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
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 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.
CHAPTER XII
London from Mediæval to Modern Times
MEDIÆVAL London was almost entirely within the walls; but outside the walls, to the west, there was a connecting line of mansions on the river front leading to the village of Charing and on to Westminster, which is almost of equal antiquity with London itself. When the body of Queen Eleanor arrived at its last stage the funeral procession stopped a fair way from Westminster Abbey. One might have expected that the body would have remained under the shadow of its last resting-place, and we are, therefore, led to inquire why the village of Charing was chosen. The only answer to the question that can be given is, that here, on the site of Northumberland House, now occupied by Northumberland Avenue, there then stood a Hospital and Chapel of St. Mary, belonging to the Priory of Rouncevall (Roncesvalles), or De Rosida Valle, in the diocese of Pampelon, in Navarre. At the death of Eleanor this house was a comparatively recent establishment, having been founded by William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, in the reign of Henry III., but it probably afforded sufficient accommodation for the funeral procession for one night. The house was suppressed as an alien priory in the reign of Henry V., but restored in that of Edward IV. for a fraternity. In the Year Books of Henry VII. the master, wardens, brethren and sisters of Rouncevall are mentioned, and these continued until the general suppression.
The Cross, which gives its name to the place, was erected in the years 1291-1294, and is supposed to have been the handsomest of the series. As good a copy of the original as our imperfect information allows is to be seen within the railings of the South-Eastern Railway terminus. Westminster is of unknown antiquity, and was long known, from its wild growth of underwood, as Thorney, before the Abbey and the Palace arose to give the place a name which marked its position in relation to London and St. Paul’s. There is but little authoritative history before Edward the Confessor and the consecration of the Abbey Church in 1065, but the history since that time is so considerable, and of so important a character, that it is impossible to do more than refer in these few words to what is universally acknowledged by all Englishmen to be the most hallowed building in the country.
On the opposite shore of the Thames is Lambeth, where is situated the Manor House of the Archbishops of Canterbury (now called Lambeth Palace). The site was originally given to the See of Rochester by the Countess Goda, sister of Edward the Confessor, and wife of Eustace, Count of Boulogne, but in the year 1197 the Bishop of Rochester made an exchange with the Archbishop of Canterbury of this place for other property, and Lambeth has ever since been the London residence of the Archbishops. From here we pass over Lambeth Marsh to Southwark, a place whose history has been intimately associated with that of the City of London, and is now an integral part of the county.
The chief glory of the borough is the grand church of the Augustinian Priory of St. Mary Overy, dating from the beginning of the twelfth century, and now known as St. Saviour’s.
Southwark has been from the earliest times the chief thoroughfare to and from London and the southern
counties and towns, and the cities of the Continent. From this cause it was for centuries the quarter for famous old inns, beginning in order of importance with the Bear at the Bridge Foot, the Tabard of Chaucer, and following on with the King’s Head, the White Hart, and the George—a portion of the latter hostelry only remaining to the present day.
Southwark was also notorious for its prisons—the King’s Bench, the Marshalsea, the White Lion, the Borough Compter and the Clink. The last-named was on the Bankside, so intimately associated from the earliest times with the rough sports of the Londoners, and in Elizabeth’s reign the chief home of the dramatic displays of that great period. The “Bank” was then a long straggling street, extending from the manor of Paris Garden on the west to the liberty of the Clink on the east. Near Paris Garden was the Falcon Inn, which was once supposed to have been the resort of Shakespeare. This apparently is an error, for at the time of the great dramatist’s death there appears to have been no inns on the Bankside. Little or nothing actually exists now that was there in the sixteenth century, but the contour of the street and nearly every name have lasted in their integrity, and probably will last for many a long year more.
Although during the reigns of the Tudor sovereigns the Renascence became triumphant, the men and women of London still continued to live in a town which retained its mediæval characteristics.
Two striking scenes in the history of London during the reign of Mary I. may be alluded to here.
When the Queen made known her intention of marrying Philip of Spain, the discontent of the nation found vent in the rising of Sir Thomas Wyat, and the city had to prepare itself against attack. Wyat took possession of Southwark, and expected to have been admitted into London, but finding the gate of the Bridge closed against him and the drawbridge cut down he marched to Kingston. Having restored the bridge there, which had been destroyed, he proceeded towards London. In consequence of the break down of some of his guns he imprudently halted at Turnham Green. Had he not done this he might have obtained possession of the city. He planted his ordnance on Hay Hill, and then marched by St. James’s Palace and Charing Cross. Here he was attacked by Sir John Gage with a thousand men, but he repulsed them, and reached Ludgate without further opposition. He was disappointed at the resistance which was made, and after musing a while “upon a stall over against the Bell Savadge gate,” he turned back. His retreat was cut off, and he surrendered to Sir Maurice Berkeley.
To picture another striking scene, we must move from the west side of London to the north. Outside Cripplegate was built a barbican or watch-tower, as an outwork for observance, and the little village, with its Fore Street, which grew up outside the walls, was sheltered behind it. The care of this important position was naturally given to trustworthy persons. Edward III. appointed Robert Ufford, Earl of Suffolk, Keeper of the Barbican, and from him it descended, in course of time, to Catherine, daughter of William Lord Willoughby de Eresby, who married, firstly, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; and secondly, Richard Bertie. Bertie and his wife were Protestants, and in Queen Mary’s reign their lives were in such danger that they were forced to arrange in secrecy for their flight.
Between four and five o’clock in the morning of 1st January 1554-1555 the Duchess began her adventurous journey in a thick fog. She could place no confidence in the bulk of her dependants, and there was great difficulty in arranging for company and baggage. As she was leaving, one Atkinson, a herald, issued from the house bearing a torch in his hand, and evidently bent on discovering the cause of the unusual bustle at this early hour. Fearing to be discovered as she stood up under a gateway, she moved on quietly and left her baggage at the gatehouse. Finding that the herald still followed, she bade her servants to hasten onwards to Lion Key, where she proposed to embark. Taking with her only two servants and her child, “she stept into Garter House, hard by.”[384] She dared not pass into the city through Cripplegate but walked on to Moorgate. Thence she proceeded across the town to the port of embarkation. Eventually she joined her husband, who had preceded her, in Flanders. Soon after her escape she gave birth to a son at Wesel. He was named Peregrine, from the circumstance of his being born in a foreign land and during the wandering of his parents. This name was long continued in the family. The child grew up to be one of Queen Elizabeth’s greatest generals, popularly known as the “brave Lord Willoughby.”
“But the bravest man in battel
Was brave Lord Willoughby.”
There is a special fascination to us now in a picture of Elizabethan London, for with its history are bound up some of the most interesting incidents in the lives of the statesmen and other great men of the spacious days of the great Queen; and have we not Shakespeare and Ben Jonson among those who have portrayed the various places for us.
London has always appealed to the imagination of the adventurous country youth to be the home of golden promise. If he can only get there he believes that his successful career has commenced, but it appears that in Elizabeth’s reign there was pretty much the same difficulty in obtaining employment as there is now. This is illustrated by a curious account of the early life of John Sadler, a native of Stratford-on-Avon, and one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, which has come down to us. “He joined himself to the carrier, and came to London, where he had never been before, and sold his horse in Smithfield, and having no acquaintance in London to recommend him or assist him he went from street to street, and house to house, asking if they wanted an apprentice, and though he met with many discouraging scorns and a thousand denials he went on till he lighted on one Mr. Brokesbank, a grocer in Bucklersbury, who, though he long denied him for want of sureties for his fidelity, and because the money he had (but ten pounds) was so disproportionate to what he used to receive with apprentices, yet upon his discreet account he gave of himself and the motives which put him upon that course, and promise to compensate with diligent and faithful service whatever else was short of his expectation, he ventured to receive him upon trial, in which he so well approved himself that he accepted him into his service, to which he bound him for eight years.”
The outdoor life of his time, with the men and women who frequented the streets, is brought vividly before our eyes in Ben Jonson’s plays. The useful and useless members of society pass across the stage. The water-carriers who congregate around the conduits are represented by Cob in Every Man in His Humour.
Before Sir Hugh Myddelton made the New River and brought to men’s houses, all water that was wanted had to be fetched from the conduits. The men who supplied the town drew off the water into large wooden tankards, broad at the bottom, but narrow at the top, which held about three gallons. This vessel was borne upon the shoulder, and to keep the carrier dry two towels were fastened over him, one to fall in front and the other to cover his back.
The narrowness of the old London streets is strikingly shown in The Devil is an Ass, where the lady and her lover speak gentle nothings to each other from the windows of two contiguous buildings.
All the fashions of his time—the rapier fighting of the gallants, the smoking madness of all classes at a time when tobacco was supposed to be the panacea for all the ills of human nature, the custom of garnishing conversation with oaths—are introduced into the books of Ben Jonson. The poet’s love of good liquor and social intercourse made him a frequenter of inns. His acquaintance with the two rival taverns of Cheapside—the Mermaid and the Mitre—must have commenced early, because the names of both occur in the first quarto of Every Man in His Humour (1601); in the later folio edition the Mitre is changed to the Star and the Mermaid to the Windmill. The ever-memorable Mermaid was situated on the south side of Cheapside, between Bread Street and Friday Street. From the mention of this tavern in the first draft of Every Man In His Humour it may be inferred that Jonson was a frequenter before the famous club, consisting of Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Carew, Donne, Selden and others, was established by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603.
The Mitre was a rival house, and some writers tried to write it up at the expense of the Mermaid. Thus Middleton has the following dialogue in his comedy, Your Five Gallants (1608):—
“Goldstone. Where sup we, gallants?
Pursenet. At Mermaid.
Gold. Sup there who list, I have forsworne the house.
Pur. Faith! I’m indifferent.
Bungler. So are we, gentlemen.
Pur. Name the place, Master Goldstone.
Gold. Why, the Mitre, in my mind, for neat attendance, diligent boys, and—Push! excels it far.
All. Agreed. The Mitre then.”
The Windmill, in the old Jewry, which occupies so prominent a position in the revised edition of Every Man in His Humour, was a house with a long history. It was first of all a synagogue for the Jews of the neighbourhood; then it was granted by Henry III. to the prior and brethren of the Order of friars called the Fratres de Sacca, and in 1439 it was occupied by Lord
Mayor Robert Large. In 1492 Sir Hugh Clopton, the worthy who built Clopton Bridge at Stratford-on-Avon, kept his mayoralty in the mansion, which, a hundred years afterwards, was turned into a tavern.
The Devil, in Fleet Street, was one of the most famous of the places of entertainment of the time. It is not known when Ben Jonson started the “Apollo” Club here, but it was probably not long before 1616, when the Devil is an Ass was acted.
Herrick, in his well-known ode, mentions several other taverns to which Ben and “his sons” resorted:—
“Ah, Ben!
Say how or when
Shall we thy guests
Meet at those lyric feasts
Made at the Sun,
The Dog, the Triple Tun?
Where we such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad;
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meal, outdid the frolic wine.”
