Touring in 1600

The Italian host the traveller would often see before the inn came in sight; sometimes the latter would have touts as far away as seven or eight leagues to buttonhole foreigners, carry their luggage, promise anything and behave with the utmost servility – till the morning of departure. But with all this to expect them to provide clean sheets was expecting too much, and as the nation was grievously afflicted with the itch, it was desirable for the visitor to carry his own bedding. In many cases, too, we find the tourist sleeping on a table in his clothes to avoid the dirtiness of the bed, or the vermin. Still, in Italy, you shared your bed with these permanent occupants only, as a rule; in Spain you were sure to do so; one man, one bed, was the custom there – a result of the enforcement of the penalty of burning alive for sodomy. In Germany the custom was just the reverse; in fact, if the tourist did not find a companion for himself, the host chose for him, and his bedfellow might be a gentleman, or he might be a carter; all that could safely be prophesied about him was that he would be drunk when he came to bed. The bed would be one of several in a room; the covering a quilt, warm enough to be too warm for summer, and narrow enough to leave one side of each person exposed in winter. This is supposing there were beds: in northern Germany rest for the night would be on a bench in a "stove," as they called the room, because the stove was so invariably part of the furniture that the words "room" and "stove" became synonymous. Windows were never opened at night, to retain the heat in the room; all the travellers lay there, men and women, gentlemen and "rammish clowns," as near the stove as they could manage. The heat was such that the effect on one unaccustomed to it was "as if a snake was twining about his legs." Further, if several met together, says a Frenchman, one might as well try to sleep in a market-place on market-day. In upper Germany, the bedrooms were separate, without fires or the means of making one, and the change from the one temperature to the other was very trying. As many beds were put in a room as the room would hold; fairly clean ones, however, as the Germans treated them with some disinfectant. In Saxony there were no beds, no benches, no stove, even. All lay in the straw among the cows, the chief disadvantage of which was that your pillow was liable to be eaten in the night. So in Poland, too, where it meant a cold and dangerous night, in the country parts, at least, for any one who did not adapt himself to the custom of the country by using the long coat lined with wolfskins which served the Pole as cloak by day and bedding by night.

As a relief from the general statements, a particular instance may be quoted to exemplify a night by the way in Poland. The sleeping-room struck the writer as something between a stable and a subterranean furnace. Six soldiers lay on the ground as if dead; the peasant-tenant, his wife, children, and servants, lay on benches round the walls, with coverings of straw and feathers; in one corner slept a Calvinist, a baron's secretary; in another, on the peasant's straw pallet, an ambassador's chaplain, a Roman Catholic; and between the two, to save each, it seemed, from the heels of the other, was lying a huge Tartar, a captain in the Polish army, who had made up a bed of hay for himself. About the room were dogs, geese, pigs, fowls; while the corner by the oven was conceded to a woman who had just given birth to a child. The baby cried, the mother moaned, the tired servants and soldiers snored; and early in the morning the writer rose from the shelf he was sharing with some leggings, spurs, and muskets, and escaped.93

Speaking generally, there were no beds to be found in the North. In Muscovy everything had to be carried along; without a hatchet, tinder-box, and kettle there was no hot food for the wayfarer till he reached a monastery or a town, much less shelter; unless by chance he came across somebody's one-story cabin which would have no outlet for the smoke except the door, and accommodation below the level of the average stable, one room shared between the family, visitors, and live-stock. When Sir Jerome Horsey was at Arensberg, in the island of Oesel, near the gulf of Riga, in 1580, snakes crept about bed and table and the hens came and pecked at them in the flour and the milk.

Crossing over to Sweden the absence of inns was equally noticeable, but no disadvantage, for one of the conditions on which the parson held his living was that of showing hospitality to those in need of it. In Denmark, too, while taverns existed for supplying victuals, the wayfarer was dependent on the citizen for lodging, again not to his loss; he was sure of decent food, a clean bed, and a welcome. Foreigners in England are singularly reticent about the inns, except for reviling Gravesend for swindling; which may, perhaps, be taken as confirming Moryson's opinion that the English inn was the best in Europe. As to Ireland, there is the usual diversity of opinion; the absence of inns is accounted for by the traditional idea that the possession of an inn was a disgrace to a town, a slur on the hospitality of its inhabitants; yet the hospitality itself was most uncertain, since the natives were not in a position to believe in the neutrality of a visitor.

