Daily Life During The Reformation (39 page)

Inns of a different caliber were available to those who
could ill afford expensive lodging. The rooms above the stables were small,
dingy, and dirty, the linen seldom changed, and fleas and bedbugs abounded.
Drinking, shouting, and noise from unruly patrons went on all night. Even the
finest inns provided only chamber pots for the guests, and in the more sleazy
ones, unwashed people slept naked, often several to a bed.

In Germany, when a coach arrived at an inn to pick up
passengers, the servants brought a cup of wine, and the maids brought some
flowers, all expecting their
drinckgeld
. According to Fynes Moryson, the
coachman himself was often rude and would not wait even one minute if a
passenger was not at the door ready to go. On route, if someone needed to
alight from the vehicle to do urgent business, he was simply left behind if he
could not run fast enough to catch up with the coach. At the end of the
journey, the driver demanded a substantial tip as his right.

The best inns in Germany were known by the coat of arms on
the gate or hanging in the dining room. These were often given to the owner by
patrons who wished to show they had been there. Guests sat where they pleased
and ate on various square tables in one room. Men ate and drank sometimes with
their doublets open to a naked chest.

Fynes found many guests friendly. It was the custom to dip
bread into a sauce with the point of a knife. All classes sat at the same
table. As they drank to each other they were liable to kiss their neighbor and
make bargains, promising anything before they staggered home where their wives
squashed their lavish ideas and largesse. Women stayed away from public houses
where wine and beer were sold.

Perhaps the most surprising custom that travelers came
across in the German lands was the
Schlaffdrincke
or sleeping drink. After dinner, when the
table cloth was removed, everyone had to rise immediately and leave or go to
bed. If they did not, there was a price to pay. A sip of the cup (from which
one had previously been drinking) after the removal of the table cloth required
the imbiber to pay an equal share of those who continued to drink all night,
even though he went straight to bed after that last sip. For the unwary, the
bill in the morning could be a shock.

Merchants staying at an inn generally found the staff
unhelpful. They waited on the tables but did little else. They did not pull off
one’s boots (which was customary elsewhere) and were so rude that if they were
asked for something, they would say “get it yourself!” Even though the sheets
on the bed might be filthy, they still demanded their
drinckgeld
, and if someone left the inn
without paying a tip, they followed him and demanded it. Few ordinary people
traveled far from their villages, and most walked, covering at best in a full
day about 20 miles.

More inns opened in England after the religious houses,
often shelters for travelers, were suppressed in 1539. Many of these had a kind
of bunk bed whereby the master slept on top and the servant on the lower part.
There is a story about a Scottish Laird who spent the night at an English inn
and, being given a room with a four-poster bed in it, assumed he should sleep
on the canopy part above, and his servant on the bed below. Needless to say,
the Laird slept poorly, and the servant had the best night’s sleep of his life!
In Scotland, upper class travelers relied on hospitality from people of their
own echelon, and rarely used the wretched inns.

In France, where the inns were generally of the lowest
order, the weary traveler (after a strenuous day on the road), crowded into the
inn at night along with vagrants, poor woodcutters, and laborers, who drank
themselves into oblivion with cheap wine or ale. A more refined person would
spend the night on guard in the dirty room, without fire or light, sword on the
table that had been placed in front of the door to make it more secure.

In 1532, a group of monks journeying through Spain
complained that they lodged like pigs in filth and dirt and that horses were
treated better. The mystic, Santa Teresa, traveling in Spain in 1575 stayed at
an inn near Cordoba in a room that previously housed pigs. Replete with vermin
and atrocious odors, it had a ceiling so low she was unable to stand up
straight. The bed was filthy and uncomfortable, and the shouts and curses of
the other guests kept her awake. The next night she and her companions camped
in the fields. Most accounts of the time agree that Spain was the worst country
for European travelers; but France was not far behind.

At night, in the Netherlands, where it was essential to
find an inn, they were few and far between in open country. There, one ate
whatever had been cooked that day; there was no choice. As many as five persons
slept in the same, large bed, and there was no expectation of finding it to be
clean or free of fleas and bugs.

BANDITS

For the student going to a distant university, a lawyer
with business elsewhere, or a journeyman looking for work and traveling from
city to city, every dark wood, valley, or ravine offered refuge for a robber to
strike the unwary. It was always best to keep to the main road in spite of the
insects, dust, deep ruts, or ice-covered pools and mud in winter. Even there it
was imprudent to travel alone but with enough armed men to deter highwaymen.
The bandits were sometimes younger sons of noble blood who had missed out on
the family inheritance or impecunious knights. Many were discharged soldiers
who could not settle into a routine life of farming or shop-keeping. Matters
were made worse by innkeepers who, in collusion with robbers, informed them of
any guests lodging in the establishment who appeared to have money. It was also
expedient for drovers and herders to pay off the bandits to protect their
flocks of sheep or herds of cattle.

Although a few ambassadors, military planners, and some
merchants had guide books that were printed in the sixteenth century, the majority
of travelers had to rely on paid village guides to reach their destinations. No
roads were signposted or otherwise marked as to directions and pitfalls. It was
easy to get lost in the dark forests and even in open country when paths
diverged; bandits were always on the lookout for such people. A country person
who knew the roads and the dangers might refuse to act as a guide unless a
party was well armed and paid handsomely because he still had to return home
again. Village people and farmers traveled little, but if it were necessary to
go beyond the reach of help, they preferred to go on good sunny days since
sometimes floods and washed-out bridges caused them to detour on back roads,
much to the highwayman’s delight.

