little, and though
Edward I enforced the general improvement of roads in 1285, in the
fourteenth century they were decaying. Parliament adjourned thrice
between 1331 and 1380 because the state of the roads kept many of the
members away. In 1353 the high road running from Temple Bar, then the
western limit of London, to Westminster was 'so full of holes and
bogs' that the traffic was dangerous for men and carriages; and a
little later all the roads near London were so bad, that carriers 'are
oftentimes In peril of losing what they bring.' What must remote
country roads have been like when these important highways were in
this state? If members of Parliament, rich men riding good horses,
could not get to London, how did the clumsy wagons and carts of the
day fare? The Church might well pity the traveller, and class him with
the sick 'and the captive among the unfortunates whom she recommended
to the daily prayers of pious souls.'[62] Rivers were mainly crossed
by ford or ferry, though there were some excellent bridges, a few of
which still remain, maintained by the _trinoda necessitas_, by gilds,
by 'indulgences' promised to benefactors, and by toll, the right to
levy which, called pontage, was often spent otherwise than on the
repair of the bridge.

A few of the old open fields still exist, and the best surviving example
of an open-field parish is that of Laxton in Nottinghamshire.[63]
Nearly half the area of the parish remains in the form of two great
arable fields, and two smaller ones which are treated as two parts of
the third field. The different holdings, freehold and leasehold,
consist in part of strips of land scattered all over these fields. The
three-course system is rigidly adhered to, first year wheat, second
year spring corn, third year fallow.

In a corner of the parish is Laxton Heath, a common covered with
coarse grass where the sheep are grazed according to a 'stint'
recently determined upon, for when it was unstinted the common was
overstocked. The commonable meadows which the parish once had were
enclosed at a date beyond anyone's recollection, though the
neighbouring parish of Eakring still has some. There are other
enclosures in the remote parts of the parish which apparently
represent the old woodland. The inconvenience of the common-field
system was extreme. South Luffenham in Rutland, not enclosed till
1879, consisted of 1,074 acres divided among twenty-two owners into
1,238 pieces. In some pla