Walker & Boutallse. ROMAN LONDON.ROMAN LONDON.
Outside the Citadel the rude British town—if it was still a rude town—disappeared rapidly. The security of the place, strongly garrisoned, the extension of Roman manners, the introduction of Roman customs, dress, and luxuries gave a great impetus to the development of the City. The little ports of the rivers Walbrook and Fleet no longer sufficed for the shipping which now came up the river; if there were as yet no quays or embankments they were begun to be erected; behind them rose warehouses and wharves. The cliff began to be cut away; a steep slope took its place; its very existence was forgotten. The same thing has happened at Brighton, where, almost within the memory of living man, a low cliff ran along the beach. This embankment extended east and west—as far as the Fleet River, which is now Blackfriars, on the west, and what is now Tower Hill on the east. Then, the trade still increasing, the belt of groundbehind the embankment became filled with a dense population of riverside people—boatmen, sailors, boat-builders, store-keepers, bargemen, stevedores, porters—all the people who belong to a busy mercantile port. As for the better sort, they lived round the Citadel, protected by its presence, in villas, remains of which have been found in many places.
The two things which most marked the Roman occupation were London Wall and Bridge. Of the latter we will speak in another place. The wall was erected at a time betweenA.D.350 andA.D.369—very near the end of the Roman occupation. This wall remained the City wall for more than a thousand years; it was rebuilt, repaired, restored; the scanty remains of it—a few fragments here and there—contain very little of the original wall; but the course of the wall was never altered, and we know exactly how it ran. There was first a strong river wall along the northern bank. There were three water gates and the Bridge gate; there were two land gates at Newgate and Bishopsgate. The wall was 3 miles and 205 yards long; the area enclosed was 380 acres. This shows that the population must have been already very large, for the Romans were not accustomed to erect walls longer than they could defend.
We must think of Roman London as of a small stronghold on a low hill rising out of the river. It is a strongly-walled place, within which is a garrison of soldiers; outside its walls stretch gardens and villas, many of them rich and beautiful, filled with costly things. Below the fort is a long river wall or quay covered with warehouses, balesof goods, and a busy multitude of men at work. Some are slaves—perhaps all. Would you like to know what a Roman villa was like? It was in plan a small, square court, surrounded on three sides by a cloister or corridor with pillars, and behind the cloister the rooms of the house; the middle part of the court was a garden, and in front was another and a larger garden. The house was of one storey, the number and size of the rooms varying according to the size of the house. On one side were the winter divisions, on the other were the summer rooms. The former part was kept warm by means of a furnace constructed below the house, which supplied hot-air pipes running up all the walls. At the back of the house were the kitchen, stables, and sleeping quarters of the servants. Tesselated pavements, statues, pictures, carvings, hangings, pillows, and fine glass adorned the house. There was not in London the enormous wealth which enabled some of the Romans to live in palaces, but there was comparative wealth—the wealth which enables a man to procure for himself in reason all the things that he desires.
The City as it grew in prosperity was honoured by receiving the name of Augusta. It remained in Roman hands for nearly four hundred years. The Citadel, which marks the first occupation by the Romans, was probably built aboutA.D.43. The Romans went away inA.D.410. During these four centuries the people became entirely Romanised. Add to this that they became Christians. Augusta was a Christian city; the churches which stand—or stood, because three at least have been removed—along Thames Street, probably occupied the sites of older Roman churches. In this part of the City the people were thickest; in this quarter, therefore, stood the greater number of churches: the fact that they were mostlydedicated to the apostles instead of to later Saxon saints seems to show that they stood on the sites of Roman churches. It has been asked why there has never been found any heathen temple in London; the answer is that London under the Romans very early became Christian; if there had been a temple of Diana or Apollo it would have been destroyed or converted into a church. Such remains of Augusta as have been found are inconsiderable: they are nearly all in the museum of the Guildhall, where they should be visited and examined.
The history of Roman London is meagre. Seventeen years after the building of the Citadel, on the rebellion of Boadicea, the Roman general Suetonius abandoned the place, as unable to defend it. All those who remained were massacred by the insurgents. After this, so far as we know, for history is silent, there was peace in London for 200 years. Then one Carausius, an officer in command of the fleet stationed in the Channel for the suppression of piracies, assumed the title of emperor. He continued undisturbed for some years, his soldiers remaining faithful to him on account of his wealth: he established a Mint at London and struck a large amount of money there. He was murdered by one of his officers, Allectus, who called himself emperor in turn and continued to rule in Britain for three years. Then the end came for him as well. The Roman general landing with a large force marched upon London where Allectus lay. A battle fought in the south of London resulted in the overthrow and death of the usurper. His soldiers taking advantage of the confusion began to plunder and murder in the town, but were stopped and killed by the victors.
