Stranica 30 [30]
8 ORIGIN OF THE CITY
special meaning in the older English or
Anglo-Saxon tongue. Stukeley, a very
ed
e ff j Aldgate Kaldgafe, which in modern
judicious antiquary in his day, wrote
English is simply Oldgate. When, how¬
ever, we look into the early documents
which have of late years been revealed,
the puzzle ceases to perplex any one
who is willing to be undeceived. The
difficulty, to my mind at least, was this:
Aldgate cannot be Oldgate because we
know it was opened only in the reign of
Henry I, and must therefore be reckoned
among the newer entrances of the city.
But when we look into ancient documents
we find that it is not spelled Ealdgate or
Oldgate or Aldgate, but either Algate or
Alegate—a gate that is open to all. The good canons of the Holy
Trinity, who first made it, threw it open without toll to every one.
Cripplegate, again, 1s a
name over which conjecture
has been very busy. Stow,
for example—and he has
been followed by nearly all
subsequent writers — calls
it "of cripples begging
there." Cunningham ap¬
parently accepted this deri¬
vation in his famous //ana¬
book (1849), and it occurs in