London Before the Conquest

CHAPTER VII

STREETS—CRAFT GILDS AND SCHOOLS—CHURCHES

They answered and said that there were many more churches there [in London] than they might wot to what man they were hallowed.

Heimskringla.

Streets.—As has been said, a large number, probably most, of the streets of London as they existed before the fire can be traced in records back to the thirteenth century. It is evident that the extra-mural approaches and the gates necessitated the existence of some of these at a still earlier time; the sites of ancient churches and the formation of the wards to which the streets serve as midribs, as above said, account for others. That some are of Roman date positive evidence has been found. On reviewing this cumulative evidence it seems possible that the main streets given in Stow’s Survey represent ways in the Roman city. A succession of fires slowly raising the surface with layers of debris, gradual encroachments, and the obliteration of open spaces, have modified the old lines in some cases considerably, but still it is certain, I believe, that the general “squareness” and more or less symmetrical alignment of the Roman city can be traced in the existing streets. A line from the bridge to the north gate must always have formed a great main street, and standing at the bottom of Bridge Street (Fish Street Hill) we may still gain some idea of what the entrance to the city by the Roman bridge was like. Mr. Price says of Gracechurch Street: “Recent investigations have shown ... that no structural remains of the Roman period can have occurred throughout its course; on either side of the street, debris of buildings with fragments of tessellated pavements have been seen, but nothing has existed along the actual line of road.”[158] Roach Smith also testifies that no wall has been found crossing Gracechurch Street, “a fact that would support the opinion of its occupying the route of one of the Roman roads.”[159] The idea of J. R. Green, that the north and south street was considerably to the east of the present line, was probably founded on Stow’s mistaken view that the bridge was of old far to the east.

Again, for the two great longitudinal ways through the city we have evidence. In forming the entrance into the city from New London Bridge a section was made of the ground north of Thames Street, and three ancient lines of embankment were found, by which ground was by degrees regained from the Thames. One of these was formed of squared oaks. As the excavation came to Eastcheap it crossed a raised bank of gravel 6 feet deep and 18 wide, the crest of which was 5 feet under the present surface; it ran in the direction of London Stone. On reaching the north-east corner of Eastcheap the foundations of a Roman building were found, and here, having reached the line of Gracechurch Street, the discoveries ended.[160] Roach Smith speaks of walls having been found in Eastcheap and Little Eastcheap, but Cannon Street, like Gracechurch Street, was free from them.

It has been conjectured that Cheapside was not a street, that it was a muddy marsh, an open space for market booths, and that a stream ran from it into Walbrook, etc.[161] Two deeds, however, given in Dugdale under Barnstaple, record the gift of a new house and land in “Foro” or “Magno Vico LondoniÆ quam habuit Odone Bajocensi” by William Gifford, Bishop of Winchester, to S. Martin Paris, 1110-15, and this reference to the property of Odo of Bayeux carries Cheapside right back to Conquest days. It is not unlikely, indeed, that the east end of the “Great Street” was the site of the Roman Forum or part of it. The “Forum” of Canterbury is mentioned in 762.[162] Although the word Forum doubtless stands only for the Saxon market-place, it was the proper place of assembly. According to the Acta Stephani the Empress Maud was acclaimed Lady of England in the Forum of Winchester. There is no doubt Cheap was the Saxon High Street and the official meeting-place of the citizens from the earliest days of the English settlement. Early in the twelfth century Thomas À Becket was born in his father’s house in Cheap, on a site we can still identify, and Eudo, Dapifer to the Conqueror, also appears to have had a stone house in West Cheap, by Newchurch.

When Wren rebuilt St. Mary le Bow, in excavating for the foundation of the campanile, when he had sunk about 18 feet, he came to a Roman causeway of rough stone, close and well rammed, with Roman brick and rubbish for a foundation, all firmly cemented. This causeway was 4 feet thick, and underneath was the natural clay. He built the tower “upon the very Roman causeway.” He was of the opinion that this highway ran along the north boundary of the Roman city, the breadth of which was from this “causeway” to the Thames, and “the principal middle street or PrÆtorian way” being Watling Street; north of the “causeway” the ground was a morass, so that he had to pile for building the new east front to St. Lawrence by the Guildhall.[163] Too much has been made of this morass, for remains of Roman buildings have been found on this very ground north of Cheap 17 feet below the surface,[164] and St. Lawrence itself had been a church from Norman times at least. Other Roman buildings have been found in Wood Street.[165]

