CHAPTER I
THE COMING OF THE SAXONS

The life of London began again somewhere about the end of the sixth century. As London was created for purposes of trade, and as it fell with the destruction of trade, so it was restored for purposes of trade. The merchants from beyond the seas heard that peace, some kind of peace, had returned to this land; the mouth of the Thames no longer swarmed with pirates, for there was nothing left on which they could prey. From Dover the adventurous merchantman crept timidly along the coast—there was no enemy in sight; the skipper ventured into the narrow channel between Thanet and the mainland—no ship was there, no sign of pirate craft; timidly he sailed up the broad estuary of the Thames—not a sail did he encounter. There were no ships; when the Saxon migration exhausted itself, the Saxon forgot straightway the art of shipbuilding and the mystery of navigation; his ships were to him like those wings on certain insects which provide for the one flight—that achieved, the wings drop off. During the hundred years and more, while the invasion was becoming a conquest, the ships had rotted or been burned. Yet the strange merchants knew not what reception they would meet. Along the low and marshy shores of the Thames, as the estuary narrowed, there was not a sign of human habitation—who would dwell in the marsh when he could dwell on the land? There were no fishermen even. There were no signs of life, other than the cry of the birds whirling overhead and the plunging of the porpoise round the bows.

Presently they arrived at London. They knew it as London—not Augusta, which had been its name for a few years only. There was the bridge of which they had heard; but its planks and piles were falling into decay. There was the sea wall, and, behind, the land wall—grey, overgrown with wall-flowers, with that yellow flower that grows to this day only on and beside Roman stations. The wall was strong yet, though half in ruins. And there stood the ancient gates with their rusty hinges and decayed woodwork. There were the ancient ports which we know as Billingsgate and Dowgate, at the mouth of the Walbrook. There were the quays, broken down and decaying and deserted. Where were the people of London? There was no smoking hearth; there was no smoking altar; there was no sound of blacksmith’s forge, or of any craft, or trade, or business.

They moved alongside a quay—it was at Billingsgate; a couple of men landed and the rest waited under arms.

These scouts walked about the quay, and boldly penetrated into the town. After half an hour they returned with the news that the place was really deserted. There was no one there, neither merchant, nor Saxon, nor Briton.

Then these traders landed their cargo and began cautiously to explore the country round, carrying their goods for sale. They found farmsteads dotted about, each containing one family, with its chief, its sons and daughters, and its slaves. They went north and east as far as Ongar and Abridge, and even beyond the great forest. The people received them without any attempt to kill or murder them: they were interested at least in the weapons offered for barter.

What more? Trade revived: the foreign merchants came back, the men of Rouen, the men of Bordeaux; and some of the East Saxons themselves, forgetting their prejudice against towns, came in to settle and took to trade. Some of the Britons came out of their retreats in the forests and found shelter and freedom, and perhaps wealth, in the city. London was founded a second time.

The desertion of London, the solitude of London, the return of the merchants, the repeopling of the place, are not described by historians, but have been related here as they must have happened. There seems to me to be no other way of explaining the facts of the case.

In the beginning of the seventh century London is again mentioned. The following is the testimony of Bede, who wrote one hundred and twenty years after the events recorded. The main facts were most certainly remembered, while the actual condition of London at the date would be probably less clearly known. His words are these:—

“In the year of our Lord, 604, Augustine, Archbishop of Britain, ordained two bishops, viz. Mellitus and Justus: Mellitus to preach to the province of the East Saxons, who are divided from Kent by the river Thames, and border on the Eastern Sea. Their metropolis is the city of London, which is situated on the bank of the aforesaid river, and is the mart of many nations resorting to it by sea and land. At that time, Sebert, nephew to Ethelbert by his sister Ricula, reigned over the nation, though he was under subjection to Ethelbert, who, as has been said above, had command over all the nations of the English as far as the river Humber. But when this province also received the word of truth, by the preaching of Mellitus, King Ethelbert built the church of St. Paul, in the city of London, where he and his successors should have their episcopal see. As for Justus, Augustine ordained him bishop in Kent, at the city which the English named Rhofescestir, from one that was formerly the chief man of it, called Rhof. It was almost twenty-four miles distant from the city of Canterbury to the westward, and contains a church dedicated to St. Andrew the apostle. King Ethelbert, who built it, bestowed many gifts on the bishops of both those churches, as well as on that of Canterbury, adding lands and possessions for the use of those who were with the bishops.”

And in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle we have the following brief entry:—“A.D. 604. This year the East Saxons received the faith and baptism under King Sebert and Bishop Mellitus.”

At this time, then, the King of Kent was the overlord of the Essex men, who had as well their own King. And their “metropolis” was London, where King Ethelbert built their first church—St. Paul’s. Also London was “the mart of many nations.” This was doubtless true in the eighth century when Bede wrote. How far was it true at the beginning of the seventh? Some advance had been made, that is certain. For the Bishop, London was the metropolis, the mother city. Whatever official and central life belonged to the diocese was placed, therefore, in London.

It would be interesting, if it were possible, to trace the gradual change in the manners and customs of the Saxons which enabled them to live in towns. That it was very gradual we may learn from the small number of towns in Saxon England, from the large number of Roman-British cities left “waste,” and from the fact that not until Alfred’s time did they begin to build or to restore the walls of their towns. It was, however, a Saxon population that occupied London as soon as the days of desolation were fulfilled. This is certain from the names of the streets, which, with one doubtful exception, are all Saxon—why the name of the river itself never became Saxon is a fact impossible to explain. First came the merchants with the sailors and the ships. They established themselves, as of old, along the river, beside the ports afterwards called Billingsgate and Dowgate or Walbrook. These ports with their quays were easily repaired by means of piles and planks. The ships and traders came with the spring, and in the summer the chapmen, with their caravans of pack-mules and pack-horses, rode from one clearing to another with their wares. Then it became convenient that some should stay all the year at the port. The streets within the river wall began to be reconstructed and houses rose, and the country folk, losing their dread of magic, began to drop in and to settle among the ruins of Augusta and near their new friends the foreign merchants.

The site of the Citadel was still marked by a broad and open area; its walls were gone—we have seen that they were used to build the City wall; it was partly occupied by buildings then in ruins; its four gates were all open—through them ran the road for wheeled vehicles to London Stone, and so down to London Bridge. North of these streets, i.e. north of Cannon Street, lay a great expanse of land, enclosed by the wall, with the remains of Roman villas and the dÉbris of streets and houses lying scattered over it. This large area was the ancient Augusta. A great part of it was cultivable land overgrown by trees and bushes, wanting nothing more than the removal of foundations here and there and the clearance of the underwood. Where there is cultivable land there will be land-owners. Before long every acre within the wall had its proprietor. From private property thus acquired by settlement grew up most of the City wards; they were manors belonging to certain families. On this subject I have spoken elsewhere. (See MediÆval London, vol. ii. chapter v.) The Saxon settlement of London, according to this view, followed the return of the foreign merchants. They repaired the quays and restored the ports; it is probable that they repaired the wooden bridge. They occupied that part of Thames Street which lies round the mouth of the Walbrook and Billingsgate. The country people, perceiving that no harm followed, despite the magic of the walls, began to settle in the waste parts of the north within the old walls. There they carved out estates and made farms and orchards, and gradually filled up the whole area, and, also gradually, learned the meaning of trade. As they filled up the area enclosed by the walls, they absorbed the mixed population of foreign residents, craftsmen, and the “service” of the port. This view of a gradual settlement, in the north first, afterwards spreading south, seems partly borne out by the broad waste places—the Room-lands and ground in the Saxon city. Thus West Cheap, now a narrow street, was then a broad waste-land; there was another Room-land at East Cheap on the site of the old Roman citadel; and there were Room-lands near Billingsgate and Dowgate. That there was also a Room-land at Newgate may be accounted for by the simple fact that here were the shambles, and that no one cared to settle down, build a house, and cultivate a piece of ground in a place so foul and noisome.

And if Bede is right in saying that London in 604 was a “mart of all the nations,” then this Saxon occupation must have commenced fifty years before—we can hardly suppose a period of less than fifty years for the re-establishment of London trade; but the silence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as to the restoration of London, and the vagueness of Bede’s statement made two hundred years afterwards, forbid us to consider the assertion that London was “the mart of all the nations” to be accepted literally.

As for the people by whom the settlement of London was effected, they could be no other than the East Saxons, the people of Essex. If we look at the map, it is clear that the situation of the town invited them, and that in a very remarkable manner it lay open to them. The river, peculiarly their own river, for they were settled along the coast where it rose above the marshes, conveyed them easily to the place. An impenetrable forest covered the whole of the north, but left a way over a high moorland, between the forest and the marsh, from the settlements along the shore to the walls of London. There was no such way open for the men of Mercia, of Anglia, of Kent, or of Wessex; to them there was only the river.

To the argument from the nature of the site we must add the very important fact that, when first we hear of London restored, the City is under the rule of the King of Essex. It is true that the overlord of Essex was the King of Kent. But if London had been settled by the men of Kent, how would the King of Essex, never so strong as other kinglets, have acquired his right of superiority?

I must, however, refer to a paper read by Mr. T. W. Shore before the London and Middlesex ArchÆological Society in March 1900, in which he contends that London was resettled from Kent. His argument is, briefly, as follows:—

1. The natural way of outlet or extension for Kent would be up the Thames. That Kentish men did emigrate and settle beyond their marsh is proved by the laws of King Wihtred (A.D. 685), in which it is laid down that Kentish men carry their laws and customs “beyond the march.”

2. Names connected with Kent are common round London E. of Kennington, Kensington, Kenton, Kentish Town, Kenley, Kent’s Town.

3. The Kentish custom of gavelkind, by which the estate was divided among all the sons equally, the youngest son taking the homestead, prevailed, and in some places lingered long in many villages and manors round London, viz. Kentish Town, Stepney, Mile End, Hackney, Canonbury, Newington Barrow (Highbury), Hornsey, Islington, Streatham, Croydon, Peckham Rye, Kensington, Walworth, Vauxhall, Wandsworth, Battersea, Lambeth, Barnes, Sheen (Richmond), Petersham, Edmonton, Fulham, Tottenham, Ealing, Acton, and Isleworth.

This list (the authority for which is Thomas Robinson on Gavelkind) is long and unimportant. It becomes more important when Glanville is quoted as saying that partible inheritance was only recognised by the law courts when it could be proved to have been always in use. Now if in the twelfth century the use of gavelkind could be proved customary beyond the memory of man, the antiquity of the use on the manors is certainly established.

London, then, was surrounded by manors under gavelkind. Further out, the Archbishop of Canterbury had demesnes at Harrow and Hayes. In the reign of King John he converted gavelkind fees into knights’ fees.

4. Mr. Shore also calls attention to the two claims in William’s Charter, that all burgesses are law-worthy, and that thus every child is to be his (not his or her) father’s heir.

These words prove, he suggests, that there were no bondmen in London, as there were none in Kent, and that gavelkind, the peculiar Kentish custom, obtained in London at that time.

This view is submitted for the readers consideration. Against it we have to set the undoubted fact, as stated above, that the King of Essex was the Lord of London, although his overlord was the King of Kent. Had London been settled by Kentish men, how would the King of Essex get a footing there? Is it not much more reasonable to suppose that the City was first settled by the men of Essex; that the King of Kent became by battle and victory the overlord; that Kentish men naturally flocked to the place and acquired lands, and that they brought with them their own customs? We may thus explain the facts of the names and the Kentish customs. As regards the clauses in the Charter, I fail to see their importance. If there were slaves in London, they would not be accounted burgesses, and would not be named, for slaves had no rights; and the framers of the Charter would naturally use the word “his” rather than “his or her.”

As to the custom of gavelkind, it is thus laid down in the Thirteenth-Century Custumal (see Elton, Origins of English History):—

“‘If any tenant in gavelkind die, having inherited gavelkind lands and tenements, let all his sons divide that heritage equally. And if there be no male heir, let the partition be made among the females in the same way as among brothers. And let the messuage (or homestead) also be divided among them, but the hearth-place shall belong to the youngest son or daughter (the others receiving an equivalent in money), and as far as 40 feet round the hearth-place, if the size of the heritage will allow it. And then let the eldest have the first choice of the portions, and the others afterwards in their order.’”

“‘In like manner as to other houses which shall be found in such a homestead, let them be equally divided among the heirs, foot by foot, if need be, except the cover of the hearth, which remains to the youngest, as was said before; nevertheless, let the youngest make reasonable amends to his co-parceners for their share by the award of good men’” (pp. 189-190).

CHAPTER II
EARLY HISTORY

Let us return to the establishment of Christianity in London. It was in 604, as we have seen, that the East Saxons were baptized, their king, Sebert, being the nephew of Ethelbert, King of Kent, who was his overlord. It was Ethelbert, and not Sebert, who built St. Paul’s for Mellitus, the first Bishop of London. Christianity, however, is not implanted in the mind of man altogether by baptism. Mellitus was able to leave his diocese a few years after its creation in order to attend a synod at Rome, and to confer with the Pope on the affairs of the Church. This looks as if his infant Church was already in a healthy condition of stability. So long as Ethelbert lived, at least, there was the outward appearance of conformity; but when he died, in 616, his son Eadbald “refused to embrace the faith of Christ,” as Bede has it. Does this mean that he had not yet been baptized? In that case the “conversion” of the people can only mean the conversion of some among them. Perhaps, however, the words mean that he relapsed. In the next sentence we are told that his example was followed by many who, “under his father, had, either for favour, or through fear of the King, submitted to the laws of faith and chastity.” This king, Eadbald, took to wife his father’s widow—a crime for which, as the historian tells us, “he was troubled with frequent fits of madness, and was possessed by an evil spirit.”

However, his example was the signal for revolt. King Sebert died and was succeeded by his three sons, “still pagans.” Therefore the conversion of the East Saxons, at least, had not been complete. These princes “immediately began to profess idolatry, which during their father’s reign they had seemed a little to abandon”; they also granted liberty to the people to serve idols. Therefore the conversion had been by order of the King. The people, then, nothing loth, returned to their ancient gods and their old practices.

Some, however, remained faithful, and the services of the Church were still carried on at St. Paul’s, with sorrowful hearts.

We now chance upon a glimpse of the East Saxon mind, for the three princes, though they were no longer Christians, desired to get what they could for their own advantage out of the new religion. They observed that the most important part of the Christian ritual was the celebration of the Eucharist, in which the communicants received each a morsel of white bread. Clearly this was magic: the white bread was a charm: it protected those who received it from dangers of all kinds. They therefore called upon Mellitus to give them this charm, but without the profession of the Christian faith. In the words of Bede, they said, “Why do you not give us also that white bread, which you used to give to our father Saba (for so they used to call him), and which you still continue to give to the people in the church?” To whom he answered, “If you will be washed in that laver of salvation, in which your father was washed, you may also partake of the holy bread, of which he partook; but if you despise the laver of life, you may not receive the bread of life.” They replied, “We will not enter into that laver, because we do not know that we stand in need of it, and yet we will eat of that bread.” And being often earnestly admonished by him, that the same could not be done, nor any one admitted to partake of the sacred oblation without the holy cleansing, at last they said in anger, “If you will not comply with us in so small a matter as this, you shall not stay in our province”; and accordingly they obliged him and his followers to depart from their kingdom.

Mellitus, thus forced to abandon his work, retired to Canterbury, where he met Justus, Bishop of Rochester, also turned out of his diocese, and Laurentius, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was also meditating flight.

The two former resolved on passing over to France, there to await the event.

The three princes of the East Saxons, we are told, did not long survive their apostasy. For, marching out to battle with the West Saxons, they were all three slain and their army cut to pieces. Nevertheless, the people of London and Essex refused to acknowledge this correction and remained in their paganism.

The story of Eadbald’s conversion and the restoration of Christianity to the kingdom of Kent is suspicious. It is as follows:—Laurentius, the Archbishop, appeared before the King one day, and taking off his shirt, showed his shoulders red and bleeding, as if with a grievous flagellation. He told the King that he had received this “Apostolical” scourging from St. Peter himself, as a punishment for thinking of deserting his flock. “Why,” asked the Apostle, “wouldest thou forsake the flock which I committed to you? To what shepherds wouldest thou commit Christ’s sheep which are in the midst of wolves? Hast thou forgotten my example, who, for the sake of those little ones, whom Christ recommended to me in token of His affection, underwent, at the hands of infidels and enemies of Christ, bonds, stripes, imprisonment, afflictions, and, lastly, the death of the cross, that I might at last be crowned with Him?”

King Eadbald accepted this miracle as a warning: he abjured the worship of idols, renounced his unlawful marriage, and embraced the faith of Christ. Laurentius, on this happy turn of events, sent for Mellitus and Justus to return. The latter was restored to his see of Rochester; the former, however, found his Londoners obstinate in their relapse. Unfortunately, Eadbald, the penitent, had not the same power that his father had enjoyed. It took nearly half a century to get Christianity firmly established in London.

About the year 635, thirty years after their defeat by the men of Wessex, the East Saxons returned to the faith. Their conversion was due in the first instance to the persuasion and arguments of Oswy, King of Northumbria, with his “friend”—as Bede calls him—his subject King, Sigebert of the East Saxons. When these arguments had prevailed, Sigebert, having been baptized, asked for priests to preach to his people. Cedda, afterwards Bishop of London, undertook the task, with such success that the whole people embraced Christianity. Again, however, they fell away, led by Sighere, one of the two Kings of the East Saxons. Their defection was caused by a pestilence, which was interpreted to mean the wrath of their former gods. It was in the year 665. The two Kings of the East Saxons were no longer “friends” of Northumbria, but of Mercia; and the King of the Mercians sent Jarumnan, Bishop of Lichfield, to bring the people back again. The Bishop was aided in his efforts by Osyth, queen of the apostate Sighere, afterwards known as St. Osyth. There was as little difficulty in securing a return as a relapse: Essex once more became Christian, and this time remained so. The missionary Bishop, Erkenwald, the Great Bishop, who remained in the memory of London until the Reformation, was the chief cause of the complete conversion of the people. He did not rest satisfied with the baptism of kings and thanes: he went himself among the rude and ignorant folk; he preached to the charcoal-burners of the forest and to the rustics of the clearing; he founded Religious Houses in the midst of the country people; he became, in life and after death, the protector of the people. He made it impossible for the old faith to be any longer regarded with regret. To the time of Erkenwald belong not only St. Osyth (her name survives in Size Lane) and St. Ethelburga, whose church is still standing beside Bishopsgate, but also St. Botolph, to whom five churches were dedicated.

