Many of these individuals, the friars for instance, had, it is true, a resting-place, but their existence was spent, for the greater part, on the roads; when they left their abode their purpose was not to reach this or that place, they had no fixed itinerary, but spent their time in ceaseless rambles about the country, begging as they went. They had, in the long run, caught the manners and the language of true nomadic wayfarers, and in common opinion were generally confounded with them; they belonged to that caste or family of beings.
As for the strange race which we still see at the present day wandering from country to country, and which, later than any, will represent among us the caste of wanderers, it had not yet made its appearance in the British world, and are outside the limits of the present work. The Bohemians or Gipsies remained entirely unknown in England till the fifteenth century.
36. BLIND BEGGAR AND HIS DOG.
(From the MS. 10 E. IV.)
37. “THER WAS ALSO A DOCTOUR OF PHISIK” (CHAUCER’S DOCTOR).
(From the Ellesmere MS.)