mal condition of its provinces; the sports of the field were
unfavourable to agriculture, and directly opposed to the promotion of
commerce and the growth of towns. So long as it was conducive to the
pleasures of the manorial lord to keep large tracts of land uncultivated,
it was contrary to his interests to form great thoroughfares. We have in
the 'Tesoretto' of Brunetto a striking picture of the desolation of
northern Spain in the thirteenth century. He thus describes his journey
over the plain of Roncesvalles.

"There a scholar I espied,
On a bay mule that did ride.
Well away! what fearful ground
In that savage part I found.
If of art I aught could ken,
Well behoved me use it then.
More I look'd, the more I deem'd
That it wild and desert seem'd:
Not a road was there in sight;
Not a house and not a wight;
Not a bird and not a brute,
Not a rill, and not a root;
Not an emmet, not a fly,
Not a thing I mote descry:
Sore I doubted therewithal
Whether death would me befall.
Nor was wonder, for around
Full three hundred miles of ground,
Right across on every side
Lay the desert bare and wide." {87}

As Ser Brunetto was despatched on very urgent business, it may be
presumed that he was journeying by the most direct road which he could
find. Until the reign of Charlemagne indeed there were but few towns,
and consequently few roads, in Germany. The population generally was
widely spread over the surface of the land. "A house, with its stables
and farm-buildings," says Mr. Hallam, "surrounded by a hedge or
inclosure, was called a court, or as we find it in our law-books, a
curtilage: the toft or homestead of a more genuine English dialect. One
of these, with the adjacent arable fields and woods, had the name of a
villa or manse. Several manses composed a march; and several marches
formed a Pagus, or district." There was indeed little temptation or need
to move from place to place, when nearly every article of consumption was
produced or wrought at home. For several centuries there is perhaps not
a vestige to be discovered of any considerable manufacture. Each
district furnished for itself its own articles of common utility. Rich
men kept domestic artizans among their servants; even kings, in the ninth
century, had their clothes made by the women upon their farms. The
weaver, the smith, and the currier were often born and bred o