Nîmes, Arles, and Trier were allowed the position, that is, of city-state in the Empire, parallel to Rome itself it is certain that it carved out of its Roman origin a position for itself in the outer world of Britain, a position not altogether unlike that of its sister cities on the Continent, though belonging to a lesser sphere of operation. The position of the great French and Italian cities in relation to national politics has not been worked out. When this is done it will be found that the independence of London in Anglo-Saxon times, and the survivals of this independence which brought about its struggle against the mighty powers of English Plantagenet sovereignty, were of the same general kind, and proceeded from the same source, namely, the political system of the Roman Empire.1 A parallel of this kind is worth much to the student of London. London was differently placed, because it was not free from the external sovereign. But it was struggling against this sovereignty on precisely the same lines as the Italian cities were exercising their independent powers, and because London was struggling and they were free we must not imagine a fundamental difference in the position of the English city and the cities of the Continent. The common origin from which that position was derived is the connecting link between them both. We shall see in succeeding chapters how the more 1 On this point it is worth while consulting Gibbon, Decline and Fall (Bury), vol. v. pp. 302–3. important survivals are indeed much more than survivals. They are continuations during successive ages of history. Each generation of London citizenship used them as the position of affairs demanded. They therefore never retained their purely external Roman character. They were Englished or Normanised or mediævalised or modernised as demands upon them were renewed again and again. It is all to the good, therefore, that we find them in altered form as survivals. They are survivals plus continuations, and the remarkable thing is that they retain enough of their original form for the inquirer of to-day to be able to identify their internal character as survivals. We have by their aid established the principle of continuity in the life of London, and we have to ascertain whether that principle remains in active operation throughout the later periods - whether Roman London sent its tendrils forward to grip first the local, then the national, and finally the imperial character of the English city. At no time has London been ready to assume an expansion into empire greatness, but at all times has she stood out for state influence. Her influence on the state is the parallel, the microscopic parallel, she obtained from her Roman beginnings, and we shall find that it lasts right through the course of her history. If London ceased to participate in "the glory that was Rome" it helped largely to establish the greatness that is Britain, and one would not too closely compare the relative merits of the two positions. What we have to do now is to go forward with the evidence, the evidence of survivals and of continuity which have established in our midst not merely a great city, but a great cityinstitution. CHAPTER V ENGLISH INCOMINGS THE date or period of the English entry into London is not known, and cannot be known. There is no history of it, no mention of it in Anglo-Saxon history. They certainly did not enter it tumultuously or at a rush. They appear there without any prefatory action, and Beda's casual allusion to "a certain Frisian in London," Lundoniam Freso cuidam,' in A.D. 679, does not lend colour to a general English occupation. I have expressed the opinion in a former work that they overflowed into it, as it were, and did not even deliberately enter and attempt to take it over into their polity. This opinion is confirmed by all the evidence I have learned since. When we are able to catch a glimpse of the doings of the English in London we find them there vigorously unsuccessful. They attempt to dominate London with English ideas of rule and governance, and are not only vigorously unsuccessful in this main object, but they lay bare the sources of their unsuccess in the looseness of the tribal institutions which they would substitute for the ancient civic organisation. The roughness of 1 Lib. iv. cap. xxii. . 1 their attempt in this direction lies heavily on the institutional life of London, but the skill, triumphant in its delicacy, of those who opposed the drastic operation also reveals itself. The interest of this particular point is extraordinarily great. It answers not only an important problem in the life of early London, but it illustrates in a peculiar way the characteristic of English governing power, wherever and whenever it has been exercised. This power proceeded from the new conception of lordship which followed upon the Teutonic eruption on Roman government. The note of the new system was lordship, with its accompanying vassalage and personal ties. Everywhere do we see this development. We need not pause at the variations between the different degrees of lordship, the series always ending in the unquestioned lordship of the king; we may perhaps note the special characteristics of the beneficium, its derivation, according to the best authorities, from the ecclesiastical tenure of the precarium when church lands were seized; but the one dominant note is that of lordship and vassalage taking the place of state government on the imperial basis of Rome. London in due course came under the influence of this new element of lordship, and the moment when a great statesman, who was also great soldier and great king, great scholar and great man-Alfred the Great of England-deliberately entered London with the settled purpose of bringing it into Anglo-Saxon polity, that moment in the year 898 when he surveyed |