21 



tianity were accelerated by these preparations ! The Roman 

 highways conveyed the missionaries of Christianity into every 

 remote region, and enabled them to penetrate the Roman 

 world to a degree which has never been equalled since that 

 great empire has fallen. 



It is singular that with the fall of the Roman power seems 

 to have declined also the true art of road making, until it 

 revived in more modern times. When the Roman Empire 

 was divided, and when independent European nations were 

 formed out of its members, the ancient Roman roads seem to 

 have endured for centuries as the approved lines of traflSc, 

 with very little care bestowed upon them. We know that in 

 this island they were protected by laws in Saxon times, but 

 their condition was probably not much attended to ; their 

 solid and durable construction seems for a long while to have 

 defied the changes of atmosphere and the ordinary use they 

 were put to. From the laws of Edward the Confessor, which, 

 though revised by him, were really made by King Edgar, we 

 learn that there were at this time in England /oitr great roads, 

 protected by the Kings pence — Watlinge Street, Foss, 

 Rickenilde Street, and Erming Street. These were of Roman 

 construction. The privilege of these four roads was confirmed 

 by William the Conqueror, and continued by his successors, 

 and probably extended in the twelfth century to all the high- 

 ways of the kingdom. This implies that care must have 

 been taken for keeping them in some degree of order, and 

 making them serviceable ; but their condition, even up to a 

 comparatively recent date, must have become very bad. 

 Historians give woeful accounts of their condition, and in 

 remote parts of the island the old Roman ways were quite 

 forgotten, and had become covered with sward, and are now 

 to be found nearly a foot under the turf, and sometimes in 

 wet ground much deeper. Bridle-ways, or old packhorse 

 roads, in some parts superseded the old Via Strata, and until 



