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Mediæval London. Welch Charles
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Автор произведения Welch Charles
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And now we will simply name the most prominent events in the history of the city during our period.
In Pre-Norman times, after Alfred had restored the lost prosperity of London, his grandson Athelstan (925-940) established a royal palace and a royal mint, and gave an impulse to the commerce of the city by promising patents of gentility to every merchant who should make three voyages to the Mediterranean in his own ship. His “redeless” grandson Ethelred abandoned London to the Danes, and Cnut levied an impost of 11,000l. upon it, a proof of the great wealth which it had now acquired. It was a seventh part of that of the whole kingdom.
Norman Times. – As already mentioned, London is not in Domesday book. It is probable that there was a separate survey, the records of which are now lost. Domesday incidentally mentions ten acres of land near Bishopsgate, Norton Folgate, as belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, and a vineyard in Holborn, the property of the Crown.
The founding of the many religious houses during this period we have already mentioned. The building of the first stone bridge by Peter of Colechurch, which also belongs to this period, finds its place in another page.
We note the orders of Henry Fitzailwin, the first Mayor, for the prevention of fires. All houses were to be of brick or stone, with party walls of the same, and to be covered with slates or tiles. The building of houses round the Walbrook, Oldbourne, and Langbourn had diminished the supply of water, so they sought a fresh supply from Tyburn, and supplied a conduit in Cheapside with water from thence, which they brought in leaden pipes (A.D. 1255). The chronicles of Evesham say that in 1258, 20,000 persons died of hunger through a scarcity of corn, and ghastly stories are told of another famine in 1270. But on the whole London increased and prospered under Norman rule. In 1264 there was a massacre of the Jews on some trivial pretext. They were expelled the kingdom in 1291.
Plantagenet Times. – The division of the city into wards dates from the beginning of this period or earlier. In 1348 came the terrible Black Death. “In London it was so outrageously cruel that every day at least twenty, sometimes forty or sixty, or more, dead corpses were thrown together into one pit, and the churchyard not sufficing for the dead, they were fain to set apart certain fields for additional places of burial… But especially, between Candlemas and Easter in 1349, there were buried 200 corpses per diem” (Barnes’s Hist. of Edward III.). It is chronicled that more than 50,000 persons were buried, during this pestilence, within the precincts of the Charterhouse alone. The trial of Wyclif in St. Paul’s was a memorable event, when John of Gaunt stood forth as his champion.
In 1380 came the Wat Tyler rebellion, and the death of the leader from the dagger-stroke of Sir William Walworth. Hence the long-exploded but hard-dying theory of the “dagger” in the City Arms. The charge in question is the sword of St. Paul, London’s patron saint, and it was borne on the City shield before the deed of Walworth. Smithfield, where the event took place, was then “a great plain field, without the gates,” where on every Friday was “a great market for horses, whither earls, barons, knights, and citizens repair, to see and to purchase.” Our quaint illustration depicts King Richard II. going forth on his ill-fated expedition against Ireland.
Lancaster and York. – The first recorded illumination of the City was at the Coronation of Henry IV. Ten years later, the Mayor, Sir Henry Barton, ordered that the streets should be lit with lanterns every night.
Jack Cade’s rebellion in 1450 seemed at first successful, so far as the city was concerned. He took possession of it, and for a while maintained order among his followers. But they broke out into outrages, slew Lord-Treasurer Saye, and other persons of consequence, and the citizens, with the assistance of the Governor of the Tower, rose up and expelled him. Soon afterwards he was killed. As a rule the citizens inclined to the House of York, and in consequence Edward IV, steadily favoured the Londoners. The setting up of Caxton’s printing-press in his reign was a great epoch in the history of the world.
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