English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages (XIVth Century)

by J. J. Jusserand

PART II LAY WAYFARERS

35. AN ADVENTURE SEEKER.

(From the MS. 2 B. vii; English; early Fourteenth Century.)

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

“Qui ne s’ad­ven­ture n’a che­val ni mule, ce dist Sal­o­mon.—Qui trop s’ad­ven­ture perd che­val et mule, respon­dit Mal­con.”

VIE DE GARGANTUA.

We have seen the aspect and usual con­di­tion of En­glish roads; we must now take sep­a­rate­ly the prin­ci­pal types of the wan­der­ing class and see what sort of a life the way­farer led, and what was his importance in society or in the State.

Wayfarers belonging to civil life were, in the first place, quacks and drug-sellers, glee-men, tumblers, minstrels, and singers; then messengers, pedlars, and itinerant chapmen; lastly, outlaws, thieves of all kinds, peasants out of bond or perambulating workmen, and beggars. To ecclesiastic life belonged preachers, mendicant friars, and those strange dealers in indulgences called pardoners. Lastly there were palmers and pilgrims, whose journeyings {182} had a religious object, but in whose ranks, as in Chaucer’s book, clerk and lay were mingled.