io 4 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



in mediaeval times, the man had been bound to his 

 manor. It also gave rise to a costly custom of carting 

 the poor from place to place, in order that they might 

 be dumped down in some parish that could be proved 

 to be their birthplace, or place of settlement. 



The country villages that lay on or near a road of 

 any importance could not fail to be brought more 



into touch with the national life : for the 

 Travellers growth of the big cities and the develop- 

 roads. ment of trade between these cities and the 



market towns brought more people into the 

 country. The travellers brought news and new ideas, 

 whilst occasional newspapers, which the governments 

 then published, must have reached the principal market 

 towns. 



There was considerable traffic on the roads. When 

 the farmer had sold his corn, or wool or cloth, and in 

 these times many men were farming no longer for food 

 alone but had a definite surplus to sell, it would be 

 loaded on pack-horses, or else carted away in great 

 hooded waggons drawn by teams of eight horses. 

 The villagers tramped, or, if they had a nag to 

 ride, trotted off weekly to the market town and once 

 or twice a year to a neighbouring fair. People of 

 standing, both men and women, travelled on horse- 

 back, though occasionally a carriage may have been 

 used ; but such wheeled vehicles were strange sights 

 outside the great towns. The roadways were un- 

 suited for any large amount of traffic, being still 

 mere strips of grass-land worn by the feet of the flocks 

 and herds that passed along from time to time, and 

 full of holes and ruts made by the farmers' carts and 

 waggons. Travelling, too, was dangerous ; armed 



