LONDON BEFORE THE CONQUEST

 

 

 

 

London and the Thames, from Speed’s Map, 1610

 

 

LONDON BEFORE
THE CONQUEST

 

BY W. R. LETHABY

 

 

“Now would I fain
In wordys playn,
Some honoure sayen,
And bring to mynde
Of that auncient cytie
That so goodly is to se.”
—Fabyan.

 

LONDON
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
MCMII

All rights reserved

 

 

“Lundres est mult riche cite,
Meliur n’ad en Cristienté
Pur vaillance, ni melx assisé,
Melx gaurnie, de grant prisee;
Al pe del mur li curt Tamise
Pur li vent la marchandise
Des tutes les qui sunt
U marcheans Crestiens vient.”
Roman de Tristan.

 

 

---

CONTENTS

  PAGE Introduction 1 CHAPTER I Origins—The Legend of London—The British Church—The English come to London—Alfred’s London 6   CHAPTER II Rivers and Fords 38   CHAPTER III Roads and the Bridge 52   CHAPTER IV The Walls, Gates, and Quays 74   CHAPTER V The Citadel—Southwark—The Danes’ Quarter—The Portlands and Cnihtengild 101   CHAPTER VI The Wards and Parishes—The Palace 126   CHAPTER VII Streets—Craft Gilds and Schools—Churches 145   CHAPTER VIII The Guildhall—London Stone—Town Bell and Folkmote 175   CHAPTER IX The Government of Early London 187   CHAPTER X Londinium 198   APPENDIX On Materials for the Construction of Maps of Early London 212

 

 

---

NOTES ON FIGURES

London and the Thames, from Speed’s Map, 1610 Frontispiece   PAGE Fig. 1.—Goddess of Hope. (Roman bronze found in London). Restored from Roach Smith’s Collectanea. About two-thirds full size 4 Fig. 2.—Stone Weapons, from the Thames at Westminster. From the Roach Smith Collection 7 Fig. 3.—Centre of Celtic Bronze Shield, from the Thames at Wandsworth. Now in the British Museum 8 Fig. 4.—Celtic Bronze Swords 9 Fig. 5.—Coin of Cunobeline. Enlarged 10 Fig. 6.—Bronze Lamp, Roman, found in London 11 Fig. 7.—Coin of Claudius and another of Constantius, the latter inscribed London (P. LON). Enlarged. The first shows an equestrian statue over a triumphal arch lettered DE BRITANN; the second an altar to Peace, inscribed BEAT TRANQLITAS 18 Fig. 8.—Christian Monogram from Cakes of Pewter found at Battersea. Now in the British Museum. One, in addition to the ΧΡ, has the words SPES IN DEO; the other Α·Ω· 21 Fig. 9.—Bronze Bracelet found in London; ornamented with a Cross. Now in the British Museum 23 Fig. 10.—Head of a Pin found in London. Now in the British Museum. A little less than full size. The subject seems to represent Constantine’s vision of the Cross 24 Fig. 11.—Enamelled Plate of Bronze, about half size of original, found in London. Now in the British Museum. From Roach Smith’s collection 25 Fig. 12.—Cross from Mosaic Pavement found in London. Now in the British Museum. It forms the centre of a geometrical pattern 27 Fig. 13.—Saxon Spear found in London, and now in the British Museum 29 Fig. 14.—Coin of Halfdan, with Monogram of London. From a unique example in the British Museum. It seems to have been coined on the taking of London by the Dane leader in 872 35 Fig. 15.—Saxon Swordhilt, of pierced bronze. Now in the British Museum. Found in London 36 Fig. 16.—Earliest printed view of London, from the Cronycle of Englonde, Pynson, 1510 39 Fig. 17.—London and the Roman Roads: The Watling Street through Greenwich and Edgware; the Erming Street through Merton and Edmonton, called also the Stone Street south of London; the Here Street through Brentford and Stratford 53 Fig. 18.—Roman Wall of London. Restored after the facts given by Roach Smith; the battlements and ditch added 75 Fig. 19.—Detail of Roman Wall of London. From a drawing of Roach Smith’s 77 Fig. 20.—From the Common Seal. Reverse, enlarged, 1224. See also Fig. 23; it shows the city wall with battlements and turrets 78 Fig. 21.—Section of Roman Wall and Ditch. Restored from excavation near Aldersgate recorded in Archæologia 80 Fig. 22.—From Matthew Paris, 1236. From MS. in the British Museum, describing the route to Jerusalem. It gives the names of six gates, the spire of St. Paul’s, etc., and refers to the legend of “Troie la Nuvela”

