CHAUCER
From the Ellesmere MS.
On the north side, just outside the gate, stands one of the churches dedicated to St. Botolph, the saint who protected travellers. The first church built outside the wall must have been erected when times grew somewhat settled,—it would have been little use building up a church which at any time could be destroyed by marauders. Now as Botolph was a Saxon Saint this church must have been built after the Danes had become Christian, but before the Norman Conquest. In St. Botolph’s honour the old town of Icanhoe changed its name to Botolphstown, or Boston.
Beyond the church are certain inns for the convenience of travellers; among them the “Nuns” Inn. By this way come all the travellers and the waggons out of Essex, the garden of England. In the broad courtyard of the inns stand for safety the covered waggons laden and piled high, to be driven to market in the morning. About a hundred yards beyond the gate stands Aldgate Bar, corresponding to the later turnpike. There are other bars which mark the bounds of the City liberties, but the distance from each gate is not always the same. Temple Bar, for instance, is a long way beyond Ludgate; Aldersgate Bar is near the north end of Aldersgate Street; Bishopsgate Bar is near the Prior’s Almshouse, Norton Folgate. Along the broad grassy track beyond Aldgate Bar stands a small white chapel, that of St. Mary Matfelon, and there are already a few houses, but not many. Beyond Aldgate and before Bishopsgate the wall runs in a northwesterly direction; on the opposite bank of the ditch there are certain small tenements. At this point the ditch is called Houndsditch, because, it is said, “dead dogs are thrown in here.” But dead dogs are thrown into other ditches as well. People do not carry a dead dog to this part of the wall in order to throw it into the ditch, so that this derivation does not ring true. Houndsditch was probably so named from the kennels standing on the north side—“dog-houses” they are called by the people. The breeding of dogs for the hunt is a very important branch of trade; it can only be carried on in the open country outside the wall of the City. A low wall has been erected on the north side of the ditch to prevent the shooting of rubbish into it, but, apparently, without effect. Beyond the wall the broad stretch of fields belongs to the Priory of the Holy Trinity.
The next gate is Bishopsgate, the most stately of all the London gates. The Bishop after whom it is named is Bishop Erkenwald (cons. 675, d. 693), perhaps because he rebuilt or repaired its predecessor. Not exactly on this spot, but very near to this spot, on the east, stood the Roman gate of which these are the successors. The foundations of this original gate have been found in Camomile Street. There is a row of Almshouses at Bishopsgate Bars for poor bedridden folk, who are provided with a roof at least, while they beg their bread of passers-by.
If we remember that Newgate was also rebuilt some distance south of its original position, we shall find strong confirmation of the theory that London was for a while a deserted City. For it is impossible that the occupation of a City should be continuous if the old position of the gates is forgotten. Nor is it only the site of the gates itself which is concerned; the change of position of a gate means the destruction and the obliteration of the old streets in the City which led to it; also of the roads outside which led to it: it means total oblivion of the former position of houses and streets. All this is meant by the transference of a gate. As for the date of the transference, we have the tradition which makes the good Bishop Erkenwald the builder; we have, close by the gate, the Church of St. Ethelburga, who was the Bishop’s friend. On the other hand, Alfred found the wall in a ruinous condition and strengthened it. Perhaps it was he who built the gate. The actual gate before which we are now, in imagination, standing, was erected in 1210, and succeeded that built by either Alfred or Erkenwald. The two stone images of Bishops on the south side of this represent St. Erkenwald and William the Norman; the other two images are those of Alfred and his son-in-law Ethelred, Earl of Mercia.
Outside this gate we observe a second church dedicated to St. Botolph, and opposite the church one of the great inns which are found outside every City gate. This is the “Dolphin.” The broad road outside leads past the poverty-stricken House of St. Mary of Bethlehem, now reduced to two or three Brethren, through an almost continuous line of houses as far as the noble and beneficent foundation of St. Mary Spital, whither the sick folk of London are brought by hundreds to lie in the sweet fresh country air outside the foul smells of the City. The road leads also to Holywell Nunnery on the west, and as far as the little church of St. Leonard Shoreditch, lying among the gardens and the orchards. At the east end of the road is a great field, “Teazle Field,” where they used to cultivate teazles for the clothmakers: at the time we are considering it is the place where the crossbow-men shoot for prizes. In Lollesworth Field, behind St. Mary Spital, there was formerly a Roman cemetery: many evidences of the fact have been found.
Leaving Bishopsgate and walking along the straight line of wall running nearly east and west we look out upon the open moor. It is dotted by ponds and intersected by sluggish streams and ditches; there are kennels belonging to the City Hunt and to rich citizens, and all day long you can hear the barking of dogs. There is a stretch of moorland, waste and uncultivated, covered with rank grass and weeds and reeds and flowers of the marsh, which is an area of irregular shape, roughly speaking, 400 yards from east to west by 300 yards from north to south. Any buildings erected here must stand upon piles driven into the London Clay. There is talk about the construction of a postern opening upon the moor and of causeways across the moor. These would be of great convenience to people wishing to go across to Iselden, or upon pilgrimage to Our Lady of Muswell Hill or Willesden. There is already a causeway leading from Bishopsgate Street without to Fensbury Court, where there was a quadrangular house with a garden and a pond belonging to the Mayor; and here are the kennels for the “Common Hunt.” Houses now become thicker outside the wall; and when we reach Cripplegate we find there is a considerable suburb, with a church called after St. Giles. It was built two hundred years ago in the reign of Henry I., so that, as far back as the twelfth century, there was at least the beginning of a suburb at this place.
As to the first building of Cripplegate there has been a good deal of conjecture. Since the church was founded about the year 1090, it is certain that there must have been, even then, a postern at least for communication between the City and this suburb. And since the name Cripplegate has nothing to do with any cripples but means small—“crepul”—gate, the name seems to point to existence of a postern at first. The gate, whoever built it originally, has been already rebuilt; once in 1244 by the Brewers—perhaps they changed it from a postern to a gate—who also constructed rooms above, which serve for the imprisonment of debtors. You may see one at the barred window, holding a string with a cup at the end of it, for the charity of pitiful persons. Put in it a penny for the poor debtors. I think, from the appearance of the gate, that it will have to be repaired again before long.
Here the wall bends suddenly to the south by west, running in that direction for 850 feet. Then it turns sharply to the west and after a little to the south again. Why did it take this sudden bend? There has never been anything in the nature of the ground to necessitate any such turn: there is neither stream, nor lake, nor rock, nor hill, in the way. Outside the wall, when it was first put up, there was moorland at this spot as all along the north, yet there must have been some reason. I have already ventured to offer a suggestion, which I repeat in this place, that this is the site of the Roman amphitheatre.