[503] Ib., 673. The winter hours were also increased. The workmen came at 6 a.m. and left at 7 p.m.
[504] Carpenters' Accounts (Corp. MS. A. 4).
[505] Leet Book, 574.
Daily Life in the Town—the Merchants and the Market
At the "beating of the bell called daybell," the townsfolk rose and began their daily work. Country people, wayfarers and chapmen, bearing their burdens of merchandise, saw the city in the morning light, with its ring of walls and upstanding posterns and gates over-topped by six tall spires, lying in the midst of fields and far-reaching common grounds in a slight dip in the plain. Entering the newly-opened gates, they were at once inside the narrow paved[506] streets, bounded on either side with black and white timbered houses, for travellers from the Warwick side did not make their entrance by spacious Hertford Street,[507] but by the Grey Friars' and Warwick Lanes, then part of the main thoroughfare of the city. Passing up the hill, they found that the street on a line with these—the Broadgate—belied its name, being but a very narrow thoroughfare, bounded on the left hand by a block of houses, whereof the removal in 1820[508] has caused moderns to think that the open space on the crown of the hill is very rightly named.
Soon after daybreak the streets were alive with the noise and press of a busy throng. It is true there were many impediments to traffic. Cattle[509] and ducks wandered hither and thither; fishmongers' stalls stood in the middle of the streets, greatly to the hindrance of the passers-by, whether horsemen or pedestrians;[510] while inn signs[511] had perforce to be limited in length, lest they should strike the heads of unwary riders in the by-lanes of the city. But the mediæval trader was well inured to inconvenience. Neither did noise distract him, though taverners and cooks standing at the door offered good things hot from the oven to passers-by, each seeking to cry louder than his neighbour; while in the open places the crier proclaimed the terms of a recent charter, or newly-made ordinance of leet or council;[512] and overhead the church bells pealed forth, calling folk to their prayers, to the market, or, in case of a brawl or riot, to a common meeting-place.[513]
