1 “Year Books,” 30, 31 Edward I. Edited by A. J. Horwood, for the Rolls Series, 1863.
2 And possibly, in early times, of roads also; see McKechnie, “Magna Carta,” Glasgow, 1905, p. 353. On the Trinoda or Trimoda Necessitas, see W. H. Stevenson, in the “English Historical Review,” Oct. 1914.
3 “History of Rome,” translated by W. P. Dickson, London, 1886, book viii. chap. v.
4 J. Horsley, “Britannia Romana,” London, 1732, p. 391.
5 H. M. Scarth, “Roman Britain,” S.P.C.K., London, 1883, p. 121. Cf. T. Codrington, “Roman Roads in Britain,” S.P.C.K., 1903.
6 When Henry VIII gave the lands of the dissolved monastery of Christ Church to Canterbury Cathedral, he declared that he made this donation “in order that charity to the poor, the reparation of roads and bridges, and other pious offices of all kinds should multiply and spread afar.” Elton, “Tenures of Kent,” London, 1867, p. 21. The gift is made “in liberam, puram et perpetuam eleemosynam.” This pious character was long continued: “As late as the period of the Commonwealth land and money devoted to the maintenance of bridges and causeys were definitely included among the charitable uses which were to be unaffected by the sequestration of Bishops’ land and other ecclesiastical revenues.” C. T. Flower, “Public Works in Mediæval Law,” Selden Society, 1905, i. p. xxi.
7 Thorold Rogers, “History of Agriculture and Prices in England,” Oxford, 1866, vol. i. p. 138.
8 See “Recherches historiques sur les congrégations hospitalières des frères pontifes,” by M. Grégoire, late Bishop of Blois. Paris, 1818.
9 This practice was inherited from the Roman builders, whose formularies continued to be transcribed throughout the middle ages. See Victor Mortet: “Un Formulaire du VIIIe siécle pour les fondations d’édifices et de ponts d’après des sources d’origine antique,” in “Bulletin monumental . . . de la Société française d’Archéologie,” vol. 71, 1907, p. 443. The brief chapter in the “Mappæ Clavicula” (still copied in the twelfth century), entitled “De fabrica in aqua,” recommends that, “Si fabricam in aqua necesse fuerit erigere, facis arcam triangulam,” arca meaning caisson. In this we see, Mr. Mortet writes, “la disposition venue de l’antiquité, transmise et maintenue au moyen-âge, de la forme prismatique triangulaire des avant-becs des ponts” (p. 461). This characteristic was conspicuous, e.g. in the Avignon and London bridges (see the picture, p. 45) as well as in the famous Roman Pont du Gard.
10 On French mediæval bridges still in existence, their dates, modes of construction, crosses and chapels, see C. Enlart, “Manuel d’Archéologie Française,” Paris, 1902, ff. vol. ii. p. 264.
11 May 17, 1373, original in French. “John of Gaunt’s Register,” ed. S. Armitage Smith, London, 1911, vol. ii. p. 179. The work was apparently in progress in 1374, since we find, on the 15th of September of that year, an order to deliver to the same “trois cheisnes covenables” from Okeden forest. Ibid., p. 240.
12 “Ubi frequens habetur populi transitus.” “Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense,” ed. Hardy, Rolls Series, 1875, vol. i. pp. 615, 641, A.D. 1314. This was a quite usual practice. The popes, who had every reason to be interested in the welfare of the great bridge at Avignon, published numerous bulls granting indulgences and other spiritual favours to the benefactors of the edifice. See “Bullaire des indulgences concédées avant 1431 à l’œuvre du Pont d’Avignon,” published by the Marquis de Ripert-Monclar, Paris, 1912. The work contains the Latin text of papal bulls of 1281, 1290, 1343, 1353, 1366, 1371, 1397, 1430, 1431. The bull of 1343, issued by Pope Clement VI, at Avignon, grants to givers “tres annos et tres quadragenas,” and, under certain conditions, a plenary indulgence at the time of death: “Siquis vero catholicus dictis fratribus . . . secundum quantitatem substancie et qualitatem . . . de bonis sibi a Deo collatis dederit vel transmiserit quoquo modo ad reparacionem dicti pontis, . . . si talis infra annum . . . vere penitens ac confessus ab hac luce decesserit, volumus et gratia speciali concedimus quod ab omnibus peccatis suis remaneat absolutus.” As for those who should be so bold as to hamper in any way the collections made by the brothers for their bridge, their punishment would be nothing less than excommunication (p. 6).
