Chapter VII: The Towns (3)

It is certain that the free institutions which have been described in an earlier part of this chapter, could not be found in towns, the right to which must be considered to have been based on conquest, or which arose around a settlement purely military. In such places we can expect to find no mint, except as matter of grant or favour: if there was watch and ward, it was for the fortress, not the townsmen: toll there might be—but for the lord to receive: jurisdiction,—but for the lord to exercise: market,—but for the lord to profit by: armed militia,—but for the lord to command. Yet while the lord was the king, and the town was, through its connexion with him, brought into close union with the general state, its own condition was probably easy, and its civic relations not otherwise than beneficial to the republic. In such circumstances a town is only one part of a system; nor is a royal landlord compelled to rack the tenants of a single estate for a fitting subsistence: the shortcoming of one is balanced by the superfluity of other sources of wealth. The owner of the small flock is ever the closest shearer. But even on this account, when once the towns became seigneurial, their own state was not so happy, nor was their relation to the country at large beneficial to the full extent. But all general observations of this character do not explain or account for the separate cases. It is clear that everything which we have to say upon this subject will depend entirely upon what we may learn to have been the character of any particular person or class of persons at any given time. The lord or Seigneur may have ruled well; that is, he may have seen that his own best interests were inseparably bound up with the prosperity, the peace and the rational freedom of his dependents; and that both he and they would flourish most, when the mutual well-being was guarded by a harmonious common action, founded upon the least practicable sacrifice of individual interests. Thus he may have contented himself with the legal capitation-tax, or even relinquished it altogether: he may have exacted only moderate and reasonable tolls, trusting wisely to a consequent increase of traffic, and rewarded by a rapid advance in wealth and power: he may have given a just and generous protection in return for submission and alliance; have supported his townsmen in their public buildings, roads, wharves, canals, and other laudable undertakings. Nay, when the re-awakened spirit of self-government grew strong, and the whole mighty mass of mediæval society heaved and tossed with the working of this all-pervading leaven, we have even seen Seigneurs aiding their serf-townsmen to swear and maintain a “Communa,”—that institution so detested and savagely persecuted by popes, barons and bishops,—so hypocritically blamed, but so lukewarmly pursued by kings, who found it their gain to have the people on their side against the nobles[809].

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Footnote 809:

History furnishes notable instances of what has been put here merely
hypothetically. The earls of Flanders were honourably distinguished
among all the European potentates by the liberal manner in which they
treated their subjects. The appendix to this chapter contains some of
the earliest charters which they granted to their towns, and these
fully explain the wealth, power and happiness of Flanders in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. And notwithstanding what I have said
in the text, and which is justified by the conduct of the bishops in
some parts of Europe, it must be admitted that the clergy were
generally just and merciful lords, as far as the material well-being
of their dependents was concerned. The German proverb says: “’Tis good
to live under the crozier.”

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But unhappily there is another side to the picture: the lord may have ruled ill, and often did so rule, for class-prejudices and short-sighted selfish views of personal interest drove him to courses fatal to himself and his people. When this was the case, there was but one miserable alternative, revolt, and ruin either for the lord, the city, or both,—in the former case possibly, in the latter always and certainly a grievous loss to the republic. But before this final settlement of the question, how much irreparable mischief, how much of credit and confidence shaken, of raw material wasted and destroyed, of property plundered, of security unsettled, of internecine hostility engendered, class set against class, family against family, man against man! Verily, when we contemplate the misery which such contests caused from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, we could almost join in the cry of the Jacquerie, and wish, with the prædial and urban serfs of old, that the race of Seigneurs had been swept from the face of the earth; did we not know that gold must be tried in the fire, that liberty could grow to a giant’s stature only by passing through a giant’s struggles.

But from this painful school of manhood it pleased the providence of the Almighty to save our forefathers; nor does Anglosaxon history record more than one single instance of those oppressions or of that resistance, which make up so large and wretched a portion of the history of other lands[810]. Suffering enough they had to bear, but it was at the hands of invading strangers, not of those who were born beneath the same skies and spake with the same tongue. The power of the national institutions was too general, too deeply rooted, to be shaken by the efforts of a class; nor does it appear that that class itself attempted at any time an undue exercise of authority. One ill-advised duke did indeed raise a fierce rebellion by his misgovernment; but even here national feeling was probably at work, and the Northumbrians rose less against the bad ruler, than the intrusive Westsaxon: the interests of Morcar’s family were more urgent than the crimes of Tostig. Yet these may have been grave, for he was repudiated even by those of his own class, and the strong measure of his deprivation and outlawry was concurred in by his brother Harald.

