Fig. 26.—Danish Swordfrom the Thames.
In Fabyan’s Chronicle is the following curious passage referring to the reign of Ethelred: “In the third year [982] a great part of the city was wasted by fire. But you shall understand that the city of London had most building from Ludgate towards Westminster, and little or none where the heart of the city is now, except in divers places was housing, but without order, so that many cities in England passed London in building, as I have known by an old book sometime at Guildhall named Domysdaye.” From another passage quoted below (p. 189) it would appear that this book was about the age of the great Domesday (1087).
FitzStephen also tells us that the Palace of Westminster was joined to the city by apopulous suburb. In early thirteenth-century documents the Strand is sometimes calledVico Dacorum.The church still called St. Clement Danes certainly, as we shall see, dates from before the Conquest, and in some special way was the church of the Danes. The early existence of this western suburb would explain satisfactorily the name of Westminster, and possibly its origin. We first hear of the Abbey, independently of its own documents, towards the end of the tenth century, when in 997 Elfwic signs a charter as abbot of Westminster.[119]It is probable that Cnut was the first to choose Westminster for a royal residence, and Harold I. was buried here. All these facts go to show that the Strand in Cnut’s day had become the Danish quarter. And London itself had become so Danish that Malmesbury says Harold I. was elected by the Danes and the citizens of London, who from long intercourse with these barbarians had almost entirely adopted their customs.
An account in theJomsvikinga Saga, however inaccurate in detail, contains some interesting allusions to the Danes in London.
We are told that Sweyn made warfare in the land of King Ethelred and drove him out of theland; he put “Thingamannalid” in two places. The one in “Lundunaborg” was ruled by Eilif Thorgilsson, who had sixty ships in the “Temps,” the other was north in Slesvik. The Thingamen made a law that no one should stay away a whole night. They gathered at the Bura church every night when a large bell was rung, but without weapons. He who had command in the town [London] was Eadric Streona. Ulfkel Snilling ruled over the northern part of England [East Anglia]. The power of the Thingamen was great. There was a fair there [in London] twice in every twelvemonth, one about midsummer, and the other about midwinter. The English thought it would be the easiest to slay the Thingamen while Cnut was young (he was ten winters old) and Sweyn dead. About Yule waggons went into the town to the market, and they were all tented over by the treacherous advice of Ulfkel Snilling and Ethelred’s sons. Thord, a man of the Thingamannalid, went out of the town to the house of his mistress, who asked him to stay, because the death was planned of all the Thingamen by English men concealed in the waggons, when the Danes should go unarmed to the church. Thord went into the town and told it to Eilif. Theyheard the bell ringing, and when they came to the churchyard there was a great crowd, who attacked them. Eilif escaped with three ships and went to Denmark. Some time after, Edmund was made king. After three winters Cnut, Thorkel, and Eric went with eight hundred ships to England. Thorkel had thirty ships, and slew Ulfkel Snilling, and married Ulfhild his wife, daughter of King Ethelred. With Ulfkel was slain every man on sixty ships, and Cnut took Lundunaborg.
The massacre of the Danes at the “Bura church” must be the same event as is noticed by Stow in his account of St. Clement Danes, and also by Matthew of Westminster under the year 1012. Stow seems to suggest that it was in consequence of an attack on Chertsey Abbey. Messrs. Napier and Stevenson, in a recent reference to this story in theirCrawford Charters, are “inclined to think that this account of the fate of the Jomsborg Thingamenn is based on real events.” They have found Eilif and Thordr signing charters for Cnut. The fight with Ulfkel was at Ringmere, near Thetford.
The fact of Cnut’s drawing his ships above the bridge, as described in the English Chronicles,when taken together with the above, would seem to suggest as a possibility that the intention was to reach an English fleet lying there. The Thingamannalid appears to have manned a fleet of occupation; it seems to have been none other than the original of the company of the Lithsmen of London mentioned in the English Chronicles, and about which such various opinions have been held.[120]
Even the details of the fairs, the covered waggons, and the church-bell have some historical value. It seems probable that the Danish occupation of this quarter outside the walls of the city may date from the arrangement made between Guthrum and Alfred.
