again for the next seven hundred years. A recent discovery proves that
the ditch was more ancient than had been thought. But by the time of
King John it was greatly decayed and stopped up; in his reign a grand
restoration of the ditch was made by the citizens. Many fragments of the
wall have been discovered dotted along its course, which is now
accurately known, and can be traced. One of the City churches has a
piece of the wall itself under its north wall. In the church-yard of
St. Alphege there remains a fragment; in the church-yard of St. Giles
there is a bastion. To repair the wall they seem to have used any
materials that offered. Witness the collection of capitals and pilasters
found in a piece of the City wall, and preserved in the Guildhall.
Witness, also, the story of King John, who, when he wanted stones for
repairing the gates, broke down the stone-houses of the Jews, robbed
their coffers, and used the stones for his repairs. When Lud Gate was
pulled down some of these stones, with Hebrew inscriptions, were found,
but I believe were all thrown into the Thames at London Bridge.
[Illustration: FIRST STONE LONDON BRIDGE, BEGUN A.D. 1176]
The Tower of London, until William Longchamp, A.D. 1190, enclosed it
with a wall and a deep ditch, consisted of nothing but the great White
Tower, with its halls and its chapel of St. John. At the western end of
the wall, where is now Ludgate Hill Railway Station, stood a smaller
tower called Montfichet. On the opposite bank of the Fleet stood a
stronghold, which afterwards became Bridewell Palace, and covered the
whole site of the broad street which now follows the approach to
Blackfriars Bridge. The site of Tower Royal is preserved in the street
of that name. King Stephen lodged there. It was afterwards given to the
Crown, and called the Queen's Wardrobe. And there was another tower in
Bucklersbury called Sernes Tower, of which no trace remains.
Of great houses there were as yet but few--Blackwell Hall, if it then
stood, would be called Bassing Hall--Aldermanbury, the predecessor of
Guildhall, was built by this time; and we hear of certain great men
having houses in the City--Earl Ferrars in Lombard Street next to
Allhallows and Pont de l'Arche in Elbow Lane, Dowgate Ward, what time
Henry the First was King.
The water supply of the City until the later years of the thirteenth
century was furnished by the Walbrook, the Wells or Fleet rivers, and
the springs or fountains outside the walls, of which Stow enumerates a
great many. I suppose that the two streams very early became choked and
fouled and unfit for drinking. But the conduits and "Bosses" of water
were not commenced till nearly the end of the thirteenth century.
Water-carts carried round fresh water, bringing it into the town from
the springs and wells on the north. One does not find, however, any
period in the history of London when the citizens desired plain cold
water as a beverage. Beer was always the national drink; they drank
small ale for breakfast, dinner, and supper; when they could get it they
drank strong ale. Of water for washing there was not at this period so
great a demand as at present. At the same time it is not true to say, as
was said a few years ago in the House of Commons, that for eight hundred
years our people did not wash themselves. All through the Middle Ages
the use of the hot bath was not only common, but frequent, and in the
case of the better classes was almost a necessity of life.
[Illustration: CRYPT OR LOWER CHAPEL OF ST. THOMAS'S CHURCH, LONDON
BRIDGE]
The population of this busy city is tolerably easy to calculate. The
astounding statement of the good Fitz Stephen that London could turn out
an army of 20,000 horse and 60,000 foot, must of course, be dismissed
without argument. Some minds are wholly incapable of understanding
numbers. Perhaps Fitz Stephen had such a mind. Perhaps in writing the
numerals the numbers got multiplied by ten--Roman numerals are hard to
manage. If we assume an average of 400 for each parish church, which,
considering that the church was used daily by the people, seems not too
little, we get a population of about 50,000. In the time of Richard's
poll tax, 300 years later, the population was about 40,000. But then the
City had been ravaged by a succession of plagues.
