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Text, Visualisation and Politics: London, 1150-1250

Author(s): Derek KeeneSource: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series, Vol. 18 (2008), pp. 69-99Published by: Royal Historical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25593881.

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Transactions of the HS18 (2008), pp. 69-99 ? 2008 Royal Historical Societydoi:io.ioi7/Soo8o440io8ooo662 Printed in theUnited Kingdom

TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS:LONDON, 1150-1250*ByDerek Keene

READ 2 FEBRUARY 2007

ABSTRACT. Focusing on London, the paper discusses the interaction betweentheoretical, descriptive and quasi-historical writing about cities, a growing capacityto visualise city landscape and activities, and forms of graphic representation thatdrew on those ideas.Reading this interplayas a political space, thepaper explores thestructure,content and purposes of the 'London Collection' ofnational laws,pseudolaws and city customs put together inLondon at about the time ofMagna Carta.

Though no more than a preliminary investigation, the exercise reveals the extent towhich London interests,especially with regard to thepolitics of international trade,the 'law ofLondon', earlier episodes of communal activism and a sense ofLondon'shistoric destinywithin thatof the nation pervade the collection as awhole. This castssome doubt on the supposed antiquity of some of the London laws in the collection,which may well have been adjusted for the occasion.

The starting oint of thispaper is theproposition that in the twelfth ndearly thirteenth enturies thewritings ofphilosophers and others on thecity, its visual representation and itspolitics occupied a common space thathistorians can profitably explore. This approach to an understanding ofurban culture is familiar enough in later medieval studies, most notablyconcerning Italy,1 but it has not been adopted for London, especiallyin this much earlier period. Some of the texts concerning London aremarked by a distinct visual sensibility, hile the stories they told hadan impact on theway inwhich the citywas portrayed graphically.Some of those stories gave Londoners a strong sense of their past and

* I am grateful toJohn Gillingham, Lindy Grant, JudithGreen, Bruce O'Brien, RichardSharpe and Susan Reynolds for conversations which have helped shaped my thinking forthispaper.1For a wide-ranging discussion of related themes, see C. Frugoni, A Distant City: ImagesofUrban Experience in the edieval World, trans.W. McCuaig (Princeton, 1991), an updatedversion of C. Frugoni, Una lontana citta: sentimenti immagininet edioevo (Turin, 1983); andalso Qj Skinner,Ambrogio Lorenzetti: The Artist as Political Philosopher', Proceedingsof theBritishAcademy, 72 (1986), 1-56, and idem, mbrogio Lorenzetti's Buon Governo Frescoes:Two Old Questions, Two New Answers', Journal of theWarburg and Courtauld Institutes, 2(1999), 1-28.69


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70 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYwere influenced by responses to the physical environment of the city,which therebybecame an object for structured thought.That sense ofhistory informed ideas ofwhat was appropriate political action in thepresent,while at the same timepolitical objectives informed rhetoricalmanipulations of texts concerning history, custom and law with a view tojustifyingwhat was currendydesired.London's politics in thisperiod were complex and, as today, shaped byinternalconflicts nd by relationswith powers outside thecityitself. hilesome of the personal and family interests of Londoners and a few dramaticincidentsemerge clearly from the records,much of the city'spolitical liferemains obscure and cannot be explored here.2 A key relationship wasthat between London and theCrown, which drew heavily on the cityfor financial and othermaterial support and exercised an undisputedlordshipover it,while the same timeacknowledging the collective rightsof a large but ill-definedgroup of 'citizens' and allowing a degree ofself-determination to certain specialised groups. This relationship wasclose, tense, ambiguous and sometimes confrontational, especially inperiods ofwider conflict, s during thebaronial opposition toKing John.Internally,thecity'spoliticswere structured inpart by interests ssociatedwith commerce, manufactures and hierarchies of wealth and power, andin part by loyalties which could cut across class or family concerns.This paper's approach to the politics is through some of theLondonconcerns apparent in that great collection of national laws, pseudo-lawsand London customs which was put together around the time ofMagnaCarta and for more than a century afterwards remained intact withinthe city's archive. For convenience, it is described here as the 'LondonCollection'.3 The compilation illuminates thepolitical strugglewhich ledup to the charter, but also strongly indicates the way in which London'selitepursued its interests nd denned and visualised themwithin a broadhistorical and geographical landscape.Most parts ofEurope in the eleventh and twelfth enturieswitnesseda remarkable growth of towns and cities.4 In England, thematerialevidence for rapid growth seems more apparent for the eleventh century

2 For London in this period, see C. N. L. Brooke and G. Keir, London 800-1216: TheShaping of City (1975), and D. Keene, 'London from the Post-Roman Period to 1300', inTheCambridgeUrbanHistory of ritain, I:600-1540, ed. D. M. Palliser (Cambridge, 2000), 187-216.For recent accounts of family and political interests, seeD. Keene, 'fitz ilwin, Henry', 'fitzOsbert', inOxford ictionary ofational Biography (Oxford, 2004); idem, English Urban Guilds,c. 900-1300: The Purposes and Politics ofAssociation', inGuilds andAssociation inEurope,goo-1900, ed. I.A. Gadd and P.Wallis (2006), 3-26.3 See below, n. 36.4 For a recent survey, see D. Keene, 'Towns and the Growth of Trade', in The NewCambridgeMedieval History, IV: c. 1024-c. ng8, Part I, ed. D. Luscombe and J. Riley-Smith(Cambridge, 2004), 47-85, 758-76.


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 71than for the twelfth,but development picked up again rapidly fromabout 1180 onwards. Overall, however, the twelfth century was markedby the proliferation of literaryand philosophical writing on the city.One strand focused on neo-Platonist ideas of the city or the state, anddeveloped an organological notion of the hierarchical structure of theseinstitutions, a model that became most widely known through John ofSalisbury's Policraticus written in the 1150s. There were significant spatialand material elements in these discussions. Thus the arx or citadel wasassociated with the wise men or elders - the Senate - who governed thecity under the prince, while the suburb outside the city was the preserveof those who tilled the fields and served as the feet of thebody politic.Several treatises included, in the same low position, those craftsmenwhose mechanical arts, sometimes listed in detail, sustained the city.5This indicates a striking scholarly engagement with everyday aspectsof urban life.Another important strandwas the revival of the literarygenre of the description and praise of cities, of which an influentialexample was theMirabilia UrbisRomae compiled at about the timeof theestablishment of the Roman commune and the restoration of the Senatein 1143.6 Many such texts, though incorporating accurate observation ofthe urban scene, were rhetorical, idealising constructions that drew onancient models and a standard repertoire of themes. These included thestatus of the city by comparison with notable places such as Rome; originsand heroic founders; the character and institutions of the inhabitants; andthe appealing nature of the site and its landscape setting, which were oftencharacterised with acute visual awareness.7It ishardly surprising that themost compelling of the twelfth-centuryvisualisations of urban landscape is that of a poet, Chretien de Troyes,who about 1180 adopted a viewpoint that reminds modern readers of

5T Struve, 'The Importance of the Organism in the Political Theory of John ofSalisbury', inThe World of ohn of alisbury,ed.M. Wilks (Oxford, 1984), 303-17; T. Gregory,'The Platonic Inheritance', inA History ofTwelfth-Century esternPhilosophy, ed. P. Dronke(Cambridge, 1988), 54-80, esp. 62; John of Salisbury, Policraticus:Of the rivolities ofCourtiersand theFootprintsof hilosophers,ed. C.J. Nederman (Cambridge, 1990), 81, 125.6Mirabilia Urbis Romae, ed. E M. Nichols (1889), xi-xii, 86-7; M. Accame Lanzillotta,Contributi uiMirabilia Urbis Romae (Genoa, 1996), preface.7J. K. Hyde, 'Medieval Descriptions of Cities', Bulletin of theJohn Rylands Library, 48(1965-6), 308-40; J. Scattergood, 'Misrepresenting the City: Genre, Intertextuality andWilliam fitz Stephen's Description of ondon (c. 1173)', inLondon andEurope in the aterMiddleAges, ed.J. Boffey and P.King (1996), 1-34;J.M. Ganim, 'The Experience ofModernity inLate Medieval Literature: Urbanism, Experience and Rhetoric inSome Early Descriptionsof London', inThe Performanceof iddle English Culture:Essays onChaucer and the rama inHonour of artin Stevens, d. J.J. Paxson, L. M. Clopper and S. Tomasch (Cambridge, 1998),77-96; K. Arnold, 'Stadtelob und Stadtbeschreibung im spaterenMittelalter und der FriienNeuzeit', inStddtischeGeschichtsschreibungimpatmittelalternd inderjruhenNeuzeit, d. P.Johanek(Stadteforschung: Verofendichungen des Instituts fur vergleichende Stadtegeschichte inMunster, Reihe A, Bd. 47; Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna, 2000), 247-68.