It was in Jonson’s day that the suburbs, which (as previously referred to) had long been treated with disfavour, were gradually asserting themselves, and the poet was particularly at home in the understanding of their peculiarities. Of the northern suburbs the fullest mention is to be found in A Tale of a Tub, where we read of Totten Court, Kentish Town, Maribone, Kilborne, Islington and Belsize, and the fields near Pancras.
If we look for Hoxton in a modern map of London we shall find it near Old Street, St. Luke’s, not far from the centre of the present London, but in Jonson’s time it was a country place, cut off from the city by Moorfields. Knowell’s house (Every Man in His Humour) was at Hogsden, which was then, according to Stow, “a large street with houses on both sides.” Master Stephen describes his uncle’s property as “Middlesex land,” and he himself is called a country gull, in opposition to Master Matthew, the town gull. Ben had reason to remember Hoxton, for it was in the fields close by that he fought and nearly killed Gabriel Spenser. Moorfields remained for several years in an almost impassable condition, but in 1511 regular dykes and bridges of communication over them were made, in order partially to drain the rotten ground.
In the play so frequently referred to we find Turnbull mentioned by Bobadil, among other disreputable places, as one of the “skirts of the town.” Turnbull, or, more properly, Turnmill Street, was situated near Clerkenwell Green, and was known as the haunt of ruffians, thieves and disorderly persons. Justice Shallow boasted to Falstaff of the wildness of his youth and the feats he had done in Turnbull Street.
On the west the Oxford Road, commencing at the village of St. Giles, was in the country, and where Stratford Place now stands was a cottage among trees and hedges called the Lord Mayor’s Banqueting House, which was used by the city magnates when they hunted at Bayswater and Hyde Park. This is alluded to in The Devil is an Ass:—
“But got the gentlewoman to go with me
And carry her bedding to a conduit-head,
Hard by the place towards Tyburn which they call
My Lord Mayor’s banqueting house.”
“Eastward for Ratcliff!” is a cry in the Alchemist. Ratcliff, which Stow remembered as a highway, with fair elm trees on each side, in later times became the synonym of all that is dangerous and disreputable in London streets.
The actor William Kemp, in describing his remarkable morris dance from London to Norwich (1600), writes: “Being past Whitechappel and having left fair London, multitudes of Londoners left not me, eyther to keepe a custome which many holde, that Mile-end is no walke without a recreation at Stratford Bow with cream and cakes, or else for love they beare towards me, or perhaps to make themselves merry if I should chance (as many thought) to give over my morrice within a mile of Mile-end.”
Shakespeare lived outside the city walls, and although we cannot exactly tell the position of his houses it is pretty certain that he lived both in the parish of St. Helen, Bishopsgate, and in the Clink on the Bankside.
Stuart London followed Tudor London, but with the death of James I. in 1625 the older history may be said to close, for there was a considerable change during the reign of Charles I. The upper classes moved westward to Lincoln’s Inn and Great Queen Street and Covent Garden. The great architect, Inigo Jones, built houses for them in both these districts.
There was a certain stagnation in the movements of the population during the period of the Commonwealth, but at the Restoration of Charles II. a new life came into existence. The exiled Cavaliers returned to their country and found their fathers’ houses in the City of London either occupied by others or unfitted for their reception. In consequence, they migrated to a district far from the city. The builders were busy in covering fields with houses, and Pall Mall, where the game of that name had been played, was planned out as a fine street, which it remains to the present day. Lords Clarendon, Burlington and Berkeley erected mansions in Piccadilly, and Lord St. Albans created St. James’s Square. Many others followed the example of these leaders of Society, and the upper classes were completely cut off from the city. The contemptuous references to the traders of London, which are first noticed in Elizabeth’s reign, became common. The cits were laughed at, and the courtiers poured out a torrent of abuse upon all those who lived in the east.
The Great Fire of 1666 made an enormous change in the topography of London, and caused great misery, but it is supposed to have been a blessing in disguise as it cleared out many a centre of plague and disease.
When we read of the heroism of the homeless Londoner we must feel proud of our ancestors. They had lost everything, but they did not sit down and wring their hands. When the streets were destroyed by fire the river became more than ever a highway, and boats filled with the goods of the sufferers covered the waters. Moorfields formed a handy open space, and soon streets of huts were raised to shelter the homeless families. Wren, England’s greatest architect, John Evelyn, the most accomplished man of his time and the model of a Royalist gentleman, and Robert Hooke, the great philosopher, were all three, ready within a few hours of the fire with plans for the rebuilding of the city, but none of the plans were adopted although all had their good points, and Wren’s especially would certainly have given us fine avenues and convenient thoroughfares.
The difficulties in carrying out these schemes would no doubt have been very great, and it is useless now to regret that a great opportunity was lost.
Wren and Hooke were appointed to superintend the progress of the work of making London arise anew out of its ashes. The Act of Parliament passed to regulate the work of rebuilding was a very practical, and altogether excellent, statute. In fact, the way in which all concerned in the complicated business of raising a new city worked in unison is worthy of every praise. At the same time that they proceeded with their labours they did not allow the trade and business of the countr
centre to fall out of gear, and this does the greatest credit to all concerned, both governors and governed.
While the burnt town remained a waste there must have been overwhelming inconveniences, but no time was allowed to be lost, and in the end a new city arose infinitely superior in comfort and convenience to that which had gone before, although certainly it was not so picturesque.
Before passing on to take a rapid view of the later periods of London life some mention may be made of a few of the interesting buildings that escaped the fire and have not previously been alluded to in these pages.
Outside the confines of the city to the west grew up from early times a district with many various associations. Curious traditions and odd customs gather round the history of the parish of St. Clement Danes, where Westminster and London met, which still suggest many points of special interest well worthy of fuller investigation than they have as yet received.
The accompanying view shows Temple Bar and the old-world houses of Butcher Row. The first mention of Temple Bar is in a grant of land “extra barram Novi Temple” in 1301. At that time there was no building, but merely posts, rails and chain to mark the extent of the liberties of London. In course of time a gate was erected, and the one which existed at the time of the Great Fire was pulled down, and a new gate was erected in 1670-1672 from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. This, after existing for two centuries as one of the best-known objects in London, was removed in the winter of 1878-1879. The stones remained exposed to the weather for ten years before Temple Bar was re-erected at the entrance to the late Sir Henry Meux’s private grounds at Theobalds, Waltham Cross. The erection was completed on 3rd December 1888, and the gate in its new position and restored condition presents a very handsome appearance, showing it to be worthy of its great architect.
The history of Butcher Row is crowded with incidents in the lives of authors and the unfortunate hangers-on to literature. The timber-framed house, with projecting upper storeys and barge-boarded gables, the front decorated with fleurs-de-lis and coronets, was known as Beaumont House, and it is said that Sully, then Marquis of Rosny, supped and slept there on his arrival in London (1603) as Ambassador to James I.
Butcher Row was pulled down in 1813, and Pickett Street was erected in its place. This street was pulled down to make way for the new Law Courts, and now nearly the whole northern portion of St. Clement’s parish has been cleared away. A great improvement has been made, but in order to obtain this many picturesque houses of interest have had to be destroyed.
Returning within the Bar to the city, and walking up Chancery Lane, we come to Lincoln’s Inn Gateway, one of the three historical gateways of importance in London; the other two being St. John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, and the entrance to St. James’s Palace. This gatehouse of brick was built by Sir Thomas Lovell, K.G., son of the executor of Henry VII., and bears the date upon it of 1518. This interesting building, although perfectly sound and in good condition, was shored up a few years ago when old chambers by the side of it were pulled down and rebuilt, and it then narrowly escaped destruction. Efforts were successfully made to save the gate, and it is to be hoped that it may remain to give distinction to Chancery Lane for many years. Returning to Chancery Lane, and crossing Holborn, we come to Gray’s Inn. The fine hall, which is full of associations of the deepest interest, was built between the years 1555 and 1560. Of the hall which it replaced there is no record, save that in 5 Edw. VI.
(1551), it “was seiled with fifty-four yards of wainscot, at 2s. a yard.”
The present hall has the great distinction, according to Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, of being “one of the only two buildings now remaining in London in which, so far as we know, any of the plays of Shakespeare were performed in his own time.”[385] The other, of course, being the Middle Temple Hall, where Twelfth Night was acted on February 2, 1601-2.
The Comedy of Errors was played on the evening of Innocents’ Day (December 28), 1594, in the hall, before a crowded audience; some of the guests from the Inner Temple created a disturbance because they were not properly accommodated, and this led to an official inquiry. Mr. Sidney Lee thinks it probable that Shakespeare himself was not present, as he was acting on the same day before the Queen at Greenwich. Another performance of the play was given in the hall by the Elizabethan Stage Society on December 6, 1895.[386]
George Gascoigne’s Jocasta, adapted from the Phœnissæ of Euripides, was acted in the Refectory in 1566. Gray’s Inn was famous for its masques and revels, and on July 7, 1887, in honour of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, the Benchers of Gray’s Inn presented in the hall, to a distinguished audience, the Masque of Flowers, which had been performed before James I. on Twelfth Night, two hundred and sixty-four years before.
Gray’s Inn had a brilliant roll of members in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but it is Bacon’s spirit that seems to haunt the whole place. He helped the students in preparing their revels, probably wrote a masque or masques, and planted trees in the gardens, the arrangement of which he is believed to have super-intended. His name remains in Verulam Buildings.
Returning to Holborn, and walking a little to the west, we come to the impressive front of Staple Inn, the most remarkable street front of old houses still in existence in London. The origin of the place is unknown, and nothing satisfactory has been discovered respecting the meaning of the name, or as to what it was before it came into the occupation of the Inn of Chancery. There is a tradition that it originally belonged to the merchants of the Staple. It was purchased by the Benchers of Gray’s Inn in 1529, and in Elizabeth’s reign there were 145 students in term, and 69 out of term. It was bought in 1884 by the Prudential Assurance Company for £68,000, and the Holborn front was restored and cleared from plaster covering the timber beams.
There are now very few old street fronts of interest in London, one or two in the Strand, and some in the great roads out of London, but a few years ago there were many still remaining in the Whitechapel and Mile End Roads, and in Bishopsgate Street Without. In the latter street (No. 169) there was until lately the remains of the mansion of Sir Paul Pindar, an eminent English merchant (who died in 1650), distinguished for his love of architecture, and the magnificent sums he gave towards the restoration of old St. Paul’s Cathedral. In 1617-1618 the house was occupied by the Venetian Embassy. In its last days it was used as a public-house, with the sign of “Sir Paul Pindar’s Head.” When it was pulled down the front was obtained for the South Kensington Museum, where it was re-erected.
The London of Johnson and Hogarth was not a handsome city, but it was a social one, and we owe to these two men many vivid pictures of the life lived in it. They were both true Londoners, but they were not alone in their love for their city, for a marked feature in the character of the eighteenth-century Londoner was his intense feeling that here only was life to be lived with true enjoyment. Much of the life was frivolous, and some of it worse than that, but among the respectable classes the opportunities for social intercourse were greater than now, when large numbers of the workers live out of London, some in the north, and some in the south, and it takes as long to get from Hampstead to Croydon as to travel a hundred miles into the country.
