London (Lundene)
Features in: Sworn Sword.
England’s largest and wealthiest city had a long history before the Normans arrived. Originally founded c.AD 50, Londinium was the capital of Roman Britain and a flourishing city, but after the collapse of imperial authority in the early fifth century, it fell into decline and was largely abandoned.
The Roman walls encircled an area of roughly one square mile on the north bank of the Thames, between where St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London now stand. When Anglo-Saxons first settled in the area in the sixth and seventh centuries, however, they did so largely outside the Roman walls, on a site a short way to the west, known as Lundenwic, which was centred on the modern Strand. (Later this would become known as Ealdwic [Old English: “the old settlement”], a name that has survived today in the form Aldwych.) Archaeological and documentary evidence both suggest that already by c.680 this settlement, which was probably undefended save for a ditch marking its boundary, had grown into a thriving port, through which slaves were traded and pottery and glass imported from the Continent.

The modern St Paul’s Cathedral, London, which dates from the 17th century. The original church, or its successor, was destroyed in a fire in 962 but rebuilt in the same year. The replacement lasted barely a century before it too perished in another fire in 1087, after which the Norman cathedral was begun.
It wasn’t until after 886, when Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, captured the city from the Vikings, that the walled city was fully re-occupied and its defences refurbished. To distinguish it from Lundenwic, which archaeological evidence suggests was abandoned at around the same time, this new settlement is often referred to by historians as Lundenburh – the “burh” element signifying a fortress. Anglo-Saxon writers, however, were rarely as consistent in the names that they applied to places, and referred to London in various other ways, including Lundenceaster and Lundene (the latter being the form that I’ve chosen to use in my novels).

Looking west along Newgate Street, which here follows the line of the ancient Watling Street, the Roman road (maintained throughout the Middle Ages) that connected Dover, via London, to the Midlands.
In 1066, the city became the focus of resistance against the Normans in the weeks after the Battle of Hastings. When news of Harold’s death reached London, the the witan – the leading nobles of the kingdom – acclaimed Eadgar Ætheling as king. The last of the ancient Saxon royal line, Eadgar arguably had the strongest claim to the throne in 1066, and yet earlier that year, after the death of his great-uncle Edward the Confessor, he had been passed over in favour of Harold.

The walls pictured here date to the later Middle Ages, but they followed the same course as the much-repaired Roman and Anglo-Saxon walls. This section stands next to the Museum of London, just off the modern street known as London Wall.

Still standing after centuries: a section of the London’s city wall, just off Coopers Row, 200 metres north of the Tower of London.
(Photo credit: John Winfield. Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 2.0.)
If you’re interested in finding out more, the Museum of London has galleries containing finds relating to the history of the city from its foundation through to the seventeenth century, and is free to visit. The Museum itself is located in what was once the north-west corner of the walled city, and there are several standing sections of the medieval defences close by. Another section that is particularly well-preserved is that immediately to the north of the Tower of London, off Cooper’s Row (pictured above). There you can appreciate the scale of the defences, and also see the original Roman terracotta layers upon which the later medieval walls were raised.
With special thanks to Dr Michael Bintley of Canterbury Christ Church University for his walking tour of early medieval London as part of the London Anglo-Saxon Symposium 2014.
Featured podcast
For more podcasts, visit James's channel on Soundcloud.