THE DOMINICANS
The Dominicans, or Black Friars, came over to England with their Prior,
Gilbert de Fraxineto, in the year 1221. There were thirteen of them in
company. They were at first received by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of
Canterbury, who invited the Prior to preach, and being greatly pleased
with his discourse, became the patron of the Order in England.
Their first quarters were in Holborn on the south side, part of the
site of Lincoln’s Inn. Here they built a House and church, and their
gates opened upon Holborn on the west side of Chancery Lane. They
remained here for more than fifty years, when, in 1276, Gregory de
Rokesley, the Mayor, granted the Archbishop of Canterbury permission
to stop up certain lanes adjoining Castle Baynard and Montfichet. This
was for the purpose of enabling the Dominicans to build a new House
on the foreshore or banks of the River Fleet without the wall of the
City. The Friars, however, were permitted to take down the wall between
Ludgate Hill and the river, and to use the stones of Montfichet Castle
for their new buildings. The King ordered the City at the same time to
build a new wall along the side of Ludgate Hill, and so south along the
bank of the Fleet to the Thames. Of their first House little is known.
There was once a convocation of their Order held there attended by four
hundred Friars to confer on their own affairs. It is reported that the
assemblage was entertained on one day by the King, on the next by the
Queen, and on other days by the Bishop of London and the Abbots of St.
Albans, Waltham, and Westminster.
If we consider the buildings of the second House we shall find
ourselves assisted to a certain extent by the disposition of the courts
and lanes at the present moment. Thus, the boundaries of the Precinct
are those of the present parish of St. Anne. It is therefore proved
that the Friars began by taking down the old wall of the City between
Ludgate Hill and the river, in order to build over that part of their
Precinct which came to them on the other side of the wall. Again, since
the site of a burial-ground within a city is almost always ancient, we
may conclude that any burial-ground now within the parish was formerly
within the Precinct. And if we have the measurements of the Church, we
may lay it down accurately, provided we have a single angle or corner
with which to start.
Now, the burial-ground of St. Anne’s still remains untouched. Its
length from east to west is about 60 feet. The church of the Friars
was 220 feet long and 66 feet broad. It probably consisted of chancel
and nave, or antechapel without transepts; the Cloister was a square
of 110 feet; the Chapter House on the west was 44 feet by 22 feet.
If the chancel was 60 feet long, which is a very fair proportion, it
just fits in south of the present burial-ground, while the block of
buildings looking upon Church Court corresponds with the breadth of the
church. Laying down the church, therefore, with these data, we find the
Cloister also fits in with its square of 110 feet, now partly occupied
by the Court of the Apothecaries’ Hall.
[Illustration: BLACKFRIARS’ PRIORY
From an old painting in the Guildhall Museum.]
The rest of the buildings, the dormitories, the Chapter House, the
Refectory, the Great Hall, the Misericordia, were all contained in
the square of the north-west angle. To place them lower down below
the church and cloisters would be to ruin the effect of the group of
buildings from the river, a thing abhorrent to the mediæval mind.
The lower space, representing an area of more than three acres, was
doubtless filled up with gardens, orchards, and offices. In appearance
the House was said to resemble a fortress, because it had the
battlements and towers of the City wall on two sides. (See Appendix IX.)
If for many generations the Franciscans were of all the Religious
the most loved, their rivals, the Black Friars, who were considered
the most stalwart defenders of the Faith, were the most respected
for their learning. Even when the people threatened to destroy their
House, in consequence of their arrogance, they still retained the
general respect for learning. Their Precinct was a Sanctuary, so also
was that of the Grey Friars; their strong-rooms and treasure-houses
were used for the storing of the National Records, Acts, and Charters;
they numbered among their body the greatest scholars, theologians, and
jurists; their hall was used for the meeting of Parliament, and their
church for the hearing of great cases. In the year 1382, for instance,
Archbishop Courtenay held in the Blackfriars’ Church his court for the
condemnation of Wyclyf’s opinions: and here was held, from day to day,
and from week to week, the great trial before Cardinals Campeggio and
Wolsey concerning the divorce of Queen Catherine. In the Hall of the
Dominicans was assembled one of the Parliaments of Henry the Sixth;
here was commenced the so-called “Black” Parliament of Henry the Eighth.
There are many other historical notes connected with this Order in
London. Here are one or two of the more important:—
In 1258 the King gave orders that the Dominicans were to have at their
desire freestone for making carved statues in stone and a pedestal for
the statue of the Virgin; lead for their aqueduct, and other materials
for the forwarding of their work. Obviously, therefore, they were
engaged in building at their old House.
