Though the monastery of St.
Frideswide rose in the turmoil of the eighth century on the slope which led down to a ford across the Thames, it is long before we get a glimpse of the borough that must have grown up under its walls.

The first definite evidence for its existence lies in a brief entry of the English Chronicle which recalls its seizure by Eadward the Elder, but the form of this entry shows that the town was already a considerable one, and in the last wrestle of England with the Dane its position on the borders of Mercia and Wessex combined with its command of the upper valley of the Thames to give it military and political importance.

Of the life of its burgesses however we still know little or nothing.

The names of its parishes, St.Aldate, St.Ebbe, St.Mildred, St.Edmund, show how early church after church gathered round the earlier town-church of St.Martin.
But the men of the little town remain dim to us.

Their town-mote, or the "Portmannimote" as it was called, which was held in the churchyard of St.
Martin, still lives in a shadow of its older self as the Freeman's Common Hall--their town-mead is still the Port-meadow.