Hospitality : an introduction

Model of Castle Acre Priory

 "All who arrive as guests are to be welcomed like Christ, for he is going to say 'I was a stranger and you welcomed me'" (Rule of St Benedict chapter 53). Hospitality was an essential part of Benedictine monastic life.Their practice was to become the foundation of  hospitality in the Middle Ages. In this post we will look at what this meant in principle  to both Benedictines and other orders and then explore in future posts the detail and how it worked, especially at St Albans.

There was a Benedictine duty to provide bed and board for travellers, pilgrims, war sufferers, relations of the inmates, fellow monastics  etc. Usually this was limited to two days bed and board, unless extended by the abbot or prior. Doors were closed to visitors after Compline. Demand varied according to the geographical position of the house and whether it was a pilgrimage site. Birkenhead Priory was by the ferry from Liverpool to the Wirral and always had guests. St Albans was unfortunate in being a day's journey from London and housing the shrine of  Alban, the Protomartyr. Think of it as the first Premier Inn north out of London. The stream of pilgrims must have affected the privacy and practice of monastic life here. Reputations travelled and some places gained a bad reputation : Crowland was one of these and the old rhyme said "Crowland, the courteous of their meat and drink, the beds are like stones, they break a man's bones". Smaller houses had limited accommodation while larger ones like St Albans and Bury had large blocks. Hospitality was always limited to men. Nunneries would be able to provide some accommodation for women. Provision for Royal female guests was rare. As we shall see Abbot Geoffrey (1119-46)built a special chamber for the Queen and her servants at St Albans. Otherwise women guests would have been referred to local inns which were outside the grounds of the abbey or priory. 

Cistercian houses were often in remote locations and this affected demands made upon them. The duty of hospitality does not seem to have been so strong initially and the houses were never open to all and sundry. There was no distinction between the abbot's guests and those of the convent, as in Benedictine houses.  . Later many houses developed large complexes of accommodation for guests. e.g. Fountains in Yorkshire developed two guest houses (the first from 1148) a good distance from the main cloister. Cistercians wanted to keep visitors well away from the monastic community. Both guest houses had two storeys with the upper floors as dormitories. Women were excluded but there may have been some sort of accommodation for them outside the Abbey gates. Fellow Cistercians from outside, on the other hand, were lodged in the main cloister with the Fountains community.   

In contrast to the  Benedictine idea of helping their spiritual passage by hospitality Carthusians thought salvation  came thorough contemplation and seclusion. Hospitality would be an incumbrance and their hospitality  appeared grudging. The mendicant orders (Franciscans, Dominicans)were more concerned with going out into the  community and when they no longer begged for their own accommodation and built convents these did not consider guest accommodation as important.

The differing types of guests and increasing demand began to require different kinds of  treatment. Larger houses like St Albans and Bury would get visits from the King and his retinue. Perhaps the larger monasteries were the only places fit for a King and his retinue. Reading and Westminster were popular for state meetings. Meetings likely occurred in the Chapter Houses. Visits by the King might require the whole place to be made available as far as possible. For example when Henry VI visited Bury at Christmas 1453 no less than 80 workmen had been involved several months in making it like palace for him. He stayed until Easter the next year!  Richard II held a Parliament at Gloucester, and was entertained at Tewkesbury and Gloucester in turn. Humphrey Duke of Gloucester was at S Albans Christmas 1423 for two weeks with some 300 followers. This must have been noisy, disruptive and possibly riotous with unseemly behaviour  by some of the retainers, apart from the expense.

Then there might be large numbers of pilgrims. Fellow visiting monks also made up quite a significant number. Therefore houses found they had to vet requests to visit. Patrons of an abbey were guaranteed a place.  Important visitors  would stay with the Abbot in or near his accommodation or a whole new block might be built as at St Albans. The famous waterworks plan of Christchurch Canterbury in the mid 12th century shows the prior's lodging to the northeast of the church where the important guests would go, the domus hospitum to the northwest of the cloister where cellarer and Guest Master would meet the middling  guests, and the aula nova in the northwest corner of the precinct where guests on foot would go.  Beaulieu had a system of grading guests at the gatehouse. When monasteries were full for the night they would refer guests to local hostels. These might have been built or bought by the Abbey. 

It is usually difficult to prove this but there are some good examples. There were several at Gloucester and the  New Inn there was built by John Twyning, a monk  for guests at St Peter's Priory (now Gloucester Cathedral). It is today the most complete medieval courtyard galleried inn in the country. We stayed the night there in July 2023. The  photos below show its size and complexity. Originally the two upper floors each had 20 chambers and the whole building could have accommodated about 200 guests. The large frontage was likely used for shops. Strangely the same is true today. Unfortunately it is a computer shop which seems slightly incongruous! The hotel has gone through difficult times lately and was up for sale. I hope it gets a good buyer and the fabric is looked after. It is a precious relic of the past.

 

The Angel and Royal at Grantham (see below)was a hostel originally built by the Knights Templar in 1203. The 14th century  gateway section still stands as the central facade of the Angel and Royal Hotel. It was not unusual for the funding of hostels at pilgrimage centres to be connected to  the local priory or abbey. In a later post we will be examining how this worked at St Albans. 

The Angel and Royal at Grantham

Abingdon Abbey owned a large number of properties in Oxford (25 in 1349) and some of these acted as inns. Glastonbury had the George and Pilgrims' Inn with its accomodation in a block facing the street. This was likely rebuilt in the time of Abbot John Selwood and Edward IV (1461-83). New tenants bought the lease from the Abbey in 1473 for £7/6/8  and an annual rent of 12d.

George and Pilgrims at Glastonbury

There could be benefits to hospitality. Guests were supposed to give an offering. Not all guests were generous and famously King John stayed at Bury for 10 days and gave only 13 pence and a silk cloth. Hospitality became an expensive business.. It could be a great way of getting sponsorship, acquiring land from a patron but patrons could demand favours. In 1279 Thetford had major financial problems when its patron, the brother of the Earl Marshal, stayed there with his retinue and its cost was in excess of all the resident monks.

Some sources

Bond, J. Monastic landscapes (Stroud, 2004)

Bottomley, F. Abbey explorer’s guide (Otley, 1995)

Braun, H. English abbeys {London, 1971)

Clark, J.G. Benedictines in the Middle Ages (Woodridge, 2011)

Cook, G.H. English monasteries in the Middle Ages (London, 1961)

Crossley, F.H. The English abbey 3^rd ed, (London,1949)

Kerr, J. Life in the Medieval cloister (London, 2009)

Knowles, D. ReligiousOrders in England vol 1-3 (Cambridge, 2008)

Parry, A. ed. Rule of St Benedict (Leominster, 1990)

Rosewell, R The Medieval monastery (Oxford, 2011)

Williams, D.H. The Cistercians in the early Middle Ages (1998)