THE influence of the Church during the mediÆval period was great. In London the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s (secular canons) held the first place after the bishop, then came other bodies of secular and regular canons, followed by the monks and friars and officers of the hospitals, etc. Last in rank, but most esteemed by the people, came the rectors and vicars of the various parishes. Here was a large army of persons forming the officials of the Church, and the buildings of the Church occupied a very large portion of the city and of the land beyond its walls.

Between the secular and the regular clergy a great feud always existed. During the Saxon period the number of religious houses was few, but a great increase occurred almost immediately after the Conquest. Monasteries grew in number rapidly during the Norman period, but in time the monks having grown rich and lazy the need of a revival became evident. The great movement of evangelisation which took place during the early Plantagenet period when the friars came from Italy to England caused a religious revolution.

Poverty and humility were the great principles of the friars, but these were soon forgotten, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries all the regulars became equally obnoxious to the reformers. Wycliffe and his followers preached against them, and writers with such different views as Langland and Chaucer had little but evil to say of them. Chaucer condemns monks and friars alike, and reserves his praise for the poor parish priest.

We must first deal with the bishop and the secular clergy, and then consider the conditions relative to the establishment of the regulars, ending with a note on education in London during the Middle Ages.

The Cathedral Church of St. Paul’s is of great antiquity, and was established in the first period of Saxon Christianity. There have been three buildings on the same site, and the first was erected in the earliest years of the seventh century by Mellitus the missionary bishop and Ethelbert, King of Kent. Although this church existed for nearly five centuries no record whatever remains of it. Sir Gilbert Scott wrote: ‘I am not aware that we have any information as to the Cathedral built by the companions of Augustine (Mellitus and Justus) at London and Rochester. Curiously enough there continues to this day at Rochester, and continued to the seventeenth century in our own St. Paul’s equally as at Canterbury, a crypt beneath the elevated sanctuary, no doubt the lineal successor and representative of those erected by these missionary bishops, in imitation of the great basilica at Rome, whence they had been sent to evangelise this distant region.’[354]

Erkenwald, whose shrine stood at the back of the high altar in the oldest church, was the fourth bishop (A.D. 675-693), and it was at his house in London that Archbishop Theodore, the organiser of the Church of England, was reconciled to Bishop Wilfrid after their long estrangement.[355] Aelfun, or Alhunus, was Bishop of London in 1012, and performed the burial service over Aelfah (or Alphage), Archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered by the Danes and buried in St. Paul’s.

William, the chaplain of Edward the Confessor, was consecrated in 1051. He was driven from England with the other foreign prelates in the following year, but returned to his See and died in 1075. It was he who was addressed as ‘William Bishop’ in William the Conqueror’s charter to the citizens of London.

The first Church of St. Paul’s was destroyed by fire at the end of the eleventh century, but the exact time is not certain as Matthew of Westminster and Roger of Wendover give conflicting dates for the rebuilding. There seems to be no doubt that the second cathedral was commenced by Bishop Maurice, and as he was not consecrated until 1085 the date given by Dugdale, 1083, must be wrong. Probably the received date of 1087 (the last year of William the Conqueror’s reign) is more correct. Fire again did great damage in the year 1136, but the work of rebuilding proceeded slowly, and in 1221 the steeple was finished; the choir was rebuilt and the whole building was nearly completed by 1283.

Old St. Paul’s was a very grand building, which took a prominent position among the cathedrals of the country. It was longer than Winchester, and the height of the choir was the same as Westminster; that of the nave was rather less.[356]

The crowning glory of old St. Paul’s was its elegant spire, but the building itself had many beauties, the magnificent rose window at the east end of the Lady Chapel, with the beautiful seven-light window beneath, being among these. This grand building, therefore, standing on a hill in the most prominent position of city, was for several centuries the great ornament of London, bringing in harmony all the picturesque elements of the mediÆval town.

In the year 1314 the cross fell, and the steeple of wood being ruinous, was taken down and rebuilt with a new gilt ball. Many relics were found in the cross, which were replaced in the new cross, and the new pommel or ball was made of sufficient size to contain ten bushels of corn. A Chronicle in Lambeth Palace Library contains an account of the solemn dedication of these relics, which is quoted by Canon Benham: ‘On the tenth of the calends of June 1314, Gilbert, Bishop of London, dedicated altars, namely those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of St. Thomas the Martyr, and of the Blessed Dunstan, in the new buildings of the Church of St. Paul, London. In the same year the cross and the ball, with great part of the Campanile of the Church of St. Paul, were taken down because they were decayed and dangerous, and a new cross, with a ball well gilt, was erected; and many relics of divers saints were, for the protection of the aforesaid Campanile, and of the whole structure beneath, placed within the cross, with a great procession, and with due solemnity, by Gilbert the bishop, on the fourth of the nones of October, in order that the Omnipotent God and the glorious merits of His saints, whose relics are contained within the cross, might deign to protect from all danger of storms.’[357]

In 1444 the spire was nearly destroyed by lightning and was not repaired until 1462. In the severe fire of 1561 the spire was destroyed and never rebuilt, although the rest of the Cathedral was restored in 1566. The great height of the steeple gave point to many a proverb, and in Lodge’s Wounds of Civil War (1594) a clown talks of the ‘Paul’s steeple of honour,’ meaning by that phrase the highest point that could be attained.[358] The choristers ascended the spire to a great height on certain saints’ days, and chanted prayers and anthems, a custom still observed in the tower of Magdalen College, Oxford, on May Day. The last observance of the custom at St. Paul’s is said to have taken place in the reign of Mary I.[359]

The western front was originally a plain Norman faÇade of great size, which was flanked by two strong stone towers. The one on the north was connected with the Bishop’s Palace, while that on the south was called the Lollards’ Tower, and was used as the Bishop’s prison ‘for such as were detected for opinions in religion contrary to the faith of the Church’ (Stow’s Survey).[360]