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Footnote 810:

Even under the Norman kings, the condition of this country seems to
have been comparatively easy. Its darkest moments were during the wars
of Stephen and Henry Plantagenet. The position then assumed by the
seigneurs or castellans and its results are thus well described by an
old chronicler:—“Sane inter partes diu certatum est, alternante
fortuna; sed tunc quodammodo remissiores motus esse coeperunt: quod
tamen Angliae non cessit in bonum, eo quod tot erant reges quot domini
castellorum, habentes singuli numisma proprium et more regis subditos
iudicantes. Et quia magnates terrae sic invicem excellere satagebant,
eo quod nullus in alterum habebat imperium, mox inter se disceptantes
rapinis et incendiis clarissimas regiones corruperunt, in tantum quod
omne robur panis fere deperiit.” Walt. Hemingburh, vulgo Gisseburne,
i. 74. “Castella quippe studio partium per singulas provincias
surrexerant crebra; erantque in Anglia tot quodammodo reges, vel
potius tyranni, quot castellorum domini, habentes singuli percussuram
proprii numismatis, et potestatem dicendi subditis regio more iura.”
Annal. Trivet. 1147, p. 25. The contemporary Saxon chronicler gives
the most frightful account of the tyrannous exactions of the
castellans, and the tortures they inflicted on the defenceless
cultivators. And this miserable condition of the country is only too
obvious in the words with which the contemporary author of the life of
Stephen commences his work. Gest. Stephani, p. 1 _seq._ Nor can this
surprise us, when we learn that at this period not less than eleven
hundred and fifteen castles had been built in England. Rog. Wendov.
an. 1153, Coxe’s edit. ii. 256.

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In addition to the natural mode by which the authority of a lord became established in a town built on his demesne, the privileges of lordship were occasionally transferred from one person to another. Like other royalties, the rights of the crown over taxation, tolls or other revenues, might be made matter of grant. The following document illustrates the manner in which a portion of the seigneurial rights was thus alienated in favour of the bishop of Worcester. It is a grant made by Æðelrǽd and Æðelflǽd to their friend Werfrið, about the end of the ninth century[811].

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Footnote 811:

Cod. Dipl. No. 1075.

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“To Almighty God, true Unity and holy Trinity in heaven, be praise and glory and rendering of thanks, for all his benefits bestowed upon us! Firstly for whose love, and for St. Peter’s and the church at Worcester, and at the request of Werfrið the bishop, their friend, Æðelrǽd the ealdorman and Æðelflǽd commanded the _burh_ at Worcester to be built, and eke God’s praise to be there upraised. And now they make known by this charter that of all the rights which appertain to their lordship, both in market and in street, within the byrig and without, they grant half to God and St. Peter and the lord of the church; that those who are in the place may be the better provided, that they may thereby in some sort easier aid the brotherhood, and that their remembrance may be the firmer kept in mind, in the place, as long as God’s service is done within the minster. And Werfrið the bishop and his flock have appointed this service, before the daily one, both during their lives and after, to sing at matins, vespers and ‘undernsong,’ the psalm De Profundis, during their lives; and after their death, Laudate Dominum; and every Saturday, in St. Peter’s church, thirty psalms, and a mass for them whether alive or dead. Æðelrǽd and Æðelflǽd proclaim, that they have thus granted with good-will to God and St. Peter, under witness of Ælfred the king and all the _witan_ in Mercia; excepting that the wain-shilling and load-penny[812] are to go to the king’s hand, as they always did, from Saltwíc: but as for everything else, as _landfeoh_[813], _fihtwite_, _stalu_, _wohceápung_, and all the customs from which any fine may arise, let the lord of the church have half of it, for God’s sake and St. Peter’s, as it was arranged about the market and the streets; and without the marketplace, let the bishop enjoy his rights, as of old our predecessors decreed and privileged. And Æðelrǽd and Æðelflǽd did this by witness of Ælfred the king, and by witness of those witan of the Mercians whose names stand written hereafter; and in the name of God Almighty they abjure all their successors never to diminish these alms which they have granted to the church for God’s love and St. Peter’s!”

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Footnote 812:

There can be no doubt that Wǽnscilling, written erroneously in the MS.
þægnsilling, is what is meant by _statio_ et _inoneratio plaustrorum_
in another charter. Cod. Dipl. No. 1066. It is custom or toll upon the
standing and loading of the salt-waggons. See p. 71 of this volume.

