Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: OLD LONDON BRIDGE. (from MS. Rov. 16 f 2 in the British Mustuiu.) CHAPTER I. ROADS AND BRIDGES. THE maintenance of roads and bridges in England was in the fourteenth century one of those general charges which weighed, like military service, on the whole of the nation. All landed proprietors were obliged, in theory, to wateh over the good condition of the highways; their tenants had to execute the repairs for them. The religious houses themselves, owners of property given in frank almoigne, that is to say, having an object of pure charity with a perpetual title, had dispensation from every service and rent towards the former proprietor of the soil, and in general they had no othercharge than that of saying prayers or giving alms for the repose of the donor's soul. But yet it remained For vhem to satisfy the trinoda mcessilas, or triple obligation, which among other duties consisted in repairing roads and bridges. - x- (N There was in England a very considerable network of roads, the principal of which dated as far back as the Roman times. The province of Britain had been one or those where the greatest care had been bestowed upon the military and commercial ways by the Roman emperors.: ' The network of roads in the island, says Mommsen, which was uncommonly developed, and for which in particular Hadrian did much in connection with the building of his wall, was of course primarily subservient to military ends; but alongside of, and in part taking precedence over the legionary camps, Londinium occupies in that respect a place which brings clearly into view its leading position in traffic. ' In many places are yet to be found remnants of the Roman highways, the more important of which were called in Anglo-Saxon times and since, Watling Street, Ermine Street, the...