No. 210. Ladies Riding.
Travelling on horseback was now more common than at an earlier period, and this was not unfrequently a subject of popular complaint. In fact, men who rode on horseback considered themselves much above the pedestrians; they often went in companies, and were generally accompanied with grooms, and other riotous followers, who committed all sorts of depredations and violence on the peasantry in their way. A satirical song of the latter end of the reign of Edward I., represents our Saviour as discouraging the practice of riding. “While God was on earth,” says the writer, “and wandered wide, what was the reason he would not ride? Because he would not have a groom to go by his side, nor the grudging (or discontent) of any gadling to jaw or to chide:”—
Whil God was on erthe
And wondrede wyde,
Whet wes the resoun
Why he nolde ryde?
For he nolde no groom
To go by hys syde,
Ne grucchyng of no gedelyng
To chaule ne to chyde.
No. 211. An Abbot travelling.
“Listen to me, horsemen,” continues this satirist, “and I will tell you news—that ye shall hang, and be lodged in hell:”—
Herkneth hideward, horsmen,
A tidyng ich ou telle,
That ye shulen hongen,
Ant herbarewen in helle!
The clergy were great riders, and abbots and monks are not unfrequently figured on horseback. Our cut [No. 211] (from MS. Cotton, Nero, D. vii.) represents an abbot riding, with a hat over his hood; he is giving his benediction in return to the salute of some passing traveller.
