THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
XLV.—LONDON :-IIEDLEVAL PERIOD.
THE Metropolitan character of LONDON seems to have had its origin in the important position which it occupied during the struggles with the Northmen in the times of Ethelred II. and Edmund Ironside. It was the great prize for which the latter Prince and Canute fought many a battle, and both the Saxon
Princes made it, as we have seen, their frequent residence. In what part of the metropolis they resided we cannot certainly say ; much depends on the date assigned to the foundation of the monastic Church of St. Peter in the Island of Thorney, formed by a branch bend of the Thames two miles from London. If we push back the origin of WESTMINSTER, the monastery to the west (of Lon- don), to the early Saxon times, nothing would be more likely than than that the Princes resided within the monastic precincts, except when shut up by siege within the city walls. However this may be, Edward the Confessor, by rebuilding the monastic Church at Westminster, and making the spot the site of a Royal residence, greatly contributed to the increasing importance of the neighbour- ing City of London. Coronations, Religious and Court festivals, Witenagemotes, and Great Councils of the Saxon and early Norman Princes began to be held here as often as at Winchester, and the superior wealth of the city on the Thames, and its mercantile relations with the Continent, soon gave it an unmistakable advantage over the old capital of the West Saxons. The Norman Conqueror evidently recognized the importance of the city, for he appears not only to have strengthened or built the Tower on the east side, but to have built another castle on the west side, also near the banks of the river. The only mention of property in London contained in Doomsday Book is that of a vineyard in Holborn belonging to the Crown, and ten acres of land nigh Bishopsgate (the manor of Norton Polgate), belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's. Perhaps the complete civic independence of London may have led to this omission on the part of the Royal Commissioners. In Saxon times the civic head of the City seems to have been styled " Portgerefa "—Portreeve, i.e., keeper or administrator of the port, Edward the Confessor calls him "my Portgrave," and couples with bim "all the burgesses of London." William the Conqueror in his charters addresses himself to "the Bishop, the Portgerefa, and all the Burghers." In the times of Henry I. and Stephen we find two officers mentioned, one the " Portgrave," the other the Justiciarius or "Provost." Henry granted to the citizens of London the sheriffwick thereof, and also of Middlesex, for the
yearly farm of 3001. From this time we find the title " Vice- Comites " applied to the chief civic officers, who are sometimes two, sometimes three or more in number. London, says its earliest historian, William Fitz-Stephen, a monk who wrote in the reign of Henry IL, like Rome, is divided into districts, or, as we should call them, "wards." In place of consuls it has yearly Vice-Comites. It has a senatorial rank and inferior magistrates. It has its respective Courts for deliberative, demonstrative, and judi- cial causes. It has also the right of holding Comitia on fixed days. In the first year of Richard I. the citizens were confirmed in the right of electing annually two "Bailiffs," who were the Sheriffs ; and soon, if not immediately afterwards, the office of " Mayor " was constituted, that officer being probably merely one of the Vice- Comites, separated for peculiar and superior functions. He held also originally the offices of " Chamberlain " and "Coroner." Succeeding Kings confirmed to the citizens the right of electing their own Mayor and Sheriffs. The "senatorial rank" of Fitz- Stephen refers to the "Aldermen," who presided over each ward, and frequently gave their names to them. According to some copies of Fitz-Stephen's description, the citizens of London alone were called "Barons," the inhabitants of other cities being called "citizens." The compiler of one of the early City records, however, asserts that the title " Baron " was confined to the Aldermen, and the title is used in Edward IL's reign for the higher classes of the citizens. Leofstane, goldsmith, was Provost or Justiciary in the time of Henry I.; his grandson, Henry FitzAlwin or Fitz Aylwin, draper, was the first Mayor of London, filling the office for more than twenty-four years. He lived in Candlewick Street, "near London Stone." Fitz-Stephen, who gives us the picture of Lon- don in the reign of Henry II., is an enthusiast for his native city. He styles it "happy in its healthy air, in its Christian worship, in the strength of its fortifications, in its situation, in the houses of its citizens, and in the chastity of its matrons. How joyous also is it in its recreations," he exclaims, "and how it teems with noble men 1" The air, he says, is mild, but not relaxing. He mentions the Church of St. Paul as a fitting rival to the metro- politan Church of Canterbury, and adds that there are in London and the suburbs thirteen greater conventual churches, besides 126 leaser parish edifices. "On the east there is the Palace (Pala- tinus) Tower, and on the west two other strong forts. The city is girt on the north side with a wall high and great, with seven gates, and with turrets at intervals. On the south there have also been walls and towers, but the fishy Thames has broken down and washed them away. Higher up, westward, on the banks of the river, is the Royal Palace, an incomparable building, with a wall before it, and bulwarks, two miles from the city, and joined to it by a populous suburb. Everywhere, beyond the houses, stretch continuously the gardens of the citizens of the suburbs, planted with trees, spacious and fair. On the north side of the city are pasture grounds and pleasant open meadows, crossed by streams of water, on which the mill-wheels turn with a merry murmur. Close by is a vast forest, with woody glades, where wild beasts lurk, bucks and does, boars and wild bulls. Rich and fruitful, too, are the City cornfields. There are also round the northern suburbs of London choice wells of sweet water, wholesome and clear, with their streams bubbling over the glittering pebbles. Of these Holy-Well, Clerken-Well, and St. Clement's Well are of the most note, and most in fashion, being most frequented by the scholars and the youth of the City, when they take their air abroad in summer evenings. We cannot here enter into the details of the life of old London with which Fitz-
Stephen supplies us ; the schools, with their public disputations and their cock-fighting in the presence of their masters at Shrove- tide ; the public cookshops on the banks of the Thames ; the craftsmen, 'distinguished from each other in their localities as well as occupations;' the market and race-course at Smethefelde, just out- side one of the City gates, where the Court and the citizens met on equal footing; the games at ball and the martial and athletic exer- cises on Sundays in Lent in the fields, in which latter the young noblemen and courtiers join ; the Miracle-Plays, the mock sea- fights on the river, the sliding and skating in Moorfields, and the dancing of the young maidens till moonlight. The citizens also had the privilege of hunting in " the Chilterns." Almost all bishops, abbots, and noblemen of England, he says, are sort of freemen and citizens of London. There they have fair dwellings, and thither they often resort, and lay out a great deal of money, and are called into the City for consultations and solemn meetings, either by the King or their Metropolitan, or drawn by their own business.