St. Osyth was the mother of Offa, whose memory is preserved by Bede. He succeeded his father Sighere as one of the Kings of Essex, then subject to Mercia. He accompanied Coinred, King of the Mercians, ingoing to Rome, and in surrendering everything in order to become a monk.

Bede:—

“With him went the son of Sighere, King of the East Saxons above-mentioned, whose name was Offa, a youth of most lovely age and beauty, and most earnestly desired by all his nation to be their King. He, with like devotion, quitted his wife, lands, kindred, and country, for Christ and for the Gospel, that he might receive an hundredfold in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting. He also, when they came to the holy places at Rome, receiving the tonsure, and adopting a monastic life, attained the long-wished-for sight of the blessed apostles in heaven.” (Giles’s Trans. vol. iii. p. 237.)

His memory was preserved in London long after his death—even, indeed, until recent times—on account of this wonderful example of piety at first, and afterwards by the tradition which ascribed the site of St. Alban’s Church, Wood Street, in the City, to that of the chapel of King Offa’s palace. That tradition is gravely considered by Maitland, who decides against it. This Offa must not be confounded with the much greater Offa, King of the Mercians.

Documents relating to London are few in these centuries. The earliest notice of London among those collected and published in J. M. Kemble’sCodex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici, and in Benjamin Thorpe’sDiplomatarium, dates as far back as the year 695, if it is genuine; but it is said to be an early forgery. The document professes to be Bishop Erkenwald’s Charter of Barking Abbey. Reciting the lands given to the Abbey, it says, “Sexta juxta Lundoniam unius manentis data a Uulfhario rege. Septima supra vicum Lundoniae data Quoenguyda uxore.” What street is here intended? There is a deed by which Ethelbald, King of the Mercians, gives to Aldwulf, Bishop of Rochester, the right of sending one ship to the port of London without paying taxes or dues. It is dated 734.

In 734, King Ethelbald grants to the Bishop of Rochester leave to pass one ship without toll into the Port of London. In another charter the same King speaks of “Lundon tune’s hythe.” King Canulf of Mercia speaks of a Witenagemot in London—“loco praeclaro oppidoque regale.” In 833 there was another Council held in London by Egbert, presumably after his defeat at Charmouth.

The same King (743 or 745) allows to the venerable Bishop Mildred of Worcester all the rights and dues of two ships which may be demanded of them in the hythe of London town.

In the year 857, King Burgred of Mercia assigns to Bishop Alhune “aliquam parvam portionem libertatis, cum consensu consiliatorum meorum, gaziferi agelluli in vico Lundonioe: hoc est, ubi nominatur. Ceol-munding-chaga, qui est non longe from Westgetum positus.” Where was Ceol-munding-chaga? Where was Westgetum? And is the English preposition a mistake of Kemble’s?

In the year 889, “Alfred rex Anglorum et Saxonum et Aethelred sub regulus et patricius Merciorum ... Uuaerfrido, eximio Huicciorum antistiti, ad aecclesiam Weo-gernensem in Lundonia unam curtem quae verbotenus ad antiquum petrosum aedificium, id est, aet Hwaetmundes stane a civibus apellatur, a strata publica usque in murum ejusdem civitatis, cujus longitudo est perticarum xxvi et latitudo in superiori parte perticarum xiii et pedum vii et in inferiori loco perticarum xi et vi pedum, ad plenam libertatem infra totius rei sempiternaliter possidendum, in aecclesiasticum jus conscribimus et concedentes donamus.”

We have now arrived at the coming of the Danes. It seems a just retribution that the Saxons should in their turn suffer exactly the same miseries by robbery and murder as they had themselves inflicted upon the Britons. One knows not when the Northmen first tasted the fierce joy of piracy and marauding on the English coast; probably they began as soon as the farms and settlements of the English were worth plundering. It must be remembered that as yet there was little cohesion or joint action among the “kingdoms,” and that war was incessant between them. Read, for instance, the following passage from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It relates the wars of one year only, the year 823. Think of the condition of the country when all these battles and all this slaughter were crammed into one year only:—

“This year there was a battle between the Welsh and the men of Devon and Camelford; and the same year Egbert, King of the West Saxons, and Bernulf, King of the Mercians, fought at Wilton, and Egbert got the victory, and there was great slaughter made. He then sent from the army his son Ethelwulf, and Ealston his bishop, and Wulfherd his ealdorman, into Kent with a large force, and they drove Baldred the King northwards over the Thames. And the men of Kent, and the men of Surrey, and the South Saxons, and the East Saxons submitted to him; for formerly they had been unjustly forced from his kin. And the same year the King of the East Angles and the people sought the alliance and protection of King Egbert for dread of the Mercians; and the same year the East Angles slew Barnulf, King of Mercia.”

Attempts were made at combined action. In the year 833, for instance, as we have seen, King Egbert called a Witenagemot at London. This was attended by the King of Mercia and the bishops. The deliberations, however, of this Parliament did nothing to prevent the disasters that followed.

The share which fell to London of all the pillage and massacre was less than might have been expected. Thus, in 832 the Danes ravaged Sheppey; in 833 Dorsetshire. In 835 they were defeated in Cornwall; in 837 at Southampton and Portland; in 838 in Lindsey, in East Anglia, and in Kent. In 839 “there was great slaughter at London, at Canterbury, and at Rochester.” In 840 the Danes landed at Charmouth; in 845 at the mouth of the Parrett in Somersetshire; in 851 at Plymouth; in the same year the Saxons got some ships and met the enemy on the sea, taking nine ships and putting the rest to flight, but, which is significant, the Danes wintered that year on Thanet. “And the same year there came 350 ships to the mouth of the Thames, and the crews landed and took Canterbury and London by storm, and put to flight Berthwulf, King of the Mercians, with his army, and then went south over the Thames into Surrey.” King Ethelwulf with the men of Wessex met them at Ockley, and defeated them with great slaughter. In the same year the Saxons met them on the sea in ships and beat them off. They seem to have been driven out of the country by these reverses, for in 854 we read of battles fought in Thanet, which looks like an attempt to settle there again; and in 855 they succeeded in wintering on that island. In 860 they stormed and burned Winchester, and were then driven off by the men of Hampshire. In 865 they sat down in Thanet and made peace with the men of Kent for a price; but they broke their word. In 866 the Danes took up their winter quarters with the East Angles and made peace with them. In 867 there was fighting in Northumbria, the kings were slain, and the people made peace with the Danes; in 868 the Mercians made peace with them. In 870 the “army” marched into East Anglia from York and there defeated King Edmund (St. Edmund) and destroyed all the churches and the great and rich monastery of Medehamstede (Peterborough)—“at that time,” says the Chronicle, “the land was much distressed by frequent battles ... there was warfare and sorrow over England.” Both in 870 and in 871 there was fighting all the summer at and near Reading. In 872 “the army went from Reading to London and there took up their winter quarters”; in 874 they wintered at Repton; in 875 some marched north, and some south, wintering at Cambridge. In that year Alfred, now King, obtained a fleet and fought seven Danish ships successfully. In 876 the Danes were at Wareham; in 877 their fleet was cast away and the army fled to the “fortress” of Exeter. In 878 there was fighting in the west country; in 879 the Danes were at Fulham on the Thames. Some of the Danes then crossed the Channel and visited France, leaving a part of the army in England. In 882 King Alfred fought them on the sea. The chronicle of 883 is brief, but extremely important: “That same year Sighelm and Athelstan carried to Rome the arms which the King had vowed to send thither, and also to India, to St. Thomas, and to St. Bartholomew, when they sat down against the army at London; and there, thanks be to God, they largely obtained the object of their prayer.”

If this brief chronicle be followed on the map, it will be perceived that, although fighting went on year after year in various parts of the country, London was in the grasp of the Danes for no more than twelve years. The area of the battlefield into which the Danes had converted England extended year by year, but always included London.

CHAPTER III
THE DANES IN LONDON

The Danes, then, held London for twelve years. In after years, when the country was governed by Danish kings, large numbers of Danes settled in London, and, with the national readiness to adapt themselves to new conditions and new manners (compare the quick conversion of Normans to French language and manners), they speedily became merged in the general population. Very soon we hear no more of Danes and English as separate peoples, either in London or in the country. London, indeed, has always received all, absorbed all, and turned all into Londoners. During this first Danish occupation, of which we know nothing, one of two things happened: either the occupiers settled down among the citizens, leaving them to follow their trades and crafts in their own way; or they murdered and pillaged, drove away all who could fly, and then sat down quietly and remained, an army in occupation in a strong place. Everything points to the latter course, because the ferocity of the Danes at this time was a thing almost incredible. London was, for the moment, ruined. It was not deserted by the lowest class, for the simple reason that an army requires people for the service of providing its daily wants. Food—grain and cattle—was brought in from West and East Anglia; the river supplied fish and fowl—wildfowl—in abundance. But fishermen and fowlers were wanted; therefore these useful people would not be slain, except in the first rush and excitement of victory. In the same way armourers, smiths, makers of weapons, bakers, brewers, butchers, drovers, cooks, craftsmen, and servants of all kinds are wanted, even by the rudest soldiery. In the fifth century, when the trade of London deserted her, the people had to go because the food supplies also were cut off. Since the Danish army could winter in London for twelve years, it is certain that they had command of supplies. Therefore, after the first massacres and flight, the lower classes remained in the service of their new lords. Moreover, by this time, the enemy, having resolved to stay in the country, had doubtless made the discovery that it is the worst policy possible to kill the people who were wanted to bring them supplies, or to murder the farmers who were growing crops and keeping cattle for them to devour.

The Danes occupied London for twelve years. At the best it was a bad time for the people who remained with them. Rough as was the London craftsman of the ninth century, he was mild and gentle compared with his Danish conqueror and master.

If we inquire whether the trade of London vanished during these years, it may be argued, first, that the desire for gain is always stronger than the fear of danger; secondly, that merchant-ships were accustomed to fight their way; thirdly, that when a strong tide or current of trade has set steadily in one direction for many years, it is not easily stopped or diverted; fourthly, that when the first massacre was over, the Danes would perhaps see the advantage of encouraging merchants to bring things, if only for their own use; for they were ready to buy weapons and wine, if nothing else, and there were a great many things which they wanted and could not make for themselves. As for the interior, there could be no trade there during the disturbed condition of the country.

A note made a hundred and fifty years later shows that the Danes did at least consume the importations of foreign merchants. When they murdered Alphage, Archbishop of Canterbury, they were drunk with wine. We cannot suppose that an army whose soldiers regarded strong drink as the greatest joy of life did not perceive the advantages of procuring wine in abundance by means of the merchants who brought it from France and Spain.

I allow the weight of these reasons. I admit that there may have been still some trade carried on at the Port of London. I shall presently give reasons for supposing, on the other hand, that London was again ruined and deserted.

Let us see what manner of men were these soldiers who became owners of London for twelve years and afterwards furnished kings to England and law-abiding burghers to the City.

We may learn their manners from the pages of the historian Saxo Grammaticus.

To begin with, the Danes were a nation of warriors, as yet not Christians. And Christianity, when it came, brought at first little softening of manners. It presented much the same Devil to the popular imagination, but with a face and figure more clearly outlined; it localised Hell, which remained much the same for the Christian as for the pagan, only it furnished more exact details and left no doubt as to the treatment and sufferings of the lost. The only honour paid to any man was that due to valour; the only thing worthy of a man’s attention was the maintenance of his strength and the increase of his courage. The king must lead in battle; he must sometimes fight battles of wager; he had his following or court of lords, who were bound to fight beside him, and to die, if necessary, with him or for him. If he should by any lucky accident escape the accidents of battle, murder, and sudden death, and so enter upon old age, he must abdicate, for a king who could no longer fight was absurd.

The Danes had troops of slaves: some born in slavery; some captives of war; the craftsmen of London were no doubt slaves because they were captives—they had survived the storm of the City. A slave had no rights at all; his master could do what he pleased with him; he was flogged, tortured, scorned, reviled, and brutally treated; it was a time when the joy of fighting was followed by the joy of revenge, when to make a captive noble eat the bread of servitude and drink the water of humiliation filled the victor with a savage joy. As for the women, they were reserved for the service and the lusts of the captors. It pleased the chivalry of the Dane to cast the daughters of kings into the brothel of the common soldier.

Of course they had the virtue of courage—it is, however, suspicious that, among the Danes, as in all savage nations, their courage had to be kept up by constant exhortations, charms, and songs. There were unexpected panics and routs and shameful flights of these invincible Danes as well as of the Saxons: this would seem to show that their vaunted courage was liable to occasions of failure. They were, however, marvellously free from fear of pain; they seem to have disregarded it altogether. Of one man it is related that rather than marry a certain princess who was offered him he chose to be burned to death; and in a poem it is told of another that, when he was wounded so grievously that his entrails were exposed, he refused the help of a slave because he was a slave, and the help of a woman because her birth was not noble, and so he remained till one of free and honourable birth came along, who tied him round with withies and carried him off to a house. Honour and loyalty were not so much admired as demanded. Treachery and rebellion were ruthlessly punished. In some cases the wretched criminal was tied by thongs passed under the sinews of his heels to the tails of wild bulls and then hunted to death by hounds. Other punishments there were. As for the women, those of free birth were modest and chaste: to be detected in an amour involved such a barbarous punishment as the cutting off of the nose.

Their weapons were swords, clubs, axes, bows, slings, and stones. Those who could afford to buy them wore mail coats and helmets; they carried banners; they blew horns; they fought on foot; and the battle was decided by single combat, hand to hand, with great slaughter and prodigies of valour. Like the Red Indians, they were able to work themselves up into a kind of frenzy before fighting. Sometimes there were Amazons among them. They all messed together, king and nobles and soldiers. When at home they gathered in the great hall at night with fires blazing, with torches, and with hangings to keep out the draughts. Their food was for the most part simple—beef, mutton, pork, with huge quantities of bread. Their drink was chiefly ale, served in horns. After supper they played games. We must remember how long were the winter evenings which had to be got through. Games of some kind were necessary, and there were a great number of games. The minstrel played the harp and sang warlike songs of the deeds of great warriors. They “flyted” each other, i.e. endeavoured to reduce each other to silence by abuse and insult, a game which gave great opportunities to a man of imagination. Such specimens of “flyting” as remain show that it might be, and most likely was, coarse and obscene to the last degree. They told stories of their leaders and wove impossible fictions of their bravery, their endurance, and their generosity. They bragged over impossible deeds, a thing which we find the knights of the fourteenth century also doing in their game of gabe; they called in jugglers, tumblers, mimes, and singers of love-songs and drinking-songs. It is to be noted that, although they loved the acting and the singing, they held the calling of actors and minstrels in great contempt. Sometimes they tugged at a rope, as in our old game of French and English. Sometimes, when they were well drunken, they began a very favourite pastime, that of bone-throwing. It was in this way that St. Alphage was murdered. For the Danes sent for him and began to throw beef bones at him, perhaps in play, and expecting to see the Archbishop dodge the bones dexterously. He did not—one struck him on the head and he fell dead.

As for the religion of these people before and after their conversion, they believed boundlessly. They believed in giants and in dwarfs, in ghosts and in devils, in fate, in a whole array of gods and goddesses, in the Land of Undeath, in the Underground Land, in magic and sorcery, in charms and philtres, in ordeals. All these things, with modifications, they continued to believe long after they were received into the bosom of the Christian Church. And they were full of stories, legends, and traditions—a wild, imaginative people, with a limited horizon of knowledge, beyond and outside which all was blackness, with the terror of the unknown.

Such were the people who came every year with their army, harrying and plundering, murdering and destroying, till they found it more convenient to winter in the country, which they did, occupying the islands of Thanet. Such were the people who obtained possession of London; such were the people who afterwards flocked to the City in the days of King Cnut and settled down among the rest of the heterogeneous London folk.

There are no traces of this first Danish occupation. The churches dedicated to Danish saints, Magnus and Olaf, were erected afterwards. Probably the Danes at this time left not one church standing.

In 883 Alfred obtained possession of the City—“after a short siege”—the historians write. The only authority for this short siege is the paragraph in the A.S. Chronicle already quoted. “They sat down against the army of London; and there they largely obtained the object of their prayer.” After the battle of Ethandun, the Danes retired from Cirencester to Chippenham, and there wintered. In the same year another body of them collected and wintered at Fulham on the Thames. This fact makes me ask why, when London was theirs, the Danes should winter at Fulham instead of at the City itself. Surely London offered winter quarters superior to those of Fulham, that little village in a marsh. There seems to me no explanation except one, namely, that the City was once more deserted. The same thing which happened to Augusta may have happened also to Saxon London. The whole of its trade was destroyed; the river and the channel were in the hands of the Northmen; the City had been taken with the customary massacres and plunder; it was no longer possible to live in the place; no supplies could be taken there because there were no longer any means of buying for them or paying for them. Therefore, save for the wretched remnant of fishermen and slaves, the streets were desolate and the port was deserted. We may draw a picture of burned houses and roofless churches; of broken doors and narrow lanes, cumbered with useless plunder dragged from the houses and left in the streets because it could not be carried away; of dead bodies left unburied where they fell in defence or in flight along the streets and in the houses; of City gates lying open to any who chose to enter; of the City wall broken away, having never been repaired since the Britons fled before the Saxons came. This ruined and deserted city Alfred recovered. How? By a siege? What kind of siege would it be when there were no walls to defend; not enough men to man the walls, and not enough of the besiegers to attack them?

