v The Central Middle Ages 800-1270

Christopher Brooke

LODO- in 800 was a place to reckon with especially if we accept the recent reconstruction of Lundenwic on the Strand but the city vithin the walls vas clearh not a populous town By J 270 it vas a flourishing city one of the major commercial capitals of north-western Europe the scat of the English kingdom the chief town of an empire which stretched to the Pyrenees of a dnasty which laid claim (however absurdly) to the Empire and the Kingdom of Sicily Of London as a town in J 270 our chief evidence lies in topography in the pattern of streets wards churches and parishes filled in and supported by copious documents and archaeological survials But the wards appear to be a creation of the eleventh century and none of the streets or churches save only St Pauls can be traced with certaint back to 800 B 1270 estminster and Southwark though independent jurisdictions were vital adjuncts of London in 800 Xestminster as an island with a small church and perhaps a minor monastery upon it and Southwark a bridgeshyhead of modest proportions and Lundenllic though still flourishing as to be destroyed in the ninth century by the Vikings 2

The grOmiddotth of London between the ninth and thirteenth centuries was the product of two moements the creatie activity in urban revival associated particularly with Alfred and his children and the larger revial obscure in its origins but immense in its results to which recent historiansshygrasping for a title at once ambitious and imprecise as the case demands- ha e called the urban renaissance In social terms the reyial was made possible by a yen marked rise in population in every parr of estern Europe where it can in any degree be measured or observed and also by an increasshy

Thi chapter is based on the ioint w()rK ()f C I Brooke and ( I-(eir Incorporated in their London 121( Thapin~ ol a Cil) (197) (BK) The regard the book hOTcr as the heginmng and not the end of the studIO of London topography in this period and two dcelopments in particular hae greath adanced knowledge ince the book was Hltten and thlS chapter hrst drafted the worK of the Department of lrhan rchaeolog of the lllSeum of London directed b 1 r Bflan Iloble- scc eg (~ and c [ilne frdifla

Iralerfronl Dnmiddoteopmenl al Trig Lane LOlldOll LLS Special Paper (I 98 3) and n I below-and of the Social and Economic StudIO of fedieal London directed by Derek I-(eenc and jointly sponsored b the [useum of London and the Institute of llirorical Research (now part of the Imtitutes Centre for [etropolshyitan Histon) 1 am particularh grateful to I-(eene and Caroline Barron for helping me to bring this chapter into the t 980s The ork of I-(eenes urIC i described in his Summan Report 1979 8 and in D I-(ecnc Crban Hielllr) )-earbl(k 198 )

11-21 and will be more fulll descnbed in D I-(eene and Y Harding Cheapslde and Ihe DerelipmOlt of London beore Ihe Creal Fire (forthcoming) Since mI work for this olume was completcd 1 hale also had the opportunm to see Dr farc Fitchs unpublished studies of various aspects of Lond()n topograplw -lthough most of the material rclates to periods later than mmc there are a number of llHercqing pomts and suggestions relnant to nw period and I am lerl grateful to Dr Fitch for allowing me to sec them

ing specialization of function lfred referred to the folk of

his kingdom as those who fight those who pray and those middotho work no doubt a heroic simplification even in his day but still intelligible 1 The variet of occupation and -ocation open to men (and in a much lesser degree to women) greatly increased in these centuries and non-agricultural communitshyies small and large multiplied and flourished as never before since the fall of the Roman empire in the west In northern Europe this meant the re-i-al of town life on sites old and new In southern Europe and especially in Italy town life had never died or declined as it had in the north although een the greatest towns such as Rome and Paia were shadows of their former glory with houses of men of substance scattered about the old cin in a fashion which often paid little attention to the Roman street plan Jione the less one can walk toda in ~Iilan or Verona and know one is in a Roman city-or in Volterra and San Gimignano and recogshynize the physiognomy of an Etruscan hill town-in a vay which is very rareh- possible north of the Alps Thus the urban renaissance saw spontaneous growth and rn-ival all oyer estern Europe in part inspired and influenced by the reyiyal of independent city life which came in the eleyenth and twelfth centuries to be most marked most sophisticated

in Iraly where the concentration of folk rich and poor in the cities was as much the result of deliberate policy as of

( I Ilk blspontaneous attractIon ta saw t le most remar a e growth in economic prosperity but in due proportion and measure this economic reviyal must also account for the rise of the northern cities At its height in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it doubtless owed something to the more peaceful conditions which seem to have followed first the

[artin BIddle London on the Strand Poplliar lrd G I (July lc)84) 23-7 Ian ince The lcln(h lid-Saxon London dlsc()Tred) Cllrrmt Arch x ~o 10 (ugust 1984) 310-12 and see abo-e Chap IV where our new knoshyledge of the ninth centun is fulll explained Both papers give references to the rich recent literature on the archaeolog of London The seat of the English Klngdom in the next sentence cchoe illiam FitzStcphcns description of London (ee n 93) fH iii 2 For the background and literature on early medieval London see ilK j 8 el sqq

Sec BI-( chap 7 below p 4 (wards and streets) BK 2-( 294 et sqq D J Johnson SOlllhuark and the Cil) (1969) (Xestminster and Southwark) For LllndlllUi( and the earliest churches see aboyc chap IV

eg BI-( chap lfreds HothillS c I~ see D XhitL]()ck (cd) lfID i OF (1955)

84(J cf ibid 85l (2nd edn 19 79 9I9 92~) Sec on Payia D Bullough PaperJ of Ihe HritiJh dJoo elf Rome 34 (19G6)

82-1l0 esp 10 t sqq on Rome P Llewellm Rome in Ihe Dark Ages (197I) and the rclenlnt yols of the Sloria di Roma (Itituto di Studi Romani) esp the topographical oJ xxii cd I Castagnoli d al (1958)

See in lencral D Xaicl Itaian (II) Rt pics (l 9691 esp 34 ( HI 2nd edn 1978 1701 Iqq) J 1-( Hyde Sociel) and Poitid in fediera 1Ia) (1973) BK Ge el

sqq

r

THE CE-TRAL ~fIDDLE AGES 800- 1270

exodus of many of the most unruly western Europeans on Crusade second the rapid development of peaceful ayocashytions in the twelfth century But in origin strangely enough the urban renaissance in the north was the product of war and pirac The heyday of Carolingian rule on the continent and of ~1crcian supremacy in Britain was also the age which saw the reyial of silver currency the ultimate base oflater money econorTI and commercial growth- But it was in the ninth and tenth centuries especially in the era of the Viking raids and in the lands to which the Vikings came that the northern towns first reviyed in any substantial numberM

The Economic Foundations

Between 800 and 1270 London grew the city especially within the walls became relativeh thickh peopled for the fIrst time since it was abandoned IA the Romans The indications are clear and we shall impect the most important when we study the streets and parish churches Evidently this growth of population was based on increasing wealth and political importance but to state the matter more precisely is very difficult Eidence of more intensie settlement does not tell us anything of the absolute population figures which are as much a matter for conjecture in 1270 as in 800 9

Apart from topography the chief indicator of growing wealth and population is coinage the evidence of hoards discovered in London and the history of the London mint For population this is yery rough indeed for wealth only slightly less so but at least the growth of the mint gies some basis for comparison with other tom The surviing hoards studied in detail tend to reeal onh the periods when London was subjected to attack and sudden crisis during Viking imasions c890 and c [0 I) for example and the largest of all c 1066 111 But in bulk the hoards reyeal the great concentration of wealth in London compared with other cities The development of coins and mints is in general terms our chief evidence for the commercial revival of these late Saxon centuries There are various signs that London was a place of real importance under Offa whose reign saw the revival of a silver currency in this countrv 1I The spread of the penny under the iIercian supremaC was only a beginshyning for it is not until the brief supremaC of Egbert of Xessex in 829-30 that we have unambiguous evidence that London was a mint centre and a much more effective growth of m(11e economy came in the temh and elnenth centuries From the late ninth century through the period of Viking occupation and of the reinl of English control under Ifred and his children evidence for the London mint is continuous and already in the second quarter of the tenth centun it was the largest mint in the country By the time of Ethelred 11 (978-1016) and Cnut (1016-3)) the quantit of SurvlVlng coins is enormous and eidence of Londons dominant

B- ()2 d qq ep 92 n 2 and refs C I Blunt In 1IiIaX(1I Co ill (19(11)

chap 3 lt p Sawyerbull c(gr oJlhe r ikingr (2nd edn 1971) P G Foote and D I ilon

rikin~ -lriJielemen (19-0) chap ( HK (1 e sqq for a reiew of the discussion t() F ce ( r Jcmcn In lfzglf)Iaw rll~rUld 4 (r I) 181 We) of the etensie IlteLlturc stimulated bl the Iking middothillltlon ot 1980-1 a aluable example is TlJe r ikirzgJ ed R T Farrell ()~2)

U B- I I

BI-( - hcd on Dolin in FLII 1 2D (H)I() (gt1 - 10 ot all hoards ()f cnurltl CITl he related to specitic crises but it -1 C()1111111Jliy a sudden threat or

dilsrcr lhlCh led men to hick monc and n()t rechim It hat fol(lS is based on In )2 (-- Xc which dra heamiddoti ()n rill ork f B flo l H Stcwart R H 1 Dolle C L Bluilt and other numisn1atists

position among the English mint-towns abundantly clear In the Royal Swedish Cabinet of Medals at Stockholm over a thousand silyer pennies of London manufacture of each of these two kings is preserved more than the combined total of Lincoln and York its next competitors The names of the moneers are also recorded on the coins and these suggest not onh that London had the largest number (which is confirmed by other evidence) but that unlike York where Scandinavian names predominate thn remained mostly English The numismatic evidence also seems to show that from Ethelreds later years London was one of the chief centres for die-cutting and came to be the predominant centre and so also the heart of the elaborate English mint organization from the mid-eleventh century on 12

