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 HKUE amec .
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." HKUE amec ;
Jusserand sums up the situation at this period by saying that "The roads in England would have been entirely impassable ... if the nobility and the clergy, that is to say, the whole of the landed proprietors, had not had an immediate and daily interest in possessing passable roads." HKUE amec ;
There came, however, a period of decline in religious fervour. The laity grew less disposed to give or to bequeath money, {14}land or cattle for road-repair purposes, however much the offer of indulgences in return therefor might be increased from days to months or even to years; and the clergy, in turn,
became more remiss in acquitting themselves of the obligations they had assumed as road-repairers. They accepted the benefactions, and they granted the indulgences; but they showed increasing laxity in carrying out their responsibilities. The roadside hermits, also, gathered in so much in the way of contributions, voluntary or compulsory, from passers-by that they ate and drank more than hermits ought to do, grew fat and lazy, and too often left the roads to look after themselves.
