Being a guest

Lesson plan

3 class periods of about 45 minutes.

1. Day 1 · 45 min

   Receive every guest

   1. 5 minutes: Read the encyclopedia article on inns before hotels, linked from the unit page, so students know the roadside inns, monastery guest rooms and messenger stations that came first.
   2. 10 minutes: Read Receive every guest as Christ (Benedict) aloud. It is short, and the notes explain the Bible verses and church words. Tell students it is an early version, not yet checked.
   3. 20 minutes: In pairs, students copy each instruction in chapter 53 onto a card, such as the foot washing (53.4), the separate kitchen (53.6) and the rule against talking with guests (53.8). They sort the cards into three piles: for the guest's faith, for the guest's comfort, and for the monks' own life.
   4. 10 minutes: Compare piles as a class. Then read the third paragraph of the History tab and discuss what a rule can tell us about how monasteries actually treated guests, and what it cannot.

2. Day 2 · 45 min

   Lodging on the road

   1. Split the class in two. Half read A bad night at the inn on the road to Brundisium (Horace), an early version; half read The Great Khan's post houses (Marco Polo).
   2. 20 minutes: Horace groups draw a strip map with one box per stop, from Aricia (passage 1-6) to the little town whose name won't fit into verse (86-92), noting who gave or sold the travelers lodging, food or transport and what went wrong. Polo groups list what a messenger finds at each post (98.2–98.4) and who pays for the horses (98.8).
   3. 10 minutes: Pair a Horace student with a Polo student. Each explains their text, then together they answer: who ran or paid for the lodgings in each text, and whom were they meant to serve?
   4. 10 minutes: Discuss how far to trust each writer. Horace wrote a comic poem for readers who knew Maecenas; Polo dictated years later to a writer of romances, and the History tab gives much smaller Chinese figures for the posts.

3. Day 3 · 45 min

   What hosts owe guests

   1. 15 minutes: Each group reads one source about guests of a business: The Rooms of the Tremont House (Eliot), Taking the waters at Bath (Fiennes), On restaurants, Paris, 1825 (Brillat-Savarin), A free ticket on an early pleasure cruise (Thackeray) or The Program of the Grand Pleasure Excursion (Twain). Fiennes and Twain are early versions.
   2. 10 minutes: Each group lists what the host provides, who does the work of serving, and what the guest gives in return, then reports to the class in two minutes.
   3. Compare with Benedict, whose welcome was free and part of the monks' worship. Use the Connection question on Eliot's For teachers tab: what problems does each arrangement solve, and for whom?
   4. 15 minutes: Each student answers the unit question, How were travelers and guests treated, and what did hosts owe them?, in a paragraph that uses evidence from at least two sources, one with a paid host and one without.

Sources for this unit

Choose two or three for the class, or give groups different ones. Each opens in Hearth Library with the original beside plain English, and a History tab on who made it and how far to trust it.

1. 1

   A bad night at the inn on the road to Brundisium

   Horace, 37–35 BCE. Moderate.Early version

   A short prose version of a comic poem, with many place names explained in the notes.

   Questions, key terms and an activity

   rhetor

   a teacher of public speaking, the art of persuasive speech taught in Roman schools

   patron

   a rich or powerful person who supports a writer or artist with money, gifts, and help

   Appian Way

   the Via Appia, the main Roman road running south from Rome

   barge

   a flat boat for carrying people or goods on a canal or river; this one was towed by a mule

   towpath

   a path along a canal bank where an animal walks while pulling a boat with a rope

   the fourth hour

   Romans counted twelve hours of daylight from sunrise, so the fourth hour fell in the middle of the morning

   1. Comprehension Why did Horace go without dinner at Forum Appi, and what kept the passengers awake on the barge that night?
   2. Analysis Horace stays at inns, on a barge, with an eager host at Beneventum, and at a country house near Trivicum. Which troubles does he turn into jokes, and which does he simply complain about? What does this suggest he expected from the people who lodged and carried him?
   3. Analysis (reliability) Horace made this trip himself and wrote about it within a few years, but as a comic poem for readers who knew Maecenas. Which details would you trust as true to the road, and which might he have sharpened for a laugh? Explain your choices.
   4. Connection Read The Great Khan's post houses, in which Marco Polo describes lodgings for the Great Lord's messengers every twenty-five miles or so. Compare them with the places Horace stayed on the Appian Way. Who ran or paid for the lodgings in each text, and whom were they meant to serve?