[Illustration: WEST FRONT OF CHAPEL ON LONDON BRIDGE]
The strength of the town and the power of the citizens is abundantly
proved by the chronicles. In the year 994, Aulaf and Swegen came to
fight against London with ninety-four ships; but "they there sustained
more harm and evil than they ever imagined that any townsmen would be
able to do unto them." Early in the eleventh century the Londoners beat
off the Danes again and again. Nor did the citizens abandon their king
until he abandoned them. Later on, Edmund Etheling had to abandon his
enterprise against Cnut, because the Londoners would not join him. Then
there is the story about the body of the murdered Alphege, Archbishop of
Canterbury. This had been deposited in St. Paul's Cathedral. Agelnoth,
successor to Alphege, begged the body of Cnut for Canterbury. Cnut
granted the request, but was afraid--_timebat civium interruptiones_--to
take away the body except by stealth. He therefore caused his
_huscarles_, or household soldiers, to disperse themselves, and to raise
tumults at the gates and elsewhere. While the citizens were running
everywhere to enjoy a share in the fight, the body was carried to the
river and placed in a boat, which was rowed in all haste down the river.
The townsmen sent out a party in pursuit. And, as everybody knows,
William the Norman found it politic or necessary to confirm the
liberties and laws of London.
The house, either in Saxon and Norman time, presented no kind of
resemblance to the Roman villa. It had no cloisters, no hypocaust, no
suite or sequence of rooms. This unlikeness is another proof, if any
were wanting, that the continuity of tenure had been wholly broken. If
the Saxons went into London, as has been suggested, peaceably, and left
the people to carry on their old life and their trade in their own way,
the Roman and British architecture, no new thing, but a style grown up
in course of years and found fitted to the climate, would certainly have
remained. That, however, was not the case. The Englishman developed his
house from the patriarchal idea. First, there was the common hall; in
this the household lived, fed, transacted business, and made their cheer
in the evenings. It was built of timber, and to keep out the cold
draughts it was afterwards lined with tapestry. At first they used
simple cloths, which in great houses were embroidered and painted;
_perches_ of various kinds were affixed to the walls whereon the
weapons, the musical instruments, the cloaks, etc., were hung up. The
lord and lady sat on a high seat: not, I am inclined to think, on a dais
at the end of the hall, which would have been cold for them, but on a
great chair near the fire, which was burning in the middle of the hall.
This fashion long continued. I have myself seen a college hall warmed by
a fire in a brazier burning under the lantern of the hall. The
furniture consisted of benches; the table was laid on trestles, spread
with a white cloth, and removed after dinner; the hall was open to all
who came, on condition that the guest should leave his weapons at the
door. The floor was covered with reeds, which made a clean, soft, and
warm carpet, on which the company could, if they pleased, lie round the
fire. They had carpets or rugs also, but reeds were commonly used. The
traveller who chances to find himself at the ancient and most
interesting town of Kingston-on-Hull, which very few English people, and
still fewer Americans, have the curiosity to explore, should visit the
Trinity House. There, among many interesting things, he will find a hall
where reeds are still spread, but no longer so thickly as to form a
complete carpet. I believe this to be the last survival of the reed
carpet. The times of meals were: the breakfast at about nine; the
"noon-meat," or dinner, at twelve; and the "even-meat," or supper,
probably at a movable time, depending on the length of the day. When
lighting was costly and candles were scarce, the hours of sleep would be
naturally longer in winter than in the summer. In their manner of living
the Saxons were fond of vegetables, especially of the leek, onion, and
garlic. Beans they also had (these were introduced probably at the time
when they commenced intercourse with the outer world), pease, radishes,
turnips, parsley, mint, sage, cress, rue, and other herbs. They had
nearly all our modern fruits, though many show by their names, which are
Latin or Norman, a later introduction. They made use of butter, honey,
and cheese. They drank ale and mead. The latter is still made, but in
small quantities, in Somerset and Hereford shires. The Normans brought
over the custom of drinking wine.
[Illustration: PART OF LONDON WALL IN THE CHURCH-YARD OF ST. GILES,
CRIPPLEGATE]
In the earliest times the whole family slept in the common hall. The
first improvement was the erection of the solar, or upper, chamber. This
was above the hall, or a portion of it, or over the kitchen and buttery
attached to the hall. The arrangement may be still observed in many of
the old colleges of Oxford or Cambridge. The solar was first the
sleeping-room of the lord and lady: though afterwards it served not only
this purpose, but also for an ante-chamber to the dormitory of the
daughters and the maid-servants. The men of the household still slept in
the hall below. Later on, bed recesses were contrived in the wall, as
one may find in Northumberland at the present day. The bed was
commonly, but not for the ladies of the house, merely a big bag stuffed
with straw. A sheet wrapped round the body formed the only night-dress.
