By about 500, Londinium was a shadow of its former self. Cut off from the rest of Britain and the continent, economically and probably culturally moribund, militarily defenseless, certainly depopulated, possibly deserted. London had for the first and only time in its history, lost its reason for existence. Yet there was one exception to that, the church. The Christian church had survived the fall of the western Roman Empire, and continued to exist, if not exactly flourish, in cities and monasteries.

By 597, pope Gregory I sent St. Augustus to Britain in order to begin a process of reviving Christianity, by converting the Anglo-Saxons. One of his big ticket successes was Aethelbert, king of the Saxons in Kent, whose capital was Canterbury. To demonstrate his faith, Aethelbert established London's first cathedral, built of wood and dedicated to St. Paul, beginning in 604. There has been a St. Paul's cathedral on this site ever since.

By the 8th century, London was a Christian city, though as late as 1000 there were only four parishes. Yet by 1200, there were some 127 churches built within the square mile walls, which gave a verticality to the previous horizontal aspects of the city with the river, bridge, and walls.

Why so many churches? It wasn't that Londoners were particularly religious, or that the general population was so large. it was rather, that wealthy patrons would endow the churches in order to save themselves from long sentences in purgatory. In fact, because of this fear of purgatory, the church ended up owning much of medieval London, since kings and commoners made frequent bequests and endowments.

This was in fact only partly because of the link between theology, salvation, and good works. It's true that lots of wealthy people were having to leave their money to some worthy church foundation whose workers would pray for their souls. Yet it's also because the church, and not to non-existent state, was the main provider of what we would now call the social services; schools, hospitals, alms houses.

For example, leprosy was a big problem at the end of the Anglo-Saxon period. So leprosy hospitals were endowed wet of the city wall, at St. Giles in the fields, and at St. James'. Yet by 1346, lepers were banned from London, so that from this point on, the leper hospitals were mostly used for victims of syphilis.

As their interest in church building implies, the Anglo-Saxons gradually began to settle down and become farmers, even city dwellers, by the 6th and 7th centuries. The first ever Anglo-Saxon settlement in London, comes from the late 6th century, and the reason was almost certainly economic.

Farmers, growing more food than they ate, needed markets. London's location made it convenient for shipping grain along the river, or up what was left of the road system. So London is now a crossroads again. As some tribes began to conquer the farmland of others, a series of great regional kings emerged in East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Murcia, North Umberland, Sussex, and Wessex, in what later historians called the heptarchy.

Now the kings of Essex in the SE, were subservient to those of Kent. They found London a convenient administrative center, which also implied some military significance. The fact that Murcia and Wessex also had borders near London, made it a central location, so gradually London began to re-erect the pillars of its former greatness.

Between 600-800, part of London began to revive. The Venerable Bede called it, "a marketplace for many people who came by land and sea." Indeed, the town took on a new name, Londonwic, the "wic" being Old English for a trading town. Gold coins reappear by about 640, and a national and even international trading system reemerged. Trade included raw materials like tin, mined in west of Angleland (England), and wool, which were shipped out to the north and to Europe. Also England was a major supplier of slaves. Finished goods like wine and metal goods were imported.

Now this all amounts to a more or less trading economy. England and its largest city were to the emergence of new states in Europe. Perhaps the pillar of London's past that took the longest time to re-erect, was that of government. Between 600-900 the dominant Anglo-Saxon kingdom was never based in the SE. North Umberland in the far north of England was the most powerful monarchy. By the 7th century it was Murcia, and in the 8th it was the Midlands.

Yet by the 9th century, it was the kings of Wessex, based in the SW, just up the Thames Valley from London, who became the dominant power among the Anglo-Saxons. Now London was always on the border of some of these kingdoms, yet was never in the middle, so it was not a natural capital. Basing their capital at Winchester, the Wessex line, most notably king Alfred or Alfred the Great, who reigned from 871-899, and his descendants, would eventually unite all of Angleland into something like what we today know as England.

Yet they faced two obstacles, one internal and one external. In attempting to do so, the first obstacle was London itself. The city already had an independent streak, and resisted incorporation into a Wessex England, preferring at first to remain something of an independent city-state.

