London - Edward Rutherfurd [126]
On a late autumn morning in the year of Our Lord 1083, Leofric the merchant, who dwelt by the sign of the Bull in the West Cheap, stood near his house in momentary indecision.
The two sights that claimed his attention were so interesting to him that he kept turning his head from side to side as he tried to watch both.
The first was a half-built church.
For if the Conqueror had brought castles to England, he had also brought something else of great importance: the Continental Church. After all, he had promised the Pope that in return for his blessing, he would reform the English Church, and he was a man of his word. At the earliest opportunity, therefore, he had removed the Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury and replaced him with Lanfranc, a Norman priest of the greatest distinction. Following his first inspection of his new flock, Lanfranc’s verdict was simple: “Disgraceful.” And he set about cleaning things up.
Some years before, there had been a fire along the West Cheap. Leofric’s house had been spared, but the little Saxon church of St Mary at the top of the lane had been burnt to cinders. Now, Archbishop Lanfranc himself had ordered it rebuilt, to serve as his own church in London.
Halfway along the Cheap, therefore, just behind the stalls of mercers, drapers and ribbon-sellers, a small but handsome church was now rising. Like the Tower in the east, it was square, sturdy and built of stone. The crypt, which was mostly above ground, was already completed. It had a nave, four bays long and two aisles. Even the vaulting was stone, though here the builders had also used some Roman bricks they had found nearby. But the most striking feature, which had already impressed the inhabitants of the city, was that like those of Westminster Abbey, the stout arches of this little church were in the impressive, Romanesque style – rounded like a bow. As a consequence, even before the building was done, the church had acquired the special name it was to keep: St Mary-le-Bow.
Hardly a day went by without Leofric watching the progress on this fine new building for at least an hour. It might be Norman, and on his doorstep, but it pleased him.
The other sight, however, was becoming stranger every moment.
On the northern side of the Cheap, not a hundred yards from where he was standing, lay the narrow street of Ironmonger Lane. And by this corner, for five minutes at least, a most curious figure had been lurking. His hood was pulled over his head. He was stooping in a futile attempt to conceal his height and, presumably, his identity; and from his hood peeped out the edge of a large, red beard.
But why should he be lurking there? For up Ironmonger Lane there lay only one quarter – a new one – known by the name of its most recent inhabitants: the Jewry.
As well as his military followers, William the Conqueror had brought one other group with him to England: the Norman Jews. They were a privileged class. Under the king’s special protection, but discouraged from entering most occupations, this community had come to specialize in the making of loans. Not that the merchants of London were any strangers to simple finance. The loan and its necessary accompaniment, interest, had long existed there, as they had always done in any place where there are merchants and some kind of currency. Leofric, Barnikel and Silversleeves had all undertaken loans bearing interest or its equivalent. But this community of specialists was a novelty in the Anglo-Danish city.
So why should Barnikel be lurking there? It was not simply his dress but also his actions that were so strange.
First he would advance a little way up the lane, then stop, turn, shuffle back to the bottom, then turn again, press forward, receive some inward check and come back down again. Leofric watched his old friend do this three times before, fearing that he might have gone mad, he started towards him. But evidently Barnikel had caught sight of him, for with a strange agility he scuttled off down the Poultry