[67] The speaker is represented as a Jew in France. It is significant that the massacre of the Jews at Lynn in 1190 is stated by William of Newburgh to have been instigated by the foreign traders.
[68] Ricardus Divisiensis. Eng. Hist. Society’s ed. p. 60.
[69] Description of London, prefixed to Fitzstephen’s Life of Becket. Reproduced in Stow’s Survey of London.
[70] Petri Blesensis omnia opera, ed. Giles, Epist. CLI. The number of churches may seem large for the population; but it should be kept in mind that these city parish churches were mere chapels or oratories, like the side-chapels of a great church. Indeed, at Yarmouth, they were actually built along the sides of the single great parish church; whereas, at Norwich, there were sixty of them standing each in its own small parish area, the Cathedral, as well as the other conventual churches, being the greater places of worship. Lincoln is said to have had 49 of these small churches, and York 40. An example of them remains in St Peter’s at Cambridge.
[71] William of Newburgh, p. 431.
[72] Ibid.
[73] “His quoque nostris diebus, ingruente famis inedia, et maxima pauperum turba quotidie ad januam jacente, de communi patrum consilio, ad caritatis explendae sufficientiam, propter bladum in Angliam navis Bristollum missa est.” Itiner. Walliae, Rolls ed. VI. 68. The itinerary of Bishop Baldwin, which the author follows, was in 1188; but the “his quoque nostris diebus” clearly refers to a later date, which may have been the year after, or may have been the more severe famine of 1195-7 or of 1203.
[74] Histor. Rer. Angl., Rolls series, No. 82, vol. I. pp. 460, 484.
[75] Ralph of Coggeshall, sub anno.
[76] “Variis infirmitatibus homines per Angliam vexantur et quamplures moriuntur,” Annals of Margan, Rolls series, No. 36.