Having thus pictured to ourselves the clerical hospitality of the Middle Ages, we shall not wonder that, in outward signs for the designation of the houses as inns, religious subjects and their pictorial presentation were adopted.
Among the saints particularly revered by the pious pilgrims St. Christopher stands foremost, since he had himself experienced so perilous a journey. In many mediæval pictures we see him leaning on his massive staff, carrying the Christ child across a river. The “Golden Legend” tells us that he was nearly drowned, so heavy was the burden of this child. “Had I carried the whole world,” he says, when finally reaching the shore, “my burden could have been no heavier”; whereupon the child of whose identity he was not yet aware: “for a sign that you have carried on your shoulders not only the world but the Creator, thrust this staff into the ground near your hut, and behold, it will blossom and bear fruit.” Hence the partiality for huge pictures of St. Christopher, visible afar, such as we find occasionally to this day in and upon certain churches; for instance, the spacious mural paintings in the church of St. Alexander at Marbach, the birthplace of Schiller, close to the tracks on which the modern traveler thunders past; or the gigantic sculpture on the south side of the cathedral in Amiens, or the large fresco in the minster at Erfurt. They give us a conception of similar presentations on Poor Men’s Inns and ecclesiastical hospices. The belief in the efficacious protection by the saint, especially from sudden death, is expressed in the French mediæval saying: “Qui verra Saint Christophe le matin, rira le soir.” The tenacity of this belief among the people is well instanced by the fact that the jewelers of so worldly a city as Nice sell to owners of automobiles little silver plaques, with the picture of the saint and the inscription, “Regarde St. Christophe et puis va-t-en rassuré.” Let us hope, in the interest of the rest of mankind, that these motorists do not feel too reassured in consequence.
American readers might be interested to hear that in their own country a guest-house of St. Christopher gives refuge to the modern fraternity of tramps, charitably called the “Brother Christophers” by the Friars of the Atonement, who founded this house at Gray Moor, near the beautiful residential district of Garrison, in the State of New York.
Another saint, deservedly in great favor, is St. George, who slew the dragon, a knightly patron who smooths the traveler’s path and makes it safe by brushing aside all its threatening dangers. Two of the finest hostelries still existing are named after him: the “Ritter” in Heidelberg, and the “George,” more ancient yet by a century, in the time-hallowed town of Glastonbury. Two miracles have drawn pilgrims to the latter place since olden times, the “Holy Thornbush,” which had blossomed forth from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea and bloomed every Christmas, and the “Holy Well,” in the garden of the cloister school, now deserted, whose waters were to heal the bodily ailments of the pious pilgrims. The throng of wayfarers to the convent, whose gigantic abbot’s kitchen is eloquent of hospitality on a large scale, made the establishment of a pilgrim’s inn outside the walls imperative. First they erected the “Abbot’s Inn,” and when this proved insufficient—at the end of the fifteenth century—the elegant Gothic structure was erected, which bears to this day the ensign “Pilgrim’s Inn,” but is popularly known as “The George,” from a likeness of the saint which once adorned the handsome bracket so happily wedded to the architecture of the house. The tourist undaunted by fearsome reminiscences may ask to be given the choice apartment there, the so-called “abbot’s chamber,” where Henry VIII rested on the day when he ordered the last abbot hung on the town gate. The fine four-poster, it is true, has been sold to a fancier of antiquities and replaced by a new canopied bed, but despite this the room retains its mediæval appearance.
About a hundred years later, the delightful Renaissance structure, “Zum Ritter,” was erected in Heidelberg. Originally the house of a wealthy Frenchman, it was subsequently changed into a hostelry and took its name from the knight on the peak of the gable. Doubtless no one has ever sung the praise of this noble building more worthily than Victor Hugo, who visited Heidelberg in 1838, and passed by the house of St. George every morning, as he said, “pour faire déjeuner mon esprit.” Jokingly he observes that the Latin inscription (Psalm 127, i) has protected the inn better than the little iron plate of the insurance firm. As a matter of fact neither the great conflagration of 1635, during the Thirty Years’ War, nor the fires started under Mélac and Maréchal de Lorges, in 1689 and 1693, could harm this inn, while “all the other houses built without the Lord were burnt to the ground.”
In England the good knight St. George was an especial favorite; even in the middle of the last century there were in London alone no less than sixty-six hostelries of that name. Truly, the pious meaning of old associated with the sign had long been forgotten by hosts and guests alike, so that as early as the seventeenth century these mocking lines were penned:—
“To save a mayd St. George the Dragon slew—
A pretty tale, if all is told be true.
Most say there are no dragons, and ’tis said
There was no George; pray God there was a mayd.”