ENGLISH WAYFARING LIFE in the MIDDLE AGES (XIVth Cen­tury)
by J. J. JUSSERAND

1. ENGLISH KNIGHTS TRAVELLING, AUGUST, 1399.

(From the MS. Harleian, 1319, painted circa A.D. 1400.)

ENGLISH
WAYFARING LIFE
IN THE MIDDLE AGES
(XIVth CENTURY)

BY
J. J. JUSSERAND

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY
LUCY TOULMIN SMITH

A new Edition revised and enlarged by the Author

T. FISHER UNWIN LTD

LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE

First Edition 1889

Second Impression 1889

Third Impression 1889

Fourth Impression 1891

Fifth Impression 1896

Sixth Impression 1899

Seventh Impression 1901

Eighth Impression 1902

Ninth Impression 1909

Second Edition (Tenth Impression) 1920

Eleventh Impression 1921

We know Egypt, thanks to her tombs, and we know Rome, thanks to Pompeii, in these modern days, better than we know the Middle Ages of Europe and the life of an ordinary man during that period. We cannot hope to find in any corner of France or England a Pompeii, catacombs, or pyramids. In our countries the human torrent has never ceased flowing; rapid and tumultuous in its course, it has at no time ensured the preservation of the past by deposits of quiet ooze.

Yet, this common life of our ancestors, is it indiscernible, impossible to reconstruct? is that of kings and princes alone accessible to our view through the remoteness of ages, like those huge monuments which men see from afar when they cannot distinguish the houses in a distant city? Surely not. But to reach the heart of the nation, to get into touch with the greater number, a patient and extended inquiry is necessary. To make this usefully, one must break more or less completely with the old habit of taking the ideas of every-day life in the Middle Ages only from the descriptions, the satires, or the eulogies of poets. Literature is no doubt of valuable help in these restorations, but it is not the only, nor even the principal source of information. Poets embellish, imagine, colour, or transform; we must not accept their statements without checking them.

To check them is what we can do. We may have no such {8} burial grounds to explore as in Egypt, nor a whole town to bring to light as at Pompeii, but we have what is worth almost as much: the incomparable depositories of the Records of old England. Immense strides have been made, especially within the last hundred years, to render their contents public. Thousands

of documents have been printed or analysed, and the work is still continuing; indeed, looking at the progress made of late, a feeling of wonder cannot be repressed at the premature alarm of historians like Robertson, who wrote in 1769: “The universal progress of science during the two last centuries, the art of printing, and other obvious causes, have filled Europe with such a multiplicity of histories, and with such a vast collection of historical materials, that the term of human life is too short for the study or even the perusal of them.” The field of research has never ceased to widen, while the boundaries of human life scarcely recede at all; but students comprehend that the best means of rendering service is to impose limits on themselves and to study by preference separate points or periods of the immense problem to the best of their power. The work of unearthing is so far advanced that it is possible usefully to sift the riches drawn from these new catacombs.

At first sight all these petitions, these year-books full of reports of lawsuits, these long rows of statutes and ordinances seem the coldest things in the world, the most devoid of life. They are not even mummies or skeletons, they look as if they were but the dust of old bones. Yet to judge of them thus were to judge in a superficial manner; no doubt it might seem pleasanter to keep to the descriptions of tale-tellers; but how many chances of error do they not present! With the year-books, and the petitions followed by inquiries, we are on distinctly more solid ground; we soon grow accustomed to their language, and, under the apparently cold dust, sparks of life appear, we can then with little effort restore scenes, understand existences, perceive the distant echo of imprecations or shouts of triumph.

It was with this thought that the present work was {9} undertaken a good many years ago. In it there is a little less mention of Chaucer and a little more of the “Rolls of Parliament” than is sometimes found in the works devoted to the same period; this does not arise from want of admiration for the great man, far from it, but from the need of a test and of means of control, which may perhaps be deemed legitimate, and only increase, in the end, our sentiment for him. The present writer has desired to confine himself in this work within strict limits; one only of the many sides of the common life in the fourteenth century is here studied, a side little enough known and sometimes difficult to observe, namely, the character and the quality of the chief kinds of nomadic existence then carried on in England. And even in that reduced compass he is very far from making claim to completeness; so that this work is presented to the public more as a sketch than a treatise.

In the remodelling of his text, which had appeared as a French book in 1884 and as articles in English some years earlier, the author has been assisted, he need hardly say, by his learned translator, to whom he owes much for having assumed the task of turning into English a work which she herself would have been so well qualified to write. He has been helped too by friends, all of whom he does not mean to name here. But though feeling that in this also his incompleteness will be very apparent, he cannot deprive himself of the pleasure of inscribing on this page with gratitude and affection the names of Gaston Paris, of the Institute of France; of E. Maunde Thompson, Principal Librarian of the British Museum; of F. J. Furnivall, Director of the Chaucer and many other Societies; lastly, he ought, perhaps, to have said firstly, of the poet and critic, Edmund Gosse, to whose kind initiative and suggestion he owes it that his book is published under its present form.

J.

ALBERT GATE,
July 7th, 1889.

At the time of “les longs espoirs et les vastes pensées,” so far back that I have but a hazy recollection of him, the young author of these pages had formed so bold a plan that he kept it to himself, which was to write, if a long life were granted him, a complete description of the English people, during it is true a single century, the fourteenth, that period, of unique interest, when, after long years of probation, it became certain that England would be English and nothing else, when the language was formed, the first masterpieces were written, the chief traits of the national character became permanent, the principal institutions were founded, and even a first attempt at Reformation was launched.

Old Barthélemy Saint Hilaire, the indefatigable translator of Aristotle, used to say to me when he was our Foreign Minister: one must select, early in life, a vast intellectual task, that will be like a literary companion, a long-lived one, which you can never lose, because it is sure to outlive you. The author of this study thought the ampler work would be his literary companion.

But his official duties thereupon became more exacting, and as they had a first claim, he had to part with his companion, whom, as will happen in life’s pilgrimage, others replaced at later stages of the journey. He desired, however, that some trace be left of an early comradeship: hence the present essay, illustrated in part from his pen-and-ink sketches, also a token of comradeship.

The need of this new issue has supplied the occasion for a revision of the text, with numerous corrections and additions, written in a land unsuspected by the best-travelled of the ever-moving heroes of these pages, written too at a time when the Hundred years war of Chaucerian days has been replaced by a Hundred years peace, and when great deeds performed in common are, if we and our successors prove in any way worthy of our dead, the harbingers of a friendship not to be broken between France, England and America.

J.

WASHINGTON, 1920.

ILLUSTRATIONS

[1]. Knights travelling, followed by their escort of archers. From the MS. Harleian 1319, in the British Museum, fol. 25, painted circa 1400 (below No. 15). The two travellers are the Duke of Exeter and the Duke of Surrey; they go to meet Henry of Lancaster at Chester, to whom they are sent by King Richard II, August 1399. • Frontispiece 4

[2]. A minstrel dancing and singing. From the MS. 2 B. vii., in the British Museum, fol. 197a. English, early fourteenth century • 7

[3]. The three-branched bridge at Crowland, fourteenth century, present state • 21

[4]. Old London Bridge. From an illumination in the MS. 16 F. ii. fol. 73, in the British Museum, containing the poems of Charles d’Orléans (fifteenth century). This is the oldest representation extant of the famous bridge built by Isembert and his peers. The painting, of which the upper part only is here given, represents the Tower of London with Charles d’Orléans sitting in it as a prisoner. In our reproduction may be seen the chapel of St. Thomas Becket and the houses on the bridge, the wharves along the City side of the water, and the tops of the white turrets of the Tower of London. The view was obviously painted from nature. A complete reproduction serves as a frontispiece for Vol. I of my “Literary History.” • 29

[5]. The old bridge on the Rhône at Avignon, built by the friars pontiff in the twelfth century, as it now stands, the four arches and the chapel • 33

[6]. The old bridge at Cahors, thirteenth century, present state, photographed by Prof. Enlart, director of the Trocadero Museum • 37

[7]. The bridge at Stratford-at-Bow, as it stood before its reconstruction in 1839. From an engraving dated 1814 • 41

[8]. A part of London Bridge; None-such House, the drawbridge, and the houses on the bridge, as they appeared in 1600. From a drawing in Pepys Library, Magd. Coll., Cambridge, reproduced by Dr. Furnivall in his edition of Harrison’s “Description of England,” 1877 • 45

[9]. The taking down of the houses on old London Bridge, from a water-colour by C. Pyne (1800–1884), preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum • 51

[10]. Hugh of Clopton’s bridge at Stratford-on-Avon, fifteenth century • 55

[11]. The chapel on the bridge at Wakefield, century. From a copyright photograph by G. and J. Hall, of Wakefield • 67

[12]. The bridge with a defensive tower at Warkworth, Northumberland, fourteenth century. From a photograph by G. W. Wilson, of Aberdeen • 71

[13]. The defensive tower on the Monnow Bridge at Monmouth, from a photograph obligingly supplied by Mr. Oliver Baker • 75

[14]. The one-arched bridge on the Esk, near Danby Castle, Yorkshire, built during the fourteenth century by Neville, Lord Latimer, the arms of whom are still to be seen at the top of the bridge. From a photograph obtained through the kindness of the Rev. J. C. Atkinson, of Danby Parsonage, York • 77

[15]. The parliament sitting in Westminster. From the MS. Harl. 1319, in the British Museum, fol. 57, painted circa 1400. This MS. contains a chronicle of the last years of Richard II, written in his native tongue by a French gentleman called Créton, who accompanied the king in his last journey to Ireland. It is invaluable both for its text and its pictures; in both the author seems to have been very careful to adhere to facts. He begins writing in verse, but afterwards takes to prose, stating that he is coming now to events of such importance that he prefers using prose, to make sure that he shall not allow himself to be led by fancy.