Portlands and Cnihten Gild.—London was surrounded by a wide zone of common land, the boundary of which in its late and probably lessened extent was defined by bars on the several roads, such as Temple Bar, Holborn Bar, Spital Bar, Red Cross Bar, and the bars without Aldersgate and Aldgate. These bars can be traced back tothe twelfth century.[121]In 1181-88 the land or the canons of St. Paul’s without the bar beyond Bishopsgate is mentioned.[122]
The “bars” seem to have been posts; those at the limit of Bridge Ward against Southwark were called “stulpes” (by Stow) or “stoples” (in 1372, Riley’sMemorials). In the Hundred Roll of Edward I. we hear of a citizen who had put “stapellos” in front of his house.[123]From these analogies I had come to the conclusion that Staples Inn was the inn at Holborn Bars, or Staples, and I find that this suggestion has already been made because “staple” is Saxon for “post.”[124]The land out to the bars is called suburbs by FitzStephen, and later, franchises or liberties. I cannot but think that the whole of this land was at times included under the designation Portsoken, which more particularly is given to that part outside the east wall of the city; thus the charter of Henry II. grants liberties “within the city and Portsokenthereof”; and the 1212 Assize of Building regulated buildingsinfra Civitatem et Portsokna. The wider liberties of the city seem to be without guarantee unless Portsoken had this extended meaning.[125]
In any case the suburbs may represent a zone of common pasture and tillage.[126]A consideration of its boundaries, however, suggests that its present form must have been governed by the growth of extra-mural population; this is also shown by the way in which extensions of boundary overlie the main roads. The Portsoken Ward must formerly have been part of thispomæriumof the city, and it occupied most of the eastern side. Mr. Coote, in the authoritative article on the subject, calls it the city manor. The Cnihten Gild, which held it until 1125, possessed a charter of Edward the Confessor confirming to themthe customs which they had in King Edgar’s day.[127]
On the north side of the city the common land was called the Moor, and we have seen how a part of this “Moor” outside Cripplegate was granted to St. Martin le Grand, the rest remaining a common playground as described by FitzStephen. A mandate of Henry III. of 1268 in the Close Rolls, however, commands the mayor and commonality “not to disturb Walter de Merton in possession of a Moor on the north side of the wall of London which the King gave to St. Paul’s in consequence of the late disturbances.”[128]It was fen land; FitzStephen tells how the citizens skated here, and bone skates of pre-Conquest date have been found in Moorfields. It is possible that all the common land surrounding the city was called the Fen or Moor, as a boundary on the west side against the land of Westminster was said at an early time to be in London Fen (seep. 60).[129]The 12½ acres ofland, mentioned in Domesday under the name of Noman’s-land, and as having been held by the Confessor, was probably some of the city land. In the fourteenth century Charterhouse was built on ground called Noman’s-land—probably the same.
A part of Portsoken where fairs used to be held in the time of Henry III. was called East Smithfield; at the north-west angle of the city was another Smoothfield where the cattle fairs were held. As says FitzStephen: “Outside one of the gates immediately in the suburb is a field smooth in fact as in name. Every Friday, unless it be a feast, noble horses are here shown for sale. In another part of the field are implements of husbandry, swine, cows, great oxen, and woolly sheep.[130]On the north side there are pastures and pleasant meadow land, through which flow streams turning the wheels of mills. The tilled lands of the city are not barren soil, but fat plains producing luxuriant crops. There are also sweet springs of water which ripple over bright stones; amongst which there are Holy Well [Hoxton], Clerkenwell, and St. Clement’s; they are frequented by many when they go out for fresh air on summer evenings.”
It has been properly pointed out by Dr. Maitland and by Mr. Gomme that “the tilled lands of the city” is no mere rhetorical phrase,[131]but it referred to “the arable fields of the town of London.” In the Saxon Chronicle we gain a sight of the citizens reaping their lands: “Then that same year [895] the Danish men who sat down in Mersey [island] towed their ships up the Thames, and thence up the Lea. This year [896] the aforesaid host wrought themselves a stronghold on the Lea, twenty miles above London. And in summer a great body of the townsmen, and other folk beside, went forth even unto this stronghold. And there were they put to flight, and there were slain some four of the king’s thanes. And after, throughout harvest, did the king camp hard by the town [London] while the folk were reaping, that the Danes might not rob them of their crop. Then one day the king rode along the stream, and saw where it might be shut in, so that never might they bring out their ships. And thus was it done. And they wrought them two strongholds on the two sides of the stream. When this work was done and the camps pitched thereby, then saw the host that they might not bring out their ships. Then forsookthey their ships, and fled away across the land until they came unto Coatbridge on Severn, and there wrought they a stronghold. And the men of London took all those ships, and such as they might not bring away of them they brake up, and such as were staelwyrthe them brought they to London.”