Constantine, who became emperor in 306, was thenin Britain, but his name is not connected with London except by coins bearing his name.
Tradition connects the name of Helena, Constantine's mother, with London, but there is nothing to prove that she was ever in the island at all.
Late in the fourth century troubles began to fall thick upon the country. The Picts and the Scots overran the northern parts and penetrated to the very walls of London. The general Theodosius, whose son became the emperor of that name, drove them back. About this time the wall of London was built; not the wall of the Roman fort, but that of the whole City. From the year 369, when Theodosius the general landed in Britain, to the year 609 we see nothing of London except one brief glimpse of fugitives flying for their lives across London Bridge. Of this interval we shall speak in the next chapter. Meanwhile it is sufficient to say that the decay of the Roman power made it necessary to withdraw the legions from the outlying and distant portions of the Empire. Britain had to be abandoned. It was as if England were to give up Hong Kong and Singapore and the West Indies because she could no longer spare the ships and regiments to defend them. The nation which abandons her possessions is not far from downfall. Remember, when you listen to those who advocate abandonment of our colonies, the example of Rome.
The Romans left London. That was early in the fifth century; probably in the year 410.
Two hundred years later we find the East Saxons in London.
What happened during this long interval of seven generations? Not a word reaches us of London for two hundred years except once when, after a defeat of the British by the Saxons at Crayford in the year 457, we read that the fugitives crossed over London Bridge to take refuge within the walls of the City. What happened during this two hundred years?[1]
[1]On this subject, see the author's bookLondon(Chatto & Windus).
[1]On this subject, see the author's bookLondon(Chatto & Windus).
We know what happened with other cities. Anderida, now called Pevensey, was taken by the Saxons, and all its inhabitants, man, woman and child, were slaughtered, so that it became a waste until the Normans built a castle within the old walls. Canterbury, Silchester, Porchester, Colchester—all were taken, their people massacred, the walls left standing, the streets left desolate. For the English—the Saxons—loved not city walls. Therefore, we might reasonably conclude that the same thing happened to London. But if it be worthy of the chronicler to note the massacre of Anderida, a small seaport, why should he omit the far more important capture of Augusta?
Let us hear what history has to tell. Times full of trouble fell upon the country. Long before the Romans went away the Picts and Scots were pouring their wild hordes over the north and west, sometimes getting as far south as the Middlesex Forest, murdering and destroying. As early as the year 368, forty years before they left the country, the Romans sent an expedition north to drive back these savages. Already the Saxons, the Jutes and the Angles were sending piratical expeditions to harry the coast and even to make settlements. The arm of the Roman was growing weak, it could not stretch out so far: the fleets of the Romans, under the officer calledthe 'Count of the Saxon Shore'—whose duty was to guard the eastern and southern coasts—were destroyed and their commander slain. So that, with foes on the eastern seaboard, foes in the Channel, foes in the river, foes in the north and west, it is certain that the trade of Augusta was declining long before the City was left to defend itself.
What sort of defence were the people likely to offer? For nearly four hundred years they had lived at peace, free to grow rich and luxurious, with mercenaries to fight for them. Between the taking of the City by Boadicea and the departure of the Romans, a space of three hundred and fifty years, the peace of the City was only disturbed by the lawlessness of Allectus's mercenaries. Their attempt to sack the City was put down, it is significant to note, not by the citizens but by the Roman soldiers who entered the City in time. The citizens were mostly merchants: they were Christians in name and in form of worship, they were superstitious, they were luxurious, they were unwarlike. Many of them were not Britons at all, but foreigners settled in the City for trade. Moreover, for it is not true that the whole British people had grown unfit for war, a revolt of the Roman legions in the year 407 drew a large number of the young men into their ranks, and when Constantine the usurper took them over into Gaul for the four years' fighting which followed, the country was drained of its best fighting material. The City, then, contained a large number of wealthy merchants, native and foreign; it also contained a great many slaves who were occupied in the conduct of the trade, and few, since the young men went away with Constantine, who could be relied upon to fight.
