Wondrously different was Plantagenet London from that of the Victorian era: different in every respect, notably in size, population, and aspect. It was chiefly comprised within the walls, which commenced at the Postern Gate of the Tower, and completed the circuit at the river near the present Blackfriars Bridge. There were a few outlying groups of houses and villages; a road along the river strand through the little village of Charing to Westminster, and marshes on the north, with causeways to the villages of Clerkenwell, Hoxton, and Islington. It was, however, an eminently picturesque city, with its gabled and timbered houses, its monastic edifices, and its church towers. It was computed that then two-thirds of the entire space was occupied by religious edifices and their grounds. Towards the end of the fourteenth century there were within the walls, eight friaries, five priories, four nunneries, five collegiate establishments, seventeen hospitals with resident brotherhoods, nine other religious fraternities, and more than one hundred parish churches. At that time the court end of the town was the neighbourhood of the Tower. There royalty dwelt; and clustering round were the mansions of nobles and the town houses of bishops and abbots.
The locality immediately under notice was a road running from the Tower postern, outside the City wall and ditch, to Aldgate, along what is now called the Minories. Aldgate, or Ealdgate, so named from its antiquity, was the eastern outlet from the City, the great Essex road running eastward therefrom. Immediately within the gate stood the magnificent priory of the Holy Trinity, founded by Matilda, Queen of Henry I., and close by was the town house of the Barons Nevil, afterwards Earls of Westmoreland, who gave an abbess to the convent of St. Clare. Outside the gate there stretched an open expanse of country, with foliaged trees, meadows, and silver streamlets, where, on holidays, the young citizens gambolled, practised archery, and, in the more secluded parts, whispered in the ears of the young citizenesses "the old, old tale." Looking eastward, the low square-towered church of the village of Stebenhede (Stepney) by the riverside morasses might be seen; and nearer London, its chapel-of-ease, at the villa Beatæ Mariæ Matfelon, on the Essex road, whilst more to the north might be discerned the priory of St. Mary Spittal, founded a century previously. Here, outside the gate, in the year of grace 1293, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, and Blanche, his countess, whilom Queen of Navarre, founded the convent of Minoresses of the order of St. Clare, dedicated to the "Blessed St. Mary," and amply endowed it with lands and messuages. St. Clare, Clara, Claire, or Chiara, as the name is rendered in different tongues, was born of a noble and wealthy family at Assisi, 1193, died 1253, and was canonized 1256. She was exceedingly beautiful, and had many offers of marriage, but when quite young, despite the opposition of her parents, resolved to dedicate herself to God. St. Francis had just then founded the Franciscan branch of the Mendicant Orders, and lived with ten "Frati Minores," in a hut on the Porziunculo, near Assisi, living austere lives, in absolute poverty, depending upon charity for their daily food, and maintaining strict silence, excepting when it was absolutely necessary to speak. To them Clare fled, and desired to be admitted as a nun of the order. She was followed by her kinsfolk, but clung with such tenacity to the altar, that they were compelled to leave her. She then founded the Order of Poor Clares, or Sisters Minoresses, with rules of the most rigid austerity, relating chiefly to abstinence, poverty, and silence. Their bed was the bare earth, they usually went barefooted, and were habited in grey robes, girdled with a knotted rope, and a white coif on the head. Within fifty years after her death, however, they were released from the vow of poverty, and the others were modified, from which time they accumulated property, built themselves comfortable houses, and indulged in social converse. The first convent was erected outside the walls of Assisi, but afterwards removed within, where a splendid church—the church of Santa Chiara d'Assisi—was erected over her tomb. In pictures St. Clare is usually represented either with the Pix, to denote piety, or the lily, the emblem of purity. She was generally spoken of by the nuns as the "Madre Serafico."
