The Spread Eagle, Midhurst
There is another old inn at Godalming with the sign of Three Lions. We have not been able to obtain any authentic information about its history, and it may be only a coincidence that the royal arms before Edward III quartered the arms of France consisted of three lions on a shield.
Even if inns that can prove their authentic manorial origin are few and far between, this class of hostelry must once have been the most important of all. The nomenclature of the thirteenth-century manor is preserved in every detail of the modern inn. The hosteller remains as the ostler, who now usually confines his attention to four-footed visitors; the chamberlain has changed his sex (though only since the days of Sir Roger de Coverley) and has become the Chambermaid. In most old manor-houses provisions, wine and ale were served from a special department close to the porch and called the “bower,” from Norse Bür, meaning buttery. Frequenters of a modern inn resort for the same purpose to the “bar.” Lastly, the presiding genius in every hotel or tavern, no matter how humble, is invariably referred to as “the Landlord.” The very word “Inn,” like the French hôtel, anciently implied the town residence of a nobleman. The Inns of Court were nearly all of them houses of the nobility converted for the purpose of lodging the law students there. The same remark applies to the inns which preceded the cloistered colleges of our older universities.
But we usually know the English inn by a much nobler name—a name which carries us back to an age many generations before there were any manorial lords to the tribal chief, and beyond the tribal chieftain to the common dwelling of our Aryan forefathers. We generally refer to it as “The public-house.” It is the one secular place of resort where we can all forget our social differences; where millionaire and pauper, nobleman and navvy can hob-nob together on equal ground if they care to do so. The public-house opens its doors to every well-behaved citizen without distinction of persons. It is the abiding witness to the common brotherhood of man. For the public-house is not merely an institution to provide lodging and refreshment for the individual wayfarer, nor yet a shop for the sale of certain specific liquids; it is a place where men can meet to entertain each other, and converse with their fellow men on equal terms. As such it is hateful to the sectary, who would fain see men sorted out into exclusive coteries for the airing of their own opinions and class grievances.
CHAPTER II
MONASTIC INNS
Rural England, during the two centuries after the Conquest, was practically under martial law. The hardy Men of Kent and the Vale of Holmsdale were strong enough to retain some of their ancient rights and privileges. Beyond these districts local government was suppressed and a military despotism took its place, administered often by half-civilized chieftains. One influence alone was formidable enough to modify and soften the crude tyranny of the feudal system—that of the Monasteries.
The religious orders were the only class who had directly profited by the new regime to increase their power. Hitherto merely national they now became, in a way, part of an international system. Not that they ceased to be patriotic. In the combinations against regal misrule which produced the Great Charters, Bishops and Abbots threw in their lot heartily with the lay barons. But in themselves they formed at this time an almost independent authority with special privileges dangerous to meddle with, because behind them was the Universal Church and its temporal head the Pope, now just reaching the zenith of his authority.