Inside One of London's Oldest Medieval Crypts

foreign [Music] if you had to picture a Catholic military order it's probably the Knights Templar popularized by Dan Brown's fictional Thriller The Da Vinci Code but in medieval Europe there was another equally powerful religious society which also had its headquarters right here in London it's the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem better known as the knights hospitaler I'm Katie wignall a London tour guide and in this series I'm going to be delving into the capital's hidden past in this episode I'm exploring the history of the Order of Saint John visiting their base of operations here in London The Priory is one of the city's hidden gems with surprises around every corner formed in Jerusalem in the 11th century to care for pilgrims the order went on to become an ambitious military organization owning lands and wielding influence across Europe join me as I uncover the story of the hospitalist rise to power dramatic fall and rebirth in the modern era [Music] I've come to Clarken well now a busy part of the modern city but once an area of open Countryside outside the city walls it was here in the middle of the 12th century that The Priory of Saint John was founded on 10 acres of land granted by a local Norman Baron the monks who lived here took vows of poverty Chastity and obedience and were expected to fight to defend their faith if called upon I'm standing at what would have been a very large enclosed Precinct the entrance is that stone Gateway you can see over here and over this side there would be kitchens and Gardens and the Knights would have processed from here on their way to the east now inside here you can see this clue on the floor this curved line was once the outer curved wall of the medieval Church the original building would have looked quite similar to Temple Church home at the Knights Templar in England and that was no accident both structures were based on the design of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem a reminder to the holy orders of their most important mission to keep the Holy Land in Christian hands sadly above ground almost none of the early medieval Church survives the circular Nave and the chance of in the 12th century are long gone but beneath us some of the early church still survives foreign take these few steps down below the modern street level and it feels like you've traveled back in time it's hard to believe that this was built 900 years ago it survived fires Redevelopment and the Blitz the round arches give way to pointed ones which shows the changes in fashion in the 12th century and today it's all painted white but the evidence suggests that once it would have been covered with bright colors the stained glass windows down here are backlit by artificial lights but it gives you an idea of how this space would have felt in the 12th century when the windows would have been at ground level on top of this tomb we have this alabaster stone Effigy of a knight and we know that he's a member of the order because we can see the eight-pointed Maltese cross on his breastplate this was a gift to the order in 1915 but it's from the valadin cathedral in Spain and shows a 16th century Spanish Knight that died fighting the Turks clearly he was a very impressive man a number of important meetings were held at the church throughout the medieval period including a particularly fiery one in 1185. the patriarch of Jerusalem arrived in England with the Grand Master of the Order of Saint John to ask King Henry II to lead a crusade to the Holy Land Henry's Council persuaded him to decline to the Patriarchs dismay and just two years later Jerusalem was recaptured by Saladin Sultan of Egypt and Syria it's possible that the council might have been held In This Very Room in any case these Stone benches would have been used by the monks for their chapter meetings where they discussed Daily Business Unfortunately they are not very comfortable in any case the monks would have had a regular contact with their brothers in the East after all their existence depended on the success in the Holy lands in the collections here at the Museum of the Order of Saint John a more than 60 000 objects related to the oldest history many of them brought back from the Crusader States I was able to take a look at some of the artifacts that might have been familiar to the monks here oh my goodness we've got some fascinating objects here but seeing as we're within the headquarters what does that actually mean what does it what was the main work that was going on here yes so St John's gate where we asked today um was built as the grand entrance to the Order of Saint John's English Priory in 1504 but the odd had many other priories all over Western Europe um as well as its headquarters on the island of road so this site acted more of an administrative Center and was an excellent spot for a religious institution because it was really close to the city of London and it's quite a close walk to the city of London walls now and although it's quite hard to believe in bustling Clerk and well today it was quite peaceful and Rural in this area a lot of people used to live and work here and even though the Priory was only here for about 400 years over time lots of changes happened and more and more lavish and luxurious buildings started popping up so if this was the kind of administrative Hub and they have people traveling a long way away how do they stay in contact how are those lines of communication kept up so the members of the order of the hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem were known as the knights hospital so that kind that title reflects that they were religious men who had taken vows of obedience Chastity and poverty and were both Warriors or nights and carers are hospitalers as the order grew the knights were given lands across Europe and England and