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Who were the earliest settlers and inhabitants of London?
Those who have seen the lake-dwellings of Glastonbury—to take a familiar illustration—and have considered the conditions necessary to such a colony, will come to the conclusion that there, at all events, lake-dwellers would find everything that Nature could give them. Thus, at Glastonbury the huts of the inhabitants were planted on wooden foundations in a marshy place, covered with water at high tide, perhaps at low tide as well. There was land within reach where the people could keep cattle, or could plough and sow and reap. That they did keep cattle and grow corn there is evidence in the things found beside and around the huts. Again, at Glastonbury there were many islets and a large extent of low-lying ground which were the homes and the resting-places of countless wild birds. And at Glastonbury the people were on a creek of the sea, and, by rowing a mile or two down the creek they could find themselves in deep water abounding with fish. All these conditions were also present at London: a deep and broad stream containing fish in abundance; an extensive marsh covered with islets where were wild birds in multitudes; and raised lands, such as that lying between Ludgate Hill and Charing Cross, which might be used for pasture or for tillage. If any remains of lake-dwellings were ever found among the marshes and shallow backwaters of London, it must have been long before such things were understood, so that they were swept away without so much as a record of their existence. It is not certain that there were such settlements here. If vestiges of them had ever been found among the marshes and tidal lagoons of the Essex coast, it would strengthen the theory that this prehistoric people had villages here. I believe, however, that no such remains have been found in Essex. My theory wants confirmation. I cannot prove, though I believe, that lake-dwellings were the first settlements on the London marshes: that the people drove piles into the mud and laid beams across—there was plenty of wood either on the Surrey hills or on the northern heights; that they made a floor or foundation of clay; that they carried uprights round the circular foundation; that they made their cottages wind and rain proof, with wattle and daub at the sides, and thatch for the roof;34 that every house had its boat, its net, its slings; that they grew corn on the land around; that they had flocks and herds; that they lived in such comfort as they knew or desired.
Whence they came, how long they stayed, why they departed or disappeared, I know not.
What I surmise, however, is theory. Whether it is true or not matters little; what happened next is more certain.
If you consider the site of London once more you will realise—I have already called attention to the point—that the cliff on the north side closes in and overhangs the river in two little hillocks beside the Walbrook. Between the feet of the two hills there is no marsh; the stream running down between the hills forms a natural port; either hillock is fit for the construction of a fort, such as forts were then. Hunters in the forest discovered these two hill-tops, with the moorland and the woods behind, and the river and the marsh in front. They came; they built their fort, protected partly by the steeply sloping sides to south and east, partly by stockade and trench; and they called the place Llyn Din, the Lake-Fortress. Why they came, when they came, how they dispossessed the lake-dwellers, against what real or imaginary foe they constructed their fort, I know not.
Nor do I know how long the people continued to occupy peacefully the fortress they had constructed. It may have been a period of many hundreds of years. The fort may have been besieged and taken a hundred times. Meantime there began, either before or after the construction of this fort or settlement of Llyn Din, some communication between the people of the island and those of the Continent. Trade was opened up; the islanders learned that there were many things which they could exchange and sell. There were Phœnicians who came for tin; there were Germans and Gauls who came for iron, skins, and slaves.
Trade began, but not yet in London, where the fisherman’s coracle was the only boat upon the river, and the cry of the wild duck, the song of the lark, and the swish of the water or the whistle of the wind among the reeds were the only sounds.
Higher up the Thames, as we know, there was an island, named, long afterwards, Thorney. It was a very large island, considering its position, being about a quarter of a mile in length and rather less in breadth. On the west side of this island was a branch of the great marsh already described; on the east side the river was broad and shallow and could be forded at low water, the ford conducting the traveller to another low island, afterwards called Lamb Hythe, probably meaning the Place of Mud. This was the lowest ford on the river, and the most convenient for those desirous of passing from Dover or the districts of Kent and Surrey to the north, or from the north and midland to Dover, then the principal, perhaps—unless Southampton had been founded already—the35 only trading port. So that the great highway which ran right through the country from Dover to Chester, with branches or affluents on either side, crossed the Thames at this point, passing straight through the marsh and ford. In other words, before the Port of London came into existence at all, Thorney was a stage or station on the highway up and down which flowed the whole trade of the island. Again, in other words, while London was as yet only a rude hill fortress, perhaps while it was only a village of lake-dwellers in the marsh, perhaps before it came into existence at all, Thorney was a place thronged with those who daily went across the ford and marsh, a busy and a populous place. This statement may not be readily accepted. Let us therefore examine more closely into the reasons which support it.
