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Stow's Survey of London  —  £ 4.99

Go to the eBook Shop London under Elizabeth; John Stow's magnificent Survey of 1598 is the most widely-quoted book ever written about London. It is the mother lode of information for anyone interested in the history of the Cities of London and Westminster. However, only a specialist and Latin scholar could hope to read the original, which has been re-printed, annotated, updated and 'improved', many times since.

In this version, from 1890, Professor Henry Morley has taken Stow's own first and second editions, translating and editing them into a book that anyone can read and enjoy.

This eBook contains the entire text of Morley's work (446 closely-printed pages) and I have added a contents page, for easier navigation. Please read the notes and see the extract below.

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Notes

Included in the introduction is a potted biography of John Stow (sometimes spelled Stowe) - 'this short record of a kindly, busy, earnest life, made happy by the work it loved' - and something of the times he lived through, as well as a list of other editions of the book. Some versions I have seen are more footnotes than text, which make for a difficult read. Morley keeps footnotes to a minimum and he also omits a couple of tedious lists - if you really need the name of every mayor and sheriff from 1190 to 1602, I'm sure you can find them elsewhere.

That does not mean this is an easy read but, in amongst the seemeth's, followeth's, messuages, portgraves, stock-fishmongers, and a smattering of Latin, Greek & Hebrew, there is a huge amount of fascinating information. I came away from reading this book with a real understanding of 'London under Elizabeth' - its layout, personalities, everyday life & history - and with profound thanks that Stow was there to record the buildings, monuments, rivers & customs that no longer exist.

The cover of my copy is blank, so I made the one above. The background is the centre of John Norden's map of London from 1593, engraved by Pieter van den Keere. Click the thumb on the right to see the whole, larger than life-sized map, adapted from a copyright-free version made by Mike Calder, as posted on Wikipedia.

In amongst the information, astonishing facts, laws governing Stewes, and tales of charity, brutality and derring-do, there is also some humour. Here is Stow, quoting 'the old proverb':-

Women be forgetful, children be unkind,
Executors be covetous, and take what they find.
If any body ask where the dead's goods became,
They answer, So God me help, and holy dome; 'He died a poor man'.

This is not the only pop he has at executors:- 'How this gift was performed I have not heard, for executors of our time having no conscience (I speak of my own knowledge) prove more testaments than they perform.'

If you do not have an eBook reader but want this book do not despair. There are several free programs (from Adobe, Amazon, Firefox, Kobo etc.) that you can use to read eBooks on your computer. Follow these instructions and you can't go wrong.

Extract

The text and any images below are identical to the eBook; however, depending on the typeface, etc., that you select, they may not display here exactly as they do on your eReader. Also, pages turn as normal, rather than the scrolling effect seen here.

 

Life Under Elizabeth

A
SURVEY OF LONDON

Containing the Original, Antiquity,
Increase, Modern Estate and Description of that
Citie, Written in the Year 1598

By
JOHN STOW
CITIZEN OF LONDON

~~~~~~~

Contents

John Stow

William Fitzstephen

Survey of London

Of Rivers
The Town Ditch
Bridges in this City
Of Towers and Castles
Of Schools
Houses of Law Students
Of Orders and Customs
Sports and Pastimes
Of Watchers of this City
Honour of Citizens

City of London - East of Walbrook

Portsoken Ward
Tower Street Ward
Aldgate Ward
Lime Street Ward
Bishopsgate Ward
Broad Street Ward
Cornhill Ward
Langbourne Ward
Billingsgate Ward
Bridge Ward
Candlewick Street Ward
Walbrook Ward
Downgate Ward

City of London - West of Walbrook

Vintry Ward
Cordwainer Street Ward
Cheap Ward
Coleman Street Ward
Basinghall Ward
Cripplegate Ward
Aldersgate Ward
Farringdon Ward
Bread Street Ward
Queenhithe Ward
Castle Baynard Ward
The Ward of Farringdon Extra
Bridge Ward without (Southwark)

Suburbs Without the Walls

Liberties of the Duchy of Lancaster

City of Westminster

Governors, Ministers, Hospitals etc.

Archbishops
Hospitals in this City
Lazar Houses
Temporal Government
Aldermen and Sheriffs
Officers of the Lord Mayor
Sheriff's Officers
The Mayor's and Sheriffs' Liveries
Liveries worn by Citizens

