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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2012
I shall be glad if the following Remarks on the site of Roman London can at some convenient opportunity be submitted to the Society of Antiquaries.
Occurring as a station in eight of the fifteen journeys of the Imperial Itinerary, four times as a point of departure, three times as the terminus of a route, Londinium is a link of connexion with other stations on the same lines of road, and its position a necessary preliminary to a correct knowledge of the roads themselves.
page 101 note a London has been placed on the south of the Thames because Ptolemy calls it a city of the Cantii. It is suggested by a friend, that the same difficulty arises in the geographer's account of two of the cities of his own country Egypt. The district Prosopitis, and its metropolis Nicium, are placed by Ptolemy on the east of the great river; the district Sothroites, and its capital city Heracleopolis Parva, on the east of the Bubastic branch of the Nile. In both cases the district was on the east and the city on the west.
page 101 note b “Jam incertus planè hæreo, cui viæ insistam ut Londinium inveniam.”—Gale, Iter Brit. p. 64.
page 102 note a The circumstances attending the march of Suetonius, after the revolt of Boadicea, lead us to conclude that Londinium was not then walled, especially as this was the case with Camulodunum, a place of vastly more importance. But he would hardly have thought of defending it, and making it the “seat of war,” if entirely open and unprotected: “ambiguus an illam sedem belli deligeret,” &c.—Tacit. Annal. xiv. 33.
page 103 note a London is now liable to casualties of a different kind, and by one of these the topography of this neighbourhood will soon be materially changed.
page 103 note b Traces of a Roman hard way, identical in width and direction with Cannon Street, were observed when that street was dug across in 1834.—See Archæologia, vol. XXV. p. 602.
page 103 note c See Archæologia, vol. XXIX. pp. 146, 219, 268.
page 104 note a They are probably rare in Britain. The enlargement at Lincoln (if the common accounts are correct) was rather an additional camp; but at Verulam an extension of site has no doubt taken place of the same kind as that at London; and the same facts, as to sepulchral deposits, are said to have been disclosed in the course of Abbot Eadmar's excavation in the tenth century. “Invenerunt fossores, in fundamentis veterum ædificiorum et concavitatibus subterraneis, … vasa vitrea, pulverem mortuorum continentia.”—Matth. Paris, Vitæ Abbatum S. Albani, ed. Wats, p. 41.
page 104 note b An opinion is ascribed by his biographer to Sir Christopher Wren, that the causeway discovered at Bow Church ran along the north boundary of London. In what follows, the writer appears to consider the city, as to breadth, with reference to its first state, but as to length, with reference to its later condition, and the result is a manifest disproportion of the one to the other.—See Parentalia, p. 264.
page 105 note a The ancient roads from the city of Rome always took their names on leaving the gates, generally those of the old inclosure: “dalle porte della città, non già conforme ora si trovano, ma secondo il loro sito ne’ tempi avanti Aureliano.”—Venuti.
Thus “Via Appia incominciava dalla Porta Capena.”—Marliani.
“Via Ostiense principiava dalla Porta Trigemina.”—Martinelli.
“Cominciava la Via Flaminia nella gola fra il Campidoglio ed il Quirinale, alia porta del recinto di Servio ivì esistente.”—Nibby.
page 105 note b “Excogitandum uti portarum itinera non sint directa, sed σƙατὰ: namque cum ita factum fuerit, tum dextrum latus accedentibus, quod scuto non erit tectum, proximum erit muro.”—Vitruvius. The same arrangement is observed in approaching the later wall at Cripplegate; the military way being Red-cross Street.
page 105 note c Survay of London (ed. 1633), p. 254. See also pp. 30 and 114.
page 105 note d In the 19th of Edward I. an Inquisition was taken before the custos, sheriffs, and two aldermen, for the repair of Walbrook Bridge near Bucklersbury, which was decreed to be done by the owners of four particular houses near the bridge.—Lib. A. 84 b, in Archiv. Lond. A like inquisition, of the 28th of the same reign, is noticed in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 43, and other particulars in his Survay of London, p. 10.
page 105 note e So in the Rotuli Placitorum, 14 Edw. III. memb. 18, in Archiv. Lond. “Nomina communariorum ex parte orientali de Walebrok,” and “ex parte occidentali de Walebrok.”
page 106 note a This, like most ancient names, is found with some variations in orthography. In the earliest city records it is Douegat and Douuegate. The latter, which has a duplication of u for w, was probably read by Stowe as Doungate. But it is never Dourgate: and among many instances, which abound in Western Europe, where the Celtic dwr is really part of a name, I am not aware of one in which the r has been dropt in its passage into another language.
