“King John gave to the mayntenance of this bridge the hole tolle of the Wensday and Saturday markets in the towne, the which they yet possesse, turnyng it rather holely to their owne profit then reparation of the bridge.”[67]
The maintenance of the roads much resembled that of the bridges; that is to say, it greatly depended upon chance, opportunity, or the goodwill or piety of those to whom the adjoining land belonged. In the case of roads, as of bridges, petitions were sent to Parliament asking that a tax be levied for the repair of the road upon those who used it: an early attempt at the establishment of that toll system which survived in England until the highways were “disturnpiked” in the second half of the nineteenth century. “Walter Godelak of Walingford, prays for the establishment of a custom to be {80} collected from every cart of merchandise using the road between Jowermersh and Newenham, on account of the depth and for the repair of the said way. Reply: The King will do nothing therein.”[68] Again, a lady arrogates to herself the right to levy a tax on all comers: “To our lord the King show the commonalty of the people of Nottinghamshire passing between Kelm and Newur, that whereas the King’s highway between the said two towns has been wont to be for all persons freely to pass, on horseback, in carts, and on foot from time immemorial, the Lady of Egrum has got hold to herself of the said road in severalty, taking from those passing along there grievous ransoms and exactions, in disheritance of the King and his crown and to the great hurt of the people.” The king orders an inquest.[69]
Even a bishop would occasionally set a bad example, though bound more than any to set a good one. The inhabitants of Huntingdonshire and “the Island of Ely” remonstrate in 1314–15, because the men of those parts, either on foot or on horseback, have always used the Horketh causeway, “which causway the bishop of Ely is bound to repair and maintain, they say, for certain rents which he gets; and the causway is broken by the fault of the bishop, and the same bishop does not allow ships to pass there under the bridge without levying a heavy water tax (“theolonium”), which tax ought to be applied to the reparation and maintenance of the same bridge and causway, and they crave remedy.” An inquest is ordered.[70]
Sometimes the sheriffs in their turns ordered the levy of taxes on those who did not repair the roads; the law, as we have seen, allowed it; but those who were fined protested before Parliament under the pretext that the {81} roads and the bridges were “sufficient enough”:—“Item, humbly pray the Commons of your realm, as well spiritual as temporal, complaining that several sheriffs of your kingdom feign and procure presentments in their turns that divers roads, bridges, and causways are defective from non-reparation, with purpose and intent to amerce abbots, priors, and seculars, sometimes up to ten pounds, sometimes more, sometimes less, and levy the said amercements by their officers called out-riders, without delay or any reply of the parties, in places where the said roads, bridges, and causeys are sufficient enough, or perhaps are not in charge of the said amerced men.” Reply: “Let the common law be kept, and the amercements reasonable in this case.”[71]
Where negligence began, the ruts, or rather the quags, began. Those numerous little subterranean arches, which the foot-passenger now does not even notice, made to carry off rivulets dry during a part of the year, did not exist then, and the rivulet flowed through the road. In the East at the present day, the caravaneers talk in the bazaars of the town about the roads and pathways; we speak of them ourselves on returning home, as books of travel show. There, however, a road is often nothing else than a place along which men are accustomed to pass; it little resembles the dignified highways the idea of which the word road evokes in European minds. During the rainy season pools of water cut off the ordinary track of the horsemen and camels; they increase little by little, and at {82} length overflow and form temporary rivers. At evening the sun sets in the heavens and also in the empurpled road; the innumerable puddles along the way, dotting the ground, reflect the red flaming clouds; the wet horses and splashed riders shiver in the midst of all these glimmerings, while overhead and underfoot the two suns approach one another to meet on the horizon. The roads of the Middle Ages sometimes were like those of the modern East; the sunsets were magnificent after showers, but to face long journeys one had to be a robust horseman, inured to fatigue, with unshakable health. The usual education and training prepared people, it is true, for all these trials.
The roads in England would have been entirely impassable, and religious zeal would, no more than the indulgences of the Bishop of Durham and his peers, have been sufficient to keep them in condition, if the nobility and the clergy, that is to say, the mass of the landed proprietors, had not had an immediate and daily interest in maintaining possible roads. The English kings had had the prudence not to form great compact fiefs like those which they themselves owned in France, and which made of them such dangerous vassals. Their own example had taught them, and, from the beginning, they are found distributing to the shareholders in that great undertaking, the Conquest, domains scattered in every part of the island. This kind of chequered proprietorship, still subsisting in the fourteenth century, was noticed by Froissart: “And several times,” he says, giving an account of a talk with his friend and patron, Edward le Despenser,[72] “it happened that when I rode about the country with him, for the lands and revenues of the English barons are here and there and much scattered, he called me and said: ‘Froissart, do you see that great town with the high steeple?’ {83}
“ ‘Yes, my lord,’ I answered, ‘Why do you say so?’
“ ‘I say so because it should be mine, but there was a bad queen in this country who took all from us.’
“And thus, on one occasion or another, did he show me, here and there in England, more than forty such places.”[73]
The tragic fated Despensers were not alone in having the lands which they owed to the prince’s favour sown haphazard in every county; all the great of their rank were in the same case. The king himself, with all his court, as well as the landed nobility, ceaselessly went from one country place to another,[74] partly from choice and partly because they could not do otherwise. In times of peace it was a semblance of activity that was not displeasing, but especially it was an economical necessity. All, however rich, were obliged, like landowners of every age, to live upon the produce of their domains, first of one, then of the other, and as they went from place to place, it was very important for them to have passable roads, where their horses would not stumble and where their baggage wagons, which served for veritable removals, might have a chance of not being overturned.