A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [41]
An average day’s journey on horseback was about 30 to 40 miles, though it varied widely, depending on circumstance. A messenger on horseback, without riding at night, could cover 40 to 50 miles a day and about half as much on foot. In an emergency, given a good horse and good road (which was rare) and no load, he could make 15 miles an hour and, with changes of horse awaiting him, cover 100 miles a day. The great merchant cities of Venice and Bruges maintained a regular postal service between them so highly organized that it covered the 700 miles in seven days. Packtrains made about 15 to 20 miles a day; armies, when slowed by baggage wagons and retainers on foot, sometimes covered no more than 8 miles a day.
The length of France from Flanders to Navarre was generally reckoned a journey of 20 to 22 days, and the width, from the coast of Brittany to Lyon on the Rhône, 16 days. Travelers to Italy across the Alps usually went by way of the Mont Cenis pass from Chambéry in the territory of Savoy to Turin. Snowbound from November through May, the pass took 5 to 7 days to traverse. Traveling from Paris to Naples via this route took five weeks. The voyage from London to Lyon took about 18 days and from Canterbury to Rome about 30 days depending on the Channel crossing, which was unpredictable, often dangerous, sometimes fatal, and could take anywhere from three days to a month. One knight, Sir Hervé de Léon, was kept 15 days at sea by a storm and, besides having lost his horse overboard, arrived so battered and weakened “that he never had health thereafter.” It was no wonder that, according to a ballad, when pilgrims took to sea for the voyage to Compostella or beyond, “Theyr hertes begin to fayle.”
Except for galleys powered by oarsmen, ships were at the mercy of the weather, although rigging had been improved and the swinging stern rudder gave greater control. Maps and harbor charts were in use and the compass was allowing navigation to leave the coastline and merchant cargo to take the risk of crossing the open sea. As a result, larger ships capable of carrying 500 tons or more of cargo were being used for these voyages. Barge transportation by river and canal was much cheaper than packtrain, even given the tolls imposed by local lords at every convenient point. Along the busy Seine and Garonne, tolls succeeded each other every six or seven miles.
Wagons and peasants’ two-wheeled carts were used for short hauls, but since roads were usually impassable by wheeled vehicles in winter and there was no connected system of roads and bridges, the mule train remained the essential carrier. Four-wheeled covered wagons drawn by three or four horses in tandem were available for ladies and the sick. Ladies who rode sat astride under flowing skirts, but the sidesaddle was to appear before the end of the century. For a knight to ride in a carriage was against the principles of chivalry and he never under any circumstances rode a mare.
Travelers stopped before nightfall, those of the nobility taking shelter in some nearby castle or monastery where they would be admitted indoors, while the mass of ordinary travelers on foot, including pilgrims, were housed and fed in a guest house outside the gate. They were entitled to one night’s lodging at any monastery and could not be turned away unless they asked for a second night. Inns were available to merchants and others, though they were likely to be crowded, squalid, and flea-ridden, with several beds to a room and two travelers to a bed—or three to a bed in Germany, according to the disgusted report of the