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72 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYthepassage inde Gerteau's La pratiquede la quotidienne,oncerning visualengagement with the city as seen from above and as a walker in thestreet.8 De Certeau was inspired by the skyscraper view of New York,while Chretien, in a work containing many allusions to the commerceand politics of towns, describes how Gawain observed a town as if fromabove, his gaze traversing the streets and squares, and encountering thevarietyof tradesmen with theirspecialised commodities and skills:

[Gawain] gazes on site of the casde, which sat on an arm of the sea, and saw that thewalls and the towerwere so strong that theyfeared no assault. He gazes on at the entiretown, throngingwith many fairpeople and the tables of themoneychangers all coveredwith gold and silver and coins. He sees the squares and streets all full of good workmenengaged in different crafts according to their various skills. One makes helmets andanother coats ofmail; one saddles and another shields; one bridles and another spurs;here they furbish swords. Here they full cloths and here theyweave them; here theyteasel them and here they shear them. Here they forge and cast silver,and theymakefine and expensive things: chalices, cups and bowls and vessels worked inniello, rings,belts, and buckles. One might well believe and declare that the town held a fair everyday, filled as itwas with somany riches: wax, pepper, grain [an expensive dye], ermineand grey furs,and all kinds ofmerchandise. They gaze on all these things, looking hereand there.9

This evocation echoes contemporary philosophical concerns with themechanical arts and prefigures thirteenth-century and later attemptsto find a language for the excitingworld of specialised luxury goods.Chretien's repetition of verbs denoting seeing (esgarder, voire, regarder)emphasises the visual engagement both with city space and with theselection and consumption of commodities, a feature of later texts dealingwith such topics.10 Moreover, mundane legal and administrative recordsofEnglish and French towns in theperiod confirm the essential veracityof Chretien's account, which could easily concern English cities such asLondon orWinchester, both of which he probably knew.11Several twelfth-century texts engaged direcdy with London'slandscape. The most popular and influential of them was GeoffreyofMonmouth's fictional 'History of theKings of Britain', completedabout 1136, a major theme in which is the destiny of the city and

8M. de Certeau, L'inventiondu quotidien, :Arts defaire, ed. L. Giard (Paris, 1990), 139-42.9 Chretien eTroyes:Le ConteduGraal ou leRoman duPerceval, ed. C. Mela (Paris, 1990), lines5680-710, pp. 406-8; translation by the author.10Especially in the Parisian Dictionarius ofJean de Garlande and Jean de Jandun's laterdescription of Les Halles, discussed inD. Keene, 'Cultures de production, de distributionet de consommation enmilieu urbain en Angleterre, 1100?1350', Histoire Urbaine, 16 (aout2006), 17-38.11E. Chapin, Les villesdefoiresde Champagne des origines u debutduXlVe sucle (Paris, 1937);Winchester in theEarlyMiddle Ages:An Edition and iscussion of keWintonDomesday, ed.M. Biddle(Oxford, 1976);U. T. Holmes and M. A. Klenke, Chretien, royes,and theGrail (Chapel Hill1959), 23-4


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74 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYsuggests a special interest in St Paul's cathedral and its environs, not leastin the matter of the cathedral's claim tometropolitan status, but also inhis mention of London as the burial place of kings and his references toLudgate and theadjacent church of StMartin.19 His audience of courtiersand clergywould have included its learned canons. A laterdean, RalphdeDiceto, drew onGeoffrey'swritings inhis own historicalwork andJohnof Salisbury mocked the metropolitan pretensions of the see in a quasiGalfredian remark about the bishop's intention to convert the cathedralinto a Temple ofJupiter.20Such linksmay explain the fact thatby theearly thirteenth century a property between St Paul's and the river wasknown as 'the house of Diana', possibly an allusion to the goddess whoinGeoffrey's storyhad prophesied that theTrojan Brutus would found anew city in a distant island. Brutus called his city 'New Troy', a notionthatquickly became embedded inLondon's historical identity.21

Today, the most famous twelfth-century account of London is thatwhichWilliam fitzStephen wrote about 1173 nd placed at thebeginningof his lifeof Thomas the recentlymartyred archbishop ofCanterbury,the city's most famous son and soon to be adopted by the citizens astheir special patron.22This relentlesslyrhetoricalwork in its idealisationof London deploys a horde of Latin tags and covers virtually theentire repertoire of city praise. Nevertheless, it contains much that isdemonstrably true and isnotable for its sense of the landscape of thecity, the specialised trades there and the surrounding territory.23 In these

19Historia Regum, ed.Wright and Crick, 112(4), ii5(i9)(24)j 20IjHistory, trans.Thorpe, 172,175-6, 280.20Radulfi deDiceto Decani LundoniensisOperaHistorica, ed.W Stubbs (2 vols., Rolls Series,1876), I, 10-15, 36, II, 222-32; GilbertFoliot and hisLetters,ed. A. Morey and C. N. L. Brooke(Cambridge, 1965), 151-62; The Letters of ohn of alisbury,

II:The Later Letters (1163-1180), ed.W.J. Millor and C. N. L. Brooke (Oxford, 1979), 666-7.21Historia Regum, ed.Wright and Crick, 21;History, trans.Thorpe, 64-5; Early Chartersofthe athedral Church ofSt Paul, London, ed.M. Gibbs (Camden Society, 3rd series 58, 1939),nos. 79-80. By the fifteenthcentury the house, then in the possession of the cathedral,was known as 'Diana's Chamber': H. C. Maxwell Lyte, 'Report on theManuscripts of theDean and Chapter of St Paul's' (Appendix to theHistorical Manuscripts Commission, NinthReport, 1883), I_72 at 4~522For Becket's life,see F Barlow, Thomas Becket (London 1986). For textsof thedescriptionof London: Materials for theHistory of homas Becket, ed. J. C. Robertson and J. B. Sheppard(7 vols., Rolls Series, 1875-85), III, 2-13; the textwas incorporated inJ. Stow, A Survey of

London (1598); in his edition of the 1603 edition of Stow's Survey, ingsford included a newedition of the description which notes significant textual variations: J. Stow, A Survey ofLondon, ed. C. L. Kingsford (Oxford, 1908; reprinted 1971), 219-29, 387-8. Translations andcommentaries include: F.M. Stenton,Norman London, anEssay (1934), including a translationbyH. E. Buder; Butler's translation isreproduced in orman London byWilliam fitz Stephen, d.D. Logan (New York, 1990).23Scattergood, 'Misrepresenting theCity', provides a valuable critique from these pointsof view; see also Ganim, 'The Experience ofModernity', and C. A. M. Clarke, LiteraryLandscapes and thedea of ngland, yoo-1400 (Cambridge, 2006), 90-8.


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 75respects,William's text can be associated with a styleof historical andquasi-historical writing in twelfth-centuryngland thatdisplays a specialconcern with thegeography and landscape of thekingdom, associatingthemwith a new interpretationof the structureof British and Englishhistory marked by successive phases of order and disorder and by newsenses of the western and northern frontiers of the realm and of the lesser,barbarous peoples beyond.24William's reading of snippetsfromVirgil andother classical authors may have stimulated his visual imagination, buthe also drew on twelfth-centuryriting inaway that indicates familiaritywith discourses concerning London and cities in general. From GeoffreyofMonmouth he adopted the city's Trojan origin and the prophecyconcerning its status as a metropolitan see, while Geoffrey's stories of thecitywalls and towersperhaps influenced his own detailed description.Notions ofhierarchy and authority,which informWilliam's emphasis ongood lordship,may also lie behind his use of thephrase arxpalatina todenote the Tower ofLondon, which is clearly intended topair itwiththe palatium regium atWestminster. The other great fortresses at the westend of the city,no longer in royalhands, were simply castella.25Thoughproudly noting that London was older than Rome, he points out thatboth cities used ancient laws and had institutions in common, such as aSenate, lesser magistrates, separate courts and regular assemblies. TheLondon senators were its aldermen, whom the archbishop of Rouen,perhaps thinkingof contemporary events inRome, had addressed bythat title when he wrote to the London commune at a date between 1141and 1144.26Claims specific toLondon lie behind William's mention ofthe citizens' hunting rights in the surrounding territory,etailed in thecharter ofHenry I to the Londoners, which has been claimed as a genuineroyal charter issued in 1133but ismore likelytobe a later compilation

24A.Gransden, 'Realistic Observation inTwelfth-Century England', Speculum,47 (1972),29-51; Henry,Archdeaconof untingdon,Historia Anglorum, theHistory of theEnglish People, ed.D. Greenway (Oxford, 1996), esp. lvii-lviii;J.Gillingham, The English in theTwelfthCentury:Imperialism,ational Identity ndPolitical Values (Woodbridge, 2000); cf.J.Green, 'King HenryI and Northern England', Transactions of theRoyal Historical Society,6th series, 17 (2007),35-5525For the scale of thewestern fortresses, or fortress, see St Paul's: The Cathedral Church ofLondon, 604-2004, ed. D. Keene, A. Burns and A. Saint (NewHaven and London, 2004), 18and Fig. 9.2He addressed the senatoribusnclitis,ivibus onoratis tomnibus ommunieondoniensis:ReadingAbbeyCartularies,ed. B. R. Kemp (2vols., Camden 4th series, 31 and 33,1986-7), I,no. 463.Brihtmaer ofGracechurch, amid-eleventh-century donor ofLondon property toCanterburyCathedral, was described in a rental of c. 1100 as senator.Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. A. J.Robertson (Cambridge, 1939), 217,468-9; B.W Kissan, 'AnEarly List ofLondon Properties',Transactionsofthe ondon andMiddlesex ArchaeologicalSociety,new series 8 (1938?40), 57?69.


