WITH the removal of Edward the Confessor to , the position of London as the capital of England had begun to change. At the Conquest it was completely altered. True, the kings, and sometimes the queens, had henceforth occasionally a residence in the city, but it was no longer a permanent residence. The palace, or a relic of it, of Athelstan and his successors, used to be pointed out before the Great Fire. But when Norman and his successors had business in London, they lived at or in the Tower.[1]  If London thus in one sense declined, in another she rose. She became more independent. She began to look to her commerce more and more as her true source of greatness. Her real supremacy was always unquestionable. , great as it is, and the ring of boroughs which now surround the city, are, in truth, only suburbs. London is the mother of them all. From the time of she acquired new life. Her liberties and privileges were assured to her, and the history of medieval London is

London desiring nothing so much as peace, and having already both had a taste of 's harsh manner, in his burning on his march westward from Canterbury, and having learned that she fared best under a strong king, received the Conqueror, after a little hesitation, as her just and lawful sovereign. It may be considered certain that there was a strong Norman party in the city. The bishop was a Norman, and if the name of the portreeve be read Geoffrey, as it sometimes is, he may have been a Norman too; one at least of the old portreeves was unquestionably a Norman, for the name of Gilbert Becket, of Rouen, is among the few that remain to us of the list. [2] 's charter, too, is peculiarly worded. He greets, besides the two great officers, "all the burgesses in London, Frenchmen and Englishmen." The charter is one of conciliation. The English might fear the new dynasty. But assures them of his friendly feeling, and though we may conjecture that the Norman bishop and the Norman party in general had a voice in obtaining for their fellow-citizens this declaration of the Conqueror's favour, we may also believe that the freedom they already enjoyed in their place of residence

Brief, curiously jealous and scanty, as this document is, it contains a sufficient statement of the condition of the citizens. We learn from it, for example, that the bishop, equally with, or perhaps it would be more correct to say more than, the portreeve, was a great authority. His exact position in the corporation was afterwards defined, but at this time we only know that he lived in his palace

The first thing granted in the charter is that the citizens should be law-worthy, and we have the historical statement that they had been so under King Edward. By "law-worthy" the king meant that the citizens should have the privileges of freemen in the courts of justice : [5] that they should not be judged, that is, by a superior, but should have an appeal to the verdict of their equals, as " compurgators," a kind of jury of neighbours and friends who were willing, when a man was on trial, to swear they believed his oath. [6]  There were other forms of trial, and the Normans introduced the wager or ordeal of battle; but it was never popular in the city. The law-worthy man, then, could give evidence in a court of justice, in his own favour or that of another, and could call upon his neighbours and his friends to justify him. It was a rude kind of law, but from it grew our

Further, allows the citizens to inherit the property of their fathers, a right which had always been one of the privileges of freedom among English and Saxons, but which was inconsistent with the spirit of feudalism.[7]  The estate of the father was divided among his children, and primogeniture had not yet been introduced.

Such is the tenure of 's charter. It will be observed that he introduces nothing new. The citizens were to continue in the freedom they had enjoyed under Edward. We may therefore infer that the English, French, German, Gascon, Flemish, and above all Norman, merchants who frequented the market-places of London, had already, in spite of their mixed origin, combined and organised themselves into a body, more or less corporate, and that to be a citizen of London was to be a freeman with certain definite privileges.

There was an influx of Normans after the Conquest, as might be expected. Many of the citizens of Rouen and Caen, says a nearly contemporary writer, [8]  passed over thither, " preferring to be dwellers in that city, inasmuch as it was fitter for their trading, and better stored with the merchandise in which they were wont to traffic." The Normans had already a colony there, as had the

granted privileges to the great walled " port," and her mixed multitude of merchants; but he determined at the same time that, though they might remain as strongly fortified as they could against foes from without in general, they should have no defences against himself. For this purpose he determined on the erection of a fort where, without weakening the city, he might yet hold the key to it. The Tower of London is to the wall like a padlock on a chain. A piece of foreshore existed just without the ditch, to the south-east, beyond Billingsgate. In the line of the wall close by there was a strong bastion, either of Roman work, or else built of Roman materials taken from older fortifications. determined to break the city cincture at this point, and to replace with his own castle the ancient turret. At the time he formed the plan he was encamped at Barking, the nearest rising ground east of the city, and had evidently surveyed the situation with care. The small portion of the wall removed-according to some authorities two bastions-was more than compensated by the strength of the ditch and palisade with which surrounded his works. When they were completed, they were calculated not only to protect, but to overawe the citizens and to control all the traffic of the river. [10] Rather less than half the new enclosure was

did not begin the building of the White Tower till eleven years after Hastings, when, having had some experience of the advantages of the site, he entrusted the work to Gundulf, a monk from the Abbey of Bec in Normandy. Gundulf, who had just been consecrated bishop of Rochester when he received 's commission,[11]  appears to have given his first attention to the repairs of his own cathedral, but arriving in London in , and lodging at the house of his friend, a citizen named AEdmer Anhaende, he commenced the gigantic building on such a scale that though he lived to be eighty-four, that is, for thirty years longer, he did not see the completion of the whole design. The immense mass of the walls disposes of the story that it was injured by the great gale of , though the scaffoldings may have suffered. Mainly, the White Tower is still as Gundulf left it, though the windows were altered in , when the " restorer" , who may have believed the building to have been originally erected by Julius Caesar, put in classical keystones. [12]  It consists literally of four walls, prolonged into turrets at the corners, and divided into three storeys by timber flooring, and a basement of masonry. It measures [13] 107 ft. north and south, 118 east