Does not the Chronicle answer these questions?

In A.D. 880. The “Army”—i.e. the Danes—“which had sat down at Fulham, went over sea to Ghent, and sat there one year.”

In A.D. 881. The “army went farther into France.”

In A.D. 882. “The army went far into France and there sat one year.”

In that year Alfred fought a sea-battle against “four Danish ships”—only four—took two, and received the surrender of the other two. But it was not with “four” ships that Cnut and Sweyn proposed to attack London.

In A.D. 883. “The army went up the Scheldt and sat there one year.”

This was the same year that Alfred “sat down against the army of London.”

The main body of the Danes was lying up the Scheldt; the Danish fleets were represented by four vessels; what kind of army was that before which Alfred sat down?

My own reading of the story is that the small force of Danes in, or near, London, retired without fighting, and that Alfred, meeting with no opposition, marched into the City and began at once, understanding the enormous advantage of possessing the place, to consider steps in order to secure that possession. He seems to have had a whole year during which he was left in peace, or comparative peace, in order to consider the position. Meantime, there was more fighting to be done before these measures could be fairly taken in hand. The Danes, retiring from London, divided into two parts: one division went into Essex; the other crossed the river and fell upon Rochester. Here Alfred met them and put them to flight; they escaped across the seas to their own country. Alfred’s fleet defeated the Danish fleet at the mouth of the Stour, but were themselves defeated in their turn.

The following year, 886, was again a year of peace, according to the Chronicle. The “Army” wintered in France near Paris. Alfred received the “submission of all the English except those who were under the bondage of the Danishmen.” This passage, if we were considering the history of the country, should set us thinking. In this place it is enough to note that Alfred took advantage of the respite to repair London. And he placed the City under the charge of Ethelred his son-in-law. So, whether by siege or by battle, or, as I rather believe, by the retirement of the enemy, Alfred recovered London, and, as soon as the condition of his affairs allowed, he repaired it and rebuilt it, and made it once more habitable and secure for the resort of merchants and the safeguarding of fugitives, of women, and of treasure.

CHAPTER IV
THE SECOND SAXON OCCUPATION

It is sometimes said that one of the earliest acts of King Alfred in gaining possession of London was to build a fortress or tower within the City. The authority for this statement seems to be nothing more than a passage in the Chronicle, under the year 896. “Then on a certain day the king rode up along the river and observed where the river might be obstructed, so that the Danes would be unable to bring up their ships. And they then did thus. They constructed two fortresses on the two sides of the river.” This seems but a slender foundation for the assumption of Freeman that Alfred built a citadel for the defence of London. “The germ of that tower which was to be first the dwelling-place of kings and then the scene of the martyrdom of their victims.” I see no reason at all for the construction of any fortress within the City except the reason which impelled William to build the White Tower, viz. in order to keep a hold over the powerful City. And this reason certainly did not influence Alfred. It is quite possible that Alfred did strengthen the City by the construction of a fortress, though such a building was by no means in accordance with the Saxon practice. It is further quite possible that he built such a tower on the site where William’s tower stood later; but it seems to me almost inconceivable that Alfred, if he wanted to build a tower, should not have reconstructed and repaired the old Roman citadel, of which the foundations were still visible. I confess that I am doubtful about the fortress. What Alfred really did, as I read the Chronicle, was to construct two temporary forts near the mouth of the Thames, so as to prevent the Danish ships from getting out. He caught them in a trap.

Let us renew the course of the Danish invasions so far as they concern London. In 893 one army of Danes landed on the eastern shores of Kent and another at the mouth of the Thames. In 894 King Alfred fought them and defeated them, getting back the booty. Some of the Danes took to their ships and sailed round to the west, whither the King pursued them. Others fled to a place near Canvey Island called Bamfleet, where they fortified themselves. Then, for the first time after the Conquest, we find that London is once more powerful, and once more filled with valiant citizens. For the Londoners marched out under Ethelred, Earl of Mercia, their governor, attacked the Danes in their stronghold, took it, put the enemy to flight, and returned to London with all that was within the fort, including the women and the children. In 895 the Danes brought their ships up the Thames and towed them up the Lea to the town of Ware, but the year afterwards the Londoners made their ships useless: whereupon the Danes abandoned them, and the men of London took or destroyed them. Maitland says that “a few years ago”—he writes in 1786—“at the erection of Stanstead Bridge, remains of these ships were found.”

King Alfred was able to equip and to send out an efficient fleet. In the year 901, to accept the generally received date, which now appears, however, more than doubtful, the great King Alfred passed away. No king or captain, in the whole history of London, ever did so much for the City as Alfred. Circumstances, chance, geographical position, created London for the Romans, and restored it for the Saxons. Circumstances, not the wisdom of kings, gave London, in after ages, its charters and its liberties. It is the especial glory of Alfred that he discerned the importance of the City, not only for purposes of trade, but as a bulwark of national defence. He repaired the strong walls which, in a time when ladders and mines were not yet part of the equipment of war, made the City impregnable; he gave security to merchants; he offered a place of safety to princesses and great ladies; a treasure-house which could not be broken into and a rallying-place for fugitives. He gave the newly-born City a strong governor and a strong government; he made it possible, as was shown two hundred years later, to maintain the independence of the people even though the whole country except this one stronghold should be overrun. London continued under the rule of Ethelred, Earl of the Mercians, till his death in 912, when King Edward “took possession of London.” In 917 there was fighting with the Danes in Mercia, and in 918 about Hereford and Gloucester; from 919 till his death in 924, King Edward was continually occupied in fighting and in fortifying towns. By King Athelstan was fought and won the great battle of Brunanburgh, when there was slain five kings and seven earls. This victory, Maitland says, was “chiefly obtained by the bravery of the Londoners, who were the best troops in the army.” The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does not say anything about the London troops.

Maitland points out, as an indication that London was now in flourishing condition, the fact that Athelstan, in apportioning the number of coiners for each town, allotted to London and Canterbury the same number, and that the highest number. To consider this an indication of prosperity is indeed to be thankful for small mercies. To me it is a clear proof, on the other hand, of the comparative decline of London, since she was considered of no greater importance than Canterbury.

At this period, however, the cities of England, all of which without exception had been taken and devastated by the “army,” had sunk to a point of poverty as low as any touched even in the fifth and sixth century—those centuries of battle and disaster,—and perhaps lower, for the Saxons were slow in becoming residents in a walled city, and would be ready to return if possible to the old life in the open.

Let us go back to the Chronicle. In the year 945, King Edmund held a Witenagemot in London, chiefly occupied with ecclesiastical affairs.

During the reigns of Edmund and Edred (940-955) there was fighting in Northumberland, but no new incursions of the Danes. Under the powerful rule of Edgar there was an almost unbroken peace of seventeen years. In 979 began the disastrous reign of Ethelred, when the Danish incursions were renewed on a larger scale, and when the glory of England departed.

Let me here quote the opinion of Freeman as to the position of London at this time.

“The importance of that great city was daily growing throughout these times. We cannot as yet call it the capital of the kingdom, but its geographical position made it one of the chief bulwarks of the land, and there was no part of the realm whose people could outdo the patriotism and courage of its valiant citizens. London at this time fills much the same place in England which Paris filled in Northern Gaul a century earlier. The two cities, in their several lands, were two great fortresses, placed on the two great rivers of the country, the special objects of attack on the part of the invaders, and the special defence of the country against them. Each was, as it were, marked out by great public services to become the capital of the whole kingdom. But Paris became a national capital only because its local count grew into a national king. London, amidst all changes within and without, has always kept more or less of her ancient character as a free city. Paris was a military bulwark, the dwelling-place of a ducal or a royal sovereign; London, no less important as a military post, had also a greatness which rested on a surer foundation. London, like a few other of our great cities, is one of the ties which connect our Teutonic England with the Celtic and Roman Britain of earlier times. Her British name still lives on, unchanged by the Teutonic conquerors. Before we first hear of London as an English city she had cast away her Roman and Imperial title: she was no longer Augusta: she had taken again her ancient name, and through all changes she clave to her ancient character. The commercial fame of London dates from the early days of Roman dominion. The English Conquest may have caused an interruption for a while, but it was only for a while. As early as the days of Æthelberht the commerce of London was again renowned. Ælfred had rescued the city from the Dane; he had built a citadel for her defence, the germ of that Tower which was to be first the dwelling-place of kings, and then the scene of the martyrdom of their victims. Among the laws of Æthelstan none are more remarkable than those which deal with the internal affairs of London and with the regulation of her earliest commercial corporations. During the reign of Æthelred the merchant city again became the object of special and favourable legislation. His institutes speak of a commerce spread all over the lands that bordered on the western ocean. Flemings and Frenchmen, men of Ponthieu, of Brabant, and of Luttich, filled her markets with their wares and enriched the civic coffers with their toils. Thither, too, came the men of Rouen, whose descendants were, at no distant day, to form no small element among her own citizens. And worthy and favoured above all, came the seafaring men of the Old-Saxon brotherland, and pioneers of the mighty Hansa of the North, which was in days to come to knit together London and Novogorod in one bond of commerce, and to dictate laws and distribute crowns among the nations by whom London was now threatened. The demand for toll and tribute fell lightly on those whom English legislation distinguished as the men of the Emperor.”

The part played by London in the country during the momentous hundred years following Ethelred’s accession shows the importance of the City. That Londoners fought at Maldon is not to be doubted. That year witnessed the shameful buying of peace from the pirates whom the English had been defeating and defying since the days of Alfred. It was hoped by the Danes to renew the bribe of 991 in the year following. They came up the Thames, but they were met by the Londoners with their fleet and defeated with great slaughter. In the following year Bamborough was taken by the Danes and the north country ravaged. In the year 994, after the news of the taking of Bamborough and the flight of the Thanes at Lindesey, encouraged by their successes, the Danes attempted an invasion on a far more serious scale. This time the leaders were Olaf, King of the Norwegians, and Swegen, King of the Danes. They sailed up the Thames with a fleet of ninety-four ships. The invaders arrived at London and delivered an assault upon the wall. It must be remembered that the river side of the wall was then standing. We are not informed whether the town was attacked from the land side or the river side. The attack was, however, repelled with so much determination, and with such loss to the besiegers, that the two kings abandoned the attempt that same day and sailed away. The victory and the safety of the City were attributed to the “mild-heartedness of the holy Mother of God.”

As for the Northmen, since they could not pillage London they would ravage the coast; and, taking horses, they rode through the eastern and southern shores, pillaging and ravaging and murdering man, woman, and child. These large words must not be taken to imply too much. When a band of marauders rode through the country, especially a country with only a few roads or tracks, they were limited in their field of robberies by the limited number of roads, by the distances between the settled places, by their own desire to return as quickly as possible, and by their inability to carry more than a certain amount of booty. Two or three small loops drawn inland from the anchorage of their ships would mark the extent of their forays from that part. However, they were bought off. In this case Olaf kept his word. He was a Christian already, but he received confirmation from Bishop Ælfreah, and on his return to his own country he spent the rest of his life in promoting Christianity. In St. Olave, Silver Street; St. Olave, Hart Street; St. Olave, Jewry; and St. Olave, Tooley Street, we have four churches erected to the memory of the saintly Northman who kept his word, and, having promised to return no more, stayed in his own country.

Swegen came back, though after some delay, to revenge the foulest treachery. It was that of England’s Bartholomew Day, when, by order of King Ethelred, certainly the very worst king who ever ruined his generation, all the Danes in the land were treacherously murdered at one time. Among those victims was Gunhilda, Swegen’s own sister, with her husband and her son. Swegen came over and landed at Sandwich. It was nine years since the payment of Olaf and himself. During these nine miserable years there had been an unbroken series of defeats and humiliations, with the treacheries and jealousies and quarrels which in rude times follow in the train of a weak king. Swegen made himself master of the whole kingdom except London. He attempted the siege of the City with a mighty host; he assaulted the walls; and he was beaten back. As ten years before, he wasted no time in trying to take a place too strongly fortified and defended. Ethelred, however, deserted the town, retiring to the Isle of Wight with his ships. Queen Emma went over to Normandy, taking her sons Edward and Alfred; and London, having no longer a king to fight for, opened her doors to the Danish conqueror.

Swegen died immediately afterwards. He left two sons: Harold, who succeeded to the Danish kingdom, and Cnut, a youth of nineteen, who was proclaimed King by the Danish fleet. What follows was certainly done at London. “Then counselled all the Witan who were in England, clergy and laity, that they should send after King Ethelred: and they declared that no lord was dearer to them than their natural lord, if he would rule them better than he had before done. Then sent the King his son Edward hither with his messengers and ordered them to greet all his people: and to say that he would be to them a loving lord and amend all those things which they abhorred, and each of those things would be forgiven which had been done or said to him on condition that they all with one consent would be obedient to him without deceit. And they there established full friendship, by word and by pledge, on either hand.... Then during Lent King Ethelred came home to his own people: and he was gladly received by them all.” He also promised to govern by the advice of his Witan.

There followed the defeat of Cnut, who sailed away to Denmark; the marriage of Edmund Atheling with the widow of the murdered Segefrith; the return of Cnut; the treachery of Eadric; and the loss of southern England. Edmund, however, held out in the north for a time: finally, Cnut overran the north as well as the south, and all England, except London, was in his power. He proposed an expedition against London. While on his way thither he heard that King Ethelred was dead. He called a gemot of the Witan. All who were without the walls of London assembled at Southampton and chose Cnut as the lawful King of England. At the same time the smaller body which was within London chose Edmund king. He was crowned, not at Kingston in Surrey, the usual place for coronations, where still may be seen the sacred stone of record, but at St. Paul’s in London.

The history of the wonderful year that followed belongs to the country rather than to London. It was the year when one great and strong man restored their spirit to a disgraced and degraded people; won back a good half of the land; and, if he had lived, would have reconquered the rest—the year of Edmund Ironside. On St. Andrew’s Day, some months after his father, this great soldier died in London. They buried him in the Minster of Glastonbury, which held the bones of Edgar.

It was at the beginning of this short reign that Cnut commenced the famous siege of London. “The ships came to Greenwich at Rogation days. And within a little space they went to London and dug a great ditch on the south side and dragged their ships to the west side of the bridge; and then afterwards they ditched the city round, so that no one could go either in or out: and they repeatedly fought against the city; but the citizens strenuously withstood them. Then had King Edmund, before that, gone out: and then he overran Wessex and all the people submitted to him.” Thus the Chronicle. The siege was raised by the arrival of Edmund.

This is a very brief and bald account of a most memorable event. We learn two or three things from it—first, that in some way or other the citizens made the passage of the bridge impossible, yet twenty years later Earl Godwin’s ships passed through the southern arches. He, it is true, had previously secured the goodwill of the Londoners. It is possible that, in the case of Cnut, they may have barred the way by chains. It is, next, certain that the river wall was standing, otherwise an attack upon the south of the City would have been attempted. London was secure within its wall, which ran all round it. The Danes had no knowledge of sieges: they had neither battering rams, nor ladders, nor any means of attacking a wall: they never even thought of mining. It is, next, certain either that the population of London was so large as to man the whole wall, a thing difficult to believe, or that the Danish army was so small that it could only attack at certain points. And it is also certain that the Danes could not keep out supplies; the way was open either into Kent or into Essex or to the north. The account also makes it clear that the bridge had been repaired; that it was maintained in good order; and that it was strongly fortified. Cnut, it is evident, did not propose to attempt the City by means of the bridge.

Let us now go back a little in order to consider the condition of the bridge and the story of King Cnut’s trench. It is not certain whether the Saxons at the time of their first settlement kept the bridge in repair; the intercourse between the King of Kent and the King of the East Saxons may possibly have been carried on by a ferry. At the same time it was so easy to keep the bridge open that one feels confident that it was maintained. When the Danes got possession of London their movements are pretty closely followed, but no mention is made of the bridge. I am inclined to think that during their occupation the piles stood up across the river, partly stripped of their upper beams, and that it was Alfred who repaired the bridge when he repaired the wall. That the bridge was standing and in good repair in the time of King Edgar is proved by the curious story of the witch and her punishment which belongs to that time (see p. 222).

“In the year 993,” says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, “came Olaf with 90 ships to Staines and ravaged thereabouts; and went thence to Sandwich, and so thence to Ipswich, and that all overran, and so to Maldon.” How, it is asked, would Olaf sail past the bridge? There can be two answers to this question. It looks, to begin with, considering that Sandwich, Ipswich, and Maldon all lie close together, near or on the coast, as if Olaf had no business at Staines at all. Why, Staines is 120 miles from the North Foreland, round which the fleet must sail. And the answer to the question is, therefore, that some other place is intended. If, however, Olaf did really sail up the river to Staines, then the bridge must have been in a ruinous condition. But the stout piles remained, or at least as many of them as were wanted to show how the work could be restored or rebuilt. Snorri Sturlason, the Icelander, who wrote in the thirteenth century, has preserved a curious account of the bridge (Chronicles of London Bridge, p. 16).

“They—that is, the Danish forces—first came to shore at London, where their ships were to remain, and the City was taken by the Danes. Upon the other side of the River is situate a great market called Southwark—Sudurvirke in the original—which the Danes fortified with many defences; framing, for instance, a high and broad ditch, having a pile or rampart within it, formed of wood, stone, and turf, with a large garrison placed there to strengthen it. This the King Ethelred—his name, you know, is Adalradr in the original—attacked and forcibly fought against; but by the resistance of the Danes it proved but a vain endeavour. There was, at that time, a Bridge erected over the River between the city and Southwark, so wide, that if two carriages met they could pass each other. At the sides of the Bridge, at those parts which looked upon the River, were erected Ramparts and Castles that were defended on the top by pent-house bulwarks and sheltered turrets, covering to the breasts those who were fighting in them; the Bridge itself was also sustained by piles which were fixed in the bed of the River. An attack, therefore, being made, the forces occupying the Bridge fully defended it. King Ethelred being thereby enraged, yet anxiously desirous of finding out some means by which he might gain the Bridge, at once assembled the Chiefs of the army to a conference on the best method of destroying it. Upon this, King Olaf engaged—for you will remember he was an ally of Ethelred—that if the Chiefs of the army would support him with their forces, he would make an attack upon it with his ships. It being ordained then in council that the army should be marched against the Bridge, each one made himself ready for a simultaneous movement both of the ships and of the land forces.”