~~~~~~~

John Stow

JOHN STOW was a patriotic Londoner who lived throughout the whole reign of Elizabeth, and into the reign of James the First. He was born in 1525, in the year of the Battle of Pavia, where Francis the First of France was taken prisoner. He was four years old when Wolsey and Cardinal Campeggio presided over a Court at Blackfriars to consider the question of the divorce of Catherine of Aragon by Henry the Eighth. He was eleven years old when the first edition of a complete English Bible was produced by Miles Coverdale, and a copy of it was ordered to be placed in every church in England. He was twenty-two years old when Henry the Eighth died.
     In the reign of Edward the Sixth, John Stow, who had been born in the parish of St. Michael, Cornhill, the son (and grandson) of a tailor, completed his apprenticeship to the family business in the year 1549.
     In the days of the divorce of Queen Catherine, Stow had been a boy in a simple City household, many a time fetching halfpenny-worths of milk from the farm at the nunnery of the Franciscan sisters, who were called not Minorites, but Minoresses, whence, by abbreviation, Minories. Forty or fifty milch-kine were then fed on the meadows there, and a halfpenny was the price, in summer, of three pints, in winter, of two pints, of new milk hot from the cow. The boy's way to fetch milk was only along Leadenhall Street to the City gate, known as Aldgate, between Bevis Marks and Crutched Friars. Just outside that gate the house and farm of the Minories lay to the right of him.
     A story told by Stow of his young days enables us to determine very nearly where his father the tailor lived. It must have been in Threadneedle Street, old tailors' quarters; for he has an illustration of the high-handed dealing of great men in the days of Henry the Eighth, that touched his father's house. Thomas Cromwell – Wolsey's Cromwell – when, after Wolsey's fall, he had risen high in the king's favour, bought some old tenements in Throgmorton Street, which he pulled down, to build upon their site a large house for himself. When the new house was built there was a fair space for garden to the south of it which met the ends of the gardens running northward from Threadneedle Street. But Thomas Cromwell, as his garden was not large enough to please him, without payment offered or leave asked, simply pulled down the palings that were his neighbours' landmarks to the north, pushed his own garden limit twenty-two feet southward into the gardens of his neighbours, and then built them out with a high brick wall. Stow says that his father had a house – probably a summer house – at the end of his garden, and the great man had it taken up and moved on rollers, off the ground he had annexed, into that half of his garden which was left to Mr. Stow. But Mr. Stow had to go on paying the rent of the whole for the half that was left him, "because no man durst go to argue the matter." The surveyors of the work had no answer to expostulations but that "Sir Thomas commanded them to do so." The ground here in question was very close to, if not actually on, the site of the present Stock Exchange. This sort of procedure was afterwards more restricted to commons, enclosures, and the blocking up of rights of way; a practice against which Shakespeare battled at Stratford in his latter days. The gardens invaded by Sir Thomas Cromwell must, of course, have run back from houses in Threadneedle Street, and as the date must have been 1531 or 1532 when Cromwell is known to have put new buildings on the ground of two messuages taken on a ninety-nine years' lease from the Austin Friars, this was a home incident of the time when the author of the "Survey of London" was a child of six or seven.
     At four and twenty, when his apprenticeship was at an end, and John Stow had himself become a master tailor, he was not living in Threadneedle Street, but near the well within Aldgate; for he records incidentally that in 1549, when he was living there, the bailiff of Romford "was executed upon the pavement of my door, where I then kept house."
     John Stow must have lived by his occupation as a tailor for the next fourteen or sixteen years. But he was born to take a patriotic interest in the annals of his native country and his native city, and at the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when his age was thirty-three, he had gathered books about him for aid to his diligent search into the history of the past. He was then beginning to compile for himself, and he published in 1561, at the age of thirty-six, "A Summarie of Englysh Chronicles." Of this volume in its first edition there is but one copy extant, which belongs to the Grenville Collection in the British Museum. It is in 120 leaves, but without the title page. Its date is determined by the text on the last page but one, where the Chronicle stands at the second year of the reign of Elizabeth. There was a second edition of Stow's Summary of English Chronicles in 1565, and other editions in 1566, 1570, 1573, 1575, 1579, 1584, 1587, 1590, 1598, and 1604; that is to say, there were eleven editions in the author's lifetime, the last of them published in the year before his death, and brought down by himself to 1604, the date of issue. John Stow's digest of the Chronicles was, therefore, in Elizabeth's reign one of the accepted short guides to a knowledge of the History of England. Elizabethan school-boys learnt their history by committing to memory the Latin verses in which Christopher Ocland set forth "Anglorum Prζlia" from 1327 to 1558, followed by "Elizabetha; De Pacatissimo Angliζ statu imperante Elizabetha."
     The friendly acceptance of his Summary, and his own strong bent towards such research, led John Stow, about the time when he was preparing for its first reprint, and when his age was about forty, to give up his business, that he might devote himself exclusively to the research in which he found the true use and enjoyment of his life. In the edition of his "Summarie" produced in 1573, he wrote – "It is now eight years since I, seeing the confused order of our late English Chronicles, and the ignorant handling of ancient affairs, leaving mine own peculiar gains, consecrated myself to the search of our famous antiquities." This indication, nearest to the time of giving up his trade for the one all absorbing pursuit, may be taken as best marking the time of that bold change, by which, for the love of intellectual research, he risked the coming of what really at last came, old age with poverty. In later editions he so counted the time since his first devoting himself to historical studies, that according to the edition of 1587 it was in 1564, according to the edition of 1598 it was in 1562, and in his last edition, that of 1604, the old man wrote – "It is now nigh forty-five years since I, seeing the confused order of our late English Chronicles, and the ignorant handling of ancient affairs, as also by occasion being persuaded by the Earl of Leicester," &c. – and adds in a sidenote to this – ''I gave him a book compiled by his grandfather, Edward Dudley." These forty-five years "now nigh" would bring us to the end of 1559 or the beginning of 1560, and so evidently dated from the time when he began first to prepare the "Summarie of Englysh Chronicles," with the fact now added that he was encouraged to do so by the Earl of Leicester.
     Writers in Elizabeth's time – except the dramatists – depended for support rather on patronage than on the money earned. John Stow, when he withdrew from his trade to give the rest of his life wholly to research, had, no doubt, a little store of means, inherited and saved from his past earnings, that would enable him to work steadily on until that further support came which he had right, if not reason, to expect. But his research cost money, he accumulated books, he paid no servile suit for patronage, his life reached to the age of eighty, and he was left in his last years very poor.
     Meanwhile, in the midway of his life, at the age of forty, he put away needle and thread, and devoted himself to the preparation of a fuller record of the Annals of England.
     A man surrounded with old books, who loved the past and studied it incessantly, exposed himself to criticism of the crowd who, as Chaucer observed, "demen gladly to the badder end." He was regarded as a suspicious character. Two or three years after he had begun to give his whole life to his work, he was reported to Queen Elizabeth's Council as "a suspicious person with many dangerous and superstitious books in his possession." Edmund Grindal was then Bishop of London, by himself and through his chaplain one of the official licensers of books; they were days also of active search for "recusants," who remained Roman Catholics outside the English Church as it had been by law established. Grindal ordered his chaplain and two others to make search in John Stow's study, and report on what they found there. As John Strype tells us, the chaplain reported concerning Stow "that he had great collections of his own for the English Chronicles wherein he seemed to have bestowed much travail. They found also a great sort of old books printed; some fabulous, as of Sir Degorie, Triamour, &c., and a great parcel of old MS. Chronicles, both in parchment and paper. And that besides he had miscellaneous tracts touching physic, surgery, and herbs; and also others, written in old English, in parchment. But another sort of books he had, more modern; of which the said Searchers thought fit to take an Inventory, as likely most to touch him; and they were books lately set forth in the realm or beyond sea in defence of Papistry. Which books, as the Chaplain said, declared him a great fautor [favourer] of that religion." It was not permitted by the law of that day to prove all things as a security for holding fast that which was good. A loyally religious Englishman was expected by the government to be of one side without knowing what was said upon the other.
     Stow's catholicity, as student of the past, brought him into trouble also at other times. He had a younger brother who abused the trust put in him when employed in the business, and once brought him into peril by false witness against him.