Here, in , the body of of, who died in the Tower, lay in state before its removal to ; and it is probable that the burial of the bones of her two brothers in the staircase wall below, was due to the consecration of the chapel, which would extend to the ground underneath. The crypt, long known as Queen Elizabeth's Armoury, and entered by visitors through a window, anda lower crypt belowground, were nevertheless used as prisons, but perhaps not till after the year , when the chapel was dismantled by order of the Council. It remained a store for state papers for centuries, owing to which circumstance the Tower has been the residence of more than one eminent antiquary as keeper of records, including Lambard and Selden, and the republican Prynne, whose celebrity is of a different kind. When the records were removed, it was intended to make it a tailor's shop for the soldiers; but the interference of lord de Ros, at that time Lieutenant, was successful in preventing this desecration.

The chapel and its appendages are the only walled

The surrounding buildings and the outer wall are of later date, but are probably on the Norman site. "The circumscribing ditch," as Mr. Clark observes, "though unusually broad and deep, was by no means too secure a defence against a turbulent and notoriously brave body of citizens." The entrance, at the south-western corner, faced towards no street then existing, and Tower Street, Great and Little, must have been made by degrees and through already existing buildings, as is plain from its unusual irregularity of direction. [15] 

One of the last great events of the reign of I. was the completion of Domesday Book. London was exempted from it. The reason of this is not very clear. It has been used as a proof that London was not in demesne-was not held by any overlord whatever; but from what we know of the disposition of , a claim to such a condition of independence would certainly have been disregarded. As a fact, the king's interest in London and its suburbs was very small. A few years later, Rufus had accumulated as much foreshore at as served for his additions to Edward's palace ;[16]  but in the king had only a few acres in . They lay in Ossulston, and are described quaintly as no man's land, and as having belonged to King Edward. A piece of ground of three and a half acres, which bore this name, was bought by bishop Stratford in , and formed into a burial-place for people who died of the plague. It was afterwards joined to the possessions of the Charterhouse, or Carthusian Priory of the Salutation, and it has been identified, not without reason, as part of the plot of twelve and a half acres, " de nane maneslande," which King Edward and King had owned, and which was valued at five shillings.

The king had also thirty cotters-we are not told where, but within the boundaries of Ossulston. They were probably owners in fee of small villas without the walls; their united rent only amounted to fourteen shillings and tenpence-halfpenny. He had also two other small holdings.

"At Holeburne," says the record, " the king has two cottagers who render yearly twenty pence to the king's sheriff." A distinction may here be intended between

The other piece of land has often, on slender grounds, been identified with the celebrated garden of Ely Place. It was also in Holborn, and is thus described: " the chamberlain renders yearly to the king's sheriff six shillings for the land where his vineyard is situated." Attempts have been made to identify this chamberlain as the official who eventually blossomed into " mayor," but the grounds are insufficient. [17]  the chamberlain was also a holder of lands in Kingsbury, Eia, and Stepney. The first named was a farm belonging to the Abbey of , and cannot have been long in 's occupation; it had belonged in the time of the Confessor to a certain Aylwin Horne, who had taken it in pledge from a vassal of the abbey. The Stepney holding was under the bishop of London, and consisted of land worth thirty shillings. The holding in Eia, or Eybury, had a little history attached to it. Though is returned as the tenant, it appears he had lost it four years before, and the king's dues amounting to twelve pounds were unpaid. The manor itself was then part of the estate of Geoffrey Mandeville. Why the chamberlain had lost his holding we do not know, but the expression of the record, amisit, is clear, and we cannot suppose he voluntarily resigned possession.

Another citizen who is frequently named in the record is Deorman. [18] 

Rufus carried on his father's works at the Tower, and, as we shall see when we look into the history of , almost equally great works there. These and other burdens fell on city and county

The charter of . is even more important in the history of the city liberties than that of his father. His grants are of two kinds. They may be classed as remissions, and as gifts. Thus, he absolves the citizens from the payment of any kind of feudal service, such as occasional levies and rates, summed up under the word Scot; from Danegeld, a tax which, originally imposed for the purpose of expelling or buying off the Danes, had now become a regular source of royal revenue; from Murder, a tax payable to the king by a district in which an assassination-especially of a Norman-had been committed: from Wager of Battle, a form of trial very repugnant to civic ideas; from having to provide lodgings for the king's household; from tolls such as Passage, or payments at ferries, and Lestage, or a tax on leather, which were remitted throughout England to the citizens of London; and from Miskennings, the use by lawyers of an unknown tongue, or, as we should say, special pleading, in its worst sense, in the courts.

The second form of grants was of the nature of gifts. Thus Henry handed over to the city the revenues of ; he gave the county to them " to farm," on a payment of 300£. a year, which has been made ever since; and he allowed them to appoint from among themselves a sheriff to receive the demesne dues. In addition they were to have leave to hunt as their

He also gave them leave to appoint their own justiciar and relieved them from having to resort to any court outside the city. It has been supposed that the justiciar here mentioned means a mayor or chief magistrate, and that the grant includes that of the election of the supreme executive officer of the city. It may be so, but all probability is against this view. For by this time the citizens already appear to have elected their own portreeve, by whatever name he was called; and it is absurd to suppose that the king gave them power to appoint a sheriff of , if they were not already allowed to appoint their own. The omission of any reference to the portreeve in the charter cannot, in fact, be otherwise accounted for.

