Mediæval London

The Cistercian is the first of the great religious movements which have wrought an enduring effect upon our national life. The Crusades, which have also left their mark in London, made a second; and within the period we are considering we have also to place the preaching of the Friars, the Lollardism of Wyclif, and the Reformation. Later on, past mediæval times, came the Puritan Rebellion, the preaching of the Wesleys, the Oxford Tract Movement, and the work of F. D. Maurice and the “Broad Church.”

But it will be well to set down in order the principal religious establishments which grew up with the years. Here is a list of them as they existed at the time of the Reformation: —

Friaries and Abbeys. —The Black Friars (Dominicans) between Ludgate Hill and the Thames, extending from St. Andrew’s Hill to the Fleet River. Their house was founded by Hubert de Burgh, earl of Kent, in 1221. It had a church and precinct with four gates. In this church Archbishop Courtenay was condemning the writings of Wyclif, when “a great earthquake shook the city.” Here Charles V. lodged when he was visiting Henry VIII. The latter king held a Parliament here, but transferred it to the house of the Black Monks of Westminster, hence it was called “the Black Parliament.” At the Dissolution the church was given to the parishioners (St. Anne’s, Blackfriars). The Grey Friars (Franciscans) had a noble house on the site of what is at this moment, though it will soon cease to be, Christ’s Hospital. Parts of the old buildings remained as late as 1820 (see Gentleman’s Magazine, May, 1820), indeed, there is a small portion even now. The noble church of the Augustinian (Austin) Friars (founded in 1253) still exists off Broad Street, the nave being used by the Dutch Protestant Church. The White Friars (Carmelites) had their church east of the Temple, founded 1241. It was pulled down at the Dissolution, and houses were built on the site, but it still preserved the right of sanctuary, and was consequently a haunt of thieves and fraudulent debtors. The privilege was not abolished till 1697. The Crutched (== crossed) Friars, so called because they wore a cross on their backs, had their church on the site of St. Olave’s, Hart Street; the Carthusians, on that of the Charterhouse; the Cistercians’ New Abbey was in East Smithfield; and the Brethren de Sacca, or “Bonhommes,” were a small community under Augustinian rules in Old Jewry.

Then there were the Priories, religious houses subject to greater abbeys or religious bodies. That of St. John of Jerusalem, at Clerkenwell, was founded in 1100 by Jordan Briset and his wife Muriel, and was endowed in 1324 with the revenues of the dissolved English Knights Templars. Its ancient gateway remains, the only one left of all the old London monastic houses. In the Wat Tyler rebellion (1381) the prior was beheaded in the great courtyard, now St. John’s Square. Of the Priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, we have already spoken, as we have also of St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, the noble chancel of which priory is still one of the finest buildings in London. Across the river the beautiful church of the Augustinian Priory of St. Mary Overy was built by Giffard, bishop of Winchester, in 1106, at the expense of two Norman knights. At the Dissolution, Henry VIII. gave it to the parishioners of Southwark for their parish church, and the name was changed to that of St. Saviour. How part of it tumbled down; how it was rebuilt in Brummagem Gothic; how this also, happily, went to pieces, and has been replaced within the last few years by a handsome restoration, we all know.

Of Nunneries, we note St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, the church of the Priory of the Nuns of St. Helen, founded in 1212 by “William the son of William the Goldsmith.” The church formerly had a partition dividing the nuns’ portion from that of the parishioners. It was taken down at the Dissolution, but plenty of remains of the old arrangement are still evident in the church, which is in many features one of the most interesting in London. Until the year 1799 the old Hall of the nunnery was standing, having been bought by the Leathersellers’ Company at the Dissolution for their Hall. Holywell, Shoreditch, was so called from a sweet well there, which was spoiled as the population came to increase in that part. There was here a Benedictine Nunnery, dedicated to St. John Baptist, founded in 1318 by Gravesend, bishop of London. In later days the famous Curtain Theatre was built on the site, which again has given place to St. James’s Church, Curtain Road. Edmond, earl of Leicester, brother of King Edward III., founded an Abbey of nuns of the Order of St. Clare, commonly called the Minorites, in 1293, in a street between Aldgate and the Tower. On the Dissolution, Henry VIII. gave the chapel to the people for a parish church (Holy Trinity, Minories); the rest of the site was built over. The Benedictine Nunnery of St. Mary, Clerkenwell, was contiguous to the Hospital or Priory of St. John. The name Clerkenwell (Fons Clericorum) was derived from a well, at which once a year the Parish Clerks of London assembled and performed a religious play. It was at the S.E. corner of Ray Street. A pump marked the site until less than fifty years ago, when the water was found to be so polluted that it was removed. When the “Black Nunnery” was dissolved, the site was given to the Earl of Aylesbury, hence the present Aylesbury Street, Clerkenwell.