The suburbs must be the residue of the original clearing in the forest; FitzStephen says the forest was close by London and formed a covert for boars and wild cattle, and as late as the thirteenth century there were wild cattle at Osterley.[132]Scattered about the forest were village settlements, the nearest about the city mentioned in Domesday being Stepney, Hoxton, Islington, Hampstead, St. Pancras, Kensington, Chelsea. The bishop of the East Saxons already, in Alfred’s day, had his house at Fulham.[133]
The citizens had their hunting rights confirmed by Henry I. “as fully as their ancestors have had, in Chiltre, Middlesex, and Surrey.” Middlesex was peculiarly attached to London, and, in its modern form at least, must represent the portion of the old East Saxon kingdom cut off by Alfred’s treaty with Guthrum.[134]The East Saxon kingdom, Malmesbury says, comprised the modernEssex, Middlesex, and half Hertfordshire. The Saxon Chronicle under 912 says: “This year died Æthered, and King Edward [Alfred’s son] took possession of London and Oxford and of all the lands which owed obedience thereto.”[135]A charter professedly dated as early as 704 names Twickenham in the province of Middlesex, but nothing is known to history of a Middle Saxon kingdom or people. Bede says London was a city of the East Saxons, and the London bishopric is coextensive with the East Saxon kingdom, including Middlesex. If we had to find a theory for an earlier origin of Middlesex, it might be suggested that when in 571 the West Saxons and East Saxons formed their common frontiers, London with some dependent land was constituted a middle region accessible to both. This might account for the peculiar circumstances whereby London passed successively under the suzerainty of one state after another. Middlesex was in fact the “country of London,” as it is called by Capgrave.
Besides the suburban land, there remained much common and open land in the city itself through theMiddle Ages.[136]Stocks Market, for instance, “the middle of the city,” as Stow says, was made in 1282 on “an open space where, the way being very large and broad, had stood a pair of stocks.” This looks like the “village green” of London. In the original grant in theLiber Custumarumthe vacant land is described as north of Woolchurch, where the king’s beam stood and the wool market was held.
At the east end, near the precinct of the Tower, some ground bore the name of Romeland, whatever that may mean:[137]at the west of the city was St. Paul’s Churchyard, with the areas where the folkmote met, and where the city host assembled in arms.
It was not till the centuries following the Conquest that the ground just within the walls seems to have been appropriated; at least large sections remained to be occupied by the monasteries of Holy Trinity, St. Helen’s, Austin Friars, and Greyfriars. The orchards and gardens of citizens are frequently mentioned. A deed of 1316 refers to a grant of land called Andovrefield and a housecalled Stonehouse by the Walbrook.[138]London in Saxon times indeed was a walled county, and up to the sixteenth century retained much of its character as a “garden city.”
The Cnihtengild, which till 1125 held the Portsoken, has been incidentally dealt with in the course of this chapter (pp.102and118). Of the many problems connected with the history of London, hardly one has been more discussed than the status of this “mysterious institution.” Mr. Loftie thought he had proved that the aldermen formed its members, and that it was the governing gild of London. Mr. Round, however, has adversely criticised this conclusion. It is certain that there were Cnihtengilds in other places, as Winchester and Exeter. As all such places appear to have been county strongholds or burhs, and as we have seen it is probable that the Cnihts of London had the duty of defending the city, and further, as at Cambridge the members of a gild of Thegns were called Cnihts, I conclude the members of the London gild were originally the Thegns who garrisoned Londonburh.[139]
THE WARDS AND PARISHES—THE PALACE
So Hawk fared west to England to see King Athelstane, and found the king in London, and thereat was there a bidding and a feast full worthy. So they went into the hall thirty men in company, and Hawk went before the king and greeted him, and the king bade him welcome.Saga of Harold Hairfair.
So Hawk fared west to England to see King Athelstane, and found the king in London, and thereat was there a bidding and a feast full worthy. So they went into the hall thirty men in company, and Hawk went before the king and greeted him, and the king bade him welcome.
Saga of Harold Hairfair.
Wards and Parishes.—The earliest lists of wards which give the present traditional names have been printed by Dr. Sharpe in hisCalendar of London Willsand hisLetter Book A. These are of about the years 1320, 1293, and 1285. Another of 1303 is in Palgrave’sTreasury. A patent of 1299 speaks of the mayor and twenty-four aldermen. Before this time most of the wards were called by the names of the aldermen holding them, as said in theLiber Albus. There is a list of this kind, in which only a few of the traditional names appear, in the Hundred Rolls of 1275. This last is particularly interesting, however, as giving thenames of the city magnates of the great time just after the war of the city with the king, when Thomas FitzThomas, the mayor, was imprisoned—some have said never to appear again; but I find in the Close Rolls for 1269-70 (53 Henry III.) that in that year “Thomas son of Thomas, late Mayor of London,” entered into recognisances for a debt of £500 to Edward the king’s son, finding sureties for the same and for his fealty to the king and his heirs.
