A History of London, Vol. I
Loftie, W. J.
1883
CHAPTER II. ROMAN LONDON.
CHAPTER II. ROMAN LONDON.
"FULL fathom five" is it buried. Moderns, standing on the accumulated ruins of a succession of cities, can but peer down through the darkness of twenty centuries, and dimly discern a few broad facts. All else is wrapped in mystery, obscured by fable, overlaid by tradition, and confused by ingenious but unsupported guesswork. The accumulation of earth over the ancient level resembles nothing more than the accumulation of literature over a few historical facts. Just as the city of the present must be cleared away, so to speak, before we can find the city of the past, so the early history must be sought by sweeping out of sight at once all we find as to the origin of London in the pages of the medieval chroniclers, and, it must be added, almost all that has been written since up to a very late period. We must construct for ourselves such a view of the subject as will square with what we know for certain. Lud and Belin must flee away with Troy-Novant, and Llyn Dinas. St. Helen and her wall, St. Lucius and his church, must disappear with the temple of Diana on the site of St. Paul's. It is rather in spite of what has been written about it, than with its help, that we must approach Roman London. Some theories and some traditions we may examine, but with caution, and come to our task with our minds wholly | |
26 | unfettered and untrammelled. [1] A very few documentary facts are beyond dispute. Something has been discovered by excavations unsystematically conducted. The sites covered by modern buildings cannot be thoroughly examined. Now and then, under an old foundation, an older one comes to light; and piecing them one by one together we obtain a few leading lines, and can reconstruct some of the ancient thoroughfares, and lay out anew some of the ancient streets. |
A glance at the map suffices to bring out clearly one important point. A great many of the ancient roads-roads, that is, which may be older than the Roman occupation, or that may have been diverted or altered by the Romans on a systematic scheme-seem to converge towards a single spot on the northern or left bank of the . Some of these roads, we may observe, for example, after traversing the country for perhaps hundreds of miles in a line which is nearly straight, are turned aside in order to reach that point. There must be a reason for such a course. A few moments' observation shows us what that reason was. | |
We have already seen that the narrowest place on the , for many miles, namely, between Battersea and | |
27 | the mouth of the river, is at a little wharf adjoining Street, or just opposite to St. Olave's church on the other bank. If the roads of which I have spoken were to cross the by a bridge, it is obvious that the narrowest place was the most likely to be chosen. If, on the other hand, a road was to cross by a ford, it is likely that the place where the river was most shallow would be the best. The river was deep where it was narrow and shallow where it was broad. |
Now, we find that one of the widest places is between and the site of the new St. Thomas's Hospital. In ancient times it was not only wider there than it is now, but the river also spread over a large tract on both sides, which must have been marshy, and probably even foreshore, covered at every high tide. There is still a district called Lambeth Marsh, on the right bank; and St. James's Park[2] occupies the place of a similarly low-lying, and, not very long since, marshy place. If we look at the map, accordingly, we see that a very ancient way passed down what we call Edgware Road, and in a straight line, now slightly diverted, by Park Lane, towards , where it ran along a low ridge-now Tothill Fields-and so reached the . Again, on the other side, we find a similar road seeking at once the Surrey Hills, and so crossing to the southern coast. This ancient way, which came from Chester and went towards Dover, was called by the English the Watling Street. Its course, as some have observed, follows that of the Milky Way in the starry heaven above; and the same name was applied to both. On the Surrey bank, close to St. Thomas's, is a place still called , or "the paved way." The country road beyond was the | |
28 | " Stane Street." It is therefore more than probable, and very little less than certain, that the Watling Street crossed the -perhaps by a ford-just here. |
This must have been before a certain remarkable event to which we next turn. There is another local name which catches our eye, just across the , near ". It is Stony Street. The word "Stony" connects it at once with the Stane Street mentioned above. But how comes it there? There can be but one answer, when we observe, first, that an ancient street in the City is called Watling Street. A very small portion of it lies in the old direction, which was from a point on the bank nearly opposite Stony Street, to the north-western corner of the outer city wall. But how can we connect Watling Street with the Edgware Road ? The answer comes from an old Saxon charter, of which, unfortunately, only a copy has been preserved, a charter of King Edgar, [3] in which we read of a " broad military road" between St. Andrew's, Holborn, and . This road connected the Watling Street in London with the Watling Street which came down Edgware Road: and so we find that the old road which went on to a ford, at , where the was widest, was diverted to the east, and passed through London to the point on the north bank at which the was narrowest. The reason for the alteration must have been the opening of a better road, by ferry or bridge, at London. | |
