only the leader among cities but distinct from all others. Laurence
Gomme, in The Governance of London (1907), opposes the
view that the city was for a time left deserted (a view which,
it may be remarked, is a comparatively modern one, probably
originating with Dr Guest). H. C. Coote in his Romans of
Britain elaborated a description of the survival of Roman
influence in English institutions, but his views did not obtain
much support from London historians. Mr Gomme’s contention
is to some extent a modification of Mr Coote’s view,
but it is original in the illustrations that give it force. Londinium
was a Roman city, and (as in the case of all such cities) was
formed on the model of ancient Rome. It may therefore be
expected to retain evidence of the existence of a Pomoerium
and Territorium as at Rome. The Pomoerium marked the
unbuilt space around the walls. Gomme refers to an open
space outside the western wall of Dorchester still called the
Pummery as an indication of the Pomoerium in that place;
and he considers that the name of Mile End, situated 1 m. from
Aldgate and the city walls, marks the extent of the open space
around the walls of London known as the Pomoerium. This
fact throws a curious light upon the growth of the “Liberties.”
It has always been a puzzle that no note exists of the first
institution of these liberties. If this open space was from the
Origin of the Liberties.
earliest times attached to the city there would be no
need when it was built upon for any special act to be
passed for its inclusion in London. “The Territorium
of the city was its special property, and it extended
as far as the limits of the territorium of the nearest Roman
city or as near thereto as the natural boundaries.” This explains
the position of Middlesex in relation to London. In connexion
with these two features of a Roman city supposed to be found
in Ancient London the author argues for the continuity of the
city through the changes of Roman and Saxon dominion.
One of the most striking illustrations of the probable continuity of London history is to be found in the contrast between York and London. This is only alluded to in Gomme’s book, but it is elaborated in an article in the Cornhill Magazine (November 1906). These two were the chief Roman cities in Britain, one in the north and the other in the south. They are both equally good examples of important cities under Roman domination. York was conquered and occupied by the Saxons, and there not only are the results of English settlement clear but all records of Roman government were destroyed. In London the Saxon stood outside the government for centuries, and the acceptance of the Roman survival explains much that is otherwise unintelligible.
Gomme finds important evidence of the independence of
London in the existence of a merchant law which was opposed
to Anglo-Saxon law. He reprints and discusses the
celebrated Judicia Civitatis Lundoniae of King Æthelstan’s
Independence
of London.
reign—“the ordinance” (as it declares itself)
“which the bishop and the reeves belonging to London
have ordained.” He holds that the Londoners passed “their
own laws by their own citizens without reference to the king
at all,” and in the present case of a king who according to Kemble
“had carried the influence of the crown to an extent unexampled
in any of his predecessors.” He adds: “What happened
afterwards was evidently this: that the code passed by the
Londoners was sent to the king for him to extend its application
throughout the kingdom, and this is done by the eleventh
section.” The view originated by Gomme certainly explains
many difficulties in the history of the transition from Roman
to English London, which have hitherto been overlooked by
historians.
When the city is next referred to in the Saxon Chronicle it appears to have been inhabited by a population of heathens. Under the date 604 we read: “This year Augustine consecrated two bishops: Mellitus and Justus. He Arrival of Christianity. sent Mellitus to preach baptism to the East Saxons, whose king was called Sebert, son of Ricole the sister of Æthelbert, and whom Æthelbert had then appointed king. And Æthelbert gave Mellitus a bishop’s see in Lundenevic 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 relapsed into heathenism. In this, the earliest period of Saxon history recorded, there appears to be no relic of the Christianity of the Britons, which at one time was well in evidence. What became of the cathedral which we may suppose to have existed in London during the later Roman period we cannot tell, but we may guess that it was destroyed by the heathen Saxons. Bede records that the church of St Paul was built by Æthelbert, and from that time to this a cathedral dedicated to St Paul has stood upon the hill looking down on Ludgate.
After the driving out of Mellitus London 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 and held the see till his death on the 26th of October 664. He was succeeded by Wini, bishop of Winchester, and then came Earconuald (or St Erkenwald), whose shrine was one of the chief glories of old St Paul’s. He died on the 30th of April 693, a day which was kept in memory in his cathedral for centuries by special offices. The list of bishops from Cedda to William (who is addressed in the Conqueror’s Charter) is long, and each bishop apparently held a position of great importance in the government of the city.
In the 7th 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 Danish Invasions. free-trading town; neutral to a certain extent between the kingdoms around, although the most powerful of the kings conquered their feebler neighbours. During the 8th 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 as Danes began to harry the coasts. The Saxons had become law-abiding, and the fierce Danes treated them in the same way as in former days they had treated the Britons. In 871 the chronicler affirms that Alfred fought nine great battles against the Danes in the kingdom south of the Thames, and that the West Saxons made peace with them. In the next year the Danes went from Reading to London, and there took up their winter quarters. Then the Mercians made peace with them. In 886 Alfred overcame the Danes, restored London to its inhabitants, rebuilt its walls, reannexed the city to Mercia, and committed it to Ethelred, alderman of Mercia. Then, as the chronicler writes, “all the Angle race turned to him (Alfred) that were not in bondage of the Danish men.” In 896 the Londoners came off victorious in their encounters with the Danes. The king obstructed the river so that the enemy could not bring up their ships, and they therefore abandoned them. The Londoners broke up some, and brought the strongest and best to London. In 912 Æthelred, the alderman of the Mercians, who had been placed in authority by Alfred, died, and Edward the Elder took possession of London and Oxford, “and all the lands which thereto belonged.”
Under Æthelstan we find the city increasing in importance and general prosperity. There were then eight mints at work, a fact which exhibits evidence of great activity and the need of coin for the purposes of trade. The folk-moot met in the precincts of St Paul’s at the sound of the bell of the famous bell-tower, 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 (A.D. 937) the Danes ceased to trouble the country. Fire, however, was almost as great an enemy to London as the Dane. Fabyan when recording the entire destruction of London by fire in the reign of Æthelred (981) makes this remarkable statement—“Ye shall understand that this daye the cytie of London had more housynge and buyldinge
