page_title: St Magnus-the-Martyr
section_title: 15th and 16th centuries: before and after the Reformation
hierarchical_section_title: St Magnus-the-Martyr / History / 15th and 16th centuries: before and after the Reformation
caption_attribution_description: A View of London, Westminster and Southwark, as they appeared A.D. 1543 English: 19th century engraving by Nathaniel Whittock from a drawing by Antony van den Wyngaerde (ca 1543-50). Whittock added innumerable alterations and additions. The map is therefore of less historical value.
context_page_description: St Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge is a Church of England church and parish within the City of London. The church, which is located in Lower Thames Street near The Monument to the Great Fire of London, is part of the Diocese of London and under the pastoral care of the Bishop of Fulham. It is a Grade I listed building. The rector uses the title "Cardinal Rector", being the last remaining cleric in the Church of England to use the title Cardinal.
  St Magnus lies on the original alignment of London Bridge between the City and Southwark. The ancient parish was united with that of St Margaret, New Fish Street, in 1670 and with that of St Michael, Crooked Lane, in 1831. The three united parishes retained separate vestries and churchwardens. Parish clerks continue to be appointed for each of the three parishes.
  St Magnus is the guild church of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers and the Worshipful Company of Plumbers, and the ward church of the Ward of Bridge and Bridge Without. It is also twinned with the Church of the Resurrection in New York City.
  Its prominent location and beauty have prompted many mentions in literature.
context_section_description: In 1417 a dispute arose concerning who should take the place of honour amongst the rectors in the City churches at the Whit Monday procession, a place that had been claimed from time to time by the rectors of St Peter Cornhill, St Magnus the Martyr and St Nicholas Cole Abbey. The Mayor and Aldermen decided that the Rector of St Peter Cornhill should take precedence.
  St Magnus Corner at the north end of London Bridge was an important meeting place in mediaeval London, where notices were exhibited, proclamations read out and wrongdoers punished. As it was conveniently close to the River Thames, the church was chosen by the Bishop between the 15th and 17th centuries as a convenient venue for general meetings of the clergy in his diocese.  Dr John Young, Bishop of Callipolis (rector of St Magnus 1514–15) pronounced judgement on 16 December 1514 (with the Bishop of London and in the presence of Thomas More, then under-sheriff of London) in the heresy case concerning Richard Hunne.  According to the martyrologist John Foxe, a woman was imprisoned in the 'cage' on London Bridge in April 1555 and told to "cool herself there" for refusing to pray at St Magnus for the recently deceased Pope Julius III.
  St Magnus maintained a group of singing children from the 1470s until the 1550s.
  In pictures from the mid-16th century the old church looks very similar to the present-day St Giles without Cripplegate in the Barbican.  The London and Middlesex Chantry Certificate of 1548 listed the value of chantries attached to the church and the Fraternity of Salve Regina, the annual income of the latter being £49 16s 8d.  The wardens said that church lands had been used for the past 200 years to maintain the church.  A sum of £9 p.a. was paid to Robert Saye, priest.  By the 1550s Saye was a Vicar Choral at St Paul's Cathedral and he probably moved from St Magnus when the chantry there was closed.
  Maurice Griffith was rector here from 1537 until his death in 1558, holding the Bishopric of Rochester as well from 1554. His funeral, held at St Magnus, was a splendid affair, with chief mourners Sir William Petre, Sir William Garrard and Simon Lowe. These last two were parishioners. Sir William Garrard, Master of the Haberdashers' Company, Alderman, Sheriff of London in 1553/53, Lord Mayor in 1555/56 and a Member of Parliament was born in the parish and buried at St Magnus in 1571.Simon Lowe was a Member of Parliament and Master of the Merchant Taylors' Company during the reign of Queen Mary and one of the jurors who acquitted Sir Nicholas Throckmorton in 1554.
  Sir William Romney, merchant, philanthropist, Master of the Haberdashers' Company, Alderman for Bridge Within and Sheriff of London in 1603/04 was married at St Magnus in 1582. Ben Jonson is believed to have been married at St Magnus in 1594.
  The patronage of St Magnus, having previously been in the Abbots and Convents of Westminster and Bermondsey (who presented alternatively), fell to the Crown on the suppression of the monasteries. In 1553, Queen Mary, by letters patent, granted it to the Bishop of London and his successors.
  The church had a series of distinguished rectors in the second half of the 16th and first half of the 17th century, including Myles Coverdale (Rector 1564–66), John Young (Rector 1566–92), Theophilus Aylmer (Rector 1592–1625), (Archdeacon of London and son of John Aylmer), and Cornelius Burges (Rector 1626–41). Coverdale was buried in the chancel of St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange, but when that church was pulled down in 1840 his remains were removed to St Magnus.
  On 5 November 1562 the churchwardens were ordered to break, or cause to be broken, in two parts all the altar stones in the church.  Coverdale, an anti-vestiarian, was Rector at the peak of the vestments controversy. In March 1566 Archbishop Parker caused great consternation among many clergy by his edicts prescribing what was to be worn and by his summoning the London clergy to Lambeth to require their compliance. Coverdale excused himself from attending. Stow records that a non-conforming Scot who normally prea
caption: Old London bridge in 1543
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