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SKETCH MAP OF LONDON IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

Let us go back to the fourteenth century; let us walk about London in the reign of Edward III., great Captain and glorious Sovereign. Before we enter the City we will first stand upon the wall and look out upon the country outside. The wall itself, of Roman origin so far as the foundation and the core, has been faced and refaced and repaired over and over again. It is provided still, however, as in Roman times, with round bastions about 250 feet apart. One of these bastions, much rebuilt, overlooks, beyond the ditch, the church and churchyard of St. Giles, Cripplegate; the towers, erected at irregular intervals, belong to a period after the Romans. The wall is twenty-two feet high; the height of the towers is forty feet.

The wall kept out the Danes in six successive sieges, it kept out Earl Godwin in 1052.

THE WHITE TOWER

The most important repairs which the wall has lately received are those of the Barons in 1215, who, after entering the City by Aldgate, breaking into the Jews’ houses, pillaging them of their valuables, and taking away all their money, used the stones of their houses for the repair of the gates and the wall. In the year 1257 Henry III. caused the wall to be again repaired and strengthened. In 1282 the south-west corner was shifted west in order to enclose the House of the Dominicans lately removed from their old house in Holborn. This new part of the wall rose along the bank of the Fleet. It was built, but very slowly, by the Corporation. Once more, in 1328, the walls were repaired, and again in 1386, when there was a scare about a French invasion, and the citizens in great haste repaired the wall and the gates and cleared out the ditch. The frequency of the repair seems to indicate bad and slovenly work. In 1477 the wall was strengthened in many places. After this, little or nothing seems to have been done for it.

The whole circuit of the wall is 2 miles and 605 feet. It is provided with battlements on the outside and a ledge or standing-place within, two or three feet wide, for the defenders. There may have been also some kind of rail for protection on the inside; the railing, however, sometimes found on old walls still existing, as at Chester, is modern; and we observe that the walls of York, Aigues Mortes, Avignon, and other places, are without any railing. Outside the wall lies the ditch, broad and deep, first constructed in the early part of the thirteenth century; the water is kept flowing by means of a culvert in the wall which leads it into the old bed of the Walbrook; it is renewed and kept fresh by certain small streams which fall into it from the Moorfields; it is full of fish, but since nothing can keep the people from throwing things into it, the water is always growing more shallow and the ditch always needs more dredging. The White Tower is built upon the original eastern end of the wall. Just north of the Tower on the east side is a postern of late date giving access to the riverside; and it serves as access to two religious houses, but there are no dwelling-houses there. St. Katherine’s by the Tower, one of the religious houses, stands on the bank of the river. It is quite a small foundation, but from the beginning it has been closely connected with the Queens of England. On the north of St. Katherine’s rises the stately Abbey of Grace, Graces, or Eastminster, not one of the most wealthy monasteries, but an important house, provided with very beautiful buildings (see vol. ii. pt. iii. ch. xxvi.). Between the ditch and the monastery is the open space called Little Tower Hill with its Stone Cross.

ST. KATHERINE’S BY THE TOWER

From Dugdale’s Monasticon.

The Town Ditch begins just south of Smithfield at the angle. There is no ditch along the west wall; probably there never was any, the Fleet River serving here for the moat. There is a Bridge over the ditch for the Grey Friars’ Postern, and another outside Aldersgate.

As we walk along the wall northwards, looking over the battlements, we see, running across the broad stretch of level ground, a roadway. It is not in the least like a modern road, or a Roman road; it is simply a wide grassy track broken up by feet of horses and by ruts! the latter are both broad and deep, for wheels are broad and carts are heavy. Trees stand here and there along the road; dotted about the fields are farm buildings, barns, and gardens. Presently, our view across the fields is blocked by the House of the Sorores Minores, the Sisters of St. Clare. You can see the nuns walking in their cloister garth; the buildings lying among their gardens and their orchards look strangely quiet and peaceful. As for the Sisters, they are reputed to be good and pious; the voice of scandal may be making free with the Mendicant Friars, and with the richly endowed monks; but no word or whisper of scandal has ever been uttered as regards these Franciscan Sisters. The farm beside their house, with the meadows, farm buildings, and farm-yard, rich with cows, sheep, swine, and fowls, belongs to the good Sisters, and is cultivated for them. It is one of the most ancient of the market gardens of London.

