The gates of the town were still in the abbot's hands.

He had succeeded in enforcing his claim to the wardship of all orphans born within his domain.

From claims such as these the town could never feel itself safe so long as mysterious charters from Pope or King, interpreted cunningly by the wit of the new lawyer class, lay stored in the abbey archives.

But the archives contained other and hardly less formidable documents than these.

Untroubled by the waste of war, the religious houses profited more than any other landowners by the general growth of wealth.