Dr. Poore has analysed the different points in Chaucer's
description, and explained the various allusions of the statement that
the doctor's line of study had little to do with the Bible. Dr. Poore
writes: 'This line is frequently quoted to show that the scepticism
with which doctors are often charged is of no modern growth. The
point of the line is however to be found in the fact that Chaucer's
doctor was certainly a priest, as were all the physicians of his
time, and that the practice of medicine had drawn him away, somewhat
unduly, perhaps, from the clerical profession, to which he also
belonged.'--G.V. Poore, M.D. _London from the Sanitary and Medical
Point of View_, 1889, p. 52.
[133] _Joannis Anglici praxis medica, Rosa Anglica dicta_ (Augsburg,
1595, lib. ii. p. 1050), quoted by J. J. Jusserand (_English Wayfaring
Life in the Middle Ages_, 1901, p. 180), and by J. Flint South (_Craft
of Surgery_, 1886, p. 29.)
[134] D'Arcy Power's _How Surgery became a Profession in London_
(1899), which valuable article contains a full account of the scheme.
[135] _Ibid._, p. 9.
[136] D'Arcy Power's _How Surgery became a Profession in London_, p. 9.
[137] _Ibid._, p. 1.
[138] He was born in 1307 (Sloane MS., No. 75).
[139] See _John Arderne and his Time_, by William Anderson, F.R.C.S.,
1899 (reprinted from the _Lancet_, Oct. 23); J. F. South's _Memorials
of the Craft of Surgery_, ed. by D'Arcy Power, M.A., F.R.C.S., 1886,
pp. 30-45; also _London from the Sanitary and Medical Point of View_,
by G. V. Poore, M.D., F.R.C.P., 1889, pp. 53-56.
[140] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 274.
[141] _How Surgery became a Profession in London_, pp. 3, 4.
[142] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 337.
[143] _Ibid._, p. 519.
[144] _Ibid._, p. 520.
[145] _How Surgery became a Profession in London_, p. 4.
[146] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 651.
[147] _How Surgery became a Profession in London_, pp. 2, 3.
[148] 'William Hobbes (appointed in 1461) was the first Serjeant
Surgeon, a distinguished office which carried with it certain
well-defined professional privileges. Thomas Morstede, William
Bredewardyne, and John Harwe, who attended Henry V. in his French
campaigns, did not receive this title, but are called simply
"_Surgeons to the King_."'--D'Arcy Power, _The Serjeant Surgeons of
England and their Office_ (_Janus_, 1900, p. 174).
[149] _How Surgery became a Profession in London_, pp. 11, 12.
[150] _Annals of the Barber Surgeons of London_, by Sidney Young.
London, 1890.
[151] _Ibid._, p. 245.
[152] London, 1885.
[153] Dr. Norman Moore has printed the Cottonian MS. Life of Rahere in
the _Bartholomew Hospital Reports_, vol. xxi., and copious extracts
from the MS. had previously been given by Mr. J. Saunders in his
articles on St. Bartholomew's in Knight's _London_, vol. ii.
[154] _Progress of Medicine_, 1888, p. 21.
[155] These documents are printed in the Appendix to _Memoranda
relating to the Royal Hospitals of London_, 1836, pp. 1-49.
[156] Reprinted in Dr. Furnivall's edition of Thomas Vicary's
_Anatomie of the Bodie of Man_, E. E. T. S., 1888, pp. 289-336.
[157] 'The Physicians and Surgeons of St. Bartholomew's Hospital
before the time of Harvey,' St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports, vol.
xviii., 1882, pp. 333-338.
[158] 'The Serjeant-Surgeons of England and their Office,' by D'Arcy
Power (_British Medical Journal_, 1900, vol. i. p. 583).
[159] The manuscript is dated 1392, but the handwriting of the copy
used by Dr. Payne is of a much later date. Dr. Payne says that the
_Anatomy_ of Vicary is absolutely that of the fourteenth century,
without any correction or addition to bring it up to the standard
of his own day, 'On an unpublished English Anatomical Treatise of
the fourteenth century, and its relation to the _Anatomy_ of Thomas
Vicary' (_British Medical Journal_, 25th January 1896, p. 208).
