I Peter iv, 9.
Rome was to conquer the northern Germanic world once more, not with the sword as had been the case in the olden days of a pagan Rome, but with the cross and its exponent, the monk. The northward surging wave of Roman Cæsarism had been followed by the tidal wave, southward-roaring, of Germanic barbarians. The orderly life of one vast empire gave way to the restlessness and insecurity of the period of migration and a shattered empire. Not individuals but whole peoples go a-traveling with household goods and wife and children, whole towns and countries become their inns, the standard of the conquerors are their tavern signs. Then again flowing northward, progressing by insensible stages, comes the silent throng of monastic brotherhoods, the Benedictines in the van, who bring forth various orders from their midst, the Cistercians among others, who dig and reclaim the soil with their spades and later, as builders, dedicate it to their God, unknown and now revealed, with high-soaring monuments of worship.
Undaunted by solitude, fearless of the wildness of desolate regions, they enter the forest primeval to clear it and establish quiet homesteads for themselves and their worship; their doors are open to all those who pass their way. For had not St. Benedict, mindful of repeated apostolic admonitions to the bishops, included hospitality in the rules of his order? Therefore ere long there lacked not in any convent certain rooms given over to the comfort of the wayfarer, be it a “hospitium,” a “hospitale,” or a “receptaculum.” Witness the Hospice of the Great St. Bernard in the Alps of the Vallais, named after the pious founder of that earliest of Occidental orders, part of the convent erected in the ninth century by the bishops of Lausanne, while the shelter on Mont Cenis is said to date back to a past equally remote. Beginning with the year 1000, convents likewise erect inns in the villages, outside of their immediate domains, leasing these against rental, while in the towns pilgrim inns, poor men’s taverns, and “Seelhäuser” are endowed for the free housing of pilgrims and wayfarers, evolving later into town inns.
To the pilgrim, then, who wended his way to the tombs of saints, and, in the crusade times, to the holiest of graves in Jerusalem, mediæval hospitality is mainly devoted. The crusaders were agents of especial power in the development of hospitality, since on his lengthy journey the pilgrim stood in need, not only of food and shelter, but also of convoy along roads perilous everywhere. The Knights of St. John set themselves these two tasks, to care for the pilgrims and escort them in safety, which is implied by their name “fratres hospitales S. Johannis.” In the rule of their order (ca. 1118) the foremost duty of lay as well as clerical brothers was to serve the poor, “our lords.” With like intent of safeguarding pilgrims the Order of Knights Templars was instituted in 1119, especially for the care of German pilgrims. We may venture to assume from their name, “Order of the German House of our dear Lady in Jerusalem,” that a homelike Madonna picture adorned their hospitable house as a pious welcome. Shakespeare has inimitably described the warlike duties of these orders, duties which went hand in hand with kindly care and hospitality, in the first part of “Henry IV”:—
“To chase these pagans, in those holy fields
Over whose acres walk’d those blessed feet
Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nailed
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.”
These knightly orders, whose hospitable roofs originally sheltered the pious pilgrims bound for Jerusalem, also opened in welcome the gates of their proud houses at home, which still adorn more than one old German town. When Luther was summoned to Worms by the Emperor, in 1521, he stayed with the Knights of St. John. Here in this noble inn he exclaimed to his friends, after the ordeal, with upraised arms, and face shining with joy: “I am through, I am through.” Like an enduring rock he had stood his ground and had expressed his unalterable will to be a free Christian in those famous words: “Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders, Gott helfe mir! Amen.”
In like manner Luther had accepted ecclesiastical hospitality on his journey Romeward, as a young monk, notably on the part of the Order of St. Augustine. From the pages of that Baedeker of the fifteenth century, the “Mirabilia Romæ,” we can realize how thoroughly a pilgrimage to Rome was viewed in those days as a pious journey to hallowed places, relics and tombs of the saints. The work referred to appeared first as a block-book, with pictures and text both printed from the same wood block. The youthful monk may well have carried such an early copy of the “Mirabilia” in his cowl when he entered the holy precincts of the Eternal City, which revealed itself to his great disillusionment as an ungodly spot and the seat of Anti-Christ. Occasionally we also see the great reformer descending at a lay tavern, such as the famous inn of the High Lily in Erfurt, which subsequently saw within its walls great warriors like Maurice of Saxony and Gustavus Adolphus.