King Olaf then constructed a kind of raft or scaffold which he placed round his ships so that his men could stand upon them and work. As soon as they reached the bridge they were assailed by a hail-storm of missiles, which broke their shields, and forced many of the ships to retire. Those that remained, however, made fast the ships with ropes and cables. Then the rowers tugged their hardest; the tide turned in their favour; and crash! down fell that part of the bridge and all the people who were on it into the river. Thus Ethelred was restored. In memory of this exploit the Norse Bard sang:—

“And thou hast overthrown their Bridges, Oh thou Storm of the Sons of Odin; skilful and foremost in the Battle! For thee was it happily reserved to possess the land of London’s winding City. Many were the shields which were grasped sword in hand, to the mighty increase of the conflict; but by thee were the iron-banded coats of mail broken and destroyed....

Thou, thou hast come, Defender of the Earth, and hast restored into his kingdom the exiled Ethelred. By thine aid is he advantaged, and made strong by thy valour and prowess; Bitterest was that Battle in which thou didst engage. Now in the presence of thy kindred the adjacent lands are at rest, where Edmund, the relation of the country and the people, formerly governed.”

There is nothing about all this in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It may have happened; but it could not have been invented with a stone bridge in view, the piers of which all King Olaf’s ships together could not move. Of a wooden bridge constructed in the way described above the thing seems quite possible.

The next event in the history of the bridge is the unsuccessful siege by Cnut. In the course of this siege the besiegers dug the trench round the south end of the bridge and dragged their ships through it, so as to attack London all along the river face. Maitland, the historian, pleased himself by thinking that he had discovered vestiges of the trench all the way round. In his time (circa 1740) there were meadows and pastures and orchards over the whole of south London.

“By a diligent search of several days,” Maitland says, “I discovered the vestigia and length of this artificial water-course: its outflux from the river Thames was where the Great Wet Dock below Rotherhithe is situate: whence, running due west by the seven houses in Rotherhithe Fields, it continues its course by a gentle winding to the Drain Windmill: and, with a west-north-west course passing St. Thomas of Watering’s, by an easy turning it crosses the Deptford Road, a little to the south-east of the Lock-Hospital, at the lower end of Kent Street; and, proceeding to Newington Butts, intersects the road a little south of the turnpike; whence, continuing its course by the Black Prince in Lambeth Road, on the north of Kennington, it runs west-and-by-south, through the Spring garden at Vauxhall, to its influx into the Thames at the lower end of Chelsea Reach.”

The position of this trench has been the subject of much discussion. I submit the following as a reasonable solution of the question:—

Why should it have been a long canal? The conditions of the work were exactly the same whatever place should be selected, viz. the Danes would have to dig through the river embankment on both sides of the bridge. They would also have to dig through the causeway. In the latter part of the work certainly, and in the former part probably, they would have to remove buildings of some kind. The continual wars (800-1000) with the Danes make it quite certain that Southwark must then have been in a very deserted and ruinous condition.

Why should Cnut make his canal a single foot longer than was necessary? We may assume that he was not so foolish. Now the shortest canal possible would be that in which he could just drag his vessels round. In other words, if a circular canal began at CB, and if we draw an imaginary circle GEG round the middle of the canal, it is evident that the chord DF, forming a tangent to the middle circle, should be at least as long as the longest vessel. I take the middle of the canal as the deepest part: there would be no time to construct a canal with vertical sides.

Now (see diagram)

If r is the radius AB or AD and 2a the breadth of the canal and 2b the length of the chord DF,

r² = (r - a)² + b²;
[therefore] 2ar = a² + b²;
[therefore] r = (a² + b²)/2a.

This represents the length of the radius in terms of the length of the largest vessel and the breadth of the canal, and is therefore the smallest radius possible for getting the ships through. Now the great ship found in Norway in the year 1880 is undoubtedly one of the finest of the vessels used by Danes and Norsemen. The poets speak of larger ships, but as a marvel. Nothing is said about Cnut having ships of very great size. This vessel was 68 feet in length, 16 feet in breadth, and 4 feet in depth. She drew very little water; therefore a breadth of canal equal to the breadth of the vessel would be more than enough. Let us make the chord 70 feet in length, and the breadth of the canal 16 feet. Then

2b = 70, or b = 35,

and

2a = 16; [therefore] a = 8; [therefore] r = (35² + 8²)/16 = 80 (very nearly).

So that AE in this radius of the inner circle is 64 feet in length.

But it was by no means necessary to form a semicircle. Any canal formed in two parallel circles whose radii are 64 to 80 feet would be sufficient for the purpose. Nor would it matter how short the canal was made: a hundred feet probably represented the whole of this mighty work of Cnut, and this cutting, after breaking down the embankment and the causeway, was excavated in the soft mould of the reclaimed marsh. Where, then, are Maitland’s four miles or so?

As soon as the siege was raised and the Danes departed, the embankment was repaired; the broken causeway was filled up again; the soft earth and mud left by the short canal and the encroachments of the tide through the broken bank were speedily levelled, and all traces of the work disappeared.

This bridge was carried away by the tide in 1091. In 1097, according to the A.S. Chronicler, either the bridge had not yet been repaired, or it had again suffered. He says, “in repairing the Bridge that was nearly washed away.” The maintenance of the bridge at this time was provided for by an assessment levied on the counties of Surrey and Middlesex. It was burned down in the destructive fire of 1136. Again it was rebuilt in wood. But in the year 1176 began the building of the long-lived and illustrious bridge of stone, constructed by that great Pontifex, Peter of Colechurch. The new stone bridge was built a little to the west of the wooden bridge.

CHAPTER V
THE SECOND DANISH OCCUPATION

By the death of Edmund, Cnut was left without a rival. Edmund died on the 30th of November. At Christmas, Cnut summoned to London the Witan of all England to name and crown their king. He questioned witnesses as to the portions of the kingdom, if any, assigned by Edmund to his brothers. As for his infant children, they were not considered. It was found that no portions had been assigned to Edmund’s brothers. Whereupon the meeting unanimously chose Cnut as king of all England. And he was crowned in Paul’s Minster by Archbishop Living. Then the country, in the hands of the strongest king who had ever ruled it, settled down to peace for nineteen years. Never before, not even during the occupation of the Romans, was England at peace for so long. There were no tumults at home; there were no pirates on the seas. As for London, she has no history during this reign. The Chronicle only says as follows:—“A.D. 1018. In this year the tribute was delivered throughout the whole English nation: that was, altogether, two and seventy thousand pounds besides that which the townsmen of London paid, which was ten and a half thousand pounds.”

If the sum paid was at all in proportion to population, London then contained an eighth part of the whole people. Curiously, the population of London is in the same proportion to-day.

“A.D. 1023. This year King Cnut, within London, in St. Paul’s Minster, gave full leave to Archbishop Æthelnothe and Bishop Brithwine and to all the servants of God who were with them that they might take up from the tomb the Archbishop St. Elphege.” This they did, and transported the remains to Canterbury, where they still lie. This archbishop, who had been murdered by the Danes, was sainted. There is a church in the City of London dedicated to him.

The manner of the exhumation and translation, as described in the Translatio S. Elphegi by Osborne, is quoted by Wright (The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon) to illustrate the sturdy independence and the turbulence of the Londoners.

“When Archbishop Elfey had been slain by the Danes in 1012, the Londoners purchased his body of the murderers, and deposited it in St. Paul’s Cathedral. After Cnut had obtained the crown by conquest, and peace was restored, Archbishop Agelnoth (Elfey’s successor) applied to the king to give up the body of the martyr to the monks of Canterbury. Cnut, who was then holding his court in London, consented, but he would only undertake to get the body away by deceiving the citizens. He gave orders to his huscarles, or household soldiers, to disperse themselves in parties, some on the bridge and along the banks of the river, whilst others went to the gates of the city, and there raised tumults and riots. By dint of promises and persuasions, the men who had the care of the body of Elfey were prevailed upon to assist in the plot, and, whilst the attention of the citizens was called to the disturbances at the gates, the sacred deposit was carried by stealth to the river and there placed in a boat, which was rowed in all haste beyond the limits of the capital, and then landed in Kent. The king stood on the bank of the Thames, and watched its progress with anxious eye, for he was afraid of the citizens. When the latter discovered the trick which had been played upon them, they sent out a party in pursuit of the fugitives, who, however, had reached a place of safety before they were overtaken.”

“A.D. 1035. This year,” says the Chronicle, “died King Cnut.” If, as Freeman maintains, King Alfred was the most perfect character in all history, then is Cnut the wisest and the strongest character in English history. He founded a standing army with his regiment of Huscarles, or Guards; he respected old laws and customs; he recognised the right of the people to accept or refuse new laws; he defined the right of hunting, leaving every man free to hunt over his own land; he denounced the slave trade; he ordered that there was to be no trading on Sunday—surely the weekly day of rest is the greatest boon ever bestowed upon men who have to work for their living. He enjoined the discharge of church duties and the payment of church dues. All these things, however, belong to the history of England.

On the death of Cnut a Witenagemot was held at Oxford for the election of his successor. How the kingdom was partitioned between Harold and Hardacnut; how the partition was found impossible; how Harold ruled over all England; how evil was his rule and how disastrous—these things belong to English history. London, which suffered from Harold’s misrule with the rest of the kingdom, had been mainly instrumental in the election of that king. She was represented at Oxford by her “lithsmen,” i.e. her sea-going men. Were they the merchants? or were they the Danes—men of the sea—who formed a considerable part of her population? Freeman thinks they were the latter; there seems, however, no reason for adopting that view, or for supposing that in a general parliament of the kingdom the Danes of London should be called upon to send special representatives. Why were not the Danes of Leicestershire, or of Norfolk, where there were so many, also called? There is, however, a passage in the laws of Athelstan which seems to clear up this point. Athelstan conferred the rank of Thane on every merchant who made three voyages over the sea with a vessel and cargo of his own. Therefore, in calling the Witenagemot these navigators—men of the sea—who had in this manner obtained the rank of Thane were summoned by right. The “lithsmen” were not the merchants; they were not the Danes; they were simply the merchant adventurers who had traded outre mer, beyond the seas and back for three voyages, and claimed for that service the rank of Thane.

The reign of Harold is only important to us for these reasons—First, the part played by London in the election of the king. Next, the illustration of the savagery which still remained among the Danes, and was shown in their horrible treatment of the Etheling Alfred and his men. Alfred, the son of Ethelred, thought that the death of Cnut would give him a chance of succession. He therefore came over, accompanied by a small following. But “Godwin, the earl, would not allow him.” His fate is recorded in the A.S. Chronicle:—

And lastly, the fact that Harold was buried at Westminster, the first of our kings buried there. His half-brother, Hardacnut, had the body exhumed and thrown into the mud of the marsh round Thorney—“into a fen,” says the Chronicle. Thorney stood in a fen, and it is not likely that the new king would desire his savage deed—yet, was it more savage than the acts of Charles II. at the Restoration?—to be concealed. One knows not how many tides ebbed and flowed over the body of the dead king as it lay among the reeds; but presently some—perhaps the monks—taking pity on the poor remains put them into a boat, carried them down the river, and buried them in the little church of St. Clement’s, which, like Thorney, stood on the rising ground of the Strand. And there his dust lies still.

Hardacnut fell down in a fit—“as he stood at his drink”—at Kennington Palace, having crossed over from Westminster to attend a wedding feast. He was buried at Winchester with his father. But before he was well buried the people had chosen, at London, his half-brother, Edward, as king.

The reign of Edward the Confessor brought little change to London. The Danish pirates renewed their attacks, but there was now a fleet well equipped to meet them. The head-quarters of the fleet were at London, or at Westminster. It is said that when Earl Godwin made his demonstration, which threatened rebellion, he passed through the south arches of London Bridge, designing to meet and attack the royal fleet of fifty sail lying at Westminster. It is noticeable that he first assured himself of the goodwill of the City.

A statute of Edward the Confessor (forty-sixth chapter of his laws), in which he appoints the time for holding the hustings, thus speaks of London, and is quoted in the Liber Albus:—

“Therefore in London, which is the head of the realm and of the laws, and always the Court of his lordship the king, the Hustings ought to sit and be holden on the Monday in each week. For it was formerly founded after the pattern and manner, and in remembrance, of Great Troy, and to the present day contains within itself the laws and ordinances, dignities, liberties, and royal customs, of an ancient Greek Troy. In this place therefore are kept the intricate accounts, and the difficult pleas of the Crown, and the Courts of his lordship the King for all the realm aforesaid. And she alone ever doth invariably preserve her own usages and customs, wherever such King may be, whether upon an expedition or elsewhere, by reason of the tumults of the nations and peoples of the realm: in accordance with the ancient customs of our good forefathers and predecessors, and of all the princes, nobles, and wise seniors of all the realm aforesaid.”

In the year 1065 King Edward the Confessor sets forth the history of Westminster as he understood it:—

“Wherefore”—after a general introduction—“I, by the Grace of God King of the English, make it known to all generations to come of time after me, that, by instruction of Pope Leo for penitence and the remission of my sins I have renewed and improved the Basilica of Saint Peter which is situated near the walls of London, the chief city of the English, and on the west side of it, is called Westminster. It was built anciently by Mellitus, first bishop of London, companion and friend of Saint Augustus, first bishop of Canterbury, and by Saint Peter, himself performing an angelic task, and was dedicated by the impression of the Holy Cross and the smearing of the Holy Chrism: but by frequent invasions of barbarians and especially of the Danes (who in the lifetime of my father Ethelred had made an irruption into the kingdom, and after his death divided the kingdom with my brother Eadmund and captured and killed my brother Alfred miserably) was neglected and nearly destroyed.”

I do not know how long a time was necessary for the complete absorption of the Danes among the general population: but there are memories of Danish settlements around St. Clement Danes and outside Bishopsgate Street—perhaps the existence of such a settlement may account for the burial of King Harold in the church of St. Clement.

The Danes, therefore, occupied London first for a period of twelve years. We do not expect to find any remains of that brief occupation: and indeed there are none. When Cnut and his sons were kings they ruled, but did not occupy, the City for some five-and-twenty years. We might expect some remains of that period. If Cnut built the King’s House at Westminster, then the vaults and crypts which were filled with cement when the Houses of Parliament were built were probably his work, and the Painted Chamber destroyed by fire in 1835 was also his work. Otherwise there is nothing, not a stone or a fragment, which we can recognise as Danish work. One little relic alone remains. During excavations for a warehouse in the south side of St. Paul’s Churchyard there was found a Danish gravestone inscribed with Runic characters, probably of the tenth or eleventh century. It is now in the Guildhall Museum.

CHAPTER VI
TOWN AND PEOPLE

Such is the history of London from the beginning of the seventh century to the third quarter of the eleventh century. We have next to consider—

1. The appearance of the town and the nature of the buildings.

2. The trade of the town.

3. The religious foundations.

4. The temporal government.

5. The manners and customs of the people.

I. The Appearance of the Town

If there had been any persons living to remember Augusta when the army of King Alfred took possession of the place, then, indeed, they would have shed tears, while standing on the rickety wooden bridge, to behold the shrunken and mean town which had taken the place of that stately City: to consider the ruins of noble houses; to see how trees grew upon the crumbling wall; to mark how great gaps showed the site of City gates; how broad stretches of ground lay waste, where once had stood the Roman villas. After a year or two, when the wall was repaired, and people flocked again to the “mart of all nations,” the aspect of the City improved. The stones of old erections—those above ground—had been used to repair the City wall; new gates had been built and the old gates had been restored; the quay was once more covered with merchandise, and the river was again filled with shipping—among the vessels was the king’s fleet maintained to keep off the Danes. The town behind the quays was rebuilt of wood—within two hundred years it was five times either wholly, or in great part, destroyed by fire. There were no palaces or great houses; some few had the great hall for the living-room and for the sleeping-room of servants and children, with the “Solar” or the chamber of the lord and lady, the Lady’s Bower, and the kitchens (see also p. 224).

After the time of Alfred, London rapidly advanced in prosperity and wealth. The restoration of the wall was recognised as an outward and visible sign of the security enjoyed by those who slept within it: trade increased; the wealth of the people increased; their numbers increased, because they were safe. Stone buildings began to be erected, and the outward signs of prosperity appeared. London threw out long arms within her walls. The vacant grounds, the orchards and fields and gardens began to be built over. Artificers of the meaner kind and trades of an offensive kind were banished to the north part of the town. The lower parts, especially the narrow lanes north of Thames Street, became more and more crowded. Quays under the river wall extended east and west; the foreshore was built upon; the river wall was gradually taken down, but I know not when its destruction began or was permitted. The shipping in the river was doubled and trebled in amount; some of the ships lying off the quays were too large to pass the bridge; the warehouses became more ample; Thames Street, or the street behind the wall, then the only place of meeting for the merchants, was thronged every day with the busy crowd of those who loaded and unloaded, who came to buy and to sell. The ports of the Walbrook and Billingsgate being found insufficient, that of Queen Hithe, then called Edred’s Hithe, was constructed: quays were built round it, and perhaps a new gate was formed in the river wall.

In the year 981, Fabyan says (p. 128) that a fire destroyed a great part of the City of London.

