were often
broken, and the carts sent back without payment for their use. The
same purveyors often took corn and other agricultural produce, for
which they paid little or nothing.

13. =Hospitality and Inns.=--When the king arrived in the evening at a
town his numerous attendants were billeted upon the townsmen, without
asking leave. Monasteries were always ready to offer hospitality to
himself or to any great person, and even to provide rougher fare for
the poorest stranger in a special guest-house provided for the
purpose. In castles, the owner was usually glad to see a stranger of
his own rank. The halls were still furnished with movable tables, as
in the days before the Conquest (see p. 76), and at night mattresses
were placed for persons of inferior rank on the floor, which was
strewn with rushes; whilst a stranger of high rank had usually a bed
in the solar (see p. 245) with the lord of the castle. Travellers of
the middle class were not thought good enough to be welcomed in
monasteries and castles, and were not poor enough to be received out
of charity; and for them inns were provided. These inns provided beds,
of which there were several in each room, and the guests then bought
their provisions and fuel from the host, instead of being charged for
their meals as is now the custom. From a manual of French
conversation, written at the end of the fourteenth century for the use
of Englishmen, it appears that cleanliness was not always to be found
in these inns. "William," one traveller is supposed to say to another,
"undress and wash your legs, and rub them well for the love of the
fleas, that they may not leap on your legs; for there is a peck of
them lying in the dust under the rushes.... Hi! the fleas bite me so,
and do me great harm, for I have scratched my shoulders till the blood
flows."

14. =Alehouses.=--By the roadside were alehouses for temporary
refreshment, known by a bunch of twigs at the end of a pole, from
which arose the saying that "Good wine needs no bush." The ale of the
day was made without hops, which were still unknown in England, and
ale would therefore only keep good for about five days.

15. =Wanderers.=--Besides the better class of travellers the roads
were frequented by wanderers of all kinds, quack doctors, minstrels,
jugglers, beggars, and such like. Life in the country was dull, and
even great lords took pleasure in amusements which are now only to be
heard of at country fairs. Any o