It is impossible to go behind Wren’s testimony as to the Roman way through Cheap. It has been claimed, however, that some foundations discovered by him on the site of St. Paul’s showed that Watling Street ran obliquely from London Stone to Newgate. It was not, as we see, the opinion of Wren himself, and it must fall. The exact words in Parentalia cited for the discovery of an oblique street are themselves enough to abolish the theory built on them. They are as follows: “Upon demolishing the ruins [of St. Paul’s] and searching the foundations of the Quire, the Surveyor [Wren] discovered nine wells in a row, which no doubt had anciently belonged to a street of houses that lay aslope from the High Street [Watling Street] to the Roman causeway [Cheapside], and this street, which was taken away to make room for the new Quire [of 1256] came so near to the old [Norman] Presbyterium that the church could not extend farther that way at first” (p. 272). There is nothing in this about “a Watling Street running from Newgate to London Stone.” What is described is a way across the churchyard from the west end of the High or Atheling Street issuing by Canon Row or Ivy Lane. There is no evidence at all, then, for a diagonal Watling Street which Stukeley suggested, and more recent writers have accepted as quite proven. On the other hand, we have Wren’s great authority for thinking that Watling Street was in its present direction the “High Street” of the ancient city. In calling it this he must have followed Leland, who says that it was formerly called Ætheling Street, and it is so named in thirteenth-century documents.[166] In 1212 I find ad viam que vocatur Athelingestrate. The name is one of a class of which Athelney (Athelingey—Noble’s Island) is an instance. Addle Hill, which Stow calls Adle Street, seems to be allied to Atheling. In 1334 I find “Athele Street in Castle Baynard Ward.”[167] The earliest instance of “Watling” I can find is at least a century later. I am speaking, of course, of the city street; for the great Watling Street we have evidence which goes up to the eighth century (see p. 54).

There cannot be a doubt that the Roman street system was carried on by the Saxons; at Rochester as early as the seventh century Southgate Street and Eastgate Street are named in a charter. A charter of Alfred’s time (889) mentions a court and ancient stone edifice in London, called by the citizens HwÆtmundes Stone, between the public street and the wall of the city. A property in London between Tiddberti Street and Savin Street (? Seething Lane) is mentioned as a gift of Ethelbald’s.[168] The Watmund’s Stone named above may have been a house. A curious piece of topographical embroidery has been wrought round about it, for no less an authority than Mr. John Earle accepted the suggestion that the name might be equivalent to Corn-basket, and that the monument now in Panyer Alley may represent the ancient “stone edifice”! Mr. Round, in relation to this, has pointed out that Watmund was merely a commonly used man’s name. Mr. Loftie, however, boldly says that Alfred’s corn market stood to the west of Cheap, “where there was a weighing stone for wheat.”[169]

Fig. 28.—Saxon Brooch found in Cheapside.

The crossing of the great streets at Leadenhall Market was called the “Carfukes of Leadenhall” in 1357.[170] This four-ways was probably marked by a market cross like the Carfax at Oxford. At Exeter there was a Carfax,[171] and there was also one at Paris.[172] It is thus that Leadenhall Market sprang up at the main crossing of the city. At this centre the continuous routes change their names after the model of the usual north-, south-, east-, and west-gate streets of other towns: (1) Bishopsgate Street; (2) Gracechurch Street and Bridge Street; (3) Aldgate Street (now Leadenhall); (4) Cornhill, Cheap, and Newgate Street. The secondary crossing at Lombard Street, Stow calls the “Four ways.” At the meeting of Cheap, Cornhill, and Lombard Street was the Stocks Market, which Stow says was the centre of the city; here stood the stocks and pillory. The names Cheap, and Cornhill or “Up-Cornhill,” can be traced back to about 1100. Several other streets are named in documents of the twelfth century, as Milk Street and Broad Street (1181), Fridaie Street, Mukenwelle or Muchwella (Monkwell) Street, Candelwrich (Cannon) Street, Godrun Lane, East Cheap, The Jewry, Alsies (Ivy) Lane, Vico Piscaro (1130), Lombard Street, and Lime Street. This early occurrence of Godrun’s Lane goes to confirm the tradition that it was named from the Danish leader: there is still a Guthrum’s Gate at York. Alsie was the name of the Portreeve to whom the Confessor addressed a charter: it is interesting that Ivy Lane (it is Dr. Sharpe’s identification) may commemorate his name to this day. Each principal street was a “King’s Street” or Via Regia, as in the laws of Ethelred. The laws of Athelstane provide that “all marketing be within the port (town) and witnessed by the Portreve or other unlying man.” That is in “open market.”

