The
besieged would not be inactive, but would cast heavy stones on the
roof of the shed. Molten lead and burning flax were favourite means of
defence to alarm and frighten away the enemy, who retaliated by
casting heavy stones by means of a catapult into the town.
[4] _The Builder_, April 16, 1904.
[Illustration: Bootham Bar, York]
Amongst the fragments of walls still standing, those at Newcastle are
very massive, sooty, and impressive. Southampton has some grand walls
left and a gateway, which show how strongly the town was fortified.
The old Cinque Port, Sandwich, formerly a great and important town,
lately decayed, but somewhat renovated by golf, has two gates left,
and Rochester and Canterbury have some fragments of their walls
standing. The repair of the walls of towns was sometimes undertaken by
guilds. Generous benefactors, like Sir Richard Whittington, frequently
contributed to the cost, and sometimes a tax called murage was levied
for the purpose which was collected by officers named muragers.
The city of York has lost many of its treasures, and the City Fathers
seem to find it difficult to keep their hands off such relics of
antiquity as are left to them. There are few cities in England more
deeply marked with the impress of the storied past than York--the long
and moving story of its gates and walls, of the historical
associations of the city through century after century of English
history.
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