Читать книгу The Industrial History of England - Henry de Beltgens Gibbins - Страница 22

—Towns first became important in England towards the end of the Saxon period Saxon England had never been a settlement of towns, but of villages and townships, or manors. But gradually towns did grow up, though differing widely in the circumstances and manner of their rise. Some grew up in the fortified camps of the invaders themselves, as being in a secure position; some arose from a later occupation of the once sacked and deserted Roman towns. Many grew silently in the shadow of a great abbey or monastery. Of this class was Oxford, which first came into being round the monasteries of St. Frideswide and Osney. Others clustered round the country houses of some Saxon king or earl. Several important boroughs owed their rise to the convenience of their site as a port or a trading centre. This was the origin of the growth of Bristol, whose rise resulted directly from trade; and London of course had always been a port of high commercial rank. A few other towns, like Scarborough and Grimsby, were at first {24} small havens for fishermen. But all the English towns were far less flourishing before the arrival of the Normans than they afterwards became.