St. Paul’s Churchyard was formerly an enclosure, and not a thoroughfare. The public route to Cheapside from Ludgate Hill passed up the Old Bailey and along Newgate Street. The Cathedral Close is thus described by the late Dr. Sparrow Simpson: ‘The wall erected about 1109, and, by letters-patent of Edward I., greatly strengthened in 1285, extends from the N.E. corner of Ave Maria Lane, runs eastward along Paternoster Row to the north end of Old ‘Change in Cheapside, thence southward to Carter Lane, and on the north of Carter Lane to Creed Lane, back to the Great Western Gate. There are six entrances to the enclosure. The first is the Great Western Gate, by which we have just entered; the second, in Paul’s Alley in Paternoster Row, leading to the postern gate of the Cathedral; the third at Canon Alley; the fourth, or Little Gate, where S. Paul’s Churchyard and Cheapside now unite; the fifth, S. Augustine’s Gate, at the west end of Watling Street; the sixth, at Paul’s Chain.’[361]

The great western gate spanned the street towards the ends of Creed Lane and Ave Maria Lane. On entering the gate the west front of the Cathedral came in view. The old Church of St. Gregory adjoined the main building at the south-west corner. It stood in the same position to the first Cathedral, and within its walls the body of St. Edmund, king and martyr, was preserved for a time before it was carried to Bury St. Edmund’s for honourable burial. The early history of this church is lost, and it is not known whether it was destroyed with the first Cathedral, and rose again from its ashes like the second Cathedral, or whether it continued for a time in its original state. It was pulled down before 1645, and not rebuilt. On the northern side of the nave of the Cathedral stood the Bishop’s Palace, a large and gloomy building.[362]

Still further to the north (past the palace and its grounds) was the cemetery, called Pardon Church Haugh. Here was a cloister painted with the subjects of the Danse Macabre or Dance of Death, commonly known as the Dance of Paul’s. John Lydgate translated out of French the old verses that explained these paintings. Over the east quadrant of the cloister was the Cathedral Library, built by Walter Sherington,

PAUL’S CROSS. (From an original drawing in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge.)
PAUL’S CROSS.
(From an original drawing in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge.)

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in Henry VI.’s time, and Canon Residentiary. At one time the library was ‘well furnished with fair-written books in vellum.’

In the midst of the churchyard was a chapel, first founded by Gilbert, the father of Thomas À Becket, and rebuilt by Dean More in the reign of Henry V. Near by was Minor Canons’ Hall, and the College of Minor Canons, or Peter’s College. The Charnel House, with a chapel over it, stood at the north-east, not far from Paul’s Cross.[363] This building existed in the reign of Edward I., and the chapel contained some monuments and alabaster figures. Among the historians of St. Paul’s there is some little confusion respecting these various chapels.

Paul’s Cross holds a very prominent position in the history of the religious life of the Middle Ages and for many years after. In ages when the voice of the people was largely inarticulate the preacher has often been the man to make it heard. Stow describes the Cross as having ‘been for many ages the most solemn place in this nation, for the greatest divines and most eminent scholars to preach at,’ and Carlyle calls it a kind of Times newspaper. It is worthy of remark that the position of Paul’s Cross was near the place where the ancient folkmoots were held, and the former continued the traditions of the latter.

At the east end of the Cathedral was St. Paul’s School, founded by Dean Colet, and the famous Bell Tower, formed of wood covered with lead, and containing the common bell, which called the people to their folkmoots, and afterwards four bells, known as the Jesus Bells, because they specially belonged to Jesus Chapel, in the crypt of the Cathedral. As the open space at the east end was claimed by the citizens as a place for their assemblies in folkmoots, so the space at the west end was reserved for the military displays in connection with the appearance of Fitz-Walter as Bannerer of the city.

On the south side of the close, and to the west of the transept, was the old octagonal Chapter House, with its own two-storeyed cloister (built in 1332). This was a small but beautiful building.[364]

Close by stood the house of the Chancellor. On the south-west is the Deanery, first built by Ralph de Diceto, and more westward various houses for the use of the canons. On the south side of the Cathedral also stood the dormitory, refectory, kitchen, bakehouse and brewery of the college. The brewhouse became subsequently the Paul’s Head tavern.

This brief list of the buildings in the old Cathedral Close will give some idea of the arrangement of the College of Secular Canons, and the houses which they occupied.

Having walked round the close we may now enter the Cathedral church at the western end where were three gates or entries. The middle gate had a massive pillar of brass, to which the leaves of the great door were fastened. In the nave were twelve noble Norman bays with Norman triforium and pointed clerestory windows. It is probable that originally the roof of the nave was a flat painted ceiling, but Mr. Ferrey supposes that a vaulted roof was

INTERIOR OF OLD ST. PAUL’S.
INTERIOR OF OLD ST. PAUL’S.

added in 1255; apparently this was originally of wood, but that stone vaulting was intended may be inferred from the flying buttresses in some of the pictures of the Cathedral.

The view along the nave, as represented in Hollar’s engraving is very fine, and reminds one of the noble nave at Ely. Both the nave and choir had twelve bays counting from the west door. The second bay of the north side contained the Court of Convocation, and close by was the font near which Sir John Montacute desired in his will (1388) to be buried. ‘If I die in London, then I desire that my body may be buried in St. Paul’s, near to the font wherein I was baptized.’ In the tenth bay was the Chantry Chapel of Thomas Kempe, bishop of the diocese (1448-1489), and rebuilder of Paul’s Cross.