[160] _A History of Epidemics in Britain_, by Charles Creighton, M.D.,
1891, vol. i. pp. 97, 98.
[161] _Ibid._, p. 106.
[162] Creighton, vol. i. p. 97.
[163] _England in the Fifteenth Century_, 1888, p. 208 (note).
[164] Creighton, vol. i. p. 105.
[165] _Quarterly Review_, No. 388, p. 540.
[166] _Epidemics in Britain_, vol. i. p. 119. _See_ also _The Great
Pestilence_, by F. A. Gasquet, D.D., O.S.B., London, 1893.
[167] Riley's Introduction to _Liber Albus_, p. liv.
[168] Jessopp's _Coming of the Friars_.
[169] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 219 (note).
[170] _Ibid._, p. 240 (note).
[171] _A History of Epidemics in Britain_, vol. i. p. 202.
[172] _Ibid._, p. 228.
[173] Creighton, vol. i. pp. 313, 314.
[174] _Anatomie of the Bodie of Man_, ed. Furnivall, App. 161.
[175] _Ibid._, pp. 163, 164.
[176] _Calendar of State Papers_, Venetian, vii. 749.
[177] Creighton, vol. i. p. 316.
[178] Vicary, App. iii. p. 166.
[179] Mr. Power refers me to the fact that isolated cases of plague
and local epidemics occurred long after the Great Fire.
[180] In a broadside referring to '_The Plague of London_, printed
by Peter Cole, at the printing office in Cornhill, near the Royal
Exchange, 1665,' the number of deaths from plague in 1603, 1625 and
1636 are given as follows:--1603, 30,561 persons; 1625, 35,403; and
1636, 10,400. The numbers in 1593 are given as above.
[181] Mr Pearce gives some interesting facts in his _Annals of
Christ's Hospital_ (p. 207) respecting the effects of the plague in
1603 and 1665 on the condition of the Blue Coat School. During 1665 no
more than 32 children of the total number of 260 in the house died of
all diseases, although the neighbourhood was severely visited.
[182] Creighton, vol. i. p. 265.
[183] Creighton, p. 270.
[184] _Progress of Medicine_, 1888, p. 24.
[185] Creighton, vol. i. p. 44.
[186] _London (Ancient and Modern) from the Sanitary and Medical Point
of View_, by G. V. Poore, M.D., F.R.C.P., 1889, p. 114.
[187] _Ibid._, p. 31.
[188] Creighton, vol. i. p. 323.
[189] Stow's Chronicle, p. 212.
[190] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 67.
[191] Rymer's _Foedera_, vol. iii. p. 411.
[192] Creighton, vol. i. pp. 323, 324.
[193] Creighton, vol. i. p. 324.
[194] Riley's Introduction to _Liber Albus_, p. xl.
[195] Cal. Letter Book A.
[196] Riley's Introduction to _Liber Albus_, p. xli.
[197] Mr. Round conjectures that the 'Gosfregth Portirefan' of the
Conqueror's Charter was the first Geoffrey de Mandeville.--_Geoffrey
de Mandeville, a Study of the Anarchy_, 1892, p. 439.
[198] 'The acceptance of this view will at once dispose of the alleged
disappearance of the portreeve, with the difficulties it has always
presented, and the conjectures to which it has given rise. The style
of the "portreeve" indeed disappears, but his office does not. In the
person of the Norman vicecomes it preserves an unbroken existence.
Geoffrey de Mandeville steps, as sheriff, into the shoes of Ansgar,
the portreeve.'--_Geoffrey de Mandeville_, p. 354.
[199] _Constitutional History_, chap, xi., note to par. 131.
[200] _Select Charters_, Oxford, 1884, p. 107.
[201] _Geoffrey de Mandeville_, 1892, p. 372
[202] _Geoffrey de Mandeville_, p. 373.
[203] _Constitutional History_, chap. xiii. par 165.
[204] _Ancient Charters prior to_ 1200, edited by J. H. Round. Part
I, p. 27, 1888 (Pipe Roll Society).