     While John Stow was at work upon his "Annals," he was disputing with a rival chronicler on behalf of his "Summarie of the Chronicles." The passage from Latin Monastic Chronicles to Histories in English began with a Londoner, Robert Fabyan, if we leave out of account such early work as the rhymed Chronicle of England written at the end of the thirteenth century by Robert of Gloucester, for recitation to the people, or the rhyming Chronicles of John Harding, who fought at Agincourt, and Andrew of Wyntoun. Robert Fabyan was a prosperous London draper, member of the Drapers' Company, and Alderman for the Ward of Farringdon without. He resigned his Alderman's gown in the year 1502 to avoid the expense of the Mayoralty, for, although well-to-do, his wife presented him with sixteen children, of whom six were living when their father died in 1512. Fabyan was a zealous student of the past, well versed in French and Latin, and a modest student of good literature. He wrote a "Concordance of Histories," afterwards called "New Chronicles of England and France," opened with a Prologue in Chaucer's Stanza which represented its author as one who prepared material, for the skilled artist or historian who should come after him to perfect what he had rudely shaped. The Prologue ended with an invocation to the Virgin for help; and the seven parts of the prose Chronicle, which brought the history from the mythical founder of Britain to the year 1504, ended with seven metrical epilogues, entitled the Seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin. Fabyan also translated into English rhyme such Latin verses as he cited. Robert Fabyan's Chronicle was first printed in 1516, four years after its author's death, and nine years before Stow was born.
     The next English chronicler was Edward Hall, a Shropshire man, who after education both at Cambridge and Oxford entered at Gray's Inn, was called to the bar, became Common Serjeant and Under-Sheriff of London, and was in 1540 one of the judges of the Sheriffs' Court. He died in 1547, while still at work upon his history of "The Union of the Two Noble and lllustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke." This work, known as Hall's Chronicle, is of high value.
     Richard Grafton was a Londoner, who signed himself in 1550, in the reign of Edward the Sixth, Printer to the King's Majesty. Edward Hall's Chronicle was in his hands, and he published it in 1548, the year after its author's death, with some completions of his own, which he undertook, he said. Hall dying, and "being in his latter time not so painful and studious as he ought to have been." The first edition, therefore, of Hall's Chronicle appeared when John Stow's age was three and twenty. There was a second issue of it in the same year, and a fourth was reached in 1550; but in 1555, during the persecutions under Philip and Mary, the book was prohibited by Act of Parliament.
     Richard Grafton produced at the end of February 1563, "An Abridgement of the Chronicles of England, gathered by Richard Grafton, Citizen of London." Stow's "Summarie of English Chronicles" had first appeared in 1561. Grafton's was, therefore, a rival book, of which there was a second edition in 1564, followed in 1565 by a still further abridgement into "A Manuell of the Chronicles of Englande from the Creacion of the Worlde to this Yere of our Lorde 1565. Abridged and collected by Richard Grafton." This was a little book of a hundred leaves in 24mo, beginning with a Calendar in which the evil and unfortunate days, and such as are not altogether so evil, are noted, and ending with a List of Fairs. It was followed by two folio volumes, in 1568 and 1569, of "A Chronicle at large, and meere History of the Affayres of Englande, and Kinges of the same." There was a second edition of this within the year, and of the "Abridgement" (not the "Manuell") another edition then followed in 1572, which was dedicated, as the first had been, to Robert Dudley, who had been Earl of Leicester since the end of September 1564. Grafton sought to discredit Stow's work.
     Stow declared that Grafton's "Manual" was "new scoured or cleanly altered" from Grafton's "Abridgement," after the buying of Stow's "Summary." The controversy included little elegancies, such as Grafton's play on the name of Stow when he condemned the "memories of superstitions, foundations, fables, and lies foolishly Stowed together," or such as Stow's hope that his work would not be defaced and overthrown "through the thundering noise of empty tonnes and unfruitful graftes of Momus' offspring."
     Grafton's "Chronicle at large" in the two folios of 1568 and 1569 was not followed until 1580 by the result of John Stow's larger research in "Annales, or a Generall Chronicle of England, from Brute unto this present Year of Christ, 1580." This was a quarto of 1215 pages, followed by an account of our Universities upon eight pages more, and it was dedicated to the Earl of Leicester. There was a second edition of it in 1592, another in 1601, and another in 1605, continued to the 26th of March, within ten days of its author's death. There were also two editions after Stow's death, "continued and augmented by Edmond Howes," which were published in 1615 and 1631, the edition of 1631 being again continued to date.
     But Stow had left completed at his death a yet larger Chronicle, which is now lost, and to which he refers in the edition of his "Annales" published in 1605, "Thus, good reader, I desire thee to take these and other my labours in good part, like as I have painfully (to my great cost and charges) out of old hidden histories and records of Antiquity brought the same to light, and for thy great commodity bestowed them upon thee; so shalt thou encourage me, if God permit me life" (he was then eighty years old), "to publish or leave to posterity a far larger volume, long since by me laboured, at the request and commandment of the Reverend Father, Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury; but he then deceasing, my work was prevented, by printing and reprinting (without warrant or well-liking) of Raigne Wolfe's Collection, and other late comers, by the name of Raphael Holinshed his Chronicle." Archbishop Parker died in 1575, and the first edition of Holinshed's Chronicle appeared in 1577, the second in 1586 and 1587. Holinshed's was one of the two histories that Shakespeare used; the other was Hall's Chronicle.
     The death of Archbishop Parker had deprived Stow of his one strong supporter. Parker was a devoted student of antiquity, with especial reference to the subject of his own main work, a folio published in Latin, in 1572, on the Antiquity of the Church of Britain. Archbishop Parker required all servants in his house, when they had nothing else to do, to bind books, print from MSS., or engrave on copper. He caused Anglo-Saxon types to be cut, and cultivated study of the Anglo-Saxon Homilies as evidence of doctrine in the Early Church. He paid costs of the printing of four old historians, Matthew Paris, Matthew of Westminster, Thomas Walsingham, and Asser's Life of Alfred; and except Asser all of them were published at the suggestion and with the aid of John Stow; Matthew of Westminster in 1567, Matthew Paris in 1571, and Thomas Walsingham in 1574, the year before the Archbishop's death.
     It was not till the next reign that John Speed, another patriotic tailor, thirty years younger than John Stow, published his fifty-four maps of England and Wales, and in 1611 his "History of Great Britain under the Conquests of the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans."
     So much for Stow's place among the Annalists of Britain, at a time when the rising forces of the nation gave new interest to study of its past. Stow's researches into the History of England were followed by a concentration of his energies upon the book now under the reader's eyes, a study of the present and past state of London. Here he could work without a rival at his large collections. He was the one Londoner who, in the reign of Elizabeth, made thorough study of his native city, and resolved to set down all he knew of its past history and present state. His "Survey of London," of which the first edition was published in 1598, and the second, with revisions, in 1603, was the first of its kind, and even grows in interest by course and change of time.
     While engaged upon his record of London itself, Stow was engaged also in cherishing the memory of the greatest of all Londoners, the poet Chaucer. "His works," Stow tells us in this volume, "were partly published in print by William Caxton, in the reign of Henry VI.; increased by William Thynne, esquire, in the reign of Henry VIII.; corrected and twice increased through mine own painful labours, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, to wit, in the year 1561, and again, beautified with notes by me collected out of divers records and monuments, which I delivered to my loving friend, Thomas Speght; and he having drawn the same into a good form and method, as also explained the old and obscure words, &c., hath published them in anno 1597." The edition of Chaucer by William Thynne, chief clerk of the kitchen to Henry the Eighth, was published in 1532, and was the first attempt at a complete Chaucer. It was reprinted in 1542 with addition of "The Plowman's Tale," which was not written by Chaucer. The next edition was that of 1561, and John Stow was its only editor. He added to the volume Lydgate's "Story of Thebes." Next came the edition in 1597 or 1598 by Thomas Speght, to whom Stow gave his additional materials, including "Chaucer's Dream" and the "Flower and the Leaf," which were then first printed. Afterwards came in 1602, printed by Adam Islip, a new edition of Speght's Chaucer, with further additions. There was no demand for a reprint of that until 1687, and no other edition of Chaucer's Works until Urry's in 1721. Thus the impulse given by John Stow, and communicated to his friend Speght, represented all that was done to bring Chaucer home to English readers from 1542 to 1721, that is to say, during a period of one hundred and seventy-nine years. Much honour to John Stow!
     We are told of Stow, by the friend who edited his "Annales" not long after his death, that he was tall, lean, with small clear eyes and a pleasant cheerful face, that he was "very sober, mild, and courteous to any who required his instructions; and retained the true use of his senses unto the day of his death, being of an excellent memory. He always protested never to have written anything either for malice, fear, or favour, nor to seek his own particular gain and vain glory; and that his only pains and care was to write truth." He had written, indeed, this rhyming caution in 1565

