RELIGION IN MEDIEVAL LONDON ARCHAEOLOGY AND BELIEF

Bruno Barber, Christopher Thomas and Bruce Watson

MUSEUM OF LONDON ARCHAEOLOGY

MOLA

Religion in medieval London: archaeology and belief

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 Christian 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.

Bruno Barber, Christopher Thomas and Bruce Watson

Contents
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 copyright 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

Introduction

7 13

In the beginning Christianity in Roman and Saxon London

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

Church, synagogue and people Londoners and their places of worship

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

33

Sacred spaces Londons monasteries

63

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

4 5 6 7

Hospitals and hospitality charitable care in London

guests and other forms of charity

83

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

The Crusades and Military Orders

The later history of the Military Orders

95

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

The last things death, burial and remembrance

deaths S Monuments and commemoration

105

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

Destruction, reform and transformation the end of the medieval Church

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

125

Printed by Butler Tanner & Dennis

Further reading and places to visit Index 141 144

137

Acknowledgements

Introduction
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 are housed 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).
A vanished landscape: the spire of Old St Pauls, Londons medieval cathedral, dominates the city skyline in this early 14th-century manuscript illustration

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 7

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. The Jewish 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 this: in 1476 William Caxton set up the first English 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

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 in 1743; 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, the celebrated London historian writing in c 1600, 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

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)

8 RELIGION IN MEDIEVAL LONDON: ARCHAEOLOGY AND BELIEF

INTRODUCTION 9

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 its subsequent 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.
Inside bomb-damaged Temple church, 1941

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

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.

10 RELIGION IN MEDIEVAL LONDON: ARCHAEOLOGY AND BELIEF

INTRODUCTION 11

1
In the beginning Christianity in Roman and Saxon London

Entangled serpent and mythical beast on the early 11th-century grave-marker found near St Pauls

13