Episode 133 of the Renaissance English History Podcast is on Travel in Tudor England. How did our Tudor friends travel? Why did they travel? And how? We dig deeper into travel in the Tudor period. Listen with the embedded player, or read the transcript below.
Book Recommendations:
I can’t recommend Ian Mortimer enough. His books are the kind that you don’t come across that often. Earlier this year I read The Outcasts of Time, and I literally cried when I finished it. I cried in part because I was moved, and also because it was over, and I didn’t know when I would find another book that so moved me.
His Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England is a non-fiction travel guide to life in Elizabethan England, and was invaluable in prepping this episode. If you get the book on Amazon using the link here, you’ll pay the same price, and I’ll get a part of the profits – so it’s like giving money to the show without costing you anything extra. Woohoo!
Order on Amazon here. https://amzn.to/2QBZCK4
Another book to check out is John Leland’s Itinerary. He spent a decade in the 1530’s and 40’s traveling around England, especially surveying libraries and dissolved monasteries. He wrote extensively about the landscape he encountered. You can buy a paperback copy of his itinerary and travels on Amazon here, or you can read on the Internet Archive.
Related Blog articles:
http://authorherstorianparent.blogspot.com/2011/11/doomed-shrines-last-tudor-pilgrims.html
https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/the-hospital-experience-in-medieval-england/
https://www.englandcast.com/2019/11/a-famous-elizabethan-highwayman/
https://www.englandcast.com/2019/11/this-is-the-first-atlas-of-england-and-wales/
And my previous episode on Richard Hackluyt, England’s first Travel Writer
Travel in Tudor England Episode Rough Transcript
[advertisement insert here: if you like this show, and you want to support me and my work, the best thing you can do (and it’s free!) is to leave a rating or review on iTunes. It really helps others discover the podcast. Second best is to buy Tudor-themed gifts for all your loved ones at my shop, at TudorFair.com, like leggings with the Anne Boleyn portrait pattern on them, or boots with Elizabeth I portraits. Finally, you can also become a patron of this show for as little as $1/episode at Patreon.com/englandcast … And thank you!]
Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast, a part of the Agora Podcast Network. I’m your host, Heather Teysko, and I’m a storyteller who makes history accessible because I believe it’s a pathway to understanding who we are, our place in the universe, and being more deeply in touch with our own humanity. This is Episode 133, and it’s on the Tudors and Travel.
Also, we had Tudorcon a couple of weeks ago, and if you missed it, you missed a LOT of fun and learning. It was a blast – way more fun than even I expected it to be. But we’re doing it again next year, and for the rest of this year you can get the early bird price, saving $50 off the regular price. So it makes a great Christmas gift. Also, if you do decide to gift someone a Tudorcon ticket, since there’s nothing really to wrap up, I’ll send you a card that you can put under the tree. And stay tuned next week because I’m going to have a really good Black Friday special on the tickets. I’ll send out a note to the newsletter list about that – if you’re not on the list, you can sign up at englandcast.com, or if you just want to check out englandcast.com/tudorcon2020 you can see all the information, and get your tickets there.
So this episode is about travel in Tudor England, and it’s been something I’ve wanted to delve into for a while. About ten years ago I was out on a walk listening to an audiobook – and for the life of me now I can’t remember what it was – but it mentioned this myth we have that people in the pre modern and early modern period didn’t travel. You know, there’s the whole Monty Python skit of the people digging filth, and never ever going anywhere.
But that’s not strictly true, as with so many stereotypes. The fact is that during the late middle ages and early Tudor period, people had the travel bug. It was harder to travel then than it is now, but it doesn’t mean that there weren’t opportunities, and that people didn’t go anywhere. Now, it was a bit harder for people in England to travel abroad, seeing as how it’s an island, but there were opportunities, and the population was much more mobile than we sometimes think.