To the building of the bridge London owed its early prosperity. The exact period at which it was built has not been ascertained. Coins in a continuous series were found in the bed of the river when the old foundations were taken up, ranging from the republican period to that of Honorius, which seems to prove that the bridge | |
29 | was first made before republican coins had gone out of use; therefore early in the Roman occupation. It probably at first consisted of great beams, founded on piles, and the coins held ready to pay the toll slipped from careless fingers through the gaping boards into the stream below. Some may have been thrown in as a religious offering to the deity of the river. The piles remained and formed the foundations of the mediæval bridge. Similar piles protected , and they have been found all along the road into until the marshes had been crossed and the higher ground reached. |
I have spoken of the building of the bridge first because it is the first ascertained fact in the history of Roman London. The second fact is of a different kind. We arrive at the earliest distinct mention of London by name. Tacitus[4] tells us that in A.D. 61 it was full of merchants and their wares, but was undefended by ramparts. It was a place of comparatively large population, though of little military importance. From its abandonment by the Roman general, Suetonius, I am led to think that only a ferry (trajectus) existed as yet, and that the bridge had not been completed. It was a large open British town, full perhaps of Roman merchants and traders, but not a Roman colony; and it was not worth the risk of defending against Boadicea. That risk seems to have been great, or Suetonius would hardly have left the place in spite of the prayers and tears of the inhabitants. All, says Tacitus, who, on account of their unwarlike sex, or weak old age, or because of the attractions of the situation,[5] remained in London, were slain by the enemy. | |
30 | |
As to the size of London at this time we know nothing. Verulam, and Camalodunum, and London, all taken together, contained 70,000 people-that is, the number massacred amounted to 70,000. Many, no doubt, escaped; and it has often been assumed that London must have contained 30,000 people. But we are not warranted in coming to any conclusion which would make it equal in size either to Verulam or Colchester which were colonies. All we can accept as certain is that London was the least considerable of the three. | |
Strange to say, we have no further mention of the place by any Roman author until after the lapse of more than two centuries. We have, therefore, to turn to the results of diggings, and other investigations of the kind, to find out something about it. The Romans do not seem at first to have perceived the advantages of the position. They had a small fortified town, perhaps only a barrack here; and, though it became wealthy and populous very speedily after its destruction by the Iceni, it was not defended. It consisted in fact of a fort commanding the bridge, and possibly connected with a similar fort at ;[6] of a port, perhaps two ports, one at , and one at; and of a vast ring of suburbs, surrounding the fort on the east, north, and west sides, and extending as far as , , and even .[7] | |
Of the Roman buildings we can form an approximate idea. They were, no doubt, like Roman buildings elsewhere. Several castles or forts which answer very well | |
31 | to the remains discovered in London are still standing in various parts of the world. Such a place as Richborough gives us a distinct view of the kind of fortress the Romans would make in London. Let us take for granted that London Stone marked the site of a gate in the western rampart, for, though it is no longer in its original place, it is not very far from it, and let us enter and walk up from the valley of the to the level ground above. We are now in an oblong walled space, extending along the brow of a line of low bluffs from what is now on the west to the place where a bend occurs in the line of Little and Great Tower Street. [8] I do not know that the bend is caused by this having been the site of a Roman bastion, but it is not impossible. At the south-western corner, overhanging , was a great semicircular bastion, built of stone and thin tile-like bricks in alternate courses. It was so large that its foundations extended from what is now Scot's Yard, beside Cannon Street Station, to Laurence-Pountney Lane. Here the level ground approaches nearer the river, and the lanes which now lead down to are shorter and steeper, though after the Great Fire they were altered and levelled to a considerable extent. The east and north sides of the fortress were defended by ditches full of water. Traces of the northern ditch remained for a thousand years or more in the neighbourhood of Lombard Street,[9] and were looked upon as forming the bed of a stream which ran into the according to |
32 | some, or by "divers rills or rillets to the river of ." Streams do not run up hill, and though the English called the ditch a bourne, and the ward through which it ran Langbourne, we can have little hesitation in thus identifying it, the more so, as the earliest form of the name is not Langbourne but Langford. The Langbourne ran from the north-eastern corner of the little city to the declivity of , all along the northern front, except where a thoroughfare parallel to that now called Gracechurch Street, but more eastward, and nearly on the site of Botolph Lane, crossed it, and went out north by what the English afterwards called the Eormen Way, towards Ancaster and Lincoln. The whole oblong space, therefore, was crossed by two great streets, the Watling Street from the west and north-west, and the Eormen or Ermyn Way from the north and north-east. The two met [10] at the bridge foot, and here, therefore, was the market place, still called East Cheap. There was possibly a small river postern at the spot now or lately marked by , and probably a larger one opening on the bridge. |
