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“Gone are all the barons bold,

Gone are all the knights and squires,

Gone the Abbot stern and cold,

And the brotherhood of friars;

Not a name

Remains to fame,

From those mouldering days of old!”

Longfellow.

Fitzstephen’s statement that “there are in London and the suburbs 13 churches belonging to convents, besides 126 lesser parish churches,” is not a very satisfactory one, as he does not proceed to name these several churches, or to tell his readers with what establishments they were connected. However, he was probably under the mark in putting the first figure at thirteen, for even in his time, and certainly very little later, there were many more than thirteen monastic and conventual buildings in London, and each had its church or chapel. The chief amongst these establishments which existed in London in the twelfth century, and which were made between that time and the dissolution of the priories in the days of Henry VIII., were:—

Inside the City Walls.

1. The Greyfriars or Franciscans, succeeded by Christ’s Hospital.

2. The Blackfriars or Dominicans in the west.

3. The Crossed or Crutched Friars, by Fenchurch Street.

4. The Augustine Friars, by Broad Street.

5. St. Helen’s Priory of Nuns, Bishopsgate Street.

6. The Priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate.

7. The Priory and Sanctuary of St. Martin’s le Grand.

8. Elsing Spital, London Wall.

9. The Priory of St. Augustine Papey.

10. St. James’s Priory, the Hermitage in the Wall, Monkswell Street.

11. The Priory of St. Thomas Acon, Ironmonger Lane.

12. The Fraternities who had the care of St. Paul’s Cathedral, including the brotherhood of All Souls, specially connected with the Charnel Chapel.

Outside the City Walls.

13. The Whitefriars or Carmelites, south of Fleet Street.

14. The Abbey and the Convent of Westminster.

15. A Brotherhood of St. Ursula at St. Mary le Strand.

16. A Brotherhood of the Trinity, without Aldersgate.

17. The Knights Templars, in the Strand.

18. The Priory of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, at Clerkenwell.

19. The Black Nuns of St. Mary’s, Clerkenwell.

20. The Benedictine Priory of St. Bartholomew, with St. Bartholomew’s Spital, West Smithfield.

21. The Carthusian Priory of the Salutation, subsequently the Charterhouse.

22. St. Mary Spital, without Bishopsgate.

23. The Nunnery of the Minoresses of St. Clare, the Minories.

24. The Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary of Grace, beyond the Tower.

25. St. Katharine’s Hospital, by the Tower.

26. The Convent of St. Leonard, at Bromley-by-Bow.

27. The Priory of St. Mary Overie, Southwark, with a “House of Sisters.”

28. Bermondsey Abbey.

29. The Nunnery of St. John the Baptist, Holywell.

30. The Convent of St. Mary Rounceval, Charing Cross.

A very complete list of the ecclesiastical institutions will be found in Brewer’s “Beauties of London and Middlesex,” vol. ii. p. 39.

Some of these brotherhoods were but small, and were mendicants; and they may not have had special burial-places of their own. In other cases burials may have only taken place in the priory churches, which were always much sought after for the purpose by outsiders, or in the cloisters. But most of the conventual establishments had a cemetery of considerable size—“the cloister garth,” and peeps are given us now and then, by old writers, of the practices at the burial of the monks and nuns.

In the Church of the Crutched friars were two Dutch Fraternities, one of which was named in honour of the “Holy Blode of Wilsuak,” and among their rules and orders is the following:—

“Also when any Brother or Suster of the same Bretherhede is dede, he or she shall have 4 Torchys of Wex of the Bretherhede, to bring the Body in Erthe: And every Brother and Suster shall come to his Masse of Requiem, and offer 1^d and abide still to the Tyme the Body be buryed, uppon Pain of a l. Wex, yf he or she be within the Cite.”

BURIAL OF A MONK.

(From a Harleian Manuscript).

