Chapter VI: Part 6

Again, Conyers says the labourers under part of the place where St. Paul’s Cross stood, 25 ft. or 30 ft. deep, as the earth ceased to be black and came to the yellow sand, found earthen potsherds as red and fine as sealing-wax, and upon some inscriptions, “_De Ovimini_,” “_De Parici_,” “_De Quintimani_,” “_Victor_,” “_Janus Ricino_.” [These were Samian, but he goes on to describe very accurately native pottery.] “And pots like broken urns, which were curiously laid on the outside with like thornpricks of rose trees, in the manner of raised work. Other were of cinnamon colour, urn fashion, and as if gilded with gold but faded. Some of strange fashion, jugs bent in so as to be six-square, raised work upon them pricked as curious raisers of paste may imitate; some like black earth for pudding pans, on ye outside indented and crossed quincunx fashion. They had some odd colours (not blue) in these times and a way of glazing different to what now; the red earth bare away the bell.”

“Now, besides red pots,” says Conyers, “such as have inscriptions in the bottoms [_i.e._ Samian], there were black pots with inscriptions and part of white earth and the glazing black, and both these might be made in ye places, as well as a gilded sort of earthenware. There was a brownish sort inclining to yellow, and the gilding easily coming off. Now, whether this was a thin wash of gold colour or foliated, I know not, yet I think foliated [really mica]. Other pots and urns of a whitish yellow and a soft kind of earth and shells strewed at the bottom inside. Now, other pots as thin as glass with raised work, and these as of a silvered or bell-metal coloured glazing. The imagery, hounds, hares, stags, thorns, trees and branching, flourishings—all raised work. Then I have lamps of gilded British-work [local] and coarse whitish-yellow colours, and bottles and pots for dropping, of the same colours.” In one of his repetitions, Conyers mentions “great potsherds and ears of six-gallon pots.” He also gives sketches of many of the vessels. Doubtless those drawn were in most cases whole vessels and they are of the coarser wares, other than Samian. It is probable, therefore, that they were pottery made on the spot. Dr. Harwood, describing the excavations in the site of St. Mary Woolnoth in 1724, says that “Roman foundations were found made of offal of brick kilns and furnaces” (_Soc. Antiq. Minutes_).

It would be an easy thing to identify in our collections vessels which conform to the types sketched by Conyers and then to form a group of actual pots which presumably were made in London. This coarse and ordinary ware is usually classed as “Roman,” but it was in a large degree a Celtic inheritance. The black wares of “carinated” profile (Figs. 135 and 136) and more or less “cordonned” decorations are very like Marne pottery of the Celtic period. It seems quite likely that the potteries of Londinium may have existed before the Roman Conquest.

FIG. 135.
]

FIG. 136.
]

FIG. 137.
]

Many of the decorated pots in our museums are so clearly described by Conyers that they, too, can be identified. It is evident, for instance, that Castor-ware vessels with hunting scenes in slip were as well represented in the finds as they are in our museums to-day. Hunting itself must have been much in the people’s minds, with chariot races and the gladiator “matches.”

FIG. 138.
]

Sporting subjects, such as are mentioned by Conyers, are plentifully represented in our museums. In Fairholt’s sketch-book I find a drawing of a pot found in Cateaton Street (Fig. 137). There is also a sketch of a fragment of a similar urn found at Chesterford (Fig. 138). Compare the sculpture, Fig. 62. The piece engraved in Wright’s book as an example of a British hunting dog was also from a sketch by Fairholt of a London fragment. He also drew a piece found in Bishopsgate Street, which shows the heads of four horses, one over the other. This is explained by a complete pot at the British Museum, from Colchester, which has reliefs of racing chariots as mentioned before (p. 51). On another Colchester vase are Gladiators with their names scratched above. The eagle (Fig. 139) is from a fragment at Silchester.

FIG. 139.
]

FIG. 140.
]

After having identified the pottery actually made in London, and the other native sources from which other wares were brought, we might go on to determine how far this native pottery is Celtic and how far Roman. Fig. 140, restored from a large fragment of very coarse make in the London Museum, and said to have been found at Mortlake, must have been made long before the Roman invasion. Figs. 135 and 136 are urns of Upchurch ware, carefully made and of lustrous black surface. The forms of these are not Roman. The “spirit” of all is of Bronze Age and Mycenæan character. The black pottery with “carinated” profiles found in London, and now in our museums, may be Upchurch ware, but from Conyers’ account and sketches it seems probable that black and grey pottery was made locally. In the museums, there are a few examples which seem to be clearly Celtic, as, for example, a large fragment at the British Museum with white stripes over a grey fabric. There seems, however, to have been a curious disinclination to recognise Celtic art, and a desire to call all Roman.

