London

Preface

This is the third book on London which I have attempted during the past six years. In the Governance of London (1907) I dealt with a newly discovered aspect of the question of origins ; in the Making of London (1912) I attempted to apply the results of this study to the evolution of the city ; in the present book I deal independently with a part of the subject which is only incidentally touched upon in the two previous books, and I lay claim to have discovered the great fact of historical continuity, conscious and effective continuity, underlying the main issues of London life throughout all its changes. The continuity springs from the city-state of Roman Londinium, is carried through the hundred years of historical silence, is handed on to the London of Anglo-Saxon times, proceeds through the great period of Plantagenet rule, runs deep down under the preponderating mass of Tudor and Stuart changes, and comes out in the open when the Georgian statesmanship broke away the blocking forces.

The continuity thus revealed is not unchanging throughout the centuries. Each age modifies its vi LONDON

form ; or rather its form is modified by the different forces which have constantly worked upon it. The ideal of continuity comes from Roman London and from Roman Augusta, and it has never lost touch with the realities. Each age has possessed the feeling for continuity, has expressed itself in terms belonging to itself. It is only the terms which have altered. The Plantagenet rulers of London did not express their sense of continuity as the Tudor or the Stuart rulers of London expressed theirs. The material was different, but the undying ideal was always the same.

At certain epochs this ideal has been repressed and smothered for a time, but it has raised its head once and again ; and certainly down to the Georgian period it was strongly persistent. 1 believe that it still exists, that though it is once again repressed and smothered it is there strongly working towards its destined use, ready to hand when once it is clear that the moment for it has arrived.

The value to the history of English institutions from a close study of London is very great. It sets up a standard of comparison both with local and national institutions, and it throws considerable light upon the evolution of the state. Scholars have been too apt to approach the study of English institutions in terms of their latest historical condition, instead of in terms of their earliest condition, and it is only when we come to deal with the facts which arise out of the comparative method that we can see the false

PREFACE vii

issues which arise from this treatment of the subject. London in relation to England was in the earliest period outside all that Anglo-Saxon polity could hold. Its existence and its continuance were never parts of the English settlement of the country, and it is because the non-English elements of London are so prominent that we are able to define the special position to which it attained in that settlement. London was never a city of the English, but it became a city-institution under English dominance. This is a vital distinction, and because it is possible to make it, the facts on both the London side and the English side can be classified and arranged in distinct groups — groups having relationship one to the other, but so dissimilar as never to have merged. The merging of London into early English institutions is, in fact, an unthinkable proposition, for they nowhere meet on common ground.

I am aware of the opposition to such a point of view. Coming from the schools which have so long been dominated by the sweeping generalities of Freeman and his followers, it is an opposition not easy to meet. Because Stubbs on purely scientific grounds, and Freeman on historical grounds, have proved, and I think successfully proved, that the English conquest resulted in the dominance of English government, language, and life generally, it is not necessary to conclude that in no spot in Teutonic England did pre-English life exist or reveal itself. Because history is silent it is not necessary to conclude viii LONDON

that no other evidence exists — that both historical survival and traditional survival have no value. The value of both is greater far than has ever been recognised, and it is the recognition of their value which has made my own study possible.

To have studied London to the full is to know that London tells her own story, and that no one can tell it for her. Whatever credit may come to those who act as scribe, it is after all a small thing, for the inspiration is drawn from the great city itself. It is true that the story I have to tell differs altogether from that hitherto told, but it is impossible for it to be wrong on that account. It includes whole masses of material which have hitherto been ignored, and though the proportions due to the inclusion may not be always exactly measured perhaps, the foundations of the edifice are perfect. This makes it quite impossible deliberately to twist London history or to change it in any particular direction. A mere bundle of ancient things brought together, as in a museum, for the curious may be used in such a way, as we see from Lottie's book, but the glory of quarrying in so magnificent a field of research brings to student and reader the glory of a London instinct with life, and a great life.

I have two apologies to make.