“But ye shall understand that at this day, the City of London had most housing and buylding from Ludgate toward Westmynster, and little or none where the Chiefe or hart of the Citie is at this day, except in divers places where housing be they stood without order, so that many towns and cities, as Canterbury, Yorke, and other, divers in England passed London in building at those days, as I have seen and known by an old book in the Guildhall named Domesday.”

I quote this passage but cannot give credence to the statement, for the simple reason that London was always a place of trade, and that where her shipping and her quays and ports lay, there were her people gathered together. Probably at this time the northern parts of the City were not yet built over and occupied. But how could the City successfully hold her own against the Danes if her people lived along Fleet Street and the Strand?

A very important question arises as to the rights of the citizens over the lands lying around the City.

If we consider, for instance, the county of Middlesex, we observe that it is bounded by the river Colne on the west and by the Lea on the east. The Thames is its southern march: that of the north was partly defined by the manors belonging to St. Albans Abbey in after times. The whole of the northern part, however, was covered with a vast forest which extended far on either side of Middlesex, and especially into Essex. Another forest occupied the greater part of Surrey, beginning with wastes and heaths as soon as the land rose out of the marsh.

Some kind of right over these forests, and especially over that in the north, which was especially easy of access, was necessary for the City, as much as its rights over the river. For as the river was full of fish and the marshy river-side was full of innumerable birds, so the forest was full of game—deer, boar, hares, rabbits, and every kind of creature to be hunted and trapped and to serve as food. Also the forest furnished timber for building purposes, a feeding-ground for hogs, and wood and charcoal for fuel. The City would not exist without rights over the forest.

If we ask what these rights were, we find that London certainly claimed possession of some lands. Thus in the A.S. Chronicle it is stated that in the year 912 “King Edward took possession of London and of Oxford, and all the lands which owed obedience thereto.” What were these lands? Surely they lay outside the wall.

In the laws of Athelstan, injunctions are laid down for the pursuit of thieves “beyond the March.” What was the March?

In the laws of Cnut the right of every man to hunt over his own land is recognised.

And in Henry the First’s Charter we find the clause, “And the citizens of London shall have their chaces to hunt, as well and fully as their ancestors have had: that is to say, in Chiltre, and in Middlesex, and in Surrey” (see p. 279).

In the same Charter, which was avowedly a recognition of old rights, he gives them the county of Middlesex, with which was included the City of London, “to farm” for the annual payment of £300 a year.

From all of which it appears that the county of Middlesex had been regarded as including London, and, in a sense, a part of London, and that a large part of its lands “owed obedience” to London. In that part the citizens could hunt, just as they could fish in the river and trap birds in the river-side marshes.

II. The Trade of the Town

The early trade of London can be approximately arrived at by taking into consideration (1) that London was the principal receiving, distributing, and exporting place; (2) what it had to sell; and (3) what it wanted to buy.

Nearly everything that was wanted was made on the farms and in the towns. On the farms, the butter, cheese, bread, beer, bacon, were prepared; the grain was grown and ground; the fruit and vegetables were grown in the gardens; the honey was taken from the hives; spinning, weaving, carpentering, clothing, shoemaking were all carried on in the house. Nothing that could be made in the house was bought; nothing that could be made in the house was exposed for sale in the market. What, then, did the people want, and what did they buy? First, they wanted, as necessities, metal for working, weapons, knives, and utensils. Next they wanted salt. Iron and salt were the two absolute necessities of life that could be obtained only by purchase or by barter. If we pass on to luxuries, the wealthier class drank foreign wine in addition to home-made beer, cider, and metheglin; they dressed in foreign silk; they used gold and silver cups, which were made by London goldsmiths; they imported foreign glass; spices brought from outre-mer; and weapons made abroad of finer temper and better workmanship than their own. The Church wanted ecclesiastical vestments, pictures, incense, and gold and silver vessels. All these things the City had to offer and to sell. For purposes of purchase or of exchange the City was prepared to buy slaves, wool, metal, corn, and cattle. All over the country the people bred slaves and sold them; they sent to London large quantities of wool; they also sent lead, tin, iron, jet, fish, and cattle. And there was a great demand among the foreign merchants, though there was but a small supply, for the lovely embroidery of the Anglo-Saxon women, and for the beautiful goldwork of the Anglo-Saxon goldsmiths. The position of the goldsmiths in London, where they were the richest and most important citizens, proves that there was more than a home demand for their work. The words used for the arts and for many articles of common use show that they were at first imported, and from a nation where the Latin language was largely used. Common objects, such as candle, pin, wine, oil; names of weights and measures; names of coins are also derived from Roman sources. Wright’s theory that the people in the cities spoke Latin, and that the Saxon gradually became amalgamated with the people in the cities before the grand irruption may account for the survival of Latin names for common objects. One means of introducing these words may have been the communication kept up by the Church with the Continent, and especially between the monasteries of England and France.

That the trade of London was large and constantly increasing is certain. The abundance of gold in the country is instanced by the wealth of the shrines and the monasteries, and the importance and value of the exports. Sharon Turner23 sums up this advance in trade in such general terms as I have indicated:—

“The property of the landholders gradually multiplied in permanent articles raised from their animals, quarries, mines, and woods; in their buildings, their furniture, their warlike stores, their leather apparatus, glass, pigments, vessels and costly dresses. An enlarged taste for finery and novelty spread as their comforts multiplied. Foreign wares were valued and sought for; and what Anglo-Saxon toil or labour could produce, to supply the wants or gratify the fancies of foreigners, was taken out to barter. All these things gave so many channels of nutrition to those who had no lands, by presenting them with opportunities for obtaining the equivalents on which their subsistence depended. As the bullion of the country increased, it became, either coined or uncoined, the general and permanent equivalent. As it could be laid up without deterioration, and was always operative when it once became in use, the abundance of society increased, because no one hesitated to exchange his property for it. Until coin became the medium of barter, most would hesitate to part with the productions they had reared, and all classes suffered from the desire of hoarding. Coin or bullion released the commodities that all society wanted, from individual fear, prudence, or covetousness, that would for its own uses have withheld them, and sent them floating through society in ten thousand ever-dividing channels. The Anglo-Saxons were in this happy state. Bullion, as we have remarked, sufficiently abounded in the country, and was in full use in exchange for all things. In every reign after Athelstan the trade and employment of the country increased.”

The principal work of London was that of collecting and distributing. The port was the centre to and from which the whole business of the country came and went. It was the king’s part to maintain the high roads, but the Roman skill in road-making was lost; branching off from the highways, in connection with the villages, were tracks through the forests and over the moors. It is an indication of the old spirit of tribal separation that merely to be seen on such a track was suspicious. “... If a far coming man or a stranger journey through a wood out of the highway, and neither shout nor blow his horn, he is to be held a thief and either to be slain or redeemed.” Many of the monasteries lay far outside the high road and in the midst of woods; they were apparently in communication with the world by the medium of streams and rivers. Tintern, Fountains, Dryburgh, Crowland, Ely, for instance, stood beside streams or rivers.

There is abundant evidence as to the extent of the trade carried on in the port of London. There were merchants from Gotland, that strangely-placed emporium of eastern and northern commerce. Thousands of coins have been found on the island—Roman, Byzantine, and Anglo-Saxon, giving evidence of the wealth and enterprise of the merchants, who conducted their caravans across Russia and their ships from the Baltic to the German Ocean and the shores of the Bay of Biscay. We hear of Frisian merchants trading to “Lunden tunes Hythe” in the seventh century. The Norsemen were not all pirates. Othere describes the trade with England in skins of bear, marten, otter, reindeer, in eider-down and whalebone; in ropes made of whale and sealskin. In Ethelred’s laws we read of Frisians, called Flandrenses, of the men of the Emperor, men of Rouen, of Normandy, and of France.

It would seem that the greater part of the foreign trade remained in the hands of the foreign merchants, but not all. Athelstan conferred the rank of Thane on one who had voyaged three times to the Mediterranean. And in the Dialogues of Ælfric we have the English merchant’s own account of himself and his trade:—

“I say that I am useful to the king and to ealder men and to the rich and to all people. I ascend my ship with my merchandise and I sail over the sea and sell my things and buy dear things which are not produced in this land, and I bring them to you here with great danger over the sea: and sometimes I suffer shipwreck, with the loss of all these things, scarcely escaping myself. ‘What do you bring to us?’ ‘Skins, silks, costly gems, and gold; curious garments, pigments, wine, oil, ivory and orichalcous; copper and tin, silver, glass, and such like.’”

The voyage of ships from the south and the south-east to London was much safer than we should expect for such small craft as then formed the trading vessels—short, unwieldy, carrying a single mast and a single sail. The ships bound for London hugged the shore round the South Foreland and then, instead of sailing round the North Foreland, they passed into the estuary of the Thames by the shallow arm of the sea called the Wantsum, which there divided Thanet from the mainland and made it an island. At either end of this passage the Romans had constructed a fortress: that on the north called Regulbium, now Reculver; that on the south RutupiÆ;, now Richborough. The latter stood upon a small island separated from the mainland by a narrow channel. The site of Sandwich was another islet lying south of RutupiÆ. The passage was kept open partly by the flow of two or three rivers into it from the highlands of Kent. It gradually, however, silted up and shrank; yet ships continued to pass by this channel until the sixteenth century, when it became too shallow for the lightest ships. The Wantsum must be borne in mind whenever one speaks of early navigation to and from the port of London, because it saved the ships from the rough and dangerous passage round the North Foreland.

The business of distribution, collection of exports, and internal traffic was conducted entirely by English merchants. Every year the chapman started on his rounds. He set out with his caravan of horses laden with goods and conducted by a troop of servants, all armed for defence against robbers; the roads were cleared of wood and undergrowth on either side to prevent an ambush—they were the old Roman roads, many of which still continue; the antiquarian is pleased to find evidences here and there of a road decayed and not repaired, but deflected by an easier way. Where there were no Roman roads there were tracks and bridlepaths; forests covered the country, and even in summer there was danger of quagmires and bogs. The chapman rode not from village to village, or from house to house, but from one market-place to another, reporting himself to the Reeve on his arrival. When the season was over, when he had sold or exchanged his stock, he returned to London, his caravan now loaded with wool, skins, and metals for export, and perhaps with a company of miserable slaves to be sold across the seas.

The Gilds or Guilds, out of which sprang so great a number of trade corporations and companies, are met with very early. We shall have to consider this subject later on; let us note here, however, that the actual rules of many early Guilds have survived. They were not trades unions: that is, they did not exist for the purpose of keeping up prices and wages. They were essentially social, even convivial in character; they were benefit societies; and they were religious. We have the complete code of the “Frith Guild” of London under Athelstan. The laws are drawn up by the Bishop and the Reeve. The members, who were numerous, met together once a month for social purposes; they feasted and drank together; when a member died each brother gave a loaf, and sang, or paid for singing, fifty psalms. There was an insurance fund to which every member contributed fourpence in order to make good the losses incurred by the members; they also paid a shilling towards thief-catching; they were divided into companies of ten and into groups of hundreds; each company and each group had its own officer. The pursuit and the conviction of thieves were the principal objects of this Guild. In a commercial city theft or the destruction of property is the crime which is most held in abhorrence by the citizens.

There was a Guild of another kind, peculiar, apparently, to the City of London. It was called the Cnihten Guild (see p. 329). We shall have occasion to speak of this Guild at greater length farther on. For the present it is enough to say that it was in all probability—for its laws have perished—an association bound together by religious forms and vows for the defence of the City—the “Cnihten” were in fact the officers of the City militia, which consisted of all the able-bodied citizens; they were trustees for the funds collected for the purpose of providing arms for the citizens; they administered an estate belonging to the town called the Portsoken, lying outside Aldgate, whose rents were received and set aside, or expended in the repair of gates and walls, as well as providing arms.

Attempts have been made to derive the Anglo-Saxon Guilds from the Roman collegia. It is not impossible, supposing that the imitation came through Gaul. At the same time, the points of resemblance on which the theory rests are so extremely slight that one is not disposed to accept it as proved. That is to say, they are points of resemblance such as naturally belong to every association of men made for purposes of mutual support and for the maintenance of common interests. Thus:—

1. Under the Roman Empire there existed collegia privata, associations of men bound together for trade purposes.

2. They were established by legal rights.

3. They were divided into bodies of ten and a hundred.

4. They were presided over by a magister and decuriones—a President and a Council.

5. They had their Treasurer and their Sub-Treasurer.

6. They could hold property in their corporate capacity.

7. They had their temples at which they sacrificed.

8. They had their meeting-houses.

9. They had a common sheet.

10. They had jus sodalitii, the laws, rights, and duties of the members.

11. They admitted members on oath.

12. They supported their poor.

13. The members had to pay contributions and subscriptions.

14. They buried their dead publicly.

15. Each had its day of celebration or feast.

Now, suppose we found among the Chinese or the ancient Mexicans institutions with similar laws, should we be justified in claiming a Roman origin for them? Not at all. We should merely note the facts, and should acknowledge that humanity being common to every age and every country, such rules must be laid down and maintained by every such association as a Company or Guild in the interests of any trade or mystery. So far and no farther the Anglo-Saxon Guild is a copy of the Roman collegium. Unless further points of resemblance are found, we shall be justified in believing that the Guild was not derived by the Saxon from the Roman, and that the latter was not preserved among the provincial towns of England. Against the theory it may also be argued that if it was so preserved, every Guild being separated from every other could develop on independent lines, and that some of the Roman names at least would be preserved, and some of the Roman customs, apart, that is, from the customs common to every such association in every age and in every country.

III. The Religious Foundations

The religious spirit, which has always been found among the Teutonic peoples, was strongly manifested in the Saxon as soon as he became converted. He multiplied monasteries and churches; all over the country arose monastic houses; Bede mentions nineteen of them, including those of Ely, Whitby, Iona, Melrose, Lindisfarne, and Beverley. He does not, however, include Westminster, Romsey, Barking, or Crowland. Kings, queens, princesses, and nobles, all went into monasteries and took the vows; partly, no doubt, from fear of losing their souls, but partly, it is certain, from the desire to enjoy the quiet life, free from the never-ending troubles of the world; free also from its temptations and from its attractions. The monastery provided peace in this world and bliss in the world to come. It has been too much the custom to deride the rule and the discipline, the daily services, the iteration that made prayer and praise a mere mechanical routine. Yet it is easy to understand the kind of mind on whom this deadening effect would be produced. It is also easy to understand the kind of mind to which a rigid rule would be like a prop and a crutch on life’s pilgrimage; to which daily services, nightly services, perpetual services, would be so many steps by which the soul was climbing upwards. Again, to a harassed king, arrived, after many years of struggle and battle, at middle age or old age, think how such a house, lying in woods remote, among marshes inaccessible, would seem a very haven of rest! Or again, to the princess who had suffered the violent and premature deaths of her brothers, her father, most of her people; who remembered the tears and grief of her widowed mother; who had passed through the bereavements which made life dreadful in a time of perpetual war; how admirable would it seem to preserve her virginity even in marriage, and, as soon as might be, to retire into the safety and the peace of the nunnery!

In the year 731, the year of his death, Bede wrote: “Such being the peaceable and calm disposition of the time, many of the Northumbrians, as well of the nobility as of private persons, laying down their weapons, do rather incline to dedicate themselves and their children to the tonsure and monastic vows than to study martial discipline. What will be the end thereof the next age will show.”

The next age did show very remarkably what happens to a country which puts its boys into monasteries. In the next age the people continued still to flock into the monasteries; they not only deserted their duties and their homes, they also deserted their country; they flocked in crowds on pilgrimage to Rome as to a very holy place; noble and ignoble, laity and clergy, men and women, not only went on pilgrimage, but went to Rome in order to die there. Those who could neither take the monastic vows nor die at Rome put on the monastic garb before they died.

Anglo-Saxon London, during the eighth century, thus became profoundly religious, and although the history of the time is full of violence, it is also full of exhortations to the better life. The Bishops constantly ordered the reading of the Gospels. Every priest, especially, was to study the Holy Book out of which to preach and teach. The modern spirit of an Anglo-Saxon sermon is most remarkable, and this in spite of the superstitions in which the time was plunged. The churches, for instance, were crammed with relics; perhaps the people regarded them as we regard collections in a museum. Here were kept pieces of the sacred manger, of the true Cross, of the burning bush, of St. Peter’s beard, of Mary Magdalene’s finger. There were also the popular beliefs about witchcraft. The priests inveighed against witches—“that the dead should rise through devil-skill or witchcraft is very abominable to our Saviour; they who exercise such crafts are God’s enemies and truly belong to the deceitful Devil.” The priests were also zealous in forbidding and in stamping out all heathen survivals, such as fountain worship, incantations of the dead, omens, magic, man worship, the abominations practised in various sorts of witchcraft, worship of elms and other trees, of stones, and other “phantoms.” Long after Christianity had covered the land, the people practised their old incantations for the cure of disease, for good luck in enterprise, against poisons, disease, and battle. They had a thousand omens and prognostics; days were lucky or unlucky; days were good or bad for this or that kind of business—it is within living men’s recollection that Almanacks were published for ourselves giving the lucky and the unlucky days—those beliefs are hardest to destroy which are superstitious and irrational and absurd. Are we not living still in a mass of superstitious belief? It is sufficient to record that the Saxons were as superstitious as our grandfathers—even as superstitious as ourselves.

It is interesting to note the simple and beautiful piety of Bede and other Anglo-Saxon writers, and to mark the extraordinary credulity with which they relate marvels and miracles. Every doctrine had to be made intelligible, and explained and enforced by a special miracle. Take, for instance, the doctrine of the efficacy of masses for the dead. Who could continue in doubt upon the subject after such testimony as the following? Who can argue against a miracle?

