Thread by @holland_tom

Today, having already walked Roman & Anglo-Saxon London, it is time to move on to the medieval sites in the capital. These, of course, are concentrated within the walls of what had once been the Roman city, but not exclusively so. There is also Westminster, Southwark - & beyond.

Already, by 1066, London was England’s largest, richest & most important urban centre. William the Conqueror, rather than advancing directly on the city after Hastings, made an intimidating march across the s-east before capturing it from the north.

“It is a most spacious city, full of evil inhabitants, and richer than anywhere else in the kingdom. Protected on the left by walls and on the right by the river, it fears neither armies nor capture by guile” – Guy of Amiens (c. 1067) #EvilInhabitants

William secured London by building castles (the White Tower, now the main keep of the Tower of London, & a temporary castle on Ludgate Hill); & by issuing a writ recognising the privileges of Londoners. It is the oldest document in the archives of the City of London.

The Norman Conquest, rather than damage London’s fortunes, consolidated them. By the 1250s, when the earliest surviving depiction of London appeared in Matthew Paris’ History of the English, it was described as “the principal city of England, founded by Brutus & named New Troy.”

Paris’ map shows the principle sites of London: the Tower, London Bridge, the city walls with 6 gates (Ludgate, Neugate, Crupelgate, Bissopesgate, Bilingesgate & Aldgate). Lambeth & Westm (Westminster) are also shown.

By the early 14th C, London’s population had reached c. 80,000 – by English (though not by continental, let alone global) standards a massive total. It was badly hit by the Black Death: perhaps half its population died. Demographic decline, though, did not mean political decline.

By 1500, the foundations for its growth in the early modern period had been well laid. It combined a status as the royal capital with the privileges almost of a city state: deep rooted civic institutions & flourishing trade guilds. “London, thou art the flour of Cities all.”

The imprint of medieval London is everywhere in the City: in its street names, in its guilds, in its churches. True, a lot has been destroyed: by the Reformation, by the Great Fire, by the Luftwaffe, by developers, by the IRA. But that only makes what survives the more precious.

Then there is Westminster, where kings, over the course of the 12th & 13th C's, took up increasingly permanent residence; Lambeth, where the site of the palace was acquired by the archbishopric of Canterbury c 1200; & Southwark, under the authority of the Bishop of Winchester.

Beyond them in turn are the great roads that led out of London, & which were lined with manor houses & abbeys. The most resonant of these, perhaps, is the Kent road, which took Chaucer’s pilgrims to Canterbury, & Henry V back from Agincourt. And so that is what I will take!

“Be gladde, O London! be gladde and make grete joye,
Citee of Citees, of noblesse precellyng,
In thy bygynnynge called Newe Troye;
For worthynesse thanke God of alle thyng.”

Lesnes Abbey, founded in 1178 by Richard de Lucy, Chief Justiciar of England, & a bitter enemy of Thomas Becket. It was evidently in a penitential spirit that he dedicated the abbey to the murdered saint. It was closed by Wolsey in 1525, & sold off by Cromwell 9 years later.

A day yet to go until it’s April, but can report that already, in the allegorical woods that surround the abbey, “smale foweles maken melodye”...

Definitely on the right track...

Shooters Hill – which offered the traveller the first glimpse of London towards the west – is allegedly named after the archers who practised here, & then went to exercise their skills in the 100 Years War. (Or possibly after highwaymen...)

[A hazy Isle of Dogs in the distance]

Blackheath is where Wat Tyler massed his followers during the Peasants Revolt, & John Ball, in a sermon, asked the famous question, “When Adam delved and Eve span, who then was the gentleman?” (He was subsequently hanged here.)

Blackheath is also where Jack Cade, leader of the ‘Poor Commons of Kent’, camped in 1450 at the head of a large army of rebels. He went on to storm London, retreat, be put to flight, get captured, & die of his wounds.

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

“Be gladde, O London! be gladde and make grete joye,
Citee of Citees, of noblesse precellyng,
In thy bygynnynge called Newe Troye;
For worthynesse thanke God of alle thyng.”

John Lydgate speaking for me, 600 years on...

“Lo Depeford,” as Chaucer says, “and it is half-wey pryme.”

[In fact, it’s gone midday...]

'A certain groom of Derteford found murdered on Shitereshell...not known who slew him...the jury of Derteford did nothing.' Kent Assize Rolls, 1227.

Grateful to @j001swatson for pointing out that I am not the first to have travelled from Shooters Hill to Deptford!

Deptford is where, in 1497, 6000 Cornishmen who were protesting against Henry VII’s fondness for taxes were met by a royal army. The 6000 Cornishmen were, of course, wiped out.

