Stranger churches in early modern London had ‘eyes everywhere’ to hear, spread and dispel gossip in multiple languages, according to new research

The research uncovers the history of multilingual gossip in Elizabethan London

Stranger churches in early modern London had ‘eyes everywhere’ to hear, spread and dispel gossip in multiple languages, according to new research.

The Elizabethan era saw large numbers of migrants coming to England, many of whom were Protestants fleeing religious persecution and violence from countries that spoke French, Dutch, Flemish, Italian and Spanish.

Dr John Gallagher, Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leeds’ School of History, has uncovered evidence that the state was monitoring gossip about them in multiple languages.

England’s history is much more multilingual than we might imagine.

Dr John Gallagher, School of History

His findings are revealed in a new paper, Migrant Voices in Multilingual London, 1560–1600, which is published in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society.

Dr Gallagher, who recently won the prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize for his work in this area, said: “England’s history is much more multilingual than we might imagine, and even the state had to learn multiple languages in the Elizabethan area to have ‘eyes everywhere’ and maintain control.

“The average person would have come across multiple languages every day, and we can hear the voices of regular people because of the extensive records kept by churches at the time.

“Languages other than English could be heard in the streets and in the public spaces of the city, through the walls of homes and the doors of shops.”

Stranger churches

Known at the time as ‘strangers’, migrants joined a mostly illiterate but multilingual community that valued the spoken word highly.

‘Stranger churches’ for migrant communities were formed with the first Dutch church in London in 1550. They provided services in French, Dutch and Italian, but church elders recognised that this privilege was precarious, and began to monitor scandal across languages to avoid bringing their communities into disrepute.

The archives of consistories – the stranger churches’ all-male governing bodies – show that churches aimed to ‘have eyes everywhere’, as a minister of the French church in London wrote in 1561.

When suspicions arose over a child’s parentage in the Dutch church, records showed the elders consulted a woman ‘from overseas’, an ‘Englishman’ and a woman present at the birth of the child to understand the extent of the rumours.

Consistories also made it their mission to do background checks on migrants at church who could have left behind a secret spouse and family at home.

England’s ‘third universitie’

But London’s multilingual exchange wasn’t just for the church, or the literate elites, as everyone would have encountered languages other than English in the street, or even at home.

Dr Gallagher’s findings include the story of one bookseller, Thomas Harris, who stopped his French neighbour Jehan de Savoye in the street to ask him what had been said in a French-language row he’d overheard.

London’s Royal Exchange, finished in 1568, was an important space where linguistic diversity helped news, gossip and slander spread through the city. The space was used for international and multilingual trade, but it was also a space where people had a ready audience for arrests, arguments and accusations in multiple languages.

A commentator described London at the time as England’s ‘third universitie’, where you could learn Chaldean, Syriac and Arabic, as well as Polish, Persian and Russian.

Dr Gallagher added: “It wasn’t necessary to speak or understand another language to be part of this multilingual urban culture: your rowing neighbours might switch languages to ensure the cause of the trouble was made clear, or the offender might show up on your doorstep in the presence of an elder of their church to explain and apologise.”

These findings will form part of Dr Gallagher’s upcoming book ‘Strangers: Migration and Multilingualism in Early Modern London’, supported by the Philip Leverhulme Prize.