his subsistence at least was probably derived from the proceeds of tolls, and fines levied within his district. ----- Footnote 445: Cod. Dipl. vol. iv. _passim_. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that there ever was a special ealdorman of London, as Palgrave imagines. The city was governed by Portreeves, usually two at once, until long after the Conquest, when it obtained mayors, like many other towns. Footnote 446: Cod. Dipl. Nos. 857, 861. Footnote 447: Cod. Dipl. No. 856. Footnote 448: Ibid. No. 872. Footnote 449: Ibid. Nos. 857, 861. Footnote 450: Ibid. No. 872. Footnote 451: Ibid. No. 929. Footnote 452: Ibid. No. 799. Footnote 453: Ibid. No. 789. Footnote 454: Ibid. No. 981. Footnote 455: Cod. Dipl. No. 933. This evidence that the officer in Bath was a portreeve and not a burhreeve may suggest the possibility of those persons whom I have cited under the former head, belonging rather to the present one. The Latin _praepositus civitatis_ will denote either one or the other office, and indeed it is difficult to prove any difference between them by direct testimony. Footnote 456: Leg. Eádw. § 1. Thorpe, i. 158. Eádm. iii. § 5. Thorpe, i. 253. Æðelst. i. § 12. Thorpe, i. 206. ----- WÍCGERÉFA.—The Wícgeréfa was a similar officer, in villages, or in such towns as had grown out of villages without losing the name of a village. I presume that he was not concerned with the freemen, but was a kind of steward of the manor, and that his dignity varied with the rank of his employer and the extent of his jurisdiction. However there is so much difficulty in making a clear distinction between Port and Wíc, that we find wícgeréfa applied to officers who ruled in large and royal cities. Thus the Saxon Chronicle mentions Beornwulf under the title of Wícgeréfa in Winchester[457], whom Florence in the same year calls Praepositus Wintoniensium. And in the laws of Hloðhere and Eádríc[458], the same title is given to the king’s officer in London, Cyninges wícgeréfa. In general I should be disposed to construe the word strictly as a village-reeve, and especially in any case where the village was not royal, but ducal or episcopal property. Many places may indeed have once been called by the name of _Wíc_ which afterwards assumed a much more dignified appellation, together with a much more important social condition. ----- Footnote 457: Chron. Sax. an. 897. Footnote 458: § 16. Thorpe, i. 34. -----