“The second year of the succeeding King, however, namely Stephen, saw London Bridge in a state to require the exertions of all England to raise it: for, in 1136, a fire broke out in the dwelling of one Aileward, near London Stone, that consumed Eastward as far as Aldgate; and to the Shrine of St. Erkenwald, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, to the West. On the Southern side of London the Wooden Bridge over the Thames was destroyed, but was soon after repaired, since Stephanides, whose description of London was written between 1170 and 1182, speaks of it as affording a convenient standing place to the spectators of the Citizens’ Water Tournaments. I shall give you the whole passage, because it describes a very curious sport of the twelfth century, which was celebrated in the immediate vicinity of this very spot; and the account is at page 76, beginning ‘In feriis Paschalibus;’ we’ll content ourselves, however, with Dr. Pegge’s translation of it, which runs thus.
“‘At Easter, the diversion is prosecuted on the water; a target is strongly fastened to a trunk or mast, fixed in the middle of the River, and a youngster standing upright in the stern of a boat, made to move as fast as the oars and current can carry it, is to strike the target with his lance; and if in hitting it he break his lance, and keep his place in the boat, he gains his point, and triumphs; but if it happen that the lance be not shivered by the force of the blow, he is of course tumbled into the water, and away goes his vessel without him. However, a couple of boats full of young men is placed, one on each side of the target, so as to be ready to take up the unsuccessful adventurer, the moment he emerges from the stream, and comes fairly to the surface. The Bridge, and the balconies on the banks, are filled with spectators, whose business it is to laugh.’
“Of this singular sport, Joseph Strutt copied in his ‘Sports and Pastimes of the People of England,’ London, 1801, 4to. page 92, plate x. a very curious illumination, contained in a volume of the Royal Manuscripts in the British Museum,—2 B. vii.—which consists of a history of the Old Testament, the Psalter, the Hymns of the Church, and a Calendar; all richly painted in water-colours, and beautified with gold,—‘yellow, glittering, precious gold,’—so highly embossed, as to be ‘sensible to feeling as to sight.’
“That volume brings back old days to my recollection, whenever I behold it; for, in the year 1553, it belonged to Queen Mary of England, and is bound in a truly regal style for her; being in thick boards covered with crimson velvet, richly embroidered with large flowers in coloured silks and gold twist; besides being garnished with gilt brass bosses and clasps, on the latter of which are engraven the Royal devices and supporters. Another, and more pleasing proof of its having been her’s,—inasmuch as it records a good action of a London Citizen concerned with the affairs of this brave river,—is to be found in a Latin note written in a beautiful black text hand, on the reverse of the last leaf of the volume. ‘This Book,’ it states, ‘formerly a gift, was afterwards carried away by a sailor; but that excellent and honest person, Baldwin Smith, Receiver of the Customs of the Port of London, hath restored and given it unto the most illustrious Mary, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, in the month of October, in the year of our Lord, 1553, in the first year of her reign.’ The text of this volume is said to have been written, and the illuminations executed, in the fourteenth century, though, from their style, I cannot help thinking that the period is nearly an hundred years too late; for beneath the pages of the Psalter is a series of most interesting and excellent drawings, in pen-and-ink outlines, very slightly and delicately tinted with colours, which was certainly a far more ancient custom. However that may be, this series consists ‘de omnibus rebus, et quibusdam aliis,’ for there are the representations of animals and birds, field-sports, games, legends, martyrdoms, battles, and fables, of an almost infinite variety; and in the course of them occur the figures of a water-quintain, both as it is described by Fitzstephen, and also of a more warlike character. The first of these was engraved by Strutt in the work which I have before referred to, and gives a very perfect idea of the River Tilting of the Twelfth Century,
which the illuminator had, no doubt, personally witnessed in his own time. The other, which has also been engraven in the same work, page 113, plate xv. shews two armed knights getting ‘grysly together,’ as the ‘Morte d’Arthur’ calls it, in boats;
and you will find it under the 60th Psalm, ‘Dominus repulisti nos,’ &c.
“Stow, in his ‘Survey,’ volume i. page 301, mentions a very rude imitation of this kind of jousting on the water at London; when he says, ‘I have seen also in the summer season, upon the River of Thames, some rowed in wherries, with staves in their hands, flat at the fore-end, running one against another, and, for the most part, one or both of them were overthrown and well ducked.’ In Queen Mary’s Manuscript, under the psalm of ‘Misericordiam et judicium cantabo,’ is also a representation of two fiends hurling a Monk from a rude stone Bridge; but as I rather think that did not occur at London, I mention it no farther.