The cities appear by domesday-book to have been, at the conquest little better than villages.[*] York itself, though it was always the second, at least the third[**] city in England, and was the capital of a great province, which never was thoroughly united with the rest, contained then but one thousand four hundred and eighteen families.[***] Malmsbury tells us,[****] that the great distinction between the Anglo-Saxon nobility and the French and Norman, was, that the latter built magnificent and stately castles; whereas the former consumed their immense fortunes in riot and hospitality, and in mean houses. We may thence infer, that the arts in general were much less advanced in England than in France: a greater number of idle servants and retainers lived about the great families; and as these, even in France, were powerful enough to disturb the execution of the laws, we may judge of the authority acquired by the aristocracy in England. When Earl Godwin besieged the Confessor in London, he summoned from all parts his huscarles, or houseceorles and retainers, and thereby constrained his sovereign to accept of the conditions which he was pleased to impose upon him. The lower rank of freemen were denominated ceorles among the Anglo-Saxons; and where they were industrious they were chiefly employed in husbandry; whence a ceorle and a husbandman became in a manner synonymous terms. They cultivated the farms of the nobility, or thanes, for which they paid rent; and they seem to have been removable at pleasure; for there is little mention of leases among the Anglo-Saxons: the pride of the nobility, together with the general ignorance of writing, must have rendered those contracts very rare, and must have kept the husbandmen in a dependent condition. The rents of farms were then chiefly paid in kind.[*****] [* Winchester, being the capital of the West Saxon monarchy, was anciently a considerable city. Gul. Pict. p. 210.] [** Norwich contained 738 houses; Exeter, 315; Ipswich, 538; Northampton, 60; Hertford, 146; Canterbury, 262; Bath, 61; Southampton 84; Warwick, 225. See Brady, of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. These are the most considerable he mentions. The account of these is extracted from domesday-book.] [*** Brady’s Treatise of Boroughs, p. 10. There were six wards, besides the archbishop’s palace; and five of these wards contained the number of families here mentioned, which at the rate of five persons to a family, makes about seven thousand souls. The sixth ward was laid waste.] [**** Page 102. See also de Gest. Angl. p. 333.] [***** LL. Inae, sect. 70. These laws fixed the rents for a hide; but it is difficult to convert it into modern measures.]