CHAPTER IV

THE WARDS

The large area included by the Roman Wall was parcelled out, after the Saxon occupation, into manors, socs, or estates, held by private persons. Some of them passed into the possession of the Church; some into possession of the City; some changed hands. That these manors included the most densely populated parts of the City, or Thames Street, and the streets north of that main artery, proves that the first allotment took place very early in the Saxon occupation, when the City was still deserted; this fact, indeed, affords another proof of that desertion, because we cannot believe that a populous quarter, covered with warehouses and merchants’ residences, should have been assigned to one man or to a dozen men. The value of the manor, comprising gardens lying among ruined foundations, shut off from the river and its fish by a high and thick stone wall, could have been no more than that of a manor lying beside the north wall, on which corn was growing and orchards were planted. Just as the Bedford Estate in London began with the fields of Bloomsbury; just as the Westminster Estate began with the marshes round Thorney Island, so the original manors of London, at first gardens and wastes, became built over or sold for building purposes. What, then, were manorial rights? Let us read the instructions of Archdeacon Hall on this point. He says:—

“Manorial property was a possession differing in many respects from what is now called landed estate. It was not a breadth of land, which the lord might cultivate or not as he pleased, suffer it to be inhabited, or reduce it to solitude and waste; but it was a dominion or empire, within which the lord was the superior over subjects of different ranks, his power over them not being absolute, but limited by law and custom. The lord of a manor, who had received by grant from the crown, saca and soca, tol and team, was not merely a proprietor, but a prince; and his courts were not only courts of law, but frequently of criminal justice. The demesne, the assised, and the waste lands were his; but the usufruct of the assised land belonged, on conditions, to the tenants, and the waste lands were not so entirely his, that he could exclude the tenants from the use of them. It was this double capacity, in which the lord stood, to his tenants, as the arbiter of their rights, as well as the owner of the land, which rendered it necessary to the due discharge of the duty of his station, that the lord of a manor should be such a person as Fleta describes: Truthful in his words, faithful in his actions, a lover of justice and of God, a hater of fraud and wrong, since it most concerns him not to act with violence, or according to his own will, but to follow advice, not being guided by some young hanger-on, some jester or flatterer, but by the opinion of persons learned in the law, men faithful and honest, and of much experience. Manors were petty royalties; the court and household of the lord resembling in some degree that of the King. In Fleta an account is given of the officers of the royal household, the Senescallus Hospitii Regis, who held his court in the palace; the Marescallus, the Camerarius, the Clericus panetarii; but in the latter part of the book, which treats of the management of manors, we find the lord of the manor attended by the Senescallus, who held his courts, by the Marescallus, who had the charge of his stud, and by the Coquus, who rendered an account of the daily expenditure to the Senescallus.”

Some of these manors belonged to the Bishop or to a Church or to a religious foundation, but the rights and the government and the management of all were alike. Again to quote Archdeacon Hall:—

“Manors, whether royal and baronial, or episcopal and ecclesiastical, were to their owners sources of wealth, derived from two distinct sources—the exercise of a legal jurisdiction and the rent of cultivation of land. The Ecclesiastical Manors differed in no respect from those which were in lay hands. They were the sources of income, not the field of spiritual labour. They contributed to the support of the Bishop or of the Chapter, and of the religious household of the Cathedral, by profits and revenues no way different from those derived by the Sovereign and the Lords from other Manors. It is remarkable that neither the Exchequer Domesday, nor the Domesday of St. Paul’s contains any evidence, that the Ecclesiastical Manors had any superior religious privileges, or were the centres from which religious knowledge was diffused to the neighbourhood. The Manors of the religious houses were in reality secular possessions; and their history, as shown in the Domesday of St. Paul’s, is valuable as illustrating the social, rather than the religious, condition of the time.”

