The history of london

                                       Contents:

 

 

 Introduction........................................................4

 

Chapter 1. Old history of London.......................4

 

1.1. Roman London...............................4

1.2. Dark-age London............................6

1.3. Saxons and Danes...........................6

1.4. London after the Conquest...............8

 

Chapter 2. From the Middle Ages to the Fire….9

 

2.1. London Under the Plantagenet’s.........9

2.2. Tudor and Early Stuart London.......11

2.3. The Great Fire..............................13

 

 Conclusion.........................................................15

            

List of literature................................................16

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       

 

 

 

                         Introduction

 

Until Britain was invaded by Julius Caesar in 55-54 B.C., not much is known of the country. Caesar did not include London in the reports on his British invasions. London’s history began with the formation of a camp, which developed into fortified town. Conjecture and legend have built up a story of the origins of London which will not bear the scrutiny of history or archaeology.

London is first mentioned in history by Tacitus, writing early in the 2d century. Referring to the events of 60A.D, he says that Londinium was „a town of the highest repute and a busy emporium for trade and traders.” London’s Roman name is an adaptation of a Celtic word, but there is no agreement about its meaning.

London’s trade particularly with the Continent, declined with the Anglo-Saxon invasion in the 5^th century. Comparatively few objects of the 5^th and 6^th centuries have been found in London.

Alfred the Great, king of the West Saxons, freed London from the Danes in 886. he restored its ruined defences, and it was never again taken by direct assault by the Scandinavians, who devastated much of the surrounding country for more than a century.

London was a stronghold in the troubled times that followed Athelstan’s reign. This was a factor in the claim of its leading citizens to elect the kings of England. London was now a prosperous trading centre and the largest town in the land. Little archaeological evidence of Anglo-Saxon London has been uncovered, however.

 

 

                  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                       Chapter 1

 

           Old history of London

 

 1.1 Roman London

 

London’s history began with the formation of a camp, which developed into fortified town. It was already a busy port in A. D. 61 when it was put to fire and sword in the terrible vengeance of Boudicca, the legions having gone too far northwestward and left their rear exposed. Boudicca’s rebellion provides the first recorded mention of London. There is none as yet of its walls or buildings. The excavations of 1950 and subsequent years however revealed portions of a substantial early fort covering 11 ac. This occupied an area within the later Wall south of Cripple gate. The fort was protected by a drawbridge; and modern and mediaeval streets within its area corresponded roughly with the pattern of a Roman „grid”. The interest of this discovery-dated by finds and other evidence of the decade A. D. 70-80-is that it was constructed before the wall and while the conquest was still proceeding.

In 1954 an unsuspected Mithraism, or temple of Mithras, believed to have been built about A. D. 150, was discovered in the course of a contractor’s excavations for the foundations of a new building, about 15 ft. below the modern ground level on the west side of Walbrook (the street) but on the east side of the new course of the Waldrook stream or creak as determined by this excavation. The temple measured 60 ft. by 25 ft.; it had a projecting western apse and an entry from the east down steps in part remaining. The building was divided into a nave and aisles by two rows of columns, seven on each side, of which the bases remained. On the chord of the raised apse were two blocks of stone representing altars. The walls, built of squared stones. A timber-lined well was found, suggesting ritual lustration, and other cult objects were a stone holy-water stoup and pats of two massive stone lavers. Among the sculptures discovered on the site, the most important was a head, and later a bust fitting into it, attributed to Mithras or Mithras. Other sculptures may have represented Serapes, the Ptolemaic god-of-all-purposes absorbed into the Mithraism cult, and various Greco-Roman deities and temple attendants. The Mithraism went out of use at some unknown date not much later than the end of the 4^th century. Earlier in that century there had been a rehabilitation of pagan worship under Julian the Apostate; and it was thought that the temple might have been destroyed and its statuary hidden from Christian iconoclasts in the time of Constantine. It was found possible to arrange for its piecemeal removal and re-erection on a nearby site.

Rome rallied against barbarian onsets from the north and across the seas and established the forts of the Saxon Shore, some of which are still standing. But near the end of the 4^th century rebellion became almost continuous; and the year 410, when the emperor Honorius recalled the legions, has been taken as the end of the occupation and thus of intercourse between London and the civilized outer world that had lasted almost four centuries.

 

 

1.2 Dark-age London

 

London is hidden in the mist which settles on the whole island from the severing of the formal link with Rome to the coming of St. Augustine and his Latin monks. Little more can be discerned from the historical record than that London was the chief town of the East Saxons at the beginning of the 7^th century and that its first bishop, Mellitus, built a church in honor of St. Paul on the highest ground within the city.

