1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The History of London," Walter Besant presents a comprehensive and engaging narrative that weaves together the city's rich tapestry of events, figures, and transformations from its ancient roots to the dawn of the 20th century. Besant employs a blend of meticulous research and vivid storytelling, capturing the essence of London's diverse culture and its pivotal role in shaping English history. His attention to detail and his ability to convey the spirit of the city provide readers with a profound understanding of London's evolution across centuries, reflecting the city's socio-political dynamics and architectural grandeur. Walter Besant was a noted novelist and historian, deeply influenced by his Victorian upbringing and the changing urban landscape of London. His background in literature and civic duty is evident in his dedication to chronicling the city's history, driven by a desire to reveal the interconnectedness of its past and present. Besant's insights as a social reformer and a fervent advocate for London's cultural heritage fuel his narrative, showcasing his passion for the city he admired. For readers fascinated by urban history or those seeking a nuanced understanding of London's development, "The History of London" is an essential read. Besant's scholarship combines rigorous research with engaging prose, making it accessible to both the casual reader and the serious historian alike. His work not only enlightens but also inspires appreciation for one of the world's greatest cities. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Ähnliche
The History of London
Table of Contents
Introduction
At its heart, The History of London contemplates how a vast city continually remakes itself while carrying forward the memory of what it has been. Walter Besant’s study offers readers a patient, panoramic look at London’s long evolution, inviting attention to the layers beneath familiar streets and institutions. Rather than chasing novelty, it traces continuities, showing how civic patterns take shape and endure. The result is a portrait of a metropolis revealed through time, attentive to growth as well as to the residues of earlier eras. It is a book about change, but equally about the structures that frame change.
Walter Besant’s The History of London belongs to the tradition of popular urban history, written for general readers and students alike. Published in the late nineteenth century, it reflects the concerns and curiosity of a Victorian audience seeking to understand the origins of the modern metropolis. Its subject is London itself—its spaces, governance, people, commerce, and civic character—presented with clarity and breadth. The book is rooted in place, yet it moves across periods, showing how the city’s fabric and institutions developed over centuries. As a work of synthesis, it brings the city’s past into accessible focus for non-specialist readers.
Readers encounter a narrative that emphasizes orientation and comprehension: how districts formed, why institutions emerged, and what habits or needs guided urban life. Besant adopts a steady, explanatory voice, avoiding sensationalism while sustaining a sense of discovery. The book proceeds chronologically and thematically, enabling readers to see how particular practices and structures took hold. Its mood is instructive and civil, shaped by a desire to educate and to cultivate civic understanding. Rather than dwelling on isolated anecdotes, it seeks patterns that reveal how London became legible to itself, and how the city’s identity matured through successive adjustments and expansions.
Several themes animate the book. Continuity and adaptation show how older frameworks—legal, religious, commercial—could be reshaped without disappearing. Public order and civic governance receive attention, as do trade and the practicalities of daily life that underpin grander narratives. Geography matters, too: the city’s position and connections influence its fortunes and responsibilities. Underlying these strands is a patient interest in community—how people organize, sustain, and improve collective life. For contemporary readers, these themes remain resonant, inviting reflection on the balance between tradition and innovation, and on how urban societies negotiate pressure, opportunity, and the ongoing demands of common life.
Stylistically, The History of London favors coherence over controversy. Besant’s approach is explanatory rather than polemical, offering a careful arrangement of known material to illuminate the city’s larger arc. He emphasizes clarity of sequence and cause, guiding readers through the rise of institutions, the shaping of civic identities, and the interdependence of social and economic forces. The tone is confident but measured, aiming to inform rather than to astonish. Readers will find steady pacing, an orderly structure, and consistent attention to how distinct elements—law, trade, religion, topography—combine to form a recognizable civic whole that survives transformation.
