It has been properly pointed out by Dr. Maitland and by Mr. Gomme that "the tilled lands of the city" is no mere rhetorical phrase,[131] but it referred to "the arable fields of the town of London." In the Saxon Chronicle we gain a sight of the citizens reaping their lands: "Then that same year [895] the Danish men who sat down in Mersey [island] towed their ships up the Thames, and thence up the Lea. This year [896] the aforesaid host wrought themselves a stronghold on the Lea, twenty miles above London. And in summer a great body of the townsmen, and other folk beside, went forth even unto this stronghold. And there were they put to flight, and there were slain some four of the king's thanes. And after, throughout harvest, did the king camp hard by the town [London] while the folk were reaping, that the Danes might not rob them of their crop. Then one day the king rode along the stream, and saw where it might be shut in, so that never might they bring out their ships. And thus was it done. And they wrought them two strongholds on the two sides of the stream. When this work was done and the camps pitched thereby, then saw the host that they might not bring out their ships. Then forsook they their ships, and fled away across the land until they came unto Coatbridge on Severn, and there wrought they a stronghold. And the men of London took all those ships, and such as they might not bring away of them they brake up, and such as were staelwyrthe them brought they to London." The suburbs must be the residue of the original clearing in the forest; FitzStephen says the forest was close by London and formed a covert for boars and wild cattle, and as late as the thirteenth century there were wild cattle at Osterley.[132] Scattered about the forest were village settlements, the nearest about the city mentioned in Domesday being Stepney, Hoxton, Islington, Hampstead, St. Pancras, Kensington, Chelsea. The bishop of the East Saxons already, in Alfred's day, had his house at Fulham.[133]