not part of the traditional feudal ruling class. These layers came to form the Common Council of the City, which the aldermen were likely to consult on matters of importance. By the fourteenth century the members of the Council were elected by wards and, sometimes, guilds. Although it may have been used earlier, the Guildhall was from the twelfth century the meeting place of City administration, such as it was. In 1411 the hall was rebuilt on a grander scale, and much of the original remains visible in the modern building.
The London oligarchy which ran this system was rich from land, commerce and trade, and royal patronage. They owned shops and tenements, warehouses and quays, urban and rural manors. They were traders, but not exclusively so and not in a single commodity – that would come later. As some trades and businesses prospered and others faltered, so power migrated from one section of the elite to another. But we should be careful of concluding that these interests always put the City elite at odds with the Crown. The City wanted self-government, but it also needed an economic and a foreign policy that suited its interests, and this was something that only the Crown could provide. Moreover, the Crown was a market in its own right and most members of the London elite profited directly from royal contracts and employment. Over half the sheriffs and aldermen between 1200 and 1340 whose interests can be identified held posts in the Royal Exchequer or the Royal Wardrobe, were royal suppliers or contractors, or were in some other way in Crown service.3
There were always, however, underlying tensions in the relationship between Crown and City. And at certain moments the voice of the citizens, and sometimes of the popular mass below them, could exploit these tensions with movements and demands of their own. One such moment was seized by William Longbeard.
THE REBELLION OF WILLIAM LONGBEARD
William Longbeard’s 1196 revolt is little studied by historians, but it is an early example of a class revolt in English history, and it was no accident that it happened in London.4 Longbeard’s true name was William fitz Osbern and he seems to have been a member of London’s elite: ‘in origin of the most noble citizens of London’. He was possibly a lawyer and seems to have taken part in the Third Crusade, which again suggests a relatively high social rank. Nevertheless, in the early stages of the revolt – which may have lasted for over a year – he appealed to the king to lift the burden of taxation on the poor. Longbeard’s complaint in particular was against the ‘insolence of the rich and powerful’ and their plans to place the tax burden upon the poor. A contemporary chronicler, Roger of Howden, records that ‘the rich men, sparing their own purses, wanted the poor to pay everything’, and notes that William Longbeard ‘becoming sensible of this, being inflamed by zeal for justice and equity . . . became the champion of the poor, it being his wish that every person, both rich as well as poor, should give according to his property and means, for all the necessities of the state.’5
Longbeard’s campaign began with his discovery of the Court’s plan to increase the burden of taxation on the poor. His followers, at least to begin with, seem to have been drawn from both the poor and the ‘middling people’. They were bound together by the taking of some sort of oath. William of Newburgh records that some 52,000 citizens were organized in Longbeard’s conspiracy, ‘the names of each being, as it afterwards appeared, written down’. Dominic Alexander considers these numbers vastly exaggerated, but Longbeard’s organization does seem to have been on an impressive scale. Certainly this initial phase of revolt was enough to provoke the nobles’ ‘indignation’ against this agitator. This may have been Longbeard’s motivation in crossing the Channel to France to see Richard I, in a bid to gain royal approval for his actions. He seems to have succeeded, since it is reported that on his return to London, Longbeard behaved ‘as if under the countenance of the royal favour’.6
It remained standard practice up to and including the start of the English Revolution for those rebelling against authority to claim that they were doing so in the name of the monarch. But Longbeard’s use of this stratagem may have had specific meaning at this moment. When Richard I came to the throne, he granted London extensive self-government after Henry II had limited it severely. ‘So the London elite, those families providing the Mayor and Aldermen, had only just attained a degree of self-government. The liberties granted by the King to London were new and could have been revoked, so Longbeard may have been trying to play the London elite and the King against each other.’7
Archbishop Hubert Walter had other ideas: he ‘was clearly intent on bringing royal power’ to repress Longbeard. Walter took action to suppress ‘rumours’, and also took hostages from wealthy Londoners to enforce quiescence. It seems this crackdown divided Longbeard’s supporters, silencing some of the better-off, and that Longbeard responded by appealing more directly to popular forces; Roger of Wendover’s account highlights the political organization that the rebellion entailed. Longbeard ‘in contempt of the king’s majesty, convoked assemblies of people, and binding many to him by oath at their meetings’ he at last ‘raised a sedition and disturbance in St Paul’s church’. William of Newburgh records what Longbeard said to his audiences:
I am the saviour of the poor. Oh poor, who have experienced the heaviness of rich men’s hands, drink from my wells the waters of the doctrine of salvation, and you may do this joyfully; for the time of your visitation is at hand. For I will divide the waters from the waters. The people are the waters. I will divide the humble and faithful people from the haughty and treacherous people: I will separate the elect from the reprobate, as light from darkness.8
Dominic Alexander comments on this remarkable speech, ‘He, or Newburgh for him, is directly associating the “poor” with the saved and the powerful with the damned. If still in the eleventh century “pauperes” could refer simply to the religious, here economic categories have fully invaded spiritual ones. Newburgh presumably intends his readership to understand the shocking social meaning of the message.’9 Longbeard reacted to Hubert’s intervention by ‘convoking public meetings by his own authority, in which he arrogantly proclaimed himself the king or saviour of the poor’, according to Newburgh.10
Longbeard’s message was popular, and his following substantial. Archbishop Walter’s strategy was to wait until he was apart from his followers and surprise him. Two ‘noble citizens’ thus watched for a time when he was ‘unattended by his mob’, now that ‘the people out of fear for the hostages had become more quiet’. In due course, on the orders of the Archbishop, they seized their opportunity to make an arrest. Longbeard and his party resisted, and in the struggle one of his assailants was killed with his own weapon. After the fight Longbeard’s party took refuge in St Mary-le-Bow, in the heart of the City. The Archbishop now laid siege to the troop and even took the sacrilegious action of breaking the sanctuary of the Church and setting it ablaze.11
The fire forced Longbeard’s group from the Church and, as he emerged, a relative of the assailant who had died in the original attack lunged at Longbeard and ‘cut open his belly with a knife’.12 All of the group were subsequently condemned to death by the king’s court, on the direction of Archbishop Walter. Longbeard was dragged from the Tower by horses to Tyburn, where he and his nine followers were all hanged. ‘In this yere was one William with the long berde taken out of Bowe churche and put to dethe for herysey’, recorded the Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London.13 Others of his followers had to give hostages to the Archbishop as guarantors of good behaviour.
The Longbeard rebellion was over. But there is evidence that his reputation and ideas lived on in popular memory. And Longbeard’s rebellion was not the last, nor the greatest, challenge to feudal authority.
JEWS IN MEDIEVAL LONDON
The first sizeable Jewish immigration into Britain came with William the Conqueror in 1066. They were moneylenders from Rouen. As Christians were forbidden to lend money, Jews played this critical role in medieval society, not least for the Crown. In return they were supposed to enjoy royal protection. Both moneylending and the protection of the monarch were likely to make Jews, at particular times, the target of popular hostility. This was stoked by