The relevance of such a survey reaches beyond antiquarian interest. In a world where cities face questions about development, heritage, congestion, and belonging, Besant’s emphasis on institutional memory and civic responsibility feels timely. The book foregrounds how communities learn from precedent, and how durable arrangements can adapt to new pressures. It invites readers to consider what must be preserved, what can be reimagined, and how public life is sustained through collective choices. By tracing the city’s cumulative experience, it helps frame current debates in a longer perspective, suggesting that today’s urban challenges are part of a larger, ongoing conversation.
Approached this way, The History of London is both an introduction to the metropolis and a meditation on urban continuity. It offers a guided passage through the growth of a city that often seems too large to grasp in a single view. The experience is reflective rather than sensational, suited to readers who value synthesis, intelligible organization, and an even, instructive tone. By the end, one carries a clearer map of how London became what it is, and a sharper sense of why the city’s past remains a vital resource for understanding the responsibilities and possibilities of life in a great urban center.
Synopsis
The History of London presents a chronological survey of the city’s development from its earliest traces to the late nineteenth century. Walter Besant begins by describing the site on the Thames, the advantages of the river crossing, and the physical setting that shaped settlement and trade. He outlines the aim of the book as an accessible account of how London grew, governed itself, and supported its people. The narrative moves period by period, focusing on institutions, commerce, and daily life alongside major events. From the start, the emphasis falls on continuity in civic customs and the practical reasons for London’s prominence.
Besant introduces Roman Londinium following the conquest of Britain, explaining how a bridge, port facilities, and converging roads established the town as a commercial hub. He notes the building of streets, a forum and basilica, defensive walls, and the integration of London into imperial administration and trade networks. The chapter recounts prosperity under Roman order, punctuated by episodes of destruction and rebuilding, and the eventual decline of imperial authority. As Roman power receded, London’s civic life contracted, leaving fortifications and scattered remains. The section closes with the idea that the Roman plan and habit of organized municipal life left a lasting framework for later growth.
In the early medieval period, the book describes the shift from the riverside emporium of Lundenwic to the fortified Lundenburh. Besant highlights the Christian revival, the founding of St. Paul’s, and the role of bishops and kings in the city’s affairs. Repeated Scandinavian raids and political instability tested the town until Alfred the Great reoccupied and restored the walls, encouraging settlement and trade. Markets, craft streets, and early ward structures took shape. London emerged as a leading city among the English, balancing royal oversight with local custom. By the time of the Danish and later Norman claimants, it possessed recognizable urban authority.
After the Norman Conquest, the narrative follows London’s negotiated privileges under royal charters and the strengthening of municipal government. The Tower of London anchored royal power, while the citizens secured their rights through the office of mayor, sheriffs, and the evolving corporation. Besant explains the wards, guilds, and fraternities that organized economic life and civic responsibilities. He describes churches and religious houses, the rebuilding of St. Paul’s, and the maintenance of walls and gates. The city’s courts, markets, and river traffic expanded. Episodes of tension with the Crown appear alongside instances of cooperation, underscoring London’s distinct, legally recognized communal identity.
The account of later medieval London emphasizes trade prosperity, craft regulation, and social order. Besant notes links with continental commerce, including dealings with the Hanseatic merchants, as well as the discipline of apprenticeship and livery customs. He surveys parish life, hospitals, and the role of confraternities and charities. Major disruptions, such as the Black Death and periodic famine or fires, altered population and labor conditions. The narrative includes civic responses to unrest, notably episodes surrounding the rising of 1381, and the city’s position in national conflicts. Throughout, pageantry, processions, and the Lord Mayor’s Show illustrate the ceremonial expression of civic cohesion.
Under the Tudors, Besant records rapid expansion, strengthened central institutions, and the increasing concentration of national finance and law in London. The dissolution of monasteries redistributed property, changed poor relief, and opened sites for new streets, halls, and dwellings. River traffic intensified; the single bridge became a vital artery. The book notes the growth of suburbs and entertainment districts, including playhouses across the Thames, alongside recurrent plague and regulation of overcrowding. Surveyors and chroniclers mapped the city’s streets and trades. By Elizabeth’s reign, London had become the kingdom’s dominant center of commerce and culture, with governance balancing civic tradition and royal policy.