_Samian._—The early prosperity of London is well shown by the great quantity of Samian ware which has been found of the period about 60-85, and by the examples of the work of the best makers, such as Vitalis, Rubricius, Saturnus and Rufinus. Of the first-named there are some excellent vases in the collection at South Kensington; he distributed his pottery from Carthage to Carlisle, and from Pompeii to London. Saturnus has half a chapter to himself in a big book on the Roman pottery found in Trier. The Samian question is too vast for me to attempt to deal with it here, and I can merely note one or two details. In Fairholt’s sketch-books at the Victoria and Albert Museum there are several drawings of Samian fragments. One of these, which I have not seen elsewhere, is an excellent example of animals running under trees—a scheme taken over into our Castor-ware, which Dr. Haverfield thought might be a Celtic tradition (_Romanization_). (Fig. 141, and compare Fig. 138.) At the Guildhall are nearly a dozen fragments of a rare kind of Samian vase, in which the ornament of figures and foliage was applied in separate units, the leaves, etc., being linked up by stalks skilfully done by the “barbotine” method. Three larger and some smaller fragments come from a vase of rather globular shape which was very similar to a vase found at Cornhill, one of the chief treasures of the Roman Room at the British Museum. The latter is well described in Mr. Walter’s _Catalogue of Roman Pottery_, which is the best account available of pottery found in London. It is not observed that the Guildhall fragments contain a figure which is half lost in the restored vase at the British Museum. On the other hand, comparison with the latter would make it easy to restore the Guildhall example. The details of both were formed by the same stamps. I give in Figs. 142 and 143 the scheme of the decoration: B was the general shape of the pot.

FIG. 141.
]

FIG. 142.
]

Two or three other sherds at the Guildhall belonged to a somewhat similar but smaller urn which had Bacchic subjects—a satyr with goat legs, and a faun before whom is a wine jar into which he seems to be dropping grape juice. These figures were evidently also set between scrolls of vegetation, and this also can be restored. Again there is a sherd of a vine pattern similar to Fig. 142, but, I think, from a third pot. There is also a figure from a dark-grey pot, which must have been yet another of the same kind. (For the last word on Samian pottery, see Oswald and Price’s _Terra Sigillata_.)

A volume on the pottery found in London by a specialist, like that on Silchester, would be certain to bring out valuable historical results on the existence and persistence of Celtic wares, on importations before the Claudian Conquest, and on the large quantity of imports in early Roman days.

FIG. 143.
]

_Glass._—Much broken glass is usually found on Roman sites, vessels, window-panes, etc., and it was probably wrought, in many centres, from imported material. Evidence of this has been found at Silchester and elsewhere (see Mr. T. May’s _Warrington_). Some window glass was described by Price as “plate polished on one side and ground on the other”; this probably means that it was cast and that the rough side came next the mould.

Conyers, describing the finds on the side of St. Paul’s in 1675, says: “The labourers told me of some remains that were found up and down near the place of the other pot-kilns, and these had a funnel to convey the smoke, which might serve for glass furnaces. For though not any pots with glass in them whole in the furnaces were there found, yet broken crucibles, or tests for molting of glasses, together with boltered glasses such as are to be seen remaining at glass-houses amongst the broken glass, which were glasses spoilt in the making, were there found, but not plenty, and especially coloured and prepared for jewel-like ornament, but mostly such as for cruets or glasses with a lip to drop withal of a greenish light blue colour. Of any sort of glass there was but little; so that the glasswork might be scarce, for I think a hundred times more of pots was found to one of glass....

“Now doth appear the Romans had excellent mechanics, pot makers, stampers of coins, and excellent workers in glass, for amongst those Roman pots were found glass beads as big as could be put on your little finger, and these hollow within and of blue glass wrought or enamelled with yellow glass, and blue beads of the colour of a Turkoise stone. Divided were these beads with threads as big as pack thread. Amongst the rest, great pins made of bone or ivory, etc., heads of many like the great brass-pins, and others vermicular or screw-head, others like the Pope’s triple crown; of these fell to my share as many as a pint-pot would hold.... Taken up a _speculum_ of metal to show the face, of fine bell-metal. There were also found brass embossments with glass set instead of better jewels, which I keep, and glass drops that were loose, and the bottom of an old-fashioned crucible which had glass melted in it, and there were also pieces of necks of glass cruets to pour out by.”

Much of the large number of plainer glass vessels in our museums was doubtless made in the London glass works from imported metal, and probably some ornamental pieces were also manufactured. Thomas Wright thought that glass itself was made in Roman days on the coast near Brighton where “pebbles of glass” have been found; but from comparatively late records of glass making about Rye, etc., the Roman origin of the “pebbles” seems unlikely.

In the British Museum are some fragments of glass vessels having moulded reliefs of chariot races and combats, with the names of the competitors above them. T. Wright illustrates “a fragment of a very remarkable cup in green glass found in the Roman Villa at Hartlip in Kent.... Roach Smith possessed two similar fragments found in London, one of which is identical with the Hartlip fragment in its design and appears to be from the same mould; the other is from a vessel of a different shape and has a quadriga in bas-relief. We have before had occasion to observe how popular gladiatorial contests and the games of the circus were among the Roman inhabitants of this island, and how often we find them represented on the pottery as on the glass.” If a glass vessel found in Kent is exactly like another found in London, it is probable that the former was itself obtained in London, where both may have been made. One of the fragments in the British Museum is from Colchester. We have seen before how that some of the Castor-ware pots were decorated with similar racing chariots, and one of these was found in London and the other in Colchester. Racing chariots also decorate a leaden box found in London and described below.

Glass vessels having reliefs of racing chariots have been found on the Continent, and in the British Museum _Guide_ it is said that our examples “probably came from a Belgian workshop, as a glass of the same kind has been found at Couvin, in the province of Namur, bearing two of the same competitors’ names in a four-horse chariot race. Race cups of this kind date about A.D. 100, and have been found in France, Belgium and Germany. The six cups or fragments found in Britain were no doubt imported across the Channel.” There is, I think, room for some doubt. In any case there seems to be ample evidence that glassware was made in Britain and in Londinium.

