King writes "Dugdale, Mon., iv, 14; habuerunt licenciam communes Norwici includendi eandem villam cum fossis. The Chronicle quoted here dates this to 37 Hen. III (i.e. 1252-3) and also to A.D. 1209, but as we are also told that this occurred 60 years after an event in 1194, it is likely that the regnal year gives the correct reading, more or less." This is not a licence to crenellate, although a royal licence to enclose the town with a ditch has a similar quality (some ditches, possible originally of Saxon date, may have already existed.). Quite how reliable the Binham Chartulary is may be a question. This was written, regard a landownership dispute, in the first half of C14 at a time when the Priory was in some disarray (see Page, Wm, 1906, VCH Norfolk Vol. 2 p. 343-6 online copy)
NORWICH 6237 3087. Borough 1004 (BF, p. 140). Mint 924-1154; Viking coins before 924. 1334 Subsidy £946. Norwich seems to have become a place of significance in the early tenth century and was a mint from the reign of K Aethelstan, but there is evidence for earlier scattered settlement. The town was large and prosperous by 1066. A castle was built before 1075 and the cathedral, transferred from Thetford, Norfolk (q.v.), was imposed on what was probably a densely built up area about 1095. These operations resulted in a substantial reshaping of Norwich and the creation of new market places (J. Campbell, ‘Norwich’, in M.D. Lobel ed, The Atlas of Historic Towns, ii (London, 1975); B. Ayers, Norwich (London, 1994)). Charter of 4 Dec 1306 mentions wholesale trading in several streets of Norwich, and selling small things in front of the priory ch on Sundays (CChR, 1300-26, p. 73). On 12 Feb 1462, K Edw IV granted the citizens and commonalty of Norwich that no market would be granted by the king within a circuit of five leagues of the city (CChR, 1427-1516, p. 148). Market town c.1600 (Everitt, p. 474). (Letters, S., 2003, Gazetter of Markets and Fairs in England and Wales to 1516 (Centre for Metropolitan History) online copy)