The Story of London in 50 Novels: 2 - "The Emperor's Babe," by Bernardine Evaristo

The Roman province of Britannia was governed from Londinium throughout the Second and Third Centuries AD, and, wherever foundations are dug within the city, evidence of its prosperity are to be found. The Greek writer, Strabo, lists Britain's exports as including grain, cattle, gold, silver, iron, hides, slaves, and hunting dogs: to which list must certainly be added lead from Flintshire, used in plumbing systems across the Empire. All of these are likely to have passed through the port of London, with wine, olive oil, dates, figs, and luxury tableware flowing in the other direction.

A free market in goods and services extended from Wales in the west to Syria in the east, and from Northumbria in the north to Egypt in the south. London's cosmopolitan population attracted some of the Empire's finest craftsmen: mosaicists; mural artists; glass-blowers; and stone-masons.

Mosaic from Roman London, Museum of London. Photo: Udimu (licensed under GNU).

The defensive wall around the city of London was not built until around 200 AD, and probably had as much to do with policing and surveillance in the capital as with defence from external threats, which did not loom on the horizon for some decades afterwards. Such policing and surveillance were important, because the city served as a base, not only for the province's Governor and Procurator (finance minister), but sometimes even for the Emperor. Hadrian was here in 122 AD, and Septimius Severus from 208 to 211 AD: both were concerned primarily with consolidation and conquest in the north of Britain, but, in their presence, much of the business of the governance of Empire is likely to have been centred on Londinium.

London in c 200 AD. Image: Udimu (licensed under GNU).

Section of Londinium's defensive wall, Tower Hill. Photo: Nessy-Pic (licensed under CCA).

Head from a bronze statue of the Emperor Hadrian, found in the Thames, Museum of London. Photo: FollowingHadrian (licensed under CCA).

Bernardine Evaristo's novel, The Emperor's Babe, set in 211 AD, is a novel in verse, tells the story of Zuleika, a woman of Sudanese parentage brought up in London, and married off at an early age to a much older man of senatorial rank (she is a fictional character, but people of African and Asian heritage were certainly present in Roman Britain, and most of them were probably not slaves; we even know some of their names). Zuleika's husband, Felix, has political and business interests in Rome itself, and is often absent, and, when a chance encounter brings her to the attention of Emperor Septimius Severus, she enters into a dangerous liaison.

Septimius Severus, who reigned as Emperor from 193 AD, and died at York in 211 AD, Glyptothek Munich, Inv. 357. Photo: Bibi Saint-Pol (image is in the Public Domain). 

"One minute it's hopscotch in bare feet,
next, you're four foot up in a sedan in case
your pink stocking get dirty. No one
prepared me for marriage. Me and Alba
were the wild girls of Londinium,
sought to discover the secrets
of its hidden hearts, still too young
to withhold more than we revealed,
to join this merry cast of actors ...
 ... Some nights we'd go to the river,
sit on the beach, look out towards
the marshy islands of Southwark,
and beyond to the jungle that was Britannia,
teeming with spirits and untamed humans.
We'd try to imagine the world beyond the city,
that country a lifetime away that Mum
called home and Dad called prison;
the city of Roma which everyone
went on about as if it were so bloody mirabilis ... 
 ... The white stucco villas of Cheapside
are usually out of bounds to scallywags
like me and Alba. Guards shoo us away.
(She has not been invited). Today
they bow as if I were the emperor's wife,
when my horse-drawn carriage, if you please,
arrives at a villa with its own latrina.
And enough rooms to fill the Forum."

Limestone sarcophagus and lead coffin excavated at Spitalfields, and containing the skeleton of a young woman. Its discovery in 1999 inspired Bernardine Evaristo when she was working as poet in residence at the Museum of London. Photo: www.mikepeel.net (licensed under CCA).

The narration hop-scotches elegantly, and often hilariously, between the Londinium of Zuleika's era, and the London of our own, as one critic has suggested, "like an episode of  Sex and the City written by Ovid."

Mark Patton is a published author of historical fiction and non-fiction, whose books can be purchased from Amazon.

