12 History of Inland Transport 



containing frequent entries of 4O-day indulgencies granted to 

 contributors to the road-repair funds. There were benefactors, 

 also, who left to the monasteries lands and houses the proceeds 

 of which were to be applied to the same public purpose ; while 

 in proportion as the monasteries thus increased the extent 

 of their own landed possessions they became still more 

 interested in the making and repairing of roads in the neigh- 

 bourhoods in which the lands they had acquired were situated. 



In those days, in fact, people bequeathed not only land, 

 or money, but even live stock for the repair of roads just as 

 they left gifts for ecclesiastical purposes, or as people to-day 

 make bequests to charitable institutions. The practice con- 

 tinued until, at least, the middle of the sixteenth century, 

 since in the Sixth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Com- 

 mission there will be found (page 422) the last will and testa- 

 ment, dated May 16, 1558, of John Davye, in which the 

 testator says : 



" I leve and bequeithe a cowpell of oxson that I boughte the 

 laste yere to the building of Moulde Church where I dwell ; 

 And I bequieth a bullocke that I boughte of the Royde unto 

 the mendynge of the hye waie betwixte my howse and the 

 Molld." 



Bequests of money or lands were also made for the con- 

 struction or the maintenance of bridges, or for the freeing of 

 bridges from toll so that the poor could cross without payment ; 

 and one of the duties of the bishops, when making their 

 visitations, was to enquire whether or not the funds thus left 

 were being applied to the purposes the donors intended. 



On the Continent of Europe a religious order was founded, 

 in the twelfth century, for the building of bridges. It spread 

 over several countries and built some notable bridges 

 such, for instance, as that over the Rhone at Avignon ; though 

 there is no trace, Jusserand tells us, of these Bridge Friars 

 having extended their operations to this country. It was, 

 however, from them that laymen learned the art of bridge- 

 building, and in Britain, as in Continental countries, bridges 

 came to be considered as pious works, to be put under the 

 special charge of a patron saint. To this end it was customary 

 to build a chapel alongside an important bridge as in the case 

 of the old London Bridge that replaced the original wooden 

 structure by Peter Colechurch, " priest and chaplain," itself 



