Memorials of Old London Part 18

Time and s.p.a.ce will only allow a very brief inspection of a few of these interesting buildings, the homes of the companies, which are, without doubt, the most interesting features of the city of London.[154] In Cheapside is Mercers' Hall, a fine building, erected after the Great Fire. The usual entrance is in Ironmonger Lane. If you would try to realize the former hall and the hospital of St. Thomas and its n.o.ble church, you must read Sir John Watney's work, if you are fortunate enough to obtain a copy of that admirable privately printed quarto volume. In the present hall you will see (if permitted) a fine store of plate, four pieces of which escaped the Great Fire, including a curious waggon and tun, the gift of W. Baude in 1573, which moves along the table by clockwork. The entrance colonnade, which occupies the site of the ancient cloister, with its Doric columns, is attractive, and a fine stone staircase protected by a wooden portcullis leads to the hall and court rooms. The hall itself is a n.o.ble chamber, panelled by Rowland Wynne after the Great Fire, and hung with banners and paintings. The most interesting paintings are: an original portrait of Sir Thomas Gresham by Holbein; Dean Colet; and a fancy portrait of Sir Richard Whittington with his famous cat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HALL OF THE MERCERS' COMPANY: ENTRANCE COLONNADE AND SITE OF ANCIENT CLOISTER.]

Grocers' Hall has been recently rebuilt, and Drapers' Hall is modern, situated around a lovely court and garden, where a quiet stillness reigns in refres.h.i.+ng contrast to the noise of the bustling throng of busy stockbrokers in the adjoining street. Two fine pieces of statuary, splendid specimens of Gobelins tapestry, much interesting plate, and fine portraits of kings and queens and other worthies, are among their treasures. The present hall of the Fishmongers was built in 1831, when the new London Bridge, of which Mr. Tavenor-Perry, a member of this company, tells in this volume, was erected. They have many treasures, including the Walworth Pall, said to have been worked previously to 1381, and to have been used at Walworth's funeral, though it is evidently the work of the sixteenth century. Numerous royal and other portraits adorn the walls, paintings of fish by Arnold von Hacken, Scott's pictures of old London and Westminster Bridges, and a large representation of a pageant of ancient days, affording some idea of one of London's scenes of old civic state.

Goldsmiths' Hall, built in 1835, is perhaps the most imposing of all the homes of the companies, and is rich in plate, sculptures, pictures, and other works of art. A magnificent marble staircase leads from the ground floor, monolith pillars support the roof, and a bust of the founder of the company, Edward III., faces the entrance. Two fine sculptures by Storey, the Libyan Sibyl and Cleopatra, adorn the vestibule. The oak panelling of the court room was taken from the old hall. This room contains a painting of St. Dunstan, the patron saint of the company, some portraits of worthies, a silver vase and s.h.i.+eld by Vechte, and a small Roman altar, discovered when the foundations of the hall were being laid. This altar is mentioned in the Ingoldsby Legend of the "Lay of St. Dunstan." The plate of this company is remarkably fine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MERCHANT TAYLORS' COMPANY--THE KITCHEN CRYPT.]

In Threadneedle Street is the hall of the Merchant Taylors, the name of that thoroughfare being doubtless derived from their trade. This hall is one of the most interesting of all the palaces of the companies, inasmuch as the Great Fire did not completely destroy the old building, and was stayed on the premises; hence the present hall is a restoration of the ancient building, and not an entirely modern erection. There is an ancient vaulted crypt, the use of which is not quite clear. It may have been a pa.s.sage leading from the street to the chapel. In the fourteenth century Edmund Crepin granted the hall to John de Gakeslee, the King's pavilion maker, who purchased it on behalf of the company.

The property was enlarged by the gift of the Oteswich family, who gave to the company the advowson of the church of St. Martin Outwich (or Oteswich), and certain shops for the benefit of the poor brethren and sisters. The company built their almshouses on the west end of the parish church, and attached to them a new hall, the interior of which was adorned with costly tapestry representing the history of St. John the Baptist, and a silver image of the saint adorned the screen.

Heraldic arms appeared in the windows, the floor was strewn with rushes, and silk banners hung from the ceiling. A garden with alleys and a terrace was at the rear of the hall, and in it stood the treasury, in which plate and other valuables were stored; and there was a building called the King's Chamber set apart and well furnished for the reception of Royal guests, who frequently honoured the company with their presence. This chamber, called the banqueting hall, was rebuilt in 1593, and a few years later the s.p.a.ce above the ceiling was deemed the most convenient place for the storage of gunpowder. The great hall was restored in 1671, and is "old-fas.h.i.+oned, ample, and sumptuous," having all the characteristics of the fifteenth-century edifice. It is impossible to describe all the treasures of the company, but we must mention the two hea.r.s.e-cloths of Italian fabric of early sixteenth-century work, some valuable portraits of royalty and of worthies of the company, two being painted by Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller.