But there were also pillows, blankets, and coverlets. The early English
bed was quite as luxurious as any that followed after, until the
invention of the spring-mattress gave a new and hitherto unhoped-for joy
to the hours of night.
The second step in advance was the ladies' bower, a room or suite of
rooms set apart for the ladies of the house and their women. For the
first time, as soon as this room was added, the women could follow their
own avocations of embroidery, spinning, and needle-work of all kinds
apart from the rough and noisy talk of the men.
The main features, therefore, of every great house, whether in town or
country, from the seventh to the twelfth century, were the hall, the
solar, built over the kitchen and buttery, and the ladies' bower.
There was also the garden. In all times the English have been fond of
gardens. Bacon thought it not beneath his dignity to order the
arrangement of a garden. Long before Bacon, a writer of the twelfth
century describes a garden as it should be. "It should be adorned on
this side with roses, lilies, and the marigold; on that side with
parsley, cost, fennel, southernwood, coriander, sage, savery, hyssop,
mint, vine, dettany, pellitory, lettuce, cresses, and the peony. Let
there be beds enriched with onions, leeks, garlic, mellons, and
scallions. The garden is also enriched by the cucumber, the soporiferous
poppy, and the daffodil, and the acanthus. Nor let pot herbs be wanting,
as beet-root, sorrel, and mallow. It is useful also to the gardener to
have anice, mustard, and wormwood.... A noble garden will give you
medlars, quinces, the pear main, peaches, pears of St. Regle,
pomegranates, citrons, oranges, almonds, dates, and figs." The latter
fruits were perhaps attempted, but no one doubts their arriving at
ripeness. Perhaps the writer sets down what he hoped would be some day
achieved.
The in-door amusements of the time were very much like our own. We have
a little music in the evening; so did our forefathers; we sometimes have
a little dancing; so did they, but the dancing was done for them; we go
to the theatres to see the mime; in their days the mime made his theatre
in the great man's hall. He played the fiddle and the harp; he sang
songs; he brought his daughter, who walked on her hands and executed
astonishing capers; the gleeman, minstrels, or jongleur was already as
disreputable as when we find him later on with his _ribauderie_. Again,
we play chess; so did our ancestors; we gamble with dice; so did they;
we feast and drink together; so did they; we pass the time in talk; so
did they. In a word, as Alphonse Karr put it, the more we change, the
more we remain the same.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS]
Out-of-doors, as Fitz Stephen shows, the young men skated, wrestled,
played ball, practised archery, held water tournaments, baited bull and
bear, fought cocks, and rode races. They were also mustered sometimes
for service in the field, and went forth cheerfully, being specially
upheld by the reassuring consciousness that London was always on the
winning side.
[Illustration: BUILDINGS OF KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS]
The growth of the city government belongs to the history of London.
Suffice it here to say that the people in all times enjoyed a freedom
far above that possessed by any other city of Europe. The history of
municipal London is a history of continual struggle to maintain this
freedom against all attacks, and to extend it and to make it
impregnable. Already the people are proud, turbulent, and confident in
their own strength. They refuse to own any over lord but the King
himself; there is no Earl of London. They freely hold their free and
open meetings--their Folk's mote--in the open space outside the
north-west corner of St. Paul's Church-yard. That they lived roughly,
enduring cold, sleeping in small houses in narrow courts; that they
suffered much from the long darkness of winter; that they were always in
danger of fevers, agues, "putrid" throats, plagues, fires by night, and
civil wars; that they were ignorant of letters--three schools only for
the whole of London--all this may very well be understood. But these
things do not make men and women wretched. They were not always
suffering from preventable disease; they were not always hauling their
goods out of the flames; they were not always fighting. The first and
most simple elements of human happiness are three, to wit: that a man
should be in bodily health, that he should be free, that he should enjoy
the produce of his own labor. All these things the Londoner possessed
under the Norman kings nearly as much as in these days they can be
possessed. His city has always been one of the healthiest in the world.
Whatever freedom could be attained he enjoyed, and in that rich trading
town all men who worked lived in plenty.