It is very desirable to place this question of sheriffs and mayors in a clear light, and it may be well to endeavour to do so here once for all. The grant of to farm, by ., enables us to form a very distinct opinion. From that day to this every citizen of London is a potential sheriff of . For every citizen has a voice in the appointment of the officer whose business it will be to collect for him as joint tenant of the king, the king's revenue in . The sheriff of , therefore, represents the whole body of citizens acting in their corporate capacity. He is not a high sheriff appointed by the king, but rather a sub-sheriff appointed by the corporate body in which the sheriffship is vested. The exact period at which two sheriffs were appointed must have been when the city sheriff, or portreeve, became mayor. The first mayor on

Of the exercise of the other privileges granted to the citizens, we have many curious anecdotes in the old city records. [22] Two or three which, though belonging to a slightly later period, are in point here, may be taken as examples.

On Sunday, September 14th, , Ponce de More, who was probably a French wine merchant, living by the bank, in the parish of St. James Garlickhythe, sent to inform the authorities that Adam Schot, his servant, was lying dead in his house. The chamberlain and sheriffs immediately repaired to the spot. They called together the men of the ward, which was then called after Henry de Coventre, its alderman, but was afterwards known as Vintry ward; and diligent inquisition was made as to the causes of the unfortunate Adam's death. From the evidence they soon collected, it appeared that the previous Wednesday afternoon he had gone to the garden of one Laurence in the adjoining

The jurors viewed the body, but no wound appeared on it, and they found that no one was suspected of having caused Adam's death. The pear-tree was valued for deodand [24]  at five shillings, and John Horn the sheriff was held answerable for it. At the same time, as a precaution, the two nearest neighbours were called upon to find sureties who would be able to answer for them in case fresh evidence arose, or it appeared that the story told by Ponce should prove untrue. Ponce de More himself and all his household were similarly bound, and the matter dropped.

It so happened that among the sureties there was a man named Laurence Duket, whose subsequent history is very illustrative of the city usages. Eight years after the accident to Adam Schot, he was one day in the market-place, near the great church of St. Mary-le-Bow, and unfortunately fell in with an acquaintance, a clerk named Ralph Crepyn. [25]  They quarrelled about a lady with whom Crepyn had very tender relations. Alice atte Bowe, to judge from her name, lived near the church;

Next morning, of course, information of a shocking discovery in St. Mary's was brought to the sheriffs, who held a hurried inquest on the body. One of the sheriffs was, apparently, among the friends of Alice atte Bow; and, no doubt, he hastened the verdict offelo-de-se, which was presently returned. The body of the murdered man was therefore dragged by the heels through the streets, and thrown into the ditch outside the city wall.

But the fact was that when Laurence Duket took refuge in the church he was not alone. A little boyperhaps a street beggar, perhaps one of his own family, an apprentice or servant, for he was a man of substancehad accompanied him into the sanctuary, and remained with him in the dark church. We can picture to ourselves the poor little fellow shivering behind the tall tomb of some civic dignitary, while he listened to the tread of muffled feet on the marble pavement, and

But his story soon became known down by the river in Duket's old home. All London was stirred; numerous arrests were made. The whole truth gradually came out. The boy's evidence was fully confirmed, and no fewer than sixteen persons were condemned either as principals or accessories, while the sheriff, Jordan, whose place of residence or business is sufficiently indicated by his surname, Godcheap or Goodcheap, was removed from office. The body of Laurence Duket was found and brought back, and honourably interred in the churchyard; but the church itself was closed for a time under interdict, and the doors and windows filled up with thorns. The lady who was at the bottom of all this mischief underwent the terrible penalty annexed to murder by a female, and was burnt to death in the market-place, while seven of her accomplices were hanged in the cruel fashion then in vogue. They appear, for the most part, by their names to have belonged to respectable city families. Ralph Crepyn himself, with two other clerks and the sheriff, remained long in prison, but were at length released on payment of fines, or, as the chronicler describes the transaction, were " hanged by the purse." [26] 

The way in which the chamberlain, coroner, or sheriff, as the case might be, dealt with accidents and offences is thus illustrated, and, in addition, a few other examples will be sufficient.