Perhaps it would have been more scientific to have commenced from the argument side of the subject, and therefore with the fourth chapter on survivals, working back from them to the actual remains of

PREFACE ix

Celtic and Roman London. Survivals are stubborn things to get over. They do not exist without the strongest cause for existence, and that cause resides in the originals from which they owe their beginning. I thought, however, that the chapter would be better in its chronological order, so that the argument should rest upon historical rather than anthropological methods. The structure of the book being historical, its order should be historical, but the reader would do well to consider the general position from the point of view now suggested.

I have also one word to say about the tradition of London. I could not omit this from my evidence, and I could not complete it. It will make a book by itself, and I hope to publish it soon. It is an important element in London history, and has been entirely neglected. I trust that the summary I have given in the text will suffice for immediate purposes. I am sure the completed study will satisfy many that the position I take up for London is historically sound.

Both the publishers and myself have to acknowledge with many thanks kind permission accorded us by the following to make use of illustrations : —

The Society of Antiquaries of London, to reproduce from Arcliceologia — the Altar to Diana; Matrons? ; Retiarius ; and a portion of Braun and Hogenberg's plan ; from an engraving, " Edward VI. giving charters to Bridewell and Bethlem hospitals."

The London Topographical Society, to use their x LONDON

reproductions of the views of London by Agas, Wyngaerde, and Visscher.

The Royal Geographical Society, to use from their Journal — Hollar's view of London Bridge ; map of Southwark ; the Fleet near Bagnigge Wells.

Mr C. Bathurst. to use illustrations from Roman Antiquities in Lydney Park.

Mr E. E. Newton, to use a selection from his collection of pictures of London.

And I must thank Mr T. F. Hobson, for so kindly obtaining for me Mr Wood's charming drawing of Wittenham Tump and directing the artist's attention to the best view for the purpose of my argument.

LAURENCE GOMME.

Long Crendon, Bucks, March 1914.

Contents

CHAP. PAGES

I. THE POINT OF VIEW 1-19

II CELTIC ORIGINS 20-43

Chapter II

It is necessary to state quite definitely that London was originally a stronghold of the Celts, because this fact has been denied by some authorities and minimised by all, and it is an essential beginning to her history. There are not only material evidences of such a beginning, but the total evidence accounts for some portion of her Roman history, and almost entirely for her post- Roman history before the Anglo- Saxon domination.

London is known by her own Celtic name, and possesses two other Celtic names of importance, Lud and Belinus, both of these latter adding, by reason of later uses, the Anglo-Saxon suffix " gate." There is dispute among philologists about the meaning of London as a Celtic name-word, and about the derivation of Belinus, but there is no question about Lud. It is a recognised god-name of the Celts of considerable importance ; Belinus may also be a god-name, but of minor importance. 1 This series of Celtic names gives

1 Belenus, Belinus, or Belis was one of the greatest Celtic gods and identified with Apollo. He was mentioned as a god of the Gauls by Tertullian (Apolog., cap. xxiv.) and Julius Capitolinus. Cf.

us a Celtic stronghold and a Celtic religious cult, a combination of two factors in the earliest history of London which cannot be overlooked and should not be minimised, and which in reality form the centre points for whatever evidences of Celtic London remain to us. The site is the first consideration. The point to note is that it has been an occupation-ground of peoples from the earliest known times of human occupation of distinct territory, that is, during the palaeolithic age and the neolithic age, as the discoveries of implements of these two ages abundantly show. This is evidence sufficient to prove the capacity of the site, and it would have been strange indeed if the Celt had neglected it. He did not neglect it. All over the kingdom such sites have been occupied by the Celts, and the remains of their occupation have formed an important chapter in archaeological research. The presence of the Celt in the surrounding area is shown by place-names and by ethnology. The names of Walworth in the south and Isledon ( Islington) in the north, together with Caen wood, are the principal philological items. The ethnological data consist of a strongly marked island of brunetness just north of London. Two counties, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, are as dark as Wales, and " all investigation goes to prove that this brunet outcrop is a reality." It is entirely severed from the main centre

