n from the poorest widow. He
would not, he said, work with his hands like the apostles. He wanted
to have money, wool, cheese, and wheat at other people's expense.
Though Wycliffe had failed to reform the Church there was evidently
much room for a reformer.

[Illustration: Carrying corn--a cart going uphill: from the Luttrell
Psalter.]

11. =Roads and Bridges.=--Such men as these latter did not go on
pilgrimages through pure religious zeal. Villeins, indeed, were "bound
to the soil," and lived and died on land which they tilled; but the
classes above them moved about freely, and took pleasure in a
pilgrimage, as a modern Englishman takes pleasure in a railway
excursion. It was considered to be a pious work to make or repair
roads and bridges, and the existence of many bridges especially was
owing to the clergy. The most famous bridge in England, London Bridge,
had been begun in the place of an old wooden one in =1176=--in the
reign of Henry II.--by a priest, Peter Colechurch, who obtained gifts
for the purpose from notable people of all kinds. It was completed in
=1209=, houses being built upon it in order that their rents might pay
for keeping it in good condition. Local taxes were sometimes levied to
maintain the roads and bridges, and in default of these, it was held
to be the duty of the owners of land to keep the communications open.

[Illustration: State carriage of the fourteenth century: from the
Luttrell Psalter.]

12. =Modes of Conveyance.=--In spite of these precautions, roads were
often neglected, so that those who were not obliged to go on foot
travelled almost entirely on horseback, women almost always riding
astride like men. It was only at the end of the fourteenth century
that a few ladies rode sideways. Kings and queens and exceedingly
great people occasionally used lumbering but gorgeously ornamented
carriages; but this was to enable them to appear in splendour, as this
way of travelling must, at least in fine weather, have been far less
agreeable than the ordinary ride. The only other wheeled vehicles in
existence were the peasants' carts on two wheels, roughly made in the
form of a square box either of boards or of a lighter framework. It
was one of the grievances of the peasants that when the king moved
from one manor to another his purveyors seized their carts to carry
his property, and that though the purveyors were bound by frequently
repeated statutes to pay for their hire, these statutes