We might easily multiply extracts illustrative of this hospitable feeling, as it existed and was practised from the twelfth century to the fifteenth. Our cut No. 223, taken from a manuscript of the earlier part of the fourteenth century (MS. Harl. No. 1527), is another representation of the reception of a stranger in this hospitable manner. In the “Roman de la Violette” (p. 233), when its hero, Gerard, sought a lodging at a castle, he was received with the greatest hospitality; the lord of the castle led him into the great hall, and there disarmed him, furnished him with a rich mantle, and caused him to be bathed and washed. In the same romance (p. 237), when Gerard arrives at the little town of Mouzon, he goes to the house of a widow to ask for a night’s lodging, and is received with the same welcome. His horse is taken into a stable, and carefully attended to, while the lady labours to keep him in conversation until supper is ready, after which a good bed is made for him, and they all retire to rest. The comforts, however, which could be offered to the visitor, consisted often chiefly in eating and drinking. People had few spare chambers, especially furnished ones, and, in the simplicity of mediæval manners, the guests were obliged to sleep either in the same room as the family, or, more usually, in the hall, where beds were made for them on the floor or on the benches. “Making a bed” was a phrase true in its literal sense, and the bed made consisted still of a heap of straw, with a sheet or two thrown over it. The host, indeed, could often furnish no more than a room of bare walls and floor as a protection from the weather, and the guest had to rely as much upon his own resources for his personal comforts, as if he had had to pass the night in the midst of a wild wood. Moreover the guests, however numerous and though strangers to each other, were commonly obliged to sleep together indiscriminately in the same room. [Illustration: _No. 222. Receiving a Stranger._] [Illustration: _No. 223. Receiving a Guest._] The old Anglo-Saxon feeling, that the duration of the chance visit of a stranger should be limited to the third day, seems still to have prevailed. A Latin rhyme, printed in the “Reliquiæ Antiquæ” (i. 91), tells us,-- _Verum dixit anus, quod piscis olet triduanus;_ _Ejus de more simili fætet hospes odore._