Archæological conclusions of every kind rest upon evidences which may be classified under five heads: (1) the evidence of situation; (2) the evidence of excavation; (3) the evidence of ancient monuments; (4) the evidence of tradition; and (5) the evidence of history, to which may be added the evidence of coins.
1. The Evidence of Situation.—This we have seen already. Thorney was a stepping-stone lying between a marsh and a tidal river fordable at low tide. It was on the great highway of trade from the north to the south. At high tide the marsh was covered with water and extended from the site of the future Abbey to the site of the future Buckingham Palace; it covered the sites of St. James’s Park, Tothill Fields, the Five Fields, part of Chelsea, Earl’s Court, and Victoria. At low tide it was a broad expanse of mud, relieved by patches of sedge and rush. One could wade across the marsh either at high or low tide. The way was marked by stakes, and by large stones laid in the mud. On the other side, the river, here much broader than below, was fordable at low water. The way, also marked by stakes, conducted the traveller from Thorney to Lamb Hythe, afterwards called Lambeth.
2. Evidence of Excavation.—Excavation has shown, what nothing else could have disclosed, the presence on this spot of the Romans. In 1869, a date at which the Roman occupation of Thorney had not been surmised, a very fine sarcophagus was found in the nave of the Abbey with the name of Valerius Amandinus upon it. A cross is cut upon the cover, so that the occupant—perhaps not the first—was a Christian. Probably he was a Christian of the third or fourth century. The sarcophagus is now placed at the entrance of the Chapter-House (see p. 67). Ten years ago another discovery was made: in digging a grave under the pavement of the nave a fine mosaic pavement was discovered. There was therefore a Roman villa on this spot. And during the last few years, which have witnessed a great deal of digging at Thorney, Roman fragments have been found in great quantities. There was therefore, most certainly, a Roman settlement upon this island.
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3. Evidence of Ancient Monuments.—The evidence of monuments is simply this. The great high road through the Midlands to Chester and to York, found here as a beaten track by the Romans, converted by them into a Roman road after the customary fashion, named afterwards by the Saxons Watling Street, ran formerly straight along what is now the Edgware Road; when it reached the spot now covered by the Marble Arch it continued down Park Lane, or, as it was once called, Tyburn Lane, till it reached the end of the marsh already described. There it broke off abruptly. At this point the traveller began to wade through the marsh. Arrived at Thorney, he made of it a resting-place for the night. In the morning, when he proceeded with his journey, he forded the river at low tide, and presently found himself once more upon a solid road, the memory of which is still preserved in Stangate Street, Lambeth.
4. We have next the Evidence of Tradition.—According to this authority we learn that the first Christian king was one Lucius, who in the year 178 addressed a letter to the then Pope, Eleutherius, begging for missionaries to instruct his people and himself in the Christian faith. The Pope sent two priests named Ffagan and Dyfan, who converted the whole island. Bede tells this story; the old Welsh chroniclers also tell it, giving the British name of the king, Lleurwg ap Coel ap Cyllin. He it was who erected a church on the Isle of Thorney, in place of a temple of Apollo formerly standing there. We are reminded, when we read this story, that St. Paul’s Cathedral was said to have been built on the site of a temple of Diana.
This church, it is said, continued in prosperity until the arrival, two hundred and fifty years later, of the murderous Saxon. First, news came up the river that the invader was on the Isle of Rum, which we call Thanet; next, that he held the river on both banks; then that he had overrun Essex, that he had overrun Kent.37 And when that happened the procession of merchandise stopped suddenly, for the ports of Kent were in the hands of the enemy. There was no more traffic on Watling Street. The travellers grew fewer daily, till one day a troop of wild Saxons came across the ford, surprised the priests and the fisher-folk who still remained, and left the island as desolate and silent as could be desired for the meditation of holy men. This done, the Saxons went on their way. They overran the midland country; they drove the Britons back—still farther back—till they reached the mountains. No more news came to Thorney, for, though the ford continued, the island, like so many of the Roman stations, remained waste.