The coins came to Sweden by various routes from the tributes paid by English kings to their Viking attackers or b Cnut to his troops by piracy and loot and trade by gift and as ages and their presence there is a reminder that England and the English Channel la in the mainstream of Viking adventure in the ninth tenth and eleventh centuries when the Vikings dominated north-western Europe and travelled as pirates and traders from Russia and Byzantium to the east to Greenland and 0orth America in the west and south to all parts of Britain and the northern littoral of France and the Lo Countries As a rough generalization it has been said that from the seenth to the ninth century England and London lay in the Frisian sphere of trade from the ninth to the eleventh in the Viking commercial world in the eleventh and twelfth in the German Flemish and FrenchY Doubtless the Frisian merchants who were based in Quentovic (near ttaples) and Duurstede (near ltrecht) were among Londons isitors in Bedes day More substantially we may be sure that the Vikings played a crucial part in the formation of London in the ninth and tenth centuries Few Vikings seem to hae settled permanently in London if we may judge by the moneyers names and they affected the street names very slightly if at all But the main city court of this period and for many centuries to come bears the Viking name Husting and in the eleventh century and later Viking piety contributed the dedications of the churches of St Olaf six of them and probabh also of St Bride and St Clement 14 Thus obscurely the records reveal Londons place in the Viking world but of the characteristic Viking commodities of slaves from the Slav lands and Ireland or of furs from the far north and Russia they tell us little until an austere papal legate came to estminster in I 138 and promulgated canons forbidding English nuns to wear Yair gris sable marten ermine and beaver which suggests that scarce and luxurious furs as well as the common beaers coats were known in and around London in the twelfth century

From lOOO and increasingly in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries the documents speak of merchants from (~errna11 and especially from the Rhineland and Cologne

B- -s C F Blunt in -lfzglrlayofi (oifiJ cd R H~ Dolley (1961) chap

HK 39 citing B L Hildebrand Afl~o-Saxofi CoinJ III tbf RO)fll lndiJh CaJilld (ne cdn I HHI) J Smart [onewrs of the late nglo-Saxon c()jtn~)l J~ )1( (()IJlJtlllallOJer de IIIII J(]fot(rJilJJ T( J in SlIeeia reperis ii i ]()(~ ) I 2-(J esp 20 I 28-9 sec also Smarr in llz~()-Sayon zglalld 4

I Lt 10K ) 80

Bk 2() I

See ilK 141- and below n 4 tm I lusting sec Bh 249- I P Ightlllg)lic III JII~irJ iJisorieal Rflieu 1)2 (1987 1()-8 For what follows Bh ) ct I pound ele The EIZglirh 1M Fradc III t)I Lalcr fiddle IgeJ (1966)

THE CE-TRAL ~fIDDLE AGES 800- 1270

exodus of many of the most unruly western Europeans on Crusade second the rapid development of peaceful ayocashytions in the twelfth century But in origin strangely enough the urban renaissance in the north was the product of war and pirac The heyday of Carolingian rule on the continent and of ~1crcian supremacy in Britain was also the age which saw the reyial of silver currency the ultimate base oflater money econorTI and commercial growth- But it was in the ninth and tenth centuries especially in the era of the Viking raids and in the lands to which the Vikings came that the northern towns first reviyed in any substantial numberM

The Economic Foundations

Between 800 and 1270 London grew the city especially within the walls became relativeh thickh peopled for the fIrst time since it was abandoned IA the Romans The indications are clear and we shall impect the most important when we study the streets and parish churches Evidently this growth of population was based on increasing wealth and political importance but to state the matter more precisely is very difficult Eidence of more intensie settlement does not tell us anything of the absolute population figures which are as much a matter for conjecture in 1270 as in 800 9

Apart from topography the chief indicator of growing wealth and population is coinage the evidence of hoards discovered in London and the history of the London mint For population this is yery rough indeed for wealth only slightly less so but at least the growth of the mint gies some basis for comparison with other tom The surviing hoards studied in detail tend to reeal onh the periods when London was subjected to attack and sudden crisis during Viking imasions c890 and c [0 I) for example and the largest of all c 1066 111 But in bulk the hoards reyeal the great concentration of wealth in London compared with other cities The development of coins and mints is in general terms our chief evidence for the commercial revival of these late Saxon centuries There are various signs that London was a place of real importance under Offa whose reign saw the revival of a silver currency in this countrv 1I The spread of the penny under the iIercian supremaC was only a beginshyning for it is not until the brief supremaC of Egbert of Xessex in 829-30 that we have unambiguous evidence that London was a mint centre and a much more effective growth of m(11e economy came in the temh and elnenth centuries From the late ninth century through the period of Viking occupation and of the reinl of English control under Ifred and his children evidence for the London mint is continuous and already in the second quarter of the tenth centun it was the largest mint in the country By the time of Ethelred 11 (978-1016) and Cnut (1016-3)) the quantit of SurvlVlng coins is enormous and eidence of Londons dominant

B- ()2 d qq ep 92 n 2 and refs C I Blunt In 1IiIaX(1I Co ill (19(11)

chap 3 lt p Sawyerbull c(gr oJlhe r ikingr (2nd edn 1971) P G Foote and D I ilon

rikin~ -lriJielemen (19-0) chap ( HK (1 e sqq for a reiew of the discussion t() F ce ( r Jcmcn In lfzglf)Iaw rll~rUld 4 (r I) 181 We) of the etensie IlteLlturc stimulated bl the Iking middothillltlon ot 1980-1 a aluable example is TlJe r ikirzgJ ed R T Farrell ()~2)

U B- I I

BI-( - hcd on Dolin in FLII 1 2D (H)I() (gt1 - 10 ot all hoards ()f cnurltl CITl he related to specitic crises but it -1 C()1111111Jliy a sudden threat or

dilsrcr lhlCh led men to hick monc and n()t rechim It hat fol(lS is based on In )2 (-- Xc which dra heamiddoti ()n rill ork f B flo l H Stcwart R H 1 Dolle C L Bluilt and other numisn1atists

position among the English mint-towns abundantly clear In the Royal Swedish Cabinet of Medals at Stockholm over a thousand silyer pennies of London manufacture of each of these two kings is preserved more than the combined total of Lincoln and York its next competitors The names of the moneers are also recorded on the coins and these suggest not onh that London had the largest number (which is confirmed by other evidence) but that unlike York where Scandinavian names predominate thn remained mostly English The numismatic evidence also seems to show that from Ethelreds later years London was one of the chief centres for die-cutting and came to be the predominant centre and so also the heart of the elaborate English mint organization from the mid-eleventh century on 12

The coins came to Sweden by various routes from the tributes paid by English kings to their Viking attackers or b Cnut to his troops by piracy and loot and trade by gift and as ages and their presence there is a reminder that England and the English Channel la in the mainstream of Viking adventure in the ninth tenth and eleventh centuries when the Vikings dominated north-western Europe and travelled as pirates and traders from Russia and Byzantium to the east to Greenland and 0orth America in the west and south to all parts of Britain and the northern littoral of France and the Lo Countries As a rough generalization it has been said that from the seenth to the ninth century England and London lay in the Frisian sphere of trade from the ninth to the eleventh in the Viking commercial world in the eleventh and twelfth in the German Flemish and FrenchY Doubtless the Frisian merchants who were based in Quentovic (near ttaples) and Duurstede (near ltrecht) were among Londons isitors in Bedes day More substantially we may be sure that the Vikings played a crucial part in the formation of London in the ninth and tenth centuries Few Vikings seem to hae settled permanently in London if we may judge by the moneyers names and they affected the street names very slightly if at all But the main city court of this period and for many centuries to come bears the Viking name Husting and in the eleventh century and later Viking piety contributed the dedications of the churches of St Olaf six of them and probabh also of St Bride and St Clement 14 Thus obscurely the records reveal Londons place in the Viking world but of the characteristic Viking commodities of slaves from the Slav lands and Ireland or of furs from the far north and Russia they tell us little until an austere papal legate came to estminster in I 138 and promulgated canons forbidding English nuns to wear Yair gris sable marten ermine and beaver which suggests that scarce and luxurious furs as well as the common beaers coats were known in and around London in the twelfth century

From lOOO and increasingly in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries the documents speak of merchants from (~errna11 and especially from the Rhineland and Cologne

B- -s C F Blunt in -lfzglrlayofi (oifiJ cd R H~ Dolley (1961) chap

HK 39 citing B L Hildebrand Afl~o-Saxofi CoinJ III tbf RO)fll lndiJh CaJilld (ne cdn I HHI) J Smart [onewrs of the late nglo-Saxon c()jtn~)l J~ )1( (()IJlJtlllallOJer de IIIII J(]fot(rJilJJ T( J in SlIeeia reperis ii i ]()(~ ) I 2-(J esp 20 I 28-9 sec also Smarr in llz~()-Sayon zglalld 4

I Lt 10K ) 80

Bk 2() I

See ilK 141- and below n 4 tm I lusting sec Bh 249- I P Ightlllg)lic III JII~irJ iJisorieal Rflieu 1)2 (1987 1()-8 For what follows Bh ) ct I pound ele The EIZglirh 1M Fradc III t)I Lalcr fiddle IgeJ (1966)

CIIKISTOPHFK BROOKE

who fixed their headquarters in the Guildhall of the men of Cologne near Dowgate (first recorded in Henry Us reign) they brought wine and cups and reliquaries perhaps of gold and silver luxury cloth and linen from further east and coats of mail they also brought spices pepper and cumin wax and fustian and sometimes cornS From France and especially from Normandy throughout the eleenth and twelfth censhyturies came wine and fish and after the marriage of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine in the mid-twelfth century still more after the loss of liormandy early in the thirteenth there rapidly developed the close links of the English wine trade with the region of Bordeaux and the world of claret

Thus far we have considered trade mainly in luxuries but the markets of every great town dealt in much else besides and much of the Xiestcheap was taken up with food markets and food wool and cloth must often hae appeared in massive quantities on the wharfs along the Thames [n wool and cloth the closest links lay with Flanders and in the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries there grew up the special relation with the Low Countries which was to dominate English trade and particularly Londons trade many times in the future The Flemish cloth industry deeloped far beyond the productiT capacity of the Flemish sheep and so became a rich market for English wool But the condition of this was to

be a large return in Flemish cloth especialh the cheaper cloths which competed with the cloth industn in London and elsewhere in the thirteenth century Howeer that ma be London on the whole prospered with Flanders and perhaps the most substantial compliment the Flemings paid to London was to call an important trading association of the Flemish towns the -lanse of London 16

B I 270 the econonw of London was rich and varied the leading citizens were rich merchants pepperers mercers and so forth and the trade guilds were groing up to govern man of the crafts and trades of the city though still far from the dominant role in cin government they were later to

1- shyassume But hO-ever obscure the wealth of London must have been a visible and crucial factor in its growth during the pre-ious three centuries and the markets and wharfs came to full development at this time symbols on the map of Londons prosperity just as the walls were symbols of its continuous need for protection and defence

