20 Things You Could Get Wrong As A Houseguest Throughout History

In 1736, Benjamin Franklin printed a version of the adage in his Poor Richard’s Almanack: “Fish and Visitors stink in 3 days.” The message for houseguests was pretty clear: know when it’s time to leave. Franklin wasn’t the first person to make that comparison, but the line became permanently attached to his name anyway. Poor Franklin has been carrying that one around for centuries. Warnings about guests overstaying their welcome existed long before Poor Richard, with similar sentiments appearing in works by the ancient Roman playwright Plautus and, centuries later, English writer John Lyly.

In 18th-century Britain, overnight guests were obliged to distribute “vails” (cash tips to a host’s footmen, cooks, and grooms) upon departing. The servants viewed vails as salaries, not gratuities, and they retaliated against miserly guests with dirty laundry or neglected mounts. In 1764, when London gentry attempted to outlaw the practice of paying vails, the men rioted in protest at Ranelagh Gardens, a popular pleasure garden, pelting passersby with stones and extinguishing torches.

Grand English country-house parties from 1900 to 1914 were a special kind of event where elite female guests had to change their attire four to six times a day, once for breakfast, once for a morning stroll, again for afternoon tea, then for dinner and evening activities. Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, an American heiress who married into the British aristocracy, wrote about this in her 1953 memoir. This fashion code only applied to the wealthiest socialites at grand estates, not regular people at their homes during that era.

In Hávamál, a Norse poem found in the 13th-century Icelandic book Codex Regius, hosts were expected to give guests water, clean towels, and warmth by a fire; guests, meanwhile, were advised to wash their hands and listen first and speak last, respecting the prevailing mood of the hall. (Though Hávamál is traditionally attributed to the Norse deity Odin, it is a cultural rather than legal document.)

Traveling with a horse came with its own houseguest etiquette, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, when travel was still by horse or carriage, and a host’s stables took a real beating. So etiquette was clear: guests had to bring their own oats, hay, or fodder to feed the horses they brought with them. The host wasn’t supposed to pay for feed for every animal arriving at his front door.

According to etiquette books, Victorian “morning calls” lasted from 15 to 30 minutes. Contrary to the name, these were made between 2:00 and 5:00 p.m. To a person in the 19th century, the term “morning” didn’t just mean dawn; it could refer to the part of the day before the principal evening meal. So yes, you could make a “morning” call at 4 p.m. and be perfectly punctual.

Fine linen was scarce and pricey in medieval and early modern Europe. It was common practice for wealthy travelers, when visiting distant estates, to bring along their own bed sheets, towels, and covers to save their host from the expense and to avoid sleeping in someone else’s unwashed bedding. But they didn’t carry furniture around. Full bed frames and mattresses were brought only on royal progresses (journeys made by monarchs and their households) and military campaigns.

For unmarried male houseguests, staying at a grand estate could mean being lodged separately in a dedicated Bachelors’ Wing. In 1880, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, a wealthy collector, completed one at his estate, Waddesdon Manor, in England. Fifteen years later, American railroad heir George Vanderbilt added a Bachelors’ Wing to the Biltmore Estate when it opened in 1895. These areas protected the modesty of female guests. It was also a place where unmarried men could smoke and drink without consequence. It was a luxury, not a punishment.

According to Victorian etiquette guides like Arthur Martine’s Handbook of Etiquette (1866) and John H. Young’s Our Deportment (1882), guests were expected to fold themselves entirely into their host family’s schedule, dinner time, family prayer, and bedtime, and not ask for any alterations. They weren’t saying that families actually did these things; they were just telling guests what to expect.

Victorian etiquette manuals deemed it worse to be early than late, as it caught the host unprepared. The solution: an early arrival was directed to walk around the block until the appointed time. Better to circle the neighborhood than be caught at the front door five minutes early.

A Victorian host’s study was off-limits for guests, as they were not permitted to look through desk drawers, read the correspondence that might be lying on the table, or even write in the margins of a borrowed book. The privacy of the written word was observed even within the confines of a family home.

A Victorian guest was not allowed to arrive with a dog, and certainly not with an uninvited child in tow. Both were seen as a threat to a home’s adult order and to its furniture and carpets. The host had arranged the menus, prayers, and bedtime around the guests he or she had specifically invited. A rug being chewed by an unsanctioned dog or a bored child wandering about was not endearing; it was a disruption no one had consented to host.

When Victorian guests departed, they left behind a calling card marked P.P.C., which stands for the French pour prendre congé, “to take leave.” This meant not merely that they were saying goodbye, but that they were leaving the area, or even departing for the season. No farewell chat necessary.

Both Emily Post’s Etiquette (1922) and Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette (1952) instructed visitors not to touch the radiators, poke at coal fires, or adjust the household’s climate controls unless asked. Petty as that might seem, it was meant to protect the household’s fuel use and the host’s own preferred settings. Hands off the thermostat has a surprisingly long pedigree.

Guests from upper-class Edwardian families were expected to bring their own valets or ladies’ maids with them when they came to stay, and those servants then became integrated into the household below stairs as part of the servant hierarchy and ate at whichever table their employer’s social status dictated.

In Edwardian times, at a formal dinner, the hostess would do what was known as “turning the table,” which meant that halfway through the meal, she would give a signal for all of her guests to switch conversation partners at once, shifting from the person on one side to the person on the other. Even small talk had choreography. There’s no connection to the modern phrase “turning the tables.”

By 1926, Lady Troubridge’s Book of Etiquette offered a standard set of tariffs for weekend visitors’ departures. A butler who valeted a male guest got 10 shillings; 5 shillings went to a footman or parlormaid. A gamekeeper might receive up to a gold sovereign. The footmen’s tip riots of 1764 had, by then, settled into an orderly price list.

In 1952, Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette dictated that if a guest accidentally broke a glass or ceramic item, he or she must find a matching piece to return to the host. Offering money to cover the broken piece was deemed a serious social faux pas. Breaking the vase was only the beginning of your problem.

In the wake of World War II, live-in servants largely disappeared from most middle-class households, and hosts could no longer offer what they used to. Guests in these “maidless households” should make their beds, tidy their rooms, wipe shared sinks, and help with the dishes, according to Vanderbilt’s 1952 etiquette guide.

By the mid-20th century, when one left for home after being a guest of someone, the hostess was expected to receive a handwritten letter (called a “bread-and-butter letter”) within two or three days. Small as it may seem, failing to do so could result in more serious repercussions, such as not being invited back.

This content was created with the help of AI.