repairs cost L1,200. The vestry-room was scarcely
completed before it had to be taken down, with part of the church, in
order to make a passage-way under the steeple to the old bridge, the
road having been found dangerously narrow. It was proposed to cut an
archway out of the two side walls of the tower to form a thoroughfare;
and when the buildings were removed, it was discovered that Wren,
foreseeing the probability of such a want arising, had arranged
everything to their hands, and that the alteration was effected with the
utmost ease.

CHAPTER LI.

CHAUCER'S LONDON.

London Denizens in the Reigns of Edward III. and Richard II.--The
Knight--The Young Bachelor--The Yeoman--The Prioress--The Monk who
goes a Hunting--The Merchant--The Poor Clerk--The Franklin--The
Shipman--The Poor Parson.

The London of Chaucer's time (the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II.)
was a scattered town, spotted as thick with gardens as a common meadow
is with daisies. Hovels stood cheek by jowl with stately monasteries,
and the fortified mansions in the narrow City lanes were surrounded by
citizens' stalls and shops. Westminster Palace, out in the suburbs among
fields and marshes, was joined to the City walls by that long straggling
street of bishops' and nobles' palaces, called the Strand. The Tower and
the Savoy were still royal residences. In all the West-end beyond
Charing Cross, and in all the north of London beyond Clerkenwell and
Holborn, cows and horses grazed, milkmaids sang, and ploughmen whistled.
There was danger in St. John's Wood and Tyburn Fields, and robbers on
Hampstead Heath. The heron could be found in Marylebone pastures, and
moor-hens in the brooks round Paddington. Priestly processions were to
be seen in Cheapside, where the great cumbrous signs, blazoned with all
known and many unknown animals, hung above the open stalls, where the
staid merchants and saucy 'prentices shouted the praises of their goods.
The countless church-bells rang ceaselessly, to summon the pious to
prayers. Among the street crowds the monks and men-at-arms were
numerous, and were conspicuous by their robes and by their armour.

With the manners and customs of those simple times our readers will now
be pretty well familiar, for we have already written of the knights and
priests of that age, and have described their good and evil doings. We
have set down their epitaphs, detailed the history of their City
companies, th