INTRODUCTION
Records of property holding comprise one of the bulkiest, and most
intractable, categories of written sources for the history of medieval and
early modern towns. Few European cities, if any, are richer than London
in such records. The aim of this survey is to render more readily usable the
mass of documentation for property holding in the city of London up to
the time of the Great Fire of 1666. The records are numerous from the
twelfth century onwards, (fn. 1) and can be used to trace the histories of houses
and their owners and occupiers, to map the property boundaries, to study
patterns of land use and the social geography of the city, to reconstruct
the physical arrangement of houses and other buildings, to follow in
detail programmes of building and repair, and to chart the operation of
the property market. The sources are thus of value for archaeologists and
geographers, as well as for historians and all those with an interest in the
city and its inhabitants before the Fire. The survey is arranged so that the
records concerning particular localities in the city, defined principally
according to the parishes in which they lay, may readily be identified.
Much of the information was collected in the course of a detailed study of
a sample group of parishes in the Cheapside area, which showed how this
material can be used as evidence not only for the history of particular sites
but also for elucidating the development of the city as a whole over a long
period. (fn. 2)
The scope of the survey
This book surveys the documentary sources for the histories of properties
and property holding in the city of London up to the Great Fire of 1666.
The sources, found in record offices and collections in London and
elsewhere, fall into two main groups: documents of title and records of
estate management. The former, comprising original deeds and leases
and copies in cartularies and registers, are numerous from the twelfth
century onwards. From the thirteenth century, when they begin to
survive in even greater quantities and acquire a new topographical
precision, London title deeds can, in most cases, be related to particular
sites on the ground. The records of property management comprise
rentals, surveys, accounts, minute-books, papers, and plans. Some
London rentals and accounts survive from the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, and more frequently from the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, but they do not become numerous until after 1500, with the
increasing survival of city livery company and parish archives. They can
record the names of tenants and the sums of rent paid, and, up to c. 1550,
can provide extensive records of payments for building and repairs. From
c. 1550 onwards the records of the deliberations of corporate bodies on
the management of their holdings are increasingly informative. The great
expansion of the city in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries
caused many landlords to have detailed surveys made of the value and
structural character of their properties.
The provenance of the principal bodies of records varies over this long
period. Up to the mid sixteenth century the records of property holding in
the city mainly concern, on the one hand, the properties of those private
individuals whose deeds and wills were enrolled in the Court of Husting
(cf. 2) and, on the other, the estates belonging to religious houses or
similar bodies. Records of title in the latter group can concern many
transactions between private individuals. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the records concern principally the holdings of corporate
landlords, who by this time owned a large proportion of the land within
the city. Records of property holding produced in this period for private
individuals, who were in general more directly concerned with the
occupation of the land, are still numerous but are less readily identifiable
and provide less comprehensive coverage than formerly.
A third category of sources covered by this survey comprises
administrative and judicial records of local and national government.
These concern not only the estates in the possession of the City and the
Crown, but also escheats, the regulation of nuisance, and disputes over
ownership. Taxation- and assessment-lists of a topographical character
are also described in the survey.
The Great Fire of 1666 is an obvious limit to take for a survey of sources
concerning the topographical development of the city, not least on
account of the records engendered by the process of rebuilding
immediately afterwards (11). Other sources later than 1666 which have
been covered include copies of earlier records, now lost, and plans or
surveys of the seventeenth, eighteenth, or nineteenth centuries of value
for identifying or understanding pre-Fire holdings. No attempt has been
made to cover graphic or cartographic records of London before the Fire,
other than those, essentially plans of individual holdings, produced for
landlords.
In topographical extent the survey is restricted to records of properties
within the liberty of the city of London, that is the walled area and the
extra-mural suburbs under the city's jurisdiction. In most records of title,
even in the seventeenth century when London sprawled beyond the city's
limits, the distinction between the city and its suburbs on the one hand,
and the county of Middlesex on the other, is scrupulously maintained; but
on occasion with these records, and more frequently with other sources, it
is not possible to tell whether properties in extra-mural parishes which
straddled the liberty boundary lay within the city or not. In such cases,
where doubt exists, references have been included in the survey. An
attempt has been made to include references to areas, such as the parish
of Holy Trinity Minories or the precinct of St. Katharine's Hospital,
which in the earlier Middle Ages appear to have been within the city, but
which later lay outside it. Records relating to Southwark are not covered.
Readers should note that this necessarily restrictive policy has led to the
exclusion from the survey of records concerning the important
extra-mural settlement extending along the Strand towards Westminster.
The survey covers collections, public and private, in the United
Kingdom, with some exceptions noted below, and includes notes on a
number of collections in the United States of America (518–28). There
are also noted, from printed sources, some collections in continental
archives (266–74).
The survey is intended to be complete within these limits, but
inevitably there will be omissions. In some cases these will be in fields
which we have surveyed; where we are aware of them, they have been
pointed out. This is particularly true of the Public Record Office entries
(436–53), where several potentially interesting classes could only be
sampled. Other omissions will be archives which we have not noticed. In
general, we have not attempted to survey the archives of present-day
property owning bodies founded after c. 1670, although some of these
may contain records of title from the seventeenth century or earlier. The
problems of identifying such holders, and of gaining access to their
records, seemed too great if the survey was to be completed within the
time available. The archive of British Rail, a substantial freeholder in the
city, has not been consulted.