On Monday, in , information was brought to Gregory de Rokesley, the mayor, coroner or chamberlain, [27] and to the sheriffs, that Henry de Flegge was lying dead in the dock of the ward of Castle Baynard. They proceeded to the spot, and called together the men both of this and the adjoining ward of Queenhithe, who made diligent inquisition as to the cause of death. Henry de Flegge it appears, not being a Sabbatarian according to modern notions, took his horse to water in the dock on the preceding Sunday morning. The horse, however, fulfilled the warning of the proverb, and refused to drink. Henry spurred him, and the horse, filled, we are told, with exceeding viciousness and strength, carried him out into deep water, where he was drowned. The result of the inquiry must be given in full. "And because it was presented by the jurors that the said Henry de Flegge was first found, after the misadventure, near the quay of Baldwyn le Buscher (Woodmonger), and was removed therefrom, and taken by Henry Lapewater and Roger le Folur (Fuller) to the quay aforesaid, without leave of the chamberlain, the same Henry was attached by John Wyther, carpenter, and Adam Absolon, girdler, and the said Roger by Henry Smith and Robert de Everesham, dyer. And the four nearest neighbours were attached, the two neighbours nearest to the spot where the body was first found, and the two neighbours nearest to the spot where the body was viewed by the coroner. And the said horse was appraised at one mark," for deodand. [28] 

As examples of the right of "infangthief," or the criminal jurisdiction of the mayor and sheriffs over

As an example of the freedom from the billet, or obligation to receive the king or his servants into lodgings, an obligation very strictly and arbitrarily enforced elsewhere, we have the record of the reception in of the clerk of the Marshalsea, with a request that such lodgings might be assigned by the choice of the city authorities in the suburbs, and of the appointment of two delegates to go with him for the purpose.

It would be easy to multiply examples of this kind.

Besides the charter to the citizens, . granted one to the church of the Holy Trinity at , by which he gave it the rights of the old knighten guild, mentioned in the last chapter. This act dissolved the guild, but whether in displeasure or in favour we know not. [33]  The prior of the fraternity attached to the church, whom Stow calls the first canon regular in England, became alderman of the ward of Portsoken, which lies without the wall. Presumably, therefore, the head of the old guild was alderman of the same ward. The dissolution of the guild may have been connected with the other charter. The grants of liberties, as detailed in it,

The London election of Stephen shows plainly the increasing influence of the citizens in public affairs. . died early in December, ; [35]  and Stephen showed more wisdom than he ever again appeared to possess, when by a forced march he threw himself upon the goodwill of London. The nobles had held aloof from his party, the burghers supported him, and as the result proved with success. In the four-and-twenty days which had elapsed since Henry's stern rule had been relaxed by death, disorder had broken out. "The traders could see the pillage of their wains as they wound along the banks of the ;" London wanted

London kept her promise to the king of her choice. He broke his to her. The annals of his reign are a miserable record of wars and fires and robberies. Scarce four years had elapsed from that winter day in the enclosure of St. Paul's, before Stephen took away from the citizens the right to elect their sheriffs, and only restored it on the payment of a fine, which, though it was but a hundred marks of silver, was exacted at a time when the city was still tottering under the heaviest blow it had received since the days of the Danes. In occurred what was known for generations afterwards as the Great Fire of London. It commenced near London Stone, in the centre of the city, and spread westward along Watling Street to the newly built cathedral, where it consumed the shrine of St. Erkenwald, and eastward to the gate on the road which had only been opened a few years, and flinging itself with especial fury upon the bridge, burnt even the old woodwork which connected the Roman piers. In short, whatever was left of Roman London or Saxon London, if there can have been anything, was consumed in this the first of the "Great Fires."

In spite of Stephen's perfidy the citizens remained staunch. They had a choice of evils, perhaps, and chose the least; for Maud, when she got the chance, not only rescinded the grants of her father and grandfather, but went so far as to give the earl of [38]  to farm, the Tower of London as his castle, the sheriffship

This monstrous act roused the inmost feelings of the Londoners. Stephen had been made a prisoner at Lincoln. was busy fortifying the Tower afresh. It was evident he intended to assert his extraordinary rights to the utmost. No citizen was safe in his house or in his shop. His goods and his family were alike at the mercy of the new overlord. Stephen's worst tyrannies were not so terrible as the mere thought of what might now befall them. There was, of course, a weak-hearted party in the city. Its headquarters were at St. Paul's. There had been a disputed election to the bishopric, which Maud eventually terminated by the appointment of Robert Seal (de Sigillo) a monk of Reading, and the dean was a leader of the empress's party. But the opposite side was stronger. A deputation of the principal citizens attended at Winchester when the estates of the realm were assembled there ostensibly to recognise Maud as queen. They clamoured for the release of Stephen, remembering perhaps that to recognise Maud would be to stultify themselves, and they complained openly and loudly of oppression.

But the queen's party in the city meanwhile had everything their own way; and a deputation was actually sent to her at St. Albans, where she awaited the decision of the council at Winchester. She was invited to London, and on her entry was received respectfully, if

With the accession of . a period of comparative prosperity set in, and London obtained a confirmation of all the liberties granted by his grandfather, together with some definitions of smaller points in dispute. Henry was the first of the Angevin or so-called Plantagenet kings. With him begins a new era, and a new dynasty. This will be the place therefore in which to pause, and endeavour to reconstruct, if we can, a picture of London as it was towards the end of the twelfth century.

