FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]σίκερα is of course akin to the Hebrew shâkar שֵׁכָר, and it is at least curious that the three important potables may be referred to Hebrew origin:Wine, to the Greek οἶνος, Hebrew יַיִןYayin, andBeerpossibly to the Hebrew ברcornwithout the vowel point.[2]Natural History, iv. 17.[3]Britannia, London, 1590. ‘Quas in Britannia ex Probi Imperatoris tempore umbraculi magis quam fructus gratiâ habuimus.’[4]‘Vineas etiam quibusdam in locis germinant.’[5]Chronicles, i. 186.[6]A mass of information upon the subject of signboards has been collected by Messrs. Larwood and Hotten in theirHistory of Signboards.[7]History of Toasting; London, 1881.[8]E.g.—‘Te nominatim voco in bibendo.’‘Bene te! Bene tibi!’‘Salutem tibi propino.’‘Bacchi tibi sumimus haustus.’Compare also Tibul. II. i. 33: ‘Bene Messalam! sua quisque ad pocula dicat.’Plautus.Curcul.ii. 3, 8: ‘Propino poculum magnum, ille ebibit.’Cicero.Tuscul. Disput.i. 40: ‘Propino hoc pulcro Critiæ, qui in eum fuerat teterrimus; Græci enim in conviviis solent nominare cui poculum tradituri sint.’Zumpt interprets ‘Græco more’ as ‘Mos propinandi,’ or the custom of addressing the person to whom you wish well, and offering him a glass to empty, after having first put it to your lips.—Cf. Martial, lib. i. Ep. 72, Horace iii. Ode 19.[9]The moral depravity and social degradation of the Roman world at this time is forcibly described by Salvian, the Bishop of Marseilles, in hisDe Gubernatione Dei. This treatise was translated into English, London, 1700.[10]It is recorded of the Emperor Bonosus that so notorious a drinker was he that when he committed suicide,a.d.281, after his defeat in Banffshire, it was the common jest with the soldiers that there hung a tankard and not a man.

[1]σίκερα is of course akin to the Hebrew shâkar שֵׁכָר, and it is at least curious that the three important potables may be referred to Hebrew origin:Wine, to the Greek οἶνος, Hebrew יַיִןYayin, andBeerpossibly to the Hebrew ברcornwithout the vowel point.

[2]Natural History, iv. 17.

[3]Britannia, London, 1590. ‘Quas in Britannia ex Probi Imperatoris tempore umbraculi magis quam fructus gratiâ habuimus.’

[4]‘Vineas etiam quibusdam in locis germinant.’

[5]Chronicles, i. 186.

[6]A mass of information upon the subject of signboards has been collected by Messrs. Larwood and Hotten in theirHistory of Signboards.

[7]History of Toasting; London, 1881.

[8]E.g.—‘Te nominatim voco in bibendo.’‘Bene te! Bene tibi!’‘Salutem tibi propino.’‘Bacchi tibi sumimus haustus.’Compare also Tibul. II. i. 33: ‘Bene Messalam! sua quisque ad pocula dicat.’Plautus.Curcul.ii. 3, 8: ‘Propino poculum magnum, ille ebibit.’Cicero.Tuscul. Disput.i. 40: ‘Propino hoc pulcro Critiæ, qui in eum fuerat teterrimus; Græci enim in conviviis solent nominare cui poculum tradituri sint.’Zumpt interprets ‘Græco more’ as ‘Mos propinandi,’ or the custom of addressing the person to whom you wish well, and offering him a glass to empty, after having first put it to your lips.—Cf. Martial, lib. i. Ep. 72, Horace iii. Ode 19.

[8]E.g.—

‘Te nominatim voco in bibendo.’

‘Bene te! Bene tibi!’

‘Salutem tibi propino.’

‘Bacchi tibi sumimus haustus.’

Compare also Tibul. II. i. 33: ‘Bene Messalam! sua quisque ad pocula dicat.’

Plautus.Curcul.ii. 3, 8: ‘Propino poculum magnum, ille ebibit.’

Cicero.Tuscul. Disput.i. 40: ‘Propino hoc pulcro Critiæ, qui in eum fuerat teterrimus; Græci enim in conviviis solent nominare cui poculum tradituri sint.’