13 “Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense,” ed. Hardy, Rolls Series, 1875, vol. i. p. 507.
14 “Itinerary,” ed. L. T. Smith, vol. v. p. 144.
15 Certificates of Chantries, quoted in “English Gilds, the Original Ordinances from MSS. of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” ed. Toulmin Smith. E. E. T. S., 1870, p. 249. Gilds in Rochester, Bristol, Ludlow, &c., did the same.
16 Text of the time of Edward IV, but “copied from laws still older.” “English Gilds,” as above, pp. 374, 411.
17 “Archæologia,” vols. xxvii. p. 77; xxix. p. 380.
18 “Cartularium Abbathiæ de Whiteby,” edited by J. C. Atkinson, Durham, Surtees Society, 1881, vol. ii. p. 401. The original of the Rosels contract is in Latin.
19 Skeat’s edition, Text C, pas. x. l. 29, et seq.
20 Most of the French ones were dedicated to St. Nicholas, patron of travellers.
21 Fleet bridge outside Ludgate, Oldbourne (Holborn) bridge, both of stone. Fleet bridge had been repaired by the mayor, John Wels, in 1431, “for,” says Stow, “on the coping is engraven Wels imbraced by Angels.” “Survey of London,” ed. Kingsford, Oxford, 1908, 2 vols., vol. i. p. 26. The “Survey” had appeared in 1598, and been reprinted, with important additions in 1603.
22 “The earliest proof [of the existence of a timber bridge] is in the record of the drowning of a witch at ‘Lundene brigce’ in King Edgar’s time.” Kingsford, Stow’s “Survey,” as above, vol. ii. p. 273.
23 Stow’s “Survey,” i. p. 23. Stow, who examined the accounts of the bridge wardens for the year 1506 (22 Hen. VII), found that the bridge expenses were at that time £815 17s. 2d.
24 King John became personally acquainted with those works only at a later date, viz. June 1206, when he landed at La Rochelle. He visited Saintes in July and August, and made again some stay at La Rochelle in October and November before sailing back to England. See his Itinerary in “A Description of the Patent Rolls in the Tower,” by Thomas Duffus Hardy, London, 1835.
25 See Appendix I. p 425.
26 Stow’s “Survey,” ed. Kingsford, I. p. 23.
27 Ibid., same edition, I. 25; II. 274. “Chronicles of London Bridge,” by an Antiquary [Richard Thomson], London, 1827, pp. 187–193.
28 As to the toll collected there from certain foreign merchants A.D. 1334, see “Liber Albus,” ed. Riley, Introduction, p. l.
29 “Scaligerana,” under the word “Londres.” The editions I have seen give “mers de navires,” the true reading being certainly “mâts.” An enlarged portion of Visscher’s panoramic view of London, 1616, showing the “Bridge Gate” towards Southwark, with numerous mast-like poles and heads on the top of them, serves as a frontispiece for vol. iii. of my “Literary History of the English People.”
30 “Euphues and his England,” 1st ed. 1580; Arber’s reprint, 1868, p. 434. See besides the large coloured drawing of about the year 1600 (also the sketch above, p. 45), in the third part of Harrison’s “Description of England,” edited by F. J. Furnivall for the New Shakspere Society, 1877; and Mr. Wheatley’s notes on Norden’s Map of London, 1593, in vol. i. p. lxxxix of the same work. Visitors coming to London never failed to notice the bridge as one of the curiosities of the town. Dunbar, the Scottish poet, in his “London,” written in the early years of the sixteenth century, compliments the city on its beauties, and especially its bridge:
The Greek Nicander Nucius of Corcyra, who visited England in 1545–6, writes in his note-book: “A certain very large bridge is built, affording a passage to those in the city to the opposite inhabited bank, supported by stone cemented arches, and having also houses and turrets upon it.” “Travels of Nicander Nucius,” Camden Society, 1841, p. 7.
