Old St. Paul's
No account of mediæval London, however brief and partial, could be considered adequate which did not include some reference to Old St. Paul's. One of the greatest glories of London in the old days was its cathedral church, which, in contradistinction from the earlier edifice and from that which has superseded it, we now familiarly designate "Old St. Paul's."
It must have been a church calculated to inspire the admiration, veneration, and pride of Londoners. Its lofty spire, covered with ornamental lead, rose high above every other building near it. It dominated the City and all the surrounding district. The spire itself was over two hundred feet high, and, perched upon a lofty tower, it rose about five hundred feet into the blue sky. The few old views which give a picture of St. Paul's before the storm of 1561 clearly show the magnificent proportions of the spire.
At the east end, a most beautiful and well-proportioned composition was the famous rose-window, forty feet in diameter, referred to as a familiar object by Chaucer.
The magnificent Norman nave, which well deserved admiration on account of its architectural merit, acquired even greater celebrity under the designation of Paul's Walk as a famous meeting-place and promenade of fashionable folk.
Here bargaining and dealing were carried on openly and unchecked. Many English writers refer to this extraordinary desecration of a consecrated building, and from them we learn that the trading carried on in Paul's Walk included simony and chaffering for benefices. Chaucer, in the prologue to his Canterbury Tales, when describing the parson, writes:—
"He sette not his Benefice to hire,
And lette his shepe accombred in the mire,
And ran unto London, unto S. Paules
To seken him a Chanterie for soules,
Or with a Brotherhede to be withold
But dwelt at home, and kept well his folde."
The expression "to dine with Duke Humphrey," applied to persons who, being unable either to procure a dinner by their own money or from the favour of their friends, walk about and loiter during the dinner-time, had its origin in one of the aisles of St. Paul's, which was called Duke Humphrey's Walk: not that there ever was in reality a cenotaph there to the Duke's memory, who, as everyone knows, was buried at St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, but because, says Stow, ignorant people mistook the fair monument of Sir John Beauchamp, who died in 1358, and which was in the south side of the body of the church, for that of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.
The Cloth Fair Smithfield.
Looking to the south-west, and showing the north side of the street.
Perhaps one of the most vivid pictures, although it has certainly some unnatural colouring, is that given in The Gull's Horne-Booke, a satirical work published in London in 1609. Under the heading of "How a Gallant should behave himselfe in Powles-Walkes," one of the chapters gives some details of the place. The following extracts are perhaps the most important:—
"Now for your venturing into the Walke, be circumspect and wary what pillar you come in at, and take heede in any case (as you love the reputation of your honour) that you avoid the Seruingmans logg, and approach not within five fadom of that Piller; but bend your course directly in the middle line, that the whole body of the Church may appeare to be yours; where, in view of all, you may publish your suit in what manner you affect most, either with the slide of your cloake from the one shoulder, and then you must (as twere in anger) suddenly snatch at the middle of the inside (if it be taffata at the least) and so by that meanes your costly lining is betroyed, or else by the pretty advantage of Complement. But one note by the way do I especially wooe you to, the neglect of which makes many of our Gallants cheape and ordinary, that by no meanes you be seene above foure turnes; but in the fifth make yourselfe away, either in some of the Sempsters' shops, the new tobacco-office, or amongst the booke-sellers, where, if you cannot reade, exercise your smoake, and enquire who has writ against this divine weede, etc. For this withdrawing yourselfe a little, will much benefite your suit, which else, by too long walking, would be stale to the whole spectators: but howsoever if Powles Jacks bee once up with their elbowes, and quarrelling to strike eleven, as soone as ever the clock has parted them, and ended the fray with his hammer, let not the Duke's gallery contain you any longer, but passe away apace in open view.
"All the diseased horses in a tedious siege cannot show so many fashions, as are to be seene for nothing, everyday, in Duke Humfryes walke. If therefore you determine to enter into a new suit, warne your Tailor to attend you in Powles, who, with his hat in his hand, shall like a spy discover the stuffe, colour, and fashion of any doublet, or hose that dare to be seene there, and stepping behind a piller to fill his table-bookes with those notes, will presently send you into the world an accomplisht man: by which meanes you shall weare your clothes in print with the first edition. But if Fortune favour you so much as to make you no more than a meere gentleman, or but some three degrees removd from him (for which I should be very sorie, because your London experience wil cost you deere before you shall have ye wit to know what you are) then take this lesson along with you: The first time that you venture into Powles, passe through the Body of the Church like a Porter, yet presume not to fetch so much as one whole turn in the middle Ile, no nor to cast an eye to Si quis doore (pasted and plaistered up with Servingmens supplications) before you have paid tribute to the top of Powles steeple with a single penny: And when you are mounted there, take heede how you looke downe into the yard; for the railes are as rotten as your great-Grand father; and thereupon it will not be amisse if you enquire how Kit Woodroffe durst vault over, and what reason he had for it, to put his neck in hazard of reparations.
"The great dyal is your last monument: there bestow some half of the threescore minutes.... Besides, you may heere have fit occasion to discover your watch, by taking it forth and setting the wheeles to the time of Powles, which, I assure you, goes truer by five notes than S. Sepulchres Chimes. The benefit that wil arise from hence is this yt you publish your charge in maintaining a gilded clocke; and withall the world shall know that you are a time-pleaser."