Zumpt interprets ‘Græco more’ as ‘Mos propinandi,’ or the custom of addressing the person to whom you wish well, and offering him a glass to empty, after having first put it to your lips.—Cf. Martial, lib. i. Ep. 72, Horace iii. Ode 19.

[9]The moral depravity and social degradation of the Roman world at this time is forcibly described by Salvian, the Bishop of Marseilles, in hisDe Gubernatione Dei. This treatise was translated into English, London, 1700.

[10]It is recorded of the Emperor Bonosus that so notorious a drinker was he that when he committed suicide,a.d.281, after his defeat in Banffshire, it was the common jest with the soldiers that there hung a tankard and not a man.

SAXON PERIOD.

It is to the heroic songs of the day that we must at this period mainly look for the history of manners and of convivial life. The chieftains assembled on the mead-bench, and were diverted by the literary genius of the ‘scóp’ or poet. Whether in the capacity of household retainer or wandering minstrel, he commanded protection, respect, and admiration. He was the popular exponent of the fashion of the time, and from his productions we can form a tolerable estimate of the prodigious part which drink played in the social life of the Anglo-Saxon. In this respect it is not too much to say that we inherit from the Saxons a perfect legacy of corruption; it is therefore with considerable qualification that we can accept the eulogies passed upon our forefathers by some historians, and notably by Sharon Turner, who represents our Saxon ancestors as bringing with them a superior domestic and moral character, as well as new political, juridical, and intellectual blessings.

One record we have of the manners of the Saxons before they occupied Britain; from it we are able to gather what were their essentially individual usages, and thus are able to draw a definite line between their native customs and those derived after their settlement amongst us from the Romanised Britons.

This poem is the romance ofBeowulf, the oldest specimen of Anglo-Saxon literature—indeed, the oldest epic in any modern language.[11]The scene is laid in the Cimbric Chersonese. A certain king, Hrothgar by name, determined to build a palace, ‘a great mead-hall.’ In the neighbourhood lived a giant monster who used to make nightly incursions upon the palace during the ale-carouse; on one occasion killing thirty of its inmates. Beowulf, the brother of Hrothgar, resolved to deliver them from this scourge. With fifteen of his followers he proceeded to his brother’s palace. Hrothgar and his retainers were found drinking their ale and mead. The poem describes the visit:—‘There was a bench cleared in the beer-hall.... The thane observed his office. He that in his hand bare the twisted ale-cup, he poured the bright, sweet liquor.’ Meanwhile the bard strikes up; the queen enters the hall; she serves the liquor, first presenting the cup to the king, then to the guests. Thus do the festivities continue till nightfall. Beowulf and his company sleep in the hall, ‘the wine-hall, the treasure house of men, studded with vessels.’ The giant appeared in the night, and after a struggle was slain by Beowulf. The next day there were great rejoicings at the death of the monster. ‘The lay was sung, the song of the gleeman, the noise from the benches grew loud; cupbearers gave the wine from wondrous vessels.’ The queen again presented the cup to the king and to Beowulf; the festivities were prolonged into the night. Soon, however, was vengeance on the track; the mother of the giant appeared at thepalace and carried off a counsellor of Hrothgar, one of the ‘beer-drunken heroes of the ale-wassail.’ Beowulf is again the deliverer, and subsequently ascends the throne of his brother. A sketch of early manners like this, in the general dearth of documentary evidence, is invaluable. It is an outline, but one we can readily fill in.

From this same Cimbric peninsula came the Saxon leader Hengist, whose feast in honour of the British king Vortigern is familiar to every one, though it rests mainly on the very questionable authority of Nennius.[12]This writer states that the Saxon chief prepared an entertainment to which he invited the king, his officers, &c., having previously enjoined his daughter to serve them so profusely with wine and ale that they might soon become intoxicated. The plan succeeded; Vortigern demanded the hand of the girl. The province of Kent was the price paid. This account, as given by Nennius, is supplemented by Geoffrey of Monmouth, a British historian, or rather romancer, of the twelfth century. The story is always worth repeating. He says[13]that when the feast was over, ‘the young lady came out of her chamber bearing a golden cup full of wine, with which she approached the king, and making a low courtesy, said to him: “Lauerd king wacht heil!” The king, at the sight of the lady’s face, was on a sudden both surprised and inflamed with her beauty; and calling to his interpreter, asked him what she said, and what answer he should make her. “She called you ‘Lord King,’” said the interpreter, “and offered to drink your health. Your answer to her must be, ‘Drinc heil!’” Vortigern accordingly answered, “Drinc heil!” and badeher drink; after which he took the cup from her hand, kissed her, and drank himself. From that time to this (says the chronicler) it has been the custom in Britain that he who drinks to any one says, “Wacht heil!” and he who pledges him answers, “Drinc heil!” Vortigern, being now drunk with the variety of liquors, the devil took this opportunity to enter into his heart, and to make him in love with the damsel, so that he became suitor to her father for her.’[14]

