St. Mary Aldermary was so called, says Stow, because it was the oldest church dedicated to the Virgin. It is sometimes called Elde Maria Church, and certainly dates from before the Conquest, for in 1067 the Conqueror confirmed the possession of the Church of St. Mary called Newchurch to Westminster, and it is evident that the title Aldermary is a comparison with this New Mary. The latter as Mary le Bow is mentioned by William of Malmesbury as having suffered an accident in 1091. St. Mary, Friday Street, is mentioned in 1105; St. Margaret, Lothbury, in 1104.
Other pre-Conquest city churches confirmed to Westminster in the same charter of 1067 are St. Magnus, described as the “stone church S. Magni Medietus,” St. Clement [East Cheap], and St. Lawrence [Pounteney].
St. Gregory.—In 1010 the body of St. Edmund was brought to “the Church of St. Gregory the Pope, which is situated by the Basilica of the Apostle Paul.”[182] This dedication in the name of the Pope who sent Augustine and Mellitus from Rome is probably very ancient, and St. Augustine’s near by on the east side of the churchyard may be as ancient. St. Alban, Wood Street, was said to have been a chapel of King Offa’s, and is mentioned about 1077-1093 as belonging to St. Alban’s Abbey.[183] The old topographers say that there was something specially ancient in the structure of this church, and Newcourt thought its origin was at least as old as the time of Athelstane.
Fig. 33.—Head of Cross from
St. John’s, Walbrook.
All Hallows [Barking] is said to have been given by Riculphus and Brichtwen, his wife, to Rochester before it passed into the hands of the Barking Nuns.[184] All Hallows, Lombard Street, was given to Canterbury in 1053 by Brithmer, a citizen (Newcourt). Earl Goodwin and his wife gave to Malmesbury the Church of St. Nicholas [Acon] and all their houses in 1084 (Dugdale).
St. Martin’s Vintry.—This church Newcourt puts at least as early as the Conqueror’s time, and its name of Bereman-Church confirms this (see [p. 97]).
St. Martin [le Grand].—Kempe thought that this religious house was first founded long before the Conquest, and that it was only refounded just before by Ingelram. The canons of the house are mentioned amongst the tenants in chief in Domesday.[185]
St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, and St. Alphage were thought by Newcourt to have existed as early as the Conqueror’s time, and there is ample evidence that the former was a parish church before it was attached to a house of nuns late in the twelfth century. It is mentioned in the St. Paul’s documents in 1148. St. Michael, Cornhill, is said to have been founded before 1055. St. Stephen, Walbrook, was given to St. John’s, Colchester, c. 1100.[186]
St. Botolph, Billingsgate, Stow thought, was at least as old as the Confessor’s time, as the wharf by it was even then called St. Botolph’s. In a part of the cartulary of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, in the Lansdowne MSS. (No. 448), St. Augustine on the Wall, St. Edmund in “Longboard” Street, Ecclesia de Fanchurch (which it is said had belonged to the Soc of the Cnihten Gild), St. Lawrence in Judaismo, All Hallows on the Wall, St. Botolph extra Aldgate, and St. Michael, Cheapside, are mentioned at the beginning of the twelfth century.[187]