In fulness of time the Saxon himself settled down, became a man of peace, obeyed the order of the convert king to be baptized and to enter the Christian faith; and when King Sebert had been persuaded to build a church to St. Paul on the highest ground of London, he was further convinced that it was his duty to restore the ruined church of St. Peter on the Isle of Thorney beside the ford. Scandal, indeed, would it be for the throng that once more daily passed through the ford and over the island to see, in a Christian country, the neglected ruins of a Christian church. Accordingly the builders soon set to work, and before long the church rose tall and stately. The Miracle of the Hallowing, often told, may be repeated here. On the eve of the day fixed by the Bishop of London for the hallowing and dedication of the new St. Peter’s, one Edric, a fisherman, who lived in Thorney, was awakened by a loud voice calling him by name. It was midnight. He arose and went forth. The voice called him again from the opposite side of the river, which is now Lambeth, bidding him put out his boat to ferry a man across the river. He obeyed. He found on the shore a venerable person whose face and habiliments he knew not. The stranger bore in his hands certain vessels which, as Edric perceived, could only be intended for church purposes. However, he said nothing, but38 received this mysterious visitor into his boat and rowed him across the river. Arrived in Thorney, the stranger directed his steps to the church and entered the portal. Straightway—lo! a marvel—the church was lit up as by a thousand wax tapers, and voices arose chanting psalms—sweet voices such as no man had ever heard before. He stood and listened. The voices, he understood, could be none other than those of angels come down from heaven itself to sing the first service in the new church. Then the voices fell, and he heard one voice loud and solemn; and then the heavenly choir uplifted their voices again. Presently all was still: the service was over; the lights went out as suddenly as they had appeared; and the stranger came forth.
“Know, O Edric,” he said, while the fisherman’s heart glowed within him, “know that I am Peter. I have hallowed the church myself. To-morrow I charge thee that thou tell these things to the Bishop, who will find in the church a sign and a token of my hallowing. And for another token, put forth again upon the river, cast thy nets, and thou shalt receive so great a draught of fishes that there will be no doubt left in thy mind. But give one-tenth to this my holy church.”
So he vanished, and the fisherman was left alone upon the river bank; but he put forth as he was directed, and cast his net, and presently brought ashore a miraculous draught.
In the morning the Bishop with his clergy, and the King with his following, came up from London in their ships to hallow the church. They were received by Edric, who told them this strange story. And within the church the Bishop found the lingering fragrance of incense far more precious than any that he could offer; on the altar were the drippings of wax candles (long preserved as holy relics, being none other than the wax candles of heaven), and written in the dust certain words in the Greek character. He doubted no longer. He proclaimed the joyous news. He held a service of thanksgiving instead of a hallowing. Who would not hold a service of praise and humble gratitude for such a mark of heavenly favour? And after service they returned to London and held a banquet, with Edric’s finest salmon lying on a lordly dish in the midst.
How it was that Peter, who came from heaven direct, could not cross the river except in a boat was never explained or asked. Perhaps we have here a little confusion between Rome and Heaven. Dover Street, we know, broke off at the edge of the marsh, and Dover Street led to Dover, and Dover to Rome.
5. We are now prepared for the Evidence of History, which is not perhaps so interesting as that of tradition. Clio, it must be confessed, is sometimes dull. One misses the imagination and the daring flights of her sister, the tenth Muse—the Muse of Fiction. The earliest document which refers to the Abbey is a conveyance by Offa, King of Mercia, of a manor called Aldenham to “St. Peter and the people of the Lord dwelling in Thorney, that ‘terrible’—i.e. sacred—place which is at39 Westminster.” The date of this ancient document is A.D. 785; but Bede, who died in 736, does not mention the foundation. Either, therefore, Bede passed it over purposely, or it was not thought of importance enough to be mentioned. He does relate the building of St. Paul’s; but, on the other hand, he does not mention the hundreds of churches which sprang up all over the country. So that we need not attach any importance to the omission. My own opinion is that the church—a rude country church, perhaps—a building like that of Greenstead, Essex, the walls of split trees and the roof of rushes, was restored early in the seventh century, and that it did succeed an earlier church still. The tradition connected with this church is as ancient as anything we know about it, and the legend of Lucius and his church is at least supported by the recent discoveries of Roman remains and the certainty that the place was always of the greatest importance.
