“ Rochester and Cichester are mere hamlets, and there is no reason why they should be called cities, except for the bishops’ seats. Oxford scarcely sustains, much less satisfies, her own men. Exeter refreshes both men and beasts with the same provender. Bath, placed or, rather, dumped down in the midst of the valleys, is at the gates of hell. Neither should you choose a seat in the Marches, Worcester, Chester or Hereford, because of the Welsh, who are prodigal of the lives of others. York is full of Scotsmen, filthy and treacherous creatures scarcely men. The region of Ely stinks perpetually from the surrounding fens. In Durham, Norwich, and Lincoln there are very few people of your sort amongst the powerful and you will hear almost no-one speaking French.
—
The Chronicle of Richard of Devizes
So, this is where he really gets going. I particularly like the bit about almost no-one speaking French in Durham, Norwich and Lincoln being surprising. Yeah, take that, modern English nationalists!
But there’s a lot of interesting historical detail about what places in England were like at the time in between the insults.Â
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