THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF INNS
Inns, hotels, public-houses of all kinds, have a very ancient lineage, but
we need not in this place go very deeply into their family history, or
stodge ourselves with fossilised facts at the outset. So far as we are
concerned, inns begin with the Roman Conquest of Britain, for it is absurd
to suppose that the Britons, whom Julius Cæsar conquered, drank beer or
required hotel accommodation.
The colonising Romans themselves, of course, were used to inns, and when
they covered Britain with a system of roads, hostelries and mere
drinking-places of every kind sprang up beside them, for the accommodation
and refreshment alike of soldiers and civilians. There is no reason to
suppose that the Roman legionary was a less thirsty soul than the modern
soldier, and therefore houses that resembled our beer-shops and rustic
inns must have been sheer necessaries. There was then the _bibulium_,
where the bibulous boozed to their hearts’ content; and there were the
_diversoria_ and _caupones_, the inns or hotels, together with the
posting-houses along the roads, known as _mansiones_ or _stabulia_.
The _bibulium_, that is to say, the ale-house or tavern, displayed its
sign for all men to see: the ivy-garland, or wreath of vine-leaves, in
honour of Bacchus, wreathed around a hoop at the end of a projecting pole.
This bold advertisment of good drink to be had within long outlasted Roman
times, and indeed still survives in differing forms, in the signs of
existing inns. It became the “ale-stake” of Anglo-Saxon and middle English
times.
The traveller recognised the ale-stake at a great distance, by reason of
its long pole--the “stake” whence those old beer-houses derived their
name--projecting from the house-front, with its mass of furze, or garland
of flowers, or ivy-wreath, dangling at the end. But the ale-houses that
sold good drink little needed such signs, a circumstance that early led to
the old proverb, “Good wine needs no bush.”
On the other hand, we may well suppose the places that sold only inferior
swipes required poles very long and bushes very prominent, and in London,
where competition was great, all ale-stakes early began to vie with one
another which should in this manner first attract the attention of thirsty
folk. This at length grew to be such a nuisance, and even a danger, that
in 1375 a law was passed that all taverners in the City of London owning
ale-stakes projecting or extending over the king’s highway “more than
seven feet in length at the utmost,” should be fined forty pence and be
compelled to remove the offending sign.
We find the “ale-stake” in Chaucer, whose “Pardoner” could not be induced
to commence his tale until he had quenched his thirst at one:
But first quod he, her at this ale-stake
I will bothe drynke and byten on a cake.
We have, fortunately, in the British Museum, an illustration of such a
house, done in the fourteenth century, and therefore contemporary with
Chaucer himself. It is rough but vivid, and if the pilgrim we see drinking
out of a saucer-like cup be gigantic, and the landlady, waiting with the
jug, a thought too big for her inn, we are at any rate clearly made to see
the life of that long ago. In this instance the actual stake is finished
off like a besom, rather than with a bush.
[Illustration: AN ALE-STAKE. _From the Louterell Psalter._]
The connection, however, between the Roman garland to Bacchus and the
mediæval “bush” is obvious. The pagan God of Wine was forgotten, but the
advertisment of ale “sold on the premises” was continued in much the same
form; for in many cases the “bush” was a wreath, renewed at intervals, and
twined around a permanent hoop. With the creation, in later centuries, of
distinctive signs, we find the hoop itself curiously surviving as a
framework for some device; and thus, even as early as the reign of Edward
the Third, mention is found of a “George-in-the-hoop,” probably a picture
or carved representation of St. George, the cognisance of England, engaged
in slaying the dragon. There were inns in the time of Henry the Sixth by
the name of the “Cock-in-the-Hoop”; and doubtless the representation of
haughty cockerels in that situation led by degrees to persons of
self-sufficient manner being called “Cock-a-hoop,” an old-fashioned phrase
that lingered on until some few years since.
