Mediæval London. Welch Charles

and Abbeys. —The Black Friars (Dominicans) between Ludgate Hill and the Thames, extending from St. Andrew’s Hill to the Fleet River. Their house was founded by Hubert de Burgh, earl of Kent, in 1221. It had a church and precinct with four gates. In this church Archbishop Courtenay was condemning the writings of Wyclif, when “a great earthquake shook the city.” Here Charles V. lodged when he was visiting Henry VIII. The latter king held a Parliament here, but transferred it to the house of the Black Monks of Westminster, hence it was called “the Black Parliament.” At the Dissolution the church was given to the parishioners (St. Anne’s, Blackfriars). The Grey Friars (Franciscans) had a noble house on the site of what is at this moment, though it will soon cease to be, Christ’s Hospital. Parts of the old buildings remained as late as 1820 (see Gentleman’s Magazine, May, 1820), indeed, there is a small portion even now. The noble church of the Augustinian (Austin) Friars (founded in 1253) still exists off Broad Street, the nave being used by the Dutch Protestant Church. The White Friars (Carmelites) had their church east of the Temple, founded 1241. It was pulled down at the Dissolution, and houses were built on the site, but it still preserved the right of sanctuary, and was consequently a haunt of thieves and fraudulent debtors. The privilege was not abolished till 1697. The Crutched (== crossed) Friars, so called because they wore a cross on their backs, had their church on the site of St. Olave’s, Hart Street; the Carthusians, on that of the Charterhouse; the Cistercians’ New Abbey was in East Smithfield; and the Brethren de Sacca, or “Bonhommes,” were a small community under Augustinian rules in Old Jewry.

      Then there were the Priories, religious houses subject to greater abbeys or religious bodies. That of St. John of Jerusalem, at Clerkenwell, was founded in 1100 by Jordan Briset and his wife Muriel, and was endowed in 1324 with the revenues of the dissolved English Knights Templars. Its ancient gateway remains, the only one left of all the old London monastic houses. In the Wat Tyler rebellion (1381) the prior was beheaded in the great courtyard, now St. John’s Square. Of the Priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, we have already spoken, as we have also of St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, the noble chancel of which priory is still one of the finest buildings in London. Across the river the beautiful church of the Augustinian Priory of St. Mary Overy was built by Giffard, bishop of Winchester, in 1106, at the expense of two Norman knights. At the Dissolution, Henry VIII. gave it to the parishioners of Southwark for their parish church, and the name was changed to that of St. Saviour. How part of it tumbled down; how it was rebuilt in Brummagem Gothic; how this also, happily, went to pieces, and has been replaced within the last few years by a handsome restoration, we all know.

      Of Nunneries, we note St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, the church of the Priory of the Nuns of St. Helen, founded in 1212 by “William the son of William the Goldsmith.” The church formerly had a partition dividing the nuns’ portion from that of the parishioners. It was taken down at the Dissolution, but plenty of remains of the old arrangement are still evident in the church, which is in many features one of the most interesting in London. Until the year 1799 the old Hall of the nunnery was standing, having been bought by the Leathersellers’ Company at the Dissolution for their Hall. Holywell, Shoreditch, was so called from a sweet well there, which was spoiled as the population came to increase in that part. There was here a Benedictine Nunnery, dedicated to St. John Baptist, founded in 1318 by Gravesend, bishop of London. In later days the famous Curtain Theatre was built on the site, which again has given place to St. James’s Church, Curtain Road. Edmond, earl of Leicester, brother of King Edward III., founded an Abbey of nuns of the Order of St. Clare, commonly called the Minorites, in 1293, in a street between Aldgate and the Tower. On the Dissolution, Henry VIII. gave the chapel to the people for a parish church (Holy Trinity, Minories); the rest of the site was built over. The Benedictine Nunnery of St. Mary, Clerkenwell, was contiguous to the Hospital or Priory of St. John. The name Clerkenwell (Fons Clericorum) was derived from a well, at which once a year the Parish Clerks of London assembled and performed a religious play. It was at the S.E. corner of Ray Street. A pump marked the site until less than fifty years ago, when the water was found to be so polluted that it was removed. When the “Black Nunnery” was dissolved, the site was given to the Earl of Aylesbury, hence the present Aylesbury Street, Clerkenwell.

