HOSPITALITY AND ITS TOKENS
“Und es ist vorteilhaft, den Genius
Bewirten: giebst du ihm ein Gastgeschenk,
So lässt er dir ein schöneres zurück.
Die Stätte, die ein guter Mensch betrat,
Ist eingeweiht....”
GOETHE.
“To house a genius is a privilege;
How fine so e’er a gift thou givest him,
He leaves a finer one behind for thee.
The spot is hallowed where a good man treads.”
Without a question, the first journey that ever mortals made on this
round earth was the unwilling flight of Adam and Eve from the Garden
of Eden out into an empty world. Many of us who condemn this world as
a vale of tears would gladly make the return journey into Paradise,
picturing in bright colors the road that our first parents trod in
bitterness and woe. Happy in a Paradise in which all the beauties of
the first creation were spread before their eyes, where no enemies
lurked, and where even the wild beasts were faithful companions, Adam
and Eve could not, with the least semblance of reason, plead as an
excuse for traveling that constraint which springs from man’s inward
unrest striving for the perfect haven of peace beyond the vicissitudes
of his lot.
And as Adam and Eve went out, weak and friendless, into a strange
world, so it was long before their poor descendants dared to leave
their sheltering homes and fare forth into unknown and distant parts.
Still, the bitter trials which the earliest travelers had to bear
implanted in their hearts the seeds of a valor which has won the
praise of all the spiritual leaders of men, from the Old Testament
worthies, with their injunction “to care for the stranger within the
gates,” to the divine words of the Nazarene: “I was a stranger, and ye
took me in.... Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto
one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
Our first parents, naturally, could not enjoy the blessings of
hospitality. And still, in later ages, they have not infrequently been
depicted on signs which hosts have hung out to proclaim a hospitality
not gratuitous but hearty. So in one of Hogarth’s drawings, of the
year 1750, “The March of the Guards towards Scotland,” which the
artist himself later etched, and dedicated to Frederick the Great, we
see Adam and Eve figuring on a tavern sign. No visitor to London
should fail to see this work of the English painter-satirist. One may
see a copy of it, with other distinguished pictures, in the large hall
of a foundling asylum established in 1739, especially for the merciful
purpose of caring for illegitimate children in the cruel early years
of their life. This hall, which is filled with valuable mementos of
great men, like Händel, is open to visitors after church services on
Sundays. And we would advise the tourist who is not dismayed by the
thought of an hour’s sermon to attend the service. If he finds it
difficult to follow the preacher in his theological flights, he has
but to sit quiet and raise his eyes to the gallery, where a circlet of
fresh child faces surrounds the stately heads of the precentor and the
organist. At the end of the service let him not forget to glance into
the dining-hall, where all the little folks are seated at the long
fairy tables, with a clear green leaf of lettuce in each tiny plate,
and each rosy face buried in a mug of gleaming milk. This picture will
be dearer to him in memory than many a canvas of noted masters in the
National Gallery.
The present-day tourist who takes the bus out Finchley Road to hunt
up the old sign will be as sorely disappointed as if he expected to
find the “Angel” shield in Islington or the quaint “Elephant and
Castle” sign in South London. Almost all the old London signs have
vanished out of the streets, and only a few of them have taken refuge
in the dark sub-basement of the Guildhall Museum, where they lead a
right pitiable existence, dreaming of the better days when they hung
glistening in the happy sunshine. There were “Adam and Eve” taverns in
London, in “Little Britain,” and in Kensington High Street. In other
countries, France and Switzerland, for example, they were called
“Paradise” signs. A last feeble echo of the old Paradise sign lingers
in the inscription over a fashion shop in modern Paris, “Au Paradis
des Dames,” the woman’s paradise, in which are sold, it must be said,
only articles for which Eve in Paradise had no use.
[Illustration: ELEFANT·AND·CASTLE·LONDON·]
Gavarni, who spoke the bitter phrase, “Partout Dieu n’est et n’a été
que l’enseigne d’une boutique,” made bold in one of his lithographs of
“Scènes de la vie intime” (1837) to inscribe over the gates of
Paradise, from which the “tenants” were flying: “Au pommier sans
pareil.” Schiller tells us that the world loves to smirch shining
things and bring down the lofty to the dust. This need not deter us
from reading in the old Paradise signs a reminder of the journey of
our first parents, and to enjoy thankfully the blessings of ordered
hospitality to-day.
