One other charter in Norman times may suffice to illustrate the position of the great walled city and its busy and wealthy port under the Norman kings. This was the grant of Middlesex to the citizens by Henry I. This grant, which was only abrogated in 1888 by Act of Parliament, gave London the same rights over the county that were held in those days by the earls and reeves of shires. Dr. Reginald Sharpe seems to think that this charter was granted for a heavy money payment. But there are other ways of looking at the matter. It would appear probable that King Henry recognised the help the city had given him; first, in obtaining the crown, and afterwards in maintaining his position. The King, no doubt, wanted money. The citizens did not expect favours without payment; it would have been contrary to all previous experience. But the gift was a very real boon, one which could not very well have been valued in gold. That a Norman king should have been willing to grant away the deer which his father was said to have loved like his children shows clearly that there was a strong sense of obligation in the King's mind.
The constitution of the city during the reigns of the Norman kings, if we may judge by what we find in twelfth-century documents at St. Paul's and in thirteenth-century documents at the Guildhall, must have been, as Bishop Stubbs and Professor Freeman have pointed out, that of a county. The municipal unity was of the same kind as that of the shire and the hundred. The Portreeve accounted to the King for his dues. He was the justice, and owed his position to popular election as approved by the King. Under him were the aldermen of wards, answering very nearly to lords of manors. The people had their folkmote, answering to the shiremote elsewhere. Their weekly husting eventually became a "county court," and there was besides the wardmote, which still exists, and led eventually to the abolition of proprietary aldermen in favour of aldermen elected by the wards.
At this period the buildings of the city began to assume a certain importance we do not hear of under the Saxons. St. Paul's became a notable example of what we now call Norman architecture. The nave survived until the fire in 1666. The church of St. Mary le Bow, in Cheap, still retains its Norman crypt. The great white tower, with which the Conqueror strengthened the eastern extremity of the Saxon and Roman wall, contains still its remarkable vaulted chapel. A few other relics of the style survive, but St. Bartholomew's is outside the line of the wall.
The Gates of the City: Ludgate and Newgate.
To the old gates must now be added one more—namely, Ludgate. "Ludgate" or "Lydgate" is like Crepulgate, a Saxon term, and signifies a postern, perhaps a kind of trap door opening with a lid. The exact date is unknown, but the building of a new street across the Fleet, with a bridge of access, is evident from documents mentioning the names of persons who dwelt "ultra fletam," which are found early in the reign of Henry I. Another gate was subsequently added—namely, Aldgate—in or about the beginning of the twelfth century. The names of both these gates have been subjects of much guesswork, not only by such topographers as Stukeley, but even by Stow. Ludgate was, of course, assigned to an imaginary King, Lud, celebrated in the great poem of the Welsh bard, who made London the foundation of descendants of Æneas of Troy. Much of this was extensively believed in the Middle Ages; and some of us imagined that Ludgate might have been called in honour of one of the heroes of the poem, until the real meaning of the word was pointed out. With regard to Aldgate, a meaningless name, we always find it spelled without the "d" in old manuscripts, and usually with an added "e." Stow perceived that to be consistent he must put the "e" in; but he did so in the wrong place, with the result that Alegate or Allgate, perhaps meaning a gate open free to all, is turned into Ealdgate, and has its age wholly mistaken. It was, no doubt, built when the Lea was bridged, traditionally by Queen Maud, about 1110. Previously the paved crossing, the Stratford, was reckoned dangerous, and passengers went out by Bishopsgate and sought a safer crossing at Oldford. The last of the city gates, Moorgate, was not opened till 1415. It was erected for the convenience of citizens passing out among the fields. It is evident that fortification had become a secondary object. Accordingly, it is often described as the most spacious and handsome of the city gates.
The others, especially Ludgate and Newgate, were, we may be sure, judging by Roman and mediæval fortifications elsewhere, narrow and inconvenient. There was probably an overlapping tower in front of the exit, and the pathway described a semicircle, as we know was the case at the Tower, where the present arrangement, by which a vehicle can drive in, was not possible till the Lion Tower and its overlapping defence, the Conning Tower, were removed. That something of the same kind existed at the Old Bailey is evident on an inspection of the boundary of the ward in a good map, where the overlapping is clearly marked both at Ludgate and at Newgate. The roadways at both places were made straight, the larger archways opened, and the stately portals, suggested by Stukeley and others, erected, if ever, when the wall was no longer regarded as a fortification. This view may, in part at least, account for a statement that the Roman gate, which answered to Bishopsgate, was considerably to the eastward of the mediæval gate, removed in 1760. The Roman gate, to be useful and at the same time safe, probably consisted of a narrow passage, opening into the city at a point near the northern end of the road from the Bridge. The passage, guarded by towers, would have its exit some distance to the eastward, and probably, before it reached the outer country, passed back under the wall. We see arrangements of this kind at any place, like Pompeii, where a Roman fortification unaltered may be examined.
We have thus, I hope, traced the beginnings of our great city, not so clearly as to its origin as could be wished, but sufficiently as to its development from a Roman fort or bridge head. Others will take up the tale here and show how the walls and gates, the churches and the great castle, the double market and riverside landing places, became by degrees the greatest city in the land. London, rather than royal Winchester, held the balance between Maud and Stephen, and with the election of Henry II., the first Plantagenet, we come upon the establishment of the modern municipal constitution and the long battle for freedom. The Londoner set a pattern to other English burghers. His keenness in trade, his vivacity, his tenacity of liberty and, perhaps above all, the combination of duty and credit which brought him wealth, have made his city what it is—the central feature of a world-wide empire.
The Gates of the City: Moorgate and Aldgate.