Footnote 813:

_Landfeoh_, land-fee, probably a recognitory rent for land held under
the burh or city. _Fihtwíte_, fine for brawling in the city. _Stalu_,
fine or mulct for theft. _Wohceápung_, fine for buying or selling
contrary to the rules of the market.

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A valuable instrument is this, and one which supplies matter for reflection in various ways. The royalties conveyed are however alone what must occupy our attention here. These are, a land-tax, paid no doubt from every hide which belonged to the jurisdiction of the burhgeréfa, and which was thus probably levied beyond the city walls, in small outlying hamlets and villages, which were not included in any territorial hundred, but did suit and service to the burhmót. And next we find the lord in possession of what we should now call the police, inflicting fines for breaches of the peace, theft, and contravention of the regulations laid down for the conduct of the market. And this market in Worcester was not the people’s, but the king’s, seeing that not only are the bishop’s rights, beyond its limits, carefully distinguished, but that Æðelred grants half the customs within it, that is, half the tolls and taxes, to the bishop. In this way was an authority established concurrent with the king’s or duke’s, and exercised no doubt by the biscopes geréfa, as the royal right was by the cyninges or ealdormannes burhgeréfa. Nor were its results unfavourable to the prosperity of the city: there is evidence on the contrary that in process of time, the people and their bishop came to a very good understanding, and that the Metropolis of the West grew to be a wealthy, powerful and flourishing place: so much so that, when in the year 1041 Hardacnut attempted to levy some illegal or unpopular tax, the citizens resisted, put the royal commissioners to death, and assumed so determined an attitude of rebellion, that a large force of _Húscarlas_ and _Hereban_, under the principal military chiefs of England, was found necessary to reduce them. Florence of Worcester, who relates the occurrence in detail[814], says that the city was burnt and plundered. From his narrative it seems not improbable that the whole outbreak was connected with the removal of a popular bishop from his see in the preceding year.

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Footnote 814:

1041. “Hoc anno rex Anglorum Hardecanutus suos huscarlas misit per
omnes regni sui provincias ad exigendum quod indixerat tributum. Ex
quibus duos, Feader scilicet et Turstan, Wigornenses provinciales cum
civibus, seditione exorta, in cuiusdam turris Wigornensis monasterii
solario, quo celandi causa confugerant, quarto Nonas Maii, feria
secunda peremerunt. Unde rex ira commotus, ob ultionem necis illorum,
Thurum Mediterraneorum, Leofricum Merciorum, Godwinum Westsaxonum,
Siwardum Northimbrorum, Ronum Magesetensium, et caeteros totius
Angliae comites, omnesque ferme suos huscarlas, cum magno exercitu ...
illo misit; mandans ut omnes viros, si possint, occiderent, civitatem
depraedatam incenderent, totamque provinciam devastarent. Qui, die
veniente secundo Iduum Novembrium, et civitatem et provinciam
devastare coeperunt, idque per quatuor dies agere non cessaverunt: sed
paucos vel e civibus vel provincialibus ceperunt aut occiderunt, quia
praecognito adventu eorum, provinciales quoque locorum fugerant.
Civium vero multitudo in quandam modicam insulam, in medio Sabrinae
fluminis sitam, quae Beverege nuncupatur, confugerant; et munitione
facta, tam diu se viriliter adversus suos inimicos defenderunt, quoad
pace recuperata, libere domum licuerit eis redire. Quinta igitur die,
civitate cremata, unusquisque magna cum praeda rediit in sua; et regis
statim quievit ira.” Flor. Wig. 1041.

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There is another important document of nearly the same period as the grant to Werfrið, by which Eádweard the son of Ælfred gave all the royal rights of jurisdiction in Taunton to the see of Winchester[815]. He freed the land from every burthen, except the universal three, whether they were royal, fiscal, comitial or other secular taxations: he granted that all the bishop’s men, noble or ignoble, resiant upon the aforesaid land, should have every privilege and right which was enjoyed by the king’s men, resiant in his royal fiscs[816], and that all secular jurisdiction should be administered for the bishop’s benefit, as fully as it was elsewhere executed for the king’s. Moreover he attached for ever to Winchester the market-tolls (“villae mercimonium, quod anglice ðæs túnes cýping adpellatur”), together with every civic _census_, tax or payment. Whatsoever had heretofore been the king’s was henceforth to belong to the bishop of Winchester. And that these were valuable rights, producing a considerable income, must be concluded from the large estates which bishop Denewulf and his chapter thought it advisable to give the king in exchange, and which comprised no less than sixty hides of land in several parcels. The bishops, it is to be presumed, henceforth governed Taunton by their own geréfa, to whom the grant itself must be construed to have conveyed plenary jurisdiction, that is the _blut-ban_ or _ius gladii_, the supreme criminal as well as civil justice.

