foundations of the old hall destroyed in 1666, and very rich in its
treasures: its beautiful carvings by Grinling Gibbons, its ancient
tapestry, hearse-cloth, portraits, and valuable store of plate. Pepys
tells of the destruction of Clothworkers' Hall. He wrote, "But strange
it is to see Clothworkers' Hall on fire these three days and nights in
one body of flame, it having two cellars full of oil." After that mighty
destruction a new hall arose, worthy of the greatness of the company,
the present great hall itself being added in 1859, a noble building
lighted by fine windows containing the arms of distinguished members.
Pepys was master of the company in 1677, and presented a loving cup,
which is still amongst the company's treasures.
It is impossible in this brief survey of the Livery Companies to include
a description of the halls of the minor companies, some of which are
very fine and interesting. It has been my privilege to visit nearly all
of these ancient edifices, and to inspect many of their records and
valuable treasures. These I have tried to describe in my larger work on
the history of the companies. No volume relating to London would,
however, be complete without some reference to the ancient state and
glories of these venerable institutions, which, in spite of many
vicissitudes, much oppression, heavy losses and crushing calamities,
have survived to the present day, and continue their useful careers for
the benefit of the present generation of men. The story of the Livery
Companies furnishes wonderful examples of the tenacity of the national
character of Englishmen, of their firm determination to overcome
difficulties, and of their resolution to hand down to their successors
the traditions which they have received from a great and historic past.
FOOTNOTES:
[154] A full account of the history of each hall, its description and
treasures, is contained in my book on _The City Companies of London and
their Good Works_ (Dent & Co.), with illustrations by A. R. Quinton, and
reproductions of old pictures, tapestry, and plate.
LONDON AND THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE
BY J. TAVENOR-PERRY
A remarkable episode in the early history of London, and an element in
its making, which through the Middle Ages exercised an important and
beneficial influence on its progress and growth, was the settlement of
foreign merchants, who, at first as individuals, and later under the
control of the Hanseatic League, made it one of the principal trading
centres of Northern Europe; and no account of mediaeval London would be
complete which omitted a reference to the part played by these German
and Flemish adventurers. Although it was not until the middle of the
twelfth century that the League reached that complete organization which
made it for some centuries a great northern power, the trading
communities of Germany early acquired some sort of cohesion; and we find
them established in London as early as the reign of Ethelred II. The
encouragement this Saxon King afforded them was doubtless due to the
fact that they were able to offer him the money of which he always stood
in need, in return for the privileges he was able to confer on them; and
he may have felt that he could always rely on their active support
against their common enemy--the Danes. But these first merchants were
few and unorganized, and although as time went on they increased in
number and importance, it was not until the League itself had become a
power that, in the reign of Henry III., they obtained a recognized
corporate existence.
The foundations of this originally peaceful confederacy were, curiously
enough, laid in war, and that of the baser sort--war for the sake of
pillage. The Vikings, finding themselves unable to realize the spoil
with which they were sometimes gorged, conceived the idea of founding a
market-place to which, by assurances of safety and immunity from further
theft, they could induce peaceful merchants to attend and receive, and
pay for, the goods which they had stolen. Such was the now vanished town
of Jomsborg which Palnatoki, the Jarl of Fjon, founded about 950 in the
country of the Wends, near the mouth of the Oder. This town was intended
to be an abode of peace, where not only could the merchants reside in
safety, but to which the Viking Jarls, fighting elsewhere between
themselves, might resort to exchange the results of their raids. And
this city gradually became not only the market for the goods which the
sea-rovers gathered from sacked cities and ruined monasteries, but also
the emporium of the merchandise of the East, which reached the Baltic
from Byzantium by the Euxine and the Dnieper. It was in this Viking
market town that the first German merchants established among themselves
that association which eventually grew to be the most important trading
community of the Middle Ages.
The name which the association took to itself was a Gothic word, and was
not improbably conferred upon them by the Vikings themselves, since
Hansa means--in the language of the Goths--"a company," or "a troop,"
and in that sense it occurs in the Gothic version of the Scriptures by
Ulphilas, a copy of which is preserved in the library of Upsala. Some of
the rules which Palnatoki made for these merchants remained in force
throughout the existence of the League, and formed the basis of the
laws by which all the factories of the Hansa were governed. The _Joms
Vykinga Saga_ contains some of these rules:--"No man older than fifty
years or younger than eighteen winters could be received." "Anyone who
committed what had been forbidden was to be cast out, and driven from
the community." "No one should have a woman within the burgh, or be
absent from it for three nights." Governed by such rules, the Kontors of
the League formed among the alien populations in which they were placed
semi-monastic establishments, holding only such intercourse with their
neighbours as their business required, much like the early British
factories established in India.
