“ Leaping, dancing, shooting, wrestling, casting the stone, and practising their shields were the favourite amusements of the London youths, while the maidens tripped to the sound of their timbrels, and danced as long as they could well see. In winter, boars were set to fight, bulls and bears were baited, and cock-fighting was the recognised amusement of schoolboys.
When the frost covered the great fen on the north side of the city with ice, good Fitzstephen delighted to watch "the young men play upon the ice; some, striding as wide as they may, do slide swiftly ”

“ Our first facts are meagre enough. We have three words; no more. They are Lon, don, and Thames. We are like the Oriental lady in the legend of St. Thomas of Canterbury. She knew but two words of English—Gilbert and London. We know three words, and, keeping them in our minds, wander down the Thames till we find the place to which we can fit the other two words. ”

“ It has been well and wisely said that "the history of its castles is an epitome of the history of a country," but the metropolis may proudly boast that it still possesses one castle whose history alone forms no bad compendium of the history of England, in the great fortress so familiarly known by the somewhat misleading appellation of "The Tower of London," of which the name of one portion (the keep) has gradually come into use as a synonym for the whole. Of the various fortress-palaces of Europe, not one can lay claim to so long or so interesting a history. ”

“ Hall after hall, replete with costly treasures bequeathed by departed brethren of the guilds, with all their archives and documents, perished in that hideous holocaust. All the wealth that rapacious kings and the troubles of the Civil War had spared was engulfed in that awful catastrophe. Again and again, when we try to read the history of a company, we meet with the distressing intelligence that all its records were destroyed in the Great Fire. Very few escaped. The leather-sellers, pinners, and ironmongers were happily without the range of the conflagration. ”

“ The basement of the Guildhall consists of two crypts, which extend beneath the full length of the hall above. The eastern crypt is entirely vaulted and divided into three aisles by two rows of clustered columns of Purbeck marble, the intersections of the vaulting being covered with a most curious series of carved bosses representing flowers, heads, and shields. This crypt, which, fortunately, escaped the Great Fire, is the finest and most extensive undercroft remaining in London, and for excellence of design and sound preservation may be considered a unique example of its kind. ”

“ The whole machine is drawn by nine white Flanders horses, each horse ridden by some emblematical personage—such as Victory, Fame, Loyalty, Europe attended by Peace and Plenty, Africa, Asia and America. The foot attendants are numerous—eight grooms, forty Roman lictors in crimson garb, twenty servants to clear the way, and twenty "savages" or green men throwing squibs and fireworks to keep off the crowd, and a crowd of workmen ready to repair any part of the cumbersome chariot which might, as was not unlikely, get out of order during its progress through the city. ”

“ London was thronged with warriors of every clime and language. Smithfield was surrounded with temporary chambers and pavilions, constructed for the accommodation of the King and the princes, the Queen and the maidens of her court; and when the solemnity was about to commence, sixty horses, richly accoutred, were led to the lists by squires, accompanied by heralds and minstrels; after which, sixty ladies followed on palfreys, each lady leading an armed knight by a chain of silver. ”

“ All that can be attempted is to give one or two glimpses of mediæval life in London from points of view which may possibly be novel, or, at any rate, worthy of the consideration of those who desire to study the past in its human interests, and as something more than mere bricks and mortar. ”

“ In these days of change, which have obliterated most of the old landmarks of the city, when the County Council has almost transformed London, and high warehouses and glaring shops have replaced the old picturesque buildings of our forefathers, it is refreshing to find some institutions which have preserved through the ages their ancient customs and usages, and retain their ancient homes and treasures. ”

“ In the year of grace one thousand nine hundred and nine the citizens of London are celebrating their Pageant, a mighty spectacle representing some of the stately scenes of splendour and magnificence which London streets have witnessed from the days of Alfred to the nineteenth century. ”

“ London in the thirteenth century was a city of wood, with only its walls and churches built of stone, and brick as a building material was almost unknown. But in the great cities of the Hanse League, in Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bruges, brick was the ordinary material, and for the Steel-yard merchants it was as easy to bring bricks from{229} Flanders as stone from Surrey or Kent, and the material itself was very much cheaper. We know that wherever the agents of the League settled they seem to have accustomed the people to the use of brick, and taught them the mysteries of brick-making. ”