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Footnote 815:

Cod. Dipl. No. 1084. Anno 904.

Footnote 816:

Lands held immediately of the king, and administered by his own
officers. People resident about the royal vills.

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These examples will suffice to show in what manner seigneurial rights grew up in certain towns, and how they were exercised. From the account thus given we may also see the difference which existed between such a city and one founded originally upon a system of free gylds. These associations placed the men of London in a position to maintain their own rights both against king and bishop, and indeed it is evident from the ‘Judicia Civitatis’ itself, that the bishops united with the citizens in the establishment of their free communa under Æðelstán. We are not very clearly informed what was the earliest mode of government in London; but, from a law of Hloðhære, it is probable that it was presided over by a royal reeve, in the seventh century. The sixteenth chapter of that prince’s law provides that, when a man of Kent makes any purchase in Lundenwíc, he is to have the testimony of two or three credible men, or of the king’s wícgeréfa[817]. In the ninth century, when Kent and its confederation had passed into the hands of the royal family of the Gewissas, London may possibly have vindicated some portion of independence. It had previously lain within the nominal limits at least of the Mercian authority[818]: but the victories of Ecgberht and the subsequent invasions of the Northmen destroyed the Mercian power, and in all likelihood left the city to provide for itself and its own freedom. We know that it suffered severely in those invasions, but we have slight record of any attempt to relieve it from their assaults, which might imply an interest in its welfare, on the part of any particular power. In the year 886 however, we learn, Ælfred, victorious on every point, turned his attention to London, whose fortifications he rebuilt, and which he re-annexed to Mercia, now constituted as a duchy under Æðelred[819]. On the death of this prince, Eádweard seized Oxford and London into his own hands, and it is reasonable to suppose that he governed these cities by burhgeréfan of his own[820]. But very shortly after we find the important document, which I have already mentioned, the so-called ‘Judicia Civitatis,’ or Dooms of London, which proves clearly enough the elasticity of a great trading community, the readiness with which a city like London could recover its strength, and the vigour with which its mixed population could carry out their plans of self-government and independent existence. Henceforward we find the citizens for the most part under portgeréfan or portreeves of their own[821], to whom the royal writs are directed, as in counties they are to the sheriffs. We must not however suppose that at this early period constitutional rights were so perfectly settled as to be beyond the possibility of infringement. Circumstances, whose record now escapes us, may sometimes have occurred which abridged the franchise of particular cities: we cannot conclude that the Portgeréfa was always freely elected by the citizens; for in some places we hear of “royal” portreeves[822], from which it may be argued either that the king had made the appointment by his own authority, or, what is far from improbable, that he had concurred with the citizens in the election. Moreover the direction of writs to noblemen of high rank, even in London, seems to imply that, on some occasions, either the king had succeeded in seizing the liberties of the city into his own hand, or that the elected officers were sometimes taken from the class of powerful ministerials, having high rank and station in the royal household[823]. Where there existed clubs or gylds of the free citizens, we may also believe that similar associations were established by the lords and their dependents, either as a means of balancing the popular power, or at least of sharing in the benefits of an association which secured the rights and position of the free men; and thus, the same document which reveals to us the existence of the “Ingang burhware” or “burghers’ club” of Canterbury, tells us also of the “Cnihta gyld,” or “Sodality of young nobles” in the same city[824].

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Footnote 817:

Leg. Hloð. § 16. Thorpe, i. 34.

Footnote 818:

Asser considers London to belong locally to Essex: he states that the
Danes plundered it in 851. Vit. Ælfr. _in anno_. Berhtwulf of Mercia
made an unsuccessful attempt to relieve it; so that it must be
considered to have been a Mercian town at that period. Later it seems
to have been left to itself, till Ælfred restored it in 886.

