he Bridge.

FitzStephen says that the citizens were so powerful that they could
furnish the King with 20,000 horsemen and 60,000 foot. This is clearly
gross exaggeration. If we allow 500 for each parish, we get a population
of only 63,000 in all, and in the enumeration later on, for the poll tax
by Richard the Second, there were no more than 48,000. This, however,
was shortly after a great Plague had ravaged the City.

But the writer tells us that the citizens excelled those of any other
city in the world in 'handsomeness of manners and of dress, at table,
and in way of speaking.' There were three principal schools, the
scholars of which rivalled each other, and engaged in public contests of
rhetoric and grammar.

Those who worked at trades and sold wares of any kind were assigned
their proper place whither they repaired every morning. It is easy to
make out from the surviving names where the trades were placed. The
names of Bread Street, Fish Street, Milk Street, Honey Lane, Wood
Street, Soapers' Lane, the Poultry, for instance, indicate what trades
were carried on there. Friday Street shows that the food proper for fast
days was sold there--namely, dried fish. Cheapside preserves the name
of the Chepe, the most important of all the old streets. Here, every
day, all the year round, was a market held at which everything
conceivable was sold, not in shops, but in _selds_, that is, covered
wooden sheds, which could be taken down on occasion. Do not think that
'Chepe' was a narrow street: it was a great open space lying between St.
Paul's and what is now the Royal Exchange, with streets north and south
formed by rows of these _selds_ or sheds. Presently the sheds became
houses with shops in front and gardens behind. The roadway on the south
side of this open space was called the Side of Chepe. There was another
open space for salesmen called East Chepe, another at Billingsgate,
called Roome Lane, another at Dowgate--both for purposes of exposing for
sale imports landed on the Quays and the ports of Queenhithe and
Billingsgate. Those who have seen a market-place in a French town will
understand what these places were like. A large irregular area. On every
side sheds with wares for sale: at first all seems confusion and noise:
presently one makes out that there are streets in orderly array, in
which those who know can find what they want. Here are mercers; here
goldsmiths; here armourers; here glovers; here pepperers or gr