280 HIGHWAYS 



through the hills. Besides the highways between town and town, 

 each manor had its by-roads, leading from the village to the open 

 fields, the commons, the mill, or the church. The ordinary principle 

 which governed the repair of thoroughfares was that they should 

 be maintained by those who had the use of them. The duty of 

 maintaining communication between market towns rested on the 

 inhabitants of the parishes through which the roads passed ; within 

 the limits of chartered towns it fell on the townsmen, on whom rates 

 or tolls were sometimes levied. Local by-roads within the boun- 

 daries of manors were repaired by the manorial tenantry as one of 

 the conditions of their tenure, and they were bound to provide the 

 necessary implements and labour. These obligations were respec- 

 tively enforced by county or municipal authorities or manorial 

 courts. But road repair did not entirely depend on the performance 

 of legal liabilities. It was also enjoined as a religious duty. Travel- 

 lers were classed with the sick and poor as objects of Christian charity. 

 Indulgences were granted to offenders who gave their money or 

 their labour for the construction or repair of roads and bridges. 

 For the same object pious bequests were encouraged. Gifts of this 

 kind occur as late as the sixteenth century, and in the reign of 

 Edward VI. one of the enquiries made at the Visitations of Bishops 

 was whether these bequests were administered according to the 

 intentions of the donors. 



For a short period during the reign of Edward I., road improve- 

 ment had received some attention from Government. When new 

 ports, like those of Sandwich and Hull, were constructed, care was 

 taken to provide good approaches by land. An attempt was also 

 made to safeguard the lives and property of travellers on the king's 

 highway. Adjoining landowners were compelled by statute to 

 clear all roads between market towns from trees and underwood to a 

 space of 200 feet on either side. The object was not the preservation 

 of the roads by the admission of light and air, but the destruction 

 of the lurking places of robbers. If any crime of violence was 

 committed on a highway not properly cleared, the adjoining owner 

 was held responsible. But the energies of Edward's successors 

 were absorbed in other directions than the maintenance of rural 

 roads. As the fourteenth century advanced, the general burden of 

 taxation and the scarcity of labour increased the growing neglect 

 of public highways. Agricultural changes told in the same direction. 

 So long as lay and ecclesiastical nobles, in order to consume the 



