wanting, the numerous monasteries readily afforded shelter 

 and hospitality. Common carriers traversed the road between 

 Oxford and Newcastle, between Oxford and Southampton, and 

 took the responsibility of carrying money as well as goods. 

 The common notion that there were scanty means of com- 

 munication between places is a misconception, which has 

 arisen from several causes. It is true that after the Refor- 

 mation, the destruction of the monasteries, and the parcelling 

 out of Church lands among a number of resident proprietors, 

 the habit of travel was abandoned, partly because it was no 

 longer so necessary, partly because it was no longer so safe. 

 Again, as we know that written correspondence was trans- 

 mitted with expense and difficulty, persons are apt to imagine 

 that it was very rare, and judging in some degree from the 

 modern facility of transmitting letters, conclude that there 

 could have been very scanty means for obtaining distant infor- 

 mation. Further, it is not always remembered, that the 

 mendicant friars and generally the poorer ecclesiastics were 

 perpetually, and indeed necessarily, wandering about the 

 country. 



An abundant and obvious means of communication was 

 therefore found in the existence of these itinerant priests. 

 The Roman court had constantly encouraged the organisation 

 of these lower clergy, because they were on the whole devoted 

 to the interests of the Pope, while their habits and professions 

 made them generally popular with the poorer classes. They con- 

 trasted them with the rich abbots and luxurious bishops, with the 

 demoralised monks of the elder orders, and the careless incum- 

 bents of the richly endowed parishes. We are told on all 

 sides, that among the consequences of the Plague there was 

 a notable decline of letters among the monastic bodies, and 

 a general lack of moral energy among beneficed ecclesiastics. 

 The fourteenth century can boast of very few dignified clergy- 

 men who were eminent for either piety or learning. It is 

 said that numbers of illiterate men were hastily ordained to 

 fill the vacancies created by the ravages of the Black Death. 