The personnel question, of course, is one that has to be allowed for throughout. It was in France that this method of discounting dissatisfaction was most in use, but it is in a dialogue printed in the Low Countries, a conversational guide for travellers in seven languages, that the following (an excerpt from the English version) occurs:94

"My she-friend, is the bed made? is it good?"

"Yea, sir; it is a good feather-bed; the sheets be very clean."

"Pull off my hosen and warm my bed; draw the curtains and pin them with a pin. My she-friend, kiss me once and I shall sleep the better… I thank you, fair maiden."

The German host was too apt to think that a heavy meal and honesty were all that could be expected from him. The honesty was indeed remarkable; more than one stranger was astonished by the recovery of property mislaid; sent after him, sometimes, before he had discovered his loss and no reward taken; but it was paid for dearly indirectly through the insolence born of virtue in a class that is naturally below the Ten-Commandment standard. The customer was made to feel that the favour was to, not from, him. An exception to this is the experience of Van Buchell, who found German hosts sending hot water up to a traveller's bedroom, if it was noticed he was tired, with herbs in the water, such as camomile, for strengthening the feet; and this even at Frankfurt a/M. in Fair-time as well as elsewhere. But there was no such thing as hastening on, or delaying, a meal-time, or dissatisfaction with the food; the bill must be paid without question, not a farthing abated.

And generally, indeed, the help of the law did not seem to avail against the innkeeper. Tourists speak of successful appeals to the law on other points and curse the inns without ceasing, but a successful tourist's lawsuit against his host remains to be found. In Tyrol, in fact, the plaintiff would find the defendant not only on, but controlling, the bench; and in Spain most innkeepers were officers of the "Santa Hermandad," a "Holy Brotherhood" whose forgotten ideal and raison d'être was that of acting as country police, with the result that the complainant would probably be arrested at the next stopping-place on some trumped-up charge. Neither was the local authority of assistance so far as prices were concerned in spite of the latter being fixed by it and posted up; because the local authority was open to bribery, and the innkeeper had known that as long as he had been in business. In short, when the bill came to one hundred per cent too much in Spain, the cheapest way was to pay it.

Of all the ill-feeling that the tourists harboured against Spain, the bitterest was on account of the inns; from the earliest, Andrew Boorde, who says "hogs shall be under your feet at the table, and lice in your beds," and another who relates how he preferred to hire three Moors to hold him in their arms while he slept. Those who come midway through the period tell the same tale; at Galleretta, on the border of Castile, a German finds the stable, the bedroom, the kitchen, the dining-room, the pigsty, one and the same room, and a Papal envoy sleeps on straw one snowy night without a fire. The latest writes that the sight of the inns was more than enough. There was but one way to reconcile one's self to the wayside inn of Spain; and that was – trying those of Portugal.

Over all these inns the Turkish "khan" had this advantage, that there was no host. A "khan" was a building which some compare to a barn, and one to a tennis-court, with a platform running round inside the walls about four feet broad and usually three to four feet high, but sometimes ten. At intervals of about eight feet were chimneys. The platform was for the travellers; the inner space for their beasts; the chimneys for each party to cook food at. That was the normal form, seeming to an uninstructed traveller just a stable, in which idea he would be confirmed by the scents in the early morning. The average Christian found that the noises and the lights prevented sleep, but the Turk carried a rug to sleep on, used his saddle as a pillow and his great rain-cloak as a covering and found it comfortable enough till daybreak, when he thought it suitable to get up, greatly to the disgust of the Christians present. Or if the moon was very bright, he might arise earlier by mistake; for he carried no watch, nor believed one when he saw it. Even in the ordinary "khan" there was often a room over the door to which the traveller might retire if he chose, but the Turk seldom used this, preferring to keep an eye on his beasts; and the Frank consequently might remain unaware that there existed any escape from the camels. Most "khans," built of hewn stone roofed with lead, would accommodate from eighty beasts to one hundred and fifty; and practically always had their fountains for the washings prescribed by the Turks' religion: but as time went on, far more magnificent places arose, with covered ways leading to mosques across the road, and many rooms, capable of holding nearly one thousand travellers and their belongings. The finest lay along the road leading from Constantinople to Christendom. The fact that "khan" is indiscriminately applied to all by most Franks is evidence that they were not on speaking terms with the natives, to whom many were known as "Imaret," those, that is, which provided food free. All lodgings were a form of good works among the richer Turks, a practical attempt to disarm the customary suspicions of the Grand Signor or the well-justified wrath of Allah; and free food was an extension of this appeal. The food was barley porridge mostly, or of some other grain, with meat in it; and bread, and sometimes honey; nor was there any idea of poverty associated with taking it; Jew and viceroy alike were recipients. Of all the marvellous provision for travellers, and even for the care of stray animals, in Constantinople, free food, free lodging, free medical attendance for men of all creeds, as unfolded in detail by the Turk traveller, Awliyáí Efendí, there is no need to dwell on, since the Frank knew of its existence but rarely and dimly, by hearsay only, for he would be lodging over the water at Pera with his nation's ambassador.