During the eighteenth century London continued to grow, but it became uglier every day. The original growth was along the course of the river, but near the middle of the century a little building was commenced to the north of Oxford Street, when Cavendish Square and the surrounding streets were laid out. Soon afterwards the New Road from the Angel at Islington to the Edgware Road (now re-named Pentonville, Euston, and Marylebone Roads) was planned. The opening of this road greatly facilitated the locomotion of the town, but it was disliked by the dwellers in what was then thought
to be the north of London, who had their view of the country cut off. When Queen Square was built in the reign of Queen Anne it was left open to the north, as it has remained to this day, in order to enable the inhabitants to have a view of Hampstead and Highgate. The gardens of Bedford House, which stood on the north side of Bloomsbury Square, had an uninterrupted view of the country, and the Duke of Bedford strongly opposed in the House of Lords the Bill for making the New Road. On this opposition Horace Walpole cynically remarked to Conway (March 25, 1756): “A new road through Paddington has been proposed to avoid the stones; the Duke of Bedford, who is never in town in summer, objects to the dust it will make behind Bedford House, and to some buildings proposed, though if he was in town he is too short-sighted to see the prospect.”
The gardens of Bedford House were famous for their beauty and for the trees which flourished there, “the ancient stems” of “the light and graceful acacia” being specially mentioned by Walpole.
Behind Montagu House (now the British Museum) was Capper’s Farm, which extended to Tottenham Court Road. The old farmhouse still exists behind Messrs Heal & Son’s shop, No. 195 Tottenham Court Road.
Near where University College in Gower Street now stands was a wild district known as the Field of Forty Footsteps, which had a bad repute as the scene of a sanguinary duel about the time of the Monmouth Rebellion between two brothers who were both killed.
No grass would grow over the footsteps trodden by the duellists, which were said to be recognisable until the year 1800 when the ground was built over.
A little further east, where Cromer Street now stands, was a wayside inn named “The Boot,” which is made by Dickens in his Barnaby Rudge the meeting-place of the Gordon Rioters of 1780.
The site of this inn is still occupied by a public-house with the same sign.
Even after these fields were built upon, the air continued so good that the gardens round about produced excellent fruit. When Lord Eldon lived at No. 42 Gower Street at the beginning of the nineteenth century his peaches and vegetables were famous. Nectarines were grown at 6 Upper Gower Street in 1800, and grapes were also successfully cultivated there.
The district north of the New Road is of a clayey soil and without a sufficient water supply, so that the ground remained unbuilt upon until at the beginning of the nineteenth century several new Water Companies came into existence and the building operations were commenced. Since that time the suburbs have continued to increase, and a great start was given to the increased growth of the town after the holding of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Before the middle of the nineteenth century the growth of London had been continually increasing, but it was not until after 1851 that the abnormal growth set in.
The Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851 bought a large property at Brompton and the district of South Kensington sprang into existence. The glass and iron forming the Exhibition buildings were transferred to Sydenham, and the Crystal Palace was erected there. Soon this rural district, where gipsies once told fortunes, was covered with houses.
This was the beginning of the onward march of bricks and mortar, which is going on still so rapidly that on all sides we have to travel by rail for miles before we get out of the labyrinth of buildings.
When we see on all sides of us modern buildings where interesting old buildings once stood, we are apt to jump to the conclusion that all signs and relics of Mediæval London have passed away, but this is not so, for there is still much to see in out-of-the-way places if we go about the search with intelligence. From what we see we may reconstruct much of the old topography in our mind’s eye. The first thing to do is to follow the course of the wall, and mark out the position of the gates. This can easily be done by studying an old map. Some remains of the wall are still to be seen.
Many most interesting remains of Roman London will be found in the Guildhall Museum.
There are few remains left of the Saxon period, but some bits are to be seen at Westminster. Of Norman buildings we have portions of the Tower, of Great St. Bartholomew’s Church, the ‘Round’ of the Temple Church, and the Crypt of Bow Church, Cheapside.
Of later ages there are a few relics of the religious houses which have already been referred to. All the churches which escaped the ravages of the Great Fire have their points of interest. Lambeth Palace, although much of it is comparatively modern, has a most venerable appearance and is certainly one of the most important relics of past ages that the present London has to boast.
Westminster Hall, Abbey, Church and School are of transcendent interest, and some relics of the old Abbey buildings still exist in connection with the School.
Of secular buildings there are Crosby Hall, Middle Temple Hall, Gray’s Inn Hall, and some others.
It is impossible to print a detailed list of all the places that should be visited, but these few notes will give some slight indication of what little is left of Mediæval London.
INDEX
[A], [B], [C], [E], [F], [G], [H], [I], [J], [K], [L], [M], [N], [O], [P], [Q], [R], [S], [T], [V], [W].
A
Aldermen of London, 2[49-257];
distinct rank accorded to, [255];
to reside in the city, [255];
use of the title, [250];
connection with the Wards, [252-255].
Aldgate, Chaucer tenant of, [34], [81], [82];
Stow’s etymology, [25];
earliest form of name, [28].
Arderne (John), an early surgeon of mark, [172], [173].
Arms of London, [261-263].
Austin Friars in London, [364].
B
Bachelors, class of unmarried members of Livery Companies, [321].
Bachelors’ Alley, near Goldsmiths’ Hall, [321].
Bakers of London, [305-307].
Bankrupt, etymology of, [327].
Bankside, [380].
Barbican, or watch tower, [26].
Bartholomew’s (St.) Hospital, [179-191];
founded by Rahere, [180];
repaired by Whittington, [185];
Wat Tyler died there, [185];
law officers, [188];
Thomas Vicary, first governor, [189];
Dr Roderigo Lopus first physician, [191].
Baynard Castle, [31];
privileges associated with its possession, [264].
Bedford House, Bloomsbury [401];
gardens, [401].
Bell Tower of St. Paul’s, [337].
Benedictine Monastery of Black Monks, Westminster, [352].
—— Reforms of the Benedictines, [352-356].
Bishop of London, his prominent position, [19].
Bishopsgate, site marked by tablets, [27].
Black Death, the first great plague, [197].
Black Friars in London, [360].
Boot (The), in Cromer Street, immortalised by Dickens, [401].
Bow Church, Cheapside, [348], [349].
Brembre (Nicholas), feud with John of Northampton, [236].
Brewers of London, [313-315].
Building, Assize of, [36], [37].
Butchers of London, [307-309].
Butchers’ Row, Temple Bar, [391], [392].
C
Canons regular, Order of St. Austin, [351].
Canons secular, [350-351];
Barking College, [351];
Holmes’s College, [351];
Collegiate Church of St. Martin-le-Grand, [350];
College of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, [351];
Collegiate Chapel of St. Stephen, Westminster, [351].
Caorsins, company of Italian financiers banished from London, [324].
Capper’s Farm, Tottenham Court Road, [401].
Carta Mercatoria, 1303, [289].
Carthusian Order in London, [355].
Castellan and Bannerer of London, [264].
Chamberlain or Comptroller of the King’s Chamber, [271], [272]
Charing Cross, [138], [375], [376].
Charterhouse, remains of, [369].
Chaucer (Geoffrey) a representative Londoner, [80-89].
—— tenant of Aldgate, [34], [81], [82].
—— his portrait of the “doctor of physick,” [166], [167].
—— and poets of his time, round the town with, [71-89].
Cheapside, the market-place, [25], [286];
the cross, [138].
—— streets running out of, appropriated to sale of different commodities, [25].
Christ Church, Newgate Street, [24].
—— town ditch ran through grounds, [24].
Christ’s Hospital, deaths from plague, 209 (note).
Church and education, [330-374].
Churches, [347-351].
—— St. Bartholomew, [348];
St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, [348];
St. Martin’s-le-Grand, Collegiate Church of, [348];
St. Mary le Bow, [348];
St. Michael le Querne, [348];
St. Peter’s, Cornhill, [348].
Cistercian Order in London, [355].
Clergy forbidden to practise surgery, [168].
Clerkenwell, crypt of St. John’s, [369].
Clothing trades, antagonism to victualling trades, [235-238], [304], [305].
Clothworkers’ Company, [301-303], [317].
Cluniac Order in London, [352].
Cnut’s trench on the south side of the Thames, [12].
Cobblers of London, [317].
Commerce and trade in London, [277-329].
Common Council of London, [259-261];
court of, [259];
election of, [260].
Common Hunt of London, [272].
Common Sergeant, [270].
Commune of London, origin of, [223-230];
character, [225];
oath, [227];
mayor and skivins, [227].
Cordwainers’ Company, [317].
Coronation banquets, Mayor of London’s position at, [246-248].
Craft gilds, [293], [294].
Cripplegate, etymology of, [26].
Crutched Friars in London, [366].
Custom-House first built in 1385, [29].
E
Eating-houses and taverns, [157-160].
Eleanor crosses, [138].
F
Fabian (St.) and St. Sebastian, gild of London, [297].
Fairs and markets, [282-288];
Bartholomew fair, [282];
Cloth fair, [282];
Nane fair, [282];
la novele feyre, [282];
prohibition against being held in churchyards, [285];
Stocks Market, [286].
Faith (St.), Church of, [344], [345].
Field of Forty Footsteps, [401].
Fire of London, 1666, [388-391];
schemes for rebuilding, [388-391].
Fires in London, [36], [37];
precautions for their prevention, [37], [38].
Fishmongers of London, [309-311].
Fitz-Ailwin (Henry), Mayor of London, [230];
his seal, [231];
assize of building, [36], [37];
second assize, [37].
Fitzstephen’s picture of London, [32], [90], [96], [131], [163], [373].
Fitz-Walter, Castellan and Bannerer of London, [264];
his seal, [269].
Football in the streets of London, [133].
Friars in London, [359-368];
Austin, [364];
Black, [360-363];
Crutched, [366];
De Areno, [367];
Grey, [363], [364];
Maturine, [368];
Penance of Jesus Christ or de Sacco, [367];
Pied, [367];
White, [365], [366].
Friday Street, Chaucer in, [86].
Friscobaldi, Company of Italian financiers, [325].
G
Galley Quay by the Tower, [29].
Garlekhith, gild of, London, [296].
Gates of London, their position should be marked, [27];
as dwelling-houses, [34].
Gilbertus Anglicus, first English writer on medicine, [167].
Gild merchant, [291-293].
Gilds and Companies of London, [290-323];
bakers, [305-309];
brewers and vintners, [313-315];
fishmongers, [309-311];
grocers, [312], [313];
poulterers, [311], [312].
Giles’s (St.) and the leper hospital, [195].
Girdlers’ Company, London, [319].
Gloucester (Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of), her penance, [91].
Goldsmiths’ Company, [319-322].
Goldsmiths’ Row, Cheapside, [320].
Governors of the city, [218-263].
Gower (John), Londoner, [76-78].
Gray’s Inn, [392-395].
Grey Friars in London, [363], [364].
Grocers of London, [312], [313].
Guildhall of London, [273], [274].
H
Haberdashers of London, [315].
Health, disease and sanitation of London, [161-217].
Heptarchy, changes in the so-called, [16].
Hermitages, [368];
Monkwell Street, Cripplegate, [368].
