London in the First Millenium A.D.: finding Bede's missing metropolis

Beda Venerabilis (672-735 AD), in his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (II. 3), provided us with a description of Londinium in 604 AD: “Their metropolis is the city of London [Lundonium in the original], which is situated on the banks of the aforesaid river, and is the mart of many nations resorting to it by sea and land.“ Bede gives no indication that London would have looked less magnificent in his own time, a century later.