LODGE, a dwelling-place, small and usually temporary, a hut, booth or tent. The word was in M. Eng. logge, from Fr. loge, arbour, in modern French a hut; also box in a theatre; the French word, like the Italian loggia, came from the Med. Lat. laubia or lobia, the sheltered promenade in a cloister, from which English “lobby” is derived. The Latin is of Teutonic origin from the word which survives in the Mod. Ger. Laube, an arbour, but which earlier was used for any hut, booth, &c. The word is probably ultimately from the root which appears in “leaf,” meaning a rough shelter of foliage or boughs. The word is especially used of a house built either in a forest or away from habitation, where people stay for the purpose of sport, as a “hunting lodge,” “shooting lodge,” &c. The most frequent use of the word is of a small building, usually placed at the entrance to an estate or park and inhabited by a dependant of the owner. In the same sense the word means the room or box inhabited by the porter of a college, factory or public institution. Among Freemasons and other societies the “lodge” is the name given to the meeting-place of the members of the branch or district, and is applied to the members collectively as “a meeting of the lodge.” The governing body of the Freemasons presided over by the grand master is called the “Grand Lodge.” At the university of Cambridge the house where the head of a college lives is called the “lodge.” Formerly the word was used of the den or lair of an animal, but is now only applied to that of the beaver and the otter. It is also applied to the tent of a North American Indian, a wigwam or tepee, and to the number of inhabitants of such a tent. In mining the term is used of a subterraneous reservoir made at the bottom of the pit, or at different levels in the shaft for the purpose of draining the mine. It is used also of a room or landing-place next to the shaft, for discharging ore, &c.
LODGER AND LODGINGS. The term “lodger” (Fr. loger, to lodge) is used in English law in several slightly different senses. It is applied (i.) most frequently and properly to a person who takes furnished rooms in a house, the landlord also residing on the premises, and supplying him with attendance; (ii.) sometimes to a person, who takes unfurnished rooms in a house finding his own attendance; (iii.) to a boarder in a boarding-house (q.v.). It is with (i.) and (ii.) alone that this article is concerned.
Where furnished apartments are let for immediate use, the law implies an undertaking on the part of the landlord that they are fit for habitation, and, if this condition is broken, the tenant may refuse to occupy the premises or to pay any rent. But there is no implied contract that the apartments shall continue fit for habitation; and the rule has no application in the case of unfurnished lodgings. In the absence of express agreement to the contrary, a lodger has a right to the use of everything necessary to the enjoyment of the premises, such as the door bell and knocker and the skylight of a staircase, whether the rent of apartments can be distrained for by the immediate landlord where he resides on the premises and supplies attendance is a question the answer to which is involved in some uncertainty. The weight of authority seems to support the negative view (see Foa, Landlord and Tenant, 3rd ed. p. 434). To make good a right to distrain it is necessary to show that the terms of the letting create a tenancy or exclusive occupation and not a mere licence, where the owner, although residing on the premises, does not supply attendance, the question depends on whether there is a real tenancy, giving the lodger an exclusive right of occupation as against the owner. The ordinary test is whether the lodger has the control of the outer door. But the whole circumstances of each case have to be taken account of. A lodger is rateable to the poor-rate where he is in exclusive occupation of the apartments let to him, and the landlord does not retain the control and dominion of the whole structure. As to distress on a lodger’s goods for rent due by an immediate to a superior landlord, see [Rent]. As to the termination of short tenancies, as of apartments, see [Landlord and Tenant]. The landlord has no lien on the goods of the lodger for rent or charges. Overcrowding lodging-houses may be dealt with as a nuisance under the Public Health Acts 1875 and 1891 and the Housing of the Working Classes Acts. As to the lodger franchise, see [Registration of Voters]. It has been held in England that keepers of lodging-houses do not come within the category of those persons (see [Carrier]; [Innkeeper]) who hold themselves out to the public generally as trustworthy in certain employments; but that they are under an obligation to take reasonable care for the safety of their lodgers’ goods; see Scarborough v. Cosgrove, 1905, 2 K.B. 805. As to Scots Law see Bell’s Prin. s. 236 (4).
