et quibusdam aliis_,’ for there are the representations of animals and
birds, field-sports, games, legends, martyrdoms, battles, and fables,
of an almost infinite variety; and in the course of them occur the
figures of a water-quintain, both as it is described by Fitzstephen,
and also of a more warlike character. The first of these was engraved
by Strutt in the work which I have before referred to, and gives a very
perfect idea of the RIVER TILTING OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY,
[Illustration]
which the illuminator had, no doubt, personally witnessed in his own
time. The other, which has also been engraven in the same work, page
113, plate xv. shews two armed knights getting ‘grysly together,’ as
the ‘_Morte d’Arthur_’ calls it, in boats;
[Illustration]
and you will find it under the 60th Psalm, ‘_Dominus repulisti nos_,’
&c.
“Stow, in his ‘_Survey_,’ volume i. page 301, mentions a very rude
imitation of this kind of jousting on the water at London; when he
says, ‘I have seen also in the summer season, upon the River of
Thames, some rowed in wherries, with staves in their hands, flat at
the fore-end, running one against another, and, for the most part,
one or both of them were overthrown and well ducked.’ In Queen Mary’s
Manuscript, under the psalm of ‘_Misericordiam et judicium cantabo_,’
is also a representation of two fiends hurling a Monk from a rude stone
Bridge; but as I rather think that did not occur at London, I mention
it no farther.
“But now, to return to our subject:--Stow relates the particulars of
the great fire of 1135-36, at page 58 of his ‘_Survey_,’ citing in
the margin the ‘_Annals of Bermondsey_,’ and the ‘_Book of Trinity
Priory_,’ as his authorities. The latter of these is, perhaps, now no
more; but in the former you may find the conflagration mentioned at
page 13 b, where it is said to have happened in the year 1135, and
to have extended to the Church of St. Clement Danes. It was probably
in the Register of Trinity Priory, that Stow found a notice that
London Bridge was not only repaired, but a new one erected of elm
timber, in 1163, by the most excellent Peter of Colechurch, Priest and
Chaplain; since I find it in none of the historians with whom I am
acquainted. It is, however, much better authenticated that the same
pious architect began his labours upon the first stone one in 1176;
for, in the ‘_Annals of Waverley_,’ at page 161, you find the following
entry.--‘1176. In this year, the Stone Bridge at London is begun by
Peter, the Chaplain of Colechurch.’ Here, therefore, ends the history
of the infancy of London Bridge: and a very chargeful infancy it was,
for, as old Stow says, ‘it was maintained partly by the proper lands
thereof, partly by the liberality of divers persons, and partly by
taxations in divers shires, as I have proved, for the space of 215
years,’--And now, Mr. Geoffrey Barbican, your very good health.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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