Modern scholarship will not sustain the claim to a continuous city life; still less will it support the association of mediaeval London institutions with their Roman equivalents. The lord mayor bears a French title, while the sheriffs are Anglo-Saxon; the livery companies have no relation to anything known of Roman London. In fact it was administered by a procurator, responsible directly to the emperor. The wall is the only link during the dark ages between Roman London and Saxon London. Except in the instance already describe of the newly discovered fort near Cripplegate, the Roman street plan cannot be reconciled with the mediaeval network of streets and courts. The line of Watling Street and Bucklersbury may represent a road from the Roman bridgehead to Newgate, deflected from its direct course by St. Pail’s. What is not Holborn and Oxford Street is named Watling Street on a pre-Conquest charter and was evidently recognize as a continuation of the road which emergent at Newgate. But Watling street is a Saxon name; all that can be said of it is that it seems to have been applied to well-made Roman roads still fit to use in Saxon times. These were London’s only highways worth the name until the 18^th century; and even in a derelict London one or two of them may have survived as through routes.

 

 

1.3 Saxons and Danes

 

The conquest of Britain by the Teutonic tribes of whom one, the Angles, utimately gave its name to England, was a major event; its details are few and obscure. Modern historians permit us to accept Hengest and Horsa as real persons and the date of their landing on the Kentish coast 449. But the record in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle comes from a narrative compiled in more than one monastery, often long after the events described.

The conversion of London to Christianity was precarious and premature. King Sebert of the East Saxons, under whom Mellitus had set up his London bishopric, was nephew of King Aethelbert of Kent, „lord over all the English races as far as the bounary of the flood Humber.” On Aethelbert`s death Kent relapsed into heathenism; Ebert died at the same time; his sons refused to accept Christianity and Mellitus was banished. Two other bishops are named; but the stubborn paganism of the Londoners frustrated the attempt to found the first bishopric. Bede, writing in the 8^th century, mentions London as the mart of many people coming by land and sea; but its possession passed to and fro between contending overlords until Ecgbert, king of Wessex, „conquered the kingdom of the Mercians and all that was south of the Humber.”

A new epoch, for England and London, begins with Ecgbert`s grandson Alfred, who came to the thronein the thick of the fighting with the Danes.

A new invasion took place in 884, the Norsemen being supported by the Danes of the Danelagh. Alfred beat them off by land and sea, pushed the frontier backin Essexand occupied London. Bishop Asser, in his contemporary biography, says thatin 886 Alfred „after the burnings of cities and the slaughter of peoples, honourably restored the city of  London and made it habitable,” afterward entrusting it to the care of his son-in-law Aethelred, ealdorman of Mercia. The bishop adds that afterward all the Angels and Saxons  who had been dispersed or were in captivity among the pagans turned of their own accord to submit them-selves to the lordship of the king.

London was thus not yet the capital. It was a strong place and henceforth a rellying place outside the Danelagh. The capital was Winchester. London for the time being was a southeastern outpost of Mercia. The distinction between Mercia and Wessex tended to break down with the relationship of their rulers and their common share in the task of reconquering the England of Ecgbert. The recovery of London implied the political unity of Alfred`s kingdom, if Asser`s record of submission to Alfred may be takenas more than a local affair between London and the Danelagh.

The 10^th century, after Alfred`s death, is in part a steady advance and consolidation of English conquests, in part a renewal of raids by the Norsemen. Remains of an important earthwork can be seen at Witham, Essex, raised soon after 911 as an obstacle to the Danish advance. London help firm, in spite of its siege by Olaf Tryggvessö and Sweyn Forkbeard with 94 ships in 994. An Icelandic saga relates how the long ships, unable to get past the bridge, were at last lashed together and carried forward by the force of the tide to break it down.

London was basieged by Canute in the short reign of Edmund Ironside. Canute cut a channel round the southern end of London bridge and blockaded the town. Edmund Ironside defeated a Danish army at Otford, near Sevenoaks, in Kent, but was afterward overwhelmed in battle in Essex on a site believed to have been Ashingdon. Peace was made on the basis of allotting Wessex to Edmund and the rest of the country to Canute. The men of London, now Canute`s subjects, had to buy peace from the Danish army for a large ransom. Edmund died in Nov. 1016, and the men of Wessex submitted to Canute.

London was becoming a national capital in fact though not in name in the 11^th century. Edward the Confessor was elected there by popular acclamation in 1042 after the failure of the Danish male line. London`s growing importance is shown by meetings there of the witan, the old council, eight times between 934 and 1055 years.