There were some professions that expected travel including:
Merchants, messengers, people in the military, missionaries and other religious leaders, nobles who had to go between their lands and court, the tax collectors and traveling judges, beggars and vagrants, artists, minstrels and players (for example the traveling theaters who would go from town to town to put on their plays). Farmers would travel to local villages and larger markets to sell their food.
For many, a pilgrimage was the best opportunity you had to go out and see a bit of the world, which is one way that the Dissolution of the Monasteries affected life for people. In many ways, we have modern day pilgrimages that are similar – how many of us have made a trip to see Strawberry Fields, Abbey Road, the Hollywood walk of fame, or anything else like this. In a way, these are modern secular pilgrimages to be up close and personal with a relic or monument that is personal to us, or about which we feel very passionate. No, we’re not visiting a shrine hoping to increase our fertility by seeing the breast milk of the Virgin Mary, but how many times have you heard of musicians visiting the home or studio of a composer or songwriter they loved, and coming away with inspiration for a whole new album? These modern day pilgrimages mean just as much to us in different ways. Now we go to the doctor to handle fertility, and allow our spirit and creativity to be filled up by our pilgrimages.
We know that pilgrimage was incredibly important for people in late medieval and early Tudor England. Chaucer’s great work The Canterbury Tales tells the story of pilgrims making their way to the shrine of Thomas Becket, each of whom have various reasons for travel, including one woman who is hoping to meet her next husband on the road.
In the 9th century, the remains of the Apostle St James were supposedly discovered in Galicia, and the Way of St James, or the Camino de Santiago, became a major route for pilgrims. Many people would be content to visit their own local shrine to pray and make requests of their saint, but others wanted to go further afield. In England there was the very popular shrine of our Lady Walsingham, which was meant to be an exact replica of the manger in which Jesus was born. I did a minicast on the shrine at Walsingham, so I’ll link to that in the show notes for this episode (englandcast.com/travel), but to be brief, it was created when a widow had a vision shortly after the Norman Conquest, and believed she was told by God to create this shrine to the Virgin Mary. People came from all over the country to pray there, especially for issues around childbirth. After Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon had a son in 1511, Henry went to give thanks to Our Lady of Walsingham, walking the final few miles barefoot as any penitent pilgrim. His visit of thanksgiving was premature, though, as the baby lived only about 6 weeks. The shrine at Walsingham became so popular that the Milky Way became known as Walsingham’s Way because it seemed to point to the shrine.
If you could afford it, going abroad to Jerusalem or Rome was even more exciting.
Soldiers traveled, either up north to fight Scotland, or to France. During the Crusades people even went as far as the Holy Land where they were blown away by the strange sights, sounds, and smells they found there. There was a saying after Edward III’s military victories in France in the mid 14th century, that every house in England had something from the French treasures taken during the fight, and many ships had to transport all the riches home. This is an exaggeration, but it is true that most of the soldiers would have come home with stories about France, or a trinket, stolen or purchased. You see pilgrims especially buying badges and souvenirs of their visits to relics, but soldiers would have also come home with prizes.
Religious people traveled – bishops and church leaders would visit the Pope, or have conferences with other church leaders. Messengers and clerics were on the move.
And nobles traveled, either to visit their various estates, or attend Parliament.
When people traveled, they didn’t use maps. In 1579 Christopher Saxton created a beautiful atlas of England – I’ll put up pictures in the show notes at englandacst.com/travel – but it was big and expensive… too big to travel with. Plus, it’s still not particularly detailed. Instead, they used an itinerary, which was a list of the places you needed to go through to get to your final destination, and the distances between each. At each place, you would ask for directions to the next town. Traveling together would make this easier because one in your number might know parts of the trip, and be able to guide you better. People would try to travel along rivers because they would more likely wind up in a town sooner that way.