We have seen that drink was a prominent link in the chain whereby Kent passed from British into Saxon hands. If Nennius may be trusted, it played an equally important part in the cession of East-Sex, South-Sex, and Middle-Sex. The substance of the story as told by this chronicler is, that Hengist proposed to ratify a treaty of peace with the British king Vortigern, by a feast to which he invited him and his nobles. He bade his Saxons who feasted with them, at a given signal, when the Britons were sufficiently inebriated, each to draw his knife and kill his man. The plot succeeded. Three hundred British nobles were slain in a state of intoxication, while the captive king purchased his ransom at the cost of the three above-mentioned provinces. The Welsh bard evidently alludes to this in the lines:—

When they bargained for Thanet, with such scanty discretion,With Hors and Hengys in their violent career,Their aggrandisement was to us disgraceful,After the consuming secret with the slaves at the confluent stream.Conceive the intoxication at the great banquet of mead;Conceive the deaths in the great hour of necessity.[15]

We can judge from the above incidents the kind of influence which the Saxons would be likely to exercise upon the Romanised Briton. Not that intemperance was a new plant of Saxon setting, for we have already found that the seed sown of Roman debauchery was beginning to yield the rank crop of excess in every grade of society. Ancient British poetry affords ample proof of this indictment. One of the most important fragments of ancient Cymric literature isThe Gododinof Aneurin, a poem of the sixth century, the first poem printed in the Welsh Archæology. It recounts a mighty patriotic struggle of the Britons under Mynyddawr with the Teutonic settlers in the district, which may be loosely described as lying between the Tees and Forth. The ever-recurring subject in this poem is the intoxication of the Britons from excessive drinking of mead before the battle fought at Cattraeth. A few quotations will suffice:—

The warriors marched to Cattraeth, full of words;Bright mead gave them pleasure, their bliss was their bane.* * * *The warriors marched to Cattraeth, full of mead;Drunken, but firm in array; great the shame.* * * *Just fate we deplore.For the sweetness of mead,In the day of our need,Is our bitterness; blunts all our arms for the strife;Is a friend to the lip and a foe to the life.* * * *I drank the Mordei’s wine and mead,I drank, and now for that I bleed.[16]

Unquestionable allusion to this poem of Aneurin is made in Owen Cyveilioc’sHîrlas, written in the twelfthcentury:—

Hear how with their portion of mead, went with their Lord to Cattraeth,Faithful the purpose of their sharp weapons,The host of Mynydauc, to their fatal rest.

To the sixth century are also to be referred the poems of Taliesin, which tell of the battles between the Britons and Saxons. One is preserved which is commonly called theMead Song, which he wrote to obtain Elphin’s release from prison. It is thus rendered[17]:—

I will implore the Sovereign, Supreme in every region,The Being who supports the heavens, Lord of all space,The Being who made the waters, to every body good;The Being who sends every gift and prospers it,That Maelgwyn of Mona be inspired with mead, and cheer us with itFrom the mead horns—the foaming pure and shining liquorWhich the bees provide, but do not enjoy.Mead distilled I praise—its eulogy is everywhere,Precious to the creature whom the earth maintains.God made it for man for his happiness;The fierce and the mute, both enjoy it.The Lord made both the wild and the gentle,And has given them clothing for ornament,And food and drink to last till judgment.I will implore the Sovereign, Supreme in the land of peace,To liberate Elphin from banishment,The man that gave me wine, ale, and mead,And the great princely steeds of gay appearance,And to me yet would give as usual:With the will of God, he would bestow from respectInnumerable festivities in the course of peace.Knight of Mead, relation of Elphin, distant be thy period of inaction.[18]

A satire is also preserved of the same Taliesin, upon the wandering minstrels of his time. He imputes to them all kinds of vice:—

In the night they carouse, in the day they sleep;Idle, they get food without labour;They hate the churches, but seek the liquor houses;From every gluttony they refrain not;Excesses of eating and drinking is what they desire.[19]

Another early British poet, Llywarch Hên, who flourished in both the sixth and seventh centuries, affords further proof that strong drink, ale or mead, was the one thing needful. In his elegy on Urien of Reged we find—

He was a shield to his country;His course was a wheel in battle.Better to me would be his life than his mead.