Fig. 27.—Plan showing the relation of the central Wards and the principal Streets
Another list of aldermen in 1214 is printed in Madox’sExchequer, together with a reference to one of 1211, which carries back the complete list of twenty-four to within twenty years of the institution of the mayoralty.
An account of the property of St. Paul’s made in the first half of the twelfth century, and printed in facsimile in Price’sHistory of the Guildhall, incidentally contains a list of about twenty wards, mostly under the names of their aldermen. Of these “Warda Fori” and the wards of Aldgate, Brocesgange (Walbrook), and of the Bishop may be cited as especially interesting; Aldresmanesberi is also mentioned. This document is not dated, but Mr. Round has shown it to have been written about 1130. Hugo, son of Wlgar, and Osbert,Aldermen, occur in another deed of 1115, and Thurstan, Alderman, in 1111. Mr. Loftie has attempted to identify some of the wards. The Ward of Herbert, in which was the land of William Pontearch, may perhaps be Dowgate, for a charter of Stephen gave to S. M. de Sudwerc the stone house of William de Pontearch, situated by the sheds of Douegate (Dugdale). What is probably a still earlier group of aldermen is given in a Ramsay document of 1114-30, which is addressed to Hugo de Bochland, Roger, Leofstan, Ordgar, and all the other barons (i.e.aldermen) of London. Another document of the same age is witnessed by Levenoth, “Alderman.” A careful comparison of these lists, together with other sources,[140]might yield some new facts. From a cursory comparison it seems to be evident that too much has been made of the case of the Farndons and Farringdon Ward as evidence for hereditaryownershipin the aldermanries. Most of the family names change from list to list, but a few persist: in 1240 there is a Jacob Bland, in 1275-85 and 1293 a Rudulphus Blond, but this may be the case in any office. On the other hand, two of the same family name arefound more than once holding different wards at the same time, and in other cases similar names are found in different wards in different lists; thus in 1285 there are two Ashys, two Rokesleys, two Boxes, and two Hadstocks: a Frowick in 1285 held Cripplegate, and in 1320 a Frowick held Langbourne. The ward that can most easily be traced is Cheap; in 1211-14 it was held by William son of Benedict, in 1275 by Peter of Edmonton, in 1285 by Stephen Ashy, and in 1320 by Simon Paris. This is hardly hereditary succession. But what I am concerned with is not the tenure but the topographical origin of the wards. Many different theories as to the origin of the wards have been put forward. Mr. Loftie, writing of the beginning of the thirteenth century, says: “The wards, as we shall notice more distinctly further on” (the distinctness is difficult to find), “were in the hands originally of the landowners, and an alderman was still very much in the position of a lord of the manor. His office was at first always, and still usually, hereditary.” After the reign of Henry III. the aldermen no longer owned their wards. The constitution had undergone a complete change, “and the offices became purely elective.”
Mr. Price thought that the wards were divisions dating from Roman days. Norton believed that the wards were to the city what the hundreds were to the shire, and this view, shared by Bishop Stubbs, seems to be confirmed, as will be shown by an independent line of reasoning.
The wards can be traced back to within fifty years after the Conquest, and that they were even then of immemorial antiquity is shown by FitzStephen’s legend that, like Rome, London was founded by the Trojans, and consequently had the same laws, and like it was divided into wards. In Cambridge there were ten wards in 1086.
A study of the ward boundaries in connection with the Walbrook, the “Carrefour,” and the main streets yields most interesting results. Stow tells us that a great division between the western and eastern wards was made by the Walbrook, which ran from the north wall to St. Margaret’s Lothbury, then under Grocers’ Hall, and St. Mildred’s Church, west of the Stocks Market, through Bucklersbury, then by the west of St. John’s Walbrook and the Chandlers’ Hall, and by Elbow Lane to the Thames. On laying down the course of this stream from all obtainable data, it is found that it was an unbroken boundarybetween the thirteen eastern and eleven western wards.
Again, the four principal cross streets form so many backbones to a series of wards; and this in such a marked way as to show on a good map quite certainly at a glance, that these wards were formed by aggregations of dwellings upon either side of the roads which passed through them, exactly as a high-road threads a village.
Bridge Ward is a narrow strip containing the Bridge Street up to the cross of Lombard Street. Bishopsgate Ward, beginning at this same crossways, goes all the way to Bishopsgate, the ward street passing through its midst.
