Memorials of Old London Part 5

[20] _Orderic Vitalis_, book x., chapter xvii.; and _William of Malmesbury_, book v., chapter i.

[21] _Norman Conquest_ (Freeman), vol. ii., ch. viii., pp. 189, 190, "The vengeance of Duke William on the men of Alencon."

[22] _Geoffrey de Mandeville_ (J. H. Round), p. 89 and p. 334.

[23] The kitchens of the period were usually situated at no great distance from the Hall, and were in general of very slight construction; frequently they were only wooden-framed buildings, with walls of wattle and daub, and thatched roofs, hence the need for the continual repairs that figure so numerously in the early records.

[24] _Mediaeval Military Architecture_ (G. T. Clark), vol. ii., p. 257.

[25] "Norwich Castle" (A. Hartshorne, F.S.A.), _The Archaeological Journal_, vol. xlvi., pp. 264, 265.

[26] Stubbs's _Introductions to the Rolls Series_, edited by Ha.s.sall, p.

221.

[27] The total cost of erecting Chateau Gaillard des Andelys amounted to 42,361 14s. 4d., according to the _Roll of the Norman Exchequer_ for 1198 (edited by T. Stapleton; vol. ii., pp. 309, 310 _et seq._), a sum which compares very well with the equally great outlay upon the works at London in 1191.

[28] _Archaeologia_, vol. lx., p. 239.

[29] Roger of Wendover's _Chronicle_ (Bohn's edition), vol. ii., p. 100, and Roger de Hoveden's _Annals_, _ibid._, vol. ii., p. 137, sub. 1190 ad.

[30] _Manuel d'Archaeologie Francaise_ (Enlart), vol. ii., section xi., pp. 497-500.

[31] "The Norman Origin of Cambridge Castle," W. H. St. John Hope, _Cambridge Antiquarian Society's Communications_, vol. xi., p. 340.

[32] _Exchequer Accounts Roll_, 3/15, 5 Edward I.

[33] _Peel: Its Meaning and Derivation._ George Neilson, F.S.A.Scot.

[34] In the ruins of the Palace of the Archbishops of York at Southwell, in Nottinghamshire, one of the wall turrets used as a latrine chamber, or garderobe, has just such an arrangement for the drain as that above mentioned.--_English Domestic Architecture_ (Turner & Parker), vol. ii., p. 114.

[35] Matthew Paris's _English History_ (Bohn's edition), vol. i., pp.

166, 315, 326.

[36] Also known as "Galighmaes, or Galleyman's," Tower, but the nomenclature of the various towers has been greatly changed at various times.

[37] William of Malmesbury's _English Chronicle_ (Bohn's edition), p.

443, sub. 1119 ad.

[38] _Liberate Rolls_, 37 & 39 Henry III., m. 5 and m. 11.

[39] _Ibid._

[40] Many curious particulars of this menagerie are to be found in Maitland's _History of London_, vol. i., p. 172 _et seq._ In 1754 there were two great apes called "the man tygers" (probably orang-outangs), one of which killed a boy by throwing a cannon ball at him!

[41] _Liberate Roll_, 24 Henry III., at Westminster, February 24th (1240).

[42] _Liberate Roll_, 25 Henry III., m. 20, at Windsor, December 10th.

[43] Matthew Paris, _ut supra_, vol. i., p. 488.

[44] _Close Roll_, 21 Henry III., m. 11; and _ibid._ 37 Henry III., m.

2; also _The Ancren Riwle_ (Camden Society), pp. 142, 143.

[45] _Liber Albus_ (Riley), folio 273 b., E 35, p. 477.

[46] _Close Roll_, 35 Henry III., m. 11.

[47] _Close Roll_, 9 Henry III., p. 2, m. 9. The Close Rolls were so called because they contained matters of a private nature, and were folded or closed up, in contradistinction to the Patent Rolls which (being addressed to all persons impartially) were left open, with the Great Seal affixed to the lower edge.

[48] _Issue Roll_, 19 Edward I., at Westminster, November 30th.

