FOOTNOTES:
[103] Another abuse would be to levy a heavy toll on all travelers passing a castle, irrespective of whether there was any legal license to demand the same.
[104] If Pontdebois really had as many as eight thousand permanent inhabitants, it was no mean community in feudal times. Many a city would have only two or three thousand, or even less. A place of ten thousand or more would rank as the most important center for a wide region. There were few of such size in France.
[105] Even in Paris at this time the only paving was on the streets leading directly to the city gates. The remainder continued to be a mere slough, a choice breeding place for those contagious diseases against which precautions were assumed to be useless and to which men were bound to submit as to "the will of God." Supplications to some healing saint, like St. Firman or St. Antoine, usually seemed more efficacious than any real sanitary precautions.
[106] Rouen had six severe fires between 1200 and 1225, and yet was not exceptionally unfortunate. If a city were close to a river, it was liable also to very serious freshets. Of course, every place was in fairly constant danger of being stormed, sacked, and burned down in war.
[107] Modern travelers are to this day impressed by the amount of bellringing which goes on in such unspoiled mediæval-built Flemish towns as Bruges.
[108] Of course, no two communal charters were ever alike, although many were run in a common mold. Many towns received not a full charter, but "rights of burgessy"—e.g., guaranties against various common forms of oppression, although the laws were still actually administered by officers named by the seigneur.
[109] Bishops often had their cathedral and episcopal seat at the largest place in their dioceses—the very places most likely to demand charters.
[110] The echevins were often known instead as "jurés" and their numbers were frequently much greater than six. The mayors might be called "provosts" or "rewards."