Another important point to be noted is the prominent political position of the bishop. As early as A.D. 900 ‘the bishop and the reeves who belong to London’ are recorded as making in the name of the citizens laws which were confirmed by the King, because they had reference to the whole kingdom. Edward the Confessor greeted William Bishop, Harold Earl, and Esgar Staller. So that William the Conqueror followed precedent when he addressed his charter to Bishop and Portreeve.
Foreigners in early times occupied an important position in London, but there were serious complaints when Edward the Confessor enlarged the numbers of the Normans. The Englishman always had a hatred of the foreigner, and this dislike grew as time went on, and the English tried to obtain the first place and succeeded in the attempt.
Other points, such as government by folkmoots and gilds, which will be discussed in the following chapters, find their origin in the Saxon period. The government of London under the Saxons was of a simple character, approximating to that of the shire, and so it continued until some years after the Conquest. When the Commune was extorted from the Crown a fuller system of government was inaugurated, which will be discussed in a later chapter.
CHAPTER II
The Walled Town and its Streets
IN the mediæval city the proper protection of the municipality and the citizens largely depended upon the condition of the walls and gates. The government of town life was specially congenial to the Norman, and the laws he made for the purpose were stringent; while the Saxon, who never appreciated town life, preferred the county organisation. Thus it will be found that, as the laws of the latter were too lax, those of the former were too rigorous.
Riley, referring to the superfluity of Norman laws, describes them as ‘laws which, while unfortunately they created or protected few real valuable rights, gave birth to many and grievous wrongs.’ He proceeds to amplify this opinion, and gives good reason for the condemnation he felt bound to pronounce: ‘That the favoured and so-called free citizen of London, even—despite the extensive privileges in reference to trade which he enjoyed—was in possession of more than the faintest shadow of liberty, can hardly be allowed, if we only call to mind the substance of the ... enactments and ordinances, arbitrary, illiberal and oppressive: laws, for example, which compelled each citizen, whether he would or no, to be bail and surety for a neighbour’s good behaviour, over whom it was perhaps impossible for him to exercise the slightest control; laws which forbade him to make his market for the day until the purveyors for the King, and the “great lords of the land,” had stripped the stalls of all that was choicest and best; laws which forbade him to pass the city walls for the purpose of meeting his own purchased goods; laws which bound him to deal with certain persons and communities only, or within the precincts only of certain localities; laws which dictated, under severe penalties, what sums and no more he was to pay to his servants and artisans; laws which drove his dog out of the streets, while they permitted “genteel dogs” to roam at large: nay, even more than this, laws which subjected him to domiciliary visits from the city officials on various pleas and pretexts; which compelled him to carry on a trade under heavy penalties, irrespective of the question whether or not it was at his loss; and which occasionally went so far as to lay down rules at what hours he was to walk in the streets, and incidentally, what he was to eat and what to drink.’[16]