He must have himself superintended the painting with the greatest care. There can be no doubt that the figures are actual portraits; of this there are two proofs: first, when the same person appears in several paintings he is always given the same features, and can be easily recognized; second, the exact resemblance of one of the persons can be put beyond a doubt, which makes it likely that the others also resemble their originals. Richard II, the image of whom constantly recurs in the pictures, is easily recognizable as having the same features as in the bronze statue over his tomb at Westminster. And we know for certain that this tomb and statue were ordered by Richard himself during his lifetime; the indenture with the seals attached, dated 18 Rich. II (1395), and binding two apparently English artists, viz., “Nicholas Broker et Godfrey Prest, citeins et copersmythes de Loundres,” is still in existence at the Record Office.

The sitting of the parliament here represented is the famous one when Richard was deposed, and Henry of Lancaster came forth to “chalenge yis Rewme of Yngland” (“Rolls of Parliament,” iii. p. 422), Oct. 1399, and the throne was then, as seen in the painting, left unoccupied, “sede regali cum pannis auri solempniter preparata, tunc vacua,” “Rolls,” ibid. On the right of the throne are seated the spiritual lords; on the left the temporal lords, knights, &c. The nearest to the throne left is Henry of Lancaster (wearing a tall fur cap). Says Créton:

“Entour le dit siége asez près

Estoient les prélas assis . . .

D’autre costé tous les seigneurs,

Grans moyens petiz et meneurs (lesser ones) . . .

Premiers seoit le duc Henry

Et puis tout au plus près de ly

Le duc Diorc (York) son beau cousin,” &c. • 87

[16]. A common cart. From the MS. 10 E. IV., in the British Museum, fol. 110 b, early fourteenth century, English • 90

[17]. A reaper’s cart going up-hill. From the Louterell psalter; fac-simile of the engraving in the “Vetusta Monumenta,” Society of Antiquaries, vol. vi.; see in that vol., “Remarks on the Louterell psalter,” by J. G. Rokewood—“Dominus Galfridus Louterell me fieri fecit.” English, first half of the fourteenth century • 93

[18]. Ladies travelling in their carriage with their dogs and pet animals, one of which is a squirrel. One of the followers travelling on horseback, to be more at his ease and to be able to defy the wind, has covered his head with his hood, and carries his tall hat hanging to his girdle. From the Louterell psalter. See preceeding No. • 97

[19]. A young squire travelling:

“And he hadde ben somtyme in chivachie,

In Flaundres, in Artoys, and in Picardie,

And born him wel, as of so litel space,

In hope to stonden in his lady grace.

Embrowdid was he, as it were a mede

Al ful of fressh floures, white and reede,

Syngynge he was, or flowtynge al the day;

He was as fressh as is the moneth of May.”

From the Ellesmere MS. of the “Canterbury Tales.” The Ellesmere cuts are used by the kind permission of Dr. Furnivall • 100

[20]. Travelling in a horse-litter; a lady and a wounded knight are carried in the litter; squires escort them. From the MS. 118 Français, fol. 285, in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris; “Romance of Lancelot,” late fourteenth century, French. A good example of a State horse-litter is to be found in the MS. 18 E. II, in the British Museum, fol. 7; “Chronicles of Froissart,” French, fifteenth century • 101

[21–22]. Ladies on horseback. Two drawings illustrative of both ways of riding; sitting sideways: Chaucer’s prioresse, and riding astride: Chaucer’s Wife of Bath. From the Ellesmere MS. • 105

[23]. A family dinner. From the MS. Addit. 28162, in the British Museum, fol. 10 b, early fourteenth century; French. Note the carver, the cup-bearer, the musicians, the marshal of the hall, whose mission it is to expel objectionable intruders, whether men or dogs. In the present case, while this officer is expelling a very objectionable lazar, come under pretence of sprinkling the diners with holy water, a little further a dog seizes his opportunity, and gets hold of a fish on the table. The carver grasps the meat with his left hand; forks then were unknown, but good breeding was, nevertheless, not neglected, and it consisted in the server’s touching the meat only with the left hand. Writing later than the time we speak of, John Russell, marshal of the hall to Duke Humphrey of Gloucester (fifteenth century), adds one refinement more, that is to use only three fingers of the left hand. This was, in his mind, the acme of fine breeding:

“Sett never on fysche nor flesche, nor fowle trewly,

Moore than ij fyngurs and a thombe, for that is curtesie.

Touche never with youre right hande no maner mete surely.”

“Boke of Nurture” (Furnivall, 1868, p. 137).

It may be seen from our picture that part of these niceties was unknown yet to carvers in the first half of the fourteenth century. The whole of the left hand is used to grasp the meat • 109

[24].

“A cooke thei hadde . . .

To boyle chiknes and the mary bones.”

From the illumination in the Ellesmere MS. of the “Canterbury Tales.” The pot-hooks with three prongs, which he carries, were the distinctive attribute of cooks and cookmaids, and appear on all representations of such people: several are to be found in the Louterell psalter; see “Vetusta Monumenta,” vol. vi., the Roy. MS. 10 E. IV., passim, &c. They used it to turn the meat and take it out of the deep round-bellied pots, standing on three legs over the fire, which were then in common use • 116

[25]. The new habits of luxury; a gentleman, helped by two attendants, dressing before the fire in his bedroom. From the MS. 2 B. vii., in the British Museum, fol. 72 b, English, early fourteenth century • 127

Of this luxury, of the spread of the use of chimneys, &c., Langland, as a satirist, complains; and this, as a marshal of the hall, John Russell a little later recommends as the proper method of dressing for a gentleman. He then thus addresses the attendant:

“Than knele down on youre kne, and thus to youre soverayn ye say:

‘Syr, what robe or govn pleseth it yow to were today?’” &c.

“Boke of Nurture” (Furnivall, 1868, p. 178).

[26]. An English inn of the fourteenth century. From the Louterell psalter • 129

[27]. The New Inn, Gloucester, originally built for pilgrims, middle of the fifteenth century, still in use • 131

[28]. On the roadside; the alehouse. From the MS. 10 E. IV., in the British Museum, fol. 114 b; English, fourteenth century • 133

[29]. The hermitage chapel of St. Robert, hewn out of the limestone, at Knaresborough, Yorkshire, thirteenth century; the figure of the knight, of a much later date. Similar rock habitations are innumerable in France in the valley of the Loire and of certain of its affluents, especially in Vendomois (at Troo for example); some are still occupied; several were, in the middle ages, the place of abode of hermits and still bear signs thereof • 139

[30]. A Hermit in his solitude, tempted by the devil; MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 113 b. The miniature reproduced is one out of several which illustrate a well-known mediæval tale. Here it may be remarked that though this MS., invaluable as it is for the study of English customs, dresses, &c., during the fourteenth century has been often made use of, it has perhaps never been so thoroughly studied as it deserves. It contains Decretals, with marginal coloured drawings of the highest value on account of their variety and the subjects they illustrate. Not only a number of games and trades are there represented, with many miracles of the Virgin, &c., but there are also complete tales told by the draughtsman, without words, and only with the help of his colours. He does not invent his stories, but simply illustrates the fabliaux which he remembered and particularly relished. The drawing here belongs to the story of the “hermit who got drunk.” As he was once sitting before his cell he was tempted by the devil, who reproached him with his continual virtue, and entreated him to sin at least once, recommending him to choose either to get drunk or to commit adultery or to commit murder. The hermit chose the first as being the least (see below, p. [133], the picture where he is seen at his drink). But when he has once got drunk he finds on his way the wife of his friend the miller; he commits adultery with her, and then meeting the husband, kills him. The text of the tale is in Méon, “Nouveau recueil de fabliaux,” 1829, vol. ii. p. 173, “De l’ermite qui s’enyvra” • 144

[31]. Escaped prisoner flying to sanctuary. From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 206 b, in the British Museum, fourteenth century • 149

[32]. The Durham knocker (Norman), affixed to one of the doors of the cathedral. Fugitives used it to be admitted to sanctuary. Cf. a capital in the church at Saint Nectaire, Puy de Dôme, XIth century, representing, in accordance with Professor Enlart’s interpretation, a man who flies to sanctuary and embraces a column thereof, while an angel with drawn sword stands by to protect him • 158

[33]. The stone frith or frid stool in Hexham Abbey, Northumberland, dating from Saxon times, possibly the episcopal chair of St. Wilfrid, a great church builder, bishop of Hexham in the early years of the VIIIth century • 160

[34]. The stone fridstool at Sprotborough, Yorkshire, fourteenth century, a view kindly procured by my British colleague at Washington, Lord Grey of Fallodon • 161

[35]. An adventure seeker. From the MS. 2 B. vii., fol. 149, English, early fourteenth century • 181

[36]. A blind beggar led by his dog. From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 110 • 182

[37]. A Physician (Chaucer’s Doctour of Phisik):

“He knew the cause of every malady.”

From the Ellesmere MS. • 183

[38]. Playing upon the vielle (viol). From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 4 • 207

[39]. The “Minstrels’ gallery” in the Exeter cathedral, fourteenth century. From a photograph by Messrs. Frith and Co. • 209

[40]. A fourteenth-century juggler. From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 5 • 216

[41]. Favourite dances of the fourteenth century; a woman dancing head downwards, to the sound of a tabor and a double flute. From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 58. Representations of such dances of women, head downwards, are innumerable in MSS., painted glass, old portals, &c. There is one in the album of Villard de Honnecourt, thirteenth century, ed. Lassus and Darcel; the interest taken in such performances is attested by countless examples • 219

[42]. Favourite dances in Persia. From a pencil-case in the possession of the author. See also the life-size Persian paintings exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum, where similar dances are represented • 220

[43]. A performing bear. From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 154, in the British Museum, English, fourteenth century • 222

[44]. A sham messenger carrying a letter. From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 53 b • 223

[45]. A professional messenger. From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 302 b, in the British Museum, English, fourteenth century • 228

[46]. A travelling pedlar; his bag robbed by monkeys. From the MS. 10 E. IV., in the British Museum, fol. 149 b • 238

[47]. A rich merchant travelling (Chaucer’s Marchaunt):

“A marchaunt was ther with a forked berd,

In motteleye, and high on horse he sat,

Uppon his heed a Flaundrisch bever hat . . .

