Fig. 27.—Plan showing the relation of the central Wards and the principal Streets

Another list of aldermen in 1214 is printed in Madox’s Exchequer, together with a reference to one of 1211, which carries back the complete list of twenty-four to within twenty years of the institution of the mayoralty.

An account of the property of St. Paul’s made in the first half of the twelfth century, and printed in facsimile in Price’s History of the Guildhall, incidentally contains a list of about twenty wards, mostly under the names of their aldermen. Of these “Warda Fori” and the wards of Aldgate, Brocesgange (Walbrook), and of the Bishop may be cited as especially interesting; Aldresmanesberi is also mentioned. This document is not dated, but Mr. Round has shown it to have been written about 1130. Hugo, son of Wlgar, and Osbert, Aldermen, occur in another deed of 1115, and Thurstan, Alderman, in 1111. Mr. Loftie has attempted to identify some of the wards. The Ward of Herbert, in which was the land of William Pontearch, may perhaps be Dowgate, for a charter of Stephen gave to S. M. de Sudwerc the stone house of William de Pontearch, situated by the sheds of Douegate (Dugdale). What is probably a still earlier group of aldermen is given in a Ramsay document of 1114-30, which is addressed to Hugo de Bochland, Roger, Leofstan, Ordgar, and all the other barons (i.e. aldermen) of London. Another document of the same age is witnessed by Levenoth, “Alderman.” A careful comparison of these lists, together with other sources,[140] might yield some new facts. From a cursory comparison it seems to be evident that too much has been made of the case of the Farndons and Farringdon Ward as evidence for hereditary ownership in the aldermanries. Most of the family names change from list to list, but a few persist: in 1240 there is a Jacob Bland, in 1275-85 and 1293 a Rudulphus Blond, but this may be the case in any office. On the other hand, two of the same family name are found more than once holding different wards at the same time, and in other cases similar names are found in different wards in different lists; thus in 1285 there are two Ashys, two Rokesleys, two Boxes, and two Hadstocks: a Frowick in 1285 held Cripplegate, and in 1320 a Frowick held Langbourne. The ward that can most easily be traced is Cheap; in 1211-14 it was held by William son of Benedict, in 1275 by Peter of Edmonton, in 1285 by Stephen Ashy, and in 1320 by Simon Paris. This is hardly hereditary succession. But what I am concerned with is not the tenure but the topographical origin of the wards. Many different theories as to the origin of the wards have been put forward. Mr. Loftie, writing of the beginning of the thirteenth century, says: “The wards, as we shall notice more distinctly further on” (the distinctness is difficult to find), “were in the hands originally of the landowners, and an alderman was still very much in the position of a lord of the manor. His office was at first always, and still usually, hereditary.” After the reign of Henry III. the aldermen no longer owned their wards. The constitution had undergone a complete change, “and the offices became purely elective.”Mr. Price thought that the wards were divisions dating from Roman days. Norton believed that the wards were to the city what the hundreds were to the shire, and this view, shared by Bishop Stubbs, seems to be confirmed, as will be shown by an independent line of reasoning.

The wards can be traced back to within fifty years after the Conquest, and that they were even then of immemorial antiquity is shown by FitzStephen’s legend that, like Rome, London was founded by the Trojans, and consequently had the same laws, and like it was divided into wards. In Cambridge there were ten wards in 1086.

A study of the ward boundaries in connection with the Walbrook, the “Carrefour,” and the main streets yields most interesting results. Stow tells us that a great division between the western and eastern wards was made by the Walbrook, which ran from the north wall to St. Margaret’s Lothbury, then under Grocers’ Hall, and St. Mildred’s Church, west of the Stocks Market, through Bucklersbury, then by the west of St. John’s Walbrook and the Chandlers’ Hall, and by Elbow Lane to the Thames. On laying down the course of this stream from all obtainable data, it is found that it was an unbroken boundary between the thirteen eastern and eleven western wards.

Again, the four principal cross streets form so many backbones to a series of wards; and this in such a marked way as to show on a good map quite certainly at a glance, that these wards were formed by aggregations of dwellings upon either side of the roads which passed through them, exactly as a high-road threads a village.

Bridge Ward is a narrow strip containing the Bridge Street up to the cross of Lombard Street. Bishopsgate Ward, beginning at this same crossways, goes all the way to Bishopsgate, the ward street passing through its midst.

Lombard Street and Fenchurch Street furnish the midrib to Langbourne Ward[141] in just as obvious a way. Stow thought that Langbourne Ward was called from a stream, but this has been shown to be untenable for physical reasons (see p. 48); and the plan of the wards shows instantly that here was no water-course, like the Walbrook, dividing wards, but a street passing through the midst of a ward. While deriving this ward’s name from a brook, Stow says that Lombard Street was so called of the Longobard merchants about 1300. I find that the street was called Langbourne Strate at the end of the thirteenth century;[142] and in a charter of Matilda to Holy Trinity, 1108-18, appears the Church of St. Edmund in Longboard Strete. The first mention I can find of the ward is also of the twelfth century; this is a demise by “Geoffrey, Alderman of the Ward of Langebord,” of land in Lime Street.[143] It is evident from this that the name of the street and the ward was originally one and the same—Langbard, Longbord, or Longford, as it occasionally appears. The street was written “Lumbard Strete” in 1319.[144]

The St. Paul’s documents show that important Lombards were resident in London early in the twelfth century, and they probably gave their name to the ward and street; two of these were Meinbod and his son Picot the Lombard. In Paris there is a Lombard Street, and other cities have the name. And the word is written Langeberde in old English.

