_Dowgate._--In a charter of 1150-51 which Henry II. as Duke of the Normans gave to the citizens of Rouen, he grants that the men of Rouen who are free of the Merchants' Gild shall be quit of all dues save for wine and craspisce. "And the citizens of Rouen shall have at London the port of Douuegate as they have had from the time of King Edward." After warning other ships off the wharf, they were free to cut them adrift.[94] "Here then we have evidence that even before the Conquest the citizens of Rouen had a haven at the mouth of the Walbrook."[95] A chapter in the Laws of Æthelred names the traders who were free to come to the Port of London, and amongst these appear men of Flanders, France, and the Emperor's men. The men of Rouen, then, as in 1150, brought wine and craspisce (dried sturgeon or whale). From the fact that the Walbrook issued here, Dowgate has been derived from the Celtic _Dwr_, water; this would be a very interesting fact, if there were any certainty in it. _Steelyard and the Vintry Wharf._--In the privileges of the Emperor's men just mentioned we seem to have, as Dr. Sharpe suggests,[96] the beginnings of the Gilda Teutonicorum, the great mediæval Hanse by Baynard's Castle called at a late time the Steelyard. In the time of Henry II. the House of the Cologne Merchants in London is mentioned, and Richard I., when passing through Cologne, remitted the rent-charge on their Gildhall.[97] This privilege was confirmed by John in 1213.[98] We can probably trace the port of "the Flanders men" of Æthelred's laws in a charter granted by the Conqueror to the Abbey of St. Peter's, Ghent, in 1081, granting Lewisham, Woolwich, etc.: and within London, the land which King Edward [the Confessor] gave, namely, a portion of Waremanni-Acra with the wharf belonging to it, with its market rights, stalls, shops, and dues, and that all merchants who have landed in the Soke of St. Peter [of Ghent in London] shall return and enjoy his protection. This charter is witnessed amongst others by Deorman, Leofstan, and Alward _grossus_ of London.[99] In a later confirmation of 1103-09 the ground is called Wermanacre, and this name must be preserved in St. Martin's "de Beremanescherche" (date 1257);[100] for Stow says St. Martin in the Vintry was sometimes called "St. Martin de Beremund Church." Kemble gives a copy of the original charter of the Confessor, granting to St. Peter of Ghent the above-named places, also within London the land which _anglice_ is called Wermanecher, with the wharf and all rights and customs. Mr. Round shows from other documents that the Confessor visited St. Peter's, Ghent, in 1016, and then promised to restore to the monks their possessions in England, and that Lewisham, etc., had first been given to the monastery as early as 918. The gift was confirmed by Edgar, with its "churches, land, and crops," at the prayer of Dunstan, who ruled St. Peter's for some time when exiled from England.