had but just received a name and a law; and romance, the mother and nurse of every splendid pageant, had scarcely awakened to life; nor had commerce as yet poured into the quays of London that profusion of wealth, that ere long rendered her merchants the rivals of nobles and of princes.

Nor did London herself present much to attract or delight the eye. The conventual establishments were few, the churches scanty, as compared with later times; nor did the tall spire, the traceried window, or the richly-carved door-way, contrast in picturesque variety with the rude low houses around. The materials of the churches were mean, and perishable: timber, or rubble, formed the walls; glass windows were but scantily seen; and but one parochial church boasted the unusual splendour of stone arches. This was in St. Mary's in West Cheap, called, from that circumstance, " de arcubus," a name retained to the present day, in its Norman designation "Le Bow." The metropolitan cathedral—that venerable structure which in the 14th and 15th centuries stood proudly the most splendid cathedral in the land, without tower or spire, built principally of timber, and yet bearing marks of that fatal and very extensive fire, which in 1082 almost levelled it with the ground-rose unwalled in the midst of a desolate area, looking mournfully on the ruined remains of the palace of her Saxon kings, which occupied the site beyond its southward boundary.

Of the form of the private dwellings, and of what materials they were composed, contemporary histo

rians afford us no information. As some of the earliest civic enactments are particular in directing that no house shall be thatched, but that each shall be covered with tile or slate, it is probable that straw was the usual covering. They also appear to have been very low-the law respecting party-walls, which was passed full eighty years after (a period during which London had been making rapid advances in wealth and civilisation), expressly enacting that they shall be carried to the height of sixteen feet only. It is probable that the roof sloped very much, otherwise no house could be above one story high. We must bear in mind, however, that this rule seems only to apply to the common class of houses since, within fifty years from the time on which we are now writing, handsome stone houses are mentioned by Fitzstephen as existing in London.* If any such then existed, their number was small; and along the irregular and unpaved street, rude dwellings with thatched roofs and wicker-latticed windows would continually meet the eye. Nor did the noble river, at this period spanned only by one fragile wooden bridge, display that forest of masts which have given to London her appropriate designation of the "modern Tyre." Beside the Tower, at the Vintry, and at Edred's-hithe, a few small vessels might be anchored; and from time to time some tall Norman galley, or some light osier-bound shallop, might glide by; but the broad and spacious quays, with the palace-dwellings of their merchants, the stirring life, the busy crowds, the sounds of never-ceasing activity,

*Vide Note 6, Appendix.

as yet were not. At either end of the city, and close to the water's edge, arose those equally impregnable fortresses, the Tower and Castle Baynard; on the other side of the river, the rude collection of huts marked the site of that general receptacle of thieves and outlaws, the Borough; close beside them rose the house of nuns and lowly church, dedicated to the Virgin by the grateful maiden of the ferry, Marie; and far beyond, rising conspicuous from among the green marshes, were the towers of the palace of Lambeth.

But a fairer spectacle would meet the eye of the Saxon princess, as she proceeded along the rude and irregular road which led to the palace of Westminster. There the hand of improvement had lavished countless cost, both on church and hall; and the numerous buildings-" framed," as the admiring chronicler relates, "with courses of stone, so correctly laid that the joint deceives the eye, and leads it to imagine it is all one block,"*-undimmed with age, and uninjured by long exposure to the weather, must have indeed appeared dwellings worthy the ruler of all England and Normandy.

Of the palace at Westminster, of which the greater part, and particularly the principal hall, was built by Rufus, we have numerous eulogies, but unfortunately no description. It was doubtless constructed on the Norman model, with the circular-headed windows and doorways, and pillars supporting circular arches; and the neatness of the masonry, and the great elevation and size of the

Malmsbury.

various apartments, seem to have excited the admiration of every chronicler. The Normans appear to have finished the interior of their houses in a style corresponding to the splendour of the outside; since, from some incidental notices in Malmsbury, we are led to believe that the walls, if not hung with tapestry, were painted and gilded. One passage in the same author seems also to prove, that the utmost richness of decoration was bestowed on the ceiling; it is when eulogizing Godfrey, that heroic leader of the first crusade, and first king of Jerusalem; and the words are these: "Godfrey, that brilliant mirror of Christian nobility, in whom, as in a splendid ceiling, the lustre of every virtue was reflected."

A most interesting document would a catalogue of the furniture of this palace of Westminster be, not merely to the antiquary but to the general reader. From incidental notices we learn, that Henry possessed immense wealth, and that in his court, on all occasions, he displayed unusual magnicence. Suger, who, as chancellor to the king of France, must have been well accustomed to royal magnificence, records with astonishment the splendour of the drinking vessels used at the king of England's table, for they were golden cups richly studded with gems; and in the chronicler's description of the dresses of Beauclerc's attendant courtiers, gold and silver, furs and silks, pearls and jewels, actually blaze upon his pages.

Although our materials for description of the palace at Westminster are so scanty, we can form a tolerably minute picture of St. Peter's Minster, as

finished by the Confessor. From that early day when monastic fraud first dictated the gainful legend of the rude timber church of Thorney Island, the appearance of St. Peter to the toiling and disappointed fisherman, the words of consecration pronounced by the chief of the Apostles himself, amid the blaze of celestial light, and the hallelujahs of the heavenly choir, each succeeding monarch vied with his predecessors in the gifts or immunities granted to this favoured abbey. Right willingly, too, did the fishermen, in full assurance of St. Peter's promise, through many centuries offer their tithe of salmon ;* and right proudly did the monks remind each successive bishop of London of the express assertion of the chief Apostle, that his church should be free from all episcopal jurisdiction. But the patron whose munificence threw that of all preceding monarchs into the shade, was the Confessor, who not merely added largely to its already large endowments, and granted a charter which rendered its inmates almost an "imperium in imperio," but caused, as almost the last act of his life, the old church to be taken down, and a new one erected on its site. This church, to superintend whose construction the most skilful masons were summoned from Normandy, "was the first," says Malmsbury, “erected after that kind of style, which now (1110) all attempt to rival at enormous expense." Camb

This tithe of salmon was paid nearly down to the period of the dissolution. Sporley mentions that, in 1382, he saw a large fish presented by four fishermen on the high altar. He says also, that the fisherman might demand for it bread and ale of the cellarer, and that he had also a right to sit at the prior's own table.-(Vide Monasticou, vol. i.)

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