Footnote 819:

“Gesette Ælfred cyning Lundenburg ... and he ða befæste ða burg
Æðerede aldormen tó healdanne.” Chron. Sax. an. 880. “Eodem anno
Ælfred, Angulsaxonum rex, post incendia urbium, stragesque populorum,
Londoniam civitatem honorifice restauravit, et habitabilem fecit: quam
generi suo Æðeredo, Merciorum comiti, commendavit servandam.” Asser,
Vit. Ælf. an. 886. In 880 the Danes wintered at Fulham, and may then
have ruined London, if they had not done so before.

Footnote 820:

Chron. Sax. an. 912.

Footnote 821:

Swétman, portgeréfa. Cod. Dipl. No. 857. Ælfsige, ibid. Nos. 858, 861.
Ulf. ibid. No. 872. The first mayor of London was elected probably in
1187. See Lib. de Ant. Legib. p. 1 _seq._

Footnote 822:

“Cyninges geréfa binnan port,” the king’s reeve within the city. Leg.
Æðelst. iii. § 7; iv. § 3. Canterbury appears to have had both a
cyninges geréfa and a portgeréfa. The signatures of both these
officers are appended to the same instrument. Cod. Dipl. No. 789.

Footnote 823:

The document De Institutis Londoniae, which is considered to date from
the time of Æðelræd, that is the commencement of the eleventh century,
gives the fine for burhbryce to the king; and inflicts a further bót
of thirty shillings, for the benefit of the city, if the king will
grant it, “si rex hoc concedat nobis.” Inst. Lond. § 4. Thorpe, i.
301.

Footnote 824:

Cod. Dipl. No. 293.

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Two points necessarily arrest our attention in considering the case of every city; the first of these is the internal organization, on which the freedom of the inhabitants itself depends: the second is the relation the city stands in to the public law, that is to say, its particular position toward the state. The Anglosaxon laws do contain a few provisions destined to regulate the intercourse between the townspeople and the country: for example we may refer to the laws which regulate the number of mints allowed to each city. In the tenth century it was settled that each burh might have one,—and from this very fact it is clear that “burh” was then a legal term having a fixed and definite meaning,—while a few cities were favoured with a larger number. The names of the places so distinguished are preserved, and from the regulations affecting them in this respect we may form a conclusion as to their comparative importance. Under Æðelstân we find the following arrangement:—At Canterbury were to be seven moneyers; four for the king, two for the bishop, one for the abbot. At Rochester three; two for the king, one for the bishop. At London eight. At Winchester six. At Lewes, Hampton, Wareham, Exeter and Shaftsbury, two moneyers to each town. At Hastings, Chichester, and at the other burhs, one to each town[825].

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Footnote 825:

Leg. Æðelst. i. § 14. Thorpe, i. 206.

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It is right to observe that all these places are in Æðelstán’s peculiar kingdom, south of the Thames, and that his legislation takes no notice of the Mercian, Eastanglian or Northumbrian territories. But half a century later, it was ordered that no man should have a mint save the king, and that any person who wrought money without the precincts of a burh, should be liable to the penalties of forgery. The inconvenience of this was however too great, and by the ‘Instituta Londoniae,’ each principal city (“summus portus”) was permitted to have three, and every other burh one moneyer[826].

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Footnote 826:

Leg. Æðelr. iii. § 8, 16; iv. § 5, 9. Thorpe, i. 296, 298, 301, 303.

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Again, the difficulty of guarding against theft, especially in respect to cattle, the universal vice of a semi-civilized people,—led to more than one attempt to prohibit all buying and selling except in towns; and this of itself seems to imply that they were numerously distributed over the face of the country. But this provision, however beneficial to the lords of such towns, was too contrary to the general convenience, and seems to have been soon relinquished as impracticable. The enactments on the subject appear to have been abrogated almost as soon as made[827]: but the machinery by which it was proposed to carry their provisions into effect are of considerable interest. In each burh, according to its size, a certain number of the townspeople were to be elected, who might act as witnesses in every case of bargain and sale,—whom both parties on occasion would be bound to call to warranty, and whose decision or _veredictum_ in the premises would be final. It was intended that in every larger burh (“summus portus”) there should be thirty-three such elective officers, and in every hundred twelve or more, by whose witness every bargain was to be sanctioned, whether in a burh or a wapentake. They were to be bound by oath to the faithful discharge of their duty. The law of Eádgár says: “Let every one of them, on his first election as a witness, take an oath that, neither for profit, nor fear, nor favour, will he ever deny that which he did witness, nor affirm aught but what he did see and hear. And let there be two or three such sworn men as witnesses to every bargain[828].”

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Footnote 827:

Leg. Eádw. § 1. Æðelst. i. § 12, 13; iii. § 2; v. § 10. Thorpe, i.
158, 206, 218, 240.

