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IV.—Recent Discoveries at the Temple, London, and Notes on the Topography of the Site

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

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The Temple Church, London, has a rather unenviable notoriety among archaeologists due to its drastic restoration more than a century ago. Nothing could have been more thorough than the way in which every ancient surface was repaired away or renewed so that in the end the result was a complete modern simulacrum of this superb monument. Very little of this painful accomplishment has survived the serious fire occasioned by the air-raid of 1941, and it has devolved on me to reconstruct the church a second time. I can honestly say it is proving a more rewarding task than I at first thought possible, for behind the restorer's veneer there is sufficient of the old fabric remaining to make one feel there is still a life to be prolonged and much that is significant to be preserved.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1953

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References

page 123 note 1 The chief works relating to the Temple are Billings, R. W., Illustrations and Account of the Temple Church, (1838)Google Scholar; Addison, C. G., The History of the Knights Templars, the Temple Church and the Temple (1842)Google Scholar; Burge, W., The Temple Church (1843)Google Scholar; Baylis, T. H., The Temple Church and Chapel of St. Ann (1893)Google Scholar; Inderwick, F. A. (ed.), Calendar of Inner Temple Records (18961937)Google Scholar; Reddan, M., ‘The Temple’ in V.C.H., London (1909), pp. 485–91Google Scholar; Inkpen, A. R. (ed.), Master Worsley's Book (1910: a 1733Middle Temple record)Google Scholar; Williamson, J. B., The History of the Temple, London (1924)Google Scholar; and Lees, B., Records of the Templars in England in the Twelfth Century (1935: British Academy Publications, IX)Google Scholar.

page 123 note 2 Lees, p. lxxxviii.

page 123 note 3 Cal. Close Rolls, 1327–30, p. 580; 1330–3, p. 102; 1337–9, p. 218; Cal. Patent Rolls, 1354–8, p. 319; Cal. City Letter Book G, pp. 324–5; and Cal. City Plea and Memoranda Rolls, 1364–81, pp. 238–40.

page 123 note 4 See below, p. 124 and fig. 5.

page 124 note 1 Lees, pp. lxxxix, 13–15; C.P.R., 1313–17, pp. 184–5.

page 124 note 2 There are full accounts of the English Trials, with lists of prisoners, in Wilkins, D., Concilia Magnae Britanniae (1737), II, 329401. See also W. Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi (i), 844–8; and Addison, pp. 213 et seqGoogle Scholar.

page 124 note 3 C.C.R., 1327–30, p. 580; 1330–3, p. 102; Cal. Letter Book G, p. 324; Cal. P. and M. Rolls, 1364–81, pp. 238–40. This procedure proves that the New Temple was originally within the City.

page 124 note 4 P.R.O., Exch. L.T.R., Enrolled Accounts, Misc., No. 24 (= Templars' Rolls, No. 3), m. 3. Translations of parts are printed in Baylis, App. F, pp. 131–46 (and see p. vi), and Williams, E., Early Holborn and the Legal Quarter of London (1927), nos. 1324, 1357–9. For John of Brittany see Baylis, 132 nGoogle Scholar.

page 124 note 5 Cal. Ch. Rolls, iii, 203.

page 124 note 6 C.P.R., 1313–17, pp. 184–5.

page 124 note 7 Cal. Ch. Rolls, iii, p. 441.

page 124 note 8 Cal. Inquis. p.m., VII (1909), no. 82Google Scholar.

page 124 note 9 Williamson, p. 76.

page 124 note 10 Statutes of the Realm (1810), I, 194–6Google Scholar.

page 124 note 11 See C.P.R., 1330–3, p. 434; 1338–40, p. 99; C.C.R., 1337–9: pp. 416–17.

page 124 note 12 Williamson, p. 78.

page 124 note 13 P.R.O., C. Inquis. Misc. File 129, 11 (trans. Williams, op. cit., No. 1381); C.P.R., 1334–8, p. 314; C.C.R., 1337–9, pp. 72–73; and an II Ed. III Exch. writ (summary in Addison, 354–5).

page 124 note 14 C.C.R., 1337–9, pp. 416–17; see also Cal. Letter Book G, p. 324.

page 124 note 15 C.P.R., 1338–40, p. 99.

page 125 note 1 Cal. Husting Wills, i, 489–90.

page 125 note 2 See Williamson, pp. 89–90. The books and records were kept in hutches in the church.

page 125 note 3 Viollet-le-Duc, , Diet, raisonné de l'architecture (1875), IX, 15Google Scholar.

page 125 note 4 SirHope, William St. John, ‘Round Naved Churches of England’, in Report of the Chapter General of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in England (1916), pp. 610Google Scholar.

page 125 note 5 A plate of the inscription forms the frontispiece to Addison: see also ibid., pp. 292–3.

page 127 note 1 Addison, p. 45; Essex, W. R. H. and Smirke, Sydney, Illustrations, etc., of the Temple Church, London (1845), p. 6Google Scholar.

page 128 note 1 See below, p. 129. In 1282 the description was simply ‘capella juxta Ecclesiam apud Novum Templum London’ ex parte australi ipsius Ecclesiae sita' (Rymer, , Foedera (1745 ed.), I. (ii), p. 201a)Google Scholar.

page 128 note 2 Picturesque Tour through London and Westminster (1792), facing p. 57.Google Scholar

page 128 note 3 Baylis, opp. p. 64.

page 128 note 4 There is an earlier plan in Britton, J., Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain, I (1807), opp. p. 16Google Scholar.

page 129 note 1 A copy of this engraving is in the Inner Temple.

page 129 note 2 Temple Church Registers (Woods), interments of John Selden (1654), Martha Marshall (1665–6), and Robert Backhouse (1666–7), etc.

