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[Illustration 1. ENGLISH KNIGHTS TRAVELLING, AUGUST, 1399.
(_From the MS. Harleian_, 1319, _painted circa_ A.D. 1400.)]
ENGLISH
WAYFARING LIFE
IN THE MIDDLE AGES
(XIV^{th} 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_
{7}
[Illustration 2]
_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_.
{10}
_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.
{11}
CONTENTS
PREFACE • 7
TABLE OF CONTENTS • 11
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS • 13
INTRODUCTION • 23
PART I
_ENGLISH ROADS_
I. ROADS AND BRIDGES • 29
II. THE ORDINARY TRAVELLER AND THE CASUAL PASSER-BY • 90
III. SECURITY OF THE ROADS • 149
PART II
_LAY WAYFARERS_
INTRODUCTORY NOTE • 181
I. HERBALISTS, CHARLATANS, MINSTRELS, JUGGLERS, AND TUMBLERS
• 183
II. MESSENGERS, ITINERANT MERCHANTS AND PEDLARS • 223
III. OUTLAWS, WANDERING WORKMEN, AND PEASANTS OUT OF BOND • 254
PART III
_RELIGIOUS WAYFARERS_
I. WANDERING PREACHERS AND FRIARS • 283
II. THE PARDONERS • 312
III. PILGRIMS AND PILGRIMAGES
1. Pilgrimages, their motives: to fulfil a vow, to spite the
king, to regain health • 338
2. Principal English pilgrimages; the one of European
celebrity, St. Thomas of Canterbury • 346
3. Piety, merriment, abuses. Real and false relics. Signs and
brooches. Pilgrim stories. Honest and false pilgrims • 357
4. Pilgrimages beyond sea, Calais, Boulogne, Chartres,
Rocamadour, St. James of Compostela, Cologne, Rome.
Offerings left and indulgences gained. Helping gilds. Faith,
superstition, and scepticism. Pilgrimages by proxy • 370
5. The holy journey to Jerusalem. Pilgrims in the days of
St. Jerome. Pilgrims in arms, the crusades. Itineraries and
Journals. “Mandeville,” William Wey, the lord of Anglure • 395
CONCLUSION • 419
APPENDIX • 423
I. Patent of King John entrusting a French cleric with
the completion of London Bridge, 1201 • 425
II. Petition concerning an old bridge, with arches too
low and too narrow to allow boats to pass, 1442 • 426
III. London Bridge and its maintenance • 427
IV. Inquests as to the maintenance of bridges, _temp._
Ed. I and Ed. II • 429
V. The King’s journeys. Petitions and statutes
concerning the Royal Purveyors • 430
VI. The recurrence of leet-days and visits of Justices
• 431
VII. The dress of the worldly monk • 432
VIII. Noblemen’s exactions when travelling • 433
IX. Passage of the Humber in a ferry • 433
X. The right of sanctuary • 434
XI. A monopoly of minstrelsy for the King’s own
minstrels • 435
XII. Popular English songs of the Middle Ages • 437
XIII. Indulgences and the theory of the “Treasury”
according to Pope Clement VI • 438
XIV. Sermon accompanying the display of a pretended
papal bull (on the occasion of the coming of Henry of Lancaster)
• 439
XV. Ecclesiastical documents concerning chiefly English
pardoners • 440
XVI. The first recorded crucifix in England sculptured
from life • 445
XVII. The pilgrimage of Reynard • 446
INDEX • 449
{13}
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. 197_a_. 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, fourteenth 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
[Illustration 3. THE THREE-BRANCHED BRIDGE AT CROWLAND.]
{23}
English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages (Fourteenth Century)
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.
{27}
PART I
_ENGLISH ROADS_
{29}
[Illustration 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]
[Illustration 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]
[Illustration 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 ma^{ties}
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.
[Illustration 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]
[Illustration 8. PART OF LONDON BRIDGE WITH THE DRAWBRIDGE AND
NONE-SUCH HOUSE.
(_As it stood about_ A.D. 1600.)]
{47}
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.
[Illustration 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 y^e foresaides Tho., John, and Rob.,
schalle make a brigge of stane oure (over) y^e water of Swalle atte
Catrik be twix y^e old stane brigge and y^e new brigge of tree (of
wood), quilke forsaid brigge, with y^e grace of God, salle be made
sufficiant [and war]kmanly in mason craft accordand in substance
to Barnacastelle brigge, aftir y^e ground and y^e 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 y^e {57} saides John, Tho., and Rob.,
schalle this forsaid brigge sufficiantly in masoncraft make and
fully perfurnist in all partiez and holy endyd be y^e Fest of Seint
Michille y^e Arcangelle quilk y^t shalle fall in y^e yere of our
Lorde Gode M^{le} 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]
[Illustration 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]
{60}
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]
[Illustration 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.
[Illustration 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}
[Illustration 13. THE DEFENSIVE TOWER ON THE MONNOW BRIDGE,
MONMOUTH.]
{77}
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.
[Illustration 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]
[Illustration 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]
Yet these members were not poor folks, they had good horses, good
coats, thick cloaks covering their necks up to their hats, with large
hanging sleeves falling over their knees;[81] no matter: the snow or
the rain, the floods or the frost, had been the stronger. Battling
against the weather that hampered their journey, prelates, barons,
or knights, halted their steeds at some roadside inn, and as they
listened to the tap of the sleet on the wooden panels closing the
window, with their feet at the fire in the smoky room while awaiting
the subsidence of the waters, they must have thought on the royal
displeasure which soon, no doubt, would show itself in the “painted
chamber” at Westminster. In short, though there were roads, though
land was burdened with service for their support, though laws from
time to time recalled their obligations to the owners of the soil,
though the private interest of lords and of monks, in addition to
the interest of the public, gave occasion to reparation now and
then, the fate of the traveller in a snowfall or in a thaw was very
precarious. Well might the Church have pity on him, and include him,
together with the sick and the captive, among the unfortunates whom
she recommended to the daily prayers of pious souls.[82] {90}
[Illustration 16. A COMMON CART.
(_From the MS. 10 E. IV. in the British Museum. English; Fourteenth
Century._)]