Besant’s treatment of the seventeenth century addresses political turmoil, public health crises, and rebuilding. London’s role in the Civil War, the Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of 1666 are set out as decisive tests. The narrative explains the destruction within the walls and subsequent reconstruction in brick, the new churches designed by Wren and others, and the completion of the new St. Paul’s. Late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century chapters describe coffeehouses, newspapers, improved streets, and the emergence of modern finance through the Royal Exchange, Bank of England, and stock trading. The West End’s squares and courts develop alongside the enduring City institutions.
In the nineteenth century, the book chronicles metropolitan expansion beyond the old boundaries, driven by docks, factories, and railways. Besant outlines the creation of new bridges, embankments, and thoroughfares, the organization of police, and reforms to poor relief and education. Public health receives sustained attention: recurring cholera outbreaks, the ‘Great Stink,’ and the comprehensive sewerage engineered under Bazalgette. Administrative changes—from parochial arrangements to the Metropolitan Board of Works and the London County Council—are presented as steps toward coordinated governance. Museums, parks, and institutions multiplied, while persistent poverty and overcrowding prompted philanthropic initiatives and inquiries into housing, labor, and urban sanitation.
Concluding, Besant presents London as a city shaped by commerce, self-government, and resilience, repeatedly reorganizing itself after war, pestilence, and fire. It closes with an assessment of the city’s scale in the author’s own time, its river and port linking it to global trade, and its inherited customs preserved in charters, livery halls, and ceremonies. Attention to streets, wards, and topography underscores the continuity between past and present. The overall message is that London’s growth rests on practical advantages, civic liberties, and collective discipline. The book offers a compact record intended to acquaint readers with the origins and workings of the metropolis.
Historical Context
Walter Besant’s The History of London, published in the 1890s, surveys the city from its Roman foundations to the late Victorian era, using London itself as the continuous setting. The book’s place is the metropolis on the Thames, with its successive cores at Londinium, Lundenwic, and the walled medieval City, and then its vast nineteenth-century suburbs. Its time-frame is emphatically longue durée, but its perspective is Victorian, when London was the world’s largest city and the imperial capital. Besant writes amid debates on municipal reform, sanitation, housing, and poverty, interpreting earlier epochs to explain the civic character and social problems of his own day.
The Roman occupation established Londinium after the Claudian invasion of 43 CE, with a bridge, forum, and basilica; it became a provincial hub before being sacked in 60–61 by Boudica’s Iceni, then rebuilt and later fortified with stone walls around 200. The Roman withdrawal in the early fifth century led to decline, followed by the Anglo-Saxon Lundenwic near present-day Aldwych in the seventh to ninth centuries. In 886 Alfred the Great refortified the old Roman site, creating a burh that revived urban life. Besant narrates these transitions to show how geography and defense shaped London’s enduring commercial role and civic identity.
After 1066, Norman rule reshaped the city: William I began the Tower of London c. 1078 to secure the Thames and intimidate the borough. Londoners secured charters from Henry I and Henry II; a mayoralty emerged by 1189 under Henry FitzAilwin. Magna Carta (1215) confirmed the City’s liberties, embedding self-government, guild authority, and control of markets. Livery companies, such as the Mercers and Fishmongers, regulated trade and apprenticeship. Besant highlights these civic institutions as the backbone of London’s autonomy, arguing that medieval municipal freedoms forged a tradition of urban governance that persisted, albeit transformed, into the Victorian corporation and county structures.
The late medieval and Tudor periods saw turbulence and religious upheaval. During the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, rebels entered London, destroyed the Savoy Palace on 13 June, and confronted Richard II at Mile End and Smithfield, where Wat Tyler was killed by Lord Mayor William Walworth. The English Reformation, consolidated by the 1534 Act of Supremacy and the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536–1541), redistributed vast ecclesiastical lands, altering property and charity in the city. Theatres like The Theatre (1576) and the Globe (1599) flourished in suburbs such as Shoreditch and Bankside. Besant uses these episodes to illustrate urban self-defense, property change, and suburban expansion.