Of Colleges, i. e., communities of religious men, were (1) St. Martin’s-le-Grand (already mentioned); (2) St. Thomas of Acon (alias Acre), a military sanctuary founded by Agnes, the sister of St. Thomas Becket, over her brother’s birthplace. It was on the site of the present Mercers’ Hall, and was much regarded by the Corporation of London in the Middle Ages. Richard Whittington, Mercer, thrice Lord Mayor (last time, 1419), founded the College of “Saint Esprit and Mary,” in the Vintry Ward, and the Almshouse for Mercers. The site still bears the name of College Hill. Mercers’ School was removed from hence to Barnard’s Inn, Holborn, a few years since. The College of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, was founded by Sir William Walworth, who was buried within the church. This church was removed to make room for the approach to new London Bridge, in 1831.

Of Hospitals, note St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields for Lepers, founded by Matilda, queen of Henry I.; St. James’s Hospital “for leprous maidens,” now St. James’s Palace; St. Mary of Rounceval, a priory of the Abbey of Roncevalles in Navarre. It stood on the site of Northumberland Avenue at Charing Cross. Elsing Spital, by Cripplegate, was founded by Wm. Elsing in 1329, for the sustentation of a hundred blind men. The site was afterwards occupied by Sion College; but when that was moved to the Thames Embankment the ground was built over. Sir John Pountney founded and endowed a College in his own house in Candlewick Street, calling it Corpus Christi, to maintain a master and twelve mission priests. Their chapel was attached to the Church of St. Lawrence Pountney, which was burnt in the Great Fire and not rebuilt. The Papey, a house for worn-out priests, was in Bevis Marks. St. Bartholomew the Less is now the Chapel of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital precinct. The Lock Spital was for the reception of lepers, the derivation being loques, rags. The old Hospital of St. Katharine’s by the Tower was removed, in 1828, to make room for St. Katharine’s Docks, and set up anew by the Regent’s Park.

Episcopal Residences were those of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, at Lambeth and Whitehall respectively; of the Bishop of Durham (Durham House, Strand); of those of Bath, Chester, Lichfield, Llandaff, Worcester, Exeter, Carlisle, all in the Strand; of Hereford, on Fish Street Hill. The Bishop of Ely dwelt in Ely Place, Holborn: the chapel still exists, in the possession of the Roman Catholics. Readers of Shakespeare will remember how the bishop grew strawberries in his garden. The Bishop of Salisbury’s house was in Salisbury Square; of St. David’s, near Bridewell; of Winchester and Rochester, in Southwark. Parts of Winchester House still exist there.

As the Thames on the south side of the city did noble service as the principal highway for its commerce and its corn supply, so the fields on the north furnished large pasture-land for its cattle. Across these fields a road led away to the village of Islington. In the Moor Fields were the Artillery Butts, whither young London resorted to be trained in the use of the bow. Readers may remember the description of them in the opening portion of Lord Lytton’s novel, The Last of the Barons. Within the walls adjacent to this part the manufacturers of bows and arrows were settled. Very strange and curious have been the various associations of the name “Grub Street.” Grobes were feathers for arrows, and originally Grub Street was that in which arrows were finished. That manufacture died out, and the street, being in a Puritan neighbourhood, in the days of Elizabeth became the publishing place for violent attacks upon the bishops. “Martin Marprelate,” the well-known series of that class of publication, was issued from this street. Then, by a natural transition, scurrilous lampoons in general, and not merely theological, came to be called “Grub Street tracts,” because the phrase had become current; and the name stuck, and was applied to literary rubbish of any kind, Pope having endorsed the title in his satire. The name has, unfortunately, disappeared from the street within the last decade. The authorities, because the name had become obnoxious to fastidious ears, have changed it to Milton Street, the poet having been borne down it from Bunhill Fields, where he died, to be buried in St. Giles’s Church.