      Of Colleges, i. e., communities of religious men, were (1) St. Martin’s-le-Grand (already mentioned); (2) St. Thomas of Acon (alias Acre), a military sanctuary founded by Agnes, the sister of St. Thomas Becket, over her brother’s birthplace. It was on the site of the present Mercers’ Hall, and was much regarded by the Corporation of London in the Middle Ages. Richard Whittington, Mercer, thrice Lord Mayor (last time, 1419), founded the College of “Saint Esprit and Mary,” in the Vintry Ward, and the Almshouse for Mercers. The site still bears the name of College Hill. Mercers’ School was removed from hence to Barnard’s Inn, Holborn, a few years since. The College of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, was founded by Sir William Walworth, who was buried within the church. This church was removed to make room for the approach to new London Bridge, in 1831.

      Of Hospitals, note St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields for Lepers, founded by Matilda, queen of Henry I.; St. James’s Hospital “for leprous maidens,” now St. James’s Palace; St. Mary of Rounceval, a priory of the Abbey of Roncevalles in Navarre. It stood on the site of Northumberland Avenue at Charing Cross. Elsing Spital, by Cripplegate, was founded by Wm. Elsing in 1329, for the sustentation of a hundred blind men. The site was afterwards occupied by Sion College; but when that was moved to the Thames Embankment the ground was built over. Sir John Pountney founded and endowed a College in his own house in Candlewick Street, calling it Corpus Christi, to maintain a master and twelve mission priests. Their chapel was attached to the Church of St. Lawrence Pountney, which was burnt in the Great Fire and not rebuilt. The Papey, a house for worn-out priests, was in Bevis Marks. St. Bartholomew the Less is now the Chapel of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital precinct. The Lock Spital was for the reception of lepers, the derivation being loques, rags. The old Hospital of St. Katharine’s by the Tower was removed, in 1828, to make room for St. Katharine’s Docks, and set up anew by the Regent’s Park.

      Episcopal Residences were those of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, at Lambeth and Whitehall respectively; of the Bishop of Durham (Durham House, Strand); of those of Bath, Chester, Lichfield, Llandaff, Worcester, Exeter, Carlisle, all in the Strand; of Hereford, on Fish Street Hill. The Bishop of Ely dwelt in Ely Place, Holborn: the chapel still exists, in the possession of the Roman Catholics. Readers of Shakespeare will remember how the bishop grew strawberries in his garden. The Bishop of Salisbury’s house was in Salisbury Square; of St. David’s, near Bridewell; of Winchester and Rochester, in Southwark. Parts of Winchester House still exist there.

      As the Thames on the south side of the city did noble service as the principal highway for its commerce and its corn supply, so the fields on the north furnished large pasture-land for its cattle. Across these fields a road led away to the village of Islington. In the Moor Fields were the Artillery Butts, whither young London resorted to be trained in the use of the bow. Readers may remember the description of them in the opening portion of Lord Lytton’s novel, The Last of the Barons. Within the walls adjacent to this part the manufacturers of bows and arrows were settled. Very strange and curious have been the various associations of the name “Grub Street.” Grobes were feathers for arrows, and originally Grub Street was that in which arrows were finished. That manufacture died out, and the street, being in a Puritan neighbourhood, in the days of Elizabeth became the publishing place for violent attacks upon the bishops. “Martin Marprelate,” the well-known series of that class of publication, was issued from this street. Then, by a natural transition, scurrilous lampoons in general, and not merely theological, came to be called “Grub Street tracts,” because the phrase had become current; and the name stuck, and was applied to literary rubbish of any kind, Pope having endorsed the title in his satire. The name has, unfortunately, disappeared from the street within the last decade. The authorities, because the name had become obnoxious to fastidious ears, have changed it to Milton Street, the poet having been borne down it from Bunhill Fields, where he died, to be buried in St. Giles’s Church.

      Partly on the site of Liverpool Street Station, and partly across the road as far as the Underground Railway, stood, in mediæval times, the “Hospital of