The only plagues of London Fitz-Stephen declares to be the immoderate drinking of bobs and the frequent fires. The latter
assertion is true, at any rate, for half the annals of Anglo-Norman London are those of disasters by fire. In 1077 the greater part of the City was laid in ashes, and again in 1086 St. Paul's and a large part of the City from the West Gate to the Re-et Gate under- went a similar fate. After this, St. Paul's was rebuilt, and its precincts much enlarged, at the expense of a street of laymen. In 1091 upwards • of 600 houses and many churches in London were blown down by a tremendous hurricane in the month of November, and the Tower of London, not long completed, was also broken. Two years afterwards a large part of the city was again destroyed by fire. Rufus repaired and added to the Tower, and built a Hall at Westminster.
The Abbey of Westminster was, during this period, at variance with the See of London as to their respective jurisdictioas. We have two accounts of the early limits of Westminster, one in a charter of 951, and another in the year 1222. It is described in Doomsday as a manor within the hundred of Ossulston, in Middle- sex, pertaining to the Church of St. Peter. According to the charter of 951, it seems to have extended along the river from the west of the present Blackfriars Bridge to where the Tybarne brook fell into the Thames, a little westward of Vauxhall Bridge. It extended along the west side of London Fen and the Fleet stream (Farringdon Street) to Holborn, which latter thoroughfare, with Oxford Street, was its northern boundary, as far as the west side of Stratford Place, from which point the Tyburne was its western boundary, down South Melton Street, along the south of Berkeley Square, across Piccadilly and the -Green Park, imme- diately in front of Buckingham Palace, and thence through Pimlico into the Thames. A .decree in 1222 terminating the dispute between the Abbey and the See of London varies con- siderably in the boundary on the east side. "It entirely excludes all the precinct of the Savoy, and the entire parishes of St. Mary-le-Strand and St. Clement Danes, with the portions of the parishes of St. Andrew and St. Giles which were included within the boundary of 951; and it confines Westminster in 1222 to the then single parish of St. Margaret, at that time comprising, with the existing parish of that name, all the present parishes of St. Paul, Covent Garden, St. •Martin-in-the-Fields, St. Anne, St. James, St. George, Hanover Square, and St George the Evangelist. But westward, in addition to what was com- prised in the charter of 951, this decree of 1222 declares the manor of Knightsbridge, Westbourne, and Paddington, all which were distant from the described boundary of Westminster, to belong to the parish of St. Margaret"- By this decree the furthest eastward boundary of Westminster was Drury Lane. In 1393 Richard II. gave a. charter which affirmed the abbot, in right of his monastery, to be seised of the manor of Westminster, in the town of Westminster, and in the parish of St. Martin-in-the- Fields, the Blessed Mary of the Strand, and St. Clement .Danes, without and near to Temple Bar. The limits of Westminster were finally and more explicitly defined in letters patent of the 2nd of James I., according to the present extent. "At a very early period the Strand, it appears, formed a part of the bank of the Thames, and remained as a strand after all other parts in the vicinity of the growing London bad lost their native character, and appearance. In 1315 it is stated that the footway at the entrance of Temple Bar, and from thence to the Palace of Westminster, was so bad that the feet of horses and rich and poor men received constant damage, particularly in the rainy season ; at the same time the footway was interrupted by thickets and bushes." A regular road began to be formed along the Strand in 1353. The Fleet stream, then tolerably broad, which flowed from Hampstead Heath into the Thames, was crowded with small vessels, laden chiefly with charcoal and lime, and bound for the wharves which extended as far as Battle Bridge [King's Cross]. Welt Cheap, "a wide and almost triangular area formed by the street now called Cheapeide and by a field extending along its southern side, and including part of Paternoster Row, had superseded as the great London mart of commerce the old East Cheap, on the line of the Roman roadway. In the centre of West Cheap stood the Standard,.an old stone cross. Cornhill had become the special mart for clothing and household furniture, and Lombard Street was the residence of the foreign merchants. A wooden bridge had been built across the Thames to Botolph Gate, as we have seen, in Saxon times. There seems to have been no bridge in 993, when Anlaf the Northman sailed .up the Thames to Staines ; but there was a wooden one in 1008, when Ethelred, assisted by the converted Olave, attacked London, then held by the Northmen. Olave on that occasion pulled the bridge down by main force with his ships, but it was rebuilt in time to bar the progress of Canute. It is mentioned in a charter of the Conqueror's
in 1067. It was entirely swept away in the hurricane of the 16th of November, 1091. It was rebuilt, but was burnt down in a great fire in 1136, which began in the house of one Ailward, near London Stone, and . laid the city-in ruins from St. Paul's to Aldgate. Fitz-Stephen mentions a bridge in his account of the -water sports on the Thames, it having been wholly rebuilt in 1163. This was the last wooden bridge. In 1176 a stone bridge was begun to be built a little to the west of the old one, and was com- pleted in 1209, the architect being the same who built the last wooden fabric, Peter, Curate of St. Mary Colechurch, on the north side of the Poultry.
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