III.—Saxon London
If we know but little about Roman London, we know still less, if possible, about Saxon London. So far as it was inhabited at all, it was the capital of the kings of Essex, and is so described in a very few documents. On this account it was an episcopal see. How the Saxons became possessed of it we do not know. Probably Stow's account may be accepted as the most likely:—
"This citie of London having beene destroyed and brent by the Danes and other pagan ennemies about the yere of Christ 839, was by Alfred King of the West Saxons, in the yere 886, repayred and honorably restored and made againe habitable."
That Stow's account is according to the best authorities will be apparent to any reader of Green's Conquest of England. In chapter iv. he describes the condition of London and the neighbouring kingdom of the East Saxons—"A tract which included not only the modern shire that bears their name, but our Middlesex and Hertfordshire, and whose centre or 'mother-city' was London." He goes on to point out that at the time of Alfred's great campaigns against the Danes, London had played but little part in English history: "Indeed," he affirms, "for nearly half a century after its conquest by the East Saxons, it wholly disappears from our view." Its position, he goes on to show, was sure eventually to draw in both trade and population, but the Danish war arrested progress.
"To London the war brought all but ruin; so violent, in fact, was the shock to its life that its very bishoprick seemed for a time to cease to exist. The Roman walls must have been broken and ruined, for we hear of no resistance such as that which in later days made the city England's main bulwark against northern attack."
Asser, in his Life of Alfred, tells us plainly enough of the condition of the space within the ruined walls. It must have been that of Pevensey now, or of Silchester before the grass grew over it. Alfred, he says, "restauravit et habitabilem fecit." "To make a town habitable" implies that it was uninhabited; "to restore it" implies that at some previous period it had been what the great king then made it once more. How long this condition of desolation prevailed within the Roman wall we have no information. Unfortunately no successful attempt has been made to discriminate between the Roman masonry, that of Alfred, and that of the successive mediæval repairs, in the recent examinations of what is left of the wall.
It is well to keep the few chronological facts before us in trying to judge of the influence of the events of 457 on what was left of Roman London. These facts may be briefly stated. In 369 London was Augusta of the Romans. In 457, or ninety-eight years—practically a century—later, the Saxons caught the Britons of London at the ford over the Cray, in Kent, fifteen miles down the Thames, and slew 4,000 of them, the rest flying "in great terror to London." The chronicle does not tell us whether the Saxons entered the city then or not. Judging by analogy, they did enter it then or soon after, and slew the Britons that were left from the slaughter at Crayford. The Britons had certainly ceased out of London when we hear of it again. They had so utterly perished that not a single Celtic or Roman local name was left, except the two already mentioned—Thames and London. There is absolute silence in the chronicle. This ominous silence lasts from 457 to 609. We have, therefore, a hundred years from the departure of the Romans to the battle of Crayford, and 152 years more to the next mention of London; in all 250 years during which there is only one thing certain—namely, that owing to some cause, the British and Roman languages ceased altogether to be spoken or even remembered, and together with them the Roman religion. The change is complete, as well it might be in that long time—as long as between the death of Charles I. and the accession of Edward VII. This blank in the history is all the more marked because no inscriptions have survived. We have a few—very few—examples of writing before the Romans left. We have not a line, not a letter, during those 250 years, and when we find anything again, the writers are Anglo-Saxon—the language is entirely changed, so entirely that not even one local name survives.
It may be necessary to note here that some excellent authorities, finding certain traces of Roman law and customs existing in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, have formed the opinion that such laws were relics of the Roman occupation. It would be interesting if we could accept this view, just as if, for example, we could say that Paternoster Row was so named by the Romans. But, as I shall have to point out a little further, the origin of such usages is obvious without any recourse to the revival of laws dead and buried centuries before; if, indeed, they ever existed among people whose very language had wholly died out and been forgotten. It is, to say the least, unlikely that a continuity should exist in this respect, while the language in which it must have been preserved, orally, if not in records, died out and left not a trace even in a local name.
Bronze Pin with Christian Emblems (Roman).
I had written so far when I received Mr. Gomme's very interesting volume on the Governance of London. I greatly regret to say I cannot make his views fit with most of the facts I have endeavoured to put into chronological order above. For example, Roman London, when walled, was a Christian city. When the Saxons had held it from about 457 to 609, it was, we know, a heathen city, and twice afterwards returned to the worship of Woden and Thor. Is this compatible with the survival of a Roman constitution? Or, again, is there any London custom or law which might not have come to it from the cities of Flanders and Gaul more easily than after the changes and chances of two or three centuries? This is not the place to discuss these and other similar questions, and I for one will be extremely glad if Mr. Gomme can prove his point in the face of so much which seems to tell against him.