Until this ordered hospitality prevailed, however, many centuries had
to elapse, and for the long interval every man who ventured out into
the hostile wilderness resembled Carlyle’s traveler, “overtaken by
Night and its tempests and rain deluges, but refusing to pause; who is
wetted to the bone, and does not care further for rain. A traveler
grown familiar with howling solitudes, aware that the storm winds do
not pity, that Darkness is the dead earth’s shadow.” Only the strong
and bold could dare to defy wild nature, especially when there was
need to cross desolate places, inhospitable mountains like the Alps.
So the ancients celebrated Hercules as a hero, because he was the
pioneer who made a road through their rough mountain world.
A still longer time had to elapse ere the traveler could rejoice in
the beauties of nature which surrounded him. The civilizing work of
insuring safe highways had to be done before what Macaulay names “the
sense of the wilder beauties of nature” could be developed. “It was
not till roads had been cut out of the rocks, till bridges had been
flung over the courses of the rivulets, till inns had succeeded to
dens of robbers ... that strangers could be enchanted by the blue
dimples of the lakes and by the rainbow which overhung the waterfalls,
and could derive a solemn pleasure even from the clouds and tempests
which lowered on the mountain-tops.”
No wonder, then, that the literature of olden times, when traveling
was so dangerous an occupation, is filled with admonitions to
hospitality. The finest example of it, perhaps, is preserved in the
Bible story of the visit of the angels to Abraham, and later to Lot.
This story deserves to be read again and again as the typical account
of hospitality. As is the custom to speak in the most modest terms of
a meal to which one invites a guest, calling it “a bite” or “a cup of
tea,” so Abraham spoke to the angels, “I will fetch a morsel of bread,
and comfort ye your hearts.” Then Abraham told his wife to bake a
great loaf, while he himself went out to kill a fatted calf and bring
butter and milk. In like fashion Lot extends his hospitality,
providing the strangers with water to refresh their tired feet, and in
the night even risking his life against the attacking Sodomites, to
protect the guests who have come for shelter beneath his roof.
The feeling that a guest might be a divine messenger, nay, even Deity
itself, continued into the New Testament times, as St. Paul’s advice
to the Hebrews shows: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for
thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” And did not the
disciples, too, at times, receive their Master as a guest in their
homes, the Son of Man, the Son of God? William Allen Knight has dwelt
on this thought very beautifully in his little book called “Peter in
the Firelight”: “The people of Capernaum slept that night with
glowings of peace lighting their dreams. But in no house where loved
ones freed from pain were sleeping was there gladness like in Simon’s;
for the Master himself was sleeping there.”
[Illustration: Murrhardt]
A later type of legend pictures the angels, not as guests, but as
benefactors, preparing a wonderful meal for starving monks who in
their charity have given away all their possessions to the poor, and
have no bread to eat. The tourist, walking through the seemingly
endless galleries of the Louvre, will pause a moment before the
beautiful canvas on which Murillo has depicted this story. The French
call it “la cuisine des anges.” It is a historical fact that many
cloisters were reduced to poverty in the Middle Ages on account of
their generous almsgiving. Not all of them could lay claim to the holy
Diego of Murillo’s painting, who could pray with such perfect trust in
Him who feeds the sparrows that angels came down from heaven into the
cloister kitchen to prepare the meal. The widespread popularity of
these Biblical stories and holy legends need cause no wonder that the
angel was a favorite subject for tavern signs in the Middle Ages, and
that even at this day he takes so many an old inn under the patronage
of his benevolent wings. It has been asserted that the angel sign
originated in the age of the Reformation, simply by leaving out the
figure of the Virgin Mary from the portrayal of the scene of the
Annunciation. But against this theory stands the fact that there were
simple angel signs in the Middle Ages as well as Annunciation signs.
