the court; and it was relatively a place of far greater
importance than at any later date.

The chief ports were London (Lundenbyrig), situated at the head of tidal
navigation on the Thames; and Bristol (Bricgestow) and Gloucester
(Gleawan-ceaster), similarly placed on the Avon and Severn. These towns
were convenient for early shipping because of their tidal position, at
an age when artificial harbours were unknown; They were the seat of the
export traffic in slaves and the import traffic in continental goods.
Before AElfred's reign the carrying trade by sea seems to have been in
the hands of the Frisian skippers and slave-dealers, who stood to the
English in the same relation as the Arabs now stand to the East African
and Central African negroes; but after the increased attention paid to
shipbuilding during the struggle with the Danes, English vessels began
to engage in trade on their own account. London must already have been
the largest and richest town in the kingdom. Even in Baeda's time it was
"the mart of many nations, resorting to it by sea and land." It seems,
indeed, to have been a sort of merchant commonwealth, governed by its
own port reeve, and it made its own dooms, which have been preserved to
the present day. From the Roman time onward, the position of London as a
great free commercial town was probably uninterrupted.

York (Eoforwic), the capital of the North, had its own archbishop and
its Danish internal organisation. It seems to have been always an
important and considerable town, and it doubtless possessed the same
large body of handicraftsmen as Winchester. During the doubtful period
of Danish and English struggles, the archbishop apparently exercised
quasi-royal authority over the English burghers themselves.

Among the cathedral towns the most important were Canterbury
(Cant-wara-byrig), the old capital of Kent and metropolis of all
England, which seems to have contained a relatively large trading
population; Dorchester, in Oxfordshire, first the royal city of the West
Saxons, and afterwards the seat of the exiled bishopric of Lincoln;
Rochester (Hrofes-ceaster), the old capital of the West Kentings, and
seat of their bishop: and Worcester (Wigorna-ceaster), the chief town of
the Huiccii. Of the monastic towns the chief were Peterborough (Burh),
Ely (Elig), and Glastonbury (Glaestingabyrig). Bath, Amesbury,
Colchester, Lincoln, Chester, and other towns of Roman origin were also
important. Exet