The Story of London in 50 Novels: 1 - "London," by Edward Rutherfurd

Although English Medieval historians, such as Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace, liked to believe that London was founded by refugees from the fall of Troy, modern historians and archaeologists are, for the most part, in agreement, that, as a city, it owes its existence to the Romans. Even in prehistoric times, however, the River Thames formed a natural frontier between the often warring tribes of Iron Age Britain: the Catuvellauni and Trinovantes to the north; the Atrebates and Regnenses to the south. When Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 54 BC, he seems to have been using a well established stratagem of playing one tribe against another (backing the Trinovantes against the Catuvellauni); and, when the Emperor Claudius invaded in 43 AD, he probably took a similar approach (in this case supporting the Atrebates and Regnenses against the more powerful Catuvellauni).

This helmet, found in the Thames at Waterloo, may date to the time of Julius Caesar's invasion, but would have been of little use in battle, and was probably parade armour. British Museum. Photo: Ealdgyth (licensed under CCA).

The Meyrick Helmet, probably from northern England, is of a type more likely to have been worn by British Warriors in battle. British Museum. Photo: Geni (GFDL CC-BY-SA).

Claudius and his General, Aulus Plautius, almost certainly established at least a temporary bridge across the Thames, somewhere between the current London Bridge and Westminster Bridge, and merchants, whether Roman, Gaullish, or British (of various tribes) soon took advantage of this to establish a thriving port.

London (or Londinium) was, along with Colchester (Camulodunum) and Saint Alban's (Verulamium), destroyed in the Boudiccan Revolt of 60/61 AD (Boudicca's tribe, the Iceni of Norfolk, were in alliance with the Trinovantes of Essex against the more Romanised Catuvellauni, whose cities were burned). Southwark, however, was already a flourishing suburb before the revolt, and, although there is some evidence of fire-damage there, most of it seems to have survived.

Roman mural, from a house in Southwark, Museum of London. Photo: Udimu (licensed under GNU). Elaborate decorations on walls and floors testify to the prosperity of Roman London's mercantile community.  

At London itself (what is today the City), there is evidence for renewed Roman military, and perhaps also mercantile) activity as early as 64 AD, probably under the supervision of the newly appointed Procurator (finance minister) of Britannia, Gaius Julius Alpinus Classicianus, a man who seems to have done much to assuage the divisions and hostilities that had prompted the revolt. By around 80 AD, the cities that had been burned by Boudicca had been fully re-established, and London had replaced Colchester as the capital of the Roman province.

The tomb of Procurator Classicianus, who must have died in office, was found to the east of London. British Museum (CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Wooden tablet, with the inscription "To Mogontius at London," c 64 AD. Museum of London (image is in the Public Domain). It probably accompanied a consignment of goods. Mogontius is a Celtic name, so he was, perhaps, a Catuvellanian working as a contractor for Classicianus. 

Model of London, 80-95 AD, Museum of London. Photo: Steven G. Johnson (licensed under CCA).

Reconstruction of a kitchen in Roman London, Museum of London. Photo: Carole Raddato (licensed under CCA). City-dwellers in Roman Britain soon developed a taste for imported produce, including wine, olive oil, fish sauce, cumin, coriander, pepper, dates, and figs. 

Londoners also developed a taste for Roman blood-sports. The amphitheatre, where gladiatorial contests would have been staged, is preserved beneath London's Guildhall. Photo: Charles T. Clarke (licensed under CCA). 

Edward Rutherfurd's novel, London, is a work of epic scope, beginning in 54 BC, and continuing on to 1997 (the year in which the novel itself was published). Written in the tradition of the American novelist, James A. Michener, it follows the fortunes of a handful of inter-related families from earliest times down to the present day. The novel comprises twenty-one individual stories, but, as it is my intention to tell the story of London chronologically, I will focus on the first, "The River," the protagonist of which is a young man named Segovax, a Catuvellaunian warrior who finds himself facing the legions of Julius Caesar across the Thames.

