Father Davison had been told that one hundred marks would suffice for his boy abroad each year, and, consequently, in sending the latter to Italy in 1595 with a tutor, and a servant, allowed him treble that amount, one hundred pounds. The tutor writes, "I never endured such slavery in my life to save money"; if Mr. Davison does not see his way to changing his mind about the one hundred pounds a year, will he kindly find another tutor? As to the "frugal travellers" whose travelling costs them no more than the one hundred marks a year, he does not wish to deny it; in fact, he knows such men; and very sorry he is for those who have lent them the rest they have spent.
From all this one may conclude that the equivalent of four hundred pounds a year was the minimum for respectable travelling and that the Average Tourist would certainly need at least half as much again. But this is assuming that all who were respectable, or above the need to be so, paid all their own expenses, which was far from being the case. There were plenty of rich travellers who defrayed all charges for a large following. Landgraf Ludwig II of Hessen-Darmstadt[118] even paid a certain knight to accompany him, six hundred florins [£600] down and fifty florins a month, besides expenses and clothes. So when Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona toured Europe, starting May 9, 1517, and arriving home March 16, 1518, and spent about fifteen thousand ducats [£35,000] meantime, in which "eating and drinking were the least costly items," we may conclude that the thirty-five persons he took with him, and the forty-five he brought back, received at least expenses. Another churchman, Johann Gottfried von Aschhausen, bishop of Würzburg, left Strassburg in 1612 with a retinue of one hundred and thirty, twenty-one of whom were young men of high birth. Before he passed out of Germany this number was increased by fifty more. He was away a year in Italy, which cost him thirty-two thousand seven hundred and fifty-four scudi [£40,000].[119]
But since he went as the Emperor's ambassador, this is rather a fresh example of how travelling was facilitated by embassies. For among the advantages of various kinds that rendered accompanying the journeyings of diplomatists the best means of seeing the world, the economical advantages were as important as any. It by no means followed, however, that anything but board and lodging were provided by him; in the detailed accounts of Sir G. Chaworth regarding his special embassy to Brussels is no mention of outlay on anything but necessaries. On the other hand, we find another English ambassador giving one hundred pounds apiece to the gentlemen who were to accompany him, to provide their outfit.[120] In any case, this expedient extended only as far as the ambassador went, a specially important limitation for Englishmen of Queen Elizabeth's day, since she had no ambassador at Venice throughout her reign; and even when James I sent one thither he was, during his first term of office, the only English ambassador in Italy. Bearing this in mind, and turning to other methods whereby the Average Tourist from England might reduce his expenditure, we come upon what is, perhaps, the most remarkable fact of the time in regard to the kind, and the extent, of the usefulness with which travel was credited, namely, that Queen Elizabeth subsidised it. It is obvious from the life-stories of all those who served her that they were treated with extreme stinginess and that employment by the government meant heavy expense instead of salaries; and yet, as to travel, these are the words of Bacon, who had excellent means of knowing the facts: "There was a constant course held, that by the advice of the secretaries, or some principal councillor, there was always sent forth into the parts beyond the seas some young men of whom good hopes were conceived of their towardliness, to be trained up and made fit for such public employments and to learn the languages. This was at the charge of the Queen, which was not much, for they travelled but as private gentlemen."[121]
Ecclesiastics, it goes almost without saying, received special terms, mainly in the shape of free lodging at religious houses, although the opinion of one abbé ought not to go unrecorded,—"avoid monasteries," because the charities expected amounted to more than inn-charges. This certainly did not apply to Muscovy, where, if a monastery could be found, it undoubtedly did mean free board and lodging for the three days, the usual limit of time, universally, for claimers of charity. But what with monasteries and special foundations there must have been far more really free accommodation than is apparent from tourist-books, written as the latter almost entirely are by the class that paid its way. Even apart from the above there were incidents such as one recorded in 1650, of eight thousand pilgrims to Rome from Spain being fed and housed for three days at Naples at the expense of the Spanish viceroy there. At Compostella, too, for two reals [7s. 6d.] could be obtained a parchment document with a cardinal's seal attached, recommending the bearer for alms as one who was on his way to other places of pilgrimage; and in Italy not even that much was needed, inasmuch as the natives were then so averse to begging that foreigners who had no such scruples found little difficulty in traversing it at next to no cost.
