The Jews had a troubled time in London, as in other parts of the country, being exposed to constant extortion by the Sovereign and his ministers. Their principal quarter was in the neighbourhood of the present churches of St. Olave and St. Lawrence Jewry. The thoroughfare of the Old Jewry appears from Mr. Joseph Jacob's investigations to have been deserted by them prior even to their expulsion from the realm by Edward I. in the year 1291.
Besides the magnificent churches forming part of the monastic establishments, examples of which fortunately remain to us in the churches of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield, St. Saviour's, Southwark, and the Dutch Church, Austin Friars, the parish churches of the old city were numerous and important. From the inventories of their possessions prepared at the Dissolution, and preserved among the records of the Augmentation Office, it would seem that in the number of their chantries and the richness and extent of their vestments and service books, some of the larger parish churches could almost vie with the Cathedral itself. Although shorn of their magnificence by the legislation of the Reformation period, and the cruel devastation of the Great Fire, the few buildings which escaped the latter catastrophe bear evidence of their former grandeur. The most interesting of them are St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, with its fine monuments; All Hallows, Barking; St. Olave, Hart Street; and St. Giles, Cripplegate. The large number of the city churches is accounted for by the obligation of each parishioner not only to regularly attend the services at his own parish church, but to ensure the attendance also of his wife and household, apprentices and journeymen. A corresponding obligation rested upon the parish officers to provide a pew or other accommodation for each parishioner in his own parish church. In the smaller parishes situated in the heart of the city this was easy enough, but in border parishes like those of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, and St. Giles, Cripplegate, it must always have been a difficulty to provide for the large populations which such parishes contained.
There is one very important building of which we have scarcely as yet made mention, for it lies outside London City, the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth. We call it now "Lambeth Palace," but the title is of recent date--not older, indeed, than the earlier part of the nineteenth century. Up to that date its occupants dated their letters from "Lambeth House" or "Lambeth Manor." In old times the title Palace was only given to a bishop's residence within his own cathedral city. The Bishop of London's Palace was in St. Paul's Churchyard; his residence at Fulham was his "house."