IN the multiplicity of books on London it is strange that for more than forty years no history has appeared. Thomas Allen's five volumes reached a second edition in , being continued, but unfortunately not corrected by . Since that time no serious attempt has been made to tell the story of our great city's origin and growth, although the materials have gradually accumulated in abundance: and many chronicles, diaries, and collections of records have been printed. The 'Liber Albus' and the 'Liber Custumarum' have been edited by the lamented for the Rolls Series, and extracts from the . He also issued a translation of a chronicle which he attributed to , and the published several later London chronicles. Finally, last year printed his 'Annales Londinienses' and 'Annales Paulini.' Not to mention everything of the kind, it will easily be seen that a complete change has come over the aspect of London history in a single generation. Allen had no better authority than Stow, but we have the very documents from which Stow worked, and many others besides. It is a matter for surprise that they have been so little used. An allusion to the existence of any authority higher than Stow's is of the rarest occurrence. One brilliant exception only proves the truth of this assertion. The papers contributed by and to a volume entitled 'Old London,' published in , show what might have been done by literally hundreds of writers who yet have preferred the beaten track.

I have endeavoured, therefore, in the first of these volumes to weave the history of the city of London as told by the chroniclers into a continuous narrative: prefacing it with a topographical account of the site, and by an attempt to describe the effects on London of the Roman and Saxon invasions. The medieval history includes that of the guilds, the wards, the churches, the monasteries, and the companies.

Of the later period, so well illustrated by Maitland, Malcolm, Lysons, and others, I have said comparatively little, as their works are well known and generally accessible. Such subjects as the great plague, the churches of Wren, the rise and progress of banking, and the modern commercial development of London would each require for adequate treatment a volume to itself, and, in fact, many such volumes exist. I have therefore endeavoured to state the mere outline in each case and to refer my readers to the authorities consulted.

The second volume contains a detailed account of each parish of the suburbs, prefaced by a sketch of the history of . Here the continuous method has of necessity been abandoned: but I have directed my attention in each chapter chiefly to an attempt to show the origin and growth of the present condition of the suburbs, with special reference to the accumulations of land in the so-called " Great Estates." I have in almost all cases tried to omit mere local gossip, unless it happened to be of a kind likely to illustrate the history, or had not been already noticed by other writers. I have avoided as much as possible such things as processions, executions, duels, and the loves of .: but I have endeavoured to trace each manor from its earliest mention to the present day, and to explain local names and other circumstances by the history. I trust that the numerous maps and plans may prove interesting as showing in so many cases a state of things which has passed away for ever, and as accounting for what we see by what our forefathers saw when so much that is now densely populated lay in open fields.

I should be sorry to be understood as disparaging the delightful memoirs of , , Jesse, and others. They are entertaining to read, and if they add very little to our real historical knowledge, they at least serve to keep alive an interest in scenes and places which might otherwise be passed by. The worst of them is that they set a bad example, and their imitators have produced by the dozen, nay, by the hundred, books in which truth has been a secondary object, books which bristle with errors, and which are so far from history that they are not even good fiction. There is not a mistake in or that they have not taken up and expanded, accepting guesses as certainty, and asserting boldly what their authorities cautiously conjectured. To take a single example: among the almost countless lists that exist of the mayors and sheriffs, there is not one which has not been directly founded on Stow's. From the imperfection of his materials, it was necessarily imperfect, and was only completed by a system of elaborate, but often erroneous guessing. Yet contemporary chronicles containing the correct names are in print in abundance, and overlap each other in such a way as to make the task of forming a new list a mere school-boy's exercise.

I ought to mention, in order that any critic who is kind enough to notice this book may be saved the trouble of arranging "parallel passages," that I have been in the habit for many years, as I pursued my investigations, of writing articles on old London and its environs in various periodicals, chiefly the Quarterly and Saturday Reviews, and the Archaeological Journal. I have received much kind help from various quarters, and have to thank of the Record Office,, and , for replies to questions which they must often have considered exceedingly troublesome if not impertinent. I have obtained much information from , who kindly gave me the elaborate plan of which illustrates Chapter XVI. kindly gave me leave to use one of the illustrations of his ' House Architecture,' for which I heartily thank him; as well as F.S.A., for the gift of a view of

I have also to acknowledge the sympathy and ever ready assistance I received from the deeply lamented , whose death in the maturity of his powers is announced even as I write. To his encouragement and advice I owe it that I ever commenced the studies which have resulted in the production of this book. His inexhaustible stores of knowledge and his unfailing historical judgment were my constant resource during the many years in which I have been engaged in gathering materials and placing them in order. If I could have had his help until my work was completed I might have solved difficulties which now seem insuperable.

I trust that some of the problems which I have stated may awaken an interest in the minds of investigators able to solve them. We know very little, for instance, about the history of guilds and companies, about the origin of the office of alderman, about the early division of parishes, and many other subjects at which I have been obliged only to hint. Hitherto the most competent antiquaries have avoided such questions. Yet they are of the highest interest, and I can only regret to have been able to do so little towards giving them a satisfactory answer. Let me conclude these "fore words" with a quotation from and without further apology

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