Roach Smith, who had an expert’s knowledge of all the data in regard to Roman London, held that the approach was along High Street, Southwark, that the bridge was on the site of that destroyed about 1830, that Bishopsgate represented one of the chief gates, Aldgate and Ludgate being others, and that the crossing of East Cheap with Gracechurch Street was probably the centre of an earlier and smaller city. Quantities of Roman bricks, he says, have been found re-used in the walls of early houses and churches, and obviously taken from Roman buildings which occupied their sites. It is probable indeed that some Roman buildings were still in use in the Middle Age—for instance, the so-called Chamber of Diana near St. Paul’s, and “Belliney’s Palace” at Billingsgate.
Craft Gilds and Schools.—As far back as we have any body of record to go upon we find that important men in the city were craftsmen—goldsmiths, weavers, dyers, tailors, cobblers, tanners. They held offices and owned land, and the only other class at once large numerically and important in position seems to have been the clergy. Early in the twelfth century the St. Paul’s documents twice at least make use of the style “mercator,” and still earlier in Anglo-Saxon laws we have Ceipman.
There is every probability that the craft gilds date from before the Conquest. In the twelfth century head masons, carpenters, and other craftsmen are called “masters,” and this title of university rank was always, I believe, formally conferred by an organised gild. Even at this time the members of crafts were grouped together, as witness Candlewright Street, Milk Street, and the Shambles. We hear of a weaver’s gild in 1130.[176] Even before the Conquest, probably, craftsmen wrought and sold their ordinary wares in the traditional open-fronted shops known as well in the East as in mediæval Europe.
FitzStephen says there were three principal schools in London when he wrote (in the twelfth century). St. Paul’s School, almost certainly, was already established at the Conquest, and the schools of S. Marie Archa and S. Martini Magni are mentioned in a mandate about 1135 (Commune of London, p. 117).
Churches.—So many churches can now be traced back to the twelfth century that there cannot be a doubt that FitzStephen was accurate in saying that at that time there were in London and the suburbs thirteen larger conventual churches, besides lesser parish churches one hundred and twenty-six. In other words, practically all the parish churches in London and its liberties had been founded by the end of the twelfth century; and there is every reason for supposing that many, if not most, of these churches were even then ancient.
St. Paul’s.—The cathedral we know from Bede was founded early in the seventh century by Mellitus, sent from Rome in 601 and consecrated Bishop of London by St. Augustine in 604.
The fourth bishop in succession to the “Mellifluous Mellitus” was Erkenwald, “Light of London,” Christi lampas Aurea (675-693). It is said that he was son of Offa, the East Saxon king, who remained “paynim,” but Erkenwald “changed his earthly heritage for to have his heritage in heaven; ... and whatsomever he taught in word he fulfilled in deed.” He founded the monasteries of Barking and Chertsey. While he was bishop he used to preach about the city from a cart, and once, when a wheel fell off, the cart went forward without falling, “which was against reason and a fair miracle.” He died at Barking, and the monks claimed his body, but “a chapter of Paul’s and the people” said it should be brought to London. As they carried him to his own church there was a flood, but the waters of the Yla (Lea) were divided and a dry path given to the people of London, “and so they came to Stratford and set down the bier in a fair mede full of flowers, and anon after the weather began to wax fair and the people were full of joy.” And, after, they laid and buried the body in St. Paul’s, to the which he hath been a special protection against fire, nd time was when he was seen in the church with a banner fighting a fire which threatened to burn the whole city, and so saved and kept his church.[177] The shrine of Erkenwald remained from this time till the Reformation the palladium of the city.