And again—

This hearth; no shout of heroes now adheres to it:More usual on its floorWas the mead; and the inebriated warriors.

And here we naturally pause to inquire whether it is fair to gauge the habits of the day from extracts such asthese. May they not have been the heated effusions of the moment? May not these bards have cast the shadows of their own excited brains on all around? Alas! the pages of contemporary history, and the censures of the Church, too surely confirm the impressions of the poet. Thus, Gildas, the British monk, writing in the latter half of the sixth century (Epist. De Excid. Britann.), laments (§ 21) that ‘not only the laity, but our Lord’s own flock, and its shepherds, who ought to have been an example to the people, slumbered away their time in drunkenness, as if they had been dipped in wine.’ Again (§ 83), ‘Little do ye put in execution that which the holy prophet Joel hath spoken in admonishment of slothful priests, saying, Awake ye who are drunk from your wine, and weep and bewail ye all, who have drunk wine even to drunkenness, because joy and delight are taken away from your mouths.’ And once more (§ 109), ‘These are the words, that with apparent effect should be made good and approved—deacons in like manner, that they should be not overgiven to much wine.... And now, trembling truly to make any longer stay on these matters, I can, for a conclusion, affirm one thing certainly, which is, that all these are changed into contrary actions, insomuch that clerks are shameless and deceitful in their speeches, given to drinking.’

Do we wonder that this state of things was condemned? The British Church could no longer keep silent. Decrees respecting intemperance were issued in the Synod held by St. David (a.d.569), interesting as the only legislative relic of the British Church upon this subject; unless, as Mr. Bridgett remarks in his useful little book,The Discipline of Drink, we admit themonastic penance of St. Gildas the Wise (a.d.570): ‘If any monk through drinking too freely gets thick of speech so that he cannot join in the psalmody, he is to be deprived of his supper.’

The following are among the canons of St. David:—

(1) Priests about to minister in the temple of God and drinking wine or strong drink through negligence, and not ignorance, must do penance three days. If they have been warned, and despise, then forty days.(2) Those who get drunk through ignorance must do penance fifteen days; if through negligence, forty days; if through contempt, three quarantains.(3) He who forces another to get drunk out of hospitality must do penance as if he had got drunk himself.(4) But he who out of hatred or wickedness, in order to disgrace or mock at others, forces them to get drunk, if he has not already sufficiently done penance, must do penance as a murderer of souls.

(2) Those who get drunk through ignorance must do penance fifteen days; if through negligence, forty days; if through contempt, three quarantains.

(3) He who forces another to get drunk out of hospitality must do penance as if he had got drunk himself.

(4) But he who out of hatred or wickedness, in order to disgrace or mock at others, forces them to get drunk, if he has not already sufficiently done penance, must do penance as a murderer of souls.

Enough has been adduced to prove that the lovers of debauch among the Anglo-Saxons could have found no uncongenial soil in Britain. But their settlement in our island did not tend to any moral millennium. They found matters bad; they made them ten times worse. At meals, after meals, by day, by night, the brimming tankard foamed. When all were satisfied with their dinner, says the chronicler, they continued drinking till the evening. Drinking was, in short, the occupation of the after part of the day. A cut taken from the Anglo-Saxon calendar[20]represents a drinking party. The lord and the two principal guests are sitting at the high seat, or daïs, drinking after dinner. The excess to which they yielded at banquets may be illustrated from a fragment of an Anglo-Saxon poem, entitled ‘Judith,’ which is thus translated[21]:—

There were deep bowlsCarried along the benches often,So likewise cups and pitchersFull to the people who were sitting on couches:The renowned shielded warriorsWere fated, while they partook thereof....Then was Holofernes,The munificent patron of men,In the guest hall;He laughed and rioted,Made tumult and noise,That the children of menMight hear afar,How the stern oneStormed and shouted.Moody and drunk with mead,Thus this wicked manDuring the whole dayHis followersDrenched with wine,The haughty dispenser of treasure,Until they lay down intoxicated,He over-drenched all his followersLike as though they were struck with death,Exhausted of every good.

