immediate vicinity of the few large towns. The keeping of the roads in
repair, one part of the _trinoda necessitas_ was imposed on all lands;
but the results often seem to have been very indifferent, and they
appear largely to have depended on chance, or the goodwill or devotion
of neighbouring landowners.[61] Perhaps they would, except in the case
of the Roman roads, have been impassable but for the fact that the
great lords and abbots were constantly visiting their scattered
estates, and therefore were interested in keeping such roads in order.
But in those days people were contented with very 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