The second obstacle was far greater, for just as the Anglo-Saxon monarchy began to try and consolidate their gains, England began to face the terrible scourge of the Vikings. These were a group of warrior tribes, whose values and institutions were not unlike those of the Anglo-Saxons in the earlier period.

Though based in Scandinavia during the the period of 700-1100, they became a menace to all of Europe. They rode their longboats down European rivers, across the North Sea and beyond, to attack any human settlement, city, monastery, camp, or village, with predictable plunder.

Naturally an increasingly prosperous Anglo-Saxon London, sitting on a river, was a very tasty target. The short-term result of the Viking interest in London, was nothing short of disaster. We have only fragmentary accounts of what was happening in London. Its occasional notice in sources like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, were as suggestive as they were cryptic. By 839 the person who kept the Chronicle, reported, "a great slaughter in London." That's all they wrote!

By 851, London was taken by storm, led off an on by Viking kings, to 886. Evidence of this period of Viking domination can be found even today in a few London place names, especially churches, interestingly enough. St. Clement Danes on the Strand, or 5 different St. Olaf's, which is no accident.

The Vikings also brought their governmental traditions, as they established something called the folk-moot, an open-air court of all citizens that met on the high ground east of St. Pauls by the 11th century, about 3 times per year. The idea was that it would maintain order. Yet note again that example of democracy in London. So the Vikings contributed to this tradition as well.

The Viking raids were in fact good in the long run for both the Wessex kings and the largest city. First, they forced these kings to develop institutions, for example the fyrd, a militia. Also a regular tax called the Danegeld, with the infrastructure to collect it. This would prove indispensable as they raised money to push the Vikings back, and solidify their rule in England.

Alfred and his successors eventually realized that they needed an administrative center with easy communications to the rest of the country, as well as to Europe. This made London more attractive. They also needed funds to maintain the war effort. Here, London's wealth, taxable and lendable, which was crucial.

As for Londoners themselves, they realized that they needed the protection that powerful kings could afford. By 886, Alfred liberated London from the Vikings. According to the Chronicler, this was the first time he was fully acknowledged as the English king, thus beginning a pattern. To be king of England, you needed to hold London.

For the first time sine Roman rule, London was now integrated into a larger governed entity. Alfred's strength was in the city's fortifications and infrastructure. He cared about London and understood its significance. He established a new street pattern, not based on the old Roman one. He built keys at the waters edge at Queenhithe, Billingsgate, and Dowgate. We'll talk more about these gates in a later lecture.

In Anglo-Saxon government, city merchants had to register their transactions with a government official called the king's Reeve in a great hall, in order to formulate their taxation. One of the reasons Alfred is supporting the building these docks in London, among other things, is that he wants the tax money.

Alfred's successors grant London special privileges, such as the right to hold a husting or assembly which usually met three times a week. There's that democratic influence again. Whenever London wants something, it's usually more democracy or freedom.

It was also under the Anglo-Saxon kings that the city was divided into wards, each headed by an alderman. Though the capital remained at Winchester, London became ever more important to running of the country. In fact, as England continued to face Viking invasions into the 10th and 11th centuries, as London went, also did the nation. If London resisted successfully, as it did in 994, the invasion failed. According to one Chronicler, the Danes and Norwegians:

"suffered more harm and injury than even they thought any citizen would do to them."

If London capitulated, as it did to Sweyn in 1013 and Canute in 1016, the country submitted to the Viking invaders. In fact, London turned this to their advantage, claiming that they had the right to name the king of England, after all, you can't be king of England unless we approve!

It was at the end of the Anglo-Saxon periuod, that the Wessex dynasty took steps to give London more of a function of a capital. The last Wessex king, Edward the Confessor r.1042-1066, was famously pious. With a name like that, what else could he be? He was more interested in religion than the usual marshal attitudes of kings.

Beginning in 1045, he founded a major abbey to the west of the city, at Thorn Ey, or Thorn Island. This complex was a senorial manor that was nominally run by the abbot of the abbey of St. Peter, which we know of today as Westminster Abbey. Westminster would remain under the abbots control until the dissolution of the monasteries under the Tudors between 1536 and 1539. It would remain a separate governmental entity for London proper under the Lord Mayor until the 19th century. That is to say, Westminster is technically a separate city from London, all through the medieval and early modern period.

