On a number of questions, whether as the promoter or the object of reform, as working man or as pardoner, whether an unconscious instrument or not, wanderers will always have much to teach whoever will question them. For good or evil it may be said that they acted in mediæval history as “microbes,” a numerous, scarcely visible, but powerful host. They will perhaps reveal the secret of almost incomprehensible transformations, which might have seemed to necessitate a total overturn, like the one that took place in France at the end of the eighteenth century, a new or rather a first _contrat social_. England, for many reasons, has not required this; one among those reasons is the action of the roamers which, exerting itself on a population temperamentally steadier than many others, more persistently resolute, and less constantly troubled by wars on its territory, united the people and, thanks to that union which made it strong, allowed it to snatch in time the necessary concessions. And as, however, the calmest changes cannot take place without some disturbance, as also among the English there have been, in the course of centuries, more than one bloody fray, the nomad may perhaps end by answering his interrogator in the words of a common proverb of certain, yet unhackneyed wisdom, which should prevent pessimism and lack of hope: “Le bois tortu fait le feu droit”—Crooked log maketh straight fire. {425} APPENDIX I (p. 44) PATENT OF KING JOHN ENTRUSTING A FRENCHMAN WITH THE COMPLETION OF LONDON BRIDGE (1201) “Literæ patentes, etc. de edificatione et sustentatione pontis Londinensis. Patent Roll 3º Iohannis, m. 2, no. 9.