"Of smooth and flattering speech remember to take heed:
For Truth in plain words may told; of craft a Lie hath need."

     He travelled much on foot to cathedrals and other places in search of records. He lived peacefully, and "was very careless of scoffers, backbiters, and detractors."
     But Stow "annaled for ungrateful men." In his old age, after he had spent all the powers of his mind and all his worldly goods in service of his country, he was at the age of seventy-nine rewarded by his Sovereign with – a license to beg. The date of the license, March 8th, 1603, being before the 25th of the month, when 1604 officially began, was, according to the present way of reckoning, March 8th, 1604. Stow died of stone colic, and was buried on the 8th of April 1605 in his parish church of St. Andrew's Undershaft, where his widow set up as monument a terra-cotta figure of him reading in his chair.
     Some men in those days got Patents of Nobility for serving a king in his meaner pleasures. For his nobler service to his country John Stow was rewarded with the Patent of Beggary which closes this short record of a kindly, busy, earnest life, made happy by the work it loved.

James, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the faith, &c.

To all our well-beloved Subjects greeting.

Whereas our loving subject, John Stowe (a very aged and worthy member of our City of London), this five and forty years hath to his great charge, and with neglect of his ordinary means of maintenance (for the general good, as well of posteritie as of the present age) compiled and published diverse necessary bookes and Chronicles; and therefore We, in recompense of these his painful labours, and for encouragement to the like, have in our royal inclination been pleased to graunt our Letters Patent under our Great Seale of England, dated the eighth of March, 1603, thereby authorizing him, the sayd John Stowe, and his deputies, to collect amongst our loving subjects theyr voluntary contribution and kinde gratuities, as by the sayd Letters Patents more at large may appeare. Now, seeing that our sayd Patents (being but one in themselves) cannot be shewed forth in diverse places or parishes at once (as the occasions of his speedy putting them in execution may require) we have therefore thought expedient in this unusuall manner to recommend his cause unto you; having already, in our own person, and of our speciall grace, begun the largesse for the example of others. Given at our palace at Westminster."
     With what sum his Majesty headed the list, when he took this unusual way of starting a subscription for which the solicitation was to be left to the old man himself, history does not record. It was in the following year, 1605, that Francis Bacon laid at the feet of James the First his "Two Books of the Advancement of Learning." But towards the Advancement of Learning may we not believe that this poor Tailor did more than the King?