We arrive at the first of the City gates—Aldgate, otherwise spelt Algate or Alegate; but, according to Prof. Skeat, ald is Med. Eng. for old. It was not one of the Roman gates, because the Romans would not make a gate opening simply to the outside, and there was no Roman road connected with this part of the wall. It is, however, a sufficiently ancient gate. The gate is double, with two portcullises, but the drawbridge has become practically a permanent bridge; beside the gate is a hermitage. Such hermitages near gates and bridges are not uncommon. The hermit lives on the alms of the passers-by and promises his prayers in return. There are sometimes two or three hermits lodged together in one cell; their piety is occasionally doubtful; but concerning the piety of the Aldgate hermit have I heard nothing. It is not known when this gate was first constructed, certainly before the time of Fitz Stephen; probably after the arrival of the Conqueror. We may, if we please, ascribe its opening to Henry I., connecting it with the tradition which used to make his Queen the builder of Bow Bridge. In the neighbourhood of this gate, many years subsequently to the era we are considering, Roman coins were found sixteen feet deep.

Each of the City gates is granted to a Sergeant-at-Arms, who occupies the chambers over the gateway, and whose duty it is to keep watch at night, being assisted by a watchman (wayte) whom he keeps at his own expense. During the day each gate, according to the City regulations, is kept by two men well armed; sometimes the Bedel is directed to summon the men of the Ward to watch the gate armed, those absent finding substitutes at their own expense. This is done as a reminder of their duty. The City Gates, the Gate of London Bridge, and the City Posterns, are let to certain persons from time to time, for the profit, no doubt, arising from the farming of the tolls; Geoffrey Chaucer at this very time has taken a lease of that at Aldgate. The keepers of the City Gates are sworn, among other things, not to allow lepers to pass into the City.

Newgate and Ludgate have been prisons from time immemorial. All the chambers over all the gates are let on the condition that they may be taken over as prisons if they are wanted.

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.

Just beyond the turn of the wall we come to Aldersgate. There appears to be no tradition concerning the date of this gate. It was one of the first four gates of the City; and it has been enlarged by the addition of a great framework house on the south side, and another on the east side, the latter of which is remarkable for the possession of a very deep well within its walls. Outside the gate is yet another church of St. Botolph. Beyond the church you may observe the modest buildings of a Fraternity. It is an Alien House called the Brotherhood of St. Fabian and St. Sebastian. Beyond the House of this Brotherhood are two or three great houses belonging to nobles. The cluster of religious houses in this neighbourhood may account for the number of houses which very early began to grow up around them. Under the wall is the Hospital of St. Bartholomew; beyond the Hospital is the Priory; beyond the Priory is the House of the Carthusian Friars; and on the west of these are the houses of the Knights Hospitallers and the Clerkenwell Nuns. Standing on the wall we command an excellent view of these buildings: grouped about in picturesque beauty, they stand among trees and gardens; beyond them, close to the City wall, lies the level plain of Smithfield with its trees and ponds, with its Horse Fair and its Cloth Fair, with its race-course and its gibbet, the place of amusements, the place of executions, the place of ordeal.

Beyond Aldersgate the wall runs west for a little, when it turns south again and passes Newgate. This is a goodly and a strong gate, and beside it stands the prison of which, at another time, we will speak at length. As we have said, Newgate, like Bishopsgate, was not built upon the site of the Roman Gate but near it. This is the traditional history of the gate:—

“This gate was first erected about the reign of Henry the First or of King Stephen, upon this occasion. The Cathedral Church of St. Paul, being burnt about the year 1086 in the reign of William the Conqueror, Mauritius, then Bishop of London, repaired not the old church, as some have supposed, but began the foundation of a new work, such as men then judged would never have been performed: it was to them so wonderful for heighth, length, and breadth, as also in respect it was raised upon arches or vaults, a kind of workmanship brought in by the Normans, and never known to the artificers of this land before that time. After Mauritius, Richard Beaumore did wonderfully advance the work of the said church, purchasing the large streets and lanes round about, wherein were wont to dwell many lay-people, which grounds he began to compass about with a strong wall of stone and gates. By means of this increase of the church territory, but more by enclosing of ground for so large a cœmitery or churchyard, the high and large street stretching from Aldgate in the east to Ludgate in the west, was in this place so crossed and stopped up, that the carriage through the city westward was forced to pass without the said churchyard wall on the north side, through Paternoster row; and then south, down Ave Marie lane; and again west, through Bowyer row to Ludgate; or else out of Cheap, or Watheling Street to turn south through the old Change; then west through Carter lane, again north up Creed lane and then west to Ludgate. Which passage, by reason of so much turning, was very cumbersome and dangerous both for horse and man. For remedy whereof a new gate was made, and so called, by which men and cattle, with all manner of carriages, might pass more directly (as before) from Aldgate, through west Cheap by St. Paul’s, on the north side: through St. Nicholas Shambles and Newgate market to Newgate, and from thence to any part westward over Holborn bridge, or turning without the gate into Smithfield, and through Iseldon to any part north and by west. This gate hath of long time been a gaol or prison for felons and trespassers, as appeareth by records in the reign of King John and of other kings; amongst the which I find one testifying, that in the year 1218, the 3rd of King Henry the Third, the King writeth unto the Sheriffs of London, commanding them to repair the gaol of Newgate for the safe keeping of his prisoners, promising that the charges laid out should be allowed unto them upon their accompt in the Exchequer.”