Burials did not always take place in the evening, as might be imagined from the mention of torches and tapers, but often after mass, before dinner, and always with as little delay as possible. The written absolution was placed on the body of the monk or nun, and buried with it. Very solemn they seem to have been, these monastic funerals, especially when the body to be buried was that of an abbot, a prior, or a canon, with the procession of monks, the lighted tapers, the sprinkling of holy water, the chanting of psalms, the singing of the requiem mass, and the ringing of the bell. Strype gives a detailed account of the finding of four heads in pots or cases of “fine pewter,” in a cupboard in the wall of the demolished building which belonged to the Black friars, when the rubbish was cleared away after the Great Fire of London. They were embalmed or preserved, and had tonsured hair. He imagined that they were the heads of “some zealous priests or friars, executed for treason ... or for denying the King’s Supremacy; and here privately deposited by these Black Friars.” It is probable that these heads were afterwards bought and taken to the Continent to be exhibited as holy relics. The City must have been a strange place in the thirteenth century, with the numerous churches and the very large priories and convents hedged in by narrow streets of wooden houses, where, even in those early days, men were busy, in their own several manners, in getting money. Neither the monks, nor the nuns, nor the mendicant friars were always exemplary in their behaviour, but at any rate the charitable works done at that time—the care of the sick, the prayers for the evil, the prayers for the souls of the dead, the building of the churches and the hospitals—were carried out by them, and we cannot imagine how we could have got on in our matter-of-fact generation without their efforts and their work. It is also pleasant to look back occasionally and to try and picture the life led in the more secluded priories outside the City, surrounded by fields and close to the Holy Wells, where there was time for prayer and meditation and good deeds.

“Yes, they can make, who fail to find,

Short leizure even in busiest days;

Moments, to cast a look behind,

And profit by those kindly rays

That through the clouds do sometimes steal,

And all the far-off past reveal.”

Of the cloister garths there is very little which remains intact. The burial-ground of the Greyfriars is now the quadrangle of Christ’s Hospital, but few traces of the old cloisters are left there. Of the grounds attached to Westminster Abbey I shall speak in the next chapter. That of St. Bartholomew’s Priory, West Smithfield, was built upon many years ago. The site of the priory cemetery and that of the canons are marked on the accompanying plan, but

“Time has long effaced the inscriptions

On the cloister’s funeral stones,”

and nothing is left to us except glimpses of the customs which used to take place there. The history of the establishment, founded by Rahere about 1113, is comparatively well known, owing to the recent efforts that have been made to restore what is left of the noble Norman Church. But there is not much remaining of what was once an extensive group of buildings except the choir of the original church, with its restored lady-chapel, crypt, and transepts. The nave has gone, and its site is marked by the churchyard, the bases of the pillars being buried among the bones. Leading out of the south transept is the “green-ground,” another small churchyard, and a paved yard on the north side of the church was once the pauper ground.

According to a writer in the Observator of August 21, 1703, the cloisters of the priory and the space which still existed there became the resort of very low characters, “lords and ladies, aldermen and their wives, squires and fiddlers, citizens and rope-dancers, jackpuddings and lawyers, mistresses and maids, masters and ’prentices” meeting there for lotteries, plays, farces, and “all the temptations to destruction.” Stow describes far more respectable gatherings in “the churchyard of St. Bartholomew,” when the scholars from St. Paul’s, Westminster, and other grammar schools used to meet for learned disputations, for proficiency in which garlands and prizes were awarded; but these meetings finally degenerated into free fights in the streets, and had to be discontinued.

The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew The Great.

(Click image to enlarge.)