In fact, when people thought of the routes, and geography, they did so in terms of the rivers. Today, we generally think about routes by the roads. When I picture a map of, say, Southern California, in my mind, I think about the freeways. The 210 to the 605 to the 5, or the 101 to the 10 to the beach. Or in England you think about the M25. When the antiquarian John Leland was making a tour of libraries and religious houses, spending ten years traveling around and writing of his travels, he did so in terms of the rivers. He wrote about every river he came across, including describing the bridges, and the streams that went off from them. He had a bit of a fascination with the rivers, even writing poetry about them. Take this, about the Thames: “I too, I am persuaded, have heard through the dark shadows of the night the swans, as they attuned their strains in my own river, where the silvery Thames, bright-urned wide-spreading stream, drenches his grey tresses with the swirling waters of the ocean.”
Doesn’t that paint such a lovely picture? You can actually read Leland’s accounts of his travels online, much of it free at places like Project Gutenberg, but there is also a paperback version on Amazon, The Itinerary of John Leland, in or about the years 1535-1543, and I highly recommend that you read it to really get a sense of England during this time. I’ll put a link in the show notes for this episode at englandcast.com/travel.
In terms of bridges, there were some very large ones like a 14 arch bridge in Stratford upon Avon, or the 22 arch bridge over the Thames at Wallingford. But most are made of timber, and in some rural areas they are only 4 or 5 feet wide, so you couldn’t really get a cart across them. So while there were several laws addressing improving the roads during the 16th century, there didn’t seem to be much point in fixing them when you were traveling in a cart that couldn’t go across the first bridge it came to. So the Bridges Act of 1530 empowered the local magistrates to make a determination as to who was responsible for the upkeep of each bridge in their area, and to tax them if they did not keep it in good working order. But the problem with this is that bridges often jmark boundaries between properties, with one person owning land on one side, and the other owning the land on the other. So neither side wanted to take responsibility for the upkeep, and here we have that age-old question of benefit versus who is responsible for upkeep. If a bridge benefitted the total public, a landowner might think that it’s not his responsibility to pay to keep a bridge in good condition when the entire town is using it.
When there weren’t bridges available, there would often be ferries at larger rivers. Like the Long Ferry which travels up the Thames from Gravesend to London, picking up people riding with the post from Dover, and taking them into the city. You can pick it up in the morning, and be in town by 2pm. There are also ferries to take you across a river as well. In London you can cross the river for a penny, and when you walk along from say Charing Cross over through to the City, you can look down and see lots of sets of stairs, and imagine that there are ferrymen with waiting boats right there, ready to take you over to the South Bank. If you want to go further than just across, though, it will cost you more, and is sometimes dependent on whether the tide is with you, or against you.
Did you know that the use of the word “road” as a noun dates from around the 1560’s? More commonly people would travel on highways, paths, lanes, streets, and ways. And traveling the paths, ways, or streets, as Ian Mortimer points out, you are going along the oldest man made parts of the landscape, in use since the Roman times. Even in the cities, the main thoroughfares are built around the original Roman roads.
The roads themselves followed the Roman roads, and as the Roman roads had deteriorated, new ones had been built alongside them. But these roads had been built for people traveling on foot, or horse, but not coaches with iron wheels. The wheels could completely destroy the roads, as the vast majority aren’t paved in any way. Gravel would be put in to soak up the mud in main intersections, but for most of the way you’d be going over deep ruts. The landowners who have land that borders on the highway are supposed to maintain the ditches that drain the roads, but they don’t always do so. Main roads were meant to kept up by the King so that he could move his armies and his court around easily. But the side roads could often be in terrible conditions, and you’d have to find another way around.
In towns there would be other obstacles to the roads. Some people would stack their firewood under the eaves of their homes, and block the way on the road. People would also dig in the roads for sand or clay to repair their wattle buildings, and there would be holes left in the road. Sometimes people would also dig wells right by the highway, meaning that drowning in one of these roadside wells was a real risk.
