Compensation was paid to river interests adversely affected, including some waterfront labourers, the State became owner of the Legal Quays until the 1830s, the Corporation built a canal across the Isle of Dogs, and a new London Bridge eventually replaced the Old. All this depended to some degree on State support; in the case of compensation payments, a Treasury loan was repaid by a tax on shipping. River port prosperity was largely unaffected by the introduction of docks, although their warehousing privileges deprived waterfront wharves of potential business. Coastal and low-duty European imports continued, boosted by the introduction of steamship services. Vessels carrying coal, grain, timber and provisions competed with passenger steamers and river traffic for water space, leading to conflict between users and with the Corporation as Harbour Authority.

The papacy managed to meet the mushrooming demand for its documents. A new genre of documents appeared, ‘letters of grace’, granting special privileges. Demand for benefices was one major category. Only a small proportion of papal registers were registered, and two or more people might receive the same grant, so the curia developed a system of ranked formulae to see which letter had priority. Another genre met the demand for papal justice: ‘letters of justice’. These appointed judges delegate in the localities. A remarkable institution called the Audientia litterarum contradictarum made the system functional. Behind all this there was no proper bureaucracy with division between home and work, salaries and line managers. Slightly more like a bureaucracy was the Apostolic Penitentiary, which dealt with absolutions from excommunication and dispensations. In the fourteenth century, with the papacy based in Avignon, record keeping was less random and rules to regulate the otherwise unbureaucratic administration were formulated for both Penitentiary and Chancery. High level letters were handled separately from the quantitatively enormous routine business. The Schism that started in 1378, shortly after the papacy returned to Rome, marked a sharp break.

[29.1] ‘The statute book’ is a term commonly used to describe all Acts of Parliament in existence in a particular jurisdiction, whether or not commenced to operate.1 A law on the statute book may be an aid to interpretation. The same principle applies to the use of legislation of other jurisdictions; this includes other states and territories as well as other countries. But the statute book for a jurisdiction and the legislation of other jurisdictions (the wider legislative context) are not necessarily relevant, even if the same or a similar word is used.