Cannon Street BridgeCANNON STREET RAILWAY BRIDGE, LONDON
CANNON STREET RAILWAY BRIDGE, LONDON
Even the prehistoric tribes wanted to be remembered by their posterity, so they built enduring barrows or set up cromlechs to their ancestor-worship, this being their spiritual bond between past and present and future. In the Middle Ages also, though disease and filth and bloodshed made life as uncertain as a game of chance, the social egotism that built and purchased for itself had faith in the future, and claimed and got full value for its money. In fact, from nearly all specimens of mediæval handicraft we may learn why the peoples of Europe survived terrible crises and bred men of genius to represent them for ever. In each race, and particularly in ours, there was a wonderful endurance, certainly based on the creed of self, but admirable all the same, like the tough elasticity of yew timber. The ruling egotism was honest in nearly all its private work, but when it was expected to be equally thorough as a public servant, then a habit of dishonesty appeared in handicrafts, sometimes to be followed by new laws or by threatening proclamations. Again and again the conscription of the archery laws was imperilled by bowyers and fletchers and merchants, who formed “rings” and flooded the markets with nefarious work to be sold at high prices. Certain bridges, also, and notably the one at Berwick-on-Tweed, fell so often that the supervision of town authorities must have been exceedingly lax. On this point, M. Jusserand says:—“London Bridge itself, so rich, so useful, so admired, had frequent need of reparation, and this was never done until danger was imminent, or even till catastrophehad happened. HenryIIIgranted the farm of the bridge revenues to his ‘beloved wife,’ who neglected to maintain the bridge, appropriating to herself without scruple the rents of the building; none the less did the king renew his patent at the expiration of the term, that the queen might benefit ‘from a richer favour.’ The outcome of these favours was not long to wait; soon it was found that the bridge was in ruins, and to restore it the ordinary resources were not enough; it was necessary to send collectors throughout the country to gather offerings from those willing to give. EdwardIbegged his people to hasten (January, 1281), the bridge would give way if they did not send prompt assistance; and he ordered the archbishops, bishops, all the clergy, to let his collectors address the people with ‘pious exhortations’ that the subsidies should be given without delay. But the money thus urgently needed arrived too late; the catastrophe had already happened, a ‘sudden ruin’ befell the bridge, and to repair this misfortune the king established a special tax upon the passengers, merchandise and boats (February 4, 1282), which tax was enacted again and a new tariff put into force on May 7, 1306....”
What were the citizens doing while HenryIIIand his dear wife ruined the bridge by confiscating her revenues? Did they believe that everybody’s affair was nobody’s business, and that they would be asked to mend the bridge if they drew attention to her condition? As to EdwardI, he kept his hand away from his own pocket, and personatedcharity that for ever begs. “Each for Himself” was a policy that suited Edward; and his orders to the clergy proved that he knew it to be a policy which his loyal subjects followed as a habit. Hence the “pious exhortations,” with indulgences also, we may rest assured. The whole story is pitifully ironic. London had no other bridge over the Thames, yet the people looked on while a king and his wife played the part of bridge wreckers. Some protest there must have been, for London Bridge—a great street of timber houses—was more populous than many a village; and the tenants, like other Englishmen of those days, had no wish to be plunged into cold water. According to Stow’s “Annals,” five arches fell, so many houses also were lost, perhaps with their inmates.
M. Jusserand believes that during the Middle Ages our English highways fared no better than London Bridge. His verdict runs thus: “Though there were roads, though property was burdened with obligatory services for their upkeep, though laws every now and again recalled their obligations to the possessors of the soil, though from time to time the private interest of lords and of monks, in addition to the public interest, suggested and directed repairs, yet the fate of a traveller in a fall of snow or in a thaw was very precarious. The Church might well have pity on the wayfarer; and him she specified, together with the sick and the captive, among those unfortunates whom she recommended to the daily prayers of pious souls.”
There is a great deal of evidence to justify this verdict,but evidence in history depends on its choice; and in Thorold Rogers there are other facts that leave England with some efficient mediæval roads, along which horsemen could travel rapidly. Perhaps Rogers may have set too much store by his data; but when we study all the evidence, when we balance it carefully, and visualise all its pictures of well-tested negligence and crime, one thing is beyond all doubt: that the social rule, “Each for All, yet Each for Himself,” was a national catastrophe. Its first principle had a very precarious life, though incessant compulsion tried to drive it home to the people’s fear of revengeful laws; whereas the second principle—“Each for Himself”—was so popular as a creed that even the divine mysteries beyond death were assailed by egoists, who thought they could buy a place in heaven by giving lands and goods to the Church, no matter what harm they had done in a brief life upon earth. Study Erasmus in his wayfaring letters, and you will breathe the atmosphere of the Middle Ages.
OLD LONDON BRIDGEOLD LONDON BRIDGE, BEGUN BY PETER COLECHURCH IN 1176, AND FINISHED BY A FRENCHMAN, CALLED ISEMBERT, IN THE YEAR 1209
OLD LONDON BRIDGE, BEGUN BY PETER COLECHURCH IN 1176, AND FINISHED BY A FRENCHMAN, CALLED ISEMBERT, IN THE YEAR 1209