It must be noted, however, that none of the City manors were royal; nor did any of their manors at any time belong to any noble great or small. The nobles had their town houses, many of them large and stately palaces covering a broad area, but they were never Lords of any London Manor. And the Church property in the City included, after a time, only the site of the various religious foundations and the house property which they happened to possess. The Ward of Portsoken, of which mention has already been made, is the only exception to this rule.

The manors, then, became the wards of the City.

The earliest list of the wards is contained in a document found among the archives of St. Paul’s, entitled: “The measurements of the land of St. Paul’s within the City of London.” The date is early in the twelfth century.

The list is not, unfortunately, complete; nor can all the wards be identified. But it is most valuable for what it does contain. A facsimile is published in J. E. Price’s _Guildhall_. Thus, the first ward is “Warda Episcopi,” the Bishop’s Ward, Cornhill. Then we have _Warda Haco_, _i.e._ of St. Nicholas of Acon, in Lombard Street; _Warda Alwold_ (Cripplegate); _Warda Fori_—of the Market-place—Chepe; _Warda Ralph, son of Algod_; _Warda Osbert Dringepinne_; _Warda Hugh, son of Ulgar_; _Warda Brocesgange_; _Warda Liured_; _Warda Reimund_; _Warda Herbert_; _Warda Edward, son of Wizel_; _Warda Sperling_; _Warda Brichmar the Moneyer_; _Warda Brichmar the Cottager_; _Warda Godwin, son of Esgar_; _Warda Alegate_; _Warda Rolf, son of Liviva_; _Warda Algar Manningestepsunne_; _Warda Edward Parole_.[5]

There are twenty wards in all. It will be observed that they are all named after single persons except the Ward of the Market Place and the Ward of Alegate. These single persons were the proprietors, the barons, the owners of the land; the wards were the private manors into which the City was divided. (See Appendix I.)

It is impossible to say how many wards there were in the whole City. The owners were barons of right, a rank which afterwards descended to their successors, the elected Aldermen. The first governing body of London consisted of the owners of these estates, to whom were added the more important merchants. In the changes and chances of fortune, the estates changed hands; families died out and were replaced; we find, in the fourteenth century, for instance, that all the old families, whose names we know, had by that time disappeared, left the City, or become merged in the general population. But the manors themselves seem to have remained for the most part unbroken. It is difficult even at the present day to cut up a manor. The Lord of the Manor, called the Alderman, formed part of the ruling body by virtue of possession. In other words, the government of London, despite the survival of the Folk Mote, was a territorial aristocracy. In the _Liber Albus_ (p. 30), Carpenter calls attention to the fact that although in his day—the beginning of the fifteenth century—the wards were known by their own names, they had formerly borne the names of their Aldermen. Thus, he says that the Ward of Candelwyk Street was formerly the Ward of Thomas Basyng; the Ward of Castle Baynard was the Ward of Simon Hadestok; Tower Ward was the Ward of Henry le Frowyk; Vintry Ward was the Ward of Henry le Covyntre; Farringdon Ward Without was the Ward of Anketill de Auvern. So also, as W. J. Loftie points out, the Ward of the Bridge was at one time that of John Horn; the Cordwainers’ Ward was that of Henry le Waleys; Langbourne Ward that of Nicolas de Winton; Aldgate that of John of Northampton; Walbrook of John Adrian; Broad Street of William Bukerel; Aldersgate of Wolman de Essex; Bread Street of William de Denham. Not one of these names can be found in the list just quoted.

By the time of Carpenter, the wards were clearly defined. Up to the reign of Edward the First their boundaries were unsettled.

The Ward Mote has been held from time immemorial, according to Stow. That is to say, whenever a manor became settled and populated, it was the interest of the Alderman to have a court of Assistants who could act as his Police, his Constables, his Detectives.