Herodian, lib. viii. ; Pritehavd, Physical Hist, of Mankind, vol. iii. p. 186. Nennius, §19, mentions a Bellinus, son of Minocannus, as a king of Britain (see Notes to the Irish Nennius, p. xxiii).

of dark eyes and hair in the west by an intermediate zone, and the people in this vicinity are very much shorter than those who surround them. The explanation, says Dr Ripley, 1 is simple. The fens on the north, London on the south, with dense forests, left this zone of population relatively quiet, and they tell us now of the Celticism of the district round London. To these sources of evidence must be added that of the early geography of London, which exactly fits with the description by Caesar of the position of a British oppidum. Although so well known, the passage from Caesar is worth quoting. When stopped at the Thames, " he learned from envoys that the stronghold (oppidum) of Cassivellaunus, which was protected by woods and marshes, was not far off, and that a considerable number of men and of cattle had assembled in it. The Britons apply the name of stronghold (oppidum) to any woodland spot difficult of access, and fortified with a rampart and trench, to which they are in the habit of resorting in order to escape a hostile raid. Caesar found that the place was of great natural strength and well fortified." 2 This exactly describes the position of Celtic London, how exactly may be measured by the geographical research of J. R. Green. 3 This conclusion is not only the initial proof of the existence of Celtic London, but it goes far to disprove the generally accepted

1 Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 322-3, 521-2.

2 De hello Gallico, lib. v. 21 (Rice Holmes' trans.).

3 Green, The Making of Etigland, p. 98, and the map on p. 99- view that Verulam was the oppidum of Cassivellaunus. Caesar would not have proceeded to Verulam with such a stronghold as London behind him, and the geographical contrast between London and Verulam gives sufficient reason for presenting such a problem. London occupies a strategical position similar to that always adopted by the Celts. Verulam is at the foot of a commanding position, and does not answer to anything Celtic. The conclusion seems irresistible that London and not Verulam was the stronghold which stood the shock of Roman conquest when Caesar took the oppidum of Cassivellaunus. 1

Much has been made of the fact that London was not a colon ia of the Roman Empire as were Lincoln, Colchester, York, and Gloucester. Whatever this may indicate from the Roman point of view, it certainly adds to the evidence of the important position of London in Celtic Britain. Professor Reid puts it very clearly : " The treatment of London by the Romans is an unexplained anomaly." 2 The anomaly to be explained must first be understood, and I think it can be shown that the only reasonable explanation is derived from the Celtic side of the question and not from the Roman. Roman law and government have been assiduously studied from the side of Roman history, inscriptions, and charters, and

1 This view was held by General Pitt-Rivers, Anthrop. Rev., vol. v. p. lxxviii, and Mr Lewin, Archceologia, vol. xl. pp. 65-6. On the other side is Mr Page and the Berks Archaeological Society (see Trans, of that Society, vol. xiv. pp. 245-250)

2 Reid, Municipalities of the Roman Empire, p. 229.

only very slightly from the side of the native peoples who were absorbed into the Empire. It is on this side, the Celtic side, that the anomaly of London can be explained.

The only titles which are applied to London in Roman historical documents are oppidum and civitas, 1 and finally it received the new name Augusta, sharing this name with Treveri, the greatest of the cities of Gaul. There is no defined Roman status in these titles, and we can only conclude that it was one of those municipia civium Romanorum, a community of the self-governing type to which Mr Hardy has introduced us. 2 Aulus Gellius gives an illuminating distinction between the municipium and the colonia : the former was taken into the Roman state from without, the latter was an offshoot from within ; 5

1 Coote, Romans of Britain, p. 345, quoting Eumenius in his panegyric of Constantius Caesar and the record of the Synod of Aries.

2 Hardy, Roman Laws and Charters, vol. i. pp. 36, 145. So early as the Lex Agraria of b.c. Ill we have colonies, municipia, and "towns in the position of municipia or colonies" (Hardy, op. cit., p. 66).

the former represents the inclusion in the Empire of a more or less free population, governed by tribal institutions in the western Empire and by city institutions in the eastern, the latter was founded upon the settlement of Roman legionaries upon a conquered territory from which the original inhabitants were deported. London was definitely not a colonia. It was no doubt in the position of a municipium.

