All in vain; these abuses were already comprised among those which the _Articles of the Eyre_ had for their object to discover, but failed to suppress. Periodically the magistrate came to question the country folk on the subject. Have “any lords or others gone to lodge in religious houses without being invited by the superiors, or gone at their own expense, against the will of the same?” Have any been so bold as to “send to the houses or mansions belonging to the monks or others, men, horses, or dogs to sojourn there at an expense not their own?” The application of these rules did not go without difficulty or even danger, for the magistrate questioned also the jury about “any who may have taken revenge for refusal of food or lodging.”[128] The Commons in parliament, mindful as they were in such matters of the fate of the poorest, were not unmindful of their own, and took steps to prevent, in a general way and without reference to the impecunious, {121} the falling into disuse of monachal hospitality. The non-residence of the clergy, which was to be one of the causes of the Reformation two hundred years later, occasioned bitter protests during the fourteenth century. The Commons object especially because from this abuse there results a decay of the duties of hospitality. “And that all other persons advanced to the benefices of Holy Church,” they request of the king, “should remain on their said benefices in order to keep hospitality there, on the same penalty, exception made for the king’s clerks and the clerks of the great of the realm.”[129] Parliament protests also against the bestowal by the pope of rich priories on foreigners who remain abroad. These foreigners “suffer the noble edifices built of old time when they were occupied by the English to fall quite to ruin,” and neglect “to keep hospitality.”[130] Only people of high rank were admitted into the monastery proper. The mass of travellers, pilgrims and others, were housed and fed in the guest-house, a building made on purpose to receive passers-by; it usually stood by itself, and was even, sometimes, erected outside the precincts of the monastery. Such, for instance, was the case in Battle Abbey, where the guest-house is still to be seen outside the large entrance gate. These edifices commonly consisted of a hall with doors opening on each side into sleeping rooms. People slept also in the hall; old inventories, for instance the one concerning the Maison-Dieu or hospital at Dover, show that beds were set up in the hall and remained, it seems, permanently there.[131] {122}