Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/96

 "jd Hijlory of Domejlic Manners tion of travellers. A traveller in Bede arrives at a Jiofpitium in the north of England, which was kept by a paterfamilias (or father of a family) and his houfehold. In the Northumbrian glofs on the Pfalms, printed by the Surtees Society, the Latin words of Pfalm liv., zn hofpitiis eorum, are rendered by in gejl-hufum heara. This lliows that Bede's Jiofpitium was really a gueft-houfe : thefe guefl-houfes were kept up in various parts of England until Norman times ; and Walter Mapes, in his treatife de Nugis Curialium, has preferved a flory relating to one of William the Conqueror's Saxon opponents, Edric the Wild, which tells how, returning from hunting in the foreft of Dean, and accompanied only with a page, he came to a large houfe, "like the drinking houfes of which the Englifli have one in every pariih, called in Englifh gild-houfes," perhaps an error for gueft-houfes {quales Anglici in fingidis fingiilas hahelant diocefdns bibitorias, ghildhus AngUce cUcias). It feems not improbable, alfo, that the ruins of Roman villas and fmall ftations, which flood by the fides of roads, were often roughly repaired or modified, fo as to furnilh a temporary Ihelter for travellers who carried provifions, &c., with them, and could therefore lodge themfelves without depending upon the aflift- ance of others. A fhelter of this kind — from its confifting of bare walls, a mere flielter againfi: the inclemency of the ftorm — might be termed a ccald-herel-erga (cold harbour), and this would account for the great number of places in different parts of England, which bear this name, and which are almofl: always on Roman fites and near old roads. The explanation is fupported by the circumftance that the name is found among the Teutonic nations on the continent — the German Kalten-her- berg — borne by fome inns at the prefent day. The deficiency of fuch comforts for travellers in Anglo-Saxon times was compenfated by the extenfive praftice of hofpitality, a virtue which was efFeftually inculcated by the cufl:oms of the people as well as by the civil and ecclefiaftical laws. When a ftranger prefented himfelf at a Saxon door, and alked for board and lodging, the man who refufed them was looked upon with contempt by his countrymen. In the feventh century, as we learn from the Poenitentiale of archbifliop Theodore, the refufal to give lodging to a ftranger (qjiicunque hofpitem non receperit in domum