Now as the king spent time there, it would also increasingly become the center of national government, as well as the site for subsequent coronations, and for most of the burials of Edward's successors. So by the time of Edward's death in 1066, London was once again the greatest trading city and religious center in England, as well as sharing with Westminster many of the forms of government.

Above all, and as the year would show, it was the military key to the country at large, for once again, as London went, so England went. The death of the childless Edward the Confessor on the 5th of January in 1066, produced a succession crisis that would in turn put an end to the Anglo-Saxon rule in England.

Three men, the Anglo-Saxon Harold Godwinson, the Norwegian Viking Harold Hadrada, and the Norman William Duke of Normandy, all held viable claims to the throne of England. Godwinson however, was the claimant on home ground, so he got himself acknowledged as king Harold II in London, immediately upon Edward's death. So the home rule holds. He then rallied the Anglo-Saxon peerage against Hadrada, marching to the north to meet the invasion. They defeated the Norsemen at the Battle of Stanford Bridge in Yorkshire, on the 25th of September, 1066.

Yet just as he's celebrating his victory, he learns that William is mounting an invasion as the SE coast. So Harold then turns around and leads his troops in an exhausting 270 miles march south, to meet William's invading Norman army at Hastings in Sussex. It is generally accepted that William the Conqueror verified that title and wins the England crown when his army killed Harold and his forces at the Battle of Hastings on the 10th of October, 1066.

The trouble is, like most time in English history, this turns out to be wrong. As it turns out, killing the previous king and defeating the last remaining opposing force in England, isn't enough, since William needed London. The surviving Anglo-Saxon leaders, rallied to get another claimant, Edgar, who fled to London to organize resistance. William, needing to convince the city's leaders that he meant business, spent the remainder of the autumn in 1066, burning the crops and laying waste to a wide swath about 100 miles in diameter, with London at its center.

Then he marched on the city itself, up from the south. He was halted temporarily at the Southwark end of the London bridge, so in retaliation, he simply burned Southward to the ground. Now you've got to imagine being a bishop, an earl, or a citizen of London. You're standing on the north bank, looking across the river, and Southwark is in flames. They got the message!

Suspecting that they were next, they opened the gates to William the Conqueror. One again, as London goes, so goes the nation. William was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day in 1066, though not, as we'll see in lecture 5, without incident. William the Conqueror introduced a new Norman ruling class, who displaced the old Anglo-Saxon elite in office, title, lands, and wealth.

Naturally, he didn't trust his Anglo-Saxon subjects, so started building castles on the north bank of the Thames, including Baynard's castle, and more famously, the Tower of London, originally called the White Tower, at its eastern anchor point in the river. Now the imposing fortress could rake the entrance to the port of London with longbow, and eventually with crossbow, and in a later age with gunfire. Its strategic location meant it could safeguard the city from outside invaders, and keep watch on its own potentially unruly inhabitants.

Now over the course of the next milennium, the tower would act as a fortress, a royal palace, and a notorious prison for the most prominent accused traitors and rebels. It could also act as a refuge when the king had offended the citizenry of his own capital.

Yet maybe its greatest effect was psychological. The Tower of London was for sometime the tallest structure in the city. When viewed from the south bank, it formed one of the two bookends along with the Westminster complex to the west,framing St. Paul's Cathedral at center. if the other two caused Londoners to fear God, the Tower of London caused them to fear the king. Just in case, William the Conqueror built another famous castle at Windsor, set 25 miles to the west, in order to reinforce the effect of the first one.

The other major change the Norman kings brought to London, was to make it, or rather Westminster, the capital. This made sense because of its great wealth, since kings needed to be able to confer regularly with wealthy merchants, and also because of its proximity to Europe. Remember that the Normans are still the dukes of Normandy, so they and subsequent English kings would maintain extensive holdings in France, which they consider every bit as much a part of the realm as St. Kent in Devonshire. London's location on the Thames makes it a convenient place from which to come and go between the two halves of the possessions. Much more convenient that, say, Winchester.

now anyone with any acquaintance with the political history of medieval England, knows that William and his successors needed all these castles. The period from 1066-1485 was one of intermittent conflict between the king and his barons, interrupted by brief periods of stability. Thought to be pert, London was a big player because of its strategic location, wealth, and prestige.