At what period the Aldermen ceased to be hereditary and were elected by the citizens, I know not. The election of Aldermen is not contemplated in the Charters of Henry the First, Henry the Second, Richard the First, or John. In the second Charter of Henry the Third, the Barons (_i.e._ Aldermen) of the City are appointed to elect the Mayor. In the Charter of Edward the Second it is provided that the Aldermen shall be “removable yearly and be removed on the day of St. Gregory (the 12th of March) and in the year following shall not be re-elected, but others shall be elected in their stead.” (_Liber Albus._)

In the year 1354 the old order was restored, and the Aldermen remained in office for life.

The following is a list of the twenty-four wards into which London was divided before the end of the thirteenth century, with the names of the respective Aldermen:—

Warda Fori Alderman. Stephen Aswy. „ Ludgate and Newgate „ William de Farndon. „ Castle Baynard „ Richard Aswy. „ Aldersgate „ William le Mazener. „ Bredstrete „ Ducan de Botevile. „ Quenehythe „ Simon de Hadestucke. „ Vintry „ John de Gisors. „ Dougate „ Gregory de Rockesley. „ Walbrook „ Thomas Box. „ Coleman Street „ John Fitz Peter. „ Bassishaw „ Radulpus le Blound. „ Cripplegate „ Henry Frowick. „ Candlewyk Street „ Robert de Basing. „ Langeford „ Nicholas de Winton. „ Cordewene Street „ Henry le Waleys. „ Cornhill „ Martin Box. „ Lime Street „ Robert de Rockesley. „ Bishopsgate „ Philip le Taylour. „ Alegate „ John de Northampton. „ Tower „ William de Hadestock. „ Billingsgate „ Wolman de Essex. „ Bridge „ Joseph de Achatur. „ Lodyngebery „ Robert de Arras. „ Portsoken „ Trinity.

In this list we observe that Cheap Ward is still called Ward Fori; Langbourne Ward appears as Langeford; Broad Street Ward is Lodyngebery; Farringdon is Ludgate and Newgate Ward; Aldgate is Alegate. Forty years later there is found another list of wards in which the modern names appear with the exception of Alegate which is written Algate. The names of the wards are in four cases derived from the trades carried on in them: in four cases from the chief families in them: in the rest from buildings or monuments belonging to them. The names of the Aldermen show sixteen belonging to the old ruling families: seven belonging to new families or to trades, and one, the Prior of Holy Trinity, as an official Alderman.

The date of this list of wards and Aldermen is probably somewhere about 1290, nearly two hundred years after the first list. We have, then, the old City families still represented among the Aldermen. Were they elected? It is impossible to say how long the hereditary system was maintained, and when it was replaced by the elective system. The revolution was a peaceful and bloodless one, since there is no record of it. William Farringdon, who bought his ward, and his son Nicholas, were successive Aldermen of the ward for no less than eighty-two years.

The change of the names in the wards seems to have been carried out between the year 1272, when Riley’s _Memorials_ begin, and 1314, when a list of wards appears with the names that belong to the street or quarter.

Thus we have[6]:—

1272. Ward of Thomas de Basinge (Bridge Ward). 1276. „ „ Castle Baynard. 1277. „ „ William de Hadestok (Tower Ward). „ „ „ Portsoken. „ „ „ Henry de Coventre (Vintry Ward). „ „ „ Anketill de Auverne (Farringdon Ward Without). „ „ „ Henry le Waleys (Cordwainers’ Ward). 1278. „ „ John Adrien (Walbrook Ward). „ „ „ Chepe. „ „ „ William Bukerel (Broad Street Ward). „ „ „ John de Blakethorn (Aldersgate Ward). „ „ „ Henry de Frowyk (Cripplegate Ward). „ „ „ Ralph le Fever (Farringdon Within). 1283. „ „ William de Farndon (Farringdon Within).[7] 1291. „ „ Walbrook (see above). „ „ „ Cornhill. 1295. „ „ Broad Street (see above). „ „ „ Bishopsgate. 1300. „ „ Bassieshaw. „ „ „ Coleman Street. 1303. „ „ Crepelgate. „ „ „ Langeburne. „ „ „ Tower Ward (see above). 1310. „ „ Without Ludgate (Farringdon Without). 1311. „ „ Dowgate. „ „ „ Vintry (see above). „ „ „ Aldersgate. „ „ „ Cordwainer Street (see above). „ „ „ Bread Street. „ „ „ Lyme Street. „ „ „ Candelwick Street. „ „ „ Bridge Ward (see above). 1312. „ „ Queen Hythe.