Hoccleve (Thomas), Londoner, [74], [75].
Hogarth, a true Londoner, [398].
Hospitals of London, [179-195];
St. Bartholomew’s, [179-191];
St. Thomas’s, [191], [192];
for lepers, [192], [197].
I
Inns of London, [384], [385];
Devil, Fleet Street, [385];
Mermaid, [384];
Mitre, [384];
Windmill, [384].
Inns of Southwark, [379];
Bear at Bridge Foot, [379];
George, [379];
King’s Head, [379];
Tabard, [379];
White Hart, [379].
Italian bankers in London, papers by Bond, Rhodes and Whitwell, 325 (note).
J
Jack Cade’s Rebellion, [48], [49], [63-70].
Jews in London, [165], [323], [324];
as practisers of surgery, [165];
hardships of, [323];
expelled from England, [323].
John of Gaddesden, doctor of physick, [167], [168].
Johnson (Samuel), a true Londoner, [398].
Jonson’s (Ben) London, [383].
Justiciar of London created by Henry I.’s charter, [221], [222].
K
Katherine’s (St.) Gild, [296].
King’s household, their right to lodgings, [40];
London exempted from this charge, [40-42].
King’s Palace (the Tower), [108-130].
L
Lambreth Palace, [376].
Lazar houses, [192];
“The Loke,” Kent Street, Southwark, [192];
at Hackney, [192];
hospital of St Giles’s, [195].
Leathersellers’ Company, London, [318].
Lepers, regulations respecting, in London, [192-197].
Life, expectancy of, in the Middle Ages, [162].
Lincoln’s Inn gateway, [392].
Lithsmen, their position in London, [19].
Livery Companies and the Gilds, [299-301];
feuds of the companies, [235-238], [304], [305].
Lombards, Italian financiers in London, [324-327].
London, a distinct political unit during the Saxon period, [17];
Arms of London, [261-263];
British remains, [1], [2];
centre of early commerce, [277];
Church and education, [330-374];
commerce and trade, [277-329];
Commune, [223];
condition of houses, [35];
Danish invasions, [8];
disputes as to the rebuilding by Alfred, [8];
early history of, to Norman Conquest, [1-20];
eating-houses and taverns, [157-160];
education, [372-374];
exempt from billeting of soldiers, [40], [41];
fairs and markets, [282];
feuds of Livery Companies, [235-238];
fire of 1666, [388];
fires, [36], [37];
foreign element in, [20], [222];
foreigners and strangers not permitted to reside in, [289];
free citizens of, subject to onerous laws under
the Normans, [21], [22];
gates closed at curfew, [23], [24];
Governors of the city, [218-263];
growth in eighteenth century, [398];
health, disease, and sanitation, [161-217];
Jack Cade’s rebellion, [48], [49], [63-70];
large portions of town left desolate at dissolution of religious houses, [368];
lights to be extinguished at curfew, [23];
line of the walls, [23-28];
Ludgate, chief entrance of, [23];
manners, [131-160];
Mayors of, [231-235];
first use of the title Lord Mayor, [239-241];
migration of upper classes westward, [387];
narrowness of streets, [383];
Newgate, western approach, [23], [24];
officials of the city, [264-274];
older than Middlesex and Surrey, [17];
overcrowding, [213];
pageants, processions and tournaments, [136-153];
peasants’ rising under Wat Tyler, [47-63];
“Pui” brotherhood of, musical society French merchants, [153];
plans for rebuilding after Great Fire, [388];
population, [46], [47], [207];
recognised capital under Edward the Confessor, [19];
references to, in Piers Plowman, [71], [72];
right to a voice in selection of king during the Saxon period, [13];
round the town with Chaucer and the poets of his time, [71-89];
sanctuary, [370-372];
schools, [372-374];
seal, [261];
seat of trade in Eastern luxuries, [280];
sports, [131-136];
streets first lighted by lanterns in 1415, [23];
stringent regulations relaxed under Henry I., [23];
suburbs, [385], [386];
tower of, as a fortress, [112-114];
as a palace, [113-125];
as a prison, [125-130];
victualling and clothing trades’ antagonism, [235-238];
walled town and its streets, [21-70];
water fetched from conduits, [383];
westward growth of, [387];
London and Londonburgh, use of the names in the Saxon Chronicle, [4];
Roman, [3];
Saxon Chronology, [3-20];
from mediæval to modern times, [375-403].
London Bridge, [100-107];
destroyed by Olaf, [11], [12];
wooden bridge, [100];
first stone bridge, [100];
built on piles, [102];
weight of buildings on, [105];
the chief sight of London, [105];
waterway obstructed by, [107].
London Stone, [230].
Lord Mayor, first use of title, [239-241].
Ludgate, [23], [31].
Lydgate (John), a visitor to London, [78], [79].
M
Mace-bearers of London, [272].
Manners of the Londoners, [131-160].
Markets; see Fairs and markets.
Martin’s (St.) le Grand, curfew tolled from the church, [24].
Mayors of London, [231-235];
position at coronation banquets, [246-248];
position in the city, [242-245];
summons to Privy Council on accession of sovereign, [245], [246].
—— pageants connected with election of, [248], [249].
—— skivins assistants to the mayor, [227].
Medical skill in the Middle Ages, [164].
Medicine and surgery, faculty of, [170], [171].
Mercers’ Company, London, [315].
Merchant Taylors and Linen Armourers, London, [315].
Middle Temple Hall, [396];
Comedy of Errors played in, [396].
Military orders, [356], [357];
Knights Hospitallers, [356], [357];
Templars, [356], [357].
Minoresses by Aldgate, [85], [364].
Minories, derivation of the name, [28].
Monks (Benedictines) in Westminster, [352-359].
—— Cluniac reform, [352-354];
Carthusians, [355];
Cistercians, [355], [356].
Montfichet, Tower of, [268].
Morestede (Thomas), King’s surgeon, [176], [177].
Murage, a tax for keeping the walls in repair, [33];
Hanse merchants freed from payment of, [33].
Music on the ships in the Thames, [95].
N
New Road, formation of, [398].
Newgate erected in reign of Henry I., [24];
prison, [24];
its rebuilding, [24];
its earlier name Chamberlain’s gate, [24].
Night-walkers in London, [43], [44].
Northampton (John of), feud with Nicholas Brembre, [236].
O
Officials of the City, [264-274];
Castellan and Bannerer, [264-270];
Chamberlain or Comptroller of the King’s Chamber, [271], [272];
Common Hunt, [272];
Common Sergeant, [270];
Coroner, [271], [272];
King’s Butler, [271];
Mace-bearers, [273];
Recorder, [270];
Remembrancer or State Amanuensis, [272];
Sword-bearer, [272];
Town Clerk, [270].
Olaf, London Bridge destroyed by, [11], [12].
Old Jewry, [324].
P
Pageants, processions and tournaments, [136-153].
Paul’s (St.) Cathedral, [331-335];
tombs, [341];
choir, [342], [344];
nave, [341], [342];
reredos, [343];
altars, [343];
dean and chapter, [345], [346].
—— dimensions of the old cathedral, [332], [333].
Paul’s (St.) Cathedral Close, buildings in, [335-338];
gates, [336], [337];
folkmoot held in the precincts, [10].
Paul’s Cross, [337].
Paul’s (St.) School, [337].
Peasants’ rising under Wat Tyler, [47-63].
Penthouses in the streets, [39].
Piers Plowman, references to London in, [71], [72].
—— Professor Skeat’s edition of, 73 (note).
Pile dwellings in London, [2].
Pindar’s (Sir Paul) mansion, [398].
Pirates in the Thames, [280-282].
Pui, brotherhood of the, musical society of French merchants, [153-157].
—— regulations, [154-157].
Plagues in London, [197-209];
(black death, 1349), [197-200];
1361, [200];
1368-1369, [200];
1430-1440, [200];
regulations, [200-205];
statistics of deaths, [207].
Population of London, various estimates, [46].
—— of certain great towns, [47].
Port-reeve, derivation of, [219].
Poulterers of London, [311-312].
Prisons of London, [45], [379];
Borough Compter, [379];
Clink, [379];
King’s Bench, [379];
Marshalsea, [379];
burnt by mob, [54];
White Lion, [379].
Privy Council, Mayor’s summons to, on accession of sovereign, [245], [246].
Punishments and fines in London, [42].
Pursers or glovers of London, [318].
Q
Queenhithe, early history, [93], [94].
—— and Billingsgate, the chief wharfs, [30].
R
Rahere, founder of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, [180-183].
Recorder of London, [270].
Religious houses, dissolution of, [368].
Remembrancer or State Amanuensis of London, [272].
River, the, and the bridge, [90-107].
Roman villa, foundations of, discovered on north side of Upper Thames Street in 1847, [30].
Round (J. Horace) on the early governors of London, [220];
views as to the justiciar, [221];
on the character of the Commune, [225].
S
Sanctuary in London, [370-372].
Sanitation of London, [211-217].
Schools of London, [372-374].
Seals: London Common Seal, [261-262];
Mayoralty seals, [262-263];
Henry Fitz Ailwin, [231];
Robert Fitz-Walter, [269];
St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, [180].
Selds or warehouses in London, [39].
Serfdom, abolition of, [50].
Sheriffs of London, [219-221], [257-259];
elected by mayor, aldermen and commonalty of city, [258].
Shakespeare in London, [387], [395], [396].
Skeat (Professor), his edition of Piers Plowman, 73 (note).
Skinners’ Company, London, [316].
Skivins, assistants to the mayor, [227].
Smithfield, tournaments held at, [25].
Southwark, chief thoroughfare from London to the South of England, [376];
St. Mary Overy, [376];
inns, [379];
prisons, [379].
Sports and pastimes in London, [131-136].
Staple, merchants of, [286]; ordinance of, [287];
staple towns, [287].
Staple inn, [396].
Statute merchant of London, [328], [329]
Steelyard, merchants of, [278], [279].
Streets, narrowness of, [383].
Suburbs of London, [385], [386].
Suffolk (William de la Pole, Duke of), [64].
Suffolk’s (Duchess of) escape from London, [381].
Surgeons, [171];
barbers as, [171], [178], [179];
military, [171];
gild of, [174-176];
sergeant, 177 (note);
fellowship of, [178].
Surrey, etymology of, [17], [18];
formerly an integral part of Kent, [19].
Sweating sickness in London, [209-211].
Sword-bearer of London, [272].
T
Tabard (The), at Southwark, [88].
Temple, right-of-way through the, [96].
Temple Bar, [391];
closing of, to sovereign, [241], [242].
Thames (River), [90-100];
attempts of landowners to close lanes leading to, [96-99];
infested by pirates, [280-282];
sports on, [90], [91];
as a highway, [90-92];
localities adjoining northern bank, [95];
use of unlawful nets, [99].
Thomas’s (St.) Hospital, [191], [192];
destroyed by fire, [191];
rebuilt, [192].