page 106 note b See Diversions of Purley, edit. Taylor, vol. ii. p. 156.
page 108 note a “Fecit et in urbe Trinovanto januam miræ fabricæ super ripam Tamensis fluvii, quam de nomine suo cives temporibus istis Belinesgate vocant. Desuper verò ædificavit turrim miræ magnitudinis, portumque subtùs ad pedem, applicantibus navibus idoneum.”—Lib. iii. From the latter clause it may be inferred that the tower and the haven were in different places, one on higher ground than the other. This would not appear from the common translation.
page 108 note b Layamon's Brut, by Sir Frederic Madden, vol. i. p. 258.
page 108 note c Leland, embarrassed by the “prodigious large tower “of Geoffrey, is not unwilling to consider it as the Tower of London, a location open to the same objection.
page 108 note d Varro mentions three such in the Pomœrium. The Porta Lavernale, according to Nardini, was built instead of the Porta Trigemina, ”restando la Trigemina in piedi inutile, come da Vittore e da Rufo ci si dimostra.” tom. i. p. 97. It is not unlikely that some of the gates of Servius Tullius survived the fall of the Empire; converted, perhaps, into honorary or triumphal arches, but preserving a continuity of existence. The site of the Esquiline gate (one of the Tullian inclosure) appears to be not distinguishable from that of the Arch of Gallienus. (See Nibby, Mura, p. 156, and 157 note.)
page 109 note a On the Existence of Municipal Privileges under the Anglo-Saxons; Archæologia, vol. XXXII. pp. 304–6.
page 109 note b The Billingas are one of the marcs or clans whose names occur in Kemble's Saxons in England. See Appendix to the first volume.
page 109 note c 15 Edw. I. An Ordinance for keeping the city gates by men selected from the several wards; viz. 
Those at which night-watch was kept (probably for the purpose of admitting travellers) were Ludgate, Cripplegate, Aldgate, and Bridge.—Lib. A. fo. 135, in Archiv. Lond. As far back as the reign of King Ethelred we find a like provision as to two of the gates of London—” Ealdredesgate et Cripelesgate, i. e. portas illas observabunt custodes.”—De Inst. London.; Thorpe's Antient Laws, &c. p. 127.
page 109 note d It is remarkable that Newgate, though as old as the reign of Henry II., has never given name to a separate ward, like the gates of Roman origin. It occurs in a list of the wards 1 Edw. I., but conjointly with Ludgate: “Ward de Lodgate et Neugat.”
page 110 note a Since this was written I have learned that the same opinion is entertained by Mr. Kelsey, late Surveyor to the Commission of Sewers.
page 110 note b March 21, 1738. A subcommittee had viewed the ground, and reported that “there will be a necessity for piling and planking the greatest part thereof, to lay the foundations upon.”—Jor. 58, fo. 125 b. This work was so considerable as to cause “a combination amongst workmen, to raise the price of piling and planking.”—Jor. 58, fo. 133.
page 111 note a Maitland, upon no discoverable authority, asserts that the ward is so “enrolled in the city records.” In the same loose way he borrows from Stowe Southbourn, but without his cautionary note.
page 111 note b So in Bede, “wic Miδ δice 
;” mansionem fossâ, et aggere ab extra circumvallavit.
page 112 note a From another source (Knight's London, vol. i. p. 159) it appears that “urns are said to have been found under a tessellated pavement near the church of St. Dunstan's in the East.” Our ground, therefore, both on the north and east, is precisely limited by funereal deposits: they have also occurred in several places west of the Wall-brook.
page 112 note b See the First Letter, p. 104.
page 112 note c Ridley, Civ. and Eccl. Law, with Gregory's notes, p. 216; Harpsfield, Hist. Eccl. p. 741.
page 113 note a Spelman, Concilia, &c. 1639, p. 152. “Perhibent etiam antiquitates Ecclesiæ Cantuariæ Theodorum istum Cantuariensem provinciam per parochias primùm distribuisse: fierique hoc designat Stowus haud longè post excessum Ercomberti regis Cantiorum, cui malè non quadrabunt priores anni pontificatus Theodori.” Dr. Brett (Church Government, p. 171), and Dr. Kennett (Case of Impropriations, p. 5), are for a more gradual origin: however this might be, we find a large increase in the number of churches before the time of the Confessor; “Multis in locis modo sunt tres vel quatuor ecclesiæ ubi tunc temporis una tantum erat.”— Spelman, Concilia, p. 621. FitzStephen reckoned 126, “turn in Lundonia turn in suburbano.”
