Great importance was placed in the breeding of horses in the middle ages. Charlemagne, in the regulations for the administration of his private domains, gives particular directions for the care of his brood-mares and stallions. Normandy appears to have been famous for its studs of horses in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and documents show that the monks took good care rigorously to exact the tithes of their produce to stock the monastic stables. Traces of the existence of similar studs are found also in other parts of France. At this time a horse was considered the handsomest present that could be made by a king or a great lord, and horses were often given as bribes. Thus, in 1227, the monks of the abbey of Troarn obtained from Guillaume de Tilli the ratification of a grant made to them by his father in consideration of a gift to him of a mark of silver and a palfrey; and the monks of St. Evroul, in 1165, purchased a favour of the English earl of Gloucester by presenting to him two palfreys estimated to be worth twenty pounds of money of Anjou. Kings frequently received horses as presents from their subjects. The widow of Herbert du Mesnil gave king John of England a palfrey to obtain the wardship of her children; and one Geoffrey Fitz-Richard gave the same monarch a palfrey for a concession in the forest of Beaulieu. In 1172, Raimond, count of St. Gilles, having become the vassal of the king of England, engaged to pay him an annual tribute of a hundred marks of silver, or ten _dextriers_, worth at least ten marks each. The English studs appear already in the thirteenth century to have become remarkable for their excellence. Travelling, in the middle ages, was assisted by few, it any, conveniences, and was dangerous as well as difficult. The insecurity of the roads made it necessary for travellers to associate together for protection, as well as for company, for their journeys were slow and dull; and as they were often obliged to halt for the night where there was little or no accommodation, they had to carry a good deal of luggage. An inn was often the place of rendezvous for travellers starting upon the same journey. It is thus that Chaucer represents himself as having taken up his quarters at the Tabard, in Southwark, preparatory to undertaking the journey to Canterbury; and at night there arrived a company of travellers bent to the same destination, who had gathered together as they came along the road:-- _At night was come into that hostelrie_ _Wel nyne and twenty in a companye,_ _Of sondry folk, by aventure ifalle_ _In felaschipe._ --Cant. Tales, l. 23.