Tower of London, origin of the name, [108], [109];
fortress planned by the Conqueror, [110];
alterations and additions by Henry III., [111], [112];
additions by Edward III., [117], [118];
menagerie of wild beasts, [123], [124];
prisoners, [125-127];
ceremony of locking the gates, [114], [115];
as a fortress, [112-114];
as a palace, [113-125];
as a prison, [125-130];
King’s Palace, [108-130];
St. John’s Chapel, [123].
Tower Green, names of celebrities beheaded there, [127], [128].
Town Clerk of London, [270].
Town populations, conditions of, [162].
Trade and Commerce, [277-329].
Traitors’ Gate, Tower of London, [129], [130].
Trevelyan (G. M.), England in the Age of Wycliffe referred to, [48], [370].
V
Vicary (Thomas), famous surgeon, [177], [189].
Victualling and clothing trades, feud between, [235-238], [304], [305].
Vintners of London, [313-315].
W
Walled town and its streets, [21-70].
Wat Tyler’s rebellion, [48-63];
demands of the rebels, [56], [57], [60].
Water fetched from conduits, [383].
Weavers’ gild, London, [303], [304].
Weights and measures, [288];
King’s great beam or tron, [289].
Westminster, [376].
White Friars in London, [365].
William the Conqueror outside London, [15];
citizens repair to him at Berkhamsted, [15].
Windows, glass only used by the opulent, [39];
mere apertures, [40].
Woad merchants in Cannon Street, [279].
Women of bad repute restricted to certain garb, [44].
Wyat’s (Sir Thomas) insurrection, [380].
EDINBURGH
COLSTONS LIMITED
PRINTERS
[1] Journal, Anthropological Society, vol. v. pp. lxxi.-lxxx.
[2] Lake Dwellings in Europe, 1890, pp. 460-464.
[3] Elton, Origins of English History, p. 360.
[4] Rev. W. Sparrow Simpson, Chapters in the History of Old St. Paul’s, 1881, p. 3.
[5] Archæologia, vol. xxxii. pp. 298-311.
[6] Norman Conquest, vol. i. pp. 44-46.
[7] The Treaty was really made at Chippenham.
[8] See Earle’s edition of the Saxon Chronicle. Mr Charles Plummer, who edited a new edition of Two of the Saxon Chronicles, Parallel (Oxford, 1892-99), does not altogether agree with Earle in these views. He holds that no distinction was meant between Lunden and Lundenburh.
[9] Quoted in Archæologia, vol. xxxix. p. 56.
[10] Heimskringla, done into English out of the Icelandic by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson, vol. ii. p. 14.
[11] Norman Conquest, vol. i. p. 418.
[12] This device of Cnut’s is one of great interest, although we have no details of how it was carried out. The late Sir Walter Besant contended that it was not the great work which some had supposed, and he made an elaborate plan of his suggestion as to its construction. (See South London, 1899, p. 40.)
[13] A very instructive article on ‘The Conqueror’s Footprints in Domesday,’ which contains an account of his movements after the Battle of Senlac, between Enfield, Edmonton, Tottenham, and Berkhamsted, was published in the English Historical Review, vol. xiii. (1898), p. 17.
[14] See Dr. Reginald Sharpe’s London and the Kingdom, to the contents of which valuable work I am pleased to express my great obligations.
[15] Archæologia, vol. xxxii. p. 305.
[16] Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus (Rolls Series), 1859, vol. i. p. cx.
[17] Political Poems and Songs, ed. T. Wright (Rolls Series), 1861, vol. ii. pp. 157-205.
[18] See Riley’s Memorials, pp. 21, 93; also Liber Albus, p. 240.
[19] Records of St. Giles’s, Cripplegate (1883).
[20] It is scarcely creditable to the city authorities that no mark of the position of the other gates has been set up. To place these memorials would be an easy thing to do, and this attention to historical topography would be highly appreciated by all Londoners. The mark of Aldgate should take the form of a statue of Chaucer, who lived at that gate for some years. The Corporation would honour themselves by doing further honour to the great Englishman, who was also one of the greatest of Londoners, if they placed at the great eastern entrance to London a full length effigy of the son of one of London’s worthy merchants. This would be in addition to the gift of a bust to Guildhall by Sir Reginald Hanson. The line of the wall should also be marked, but this would be a more difficult operation.
[21] Liber Albus, p. 603.
[22] William Fitz-Stephen’s invaluable work has been printed several times both in the original Latin and in an English translation. The most convenient form is the reprint in Thoms’s edition of Stow’s Survey, 1842 or 1876.
[23] Riley’s Memorials, p. 79.
[24] Riley’s Memorials, p. 489.
[25] History of English Law before Edward I., vol. i. p. 633.
[26] Riley’s Memorials, p. 479.
[27] Stow’s Chronicle, ed. 1615, p. 300.
[28] Quoted in Turner’s Domestic Architecture in England, vol. i. p. 18.
[29] Quoted in Turner’s Domestic Architecture in England, vol. i. p. 22.
[30] Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus, pp. xxxiii., xxxiv.
[31] Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus, p. xxxii.
[32] Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus, p. xxxiii.
[33] Translation of the Liber Albus, p. 263, and Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus, p. lix.
[34] Letter Book B, p. i.
[35] Riley’s Memorials, p. 54.
[36] Ibid., p. 86.
[37] Ibid., p. 458.
[38] Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus, p. lii.
[39] From an ‘Anominalle Cronicle,’ once belonging to St. Mary’s Abbey, York. The original apparently has been lost, and the copy now existing is a late sixteenth-century manuscript of this portion of the Chronicle in the handwriting of Francis Thynne. It is now preserved in the British Museum (Stowe MS. 1047), and was one of the Duke of Buckingham’s MSS. in the library at Stowe, Bucks, which came into the possession of the Earl of Ashburnham, and was sold by his son to the nation. It was published by Mr. G. M. Trevelyan in the English Historical Review, vol. xiii. (1898), p. 509. It is a curious circumstance, that it may be referred to as the ‘Stowe MS.,’ because it comes from the Stowe collection, or as the ‘Stow MS.,’ because it was used by the historian, John Stow.
[40] Trevelyan, p. 226.
[41] Trevelyan, p. 227.
[42] Trevelyan, p. 227.
[43] Trevelyan, p. 234.
[44] Trevelyan, p. 240.
[45] Stow’s Chronicle, ed. 1615, p. 288.
[46] English Historical Review, xiii. p. 519.
[47] Stow’s Chronicle, p. 288.
[48] Second Part of King Henry VI., act iv. sc. i
[49] Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, ed. J. Gairdner (Camden Society), 1880, p. 94.
[50] Stow’s Chronicle, ed. 1615, p. 391.
[51] Rendle and Norman’s Inns of Old Southwark, 1888, p. 134.
[52] Historical Collections of a Citizen of London, ed. Gairdner (Camden Society), p. 191. The chief contents of this volume consist of the valuable ‘Chronicle of William Gregory, Skinner’ (1189-1469).
[53] Ibid., p. xxii.
[54] Vernon Text (A), ed. Skeat, pp. vi., 60.
[55] Piers Plowman (Text C), ed. Skeat, pass. xvii. II. 286-296.
[56] There was another Cock Lane near Shoreditch (now Boundary Street), which may be the one connected with Langland.
[57] Piers Plowman, part iv. sect. ii. p. xliii.
[58] It is scarcely possible to keep within bounds one’s enthusiasm for the magnificent edition of Piers Plowman, which Professor Skeat has placed in our hands. I feel, having watched the work from its inception in 1866, when ‘Parallel Extracts from 29 Manuscripts’ was published, that if the Early English Text Society had published nothing else it would have worthily justified its existence. The labour bestowed on the work by its editor is immense, and the result is that we have for the first time a perfect text of one of the most influential works in English literature, with all the illustrative notes necessary to exhibit its vast effect upon English history.
[59] Hoccleve’s Works, vol. i. Minor Poems, ed. by F. J. Furnivall (Early English Text Society, Extra Series), p. 61, 1891. The editor has gathered much fresh material for the biography of Hoccleve.
[60] Gower’s Complete Works, ed. G. C. Macaulay, Oxford, 1899, vol. i.
[61] Of these especial honour is due to Dr. Furnivall, who has for years sought ceaselessly and with the greatest success for documentary evidence of the facts of Chaucer’s life.
[62] Chaucer at Aldgate, Home Counties Magazine, Oct. 1900, p. 259.
[63] Chaucer at Aldgate (Folia Litteraria, 1893, p. 87).
[64] Folia Litteraria, pp. 88, 89.
[65] Folia Litteraria, p. 100.
[66] Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, vol. i. p. 178 (translated from French).
[67] See letter of Prof. J. W. Hales, Athenæum, Aug. 9, 1902, p. 190.
[68] The Tabard was one among many inns from which travellers started on their journeys along the road to Canterbury and to the seaports of the South. The whole of the buildings which Chaucer knew were burnt in the great Southwark fire of 1676.
[69] Commune, p. 246. Further consideration is given to the condition of trade in London in the Middle Ages in chapter x.
[70] Liber Custumarum, ed. H. T. Riley, 1860, p. xxxvi.
[71] Liber Custumarum, p. cix.
[72] Inquis. 1 Henr. V., quoted by Riley, p. cix.
[73] Riley’s Memorials, p. 306.
[74] Riley’s Memorials, p. 376.
[75] Riley’s Memorials, p. 648.
[76] Ibid., p. 215.
[77] Ibid., p. 219.
[78] Ibid., p. 220.
[79] Cal. Letter Book A, p. 187.
[80] Riley’s Memorials, p. 509.
[81] Chronicle of Mayors and Sheriffs, pp. 146, 147, quoted in Cal. Letter Book C, p. 61 (note).
[82] Cal. Letter Book C, p. 133.
[83] Ibid., p. 95.
[84] Cal. Letter Book B, p. 219.
[85] Cal. Letter Book A, pp. 178, 179.
[86] Stow’s Chronicle, p. 681.
[87] W. B. Rye’s England as seen by Foreigners, 1865, pp. 9, 192.
[88] Liber Custumarum, ed. Riley, 1860, p. ciii.
[89] Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville, 1892, pp. 328-346.
[90] Mediæval Military Architecture, 1884, vol. ii. p. 204.
[91] Mediæval Military Architecture, 1884, vol. ii. p. 205.
[92] Mediæval Military Architecture, 1884, vol. ii. p. 253.
[93] Mediæval Military Architecture, vol. ii. p. 271.
[94] ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville.’
[95] London and the Kingdom, vol. i. p. 53.
[96] Stow’s Chronicle, p. 193.
[97] Longman’s Edward III., vol. i. p. 179.
[98] Clark’s Mediæval Military Architecture, vol. ii. p. 271.
[99] Liber Custumarum, pp. 407-409.
[100] Clark’s Mediæval Military Architecture, vol. ii. p. 264.
[101] Riley’s Memorials, p. 320.
[102] Stow’s Chronicle, p. 896.
[103] Proclamation was made against playing at football in the fields near the city as early as 1314 during the mayoralty of Nicholas de Farndone, Liber Memorandorum (preserved at Guildhall), folio 66 (quoted in Riley’s Memorials, p. 571 (note)).
[104] Riley’s Memorials, p. 561.
[105] Ibid., p. 571.
