Appendix V
“With one of these Norman burghers the life of St. Thomas brings us in contact, and, scanty as are the details of the story, they agree in a very striking way with the indications afforded us by the charter of the king. The story of the early years of Thomas Becket has very naturally been passed over with little attention by his modern biographers in their haste to fight the battle of his after-career. But long before he became St. Thomas, Archbishop Thomas, or Thomas of Canterbury, he was known as Thomas of London, son (to use his own boast) of ‘a citizen, living without blame among his fellow-citizens.’ So completely was the family adopted into the City, that the monks of Canterbury could beg loans from the burgesses on the plea that the great martyr was a Londoner born; and on the City seal of the fourteenth century, London addressed him as at once her patron and her son: ‘Me, quae te peperi, ne cesses, Thoma, tueri.’ The name of his father, Gilbert Becket, is one of the few that remain to us of the Portreeves, the predecessors of the Mayors, under Stephen; he held a large property in houses within the walls; and a proof of his civic importance was long preserved in the annual visit of each newly-elected chief magistrate to his tomb in the little chapel which he had founded in the churchyard of Paul’s. Yet Gilbert was one of the Norman strangers who followed in the wake of the Conqueror. He was by birth a burgher of Rouen, as his wife was of a burgher family of Caen; he claimed kinship with the Norman Theobald, and received the Norman Baron de l’Aigle as a guest.
But the story of the Beckets does more than illustrate the outer position of the Norman colony: it gives us a glimpse, the more precious because it is unique, of its inner life. Students of hagiology learn to be cautious about the stories of precocious holiness, the apocryphal gospels of the infancy, which meet them at the outset of most saints’ lives; but it is remarkable that in the life of St. Thomas there is no pretension of the kind. In the stead of juvenile miracles we are presented with the vivid little picture of a London home, which sets the Norman colony fairly before us. We see the very aspect of the house (the Mercers’ Chapel, in Cheapside, still preserves its site for us), the tiny bedroom, the larger hall opening directly on the bustle of the narrow Cheap. We gain a hint from the costly coverlet of purple, sumptuously wrought, which Mother Rohese flings over her child’s cradle, of the new luxury and taste which the Conquest had introduced into the home of the trader as into the castle of the noble. A glance at the guests and relatives of the family shows how the new colony served as medium between the city and the Court: the young Baron Richer of Aquila is often there, hunting and hawking with the boy, as he grows up; Archdeacon Baldwin and Clerk Eustace look in from Canterbury, to chat over young Thomas and his chances of promotion in the curia of Archbishop Theobald; there is a kinsman, too, of Gilbert’s, a citizen of his own stamp, Osbern Huitdeniers, ‘of great name and repute, not only among his fellow-burghers, but also with those of the Court.’ Without the home, the Norman influence makes itself felt in a new refinement of manners and breeding; the young citizen grows up free and genial enough, but with a Norman horror of coarseness in his geniality. London shares in the great impulse which the Conquest has given to education; the children of her citizens are sent to the new Priory of Merton; the burghers flock to the boys’ exercises at the schools attached to the three principal churches of the town. The chief care of Rohese was for her son’s education; in his case it is finished at Paris, before the young Londoner passes to the merchant’s desk.” (Historical Studies, J. R. Green.)
Footnotes
1 There is, indeed, a small patch of gravel near “The Spaniards” at Hampstead which is rather more than 400 feet above the sea, but this may not be connected with the sculpture of the Thames valley.
2 Prof. J. Prestwich, Geol. Mag. 1864, p. 245.
3 Sir J. Evans, Ancient Stone Implements, ch. xxiii.
4 Worthington Smith, quoted by W. Whitaker, Geology of London, i. p. 345.
5 Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. xxxvi. p. 544.
6 Whitaker, Geology of London, vol. i. p. 471.
7 Also derived, according to some authorities, from “bourne,” a boundary.—Ed.
8 Stanley, Memorials of Westminster Abbey, ch. i.
9 Prof. Prestwich, Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. xxviii. (1872),Proc. liii.
10 For the history of the water-supply of London, the requirements of the metropolis, and the future prospects, see the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry presented in 1873.
11 In June 1904 the undertakings of these seven Companies passed to the Metropolitan Water Board (constituted 1902), which took over their debts, liabilities, etc., and a month later the business of the New River Company passed to the same authority, which now controls the total water-supply of London.—Ed.
12 The Water-bearing Strata of London, p. 60.
13 See, for particulars, W. Whitaker, Geology of London, vol. ii. Appendix i.; or H. B. Woodward, Geology of England and Wales, Appendix i.
14 Tite, Antiquities of the Royal Exchange, p. xxvii.
15 The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, by Thomas Wright, F.S.A., 1852 edit. p. 112.
16 Thomas Wright, The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, p. 425 et seq.
17 In the fourth century there were British regiments in Gaul, Spain, Illyria, Egypt, and Armenia.
18 ][ is no doubt intended for the Greek eta and means here E, so that the recovered part represents only BENEC.
19 In Archæologia, vol. xl., Mr. W. H. Black argues that not the east side of Walbrook, but the west, was the site of the first Roman settlement. His argument is based principally upon the fact that the western side offered the greater safety, having three sides protected by water, while the fourth side was protected by a moor. Yet the eastern side had the protection of the Walbrook and the Thames on the west and south, the moor on the north, and the broad stream of the Lea running through a vast morass on the east.
20 See London and Middlesex Archæological Society, vol. v. p. 295.
21 Compare for instance, the city of Jerusalem, in which, despite the many sieges and conquests, the course of the old streets still remains.
22 In The Governance of London (1907), Mr. Gomme surrenders some evidence which he formerly considered told in favour of Teutonic influences in London, such as that in clauses 9 and 11; but on the other hand he strengthens his case for Roman origins in other directions.—Ed.
23 History of the Anglo-Saxons.
24 “Aldred, Archbishop of York; Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester; Walter, Bishop of Hereford; Edgar the Atheling; the Earls Edwin and Morcar, and other Londoners of the better sort.” (Florence of Worcester.)
25 Commentaries on the History, Constitution, and Chartered Franchises of the City of London, by George Norton.
26 Gesta Stephani.
27 The original word in charter is luc, untranslated.—Ed.