London Before the Conquest

by W. R. Lethaby

Fig. 30.—Tomb of King Ethelred in Old St. Paul’s.

In Saxon charters the church is styled “St. Paules mynstre on Lundene,” and the full invocation appears to have been Beati Pauli Apostoli Gentium Doctoris, which in itself probably explains the choice of it for a mission church. Like the church which Augustine built at Canterbury, it would have been “planned in imitation of the Great Basilica of Blessed Peter.” Such a basilica of considerable size is still to be seen at Brixworth, Northamptonshire. It would have had a narthex, a nave with “porticoes” or aisles, and beyond the great arch a presbytery and apse. In front would have been an atrium.[178]

Under 961 the Saxon Chronicle says: “And St. Paul’s minster was burnt and in the same year again founded.” King Ethelred was buried in St. Paul’s in 1016, and his tomb, a fine stone chest, stood here till the great fire of London. There is no reason why the tomb illustrated by Dugdale should not be the original one of 1016 ([Fig. 30]). Next to it was the similar tomb of Sebba, king of the East Saxons, who was buried at the end of the seventh century. The only material memorial of the Saxon minster now existing is a tombstone inscribed in runes, “Kina let this stone be set to Tuki.” It was found in 1852 in the south churchyard, 20 feet below the surface, in an upright position, forming the headstone of a grave composed of stone slabs. The bottom portion was irregular and untooled; this, which showed that it was a headstone, was cut off to make it a tidy antiquity, but it is otherwise carefully preserved in the Guildhall Museum, and bears a sculpture of a fine knotted dragon.

Fig. 31.—Ninth or Tenth Century Tombstone
from St. Paul’s Churchyard.

Wren, who was a critical observer of the evidence which came to light when preparing the ground for the new church, gave but little credit to the story that a temple of Diana once stood on the site. “But that the north side of this ground had been very anciently a great burying-place was manifest, for in digging the foundations of St. Paul’s he found under the graves of later ages, in a row below them, the burial-places of Saxon times—some in graves lined with chalk stones, some in coffins of whole stones. Below these were British graves. In the same row but deeper were Roman urns—this was 18 feet deep or more.” Wren thought that the Prætorian camp had been here in Roman days.[179]

St. Peter’s-upon-Cornhill claims to be the oldest church in London, and to have been the stool or a Romano-British archbishop. The pretension seems to have been recognised by St. Paul’s in the Middle Ages, and Bishop Stubbs was inclined to accept the archbishopric as having existed in London. As the interval in Church continuity cannot have been long, it is most likely that Mellitus reconsecrated some Roman temples or some of the old churches, as Augustine is known to have done at Canterbury. In Gregory’s letter of directions to Mellitus he says that the temples of idols ought not to be pulled down, but be consecrated and converted from the worship of devils. The Church of St. Peter must have been very ancient, as the legend in regard to it appears in Jocelyn of Furness, a writer of the twelfth century. Bishop Ælfric, who died in 1038, gave in his will a “hage into Sce Pætre binnon Lunden.”[180] A beautifully written Saxon charter in the British Museum, calendared as probably of the date 1038, records the gift of a messuage in London to St. Peter’s Church.[181] This church, seated at the Carfax of the city, has at the same time the most important of dedications, and took precedence, Riley tells us, over the others.

Fig. 32.—Saxon Tomb from St. Benet Fink. Restored.

St. Michael, Ludgate, is referred to by Geoffrey of Monmouth in connection with Cadwaladr: “They also built a church under it (Ludgate) in honour of St. Martin, in which divine ceremonies are celebrated for him” (Cadwaladr). It must be of early foundation when such a story could be told only some fifty years after the Conquest.