Fig. 29.—Coin of Alfred with
Monogram of London. Enlarged.

From the moment when we first hear of it London has been a famous port and market. Tacitus speaks of it as “celebrated for the resort of merchants with their stores.” “London,” says Beda, speaking of the opening of the seventh century, “was a mart town of many nations which repaired hither by sea and land.”

In Athelstane’s appointment of moneyers to the realm London was assigned eight, this being two more than any other place. The coins of Alfred struck in the city form a large series. The monogram of London which fills the reverse of some of them is a quite perfect design,[173] and it deserves to be better known and largely used (Fig. 29).

As to the relation of Saxon and Roman London a few words may be said. Wren held that the Roman Forum was at London Stone, while Stukeley suggested the Stock’s Market on the site of the present Exchange. Excavations at Chesters and Silchester have shown that the forum in each case occupied a large “insula” right in the centre of the city, and this would agree best with Stukeley’s site.[174] It is possible that it may have extended along by the east bank of the Walbrook as far as Cannon Street. The assumption of old writers, that Roman London would be symmetrically planned, with streets crossing at right angles, is not necessarily true. The streets of mediÆval London in their main lines were not more irregularly laid out than the streets of Pompeii. The recently excavated city of Silchester is more regular, but this city was probably laid out once for all, whereas London was just as probably the result of gradual growth. In many respects, however, Silchester affords a close parallel to London.

In the Conquest of England Mr. Green stated the view that Saxon London “grew up on ground from which the Roman city had practically disappeared.” He inferred this “from the change in the main line of communication” from Newgate to the bridge. According to Mr. Loftie’s last word, given in the Memorial volume of 1899, the London recovered by Alfred was a ruined wall enclosing nothing. The bridge stood much farther down stream than now. To protect it the king built a tower at the south-east corner of the walls. The Roman streets did not exist or were useless. He (why he?) made a road diagonally from the bridge to Westgate. The old Bishopsgate was to the east of the present one, and opened on the road to Essex, etc. My view of Alfred’s London is that the Roman city to a large degree continued to exist, and the streets were still maintained, by the new population. Here a Roman mansion with its mosaic floors would still be inhabited. There a portico would be patched with gathered bricks and covered with shingles, while by its side stood a house of wattle and daub. Here was a Roman basilican church, while in another place would be found one of timber and thatch. When a church is distinguished by being called a stone church (like St. Magnus), it is evident that others were less substantial. Garden and tillage filled up wide interspaces. In the Assise of Buildings of 1212 it is said that “in ancient times the greater part of the city was built of wood, and the houses were covered with straw and stubble and the like.” Daubers and mudwallers were much in request right through the Middle Age.[175]

Roach Smith, who had an expert’s knowledge of all the data in regard to Roman London, held that the approach was along High Street, Southwark, that the bridge was on the site of that destroyed about 1830, that Bishopsgate represented one of the chief gates, Aldgate and Ludgate being others, and that the crossing of East Cheap with Gracechurch Street was probably the centre of an earlier and smaller city. Quantities of Roman bricks, he says, have been found re-used in the walls of early houses and churches, and obviously taken from Roman buildings which occupied their sites. It is probable indeed that some Roman buildings were still in use in the Middle Age—for instance, the so-called Chamber of Diana near St. Paul’s, and “Belliney’s Palace” at Billingsgate.

Craft Gilds and Schools.—As far back as we have any body of record to go upon we find that important men in the city were craftsmen—goldsmiths, weavers, dyers, tailors, cobblers, tanners. They held offices and owned land, and the only other class at once large numerically and important in position seems to have been the clergy. Early in the twelfth century the St. Paul’s documents twice at least make use of the style “mercator,” and still earlier in Anglo-Saxon laws we have Ceipman.

