New Medieval London gallery opens
18 November 2005
Glamour, grandeur, sleaze, disease: Welcome to Medieval London, a new gallery now open at the Museum of London.
So how far back do teenage yobs and binge drinking go? What did Londoners feel about the worst epidemic the city has ever known? Where did London go for 200 years? And who bought all those hot sheep’s feet? The answers to these and other questions can be found in the Museum of London’s new Medieval London gallery.
The gallery tells the story of London from the end of Roman rule in AD410 to the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558, a period when London survived near extinction to become England’s capital and one of the most prosperous cities in Europe. Historians now know much more about what it was really like to live in London 700, 1000 and even 1500 years ago. There has been new research into documents and archaeologists have discovered Saxon London under Covent Garden.
Exciting finds have been made during excavations of ordinary medieval houses and shops revealed during the recent building boom in the City of London. Historians have investigated the effect of the Black Death on the London property market and have extended the story of Medieval London to include Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, an event so devastating that it changed Londoners’ lives forever.
Spectacular finds like a magnificent Anglo Saxon brooch, a whole section of the Thames riverfront and the crumpled remains of a priory window smashed up on the orders of Henry VIII are among over 1200 artefacts on display in the new gallery.
Objects excavated from the remains of 13th century Jewish houses in Milk Street are on show for the first time. Some small keys from the lockers of patients in St Mary Spital hospital; children’s toys and a set of loaded dice found on the Thames foreshore are just some of the more everyday objects that vividly capture a sense of people’s ordinary lives and daily experiences.
Leather and textiles miraculously preserved for centuries in the damp earth beneath former office blocks include a man’s woollen codpiece, a child’s mitten and a pair of pigeon-toed boots. Pointy shoes, restored by the latest technology to their original quirky splendour, show that London has been a fashion capital for centuries. Visitors can strut their stuff in a replica leather jerkin, try on a medieval ‘hoodie’, or admire themselves in a woman’s headdress.
Savage weapons found in the Thames bring the violence of the Viking invasions into the gallery. On two occasions, London only survived by the skin of its teeth and Alfred the Great is the man we have to thank for London being here at all. A new audio-visual display on the Black Death envelops visitors in the words of the people who experienced the horrors of the disease which wiped out half the city’s population in 18 months between 1348 and 1350.
Popular assumptions about castles and chivalry, disease and dirt are put under the spotlight and captions reveal intriguing facts and figures. Every visitor will discover a favourite, but once read, who could forget that London once had one alehouse for every 50 people, or that a shipload of goods arriving in London in 1500 included tennis balls, liquorice and thimbles?
Special children’s cartoon captions make history fun, encouraging them to look for objects and intriguing facts: for example, that medieval doctors carried round glass urinals because they thought red pee was a sign of a fever and an alarming dark green colour meant their patient had backache - ugh!
Download the Medieval London gallery opening press pack (PDF 1.5mb)
Further information and images from:
Clea Relly
tel: 020 7814 5503
email: crelly@museumoflondon.org.uk
Tim Morley
tel: 020 7814 5607
email:tmorley@museumoflondon.org.uk
Museum of London
London Wall
London EC2Y 5HN
Recorded information: 0870 444 385
website: www.museumoflondon.org.uk
Admission free
Open: Monday to Saturday 10am-5.50pm, Sunday 12-5.50pm
Tube: St Paul’s, Barbican and Moorgate
Notes for editors:
The Museum of London is the only museum to tell the story of London from pre-historic times to the present day. Find out what Romans ate for dinner, experience the Great Fire of London, go window-shopping in our Victorian walkway and be amazed by the magnificent Lord Mayor’s coach. Admission is free.
To hear about our exciting events programme and start exploring London’s history and the histories of Londoners visit www.museumoflondon.org.uk or call 0870 444 3851.