We learn that the students of Paris in the year 1380 assembled for
their revels in the tavern “in angelo.” The records of these same
Parisian students tell us how they lingered over their cups in the
tavern “in duobus angelis,” in the year of grace 1449.
We may remark here in passing that the linen drapers’ guild in London
had as its escutcheon the three angels of Abraham. One need only to
recall the full, flowing garments of Botticelli’s angels to understand
in what great respect the linen merchant would hold the angels as good
customers of the drapery trade.
An angel in beggar’s form brought St. Julian the good news of the
pardon of the sins of his youth. In a wild fit of anger the headstrong
young Julian had killed his parents. As atonement for his dreadful
crime he had done penance and built a refuge in which for many long
years he freely cared for all travelers who came his way. At last the
angel’s reward of hospitality was vouchsafed to him, and in memory of
his good works tavern-keepers chose him as their patron saint.
The stern Consistory of Geneva had evidently forgotten all these
beautiful legends and their deep symbolical meaning, when in the year
1647 it forbade a tavern-keeper to hang out an angel sign, “ce qui est
non accoutumé en cette ville et scandaleux.” Perhaps the grave city
fathers of Geneva remembered their by-gone student days in Paris, and
the handsome angel hostess in the city on the Seine, where a
contemporary of Louis XIV celebrated in song:--
“Un ange que j’idolâtre
À cause du bon vin qu’il a.”
The most attractive angel tavern that the author has met in his
travels is in the quiet little English town of Grantham, although he
has to confess, in the words of the German song:--
“Es giebt so manche Strasse, da nimmer ich marschiert,
Es giebt so manchen Wein, den ich nimmer noch probiert.”
It was a sharp autumn day. The wind that whistled about the lofty
cathedral of Lincoln had searched us to the marrow, and we were well
content after our ride from the station to find a kindly welcome at
the “Angel.” The façade of the dignified tavern, which once belonged
to the Knights’ Templars, and which saw the royal guests, King John
in 1213, and King Richard III in 1483, entertained within its walls,
is one of the most splendid architectural monuments that we saw in
England. As everywhere in this garden-land, the ivy winds its green
arms around the stiffer forms of the English Gothic, which often lack
the warm picturesqueness of architectural detail that makes the
wonderful charm of the French and the South German Gothic.
Over the lintel of the door of the tavern the sculptured angel shone
resplendent in his golden glory. A charming little balcony rested on
his wings and his hands held out a crown of hospitable welcome to
royal and common guests alike. All these winged messengers of
hospitality seem to say in the words of the Old Testament: “The
stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among
you, and thou shalt love him as thyself: for ye were strangers in the
land of Egypt.”
The bitter experience of their own distress in a strange land planted
in the hearts of the Israelitish people a kindly feeling toward the
stranger. For all that, much was permitted in dealing with a stranger
which was forbidden in the case of a brother Israelite. The stranger
might be made to pay interest, and it was no infraction of the Mosaic
Law to make him and his children men-servants and maidservants.
While, then, the law of the exclusive Jews accorded certain rights to
the stranger which the children of Israel were warned not to impair,
the Græco-Roman world, on the other hand, recognized no claim of the
stranger. “Il n’y a jamais de droit pour l’étranger,” says Fustel de
Coulanges in “La Cité antique.” The same word in Latin means
originally both enemy and stranger. “Hostilis facies” in Virgil, means
the face of a stranger. To avoid all chance of encountering the sight
of a stranger while performing his sacred office, the Pontifex
performed the sacrifice with veiled face. In spite of this, the
stranger met with favorable consideration both at Athens and at Rome,
in case he was rich and distinguished. Commercial interests welcomed
his arrival and bestowed on him the “jus commercii”--(the right to
engage in trade). Yet he came wholly within the protection of the
laws only when he chose one of the citizens as his “patron.”
It seems as if it must have been embarrassing in those days to have
shown one’s “hostilis facies” in foreign lands and cities in the
course of a journey undertaken for pleasure or to seek the cures at
the bathing resorts. Still we know that the Romans, in their
enthusiasm for this kind of travel, built villas, theaters, temples,
and baths at some of the most celebrated watering-places of modern
days, like Nice and Wiesbaden.