Where a begging-license was necessary, that could easily be obtained also by being, or pretending to be, a student. Loyola lived in term-time at Paris on what he gained by begging at fairs in Flanders and England during holidays. Another useful option open to students, of whatever social position, was the exemption from local tolls, frequently a privilege belonging to all who had matriculated at the university of the district; the graduate of Padua, for instance, was exempt throughout Venetian territory. It so happened that one of these tourists[122] was elected rector of Bologna University during his stay there in 1575, and that during his term of office some students were forced to pay taxes. He and the managing body at once appealed to the Pope, who not only confirmed, but extended, the immunities. In Italy the tolls were so oppressive that the matriculation fees, twenty lire [£5] at Padua, twelve at Bologna, were soon made good, even supposing them to have been paid; at Bologna, at least, matriculation could be obtained for nothing by applying in formâ pauperis. The examination was no bar worth mentioning. In Germany, moreover, according to Moryson, the tenancy of a house often carried with it the obligation to board and lodge a student free. Another traveller who economised thoroughly was Sastrow, who, on reaching Rome, took service at the hospital of Santa Brigitta, cooked, washed-up, made the beds, and received the equivalent of 2s. 6d. a month, while Jacques Callot, the artist, when he ran away from home, took the way to Italy in the company of those gypsies who appear in those sketches of his which form one of the most vivid memorials of the travelling life of the time. Yet with all these opportunities which presented themselves to the needy, we are told that Turkey was the only country of Europe where poverty was no bar to travel.
Outside Europe fresh estimates have to be quoted. The fare to Jaffa and back by the pilgrim-galley varied from fifty to sixty ducats [say £100]: this included food. Additional expenses brought the ordinary cost of a visit to Jerusalem from Venice under these earlier conditions up to three or four hundred pounds in present-day values. This, of course, omits the expenses of the pilgrim between his home and Venice. The minimum recorded cost for this period is represented by the two hundred and twenty crowns [£350] spent by one Switzer in thirty weeks, and two hundred and twenty-eight crowns spent by another, a barber, in eleven months (1583-84),[123] of which times only about three months, in each case, was taken up by the voyage from Venice to Jerusalem and back, the remainder being devoted to Italy. The pilgrimage may be considered as accounting for but little more than two hundred pounds of the expenditure of each. Many went, moreover, who never possessed this much, since it was common for one man to go as deputy for several, who jointly defrayed his expenses; and it was also a common form of charity for rich pilgrims to pay for poor ones. Later, in fact, they were often forced to do so by the Turks when the latter had reduced to beggary those who had come away with too little, which led to there arising a custom among pilgrims of showing each other their money; if one refused, the others avoided his company to escape the possibility of being compelled to pay for him.
With the cessation of the pilgrim-galley the cost of the pilgrimage doubled itself, what with the increased length of the journey due to a roundabout way having to be taken, and, still more, to its increased duration, owing to the uncertainty; especially as every day additional brought its own additional risks and extortions. Moryson and his brother spent four hundred and eighty pounds [nearly, if not quite, £3000].
Certain circumstances raised the cost to him above the average, and he was away more than a year and a half, whereas the journey would be done within the year ordinarily. On the other hand, as his brother died near Aleppo, the return-journey represents the expenditure of one man instead of two. How a thrifty man who was used to roughing it would be forced to spend the equivalent of one thousand pounds or more on a journey that would nowadays cost him about sixty-five pounds is partly explained by the exactions of the Turks. When Sandys was at Jerusalem the monks of S. Salvatore had just been compelled to pay eight hundred dollars [£900] for an imaginary offence. When Lithgow arrived late one night after the gates had been shut, the friars let down food to him over the wall; the Turks, being informed of this, insisted they must have been importing weapons, and inflicted another fine, one hundred piasters [£125]. It is not surprising, then, that with expenses like these, and ordinary expenses to match, the monks expected sums from the pilgrims that seem at first sight outrageous. To Lithgow they made a definite charge of a piaster [£1 10s.] a day for board and lodging alone; but their general custom was to throw themselves on the traveller's generosity and grumble at the result.
Neither did the Franks suffer from indirect exactions only. The price for entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre went on increasing, from nothing at all in the fourteenth century to four zecchini [£10] in 1606. Some mention fees of four times that amount, but this higher sum included the toll at the city gate, the two being collected simultaneously and so mistaken for one charge: the Turks farmed the revenue from the Holy Sepulchre for eight thousand sultanons [over £19,000], says Sandys. Extras were almost endless, yet very few of them left any change out of a gold coin; the fee for the certificate of visitation, without which the poorest pilgrim would not think of departing, was three zecchini [seven guineas], while the knighthood, nominally thirty zecchini, does not seem to have been granted for less than ten. The monastery servants were liable to excommunication if they accepted a tip, but they gladly risked damnation for a zecchino, and, indeed, insisted on doing so.
By spending not more than a week at Jerusalem and that at a time which may profanely be termed out of the season, it was possible to see the sights of the city itself for the equivalent of £50; at any rate, that happened in 1676;[124] do as most Franks did, spend Easter there, and ten days or a fortnight, and accompany the excursions, cost nearly double that. On the journey, the tributes may be imagined from the fact that Sandys thought it worth while to pay four shariffs [£10] for a passport which saved a few of them; nothing availed against an Arab chief who sent to demand seven zecchini [sixteen guineas] a head, and then came in person to demand five more. Moreover, besides the special outfit to be bought, the charges themselves were always reckoned on the basis that a Frank must have heaps of money; from Rama to Jerusalem alone, one day's journey, another seven zecchini had to be paid to the dragoman, and the same amount coming back.