The households, the way of living, the occupations of the women, can be
clearly made out in every detail from the Anglo-Saxon literature. The
women in the country made the garments, carded the wool, sheared the
sheep, washed the things, beat the flax, ground the corn, sat at the
spinning-wheel, and prepared the food. In the towns they had no shearing
to do, but all the rest of their duty fell to their province. The
English women excelled in embroidery. "English" work meant the best kind
of work. They worked church vestments with gold and pearls and precious
stones. "Orfrey," or embroidery in gold, was a special art. Of course
they are accused by the ecclesiastics of an overweening desire to wear
finery; they certainly curled their hair, and, one is sorry to read,
they painted, and thereby spoiled their pretty cheeks. If the man was
the hlaf-ord--the owner or winner of the loaf--the wife was the
hlaf-dig, its distributor; the servants and the retainers were
hlaf-oetas, or eaters of it. When nunneries began to be founded, the
Saxon ladies in great numbers forsook the world for the cloister. And
here they began to learn Latin, and became able at least to carry on
correspondence--specimens of which still exist--in that language. Every
nunnery possessed a school for girls. They were taught to read and to
write their own language and Latin, perhaps also rhetoric and
embroidery. As the pious Sisters were fond of putting on violet
chemises, tunics, and vests of delicate tissue, embroidered with silver
and gold, and scarlet shoes, there was probably not much mortification
of the flesh in the nunneries of the later Saxon times.
This for the better class. We cannot suppose that the daughters of the
craftsmen became scholars of the Nunnery. Theirs were the lower
walks--to spin the linen and to make the bread and carry on the
house-work.
* * * * *
Let us walk into the narrow streets and see something more closely of
the townfolk. We will take the close net-work of streets south of Paul's
and the Cheapside, where the lanes slope down to the river. North of
Chepe there are broad open spaces never yet built upon; south, every
inch of ground is valuable. The narrow winding lanes are lined with
houses on either side; they are for the most part houses with wooden
fronts and roofs of timber. Here and there is a stone house; here and
there the great house of a noble, or of a City baron, or a great
merchant, as greatness is counted. But as yet the trade of London goes
not farther than Antwerp, or Sluys, or Bordeaux at the farthest. Some
of the houses stand in gardens, but in this part, where the population
is densest, most of the gardens have become courts; and in the courts
where the poorest live, those who are the porters and carriers, and
lightermen and watermen--the servants of the Port--the houses are huts,
not much better than those whose ruins may still be seen on Dartmoor; of
four uprights, with wattle and clay for walls, and a thatched roof, and
a fire burning on the floor in the middle. At the corners of the streets
are laystalls, where everything is flung to rot and putrefy; the streets
are like our country lanes, narrow and muddy; public opinion is against
shooting rubbish into the street, but it is done; the people walk
gingerly among the heaps of offal and refuse. In the wooden houses,
standing with shutters and doors wide open all the year round, sit the
men at work, each in his own trade, working for his own master; every
man belongs to his guild, which is as yet religious. Here is a church,
the Church of St. George, Botolph Lane; the doors are open; the bells
are ringing; the people are crowding in. Let us enter. It is a Mystery
that they are going to play--nothing less than the Raising of Lazarus
according to Holy Scripture. The church within is dark and gloomy, but
there is light enough to see the platform, or low stage, under the nave
covered with red cloth, which has been erected for the Play. The actors
are young priests and choristers. All round the stage stand the people,
the men in leather jerkins--they do not remove their caps--the women in
woollen frocks, the children with eyes wide open. When the Play begins
they all weep without restraint at the moving passages. In the first
scene Lazarus lies on his bed, at the point of death--weak, faint,
speechless. He is attended by his friends--four Jews, attired in
realistic fashion, no mistake about their nationality--infidels,
mécréants--and by his sisters twain, marvellously like two nuns of the
period. They send a messenger to the new Great Physician and Worker of
Miracles, who is reported to be preaching and healing not far off. But
He delays; Lazarus dies. His sister goes to reproach the Physician with
the delay, wailing and lamenting her brother's death. At length He
comes. Lazarus is already buried. The tomb is on the stage, with the
dead man inside. Jesus calls. Oh, miracle! we saw him die; we saw him
buried. Lo! he rises and comes forth from the grave. To the people it is
as if the Lord Jesus himself stood before them; they have seen Him with
their own eyes; henceforth the name of the Lord recalls a familiar form;
experienced persons of dull imagination say that this is not Jesus at
all, but Stephen the Deacon--he with the heavenly voice and the golden
locks. No, no; it is not Stephen they have seen, but Another. So, also,
some will have it that the man who died and was buried, and rose again,
and stood before them all in white cerements, was John of Hoggesdon,
Chantry Priest. Not so; it was Lazarus--none other. Lazarus, now no
doubt a blessed saint, with his two sisters, Martha and Mary. Why! it
must have been Lazarus, because, after the miracle, he called upon the
people to mark the wondrous works of the Lord, and sang the Magnificat
so that the psalm echoed in the roof and rolled above the pillars. He
sang that psalm out of pure gratitude; you could see the tears rolling
down his cheeks; and in worship and adoration, Lazarus himself, he who
had been dead and had come to life again.