Footnote 828:

Leg. Eádgár. Supp. § 3, 4, 5. Thorpe, i. 274.

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The words of this law seem to imply that the appointment was to be a permanent one; and it is only natural to suppose that these “geǽðedan men,” _jurati_, or jurors, would become by degrees a settled urban magistracy. We see in them the germ of a municipal institution, a sworn corporation, assessors in some degree of the geréfa or the later mayor[829]. They were evidently the “boni et legales homines,” the “testes credibiles,” “ða gódan men,” “dohtigan men,” and so forth, of various documents, the “Scabini,” “Schoppen” or “Echevins,” so familiar to us in the history of mediæval towns, which had any pretensions to freedom. They necessarily constituted a magistracy, and gradually became the centre round which the rights and privileges of the municipality clustered.

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Footnote 829:

“Hoc anno [A.D. 1200] fuerunt xxv electi de discretioribus civitatis,
et iurati pro consulendo civitatem una cum Maiore.” Lib. de Antiq.
Legib. _in anno_.

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It is to be regretted that we have so little record of the internal organization of these municipal bodies, which must nevertheless have existed during the flourishing period of the Anglosaxon rule. Of Ealdormen in the towns, and in our modern sense, there naturally is, and could be, no trace: that dignity was very different from anything like the geréfscipe of a city, however wealthy and influential this might be: but the ‘Instituta Londoniae’ mention one or two subordinate officers: in these, beside the Portgeréfa, Burhgeréfa or Wícgeréfa,—names which all appear to denote one officer, the “praepositus civitatis,”—we are told of a Túngeréfa, who had a right to enquire into the payment of the customs[830]; and also of a Caccepol, catch-poll or beadle, who appears to have been the collector[831].

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Footnote 830:

Inst. Lond. § 3. Thorpe, i. 301.

Footnote 831:

Ibid.

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The archæologist, not less than the historian, has reason to lament that no remains from the past survive to teach us the local distribution of an Anglosaxon town. Yet some few hints are nevertheless supplied which enable us to form a faint image of what it may have been. It is probable that the different trades occupied different portions of the area, which portions were named from the occupations of their inhabitants. In the middle ages these several parts of the city were often fortified and served as strongholds, behind whose defences, or sallying forth from which, the crafts fought the battle of democracy against the burgesses or the neighbouring lords. We have evidence that streets, which afterwards did, and do yet, bear the names of particular trades or occupations, were equally so designated before the Norman conquest, in several of our English towns. It is thus only that we can account for such names as Fellmonger, Horsemonger and Fleshmonger, Shoewright and Shieldwright, Tanner and Salter Streets, and the like, which have long ceased to be exclusively tenanted by the industrious pursuers of those several avocations. Let us place a cathedral and a guildhall with its belfry in the midst of these, surround them with a circuit of walls and gates, and add to them the common names of North, South, East and West, or Northgate, Southgate, Eastgate and Westgate Streets,—here and there let us fix the market and its cross, the dwellings of the bishop and his clergy, the houses of the queen and perhaps the courtiers, of the principal administrative officers and of the leading burghers[832],—above all, let us build a stately fortress, to overawe or to defend the place, to be the residence of the geréfa and his garrison, and the site of the courts of justice,—and we shall have at least a plausible representation of a principal Anglosaxon city. Much as it is to be regretted that we now possess no ancient maps or plans which would have thrown a valuable light upon this subject, yet the guidance here and there supplied by the names of the streets themselves, and the foundations of ancient buildings yet to be traced in them, coupled with fragmentary notices in the chroniclers, do sometimes enable us to catch glimpses as it were of this history of the past. The giant march of commercial prosperity has crumbled into dust almost every trace of what our brave and good forefathers looked upon with pardonable pride: but the principles which animated them, still in a great degree regulate the lives of us their descendants; and if we exult in the conviction that our free municipal institutions are the safeguard of some of our most cherished liberties, let us remember those to whom we owe them, and study to transmit unimpaired to our posterity an inheritance which we have derived from so remote an ancestry.

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Footnote 832:

The not unfrequent occurrence of such names as Kinggate, Queengate and
Bishopgate Street, imply something of this kind: for we cannot suppose
such names to have been assigned capriciously or without sufficient
cause. It is likely that the streets so called led to the dwellings
and were literally the property of the several parties: that is, that
offences committed upon them belonged to the several jurisdictions.

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