"I leve and bequeithe a cowpell of oxson that I boughte the laste yere to the building of Moulde Church where I dwell; And I bequieth a bullocke that I boughte of the Royde unto the mendynge of the hye waie betwixte my howse and the Molld." Bequests of money or lands were also made for the construction or the maintenance of bridges, or for the freeing of bridges from toll so that the poor could cross without payment; and one of the duties of the bishops, when making their visitations, was to enquire whether or not the funds thus left were being applied to the purposes the donors intended. On the Continent of Europe a religious order was founded, in the twelfth century, for the building of bridges. It spread over several countries and built some notable bridges--such, for instance, as that over the Rhone at Avignon; though there is no trace, Jusserand tells us, of these Bridge Friars having extended their operations to this country. It was, however, from them that laymen learned the art of bridge-building, and in Britain, as in Continental countries, bridges came to be considered as pious works, to be put under the special charge of a patron saint. To this end it was customary to build a chapel alongside an important bridge--as in the case of the old London Bridge that replaced the original wooden structure by Peter Colechurch, "priest and chaplain," itself {13}having had a chapel dedicated to Saint Thomas of Canterbury. Sovereigns or great landowners gave generous gifts for the endowment of such bridges. Although, too, there was no special order of bridge-building friars in England, guilds and lay brotherhoods, animated by the religious spirit, were formed in the reign of Richard II. (1377-1399) for the repair of roads and bridges, just as, in turn, the ordinary trading guilds which were the forerunners of the corporate bodies set up in towns undertook to "maintain and keep in good reparacion" bridges which had become "ruinous," and, also, to attend to the "foul and dangerous highways, the charge whereof the town was not able to maintain."[2] It became customary, also, for hermits to take up their habitation in cells along the main thoroughfares, and to occupy themselves with looking after the roads, trusting to the alms of passers-by for a little worldly recompense. In one instance, at least, a hermit was allowed to put up a toll-bar--the first on record in this country--and collect compulsory payments from persons using the roads he mended. This was in 1364, when Edward III. made a decree authorising "our well-beloved William Phelippe the hermit" to set up a toll-bar on the lower slope of Highgate Hill, on the north side of London, and levy tolls for the repair of the "Hollow Way" from "our people passing between Heghgate and Smethfelde."