The Turk himself never travelled alone. Had he done so, he would have found the non-existence of the innkeeper troublesome. Near Constantinople there was a "khan" for every stage of every journey; but not so farther away; from Aleppo to Damascus was nine days' journey and only five "khans" on the way. But accompanying the caravan, he was taken care of; a quadrangle was formed, the travellers inside, among the waggons; the lines of the square formed by the beasts, their heads tethered inward; and at night-time was an outer line of fires; by the side of the fires, the watch; outside the fires, the patrol, until the three loud strokes on the drum which gave the signal for starting.

For out-of-door lodging, "at the sign of the Moon," as their phrase ran, there was much to be said; but then, how about food? Their guns were short in range; inaccurate within their range; and how much ran about that they might not touch on pain of death. The deer in Germany knew their immunity so well that they would lie in the road and have to be persuaded to leave room for the waggon; and to keep your hand from picking and stealing was an effective commandment where an economical duke of Florence lived who had planted those mulberry trees by the wayside and looked for profits. And so we return to the inns, leaving the bedroom to consider the fare.

But first – how to find them? By the sign when there was one; but supposing there was none? In most parts of Germany inns were distinguished solely by the coats of arms which visitors had put up to commemorate their progresses. The best inns could show, inside and out, as many as three hundred or more. For the signs themselves, it may be interesting to know what were the commonest signs and what were the exceptions. Out of a total of three hundred and fifty-eight different inns which these travellers mention by their signs, the "Crown" occurs most frequently (thirty-two times), mainly as a result of "Ecu de France" being so favourite a name in France. "White Horses" and "Golden Lions" seem to have been about as popular then as now; where changes have taken place is rather in connection with ecclesiastical signs. The "Cross" occurs twenty-two times, eleven of which are "White"; the "Three Kings" (fourteen) and the "Red Hat" or its equivalents, the "Cardinal's Hat" or the "Cardinal" (seven), are other examples; but of saints there are no more than twenty-five altogether, including five of "Our Lady." Barbara (three), Magdalen, Christopher, and John are the only other names that are used more than once. Among those who have but one of the three hundred and fifty-eight inns dedicated to him or her, is St. Martha, the patroness of those who stay at inns. The only form that is found coming into fashion is that of "Town of – " a fashion set, apparently, by Paris during the first quarter of the seventeenth century, to establish a special clientèle: the "Ville de Brissac," there, for instance, catered for Protestants, the "Ville de Hambourg" for Germans. But there existed at many towns inns which specialized in this way under ordinary names. At Lübeck were English inns; at Calais the "Petit St. Jean" was a meeting-place for Scotchmen; and Germans in Italy were directed to the "White Lion" and "Black Eagle" at Venice, the "Two Swords" at Rome, and the "Black Eagle" at Naples. Signs which occur but once and have something picturesque about them are the "Scarlet Siren" ("Serena Ostriata") at Venice, the "Mille Moyens" at Antwerp, the "Good Friend" at Leghorn, the "Fish Cart" of Cologne, the "Bacchus" at Cracow, the "Nereids" at Noyon; Paris had a "Four Winds" and a "Pineapple," Boulogne a "Tin Pot." Neither should "St. François de la Grande Barbe" at Agen be forgotten, if only on account of the host, who never slept there; every night he was taken away to prison for debt, says the Pole Gölnitz. It is curious, too, that in only one case out of so many should a name come up with any reference to the heroes of romance ("Les Quatre Fils d'Aymon"), which suggests that the acquaintance with them was less common among the lower classes than is generally supposed.