One more point may be made out from history.Since London was a town which then, as now, lived entirely by its trade and was the centre of the export and import trade of the whole country, the merchants, as we have seen, must have suffered most severely long before the Romans went away. We are, therefore, in the year 410, facing a situation full of menace. The Picts and Scots are overrunning the whole of the north, the Saxons are harrying the east and the south-east, trade is dying, there is little demand for imports, there are few exports, it is useless for ships to wait cargoes which never arrive, it is useless for ships to bring cargoes for which there is no demand.
REMAINS OF A VIKING SHIPREMAINS OF A VIKING SHIP, FROM A CAIRN AT GOKSTAD.(Now in the University at Christiania.)
A declining city, a dying trade, enemies in all directions, an unwarlike population. When the curtain falls upon the scene in the year 410 that is what we see.
Consider, again, the position of London. It stood, as you have seen, originally on two low hills overlooking the river. A strong wall built all along the bank from Blackfriars (now so called) to the present site of the Tower kept the river from swamping the houses and wharves which sprang up behind this wall. The walls of the City later on, but only about fifty years before the Romans went away, enclosed a large area covered over with streets, narrow near the river and broad farther north, and with residences, warehouses, villas, and workshops. There was probably a population of 70,000 or even more. On the west, in the direction of Westminster, the City wall overlooked an immense marsh: on the south across the river there was a still broader and longer marsh: on the east there was another great marsh with the sea overflowing the sedgy meadows at every high tide: on the north there was a wild moor and beyond the moor there was an immense forest. Four roads not counting the river-way kept the City in communication with the rest of the island. The most important of these roads was that afterwards called Watling Street, which passed out at Newgate and led across the heart of the country to Chester and Wales, to York and the north. The second, afterwards called Ermyn Street, left the City at Bishopsgate and ran through Lincoln to York, a third road called the Vicinal Way ran into the eastern counties, and by way of London Bridge Watling Street was connected with Dover.
London, therefore, standing in its marshes had no means of providing for itself. All the food for its great population was imported. It was brought on pack assesalong these roads. It came from the farms and gardens of the country inland by means of these high roads, strong, broad, and splendid roads, as good as any we have since succeeded in making. In peaceful times these roads were crowded all the way from Chester and Lincoln and Dover with long trains of animals laden with provisions for the people of London, as well as with goods for export from the Port of London. They were met by long trains of animals laden with imports being carried to their destination. The Thames in the same way was filled with barges laden with provisions as well as with goods going down the river to the people and the Port of London. Below Bridge the river was filled with merchant ships bringing cargoes of wine and spices and costly things to be exchanged for skins and slaves and metals. Let us remember that the daily victualling of 70,000 people means an immense service. We are so accustomed to find everything ready to hand in cities containing millions as well as in villages of hundreds, that we forget the magnitude of this service. No mind can conceive the magnitude of the food supply of modern London, Paris, New York, or even such towns as Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol. Yet try to understand what it means to feed every day, without interruption, only a small town of 70,000 people. So much bread for every day, so much meat, so much fish, so much wine, beer, mead, or cider—because at no time did people drink water if they could get anything else—so much milk, honey, butter, cheese, eggs, poultry, geese and ducks, so much beans, pease, salad, fruit. All this had to be brought in regularly—daily. There was salted meat for winter; there was dried fish when fresh could not be procured; there were granaries of wheat to provide for emergencies. All the rest had to be provided day by day.
First, the East Saxons, settling in Essex and spreading over the whole of that county, stopped the supplies and the trade over all the eastern counties; then the Jutes, landing on the Isle of Thanet, stopped the ships that went up and down the river; they also spread over the south country and stopped the supplies that formerly came over London Bridge. Then the Picts and Scots, followed by more Saxons, harassed the north and middle of the island, and no more supplies came down Watling Street. Lastly, the enemy, pressing northward from the south shore, gained the middle reaches of the Thames, and no more supplies came down the river.
London was thus deprived of food as well as of trade.
This slowly, not suddenly, came to pass. First, one source of supply was cut off, then another. First, trade declined in one quarter, then it ceased in that quarter altogether. Next, another quarter was attacked. The foreign merchants, since there was no trade left, went on board their own ships and disappeared. Whether they succeeded in passing through the pirate craft that crowded the mouth of the river, one knows not. The bones of many lie at the bottom of the sea off the Nore. They vanished from hapless Augusta; they came back no more.
