1 6 History of Inland Transport 



journeys so full of peril that they were not begun until the 

 merchant had made his will and earnestly commended himself 

 to the protection both of St. Botolph and of his own patron 

 saint. The " commercial travellers " of that day carried 

 their samples or their wares in a bag lying across their horse's 

 back, thus qualifying for the designation of " bagmen " by 

 which they were to become known. 



In the Middle Ages everyone rode except the very poor, and 

 they had to be content to trudge along on foot. Kings and 

 nobles, princes and princesses, gentlemen and ladies, merchants 

 and bagmen all travelled on horseback. Women either rode 

 astride until the introduction of side-saddles, in the fourteenth 

 century, or else rode in pillion fashion. 



The main exception to riding on horseback, in the case of 

 ladies or of the sick or infirm, was the use of litters attached to 

 shafts to which two horses, one in front and one behind the 

 litter, were harnessed. Sometimes, also, " passengers " were 

 carried in the panniers of the packhorses, instead of goods. 



Certain main routes, and especially those favoured by 

 pilgrims such as that between London and Canterbury 

 must have been full of animation in those days ; but, speaking 

 generally, no one then travelled except on business or under 

 the pressure of some strong obligation. 



Down to the end of the fourteenth century England was 

 purely an agricultural country, and her agricultural products 

 were exclusively for home, if not for local or even domestic 

 consumption, with the one exception of wool, which was 

 exported in considerable quantities to Flanders and other 

 lands then dependent mainly on England for the raw materials 

 of their cloth manufactures. In our own country manu- 

 factures had made but little advance, and they mainly sup- 

 plied the requirements, in each instance, of a very limited area. 



England was, indeed, in those days, little more than a 

 collection of isolated communities in which the various 

 householders, more especially in villages at a distance from any 

 main road or navigable river, had to provide for their own 

 requirements to a great extent. Of retail shops, such as are 

 now found in the most remote villages, there were none at all 

 at a period when the replenishing of stocks would have 

 been impossible by reason of difficulties in transport ; 

 so that while the country as a whole was mainly agricultural, 