Harold II was elected king in Londonthe day after the death of Edward the Confessor and reigner for nine months. Duke William`s victory was the end of the Anglo-Saxon era.

 

1.4 London after the Conquest

 

Hasting was a decisive battle, but William had not conquered England until he had secures London. All the English leaders were not involved in the defeat at Hastings. William made a circuitous march on the city, burned Southwark and had half encircled London when Archbishop Stigand, leader of the aetheling`s party, when to William at Wallingford and submitted to him. William receved the Wnglishmen`s oath of fealty at Berkhamstead, where London was represented by the city magnates. He was crowned crowned king at Westminster in the midst of a tumult, never repeted in the case of his successors. Six months later, though the whole of England was not yet in his hands, he was able to leave for Normandy. He had not misjudged the importance of London.

William`s charter greeted „all the burgesses within London French and English, friendly,” and promised the observance of the laws of King Edward the Confessor`s day. The charter was addressed to William, bishop and to Gosfrith, portreeve; it recognized, that is, a joint ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction, or rather two jurisdiction side by side. William built the White Tower within, and party upon, the Roman wall. A period of peace and increasing prosperity was interrupted but not brought to an end by a fire which in 1087 destroyed St. Paul`s and large part of the city.

William II (Rufus) strengthened the tower and built the great hall at Westminster. From the reign of Henry I, London assumed the character of a political capital; it obtained from Henry a charter of liberties, and in 1135 the citizens asserted their right to choose a new king on the death of the old. They refused to recognize Henry`s daughter Matilda as queen, obtained the release of Stepher and finally drove her from the kingdom. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                 Chapter 2

 

 From the middle ages to the Fire

 

           2.1 London Under the Plantagenets

 

The story of London between the Angevin monarchs and the Tudors is at the centre of national events. Pretenders to the crown had to secure the support of London, notably in the Wars of the Roses; and its money was required for the wars to conquer France, as under Edward III, Henry V and Henry VI. Its turbulent apprentices gave constant occupation to the city authorities; but they provided a ready-made defense force against an outside enemy.

The revolt under Wat Tyler (q.v.) in 1381, when the red dagger  first appeared on the Corporation arms, and that of John Cade (q.v.) in1450, as later that of Sir Thomas Wyat against Queen Mary I in 1554, marked the relative ease with which rebellion was nipped in the bud during this period if the crown had the citizens` support.

The importance for London of the mediaeval centuries lies however elsewhere: in the assertion of the independence of the mayoralty, in the rise of the guilds and in the growth of the great religious houses. The portreeve is the earliest official known to the dokuments. As mentioned above, he was addressed by name by William the Conqueror. This pre-Norman functionary, who had equivalents in several English as well as French cities, was one of a group of aldermen, who were territorial magnates whose estates gave their names to wards still existing. John Stow describes them as the knightengild. The idea of a commune or self-governing community forming a miniature republic was not English but French, as was the title of maire adooted for its head. London obtained its commune or self-governing corporation from John, acting as regent for his brother Richard I during his absence. On Oct.8, 1191, John acknowledged the right of the citizens to combine in a sworn association, to takean oath to preserve the City and its liberties and to be obedient to in officers. This is taken as the recognition of the citizens as a corporation bound by corporate oath and replacing the looser as sociation of wards, sokes and liberties. It is generally agreed that the mayoralty was established in connection with the granting of the the commune. The precise date is uncertain. Henry FitzAilwia of Londonstone was the first mayor. He is mentioned without that title in Nov. 1191, as well as in later charters; but the oath of the commune in 1193 bound the citizens to accept the decisions of the mayor and others associated with him. The reasonable assumption is that the mayoralty dates from the year before 1192. its authority has never since been in dispute, and from the beginning of the 13^th century the mayoralty is continuous through good and bad times. The dignity is supported by aldermen, and by the livery companies (q.v.), whose power grew up with the growth of trade.

Trade called for a new bridge of stone, and in 1176 Peter of Colechurch began the new London bridge, which lasted until 1832. the Hanseatic merchants were settled on tne banks of the Thames in 1157. Vessels drew up at the little ports of Billingsgate and Queenhithe but also at wharwes on both sides of the river. Close to the southern end of London bridge, St. Mary Overie represented the importance of the ferry. By the 15^th century the Thames side had assumed the picturesque appearance it bore in old prints up to the Great Fire of 1666. great London merchants, such as Richard Whittington and John Pountney, had their homes near the river. The scene was dominated by the great spire of old St. Paul`s with the silhouette of spires and towers below. For though the Reformation destroyed the religious houses the people clung to their parish churches, many of which were rebuilt through the genius of Sir Christopher Wren.