Cornhill Ward, Cheap Ward, and the old Newgate Ward are just as clearly three wards strung on the street which respectively threads them in passing to the west gate, and properly takes the name of each ward in passing through it.

Lime Street and Aldgate Wards lie over Leadenhall (the old Aldgate) Street; from the look of it we might suppose that Lime Street Ward was formerly part of Aldgate Ward, as the division line is here formed by the street which gives its name to the ward. The backbone of Tower Ward is Great Tower Street, which passes into Billingsgate Street as East Cheap, and on westward as Candlewick Street. Coleman Street threads the ward of the same name, which is possibly derived from the Coleman named on p. 83, and Cripplegate and Aldersgate Wards are formed on the ancient streets which went to those gates.

This examination of the forms of the wards in relation to the ancient streets which they overlie is enough to prove irresistibly that the main streets of the city existed before the wards, and that these wards originated not as “private property,” but as units of population inhabiting the houses along those streets, like so many villages or townships. These streets, in turn, however long and unbroken, evidently bore different names according to the wards they passed through.

The study of the wards might be carried further in one direction by means of a map on which the boundaries of the parishes, as well as of the wards, were carefully laid down. Although upwards of a hundred parishes can hardly date back so early as the institution of wards, it is possible that certain large parishes may have had an origin identical with the wards,[145] and most of them probably date from before the Conquest. It would be interesting also to compare the boundaries of the suburban parishes with the limits of the suburbs proper as defined by the bars.

It is generally accepted that a parallel holds between the organisation of the city and the shire, the ward and the hundred. “Hundreds and Tithings were part of the primitive Germanic constitution.” Dr. Stubbs has shown that in Domesday several towns figure as hundreds, and the wards of the city of Canterbury were called hundreds. Thus too, I suppose, it arose that the reports of the wards of London were inserted in the Hundred Rolls.

The wards in London most probably represented the groups of citizens belonging to several gilds; they may indeed be identical with the Peace gilds of Athelstane’s enactment, according to which the population were to be enrolled by tens and hundreds in associations for the preservation of peace and the suppression of theft.[146] In accordance with this idea of accounting for every man, we find that even in the thirteenth century no one was to stay in the city for more than two nights “unless he finds two sureties and so puts himself in frankpledge.” The aldermen were responsible for their wards,[147] and every hosteller was likewise responsible for his guest.[148] Dr. Maitland suggests that the Aldermen were the military captains of the burgmen. It is certain that the defence of the town gates was assigned to the men of the several wards.

The wards, then, were in the main organisations for the executive government, the ordering and policing of the city. “The ward-mote is so called as being the meeting together of all the inhabitants of a ward in presence of its head, the alderman, or else his deputy, for the correction of defaults, the removal of nuisances, and the promotion of the well-being of each ward.”[149] This function, indeed, is explained by the very name “ward,” and the “frankpledge” was a survival of primitive adoption into the tribe. Some recognition of this is made by Holinshed, who says the city is divided into twenty-six wards or “tribes.” It even seems possible that the wards may at first have been formed by symmetrical numerical units such as, say, a hundred freemen; or the space within the walls may have been divided up into twenty or twenty-four parts in such a way as to allow for density of population. Excavations in the city have shown that the population clustered most thickly along the river and in the great streets, and the wards are much more congested and regular in the central part by the bridge than nearer the walls: the old churches also seem to gravitate towards the same nucleus.

Wards without.—A good illustration of the formation of the interior wards may be found in the growth of those without the walls. Bishopsgate Without, and Aldersgate Without, were evidently formed by clusters of dwellings springing up on either side of the roads outside the gates. Cottages outside Bishopsgate and at Holborn are mentioned even in Domesday, and Fleet Street appears to have been populous even earlier. The external wards extend to the boundary of the city liberties, or common land, and the roads passing through them had specific street-names as far as the several “Bars.” Holborn Street, as it is sometimes called, which passed over the Hole-burn, should properly end with the city liberty, as does Fleet Street.

