Note 231 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
In Rye there was a tax “from every stranger, as though from a prisoner taken, payment of his finance for his ransom, and when he has entered the fortresses of the port for his passage thence, 3s. 4d.; he having to pay towards the building of the walls and gates there what pertains to the common weal of the town.” (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 490.) For the strengthening of Canterbury wall against the French, (ibid. ix. 141.) It had twenty-one towers and six gates, and mayors in 1452 and 1460 left money for the gates. (Davies’ Southampton, 62-3, 80, 105. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 167.)