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@40271@[email protected]#Page_83" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">83 Fig. 23.—The Common Seal of London, 1224. It shows St. Paul patron of the City, such as he was figured on the City banner, rising behind one of the gates; right and left the Tower and Baynard’s Castle 85 Fig. 24.—Fragment found in the South Wall, against the river. From Roach Smith’s Collectanea. It looks late work, but is of marble 91 Fig. 25.—Fragment found in South Wall with the last 93 Fig. 26.—Danish Sword from the Thames at London. Recently shown in the New Gallery. The hilt was inlaid in precious metal. There are similar swords in the British Museum, called the Scandinavian type 112 Fig. 27.—Plan showing the relation of the Central Wards and the principal Streets; also the extent of the extra-mural liberties. Notice especially how Bridge, Langbourne, and Bishopsgate Wards lie over the two great streets, and meet at the Fourways of the great Roman Roads. See Fig. 17 127 Fig. 28.—Saxon Brooch found in Cheapside. Of lead; nearly full size. In the British Museum 153 Fig. 29.—Coin of Alfred, with Monogram of London. Enlarged. The name in the field is that of the moneyer. Compare monogram with Fig. 14, from which it seems to have been copied 155 Fig. 30.—Tomb of King Ethelred, 1017. In Old St. Paul’s. From Hollar’s drawing in Dugdale 162 Fig. 31.—Ninth or Tenth Century Tombstone from St. Paul’s Churchyard. Inscribed in runes. Now in the Guildhall Museum 164 Fig. 32.—Saxon Tomb from St. Benet Fink. Restored from fragment in the British Museum; compared with one found at Cambridge, like the entire figure 166 Fig. 33.—Head of Cross from St. John’s, Walbrook. Now in the British Museum 168 Fig. 34.—Saxon Coffin-lid from Westminster Abbey, North Cemetery, now by entrance to Chapter-House. It had been added to a Roman sarcophagus 170 Fig. 35.—Roman Pavement found in Threadneedle Street. Drawn in situ by Fairholt, 1854. From the original in the author’s collection 199 Fig. 36.—Roman Brick, inscribed London, about one-twelfth full size. From Roach Smith 203 Fig. 37.—Inscriptions from Roman Brick. P·BRI·LON 203 Fig. 38.—Roman Tomb from outside of the East Walls. Restored from fragments found together, and now in the British Museum 205 Fig. 39.—Inscription from Roman Tomb. Now in the British Museum 206 Fig. 40.—End of a Roman Tomb found in London. Now in the British Museum. From a drawing by W. Archer 207 Fig. 41.—Leaden Cist for funereal use, found in London, and now in the British Museum 207 Fig. 42.—Plate of Figured Glass for Decoration, about two-thirds full size. Now in the British Museum. Found in London. Figure restored. From Roach Smith 208 Fig. 43.—Roman Inscription, from Clement Lane, E.C.; now lost. About two feet high 209

 

 

---

INTRODUCTION

A great burh, Lundunaborg, which is the

greatest and most famous of all burhs in the northern lands.—Ragnar Lodbrok Saga.

Of the hundreds of books concerning London, there is not one which treats of its ancient topography as a whole. There are, it is true, a great number of studies dealing in an accurate way with details, and most of the general histories incidentally touch on questions of reconstruction. Of these, the former are, of course, the more valuable from the topographical point of view, yet even an exhaustive series of such would necessarily be inadequate for representing to us the ancient city in a comprehensive way.

In an inquiry as to the ancient state of a city, a general survey, besides bringing isolated details into due relation, may suggest new matter for consideration in regard to them, and offer fresh points of proof. For instance, the extra-mural roads were directed to the several gates, the gates governed the internal streets, while these streets ran through wards, and gave access to churches and other buildings.

