14 History of Inland Transport 



land or cattle for road-repair purposes, however much the 

 offer of indulgences in return therefor might be increased from 

 days to months or even to years ; and the clergy, in turn, 

 became more remiss in acquitting themselves of the obligations 

 they had assumed as road-repairers. They accepted the 

 benefactions, and they granted the indulgences ; but they 

 showed increasing laxity in carrying out their responsibilities. 

 The roadside hermits, also, gathered in so much in the way of 

 contributions, voluntary or compulsory, from passers-by that 

 they ate and drank more than hermits ought to do, grew fat 

 and lazy, and too often left the roads to look after themselves. 



What, therefore, with neglected roads and dilapidated 

 bridges, the general conditions of travel went from bad to 

 worse. Church Councils, says Denton, were summoned and 

 adjourned because bishops feared to encounter the danger of 

 travelling along such roads. Oratories were licensed in 

 private houses, and chapels of ease were built, because roads 

 were so bad, especially in winter, that the people could not 

 get to their parish churches. The charter, 47 Edward III., 

 r 373 by which the city of Bristol was constituted a county, 

 states that this was done in order to save the burgesses from 

 travelling to Gloucester and Ilchester, " distant thirty miles 

 of road, deep, especially in winter time, and dangerous to 

 passengers." On many different occasions, too, the members 

 of the House of Commons, assembled for a new session, 

 could transact no business because the Peers had been detained 

 by the state of the roads and the difficulty of travelling, 

 and Parliament was, therefore, adjourned. 



The general conditions grew still worse with the impoverish- 

 ment of the monasteries by which the main part of the work 

 had however negligently been done since the end of the 

 Roman regime. As will be shown later on, various statutes 

 had gradually imposed more and more the care of the roads 

 on the laity, and it was upon them that the full responsibility 

 fell with the eventual dissolution, first of the lesser, and next 

 of the greater, monasteries by Henry VIII. 