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76 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYbased on a charter of Stephen and possibly, as suggested below, furtherelaborated after William wrote his account of London.27

To judge from the number of survivingmanuscripts, William fitzStephen's praise of London was not widely circulated, although it seemstohave influenced some laterwriting,perhaps includingamid-thirteenthcenturyverse abridgement ofGeoffrey's History, which elaborated theaccount of the settingof the city founded by Brutus by detailing thesurrounding fields, meadows and woodland.28 William's textwas certainlyknown to thirteenth-century Londoners and was used to preface a latercollection of the city's customs.29 Moreover, the last quarter of thetwelfthcenturywas remarkable fora proliferationofbriefdescriptions ofLondon's landscape, wealth and trade, most ofwhich drew on Geoffrey ofMonmouth's History and to a lesser extent on fitz Stephen's description,but in some cases added distinctive characterisations of their own. Theyinclude one perhaps by Hugh ofMontacute and so dating to about1170;30metrical descriptions byAlexander Neckam of about 1200,whichemphasise London as the burial place of kings and especially note thefish of the river Thames;31 and Gervase of Tilbury's remarkable account,which noted the stabilityof London's food supply,described theway inwhich the hames athigh tideflowed around the ower and characterisedtheThames as beingmore likea sea thana river, thereby suggestinga linkwith Chretien's description ofhis fictional town.Gervase's description isembedded in a text that he addressed to the Emperor Otto IV about 1215,a critical period for the emperor's interest in the city.32

27C. N. L. Brooke, G. Keir and S. Reynolds, 'Henry I's Charter for theCity ofLondon',Journal of theSocietyofArchivists, (1973), 558-78; C. W Hollister, 'London's First Charter ofLiberties: Is ItGzmimtV, Journal of edieval History, 6 (1980), 289-306;^ Green, 'FinancingStephen's War', inAngb-Norman Studies, 14,ed.M. Chibnall (Woodbridge, 1992), 91-114, at106-7. The earliest surviving textof the 'charter' isas a copy in the early thirteenth-centuryLondon Collection, where it is inserted immediately afterHenry I's coronation charter nearthebeginning of the textof theLegesHenrici Primi:Rylands Latin MS 155,fos. 78-9 (formerlynumbered 77-8). The 'charter' itself isnot mentioned in the otherwise comprehensive listof the city's royal grants of privileges surviving in the citizens' custody in 1212-14, also partof theLondon Collection: British Library [hereafterBL], Add MS 14252, fo. 106. See alsoLegesHenrici Primi, ed. L. J.Downer (Oxford, 1972), 81;J.H. Round, The Commune of ondonandOther Studies (1899), 256.28The Gesta RegumBritanniae, being Historia Regum, ed.Wright and Crick, V, at 32-3.29Liber Custumarum:pt 1oiMunimenta Gildhallae Londoniensis:LiberAlbus, Liber Custumarum etLiberHorn, ed. H. T. Riley (3vols., Rolls Series, 1859-62), II,pt 1, 1-15.30A. B. Scott, 'Some Poems Attributed toRichard of Cluny', inMedieval Learning andLiterature:Essays Presented toRichardWilliam Hunt, ed. J.J. G. Alexander and M. T. Gibson(Oxford, 1976), 181-99, text at 197.A. Rigg, The History ofAngb-LatinLiterature,1066-1422(Cambridge, 1992), 135-6 n. 231.31AlexandriNeckam e naturisrerumibro uo:With the oem oftheameAuthor,e laudibusdivinaesapientia,ed. T.Wright (Rolls Series, 1863), 410, 414-15, 458-9.32Otia imperialia: ecreationfor anEmperor,Gervase of ilbury, ed. S. E. Banks and J.W Binns(Oxford, 2002), 398-403.


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 77

Figure i Seal of thebarons ofLondon, c. 1220, drawings from surviving impressions.

Texts such as these almost certainly informed the earliest survivinggraphic representations ofmedieval London, inwhat one could describeas reverse ekphrasis. The earliest of them are on the city's common seal,the 'seal of the barons of London', recendy characterised as 'one of theoutstanding civic seals of medieval Europe' (Figure 1).On one side itdisplays St Paul and on the other StThomas, each inrelation to the citylandscape. Its style suggests that the seal was commissioned about 1220,the year of the translation of Thomas's remains at Canterbury on theJubilee of hismartyrdom, when the citizenswere initiatingan efforttocommemorate him at his birthplace in the city.33 t includes a strikingand in many ways realistic panorama of London. St Paul's occupies acentralpositionwith itstall spire,probably the 'tower' completed in 1221.To either side are substantial fortifications, representing the Tower ofLondon to the east and Baynard's Casde to the west. The view seems toshow theriver hames lapping against thecitywall. Roman London hadbeen walled against the river, ut visible traces of thatpart of thewalledcircuit had probably disappeared long before 1100, so the imagemayratherhave been inspiredby fitzStephen's account of awall with towerswhich had once enclosed thecityon the south but had been washed away,a notion itselfperhaps derived less from observation or fromknowledgeof actual events than fromGeoffrey ofMonmouth's storyof how King

33For a good photograph of an impression of the obverse and a note byT. A. Heslop onthe style of the seal, seeAge ofChivalry:Art inPlantagenetEngland, 1200-1400, ed. J.Alexanderand P. Binski (1987), 273, no. 193. For a photograph of an impression of the reverse, see StPaul's, ed. Keene etal., Fig. 11.For the citizens' commemoration of St Thomas: D. Keeneand V Harding, Historical Gazetteerof ondon before he reatFire, I:Cheapside (Cambridge, 1987),no. 105/18.


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78 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYl*I;.^HfiBBHlllili^^

i^r^ 2 London as depictedbyMatthew Paris in his itineraryrom London toApulia, c. 1252. (? BritishLibrary oard. All RightsReserved. L, RoyalMS 14C.VIL>. 2).

Lud had entirely surrounded the citywith walls and towers.Certainly,the accounts and depictions of thisperiod convey the idea, common inrepresentations of cities, that London's wall made a complete and perfectcircuit. The great tower with the gate opening towards the river shownon the sealmay be intended to representBelinus's tower at Billingsgate.In thisway Geoffrey's History both shaped perception of the city andbecame entwinedwith expressions of itspolitical identity.he other sideof the seal portrays theLondoners before StThomas, inwhat seems tobea group ofmen on one side and a group of women, apparendy portrayedas Roman matrons, on the other. This portrayal may refer to fitz Stephen'stext, where there is a comparable juxtaposition between an account ofthe dignity of the citizens and a statement in praise of London's matronsas ipsae Sabinae.Matthew Paris's famous sketch ofLondon (Figure 2) conveys similarmessages.34 Again, St Paul's is the focal point within a circuit of walls.

34S. Lewis, The Art of atthew Paris in theChronicaMajora (Aldershot, 1987), 332-5 andFig. 204.


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 79v. ttaSSOltmltaHltU|f?fKSUfWfWOMIItawr,

Figure j Drawing ofLondon c. 1300, added toa textofGeoffrey of onmouth's 'HistoryoftheKings of ritain',belowthestory f illingsgate. ? BritishLibrary oard. AllRights Reserved. BL, Royal MS 13 A.iii,fo. 28v).

The textabove describes the cityas chef engleterrend founded byBrutuswho called it ew Troy. Below, sixcitygates are named and are indicatedby distinctive signs.This underlines the fact that the drawing serves asan ideograph rather than an exact representation, for one important citygate, Aldersgate, is omitted and Billingsgate, which was not a gate at all,is included. The mythical 'tower ofBillingsgate' may be intended by thewords la turjustwest ofLondon Bridge (punt),hile theTower of Londonitself is shown on the other side of the river. This total of seven gates, one ofthemmythical,may justify illiam fitzStephen's allusion to hebes inhisaccount of London's defences,which he said included seven double gatesin the citywall. Indeed,Matthew Paris's signs indicate double gates. Anequally meaningful graphic representation is an early fourteenth-centurysketch added below theBillingsgate section of an earlier textofGeoffreyofMonmouth's History (Figure 3). Again, theview is south,with St Paul'sat the centre and the Tower of London to the left. The city walls areshown as a complete circuit. Against the river, to the west of the Tower ofLondon, the large gate-tower is presumably intended as that erected byBelinus.

The consistency in these representations suggests that this image ofLondon and its expressions in historical or quasi-historical texts waswidely appreciated. They also relate to an understanding of London asthe capital and organising principle of thekingdom. This idea had beencurrent for some time and in particular was articulated during the 1140s in


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80 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYaccounts of the events inKing Stephen's troubled reign: London was the'queenmetropolis of thekingdom' and the 'head of thewhole kingdom',while the Londoners were 'in effect magnates because of the greatnessof theircity inEngland'.35 For fitzStephen, some decades later,the citywas the 'seat of the kingdom of theEnglish' and the bishops and laymagnates were 'almost to be counted as citizens because of their frequentattendance there for councils and on their own business'.This conjunction of text nd image brings us to theLondon Collectionand politics. The collection now survives in two parts, one inManchesterand the other in the British Library, each containing about 130 folios.36The text is largely intact,but not without some damage and possibledisordering in thefinal section of thework. Itwas written by two scribes.The first, using a script of an older style than that of the second, was atwork after 1204 and wrote the whole of the Manchester part and the firstfour-fifthsf theBritishLibrary part, carrying thecollection ofmaterialsinto the reign ofJohn. The ruling and layout of the textdemonstratesthat the second scribe'swork (beginning on fo. 104V, mmediatelybelowthe final lines written by the first scribe)was intended as part of thesame overall project. He copied several items originating before 1204and others datable to 1205-6 and later, the latest of which is a list ofthe city's sheriffs holding office between the years 1188-9 and 1216-17.37

