View of London from the SE as it might have looked before the Roman Invasion
Every Thursday (from 20th May 2021) at 6.30pm Exit 3 Bank Underground Station
Legend says that London was founded as New Troy. Historians believed it was founded as Londinium after the Bridge was built by the legionaries of the Emperor Claudius in AD 43. Archaeologists in the 1970s and 1980s discovered that London was refounded as Lundenwic in the 7th Century and again in the 9th Century when it was called Lundenburg.
This walk tells the epic tale of the uncovering of London’s past by Archaeologists. And provides an insight into the dramatic history of the Capital of Britannia, and how it survived revolts, fires, plagues, and reacted to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. It became the foremost English City but with periods under Viking and Norman control.
We tell the story in the streets of the City of London, beginning in the valley of the River Walbrook by the Temple of Mithras, and visit many sites where important archaeological discoveries were made, including the Roman Forum, Amphitheatre. Bath Houses, Temples, Roman roads and the City Walls.
We explore the origins of London. The walk is given alternately by Kevin Flude & Leo Heaton
In the East Riding of Yorkshire hiring fairs were held around this time. It was also called Pack-Rag Day as servants carried their clothes to their new place of work.
A hiring fair is how Gabriel Oak is hired by Batheseba Everdene in ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Harding. They were often also held at Michaelmas.
The frosty month of the French revolutionary calendar.
The rational calendar (which we will deal with later in another post) divided the year into 12 30 day months, plus 5 days for end of year festivities. Leap year every 4 years.
Weeks were 10 days long, 3 per month. Days were named first day, second day up to tenth day. There were ten hours in a day, 100 minutes per hour, and 100 seconds per minute. But this last part didn’t last very long, french people really objected to their day being mucked up.
Revolutionary period pocket watch
The Revolutionary Year was adopted in 1793 but began retrospectively from September 22nd, 1792 when the Republic was proclaimed.
My French correspondent tells me that, therefore, the First Republic started on: Le premier Vendémiaire de l’an 1.
was celebrated with bonfires and bell-ringing. In London lighted fire-barrels were rolled along Cheapside. It was, in a way, the precursor to Guy Fawkes Day. Protestants celebrated it with such joy as it was the end of the reign of her sister Queen Mary I who had over 250 Protestants burnt at the stake.
November 18th
Good time to make sausages as the slaughter of cattle before winter meant there was a lot of meat and guts around. (A Random Fact: it took 200,000 cattle guts to make gasbags for the Zeppelins that bombed London in World War 1.
November 19th
Night-fowling in season. Gervase Markham’s Hunger’s Prevention tells you to go to a stubble field when the air is mild and the moon not shining. Take a dolorous low bell, and net.
Spread the net over the stubble where there may be fowl, ring the bell, light fires of dry straw, and the fowl will fly and become entangled in the net.
November 20th – Feast of St Edmund of East Anglia.
He was killed with an arrow by Vikings in 869 and became a saint. Well, in fact he was tied to a tree, shot full of arrows and then beheaded. The head was found and still talking and he was, with St Edward the Confession, the saint of the monarchy. They could explain to St Peter why the King had to undertake actions which might be strictly against the Ten Commandments.
St Edmund Lombard Street (church at bottom left)
Also the day to grow garlic
Set garlic and beans, at St Edmund the King.
Garlic with soft cheese ‘stauncheth’ catarrh and so is good against hoarseness.
Nov 13th – Time to gather yarrow which is often still flowering. It was used for wounds, inflammations, hair lose, tooth-ache and good for those who cannot hold their water.
November 14th Firewood
Beechwood fires burn bright and clear If the logs be kept a year Oaken Logs if dry and old Keep away the winter’s cold Chestnut’s only good they say If for years ’tis laid away But ash-wood green or ash-wood brown Are fit for a King with a golden Crown Elm she burns like the churchyard mould Even the flames are cold Birch and pine-wood burn too fast Blaze too bright and do not last But ash wet of ash dry A Queen may warm her slippers by.
November 15th Exercise
Leaping is an exercise very commendable and healthful for the body.
This is a good case for a 16 month old (British Museum)
Now that I am a grandfather, and have taken my grandson to a couple of Museums I am, suddenly, an expert on the subject. My preliminary conclusions:
Museum toddler playgrounds could be a lot more imaginative. London Transport Museum basically has buses with buttons to push and steering wheels to turn. Its ok, but then not much better than you get in countless parks around London.. Surely, there should be more story telling and even a bit of wit to amuse the carers?
What is much better, in my grandson’s opinion, is designing the museum itself to cater for the toddlers. My one loved the British Museum, which has absolutely no provision for toddlers as far as I can see. But he loved it! Why?
He loved the space; the length of the rooms to run along; the height of the ceiling; the variety of cases and spaces, and key holes and handles and grids and lighting; the echoes and percussive effects he could produce by his hands or feet.
The floors he loved because the BM in some rooms has ventilation grills that run along a track along the length of the Room. He loved running along them. And was most engaged by the metal grills his feet found every couple of meters. They made a different sound as he ran along them. He ran along them, turned round and ran back and repeated the effort. I should point out he is only 16 months old so not running at a pace that annoys or endangers. In the Classical Galleries, the hard floor changed to carpet. He immediately lay down on it and enjoyed the texture enough to roll around on it, until he found the only visible bit of fluff on the well dyson’d carpet. He took the fluff to the next room, dropped it on the floor, and carefully picked it up. I think we got that bit of fluff from the Cyprus Gallery to the Portland Vase in the Roman and Greek Gallery. A testament to the BM’s cleaning staff.
