History of England 1-6

The ancient roads, the witnesses of prehistoric life and travel, still persisted in the medieval landscape. But they were joined by other highways in the historical period. Many winding lanes between farmstead and farmstead, many sunken hollow-ways leading to the village, deep-set and drowsy on a summer afternoon, were constructed in the twelfth century. It was a great age of building stone bridges that needed roads on either bank, and the growth of towns required the more intensive use of the cart and the packhorse as a means of trade and transport. The ‘Gough’ map, dating approximately from 1360, reveals a network of major roads linking London with the other regions of the country. More small roads and tracks could be found in the thirteenth than in the twenty-first century.

The width for the king’s highways was fixed in the early part of the twelfth century as that which would allow two wagons to pass each other, or for sixteen knights to ride abreast. We might calculate this to be 30 feet (9 metres). They were not all necessarily in good condition, however, and there is evidence of ditches, potholes and even wells dug into the surface. The people were urged as a religious duty to give funds for the mending of ‘wikked wayes’; townspeople and landowners en route were obliged to maintain and preserve the roads of their immediate neighbourhood.

The travellers made use of the inns that had been established along the high roads since the time of the Saxons; the word ‘inn’ is itself of Saxon origin and takes its place beside ‘gest-hus’ and ‘cumena-hus’ as a lodging for tired and dusty patrons. Alehouses were to be recognized by a long projecting pole beside the door, from which a bush was hung. That tradition has continued into the twenty-first century, with hanging baskets of flowers commonly suspended outside public houses.

The most common form of travel was by horse, although the native breeds were not considered to be as sturdy as those from the continent; a white horse was the most prized, followed by a dapple-grey and a chestnut. The roads were not safe from thieves and outlaws, so the travellers would form groups or ‘caravans’ for mutual protection. Even the knights and landowners of the neighbourhood might engage in highway robbery, and it was not uncommon for travellers to be obliged to pay exorbitant rates to cross a bridge or a ford. The members of the group would carry with them flint and steel, in order to prepare a fire, and also the rudiments of bedding in case they could not find accommodation; they also brought with them bread, meat and beer.

A long tradition of hospitality made it shameful to turn a wayfarer from the door. It was the custom that a traveller might stay two nights with a household, sharing its food and its beds, before taking his or her leave. After that time the host became responsible for the stranger’s conduct. It was also customary, on first arrival, for the traveller’s hands and feet to be washed. But there were benefits for the host in the arrangement. Where are you from? What news? What have you seen? In a nation where communication was often slow or nonexistent, the arrival of a stranger was a matter of consequence.

Sometimes only slow progress could be made. The Canterbury pilgrims rode for three or four days before they could cover the 54½ miles (88 kilometres) from London. But there were also ‘pilgrim roads’. One route, from Winchester to Canterbury, has even become known as the Pilgrims Way or what Hilaire Belloc called the Old Road. Pilgrims were the largest and most recognizable of all bodies of wayfarers. They walked or rode to Durham in order to visit the tomb of St Cuthbert; they came to the shrine of Edward the Confessor at Westminster; they travelled to Glastonbury to marvel at the thorn tree miraculously planted there by Joseph of Arimathea; they went to worship the vial of holy blood, a relic of the crucifixion, at Hailes Abbey in Gloucestershire; they visited Winchester to pray at the shrine of St Swithin. The woods beside the road to St Albans had to be cleared to accommodate the throng of pilgrims making their way to the shrine of the martyred saint.

The two most prominent sites of pilgrimage were those of Our Lady at Walsingham and of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. The road from Newmarket to Walsingham is still known as ‘the Palmers Way’, palmer being another term for pilgrim. It was often crowded with worshippers, and its route was lined with inns and chapels; the town itself was filled to bursting with wayfarers. Many cases of healing were recorded at Canterbury. The diseased limb of a sufferer would be measured with a piece of thread, and a wax replica made of it; this was then brought to the tomb. Many invalids were carried in carts to pray before Becket’s remains, but the saint was also known to cure hawks and horses. The noise in the cathedral was deafening.