Who were left? The native merchants. Despair was in their hearts; starvation threatened them, even amid the dainty appointments of their luxurious villas; what is the use of marble baths and silken hangings, tesselated pavements, and pictures, and books, and statues, if there is no food to be had, though one bid for it all the pictures in the house? With the merchants, there were the priests, the physicians, the lawyers, the actors and mimics, the artists, the teachers, all who minister to religion, luxury, and culture. There were nextthe great mass of the people, the clerks and scribes, the craftsmen, the salesmen, the lightermen, stevedores, boatmen, marine store keepers, makers of ships' gear, porters—slaves for the most part—all from highest to lowest, plunged into helplessness. Whither could they fly for refuge? Upon whom could they call for help?
Abroad, the Roman Empire was breaking up. The whole of Europe was covered with war. Revolts of conquered tribes, rebellions of successful generals, invasions of savages, the murders of usurpers, the sacking of cities. Rome itself was sacked by Alaric; the conquest of one country after another made of this period the darkest in the history of the world. From over the seas no help, the enemy blocking the mouth of the river, all the roads closed and all the farms destroyed.
There came a day at length when it was at last apparent that no more supplies would reach the City. Then the people began to leave the place: better to fight their way across the country to the west where the Britons still held their own, than to stay and starve. The men took their arms—they carried little treasure with them, because treasure would be of no use to them on their way—their wives and children, ladies as delicate and as helpless as any of our own time—children as unfit as our own to face the miseries of cold and hunger and nakedness—and they went out by the gate of Watling Street, not altogether, not the whole population, but in small companies, for greater safety. They left the City by the gate; they did not journey along the road, but for safety turned aside into the great forest, and so marchingacross moors and marshes, past burned homesteads, and ruined villages, and farm buildings thrown down, those of them who did not perish by the way under the enemies' sword or by malarious fever, or by starvation, reached the Severn and the border of the mountains where the Saxon could not penetrate.
There was left behind a remnant—after every massacre or exodus there is always left a remnant. The people who stayed in the City were only a few and those of the baser sort, protected by their wretchedness and poverty. No one would kill those who offer no defence and have no treasures; and their condition under any new masters would be no worse. They shut the gates and barred them: they closed and barred the Bridge: they took out of the houses anything that they wanted—the soft warm mantles, the woollen garments, the coverlets, the pillows and hangings, but they abode in their hovels near the river banks; as for the works of art, the pictures, statues, and tesselated pavements, these they left where they found them or for wantonness destroyed them. They fished in the river for their food: they hunted over the marshes where are now Westminster, Battersea, and Lambeth: the years passed by and no one disturbed them: they still crouched in their huts while the thin veneer of civilisation was gradually lost with whatever arts they had learned and all their religion except the terror of the Unknown.
Meanwhile the roofs of the villas and churches fell in, the walls decayed, the gardens were overgrown. Augusta—the proud and stately Augusta—was reduced to a wall enclosing a heap of ruins with a few savages huddled together in hovels by the riverside.
For the East Saxon had overrun Essex, the Jute covered Kent and Surrey, the South Saxon held Sussex,the West Saxon held Wessex. All around—on every side—London was surrounded by the Conqueror of the Land. Why, then, did they not take London? Because London was deserted; there was nothing to take: London was silent. No ships going up or down the river reminded the Saxon of the City. It lay amid its marshes and its moors, the old roads choked and overgrown; it was forgotten; it was what the Saxons had already made of Canterbury and Anderida, a 'Waste Chester,' that is, a desolated stronghold.
Augusta was forgotten.
This is the story that we learn from the actual site of London—its position among marshes, the conditions under which alone the people could be maintained.
How long did this oblivion continue? No one knows when it began or when it ended. As I read the story of the past, I find a day towards the close of the sixth century when there appeared within sight of the deserted walls a company of East Saxons. They were hunting: they were armed with spears: they followed the chase through the great forest afterwards called the Middlesex Forest, Epping Forest, Hainault Forest, and across the marshes of the river Lea, full of sedge and reed and treacherous quagmires. And they saw before them the gray walls of a great city of which they had never heard.
They advanced cautiously: they found themselves on a firm road, the Vicinal Way, covered with grass: they expected the sight of an enemy on the wall: none appeared. The gates were closed, the timbers were rotten and fell down at a touch: the men broke through and found themselves among the streets of a city all in ruins. They ran about—shouting—no one appeared: the City was deserted.
They went away and told what they had found.
But Augusta had perished. When the City appears again it is under its more ancient name—it is again London.
A hundred and fifty years passed away between the landing of the East Saxons and their recorded occupation of the City. This long period made a great difference in the fierce savage who followed the standard of the White Horse and landed on the coast of Essex. He became more peaceful: he settled down contentedly to periods of tranquillity. Certain arts he acquired, and he learned to live in towns: as yet he was not a Christian. This means that the influence of Rome with its religion, its learning and its arts had not yet touched him.