From this list, it appears that between 1272 and 1283, of fourteen wards named in the _Memorials_, three only have the name of their street or quarter, the rest being all named after their Aldermen. But from 1283 to 1314 there are nineteen wards mentioned, and they are all named after their street or district. It is therefore safe to conclude that within these forty years the aldermanry had ceased to be proprietary or hereditary. We may connect this fact with the story of Walter Hervey’s election in 1272 (see p. 52), which proves that the oligarchy had already lost much of their power.

To repeat. The City consisted originally of a certain number of manors or private estates: the proprietors of these estates were the so-called barons of the City: some of the estates remained in the hands of their proprietors for many generations: these proprietors constituted themselves, without any law other than immemorial custom, the ruling council of the City. The boundaries of the manors remained after the property had been cut up and divided among many proprietors. Perhaps the Aldermen remained with the representative of the old family. When, one by one, the original proprietors had disappeared, died out, or parted with their property, the ancient boundaries of the ward were retained, and the inhabitants elected a chief, whom they still called Alderman, in place of the hereditary Alderman. It was ordered, in the thirteenth century, that the Alderman, like the Mayor, should be elected every year, and should go out after serving his year of office. But, as the new method was found to make difficulties, after half a century they went back to the old plan of electing an Alderman for life, and so the custom has remained ever since. The Alderman of the ward represents the Lord of the Manor, and is its principal magistrate for life.

Attention has been directed to the “Warda Episcopi.” Was, then, the Bishop of London formerly an Alderman? He was. He took his seat among the Aldermen in right of the property of the Church. He did not, therefore, take part in the temporal government of the City as Bishop, but as Alderman. This right he delegated to a Provost. So, also, the Prior of the Holy Trinity was an Alderman, not as Prior, but as Lord of the Manor of Portsoken.

When the Bishop ceased to preside over a ward I know not. It is certain, however, that it was of incalculable advantage at that time for the City of London to be partly governed in its temporal affairs by one who was a great churchman, a great lord, a person often with the King, a scholar and a statesman, one who had nothing to gain by encroaching on the liberties of the people, and, therefore, one who might be trusted. In certain cases it is known that he acted not by his Provost, but personally. It was no doubt the Bishop who persuaded the citizens into admitting William into the City as King on conditions which involved no dishonour, but quite the contrary—namely, that nothing was to be changed, but that all the rights and liberties which the citizens had enjoyed under Edward the Confessor, or Alfred himself, should be continued.

It must be borne in mind that parish boundaries and ward boundaries are by no means the same. One instance there is where a parish and a ward are conterminous, it is that of St. Michael Bassishaw.

Maitland gives the list of the wards in 1393 with their rateable value at one fifteenth. Thus:—

“The Wards in the West of Wallbrook.

The Ward of Cheap, taxed in London at £72: 16s. and in the Exchequer accounted for £72.

The Ward of the Vintry, in London at £36 and in the Exchequer accounted for £35: 5s.

The Ward of Queenhithe, in London taxed at £20 and in the Exchequer accounted for £20.

The Ward of Baynard-Castle, taxed in London at £12 and in the Exchequer accounted for £12.

The Ward of Cordwainers-Street, in London at £72: 16s. and in the Exchequer accounted for £72.

The Ward of Bread-Street, taxed in London at £37 and in the Exchequer accounted for £36: 10s.

The Ward of Faringdon Without, in London taxed at £35 and in the Exchequer accounted for £34: 10s.

