London (England) -- History; London (England) -- Social life and customs
The church and the various buildings which belonged to it in the reign
of Henry I. were surrounded by a wall. This wall included the whole area
now known as St. Paul's Church-yard, and as far as Paternoster Row on
the north side. There were six gates to the wall; the sites of two are
preserved in the names of St. Paul's Alley and Paul's Chain. The
Bishop's Palace was on the north-west corner; the chapter-house was on
the south side of the church; on the north was a charnel-house and a
chapel over it; close beside this was a small enclosure called Pardon
Church-yard, where a chapel was founded by Gilbert à Becket, the saint's
father. This enclosure was afterwards converted into a beautiful
cloister, painted with a Dance of Death, called the Dance of St.
Paul's. Close beside Pardon Church-yard was the chapel of Jesus,
serving for the parish church of St. Faith until the chapel was
destroyed, when the parish obtained the crypt for its church. St.
Faith's is now coupled with St. Augustine's.
[Illustration: CRYPT: REMAINS OF THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF ST.
MARTIN-LE-GRAND, N.E.]
Of the thirteen large conventual churches mentioned by Fitz Stephen, we
may draw up a tolerably complete list: St. Martin-le-Grand, St.
Katherine's by the Tower, St. Mary Overies, Holy Trinity Priory, St.
Bartholomew's Priory, St. Giles's Hospital, St. Mary of Bethlehem, the
priory of St. John of Jerusalem, the nunnery afterwards turned into
Elsing's Spital, the nunnery of St. John Baptist, Hollywell, the nunnery
of Clerkenwell, the new Temple in Fleet Street, and the old Temple in
Holborn, perhaps make up the thirteen. I cannot believe that Fitz
Stephen could have included either Barking Abbey or Merton Abbey in his
list.
The most ancient monastic foundation, next to that of St. Paul's, was
St. Martin's House or College. Why St. Martin was so popular in this
country, which had so many saints of her own, is not easily
intelligible. Perhaps the story of the partition of the cloak at the
gate of Amiens, while the saint was still a soldier, struck the
imagination of the people. Certainly the saint's austerities at Ligujé
would not attract the world. In London alone there were the church of
St. Martin's, Ludgate Hill, said to have been founded in very early
Saxon times, that of St. Martin's Outwich, of St. Martin Orgar, St.
Martin Pomary, and St. Martin Vintry--five parish churches to attest his
sanctity and his popularity.
St. Martin-le-Grand, sanctuary and collegiate church, was a Liberty to
itself. Here criminals found safety and could not be arrested, a
privilege which lasted long after the dissolution of the religious
houses. Among the deans of St. Martin's was William of Wykeham.
One church only of the whole thirteen still stands. Part of the present
church of St. Bartholomew the Great is that actually built by Rahere,
the first founder, in the beginning of the twelfth century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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