Happily, all the old deeds, charters, and doc.u.ments were saved at the Great Fire, and these add greatly to the history of this important company.

Skinners' Hall was not so fortunate, and a new one was erected, thus described in 1708: "a n.o.ble structure built with fine bricks and richly furnished, the hall with right wainscot, and the great parlour with odoriferous cedar." It has been much altered, a new front being added in 1791, and redecorated a hundred years later. The company can boast of many n.o.ble and distinguished members, amongst whom we find Edward III.

and his Queen, the Black Prince, Richard II. and his Queen, Henry IV., Henry V., Henry VI., Edward IV., and their Royal consorts.

Haberdashers' Hall is modern, built in 1864 on a site bequeathed to the company by William Bacon in 1478, but the court room was erected by Wren after the Great Fire, and has a fine ceiling. Salters' Hall--they have had no less than five--was finished in 1827, and is very magnificent, having a large open s.p.a.ce in front, which adds greatly to its imposing appearance. Some pictures were saved at the Great Fire, and there are two fine paintings of Queen Charlotte and George III. by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Ironmongers' Hall, spared by the Great Fire, was pulled down in 1903, and a new hall, we believe, is in course of erection.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAMUEL PEPYS'S LOVING CUP.

_In the possession of the Clothworkers' Company._]

The Vintners have a very interesting hall, built partly on the foundations of the old hall destroyed in 1666, and very rich in its treasures: its beautiful carvings by Grinling Gibbons, its ancient tapestry, hea.r.s.e-cloth, portraits, and valuable store of plate. Pepys tells of the destruction of Clothworkers' Hall. He wrote, "But strange it is to see Clothworkers' Hall on fire these three days and nights in one body of flame, it having two cellars full of oil." After that mighty destruction a new hall arose, worthy of the greatness of the company, the present great hall itself being added in 1859, a n.o.ble building lighted by fine windows containing the arms of distinguished members.

Pepys was master of the company in 1677, and presented a loving cup, which is still amongst the company's treasures.

It is impossible in this brief survey of the Livery Companies to include a description of the halls of the minor companies, some of which are very fine and interesting. It has been my privilege to visit nearly all of these ancient edifices, and to inspect many of their records and valuable treasures. These I have tried to describe in my larger work on the history of the companies. No volume relating to London would, however, be complete without some reference to the ancient state and glories of these venerable inst.i.tutions, which, in spite of many vicissitudes, much oppression, heavy losses and crus.h.i.+ng calamities, have survived to the present day, and continue their useful careers for the benefit of the present generation of men. The story of the Livery Companies furnishes wonderful examples of the tenacity of the national character of Englishmen, of their firm determination to overcome difficulties, and of their resolution to hand down to their successors the traditions which they have received from a great and historic past.

FOOTNOTES:

[154] A full account of the history of each hall, its description and treasures, is contained in my book on _The City Companies of London and their Good Works_ (Dent & Co.), with ill.u.s.trations by A. R. Quinton, and reproductions of old pictures, tapestry, and plate.

LONDON AND THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE

BY J. TAVENOR-PERRY

A remarkable episode in the early history of London, and an element in its making, which through the Middle Ages exercised an important and beneficial influence on its progress and growth, was the settlement of foreign merchants, who, at first as individuals, and later under the control of the Hanseatic League, made it one of the princ.i.p.al trading centres of Northern Europe; and no account of mediaeval London would be complete which omitted a reference to the part played by these German and Flemish adventurers. Although it was not until the middle of the twelfth century that the League reached that complete organization which made it for some centuries a great northern power, the trading communities of Germany early acquired some sort of cohesion; and we find them established in London as early as the reign of Ethelred II. The encouragement this Saxon King afforded them was doubtless due to the fact that they were able to offer him the money of which he always stood in need, in return for the privileges he was able to confer on them; and he may have felt that he could always rely on their active support against their common enemy--the Danes. But these first merchants were few and unorganized, and although as time went on they increased in number and importance, it was not until the League itself had become a power that, in the reign of Henry III., they obtained a recognized corporate existence.