   Activity In small groups, students draw a strip map of Horace's journey with one box for each stop in the kept passages, from Aricia to the little town whose name won't fit into verse. In each box they note who gave or sold the travelers lodging, food, or transport, and what went wrong there. The class then votes on the best and worst stop, and each group must back its vote with words from the text.

   For teachers · Worksheet for this source

2. 2

   Receive every guest as Christ

   Benedict, 530–547. Accessible.Early version

   Short and plain; the notes explain the Bible verses and church words.

   Questions, key terms and an activity

   monastery

   a community where monks live, pray, and work together under a rule

   abbot

   the head of a monastery, whom the monks obey

   prior

   here, the monk in charge of the house, the abbot or whoever stands in for him

   pilgrim

   a person who travels to a holy place for religious reasons

   kiss of peace

   a kiss of greeting that Christians gave one another as a sign of peace and unity

   fast

   a time of going without food, or eating less, for religious reasons

   divine law

   here, Holy Scripture, the Bible

   1. Comprehension After guests are greeted, what does Benedict say should happen to them? Name at least three things the monks should do.
   2. Analysis Benedict asks for the greatest care for the poor and pilgrims and says the rich win honor by themselves. What reasons does he give, and what do they show about why the monks welcomed guests at all?
   3. Analysis (reliability) Benedict wrote this as the head of a working community, and a rule says what should happen. What can this chapter tell us about how monasteries actually treated guests, and what can it not tell us?
   4. Connection In Taking the waters at Bath, Celia Fiennes describes guides, a sergeant, and maids who wait on visitors to Bath. Compare their service with the service Benedict asks of his monks. Why does each serve the guest, and what, if anything, does the guest give in return?

   Activity Students copy each instruction in chapter 53 onto a separate card, such as the foot washing, the separate kitchen, and the rule against talking with guests. In pairs they sort the cards into three piles, for the guest's faith, for the guest's comfort, and for the monks' own life, and then explain any card that fits more than one pile. The class compares piles and discusses what the sorting shows about Benedict's aims.

   For teachers · Worksheet for this source

3. 3

   The Great Khan's post houses

   Marco Polo, 1298. Moderate.

   Plain, though Polo repeats himself and gives many large figures.

   Questions, key terms and an activity

   post

   a station on a road where official messengers changed horses and found food and lodging

   the Great Lord

   Polo’s name for Qubilai, the Great Khan of the Mongols, who gave his dynasty in China the name Yuan

   day’s journey

   the distance a traveler covered in one day, used as a measure of distance

   province

   a large region of an empire, with its own government under the ruler

   baron

   a noble who held land and power under a ruler

   gerfalcon tablet

   a tablet, called a paiza, carried by official travelers as a pass; this kind, marked with a gerfalcon, a large hunting falcon, was for urgent business

   1. Comprehension How far apart are the posts on the main roads and in remote places, and what do the messengers find at each one?
   2. Analysis Polo calls the posts the greatest grandeur of any ruler on earth, yet he says the Great Lord pays nothing for most of them. Who keeps the horses, and how is the number decided? How does this change your picture of the Great Lord’s grandeur?
   3. Analysis (reliability) Polo told this story years after leaving China, in a prison in Genoa, to Rustichello, a writer of romances. The headnote gives much smaller figures for the stations and horses in the lands Qubilai ruled directly. Which parts of his account would you trust most, and which least? Why?
   4. Connection In The Rooms of the Tremont House, William Havard Eliot, one of the hotel’s owners, describes its rooms and fittings. Compare his building with Polo’s post palaces. Whom was each meant to serve, and why might each writer want it to sound grand?

   Activity The class runs a relay. Students stand at stations around the room or field, and a slip of paper is passed from runner to runner as Polo describes, while a timekeeper records how long the whole chain takes. Afterward students use Polo’s own figures, runners every three miles covering ten days’ journey in a day and a night, to list which of his claims the relay makes seem possible and which it makes seem doubtful.

   For teachers · Worksheet for this source

4. 4

   Taking the waters at Bath

   Fiennes, 1702. Moderate.Early version

   Long sentences split into shorter ones, with old words for clothes and rooms explained in the notes.