Continuing our walk we overlook the Fleet River, which is much choked with filth and rubbish, especially from things thrown into it from the Fleet prison, whose walls it washes and whose refuse it receives. Perhaps after heavy rains it becomes a cleaner stream. Over against it rises the steep slope of Holborn crowned with its ancient church of St. Andrew. The broad road on which it stands is the military road, which branched off from the Roman road, when London Bridge was built. Formerly, and long after the building of the Bridge, the highway between the north and the south ran across the marshes round Westminster, and over Thorney Island itself.

Ludgate—perhaps, we do not know—was built as a postern before the Conquest. It was rebuilt or strongly repaired, in the year 1215, by the Barons when they entered the City and pillaged the Jews, as already mentioned. Ludgate is now—in this fourteenth century—also a prison concerning which more will be said hereafter.

The wall of London at first passed in a direction due south to the river from this gate, which was on the hill just without the Church of St. Martin. Between the wall and the Fleet was a small piece of wet and undesirable ground on which the Dominicans were permitted to settle; it was their precinct, outside the jurisdiction of the City. Presently the Friars were allowed to pull down the City walls beside them. This was in 1276. The King ordered the City to apply some of the murage dues to building a new wall on the banks of the Fleet, so as to include the House of the Dominicans. Three years later the order was renewed, yet the wall remained unfinished. The lack of zeal probably meant a growing disbelief in the importance of the wall, especially that part of it which overlooked the muddy banks and the mouth of the Fleet. The wall, however, was finished in due course.

We have now completed our circuit of the City wall and have seen what was in the immediate neighbourhood of London. Farmhouses and pasture lands in the direction of Stepney and Mile End; beyond them, which we could not see, the low-lying lands and marshes of the river Lea. North of Bishopsgate is a line of houses, three or four stately monasteries, and inns for travellers; north of Moorgate a vast marsh crossed by causeways, given over chiefly to kennels; beyond the moor, the pleasant village of Iselden. At Cripplegate, a suburb populous but composed entirely of craftsmen; outside Aldersgate, stately monasteries, a noble hospital for the sick, a tract of ground, flat, dotted with ponds, with some small clusters of trees upon it, decorated by a gibbet on which hang always the mouldering remains of some poor dead wretches, a gallows-tree on which half a dozen can be comfortably hanged at once. This place is also the site of a great cloth fair held once a year, of a horse fair once a week; and a part is given over to the Jews for their burial-place. On the west, looking out from Ludgate, there is the slope to the Fleet River, with its bridge; the street beyond with its one or two great houses and its shops and taverns beginning to spring up; beyond this street there is the rising slope of the Strand, with its glittering streamlets. And standing on the southern tower of the wall we can look across the river, and see on the other side, the immense marsh that extends from Redriff to Battersea, and the gentle rise of the Surrey Hills beyond. Along that southern marsh there are few houses as yet. Southwark is little more than a High Street. There are one or two houses belonging to Bishop, Abbot, and noble; there are the infamous houses on Bankside; there is the Archbishop’s Palace at Lambeth, but on this side there is little more.