Hamburg was founded in 809 by Charlemagne, and its merchants were among
the first to take advantage of Jomsborg; and it was very shortly after
that market was opened when they appeared in London. The growth of the
League was, however, very gradual; and it was not until the foundation
of Luebeck, which afterwards became its principal city, that it assumed
its great importance. But the destruction of Jomsborg by the Danes
transferred all the Eastern trade of the Baltic to this new town, which,
as a consequence of its increasing importance, was made in 1226 a free
city of the Empire; and by 1234 it had become so powerful as to be able
to destroy for ever the naval supremacy of Denmark in the sea-fight of
Travemuende. Its treaty with Hamburg for mutual defence was made soon
afterwards, and this event is reckoned to be the formal establishment of
the Hansa League, not only as a corporate body, but as an independent
state to make treaties, and, when necessary, to levy war.
[Illustration: COAT OF ARMS OF HANSA MERCHANT IN LONDON.]
During this same period the German settlement in London had been
increasing in importance, and, although not yet recognized as a
corporate body, is frequently referred to as a guild or association.
There is but little doubt that the William Almaine, one of the three
city merchants who completed London Bridge, after the death of Peter of
Colechurch, was one of its members, and so important had the London
settlement become in the eyes of the Flemings, that in a charter granted
to the Flemish town of Damme by Joan of Constantinople in 1241, it is
specially provided that no one shall aspire to the office of alderman of
that place unless he had been previously admitted a member of the Hanse
in London.
In 1250 the permanent buildings of the League in London were commenced
by the erection of storehouses; and nine years afterwards, through the
influence of his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the
Romans, Henry III.
"granted that all and singular the merchants, having a house in
the City of London, commonly called the Guilda Aula
Teutonicorum, should be maintained and upholden through the
whole realm by all such freedoms and free usages or liberties
as by the King and his noble progenitors' time they had
enjoyed."
This "house in the City" was situated to the south of Thames Street,
bordering on the river, closely adjoining Dowgate Wharf, one of the
principal landing places, and it became known, later on, as the
Steel-yard. Several suggestions as to the origin of this name, more or
less ingenious, have been made, but it seems most probable that it was
due to the fact that there, or thereabouts, was situated a weighing
place for foreign goods imported by the Hansa, similar to the King's
weigh-house in Cornhill. In this settlement the merchants lived the
semi-monastic life required by their rules, avoiding as far as possible
intimate association with the people by whom they were surrounded, but
with whom they carried on their business; yet at the same time not so
exclusively withholding themselves as in the remote settlements of
Bergen and Novgorod. Indeed, in return for the privileges which were
conceded to them they were required, to a certain extent, to take part
in the civil life of London and to share in the duties of its defence.
One of the duties they were required to discharge was the maintenance of
one of the city gates--that known as Bishopsgate, from the fact that it
had been first erected by Saint Erkenwald, sometime Bishop of London;
and one of the first troubles they had with the city Corporation arose
in consequence of their neglect properly to perform this duty. It is
recorded that in the tenth year of Edward I., who had renewed his
father's charter, that a great controversy arose between the Mayor and
the "Haunce of Almaine" about the reparation of this gate, then likely
to fall, and the matter was brought before the King's Court of
Exchequer. The result was that the German merchants were found to have
neglected their duty, and they were called upon to pay two hundred and
ten marks sterling to the Mayor and citizens, and to undertake that they
and their successors should from time to time repair the gate. The names
of the merchants who at that time were residing in London, and answered
to the court, are given by Stow, and the list is interesting as showing
the different parts of Germany represented at that time. They were,
Gerard Marbod the Alderman, Ralph de Cusarde of Cologne, Bertram of
Hamburg, John de Dele, burgess of Muenster, and Ludero de Denevar, John
of Arras, and John de Hundondale, all three burgesses of Treves; so that
unless the Alderman himself was from Luebeck, the head city of the League
was not represented. An interesting point arises in connection with the
repairs of this gate. London in the thirteenth century was a city of
wood, with only its walls and churches built of stone, and brick as a
building material was almost unknown. But in the great cities of the
Hanse League, in Luebeck, Hamburg, and Bruges, brick was the ordinary
material, and for the Steel-yard merchants it was as easy to bring
bricks from Flanders as stone from Surrey or Kent, and the material
itself was very much cheaper. We know that wherever the agents of the
League settled they seem to have accustomed the people to the use of
brick, and taught them the mysteries of brick-making. This was the case
at Hull, a branch of the London Kontor, where, although in a
stone-producing country, its great church of Holy Trinity, as well as
its walls, were built of brick; and in other branches, such as Yarmouth,
Boston, and Lynn, we find early examples of brick-work. Old engravings
of portions of the Steel-yard buildings show that they were of brick,
and with their Guildhall vied in importance and beauty with the great
brick buildings of Luebeck and Bruges.