In the eleventh bay, on the south side, was the tomb of Sir John Beauchamp, K.G. (d. 1358), Constable of Dover Castle, and son to Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. This tomb was commonly called after Duke Humphrey, and the nave of the church from this misnomer went by the name of Duke Humphrey’s Walk. On May Day watermen and tankard-bearers came to the tomb early in the morning, strewed herbs upon it and sprinkled it with water. At the foot of this tomb was the image of the Virgin, before which a lamp was kept perpetually burning, and every morning after matins a short office was said before it. A taper was also kept burning before the Great Crucifix, near to the north door, fabulously said to have been discovered by King Lucius, A.D. 140. Richard Martin, Bishop of St. David’s in the reign of Edward IV., had a special veneration for this crucifix, and left an annual gift to the choristers that they might sing before it Sancte Deus fortis.[365]

In the north aisle was the famous Si quis door, on which notices were fixed; originally these were probably purely ecclesiastical, but in course of time all classes made their wants known there. Decker writes: ‘The first time that you venture into Paul’s, pass through the body of the church like a porter, yet presume not to fetch so much as one whole turn in the middle aisle, no, nor to cast an eye to Si quis door, pasted and plastered up with serving-men’s supplications, before you have paid tribute to the top of Paul’s steeple with a single penny.’

Bishop Hall, in his Satires, shows that Churchmen could be hired there too—

This practice is alluded to by Chaucer:—

Passing from the nave to the transept we notice that the central tower was treated as a lantern internally, and was open to the base of the spire. The choir was cut off by a screen with a central archway; on each side of the entrance were four canopies with figures beneath them. An ascent of twelve steps took the worshipper to the level of the choir pavement.

The choir was naturally the most gorgeous portion of the Cathedral. The architecture was pure and noble, and the carved woodwork of the canons’ stalls was famous for its beauty. The reredos and high altar, dedicated in honour of St. Paul, formed the chief attraction of the choir. There was also an altar to the north, dedicated in honour of St. Ethelbert, king and confessor, and one to the south, dedicated to St. Mellitus. Six more steps led to the sanctuary, from which the worshipper could pass behind the altar screen. Eastward of the screen was the famous shrine of St. Erkenwald. Mention has already been made of the original tomb in the first Cathedral. Legend reports that in the fire of the eleventh century the saint’s resting-place alone remained unharmed. On 14th November 1148 his bones were transferred to a more noble tomb. Gilbert de Segrave laid the first stone of a still more magnificent shrine in 1314, in which the body of the saint was placed on 1st February 1326. This was for a long period the most famous of the tombs of old St. Paul’s, to which pilgrims flocked from distant parts, and riches of all kinds were lavished upon it. A canon of the church, Walter de Thorpe, gave to it all his gold rings and jewels; the Dean and Chapter in 18 Edward II. presented a rich store of gold and silver and precious stones; in the 31st of Edward III. three goldsmiths were engaged upon it for a whole year, at wages of 8s. a week for one and 5s. a week for each of the others. King John of France, when he was a prisoner in England, made an offering of twelve nobles, and Richard de Preston, citizen and grocer, presented a remarkable sapphire in the reign of Richard II. This stone was supposed to cure infirmities of the eyes, and the donor directed proclamation to be made of its great virtues. Dean Evere in 1407 provided an endowment for the lights which burned before the shrine.[366]

The choir was full of tombs and brasses, many of them of great importance. On the north side stood the stately tomb of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (d. 1399), with recumbent figures of the Duke and his second wife, Constance of Castile. Special offices were performed at several of the shrines, especially those of St. Erkenwald and St. Thomas of Lancaster, as the grandson of Henry III. was popularly styled, although he was never canonised. On the 28th of June 1323 Edward II. sent a letter to Stephen Gravesend, Bishop of London, commanding him to prohibit the reverence paid to Thomas of Lancaster in the Cathedral.[367]

The high altar was the scene twice a year of a strange custom, which was kept up for several centuries. Sir William le Band in 1275 commenced to give yearly a doe in winter and a fat buck in summer to be offered at the altar and then distributed to the resident canons. These were given in lieu of twenty-two acres of land lying within the lordship of Westlee in Essex, to be enclosed within his park of Toringham, so that the knight appears to have made a very good bargain. The reception of the buck and doe was ‘till Queen Elizabeth’s days solemnly performed at the steps of the quire by the canons of this Cathedral, attired in sacred vestments, and wearing garlands of flowers on their heads, and the horns of the buck carried on the top of a spear in procession round about within the body of the church, with a great noise of horn-blowers.’[368]

As already stated the choir was rebuilt early in the thirteenth century, and in 1255 it was considerably extended. Previously a street ran close to the east end, from Watling Street to Cheapside, and here stood the old Church of St. Faith. The exact site of the houses was marked by nine wells in a row which were found by Wren. When this street was built over and the church pulled down the parishioners were provided with a church in the Crypt. About the middle of the north side of the choir was a low-arched door, and from this six-and-twenty steps led down to St. Faith’s, at the eastern end of which was the Jesus Chapel.[369]

We have now traced the principal features of the exterior and interior of old St. Paul’s, and a few words may be said of the body who governed the Cathedral.

Bishop Stubbs, in the remarkable Preface which he added to the Master of the Rolls’ edition of the Historical Works of Ralph de Diceto, Dean of London, at the end of the twelfth century, has given a vivid picture of the ecclesiastical greatness of London during the reigns of Henry II. and Richard I. Ralph was the friend of Fitz-Stephen, the biographer of Becket, and before he became dean he had held the office of archdeacon.

Stubbs writes: ‘The fact that the Cathedral of Canterbury was in the hands of a monastic chapter left St. Paul’s at the head of the secular clergy of southern England. It was an educational centre too, where young statesmen spent their leisure in something like self-culture. London with its 40,000 inhabitants had 120 churches all looking to the Cathedral as their mother. The resident canons had to exercise a magnificent hospitality, carefully prescribed in ancient Statutes; twice a year each of them had to entertain the whole staff of the Cathedral and to invite the Bishop, the Mayor, the sheriffs, aldermen, justices and great men of the Court.’

