King Lear.
AS roadmakers, the Romans, if they can be said to have had successors at all, were succeeded by the monks. On the assumption that travellers were unfortunate people, as indeed they were, needing help, religious Orders were founded whose chief work was that of building bridges and repairing the roads. Other Orders likewise performed such tasks, though possibly for more selfish reasons, being as they were large owners of cattle, and immersed as much in agricultural as in theological occupations. So in many parts of Europe the Pontife Brothers, or bridge-makers, were to be found. There were also Gilds formed to repair the roads, such as the Gild of the Holy Cross in Birmingham, founded in the reign of Richard II, which “mainteigned ... and kept in good reparaciouns the greate stone bridges, and divers foule and dangerous high wayes, the charge whereof the towne of hitsellfe ys not hable to mainteigne.” In Piers the Plowman, too, the rich merchants are exhorted to repair the “wikked wayes” and see that the “brygges to-broke by the heye weyes” may be mended “in som manere wise.” The maintenance of the roads in England, says M. Jusserand,[14] “greatly depended upon arbitrary chance, upon opportunity, or on the goodwill or the devotion of those to whom the adjoining land belonged. In the case of the roads, as of bridges, we find petitions of private persons who pray that a tax be levied upon those who pass along, towards the repair of the road.” So in 1289, Walter Godelak of Walingford is praying for “the establishment of a custom to be collected from every cart of merchandize traversing the road between Jowemarsh and Newenham, on account of the depth, and for the repair, of the said way.” Unfortunately for him—and doubtless he was no exception to the rule—the reply came: “The King will do nothing therein.”
Indeed the roads were in a truly abominable condition. As often as not, deep ruts marred what surface there had ever been, and here and there brooks and pools rendered easy passage an impossibility. There is a patent of Edward III (Nov. 20, 1353) which ordered “the paving of the high road, alta via, running from Temple Bar”—then the western limit of London—“to Westminster.” “This road,” says M. Jusserand, “had been paved, but the King explains that it is ‘so full of holes and bogs ... and that the pavement is so damaged and broken’ that the traffic has become very dangerous for men and carriages. In consequence, he orders each proprietor on both sides of the road to remake, at his own expense, a footway of seven feet up to the ditch, usque canellum,” and see to it that the middle of the road is well paved. In France matters were just as bad. “Outside the town of Paris,” runs one fourteenth-century ordinance, “in several parts of the suburbs ... there are many notable and ancient high-roads, bridges, lanes, and roads, which are much injured, damaged or decayed and otherwise hindered by ravines of water and great stones, by hedges, brambles, and many other trees which have grown there, and by many other hindrances which have happened there, because they have not been maintained and provided for in time past; and they are in such a bad state that they cannot be securely traversed on foot or horseback, nor by vehicles, without great perils and inconveniences; and some of them are abandoned at all parts because men cannot resort there.” Wherefore it was proposed that the inhabitants should be compelled, by force if necessary, to attend to the matter.
While, however, the wretched state into which the roads were being allowed to fall had a great deal to do with the almost total, though indeed temporary, extinction of the wheeled pleasure carriage in western Europe, there is another fact which must be taken into consideration in any endeavour to account for it. As will appear in a little, the renaissance of carriage-building in the sixteenth century was for a time retarded in various places by a widespread feeling of distrust against anything that could be thought to lead to an accusation of effeminacy. Laws were passed—as was the case, for instance, in 1294, under Philip the Fair of France—forbidding people to ride in coaches, and sharp comparisons were drawn by the satirists between the hardy horsemen of old and the modern comfort-loving individuals who lolled, or were supposed to loll—though how they could have done so in those springless monstrosities is past comprehension—in their gaudily decorated carriages. I would not insist upon the point, but it may be that in the reaction against such undue luxuries as had helped to bring ruin to the Roman Empire, carriages for that reason became unpopular. From which, of course, it would follow that the disappearance of the carriage led, in part at any rate, to the neglect of the roads, and such new roads as were made would be laid down primarily for the convenience only of the horsemen. The same thing applied also to the litters, though their popularity naturally followed merely upon the state of the roads.
Before attempting to deal with these litters, it will be well to see what is known—it is not very much—of such wheeled carriages as there were at this time, and at the outset it is necessary to bear in mind that the old chroniclers used the word carriage in anything but its modern significance. To them a carriage was no more than an agricultural or baggage cart. Time and again you have accounts of this or that great man making his way, peaceably or otherwise, through some country, accompanied by numbers of carriages. These were simply his luggage carts, and although, as in earlier times, the cart, gaily ornamented, could very easily be converted into a pleasure carriage, it is important to remember the real meaning of the word. Such carts, in point of fact, were extremely common. In England they were generally square boxes made of planks borne on two wheels. Others, of a lighter pattern, were built of “slatts latticed with a willow trellis.” Their chief peculiarity was to be found in their wheels, which were furnished with extraordinarily large nails with prominent heads. Contemporary manuscripts give rough pictures of such carts. One of these is shown drawn by three dogs. One man squats inside, a second helps to push it from behind. A most interesting illustration in the Louterell Psalter—a fourteenth-century manuscript—shows a reaper’s cart going uphill. Here the two huge, six-spoked wheels with their projecting nails are clearly shown. The platform of the cart is strengthened by upright stakes with a cross-rail connecting them at the sides. The driver, standing over the wheels on the poles, is holding a long whip which is flicking the leader of three horses. Three other men are helping at the rear, and the stacks of wheat are held in position by ropes.
The earliest Anglo-Saxon carriage of which there is record belongs to the twelfth century. Strutt refers to a drawing in one of the Cottonian manuscripts, which represents a peculiar four-wheeled contrivance with two upright poles rising from the axle-trees, from which poles is slung a hammock. Such a chariot or chaer was apparently used by the more distinguished Anglo-Saxons when setting out upon long journeys. The drawing shows the figure of Joseph on his way to meet Jacob in Egypt, but is no doubt a correct representation of a travelling carriage in the artist’s lifetime. This hammock is interesting as being a primitive form of suspension, which may or may not have led to the later experiments in that direction.
Fourteenth Century English Carriage
(From the Louterell Psalter)
Fourteenth Century Reaper’s Cart
(From the Louterell Psalter)