31 F. de Belleforest, “L’ancienne et grande cité de Paris,” ed. Dufour, 1882, p. 274.
32 See woodcuts in “Le livre des Ordonnances de la ville de Paris,” published by Vérard, 1500, reproduced by Claudin, “Histoire de l’Imprimerie,” 1900, vol. ii. pp. 498, 499.
33 “Staple of News,” ii. 4; acted 1626, ed. De Winter, 1905, p. xviii.
34 In “Works of Ben Jonson,” London, 1816, v. 215.
35 “Chronicles of London Bridge by an Antiquary” [Richard Thomson], London, 1827.
36 See Appendix II. p. 426.
37 “The Itinerary of John Leland,” edited by Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith, London, 1907, vol. ii. pp. 27, 49.
38 “The North Riding Record Society,” edited by the Rev. J. C. Atkinson, London, vol. iii. part i. p. 33.
39 Edward III gives the not insignificant sum of £15 for the reparation of the bridge at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. “Roll of Thomas de Brantingham,” ed. Devon, p. 392, 44 Ed. III.
40 Yarm on the Tees, 44 miles north-north-west of York. The “king’s highway” in question is the highroad from Scotland, leading to the south, through York and London. The bridge was re-built in 1400 by Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham.
41 “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. i. p. 468. The right of pontage is frequently mentioned in the “Liber Custumarum,” edited by Riley, Rolls Series.
42 “Sciatis quod, in auxilium Pontis London, reparandi et sustentandi, concessimus vobis quod . . . capiatis ibidem de rebus venalibus ultra pontem predictum et subtus eundem transeuntibus consuetudines subscriptas, videlicet . . .” Then follows a very long list of dues. Text in Hearne’s “Liber niger Scaccarii . . . Accedunt chartæ antiquæ,” London, 1774, vol. i. p. 478*.
43 “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. ii. p. 88.
44 See Hist. MSS. Commission, 9th Report, part i. p. 284. On the Rochester bridge, at first a wooden one, later rebuilt in stone, and on its upkeep, see “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. iii. p. 254, 21 Ric. II, 1397. A view of the bridge appears on several seals, some reproduced in De Gray Birch, “Seals in . . . the British Museum,” London, 1887, 2 vols., No. 5336. On this important bridge and its biography, see C. T. Flower, “Public Works in Mediæval Law,” 1905, Selden Society, I., p. 203. Like many others, this very frequented bridge, on the road from London to Canterbury, and which existed long before the Conquest, was first of wood, then of stone, and is now (since 1856) of iron.
45 “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. ii. p. 100, year 1338.
46 “King Edward kept his feast of Christmas (1281) at Worcester. From this Christmas till the purification of Our Lady, there was such a frost and snow, as no man living could remember the like, wherethrough five arches of London Bridge, and all Rochester Bridge were borne downe, and carried away with the streame, and the like hapned to many bridges in England.” Stow’s “Annales,” London, 1631, p. 201. See Appendix III.
47 “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. ii. p. 91 (9 Edward III), 1335.
48 Ibid., p. 350.
49 “De pontibus et calcetis fractis et communibus transitibus, quis ea reparare debeat et sustinere.” “Fleta” (end of thirteenth century, below p. 111), I. ch. 20, § 41.
50 I.e. the jury “of good and true men.” “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. ii. p. 111.
52 John Scott, “Berwick-upon-Tweed,” London, 1888, p. 408, et seq.
53 Ormerod, “History of Chester,” 1819, vol. i. p. 285.
54 “Archæologia,” t. xix. p. 310.
55 The date is shown by a will of the 24th of August, 1483, in which a sum is left towards the building of the chapel to be erected on Rotherham Bridge. See J. Guest, “Historic Notices of Rotherham,” Worksop, 1879, fol., pp. 125–6. Two views of the bridge and chapel are given, pp. 126 and 581.
