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LEEDS UNDER THE NORMANS. 27<br />

driven even to devouring the corpses of those who first<br />

fell victims to the pangs of starvation. We find,however,<br />

that the monks of Kirkstall were very assiduous in<br />

cultivating the land, draining themarshes, enclosing and<br />

reclaiming commons and woods, by which the district<br />

round the neighbourhood of Leeds was considerably<br />

improved,and in 1372 we find, instead of the one mill,<br />

rude, and valued, according to the Doomsday Book, at<br />

four shillings, two corn mills, which, styled " the corn<br />

mills of the Queen's<br />

Majesty at Leeds," were held by<br />

special letters patent under the seal of the Duchy of<br />

Lancaster, and it is stated that in the same reign<br />

(Edward III.), fulling mills stood near the Castle. In<br />

1376 the increasing prosperity and extent of the town<br />

rendered desirablethe building of a bridge over the Aire<br />

at Leeds. This,probably, was not the first bridge which<br />

took the place of the Roman trajectus or ford, but was<br />

most likely the mostpermanent in characterand material,<br />

affording a means of transit as well as communication,<br />

and is in any case the first bridge of which any distinct<br />

mention is made. It was stated to have been built from<br />

the ruins of the Castle,but that is not likely,the Castle<br />

being used for the imprisonment of RichardII. twentythree<br />

years after the noticeof the bridge's erection. The<br />

same was also stated of the chantry which was built on<br />

the bridge, but this was refuted by the discovery at its<br />

demolitionthat the foundations of the chapel were incorporated<br />

with those of the bridge itself,<br />

The next episode in the history of the county in which<br />

Leeds took any part was the disastrous " Pilgrimage of<br />

Grace" of 1535. On the dissolution of the innumerable<br />

religious houses, and the dispersion of their monkish<br />

inmates, these worked on the superstition of the people,<br />

and the personal awein which they themselves wereyet<br />

held by the ignorant, to arouse an agitation by their<br />

harangues,having for an object the reinstatement of the<br />

expelled clerics. An immense multitude was speedily<br />

raised in the northern counties, and which, armed and

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