page 113 note b This is remarkably the case at Worcester, where with buildings of very high antiquity we also find, as names of dedication, St. Clement, St. Helen, St. Alban, St. Martin, and several which occur in this part of London.
page 113 note c Spelman, Concil. p. 152.
page 113 note d London is not even mentioned in history from 616 to 764; at least so Maitland informs us.
page 114 note a There is a Roman wall under the foot pavement on the east side of St. Mary's Hill; but probably not the exterior wall of the encampment.
page 114 note b It has never, perhaps, been examined but by Sir Christopher Wren; and “the Surveyor was of opinion, by reason of the large foundation, it was rather some more considerable monument.”—Parentalia, p. 265.
page 115 note a See a communication dated in 1797, by Mr. Fox of Salters' Hall, republished and adopted in Gibson's Durobrivæ, 1819, p. 37.
page 115 note b The passage in Camden is as follows: “haud procul à saxo illo London Stone, quod miliarium fuisse, cujusmodi Romæ in Foro erat, à quo omnium itinerum sumebatur dimensio, existimamus, cum in media urbe sit, quà in longum procurrit.”—Britannia, ed. 1607, p. 304. See Gale, Iter Brit. p. 89. Burton likewise refers to Camden (Comment, on Ant. Itin. 1658, pp. 31 and 173), but not without raising a doubt with regard to the pillar at Rome.
page 115 note c Or, in the explicit words of Fabretti, “non à Milliario Aureo in capite Fori, uti multi putarunt, sed à veteri portarum situ, ante produetionem mœniorum ab Aureliano factam.”—De Acquæduct. (1680) num. 243. It is to one of these very gates that Festus the Grammarian refers, under the word Initium, when he defines it “Quo quid incipiat; ut Viæ Appiæ Porta Capena.” We have already had occasion to notice this commencement of the roads in relation to the names by which they are known (see note p. 105); and the inference cannot be avoided, that where the roads began there should begin the computation of distance.
The conclusions above stated were controverted at some length by the Canon Mazzocchi in 1755. One of his objections, founded on the inconvenience of measurement from a variable boundary, is, I think, anticipated by Fabretti, in the passage cited above. In relying on a passage of Pliny, referable, not to the roads of Italy, but to the contents of the city—the ambitus Urbis—as taken from a central point, it rather appears that Mazzocchi was at a loss for means of attack: at all events his learned exereitation, as we know from the common books of reference, has not changed the course of opinion. See Gnattani, tom. i. p. 22; Venuti, parte i. Introd. p. xxii.; Nibby, Del Foro Romano, p. 106.
page 116 note a As if taken, in one case, outside the vallum, and in the other from the wall itself.
page 116 note b See Maitland, vol. i. p. 20, and Salmon's New Survey, 1728, p. 101; also Dr. Pegge's translation of Stephanides.
page 116 note c “Horum mœnium, pars quæ Tamisi prætendebatur perpetuâ fluminis alluvione, penitùs concidit; ejus reliquias Henrici Secundi tempore apparuisse scripsit qui tunc vixit FitzStephanus. Reliqua pars superest.” —Camden, Britannia, ed. 1607, p. 304.
page 116 note d “Similiterque ab Austro Londonia murata et turrita fuit; sed fluvius maximus piscosus Thamensis, mari influo refluoque qui iliac allabitur, mœnia ilia tractu temporis alluit, labefactavit, dejecit.”—Stephanides, from the text of Stowe, Survay, p. 704, and Hearne, in Leland's Itin. vol. viii.
page 116 note e “Another wall,” says Mr. Pennant, “ran near the river side, along Thames Street, quite to the eastern extremity.” And again, “The southern side was guarded by a wall close to the river.”—London (8vo edit.) pp. 10 and 485.
page 117 note a Some of the observations of Mr. Smith (Archæologia, vol. XXIX. p. 151) go far to prove the existence of a wall in Thames Street, at various points between Lambeth Hill and Queen Street. But these are all west of the Wall-brook; and, in the absence of any such discovery east, they rather confirm the view we have taken, that in this latter direction the south wall must have had a different site.
page 117 note b See Laing's Description of the new Custom House.
page 117 note c “Rules and Directions for the pitching and levelling the Streets and Lanes of the City of London, for the more easie and convenient current and conveyance away of the waters thereof: By the Commissioners and Surveyors hereunto appointed, 1667.” The following are a specimen of these Directions:
“Laurence Pountney Lane.—To be raised, in Thames Street 4 foot; at 157ft. 3ft. 7. And abated, at 261ft. 11 inches; at 361, 4 foot; at Cannon Street 1 foot.
