MONASTIC INNS
Rural England, during the two centuries after the Conquest, was
practically under martial law. The hardy Men of Kent and the Vale of
Holmsdale were strong enough to retain some of their ancient rights and
privileges. Beyond these districts local government was suppressed and a
military despotism took its place, administered often by half-civilized
chieftains. One influence alone was formidable enough to modify and soften
the crude tyranny of the feudal system--that of the Monasteries.
The religious orders were the only class who had directly profited by the
new regime to increase their power. Hitherto merely national they now
became, in a way, part of an international system. Not that they ceased to
be patriotic. In the combinations against regal misrule which produced the
Great Charters, Bishops and Abbots threw in their lot heartily with the
lay barons. But in themselves they formed at this time an almost
independent authority with special privileges dangerous to meddle with,
because behind them was the Universal Church and its temporal head the
Pope, now just reaching the zenith of his authority.
It was the religious orders that saved England from barbarism. Each
monastery was a kind of impregnable city within which all the graces of
civilization were fostered. Here learning, literature and art were
diligently studied; rich and poor, bondman and free, were welcomed as
scholars if only they proved their ability to profit by the tuition. A
certain number of manors were allotted to the Church, and this number was
constantly being increased by royal or private benefaction. The tenants of
ecclesiastical manors, more especially the villeins or serfs, were in
these early times much better treated than those subject to the secular
lords. The tenures were generally easy, labour customs could be commuted
for a small sum of money, and the serfs could acquire freedom on very
moderate terms. Enlightened forms of lease were introduced.
The monks were the great agriculturists of the Middle Ages, and so were
concerned in the maintenance of facilities for traffic. Apart from this
their one duty to the State was to satisfy the _trinoda necessitas_,
particularly the care of roads and bridges. This was considered a pious
and meritorious duty often rewarded with special indulgences; such
undertakings were a work of mercy, in that they befriended the unfortunate
traveller. The roads adjoining a monastic estate were usually kept in fair
condition, as compared with those in other districts. The first London
Bridge was built by the Prior of St. Mary Overie; another great endowed
bridge, that over the Medway at Rochester, owes its origin to the great
St. Dunstan. Nearly all the picturesque gothic bridges which still survive
were the work of the monks. Travelling was in many other ways directly
fostered by the monasteries. Communications were constantly passing
between the various houses of an order, many of which were on the
Continent. Authority for the election of a new abbot or a change in the
statutes would have to be obtained from Rome. The two centuries after the
Conquest witnessed a continual rebuilding and beautifying of the Abbey
Churches. Materials had to be brought from a distance, skilled artists
engaged, rich plate, metal work, and ornate vestments procured for the
altar-service. All this was a great stimulus to trade.
The doors of the monastery were open to all comers, and there were many
reasons why hospitality would be sought at a religious house in preference
to the manorial inn. Rich people resorted to them because of their comfort
and security; the poor because there was nothing to pay. No unpleasant
questions were likely to be asked; so we find Quentin Durward (in the
novel of Sir Walter Scott, which gives us such an excellent idea of the
period he describes,) always avoiding the public inns and taking refuge at
the monasteries in order to minimize the risk of his secret mission being
betrayed. Most of these houses had been endowed by the king or nobles, and
their descendants considered themselves at home within the precincts.
These noble guests, especially when they were accompanied by a
miscellaneous retinue, were apt to be rather too roisterous and turbulent
for the cloister. A statute of Edward I forbids anyone to lodge at a
religious house without the formal invitation of the Superior, unless he
be the founder, and then he must conform closely to the rules and
regulations. The poor alone were to retain the right to the grace of
hospitality free of charge. Numerous later statutes were enacted with the
same end in view. The monks of Battle rebuilt their Guest House outside
the Abbey Gate where it still remains a most beautiful example of
fifteenth-century half-timber work. Long before this time, however,
another expedient had been devised to cope with the increasing crowd of
travellers needing rest and refreshment.