Seventeenth-century crises reshaped London. The city supported Parliament in the Civil Wars (1642–1651), erecting the Lines of Communication in 1642–1643 and becoming the financial and logistical heart of the Parliamentarian cause. The Great Plague of 1665 killed tens of thousands, recorded in the Bills of Mortality. The Great Fire of 2–5 September 1666 destroyed some 13,200 houses and 87 parish churches, prompting Rebuilding Acts, a Fire Court, and Christopher Wren’s redesign culminating in the new St Paul’s Cathedral (consecrated 1710). The Bank of England (1694) anchored a new financial quarter. Besant treats these as proofs of civic resilience, planning, and commercial reinvention.
From the eighteenth to early nineteenth century, rapid growth and disorder spurred institutional change. The Gin Craze of the 1730s–1750s prompted the Gin Acts (notably 1751) to curb consumption. The Gordon Riots of 1780 devastated Newgate Prison and exposed fragile policing. Expanding maritime trade produced the West India Docks (1802), London Docks (1805), East India Docks (1806), and St Katharine Docks (1828), making London the preeminent port. Sir Robert Peel’s Metropolitan Police was founded in 1829 to professionalize urban order. Besant links these episodes to the city’s governance challenges, arguing that commerce required civic discipline and infrastructure commensurate with metropolitan scale.
Victorian transformation forms the hinge of Besant’s interpretation. Railways opened the city and destroyed parts of it: the London and Greenwich Railway (1836), Euston (1837), King’s Cross (1852), and St Pancras (1868) drove suburbanization while carving through densely built districts, displacing thousands. Recurrent cholera (1832, 1848–1849, 1853–1854) and the Broad Street outbreak investigated by John Snow in 1854 exposed water contamination. The Great Stink of 1858 forced Parliament’s hand, empowering the Metropolitan Board of Works (1855) and engineer Joseph Bazalgette to construct intercepting sewers (1859–1865) and the Thames Embankment (1864–1870). Public Health Acts and housing measures, including the 1875 Artisans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings Improvement Act and the 1890 Housing of the Working Classes Act, sought to clear slums. The London County Council (established 1889) replaced the scandal-ridden MBW, inaugurating progressive municipalism. Meanwhile, the 1851 Great Exhibition celebrated imperial industry, while poverty mapping by Charles Booth (from 1886) and the Whitechapel murders of 1888 revealed severe East End deprivation. Besant, an advocate for civic improvement, helped inspire the People’s Palace in Mile End (opened 1887), reflecting his belief in educational and recreational provision for the working classes. In The History of London he knits these developments into a story of citizenship: he presents Victorian infrastructure, governance, and philanthropy as the culmination of centuries of municipal evolution, and as a practical template for addressing overcrowding, sanitation, and class inequity.
The book functions as a social and political critique by using precedent to interrogate the Victorian present. Besant juxtaposes the City’s historic liberties and corporate responsibilities with contemporary failures in housing, health, and planning, arguing that civic privilege entails social duty. By tracing how fires, plagues, and wars produced regulatory innovation, he implicitly criticizes laissez-faire neglect of slums and speculative building. His emphasis on policing, sanitation, and accountable institutions challenges elite complacency, while his attention to the East End and municipal reform highlights stark class divides. History, in his hands, becomes a civic lesson: London’s greatness depends on equitable governance and public investment.
