ne who could play or sing was always
welcome, and the verses sung were often exceedingly coarse. A tumbler
who could stand on his head or balance a heavy article at the end of a
stick balanced on his chin, or the leader of a performing bear, was
seldom turned away from the door, whilst the pedlar went from place to
place, supplying the wants which are now satisfied in the shop of the
village or the neighbouring town.

[Illustration: Bear-baiting: from the Luttrell Psalter.]

16. =Robbers and Criminals.=--The roads, indeed, were not always safe.
Outlaws who had escaped from the punishment due to their crimes took
refuge in the broad tracts of forest land which occupied much of the
soil which has since been cultivated, shot the king's deer, and robbed
merchants and wealthy travellers, leaving the poor untouched, like the
legendary Robin Hood of an earlier date. Such robbers were highly
esteemed by the poor, as the law from which they suffered was cruelly
harsh, hanging being the penalty for thefts amounting to a shilling.
Villeins who fled from service could be reclaimed by their masters,
unless they could succeed in passing a year in a town, and
consequently were often found amongst vagabonds who had to live as
best they might, often enough by committing fresh crimes. Prisons, in
which even persons guilty of no more than harmless vagabondage were
confined, reeked with disease, and those who were, as wanderers or
drunkards, put in the stocks, had, if an unpleasant, at least a less
dangerous experience than the prisoner. One means of escape, indeed,
was available to some, at least, of these unfortunates. They could
take refuge in the sanctuaries to be found in churches, from which no
officer of the law could take them, and, though the Church preserved
some guilty ones from just punishment, she also saved many who were
either innocent or who were exposed to punishments far too severe for
their slight offences.

[Illustration: West end of the nave of Winchester Cathedral: begun by
Bishop Edington (who built the great window) between 1360 and 1366:
carried on by Bishop William of Wykeham from 1394 to 1416, and finally
completed after his death.]

17. =Justices of the Peace.=--Even harshness is less dangerous than
anarchy, and from time to time measures were taken to provide against
anarchy. Before the Conquest order had been kept by making either the
kindred or the township liable to produce offenders, and this system
wa