Wards without.—A good illustration of the formation of the interior wards may be found in the growth of those without the walls. Bishopsgate Without, and Aldersgate Without, were evidently formed by clusters of dwellings springing up on either side of the roads outside the gates. Cottages outside Bishopsgate and at Holborn are mentioned even in Domesday, and Fleet Street appears to have been populous even earlier. The external wards extend to the boundary of the city liberties, or common land, and the roads passing through them had specific street-names as far as the several “Bars.” Holborn Street, as it is sometimes called, which passed over the Hole-burn, should properly end with the city liberty, as does Fleet Street.
Along with the wards were a number of sokes—areas in which persons or corporations held certain privileges. The first sokes mentioned are that of the Cnihten Gild (pre-Conquest), and that of St. Peter of Ghent (in 1081, see [p. 97]). The charter of Henry I. grants that “no guest tarrying in any soc shall pay custom to any other than him to whom the soc belongs.” They appear to have been heritable, and free to some extent from civic jurisdiction: in the reign of Edward I. there were still upwards of twenty in existence in London.[150] “Bury” seems to have been applied to a manor or property surrounded by a wall or fence; “in London,” says Mr. W. H. Stevenson, “it means a large house.” Bucklersbury and Bloomsbury were the properties—post-Conquest—of one Blemund, and of the family of Bockerel. A Saxon will makes a bequest to Paul’s byrig.[151] The termination “haw,” present still in Bassishaw, is also common. A charter of the Confessor giving Stæninghaga in London to Westminster is printed by Kemble; Dr. Maitland in Domesday and Beyond has shown that this was occupied by the men of Staines, and that Staining Lane probably preserves its memory even unto this day. There were forty-eight burgesses of London who counted with Staines in 1086. He suggests that we have here a trace of a system by which the shires garrisoned the burhs.
The Palace.—There are but few references to a palace. Florence, writing of 1017, says that Cnut “being in London” ordered Edric to be “slain in the palace” and his body to be thrown from the walls—“into the Thames,” says Malmesbury. Richard of Cirencester, who wrote in the middle of the fourteenth century, but whose testimony is of the more value as he was a monk at Westminster, says that Cnut was keeping his Christmas “in the castle which is now called Baynard’s,” and after the death of Edric took boat for Westminster. There is every reason to think that the ruler’s house in London, as in Constantinople, Venice, Aachen, and Paris, would have adjoined the cathedral, as Baynard’s Castle did. That Baynard’s Castle should have been the old royal palace would seem to agree very well with its subsequent history; it would also explain the existence of this stronghold held under the king within the city walls, while none of the chroniclers speak of its site being taken from the city, and it would explain why early in the twelfth century Henry I. should give a part of the site to St. Paul’s; for, if it had been built after the Conquest, it would hardly have been curtailed so early.[152]
Henry of Huntingdon says that William Baynard was deprived of his estate in 1110. It was then, I suppose, that it passed to the Clares. The Fitzwalters, who held it after Baynard, belonged to the great family of the Clares.[153] Baynard’s Castle was probably dismantled under John when the king quarrelled with Fitzwalter. In 1275 a patent was granted R. Fitzwalter to alienate Castle Baynard near the city walls, with stone wall, void areas, ditches, and even the tower of Fish Street Hill. Taking this and the St. Paul’s document together, the precinct seems to have included the ground between the boundary of St. Paul’s (along Carter Lane) and the river and from the city wall to Old Fish Street. It must have been an important castle, not a mere tower.
Henry II. is made by Fantosme to ask how “mes baruns de Lundres ma cité” fared in the troubles of that time, and is told that Gilbert de Munfichet had strengthened his “castle,” and that the Clares were leagued with him. This Montfichet’s Castle is mentioned by FitzStephen, and Stow says that it was close to Castle Baynard towards the west, and on the river; but a document given by Dugdale speaks of Munfichet Castle with its ditch as close to Ludgate (ii. 384).[154]
Tradition has also assigned the site of a Saxon palace close to the east end of St. Alban’s, Wood Street. It was said that King Athelstane had his house here, which, having a door into Adel Street, “gave name to this street, which in ancient evidences is written King Adel Street.”[155] Stow just refers to the story, but says any evidence had been destroyed, and he was evidently disgusted at a then recent “improvement.” Some accounts of 23 Henry VIII., given in the Calendar of St. Paul’s Documents, refer to the “clensying of certyn old ruinouse houses in Aldermanbury, sometime the palace of Saincte Æthelbert Kyng ... and making of five new tenements.” It is curious that there is an Adle Hill, also in Castle Baynard Ward. The records of St. Alban’s show that Abbot Paul (from 1077) obtained by exchange with the Abbot of Westminster what was said had been the chapel of Offa’s palace near the church of St. Alban’s, Wood Street. This evidently refers to the same site abutting on St. Alban’s, Wood Street.[156] It has been said that Gutter Lane is named from the residence of Guthrum. I find it called Godron Lane in early documents, and the tradition may possibly be true (see [p. 154]).
Tower Royal was a royal residence after the Conquest; Stow says Stephen lodged there.[157] Froissart, writing of the Wat Tyler’s rebellion, tells how the king’s mother fled to “the Royal called the Queen’s Wardrobe.”
We get in the Heimskringla a fair picture of what the king’s haga or garth would have been in the history of King Olaf the Holy. “King Olaf let house a king’s garth at Nidoyce. There was done a big court hall with a door at either end, but the high seat of the king was in the midmost of the hall. Up from him sat his court-bishop, and next to him again other clerks of his; but down from the king sat his counsellors. In the other high seat strait over against him sat his marshal, and then the guests. By litten fires should ale be drunk. He had about him sixty body-guards and thirty guests. Withall he had thirty house carles to work all needful service in the garth. In the garth also was a mickle hall wherein slept the body-guard, and there was withal a mickle chamber where the king held his court chambers.” Of Olaf the Quiet we are told: “That was the ancient wont in Norway that the king’s high seat was midst of the long daïs, and ale was borne over the fire. But King Olaf was the first let do his high seat on the high daïs athwart the hall.... He let stand before his board trencher-swains. He had also candle-swains, who held up candles before his board. Out away from the trapeza was the marshal’s stool.”