The History of London
LONDON
1. THE FOUNDATION OF LONDON.PART I.
'In the year 1108 B.C., Brutus, a descendant of Æneas, who was the son of Venus, came to England with his companions, after the taking of Troy, and founded the City of Troynovant, which is now called London. After a thousand years, during which the City grew and flourished exceedingly, one Lud became its king. He built walls and towers, and, among other things, the famous gate whose name still survives in the street called Ludgate. King Lud was succeeded by his brother Cassivelaunus, in whose time happened the invasion of the Romans under Julius Cæsar. Troynovant, or London, then became a Roman city. It was newly fortified by Helena, mother of Constantine the Great.'
This is the legend invented or copied by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and continued to be copied, and perhaps believed, almost to the present day. Having paid this tribute to old tradition, let us relate the true early history of the City, as it can be recovered from such documents as remain, from discoveries made in excavation, from fragments of architecture, and from the lie of the ground. The testimony derived from the lie of the ground is more important than any other, for several reasons. First, an historical document may be false, or inexact; for instance, the invention of a Brutus, son of Æneas, is false and absurd on the face of it. Or a document may be wrongly interpreted. Thus, a fragment of architecture may through ignorance be ascribed to the Roman, when it belongs to the Norman, period—one needs to be a profound student of architecture before an opinion of value can be pronounced upon the age of any monument: or it may be taken to mean something quite apart from the truth, as if a bastion of the old Roman fort, such as has been discovered on Cornhill, should be taken for part of the Roman wall. But the lie of the ground cannot deceive, and, in competent hands, cannot well be misunderstood. If we know the course of streams, the height and position of hills, the run of valleys, the site of marshes, the former extent of forests, the safety of harbours, the existence of fords, we have in our hands a guide-book to history. We can then understand why towns were built in certain positions, why trade sprang up, why invading armies landed at certain places, what course was taken by armies, and why battles have been fought on certain spots. For these things are not the result of chance, they are necessitated by the geographical position of the place, and by the lie of the ground. Why, for instance, is Dover one of the oldest towns in the country? Because it is the nearest landing ground for the continent, and because its hill forms a natural fortress for protecting that landing ground. Why was there a Roman station at Portsmouth? On account of the great and landlocked harbour. Why is Durham an ancient city? Because the steep hill made it almost impregnable. Why is Chester so called? Because it was from very ancient times a fort, or stationary camp (L. castra), against the wild Welsh.
EARLY BRITISH POTTERY.
Let us consider this question as regards London. Look at the map called 'Roman London' (p. 15). You will there see flowing into the river Thames two little streams, one called Walbrook[1], and the other called the Fleet River[2]. You will see a steep slope, or cliff, indicated along the river side. Anciently, before any buildings stood along the bank, this cliff, about 30 feet high, rose over an immense marsh which covered all the ground on the south, the east, and the west. The cliff receded from the river on the east and on the west at this point: on either side of the Walbrook it rose out of the marsh at the very edge of the river at high tide. There was thus a double hill, one on the east with the Walbrook on one side of it, the Thames on a second side, and a marsh on a third side, and the Fleet River on the west. It was thus bounded on east, south, and west, by streams. On the north was a wild moor (hence the name Moorfields) and beyond the moor stretched away northwards a vast forest, afterwards called the Middlesex forest. This forest covered, indeed, the greater part of the island, save where marshes and stagnant lakes lay extended, the haunt of countless wild birds. You may see portions and fragments of this forest even now; some of it lies in Ken Wood, Hampstead; some in the last bit left of Hainault Forest; some at Epping.
The river Thames ran through this marsh.[1q] It was then much broader than at present, because there were no banks or quays to keep it within limits: at high tide it overflowed the whole of the marsh and lay in an immense lake, bounded on the north by this low cliff of clay, and on the south by the rising ground of what we now call the Surrey Hills, which begin between Kennington and Clapham, as is shown by the name of Clapham Rise. In this marsh were a few low islets, always above water save at very high tides. The memory of these islands is preserved in the names ending with ea or ey, as Chelsea, Battersea, Bermondsey. And Westminster Abbey was built upon the Isle of Thorns or Thorney. The marsh, south of the river, remained a marsh, undrained and neglected for many centuries. Almost within the memory of living men Southwark contained stagnant ponds, while Bermondsey is still flooded when the tide is higher than is customary.