The dean was a capable head, and his government stands out in history as one of the most successful during a very difficult period.

‘Early in 1187 Ralph lost his old friend and patron, Bishop Foliot, and the See of London was not filled up for nearly three years. Within a few weeks after Foliot’s death he had to receive the Archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin, who visited the church on mid-Lent Sunday, and he took advantage of the opportunity to obtain from him an injunction forbidding the persons who were in charge of the temporalities of the See to interfere with the spiritual officers in the discharge of their duties.’

How important a body the Chapter of St. Paul’s really was may be inferred from the remarkable fact stated by Serjeant Pulling in his work on The Order of the Coif that among the canons in the reign of Henry III. were as many as ten of the Judges at Westminster Hall.

The early history of the parishes of London is one of great difficulty and complexity. Although some of the parishes must be of great antiquity, we have little authentic information respecting them before the Conquest. The dedications of many of the churches indicate their great age, but the constant fires in London not only destroyed the buildings but also the records within the buildings. The original churches appear to have been very small, as may be judged from their number. It is not easy, however, to understand how it was that when the parishes were first formed so small an area was attached to each. Mr. Loftie is of opinion that there is no proof that London was divided into more than three or four parishes until the time of Alfred, or, indeed, till much later.[370]

ST. HELEN’S, BISHOPSGATE.
ST. HELEN’S, BISHOPSGATE.

He has written a very instructive chapter on ‘the Church in London’ in his London (Historic Towns, 1887), but he is not able to give any very definite information. Moreover, he doubts whether it is wise to take for granted the early dedications of, for instance, such churches as are named in honour of Sts. Alphage, Magnus and Olave, or of Sts. Ethelburga and Osyth.

The parish church of which we have the most authentic notice before the Conquest is St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, in existence many years before the Priory of the Nuns of St. Helen’s was founded. In 1010 the remains of St. Edmund, King and Martyr, were removed from Edmundsbury in order that they might not fall into the hands of the Danes, and deposited in the Church of St. Helen, where they remained three years. Many of the London churches were small, but some were of considerable size. When the religious houses were dissolved the churches of some of these became the most important of the parish churches.

The Church of St. Mary le Bow in Cheapside (better known as Bow Church) is named from having been the first in London built on arches of stone, and the Norman Crypt is of great interest. When Wren built his church he used these arches of the old churches to support his own superstructure. This crypt also gives its name to the Court of Arches which was held here.

In the Liber Albus there is a chapter on the periodical visits of the Mayor to various churches on certain saints’ days, such as to St. Thomas’s at the Feast of All Saints (November 1), to St. Peter’s on Cornhill on the Monday in the Feast of Pentecost, and to St. Bartholomew’s and St. Michael le Quern on other occasions.[371]

The position of the parish priest was a good one in the eyes of the parishioners, who looked up to him as a friend, and resented the interference with his duties by monks and chantry priests. Among the parish priests the highest rank was conceded to the rector of St. Peter’s, Cornhill. The mediÆval writers, who are mostly vituperative when speaking of monks and friars, have little but good to say of the parson.

The great evil of lay rectorship, which has done so much to injure the Church, was largely introduced by the monasteries.

Bow Church Crypt

Bishop Stubbs, in his Introduction to the Historical Works of Ralph de Diceto, writes: ‘S. Paul’s stood at the head of the religious life of London, and by its side, at some considerable interval, however, S. Martin’s-le-Grand, S. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, and the great and ancient foundation of Trinity, Aldgate.’[372]

CHURCH OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT.
CHURCH OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT.

Besides the Chapter of St. Paul’s, there were several other bodies of secular canons. One of these was at the Collegiate Church of St. Martin-le-Grand, within Aldersgate, which church was founded about A.D. 1056, and its privileges confirmed by William the Conqueror. It had special rights as a royal free chapel, and its privileges of sanctuary were given by Henry VIII. to the Abbot and Convent of Westminster. Others were the College of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, founded by William Walworth in 1380; Barking College, Holmes’s College, and several other colleges in London, besides the Collegiate Chapel of St. Stephen, Westminster.

The canons regular of the Order of St. Austin occupied the Priory of Christ Church or Holy Trinity, the Priory of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield; the Priory of St. Mary Overy, in Southwark, and many hospitals.

These canons were less strict than monks, but lived under one roof, had a common dormitory and refectory. They were well shod, well clothed, and well fed. Monks always shaved, but canons wore beards, and caps on their heads.

The chief rule of the canons regular was that of St. Augustine (or Austin), Bishop of Hippo, A.D. 395. The Order was little known until the tenth or eleventh centuries, and was not brought to England until after the Norman Conquest, and the designation of Austin canons was not adopted until some years afterwards.

The Priory of Christ Church or the Holy Trinity within Aldgate was a house of the first importance in London, and the Pope absolved it from all jurisdiction. Norman, the first prior, was the first canon regular of his Order in England.

The priory was founded in 1108 by Queen Maud, and in 1125 the land and soke of Cnichten Gild (now Portsoken Ward) were assigned to it. The prior became an alderman of London by reason of possessing the soke without the port or gate called Aldgate, an honour continued to his successors till the dissolution of the religious houses, when the church was surrendered and the site of the priory granted by Henry VIII. to Sir Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor.

The great Benedictine monastery of Black Monks was situated at Westminster, away from the city, as was usual. This was the only monastic house subject to the rule of St. Benedict in the neighbourhood of London, but the houses of nuns, of which there were many dotted over the suburbs of London, were governed by the rule of St. Benedict. Among these may be mentioned the nunneries of Barking, Clerkenwell, Halliwell at the eastern extremity of Finsbury Fields, St. Helen’s, Bishopgate, Kilburn and Stratford at Bow.