Now this condition of London in " the position of a municipium," but not formally recognised as such, exactly meets its several positions : as a great military centre adapted from the oppidum of the Celts ; its rapid rise to a great commercial centre under the government of the Romans ; and its final status as a specially named city of the Empire, Augusta; and I can therefore think of the Roman status of London as never recognised constitutionally. The question thus raised is undoubtedly complicated and not altogether certain owing to lack of evidence. Britain to the Romans was ever a province that required keeping in order and not a country to care much about. " Supposing I begin thinking about the island of Britain," writes Cicero, " will its image fly at once into my mind ? " * Certainly the differing conditions obtaining under the Empire in Greece, Africa, and Spain should cause us to pause before accepting the merely word-value of Latin diplomata. Rome always allowed a certain amount of independent develop-

1 Cicero s Letters, No. Dxxx. of Shuck burgh's translation, vol. iii. p. 175.

ment. 1 It was one of its greatest political assets, and just as Lugdunum. where the Celtic Lud was worshipped, obtained quite an exceptional status, 2 so I believe London, where also the Celtic Lud was worshipped, attained to an exceptional status. Formally it came under the Lex Julia Municipalis, .as did " all municipalities of Roman citizens wherever

and whenever coming into existence " ; 3 actually it retained much of its older influence as a British oppidum. It is thus that the Celtic side of Roman London is revealed by the scanty historical evidence which exists, and when to this are added the results of the study of the tradi-

Cinerary urn of the late Celtic period found tion of London, which

in London, in the Guildhall Museum.

reveals at every stage its Celtic origin, the story is much more complete and consistent.

We next turn to the question of the occupied site. Sir Christopher Wren discovered British graves below the Roman level, distinguished by their remains. 4

1 Reid, Municipalities of Roman Empire, p. 127.

2 Hardy, op. cit., vol. ii. p. 152.

3 Hardy, op. cit., vol. i. p. 116.

4 Cinerary urns and other pottery of late Celtic period are preserved in the Guildhall Museum (see Catalogue, pp. 19-22).

There is some dispute as to the accuracy of Wren's classification of these remains, but my rediscovery in the library of Mr Saull's original discovery of remains of the hut circle of the British on the virgin soil of London, which he inspected and visited on several occasions during excavations for sewerage in Cheapside, cannot be disputed. 1 General Pitt- Rivers discovered remains which he considered, with his wide experience and minute care, to be relics of pile dwellings on the banks of the Walbrook river. 2 Mr Reginald Smith, investigating the course of Roman roads, insists upon the strong evidence some of these reveal of having been constructed on the site of British trackways

, ,. j • Vase of late Celtic period found in

leading to and entering London, in the Guildhall Museum.

There is thus philological, ethnological, and archaeological evidence of Celtic London. The remarkable thing is that it exists at all. It comes from London's remotest past, protected by the working of successive

1 I have dealt with this important and neglected piece of evidence in my Making of London, p. 38.

2 Anthrop. Rev., vol. v. p. lxxi, and accepted by Dr Munro, Lake Dwellings of Europe, pp. 460-464, and Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings, pp. 291-296.

3 Vict. Hist. London, pp. 1-42.

ages, but also hidden by the ages. Not sufficiently hidden, however, to prevent the recognition of a tribal stronghold such as still remains in other parts of Britain, as, for instance, at Maiden Castle near Dorchester, where the tribesmen of the Celts constructed their defensive works for protection against tribe enemies of their own race, and, as they thought, against enemies of an imperial race which in due course overran and crumpled up their tribalism.