“Bush Lane.—To be raised, in Thames Street 3 foot; at 103ft. 2ft. And to be abated, at 203ft. 8 inches; at 303, 4ft. 4; in Cannon Street, nothing.”
page 118 note a Gale, Iter Britanniarum, 1709, p. 89; Archæologia, vol. XXIX. 1842, pp. 156 and 404.
page 118 note b Mr. C. R. Smith, in Archæologia, vol. XXIX. p. 156.
page 118 note c Maitland would gladly take it, though on a higher level, as part of the wall of FitzStephen. Mr. Roach Smith, whose paper I have been quoting, thinks that, “if ever a work of this kind, it would rather have been the northern than the southern limit. That it was not the latter,” he adds, “appears clear enough.” What would be the condition of a city whose north wall stood on the north bank of a river we have yet to learn!
page 119 note a See Stowe's Survay (Dowgate Ward) p. 252; Pennant's Account of London, p. 460; Noble's College of Arms, p. 54; and Dr. Wilson's History of the Parish of St. Laurence Pountney, 1831, chap. xvii.
page 119 note b Philip St. Clare, in the 20th of Richard II. gave two messuages in the ropery, pertaining to the Cold Hajbrough, for enlarging this church and the church yard.—Stowe, p. 252.
The parcels of property south of Thames Street appear to be distinguished from the capital messuage itself, in the first instance, as “the purtenances within the gate, with the key which Robert Hertford had:” and afterwards Sir John Poultney grants “his whole tenement called Cold Harbrough, with all the tenements and key adjoining, and appurtenances, sometime pertaining to Hertford, on the way called Hay-wharffe lane,” (now Campion Lane).—Stowe, p. 252. Dr. Wilson considers the ground south of Thames Street as the site of the mansion. And there certainly is a large building in that situation in a view of London by Visscher; but this is not represented in Aggas's View, or in a still older one, now about to be published, by Van den Wyngrerde.
page 119 note c Stowe's Survay (Dowgate Ward), p. 249, and pp. 246, 247. St. Mary Bothaw was in Turnwheel Lane; the churchyard behind abutting upon Scots Yard, which is all in this parish: and it is called St. Mary Bothaw “by the Erbar.” (Stowe, 246.) According to Hatton the church was in Walbrook ward, but part of the parish in Dowgate ward. (New View, &c. p. 558.)
page 119 note d Noorthouck's Hist, of London, 1773, p. 613.
page 120 note a September, 1848. In driving up from Thames Street for the formation of a sewer, at a depth of 17 feet, there were found three walls of Kentish rag-stone, 3 feet in thickness. The first, crossing the lane at 25 yards from Thames Street; the second, parallel with the first, 7 yards higher up the lane; the third, crossing the lane diagonally, towards the north-west, within a space of 13 yards. The lower walls were in made ground, with clay puddled against them.
page 120 note b It has been a common but mistaken idea that these mounts of observation were not made by the Romans, and they are ascribed with equal want of probability to Britons, Saxons, Danes, and Normans. They were frequently occupied by the Normans, and have thus been confounded with the works of a later age.
page 120 note c In the Rules and Directions before quoted there is an abatement in Suffolk Lane of no less than 7 feet 9 inches, at a point 97 yards from Thames Street, which is raised 3 feet. The great wall in Bush Lane, which according to report is now found at 6 feet below the street, is described by Dr. Gale as at a depth of 20 feet: “ultra vicesimum pedem pervenerunt ad murum,” &c.
page 121 note a See the Rev. C. Wellbeloved's Eburacum, or York under the Romans, 8vo. 1842. The 7th plate in this interesting and admirable work contains some centurial inscriptions upon the inner facing of the tower, one of which is read “Antonius Præfectus Militum.” Since the date of this publication substructions have been uncovered which have probably given it greater importance and extent.
page 121 note b See Stukeley, Itin. Cur. part II. p. 16.
page 121 note c On considering the legend of Livius Gallus in Layamon (vol. ii. pp. 23 to 27), I think there is no doubt that the “castle” to which Livius retreated, when the “burgh” had been besieged and taken, must either mean, in its original sense, the castellum whose site we have endeavoured to establish, or that it was this very palace at Coleharbour. The story itself directs us to a spot near the Walbrook. Sir Frederic Madden has pointed out in his Preface that an English authority is cited for the name of the brook; and probably this is another instance of the use made of tradition by the writers of romance. More such will be found in Mr. Wright's valuable paper on the Literary History of Geoffrey of Monmouth (Archæologia, vol. XXXII.): that which is the subject of a note in p. 343 is singularly curious and remarkable.