In the year 679—only a few years before the history was written—a battle was fought near the river Trent between Egfrith, King of the Northumbrians, and Ethelred, King of the Mercians. There was left for dead on the field of battle one Imma, a youth belonging to the king. This young man presently recovered, and binding up his wound tried to escape unseen from the field. Being captured, however, he was taken to one of Ethelred’s earls. Being afraid of owning himself for what he was, he said he was a peasant who had brought provisions for the army. The earl ordered him to be cared for and properly entertained as a prisoner. Now he had a brother called Tunna, a priest, and the Abbot of a monastery. This priest heard that Imma was dead, and went to search for his body on the field of battle. He presently found one so like that of his brother that, carrying it to the monastery, he buried it and said masses for the soul. Now when Imma had recovered of his wounds, the earl ordered him to be bound so that he should not escape. Lo! as fast as the bonds were laid upon him they were loosened. The earl suspected witchcraft; he was assured by Imma that he knew no spells. Being pressed, however, he confessed who and what he was, viz. no peasant, but a soldier belonging to King Egfrith. Then the earl carried him to London and there sold him as a slave to a certain Frisian, who bound him with new fetters. But at the third hour of the morning they all fell off; and so every morning; wherefore the Frisian, not knowing what to do with this miraculous slave, allowed him to return on promise of sending his ransom. Now when Imma conversed with his brother, he discovered that the loosening of his bonds had been miraculously effected in answer to the masses said for his soul.

The ravages of the Danes in the eighth and ninth centuries destroyed most of the monasteries. For, at first, being heathens, they rejoiced in the destruction and pillage of holy houses and churches, which were rich, full of precious things in gold and silver, embroidery, pearls and gems, silks and fine stuffs. Wearmouth, they destroyed, also Jarrow, Tynemouth, Coldingham, Crowland, Peterborough. When the destroyers retired, those of the monks who had escaped murder timidly came back. Crowland Abbey, for instance, found itself reduced to the Abbot and two monks.

When Alfred had restored peace, he tried to renew some of the monasteries, but failed; no one would become a monk. With nunneries he succeeded better, founding one at Shaftesbury and one at Winchester. Glastonbury, in the time of Dunstan, was served by Irish priests. In the precinct of Paul’s Minster there was a college—St. Martin’s-le-Grand was a college; but there was in London at this time neither monastery nor nunnery. Why?

It may be explained on the ground that at the time when the great zeal for monasteries moved the hearts of the people there was comparative peace in the land, and it was sought to build a religious house far away from what were thought to be the disturbing influences of a town. For instance, St. Erkenwald, Bishop of London, founded two houses, but placed neither in London; one of these he built at Barking down the river, the other at Chertsey up the river. Other instances occur. Romsey, Crowland, Medehamsted (Peterborough), Lindisfarne, Iona, Ely, Glastonbury, not to speak of many later foundations, were placed in quiet retreats far from the busy world. Westminster, it is true, was built on an island once populous and lying on the highway of trade; but the earlier foundation was destroyed by the Danes, and Edward’s House arose long after the highway had been turned aside and most of the trade diverted. Still, Westminster was never remote from the haunts of men, and it may be observed that when the foundation of new houses began they were erected in and around London itself, with no thought of seclusion. Again, when the Danish troubles came upon the land and the monasteries were sacked, for many years the monastic life became impossible; the old desire for it entirely vanished, and long years passed before it awakened again. When it did, monastic houses were founded within the walls of London, or close beneath the protection of the walls, as at St. Mary Overies and Bermondsey and Aldgate. The Danish pillage was not forgotten.

Another explanation of the absence of monastic houses in Saxon London may be the fact, which one is apt to overlook, that every Minster was provided with a college, or a monastic house where the priests—not monks—lived the common life, though not yet the celibate life; where they had a school and where they brought up boys for the Church. In Domesday Book there are no lands owned by religious houses in London except by the Church of St. Paul’s, which had lands in Essex and elsewhere; by certain individual canons, the Bishop of London, who had lands in Middlesex, Hertford, and Essex; and by the Church of St. Martin’s, the Abbey of Westminster, and the Abbey of Barking.

The churches of London, with the houses, were at first built of wood. You may see a Saxon church, such as those which were dotted all over the City area, still standing at Greenstead, near Chipping Ongar, in Essex (see p. 211). When the houses began to be built of stone, the churches followed suit; you may see a stone Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon, near Bath. The churches were quite small at first, and continued to be small for many centuries. They were by degrees provided with glass, with richly decorated altars, with chapels and with organs: in the last respect being better off than their successors in the eighteenth century, when many City churches had no organ. Bede describes an organ as a “kind of tower made with various pipes, from which, by the blowing of bellows, a most copious sound is issued; and that a becoming modulation may accompany this, it is furnished with certain wooden tongues from the interior part, which the master’s fingers skilfully repressing, produce a grand and almost a sweet melody.”

And Dunstan, who was a great artificer in metals as well as a great painter, constructed for himself an organ of brass pipes.

It is interesting to gather, from the dedications of the City churches, those which certainly date from Saxon times. Thus there are five dedicated to Allhallows, of which four are certainly ancient; of the churches dedicated to Apostles, there are two of St. Andrew, three of St. Bartholomew, one of St. James, one of St. Paul, three of St. Peter, one of St. Stephen, four of St. Mary, one of Mary Magdalene; of later saints, St. Martin, St. Bridget, St. Benedict, St. Anne, St. Clement, St. Giles are represented, while Saxon or Danish saints are found in St. Ethelburga, St. Swithin, St. Botolph, St. Olave, St. Magnus, St. Vedast, and St. Dunstan. None of the Norman saints seem to have crossed the water. None, certainly, supplanted the Saxon saints, while not one British saint remained in Saxon England, which shows how different was the Norman Conquest from the Saxon occupation.

If ecclesiastical law means anything, then the London citizen must have spent most of his time in doing penance. Besides the common crimes of violence, perjury, theft, and so forth, the Church advanced the doctrine that there were eight capital crimes, namely, pride, vainglory, envy, anger, despondency, avarice, greed, and luxury. For greed a man had to fast and do penance for three years. For despondency, he had to fast on bread and water till he became once more exhilarated.

The chief weapon of the Church at a time when the executive is weak is penance. For the Anglo-Saxon his priest was armed with a code of penances so long and so heavy that one cannot believe that it was ever enforced. Can we, for instance, believe that free men would consent to live on the coarsest food and do penance for three years as a punishment for eating with too great enjoyment? We are told that if a man killed any one in public battle he was to fast forty nights. Then King Alfred must have been doing penance all the days of his life—which is absurd. Again, can one believe that sinners consented to wear iron chains round the body, to lie naked at the feet of the person offended, to go about with a rope round their necks, to abstain from water, hot or cold? Can we believe that any one, especially any rich or noble person, would sell his estate, give one-third to the poor, one-third to the clergy, and keep no more than one-third for himself and his family?

Penance, however, could be commuted by payments in money. This shows, not the greed and avarice of the Church, but the weakness of the Church. Another way of getting through penance was by paying people to perform the penance for the sinner. Thus, a man who was ordered a thirty-six days’ fast could engage twelve men to fast for three days each. Or if he was ordered a year’s fast, he would arrange for 120 men to fast, in the same way, for three days each. As I said above, it is the weakness of the Church that one perceives. The Bishops denounced crime; they showed the people how grievous a sin was this or that, by imposing heavy penance; then because only a few would consent to perform such penances, they were obliged to be content with evasions and vicarious performance. As the Church grew stronger, penance became more reasonable.

There was a church in nearly every street, and a parish to every church. Some of the churches were built as an act of penance. We are sometimes tempted to believe that the power of the Church must have been an intolerable tyranny; yet the violence of the time called for the exercise of arbitrary authority, and, at the very worst, it was better to be in the hands of the Church than in those of the King.

IV. The Temporal Government

In the administration of the City, the Bishop and the Portreeve were the two principal officers; the former represented more than the ecclesiastical life, because the Church governed the life of every man at every step in his pilgrimage from the cradle to the grave. The Portreeve was the king’s officer: he looked after customs, dues, tolls, etc. The port is neither “Porta,” the gate; nor “Portus,” the harbour; it is “Portus,” the enclosed space: “Portus est conclusus locus quo importantur merces et inde exportantur” (Thorpe, 1. 158). The Portreeve was the civil magistrate, as the Bishop was the ecclesiastical. Other officers were the “Tungerefa,” or Tunreeve, whose business it was to inquire into the payment of custom dues. The “Caccepol” (Catchpole), or Beadle, was perhaps a collector. And there were the Jurats or Jurors, called sometimes testes credibiles, who acted as witnesses in every case of bargain or sale. The laws of Edgar said: “Let every one of them on his first election as a witness take an oath that neither for profit, nor for fear, nor for favour, will he ever deny that which he did witness, nor affirm aught but what he did see and hear. And let there be two or three such sworn men as witnesses to every bargain.” The “Wic-reeve” is also mentioned, but this is probably only another name for Town-reeve. He is mentioned in an edict issued by two Kentish kings, Hlothhere and Edric (673-685). “If any Kentish man buy a chattel in Lundewic, let him have two or three witnesses or a king’s wic-reeve.” Wright takes this officer to have been one appointed by the Kings of Kent to look after their interests in a town belonging to the Kings of Essex. Why should it not mean simply the reeve of the port, i.e. the reeve of the Kings of Essex? “If it be afterwards claimed of the man in Kent, let him then vouch the man who sold it him, or the wic at the king’s hall.” Criminals were tried in open court by their fellows. They might be acquitted by the oaths of those who had known them long. If they were found guilty, the punishments were cruel: they were deprived of hands, feet, tongue, eyes; women were hurled from cliffs into the river, or burned; floggings were inflicted. Ordeals were practised—that of the “corsned,” or consecrated barley-bread, which only the innocent could swallow;—this ordeal was supposed to have killed Earl Godwin; that of cold water, that of hot water, that of hot iron. Not, however, the ordeal by battle. Of all other ordeals the event was uncertain: in that by battle one or the other had to die. The citizen of the tenth century had the greatest possible objection to such an ordeal. Later on, under Norman rule, he protested continually against this liability, until the King conceded his freedom from it.

The Anglo-Saxon laws are simply amazing as regards the punishments ordered for those offenders who were of servile rank. Their savage cruelty shows that the masters were afraid of the slaves. If a slave woman stole anything she might be whipped unmercifully, thrown into prison, and kept there; thrown over a precipice, drowned, or even burned to death. In the last case she was to be burned by eighty other women slaves, every one of whom was to contribute a log towards the fire. If a man slave committed a similar offence he might be stoned to death by eighty other slaves, and if one of those eighty missed his mark three times he was to be flogged. Since, however, slaves cost money, and were valuable property, it is not probable that they were often destroyed for slight offences. On the other hand, they were cruelly flogged. A small drawing in a contemporary MS. shows the flogging of a slave. He is stripped naked; his left foot is confined by a circle; two men are flogging him with thorny handles. The cruelty of the punishment, thus brought home to one, seems atrocious. But flogging was not the worst or the most cruel punishment. Every kind of mutilation was practised in ways almost unspeakable. Mutilation, indeed, was continued as a punishment long after the Conquest. We shall see, for instance how Henry I. punished the “moneyers” who had debased the coin by striking off their right hands and depriving them of their manhood. Eyelids were cut off, noses, lips, ears, hands, feet; the victims of this barbarity were to be seen on every road in every town. Those who were not slaves, but freemen, were, as a rule, treated with far more clemency. First, for the man not taken red-handed, there was the ordeal to which he might appeal. There was next the “compurgation,” in which the accused had to find a sufficient number of reputable persons to swear that he was not capable of the offence charged. Or again, many offences could be cleared by penance, and since penance included fasting, which is impossible for the weak and the old, the repetition of prayers and singing of Psalms was allowed as a substitute; and since these do no good except to the penitent, compulsory almsgiving was further allowed as a substitute. So that, although the Church attempted to make of the last mode of punishment a real and substantial fine in proportion to the means of the sinner, the natural, certain, and inevitable result followed: that all crimes could be atoned for by those who could pay the fines, and that in the Christian Church there was one law for the rich and another for the poor. Also, as naturally followed in course of time, it became customary to classify most crimes by a kind of tariff. Those of violence, greed, and lust, which were common in an age of violence, were priced at so much apiece. Those, however, of murder of kin, arson, treason, witchcraft, were held “bootless,” i.e. not to be atoned for by any fine. Then a very curious institution existed, called the Frank pledge. Every man in the country belonged to a tithing or company of ten; every company of ten belonged to a company of a hundred; every crime had to be paid for by the tithing, or the hundred; thus it happened in this way it was made the interest of every one that the tithing or the hundred should be kept free from crime.

The punishment of women by drowning was practised in very early times by the ancient Germans and Anglo-Saxons. It was continued down to the middle of the fifteenth century, when it was finally, but not formally, abolished. But women were drowned on the Continent in the eighteenth century. The London places of execution were the Thames, and the pools of St. Giles, Smithfield, St. Thomas Watering, and Tyburn. Sometimes the criminal was sewn up in a sack with a snake, a dog, an ape—if one could be procured—and a cock.

The right of taking a part in the government of his country was always held and claimed by the Anglo-Saxon freeman. Thus in London, all causes were tried, and all regulations for the ordering of the City were made, by the citizens themselves in open court. The Hustings, a Danish Court, was held once a week, on Monday. The Folkmote was held on occasion, and not at stated times. The men were called together by the bell of St. Paul’s, to Paul’s Cross; there, in a tumultuous assemblage, everything was discussed, not without blows and even slaying or wounding, for every man carried his knife. It was difficult to persuade the citizens to meet without arms, because to carry no arms was the outward mark of the slave; even the clergy carried arms. Only while performing penance the freeman must lay aside his sword; and that, no doubt, was a greater penalty than the fast. Another distinguishing mark of the freeman was his long hair: the slaves had their hair cut close; the most shameful punishment that could be inflicted on a free woman was to cut off her hair.

Wright is of opinion that the existence of London was continuous, and that it was never taken or sacked by the Saxons. We have seen the evidence for the desertion of the City. He adduces the example of Exeter, where English and Welsh continued to live on equal terms; he acknowledges that this could only have been done by virtue of an original composition with the English conquerors.

He points out, however, apart from his theory, the very important fact that London was in many respects a free commercial city, making laws for itself and claiming privileges and concessions which imply claims to the exercise of independent jurisdiction, notably in the law made by the Bishop and Reeves of London for the citizens in the year 900. Such powers the City certainly possessed and used at that and earlier times; they were, however, powers not laid down by law, but assumed as the occasion demanded, and neither disputed nor allowed by the King. Later on, the citizens pretended to have possessed their privileges from the first foundation of their City, which they carried back as far as the foundation of Rome.

V. The Manners and Customs of the People

As regards the poor of London, the laws relating to them were most strict and clear. Everybody had to give to the Church the tenth part of his possessions and incomings: the tithe, according to a law of Ethelred, was to be divided into three equal parts, of which one was to go to the maintenance of the church fabric—the altars, the service of the church, and the offices belonging thereto; the second part was to go to the priests; and the third part to “God’s poor and needy.” Archbishop Egbert issued a canon to the same effect. King Edgar enjoined the same division. And not only did tithes carry with them this provision for the poor, but the faithful were also exhorted to other almsgiving. For instance, if a man fasts, let him give to the poor what he has saved by his abstinence; and if by reason of any infirmity he is unable to fast, let him give to the poor instead. Every church, every monastery, had its guest-house or poor-house, where the poor were received and fed. Archbishop Wilfred, in 832, fed daily, on his different manors, twenty-six poor men: to each he gave yearly twenty-six pence for clothing; and on his anniversary he gave twelve poor men each a loaf of bread and a cheese, and one penny. This practice was continued after his death by endowments. In the same way there were endowments for the poor at Canterbury, Ely, and elsewhere. We must, therefore, remember that round every parish church in the City of London there were gathered daily, for their share of the tenth part, “God’s poor and needy”—the aged, the infirm, the afflicted—belonging to that parish.

The daily life of the King in his palace or on his journeys is not difficult to make out. That of the people, the priest, the merchant, the craftsman, is impossible to discover—only a few general customs can be noted. To begin with, the Anglo-Saxon was a mighty drinker: in drinking he was only surpassed by the Dane; bishops were even accused of going drunk to church; all classes drank to excess. They had drinking bouts which lasted for days: during this orgy they illustrated their Christian profession by praising the saints and singing hymns between their cups, instead of singing the old war songs; the young king, Harthacnut, as we know, drank himself to death. But the feasting and the hard drinking seldom fell to the lot of the ordinary craftsman. We may believe that this honest man drank as much as he could get and as often as he could afford, but ale and mead then, as now, cost money. How the craftsman worked, for what wage, for how long, how he was housed, how he was fed, we may ask in vain.

Like the Dane, the Anglo-Saxon was of an imaginative nature; he not only believed in spirits and demons, but he made a great and complete scheme of mythology into which we need not here inquire; when he was converted to Christianity he surrendered himself to a blind belief in the doctrines of the Church. Many noble and royal persons in the revival of the eighth century showed, as we have seen, the sincerity of their belief so far as to lay down their rank and enter monasteries, or to go off barefooted on pilgrimage. With the majority, their new religion was something added to the old. We are not to suppose that this old mythology was known to the common people, any more than the book of Ovid’sMetamorphoses was known to the average Roman citizen. The Christian Church introduced its teaching gradually, being content to pass over many pagan practices. The Church said nothing while the people continued to believe that the foul fiend entered into the body of a person newly dead and walked about in that body all night. They believed in the power of raising spirits, in magic and witchcraft; they wore amulets and charms for protection; they believed in “stacung,” i.e. “sticking,” a method of killing an enemy by which the slayer simply stuck a thorn or a pin into his enemy and prayed that the part wounded might mortify and so cause death. It was an easy method, but one that offered the obvious objection that you cannot stick a pin into any part of a man without causing him pain; nor can you pray at the same time without his hearing the prayer. Therefore one must believe that the would-be murderer ran great risk himself of being murdered. There were, however, instances in which persons were believed to have caused death by this method. In the tenth century, for instance, we get a glimpse of wild justice. We see a man running madly through the streets; he reaches the nearest gate; he flies across the moor, where none pursue him; he is heard of no more. The crowd which ran after him turned back. They made for a house—not a hovel—a substantial house, where he had lived with his aged mother; they beat down the door; they rushed in; they came out shouting that they had found the accursed thing; they dragged out the old woman shrieking for mercy. “Witch! sorceress! She has bewitched Ælsie by sticking and by prayer. He is sick unto death. She must die.” They hauled her along the streets; they reached the bridge; they hurled the poor creature, now covered with blood and shrieking no longer, into the river. She floated for a second; she sank; again she rose to the surface; then she was seen no more, and the crowd returned. The King for his part confiscated the lands of the sorceress and her son.

