_The Danes and their Quarter._--London Bridge was not only a roadway over the river: it was a fortification linking the walled city to the South-work and barring progress up the river. The _Knytlinga Saga_ refers to this when it says: "King Cnut went with all his host to Tempsa (the Thames). In the river was built a large castle, so that a ship-host might not go up the river." It was natural that a suburb should spring up under the shelter of the bridge along the Strand, which is probably a Roman way. [Illustration: FIG. 26.--DANISH SWORD FROM THE THAMES.] In Fabyan's Chronicle is the following curious passage referring to the reign of Ethelred: "In the third year [982] a great part of the city was wasted by fire. But you shall understand that the city of London had most building from Ludgate towards Westminster, and little or none where the heart of the city is now, except in divers places was housing, but without order, so that many cities in England passed London in building, as I have known by an old book sometime at Guildhall named Domysdaye." From another passage quoted below (p. 189) it would appear that this book was about the age of the great Domesday (1087). FitzStephen also tells us that the Palace of Westminster was joined to the city by a _populous suburb_. In early thirteenth-century documents the Strand is sometimes called _Vico Dacorum_. The church still called St. Clement Danes certainly, as we shall see, dates from before the Conquest, and in some special way was the church of the Danes. The early existence of this western suburb would explain satisfactorily the name of Westminster, and possibly its origin. We first hear of the Abbey, independently of its own documents, towards the end of the tenth century, when in 997 Elfwic signs a charter as abbot of Westminster.[119] It is probable that Cnut was the first to choose Westminster for a royal residence, and Harold I. was buried here. All these facts go to show that the Strand in Cnut's day had become the Danish quarter. And London itself had become so Danish that Malmesbury says Harold I. was elected by the Danes and the citizens of London, who from long intercourse with these barbarians had almost entirely adopted their customs. An account in the _Jomsvikinga Saga_, however inaccurate in detail, contains some interesting allusions to the Danes in London.