FIG. 144.
]

FIG. 145.
]

Much glass of finer quality was imported. There is in the Guildhall Museum a fragment signed by a maker of Sidon, and fragments of several small plaques in the British Museum having patterns wrought in the substance are of a kind found in Egypt. At the Egyptian exhibition of the Burlington Club, 1921, similar plaques were shown, some having sprigs of flowers, and one a _single_ rose petal pattern in yellow, white and red on the dark ground (cf. Fig. 145). The three pieces at the British Museum are all different and all can be restored. Fig. 144 is from Roach Smith. Fig. 145 is a rough indication of the pattern of another, and the third is a variant of Fig. 144. These interesting and beautiful little fragments are obscure from age; they might with great advantage be partially repolished, laid out on restored drawings, and be made much of. The recent rearrangement of the contents of the Roman Room at the British Museum, and the admirable new _Guide_, have so greatly increased the interest of the objects that I want still more. I also wish that the London things in the collection could be shown together. Roach Smith never intended his objects to be separated.

_Enamels_.—Conyers’ phrases about coloured glass “prepared for jewel-like ornament,” and “the brass embossments with glass set instead of jewels,” apparently refer to enamels and seem to imply that enamelled objects were made at the London glass works.

FIG. 146.
]

FIG. 147.
]

A large number of small enamelled objects, from little bowls to brooches, have been found in Britain. The art of enamelling was known here before the Roman age, but objects having several colours seem to be “Roman,” although there are Celtic characteristics in the patterns, and it is agreed that there was a native manufacture (_British Museum Guide_, p. 95) of such enamels. The finest piece is a “casket” in the form of a little vase with a handle. This handle has turned-up ends of a kind frequently found in Alexandrian silverwork. One of the bands of enamel is a meandering stem and vine leaves. This beautiful object was found in Essex, and there is in the British Museum another little enamelled bowl also found not far from London, at Braughing, Hertfordshire. The details in these two pieces are very similar, so are those of a little enamelled cock found near the Royal Exchange. Notice the use of long triangular forms and narrow saw-edged fillets. It seems probable that all were made in London, and further evidence is found in a remarkable enamelled plate taken out of the Thames (Fig. 146). This “being an unfinished piece, was probably made in this country”—and city, I would add. In colouring and technique this plate (probably part of a memorial) is very like the objects already mentioned. A leaf form on it which ends in a tendril is found also on the Braughing bowl; both these pieces might have come from one shop. The type of ornament is remarkably Celtic. In the _Guide_ it is said that “debased Amazon shields can be recognised, and Riegel has pointed out that the panel is not a unit, but belongs to a larger all-over pattern which could be repeated indefinitely, and reveals an artistic tendency of the later Roman Empire.” I do not agree with either of these statements. The pattern seems to me to have been designed as a reversed scroll pattern, subdivided by setting down oval forms in the spaces to counterchange the colour in a typically Celtic manner. In the diagram (Fig. 147), A is the pattern type; B is the application to the space; C is the subdivision of the spaces completing the design. In D and E, I have made an original design on the same principle. Other details in the filling of the space at the top are Celtic. Notice again a heart-shaped form at X. This form is frequent in small seal-boxes, several of which have been found in London, of which F is from one lately added to the Guildhall collection. It is probable, I think, that such enamels were made in London by Celtic artists. An enamelled harness plate found in London and illustrated by Roach Smith is like others found in Somersetshire (see G). A small brooch in the form of a fish at the London Museum may be early Christian.

_Leadwork._—Britain was the chief source for lead in the later Roman era. Of about a hundred and twenty Roman pigs of lead in the museums of Europe, about half were of British origin, as appears from the inscriptions. Cast sheet lead was used for coverings. Some actually in position was found lining the bottom of the hot bath at Bath in 1864. It was afterwards sold for £70! Mr. Irvine, in an article on the Corinthian temple at Bath, assumes that the roof was covered with lead. He says that the sheet lead found in Bath was about three-eighths of an inch thick and showed that it was cast on a sand-bed. Melted lead was found at St. Albans under conditions which suggested that it had come from the roof of the Basilica. We may be satisfied that lead was used for important roofs. Lead pipes are also found.

Many lead coffins have been found in and about London—about a dozen in all—and they were doubtless made in the city. The fashion of using lead coffins seems to have originated in the Romanised East about the time of the recognition of Christianity, and those found in London follow the general type very closely. I give in Fig. 148 a rough sketch made in Constantinople twenty-five years ago of a lead coffin found at Sidon. Another coffin from Sidon has recently been acquired by the British Museum. Figs. 149, 150 and 151 are from coffins found in London.

FIG. 148.
]

FIG. 149.
]

One discovered many years ago in South London, illustrated in _Archæologia_, vol. xvii., had on it two little figures like Minerva—probably Britannia. Another found at Sittingbourne, recently set out for exhibition at the British Museum, has little Medusa heads and pairs of lions watching a vase (Fig. 152).

