Produced by Clarity, RichardW, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) [Illustration 1. ENGLISH KNIGHTS TRAVELLING, AUGUST, 1399. (_From the MS. Harleian_, 1319, _painted circa_ A.D. 1400.)] ENGLISH WAYFARING LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES (XIV^{th} CENTURY) BY J. J. JUSSERAND TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY LUCY TOULMIN SMITH _A new Edition revised and enlarged by the Author_ T. FISHER UNWIN LTD LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE _First Edition 1889_ _Second Impression 1889_ _Third Impression 1889_ _Fourth Impression 1891_ _Fifth Impression 1896_ _Sixth Impression 1899_ _Seventh Impression 1901_ _Eighth Impression 1902_ _Ninth Impression 1909_ _Second Edition (Tenth Impression) 1920_ _Eleventh Impression 1921_ {7} [Illustration 2] _We know Egypt, thanks to her tombs, and we know Rome, thanks to Pompeii, in these modern days, better than we know the Middle Ages of Europe and the life of an ordinary man during that period. We cannot hope to find in any corner of France or England a Pompeii, catacombs, or pyramids. In our countries the human torrent has never ceased flowing; rapid and tumultuous in its course, it has at no time ensured the preservation of the past by deposits of quiet ooze._ _Yet, this common life of our ancestors, is it indiscernible, impossible to reconstruct? is that of kings and princes alone accessible to our view through the remoteness of ages, like those huge monuments which men see from afar when they cannot distinguish the houses in a distant city? Surely not. But to reach the heart of the nation, to get into touch with the greater number, a patient and extended inquiry is necessary. To make this usefully, one must break more or less completely with the old habit of taking the ideas of every-day life in the Middle Ages only from the descriptions, the satires, or the eulogies of poets. Literature is no doubt of valuable help in these restorations, but it is not the only, nor even the principal source of information. Poets embellish, imagine, colour, or transform; we must not accept their statements without checking them._