-->
London Walks pen & Daily Constitutional Special Correspondent David writes…
It’s over half a millennium of London’s history, thirty percent of the total – and yet most people are completely at, er, sea with it.
It’s the dark ages.
Everybody knows about the Romans. And the Normans and Plantagenets
and Tudors and so on.
But the Anglo-Saxons? They’re just not there.
But they are here.
Here because so
much of our London is erected on Anglo-Saxon foundations. The Anglo-Saxons are
the skull beneath the face so to speak.
Much of London’s street pattern, for example. Its social and
local organisational structures – wards, parishes, etc.
Even the guilds – their DNA is Anglo-Saxon. Take the word
weregild, for example.
Don’t know what it means, do you? Except you do. Because you
know what a werewolf is. A man-wolf. So were means man. And gild? Well, it’s
cognate with gold and gild and gilded and guild. It meant worth or price.
Weregild. Manprice.
Went back to the Anglo-Saxon justice system. Everybody –
man, woman and child – had a weregild. The king’s was the highest. A slave’s
the lowest. And it was adjustable. An 18-year-old had a higher weregild than an
eight year old.
If grievous – seriously grievous – bodily harm was done – if
one Anglo-Saxon killed another Anglo-Saxon, the assailant had to pay the
victim’s family the weregild of the victim. It was a bid to nip in the bud any
developing McCoy-Hatfield feuds. I kill him. His brother kills me. My brother
kills his brother. And on it goes.
Weregild. But there, in essence, you have social cooperation
and justice and value and price and commodity valuation. That’s the mediaeval
guilds in embryo. And on from that right down to our London.
Now what’s this have to do with the naughty boys in the long
ships?
They’re Vikings of course. The most terrifying warriors in
the world – well, in this part of the world, anyway – for hundreds of years.
They came across the North Sea, down the Channel, up the Thames. They’d anchor
at Greenwich Reach. And wait for the tide to turn. And then when it did they’d
come down on (well, up on) London like the wolf on the fold. Imagine being out
for a walk beside the river on an autumn day and seeing a couple of hundred of
those vessels powering up your river. That’s the most terrifying sight you’ll
ever see. And it’ll be close enough to the last thing you’ll ever see. Because
in a matter of minutes they’re going to be ashore. Going to kill you. After
they’ve raped you, if you’re a woman.
The Vikings weren’t just ferocious warriors. They were also
far and away the best sea-farers of the age. Their long ships were things of
terrifying beauty. So skilfully built and sailed they’d all but come right up
out of the water – skim along the surface. They came so fast they’d be on you –
you’d smell them – almost before you saw them.
The London they came to was the London of our Covent Garden
and the Strand. It was called Lundenwich. Wich or wych means harbour or port or
market. The foreshore there was a long, gently sloping affair. A perfect place
for the Anglo-Saxons – who in any case weren’t city dwellers – to hold a river
market. It was easy for them to drag their flat bottomed vessels up that gently
sloping foreshore.
And easy for the Vikings to ram their long ships ashore,
jump out, rape, pillage, plunder, murder.
Finally, in the 9th century, Alfred the Great –
the only English monarch to have that appellation – said, “do we really need to
play host to these visitors from Stockholm every 20 years?” (That’s a very
rough paraphrase but you get the idea.)
In any case it was a rhetorical question. He asked it. And
he answered it. Answered it with a resounding “no.”
And thereupon took the decision to relocate London. To move Lundenwich
from the Strand-Covent Garden area downstream to the site of the old Roman city,
Londinium.
Relocate it and rename it: Lundenburgh. Lundenburgh means:
fortified London.
Remember, the Romans had built a wall around London. And
they’d built it on hills – two hills, Cornhill and Ludhill – because a hill is
a militarily defensible proposition. And there was a river to the west – the
Fleet river. That provided a natural defensive barrier to the west – just as
the Thames did to the south – and into the bargain a harbour. There was a small
stream to the east. No more than a stream, but it was a barrier of sorts. And
to the north was ground that was marshy, it came to be known as moorfields.
That too had defensive characteristics. It’s difficult to march an attacking
army through a swamp. Finally, the Thames in Londinium – in marked contrast to
Lundenwich – had steep, vertical banks. Steep vertical banks that amounted to a
wall. Difficult – more than
difficult, impossible – to ram a long ship ashore.
There’s one other feature that was equally important but is
very little known. The rule of thumb with rivers is they get narrower the
further upstream you go. That wasn’t true at Londinium (or Lundenburg) though.
The Thames had a kind of waist there. It was narrower there than it was further
upstream. That waist provided a natural choke point on the main invasion route
– the river. Fortify both sides and you could choke off an invasion. And what’s
the ancient name of the district directly across the river from The City, from Lundenburg?
The Borough. Borough…Burg (or Burgh)…Londonburg. Same
word. Fortified place.
So London, which had migrated upstream to the Covent Garden district
was back where the Romans had originally founded it.
And those guys in the long ships were the reason.
That’s why in my teaser – the Tweet I sent out about this
post a couple of days ago – I said, “Our London just ahead. These guys ‘made
it.’ Extraordinary to think. Piece coming up this weekend on our blog that
explains how so.”
I meant, “yeah, they’re just a few
miles from London – and they’ve ‘made it’ all the way from Norway and Sweden.”
But “our London just ahead” also meant our London “stems from” this event. Or
series of events. The Vikings “made it” by forcing Alfred’s hand. Forcing him
to relocate London.
Here endeth the history lesson.
A London Walk costs £10 – £8 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.










No comments:
Post a comment