There is every probability that the craft gilds date from before the Conquest. In the twelfth century head masons, carpenters, and other craftsmen are called “masters,” and this title of university rank was always, I believe, formally conferred by an organised gild. Even at this time the members of crafts were grouped together, as witness Candlewright Street, Milk Street, and the Shambles. We hear of a weaver’s gild in 1130.[176] Even before the Conquest, probably, craftsmen wrought and sold their ordinary wares in the traditional open-fronted shops known as well in the East as in mediÆval Europe.

FitzStephen says there were three principal schools in London when he wrote (in the twelfth century). St. Paul’s School, almost certainly, was already established at the Conquest, and the schools of S. Marie Archa and S. Martini Magni are mentioned in a mandate about 1135 (Commune of London, p. 117).

Churches.—So many churches can now be traced back to the twelfth century that there cannot be a doubt that FitzStephen was accurate in saying that at that time there were in London and the suburbs thirteen larger conventual churches, besides lesser parish churches one hundred and twenty-six. In other words, practically all the parish churches in London and its liberties had been founded by the end of the twelfth century; and there is every reason for supposing that many, if not most, of these churches were even then ancient.

St. Paul’s.—The cathedral we know from Bede was founded early in the seventh century by Mellitus, sent from Rome in 601 and consecrated Bishop of London by St. Augustine in 604.

The fourth bishop in succession to the “Mellifluous Mellitus” was Erkenwald, “Light of London,” Christi lampas Aurea (675-693). It is said that he was son of Offa, the East Saxon king, who remained “paynim,” but Erkenwald “changed his earthly heritage for to have his heritage in heaven; ... and whatsomever he taught in word he fulfilled in deed.” He founded the monasteries of Barking and Chertsey. While he was bishop he used to preach about the city from a cart, and once, when a wheel fell off, the cart went forward without falling, “which was against reason and a fair miracle.” He died at Barking, and the monks claimed his body, but “a chapter of Paul’s and the people” said it should be brought to London. As they carried him to his own church there was a flood, but the waters of the Yla (Lea) were divided and a dry path given to the people of London, “and so they came to Stratford and set down the bier in a fair mede full of flowers, and anon after the weather began to wax fair and the people were full of joy.” And, after, they laid and buried the body in St. Paul’s, to the which he hath been a special protection against fire, nd time was when he was seen in the church with a banner fighting a fire which threatened to burn the whole city, and so saved and kept his church.[177] The shrine of Erkenwald remained from this time till the Reformation the palladium of the city.

Fig. 30.—Tomb of King Ethelred in Old St. Paul’s.

In Saxon charters the church is styled “St. Paules mynstre on Lundene,” and the full invocation appears to have been Beati Pauli Apostoli Gentium Doctoris, which in itself probably explains the choice of it for a mission church. Like the church which Augustine built at Canterbury, it would have been “planned in imitation of the Great Basilica of Blessed Peter.” Such a basilica of considerable size is still to be seen at Brixworth, Northamptonshire. It would have had a narthex, a nave with “porticoes” or aisles, and beyond the great arch a presbytery and apse. In front would have been an atrium.[178]

Under 961 the Saxon Chronicle says: “And St. Paul’s minster was burnt and in the same year again founded.” King Ethelred was buried in St. Paul’s in 1016, and his tomb, a fine stone chest, stood here till the great fire of London. There is no reason why the tomb illustrated by Dugdale should not be the original one of 1016 (Fig. 30). Next to it was the similar tomb of Sebba, king of the East Saxons, who was buried at the end of the seventh century. The only material memorial of the Saxon minster now existing is a tombstone inscribed in runes, “Kina let this stone be set to Tuki.” It was found in 1852 in the south churchyard, 20 feet below the surface, in an upright position, forming the headstone of a grave composed of stone slabs. The bottom portion was irregular and untooled; this, which showed that it was a headstone, was cut off to make it a tidy antiquity, but it is otherwise carefully preserved in the Guildhall Museum, and bears a sculpture of a fine knotted dragon.

Fig. 31.—Ninth or Tenth Century Tombstone
from St. Paul’s Churchyard.