these properties provided food money and people for their work in the Mediterranean these were all individually called commanderies and these lands were controlled by priories in each country but The Priory here was the headquarters of the English branch and despite there not being a hospital in clerkenwell The Priory in England sent money and resources out to the other priories around the world and especially the hospital in Jerusalem so with they kind of send letters or would they is that how they were communicating yeah they'd send letters and quite often they'd bring things back from their travels as well and although these weren't sent back in the medieval period they are from the holy lands yes so this first object is a piece of the holy sepulka church and religious culture at the time was focused on kind of the acquisition and possession of holy relics and these were commonly parts of a Saint's body or a piece of clothing that they wore however the holy church of sepulka which was the shrine Church in Jerusalem that was built on top of the tomb where Christ's body had been buried was noticeably absent of a body therefore there couldn't really be any relics so instead people took chunks of the church this is quite a big fragment most often people would scrape and they'd kind of bring home a little amount of dust and a few bits of rocks and then what about these coins here because they all look really different yes so throughout the Crusade Estates coins were marked and distributed as a kind of show of power more so than anything to do with the economy this particular coin an example is pierced at the very top so despite coins being exchanged hundreds and thousands of times during their lifespan they're a really good way to reinforce political and religious messages of who's in charge in that area and Christianity's position in the holy land was very precarious at the time which you might not be able to tell from the amount of coins that they distributed and the different looks of the coins does that mean that they're from different areas yes yes so these are from Individual Crusade Estates so from Tripoli Malta Rhodes Antioch and Odessa this actual specific coin with the piercing would have been worn as an item of jewelry so kind of losing that economic value of trading coins and wearing it as a sign of their commitment to the area because of the iconography and you can see closely there's the Holy Sepulcher Church on this coin it's showing that um the iconography is an amulet that would bring a different value and even though it's not economic value it's still bringing an important value to the whatever as the order experience makes Fortunes in the East the later Middle Ages proved to be a turbulent time back in England too in the 13th and 14th centuries The Priory at clarkenwald grew in wealth and prominence playing host to Kings and Nobles and spending vast sums of money to support the lavish lifestyle as a grand prior but this association with Rich hairs and royalty made the order a Target during The Peasants Revolt of 1381 a mob of disgruntled Rebels stormed The Priory complex seized its treasures and burnt the place to the ground it was a while before The Priory fully recovered and for most of the 15th century England was preoccupied with the wars of the Roses but the arrival of the Tudor dynasty coincided with a real high point for the order it was at this point they have a new grand prior Thomas docra and he rebuilt the orders buildings on a grand scale behind me this plaque records that St John's Gate House was rebuilt at this time the work certainly made an impression on the English antiquarian William Camden who wrote that the rebuilt complex resembled a palace and had in it a very fair church and a tower steeple raised to a great height with so fine workmanship that it was a singular Beauty and ornament to the city The Man Behind all this Thomas docrow was clearly a formidable and charismatic character he had fought against the Turks on the island of Rhodes before becoming Grand prior in England and was a close companion of King Henry VII on doctor's recommendation Henry was granted the special title protector of the order which recognized his support for the knights Hospital in the East but within just a few decades the order was facing ruin both in England and abroad so Henry VIII comes to the throne in 1509 and initially big fan of the order yeah you're completely right Henry VII followed closely in his Father's Footsteps as a huge initial supporter of the Order of Saint John so Henry VII the first Tudor King had a very close relationship with Thomas docra who was the prior of England a trusted advisor often deployed as a royal Ambassador and he's also known as best as the Builder of this beautiful Center on gate and he was a good enough friend to the king that the king stayed here in the summer of 1508 while visiting outside of the city when Henry VII succeeded his father he carried on this really close relationship and was granted the special title of protector of the order the relationship was actually so close that dockera accompanied Henry VIII to the field of the cloth of gold um to meet King Francis the first in 1520. however it looks at this point that Henry starts to take advantage of doctors um good relationship and refused to allow him to travel on business of the order it just in case the crown might need him interesting and it all later goes a bit wrong for the relationship and this sort of coincides with the order facing trouble in the east as well yes so while Henry and the order are still on relatively good terms the order is facing its own challenges in the Mediterranean so in 1523 the Knights of Saint John are forced to leave their home in roads leaving them without a base this casts doubt on how fit they are for purpose as Defenders of Christendom because they have no permanent base and it's