During the Lancastrian supremacy the German merchants were under a cloud
in this country, and many of their privileges were withdrawn; and
indeed, for a time, the Steel-yard was closed, whilst the fleets of the
League were actively supporting the Yorkist cause. But with the
accession of Edward IV. all this was changed, and in 1474 they were
reinstated in all their privileges, and embarked on a new era of
prosperity in London.
The close connection of the King with the house of Burgundy interested
him in the fortunes of the League in Flanders. His sister, Margaret of
York, was married to Charles the Bold at Damme, one of the principal
Kontors of the League, at which ceremony he was present; and he
attended, later on, a great Chapter of the Knights of the Golden Fleece
in Bruges, as the stall-plate bearing his arms in the choir of Notre
Dame testifies to this day. He granted the Flemish merchants special
privileges of exemption from taxation--as, for instance, to the makers
of dinanderie at Middleburg by Bruges, that the goods sent from hence to
England should be admitted free.
In 1479 the guild rebuilt Bishopsgate, which had again fallen into bad
repair, and this time we know that it was built of brick, although the
image of the bishop on the side towards the city was carved in stone;
and this date synchronises with that great period of brick building in
England which included the halls of Gifford, Hargraves, Oxburg, and West
Stow, and portions of the college at Eton. The Guildhall of the
Steel-yard seems also to belong to this date, for it was just then the
area of the enclosure was much extended. We have, unfortunately, but
very inadequate accounts of what must have been a very important
structure, although remains of it existed to the middle of the last
century; but we know that its gable was surmounted by the imperial
eagle. The interior, no doubt, was of a magnificence which would bear
comparison with the halls of the League in Flanders and Germany, and we
know that it contained two large paintings by Holbein of the triumphs of
Poverty and Riches, which, later, found their way into the collection of
Henry, Prince of Wales, and were destroyed in the fire at Whitehall.
In two particulars at least the London settlement was less exclusive
than some of those elsewhere. The merchants built no church for their
own private use, but resorted to the adjacent parish church of All
Hallows the More, which stood, until its recent destruction, at the
corner of Thames Street and All Hallows Lane. The original church
perished in the Great Fire, and with it all the monuments which could be
associated with the League; but in the rebuilt church, in the reign of
Queen Anne, was placed by one Jacob Jacobsen, no doubt a descendant of
one of the original Hanse merchants, a very beautiful screen, as a
memorial of the League. The screen is now in St. Margaret's, Lothbury,
and over the gate of it still soars the German eagle, but surmounted by
the arms of England. Although tradition says that the screen was made in
Hamburg, there seems to be but little doubt that its delicate carving is
the work of an English chisel, perhaps one of those which had been
employed at St. Paul's Cathedral.
[Illustration: A FLEMISH GRAY-BEARD FROM THE STEEL-YARD OF LONDON.]
Within the enclosing walls of the Steel-yard on the river's banks was a
fine garden planted with vines and fruit trees open to the citizens and
their wives, who in fine summer weather took their pleasure there and
drank the Rhine wines which the merchants imported from Germany and
vended at the rate of threepence a flask. This wine was brought over in
stone bottles, made principally at Fretchen, near Cologne, which, from a
rough-looking face, intended to represent Charlemagne, placed under the
lip, were commonly called "Flemish Gray-beards." When the Cannon Street
Railway Station, which occupies part of the site of this garden, was
built, many of these in a perfect state of preservation were unearthed;
of one of which we give an illustration.
With the discovery of America, and the increasing activity of English
merchant adventurers, the trade of the Germans declined, and a domestic
revolution in Luebeck, in 1537, destroyed the cohesion of the League,
which gradually became effaced during the struggles of the Thirty Years'
War. In England its charter was first withdrawn in 1552, and, although
its influence slightly revived under Mary in consequence of her Spanish
and Burgundian connections, it was finally expelled by Elizabeth.
Of the great League and its Kontor, in London, there remains, perhaps,
an echo in the expression, "A pound sterling"--a pound of the
Easterlings; but the site of its Steel-yard is now a railway station,
and its only tangible memorials remaining are some empty wine bottles.
THE ARMS OF THE CITY AND SEE OF LONDON
BY J. TAVENOR-PERRY
"Is this a dagger that I see before me?"--_Macbeth._
Argent, a cross gules, in the first quarter a sword in pale,
point upwards, of the last. Crest; a dragon's sinister wing,
argent, charged with a cross, gules. Supporters; on either side
a dragon with wings elevated and addorsed, argent, and charged
on the wing with a cross, gules. Motto: "Domine dirige
nos."--THE CITY.
Gules, two swords in saltire, argent, the hilts in base,
or.--THE SEE.
