The Early English Town
At first, as we have seen, the Saxons were an agricultural people,
and each village or tun produced all that it needed for its own
support. But in peaceful times a tun might produce more than it
needed; and by and by something like trade and exchange between
one place and another would begin. There were many places, as for
example London, which in Roman times had been great places for
commerce, to which ships had come bringing various kinds of goods.
In time, as the Saxons settled down, they began to have new wants,
and some of them began to be attracted towards places where there
were more people than in their native tuns. Some men found that
they could make certain articles of common use better than their
neighbours could. Thus certain trades took their rise. Those who
worked at them would gradually give up the agricultural labour
in which everybody else in the tun was employed. We do not know
the causes which led certain of these agricultural tuns to become
trading-places, but it is quite certain that they did gradually
grow to be what we now call towns.
We find Saxon towns springing up near the places where some of
the Roman towns had been, in some cases on the actual site of the
Roman city. In Gloucester and Lincoln, for instance, some of the
streets to-day follow the actual lines of the Roman streets. These
towns are, however, really Saxon towns, not old Roman towns turned
into Saxon towns. The men of these Saxon towns had lands on the
outskirts of the towns, just as the village men had. Even to-day
you will notice that there are many towns which possess lands
called by such names as the Townlands, Townfield, or Lammas Land.
The men in these towns were, from the very first, more inclined to
hold out against an overlord than the men in the villages were. In
the first place, their numbers were greater; and then they had more
varieties of occupation than the villagers, or, as we may say, had
wider interests. In the trading towns, like London and Southampton,
they came in contact with traders from other lands, and trade
brought them more wealth. They, too, had their folk-moots, and they
had more business to transact in them than the country villagers
had. They were very particular to keep a tight hold on their
rights, and were always on the look-out to gain fresh privileges if
they possibly could.
The fence or wall, which surrounded the town, was made much
stronger than that round the village; and men saw the use now of
the thick walls of the old Roman cities which their ancestors had
despised, for they had wealth and goods which needed protection.
We have seen that the power of the king gradually increased; and,
as it did so, the king and the town became more necessary to each
other. The town was wealthy; but it could not stand by itself
against all the rest of the country. The king had the power of the
country at his back, and could protect it if he would. The town had
to give something to the king in return for this protection. But we
shall presently see more of the relations between king and town.