page 121 note d Survay (Bridge Ward), p. 231. The name occurs as early as 1197, when Wimart de Ebbgate, with others, settled 19 marks rent on the Priory of St. Mary Spital.—Dugd. Mon. vol. vi. p. 623.
page 121 note e Of this parish, a narrow slip, about 100 feet in width, runs down to the water, alongside the passage here mentioned. See the plan in Dr. Wilson's book.
page 122 note a Stowe's Survay (Billingsgate Ward), p. 225.
page 122 note b It appears, from the observations to which I have referred, that this part of Thames Street was filled with piling, “and especially at the gateway leading to Botolph Wharf, where the piles were placed as closely together as they could be driven, as well as for some distance on each side.” These are, perhaps, rather traces of the bridge (if it stood there) than of any older work.
page 123 note a The eminently learned Bishop Stillingfleet says, “Upon the best enquiry I can make, I very much incline to believe it of a Roman foundation, and no older than the time of Claudius.”—Orig. Brit. 1685, p. 43. Burton, also, referring to the time of Nero, says, “My intent is not to insist upon any antiquity much beyond this.”—Commentary, p. 154. But these have not been fashionable doctrines.
page 123 note b In illustration of this latter fact, I beg leave to refer to the Roman accounts of the revolt of the Iceni in the time of Nero. And first to a passage in Suetonius (Vit. Neron. c. 39): “Clades Britannica, quâ, DUO præcipua oppida, magnâ civium Romanorum sociorumque cæde, direpta sunt.” There is another in Eutropius (lib. vii. c. 13): Nero—“Britanniam penè amisit; nam DUO nobilissima oppida capta atque eversa sunt.” Of the two towns thus particularly specified, is is always assumed that London of course was one, if not the first in importance. Not to mention writers of less note, Mr. Horsley says (Brit. Rom. p. 16) “‘Tis undoubtedly to these two places” (London and Verulam) “that Suetonius refers,” &c. And further, “Tacitus tells us that seventy thousand were slain at London and Verulam.”
Let us now refer to Tacitus. The account which this historian gives of the revolt and its consequences is simply this (Annal. lib. xiv. c. 32). He first relates all that happened at Camulodunum—”Quâ clade,” &c. Then, the abandonment of Londinium. Then he says “eadem clades municipio Verulamio fuit:” and in the next sentence concludes the narrative in these words: “Ad septuaginta millia civium et sociorum, IIS QUÆ MEMORAVI LOCIS, cecidisse constitit.” From the words “quæ memoravi” (omitted in Mr. Horsley's citation, p. 16) it surely appears that the statement comprehends all the three places of which the author had been speaking in succession, and in relation to the same train of events. Camulodunum—the Colony of Veterans—was the first scene of the revolt; and it is impossible that the destruction of this city, with that of the ninth legion, should have been left out of the computation of loss altogether sustained.
But Tacitus will further help us, in regard to the two towns intended by the other historians. In the Life of Agricola (cap. v.) he thus sums up the disasters of the time: “Trucidati VETERANI, incensse COLONIÆ, intercepti exercitus.” By the first clause he points distinctly at Camulodunum; Londinium is excluded from the second by his own assertion that it was not a colony, “cognomento coloniæ NON INSIGNE.” Camulodunum being one of the two cities, we shall next find that Verulamium is the other. In the words “CIVIUM et sociorum,” and in those used by Suetonius, “CIVIUM ROMANORUM sociorumque,” we recognize the people of a municipium, to whom this title would exclusively belong: for so Pitiscus, “in legionibus ut CIVES, non in auxiliis ut SOCII, ascribebantur.” In the one case Camulodunum is indicated by the veterani, in the other, Verulamium by the cives; both are coloniæ: these, then, are the “NOBILISSIMA OPPIDA,” the towns of dignity and privilege, to which the historians refer.
Whatever share London may have had in the general calamity, it was not as one of “two principal towns:” and yet, by “disordered shufflings of the text,” are these passages of history made to bear out preposterous notions of the extent of its population, and its relative importance. It has been said of London, and of this period (Rickman, in Archæol. vol. XXVIII.) that “the great number of inhabitants and others at that time slaughtered there by the insurgent Britons confirms its early pretensions as the then capital city of Britain.” This “great number,” as we learn from Tacitus, were the “SI QUOS” who were left behind, when all the rest had gone with the army of Paullinus! For any part of the statement it would be vain to look in the works of the Roman writers: the “early pretensions” will be met with in Geoffrey of Monmouth.