Each of the City gates is granted to a Sergeant-at-Arms, who occupies the chambers over the gateway, and whose duty it is to keep watch at night, being assisted by a watchman (_wayte_) whom he keeps at his own expense. During the day each gate, according to the City regulations, is kept by two men well armed; sometimes the Bedel is directed to summon the men of the Ward to watch the gate armed, those absent finding substitutes at their own expense. This is done as a reminder of their duty. The City Gates, the Gate of London Bridge, and the City Posterns, are let to certain persons from time to time, for the profit, no doubt, arising from the farming of the tolls; Geoffrey Chaucer at this very time has taken a lease of that at Aldgate. The keepers of the City Gates are sworn, among other things, not to allow lepers to pass into the City. Newgate and Ludgate have been prisons from time immemorial. All the chambers over all the gates are let on the condition that they may be taken over as prisons if they are wanted. [Illustration: CHAUCER From the Ellesmere MS.] On the north side, just outside the gate, stands one of the churches dedicated to St. Botolph, the saint who protected travellers. The first church built outside the wall must have been erected when times grew somewhat settled,—it would have been little use building up a church which at any time could be destroyed by marauders. Now as Botolph was a Saxon Saint this church must have been built after the Danes had become Christian, but before the Norman Conquest. In St. Botolph’s honour the old town of Icanhoe changed its name to Botolphstown, or Boston.