The East Saxons, it is pretty certain, made but little use of London. We only hear of it when the King of Kent, Ethelbert, set up Sebert, his sister's son, as King of Essex, and having become Christian himself, sent Mellitus, a Roman priest, to preach to Sebert and his people, making him Bishop of London. So much we learn from the Chronicle under the year 609. Next, in Beda, we read that Ethelbert furthermore built the church of St. Paul in London for Mellitus, "where he and his successors should have their episcopal see." Beda also tells us that the Metropolis of the East Saxons is London; so that when we, at the present day, speak of it as the Metropolis, we mean it is the chief ecclesiastical city of Essex; which shows the absurdity of a phrase very common at the present day. Sebert lived till 616 or later, but there is no distinct mention of his life in London. His supposed burial, whether in St. Paul's or at Westminster, belongs to monkish legendary lore, and cannot be discussed as serious history. When his three sons turned back from Christianity they were attacked and slain by the men of Wessex, who seem to have acquired an ascendancy over the East Saxons which they retained till the Danish wars and the settlement of Alfred.
When we next hear of a bishop, he is a missionary from the West Saxons. The brother of the great Chad, the bishop of the Mercians, Cedd, is invited to preach to the heathen East Saxons by Oswy, King of Northumbria. We may take Oswy as godfather of the East Saxon king, Sigebert; but there are many names with little certainty in the few contemporary records. In the confusion Sigebert is murdered, and of his successor we know nothing. He may have reigned at Kingsbury or at Tilbury, where—not in London—Cedd preached: at Colchester or at St. Albans. Then there comes a story of "simony," in which the influence of Worcester is again apparent. Then, at last, we have some documentary evidence. The kings, or kinglets, of Essex were usually two in number. At this time they were Sebbi and his colleague, Sighere, and they both witness a gift made by their cousin Hothilred to Barking Abbey. The document is printed by Kemble in Codex Diplomaticus (vol. i.), and is dated by him in 692 or 693. After this date again the East Saxons—there is not a word about London—become pagans. Sighere and his people of the "East Saxon province" are mentioned by Beda. The subjects of Sebbi remain steadfast, and if we care to guess they will probably be found to have belonged to the "Middlesaxon province." It is mentioned in a document relating to Twickenham, which is described as in that part of the province, and is signed by Swaebred, King of the East Saxons, under the sanction of Coenred, King of Mercia.
The same year that Hothilred gave his land to Barking, the great legendary benefactor of that nunnery died. This was Erkenwald, Abbot of Chertsey, who had become Bishop of London in 675. Two years before, in 673, there is a distinct mention of a church in London. The Archbishop of Canterbury consecrated a bishop of Dunwich "in the city of London." The next mention is by Beda, who tells us of the appointment of Erkenwald, and immediately after of the death of King Sebbi and his burial "in the church of the blessed apostle of the Gentiles."
It thus appears likely that both Erkenwald and Sebbi lived in London. It does not follow that Erkenwald built or rebuilt Bishopsgate. Newgate was in existence under the name of Westgate very soon after. As it opened near the church, it is surely more likely that Erkenwald rebuilt it than the northern gate; but the history of this bishop is so overlaid with monkish legend that we do not require any guesswork.
Gold and Enamel Brooch (Ninth Century).
Found in Thames Street.
In the same way Offa, King of Essex, son of Sighere, is constantly confused with Offa, the great King of Mercia. That one of the two had a house in London is very likely, and is noticed by Matthew Paris. But it is curious that the great Offa's biographers wholly omit to mention London. There were some half-dozen kings of the East Saxons after the abdication of Offa, of Essex, and there is some confusion among them and among the Saxon "dukes" after the submission to Egbert in 823, when we may suppose the Kinglets of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Essex assumed the lower title.
