nt port on
the westernmost boundary of the European seaboard, and ships would often
run in to replenish their tanks with the sweet water for which it was once
famous.(1)

After the fall of the Western Empire (A.D. 476), commercial enterprise
sprang up among the free towns of Italy. The carrying trade of the world's
merchandise became centred for a time in Venice, and that town led the way
in spreading the principles of commerce along the shores of the
Mediterranean, being closely followed by Genoa, Florence, and Pisa. The
tide, which then set westward, and continued its course beyond the Pillars
of Hercules, was met in later years by another stream of commerce from the
shores of the Baltic.(2) Small wonder, then, if the City of London was
quick to profit by the continuous stream of traffic passing and repassing
its very door, and vindicated its title to be called--as the Venerable Bede
had in very early days called it the Emporium of the World.(3)

But if London's prosperity were solely due to its geographical position,
we should look for the same unrivalled pre-eminence in commerce in towns
like Liverpool or Bristol, which possess similar local advantages; whilst,
if royal favour or court gaieties could make cities great, we should have
surely expected Winchester, Warwick, York, or Stafford to have outstripped
London in political and commercial greatness, for these were the
residences of the rulers of Mercia, Northumbria, and Wessex, and the
scenes of witena-gemots long before London could boast of similar favours.
Yet none of these equals London in extent, population, wealth, or
political importance.

(M2)

We must therefore look for other causes of London's pre-eminence, and
among these, we may reckon the fact that the City has never been subject
to any over-lord except the king. It never formed a portion of the king's
demesne (_dominium_), but has ever been held by its burgesses as tenants
_in capite_ by burgage (free socage) tenure. Other towns like Bristol,
Plymouth, Beverley, or Durham, were subject to over-lords, ecclesiastical
or lay, in the person of archbishop, bishop, abbot, baron or peer of the
realm, who kept in their own hands many of the privileges which in the
more favoured City of London were enjoyed by the municipal authorities.

In the early part of the twelfth century, the town of Leicester, for
instance, was divided into four parts, one of which was in the king's
demesne, whilst the rest were