Note 6 — Chapter I · ROADS AND BRIDGES

When Henry VIII gave the lands of the dissolved monastery of Christ Church to Canterbury Cathedral, he declared that he made this donation “in order that charity to the poor, the reparation of roads and bridges, and other pious offices of all kinds should multiply and spread afar.” Elton, “Tenures of Kent,” London, 1867, p. 21. The gift is made “in liberam, puram et perpetuam eleemosynam.” This pious character was long continued: “As late as the period of the Commonwealth land and money devoted to the maintenance of bridges and causeys were definitely included among the charitable uses which were to be unaffected by the sequestration of Bishops’ land and other ecclesiastical revenues.” C. T. Flower, “Public Works in Mediæval Law,” Selden Society, 1905, i. p. xxi.