[205] _The Commune of London_, p. 98.
[206] Round's _Commune of London_, pp. 223, 224.
[207] 'A London Municipal Collection of the Reign of John,' part i.,
_English Historical Review_, July 1902, p. 480.
[208] 'Nunc primum in sibi indulta conjuratione, regno regem deesse
cognovit Londonia, quam nec rex ipse Ricardus, nec prædecessor
et pater ejus Henricus pro mille millibus marcarum argenti fieri
permississet.'--_Richard of Devizes_, p. 416 (_Commune of London_, p.
223)
[209] Bishop Stubbs's _Historical Introductions_, pp. 200-309.
[210] _The Commune of London_, p. 224. The Beffroi of France was
the symbol and pledge of independence. So was the bell-tower of St.
Paul's, which is styled in documents _berefridum_ or campanile, p. 234.
[211] _The Commune of London_, p. 225.
[212] _The Commune of London_, p. 228.
[213] _Ibid._, p. 228.
[214] 1193. 'Sacramentum Commune tempore regis Ricardi quando detentus
erat Alemaniam' (Add. MS., No. 14,252, f. 112 d.), 1205-1206.
'Sacramentum xxiiij factum anno regni regis Johannis viiº.' (Add. MS.,
No. 14,252, f. 110).--(_The Commune of London_, 1899, pp. 235-237.)
[215] _Commune of London_, p. 240.
[216] A curious point is that formerly the Leges Britolii were
supposed to relate to Bristol, and the great English port obtained
credit which it did not deserve.
[217] 'The Laws of Breteuil [Britolium],' _English Historical Review_,
xv. (1900), pp. 73, 302, 496, 754.
[218] The seal is figured in '_Rotuli Curiæ Regis_. Rolls and Records
of the Court held before the King's Justiciars or Justices, ed. by Sir
Francis Palgrave,' vol. i., 1835 (plate 1), and is here reproduced.
[219] _Constitutional History_, chap. xiii. sec. 165.
[220] Cal. Letter Book B, p. 244.
[221] Cal. Letter Book A, pp. 89, 209.
[222] Rymer's _Foedera_, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 892.
[223] Cal. Letter Book C, pp. 27, 212, 213.
[224] _Constitutional History_, chap. xxi. sec. 486.
[225] Sharpe, _London and the Kingdom_, vol. i. p. 158.
[226] Letter Book F, fo. 44. Riley's Introduction to _Liber Albus_,
1859, pp. xcviii., xcix. (note).
[227] This church was destroyed in the Great Fire, and rebuilt after
the designs of Sir C. Wren. It was cleared away in 1831 to make way
for the approaches to the new London Bridge.
[228] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_, chap. xxi. sec. 487.
[229] Statutes at Large, ed. 1762, ii. 257.
[230] Riley's _Memorials_, pp. 473, 474.
[231] Riley's _Memorials_, pp. 415, 416.
[232] _Rotuli Parl._ iii. 227.
[233] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 494.
[234] _Ibid._, p. 526.
[235] Cal. Letter Book A, p. 64.
[236] _Constitutional History_, chap. xxi. sec. 488.
[237] See Jewitt and Hope's _Corporation Plate_, 1895, vol. ii., pp.
446, 463.
[238] Riley's _Memorials_, pp. 604, 605.
[239] _Historical Collections of a Citizen of London_, 1876, pp. 222,
223.
[240] _London and the Kingdom_, i. 69. 'Cives vero Lundonie servierunt
de pincernaria, et Cives Wintonie de Coquina.'--Roger de Hoveden,
Bodl. Laud., MS. 582, fo. 52. (_See_ Wickham Legg's _English
Coronation Records_, 1901, p. 50).
[241] 'Andrew the Mayor came to serve as butler with 360 cups, on the
ground that the City of London is bound to serve in butlery to help
the great butler (just as the City of Winchester serves in the kitchen
to help the steward). The King said that no one ought to serve by
right except Master Michael Belet, so the Mayor gave way and served
the two bishops on the King's right hand. '_De Servitiis magnatum in
die Coronationis Regis et Reginæ_, Red Book of the Exchequer, ed.
by Hubert Hall, pt. ii., 1896, pp. 755-760 (Rolls Series). The germ
of the Court of Claims will be found in this MS. _See_ also Wickham
Legg's _English Coronation Records_, 1901, pp. 60, 63.
