HOSPITALITY, the practice of entertaining strangers. Dr Robertson, speaking of the middle ages, says, “Among people whose manners are simple, and who are seldom visited by strangers, hospitality is a virtue of the first rank. This duty of hospitality was so necessary in that state of society which took place during the middle ages, that it was not considered as one of those virtues which men may practise or not, according to the temper of their minds and the generosity of their hearts. Hospitality was enforced by statutes, and those who neglected the duty were liable to punishment. The laws of the Salvi ordained that the moveables of an inhospitable person should be confiscated, and his house burnt. They were even so solicitous for the entertainment of strangers, that they permitted the landlord to steal for the support of his guest.”

The hospitality of our British ancestors, particularly of the great and opulent barons, has been much admired, and considered as a certain proof of nobleness and generosity of spirit. The fact indeed is well attested. The castles of the powerful barons were capacious palaces, daily crowded with numerous retainers, who were always welcome to plentiful tables. They had their privy councillors, their treasurers, marshals, constables, stewards, secretaries, chaplains, heralds, pursuivants, pages, henchmen or guards, trumpeters, minstrels, and, in a word, all the officers of a royal court. The etiquette of their families was an exact copy of that of the royal household; and some of them lived in a degree of pomp and splendour little inferior to that of the greatest kings. Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, we are told, “was ever had in great favour of the commons of the land, because of the exceeding household which he daily kept in all countries wherever he sojourned or lay; and when he came to London, he held such an house, that six oxen were eaten at a breakfast, and every tavern was full of his meat.” The Earls of Douglas in Scotland, before the fall of that great family, rivalled or rather exceeded their sovereigns in pomp and profuse hospitality. But it is highly probable these great chieftains were prompted to indulge this style of living by a desire of increasing the number and attachment of their retainers, on which, in those turbulent times, their dignity, and even their safety, depended, as much as to the innate generosity of their tempers. Those retainers did not constantly reside in the families of their lords; but they wore their liveries and badges, frequently feasted in their halls, swelled their retinues on all great solemnities, attended them in their journeys, and followed them into the field of battle. Some powerful chieftains had constantly at their command so great a number of these retainers, that, setting the laws at defiance, they became formidable to their sovereigns, and terrible to their fellow-subjects; and several laws w ere made against giving and receiving liveries. But these laws produced little effect at this period.

Hospitality was not confined to the great and opulent, but was practised rather more than it is at present by persons in the middle and lower ranks of life. But this was owing to necessity, arising from the scarcity of inns, wduch obliged travellers and strangers to apply to private persons for lodging and entertainment; and those who received them hospitably acquired a right to a similar reception. This was evidently the case in Scotland in the first part of this period. In the year 1424, James I. procured the following act of parliament :—“It is ordanit, That in all burrow townis, and throuchíàiris quhair commoun passages ar, that thair be ordanit hostillaries and resettis, havand stables and chahners; and that men find with thame bread and aill, and all uther fude. alsweil for horse as men, for reson-able price.” But travellers had been so long accustomed to lodge in private houses, that these public inns were quite neglected; and those who kept them presented a petition to parliament, complaining, “That the liegis travelland in the realme, quhen they cum to burrowis and throuchfairis, herbreis thame not in hostillaries, bot with thair acquaintance and freindis.” This produced an act prohibiting travellers to lodge in private houses where there were hostelries, under the penalty of forty shillings, and subjecting those who lodged them to the same penalty»
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The inhabitants of the Highlands of Scotland and the Western Isles were anciently remarkable for their hospitality to strangers, and still happily retain, in no inconsiderable degree, the same kindly disposition.