35Gesta Stephani, ed. K. R. Potter and R. H. C. Davis (Oxford, 1976), 4, 112;William OfMalmesbury cawgo?1143, HistoriaNovella: The Contemporaryistory, ed. E. King, trans.K. R.Potter (Oxford, 1998), 94-5; cf. The Chronicle ofjocelin ofBrakebnd, ed. H. E. Butler (1949),75-73 The firstpart isnowManchester, theJohn Rylands University Library, Rylands LatinMS 155, and the second, BL, Add. MS 14252. See E Liebermann, Uber dieLeges Anglorumsaeculo xiii ineunte ondiniis collectae (Halle, 1894), and idem,A Contemporary Manuscriptof the Leges Anglorum Londiniis collectae', EnglishHistorical Review, 28 (1913), 732-45. Aselection of the London material inAdd. MS 14252 isprinted and discussed inM. Bateson,A London Municipal Collection of theReign ofJohn', EnglishHistorical Review, 17 (1902),480-511,707-30, which also identifies the remaining materials previously printed elsewherefrom thisor laterMSS. The London laws, customs and memoranda from the collection aremore comprehensively printed and described inM. Weinbaum, London unterduard I. und I(2vols., Stuttgart, 1933), II, 5-91, which remains themost convenient and accurate versionof thatmaterial so farpublished. The way inwhich the collection, for some of itscontents,appears to have drawn on earlier and perhaps more accurate, but no longer surviving,transcripts is discussed inBrooke etal., 'Henry I's charter'. Recent discussions of aspects ofthe collection are: P.Wormald, iilQuadripartitus,'>,nLaw and Government n edieval EnglandandNormandy: Essays in onour ofSirJohnHolt, ed. G. Garnet and J. Hudson (Cambridge,1994), 111-47;J.Gillingham, 'Stupormundi: 1204 et un obituaire de Richard Coeur de Liondepuis longtemps tombe dans l'oubli', inPlantagenets etCapetiens: confrontationstheritages, d.M. Aurell and N.-Y. Tonnerre (Turnhout, 2006), 397-411. The quires of theMSS are brieflydescribed in N. N. R. Ker, 'Liber Custumarum and Other Manuscripts Formerly at theGuildhall', The GuildhallMiscellany 1.3 (1954), 37-45, at 37.37The list f sheriffs sprinted inWeinbaum, London, II,48-9; see also Brooke etal., 'HenryI's charter', n. 7,where its lastpart is described as 'corrupt'. Allowing for normal variations


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 81The second scribe probably worked over a short period, perhaps at sometime between 1214 and 1216, and at least a part of his text was completedafterPrince Louis's invasion or even after the death ofKing John. Hisrole was to order and copy texts relating specifically to the citizens ofLondon and their objectives at that time. The first scribe's work, perhapsundertaken immediatelybefore that of the second scribe,had consistedmostly of copying earlier laws,but it included linkingmaterial speciallycomposed for the occasion. The many 'London interpolations' in thetexts of the laws, especially those in the 'Laws of Edward the Confessor',

may have been made at that time. Adjustments, and even additions, to anexisting textof the supposed charter ofHenry I to the citizensmay havebeen part of thisprogramme. The laws ofHenry II are represented by adistinctive and somewhat confused version ofGlanville.38 The resonancesbetween the twoparts of the collection seem tobe a deliberate literaryand polemical device, indicating that the compilation as a whole andthe interpolations in the earlier texts were planned and executed asa single programmatic scheme,most likely inLondon and during theyears immediately before and after the granting ofMagna Carta inJune 1215.

Although the text iswell ordered and decorated overall, it isclear thatboth scribes were hasty and sometimes inaccurate, necessitating marginalcorrections and additions.Haste isalso indicatedby the leavingofgaps fortext to be inserted later. Insertions sometimes turned out to be too largefor the space available and some gapswere not filled (Figure 4). The highincidence of ruled but unwrittengaps in the folios of the second scribe'ssection suggests that the project of gathering London's laws and customswas both hasty and not somuch completed in 1216-17 as abandoned onthedeath ofKing John. The appearance of themanuscript thusconveysthe drama of time inwhich itwritten,with much of the linkingmaterialor introductory material placed between sections apparendy not havingbeen fullycomposed by the time that the copying of those sections hadbeen completed. Parts ofa runof several blank folios leftby thefirstscribewere used by a third for transcripts of two additional texts.39 These weredocuments of London interest, but the folios were ruled and written in aformat and style erydifferent rom thatof theother two scribesand so thetexts presumably were inserted after, but perhaps not long after, 1216-17.These twodocuments have been discussed as iftheywere an integralpartin name forms and the haste with which thewhole of the last part of the collection wascompiled, the listoverall isan accurate one and it isnot necessary topostulate that itwascompiled or copied after 1217.38The Treatise on the aws and Customs of the ealm of ngland CommonlyCalled Glanville, ed.G. D. G. Hall, with furthernotes byM. T Clanchy (Oxford, 1993), lv-lvii.39BL, Add. MS 14252, fos. 88V-89, 90V-91.


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82 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Figure 4 The hasty composition of the (London Collection', showing how the account ofLondon's foundation inmemory ofTroy was added after thedescription of the city's court ofHusting and then continued in themargin. The description ofHusting relates toa clause inHenry I's supposed charter to the citizens ofLondon copied earlier in the collection. All thematerial n thisfolio ispart ofthelongestfthe Londoninterpolations'n the extofthe(Laws of dward theConfessor';for this section of the text,seeGesetze, ed.Liebermann, l,657. (Manchester,heJohnRy landsUniversityibrary, y lands atinMS 155,o. 6g).of the collection and had a bearing on itspurpose, but that was clearly notthe case.40 They are the only suggestion of any later use of themanuscriptas a place forcollecting additional material relevant to the city, lthoughmarginal annotations show that itwas carefully scrutinised during the

4?Bateson, 'Municipal Collection', 483-6; Weinbaum, London, II, 10-17. The fullsignificance of these additions is not clear. One, referringback to a dispute in the 1130s,concerns the rightsof the lord ofBaynard's Casde over thewater of theThames; the other,interpreted byBateson and Weinbaum as a record of civic property, is infact an extract froman early thirteenth-century rental of property belonging toCanterbury Cathedral Priory onthe London waterfront to thewest ofQueenhithe (seeD. Keene and V Harding, A Survey ofDocumentarySourcesfor Property olding in ondon before heGreat Fire (London Record Society,22, 1985), 72).A concern with the river isperhaps the connection between them.


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 83late thirteenth nd early fourteenth centuries by those interested in thecity's laws.

The overall context and purpose of this collection has long beenappreciated, not least as a result of the careful analysis and pithy commentsof Felix Liebermann. It served the purpose of the barons, of themayor andleaders ofLondon and of the canons of St Paul's in their confrontationwith King John, as a statement of established laws and customs ofthe case against kingswho acted unjustly and without due forms ofconsent, and of an ideal of responsible government by counsel. Theseprinciples underlay Magna Carta. Apart from the close involvement ofLondon in the opposition toJohn, there are direct links between partsof the collection and theArticles of the Barons and clauses inMagnaCarta. Secondly, the collection presents a providential sweep of Britishhistoryemphasising theextentofwhat English rule should be and tracingelements of thatdominion to the timeofKing Arthur.This vision drew onGeoffrey ofMonmouth, butwith an additional emphasis,which reflectsmercantile interests (presumably those of the leading Londoners) anda concern for the linksbetween the inhabitants of Britain and otherpeoples.41Ralph Hanna has recentlydrawn attention to thefact thatthisdocument is farmore than a simple collection of laws and customs, whichis how historians have tended to exploit it so far,and that its literaryand rhetorical structure reveal much about its purpose and meaning.When Hanna's book appeared,42 Iwas thinkingon similar lines aboutthe choices which determined thecontent of the collection, the light theythrew on London interests outside the immediate context of the baronialopposition and what implications thismight have forour understandingof the London customs as recorded in the document. My subsequentthinkinghas benefited greatly fromHanna's ideas.The arrangement of thematerial in thecollection is striking Figure 5).Laws are gathered in a chronological succession of groups according tothekings associated with them, from Ine, the king ofWessex who diedin 726, throughAlfred, Athelstan, Cnut, Edward the Confessor (saidto have been confirmed byWilliam I, decrees attributed towhom areentered before Edward's laws), toHenry II, who died in 1189. Severalof these groups conclude with a few lines of praise on themonarch inquestion, perhaps inspiredby the characterisations ofkings fromArthuronwards thatHenry ofHuntingdon had included inhis history.43houghnot totally formulaic these encomia have much in common, stressing the

41Gillingham, 'Stupor mundi', 399-400, summarises views on this purpose. See alsoJ. C. Holt, Magna Carta (Cambridge, 1992), 20, 55-7, 93-5, andWormald, ''''lQuadripartitus>>,.42R. Hanna, LondonLiterature (Cambridge, 2005), 56-8, 70-2, 84-9; Hanna mistranslatesa fewpassages.43Historia Anglorum,ed. Greenway, 98-9, 226-7, 298-9, 318-19, 366-7.


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84 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYTribal Hidage and Burghal Hidage(Rylands,fo.3v-4)

approx66 folios: laws, InetoEdward theConfessorDescription of the realm of Britain (Geoffrey of Monmouth)(Rylands,fo.70)

approx 73 folios toend ofRylandsMS): laws,Edward theConfessor (cont.)toHenry IIapprox 87 folios from eginning fAdd MS 14252): lawsetc,Henry II

('Glanville')toRichard IPrester John's Letter(Add.MS, fos92-97v)

4 folios:London lawsmostlyconcerning foreignersDescriptionofBritain (largelyHenryofHuntingdon)(Add.MS, fos 101-104)

approx 21 folios:Londoncustoms, lawsandmemoranda (possiblydividedat14thfolio y lists f counties in he udicialcircuits, 208-9), articles for royalcharter, descent of the honour of BoulogneHidage of Middlesex(Add.MS, fos 126-7)

4 folios: omhill family, itz ilwin'sbuilding ssize (Londonheroes?)Figure The geographicalramingoftheondonCollection.he textsn boldare the

framing element.

military vigour of theking and theextentof his rule, sometimes using theadjective inclitushich, significantly,sdeployed in connection withKingArthur in themost significantof theLondon additions to theversion ofthe 'Laws ofEdward theConfessor' contained in the collection.44 Theencomium on Athelstan, for example, declares that he ruled up to thelimits f thekingdom established byArthur,while the longer statementonHenry II emphasises his conquest of Ireland and thenumerous territories

44These London additions are identified inLiebermann's edition of the laws:Die GesetzederAngelsachsen,ed. F. Leibermann (3vols., Halle, 1903-16), I,627-70, with these referencestoArthur at 655, 659. The text inGesetze should be read in conjunction with Liebermann,'Contemporary Manuscript'.


