From this time the history of the market-place becomes identified with the progress of the borough, its struggles for growth being somewhat impeded, we fancy, by the tithes and taxes extorted by barons and bishops, between whom we may fancy the poor fisherfolks began to “fare rather sadly,” scarcely knowing what was their own, or if, indeed, they had any own at all. To sum up their miseries, old chroniclers record that about this time the sea began to withdraw its arm, which to them had been a great support,
and the fishermen, who were bound to pay an annual tithe of herrings to the bishops of the see, found themselves in much the same plight as the Israelites of old, when doomed to make bricks without straw—in their case to supply herrings without a fishery—and were therefore reduced to the unpleasant necessity of thenceforth purchasing the wherewith to pay the lasting imposition. Notwithstanding all these impediments the progress of the borough was rapid; houses and churches sprung up thick and fast; so that at the time of the survey, in the reign of the “Confessor,” we find record of twenty-five parish churches, and one thousand three hundred burgesses; of sheep-walks, mills, and hides of land, (a hide being as much as one plough could till in a year,) of taxes, of honey, and bear dogs.
Churches were owned indiscriminately by bishops, earls, and burgesses; the materials of which they were constructed, chiefly wood, though occasionally rough flints and stones cemented by a durable mortar were substituted; the towers were circular, bricks were employed for pavements, and bells were used. The ancients conceived the sound of metal to be an antidote against evil spirits; and the adoption of bells into the Christian church, and their consecration, was but a variation of the practices of the pagans, who at the feasts of Vulcan and Minerva, consecrated trumpets for religious uses.
Such was the condition of the town and market-place, when the Norman Conqueror, whose coming produced such mighty changes in the land, brought over from the continent a host of foreigners, who settled themselves down in almost every part of the kingdom, and introduced trades and crafts of every variety, giving birth to the great manufacturing spirit that has grown to be so distinguishing a feature of our national greatness. Among the foreigners who established themselves in this district, we find the name of Wimer, a name yet prefixed to one of the great wards or districts of the city—the Wimer ward. At this period, perhaps the most prominent characteristic of the secular history of the times, especially in connection with trade, is the important position held by the Jews.
The Norman duke had brought with him a great number of this race of people, and although their religion was despised and bitterly hated, they monopolized almost every branch of trade, and so much of the learning of the day, that they took a high place both in commercial and civil transactions. In this city they successively had two extensive synagogues and colleges, where medicine and rabbinical divinity were taught together.
Pharmacy, education, and all monetary transactions of any importance, seem to have come within their province, their utility and wealth preserving them,
for the time at least, from anything more than petty persecution. The history, however, of little St. William, given elsewhere, and other similar records that have been handed down, betray the jealousy and ill-will that existed between them and the Christians, even during the season of their prosperity, when royalty, as in the time of Rufus, patronized them.
Meantime the city had become a bishopric; a monastery, three friaries, and a nunnery sprung up in quick succession, betraying the growth of ecclesiastical power, and the presence of a great rival to the secular authority claimed by the ministers of civil justice; itinerant judges had been established for trying great crimes, such as murder or theft, and coroners had been instituted to hold inquests upon any persons dying suddenly, or found dead; either to acquit them of self murder, or seize their goods; the citizens were also exempted from the judgment of the law by single combat by Richard I. Among the events of interest bearing very early date is the royal visit of the first Henry, in the day when the king was his own tax-gatherer, and when, failing to receive his dues in lawful coin of the realm, he was wont to take them in kind, and to tarry until himself and suite had eaten up the hogs and sheep, and cows and geese, whose addition to his retinue would have been otherwise very burdensome. So liberal
was the entertainment afforded the royal visitor here, that his majesty was pleased to confer upon the citizens many privileges as a mark of gratitude, among which exemption from such like visitations in future was included.
The next visit of royalty is attributed to Edward the First, whose generosity was evidenced by the command issued speedily after his return thither, that the Jews throughout the kingdom should be charged with unlawfully clipping and adulterating the coin of the realm, as an excuse for their persecution, imprisonment, and final extermination. The religious antipathies of the zealous crusader would not suffice to explain these atrocities; but the ambition of the warlike monarch seeking to replenish his exhausted treasury, that he might prosecute expensive foreign enterprises, gives a more satisfactory clue to the origin of cruelties, that led to such important confiscations being made to the crown. In obedience to the royal will, the beautiful college of the Jews in this city was plundered and burnt, its coffers emptied into the royal exchequer, and its tenants banished or imprisoned. An inn, called “Abraham’s Hall,” was soon after raised in the immediate neighbourhood, to memorialize the event; but an old ricketty gable or two, hidden away behind fair modern frontings of brickwork and stucco, is all that remains of this monument. St. George in combat with the