56 Camden’s “Britannia,” ed. Gough, vol. iii., Lond., 1789, pp. 38–9.
57 T. Kilby, “Views in Wakefield,” 1843, fol.; J. C. and C. A. Buckler, “Remarks upon Wayside Chapels,” Oxford, 1843.
58 “Twenty marks were left towards the rebuilding of this bridge, by John Cook, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2 Rich. II, 1379.” E. Mackenzie, “View of the County of Northumberland,” 1825, vol. ii. p. 111.
59 “Faerie Queene,” Bk. iv. canto x.
60 Mentioned by Leland: “High Bridge hath but one great arch, and over a pece of it is a chapelle of St. George” (“Itinerary,” ed. L. T. Smith, i. 29), which chapel had been first dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, but had apparently just been rebaptized, when Leland saw it, Henry VIII having decided by a proclamation of November 16, 1538, that other saints might be saints, but this one was not.
62 “History of Chester,” London, 1819, vol. i. p. 285.
63 Dugdale, “Warwickshire,” 1730, ii. 724.
64 J. G. Wood, “The Principal Rivers of Wales,” London, 1813, vol. ii. p. 271.
65 The Countess of Norfolk complains to Parliament that, contrary to their franchise, her tenants have been compelled to contribute towards the building of the bridge at Huntingdon. “Rolls of Parliament,” 1 Ric. II, year 1377.
66 See F. Stone, “Picturesque Views of the Bridges of Norfolk,” Norwich, 1830. Rough sketches of more than thirty old English bridges appear in a curious engraving by Daniel King (seventeenth century), bearing as a title: “An orthographical designe of severall viewes vpon ye road in England and Wales,” and as a subscription: “This designe is to illustrate Cambden’s Britannia, that where he mentions such places the curious may see them, which is the indeavour, by Gods assistance, of
A copy is bound in the MS. Harl. 2073, as fol. 126. Catterick Bridge (supra p. 54) is among the bridges there represented.
67 “The Itinerary of John Leland,” ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith, London, 1907, 5 vols., iv. p. 137.
68 “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. i. p. 48, 18 Edward I, A.D. 1289.
69 Ibid., vol. i. p. 424; 18 Edward II, 1324.
70 Ibid., vol. i. p. 314; 8 Edward II.
71 “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. iii. p. 598; 7 and 8 Henry IV. In the same way as for bridges, taxes were sometimes levied but misapplied. See, in C. T. Flower, “Public Works in Mediæval Law,” 1905, i. p. 25, how William Caldecote of Aylesbury had been duly authorized to levy a tax of one penny or one half-penny on carts of various sorts, and one farthing on “every horse carrying goods for sale that should pass along Walton street which leads from Walton to Aylesbury for the maintenance of the said road, and that whereas the said William so received in 11 Rich. II over and above the sum spent on the repair of the road 24s. which remain in his hands, the road is flooded and dangerous by his default.”
72 Grandson and great-grandson of the two Despensers who had been executed in 1326 by order of Queen Isabella, their estates being confiscated.
73 Ed. Siméon Luce, vol. i. p. 257.
74 Royal Itineraries show, for instance, that in the 28th year of his reign, Edward I changed seventy-five times his place of abode, that is about three times each fortnight. “Liber quotidianus Garderobæ,” London, 1787, p. lxvii.
75 McKechnie, “Magna Carta,” 1905, p. 357.
76 “Chronica monasterii de Melsa,” ed. E. A. Bond; Rolls Series, 1868, London, vol. iii. preface, p. xv.
77 Patent Roll, 27 Edward III, in Rymer (ed. 1708), vol. v. p. 774. See as to the repair of this same road in 1314, thirty-nine years earlier, “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. i. p. 302 b.
78 Riley’s “Memorials of London,” London, 1868, p. 291.
79 Ordonance of March 1, 1388, “Recueil d’Isambert,” vol. vi. p. 665. On the state of roads and bridges and on travelling in France, see d’Avenel, “L’Évolution des Moyens de Transport,” Paris, 1919.
80 “Rolls of Parliament,” ii. p. 107.