Walls and Street Plan

The Romans had built the city by the shore of the Thames with the Holborn and its mouth called the Fleet to its west and the Xalbrook in its midst -ith a bridge running near where London Bridge now stands and a wall on eery side including -as the spade has in recent ears reealed -on the south beside the rier This system of walls and water -lfred and his daughter -Ethelfhd inherited Xe know that the northern shore of the Thames lay substantialh- further north than now that the Fleet was the mouth of a sizeable rier and that the albrook had long since begun to silt up so that the marsh or Moor coered much of the ground to the north of

BI 2(( 8 Ill- z(8 G LmiddotP 27G

1- See rfdera London esp chaps ( f8 iii 11 See ga7 S- Blackfriars Tower Siora di [imo iii iTondazlone Trceeana dei i 111CII I ~ 14

Friedll1ann Pari- rllfJ StJ JirrIJJfS till )JJ()1l ~~f a fa R(()iion (I()~ltr F L Ganshof Etude iIlr If dhroppllIlt drs riles (lirf [oire ff RMI iiI IO)fI i~e I Ill) esp 702 plates 28 34

the wall between Cripplegate and Bishopsgate We do not know in what condition Alfred found the wall and the bridge though it is reasonably certain that the wall had been often used and so presumably in some measure kept in repair over the centuries and it is possible (though far from certain) that the bridge also had a continuous history lio doubt he and his colleagues repaired the wall But the south vall was not consistently repaired in the centuries which followed for it gradually crumbled and fell or was lapped by the river and broken through by new lanes-lea-ing substantial traces long enough for William FitzStephen to recall them in the II70S 18

Down to the thirteenth centun- the line of the Roman wall except along thc Thames was not altered and then only by comparatively minor rnision at each end I) It is indeed a striking fact that the Roman enceinte was neer substantially enlarged Other large cities like Milan and Paris grew in concentric circles where the Roman enceinte had been excessively largc for the medieval city as at Rome herself or in Trier a part of the area was occupied and the rest slowly reclaimed in later centuriesbl Even in London the corresponshydence between the Roman and the medieval city was neyer exact for the present boundaries of the City which take in considerable suburbs to the west and north-west of the old line of the wall and lesser suburbs outside Bishopsgate and Aldgate are approximately those of the eleventh and tvelfth centuries21 and Xestminster and Southwark though remainshying independent jurisdictions became essential parts of Lonshydon in the cleenth and twelfth centuries too But the basic structure of the Roman wall remained unimpaired enclosing an area of about 330 acres which contained the large majority of the population of medieal London hatever that may hac been The wall reminds us that there was sufficient continuity in Iondons history for its Roman name and basic shape to survive and also that although the population probably grew in course of time ery considerably within the area of the walls the area of the physical expansion of medieval London lav along and across the river somewhat in Bermondse- Southwark and Lambeth far more towards Westminster This could not be determined or defined by any extension of the walls

[ brief reflection on the histon of Londons defences rneals the contrast with her Roman past and her continental contemporaries The Romans had built a wall all round the city defending it against seafarers and pirates Alfredian and ~()rman London was readily accessible from the Thames estuary more so as time elapsed and the southern wall fell into decay lledieyal London was defended by walls of stone and the -ooden walls of ships but no medieval king can have felt entireh sure that the walls of the city would be defended for and not against him The characteristic preshyConquest walled town had a single main line of defence sometimes supplemented by outer lines and ditches the Norman tcwn which succeeded it commonly contained an additional defence in the shape of a castle 22 In London after the lorman conquest there were three castles lVlontflchet and Baynards Castle to th~ west the Tower to the eastY The

Sec eI IH 1() 1) IBII in LI1 19 (1941_ 1( 17

See I liJoric FOIIJl _middotIaJ cd lan D Lohe nJls i ii pi ii Camhridge 19 by 1 D Lobel IS a good c-campk For the lfredian plan and range of lIrhJ

1 Biddie and D lIill in Iiiif( j 1(1)-1 70 8 P Brooks in fed~lrth R 1)64) 74 xx

BI-- 10 I II q and refs rC I 21j 1- on the Tower esp lillJ [Iorks ii 70( z) (R Blllwn and H 1 (oh-in)

THE CENTRAL MIDDLE AGES 800-1270

Conquerors White Tower was and is a very impressive symbol of Norman power built at a time when major keeps of stone were still rare It looked down upon the city from the east as St Pauls looked from the west both constant reminders of the Norman presence 0 doubt the Tower looked formidable from the rier too and was intended to secure the defences at their weakest point where the wall and river met But it always looked two wan Past it the ships came up to the port of London and the bridge and to one of the numerous wharfs for larger ships before the bridge at Billingsgate (the water-gate doubtless so named before the southern wall disappeared) and Botolphs wharf or gate not recorded before the Conquest or for smaller craft beyond the bridge to Dowgate from the Confessors time the lorman wharfpar excellence to Garlickhythe iEthelredshithe (later Queenhithe) and Pauls harf or further still to the Fleet and Vestminster 24

The ambiguity of Londons relation to the Crown and estminster and the relative peacefulness of England in the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries made am large extenshysion of the citys fortifications to compass Xestminster or even the nearer suburbs seem unnecessary or undesirable Bars were set where the main roads crossed the frontiers of the city jurisdiction the city ditch was widened under John (1199-12 I G) and in Henry Ills reign (12 I () -72) the defences of the Tower were extended and sophisticated 2) In 1215

London adhered to the barons and forced John to grant Iagna Carta the lesson was not lost on his son and grandson and the final shape of the Tower made it a grand Edwardian castle It has been observed especially in Switzershyland that communities of friars were sometimes deliberately settled by the city walls to ensure effectie civic control over the approaches to the wall Perhaps parth for this reason the authorities of London of the 1220S seem to have encouraged the Grey Friars to occupy the angle of the wall next to

ewgate and Edward I may have allowed or suggested to the Black Friars that they move to the site which still bears their name 26

Thus the walls the waterways and the bridge remained however much altered as legacies of Rome Not so the streets As in many cities in Northern Europe the Roman gates surived to define where the main roads should enter the city and the main pattern of roads outside the walls was Roman still But within almost all was changed There is s( )me approximate correspondence (perhaps no more than lccidental) between the Xestcheap and Fastcheap and the Roman streets a few secondary streets show some relation to their Roman predecessors notably Xood Street Silver Street and Addle Street once the principal roads of the original Roman Cripplegate fort r But even the main northshysouth route from the north and east through Bishopsgate to

the Bridge and across to Southark is not on the Roman BK 18 F M Stenton ormtlll LOlldoll (edn ()f 1934) P (note b L

ktlric l)ies and ~BH) E 0 H q BillinggHe -1-2) Botolpb Xharf )4 ) II tirst reference for Botolph harf is cstminster charter dated =(~ forged in the mid 12th cent HK 156265 318 and n II S Dowgate (lrlickhithe Pauls harf (~ueenhithe etc (esp 250 404 492 ) Il tirst rderence for Garlickhithe IS of 1281 for Pauls Xharf 127G

er BK I (9 (for the Hars) H 0 0 (1I()lhorn and Temple Bar Idcrsgate Iif not recorded until much later ihll ~ For the Tower see gaz

For the practice in the Swiss towns sec B L 1 StLidcli Iilloritlllnifderiassllllshy

md mieiailerliehe Stadl (1969) esp (R 9 on Imiddotdard I and defence see Ldles Imiddot 1 Taylor esp in Killls JlOri2J ii chap ( ibid i 228 el sqq (R hr)n and Il M Colvin) on Hlackfnars A Hinnebusch The Earl) LlIgliJJ ir IreariJers (1951) chap 2 Knowles 1f1ltllladc()ck 217 On the Grey Friars ce C L hingsford Grey Friars of Lundon (H) 15) esp map facing p 2 Knowles id Hadcock 22G

line still less the main road from east to west from Aldgate to Newgate save for a stretch of Newgate Street itself 28 A length within Cripplegate shows the Roman alignment and the road within and without Aldersgate may be older than the Romans and the city But in the main the structure of the street plan in the present state of knowledge seems to owe far more to Alfred and his successors than to any earlier epoch it is the principal monument of the late Old English period as the ward and parish boundaries are of the changing pattern of the eleventh and twelfth centuries

Recent studies of the town plans of some Alfredian burhs have made us familiar with the notion of a rough grid a discernible pattern which is thought by some scholars to be characteristic of ninth- and tenth-century town planning in Fngland Certainly the ruthless geometric pattern of the Milesian and Roman town planners as never attempted 2()

At first sight the city of London does not present so tidy a pattern But it has long been realized that it grew in Saxon times in two halves separated by the albrook and a closer look at the street plan reveals two grids gathering round the two great markets the Westcheap (Cheapside) and Eastshycheap30 To simplify a complicated story only partly known the Xestcheap was a long market running down from St Pauls to Poultry defined in the early and central Middle ges by food markets representing produce brought in from the country or cooked in the city this was the food market par excellence and was sited close to the main country gates Newgate and Aldersgate Between Newgate and Westcheap came first the Shambles of the meat market with the church of St Nicholas in its midst then the fish market with Old Fish Street and Friday Street leading to it then the area of the bakers and dairymen Bread Street and Milk Street next Honey lane the Coney (rabbit) iLuket (Coneyhope) and the Poultn-all of which can be traced back to the twelfth century To the south of Xestcheap lay Cordwainer Street and on Cheapside itself the Mercery south of them again by the river were the Vintry and the Garlickhnhe 31 The XTestcheap was thus linked both to the gates and the roads and to the riYer and in later times at least the trade from up river brought it a wider variety of goods so that it soon ceased to be primarily a food market and its wares came to

comprise textiles iron leather and luxun goods spices and goldsmiths ware By the middle of the thirteenth century the fish had departed from it

The Eastcheap lay close to the Thames and the bridge and came to be the market for goods coming by sea as well as from the east by land here as in the Xestcheap were important markets for fish and meat The origin of Eastcheap is more obscure than that of its western sister and we await the full results of recent excavations and of the studies of Dr Derek Keene 2 In the present state of knowledge it may be that the Xestcheap goes back to the ninth century and the

h()yc chap iii Roman Lond()n Crimes 42 tig 7 FLP 21 I deserillili

JIal illd~(ldi to Roman London (2nd cein ()S 1983) boyc see gaz and map Cin of I()nd()n 112-0 (rimes 42 tig 7