[242] _English Coronation Records_, 1901, pp. 140, 159.
[243] _London and the Kingdom_, i. 275.
[244] 'Dinner being concluded, the Lord Mayor and twelve principal
citizens of London, as assistants to the Chief Butler of England,
accompanied by the King's cupbearer and assistant, presented to
His Majesty wine in a gold cup; and the King having drank thereof,
returned the gold cup to the Lord Mayor as his fee.'--L. G. Wickham
Legg, _English Coronation Records_, 1901, p. 361.
[245] The Petition of the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of London,
containing their claims fully set forth, is printed in _Coronation of
King Edward VII. The Court of Claims. Cases and Evidence_, by G. Woods
Wollaston, London, 1903, p. 52.
[246] _Constitutional History_, iii. 587.
[247] Cal. Letter Book C, p. 32.
[248] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 41.
[249] _Ibid._, p. 46.
[250] _Ibid._, p. 78.
[251] _Liber Albus_, trans. by Riley, p. 291.
[252] _Liber Albus_, p. 276.
[253] _The Aldermen of Cripplegate Ward_, by John James Baddeley,
1901, p. I (Calendar of Letter Book A, pp. 209, 226).
[254] Cal. Letter Book C, pp. 11, 12.
[255] In 1711 a return was made to the practice of nominating two
persons only, followed in 1714 by 'an Act for reviving the ancient
manner of electing aldermen'(13 Anne), which restored to the
'inhabitants their ancient rights and privileges of choosing one
person only to be their alderman.' These particulars respecting the
election of aldermen are taken from _The Aldermen of Cripplegate
Ward_, from 1276 to 1900, by Mr. Deputy John James Baddeley, who
has collected in his valuable book a considerable amount of fresh
information on the office of aldermen, etc.
[256] _Liber Albus_, translated by H. T. Riley, 1861, p. 29.
[257] Sharpe's _London and the Kingdom_, vol. i. p. 217.
[258] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 655.
[259] Cal. Letter Book A, p. 76. By the Local Government Act of 1888
the citizens of London were deprived of all right of jurisdiction over
the county of Middlesex, which had been expressly granted by various
charters.
[260] _Liber Albus_, English translation, p. 399.
[261] _The Aldermen of Cripplegate Ward_, 1900, p. 235.
[262] Mr. Baddeley continues the account of the changes in the mode
of election up to the present time: 'From 1642 to 1651 the Mayor's
claim to elect a sheriff was always contested. For the year 1652 and
for some years afterwards the Mayor neither nominated nor elected a
sheriff, but in 1662, when he would have elected one Bludworth as
sheriff, the commonalty claimed their right, although they accepted
the Mayor's nominee. The prerogative thus claimed by the Mayor,
although frequently challenged, was exercised for the most part by
subsequent Mayors down to 1674, when exception was taken to William
Roberts, whom the Mayor had formally nominated (according to a custom
which is said to have arisen in the time of Elizabeth) by drinking
to him at a public banquet. In the following year and for some years
later the Mayor exercised his prerogative of electing one of the
sheriffs without opposition. In 1703 an Act was passed declaring the
right of election of sheriffs to be in the liverymen of the several
companies of the city in Common Hall assembled.' It was, however,
lawful for the Lord Mayor to nominate for the office. 'By an Act of
1748 the Lord Mayor might continue to nominate to the extent of nine
persons in the whole.' By an Act of Common Council in 1878 the right
of election to the office of sheriff was vested in the liverymen of
the several companies of the city in Common Hall assembled. The Lord
Mayor nominating one or more freemen (not exceeding three in the
whole) for the shrievalty.
[263] _The Aldermen of Cripplegate Ward_, by J. J. Baddeley, 1900, p.
218.
[264] Letter Book F, f. 206.
[265] Letter Book H, f. 46b (Baddeley's _Aldermen of Cripplegate
Ward_, p. 215).