Now, at last, we come to a document which throws light on the condition of London before the Danish war, and the passage quoted from Green's Conquest of England. This is a grant by Burhed, or Burgred, King of Mercia, afterwards styled Duke, who married a sister of Alfred, and no doubt abdicated the royal title when Egbert became king. In it Burgred gives to Bishop Alhun, of Worcester, a piece of land—"a little cabbage garden," as it may be translated—"in vico Lundoniæ; hoc est ubi nominatur Ceolmundingchaga," in the street of London where it is called the enclosure of Ceolmund, "qui est non longe from Uestgetum positus," which is not far from Westgate. We observe the scribe's ignorance of the Latin of "from," and his presumption that those who read the grant would be at least equally ignorant. This grant throws light on the condition of London before the great Danish inroad. There is no building of note along the principal thoroughfare between the modern Newgate and Coleman's enclosure, now, we may safely assume, represented by some part of Coleman Street. Moreover, such an enclosure was possible. Also the ground was occupied by a market garden. There is nothing about a Roman city. There is nothing about a government, municipal or otherwise; there is a king—not of London or of Essex, but of Mercia; and there is a bishop, but he is bishop of Worcester. The date is in full—April 18th, 857. Several other charters occur in which London is named more or less distinctly, and it is evident that the old desolation, if not quite at an end, was at least a circumstance worthy of remark. More than one of these documents speak of the port and of ships resorting to it, and we see the meaning of Green's allusion to the fact that, while London up to that time—namely, the end of the eighth century—had played but little part in English history, its position made it sure to draw both trade and population. Then came the great Danish invasion, the reign and victories of Alfred, the repair of the wall and a new London, England's main bulwark against foreign invasion.
Asser and Stow point out clearly that Alfred's settlement came after a long period of ruin. This period was brought to an end by the renewal of the Roman wall. If we date the events as follows, the slow progress of the re-settlement is apparent. The Danes pervaded London and the neighbourhood in 872. Alfred drove them out twelve years later, in 884. In 886 Alfred commenced his repairs, and before his death in 901, the beginning of the tenth century, he may have seen houses and streets newly rising, some, it is possible, where Roman buildings had stood, but for the most part on wholly new lines. It would not have been like Alfred if he did not leave London with a settled government; and if there are certain foreign usages which can be traced to his time, they had probably been brought in with the concourse of foreign merchants who formed a large part, if not the majority, of the new citizens. A century and a half later they were described by the Norman conqueror as "burghers within London, French and English," and from the prevalence of certain names we find a large Danish element among them, while the term French indicates that perhaps the largest part were either Normans or Gauls from the opposite coast. It is possible that a careful survey of the early history of St. Paul's might bring a few facts to light, whether directly or by inference; but even after the reign of Alfred we have very little knowledge of the condition of the city and its port. It was never taken by the Danes. During the reign of Ethelred "the Unready," the King seems to have been shut up in London while the marauders ravaged the country round. Either the Londoners had great stores of provisions, or they had access to foreign markets. Edgar first recognised the importance of this trade, and no doubt the ill-advised Ethelred, his successor, was well advised in this respect. In years of comparative peace, Edward the Confessor built or rebuilt Westminster Abbey, and lived there; but London trade was not interrupted, and William the Norman was too wise to interfere with it.
The Gates of the City: Bishopsgate and Cripplegate.
We have no remains of Saxon times in the city. The bridge continued to exist, and must have been well fortified. There is a story, which may be true, that Cnut dug a canal through or round Southwark, but as we have seen, this was probably no great feat. He did not succeed in taking London. Soon after, and down to Hastings, Normans, as well as Danes, settled in large numbers in the city, and their names are found in the oldest lists among those of the Saxon aldermen and leading citizens. In the laws of Ethelred, printed by Thorpe, we find two additions to the list of the gates. As we have seen, only two Roman gates are known on the landward side—the Westgate, later known as Newgate, which opened on the Watling Street; and the northern gate, said to have been rebuilt later on a slightly different site, and named Bishopsgate. Ethelred provides for guards at Cripplegate and Aldersgate. This provision seems to show that the gates were then new. Of Aldred, whose name was given to one of them, we have no special knowledge, and Stow supposes it was called "of alders growing there," a typical guess, but nothing to his guess about "Cripplesgate," so called "of cripples resorting there"! But "Crepul geat" is good Anglo-Saxon for a covered way, and the covered way here led to the Barbican. Both gave their names to wards of the city, and in the twelfth century Alwold was alderman of Cripplegate and Brichmar, "who coins the King's money," of Aldersgate, which is distinctly named "Ealdredesgate."
The same document, in which these new gates are mentioned, also gives a few topographical particulars. Thus Billingsgate is mentioned as a place to which ships brought fish, and as being close to the bridge. This was probably what was left of the Roman bridge. It names the merchants of Rouen as entitled to certain consideration in the tax they pay on cargoes of wine. The cities of Flanders, of Normandy, and of France are named in that order, as well as Hogge (Sluys), Leodium (Liege), and Nivella (Nivelle), and there is special mention of the Emperor's men. If any imperial usages, any laws following Roman customs and differing from those of other English cities, prevailed in London it is probably hence that they came, and not through two periods of emptiness and desolation, lasting in all at least 250 years, and probably a good many more.