The subject of London topography is such an enormous one, and the involutions of unfounded conjecture are so manifold, that an approximation to the facts can only be obtained by a critical resifting of the vast extant stores of evidence. In the present small essay I have, of course, not been able to do this in any exhaustive way; but I have for years been interested in the decipherment of the great palimpsest of London, and, in trying to realise for myself what the city was like a thousand years ago, I have in some part reconsidered the evidences. The conclusions thus reached cannot, I think, be without some general interest, although from the very nature of my plan they are presented in the form of notes on particular points, and discussions of opinions commonly held, with little attempt at unity, and none at a pictorial treatment of the subject.

Of mistaken views still largely or nearly universally accepted which will be traversed here, I may mention a few salient examples. For instance, Stow’s opinion that London Bridge before the twelfth century was far to the east of the later bridge, and that the mural ditch was a mediæval work; Stukeley’s opinion that the old approach through Southwark pointed on Dowgate, that Old Street was the great west-to-east Roman road, and that Watling Street in the city carries on the name of a street which formerly lay across its course, running from London Bridge to Newgate. From more recent writers, I may cite Mr. J. E. Price’s idea that the Cheap was not at an early time a thoroughfare; Mr. J. R. Green’s views,[1] as given in his Conquest of England, that Saxon London “grew up on ground from which the Roman city had practically disappeared”; that the Roman north gate and the north-to-south street were considerably to the east of the line of Bishopsgate and Gracechurch Street; and that the Tower of London was built by the Conqueror on “open ground only recently won from the foreshore of the river.” The plan which accompanies these views is equally visionary; a large quarter of the city east of St. Paul’s is lettered “The Cheap”; there is no Aldgate Street (now Leadenhall Street), the Langbourne appears as a stream, and there is a curious selection of churches, amongst which is St. Denis, for which we are referred to a note in Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, regarding a gift of London property to the monastery of St. Denis in Francia. Mr. Loftie holds that Aldgate was first opened in the time of Henry I., and that no mediæval gate exactly occupied a Roman site; that the eastern road turned off outside Bishopsgate; that Ludgate was still more recent than Aldgate, and that it only opened on the Fleet river; that the Strand was not a route before mediæval days; that there was a Roman citadel on the high ground from the Walbrook to Mincing Lane, and that the Langbourne was a ditch to this stronghold. In the last book on the subject, called Mediæval London, we are again told of the oblique Roman Watling Street; Cheap is described as “a great square”; and it is assumed that not only the Langbourne, but the equally mythical Oldbourne, supplied the city with water.

 

Fig. 1.—Goddess of Hope
(Roman Bronze found in London).

 

I have here only rapidly set down a few of the opinions which are still current[2]—views which are repeated, embellished, and amplified to distraction in more popular writings, and set out with much appearance of exactitude in most misleading maps.

The whole question, indeed, of the early topography of London is overloaded on a quite insufficient basis of fact, and quakes and gives way under the least pressure of examination.

 

 

---

CHAPTER I

ORIGINS—THE LEGEND OF LONDON—THE BRITISH CHURCH—THE
ENGLISH COME TO LONDON—ALFRED’S LONDON

Like as the Mother of the gods, they say,
Old Cybele, aray’d with pompous pride,
Wearing a diademe embattild wide
With hundred turrets, like a turribant:
With such an one was Thamis beautifide;
That was to weet the famous Troynovant.
The Faerie Queen.

Origins.—The earliest historic monument of London is its name. The name Londinium first appears in Tacitus under the date of A.D. 61 as that of an oppidum “not dignified with the name of a colony, but celebrated for the gathering of dealers and commodities.”

Dr. Guest propounded the theory that the city was founded by Plautius, the general of Claudius: “When in 43 he drew the lines round his camp, he founded the present metropolis.... The name of London refers directly to the marshes.”[3] Dr. Guest is here apparently in agreement with Godfrey Fausett’s view that the name London represents Llyn-din, the Lake-fort.[4] Many attempts have been made to explain the name, by Camden and others, from other Welsh roots, but nothing is more uncertain than the origin of place-names.[5]

 

Fig. 2.—Stone Weapons from the Thames.