"Even now, in the dawning light, the shape of the ancient places could be seen clearly across the water: two low gravel hills with levelled tops rising side by side about eighty feet above the waterfront. Between the two hills ran a little brook. To the left, on the western flank, a larger stream descended to a broad inlet that interrupted the northern bank ... "

"The senior druid was out in midstream, the two men with their long poles keeping the raft steady in the current. On the northern bank, the two low hills were bathed in the sun's reddish light. And now, like some ancient grey-bearded sea god rising up out of the waters, the tall druid on the raft raised the metal object over his head so that it caught the sunbeams and flashed. It was a shield, made of bronze, sent with one of his most trusted nobles by the great chief Cassivelaunus himself ... It was the most important gift the island people could make to the gods ... "

"Celtic" shields, such as this one, found in the Thames at Battersea, were probably thrown into the river as offerings to the gods. British Museum (image is in the Public Domain).

"Segovax had never seen a battle before ... Suddenly everywhere men were running, whilst chariots wheeled about at such speed that it seemed as though in a matter of seconds they might bear down across the meadows upon him. The Romans' armour seemed to glint and flash like some terrible, fiery creature ... Amidst the din, he heard men, grown men, screaming with cries of agony dreadful to hear ... When a Roman cavalryman suddenly appeared and cantered across the meadow a hundred yards from him, he was like a giant. The boy, clutching his spear, felt completely puny ... "  

" ... he had not noticed the approach of the riders. There were half a dozen of them, and they were now staring down at the little scene curiously. In the middle of them was a tall figure with a bald head and a hard, intelligent face ... He said something to the centurion, and everyone laughed with him ... Some cruel joke perhaps. No doubt, he supposed, they proposed to watch him die ... But to his surprise the centurion had sheathed his own sword. The Romans were moving away. They were leaving him alone, with his father's body."

Mark Patton is a published author of historical fiction and non-fiction, whose books may be purchased from Amazon.

The Wards of Old London: Bishopsgate Without - Death and Insanity

Having explored the ward of Cripplegate Without, we now go back on ourselves to look at the ward of Bishopsgate Without, which I passed over last week, not wanting to explore it until I had the chance to see the exhibition on Bedlam that has just opened at London's Wellcome Collection.

The line of Ermine Street, the Roman road that connected London to Lincoln, York, and, ultimately, Hadrian's Wall, runs north through the ward, out towards Stoke Newington and Tottenham, linking up with the modern Great North Road (A1) at Godmanchester (Roman Durovigutum).

Ermine Street. image: Neddyseagoon (licensed under GNU).

The Romans, quite sensibly (although perhaps by reason of superstition, as much as hygiene), did not permit the burial of the dead within cities, so the roads running in and out of major settlements were always lined with tombs and graves; those of the wealthiest families lying closest to the roads themselves. This was as true of London as it was of Rome.

Plan of Roman London, showing the position of the northern cemetery. Image: Drallim (licensed under CCA).

A tombstone from Roman London, Museum of London. Photo: Udimu (licensed under CCA).

Tombs along the Appian Way. The large tower on the right is the Mausoleum of the Curiazi, dating to the First Century BC. Photo: Nicolo Musmeci (image is in the Public Domain).

The Elizabethan chronicler, John Stow, records a discovery of Roman graves north of Bishopsgate, as early as 1576, when clay was being dug to make bricks:

" ... many earthen pots, called urnae, were found full of ashes, and burnt bones of men, to wit, the Romans that inhabited here ... Every of these pots had in the with the ashes of the dead one piece of copper money ... some of them were of Claudius, some of Vespasian, some of Nero, of Antoninus Pius, of Trajanus, and others. Besides those urns, many other pots were there found ... divers dishes and cups of a fine red-coloured earth, which showed outwardly such a shining smoothness as if they had been of coral: those had in the bottoms Roman letters printed ... "

This account is, I think, the first piece of specifically archaeological (as distinct from historical) writing about London, and is among the very earliest examples in the World. The first entry in the Oxford English Dictionary for the word "archaeology" dates to 1607, but Stow is here doing archaeology: on the basis of material evidence alone, he is describing the graves, the excavation of which he witnessed; dating them; and even describing the artefacts in such a way that we can, with some confidence, identify them (the shining red vessels must surely be "Samian ware" - mass-produced pottery found on almost all Roman sites, including many in London).

Samian ware bowl found in London, but made in southern France, British Museum. Photo: AgTigress (licensed under CCA).