Let us now leave the wall and begin to walk about the streets of the City—we are still, it must be remembered, in the fourteenth century. The first and most distinctive feature of every mediæval city, as compared with its modern successor, is the number of its churches and of its monastic foundations. The latter, it is true, are situated outside the very heart of the City—thus, there are no convents in Thames Street. The Dominicans, as we have seen, were at first outside the wall: one religious foundation there was in Cheapside itself, but that was due to the birthplace of a saint; all the rest were placed near the wall, either within or without, one reason being that they were founded late when the inner part of the City was already filled up, and another, that they were founded, for the most part, with slender endowments, so that they were compelled to get land where it was cheapest. But the churches stand in every street; one cannot escape the presence of a church; and the minute size of the parishes proves, among other things, the former density of the population. Take, for instance, that part of Thames Street which extends from St. Peter’s Hill to Little College Street. That is a length of 1600 feet by a breadth averaging 400 feet. This area, which is divided along the upper part by Thames Street, consists almost entirely of warehouses, wharves, and narrow lanes leading to the river stairs; the south of it consists of that curious little collection of inhabited streets, the whole of which was reclaimed from the foreshore; there are a tangle of narrow lanes and noisome courts lying among and between the wharves, which lanes and courts are always foul and stinking, inhabited by the people belonging to the service of the Port. There are actually five parishes in that little district. The first of them, St. Peter’s, contains not quite two acres; the second, St. Mary Somerset, about four acres; the third, St. Michael’s, Queenhithe, about two acres and a half; the fourth, St. James, Garlickhithe, the same; and the fifth, St. Martin Vintry, about three acres and three-quarters. Five parishes in this little slip of land! But if we take the whole slip of land, which we call the riverside—an area of a mile in length by about 400 feet in width, we find that there are no fewer than eighteen parishes in it. All the churches now within the City, together with those which must have been burned or destroyed, are standing in the century we are considering. So frequent are the churches, so scanty the dimensions of the parish, that the most remarkable feature in the architecture and appearance of the City is the church which one sees in every street and from every point of view. These churches have been already rebuilt over and over again. At first they were small wooden structures, like that at Greenstead, Chipping Ongar, with their walls composed of trunks cut in half and placed side by side. A few were of stone, for the name of St. Mary Staining commemorates such a church. After the Conquest a rage for building set in, builders and masons came over from the Continent in numbers, and the period of Norman architecture began. Still, however, the parish churches continued to be small and dark. But the City grew richer: the nobles who lived in the City and the merchants began to rebuild, to decorate, and to beautify their churches: they pulled down the old churches, they built them up again larger and lighter, in Early English first and next in Decorated Style. Small the City churches continued and remained, but to some of them were added gateways and arches. Adorned as they were by the pious care of the citizens, for generation after generation, by this fifteenth century they had become beautiful. The citizens had filled the windows with painted glass, they had covered the bare walls with paintings, they had erected tombs for themselves with fine carved work and figures in marble and alabaster, they had covered the carved font with a carved tabernacle, they had glorified the roof with gold and azure, they had given the chancel carved seats, they had adorned the altars, they had given organs, they had endowed the church with singing men and boys, and they had bestowed upon it such collections of plate, furniture, rich robes, candlesticks, and altar cloths, as makes one wonder where the Church found room to stow everything. Everybody knows the Treasury of Notre Dame, of St. Denys, of Aix-la-Chapelle. The cupboards are crammed with ecclesiastical gear and relics and reliquaries. We must realise that the same thing, on a smaller scale, is to be seen, in the fourteenth century, in every parish church of London. We look into church after church. There are treasures in every one, treasures that the priests and the sacristans bring out with pride. And the monuments over the graves of City worthies bring out very strongly, as we stand in the churches and read the names, the fact that the members of the great distributing Companies, largely, if not entirely, belong to families of gentle birth: upon this fact there will be more to say in another place. Another point is that there are few monuments older than this—the fourteenth-century. Thus, taking half a dozen of the churches as we walk about the streets, we find that a monument of the thirteenth century occurs in one or two cases only. What does this mean? That the monuments of all the merchants who died in London and are buried in the City churches have been removed or wantonly destroyed? I think not. It has another meaning. The erection of monuments to the dead belongs to a very primitive stage of civilisation, and it is also found in an advanced stage; in times of continual uncertainty and warfare it does not always exist: nor does the craftsman or the rustic desire a post-mortem memory. The citizens of London before this time have not generally nourished the desire of posthumous honour. They left money for masses, or to beautify the church; or they founded doles for the Mind Day, but not for the erection of a monument. This desire seems to belong to a time when the conditions of life have been smoothed and some of the old miseries have abated. Not that the dangers of fire, famine, or pestilence ever weigh heavily upon the minds of a people actively engaged; or that they are bowed down by the consciousness that war, with a painful death on the field, is always a possibility for them; or that they find life intolerable by reason of its diseases, its chances, its changes, or its brevity. But it is quite certain that they do realise so vividly the world to come, that in all their transactions it is acknowledged in words, if not really felt, to be of far greater importance than the world in which they live. Since, after a time of Purgatory, one is going for ever to sit among the Saints, what matters it whether one’s name is preserved or not? When many of the old dangers are abated; when fortune is more stable; when wealth accumulates; when the growth of the City brings dignity, honour, and authority to the citizens,—then it may become natural for the people to erect monuments in memory of the men whose personality in life has been large and full of dignity; and then every man will begin to desire such a monument in memory of those surprising achievements of which he alone is conscious. Every family will begin to desire such a commemoration, if only to swell the family pride, and to make the church itself proclaim the glory of the line. But in the thirteenth century these aspirations were rare. Henry of London Stone, first Mayor and Mayor for five-and-twenty years, was one of those thus honoured.

