,
the charge of 22_s._ 3_d._ was raised to 116_s._ and the city was called
upon to raise over L600.(580)

In the meantime the civic authorities had, in answer to the king's
writ,(581) prepared a return of the number of parish churches, chapels and
prebends within the city.(582) It was found that within the city and
suburbs there were 106 parish churches(583) and thirty prebends, but only
two of the latter were within the liberties. There was also the free
chapel of St. Martin's-le-Grand, which embraced eleven prebends, all
within the liberty of the city, and there were, moreover, two other
chapels within the liberty. Besides these (the return stated) there were
none other.

(M323)

The bare fact that there existed over 100 parishes, each with its parish
church, within so small an area as that covered by the city and its
suburbs, is of itself sufficient to remind us that, besides having a
municipal and commercial history, the city also possesses an
ecclesiastical. The church of St. Paul, the largest foundation in the
city, with its resident canons exercising magnificent hospitality, was a
centre to which London looked as a mother, although it was not strictly
speaking the metropolitan cathedral. That title properly applies to the
Minster at Canterbury; but the church of Canterbury being in the hands of
a monastic chapter left St. Paul's at the head of the secular clergy of
southern England.(584) Besides the hundred and more churches there were
monastic establishments and colleges which covered a good fourth part of
the whole city. The collegiate church of St. Martin's-le-Grand almost
rivalled its neighbour the cathedral church itself in the area of its
precinct. The houses of the Black Friars and Grey Friars in the west were
only equalled by those belonging to the Augustine and Crossed Friars
towards the east; while the Priory of St. Bartholomew found a counterpart
in the Priory of Holy Trinity. The church was everywhere and ruled
everything, and its influence manifests itself nowhere more strongly than
in the number of ecclesiastical topics which fill the pages of early
chronicles in connection with London.(585)

(M324)

The war brought little credit or advantage in return for outlay. In
January, 1371, the Black Prince had returned to England with the glory of
former achievements sullied by his massacre at Limoges, and the City of
London had made him a present of valuable plate.(586) The conduct of the
war was tr