The foundations of this originally peaceful confederacy were, curiously enough, laid in war, and that of the baser sort--war for the sake of pillage. The Vikings, finding themselves unable to realize the spoil with which they were sometimes gorged, conceived the idea of founding a market-place to which, by a.s.surances of safety and immunity from further theft, they could induce peaceful merchants to attend and receive, and pay for, the goods which they had stolen. Such was the now vanished town of Jomsborg which Palnatoki, the Jarl of Fjon, founded about 950 in the country of the Wends, near the mouth of the Oder. This town was intended to be an abode of peace, where not only could the merchants reside in safety, but to which the Viking Jarls, fighting elsewhere between themselves, might resort to exchange the results of their raids. And this city gradually became not only the market for the goods which the sea-rovers gathered from sacked cities and ruined monasteries, but also the emporium of the merchandise of the East, which reached the Baltic from Byzantium by the Euxine and the Dnieper. It was in this Viking market town that the first German merchants established among themselves that a.s.sociation which eventually grew to be the most important trading community of the Middle Ages.

The name which the a.s.sociation took to itself was a Gothic word, and was not improbably conferred upon them by the Vikings themselves, since Hansa means--in the language of the Goths--"a company," or "a troop,"

and in that sense it occurs in the Gothic version of the Scriptures by Ulphilas, a copy of which is preserved in the library of Upsala. Some of the rules which Palnatoki made for these merchants remained in force throughout the existence of the League, and formed the basis of the laws by which all the factories of the Hansa were governed. The _Joms Vykinga Saga_ contains some of these rules:--"No man older than fifty years or younger than eighteen winters could be received." "Anyone who committed what had been forbidden was to be cast out, and driven from the community." "No one should have a woman within the burgh, or be absent from it for three nights." Governed by such rules, the Kontors of the League formed among the alien populations in which they were placed semi-monastic establishments, holding only such intercourse with their neighbours as their business required, much like the early British factories established in India.

Hamburg was founded in 809 by Charlemagne, and its merchants were among the first to take advantage of Jomsborg; and it was very shortly after that market was opened when they appeared in London. The growth of the League was, however, very gradual; and it was not until the foundation of Lubeck, which afterwards became its princ.i.p.al city, that it a.s.sumed its great importance. But the destruction of Jomsborg by the Danes transferred all the Eastern trade of the Baltic to this new town, which, as a consequence of its increasing importance, was made in 1226 a free city of the Empire; and by 1234 it had become so powerful as to be able to destroy for ever the naval supremacy of Denmark in the sea-fight of Travemunde. Its treaty with Hamburg for mutual defence was made soon afterwards, and this event is reckoned to be the formal establishment of the Hansa League, not only as a corporate body, but as an independent state to make treaties, and, when necessary, to levy war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COAT OF ARMS OF HANSA MERCHANT IN LONDON.]

During this same period the German settlement in London had been increasing in importance, and, although not yet recognized as a corporate body, is frequently referred to as a guild or a.s.sociation.

There is but little doubt that the William Almaine, one of the three city merchants who completed London Bridge, after the death of Peter of Colechurch, was one of its members, and so important had the London settlement become in the eyes of the Flemings, that in a charter granted to the Flemish town of Damme by Joan of Constantinople in 1241, it is specially provided that no one shall aspire to the office of alderman of that place unless he had been previously admitted a member of the Hanse in London.

In 1250 the permanent buildings of the League in London were commenced by the erection of storehouses; and nine years afterwards, through the influence of his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, Henry III.

"granted that all and singular the merchants, having a house in the City of London, commonly called the Guilda Aula Teutonicorum, should be maintained and upholden through the whole realm by all such freedoms and free usages or liberties as by the King and his n.o.ble progenitors' time they had enjoyed."

This "house in the City" was situated to the south of Thames Street, bordering on the river, closely adjoining Dowgate Wharf, one of the princ.i.p.al landing places, and it became known, later on, as the Steel-yard. Several suggestions as to the origin of this name, more or less ingenious, have been made, but it seems most probable that it was due to the fact that there, or thereabouts, was situated a weighing place for foreign goods imported by the Hansa, similar to the King's weigh-house in Cornhill. In this settlement the merchants lived the semi-monastic life required by their rules, avoiding as far as possible intimate a.s.sociation with the people by whom they were surrounded, but with whom they carried on their business; yet at the same time not so exclusively withholding themselves as in the remote settlements of Bergen and Novgorod. Indeed, in return for the privileges which were conceded to them they were required, to a certain extent, to take part in the civil life of London and to share in the duties of its defence.