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 85that he ruled between Norway and Spain. There follows a brief butstrikingly arm encomium on Richard I, informed by knowledge ofthe later loss of Normandy, and a rubric and a blank space indicatethat at this point it was intended to include at least an extract from

Geoffrey of Vinsauf s extravagant praise of that king.45 After this the finalsection of the collection focuses on the reign of John, although withoutidentifying him as king. These sections are framed by a sequence of textsof a different type, the purpose of which is to provide a geographicaldescription or idealisation, indeed a visualisation, of the territory overwhich themonarchs ruled.Although the text isnot illustrated, there isa strong visual element in this structure, recalling that of a narrativesequence of images, each defined by a frame (as in a mural or manuscripthistory of theworld), or of a gallery of sculptures portraying kings orprophets holding the texts or tables of their laws, such as can be seenon Romanesque or early Gothic cathedrals.46 Visual or architecturalframing was an important mnemonic and cognitive device in rhetoric andoratory, adding expressive force to narratives which, as in the case of theLondon Collection, were often composed ofmultiple stories, interruptedbut interlaced.47 Sculptural programmes of this type sometimes portraythe forerunners of Christ. The rather different message of this collection,compiled after the loss ofNormandy in 1204, is thatKing John had muchto live up to.The choice of geographical texts is illuminating (Figure 5). At thebeginning, before King Ine's laws, are placed textsof the Tribal andof theBurghal Hidages, early listsof territories nd townswhich serveto introduce the realm. Towards the end of the longest of the Londoninterpolations in the 'Laws of Edward the Confessor' is a description of thekingdom ofBritain, derived fromGeoffrey ofMonmouth. Significandy,this description marks a transition from an encomium on King Ine to anaccount of the 'right and appendages of the crown of Britain' containingpraise of Arthur, the 'most glorious of the kings of the Britons', and a

45Gillingham, 'Stupormundi', 400-8. Gillingham ismistaken in the statement (at 410-11)that the collection's favour towards King Richard is further indicated by its inclusion of thetext of Richard's charter concerning Portsmouth issued in 1194: the text is not included,although, fordifferent reasons, a copy forms part of laterLondon collections.4 G. Zarnecki, LaterEnglish Romanesque Sculpture,1140-1210 (1953), 48-9; idem, omanesqueLincoln: The Sculpture ofthe athedral (Lincoln, 1988); The RomanesqueFrieze and itsSpectator: heLincoln Symposium apers, ed. D. Kahn (1992), passim, and esp.W. Sauerlader, Romanesquesculpture in its rchitectural context', 17-43, and W. Cahn, 'Romanesque Sculpture and theSpectator', 45-60.47H. R. Broderick, 'Some Attitudes towards the Frame inAnglo-Saxon Manuscripts ofthe Tenth and Eleventh Centuries', Artibus etHistoriae, 5 (1982), 31-42; M. Carruthers, TheCraft ofThought:Meditation, Rhetoric and theMaking of mages, 400-1200 (Cambridge, 1998),122, 151?3, 201-4, 237-41; A. Fowler, Renaissance Realism:Narrative Images inLiterature nd Art(Oxford, 2003), 27-8, 45-6, 77.


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86 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYlong listof the territorieshe had ruled.48At a later important transitionpoint in thecollection, thebrief section onKing Richard isfollowedby acopy of one of the earliest versions of Prester John's letter to the EmperorManuel Comnenus, a fictitious text composed a generation so earlier.This introduces the controversial reign ofKing John and thepart of thecollectionwhich explicidy focuses on London. As a piece of exotica, theletter may have been chosen for its appeal to an audience of barons andwealthymerchants who would have had some knowledge of the east anditscommodities, including the pepper carefullydescribed in the letterand mentioned in the documents which immediately follow it as oneof the commodities brought toLondon. The letter is also a powerfulstatement of a 'moral Utopia', a well-ordered, wealthy and extensiveterritory, where seventy-two kings and their provinces were subject to apriestlyruler.49 n key respects thisresembled therealm ofKing Arthur aspresented in the interpolationsand itcertainlyofferedamodel forJohn'skingdom of England, while its image of Christian rule, likeArthur's,would underline criticism ofJohn's failure toprotect the church.Afterthe letter,there is entered the first of the textswhich detail the lawsand customs of London. This is in Anglo-Norman, in contrast to allprevious and themajority of subsequent texts,which are inLatin. Mycurrent hypothesis is that the texts in Anglo-Norman, the vernacularof the leading citizens and the barons, deal with matters which mightbe specifically contested by the king and were in some sense drafts forinternal discussion, rather than statements for public consumption orstraightforward copies of earlier texts from the city's archive. This AngloNorman text, which occupies a crucial position in the collection, is inthree distinct, but not strongly separated, sections. The first deals withlegal procedures and rules concerning landholding and debt in thecity'sHusting court,with the roles of the sheriffs nd aldermen and with therelationship between foreigners and the 'law of London'; the seconddetails regulations concerning merchants from Lorraine and elsewhereoverseas; and the third deals with the cityFolkmoot and its relation totheHusting. The concern with foreigners is emphasised by the text'sproximity to the letter fPresterJohn. This text isfollowed immediatelyby another geographical description of Britain, inAnglo-Norman butlargelydrawn fromHenry ofHuntingdon, a description of the territoryclearlypaired with thatof PresterJohn's exotic realm. The first cribe then

48For the interpolation, see Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I,655-9.49B. Hamilton, 'PresterJohn and theThree Kings ofCologne', inStudies in edieval HistoryPresentedto . H. C. Davis, ed. H. Mayr-Harting and R. I.Moore (1985). For the date of theparticular version used in the collection, seeM. Gosman, La lettre u PreteJean (Groningen,1982), 32-4, and B.Wagner, Die 'Epistola resbiterisJohannis': Lateinish undDeutsch;Uberlieferung,Textgeschichte,ezeption undUbertragungen m ittelalter (Tubingen, 2000), 55.1. Bejczy, La lettredupretrejean (Paris, 2001), passim. See also Hanna, London literature,82-6.


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 87completed his work by introducing the final section of the collection as 'apart of the laws of the cityof London and of itsfranchises'.At thatpointthe second scribe took over.At thebeginning of his, or his instructor's,selection ofLondon material he placed the Latin textnow known as theLibertas Londoniensis, which deals with some of the same matters, includingFolkmoot,Husting and rulesforforeignmerchants, includingone limitingtheir stay in the city toforty ays. This textseems tobe based on amidtwelfth-century exemplar. At the end of his London material the scribecopied theHidage ofMiddlesex, listingthe components of the territoryimmediately subject to London. After that he added twomore items,

which, as we shall see, may have been intended as a heroic conclusion.The clearest statementsof political principle in the collection are tobe found in the interpolations in two earlier setsof laws, those ofKingHenry I, originally compiled about 1117, nd those attributed toEdwardtheConfessor, which in theirfirstversion appear tohave been compiledin the 1130s or a litde earlier.50 The more extensive interpolations werein the latter,which seem very likely tohave been made specificallyforthepurpose of this collection, and presumably resulted in the 'laws ofSt Edward' that the barons were said tohave sought fromKing John in1215.51 Recurrent themes in the London interpolations toEdward's laws52emphasise therightsof theCrown, theunity and extent of thekingdom,and the king's responsibility to protect the church and the realm, topromote good laws and abolish bad ones and todo justice according tocounsel. They also outline an ideal, but historically based structure oflocal government and political assembly, informed by common counsel,communes and an oath ofbrotherhood which united nobility,townsmenand all people for the utility of the realm. This system was older thanArthur,who used it to consolidate thekingdom ofBritain and drive outenemies. These ideas seem to have been informed by a memory of thegreat council convoked byJohn inLondon in 1205,followingwhich theadult population was to be organised into a commune for the defence ofthe realm.53 The interpolations emphasise the leading role of London ascaput regni... et legum et semper curia domini regis and the way inwhich ithadbeen founded and built in the 'manner, form and memory of old, greatTroy', whose laws and liberties it stillcontained (Figure 4). These wouldhave been the laws that Arthur found. In addition there were more or lessdirect allusions to London in the identification of aldermen as senators,

50Leges, ed. Downer, 34-7; B. R. O'Brien, God's Peace and theKing's Peace: The Laws of dwardtheConfessor Philadelphia, 1999), 44-8.51Holt, Magna Carta, 115.52Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I,635-7, 639-40, 655-60, 664.53TheHistorical Works ofGervase ofCanterbury, d.W. Stubbs (2vols., Rolls Series, 1870-80),l>96-7


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88 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYin themention of folkmootsbeing summoned by a bell and inreferencestohunting rights nd to local armies being led by aristocratic constablesor heretocii.The term 'common counsel' (commune consilium) used several times inthe interpolations may have a had a particular resonance for Londoners,for the copy of a city inventory, datable to between 1212 and 1214 andforming part of the collection, lists a 'seal of the common council' keptwith some of the charters 'in the treasury' (in thesauro). This 'commoncouncil' (to be distinguished from the latermedieval common councilof the city)may have been identicalwith thebody of twenty-four hichin 1205-6 swore that itwould legally see to counselling (ad consulendum)according to itscustom by the rightof theking and thatno member ofthebody would take a bribewhen giving judgement.54 The oath takenby thisbody,which presumably comprised the twenty-four ldermen ofthe city,was perhaps influenced by the statute arising from the greatcouncil which John had summoned inLondon in 1205,according to theterms of which itwould have represented the commune of the city. Analternative interpretation is that the 'common council' of this period alsoincluded a number ofprobi homines, who are recorded from time to timein this period as supporting the mayor and aldermen and who appear tobe distinct from the larger body which constituted the commune.55 Thebuilding code of 1212, for example, was made per consilium proborum virorumand refers to the way in which scotales could be licensed per communeconsiliumivitatisapudGildehallam, lthough the code itself as enacted atGuildhall by 'themayor and other barons of the city'.56The 'seal of thebarons of London', discussed above, appears stylistically to be later in dateand so the 'seal of the common council' was presumably its predecessor,although itmay not have been owned by a body precisely comparable tothe 'barons'. A letter from themayor and universitas of London in 1219 wassaid tobe sealed with the communisigillocivitatisondonie,a phrase whichcould denote either of the seals, if indeed there were two.57 The treasurywhere this seal and the charters were kept is usually assumed to have beenat thecityguildhall, but given theclose association between St Paul's andthe London folkmoot and between the canons and the leading citizens atthis time, plus the role of cathedrals as custodians of archives relating to

54Bateson, 'Municipal Collection', 507-8; Round, Commune, 237;Weinbaum, London, II,49-50. The inventory's phrase cumsigillode communi ons cannot refer to a seal attached tothe charterwhich precedes it in the list since that charterwas a royal one.55Bateson, 'Municipal Collection', 509-11.56Weinbaum, London, II,89-91.57Patent Rolls 1216-1225 (1901), 211.