In some cases, when the garland was no longer renewed, and no distinctive
sign filled the hoop, the “Hoop” itself became the sign of the house: a
sign still frequently to be met with, notably at Cambridge, where a house
of that name, in coaching days a celebrated hostelry, still survives.
The kind of company found in the ale-stakes--that is to say, the
beer-houses and taverns--of the fourteenth century is vividly portrayed by
Langland, in his _Vision of Piers Plowman_. In that long Middle English
poem, the work of a moralist and seer who was at the same time, beneath
his tonsure and in spite of his orders, something of a man of the world,
we find the virtuous ploughman reviewing the condition of society in that
era, and (when you have once become used to the ancient spelling) doing so
in a manner that is not only readable to moderns, but even entertaining;
while, of course, as evidence of social conditions close upon six hundred
years ago, the poem is invaluable.
We learn how Beton the brewster met the glutton on his way to church, and
bidding him “good-morrow,” asked him whither he went.
“To holy church,” quoth he, “for to hear mass. I will be shriven, and sin
no more.”
“I have good ale, gossip,” says the ale-wife, “will you assay it?” And so
glutton, instead of going to church, takes himself to the ale-house, and
many after him. A miscellaneous company that was. There, with Cicely the
woman-shoemaker, were all manner of humble, and some disreputable,
persons, among whom we are surprised to find a hermit. What should a
hermit be doing in an ale-house? But, according to Langland’s own showing
elsewhere, the country was infested with hermits who, refusing restriction
to their damp and lonely hermitages, frequented the alehouses, and only
went home, generally intoxicated, to their mouldy pallets after they had
drunk and eaten their fill and roasted themselves before the fire.
Here, then:
Cesse the souteresse[1] sat on the bench,
Watte the warner[2] and hys wyf bothe
Thomme the tynkere, and tweye of hus knaues,
Hicke the hakeneyman, and Houwe the neldere,[3]
Claryce of Cockeslane, the clerk of the churche,
An haywarde and an heremyte, the hangeman of Tyborne,
Dauwe the dykere,[4] with a dozen harlotes,
Of portours and of pyke-porses, and pylede[5] toth-drawers.
A ribibour,[6] a ratonere,[7] a rakyer of chepe,
A roper, a redynkyng,[8] and Rose the dissheres,
Godfrey of garlekehythe, and gryfin the walshe,[9]
An vpholderes an hepe.
All day long they sat there, boozing, chaffering, and quarrelling:
There was laughing and louring, and “let go the cuppe,”
And seten so till euensonge and son gen vmwhile,
Tyl glotoun had y-globbed a galoun and a Iille.
By that time he could neither walk nor stand. He took his staff and began
to go like a gleeman’s bitch, sometimes sideways and sometimes backwards.
When he had come to the door, he stumbled and fell. Clement the cobbler
caught him by the middle and set him on his knees, and then, “with all the
woe of the world” his wife and his wench came to carry him home to bed.
There he slept all Saturday and Sunday, and when at last he woke, he woke
with a thirst--how modern _that_ is, at any rate! The first words he
uttered were, “Where is the bowl?”
A hundred and fifty years later than _Piers Plowman_ we get another
picture of an English ale-house, by no less celebrated a poet. This famous
house, the “Running Horse,” still stands at Leatherhead, in Surrey, beside
the long, many-arched bridge that there crosses the river Mole at one of
its most picturesque reaches. It was kept in the time of Henry the Seventh
by that very objectionable landlady, Elynor Rummyng, whose peculiarities
are the subject of a laureate’s verse. Elynor Rummyng, and John Skelton,
the poet-laureate who hymned her person, her beer, and her customers, both
flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Skelton, whose
genius was wholly satiric, no doubt, in his _Tunning_ (that is to say, the
brewing) of _Elynor Rummyng_, emphasised all her bad points, for it is
hardly credible that even the rustics of the Middle Ages would have rushed
so enthusiastically for her ale if it had been brewed in the way he
describes.