Late mediaeval London cannot be conceived without the great convents and priories which followed the coming of the friars in the 13^th century. Blackfriars is still the name of a district, a bridge and a railway station. Dominican house, in the great hall of which the divorce proceedings of Henry VIII and Queen Catherine were heard. The Greyfriars, or Franciscans, had their church from 1306 on the north side of Newgate, on the site afterward occupied by Christ`s hospital and Christ church. The Whitefriars, or Carmelites, from 1241 were on the south side of Fleet street between Brideweel and the Temple. Their conventual buildings ran down to the Thames with a garden and a millhouse where Tudor street    is now.

 

  

 

 

2.2 Tudor and Early Stuart London

 

The modern hishitory of England begins with the Tudors. The Reformation was the most permanent and is still the most controversial part of Henry VIII`s legacy to the future. This involved the destruction of lovely buildings and venerable institutions. Moreover, his marriages left the succession in dispute long after his death. London was the spectator, or accomplice, in many evil deeds of this perion. Tower hill was the scene of the execution of Queen Anne Boleyn (1536),of Margaret, countess of Salisbury (1541), of Queen Catherine Howard (1542), of Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher (1535)and many others, including subsequently Lady Jane Grey (1554) and Robert Devereux, earl of Essex (1601). „The fires of Smithfield,” chiefly executions of Protestants under Queen Mary, were the counterpart of the scaffold of her father. The victims burned there were altogether 43; a tablet on the wall of St. Bartholomew`s hospital names John Bradford, John Rogers and John Philpot.

The spoils of the church were distributed for the most part to a new aristocracy. The sites of the convents were cut up into little streets and courts; new slums appeared in their place, with a great increase of the danger of fire. In Blackfriars what had been the prior`s garden became the narrow Friar street.

Elizabethan London sprang from such a soil. Controversy was far from dead, and the axe had not yet finished its work; but a new spirit was stirring. About 1586 William Shakespeare came as a young man from Statford to Blackfriars, where his first work, Venus and Adonis, was published in 1593. he was soon to be known as an actor and as a playwright. His career is closely associated with two theatres of which he was at one time joint proprietor-the Globe at Bankside and the Playhouse at Blackfriars. Both were outside the jurisdiction of the corporation of London, which was rigidly puritanical. Playhouse yard, just behindthe Times office, preserves the memory of the entrance to the Blackfriars playhouse; the theatre itself is believed to have been on the site now occupied by a private house. That of the Globe is identified in the London County council Survey of London; it is shown in Wencel Hollar`s bird`s eye view of London as nearly opposite the quay of „Blackfreyars.”

Jacobean London different little from that of Elizabeth. Hollar`s bird`s eye view, jist mentioned, was published in Amsterdam in 1647 but it was derived from sketches made just before the Great Rebellion. It shows many-gabled houses crowded together as in a mediaeval German city, but for the most part covered with tiles. Before war broke out, there had been some rebuilding and a beginning of planning. Inigo Jones erected the first Renaissance building in London in the church of St. Paul, Covent Garden, for James I, to whom is also due the New River company, providing thefirst supply of pure water.

The Great Rebellition left relatively few traces in the City. The centre of the drama was Westminster where Charles I met his parliament, his accusers and his death. The City was a parliamentary island, already with strong puritanical leaning, to be confirmed when Charles went in person in 1642 to Guildhall to demand the surrender of the five members of parliament accused of treason. Thoughout the war a minority at least of the citizens was believed to stand behind the kind; but London had the money, the men and the means of arming them.there was a moment after Edge Hill when swift decision might have changed the course of events. Charles had marched to Brendford but found paparlimentary troops drawn up at Turnham Green. After a reconnaissance he retired to Reading and Oxford. London saw him no more until it flocked to the final scene at Whitehall on the cold morning of Jan. 30, 1649.  

 

 

           2.3 The Great Fire

 

The Great Plague began in St. Giles-in-the-Fields; the districtsthat suffered worst were Stepney, Shoreditch, the Borough and Bishopsgate, Whitechapel and Crippplegate,  Clerkenwell and Aldgate, both sides of the Fleet ditch, both sides of Holborn and the crowded streets around Westminster abbey.

The Great Fire followed before the plague had completely disappeared. Samuel Perys, who had ben to and fro during the plague, describes the beginning of the fire as seen by one of his maids from his house in Seething lane, near the tower, at three o`clock in the morning of September 2, 1666. it had started in Pubding lane near London bridge and seemed then a small affair. It was not arrested until practically the whole area of the city had been burned out; and the flames had spread beyond to the Temple and Holborn.