“ But though we must accept the existence of a London in the old obscure period when something very like modern Welsh was the language of the south-eastern part of Britain, and though we know that London was situated on a river which also had a Welsh name, we do not know directly on which side of that river it stood, and have nothing for it but to apply to the problem what a great authority has described as an historical imagination, and try if we can find a sufficient number of geographical or topographical facts to reduce the problematic side of the questions involved ”

“ Other cities, less ancient and much less important, can give the full authority for the armorials which they have assumed, and even the great guilds associated with the Corporation are able to quote the reign and year—many of them dating back to the time of Queen Elizabeth—when they received the grant of arms which they still enjoy. But for the arms of the City of London itself no authority can be adduced, and in the opinion of many none is required, "seeing," as an old writer on the subject says, "that of things armorial the very essence is undefinable antiquity ”

“ And this city gradually became not only the market for the goods which the sea-rovers gathered from sacked cities and ruined monasteries, but also the emporium of the merchandise of the East, which reached the Baltic from Byzantium by the Euxine and the Dnieper. It was in this Viking market town that the first German merchants established among themselves that association which eventually grew to be the most important trading community of the Middle Ages. ”

“ On that occasion it was fitted up as a baronial hall, the valuable plate lent by the City Companies being displayed upon an oak{181} sideboard. Around each of the columns stood men clad in armour brought from the Tower of London, each holding a torch of gas for lighting the crypt. A charming feature of the decoration was the treatment of the passage in the western crypt—this was filled with trees and flowers of various kinds, and hundreds of singing birds were let free, thus giving the appearance of a forest glade in summer-time. ”

“ Indeed, the constant visitations London received in the form of pestilence is to be referred to this source alone; and much as every one must regret the loss of the picturesque old houses, with their projecting storeys, their irregular gables, and their red roofs, it must be admitted that one of the greatest blessings London ever received, in the direction of sanitary improvement, was the Great Fire of 1666, which swept away the great bulk of the wooden houses in the City. ”

“ Of the religious houses of which remains may be found in London, none perhaps is of greater interest than the Charterhouse. Here More and Colet kept retreat, and as a peaceful haven for pensioned age the place still retains something of its old monastic calm. Lying behind the markets of Smithfield, its secluded courts and gardens are barely penetrated by the roar of the great city. The history of Bruno, the original founder of the Carthusian order, and his six companions has often been told. ”

“ The active citizens of London at once formed the Irish Society, raised £60,000 for the purchase of the land from the sagacious King, and each company took an equal share. The old county of Derry was the chief scene of this enterprise, and in token of its new masters was rechristened London-Derry. The colony had scarcely been established when Charles I., with his strange arbitrariness, removed the grant, but it was restored by Charles II., and most of the estates still belong to the energetic companies, and have been made the most prosperous part of the "distressed island." ”

“ Strange scenes of savage punishment attract the attention of the unfeeling crowd in the city streets, who jeer at the sufferers. Here is a poor man drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house. ”

“ Julian was their patron saint, for he made a hospital or inn by a river where men passed oft in great peril. Very curious regulations were ordained for their government, and no one was allowed to remain at an inn more than one day and a night unless the innholder was willing to answer for him. They have a hall, which has been newly erected, and some good portraits.
In no work was the amazing subdivision of labour so marked as in that which related to wood. Carpenters, joiners, sawyers, and planers had each their own separate work and organization. ”

“ Guildhall, the home of civic government and the battle-ground of many a hard-won fight for civil and religious liberty, was built anew by the self-denying efforts of a generation of London citizens just five hundred years ago. ”

“ The art of shipbuilding has been revolutionized by the advent of steam and the use of iron; the Thames side is no longer the great centre of the industry, and the importance of the company has waned, though it still exercises some useful functions.
The Spectacle-makers' Company has no great history, though their first charter dates back to the time of{212} Charles I. Its membership is large, including many illustrious names, and no less than twenty lord mayors. It does much good in modern times by improving the skill of opticians. ”