Fortunately for such an inquiry an enthusiastic citizen of London, engaging to write a life of St. Thomas of Canterbury, whom he claimed as a "fellow citizen,"[39]  thought it would not be complete without some account of his hero's birthplace, and adducing the example of Sallust, who, in narrating the history of a Roman expedition

It is evident from this exordium that Fitzstephen is determined to say nothing but what is good about London. His description has in it a foretaste of the great movements of the thirteenth century. There is a youth and joyousness about it which in itself tells of prosperity. The city, in truth, within its ancient walls, was indeed young. It had been rebuilt almost completely. Its new churches, and the great cathedral church in particular, were sending their shingled spires towards heaven, and new modes of construction in stone were producing results in magnificence and stability unthought of before. The curate of Colechurch was preparing his plans for the bridge which was to immortalise him. Bishop Richard FitzNeal was writing on law and reforming the procedure of the king's courts. Ralph of Diss was engaged in his deanery on the epitome of the chronicles. There was a general wakening to new life. The citizens were now sure of

In spite of the air of happiness and contentment which imparts such a rosy colour to the pages of Fitzstephen, there are sentences here and there which both betray a memory of very different times and an apprehension of their recurrence. This city, he repeats in one place, on the whole, is doubtless most charming; but he adds significantly, "at least when it has the happiness to be well-governed." He wrote when Henry had reconciled himself to the Church, and when a momentary gleam of popularity was still reflected on his reign. He mentions as a native of the city ., meaning, of course, the ill-fated prince whom his father had caused to be crowned in his own lifetime, but who died of fever at Limoges in , while engaged in rebellion. In the body of the book, too, he expresses himself as apprehensive of tyranny on King Henry's part: and alludes in this chapter to the frequent fires, while he censures the drinking habits of the inhabitants. On the whole, however, he sees few drawbacks in a city life; though, monk as he was, he takes evidently a keen interest in all manly sports-horse-racing, hunting, skating, even cock-fighting, which last he tells us was practised on

One cannot but wish he had devoted a little less space to the amusements of London, and a little more to the topography-that he had omitted the account of a great eating-house at , and told us something of other public buildings. There remains, however, a picture of manners we could ill spare; and, short as is the account of the city, it is all we have. He mentions the wall, with its seven double gates, and tells us that it only extended round the three landward sides, having been undermined by the river on the south. He says there were a hundred and twenty-six parochial churches, with thirteen which belonged to the various conventual establishments. This number must include those in the suburbs. He also mentions three schools, and describes the mode of study. He has much to say of Smithfield, and a little of the shops of tradesmen, though he does not name Cheap.

On the government of the city there are only a few lines. He compares it with the government of ancient Rome, in that, like Rome, London is distributed into regions, and has its annual sheriffs instead of consuls.[41]  He alludes also to the aldermen as senators, and speaks of inferior magistrates, and of meetings on statutable days, which may be a reference to the boroughmote. His heart is evidently in the forest with its hounds and hawks. He dwells with pleasure on the gardens without the walls, and almost the only local names given are those of Clerkenwell, Holy Well, and St. Clement's Well.

Nevertheless, it is possible to attain a little clearer

From the wall passed without interruption to ,[44]  and thence westward to Cripplegate. If existed it was only as a postern,[45]  and Cripplegate was probably little more. came next, and thence the wall led to , which at one time was called Chamberlain's Gate, either because the sheriff, coroner, or chamberlain, had there his prison, or because it was rebuilt by some one of the name.[46] 

From the wall followed the crest of the deep clay bluff under which the tidal Fleet gave a mooringplace to shipping. Cargoes were discharged at the foot of Ludgate Hill, and it was perhaps about this time that a bridge was thrown across the river, with the effect of restricting the ship traffic, and eventually of impeding the water-course. It is most likely, however, that very few houses were to be seen along the modern Fleet Street, and that the " populous suburb," which, as Fitzstephen says, united London and , was rather along the line of Holborn than the Strand.

From Ludgate, by , to the bank, there was no other gate, and the wall along the bank had disappeared. The , says our author, which abounds with fish, and in which the tides ebb and flow,

His seventh gate, we find, was on this south side and defended the bridge. Of the bridge itself he says nothing here; but he probably wrote while it was still in course of reconstruction after the disastrous fire of . In another passage he mentions a bridge on which spectators stood to watch aquatic sports, but he must allude to Holborn bridge, or some minor work of the kind, as it would have been impossible to fix the trunk of a tree in the middle of the to hang a target on. The point, however, has little bearing on the subject in hand; for there must have been a bridge of some kind over the , and a gate to defend it.

Of the comparative importance and size of the city gates we may form some idea from an entry relating, it is true, to a much later period, but sufficiently near for our purpose. In there were many complaints made of the state of the roads leading to the city, and the authorities determined to impose tolls on carts passing the gates. For this purpose collectors were appointed, and we can judge, by the number of collectors at each gate, on which road the traffic was greatest. One collector was sufficient for Ludgate, but the rest had two, and four.

Fitzstephen tells us little of the interior of the

Thus the Poultry was the poultry market. Adjoining it was the Stocksmarket, so called from a pair of stocks for disorderly persons, on a site now covered by the Mansion House. In Friday Street, leading to Old Fish Street, were to be found provisions suitable for fast days; the bakers had their sheds in Bread Street; there was a Honey Lane, a Milk Street, a Wood Street, a Soaper's Lane,[47]  and so on. Each and all of these were eventually taken for permanent buildings, but at this time and long afterwards Cheap must have been a vast permanent market, or fair. So late as the thirteenth century an open field existed in the middle. The Cheap consisted of two branches. One lay north of the main thoroughfare; its most southern part was the Poultry.