The origin of the City of London is almost as unknown as that of Rome
itself, and all its earliest history is lost in the misty traditions of
the Middle Ages, and to this may be due the fact that the arms it
blazons on its shield, and the weird supporters it claims to use, have
but little to warrant them but custom and age. Other cities, less
ancient and much less important, can give the full authority for the
armorials which they have assumed, and even the great guilds associated
with the Corporation are able to quote the reign and year--many of them
dating back to the time of Queen Elizabeth--when they received the grant
of arms which they still enjoy. But for the arms of the City of London
itself no authority can be adduced, and in the opinion of many none is
required, "seeing," as an old writer on the subject says, "that of
things armorial the very essence is undefinable antiquity; a sort of
perpetual old age, without record of childhood." That the arms which the
Corporation now use differ from those it first employed is freely
admitted, but comparatively few are aware of the modifications they have
undergone, or of the recentness of the date when they first assumed
their present form; and to those who are interested in the City itself,
or in heraldry generally, a short sketch of the history of the subject
will be welcome.
It was only in the year 1224, the ninth of Henry III., that permission
was granted to the commonalty of London to have a Common Seal; and the
seal which was then made continued in use until 1380, the fourth of
Richard II., when, to quote Stow, "it was by common consent agreed and
ordained that the old seal being very small, old, unapt and uncomely for
the honour of the city, should be broken up, and one other new should be
had." Of this first seal no copy seems to have survived, and we are left
to conjecture what arms, if any, it displayed. From the first, the
simple cross of St. George appears to have been the only bearing adopted
by the citizens for their shield, but they sometimes varied it by an
augmentation in the dexter chief symbolizing their patron saint, St.
Paul, but they appear to have used these two shields quite
indifferently. Thus, when they rebuilt their Guildhall, in 1411, they
carved both of these shields on the bosses of the groined crypt, where
they can be seen to this day, those down the centre aisle having only
the cross of St. George without the sword. On the screen to the chantry
chapel of Bishop Roger de Walden, in the church of St. Bartholomew the
Great, erected in 1386, the arms of London appear as a simple cross, and
a much later example occurred in the windows of Notre Dame at Antwerp.
In the north transept windows of that church were portraits of Henry
VII. and Elizabeth of York, which survived the damage wrought by the
Gueux; and a traveller, one William Smith, who was Rouge Dragon
Pursuivant, in 1597, says he saw with them the arms of many English
towns, including London, which had in the dexter chief a capital L, and
not a sword.
[Illustration: FIG. 1--SIR WILLIAM WALWORTH'S DAGGER, FISHMONGERS' HALL,
MCCCLXXXI.]
In the year 1380, as we have seen, a new seal was made, on which were
the effigies of the Blessed Virgin and SS. Peter and Paul, and in the
base on a shield the arms of the City, a cross with a sword in the
dexter chief, and on either side of it a demi-lion as a supporter. As to
the origin of the sword, there is a very old story, very generally
credited, which only requires retelling to show how inconsistent it is
with historical truth. About the part played by the Lord Mayor, Sir
William Walworth, in slaying Wat Tyler at Smithfield, there need be
little doubt, and at the hall of the Fishmongers' Company is preserved
the veritable dagger with which, it is asserted, the deed was done; and
as the addition was made to the City arms about the time of this
occurrence, popular fancy connected the two events, and ascribed the
advent of the dagger on the shield to its use in Smithfield (fig. 1).
Since, however, the new seal was made in 1380, and Wat Tyler was slain
and Sir William Walworth was knighted a year later, we have to look
elsewhere for the origin of the augmentation.
[Illustration: FIG. 2--SEAL OF RALPH DE STRATFORD, BISHOP OF LONDON,
MCCCXL-MCCCLIV. (_In the British Museum._)]
Until the episcopate of Ralph de Stratford, the seals of the bishops of
London had borne the effigy only of St. Paul, and that bishop's seal was
the first on which the arms of the See of London were placed. An impress
of this seal is preserved in the Stowe collection at the British Museum,
attached to a deed of 1348, which, although in a somewhat broken
condition, clearly shows St. Paul seated in a niche, holding the sword
and a book, and beneath, in the base, the bishop kneeling, having on
the dexter side the arms of the See, and on the sinister side the
bishop's personal arms (fig. 2). The arms of the See show two swords
placed in saltire, but the field, instead of being plain, is frettee,
with a dot placed in the centre of each mesh, and in this particular
only differs from the present shield, and this may be due merely to a
desire for ornament, and not intended to have any heraldic significance.
Although St. Paul, as represented both on the seals of the City and the
See, bore a sword, this seal of Bishop Ralph's was the first which
represented the symbol apart from the saint. No doubt, with this example
before them, the Corporation, when making their new seal in 1380, added
to their arms the symbol of the patron saint of their city.