PUBLIC HOSPITALITY

Evening Star, Issue 19799, 24 February 1928, Page 7

PUBLIC HOSPITALITY

THE ORIGIN OF THE SIGN As a great deal of a nation’s history, and something also of its manners and feelings, may bo gleaned from its public-house signs, I shall endeavor to trace the origin of the public house itself to how these signs have come down through history from an apparently extraneous source (writes Gerald Dillon, in the Sydney ‘ Morning Herald’)., Most of the functions of the modern inn were originally discharged by (lie hospitality of the church. In (lie constitutions of various religious orders there wore directions to their members in regard to the rites of hospitality. Monastic institutions provided a special house (probably the Almonry) for strangers an travellers, too poor and lowly to bo entertained within the walls of the monastery itself: and in that house they were fed and tended. Persons of higher rank were received into the monastery, and in the hospitium, or guest hall, were refreshed with meat and wine. Tne importance ot this function may bo gauged from the size of somo of the guest halls belonging to tho great religious orders. At Canterbury, the hall was 150 ft Jong and 40ft wide. Visitors on arrival at the monastery were met by the hosteler in tho parletory (here is the origin of Mine Host and tho Bar Parlor). Tho hospitality lasted until after dinner on tho third day, when the guest, unless prevented by sickness, was expected to depart in peace. The only instance of tho public hospitality of tho religious orders surviving down to our own days (in the British Isles) is to be found at the Cistercian Monastery, at Cappoquin, County Waterford, where the weary may still tarry for three days without charge. Side by side with this monastic hospitality shelter and entertainment could also be found at tho houses of the nobility and gentry, whenever their owners were absent. And even when the owners wore at home tho practice of keeping open house was not an uncommon one The traveller of gentle blood would be entertained at my lord's table, while the servant, tho journeyman mechanic, tho disbanded soldier, and other wanderers of low degree would find rest and refreshment iu the keep, BEGINNINGS OF THE INN. The hospitality of the monastery ceased, of course, when Henry VIII. suppressed the religious orders; and promiscuous entertainment at tho castle or manor, owing no doubt to abuse, fell gradually into disuse. Near to these great houses there then grew up tho inn, frequently kept by some wornout servant of the castle, who naturally bore upon Ins sign the arms of the family he had so long served. And here, indeed, wo have the origin of the word landlord (signifying the host of an inn), as he, m a sense, represented the landlord, who formerly dispensed hospitality. In towns there were certain citizens possessed of largo enough houses, and frugal enough minds, who made a. practice of receiving guests, and taking money for their pains. s’hese were called herbergeors (or harborers), to distinguish them from hostelers or innkeepers. And these herbergeors hung out a sign to distinguish their houses, and these generally boro the arms of their most distinguished guest. There were, of course, inns and village alehouses in existence even at the very same lime as hospitality was being so freely exercised by the. monks and great landowners. A regulation of Edward the Confessor decreed that if any man lay a third night in ah inn ho was called a. “ third night awn hinde,” which meant that ho was looked upon in the same way as a servant of tho heuso would be, and the host was answerable for him if he committed any offence. However, at tho time of the Conquest, an inu or alehouse was a comparative rarity, and in the reign of Edward I. there were only three taverns in tho whole of London. In out-of-the-way districts even parsonages were (later) licensed as alehouses; and Southey mentions tho existence of one of these in his own day—so licensed because it was so poor b, living that the curate could not otherwise have supported himself. THE ALE STAKE. The sign hoard of the inn survives (now only with the barber’s pole and tho pawnbroker’s three balls) from times when but few persons could cither read or write. Tlic inn sign actually comes to us from the Remans, and tho old Latin proverb, “ Vino vendibili suspeusa hedera non opus est,” finds its counterpart in the. English, “ Good wine needs no bush ” (the common sign of the bush being tho lineal descendant of tho old Roman bunch of ivy). The ale stake, whicli was a long polo attached to the front of the house or standing in tho road before tho door, seems to have boon the first sign in use with English ale sellers. In process of time, (he publican affixed some further distinctive mark to his ale-stake, and then from a, painted effigy to a painted signboard was an easy step. If the landlord were a man of poor imagination ho might still be content with a bush or with tho arms of some local magnate, but if ho were a man of rich fancy, his imagination might lead him through the highways and byways of history, ancient and modern, in search of a worthy sign. It is perhaps natural, therefore, to find that in many instances the publican displayed in common form a veiled reference to “ holy things,” on account of tho association from whicli ho derived his calling, though in many instances, pcrhrps, it may be attributable to superstition. It may seem strange that few, if any, of the signs connected with animals had anything in their origin to those animals at all. “The Goat and Compasses” was a corruption of God Encompass Us (or, more correctly, God Encompasses Us). “The Goat in Golden Boots ” illustrated by tho god Mercury in his golden sandals, is a corruption of the Dutch Good in der Goudon Boots. “Tho Black Goats,” from three gowts (gutters or drains), related to tho channels by which the water from tho Swan Pool (Lincoln) was conducted into the bed of tho Witham: “The Cat and Fiddle” was from Caton Fideie (tho faithful Governor of Calais); “ The Pig and Whistle,” from Peg and Masaail; “Tho Bull and Mouth,” from the time of Henry VIII. to celebrate his capture of Boulogne Harbor (or Boulogne Mouth), and so on ad infinitum. THE TAVERN. The tavern, of course, belongs to a time when social feeling was more characteristic of Englishmen than it is to-day. It was usual for the occupiers of separate rooms at taverns to court cadi other’s acquaintance by sending a present of wine, with a request to be allowed to pledge them in a bumper. Thus Bardolpb, in the ‘Alerry Wives of Windsor,’ says; “ Sir John, there’s one Master Brooke below, who would fain speak to you, and bo acquainted with you, and hath sent your worship a morning’s draught of sack . . .” Even as late as the Restoration this continued to be tho social way amongst fel-low-travellers. Price, in his life of General Monk, furnishes an instance: “ I came 4o the ‘Three Tuns’ before Guildhall, where the general had quartered two nights before. I entered tho tavern with a servant and portmanteaux, and asked for a room, which I had scarce got into but wino followed me as a present from some citizens desiring leave to drink their morning’s draught with me.” The London tavern, of course, attained its highest point of social importance in the time of Dr Johnson, and many of the convivial and social functions which it then discharged now fall within the province of clubs and of private hospitality. In tho eighteenth century the tavern gathered around its hospitable hearth those groups of servants and wits which have been the starting point of many a scientific and literary society of tho present day.