Wren, who was a critical observer of the evidence which came to light when preparing the ground for the new church, gave but little credit to the story that a temple of Diana once stood on the site. “But that the north side of this ground had been very anciently a great burying-place was manifest, for in digging the foundations of St. Paul’s he found under the graves of later ages, in a row below them, the burial-places of Saxon times—some in graves lined with chalk stones, some in coffins of whole stones. Below these were British graves. In the same row but deeper were Roman urns—this was 18 feet deep or more.” Wren thought that the PrÆtorian camp had been here in Roman days.[179]

St. Peter’s-upon-Cornhill claims to be the oldest church in London, and to have been the stool or a Romano-British archbishop. The pretension seems to have been recognised by St. Paul’s in the Middle Ages, and Bishop Stubbs was inclined to accept the archbishopric as having existed in London. As the interval in Church continuity cannot have been long, it is most likely that Mellitus reconsecrated some Roman temples or some of the old churches, as Augustine is known to have done at Canterbury. In Gregory’s letter of directions to Mellitus he says that the temples of idols ought not to be pulled down, but be consecrated and converted from the worship of devils. The Church of St. Peter must have been very ancient, as the legend in regard to it appears in Jocelyn of Furness, a writer of the twelfth century. Bishop Ælfric, who died in 1038, gave in his will a “hage into Sce PÆtre binnon Lunden.”[180] A beautifully written Saxon charter in the British Museum, calendared as probably of the date 1038, records the gift of a messuage in London to St. Peter’s Church.[181] This church, seated at the Carfax of the city, has at the same time the most important of dedications, and took precedence, Riley tells us, over the others.

Fig. 32.—Saxon Tomb from St. Benet Fink. Restored.

St. Michael, Ludgate, is referred to by Geoffrey of Monmouth in connection with Cadwaladr: “They also built a church under it (Ludgate) in honour of St. Martin, in which divine ceremonies are celebrated for him” (Cadwaladr). It must be of early foundation when such a story could be told only some fifty years after the Conquest.

St. Mary Aldermary was so called, says Stow, because it was the oldest church dedicated to the Virgin. It is sometimes called Elde Maria Church, and certainly dates from before the Conquest, for in 1067 the Conqueror confirmed the possession of the Church of St. Mary called Newchurch to Westminster, and it is evident that the title Aldermary is a comparison with this New Mary. The latter as Mary le Bow is mentioned by William of Malmesbury as having suffered an accident in 1091. St. Mary, Friday Street, is mentioned in 1105; St. Margaret, Lothbury, in 1104.

Other pre-Conquest city churches confirmed to Westminster in the same charter of 1067 are St. Magnus, described as the “stone church S. Magni Medietus,” St. Clement [East Cheap], and St. Lawrence [Pounteney].

St. Gregory.—In 1010 the body of St. Edmund was brought to “the Church of St. Gregory the Pope, which is situated by the Basilica of the Apostle Paul.”[182] This dedication in the name of the Pope who sent Augustine and Mellitus from Rome is probably very ancient, and St. Augustine’s near by on the east side of the churchyard may be as ancient. St. Alban, Wood Street, was said to have been a chapel of King Offa’s, and is mentioned about 1077-1093 as belonging to St. Alban’s Abbey.[183] The old topographers say that there was something specially ancient in the structure of this church, and Newcourt thought its origin was at least as old as the time of Athelstane.

Fig. 33.—Head of Cross from
St. John’s, Walbrook.

All Hallows [Barking] is said to have been given by Riculphus and Brichtwen, his wife, to Rochester before it passed into the hands of the Barking Nuns.[184] All Hallows, Lombard Street, was given to Canterbury in 1053 by Brithmer, a citizen (Newcourt). Earl Goodwin and his wife gave to Malmesbury the Church of St. Nicholas [Acon] and all their houses in 1084 (Dugdale).

St. Martin’s Vintry.—This church Newcourt puts at least as early as the Conqueror’s time, and its name of Bereman-Church confirms this (see p. 97).

