CHAPTER III 



ROADS AND THE CHURCH 



FOLLOWING the departure of the Romans, not only road- 

 making but even road-repairing was for several centuries 

 wholly neglected in this country. The Roman roads continued 

 to be used, but successive rulers in troublesome times were too 

 busily engaged in maintaining their own position or in waging 

 wars at home or abroad to attend to such prosaic details as 

 the repairing of roads, and they had, apparently, still less time 

 or opportunity for converting into roads hill-side tracks which 

 the Romans had not touched at all. 



In proportion, too, as the roads were neglected, the bridges 

 of the earlier period got out of repair, fell in altogether, or 

 were destroyed in the social disorders of the time. So the 

 mediaeval ages found the means of internal communication by 

 land probably worse in Britain than in any other country in 

 western Europe. 



The State having failed to acquit itself of its obligations, the 

 Church took up the work as a religious duty. The keeping of 

 roads in repair came to be considered, as Jusserand says in 

 " English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages," " a pious and 

 meritorious work before God, of the same sort as visiting the 

 sick and caring for the poor." Travellers were regarded as 

 unfortunate people whose progress on their toilsome journeys 

 it was Christian charity to assist. In these circumstances the 

 religious houses of the period took over the task of making 

 or repairing both roads and bridges, the faithful being en- 

 couraged to assist in the good work, either through gifts or 

 with personal labour, by the concession to them of special 

 indulgencies. Jusserand tells, for instance, how Richard de 

 Kellawe, Bishop of Durham, 1311-1316, remitted part of the 

 penalties on the sins of those who did good work in helping 

 to make smooth the way of the wanderer, his episcopal register 



ii 