Partly on the site of Liverpool Street Station, and partly across the road as far as the Underground Railway, stood, in mediæval times, the “Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem.” From early times, certainly in 1402, this religious foundation was devoted to the care of the insane, and at the Dissolution it became one of the Royal Hospitals, with lunatics exclusively for its inmates. It was the Great Fire of 1666 which permanently changed all this neighbourhood. Up to that time the greater part had been fields, but now the poor burned-out citizens came and (literally) pitched their tents here, and stowed within them the goods which they had been able to save. Here they carried on their business, and gradually substituted rough houses for these tents; and thus, by the time the City was rebuilt, a new suburb had arisen, and a well-inhabited suburb from that time it remained. Bethlehem Hospital was removed to London Wall in 1675-6, as the monastic buildings had decayed, and the increasing number of patients required larger room. It found its present home in St. George’s Fields in 1812-15. And here we may note that “Finsbury Fields,” i. e., Finsbury Circus and the land round it, formed the favourite summer lounge of the London citizens up to the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was laid out in formal style, with paths and bordering trees. Merchants and tradesmen came hither at eventide, as the fashionable world of to-day goes to Hyde Park. Poets and pamphleteers met publishers, and playwrights made appointments with managers. A large body of spectators frequently gathered here to see a thief whipped at the cart’s tail.

And now we will simply name the most prominent events in the history of the city during our period.

In Pre-Norman times, after Alfred had restored the lost prosperity of London, his grandson Athelstan (925-940) established a royal palace and a royal mint, and gave an impulse to the commerce of the city by promising patents of gentility to every merchant who should make three voyages to the Mediterranean in his own ship. His “redeless” grandson Ethelred abandoned London to the Danes, and Cnut levied an impost of 11,000l. upon it, a proof of the great wealth which it had now acquired. It was a seventh part of that of the whole kingdom.

Norman Times. – As already mentioned, London is not in Domesday book. It is probable that there was a separate survey, the records of which are now lost. Domesday incidentally mentions ten acres of land near Bishopsgate, Norton Folgate, as belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, and a vineyard in Holborn, the property of the Crown.

The founding of the many religious houses during this period we have already mentioned. The building of the first stone bridge by Peter of Colechurch, which also belongs to this period, finds its place in another page.

We note the orders of Henry Fitzailwin, the first Mayor, for the prevention of fires. All houses were to be of brick or stone, with party walls of the same, and to be covered with slates or tiles. The building of houses round the Walbrook, Oldbourne, and Langbourn had diminished the supply of water, so they sought a fresh supply from Tyburn, and supplied a conduit in Cheapside with water from thence, which they brought in leaden pipes (A.D. 1255). The chronicles of Evesham say that in 1258, 20,000 persons died of hunger through a scarcity of corn, and ghastly stories are told of another famine in 1270. But on the whole London increased and prospered under Norman rule. In 1264 there was a massacre of the Jews on some trivial pretext. They were expelled the kingdom in 1291.

Plantagenet Times. – The division of the city into wards dates from the beginning of this period or earlier. In 1348 came the terrible Black Death. “In London it was so outrageously cruel that every day at least twenty, sometimes forty or sixty, or more, dead corpses were thrown together into one pit, and the churchyard not sufficing for the dead, they were fain to set apart certain fields for additional places of burial… But especially, between Candlemas and Easter in 1349, there were buried 200 corpses per diem” (Barnes’s Hist. of Edward III.). It is chronicled that more than 50,000 persons were buried, during this pestilence, within the precincts of the Charterhouse alone. The trial of Wyclif in St. Paul’s was a memorable event, when John of Gaunt stood forth as his champion.

In 1380 came the Wat Tyler rebellion, and the death of the leader from the dagger-stroke of Sir William Walworth. Hence the long-exploded but hard-dying theory of the “dagger” in the City Arms. The charge in question is the sword of St. Paul, London’s patron saint, and it was borne on the City shield before the deed of Walworth. Smithfield, where the event took place, was then “a great plain field, without the gates,” where on every Friday was “a great market for horses, whither earls, barons, knights, and citizens repair, to see and to purchase.” Our quaint illustration depicts King Richard II. going forth on his ill-fated expedition against Ireland.

Lancaster and York. – The first recorded illumination of the City was at the Coronation of Henry IV. Ten years later, the Mayor, Sir Henry Barton, ordered that the streets should be lit with lanterns every night.