There is another argument—or an illustration—in favour of the antiquity of some church, rude or not, upon this place. I advance it as an illustration, though to myself it appears to be an argument. I mean the long list of relics possessed by the Abbey at the Dedication of the year 1065. We are not concerned with the question whether the relics were genuine or not, but merely with the fact that they were preserved by the monks as having been the gifts of various benefactors—Sebert, Offa, Athelstan, Edgar, Ethelred, Cnut, Queen Emma, and Edward himself. A church of small importance and of recent building would not dare to parade such pretensions. It takes time even for pretences to gain credence and for legends to grow. The relics ascribed to Sebert and Offa could easily have been carried away on occasion of attack. As for the nature of these sacred fragments, it is pleasant to40 read of sand and earth brought from Mount Sinai and Olivet; of the beam which supported the holy manger; of a piece of the holy manger; of frankincense presented by the Magi; of the seat on which our Lord was presented at the Temple; of portions of the holy cross presented by four kings at different times; of bones and vestments belonging to Apostles and Martyrs and the Virgin Mary, and saints without number, whose very names are now forgotten. In the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle you may see just such a collection as that which the monks of St. Peter displayed before the reverent and uncritical eyes of the Confessor. We may remember that in the ninth and tenth centuries the rage for pilgrimising extended over the whole of Western Europe; pilgrims crowded every road, they marched in armies, and they returned laden with treasures—water from the Jordan, sand from Sinai, clods of earth from Gethsemane, and bones and bits of sacred wood without number. When Peter the Hermit arose to preach, it was but putting a match to a pile ready to be fired. But for such a list as that preserved by history, there was need of time as well as of credulity.
Roman Britain, we have said, was Christian for at least a hundred and fifty years. Therefore it would be nothing out of the way or unusual to find monastic buildings on Thorney in the fourth century. There was as yet no Benedictine Rule. St. Martin of Tours introduced the Egyptian Rule into Gaul—whence it was taken over to England and to Ireland. It was a simple Rule, resembling that of the Essenes. No one had any property; all things were in common; the only art allowed to be practised was that of writing. The older monks devoted their whole time to prayer; they took their meals together—bread and herbs with salt—and, except for common prayer and common meals, they rarely left their cells; these were at first simple huts constructed of clay and bunches of reeds; their churches were of wood; they shaved their heads to the line of the ears; they wore leather jerkins, probably because these lasted longer than cloth of any kind; many of them wore hair shirts. The wooden church became a stone church; the huts became cells built about a cloister; next, the cells themselves were abolished, and a common dormitory was substituted.
All this evidence very clearly, in my opinion, points to the main fact that Thorney was occupied by the Romans because it was a busy and crowded station on the high road of British trade.
I have dwelt at some length upon this subject, because the theory of the earlier antiquity of a town at Thorney, if it can be proved, brings the foundation of London to a comparatively recent period, though it still leaves us in the dark as to the date.
We have various records as to this trade. We need not suppose that Himilco visited and described the island, but we must not hastily reject the evidence of Pytheas, whose travels took place about the middle of the fourth century B.C. Pytheas coasted round Gaul, landed on the shores of Brittany, and worked up the41 Channel till he came to a place called “Cantion,” which is perhaps Dover, and perhaps the North Foreland. Here he landed, and here he stayed for some time, namely, during the whole of the summer. He found that a great deal of wheat was raised in the fields; that it was threshed in covered barns instead of unroofed floors as in the south of France; that the climate was cloudy and wet; that the longest day was nineteen hours, and that on the shortest day the sun does not rise more than three cubits above the horizon; that there were cultivated fruits, a great abundance of some domestic animals and a scarcity of others; that the people fed on millet, vegetables, roots, and fruit; and that they made a drink of honey and wheat—a kind of beer.
The next traveller in Britain of whom an account remains was Posidonius, about a hundred years before Christ. He described the tin mines in Cornwall. He says that the tin is made up into slabs shaped like knuckle-bones, and carried to an island named Ictis, “lying in front of Britain”—another account makes this island six days’ sail from Cornwall. The channel between Ictis and Britain was dry at low tide, when the tin was carried over. It was then taken across to Gaul, and carried across the country by thirty days’ journey to Marseilles. The estuary between Thanet and Kent, now silted up, was formerly open for ships at high tide, and fordable at low tide.
The following is the account given by Avienus, a writer of the fourth century (quoted in Charles I. Elton’sOrigins of English History):—
“Beneath this promontory spreads the vast Œstrymnian gulf, in which rise out of the sea the islands Œstrymnides, scattered with wide intervals, rich in metal of tin and lead. The people are proud, clever, and active, and all engaged in incessant cares of commerce. They furrow the wide rough strait, and the ocean abounding in sea-monsters, with a new species of boat. For they know not how to frame keels with pine or maple, as others use, nor to construct their curved barks with fir; but, strange to tell, they always equip their vessels with skins joined together, and often traverse the salt sea in a hide of leather. It is two days’ sail from hence to the Sacred Island, as the ancients called it, which spreads a wide space of turf in the midst of the waters, and is inhabited by the Hibernian people. Near to this again is the broad island of Albion.”
