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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
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
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