Lombard Street and Fenchurch Street furnish the midrib to Langbourne Ward[141]in just as obvious a way. Stow thought that Langbourne Ward was called from a stream, but this has been shown to be untenable for physical reasons (seep. 48); and the plan of the wards shows instantly that here was no water-course, like the Walbrook,dividingwards, but a street passing through themidstof a ward. While deriving thisward’sname from a brook, Stow says that LombardStreetwas so called of the Longobard merchants about 1300. I find that thestreetwas called Langbourne Strate at the end of the thirteenth century;[142]and in a charter of Matilda to Holy Trinity, 1108-18, appears the Church of St. Edmund inLongboard Strete. The first mention I can find of the ward is also of the twelfth century; this is a demise by “Geoffrey, Alderman of the Ward of Langebord,” of land in Lime Street.[143]It is evident from this that the name of the street and the ward was originally one and the same—Langbard, Longbord, or Longford, as it occasionally appears. The street was written “Lumbard Strete” in 1319.[144]
The St. Paul’s documents show that important Lombards were resident in London early in the twelfth century, and they probably gave their name to the ward and street; two of these were Meinbod and his son Picot the Lombard. In Paris there is a Lombard Street, and other cities have the name. And the word is written Langeberde in old English.
Cornhill Ward, Cheap Ward, and the oldNewgate Ward are just as clearly three wards strung on the street which respectively threads them in passing to the west gate, and properly takes the name of each ward in passing through it.
Lime Street and Aldgate Wards lie over Leadenhall (the old Aldgate) Street; from the look of it we might suppose that Lime Street Ward was formerly part of Aldgate Ward, as thedivisionline is here formed by the street which gives its name to the ward. The backbone of Tower Ward is Great Tower Street, which passes into Billingsgate Street as East Cheap, and on westward as Candlewick Street. Coleman Street threads the ward of the same name, which is possibly derived from the Coleman named onp. 83, and Cripplegate and Aldersgate Wards are formed on the ancient streets which went to those gates.
This examination of the forms of the wards in relation to the ancient streets which they overlie is enough to prove irresistibly that the main streets of the city existed before the wards, and that these wards originated not as “private property,” but as units of population inhabiting the houses along those streets, like so many villages or townships. These streets, in turn,however long and unbroken, evidently bore different names according to the wards they passed through.
The study of the wards might be carried further in one direction by means of a map on which the boundaries of the parishes, as well as of the wards, were carefully laid down. Although upwards of a hundred parishes can hardly date back so early as the institution of wards, it is possible that certain large parishes may have had an origin identical with the wards,[145]and most of them probably date from before the Conquest. It would be interesting also to compare the boundaries of the suburban parishes with the limits of the suburbs proper as defined by the bars.
It is generally accepted that a parallel holds between the organisation of the city and the shire, the ward and the hundred. “Hundreds and Tithings were part of the primitive Germanic constitution.” Dr. Stubbs has shown that in Domesday several towns figure as hundreds, and the wards of the city of Canterbury were calledhundreds. Thus too, I suppose, it arose that the reports of the wards of London were inserted in the Hundred Rolls.
The wards in London most probably represented the groups of citizens belonging to several gilds; they may indeed be identical with the Peace gilds of Athelstane’s enactment, according to which the population were to be enrolled by tens and hundreds in associations for the preservation of peace and the suppression of theft.[146]In accordance with this idea of accounting for every man, we find that even in the thirteenth century no one was to stay in the city for more than two nights “unless he finds two sureties and so puts himself in frankpledge.” The aldermen were responsible for their wards,[147]and every hosteller was likewise responsible for his guest.[148]Dr. Maitland suggests that the Aldermen were the military captains of the burgmen. It is certain that the defence of the town gates was assigned to the men of the several wards.
The wards, then, were in the main organisationsfor the executive government, the ordering and policing of the city. “The ward-mote is so called as being the meeting together of all the inhabitants of a ward in presence of its head, the alderman, or else his deputy, for the correction of defaults, the removal of nuisances, and the promotion of the well-being of each ward.”[149]This function, indeed, is explained by the very name “ward,” and the “frankpledge” was a survival of primitive adoption into the tribe. Some recognition of this is made by Holinshed, who says the city is divided into twenty-six wards or “tribes.” It even seems possible that the wards may at first have been formed by symmetrical numerical units such as, say, a hundred freemen; or the space within the walls may have been divided up into twenty or twenty-four parts in such a way as to allow for density of population. Excavations in the city have shown that the population clustered most thickly along the river and in the great streets, and the wards are much more congested and regular in the central part by the bridge than nearer the walls: the old churches also seem to gravitate towards the same nucleus.
