The Survey of London - Stow John

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princes’ service, kept in ure, wherein the safety and defence of every common weal consisteth. Armour and weapon being yearly occupied in this wise, the citizens had of their own readily prepared for any need; whereas by intermission hereof, armourers are out of work, soldiers out of pay, weapons overgrown with foulness, few or none good being provided,” etc.

      In the month of August, about the feast of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, before the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs of London, placed in a large tent near unto Clarkenwell, of old time, were divers days spent in the pastime of wrestling, where the officers of the city, namely, the sheriffs, sergeants, and yeomen, the porters of the king’s beam or weigh-house, now no such men, and other of the city, were challengers of all men in the suburbs, to wrestle for games appointed, and on other days, before the said mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs, in Fensburie field, to shoot the standard, broad arrow, and flight, for games; but now of late years the wrestling is only practised on Bartholomew’s day in the afternoon, and the shooting some three or four days after, in one afternoon, and no more. What should I speak of the ancient daily exercises in the long bow by citizens of this city, now almost clean left off and forsaken?—I overpass it; for by the mean of closing in the common grounds, our archers, for want of room to shoot abroad, creep into bowling alleys, and ordinary dicing houses, nearer home, where they have room enough to hazard their money at unlawful games; and there I leave them to take their pleasures.

       Table of Contents

      “This city,” saith Fitzstephen, “is glorious in manhood: furnished with munitions, populous with inhabitants; insomuch, that in the troublesome time of King Stephen, it hath showed at a muster twenty thousand armed horsemen, and threescore thousand footmen, serviceable for the wars. Moreover (saith he), the citizens of London, wheresoever they become, are notable before all other citizens in civility of manners, attire, table, and talk. The matrons of this city are the very modest Sabine ladies of Italy. The Londoners, sometime called Trinobantes, repelled Cæsar, which always made his passage by shedding blood; whereupon Lucan sung:

      ‘Territa quæsitis ostendit terga Britannis.’

      “The city of London hath bred some which have subdued many kingdoms, and also the Roman empire. It hath also brought forth many others, whom virtue and valour hath highly advanced; according to Apollo, in his Oracle to Brute, ‘Sub occasu solis,’ etc. In the time of Christianity, it brought forth that noble emperor, Constantine, which gave the city of Rome and all the imperial ensigns to God, St. Peter, and Pope Silvester; choosing rather to be called a defender of the church than an emperor; and, lest peace might be violated, and their eyes troubled by his presence, he retired from Rome, and built the city of Constantinople. London also in late time hath brought forth famous kings: Maude the empress, King Henry, son to Henry II., and Thomas the Archbishop,” etc.

      This Thomas, surnamed Becket, born in London, brought up in the priory of Marton, student at Paris, became the sheriff’s clerk of London for a time, then parson of St. Mary hill, had a prebend at London, another at Lincoln, studied the law at Bononie, etc., was made Chancellor of England, and Archbishop of Canterbury, etc. Unto this might be added innumerable persons of honour, wisdom, and virtue, born in London; but of actions done by worthy citizens I will only note a few, and so to other matters.

      The citizens of London, time out of mind, founded an hospital of St. James in the fields for leprous women of their city.

      

      In the year 1197, Walter Brune, a citizen of London, and Rosia, his wife, founded the hospital of our Lady, called Domus Dei, or St. Marie Spittle, without Bishopsgate of London; a house of such relief to the needy, that there was found standing at the surrender thereof nine score beds, well furnished for receipt of poor people.

      In the year 1216, the Londoners sending out a navy, took ninety-five ships of pirates and sea-robbers; besides innumerable others that they drowned, which had robbed on the river of Thames.

      In the year 1247, Simon Fitzmary, one of the sheriffs of London, founded the hospital of St. Mary called Bethlem, and without Bishopsgate.

      In the year 1283, Henry Wallice, then mayor, built the Tun upon Cornhill, to be a prison for night-walkers, and a market-house called the Stocks, both for fish and flesh, standing in the midst of the city. He also built divers houses on the west and north side of Paule’s churchyard; the profits of all which buildings are to the maintenance of London Bridge.

      In the year 1332, William Elsing, mercer of London, founded Elsing Spittle within Cripplegate, for sustentation of an hundred poor blind men, and became himself the first prior of that hospital.

      Sir John Poultney, draper, four times mayor, in 1337 built a fair chapel in Paule’s church, wherein he was buried. He founded a college in the parish church of St. Laurence, called Poultney: he built the parish church called Little Alhallowes, in Thames street; the Carmelite friars church in Coventry: he gave relief to prisoners in Newgate and in the Fleet, and ten shillings a-year to St. Giles’ hospital by Oldborne for ever, and other legacies long to rehearse.

      John Stodie, vintner, mayor 1358, gave to the vintners all the quadrant wherein the Vintners’ hall now standeth, with all the tenements round about, from Stadies lane, wherein is founded thirteen alms houses for so many poor people, etc.

      Henry Picard, vintner, mayor 1357, in the year 1363, did in one day sumptuously feast Edward III., king of England, John, king of France, David, king of Scots, the king of Cyprus, then all in England, Edward, prince of Wales, with many other noblemen, and after kept his hall for all comers that were willing to play at dice and hazard. The Lady Margaret, his wife, kept her chamber to the same effect, etc.

      John Lofken, fishmonger, four times mayor, 1367, built an hospital called Magdalen’s, in Kingstone upon Thames; gave thereunto nine tenements, ten shops, one mill, one hundred and twenty-five acres of land, ten acres of meadow, one hundred and twenty acres of pasture, etc.; more, in London, he built the fair parish church of St. Michael in Crooked lane, and was there buried.

      John Barnes, mayor 1371, gave a chest with three locks, and one thousand marks therein, to be lent to young men upon sufficient pawn, and for the use thereof, to say De profundis, or Pater noster, and no more: he also was a great builder of St. Thomas Apostle’s parish church, as appeareth by his arms there, both in stone and glass.

      In the year 1378, John Filpot, sometime mayor, hired with his own money one thousand soldiers, and defended the realm from incursions of the enemy, so that in small time his hired men took John Mercer, a sea-rover, with all his ships, which he before had taken from Scarborrow, and fifteen Spanish ships, laden with great riches.

      In the year 1380, Thomas of Woodstocke, Thomas Percie, Hugh Calverley, Robert Knoles, and others, being sent with a great power to aid the duke of Brytaine, the said John Filpot hired ships for them of his own charges, and released the armour, which the soldiers had pawned for their battles, more than a thousand in number. “This most noble citizen,” saith Thomas Walsingham, “that had travailed for the commodity of the whole realm, more than all other of his time, had often relieved the king by lending him great sums of money and otherwise, deceased in A.D. 1384, after that he had assured lands to the city for the relief of thirteen poor people for ever.”

      In the year 1381, William Walworth, then mayor, a most provident, valiant, and learned citizen, did by his arrest of Wat Tyler (a presumptuous rebel, upon whom no man durst lay hands), deliver the king and kingdom from the danger of most wicked traitors, and was for his service knighted in the field.

      Nicholas Brembar, John Filpot, Robert Laund, Nicholas Twiford, and Adam Francis, aldermen, were then for their service likewise knighted; and Sir Robert Knoles, for assisting of the mayor, was made free of this city.

      This Sir Robert Knoles, thus worthily infranchised a citizen, founded a college with an hospital at Pontefract: he also built the great stone bridge at Rochester, over the river of Medway, etc.

      John

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