When one gentleman was out walking alone in the
countryside, so the story goes, he spotted in the distance three
unsavory-looking characters approaching. Having heard in the last village that
there were highwaymen about, he quickly tore his fine clothes into shreds,
except the small patch sown into the lining that contained his money, and
walked toward them with nothing but rags hanging off him. When he came face to
face with the armed scoundrels, he held out his hand and begged for money. They
obliged, and gave him enough to pay for his dinner that night.

THE DARKER SIDE OF A MERCHANT’S LIFE

A young Nurnberg merchant, Balthasar Paumgartner, wrote
numerous letters to his wife Magdalena when he was away from home. He became a
seasoned traveler between Nurnberg, Frankfurt, and Lucca in north central
Italy. From Lucca where he spent much time he shipped merchandise to the fairs
at the other two cities. His worries and insecurities are noted in his letters
as the transportation of merchandise from Italy to northern depots was never
certain. He found both Frankfurt and Italy inhospitable places and on one
occasion worried about the delay in departing Frankfurt with the merchants’
convoy.

He was especially concerned about the routes that were
known by his colleagues as murder road. Merchants carefully kept an eye on
reports of highwaymen, soldiers, or wandering mercenaries along their routes as
well as weather conditions. When it seemed favorable, they set off in their
convoys along the tracks going from village to village toward their destination.
In some towns suspicious people would close the gate to strangers fearing
bearers of disease. A life of traveling was unpleasant in other ways; Balthasar
wrote of his hands swollen and cracked after weeks of riding in winter weather.
Colds and flu’ were a constant problem, and he ran out of handkerchiefs.
Intense heat in summer months brought travel to a halt.

An aspect of the trade that Balthasar disliked the most was
when the fair was over and buying and selling stopped, and it was time to
demand payment. At this point the most arduous work began with the exchange of
money and the haggling, screaming, and cursing that accompanied it. Balthasar
was perhaps not of the temperament to be a merchant, finding competition and
bargaining most unpleasant.

FRENCH ROYAL COURT

The French king, Francois I, seemed to be perpetually on
the move and seldom remained long in one place. Accompanying him, his court
comprised a retinue of about 12,000 horses, 3,000–4,000 men and women, a large
troop of gentlemen of the household, courtiers, guards, officers, and ladies.
Hoards of clergy, craftsmen, laborers, and specialty cooks moved through the
countryside staying here and there at a nobleman’s chateau, in a city palace,
or sometimes camping in an open field, as the king wished. The court brought
along its own merchants with the special rights to supply the courtiers,
greengrocers, butchers, bakers, wine merchants, and a host of others along with
suppliers of hay and oats for the horses and mules, a string of servants to
care for the hunting dogs and falcons and horsemen who were ready to ride at
the king’s bidding to far-off coasts to bring back seafood for meatless days.

The sovereign’s large tent and the kitchen utensils were
carried on the backs of sturdy mules while the king himself went on horseback
or in a litter, the latter used also for the older women of the court. Younger
and stronger women rode horseback; others were packed into wagons for long,
bone-jarring rides. River barges, when used, were no doubt a relief from the
bad roads. Like a small army, the court moved out in its specific order with
the quartermaster far ahead, scouting out the next place to lodge.

Mariano Giustiniano, ambassador from Venice, wrote home in
1535 that during his 45 month tenure at the French court, it did not remain in
the same place for more than two weeks. When it approached a town or village,
the church bells rang, the priests and common people rushed to see the king
ride by and perhaps stop for awhile. He must have enjoyed all this. From
coronation to death, he continued his rounds of the country.

BENEFITS OF TRAVEL

Travel was considered beneficial for financially well-off
young men, allowing them to gain some knowledge about other countries. In
Elizabethan England, for example, they studied languages such as French or
Spanish and were often sent to those countries accompanied by a tutor who would
find experienced teachers there for the boys. By the end of the sixteenth
century, government positions required facility in foreign languages as did an
entrance into high society. Even in the lower classes that worked in the crafts
and trades, parents attempted to provide practical experience for their sons
through travel, which often led to study in foreign universities.

Oftentimes young men without connections in the new country
lived in private houses; but if they became ill, trouble could easily ensue. If
he were Protestant and living in a Catholic home, no one would look after him
unless he converted. In addition, no doctor or even servants were permitted to
take care of him. This caused great anxiety for parents whose children were
studying in Catholic countries and they usually made every effort to see that
their son traveled with a good, moral tutor and that they were housed with
friends or relatives.

Fynes Moryson traveled mainly on horseback in Europe, and
on his way to Italy, he pretended to be a Frenchman lest he be liable as an
Englishman to imprisonment in Spanish territory in Italy. In Rome, he felt safe
once he proved he was not a spy.

Henry Wotton, traveling to complete his education, followed
a similar route to Moryson. He arrived in Italy in 1591 pretending to be a
Catholic German, as he would have been incarcerated as a spy if discovered to
be English. He stayed two years in that country and in later years, working for
the government, his fluent Italian helped, as feigning to be an Italian, he was
able to warn the Scottish king of an assassination plot.

According to Coryat, it was hard to meet anyone in society
in Germany who had not been to England, Italy, France, or Spain and gained some
educational advantage from this. But Coryat, an avid traveler himself, comments
that when one has finished traveling, it is better to return to one’s own
country and learn about that. It was necessary to understand what it meant to
travel and not just to gloss over the surface of foreign countries: