^86 A. D. 1224. 



By means of orders in the year 1226 for permitting French vefTels, 

 loaded with corn, wine, or provifions, to come in and go out in fafety, 

 notwithflanding a previous general prohibition of French fliips, the fol- 

 lowing may be added to the lift. 



The king granted to the comminaltie of London to have a com- 

 ' mon feale.' {Stow's Survey of London, p. 918, ed. 1 61 8.] 



1225 — King Henry obliged all veftels belonging to the Cinque ports, 

 arriving with corn in the River Thames, to deliver at Queen-hithe *. 

 In two years thereafter he alfo ordered the vefTels bringing fifh to un- 

 load at the fame place, and direiled that the only fifh-market in Lon- 

 don fhould be held there, the citizens of London being, however, at li- 

 berty to unload their own vefTels where they pleafed. In the year 1 246 

 the city purchafed Queen-hithe from Richard earl of Cornwall, and 

 agreed to pay an annual rent of ;^50 to him and his heirs. For fome 

 time it was very produ<fHve, the corn, fifh, fait, fuel, and other articles, 

 landed there being fufHcient to keep thirty-feven men employed as met- 

 ers and carriers, with horfes, &c. Afterwards the bakers of London got 

 into the way of buying their grain in the country from the farmers f ; 

 and that diminution of the corn bufinefs, together with fome impedi- 

 ments to the paflage of the vefTels by delay in taking up the draw-bridge, 

 reduced the profits of Queen-hithe fo low, that when Fabyan wrote 

 (about the year 1500) they fcarcely exceeded twenty marks a-year of 

 fuch money as was then current. \^Sto^v's Survey of London, p. 680.] 



Albert earl of Orlamund, who in the year 1216 had bought the fu- 

 periority of Hamburgh for 700 marks from the king of Denmark, now 

 fold it to the community of the city for 1,500. Till now, fays Lambe- 

 cius, the hiftorian of Hamburgh, the city was only in its infancy ; but 

 thenceforth, having fhaken off the yoke, it became dayly more and 

 more powerful and ilourifliing. [Orig. Hamburg, p. 1 1 8.] 



1227 — King Henry III received prefents from Coradin, foldan (or 

 fultan) of Damaicus, brought by Jufelin (moft probably a merchant) of 

 Genoa, and fent him a complimentary letter in return. \Fa'dera, V. i, 

 p. 296.] Tiiis is, I believe, the lecond inftance of a Mohamedan prince 

 courting the friendfliip of a king of England. 



Odober 1 2"' — The Catalans appear to have been at this time very 



* This landing place was generally ajipropriat- out of the profits of it to the thurch of Reading, 



ed to the queens of England as ;i part of tlicir re- \_Coivel's Inlcrpnicr, MiiiJc-y'j it/, iio. IIetlii.'\ 



venue, at kaft as early as the time of Ilenry 1; f So the bakers managed their bufinefs about 



Srr Adelid, hie widow, gave ico (liilllngs a-year the year i6cc, when Stow wrote. 



