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 A HISTORY OF LONDON is only one parish in the City itself which was possibly formed later, that of St. Mary Mounthaw,'^ and some parishes existed then whose churches were destroyed before the end of the 1 3th century, but whose boundaries were quoted up to the 16th century in deeds concerning land.'' The origin of the London parishes will be discussed individually in the topographical section of this work, but it may here be said that to some extent their boundaries were determined, as they often were in the rural districts, by the ownership of the land.'' In Westminster the one original parish, St. Mar- garet's, was coextensive with the land owned in the district by the abbey ; in Southwark three at least of the four original parishes were in existence in the 12th century.^"" The great period of church-building in London seems to have been the nth and early 12th centuries, though there can be no doubt that some churches existed much earlier. The first to which trustworthy reference has been found is St. Gregory's, in loio;"^ thirteen others are mentioned before the end of the iith century, and there are doubtful references to three more. Other sixty-nine were certainly built before the end of the 1 2th century,"^ and if negative evidence can be trusted it is probable that most of the remaining twenty-eight also date from at least the 12th century, since there is no record, except in the cases of St. Leonard Foster Lane ^"^ and St. Mary Magdalen Southwark,^"* of any building of new churches. St. Peter Cornhill,'"^ St. Alban Wood Street,"" and St. Andrew Holborn,"^ have a very great traditional antiquity."' No doubt many of these churches were of wood, like most of the other buildings in the City."' William I, in his charter to Westminster, expressly confirmed to them ' a wooden chapel and the moiety of the stone church of St. Magnus,' as well as various other churches with no distinguishing adjective."" The churches were probably very small : in the records of the 12th-century visitations"^ dealt with below only four out of twenty are said to have more than one altar. These churches all belonged to St. Paul's, but may probably be regarded as fairly representative, since several of them had not been long in the patronage of the cathedral. There are also three earlier inventories of churches belonging to St. Paul's, apparently made either on the transfer of the cure from one " Originally a chapel of the Montenhauts ; D. and C. St. Paul's, W.D. g, fol. ^26. '* See Topographical Section. Such parishes were St. Olave Broad Street, and those amalgamated on the foundation of Holy Trinity Aldgate. '' St. Andrew Baynard Castle is a good example of this type of parish ; Mart. GiUhallae (Rolls Ser.), ii (l), 150. ™ Ann. Mon. Bermondsey (Rolls Ser.), iii, 430 ; Dugdale, Mon. vi, 172 ; Arch, xxxviii, 39. St. Mary Magdalen's was built about 1238 (Stow, Surz'ey) by Peter des Roches, and appears to have had the same relation to St. Mary Overy as St. Margaret's had to Westminster Abbey. "" Richard of Cirencester, Spec. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), i, 359. "" This information has been obtained principally from MSS. at St. Paul's and Westminster, monastic chronicles and cartularies, and Ancient Deeds at the P.R.O. A definite reference for each church will be given in the Topographical Section. '»' Infra, p. I 86. "» Supra. '"» Riley, Memorials of Old London, 65 1. '°^ Said to have been a chapel of King Offa ; Matt. Paris, Lives of the Abbots of St. Albans (ed. Watts), 1002. '" It is mentioned in the spurious charter of Edgar to Westminster Abbey ; Birch, Cart. Sax. iii, 260. "" The dedications of churches are some guide to their dates. On this point with reference to London see Lethaby, Lond. bejore the Conq. 165 seqq. ; Trans. St. PauPs Eccles. Soc. ii, 11. '"' Mm. Gildhallae (Rolls Ser.), i, 29 ; ii (i), 31. "° Dep. Keeper's Rep. xxix, App. 34. '" These are printed in full in Arch. Iv, 283 seqq. They are undated, but from internal evidence must h.ive been taken between 1 1 8 1 and 1 1 86. 180