We can now check our plan and add to the names of the streets from Stow’s perambulation of every street and alley, and his account of ward boundaries and parishes. Further than this, however, we have in the remarkably clear plot of the city given in Braun and Hogenburghe’s Civitates Orbis Terrarum (1572), a survey of the city as it existed about 1570. It is often said that this view must date back to 1561 at least, as St. Paul’s spire, which was burnt in that year, is shown in it. But as it was known to be the intention to rebuild this famous spire at once, it seems probable that a view even in the interim would not leave it out. It is not quite certain who drew this admirable map. In the preface to a copy of the book which I have examined, George Braun of Cologne, January 1, 1575, speaks of the admirable industry of the painter Hogenburghe, and the living portraitures he had so carefully painted, so that the cities may be seen at a glance more easily than in reality. On comparing the prospects of other cities, it looks almost certain that London was drawn by the same hand which drew Paris, Brussels, etc. Hofnagle, who it is thought may have made this prospect, is known to have been in England in or before 1571. It is to be remarked in this connection that the plan of London is not numbered with the rest of the plates; it is marked A, and put in at the beginning of the series as if it came to hand late.
This valuable map, whoever it may have been drawn by, and whatever may be its exact date, is delineated according to a method which is still made use of at times—the buildings, trees, and other details being figured in perspective. This has resulted in giving the whole such a pictorial character, that the correctly planned basis is not at first apparent. I have not seen it pointed out that it is properly a map and not a view, and this method of projection may be what Braun refers to in the preface cited above. About this same time William Smith, the herald, made some drawings of cities; and on one of Bristol, which is drawn according to the same method as the London map we are now considering, he writes:—“Bristow, measured and laid in Platforme by me, W. Smith, at my being in Bristow the 30 and 31 July Ano Dni 1568” (Sloane MSS. 2596). Pictorial views of cities had been known for centuries; this “laying in platform” is, however, new. We may suppose that Smith, the Rouge Dragon, was not the first to make use of this method in his Survey of Bristol, and that there must even at this time have existed such a plan of London; it may also be pointed out that Smith’s MS. view of London, which may, however, have been made later than the one of Bristol, is plainly founded on Braun’s plan, or on some original used in common. Bagford speaks of having seen a single sheet on copper, from Temple Bar to St. Katharine’s and the Bank-side Southwark, which seemed to him the best of old London and perhaps the most ancient.
It is necessary to notice the large woodcut prospect usually called Aggas’ plan, if only to criticise this ascription, which is accepted in the Dictionary of National Biography. It is plain on comparing it with Braun’s plan that one of them is copied from the other, or a common original source, and this relation is made more certain when we notice that the large woodcut, which I shall call the Anonymous plan, has been cut down at the margins, and that it must originally have included Westminster and St. Katharine’s exactly like Braun’s. As the Anonymous woodcut plan is far inferior in workmanship to the other, and as it was still being printed from in the seventeenth century, there seems to be some likelihood that it is the copy, and yet, as we shall see, a “Large Mappe” existed before 1580. Although so little is known in regard to the Anonymous plan, there seems to be sufficient evidence to negative the idea propounded by Vertue that it was the work of Aggas. This idea he gained because a view of Oxford, drawn by Aggas in 1578, and published in 1588, speaks of his having had a desire to publish a plan of London, but (in 30 Queen Elizabeth, 1588) “meantime the measure, form, and sight I bring of ancient Oxford.” A trained surveyor like Aggas would hardly have brought out an enlarged copy of Braun’s map twenty years after the original. It is probable indeed, considering the spelling of the names, that Bagford’s observation on the Anonymous plan, that it seemed to have been “done in Holland,” is true. Mr. Thomas Dodd, in a MS. letter in the Crace Collection, points out a passage in Hakluyt where it is advised that the Pit and Jackman Expedition of 1580 should take with them the map of England and the “large Mappe of London.” Mr. Dodd goes on to point out that Hakluyt also refers to Clement Adams as an engraver on wood, and he might have been the author of such a large map, which may be the Anonymous woodcut plan. Mr. Overall, in his inconclusive preface to the reproduction of the Anonymous plan, shows that Giles Godhed had submitted “the Carde of London,” in 1562, to the Stationers’ Company. We might conclude that this was a large plan on the same projection as Braun and Hogenburghe’s plan, but this is uncertain, as just at this time there was published an engraved view of St. Paul’s and the neighbourhood, of which there is a unique copy at the Society of Antiquaries. The most beautiful plan known to me, executed after the manner of Braun’s cities, is a large plan of Bruges, signed by Marcus Gerard, pictor, 1562. Altogether I am inclined to think that there was such a plan of London existing before Braun’s, and that the Anonymous plan is a coarse copy of one of those made in Holland for popular sale some time before 1580. Braun’s plan, in any case, carries us back on firm ground to the end of the mediæval period, and by its aid we can check over our former results for an accurate plan of mediæval London.
Beyond this point we have an overwhelming mass of documentary evidence, by which the names of the streets, churches, and other landmarks, can be carried backwards by references in deeds, wills, patents, close-rolls, and Parliament-rolls, etc. etc. I have little doubt that almost every street and lane in London which existed in Stow’s day could be carried back by this means to the thirteenth century, and a good many can be shown to have borne the same names in the century after the Conquest.
Then we have the complete list of city churches in the time of Edward I. given in the Liber Custumarum. The parish boundaries probably remain much as at that time, and the wards in their present form go back as far. It may be noted that a study of the boundaries shows that the parishes are in the main subdivisions of wards, and not that wards are aggregations of parishes. Such general documentary evidence can be further supplemented by the data which we have in regard to particular buildings which are still in part existing, or of which we have plans and other evidence.
We can accurately reinstate the City wall with its bastions and gates, the Bridge and the Tower of London. We have ample particulars as to the Cathedral and precinct of St. Paul’s, with the line of the Close wall, the position of its gates, and the site of the Campanile in the north-east corner. The boundaries of the Conventual Establishments can be plotted, and the buildings within them can, in many cases, be laid down in detail. The plan of the Guildhall buildings may be reconstructed, and Hollar and Leeke’s map gives the position of the Halls of the several Companies. An attempt has been made in the body of this work to sift out what can be learned of a still more remote London.
THE END
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WORKS ON ARCHÆOLOGY AND ANTIQUITIES.