2. THE FOUNDATION OF LONDON.PART II.
On these low hillocks marked on the map London was first founded. The site had many advantages: it was raised above the malarious marsh, it overlooked the river, which here was at its narrowest, it was protected by two other streams and by the steepness of the cliff, and it was over the little port formed by the fall of one stream into the river. Here, on the western hill, the Britons formed their first settlement; there were as yet no ships on the silent river where they fished; there was no ferry, no bridge, no communication with the outer world; the woods provided the first Londoners with game and skins; the river gave them fish; they lived in round huts formed of clay and branches with thatched roofs. If you desire to understand how the Britons fortified themselves, you may see an excellent example not very far from London. It is the place called St. George's Hill, near Weybridge. They wanted a hill—the steeper the side the better: they made it steeper by entrenching it; they sometimes surrounded it with a high earthwork and sometimes with a stockade: the great thing being to put the assailing force under the disadvantage of having to climb. The three river sides of the London fort presented a perpendicular cliff surmounted by a stockade, the other side, on which lay the forest, probably had an earthwork also surmounted by a stockade. There were no buildings and there was no trade; the people belonged to a tribe and had to go out and fight when war was carried on with another tribe.
The fort was called Llyn-din[3]—the Lake Fort. When the Romans came they could not pronounce the word Llyn—Thlin in the British way—and called it Lon—hence their word Londinium. Presently adventurous merchants from Gaul pushed across to Dover, and sailed along the coast of Kent past Sandwich and through the open channel which then separated the island of Thanet from the main land, into the broad Thames, and, sailing up with the tide, dropped anchor off the fishing villages which lay along the river and began to trade. What did they offer? What Captain Cook offered the Polynesians: weapons, clothes, adornments. What did they take away? Skins and slaves at first; skins and slaves, and tin and iron, after the country became better known and its resources were understood. The taste for trading once acquired rapidly grows;[2q] it is a delightful thing to exchange what you do not want for what you do want, and it is so very easy to extend one's wants. So that when the Romans first saw London it was already a flourishing town with a great concourse of merchants.
How long a period elapsed between the foundation of London and the arrival of the Romans? How long between the foundation and the beginnings of trade? It is quite impossible even to guess. When Cæsar landed Gauls and Belgians were already here before him. As for the Britons themselves they were Celts, as were the Gauls and the Belgians, but of what is called the Brythonic branch, represented in speech by the Welsh, Breton and Cornish languages (the last is now extinct). There were also lingering among them the surviving families of an earlier and a conquered race, perhaps Basques or Finns. When the country was conquered by the Celts we do not know. Nor is there any record at all of the people they found here unless the caves, full of the bones which they gnawed and cut in two for the marrow, were the homes of these earlier occupants.
When the Romans came they found the town prosperous. That is all we know. What the town was like we do not know. It is, however, probable that the requirements of trade had already necessitated some form of embankment and some kind of quay; also, if trade were of long standing, some improvement in the huts, the manner of living, the wants, and the dress of the people would certainly have been introduced.
Such was the beginning of London. Let us repeat.
It was a small fortress defended on three sides by earthworks, by stockades, by a cliff or steeply sloping bank, and by streams; on the fourth side by an earthwork, stockade, and trench. The ground was slightly irregular, rising from 30 to 60 feet. An open moor full of quagmires and ponds also protected it on the north. On the east on the other side of the stream rose another low hill. The extent of this British fort of Llyn-din may be easily estimated. The distance from Walbrook to the Fleet is very nearly 900 yards; supposing the fort was 500 yards in depth from south to north we have an area of 450,000 square yards, i.e. about 100 acres was occupied by the first London, the Fortress on the Lake. What this town was like in its later days when the Romans found it; what buildings stood upon it; how the people lived, we know very little indeed. They went out to fight, we know so much; and if you visit Hampstead Heath you may look at a barrow on the top of a hill which probably contains the bones of those citizens of London who fell in the victory which they achieved over the citizens of Verulam when they fought it out in the valley below that hill.
