Our group tends to lean on the idea that visitors, expected or otherwise, are welcomed most places, and treated with some respect, even a great deal of respect, fed and often fed well (relative to ability). This is more true with people you have a connection to, but is true even of outsiders.
This hospitality, xenia, (possibly) hiba in Islamic lands, is not expected to be extended, and among magi our group presumes three days of hosting, and sometimes more if an agreement can be made.
The recent discussion on quaesitores and tokens got me thinking that Hermetic hospitality would be extended to any traveling quaesitor, and they would be tolerated for longer if they asserted they are investigating a case, but tokens are not automatic and are negotiable.
The mundane equivalent is a host offering his guest his own bed, but not his wife or daughter.
Other than Redcaps, where its clear that the tradition is to let them have three days, how do you deal with surprise visitors?
I think hospitality is likely still a strong custom in the Order. Travel infrastructure being what it is in the 1200s, along with the impact of the Gift, the need to have a genuinely friendly refuge while traveling is a real concern for many Magi. Exactly how long is perhaps a matter subject to local customs as much as Hermetic customs, but in general a few days seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Especially if the Covenant in question is in a position that is near travel routes or a major city, it would be more likely to attract such visitors in the reasonable course of normal events. A Covenant in a more remote location might be somewhat more cautious but still likely extend hospitality.
Of course anything that can be abused likely will be by someone eventually. It begs the question about the size of traveling parties and hospitality. I'm sure there are reasonable limits to such expectations. Can I have hospitality if I show up alone? Almost certainly. With 5 followers? 10? How about 50, or 100? I think it is easy to see that eventually we can find a number where a host might balk and find even the need or courtesy of hospitality to be questionable.
Cosigned about the party size. I think it will also depend on whether this person has some sort of reasonable itinerary "My ship made better time than expected, could you put me up for a the next four days, and then I'll leave so I can make it to the village for the Feast of St. Nicodemus" vs "I'm here until I get bored."
By the same token, how useful/a nuisance is the person willing to be, once they've had a day or two to recover from the journey? "I'm hoping you'll let me and my retinue stay while I examine some fascinating relics in the area. I'm happy to help out while I'm here, perhaps you would like a casting of The Bountiful Feast, and my men can work on rebuilding that wall that collapsed last spring? We will of course pay for our own food, and perhaps hunt some pheasant for you" vs "I'm hoping you'll let me stay while I examine some fascinating relics in the area. I will need use of that entire tower for all my retinue. We will have numerous raucous parties and seduce the stableboys."
It's also probably a sign of some prestige for a covenant to easily host another mage, and perhaps a retinue of some size, and depending on the prestige of the guest they might pull out all the stops for the sake of acquiring a bit of that prestige.
A few covenants are so large and powerful that a mage and train showing up out of the blue is only worth a mage noticing for form's sake, the autocrat dealing with it. I'm thinking Aedes Mercurii and Durenmar.
Hospitality went both ways. As a guest, you are entitled to a certain treatment, but you need to be a proper guest, or your host could (and would) throw you out, at a minimum.
Rhine has an explicit provision for long-term hospitality, but I think this is different from the "I'm traveling and need a place to stay for a couple of days".
This other hospitality, extended to Redcaps, seems to me to follow roughly the monastic hospitality tradition. So, I think that's a good place to take some inspiration from? And by the same token, I think it's worth mentioning that this hospitality is in the covenant's terms, just as monastic hospitality was given according to the monastery determinations.
Personaly, I'd say that the three-day hospitality is extended to any magus, Gifted or not, and that Redcaps are simply the ones that most often need to request it, but it is not a privilege of theirs.
As a magus you are entitled to the same treatment any other magus of the hosting covenant would have, and if the covenant has different treatments for different magi you'd at least get the same treatment as the lower rank, but might be higher if you are someone important (most likely represented by a suitable hermetic reputation).
Your retinue would get the same treatment as the retinue of a magus with the same rank as you would get. Most often this should mean they have a seat at the table with the covenfolk, as long as the covenant can reasonably house them.
Our covenant gets a lot of hermetic visitors, thanks to our book operation and specialized research. Most of the Magi are there for books, ether buying or library access. Redcaps on the other hand, we often have many long term visitors due to history, easy access via gate, and exceptional environment (+3 health, plus quality food).
Soooo... since the covenant is laid out like a small town, we built an "Inn" inside the regio just for Magi and their followers. It has a wing for six gifted, with rentable 'standard' labs. A Redcap wing, that can house a dozen at appropriate quality. And it has room for about 40 followers. If there are more, there is space in the barracks, the ability to setup in a warehouse or "camp", plus the housing in the town outside the regio (not part of the covenant, but controlled by it).
Prices are very reasonable, three days free and then just above cost.
In the middle ages, monastic hospitality for nobles - including noble pilgrims, even sick noble pilgrims - usually implied the guests to make donations to the monastery appropriate to their station afterwards.
Putting up a noble's wife and her following for a month might oblige her husband to donate a few villages to the monastery in the end.
And I'd expect that if an Archmagus stays at my covenant for some time during a travel, he'd leave us a parting gift afterwards.
I wouldn’t have the same expectation from a poor independent magus (but I might not like to host them, and drop subtle (or not so subtle) hints that he is not really welcome).
I think there is kind of a ready recognition that extended hospitality comes with considerable expense on the part of the host, and more so of an expense than what we might think of it costing in contemporary terms. The raw labor input of producing food makes it considerably more expensive in relative terms than in contemporary economies. Which means hosting guests, especially larger numbers or higher status guests (much less both) very expensive.
I seem to recall (imperfectly) that a real-life example of this was a king (Louis XIV?) taking his retinue to go visit various rich nobles. The expense of granting hospitality would be such a large drain on the noble, that they would be unable to afford to raise troops or fund any insurrection.