Let us exchange generalities for a single example.

We are standing at the entrance of a narrow lane leading north from Thames Street. It is the street called Fish Street Hill or Labour in Vain Hill. On the south-east corner stands the very ancient church of St. Mary Somerset. It is placed a little back from Thames Street with part of its churchyard on the south side: it is a large and handsome church; the churchyard is planted with trees and the graves are mounds of grass. We enter the street, which presents a steep incline: down the middle runs a tiny stream, for there has been rain; offal, bones, grease, fish-heads, dirty water, refuse of all kinds float down this stream, which, after a heavy shower, keeps the street comparatively clean and wholesome. There are, however, fortunately, other scavengers besides the rain; they swoop down out of the sky, they alight in the street, they tear the offal with their beaks and claws, they carry it up to the house-tops; these are the kites and crows, who build their nests on the church towers and roofs, and find their food in the refuse thrown out into the streets. Were it not for these birds, London streets would be intolerable.

It is a morning in May: along the street on either side are houses; here is a rich merchant’s house standing behind its wall, and beside it is a little tenement occupied by a craftsman. Looking up the street one can see green trees here and there, from those of St. Mary Somerset on the south to those of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey on the north. Half-way up we come upon a low wall; looking over it we see a churchyard shaded by trees and covered with graves, the grass growing long and rank; on the west side of the churchyard stands the church—it is a very small church called St. Mary Mounthaw, one of the latest of the City churches, and built originally as a chapel for a private family. Its name shows that the parish was a slice of St. Mary Somerset, just as St. Katherine Coleman was carved out of St. Katherine Cree, and All Hallows the Less out of All Hallows the Great. The door is open—if we look in we see a few women kneeling; there is the murmur of a chantry priest, for it is morning, singing his daily mass; the church is Early English, the roof is high, with beams crossing and recrossing, they are painted red and gold; springing out from the side of the church are angels with outspread wings; high up in the roof itself above the beams is a sky all blue with silver stars. The walls of the church are decorated with bright-coloured paintings from the life of the Blessed Virgin and her Son; the windows are richly painted; the altar is covered with candlesticks, crosses and furniture in white silk, gold, silver, and latoun. There are two noble monuments, each with its effigy and its chapel of white marble: one effigy wears a Bishop’s mitre; another is the image of an Alderman, who was a benefactor to the church. Dozens of candles stuck on iron sticks are burning, with a few great wax tapers paid for by a bequest; at the door sit two old women, beggars. On the north side of the church, and outside it, is a projecting structure half underground. This is the anchorite’s cell (see vol. ii. pt. ii. ch. v.): on the level of the ground is a small aperture protected by a rusty iron grating without glass and without shutter; by this window everything must be handed in to the occupant. If we look through the bars, we see that within there reigns a dim and terrible twilight, for no gleam of sunshine can penetrate this cold and gloomy den, and even on this bright and sunny morning the air is cold and damp like the air of a crypt. On the other side is a narrow slit in the wall, like the leper’s squint, through which the anchorite can witness the Elevation of the Host; at the end of the cell a raised stone serves for an altar, a crucifix stands upon it, and before it the anchorite spends most of his time day and night, praying. The present occupant has been built up into this cell for many years; he subsists on what is brought him. There is never any fear of his being starved or forgotten: he is well provided for, and the people offer him dainties which he will not touch, for he lives on bread and water: sick or well, he will never leave this cell till they find him lying dead on the floor and carry him out. And when the cell is empty there will be no difficulty in finding a successor to occupy his place and fulfil the same dreary austere life.

