CHAPTER IV 



EARLY TRADING CONDITIONS 



RIVERS constituted, in the Middle Ages, the most important 

 means of inland transport. Most of our oldest towns or cities 

 that were not on the route of one of the Roman roads were 

 set up alongside or within easy reach of some tidal or navigable 

 stream in order, among other reasons, that full advantage 

 could be taken of the transport facilities the waterways 

 offered. So were monasteries, castles, and baronial halls, 

 while the locating of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge 

 on the Thames and the Cam respectively rendered them 

 accessible by sea and river to Scottish and other students 

 from the north who could hardly have made their way thither 

 by land. 1 



It was, however, only a limited number of inland places 

 that could be reached by water, and other towns or settlements 

 were wanted. The trading opportunities of the latter were at 

 first restricted to the packhorse, few of the roads being then 

 adapted for even the most primitive of agricultural waggons. 

 Long lines of packhorses, with bales or panniers slung across 

 their backs, made their way along roads or bridle paths 

 often inadequate to allow of two strings of loaded horses to 

 pass one another, so that many a quarrel arose, when two 

 teams met, as to which should go into the mud to allow the 

 other to pass along the path proper. 



Traders sending wool or other commodities by the same 

 route were in the habit of making up companies in order to 

 secure mutual protection against robbers, and they armed 

 themselves and their servants as if going to battle. Like 

 precautions were taken by merchants from the north when 

 they started on their annual business journeys to London 



1 The subject of rivers and river transport will be fully dealt with in 

 later chapters. 