The walls which defended this Pretorium, as some have called it, were enormously strong, but have almost all gradually disappeared under the inexorable hand of modern improvement. Cannon Street Terminus destroyed the great south-western bastion. An immensely massive portion was laid open lately on the east side, in Mincing Lane, and not destroyed, only because destruction was too expensive. All kinds of Roman remains have been found within the walls. All, that is, except funeral relics. No interments were made within a Roman city, and we find none here. The moment we pass the limits marked | |
33 | above, the interments occur, some of them close under the wall, as at St. Dunstan's church, on the east, and in Lombard Street on the north. |
Outside the fort on the west was the steep bank of the , and its mouth at . The course of the stream was turned by the bastion mentioned above, and close to it, with probably some kind of bridge, was the chief gate opening on the Watling Street. Vestiges of rude buildings have been found on the opposite bank of the brook, which have led some writers to suppose that a native village, perhaps of fishermen, stood on the height. Remains, too, have been found which would indicate the existence then or later of something like a place for boat-building. | |
Within the fort, close to the western wall, and therefore overlooking , was a large hall or basilica with a tesselated pavement, perhaps the residence of the governor, or the court where justice was administered.[11] But with this exception we know of no great building within the walls, and though a bath has been found near the river-side, we may conclude, from the absence of an amphitheatre or any great temple, that up to the middle of the third century at least, the military force in London was not large, and probably was kept apart from the suburban population and within the fortifications. In the later wall fragments of buildings with architectural and artistic pretensions are sometimes found, such as capitals, broken friezes and portions of sculptural decorations. But the buildings to which they belonged were more probably outside the wall of the Roman castle. | |
The Roman part of the place was very small, but, up to the time when the great wall was built, London was a city of suburbs as it is to-day. The long peace of Roman | |
34 | rule rendered it unnecessary for the ordinary townsman to live within fortifications. In this respect London differs and, as it appears, differed fifteen hundred years ago, from the cities of the Continent. The whole of the ground round the Roman fort was covered with houses, some great, magnificent, artificially warmed, frescoed and painted, and some also, no doubt, mere hovels. There were gardens, trees and orchards, and among them what was not to be seen in any other Roman town of the size, the tombs and monuments of the dead. The population was singularly careless in this respect, and the hand of the modern excavator sometimes [12] comes upon the mosaic floor of a Roman villa, with a portion of the later wall built across it, and a grave underneath it. |
The banks of the were especially popular as sites for villas. All along its winding course, at a varying depth, we come upon evidences of the wealth and luxury of these old dwellers in the pleasant ravine beside Threadneedle Street, or the rounded summit of Cornhill by the great northern highway. It is here that the finest remains have been found, many of them covered with layers of black ashes which betray at once the fragile character of the wooden houses, and the constant occurrence of destructive fires. | |
The merchants came into the port from many foreign shores. The oysters of Britain, the iron, the tin and lead, and perhaps also the corn, were embarked at and . The merchants built their one-storeyed houses round the castle, and have left us a few evidences of their wealth and taste. [13] We may | |
35 | picture them to ourselves, as they assemble in the narrow lanes, aping Roman manners and wrapping themselves in Roman togas to hide the " braccæ " which the climate rendered necessary. We see the British maidens tripping down the steps by the , to fill great red jars of Kentish pottery, where now clerks hurry down from Threadneedle Street to Broad Street and never think why stairs are necessary between the two parallel rows of houses. We may visit the market-place, and where now the Sailor King's statue looks down on the crowd of omnibuses and drays, may see some foreign slave merchant, with cunning, swarthy face, as he haggles over the wretched gang of fair-skinned children from beyond the northern forests. We may perhaps stand by and see the Roman base coin counted out by the moneychangers, and hear the frequent ring to test the genuineness of some plated " penny." [14] Or we may witness a dispute between a Gaulish merchant and a Frankish mercenary, and a riot may ensue, the guard be called out, and the ringleaders taken before the proprætor or the centurion. Perhaps he sends them on to for trial, and writes with them such a letter as Claudius Lysias wrote to Felix. [15] |
Such must have been Roman London during two-thirds, at least, of its existence. It is not the picture usually drawn [16] for we are accustomed to talk as if Roman London was always the same, and to forget that it underwent many changes, and only acquired the walls which still, in a sense, survive, towards the end of the | |