The Ward of Faringdon Within, in London taxed at £54 and in the Exchequer accounted for £53: 6: 8.

The Ward of Aldrychgate, taxed in London at £7 and in the Exchequer accounted for £7.

The Ward of Cripplegate, taxed in London at £40 and in the Exchequer accounted for £39: 10s.

The Ward of Cripplegate Without, in London taxed at £10 and in the Exchequer accounted for £10. _N.B._—This was not a separate ward, but only a liberty, or part of the former, under one Alderman, as at present.

The Ward of Bassyngshawe, taxed in London at £7 and in the Exchequer accounted for £7.

The Ward of Coleman-Street, taxed in London at £19 and in the Exchequer accounted for £19.

The Wards on the east side of Wallbrook.

The Ward of Wallbrook, taxed in London at £40 and in the Exchequer accounted for £39.

The Ward of Dowgate, taxed in London at £36 and in the Exchequer accounted for £34: 10s.

The Ward of Brydge, taxed in London at £50 and in the Exchequer accounted for £49: 10s.

The Ward of Byllingsgate, taxed in London at £32 and in the Exchequer accounted for £31: 10s.

The Ward of the Tower, taxed in London at £46 and in the Exchequer accounted for £45: 10s.

The Ward of Portsoken, taxed in London at £9 and in the Exchequer accounted at £9.

The Ward of Aldgate, taxed in London at £6 and in the Exchequer accounted for £5.

The Ward of Lyme-Street, taxed in London at 40s. and in the Exchequer accounted for 40s.

The Ward of Byshopsgate, taxed in London at £22 and in the Exchequer accounted for £21 10s.

The Ward of Broad-Street, taxed in London at £27 and in the Exchequer accounted for £25.

The Ward of Cornhill, taxed in London at £16 and in the Exchequer accounted for £16.

The Ward of Langbourne, taxed in London at £21 and in the Exchequer accounted for £20: 10s.

The Ward of Candlewick-Street, taxed in London at £16 and in the Exchequer accounted for £16.”

(Maitland, vol. i. p. 181.)

Outside the wards and not belonging to them, or within their jurisdiction, were certain socs, liberties, or vacant spaces. Such were the Precinct of St. Paul’s, the Precincts of the Religious Houses, the Sanctuary of St. Martin’s le Grand, and the “Roomlands” or open spaces of West Chepe, East Chepe, Tower Hill, and other places which were afterwards absorbed into the wards.

The names of those who owned the manors, together with the names found in contemporary documents, sufficiently prove how the Norman kings kept their promise and left the London merchants in possession of their property and their land. For with a few exceptions they are all Saxon names. The first, Mayor, Henry of London Stone, was FitzAylwin: Basing, Batt, Rokesby, Durman, Pountney, Bukerel, Billing, Faringdon, Thetmar, Orgar, Leofwin, Brechmar, Alwold, Algod, Esgar, Algar, Liured are all Saxon. Becket, it is true, is a name from Caen in Normandy. Blunt is Blond; Anketill de Auverne proclaims his origin.

We remark also that lads from the country had already begun to seek their fortune in London. We find Henry de Covyntre, Wolmar de Essex, John de Northampton, and many others.

We are considering in this place the City only. But we cannot avoid connecting the land all round the City, especially the land of Middlesex, held in farm by the citizens, with the City itself.

The City was surrounded by a broad belt of manors. These were very largely held by the Bishop, the cathedral, and certain abbeys and religious houses: in addition to these proprietors there were also a few nobles and private persons. The Abbey of Westminster owned a great estate, including the Strand and the lands between the river and Oxford Street: the De Veres held the manor of Kensington, but passed it over to the Abbey of Abingdon. The Chapter of St. Paul’s possessed manors at Willesden, Brondesbury, Brownswood, Chamberlain Wood, Mapesbury, Marden, Harlesden, Twyford, St. Pancras, Rugmere (St. Giles’s), Tottenhall, Kentish Town, Islington, Newington, Holborn, Portpool (Gray’s Inn), Finsbury, Hoxton, Wincock, Barn, Mora, and Fald Street; “covering a belt of land extending from St. Pancras on the west to the episcopal Manor of Stepney on the east.”