Loftie gives the following passage concerning this event. It is from a document in the Society of Antiquaries. Note by the way that it proves the existence of the bridge in 960 or thereabouts:—

“Here is made known in this writing, that bishop Æthelwold and Wulfstan Uccea exchanged lands, with the witness of King Ædgar and his ‘witan.’ The bishop gave to Wulfstan the land at Washington, and Wulfstan gave him the land at Jaceslea and at Aylesworth. Then the bishop gave the land at Jaceslea to Thorney, and that at Aylesworth to Peterborough; and a widow and her son had previously forfeited the land at Aylesworth, because they had driven an iron pin into Ælsie, Wulfstan’s father, and that was detected: and they drew the deadly thing forth from her chamber. They then took the woman and drowned her at London Bridge; and her son escaped, and became outlaw; and the land went into the hands of the king; and the king then gave it to Ælsie, and Wulfstan Uccea his son gave it again to Bishop Æthelwold, as it is here above said.”

The method of “sticking” was continued, but with modifications. The operator no longer stuck a thorn into his enemy. He made a waxen image of him and stuck pins into the image, with a prayer that the man might feel the agony of the wound; he placed it before the fire, and prayed that as the waxen image melted away, so his enemy might waste away and die. The superstition lingered long; perhaps it still has followers and believers. In the fifteenth century the greatest lady in the land was compelled to do penance and was committed to a life-long prison for practising this superstitious rite.

Philtres and love potions were greatly in request; the people practised astrology and divination. Their medicine was much mixed with superstition: thus they knew the medicinal properties of certain plants, but in using them certain prayers had to be said or sung; they practised bleeding, but not when the moon was crescent and the tide was rising; the use of relics was prescribed for every possible disease.

It is a great pity that we have neither an Anglo-Saxon house nor any detailed description of one left. There are, it is true, some drawings of houses in the MSS. of the period, but the buildings are presented conventionally; they are indicated for those who would recognise them without too great an adherence to truth. Take that on p. 225. There is, it will be perceived, a central hall. On one side is the chapel—part of the wall is taken out so as to show the lamp burning before the altar; beside the chapel is a small room, perhaps the chaplain’s chamber; on the other side are two chambers: one belongs to the men-at-arms, the other to the maids; the court is full of beggars, to whom the lord and the lady are serving food, while the maids are bringing out clothes for two adults who are standing at the door in a state of Nature. There is a round building at the back—the walls of the house are of masonry up to a certain height, when timber begins; there is but one floor. The hall was hung with cloths or tapestry; it was furnished with benches and with movable tables on trestles.

In the Saxon household the special occupation of the women was the construction of clothing. They carded the wool; they beat the flax; they sat at the spinning-wheel or at the weaver’s loom; they made the clothes; they washed the clothes; they embroidered and adorned the clothes; the female side in a genealogy was called the spindle side. Kings’ daughters, notably the grand-daughters of King Alfred, distinguished themselves by their work with the spinning-wheel and the needle. The Norman admired the wonderful work of the Saxon ladies; the finest embroideries shown in France were known as English work. Thomas Wright (Womankind in Western Europe, p. 60) gives very complete testimony on this point:—

“The Anglo-Saxon ladies of rank were especially skilful in embroidery, and that from a very early period. English girls are spoken of in the life of St. Augustine as employed in skilfully ornamenting the ensigns of the priesthood and of royalty with gold, and pearls, and precious stones. St. Etheldreda, the first Abbess of Ely, a lady of royal rank, presented to St. Cuthbert a stole and maniple which she had thus embroidered with gold and gems with her own hands. At a later period, Algiva or Emma, the queen of King Cnut, worked with her own hands a stuff bordered in its whole extent with goldwork, and ornamented in places with gold and precious stones arranged in pictures, executed with such skill and richness that its equal might be sought through all England in vain. Dunstan is said to have designed patterns for the ladies in this artistic work. The early historian of Ely tells a story of an Anglo-Saxon lady who, having retired to lead a religious life in that monastic establishment, the nuns assigned to her a place near the Abbey, where she might occupy herself more privately with young damsels in embroidery and weaving, in which they excelled. We trace in early records the mention of women who appear to have exercised these arts as a profession. We find, for instance, in the Domesday Book, a damsel named Alwid holding lands at Ashley in Buckinghamshire, which had been given to her by Earl Godwin for teaching his daughter orfrey or embroidery in gold, and a woman named Leviet or Leviede is mentioned in Dorsetshire as employed in making orfrey for the king and queen.”

It is also remarked by Wright that the names given to women indicate a high respect for womanhood: such as the names of Eadburga—the citadel of happiness; Ethelburga—the citadel of nobility; Edith (Eadgythe)—the gift of happiness; Elfgiva-the gift of the fairies; Elfthrida—the strength of the fairies, or the spiritual strength; Godiva (Godgifa)—the gift of God.

There are, so far as I know, no traditions of any nunnery in London before the Conquest. The name Mincing Lane, which is certainly Mincheon Lane or Nuns’ Lane, points probably to property belonging to a nunnery. Perhaps there was a nunnery within the City before the occupation by the Danes. If so, it perished and was forgotten. Just as men were required to fight and not to lead monastic lives, so women were required to become mothers of fighting men, and not to enter a cloister. I think there may have been a nunnery, because London did not escape the wave of religious revival, and also because one was necessary for the education of girls. At nunnery schools the girls were educated with far greater care than our own girls till the last twenty years or so. They learned Latin, rhetoric, logic, and, according to Wright, “what we call popular science.” They also learned embroidery. “From the statements of the Anglo-Saxon writers, we are led to believe that the Anglo-Saxon nuns had no objection to finery themselves, and they are accused of wearing white and violet chemises, tunics, and veils of delicate tissue, richly embroidered with silver and gold, and scarlet shoes.” (Wright, p. 86.)

The evening of the ordinary man was not wholly given up to drinking. The musicians came in and played on harp and trumpet, pipes, horn, and fiddle. The gleemen sang and recited; the tumbling-girls played their tricks.

The Anglo-Saxon love of music and poetry gives us a higher opinion of the people than we might form from all that we have learned. Applying all his qualities, good or bad, to the Londoner, it will be found that he has transmitted them to the generations coming after him. For he was a lover of freedom, valiant in the field; a lover of order and justice; impatient under ecclesiastical control, yet full of religion; fond of music, poetry, singing and playing; given to feasting and addicted to drunkenness. These attributes distinguished the Londoner in the tenth century, and they are with him still after a thousand years.

The sports and pastimes of the City were the same for London as for the rest of the country. The citizens were passionately fond of hunting and hawking; they baited animals, as the bull, the bear, and the badger; they were fond of swimming, skating, and rowing, of dancing, and of tomfoolery, jumping, tumbling, and playing practical jokes. Of these amusements, hunting was by far the most popular with all classes. We have seen that the Londoner had deep forests on all sides of him, beyond the moor on the north of his wall, beyond the Dover causeway on the south, beyond the Lea on the east, beyond Watling Street on the west. The forests were full of wild cattle, bears, elk, buffalo, wild boars, stags, wolves, foxes, hares, and the lesser creatures; as for the wolves, they were a terror to every village. Athelstan and Edgar organised immense hunts for the destruction of the wolves; under the latter they were so greatly reduced in number that he is generally said to have exterminated them. As regards the hunting of the elk or the wild boar, it was a point of honour to meet the creature face to face after it had been roused from its lair by the dogs, and driven out maddened to turn upon its assailant. In single combat the hunter met him spear and knife in hand, and either killed or was killed. Sometimes nets were employed; these were stretched from tree to tree. Dogs drew the creatures into the nets, where they were slaughtered. Once Edward the Confessor, a mighty hunter, discovered that his nets had been laid upon the ground by a countryman. “By God and His Mother!” cried the gentle saint, “I will serve you just such a turn if ever it comes in my way.”

The country was famous for its breed of dogs. There were bloodhounds strong enough to pull down bulls; wolfhounds which could overtake a stag or a wolf or a bear; a kind of bulldogs remarkable for their overhanging jowls; harriers, greyhounds, water spaniels, sheep-dogs, watch-dogs, and many other kinds.

The Game Laws, which restricted the right of hunting, formerly universal, were introduced by Cnut. Every man, however, was permitted to hunt over his own land.

Akin to hunting was the sport of hawking. This was greatly followed by ladies, for whom other kinds of hunting were too rough. Hawks of good breed were extremely valuable. It was not only by hawking that birds were caught. The Londoner employed nets, traps, slings, and bird-lime. He had only to go down the river as far as Barking or Greenwich to find innumerable swarms of birds to be trapped and netted. Of his indoor pastimes one must not omit to mention the making and answering of riddles, a game with pawns—“taeflmen”—and dice, called “taefl,” and the game of chess. The last of these was a fearful joy on account of the rage which seems always to have seized the man who was defeated. Witness the following anecdote:—

“Among the most enthusiastic of chess-players was Cnut the Great, but he was by no means an agreeable antagonist. When he lost a game, or saw that he was on the eve of doing so, he very commonly took up the huge chess-board on which he played, and broke it on the head of his opponent. He was on one occasion playing with his brother-in-law, the Earl Ulf, when the earl, seeing that he had a forced mate, and knowing the king’s weakness for knocking out the brains of successful antagonists, quietly left the table. Cnut, who guessed his motive, shouted after him: ‘Do you run away, you coward?’ To which the other, who had lately rescued the king in an unfortunate engagement with the Swedes, replied, ‘You would have been glad to have run faster at the Helga, when I saved you from the Swedes who were cudgelling you.’ Cnut endeavoured to bear the retort patiently, but it was too irritating for his temper. On the following morning he commanded one of his Thanes to go and murder Ulf; and though, in anticipation of the king’s vengeance, Ulf had taken sanctuary in the church of St. Lucius, the bloodthirsty order was carried into effect.”

The education of the boy was conducted at monasteries. One knows that there were schools in every monastery, and that every minster had its school; and that probably the four oldest schools of London—St. Paul’s, St. Martin’s, St. Anthony’s, and St. Mary-le-Bow, were of Anglo-Saxon foundation. We know, further, that at these schools the teaching was carried on by means of catechism, and that the discipline was severe, but we do not know what children were admitted to these schools, and whether the child of the craftsman was received as well as the child of the Thane. Athletics were not neglected—leaping, running, wrestling, and every kind of sport which would make the body more active and the frame more capable of endurance were encouraged. Until the time of Alfred very few even of the highest rank could read or write. The monasteries with their schools did a great deal to remove the reproach. The boys rose before daybreak and joined the brethren in singing the Psalms appointed for the early service. They assisted at first mass and at the mass for the day; they dined at noon and slept after dinner; they then repaired to their teacher for instruction.

Food in London was always plentiful; it was very largely the same as at present. The people killed and ate oxen, sheep, and swine; they had game of all kinds; wild birds in myriads frequented the marshes and the lowlands of Essex; the rivers were full of fish. Barley-bread was eaten by children and the lower orders; they had excellent orchard-land, and a plentiful supply of apples, pears, nuts, grapes, mulberries, and figs. In the winter they had salted meat. Their drink was ale, wine, mead, pigment, and morat. Pigment was a liquor made of honey, wine, and spice. Morat was a drink made of honey mixed with the juice of mulberries.

The Londoner’s house was luxurious, according to the luxury of the time. The walls were adorned with hangings, mostly of silk embroidered with figures in needlework. These hangings and curtains were of gaudy colours, like the fashionable dresses. The benches, seats, and footstools were richly carved. The tables were sometimes decorated with silver and gold. The candlesticks were of bone or of silver. The mirrors were of silver. The beds were provided with rich and soft pillows and coverings, bearskins and goatskins being used for blankets. There was great store of silver cups and basins; the poorer sort used vessels of wood and horn. Glass began to come into general use about the time of the Norman Conquest. At least twelve different precious stones were known. Spices were also known, but they were difficult to procure and highly prized. The warm bath was used constantly, but not the cold bath, except as a penance.

In every city, town, nay, every monastery and every village, it was necessary that there should be artificers to make everything that was wanted. The women did the weaving, sewing, dressmaking and embroidery. We need not attempt to enumerate the trades of the men. A list of them will be found in MediÆval London. (See vol. i. App. ii.)

The population of London can only be guessed, but there are certain facts which afford some kind of clue. Thus, when Alfred entered the City there was practically no population, unless the slaves of the Danes remained. The City filled up rapidly with the increase of security and the development of trade. Foreign merchants once more flocked to the Port; they settled in the City and became Londoners. The defeat of Swegen and Olaf, and afterwards of Cnut, clearly proves that the citizens were strong enough to beat off a very large and powerful army. This fact is alone sufficient to prove that the City contained a population enormous for the period. In the twelfth century FitzStephen says that London could furnish 60,000 fighting men—a manifest exaggeration. In Domesday Book, prepared after the devastating wars of William, and with the omission of some counties and many towns, we arrive at a population of a million and a half. If we allow for London an eighth part of the population of the whole country, we have 187,500. For other reasons (see p. 190), I think that the population of London at the beginning of the eleventh century was probably about 100,000.

There are many other things about the City of King Edward which we should like to know. Among them are: the procedure at a folkmote; the exact procedure in the trial of a person charged with an offence; the real extent of the power exercised by the Church, e.g. those penances so freely imposed, were they laid upon all citizens or only upon certain persons more devout than the rest? What kind of education was given to the boys and girls of the lower classes? Again, one would like to know what was the position and what the work of a slave in London. Outside London, Domesday Book records 26,500 slaves in all; but in London itself nothing is known about their number. Taking the population of London as one-eighth that of the whole country, the number of slaves would be about 3300. Since there is no trade which has ever been held in contempt by the working classes of London, it is probable that there was no trade specially set apart for the slaves.

CHAPTER VII
THORNEY ISLAND

Let us turn to the sister city, as yet only Thorney, the Isle of Bramble. We all know the legend of St. Peter’s Hallowing. The legend became in later times an article of faith. The right of Sanctuary at Westminster was made to rest upon the sanctity of a place so blest as to have been consecrated by Peter: on the strength of this sanctity Westminster claimed the tithe of the Thames fishermen from Staines to Gravesend; and as late as 1382 a Thames fisherman representing Edric had the right to sit at the same table as the prior; he might demand of the cellarer ale and bread, and the cellarer again might take for him of the fish’s tail as much as he could with four fingers and the thumb erect.

Sebert was buried in the church, and his tomb is pointed out to this day. Walsingham says that when his grave was opened for the purpose of removing his body from the old church to the new, “his right hand was found perfect, flesh and skin, nails and bones, up to the middle of his arms.” And Robert of Gloucester writes:—

Bede makes no mention at all of Westminster Abbey. But the first Charter in which it is mentioned, that of King Offa of Mercia, in 785, calls it St. Peter’s. Bede’s History ends at the year 731; therefore the Abbey was founded between 731 and 785; or, which is more likely, the foundation was too small and insignificant for Bede to mention it. King Offa says, “I have given to St. Peter and the Lord’s people dwelling in Torneis, in loco terribili, quod dicitur aet Uuestminster.” There is another ancient charter, without date, still existing, under which one Ælfhelm grants lands to the Abbey. Considering the facts already dwelt upon—the religious fervour of the eighth century, the general desire for the monastic life, and the absence of monasteries or nunneries in London, we may very reasonably infer that Westminster would open her doors to the citizens, and these would endow and enrich her. So that the vanished foundation may very well have been a great and splendid monastery. As we have nothing to go upon but conjecture and inference concerning it, we may accept anything we please.

Then came the troubles of the Danes in the ninth century. It is not to be supposed that, when they were ravaging the whole island and destroying everywhere the religious houses, Westminster would be spared. Indeed, they seem to have actually occupied Thorney, according to Ethelred’s Chronicle, and to have been besieged there by Earl Ethelred. It certainly was not the only time that they visited a place so convenient and lying on the old high road. One visit was probably quite enough so far as the monks were concerned.

Edgar and Dunstan founded the Abbey anew—in this first great dissolution of the monasteries the younger monks probably took up arms and became fighting-men with the rest. However this may be, the monks of Westminster were lost: the new Abbey had to be served by monks from Glastonbury.

A document still exists, perhaps a forgery, but yet of great value, purporting to be the King’s charter granting estates to the Abbey. Its importance to us lies in the fact that, forgery or not, it does give the boundaries of the estate claimed and possessed by the monks. A very noble estate it is. You can lay it down on the map very easily. On the north it was bounded by the line of Oxford Street; on the east by the Fleet river; on the south by the Thames; on the west by the Tyburn and a line drawn from the present site of Buckingham Palace to Victoria Station, and thence to the outfall of the King’s Scholars’ Pond Sewer, east of Albion Terrace in the Grosvenor Road. Of this large manor a good portion was marsh-land, but there were pastures and meadows south of the present Oxford Street, and as far as Holborn and the Fleet. Later on the Abbey acquired the land between the Tyburn and the Westbourne, that is to say, that part now bounded by the Serpentine in Hyde Park and the two sewers known as King’s Scholars’ Pond Sewer and the Ranelagh Sewer.

This, however, was the demesne of the Abbey under Edgar’s foundation. He brought thither twelve monks of the Benedictine order from Glastonbury, and gave them presents in gold as well as in lands. Still it remained a poor foundation till the coming of the Confessor.

