The Story of London. Henry B. Wheatley
two bishops; Mellitus and Justus. He sent Mellitus to preach baptism to the East Saxons, whose King was called Sebert, son of Ricole, the sister of Ethelbert, and whom Ethelbert had then appointed King. And Ethelbert gave Mellitus a bishop’s See in Lundenwic, and to Justus he gave Rochester, which is twenty-four miles from Canterbury.’
The Christianity of the Londoners was of an unsatisfactory character, for after the death of Sebert, his sons, who were heathens, stirred up the multitude to drive out their bishop. Mellitus became Archbishop of Canterbury, and London again relapsed into heathenism. In this, the earliest period of Saxon London recorded for us, there appears to be no relic left of the Christianity of the Britons which at one time was well in evidence. Godwin recorded a list of sixteen ecclesiastics, styled by him Archbishops of London, and Le Neve adopted the list in his Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, on the authority of Godwin.
The list begins with Theanus during the reign of Lucius, King of the Britons in the latter half of the second century. The second is Eluanus, who was said to have been sent on an embassy to Eleutherius, Pope from A.D. 171 to 185. The twelfth on the list is Restitutus, whose name is found on the list of prelates present at the Council of Arles in the year 314.
Perhaps the answer to the question as to the extinction of British Christianity in London is to be found in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s statement that when the Saxons drove the British fugitives into Wales and Cornwall, Theon, the sixteenth and last on this list of British bishops, fled into Wales with the Archbishop of Caerleon, the Bishop Thadiac of York, and their surviving clergy. The traditional date of this flight is A.D. 586, not many years before the appearance of Mellitus. Geoffrey of Monmouth is not a very trustworthy authority, but there is no reason to doubt his belief in his own story, and it is interesting to note that he specially mentions Theonus. At all events, we know from other sources that there were Bishops of London during the Roman period.
The bold statement that King Lucius founded the Church of St. Peter, Cornhill, can scarcely be said to find any credence among historians of the present day, but a reference to the doings of this ancient King will be found imbedded in the Statute Book of St. Paul’s Cathedral:—‘In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one hundred and eighty-five, at the request of Lucius, the King of Greater Britain, which is now called England, there were sent from Eleutherius the Pope to the aforesaid King two illustrious doctors, Fagnus and Dumanus, who should incline the heart of the King and of his subject people to the unity of the Christian faith, and should consecrate to the honour of the one true and supreme God the temples which had been dedicated to various and false deities.’[4]
To return from the wild statements of tradition to the facts of sober history, we find that London, after the driving out of Mellitus, remained without a bishop until the year 656, when Cedda, brother of St. Chad of Lichfield, was invited to London by Sigebert who had been converted to Christianity by Finan, Bishop of the Northumbrians. Cedda was consecrated Bishop of the East Saxons by Finan about 656, and held the See till his death on the 26th October 664. The list of bishops from Cedda to William, who is addressed in the Conqueror’s Charter, is a long one, and each of these bishops apparently held a position of great importance in the government of the city.
In the seventh century the city seems to have settled down into a prosperous place and to have been peopled by merchants of many nationalities. We learn that at this time it was the great mart of slaves. It was in the fullest sense a free trading town; neutral to a certain extent between the kingdoms around, although the most powerful of the Kings successively obtained some authority over it, when they conquered their feebler neighbours.[5] As to this there is still more to be said. During the eighth century, when a more settled condition of life became possible, the trade and commerce of London increased in volume and prosperity. A change, however, came about towards the end of the century, when the Scandinavian freebooters, known to us as Danes, began to harry our coasts. The Saxons had become law-abiding, and the fierce Danes treated them in the same way that in former days they had treated the Britons. Freeman divided the Danish invasions into three periods:—
1. 787–855. A period when the object was simply plunder.
2. 902–954. Attempts made at settlement.
3. 980–1016. During this period the history of England was one record of struggle with the power of Denmark till Cnut became undisputed King of England.[6]
We still have much to learn as to the movements of the Danes in this country, and when the old charters are more thoroughly investigated we shall gain a great accession of light. Thus we learn from an Anglo-Saxon charter, printed in De Gray Birch’s Cartularium Saxonicum (Nos. 533, 534), that in the year 872 a great tribute was paid to the Danes which is not mentioned in the Chronicle. London was specially at the mercy of the fierce sailors of the North, and the times when the city was in their hands are almost too numerous for record here.
Even when Alfred concluded with Guthrun in 878 the Treaty of Wedmore, as it is still commonly called,[7] and by which the country was divided between the English and the Danes, London suffered much.
With the reign of Alfred we come to the consideration of a very difficult question in the history of London. It has been claimed for this King that he rebuilt London. Mr. Loftie expresses this view in the very strongest terms. He writes:—
‘So important, however, is this settlement, so completely must it be regarded as the ultimate fact in any continuous narrative relating to the history of London, that it would be hardly wrong to commence with some such sentence as this; “London was founded exactly a thousand years ago by King Alfred, who chose for the site of his city a place formerly fortified by the Romans, but desolated successively by the Saxons and the Danes.” ’
There is certainly no evidence for so sweeping a statement. Nothing in the Chronicle can be construed to contain so wide a meaning. The passage upon which this mighty superstructure has been formed is merely this:—
’886. In the same year King Alfred restored (gesette) London, and all the Angle race turned to him that were not in the bondage of the Danish men, and he then committed the burgh to the keeping of the Alderman Æthered.’
The great difficulty in this passage is the word gesette, which probably means occupied, but may mean much more, as founded or settled. Some authorities have therefore changed the word to besaet, besieged.
Professor Earle proposed the following solution of the problem, which seems highly probable. London was a flourishing, populous and opulent city, the chief emporium of commerce in the island, and the residence of foreign merchants. Properly it had become an Angle city, the chief city of the Anglian nation of Mercia, but the Danes had settled there in great numbers, and they had many captives whom they had taken in the late wars. Thus the Danes preponderated over the free Angles, and the latter were glad to see Alfred come and restore the balance in their favour. It was of the greatest importance for Alfred to secure this city, not only the capital of Mercia, but able to do what Mercia had not done, to bar the passage of pirate ships to the Upper Thames. Accordingly, Alfred in 886 planted the garrison of London, i.e., introduced a military colony of men, and gave them land for their maintenance, in return for which they lived in and about a fortified position under a commanding officer. Professor Earle would not have Lundenburh taken as merely an equivalent to London. Alfred therefore founded not London itself but the burh of London.[8]
Under Athelstan we find the city increasing in importance and general prosperity. There were then eight mints at work, which shows great activity and the need of coin for the purposes of trade. The folkmoot met in the precincts of St. Paul’s at the sound of the bell, which also rang out when the armed levy was required to march under St. Paul’s banner. For some years after the decisive Battle of Brunanburh (937) the Danes ceased to trouble the country. But one may affirm that fire was almost as great an enemy as the Dane. Fabyan, when recording the entire destruction of London by fire in the reign of Ethelred (981), makes this remarkable statement: ‘Ye shall understande that this daye the cytie of London had most housynge and buyldinge from Ludgate toward Westmynstre, and lytell or none wher the chief or hart of the citie is now, except [that] in dyvers places were housyng, but they stod without order.’[9]
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