city.” In this same year (1087) William the Conqueror died. In 1090 a tremendous hurricane passed over London, and blew down six hundred houses and many churches. The Tower was injured, and a portion of the roof of the church of St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, was carried off and fell some distance away, being forced into the ground as much as 20 ft., a proof of the badness of the thoroughfares as well as of the force of the wind. William Rufus inherited from his father a love for building, and in the year 1097 he exacted large sums of money from his subjects with the object of carrying on some of the undertakings he had in hand. These were the walling round of the Tower and the rebuilding of London Bridge, which had been almost destroyed by a flood. In 1100 Rufus was slain, and Henry I. was crowned in London. This king granted the citizens their first real charter, but this was constantly violated. When Stephen seized the crown on the death of Henry I., he tried successfully to obtain the support of the people of London. He published a charter confirming in general terms the one granted by Henry, and commanding that the good laws of Edward the Confessor should be observed. The citizens, however, did not obtain their rights without paying for them, and in 1139 they paid Stephen one hundred marks of silver to enable them to choose their own sheriffs. In this reign the all-powerfulness of the Londoners is brought prominently forward. Stephen became by the shifting fortune of war a prisoner, and the empress Matilda might, if she had had the wisdom to favour the citizens, have held the throne, which was hers by right of birth. She, however, made them her enemies by delivering up the office of justiciary of London and the sheriffwick to her partisan Geoffrey, earl of Essex, and attempting to reduce the citizens to the enslaved condition of the rest of the country. This made her influential enemies, who soon afterwards replaced Stephen upon the throne. The Norman era closes with the death of Stephen in 1154.
One of the most striking changes in the appearance of Norman London was caused by the rebuilding of old churches and the building of new ones, and also by the foundation of the great monastic establishments. The early history Early parishes. of the parishes of London is one of great difficulty and complexity. Although some of the parishes must be of great antiquity, we have little authentic information respecting them before the Conquest. The dedications of many of the churches indicate their great age, but the constant fires in London destroyed these buildings. The original churches appear to have been very small, as may be judged from their number. It is not easy, however, to understand how it was that when the first parishes were formed so small an area was attached to each. The parish church of which we have the most authentic notice before the Conquest is St Helen’s, Bishopsgate. It was in existence many years before the priory of the nuns of St Helen’s was founded. Bishop Stubbs in his Introduction to the Historical Works of Ralph de Diceto writes: “St Paul’s stood at the head of the religious life of London, and by its side, at some considerable interval, however, St Martin’s le Grand (1056), St Bartholomew’s, Smithfield (1123) and the great and ancient foundation of Trinity, Aldgate” (1108). The great Benedictine Religious foundations. monastery of Black Monks was situated away from the city at Westminster, and it was the only monastic house subject to the rule of St Benedict in the neighbourhood of London, although the houses of nuns, of which there were many dotted over the suburbs of London, were governed by this rule. In course of time there was a widespread desire in Europe for a stricter rule among the monks, and reforms of the Benedictine rule were instituted at Cluni (910), Chartreuse (about 1080) and Citeaux (1098). All these reforms were represented in London.
Cluniac Order.—This order was first brought to England by William, earl of Warren (son-in-law of William the Conqueror), who built the first house at Lewes in Sussex about 1077. The priory of Bermondsey in Surrey was founded by Aylwin Child, citizen of London about 1082.
Carthusians.—When this order was brought to England in 1178 the first house was founded at Witham in Somersetshire. In all there were nine houses of the order in England. One of these was the Charterhouse of London which was not founded until 1371 by Sir Walter Manny, K.G.
Cistercians.—It was usual to plant these monasteries in solitary and uncultivated places, and no other house, even of their own order, was allowed to build within a certain distance of the original establishment. This makes it surprising to learn that there were two separate houses of this order in the near neighbourhood of London. A branch of the order came to England about 1128 and the first house was founded at Waverley in Surrey. Very shortly after (about 1134) the abbey of Stratford Langthorne in Essex was founded by William de Montfichet, who endowed it with all his lordship in West Ham. It was not until two centuries afterwards that the second Cistercian house in the immediate neighbourhood of London was founded. This was the Abbey of St Mary Graces, East-Minster or New Abbey without the walls of London, beyond Tower Hill, which Edward III. instituted in 1350 after a severe scourge of plague (the so-called Black Death).
The two great Military Orders—the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem and the Templars—followed the Augustinian rule and were both settled in London. The Hospital or Priory of St John was founded in 1100 by Jordan Briset and his wife Muriel, outside the northern wall of London, and the original village of Clerkenwell grew up around the buildings of the knights. A few years after this the Brethren of the Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem or Knights of the Temple came into being at the Holy City, and they settled first on the south side of Holborn near Southampton Row. They removed to Fleet Street or the New Temple in 1184. On the suppression of the order by command of the pope the house in Fleet Street was given in 1313 by Edward II. to Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, at whose death in 1324 the property passed to the knights of St John, who leased the new Temple to the lawyers, still the occupants of the district.
The queen of Henry I. (Matilda or Maud) was one of the chief founders of religious houses, and so great was the number of monasteries built in this king’s reign that it was said almost all the labourers became bricklayers and carpenters and there was much discontent in consequence.
4. Plantagenet (1154–1485).—Henry II. appears to have been to a certain extent prejudiced against the citizens of London on account of their attitude towards his mother, and he treated them with some severity. In 1176 the Fitzstephen’s description of London. rebuilding of London Bridge with stone was begun by Peter of Colechurch. This was the bridge which was pulled down early in the 19th century. It consisted of twenty stone arches and a drawbridge. There was a gatehouse at each end and a chapel or crypt in the centre, dedicated to St Thomas of Canterbury, in which Peter of Colechurch was buried in 1205. The large amount of building at this time proves that the citizens were wealthy. Fitzstephen, the monk of Canterbury, has left us the first picture of London. He speaks of its wealth, commerce, grandeur and magnificence—of the mildness of the climate, the beauty of the gardens, the sweet, clear and salubrious springs, the flowing streams, and the pleasant clack of the watermills. Even the vast forest of Middlesex, with its densely wooded thickets, its coverts of game, stags, fallow deer, boars and wild bulls is pressed into the description to give a contrast which shall enhance the beauty of the city itself. Fitzstephen tells how, when the great marsh that washed the walls of the city on the north (Moorfields) was frozen over, the young men went out to slide and skate and sport on the ice. Skates made of bones have been dug up in this district. This sport was allowed to fall into disuse, and was not again prevalent until it was introduced from Holland after the Restoration.
In spite of Fitzstephen’s glowing description we must remember that the houses of London were wholly built of wood and thatched with straw or reeds. These houses were specially liable to be destroyed by fire, and in order to save the city from this imminent danger the famous Assize of Building known as “Fitz-Ailwyne’s Assize” was drawn up in 1189. In this document the following statement was made: “Many citizens, to avoid such danger, built according to their means, on their ground, a stone house covered and protected by thick tiles against the fury of fire, whereby it often happened that when a fire arose in the city and burnt many edifices and had reached such a house, not being able to injure it, it then became extinguished, so that many neighbours’ houses were wholly saved from fire by that house.”
Various privileges were conceded to those who built in stone, but no provision was made as to the material to be used in