FIG. 150.
]

FIG. 151
]

A round lead box, for the reception of burnt bones, found in London and now in the British Museum, has repeated on it a relief of a four-horse chariot. This is described in the _Guide_ as the chariot of the Sun; but comparison with other chariot-racing groups on the pottery and glass vessels shows that these reliefs must also represent a chariot race (Fig. 153). This fact adds to the probability that the glass vessels with reliefs of racing chariots were also made in Londinium. Fig. 154 is from a simpler lead box found in London; compare the rings with the painted pattern described at the bottom of p. 169.

FIG. 152.
]

FIG. 153. FIG. 154.
]

_Pewter._—A large quantity of pewter ware, vessels and dishes, has been discovered in Britain. Many ingots of the metal were found in the last century at Battersea in the river. Lysons figured a fragment of “lead” found at Lydney stamped with a name, and this may have been pewter. The ingots of pewter were doubtless of British origin, and it is very probable that the finished objects of this metal were manufactured here. Many of the dishes have engraved centres of a type of design which can hardly be earlier than the fourth century. This engraving was filled with black composition imitating _niello_. The ingots bear marks which show that they belong to a time when Christianity was recognised.

In the London Museum is a dish with an engraved centre, and at the British Museum are some plain dishes signed with the name of the owner or maker, Martinus, which were found in Southwark. Most of the finds of pewter ware have been made in south-east England, and London is the most likely place of origin. Lysons illustrates a dish found at Manchester (it is now in the British Museum) with an engraved centre so like those found in the south of England that it is probable it also was made in the south. These dishes were finished in a lathe; at the back they have traces of three projections by which they were held in turning but afterwards cut away.

_Bone, Leatherwork, etc._—We have seen above that Conyers speaks of the large quantity of bone objects found in excavations. Of the St. Paul’s site he says: “And amongst ye heap or mixture of rubbish, hartshorn sawed into pieces, old heifers’ horns, and abundance of boars’ tusks—some in their jaw bones which shows that they did often hunt ye wild boar.... It is very remarkable that ivory-work and great pins made of bone and bodkins of great numbers was found buried together with store of boars’ teeth, of oysters and other shells, Roman coins and ornamental beads, of blue like enamel and the fibulæ they used to fasten their garments, earthenware with inscriptions and glass was found in gravel pits near St. Paul’s School.” Several carved pieces of similar style in the London Museum—notably little reliefs of gladiators—suggest that there were expert bone carvers in London. A bone pin with a figure of Fortuna found in London, and a carving of a sphinx from Colchester—both in the British Museum—are really beautiful work. The admirable fragments of an ivory scabbard found in Greenwich Park in 1906 can hardly be London work.

A considerable number of beautifully-made leather shoes having elaborately pierced patterns are doubtless of local work. One found at South-fleet, now at the British Museum, was coloured purple and decorated with gilding, as is recorded on a drawing at the Society of Antiquaries, made when it was newly found.

The site of London is still unexhausted; even while I am writing this I see in the morning’s paper, “Recent excavations in Lothbury have brought to light relics of Roman occupation—bone bodkins, oyster shells and broken pottery. The bodkins are large, and it is thought that they were probably used in mat-making.” London must have been an art-producing centre for two thousand years.

LOCALLY MADE POTTERY.
]

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+CHAPTER XI+

EARLY CHRISTIAN LONDON

“It was no longer thought to be Britain but a Roman island; and all
their money was stamped with Cæsar’s image. Meanwhile these islands,
stiff with frost, received the beams of light, the holy precepts of
Christ, the true Sun, at the later part of the reign of Tiberius
Cæsar.”

—GILDAS.

_CHRISTIAN BRITAIN._—The whole subject of Christian antiquities in Britain was for a long time clouded by mere doubt of testimony, until the comparatively recent discovery of the foundations of an early Christian basilican church at Silchester, in 1892, gradually changed the temperature and atmosphere in which facts are seen. Thomas Wright had swept the thing aside, Gildas and all. This difference of attitude is well brought out in the earlier and more recent writings of Dr. Haverfield. Compare, for instance, his over-cautious article in the _English Historical Review_ about twenty years ago with another in _Archæologia Æliana_, 1917, which is written in quite a different temper. It is now clear that Britain marched with Gaul in the acceptance of Christianity, although one step behind.

In Cabrol’s great _French Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_ we may obtain a valuable unbiased account of British Christian antiquities. The best general introduction known to me is a chapter in Sir C. Oman’s excellent _England before the Norman Conquest_, from which I will condense a paragraph.

“There is no doubt that individual Christians, perhaps even small communities, were to be found in Britain as early as the second century. There is no reason to doubt Tertullian writing in about A.D. 208, or Origen writing about A.D. 230, that the Christian religion had converts in the province of the extreme north-west.... In the long peace which followed the persecution of Severus the new religion pushed northward and westward with greater power. There seems no reason to doubt the small number of British martyrs whose names appear in the earliest martyrologies. The very early martyrology gives three names drawn from Britain—the latest St. Patrick (_obiit c._ 461), the other two are Augulus, bishop of Augusta (London), and Alban. We know nothing of Augulus, but the fact that his See is called Augusta shows that the name was taken down between 340 and 410, for London was only known as Augusta in the second half of the fourth century. Of Alban’s existence our knowledge is more certain, since Germanus visited his grave in 429; his cult, therefore, was well established in the early fifth century.... As early as 314, three bishops from Britain appeared at the Council of Arles—Eborius of York, Restitutus of London and Adelphius of Lincoln. There seems reason to think that the bulk of the population remained pagan till a later date than was the case elsewhere. If the Christians of Calleva found the diminutive church lately discovered sufficient for their needs they must have been but a few hundreds. In that same town a temple to Mars was found, which must have been used down to the end. If Calleva had become completely Christian before its evacuation the image of Mars would not have been left. The small number of Christian sepulchral inscriptions is notable, though such have been found at Carlisle, Lincoln and elsewhere. It is very strange that a religion which was first publicly tolerated, and later encouraged for nearly a hundred years before A.D. 410, should have left so few records. The existence of a vigorous British Christendom in the fourth century is sufficiently proved by literary evidence. Without that evidence we should have gathered little from archæological research. Secular inscriptions and buildings of the fourth century are rare, no less than ecclesiastical ones. The British Church produced, in the last days of the Romans, a heresiarch, the celebrated Pelagius, a monk. Born about 370-80, he taught in Rome itself. The earliest recorded works written by Britons are those of the heresiarch and of a British bishop named Fastidius.”