One of the duties they were required to discharge was the maintenance of one of the city gates--that known as Bishopsgate, from the fact that it had been first erected by Saint Erkenwald, sometime Bishop of London; and one of the first troubles they had with the city Corporation arose in consequence of their neglect properly to perform this duty. It is recorded that in the tenth year of Edward I., who had renewed his father's charter, that a great controversy arose between the Mayor and the "Haunce of Almaine" about the reparation of this gate, then likely to fall, and the matter was brought before the King's Court of Exchequer. The result was that the German merchants were found to have neglected their duty, and they were called upon to pay two hundred and ten marks sterling to the Mayor and citizens, and to undertake that they and their successors should from time to time repair the gate. The names of the merchants who at that time were residing in London, and answered to the court, are given by Stow, and the list is interesting as showing the different parts of Germany represented at that time. They were, Gerard Marbod the Alderman, Ralph de Cusarde of Cologne, Bertram of Hamburg, John de Dele, burgess of Munster, and Ludero de Denevar, John of Arras, and John de Hundondale, all three burgesses of Treves; so that unless the Alderman himself was from Lubeck, the head city of the League was not represented. An interesting point arises in connection with the repairs of this gate. London in the thirteenth century was a city of wood, with only its walls and churches built of stone, and brick as a building material was almost unknown. But in the great cities of the Hanse League, in Lubeck, Hamburg, and Bruges, brick was the ordinary material, and for the Steel-yard merchants it was as easy to bring bricks from Flanders as stone from Surrey or Kent, and the material itself was very much cheaper. We know that wherever the agents of the League settled they seem to have accustomed the people to the use of brick, and taught them the mysteries of brick-making. This was the case at Hull, a branch of the London Kontor, where, although in a stone-producing country, its great church of Holy Trinity, as well as its walls, were built of brick; and in other branches, such as Yarmouth, Boston, and Lynn, we find early examples of brick-work. Old engravings of portions of the Steel-yard buildings show that they were of brick, and with their Guildhall vied in importance and beauty with the great brick buildings of Lubeck and Bruges.

During the Lancastrian supremacy the German merchants were under a cloud in this country, and many of their privileges were withdrawn; and indeed, for a time, the Steel-yard was closed, whilst the fleets of the League were actively supporting the Yorkist cause. But with the accession of Edward IV. all this was changed, and in 1474 they were reinstated in all their privileges, and embarked on a new era of prosperity in London.

The close connection of the King with the house of Burgundy interested him in the fortunes of the League in Flanders. His sister, Margaret of York, was married to Charles the Bold at Damme, one of the princ.i.p.al Kontors of the League, at which ceremony he was present; and he attended, later on, a great Chapter of the Knights of the Golden Fleece in Bruges, as the stall-plate bearing his arms in the choir of Notre Dame testifies to this day. He granted the Flemish merchants special privileges of exemption from taxation--as, for instance, to the makers of dinanderie at Middleburg by Bruges, that the goods sent from hence to England should be admitted free.

In 1479 the guild rebuilt Bishopsgate, which had again fallen into bad repair, and this time we know that it was built of brick, although the image of the bishop on the side towards the city was carved in stone; and this date synchronises with that great period of brick building in England which included the halls of Gifford, Hargraves, Oxburg, and West Stow, and portions of the college at Eton. The Guildhall of the Steel-yard seems also to belong to this date, for it was just then the area of the enclosure was much extended. We have, unfortunately, but very inadequate accounts of what must have been a very important structure, although remains of it existed to the middle of the last century; but we know that its gable was surmounted by the imperial eagle. The interior, no doubt, was of a magnificence which would bear comparison with the halls of the League in Flanders and Germany, and we know that it contained two large paintings by Holbein of the triumphs of Poverty and Riches, which, later, found their way into the collection of Henry, Prince of Wales, and were destroyed in the fire at Whitehall.

In two particulars at least the London settlement was less exclusive than some of those elsewhere. The merchants built no church for their own private use, but resorted to the adjacent parish church of All Hallows the More, which stood, until its recent destruction, at the corner of Thames Street and All Hallows Lane. The original church perished in the Great Fire, and with it all the monuments which could be a.s.sociated with the League; but in the rebuilt church, in the reign of Queen Anne, was placed by one Jacob Jacobsen, no doubt a descendant of one of the original Hanse merchants, a very beautiful screen, as a memorial of the League. The screen is now in St. Margaret's, Lothbury, and over the gate of it still soars the German eagle, but surmounted by the arms of England. Although tradition says that the screen was made in Hamburg, there seems to be but little doubt that its delicate carving is the work of an English chisel, perhaps one of those which had been employed at St. Paul's Cathedral.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A FLEMISH GRAY-BEARD FROM THE STEEL-YARD OF LONDON.]