Elton quotes Posidonius on the trade in tin. The merchants, he says, buy the tin from the natives, and carry it over to Gaul.
Here, then, we have proof of an ancient and extensive trade in tin, and of a certain stage in civilisation.
There is, however, more.
In the second century B.C. the people had towns, which were stockaded forts, and villages. They lived in beehive huts, built with wood and wattle, having roofs of fern and thatch. They were skilled in some of the arts. They could make cloth and linen for summer and for winter use; they could dye these materials various colours. They could work in gold, and wore collars, bracelets, and rings of gold. They dyed their hair red. They wore a cuirass of plaited leather or chain mail; for42 arms they carried sword, pike, bow and arrow, and the sling. They also had scythed war-chariots. Their weapons were of steel, they could therefore work in iron; they used a wheeled plough.
Fifty years before the Roman invasion the King of Soissons, Divitiacus, had made a partial conquest of South Britain, but for generations before this there had been immigration into the island from Belgium and settlements had been made along the coast and the rivers.
The internal and external trade of the country is proved by the evidence of coins.
Where there is a coinage there is trade. That is to say, trade may be carried on without a coinage, but the existence of a coinage is a proof that the art of trading is understood, and has long been carried on. Now the people of this island had their own coinage before Julius Cæsar landed. How long before is quite uncertain. Some of their ancient coins are believed to be of the second century B.C. These are supposed to have been modelled on the coins of the Greeks of the age of Philip of Macedon, but taken from Gaulish patterns. At the same time, some of the coins have the appearance of being “centuries older than Cæsar’s first expedition” (Monumenta Historica Britannica, Introd. 151). In either case they are a proof of long-standing trade, and may have been of very remote antiquity. That the trade was internal is proved by the fact that ancient British coins belonging to the south of the country have been found in the north.
We may, therefore, safely conclude that all these facts point to the existence of a large trade between the island and the Continent. It was not out of charity that the tin mines were worked, and the tin sent to Thanet for exportation.
If now we consider the Roman highways, which were certainly based on the more ancient tracks, we shall find, not only that five of them converge on London, but also that London, considering the vast forests as well as the course of the rivers and the conformation of the coast, was actually the true centre for the reception and distribution of imports, and for the reception and forwarding of exports. And we may further conclude that since Pytheas and Posidonius were evidently received with hospitality and travelled about everywhere without fear of violence, the people of the island were accustomed to visits of foreigners who came to trade. In a word, it is impossible to say when trade first began between Britain and the Continent; impossible to estimate its extent; and impossible to ascertain when the principal centre of trade was found to be most conveniently placed at or near the site of London.
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When first we hear of London at all we learn several very suggestive facts. First, that the City was already the resort of merchants; next, that there was a close connection with, and a great intercourse between, Gallia and Britannia; thirdly, that the people of the south, at least, possessed the same arts, the same civilisation, as the Gauls. And the latter had already arrived at that stage when certain things, impossible to be grown or produced on their own soil, had ceased to be luxuries, and had become necessaries. Again, we learn shortly afterwards that the island was thickly populated. Queen Boadicea’s army, raised wholly in the eastern counties, contained many thousands; so many that the scattered bands of her army were able to destroy a great number—history loosely says 70,000, which we may take to stand for a great number—of the inhabitants of Verulam, London, and Camulodunum. Again, another point, never yet considered in this connection, seems also to indicate dense population. All the way from London down to the Nore, round a large part of the coast of Essex, and along the coast of Lincolnshire where the foreshore is a marsh, there runs a great and magnificent embankment. It is not, so far as can be judged, Roman; that is to say, it has none of the Roman characteristics: it is a great solid wall of earth faced with stone which has stood for ages, only giving way at points here and there, as at Barking in the reign of King Stephen, and at Dagenham in the reign of Queen Anne. Now, in order to construct such a work two things are necessary: there must be abundance of labour, also new ground for cultivation must be in demand. Both these requisites point to a large population. Given a large population; given also a demand for foreign commodities among the44 wealthier class; given, further, the production of goods wanted abroad—slaves, metals, skins, wool—we can have no doubt that the trade of Britain, the northern and midland part of which passed over Thorney, was continuous and very considerable.