- Biddle and Hill art cit n 22 aboye Ibid 84 and n iLl 21 R E 1 Xheeler London and tbl Saxon (1935)

98-113 cf 91 7 For what follos Bk 111-12 172-7

Sec RK esp 171-2 177 and n The idcntiiicati()n of one of the Old Frida Strect ith Old Change i far from ceruin (sec gazJ The Coney arket was Cldcnrl linked to the Poultry arkct nearl) and not as has been thought the kings marker hat follows owes much laquo) the chice of Derek keene

See D keene and larding lind ibl rlfe1opmellt 0 Londoll beor til(

emit Fire (forthcoming) BK 171 2

33

CHRISTOPHER BROOKE

Eastcheap to a later epoch perhaps not earlier than the late tenth century

In the rest of the city especially in the north-east and the centre north of Lothbun no such grid patterns can be seen and there are other grounds for believing these the least inhabited areas of the walled town in earh times It rna well

be that the central part was marsh as was the [)or lying to the north immediateh outside the wall and that this explains why so long a stretch of wall was content to hae no more than a postern gate until the fifteenth centun It may even be that Corn hill means the hill where corn grows in which case it would present a dramatic witness of the empty condition of the north-eastern area in earh times

In the cluster of streets round the Xestcheap the oldest stratum of names are the i(~~a names Staining Lane and Basinghall Street here once so it seems stood large enclosures or i(~aJ perhaps representing the cit holdings of the lords or folk of Staines and Basing ddle Street here lived or walked the thcling the Saxon prince and the msterious ldermanbun site of the ldermans fortified hll~ The Alderman is p~rhaps more likeh to have been an

radorlJl(]ll lord of a shire or of Iercia than head man of a ard or alderman in the later (that is elnenth-century) sense and there may be some link betcen him and a St Albans tradition not Yen secureh founded which claimed that the Iercian King Offa built St Alban Xood Street not ery far away near his royal palacelS This ma prmide a hint to one

of the substantial unansered questions of early London topography here dwelt the king before the royal palace mc)ed to estminster It is in am event clear enough that

the complex of streets around the great estcheap and the cathedral formed the most substantial part of earh London

Between the Eastcheap and the rier ran the roads which linked it to the cluai and the peat bridge here the Roman and early Saxon bridge 11 is still contrmmiddotersial(l hat seems

reasonably assured is that the early bridge or bridges ere of wood In the I 170S a pious cin priest Peter of Colechurch started the movement which raised funds for the stone bridge completed about 12deg9 which-with many repairs and alterations-dominated the citys profile for seen censhyshytunes

The Wards the City Boundary and the Parish Boundaries

Perhaps the most mysterious elements in the early toposhygraplw of the city are the boundaries of the wards Of the three great networks which define the citys shape and are

Im the 1 (lor BI- 160 for COrr1hilL F q I XI) t Jqq faours this

inrcrpreLltJ(J1 Lut others seem possible such a the hill Imiddothere corn was sold

()ne the lc there iLood eidcncc of mall tields used 1m lgriculturc ithin the

all (If large cities n the C(J1tlncnr In rhe carh iddlc ges 10 Ilull(Julh In tllimdllt di Studio del ( i 11) 10 di Jilldi wlltlto Iltdif)tfj 2 I (S~l()1ctr) ll)- ~

r 99 atX2 Sec gcl Bl-- I q 11 SllllIltrh earhmiddot mal well he Lor Ihufl the 111 lit

Iorhclmiddot fdk gI Ill-- I q) Then Cre t() ddlc Street but onh that now

called atlll Street commemorates the thell1g Hl-- I I I and n bull with reference to httle ParI (Ia middotIbJlltlllJl S -lblilli

flgt 20 1 The reltI)1 heleCn I(ic-rmanLufl md the rol idace hI hlln carefulh imeqilated md rhn (Ille-nce deplmCd in an unpllhlhed paper T)m D()n lhlch hl middotu klndh hllln me ummarIed in T D III well Sch(t1eld Saxon 1( JIHi( Ill in I LhLlfl1 (cdlt 1~2()-SdY)n I (i iii (JlltitO

f(~lId (19H-+) ZXIll 11 c( K

for the nloQ recent dhCll~~i()1 perhaps ~h()ing the ay t()t --njuti()l nf the

problem see C lilne I1 nullillia I It)R2) 2~1 6 for the earlier IlteLltUre Ill--

109 10 and 10) n esp IBH In L J Ilollacnder and l--ellawamiddot (cds)

Ildi- ill I gtMkll ili-Ion preJfled 10 P E 1om- (t)() 1) G Dalson and R

34

our chief documents for its early history the map of the wards is the most difficult to comprehend The earliest detailed map that of c 1676 seems to reflect a pattern going back far into the fiddle Ages 3S Precision is difficult and progress can onh be made as the detailed study of late medieval evidence progresses meanwhile although the later medieval names for thc most part are no older than the fourteenth centun eidence from the earliest list of vards of

c 1127 and from the topographical indications of such docushyments as the list of purprestures of 1245 strongly suggest continuity at least back to the early twelfth century39 By I 127

the wards were already the smallest units of local governshyment headed by aldermen and if the aldermans original function was to be the chief man of a ward then the wards go back into the eleventh century40 Very broadl one can say that wards are of two kinds the smaller wards holly within the walls and the larger wards vhich lap Oer the wall One function of the latter was Cidently to police the vall itself and it may be that the grew up within the gates before the frontier of extra-mural London was defined it may be that the rooms over the gates themsehcs proved focuses for meetings and administration It is noticeable that with two exceptions all the extra-mural yards hae bridgeheads within the walls and are relativeh very large Characteristic are the wards nmv called ildersgate Cripplegate and Bishopsgate which hae a space of modest but normal dimensions within their gates then march out on a broad front along either side of the road emerging from their gates to the frontiers of the cit Een the exceptions seem to support the rule For the ard outsidc Aldgate the Portsoken is the best documented of all the Iuds and represents the area of extra-mural jurisdiction enjoed b the Cnibtetwld in the elnenth censhytury-and bmiddot a tradition of respectable antiquity from the reign of Edgar~l The other extra-mural ward Faringdon ithout was originall no exception at all for it was only divided from Faringdon ithin in the late fourteenth censhytun Faringdon ithin is of a perplexing physiognomy mostly lying round the Shambles and within the western wall een after the division Faringdon Without comprises the largest ard of all the whole space west and north-west of the wall within the cin boundaries The frontier here between Xestminstcr and the Cit seems to hae been settled by 1000 though perhaps not long before that date42 and here again we ma ell suppose that Faringdon ard was first defined in the tenth centun and later enlarged to its almost imperial size

For the rest the ward boundaries have only revealed their secrets so far by comparison and contrast with those of the parishes Before 12) 0 London held what seems to have been

erritield in iondoll Ircb I pts j-q (19(ll) 72) t q 17 156-60 t86-7 224

0-2 fiP 12281

Hl-- 10) n I IC C Home Old LOlldoll Hrir~e (191) Sec Bl-- d2 I qq ee Il leaan Tbe Aldermen U lil City 0 TJitidriIJ Z

ob (1)08 13) H Th()I1lI inrroduction to Cal Pcgt[ 1-11-1 (19-+) xxx-xli

for lIst oft112 ce I C DlIis in LHa)JprfJenled tr F J TrIII cd G

Little and r1 POcke (1921) 45-j9 (text 11--9) corrections in BK 163 n the

purprcqurcs arc in L)re UN IjG-I3 cf Bl-- 16 et -qq Since aldermen seem to be recorded from the mid I I th cent on (BK I j j n

lin Hrihtmxr of CrllTchllrchi ltlwugh the word in this me I lirq dcliniteh

ued in I I t 1 (Bellll IIde II I 1 I) ()n the CllihJJd Ill-- l ~ tor the argument that the fOrr11ltl(Jn of the

IaHis came later ie lfter I reign Hl-- IG8 But it could he COl1llCtllrcd that

the formation of I he lorh)ken llnkr the Ctlihff~~ild in Edgars ttTlle was the hrt tel towards the formati()n ilt lank Un the Cnihtf(gild as a general phen)menon

see now Bullough InltliII (n aDme) 2 I (Spoleto 197-+) ()X 9

Bl-- 1() citing IBH In LfR 19 (19-+81 1( 17

THE CENTRAL MIDDLE AGES 800-1270

the record in X7estern Christendom in having well over a

hundred parishes and ninety-nine or so within the walls This

preposterous number is a very eloquent piece of evidence for the nature of city life and settlement between the tenth and

twelfth centuries when most were probably founded and a stern and salutary reminder that the urban historian of this

period must study the history of the Church above all must study the ways of God as well as Mammon 43

It immediately catches the eye that the boundaries of wards

and parishes rarely march together There were roughly four times as many parishes as wards but in no case do a group of

parishes exactly fill a ward Down to 1907 Bassishaw ward and the parish of St Michael Bassishaw were virtually identshyical in area and it is probable that in the twelfth century the

Portsoken on the east side of the city and the parish of St Botolph without lldgate were of the same extent 44 These

apart the detailed pattern is surprisingly different There is one broad similarity in the north and east and outside the

wall lie the large parishes as do the larger wards around the markets and especially the Westcheap and to the east and

south-east of St Pauls cluster the smaller wards and parishes In the late eleventh and twelfth centuries the map of England

was divided up into archdeaconries and (probably about the same time) rural deaneries vith a certain number of excepshy

tions it was normal for the archdeacons to set their frontiers along the boundaries of shires the deans more approximshyately by hundreds 45 One might expect to find wards hunting

parishes or parishes wards in the city of London That they did not do so has suggested to some scholars that the two

networks grew up together and it seems abundantly clear

that the parishes like the wards originally reflected in shape and size the pattern and substance of settlement in London in this period 46

The parish map is the more rnealing of the two It is not too much to say that the pattern of churches is the chief indication we have of the settlement of the cin in these

centuries The chief difficulty is to determine the age of individual churches the earliest document in the nature of the case rarely shows us the foundation of a church Incidshy

ental mentions show that the pattern was irtually complete

by 1200 a few first occur in the early or mid-thirteenth century Rare is the case however of St Nicholas Aeon where a secular pit of the early eleventh centun beneath the

church assures that the first documentary evidence of 1084

cannot be more than half a century after its foundation

and the mid-eleventh century saw the first flowering of the cult of St Nicholas 4- Rarer still is St ugustines of whose

parish we hae the boundaries defined in a deed of the midshy

41 See C Brooke The [cdieal Town as an Ecclesiastical Centre In M yr Barle (ed) E1Iropean TOllns Their ~~lr(haeol0f) and Ear) Hijorr (1977) 459-74 [ilan may hae alread run London close but the hiswn of the differentiation of urban parishes in tal- IS cn obscurc (lowe this to an unpublished lecture by D Bullough)