 

The tradition given by Geoffrey of Monmouth was that London was called Caer-Lud after a King Lud. Recent writers compare this name with Lydney, on the Severn, where a temple has been found

dedicated to Nodens (or Lud), and say that London means Lud’s-town,[6] thus coming round to Geoffrey.[7] This Nodens, who was worshipped at Lydney “as god of the sea,” appears “in Welsh as Nudd and Lludd, better known in English as Lud.”[8] Another Celtic deity, Lug or Lleu, is said to have left his name in a similar way to Lyons, Leyden, and Laon, “each originally a Lugdunum or Lugo’s Fort.”[9]

 

Fig. 3.—Centre of Celtic Bronze Shield from the Thames.

 

Fig. 4.—Celtic Bronze Swords.

 

All these derivations seem mere conjectures, but the last from Lud is at least in harmony with tradition. Yet that very tradition may be founded on an attempt to provide an origin for the name, according to the principles which derived Gloucester from Claudius and Leicester from the Welsh Lyr.[10]

 

Fig. 5.—Coin of Cunobelin (enlarged).

 

It is difficult to see why under Dr. Guest’s theory of Roman foundation, which is accepted in Green’s Making of England, London should have had a Celtic name at all. Dr. Rhys says that the name was so ancient that the Roman attempt to change it to Augusta failed. That it was a local habitation before the Roman occupation seems to be almost proved by the prehistoric and early objects found on the site, amongst which are four or five inscribed coins of Cunobelin (Cymbeline) found in the city and neighbourhood; and it seems unlikely that a mere camp in 43 would have grown in 61 to the important place celebrated by Tacitus. Green says that the chief argument against its antiquity is the fact that the great Watling Street[11] passed wide of the city through Westminster, but surely there might be settlements below the lowest convenient passage of the river. The Watling Street, if earlier than the settlement, did not in any case cause the town to be built on its course, and, if later, it did not pass through the settlement. The argument, indeed, goes only to prove that either the Watling Street or London could not be where they are. Or, at most, it might be contended that the road was more likely to go to the town than the town was to settle on the road, and as they are not together, that the road may be earlier than the town; but of actual time the argument can show nothing. Altogether, nothing can be got out of this argument, and we are free to conclude that London is at least as old as our era.

 

Fig. 6.—Bronze Lamp, Roman, found in London.

---

The Legend of London.—Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history of the Britons, written about 1130, contains a legend of the founding of London, which tells how Brutus, migrating from Troy to this western island, formed the design of building a city. On coming to the Thames he found on its bank a site most suitable for his purpose, and building the city there, he called it New Troy—Troiam Novam, “a name afterwards corrupted into Trinovantum.” Here King Belinus afterwards built a prodigious tower and a haven for ships under it, which the citizens call after his name—Billingsgate—to this day. Still later King Lud surrounded the city with strong walls and towers, and called it Caer Lud; when he died his body was buried by the gate which is called in the British tongue Porthlud, and in the Saxon Ludesgata.

All this was received as firm history, until, with the critical reaction against “mere legend,” it was all cast aside as fiction and forgery. From this extreme position there is again a reaction, and Geoffrey is allowed to have founded on earlier writings, now in part lost, and to have embodied genuine folk-stories and lays of British origin.[12]

The Britons like all peoples must have had a legend of their origin, and this one falls in too well with the general type of such legends for it to be anything else than true folk-lore. Indeed, the legend of the derivation from Brutus, and of his Trojan antecedents, appears centuries before Geoffrey in Nennius, and the steps of its evolution can be easily retraced. The Britons required an eponimous founder for their race as much as the Israelites required an Israel, or the Romans a Romulus. This founder (a supposititious Brittus) was at some time equated with Brutus, and Britain, like so many cities in Italy, was said to be founded by a fugitive from Troy. From Cæsar we learn that a tribe of the Trinobantes was found by him near the north bank of the Thames. This true name of a tribe was in the legend made to yield a city, Trinovantum, and this step had been made before Bede and Nennius, who say that Julius defeated the Britons near a place called Trinovantum. This name in turn was explained by Geoffrey as being “a corruption” of Troy-novant. Thus “New Troy” again quite naturally connects “Brutus” (or Brittus) with “Old Troy,” and the whole scheme may date back to Romano-British days.

