[491] London Bridge is noticed in the Saxon Chronicle under A.D. 1016, The first stone bridge is said to have been commenced, A.D. 1176, and finished, A.D. 1209.—Stow’s Survey, pp. 50, 52, 682. [492] Then called “Emperor’s men,” the forerunners, probably, of the “Merchants of the Steel-yard.” See also Brompton, p. 897, quoted by Macpherson, p. 277, and “Ancient Laws,” p. 127; Prynne, “Annales,” p. 105. [493] Snorro, “Hist. Olaf. Trygv.” cc. 124-8. [494] “Heimskringla,” vol. ii. p. 125. Cf. Reginæ Emmæ Encomium, ap. Script. Rer. Normann. pp. 166, 170. [495] “Florence of Worcester,” p. 623, who calls the vessel a “trierem.” [496] “Annals of Commerce,” vol. i. p. 279. [497] It may not be generally known that a considerable number of the charters and deeds preserved in the collections of the British Museum, and of the libraries of the Bodleian and of Magdalen College at Oxford, bear seals impressed with ancient Roman, and occasionally with Greek, gems, all, or nearly all, of which are now lost. [498] Thorkelin’s “Essay on the Slave Trade,” pp. 4-9. [499] Arngrim Jonas. For the story of the Singhalese sailors, see Plin. H. N. vi. 83. [500] The Shetland as well as the Orkney Islands were then in the possession of the Norwegians, and Sutherland, the most northern portion of Great Britain, obtained this title as the land to the south of the Orkneys. [501] Saxon Chron. A.D. 1018. [502] This fact is mentioned, incidentally, in the Saxon Chronicle under the reign of Hardicanute, A.D. 1039. [503] William of Malmesbury gives a letter from Canute to the English nobility stating his success in this matter, ii. c. 11. [504] See Ruding, “Annals of the Coinage of England,” and Hawkins, “Silver Coins of England.” No other English king had so many mints, at least 350 of the names of his moneyers having been preserved. [505] Saxon Chron., A.D. 1036. [506] Saxon Chron., A.D. 1039-40. A mancus was worth about seven shillings and a penny, sterling. Spelman (p. 387) has pointed out that accounts differ as to whether we are to read here mancusses or marks, and that these two denominations of money were sometimes interchanged. [507] Saxon Chron., A.D. 1039. [508] It will be observed that in this, as in other boats, in the tapestry, the steersman holds the sheet in his left hand. The man at the masthead may indicate the sailor whom Wace (who heard the story from his father) says William sent aloft to look out.—Will. Poict., p. 199.