44 On Bassisha see BK 114-1 The relation between ward parish and propcrty boundaries is proisionalh laid out in Barron 16 18 figs I 2 Un St Botolph Idgate see BK 145-( rcccnt work 1) D Kccne and his collcagues suggcsts that its irtual identitymiddot ith the Portsoken (in this sense) sunind into the 15th cent

4 For archdeaconries see ( L Brookc in D Greenwa 11 III (eds) Tradition and Chanyl Lra)s ill Honoflr 0 1[lIroril ChiJIlIlII (19H I) I 19 on deaneries [ore and c L Brooke (iJtrl Foliol IIlId iis LII Ifrr (19( I) 219 and n 2

4( Scc csp BK ](8 4 BI( IlH 9 on the cult of St icholas and all problems of church dedication

wc arc indcbtcd to thc hclp of [r P Hodges 4K On St ugustincs see BK 12- 1 (esp 132 n 2 For the churchcs hich

have been excavated see gaz St Iban ood St St Brides Fleet St St [an Aldermanbun St [ichael Bassisha St icholas eon St icholas Shambles St

twelfth century The trowel has much to tell us of eleven of the churches but not more 4H In the current state of knowshy

ledge however it is reasonable to suppose that the large majority of the parish churches were founded between the tenth and twelfth centuries and the proliferation of tiny parishes so characteristic of some of the larger English towns of this period-though hardly to be paralleled on the contishy

nent-reflects the religious sentiment of the eleventh censhytun4()

Only a handful can be proed older Oldest of all is the

cathedral which has stood on its present site and recorded the cult of the Apostle and Roman martyr in whose honour it was founded by the Italian ~Iellitus since the earh seventh century50 Attached to St Pauls in the~liddle ges vas a

church of St Gregory~lellituss master and so it may be a reasonable conjecture that the early cathedral had like its sisters at Canterbury and York a porticus altar dedicated to

Gregory and that from this stemmed Gregorys parish The

northern frontier of this parish marches ith St Faiths equally intimate vith St Pauls for by the thirteenth century

and perhaps earlier the parish church as in the cathedral

crypt But the dedication at least can hardly be older than the ninth century when the relics of the saint first settled in Conques and is probably of the elnenth when the cult was at

its height The dedication to Mellituss friend Augustine vhose church lies immediately to the east may be older than the parish but no dedications to Augustine are recorded before 800 and it may vell be much later 52

After St Pauls the first clear statement of Londons

history is prmided by the churches without the walls though

their parishes were not closely tied to the histon of the city for they do not respect the boundaries of the city or its ards

Yet they are the best key we possess to the early history of the suburbs est of the cin ran and run two major highways of

great antiquin To the north crossing the rier Holborn ran the road of that name and by it lies the church of St ndrev recorded already in a charter of the mid-tenth century and perhaps much older 53 It is likely that Holborn is the oldest of

the cins suburbs The southerh road led across the estuary of the Holborn the neet along Fleet Street and the broad

road which lay by the Thames shore or strand the Strand lot far from Fleet Street lies St Brides built in an ancient

cemetery ultimately of Roman origin but the church itself may not be older than the tenth or eleventh century and the

dedication is very probably Irish-lorse-reAecting Viking settlement when the Irish Vikings were Christian probably in the eleenth century Further on in the midst of the Strand stood St Clement of the Danes also a monument of the

Pancras St Sithun London Stonc (BK 90 I I tl qq and ref esp to Grimes 182-209 supplemcntcd by rcccnt ork cg on St icholas Shambles and St Botolph Bililngsgatc 1) [uscum of Lond()n Dept ot lrban rchacologmiddot) For

reccnt ork on St [artin-in-the-Fields sce abmc p 28 Thcre arc in addition those churchcs esp St Ian Ie Bow ith substantial mcdinal remains

BK chap 6 cf C 1 Brookc in IIIdin ill Chllrth Hislor) ( (1970) j 9-8 l Leison Ltz~alld Illld IH COlllillml illllit E~~lillJ CmlllT) (1946) 26 I and rcts For the altars at Canterbury and York ibid 264 I It is most unlikel that

thc boundan of St GregorYs parish coincided with the ancicnt boundaries of St Pauls precInct

On St Faith see gaz r Fe capella Sancte Fidis in Cript (124) The usc of capella in this context suggcsts that thc parish as in the process of formation under the wing of St Gregonmiddots On the saint and Conclues 1shySumption 1i1~rilllI~r (19) 113]3 P1 Gcan ]lIrla ((Ia (19H) 0 ( 1()9 74 On church dedications before 800 LCison op Clt 21) (

See gaz the charter ()f~919 is not sccureh dated nor certainl authentic but it is proided either in an original or a COpY not much later than 99 and is It

orst good cmiddotidence that St ndrcws goes back at least to the mid- loth centurY (see SaCr 0 (70 for rcferences de G Birch (cd) (drllllarilfllJ laYOlli(IIIIJ (1881-93) Iii 0 1048)

3 5

CHRISTOPHER BROOKE

Christian Viking era i4 They conform with the evidence of

the city boundary that the tenth-elnenth century was the age vhen this suburb was formed and they add more than a hint that the Vikings played a leading part in settling it A Viking element determined to preserve its identin seems also reshyflected in the six churches dedicated to St Olaf in London and Southwark for Olaf owed his doubtful title to be a martyr to death in battle against an army supported by the AngloshyDanish King Cnut in 1030 his cult flourished in England in only a few places nowhere more than in London ss

St Brides St Clements and St Indrews Holborn are the only early churches known among the extra-mural parishes St Sepulchres is of the age of the crusades and probably of the early twelfth century St Bartholomews based on a

founda tion of 1 I 23 and the four St Botophs are all probabh of the twelfth centun( I t was still argued in the mid-twelfth century that parts of the parish of St Botolph without ldgatc owed parochial allegiance to St Peter in the Bailey (ad Iillma) and this is one of several indications- the presence of sheep and vineyards arc others -that the Portsoken had a sparse population at this time

(ith en few exceptions the parish boundaries march with the line of the wall In the north St Stephen Coleman Street apparentlv enjoHd jurisdiction over an area of marsh with which it had no direct wad link save by a postern gate and perhaps a track-way5- In the west St lartin Ludgate enjcwed a rectangle on either side of its gate which carried its parish to the Fleet For the rest only minor variants break the pattern irhin lay tim parishes of an aCrage extent of no more than three and a half acres without relativeh larger

parishes running fwm the wall to the city boundan beyond that larger parishes still like St Pancras through which the traveller could pass to the boundary of Hendon and Hendon carried him ro the edge of liddlcsexih Yet nen St Pancras and Hendon large parishes though rhey ere were still relatiely compact compared with the huge parishes of the north-west of England

ithin the walls the tin parishes at first gie the impresshysion of bnildering and irrational complexity But certain features stand out First of all the tendenc for the parishes gathered round the cheaps to be smaller those in the north and east to be larger a pattern we have alread seen shown also by the ards In later towns such as Salisbury the boundaries show a measure of regularit often following the lines of streers5~ In London within the walls it is rare for a

parish bounuan to run straight for any length save in the artificial circumstances of the waterfront where the encroachshyment on the Thames elongated the rierside parishes For the rest no planner designed this extraorclinan jigsa punle Doubtless many of the irregularities show us the outlines of property boundaries long since lost and a number of these are clearly later than 1200 611 But in the main we must be

The Strand was hrst ) namcd in sUfiin) documcnts in the 12th century (gaz) On St Bride see BK 19 p Un St Clement sec F Cinthio in SarlT)(k liT

RIJ If(ltaelales Raynar Bolllqlist oblala rchaeologia Lundensia 3 (1968) 103 ( Id in Acta r isiJ)IIIJia 3 (1969) rCl 9 correcting BK ql n

HK 141 Bruce Dickins in S~a-Bo)k ojtlie r ikiR Soc 12 (1937-4) 3-80 e Sce the discussion in BK q rl esp q6 n 2 tor the ul1ccrtainn ab()ut the

date of St Bmolph ldgate For hat folios BK q( HF Cart bull os 9(11

(eidcnth referring to East Smlthtield 964-9 - So the later cidence of parIsh buundaries suggests but the histof of Its

boundan eyidenth needs further inYcstigltion

Hampstead was apparently a chapeln of Hendon still in the I th cent (so V 19 cf C L Brooke Tillie the middotlrcJJaliriJt (19G8) Z I)

i See Hie(rTie TOllns -ltlas i r 19(9 cd an D L()bel Salisbun (K Rogers) 4 and map of parishes and warcb in the 18th centun complied Lw H Johngt

looking at the outlines of the tenements and messuages of

groups of neighbours who formed the early parishes Through almost every parish ran a road and in a majority of them a major artery of the city in a fair number the church sat by a crossroads with the parish lapping round all four corners Such were St ~Iichael in the Cornmarket ie St Iichael Ie Querne in Westcheap and St Leonard and St Andrew Hubbard in Eastcheap In such cases it may well be that the church succeeded an ancient cross such as we know to hae stood b St Iichael Cornmarket(j But in an case they enforce the essential point these parishes are formed hy gatherings of neighbours and in the case of St Augustines we are given in the foundation charter of I 148 which provided a pound a year for the building (or rebuilding) of the church what appear to be the names of the landholders of the parish The limits of this parish are the dvellings of Ifrcu of inc1sor 0icholas Panus and Hugh Ie Noreis(2

Recent studies of these tiny parishes hae suggested that there are two possible origins for them some may be proprietan churches perhaps priate chapels of rich men or the churches of sokes priate jurisdictions in the cin others neighhourhood churches built by a group of like-minded citizens like the merchants churches obsered on parts of the continent( The Yen elaborate excayations at St Marys

Tanner Street inchester reealed a stage when the church l11a only hae opened into a priate house hut this was apparently preceded and certainh followed by periods when 1 (4 1 I d h It a more open to lsltors n t 11S case-an per aps In man such -it may hae been at one rime a priate church at another a neighbourhood church It is likely that many such

cases occurred in London een more likely that we shall neer know the precise story oyer any length of time of any

single case But the elements can be clearly traced In the twelfth centun the canon la of the western

church howeyer modifIed blocal custom and tradition and compromise and tempered b respect for rights of propshyern-conquered most of the law and custom of the parishes and in the process froze their legal entities and rendered the redrawing of boundaries and the rnision of rights more formal and difficult [n far than thn had been hitherto 65