In an excellent short account of British Christian antiquities in the new _Guide to the Christian Collection at the British Museum_ (1921), Mr. Dalton remarks that “the statement of the sixth-century British historian, Gildas, that in Roman times Britain had many churches was always credible, but positive proof was not forthcoming until the excavations on the site of Calleva (Silchester) brought to light the foundations of a church, the Roman origin of which is beyond dispute.” Gildas, again, is confirmed by Bede’s account of ruined Christian churches existing in the sixth century. According to Cabrol’s _Dictionary_ even some of the greater country villas, like Chedworth, were occupied by Christian proprietors. On a mosaic pavement at Frampton the monogram of Christ appears in the central space of a border. It has been argued that the monogram might be later than the pavement, but the design of the border itself shows that it had a central feature from the first. It seems probable to me, as before said, that several other mosaic pavements were Christian.

FIG. 155.
]

FIG. 156.
]

FIG. 157.
]

_A British Church._—The little church at Silchester is extraordinarily interesting in many ways. It was probably built not later than the middle of the fourth century and is thus one of the earliest churches known. It occupied an important position in the city close to the Forum, and it is probable from this and from the importance of the city that it was a bishop’s church. Moreover, it is evident that if there was such a church at Silchester there must have been others in Canterbury, Verulam, London and other cities. This church was only about 30 ft. square, exclusive of the narthex (Fig. 155). Some day, when we reverence our antiquities more, it might be excavated once again and, having a decent roof erected over it, be made a place of pilgrimage. I should like to see a copy of it put up somewhere for use—it might cost half as much as a poor stained-glass window. As I have just said, the plan, exclusive of the narthex, was square, so also is the plan of an early church in Asia Minor which I give for comparison (Fig. 156). This _squareness_ was, I believe, intended as a symbol of the Ark. I also give the altar end of an early church in Greece, Fig. 157 (Nichopoleos: see Athenian _Ephemeris_, 1916).

The plan of the Silchester church seems to be of an Eastern rather than Roman type; and small as it is, it has slight transeptal projections which, when compared with the other plans, show that the form of the cross was intended to be suggested. The altar was not regarded as being in the apse, but rather in front of it (compare Fig. 157). The apse was to the _west_ and the entrance at the _east_, following the early custom. In front was a court with a water basin in the centre. In regard to the non-Roman character of the plan, it may be noted that the late Mr. Edmund Bishop, a great liturgical authority, showed that early Irish Christianity was of an Iberian type.

_London Saints._—Bishop Augulus and Restitutus of London ought to be commemorated in some way in the City. We are singularly wasteful of the power there is in the antiquities of a nation when sympathetically understood. If, for instance, Patrick had been recognised for the great British personage he was—the son and grandson of Christian parents captured to be a slave in Ireland—the magnanimous missionary might have been a mediator between the Irish and ourselves, a mixed race, part English, part British and part Roman. St. Augulus is included in the Roman Catholic Menology of the British Church. “Feb. 7.—In London the Passion of St. Augulus, Bishop and Martyr (A.D. 300 _c._). Named on this day in the Roman Martyrology and in all the ancient calendars as a bishop who suffered martyrdom in London. The conjecture of historians is that he suffered in the persecution of Diocletian about the same time as St. Alban.” He is given a place in the paintings of the English College, Rome. It is curious that of two contemporary martyrs, St. Alban should have been taken up by fame and the other left. Confirmation of the point made by Sir C. Oman in regard to the name Augusta applied to London has appeared in the recent identification by Sir A. Evans of a late fourth-century coin with the Mint mark AVG.

FIG. 158.
]