The Priory of the New Order of Saint Mary of Bethlehem was established, close to the present location of Liverpool Street Station, in 1247. Its patron was the Bishop-elect of Bethlehem, Goffredo de Prefetti, but he almost certainly never visited. The land on which the priory stood was donated by a London alderman, Simon FitzMary, on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The priory provided accommodation and food for the needy, but its real purpose was fundraising for the Crusades. This, however, was, with the benefit of hindsight, already a lost cause: Bethlehem was in Muslim hands; its bishop in exile in France; and the crusading impetus much diminished. The priory became a hospital and, in 1403, we have the first record of its being used to house men who were mente capti - of unsound mind.

Medieval Bethlehem Priory, as reconstructed by Daniel Hack Tukes (1882). Image: Project Gutenberg (Public Domain).

By the early Seventeenth Century, "Bedlam," as it had now become known, a secular rather than a religious institution, was clearly functioning as an asylum for those considered to be insane. One keeper-physician, Helkiah Crooke, who clearly lived up to his name, was dismissed by Charles I in 1631 for embezzlement and misappropriation, his inmates apparently starving as he stuffed his own money-bags with the funds intended for their support. Already, by this time, the public were admitted to the institution, presumably for a fee, to be entertained by the antics of the "lunatickes."

Two of London's early theatres, The Theatre and The Curtain, were located nearby (beyond the boundary of the ward), and several Seventeenth Century plays include "madhouse" scenes, probably inspired by Bedlam. In one of these, The Changeling, by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley (1622), a character, Lollio, remarks:

"We have but two sorts of people in the home, and both under the whip, that's fools and madmen; the one has not wit enough to be knaves, and the other not knavery enough to be fools."

The distinction, in modern terms, is presumably that between mental disability and mental illness. The character, Alibius (a corrupt quack-doctor, quite possibly inspired by Crooke), replies:

"I do profess the cure of either sort:
My trade, my living tis, I thrive by it.
But here's the care that mixes with my thrift:
The daily visitants that come to see
My brainsick patients I would not have
To see my wife. Gallants I do observe
Of quick, enticing eyes, rich in habits,
Of stature and proportion very comely ..."

As early as 1598, Bedlam had been condemned as overcrowded and unsanitary, its "common jacques" used casually by Londoners who had no sanitary facilities of their own. In 1675, a new hospital was built nearby, to a Baroque design by Robert Hooke: a fine building, but an institution that had little more to offer in terms of the treatment of mental illness. It continued to be open to the public, and William Hogarth's portrayal of it, in The Rake's Progress, is hardly more complimentary or optimistic than that in The Changeling.

Hooke's New Bethlem Hospital, by Robert White, 1676 (image is in the Public Domain).

Bedlam, from Hogarth's The Rake's Progress, Sir John Soane's Museum (image is in the Public Domain).

In 1810, the hospital was moved to a new site, south of the Thames (the building now occupied by the Imperial War Museum), and the land in Bishopsgate Without redeveloped with cheap and unsanitary housing for some of the thousands of new Londoners recently arrived from the countryside.

Mark Patton's novels, Undreamed Shores, An Accidental King, and Omphalos, are published by Crooked Cat Publications, and can be purchased from Amazon. He is currently working on The Cheapside Tales, a London-based trilogy of historical novels.

The Wards of Old London: Cripplegate Within - Roman Fortifications and A Second Great Fire

Following the northern wall of the Roman and Medieval city in an easterly direction, a visitor to London passes from Aldersgate Ward Within into Cripplegate Ward Within, so named for one of the original gates of the city, where, it is thought, disabled people gathered to beg throughout the Middle Ages. Unlike the roads extending north from Aldersgate and Bishopsgate, that proceeding from Cripplegate was never a major road connecting London to other cities.

What would become Cripplegate was originally one of four gateways to the Roman fort that occupied the north-west corner of the post-Boudiccan city of Londinium, a fort that seems to have been established around 90 AD. It is larger than an auxiliary fort, but smaller than a legionary fort, so its garrison is likely to have comprised between a thousand and two thousand men.

The western gate of the Roman fort, as seen from the Museum Of London. Photo: Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net), licensed under CCA.

The wall of the Roman fort preserved in the garden of Saint Alphege. Photo: Bartholomeus Thoth (licensed under CCA).