As time proceeded there was a widespread desire for a stricter rule among the monks, and reforms of the Benedictine rule were instituted at Cluni (A.D. 910), Chartreux (about 1080), and Citeaux (1098). All these reforms were represented in London.

Cluniac Order.—This reform was begun by Bernon, Abbot of Gigni, in Burgundy, and perfected by Odo, Abbot of Cluni. The first charter of the Order was dated A.D. 910. The Order was first brought to England by William, Earl of Warren, son-in-law to William the Conqueror, who built the first house at Lewes, in Sussex, about 1077. The Priory of Bermondsey, in Surrey, was founded by Aylwin Child, citizen of London, about 1082. The manor of Bermondsey and other revenues were granted by William Rufus. The original priories were subject to the heads of the parent foreign houses, but John Attilburgh, prior of Bermondsey, having procured the erection of his priory into an abbacy, himself became the first of the abbots in 1399.

If we are to believe the word of the satirist, we may judge that the rule of the Cluniac Order was hard, for we are told that—

and

Hall of the Charterhouse

There were cells attached to the Cluniac house of Bermondsey at Aldersgate, Cripplegate and Holborn.

Carthusians.—Bruno first instituted the Order at Chartreux, in the diocese of Grenoble in France, about 1080. The rule was confirmed by Pope Alexander III. about 1174. This was the most strict of any of the religious Orders. The monks never ate flesh, and were obliged to fast on bread, water and salt one day in every week. No one was permitted to go out of the bounds of the monastery except the priors and procurators or proctors, and they only upon the necessary affairs of their houses. When the Order was brought to England in 1178 the first house was started at Witham, in Somersetshire. In all there were nine houses of the Order in England. One of these was the Charterhouse of London, which was not founded until 1371 by Sir Walter Manny, K.G.

Until Henry II. founded the Carthusian house at Witham it is said that there was no such thing known in England as a monk’s cell, as we understand the term. It was a peculiarity of the Carthusian Order, and when it was first introduced it was regarded as a startling novelty for any privacy or anything approaching solitude to be tolerated in a monastery. The Carthusian system never found much favour in England.

Cistercians.—The Cistercian Order was named after Cistertium or CÎteaux, in the bishopric of Chalons in Burgundy, where it was founded in 1098 by Robert, Abbot of Molesme, in that province. St. Bernard was a great promoter of the Order, and founded an abbey at Clairvaux about 1116, and after him the members of the Order were sometimes named Bernardines.

It was usual to plant these monasteries in solitary and uncultivated places, and no other house, even of their own Order, was allowed to be built within a certain distance of the original establishment. This makes it surprising to learn that there were two separate houses of this Order in the near neighbourhood of London.

A branch of the Order came to England about 1128, and their first house was founded at Waverley in Surrey. Very shortly after (about 1134) the Abbey of Stratford Langthorne, in Essex, was founded by William de Montfichet, who endowed it with all his lordship in West Ham.

It was not until two centuries afterwards that the second Cistercian house in the immediate neighbourhood of London was founded. This was the Abbey of St. Mary Graces, East Minster or New Abbey, without the walls of London, which Edward III. instituted in 1350 after a severe scourge of plague (the so-called Black Death.)

The two great military Orders—the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem and the Templars—followed the Augustinian rule, and both were settled in London. The Knights Hospitallers were founded about 1092 by the merchants of Amalfi, in Italy, for the purpose of affording hospitality to pilgrims in the Holy Land. The Hospital or Priory of St. John was founded in 1100 by Jordan Briset and his wife, Muriel, outside the northern wall of London, and the original village of Clerkenwell grew up around the buildings of the knights. A few years after this the Brethren of the Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem, or Knights of the Temple, came into being at the Holy City, and they settled first on the south side of Holborn, near Southampton Buildings. They removed to Fleet Street or the New Temple in 1184, when, as Spenser terms it, ‘they decayd through pride,’ and the Order after much persecution was suppressed in England, as it had been in other countries, by command of the Pope. The house in Fleet Street was given in 1313 by Edward II. to Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, at whose death, in 1323, the property

THE TEMPLE CHURCH—THE ROUND.
THE TEMPLE CHURCH—THE ROUND.

passed to the Knights of St. John, who leased the New Temple to the lawyers, still the occupants of the district.

The Templars wore a long flowing white mantle with a red cross on the left breast. The Knights Hospitallers originally wore a black robe with a cross, but subsequently, when the Order was reconstructed on the model of the Templars, they wore a red mantle with a white cross on the shoulder. After Palestine was lost the original body passed (1) to Acre, (2) to Cyprus, (3) to Rhodes, and (4) to Malta.

The Templars left their beautiful church to continue for centuries one of the most interesting architectural relics of a past age. The buildings of the Knights Hospitallers at Clerkenwell passed through more vicissitudes, and when the religious houses were suppressed by Henry VIII. these were mostly destroyed. The gateway which was completed in 1504 by Prior Docwra still stands, but no portion of the church or other buildings remain above ground.

Friars

The enthusiasm which brought the great religious movement after the Conquest and produced the numerous monastic institutions of the country had cooled by the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the remarkable evangelical revival instituted almost simultaneously by St. Dominic and St. Francis swept over Europe.

The distinctive characteristics which at first marked them off from the monks were poverty and care for others. The monks lived apart from the world in order to attend first to their own souls, while the friars placed care for others first of all duties. They preached to and visited the masses; hence, instead of living in retired spots, they settled in the heart of the cities. In their humility they called themselves brothers rather than fathers, but in course of time they fell far short of the ideals of their founders. Their property increased, and their houses grew to be as rich as those of the monks, and in consequence they became singularly unpopular. Mr. Trevelyan writes in his Age of Wycliffe that, while the monks were despised by the reformer, the friars were hated.

