page_title: London Stone
section_title: Middle ages
hierarchical_section_title: London Stone / History / Middle ages
caption_attribution_description: English: London, a pilgrimage, by Gustave Doré, and Blanchard Jerrold (Grant, London, 1872)&#160;: London Stone.
context_page_description: London Stone is a historic landmark housed at 111 Cannon Street in the City of London. It is an irregular block of oolitic limestone measuring 53 × 43 × 30 cm, the remnant of a once much larger object that had stood for many centuries on the south side of the street.
  The name "London Stone" was first recorded around the year 1100. The date and original purpose of the Stone are unknown, although it is possibly of Roman origin. There has been interest and speculation about it since the medieval period, but modern claims that it was formerly an object of veneration, or has some occult significance, are unsubstantiated.
context_section_description: The earliest reference to the Stone is usually said to be that noted by John Stow in his Survey of London (1598). Stow says that in a list of properties in London belonging to Christ Church, Canterbury (Canterbury Cathedral), one piece of land was described as lying "neare unto London stone". This list, he says, had been bound into the end of a Gospel Book given to the cathedral by "Ethelstane king of the west Saxons", usually identified as Æthelstan, king of England (924–39). But it is impossible to confirm Stow's account, since the document he saw cannot now be identified with certainty. However, the earliest extant list of Canterbury's London properties, which has been dated to between 1098 and 1108, does refer to a property given to the cathedral by a man named "Eadwaker æt lundene stane" ("Eadwaker at London Stone"). Although not bound into a Gospel Book (it is now bound into a volume of miscellaneous medieval texts with a Canterbury provenance (MS Cotton Faustina B. vi) in the British Library), it could be that it was this, or a similar text, that Stow saw.
  Like Eadwaker, other medieval Londoners acquired or adopted the byname "at London Stone" or "of London Stone" because they lived nearby. One of these was "Ailwin of London Stone", the father of Henry Fitz-Ailwin the first Mayor of the City of London, who took office at some time between 1189 and 1193, and governed the city until his death in 1212. The Fitz-Ailwin house stood away from Candlewick Street, on the north side of St Swithin's church.
  London Stone was a well-known landmark in medieval London, and when in 1450 Jack Cade, leader of a rebellion against the corrupt government of Henry VI, entered the city with his men, he struck his sword on London Stone and claimed to be "Lord of this city". Contemporary accounts give no clue as to Cade's motivation, or how his followers or the Londoners would have interpreted his action. There is nothing to suggest he was carrying out a traditional ceremony or custom.
caption: The stone behind its 1869 grille: an engraving by Gustave Doré, 1872
exif: {}