The pride of Rotherhithe: theremains of a moated manor house built for Edward III around 1350, & which, because it was open to the Thames on the north side, was accessible by barge. It was probably used as a royal base for practising falconry. The falcons, alas, have long flown.

Bermondsey Square was where Bermondsey Abbey stood until its almost total destruction in the Reformation. Abbey Street was once the nave. 5-7 Grange Walk once formed a side of the abbey gatehouse, & are the only physical traces of the Abbey still standing.

The origins of Bermondsey Abbey reach back at least to 715. It was refounded by Lanfranc as a Cluniac priory in 1089. Katherine, Henry V’s widow, died here, & Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV’s love match & mother of the Princes in the Tower, retired here in 1487.

The appeal of the site to the monks who founded Bermondsey Abbey here was that the Neckinger gave them access to the Thames, & its tides could power water mills. Wherever, in London, there is a lost river, there is almost certainly a lost abbey as well.

The Tower of London. Founded by William I, it was expanded over the course of the Middle Ages to serve as the great stronghold of royal power. Here Charles of Orleans, captured at Agincourt, & kept in the Tower for 25 years, mourns his captivity.

DUKE OF GLOUCESTER: If I may counsel you, some day or two
Your highness shall repose you at the Tower;
Then where you please, and shall be thought most fit
For your best health & recreation.

PRINCE EDWARD: I do not like the Tower, of any place.

In 1235, Henry III was given 3 leopards (or more likely lions) by Frederick II, the tremendously cool Holy Roman Emperor, which he kept in the Tower. In 1252 these were joined by a polar bear, & in 1255 by an elephant. (The bear supposedly haunts the Tower to this day.)

St George’s Church dates to at least the early 12th C, long before Edward III adopted him as a patron saint, making it the oldest church in London to be dedicated to him. Henry V stopped here on his way back from Agincourt.

(Dickens’ Little Dorrit sleeps here too...)

"Bifil that in that seson on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage.”

Beautiful @Southwarkcathed (it has only been a cathedral since 1905) served betwee 1106 & the dissolution of the monasteries as the church of Southwark Priory. Almost destroyed by fire in 1212, it was rebuilt to become the first Gothic church in London.

Excavations in 1999 pulled back the curtain of @Southwarkcathed’s past: on display are the traces of a Roman road (1st century); the foundations of the Norman priory & the wall of a chapter house (12th century); & a 13th century coffin

It is not only Westminster Abbey that has a poets’ corner - so too does @Southwarkcathed. The tomb of John Gower, Richard II’s poet laureate, who wrote with equal facility in Latin, French & English, & above it a stained glass window dedicated to Chaucer.

Behind the scaffolding is the Bishop of Winchester’s palace, a once splendid pile which once featured a tennis court in its gardens, & in 1424 hosted the wedding of James I of Scotland. Next door is the Clink Prison, which, like the palace itself, dates back to the 12th century.

The London Stone, an enigmatic landmark which was believed to have been set up by Brutus the Trojan, or maybe druids, may originally have been Roman, & was first mentioned c. 1100. Jack Cade, capturing London, took symbolic possession of the city by hitting it with his sword.

"The cause why this stone was set there, the time when, or other memory hereof, is none" – John Stow on the London Stone.

And there I am content to leave things...

“Then I hied me into Estchepe.
One cried, “Ribes of befe, and many a pie!”
Pewtar potts they clatteryd on a heape.
Ther was harpe, pipe and sawtry.” (Anonymous, 15th century)

Falstaff hung out here with Prince Hal & the lads.

Now it’s all banks & Prets...

“Like a country church in the world of Seething Lane” – John Betjaman on St Olav’s. Dedicated to the patron saint of Norway, who reputedly made London Bridge fall down, it was built in wood in the 11th century, rebuilt in stone 200 yrs later, & rebuilt again in the 1450s.

St Helen’s Bishopgate was reputedly founded by Constantine the Great, & is dedicated to his mother. St Edmund’s body (again, reputedly) was hidden here to keep it safe from the Danes. In 1204 it became the parish church for a Benedictine nunnery.

“In 1385 the nuns were scolded for the number of little dogs kept by their prioress, for kissing secular persons and for wearing ostentatious veils.” (Did this influence Chaucer in his portrait of the Prioress, I wonder?)

St Ethelburga’s, London’s smallest church, & dedicated to the saintly abbess of Barking, survived the Great Fire, the Blitz, & developers, only to be blown up by the IRA in 1993. It was rebuilt as a Centre for Reconciliation & Peace. There is an annual pilgrimage to Barking Abbey

A stretch of the medieval city wall at the Barbican. Built on Roman foundations, it is topped by the only crenellations to have survived (built in 1477).