Since Londinium was, by the end of the First Century AD, the capital of the Province of Britannia, around two hundred of these are likely to have been Beneficiarii Consularis, military administrators concerned with logistics and supply-chains throughout the province. There would also have been around thirty Speculatores, military policemen responsible for the custody and execution of prisoners, and the delivery of dispatches. There would, in addition, have been the Governor's bodyguard of around a thousand men.

Tombstone of a Roman soldier of the First Century AD. Since he carries writing equipment, as well as a sword, he was probably an adminstrator. Image: J.E. Price, 1881 (Public Domain).

These men would not necessarily have been "Romans" from Italy: a letter found at the Roman fort of Vindolanda, near Hadrian's Wall, refers to the secondment of troops to London from a Tungrian unit - these men would have been recruited in what is now the Netherlands or Belgium, and would have been rewarded with Roman citizenship on completion of their military service. Some, at least, are likely to have married local women and settled in London.

Tombstone of a centurion of the 3rd Century AD, Museum of London. Photo: Elliott Brown (licensed under CCA).

When Alfred the Great re-established the City of London in 886 AD, he used the crumbling Roman walls as the basis for his own, although he did not reinstate the earlier fort, instead encouraging civilians to occupy the land to the south of Cripplegate. Some of the Medieval churches of the ward may have Saxon origins, but nothing of these can be seen today. The Hospital of Saint Mary Within Cripplegate was established in 1331 by a mercer, William Elsing, for blind beggars of both sexes. The hospital was initially supervised by five secular clergy (priests who did not belong to a monastic order), but they were found to be too occupied with "concerns of this world" (possibly code for embezzling funds intended to support the inmates - something that later workhouse supervisors frequently did), and replaced by Augustinian canons, whose role continued until Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Cripplegate and Moorgate, as shown on the 16th Century "Woodcut Map" - sometimes wrongly attributed to Ralph Agas (image is in the Public Domain).

Cripplegate in c 1650, by Wenceslaus Hollar, University of Toronto (image is in the Public Domain).

The Church of Saint Alban, Wood Street, in 1839, by George Godwin (image is in the Public Domain).

Like most of the City, Cripplegate Ward Within was devastated by the Great Fire of 1666, but was rebuilt, with the Medieval street patterns largely respected. London faced a "Second Great Fire," however, on the night of the 29th/30th December, 1940. In the space of around eight hours, German bombers dropped more than 24,000 high explosive, and more than 100,000 incendiary bombs, destroying nineteen churches and thirty-one livery halls.

London in the aftermath of its "Second Great Fire," looking north from the dome of Saint Paul's, by H. Mason for The Daily Mail (image is in the Public Domain). The men of Saint Paul's Watch, who directed the fire-fighting activities were, for the most part, architects, with a clear sense of priority as to which buildings should be preserved.

Most of Cripplegate (Within and Without) remained a wasteland throughout the Nineteen-Fifties and Sixties, and, when regeneration did finally come, it was in the shape of the Modernist concrete of the Barbican Estate, with its high-walks and towers, the small fragments of the earlier buildings remaining, like ghosts, to be glimpsed between its pillars.

A Roman bastion, preserved within the Barbican Estate. Photo: Ceridwen (licensed under CCA).

The remains of Saint Alphege, London Wall, originally the chapel of William Elsing's hospital. Photo: Secretlondon (licensed under CCA).

The Church of Saint Alban, Wood Street, today, only the tower remaining, as one of the most remarkable private residences in the City. Photo: Neddyseagoon (licensed under GNU).

Mark Patton's novels, Undreamed Shores, An Accidental King, and Omphalos, are published by Crooked Cat Publications, and can be purchased from Amazon. He is currently working on The Cheapside Tales, a London-based trilogy of historical novels.

The Wards of Old London: Dowgate - Hanseatic Trade and Roman Governance

A visitor walking westward along the Thames, from the Tower of London towards Blackfriars, passes from Bridge Ward into Dowgate Ward, the river-frontage of which is today dominated by the flanking towers of Cannon Street Station.

Cannon Street Station today. Photo: Will Fox (Wjfox2005 - Image is in the Public Domain).