Crucial to his enjoyment were cases that stretched down to the floor, or about a foot above the floor. He could look in and see the objects, and was often fascinated. In comparison the London Transport Museum’s cases were higher and he could not see in . He also loved any fitting he could touch or move on the cases. Even key holes interested him. The BM also has cases which have low ledges for labels beside cases. He loved to climb on these – although I had to stop him. But a museum could easily build in little cubby holes for kids to climb into and onto. And add little knobs, buttons, bells, declivities and raised areas at low level for kids to turn, press, poke, stroke and twist.
Touch was very important, and he liked to touch the glass of the cases, and there was a stone pillar, he was touching. I thought it was behind glass so did not stop him but when I got closer realised it was the surface of the stone he was repeatedly stroking. Of course I stopped him immediately, but it was a good reminder of the interest at this age in texture.
Sound was really interesting to him. And I know it would be horrifying to visits to have children all halloing the echoes but he did love it! Wooden infrastructure which was hollow offers lots of potential.
So, in conclusion. Make the Museum itself the playground. Use the playgrounds as part of the displays. Insist on floor length glass cases with knobs, bells, holes and textures integral to the design. Vary the floors, put markings on the floor for children to follow. Create little spaces every so often they can get into, climb on, explore.
London Archaeologist cover showing one of the over 400 neolithic sherds found at Shoreditch.
This is a really good introduction to the new finds in the Shorditch area, just to the north of Bishopsgate. Perhaps, the idea of a big ceremonial site is overmade. It is a very significant find.
The article also brings together bits of evidence building a picture of what might have been happening in the area before the Romans.
This was the second festival in the year dedicated to the three most important deities in the Roman pantheon. Jupiter the Sky God, God of Justice, God of Rome. His wife and sister, ‘Queen’ Juno protector of women. Minerva, Daughter of Jupiter. Goddess of Wisdom and Craft.
The main Temple was in Rome on the Capitoline Hill known as aedesIovis Optimi Maximi Capitolini (“Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest on the Capitoline”). Similar temples spread throughout the Roman world, normally with a triple cella (inner sanctum) to allow separation of worship.
In London a temple was discovered to the west of the first Forum (built AD 75). There is no clue as to its dedication but the Capitoline Cult has been suggested as well as for the Cult of the Emperor.
It was a holiday in Germany, France, Holland, England and in central Europe. People first went to Mass and observed the rest of the day with games, dances, parades, and a festive dinner, the main feature of the meal being the traditional roast goose (Martin’s goose). With the goose dinner they drank “Saint Martin’s wine,” which was the first lot of wine made from the grapes of the recent harvest. Martinmas was the festival commemorating filled barns and stocked larders.
It was also the time of year when lime plaster was renewed, because lime needs to be kept moist when renewed. It takes three to four days to form the calcite crystals that make it waterproof.
Martin of Tours was a soldier in the Roman Army who would not fight because of his Christian belief. When he met a beggar he cut in half his cloak and gave half to the beggar. He rose in the hierarchy of the Gallic Church and became Bishop of Tours. He is one of the very few early saints not to be martyred. He is the saint of soldiers, beggars and the oppressed. He stands for upholding your beliefs and helping those in need.
According to legend his barge on the River Loire was accompanied by flowers and birds and a late warm patch is called a St Martin Summer. It can also be called a Halloween Summer. Normally, though this is when it begins to feel really wintry.
Early 20th Century Image of Trafalgar Sq. St Martin’s is in top right hand corner
St Martin was very famous in London and there are two famous Churches dedicated to him with possible early origins. St Martin’s in the Fields, near Trafalgar Sq has been the site of excavations and finds which show a very early settlement there, with early sarcophagi. It is the one place where a convincing case can be made for continuity between the Roman and the Anglo-Saxon period. It is likely, or at least possible, that the Church was founded soon after St Martin’s death. A settlement grew up near it, and this expanded to become Lundenwic, the successor settlement to Londinium.
Old Print of London c1540 showing St Pauls, with St Martin’s by the wall to the left of the photo
St Martins Within, is just inside the Roman Gate at Ludgate, many early churches are found at or indeed above Gates, But this one has legendary links to burial places for King Lud, and for King Cadwallo, (Cadwallon ap Cadfan,) one of the last British Kings to have any chance of recovering Britain from the Anglo Saxons. He was said to have been buried here in a statue of a Bronze Horseman, and to protect London.
St Martin was also the saint of Travellers and this might explain the location of the Church near the gate. Although there is nothing but legendary ‘evidence’. It would make sense for an early church to be built near Ludgate, as St Pauls was founded in 604AD. Although the City might have been mostly empty, the presence of St Pauls means that Ludgate was most likely still in use or at least restored around this period.
St Martin was one of the most important in the Medieval Calendar of Saints. We will have a look at him tomorrow on his Saint’s Day.
But it is also Halloween or it would be if the Calendar had not been change in 1752. So for traditionalists this is the actual Halloween. It gives another chance to look into the future and to celebrate Halloween traditions.
If Martinmas ice will bear a duck Then look for a winter of slush and muck.
i.e. it will be a mild winter. From my experience this will only have any validity if used in the North.
Today is also for Kali, Indian destroyer of Evil, and also for the Fate, the Norns, the Furies, the Morrigan and Persephone.
Gervase Markham (1682) says ‘…feed them for the first week with Barley sodden till it breaks; then feed them with raw malt from the floor; then for a week after give them dry Peas or Beans to harden their flesh. Let their drink be the washings of Ale-barrels and Sweet Whey. This manner of feeding breeds the whitest, fastest, and best flesh that maybe….’