   Questions, key terms and an activity

   guides

   men and women employed at the baths to help bathers, especially the weak and lame; they lived largely on tips

   palsy

   paralysis or uncontrolled shaking of the body or a limb

   slips

   small changing rooms at the edge of a bath, with steps down into the water

   sedan chair

   a closed seat carried on two poles by two men

   baize

   a coarse woolen cloth

   purge

   to empty the stomach or bowels on purpose, as a treatment

   taking the waters

   drinking hot spa water, as well as bathing in it, as part of a cure

   1. Comprehension What did ladies and gentlemen wear in the baths, and why does Fiennes say the yellow canvas was the best choice?
   2. Analysis Fiennes names many people who served the bathers. Which of them does she say were paid or rewarded, and how? What does this suggest about Bath as a place of business?
   3. Analysis (reliability) Fiennes wrote for her family, years after some of her journeys, as a lady of fashion visiting a place built for people like her. How might her position shape what she noticed? What does she say about the poorer bathers, and what does she leave out?
   4. Connection In The Program of the Grand Pleasure Excursion, the organizer promises a doctor on board and comfort and sympathy for any passenger who falls sick. Compare this with what Bath offered its visitors. How does each combine health and pleasure, and who seems to provide the care?

   Activity Using the paragraph on leaving the bath, students draw a numbered comic strip of each step, from the door in the water to sweating in bed at the lodging. Under each panel they write who helps the bather at that step. Groups then count the helpers and discuss what the strip shows about comfort, privacy, and cost at Bath.

   For teachers · Worksheet for this source

5. 5

   On restaurants, Paris, 1825

   Brillat-Savarin, 1825. Moderate.

   Witty and often ironic, with French food words explained in the notes.

   Questions, key terms and an activity

   restaurateur

   the keeper of a restaurant; Brillat-Savarin also uses the word for the place itself

   carte

   French for the menu, the list of dishes with their prices

   table d'hôte

   the "host's table," one shared meal at an inn, served at a set hour and price, with no choice of dishes

   traiteurs

   caterers, cooks whose guild gave them the right to sell cooked dishes such as ragouts

   gastronomy

   the knowledge of eating well, which Brillat-Savarin treats as a science

   gourmet

   a person who knows a great deal about good food and enjoys it

   league

   an old measure of distance, about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles)

   1. Comprehension According to Brillat-Savarin, what was hard about eating well in Paris around 1770, and what four advantages do restaurants offer?
   2. Analysis Brillat-Savarin says restaurants destroyed one of the great privileges of the rich and powerful. What does he mean? Using his own details, who could and could not reach the finest food?
   3. Analysis (reliability) Brillat-Savarin had eaten in Paris restaurants for many years, but he wrote his story of the first restaurateur some fifty years after the date he gives. Which parts of this text work best as evidence of what he saw, and which need more care? Why?
   4. Connection In Opening day of the great sale, Émile Zola's store owner sells rare carpets for almost what he paid and puts cheap rugs in a corner, from fifteen francs. Compare this store with Brillat-Savarin's restaurants. Who is each business trying to attract, and what does each writer seem to think of it?

   Activity Each group takes one table from the dining room scene, such as the lone diners, the traveling family, the married couple, the lovers, the regulars, or the English. The group writes the bill (the carte à payer) that table might receive, inventing items that fit the clues in the text and underlining the clue behind each item, and reads it aloud while the class guesses which table it belongs to. The class then discusses which of the portraits seem drawn from life and which seem to be stock jokes.

   For teachers · Worksheet for this source

6. 6

   The Rooms of the Tremont House

   Eliot, 1829–1830. Moderate.

   Building terms explained in the notes, and many exact sizes.

   Questions, key terms and an activity

   rotunda

   a round hall or room, often with a domed ceiling

   counting room

   an office where a business keeps its accounts and handles its money

   porter

   a worker who keeps the door of a building and carries visitors' baggage

   piazza

   a covered walk or porch along a building, supported by columns

   pilaster

   a flat column set into a wall, used for decoration in classical-style buildings

   Ionic columns

   columns in one of the Greek styles, with scroll-shaped tops

   patent

   a government grant that gives an inventor the sole right to make and sell an invention for a set time

   1. Comprehension How did a guest call for service from a room, and how did the office know which room was calling?
   2. Analysis Eliot says the dining room was thought to deserve the richest decoration, and then defends that choice. Why does he feel he must defend it? What does his answer suggest about what the hotel was offering its guests?
   3. Analysis (reliability) Eliot was one of the hotel's owners and published this book, without his name, the year after it opened. Which of his statements would you trust, and where should a reader be careful? What does he leave out?
   4. Connection In Receive every guest as Christ, Benedict gives the guests and the abbot a kitchen of their own. Compare the way Benedict arranges his monastery to receive guests with the way Eliot describes the Tremont House. What problems is each arrangement meant to solve, and for whom?

