London. Walter Besant
Welsh. I do not mean the miserable survivors of Augustan London, found in the place when it was first entered, but those Britons who had taken refuge in the forests of Surrey, Sussex, and Middlesex, and there lived as they could, until they could safely venture forth among their conquerors. Gildas, as we have seen, speaks of these people; and their skulls remain in the Saxon cemeteries to prove how great a Celtic element survived among the English conquerors. Next, there were the foreign merchants. This class formed a considerable proportion of the better class; and it grew larger every day, because the East Saxon was certainly not so sharp in affairs as the "man of Rouen;" nor was he in business capacity equal to the Fleming and the German. But as happens, mutatis mutandis, at the present day, those who were Flemings and the men of Rouen, speaking their own language, under Ethelred, had all become Londoners, speaking the English tongue, under Henry Beauclerk.
It was, indeed, a complete revolution in his manners and customs for the East Saxon when he exchanged his village community for a walled town. Consider: at first he lived retired in the country, farming and cattle-breeding, banded with other families for safety; he kept up the customs of his fatherland, he carried on no trade, he suffered the old towns to fall into ruin; his kinglet had no capital, but roamed about from place to place, administering justice in the royal wagon; he enjoyed a ferocious and blood-thirsty religion suiting his savage disposition; he knew only the simplest arts; he could till the ground, grind his corn, brew beer and mead, and work a little in metals; his women could spin; he knew no letters; he looked for nothing better than ever-recurring war, with intervals of peace and feasting; to die on a battle-field was an enviable lot, because it carried him away to everlasting happiness. Look at the same man four hundred years later. He is now a Christian; he is, in a way, a scholar; he is an architect, an artist, an illuminator, a musician, a law-maker, a diplomatist, an artificer, a caster of bells, a worker in gold and silver; he carries on fisheries; he is a merchant; he builds ships; he founds trade-guilds – he is as far removed from the fierce warrior who leaped ashore at Thanet as the Romano-Briton whom he conquered was removed from the naked savage who opposed the arms of Cæsar.
The difference is chiefly due to his conversion. This has brought him under the influence of Rome Ecclesiastic. It has educated him, turned him into a townsman, and made growth possible for him. No growth is possible for any race until it first accepts the creed of civilization.
London was converted in A.D. 604. This was a hasty and incomplete conversion, executed to order; for the citizens speedily relapsed. Then they were again converted, and in sober earnest put away their old gods, keeping only a few of the more favorite superstitions; some of these remain still with us. They were so thoroughly converted that the city of London become a veritable mother of saints. There was the venerable Erkenwald, saint and bishop, he who built Bishopsgate on the site of the old Roman gate. There was St. Ethelburga, the wife of Sebert, the first Christian king; her church still stands, though not the earliest building, close beside the site of the old gate. There was St. Osyth, queen and martyr, the mother of King Offa; her name also survives in Size, or St. Osyth's, Lane, but the Church of St. Osyth was rededicated to St. Ben'et Sherehog (Benedict Skin-the-Pig); you may see the little old church-yard still, black and grimy, surrounded on three sides by tall houses. English piety loved to dedicate churches to English saints – more likely these than Italian or French – to look after the national interests. Thus there were in London churches dedicated to St. Dunstan, St. Swithin, St. Botolph (whose affection for the citizens was so well known that it was recognized by four churches), St. Edmund the Martyr, and, later on, when the Danes got their turn, churches to St. Olaf and St. Magnus.
The Englishman, thus converted, was received into the company of civilized nations. Scholars came across the Channel to teach him Latin, monks came to teach him the life of self-sacrifice, obedience, submission, and abstinence. The monastery reared its humble walls everywhere; the first foundation of the first bishop of London was a monastery. In times of war between the kinglets – when were there no wars? – the monasteries, after the whole country had been converted, were spared. Therefore the people settled around them, and enjoyed their protection. The monastery towns grew rapidly and prospered. New arts were introduced and taught by the monks, new ideas sprang up among the people, new wants were created. Moreover, intercourse began with other nations – the ecclesiastic who journeyed to Rome took with him a goodly troop of priests, monks, and laymen; they saw strange lands and observed strange customs. Some of them learned foreign languages, and even made friendships with the men who spoke them, discovering that a man who speaks another tongue is not necessarily an enemy. The Englishman was changed; yet he remained still, as he always does, whether he creates a new empire in America, or one in Australia, always an Englishman.
Meantime the kinglets made war with each other, and London became a prize for each in turn. It passed from the East Saxon to the Northumbrian, to the Mercian, to the West Saxon, as the hegemony passed from one to the other. Each kinglet learned more and more to recognize its importance and its value. One of the oldest civic documents extant is a grant of King Ethelbald to the Bishop of Rochester. He gives him the right of passing one ship of his own, or of another's, free of toll into the port of London. The toll of incoming and outgoing vessels formed, therefore, part of the royal revenue.
The history of London between A.D. 600 and the Norman Conquest is the history of England. How the City fell into the hands of the Danes, how it was finally secured by Alfred, how the Danes again obtained the City without fighting, and how the Norman was received in peace, belong to history. All this time London was steadily growing. Whatever king sat on the throne, her trade increased, and her wealth.
The buildings, till long after the Norman Conquest, were small and mean: the better houses were timber frames, with shutters or lattices, but no glass for the windows; the poorer houses were of wattle and daub. The churches were numerous and small. Some of them were still of wood, though a few were built of stone, with the simple circular arch. The first church of St. Paul's was destroyed by fire, a fate which awaited the second and the third. By the time of Edward the Confessor the second church was completed; but of this church we have no record whatever. The Saxon period, as concerns London, is the darkest of any. You may see at the Guildhall nearly everything that remains of Roman London. But there is nothing, absolutely not one single stone, to illustrate Saxon London. The city which grew up over the deserted Augusta and flourished for four hundred years has entirely disappeared. Nothing is left of it at all. The chief destroyer of Saxon London was the great fire of 1135, which swept London from end to end as effectually as that of 1666. Had it not been for these two fires, we should very likely have still standing one or two of the sturdy little Saxon churches of which the country yet affords one surviving example. Yet London is not alone in having no monuments of this period. If we take any other town, what remains in it of the years A.D. 600-1000? What is left in Rome to mark the reigns of the eighty Popes who fill that period? What in Paris to illustrate the rule of the Carlovingians? Fire and the piety of successive generations have destroyed all the buildings.
For outside show the city of Edward the Confessor and that of the second Henry were very nearly the same, and so may be treated together. The churches burned down in 1135 were rebuilt in stone, but the houses presented much the same appearance. Now, everybody who speaks of Norman London must needs speak of William Fitz Stephen. He is our only authority; all that we can do is to make commentaries and guesses based on the text of Fitz Stephen.
He was a clerk in the service of Thomas à Becket; he was present at the archbishop's murder; he wrote a Life of the saint, to which he prefixed, by happy inspiration, a brief eulogy of the City of London. It is far too brief, but it contains facts of the most priceless importance. London, we learn, possessed, besides its great cathedral, thirteen large conventual churches and one hundred and twenty-six parish churches. The White Tower was already built on the east side; the walls of the City, now kept in good repair, encircled it on all sides except the river; here the wall which had formerly defended the river front had been taken down to make way for warehouses and quays; the Royal Palace stood without the City, but connected with it by a populous suburb. Those who lived "in the suburbs" – that is, about Chancery Lane and Holborn – had spacious and beautiful gardens; there were also on this side pasture and meadow lands, with streams and water-mills; beyond the pastures was a great forest filled with wild creatures; many springs of water rose on the north side. The City was so populous that of those who went out to a muster, 20,000 were chosen