page 129 note 3 Idem, quoted by Baylis, p. 53.

page 129 note 4 Vol. ii, pp. 192–3 (ed. 1705).

page 130 note 1 Wilkins, D., Concilia Mag. Brit. (1737), II, 19, 20Google Scholar.

page 130 note 2 See p. 124, n. 4.

page 130 note 3 See p. 124, n. 13.

page 130 note 4 Thomas Becket, the patron saint of English Crusaders.

page 130 note 5 Minutes of the Inner Temple quoted by Esdaile, Katherine A., Temple Church Monuments (1933), p. 10Google Scholar.

page 130 note 6 Edited by A. G. Little and F. M. Powicke (1925), pp. 147–62.

page 130 note 7 The Commissioners of 1307 probably called the building a vestry because all the secular treasure would have gone by then. The list of contents includes six chests and eight coffers. It is noteworthy that the records of the lawyers, who succeeded the Templars, were kept near by, in the Round.

page 131 note 1 Viollet-le-Duc, op. cit. ix, 15.

page 131 note 2 See plan by (Sir) Clapham, Alfred, The Antiquaries Journal (1921), I, opp. p. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 131 note 3 Roger of Hoveden's Chronicle (Rolls Series), 18681871, III, 187Google Scholar.

page 131 note 4 Clark, A. (ed.), John Aubrey's Brief Lives (1898), II, 221–2Google Scholar.

page 133 note 1 Ed. Bliss (1817), vol. iii, col. 376.

page 133 note 2 ‘buried in a valt, prepared at his charge, neare Mr. Selden's moniment, 5 July, 1665’—(Temple Church Registers). See his monument, Esdaile, op. cit., p. 146.

page 133 note 3 For fuller details of these groups, see Lees, pp. lx–lxiii.

page 134 note 1 See p. 124, n. 13.

page 134 note 2 This was the entry which still leads to the Round church.

page 134 note 3 For remains of this wall see Addison, pp. 345–6.

page 134 note 4 This was the modern Middle Temple entrance, always a public right of way to the river.

page 136 note 1 Undated, but before 1867. The plan belongs to the Society of the Inner Temple.

page 136 note 2 Between pp. 284 and 285.

page 136 note 3 Origines Juridiciales (1680), p. 146a.

page 136 note 4 An engraving of this view occurs in Thornbury, W., Old and New London (18721878), I, 162Google Scholar.

page 136 note 5 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, London, vol. iv, The City (1929), p. 145 and Plate, 194Google Scholar.

page 136 note 6 Old and New London, op. cit., p. 163, and Inderwick, opp. p. 22.

page 136 note 7 At a parliament held on 27 November, 13 Henry VIII, A.D. 1521, Walter Blounte was admitted ‘to the chamber where Shyllyng lately lay, namely, in the tower over the Parliament House’ (Inderwick, i, 66; see also pp. xxviii, 234; and Addison, p. 343).

page 136 note 8 There is mention of a new kitchen in 1555 (Inderwick, i, p. xlviii) and again in 1630–1 (Williamson, p. 379).

page 137 note 1 This chamber is recorded as rebuilt by Sir Julius Caesar at a parliament held on 8th February 1595–6 (op. cit. i, 411).

page 137 note 2 Also called the ‘Custos’ or ‘Guardian of the Temple Church’.

page 137 note 3 J. M. Kemble (ed.), The Knights Hospitallers in England … 1338 (1857; Camden Series, vol. 65), p. 202.

page 137 note 4 Inderwick, i, p. xxii; see also Williamson, pp. 386–7, 395.

page 137 note 5 Williamson, p. 504; see also C.P.R., Ed. VI (iii), p. 140.

page 137 note 6 This identification would account for the great quantity of ancient armour belonging to the Middle Temple (see Chamberlain, H., A New and Compleat History and Survey of London … (1771), p. 530)Google Scholar.

page 137 note 7 Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire (1700), II, 434Google Scholar.

page 137 note 8 Master Worsley's Book, p. 93 n.

page 137 note 9 Williamson, pp. 71–72, 229, 234–5, 376–7; W. Dugdale, op. cit., pp. 189–90.

page 137 note 10 See the ‘Report on Precedency, 1736’ in Master Worsley's Book, p. 312.

page 137 note 11 This garden was still there in the sixteenth century and lay behind the houses in the Strand (see Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, XIX, i, 80 (26), 812 (45); ii, 340 (14, 21, 51); C.P.R., Ed. VI (i), p. 295).

page 139 note 1 B.M. Cotton MS. Claudius cxi, f. 328b (trans. E. Williams, op. cit., No. 1353).

page 139 note 2 Nigel, bishop of Ely, witnessed the sale of the Old Temple (Lees, p. lxxxviii; see also p. lxix). He was the king's treasurer and became a baron of the Exchequer (Dugdale, Mon. Angl., i, 462; Johnson, C. (ed.), Dialogus de Scaccario (1950), pp. xiv–xvi, xxviiGoogle Scholar; White, G. H., ‘Financial Administration under Henry I’ in R.H.S. Trans., 4th series, VIII (1925), pp. 6571).Google Scholar Nigel's successor, Geoffrey Ridel, was chancellor before he became bishop (Lees, p. 165 n.). Several later bishops of Ely were chancellors or treasurers (see T. F. Tout, Chapters in the Admin. History of Medieval England, vi, 3, 8, 11, 15, 17, 20; Poole, R. L., The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century (1912), pp. 185–6)Google Scholar.

page 139 note 3 Williams, op. cit., no. 354.

page 139 note 4 See the 1336–7 inquisitions; and Williamson, p. 72.

page 139 note 5 See the coloured plan attached to the 1732 Deed of Partition, reproduced in Master Worsley's Book.