[79] This was occasionally the case even in Normandy until the English invasion. The great city of Caen, for instance, was still unwalled in 1346. ("Froissart," ed. Buchon, p. 223.) A piece of London Wall may still be found near the Tower at the bottom of a small passage called Trinity Place, leading out of Trinity Square. It rises about twenty-five feet from the present ground-level.
[80] Riley, "Memorials," p. 79. This was in 1310.
[81] See pp. 50, 59, 79, 95, 115, 127, 136, 377, 387, 388, 489. My frequent references to this book will be simply to the name of Riley.
[84] From his first Italian journey Chaucer returned on May 23, 1373; but his second was during the summer and early autumn of 1378. (May 28 to Sept. 19.)
[86] Walsingham, "Hist. Angl.," an. 1406, _ad fin._
[87] "P. Plowman," B. Prol., 216. The French words in italics were the first line of a popular song. Gower has an equally picturesque description in his "Mirour de l'Omme," 25,285 ff.
[88] "London was, in very truth, a city of Palaces. There were, in London itself, more palaces than in Venice and Florence and Verona and Genoa all together." "Medieval London," i., 244, where the context shows that the author refers not only to royal residences, but still more to noblemen's houses.
[89] This was at least the theoretical provision of the regulation of 1189, known as Fitz Alwyne's Assize, which is fully summarized and annotated in the "Liber Albus," ed. Riley (R.S.), pp. xxx. ff. We know, however, that similar decrees against roofs of thatch or wooden shingles were not always obeyed.
[90] "Menagier de Paris," i., 173; Addy, "Evolution of English House," p. 108; cf. "Piers Plowman's Creed," i., 214.
[91] An earthen wall is mentioned in Riley, p. 30. The slight structure of the ordinary house appears from the fact that the rioters of 1381 tore so many down, and that the great storm of 1362 unroofed them wholesale. (Walsingham, an. 1381, and Riley, p. 308.) Compare the hook with wooden handle and two ropes which was kept in each ward for the pulling down of burning houses. ("Liber Albus," p. xxxiv.)
[92] Cooper, "Annals of Cambridge," an. 1445; Rashdall, "Universities of Europe," ii., 413. Cf. the "common nightwalkers" and "roarers" in Riley, pp. 86 ff.