———

     This volume of Stow's "Survey of London" gives the text of the author's second edition, read with the first. Much was added in the second edition, and whatever was added to the text in 1603 is here included. Here and there I have retained a little fact worth keeping that Stow had written in his first edition and omitted from his second.
     The first edition having been in 1598, the second in 1603, within the author's lifetime; there was a third in 1618; a fourth, in one folio volume, in 1633, enlarged by Anthony Munday and Henry Dyson, with a map of London and Westminster by T. Porter; a fifth, in 1720, in two folio volumes, edited by John Strype, with a two-sheet plan of the City of London, Westminster, and Southwark, a map of London in Elizabeth's time, and 41 plates. Strype's volumes were re-edited in a sixth edition of the "Survey," published with 132 plates in two folios in 1754 and 1755. These later editions overlaid the text with new matter.
     In 1842 Mr. William J. Thoms produced an edition of the original text in royal 8vo, with valuable notes. This was republished in 1876.

~~~~~~~

Bridge Ward without, the twenty-sixth in number, consisting of the Borough of Southwark, in the County of Surrey.

HAVING treated of wards in London on the north side the Thames, in number twenty-five, I am now to cross over the said river into the borough of Southwark, which is also a ward of London without the walls, on the south side thereof, as is Portsoken on the east, and Farringdon extra on the west.
     This borough being in the county of Surrey, consisteth of divers streets, ways, and winding lanes, all full of buildings, inhabited; and first, to begin at the west part thereof, over against the west suburb of the city.
     On the bank of the river Thames there is now a continual building of tenements, about half a mile in length to the bridge. Then from the bridge, straight towards the south, a continual street, called Long Southwark, built on both sides with divers lanes and alleys up to St. George's Church, and beyond it through Blackman Street towards New Town, or Newington, the liberties of which borough extend almost to the parish church of New Town aforesaid, distant one mile from London Bridge, and also south-west a continual building almost to Lambeth, more than one mile from the said bridge.
     Then from the bridge along by the Thames eastward is St. Olave's Street, having continual building on both the sides, with lanes and alleys, up to Battle Bridge, to Horsedown, and towards Rotherhithe; also some good half mile in length from London Bridge.
     So that I account the whole continual buildings on the bank of the said river, from the west towards the east, to be more than a large mile in length.
     Then have ye, from the entering towards the said Horsedown, one other continual street called Bermondes high street, which stretcheth south, likewise furnished with buildings on both sides, almost half a mile in length, up to the late dissolved monastery of St, Saviour called Bermondsey. And from thence is one Long Lane, so called of the length, turning west to St. George's Church afore named. Out of the which lane mentioned, Long Lane, breaketh one other street towards the south, and by east, and this is called Kentish Street, for that is the way leading into that country; and so have you the bounds of this borough.
     The antiquities most notable in this borough are these: First, for ecclesiastical, there was Bermondsey, an abbey of black monks; St. Mary Overy, a priory of canons regular; St. Thomas, a college or hospital for the poor; and the Lock, a lazar house in Kent Street Parish churches there have been six, whereof five do remain, viz.,
     St. Mary Magdalen, in the priory of St. Mary Overy, now the same St. Mary Overy is the parish church for the said Mary Magdalen, and for St. Margaret on the Hill, and is called St. Saviour.
     St. Margaret on the Hill being put down is now a court for justice; St. Thomas in the hospital serveth for a parish church as afore; St. George a parish church as before it did; so doth St. Olave and St. Mary Magdalen, by the abbey of Bermondsey.
     There be also these five prisons or gaols:-

The Clink on the Banke.
The Compter, in the late parish church of St. Margaret.
The Marshalsey.
The King's Bench.
And the White Lion, all in Long Southwark.

     Houses most notable be these:-

The Bishop of Winchester's house.
The Bishop of Rochester's house.
The Duke of Suffolk's house, or Southwark Place.
The Tabard, an hostelry or inn.
The Abbot of Hyde, his house.
The Prior of Lewes, his house.
The Abbot of St. Augustine, his house.
The Bridge House.
The Abbot of Battaile, his house.
Battaile Bridge.
The Stewes on the bank of Thames.
And the Bear-Gardens there.

     Now, to return to the west bank, there be two bear-gardens, the old and new places, wherein be kept bears, bulls, and other beasts, to be baited; as also mastiffs in several kennels, nourished to bait them. These bears and other beasts are there baited in plots of ground, scaffolded about for the beholders to stand safe.
     Next on this bank was sometime the Bordello, or Stewes, a place so called of certain stew-houses privileged there, for the repair of incontinent men to the like women; of the which privilege I have read thus:-

     In a parliament holden at Westminster the 8th of Henry II. it was ordained by the commons, and confirmed by the king and lords, that divers constitutions for ever should be kept within that lordship or franchise, according to the old customs that had been there used time out of mind: amongst the which these following were some, viz.:-
"That no stew-holder or his wife should let or stay any single woman, to go and come freely at all times when they listed.
"No stew-holder to keep any woman to board, but she to board abroad at her pleasure.
"To take no more for the woman's chamber in the week than fourteen pence.
"Not to keep open his doors upon the holidays.
"Not to keep any single woman in his house on the holidays, but the bailiff to see them voided out of the lordship.
"No single woman to be kept against her will that would leave her sin.
"No stew-holder to receive any woman of religion, or any man's wife.
"No single woman to take money to lie with any man, but she lie with him all night till the morrow.
"No man to be drawn or enticed into any stew-house.
"The constables, bailiff, and others, every week to search every stew-house.
"No stew-holder to keep any woman that hath the perilous infirmity of burning, not to sell bread, ale, flesh, fish, wood, coal, or any victuals, &c."

     These and many more orders were to be observed upon great pain and punishment. I have also seen divers patents of confirmation, namely, one dated 1345, the 19th of Edward III. Also I find, that in the 4th of Richard II., these stew-houses belonging to William Walworth, then Mayor of London, were farmed by Froes of Flanders, and spoiled by Walter Tyler and other rebels of Kent. Notwithstanding, I find that ordinances for the same place and houses were again confirmed in the reign of Henry VI., to be continued as before. Also, Robert Fabian writeth, that in the year 1506, the 21st of Henry VII., the said stew-houses in Southwark were for a season inhibited, and the doors closed up, but it was not long, saith he, ere the houses there were set open again, so many as were permitted, for, as it was said, whereas before were eighteen houses, from thenceforth were appointed to be used but twelve only. These allowed stew-houses had signs on their fronts, towards the Thames, not hanged out, but painted on the walls, as a Boar's Head, the Cross Keys, the Gun, the Castle, the Crane, the Cardinal's Hat, the Bell, the Swan, &c. I have heard of ancient men, of good credit, report that these single women were forbidden the rites of the church so long as they continued that sinful life, and were excluded from Christian burial if they were not reconciled before their death. And therefore there was a plot of ground called the Single Woman's Churchyard, appointed for them far from the parish church.
     In the year of Christ 1546, the 37th of Henry VIII., this row of stews in Southwark was put down by the king's commandment, which was proclaimed by sound of trumpet, no more to be privileged, and used as a common brothel, but the inhabitants of the same to keep good and honest rule, as in other places of this realm, &c.
     Then next is the Clink, a jail or prison for the trespassers in those parts; namely, in old time, for such as should brabble, fray, or break the peace on the said bank, or in the brothel-houses, they were by the inhabitants thereabout apprehended and committed to this jail, where they were straitly imprisoned.
     Next is the Bishop of Winchester's house, or lodging, when he cometh to this city; which house was first built by William Gifford, Bishop of Winchester, about the year 1107, the 7th of Henry I., upon a plot of ground pertaining to the prior of Bermondsey, as appeareth by a writ directed unto the barons of the Exchequer in the year 1366, the 41st of Edward III., the bishop's see being void, for eight pounds, due to the monks of Bermondsey for the Bishop of Winchester's lodging in Southwark. This is a very fair house, well repaired, and hath a large wharf and landing-place, called the Bishop of Winchester's Stairs.
