555.)
The means of travel and communication, of course, were few and
difficult. The roads were bad and dangerous. In France, Germany and
Italy there were so many forms of government, dukedoms, baronies,
marquisates, signories, city republics, each with its own custom
regulations, not to speak of each having its own coinage and language,
that travelers encountered obstacles almost at every step. For the most
part, journeys had to be made afoot and a degree of safety was attained
only if the traveler joined a large trade caravan, a pilgrimage or a
governmental expedition. Night often found the party far from a hospice
or inn and so they were obliged for shelter to camp on the highway or
in the fields. Necessarily the traveler was subjected to innumerable
privations and sufferings.
I have not been able to get accurate information as to the exact length
of time required to make a trip, say from London to Paris--a distance
covered the other day by an aeroplane in eighty minutes. But, the
"Consuetudines" of the Hereford Cathedral, England, afford us some data
upon which to base the conclusion that six weeks were necessary for
such a trip, allowing another week for religious purposes. The
"Consuetudines" after specifying that no canon of the cathedral was to
make more than one pilgrimage beyond the seas in his lifetime, allows
the clergyman seven weeks' absence to go abroad to the tomb of St.
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