It is known that after the destruction of Roman London by Boadicea, a great many Romans made their escape into Southwark, where they continued to live, and contributed greatly to the size and importance of the southern suburb. The principal buildings sprang up round the site of St. Saviour's Church, and it has been reasonably conjectured that a temple stood on the very spot that the church now occupies.[1]
It is true that no trace of this temple has been discovered; but the conjecture is not inconsistent with the known principles of the early Christian missionaries, in their contact with paganism, as illustrated in the history and traditions of other important churches.
Stow's phrase, "long before the Conquest," though somewhat ambiguous, has been thought to point to a date posterior to the Roman occupation. Some authorities, therefore, contend that the Romans had erected London Bridge and left the country before St. Mary's was founded, and consequently the bridge the antiquary mentions as built by "Swithun, a noble lady," was not the first. Again, it is doubtful whether the sub-title "Overie" means "of the ferry," or "over the river," or whether the form "Overies," which the word sometimes takes, does not suggest a derivation from "Ofers," "of the bank or shore," a meaning contained in the modern German Ufer. John Overy, or Overs, was the father of Mary, but whether the surname was derived from the place, or vice versa, is uncertain. In any case, the name, whether by accident or design, includes a reference to the foundress as well as to the locality of her foundation.[2]
Stow is obviously wrong, however, as to the person who converted the House of Sisters into a College of Priests, who was not a lady, but St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester (852-862), whose devotion to the building of churches and bridges is well known.
The character of the foundation, altered by St. Swithun, was again altered in 1106, under Bishop William Giffard, with the co-operation of the two Norman knights to whom Stow refers. They not only erected the first Norman nave, but made a radical change within by abolishing the "College of Priests," in whose place they introduced "Canons regular" of the Augustinian Order, governed by a Prior, thus transforming the Collegiate Church into a monastery. Except as regards the sex of the inmates, the change was a reversion to the idea of the foundress.[3]
The Norman work of this period is the earliest of which any traces remain in the present church, unless the doubtful signs on a shaft in the exterior are to be taken as evidence of Saxon workmanship. This shaft is attached to the north wall of the Chapel of St. John-the-Divine (now used as a clergy vestry), which is perhaps the oldest part of the fabric. The undoubted Norman remains consist of three arches in the same chapel, where their outline is just discernible among the brickwork; the fragment of a string-course, with billet moulding, on the inner wall of the north transept; a portion of the Prior's entrance to the cloisters; the old Canons' doorway; and an arcaded recess. Of these, it may be briefly remarked that the remains of the Prior's door, showing the mutilated shafts and the zigzag moulding of the jambs, are preserved, in situ, in the outer face of the north wall to the new nave. The outline of the Canons' entrance, obviously of much simpler moulding, will be seen on the inner side of the same wall, towards the west end. The Norman recess lies still farther to the west on the same side.
Quite recently a valuable relic of the same period has been discovered in the north-east corner within the above-mentioned chapel (by the side of the new Harvard window)—apparently part of the original arcading to the apse.
Early in the thirteenth century London was visited by one of those great fires, which occurred at rather frequent intervals, before the greatest of all, in 1666, led to the rebuilding of the city, and better means for its protection. The date of the particular fire is sometimes given as 1207, sometimes as 1212 or 1213. It is not unlikely that there were several, in one or other of which London Bridge, Southwark, and the church were seriously injured. (Vide Stow and Harleian MSS., No. 565.)
The repairs were soon taken in hand by Peter de la Roche, otherwise de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester (1205-1238), who altered the nave into the Early English, which was then generally superseding the heavier Norman work, and shortly afterwards built the choir and retro-choir in a still lighter and more ornate style. The architecture gives us the approximate date of de la Roche's work as the early part of the thirteenth century, which is about as near as we can get to it in the absence of a more precise record than that it was "begun after the fire." In consequence of this, or some previous fire, the Canons were led to found a hospital close to the Priory for the relief of the distress and disease caused by the disaster. During the restorations by Peter de Rupibus, in or about 1228, he had the hospital transferred to a more favourable site in the neighbourhood, where the air was fresher and water more abundant, and dedicated it to St. Thomas of Canterbury, to whom the chapel on London Bridge was also dedicated.[4]
In addition to all this excellent work, Bishop de Rupibus built a chapel for the parishioners, the conventual church being reserved for the Prior and monks. This chapel stood in the angle between the walls of the choir and south transept, and was called St. Mary Magdalene Overy.