Medieval London (Vol. 1&2). Walter Besant

nor does the craftsman or the rustic desire a post-mortem memory. The citizens of London before this time have not generally nourished the desire of posthumous honour. They left money for masses, or to beautify the church; or they founded doles for the Mind Day, but not for the erection of a monument. This desire seems to belong to a time when the conditions of life have been smoothed and some of the old miseries have abated. Not that the dangers of fire, famine, or pestilence ever weigh heavily upon the minds of a people actively engaged; or that they are bowed down by the consciousness that war, with a painful death on the field, is always a possibility for them; or that they find life intolerable by reason of its diseases, its chances, its changes, or its brevity. But it is quite certain that they do realise so vividly the world to come, that in all their transactions it is acknowledged in words, if not really felt, to be of far greater importance than the world in which they live. Since, after a time of Purgatory, one is going for ever to sit among the Saints, what matters it whether one’s name is preserved or not? When many of the old dangers are abated; when fortune is more stable; when wealth accumulates; when the growth of the City brings dignity, honour, and authority to the citizens,—then it may become natural for the people to erect monuments in memory of the men whose personality in life has been large and full of dignity; and then every man will begin to desire such a monument in memory of those surprising achievements of which he alone is conscious. Every family will begin to desire such a commemoration, if only to swell the family pride, and to make the church itself proclaim the glory of the line. But in the thirteenth century these aspirations were rare. Henry of London Stone, first Mayor and Mayor for five-and-twenty years, was one of those thus honoured.

      Let us exchange generalities for a single example.

      We are standing at the entrance of a narrow lane leading north from Thames Street. It is the street called Fish Street Hill or Labour in Vain Hill. On the south-east corner stands the very ancient church of St. Mary Somerset. It is placed a little back from Thames Street with part of its churchyard on the south side: it is a large and handsome church; the churchyard is planted with trees and the graves are mounds of grass. We enter the street, which presents a steep incline: down the middle runs a tiny stream, for there has been rain; offal, bones, grease, fish-heads, dirty water, refuse of all kinds float down this stream, which, after a heavy shower, keeps the street comparatively clean and wholesome. There are, however, fortunately, other scavengers besides the rain; they swoop down out of the sky, they alight in the street, they tear the offal with their beaks and claws, they carry it up to the house-tops; these are the kites and crows, who build their nests on the church towers and roofs, and find their food in the refuse thrown out into the streets. Were it not for these birds, London streets would be intolerable.

      It is a morning in May: along the street on either side are houses; here is a rich merchant’s house standing behind its wall, and beside it is a little tenement occupied by a craftsman. Looking up the street one can see green trees here and there, from those of St. Mary Somerset on the south to those of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey on the north. Half-way up we come upon a low wall; looking over it we see a churchyard shaded by trees and covered with graves, the grass growing long and rank; on the west side of the churchyard stands the church—it is a very small church called St. Mary Mounthaw, one of the latest of the City churches, and built originally as a chapel for a private family. Its name shows that the parish was a slice of St. Mary Somerset, just as St. Katherine Coleman was carved out of St. Katherine Cree, and All Hallows the Less out of All Hallows the Great. The door is open—if we look in we see a few women kneeling; there is the murmur of a chantry priest, for it is morning, singing his daily mass; the church is Early English, the roof is high, with beams crossing and recrossing, they are painted red and gold; springing out from the side of the church are angels with outspread wings; high up in the roof itself above the beams is a sky all blue with silver stars. The walls of the church are decorated with bright-coloured paintings from the life of the Blessed Virgin and her Son; the windows are richly painted; the altar is covered with candlesticks, crosses and furniture in white silk, gold, silver, and latoun. There are two noble monuments, each with its effigy and its chapel of white marble: one effigy wears a Bishop’s mitre; another is the image of an Alderman, who was a benefactor to the church. Dozens of candles stuck on iron sticks are burning, with a few great wax tapers paid for by a bequest; at the door sit two old women, beggars. On the north side of the church, and outside it, is a projecting structure half underground. This is the anchorite’s cell (see vol. ii. pt. ii. ch. v.): on the level of the ground is a small aperture protected by a rusty iron grating without glass and without shutter; by this window everything must be handed in to the occupant. If we look through the bars, we see that within there reigns a dim and terrible twilight, for no gleam of sunshine can penetrate this cold and gloomy den, and even on this bright and sunny morning the air is cold and damp like the air of a crypt. On the other side is a narrow slit in the wall, like the leper’s squint, through which the anchorite can witness the Elevation of the Host; at the end of the cell a raised stone serves for an altar, a crucifix stands upon it, and before it the anchorite spends most of his time day and night, praying. The present occupant has been built up into this cell for many years; he subsists on what is brought him. There is never any fear of his being starved or forgotten: he is well provided for, and the people offer him dainties which he will not touch, for he lives on bread and water: sick or well, he will never leave this cell till they find him lying dead on the floor and carry him out. And when the cell is empty there will be no difficulty in finding a successor to occupy his place and fulfil the same dreary austere life.

      Let us leave the church and pass on. The street is very narrow, but not so narrow as some. The houses, which are for the most part two and three stories high, are gabled, and the windows are glazed: many of them, such as those on Labour in Vain Hill, do not contain shops but are what we should call private houses, some are let for lodgings to those who come to town on business; and when the lodger is an armiger or a noble, he hangs his scutcheon out of the window, or fixes it on the wall above the door. Thus, Chaucer’s attention, you will remember—see that famous lawsuit tried but the other day, Scrope v. Grosvenor—was first called to the doubtful heraldry on the Grosvenor shield by seeing the scutcheon hanging out of the window in Friday Street. The houses are not in line, but are placed as the builders choose, fronting in various directions and abutting at different depths on the street. Here is a narrow court leading out of the street, it is so narrow that a man standing in the middle can easily touch each side. It contains about a dozen small tenements inhabited by craftsmen, who are all at work in the ground-floor rooms, which are at once workshop, kitchen, and sleeping-room. All about, in the air, one hears the continual noise of work, the sound of hammering, sawing, grating, the ringing of the anvil, the voices of women who quarrel and scold. Now and then rises, all in a moment, without warning, a sudden brawl between two of the working men, at once knives are drawn and in a moment the thing is over, but it leaves a little pool of blood in the middle of the street, and a woman binds up a bleeding arm. We have seen enough of the court. Come back into the street. Here is a gateway and over it a gatehouse, but without battlements or portcullis. Two or three men-at-arms are hanging about the gate, and within is a broad square court in which boys, pages practising tilting, are riding about. There are buildings on all four sides; one of these is a stately hall with a lofty roof and lantern, and the others are noble buildings. This is the town house of a great Baron, who rides with a following of three hundred gentlemen and men-at-arms, and owns manors broad, rich, and numerous. He maintains five hundred people, at least, in his service. Next, there is another gateway and another court with another hall, but not so great. This is the town house of the Bishop of Hereford. There is no tilting or riding in his court: it is, on the other hand, turned into a garden with roses and lilies blossoming in the flower-beds, a fountain sparkling in the sunshine and splashing musically. There is a south aspect, and vines are trained upon the wall; there is a sun-dial, and some seats are placed upon the grass. As for the house, the windows and porches are full of beautiful carved woodwork and shields are carved on the walls. Below the windows are figures in bas-relief representing all the virtues, and the great window of the hall is of painted glass with the family arms of the Bishop, a man of no mean descent, in the centre. Near the Bishop’s house, and like unto it in appearance, but of lesser splendour, is the house of a great merchant, as great men went in the fourteenth century. We will presently enter one of these houses and see how they are furnished. And among the great houses standing side by side, rich and poor together,