There is, however, something nearer home than the examples of the great Celtic strongholds still surviving in remote parts of Britain, and we find it in the Thames valley of to-day, where the position occupied by the site of Celtic London is pictured for us in miniature. Coming up the Thames by sail or by steam, in the wide lagoon formed by the shallow waters of the river in the lower reaches there is presented a sight which in the earliest period must have been much like what was presented as far up as London. Travelling by the railway, one first recognises the higher land-sites rising from the Essex Flats on the banks of the lagoon waters. Westcliff is the first example. Pitsea, Laindon, and other places follow, their natural conditions being still undestroyed. At Prittlewell there are still remains of an entrenchment, the enclosure being situated on rising ground and of somewhat oval shape ; at Tilbury there is a fosse with a broad bank on its outer side formed by the ridge of a steep hillside, rising abruptly above the Thames valley. London was only another such example as these, occupying, however, a more strategical position, and commanding one of the river crossings. (See Appendix I.)

Interesting as these examples are, they do not give an adequate idea of the London stronghold. They are too much in miniature. Fortunately we can turn to examples above London which represent closer parallels to London. The most important of these strongholds is that of Long Wittenham, to which Mr Haverfield has added other examples at Appleford and Radley. 1 Of Wittenham, Sir Arthur Evans writes: "The round hut circles of the Britons are seen before our eyes, yielding to the rectangular buildings and enclosures of the later Romanised inhabitants." 2 And according to the best authorities there is certainly no site in the country which more fully satisfies the conditions usually found present in British centres. 3 Close to the junction of the Thame and Isis, it is precisely the kind of spot that was chosen by all Celtic races for their chief settlements. The hut circle floors consist of very thin stones, and the superstructure was of wattle and daub, fragments of which have been discovered. 4 There is no questioning the evidence which these facts afford. The Thames below London and the Thames above London contained Celtic strongholds on the heights which commanded the river, and it is impossible therefore to

1 Vict. Hist, of Berkshire, vol. i. pp. 197, 219-222.

2 Times, 18th Sept. 1893.

3 Times, 30th Sept. 1893.

4 Dr Haverfield's account is in Proc. Soc. Antiq., 2nd ser. vol. xviii. pp. 10-16, with a most useful map.

imagine that the London height was not similarly occupied. Celtic London was not only a stronghold formed out of the natural conditions of the site, it was a defensive position necessary to the settlers on the northern side of the Thames lagoon. 1

It may be, after the researches of Dr Philip Norman and Mr F. W. Reader, 2 that the conclusions of General Pitt-Rivers as to pile dwellings in the Walbrook will have to be given up. But it does not appear to me that the evidence for the Roman system of drainage is necessarily evidence against the pile dwellings. There is ample room for both drainage and pile dwelling in these discoveries, and there is still one important fact to get over — the existence of so many human skulls without any remains of the rest of the skeletons. These, at all events, cannot be of Roman origin. On the other hand, they may be of Celtic origin, owing to the Celtic practice of taking the skulls of defeated enemies and hanging them as trophies in the dwell-

1 The use of terms belonging to a late period to describe conditions of an early period is a fruitful source of error. Over and over again do we read in our best histories of the capital of a Celtic king, the towns of a Celtic tribe. Capital and town are wrong terms to apply to the oppida of the Celts. There is a sentence of Polybius (xxv. L), quoting Strabo, Hi. cap. 4>, which supplies an opportunity for illustrating the incongruous absurdity of this error. "Tiberius Gracchus is said to have destroyed three hundred cities of the Celtiberes.'' This Poseidonius ridicules, stating "that to flatter Gracchus, Polybius described as cities towers, 7rvpyovs, like those exhibited in triumphal processions.'' This is the critic's exaggeration, but it is pertinent.

2 Archceologia, vol. lxiii. pp. 308-319- ings of the conquerors — a practice pretty generally found among the pile-dwelling communities. 1 The point is obscure, and if it is ever cleared up it will be accomplished by the skilled observations of such workers in this field as Dr Norman and Mr Reader. If their view turns out to be the correct one, it clears away some of the Celtic evidence of London, but it does not destroy it altogether.

FIC.l. PLAN.

QS4ft.

Plan of site of pile dwellings found near London Wall.