Some of the priory burial-grounds have survived in the parish churchyards, or at any rate parts of them have. The churchyard of St. Catherine Cree, in Leadenhall Street, is the successor of the burial-ground of Holy Trinity Priory, the church itself having been built in this cemetery. It was originally called Christ Church, which got corrupted to Cree Church, and so on. The churchyard is associated with the performance of miracle plays, moralities, or mysteries, and it was probably in this place that some of the latest of these shows were held. They are frequently mentioned by different chroniclers from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries. Such events as the Massacre of the Innocents, the Shepherds feeding their flocks on Christmas Eve, and the scenes in the history of St. Catherine, &c., were usually portrayed inside the churches; but Bishop Bonner put a stop to this practice in 1542, after which time stages were erected by strolling players in streets, by the wells, and in private houses. In London the churchyards seem to have been frequently used for the purpose, and in an old parish book belonging to St. Catherine’s was the following entry, quoted in “Londinium Redivivum”:—“Receyved of Hugh Grymes, for lycens geven to certen players to playe their enterludes in the churche-yarde from the feast of Easter, An. D’ni. 1560, untyll the feaste of Seynt Mychaell Tharchangell next comynge, every holydaye, to the use of the parysshe, the some of 27s and 8d.” The miracle plays were a prelude to a more advanced form of dramatic representation, and after the establishment of the theatres we hear no more of them. The modern “flower service” originated, I believe, in the church of St. Catherine Cree, having been instituted by Dr. Whittemore.

S. EAST S. WEST

VIEW OF THE CRYPT ON THE SITE OF THE LATE

COLLEGE OF S^t. MARTIN LE GRAND. Discovered in clearing for the New Post Office THE CRYPT OF ST. MARTIN LE GRAND IN 1818.

Recent discoveries have shown that the priory cloister of the Augustine Friars was immediately to the north-east of the Dutch Church in Austin Friars. St. James’s Priory, the Hermitage in the Wall, had a graveyard under the wall, on the other side of which was, and is, the churchyard of St. Giles’, Cripplegate. Huge warehouses and offices now cover its site. The burial-ground of the Priory of St. Thomas Acon, in Ironmonger Lane, where pilgrims were buried who died on their visits to the chapel in honour of Becket, has also disappeared; but that of the priory of St. Augustine Papey survives in the little churchyard of St. Martin Outwich, in Camomile Street, which was presented to the parish by Robert Hyde in 1538, while the nuns of St. Helen’s were probably buried in what is now St. Helen’s Churchyard, Bishopsgate Street, which used to be, according to Stow, much larger.

No trace is left of the burial-places of the monks of Elsing Spital, the Crutched Friars, the White Friars, or the Black Friars, or of that of the splendid priory and sanctuary of St. Martin le Grand; they have gone with the buildings, of which only slight traces remain here and there, such as the porch of St. Alphege, London Wall, which belonged to Elsing Spital Priory. Probably they all had burying-grounds within their precincts. The crypt of St. Martin’s was opened out in 1818, and a very perfect stone coffin found in it, when the present Post Office Buildings in Foster Lane were erected. The churches themselves were always much resorted to as places of interment by those who were not connected with the priories, especially the four magnificent churches, all of which are now gone, of the Greyfriars, the Whitefriars, the Blackfriars, and the Augustine Friars. The Dutch church is the successor to the nave of the last named. The site of the Greyfriars’ church is occupied by the present church and churchyard of Christ Church, Newgate Street. Here were buried Margaret, second wife of Edward I., Isabella, Widow of Edward II., Joan Makepeace, wife of David Bruce, King of Scotland, and Isabella, wife of Lord Fitzwalter, the Queen of Man, besides the hearts of Edward II. and Queen Eleanor, the wife of Henry III., and, according to Weever, the bodies of “four duchesses, four countesses, one duke, twenty-eight barons, and some thirty-five knights,” in all “six hundred and sixty-three persons of quality.” Malcolm states that ten tombs and 140 gravestones (the fine monuments at the east end of the church) were destroyed and sold, in 1545, by Sir Martin Bowes, Lord Mayor, for fifty pounds.