This being the case, the question arises as to the advantages accruing to the City in obtaining the Farm of Middlesex at £300 a year. It is certain that they would not have welcomed the privilege so eagerly but for the advantages it offered. These advantages may be summed up by the simple fact that the King’s rights over Middlesex were farmed out to the City. To begin with, the shire could no longer remain, as Southwark continued to be, a refuge or safe asylum for criminals whom it was difficult to catch, and still more difficult, in the conflict of royal and manorial rights, to bring to justice: next, it was a great step, though not at first understood, to creating the unity of the City. Other advantages in the grant are set forth by Archdeacon Hall:—

“The Sheriffs of Middlesex—every London burgher, that is—henceforth found themselves in possession, so to speak, when disputes arose between king and people; there was also a certain income from the courts which may eventually have been greater than the rent; the military protection of the City was rendered more easy when its civil jurisdiction extended so far beyond the walls, and the right conceded to the citizens to hunt in the surrounding forests formed the outward symbol of the completeness of their rule—a symbol which signified more under a Norman king than at any time since. To recognise the customs and laws of the City itself; to allow the ancient assemblies, the husting and the folkmote; to sanction the election of magistrates by the still unincorporated burghers; all these things were of importance, but the grant of Middlesex was more than any of them.”

It has been said that these manors made the growth of the suburbs impossible. But not in all directions. There was no obstacle to the growth of the riverside suburb called the Strand; here a long line of stately houses displaced the fishermen from Blackfriars to Westminster stairs: there was no obstacle to the extension of London along the river to the east, yet it did not extend in that direction. How the Church, which was the principal owner of the suburban manors, affected the successive settlements is described by Archdeacon Hall:—

“The suburbs, as I have said, owe their present condition not so much to the City as to the Church. By the time Henry I. made his grant of the county to the City, the broad lands of Middlesex had, almost wholly, passed into the possession of the great ecclesiastical foundations. What St. Paul had left, St. Peter acquired; and St. Martin, St. Bartholomew, and a little later, Holy Trinity at Aldgate, were watching to pick up fragments that the others had overlooked. Therefore, we must ascribe the modern suburbs, with their curious anomalies of local government, the so-called ‘metropolitan area’ with its imaginary boundaries, its districts and precincts, its boards and its vestries, answering to the sokes and liberties, the sanctuaries and wards within the walls, more to the clergy than to the municipality. The City supplied the population to colonise the wastes and woods; but the Church supplied the houses for them to dwell in, marked out their streets, and controlled the direction of each fresh stream of emigrants. When the first settlers along Holborn, or in Norton, or by the White Chapel, went forth from the City gates, it might have been expected that the rulers who had sway within the walls, and to whom Middlesex now belonged, as much as it had belonged to Earl Leofwine in the good days of King Edward, would have guided their steps and continued to govern their actions. But, where the citizens formed ‘wards without’ the walls, it was only by the leave, or in spite of the prohibition, of the Church. The King, when he gave to London the jurisdiction he had exercised in Middlesex, could give no land with it. At the time of the Survey, the royal estates had passed already to the Church, and William hardly owned an acre in the county. The estates of the Norman nobles had nearly all gone into the same hands by the time of Henry’s accession; and an enumeration of the Middlesex manors which never, at any time, were held ‘in mortmain’ would not comprise half-a-dozen names. The citizens could not protect their public meeting-place, their parade-ground, their markets within the walls, from the grasp of the ‘dead hand’; much less could they protect the new colonies of citizens in Kensington or Chelsea, in Hackney or Tyburn, far out in the open country.”