Ther wiste no man that he was in dette

So estately was he of governaunce.”

From the Ellesmere MS. • 245

[48]. Forest life; wood-cutters. From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 100 b • 254

[49]. Forest life; a shooting casualty. From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 203 a • 258

[50]. Reaping time. Labourers reaping corn under the supervision of the hayward. From the MS. 2 B. vii., fol. 78 b. English, early fourteenth century. “They dwell in fayre houses, and we haue the payne and traueyle, rayne and wynd in the feldes” (speech of John Ball, in Lord Berners’ Froissart, chap. ccclxxxi). The overseer shown in the drawing may possibly be a bailiff: “Supervidere debet ballivus falcatores, messores, cariatores,” &c. (“Fleta,” cap. 73), or a provost, who had about the same duties, but was practically chosen by the peasants themselves. But it seems more likely to be a hayward; the dress and attitude better suit a man in that station. The care of seeing that “repemen . . . repe besili and clenli,” was sometimes entrusted to such officers; see Skeat, “Notes to Piers the Plowman,” Early English Text Society, 1877, p. 273. A horn, such as our man bears, was always carried by haywards, who used to blow it to warn off people from straying in the crops. The rough and commanding attitude seen in the drawing would not be so readily expected from a bailiff with his juridical knowledge and com­par­a­tive­ly high function, or from a provost appointed by the peasants themselves, as from a hayward or garde champêtre • 267

[51]. In the stocks. A woman and a monk are put into them; a gentleman abuses them. From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 187, where it forms part of a series of drawings illustrating a fabliau of the same sort as the one alluded to above (illustration No. 28). It is called, Du soucretain et de la fame au chevalier; the author is Rutebeuf, and it may be found in the works of this the most famous of the French thirteenth-century poets (ed. Jubinal, or ed. Kressner) • 272

[52]. Stocks at Shalford, near Guildford; present state, a drawing by Aug. de Blignières • 274

[53]. Beggars. A cripple and other beggars helped by a generous king to his own garments. From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 261 b • 275

[54]. A friar (Chaucer’s friar). From the Ellesmere MS. “And it shall be lawful for such as shall be compelled by necessity to be shod, . . . and they are not to ride unless some manifest necessity or infirmity oblige them.” “The rule of the Friars Minors,” Dugdale’s “Monasticon,” 1817, vol. vi. part iii. p. 1504 • 283

[55]. “When Adam delved and Eve span”—the text of John Ball’s harangue (same idea in Wace’s “Roman de Rou,” l. 6027), illustrated from the early fourteenth-century MS., 2 B. vii., 4 b, in the British Museum. (English) • 287

[56]. A worldly ecclesiastic—

“Ful wel biloved and familiar was he

. . . with worthie wommen.”

(Prologue of the “Canterbury Tales”). From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 185. Belongs to the same story as No. 48 • 292

[57]. Psalm singing. The interior of a friars’ church. From the MS. Domit. A. xvii., fol. 120 b, in the British Museum, early fifteenth century. The splendour of this church, with its beautiful pavement, its sculptured stalls, altar, roof, and pinnacles, very exactly tallies with the contemporary criticisms against the wealth of the friars, and may be taken as an illustration of the very words of Wyclif and Langland • 299

[58]. Sprinkling people at dinner with holy water. From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 108 b • 304

[59]. A game of fox and geese. From the MS. 10 E. IV., fol. 49 b • 312

[60]. Reading in Canterbury cathedral of a fabricated papal bull granting pardons to those who will help Henry of Lancaster against King Richard II. From the MS. Harl. 1319, fol. 12 a, containing the chronicle of Créton; see supra No. 14. The archbishop, Thomas Arundel, the same who led Henry IV to the empty throne, shown in No. 15, is represented saying: “My good people, hearken all of you here. You well know how the King most wrongfully and without reason banished your lord Henry; I have therefore obtained of the Holy Father who is our patron, that those that shall forthwith bring aid this day, shall every one of them have remission of all sins. . . . Behold the sealed bull that the Pope of renowned Rome hath sent me, my good friends, in behalf of you all.” John Webb’s translation of Créton’s chronicle, “Archæologia,” vol. xx. • 319

[61]. A pardoner (Chaucer’s pardoner)—

“A vernicle hadde he sowed on his cappe,

His walet lay byforn him in his lappe

Bret-ful of pardoun come from Rome al hoot.”

From the Ellesmere MS. of the “Canterbury Tales” • 336

[62]. Rocamadour, general view. From a photograph, obtained through the kindness of Canon Laporte, of Rocamadour • 338

[63]. A pilgrim. From the MS. 17 C. xxxviii, fol. 39, in the British Museum; travels of Mandeville, English, fifteenth century • 369

[64]. The fortified entrance to the sanctuaries of Rocamadour, built in the eleventh century, recently restored. From a photograph obtained as above, No. 62 • 373

[65]. Travelling by sea. From the MS. Harl. 1319, fol. 7 b. The subject is the return of Richard II from Ireland to England • 377

[66]. The southern entrance to St. James of Compostela, twelfth century, “Plaza de las Platerias” (silversmiths). The present cathedral, replacing an older one, destroyed by the Moors, was begun in the middle of the eleventh century, and dedicated in 1211 • 381

[67]. A sample of Pilgrims’ signs, as sold to them at Walsingham; from the original in the British Museum • 418

[68]. A blind beggar and his boy. The trick played upon the blind man by his boy is well known as being one of the incidents in the first chapter of the sixteenth-century Spanish novel, “Lazarillo de Tormes.” It has long been suspected that the materials for this chapter were drawn by the Spanish author from an earlier tale. This drawing and several others that follow it, never adverted to with reference to “Lazarillo de Tormes,” put the fact beyond a doubt; they tell in their way the same tale, and they are of the first part of the fourteenth century. MS. 10 E. IV., in the British Museum, fol. 217 b; see above No. 30 • 419

3. THE THREE-BRANCHED BRIDGE AT CROWLAND.

INTRODUCTION

“O, dist Spadassin, voici un bon resveux; mais allons nous cacher au coin de la chem­i­née et là passons avec les dames nostre vie et nostre temps à enfiler des perles ou à filer comme Sardanapalus. Qui ne s’ad­ven­ture n’a cheval ni mule, ce dist Salomon.”

VIE DE GARGANTUA.

At the present day there are but few wayfarers. The small trades plyed along the road, in every chance village, are disappearing before our newer methods of wholesale manufacture; more and more rarely do we see the pedlar unstrap his pack at the farm door, the travelling cobbler mend by the wayside the shoes which on Sunday will replace the wooden clogs, or hear the wandering musician drone at the windows his oft rehearsed tunes. Professional pilgrims exist no longer, even quack doctors are losing their credit. It was far otherwise in the Middle Ages; many people were bound to a wandering existence, and started even from childhood on their life-long journey. Some trotted their strange industries in the broad sunshine, through the dust of the highroads; others skulked in bye-lanes or {24} even in coppices, hiding their heads from the sheriff’s officer—may be a criminal, may be a fugitive, “a wolf’s head that anyone may cut down,” according to the terrible expression of an English jurist of the thirteenth century. Among these, many labourers who had broken the villeins bond, unhappy and oppressed in their hamlets, and who wandered through the country in quest of work, as though flight could enfranchise them: but “service est en le sank” (“service is in the blood”), the magistrate warned them.[1] Among them also, pedlars laden with petty wares; pilgrims who from St. Thomas’ to St. James’ went begging along the roads, living by alms; pardoners, those strange nomads, who sold to the common people the merits of the saints in paradise; mendicant friars and preachers of all sorts who, according to the times, delivered ardently liberal harangues or contemptibly selfish discourses at the church doors. All these had one character in common, namely, that in the wide extent of country where they passed their lives, ever on the move, they served as links between the separated groups of other men who, attached to the soil by law or custom, spent the whole of their days, irremovable, under the same sky, on the same ground, at the same toil.

Pursuing their singular work, these wanderers, who had seen and experienced so much, served to give some idea of the great unknown world to the humble classes whom they met on their way. Together with many false beliefs and fables they put into the heads of the stay-at-homes certain notions of extent and of active life which these would hardly otherwise have acquired; above all, they brought to the land-bound men news of their brethren in the neighbouring province, of their condition of misery or of happiness, and these were pitied {25} or envied accordingly, and remembered as brothers or friends to call upon in the day of revolt.

At a period when, for the mass of mankind, ideas were transmitted orally and travelled with these wanderers along the roads, the nomads served as a link between the human groups of various districts. It would be therefore of great interest for the historian to know what were these channels of the popular thought, what life was led by those who filled such a function, what were their influence and manners. We shall try to study the chief types of this race, and shall choose them in England in the fourteenth century, in a country and at an epoch when their social importance was considerable. The interest which attaches to them is of course manifold; the personality of these pardoners, professional pilgrims, and minstrels, extinct species, is in itself curious to scrutinize; but not more so than their state of mind and the mode in which they carried on their businesses, both reacting on the social condition of a great people which had just been formed and was acquiring the features and the character still its own at the present day. It was the period when, thanks to the French wars and the incessant embarrassments of royalty, the subjects of Edward III and of Richard II gained a parliament similar to that which we now see; the period when, in religious life, the independence of the English spirit asserted itself through the reforms of Wyclif, the statutes for the clergy, and the protests of the Good Parliament; when, in literature, Chaucer inaugurated the series of England’s great poets, and instead of one more commonplace dream, Langland, like Dante, gave to his compatriots Visions; when, in short, from noble to villein was felt a stir which led without excessive revolution to that true liberty for which we, the French, had long to envy our neighbours. This epoch is decisive in the history of the country. It will be seen that in all the great questions debated in the cloister, in the castle, {26} or on the market-place, the part played by the wayfarers, though scarcely visible at times, was not insignificant.