36 | Roman occupation of Britain. It was still an unwalled town when the next event of which we have documentary evidence occurred. |
The story is a curious one, but it may be noted as characteristic of our city that the mention of a great fog is the means of removing the mist which, for nearly two centuries and a half, had enshrouded its history. | |
It was now near the close of the third century of the Christian era, and Diocletian, the Emperor of the Roman world, had just (A.D. 286) associated Maximian with him in the government. The two emperors were universally acknowledged except in Britain and Gaul, where Carausius had long been chief commander of a fleet for the suppression of German piracies in the Channel. He now declared himself, or was elected by his soldiers " Emperor." His insular residence was at Clausentum, now Bitterne, on Southampton Water, where a Roman stone pier still exists; but he was probably more often at his Gallic capital, Boulogne. He was very wealthy, as he had retained the booty taken from the pirates, and was popular with his soldiers in consequence. For seven years he maintained his power, and, feeling no doubt pretty sure the emperors would not acknowledge him, he took the matter into his own hands, and pretending to recognise Maximian as his colleague, struck a gold medal at London-perhaps the earliest coin minted there-on which the name of his rival appears, with an inscription which implies the simultaneous existence of three emperors.[17] We should know little indeed of his reign | |
37 | were it not for the large amount of money he issued, much of it at London. This is the only thing to connect him with the place, which it is, however, evident that he held and used as a treasury. |
At length the Cæsar, Constantius, sent by the two emperors, marched upon Boulogne and laid siege to it. Carausius fled away to Britain, where he might have remained long in comparative security; but his prestige was gone when his cowardice became apparent, and he was murdered by Allectus, one of his officers, who assumed the purple, and for three years held sway in Britain while Constantius was occupied in reducing the rebellious Franks to obedience. The capital of Allectus was probably Clausentum. It was certainly not London, though he coined some money there.[18] | |
Allectus stationed his fleet off the Isle of Wight, and swept the Channel. He largely recruited his army from the Franks whom Constantius had driven out of Gaul, and a descent upon Britain in the teeth of such an armament was a work not to be lightly undertaken. But Constantius, though he went slowly about the business, went surely. He gradually assembled a fleet at Havre, and selected a trustworthy officer to command it. This was Asclepiodotus, of whom it is strange that we hear so little in subsequent history. News of the intended invasion reached Allectus, who probably thinking Clausentum sufficiently protected by his fleet, marched eastward, lest the troops of Asclepiodotus should land in . London, or more probably , was evidently his base of operations: and his army, too large for | |
38 | the citadel, was encamped on some of the hills[19] on the south side of the . The bridge, open behind him, and, in case of defeat, the possibility of retreating northward beyond the , made his position very strong. |
Asclepiodotus was ready in A.D. 296, and having assembled his galleys at Havre, and taken his troops on board, found his progress impeded by a fog and an east wind. But the conqueror of Britain must not be afraid of either the one or the other. Asclepiodotus set sail in the fog, thereby eluding the fleet of Allectus; and using the side wind in a way few Romans had attempted before, he landed in the west, thereby eluding also the army of Allectus. The place of his landing is unknown, but the story reminds us of the landing of William of Orange in , the more so as the result was similar. The Romans in Britain, whether colonists or Romanised natives, were probably very tired of the ten years' tyranny, first of Carausius and afterwards of Allectus; for the island was of necessity cut off from the Continent by a blockade like that established by Buonaparte at a later date; and the "citizens of Rome," living in Britain, missed the commerce and all the other benefits of their august position, and found themselves reduced to their pristine condition of mere islanders. We cannot doubt that Asclepiodotus, long expected, was warmly welcomed and his expedition forwarded towards London by the colonists of the west. But before he commenced his march, he burnt his galleys, and having thus both relieved a large number of men from guarding the fleet, and also cut off all chances of flight in case of defeat, he turned eastward, and was soon heard of in London as being on his way along the left or north bank of the . | |
39 | |
Allectus, thus taken in flank, or perhaps in rear,[20] hastily summoning his soldiers, some of whom may have been encamped as far out as Wimbledon, commenced to cross the by the bridge at London. But it was a work of time and skill to march a large army through a narrow outwork, over a narrower bridge, through the very circumscribed walls of the fort of London, and out into the crowded suburbs by the only gate which opened upon the Watling Street. Whether from want of experience or panic, Allectus failed to accomplish the task.[21] He was met by Asclepiodotus with a superior force, defeated and slain. His mercenary Franks, who practically held the city already, some of them in all probability having not yet passed the bridge, commenced plundering and burning, with an idea of escaping across the sea with their booty; but Asclepiodotus gave them no time, for he immediately marched into the intricate network of villas, orchards, and cemeteries which surrounded London, and killed the greater number of the marauders. | |