Other open spaces were the Romeland[49]  at Billings-gate, the Romeland at , the churchyard of St. Paul's, which adjoined the western end of Cheap, and was the place for popular meetings, and where a tower stood with a bell to summon the citizens, and the site north of Paternoster Row, to which, in , the Grey Friars removed from Cornhill.[50]  London still fitted very loosely within its walls, and many houses, even then, were surrounded by extensive gardens, especially those which were situated close to the wall, "well furnished with trees, spacious and beautiful." Of the street architecture we can form but a very vague idea. The pointed arch had not yet come in. There were few buildings of stone.

Among the thirteen conventual churches mentioned by Fitzstephen, there were, besides the Confessor's church at , the church of the hospital of St. Katherine beyond the Tower, built by Stephen's queen, St. Mary Overey's priory, at the southern end of London Bridge, founded in , the priory at , of which the first prior, Norman, is said to have been "the first canon regular in all England,"[52]  the new Temple church, and the rising buildings of the prior of St. John at Clerkenwell, almost all without the walls,[53]  together with two or three which must be noticed separately.

When Fitzstephen tells us of the thirteen conventual churches in London, we cannot but wish he had enumerated them. Our difficulty is to know where he drew the line between city and suburbs. Did he reckon in Barking as well as ? Did he count Merton and Bermondsey? All are within the modern suburbs. Of those actually within the walls the number was but small in his day. A great increase had taken place, both in the number of convents and also in the different orders of monks, friars, and nuns. Stricter

The family of St. Thomas of Canterbury were slow to appreciate their distinguished position; but about twenty years after his martyrdom, Agnes, his sister, who had inherited the old mansion of the Beckets in Cheap, determined to dedicate it to religious uses. Her husband, a Norman knight engaged in Henry's Irish expedition, consented to the establishment of the hospital of St. Thomas, called "of Acon." The name has proved an insoluble puzzle. It may have referred to an oak tree which grew near the house, as a church close by was known as St. Martin Pomary, "of apples growing there."[55]  It may have been from the oaken

The great priory of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield, was also in existence in Fitzstephen's time. It is difficult to say when the parish church was first built, but it probably existed long before . founded the priory in the beginning of the twelfth century. He brought in Augustinian or Black Canons, who opened close by a hospital for the poor. The first prior, Rahere, had seen a vision of the apostle, such was the tale invented by the monkish legend-makers to account for the dedication; but it is unnecessary. St. Bartholomew's church was rebuilt and annexed to the new foundation.

The house of St. Martin le Grand had been in existence within the walls from time immemorial. It was in fact one of the oldest monasteries in the kingdom. The dedication seems to connect it with the days of Mellitus and Seberht and Bertha. A later tradition connected it with Wihtred, who was king of in the beginning of the eighth century. But, like many others, this house, however ancient its origin, was wholly renewed in the settled times which followed the last Danish wars, and may be reckoned to date from the reign of Edward the Confessor. After the Conqueror had been two years on the throne a charter was obtained from him by two brothers, Ingelric and Girard,[60]  in which

Besides these great monasteries within the city there were others which will be more conveniently noticed in their local sequence when we come to our survey of the suburbs. At the time of Fitzstephen, however, we have seen that already a great many religious houses existed, and we can identify a sufficient number of them, whether in London or in its neighbourhood, to enable us to feel certain that in speaking of "thirteen conventual churches " he has made no exaggeration.

The domestic life of the citizens he hardly touches upon, though there is much about their out-door games, in the course of which mention is made of skating on a " vast lake," northward of London, the remnant, probably, of the marsh which protected the wall on that side. [62]  In the numerous biographies of Becket which were written after his martyrdom there are many quaint sketches of life and manners at this time, and they give us glimpses, the more precious on account of their rarity, of the London home of a wealthy merchant. " We see the very aspect of the house (the Mercers' chapel, in Cheapside, still preserves its site for us), the tiny bedroom, the larger hall," opening directly on the bustle of the Cheap.

[1] I am not concerned here to find out the capital of England, nor yet to define the word metropolis. London is neither, except it be in the blundering nomenclature of an Act of Parliament. If the capital of a state is here, as in America, the seat of the Law Courts, then Westminster is our capital; but the new Law Courts are partly within the City boundary.

[2] Green's "London and her election of Stephen," in 'Old London,' p. 296. I shall have occasion frequently in the next few pages to make use of Mr. Green's views, in this brilliant foretaste of his powers, and here acknowledge them gratefully once for all. For a fragmentary list of portreeves see further on in this chapter.

[3] The original of this charter, or a very ancient copy, is preserved at the Guildhall. It is a little strip of parchment written in a rather more crabbed hand than was usual at that period. Mr. Stubbs gives a careful copy in his ' Select Charters,' p. 79, which differs little from the copy in Riley's ' Liber Custumarum,' ii. 504, except that it is printed in ordinary type. Riley, in addition, prints an old copy in the ' Liber Custumarum,' (i. 246), and an old and very interesting translation into the English of 1314. These are followed by a Latin version. Another English translation is at p. 25. In fact the compilers of the city records seem to have determined that if the original should be lost, a sufficient number of copies would remain to establish its existence. The name of the portreeve is variously spelt, Goffrey (p. 25), Gofregth (p. 246), Gofregd and Gofridum (p. 247). Mr. Stubbs and Mr. Freeman (iv. 29) print it Gosfregth, and Mr. Stubbs translates it by Gosfrith.