We must first examine the place of the scene, afterwards the events that happened there; see what were the roads, then what were the beings who frequented them.

PART I ENGLISH ROADS

4. OLD LONDON BRIDGE.

(From MS. Roy. 16 F2 in the British Museum.)

CHAPTER I ROADS AND BRIDGES

The maintenance of roads and bridges in England was in the four­teenth cen­tury one of those charges which weighed, like military service, on the whole of the nation. All landed proprietors were obliged, in theory, to watch over the good condition of the highways; their tenants had to execute the repairs for them. The religious houses themselves, owners of property given in frank almoigne, that is to say, with a purely charitable object, were dispensed from every service and rent towards their benefactor, no other charge being usually left but that of saying prayers or giving alms for the repose of the donor’s soul. It remained, however, for them to satisfy for public weal the trinoda necessitas, or triple obligation, which among other duties consisted in the repairing of bridges.[2] {30}

There existed in England a very considerable network of roads, the principal of which dated as far back as the Roman times. The province of Britain had been one of those where the greatest care had been bestowed upon the military and commercial ways by the Roman emperors. “The network of roads in the island,” says Mommsen, “which was uncommonly developed, and for which in particular Hadrian did much in connection with the building of his wall, was of course primarily subservient to military ends; but alongside of, and in part taking precedence over the legionary camps, Londinium occupies in that respect a place which brings clearly into view its leading position in traffic.”[3] In many places are yet to be found remnants of the Roman highways, the more important of which were called in Anglo-Saxon times, and since, Watling Street, Erming Street, the Fosse, and Ikenild Street. “These Roman ways in Britain have frequently been continued as the publick roads, so that where a Roman military way is wanting, the presumption is in favour of the present highroad, if that be nearly in the same direction.”[4] There are two reasons for that permanence: the first is that the roads were built by the Romans to supply needs which have not ceased to be felt; being cut, for instance, from London to the north through York; towards Cornwall along the sea coast; towards the Welsh mines, &c.; the second reason is the way in which they were built. “A portion of the Fosse Road which remains at Radstock, about ten miles south-west of Bath, and was opened in February, 1881, showed the following construction: {31}

“1. Pavimentum, or foundation, fine earth, hard beaten in.

“2. Statumen, or bed of the road, composed of large stones, sometimes mixed with mortar.

“3. Ruderatio, or small stones well mixed with mortar.

“4. Nucleus, formed by mixing lime, chalk, pounded brick or tile; or gravel, sand, and lime mixed with clay.

“5. Upon this was laid the surface of the paved road, technically called the summum dorsum.”[5]

All Roman roads were not built with so much care and in such an enduring fashion; they were, however, all of them substantial enough to resist for centuries, and they remained in use during the Middle Ages. Other roads besides were opened during that epoch to provide for new fortified towns and castles, and to satisfy the needs of great landowners, religious or otherwise.

The keeping of roads and bridges in repair, the latter included in the trinoda necessitas, was not considered as worldly, but rather as pious and meritorious work before God, of the same sort as visiting the sick or caring for the poor;[6] men saw in them a true charity for a certain category of sufferers, namely, travellers; this is why the clergy submitted to it. The pious character of this kind of {32} labour may suffice to prove that the roads were not so safe or in such a good state as has been sometimes maintained.[7] The noblest outcome of the religious spirit prevalent in the Middle Ages was that disinterested enthusiasm which, as soon as some distress of humanity became flagrant, created societies for help and rendered self-denial popular. One of these distresses was seen, for example, in the power of the infidel, and the Crusades were the consequence. The forsaken condition of the lowest classes in the towns was noticed in the thirteenth century, and St. Francis sent for the consolation of the neglected, those mendicant friars at first so justly popular, and who so promptly fell into disrepute. After the same fashion travellers were considered as sufferers deserving pity, and help was given to them to please God. A religious order with this end in view had been founded in the twelfth century, that of the Pontiff brothers, or makers of bridges (pons, bridge), which spread into several countries of the Continent.[8] In France they built over the Rhône the celebrated bridge of Avignon, which yet preserves four arches of their construction; and the one at Pont St. Esprit, which is still in use, nineteen out of its twenty-five arches dating from the years 1265 to 1309 when it was erected. To break the force of such a current as that of the Rhône they built, near together, piers of oblong form, ending in a sharp angle at the two extremities of their axis,[9] and their masonry was {35} so solid that in many places the waters have respected it to the present day, that is, for eight centuries. They also had establishments on the banks of rivers, and helped to cross them by boat. Their most memorable accomplishment was, however, the replacing of the same ferries and of short-lived, often dangerous timber bridges by stone ones, the normal progression for river crossing being, throughout ages, the ford, the ferry, the timber bridge, the stone bridge. Laymen learnt the secret of their art and in the thirteenth century began to take their place. Bridges multiplied in France; many still exist, such, for example, as the fine fourteenth-century bridge at Orthez, the two at Limoges, of the thirteenth century, one of them with its chapel, the beautiful bridge at Cahors, where even the machicolated turrets which formerly served to defend it are still preserved, restored, it is true, by the clever but strong hand of Viollet Le Duc.[10]

5. THE OLD BRIDGE AT AVIGNON.

(Twelfth Century; present state.)

In England, as in France, wooden bridges had in most cases preceded stone ones. The former were built of oak, like the one over the river Lune, in the city of Lancaster, for which we find John of Gaunt writing to “monsire Adam de Hoghton, nostre chief forestier de Wyresdale,” to hand to John Ermyte of Singleton, who had actually paid for them, one hundred and twenty oak trees from the said forest of Wyresdale, “selected among the properest and aptest, such as the said John will designate. And {36} mind not to fail to act thus, nor cause that the before mentioned work be thereby delayed in any way.”[11]

There is no trace in England of establishments founded by the Bridge Friars, but it is certain that there, as elsewhere, the works for constructing bridges and highways had a pious character. To encourage the faithful to take part in them, Richard de Kellawe, Bishop of Durham from 1311 to 1316, remitted part of the penance for their sins. The registry of his episcopal chancery contains frequent entries such as the following: “Memorandum . . . his lordship grants forty days indulgence to all who will draw from the treasure that God has given them valuable and charitable aid towards the building and repair of Botyton bridge.” Forty days are allowed on another occasion for help towards the bridge and the highroad between Billingham and Norton,[12] and forty days for the {39} great road from Brotherton to Ferrybridge. The wording of this last decree is characteristic:

“To all those, &c. Persuaded that the minds of the faithful are more ready to attach themselves to pious works when they have received the salutary encouragement of fuller indulgences, trusting in the mercy of God Almighty and the merits and prayers of the glorious Virgin his Mother, of St. Peter, St. Paul, and of the most holy confessor Cuthbert our patron, and all saints, we remit forty days of the penances imposed on all our parishioners and others . . . sincerely contrite and shriven of their sins, who shall help by their charitable gifts, or by their bodily labour, in the building or in the maintenance of the causeway between Brotherton and Ferrybridge on which a great many people pass.”[13]

6. THE VALENTRE BRIDGE AT CAHORS.

(Thirteenth Century; photographed by Mr. Enlart, director of the Trocadero Museum.)

Causeways, owing to the abundance of marshy ground, since drained, were scarcely less needed than bridges and were also considered a meritorious work. A passage in Leland well shows what they consisted of, how much wanted, and what a proper object they were, for generous minded, pious benefactors: “This cawsey by Skipbridge towards Yorke hathe a nineteen small bridges on it for avoydinge and overpassynge carres cuming out of the mores thereby. One Blackeburne, that was twys maior of Yorke, made this cawsey and a nothar without one of the suburbs of Yorke. This Blakeburn hathe a solemne obiit in the Minstar of Yorke and a cantuari at Richemond.”[14]

Municipal bodies, as well as gilds, those lay brotherhoods imbued with the religious spirit, took care also in many cases of roads and bridges. The Gild of the Holy Cross in Birmingham, founded under Richard II, did this, and their intervention was most valuable, as the {40} Commissioners of Edward VI remarked two centuries later. The gild then “mainteigned . . . and kept in good reparaciouns two greate stone bridges, and divers foule and daungerous high wayes, the charge whereof the towne of hitsellfe ys not hable to mainteign. So that the lacke thereof wilbe a greate noysaunce to the kinges maties subjectes passing to and from the marches of Wales and an vtter ruyne to the same towne, being one of the fayrest and most proffittuble townes to the kinges highnesse in all the shyre.”[15]

An example of municipal action can be found in the Ordinances of Worcester, prescribing that “the Brugge (bridge) may be overseyn at alle tymes for the surete of the cite. And that the reparacion of the saide Brugge be overloked by the chamberleyns every quarter.”[16]

Whether Queen Mathilda (twelfth century) got wetted or not, as is supposed, on passing the ford of the river at Stratford-atte-Bow—that same village where afterwards the French was spoken at which old Chaucer smiled—certain it is that she thought she was doing a meritorious work in constructing two bridges there.[17] Several times repaired, Bow Bridge was still standing in 1839. The queen endowed her foundation, granting land and a water-mill to the Abbess of Barking with a perpetual charge thereon for the maintenance of the bridge and the neighbouring roadway. When the queen died, an abbey for men was founded at the same Stratford, close to the bridges, and the abbess hastened to transfer to the new monastery the property in the mill and the charge of the reparations. The abbot had them done at first, {41} then wearied of it, and delegated the care of them to one Godfrey Pratt. He had built this man a house on the causeway beside the bridge, and paid him an annual grant. For a long time Pratt carried out the contract, “getting assistance,” says an inquiry of Edward I, “from some passers-by, but without often having recourse to their aid.” He also received alms from travellers, and his affairs prospered. They prospered so well that the abbot thought he would withdraw his pension; Pratt indemnified himself the best way he could. He set up iron bars across the bridge and made all pay who passed over, except the rich, for he prudently made exception “for nobility; he feared them and let them pass without molesting them.” The dispute only ended in the time of Edward II; the abbot acknowledged his fault; resumed the charge of the bridge, and suppressed the iron bars, the toll, and Godfrey Pratt himself.

