Book C were elected and sworn 'to take and kill such swine as should be

found wandering in the King's highway, to whomsoever they might belong, within the walls of the city and the suburbs thereof.' The Earl of Lincoln complained to Parliament in 1307 as to the state of the River Fleet, and the gist of his complaint is reported by Stow: 'Whereas in times past, the course of water running at London under Holborne bridge and Fleete bridge into the Thamis, had beene of such large breadth and depth, that ten or twelve ships at once with merchandises were wont to come to the foresaide bridge of Fleete and some of them to Holborne bridge; now the same course (by filth of the tanners and such other) was sore decayed. Also by raysing up of wharffes, but especially by turning of the water, which they of ye new Temple made to their milles without Baynard Castle, and divers other perturbations, the said shippes now could not enter as they were wont, and as they ought, wherefore hee desired that the Maior of London, with the Sheriffes and certaine discreete Aldermen, might be appointed to see the course of the said water, and that by oth of honest men all the foresaid hindrances might be removed, and to bee made as it was wont of old time.'[189]

In the second year of Edward II.'s reign (1309) a proclamation was issued for cleansing the streets, which were more encumbered with filth than they used to be, and penalties were enforced against those who neglected their duty in this matter.[190] Between forty and fifty years after this we have evidence that one of the main thoroughfares of the city was in a very bad state. On August 22, 1358, Isabella, the widowed Queen of Edward II., died at Hertford Castle, and in the following November she was buried in the Church of the Grey Friars. In order that the passage of the body through the city should be carried out with any decency, it was necessary to enact that Bishopsgate Street and Aldgate Street should be cleansed of ordure and other filth.[191]

Dr. Creighton criticises the public regulations, and writes: 'There are several orders of Edward III. relating to the removal of laystalls and to keeping the town ditch clean, which show, of course, that there was neglect, but at the same time disposition to correct it. It is farther obvious that the connection between nuisances and the public health was clearly apprehended. The sanitary doctrines of modern times were undreamt of; nor did the circumstances altogether call for them. The sewers of those days were banked-up watercourses, or shores, as the word was pronounced, which ran uncovered down the various declivities of the city to the town ditch and to the Thames. They would have sufficed to carry off the refuse of a population of some forty or sixty thousand; they were, at all events, freely open to the greatest of all purifying agents, the oxygen of the air; and they poisoned neither the water of the town ditch (which abounds in excellent fish within John Stow's memory), nor the waters of Thames.'[192]

This seems exactly to explain the sanitary condition of the city, and we must never forget that the streets were cleared by means of surface drainage, which carried the refuse of the city to the river, to find its way to the sea at last. The streets were evidently fairly well attended to in ordinary times, and it is not for those who have polluted the Thames and made the streams into covered sewers to point the finger of scorn at the evils allowed by their ancestors, who at all events kept the Thames pure.

The proclamations and ordinances issued for the proper cleansing of the streets of London were very numerous, but the first sanitary act that appears in the Statutes of the Realm was passed in the seventeenth year of Richard II. (1388), the preamble of which Dr. Creighton prints.[193] From this and other sources, it appears that one of the chief evils complained of was due to the blood and offal in the shambles of Newgate Street.

It is impossible to mention here all the information that has come down to us as to what was done to secure a satisfactory sanitation, but special reference may be made to the useful abstract in Riley's Introduction to the _Liber Albus_.[194]

'Kennels were pretty generally made about a century after the date of Fitz-Ailwine's Assize, on either side of the street (leaving a space for the footpath), for the purpose of carrying off the sewage and rain water. There were two kennels in Cheapside at a period even when nearly the whole of the north side was a vacant space. The kennels, too, of Cornhill are frequently mentioned. By reiterated enactments it was ordered that the highways should be kept clean from rubbish, hay, straw, sawdust, dung, and other refuse. Each householder was to clear away all dirt from his door, and to be equally careful not to place it before that of his neighbours. No one was to throw water or anything else out of the windows, but was to bring the water down and pour it into the street. An exception, however, to this last provision seems to have been made in the case of fishmongers, for we find injunctions frequently issued... that they shall on no account throw their dirty water into the streets, but shall have the same carried to the river.'

It was the duty of each alderman to cause to be elected in Wardmote four respectable men to keep the roads clean and free from obstructions.[195] The same duties were carried out at another time by a Court of Scavagers, who apparently were originally Custom House officers. The scavagers had to see that the work was done, and the labourers who actually cleansed the streets were called 'Rakyers.' In an Ordinance of the time of Edward III. we learn that twelve carts, each with two horses, were kept at the expense of the city for the removal of sewage and refuse.[196]