Let us leave the church and pass on. The street is very narrow, but not so narrow as some. The houses, which are for the most part two and three stories high, are gabled, and the windows are glazed: many of them, such as those on Labour in Vain Hill, do not contain shops but are what we should call private houses, some are let for lodgings to those who come to town on business; and when the lodger is an armiger or a noble, he hangs his scutcheon out of the window, or fixes it on the wall above the door. Thus, Chaucer’s attention, you will remember—see that famous lawsuit tried but the other day, Scrope v. Grosvenor—was first called to the doubtful heraldry on the Grosvenor shield by seeing the scutcheon hanging out of the window in Friday Street. The houses are not in line, but are placed as the builders choose, fronting in various directions and abutting at different depths on the street. Here is a narrow court leading out of the street, it is so narrow that a man standing in the middle can easily touch each side. It contains about a dozen small tenements inhabited by craftsmen, who are all at work in the ground-floor rooms, which are at once workshop, kitchen, and sleeping-room. All about, in the air, one hears the continual noise of work, the sound of hammering, sawing, grating, the ringing of the anvil, the voices of women who quarrel and scold. Now and then rises, all in a moment, without warning, a sudden brawl between two of the working men, at once knives are drawn and in a moment the thing is over, but it leaves a little pool of blood in the middle of the street, and a woman binds up a bleeding arm. We have seen enough of the court. Come back into the street. Here is a gateway and over it a gatehouse, but without battlements or portcullis. Two or three men-at-arms are hanging about the gate, and within is a broad square court in which boys, pages practising tilting, are riding about. There are buildings on all four sides; one of these is a stately hall with a lofty roof and lantern, and the others are noble buildings. This is the town house of a great Baron, who rides with a following of three hundred gentlemen and men-at-arms, and owns manors broad, rich, and numerous. He maintains five hundred people, at least, in his service. Next, there is another gateway and another court with another hall, but not so great. This is the town house of the Bishop of Hereford. There is no tilting or riding in his court: it is, on the other hand, turned into a garden with roses and lilies blossoming in the flower-beds, a fountain sparkling in the sunshine and splashing musically. There is a south aspect, and vines are trained upon the wall; there is a sun-dial, and some seats are placed upon the grass. As for the house, the windows and porches are full of beautiful carved woodwork and shields are carved on the walls. Below the windows are figures in bas-relief representing all the virtues, and the great window of the hall is of painted glass with the family arms of the Bishop, a man of no mean descent, in the centre. Near the Bishop’s house, and like unto it in appearance, but of lesser splendour, is the house of a great merchant, as great men went in the fourteenth century. We will presently enter one of these houses and see how they are furnished. And among the great houses standing side by side, rich and poor together, as it should be, are tenements of the craftsmen, such as we have seen in the narrow court which we have just now passed. In the street itself, dabbling in the water barefooted, are the children, rosy-cheeked, fair-haired, playing, running, and shouting, as they do to this day, and always have done since the beginning of the City.

Shall we next enter the City at Ludgate and walk about its streets from there? Ludgate is half-way up the hill that rises above the valley of the Fleet; passing through it we stand before the west front of St. Paul’s. The noble church must be reserved for another occasion. We walk through the churchyard, and so by the north-east gate of the Precinct find ourselves in Chepe.

This is the greatest market of the City. Hither come the craftsmen, for to each craft is assigned its own place in the market. Not only do the trades work together, but they sell their wares together, so that there is no underselling, and everything is offered at a fixed price.

There is a great deal to be said for this custom. It is convenient for the apprentice to live and work in the atmosphere, so to speak, of his own trade, and to see all day long his own industry. It is also convenient for men of the same craft to work together, first, because solitary labour is bad for a man, next, because hours of labour can only be enforced when men work in companies, third, because bad work cannot be successfully palmed off as good where all work is in common, and, last, if any other reason were wanted, because in some trades tools are costly, and by this method can be held and used in common. Out of this working in common spring the fraternities and guilds and, in fulness of time, the companies. There also grows up, what would never have arisen out of solitary labour, the pride and dignity of trade. The dignity of trade will be greatly increased when the City Companies become rich and strong, and when each fraternity can carry on occasions of state its own banners and insignia, and can wear its own distinctive dress.

There were changes in the quarters of trade from time to time owing to causes which we can only guess.

“Men of trades and sellers of wares in this City have oftentimes since changed their places, as they have found their best advantage. For whereas mercers and haberdashers used wholly then to keep their shops in West Cheap; of later time they held them on London Bridge, where partly they do yet remain. The Goldsmiths of Gutheron’s Lane and the Old Exchange are now, for the most part, removed into the south side of West Cheap. The pepperers and grocers of Soper’s Lane are now in Bucklersbury, and other places dispersed. The drapers of Lombard Street and of Cornhill are seated in Candlewick Street and Watheling Street. The skinners from St. Marie Pellipers, or at the Axe, into Budge Row and Walbrook. The stockfish-mongers in Thames Street. Wet-fish-mongers in Knightriders Street and Bridge Street. The ironmongers of Ironmongers’ Lane and Old Jury into Thames Street. The vintners from the Vinetree into divers places. But the brewers for the most part remain near to the friendly water of Thames. The butchers in East Cheap, St. Nicholas Shambles, and the Stockes market. The hosiers, of old time, in Hosier Lane, near unto Smithfield, are since removed into Cordwainer Street, the upper part thereof, by Bow Church, and last of all into Birchovers Lane by Cornhill. The shoemakers and curriers of Cordwainer Street removed, the one to St. Martin’s le Grand, the other to London wall near to Moorgate. The founders remain by themselves in Lothbury. The cooks or pastelars, for the more part, in Thames Street; the other dispersed into divers parts. The poulters of late removed out of the Poultry, betwixt the Stockes and the Great Conduit in Cheap, into Grass Street and St. Nicholas Shambles. Bowyers from Bowyers’ Row by Ludgate into divers parts; and almost worn out with the fletchers. The paternoster bead-makers and text-writers are gone out of Paternoster Row, and are called stationers of Paul’s Churchyard. The patten-makers, of St. Margaret Pattens Lane, are clean worn out. Labourers every work-day are to be found in Cheap, about Soper’s Lane end. Horse-coursers and sellers of oxen, sheep, swine, and such like, remain in their old market of Smithfield.”