Jack Cade’s rebellion in 1450 seemed at first successful, so far as the city was concerned. He took possession of it, and for a while maintained order among his followers. But they broke out into outrages, slew Lord-Treasurer Saye, and other persons of consequence, and the citizens, with the assistance of the Governor of the Tower, rose up and expelled him. Soon afterwards he was killed. As a rule the citizens inclined to the House of York, and in consequence Edward IV, steadily favoured the Londoners. The setting up of Caxton’s printing-press in his reign was a great epoch in the history of the world.

Tudor Period. – Two Lord Mayors and six Aldermen died of the sweating sickness in the first year of Henry the Seventh’s reign. The citizens, as we have already noted, had been accustomed to practise archery north of the city. A regular field was enclosed for them in 1498 in Finsbury, which was the origin of the present Artillery ground. The river Fleet was made navigable as far as Holborn Bridge, and Houndsditch was arched over. Henry VIII. built the royal palaces of St. James’s and Bridewell. Stricter rules were made for the preservation of order, nuisances were removed, and the streets were widened and paved. The first Act for the pavement and improvement of London describes the streets as “very foul and full of pits and sloughs, very perilous and noyous, as well for all the King’s subjects on horseback as well as on foot and with carriages.”

We should note the sumptuary law passed by the Mayor and Common Council in 1543 by which the Mayor was ordered to confine himself to seven dishes at dinner or supper; the Aldermen and Sheriffs to six; and the Sword-bearer to four.

In the reign of Edward VI. the hospitals of St. Thomas, St. Bartholomew, and Christ were founded, and the palace of Bridewell was also converted into a hospital. The borough of Southwark was constituted a ward of the city.

Passing over the terrible martyr-fires of Smithfield in the days of Mary, we come to the reign of Elizabeth, a very prosperous one as far as London was concerned. The refugees from Alva’s cruelties in the Netherlands found a home in London, and did wonders for the improvement of its manufactures. There were, as elsewhere, extravagances in the way of spectacles and tournaments, and much opportunity was seized to flatter Gloriana, who was nowise averse thereto. It was apparently looked upon as always the correct thing, to flatter sovereigns. The Preface to the Authorised Version of the Bible and Bacon’s Dedication of his Advancement of Learning will be sufficient illustrations of this. Here is the inscription to a monument to Queen Elizabeth, which was put up in the Church of All Hallows the Great in Dowgate: —

“Spain’s rod, Rome’s ruin, Netherlands’ relief,Heaven’s gem, Earth’s joy, World’s wonder, Nature’s chief.Britain’s blessing, England’s splendour,Religion’s nurse, and Faith’s defender.”

In the neighbouring Church of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, the same year, was set up the following inscription. The contrast is refreshing: —

“Here lieth, wrapt in clay,The body of William Ray.I have no more to say.”

Soon after the accession of Elizabeth, Ralph Aggas published a very curious plan and view of London, with the title Civitas Londinensis. It reveals how much of field and garden there was then in the very heart of the city. The most crowded part was from Newgate Street, Cheapside, and Cornhill to the river. With the exception of Coleman Street, and a few scattered buildings from Lothbury to Billingsgate and from Bishopsgate to the Tower, all (N. and E.) was open or garden ground. Whitechapel was a small village; Houndsditch, a single row of houses opposite the city walls, opened behind into the fields; Spitalfields, from the back of the church, lay entirely open; Goswell Street was known as the road to St. Albans; St. Giles’s was a small cluster of houses, known then, as indeed it is still, as “St. Giles’s in the Fields.” Beyond, all was country, both N. and W., Oxford Street having trees and hedges on both sides. As late as 1778 a German writer on London speaks of Tyburn, the place of execution, as being “two miles from London.” From Oxford Street round to Piccadilly there was a road, called the Way from Reading, proceeding through Hedge Lane and the Haymarket – which avenues were entirely destitute of houses – to St. James’s Hospital, afterwards the Palace; and a few small buildings on the site of Carlton House were all that existed of the present Pall Mall. Leicester Square was open fields; St. Martin’s Lane had only a few buildings above the church toward the Convent Garden, which extended to Drury Lane. The Strand was a street with houses; those on the South side had gardens right down to the river, and were the property of nobles, as mentioned in another chapter; the present Treasury occupies-the site of the Cockpit and Tilt Yard; opposite to it stood the Palace of Whitehall, which since the days of Henry VIII. was occupying the former residence of the Archbishop of York. From King Street, which has this year disappeared, to the Abbey the buildings were close and connected, as also from Whitehall to Palace Yard. The noblemen who lived in the Strand used to proceed to the Court at Whitehall in their own barges from their River ‘stairs,’ and retained a number of watermen, whom their livery protected from impressment. On the Surrey side there were but six or seven houses between Lambeth Palace and the shore opposite Whitefriars. There a line of houses with gardens began which was continued to the Bishop of Winchester’s Palace, where now is Barclay and Perkins’s Brewery. Opposite Queenhithe was a great circular building for bull and bear-baiting. It was largely patronised, by Queen Elizabeth among others. Southwark extended but a little way down High Street. London Bridge was crowded with buildings. Along Tooley Street to Horsley Down there were many buildings.

