religion in medieval london: archaeology and belief

7/30/2019 Religion in medieval London: archaeology and belief

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RELIGION IN

MEDIEVAL LONDON

ARCHAEOLOGY AND BELIEFBruno Barber, Christopher Thomas and Bruce Watson


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Religion in medieval

London: archaeologyand belief

Bruno Barber, Christopher Thomas

and Bruce Watson

A DESCRIPTION OF THE MOST NOBLE CITY OF LONDON

by William Fitzstephen (writing c 117083)

Among the noble cities of the world that are celebrated by fame, the city of

London, seat of the monarchy of England, is one that spreads its fame wider,sends its wealth and wares further, and lifts its head higher than all others.

It is blest in the wholesomeness of its air, in its reverence for the Chr istian faith,

in honour of its citizens and the chastity of its matron . In the church of St Paul

is the episcopal see there are both in London and the suburbs 13 greater

conventual churches, and 126 lesser parochial.


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Contents

Introduction 7

In the beginning Christianity in Roman and Saxon London 13

Church, synagogue and people Londoners and their places of worship 33

Sacred spaces Londons monasteries 63

Hospitals and hospitality charitable care in London 83

The Crusades and Military Orders 95

The last things death, burial and remembrance 105

Destruction, reform and transformation the end of the medieval Church 125

Further reading and places to visit 137

Index 141

Acknowledgements 144

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Roman London S South-east England in the 5th to 7th centuries AD S St Pauls Cathedral,

AD 6041087 S Lundenwic and its churches S Barking Abbey S Lundenburh: the

reoccupation of the Roman town S The emergence of local churches S Westminster Abbey

The religious landscape S Judaism S Religion in daily life S St Pauls Cathedral Old

St Pauls S Discovering parish churches S Civic and corporate chapels S Private chapels

and palaces S Personal religion

Medieval monasteries S Monks and canons S Nuns and sisters S The appearance of

monastic buildings S Our Daily Bread: evidence of food and diet in monastic houses S

The arrival of the friars S Declining standards

The role of the medieval hospital S Hospitals in London S St Mary Spital S Caring for

guests and other forms of charity

The Crusades and their impact S The Knights Templar S The Knights Hospitaller S

The later history of the Military Orders

Medieval death S Burial practices S Burial in times of crisis plague, famine and bad

deaths S Monuments and commemoration

The Reformation S The Dissolution of the monasteries S St Pauls Cathedral and the

stripping of the altars

Published in July 2013 by Museum of London Archaeology

Museum of London Archaeology 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the c opyright owner.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-907586-07-1

Written, designed and photographed by Museum of London Archaeology

Illustrations: Carlos Lemos, Hannah Faux and Judit Persztegi

Photography and reprographics: Andy Chopping, Maggie Cox

Editor: Susan M Wright

Copy editing: Simon Burnell

Index: Auriol Griffith-Jones

Design and production: Tracy Wellman

Printed by Butler Tanner & Dennis


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INTRODUCTION 7

Religion is a topic that has long inspired passion among Londoners. In

the name of religion all manner of deeds, both good and bad, have been

carried out; on occasion non-believers have been persecuted or put to

death. St John Southworth, a Roman Catholic priest, was executed at

Tyburn (now Marble Arch) for his faith as late as 1654. His remains arehoused in St Georges chapel, Westminster Cathedral, and to Catholics

he counts as one of the English martyrs. Today we live in a multicultural

society, in a country where the death penalty has been abolished, where

only a minority of people attend organised worship on a regular basis,

where agnosticism not persecution is now closing Christian churches,

and where many faiths are practised.

The aim of this book is to show the contribution that archaeology can

make to our understanding of medieval society, particularly its religious

beliefs and attitudes to death. Many of our great religious buildings do

not survive above ground level, but are part of a vanished landscape,

memories of which survive in place names like Whitefriars Street;

but they can be rediscovered by excavation. Equally, chance finds from

archaeological sites can reveal the importance and very personal nature

of religion in the lives of ordinary Londoners. The central part of this

book focuses on the medieval period (defined as AD 10661485) and

the area in and around the City of London. To place this in context,

the book also summarises religious belief in earlier periods, and brings

the story to a close with the Reformation under Henry VIII and

Edward VI in the mid 16th century, which brought about the end of

the Roman Catholic Church in England. Archaeological finds are also

presented from several key religious sites within modern Greater London

the core area of operations for Museum of London Archaeology

(MOLA).

Medieval society differed from ours in many ways. There was only one

Christian Church the Roman Catholic rather than the multitude of

denominations and doctrines of modern Christianity. London possessed

numerous parish churches, monastic houses and a cathedral, offering a

huge choice of places for worship, but all were part of a single Church.

Introduction

A vanished landscape: the

spire of Old St Pauls,

Londons medieval cathedral,

dominates the city skyline in

this early 14th-century

manuscript illustration


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INTRODUCTION 9

radical step. Rising levels of literacy alongside religious reform created

a huge demand for printed material; this in turn increased peoples

knowledge and awareness of the wider world, in part fuelling the English

Reformation a cataclysmic event that swept away the monasteries

and traditional religion.