82 To give shelter (“tego,” I shelter, in the enumeration devised by St. Thomas Aquinas) was one of the seven “Works of Charity.” In the evening prayers at home, in my childhood, part of which had been handed down from remote times, travellers were still remembered, as well as those who had been “bitten by venomous beasts.”
83 See representations of these carts in the manuscripts of the fourteenth century, and especially in MS. Roy., 10 E. IV, in the British Museum, fol. 63, 94, 110, &c., and in the Louterell psalter. We give above a facsimile of one of them, and further a representation of a reaper’s cart from the Louterell psalter. See also Bodl. MS. 264, fos. 42, 84, 103, 110.
84 Thorold Rogers, “History of Agriculture and Prices,” i. pp. 650–661.
85 “Statutes of the Realm,” 4 Edward III, ch. 3. Eight bushels make a quarter. [The Act 25 Edward III, stat. 5, ch. 10, A.D. 1351, provided that every measure of corn should be striken without heap, and that the royal purveyors should use this measure. Hence the name strike for a bushel. L. T. S.]
86 Statute 36 Edward III, stat. 1, ch. 2.
88 A shape in use from the remotest times. Carriages quite similar to those painted in our mediæval MSS. are to be seen on the alabaster funeral chests of Etruscan days, for example at the Guarnacei Museum, Volterra, in Italy, where there is an abundance of them, showing the dead, in their own round-topped, richly ornamented carriage, on their way to the other world.
89 Representations of carriages of this kind are frequent in manuscripts. Many are to be found, with two wheels and an abundance of ornamentation, in the romance of King Meliadus (MS. of the fourteenth century in the British Museum, Add. 12,228, fos. 198, 243). The celebrated four wheeled carriage of the Louterell psalter, also of fourteenth century, is here reproduced. It is drawn by five horses harnessed single file. On the second sits a postilion with a short whip of several thongs; on the fifth, that is, the nearest to the carriage, sits another postilion with a long whip of the shape in use at the present day.
90 La Tour-Landry relates a story of a holy hermit who saw in a dream his nephew’s wife in purgatory. The demons were pushing burning needles into her eyebrows. An angel told him that it was because she had trimmed her eyebrows and temples, and increased her forehead, and plucked out her hair, thinking to beautify herself and to please the world. “Le livre du Chevalier de La Tour-Landry,” ed. Montaiglon, Paris, 1854. An English translation of the fifteenth century was published by the Early English Text Society in 1868.
91 The king’s sister. Devon’s “Issues of the Exchequer,” 1837, p. 142. As Englished by Devon, the Latin text referred to would mean that the receiver of the money and maker of the carriage was Master la Zousche, but la Zousche was the clerk of the wardrobe, who had the money from the Exchequer to give it to John le Charer, “per manus John le Charer.” Per has here the meaning of pro, a use of the word of which several instances may be found in Du Cange. This indication of Devon’s mistake is due to the late Mr. Bradshaw, of Cambridge.
92 Thorold Rogers, “History of Agriculture and Prices,” i. pp. 361–363.
93 Curious representations of such litters are to be found in mediæval manuscripts; for instance, the one here reproduced from the MS. 118 Français, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, fol. 285, where two persons are to be seen using the litter, a lady and a wounded knight (Romance of Lancelot, fourteenth century); or in the MS. Roy, 18 E. II, in the British Museum, fol. 7 (Chronicles of Froissart).
94 “Paston Letters,” 1422–1509, edited by Jas. Gairdner, 1872, vol. i. p. 49; spelling modernized.
95 Roy. 10 E. IV.
96 Fol. 310.
97 “A Description of the Patent Rolls . . . to which is added an Itinerary of King John,” by T. Duffus Hardy, London, 1835.
98 1299–1300. “Liber quotidianus Garderobæ,” Society of Antiquaries, London, 1787, p. 67.
99 “Archers. And xxiiij archers on foote for garde of the kinge’s body, who shall goe before the kinge as he travaleth thorough the cuntry” (“King Edward II’s . . . Ordinances,” 1323, ed. Furnivall, p. 46).