Whenever we come across an inn bearing the sign of the _Bull_ it is worth
while to inquire whether there was formerly a religious house in the
neighbourhood. We have examined into the history of upwards of a hundred
“Bulls,” and even where definite proof has not been forthcoming, the
circumstantial evidence has always been sufficient to arouse suspicion. It
is especially a common sign in connection with a nunnery. Thus the inns of
this name at Dartford, Barking and Malling, all three very ancient,
belonged to the local abbeys. At Hythe, on the Medway, a manor of Malling
Abbey, there is a _Bull Inn_; and another at Theale in Berkshire, which
was the property of the prioress of Goring. Elfrida, the mother-in-law of
Edward the Martyr, founded a nunnery at Reading in expiation of the base
murder of that prince. This nunnery was abolished owing to scandals in the
twelfth century, but a _Bull Inn_ still flourishes near the site of the
Abbey Gate. At Newington, next Sittingbourne, the prioress was found
strangled in her bed and the nuns were removed elsewhere, but the _Bull_
remains as the chief inn to this day.
[Illustration: The Bull, Sudbury]
In deeds of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries relating to the _Bull_
at Barking, this house is referred to as “tectum vel hospitium vocatum le
_Bole_.” _Bole_ is the old French equivalent of the Latin _bulla_, a seal
from which it is clear that no bovine connection is implied by the sign,
but merely that the inn was licensed under the seal of the Abbey. Some
antiquaries have suggested that such inns were tied houses where ale of
monastic brewing was sold, reminding us of the current explanation of the
xx and xxx marks on barrels of strong ale, as having been originally the
seals guaranteeing the quality in the days when the monks were the leading
brewers. It is true that the peculiar virtue of the wells at
Burton-on-Trent was known at a very early period, and that the ale brewed
in the local Abbey was an article of commerce when Richard I was king.
Tied houses were not uncommon in the Middle Ages, witness the _Bear Inn_
in Southwark, leased in 1319 by Thomas Drinkwater, wine merchant to James
Beauflur, on condition that he purchased all his liquor from the said
Thomas Drinkwater, who agreed to furnish all needful flagons, mugs,
cutlery and linen. On the other hand, very few collegiate houses brewed
ale beyond the needs of their own consumption, and we have not yet come
across any lease binding their tenants. Mention is often made of a
brewhouse attached to the inn. As to the marks on the barrels a prosaic
solution is that these are merely excise marks of the seventeenth century,
when beer was taxed according to its strength.
[Illustration: Pigeon House at the Bull, Long Melford]
Whatever the terms of its original lease may have been the _Bull_ profited
by monastic favour and protection to grow into a big and prosperous
establishment. It is nearly always the leading hostelry of the town. Two
centuries ago the _Bull_ at St. Albans was described by Baskerville as the
largest in England, but with the decay of the coaching trade it has
retired into private life. Mr. Jingle’s recommendation of the _Bull_ at
Rochester, “Good house, nice beds,” might be fairly applied to nearly
every _Bull Inn_ of our acquaintance. The sign is a symbol of steady-going
respectable old-fashioned ways, where comfort is not sacrificed to
economy, and where the cellar and kitchen are alike irreproachable. Any
remnants of antiquity are concealed behind a broad Georgian façade, for
good business entails frequent rebuilding. The _Bull_ at Barking is now to
all appearance a quite modern hotel. Few would guess that its history
could be traced for seven hundred years, and that twice during that time
it has been occupied by a single family for more than a century. In 1636
it was sold to St. Margaret’s Hospital in Westminster, for the sum of one
shilling; and therefore continues to be collegiate property.
To avoid confusion we must remind the reader that the “_Bull’s Head_”
denotes the crest of the Nevilles or, occasionally, Anne Boleyn. The _Pied
Bull_ is a whimsical sign found near a cattle market or bull-ring. A few
inns, too, received the name of the Bull in Elizabethan or Jacobean times
when astrology was popular, and Taurus happened to be the house ascendant
in the horary figure. Thus in Ben Jonson’s “Alchemist”:
“A townsman born in Taurus given the bull, or the Bull’s head; in
Aries the ram.”
Sometimes in place of the official seal the monastic inn bore for its sign
a picture or carving of a religious mystery. Outside the Abbey Gate, at
Bury St. Edmunds, is the _Angel Inn_, once called the _Angelus_ or
_Salutation_; there is another _Angel Inn_, probably monastic, in
Guildford. Both of these are famous for their beautiful Early English
crypts, groined and vaulted in stone. The _Angel_ at Grantham belonged to
the Knights Templars. At Addington in Kent the _Angel_ has a very odd
staircase of great antiquity, each tread being a solid log of timber; and
an underground passage, which local gossip connects with a priory at
Ryarsh. Another monastic _Angel_ at Basingstoke is said to be the subject
of Ben Jonson’s coarse epigram, inspired by the departure of his hostess,
Mrs. Hope and her daughter Prudence. The _Cock_ as an emblem of St. Peter,
and the _Crosskeys_ are frequently found. The most interesting inn in the
city of Westminster was the _Cock and Tabard_, in Tothill Street, pulled
down in 1871. It dated from the reign of Edward III, and it was here,
according to Stowe, that the workmen engaged in the completion of the
Abbey Church were paid. From its yard two centuries later the first
stage-coach to Oxford was started. Battle Abbey possessed several “_Star_”
inns, the best known of which was the _Star_ at Alfriston, which may
either be named after Our Lady, Star of the Sea, or after the Earl of
Sussex, one of whose badges was the star.