Black Friars.—The Spaniard, St. Dominic, founded the Order of Preaching Friars at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Their rule, which was chiefly that of St. Augustine, was approved of by Pope Innocent III. in the Lateran Council, A.D. 1215, by word of mouth and by the Bull of Pope Honorius III., A.D. 1216. They were called Dominicans from their founder, Preaching Friars from their office to preach and convert heretics, and Black Friars from their garments. In France they were known as Jacobins from having their first house in the Rue St. Jacques in Paris. This name gained a portentous meaning in the eighteenth century from the French Revolutionists who met in the disused friary. At first the friars used the same habit as the Austin Canons, but about the year 1219 they took another, viz., a white cassock with a white hood over it, and when they went abroad, a black cloak with a black hood over their white vestments. They came to England in 1221, and their first house was at Oxford. Shortly after this they came to London, settled in Holborn near Lincoln’s Inn, where they remained for more than fifty years. In 1276 they removed to the neighbourhood of Baynard Castle, where they erected a magnificent house with the help of royal, clerical and other noble benefactors which has given a name to a London district that it still retains. The place is thus described by Stevens, the monastic historian: ‘This monastery enjoyed all the privileges and immunities that any religious

St. John’s Gate Clerkenwell Residence of Edward Cave.

house had; and having a very large extent of ground within its liberty, the same was shut up with four gates, and all the inhabitants within it were subject to none but the King, the superior of the monasteries and justices of that precinct; so that neither the Mayor nor the sheriffs, nor any other officers of the City of London, had the least jurisdiction or authority therein. All which liberties the inhabitants preserved some time after the suppression of the monastery.’ Thomas Lord Wake is said to have intended to bring Dominican nuns into England, and he had the King’s license for this purpose, but he does not appear to have carried out his intention. The nuns of Dartford, in Kent, are supposed to have been of this Order at one time.

Grey Friars.—The Italian, St. Francis, was the founder of this Order, whose rule he drew up in 1209. It was approved of by Pope Innocent III. in 1210, and by the Lateran Council in 1215. His followers were called Franciscans from their founder, Grey Friars from their clothing, and Minor Friars from their humility.

Nine Grey Friars landed at Dover in the eighth year of Henry III. (1223-1224), five of them settled at Canterbury, and there founded the first house of the Order in England. The remaining four established themselves in London, lodging for fifteen days with the Dominicans in Holborn. These four, we learn from a Cottonian MS. (Vitellius, F. xii., 13, fol. 45) were (1) Richard Pugworth, an Englishman, priest and preacher; (2) Richard Senonef, English, clerk acolyte, a youth; (3) Henry Detrews, by nation a Lombard, lay brother; (4) Monachetus, also a lay brother.

These four men founded the great London house of Grey Friars. They removed to Cornhill, where they erected cells, made converts, and acquired the goodwill of the Mayor and citizens. John Ewin, mercer, appropriated to the use of the friars a piece of ground within Newgate. Here a noble building was erected by the help of numerous distinguished persons, which contained a church, a chapter house, a dormitory, a refectory, an infirmary, etc. The district was long known as Greyfriars, and afterwards as Christ Church or Christ’s Hospital.

The habit of the friars was a loose garment of a grey colour reaching down to their ankles, with a cowl of the same, and a cloak over it when they went abroad. They girded themselves with cords and went barefoot.

In connection with the Franciscans were the nuns of the Order of St. Clare, founded at Assisi by St. Clare about 1212. The nuns observed St. Francis’s rule and wore the same coloured habit as the Franciscan Friars. They were called Poor Clares and also Minoresses.

About the year 1293 Blanche, Queen of Navarre, wife to Edward, Earl of Lancaster, Leicester and Derby, founded a house for the Minoresses on the east side of the street leading from the Tower to Aldgate without the walls of the city. This street is still known as the Minories. There were only three other houses of this Order in England, viz.: at Waterbeche and Denny in Cambridgeshire, and Brusyard in Suffolk.

Austin Friars.—The history of the foundation of the Friars Eremites of the Order of St. Augustine has not been given with any fulness, and its origin is somewhat uncertain. They came to England from Italy about 1250, and a house in Broad Street ward was founded by Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, in the year 1253. The habit of the Austin Friars was a white garment and scapulary when they were in the house, but in the choir and when they went abroad they had over the former a sort of cowl and a large hood, both black; round their waist they had a black leather girdle fastened with an ivory bone.[373]

White Friars.—The origin of the Friars of the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel is not very clear. Their rule, which was chiefly that of St. Basil, is said to have been given them by Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem about 1205, and to have been confirmed by Pope Honorius III. in 1224. They were driven out of Palestine by the Saracens about 1238, and they then sought refuge in Europe. They were brought into England by John Vasey and Richard Gray, and had their first houses at Hulne in Northumberland and Ailesford in Kent. At the latter place they held their first European charter A.D. 1245.

The London house of the Carmelites or White Friars was founded in 1241 by Sir Richard Grey on land situated between Fleet Street and the Thames which was given by Edward I. The garments of the friars at first were white, but having been obliged by the infidels to change them to parti-coloured ones, they continued these for fifty years after their coming into England, but about the year 1290 they returned to the use of white again.[374]

Of the four chief Orders of mendicant friars, the Carmelites ranked last, and in official processions had to give place to the Dominicans, Franciscans and Austin Friars.

