Let it be remembered that a Benedictine monastery, in the early times, was invariably set down in a lonely wilderness. As time went on, and the monks brought the swamp into cultivation, and wealth flowed in, and the monastery became a centre of culture, there would be sure to gather round the walls a number of hangers-on, who gradually grew into a community, the tendency of which was to assert itself, and to become less and less dependent upon the abbey for support. These _towns_ (for they became such) were, as a rule, built on the abbey land, and paid dues to the monastery. Of course, on the one side, there was an inclination to raise the dues; on the other, a desire to repudiate them altogether. Hence bad blood was sure to arise between the monks and the townsmen, and sooner or later serious conflicts between the servants of the monasteries and the people outside. Thus, in 1223, there was a serious collision between the Londoners and the Westminster monks; the mob rushed into the monastery, and the abbot escaped their violence with difficulty by slipping out at a back door and getting into a boat on the Thames. On another occasion there was a very serious fray between the citizens of Norwich and the priory there, in 1272, when the prior slew one man with his own hands, and many lives were lost. At a later time there was a similar disturbance at Bury St. Edmunds, and in the year 1314 the great abbey of St. Alban's was kept in a state of siege for more than ten days by the townsmen, who were driven to frenzy by not being allowed to grind their own corn in their own handmills, but compelled to get it ground by the abbey millers, and, of course, pay the fee. Thirty years later, again, that man of sin, Sir Philip de Lymbury, lifted up his heel against the Abbey of St. Alban's, and actually laid hands upon Brother John Moot, the cellarer; and on Monday, being market day at Luton in Beds, did actually clap the said cellarer in the pillory and kept him there, exposed to the jeers and contempt of the rude populace, who, we may be sure, were in ecstasies at this precursor of Mr. Pickwick in the pound. But the holy martyr St. Alban was not likely to let such an outrage pass; and when the rollicking knight came to the abbey to make it up, and was for presenting a peace-offering at the shrine, lo, the knightly nose began to bleed profusely, and, to the consternation of the beholders, the offering could not be made, and Sir Philip had to retire, holding his nose, and shortly after he died--and, adds the chronicler, was speedily forgotten, he and his.