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 89county administration,58 it is at least equally likely that the 'treasury' wasthe cathedral treasury at St Paul's.

The interpolations indicate the particular interest that Edward's lawshad for theLondoners and theway inwhich that interest xtended backbeyond their commune of 1191 to Stephen's reign and the city's earliercommune of 1141 which had united citizens and barons in a commoncause. In that year, when the Londoners were negotiating terms withthe Empress Matilda, theyhad asked that theymight be allowed tolive under the excellent laws ofKing Edward rather than the severeones of her father,King Henry. Matilda harshly refused and Londonturned against her.59 Perhaps the idea of

a distinctive London law ofsome antiquity was consolidated at that time, for the story that Brutushad given the Londoners their lawwas added to the original version ofGeoffrey's History before 1155.60 ith regard to thekingdom as awhole,the laws ofKing Edward had by 1100 or soon after achieved a status as thebest of all laws, but in 1141 it seems that the Londoners were seeking lawswhich would apply specifically to them. Moreover, there were reasonswhy rulers of London might have a particular regard forKing Edward asthe source of their law.Thus, thefirstmayor,Henry fitzAilwin,membersof theCornhill familyand possibly other leading families at the time ofthe 1191 commune could count among their ancestors members of theLondon guild of cnihtas, hich had received fromKing Edward a writconfirming itsjurisdiction and good laws. In 1125thatwritwas placed onthe altar of theLondon prioryofHoly TrinityAldgate as confirmation oftheguild's gift f land and rights, nd thewrit would stillhave been at thepriorywhen fitzAilwin was buried there in 1212.61 tmay be that the twodocuments added at the very end of the collection (Figure 5)were intendedto signal thisEdwardian link,for the first of themwas a genealogy, inAnglo-Norman, of the Cornhill and supposedly related London familiesand the second named fitz Ailwin in relation to his most well-known actas mayor, the city building code drawn up after the Great Fire of Londonin July 1212 and written in Latin. This code, as we shall see, may alsohave been included in the collection as a concluding expression of theeffectiveness of the city's government based at Guildhall. This pairing

may deliberately underline one of the collection's pervading themes, the

58Cf. R. L. Poole, 'The Publication of Great Charters by the English Kings', EnglishHistorical Review, 28 (1913), 444-53.59The Chronicleof ohn ofWorcester,ed. P.McGurk, IIand III (Oxford, 1995-8), III, 296-7.60Historia Regum, ed.Wright and Crick, II (the 'first ariant version'), cap. 22.61Anglo-SaxonWrits, ed. F. E. Harmer (Manchester, 1952), 231-5; The Cartulary of olyTrinityAldgate, ed. G. A.J. Hodgett (London Record Society 7, 1971), 168.The members ofthe guild in 1125 included Robert and his brother Ailwin, sons of Leofstan (ofwhom thelatterwas probably Henry fitzAilwin's father) and Edward Hupcornhille, ancestor of theCornhills.


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90 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYunity ofdifferentpeoples within thekingdom, forHenry fitzAilwin wasofEnglish descent and, according to thegenealogy, theGornhills had aNorman ancestor.Given primacy among the foreign groups named in the Londoninterpolations toEdward's lawswho by rightshould live in thekingdom ofBritain as propriicives ere Bretons fromArmorica. Here the interpolatordrew on Geoffrey of Monmouth's account of the close connectionsbetween Britain and Brittany and of the prophecy that the cives (thatis theBretons) of the island shall return to it, prophecy thatWilliam fitzStephen related to London. From its context, later readers could relatethis prophecy to the eventual loss ofNormandy.62 Thus the interpolator'shighlighting of the Bretons might form part of the case against John,not least on account of his role in the murder of his nephew, Arthur ofBrittany, in 1203.The collection conveys a sense that the rules by which Londonersgoverned their public lives were regarded as law rather than custom,that iswith a general and binding purpose rather than ofmerely localapplication. Such a distinctionwas made by the Pisans in the late 1150swhen theyenvisaged a double code for their city,one of leges nd oneof usus.63 Even in Pisa, however, the distinction between law and customwas fuzzy and some London rules were described as customs, while ina few other towns of the period the rules were described as 'laws andcustoms'. Among English towns, only London, so far as I am aware,was marked by references to its 'law' in the singular alone.64 Moreover,London customs were widely employed as models for those granted toother towns and thismay have contributed to their standing as 'law'. Thisactual or perceived special status of London's customs seems to explaincertain choices concerning the documents that were included in thecollection. For example, itwas clearly not the aim to assemble a set of thecitizens' royal grants of privileges, ofwhich twelve (or seven, excludingduplicates) were listed in the inventoryof 1212-14 already mentioned.The collection includes textsof only two such grants, that ofHenry I,

which, if it had ever existed, survived only as a copy in 1212-14, and thatofHenry II, both copies ofwhich were then in the custody of privatecitizens. In the London Collection, the textsofHenry I's and ofHenryIPs charters to the citizens are placed immediately after the monarch's'coronation charter', as if to emphasise the high standing and widersignificanceof theprivileges enjoyed byLondon. The formermentionedthe law of London and the latterconfirmed to the Londoners the law

62Daniel, Les propheUes, 3-4; Brooke and G. Keir, London 800-1216, 120-1.63 .Wickham, CourtsandConflict nTwelfth-Centuryuscany (Oxford, 2003), 108,112,114-16.4Up to 1216, 'laws' or 'laws and customs' arementioned only inroyal charters toLincoln,Newcasde, Northampton, Oxford and Hartlepool (followingNewcastle).


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 91of his grandfather's day, seemingly authoritative statements which mayhave been the charters' principal value for the compiler. They wouldhave resonated with the several references to the 'law of London' in theimportantfirst textdetailing London customswhich was entered in thecollection immediately after Prester John's letter. Later royal charters toLondon which mention its law simplyrepeat thephrase fromHenry IPscharter, while in the thirteenth century, as the difference between what wasfixed and general and what was local became more clearly established,references to London law faded away. Itmay be relevant here to note theroyal letter f 1235which directed themayor and sheriffs o suppress theteaching of 'laws' in the city.Paul Brand suggested that thismay relateto some developing synthesisofRoman and English laws,65but it seemspossible that instead, or perhaps as well, it concerned the complex lawsof London itself, erhaps as yetonly imperfecdyrecorded inwriting, theteaching ofwhich could be viewed as subversive.

Important elements in the collection's argument concern trade.Especially significant is what is clearly an early thirteenth-centurystatement copied by the first scribe into a gap he had left in an earlysection.66 This statement drew on earlier sources, but also included newideas and somenotions contrary to those favouredby theking. It affirmedthe unity of weights, measures, currency, tolls and mercantile customs(possiblyan allusion toLondon law) throughout theports and the entirekingdom of Britain. In addition, it affirmed the freedom of merchants(presumably foreign merchants) to enter and return through the ports,with thequalification that theycould neither gowith theirgoods beyondthe legal limits of theports out into the kingdom nor stay in theportsmore than forty days, restrictions which clearly allude to the customsof London recorded near the end of the collection. Magna Carta alsostated merchants' freedom of entry and departure but, reflecting whathad been royal policy since the time ofRichard I, added that theywerefree tomove about England and said nothing about restricting them tothe ports, thereby ignoring what appears to have been older custom,at least in London. The statement notes the restriction on exportingmaterials of war, customary by 1200, but makes a significant additionby declaring thatwool cannot be taken overseas out of thekingdom ofBritain without having been woven into cloth. There was no royal policyof restrictingthe export ofwool, except during periods ofwarfare, andso thisprohibitionmust reflect the interest f nativemerchants who wereactive intheproduction and export of cloth and theirfearsconcerning theloss of trade in theface of competition fromFlemish towns.Here too, the

65P. Brand, 'WestminsterHall and Europe: European Aspects of theCommon Law', inLondon andEurope, ed. Boffey and King, 55-83.66Rylands Latin MS 115,fo. iov; Liebermann, Leges Anglorum, 12-14.


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92 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYLondon interest was strong, for the latter part of the collection includes,in Anglo-Norman, the 'law of the weavers and fullers' of Winchesterand other towns which asserted weavers' subjection to merchants andwas said also to be the custom of London, where in 1202 the citizensbriefly managed to suppress the weavers' independence.67 London was,or had been within living memory, a major centre of cloth manufactureand finishingand Henry fitzAilwin and his familyappear tohave beenactive in that business since at least the early twelfth century.68 Thecompiler of the collection endowed thispowerful statementof Londonmercantile interestswith special authority as long-standing custom inBritain by placing it mong the laws of Ine.Thus, Liebermann named it'Pseudo-Ine'.