Edmund Plantagenet, surnamed Crouchback, was the second son of King Henry III.; born 1245, died 1295. In his eighth year, 1253, he was created Earl of Chester, and invested by the Pope with the title of King of Sicily and Apulia, but neither was of much value, as the former was soon afterwards transferred to his elder brother Edward, afterwards King Edward I., and Conrad, the real King of Sicily, was still living. He was afterwards created Earl of Leicester, 1264, and Earl of Lancaster, 1267. He fought in the wars of Gascony, Wales, and Scotland, and was two years in Palestine. He had grants of the forfeited castles and manors of the rebel barons, Simon de Montfort, Ferrers, Earl of Derby, and Nicholas de Segrave, and had licence, 21 Edward I., to castellate his house, the Savoy, in the Strand. His death occurred in France; he had invested Bordeaux, and not being able to reduce it, grief brought on a disease which terminated fatally. His body was brought to England and buried in Westminster Abbey, but not until, in accordance with the instructions in his will, all his debts were paid. He married, first, Aveline, daughter and heiress of William de Fortibus, Lord of the Seigniory of Holderness, Co. York, who d.s.p. the following year. Secondly, he married Blanche, daughter of Robert, Earl of Artois (third son of King Louis VIII., of France), and relict of Henry, King of Navarre, by whom he had issue Thomas, second Earl, who, after heading the rising of the barons against Gaveston, temp. Edward II., was taken prisoner at Boroughbridge, Co. York, beheaded at Pontefract, and attainted 1321. Henry, his brother, was restored in the earldoms, whose son Henry was created Duke of Lancaster, 1351, but d.s.p.m., leaving issue Maude and Blanche, the latter of whom married John of Gaunt, Earl of Richmond, afterwards Duke of Lancaster, by whom she had issue Henry of Bolingbroke, afterwards King Henry IV.
Piously disposed, as we may charitably suppose them to have been, or perchance for the welfare of their souls—as it was usual, in that age, to make bargains with Heaven to build religious houses as the price of exemption from the pains of purgatory—the Earl and Countess built the nunnery in the precincts of the court, and filled it with nuns of the order of St. Clare, brought over from some Continental convent by Queen Blanche, "to serve God, the Blessed Virgin, and St. Francis," for which they had a licence from King Henry III. Stow informs us that the frontage of the convent was fifteen perches twenty-seven feet in length, with all needful interior appliances, and garden land; doubtless a pleasant home for the Sisters, with its outlook over the Essex fields and the river Thames, with its quaintly-fashioned vessels passing up and down. It was well endowed by its founders, but had other benefactors as well, and had messuages in the Vintry, Wood Street, Lad Lane, Lombard Street, Christ Church Lane, Shirburgh Lane, etc. The Sisterhood also held the Manor of Apuldercome, and had a grant from William Walshe, 7 Edward IV., of a messuage, called Harteshorn, in the parish of St. Mary Matfelon.
The original licence for the foundation is dated 21 Edward I. A charter was granted to "the sisters Minoresses, without Aldgate," quitting them of tallage of their land in the City, dated 9 Edward II.; and in the fourteenth of the same reign, another to "the Abbey of the Minoresses of St. Mary of the order of St. Clare, without the walls of the City," confirming the holding of certain lands and messuages "gotten of divers well-affected persons." Other charters of confirmation were granted to the Sisterhood, 2 Henry IV., and 1, 16, 25 Henry V.
The Sisters of St. Clare flourished here for a period of 246 years, praying, fasting, and mortifying the flesh, with intervals possibly of laughing, feasting, and enjoyment of their pleasant home; or it may be, as we know is often the case, even with the Angelic sex, when thrown together for days and years, the fasting and feasting and prayer might be mixed up with ingredients of wrangling, envy, and jealousy, until it all came to an end, when the ruthless Tudor king laid his sacrilegious hands on the monastic establishments, and spared not even the homes of the gentler sex, and the house of the Sisters Minoresses was surrendered by Dame Elizabeth Salvage, 1539.
During these two-and-a-half centuries the Sisters witnessed many important events in the annals of England; the deposition and murder of kings Edward II. and Richard II., the usurpation of Henry VI. and Richard III., the Wars of the Roses, the rise of Lollardism, the Interdict of the Kingdom under John, the Reformation, the introduction of the press, and the birth of English literature under Chaucer and Gower. It may be that the prioress who rode to Canterbury with Chaucer's pilgrims was the head of the Aldgate Minoresses.
"There was also a nun, a prioress,
That of her smiling was full simple and coy;
Her greatest oath was but by Saint Eloy;