Semi-religious signs such as the _Angel_, _Star_ and _Mitre_ are not
always monastic, nor need they imply pre-reformation origin. The Angel at
Islington is, comparatively speaking, a mushroom upstart. Under the sign
of the _Angel_, Jacobs, a Jew, opened in 1650 one of the first
coffee-houses in the parish of St. Peter, Oxford. A pious Roundhead might
find chapter and verse for the sign and gloat over the conceit of
entertaining an Angel--perhaps not unawares. Puritan sects have been known
to give the official title of “Angel” to their itinerant preachers. The
_Cock Tavern_, in Fleet Street, in spite of the splendid gilt chanticleer
(generally attributed to Grinling Gibbons) has no connection with St.
Peter. An advertisement, printed in the _Intelligence_ of 1665, shows
that its old name was the _Cock and Bottle_. Cock is still used in some
parts of the country for the spigot, or tap in a barrel; and the sign was
simply a short way of informing the bibulous that they could obtain here
ale both on draught and in bottle.
A monastic inn far exceeding in world-wide fame all others, is that
_Tabard Inn_ in the Borough, whence five hundred years ago thirty merry
pilgrims set forth on a springtide morning on their three days’ journey
along the old Watling Street to Canterbury. The _Tabard_ was a speculation
of the Abbot of Hyde, Winchester, and no doubt a profitable one, for its
landlords were always men of character and substance who would attract
guests of good class. Harry Bailey, Chaucer’s friend, represented
Southwark in two successive parliaments, and another landlord, William
Rutton, sat in Parliament for East Grinstead in 1529. Built in 1307,
together with a hostel for the clergy of the monastery, it remained in
much the same condition as when Chaucer sang its praises until about 1602.
The stone-coloured wooden gallery, in front of which hung a picture of the
Canterbury Pilgrimage, attributed to Blake, and the so-called “Pilgrim’s
room” were probably of this period; the rest was rebuilt after the great
fire of Southwark, 1676. Twenty years ago all was demolished, and a
gin-shop on its site of modern, vulgar red-brick mock gothic absurdly
claims the title of “_The Old Tabard_.”
One religious order never attempted to divert the increasing stream of
guests into the inns. With the Knights Hospitallers all comers were
welcomed; the entertainment of strangers remained their chief duty. The
accounts of their house in Clerkenwell for the year 1337 show that they
had spent more than their whole revenue--at least £8,000, the reason
being, as the prior explains, the hospitality given to strangers, members
of the royal family and other grandees who all expected to be entertained
in accordance with their rank. A noble would occasionally send his whole
suite to the convent in order to save expense. The Knight monks finding no
Paynim to demolish became an order of hotel-keepers, and travellers never
failed to profit by the generous fare provided in their numerous
establishments.
[Illustration: Yard of the White Horse, Dorking]
At Dorking, when the Knights departed, the innkeeper took their place and
continues to keep up the old traditions. The _White Cross_ is now the
_White Horse_, though not from any similarity of names but because the
Earls of Arundel, and afterwards the Dukes of Norfolk, were lords of the
manor. In later life the _White Horse_ was a famous coaching house, and
rebuildings have apparently destroyed any feature older than say three
centuries. Perhaps it was in the yard of this house, where a noble old
vine spreads green fragrance over the great white gables, that Charles
Dickens met the individual who sat for the portrait of Tony Weller. Deep
underneath the building are a series of vaults cut out of the
sandstone--maybe a relic of the Hospitallers. In one of the lowest is a
curious old well. Tradition has it that these cellars were used in the
smuggling days. To lovers of the road the quaint gables and broad oriels
of the _White Horse_ are no mean landmark, for they are the destination of
a real old-fashioned coach and four running hither from Charing Cross
daily during the summer months.