The citizens warmly welcomed Constantius when he came over, for the mercantile class in London desired peace, a strong government, and open communication with the Continent, all of them gifts which he brought with him. But he did not stay. The Picts and Scots were troublesome on the northern frontier; he made his headquarters at,[22] and we hear no more | |
40 | of London for half a century. When Constantine, his son, became emperor in 306, he was in Britain; but his connection with London is only marked by the issue of coins bearing his name, and a London mint mark. There are also coins bearing the name of his mother, Helena, which have the syllable " Lon " in the mint mark. [23] They seem to point to the presence of the divorced wife of the late emperor in Britain, or may have been coined by her son merely in her honour. There is no proof that Helena ever set foot in our island. Coins of the emperor's wife, and of his two sons, Crispus and Constantine, are also found with the presumed London mint marks; therefore it seems probable that, during the ascendancy of this family, London began to be looked upon with increasing favour. It is certain that, either under Constantine himself, or under one of his immediate successors, the outer wall was built. |
Though the building of the Roman wall, which still in a sense defines the city boundaries, is an event in the history of London not second in importance even to its foundation, since it made a mere village and fort with a " tête du pont" into a great city and the capital of provincial Britain, yet we have no records by which an exact date can be assigned to it. All we know is that in London had no wall: and in the wall existed.[24] | |
The new wall must have taken in an immense tract of what was until then open country, especially along the Watling Street, towards Cheap and . It transformed London into Augusta; and though the new name hardly appears on the page of history, and never without a reference to the older one, its existence proves the increase in estimation which was then accorded to the place. The object of this extensive circumvallation is not very clear. The population to be protected might very well have been crowded into a much smaller space. But at that time Roman houses were seldom more than one storey in height, and spread over a large space, especially as most of them were rather villas than town houses, and were, of course, surrounded by extensive gardens and pleasure grounds. Among the trees and flowers rose frequent terminal figures and occasional shrines of rude but costly workmanship, in which the successful merchant burnt incense before a precious bronze Mercury brought in his last cargo from Rome itself, or the idle man of pleasure set up an ill-sculptured effigy of Diana, in the hopes of obtaining by her favour good sport in the wooded hills of . | |
The wall enclosed a space of 380 acres, being 5485 yards in length, or 3 miles and 205 yards. [25] The portion along the river extended from to the Tower-the bank being strengthened with piles-and was finished by bastions and additional defences at the angles. Near the chief gates, and, perhaps, | |
42 | at the Barbican on the long north face, there were similar bastions. The wall was built in the usual Roman manner, with alternate courses of thin bricks and stone.[26] There were two land gates and three water gates, as well as the gate to the bridge. Of the form and appearance of the wall and its towers we can only judge by the remains of similar buildings elsewhere. There have been so many renewals of the city defences that little of the original work, except the materials, is ever now to be seen. In one respect, however, the wall remains almost intact, namely, as the boundary between the city of London and the county of . There have been only three serious alterations of this boundary. The ward of Farringdon Without, comprising Smithfield, Fleet Street, and the valley of the Fleet, then a marsh, was abstracted from and added to London in . The ward of Without was also added at a period not as yet fixed with certainty, but probably a hundred years earlier. [27] These changes are at the western and northern sides, and naturally followed from the growth of suburbs without the gates. The erection of a gate on the eastern side led similarly to the addition of Portsoken as a ward,[28] which took place early in the twelfth century. We must also notice another alteration. The south-eastern corner of the wall was removed, and the Tower of London was built on the |
43 | site, between , a small portion of the city precincts being invaded. |
The course of the wall may be briefly detailed. Beginning at , we may follow it in a northerly direction along the crest of the hill above the Fleet. A watergate, opening on the little river, was at . The chief exit on this side was at , almost on the site of the mediæval gate. Here the Watling Street emerged from the city. The wall then took a northeasterly course, between St. Bartholomew's Hospital and Christ's Hospital, and, forming a kind of angle where was afterwards made, turned north for a short distance, and then east again to , the second great land gate of the city. It stood a little to the east of the mediaeval gate, and gave admission to travellers arriving from the north by the Ermyn Street, and from the east by the Vicinal Way, which united at this point. Thence sloping in a south-easterly direction, past the point at which was opened in the later time, it reached the exactly on the spot on which the White Tower now stands.[29] A little to the westward was , a port of superior importance to that on the Fleet, and still further west, above the bridge, the smaller port of at the mouth of the . | |