Of this church, that of Edgar, I suppose there is not a fragment left above the ground. Nor need we speculate as to the kind of church that it was.

Beside the Abbey, on the east side of it, it is said that King Cnut erected a royal palace. At least tradition ascribes the palace to him, and there are several reasons which make it as certain as can be that the King did build a palace of some kind—whether great or small—on Thorney. It is stated that he loved to converse with Wulnoth, Abbot of St. Peter’s. Now even in these days it is not so very easy to get from London to Westminster for the purpose of conversation, and King Cnut was the busiest man in the whole island, so it is at all events likely that he built some sort of dwelling near the Abbey. It is positively stated that his palace was burned in the time of the Confessor; there is a bull by Pope Nicholas II. (1058-1061), in which it is said that “the place where the church and monastery are built was anciently the seat of kings—therefore by the authority, etc., we grant and solidly confirm that hereafter, for ever, it be the place of the kings’ constitution and consecration, the repository of the Imperial Regalia, and a perpetual habitation of monks.” This is pretty plain. But there are other points which seem to indicate that Cnut was the first builder of a palace here. The story of the removal of St. Alphage’s remains from St. Paul’s to Canterbury proves the wholesome fear with which the King regarded the citizens of London. He caused his men to simulate riots and tumults at the City gates, so that when all the citizens hurried thither in hopes of a fight, the removal could take place unseen. He would not willingly remain within the City walls. Besides, he had with him his small standing army of 3000 huscarles (house men), whom he carried about with him. The housing of these men in London—men of a different nationality—would be an ever-present danger if they were billeted upon the citizens: one could not expect that the Londoners, who had twice beaten off Cnut’s father and once beaten off Cnut himself, would regard the intrusion of this army within their walls with satisfaction.

What kind of palace was that which Cnut erected? I am of opinion that it contained the central group of buildings associated with the name of Edward the Confessor, which remained, with many changes of windows and roof, down to the fire of 1834. Outside, there were the offices of state, the barracks, the guest-chambers, and so forth. We shall return to the subject again.

There is one more reason to believe that the palace of Westminster was built by Cnut. When Edric the traitor was beheaded, his body was “flung out of window into the Thames.” Some writers have stated that this would be impossible at Westminster. Quite the contrary; but it would have been impossible at London, for the simple reason that there were no windows overlooking the river, but that there was a great stone wall with towers and bastions running all along the river side: at Westminster, on the other hand, there were always houses built upon the banks with windows overlooking the river.

Let us meantime recognise Cnut as the founder of the “King’s House” of Westminster. It seems that both Harold and Hardacnut occupied the palace of Westminster from time to time.

King Edward’s first charter, granted to Wulnoth and the monks of Westminster, was dated from the King’s House—in regis palatio—of London.

Edward the Confessor resolved to restore and to rebuild and to re-endow the Monastery of St. Peter. He was moved thereto partly because he was a special votary of that Apostle; partly because he had vowed a pilgrimage to St. Peter’s tomb at Rome, and his Council would not let him go; partly because to build and to endow a church was an act very pleasing to the Lord; and partly because he possessed that love of building found in so many kings of all ages and of all countries.

He carried his resolution into effect. He built a church worthy of his vow, and a church which was by far the noblest and grandest edifice in the country. It was the first English example of the cruciform church: it occupied an area nearly equal to that of the present church; the windows were filled with stained-glass representing passages in the life of our Lord and in the lives of the saints; it contained a noble organ; the altars blazed with gold and precious stones; the vestments of the priests were as magnificent as embroidery, silk, and cloth of gold could be made; the King and his warriors came to worship from the palace hard by; the rustics from the farms around came to worship side by side. In the splendour of the church, in the austerity of the monks, in the equality of the worshippers, there was taught to the world every day that religion regardeth not the rank or the power of a man. Of Edward’s church little now remains, only some pillars and passages, some substructures, the chapel of the Pyx, and some broken columns of the Infirmary Chapel.

Edward did not witness the consecration of his church. His last act was to sign the charter of the foundation. It was consecrated without him. His queen, Edith, sat in the King’s place, with her brothers, Harold and Gurth, and the new minster was consecrated by Archbishops Stigand and Aldred, while the King lay in his palace close by, slowly dying. After the consecration of the church the first function was the burial of its founder. The next was the coronation of Harold.

We shall have more to say, later on, concerning the coronation of our kings and queens. Let us conclude our notice of Saxon London with the coronation service of a Saxon king. It is that of Ethelred, and was probably followed word for word in the crowning of King Harold:—

“Two bishops, with the witan, shall lead him to the church, and the clergy, with the bishops, shall sing the anthem, ‘Firmetur, manus tua,’ and the ‘Gloria Patri.’

When the king arrives at the church, he shall prostrate himself before the altar, and the ‘Te Deum’ shall be chaunted.

When this is finished, the king shall be raised from the ground, and having been chosen by the bishops and people, shall, with a clear voice, before God and all the people, promise that he will observe these three rules.

The Coronation Oath

‘In the name of Christ, I promise three things to the Christian people, my subjects:—

First, That the church of God, and all the Christian people, shall always preserve true peace under our auspices.

Second, That I will forbid rapacity and all iniquities to every condition.

Third, That I will command equity and mercy in all judgments, that to me and to you the gracious and merciful God may extend his mercy.’

All shall say Amen. These prayers shall follow, which the bishops are separately to repeat:—

‘We invoke thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty and Eternal God, that this thy servant (whom, by the wisdom of thy divine dispensations from the beginning of his formation to this present day, thou hast permitted to increase, rejoicing in the flower of youth), enriched with the gift of thy piety, and full of the grace of truth, thou mayest cause to be always advancing, day by day, to better things before God and men: that, rejoicing in the bounty of supernal grace, he may receive the throne of supreme power; and defended on all sides from his enemies by the wall of thy mercy, he may deserve to govern happily the people committed to him with the peace of propitiation and the strength of victory.’

Second Prayer

‘O God, who directest thy people in strength, and governest them with love, give this thy servant such a spirit of wisdom with the rule of discipline, that, devoted to thee with his whole heart, he may remain in his government always fit, and that by thy favour the security of this church may be preserved in his time, and Christian devotion may remain in tranquillity; so that, persevering in good works, he may attain, under thy guidance, to thine everlasting kingdom.’

After a third prayer, the consecration of the king by the bishop takes place, who holds the crown over him, saying:—

‘Almighty Creator, Everlasting Lord, Governor of heaven and earth, the Maker and Disposer of angels and men, King of kings and Lord of lords! who made thy faithful servant Abraham to triumph over his enemies, and gavest manifold victories to Moses and Joshua, the prelates of thy people; and didst raise David, thy lowly child, to the summit of the kingdom, and didst free him from the mouth of the lion and the paws of the bear, and from Goliath, and from the malignant sword of Saul and his enemies; who didst endow Solomon with the ineffable gift of wisdom and peace: look down propitiously on our humble prayers, and multiply the gifts of thy blessing on this thy servant, whom, with humble devotion, we have chosen to be king of the Angles and the Saxons. Surround him everywhere with the right hand of thy power, that, strengthened with the faithfulness of Abraham, the meekness of Moses, the courage of Joshua, the humility of David, and the wisdom of Solomon, he may be well-pleasing to thee in all things, and may always advance in the way of justice with inoffensive progress.

May he so nourish, teach, defend, and instruct the church of all the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons, with the people annexed to it; and so potently and royally rule it against all visible and invisible enemies, that the royal throne of the Angles and Saxons may not desert his sceptre, but that he may keep their minds in the harmony of the pristine faith and peace! May he, supported by the due subjection of the people, and glorified by worthy love, through a long life, descend to govern and establish it with the united mercy of thy glory! Defended with the helmet and invincible shield of thy protection, and surrounded with celestial arms, may he obtain the triumph of victory over all his enemies, and bring the terror of his power on all the unfaithful, and shed peace on those joyfully fighting for thee! Adorn him with the virtues with which thou hast decorated thy faithful servants; place him high in his dominion, and anoint him with the oil of the grace of thy Holy Spirit!’

Here he shall be anointed with oil; and this anthem shall be sung:—

‘And Zadoc the priest, and Nathan the prophet, anointed Solomon king in Sion; and, approaching him, they said, May the king live for ever!’

After two appropriate prayers, the sword was given to him, with this invocation:—

‘God! who governest all things, both in heaven and in earth, by thy providence, be propitious to our most Christian king, that all the strength of his enemies may be broken by the virtue of the spiritual sword, and that Thou combating for him, they may be utterly destroyed!’

The king shall here be crowned, and shall be thus addressed:—

‘May God crown thee with the crown of glory, and with the honour of justice, and the labour of fortitude; and by the virtue of our benediction, and by a right faith, and the various fruit of good works, thou mayst attain to the crown of the everlasting kingdom, through His bounty whose kingdom endures for ever!’

After the crown shall be put upon his head, this prayer shall be said:—

‘God of Eternity! Commander of the virtues! the Conqueror of all enemies! bless this thy servant, now humbly bending his head before thee, and preserve him long in health, prosperity and happiness. Whenever he shall invoke thine aid, be speedily present to him, and protect and defend him. Bestow on him the riches of thy grace; fulfil his desires with every good thing, and crown him with thy mercy.’

The sceptre shall be here given to him, with this address:—

‘Take the illustrious sceptre of the royal power, the rod of thy dominion, the rod of justice, by which mayest thou govern thyself well, and the holy church and Christian people committed by the Lord to thee! Mayest thou with royal virtue defend us from the wicked, correct the bad, and pacify the upright; and that they may hold the right way, direct them with thine aid, so that from the temporal kingdom thou mayest attain to that which is eternal, by His aid whose endless dominion will remain through every age.’

After the sceptre has been given, this prayer follows:—

‘Lord of all! Fountain of good! God of all! Governor of governors! bestow on thy servant the dignity to govern well, and strengthen him, that he become the honour granted him by thee! Make him illustrious above every other king in Britain! Enrich him with thine affluent benediction, and establish him firmly in the throne of his kingdom! Visit him in his offspring, and grant him length of life! In his day may justice be pre-eminent; so that, with all joy and felicity, he may be glorified in thine everlasting kingdom.’

The rod shall be here given to him, with this address:—

‘Take the rod of justice and equity, by which thou mayest understand how to soothe the pious and terrify the bad; teach the way to the erring; stretch out thine hand to the faltering; abase the proud; exalt the humble; that Christ our Lord may open to thee the door, who says of himself, I am the door: if any enter through me, he shall be saved. And He who is the key of David, and the sceptre of the house of Israel, who opens and no one can shut; who shuts and no one can open; may he be thy helper! He who bringeth the bounden from the prison-house, and the one sitting in darkness and the shadow of death! that in all things thou mayest deserve to follow him of whom David sang, Thy seat, O God, endureth for ever; the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Imitate him who says, Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, has anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.’

The benedictions follow:—

‘May the Almighty Lord extend the right hand of his blessing, and pour upon thee the gift of his protection, and surround thee with a wall of happiness, and with the guardianship of his care; the merits of the holy Mary; of Saint Peter, the prince of the Apostles; and of Saint Gregory, the apostle of the English; and of all the Saints, interceding for thee!

May the Lord forgive thee all the evil thou hast done, and bestow on thee the grace and mercy which thou humbly askest of him; may he free thee from all adversity, and from all the assaults of visible or invisible enemies.

May he place his good angels to watch over thee, that they always and everywhere may precede, accompany, and follow thee; and by his power may he preserve thee from sin, from the sword, and every accident and danger!

May he convert thine enemies to the benignity of peace and love, and make thee gracious and amiable in every good thing; and may he cover those that persecute and hate thee with salutary confusion; and may everlasting sanctification flourish upon thee!

May he always make thee victorious and triumphant over thine enemies, visible or invisible; and pour upon thy heart both the fear and the continual love of his holy name, and make thee persevere in the right faith and in good works, granting thee peace in thy days; and with the palm of victory may he bring thee to an endless reign!

And may he make them happy in this world, and the partakers of his everlasting felicity, who have willed to make thee king over his people!

Bless, Lord, this elected prince, thou who rulest forever the kingdoms of all kings.

And so glorify him with thy blessing, that he may hold the sceptre of Solomon with the sublimity of a David, etc.

Grant him, by thy inspiration, so to govern thy people, as thou didst permit Solomon to obtain a peaceful kingdom.’

Designation of the State of the Kingdom

‘Stand and retain now the state which thou hast hitherto held by paternal succession, with hereditary right, delegated to thee by the authority of Almighty God, and our present delivery, that is, of all the bishops and other servants of God; and in so much as thou hast beheld the clergy nearer the sacred altars, so much more remember to pay them the honour due, in suitable places. So may the Mediator of God and men confirm thee the mediator of the clergy and the common people, on the throne of this kingdom, and make thee reign with him in his eternal kingdom.’

This prayer follows:—

‘May the Almighty Lord give thee, from the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, abundance of corn, wine, and oil! May the people serve thee, and the tribes adore thee! Be the lord of thy brothers, and let the sons of thy mother bow before thee: He who blesses thee shall be filled with blessings, and God will be thy helper: May the Almighty bless thee with the blessings of the heaven above, and in the mountains, and the vallies; with the blessing of the deep below; with the blessing of the suckling and the womb; with the blessings of grapes and apples; and may the blessing of the ancient fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, be heaped upon thee!

Bless, Lord, the courage of this prince, and prosper the works of his hands; and by thy blessing may his land be filled with apples, with the fruits, and the dew of heaven, and of the deep below; with the fruit of the sun and moon; from the tops of the ancient mountains, from the apples of the eternal hills, and from the fruits of the earth and its fulness!

May the blessing of Him who appeared in the bush come upon his head; and may the full blessing of the Lord be upon his sons, and may he steep his feet in oil!

With his horn, as the horn of the rhinoceros, may he scatter the nations to the extremities of the earth; and may He who has ascended to the skies be his auxiliary for ever!’

Here the coronation ends.”

CHAPTER VIII
SAXON REMAINS

As for the monuments which remain of Saxon London there are none; the Roman monuments are older, the mediÆval monuments are later. There is not one single stone in the City of London which may be called Saxon. In Westminster the fire of 1835 swept away the buildings which belonged perhaps to Cnut; certainly, with alterations, to Edward the Confessor. Some of the bases of Edward’s columns still exist under the later pavement; the chapel of the Pyx, and portions of the domestic buildings appropriated to the use of the school, were built by Edward.

Of Saxon coins many have been found. Perhaps the most important find happened on June 24th, 1774, in clearing away the foundations of certain old houses near to the church of St. Mary at Hill, when a quantity of coins and other things placed in an earthen vessel eighteen or twenty inches beneath the brick pavement or cellar were dug up. The vessel was broken by the pickaxe and the coins fell out upon the ground. The workmen, thinking from their blackened appearance that they were worthless, threw them away, but a foreman, finding that they were silver, collected all he could, some three or four hundred pieces. Within the earthen vessel was a smaller one containing coins in a high state of preservation, together with a fibula of gold finely worked in filigree, with a sapphire set in the centre, and four pearls, of which one was lost. The coins consisted entirely of pennies of Edward the Confessor, Harold II., and William the Conqueror. They are stamped with the name of the Moneyer and the place where he kept his Mint. The Minters or Moneyers belonging to London were:—

(1) Under Edward the Confessor:

Durman, Edwin, Godwin, Wulfred, Sulfine, and Wulfgar.

(2) Under Harold:

Edwin, Gefric, Godric, Leofti, and Wulgar.

(3) Under William:

Ægelric, Ælffig, Godwine, Leofric, and Winted.

It is at first sight strange that so very little should survive of six hundred years’ occupation. Look, however, at other cities. Nothing survives except those buildings, like the pyramids, or King Herod’s temple, built of stones too huge to be carried off. What is there in Paris—in Marseilles—in Bordeaux—in any ancient city to mark the occupation of the city from the fifth to the eleventh century? Considering the character of the people; considering, too, the arts and architecture of the time; it would be strange indeed if Saxon London had left a single monument to mark its existence.

If, however, there are no buildings of Saxon origin, there are other remains. The names of streets proclaim everywhere the Saxon occupation. Thus, Chepe, Ludgate, Bishopsgate, Addle Street, Coleman Street, Garlickhithe, Edred’s Hithe (afterwards Queen’s Hithe), Lambeth Hill, Cornhill, Gracechurch Street, Billingsgate, Lothbury, Mincing Lane, Seething Lane, Aldermanbury, Watling Street, Size Lane, Walbrook, and many others, occur at once. Or, there are the churches whose dedications point to the Saxon period: as, St. Botolph, St. Osyth, St. Ethelburga, All Hallows, and others.

Streets within the City that are perhaps later than the Conquest are Fenchurch Street, Leadenhall Street, Lombard Street, Old Broad Street, Great Tower Street, and Tower Hill. Streets with trade names, such as Honey Lane, Wood Street, Friday Street, the Poultry, Bread Street, are almost certainly of Saxon origin.

Stow speaks of an ancient road or street running from Aldgate to Ludgate which was cut off by the enclosure of St. Paul’s Churchyard. A glance at the map will show that when West Chepe was an open market, a broad space, the way from east to west, may very well have struck across St. Paul’s Churchyard to Ludgate Hill, leaving the Cathedral, then much smaller than the Norman building, plenty of room on the south side. No traces of the Danish Conquest exist, but there are traces of Danish residence, first, in the names of the churches of St. Magnus and St. Olave, of the latter there were many; in the name of St. Clement Danes, which perhaps preserves the memory of a Danish quarter, but the subject is obscure; in the Court called the Hustings, held every Monday, the name of which is certainly derived from the Danes. The similarity, however, of Danish and Saxon institutions made the adoption of the latter easy. The absorption of the Danes by the Saxons was in a few years so complete that no memory was left to their descendants of their Scandinavian origin. In London the families of Danish descent were like those of Flemish or Norman descent: they saw no reason to remember their origin, and were English as well as London citizens.