The arrangement of the survey
Each entry in the survey is identified by a number in bold. After an
account of the Corporation of London archive, covering both judicial and
estate records (1–15), the survey falls into two main parts. The first
(16–435) consists of separate descriptions of the archives of individual
property holders, principally institutions, arranged in several sections.
The introductions to these sections describe the systematic procedures
adopted in identifying the archives. Many of the institutions covered are
now defunct (as most of 70–274, religious houses and bishoprics), but
their archives, and a picture of their estates in London, can be
reconstructed from records surviving in the Public Record Office, the
British Library, and elsewhere. Not all the surviving bodies still hold the
London properties once in their possession. Many of the surviving
institutions still hold their own records, but a number, including most of
the city livery companies (16–69), have deposited their archives in record
offices. A few private archives, mostly still in their owners' hands, are also
noted (420–35).
The main Public Record Office classes relevant to the survey are
described next (436–53), with indexes to deeds and miscellaneous
accounts and a brief guide to Crown estate and administrative and
judicial records.
The second main part of the survey (454–528) is arranged by repository
(libraries and record offices in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern
Ireland, and the United States of America) and covers collections of
records, mostly of family origin, which do not constitute significant,
separate archives in their own right. Items from institutional archives in
these repositories are described in the earlier part of the survey.
Finally, there is a short section (529–30) noting the location of London
wills and inventories.
The entries in the survey
An entry concerning the records of a property-holding institution
generally begins with a brief account of the institution and the location of
its archive, together with a statement on the topographical extent of its
estate in the city. The records subsequently described in the entry
concern that estate, unless more specific details are given. In many cases
records of title will include some deeds or references concerning
properties not acquired by the institution, and the coverage of such
references will be indicated. Since many institutions built their estates up
gradually, and at times lost parts of them, the records described in any
particular group will not necessarily concern all the properties in the
possession of the institution during the period covered by this survey.
Major changes in an estate are covered by the statement at the beginning
of an entry. For minor changes, in particular those arising from the
progressive accumulation of properties, reference should be made to
cartularies, registers, 'will books', or rentals, which can provide a guide to
the date of acquisition of a property, after which it will be covered by
records of a continuous administrative character.
Entries containing descriptions of the records of property-holding
institutions are arranged by lettered (lower case bold) paragraphs
covering topics in the following order: deeds and leases; cartularies,
registers, and lease books; rentals and accounts; administrative records,
principally minute books or act books; miscellaneous papers; plans.
Where an archive is particularly large and complex, each of these
categories is dealt with in a separately numbered entry. Not all these
categories are present in every case, and different kinds of institution may
have had slightly different practices of estate management and archive
arrangement which dictate variations in the arrangement of entries. The
descriptions of records include reference or call numbers and other
means of identification, references to printed editions, approximate dates
for both contents and compilation, references to any index or other
searching aid, and, if necessary, a particular description of the topographical coverage of the record (generally in parentheses at the end
of the description).
Sources in libraries and record offices (454–528) are usually listed with
a separate paragraph for each large collection or deposit, with details of
date and coverage. Most of these collections consist of deeds and papers
only, but when there is material of other kinds it is listed in the form used
in descriptions of separate archives in the earlier part of the survey.
The judicial and administrative records in the Corporation of London
Records Office and the Public Record Office are described briefly, with
an indication of the character and scope of the records and notes on dates,
topographical coverage, and guides and indexes.
It should be noted that many of the archives of institutions covered by
the survey include material of interest which does not relate to or arise
from property holding, and so is not described here. Thus, no reference is
made to records concerning the internal economies of religious houses, to
the apprenticeship registers or quarterage books of livery companies, or
to the records of poor-relief payments prominent in parochial records.
The means of topographical reference
The primary means of defining the location of a property in the city
between the twelfth and late sixteenth century, in both deeds and other
records, was by reference to the parish or parishes in which it lay. The
practice remained common in deeds even after the Fire. The London
parishes were numerous and their boundaries appear to have been
constant from the twelfth century onwards; only a handful of parishes had
been lost by the time of the Fire, and the boundaries of those surviving at
that date are recorded on accurate modern maps. When seeking the
pre-Fire records of any property it is essential to know the parish in which
that property lay. Wherever possible, therefore, parish references have
been adopted in this survey as the means of defining the topographical
coverage of the records. In the survey entries, parishes are identified by
means of a series of coded references, 1–162, printed in italic. The code is
explained fully on pp. xvii–xix, with a map. References to parishes are
indexed on pp. 223–32, as Part ii of the Topographical Index.
In some cases the records refer only to street- or house-names, or to
unspecified locations within London, and the parish or parishes within
which the property lay cannot be identified. In these cases the survey
entries give the street- or house-name, or 'unspec.' or 'London unspec.',
according to context, and these references are indexed on pp. 233–8, in
Part iii of the Topographical Index. In almost all cases of 'unspecified
location in London', except where the reference derives from a record
office index, it is probable that the property lay within the city and its
suburbs and not outside the liberty. Part iii of the Topographical Index
also includes the few references to properties outside the city which are
mentioned in the survey.
In addition, reference should always be made to those entries, indexed
on pp. 222–3 as Part i of the Topographical Index, describing classes of
records which cover many or all parts of the city, and of which some are
adequately indexed elsewhere.
Index to property- and archive-holders
The second index, on pp. 239–46, is a combined alphabetical index to the
holders of property in London, and to the libraries and record offices
where collections relating to London are held, as they are described in the
headings to individual entries. This index does not identify all entries in
which records in a particular collection may be mentioned, nor does it
cover those private property holders whose present or former records are
described in entries concerning libraries and record offices.