If youâre writing about a character whoâs rich and has a big house, and youâre writing in any sort of historical setting, I canât help but feel that youâre missing an opportunity if you never talk about the Guests.
In a modern context, big houses rarely serve any narrative purpose beyond jokes about rooms nobody has ever been in, but historically, all that extra space had an important function. Apart from families generally being larger and multi-generational households being the norm, hospitality was a major part of a wealthy householdâs basic social obligations. Travel was time-consuming and expensive, and obviously your rich buddies couldnât just rent a room while they were in town (how gauche!), so youâd be expected to put them up for as long as they cared to stay. Indeed, being able to put up lots and lots of guests was one of the basic ways you demonstrated your high status.
This expectation of hospitality extended beyond your immediate social circle, as well. If you were the big name around town, you could expect to have government officials, artists and philosophers, travelling nobility, and the like hitting you up for a spare room on very little notice, and you had to be very careful about saying ânoâ because refusal might be construed as a snub â or worse, an admission that you canât afford it! The upshot is that, at any given time, a large household might be playing host to a bewildering assortment of friends, relatives, friends of relatives, relatives of friends, celebrities both far-ranging and local, dignitaries, con artists, miscellaneous weirdos, and that one guy who nobody can quite place, but whose presence everyone is too polite to question.
(The miscellaneous weirdos are a big part of it, in fact. If youâve ever wondered how someone makes a career out of something like âbeing Franceâs most famous loverâ, thatâs basically how it worked: youâd use your outlandish reputation to prevail on some random wealthy jerkâs hospitality, hang around their house as an âhonoured guestâ for a couple of months, then discreetly move on before you wore out your welcome and repeat the whole process somewhere else. There was a whole class of people who made lifelong careers out of being entertainingly weird guests.)
Like, sure, thereâs no obligation to get into any of that if domestic affairs arenât the focus of your story. However, if you are keeping the plot close to home, itâs something where a little bit of extra thought can pay large dividends. Keep it in mind when youâre plotting out that Pride and Prejudice Batman AU next time!
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