[106] Riley’s Memorials, pp. 509-510.
[107] Ibid., p. 510 (note).
[108] Stow’s Chronicle, p. 208.
[109] Riley’s Memorials, pp. 105-107.
[110] Jessopp’s Coming of the Friars, etc., 1889, p. 177.
[111] Stow’s Chronicle, p. 264.
[112] Stow’s Survey of London, ed. by Strype, 1754, vol. i. p. 303.
[113] Gregory’s Chronicle (Historical Collections of a Citizen of London, ed. J. Gairdner, Camden Society, 1876), p. 165. This Chronicle contains a full description of the coronation and of the banquet in Westminster Hall.
[114] This description is taken from Fabyan’s Chronicle. The speeches in the pageant were by Lydgate, who also wrote a long poem on the ‘Coming of the King out of France to London.’
[115] The particulars respecting the sermon on Edward IV.’s title were obtained by Dr. J. Gairdner from a Latin Chronicle, printed by the Camden Society (Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, 1880, pp. xxii. 173), as also his sitting in the royal seat (sedes regalis), which Dr. Gairdner supposes to be the King’s Bench.
[116] Stow’s Chronicle, p. 416.
[117] Information on London pageants can be obtained from a small octavo volume published by J. B. Nichols & Son in 1831, and from Nichols’s Progresses of Queen Elizabeth and James I.
[118] Liber Custumarum, p. 579.
[119] Riley’s Memorials, p. 42.
[120] See Mr. Riley’s Introduction to the Liber Custumarum, pp. xlviii.-liv.
[121] Liber Custumarum, p. xxxii.
[122] Glossary to Liber Custumarum, p. 795.
[123] Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus, pp. lv., lvii.
[124] Introduction to Liber Albus, p. lviii.
[125] In the compilation of this chapter I am much indebted to the kindness of my friend Mr. D’Arcy Power, who has not only helped me with information from his own great knowledge of the history of surgery and medicine, but who also drew my attention to and lent me books and pamphlets of which I should otherwise have been ignorant.
[126] Coming of the Friars, London, 1889, p. 6.
[127] A History of Epidemics in Britain, 2 vols. 8vo, Cambridge, 1891-1894.
[128] Medical Times and Gazette, November 18, 1881, p. 601.
[129] Progress of Medicine at St. Batholomew’s Hospital, 1888, p. 5.
[130] See the British Medical Journal, 1902, vol. ii. p. 1176.
[131] In ‘How Surgery became a Profession in London.’ London, Medical Magazine, 1899.
[132] Dr. Poore has analysed the different points in Chaucer’s description, and explained the various allusions of the statement that the doctor’s line of study had little to do with the Bible. Dr. Poore writes: ‘This line is frequently quoted to show that the scepticism with which doctors are often charged is of no modern growth. The point of the line is however to be found in the fact that Chaucer’s doctor was certainly a priest, as were all the physicians of his time, and that the practice of medicine had drawn him away, somewhat unduly, perhaps, from the clerical profession, to which he also belonged.’—G.V. Poore, M.D. London from the Sanitary and Medical Point of View, 1889, p. 52.
[133] Joannis Anglici praxis medica, Rosa Anglica dicta (Augsburg, 1595, lib. ii. p. 1050), quoted by J. J. Jusserand (English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages, 1901, p. 180), and by J. Flint South (Craft of Surgery, 1886, p. 29.)
[134] D’Arcy Power’s How Surgery became a Profession in London (1899), which valuable article contains a full account of the scheme.
[135] Ibid., p. 9.
[136] D’Arcy Power’s How Surgery became a Profession in London, p. 9.
[137] Ibid., p. 1.
[138] He was born in 1307 (Sloane MS., No. 75).
[139] See John Arderne and his Time, by William Anderson, F.R.C.S., 1899 (reprinted from the Lancet, Oct. 23); J. F. South’s Memorials of the Craft of Surgery, ed. by D’Arcy Power, M.A., F.R.C.S., 1886, pp. 30-45; also London from the Sanitary and Medical Point of View, by G. V. Poore, M.D., F.R.C.P., 1889, pp. 53-56.
[140] Riley’s Memorials, p. 274.
[141] How Surgery became a Profession in London, pp. 3, 4.
[142] Riley’s Memorials, p. 337.
[143] Ibid., p. 519.
[144] Ibid., p. 520.
[145] How Surgery became a Profession in London, p. 4.
[146] Riley’s Memorials, p. 651.
[147] How Surgery became a Profession in London, pp. 2, 3.
[148] ‘William Hobbes (appointed in 1461) was the first Serjeant Surgeon, a distinguished office which carried with it certain well-defined professional privileges. Thomas Morstede, William Bredewardyne, and John Harwe, who attended Henry V. in his French campaigns, did not receive this title, but are called simply “Surgeons to the King.” ’—D’Arcy Power, The Serjeant Surgeons of England and their Office (Janus, 1900, p. 174).
[149] How Surgery became a Profession in London, pp. 11, 12.
[150] Annals of the Barber Surgeons of London, by Sidney Young. London, 1890.
[151] Ibid., p. 245.
[152] London, 1885.
[153] Dr. Norman Moore has printed the Cottonian MS. Life of Rahere in the Bartholomew Hospital Reports, vol. xxi., and copious extracts from the MS. had previously been given by Mr. J. Saunders in his articles on St. Bartholomew’s in Knight’s London, vol. ii.
[154] Progress of Medicine, 1888, p. 21.
[155] These documents are printed in the Appendix to Memoranda relating to the Royal Hospitals of London, 1836, pp. 1-49.
[156] Reprinted in Dr. Furnivall’s edition of Thomas Vicary’s Anatomie of the Bodie of Man, E. E. T. S., 1888, pp. 289-336.
[157] ‘The Physicians and Surgeons of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital before the time of Harvey,’ St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Reports, vol. xviii., 1882, pp. 333-338.
[158] ‘The Serjeant-Surgeons of England and their Office,’ by D’Arcy Power (British Medical Journal, 1900, vol. i. p. 583).
[159] The manuscript is dated 1392, but the handwriting of the copy used by Dr. Payne is of a much later date. Dr. Payne says that the Anatomy of Vicary is absolutely that of the fourteenth century, without any correction or addition to bring it up to the standard of his own day, ‘On an unpublished English Anatomical Treatise of the fourteenth century, and its relation to the Anatomy of Thomas Vicary’ (British Medical Journal, 25th January 1896, p. 208).
[160] A History of Epidemics in Britain, by Charles Creighton, M.D., 1891, vol. i. pp. 97, 98.
[161] Ibid., p. 106.
[162] Creighton, vol. i. p. 97.
[163] England in the Fifteenth Century, 1888, p. 208 (note).
[164] Creighton, vol. i. p. 105.
[165] Quarterly Review, No. 388, p. 540.
[166] Epidemics in Britain, vol. i. p. 119. See also The Great Pestilence, by F. A. Gasquet, D.D., O.S.B., London, 1893.
[167] Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus, p. liv.
[168] Jessopp’s Coming of the Friars.
[169] Riley’s Memorials, p. 219 (note).
[170] Ibid., p. 240 (note).
[171] A History of Epidemics in Britain, vol. i. p. 202.
[172] Ibid., p. 228.
[173] Creighton, vol. i. pp. 313, 314.
[174] Anatomie of the Bodie of Man, ed. Furnivall, App. 161.
[175] Ibid., pp. 163, 164.
[176] Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, vii. 749.
[177] Creighton, vol. i. p. 316.
[178] Vicary, App. iii. p. 166.
[179] Mr. Power refers me to the fact that isolated cases of plague and local epidemics occurred long after the Great Fire.
[180] In a broadside referring to ‘The Plague of London, printed by Peter Cole, at the printing office in Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange, 1665,’ the number of deaths from plague in 1603, 1625 and 1636 are given as follows:—1603, 30,561 persons; 1625, 35,403; and 1636, 10,400. The numbers in 1593 are given as above.
[181] Mr Pearce gives some interesting facts in his Annals of Christ’s Hospital (p. 207) respecting the effects of the plague in 1603 and 1665 on the condition of the Blue Coat School. During 1665 no more than 32 children of the total number of 260 in the house died of all diseases, although the neighbourhood was severely visited.
[182] Creighton, vol. i. p. 265.
[183] Creighton, p. 270.
[184] Progress of Medicine, 1888, p. 24.
[185] Creighton, vol. i. p. 44.
[186] London (Ancient and Modern) from the Sanitary and Medical Point of View, by G. V. Poore, M.D., F.R.C.P., 1889, p. 114.
[187] Ibid., p. 31.
[188] Creighton, vol. i. p. 323.
[189] Stow’s Chronicle, p. 212.
[190] Riley’s Memorials, p. 67.
[191] Rymer’s Foedera, vol. iii. p. 411.
[192] Creighton, vol. i. pp. 323, 324.
[193] Creighton, vol. i. p. 324.
[194] Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus, p. xl.
[195] Cal. Letter Book A.
[196] Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus, p. xli.
[197] Mr. Round conjectures that the ‘Gosfregth Portirefan’ of the Conqueror’s Charter was the first Geoffrey de Mandeville.—Geoffrey de Mandeville, a Study of the Anarchy, 1892, p. 439.
[198] ‘The acceptance of this view will at once dispose of the alleged disappearance of the portreeve, with the difficulties it has always presented, and the conjectures to which it has given rise. The style of the “portreeve” indeed disappears, but his office does not. In the person of the Norman vicecomes it preserves an unbroken existence. Geoffrey de Mandeville steps, as sheriff, into the shoes of Ansgar, the portreeve.’—Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 354.
[199] Constitutional History, chap, xi., note to par. 131.
[200] Select Charters, Oxford, 1884, p. 107.
[201] Geoffrey de Mandeville, 1892, p. 372
[202] Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 373.
[203] Constitutional History, chap. xiii. par 165.
[204] Ancient Charters prior to 1200, edited by J. H. Round. Part I, p. 27, 1888 (Pipe Roll Society).
[205] The Commune of London, p. 98.
[206] Round’s Commune of London, pp. 223, 224.
[207] ‘A London Municipal Collection of the Reign of John,’ part i., English Historical Review, July 1902, p. 480.
[208] ‘Nunc primum in sibi indulta conjuratione, regno regem deesse cognovit Londonia, quam nec rex ipse Ricardus, nec prædecessor et pater ejus Henricus pro mille millibus marcarum argenti fieri permississet.’—Richard of Devizes, p. 416 (Commune of London, p. 223)
[209] Bishop Stubbs’s Historical Introductions, pp. 200-309.
[210] The Commune of London, p. 224. The Beffroi of France was the symbol and pledge of independence. So was the bell-tower of St. Paul’s, which is styled in documents berefridum or campanile, p. 234.
[211] The Commune of London, p. 225.
[212] The Commune of London, p. 228.
[213] Ibid., p. 228.
[214] 1193. ‘Sacramentum Commune tempore regis Ricardi quando detentus erat Alemaniam’ (Add. MS., No. 14,252, f. 112 d.), 1205-1206. ‘Sacramentum xxiiij factum anno regni regis Johannis viiº.’ (Add. MS., No. 14,252, f. 110).—(The Commune of London, 1899, pp. 235-237.)