[49] Accounts of Ralph de Sandwich, Constable of the Tower, 17 to 29 Edward I. Army Accounts in the Public Record Office.

[50] _Close Roll_, 10 Edward I., m. 5.

[51] _Exchequer Q.R. Memoranda_, 26 Edward I., m. 109, and _Privy Seals_, Tower, 33 Edward I., file 4.

[52] _Memorials of Westminster Abbey_ (Stanley) (second edition), chap.

v., pp. 413, 415.

[53] _Placita. Coram Rege. Roll_, 17 Edward II., p. 2, m. 37.

[54] _Archaeologia_, vol. x.x.xii., "The Early Use of Gunpowder in the English Army," pp. 379-387.

[55] _History of the Tower of London_ (John Bayley, F.S.A.) (first edition), vol. i., Appendix, pp. 1, 4.

[56] _Issues of the Exchequer_ (F. Devon), pp. 43, 74; Expense Roll for works at Westminster Palace, 43 Henry III.

[57] _The Tower of London_ (Harrison Ainsworth), book ii., ch. xi.

[58] _History of the Tower_ (Bayley), vol. i., p. 179.

[59] _History of the Jesuits in England_ (Taunton), ch. vii., p. 166.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT, SMITHFIELD

BY J. TAVENOR-PERRY

Anyone now visiting the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, after a lapse of fifty years, would scarcely recognize in the present stately building the woe-begone and neglected place of his recollections. In the apse and the transepts, in the lofty screen to the west of the stalls, suggesting a hidden nave beyond, and in the glimpses of the Lady Chapel across the eastern ambulatory, he would see the completed choir of some collegiate church, of which the princ.i.p.al architectural features suggested an ancient foundation. It is true that, in the church of fifty years ago, the Norman details were still very distinct, though the round arches of the arcades had been parodied by the Georgian windows of the east end, and by the plastered romanesque reredos; but gloom and darkness overspread the whole place, encroachments of the most incongruous kinds had invaded the most sacred portions, and to the casual observer it seemed impossible that the church could ever be rescued from the ruin with which it was threatened, or reclaimed from the squalor by which it was surrounded.

To understand the difficulties which lay before the restorers, who, in 1863, commenced the task of saving the building from annihilation, and to properly appreciate what they have achieved, as well as what they only aimed at accomplishing, it is necessary to give some account of the state of the fabric in that year, and, without repeating at undue length the oft-told tale of its foundation, to give a history of the church during the eight hundred years of its existence.

The founder, both of the priory and of the hospital, was one Rahere, of whom but little is certainly known. Some a.s.sume that he was that same Rahere who a.s.sisted Hereward in his stand against the Norman invaders of the Cambridgeshire fens, but if so, this did not prevent him, later on, from attaching himself to the court of the Conqueror's son. He is generally described as having been jester to Henry I., and it has been a.s.sumed that the nature of his engagement involved a course of life calling for repentance and a pilgrimage. But whatever the reason may have been, he apparently went to Rome in 1120, though the journey at that particular juncture was a very unsafe proceeding. He may, perhaps, have joined himself to the train of Pope Calixtus II., who had just been elected at Cluny, in succession to the fugitive Gelasius II., and who made his journey to Rome in the spring of that year. If so, he arrived in Rome at the very worst season, and like many others who visit the city in the summer, he contracted the usual fever. During his illness, or after his recovery, St. Bartholomew appeared to him in a vision, and directed him, on his return to London, to found a church in his honour, outside the walls, at a place called Smithfield. Although visions and their causes are not always explicable, the a.s.sociation of St.

Bartholomew with this dream of Rahere's may, perhaps, be accounted for.

The church of S. Bartolommeo all'Isola had been built, a century before Rahere's visit, within the ruined walls of the Temple of aesculapius, on the island of the Tiber, and Saint had succeeded, in some measure, to the traditional healing-power of the G.o.d. In cla.s.sic times, those who flocked to the shrine generally stayed there for one or two nights, when the healer appeared to them in a vision, and gave them directions for their cure. So, in mediaeval times, his successor and supplanter followed the same course, but provided cures for the soul rather than for the body.