Wards without.—A good illustration of theformation of the interior wards may be found in the growth of those without the walls. Bishopsgate Without, and Aldersgate Without, were evidently formed by clusters of dwellings springing up on either side of the roads outside the gates. Cottages outside Bishopsgate and at Holborn are mentioned even in Domesday, and Fleet Street appears to have been populous even earlier. The external wards extend to the boundary of the city liberties, or common land, and the roads passing through them had specific street-names as far as the several “Bars.” Holborn Street, as it is sometimes called, which passed over the Hole-burn, should properly end with the city liberty, as does Fleet Street.
Along with the wards were a number of sokes—areas in which persons or corporations held certain privileges. The first sokes mentioned are that of the Cnihten Gild (pre-Conquest), and that of St. Peter of Ghent (in 1081, seep. 97). The charter of Henry I. grants that “no guest tarrying in any soc shall pay custom to any other than him to whom the soc belongs.” They appear to have been heritable, and free to some extent from civic jurisdiction: in the reign of Edward I. there were still upwards of twenty in existence inLondon.[150]“Bury” seems to have been applied to a manor or property surrounded by a wall or fence; “in London,” says Mr. W. H. Stevenson, “it means a large house.” Bucklersbury and Bloomsbury were the properties—post-Conquest—of one Blemund, and of the family of Bockerel. A Saxon will makes a bequest to Paul’s byrig.[151]The termination “haw,” present still in Bassishaw, is also common. A charter of the Confessor giving Stæninghaga in London to Westminster is printed by Kemble; Dr. Maitland inDomesday and Beyondhas shown that this was occupied by the men of Staines, and that Staining Lane probably preserves its memory even unto this day. There were forty-eight burgesses of London who counted with Staines in 1086. He suggests that we have here a trace of a system by which the shires garrisoned the burhs.
The Palace.—There are but few references to a palace. Florence, writing of 1017, says that Cnut “being in London” ordered Edric to be “slain in the palace” and his body to bethrown from the walls—“into the Thames,” says Malmesbury. Richard of Cirencester, who wrote in the middle of the fourteenth century, but whose testimony is of the more value as he was a monk at Westminster, says that Cnut was keeping his Christmas “in the castle which is now called Baynard’s,” and after the death of Edric took boat for Westminster. There is every reason to think that the ruler’s house in London, as in Constantinople, Venice, Aachen, and Paris, would have adjoined the cathedral, as Baynard’s Castle did. That Baynard’s Castle should have been the old royal palace would seem to agree very well with its subsequent history; it would also explain the existence of this stronghold held under the king within the city walls, while none of the chroniclers speak of its site being taken from the city, and it would explain why early in the twelfth century Henry I. should give a part of the site to St. Paul’s; for, if it had been built after the Conquest, it would hardly have been curtailed so early.[152]
Henry of Huntingdon says that WilliamBaynard was deprived of his estate in 1110. It was then, I suppose, that it passed to the Clares. The Fitzwalters, who held it after Baynard, belonged to the great family of the Clares.[153]Baynard’s Castle was probably dismantled under John when the king quarrelled with Fitzwalter. In 1275 a patent was granted R. Fitzwalter to alienate Castle Baynard near the city walls, with stone wall, void areas, ditches, and even the tower of Fish Street Hill. Taking this and the St. Paul’s document together, the precinct seems to have included the ground between the boundary of St. Paul’s (along Carter Lane) and the river and from the city wall to Old Fish Street. It must have been an important castle, not a mere tower.
Henry II. is made by Fantosme to ask how “mes baruns de Lundres ma cité” fared in the troubles of that time, and is told that Gilbert de Munfichet had strengthened his “castle,” and that the Clares were leagued with him. This Montfichet’s Castle is mentioned by FitzStephen, and Stow says that it was close to Castle Baynardtowards the west, and on the river; but a document given by Dugdale speaks of Munfichet Castle with its ditch as close to Ludgate (ii. 384).[154]
Tradition has also assigned the site of a Saxon palace close to the east end of St. Alban’s, Wood Street. It was said that King Athelstane had his house here, which, having a door into Adel Street, “gave name to this street, which in ancient evidences is written King Adel Street.”[155]Stow just refers to the story, but says any evidence had been destroyed, and he was evidently disgusted at a then recent “improvement.” Some accounts of 23 Henry VIII., given in theCalendar of St. Paul’s Documents, refer to the “clensying of certyn old ruinouse houses in Aldermanbury, sometime the palace of Saincte Æthelbert Kyng ... and making of five new tenements.” It is curious that there is an Adle Hill, also in Castle Baynard Ward. The records of St. Alban’s show that Abbot Paul (from 1077) obtained by exchange with the Abbot of Westminster what wassaid had been the chapel of Offa’s palace near the church of St. Alban’s, Wood Street. This evidently refers to the same site abutting on St. Alban’s, Wood Street.[156]It has been said that Gutter Lane is named from the residence of Guthrum. I find it called Godron Lane in early documents, and the tradition may possibly be true (seep. 154).
