ks. Outlaws, dwelling in the
forests or in the deep morass which girded the road, pounced upon the
traveller on the causeway, eased him of his luggage if he carried any,
and if there was no further occasion for his services, they either let
him down easily into the next quagmire, or if they were, for those days,
gentlemanly thieves, left him standing, as Justice Shallow has it, like a
"forked radish," to enjoy the summer's heat or the winter's cold. The
cross and escallop shell of the pilgrim were no protection: "Cucullus non
fecit monachum" in the eyes of these minions of the road; or rather,
perhaps, the hood gave a new zest to the wrongs done to its wearer by
these "uncircumcised Philistines." Convents, the abodes of men
professing at least to be peaceful, were obliged to keep in pay William
of Deloraine to mate with Jock of Thirlstane: and ancient citizens were
fain to put by their grave habiliments, and "wield old partisans in hands
as old." There is extant an agreement made between Leofstan, Abbot of
St. Albans, and certain barons, by which the Abbot agrees to hire, and
the barons to let, certain men-at-arms for the security of the Abbey, and
for scouring the forests. Savage capital punishments--impalement,
mutilation, hanging alive in chains--were inflicted on the marauders, who
duly acknowledged these attentions by yet more atrocious severities upon
the wayfarers who had the ill luck to be caught by them.

The insecurity of the old roads necessarily affected the manners of the
time. He should have been a hardy traveller who would venture himself
"single and sole," when he might journey in company. The same cause
which leads to the formation of the caravans of Africa and Asia, led to
the collection of such goodly companies of pilgrims as wended their way
from the Tabard in Southwark to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury;
and the pursuit of travelling under difficulties produced for all
posterity the most delightful of the poems of the great father of English
verse.

Travelling in companies, in times when it was next to impossible to be on
"visiting terms with one's neighbours," tended greatly to the improvement
of social intercourse, and to the erection of roomy and comfortable inns
for the wayfarers. It took Dan Chaucer only a few hours to be on the
best footing with the nine and twenty guests at the Tabard.

"Befelle that, in that season {18} on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,