Precisely because London couldn't tip the balance in favor of either an incumbent king or a traitorous usurper, both sides wooed it, which put London in an enviable position, when it wasn't being plundered. Generally, when kings were strong and successful, during the reigns of, for example:

William the Conqueror 1066-1087
William II 1087-1100
Henry I 1100-1135
Henry II 1154-1189
Edward I 1272-1307
Edward III 1327-1377
Henry V 1413-1422
Edward IV 1461-1483

So during these strong reigns, the city was more than happy to lend money and support, providing troops, huge tax revenues, and often loans. By the way, early in medieval London history, those loans were provided by Jewish bankers. Yet after their expulsion by the end of the 13th century, they were Italian bankers.

When the king was weak:

Stephen 1135-1154
John 1199-1216

By the way, you know a weak king when there is no successor. There was no Stephen II or John II, sort of like the movies!

Henry III 1216-1272
Edward II 1307-1327
Richard II 1377-1388
Henry IV 1422-1461

So during these weak reigns, their rule was subjected to questioning by powerful barons. London asserted its independence and sometimes refused to grant money unless the king made concessions, refusing money outright, or even opening its gates to traitors.

It did so to the rebel Jack Cade in 1450, and to Edward Earl of York in 1461, yet shut London Bridge to Wyatt and his rebels in 1554l As this implies, London could be amazingly fickle. York became king of England in 1461, yet when Cade was defeated, his head was mounted on London Bridge to overlook the very passage he had ridden in triumph.

To win municipal support, medieval kings would grant powerful concessions, usually be means of a charter under the great seal of England. These charters would spell out that such and such a place was a city, and that it could do certain things. For example, probably Henry I, possibly his nephew Stephen I, granted London a charter which in turn granted the right to elect two sheriffs, who mainly collected taxes, the right to have its own courts, the right to fix the total city tax burden at no more than 300 pounds (now that's a good one), the right to trade and be free of taxes and tolls, and not to pay the Danegeld or have billeted troops in the city.

An even better example of the matter, is provided by the reign of the famously bad medieval king, at least in posterity, John I r.1199-1216. He served as regent for his brother Richard the Lionhearted, before coming to the crown by 1199. During this period, to win London support for a possible succession bid, he used his power as regent to grant London a charter guaranteeing the right to, once again, govern itself. It was also during this reign, that London was divided into 24 wards.

After Richard's death in 1199, John did succeed him, despite the inconvenient entrance of another claimant, his nephew by an elder brother, Arthur of Brittany. Now John tried to distract his subjects from this dubious claimant by launching a military campaign against the old enemy, France. Yet these campaign meant high taxes and city loans. Once again, John would grease the wheels by expanding London's rights.

So in 1215 he granted its alderman the right to elect one of their numbers as mayor, annually, usually in October. Now Londoners would run with this, and prettysoon they started calling the mayor the Lord Mayor, as a sign of their independence. Give Londoners an inch, and they'll take much more.

Still, king John's wars disrupted trade, increased taxes, and worst of all, they were unsuccessful. He lost them, and returned in 1215, defeated and discredited, having offended his nobles, the church, towns, and virtually every other group that mattered in England. Despite his attempt to win over the city, London opened its gates to the rebels.

That crucial act, gave them the base from which to extract from John, the Magna Carta in June of that year at Runnymede Meadows, just a few miles outside of town. The Magna Carta, or great charter, guaranteed the rights of barons, the church, towns, royal wards, persons accused of crimes, property holders, and many other groups.

As you probably know, it represents one of the first attempts in classical western history, to limit the power of rulers. It's often thought of as the foundation for later centuries of rights by the English people and others, like Americans. Once again, London's support was a crucial piece, and as the city went, so the nation went. In this case, so went civilization itself. So if you like the fact that the president can't just declare higher taxes, if you like the right of habeas corpus or trial by jury, thanks London.

Subsequent kings tried to revoke the privileges granted by John. His son Henry III rescinded the alderman's claim for mayor ten times between 1239-1257, yet London refused to grant higher taxes in 1255. They would not support what they already considered to be high taxes. They were also upset at Henry's favor of French merchants over English ones, and his establishing two fairs at Westminster in 1245, which of course took business away from the city. We have to remember that in 1245, Westminster, apart from the Abbey and palace, was pretty much open fields.