The railway station, connecting the city with destinations in Kent, opened in 1866, but only after the South-Eastern Railway negotiated the purchase of the land from the authorities of the German cities of Lubeck, Bremen and Hamburg. Even today, whenever construction work is carried out in or around the station, archaeologists uncover the remains of the buildings that preceded it.

Cannon Street Station in 1910 (Image is in the Public Domain).

Cannon Street Station in 1910 (Image is in the Public Domain).

The existence of a Hansa Almaniae, a German trading post, in London, is attested as early as 1282, and its status was confirmed, in 1303, in a merchant charter of King Edward I. For more than three centuries, the Stahlhof, or steelyard, of the Hanseatic League stood on the site now occupied by Cannon Street Station, a walled compound with its own warehouses, residential quarters and chapel, within which the merchants of Bremen and Hamburg, Lubeck and Cologne, managed their own affairs.

The arms of the Hanseatic League, c 1670, Museum of London. Photo: Kim Traynor (licensed under CCA).

The term "steelyard" is potentially misleading, referring not to steel as a traded commodity, but rather to a weighing beam, which most trading establishments would have possessed. The main commodity attracting the interest of the German merchants was English wool, and the cloth woven from it, for which there was a high level of demand across Europe. From the cities on Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea, these same merchants brought furs, amber, honey and Rhenish wine; copper and iron ore from Sweden; and barrels of pickled herrings for sale in nearby Billingsgate Ward.

Trading routes of the Hanseatic League. Image: Flo Beck (Image is in the Public Domain).

"Lisa von Lubeck," a reconstructed caravel of the Hanseatic League from the 15th Century. Photo: Doris Schutz (licensed under CCA).

Britain's trade with the cities of the Hanseatic League were not always conducted on friendly terms, for the German merchants were in direct competition with their English counterparts when it came to the export of woollen cloth to the continent. The Anglo-Hanseatic War was fought from 1469 to 1474, the Hanseatic navy taking advantage of an England weakened by civil war to impose unfavourable trade terms: the merchants of the Stalhof agreed to maintain Bishopsgate at their own expense, but through it would pass, to the profit of these merchants, the woollen cloth of England, on its way to the Hanseatic warehouses of East Anglia.

Hanseatic warehouse of c 1475, Kings Lynn. Photo: Alienturnedhuman (Image is in the Public Domain).

Georg Giese, a merchant of Danzig at the London Stalhof, painted by Hans Holbein in 1532, Gemaldegalerie Berlin (Image is in the Public Domain).

The activities of the Stalhof never really recovered following the Great Fire of 1666, the focus of international trade having, by this point in time, shifted to more distant shores, but the merchants of the Hanseatic cities continued to receive rent from it until they sold up to the South-Eastern Railway Company in 1852.

The London Stalhof in 1667, from a publication by Prof. G. Droysens, 1886 (licensed under CCA).

When the building of the railway station and bridge began, it soon became apparent that the Medieval and Early Modern Stalhof had itself been built over the ruins of a much earlier construction, an elaborate complex of Roman buildings dating back to the late First or early Second Century AD, Londinium's period of reconstruction following the destruction of Boudicca's revolt.

Roman remains beneath Cannon Street Station. Image: Udimu (licensed under GNU).

Still imperfectly understood, because of the complexities of archaeological excavation in an urban environment, it is clear that this complex, with mosaic floors, painted walls and central heating, extended over three terraces, included an ornamental pool, 55 metres in length and 10 metres wide, containing 200,000 gallons of water. It may have included the palace of the Roman Governor, and the headquarters of the provincial administration.

Reconstruction of Roman London, with the Cannon Street complex circled (image - Encyclopaedia Britannica).

The City of London through which we walk today, sits directly on top of the cities through which Samuel Pepys, William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer walked, and those cities, in turn, sat directly on top of the city from which Gnaeus Julius Agricola once governed the Province of Britannia, perhaps planning his invasion of Scotland with his commanders, seated beside an ornamental pool on the site now occupied by Cannon Street Station.

Mark Patton,s novels, Undreamed Shores, An Accidental King, and Omphalos, are published by Crooked Cat Publications, and can be purchased from Amazon. He is currently working on The Cheapside Tales, a London-based trilogy of historical novels.