7. BOW BRIDGE AS IT STOOD BEFORE ITS DEMOLITION IN 1839.

(From a print dated 1831.)

This bridge, over which no doubt Chaucer must have passed, was of stone, the arches were narrow and the piers thick; strong angular buttresses strengthened them and broke the force of the current; these formed at the upper part a triangle or siding which served as a refuge for foot-passengers, for the way was so narrow that a cart sufficed to fill it. When it was pulled down in 1839, it was found that the method of construction had been very simple. To ground the piers in the bed of the river the masons had simply thrown down stones and mortar till the level of the water had been reached. {42} It was remarked also that the ill-will of Pratt or the abbot or their successors must have rendered the bridge almost as dangerous at certain moments as the primitive ford. The wheels of the vehicles had hollowed such deep ruts in the stone and the horses’ shoes had so worn the pavement that an arch had been at one time pierced through.

No less striking as a case where pious motives caused the building of a bridge is the contract of the thirteenth century, by which Reginald de Rosels allowed Peter, Abbot of Whitby, to erect a permanent bridge on the river Esk, between his own and the convent’s lands. He pledged himself in that act to permit to all comers free access to the bridge through his own property. “For which concession the aforesaid Abbot and convent have absolved in chapter all the ancestors of the same Reginald of all fault and transgression they may have committed against the church of Whiteby and have made them participant of all the good works, alms, and prayers of the church of Whiteby.”[18] Numerous other examples of the same sort might be quoted; but it will be enough to add, as being perhaps more characteristic of the times than all the rest, the recommendations which Truth in the “Vision concerning Piers the Plowman” makes to the wealthy English merchants, the number of whom had so largely increased during the fourteenth century. Truth bids them to do several works of charity, which he considers of the highest importance for their salvation; they ought, among other things, to “amenden mesondieux,” that is, hospitals for sick people and for travellers; to repair “wikked wayes,” that is to say, bad roads; and also

“ . . . brygges to-broke · by the heye weyes

Amende in som manere wise.” {43}

For this and for helping prisoners, poor scholars, etc., they will have no little recompense. When they are about to die St. Michael himself will be sent to drive away devils that they be not tormented by evil spirits in their last moments:

“And ich shal sende yow my-selve · seynt Michel myn Angel

That no devel shal yow dere · ne despeir in youre deyinge,

And sende youre soules · ther ich my-self dwelle.”[19]

The pious character of the bridges was also shown by the chapels that stood on them. Bow Bridge was thus placed under the protection of St. Catherine. London Bridge had a chapel dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury;[20] a roomy Gothic building of apsidal form, with high windows and wrought pinnacles, almost a church. A miniature in a manuscript, of which a reproduction on a reduced scale is given at the beginning of this chapter, shows it fixed on the middle pier, whilst along the parapet are houses with gabled roofs, whose storeys project and overhang the Thames.

This was a famous bridge. No Englishman of the Middle Ages, and even of the Renaissance, ever spoke but with pride of London Bridge; it was the great national wonder; until the middle of the eighteenth century it remained (with the exception of some small ones which have disappeared as well as the narrow waters that they crossed)[21] the only bridge of the capital. It had been commenced in 1176, on the site of an old wooden {44} structure, dating back to Saxon times,[22] by Peter Colechurch, “priest and chaplain,” who had already once repaired the wooden bridge. The whole nation was stirred by this great and useful enterprise; the King, the citizens of London, the dwellers in the shires endowed the building with lands and sent money to hasten its completion. The list of donors was still to be seen in the sixteenth century, on “a table fayre written for posterity,”[23] in the bridge chapel.

A little while before his death in 1205 another had taken the place of Peter Colechurch, then very old, as director of the works. King John, who was in France, struck with the beauty of the bridges of that country, and having heard of the magnificent bridge of Saintes which lasted till the middle of the nineteenth century, and which was approached by a Roman triumphal arch, chose, as successor to Colechurch, a Frenchman, called Isembert, “master of the Saintes schools” (1202). Isembert, who had given proof of his capacity in the bridges of La Rochelle and of Saintes,[24] set out with his assistants, furnished with a royal patent addressed to the mayor and inhabitants of London. John Lackland therein vaunted the skill of the master, a man, he said, “of both knowledge and honesty,” and declared that the revenue arising from the houses that he would build upon the bridge should be consecrated for ever to the maintenance of an edifice “so necessary for you and for all those passing thereby.”[25]

8. PART OF LONDON BRIDGE WITH THE DRAWBRIDGE AND NONE-SUCH HOUSE.

(As it stood about A.D. 1600.)

The bridge was finished in 1209, when four “worthy mar­chants of Lon­don” had be­come “prin­ci­pall maist­ers of that work.”[26] It was fur­nished with houses, a chap­el, and de­fen­sive tow­ers. It immediately became celebrated, and was the admiration of all England. The Scot, Sir David Lindesay, Earl of Crawford, having fallen out with Lord Welles, ambassador at the Scottish Court, a duel was decided on, and Lindesay chose London Bridge as the place of combat (1390). He crossed the length of the kingdom, supplied with a safe-conduct from King Richard II, and the duel solemnly came off at the place fixed in the presence of an immense concourse. The first shock was so violent that the lances were shivered, but the Scotchman remained immovable in his saddle. The people, fearing for the success of the English diplomat, shouted that his adversary was tied to his horse against all rules. Hearing this Lindesay, by way of reply, leapt lightly to the ground, with one bound returned to the saddle and, charging his adversary anew, overthrew and grievously wounded him.[27]

The houses built on the bridge were several storeys high; they had cellars in the thickness of the piers. When the inhabitants needed water they lowered their buckets by ropes out of the windows and filled them in the Thames. Sometimes they helped with their ropes poor fellows whose boat had capsized: the arches were narrow, and it was not uncommon in the dark for a boat to strike against the piers and be dashed to pieces. The Duke of Norfolk and several others were saved in this manner in 1428, but some of their companions were drowned. At other times the inhabitants themselves had need of help, for it happened occasionally that the houses, badly repaired, leaned forward and fell in one {48} block into the river. A catastrophe of this kind took place in 1481.

One of the twenty arches of the bridge, the thirteenth from the City side, formed a drawbridge to allow boats to pass,[28] and also to close the approach to the town; this was the obstacle which in 1553 hindered the insurgents led by Sir Thomas Wyatt from entering London. Beside the movable arch rose a tower on the summit of which the executioner long placed the heads of decapitated criminals. That of the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, bled for a time on the end of a pike on this tower before it was redeemed by Margaret Roper, the daughter of the thinker who had written—“Utopia.”

Travellers wondered at the gruesome sight. “In London,” wrote Joseph Justus Scaliger, who visited the city in 1566, “there ever were many heads on the bridge. . . . I have seen there, as it were [masts] of ships and at the top of them quarters of men’s corpses.”[29]

In 1576, this tower of sombre memories was splendidly reconstructed; the new one, containing fine rooms, flooded with light by innumerable windows, was entirely of wood, carved and gilt, in the “paper worke” style popular in Elizabeth’s time, censured by steady Harrison. It was called “None-such House.” The heads of the “traitors,” sometimes traitors, sometimes saints, were no more to pollute a building so cheerful in aspect; they were placed on the next tower on the Southwark side. Four years after this change, fashionable Lyly the {49} Euphuist ended one of his books with a triumphal praise of England, its products, its universities, its capital, adding: “Among all the straunge and beautiful showes, mee thinketh there is none so notable as the Bridge which crosseth the Theames, which is in manner of a continuall streete, well replenyshed with large and stately houses on both sides, and situate upon twentie arches, whereof each one is made of excellent free stone squared, euerye one of them being three-score foote in height, and full twentie in distaunce one from an other.”[30]

The same arrangement prevailed in the case of important bridges in many countries. In Paris the “Notre Dame” bridge had the appearance of a street with sixty-eight houses built on it.[31] The bridge at Poissy[32] and others were of the same sort, the most famous of those which remain being the “Ponte Vecchio” in Florence.

Even at the time when Lyly praised London Bridge as deserving a place among the “straunge and beautiful {50} showes” of the city, and Stow described it as “a worke verie rare,” the structure was giving more and more frequent signs of decay. Ben Jonson describes a little later his Pennyboy senior as minding

“A curtesie no more then London-bridge

What arch was mended last.”[33]

Upon which that sour-mouthed reformer of poetry, and of bridges, William Gifford, observed in his day: “Two hundred years have nearly elapsed since this was written, and the observation still holds. This pernicious structure has wasted more money in perpetual repairs than would have sufficed to build a dozen safe and commodious bridges, and cost the lives, perhaps, of as many thousand people. This may seem little to those whom it concerns—but there is blood on the city, and a heavy account is before them. Had an alderman or a turtle been lost there, the nuisance would have been long removed.”[34]

Without specifying whether it was out of fear of Gifford, or interest in the aldermanic turtle, or perhaps some higher motives too, the proper authorities took radical measures as to the bridge in the first part of the nineteenth century. An attempt was first made to preserve it with the houses taken down, and broad, solid arches replacing the old ones in the centre of the stream; it had finally to be removed altogether. The present bridge, built near the site of the old one, replaced the “straunge and beautiful showe” of Lylyan days, the “pernicious structure” of Giffordian ones, and was opened to circulation in 1831, the expense having been £1,458,311. It must now live five centuries more to equal the longevity of its predecessor.

