s and stones cemented by a durable mortar were
substituted; the towers were circular, bricks were employed for
pavements, and bells were used. The ancients conceived the sound of
metal to be an antidote against evil spirits; and the adoption of bells
into the Christian church, and their consecration, was but a variation of
the practices of the pagans, who at the feasts of Vulcan and Minerva,
consecrated trumpets for religious uses.

Such was the condition of the town and market-place, when the Norman
Conqueror, whose coming produced such mighty changes in the land, brought
over from the continent a host of foreigners, who settled themselves down
in almost every part of the kingdom, and introduced trades and crafts of
every variety, giving birth to the great manufacturing spirit that has
grown to be so distinguishing a feature of our national greatness. Among
the foreigners who established themselves in this district, we find the
name of _Wimer_, a name yet prefixed to one of the great wards or
districts of the city--the Wimer ward. At this period, perhaps the most
prominent characteristic of the secular history of the times, especially
in connection with trade, is the important position held by the Jews.

The Norman duke had brought with him a great number of this race of
people, and although their religion was despised and bitterly hated, they
monopolized almost every branch of trade, and so much of the learning of
the day, that they took a high place both in commercial and civil
transactions. In this city they successively had two extensive
synagogues and colleges, where medicine and rabbinical divinity were
taught together.

Pharmacy, education, and all monetary transactions of any importance,
seem to have come within their province, their utility and wealth
preserving them, for the time at least, from anything more than petty
persecution. The history, however, of little St. William, given
elsewhere, and other similar records that have been handed down, betray
the jealousy and ill-will that existed between them and the Christians,
even during the season of their prosperity, when royalty, as in the time
of Rufus, patronized them.

Meantime the city had become a bishopric; a monastery, three friaries,
and a nunnery sprung up in quick succession, betraying the growth of
ecclesiastical power, and the presence of a great rival to the secular
authority claimed by the ministers of civil justice; itinerant judges had