3. ROMAN LONDON.PART I.
The Romans, when they resolved to settle in England, established themselves on the opposite hillock, the eastern bank of the Walbrook. The situation was not so strong as that of the British town, because it was protected by cliff and river on two sides only instead of three. But the Romans depended on their walls and their arms rather than the position of their town. As was their habit they erected here a strong fortress or a stationary camp, such as others which remain in the country. Perhaps the Roman building which most resembles this fort is the walled enclosure called Porchester, which stands at the head of Portsmouth Harbour. This is rectangular in shape and is contained by a high wall built of rubble stone and narrow bricks, with round, hollow bastions at intervals. One may also see such a stationary camp at Richborough, near Sandwich; and at Pevensey, in Sussex; and at Silchester, near Reading, but the two latter are not rectangular. One end of this fort was on the top of the Walbrook bank and the other, if you look in your map, on the site of Mincing Lane. This gives a length of about 700 yards by a breadth of 350, which means an enclosure of about 50 acres. This is a large area: it was at once the barrack, the arsenal, and the treasury of the station; it contained the residences of the officers, the offices of the station, the law court and tribunals, and the prisons; it was the official residence. Outside the fort on the north was the burial place. If we desire to know the character of the buildings we may assure ourselves that they were not mean or ignoble by visiting the Roman town of Silchester. Here we find that the great Hall of Justice was a hall more spacious than Westminster Hall, though doubtless not so lofty or so fine. Attached to this hall were other smaller rooms for the administration of justice; on one side was an open court with a cloister or corridor running all round it and shops at the back for the sale of everything. This was the centre of the city: here the courts were held; this was the Exchange; here were the baths; this was the place where the people resorted in the morning and lounged about to hear the news; here the jugglers and the minstrels and the acrobats came to perform; it was the very centre of the life of the city—as was Silchester so was London.
Outside the Citadel the rude British town—if it was still a rude town—disappeared rapidly. The security of the place, strongly garrisoned, the extension of Roman manners, the introduction of Roman customs, dress, and luxuries gave a great impetus to the development of the City. The little ports of the rivers Walbrook and Fleet no longer sufficed for the shipping which now came up the river; if there were as yet no quays or embankments they were begun to be erected; behind them rose warehouses and wharves. The cliff began to be cut away; a steep slope took its place; its very existence was forgotten. The same thing has happened at Brighton, where, almost within the memory of living man, a low cliff ran along the beach. This embankment extended east and west—as far as the Fleet River, which is now Blackfriars, on the west, and what is now Tower Hill on the east. Then, the trade still increasing, the belt of ground behind the embankment became filled with a dense population of riverside people—boatmen, sailors, boat-builders, store-keepers, bargemen, stevedores, porters—all the people who belong to a busy mercantile port. As for the better sort, they lived round the Citadel, protected by its presence, in villas, remains of which have been found in many places.
The two things which most marked the Roman occupation were London Wall and Bridge. Of the latter we will speak in another place. The wall was erected at a time between A.D. 350 and A.D. 369—very near the end of the Roman occupation. This wall remained the City wall for more than a thousand years; it was rebuilt, repaired, restored; the scanty remains of it—a few fragments here and there—contain very little of the original wall; but the course of the wall was never altered, and we know exactly how it ran. There was first a strong river wall along the northern bank. There were three water gates and the Bridge gate; there were two land gates at Newgate and Bishopsgate. The wall was 3 miles and 205 yards long; the area enclosed was 380 acres. This shows that the population must have been already very large, for the Romans were not accustomed to erect walls longer than they could defend.
