The History of Medieval London. Walter Besant
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THE WHITE TOWER
The most important repairs which the wall has lately received are those of the Barons in 1215, who, after entering the City by Aldgate, breaking into the Jews’ houses, pillaging them of their valuables, and taking away all their money, used the stones of their houses for the repair of the gates and the wall. In the year 1257 Henry III. caused the wall to be again repaired and strengthened. In 1282 the south-west corner was shifted west in order to enclose the House of the Dominicans lately removed from their old house in Holborn. This new part of the wall rose along the bank of the Fleet. It was built, but very slowly, by the Corporation. Once more, in 1328, the walls were repaired, and again in 1386, when there was a scare about a French invasion, and the citizens in great haste repaired the wall and the gates and cleared out the ditch. The frequency of the repair seems to indicate bad and slovenly work. In 1477 the wall was strengthened in many places. After this, little or nothing seems to have been done for it.
The whole circuit of the wall is 2 miles and 605 feet. It is provided with battlements on the outside and a ledge or standing-place within, two or three feet wide, for the defenders. There may have been also some kind of rail for protection on the inside; the railing, however, sometimes found on old walls still existing, as at Chester, is modern; and we observe that the walls of York, Aigues Mortes, Avignon, and other places, are without any railing. Outside the wall lies the ditch, broad and deep, first constructed in the early part of the thirteenth century; the water is kept flowing by means of a culvert in the wall which leads it into the old bed of the Walbrook; it is renewed and kept fresh by certain small streams which fall into it from the Moorfields; it is full of fish, but since nothing can keep the people from throwing things into it, the water is always growing more shallow and the ditch always needs more dredging. The White Tower is built upon the original eastern end of the wall. Just north of the Tower on the east side is a postern of late date giving access to the riverside; and it serves as access to two religious houses, but there are no dwelling-houses there. St. Katherine’s by the Tower, one of the religious houses, stands on the bank of the river. It is quite a small foundation, but from the beginning it has been closely connected with the Queens of England. On the north of St. Katherine’s rises the stately Abbey of Grace, Graces, or Eastminster, not one of the most wealthy monasteries, but an important house, provided with very beautiful buildings (see vol. ii. pt. iii. ch. xxvi.). Between the ditch and the monastery is the open space called Little Tower Hill with its Stone Cross.
ST. KATHERINE’S BY THE TOWER
From Dugdale’s Monasticon.
The Town Ditch begins just south of Smithfield at the angle. There is no ditch along the west wall; probably there never was any, the Fleet River serving here for the moat. There is a Bridge over the ditch for the Grey Friars’ Postern, and another outside Aldersgate.
As we walk along the wall northwards, looking over the battlements, we see, running across the broad stretch of level ground, a roadway. It is not in the least like a modern road, or a Roman road; it is simply a wide grassy track broken up by feet of horses and by ruts! the latter are both broad and deep, for wheels are broad and carts are heavy. Trees stand here and there along the road; dotted about the fields are farm buildings, barns, and gardens. Presently, our view across the fields is blocked by the House of the Sorores Minores, the Sisters of St. Clare. You can see the nuns walking in their cloister garth; the buildings lying among their gardens and their orchards look strangely quiet and peaceful. As for the Sisters, they are reputed to be good and pious; the voice of scandal may be making free with the Mendicant Friars, and with the richly endowed monks; but no word or whisper of scandal has ever been uttered as regards these Franciscan Sisters. The farm beside their house, with the meadows, farm buildings, and farm-yard, rich with cows, sheep, swine, and fowls, belongs to the good Sisters, and is cultivated for them. It is one of the most ancient of the market gardens of London.
We arrive at the first of the City gates—Aldgate, otherwise spelt Algate or Alegate; but, according to Prof. Skeat, ald is Med. Eng. for old. It was not one of the Roman gates, because the Romans would not make a gate opening simply to the outside, and there was no Roman road connected with this part of the wall. It is, however, a sufficiently ancient gate. The gate is double, with two portcullises, but the drawbridge has become practically a permanent bridge; beside the gate is a hermitage. Such hermitages near gates and bridges are not uncommon. The hermit lives on the alms of the passers-by and promises his prayers in return. There are sometimes two or three hermits lodged together in one cell; their piety is occasionally doubtful; but concerning the piety of the Aldgate hermit have I heard nothing. It is not known when this gate was first constructed, certainly before the time of Fitz Stephen; probably after the arrival of the Conqueror. We may, if we please, ascribe its opening to Henry I., connecting it with the tradition which used to make his Queen the builder of Bow Bridge. In the neighbourhood of this gate, many years subsequently to the era we are considering, Roman coins were found sixteen feet deep.
Each of the City gates is granted to a Sergeant-at-Arms, who occupies the chambers over the gateway, and whose duty it is to keep watch at night, being assisted by a watchman (wayte) whom he keeps at his own expense. During the day each gate, according to the City regulations, is kept by two men well armed; sometimes the Bedel is directed to summon the men of the Ward to watch the gate armed, those absent finding substitutes at their own expense. This is done as a reminder of their duty. The City Gates, the Gate of London Bridge, and the City Posterns, are let to certain persons from time to time, for the profit, no doubt, arising from the farming of the tolls; Geoffrey Chaucer at this very time has taken a lease of that at Aldgate. The keepers of the City Gates are sworn, among other things, not to allow lepers to pass into the City.
Newgate and Ludgate have been prisons from time immemorial. All the chambers over all the gates are let on the condition that they may be taken over as prisons if they are wanted.
CHAUCER
From the Ellesmere MS.
On the north side, just outside the gate, stands one of the churches dedicated to St. Botolph, the saint who protected travellers. The first church built outside the wall must have been erected when times grew somewhat settled,—it would have been little use building up a church which at any time could be destroyed by marauders. Now as Botolph was a Saxon Saint this church must have been built after the Danes had become Christian, but before the Norman Conquest. In St. Botolph’s honour the old town of Icanhoe changed its name to Botolphstown, or Boston.
Beyond the church are certain inns for the convenience of travellers; among them the “Nuns” Inn. By this way come all the travellers and the waggons out of Essex, the garden of England. In the broad courtyard of the inns stand for safety the covered waggons laden and piled high, to be driven to market in the morning. About a hundred yards beyond the gate stands Aldgate Bar, corresponding to the later turnpike. There are other bars which mark the bounds of the City liberties, but the distance from each gate is not always the same. Temple Bar, for instance, is a long way beyond Ludgate; Aldersgate Bar is near the north end of Aldersgate Street; Bishopsgate Bar is near the Prior’s Almshouse, Norton Folgate. Along the broad grassy track beyond Aldgate Bar stands a small white chapel, that of St. Mary Matfelon, and there are already a few houses, but not many. Beyond Aldgate and before Bishopsgate the wall runs in a northwesterly direction; on the opposite bank of the ditch there are certain small tenements. At this point the ditch is called Houndsditch, because, it is said, “dead dogs are thrown in here.” But dead dogs are thrown into other ditches as well. People do not carry a dead dog to this part of the wall in order to throw it into the ditch, so that this derivation does not ring true. Houndsditch was probably so named from the kennels standing on the north side—“dog-houses” they are called by the people. The breeding of dogs for the hunt is a very important branch of trade; it can only be carried on in the open country outside the wall of the City. A low wall has been erected on the north side of the ditch to prevent the shooting of rubbish into it, but, apparently, without effect. Beyond the wall the broad stretch of fields belongs to the Priory of the Holy Trinity.
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