[Illustration: CRYPT IN BOW CHURCH, FROM THE NORTH SIDE, NEAR THE EAST
END OF THE NAVE]
The Mystery is over; the people have all gone away; the stage is
removed, and the church is empty again. Two priests are left, and their
talk is like a jarring note after sweet music. "Brother," says one,
"were it not for such shows as these, if we did not present to the
people the things which belong to religion in such a way that the
dullest can understand, the Church would be in a parlous way. All folk
cry out upon the profligacy of the monks, and their luxury, and the
greed of the priests. What sayeth Walter Map, that good archdeacon?
"'Omnis a clericis fluit enormitas,
Cum Deo debeant mentes sollicitas,
Tractant negotia mercesque vetitas
Et rerum turpium vices indebitas.'"
"I hear," said the other, "that two Cistercians have lately become
apostate to the Jews."
"Rather," replied the first, "they should have become Christians, so to
separate themselves the better from that accursed body."
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF PORCH OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. ALPHEGE,
LONDON WALL, FORMERLY THE CHAPEL OF THE PRIORY OF ST. ELSYNGE SPITAL]
These are the distant rumblings of the gathering storm. But the Church
will become much richer, much more powerful, the monks will become much
more profligate, the priests will become far more greedy before things
grow to be intolerable.
It is an evening in May. What means this procession? Here comes a sturdy
rogue marching along valiantly, blowing pipe and beating tabor. After
him, a rabble rout of lads and young men, wearing flowers in their caps,
and bearing branches and singing lustily. This is what they sing, not
quite in these words, but very nearly:
Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med,
And springth the wde nu.
Sing cuccu.
Awe bleteth after lamb,
Llouth after calve cu,
Bulluc sterteth, buck verteth,
Murie sing cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu, well singeth thu cuccu,
Ne swik thu navu nu;
Sing cuccu, cuccu, nu sing cuccu,
Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu!
The workman jumps up and shouts as they go past; the priest and the
friar laugh and shout; the girls, gathering together as is the maidens'
way, laugh and clap their hands. The young men sing as they go and dance
as they sing. Spring has come back again--sing cuckoo; the days of light
and warmth--sing cuckoo; the time of feasting and of love--sing cuckoo.
The proud abbot, with his following, draws rein to let them pass, and
laughs to see them; he is, you see, a man first and a monk afterwards.
In the gateway of his great house stands the Norman earl with his
livery. He waits to let the London youth go by. The earl scorns the
English youth no longer; he knows their lustihood. He can even
understand their speech. He sends out largesse to the lads to be spent
in the good wines of Gascony and of Spain; he joins in the singing; he
waves his hand, a brotherly hand, as the floral greenery passes along;
he sings with them at the top of his voice:
Sing cuccu--cuccu--nu sing cuccu;
Sing cuccu; sing cuccu, nu.
Presently the evening falls. It is light till past eight; the days are
long. At nightfall, in summer, the people go to bed. In the great houses
they assemble in the hall; in winter they would listen to music and the
telling of stories, even the legends of King Arthur. Walter Map[4] will
collect them and arrange them, and the French romances, such as "Amis et
Amils," "Aucassin et Nicolette," though these have not yet been written
down. In summer they have music before they go to bed. We are in a city
that has always been fond of music. The noise of crowd and pipe, tabor
and cithern, is now silent in the streets. Rich men kept their own
musicians. What said Bishop Grossetête?
Next hys chamber, besyde hys study,
Hys harper's chamber was fast ther by,
Many tymes, by nightes and dayes,
He hade solace of notes and layes.
One asked him the resun why
He hadde delyte in minstrelsy?
He answered hym on thys manere
Why he helde the harpe so dere:
The virtu of the harpe thurh skill and right
Wyll destrye the fendys myght,
And to the cros by gode skeyl
Ys the harpe lykened weyl.