But he had begun to live in towns; and he lived in London.
Perhaps the first of the new settlers were the foreign merchants returning, as soon as more settled times allowed, with their cargoes. London has always been a place of trade. But for trade no one would have settled in it. Therefore, either the men of Essex invited the foreign merchants to return; or the foreign merchants returned and invited the men of Essex to come into the City and to bring with them what they had to exchange.
In the year 597 Augustine, prior of a Roman monastery, was sent by Pope Gregory the Great with forty monks, to convert the English. Ethelbert, King of Kent, and most powerful of the English kinglets, was married to Bertha, a Christian princess. She had brought with her a chaplain and it was probably at her invitation or through her influence, that the monks were sent. They landed at Thanet. They obtained permission to meetthe King in the open air. They appeared wearing their robes, carrying a crucifix, and chanting Psalms. It is probable that the conversion of the King had been arranged beforehand; for without any difficulty or delay the King and all his Court, and, following the King's example, all the people were baptised.
Augustine returned to Rome where he was consecrated Archbishop of the English nation. A church was built at Canterbury, and the work of preaching the Faith went on vigorously. The East Saxons made no more hesitation at being baptised than the men of Kent. Ethelbert, indeed, could command obedience; he was Over Lord of all the nations south of the Humber. He it was, according to Bede, who built the first church of St. Paul in London, a fact which proves his authority and influence in London, and his sincere desire that the East Saxons should become Christians.
They did, in a way. But when King Siebehrt died, they relapsed and drove their Bishop into exile.
Then—Bede says that they were punished for this sin—the East Saxons fell into trouble. They went to war with the men of Wessex and were defeated by them. After this, we find London in the hands of the Northumbrians and the Mercians—that is to say—these nations one after the other obtained the supremacy. It was in the year 616 or thereabouts, that Bishop Mellitus had to leave his diocese. Forty years later another conversion of London took place under Bishop Cedd, consecrated at Lindisfarne. The new faith was not strong enough to stand against a plague, and the East Saxons of London went back once more to their old gods. After another thirty years, before the close of the seventh century, London was again converted: and this time for good.
In the eighth century London passed again out of thehands of the East Saxon kings into those of the Mercians. The earliest extant document concerning London is one dated 734, in which King Ethelbald grants to the Bishop of Rochester leave to send one ship without tax in or out of London Port.
A witan—i.e. a national council—was held in London in 811. It is then spoken of as an illustrious place and royal city. The supremacy of Mercia passed to that of Wessex—London went with the supremacy. In 833 Egbert, King of Wessex, held a witan in London.
MARTYRDOM OF ST. EDMUND BY THE DANESMARTYRDOM OF ST. EDMUND BY THE DANES.(From a drawing belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.)
When Egbert died the supremacy of Wessex fell with him. Then the Danish troubles fell thick and disastrous upon the country. When Alfred succeeded to the Crown the Danes held the Isle of Thanet, which commanded the river; they had conquered the north country from the Tweed to the Humber; they had overrun all the eastern counties twice—viz., in 839 and in 852: they had pillaged London, which they presently occupied, making it their headquarters. With this Danish occupation ends the first Saxon settlement of the City.
The Danes held the City for twelve years at least. One cannot believe that these fierce warriors, who were exactly what the Saxons and Jutes had been four hundred years before—as fierce, as rude, as pagan—suffered any of the inhabitants, except the slaves, to remain. Massacre and pillage—or the fear of both—drove away all the residents. But the City was the headquarters of the Danes. Alfred recovered it in the year 884.
He found it as the East Saxons had found it three hundred years before, a city of ruins; the wall a ruin; the churches destroyed.
King Alfred has left many imperishable monuments of his reign. One of the greatest is the City of London, which he rebuilt. A recent historian (Loftie,Historic Towns, 'London') says that it would hardly be wrong to write, 'London was founded, rather more than 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.'
The first thing he did was to rebuild the wall. This work re-established confidence in the minds of the citizens. Alfred placed his son-in-law Ethelred, afterwards Alderman (i.e. Chief man—Governor) of the Mercians, in command of the City, which seems to have been immediately filled with people. The London citizens went out with Ethelred to defeat the Danes at Benfleet, and with Alfred to defeat the Danes at the mouth of the river Lea; they went out with Athelstan to fight at Brunanburgh. London was never again taken by the Danes. Twice Sweyn endeavoured to take the City but was repulsed. Nor did London open her gates to him until the King had left the City. And when the Danes againentered the City there was no more pillage or massacre; London was too strong to be pillaged or massacred, and too rich to be abandoned to the army.