Tower Royal was a royal residence after the Conquest; Stow says Stephen lodged there.[157]Froissart, writing of the Wat Tyler’s rebellion, tells how the king’s mother fled to “the Royal called the Queen’s Wardrobe.”
We get in theHeimskringlaa fair picture of what the king’s haga or garth would have been in the history of King Olaf the Holy. “King Olaf let house a king’s garth at Nidoyce. There was done a big court hall with a door at either end, but the high seat of the king was in the midmost of the hall. Up from him sat his court-bishop, and next to him again other clerks of his; but down from the king sat his counsellors. In theother high seat strait over against him sat his marshal, and then the guests. By litten fires should ale be drunk. He had about him sixty body-guards and thirty guests. Withall he had thirty house carles to work all needful service in the garth. In the garth also was a mickle hall wherein slept the body-guard, and there was withal a mickle chamber where the king held his court chambers.” Of Olaf the Quiet we are told: “That was the ancient wont in Norway that the king’s high seat was midst of the long daïs, and ale was borne over the fire. But King Olaf was the first let do his high seat on the high daïs athwart the hall.... He let stand before his board trencher-swains. He had also candle-swains, who held up candles before his board. Out away from the trapeza was the marshal’s stool.”
STREETS—CRAFT GILDS AND SCHOOLS—CHURCHES
They answered and said that there were many more churches there [in London] than they might wot to what man they were hallowed.Heimskringla.
They answered and said that there were many more churches there [in London] than they might wot to what man they were hallowed.
Heimskringla.
Streets.—As has been said, a large number, probably most, of the streets of London as they existed before the fire can be traced in records back to the thirteenth century. It is evident that the extra-mural approaches and the gates necessitated the existence of some of these at a still earlier time; the sites of ancient churches and the formation of the wards to which the streets serve as midribs, as above said, account for others. That some are of Roman date positive evidence has been found. On reviewing this cumulative evidence it seems possible that the main streets given in Stow’sSurveyrepresent ways in theRoman city. A succession of fires slowly raising the surface with layers of debris, gradual encroachments, and the obliteration of open spaces, have modified the old lines in some cases considerably, but still it is certain, I believe, that the general “squareness” and more or less symmetrical alignment of the Roman city can be traced in the existing streets. A line from the bridge to the north gate must always have formed a great main street, and standing at the bottom of Bridge Street (Fish Street Hill) we may still gain some idea of what the entrance to the city by the Roman bridge was like. Mr. Price says of Gracechurch Street: “Recent investigations have shown ... that no structural remains of the Roman period can have occurred throughout its course; on either side of the street, debris of buildings with fragments of tessellated pavements have been seen, but nothing has existed along the actual line of road.”[158]Roach Smith also testifies that no wall has been found crossing Gracechurch Street, “a fact that would support the opinion of its occupying the route of one of the Roman roads.”[159]The idea of J. R. Green, that the north and southstreet was considerably to the east of the present line, was probably founded on Stow’s mistaken view that the bridge was of old far to the east.
Again, for the two great longitudinal ways through the city we have evidence. In forming the entrance into the city from New London Bridge a section was made of the ground north of Thames Street, and three ancient lines of embankment were found, by which ground was by degrees regained from the Thames. One of these was formed of squared oaks. As the excavation came to Eastcheap it crossed a raised bank of gravel 6 feet deep and 18 wide, the crest of which was 5 feet under the present surface; it ran in the direction of London Stone. On reaching the north-east corner of Eastcheap the foundations of a Roman building were found, and here, having reached the line of Gracechurch Street, the discoveries ended.[160]Roach Smith speaks of walls having been found in Eastcheap and Little Eastcheap, but Cannon Street, like Gracechurch Street, was free from them.