But, after all, these are but the fragments of a forgotten past which witnessed London's first effort towards a future. They do not, of themselves, help

1 Dr Plummer has collected a useful list of authorities on this as a Celtic practice in a note to his Vitce Sanctorum Hibernice, vol. i. p. cviii. Cf. Munro, Lake Dwellings of Europe, where almost entirely the human remains consist of skulls, sometimes fashioned into cups for drinking. Virgil describes the hanging of the severed head on the car of the victor, Mneid, xii. 511. The ghastly story told by Giraldus Cambrensis, Conquest of Ireland (cap. iv.), of the Irish cutting off the heads of their fallen enemies with their broad axes and collecting two hundred heads to lay at the feet of Dermitius is referable to the same practice.

us much towards understanding how that future was affected by Celtic beginnings. They are the dead and useless elements trodden under our feet, the destructible elements which disappeared with the culture to which they belonged. For elements not destructible we must turn to another source, and

U-m iiiimtlWira'flmJJiniEutt

tfjsisnfMpir

FIG,

3. SECTION at B.

Section of site of pile dwellings found near London Wall. G, Gravel. P, Peat. S, Superficial earth.

this is the cult of the worshipped god. The worship of the gods never seems to become quite trodden down. It lives on and on, not in the end connected with the peoples, the tribes, the groups who first invoked them, perhaps even living only as a peasant's superstition. But it lives. Lud was god of the waters, and he belonged to the Celtic religion as it was established in Gaul and Spain. In Britain he was god of the Severn, for on its banks at Lydney his temple, dedicated by the Romans, has been unearthed. On the banks of the Thames there is the last remnant of the god — the god-name, Lud. Severn and Thames, the two great rivers of Celtic Britain, each protected by the river god, is what the evidence conveys to us ; and just as a small plaque of bronze represents the god himself, as the Romans sculptured him at Lydney, so at London there is, I think, a Roman representation of the god himself in the magnificent head of a river god in white marble discovered in the Walbrook. 1 That these sculptures are of Roman workmanship, not Celtic, leads up to further important conclusions — that both on the Severn and the Thames the Romans paid respect to the gods of the people whom they conquered, just as they did elsewhere, and which it is well known was part of their religious polity all the world over.

A river cult of this kind was a great cult, not an isolated worship. Gods who protected as Lud protected were worshipped, not in one tribe, but in all tribes whose location demanded his help.

These diverse features in the cult of Lud can be brought to bear upon the position of Celtic London. Both Roman and Celt are interested in the worship of Lud, and we can only get at the worship of the Celtic god in London through the medium of Roman worship there, just as we can only reach the Celtic

1 Archoeologia, vol. lx. p. 45.

hut circles and graves through the stratum of Roman remains.

The cardinal facts upon which we begin are the survival of the god-name in London and the existence of the head of the Walbrook river god. These two facts are complementary parts of one original,

River god found in London.

namely, the Celtic worship of Lud, and it will be necessary, owing to the absence of further direct evidence in London, to examine some points in the cult of Lud elsewhere in Celtic lands, in order to ascertain the value of these London fragments.

The name of the god is the root of some names of cities in Celtdom, situated, as London was situated, at the head of a river or at the juncture of two rivers.

Lugdunum, the modern Lyons, was the chief of such cities — the town of Lug at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saone ; and there were Lugdunum Convenarum, now called Saint Bertrand de Comminges, in the department of the Haute Garonne ; Laon, the chief town of the department of the Aisne ; Lugodunum, now Leyden on the Rhine ; and Lugduna on the Rhone. 1

Now, M. d'Arbois de Jubainville has suggested that the festival held at the last- mentioned place every first of August in honour of the deified Augustus, simply superseded, in name mostly, an older festival held on that day in honour of Lug, 2 and it is noteworthy that Lugdunum very early (b.c. 12) possessed an altar to Augustus, with a Celtic priest. 3 This suggestion helps the London question at its weakest point, inasmuch as we can turn to the worship of the Emperor in London. Mommsen, in his belittling account of the province of Britain, says that " we do not precisely know what English town served as a seat for the common worship of the Emperor." 4 There was certainly an important temple to the Emperor Claudius at Camulodunum which "was regarded as a stronghold of ascendancy for all time," 5 and that this ascendancy resulted from the existence of this