London

===Anglo-Saxon and Viking-period London===

[[File:Reconstruction_drawing_of_Londinium_in_120_AD,_Museum_of_London_(34881481351).jpg|thumb|left|Reconstruction drawing of [[Londinium]] in 120 AD]]
With the early 5th-century collapse of Roman rule, the walled city of [[Londinium]] was effectively abandoned, although [[Roman civilisation]] continued around [[St Martin-in-the-Fields]] until about 450.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The last days of Londinium |url=http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Past/MissingLink/Themes/TML_themes_Londinium.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090108092449/http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Past/MissingLink/Themes/TML_themes_Londinium.htm |archive-date=8 January 2009 |access-date=31 March 2013 |website=[[Museum of London]]}}</ref> From about 500, an [[Anglo-Saxon]] settlement known as [[Anglo-Saxon London|Lundenwic]] developed slightly west of the old Roman city.<ref name=london_011>{{Cite web |url=http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Past/MissingLink/Themes/TML_themes_Lundenwic.htm |title=The early years of Lundenwic |publisher=The [[Museum of London]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080610043903/http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Past/MissingLink/Themes/TML_themes_Lundenwic.htm |archive-date=10 June 2008 |url-status=dead}}</ref> By about 680 the city had become a major port again, but there is little evidence of large-scale production. From the 820s repeated [[Viking]] assaults brought decline. Three are recorded; those in 851 and 886 succeeded, while the last, in 994, was rebuffed.<ref name="Viking Attacks">{{Cite web |url=https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/viking_attacklist.html?showall=1 |title=Viking Attacks |access-date=19 January 2016 |last1=Wheeler |first1=Kip |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101055729/https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/viking_attacklist.html?showall=1 |archive-date=1 January 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

The [[Vikings]] applied [[Danelaw]] over much of eastern and northern England, its boundary running roughly from London to [[Chester]] as an area of political and geographical control imposed by the [[Vikings|Viking]] incursions formally agreed by the [[Danes|Danish]] [[warlord]], [[Guthrum]] and the [[Kingdom of the West Saxons|West Saxon]] king [[Alfred the Great]] in 886. The ''[[Anglo-Saxon Chronicle]]'' records that Alfred "refounded" London in 886. Archaeological research shows this involved abandonment of [[Lundenwic]] and a revival of life and trade within the old Roman walls. London then grew slowly until a dramatic increase in about 950.<ref name="blackwell">{{Cite encyclopedia |last=Vince |first=Alan |year=2001 |title=London |editor=Lapidge, Michael |editor2=Blair, John |editor3=Keynes, Simon |editor4=Scragg, Donald |encyclopedia=The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=978-0-631-22492-1}}</ref>

By the 11th century, London was clearly the largest town in England. [[Westminster Abbey]], rebuilt in [[Romanesque architecture|Romanesque]] style by King [[Edward the Confessor]], was one of the grandest churches in Europe. [[Winchester]] had been the capital of [[History of Anglo-Saxon England|Anglo-Saxon England]], but from this time London became the main forum for foreign traders and the base for defence in time of war. In the view of [[Frank Stenton]]: "It had the resources, and it was rapidly developing the dignity and the political self-consciousness appropriate to a [[national capital]]."<ref>{{Cite book |author-link=Frank Stenton |last=Stenton |first=Frank |year=1971 |title=Anglo-Saxon England |pages=538–539 |publisher=Oxford University Press |edition=3rd |isbn=978-0-19-280139-5}}</ref>