![]() If, for example, an English merchant was sending goods to Italy, he might send an employee with them by sea to Bordeaux and on as far inland as the ship could sail. They could, however, have a relationship with three or four reliable innkeepers wherever the method of transport changed. They were unlikely to have all the contacts necessary. It wasn’t always possible for merchants to accompany their goods all the way from the place of production to the final market, possibly a thousand or more miles away, especially if the route passed through several countries and required different modes of transport. Goods might arrive by river and go on by road, either in carts or on pack animals and it was often innkeepers who took responsibility for this. ![]() ![]() Innkeepers organised the onward transport of goods where the method of transport changed. They acted as agents of the merchants who owned the goods. These innkeepers stored goods that came in bulk from one direction and were broken up into smaller quantities to be sent on in the other. Some inns had two rooms, one for men and one for women, but travellers generally shared one room with the innkeeper and his family.Īs well as in towns there were also inns along all the trade routes and it’s the owners of some of these establishments who were at the top of the innkeeping trade. Not that sleeping in an inn was always comfortable. If there was no space for them in an inn or a monastery, they had to sleep outside the town, which might not be safe or particularly comfortable. They were also in places that people might travel to in order to petition the king or important and powerful clerics.Īccommodation was important to travellers. They were in towns to provide accommodation for those who attended the markets and near pilgrimage sites to provide accommodation for pilgrims. We’re not really interested in taverns for this post, but we might come back to them later. Inns themselves varied tremendously and could be large stone buildings built for the purpose with accommodation on an upper floor and stabling in the yard or a small room added to a tavern. These were inns in which illegal gambling took place and a man who lost could find himself literally losing the shirt off his back, as well as all his other possessions if he lost beyond his ability to pay. Some inns were not places where the Wife of Bath or the Prioress would want to find themselves. Not all innkeepers were as respectable as him, however. He’s a cheerful man who strives to keep the peace between the pilgrims and tries to manage the story-telling contest that gives rise to the various stories. The best-known medieval innkeeper is probably Harry Bailly, the man from whose inn the pilgrims set off at the beginning of The Canterbury Tales. Some were little better than criminals and others were entrusted with important commissions. As we shall see, innkeepers were not all made from the same cloth. They all needed somewhere to stay and they all hoped that they would stay in an inn run by a reputable man. ![]() Pilgrims, merchants, clerics and messengers were all on the roads, but so were men who transported goods from place to place and people who just had business in another town. People in the Middle Ages travelled much more than we tend to think. Innkeepers managed establishments whose purpose was to provide accommodation, food and drink to the people and animals who stayed in them. I reallised that it has been several months since I added anything, so it’s probably about time we looked at another one. Some time ago I started an intermittent series about trades and occupations in the Middle Ages.
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