This is the natural genesis of the myth of the founding of London, and it is evident on the face of it that it is not the clever work of a romance-writer embroidering on Nennius, but genuine folk-lore or imperfect science.

In the twelfth century the story was accepted as gospel in London. The (so-called) Laws of the Confessor provide that the Hustings Court should sit every Monday, for London was founded after the pattern of Great Troy, “and to the present day contains within itself the laws and ordinances, dignities, liberties, and royal customs of ancient Great Troy.”[13] FitzStephen

refers back to the same origins, and the same were adduced in a dispute with the Abbot of Bury as to market privileges which the Londoners claimed dated from the foundation of the city before Rome was founded.[14] Perhaps there is no absolutely certain proof that the Troy story was told in London before Geoffrey’s time, but it seems likely, judging from the number of detailed London allusions in Geoffrey’s work, that there was a British and Arthurian tradition current there before he wrote. Of the latter, at least, one positive scrap of confirmation may be offered. Amongst the names appended to a deed at St. Paul’s dated 1103 is that of Arturus, a canon. This carries back the use of the name Arthur to the time of the Conquest, and we may be certain that where the name was in use, there the story of the “noble King of the Britons” was told.[15] There was a strong contingent of the Celts of Brittany in the Conqueror’s army, and to them the invasion must have seemed a re-conquest of Britain, and stories of the time before the Saxons took the “crown of London” must have been revived and spread abroad.

There is some slight possibility that when Geoffrey tells us that Belinus made a wonderful structure at the quay called after him Billingsgate, he was not merely playing on the name of “some Saxon Billings,” as has been said, for Belinus is recognised as the best known of the Celtic gods, and the name has been found in many inscriptions.[16] Geoffrey again tells us that Belinus constructed the great Roman roads in Britain, and we cannot be asked to suppose that the Roman roads were said to be the work of Belinus because the same Saxon Mr. Billings kept a posting-house.[17] The weight of evidence seems to allow of the view that there really were some remarkable Roman structures at the Tower and Billingsgate which tradition pointed to as the work of the Celtic culture-god Belinus, or of a king who bore his name. Some remnants of a building seem to have had the myth attached to them in the Middle Ages. Harrison, giving a version of the story, says of the Tower, “In times past I find this Belliny held his abode there, and thereunto extended the site of his palace in such wise that it extended over the Broken Wharf and came farther into the city, in so much that it approached near to Billingsgate, and as it is thought, some of the ruins of his house are yet extant, howbeit patched up and made warehouses, in that tract of ground in our times” (Holinshed). Belinus seems at times to have been confused with Cæsar, and so we get the Cæsar’s Tower of Shakespeare and other writers. Stow, writing of the same “ruins,” says, “The common people affirm Julius Cæsar to be the builder thereof, as also of the Tower itself.”

Nennius uses the name Belinus for Cassibelaunus, which latter, indeed, is evidently derived from the former; for he speaks of Belinus (Cassibelaunus) fighting against Cæsar. A parallel passage in Geoffrey gives Belinus the command of the army of Cassibelaunus, but in the account of the battle which follows we have no word of Belinus, but “Nennius,” a brother of Cassibelaunus and Lud, takes his place and perishes from a blow of Cæsar’s sword, Crocea Mors. “Nennius” was then buried at the North Gate of “Trinovantum” with the sword that had slain him.[18] All this is too confused to work out in detail, but it almost looks like a repeated echo of some legend which made Cassibelaunus fall in a personal encounter with Cæsar. At bottom perhaps it may have been some inscription, or coin, lettered Cuno-belin, which associated the name of Belinus with a gate of London. Such coins have been found in London. We can only be certain that at the beginning of the twelfth century the existing name of the gate was explained by a Celtic word.