r, was well advised in this respect. In years of
comparative peace, Edward the Confessor built or rebuilt Westminster
Abbey, and lived there; but London trade was not interrupted, and
William the Norman was too wise to interfere with it.

[Illustration: THE GATES OF THE CITY: BISHOPSGATE AND CRIPPLEGATE.]

We have no remains of Saxon times in the city. The bridge continued to
exist, and must have been well fortified. There is a story, which may be
true, that Cnut dug a canal through or round Southwark, but as we have
seen, this was probably no great feat. He did not succeed in taking
London. Soon after, and down to Hastings, Normans, as well as Danes,
settled in large numbers in the city, and their names are found in the
oldest lists among those of the Saxon aldermen and leading citizens. In
the laws of Ethelred, printed by Thorpe, we find two additions to the
list of the gates. As we have seen, only two Roman gates are known on
the landward side--the Westgate, later known as Newgate, which opened on
the Watling Street; and the northern gate, said to have been rebuilt
later on a slightly different site, and named Bishopsgate. Ethelred
provides for guards at Cripplegate and Aldersgate. This provision
seems to show that the gates were then new. Of Aldred, whose name was
given to one of them, we have no special knowledge, and Stow supposes it
was called "of alders growing there," a typical guess, but nothing to
his guess about "Cripplesgate," so called "of cripples resorting there"!
But "Crepul geat" is good Anglo-Saxon for a covered way, and the covered
way here led to the Barbican. Both gave their names to wards of the
city, and in the twelfth century Alwold was alderman of Cripplegate and
Brichmar, "who coins the King's money," of Aldersgate, which is
distinctly named "Ealdredesgate."

The same document, in which these new gates are mentioned, also gives a
few topographical particulars. Thus Billingsgate is mentioned as a place
to which ships brought fish, and as being close to the bridge. This was
probably what was left of the Roman bridge. It names the merchants of
Rouen as entitled to certain consideration in the tax they pay on
cargoes of wine. The cities of Flanders, of Normandy, and of France are
named in that order, as well as Hogge (Sluys), Leodium (Liege), and
Nivella (Nivelle), and there is special mention of the Emperor's men. If
any imperial usages, any laws following Roman customs and differing from
those