There were several acts of parliament to try to improve the roads – the Act of 1555 established a process where church wardens in each parish can appoint two surveyors of the roads at Easter. They announce four days in the year where all parishioners will repair the roads, and every farmer has to send a cart with two men, and every cottager has to work themselves, or else they will receive heavy fines. In 1563 the Act was extended to restrict the size of gravel and sand pits, digging ditches beside the main roads, and allowing surveyors to take small stones from quarries to mend the roads. It also increased the number of days to do road works to six instead of four. In 1576 a third act handles repair of specific roads, and there are later records showing that the work was actually done, and people were fined for not participating.
How did people travel? Of course there were horses, boats, and your own two feet. But people also used four wheeled coaches more during this time. Four wheeled coaches had been in use since the 13th century, but they are becoming more popular for gentry to use now, as opposed to just the nobility and royalty. Coaches were more popular throughout Europe, so as the returning Protestant refugees came home early in Elizabeth’s reign, they brought back with them the ability to drive and manage coaches. One man, William Boonen, came back from the Netherlands in 1564, and he so impressed Elizabeth with his driving skills, she made him her personal coachman. The Queen had four coaches made for her between 1578 and 1586, so taken was she with them for travel. Coaches became much less expensive during this time – the Earl of Essex had a used one he valued at just 8 pounds, though of course you still need to pay for horses, and feed them. Or you can rent a coach in London for about 16 shippings a day, plus food for the coachman and feed for the horses.
When you’re traveling around in your coach you have to be careful of accidents. In 1562 a twelve year old girl was killed when a cart crunched her against the wall in Aldgate.
John Stow, in his survey of London wrote: Then the number of carres, drayes, carts and coatches, more then hath beene accustomed, the streetes and lanes experience proueth.
The Coach man rides behinde the horse tayles, lasheth Carts and them, and looketh not behind him : The Draye man sitteth wefgouemed and sleepeth on his Drea, and letteth his horse leade him in this Citty home : I know that by the good lawes and customes of this dan g er0Tls – Citty, shodde carts are forbidden to enter the same, except vpon reasonable causes as seruice of the Prince, or such like, they be tollerated. Also that the fore horse of euery carriage should bee lead by hand : but these good orders are not obserued. Of olde time Coatches were not knowne in this Island, but chariots or Whirlicotes, then so called, and they onely vsed of Princes or great Estates, such as had their foot- men about themand for example to note, I read that Richard the second, being threatned by the rebels of Kent, rode from the Tower of London to the Myles end, and with him his mother, because she was sicke and weake in a Wherli- cote, the Earles of Buckingham, Kent, Warwicke and Oxford, Sir Thomas Per cie, Sir Robert Knowles, the Mayor of London, Sir Aubery de Vere that bare the kinges sword, with other Knights and Esquiers attending on horsebacke. 1 He followed in the next year the said king Richard , who took to wife 1 Anne daughter to the king of Boheme, that first brought whether the riding vpon side saddles, and so was the riding in Wherlicoates and chariots forsaken, except at Coronations and such like spectacles : but now of late yeares the vse of coatches brought out of Germanie is taken vp, and made so common, as there is neither distinction of time, nor difference of persons obserued : for the world runs on wheeles with many, whose parents were glad to goe on foote.
John Stow, Survey of London
In 1601 a Bill was presented to Parliament to limit the use of coaches, but it was rejected.
If you wanted to go quickly, you would go on a horse. You could either buy one at a horse fair – paying at least £3 for a good one, though you could also buy a used one the same way we buy used cars today. You could also rent one. If people knew you at the local inn, they would often have an extra you could rent, or you could use one from one of the post routes. In 1516 Henry VIII appointed a Master of the Posts, and this was the very early forerunner of the Royal Mail. There were three postal routes in the country – one going out west as far as Portsouth, one going north to Berwick, and one going to Dover via Canterbury. And along each route were stations every 20 miles where you could hire a horse, paying a per mile fee. You could return it at the next station, or if you needed to go somewhere off the route, they would send someone to pick the horse up from your final destination, at an additional fee, of course. By this time period there were a dozen or so types of horses available, used for different types of uses from hauling and carrying like a packhorse, to riding.