King Ethelred came back and died, and was buried in St. Paul's; the old St. Paul's—that of King Ethelbert or that of Bishop Cedd—was burned down and the Londoners were building a new cathedral.
Edmund Ironside was elected and crowned within the City walls. Then followed a siege of London by Canute. He dug a canal through the swamps, and dragged his ships by its means from Redriff to Lambeth. But he could not take the City. But the Treaty of Partition between Edmund and himself was agreed upon and the Dane once more obtained the City. He has left one or two names behind him. The church of St. Olave's in Hart Street, and that in 'Tooley,' or St. Olave's Street, Southwark, and the Church of St. Magnus, attest to the sovereignty of the Dane.
SAXON HORSEMENSAXON HORSEMEN.(Harl. MS. 603.)
At this time the two principal officers of the City were the Bishop and the Portreeve: there was also the 'Staller' or Marshal. The principal governing body was the 'Knighten Guild,' which was largely composed of the City aldermen. But these aldermen were not like those of the present day, an elected body: they werehereditary: they were aldermen in right of their estates within the City. What powers the Knighten Guild possessed is not easy to define. Besides this, the aristocracy of the City, there were already trade guilds for religious purposes and for feasting—but, as yet, with no powers. The people had their folk mote, or general gathering: their ward mote: and their weekly hustings. We must not seek to define the powers of all these bodies and corporations. They overlapped each other: the aristocratic party was continually innovating while the popular party as continually resisted. In many ways what we call the government of the City had not begun to be understood. That there was order of a kind is shown by the strict regulations, as strictly enforced, of the dues and tolls for ships that came up the river to the Port of London.
The Londoner of Athelstan and Ethelred was an Anglo-Saxon of a type far in advance of his fierce ancestor who swept the narrow seas and harried the eastern coasts. He had learned many arts: he had become a Christian: he wanted many luxuries. But the solid things which he inherited from his rude forefathers he passed on to his children. And they remain an inheritance for us to this day. For instance, our form of monarchy, limited in power, comes straight down to us from Alfred and Athelstan. Our nobility is a survival and a development of the Saxon earls and thanes; our forms of justice, trial by jury, magistrates—all come from the Saxons; the divisions of our country are Saxon, our municipal institutions are Saxon, our parliaments and councils are Saxon in origin. We owe our language tothe Anglo-Saxon, small additions from Latin, French, and other sources have been made, but the bulk of our language is Saxon. Three-fourths of us are Anglo-Saxon by descent. Whatever there is in the English character of persistence, obstinacy, patience, industry, sobriety, love of freedom, we are accustomed to attribute to our Anglo-Saxon descent. In religion, arts, learning, literature, culture, we owe little or nothing to the Anglo-Saxon. In all these things we are indebted to the South.
Let us see how the Anglo-Saxon Londoner lived.
He was a trader or a craftsman. As a trader he received from the country inland whatever it had to produce. Slaves, who were bred like cattle on the farms, formed a large part of the exports; hides, wool, iron, tin, the English merchant had these things, and nothing more, to offer the foreigner who brought in exchange wine, spices, silk, incense, vestments and pictures for the churches and monasteries, books, and other luxuries. The ships at first belonged to the foreign merchants: they traded not only at London, but also at Bristol, Canterbury, Dover, Arundel, and other towns. Before the Conquest, however, English-built ships and English-manned fleets had already entered upon the trade.
The trader, already wealthy, lived in great comfort. He was absolute master in his own house, but the household was directed or ruled by his wife. Everything was made in the house: the flour was ground, the bread was baked, the meat and fish were salted; the linen was woven, the garments were made by the wife, the daughters, and the women servants. The Anglo-Saxon ladies were remarkable for their skill in embroidery; they excelled all other women in this beautiful art.
The Anglo-Saxon house developed out of the commonhall. Those who know the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge can trace the growth of the house in any of them. First there is the Common Hall. In this room, formerly, the whole family, with the serving men and women, lived and slept. There still exists at Higham Ferrars, in Northampton, such a hall, built as an almshouse. It is a long room: at the east end, raised a foot, is a little chapel; on the south side is a long open stove; the almsmen slept on the floor on reeds, each man wrapped in his blanket.
SAXON CHURCH AT BRADFORD-ON-AVON, WILTS.SAXON CHURCH AT BRADFORD-ON-AVON, WILTS.
