Part 8 (2/2)

The worst parts of the towns seem to have been devoted to the use of the Jews Thus, at Southaainst the toall At Leicester the Jeas situated quite close to the toall, and soainst the inside of the Roman wall there, a considerable portion of which still remains In London in the thirteenth century there was a Jewry, or dwelling-place for Jeithin the liberty of the Tower of London The street non as Old Jewry, leading northward from Cheapside to Lothbury, had become deserted by the Jews, it is believed, before the date of the expulsion in 1291, and the inhabitants had removed to a quarter in the eastern part of the city afterwards indicated by the street-names ”Poor Jewry Lane” and ”Jewry Street”

In several cases, therefore, it is evident that the pomerium, or the space between the inhabited part of the town and the actual walls of its outer defence, was devoted to the Jeho took up their residence there

One circuainst the Jeas the spread of Judais certain classes One Jewish list of land, and even if the nuerated, there is other evidence of Jewish proselytism in this country To counteract the movement the Church founded a conversionist establishment in ”New Street” on the site of the present Record Office

Here converts were supported for life, and the building continued to be utilized for this purpose down to the time of Charles II

[Illustration: OLD LONDON BRIDGE: SHOWING ITS WOODEN HOUSES WITH PROJECTING STORIES]

The classic pages of Sir Walter Scott's romances contain ainst the Jews The pictures he draws are, perhaps, somewhat over-coloured for the purpose of romance, but that they were not without foundation in fact is evident fro to a Jew in London, narrated in the _Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London_, under the date 1256:--

”Thys yere a Jew felle in to a drawte on a satorday, and he wolde not be draune owte that day for the reverens of hys sabbot day, and sir Richard Clare, that tye that he wolde not be drate that day, he wolde not suffer hym to be drate on the sonday, for the reverens of the holy sonday, and soo thus the false Jue perished and dyde therein”

Although there was a good deal of prejudice against the Jews, there is reason to think that the idea of anything approaching general ill-treatment of the race is erroneous The Jeere useful to the King, and therefore, in all cases before the expulsion, excepting during the reign of King John, they enjoyed royal patronage and favour

The evil of clipping or ”sweating” the coin of the real the latter half of the thirteenth century that strong measures had to be taken for its suppression In Noveave orders for the immediate arrest of all suspected Jews and their Christian accoht to trial, and the result was that nearly three hundred Jeere found guilty and condeory de Rokesle (probably Ruxley, Kent), the chief assay reat wool oldsmith of his tiainst the Jews, including one to the effect that the King's peace should be kept between Christians and Jews, another forbidding butchers ere not free htered for the Jews and by them rejected Still another ordinance provided that ”No one shall hire houses from Jews, nor demise the same to them for them to live in outside the limits of the Jewry”

By the time of Edward I the need for the financial aid of the Jeas no longer felt, and froland was fixed

The canon law against usury was extended so as to include the Jews They were henceforth forbidden to lendto their religion they could not hold lands nor take up any trade The expulsion followed as a e the national finances, Italians who had no religious difficulties were substituted for the Jews Certain Jews, it is known, frouised as Italians, but it was not until the time of the Commonwealth, when Cromwell took a more tolerant view of the outcast Jews, and when the State recognised the legality of difference of creed, that the return of the Jews became possible This event is fixed with souese burial-ground at Stepney, which bears the date of February, 1657

LONDON AS A WALLED TOWN

It is not by any ine the present London as a walled town The multiplicity of streets, the lofty and pretentious character of its buildings, and the immense suburban area of bricks and mortar which surrounds it, render it an extremely difficult task to picture in the mind's eye what the ancient city looked like when all the houses were enclosed by a lofty and substantial wall, largely of Roman ly defended gateways, approached bymoat of City Ditch

[Illustration: OLD WOODEN HOUSES AT CRIPPLEGATE (RECENTLY DEMOLISHED)]

Whatever additions or reparations es to the wall of London, there is no reason to doubt that the area it enclosed was that which its Roman builders had laid out, with the exception of an extension at the south-western corner made to enclose the house of the Black Friars What happened to the wall of London when the Roman occupation of Britain was deterions is a matter which scarcely falls within the scope of this paper

Whether the place was abandoned, like other Roman walled towns, such as Silchester, etc, or whether it es, are questions which have exercised the ingenuity and iination of several antiquarian authorities,[72] but it must be confessed that the evidence is insufficient to enable one to settle it conclusively

Whatever may have been the early history of Londinium after the Romans left it, the fact remains that the limits and bounds of the actual city continued for many centuries afterwards It is known that Alfred the Great caused the walls to be repaired; but the precise significance of this is not great, because he -needed work, and fro froments that remain) it seems scarcely conceivable that his operations extended lower than the battle of the ditch and beretation, obstructions, or other kinds of weakness

What the houses of London were like when Alfred repaired the wall is not known Probably they were constructed of timber and were hu of the nature of a house built of masonry was constructed in London before the twelfth century

No trace of such a structure is known to res existed within the boundary of the city of London

What the twelfth century house was like is well seen in the char close by the castle mound at Christchurch, Ha of hted by mere slits for s The first floor contained the principal rooht, round-headed s The whole idea was to obtain a residence which would be sufficiently strong to keep out robbers and resist fire

Many of the architectural peculiarities of the old city of London which the Great Fire swept away may be attributed to the fact that the city was bounded by a wall too small for the requirements of the population

The proble the people of London must have become acute at a comparatively early period, certainly before the time of the dreadful pestilence commonly known as the Black Death (1348-1349)

The value of space within the city, and the jealousy hich the rights of property were guarded, are shown by the narrowness and crookedness of the streets and lanes Every available inch was occupied by houses and shops, and as little as possible was devoted to thoroughfares The sinuosity of the public ways indicates in another way the great value of land, because it obviously arose from the existence of individual properties, which were probably defined and occupied at an earlier period than theof the roads