In 1326, when the Queen and her son issued letters to the citizens of
London exhorting them to aid in destroying the enemies of the country,
and Hugh le Despenser in especial, it was at the House of the Friars
Preachers that the Mayor and Aldermen received the commonalty in
conference. A little later occurs the very curious story (_Chron. of
Mayors and Sheriffs_, p. 267) of the removal of Edward the Second to
Berkeley Castle for fear that he might be carried off by the abetting
and procurement of a Brother Thomas Dunheved, a Dominican, who, with
many others of that Order, conspired with him. This Brother Thomas had
been sent to the Pope from Edward to pray for a divorce from Isabel;
he now raised a body of men in the King’s service, was unsuccessful,
was taken prisoner, confined in Pontefract Castle, and was killed while
endeavouring to escape. There were evidently two parties among the
Preaching Friars.
Later on we hear of a quarrel between the Duke of York and the Duke of
Somerset, and of the spoiling of the goods of the latter by the people
of the former at the Friars Preachers’.
[Illustration: A COLUMN OF THE HALL OF BLACKFRIARS’ PRIORY
Discovered in course of excavations. Now at St. Dominic’s Priory,
Hampstead.]
The place was also one at which Royal and distinguished persons were
entertained. The Dominicans, for instance, received Charles the Fifth
of Spain on his visit to Henry the Eighth. It was in the Hall, called
the Parliament Chamber, that Wolsey was found guilty on a Præmunire.
The brethren, of course, took no part in these functions; but the
fact that they were held in their House proves the position which
they occupied. They did not, being mendicants, and without property,
entertain Royal persons at their own charges. The sentence on Wolsey
was the last event of importance connected with the Black Friars.
Within a very few years after the holding of that Court, the proud
Dominicans were turned into the street. Their whole property consisted
of a few houses within the Precinct, which were valued at an annual
rental of £104: 15: 4, so that, like the Franciscans, they remained
actually mendicant to the very end. The respect in which these Friars
were held, especially by the better sort, is shown by the list of
great people buried in their church. Among the names we find those of
Margaret, Queen of Scots; Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent; the children
of the Earl of Arundel; Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward the First,
whose heart lay here; the Earls of March and Hereford; the Duchess
of Exeter, and many more. The House was surrendered in 1539. It does
not appear that anything was done with it in the lifetime of Henry
the Eighth. Very possibly he kept the place as convenient for holding
Parliaments on occasion; it was also, and had been, at least since the
time of Edward the Second, a house where Records and Charters were
kept. Edward the Sixth granted the Hall and the site of the Prior’s
House to Sir Francis Bryan; three years afterwards he gave the whole
Precinct to Sir Thomas Cawardine.
We have seen that the Liberties of Sanctuary, especially that of
St. Martin’s-le-Grand, were always a great trouble and annoyance to
the City. Now the Precincts both of the Grey Friars and the Black
Friars were claimed—though there were no more Friars—by those who
had succeeded in the ownership of the Precincts as being without the
jurisdiction of the City, and privileged, whether for those who took
Sanctuary in the Precinct, or for those who carried on trade to be free
of the City. This claim was stoutly resisted by the City authorities,
and in 1586 the case was heard in Court before the Chief Justices.
There was a small church called the Church of St. Anne, which appears
to have stood beside the great church, just as St. Margaret’s stands
beside the Abbey; St. Gregory beside St. Paul’s; St. Peter’s beside
the Austin Friars. The Precinct became the Parish of St. Anne. The old
church of St. Anne seems to have perished with the Friars’ church.
Perhaps it was an aisle. Then they built another church, which was
nothing more than an upper chamber. As for the liberties and privileges
of the Precinct, these were gradually forgotten and lost like those of
the Grey Friars. The church was unroofed for the sake of the lead; it
was then divided into two parts, part becoming a carpenter’s yard, and
part converted into stables. The church, according to Wyngaerde, had
no transepts, so that it would be easy to divide it. The Hall remained
standing for some time longer, and was used for a Theatre—Burbage’s
Theatre,—and some of the Shakespearian plays were acted there.
In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Precinct was “much inhabited” by
noblemen and gentlemen. Afterwards the place became the residence of
feather-dressers and glass-blowers—because it was still outside the
City,—and later still of artists. “Thence into Blackfriars, visit the
painters where you may see pictures” (Ben Jonson, _The Devil is an
Ass_). Vandyck died here in 1641; Cornelius Jansen lived here; Isaac
Oliver died here. There is one spot in modern Blackfriars which may
still be recognised as part of the ancient house of the Dominicans.
Passing through Playhouse Yard at the back of the _Times_ office, and
turning into a narrow lane called Church Entry, there is the small
disused burial-ground of which I have already spoken. An open yard
on the other side of the court apparently formed part of the Friars’
cemetery, just as at Westminster, where, the cloisters being reserved
for the brethren, there might be a burial-ground outside the church.
On the east of this yard is a fragment of ancient wall, and in a
carpenter’s shop (No. 7 Ireland Yard) there is still (April 1900)
remaining a single arch which once formed part of the House. I know not
to what building this arch belonged; the site was afterwards a mortuary
and a Watch house, but I know not which of these uses was the earlier.