[215] Commune of London, p. 240.
[216] A curious point is that formerly the Leges Britolii were supposed to relate to Bristol, and the great English port obtained credit which it did not deserve.
[217] ‘The Laws of Breteuil [Britolium],’ English Historical Review, xv. (1900), pp. 73, 302, 496, 754.
[218] The seal is figured in ‘Rotuli Curiæ Regis. Rolls and Records of the Court held before the King’s Justiciars or Justices, ed. by Sir Francis Palgrave,’ vol. i., 1835 (plate 1), and is here reproduced.
[219] Constitutional History, chap. xiii. sec. 165.
[220] Cal. Letter Book B, p. 244.
[221] Cal. Letter Book A, pp. 89, 209.
[222] Rymer’s Foedera, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 892.
[223] Cal. Letter Book C, pp. 27, 212, 213.
[224] Constitutional History, chap. xxi. sec. 486.
[225] Sharpe, London and the Kingdom, vol. i. p. 158.
[226] Letter Book F, fo. 44. Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus, 1859, pp. xcviii., xcix. (note).
[227] This church was destroyed in the Great Fire, and rebuilt after the designs of Sir C. Wren. It was cleared away in 1831 to make way for the approaches to the new London Bridge.
[228] Stubbs, Constitutional History, chap. xxi. sec. 487.
[229] Statutes at Large, ed. 1762, ii. 257.
[230] Riley’s Memorials, pp. 473, 474.
[231] Riley’s Memorials, pp. 415, 416.
[232] Rotuli Parl. iii. 227.
[233] Riley’s Memorials, p. 494.
[234] Ibid., p. 526.
[235] Cal. Letter Book A, p. 64.
[236] Constitutional History, chap. xxi. sec. 488.
[237] See Jewitt and Hope’s Corporation Plate, 1895, vol. ii., pp. 446, 463.
[238] Riley’s Memorials, pp. 604, 605.
[239] Historical Collections of a Citizen of London, 1876, pp. 222, 223.
[240] London and the Kingdom, i. 69. ‘Cives vero Lundonie servierunt de pincernaria, et Cives Wintonie de Coquina.’—Roger de Hoveden, Bodl. Laud., MS. 582, fo. 52. (See Wickham Legg’s English Coronation Records, 1901, p. 50).
[241] ‘Andrew the Mayor came to serve as butler with 360 cups, on the ground that the City of London is bound to serve in butlery to help the great butler (just as the City of Winchester serves in the kitchen to help the steward). The King said that no one ought to serve by right except Master Michael Belet, so the Mayor gave way and served the two bishops on the King’s right hand. ‘De Servitiis magnatum in die Coronationis Regis et Reginæ, Red Book of the Exchequer, ed. by Hubert Hall, pt. ii., 1896, pp. 755-760 (Rolls Series). The germ of the Court of Claims will be found in this MS. See also Wickham Legg’s English Coronation Records, 1901, pp. 60, 63.
[242] English Coronation Records, 1901, pp. 140, 159.
[243] London and the Kingdom, i. 275.
[244] ‘Dinner being concluded, the Lord Mayor and twelve principal citizens of London, as assistants to the Chief Butler of England, accompanied by the King’s cupbearer and assistant, presented to His Majesty wine in a gold cup; and the King having drank thereof, returned the gold cup to the Lord Mayor as his fee.’—L. G. Wickham Legg, English Coronation Records, 1901, p. 361.
[245] The Petition of the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of London, containing their claims fully set forth, is printed in Coronation of King Edward VII. The Court of Claims. Cases and Evidence, by G. Woods Wollaston, London, 1903, p. 52.
[246] Constitutional History, iii. 587.
[247] Cal. Letter Book C, p. 32.
[248] Riley’s Memorials, p. 41.
[249] Ibid., p. 46.
[250] Ibid., p. 78.
[251] Liber Albus, trans. by Riley, p. 291.
[252] Liber Albus, p. 276.
[253] The Aldermen of Cripplegate Ward, by John James Baddeley, 1901, p. I (Calendar of Letter Book A, pp. 209, 226).
[254] Cal. Letter Book C, pp. 11, 12.
[255] In 1711 a return was made to the practice of nominating two persons only, followed in 1714 by ‘an Act for reviving the ancient manner of electing aldermen’(13 Anne), which restored to the ‘inhabitants their ancient rights and privileges of choosing one person only to be their alderman.’ These particulars respecting the election of aldermen are taken from The Aldermen of Cripplegate Ward, from 1276 to 1900, by Mr. Deputy John James Baddeley, who has collected in his valuable book a considerable amount of fresh information on the office of aldermen, etc.
[256] Liber Albus, translated by H. T. Riley, 1861, p. 29.
[257] Sharpe’s London and the Kingdom, vol. i. p. 217.
[258] Riley’s Memorials, p. 655.
[259] Cal. Letter Book A, p. 76. By the Local Government Act of 1888 the citizens of London were deprived of all right of jurisdiction over the county of Middlesex, which had been expressly granted by various charters.
[260] Liber Albus, English translation, p. 399.
[261] The Aldermen of Cripplegate Ward, 1900, p. 235.
[262] Mr. Baddeley continues the account of the changes in the mode of election up to the present time: ‘From 1642 to 1651 the Mayor’s claim to elect a sheriff was always contested. For the year 1652 and for some years afterwards the Mayor neither nominated nor elected a sheriff, but in 1662, when he would have elected one Bludworth as sheriff, the commonalty claimed their right, although they accepted the Mayor’s nominee. The prerogative thus claimed by the Mayor, although frequently challenged, was exercised for the most part by subsequent Mayors down to 1674, when exception was taken to William Roberts, whom the Mayor had formally nominated (according to a custom which is said to have arisen in the time of Elizabeth) by drinking to him at a public banquet. In the following year and for some years later the Mayor exercised his prerogative of electing one of the sheriffs without opposition. In 1703 an Act was passed declaring the right of election of sheriffs to be in the liverymen of the several companies of the city in Common Hall assembled.’ It was, however, lawful for the Lord Mayor to nominate for the office. ‘By an Act of 1748 the Lord Mayor might continue to nominate to the extent of nine persons in the whole.’ By an Act of Common Council in 1878 the right of election to the office of sheriff was vested in the liverymen of the several companies of the city in Common Hall assembled. The Lord Mayor nominating one or more freemen (not exceeding three in the whole) for the shrievalty.
[263] The Aldermen of Cripplegate Ward, by J. J. Baddeley, 1900, p. 218.
[264] Letter Book F, f. 206.
[265] Letter Book H, f. 46b (Baddeley’s Aldermen of Cripplegate Ward, p. 215).
[266] Corporation Plate and Insignia of Office of the Cities and Towns of England and Wales, by Llewellyn Jewitt, ed. and completed by W. H. St. John Hope, 1895, vol. ii. p. 122.
[267] Corporation Plate and Insignia of Office of the Cities and Towns of England and Wales, p. 120.
[268] Archæologia, vol. v. pp. 211-213.
[269] See Liber Custumarum (Rolls Series), Introduction, p. lxxvi.
[270] Cal. Letter Book C, p. 71.
[271] Cal. Letter Book A, p. 222.
[272] Dugdale’s Baronage, i. 220.
[273] Riley’s Memorials, p. 178.
[274] Riley’s Memorials, p. 236.
[275] Ibid., p. 178.
[276] Cal. Letter Book A, p. 161.
[277] Calendar of Charter Rolls, vol. i. 1903, p. 163.
[278] Liber Custumarum (Rolls Series), vol i. p. 243.
[279] Calendars: Letter Book A, p. 128; Letter Book C, p. 116.
[280] Letter Book C, p. 157 (note).
[281] Letter Book B, pp. vi., xi.
[282] Riley’s Memorials, p. 650.
[283] Corporation Plate and Insignia of Office of the Cities and Towns of England and Wales, by Llewellyn Jewitt, ed. by W. H. St. John Hope, 1895, vol. ii, pp. 100, 109.
[284] Ibid., p. 91.
[285] Round’s Commune of London, p. 246.
[286] Calender of Documents preserved in France, ed. by J. Horace Round, 1899, p. 502.
[287] No woollen cloth was allowed to be dyed black except with woad. See Liber Custumarum, Introd., pp. xl., xliii., quoted in Letter Book C, ed. Sharpe, pp. 135, 136 (note), from which this information is obtained. The whole history of the cultivation and use of woad is one of great interest. It was cultivated in England from the earliest times, and the trade was ruined by the indigo growers as they in turn have been ruined in our own day by the manufacture in Germany of synthetic indigo.
[288] Sharpe’s London and the Kingdom, vol. i. p. 215.
[289] Riley’s Memorials, p. 444.
[290] Riley’s Memorials, p. 345.
[291] Calendar of State Papers, 1611-1618, p. 369.
[292] Cal. Letter Book B, p. 236; Cal. Letter Book C, p. vii
[293] Cal. Letter Book B, p. 236.
[294] Letter Book A, p. 3; Letters-Patent for St. Botolph’s Fair, 1298. Letter Book B, p. 219.
[295] Liber Albus, English translation, p. 473.
[296] Liber Albus, English translation, p. 228.
[297] Mr. W. J. Ashley writes of this town: ‘The conquest of Calais furnished a place which combined the advantages of being abroad and therefore near the foreign market with that of being within English territory.’—Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, 1888-1893, p. 112.
[298] Starkey, England in the Reign of Henry VIII. (Early English Text Society), p. 173.
[299] Mr. W. J. Ashley notes that the earliest instance of the prohibition of the export of wool is found in the action of the Oxford Parliament of 1258. The barons then ‘decreed that the wool of the country should be worked up in England and should not be sold to foreigners, and that every one should use woollen cloth made within the country,’ and lest people should be dissatisfied at having to put up with the rough cloth of England they bade them ‘not to seek over precious raiment.’—English Economic History and Theory, 1888-1893, part ii. p. 194.
[300] Political Poems and Songs, ed. T. Wright (Rolls Series), vol. ii. 1861, pp. 157-205.
[301] Letter Book C, p. 128 (note).
[302] Liber Custumarum, p. xxxix.
[303] Letter Book B, p. 94.
[304] English Gilds, p. xvi.
[305] Ibid., p. lxxv.
[306] Ibid., p. cvii.
[307] English Economic History and Theory, p. 67.
[308] Ibid., p. 82.
[309] English Historical Review, No. 70 (April 1903), vol. xviii. p. 315. See also Calendar of Charter Rolls, vol. i. (1903), p. 407.
[310] Twelve Great Livery Companies (1834), vol. i. p. 24.
[311] Chronicles of the Mayors and Sheriffs of London, 1188-1274. Translated from the Liber de Antiquis Legibus by H. T. Riley, 1863, p. 59.
[312] London and the Kingdom, vol. i. p. 101.
[313] Ibid., p. 108.
[314] English Economic History and Theory, p. 87.
[315] London and the Kingdom, vol. i. p. 200.
[316] English Gilds, p. xlii. (note).