_Early Christian Objects._—The earliest existing “monument” of Christian Londinium is dated only a little later than the year in which Restitutus attended the Council of Arles. This is the reverse of a coin of Constantine, recently discovered (1909) at Poltross Burn, on the great Roman Wall, and thus described: “Mint mark PLN; of the London Mint and bearing the Christian emblem; A.D. 317-324; variety of Cohen 638. Two Victories placing on an altar a shield inscribed VOT. PR.; on the face of the altar a cross within a wreath. This is a London-minted coin bearing upon its reverse the Christian emblem of such rarity that the use of Christian emblems in the London Mint has been called in question. The only recorded specimens are a coin of Constantine II. in the British Museum, one of Crispus, found in 1909 at Corstopitum, and the present example. All have the same reverse” (Fig. 158). This is in every way a very remarkable coin; the Victories placing the shield on a Christian altar is obviously a record of the official recognition of Christianity. From this moment when the Cross appeared on what Sir C. Oman calls “the public gazette of the Roman Empire,” every one in Londinium must have known what the Cross stood for. “In an issue of money between 317 and 324, Constantine used Christian signs in such a way as to solemnly affirm his Christian faith, and thus by universal custom made known the imperial will. The coins of London hardly make the same affirmation of Christianity by the Emperor as that of Siscia, but they testify to the intentions of certain officers of the Mint” (Maurice, _Numis. Constant._). On the coin of Crispus mentioned above, the _Classical Year Book_, 1911, remarked: “This is a novelty, as hitherto it has been supposed that Christian symbols did not occur on London coins of the Constantinian epoch.” “It is curious that the London Mint put Christian emblems on its coins before those of Trier, Lyons or Arles” (Oman).

FIG. 159.
]

With the coins may be associated a small silver disc mounted as the head of a pin, now in the Roach Smith collection at the British Museum. My figure is from a drawing by Fairholt, according to whom it was found in Lothbury with several other small Roman objects. It seems quite certainly to represent, as Roach Smith supposed, Constantine’s vision of the Cross in the heavens (Fig. 159).

A small equal-armed cross forms the clasp of a Roman bronze chain-bracelet found in London, now in the British Museum, which can hardly be other than Christian (Fig. 160). There has been some reluctance in accepting crosses of Roman date as Christian, but the evidence of the coins should modify this.

FIG. 160.
]

FIG. 161.
]

FIG. 162.
]

In 1862 several ingots of pewter were dredged up from the Thames near Battersea Bridge, and in 1890 more were discovered. Two are in the York Museum and the rest are in the British Museum (_Archæol. Journal_, 48). They are stamped with the monogram of Christ in two forms, with one of which is associated the words, “_Spes in Deo_” (Fig. 161), and the name “_Syagrius_” also appears. Silver and copper ingots discovered in this country have official stamps (non-Christian), and it may not be doubted that the pewter marks were also official. A lead seal in the Reading Museum, found in the Civil Basilica at Silchester, has an XP monogram, which is very similar (Fig. 162), and this, too, was probably official. The most interesting parallel known to me of the stamps on the pewter ingots is a seal from a wine jar found at Naucratis, in Egypt (_Nau._ ii. pl. 22), where we find “_Spes in Deo_” in a circle around a cross (Fig. 163). The circular form had long been used for official stamps (cf. a brick stamp with the name of Nero in Reading Museum). Pewter ware was popular at the end of the fourth century, and this is probably the date of our ingots. The name which appears on them was in use at a late time. One Syagrius, “last of the Romans,” was driven from his kingdom of Soissons by the Franks in A.D. 480.

FIG. 163.
]

FIG. 164.
]

At the Guildhall Museum are two small terra-cotta lamps (Nos. 17 and 18), each having the Christian monogram in the centre (Fig. 164). These are not of British make, but they may have been imported in the Roman age. (A lamp which Sir L. Gomme made much of, with a little view of a city on it, was also of foreign origin, and there is no reason to think that the view had any connection with London.) Two other lamps in the Guildhall collection (Nos. 54 and 117) are described as having “limbs of cross on body, perhaps early Christian,” but I have not found these and some other objects which it is said may possibly be Christian.

In the description of Wren’s finds on the site of St. Paul’s, given in _Parentalia_, is mentioned “a sepulchral earthen lamp figured with two branches of palms, supposed Christian.” Comparing the description with Figs. 165 and 166 there cannot be any doubt that Wren’s lamp was Christian. In the British Museum is a little rough lamp found at Tidworth, Wilts, which has a pair of palm branches, and I think that there is another in Canterbury Museum; the former is so like others from Syria in the Early Christian Room at the British Museum that there cannot be a doubt that it is not a native work; possibly it was brought back by a pilgrim from the Holy Land. Fig. 165 illustrates the seal of a ring found at Fifehead Neville, Dorset, now in the British Museum; on it we find the sign of Christ in the later form (in which the X has become a cross) surmounted by a dove, and between two palms. It means something like “the Believer resting on the victorious Cross of Christ.” The earlier form of the monogram was made of the first two letters of the name Christ, XP; the later form was formed by a cross and XP or P, and this seems to have meant the Crucifixion.

FIG. 165.
]

These comparisons will help to interpret a fascinating fragment of a symbolical design engraved on a glass cup found at Silchester. Here, instead of the sign for Christ, we find the upper part of a letter, which can hardly have been anything else than T, for nothing else would be central in the design, and in place of the dove we have a fish. T was the early form of the sign of the cross, and is found several times in the Catacombs; the fish is a rebus for the words Jesus Christ, God’s Son Saviour (ΙΧΘΎΣ); the palms are again signs of victory. It seems to be an early symbolical representation of Christ on the cross, and one of the most interesting which exists (compare Figs. 46 and 47 in the British Museum _Guide to Christian Antiquities_). Another tiny fragment of the same glass has the letter O on it, and there must have been some short inscription as well as the fish symbol and palms (Fig. 166).