Next, since in nine cases out of ten a sign-board spells a drink, consider drinks. Spaniards and Turks drank water; the rest of Europe thought it unhealthy; in fact, as often as not cleaned their teeth with wine. Still drinking-fountains were not unknown; at Paris Zinzerling sampled sixteen. The consumption of cider, wines, and light beer, and heavy beer seems to have been localized with no material difference from to-day. The Turks alone had coffee and sherbet; and only the Spaniards chocolate, drinking which, however, was no more than a recently introduced fashion for its supposed medicinal qualities; it was only to be had where the most expensive kind of business was done. Among spirits, Irish was reckoned the best whiskey, but was seldom found outside Ireland, where it was known as the "King of Spain's Daughter." In Muscovy aqua-vitæ was the favourite drink; every meal began and ended with it; but for quantity consumed hydromel came first, with mead second. Besides being prepared plain, hydromel was often to be had made with water in which cherries, strawberries, mulberries or raspberries had been soaked for twenty-four hours or more; if aqua-vitæ had been substituted for water with the raspberries, the taste is recommended as marvellous.

For wines, each one was practically confined to the district that grew it. The export trade seems to have been for private buyers, little to inns with the exceptions of Muscovy, where Spanish wine was well known, of Poland (Spanish and Levant) and of Venetian territory, in the various parts of which a considerable variety of wines were grown and between which there had grown up the habit of interchange of products which extended to inn-custom. To be deducted from this is the fact that Greek wine was the name of a kind cultivated as much, perhaps more, outside Greece than within it.

As to the relative quality of sixteenth-century wines there are many independent opinions to be had, and they all agree – Italy was first in that, too. Among Italian wines, preëminent was the Lagrime di Christo ("tears of Christ"), concerning which a Dutchman was heard to lament greatly that Christ had not wept in his country; what has just been said concerning the localization of wines should be modified with regard to this kind which was to be found in many Italian inns outside its native Liguria. Second may be counted Montefiascone, with the help, maybe, of its own particular anecdote, which illustrates the second-hand character of travellers' information, since no two versions of the epitaph agree, and yet most accounts read as if the traveller had read the original. The tale is of a bishop who loved wine, was going to Rome, and had a servant whose taste was to be trusted. The bishop sent him in advance to test the wine at each inn and chalk the door-post with "Est" where the wine was good. When the servant arrived at Montefiascone he chalked "Est, Est, Est"; and so thought the bishop, for he drank till he died. And the servant wrote his epitaph.

"'Est, Est, Est;' propter nimium EstDominus meus mortuus est."

Drunkenness was infinitely more common than to-day, especially in Germany. Laws had, it is true, been passed, more stringent, during the past century, a result of the victories of the teetotal Turks; but there was no one to enforce them. Every German's conversation was punctuated with "I drink to you" "as regularly as every psalm ends in a 'Gloria,'" says Moryson, and among a number of princes whom he saw at a funeral feast, not one was sober. He queries – what would they have done at a wedding? adding that during the year and a half he spent there, attending churches regularly, he never heard a clergyman say a word against intemperance. The national reputation abroad was to match; even, when once some Germans halted at a village in Spain, there was a riot; the peasants were really afraid, beforehand, that the price of wine would go up!