An important collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry is still preserved under the title of theExeter Book, the original MS. of which is kept at Exeter: being a portion of the gift of books to the Church at Exeter by Bishop Leofric in the eleventh century. It is a medley of legends, religious songs, apophthegms, riddles, &c. These riddles, commonly calledSymposii Ænigmata, were very popular among the Saxons, whether the meaning of the title be ‘Riddles composed by Symposius,’or ‘Nuts to crack after dinner.’ Two specimens will suffice. The first, probably taken from the story of Lot—

There sat a man at his wineWith his two wives,And his two sons,And his two daughters,Own sisters,And their two sons,Comely first-born children;The father was thereOf each oneOf the noble ones,With the uncle and the nephew:There were five in allMen and womenSitting there.

The second is a very ancient specimen of that kind of ballad of which the modernJohn Barleycornis the anti-type:—

A part of the earth isPrepared beautifully,With the hardest,And with the sharpest,And with the grimmestOf the productions of men,Cut and ...Turned and dried,Bound and twisted,Bleached and awakened,Ornamented and poured out,Carried afarTo the doors of people,It is joy in the insideOf living creatures,It knocks and slightsThose, of whom before while aliveA long whileIt obeys the will,And expostulateth not,And then after deathIt takes upon it to judge,To talk variously.It is greatly to seekBy the wisest man,What this creature is.[22]

The principal drinks which the Saxons adopted were wine, mead, ale, cider, and piment.

The permission granted by the Emperor Probus to plant vines has already been mentioned, as well as the testimony to their existence by the historian Bede. John Bagford, a book collector and antiquary of the seventeenth century, says:—

I have often thought, and am now fully persuaded, that the planting of vines in the adjacent parts about this city was first of all begun by the Romans, an industrious people, and famous for their skill in agriculture and gardening, as may appear from theirrei agrariæ scriptores, as well as from Pliny and other authors. We had a vineyard in East Smithfield, another in Hatton Garden (which at this time is called Vine Street), and a third in St. Giles-in-the-Fields. Many places in the country bear the name of theVineyardto this day, especially in the ancient monasteries, as Canterbury, Ely, Abingdon, &c., which were left as such by the Romans.[23]

But whatever amount of evidence be forthcoming that vineyards existed in the time of the Saxons, though there is no doubt that they were in the main attached to the monasteries, still it is certain that wine was not a common drink among them; but when introduced into their feasts it usually led to intemperance. It may also be added that Bede mentionswarm wineas a drink.But their most common beverage wasmead. The extent to which this drink prevailed amongst them is curiously indicated by the nature of thefinethat was imposed upon the members of their friendly societies whose conduct was called in question. It appears that for seven out of thirteen descriptions of offence, the members were fined a quantity of honey, varying in measure with the nature of the offence,e.g.—

Any member calling another names was fined aquart of honey.

For using abusive language to a non-member,one quart of honey.

A knight for waylaying a man, asextarius of honey.

For setting a trap for any person’s injury,a sextarius of honey.

Any member neglecting when deputed to fetch a fellow-member who might have fallen sick, or died at a distance from home, forfeited asextarius of honey. And so forth. No doubt this honey was turned into mead, and drunk on the gala days of the society.

Ofalethree kinds are mentioned at this time: viz. clear ale, mild ale, and Welsh ale. Accordingly we find the Abbot of Medeshamstede letting certain land to Wulfrid upon this condition, that Wulfrid should each year deliver into the minster, among other items, two tuns full of pure ale and ten measures of Welsh ale, an agreement at which, adds the Saxon Chronicle, the king, archbishop, and several bishops were present.Welsh aleis mentioned at a much earlier date in the laws of Ine.

It was stated in a former section thatciderbecame known to the Britons at an early date. The Anglo-Saxons knew it under the name ofÆppelwin. Its origin is not fully substantiated. Africa has been suggested as itsbirthplace, probably because the fathers SS. Augustine and Tertullian mention it. St. Jerome, too, speaks of an intoxicating drink made of the juice of apples.

Lastly, the Saxons drankpiment, but not generally. This was a mixture of acid wine, honey, sugar, and spices. We find it mentioned in the romance ofArthour and Merlin, in the lines—

There was piment and claré,To heighe lordlinges and to meyne.