Difficult though not impossible for in the majority of Lnglish towns with multiple parishes substantial revision took place as the parishes grew fewer and larger in the late fiddle iges It is a measure of the constant prosperin of London and of the tenacity and continuity of its histon that only minor changes took place in the city within the walls The parish meanwhile as defined by canon law comprised an area of fixed limits at its centre lay a parish church with a monopoly of the right to haptize and bun the parishioners and to receiYe their tithes substantial rights too to their offerings which could not of their nature be so closely defined Behind this in the tenth and eleenth centuries lay a

Sec n 52 aboc ~t()- i 2J)7 8 cf cd T10tlt at ii _)_~2 suggesting 1 I 3th-centur~middot datt but

this may hae replaced an earber cross For an analogy 111 York and the general d()ctrine see Br()()ke in Studies ill Chllrch fiistor) 6 (1970) 78 following a suggestion by R B Pugh

TLlmlated BK 152 from St Pauls 04 fo ) I p i()hansen in Siudiol II (itn -lnjiingen des mmpltiiJItn StadtflJfsII1J ortrige

und lOfschungen cd T LlCr i (1958) 499 2 d Brooke an CIt (n GI abon) 77 tI sqq any of the pansh churches may hae originated as churches of okes but for the ditliculn of reconstructing the sokes which were often not coherent areas see BK 155-6 esp 16 n 2

See L Biddle -11111 j 2 (1971) 104 cI sqq esp fig 4 (10) phase J and discuj( In on 107

e Sec BroOKe art ciL ()S sqqand refs

THE C E T R A L 1 I DOL E AGE s 800 - 1 270

concept of a parish fully as intimate to the life of a comshy

munity but much more nebulous in legal definition First of all a parish church before I 100 was the orshipping centre of a community Xithin a town this community must have been

fairly well defined especially as the multitude of churches eidently depended mainly on the ofFerings of its flock for its foundation repair and the stipend of its priest So far it was

a spiritual entity and it is unlikely that early city churches then or later had anything like the monopoly of font and cemetery normal in country parishes A charter of Henry I

cited a custom b which the citizens of London could be buried where they would but it did not define who the citizens were nor does the charter explain hem burial disputes could none the less occurM ~Iany if not most of the

intra-mural churches had cemeteries already in the telfth

century and all may hae buried some parishioners within their walls-though such nidence as there is seems to

suggest that much use was made of the cemeteries of St Pauls and the conentual churches and burial in church was rare

till long after this period Thus a parish church in fact and sentiment was a spiritual home in which ~Iammon had ahays

been somewhat imohed It could be a status smbol too

hence no doubt the aggressie Viking patriotism of the churches of St Olaf and the readiness of many citizens to

build and maintain these highly expensive centres of local loyalty in a city not deficient in places of CHship Abcwe all the church was a piece of property It is a strange irony that in an age when spiritual alues were er~ highly regarded and

papal reformers particularly concerned to emphasize the spiritual nature of all rights in churches ownership of a

church could also be one of the most specitlc and tenacious

kinds of property known This helps to explain why a rich man should wish to hae his own church and the shifting

pattern of city life and settlement helps to explain hy the most tenacious rights could suddenly disappear or change their nature The account of lorwich in Domesda Book makes this particularly plain There were ecclesiastical proshy

prietan churches and a royal thegn held two and one sixth Holy Trinity as the property of twehe burgesses tlfteen

other churches were held by a group or groups of tonsshyfolk()- There is no reason to doubt that these ere churches

built and Oned by groups of neighbours In London hat tended to happen when laymens rights were forgotten was

that the priest as deemed the oner or came so to regard himself Thus a group of Londons priests gave themseh-es and their churches to Christ Church Canterbun in the eleventh centurY These included the church of blessed

~Iary [St ~Ian Ie Bow] with lands and houses and churches

pertaining to it which Living the priest gave when he became a monk in the church of Canterbun the Church hich

Godwine the clerk named Bac [gave] [St Dionis Backchurch] when he became a monk in the church of Canterbun The church of St Dunstan the Confessor [in the EastJ and also the other church of St lphege with the lands and houses

pertaining to the same which Andrew the clerk gave when he became a monk at Canterbun()K nother of Canterbuns

Ilr IP ljl () F()r lut f()ll() esp Br I iC n Bro()ke art cn Ilr I q

e qq DB ii 11( I pi F Barlo np LI~~i (IIr( I 1middot00 (19() 192

Hirtoric 101111 ltla ii (Hrl) ed an D Lobel -orich (J Campbell) z -1

Lnglish parish church in th period Barlo 18-208 J Blair (cd) IIutlf alld IClrirh (II()f (H)88

Tram h~~ I Frt Dodr Ii cd D C Douglas and G Greena1 (19Hi

)q-() from B rian article FLIJ11 8 (1)-10) --69 (at --8) There i an intriguing hint of Canterbun In the dedication ()f the laSt tmiddoto

benefactors was the alderman Brihtma=r of Gracechurch who seems to have built the grass that is thatched church of All

Saints (All Hallows) which has bequeathed its name to Gracechurch Street in the mid-eleventh century69

London and the Kingdom

slightly older contemporary of Brihtma=r King Edward the Confessor reoriented the shape of medieval London by

founding the palace and refounding the abbey of Westminshyster The contrast between the modest thatched church-and

its very numerous tiny box-like colleagues-and the enormshyous Romanesque basilicas of Peter and Paul was not comshy

plete until the early twelfth century when Edwards church

had been tlnished the new St Pauls begun by Bishop ~Iaurice (10856-1107) half-finished and the conquerors had

spread a mantle of vast and tiny churches about the kingshydom- II Edwards estminster was the tlrst large church of

north French or lorman type to be built in this country

earby lay the kings hall first of wood then from Xilliam Rufuss time of stone for much of the shell of Xestminster

Hall is of the late eleenth century een though the carpentry is fourteenth Doubtless the kings had always had a palace in

London But Xestminster gave them a more independent

centre which could become the core of a larger complex of public buildings the canny Jorman and Angnin kings used the abbeys domestic buildings as annexes to their palace

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries in what sense can we call estminster the political capital of England or of the

orman and ngnin empires In the modern use as a fixed

head-juarters of government an English or Angevin capital

was unthinkable In that age in western Christendom only Rome was such Paris came near to it and was perhaps the

largest of northern cities anyway by the thirteenth century but its role in the French kings affairs was enhanced by the small size of his domain Edward the Confessor rna have spent much time at estminster in his later years after the

coocjuest estminster became the normal place for royal and

ecclesiastical councils and the frequency with which the kings isited it as enhanced by their reluctance to visit the north of England and especially after Henry IIs accession by the comenience of London as a hinge between Britain and the continent In the I I 70S illiam FitzStephen could refer to it as regni nglorum sedes-J But the irony of the story is

that it as the reign of Richard I of all the ngeyin kings the least interested in England which witnessed the tlrst major

step towards a permanent seat of gOernment St Augustine had tlxed his see in Canterbury but the growing importance of estminster in the eleenth and twelfth centuries made

fairly frequent isits to the metropolis necessary for the archbishop as kings tlrst counsellor and the man who had

the tlrst oice in electing a new king From the time of St nselm the archbishops found it conYenient to lodge at Lambeth but it as not until the I 1905 that Lambeth became their permanent headquarters From the time of Archbishop

BI--- HI

e)n cstminstCf hhcmiddot and Edud the Confessor see Br Z9 fI sqq F Ihrl() idlldrd thp ((Iltmiddotrmiddot ~1970 esp 229 fI qq Killis IIorkJ i chap -1 On St Pauls Bro()ke In R latthes and 1 tkins (eds) Hitor) oIt Pauls CIIltdral (H))) chap I esp ( (z GFLo( 8 13r chap 12 On estminster I all and Palace see Kil~middotr Iorkr i chap I z

IIB iiI z

CHRISTOPHER BROOKE

Hubert Walter who combined the primacy ith the role of kings first minister Lambeth Palace has been the principal

-)

headguarters of the southern pnmate shy

The South Bank Southwark and Bermondsey

The main artery of London was the Thames and down to the heyda of Greenwich and Hampton Court it was the chief road for the stateh barges which carried the rich and great from house to house and palace to palace as well as for commerce by sea and river Almost all the bishops and abshybots and magnates of England wrote vTilliam FitzStephen possibly with prophetic exaggeration are as it were citizens and burgesses of the cin of London they have there their own splendid houses where theT dwell where the layout great sums hen they answer the kings summons to the city for royal councils the archbishops for ecclesiastical gathershyings or the call of their own affairs-l On the south bank

stood Southwark with Lambeth and other great houses to its west and a scatter of religious houses in and about it-the Cluniac priory of Bermondsey and the Augustinian priory of St Mary Overy now the Cathedral under whose wing grew up the hospital of St Thomas-4 Southwark was adminshyistratinh in Surrey but itally if ambiguously tied to the Cit until it became the ward of Bridge Without in the sixteenth cenrurv-J

Religious Houses The City Holborn and Clerkenwell

Most of the religious houses of London stood like the great churches of Cologne in an arc round the walled city-6 In Cologne this reflected the circumstances of earlier centuries especially perhaps the ninth in London it was caused by the shape of the city in the twelfth century Xithin the walls space could only be found for one substantial house the fugustinian priory of Holy Trinity which owed its origin to

the powerful patronage of a gueen ~fatilda the English wife of Henry I who seems deliberately to hae been or been used as a symbol of traditional regality to foster the loyalty of a city still largely English in speech and sentiment She also founded the first major leper hospital St Giles in the Fields Holborn without the city and her successor StephenS Matilda founded St Katharines by the Tower one of the two gaC her name to the Queenhithe Both were invohed in the spiritual and temporal life of the city In addition to Hoh Trinity tradition asserts that on the site of the Elsmg Spital a fourteenth-century hospital within the wall had once stood a tiny coment of nuns-s Howeer that may be the tvelfthshycentury

nunneries which survied all lay well outside the

wall at Clerkenwell Haliwell and Stratford-atte-Bow They BK 17-8 364 hased on Brooke in Report 0 the Fnilidc o( [miNt altl(f

llIrar)or 19-2 (1973gt I I 2J See also D Cardiner Th liun oj lwbd Pal(f 1lt)0) C R Cheney -lIbat WtlltfT (I y(-) esp chap

