The Flemish, on their arrival, though received in all probability as vassals, found their condition an improvement on the general state-_villeinage_; and the indulgence shown to foreigners was eventually extended to the natives; and the disfranchised landholders gradually emerged from the most abject state of feudal dependence, to one less precarious, that of tenants by copy of court roll. Once registered on the rolls of a manor, with the consent of the lord or his steward, their title became indefeasible and descendible to their heirs, except in case of neglect or violation of the definite and recorded duties of their tenure. Thus settled, the husbandmen of Brighthelmston had every inducement to marriage, and they toiled with pleasure in their patrimonial field. The mariner also, freed from feudal caprice, braved the dangers of the deep, not only for his subsistence, but as a future provision for his family; and transmitted to his posterity, controlled by manorial custom, his ship or boat, his cottage, his capstan and garden, and other monuments of his paternal solicitude and industry. The town being, as now, a member of the port of Shoreham,—all boats of the town register at Shoreham,—was obliged to furnish some seamen for the royal navy; and no other tax or service was imposed upon the inhabitants, till the levying of a poll-tax in the reign of Edward III. In 1313 Brighthelmston had become so considerable as to need the public accommodation of a market; and John, the eighth and last Earl de Warren, obtained a charter of Edward III. for holding a market every Thursday. The mariners about this time, in the Lower Town, or under Cliff, increasing in number and property, extended their habitations to the Upper Town, and began two streets westward of the Stein, named from their situations, East Street and West Street, forming the inhabited limits of the town in those directions. After East Street and West street had been continued some considerable way towards the north, the landsmen, who were also becoming numerous, found it necessary to build intermediate streets, parallel to those already constructed; and the proprietor of the north _laines_, finding it more convenient to have their barns, and finally, their own dwellings and the cottages for their workmen, at that extremity of the town, formed North Street.