His long, rambling jingles, done in grievous spelling, picture her as a
very ugly and filthy old person, with a face sufficiently grotesque to
unnerve a strong man:
For her viságe
It would aswage
A manne’s couráge.
Her lothely lere
Is nothyng clere,
But vgly of chere,
Droupy and drowsy,
Scuruy and lowsy;
Her face all bowsy,
Comely crynkled,
Woundersly wrynkled,
Lyke a rost pygges eare
Brystled wyth here.
Her lewde lyppes twayne,
They slauer, men sayne,
Lyke a ropy rayne:
A glummy glayre:
She is vgly fayre:
Her nose somdele hoked,
And camously croked,
Neuer stoppynge,
But euer droppynge:
Her skin lose and slacke,
Grayned like a sacke;
Wyth a croked backe.
Her eyen jowndy
Are full vnsoundy,
For they are blered;
And she grey-hered:
Jawed like a jetty,
A man would haue pytty
To se how she is gumbed
Fyngered and thumbed
Gently joynted,
Gresed and annoynted
Vp to the knockels;
The bones of her huckels
Lyke as they were with buckles
Together made fast;
Her youth is farre past.
Foted lyke a plane,
Legged lyke a crane;
And yet she wyll iet
Lyke a silly fet.
* * * *
Her huke of Lincoln grene,
It had been hers I wene,
More than fourty yere;
And so it doth apere.
For the grene bare thredes
Loke lyke sere wedes,
Wyddered lyke hay,
The woll worne away:
And yet I dare saye
She thinketh herselfe gaye.
* * * *
She dryueth downe the dewe
With a payre of heles
As brode as two wheles;
She hobles as a gose
Wyth her blanket trose
Ouer the falowe:
Her shone smered wyth talowe,
Gresed vpon dyrt
That bandeth her skyrt.
[Illustration: ELYNOR RUMMYNG.]
And this comely dame
I vnderstande her name
Is Elynor Rummynge,
At home in her wonnynge:
And as men say,
She dwelt in Sothray,
In a certain stede
Bysyde Lederhede,
She is a tonnysh gyb,
The Deuyll and she be syb,
But to make vp my tale,
She breweth nappy ale,
And maketh port-sale
To travelers and tynkers,
To sweters and swynkers,
And all good ale-drynkers,
That wyll nothynge spare,
But drynke tyll they stare
And brynge themselves bare,
Wyth, now away the mare
And let vs sley care
As wyse as a hare.
Come who so wyll
To Elynor on the hyll
Wyth Fyll the cup, fyll
And syt there by styll.
Erly and late
Thyther cometh Kate
Cysly, and Sare
Wyth theyr legges bare
And also theyr fete.
* * * *
Some haue no mony
For theyr ale to pay,
That is a shrewd aray;
Elynor swered, Nay,
Ye shall not beare away
My ale for nought,
By hym that me bought!
Wyth, Hey, dogge, hey,
Haue these hogges away[10]
Wyth, Get me a staffe,
The swyne eate my draffe!
Stryke the hogges wyth a clubbe,
They haue dranke up my swyllyn tubbe.
The unlovely Elynor scraped up all manner of filth into her mash-tub,
mixed it together with her “mangy fists,” and sold the result as ale. It
is proverbial that “there is no accounting for tastes,” and it would
appear as though the district had a peculiar liking for this kind of brew.
They would have it somehow, even if they had to bring their food and
furniture for it:
Insteede of quoyne and mony,
Some bryng her a coney,
And some a pot wyth honey;
Some a salt, some a spoone,
Some theyr hose, some theyr shoone;
Some run a good trot
Wyth skyllet or pot:
Some fyll a bag-full
Of good Lemster wool;
An huswyfe of trust
When she is athyrst
Such a web can spyn
Her thryft is full thyn.