   Activity Students use Eliot's measurements to mark out the dining room, seventy-three feet by thirty-one, on a playground or gym floor with tape or string, and the dining space inside it, sixty feet by twenty. Standing inside, they estimate how many diners could fit and discuss why the owners wanted so large and richly decorated a room. They finish by writing one sentence an 1830 advertisement might use to describe the room.

   For teachers · Worksheet for this source

7. 7

   A free ticket on an early pleasure cruise

   Thackeray, 1845–1846. Moderate.

   Playful, with long sentences and a mock-solemn voice in the preface.

   Questions, key terms and an activity

   berth

   a sleeping place on a ship; to be given a berth was to be given a place on the voyage

   excursion

   a trip made for pleasure, often by a group, returning to where it started

   claret

   the English name for red wine from Bordeaux, in France

   Russia ducks

   clothes made of Russia duck, a strong linen cloth once used for summer wear

   memoir

   a written account of a person's life; Thackeray jokingly writes about himself as if he were someone else's biographer

   dogwatch

   one of the two short watches, or work shifts, on a ship in the late afternoon and early evening; most watches last four hours

   the Service

   the Sunday morning service of the Church of England, here read by the ship's captain

   1. Comprehension What objections did Mr. Titmarsh raise before agreeing to go, and what finally ended them?
   2. Analysis In the first chapter, Thackeray moves from the moans of seasick passengers to the stars, the Sunday service, and champagne at dinner. How does this order shape the reader's picture of the voyage?
   3. Analysis (reliability) Thackeray was the company's guest, and his preface thanks its directors and recommends the trip. His preface also gives dates that differ from those a study of his letters gives. How far should a reader trust his picture of the cruise, and why?
   4. Connection Read The Program of the Grand Pleasure Excursion. Compare what Thackeray's preface promises with what Charles C. Duncan's program promises. How might each writer's position, a guest of the steamship company or the man who chartered the ship and managed the excursion, shape what he promises?

   Activity Students turn the last paragraph of the preface into a one-page newspaper advertisement for the excursion, using only claims Thackeray makes. They then mark each claim in two colors, one for claims a buyer could check and one for claims that rest on Thackeray's word. The class discusses whether a reader should treat the preface as a travel account or an advertisement.

   For teachers · Worksheet for this source

8. 8

   The Program of the Grand Pleasure Excursion

   Twain, 1867–1869. Moderate.Early version

   The first paragraph is one long, excited list, but the program itself is plain.

   Questions, key terms and an activity

   excursion

   a trip made for pleasure, often by a group, returning to where it started

   Holy Land

   the lands of the Bible, then part of the Ottoman Empire

   currency

   here, US paper money, which in 1867 was worth less than gold

   boating

   taking passengers between ship and shore in small boats, in ports where the ship anchored offshore

   stateroom

   a private cabin on a ship

   chartered

   hired, as a whole ship is hired for one voyage

   make love

   in the 1860s, to court or flirt

   1. Comprehension What did the program offer passengers for their fare, and what had to happen before a ticket was issued?
   2. Analysis At the end of the passage, Twain repeats the program's promises back in a breathless list. Why might he do this, writing after the voyage was over? Look closely at the words he chooses.
   3. Analysis (reliability) Charles C. Duncan wrote the program before anyone sailed, Twain wrote the chapter afterward, and we have the program only as Twain printed it. How should each of these facts affect the way we use this page as evidence?
   4. Connection In Opening day of the great sale, Émile Zola's store flies flags, sends out delivery wagons with its name painted on the sides, and fills its entrance hall with carpets. Compare how the store and the excursion draw attention. What does each use to make people want to come, and whom is each trying to attract?

   Activity Students sort every promise in the program into four groups, comfort, safety, money, and company, on a large chart. They then compare the chart with Twain's list in the last paragraph and mark which promises he repeats, which he leaves out, and which he makes sound bigger. The program's route paragraphs, cut here, named most of the places on the way (though not England or Scotland) and said that people in Europe had asked to join. Each student writes two sentences on what the comparison shows about how Twain wanted readers to see the trip.

   For teachers · Worksheet for this source

To finish

Come back to the question: How were travelers and guests treated, and what did hosts owe them? Ask students to answer it with evidence from at least two of the sources, and to say which source they trust most and why.

Standards

Students sort Benedict's rules by aim, map Horace's stops, and compare hosts across eras while weighing who wrote each account and for whom, and test claims such as Polo's figures against other evidence.

Go further

Other units

Selling comfort

Encyclopedia

Inns before hotels · The first grand hotels

Play

Space Hotel Ltd

Collection

Every source in Checking In