100 “Fleta, seu commentarius juris Anglicani, editio secunda,” London 1685, lib. ii. cap. 2, 4. This treatise is believed to have been composed in the Fleet prison by a lawyer in the time of Edward I. It is later than 1292, for mention is made in it of the submission of Scotland.
101 Lib. ii. cap. 5. The ordinance of Edward II mentioned further, p. 108, speaks only of the brand by a hot iron on the forehead. “King Edward II’s Household and Wardrobe Ordinances,” A.D. 1323, Chaucer Society, ed. Furnivall, 1876.
102 Lib. ii. cap. 14, 15.
103 He sent a mandatum to this effect, and he withdrew it when the king changed his mind as to the place where he wished to go, which happened often enough. “Debet autem senescallus nomine capitalis justitiarii cujus vices gerit mandare vicecomiti loci ubi dominus rex fuerit declinaturus, quod venire faciat ad certum diem, ubicumque tunc rex fuerit in ballivia sua, omnes assisas comitatus sui et omnes prisones cum suis atachiamentis.” “Fleta,” lib. ii. cap. 3, § 4.
104 “Habet etiam ex virtute officii sui potestatem procedendi ad utlagationes et duella jungendi et singula faciendi quæ ad justitiarios itinerantes, prout supra dictum est pertinent faciendi.” “Fleta,” lib. ii. cap. 3, § 11.
105 “Fleta,” lib. ii. cap. 3, § 9.
106 “Original authority of the King’s Council,” p. 115.
107 “The county is divided into hundreds or into wapentakes or into wards, the term wapentake appearing in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, the term ward in the northernmost counties.” (“History of English Law before Edward I,” by Sir Frederick Pollock and F. W. Maitland, Cambridge, 2 vols., 1895, vol. i. p. 543.) At the head of the hundred was the bailiff, appointed by the sheriff, acting under him, and giving also rise to numerous complaints. See, e.g. “Rolls of Parliament,” ii. 357, a petition of 1376.
108 The lists which have reached us “leave us doubting whether any of them had received a solemn sanction from the central power.” Same “History of English Law,” ii. 508. On the origin, growth, decay, uses and abuses of the institution, see W. A. Morris, “The Frankpledge System,” London, 1910.
109 In many places great people, lay or ecclesiastic, had somehow secured for themselves the properly royal privilege of holding the “view”; it became attached to some manors and was conveyed with them. See the petition of an abbess who claims the view of frankpledge attached to the manor of Shorwalle, Isle of Wight, which had been given her; Isabella de Forte disputes her this right, the real object of the quarrel between the two ladies being the fines levied when the view was held.
Towards the end of the fourteenth century the frankpledge had fallen into decay.
110 “Magna Carta,” cap. 42 of the second confirmation by Henry III (1217); Stubbs’ “Select Charters,” p. 337. “Nec liceat alicui vicecomiti vel ballivo tenere turnum suum per hundredum nisi bis per annum;” “Fleta,” Lib. ii. cap. 52.
112 “The articles for the London eyre of 1244 are in ‘Munimenta Gildhallæ,’ i. 79; those for the eyre of 1321 are in ‘Munim. Gild.,’ ii. 347. The latter are fully seven times as long as the former and fill fifteen octavo pages.” Pollock and Maitland, “History of English Law,” ii. 519; cf. “Fleta,” i. cap. 19 and 20: “De Processu coram Justiciariis itinerantibus—De capitulis Coronæ et Itineris.”
113 Originally, custos placitorum coronæ, record keeper of the pleas of the Crown.
114 In existence also in France and Germany from the earliest times, thus defined in the “Grand Coutumier de Normandie,” chap. 54: “Il ne doit être crié fors pour cause criminelle, si comme pour feu et pour larcin ou pour homicide ou pour autre évident péril, si comme si aucun court sus à un autre le couteau trait. Car cil qui crie haro sans apert (obvious) péril le doit amender au prince . . . A ce cri doivent isser tous ceux qui l’ont oui.” This custom remained in use in Normandy until the French Revolution. Glasson, “Origines de la clameur de haro,” Paris, 1882. In England the statutes concerning the “hue and cry” were repealed only in 1827.