Amazing & Extraordinary Facts: London (3 page)

The last two gates were used as prisons. Ludgate, at the foot of Ludgate Hill, despite its legendary association with King Lud, owes its name to Anglo-Saxon words meaning ‘opening gate’ and from 1378 was used as a prison for freemen of the City who were debtors. More serious criminals were kept at Newgate which had been used for this purpose since the 12th century. Roman in origin, the road passing through it led to important Roman towns to the west like Bath, Cirencester and Silchester. It probably owes its name to the fact that it became the principal western exit from the City during the construction of the medieval St Paul’s Cathedral in the 12th century when building works obstructed the access to Ludgate.

The church of St Mary-le-Bow

In medieval times the gates would have been closed at dusk, this being signalled by the ringing of the bells of the church of St Mary-le-Bow.

T
he origins of these strange institutions are to be found in Anglo-Saxon times. In the 960s King Edgar granted a group of young men the right to use waste land in the vicinity of Aldgate in return for their services, probably in a military capacity. They were called the Cneughten Guild, the word ‘cneughten’ meaning young men and the word ‘guild’ deriving from ‘geld’ meaning money or payment. Edgar’s grant began a long process by which the citizens of London bargained with their sovereigns, raising money for kings at a time when the machinery for collecting taxes was rudimentary. By the 12th century certain groups like the bakers had gained the right to collect taxes from amongst themselves on behalf of the king and it was becoming common for trades to be associated with certain streets or areas. These may still be detected in familiar names like Milk Street, Bread Street and Ironmonger Lane. These associations, called guilds or companies, were also beginning to administer their own rules: checking weights and measures; fixing wages and prices; defending their interests against rival bodies; and, above all, controlling entry to their professions. An apprentice had to serve a master for a period of about seven years before he could become a full member of his company or ‘freeman’. The freeman survives in the 21st century, the rank being gained in one of three ways: by servitude, involving a period of apprenticeship; by patrimony, reserved for sons or daughters born while their father is a serving freeman; or by redemption, that is upon presentation by one of the City livery companies and payment of a fee.

Relations amongst companies were often strained. In 1226 the Goldsmiths engaged in a pitched battle with the Taylors. Over 500 men were involved, smiting one another with staves and swords. A sheriff had to be summoned to restore order, following which 13 offenders were hanged. In 1431 the Brewers company resolved that each member should send a barrel of ale to comfort the king’s army in France. A brewer called Will Payne, of the Swan in Threadneedle Street, refused to comply. Perhaps he was an early Eurosceptic who disapproved of foreign entanglements. Attempts at persuasion failed. He was taken before the mayor by the Master of the Brewers Company and threatened with gaol. The troops got their ale.

There are now 108 livery companies, the newest being the Company of Security Professionals, admitted to Livery in 2008. Many of them have magnificent halls, notably the Mercers in Ironmonger Lane, the Goldsmiths in Foster Lane and the Barber Surgeons in the Barbican. Their activities are now mostly social and charitable but they still play a part in the government of the City in electing the Lord Mayor and taking part in the procession which accompanies the Lord Mayor’s Show each November, an order of precedence being carefully observed on such occasions.

In 1515, following disputes amongst the livery companies, the Court of Aldermen established an order of precedence based upon the antiquity and financial strength of each. This led to the emergence of the Great Twelve which continues to the present day. They are, in order of precedence, the Worshipful Companies of:

1.      Mercers

2.      Grocers

3.      Drapers

4.      Fishmongers

5.      Goldsmiths

6.      Merchant Taylors

7.      Skinners

8.      Haberdashers

9.      Salters

10.    Ironmongers

11.    Vintners

12.    Clothworkers

The Merchant Taylors and Skinners alternate in precedence, changing each Easter, a practice which accounts for the expression at ‘sixes and sevens’.

R
ichard Whittington was Mayor of the City of London three times – in 1397, 1406 and 1419 (the term Lord Mayor was not made official until 2006 though it was in common use from the 16th century). He was born in the hamlet of Pauntley, near Gloucester, in about 1359, the year his father, Sir William Whittington, died – hence the ‘orphan’ story which became attached to him. As a younger son he inherited little but, as was common practice at the time for the sons of the gentry, he was apprenticed to a London entrepreneur in the 1370s and soon established himself as a successful and wealthy cloth merchant. In about 1385 he married Alice Fitzwarren, the daughter of a Gloucestershire knight, and later became a confidant of King Henry V who entrusted him with funds to pay for the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey and for improvements to the City’s sewerage and water supply.

Dick Whittington

Whittington was also responsible for one of the earliest records of the City’s customs and procedures. This is the
Liber Albus
, or
White Book
, which was compiled by John Carpenter in 1419. Carpenter was a lawyer who, in 1417, became Clerk to the City and was later appointed by Whittington as one of the four executors of his will. His introduction records that ‘A volume of this nature, by favour of our Lord, is now at length compiled, in the Mayoralty of that illustrious man Richard Whittington, in the month of November, in the year of our Lord’s incarnation 1419.’ The book remains one of the most valuable sources of information about medieval London. Richard also left money for the rebuilding of Newgate prison which, until its destruction in the Great Fire of 1666, was known as ‘The Whit’.

The link with the cat is harder to prove but persistent. A statue in one of the niches on the front of the rebuilt Newgate prison was reported as having a figure of Whittington accompanied by a cat – as was a portrait, now lost, in Mercers Hall. In 1946 builders carrying out restoration work in the church of St Michael Paternoster Royal discovered the mummified remains of a cat walled in behind a cornice of the tower, close to the tomb of Richard Whittington who was buried in 1423. By the terms of Whittington’s will the church had been rebuilt in the 15th century. It was rebuilt for a second time by Wren following the fire of 1666 and the cat was evidently re-interred there. Perhaps the most convincing evidence of the cat legend is to be found in a museum. In 1862 some building work was undertaken on some dwellings in Westgate Street, Gloucester which are known to have belonged to the Whittington family in the 15th century. One of the buildings was found to have a bas-relief in stone which showed the unmistakable figure of a man with a cat, dating from Richard Whittington’s time. This strange artefact is now a prized exhibit in the Gloucestershire folk museum.

The Highgate Hill story is harder to swallow. If, as we are encouraged to believe, Whittington was heading back to Pauntley in despair when he was summoned back by Bow Bells, then he must have had a very poor sense of direction if he passed through Highgate. There is, however, a Highgate connection since the almshouses which were established under the terms of his will were situated there until the 19th century when they were relocated to East Grinstead, where they remain.

L
ondon is really two cities: the settlement that the Romans called Londinium and the separate community of Westminster whose name derives from its location west of the City of London. A minster was a community of clergy whose services would be offered to worshippers who did not have their own resident priests. Legend attributed the foundation of the first Westminster Abbey to Sebert, King of the East Saxons in about 616, an event supposedly attended by miraculous events including the appearance of St Peter who was said to have consecrated the building himself the night before the Bishop of London was due to perform this office. St Peter also presented an undoubtedly surprised Saxon fisherman, Edric, with a miraculous draught of salmon. In memory of Edric’s good fortune Thames fishermen presented a salmon to the abbey each year until the custom lapsed in 1382. In 960 King Edgar granted the abbey to St Dunstan, Bishop of London.

London: A tale of two cities