Everybody lived and slept in the Common Hall. All day long the women worked at the spinning and weaving and sewing and embroidery. Women were defined by this kind of work—we still speak of spinsters. Formerly relationship through the mother was called 'on the spindle side,' while, long after the men had to fight every day against marauding tribes, relationship through the father was called 'on the spear side.' All day long the men worked outside in the fields, or in the warehouse, and on the quays or at their craft. In the evening theysat about the fire and listened to stories, or to songs with the accompaniment of the harp.
The first improvement was the separation of the kitchen from the hall: in the Cambridge College you see the hall on one side and the kitchen the other, separated by a passage. The second step was the construction of the 'Solar,' or chamber over the kitchen, which became the bedroom of the master and the mistress of the house. Then they built a room behind the solar for the daughters and the maidservants; the sons and the menservants still sleeping in the Hall. Presumably the house was at this stage in the time of King Ethelred, just before the Norman Conquest. The ladies' 'bower' followed, and after that the sleeping rooms for the men.
There was no furniture, as we understand it. Benches there were, and trestles for the tables, which were literally laid at every meal: a great chair was provided for the Lord and Lady: tapestry kept out the draughts: weapons, musical instruments, and other things hung upon the walls. Dinner was at noon: supper in the evening when work was over: they made great use of vegetables and they had nearly all our modern fruits: they drank, as the national beverage, beer or mead.
But everybody was not a wealthy merchant: most of the citizens were craftsmen of some kind. These lived in small wooden houses of two rooms, one above the other: those who were not able to afford so much slept in hovels, consisting of four uprights with 'wattle and daub' for the sides, a roof of thatch, no window, and a fire in the middle of the floor. They lived very roughly: they endured many hardships: but they were a well-fed people, turbulent and independent: their houses were crowded in narrow lanes—how narrow maybe understood by a walk along Thames Street; they were always in danger of fire—in 962, in 1087, in 1135, the greater part of the City was burned to the ground. They lived in plenty: there was work for all: they had their folk mote—their City parliament—and their ward mote—which still exists: they had no feudal lord to harass them: as for the dirt and mud and stench of the narrow City streets, they cared nothing for such things. They were free: and they were well fed: and they were cheerful and contented.
Let us examine into the history and the course of the Wall of London, if only for the very remarkable facts that the boundary of the City was determined for fifteen hundred years by the erection of this Wall; that for some purposes the course of the Wall still affects the government of London; and that it was only pulled down bit by bit in the course of the last century.
You will see by reference to the map what was the course of the Wall. It began, starting from the east where the White Tower now stands. Part of the foundation of the Tower consists of a bastion of the Roman wall. It followed a line nearly north as far as Aldgate. Then it turned in a N.W. direction just north of Camomile Street and Bevis Marks to Bishopsgate. Thence it ran nearly due W., north of the street called London Wall, turning S. at Monkwell Street. At Aldersgate it turned W. until it reached Newgate, where it turned nearly S. again and so to the river, a little east of the present Blackfriars Bridge. It ran, lastly, along the river bank to join its eastern extremity. The river wall had openings or gates at Dowgate and Bishopsgate,and probably at Queen Hithe. The length of the Wall, without counting the river side, was 2 miles and 608 feet.
This formidable Wall was originally about 12 feet thick made of rubble and mortar, the latter very hard, and faced with stone. You may know Roman work by the courses of tiles or bricks. They are arranged in double layers about 2 feet apart. The so-called bricks are not in the least like our bricks, being 6 inches long, 12 inches wide and 1½ inch thick. The Wall was 20 feet high, with towers and bastions at intervals about 50 feet high. At first there was no moat or ditch, and it will be understood that in order to protect the City from an attack of barbarians—Picts or Scots—it was enough to close the gates and to man the towers. The invaders had no ladders.
CITY GATES.CITY GATES.
In the course of centuries a great many repairs and rebuildings of the Wall took place. The Saxons allowed it to fall into a ruinous condition. Alfred rebuilt it and strengthened it. The next important repairs were made in thereign of King John in 1215, by Henry III., Edward I., Edward II., Edward III., Richard II., Edward IV. After these various rebuildings there would seem to be little left of the original Wall. That, however, a great part of it continued to be the hard rubble core of the Roman work seems evident from the fact that the course of the Wall was never altered. The only alteration was when they turned the Wall west at Ludgate down to the Fleet River and so to the confluence of the Fleet and the Thames. The river side of the Wall was also allowed to be removed.
