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Chronicles of London Bridge. Richard Thompson
Читать онлайн.Название Chronicles of London Bridge
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isbn 4057664620606
Автор произведения Richard Thompson
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
“Of this singular sport, Joseph Strutt copied in his ‘Sports and Pastimes of the People of England,’ London, 1801, 4to. page 92, plate x. a very curious illumination, contained in a volume of the Royal Manuscripts in the British Museum—2 B. vii.—which consists of a history of the Old Testament, the Psalter, the Hymns of the Church, and a Calendar; all richly painted in water-colours, and beautified with gold—‘yellow, glittering, precious gold,’—so highly embossed, as to be ‘sensible to feeling as to sight.’
“That volume brings back old days to my recollection, whenever I behold it; for, in the year 1553, it belonged to Queen Mary of England, and is bound in a truly regal style for her; being in thick boards covered with crimson velvet, richly embroidered with large flowers in coloured silks and gold twist; besides being garnished with gilt brass bosses and clasps, on the latter of which are engraven the Royal devices and supporters. Another, and more pleasing proof of its having been her’s—inasmuch as it records a good action of a London Citizen concerned with the affairs of this brave river—is to be found in a Latin note written in a beautiful black text hand, on the reverse of the last leaf of the volume. ‘This Book,’ it states, ‘formerly a gift, was afterwards carried away by a sailor; but that excellent and honest person, Baldwin Smith, Receiver of the Customs of the Port of London, hath restored and given it unto the most illustrious Mary, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, in the month of October, in the year of our Lord, 1553, in the first year of her reign.’ The text of this volume is said to have been written, and the illuminations executed, in the fourteenth century, though, from their style, I cannot help thinking that the period is nearly an hundred years too late; for beneath the pages of the Psalter is a series of most interesting and excellent drawings, in pen-and-ink outlines, very slightly and delicately tinted with colours, which was certainly a far more ancient custom. However that may be, this series consists ‘de omnibus rebus, et quibusdam aliis,’ for there are the representations of animals and birds, field-sports, games, legends, martyrdoms, battles, and fables, of an almost infinite variety; and in the course of them occur the figures of a water-quintain, both as it is described by Fitzstephen, and also of a more warlike character. The first of these was engraved by Strutt in the work which I have before referred to, and gives a very perfect idea of the River Tilting of the Twelfth Century,
which the illuminator had, no doubt, personally witnessed in his own time. The other, which has also been engraven in the same work, page 113, plate xv. shews two armed knights getting ‘grysly together,’ as the ‘Morte d’Arthur’ calls it, in boats;
and you will find it under the 60th Psalm, ‘Dominus repulisti nos,’ &c.
“Stow, in his ‘Survey,’ volume i. page 301, mentions a very rude imitation of this kind of jousting on the water at London; when he says, ‘I have seen also in the summer season, upon the River of Thames, some rowed in wherries, with staves in their hands, flat at the fore-end, running one against another, and, for the most part, one or both of them were overthrown and well ducked.’ In Queen Mary’s Manuscript, under the psalm of ‘Misericordiam et judicium cantabo,’ is also a representation of two fiends hurling a Monk from a rude stone Bridge; but as I rather think that did not occur at London, I mention it no farther.
“But now, to return to our subject:—Stow relates the particulars of the great fire of 1135–36, at page 58 of his ‘Survey,’ citing in the margin the ‘Annals of Bermondsey,’ and the ‘Book of Trinity Priory,’ as his authorities. The latter of these is, perhaps, now no more; but in the former you may find the conflagration mentioned at page 13 b, where it is said to have happened in the year 1135, and to have extended to the Church of St. Clement Danes. It was probably in the Register of Trinity Priory, that Stow found a notice that London Bridge was not only repaired, but a new one erected of elm timber, in 1163, by the most excellent Peter of Colechurch, Priest and Chaplain; since I find it in none of the historians with whom I am acquainted. It is, however, much better authenticated that the same pious architect began his labours upon the first stone one in 1176; for, in the ‘Annals of Waverley,’ at page 161, you find the following entry.—’1176. In this year, the Stone Bridge at London is begun by Peter, the Chaplain of Colechurch.’ Here, therefore, ends the history of the infancy of London Bridge: and a very chargeful infancy it was, for, as old Stow says, ‘it was maintained partly by the proper lands thereof, partly by the liberality of divers persons, and partly by taxations in divers shires, as I have proved, for the space of 215 years,’—And now, Mr. Geoffrey Barbican, your very good health.”
“Sir, my hearty thanks to you,” replied I, rubbing my eyes, “for this Bridge Story is as dull as proving a Peerage, where there’s no reliance, and much doubting:—but how’s this, Master Postern!” continued I, looking into the tankard, “you have drank, and I have drank, and yet the jug is as full as ever, and as hot as it was as first?”
“You’re pleased to be facetious, good Sir,” answered my visitor, “for truly I’m no Saint Richard to work such miracles; but, if you please, we’ll now return to the Bridge again.
“We are here entering upon the golden age of London Bridge, for the new stone building, by Peter of Colechurch, was such an ornament as the Thames had never before witnessed; indeed, in my poor judgment, it very far surpassed that erection, of which I shall hereafter have occasion to speak; and perhaps, for its time, even that which now stretches itself across the flood. The person to whom was entrusted the building of the first stone Bridge at London, was, as I have already told you, named Peter, a Priest and Chaplain of St. Mary Colechurch; an edifice, which, until the Great Fire of London, stood on the North side of the Poultry, at the South end of a turning denominated Conyhoop Lane, from a Poulterer’s shop having the sign of three Conies hanging over it. This Chapel, of which the skilful Peter was Curate, was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and was famous as the place where St. Edmund and St. Thomas à Beckett were presented at the baptismal Font; still it must have been something very like having a church on a first floor, for you may remember Stow says, in his ‘Survey,’ volume i. page 552, that it was ‘built upon a vault above ground, so that men are forced to ascend into it by certain steps.’ Of the architectural knowledge of the Curate thereof, I have already shewed you that the Citizens of London had experienced some proofs, since he is said to have rebuilt their last wooden Bridge: and John Leland the Antiquary—whom I shall anon quote more particularly—observes, in the notes to his famous ‘Song of the Swan,’—a book of which I will also speak hereafter—that Radulphus de Diceto, Dean of London, who wrote about 1210, states from his own knowledge, that he was a native of this City. The same venerable Antiquary also tells us in his ‘Itinerary,’ edited by Thomas Hearne, Oxford, 1768–69, octavo, volume vii. part I. marginal folio 22, page 12—that ‘a Mason beinge Master of the Bridge Howse, buildyd à fundamentis the Chapell on London Bridge, à fundamentis propriis impensis;’ or, as we should now say, from bottom to top, at his own costs and charges. The property of Peter of Colechurch, however, would not stand Bridge-building by itself; and therefore the present will be the most fitting place, to give you some account of the other contributors to this great national work.
“Master Leland, in the same place which I last quoted, observes that ‘a Cardinale, and Archepisshope of Cantorbyri, gave 1000 Markes or li. to the erectynge of London Bridge.’ Now, the Cardinal who is here alluded to, was Hugo, Hugocio, or Huguzen di Petraleone, a Roman, Cardinal Deacon of St. Angelo, whom Pope Alexander III. sent, in 1176, to France, Scotland,