little or nothing to do with the matter. None of the acquired property was actually set aside for any such specific purpose, and the conveyance caused no alteration to be made in the community's way of financing these outlays, which, as we shall see, was largely effected by voluntary subscriptions. That the repair of bridges was used as a consideration to support the conveyance shows only the great importance which was ascribed to this municipal duty. To look after all the approaches to the Town Gates was an old and solemn obligation of the governing burgesses, and there was a special sanctity attached to the maintenance of bridges.
"The Six Bridges within the Town of Leicester" is a phrase which does not seem to occur elsewhere. It refers, one may suppose, to the same six bridges as those which are marked upon a certain plan of the Leicester Mills and Bridges, drawn about the year 1600, which is preserved among the archives of the Corporation, and which is reproduced in the third volume of the Borough Records.
According to this plan, the names of the Six Bridges are: (1) St. Sunday's Bridge, (2) Frogmire Bridge, (3) West Bridge, (4) Bow Bridge, (5) Braunston Bridge, and (6) an anonymous "Bridge."
(1) ST. SUNDAY'S BRIDGE.
This bridge crossed the main stream of the river Soar, north of Leicester, opposite to the ancient church of St. Leonard, and the bifurcation of the high road. It is described in a conveyance of the year 1493 as "The Great Bridge," and it was sometimes so called in later centuries, but in the Borough Records it is usually named the North Bridge from the 13th century until the 16th. The monks would seem to have given to it the name of St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order of Preaching Friars, who was canonized in 1234. This name passed into familiar speech as "St. Sunday Bridge," or "St. Sunday's Bridge," Sunday being the English equivalent of "Dominicus." It is so called in 1550, "Sent Sonday brygg," in Queen Elizabeth's Charter of 1589, and later. Throsby calls it
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