Of the parochial history of London very little is known. At the end of the Saxon period the Church of St. Paul seems to have been surrounded by a few chapels under the jurisdiction of the Cathedral body, and served by Chaplains. St. Peter, Cornhill, seems to have been the church of the bishop’s soke. A number of churches seem to have been built in the twelfth century by owners of property, of whom several were priests:—“There can be little doubt that St. Martin Orgars, and St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, were built by Orgar, a wealthy alderman; and that St. John Zachary, St. Andrew Hubbard, St. Katharine Colman, St. Benet Fink, St. Lawrence Pountney, and other names affixed to churches, commemorate founders, builders, or restorers, chiefly of the early part of the twelfth century. In the time of Henry I., the chapter assigned a parish to the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Milk Street, of which one Geoffrey, a priest, was the owner, and his son Bartholomew his successor.”
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NORWICH, FROM G. BRAUN’S URBIUM PRAECIPUARUM
TOTIUS MUNDI, LIB. III, pl. 1. A.D. 1573.
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Environs of London, reproduced from a fragmentary tapestry
map executed at Weston, Warwickshire, circ. 1570.
“Many of those parish churches were of very modest dimensions, some of them only chapels to the great house by whose lord they were built. The steeple and chancel of All Hallows the Less stood over the gateway of Cold Harbour, the parish being, in fact, the estate of the Pountney family, and divided by them from All Hallows the Great. St. Mary Cole Church was over the gateway of the hospital of St. Thomas of Acon in Cheap. St. Mildred Poultry, and St. John, were both built on arches over the Wallbrook.”[575]
Of several other churches the founders are known: the canons of St. Martin built St. Leonard and St. Vedast; the Grey Friars of Newgate Street built St. Ewen and St. Nicholas; Robert the son of Ralph the son of Herluin built St. Michael le Querne; Alfune, the friend of Rahere, founder of St. Bartholomew’s, built St. Giles, and Aelmund the priest, with his son Hugh, gave it to St. Paul’s.