How fast did people travel?
Of course, if you’re going a long distance and you need to go quickly, you’re going to have to change horses on a regular basis. The post set a minimum speed of 7 miles per hour on dry roads in the summer, and if had good weather and strong thighs for riding you could do upwards of 75 miles a day easily, especially if you could change horses midway through.
If you were traveling on foot, it would probably be more like 3 miles an hour in good conditions, so you could probably do 15 or 20 in a day. But of course in bad weather, you might only be able to go a mile an hour. Also, remember that you need to stop to rest, and eat, and that took time.
In late October 1599 a Thomas Platter described the “great speed” with which he traveled from Gravesend to Dover – a distance of 44 miles, which he did in 5 hours.
But in the winter, with only about 8 hours of daylight, if you couldn’t change horses, you probably couldn’t go more than 2-3 miles an hour. In 1603 when Elizabeth I died Sir Robert Carey was the one appointed to ride from London to Scotland to tell James that he was now the King. He left between 9-10am on the 25 of March, and reached Doncaster, 162 miles away, that night. The next day he rode the 136 miles to his house at Widdrington. On the third day he fell, which resulted in a bleeding head, but still the man was unstoppable and rode on, going more slowly, but still reaching Edinburgh that night, 99 miles away. He managed the 397 miles in three days.
Traveling by roads could be dangerous, of course, especially if you were on foot or your horse was tired. There are higher numbers of poor people and vagrants than before – loyal listeners will remember an episode we did on the poor in Tudor England, and the attempts to address it. But for the purposes of our discussion here, we know that there are lots of thieves on the roads hiding behind bushes to surprise travelers. Between 1567 and 1602 accused criminals were tried for theft of over £1000 in stolen items and money just in Essex, and that’s just for 60 cases that actually made it all the way to court. In Cambridgeshire there is a famous highwayman called Gamiel Ratsey – he was actually born into a well to do family, but “”took to evil courses as a boy” and became a thief. He became famous not just for the amount that he robbed, but also his sense of humor. On one occasion he robbed two wool merchants and knighted them by the roadside as Sir Walter Woolsack and Sir Samuel Sheepskin.On one occasion Ratsey and his friends successfully robbed a large company of nine travellers. Before he relieved a Cambridge scholar of his property, he extorted a learned oration from him. To the poor he showed a generosity which accorded with the best traditions of his profession. But within two years his partners betrayed him to the officers of the law, and he was hanged at Bedford on 26 March 1605.
Often the robberies would be entire communities working together. So if you’re at an inn, someone working there would see that you had money, and would keep track of how many were in your group. In the morning when you set off, somehow the highwaymen know just where you are going, and where you came from, and you find yourself trapped on the road.
The king’s highways were supposed to be cleared either side for 200 feet. This was to deny cover to the brigands who preyed on travellers. Sometimes there were waymarks to show routes through woods, but these could easily be moved to lead travellers into the hands of waiting bandits.
But of course it wasn’t all bad, or else business would never get done, and people did get out and see the world, much more often than we might expect. I hope that this episode sort of opened your eyes to that.
So that’s it for this week. The book recommendation is a Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer – I’ll put a link up on the site.
And you can get in touch with me through the listener support line at 801 6TEYSKO or through twitter @teysko or facebook.com/englandcast. And I’ll be back in about ten days or so with an episode on Tudor London – what was London like for our Tudor friends? So stay tuned for that.
[advertisement insert here: if you like this show, and you want to support me and my work, the best thing you can do (and it’s free!) is to leave a rating or review on iTunes. It really helps others discover the podcast. Second best is to buy Tudor-themed gifts for all your loved ones at my shop, at TudorFair.com, like leggings with the Anne Boleyn portrait pattern on them, or boots with Elizabeth I portraits. Finally, you can also become a patron of this show for as little as $1/episode at Patreon.com/englandcast … And thank you!]
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.