causing a bit of a strain on the artist finances so while talks were going on with Charles V of Spain around a potential move to Malta which they do end up doing seven years later Henry felt left out of this discussion and considered seizing the orders cash and property to support his own lavish court on military spending and in the height of this really difficult situation dokra fell seriously ill and Henry really quickly made plans to take over his property um and all his possessions in the case that he did die and when he did the order appointed a new prior William Weston which Henry really did not like at first he refused to accept his appointment and only did later when Western promised to send 5 000 pounds a year to the crown while this was all going on Henry was in a really deep dispute with Pope Clement VII over the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and as a result of breaking away from the Catholic Church to establish a new church of England there was no longer a place for the Catholic order and is that what this document shows us here yes so this document is the warrant from King Henry VII granting the destruction of The Priory church so he instructs that the buildings are either sold or destroyed for building construction and it's quite interesting because some of the Stone from the main body of the church goes to help build Somerset house on the Thames and is this his signature here yes it is so he writes it quite big and bold and it's Henry R which is Henry Rex Omnibus which is means king of all but that wasn't the end of kind of Royal patronage and the order because later we have more documents under Queen Mary the first yes absolutely so this much larger and kind of impressive document it was given by Mary the first so after the death of Henry VIII's only son his daughter from his first marriage Mary the first as a Catholic she sought to reintroduce the Catholic order of this of Saint John and these letter patents are dated to 1557 and Grant the return of many of the English properties back to the Order of Saint John there was a particularly sad end for William Weston the last prior of the order in England who apparently died of grief on the same day as the order's dissolution was announced in Parliament part of his rather Macabre tomb is still in The Priory Crypt most of the English Knights retired to their new stronghold of Malta they three who did not were executed by Henry as traitors one was hung drawn and quartered at southwark and The Priory buildings themselves didn't fare much better Henry instructed that the building should be sold or dismantled strips of useful building materials like lead and glass and iron in the reign of Henry's son Edward VI The Priory church was undermined and blown up with gunpowder the stones were used to construct the original Somerset house so it's little wonder that in the excavations they found so much medieval Rubble in the centuries that followed the surviving parts of The Priory were put to some surprising uses some notable names in London's history spent time in these rooms inside St John's gate in the 18th century the gate was used briefly as a coffee house run by Richard Hogarth the father of the artist William Hogarth it was also here that Dr Samuel Johnson who compiled the famous English dictionary started his career writing reports for the gentleman's magazine later in the 18th century it was also used as a pub the Jerusalem Tavern where literary lights like Charles Dickens would come here often by this time the order was no longer the force it once was in Europe Malta had been taken from the knights hospital by Napoleon and its remaining members scatters but in England a New Order of Saint John was granted a royal Charter by Queen Victoria in 1888 and that meant significant investment in the rebuilding of The Priory this Victorian Room is the chapter Hall a space to hold events for dignitaries and the New Order of knights and it's deliberately built to look like it's from a much earlier period and in a way the new modern order was all about going back to its original purpose the newly formed St John's ambulance would be tested during the 20th century no more so than during the second World War working as Volunteers in London's Airaid shelters and driving ambulances during the blackouts of the 1940s several members of Saint John were awarded medals for their bravery during the Blitz [Music] foreign is the picture of calm and it's full of herbs like lavender chamomile peppermint used to treat medieval patients but if you look to the wall this is a clue to the tumultuous history with the many layers of reconstruction on display the wall survived the German incendiary bomb in May 1941 the roof collapsed the interior was destroyed but the shell of the building remained intact the church was rebuilt in the post-war period but a lack of funds meant that some plans for the new design were never followed through the interior is quite plain but the colorful banners that line the walls show that the order has survived and evolved and is now represented across the globe I hope you enjoyed this video on the Order of Saint John you might also like our other episodes in the hidden London series and don't forget to leave a comment and hit the Subscribe button

Channel: History Hit

Views: 137,541

Keywords: history hit, history hit youtube, medieval crypt, knights hospitaller, knights hospitaller documentary, knights hospitaller today, knights hospitaller history, knights hospitaller armor, medieval knights cross, knights templar, medieval london, london middle ages, knights hospitaller london, st johns priory, st john ambulance history, katie wignall, london tour medieval, medieval london tour, medieval london places, underground medieval base, secret london, london tour

Id: utslUpFKpM4

Length: 20min 45sec (1245 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 07 2023