By 1261, sensing he was losing the city to the rebel Simon de Montfort, Henry barricaded himself in the tower, and summoned parliament, but nobody came. By 1263, Queen Eleanor tried to escape the tower by river, but was cannonaded with garbage from London Bridge. In the related rioting, Lord Mayor Fitzgerald put himself at the head of the mob. So much for trying to tame London!

For the next 2 years, London gave Montfort support, and by December of 1263 he opened the gates to his army. Yet by 1265, Henry won back control after defeating Montfort at the Battle of Evesham. He retaliated on Londoners by suspending the privileges of the city for 2 years. He posed heavy fines on his citizens, and granted Queen Eleanor the revenues of the merchants, on London Bridge! London long remembered the consequences of choosing the wrong side.

Henry's son, Edward I, that's the Edward Longshanks of Braveheart fame, ruled the city directly between 1284-1297. Yet even he was eventually forced to relent. Still, Edward's strength in the tower of London, adding an outer wall, since he wasn't going to take any chances, not trusting London. He favored the alien merchants and Italian bankers who could lend him lots of money for his many military campaigns.

He also seemed to have tried to build a party in London, as he broke the ruling oligarchy of families who had served as aldermen. He opened the alderman's position to fishmongers, coopers, and skinners, who up to this point had never really had a look in.

By 1275, he introduced the first regular customs duties on exports of wool and leather. Customs were soon to be the most valuable taxes in the royal portfolio. He also established wool markets for staples in Dordrecht, Brabant, Malines (Mechelen), and Antwerp. St. Omer would follow by 1313, and Calais by 1263.

Now on the one hand, this is all good for London, and for the wool trade. Yet it also increased the tax revenues and customs revenues, so don't think that Edward was doing this out of the goodness of his own heart. The city's problems were only reconfirmed in the next reign, so by 1326, Roger Mortimer rebelled against the incompetent Edward II, the son of Edward I. Mortimer seized the tower, freed its prisoners, giving the keys to the citizens of London. He then used the London mob to intimidate parliament to demand the removal of the king, which happened by 1327.

Since London played such a decisive role in the success or failure of a rebellion, the king had more to lose than London did. Subsequently when he kept London's loyalty, he kept his crown. For example, under Richard II in 1481, at the time the king was merely a teenager. He's facing the Peasant's Revolt, which began over a number of policies that the serfs on noble's lands generally didn't like.

The crucial moment of the revolt took place when the king and Lord Mayor of London, rode out to meet its leader, Watt Tyler. Suddenly, the Lord Mayor grabs Tyler, knocks him off his horse and stabs him. That moment of loyalty ended the Peasant's Revolt. Yet in 1399, London turned on Richard and supported his disposition by Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster. You can't necessarily count on London's loyalty.

During the Wars of the Roses 1456-1485, London tended to support whichever regime, Lancaster or Yorkist, was in power, or had an up on the battlefield. The Lord Mayor and Alderman were not stupid! Yet by 1461 they do something odd. London closed its gates to the ruthless leader of the Lancastrians, Queen Margaret of Anjou, despite her recent victory at Wakefield. Instead, they open their gates to the seemingly defeated Yorkist, who became king Henry IV.

A quarter century later, after the Lancastrian Richard III lost his crown in Bosworth field, London welcomed Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. What's Robert's point? London usually picks winners! Both moves proved shrewd, since both Edward IV and Henry VII were strong, practical, efficient monarchs who ruled effectively and frugally. Their respective peace policies meant lower taxes, fewer loans, and healthier trade for London.

Indeed, both Edward IV and Henry VII worked out favorable trade agreements with France and other continental powers,which again benefited London. In doing so, both consulted London merchants and government officials on financial matters. If the love affair with the Yorkists proved fleeting, that of the Tudors lasted to the end of the line, as we'll see in a future lecture.

So, by say 1500, as the middle ages ended, London had resumed its position of primacy over the cities of the British Isles, England in particular. It was once again the capital and seat of government, the most important port and economic hub, the military keystone of the country, and a major religious center.

Well that's the official London, indeed the official history. Yet what was it like/ What did it feel like to live in London? What were the streets like? What did it smell like? What sounds would you hear? What sights would you have seen? In the next lecture, we'll walk the streets of medieval London and meet some of its most interesting characters.