Pre-urban responses to strangers mixed fear and hospitality

Evidence

And even when the stranger was not thought to have magical powers, he was often viewed with a fear or joy or some mixture of both emotions. He might, for example, be an enemy in disguise and require close observation, as in the twelfth century injunction to “Beware of strangers while thou have an enmye, and see welle to his wayes” (Saint Bernard, Le Regisme de Mesnaige, c. 1130). Or, he might be a welcome novelty in an otherwise restricted life and thus deserving of the utmost in hospitality: From the great landed proprietors to the small tobacco grower [in Colonial America], Southern planters were renowned for the hospitality they showed travelers: “They are not easy,” remarked a newcomer to Maryland, “till you have given them an opportunity to show you a kindness.” — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 59