government of Robert Curthose, a country where “no man durst misdo with other,” and where the sovereign “made peace for man and deer,”[144] may well have looked like a sort of earthly paradise. It is no wonder that peaceable citizens who only wanted to be quiet and get an honest living came across the sea to find shelter and security in the rich and prosperous island. For settlers of this kind it was easy enough to make a home. No gulf of hatred and suspicion, no ever-present sense of wrong suffered and wrong done, stood fixed between them and their English fellow-burghers. Even before the Conqueror’s reign had closed, English and Normans were living contentedly side by side in all the chief cities of England: sometimes, as we have noticed in the case of Norwich, the new-comers dwelt apart in a suburb or quarter of their own, but the distinction was one of locality only; the intercourse was perfectly free and perfectly amicable; Norman refinement, Norman taste, Norman fashions, especially in dress, made their way rapidly among the English burghers; and intermarriages soon became frequent.[145] In the great cities, where the sight of foreign traders was nothing new or strange, and the barriers of prejudice and ignorance of each other’s languages had been worn away by years of commercial intercourse, the fusion was naturally more easy; in London, whither the “men of Rouen” had come in their “great ships,” with their cargoes of wine or sturgeons,[146] long before their countrymen came with bow and spear and sword, it was easiest of all. The great commercial centre to which the Norman merchants had long been attracted as visitors attracted them as settlers now that it had become the capital of their own sovereign; and the attraction grew still stronger during the unquiet times in Normandy which followed the Conqueror’s death. “Many natives of the chief Norman cities, Rouen and Caen, removed to London, and chose them out a dwelling there, because it was a fitter place for their trade, and better stored with the goods in which they were wont to deal.”[147] [133] Stow, _London_ (Thoms), p. 97. [134] The only body of Jews who appear in the Pipe Roll of 31 Hen. I are those of London. [135] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.) p. 3. [136] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.) p. 3. [137] _Ib._ p. 6. [138] _Ib._ p. 3. [139] _Ib._ p. 12. [140] _Ib._ p. 11. [141] _Ib._ p. 4. [142] _Ibid._ [143] _Ib._ p. 8. [144] Eng. Chron. a. 1135. [145] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 520. [146] _De Institutis Lundoniæ_, Thorpe, _Anc. Laws_, p. 127 (folio ed.). [147] _Vita S. Thomæ_, Anon. II. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.) p. 81.