We have already seen what were the exports of London under the Saxons and Danes. Of course they remained the same under the Normans. Wool was the staple. England subsisted, so to speak, upon her wool. It went to Bruges, to Germany, and to Italy. The imports were, as before, wine from Germany and La Rochelle; spices, gums, cloth of gold, silk, and the finer weapons. New communications were opened up with the Continent, and England lost her ancient isolation, when her people could freely cross into Normandy, where their King was Duke. Trade was carried on by means of the tally. This was a piece of wood, generally willow wood, about nine inches long, cut into notches. Thus, a notch an inch and a half across at the widest or the outside part means £1000; an inch across £100; half an inch £20; and a long, narrow, sloping notch £10. Other convenient marks denoted single pounds, shillings, and pence.
The great fire of 1135 destroyed the whole of London from the Bridge to the Fleet river. It is sometimes said that this fire destroyed everything that was Saxon. Perhaps it did. But things moved very slowly in the eleventh century; we need not believe that there was any change at all in the buildings that succeeded Saxon London; the huts of the craftsmen, once burned down, were rebuilt on exactly the same plan, the frame houses of the merchant were rebuilt exactly as they had been before. What we may regret were the little Saxon churches—would that we had one or two of those left to us—and in addition, everything still remaining of Roman London. We shall never know what remains of Roman villas, temples, basilicas, baths, perished in this and other mediæval fires, of which there were so many.
It must have been mortifying to the English merchant that the whole of the foreign trade, the export and import trade, was carried on by strangers; the Port of London for a long time had no ships, or next to none, of her own. The Flemings and the German ships came and went in fleets too strong to be attacked; otherwise the narrow seas were swarming with pirates. There were English pirates, Norman pirates, and French pirates; none of them were anxious to respect a ship of their own nationality; it seemed as if by merely living in a seaport one became naturally a pirate. Our sailors were simply undisciplined pirates. When Henry the First raised a fleet, the men mutinied and half of them went over to the enemy. The only chance of the London merchants was to send out a fleet strong enough to fight and beat off these pirates. This, however, they could not do; therefore for many a year to come the foreign trade of London remained with the men of Hamburg, Cologne, and Bruges.
On the government of London at this period we have spoken fully in the second volume on Mediæval London, where will be found a chapter called “The Commune” (p. 11).
[CHAPTER X]
A NORMAN FAMILY
In Appendix K to Geoffrey de Mandeville, Mr. J. H. Round presents a little group, belonging to this period, of three families, together with a collection of facts and figures which, despite their scantiness, enable us to obtain more than a glimpse of the London Baron; the owner of manors and socs within and without the City; the merchant and the banker; the servant and the officer of the King; the Saxon who was also the companion and equal of the Norman nobles. “Few discoveries,” says Mr. Round, “in the course of these researches have afforded me more satisfaction and pleasure” than the investigation into the origin of Gervase de Cornhill, which led to the recovery of this group of the Norman period. It is difficult to imagine greater satisfaction for one who burrows among the documents of the past than thus to chance upon a chain of facts which bring to light a whole family, with its history, at the time when the Normans and the English were beginning to intermarry, shortly before the time when it was said—
“Jam cohabitantibus Anglicis et Normannis, et alterutrum uxores ducentibus vel nubentibus, sic permixtae sunt nationes, ut vix discerni possit hodie, de liberis loquor, quis Anglicus, quis Normannus sit genere.”
The most important of these families is that descended from one Herlwin, who, since his son was sheriff in 1130 when he was certainly not a very young man, was probably born before the Conquest. Since his name is simply stated without the Norman addition showing his parentage, we may gather that the Saxons after the Conquest retained the usage of giving the name without such qualification. Concerning Herlwin, Mr. Round tells us nothing except that he had at least three sons and one daughter. One of the sons, Ralph FitzHerlwin, was sheriff in 1130. The daughter, Ingenolda, married Roger, “nephew of Hubert.” Ralph FitzHerlwin’s son Robert married Mary, niece of Nicolas, priest of St. Michael Chepe. Nicolas himself was the son of Algar, priest of the same church. This priest Algar held the living on lease from St. Paul’s; his son succeeded him, and presented in his turn the living to his nephew by marriage, Robert FitzRalph, the grandson of Herlwin. We see, therefore, that priests married openly and blamelessly, and that they were able in some cases, as when they held a benefice, to bequeath, or to transfer it to their heirs. Probably Nicolas had no sons, or Robert FitzRalph would have had to look elsewhere for a living. It is also apparent that the parish priests were recruited from the governing class of the City, and that this class intermarried with the children of the clergy.
Roger, “nephew to Hubert,” was evidently a man of great consideration. He was chosen by the King in 1125 with Aubrey de Vere to invest the House of the Holy Trinity with the Portsoken when the Cnihten Gild handed it over to the monks. He was sheriff in the same year: he is mentioned in an earlier document as one of the “Barons of London,”—“Hugoni de Bocheland, Rogero, Leofstano, Ordgaro, et omnibus aliis baronibus Lundoniae.” Mr. Round has found two Royal Charters, one of which conveys to him the Manor of Chalk. Roger was one of the multitude who were affected by the great religious enthusiasm of the time: he must needs go on pilgrimage, and went to Jerusalem, dying on the way there or back, if he did not die in the Holy City itself. It will be remembered that another city magnate, Gilbert Becket, also went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the same time. The son Gervase was called De Cornhill, as the heir of his wife’s father, Edward de Cornhill or Hupcornhill. Mr. Round notes, on the form Hupcornhill, similar forms at Colchester, as “Opethewalle” and “Hoppeoverhumber,” i.e. the man who came “up from beyond the Humber.” He was sheriff in 1155, and is mentioned as Justiciar of London in the only Charter left of those granted by Stephen’s Queen, “Sciatis quod dedi Gervasio Justicianis de Londonia X marcetas terrae.”