Within the enclosing walls of the Steel-yard on the river's banks was a fine garden planted with vines and fruit trees open to the citizens and their wives, who in fine summer weather took their pleasure there and drank the Rhine wines which the merchants imported from Germany and vended at the rate of threepence a flask. This wine was brought over in stone bottles, made princ.i.p.ally at Fretchen, near Cologne, which, from a rough-looking face, intended to represent Charlemagne, placed under the lip, were commonly called "Flemish Gray-beards." When the Cannon Street Railway Station, which occupies part of the site of this garden, was built, many of these in a perfect state of preservation were unearthed; of one of which we give an ill.u.s.tration.

With the discovery of America, and the increasing activity of English merchant adventurers, the trade of the Germans declined, and a domestic revolution in Lubeck, in 1537, destroyed the cohesion of the League, which gradually became effaced during the struggles of the Thirty Years'

War. In England its charter was first withdrawn in 1552, and, although its influence slightly revived under Mary in consequence of her Spanish and Burgundian connections, it was finally expelled by Elizabeth.

Of the great League and its Kontor, in London, there remains, perhaps, an echo in the expression, "A pound sterling"--a pound of the Easterlings; but the site of its Steel-yard is now a railway station, and its only tangible memorials remaining are some empty wine bottles.

THE ARMS OF THE CITY AND SEE OF LONDON

BY J. TAVENOR-PERRY

"Is this a dagger that I see before me?"--_Macbeth._

Argent, a cross gules, in the first quarter a sword in pale, point upwards, of the last. Crest; a dragon's sinister wing, argent, charged with a cross, gules. Supporters; on either side a dragon with wings elevated and addorsed, argent, and charged on the wing with a cross, gules. Motto: "Domine dirige nos."--THE CITY.

Gules, two swords in saltire, argent, the hilts in base, or.--THE SEE.

The origin of the City of London is almost as unknown as that of Rome itself, and all its earliest history is lost in the misty traditions of the Middle Ages, and to this may be due the fact that the arms it blazons on its s.h.i.+eld, and the weird supporters it claims to use, have but little to warrant them but custom and age. Other cities, less ancient and much less important, can give the full authority for the armorials which they have a.s.sumed, and even the great guilds a.s.sociated with the Corporation are able to quote the reign and year--many of them dating back to the time of Queen Elizabeth--when they received the grant of arms which they still enjoy. But for the arms of the City of London itself no authority can be adduced, and in the opinion of many none is required, "seeing," as an old writer on the subject says, "that of things armorial the very essence is undefinable antiquity; a sort of perpetual old age, without record of childhood." That the arms which the Corporation now use differ from those it first employed is freely admitted, but comparatively few are aware of the modifications they have undergone, or of the recentness of the date when they first a.s.sumed their present form; and to those who are interested in the City itself, or in heraldry generally, a short sketch of the history of the subject will be welcome.

It was only in the year 1224, the ninth of Henry III., that permission was granted to the commonalty of London to have a Common Seal; and the seal which was then made continued in use until 1380, the fourth of Richard II., when, to quote Stow, "it was by common consent agreed and ordained that the old seal being very small, old, unapt and uncomely for the honour of the city, should be broken up, and one other new should be had." Of this first seal no copy seems to have survived, and we are left to conjecture what arms, if any, it displayed. From the first, the simple cross of St. George appears to have been the only bearing adopted by the citizens for their s.h.i.+eld, but they sometimes varied it by an augmentation in the dexter chief symbolizing their patron saint, St.

Paul, but they appear to have used these two s.h.i.+elds quite indifferently. Thus, when they rebuilt their Guildhall, in 1411, they carved both of these s.h.i.+elds on the bosses of the groined crypt, where they can be seen to this day, those down the centre aisle having only the cross of St. George without the sword. On the screen to the chantry chapel of Bishop Roger de Walden, in the church of St. Bartholomew the Great, erected in 1386, the arms of London appear as a simple cross, and a much later example occurred in the windows of Notre Dame at Antwerp.

In the north transept windows of that church were portraits of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, which survived the damage wrought by the Gueux; and a traveller, one William Smith, who was Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, in 1597, says he saw with them the arms of many English towns, including London, which had in the dexter chief a capital L, and not a sword.