Lincoln () is a cathedral city and district in Lincolnshire, England, of which it is the county town. In the 2021 census, the city's district had a population of 103,813. The 2021 census gave the urban area of Lincoln, including Bracebridge Heath, North Hykeham, South Hykeham and Waddington, a recorded population of 127,540.
Roman Lindum Colonia developed from an Iron Age settlement of Britons on the River Witham, near the Fosse Way road. Over time its name was shortened to Lincoln, after successive settlements, including by Anglo-Saxons and Danes. Landmarks include Lincoln Cathedral (English Gothic architecture; for over 200 years the world's tallest building) and the 11th-century Norman Lincoln Castle. The city hosts the University of Lincoln, Lincoln Bishop University, Lincoln City F.C. and Lincoln United F.C. Lincoln is the largest settlement in Lincolnshire, with the towns Grimsby and Scunthorpe respectively second- and third-largest.
Toponymy The name Lincoln may ultimately come from the Brythonic language of Iron Age Britain's Celtic inhabitants name for the area: lindon, "The Pool", via Latin Lindum Colōnia whence the latter part of the name '-coln' ("outpost"), presumably referring to Brayford Pool (compare the etymology of Dublin, from the Gaelic dubh linn "black pool”). The extent of the original settlement is unknown, as its remains are buried beneath the later Roman and medieval ruins and modern Lincoln.
History
Earliest history The earliest origins of Lincoln can be traced to remains of an Iron Age settlement of round wooden dwellings, discovered by archaeologists in 1972, which have been dated to the 1st century BCE. It was built by Brayford Pool on the River Witham at the foot of a large hill, on which the Normans later built Lincoln Cathedral and Lincoln Castle.
Lindum Colonia
The Romans conquered this part of Britain in 48 CE and soon built a legionary fortress high on a hill overlooking the natural lake, Brayford Pool, formed by the widening of the River Witham, and the northern end of the Fosse Way Roman road (A46). Celtic Lindon was later Latinised to Lindum and the title Colonia added when it became settled by army veterans.
The conversion to a colonia occurred when the legion moved on to York (Eboracum) in 71 CE. Lindum colonia or more fully, Colonia Domitiana Lindensium, after the then Emperor Domitian, was set up within the walls of the hilltop fortress by extending it with about an equal area, down the hillside to the waterside.
It became a flourishing settlement accessible from the sea through the River Trent and through the River Witham. On the basis of a patently corrupt list of British bishops said to have attended the 314 Council of Arles, the city is often seen as having been the capital of the province of Flavia Caesariensis, formed during the late 3rd-century Diocletian Reforms. Subsequently, the town and its waterways declined. By the close of the 5th century, it was largely deserted, although some occupation continued under a Praefectus Civitatis – Saint Paulinus visited a man holding this office in Lincoln in 629 CE.
Lincylene
Germanic tribes from the North Sea area settled Lincolnshire in the 5th to 6th centuries. The Latin Lindum Colonia shrank in Old English to Lindocolina, then to Lincylene.
After the first Viking raids, the city again rose to some importance with overseas trading ties. In Viking times Lincoln had its own mint, by far the most important in Lincolnshire and by the end of the 10th century, comparable in output to that of York.Finds suggest a 100-to-1 preponderance over the nominal mints of Caistor, Horncastle and Louth; a hoard recovered at Corringham, near Gainsborough, consists mainly of coins minted at Lincoln and York (David Michael Metcalf, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Coin Finds, c. 973–1086, 1998:198–200). After establishment of the Danelaw in 886, Lincoln became one of the Five East Midland Boroughs. Excavations at Flaxengate reveal that an area deserted since Roman times received timber-framed buildings fronting a new street system in about 900.Richard Hall, Viking Age Archaeology (series Shire Archaeology) 2010:23. Lincoln underwent an economic explosion with the settlement of the Danes. Like York, the Upper City seems to have had purely administrative functions up to 850 or so, while the Lower City, down the hill towards the River Witham, may have been largely deserted. By 950, however, the Witham banks were developed, the Lower City resettled and the suburb of Wigford emerging as a trading centre. In 1068, two years after the Norman conquest of England, William I ordered Lincoln Castle to be built on the site of the old Roman settlement, for the same strategic reasons and controlling the same road, the Fosse Way.
Green cloth
During the Anarchy, in 1141 Lincoln was the site of a battle between King Stephen and the forces of Empress Matilda, led by her illegitimate half-brother Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester. After fierce fighting in the city streets, Stephen's forces were defeated and Stephen himself captured and taken to Bristol.
By 1150, Lincoln was among the wealthiest towns in England, based economically on cloth and wool exported to Flanders; Lincoln weavers had set up a weavers' guild in 1130 to produce Lincoln Cloth, especially the fine dyed "scarlet" and "green", whose reputation was later enhanced by the legendary Robin Hood wearing woollens of Lincoln green. In the Guildhall, surmounting the city gate called the Stonebow, the ancient Council Chamber contains Lincoln's civic insignia, a fine collection of civic regalia.
Outside the precincts of cathedral and castle, the old quarter clustered round the Bailgate and down Steep Hill to the High Street and High Bridge, whose half-timbered housing juts out over the river. There are three ancient churches: St Mary le Wigford and St Peter at Gowts, both 11th century in origin, and St Mary Magdalene, from the late 13th century. The last is an unusual English dedication to a saint whose cult was coming into vogue on the European continent at the time.