I have given a list of the principal convents and priories outside the city. The site of St. Katharine’s is buried in the Dock, and that of St. John the Baptist’s, Holywell (by Curtain Road, Shoreditch), has also gone. The churchyards of St. Mary, Bromley, and St. Saviour, Southwark, are the survivals of the conventual burying-places; the cemetery of the nuns at Bromley was on the south side of the church, and upon its site Sir John Jacob built the Manor House, the bones being put under the house. But about two hundred years later (1813) the greater part of this site was again added to the churchyard, and re-consecrated. The burial-ground of Westminster Convent, with the Abbot’s garden, have given place to the district and market of Covent Garden. The houses in White Lion Street and Spital Square are on the site of the cemetery or garth of St. Mary Spital. Here, after it ceased to be used for interments and before it was built upon, Spital Square was an open plot of ground with a pulpit in it and a house for the accommodation of the Lord Mayor and Corporation when they came on their annual visit to hear the “Spital Sermon.” Of the priory church of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, in Clerkenwell, very few traces remain. The beautiful old crypt, lately cleared of coffins and restored, is older than the priory church (which was built over it), and dates from 1080 or 1090. The truly magnificent church was consecrated in 1185, the present structure occupying merely the site of the choir, the nave having probably extended the length of St. John’s Square, and, together with the other buildings of the priory, it was pulled down at the Dissolution. The exact site of the cloisters and burial-ground is unknown. The present churchyard of St. John’s is a small, narrow one at the eastern end, from which steps lead down into the ancient crypt. Here, between the years 1738 and 1853, about 325 bodies were buried, or rather the coffins were stacked, for they were above the floor. In 1893 a faculty was procured for their removal, and all the remains were reverently conveyed to Woking, a vellum document recording the fact being placed in the vestry of the church. The crypt is open to the public on the first Saturday in each month. Its complete restoration is still in hand. I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. H. W. Fincham for the picture of St. John’s Crypt, and also for that of the garden in Benjamin Street, E.C.

The Nuns’ burial-ground at Clerkenwell, and part of the beautiful cloister, existed until about one hundred years ago in the garden of the Duke of Newcastle’s house, and its site is now occupied by the houses on the west side of St. James’s Walk, a little north-east of St. James’s Church. The Convent of St. Mary Rounceval was superseded by Northumberland House, subsequently pulled down when Northumberland Avenue was made; and the churchyard of Holy Trinity, Minories (now merely a part of the road) may be a relic of the Nunnery of the Minoresses of St. Clare. The Priory Church of St. Mary Overie (over the ferry) was purchased from the king by the parish in 1539, and has since been the parish Church of St. Saviour, Southwark, henceforth to be the Cathedral of South London.

CRYPT OF ST. JOHN’S, CLERKENWELL.

In the Crace Collection at the British Museum there is a plan, made by William Newton, purporting to show London in Elizabeth’s time, in picture form. He marks the priories with their burial-grounds, but I doubt if it is very trustworthy. In Van den Wyngaerde’s beautiful view (1550), reproduced by the Topographical Society in 1881, and the original of which is in the Bodleian Library, several of the conventual churches appear, not the least interesting being that of “S. Maria Spital.”

The Cistercian abbey of St. Mary of Grace and the Carthusian priory of the Salutation were built on plague burial-grounds. (See Chapter VI.) The former has disappeared under the site of the Royal Mint, the latter survives in the Charterhouse. Probably they were very insanitary, but such, according to Dean Farrar, was the case with all the conventual establishments, and much accommodation was provided for sick monks.

Lastly we come to Bermondsey Abbey, the ancient and once famous settlement of Cluniac monks in the ea or eye (island) of a Saxon named Bearmund. Almost all traces of the abbey buildings have disappeared, though a good deal existed at the commencement of this century. There are some fragments of old windows and doorways among the shabby houses south of Grange Walk, and some pieces of the wall in the churchyard of St. Mary Magdalene. A considerable portion of the Abbey burial-ground was added to this churchyard in 1810. Amongst the benefactors of this establishment were William Rufus, Henry I., and King Stephen, and many eminent people were buried in the priory church, while much of great historic interest is connected with the history of Bermondsey Abbey.

