CHAPTER VIII
THE GUILDHALL—LONDON STONE—TOWN BELL AND FOLKMOTE
| It is so sure a Stone that that is upon sette, For though some have it thrette With menases grym and greette Yet hurt had it none. Fabyan. |
The Guildhall is frequently spoken of in the thirteenth century; for instance, the Assise of Buildings of 1212 was given from “Gilde Hall.” Mr. Price, its historian, shows that at this time it must have stood near the west end of the present hall. This agrees with Stow, who says that it “of old time” stood on the east side of Aldermansbury, and adds that the latter was so named from the “court there kept in their bury or court hall now called the Guildhall.” Guildhall Yard was in 1294, as now, to the east of St. Laurence.[192] Giraldus Cambrensis tells us under 1191 how a multitude of the citizens met in Aula Publica, which takes its name from the custom of drinking there. This burgmote at the Guildhall in 1191 was probably the greatest event in London’s history, resulting in the removal of Longchamp and the establishment of the mayor and commune.[193] “Aldermanesbury” may be traced back to early in the twelfth century, and the name carries the Guildhall with it. Mr. Round points out that the Terra Gialle mentioned in the St. Paul’s document, c. 1130, refers to the Guildhall,[194] and when further we find that a Gildhalla burgensium at Dover appears in Domesday we can hardly doubt that the foundation of the London hall dates from the time of the Frith Gilds. In the laws of Athelstane it was ordained by the “bishops and reeves of London” that the people should be numbered in hyndens (tens), and that “every month the hynden men and those who directed the tithings should gather together for bytt filling, ... and let those twelve men have their refection together and deal the remains for the love of God.”[195]
The principle, says Dr. Sharpe, of each man being responsible for the behaviour of his neighbour, which Alfred established, was carried a step further in London under Athelstane in the formation of Peace Gilds, the members of which were to meet once a month at an ale-drinking in their Gildhall.[196] Similar “Gild ale-drinkings” are spoken of in the Heimskringla, and we are there told in regard to the establishment of a “Great Gild,” that before it there were “turn-about drinkings.” All this goes together perfectly with what Giraldus says of the Guildhall of London being named from the fellowship drinkings there. He who drank to any one, Geoffrey of Monmouth tells us, said, “Wacht heil”; and he that pledged him answered, “Drinc heil.”
London Stone.—The first mayor of London (from 1191) was, as the Chronicle of the Mayors and Sheriffs tells us, Henry FitzEylwin of Londene-stone. An old marginal note in the Liber Trinitatis says that “Leovistan was the father of Alwin the father of Henry the Mayor, whose first charter is in the priory of Tortingtone.”[197] The association of London Stone with city history probably rests in great part on the fact of the mayor’s residence having been near to it. Thomas Stopleton traces, in an introduction to the Liber de Antiquis Legibus,[198] the property and descendants of FitzAlwin. The town house of the mayor was just to the north of St. Swithin’s Church, which was attached to the property. It was bequeathed to Tortington Priory by Robert Aquillon, son of the first mayor’s grand-daughter. In Dr. Sharpe’s Calendar of Wills it appears that Sir Robert Aguylun left his “mansione” in St. Swithin’s parish, together with the patronage of the church, to Tortington Priory in 1285. At the Dissolution it was granted to the Earl of Oxford. Stow says that Tortington Inn, Oxford Place, by London Stone, was on the north side of St. Swithin’s Church and churchyard, with a fair garden to the west running down to Walbrook. It was “a fair and large builded house sometime pertaining to the prior of Tortington, since to the earls of Oxford, and now to Sir John Hart, Alderman.” Munday adds, “now to Master Humphrey Smith, Alderman.” At this point I visited Oxford Place and St. Swithin’s Lane, and it seemed evident that the Salters’ Hall stood on the site of Tortington Inn. Further, on turning to Herbert’s History of the Companies, I found that the Salters’ Company purchased of Captain George Smith in 1641 the town inn of the priors of Tortington by the description of “the great house called London Stone, or Oxford House.” The chain of evidence for the site of FitzAlwin’s house thus seems complete.
The mysterious monument, London Stone, now represented by a small rude fragment preserved a few yards away from its original site, has probably borne its present name for a millenium, and its mere name shows it to have had some institutional importance.
London. Candlewick Street. Enter Jack Cade and the rest, and strikes his staff on London Stone.
Cade. Now is Mortimer lord of this city and here sitting upon London Stone I charge, ... and now henceforward it shall be treason for any that calls me other than Lord Mortimer.—King Henry VI.