4. ROMAN LONDON.PART II.
We must think of Roman London as of a small stronghold on a low hill rising out of the river. It is a strongly-walled place, within which is a garrison of soldiers; outside its walls stretch gardens and villas, many of them rich and beautiful, filled with costly things. Below the fort is a long river wall or quay covered with warehouses, bales of goods, and a busy multitude of men at work. Some are slaves—perhaps all. Would you like to know what a Roman villa was like? It was in plan a small, square court, surrounded on three sides by a cloister or corridor with pillars, and behind the cloister the rooms of the house; the middle part of the court was a garden, and in front was another and a larger garden. The house was of one storey, the number and size of the rooms varying according to the size of the house. On one side were the winter divisions, on the other were the summer rooms. The former part was kept warm by means of a furnace constructed below the house, which supplied hot-air pipes running up all the walls. At the back of the house were the kitchen, stables, and sleeping quarters of the servants. Tesselated pavements, statues, pictures, carvings, hangings, pillows, and fine glass adorned the house. There was not in London the enormous wealth which enabled some of the Romans to live in palaces, but there was comparative wealth—the wealth which enables a man to procure for himself in reason all the things that he desires.
The City as it grew in prosperity was honoured by receiving the name of Augusta. It remained in Roman hands for nearly four hundred years. The Citadel, which marks the first occupation by the Romans, was probably built about A.D. 43. The Romans went away in A.D. 410. During these four centuries the people became entirely Romanised. Add to this that they became Christians. Augusta was a Christian city; the churches which stand—or stood, because three at least have been removed—along Thames Street, probably occupied the sites of older Roman churches. In this part of the City the people were thickest; in this quarter, therefore, stood the greater number of churches: the fact that they were mostly dedicated to the apostles instead of to later Saxon saints seems to show that they stood on the sites of Roman churches. It has been asked why there has never been found any heathen temple in London; the answer is that London under the Romans very early became Christian; if there had been a temple of Diana or Apollo it would have been destroyed or converted into a church. Such remains of Augusta as have been found are inconsiderable: they are nearly all in the museum of the Guildhall, where they should be visited and examined.
The history of Roman London is meagre. Seventeen years after the building of the Citadel, on the rebellion of Boadicea[4], the Roman general Suetonius abandoned the place, as unable to defend it. All those who remained were massacred by the insurgents. After this, so far as we know, for history is silent, there was peace in London for 200 years. Then one Carausius, an officer in command of the fleet stationed in the Channel for the suppression of piracies, assumed the title of emperor. He continued undisturbed for some years, his soldiers remaining faithful to him on account of his wealth: he established a Mint at London and struck a large amount of money there. He was murdered by one of his officers, Allectus, who called himself emperor in turn and continued to rule in Britain for three years. Then the end came for him as well. The Roman general landing with a large force marched upon London where Allectus lay. A battle fought in the south of London resulted in the overthrow and death of the usurper. His soldiers taking advantage of the confusion began to plunder and murder in the town, but were stopped and killed by the victors.
Constantine, who became emperor in 306, was then in Britain, but his name is not connected with London except by coins bearing his name.
Tradition connects the name of Helena, Constantine's mother, with London, but there is nothing to prove that she was ever in the island at all.
Late in the fourth century troubles began to fall thick upon the country. The Picts and the Scots overran the northern parts and penetrated to the very walls of London. The general Theodosius, whose son became the emperor of that name, drove them back. About this time the wall of London was built; not the wall of the Roman fort, but that of the whole City. From the year 369, when Theodosius the general landed in Britain, to the year 609 we see nothing of London except one brief glimpse of fugitives flying for their lives across London Bridge. Of this interval we shall speak in the next chapter. Meanwhile it is sufficient to say that the decay of the Roman power made it necessary to withdraw the legions from the outlying and distant portions of the Empire. Britain had to be abandoned. It was as if England were to give up Hong Kong and Singapore and the West Indies because she could no longer spare the ships and regiments to defend them. The nation which abandons her possessions is not far from downfall. Remember, when you listen to those who advocate abandonment of our colonies, the example of Rome.
