London Stone. 77 



dora he summoned the popular assembly by sacrificing by a stone ; and 

 when King Joash was crowned he stood by the pillar " as the manner 

 was;" and in the same connection with pillars of stone as places of 

 assembly, there is some evidence relative to ancient pavements as seats 

 of judgment; one illustration will suffice; when Pilate brought our 

 Lord forth and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called 

 the Pavement ; this was undoubtedly an open air court of justice. 



We think that it has been sufficiently shown from the history of 

 other nations, that the open air assembly and open air court, were the 

 usual gathering of the people for legislative and judicial business, and 

 it is claimed with a good show of reason that London Stone was, as 

 other great stones were, the place where the suitors of an open air as- 

 sembly were accustomed to gather together to legislate for the city. 

 There is some traditional evidence of this fact. At the Lord Mayor's 

 Court, the summons was orally made, and the defendant was bidden to 

 appear in court, which is supposed by some to have been at London 

 Stone, which has been considered to be the spot where all public proc- 

 lamations and general summonses were made, where money was ten- 

 dered and debts were paid, and where the merchants met to transact 

 business. And besides, this stone was used as the public place where 

 notices were to be affixed ; so that any notice placed there gave official 

 information to the people as to its contents. We gather this from a 

 (piarto published in 1589 by Thomas Nast, where we read " Set up this 

 bill at London Stone. Let it be doone sollemnly, with drum and 

 trumpet, and looke you advance my cullour on the top of the steeple 

 right over against it." And again, " If it please them these dark win- 

 ter nights to sticke uppe their papers uppon London Stone." And 

 parallel to this traditional evidence of London Stone, it is observed, 

 that the justices itinerant in the time of Edward sat at the Stone 

 Cross, opposite the Bishop of Worcester's House (near Somerset place) 

 in the Strand. This Stone Cross was even then ancient and was men- 

 tioned by Stow as standing headless in 1598. 



These stone crosses which are met with all over England, may be, 

 perhaps, identified with the ancient meeting places of the local assem- 

 bly ; but their origin is greatly obscured by the Christian significance 

 of the term. There were probably not less than five thousand such 

 crosses in England at the time of the Reformation, and they were 

 sometimes preaching places, sometimes places for collecting tolls ; but 

 in connection with these uses were places of proclamation of the 

 rules and judgments of the village court. In one instance we find 

 recorded, representatives called " Sixteens," were sent to the court. 