FIG. 166.
]

FIGS. 167, 168, 169.
]

In the London Museum is an enamelled brooch in the form of a fish (Fig. 167). As the fish was a well-known Christian symbol, we may hardly doubt that this brooch must be counted among our Christian antiquities. It is exactly similar to a brooch illustrated by Mr. Ward (_Roman Era_, Fig. 75) as having been found in Rotherley. They are duplicates, and must have come from the same “shop.” In _V.C.H._ it is recorded that a fish-shaped enamelled fibula was found in excavations at London Wall in 1901-5 (compare _Builder_, December 13, 1902). This may be the same piece. At Silchester a plain bronze brooch in fish form was found (Fig. 168). The fish symbol in an almost identical form is found engraved on a pewter dish, one of a set found at Appleshaw (Hants) and now in the British Museum (Fig. 169); the dish itself on which it appears is sometimes described as fish-shaped, but it was rather a long oval with projections at the ends. Another of the same set of pewter pieces has the XP monogram engraved on it (Fig. 170). As a third of the pieces is of the form of a chalice, there seems to be every reason to regard the whole set as church plate, and I find this definitely asserted in an article in the _Athenæum_ (August 11, 1906): “In 1890 a body was found at Reading lying east and west, together with Roman British relics, and a lead plate bearing three crosses; near by was another skeleton with a small pewter chalice. This may be accepted as the grave of a Christian priest. This chalice should be compared with that of a Roman altar set of pewter recently found at Appleshaw.”

FIG. 170.
]

As said before, when tombs and coffins were discussed, it is probable that some of these represent Christian burials. A coin of the Emperor Gratian bearing the monogram of Christ was found at Smithfield, together with some wooden coffins, and it was probably buried as a sign of faith (_V.C.H._). Two or three rough stone coffins found in Kent seem to have been Christian. The first bishops of the Saxon church at Canterbury were interred in stone coffins of a Roman type.

_St. Peters, Cornhill._—Ancient tradition, which may be traced back to the twelfth century, claimed that the Church of St. Peter on Cornhill was older than St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a church of Roman foundation. The site is important, being close to (as I suppose) or within the boundary of the Forum and Civil Basilica of Londinium. The main walls of the present church are neither parallel with Cornhill nor square with Gracechurch Street, and Roman foundations have recently been found in the neighbourhood of the church. Until all the lines of the walls which have been discovered have been carefully laid down on a large-scale plan, it would be rash to offer any opinion as to a possible Roman foundation of the church; but if the church should prove to have been near, but outside the Forum, the position of the church at Silchester would be significant evidence. If, on the other hand, the church site proves to have been within the boundary of the Forum, its Roman foundation would be improbable.

Recent records of finds near the church mention “an old piece of Roman wall passing through the present wall of the church at a slight angle under demolished buildings [along the north front].... This may possibly belong to the original church” (March 2, 1922). From an article in _The Times_ of September 29, 1922, I condense the following account of discoveries made at the end of the year 1921 on the north side of St. Peter’s Church: “A magnificent wall went down about 20 ft., but at 15 ft. were the footings. The wall was here 5 ft. wide; above the footings were three courses of tiles four abreast, each 13 in. wide, making 52 in. wide. This wall had been plastered on the south side, and at some subsequent date [?] rooms had been made by other walls, on the plastering of which was still to be seen a pattern of imitation marble or alabaster. There were two layers of plaster and then a layer of white cement almost as thin as paper, on which designs had been painted by a skilful artist. This wall had been broken down, and at a level 5½ ft. higher, a tessellated pavement had been laid. Later, at 56 and 57 Cornhill, a similar wall was uncovered. The mortar joints between the tiles were wide. The wall was found on the south [afterwards corrected to _north_] side of the church wall, so that the ancient Church of St. Peter was probably built inside what was a Roman fortress.” For fortress I would read the Forum. The church can hardly have been founded in such a position until the Forum had gone out of use and the Roman age in Londinium had passed, but it might then very well have been constructed within old Roman walls or on their foundations. We saw before that wall tiles of exceptional size had been used in the Civil Basilica of the Forum, and the tiles, 13 in. wide, mentioned above would seem to be of the same size. Twenty-five years ago a Roman wall was found, described as “very close to St. Peter’s upon Cornhill, of immense thickness, proceeding in a westerly direction from Leadenhall Market, under the Woolpack Tavern in Gracechurch Street, along St. Peter’s Alley, a few feet on the south side of St. Peter’s, continuing under the banking-house of Messrs. Prescott, Dimsdale & Co. (50 Cornhill), _supposed_ to continue under the roadway of Cornhill, and appearing again in the foundations of the new building now being erected on the _north_ side of Cornhill (No. 70) for the Union Bank of Australia.” (Middlesex and Herts _Notes and Queries_, 1897.) This wall, if one may guess, appears to have been parallel to the 5 ft. wall on the north of the church, and between them seem to have been important chambers of the Forum buildings.

Dr. Bury has lately given reasons for thinking that the Romans did not finally evacuate Britain until 442 (_J.R.S._, vol. x.).

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+CHAPTER XII+

THE ORIGIN OF LONDON[3]

“There Thames runs by beneath the wall,
Where pass the merchant vessels all,
From every land, both high and low,
Where Christian merchants come and go.”
TRISTRAM, _c._ 1175.

Footnote 3:

The substance of this chapter was read at the Society of Antiquaries
about 1917, but it has not been printed before.