“ In the apse and the transepts, in the lofty screen to the west of the stalls, suggesting a hidden nave beyond, and in the glimpses of the Lady Chapel across the eastern ambulatory, he would see the completed choir of some collegiate church, of which the principal architectural features suggested an ancient foundation. It is true that, in the church of fifty years ago, the Norman details were still very distinct, though the round arches of the arcades had been parodied by the Georgian windows of the east end, and by the plastered romanesque reredos ”

“ The ordinances are very severe on apprentices, who, if guilty of haunting taverns, alehouses, bowling alleys, or other misdemeanour, were brought to the hall and stripped and whipped by persons appointed for that purpose. Another company connected with the same substance, the Glaziers, has little history, and we pass on to the Glovers, who existed in 1349, and have had an honourable career. Gloves have played such a notable part in our national life, that it would be a pleasant task to record their history, but we must confine ourselves to their makers. ”

“ The Tower of London as it exists to-day has, by a slow process of gradual accretion round the keep as a nucleus, become what is known as a "concentric" castle, or one upon the concentric plan, from the way in which one ward encloses another; and its architectural history falls, roughly speaking, into three chief periods covered by the reigns of William Rufus, Richard I., and Henry III., all the more important additions to the{41} fortress occurring approximately within these periods, as will be seen later on. ”

“ A very amusing sketch of the appearance of London at this period, and of the manners of the inhabitants, is given in Lydgate's London's Lickpenny. A poor countryman came to London to seek legal redress for certain grievances. The street thieves were very active, for as soon as he entered Westminster his hood was{126} snatched from his head in the midst of the crowd in broad daylight. In the streets of Westminster he was encountered by Flemish merchants, strolling to and fro, like modern pedlars, vending hats and spectacles, and shouting, "What will you buy?" ”

“ Their food is thrust into their cells through a small hatchway. They eat no meat, but fish, eggs, milk, cheese, butter, bread, pastry, fruit, and vegetables. The brethren or "conversi," who are laymen, occupy themselves with the manual labour of the monastery, but all that is necessary in the cell is done by the father himself. When death ends the solitary's life he is buried uncoffined in the cloister garth, "O beata solitudo! O sola beatitudo!" [61]
The history of the London Charterhouse may conveniently be divided into three periods—I., the Monastery; II., the Palace; III., the Hospital. ”

“ Every citizen knows the Poultry in the city—the locality where the Poulters anciently carried on their trade, selling "rabbits, fowls, and other poultry." The trade was not without its dangers. Unsound poultry doomed the seller to the pillory, the articles being burnt under him—a peculiarly disagreeable penalty. The company existed in 1345, but was not incorporated until 1504, and its history has been uneventful. The Saddlers' Company is a very honourable and wealthy corporation, and possesses records of unusual importance, dating back to Saxon times. ”

“ London comes more and more into prominence in the second half of the eleventh century. Whether this was on account of the increase of its trade and wealth when the Danes had ceased from troubling, or on account of the personal qualities of certain citizens, we cannot now distinguish. The French or Norman element increased,{22} and it is possible to name a few individuals who are known to have lived within the walls both before and after Hastings. ”

“ After the siege of Rochester by William Rufus in 1088, Gundulf had built a stone wall round the new castle of Rochester. This probably moved the King to enclose the Tower of London with a similar wall, for the Saxon Chronicle tells us that in 1091 "a stone wall was being wrought about the Tower, a stone bridge across the Thames was being built, and a great hall was being erected at Westminster, whereby the citizens of London were grievously oppressed." ”

“ In 1250 the permanent buildings of the League in London were commenced by the erection of storehouses; and nine years afterwards, through the influence of his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, Henry III.
"granted that all and singular the merchants, having a house in the City of London, commonly called the Guilda Aula Teutonicorum, should be maintained and upholden through the whole realm by all such freedoms and free usages or liberties as by the King and his noble progenitors' time they had enjoyed." ”

“ On this principle, the new building of Aulus would be either a couple of miles from the Celtic town, or separated from it at least by the width of the Thames. If we suppose, as is more than probable, that Lynn Dun was in Southwark, and that some settlement was also among the shallows and islets crossed by the Dover Road and named by the Anglo-Saxons the Watling Street, the Roman general, by building London Bridge and by making a strong fort on the hill at the northern end of it, laid the foundation of Roman London. ”