Today we enjoy religious freedom, a concept that would have been seen

as dangerous by our medieval ancestors. In Fournier Street, Spitalfields,

in east London, there is a former Huguenot church which was built in1743; it became a Wesleyan chapel in 1819, then a mission house for

converting Jews; in 1898 it was adapted as a synagogue, and in 1976 it

became the Jamme Masjid mosque. This brisk sequence of changes in

use is just one example of how successive waves of immigrants with

different religious beliefs have altered the religious landscape of London

in the post-medieval period.

Some great medieval buildings, such as Westminster Abbey or the priory

church of St Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield, in the City of

London, are still standing and provide us with a vivid link with the

past. However, there is a variety of other evidence that contributes to

this story, including documents, maps and pictures. John Stow, thecelebrated London historian writing in c1600, described many churches

and funerary monuments which have since been destroyed. The Great

Fire of 1666 destroyed St Pauls Cathedral, 87 parish churches and six

consecrated chapels, while enemy bombing and later missile attack

8 RELIGION IN MEDIEVAL LONDON: ARCHAEOLOGY AND BELIEF

In matters of religion you either conformed or were punished both in

this world and the next. For the Christian population, attending church

and venerating the saints was a vital part of daily life. The modern

word holiday is derived from the Old English holy day, a reminder

that all medieval holidays were saints days or religious festivals such as

Christmas and Easter. For many, the Church was also the principal

provider of medical care and knowledge.

The only other faith for which evidence survives was Judaism. TheJewish community was a vital part of medieval Londons society and

economy, but its members were often the victims of suspicion and

persecution. All Jewish communities in England were expelled from

the country in 1290. There is no evidence that any Muslims settled

permanently in medieval London, but it is possible that a few Muslim

merchants and sailors visited the capital.

Today, the mass production of goods, including books, is commonplace.

In the medieval period goods were made by hand on a small scale in

craft workshops. Until the 15th century books were hand-copied, so

were both very expensive and rare. However, the development of

printing was to change th is: in 1476 William Caxton set up the firstEnglish printing press at Westminster. The mass production of printed

books, particularly the Bible in English during the 16th century, was a

The burning of John Rogers,

a Protestant cleric, in 1555,

possibly at Smithfield

Below left: the Jamme Masjid

mosque in Spitalfields,

occupying a building which

was previously a Christian

church and then a Jewish

synagogue

Below right: St Pauls Cathedral

engulfed by the Great Fire

(detail, Dutch school, c 1666)


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INTRODUCTION 11

In the 20th century there was a growing awareness that redevelopment

in London was destroying the past without record; this prompted the

English Royal Commission for Historical Monuments to survey all of

Greater Londons medieval monuments during the 1920s. The

commissions survey created a unique record of London churches and

their furnishings before they were damaged or destroyed during the

Blitz. From 1947 to 1972, Professor W F Grimes carried out excavations

on eight City of London churches destroyed during the Second World

War, and he also investigated part of Bermondsey Priory (later Abbey),Charterhouse and the Jewish cemetery. Grimess most extensive

excavation was that of the interior of St Brides (in 19524), the first

large-scale archaeological investigation of a London church. Since then

numerous archaeological investigations have been carried out in advance

of redevelopment across the Greater London area. For instance, in

20067, excavations carried out in advance of the construction of the

new East London Line railway revealed elements of one of Londons

lost monastic houses, Holywell (or Haliwell) Priory, Shoreditch. It is this

prodigious volume of work that has inspired this book. Redevelopment

and the rediscovery of our past are dynamic, linked processes.

during the Second World War (193945) destroyed many more places

of worship in London, with most damage done during the Blitz of

19401. In 1993, one of the few remaining medieval churches in the

City of London, St Ethelburgas, Bishopsgate, was severely damaged in

a bomb attack carried out by the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Redevelopment of sites within London has for centuries been revealing

fragments of our past. On 23 March 1797 a warehouse on the south

side of St Clare Street, Tower Hamlets, was gutted by fire. During itssubsequent demolition, the standing fabric of this three-storey building

was revealed to be substantially medieval and originally part of the

Minories nunnery, after which this particular area of east London is now

named. Archaeological study of medieval religious artefacts in London

started with Charles Roach Smith, who collected the many historic

objects retrieved by dredging on the site of Roman and medieval

London bridge in 182441; these include a wooden statue of

a monk.

10 RELIGION IN MEDIEVAL LONDON: ARCHAEOLOGY AND BELIEF

Wooden statue (c 14801550)

of a Benedictine monk

dredged from the Thames on

the site of medieval London

bridge and possibly from the

bridge chapel (height 480mm)

MOLA archaeologists

excavating the church nave

at Holywell Priory

Inside bomb-damaged

Temple church, 1941


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13

1In the beginning

Christianity in Romanand Saxon London

Entangled serpent and

mythical beast on the early

11th-century grave-marker

found near St Pauls

religion in medieval london: archaeology and belief

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