     Adjoining to this, on the south side the roof, is the Bishop of Rochester's inn or lodging, by whom first erected I do not now remember me to have read; but well I wot the same of long time hath not been frequented by any bishop, and lieth ruinous for lack of reparations. The abbot of Maverley had a house there.
     East from the Bishop of Winchester's house, directly over against it, standeth a fair church called St. Mary over the Rie, or Overie; that is, over the water. This church, or some other in place thereof, was of old time, long before the Conquest, a house of sisters, founded by a maiden named Mary; unto the which house and sisters she left, as was left to her by her parents, the oversight and profits of a cross ferry, or traverse ferry over the Thames, there kept before that any bridge was built. This house of sisters was after by Swithen, a noble lady, converted into a college of priests, who in place of the ferry built a bridge of timber, and from time to time kept the same in good reparations; but lastly the same bridge was built of stone; and then in the year 1106 was this church again founded for canons regulars by William Pont de la Arche and William Dauncy, knights, Normans.
     William Gifford, Bishop of Winchester, was a good benefactor also, for he, as some have noted, built the body of that church in the year 1106, the 7th of Henry I.
     The canons first entered the said church then; Algodus was the first prior.
     King Henry I. by his charter gave them the church of St. Margaret in Southwark.
     King Stephen confirmed the gift of King Henry, and also gave the stone-house, which was William Pont de la Arche's, by Downgate.
     This priory was burnt about the year 1207, wherefore the canons did found a hospital near unto their priory, where they celebrated until the priory was repaired; which hospital was after, by consent of Peter de la Roch, Bishop of Winchester, removed into the land of Anicius, Archdeacon of Surrey, in the year 1228, a place where the water was more plentiful and the air more wholesome, and was dedicated to St. Thomas.
     This Peter de Rupibus, or de la Roch, founded a large chapel of St. Mary Magdalen, in the said church of St. Mary Overie; which chapel was after appointed to be the parish church for the inhabitants near adjoining.
     This church was again newly built in the reign of Richard II. and King Henry IV.
     John Gower, esquire, a famous poet, was then an especial benefactor to that work, and was there buried on the north side of the said church, in the chapel of St. John, where he founded a chantry. He lieth under a tomb of stone, with his image, also of stone, over him; the hair of his head, auburn, long to his shoulders, but curling up, and a small forked beard; on his head a chaplet, like a coronet of four roses; a habit of purple, damasked down to his feet; a collar of esses gold about his neck; under his head the likeness of three books which he compiled. The first, named Speculum Meditantis written in French; the second, Vox Clamantis penned in Latin; the third, Confessio Amantis, written in English, and this last is printed. Vox Clamantis with his Cronica Tripartita and other, both in Latin and French, never printed, I have and do possess, but Speculum Meditantis I never saw, though heard thereof to be in Kent. Beside on the wall where he lieth there was painted three virgins crowned; one of the which was named Charity, holding this device –

"En toy qui es Fitz de dieu le pere,
Sauve soit que gist souz cest piere."

     The second writing, Mercy, with this device –

"O bone Jesu, fait ta mercie
Al alme dont le corps gist icy."

     The third writing, Pity, with this device –

"Pur ta pitι Jesu regarde,
Et met cest alme en sauve garde,"

     His arms a field argent, on a chevron azure, three leopards' heads gold, their tongues gules; two angels supporters, on the crest a talbot: his epitaph –

"Armigeri scutum nihil a modo fert sibi tutum,
Reddidit immolutum morti generale tributum,
Spiritus exutum se gaudeat esse solutum,
Est ubi virtutum regnum sine labe statutum."

     The roof of the middle west aisle fell down in the year 1469. This priory was surrendered to Henry VIII., the 31st of his reign, the 27th of October, the year of Christ 1539, valued at £624, 6s. 6d. by the year.
     About Christmas next following the church of the said priory was purchased of the king by the inhabitants of the borough. Doctor Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, putting to his helping hand. They made thereof a parish church for the parish church of St. Mary Magdalen, on the south side of the said choir, and of St. Margaret on-the-Hill, which were made one parish of St. Saviour.
     There be monuments in this church of Robert Liliard, or Hiliard, esquire; Margaret, daughter to the Lady Audley, wife to Sir Thomas Audley; William Greville, esquire, and Margaret his wife; one of the heirs of William Spershut, esquire; Dame Katherine, wife to John Stoke, alderman; Robert Merfin, esquire; William Undall, esquire; Lord Ospay Ferar; Sir George Brewes, knight; John Browne; Lady Brandon, wife to Sir Thomas Brandon; William, Lord Scales; William, Earl Warren; Dame Maud, wife to Sir John Peach; Lewknor; Dame Margaret Elrington, one of the heirs of Sir Thomas Elrington; John Bowden, esquire; Robert St. Magil; John Sandhurst; John Cower; John Duncell, merchant tailor, 1516; John Sturton, esquire; Robert Rouse; Thomas Tong, first Norroy, and after Clarenceaux king-of-arms; William Wickham, translated from the see of Lincoln to the bishopric of Winchester in the month of March 1595, deceased the 11th of June next following, and was buried here; Thomas Cure, esquire, saddler to King Edward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, deceased the 24th of May 1598, &c.
     Now passing through St. Mary Overy's Close, in possession of the Lord Mountacute, and Pepper Alley, into Long Southwark, on the right hand thereof the market hill, where the leather is sold, there stood the late-named parish church of St. Margaret, given to St. Mary Overy by Henry I., put down and joined with the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, and united to the late dissolved priory church of St. Mary Overy.
     A part of this parish church of St. Margaret is now a court, wherein the assizes and sessions be kept, and the court of admiralty is also there kept. One other part of the same church is now a prison, called the Compter in Southwark, &c.
     Farther up on that side, almost directly over against St. George's Church, was sometime a large and most sumptuous house, built by Charles Brandon, late Duke of Suffolk, in the reign of Henry VIII., which was called Suffolk House; but coming afterwards into the king's hands, the same was called Southwark Place, and a mint of coinage was there kept for the king.
     To this place came King Edward VI., in the second of his reign, from Hampton Court, and dined in it. He at that time made John York, one of the sheriffs of London, knight, and then rode through the city to Westminster.
     Queen Mary gave this house to Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, and to his successors, for ever, to be their inn or lodging for their repair to London, in recompense of York House near to Westminster, which King Henry, her father, had taken from Cardinal Wolsey, and from the see of York.
     Archbishop Heath sold the same house to a merchant, or to merchants, that pulled it down, sold the lead, stone, iron, &c., and in place thereof built many small cottages of great rents, to the increasing of beggars in that borough. The Archbishop bought Norwich House, or Suffolk Place, near unto Charing Cross, because it was near unto the court, and left it to his successors.
     Now on the south side to return back again towards the bridge, over against this Suffolk Place, is the parish church of St. George, sometime pertaining to the priory of Bermondsey, by the gift of Thomas Arderne and Thomas his son, in the year 1122. There lie buried in this church William Kirton, esquire, and his wives, 1464.
     Then is the White Lion, a gaol so called, for that the same was a common hostelry for the receipt of travellers by that sign. This house was first used as a goal within these forty years last, since the which time the prisoners were once removed thence to a house in Newtown, where they remained for a short time, and were returned back again to the foresaid White Lion, there to remain as in the appointed gaol for the county of Surrey.
     Next is the gaol or prison of the King's Bench, but of what antiquity the same is I know not. For I have read that the courts of the King's Bench and Chancery have ofttimes been removed from London to other places, and so hath likewise the goals that serve those courts; as in the year 1304 Edward I. commanded the courts of the King's Bench and the Exchequer, which had remained seven years at York, to be removed to their old places at London. And in the year 1387, the 11th of Richard II., Robert Tresihan, chief-justice, came to the city of Coventry, and there sate by the space of a month, as justice of the King's Benches, and caused to be indited in that court about the number of two thousand persons of that country.
