to quote, but it is noticeable that the religious sanctions of the older guild are altogether omitted, there is no procession of the members to the cathedral church, no provision that each brother and sister should give 1d. for charity when the dean of the guild demanded, though there is an ordinance concerning the burying of poor brethren and allowance while living, as was of old. The fact seems to be that, while the religious character of the society ceased, it continued in some degree at least to be a benefit society.
The bulk and weight of the chief manufactures, and still more of the agricultural products of Lincolnshire, such as corn and wool, made the question of carriage of special importance even in the earliest times. How was wool to be brought to Lincoln to be made into cloth? How was wool to be sent to Boston for export to Flanders or elsewhere? How was cloth to be conveyed from Lincoln to purchasers in different counties? How were foreign merchants to get their cloth and other heavy goods to Lincoln and other places for sale? How was corn to be conveyed to markets for sale, or to ports for exportation? These were questions which had much to do with the early prosperity of our county. Of course there were the roads, but it can hardly be believed that they were good as a rule; sometimes they were impassable through floods, and some were mere 'causeys' along which only pack-horses could pass; so we must conclude that the larger portion of the goods was carried by water, and a study of the map of Lincolnshire will impress this upon our minds. To the north was the Humber. To the north-west were the Trent and the Don. From near South Witham, past Grantham to Lincoln and thence to Boston, was the Witham. In South Lincolnshire the Welland runs from Stamford to Spalding and thence to Boston. And there were the Glen and several natural streams. Nor was that all; there was the Fosse Dyke, an artificial canal, made for trade purposes, from Lincoln to Torksey on the Trent, and the Car Dyke, a catch-water drain, which was also used for boats and small ships. And it seems almost certain that drains made to carry off the water in the low districts were often used for the carriage of corn and merchandise. We can now see how well the principal places of trade in the county, and especially Lincoln and Boston, were provided with water communication. It was in 1121 that King Henry I made a way for ships by making a dyke from Torksey to Lincoln, turning in the waters of the Trent.[1] Whether this was a new cut, or, as is generally believed, the opening out of an old one, the advantage to the trade of Lincoln is obvious. Foreign merchants could come up the Humber and the Trent to Torksey, and thence to Lincoln with their goods, and merchandise could be conveyed backwards and forwards by water between Lincoln and many parts of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. This was in the days when there was great clothmaking at Lincoln.
In 1365 the citizens of Lincoln made great complaint to the king in Parliament concerning the damage they suffered because ships and boats could not pass to and fro in the Fosse Dyke with merchandise and victuals as they were wont to do, and judges were commissioned to view the channel, and inquire by the oaths of honest and lawful men of the county who ought to cleanse the same, and to distrain those found liable and compel them to make good defects.[2] But little or nothing was done, for ten years later the jurors of divers wapentakes presented that Fosse Dyke, having been anciently full of water, so that ships and boats used to pass to and from Nottingham, York, Kingston-upon-Hull, and other places by the River Trent, and so by this channel to Lincoln and from Lincoln to Boston, to the great benefit of the city of Lincoln and the advantage of all tradesmen passing that way, was choked up, and that the prior of Torksey and the town of Torksey, the prioress of Fosse, John bishop of Lincoln, Gilbert earl of Angus and his tenants Sir Ralph Daubney and other lords of towns lying on each side of the channel, ought to repair it.[3] A commission was appointed, but again without definite result. In 1518 a commission was issued by the king for the cleansing of Fosse Dyke, and it was agreed at a common council held at Lincoln that as the sum required would be as large as 100 marks from the city alone it should be defrayed by such amounts as every man would give of his own good will: this plan was not, however, very successful, as several times citizens of credit were sent to ride to different places to collect sums to keep the dykers at work, attempts were made to obtain money by way of loan, and Bishop Atwater, who was the chief promoter of the undertaking, directed all curates and others in the diocese to be helpful in the same, and granted a pardon to all who would assist.[4] An Act of Parliament was obtained in 1671 for improving the navigation between Boston and the Trent, and an agreement was made in 1672 with Samuel Fortrey, esq., that he should have one-third of the profits of the tolls in return for his help in carrying out the improvements, and the maintenance of a bridge in Saxilby, and his bearing one-third part of charges and losses,[5] but nothing