9. TAKING DOWN THE HOUSES ON OLD LONDON BRIDGE.

(From a water-colour painting by C. Pyne.)

This had been, all its life long, an exceptional bridge, {53} with a biography of its own, worthy of a biographer, which it got;[35] the others presented a less grandiose appearance. People were even very glad to find bridges like the one at Stratford-at-Bow, in spite of its want of width and its deep ruts; or like the wooden bridge over the Dyke with arches so low and narrow that all water traffic was interrupted by any slight rising of the level of the water. The state of this last bridge, which, in truth, was more of a hindrance than a help to communications, at length excited the indignation of neighbouring counties. During the fifteenth century, it was granted, therefore, to the inhabitants upon their pressing request, that they might reconstruct the bridge, with a movable arch for boats.[36]

In the same way disappeared, also in the fifteenth century, a bridge described by Leland in his “Itinerary” as having been a “poore bridge of tymber and no causey to come to it,” which crossed the Avon at Stratford. It was in such a state that “many poore folkys and othar refusyd to cum to Stratford when Avon was up, or cominge thithar stoode in jeoperdy of lyfe.” The rich Sir Hugh of Clopton, sometime mayor of London, who was born at Clopton near Stratford, and died in 1497, moved by the danger of his compatriots, and “having never wife nor children, convertid a great peace of his substance in good workes in Stratford, first making a sumptuus new bridge and large of stone, wher in the middle be a vi great arches for the maine streame of Avon and at eche ende certen smaul arches to bere the causey, and so to passe commodiously at such tymes as the ryver risith.”[37] This same bridge is still in use, and well deserves the praise bestowed upon it by Leland. But fine as it {54} is, one would have less regretted its disappearance than the destruction of a “praty house of bricke and tymbre,” built by the same Hugh of Clopton with the purpose of ending his days in it. That house was purchased afterwards—also with the intent of ending his life in it—by a certain countryman of Hugh, who has since become famous enough, William Shakespeare, who repaired the house, then called New Place, and died in it in the year 1616.

The calling in of the foreign cleric Isembert to superintend the works of London Bridge seems to have been exceptional. The building of ordinary bridges was usually entrusted to local craftsmen or masons; and it would have been strange indeed if the people who could raise such splendid cathedral naves all over England, had been at a loss to span rivers with bridges. One of the few indentures for the building of a bridge which have come down to us concerns the re-construction of Catterick bridge, Yorkshire, in 1422, on the great Roman road, the Erming Street, and the contractors seem to have been English. The document is curious in many respects.

The contract binds several authorities on the one hand, and “Tho. Ampilforde, John Garette, and Robert Maunselle, masons,” on the other. It is stated in it “yat ye foresaides Tho., John, and Rob., schalle make a brigge of stane oure (over) ye water of Swalle atte Catrik be twix ye old stane brigge and ye new brigge of tree (of wood), quilke forsaid brigge, with ye grace of God, salle be made sufficiant [and war]kmanly in mason craft accordand in substance to Barnacastelle brigge, aftir ye ground and ye watyr accordes, of twa pilers, twa land stathes (abutments), and thre arches.” The deed goes on to give a minute account of the way in which every part of the work must be performed, of the material that will be used, and of the time when the bridge must be entirely finished and open to circulation: “And ye {57} saides John, Tho., and Rob., schalle this forsaid brigge sufficiantly in masoncraft make and fully perfurnist in all partiez and holy endyd be ye Fest of Seint Michille ye Arcangelle quilk yt shalle fall in ye yere of our Lorde Gode Mle ccccxxv.” It is understood besides that they will receive in payment, at certain fixed dates, “gounes,” and also sums of money, the total of which will be 260 marks sterling.[38]

10. HUGH OF CLOPTON’S BRIDGE AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON.

(Fifteenth Century.)

The bridge built by the three masons, John, Thomas, and Robert, is still in existence, but it has undergone great and grievous alterations.

We have already seen some examples of the means employed at this period to secure the maintenance of these valuable constructions, when that maintenance had to be ensured by something more than the charges incident to the ownership of the neighbouring lands (trinoda necessitas); we know that it was sometimes provided through “indulgences” promised to benefactors, sometimes by the action of gilds, or municipalities, sometimes also by the endowments with which one of the great would enrich the bridge founded by him. But without speaking of occasional gifts,[39] several other methods were employed with success, even with profit, such as the lawful levying of those tolls which Godfrey Pratt had arbitrarily imposed on his fellow citizens, or the collection of pious offerings made at the chapel of the bridge and to its warden. The right of toll was called brudtholl (bridgetoll) or pontagium; the grantee, to whom the benefit went, bound himself in return to make all the necessary repairs. Sometimes the King accorded the right as a favour during a certain period, as appears, for example, from the {58} following petition, which is of the time of Edward I or Edward II:

“To our lord the king, prays his vassal William of Latymer lord of Yarm,[40] that he will grant him pontage for five years at the bridge of Yarm, which is broken down, where men were wont to pass with carts and with horses on the king’s highway between the water of Tees towards Scotland. May it please him to do this for the soul of Madame his consort, who is to God commended, and for the common profit of the people who pass.” The King’s reply was favourable: “The King grants the pontage for the term.”[41]

Some of the tariffs in force at certain bridges during the fourteenth century have come down to us and have been printed; the most detailed of these is of the year 1306, and concerns London Bridge. It is annexed to a patent of Edward I, and enumerates not only passengers, carriages, and animals of every quality or description, but also every sort of “saleable” ware which may pass either on or under the bridge: though it may seem somewhat unfair to have drawn money from shipmen towards the expenses of a structure that was their most formidable competitor.[42] This list, which is a great help in forming an exact idea of the commodities brought {59} to London by land or by river, covers no less than four pages of printed matter: including coal, timber, beer, wines, horses, cattle, pigs, grain, sheep, butter and cheese, fish, furs and skins, metal pots and cups, millstones, silk and other cloths, etc.; the place they come from is sometimes mentioned: Northampton, Flanders, Normandy.

Another very curious petition (1334) will show the use of the other mode, that is, the collection of voluntary offerings from charitable passers-by. The share of the clergy in the care of these buildings, the greediness with which the profitable right of collecting the gifts was disputed, and the embezzlements sometimes resulting therefrom are to be noticed:

“To our lord the king and his Council showeth their poor chaplain, Robert le Fenere, parson of the church of St. Clement, of Huntingdon, of the diocese of Lincoln, that there is a little chapel lately built in his parish on the bridge of Huntingdon, the keeping of which chapel our lord the king has granted and delivered during pleasure to one Sir Adam, warden of the house of St. John of Huntingdon, who receives and takes away all manner of offerings and alms without doing anything for the repair of the bridge or of the said chapel as he is bound to do. On the other hand, it seems hurtful to God and Holy Church that offerings should be appropriated to any one except to the parson within whose parish the chapel is founded. Wherefore the said Robert prays, for God and Holy Church and for the souls of our lord the king’s father and his ancestors, that he may have the keeping of the said chapel annexed to his church, together with the charge of the bridge, and he will take heed with all care to maintain them well, with better will than any stranger, for the profit and honour of Holy Church, to please God and all people passing that way.”[43]

This jumble of human and divine interests (from the birthplace, that was to be, of Oliver Cromwell) was submitted to the usual examination, and the request was set aside, with the following note: “Non est peticio parliamenti”; it is not a petition for Parliament.

In many cases, the bridge was itself at once proprietor of real estate and beneficiary of the offerings made to its chapel, and sometimes also grantee of a right of toll; it had income from both civil and religious sources. Such were notably the bridges of London, of Rochester,[44] of Bedford, and many others. John de Bodenho, chaplain, explains to Parliament that the inhabitants of Bedford hold their own town at farm from the king, and have undertaken to maintain their bridge. For this they “assigned certain tenements and rents in the said town to support it, and with their alms have newly built an oratory on the side of the water belonging to Lord Mowbray, by leave of the lord, adjoining the said bridge.” The burgesses gave to the plaintiff the charge of the reparations, together with the whole revenues. But the priest, John of Derby, represented to the king that it was a royal chapel which he might dispose of, and the king has given it to him, which is very unjust, since the chapel is not the king’s; even those who founded it are still living. All these reasons were found good; the judges were ordered to grant the plaintiff’s plea, and {61} were reprimanded for not having done it sooner, as had already been prescribed to them.[45]

Enriched by so many offerings, protected by the trinoda necessitas, and by the common interest of the landed proprietors, these bridges should have been continually repaired, and have remained sound. But there was nothing of the sort, and the distance between legal theory and actual practice was great. When the taxes were regularly collected and honestly applied, they usually sufficed to support the building; even the right of collecting them, being in itself profitable, was, as has been seen, strongly contested for; but the example of Godfrey Pratt and of some others has already shown that all the wardens were not honest. Many, even in the highest positions, imitated Godfrey. London Bridge itself, so rich, so useful, so admired, was in constant need of repairs, never done until danger was imminent, or even a catastrophe had happened. Henry III granted the farm of the bridge revenues “to his beloved wife,” who neglected to maintain it, and appropriated to herself without scruple the rents of the building; none the less did the king renew his patent at the expiration of the term, that his said beloved might benefit “from a richer favour.” The result was not long awaited; it was soon found that the bridge was in ruins, and to restore it the ordinary resources were not enough; it was necessary to send collectors throughout the country to gather offerings from those willing to give. Edward I, in January 1281, begged his subjects to hasten; the bridge would give way if they did not send prompt assistance. He ordered the archbishops, bishops, all the clergy, to allow his collectors to address the people freely with “pious exhortations,” that the subsidies should be craved without delay. But nevertheless the supplies arrived too late; the catastrophe had already happened, a “sudden {62} ruin” had befallen the bridge, and to repair this misfortune the king established a special tax upon the passengers, merchandise and boats (February 4, 1282), which tax was imposed again and the new tariff afore mentioned was put into force on May 7, 1306. What this sudden ruin was we learn from Stow’s “Annales”; the winter had been very severe, the frost and snow had caused great cracks in the floor of the bridge, so that towards the Feast of the Purification (February 2), five of the arches fell in. Many other bridges, too, in the country had suffered damage, Rochester Bridge had even entirely fallen.[46]

It may be imagined what fate awaited unendowed country bridges. The alms from the passers-by proved insufficient, so that little by little, nobody repairing them, the arches wore through, the parapets were detached, not a cart passed but fresh stones disappeared in the river, and soon carriages and riders could not venture without danger over the half demolished building. If moreover a flood should occur, all was over with the bridge and often with the imprudent or hurried travellers who might be crossing late in the evening. An accident of this kind was brought up for his justification by a chamberlain of North Wales, from whom Edward III claimed a hundred marks. The chamberlain averred that he had duly sent the money by his clerk, William of Markeley; but, alas, “the said William was drowned in Severn, at Moneford bridge, by the rising flood of water, and could not be found, so that he was devoured by beasts; thus the said hundred marks chanced to be {63} lost.”[47] At that time there were still wolves in England, and the disappearance of the body, with the 100 marks, though even then wolves did not feed on marks, would appear less unlikely than at present.