[266] _Corporation Plate and Insignia of Office of the Cities and
Towns of England and Wales_, by Llewellyn Jewitt, ed. and completed by
W. H. St. John Hope, 1895, vol. ii. p. 122.
[267] _Corporation Plate and Insignia of Office of the Cities and
Towns of England and Wales_, p. 120.
[268] _Archæologia_, vol. v. pp. 211-213.
[269] See _Liber Custumarum_ (Rolls Series), Introduction, p. lxxvi.
[270] Cal. Letter Book C, p. 71.
[271] Cal. Letter Book A, p. 222.
[272] _Dugdale's Baronage_, i. 220.
[273] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 178.
[274] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 236.
[275] _Ibid._, p. 178.
[276] Cal. Letter Book A, p. 161.
[277] _Calendar of Charter Rolls_, vol. i. 1903, p. 163.
[278] _Liber Custumarum_ (Rolls Series), vol i. p. 243.
[279] Calendars: Letter Book A, p. 128; Letter Book C, p. 116.
[280] Letter Book C, p. 157 (note).
[281] Letter Book B, pp. vi., xi.
[282] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 650.
[283] _Corporation Plate and Insignia of Office of the Cities and
Towns of England and Wales_, by Llewellyn Jewitt, ed. by W. H. St.
John Hope, 1895, vol. ii, pp. 100, 109.
[284] _Ibid._, p. 91.
[285] Round's _Commune of London_, p. 246.
[286] _Calender of Documents preserved in France_, ed. by J. Horace
Round, 1899, p. 502.
[287] No woollen cloth was allowed to be dyed black except with woad.
See _Liber Custumarum_, Introd., pp. xl., xliii., quoted in Letter
Book C, ed. Sharpe, pp. 135, 136 (note), from which this information
is obtained. The whole history of the cultivation and use of woad is
one of great interest. It was cultivated in England from the earliest
times, and the trade was ruined by the indigo growers as they in turn
have been ruined in our own day by the manufacture in Germany of
synthetic indigo.
[288] Sharpe's _London and the Kingdom_, vol. i. p. 215.
[289] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 444.
[290] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 345.
[291] _Calendar of State Papers_, 1611-1618, p. 369.
[292] Cal. Letter Book B, p. 236; Cal. Letter Book C, p. vii
[293] Cal. Letter Book B, p. 236.
[294] Letter Book A, p. 3; Letters-Patent for St. Botolph's Fair,
1298. Letter Book B, p. 219.
[295] _Liber Albus_, English translation, p. 473.
[296] _Liber Albus_, English translation, p. 228.
[297] Mr. W. J. Ashley writes of this town: 'The conquest of Calais
furnished a place which combined the advantages of being abroad and
therefore near the foreign market with that of being within English
territory.'--Introduction to _English Economic History and Theory_,
1888-1893, p. 112.
[298] Starkey, _England in the Reign of Henry VIII._ (Early English
Text Society), p. 173.
[299] Mr. W. J. Ashley notes that the earliest instance of the
prohibition of the export of wool is found in the action of the
Oxford Parliament of 1258. The barons then 'decreed that the wool of
the country should be worked up in England and should not be sold to
foreigners, and that every one should use woollen cloth made within
the country,' and lest people should be dissatisfied at having to put
up with the rough cloth of England they bade them 'not to seek over
precious raiment.'--_English Economic History and Theory_, 1888-1893,
part ii. p. 194.
[300] _Political Poems and Songs_, ed. T. Wright (Rolls Series), vol.
ii. 1861, pp. 157-205.
[301] Letter Book C, p. 128 (note).
[302] _Liber Custumarum_, p. xxxix.
[303] Letter Book B, p. 94.
[304] _English Gilds_, p. xvi.
[305] _Ibid._, p. lxxv.
[306] _Ibid._, p. cvii.
[307] _English Economic History and Theory_, p. 67.
[308] _Ibid._, p. 82.
[309] _English Historical Review_, No. 70 (April 1903), vol. xviii. p.
315. _See_ also _Calendar of Charter Rolls_, vol. i. (1903), p. 407.