In the United States, the English doctrine of an implied warranty of fitness for habitation on a letting of furnished apartments has only met with partial acceptance; it was repudiated, e.g. in the District of Columbia, but has been accepted in Massachusetts. In the French Code Civil, there are some special rules with regard to furnished apartments. The letting is reputed to be made for a year, a month or a day, according as the rent is so much per year, per month or per day; if that test is inapplicable, the letting is deemed to be made according to the custom of the place (art. 1758). There are similar provisions in the Civil Codes of Belgium (art. 1758), Holland (art. 1622) and Spain (Civil Code, art. 1581).
See also the articles, [Boarding House], and [Flat]; and the bibliographies to [Flat] and [Landlord and Tenant].
(A. W. R.)
LODI, a town and episcopal see of Piedmont, Italy, in the province of Milan, 20½ m. by rail S.E. of that city, on a hill above the right bank of the Adda, 230 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 19,970 (town), 26,827 (commune). The site of the city is an eminence rising very gradually from the Lombard plain, and the surrounding country is one of the richest dairy districts in Italy. The cathedral (1158), with a Gothic façade and a 16th-century lateral tower, has a restored interior. The church of the Incoronata was erected by Battaggio (1488) in the Bramantesque style. It is an elegant octagonal domed structure, and is decorated with frescoes by the Piazza family, natives of the town, and four large altar-pieces by Calisto Piazza (died after 1561). There is a fine organ of 1507. The 13th-century Gothic church of San Francesco, restored in 1889, with 14th-century paintings, is also noticeable. The Palazzo Modegnani has a fine gateway in the style of Bramante, and the hospital a cloistered quadrangle. In the Via Pompeia is an early Renaissance house with fine decorations in marble and terra-cotta. Besides an extensive trade in cheese (Lodi producing more Parmesan than Parma itself) and other dairy produce, there are manufactures of linen, silk, majolica and chemicals.
The ancient Laus Pompeia lay 3½ m. W. of the present city, and the site is still occupied by a considerable village, Lodi Vecchio, with the old cathedral of S. Bassiano, now a brick building, which contains 15th-century frescoes. It was the point where the roads from Mediolanum to Placentia and Cremona diverged, and there was also a road to Ticinum turning off from the former, but it is hardly mentioned by classical writers. It appears to have been a municipium. No ruins exist above ground, but various antiquities have been found here. From which Pompeius, whether Cn. Pompeius Strabo, who gave citizenship to the Transpadani, or his son, the more famous Pompey, it took its name is not certain. In the middle ages Lodi was second to Milan among the cities of northern Italy. A dispute with the archbishop of Milan about the investiture of the bishop of Lodi (1024) proved the beginning of a protracted feud between the two cities. In 1111 the Milanese laid the whole place in ruins and forbade their rivals to restore what they had destroyed, and in 1158, when in spite of this prohibition a fairly flourishing settlement had again been formed, they repeated their work in a more thorough manner. A number of the Lodigians had settled on Colle Eghezzone; and their village, the Borgo d’Isella, on the site of a temple of Hercules, soon grew up under the patronage of Frederick Barbarossa into a new city of Lodi (1162). At first subservient to the emperor, Lodi was before long compelled to enter the Lombard League, and in 1198 it formed alliance offensive and defensive with Milan. The strife between the Sommariva or aristocratic party and the Overgnaghi or democratic party was so severe that the city divided into two distinct communes. The Overgnaghi, expelled in 1236, were restored by Frederick II. who took the city after three months’ siege. Lodi was actively concerned in the rest of the Guelph and Ghibelline struggle. In 1416 its ruler, Giovanni Vignati, was treacherously taken prisoner by Filippo Maria Visconti, and after that time it became dependent on Milan. The duke of Brunswick captured it in 1625, in the interests of Spain; and it was occupied by the French (1701), by the Austrians (1706), by the king of Sardinia (1733), by the Austrians (1736), by the Spaniards (1745), and again by the Austrians (1746). On the 10th of May 1796 was fought the battle of Lodi between the Austrians and Napoleon, which made the latter master of Lombardy.