And so to @StBartholomews, my favourite church - shortly (in 2 years time) to celebrate its 900th birthday!
spectator.co.uk/article/the-ch…

The array of arches situate the church in the intersection point of the Norman & the Gothic (indeed, @StBartholomews was the first place in London to experiment with the Gothic.)

Where did the Virgin appear to Canon Hubert c. 1180, her only known appearance in London? Probably here - since the Lady Chapel was then added on to the curve of the original wall to commemorate the miraculous event.

(A couple of details I didn’t mention in the accompanying article: the timbered gateway marks the west door into the medieval priory. The font is dates to 1404, & is where Hogarth was baptised.)

A little touch of medieval London for my Scottish followers...

The site of what is now Charterhouse Square was used as a plague pit during the Black Death, which quite possibly halved London’s population. Put your ear to the ground, it is said, & you can hear screaming.

The priory church of the Knights Hospitallers of St John, consecrated in 1185 by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Wat Tyler & co beheaded the prior & burnt the priory down. Rebuilt, it was dissolved in 1540. Henry VIII stored his hunting tents in the church.

(There is a magnificent 12th century crypt inside – but alas it is shut.)

The Fons Clericorum, or Clerks’ Well (hence Clerkenwell). The oldest surviving reference to it dates from 1100. The local clerks preformed mystery plays beside it.

St Etheldreda’s: built in the 1290s to serve the Bishop of Ely, who owned a palace there, as his chapel. After 1772, when the Bishop moved out, the chapel kept changing hands, until in 1874 it was sold to Catholics. It houses the hand of St Etheldreda.

I have never got inside.

Barnard’s Inn dates back at least to the 13th century, & in 1451 become one of the inns of chancery, which handled petitions to the Lord Chancellor. The hall, although fronted with much later brick, is 15th century. Pip lodges here in Gt Expectations with Herbert Pocket.

Clifford’s Inn today is just a street name – but it commemorates another inn of chancery, which was leased in 1345 by the widow of the 6th Baron de Clifford to chancery lawyers. The inn was finally demolished in 1935.

Temple Church, founded by the Knights Templar, modelled (very loosely) on the Dome of the Rock, aka Solomon’s Temple, & boasting a crypt in which secret initiation ceremonies were performed & a cell in which the Grand Preceptor of Ireland was starved to death, is shut.

“The best knight who ever lived” - Stephen Langton

The Savoy Hotel commemorates The Savoy Palace, the fabulously grand townhouse of John of Gaunt: such widespread resentment did it provoke that it was destroyed by rioters in the Peasants' Revolt

The Charing Cross, which stood where Charles I now stands, was the last of the 12 Eleanor Crosses erected by Edward I to mark where the funeral cortege of his wife, Eleanor of Castile, had rested on its way from Nottinghamshire to Westminster Abbey. It was pulled down in 1647.

The reconstruction of the Eleanor Cross that stands in the forecourt of Charing Cross railway station was built 1864-5 by Edward Middleton Barry, architect of the railway station, & could not look more Victorian if it tried.

Westminster Hall (inaccessible, alas) was built as an extension to Edward the Confessor’s palace at Westminster by William II, & is the only part of the original palace to have survived. It was renovated by Edward II & Richard II, & is AMAZING.

St Margaret’s in Westminster, “the last church in London decorated in the Catholic tradition before the Reformation,” was rebuilt between 1486 & 1523, but had originally been founded in the 12th century. Chaucer & Caxton both worshipped here.

Edward the Confessor, Henry III, Edward I, Edward III, Richard II, Henry V, Henry VII - all the lads...

Jewel Tower is, alongside Westminster Hall, the only surviving part of the Palace of Westminster from the Middle Ages. It was built in the 1360s, & used to store the king’s valuables. Originally it had a moat. Sad it doesn’t any longer.

I forgot to mention that Philippa of Hainault, who successfully persuaded her husband, Edward III, to spare the lives of the burghers of Calais, is buried in @wabbey too...

Lambeth Palace. Land here was bought in 1190 by one archbishop, & expanded 7 years later by another archbishop. Wycliffe was examined here; Wat Tyler’s rebels sacked it; Morton – he of the fork – built the gatehouse. @JustinWelby is heir to the legacy of #MedievalLondon...

And so I hie my weary & footsore way to Brixton.

Ye gete namoore of me.

Correction - I FORGOT THE BLACK PRINCE!!!

(Chiefly celebrated, admittedly, not for its link to the victor of the battle of Poitiers, but for Colin Firth doing his “manners make the man” thing in Kingsman.)