In other words, this islet in the midst of marsh and ford, which we have been always assured was in early times a wild and desolate spot; chosen, we are also told, as the site of a monastery on account of its seclusion and remoteness; was, long before any monastery was built there, the scene of a continuous procession of those who journeyed south and those who journeyed north. It was a halting and a resting place for a stream of travellers which flowed continuously all the year round. By way of Thorney passed the merchants, with the wares which they were going to embark at Dover bestowed upon pack-horses. By way of Thorney they drove the long strings of slaves to be sold in Gaul and perhaps carried into Italy. By way of Thorney passed the caravans for the north. Always, day after day, even night after night, there was the clamour of those who came and of those who went: such a clamour as used to belong, for instance, to the courtyard of an old-fashioned inn, in and out of which lumbered the loaded waggon grinding heavily over the stones, the stage-coach, the post-chaise, the merchant rider on his nag—all with noise. The Isle of Thorney was like that courtyard: it was a great inn, a halting-place, a bustling, noisy, frequented place, the centre, and, before the rise of London, the heart of Britain. No quiet, desolate place, but the actual living centre of the traffic of the whole island. Not a fortress or a place of strategic importance, but, as regards the permanent population, a gathering of people drawn together in order to provide for the wants of travellers—a collection of inns and taverns.
Thus far we have got. In very early times London was a settlement of lake-dwellers, then it became a British fortress. Meantime, communications were established with Gaul by way of Dover, trade began; the natural highway for trade from the midland and the north was by way of the most easterly ford over the Thames, therefore Thorney became a busy and important place, as lying on the trade route of London.
At some time or other merchants found out that London was a much more convenient and more central place than Dover. The voyage was along the Kentish coast, for a few miles beyond Dover, and passed by the strait which parted Thanet from the mainland into the estuary of the Thames, whence it was safe and easy sailing up the stream to the new trading port of the lake-fortress.
The next development, naturally, was the diversion of a large part of the trade from Thorney to London. This diversion took place at the spot we now call Marble Arch, where the course of the highway was abandoned, and a new road traced along what is now Oxford Street and Holborn into the City of London. And thus, gradually, the importance of Thorney dwindled away. That it remained the stepping-stone for a large part of the trade till the building of London Bridge there can be no45 reason to doubt. Perhaps a considerable part of the trade would have been carried by the old way still but for the embankment of the river, which destroyed the ford. There remained the Ferry, which continued until the middle of the last century. A good deal of trade, no doubt, still crossed by the Ferry, but when London Bridge was built, and the shipping lay in the river for the reception of the merchandise, the route to Dover became gradually abandoned. This we may readily believe would be some time in the fourth century.
It has been said that no dates can be ascertained which will guide us in assigning any period to these events. There is, however, one fact which gives a negative evidence: when Pytheas made his famous voyage to Britain he does not seem to have seen London. He says nothing about it. It seems from his account that trade with Gaul had not yet assumed considerable proportions; that with the Phœnician ships for tin was confined to the south-western district, and London, which has never been anything but a place of trade, was not even mentioned to this traveller. Perhaps—but I do not think that this was so—London did not yet exist.
Who were the people that built this fortress over the lake and received the merchants? They were Celts, and the name that they gave to their citadel, Llyn Din, is Celtic. Their manners and customs are as well known as those of any ancient people; their religion is described at length by many historians; they had poets, musicians, and priests. They wore on occasion robes embroidered with gold; they had copied the civilisation of their neighbours the Gauls. The evidence of the barrows in which the dead were buried shows a great variety of implements and the knowledge of some arts. Their weapons were mostly of bronze; their swords were of the “leaf” shape; the spear-heads were of bronze, and their long knives also of bronze. They carried shields of bronze. They wore neither helmet nor cuirass; round the neck they placed an iron collar and round the body an iron belt. They had stone clubs and flint-headed arrows; they had bronze trumpets; they knew how to coin money; they practised the art of pottery, making very good vases and pots; and they made, and used, the terrible war-chariot—a piece of one was discovered some time ago in Somersetshire.
Again, it is necessary to clear up our ideas concerning the early trade of London. When we speak on the subject, we are naturally inclined to think of a mediæval town settled with government residents, a better class, market-places, trade regulations, and46 all the accessories of a late period. Let us, therefore, with a view to this clearance of understanding, consider the conditions of trade in the centuries—I repeat that I do not consider that the coming of the Romans had anything to do with the foundation of London—before the Roman period.