[4] Gosfrith, Stubbs, i. 404. The translation is that of 'Select Charters,' p. 79. Mr. Stubbs points out that the word "port" in port-reeve is the Latin "porta" not "portus" and implies a market-place. " From the position assigned to the port-reeve in this writ, which answers to that given to the sheriff in ordinary writs, it may be inferred that he was a royal officer who stood to the merchants of the city in the relation in which the bishop stood to the clergy."

[5] Norton, p. 264.

[6] According to this view, to be law-worthy meant to be not in dominio. demesne, as were many other English cities at the time. I have avoided the technicalities of law as much as possible.

[7] And was not accorded to tenants in demesne, except as a special favour.

[8] One of Becket's biographers, in a MS. at Lambeth, quoted by Mr. Green "ut supra."

[9] See Riley, 'Memorials,' p. 151.

[10] " Military Architecture of the Tower," 'Old London,' p. 13, &c., by George T. Clark. I shall have occasion to quote several times from this valuable paper.

[11] Stubbs, 'Episcopal Succession,' p. 22, 1077, Mar. 19, Canterbury.

[12] An example followed by Salvin and other Tower architects in our own day, only that for classical features others, in various Gothic styles, equally foreign to the building, have been employed. Salvin's work is easily recognised by a square-headed doorway or window which he borrowed from a Northumbrian castle, and employed here and at Windsor with disastrous effect.

[13] Clark, ut sup.

[14] Clark, 'Old London,' pp. 39, 40.

[15] An irregularity, as I have endeavoured to point out above, partly owing, no doubt, to its traversing whatever traces remained of the eastern wall of the inner Roman fort. Portions of the wall have been found in Mincing Lane and other places adjacent.

[16] See below, chapter xvi.

[17] Mr. Riley in a brief note, 'Memorials,' p. 3, says positively " at this period (1272), the offices of mayor, chamberlain, and coroner, in the city were held by the same person."

[18] H. C. Coote, 'Transac. Lond. and Midd. Arch. Soc.,' iii. 153. If the reader wishes to see an amusingly erroneous interpretation of an ancient document, he may look at Allen, i. 51, where Deorman is Among the most ancient records in the translated "the people," or at Norton, p. 257, where we are told that the king " merely states that he has granted to his dear man or men (friends) a certain piece of land." One of his sons is named on p. 163, n.

[19] In 1347, the Lord Fitzwalter of the day claimed certain rights and privileges in Castle Baynard Ward, but his claim was refused by the mayor, aldermen, and commonalty, on the ground that it was repugnant to the liberties of the city. Mr. Riley, in noticing this decision, adds that the Fitzwalters had parted with their castle in the reign of Edward I . -' Memorials,' p. 236.

[20] This is the date assigned to FitzAylwin's first mayoralty in the 'Liber de Antiquis Legibus.' But "it is improbable," observes Mr. Stubbs ('Chronicles,' p. xxxi.), "that London had a recognised mayor before 1191, in which year the communa was established, at the time of Longchamp's removal from office; and there is, I believe, no mention of such an official in a record until some three years later." In the first of the two chronicles in this volume the beginning of the mayoralty is placed in 1209. In the ' Chronicle of London,' printed in 1827 (from Harl. MS. 565, and Cott. MS. Julius B.1), under the tenth year of King John, is this distinct assertion :-" In this yere was the first maire of London." See below, p. 122.

[21] In a letter to the Times, lately, a member of the Herald's College gravely asserted the precedence of the sheriffs of London as equal to that of high sheriffs of counties. But it will be seen from the following remarks that their position is in reality very different.

[22] The insertion of these examples in this place is an anachronism; but the letter books, from which they were selected by Mr. Riley, only go back to 1276.

[23] This was a church in the same ward, and not in Paternoster Row, as I have seen it described. I note the point because in my 'In and Out of London,' I mistakenly alluded to this inquest as evidence that a garden adjoined the north side of St. Paul's. That fruit-trees did grow there, however, is proved by a story which will be found in chap. viii.

[24] Deodand was a kind of fine paid for the redemption from forfeiture of an animal or, as in this case, of a tree by which a death had been caused.

[25] See 'French Chron.,' p. 240. Crepyn was M.P. for the city.

[26] The full authorities for this tragic tale are cited in Aungier's edition of the 'French Chronicle.' (Camden Soc., p. 19.)

[27] These offices were till then united. (Riley, p. 3, note, and Lansdowne MSS. 558, fo. 206.)

[28] Riley, 'Memorials,' p. 5.

[29] Fleet Street was included in the ward of Farringdon Without, when that ward was defined in 1346.

[30] A court official, or controller.

[31] The sequel is unrecorded, Riley, p. 90.

[32] Stow (p. 108, Thoms's ed.) gives a list of portreeves, among whom he includes Godfrey, whom he names "de Magun, or Magnavile," in the reign of William I. and William Rufus, and Hugh de Buch, in the reign of Henry I ., Auberie de Vere, earl of Oxford; after him, " Gilbert Becket, in the reign of King Stephen; after that, Godfrey de Magnavile, the son of William, the son of Godfrey de Magnavile, earls of Essex." These, he says, were portgraves or sheriffs of London and Middlesex. He goes on to name Peter Fitzwalter and John Fitznigel, as ruling in the reign of Henry II . It is apparent that he mixes up two families by connecting the " Godfrey, Portreeve " of the Conqueror's charter, with the Mandeviles; one of whom, as we shall see (p. 101), was arbitrarily made governor of the city and county by the Empress Maud, during her brief tenure of London. The list of genuine portreeves stands therefore as follows :-Godfrey, Hugh de Buch, Gilbert Becket, Peter Fitzwalter, and John Fitznigel. To these may be added William Chamberlain, at the time of the compilation of Domesday Book (see above p. 86), and the Saxon portreeves, Swetman, Leofstan, AElsi, Esgar and Ulf (see above p. 74).