[317] See English Economic History and Theory, 1888-1893, pt. ii. pp. 134, 148, 154.
[318] History of London, vol. i. p. 171 (note).
[319] London (Historic Towns), p. 50.
[320] London Afternoons, 1902, p. 88.
[321] I am indebted to Sir Owen Roberts, M.A., D.C.L., clerk to the Clothworkers’ Company, for this information.
[322] Botfield’s Manners and Household Expenses of England, 1841.
[323] W. J. Ashley, English Economic History and Theory, pp. 81, 83.
[324] Cal. Letter Book C, p. 35.
[325] Madox’s Firma Burgi, p. 286.
[326] Town Life, vol. ii. p. 142.
[327] The reason given for the repeal of the Act of Edward II. excluding victuallers from the office of Mayor is that ‘since the making of the Statute many and the most part of all cities, boroughs and towns corporate be fallen in ruin and decay, and not inhabited with merchants and men of such substance as they were at the time of making the Statute. For at this day the dwellers and inhabitants of the same cities and boroughs be most commonly bakers, brewers, vintners, fishmongers, and other victuallers, and few or none other persons of substance.’
Mr. W. J. Ashley (Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, part ii. 1893, p. 53), observes that, ‘without further proof it were hardly safe to build on the wide language of the preamble of a Statute a conclusion which seems in obvious conflict with what we know of the generic course of events.’
In London, evidently, little or no attention was paid to the original Act of Edward II., but in other places this was not the case. The Statute of Henry VIII. provided that when the Mayor was a victualler, two honest and discreet persons, not being victuallers, should be chosen to assist him in ‘settling prices’ of victuals.
[328] Liber Custumarum, vol i. p. 326-333.
[329] Liber Albus, Introduction by H. T. Riley, 1859, p. ci.
[330] Liber Custumarum, p. lxviii.
[331] Liber Albus, Introduction by H. T. Riley, p. lxxxi.
[332] Liber Albus, Introduction by H. T. Riley, p. lxxix.
[333] These prices, obtained from the Liber Albus, are of great interest. Of course, it is necessary to bear in mind the great difference in the value of money. It is impossible to fix a uniform standard of comparison, but we may put the present value broadly at between twelve and twenty times that of the reign of Edward I., the latter being more likely to be a true one. It will thus be seen that much food was dearer in the Middle Ages than at present. A rabbit and its skin are considerably less valuable now, as also a partridge.
[334] Liber Albus, Introduction by H. T. Riley, p. lxxxii.
[335] Cal. Letter Book D, p. xix.
[336] Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus, p. lxii.
[337] Riley’s Introduction to the Liber Albus, p. lxv.
[338] H. T. Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus, p. lxxxviii.
[339] Ibid., p. lxxxix.
[340] Liber Custumarum, ed. Riley, p. lxx.
[341] Liber Albus, p. xc.
[342] Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century (Camden Society, 1876).
[343] Diary, July 26, 1664.
[344] Whitwell (Roy. Hist. Soc. Trans., xvii. p. 208).
[345] Extracts from the Liberate Rolls relative to loans supplied by Italian merchants to the Kings of England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with an Introductory Memoir by E. A. Bond (Archæologia, xxviii. (1839), pp. 207-326). There has lately been a revival of interest in this subject. In 1902 Mr. W. E. Rhodes published a paper on ‘The Italian Bankers in England, and their Loans to Edward I. and Edward II.,’ in Historical Essays by Members of the Owen’s College, Manchester. Mr. R. J. Whitwell read his important paper on ‘Italian Bankers and the English Crown’ before the Royal Historical Society on March 19, 1903, which is published in the Transactions of that Society, N.S., xvii. pp. 175-233.
[346] Cal. Letter Book B, p. 94.
[347] Ibid., p. 165.
[348] Longman’s Edward III., vol. ii. pp. 262, 263.
[349] Archæologia, vol. xxviii. p. 240.
[350] Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles (Camden Society, 1880), p. 9.
[351] ‘De Verborum Significatione. The Exposition of the Termes and difficill wordes contained in the foure buiks of Regiam Maiestatem and uthers. Collected and exponed by Master John Skene. London, 1641.’
[352] Cal. Letter Book A, ed. Dr. Reginald Sharpe, p. iv.
[353] See Jewitt and Hope’s Corporation Plate, etc., vol. ii. p. 123 (Cal. Letter Book A, p. 79).
[354] Scott’s Lectures on Mediæval Architecture, vol. ii. p. 29.
[355] Sparrow Simpson’s Chapters in the History of Old St. Paul’s, 1881, p. 19.
[356] The dimensions as given by Dugdale agree with those stated on a tablet which once hung in the Cathedral on a column near the tomb of John of Gaunt. They are:—
| Length | 690 ft. |
| Breadth | 130 ft. |
| Height of roof of west part from floor | 102 ft. |
| Height of roof of new fabric (viz., east from steeple) | 88 ft. |
| Body of church | 150 ft. |
| Height of tower steeple from the level ground | 260 ft. |
| Height of the spire of wood, covered with lead | 274 ft. |
| ‘And yet the whole, viz., tower and spire, exceedeth not’ | 520 ft. |
| Cross, ‘length’ above the ball | 15 ft. |
| Cross, traverse | 6 ft. |
| Ball contains ten bushels of corn. | |
| Space on which the cathedral stands, 3½ acres, 1½ roods, 6 perches. | |
—(Documents Illustrating the History of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Camden Society, 1880, p. 191.)
Mr. Edmund B. Ferrey, who worked on Hollar’s plans, and made illustrations for Mr. William Longman’s Three Cathedrals of St. Paul (1873), considers that Dugdale’s figures are untrustworthy. His own figures are:—
| Length (inclusive of end walls) | 596 ft. | |
| Breadth (including aisle walls) | 104 ft. | |
| Height of roof, west part (up to ridge of vaulting) | 93 ft. | |
| Height of roof (up to vault ridge) to ‘choir proper’ | 101 ft. | 6 in. |
| Height of roof at Lady Chapel | 98 ft. | 6 in. |
| External height (ground to ridge of outer roof to choir) | 142 ft. | |
| External height (ground to ridge of outer roof to nave) | 130 ft. | |
| Height of tower steeple from level ground | 285 ft. | |
| Height of the spire covered with lead | 208 ft. | |
| (or 204 ft. if calculated from top of tower parapet). |
—(Longman’s Three Cathedrals dedicated to St. Paul in London, 1873, p. 30).
It will be seen that Mr. Ferrey’s figures, formed on careful calculations, not only differ considerably from those of Dugdale, but in the case of the relative heights of the nave and choir they are positively opposite. Mr. Ferrey came to the conclusion that the choir was decidedly higher than the nave.
[357] Old St. Paul’s Cathedral, by Canon Benham, D.D. (Portfolio Monograph), 1902, pp. 6, 7.
[358] Simpson’s History of Old St. Paul’s, 1881, p. 64.
[359] Stow quoted in Longman’s Three Cathedrals, p. 57.
[360] In 1633 Inigo Jones designed, at the expense of Charles I., a classic portico of some beauty in itself, but quite incongruous to the Gothic design of the rest of the building. The King, however, is said to have intended to rebuild the church, and of this scheme the portico was an instalment, but political events effectually prevented this from being carried out. After the Restoration, but before the Fire of London, it was proposed to rebuild the Cathedral in the style of the Renaissance, under the direction of Wren, who had no more liking for Gothic than Inigo Jones had.
[361] History of Old St. Paul’s, 1881, pp. 62, 63.
[362] The name of London House Yard preserves the memory of the palace.
[363] Paul’s Cross was pulled down in 1642, but its site was long marked by a tall elm tree. This mark passed away and the exact position was forgotten. In 1879, however, Mr. F. C. Penrose found the remains of the octagonal base, which are now to be seen at the north-east angle of the choir of the present Cathedral.
[364] During the Commonwealth it was proposed to turn the so-called Convocation House into a meeting-place for Mr. John Simpson’s congregation. A plan (dated 1657) in the Public Record Office (Council of State Order Book, 1657-1658, p. 172) shows the remains of the pillars of the cloisters as they were then. This plan is reproduced in Documents Illustrating the History of St. Paul’s Cathedral (Camden Society, 1880), p. 154.
[365] The amount of the offerings at St. Paul’s during the Middle Ages must have been enormous; for instance, the receipts at the Great Crucifix, in May 1344, amounted to no less than £50 in the money of that day.—Dr. Sparrow Simpson’s History of Old St. Paul’s, p. 83.
[366] Simpson’s History of Old St. Paul’s, p. 90.
[367] The late Dr. Sparrow Simpson’s Documents illustrating the History of St. Paul’s Cathedral (Camden Society, 1880) contains a list of altars in old St. Paul’s (p. 178), and a list of chapels (p. 181).
[368] Dugdale quoted in Longman’s Three Cathedrals, p. 58.
[369] Simpson’s History of Old St. Paul’s, p. 91.
[370] London (Historic Towns), 1887, p. 158.
[371] Liber Albus, translated by Riley, pp. 24-27.
[372] Historical Introduction to the Rolls Series. Collected by Arthur Hassall, 1902, p. 77.
[373] In connection with the history of the Austin Friars the fact that the church of the friary still exists is one of great interest. At the dissolution a large portion of the friary was given to Lord St. John, afterwards Marquis of Winchester and Lord Treasurer. The church was reserved by the King, and the nave still remains.
[374] Dugdale (Warwickshire, ed. 1730, p. 186), says that the Patriarch Albert prescribed for the Carmelite Friars a parti-coloured mantle of white and red, and that Pope Honorius III., disliking this, appointed in 1285 that it should be all white.
[375] G. M. Trevelyan, England in the Age of Wycliffe, p. 139.
[376] Dictionary of National Biography (Anne), vol. i. p. 424.
[377] Riley’s Memorials, p. 630.
[378] Cal. Letter Book B, pp. xiii.-xv.
[379] Ibid., p. 215.
[380] In Gross’s Select Cases from Coroner’s Rolls (Selden Society, Introduction, p. xxx.), instances are given of the part played by the privilege of sanctuary in thwarting criminal justice.
[381] Constitutional History of England, chap. xxi. para. 496.
[382] Master Hugh de Whytington was master of the scholars of St. Martin-le-Grand in 1298 (Cal. Letter Book B, p. 73).
[383] Survey, ed. Thoms, pp. 27, 28.
[384] Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. 1597, p. 1885; Holinshed, p. 1142. This incident will be recognised as the groundwork of Mr. Weyman’s delightful romance of Francis Cludde.
[385] Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare (seventh edition), 1887, vol. i. p. 124.
[386] Life of William Shakespeare, 1898, p. 70.
| Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: |
|---|
| the gate of Bisshopesgate=> the gate of Bishopesgate {pg 27} |
| at Clerkemwell=> at Clerkenwell {pg 55} |
| various prominent citzens=> various prominent citizens {pg 145} |
| oaths shall he taken=> oaths shall be taken {pg 265} |
| a wine merhant of Bergerac=> a wine merchant of Bergerac {pg 271} |
| The number or trades=> The number of trades {pg 303} |
| their folk moots=> their folkmoots {pg 337} |