[310] _Twelve Great Livery Companies_ (1834), vol. i. p. 24.
[311] _Chronicles of the Mayors and Sheriffs of London_, 1188-1274.
Translated from the _Liber de Antiquis Legibus_ by H. T. Riley, 1863,
p. 59.
[312] _London and the Kingdom_, vol. i. p. 101.
[313] _Ibid._, p. 108.
[314] _English Economic History and Theory_, p. 87.
[315] _London and the Kingdom_, vol. i. p. 200.
[316] _English Gilds_, p. xlii. (note).
[317] See _English Economic History and Theory_, 1888-1893, pt. ii.
pp. 134, 148, 154.
[318] _History of London_, vol. i. p. 171 (note).
[319] _London_ (Historic Towns), p. 50.
[320] _London Afternoons_, 1902, p. 88.
[321] I am indebted to Sir Owen Roberts, M.A., D.C.L., clerk to the
Clothworkers' Company, for this information.
[322] Botfield's _Manners and Household Expenses of England_, 1841.
[323] W. J. Ashley, _English Economic History and Theory_, pp. 81, 83.
[324] Cal. Letter Book C, p. 35.
[325] Madox's _Firma Burgi_, p. 286.
[326] _Town Life_, vol. ii. p. 142.
[327] The reason given for the repeal of the Act of Edward II.
excluding victuallers from the office of Mayor is that 'since the
making of the Statute many and the most part of all cities, boroughs
and towns corporate be fallen in ruin and decay, and not inhabited
with merchants and men of such substance as they were at the time
of making the Statute. For at this day the dwellers and inhabitants
of the same cities and boroughs be most commonly bakers, brewers,
vintners, fishmongers, and other victuallers, and few or none other
persons of substance.'
Mr. W. J. Ashley (Introduction to _English Economic History and
Theory_, part ii. 1893, p. 53), observes that, 'without further proof
it were hardly safe to build on the wide language of the preamble of a
Statute a conclusion which seems in obvious conflict with what we know
of the generic course of events.'
In London, evidently, little or no attention was paid to the original
Act of Edward II., but in other places this was not the case. The
Statute of Henry VIII. provided that when the Mayor was a victualler,
two honest and discreet persons, not being victuallers, should be
chosen to assist him in 'settling prices' of victuals.
[328] _Liber Custumarum_, vol i. p. 326-333.
[329] _Liber Albus_, Introduction by H. T. Riley, 1859, p. ci.
[330] _Liber Custumarum_, p. lxviii.
[331] _Liber Albus_, Introduction by H. T. Riley, p. lxxxi.
[332] _Liber Albus_, Introduction by H. T. Riley, p. lxxix.
[333] These prices, obtained from the _Liber Albus_, are of great
interest. Of course, it is necessary to bear in mind the great
difference in the value of money. It is impossible to fix a uniform
standard of comparison, but we may put the present value broadly at
between twelve and twenty times that of the reign of Edward I., the
latter being more likely to be a true one. It will thus be seen that
much food was dearer in the Middle Ages than at present. A rabbit and
its skin are considerably less valuable now, as also a partridge.
[334] _Liber Albus_, Introduction by H. T. Riley, p. lxxxii.
[335] Cal. Letter Book D, p. xix.
[336] Riley's Introduction to _Liber Albus_, p. lxii.
[337] Riley's Introduction to the _Liber Albus_, p. lxv.
[338] H. T. Riley's Introduction to _Liber Albus_, p. lxxxviii.
[339] _Ibid._, p. lxxxix.
[340] _Liber Custumarum_, ed. Riley, p. lxx.
[341] _Liber Albus_, p. xc.
[342] _Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth
Century_ (Camden Society, 1876).
[343] Diary, July 26, 1664.
[344] Whitwell (Roy. Hist. Soc. Trans., xvii. p. 208).
