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Another noticeable feature which must by no means be overlooked while dwelling on this period, is the enclosure of the city, from Conisford or King street to Pockthorpe, by a wall. This important work, a testimony to the increasing prosperity of the city, as well as to the turbulence of the times, was commenced in 1294 and completed in 1320; but it was not till two and twenty years afterwards that, through the munificence of one Richard Spynk, the wall was flanked with 40 towers, furnished with 12 gates, and fortified by a broad ditch. The gates remained up to 1792, and the wall, though now built upon on every side, may yet be traced for almost its entire length, being especially prominent as the southern boundary of Chapel Field, and offers many a study to the antiquarian and the historian.

In 1340 and 1342 Edward the Third held grand tournaments in the city, and in 1348 the heir apparent, the Black Prince, with his mother Philippa, also visited Norwich, and were entertained at a cost of £37 4s. 6d. A more unwelcome visitor quickly followed; for in seven months 37,000 persons are said to have perished by the plague, by which the city was alarmingly depopulated. It was about this time that the Castle began to be used as a county prison, which was authorized by an Act of 14 Edward III., though a military governor continued still to be appointed. In 1381, cotemporaneously with the Wat Tyler rebellion in the south, John de Litester, a dyer, at the head of a large body of the disaffected, pillaged the houses of the wealthy, but was speedily overthrown by the forces of Bishop Spencer. This very warlike ecclesiastic was a fierce enemy of the Lollards, who had acquired a strong hold in the city, and he imprisoned Sir Thomas Erpingham, who had shown a warm sympathy for the reformed doctrines; but in the parliament of 1400 the king directed them to “shake hands and kiss each other in token of friendship.” The reconciliation was apparently sincere, for the baronet became a munificent benefactor to the church. He erected the Erpingham gateway, and rebuilt the monastery of the Black friars, now known as St. Andrew’s Hall. This noble building was not, however, completed until the time of his son Sir Robert, himself a member of the fraternity. On the dissolution of the monasteries by our royal Bluebeard, the property was obtained by the Corporation for the sum of £81, and became devoted to the guilds and other secular purposes.