It has been conjectured that Cheapside was not a street, that it was a muddy marsh, an open space for market booths, and that a stream ran from itinto Walbrook, etc.[161]Two deeds, however, given in Dugdale under Barnstaple, record the gift of a new house and land in “Foro” or “Magno Vico Londoniæ quam habuit Odone Bajocensi” by William Gifford, Bishop of Winchester, to S. Martin Paris, 1110-15, and this reference to the property of Odo of Bayeux carries Cheapside right back to Conquest days. It is not unlikely, indeed, that the east end of the “Great Street” was the site of the Roman Forum or part of it. The “Forum” of Canterbury is mentioned in 762.[162]Although the word Forum doubtless stands only for the Saxon market-place, it was the proper place of assembly. According to theActa Stephanithe Empress Maud was acclaimed Lady of England in the Forum of Winchester. There is no doubt Cheap was the Saxon High Street and the official meeting-place of the citizens from the earliest days of the English settlement. Early in the twelfth century Thomas à Becket was born in his father’s housein Cheap, on a site we can still identify, and Eudo, Dapifer to the Conqueror, also appears to have had a stone house in West Cheap, by Newchurch.
When Wren rebuilt St. Mary le Bow, in excavating for the foundation of the campanile, when he had sunk about 18 feet, he came to a Roman causeway of rough stone, close and well rammed, with Roman brick and rubbish for a foundation, all firmly cemented. This causeway was 4 feet thick, and underneath was the natural clay. He built the tower “upon the very Roman causeway.” He was of the opinion that this highway ran along the north boundary of the Roman city, the breadth of which was from this “causeway” to the Thames, and “the principal middle street or Prætorian way” being Watling Street; north of the “causeway” the ground was a morass, so that he had to pile for building the new east front to St. Lawrence by the Guildhall.[163]Too much has been made of this morass, for remains of Roman buildings have been found on this very ground north of Cheap 17 feet below the surface,[164]and St. Lawrence itself had been a church fromNorman times at least. Other Roman buildings have been found in Wood Street.[165]
It is impossible to go behind Wren’s testimony as to the Roman way through Cheap. It has been claimed, however, that some foundations discovered by him on the site of St. Paul’s showed that Watling Street ran obliquely from London Stone to Newgate. It was not, as we see, the opinion of Wren himself, and it must fall. The exact words inParentaliacited for the discovery of an oblique street are themselves enough to abolish the theory built on them. They are as follows: “Upon demolishing the ruins [of St. Paul’s] and searching the foundations of the Quire, the Surveyor [Wren] discovered nine wells in a row, which no doubt had anciently belonged to a street of houses that lay aslope from the High Street [Watling Street] to the Roman causeway [Cheapside], and this street, which wastaken away to make room for the new Quire [of 1256] came so near to the old [Norman] Presbyterium that the church could not extend farther that way at first” (p. 272). There is nothing in this about “a Watling Street running from Newgate to London Stone.” What is described is a way across the churchyard from the west end of the High or Atheling Street issuing by Canon Row or Ivy Lane. There is no evidence at all, then, for a diagonal Watling Street which Stukeley suggested, and more recent writers have accepted as quite proven. On the other hand, we have Wren’s great authority for thinking that Watling Street was in its present direction the “High Street” of the ancient city. In calling it this he must have followed Leland, who says that it was formerly called Ætheling Street, and it is so named in thirteenth-century documents.[166]In 1212 I findad viam que vocaturAthelingestrate. The name is one of a class of which Athelney (Athelingey—Noble’s Island) is an instance. Addle Hill, which Stow calls Adle Street, seemsto be allied to Atheling. In 1334 I find “Athele Street in Castle Baynard Ward.”[167]The earliest instance of “Watling” I can find is at least a century later. I am speaking, of course, of the city street; for the great Watling Street we have evidence which goes up to the eighth century (seep. 54).
There cannot be a doubt that the Roman street system was carried on by the Saxons; at Rochester as early as the seventh century Southgate Street and Eastgate Street are named in a charter. A charter of Alfred’s time (889) mentions a court and ancient stone edifice in London, called by the citizens Hwætmundes Stone, between thepublic streetand the wall of the city. A property in London between Tiddberti Street and Savin Street (? Seething Lane) is mentioned as a gift of Ethelbald’s.[168]The Watmund’s Stone named above may have been a house. A curious piece of topographical embroidery has been wrought round about it, for no less an authority than Mr. John Earle accepted the suggestion that the name might be equivalent to Corn-basket, and that the monument now in Panyer Alley may represent theancient “stone edifice”! Mr. Round, in relation to this, has pointed out that Watmund was merely a commonly used man’s name. Mr. Loftie, however, boldly says that Alfred’s corn market stood to the west of Cheap, “where there was a weighing stone for wheat.”[169]