The modern representatives of the ancient monasteries and nunneries lack the antiquarian flavour which is so attractive to us, and yet there is a certain interest attaching to them. But I have only to deal with their burial-grounds, and therefore need mention very few.

THE REMAINS OF BERMONDSEY ABBEY ABOUT 1800.

The third volume of Knight’s “London” commences with the following words:—“It is a curious circumstance, and one in which the history of many changes of opinion may be read, that within forty years after what remained of the magnificent ecclesiastical foundation of the Abbey of Bermondsey had been swept away, a new conventual establishment has risen up, amidst the surrounding desecration of factories and warehouses, in a large and picturesque pile, with its stately church, fitted in every way for the residence and accommodation of thirty or forty inmates—the convent of the Sisters of Mercy.” The writer of the article refers to the convent by the Roman Catholic Chapel in Parker’s Row, built in 1838. The chapel, with a small graveyard given in 1833 or 1834, existed previously. The garden of the convent was used for burials until August, 1853, but there appear to be no gravestones in it, and it is a neatly-kept ground between two schools, whereas the graveyard on the east side of the church is untidy. Another disused burial-ground is behind the Roman Catholic Chapel in Commercial Road. Here the tombstones are laid flat, and the ground forms a garden of considerable size for the use of the priests.

On the north side of King Street, Hammersmith, just east of the Broadway Station, is the large red building known as the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a seminary and establishment erected by the late Cardinal Manning on the site of a Benedictine convent which was founded, according to some authorities, before the Reformation, and according to others during the reign of Charles II., and which included the Sisterhood of the English Benedictine Dames and a famous school, where many ladies of distinction received their early education. Brewer, in his “Beauties of London and Middlesex” (1816), thus describes the burial-ground of this convent: “The gravestones are laid flat on the turf, and the sisters are placed, as usual, with their feet to the east; the priests alone having the head towards the altar. There are several inscriptions on the stones, of which we insert the following specimen:—Here lies the body of The Right Reverend Lady Mary Anne Clavering, late Abbess of the English Benedictine Dames of Pontoise, Who died the 8th day of November, 1795, in the 65th year of her age.” Cardinal Manning disposed of this little cemetery, which was by the lane on the east side, when erecting the present buildings. “It was dug up and done away with,” according to the statement of one of the sisters at present in the convent.

But two similar burial-grounds are still to be found in this immediate neighbourhood, one is disused and the other is in use. The former is behind the Convent of the Good Shepherd in Fulham Palace Road, only about 14 by 12 yards in size, and closed a few years ago. The latter is at the extreme end of the garden of Nazareth Home in Hammersmith Road, under the wall of Great Church Lane. It is even smaller than the one in Fulham Palace Road, and has been in use for upwards of forty years, but as only the sisters are interred here it would appear to be still available for about another twenty years. The graves are in neat rows, a small cross is on each, with the name (or the adopted name) of the sister whose body lies beneath. It forms a little enclosure in the large space and garden behind the buildings of the Home, where many children are taught and many old people live. Another enclosure contains their poultry, and another a cow. The whole establishment is very interesting, and not the least interesting part of it is this little cemetery, of the existence of which, in all probability, very few of the inhabitants of the surrounding streets have any knowledge.

I have visited one other convent burial-ground, and in each case it is necessary to go through the ceremony of being peeped at through a grating, and, when admitted, passed along passages and through rooms while the doors are locked behind, and only granted permission to see what I want after some time of waiting and a large amount of explanation. I have been since told that I was singularly favoured by being admitted into the Franciscan Convent in Portobello Road, where the Mother Superior herself most kindly took me to see the little cemetery, explaining that it was “sanctioned by the Home Secretary,”—of which I was well aware. It is a charming little corner of a very pretty garden, a triangular grass plot edged with trees, not above a quarter of an acre in extent. It was formed in 1862 and first used in 1870, only five burials taking place in twenty-three years. It is, of course, merely for the interment of the nuns who, having given up the world and shut themselves into the convent, find their last resting-place within its precincts.