172 MEDIEVAL CIVILIZATION hanging upon the gallows, and also the filth lying before the houses. The street was not, as in our time, a place of passage; it was made for those who dwelt in it, not for those who passed through it. The town was surrounded by a moat and a rampart of stones; on the wall arose here and there towers, round or square, massive or slender. There were very few towns which did not have hundreds of these towers. They were both a defense and a decoration. Nuremberg had more than three hundred of them. The town was a fortress; it was entered only through a vaulted gateway, which was closed at night. This wall, bristling with towers and spires, these irregular streets, where each house has its own physiognomy, where the eye is ceaselessly attracted to a gable, a pointed roof, a bold ledge, an iron arm bearing a sign, all give to these old1 towns a living and varied aspect. They are less convenient than our great modern towns, with their broad, straight streets and their uniform houses, but one may think them much more agreeable to look at. 1 All the towns of the Middle Ages were built in the same style; the old engravings which represent the French or even the Lombard towns in the sixteenth century, show that they re- semble the German towns, but in France and in Italy, almost all the old quarters have been destroyed. But few remains of them are found in places—like Rouen, Dijon, Troyes. In Ger- many and in Flanders, the old houses have been better pre- served. Nuremberg is the best of all the large German towns, but a portion of the ramparts has been demolished. Rothen- bourg on the Lauber, where nothing has been changed since the sixteenth century, gives more perfectly than any other the impression of an ancient town.