I3# yOURNEFS AND MARKETS. 



army commissions. But it does not seem that the court was 

 oppressive or dishonest. 1 remember to have read (among 

 other documents which deserve better care than is, or per- 

 haps can be, given them), while on a cursory visit to Here- 

 ford Cathedral, an inventory of the effects of some member 

 of the Chapter, who died at Avignon in the fourteenth century. 

 The account was precise, and the values assigned to the effects 

 of the deceased were payable to his representatives in Eng- 

 land, unless these parties thought fit to have them transported 

 home. The fees, too, paid at the court seem to be regular; 

 we do not, at least, read in these two documents any of 

 those entries which so frequently disgraced the administra- 

 tion of English justice then and long afterwards, the direct 

 payment of bribes to judges and other officials. 



Journeys were frequently taken for religious ends. We all 

 know that the background of Chaucer's charming tales is a 

 pilgrimage to Canterbury. For very sufficient reasons, reasons 

 which modern historical research has too frequently ignored, 

 the veneration for Becket's memory, acknowledged, as was the 

 custom of the time, by his elevation to the honour of saintship, 

 was deep and enduring to the Reformation till the time, 

 indeed, when Henry the Eighth enacted the coarse jest of try- 

 ing the saint for treason, nearly four hundred years after he 

 had been murdered. 



Habitual pilgrimage needed safe roads and the ordinary con- 

 veniences of shelter. The medieval inn did not, it seems, 

 provide much more than lodging for the wayfarer, and perhaps 

 provender for his horse. On reaching his lodging the traveller 

 set about purchasing what he needed for provisions, and, as 

 might be expected, paid high prices for the accommodation. 

 The roads however, repaired by common law at the charge of 

 all owners of property, were in all likelihood far better than 

 existed after the Reformation, when the necessity for easy and 

 convenient communication was annulled by the abandonment 

 of the custom of making these religious journeys, and by the 

 fact that estates were more compact, and therefore the visita- 