The district which originally contained the house of the White Friars continues still to be known by the old name. After the dissolution of the religious houses, the privileges of sanctuary were still allowed to the inhabitants, and in consequence the place, generally known as Alsatia, gained a most unenviable notoriety. Other places in London obtained an evil repute from the same cause, but Whitefriars was far beyond all others in disgraceful associations. It is known from old records that the bad repute of the district dates back to a period long before the suppression of the friary.

From a Close Roll of the 20th Edw. III., it appears that persons of ill-repute had for a considerable time made their abode so close to the friary that the friars could not celebrate divine service in their church in consequence of the continual clamours and outcries by which the district was disturbed, and the Mayor and aldermen of London were ordered, in the King’s name, for the tranquility of the prior and brethren, to remove the nuisance.

Mr. Trevelyan writes: ‘Twenty years before Wycliffe’s attack was made Fitz-Ralph, Bishop of Armagh, had laid a famous indictment against the four Orders before the Pope at Avignon. It made a great stir at the time, but came to nothing, for the friars were under the Pope’s special protection. The bishop chiefly complained of their competition with his secular clergy in the matter of confession and absolution.[375]

Besides the four chief Orders, several other Orders of friars were settled in London. First in importance of these were the Crutched Friars, from the cross forming part of the staff carried by them, which was styled a crutch. This was afterwards given up, and a cross of red cloth was placed upon the breast of the gown. The Order is said to have been instituted by Gerard, Prior of St. Mary of Morella at Bologna, and confirmed in 1169 by Pope Alexander III., who brought them under St. Austin’s rule. They came to England in 1244, and had their first house at Colchester. It was not until about 1298 that these friars came to London, and the house in the parish of St. Olave, Hart Street, was founded by Ralph Hosier and William Sabernes. The memory of the friary is kept alive in the name of the street that marks its site.

Other Orders in London were the Friars of the Penance of Jesus Christ, or de Sacco, and the Friars de Areno.

The Friars of the Sac, according to Stow, first settled in a house near Aldersgate, outside the gate. This was about the year 1257. When the Jews were banished from England by Edward I., these friars were given the synagogue on the south side of Lothbury, at the north corner of the old Jewry.

The tenements which the prior and friars held in the street ‘called Colcherdistrete’ were in the parishes of St. Olave in the Jewry and of St. Margaret de Lothebury.

The friars of the Order of St. Mary de Areno were settled at Westminster at a house near Charing Cross, given to them by Sir William de Arnaud or Amand, 51 Henry III., and here the small house remained until the death of Hugh de Ebor, the last friar, 10 Edw. II.

Bishop Stubbs refers to a cemetery near St. Clement’s Danes, which once belonged to the Pied Friars, a small order of mendicants which had been suppressed in 1278.

In the revised edition of Dugdale’s Monasticon, by Caley, Ellis and Bandinel, there is a notice of the house of the Fratres de Pica or Pied Friars at Norwich, from Blomefield’s History of Norfolk, but no mention is made of any house in London. Tanner says that there is no mention of these friars in any public record, and Taylor, in his Index Monasticus, gives no new information concerning them. Blomefield says that the friars were called from their outward garment, which was black and white like a magpie.

At Hounslow there was a House of Trinitarian or Maturine Friars for the Redemption of Captives. The earliest record known of this priory is a charter dated 1296.

Besides the religious houses, there were during the Middle Ages many hermitages over the country, and several of these were to be found in London. One was in Monkwell Street, Cripplegate, which was founded by the widow of Sir Eymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who was killed in a tournament in 1324. This was Mary de Castillon, daughter of Guy, Count of St. Pol, third wife of the earl, and the foundress of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, who established the hermitage for the good of the soul of her husband.

London was so full of religious houses, both within and without the walls, that when the great dissolution took place in Henry VIII.’s reign, large portions of the town were left desolate. Doubtless the time had come for this great revolution, or, otherwise, even that King could never have carried it through.

The popular feeling which held these great establishments in disfavour had gradually grown. Still the number of those who were dependent upon the religious houses was very considerable, and great evils followed the dissolution. Multitudes were thrown out of their regular employment, and the poor who were dependent upon the alms bestowed upon them at the gates of the monasteries had to be considered and provided for in some other way. The difficulties of this position certainly formed one of the causes of the institution of the Poor Law in the reign of Henry’s daughter Elizabeth.

Most of the relics of the various religious houses which occupied so large a portion of London and its environs have been entirely swept away.

In the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries many remains existed. There were then vestiges of St. Helen’s Priory, and the old hall of the Nunnery was not pulled down until 1799. Relics of Bermondsey Abbey were standing in 1807.

THE CRYPT, ST. JOHN’S, CLERKENWELL.
THE CRYPT, ST. JOHN’S, CLERKENWELL.

The grand Crypt built soon after the foundation of the house of the Priory of St. John at Clerkenwell, which was added to and afterwards made to form an undercroft to the choir, is now one of the most interesting of the remains of mediÆval buildings in London. It is below the Church of St. John, Clerkenwell, and has been restored with loving care to much of its original beauty. Other portions of the old buildings of the Priory are to be seen in the cellars of some of the houses round about.

The position of the old Charterhouse buildings can still be traced, although little of the old monastery exists, but the east and south walls of the Chapel and Washhouse Court can be seen. The latter was built by the monks to accommodate the lay brothers who acted as servants to the convent. The walls of the monastic refectories surround the present Brothers’ Library. Beneath this is the Monks’ Cellar.

The friaries situated within the walls of old London have left little but their names to tell the Londoner of to-day of their existence. Still even here something of the past remains. The Church of Austin Friars is left to us, and the position of the choir of the great Franciscan house of Grey Friars is marked by the present Christ Church, Newgate Street. Some traces of the buildings of the Whitefriars have also been found underground.