Commercial interests, especially London ones, were in several respectsat variance with royal policy overseas during thisperiod. Dynastic tiesand periodic alliances between Plantagenet and German Welf kings,togetherwith the position of Cologne as a focus ofWelf interest anda major trading partner of London, shaped a diplomatic environmentin which English and German monarchs manoeuvred to protect theirinterestsagainst French kings by building up regional alliances whichwhere possible included Cologne. Cologne merchants had long enjoyedspecial privileges inLondon, which in 1194Richard I had extended byfreeing them of a rentdue from theirguildhall in the cityand allowingthem freedom to travel throughout England and to visit fairs. This grantdeprived Londoners ofprofitabledistributive trade.John, ina letterto themayor and commune of London in the first year of his reign, declared thefreedom of all foreignmerchants to travel inEngland, while immediatelyafter the lossofNormandy in 1204,he acknowledged the freedom of theCologne merchants to travel in his realm. After 1207, in association withOtto IV,John attempted tobuild up aRhineland alliance against France,and in 1213, when both he and Otto were inweak positions, he confirmedRichard I's quitclaim to the citizens ofCologne in the rent theyhad beenaccustomed topay from theirLondon guildhall and in all customs, butwith the caveat that itwas tobe 'saving the libertyofLondon'.69 That

7Bateson, 'Municipal Collection', 509; F. Consitt, The London Weavers' Company(Oxford, 1933), pp. 1-6, 180-1.68His uncle had been responsible for the London weavers' guild and his own cityestablishment was in the cloth-making district of Candlewick Street, surrounded by clothtenters and dubbers (probably dyers): Keene, 'fitzAilwin, Henry', in OxfordDictionary ofNational Biography, s.n.; Cartulary of oly Trinity, d. Hodgett, no. 426; Corporation of LondonRecords Office, Bridge House Deed, F35.

69J.P. Huffman, Family, Commerce and Religion inLondon and Cologne (Cambridge, 1998),9-22; idem, he Social Politics of edieval Diplomacy: Anglo-GermanRelations (1066-1307) (AnnArbor, 1999), 168- 222;H. Stehkamper, 'England und die Stadt Koln alsWahlmacher KonigOttos IV, inKoln das Reich undEuropa: Abhandlungen iiberweitraumigeVerflechtungener StadtKoln


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 93phrase and the assertion in Pseudo-Ine that foreign merchants were toremain in theports indicates thatdespite thebenefits ofRhineland trade,the Londoners' political programme at this time included opposition totherightsthatCologne merchants enjoyed inLondon and elsewhere.Theimportance of these issues is also indicated by the appearance in the finalpart of the collection ofa genealogy of thecounts ofBoulogne, for enaudofDamartin, count ofBoulogne, was John's chief agent inbuilding upan alliance against France in the Low Countries, and in 1212, in London,he and John publicly agreed not tomake a separate peace with France.70It was presumably a few years later - following the defeat of Otto andthe capture of Renaud at Bouvines and when London interests came tothe fore inEngland - that theCologne merchants lostpossession of theirguildhall, for in 1219-20 they had to pay 30 marks to recover it.71Although theLondon Collection for itsAnglo-Saxon lawsdraws on thetwelfth-century Latin collection known today as 'Quadripartitus', whichprobably originated during the reign ofHenry I,72 it includes no lawsof iEethelred II, whose legislation is included in 'Quadripartitus'. Thereason for this may have been the London compiler's desire to presenthis collection of laws as the works of a succession of heroic kings andso to pass direcdy fromAthelstan toCnut omitting Êthelred.On theother hand, the London Collection contains one text which relates tolegislationwhich at present is commonly attributed to Êthelred.Thattext is thehighly commercial second part of theAnglo-Norman accountof London customs placed in the collection after the letter of PresterJohn.The relevantmaterial attributed toÊthelred is the setof regulationsconcerning the city and port of London, and in particular the well-known'Billingsgate tolls', which form the opening part of the code known since1840 as 'IV iEthelred' and so dated to c. iooo.73 It is clear that 'IVÊthelred' is a composite document, its London element being of a verydifferent character to the rest. Moreover, 'IV Êthelred' is not presentin the earliest manuscripts of 'Quadripartitus' and appears only in thoseof the mid-twelfth century and later.74 This raises the possibilities thatthe materials comprising 'IV Êthelred' were not put together before thein olitik,Rech undWirtschqft im ittelalter (Mitteilungen aus dem Stadtarchiv von Koln, 1971),213-44; Rotuli Cartarum,ed. T. D. Hardy, I.i (1837), 60,194; Hansisches Urkundenbuch, d. VereinfurHansische Geschichte (11vols., Halle and Leipzig, 1876-1916), I,nos. 40, 84.

70Bateson, 'Municipal Collection', 728; A. L. Poole, FromDomesday Book toMagna Carta,w8y-i2i6 (Oxford, 1955), 449-53; Huffman, Social Politics, 209, 211, 214.71The GreatRoll of thePipe for the ourthTear of theReign of ingHenry III,Michaelmas 1220,ed. B. E. Harris (PipeRoll Society, new series 47, 1981-3), 136.72P.Wormald, TheMaking of nglish Law: King Alfred to theTwelfthCentury, I:Legislation andits imits (Oxford, 1999), 236-44.73Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I, 232-5; The Laws of theKings of ngland rom Edmund toHenryI, ed. A.J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1925), 70-3, 322-4.74Wormald, Making of nglish Law, 240-1, 320-2, 371.


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94 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYtwelfthcentury,thattherewas no earlierOld English version and thattheLondon elementmay not have been composed until the twelfthcentury,possibly even in the reign of Stephen when the original version of thedocument we now know as Henry Fs charter to London may also havebeen compiled. Furthermore, there now seems to be some uncertaintyas towhether the towns in theMeuse valley (Huy, Liege and Nivelles)mentioned in 'IV iEthelred'were sufficiendy eveloped as commercialcentres by the year 1000 for their merchants to be regular visitors toEngland, as impliedby the record ofBillingsgate tolls.75One of thefeaturesof the account ofBillingsgate tolls is the favouredposition said tohave been enjoyed in ondon by 'themen of theEmperor',merchants fromLorraine and the lower Rhineland and so essentiallythose trading throughCologne, especially by comparison with those fromRouen, Flanders, Ponthieu, Normandy, France and the Meuse valleytowns. This part of the document was written in the imperfect tense.The men of the emperorwho came toLondon in their shipswere 'heldworthy ofgood laws, likeus' (bonarum egum ignitenebanturicut tnos). hispresumably means either that they were subject to the same laws as theLondoners or that, like theLondoners, theyenjoyed good laws of theirown. The reference heremay be to theprivileges in the city enjoyed bythemen ofCologne, which were confirmed and extended by two royalcharters granted in the 1170s,one ofwhich enjoined theLondoners togive perpetual protection to the men of Cologne.76 That privilege wouldhave been acceptable in twelfth-century London and suggests a possiblecontext for theBillingsgate toll record (although themen ofCologne couldhave enjoyed similarrights inLondon longbefore theroyal charters),butitwould have been a privilege too far forLondon merchants of theearlythirteenth century.The Anglo-Norman statement in theLondon Collection that includesa copy of regulations concerning Lorraine merchants in the city is usuallyassumed to belong to themid-twelfth century or even much earlier,77 but itnow seemspossible that those ruleswere drafted for the specificpurposesof the Londoners during the early thirteenthcentury or that theywerea heavily manipulated version of some earlier, probably twelfth-century,text or texts. The first part of the statement need be no earlier than thereign ofJohn.78Dealing with procedures of the city's court ofHustingconcerning affray, rents and debts according to 'the law of London', it

75M. Suttor, Vie etdynamiqued'unefleuve: laMeuse de Sedan aMaastrich (des origines 1600)(Brussels, 2006), 15, 182-3, 242> 3?2~6, 346-51.7Huffman, Family,Commerce ndReligion, 14-17.77Bateson, 'Municipal Collection', 495-502; Weinbaum, London, II,29-38; cf.Brooke andKeir, London, 266-8; P.Nightingale, AMedieval Mercantile Community: he Grocers'Company andthe olitics andTrade of ondon, 1000-1485 (New Haven and London, 1995), 7-10, 44-5.78Bateson, 'Municipal Collection', 485-95; Weinbaum, London, II, 13-17.


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 95makes nomention ofprivileges enjoyed by foreigners,but itdoes define aspecificprocedure fora foreigner (forein)akingan oath concerning debtand then states thatby the law ofLondon no foreignmerchant (marchantforein)has soke there 'neitherat the guildhall nor elsewhere' (ne ildhallene aillurs).*79 This is usually is taken to be a reference to the guildhallof the citizens of London, but ismore likely to concern the guildhallof the Cologne merchants on the Thames waterfront, described in one ofHenry IPs charters as their 'house' and subsequently as theirguildhall.In this text theLondoners appear to be challenging the rightsof theCologners to an independent jurisdiction, contrary to theprovisions oftheBillingsgate toll record. As we have seen, theCologners subsequentlylost theirguildhall fora while. The second part of this statement,whichreads as a continuation of the first, opens with a statement concerningthe 'law of theLorrainers', clearly intending todifferentiate it from the'law ofLondon' and thusperhaps alluding to theBillingsgate tollrecord,onwhich itdraws inotherways but with some significantchanges. Thusthe toll record's statement that the men of the emperor could purchaseunloaded(discarcatd)ool (perhapsmeaning wool thathad been shippeddown river to London and was available in the open market) and meltedfat nd three livepigs fortheirshipsbecomes more restrictive ntheAngloNorman version of the same passage which asserts that no Lorrainercan purchase unworked(desfaite)ool, a variety of other goods (including'broken wines', vinz descusuz, evidently derived from the dissutum unctum ofthe earlier text)or anymore than three livepigs as provisions. In its imtoprotect London's clothing industryand in its rule that theLorrainemerchants could stay in the cityno longer than forty ays, thisstatementis immediately comparable to Pseudo-Ine. Moreover, the first part of thestatement, with references toHusting and to procedures concerning landsand debts seems tomake a similar reference to another supposedly historicauthority in the collection, Henry I's supposed charter to the citizens,which affirmed the procedure of Husting and the city's law concerninglands and debts. The conclusion of this Anglo-Norman section of thecollection, with its account of the Folkmoot and its summoning by theauthoritative bell at St Paul's, just possibly reflects thedramatic events atSt Paul's between 1212 and 1216.80 It certainly resonates with the accountof folkmoots in theLondon interpolations to the Laws of Edward theConfessor,81which like this statementmention a bell and theneed theretomake provision against fire,a point reinforcedby the inclusion later inthe collection of thebuilding code implemented after the fire of 1212.