I. The first trading port of the Thames, as we have seen, was that of Thorney Island—a small place at best, and incapable of enlargement on account of the marsh-land all round it in every direction except the south.
II. The discovery of London—with its high ground overhanging the river, its port of the outflow of the Walbrook, its greater safety, its ease of access by sea and river—diverted much of the trade from Thorney, and gradually all the trade.
III. It is impossible to assign any date for this diversion: only one point is certain, that some importance was attached to Thorney as a trading centre in Roman times, because the islet is full of Roman remains.
IV. We take up the story, therefore, at some indefinite period which began as long before the arrival of the Romans as the reader pleases to assume, and continued until after the massacre by Boadicea’s insurgents.
The first and most important condition to be observed is that the trade of London could only be carried on during the summer months. It was only in the summer that the ships ventured to cross the Channel; crept along the coast of Kent, and passed through the channel between Thanet and the mainland into the river. During the winter months the sailing of the ships was entirely stopped; the ocean was deserted. This condition was observed for many centuries afterwards: no ships ventured to put out for six months at least in the year; even the pirates of the North Sea hauled up their vessels, and when the Danes came, they remained for six months every year in their winter quarters.
It was also only in the summer that inland trade could be carried on. During the winter intercommunications were most difficult, and in many places impossible; towns were isolated and had to depend on their own resources; village was separated from village by fenland, moorland, forest, and trackless marsh: there could be no transport of goods; there were no markets.
The main limitation, therefore, of early trade was that it had to be carried on during the summer months alone: allowing for the time taken up by the voyage to and from the port at either end, the foreign trade on which the inland trade depended was of necessity confined to a few weeks.
What does this mean? That the exports had to be brought to the Port by a certain time: they came on the backs of slaves or by pack-horses. The imports had to be carried into the country for sale and distribution as a return journey by the same slaves and pack-horses. The goods were brought from the country down to the quays, which were rough and rude constructions on piles and baulks of timber on47 either side of the mouth of the Walbrook, and were there exchanged for the imports. The ships discharged one cargo, then took in another, and sailed away. Nothing was left over; there was no overlapping of one year with another; there was no storage of goods over the winter. When the ships were gone and the caravans had started on their journey through the country, there was nothing more to be done at the Port till the next season. London might fall asleep, if there were any London.
In other words, the trade of London at this period was nothing more than an annual Fair held in the months of July and August, frequented by the foreign merchants bringing their imports and carrying off the exports in their vessels, and by the traders, who led their long processions of pack-horses and slaves from the country to the port, arriving at the time when the ships were due; they exchanged what they brought for the goods that came in the ships, and then went away again. Where they spent the winter it is impossible to say. It is, however, quite certain that they came to London in the summer from north, east, south, and west; that they could not come at any other time. These considerations enable us to understand that London was crowded every summer during the few weeks of trade, but that in winter there was no trade, no communication with any other place, and no communication with abroad. Were there no merchants who stored goods and kept them over who lived in London permanently? None. As yet, none.
The place was, in fact, exactly like Sturbridge beside Cambridge. During the annual Fair in summer Sturbridge was a considerable town; trading of all kinds and from all countries crowded to the place; the shops and booths were arranged in streets; these streets were filled with traders and private persons who came from all parts of the country to the Fair. When the Fair was over the traders disappeared, the booths were swept away, the place became a large common, empty and deserted till the next season.
This was the case with London. The trading season was in July and August, as I read the story: during these months the high ground either on the east or the west of Walbrook was covered with shops and booths made of wattle and clay. When the Fair was over the temporary structures were taken down, or perhaps left to be repaired in the following season; the conflux of people vanished, and there was no Port of London for another year. London had no importance at all except during the short season of the Fair. Nor were there any residents of importance. There were left none others than the humble folk who fished in the river, trapped the birds of the marsh, hunted in the forests, and worked for the ships while they were in the Port.
I think that the annual Fair was held on the west side of Walbrook, for the simple reason that the Romans, when they built their citadel, chose the eastern side—that is to say, they took the eastern hill because they were unwilling to interfere with the trade of the place, which was mainly carried on upon the western hill.48 There was no bridge as yet—otherwise there could have been no massacre by the offended Queen (see p. 59). As to the time when trade became large, and so continuous as to demand the erection of warehouses and the creation of a body of wholesale merchants, I am not able to offer even an approximate opinion. My conclusions belong to an earlier time, yet partly a Roman time, when London represented nothing but an annual Fair, while there were no public buildings, no municipal institutions, no officers or rulers, except the temporary administrators of a temporary exhibition. And, as at a Fair, when it was over nothing was left in store or warehouse for the next year. The ships left their imports behind them, and brought back exports with them.