The road from the bridge, dividing at Eastcheap, ran northward to , and north-westward to . The northward street passed, in a line parallel with Gracechurch Street, but lying further east, over Cornhill, whose name possibly denotes its open condition when the Saxons came, and, dividing outside the gate, the left-hand branch ran on towards Lincoln and, | |
44 | the right branch over the Old Ford of the Lea into . When a new bridge was made at Stratford, a little lower down the stream, or a little earlier, when the roadway to Stratford was paved, another entrance was made to the city at ; but this would be after the Roman time.[30] The new city, which was still smaller than Uriconium, and probably and Verulam, does not appear to have contained a single public building of importance. There was no forum, unless the supposed basilica within the citadel be considered part of one; there was no amphitheatre, no temple worthy of so great a city. Some remains were found under Bow church in Cheap by , and were decided to be those of a temple, on what grounds we have no means now of finding out. discredited the idea of a temple of Diana on the site of St. Paul's :-" I must assert that, having changed all the foundations of old St. Paul's, and upon that occasion rummaged all the ground thereabouts, and being very desirous to find some footsteps of such a temple, I could not discover any." Had known that at the time this hill was first included within the walls of London, a Christian family was on the imperial throne, and that, although idolatry had not yet been expressly abolished, it was unlikely that any great heathen edifice would adorn the new city, he might have saved himself some trouble [31] The absence of ornamental pavements |
45 | so far west, or of the other signs of occupation so frequent about the , shows that, in all probability, the suburb here, if indeed there was a suburb, was inconsiderable; for it is possible enough that, in order to take in the geographical features described in the last chapter, the ground surrounded by this new wall may at the time have been in many places absolutely open, while in others the sites of villas which extended beyond it were traversed by it. It is also just possible that such changes in the direction of its course as that by were caused by the desire to enclose a building or avoid a swamp; but it is more likely that this angle contained a postern protected by a barbican. |
The question is often asked as to whether any vestiges of Christian worship have been found within this area. There can be but one reply. Nothing to indicate the existence of a church, and only some doubtful indications of Christian burial, have yet rewarded the most careful search. A pin or two, ornamented with crosses, and a seal or stamp, dredged out of the , are all that can possibly be classed as of the Roman period. The absurd claim lately put forward, with encouragement from very high quarters, on the part of St. Peter's-upon-Cornhill to represent a church founded in Roman or British times, would be too ridiculous to deserve notice here, were it not that a few years ago the parish, or some of its representatives, celebrated the 1700th anniversary of the foundation by a religious service. Such a celebration, though turned to a charitable object, looks like playing at religion, and is not calculated to further a love of truth and honesty among those for whom the Church is supposed especially to labour. There is certainly a very ancient tradition, and perhaps something more than a tradition, as to a Bishop of London; and it is supported | |
46 | by the recorded presence of a British bishop named Restitutus, sometimes said to have been Bishop of London, at the Council of Arles in 3 I4.[32] It is remarkable that of the fourteen bishops mentioned by Jocelyn, a monkish chronicler of the twelfth century, as having succeeded each other in this see, not one is afterwards to be found as the patron saint of a London church. |
I hoped at one time, by means of a classified list of the city church dedications, to have been enabled to arrive at some positive conclusions on the subject. In the result I only found that the presumably oldest churches, such as St. Peter's, St. Paul's, St. Mary-le-bow, St. Stephen's, St. Andrew's, and others, were dedicated to the apostles and members of the primitive Church, and that there was not a single case in which any reminiscence, however faint, could be traced to a British saint. There are some churches, such as St. Helen's and St. Alban's, of which the history and origin are well known as comparatively recent, which are dedicated to saints supposed at the time of the dedication to belong to the ancient British Church. Moreover, among the dedications to the Blessed Virgin and the Apostles, there are many churches of which the origin is on record.[33] Yet, as the wall was built after the conversion of the West, Roman London-that is " Augusta,"-was always a Christian city, a fact which may be taken to account in some measure for absence of remains of temples. | |