[345] Extracts from the Liberate Rolls relative to loans supplied
by Italian merchants to the Kings of England in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, with an Introductory Memoir by E. A. Bond
(_Archæologia_, xxviii. (1839), pp. 207-326). There has lately been
a revival of interest in this subject. In 1902 Mr. W. E. Rhodes
published a paper on 'The Italian Bankers in England, and their Loans
to Edward I. and Edward II.,' in _Historical Essays by Members of the
Owen's College, Manchester_. Mr. R. J. Whitwell read his important
paper on 'Italian Bankers and the English Crown' before the Royal
Historical Society on March 19, 1903, which is published in the
Transactions of that Society, N.S., xvii. pp. 175-233.
[346] Cal. Letter Book B, p. 94.
[347] _Ibid._, p. 165.
[348] Longman's _Edward III._, vol. ii. pp. 262, 263.
[349] _Archæologia_, vol. xxviii. p. 240.
[350] _Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_ (Camden Society, 1880), p.
9.
[351] _'De Verborum Significatione._ The Exposition of the Termes and
difficill wordes contained in the foure buiks of Regiam Maiestatem and
uthers. Collected and exponed by Master John Skene. London, 1641.'
[352] Cal. Letter Book A, ed. Dr. Reginald Sharpe, p. iv.
[353] _See_ Jewitt and Hope's _Corporation Plate_, etc., vol. ii. p.
123 (Cal. Letter Book A, p. 79).
[354] Scott's _Lectures on Mediæval Architecture_, vol. ii. p. 29.
[355] Sparrow Simpson's _Chapters in the History of Old St. Paul's_,
1881, p. 19.
[356] The dimensions as given by Dugdale agree with those stated on a
tablet which once hung in the Cathedral on a column near the tomb of
John of Gaunt. They are:--
Length 690 ft.
Breadth 130 ft.
Height of roof of west part from floor 102 ft.
Height of roof of new fabric (viz., east from steeple) 88 ft.
Body of church 150 ft.
Height of tower steeple from the level ground 260 ft.
Height of the spire of wood, covered with lead 274 ft.
'And yet the whole, viz., tower and spire, exceedeth not' 520 ft.
Cross, 'length' above the ball 15 ft.
Cross, traverse 6 ft.
Ball contains ten bushels of corn.
Space on which the cathedral stands, 3-1/2 acres, 1-1/2 roods, 6 perches.
--(_Documents Illustrating the History of St. Paul's Cathedral_,
Camden Society, 1880, p. 191.)
Mr. Edmund B. Ferrey, who worked on Hollar's plans, and made
illustrations for Mr. William Longman's _Three Cathedrals of St. Paul_
(1873), considers that Dugdale's figures are untrustworthy. His own
figures are:--
Length (inclusive of end walls) 596 ft.
Breadth (including aisle walls) 104 ft.
Height of roof, west part (up to ridge of vaulting) 93 ft.
Height of roof (up to vault ridge) to 'choir proper' 101 ft. 6 in.
Height of roof at Lady Chapel 98 ft. 6 in.
External height (ground to ridge of outer roof to choir) 142 ft.
External height (ground to ridge of outer roof to nave) 130 ft.
Height of tower steeple from level ground 285 ft.
Height of the spire covered with lead 208 ft.
(or 204 ft. if calculated from top of tower parapet).
--(Longman's _Three Cathedrals dedicated to St. Paul in London_, 1873,
p. 30).
It will be seen that Mr. Ferrey's figures, formed on careful
calculations, not only differ considerably from those of Dugdale, but
in the case of the relative heights of the nave and choir they are
positively opposite. Mr. Ferrey came to the conclusion that the choir
was decidedly higher than the nave.
[357] _Old St. Paul's Cathedral_, by Canon Benham, D.D. (Portfolio
Monograph), 1902, pp. 6, 7.
[358] Simpson's _History of Old St. Paul's_, 1881, p. 64.
[359] Stow quoted in Longman's _Three Cathedrals_, p. 57.
[360] In 1633 Inigo Jones designed, at the expense of Charles I., a
classic portico of some beauty in itself, but quite incongruous to the
Gothic design of the rest of the building. The King, however, is said
to have intended to rebuild the church, and of this scheme the portico
was an instalment, but political events effectually prevented this
from being carried out. After the Restoration, but before the Fire of
London, it was proposed to rebuild the Cathedral in the style of the
Renaissance, under the direction of Wren, who had no more liking for
Gothic than Inigo Jones had.