79Weinbaum's reading and translation are here preferable toBateson's.80StPaul's, ed. Keene etal., i.81Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I,657.


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96 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYTexts on later folios,82 themajority of them inLatin and so perhaps

long-standing records of city custom, are more in the nature of evidentialmemoranda concerning city procedures. Their selection and orderingare careful and relate to points made in the preceding section of thecollection: the analysis of these connections is for another occasion. Afterthe Libertas Londoniensis, they include further texts concerning merchants,oaths relevant to the commune, material associated with the citizens' righttochoose their sheriffs(but,significantly,otJohn's chartergranting themthatright),statementsconcerning theways inwhich thecommune couldlevy money for collective purposes, a matter which been a cause of bitterconflictwithin the city, nd articleswhich informedMagna Carta.Finally, it is worth noting the collection's distinctive attention toNorway and its significance for London interest in that period. Thisreflects Norway's close trading,83 religious and cultural relations (notleast through the foundation of Cistercian monasteries)84 with Englandduring the twelfth century and Geoffrey ofMonmouth's stories ofArthur'sconquest ofNorway and his overlordship ofGodand. Italso builds on theemphasis in theoriginal version of the 'Laws ofEdward theConfessor' onDanish and Norwegian laws and customs being among those observedin England.85 But the London Collection went much further, ddingreferences toNorway to several texts, stressing the way inwhich Arthurhad caused the one God to be venerated throughoutNorway,86 andproviding a detailed listing, derived from German sources, of placesin eastern Baltic regions which Arthur was supposed to have ruled.87Moreover, Edward theConfessor was creditedwith having established theNorwegians, once immigrants, as 'sworn brothers' and 'almost citizens'of the realm. Indeed, the collection's 'law of the Lorrainers' ends with animplication that Norwegians should enjoy the same freedom to trade inLondon as the Danes, that is a greater freedom than the Lorrainers. Bythe late twelfthcentury, ondon had seven churches dedicated toStOlaf(d. 1030)and one toStMagnus (d. 1116), hile itsfour churches dedicatedtoSt Botolph suggest indirectNorwegian connections via Boston. Trade

82Add. MS 14252, fos. 106-28; Bateson, 'Municipal Collection', 505-730; Weinbaum,London, II, 39-91.83See E. Miller and J.Hatcher, Medieval England. Towns, Commerce,and Crafts, 1086-1348(1995), 188 (includes errors); The CambridgeHistory ofScandinavia, ed. K. Helle (Cambridge,2003), 385.

84J.France, The Cistercians inScandinavia (Kalamazoo, 1992), 77-98, 119-22, 281-4, 322-4,328, 493, 522-5, 535.85O'Brien, God's Peace, 186-7, 190-3.86E.g. Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, I,635, 659-60.87L. Muir, 'King Arthur's Northern Conquests in theLeges AnglorumLondiniis Collectae',Medium Aevum, 37 (1968), 253-62.


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 97in eastern Baltic goods to England, inwhich theNorwegians andGotlanders were significant intermediaries, was increasing and Cologne

merchants were attempting togain a foothold there. In 1186King Sverriof Norway came to Bergen where there was a great number of merchantships and the 'Southmen' (evidendyGermans from theRhineland) hadimported somuch wine that itwas cheaper than ale. This led tofightingbetween the Northmen and the Germans. Sverri then spoke at a publicassembly against the evils of drink and the Germans' attempt to cornertrade, contrasting themwith theEnglish, whom he thanked forbringingwheat, honey, flour and cloth. For Sverri St Botolph's day was a specialfeast and two Norwegians named in the saga were named Botolph. TheNorwegian references in the London Collection thus seem to reflect theLondoners' antagonism towards Cologne and a preference for dealingwith a friendlypeople who had more direct access toBaltic trade. Thisexplains a reference toEngra civitas, named in one of the interpolations toEdward's laws as the origin of the 'Saxons of Germany' who were one ofthe groups claimed as potential 'sworn brothers' and 'proper citizens' oftheEnglish. Engrawas presumably Schleswig, at the neck of theAngelnpeninsula and under the authority of the king ofDenmark, who alsoperiodically controlled Liibeck, its successor as a hub forBaltic trade.89It is especially striking,therefore,that a year after the death ofJohn acommercial treaty was concluded with the king of Norway. That wasmade possible by the recent reconciliation of warring parties inNorway,but the terms, stating that the two lands shall be common so that theirmen and merchants shall have freedom to come and go, express the idealof quasi co-citizenship stated in theLondon Collection and inMagnaCarta.90 Liibeck's imperial charter of less than a decade later indicatesthatCologne had attempted to control that trade at themouth of theRhine, blocking theLiibeckers' access tomarkets inEngland, fromwhichthe charter released them.91 Geoffrey ofMonmouth had structured hishistoryas the fulfilment fprophecy. Prophecy had informedWilliam fitzStephen's view of thecity. he compiler of theLondon collection followeda similar prophetic line. Many of those London aspirations expressed inthe collection came to fruition between 1215 and 1217, while there are

88Sverissaga:The Saga of ing Sverriof orway, trans.J. Sephton (1899), 49> J66, 128-30,198;for the reliability of this source, seeHistory of candinavia, ed. Helle, 502.S9Gesetze, ed., Liebermann, I, 658; D. Kattinger, Die GotldndischeGenossenschqft:derfruhansisch-gotldndischandel in ord- undWesteuropa (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 1999),13-23, 155-87; Codex Diplomatics Lubecensis: Urkundenbuchder Stadt Lubeck, ed. Verein furLiibeckische Geschichte (11vols., Lubeck, 1843-1905), I,nos. n-15, 20, 23, 27-8.90Foedera, ed. T. Rymer et al. (3vols, in6 parts, 1816-30), I.i, 149;History of candinavia, ed.Helle, 375-6.91CodexDiplomaticus Lubecensis, no. 35;Huffman, Family Commerce ndReligion, 23-4.


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98 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETYsigns that around 1220 a new setdement was made in the city's internalaffairsand in itsrelationswith Cologne and Lubeck.

This paper has argued that the resemblances and echoes between avariety of writings concerning cities in general, and London in particular,indicate that in the late twelfthand early thirteenth centuries theredeveloped a widely shared community of ideas about London and itsphysical, cultural, social, historical,mythological and political identity.developing capacity tovisualise thecity nd torespond to itsdepictionwaspart of this process. Literary and visual modes of expression, two forms ofstorytellingnot sodistincdy separated as they re today, nformedboth anappreciation ofcity landscape and strategiesforachieving political ends. Itis not necessary to assume that all involved in the process read the texts oreven listened to readings from them: ideas, stories and vocabulary couldcirculate inmany informalways, including thevisual. So faras Londonerswere concerned, St Paul's and its environs was in this period probablythemost important site for such exchanges. The cathedral linked themto the circles inwhich key textswere composed and debated. Some ofits canons were members of leading London families and the cathedraland itsprecinct constituted the citizens' principal site of assembly, forreligious, political and military purposes. Moreover, some of the writersinvolved wrote for a wide audience, Tor themany... the less educated', as

Henry of Huntingdon had put it.92 The 'less educated' middling groupsinLondon, outside the ruling elite, certainly included people of somelearning who engaged in controversial political debate, not least at StPaul's.93 Those politics were informed by a strong sense of the city'sstanding and its role in relation to thenation (orBritain) and to ideas oflaw. The great collection of laws and other texts put together in Londonduring the reignofJohn, itself complex literary onstruction informedby spatial and visual principles, unites these aspects of the city's identity,not leastbymeans of itshistorical and geographical breadth.Moreover,it indicateshow the citizens,or their leaders, inrehearsing the legitimacyof their claims not only focused on contemporary concerns but also drewon their awareness of ideas developed in earlier episodes of communalcrisis,on thedocumented rightsof deeply entrenched groups and on animaginative visualisation of the past. In the compilation of this collection,textswere selected,manipulated and fabricated tofurtherthe interests fthose groups. This paper has done no more than scratch the surface of thisparticular topic,dealingwith only a fewelements ina singlecollection andleaving many problems unresolved. The findings raise serious questionsas to how we should address this and other such collections of laws and

92Historia Anglorum,ed. Greenway, lviii,584-5.93Keene, 'fitz sbert, William'.


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TEXT, VISUALISATION AND POLITICS 99customs in the future. It seems that those historians of London, includingthe present author, who have used some of these texts as evidence formuch older city law and custom, should be more cautious from now on.For all its great achievements, the positivistic, decontextualising approachof the past, seeking to establish the 'uncorrupted' text, has missed morethan a trick or two. At the same time we should rejoice at the new insightsthat these and other sources of the time continue to offer us into London'scomplex cultural and political identity.

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