Turning to meals, we find breakfast less of an established custom than it is at present. In France it was more, in Germany less, usual than elsewhere. In fact, in Germany it was not taken at the inn, but bought in the shape of "brannt-wein" and gingerbread at shops, existing partly for that purpose, at the town gates. French customs generally were more considerate towards the new-comer; something to go on with would often be brought him as he dismounted and water for a wash, just as in Flanders a bright-faced girl would frequently be ready at the door with beer or wine, very ready, too, to drink at his expense and to start first; whereas elsewhere he would be expected to wait till dinner as dusty, inside and outside, as he came in. A French breakfast consisted of a glass of wine and just a mouthful of bread; sometimes, as in Normandy, buttered toast, sometimes even meat was kept ready; but the sole instance of a traveller finding himself expected to eat a substantial meal first thing in the morning was at the inn of St. Sebastian, "the best inn," says Gölnitz, "on the Paris-Lyons road," kept by a mother and two daughters. The English custom of its being taken for granted that the guest saved some of his supper to serve as breakfast next morning, does not seem to have been in use abroad. In Italy it was ordinary to begin the day at a wine-tavern, where boys waited to serve cakes as well as wine, on which foundation the economical Italian would many days last till supper.

Practically, eating resolved itself into two meals a day, just what they were used to at home, and very fortunate it was they were used to it; to us it seems like alternately starving and over-eating. In Germany the latter extreme was the more common; in fact, it is not easy to see how the second meal was fitted in, considering the time one took, three to four hours. At Berne there was a law against sitting at table more than five hours; at Bâle 10 A. M. to 6 P. M. was the maximum, but the town council were unable to practise their own counsels of perfection and on great occasions finished in private. In Saxony the innkeeper was forbidden to serve more than four dishes at a meal; and there public opinion was perhaps some check, inasmuch as the common saying was to compare the Saxon dishes, served as they were, one by one, to the tyrants of Sicily, each one of whom was a more fearful monster than his predecessor.

Their neighbours, on the contrary, set all on the table at once in a two-decker on three iron feet; in the top story was the inevitable sauerkraut and beneath, roast meat, poultry, puddings, and whatever else was to be had; so that an Englishman likened this two-decker to Noah's ark, as containing all kinds of creatures. As to these German "puddings" there is no hard-and-fast rule to be drawn between them and sausages; and accordingly one cannot say for sure whether it was pudding or sausage which was the food Moryson had for supper one night near Erfurt; but the description is of no importance compared with the size, for it was as big as a man's leg, conforming to the phrase in which the German expressed his idea of happiness, "Lange Würsten, Kurz Predigen" (long sausages, short sermons). One who journeyed through Hessen describes his diet as "mostly coleworts," but a Saxony dinner ordinarily began with stewed cherries or prunes, continued with poultry or meat, the pot for which was set on the fire but once a week; and concluded with bacon to fill up the corners, as important a consideration for the host as any one, for there was no greater reproach to hurl at the host than "Ich hab' mich da nicht satt gefressen" ("I didn't eat my belly-full there").

Bacon was of great account in Germany, so great that the owners were wont to bless their pigs when the latter trotted out of a morning, to ensure their safe return; and told off a servant to wash them as they passed the fountain on their way back, which they took of their own accord. But while a well-fattened sow commanded a fancy price – as much as the equivalent of fifty pounds was paid at Heidelberg in 1593 for one who had become unable to eat a whole raw egg at a meal – sucking pigs were unknown as eatables; an Englishman who bought one for food was forced to kill and prepare it himself on account of the unwillingness of the servants to touch it. What Saxony did lack was everything that was dependent on the yield of a cow; throughout Germany there was little cheese except that made from goat's milk.

A common hors d'œuvre was what were called "Neun Augen" – little lampreys that had nine eyes. Birds other than poultry were unusual: of veal and beef there was a moderate supply, of dried venison rather too much, as was the case at Hamburg with salmon. Dried fish you might expect, with many sauces, all designed to create thirst; fresh fish was expected to be on view alive beforehand in the kitchen; no German inn lacked a wooden fish-tank, kept under lock and key and supplied with running water. Supposing, however, that the sauces failed of their effect, the thirst was sure to come at the end of the meal with the help of little bits of bread, sprinkled with pepper and salt. Fruits were preserved habitually; especially apples and pears, which they halved, dried in the oven, and served up with cinnamon and butter. Black cherries they put in a brass pot, mixed with the best pears cut into small pieces and boiled and stirred till the contents were thick; then pressure was applied which sent the juice through holes in the bottom of the pot; it cooled solid, kept well, and was in every-day use as sauce for meat after it had been liquefied again.