[33] See further on this subject in chapter v.

[34] Stubbs, ' Const. Hist.,' i. 406.

[35] Mr. Green's paper in 'Old London,' mentioned above.

[36] ' Gesta Stephani,' p. 3, quoted by Mr. Green.

[37] The archbishops already rented Lambeth. See below, chapter xxii.

[38] Geoffrey. It is impossible, at this point, not to recall an earlier period when London was subject to Essex (chap. iii.).

[39] "E Ejusdem domini mei concivis." (Fitzstephen: Prologue.)

[40] In 1130 a chamberlain is mentioned as rendering part of the account. Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I., quoted by Stubbs, 'Const. Hist.,' i. 406. The mayor is often called " chamberlain " at a far later date.

[41] In 1130 there were four sheriffs, or vice-comites, who jointly account for the ferm of London. Stubbs, 'Const. Hist.,' i. 406.

[42] As St. Mary-le-Bow is similarly called from its arched crypt, which, in turn, gives its name to the Court of Arches. t The traditional story given by Stow and others about King Edgar and the thirteen knights is obviously an anachronism to say the least.

[43] Pepys spells it Allgate (iii. 265), but we cannot lay much stress on his spelling.

[44] See above, chapter iii.

[45] There appear, at a later period, to have been two of these posterns. Newcourt (i. 256) speaks of a place called " the Little Postern," which almost implies the existence of a greater one.

[46] The Compter, a sheriff's prison in Giltspur Street, stood more nearly on the site of the old Roman gate, and may have been the original prison of the portreeve.

[47] Riley, xviii. Now Queen Street. See Appendix G.

[48] Stow says he has read of no housing otherwise on that side (the high Street of Cheap to the Standard), but of divers sheds from Soper's Lane. Thoms's Stow, p. 97. It was afterwards called Goldsmith's Row.

[49] In modern pronunciation, Roomy land.

[50] Now Christ's Hospital. It was occupied by shambles.

[51] In 1215 the army of the barons repaired the city gates and walls with stones taken from the ruins of the Jews' houses. Stow, p. 12.

[52] Thoms's Stow, p. 53.

[53] There were in existence or lately founded about the end of the twelfth century, besides St. Paul's and the churches mentioned above, the hospitals of St. Giles and St. Mary (Spital), the nunnery of Clerkenwell and that of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate.

[54] Pauli, 'Old England,' p. 60.

[55] Newcourt, i. 410.

[56] Herbert, 'Companies,' i. 262. The date, 1472, quoted by Herbert from Strype must be incorrect, as the earl was beheaded after the battle of Towton, in 1461. There is further confusion in Herbert as to the next two earls, John and Thomas.

[57] Another hospital of St. Thomas still survives. It has migrated westward from its original situation near Bermondsey Abbey.

[58] There is a possibility that the hospital existed long before, and that the priory was founded to receive a fraternity formed for the charitable purpose of carrying it on. The estates of the two institutions were always separate.

[59] I do not know why, but Bartholomew Fair has been a very favourite subject with one class of London historians. Most books on old London are full of unsavoury details of the celebration. Perhaps the most interesting is the passage in Smith's 'Book for a Rainy Day,' p. 171, where he describes the great Belzoni acting as a mountebank. Mr. Morley has devoted a whole volume to Bartholomew Fair.

[60] Or Edward. Ingelric is called by Kempe (' History of St. Martin le Grand ') and others, earl of Essex. I do not know on what grounds. In fact, the charter is open to considerable question, being very unlike contemporary documents of the kind. The privileges of Sanctuary are unquestionable, and must have been of great antiquity. For some account of Ingelric or Engelric, see Mr. Freeman's 'Norman Conquest,' vol. iv. 723, &c. Mr. Freeman doubts the authenticity of the charter of 1068, which indeed is only known by a copy no older than the reign of Henry VI. (Dugdale, 'Monasticon,' vi. 1323). Kempe perpetuates the story that Engelric was the father of a certain Engelrica, mother, by William, of Peverel of the Peak and other children. Mr. Freeman shows the slender ground on which this scandal rests. Tanner (' Notitia') rejects the history of the foundation of St. Martin's by Cadwallein, an ancient British king; but accepts that which makes Victred or Wythred, king of Kent, the founder. It is not necessary to examine such legends critically. " Wihtred, rex Cantwariorum, filius Ecgberhti," died in 725. See Florence of Worcester, i. 42, 50.

[61] See below, chapter vi. Kempe dates this connection "about the time of Richard the First." Herbert (' Livery Companies,' i. 16) makes it still older. The convention refers to an ancient custom made by Ernaldus, the alderman of the guild, at a yet earlier period.

[62] See chapter i. p. 16.

[63] 'Old London,' p. 269, in Mr. Green's paper already quoted.