Sanctuary.—One of the privileges of the Middle Ages, which continued on into comparatively modern times, was that of sanctuary, and in its belated form this caused many gross scandals. There are numerous stories connected with the College of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, which was under the jurisdiction of the Abbot of Westminster. One of these relates to Richard III. and Lady Anne. When the Duke of Gloucester desired to marry Anne, the betrothed of the late Edward Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI., her brother-in-law Clarence objected and hid her away. Richard discovered her in London, disguised as a kitchen-maid, and placed her in sanctuary at St. Martin’s-le-Grand.[376]

In 1416 a man was sentenced to the pillory for slandering an alderman, but he escaped and found sanctuary at the monastery of St. Peter’s, Westminster.[377]

Mr. G. M. Trevelyan, in his work on the Age of Wycliffe, gives a full account of the great scandal which occurred in 1378, when two prisoners escaped from the Tower and sought sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. The governor of the Tower, with his soldiers, entered the nave and attempted to drag one of the prisoners, who was attending Mass, out of sanctuary. He fled for his life, and his pursuers chased him twice round the choir. He was stabbed to death, and one of the attendants of the church, interfering to save him, was killed in the scuffle.

Archbishop Sudbury excommunicated the governor of the Tower (Sir Alan Buschall) and all his aiders and abettors. Richard II. ordered the reading of the excommunication to be stopped and the church to be reconsecrated. The abbot refused to allow the place to be hallowed, and the services ceased for a while. There was now an open quarrel between Church and State, which continued till the Parliament met at Gloucester in October, ‘when the whole question of sanctuary was brought up in all its issues.’

Mr. Trevelyan sums up the case in these words: ‘In vain Wycliffe argued, in vain the Commons petitioned and the Lords hectored. From all the mountains of talk in the discussions at Gloucester there came forth the most absurd legislative mouse in the shape of a Statute passed at Westminster by the next Parliament in the spring of 1379. By this Act the fraudulent debtor taking sanctuary was to be summoned at the door of the church once a week for 31 days. If at the end of that time he refused to appear, judgment was to go against him by default, and his goods, even if they had been given away by collusion, might be seized by his creditors. This mild measure, which was scarcely an interference with the right of sanctuary itself, was accepted even by the staunchest adherents of the Church.’

If a felon succeeded in taking sanctuary in a church or other privileged place before capture, he was free from the clutches of the law for the space of forty days. He was allowed to be supplied with food, but he was sufficiently guarded to prevent his escape. If he elected to abjure the realm an oath was administered to him.[378]

There seem to have been special privileges of sanctuary in the city, for we learn that at the end of the thirteenth century it was ordered by the aldermen that no robber, homicide, nor other fugitive in the churches should be watched. This ordinance was for the purpose of giving a fugitive a chance of escape out of sanctuary. In 1321 a royal pardon was granted to the city for neglecting to keep watch on those who had fled for sanctuary to the city churches. This was granted, however, on the distinct understanding that in future a watch was to be kept on such fugitives in the same manner as in other parts of the realm.[379]

In 1334 the Mayor was roundly taken to task, and made to do penance by the Archbishop for allowing a felon to escape from the Church of Allhallows’, Gracechurch.[380]

The sanctuary men were marked by a badge representing cross keys.

Education.—MediÆval London was well supplied with facilities for education. We know that there were many schools in various parts of the city, although we still require more definite information. The Church supplied the public well with schools, although for a time these fell into decay, and then it was that lay schools came into existence.

Bishop Stubbs writes: ‘Over against the many grievances which modern thought has alleged against the unlearned ages which passed before the invention of printing it ought to be set to the credit of mediÆval society that clerkship was never despised or made unnecessarily difficult of acquisition. The sneer of Walter Map, who declared that in his days the villains were attempting to educate their ignoble and degenerate offspring in the liberal arts proves that even in the twelfth century the way was open. Richard II. rejected the proposition that the villains should be forbidden to send their children to the schools to learn “clergie”; and even at a time when the supply of labour ran so low that no man who was not worth twenty shillings a year in land or rent was allowed to apprentice his child to a craft, a full and liberal exception was made in favour of learning; “every man or woman”—the words occur in the Petition and Statute of Artificers passed in 1406—“of what state or condition that he be, shall be free to set their son or daughter to take learning at any school that pleaseth them within the realm.”’ Again: ‘Schools were by no means uncommon things; there were schools in all cathedrals; monasteries and colleges were everywhere, and wherever there was a monastery or a college there was a school. Towards the close of the Middle Ages, notwithstanding many causes for depression, there was much vitality in the schools.’[381]

The larger English abbeys about the country not only had schools within their own precincts, but others dependent upon them in the neighbouring towns.

Fitz-Stephen, in his description of London as preserved in the city’s Liber Custumarum (vol. i. p. 5), particularises the Church of St. Martin-le-Grand as one of the principal churches of London which had ancient and prerogative schools,[382] the others being St. Paul’s and Holy Trinity, Aldgate. In other texts of Fitz-Stephen’s work the names of the churches are not mentioned, and Stow, overlooking the text in the city archives, gives the three schools as attached to St. Paul’s, St. Peter’s Westminster, and St. Saviour’s.[383]

Fitz-Stephen’s patron, St. Thomas of Canterbury, received his early education at one of the London schools after leaving the school of the canons regular at Merton, and before proceeding to the university.

In 1447 four parish priests, in a petition to Parliament, begged the Commons to consider the great number of grammar schools ‘that sometime were in diverse parts of the realm beside those that were in London, and how few there be in these days.’ They asked leave to appoint schoolmasters in their parishes, to be removed at their discretion. King Henry VI. granted the petition, but subjected the priests’ discretion to the advice of the Ordinary. During this King’s reign nine grammar schools were opened in London alone.

CHARING CROSS. (From the Crace Collection, British Museum.)
CHARING CROSS.
(From the Crace Collection, British Museum.)