The priory of Tortington, next to Arundel, is interesting in the history of England for reasons already mentioned, but it was not wealthy. Almost every other foundation, as the Dominicans of Chichester or Winchelsea, or those we have previously noted at Arundel, or the Franciscans of Winchester and Lewes, or those near the north gate of Chichester, or the Carmelites of New Shoreham, or the Friars of Rye, are connected with towns and do not therefore concern the development of the county. So far we have been dealing with the historic basis upon which Sussex, like every other part of England, has been built. We have seen that upon the prehistoric origin of which we know hardly anything came Rome. We have seen that the Italian race laid down the bed upon which all the rest was to rise--a bed, firm, hard, and even, like their own concrete. It was a process occupying in this island some four hundred years. Upon Britain, as upon every other western province, fell the barbarian invasions of the fifth century. We have seen that they were somewhat more severe here than in other provinces, and that Sussex in particular was swept clean by them, not indeed of her race, but of her religion and her civilisation. The darkness resultant upon this catastrophe lasted for little more than a hundred years, but in that hundred years everything which gives dignity to mankind had disappeared, and the countryside, from Romney Marsh westward away to Chichester Haven, had gone savage. We have seen that it was slowly re-Christianised and recivilised, but that the planting of good stems upon such a devastated soil was for long a difficult and an unfruitful business. The mission of St. Wilfrid coincides with the close of the eighth century. It is not till the middle of the eleventh that Sussex really re-enters the European unity; it is not till the close of it that the influence of that unity begins to be largely felt after the Norman Conquest. [Illustration: WINCHELSEA MILL] [Sidenote: THE RISE OF THE SQUIRES] Two hundred and fifty years pass, during which the social development of England and of Sussex keeps the main lines laid down by the Conquest; the central government is still strong, the conception of tenure still weighs upon the wealthy class, and all men are responsible somewhere to some lord. Briefly, the mediæval system is during that period alive; here, as in northern France. And this island and northern France form, between them, until the close of the thirteenth century, the heart of Christendom. It is in them that arise the great philosophic discussions of the new universities, the Gothic architecture, the feudal scheme, the true co-operative industry of the mediæval manor.