[361] _History of Old St. Paul's_, 1881, pp. 62, 63.
[362] The name of London House Yard preserves the memory of the palace.
[363] Paul's Cross was pulled down in 1642, but its site was long
marked by a tall elm tree. This mark passed away and the exact
position was forgotten. In 1879, however, Mr. F. C. Penrose found
the remains of the octagonal base, which are now to be seen at the
north-east angle of the choir of the present Cathedral.
[364] During the Commonwealth it was proposed to turn the so-called
Convocation House into a meeting-place for Mr. John Simpson's
congregation. A plan (dated 1657) in the Public Record Office (Council
of State Order Book, 1657-1658, p. 172) shows the remains of the
pillars of the cloisters as they were then. This plan is reproduced in
_Documents Illustrating the History of St. Paul's Cathedral_ (Camden
Society, 1880), p. 154.
[365] The amount of the offerings at St. Paul's during the Middle
Ages must have been enormous; for instance, the receipts at the Great
Crucifix, in May 1344, amounted to no less than £50 in the money of
that day.--Dr. Sparrow Simpson's _History of Old St. Paul's_, p. 83.
[366] Simpson's _History of Old St. Paul's_, p. 90.
[367] The late Dr. Sparrow Simpson's Documents illustrating the
History of St. Paul's Cathedral (Camden Society, 1880) contains a list
of altars in old St. Paul's (p. 178), and a list of chapels (p. 181).
[368] Dugdale quoted in Longman's _Three Cathedrals_, p. 58.
[369] Simpson's _History of Old St. Paul's_, p. 91.
[370] _London_ (Historic Towns), 1887, p. 158.
[371] _Liber Albus_, translated by Riley, pp. 24-27.
[372] Historical Introduction to the Rolls Series. Collected by Arthur
Hassall, 1902, p. 77.
[373] In connection with the history of the Austin Friars the fact
that the church of the friary still exists is one of great interest.
At the dissolution a large portion of the friary was given to Lord St.
John, afterwards Marquis of Winchester and Lord Treasurer. The church
was reserved by the King, and the nave still remains.
[374] Dugdale (_Warwickshire_, ed. 1730, p. 186), says that the
Patriarch Albert prescribed for the Carmelite Friars a parti-coloured
mantle of white and red, and that Pope Honorius III., disliking this,
appointed in 1285 that it should be all white.
[375] G. M. Trevelyan, _England in the Age of Wycliffe_, p. 139.
[376] _Dictionary of National Biography_ (Anne), vol. i. p. 424.
[377] Riley's _Memorials_, p. 630.
[378] Cal. Letter Book B, pp. xiii.-xv.
[379] _Ibid._, p. 215.
[380] In Gross's _Select Cases from Coroner's Rolls_ (Selden Society,
Introduction, p. xxx.), instances are given of the part played by the
privilege of sanctuary in thwarting criminal justice.
[381] _Constitutional History of England_, chap. xxi. para. 496.
[382] Master Hugh de Whytington was master of the scholars of St.
Martin-le-Grand in 1298 (Cal. Letter Book B, p. 73).
[383] _Survey_, ed. Thoms, pp. 27, 28.
[384] Foxe, _Acts and Monuments_, ed. 1597, p. 1885; Holinshed, p.
1142. This incident will be recognised as the groundwork of Mr.
Weyman's delightful romance of _Francis Cludde_.
[385] _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_ (seventh edition), 1887,
vol. i. p. 124.
[386] _Life of William Shakespeare_, 1898, p. 70.
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
the gate of Bisshopesgate=> the gate of Bishopesgate {pg 27}
at Clerkemwell=> at Clerkenwell {pg 55}
various prominent citzens=> various prominent citizens {pg 145}
oaths shall he taken=> oaths shall be taken {pg 265}
a wine merhant of Bergerac=> a wine merchant of Bergerac {pg 271}
The number or trades=> The number of trades {pg 303}
their folk moots=> their folkmoots {pg 337}
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Story of London" ***
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