or association.
There is but little doubt that the William Almaine, one of the three
city merchants who completed London Bridge, after the death of Peter of
Colechurch, was one of its members, and so important had the London
settlement become in the eyes of the Flemings, that in a charter granted
to the Flemish town of Damme by Joan of Constantinople in 1241, it is
specially provided that no one shall aspire to the office of alderman of
that place unless he had been previously admitted a member of the Hanse
in London.

In 1250 the permanent buildings of the League in London were commenced
by the erection of storehouses; and nine years afterwards, through the
influence of his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the
Romans, Henry III.

"granted that all and singular the merchants, having a house in
the City of London, commonly called the Guilda Aula
Teutonicorum, should be maintained and upholden through the
whole realm by all such freedoms and free usages or liberties
as by the King and his noble progenitors' time they had
enjoyed."

This "house in the City" was situated to the south of Thames Street,
bordering on the river, closely adjoining Dowgate Wharf, one of the
principal landing places, and it became known, later on, as the
Steel-yard. Several suggestions as to the origin of this name, more or
less ingenious, have been made, but it seems most probable that it was
due to the fact that there, or thereabouts, was situated a weighing
place for foreign goods imported by the Hansa, similar to the King's
weigh-house in Cornhill. In this settlement the merchants lived the
semi-monastic life required by their rules, avoiding as far as possible
intimate association with the people by whom they were surrounded, but
with whom they carried on their business; yet at the same time not so
exclusively withholding themselves as in the remote settlements of
Bergen and Novgorod. Indeed, in return for the privileges which were
conceded to them they were required, to a certain extent, to take part
in the civil life of London and to share in the duties of its defence.

One of the duties they were required to discharge was the maintenance of
one of the city gates--that known as Bishopsgate, from the fact that it
had been first erected by Saint Erkenwald, sometime Bishop of London;
and one of the first troubles they had with the city Corporation arose
in consequence of their neglect properly t