I have called attention to the fact that in the eleventh century there was but one Religious House in the City of London. Considering the great number which sprang up in the next hundred years, this seems remarkable. Let us, however, remind ourselves of an important feature in the history of religion and of Religious Houses in this country. I mean the successive waves of religious enthusiasm which from time to time have passed over our people. In the eighth century there fell upon Saxon England one of these waves—a most curious and unexampled wave—of religious excitement. There appeared, over the whole country, just the same spirit of emotional religion which happens at an American camp-meeting or a Salvation Army assembly,—men and women, including kings and queens, earls and princesses, noble thanes and ladies, were alike seized with the idea that the only way to escape from the wrath to come was by way of the monastic life; they therefore crowded into the Religious Houses, and filled them all. After the long struggle with the Danes, for two hundred years there was no more enthusiasm for the religious life, for all the men were wanted for the army, and all the women were wanted to become mothers of more fighting men.
The coldness with which the religious life was viewed by the Londoners was therefore caused by the absolute necessity of fighting for their existence. One Religious House, and that not a monastery but a college, was enough for them: they wanted no more. But London was never irreligious; there was as yet no hatred of Church or priest; there was as yet no suspicion or distrust as to the doctrines taught by Mother Church. For three hundred years the citizens felt no call to the monastic life. In the reign of Henry the First a second wave of religion, of which I have already spoken twice, fell upon the people, and especially the people of London. It was the same wave that drove the French to the Crusades. Under the influence of this new enthusiasm, founders of Religious Houses sprang up in all directions. Already in 1086, Aylwin, a merchant of London, had founded St. Saviour’s Abbey, in Bermondsey. In Bermondsey Abbey it was intended to create a foundation exactly resembling that of St. Peter’s, Westminster. Like the latter House, Bermondsey Abbey was established upon a low-lying islet among the reeds of a broad marsh near the river. The House was destined to have a long and an interesting history, but to be in no way the rival, or the sister, of Westminster. Another Religious House was that of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and Priory, founded by Rahere, variously stated to have been a jester, a minstrel, a man of mean extraction, and a man of knightly parentage. His origin matters nothing; yet his Foundation exists still, and still confers every year the benefits of an hospital upon thousands of those who suffer and are sick. (See Mediæval London, vol. ii. p. 250.)
Every one knows the Church of St. Mary Overies, commonly called the Church of St. Saviour, across the river. That church belonged to the Religious House founded, or rebuilt and magnified, by two Norman knights. We have spoken of St. Giles in the Fields already. There was a Nunnery founded at Clerkenwell about the year 1100; there was also a House of St. John (see Mediæval London, vol. ii. p. 270). The last of the Houses due to this religious revival is the Priory of the Holy Trinity, Aldgate. This was founded by one Norman as a House of Augustinian Canons. The Queen, Henry the First’s Saxon Queen, Matilda, endowed it with land and with the revenues of Aldgate. It must be acknowledged that this religious revival was both of long continuance and of real depth, since so many were seized by it and moved either to found Houses of Religion, or to take upon them the vows of religion.
THREE BISHOPS
Nero MS., C. iv. (12th cent.).
There is one more illustration of this religious revival of the twelfth century. This is the Cnihten Gild or Guild. One writer would see in this guild the lost Merchant Guild of the City, of which I have already spoken (see Mediæval London, vol. ii. p. 113), and in the action of the leaders the destruction of the Merchant Guild. Others would see in it a Guild for the defence of the City. I confess that I cannot understand why the Merchant Guild of the whole City should be destroyed by the action of fifteen leaders, nor how a commercial association for the good of all could be broken up by a few of its more important members. It would be also very difficult to make out that this Cnihten Gild did in any sense correspond to the Merchant Guild; and I would ask what a Merchant Guild had to do with fighting? Yet Stow undoubtedly preserves a tradition of battle about the Cnihten Gild. The theory that there was a Company or Guild whose duty it was to organise the defence of the City, to be the officers of a Militia containing every able-bodied man within the walls, seems to account for everything. Now this body of citizen soldiers had already six times beaten off the Danes; they therefore possessed an honourable record. When William took possession he was careful to disturb nothing; therefore he did not disturb the Cnihten Gild. If the object of their existence, however, was the defence of the City, they had nothing more to do; for when William built the White Tower in the east and Montfichet in the west, he said to the citizen soldiers, practically, “I will take care of your defence; your work is done.”
This may be theory and imagination. To me it seems to account for the Cnihten Gild more naturally than the supposition of a Merchant Guild. For one does understand the coming of a time when it was no longer necessary to have such a Guild of defence; but one does not understand how any time, or any combination of circumstances, would make it necessary, or even permissible, for the leaders to surrender or to destroy the Merchant Guild, which regulated the whole trade of the City and was above and before all other Guilds.
The facts of the case are as follows: their meaning and importance have been misunderstood until they were explained by Mr. J. H. Round. In the year 1881, however, a paper on the subject was read before the London and Middlesex Archæological Society by Mr. H. C. Coote. They are, briefly, as follows:—
The land which now forms the Ward of Portsoken, i.e. the “Soc” or “Socn” of the City, was in the hands of a certain body known as the Cnihten Gild. There were fifteen of them whose names have been preserved. They were Raulf, son of Algod; Wulward le Doverisshe; Orgar le Prude; Edward Upcornhill; Blackstan, and Alwyn his cousin; Ailwin, and Robert his brother, sons of Leofstan; another Leofstan, the Goldsmith, and Wyzo his son; Hugh, son of Wulgar; Orgar, son of Dereman; Algar Fecusenne; Osbert Drinchewyn, and Adelard Hornewitesume. These men, all London citizens of position, held the lands on trust as members of the Gild.
It was called the Cnihten Gild: the Soldiers’ Guild. They possessed, among other things, a Charter of King Edward the Confessor. It ran as follows:—