But active as were the currents that circulated in and round the gilds, the wool markets, the annual fair, and the pilgrimage resorts, the dominating stream was that which flowed through the monastic channel, and over mediaeval Winchester the influence of the monastery in one form or other, whether of priory, abbey, or nunnery, or whether of the mendicant orders, or nursing sisterhoods, now for a considerable time firmly established in the city, was supreme. The Priory was a secluded area, the privacy of which was jealously guarded. The Cathedral itself, from the eastern angle of the north transept to the southern corner of the west front, formed the effective boundary on the city side, with the great churchyard lying between it and the city proper. The remainder was supplied by the high close-wall running all round it, much as the greater part of it does now, flanked to the east by the boundary of the Bishop’s residence at Wolvesey, and forming, with the latter, part of the external defences of the city, so that between them the monks and the Bishop relieved the citizens of something like a quarter of the burden--a heavy one at that time--of keeping the walls in repair and defending them if attacked. The main entrance was then, as now, the great close-gate, opening into Swithun’s Street near Kingsgate,--the point of attack in the troubles of 1264--and besides this a small postern or opening gave access from ‘Paradise’--as the area east of the northern transept was and still is called--to Colebrook Street and Paternoster Row. From the churchyard to the domestic quarter no direct means of access existed; the ‘Slype’ or passage through the great south-western buttress was not yet made, and to pass from the west part into the cloister it was necessary to pass through the Cathedral itself.