[Illustration: _No. 210. Ladies Riding._] Travelling on horseback was now more common than at an earlier period, and this was not unfrequently a subject of popular complaint. In fact, men who rode on horseback considered themselves much above the pedestrians; they often went in companies, and were generally accompanied with grooms, and other riotous followers, who committed all sorts of depredations and violence on the peasantry in their way. A satirical song of the latter end of the reign of Edward I., represents our Saviour as discouraging the practice of riding. “While God was on earth,” says the writer, “and wandered wide, what was the reason he would not ride? Because he would not have a groom to go by his side, nor the grudging (or discontent) of any gadling to jaw or to chide:”-- _Whil God was on erthe_ _And wondrede wyde,_ _Whet wes the resoun_ _Why he nolde ryde?_ _For he nolde no groom_ _To go by hys syde,_ _Ne grucchyng of no gedelyng_ _To chaule ne to chyde._ [Illustration: _No. 211. An Abbot travelling._] “Listen to me, horsemen,” continues this satirist, “and I will tell you news--that ye shall hang, and be lodged in hell:”-- _Herkneth hideward, horsmen,_ _A tidyng ich ou telle,_ _That ye shulen hongen,_ _Ant herbarewen in helle!_ The clergy were great riders, and abbots and monks are not unfrequently figured on horseback. Our cut No. 211 (from MS. Cotton, Nero, D. vii.) represents an abbot riding, with a hat over his hood; he is giving his benediction in return to the salute of some passing traveller. [Illustration: _No. 212. A Knight and his Steed._] The knight still carried his spear with him in travelling, as the footman carried his staff. In our cut No. 212, from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (No. 6963), the rider, though not armed, carries his spear with him. The saddle in this instance is singularly and rather rudely formed. It was a great point of vanity in the middle ages in England to hang the caparisons of the horse with small bells, which made a jingling noise. In the romance of “Richard Cœur de Lion” (Weber ii. 60), a messenger coming to king Richard has no less than five hundred such bells suspended to his horse-- _His trappys wer off tuely sylke,_ _With five hundred belles rygande._ And again, in the same romance (vol. ii. p. 223), we are told, in speaking of the sultan of “Damas,” that his horse was well furnished in this respect-- _Hys crouper heeng al fulle off belles,_ _And hys peytrel, and hys arsoun;_ _Three myle myghte men here the soun._ The bridle, however, was the part of the harness usually loaded with bells, and, according to Chaucer, it was a vanity especially affected by the monks; for the poet tells us of his monk, that--