THE OLD FOUNTAIN IN THE MINORIES, BUILT ABOUT 1480, DEMOLISHED 1793

From an old print.

West Chepe is a broad place covered with movable stalls arranged in prescribed order; and this arrangement marks out the streets. On the north and south are large “selds,” which are warehouses and shops in which the servants have their sleeping-rooms, but there is, as yet, very little order or regularity observed in the erection of the seld. Already many of the stalls, especially on the south side, are shops with houses above them. In the midst of Chepe is the Standard, as important a part of the City as Paul’s Cross, for it is the old Town Cross, the Cross that marks the centre of the City, and round the Standard are stalls for fish and vegetables; there are also “stations” for the sale of small things. There are other associations connected with the Standard—it has been used for execution. In the time of the present King’s grandfather, Edward, first of the name, were some who had their right hands struck off for rescuing a prisoner: only the other day we saw two fishmongers beheaded here. Not far from the Standard is Queen Eleanor’s Cross, which is opposite Wood Street.

The “Frame” houses are beginning to be built on the south side of Chepe. They are not, like the palaces of the wealthy merchants and the nobles, built round a court, but are simply developments of the ordinary citizen’s house, decorated and better built. The “frame” is of strong and thick oak, folded in with plaster, and the front, carried up to three or four stories, is covered with carved woodwork; here are shields and the arms of the trade to which the owner belongs, here are effigies and carvings of men and creatures, here are bright paintings in red and blue and gold. We have passed through Chepe and are in the Poultry.

This large house, with its solid gate and its spacious court, is the residence of the Lord Mayor for the year. Observe that the posts outside his gates are gilded, a pretty decoration for the street. Yet it is not in pride that the Chief Magistrate of the City sets up two pillars of gold before his house, it is the City custom thus to mark the house of Mayor, Alderman, or Sheriff. The posts may be painted or they may be gilt. When Proclamations of the King are read they are set up on these posts, and they who read them do so bareheaded, to show their respect for King and Mayor.

Let us not forget to notice the “Room-lands” of which there were many, though now they are greatly reduced in number and in space. There was the broad space round St. Paul’s Cathedral, the place where the Folk Mote assembled. This area was in course of time partly covered with buildings, and with graves and receptacles for bones: another vacant area was that at the north-west corner of the City Wall, where the Franciscans built their House: West Chepe was a Room-land: East Chepe was another: and there were broad spaces designedly left unbuilt upon at Billingsgate, Queenhithe, and Dowgate. The Coal Exchange stands upon the site of the Billingsgate Room-land.

The changes that crept over London during the centuries we are considering were so slow and so imperceptible that the ordinary observer must have thought the world was standing still. Always there had been the Church with its services, always the Friar in the street, always the market and the selds: he did not know, because he had no power of judging, that the City was growing richer, that the standard of comfort had risen immensely, that life was not so rude as it had been, that, perhaps, there was less violence. As much uncertainty there always was, for in the midst of life we are in death, and there were many terrors—the pestilence that stalked the streets, invisible, by day and by night, fire, famine, and war. The population of the City did not increase so fast as its wealth; there were more stately houses, more carved work, more gold and silver cups, finer tapestry, finer weapons, but the world, in the eyes of the ordinary citizen, stood still: as things had been, so they were still, so they would be till the end of all things; there was no hope, no thought of a larger and nobler humanity, all his hope lay beyond the world. Let us remember this fact, because it explains a great deal of mediæval history.

West Chepe was the heart of the City: but it was not the Exchange. There was no Exchange. The merchants met in the most convenient place, that is to say, for foreign trade, in Thames Street. They had their houses for the most part in the sloping streets north of Thames Street; here they received the foreign merchants. The lesser sort transacted business at the tavern.