     It seemeth, therefore, that for that time the prison or gaol of that court was not far off. Also in the year 1392, the 16th of the same Richard, the Archbishop of York being lord chancellor, for goodwill that he bare to his city, caused the King's Bench and Chancery to be removed from London to York, but ere long they were returned to London.
     Then is the Marshalsea, another gaol or prison, so called, as pertaining to the marshals of England. Of what continuance kept in Southwark I have not learned; but like it is, that the same hath been removable, at the pleasure of the marshals; for I find that in the year 1376, the 50th of Edward III. Henry Percy, being marshal kept his prisoners in the city of London, where having committed one John Prendergast, of Norwich, contrary to the liberties of the city of London, the citizens, by persuasion of the Lord Fitzwalter, their standard-bearer, took armour and ran with great rage to the marshal's inn, brake up the gates, brought out the prisoner, and conveyed him away, minding to have burnt the stocks in the midst of their city, but they first sought for Sir Henry Percy to have punished him, as I have noted in my annals.
     More, about the feast of Easter next following, John, Duke of Lancaster, having caused all the whole navy of England to be gathered together at London, it chanced a certain esquire to kill one of the shipmen, which act the other shipmen taking in ill part, they brought their suit into the king's court of the Marshalsea, which then, as chanced, saith mine author, was kept in Southwark. But when they perceived that court to be so favourable to the murderer, and further that the king's warrant was also gotten for his pardon, they in great fury ran to the house wherein the murderer was imprisoned, brake into it, and brought forth the prisoner with his gyves on his legs. They thrust a knife to his heart, and slicked him as if he had been a dog; after this they tied a rope to his gyves and drew him to the gallows, where when they had hanged him, as though they had done a great act, they caused the trumpets to be sounded before them to their ships, and there in great triumph they spent the rest of the day.
     Also the rebels of Kent, in the year 1381, brake down the houses of the Marshalsea and King's Bench in Southwark, took from thence the prisoners, brake down the house of Sir John Immorth, then marshal of the Marshalsea and King's Bench, &c. After this, in the year 1387, the 11th of Richard II., the morrow after Bartholomew Day, the king kept a great council in the castle of Nottingham, and the Marshalsea of the king was then kept at Loughborough by the space of five days or more. In the year 1443 Sir Walter Manny was marshal of the Marshalsea, the 22nd of Henry VI. William Brandon, esquire, was marshal in the 8th of Edward IV. In the year 1504 the prisoners of the Marshalsea, then in Southwark, brake out, and many of them being taken were executed, especially such as had been committed for felony or treason.
     From thence towards London Bridge, on the same side, be many fair inns, for receipt of travellers, by these signs, the Spur, Christopher, Bull, Queen's Head, Tabard, George, Hart, King's Head, &c. Amongst the which the most ancient is the Tabard, so called of the sign, which, as we now term it, is of a jacket, or sleeveless coat, whole before, open on both sides, with a square collar, winged at the shoulders; a stately garment of old time, commonly worn of noblemen and others, both at home and abroad in the wars, but then, to wit, in the wars, their arms embroidered, or otherwise depict upon them, that every man by his coat-of-arms might be known from others. But now these tabards are only worn by the heralds, and be called their coats-of-arms in service. For the inn of the Tabard Geoffrey Chaucer, esquire, the most famous poet of England, in commendation thereof, writeth thus:-

"Befell that in that season, on a day,
In Southwark at the Tabard, as I lay,
Readie to wenden on my Pilgrimage
To Canterburie with devout courage,
At night was come into that hosterie,
Well nine-and-twentie in a companie,
Of sundrie folke, by adventure yfalle.
In fellowship, and pilgrimes were they all,
That toward Canterburie wolden ride,
The chambers and the stables weren wide,
And well we weren eased at the best," &c.

     Within this inn was also the lodging of the abbot of Hide, by the city of Winchester, a fair house for him and his train when he came to that city to parliament, &c.
     And then Thieves' Lane, by St. Thomas's Hospital. The Hospital of St. Thomas, first founded by Richard Prior of Bermondsey, in the Cellarer's ground against the wall of the monastery, in the year 1213, he named it the Almerie, or house of alms for converts and poor children; for the which ground the prior ordained that the almoner should pay ten shillings and fourpence yearly to the Cellarer at Michaelmas.
     But Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, in the year 1215, founded the same again more fully for canons regular in place of the first hospital. He increased the rent thereof to three hundred and forty-four pounds in the year. Thus was this hospital holden of the prior and abbot of Bermondsey till the year 1428, at which time a composition was made between Thomas Thetford, abbot of Bermondsey, and Nicholas Buckland, master of the said Hospital of St. Thomas, for all the lands and tenements which were holden of the said abbot and convent in Southwark, or elsewhere, for the old rent to be paid unto the said abbot.
     There be monuments in this hospital church of Sir Robert Chamber, knight; William Fines, Lord Say; Richard Chaucer, John Gloucester, Adam Atwood, John Ward, Michael Cambridge, William West, John Golding, esquires; John Benham, George Kirkes, Thomas Kninton, Thomas Baker, gentlemen; Robert, son to Sir Thomas Fleming; Agnes, wife to Sir Walter Dennis, knight, daughter, and one of the heirs of Sir Robert Danvars; John Evarey, gentleman; &c.
     This hospital was by the visitors, in the year 1538, valued at two hundred and sixty-six pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence, and was surrendered to Henry VIII. in the 30th year of his reign.
     In the year 1552, the citizens of London having purchased the void suppressed Hospital of St. Thomas in Southwark, in the month of July began the reparations thereof, for poor, impotent, lame, and diseased people, so that in the month of November next following the sick and poor people were taken in. And in the year 1553, on the 10th of April, King Edward VI., in the 7th of his reign, gave to the mayor, commonalty, and citizens of London, to be a workhouse for the poor and idle persons of this city, his house of Bridewell, and seven hundred marks lands of the Savoy rents, which hospital he had suppressed, with all the beds, bedding, and other furniture belonging to the same, towards the maintenance of the said workhouse of Bridewell and of this Hospital of St. Thomas in Southwark. This gift the king confirmed by his charter, dated the 26th of June next following, and willed it to be called the King's Hospital in Southwark.
     The church of this hospital, which of old time served for the tenements near adjoining, and pertaining to the said hospital, remaineth as a parish church.
     But now to come to St. Olave's Street. On the bank of the river of Thames is the parish church of St. Olave, a fair and meet large church, but a far larger parish, especially of aliens or strangers, and poor people; in which church there lieth entombed Sir John Burcettur, knight, 1466.
     Over against this parish church, on the south side the street, was sometime one great house built of stone, with arched gates, pertaining to the prior of Lewes in Sussex, and was his lodging when he came to London. It was now a common hostelry for travellers, and hath to sign the Walnut Tree.
     Then east from the said parish church of St. Olave is a quay. In the year 1330, by the license of Simon Swanlond, Mayor of London, built by Isabel, widow to Hammond Goodchepe. And next thereunto was then a great house of stone and timber, belonging to the abbot of St. Augustine without the walls of Canterbury, which was an ancient piece of work, and seemeth to be one of the first built houses on that side the river over against the city; it was called the abbot's inn of St. Augustine in Southwark, and was sometime holden of the Earls of Warren and Surrey, as appeareth by a deed made 1281, which I have read, and may be Englished thus:-

"To all whom this present writing shall come, John Earl Warren sendeth greeting. Know ye, that we have altogether remised and quit-claimed for us and our heirs for ever, to Nicholas, abbot of St. Augustine's of Canterbury, and the convent of the same, and their successors, suit to our court of Southwark, which they owe unto us, for all that messuage and houses thereon built, and all their appurtenances, which they have of our fee in Southwark, situate upon the Thames, between the Bridge House and the church of St. Olave. And the said messuage, with the buildings thereon built, and all their appurtenances, to them and their successors, we have granted in perpetual alms, to hold of us and our heirs for the same, saving the service due to any other persons, if any such be, then to us; and for this remit and grant the said abbot and convent have given unto us five shillings of rent yearly in Southwark, and have received us and our heirs in all benefices which shall be in their church for ever."