_FIRST BRITISH CITIES._—Ancient cities were not planted down by an act of will, they sprang up on lines of communication as centres of control and commerce. On a geological map it appears that a chalk belt passes from Kent to Hampshire towards the south bank of the Thames. From the north bank another wide belt diverges to the north-east. The backbones of these chalk regions are the North Downs of Kent and the Chiltern Hills; they contain between them a long triangle of gravel drift and marsh flats through which the Thames flows to the sea. These downs, as we know to-day, when we find ourselves on them, are pre-eminently walking grounds, and they must have been the prehistoric ways of communication. “Primitive man traversed the ranges lengthways: in the valleys were forests almost impenetrable, whereas the backbone of each ridge would stand bald above the ocean of trees.” The oldest roads were “Ridge-ways.” On the high Wiltshire downs at, or near, a point where the southern system of downs converge, stands Stonehenge, and I cannot doubt that it was in some way conceived as being a centre and “capital” of the country. The Gauls recognised such a centre, or “omphalos,” near Chartres. Since writing this, I find that Sir C. Oman has said, “Britain must have had some focus corresponding to that for Gaul; possibly among the prehistoric monuments of Salisbury Plain.” Stonehenge, I may say in passing, is a monument of wrought stone set out with precision, and I cannot see how it can be earlier than about 500-700 B.C.

The ancient trackway along the Chilterns, known as the Ickneld Way, reached the Thames near Wallingford. Travellers going south and east from this point struck across the narrow space of low broken ground between the two chalk ranges by a short linking road. Silchester, the capital of an important Brito-Belgic tribe, lies on or near the course of such a road in a corn-bearing region. Silchester was the key of the old road system over the Thames fords. It is known to have been one of three most important pre-Roman British centres, and we may, I think, look on it as the first British city.

The British city of Verulamium lay to the south of the Ickneld Way, in the same great triangle between the two chalk regions which is here much wider. The rise of this centre suggests that a road linking the two chalk ranges had been found across the river valley much lower than Silchester. The later Roman Watling Street, directed straight on Verulam, formed such a link, and there are many reasons which suggests that some underlying British trackway must have been the cause why Verulam became important. Later, again, Colchester came to be the chief city. Possibly it was favoured as being more remote when the Romans should make an attack. It seems to have been named after the Celtic war-god, and this may be significant. (In Roman days as in mediæval, there was probably a ferry from Gravesend to Tilbury for direct access to Colchester from Kent. This seems to be suggested by the Peutinger roadmap.)

_Origin of London._—By origin I mean the beginning of a development which led to the establishment of a port and commercial town. Doubtless the site may have been occupied by some dwellers in the Stone Age. For many centuries before the Roman conquest Britain had been in commercial relations with the Continent. Just before the conquest Verulam was the capital of the leading Celtic kingdom. This Brito-Belgic kingdom had its southern boundary along the Thames and its eastern at the Lea, and these are still boundaries of Middlesex. If this kingdom, with its capital some twenty miles inland, had any sea-borne trade, its port must have been on or near the site of London. It is even probable that this port was the cause of the pre-eminence of the little kingdom to which it belonged. The port was to Verulam what the Piræus was to Athens, Ostia to Rome, Dover to Canterbury, and Southampton to Winchester. London was doubtless the source of the wealth of King Cymbeline, and we might very well look on him as the founder.

Dr. Guest argued that London was founded as a Roman camp at the time of the Claudian conquest; but it is now agreed that the name is Celtic; and it must not be forgotten that London is and always was a port. When we first hear of London only seventeen years after the Claudian conquest, it was already, as Tacitus says, famous for the number of its merchants, and this must imply that it was a principal port. Dr. Haverfield, while admitting that the name is Celtic, went on to say: “The name Londinium, the place of Londinos, witnesses at most to nothing more than one wigwam or one barn.” This “at most” can only mean that every town presumably begins with one building; in London, however, the building is not likely to have been a barn amid the bare gravels, but rather a boatman’s house. Further evidence for the existence of a pre-Roman town is brought out by the large number of Celtic objects found on the site and in the neighbourhood, but they have never been properly catalogued as a group. Dr. Haverfield allowed that three pieces of imported Samian ware in the British Museum might belong to the period A.D. 10-40. “We might then conclude that through the influx of Roman traders London had been noted as a suitable trading centre a few years previous to the Roman conquest; but the minute dating of these potsherds is not easy, and we must leave the question of pre-Roman London unsettled. Either there was no pre-Roman London, or it was an undeveloped settlement, which may have been on the south bank of the Thames” (_Journ. Rom. Studies_, vol. i. p. 146). The evidence of such early imports is greatly strengthened by other discoveries at Silchester. Mr. May, speaking of the early “Samian” ware, says: “The Silchester examples are of much significance. Together with the contemporary Belgic imitations they prove that the inhabitants of the capital of the Atrebati were importing costly luxuries in considerable quantities from Italy and Northern Gaul at the beginning of the Christian era.” Early Belgic pottery has been found in London as well as “Samian,” and there is in the British Museum a wine jar of an early type found in Southwark. Some British pottery was doubtless made in Londinium itself before the Roman conquest. Mr. Lambert has described specimens of coarse wares in _Archæologia_. Of one of these he writes: “Bead-rimmed pot, coarse grey ware, irregularly burnt. A pre-Roman type, surviving into the Roman period.” He dates it A.D. 50-80, I suppose thinking that it cannot have really been pre-Roman.