That no very magnificent city ever filled the space thus walled-in is abundantly evident from the remains found. A more poverty-stricken exhibition cannot be imagined than the Roman museum at the Guildhall, yet it contains by far the finest collection in existence. From the mosaic pavements here and at the British Museum, we learn that in such arts as those of house decoration the Londoners were fairly advanced, but that the rooms they occupied were miserably small. There are few other works of art-gold there is none, and the statues and statuettes are for the most part fragments, of foreign make, but never remarkable for excellence of design or beauty of material. In the British Museum a small silver statue of Harpocrates is preserved, which was dredged out of the in . A bronze figure, said to represent Diana, was found near the Deanery, between St. Paul's and the river bank, and forms, with the altar mentioned above, the chief or only argument for the existence of a temple on the site now occupied by the church. A few bronzes of an ordinary kind have also been found. London Stone, a cubic foot of oolite, protected in by an iron grating, is probably a Roman relic, and is typical of the mutilated and unshapely condition of almost all that has been discovered. The early condition of London, a fort surrounded by unprotected villas, is sufficient to account for this apparent poverty, while its later condition, fitting loosely within a wall too large for it, in a period of disaster and decay, renders absurd any very sanguine expectations of the future disclosure of more important remains. | |
I now resume the enumeration of the historical notices of Roman London. In , Lupicinus, the lieutenant of Julian, being despatched to Britain to repel an invasion of the northern barbarians, set sail from Boulogne, landed | |
48 | at Richborough,[34] and marched to London, but of his further proceedings we know nothing. It is probable that even for the time his efforts were unsuccessful. The Picts and Scots were making daily progress, and in were already in sight of the walls. They plundered the surrounding country, the forests affording them cover, and nothing but the new wall would have been able to resist them, but Valentinian sent an able general, named Theodosius, who, landing like Lupicinus, at Richborough, was able, finding the barbarians scattered about, to defeat them in detail, and relieve London. He restored the plunder to its owners, and was joyfully received by the citizens at their gates. This Theodosius was father of the emperor of the same name, who, dying in , was succeeded by the feeble Honorius, under whom the Roman occupation of Britain came to an end. |
Of London at this crisis we hear nothing. That it enjoyed some years of comparative security and peace after the Romans withdrew is very likely, but the history of the time has yet to be written. Though it is pretty certain that to the end of the occupation a strong imperial force was constantly within its fortifications, we cannot even tell by which of the legions the troops of the proprator were supplied. | |
I have thus endeavoured to piece together the few fragments, topographical or documentary, which relate to Roman London. The result is more shadowy than I wish. The historian cannot but shrink from seeing his pages abundantly sprinkled with such words as " possibly," "perhaps," " in all probability," and yet, when I come to look at the passages in which I have been minded to express myself with a fair measure of certainty, I regret to | |
49 | observe that in each case an alternative story may be, or has been put forward. If I have succeeded at all, it is only in showing how very little we know about the early history of the city. That it was ever the capital of Britain, as so many have asserted, can only be doubtfully proved regarding the short time which elapsed between the building of the wall and the withdrawal of the imperial troops. It was only named Augusta during the brief period which succeeded the re-organisation of the empire under Constantine and his family. The remains discovered tell us little in comparison with what we know of several other British towns. But we do know that far beneath the feet of the busy throng which presses every day the pavements of modern London, there lie buried the traces of an ancient city-a city which has well kept up the character accorded to it by Tacitus, and through whose streets there has been no cessation of that concourse of merchants, that crowd of foreign peoples, that activity and bustle which have made it, during nearly 2000 years, a thriving commercial city. A foreign poet spoke of it in the 17th century in words far more true now than they were then, when he said of London that it was,- |
[35] | |
Footnotes: [1] Here are some examples of the way " history " has been employed upon London :-Richard Newcourt dates it in the year of the world 2855: Thomas De Laune says, in 1681, "This city was built 2789 years ago, that is 1108 years before the birth of Christ and (by the exactest computation) in the time of Samuel the prophet and 350 years before the building of Rome." Allen and Wright, in 1839, had not attained much further; after repeating the old story, they continue:-" Dismissing this fable, it will appear that the Britons had formed towns, and that to them must be attributed the foundation of London. Cæsar in his ' Commentaries' denominates it the chief city of the Trinobantes." Cæsar's mention of a " civitas Trinobantum " may very possibly be London. It may very possibly be St. Albans. In short it may very possibly be one of half-a-dozen places. By "very possibly" most imposing structures of this kind have been raised. [2] So lately as the time of Charles II. occasional high tides converted the Palace of Whitehall into an island. [3] Widmore's 'Enquiry,' p. 22; and Kemble, No. 