EASTON
A typical Itchen valley village, one of the most picturesque in the county, with an old Norman church, quaint thatched cottages, and clipped yews.
But whatever their exact function and organisation at the time, from them the important Merchant Gild grew, and its hall in High Street (on the site occupied now by the old Guildhall) was the centre for many years of corporate and civic rule, till the erection some forty years ago of the present and more pretentious Guildhall in the Broadway.
The whole circumstances of this so-called Winton Domesday are of unusual interest. The original MSS. exist, bound in an ancient leather binding, considered to be the work of contemporary Winchester craftsmen. These are now the property of the Society of Antiquaries.
Significant among other features of the mediaeval city was the Jewish quarter, or Ghetto, a survival of which we have in the present Jewry Street, at that time Scowertene Street. Abutting on this, in the rear of what are now the extensive premises of the George Hotel, dwelt the Jewish community, with a synagogue of its own, for the Jews were not merely tolerated here, but actually welcomed. The extensive commercial relations now rapidly developing between Winchester and the Continent were doubtless responsible for this, and the Jew in his ancient prescriptive capacity of banker was found to be an effective ally in building up the commercial importance of the rapidly developing city. References to the Jews at Winchester are fairly frequent all through the next two centuries, the period of Winchester’s commercial prosperity. In Richard I.’s reign Richard of Devizes tells us of a Lombard Jew lending money to the Priory of St. Swithun, and lamenting the leniency shown to them by Winchester; while later on in the thirteenth century we read of a Jew—“Benedict, a son of Abraham”—being actually granted the full freedom of the city. These facts reveal to us the scope and the importance held by the Winchester of mediaeval times as an emporium and centre of commerce of more than local repute. But we are anticipating, and we must now return.
The remaining distinctive feature of the city to be noted was the monastic quarter, which occupied practically the whole area between High Street, Calpe Street, and the outer city wall. Foremost in importance was the great Convent of St. Swithun’s—its great cathedral church forming its effective boundary to the north, its great gate opening into Swithun Street close to the little postern gate or King’s Gate, and with the south-eastern edge of the city wall as its southern limit. Behind it, eastward, was the bishop’s residence—Wolvesey, the ancient court of the Saxon kings—and flanking High Street at the eastern end was Nunna Mynstre, or St. Mary’s Abbey, part of the revenues of which were derived from the tolls or octroi duties levied on commodities entering the East Gate.
Such then, in bare outline, was the Winchester of Henry’s reign—not without its miseries, its injustices, it is true, but, as the times went, busy, prosperous, and developing. But this state of things was not to endure for long. Henry’s heir, William, had perished in the White Ship; and though he had done all he could to avert it, the land was to be shortly handed over to a disputed succession and the horrors of civil war when he died. Winchester has good reason to cherish the memory of Henry I. and to recall his reign with satisfaction. He died in 1135, and was buried in Reading Abbey, which he had himself founded.