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 Est
Dominus 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!