In those days neglect attained a degree now impossible and which we can scarcely imagine. The Commons of the counties of Nottingham, Derby, and Lincoln, and of the town of Nottingham, declare to the Good Parliament of 1376, that there is near the town of Nottingham a great bridge over the Trent, called Heybethebridge, “to the making and repair of which nobody is bound and alms only are collected, by which bridge all the comers and goers between the north and the south parts should have their passage.” This bridge is “ruinous,” and “oftentimes have several persons been drowned, as well horsemen as carts, man, and harness.” The complainants pray for power to appoint two bridge wardens, who shall administer the property that will be given in view of its maintenance, “for God and as a work of charity.” But the king did not accede to their request.[48]

Or maybe it happened that the riverside proprietors let their obligation fall into oblivion, even when it was at the beginning formal and precise enough. The legislator had, however, taken some precautions; he had inscribed bridges on the list of the articles for those inquiries periodically opened in England by the justices in Eyre, sheriffs and bailiffs, as we shall see further on[49]; but those concerned found means to defraud the law. People had been so long used to see ruin menace the edifice, that when it actually did give way no one could say who ought to have repaired it. It then became {64} necessary to apply to the king for a special inquiry, and to seek on whom lay the service. Parliament thus decides in 1339, on the demand of the prior of St. Neots: “Item, let there be good and true men assigned to survey the bridge and causeway of St. Neots, whether they be broken down and carried away by the rising of the waters, as the prior alleges, or not. And in case they are broken down and carried away, to inquire who ought and was used to have it repaired, and who is bound of right to do it; and how the bridge and roadway may be re-made and repaired. And what they[50] find they shall return into the chancery.”

In consequence of such inquests the persons charged with the maintenance being determined by the findings of a jury convened on the spot, a tax is levied upon them for the carrying out of the repairs. But they often protest and refuse to pay; they are sued, they appeal to the king; horse, cart, anything that may come to hand and which belongs to them is promptly seized to be sold for the benefit of the bridge; the dispute drags on, and meanwhile the edifice gives way. Hamo de Morston, for example, in the eleventh year of Edward II, complains that his horse has been taken from him. Called to justify themselves, Simon Porter and two others who have made the seizure, explain that there is a bridge at Shoreham, called the Long bridge, which is half destroyed; now it has been found that the building ought to be restored at the expense of the tenants of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Hamo, who is one of them, having refused to pay his part of the contribution, Simon and the others took the horse. They acted by order of a bailiff, and their conduct is vindicated. Another case of the same period is that of the Abbot of Coggeshall who, after a similar inquest, refused to execute any {65} repairs to a bridge near his lands under pretext that within memory of man there had been no other bridge over the river “than a certain plank of board,” and that at all times it had been found sufficient for horsemen and pedestrians. Innumerable are the examples of inquests of this sort and of the difficulties in executing the measures decided on.[51]

Owing to these several causes the chronicle-history of even the most important English bridges, when it is possible to trace it, is a long tale of crumblings into the river, rebuildings, and repairs, and ever-recurring catastrophes. Sometimes when the damage was great, and much money was needed and was not forthcoming, a ferry was established as a substitute for the late bridge, and remained in use for years and years together.

Such a series of events is offered by the history of the bridge on the Tweed at Berwick, which was one of the longest in England. The first time we hear of it is in the year 1199, and the news is that it gave way at that date, owing to a rise of the river. It was rebuilt and gave way again. Sometimes it was rebuilt of wood and sometimes of stone; occasionally it fell altogether from end to end, and then a ferry was established, and was maintained for a long period. This was the case in 1294, when great harm was done by the inundations. “Where the bridge fell at this time,” says the latest historian of Berwick, “there it lay for many years. The only method of crossing was by ferry boats, worked from both sides of the river; while the ferry in times of danger was defended by soldiers. Thus, in Sir Robert Heron’s (the controller) ‘Book of Bills’ for 1310, there is allowed one half quarter of pease to each of six crossbowmen (one of them being John Sharp Arewe) guarding the ferry of the Tweed at Berwick.”[52] The ferry {66} follows vicissitudes scarcely less numerous than the bridge itself, and disputes arise as to the right of working it, or rather of collecting its tolls. The revenues of the bridge, now that there is no longer any bridge, are also a matter of difficulty, and the king has to interfere to settle the question of the rents of houses and of fisheries belonging to the ruined monument.

In 1347 at last the citizens of the town began to think seriously of rebuilding their bridge, and the king granted them the right of collecting towards the expenses a toll of sixpence on every ship entering their harbour. The bridge was then rebuilt, but not in such a way as not to fall again, which has since happened to it many times.

Not less doleful is the story of the bridge on the Dee at Chester, of which we hear in the chronicles for the first time in 1227 and 1297, on account of its being carried away by the water,[53] and the same may be said of many of the bridges of mediæval England, especially the longer ones.

When rebuilding had to be done people generally did not care to remove what remained of the old monument, for which reason, when a bridge has broken down in our time, it has been often found that it was made of an accumulation of superimposed bridges. Of this the bridge over the Teign, between Newton Abbot and Teignmouth, rebuilt in 1815, is an example. It became, in this case, apparent that four successive bridges at least had been at various times erected with or over the remains of previous constructions. Mr. P. T. Taylor, who investigated the matter at that time, gave as his opinion “that the last or upper work was done in the sixteenth century, and that the red bridge had been built on the salt marsh in the thirteenth century; since which time there has been an accumulation of soil to the depth of ten feet. He supposes the wooden bridge to be as old {69} as the Conquest, and the white stone bridge to have been a Roman work.”[54]

11. THE CHAPEL ON THE BRIDGE AT WAKEFIELD.

(Fourteenth Century; present state)

Given these circumstances, it is rather a matter of surprise than otherwise to find that a good number of mediæval bridges still subsist in England; the more so as the nineteenth century has been a great destroyer of bridges. The enormous increase of population and the proportionate want of means of communication during that period has proved fatal to many bridges, and especially to the more famous and important ones which had been built in the more largely populated districts. Owing to such necessities London Bridge itself has disappeared, and even the recollection of the long years, during which it had been, so to say, a factor in English history and associated with the life of the nation, could not save it.

Many others had the same fate, or were, at least, as at Norwich, Durham, Chester, Wakefield, Monmouth, and elsewhere, partly rebuilt or enlarged, not always in such a way as to retain much of their pristine appearance. For all that, however, enough of them remain to give an accurate idea of what they were, without having recourse merely to descriptions or drawings in contemporary manuscripts. None, it is true, can for elegance and completeness compete with such bridges as are still to be found in France; for example, with the magnificent thirteenth-century bridge of Valentré at Cahors, of which a picture has been given above (p. [37]). Those that remain are sufficient, nevertheless, to testify to the skill of old English architects in that branch of their art. As might have been expected, these bridges abound chiefly in those parts of the country where the increase of traffic and population has been the least conspicuous, on roads little more frequented to-day than in the Middle Ages, which then led to strong castles or flourishing monasteries, and only lead now to {70} ivy-clad ruins. For this reason they are more numerous in some parts of Wales than anywhere in England.

In several cases the chapels which placed them under the protection of a saint and where offerings were collected have escaped the hand of the restorer and are still extant. There is one, of the fifteenth century, at Rotherham, Yorkshire, “a chapel of stone wel wrought,” says Leland[55]; another, a fine small one, is to be seen on the bridge at Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire; a third, a very tall structure, stands on the middle of the bridge at St. Ives, Huntingdonshire; but the finest example by far is the chapel on the bridge at Wakefield, both chapel and bridge dating from the fourteenth century. Leland mentions them as “the faire bridge of stone of nine arches, under which runnith the river of Calder, and on the east side of this bridge is a right goodly chapel of our lady and two cantuarie preestes founded in it.” This foundation was made about 1358; Edward III, by a charter dated at Wakefield, settled “£10 per annum on William Kaye and William Bull and their successors for ever to perform divine service in a chapel of St. Mary newly built on the bridge at Wakefield.”[56]

In our century the bridge has been widened towards the west, the arches being round on that side and having been left Gothic on the other. The chapel, the foundations of which rest on an island in the river, was repaired in 1847, but its original style was carefully respected.[57] The greatest change is in the surroundings, where nothing recalls either Dr. Primrose or the clear {73} waters of Plantagenet times; and the smoke and refuse of innumerable manufactures blacken the bridge, the chapel, the river, and even the sky itself.

12. THE BRIDGE WITH A DEFENSIVE TOWER AT WARKWORTH, NORTHUMBERLAND.

(Fourteenth Century; present state.)

