This, however, was only in the later period of the Roman rule. When
they had subdued the Trinobantes, they found the capital of the
country, although a place of commercial importance, merely a scattered
collection of round huts with trackways in the midst, extending from
Tower Hill to the Fleet River and from the Thames to Cheapside and
Cornhill, defended on the north by earthworks, felled trees, and
a ditch; and in midst of these huts they erected more substantial
houses, with towers at the eastern and western extremities, and
probably a temple to Diana, where St. Paul's Cathedral now stands. The
northern outskirts, now Bishopsgate Street Within was appropriated
as a burial-place, as they never buried their dead in the midst of
the living; but in process of time the exigencies of the increasing
population demanded an extension of the City boundaries, and they
built over the old grave-yard, making a new cemetery on the site of
the modern Bishopsgate Street Without, Shoreditch, and the fenlands
lying eastward and westward of these. In 1576, when digging for clay
near where Christ Church, Spitalfields, now stands, a great number
of cinerary urns were found, containing burnt human remains, and
in each a piece of coin, wherewith to pay Charon for ferrying the
defunct across the Styx; also, as Stow says, "divers vials and other
old-fashioned glasses most cunningly wrought, such as I have not seen
the like of, all which had water in them, differing from spring water"
(_lachrymatories_), "cups and dishes of red earthenware and three
or four images of white earth, about a span long, one of Pallas."
Under the Camomile tesselated pavement, found in 1706, lay two feet
of rubbish, and beneath that several funeral urns. Stone and timber
coffins have also been found, or rather the nails of the latter, a
quarter of a yard long, the wood having perished, and a Roman vault in
St Botolph's Churchyard, all these, with skeletons or decayed bones in
them, indicating burial after Christianity had become the religion of
the empire, when the custom of burning the dead was abandoned.
The Saxons despised the effeminacy of decorated architecture and
luxurious appliances in the way of household furniture, hence when they
came into possession of London they allowed the sumptuous dwellings of
the Romans to fall into decay and crumble to dust, preferring their
own rough and uncomely habitations built of wood, but afterwards built
their churches, monasteries, and public buildings generally of stone,
and thus Roman London passed away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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