Some go strayght thyther
Be it slaty or slydder,
They hold the hyghway;
They care not what men say,
Be they as be may
Some loth to be espyd,
Start in at the backesyde,
Over hedge and pale,
And all for good ale.
Some brought walnuts,
Some apples, some pears,
And some theyr clyppying shears.
Some brought this and that,
Some brought I wot ne’re what,
Some brought theyr husband’s hat.
and so forth, for hundreds of lines more.
The old inn--still nothing more than an ale-house--is in part as old as
the poem, but has been so patched and repaired in all the intervening
centuries that nothing of any note is to be seen within. A very old
pictorial sign, framed and glazed, and fixed against the wall of the
gable, represents the ill-favoured landlady, and is inscribed: “Elynor
Rummyn dwelled here, 1520.”
Accounts we have of the fourteenth-century inns show that the exclusive,
solitary Englishman was not then allowed to exist. Guests slept in
dormitories, very much as the inmates of common lodging-houses generally
do now, and, according to the evidence of old prints, knew nothing of
nightshirts, and lay in bed naked. They purchased their food in something
the same way as a modern “dosser” in a Rowton House, but their manners and
customs were peculiarly offensive. The floors were strewed with rushes;
and as guests generally threw their leavings there, and the rushes
themselves were not frequently removed, those old interiors must have been
at times exceptionally noisome.
Inn-keepers charged such high prices for this accommodation, and for the
provisions they sold, that the matter grew scandalous, and at last, in the
reign of Edward the Third, in 1349, and again in 1353, statutes were
passed ordering hostelries to be content with moderate gain. The “great
and outrageous dearth of victuals kept up in all the realm by innkeepers
and other retailers of victuals, to the great detriment of the people
travelling across the realm” was such that no less a penalty would serve
than that any “hosteler or herberger” should pay “double of what he
received to the party damnified.” Mayors and bailiffs, and justices
learned in the law, were to “enquire in all places, of all and singular,
of the deeds and outrages of hostelers and their kind,” but it does not
appear that matters were greatly improved.
[Illustration: THE “RUNNING HORSE,” LEATHERHEAD.]
It will be observed that two classes of innkeepers are specified in those
ordinances. The “hosteler” was the ordinary innkeeper; the “herberger” was
generally a more or less important and well-to-do merchant who added to
his income by “harbouring”--that is to say, by boarding and
lodging--strangers, the “paying guests” of that age. We may dimly perceive
something of the trials and hardships of old-time travel in that
expression “harbouring.” The traveller then came to his rest as a ship
comes into harbour from stormy seas. The better-class travellers, coming
into a town, preferred the herberger’s more select table to the common
publicity of the ordinary hostelry, and the herbergers themselves were
very keen to obtain such guests, some even going to the length of
maintaining touts to watch the arrival of strangers, and bid for custom.
This was done both openly and in an underhand fashion, the more rapacious
among the herbergers employing specious rogues who, entering into
conversation with likely travellers at the entrance of a town, would
pretend to be fellow-countrymen and so, on the understanding of a common
sympathy, recommending them to what they represented to be the best
lodgings. Travellers taking such recommendations generally found
themselves in exceptionally extortionate hands. These practices early led
to “herbergers” being regulated by law, on much the same basis as the
hostelers.
Not many records of travelling across England in the fourteenth century
have survived. Indeed the only detailed one we have, and that is merely a
return of expenses, surviving in Latin manuscript at Merton College,
Oxford, concerns itself with nothing but the cost of food and lodging at
the inns and the disbursements on the road, made by the Warden and two
fellows who, with four servants--the whole party on horseback--in
September, 1331, travelled to Durham and back on business connected with
the college property. The outward journey took them twelve days. They
crossed the Humber at the cost of 8_d._, to the ferry: beds for the entire
party of seven generally came to 2_d._ a night, beer the same, wine
1¼_d._, meat 5½_d._, candles ¼_d._, fuel 2_d._, bread 4_d._, and fodder
for the horses 10_d._