569. [4] Tac. Annal., lib. xiv. c. 33. "At Suetonius, mira constantia, medios inter hostes Londinium perrexit cognomento quidem colonia non insigne, sed copia negotiatorum et commeatuum maxime celebre." [5] "Loci dulcedo." [6] It is by no means impossible that the principal Roman station was on the southern side. This would account for Ptolemy's placing London in Cantium. [7] The remains of a Roman building, perhaps a villa, with a hypocaust, have been recently found in the nave of Westminster Abbey. They may date from the time when the chief road to Dover crossed the Thames here. [8] Among projected improvements is one for the straightening of Tower Street. [9] Stow says, " Langbourne Water, so called of the length thereof," rose in Fenchurch Street, crossed Gracechurch Street, and ran down "Lumbard Street." It does not seem to have occurred to him that the course indicated is up hill. It was covered before his time. [10] A third road, the Vicinal Way, ran eastward from the northern gate towards Essex-but was hardly yet in existence. [11] Harrison, p. 7. [12] As at Camomile Street a few years ago. [13] See Mr. Roach Smith's Catalogue of his London Museum, and Sir William Tite's 'Antiquities exhibited at the Royal Exchange.' To the latter work, and other books and papers by the same author, I am chiefly indebted for this view of Roman London. [14] By far the larger portion of the denarii found in the Thames consist of lead and brass, plated with silver. (Roach Smith, p. 89.) [15] Acts xxiii. 26. [16] This, which is the only chronological and therefore reasonable view, was first described by Mr. Arthur Taylor in the 'Archæologia,' xxxiii. 101 [17] Obv.-MAXIMIANUS P. F. AUG. Laureated head of Maximianus to the right; rev. SALUS AUGGG. Personification of the goddess Salus standing, and feeding a serpent from a patera. In the exergue M.L., for MONETA LONDINENSIS. (Roach Smith, Catalogue, p. 86.) [18] ' The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon,' by T. Wright, p. 113, &c., a summary of almost all that is known of these emperors. In the following pages I have given my own version of the events so far as they relate to London. [19] There are traditions and reports of camps at Clapham and Vauxhall. [20] The facts on which this narrative is based are very meagre; a long and careful consideration of the geographical as well as the documentary exigencies of the case has induced me to piece together what may be considered a reasonably connected account. [21] Some of us may remember the duke of Wellington's opinion as to the difficulty of marching 20,000 men out of Hyde Park. [22] It may be worth while to note that, though the wife, or concubine, of Constantine was possibly a British slave girl who attracted and retainedhis fancy during this expedition, the whole London legend of St. Helena and her father, "old king Cole" of Colchester, has about as much contemporary authority as the nursery rhyme about the "fiddlers three." Yet I saw it not long ago fully and gravely detailed in the history of a church in the city dedicated to the saint. Wright (p. 371) calls Helena the daughter-in-law of Constantine; a very gratuitous assumption, but one which, so far as London evidence is concerned, may be correct. Gibbon makes her the daughter of a Nicomedian innkeeper and allows the marriage. [23] Roach Smith, p. 97. [24] These dates are arrived at by Sir William Tite (Archæol., xxxvi. 203) by a comparison of two passages in Ammianus. It will be wellhere to caution the reader against supposing that any remains of the Roman wall are now to be identified with certainty. The wall was rebuilt more than once in the middle ages, and the use of ancient material, such as brick, has led to the ascription of much mediæval work to the Romans. [25] These figures are Harrison's. It is not now any longer possible to trace exactly the course of the Roman wall. [26] Unfortunately few of the antiquaries who had an opportunity of examining the wall while any considerable part of it was intact were capable of distinguishing Roman from mediæval masonry. None of the fragments I have had the good fortune to see appeared to me older than the time of Edward IV ., though full of Roman bricks. [27] A ditch to enclose and defend this extramural ward was made in 1212. [28] The history of Aldgate and the Portsoken will be found in a subsequent chapter. [29] This must be the explanation of the common ascription of the Tower to the Romans. [30] See chap. vi. [31] Yet it is reasserted without a particle of proof by the author of Murray's 'Handbook to St. Paul's ' (p. 6), chiefly on the grounds of the altar of a hunting goddess, or god, having been discovered in Foster Lane. A piece of sculpture is found near Goldsmiths' Hall: the figure on it held a bow; therefore there was a temple of Diana on the site of St. Paul's.- Q.E.D. Too much London history is of this sort. [32] Mr. Stubbs ('Episcopal Succession in England,' p. 152) also mentions a British bishop, Fastidius, as living in 431. He gives the apocryphal list of British bishops of London, beginning with Theonus or Theanus, who was said to have built the church of St. Peter in the time of Lucius, but adds a caution as to the "uncritical" state of the list, which, by the way, does not include Restitutus. [33] I shall have occasion to return to this subject when speaking of the Saxon and Danish dedications. [34] Or Rutupize, near Sandwich in Kent. [35] From ' Venceslai Clementis a Lybeo-Monte Trinobantiados Augusta, sive Londoni: libri vi.' The date is elaborately concealed in a chronogram, but appears to be 1636, and the poem is dedicated to Charles 1. by " Autor, Christi exsul.." |