REMAINS OF THE WALL.REMAINS OF THE WALL.
The City was thus protected by a great wall pierced by a few gates, with bastions and towers. At the East End after the Norman Conquest rose the Great White Tower still standing. At the West End was a tower called Montfichet's Tower.
PART OF THE ROMAN WALL AT LEICESTER.PART OF THE ROMAN WALL AT LEICESTER.
But a wall without a ditch, where a ditch was possible,became of little use as soon as scaling ladders were invented with wooden movable towers and other devices. A ditch was accordingly constructed in the year 1211 in the reign of King John. It appears to have been from the very first neglected by the citizens, who trusted more to their own bravery than to the protection of a ditch. It was frequently ordered to be cleansed and repaired: it abounded, when it was clean, with good fish of various kinds: but it was gradually allowed to dry up until, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, nothing was left but a narrow channel or no channel at all but a few scattered ponds, with market gardens planted in the ditch itself. In Agas's map of London these gardens are figured, with summer houses and cottages for the gardeners and cattle grazing. On the west side north of Ludgate the ditch has entirely disappeared and houses are built against the Wall on the outside.Houndsditch is a row of mean houses facing the moat. Fore Street is also built over against the moat. Within and without the Wall they placed churchyards—those of St. Alphege, Allhallows, and St. Martin's Outwich, you may still see for yourselves within the Wall: that of St. Augustine's at the north end of St. Mary Axe, has vanished. Those of the three churches of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, Aldgate, Aldersgate, and that of St. Giles are churchyards without the Wall. Then the ditch became filled up and houses were built all along the Wall within and without. Thus began unchecked, perhaps openly encouraged, the gradual demolition of the Wall. It takes a long time to tear down a wall of solid rubble twelve feet thick. It took the Londoners about 160 years. In the year 1760 they finally removed the gates. Most of the Wall was gone by this time but large fragments remained here and there. You may still see a considerable piece, part of a bastion in the churchyard of St. Giles, and the vestry of All Hallows on the Wall is built upon a bastion. In Camomile Street and in other places portions of the Wall have been discovered where excavations have been made: and, of course, the foundation of the Wall exists still, from end to end.
When William the Conqueror received the submission of the City he gave the citizens a Charter—their first Charter—of freedom. There can be no doubt that the Charter was the price demanded by the citizens and willingly paid by the Conqueror in return for their submission. The following is the document. Short as it is, the whole future of the City is founded upon these few words:—
'William King greets William Bishop and Gosfrith Portreeve and all the burghers within London, French and English, friendly.
'I do you to wit that I will that ye be all law worthy that were in King Edward's day, and I will that every child be his father's heir after his father's day: and I will not endure that any man offer any wrong to you.
'God keep you.'
The ancient Charter itself is preserved at Guildhall. Many copies of it and translations of it were made from time to time. Let us see what it means.
The citizens were to be 'law worthy' as they had been in the days of King Edward. This meant that they were to be free men in the courts of justice, with the right to be tried by their equals, that is, by jury. 'All who were law worthy in King Edward's day.' Serfs were not law worthy, for instance. That the children should inherit their father's property was, as much as the preceding clause, great security to the freedom of the City, for it protected the people from any feudal claims that might arise. Next, observe that there was never any Earl of London: the City had no Lord but the King: it never would endure any Lord but the King. An attempt was made, but only one, and that was followed by the downfall of the Queen—Matilda—who tried it. Feudal customs arose and flourished and died, but they were unknown in this free city.
But the City with its strong walls, its great multitude of people, and its resources, might prove so independent as to lock out the King. William therefore began to build the Tower, by means of which he could not only keep the enemy out of London but could keep his own strong hand upon the burghers. He took down a piece of the wall and enclosed twelve acres of ground, in whichhe built his stronghold, within a deep and broad ditch. The work was entrusted to Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester, who left it unfinished when he died thirty years after.
The next great Charter of the City was granted by Henry the First. He remitted the payment of the levies for feudal service, of tax called Danegeld, originally imposed for buying off the Danes: of the murder tax: of wager of battle, that is, that form of trial in which the accused and the accuser fought it out, and from certain tolls. He also gave the citizens the county of Middlesex to farm on payment to the Crown of 300l.a year—a payment still made: they were to appoint a Sheriff for the county: and they were to have leave to hunt in the forests of Middlesex, Surrey, and the Chiltern Hills. They were also empowered to elect their own justiciar and allowed to try their own cases within their own limits.