Think that below bridge the green lapping waves Smite some few keels that bear Levantine staves, Cut from the yew wood on the burnt-up Hill, And pointed jars that Greek hands toiled to fill, And treasured scanty spice from some far sea, Florence gold-cloth, and Ypres napery, And cloth of Bruges, and hogsheads of Guienne. CHAPTER V THE CITADEL--SOUTHWARK--THE DANES' QUARTER--THE PORTLANDS AND CNIHTENGILD Their dyke the Vikings warded, But some deal of the war-host Held booths in level Southwark. OLAF THE HOLY in the _Heimskringla_. _The Citadel._--The Saxon Chronicle under the year 886 reads: "In this year _gesette_ Alfred _Lundenburh_ and gave the _burh_ to Æthered the ealdorman to hold." This is usually understood to mean that Alfred restored the city wall, but Mr. John Earle in a note on the passage argues that the _burh_ was a citadel. He points out that Æthelweard's Latin paraphrase reads, "_dux Æthered ... custodiendi arcem_"; he says further that _gesette_ meant "founded," "peopled," and concluding that the passage means that Alfred established a military colony with an endowment of land, he suggests that we have here an account of the military occupation of Tower Hill.[105] I cannot think that the suggestion as to the limited meaning of _burh_ is made out;[106] but the endowment of a garrison as suggested would give a perfect point of departure for the "English Cnihten gild," an association to which a part of the portlands adjoining the east wall was granted, Stow says, by King Edgar. Moreover, the resumption by Alfred of London from the Danes would not only make such a body of soldiers especially necessary, but give good reason for their being called "English"; besides, it is known that Alfred did set up town garrisons. Mr. Coote has already suggested that the relinquishment in 1125 by the members of the gild of the lands which they held seems to have been in consequence of the Conqueror's garrison at his new Tower having taken over their duties. A traditional connection between the city guard and the Portsoken seems to be suggested also by the account in the _Liber Custumarum_ of how the city host was wont to assemble at the west end of St. Paul's, and then march to Aldgate, where the banner of St. Paul was presented to them. The council of this force, moreover, was held in Holy Trinity, which in 1125 took over the endowment of the gild.[107] Since writing the above I find that Mr. Oman has also argued that the Cnihten gilds of London and some other places were the military associations which Alfred and his immediate successors placed in their burhs. "That the system started with Alfred, rather than his son, seems to follow from two passages in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where, under the year 894, we hear of "the King's thegns who were at home in the fortresses," and again of "the fyrd being half in the field and half at home, besides those men that held the burhs."[108]