The British nation a history / by George MWrong . towns. But they were tiny places; before 1300the largest borough in England, outside of London, con-tained only four or five thousand inhabitants. In the nar-row streets reigned indescribable filth and misery; manyof the houses were only of mud, with a roof of thatch andreeds, for the wealth and energy of England were in thisage spent, not in improving the towns, but in buildingcastles, cathedrals, and monasteries. Tanners, butchers,and mercers were the chief townsmen, and to this daythe upper classes in England do not dwell in the me
The British nation a history / by George MWrong . towns. But they were tiny places; before 1300the largest borough in England, outside of London, con-tained only four or five thousand inhabitants. In the nar-row streets reigned indescribable filth and misery; manyof the houses were only of mud, with a roof of thatch andreeds, for the wealth and energy of England were in thisage spent, not in improving the towns, but in buildingcastles, cathedrals, and monasteries. Tanners, butchers,and mercers were the chief townsmen, and to this daythe upper classes in England do not dwell in the medieeval townsmen had but a humble share in the 148 THE BRITISH NATION life of the nation, and their members of Parliament were long looked down npon by those who sat for tlie counties. But London was then, as now, a place apart. London already j^^ ^-^^ ^^ England, merchants of London a place apart, ° had ranked as barons. William the Con-queror found it a city of wooden houses liable to de-structive fires. His massive tower of London soon held. A Tiiwx Louis of France on his way to cliureh in tlie early morning reeeived of a basin of dirty water tlirown out of a window by a of benig: angry the king rewarded the student for rising early tostudy. Note tluit sonic, if not all, of tin- windows liave no glass. the sometimes turbulent capital in clieck and its streetswere in time lined with stone edifices; its importance intrade and political life grew, and every great man soonfouiul it necessary to keep a London house. The Con-queror gave London a cluirter which assured to it priv-ileges and independence that no other i)lace in Englandat tlie time possessed. In the life of the (owns tlie guilds Mere the vcar no tluin o::c hundred ;:nd fiftv CIVILIZATION IX THE THIETEENTH CENTURY 149 English towns had merchant guilds, with valuable privi-leges conferred by the king. A merchant guild some-times controlled the trade of a
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