Near his own castles and other of his property,
he designated many areas as royal hunting forests. Anyone who
killed a deer in these forests was mutilated, for instance by
blinding. People living within the boundaries of the designated
forestland could no longer go into nearby woods to get meat or
honey, dead wood for firing, or live wood for building. Swineherds
could no longer drive pigs into these woods to eat acorns they
beat down from oak trees. Making clearings and grazing livestock
in the designated forestland were prohibited. Most of the nation
was either wooded or bog at this time.
London was a walled town of one and two story houses made of mud,
twigs, and straw, with thatched roofs. It included a bundle of
communities, townships, parishes, and lordships. There were
churches, a goods market, a fish market, quays on the river, and a
bridge over the river. Streets probably named by this time include
Bread Street, Milk Street, Honey Lane, Wood Street, and Ironmonger
Lane. Fairs and games were held outside the town walls in a field
called "Smithfield". The great citizens had the land
qualifications of knights and ranked as barons on the Conquerer's
council. The freemen were a small percentage of London's
population. There was a butchers' guild, a pepperers' guild, a
goldsmiths' guild, the guild of St. Lazarus, which was probably a
leper charity (of which there were many in the 1000s and 1100s),
the Pilgrims' guild, which helped people going on pilgrimages, and
four bridge guilds, probably for keeping the wooden London Bridge
in repair.
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