Along with the wards were a number of sokes—areas in which persons or corporations held certain privileges. The first sokes mentioned are that of the Cnihten Gild (pre-Conquest), and that of St. Peter of Ghent (in 1081, see p. 97). The charter of Henry I. grants that “no guest tarrying in any soc shall pay custom to any other than him to whom the soc belongs.” They appear to have been heritable, and free to some extent from civic jurisdiction: in the reign of Edward I. there were still upwards of twenty in existence in London.[150] “Bury” seems to have been applied to a manor or property surrounded by a wall or fence; “in London,” says Mr. W. H. Stevenson, “it means a large house.” Bucklersbury and Bloomsbury were the properties—post-Conquest—of one Blemund, and of the family of Bockerel. A Saxon will makes a bequest to Paul’s byrig.[151] The termination “haw,” present still in Bassishaw, is also common. A charter of the Confessor giving StÆninghaga in London to Westminster is printed by Kemble; Dr. Maitland in Domesday and Beyond has shown that this was occupied by the men of Staines, and that Staining Lane probably preserves its memory even unto this day. There were forty-eight burgesses of London who counted with Staines in 1086. He suggests that we have here a trace of a system by which the shires garrisoned the burhs.

The Palace.—There are but few references to a palace. Florence, writing of 1017, says that Cnut “being in London” ordered Edric to be “slain in the palace” and his body to be thrown from the walls—“into the Thames,” says Malmesbury. Richard of Cirencester, who wrote in the middle of the fourteenth century, but whose testimony is of the more value as he was a monk at Westminster, says that Cnut was keeping his Christmas “in the castle which is now called Baynard’s,” and after the death of Edric took boat for Westminster. There is every reason to think that the ruler’s house in London, as in Constantinople, Venice, Aachen, and Paris, would have adjoined the cathedral, as Baynard’s Castle did. That Baynard’s Castle should have been the old royal palace would seem to agree very well with its subsequent history; it would also explain the existence of this stronghold held under the king within the city walls, while none of the chroniclers speak of its site being taken from the city, and it would explain why early in the twelfth century Henry I. should give a part of the site to St. Paul’s; for, if it had been built after the Conquest, it would hardly have been curtailed so early.[152]

Henry of Huntingdon says that William Baynard was deprived of his estate in 1110. It was then, I suppose, that it passed to the Clares. The Fitzwalters, who held it after Baynard, belonged to the great family of the Clares.[153] Baynard’s Castle was probably dismantled under John when the king quarrelled with Fitzwalter. In 1275 a patent was granted R. Fitzwalter to alienate Castle Baynard near the city walls, with stone wall, void areas, ditches, and even the tower of Fish Street Hill. Taking this and the St. Paul’s document together, the precinct seems to have included the ground between the boundary of St. Paul’s (along Carter Lane) and the river and from the city wall to Old Fish Street. It must have been an important castle, not a mere tower.

Henry II. is made by Fantosme to ask how “mes baruns de Lundres ma citÉ” fared in the troubles of that time, and is told that Gilbert de Munfichet had strengthened his “castle,” and that the Clares were leagued with him. This Montfichet’s Castle is mentioned by FitzStephen, and Stow says that it was close to Castle Baynard towards the west, and on the river; but a document given by Dugdale speaks of Munfichet Castle with its ditch as close to Ludgate (ii. 384).[154]

Tradition has also assigned the site of a Saxon palace close to the east end of St. Alban’s, Wood Street. It was said that King Athelstane had his house here, which, having a door into Adel Street, “gave name to this street, which in ancient evidences is written King Adel Street.”[155] Stow just refers to the story, but says any evidence had been destroyed, and he was evidently disgusted at a then recent “improvement.” Some accounts of 23 Henry VIII., given in the Calendar of St. Paul’s Documents, refer to the “clensying of certyn old ruinouse houses in Aldermanbury, sometime the palace of Saincte Æthelbert Kyng ... and making of five new tenements.” It is curious that there is an Adle Hill, also in Castle Baynard Ward. The records of St. Alban’s show that Abbot Paul (from 1077) obtained by exchange with the Abbot of Westminster what was said had been the chapel of Offa’s palace near the church of St. Alban’s, Wood Street. This evidently refers to the same site abutting on St. Alban’s, Wood Street.[156] It has been said that Gutter Lane is named from the residence of Guthrum. I find it called Godron Lane in early documents, and the tradition may possibly be true (see p. 154).

Tower Royal was a royal residence after the Conquest; Stow says Stephen lodged there.[157] Froissart, writing of the Wat Tyler’s rebellion, tells how the king’s mother fled to “the Royal called the Queen’s Wardrobe.”

We get in the Heimskringla a fair picture of what the king’s haga or garth would have been in the history of King Olaf the Holy. “King Olaf let house a king’s garth at Nidoyce. There was done a big court hall with a door at either end, but the high seat of the king was in the midmost of the hall. Up from him sat his court-bishop, and next to him again other clerks of his; but down from the king sat his counsellors. In the other high seat strait over against him sat his marshal, and then the guests. By litten fires should ale be drunk. He had about him sixty body-guards and thirty guests. Withall he had thirty house carles to work all needful service in the garth. In the garth also was a mickle hall wherein slept the body-guard, and there was withal a mickle chamber where the king held his court chambers.” Of Olaf the Quiet we are told: “That was the ancient wont in Norway that the king’s high seat was midst of the long daÏs, and ale was borne over the fire. But King Olaf was the first let do his high seat on the high daÏs athwart the hall.... He let stand before his board trencher-swains. He had also candle-swains, who held up candles before his board. Out away from the trapeza was the marshal’s stool.”