     This suit of court one William Graspeis was bound to do to the said earl for the said messuage, and heretofore to acquit in all things the church of St. Augustine against the said earl.
     This house of late time belonged to Sir Anthony Sentlegar, then to Warham Sentlegar, &c., and is now called Sentlegar House, but divided into sundry tenements. Next is the Bridge House, so called as being a storehouse for stone, timber, or whatsoever pertaining to the building or repairing of London Bridge.
     This house seemeth to have taken beginning with the first founding of the bridge either of stone or timber; it is a large plot of ground, on the bank of the river Thames, containing divers large buildings for stowage of things necessary towards reparation of the said bridge.
     There are also divers garners for laying up of wheat, and other grainers for service of the city, as need requireth. Moreover, there be certain ovens built, in number ten, of which six be very large, the other four being but half so big. These were purposely made to bake out the bread corn of the said grainers, to the best advantage for relief of the poor citizens, when need should require. Sir John Throstone, knight, sometime an embroiderer, then a goldsmith, one of the sheriffs 1516, gave by his testament towards the making of these ovens two hundred pounds, which thing was performed by his executors. Sir John Munday, goldsmith, then being mayor, there was of late, for the enlarging of the said Bridge House, taken in an old brewhouse, called Goldings, which was given to the city by George Monex, sometime mayor, and in place thereof is now a fair brewhouse new built, for service of the city with beer.
     Next was the abbot of Battle's Inn, betwixt the Bridge House and Battle Bridge, likewise on the bank of the river of Thames; the walks and gardens thereunto appertaining, on the other side of the way before the gate of the said house, and was called the Maze; there is now an inn, called the Flower de Luce, for that the sign is three Flower de Luces. Much other buildings of small tenements are thereon builded, replenished with strangers and other, for the most part poor people.
     Then is Battle Bridge, so called of Battaile Abbey, for that it standeth on the ground, and over a watercourse flowing out of Thames, pertaining to that abbey, and was, therefore, both built and repaired by the abbots of that house, as being hard adjoining to the abbot's lodging.
     Beyond this bridge is Bermondsey Street, turning south, in the south end whereof was sometime a priory or abbey of St. Saviour, called Bermond's Eye in Southwark, founded by Alwin Childe, a citizen of London, in the year 1081.
     Peter, Richard, Obstert, and Umbalde, monks de Caritate, came unto Bermondsey in the year 1089, and Peter was made first prior there, by appointment of the prior of the house, called Charity in France, by which means this priory of Bermondsey, being a cell to that in France, was accounted a priory of Aliens.
     In the year 1094 deceased Alwin Childe, founder of this house. Then William Rufus gave to the monks his manor of Bermondsey, with the appurtenances, and built for them there a new great church.
     Robert Blewet, Bishop of Lincoln, King William's chancellor, gave them the manor of Charlton, with the appurtenances. Also Geoffrey Martell, by the grant of Geoffrey Magnavile, gave them the land of Halingbury and the tithe of Alferton, &c.
     More, in the year 1122, Thomas of Arderne, and Thomas his son, gave to the monks of Bermond's Eye the church of St. George in Southwark, &c.
     In the year 1165 King Henry II. confirmed to them the hyde or territory of Southwark, and Laygham Wadden, with the land of Coleman, &c.
     In the year 1371 the priors of Aliens throughout England being seized into the king's hands, Richard Denton, an Englishman, was made prior of Bermondsey, to whom was committed the custody of the said priory, by the letters patents of King Edward III., saving to the king the advowsons of churches.
     In the year 1380, the 4th of Richard II., this priory was made a denison, or free English, for the fine of two hundred marks paid to the king's Hanaper in the chancery. In the year 1399 John Attelborough, prior of Bermondsey, was made the first abbot of that house by Pope Boniface IX., at the suit of King Richard II.
     In the year 1417 Thomas Thetford, abbot of Bermondsey, held a plea in chancery against the king for the manors of Preston, Bermondsey, and Stone, in the county of Somerset, in the which suit the abbot prevailed and recovered against the king.
     In the year 1539 this abbey was valued to dispend by the year four hundred and seventy-four pounds fourteen shillings and fourpence-halfpenny, and was surrendered to Henry VIII., the 31st of his reign; the abbey church was then pulled down by Sir Thomas Pope, knight, and in place thereof a goodly house built of stone and timber, now pertaining to the Earls of Sussex.
     There are buried in that church, Leoftane, provost, shrive or domesman of London, 1115; Sir William Bowes, knight, and Dame Elizabeth his wife; Sir Thomas Pikeworth, knight; Dame Anne Audley; George, son to John Lord Audley; John Winkfield, esquire; Sir Nicholas Blonket, knight; Dame Bridget, wife to William Trussell; Holgrave, baron of the exchequer, &c.
     Next unto this abbey church standeth a proper church of St. Mary Magdalen, built by the priors of Bermondsey, serving for resort of the inhabitants (tenants to the prior or abbots near adjoining), there to have their divine service. This church remaineth, and serveth as afore, and is called a parish church.
     Then in Kent Street is a lazar-house for leprous people, called the Loke, in Southwark, the foundation whereof I find not. Now, having touched divers principal parts of this borough, I am to speak somewhat of its government, and so to end.
     This borough, upon petition made by the citizens of London to Edward I., in the 1st year of his reign, was, for divers causes, by parliament granted to them for ever, yielding into the exchequer the feefirm of ten pounds by the year; which grant was confirmed by Edward III., who, in the 3rd of his reign, gave them license to take a toll towards the charge of paving the said borough with stone. Henry IV. confirmed the grant of his predecessors; so did Edward IV., &c.
     But in the year 1550 King Edward VI., for the sum of six hundred and forty-seven pounds two shillings and one penny, paid into his court of augmentations and revenues of his crown, granted to the mayor and commonalty all his lands and tenements in Southwark, except, and reserved, the capital messuage, two mansions, called Southwark Place, late the Duke of Suffolk's, and all the gardens and lands to the same appertaining, the park, and the messuage called the Antelope. Moreover, he gave them the lordship and manor of Southwark, with all members and rights thereof, late pertaining to the monastery of Bermondsey. And all messuages, places, buildings, rents, courts, waifs and strays to the same appertaining in the county of Surrey, except as is before excepted. He also granted unto them his manor and borough of Southwark, with all the members, rights, and appurtenances, late of the possession of the Archbishop of Canterbury and his see in Southwark. Moreover, for the sum of five hundred marks, he granted to the said mayor and commonalty, and their successors, in and through the borough and town of Southwark, and in all the parishes of St. Saviour, St. Olave, and St. George, and the parish of St. Thomas's Hospital, now called the King's Hospital, and elsewhere, in the said town and borough of Southwark, and Kentish Street, Bermondsey Street, in the parish of Newington, all waifs and strays, treasure-trove, all felons' goods, &c., within the parishes and precinct aforesaid, &c.; the return of writs, processes, and warrants, &c.; together with a fair in the whole town for three days, to wit, the 7th, 8th, and 9th of September, yearly, with a court of pye powders. A view of frank pledge, with attachments, arrests, &c. Also to arrest all felons and other malefactors within their precinct, and send them to ward and to Newgate. Provided that nothing in that grant should be prejudicial to the stewards and marshal of the king's house. The same premises to be holden of the manor of East Greenwich, in the county of Kent, by fealty in free forage. Dated at Westminster the 23rd of April, in the 4th of his reign. All which was also confirmed by parhament, &c. And the same year, in the Whitsun week, in a court of aldermen kept at the Guildhall of London, Sir John Aylophe, knight, was sworn the first alderman of Bridge Ward Without, and made up the number of twenty-six aldermen of London.
     This borough at a subsidy to the king yieldeth about one thousand marks, or eight hundred pounds, which is more than any one city in England payeth, except the city of London. And also the muster of men in this borough doth likewise in number surpass all other cities, except London. And thus much for the borough of Southwark, one of the twenty-six wards of London, which hath an alderman, deputies three, and a bailiff, common council none, constables sixteen, scavengers six, wardmote inquest twenty; and is taxed to the fifteen at seventeen pounds seventeen shillings and eightpence.

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