Such was London towards the end of what we have defined as the Mediæval period. But it was, thanks to the enterprise of the time, on the rapid move. The citizens were able to send sixteen ships fully equipped, and armed with 10,000 men, against the Spanish Armada. In 1594 the Thames water was first raised for the supply of the city. In 1613 Sir Hugh Myddleton completed the New River. In 1616 the paving of the streets with flagstones was first introduced. Many years, however, were to elapse before sanitary science could be called in for the public health. In 1603 the plague destroyed 30,578 lives.

CHAPTER II

CIVIC RULE

Guildhall – Its Porch and Crypt – Other Ancient Crypts – Royal Control – Civic Government – Punishment for Trade Offences – The City Prisons – The Mayoralty – “Ridings and Pageants” – The Marching Watch – The Common Council – Office of Sheriff – Historic Scenes at Guildhall – Guildhall Chapel and Library – The Livery Companies.

In the very centre of the old city, and only just removed from the noise and bustle of its great thoroughfare, the Chepe, lay the Guildhall, the seat of civic government. The name itself is eloquent of mediæval feeling, when the citizens were all enrolled under their various guilds, each owing strict obedience to the master and wardens of his guild seated at their hall; and the guilds themselves, close upon one hundred in number, being in their turn under the jurisdiction of the Mayor and Aldermen, sitting in their Court at the Guildhall. These were not the times of social liberty; the oppressive rule of the great feudal lords had been exchanged for the close personal supervision of the ward, the guild, and the church.

The site of the old Guildhall corresponded with that of the present structure, but the original entrance was from Aldermanbury. An enlargement of the ancient building appears to have taken place in the year 1326, during the Mayoralty of Richard le Breton, and further extensive repairs were carried out in the years 1341-3.

The old hall, which Stow describes as “a little cottage,” was replaced by “a large and great house as now it standeth,” in 1411. The building occupied ten years, the funds being procured from gifts of the livery guilds, fees, fines, and money payments in discharge of offences. The porch and crypt have survived in much of their original beauty. The former consists of two vaulted bays richly groined, with moulded principal and secondary ribs, the intersections being adorned with sculptured bosses, the two principal of which bear the arms of Edward the Confessor and Henry VI.

The porch was known as the Guildhall Gate, and there was a lower gate which was probably situated in a line with the Church of St. Lawrence Jewry, in Gresham Street.

The crypt is one of the best of the few mediæval examples remaining in London. It forms the eastern portion of the sub-structure of the hall, and is 76 feet by 45¼, with an average height of 13 feet 7 inches. It is divided into three equal portions by clustered columns of Purbeck marble, from which spring the stone-ribbed groins of the vaulting. The bosses at the intersections are all carved with devices of the usual mediæval character, and include the arms assigned to the Confessor and those of the See and City of London.

Of these crypts – a beautiful feature of ancient architecture in which London formerly abounded – the great part have disappeared. There are those of the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield; Bow Church, Cheapside (used for burial purposes); Etheldreda’s Chapel, Ely Place; the Priory Church of St. John, Clerkenwell; Lambeth Palace; Merchant Taylors’ Hall; and St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster. Several fine examples have been destroyed within quite recent times, including the crypt or Lower Chapel of Old London Bridge, Gerard’s Hall crypt in Basing Lane, and that under the Manor of the Rose in Lawrence Pountney Hill, the two latter buildings being fine examples of the houses of distinguished citizens. To this tale of destruction must be added the crypts of Lamb’s Chapel in Monkwell Street, Leathersellers’ Hall, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, and St. Michael, Aldgate.