Lincoln was home to one of five main Jewish communities in England, well established before it was officially noted in 1154. In 1190, anti-Semitic riots that started in King's Lynn, Norfolk, spread to Lincoln; the Jewish community took refuge with royal officials, but their homes were plundered. The so-called House of Aaron has a two-storey street frontage that is essentially 12th century and the nearby Jew's House likewise bears witness to the Jewish population. In 1255, the affair called "The Libel of Lincoln" in which prominent Lincoln Jews, accused of ritual murder of a Christian boy (Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln in medieval folklore) were sent to the Tower of London and 18 executed. The Jews were all expelled in 1290.
Thirteenth-century Lincoln was England's third largest city and a favourite of more than one king. In the First Barons' War, it was caught in the strife between the king and rebel barons allied with the French. Here and at Dover the French and Rebel army was defeated. Thereafter the town was pillaged for having sided with Prince Louis. In the Second Barons' War, of 1266, the disinherited rebels attacked the Jews of Lincoln, ransacked the synagogue and burned the records that registered debts.
Decline, dissolution and damage Some historians have the city's fortunes declining from the 14th century, but others argue that it remained buoyant in trade and communications well into the 15th. In 1409, the city became a county corporate: the County of the City of Lincoln, formerly part of the West Riding of Lindsey since at least the time of the Domesday Book. Additional rights were then conferred by successive monarchs, including those of an assay town (controlling metal manufacturing, for example).A. Kissane, Civic Community in Late Medieval Lincoln: Urban Society and Economy in the Age of the Black Death, 1289–1409 (Woodbridge, 2017). Updated 4 January 2017. The oldest surviving secular drama in English, The Interlude of the Student and the Girl (), may have originated from Lincoln.
Lincoln's coat of arms, not officially endorsed by the College of Arms, is believed to date from the 14th century. It is Argent on a cross gules a fleur-de-lis or. The cross is believed to derive from the Diocese. The fleur-de-lis symbolises the cathedral dedication to the Virgin Mary. The motto is CIVITAS LINCOLNIA ("City of Lincoln").
The dissolution of the monasteries cut Lincoln's main source of diocesan income and dried up the network of patronage controlled by the bishop. Seven monasteries closed in the city alone, as did several nearby abbeys, which further diminished the region's political power. A symbol of Lincoln's economic and political decline came in 1549, when the cathedral's great spire rotted and collapsed and was not replaced. However, the comparative poverty of post-medieval Lincoln preserved pre-medieval structures that would probably have been lost under more prosperous conditions.
Between 1642 and 1651 in the English Civil War, Lincoln was on a frontier between the Royalist and Parliamentary forces and changed hands several times.. Many buildings were badly damaged. Lincoln now had no major industry and no easy access to the sea. It suffered as the rest of the country was beginning to prosper in the early 18th century, travellers often commenting on what had essentially become a one-street town.
Revolutions By the Georgian era, Lincoln's fortunes began to pick up, thanks in part to the Agricultural Revolution. Reopening of the Foss Dyke canal in 1745 eased imports of coal and other raw materials vital to industry. Mills were erected on the high ground at Yarborough Hill, of which one, Ellis Mill on Mill Road (built in 1798), survives today. Along with the economic growth of Lincoln in this period, the city boundaries were spread to include the West Common. To this day, an annual Beat the Boundaries walk takes place along its perimeter.
Coupled with the arrival of the railways, the Nottingham–Lincoln line and Great Northern Railway, in the 1840s, Lincoln boomed again during the Industrial Revolution. Several famous companies arose, such as Ruston's, Clayton's, Proctor's and William Foster's. Lincoln began to excel in heavy engineering, by building locomotives, steam shovels and all manner of heavy machinery.
A permanent military presence came with the 1857 completion of the "Old Barracks" (now held by the Museum of Lincolnshire Life). They were replaced by the "New Barracks" (now Sobraon Barracks) in 1890, when Lincoln Drill Hall in Broadgate also opened.
20th century
Lincoln was hit by typhoid in November 1904 – August 1905 caused by polluted drinking water from Hartsholme Lake and the River Witham. Over 1,000 people contracted the disease and fatalities totalled 113, including the man responsible for the city's water supply, Liam Kirk of Baker Crescent. Near the beginning of the epidemic, Dr Alexander Cruickshank Houston installed a chlorine disinfection system just ahead of the poorly operating, slow sand filter, to kill the fatal bacteria.R. J. Reece, 1907, "Report on the Epidemic of Enteric Fever in the City of Lincoln, 1904–05". In Thirty-Fifth Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1905–06: Supplement Containing the Report of the Medical Officer for 1905–06. London:Local Government Board, 116. Chlorination of the water continued until 1911, when a new supply was implemented.Houston, Alexander C. (1921). "B. Welchii, Gastro-Enteritis and Water Supply." Engineering News-Record. 87:12, 484. Lincoln's chlorination episode was an early use of chlorine to disinfect a water supply.Moses N. Baker (1981), The Quest for Pure Water: the History of Water Purification from the Earliest Records to the Twentieth Century. 2nd ed., Vol. 1., Denver: American Water Works Association, p. 336. Westgate Water Tower was built to provide new supplies.
First World War