St. Martin [le Grand].—Kempe thought that this religious house was first founded long before the Conquest, and that it was only refounded just before by Ingelram. The canons of the house are mentioned amongst the tenants in chief in Domesday.[185]

St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, and St. Alphage were thought by Newcourt to have existed as early as the Conqueror’s time, and there is ample evidence that the former was a parish church before it was attached to a house of nuns late in the twelfth century. It is mentioned in the St. Paul’s documents in 1148. St. Michael, Cornhill, is said to have been founded before 1055. St. Stephen, Walbrook, was given to St. John’s, Colchester, c. 1100.[186]

St. Botolph, Billingsgate, Stow thought, was at least as old as the Confessor’s time, as the wharf by it was even then called St. Botolph’s. In a part of the cartulary of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, in the Lansdowne MSS. (No. 448), St. Augustine on the Wall, St. Edmund in “Longboard” Street, Ecclesia de Fanchurch (which it is said had belonged to the Soc of the Cnihten Gild), St. Lawrence in Judaismo, All Hallows on the Wall, St. Botolph extra Aldgate, and St. Michael, Cheapside, are mentioned at the beginning of the twelfth century.[187]

Fig. 34.—Saxon Coffin-lid from Westminster Abbey.

Of material evidence little has survived. On the destruction of St. Benet Fink about fifty years ago a fragment of a Saxon grave-stone was found, which is now in the Guildhall Museum (Fig. 32). In Roach Smith’s Catalogue of London Antiquities, No. 571, is the head of a Saxon cross (“of the tenth or eleventh century”) which was found in the old burial-ground of St. John-upon-Walbrook. I am able to identify this with the cross-head in the Saxon Room at the British Museum from a sketch of Roach Smith’s, which I have, which bears the same number 571 (see the diagram, Fig. 33). It has been said that Roman foundations have been found under some of the churches.[188]

Several of the churches outside the walls can be traced back so far as to make it probable that they were founded before the Conquest.

The Assise of 1189(?), speaking of a fire in the first year of Stephen (1136), says it burnt from London Bridge to S. Clementis Danorum; in a charter of Henry II. this church is called S. Clementis quÆ dicitur Dacorum (Dugdale, under “Temple”). It was still earlier the subject of a charter of the Conqueror’s (see p. 85). According to M. of Westminster the body of Harold I., buried at Westminster, was dug up in 1040 and thrown into the Thames, “but it was found and buried by the Danish people in the cemetery of the Danes”—“at S. Clement’s,” says R. Diceto, the London historian who wrote in the twelfth century. This is probably the cemetery of the Danes who were killed in London in Ethelred’s reign. M. of Westminster (under 1012) says many of the Danes fled to a certain church in the city, where they were all murdered. Stow says they were slain in a place called the Church of the Danes.

St. Mary le Strand.—Here Becket held his first cure. His biographer FitzStephen calls it S. MariÆ Littororiam. St. Andrew’s, Holborn, is mentioned in the somewhat doubtful charter dated 951 (see p. 60). St. Bridget, Fleet Street, was also of early foundation (Stow). St. Sepulchre’s is mentioned in the twelfth century.[189] Of the monasteries in the neighbourhood, Barking was founded in the seventh century, Westminster not later than the tenth, and Bermondsey, the fine new church of which is mentioned in Domesday, was probably only refounded by Alwyn Childe. A “monasterium” in Southwark mentioned in Domesday may be St. Olave, which is spoken of as early as 1096.[190]

All the manors round about London probably had churches before the Conquest, although the only one we can be certain of is that of St. Pancras, as the place is called by that name in Domesday. Stepney Church is said to have been rebuilt by Dunstan. It still contains a small sculpture of the Crucifixion, which is probably eleventh-century work. What these little churches were like we may know from the illustrations of the Saxon church at Kingston which was destroyed at the beginning of this century, and the log church at Greenstead, Essex, which still stands.

A story in the Heimskringla shows how London was early celebrated for its number of churches and London Bridge for its crowds.[191] A French cripple dreamt that an angel appeared to him and said, “Fare thou to Olaf’s church, the one that is in London.” Thereafter he awoke and fared to seek Olaf’s church, and at last he came to London Bridge and there asked the folk of the city to tell him where was Olaf’s church. But they answered and said that there were many more churches there than they might wot to what man they were hallowed. But a little thereafter came a man to him who asked whither he was bound, and the cripple told him, and sithence said that man, “We twain shall fare both to the church of Olaf, for I know the way thither.” Therewith they fared over the Bridge, and went along the street which led to Olaf’s church. But when they came to the lich-gate then strode that one over the threshold of the gate, but the cripple rolled in over it and straightway rose up a whole man. But when he looked around him his fellow-farer was vanished.

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