Several specimens also remain of bridges with the triangular recesses we have mentioned, left on the top of the piers for the safety of foot passengers. Among many other examples may be quoted the beautiful fourteenth-century bridge at Warkworth, Northumberland,[58] which also deserves notice for another characteristic much more rarely to be met with, that is, the preservation of the tower built at one end for its defence. Most of the bridges of any importance were protected in this way, which, as the country became quieter, was found useless; the consideration that they were ornamental rarely sufficed to prevent their being pulled down. Those at Chester were removed in 1782–1784; those at York were demolished with the bridge itself, of the thirteenth century, at the beginning of the nineteenth; the Durham one, built on Framwellgate Bridge, in 1760; the beautiful fortified entrance to one of the two bridges at Shrewsbury disappeared in the same century, as well as the whole structure, with the picturesque old houses it bore. It must be conceded that those towers were sometimes very inconvenient. A witness of the fact told me that, quite recently, a gipsy’s caravan was stopped at the tower on Warkworth Bridge, being unable to pass under it owing to the lowness of the arch. The pavement had to be hollowed out to allow of the caravan’s proceeding on its way.

The best example of a defensive tower is the machicolated one at Monmouth, on the Monnow Bridge; except for the opening of passages to be used by people on foot, the fortified gate looks as it did in the Middle {74} Ages. The bridge itself, familiar to the Monmouth-born “Prince Hal” of Shakespeare, and of England, has, been, however, widened, as at Wakefield and elsewhere. The ribs of the ancient arches are still visible within the modern ones.

In Elizabethan times defensive towers for bridges continued to be built, but in poetry only. Spenser raised, in his lines, a beautiful structure, of Doric style, as befitted the Renaissance days in which he lived, at the entrance to the island of Venus:

It was a bridge ybuilt in goodly wize,

With curious corbes and pendants graven faire,

And arched all with porches, did arize

On stately pillours, fram’d after the Doricke guize.

And for defence thereof, on th’ other end

There reared was a castle faire and strong,

That warded all which in and out did wend,

And flancked both the bridges sides along.[59]

But, except as castles in the air, such fortifications were no longer in demand.

The rarest of all bridges are, nowadays in England, those having houses on them, as was the fashion in the Middle Ages. The picturesque High Bridge at Lincoln, originally built in the 12th century, still preserves the lodgings built over it[60]; a solitary house remains on Elvet Bridge at Durham, and the only bridge of some length, with a complete row of houses, is a com­par­a­tive­ly recent one, being the familiar Pulteney Bridge built at Bath by William Pulteney in the eighteenth century. {75}

13. THE DEFENSIVE TOWER ON THE MONNOW BRIDGE, MONMOUTH.

The more numerous of the mediæval bridges still in existence are those of one arch; there are many of them in Wales, some being most elegant and picturesque, such as the famous Devil’s Bridge over the Mynach, near Aberystwith. In England the largest is the one over the moat of Norwich Castle; and the most curious the three-branched one at Crowland, this last belonging in its actual state to the fourteenth century. It is no longer used, as no road passes over it and no water under.[61] Another of the finest, and one of the least known, crosses the Esk, near Danby Castle, Yorkshire. Its date is about 1385; the arms of Neville, Lord Latimer, who had it built, are yet to be seen at the top of the parapet.

14. THE BRIDGE NEAR DANBY CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.

(Fourteenth Century.)]

Lastly, a word may be said of the larger bridges, most {78} of which have unfortunately undergone great alterations and repairs. Besides the Wakefield Bridge above mentioned, there is one over the Dee, at Chester, part of which is as old as the thirteenth century, thoroughly repaired since Ormerod disrespectfully described it as “a long fabric of red stone extremely dangerous and unsightly.”[62] At Durham there are the Framwellgate and Elvet bridges, both originally built in the twelfth century. A six-arched bridge, rebuilt in the fifteenth century, exists at Hereford; another, repaired in 1449, with the help of indulgences, remains at Bidford.[63] A four-arched one, built in the fourteenth century, over the Dee is to be seen at Llangollen, being “one of the Tri Thlws Cymru, or three beauties of Wales;”[64] the arches are irregular in size, for the builder, in this and many other cases, minding more the solidity of the structure than its regularity, erected the piers at the places where the presence of rocks in the bed of the river made it most convenient. A very noteworthy one is the thirteenth-century bridge over the Nith, at Dumfries, in Scotland, which had formerly thirteen arches, seven of which only are now in use. It was long considered the finest after that of London. Other mediæval bridges of several arches remain at Huntingdon,[65] at St. Ives, at Norwich (Bishop’s Bridge), at Potter Heigham (a most picturesque one), at Tewkesbury, etc.[66] The Tewkesbury one, with the middle arch enlarged in modern times, but the {79} triangular recesses for foot passengers still in use, dates back to King John, teste Leland, whose biography of the bridge shows that it went through the vicissitudes usual in the life of such buildings: “King John beyng Erle of Glocester by his wife caussid the bridge of Twekesbyri to be made of stone. He that was put in truste to do it first made a stone bridge over the gret poure of booth the armes [of the Avon] by north and weste: and after, to spede and spare mony, he made at the northe ende a wodde bridge of a greate length for sodeyne land waters, putting the residue of the mony to making of the castel of Hanley . . .

“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.

Military necessity, Scottish wars, French wars, Welsh or Irish wars had a similar effect, and so had, to a degree, nowadays incredible, the kings’ passion for hawking. They did not want to be stopped when following their birds by a broken bridge, and they would order the commonalty, whether or not it was bound to do so, to make prompt repairs in view of their coming. Hence Article 23 in the Great Charter, meant to check this {84} propensity: “Let no community or man be constrained to make bridges on rivers except those who were legally bound from old to do so.” As late, however, as October 6, 1373, we find that Edward III commanded “the sheriff of Oxfordshire to declare that all bridges should be repaired and all fords marked out with stakes for the crossing of the King ‘with his falcons’ during the approaching winter season.”[75]

In the same way the monks, those vast-landed husbandmen, were much interested in the proper maintenance of the roads. Their agricultural undertakings were of considerable extent; an abbey such as that of Meaux, near Beverley, had in the middle of the fourteenth century, 2,638 sheep, 515 oxen, and 98 horses, with land in proportion.[76] Besides, as we have seen, the care of watching over the good condition of the roads was more incumbent on the clergy than on any other class, because it was a pious and meritorious work.

All these motives combined were enough to provide roads sufficient for the usual needs, but in those days people were content with little. Carts and even carriages were heavy, lumbering, solid machines, which stood the hardest jolts. People of any worth journeyed on horseback, the use of a carriage being exceptional. As to those who travelled on foot, they were used to all sorts of misery. Little then sufficed; and if other proofs were wanting of the state into which the roads were liable to fall, even in the most frequented places, we should find them in a patent of Edward III of November 20, 1353, which orders the paving of the highroad, alta via, running from Temple Bar to Westminster. This road, being almost a street, had been paved, but, the king explains, it is “so full of holes and bogs . . . and the pavement is so damaged {85} and broken,” that the traffic has become very dangerous for men and carts. He orders, in consequence, each landowner on both sides of the road to remake, at his own expense, a footway of seven feet up to the ditch, usque canellum. The middle of the road—inter canellos—the width of which is unfortunately not given, is to be paved, and the expense covered by means of a tax laid on all the merchandise going to the staple at Westminster.[77]

Three years later a general tax was laid by the City of London on all carts and horses bringing merchandise or materials of any kind to the town. The regulation which imposed it, of the thirtieth year of Edward III, first states that all the roads in the immediate environs of London are in such bad condition that the carriers, merchants, etc., “are oftentimes in peril of losing what they bring.” Henceforth, to help the reparations, a due will be levied on all vehicles and all laden beasts coming to or going from the city; a penny per cart and a farthing per horse each way; reductions were granted in case of constant traffic: a cart bringing sand, gravel, or clay, paid only threepence a week. By an article the unfairness of which had nothing exceptional, the richer were made to pay less than the poorer: “But for the carts and horses of great people and other folks that bring their own victuals and other goods for the use and consumption of their own hostels, nothing shall be taken.”[78]

The environs of Paris about the same time presented roads and bridges quite as badly kept as those in the neighbourhood of London. Charles VI, in one of his ordinances, states that the hedges and brambles have greatly encroached on the roads, and that there are even some in the midst of which trees have shot up: {86}

“Outside the said town of Paris, in several parts of the suburbs, prévosté and vicomté of the same, there are many notable and ancient highways, 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 supervening hindrances, 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 used on foot or horseback, nor by vehicles, without great perils and inconveniences; and some of them are entirely abandoned because men cannot resort there.” The Provost of Paris is ordered to cause the repairs to be made by all to whom it pertained; and, if necessary, to compel by force “all” the inhabitants of the towns in the neighbourhood of the bridges and highways to help in the work.[79]

15. THE PARLIAMENT SITTING AT WESTMINSTER, OCT., 1399.

(From the Harl. MS. 1319, painted circa A.D. 1400.)

But what makes us understand better than ordinances the difficulty of journeys in bad weather, and enables us to picture to ourselves flooded roads resembling those of the East in the rainy season, is the impossibility sometimes acknowledged in official documents of responding to the most important royal summons, owing to the inclemency of the elements. Thus, for example, it might happen that the bulk of the members called to Parliament from all parts of England would fail at the appointed day, for no other reason than bad weather having, as the event showed, caused the roads to be impassable. The record of the sittings of the second Parliament of the thirteenth year of Edward III (1339) show that it was necessary to declare to the few representatives of the Commons and of the nobility who had been able to reach Westminster, “that because the prelates, earls, barons, and {89} other lords and knights of the shires, citizens and burgesses of cities and boroughs were so troubled by the bad weather that they could not arrive that day, it would be proper to await their coming.”[80]