The stiff and almost hostile attitude of classical antiquity toward
the stranger was relieved by the hospitable custom which made the
stranger almost a member of the family as soon as he had been received
at the family hearth and had partaken of the family meal. This
function was a sacred one among the ancients, for they believed that
the gods were present at their table: “Et mensæ credere adesse deos,”
says Ovid in the “Fastes.”
At especially festal meals it was the custom to crown the head with
wreaths, as in the case of the public meals, where chosen delegates of
the city, clad in white, met to partake of the food which was the
symbol of their common life of citizenship; or in the case of the
bridal meals, where the maiden, veiled in white, pledged herself
forever to the bridegroom. There was no rich wedding-cake, like those
common in England and America, but a simple loaf, “panis farreus,”
which after the common prayer they ate in common “under the eyes of
the family gods.” “So,” says Plato, “the gods themselves lead the wife
to the home of her husband.”
The custom of wearing a crown at solemn feasts was founded on the
ancient belief that it was well pleasing to the gods. “If thou
performest thy sacrifice [and the meal was a sacrifice] without the
wreath upon thy head, the gods will turn from thee,” says a fragment
from Sappho. The sense of the nearness of the gods at mealtime and the
beautiful old custom of pouring out a bit of wine for the invisible
holy guest, were preserved down to the time of the later Romans. We
find the custom in vogue with such old sinners as Horace and Juvenal.
We shall recall the significance of the wreath as a symbol when we
meet the ivy wreath later as a tavern sign.
But even in classical antiquity the exercise of free hospitality
demanded certain tokens to preserve it from abuse at the hands of
fraudulent strangers. For example, the so-called “tessera hospitalis,”
a tiny object in the shape of a ram’s head or a fish, was split in
halves and shared by each party to the agreement of hospitality. By
presenting his half of the “tessera” the stranger could always prove
his identity and his claims to a hospitable reception by the family to
which he came.
Other tokens were small ivory or metal hands carved with appropriate
inscriptions. The latter were also sometimes exchanged on the
negotiation of treaties between nations. In the medallion cabinet at
Paris there is one of these treaty-hands in bronze, commemorating a
treaty between the Gallic tribe of the Velavii and a Greek
colony--probably Marseilles. This hand of hospitality, like the
wreath, was a frequent motive in the development of the tavern sign.
In fact, it was so frequent in the German lands that the people were
accustomed to call the tavern, in figurative speech, the “place where
the good God stretched out his hands.” If we recall the deep symbolic
meaning of such signs, we shall not find this naïve expression of the
people shocking, like the Puritan Consistory at Geneva, whose
narrow-minded prohibition of the angel sign we have already noticed.
[Illustration: BESIGHEIM]
Now, before passing to the study of the origins of entertainment for
pay, with its signs (which were really the first tavern signs) let us
turn back to the old Germans, to note their idea of hospitality. The
German fathers, too, tell in a beautiful story of the reception of a
divine guest in the cottage of a mortal, and of a reward like that
which Abraham had for his spirit of friendly aid. In one of the
religious songs of the “Edda,” which probably originated in the
North-Scottish islands, we read how the god Heimdall, in the disguise
of a humble traveler, visited the hut of an aged couple, and was
honorably received by them:--
“Then Edda brought forward a loaf of graham bread,
Firm, thick and full of hulls;
And more, too, she brought to the table,
And set thereon the bowl of soup.”
RIGSPULA, 4.
In the sayings of Hars (i.e., of Odin) the Lofty, the rule of
hospitality is stated:--
“Hail to the Givers! a guest enters.
Say where he shall sit.
He cannot stay long
Who must seek his living in the chase on snowshoes.
* * * * *
He who comes from afar needs fire,
For his knees are stiff with the cold.
He who has crossed the mountain cliffs,
Needs food and clothing sore.
Water and welcoming greeting he needs
And the towel to dry him from the bath.”
So even the old Germans had felt the blessings of hospitality, and
received the angel’s reward. An old poet expressed it in a simple
phrase:--
“A bit of bread, and the offer of the cup
Won me a noble friend.”