Every Norman noble as he quartered himself upon English lands, every Norman abbot as he entered his English cloister, gathered French artists, French shopkeepers, French domestics about him.

Round the Abbey of Battle which William founded on the site of his great victory "Gilbert the Foreigner, Gilbert the Weaver, Benet the Steward, Hugh the Secretary, Baldwin the Tailor," dwelt mixed with the English tenantry.

But nowhere did these immigrants play so notable a part as in London.

The Normans had had mercantile establishments in London as early as the reign of AEthelred, if not of Eadgar.

Such settlements however naturally formed nothing more than a trading colony like the colony of the "Emperor's Men," or Easterlings.
But with the Conquest their number greatly increased.