As we continue our walk we discover that there are three or four principal streets in the City. The apparent labyrinth is pierced by parallel thoroughfares and by others at right angles, so that one need not be lost in the winding lanes. The most important is the street—if we may call that a continuous street which is interrupted at so many places—which enters at Newgate. It is here called Flesh-shambles or Newgate Street, but it is interrupted at Blowbladder Street, and it becomes Chepe; it is interrupted by the Poultry, and it goes along Cornhill and Leadenhall Street, and so out at Aldgate. It is crossed by Grasschurch Street and Bishopsgate Street and by a great number of narrow streets. Other streets of less importance are Candlewick Street, East Chepe, Tower Street, Walbrook, Lombard Street, Fenchurch Street, Watling Street, Knightrider Street, besides a great number of narrow lanes, themselves intersected by courts and alleys. Remark, however, that as yet every house of any importance has its garden. The citizen of London clings to his garden, however small it is.

One thinks that, with streets and lanes so narrow, where there is no system of sewage, and everything is thrown into the street, the filth and general uncleanness must have been intolerable. Look around: we are in the midst of narrow lanes, but where is the intolerable filth? Let us consider. There is a great deal of rain which washes the street continually, and these lanes mostly stand on a slope; there is a service, not very effective, but still of some use, carried on by the “rakers,” who pick up things and take them to lay-stalls; there are the scavenger birds of which we have spoken; and, the most important point of any, there is public opinion. All the people have to use these lanes to go up and down about their daily business; the children play in them; the housewives go to early mass and to market; the great lady who, with her maids, lives in the house behind the gates before you has to use this lane. Think you that these people will consent to have their ways defiled and made impassable? Not so. Therefore the streets are kept tolerably clean. I say not, that in August, after a month or two of hot weather, they are so sweet and fresh as they should be. But one will find more inconvenience from the people than from the streets. What can one expect? Most of them have but one suit of clothes which they wear all the year round. But seen in this way, by walking from one narrow lane into another, where all the streets are narrow except Cheapside, one cannot get a just idea of the size and the splendour of the ancient City. Let us therefore, since the tide is flowing, take boat at the Iron Gate Stairs between the Tower and St. Katherine’s. This is the end of the town, a gathering of houses round the venerable church and college, a river embankment, ruinous in places, and a low-lying marsh beyond, this is all that one can see of the east of London. Marshes lie on either side of the City, moorland and forest are on the north, and there are marshes on the south. In the Pool are moored the ships, not yet in long lines four deep, but here and there; some of these are lying off the Tower, some are in the port of Billingsgate, and some sailing up the river; all of them have high poops and low bows, and most of them two masts and four square sails. Other vessels there are, vessels of strange build of which we know not the names. We drop across the river, and hoisting sails gently glide with wind and tide up the river as far as Westminster. The Tower looms large above the waters. It is the fortress of London, the Palace and Fortress and Prison of the King, and is guarded with jealous care by moat, outward and inner wall, and barbican against any attack of the citizens within rather than any enemies from without. The King’s Lieutenant never leaves the place; he has his guard of archers and men-at-arms; as well as the prisoners of State in his charge. He has his entrance from the river, and from the east, so that he is quite independent of the City. That little forest of masts belongs to the Port of Billingsgate, one of the ancient ports of the City. The riverside houses between the Tower and Billingsgate are mean and small: the quarter is inhabited by sailors and sailors’ folk, by foreign as well as English sailors. After Billingsgate the houses are higher: some are built out upon piles driven into the mud of the river. Here we pass under London Bridge. On the south bridge gate are stuck on poles the heads of a dozen traitors. Alas! it would be hard to make out the features, so blackened are they by weather and so shrunken and decayed. Yet there are old crones standing about the Surrey side of the bridge for doles from the Bridgemaster and Brethren, who know the name of each, and can tell you his history, and when he suffered, and why. At each end of the bridge stands a church—as if to guard it—St. Magnus on the north and St. Olave on the south—though why should there be two Danish saints to guard an English bridge? In the middle is the chapel—that of an English saint. This bridge, in the imagination of the citizens, is the finest in the world. Admire the number of the arches, and note that no two arches are of the same breadth; look at the houses on the bridge; the way between them is narrow and dark, yet here and there are open spaces, where carts and waggons and pack-horses can wait their turn for passing. Once a house fell from the bridge into the river; once a child fell and was rescued by an apprentice who afterwards married her, and many other stories there are. Now we are through the bridge safely, though many boats have been upset and many brave fellows drowned in shooting the arches. There are no great ships above bridge, but there are a good many of the smaller kind laden with cargoes for Queenhithe Port and Market. And now look up. Saw one ever such a forest of spires and towers? Can we make them out? The light and slender steeple behind the bridge is St. Helen’s; the still more beautiful spire is that of Austin Friars; the tall square tower is St. Michael’s, Cornhill; on the right, the tower and low spire belong to St. Peter’s. And so on.