An outcome of the Crusades was the introduction of Arab steeds. Normandy itself was also famous for a splendid breed of horses. The greatest mark of appreciation known was to present a Normandy horse, and the most tempting form of bribe was the gift of a prancing Arab palfrey or noble charger. King John accepted horses in exchange for grants of land, and in payment of feudal rights. At that time, and in the reign of Edward I., the price of horses ranged from one to ten pounds. The animals were richly caparisoned, and wore bells—sometimes numbering several hundreds—on their harness, and particularly on the bridle. In fact, the trappings were often worth more than the steed, just as is the case on the ranches of Mexico to-day, where the value of the Mexican saddle is probably ten times that of the horse. Whips were used by ladies and the lower orders, but the nobles relied entirely upon the spur. During the fourteenth century horseback was still the favourite means of getting about, although there were vehicles on wheels known under the names of “chares,” “cars,” “chariots,” “caroches,” and “whirlicotes.” The roads until Elizabeth’s time were of almost inconceivable badness. The mother of Richard II. is recorded as using a “chare” and a “whirlicote,” when in the disturbances of 1381 she had to travel from place to place, and on account of her age she was thus accommodated; but Stow remarks that the introduction of the side-saddle by Anne of Bohemia was displacing the whirlicote except on State and ceremonial occasions. Anne granted forty shillings a year to her “pourvoioir de noz chariettes.” But such “chariettes” were merely cumbersome waggons to which strong horses were attached. Priests rode at the head of troops and at pageants, and were some of the greatest equestrians of the age; the monks from Westminster enjoyed many a gallop in Hyde Park. It was a bad time for wayfarers, this of the Middle Ages. Accommodation was lacking, provisions were scarce, and often they were overtaken by nightfall with no hostelry of any kind at hand. Travelling itself was dangerous in the turbulent state of the country, and, in fact, the highways were considered so unsafe that in 1285 a law was passed, enacting that all shrubs and trees were to be cut down for two hundred feet from the roadside between market towns, to allow no cover for robbers. People journeying along the same road had a custom of joining together in order to form a party of sufficient strength to defy attack, as Chaucer describes in the _Canterbury Tales_. To those who could not afford a horse the danger was tenfold. If encumbered with baggage or their family, the men often took a mule to carry their packages or give their wives and children a rest. Little bands of travellers were made up in the City of London, and started in company through the wilds of Tyburn to reach Oxford, or some of the northern towns. Such caravans continually passed along the Bayswater Road or Knightsbridge.