It would be interesting to inquire into the continuance of the summer trade and the slackness of the winter long after the character of the annual Fair had left London. Galleys came, we know, from Venice and Genoa every summer; ships laden with wine came every summer from Bordeaux; ships of the Hanseatic League put out and came into port every summer from north Europe and the Baltic. What was done in the twelfth century, for example, during the winter? What amount of trade could have been carried over roads which for two-thirds of the year were practically impassable?
The theory of the Fair explains why Cæsar made no mention of London, and why the Romans at first placed no permanent garrison in the place: they saw it crowded for a few weeks, and then deserted and of no account. The massacre of Boadicea first awakened them to a sense of its strategic as well as its commercial importance. When they built their citadel and their bridge it was not only to defend the trade of a few weeks and the scanty population of fisher-folk, but also to seize and to occupy a stronghold of capital importance as a great military as well as a great commercial centre. It also explains why no remains of pre-Roman buildings have been found on the site of London. Because there were none. The copia mercatorum came, stayed a few weeks or days, and went away. They found inns and booths for their accommodation; when they left, the inns and booths were closed, or left to fall to pieces, for another twelve months.
In the course of time, when the bulk of trade increased and goods of all kinds began to be stored in warehouses and kept over from year to year, the limits of the busy time were naturally extended. There was a great deal to be done in the way of warehousing, arrangement for the next summer, arrangement with retail merchants and the owners of caravans which went about the country. But there still remained the time—six or eight months—during which no ships arrived in port, and the roads of the country were impassable.
The warehousing, with the rise of a class of men who held the warehouses and became wholesale merchants, marks a period of extension and increase in the trade of the Port.
49
With the Romans came the time of good roads, warehouses, a settled and continuous trade, a class of wholesale merchants, quays of convenient size, new and artificial ports, and the residence for life of a wealthy and highly civilised community who built villas along the banks of the Walbrook, and imitated, though imperfectly, the arts and civilisation of Bordeaux, Marseilles, Treves, and even of Rome.
50
One point more may be noticed before we step into the open light of history. The position of London from the very first has been that of a town which has had to depend upon outside or distant places for her supplies. In front of her, on either side of her stretched marshes; behind her stretched moorland: she could grow nothing for her own people. Outside other towns lay farms, gardens, and pastures: outside London there was neither farm, nor garden, nor pasture; except the fish in the river and the fowl in the marsh-land, there was nothing. The merchant in the time of Agricola, as much as the merchant in the time of Victoria, lived upon food brought in by private enterprise.
The prehistoric monuments existing in and round London are two in number: they are the river embankment and the Hampstead barrow. The date of the embankment cannot be guessed: there is nothing at all to mark the time of its construction. For trade purposes an embankment must have been made as soon as trade in London began to develop. We shall see presently what happened on the north bank. But it was not enough to improve the river at London Port: it was necessary to reclaim the marsh-land all along the river north and south. The wall so built has often been repaired, but it is substantially the same as that originally constructed. Few know or consider the greatness of the work or the extent of ground it has converted from marsh-land into pasture. Those who wish to see it may walk along it from Barking to Tilbury, or from Tilbury to Southend.
The Hampstead barrow has been called Queen Boadicea’s grave. There is, however, nothing to lead to the belief that the British Queen lies buried here. In November 1894 the barrow was opened and carefully examined. Nothing was found in it—no weapons, no cups, no ornaments, no bones, no human dust; nothing but “pockets” of charcoal. There may have been interments in the barrow; the bodies may have been entirely destroyed so as to leave no trace behind: such things have been known; but they are not customary. Prof. Hales has suggested that the barrow is a simple boundary hillock, a position which he has defended with much learning. However, the question cannot be determined.
There is one name still surviving in London which may possibly belong to the London of pre-Roman times. The Welsh name for London is Caer Ludd—the City of Ludder Lud. Now Lludd among the Welsh was the same as Lir, an ocean-god (Charles Elton, Origins of English History). Can we see in the name Ludgate the survival of the name of a Celtic god to whom perhaps a temple stood on the hillock overlooking the Thames in the south and the Fleet in the west?
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