IIB iiI 8 - ilK 12 14 Kn()middotks nei Hadc(ck 392-1 Xmiddot PlgC (cd) I CI-I Londl I

480 4 II I laldcn (cd- 1(1l IIun ii 10- 12 D J johnson SJIIJIIrK ltlilt rh Cit) (19()middot On Cologne see nup rqlf()[iuced in D lullough paper In Spo]eto

Sdtim (n 11 ahoye) 21 Ii 10 and refs ihid 1K n 42 Brooke ill Studif in (1IIe) HiJtor) 6 (n 11 I

BK 299 100 4 21lH BK 3Hand rets For the tradition of a nunnery preceding Llsng Spital

Kn() les mti ILldc()ck 2KK 1-2 cite Stow and 111 I Pt 2 -0 there does not seem 10 hemiddotI1 Lmiddotrlicr eidence than 5to (i 29j F()r the other nunncries BK

p8-

were joined In the early thirteenth century by St Helens within Bishopsgate an exception to prove the rule for St Helens was founded in an existing parish church and its precinct never very large spread like Holy Trinity in an area probably (on other grounds) little occupied in the twelfth century These modest houses survived and even flourished as they attracted the daughters the dowries and the rents of rich citizens

But the prevailing impression of the twelfth-century foundations-faithfully reRecting the varied pattern of twelfth-century religion-is of variety of ideal and function The Strand was no doubt alreac1- the site of great mens houses though only those of some bishops and abbots can now be traced earlier than the palace of Henry Ills wifes uncle of Savoy but the oldest and most substantial was the house of the Knights Templar moved to the new Temple where their church still stands in the I 160s and I I 70S79 Here lay one of Henry IIs principal treasuries his first (so far as we know) in London and here the long drawn-out farce of Henrys pretence that he would be a crusader was consumshymated in I 185 The Patriarch of Jerusalem came on a fruitless mission in which he failed to win effective aid to threatened Jerusalem but performed the ceremony of consecration to her local representatives the church of the lew Temple and the similar church of the Knights Hospitallcrs in Clerkenshywel1 80 Between Clerkenwell and the Cit the chief witness of the union of religion and welfare the priory and hospital in Smithfield had been founded by St Bartholomew and Canon Rahere courtier turned canon regular in the I 120S As the canons became more monastic and the hospital more worldly-that is to say een more deeply imohed with the welfare of those who depended on a medieval hospital the young the old and the sick-the two institutions became partially severed hence the marked diision into twO preshycincts and the sUfi~al of the hospital when the priory was dissolvedS Each has bequeathed a major monument of the medieval aspect of Smithfield the priory the church of St Bartholomew the Great and the hospital-one of the finest collections of muniments in London

The Temple and St Bartholomews la within the city the hospital of St Giles the two houses in Clerkenwell and the coment of Haliwell without All were part of the complex of London It is characteristic of the concern of the friars when they settled in London in the thirteenth century to be part of the urban community-and perhaps too of the civic authorshyities to have the friars under their ees that all the orders four vere established within the city Of these the Greyfriars and Blackfriars came to he within the wall so too the Austin hiars who found a site a little to the est of St Helens by Broad Street in the 125 as H2 The Carmelites the Xhite Friar came to be settled in a fine site outside the walls immediatel east of the Temple s3 -

SeL lel HI-- 2l 1- H I 2 and refs also plates 44-6

ilK 24 Inti n 3332 and n 2 for the Temple as treasun R A Bron in 1udifJ f Sir H JfI1killf(fl (19 7) 49 esp 43 and n 9

Sec esp I--erling ellldhidl 11i([lltllI) 4 0 3 (1972) 117 4S [oorc BK

J2 X

bOH n 2( For the ustin rLus lTle Stow i 1_1-- F Rotb LI((IiciJ middot11111 Friars i (19M) 2U d qq

ltthe account in Slaquol (li 46) is at 111 correct II ml be thai Ldward ls LUll

of the later site of the church followed the lirt t()un(hti()n of the cornent b ahout a genccati()n so Ihat it is poibk Ihat the sHe was first elsewhere But rhe onll n-idence c han tound suggct that thc Carmelites already had interLr n their permancnt ite h 1279 (Ca Pat Jr2- l 299-00) For some of thl c()ntusion ahout the date and carll history of the L()ndon Xhilc Friar sec I--m)des and Hadcock 23 To thec c()uld be added the Crutched FriHgt ee ga7

THE CE~TRAL fIDDLE AGES 800-1270

The Government of London 1n the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

One of the strangest aspects of Londons topography has alwas been its relation to the government of the urban complex The old city still retains its medieval territory and its medieal constitution round it in recent centuries has lapped Greater London beside it respectful and jealous estminster and Whitehall Alreach in the late fiddle Ages

the strength of the purse and the hospitality of the Guildhall kept the city powerful The king sometimes found it necesshysary or expedient to bludgeon the city but in the long run the need for ready money and financial support kept him at peace with it The city feared often for its privileges and sometimes lost them hut direct confrontations suctl as that of 1215 were not frequent London lay on the frontiers of many jurisdicshytions and most of these suryied Spiritually it lay where the sees of London (inchester and Canterbury joined and the splendid eleyenth century cnpt of St ~lary Ie Bow the church which was and is the home of the Court of -rches is a reminder that this is Canterbury not London ground Last of the Tower lay the archdeaconry of Essex the City and Islington were in the archdeaconry of London84 (estminshyster in principle in the archdeaconn of Iiddlesex-but (wer the abbey and St fargarets neither archdeacon nor bishop held any sway The frontiers of the see of London represented the old kingdom of Essex and were the most ancient of Londons boundaries K)

The officials who interpreted the kings will in these regions were the sheriffs (and in the first half of the twelfth century the justices) of London and liddlesex Essex Kent and SurreyH( In the twelfth centun these officials sometimes had to play second fiddle to their earls and always to contend with rials for power in the castellans of the Tower and of the castles of Banard and Iontfichet In Stephens reign someshything like a monopol of official power was concentrated into the hands of Geoffrey de ~fandeille for a space w hen he as earl of Essex and sheriff and justice of fiddlesex Essex and Hertfordshire and Cen so late as 1215 it was of considerable significance that the leader of the barons in rebellion against John was the lord of Baynards castle hereditary Banneret of London - But the thermometer and eathercock of royal and ciyic control Oer the citys destinies at least down to the Commune of Richard ls reign and the appearance of the first man)f was the shrievalty of London and ~Iiddlesex a single office from the late 11 20S and perhaps from long before 8B

Sometimes a baron sometimes a leading royal official often a citizen of London most often some combination of two or three of these the sheriff rook a meandering course between representing the king and the city Since it was his function to see that cash flowed steadily into the royal coffers and that the affairs of London were smoothly conducted it was essential for him to hae the favour both of the court and the Cin In 1 129 30 the citizens tried to purchase the right to

q So alreacl the earliet known complete Jist oi the parishe In the arch deaconf 1 F() ep 2( for Islington) oi IZq On the eempt1on i estmimter sec D hnowlcs f)ollHid RllillJ I (19O I ltI qq Barbara fLuc 11JllIllllillr middotjMJf) (19) p 2 and n ()n Sr anlfct (jmiddotL02

Bh iC) I~ 19H

SlT Ill chap 8 esp 20 d eqq for the carl ee ep Gh 19( 19X 9 there as none In iddlesc sae brieth in the mldllth centull

Bh q 2 q 1( ior Ceoffrn de Ll11dnille rets 1r1 Gh 2 I

HI l)l ~ and see ior all problems connected Ith the goyernment oi Lond()[l in the 12th centufl Susan Re[lOlds Important paper The Rulers oi

London in the Twelfth Ccntuf Hislor) P (192)33 p also her The Farm

39

elect the sheriff-or sheriffs rather for a multiplicity was already the norm the experiment was a failure and its aftermath is made obscure by the doubt surrounding Henry ls famous charter of the carh 11 oSH9 From Henry IIs reign howCer the situation is tolerably clear The king was commonh beholden to the cin for financial aid especially in his middle years-when he sometimes rearded it for its help by allowing the sheriffs to be mJodeJ to render that is no less than the full farm no more than the basic royal dues and the sheriffs who often served for long periods of time were commonly city magnates or royal officials with a stake in the

cin Early in the reign of Richard I London follOyed the

example set not long before by Rouen the other chief capital of Richards empire and actjuired a mamiddotor The sheriffs were still responsible for the farm and doubtless still officialh responsible for relations Iith king and court But the mayor came quickly to be effectiye leader of the ciic communin The transition was eased by a remarkable circumstance from the opening years of Richards reign the sheriffs held office (with rare exceptions down to the 1220S) for one year only and were alwas two in number the first ma~or Henry FitzAylwin was mayor for life from about 1191 to his death in 1212 911 EYen though no mayor held office for life thereshyafter and terms were often tluite short the initiatie and authorin of the man)f had been established B now the

citizens were coming to be a defined body with definite rights led by an oligarchy mainly of rich merchants whose names greet us in the roll call of the sheriffs in the twelfth century they had already claimed to be called barons and in the I 1905 and the earh thirteenth century the mayor had status in certain respects on a footing with the leading barons Henn himself as one of the collectors of Richard 1s ransom in I 193 and his successor in 121) was one of the twenty-fiC barons appointed to ensure that the king kept the terms of

Iagna Cana lt)1

The London of William FitzStephen

Of London in the latter part of this period we hae two contemporary descriptions that deliberateh laid out in flowshying rhetoric by (illiam FitzStephen Thomas Beckets clerk and biographer in the 1170S and that which may be culled from the pages of the London Ene of 124492 They gie a remarkabh different picture illiam was a dCoted Lonshydoner writing about the most celebrated son the city proshyduced in that century inspired by a hazy knowlege of classical models and the flights of fancy of Geoffrey of lonmouth he produces a picture inflated with rhetoric and mythology a rhapsody in which the good fortune of London as only marred b immoderate drinking and frequent fires The record of hat the royal justices found when they came to sit in judgement on the city in 1244 is an interesting commentan

and Taation of I()ndon I I I 12 I ( Gllildhall Stlldi in LrlIdoli HiJlor) I 0 4

(ITI) 211 2H

Brooke heIr and RClnolds I SOl o( middotjrhirirfr+ (IC)) 118 -8 But see ( 1l()1]rCf in J IJ frdim fiielrr) ( ( 1lt)8Ci Xjc(

