London Before the Conquest

by W. R. Lethaby

Saga of Harold Hairfair.

Wards and Parishes.—The earliest lists of wards which give the present traditional names have been printed by Dr. Sharpe in his Calendar of London Wills and his Letter Book A. These are of about the years 1320, 1293, and 1285. Another of 1303 is in Palgrave’s Treasury. A patent of 1299 speaks of the mayor and twenty-four aldermen. Before this time most of the wards were called by the names of the aldermen holding them, as said in the Liber Albus. There is a list of this kind, in which only a few of the traditional names appear, in the Hundred Rolls of 1275. This last is particularly interesting, however, as giving the names of the city magnates of the great time just after the war of the city with the king, when Thomas FitzThomas, the mayor, was imprisoned—some have said never to appear again; but I find in the Close Rolls for 1269-70 (53 Henry III.) that in that year “Thomas son of Thomas, late Mayor of London,” entered into recognisances for a debt of £500 to Edward the king’s son, finding sureties for the same and for his fealty to the king and his heirs.

Fig. 27.—Plan showing the relation of the central Wards and the principal Streets

Another list of aldermen in 1214 is printed in Madox’s Exchequer, together with a reference to one of 1211, which carries back the complete list of twenty-four to within twenty years of the institution of the mayoralty.

An account of the property of St. Paul’s made in the first half of the twelfth century, and printed in facsimile in Price’s History of the Guildhall, incidentally contains a list of about twenty wards, mostly under the names of their aldermen. Of these “Warda Fori” and the wards of Aldgate, Brocesgange (Walbrook), and of the Bishop may be cited as especially interesting; Aldresmanesberi is also mentioned. This document is not dated, but Mr. Round has shown it to have been written about 1130. Hugo, son of Wlgar, and Osbert, Aldermen, occur in another deed of 1115, and Thurstan, Alderman, in 1111. Mr. Loftie has attempted to identify some of the wards. The Ward of Herbert, in which was the land of William Pontearch, may perhaps be Dowgate, for a charter of Stephen gave to S. M. de Sudwerc the stone house of William de Pontearch, situated by the sheds of Douegate (Dugdale). What is probably a still earlier group of aldermen is given in a Ramsay document of 1114-30, which is addressed to Hugo de Bochland, Roger, Leofstan, Ordgar, and all the other barons (i.e. aldermen) of London. Another document of the same age is witnessed by Levenoth, “Alderman.” A careful comparison of these lists, together with other sources,[140] might yield some new facts. From a cursory comparison it seems to be evident that too much has been made of the case of the Farndons and Farringdon Ward as evidence for hereditary ownership in the aldermanries. Most of the family names change from list to list, but a few persist: in 1240 there is a Jacob Bland, in 1275-85 and 1293 a Rudulphus Blond, but this may be the case in any office. On the other hand, two of the same family name are found more than once holding different wards at the same time, and in other cases similar names are found in different wards in different lists; thus in 1285 there are two Ashys, two Rokesleys, two Boxes, and two Hadstocks: a Frowick in 1285 held Cripplegate, and in 1320 a Frowick held Langbourne. The ward that can most easily be traced is Cheap; in 1211-14 it was held by William son of Benedict, in 1275 by Peter of Edmonton, in 1285 by Stephen Ashy, and in 1320 by Simon Paris. This is hardly hereditary succession. But what I am concerned with is not the tenure but the topographical origin of the wards. Many different theories as to the origin of the wards have been put forward. Mr. Loftie, writing of the beginning of the thirteenth century, says: “The wards, as we shall notice more distinctly further on” (the distinctness is difficult to find), “were in the hands originally of the landowners, and an alderman was still very much in the position of a lord of the manor. His office was at first always, and still usually, hereditary.” After the reign of Henry III. the aldermen no longer owned their wards. The constitution had undergone a complete change, “and the offices became purely elective.”

Mr. Price thought that the wards were divisions dating from Roman days. Norton believed that the wards were to the city what the hundreds were to the shire, and this view, shared by Bishop Stubbs, seems to be confirmed, as will be shown by an independent line of reasoning.

The wards can be traced back to within fifty years after the Conquest, and that they were even then of immemorial antiquity is shown by FitzStephen’s legend that, like Rome, London was founded by the Trojans, and consequently had the same laws, and like it was divided into wards. In Cambridge there were ten wards in 1086.

A study of the ward boundaries in connection with the Walbrook, the “Carrefour,” and the main streets yields most interesting results. Stow tells us that a great division between the western and eastern wards was made by the Walbrook, which ran from the north wall to St. Margaret’s Lothbury, then under Grocers’ Hall, and St. Mildred’s Church, west of the Stocks Market, through Bucklersbury, then by the west of St. John’s Walbrook and the Chandlers’ Hall, and by Elbow Lane to the Thames. On laying down the course of this stream from all obtainable data, it is found that it was an unbroken boundary between the thirteen eastern and eleven western wards.

Again, the four principal cross streets form so many backbones to a series of wards; and this in such a marked way as to show on a good map quite certainly at a glance, that these wards were formed by aggregations of dwellings upon either side of the roads which passed through them, exactly as a high-road threads a village.