Fr the commune and carll mill oraln imd the sheflffs oi the period Susan

ReI n()ltl 111Jf)r) I -+3 -+8-10 II Hr 21 H 2 i11d chap 9 esp for the c gt1ltllcntill hackground and Roucn 2() tI e(N 2 3 For lIenf FitzAdwin lOr 2j H -I (

-ce nc~t note Lrrr l2N

_shy

CHHISTOPHER BROOKE

on this doctrine Most of their record is a catalogue of murders homicides and other misdemeanours and in a

substantial appendix added in 1246 they give a fascinating list of purprestures infringements of the kings highway from which we can get some ision of t11C other plagues the stench of the butchers stalls the failure of sanitation the blocking of lanes and waterways as well as the extension of hne houses into and over the tiny streets of an eer more

crowded city But if the Ene does something to dispel the golden haze set about fitzStephens description it is clearh

prejudiced in another a for it must of its nature be a catalogue of the crimes and follies of mankind (hen all is

said and done evidence and impression alike conhrm the substantial accurac and precision of most of FitzStephens

description and his account of the southern segment of the wall along the ricer hank long dismissed as fiction - has recently been dramatically conhrmed by the spade

Amid the noble cities of the world the city of London throne of the English kingdom is one which has spread its fame far and wide its wealth and merchantli5e to great distances raised its head

on high It is blessed b ~l holesome climate blessed to() in Christs religion in the strength of its fortiticati()1S in the nature of

its site the repute of its citizens the honour of its matrons

The bishops see is in the Cathedral of St Paul and there are for

Christian worship both in London and in the suburb thirteen greater conentual churches apart from lesser parish churches in number one hundred and tcentY-six

On the East stands the ro~ll ci tadel [the T()er] on the nst two well-fortified keeps ~ll1d the whole wa round the north of the city the wall tall and wide qrengthened with turrets at inrenals

links the seven gates of the city each double-arched Once London was alled and wered on the south side too but that great river

the Thames well stocked with tish with tidal flm and ebb has lapped agaimt the walls mer the ears and undermined and

destrOcd them Two miles to the est of the Cin with a populous suburb in beteen the fOal palace [of estminster] rises on the

bank a building of the greatest splendour with outwork and bastions Eyerywhere without their houses are the citizens garshy

dens side b side et spacious and splendid and set about with trees T() the north lie aLlble tields pasture land and lush leel

meadows with brooks f-lowinl amid them hich turn the wheels

of the atermills with a hapf sound Cl()~e by is the opening of a might forest ith well-timbered copses lairs of wild beasts stags

and does wild boars and bulls There are also in the northern

suburbs of London splendid wells and springs ith seet healing clear water HoI ell lHall ell] Clerkeflcll and St Clement s iell arc lspecialh fam()us and often isired and crods ()f schoolboys and students and young men of the cin take the air there on summer eenings good cin indeed if it should haye a

good lord

The men of the city win it honour their arms glory and it is

densely populated He claims for it a militia of 20000 horse

and 60000 foot in the ars of Stephens reign hgures no doubt neyer intended to be counted so literalh as the numbers of churches The inhabitants of other tons are called citizens of Lond()n barons

lext the schools then the qllarlierJ

bmcmiddot p 2 BK III 21 The het edition i IIlIIl Iii 2 I for IS alld tcxt BK xx 11 bullmel C()mmentH Ibid I 12 2 I Oil htSlcphCIl ee ep 1 C Chcnc~ in CJ(rl ) dJJd COlfnlllJtll iIi i liddlr lJfl j I I)rtIrnltd 1amp C flt ()Ifllll

(I(FC) -9 1( There I an excellent lnnotated trallLlllon b Ii L [lurier in L1 Stcnton 01111(11 LtddOli (edn of I)q) 2 il The t[lniat](Hl bclow is uualh Jl1 own but I owc a fL phral and much help to Butlers The next paragraph comc fwmlLl iii 2 4shy

ic no d()ubt in the Intfl and (~HlIckhirhc This paragLlph i from Til iii

I (

Those who ply each particular business or sell each kind of ware those who hire out their labour arc found each morning in their seCeral quarters each employed on their peculiar tasks There is

besides in London on the river bank a public kitchen among the wines bing sold in the wine-ships and wine-cellars 94 There daily may be found the dishes of the season roast baked fried boiled

Ash large and small coarser meat for the poor more tender fur the rich game fowls small birds However large the throng of knights and pilgrims pressing into the city at any hour of day or night or on their way (Jut they come not in without feeding nor go out unfed but go to the kitchen to refresh themselces each in their own wa

Outside one of the gates in the suburb is a field smooth in name and fact (Smithfield) EHry Friday except on a major festiCal there is a splendid horse-fair there much frel] uented

He goes on to describe both the horse-fair and the horse races at Smithtield a gloing description in remarkable contrast to

the account of the same area in the Foundation History of St Bartholomews which describes it-admittedh before the

foundation of the prionc and hospital-as waterlogged and mudch with the slightly higher ground equipped with gibbets and other penal instruments) You would think

nerthing as in flux as Heraclitus thought FitzStephen proceeds In another part is a separate stand for the peasant farmers stock and agricultural equipment pigs with

long flanks cows vith distended udders sheep and oxen mares ready to haul ploughs sleds and carts some with foal From eyen people which is under heayen merchants are glad to bring their goods in ships but we are not treated to any description of the Port of London onh to flowery yerses on

the remoter sources of this commerce lrabia Saba Babylon

Egpt China Gaul Norwa and Russia Allowing for an element of fantas the list fairly describes the luxury longshydistance trade which was one ital element 1I1 Londons

()()

commerce 105t of hat rema1I1S consists of a brief comparison of

London and Rome- FitzStephen following Geoffrey of

Ionmouth assumed the latter to be the younger of the two and a long account of the sports of the city Londons customs he would hae us belieCe were much like Romes annually appointed sheriffs like consuls its senatorial digshy

nity that is the body of aldermen and lesser magistracies sewers and conduits in its streets a structure of courts and

assemblies-presumabh referring to the large occasional general assembly in the Folk moot and the regular shire and hundred courts of -lusting and ardmoter

I do not think there is am cin in which there are more admirable customs in visiting churches honouring Gods ordinances celebshyrating festiyals giing alms receiing guests contirming beshy

trothals arranging marri~lges celebrating wedding feasts adorning banllucrs making cheerful parties as well as in seemly funerals and

the burial of the dead The onh plagues of London are the immoderate drinking of fools and the frequenc of tires

lext the sport from miracle plays to carnival mock warfare on the land and at Easter a water tournament on the rier jumping archenc wrestling and the like and hunting and

Hf e( - and ref 11l III - Sec Elf 21 xtI lor a dccript](Hl f the port ee thl rUlt(lIl of

Tlwt11I cf Penguin C1ale tLln 111 T I htt() III Cottfried YOIl StLlburg

ricall 1 ~(h 41 () lju()tcd Ilf 1 I X 9) 13K LI8 If Thc referencc to c()nuis i a curious anticipation of the practice of

lpp()inting tO hcrit-j annualh hich hegan in Richard I rugn about I j cars

after the riting of FitzStephens book The next passage i fullowed b that

ljuotecl on p R

at

THE CEJTRAL yIIDDLE AGES 800 1270

hawking98 hen the great marsh which laps up to the northern walls of the city is frozen over crowds of young men flock out to play on the ice-some skating others making great snowballs on which they sit and others more ambitious sports

Finally our guide is ready tC) return from the citys sports to its great men and women and to intrc)duce us to Thomas Becket and so we take leave of illiam FitzStephen but not before he has helped us in a remarkably CiCid and revealing way to see London as a living city to see it in flux to define its shape and meaning for a singularly enthusiastic Londoner of the twelfth century

The enthusiasm indeed is the final and most crucial piece of evidence in the description The student of renaissance florence can compare descriptions more sophisticated than FitzStephens with a living city still clearh renaling the pride of its late medieval citizens in replanning and beautifying it Similarly although twelfth and thirteenth-century descripshytions of cities on this scale are very rare the physical remains of places like San Gimignano and Todi in Tuscany and lmbria show us a like pride in their citizens in the period of this chapter In England a few of the planned towns of the period I 150-1 3oo-Salisbury is the most notable example and in Wales Conway-still reveal the care and thought and concentration of resources in the making of a town But there is no other literary description from the twelfth or thirteenth centuries comparable to FitzStephens99 If it is the best commentary on the map of London in the twelfth and

AfB iii 8e IZ the longest single passage on ice sports is on I I -I 2

See J K Hyde Illliletin of IiiI jolJfl Rylands Library 48 (I9(() 308 40 B- I - I 8 and refs

f)t antiqlliJ lgibllJ Liber ed T Stapleton (amden Soc (I 84() 8

thirteenth centuries likCvise the map is the only effective commentary on FitzStephen In it we see plotted the evidence of a quite extraordinary concentration of resources into the outward semblance of a community not by our standards very numerous and a town hampered by shortage of stone and natural building material This meant that many early churches were doubtless built of wood and some roofed with grass Yet stone was brought to rebuild the walls and gates to fortify the castles and especially the vhite Tower and the later outworks to build the Palace and Abbey of estminshyster the Temple and the convents in the city and the ring of religious houses to north and south together with numerous hospitals and parish churches and some citizens houses above all to rebuild St Pauls as a grandiose Romanesque cathedral with a Gothic spire and furnishings The major dedication of the old Work at St Pauls took place in 1240111(1

In the buildings of London which served the needs of defence religion and prestige king bishops nobles and citizens shared and the result was a ariegated urban comshyplex with palaces and great churches reflecting the stake in greater London of many elements of the English ruling classes and the parish churches of the city reflecting the local pieties of innumerable lords of sokes and groups of neighshybours This physical aspect so far as we can reconstruct it is the major evidence for Londons history in these centuries from about [270 its record becomes much more richly documented and the problem of fitting together the literary and the topographical evidence takes on a new complexion

cote Interesting recent discussions relevant to this chapter include T TattonshyBrown The topographl of Anglo-Saxon London Antiqllity 60 (1986) 21-30 J Haslam Parishes Churches Wanb and Gates in Eastern London in J Blair (ed) fiIiJers and Parish Chllrclies (1988) 3 e43

II~