Piment and wine were both at this time imports. Thus in a volume of Saxon dialogues (Tib. A.iii.), one of the characters, a merchant, describes himself and his occupation. To the question ‘What do you bring us?’ he replies, ‘Skins, silks, costly gems, and gold; various garments, pigment, wine, &c.’

Of Saxon festivals none were more celebrated than theirJuleorYule(to which corresponds our Christmas), a strange combination of conviviality and religion. It appears to be a Saxon adaptation of an ancient Celtic festival. The Celts worshipped the sun. At the winter solstice the people testified their joy that the ‘greater light’ had returned to this part of the heavens, by celebrating a festival or sun-feast, which took its name fromHeol,Hiaul,Houl, dialectic varieties of the Celtic expression for ‘sun.’ The prefix of the article will account for the Gothic formsGehul,Juul, and hence again the softened forms,Jul,Yule. Upon this heathen festival the Christians engrafted their great festival, the anniversary of the rising of the Sun of Righteousness upon a dark world.[24]

Before leaving this subject notice should be taken ofthegrafol, or rent, paid upon lands. It furnishes some incidental details of the social life of our ancestors. Upon a certain estate in Lincolnshire we find that the following yearly rent was reserved:—(1) To the monastery, two tuns of bright ale, two oxen fit for slaughter, twomittan, or measures, of Welsh ale,[25]and six hundred loaves. (2) To the abbot’s private estate, one horse, thirty shillings of silver, or half a pound, one night’s pastus, fifteen mittan of bright and five of Welsh ale, fifteen sesters of mild ale.

Anglo-Saxon guilds, or social confederations, were associated with drink. Every member was compelled to bring a certain amount of malt or honey. The fines they imposed also imply that the materials of conviviality were not forgotten.

Amidst such surroundings it is scarcely matter for surprise that we occasionally read of profuseness in the high places of the Church as well as the State. Some of the leading ecclesiastics had been brought up in the lap of plenty. Wilfrid (consecrated Archbishop of York,a.d.669) is described by his biographer, Eddius, as the most luxurious prelate of his age, but it should be remembered that he was the son of a Bernician noble, taught in his childhood to serve the cup in the mead-hall.His fame, however, for sanctity is abundantly attested. He has been called the first patron of architecture among the Anglo-Saxons. Hexham and Ripon owe to him their sacred piles. At the dedication of the latter was a disgraceful scene of riotous festivity in which the kings Ecgfrid and Aelwin with the principal nobles were engaged. Such a scene upon such an occasion would now happily be impossible. And it is by comparisons of this kind that one is able definitely to estimate the improvement or retrogression of moral tone. It should be added by way of extenuation that such festivities were continuations of the heathen paganalia, were countenanced—indeed, with certain modifications commanded—by order of Gregory the Great (a.d.601), to Mellitus, the abbot, who accompanied Augustine to England. His words, as given by Bede (Eccl. Hist.i. 30), are—‘On the day of dedication, or the birthday of holy martyrs, whose relics are there deposited, let the people build themselves booths of the boughs of trees, round about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting.... For there is no doubt that it is impossible to efface every thing at once from their obdurate minds.’

FOOTNOTES:[11]A translation of this poem by John Mitchell Kemble was published in 1837; one by Thomas Arnold in 1876; another more recently by Colonel Lumsden; another by Rev. S. Fox, 1864.[12]A chapter is devoted to the question of the genuineness and chronology of Nennius in Wright’sBiographia Britannica Literaria.[13]Geoffrey of Monmouth:British History, chap. xii.[14]For Robert de Brunne’s metrical version of this story, cf. Warton,Hist. Poet., i. 73. For Robert of Gloucester’s account, see Knight,Old Eng., p. 70.[15]Golyddan:Arymes Prydein Vawr, 2 (as rendered by Turner).[16]Professor Morley’s rendering is here adopted. Part of theGododinwas translated by Gray. A version of the whole is to be found in Davies’sMythology of the Druids. It was translated by Probert in 1820, and by Rev. John Williams ap Ithel in 1858. It should be mentioned that Davies strangely maintains that the poem does not refer to the battle of Cattraeth, but to the massacre of the Welsh chieftains by Hengist’s command at a banquet at Stonehenge.[17]Turner,Vindication of the Ancient British Poems.[18]The poems of Taliesin are printed in theMyvyrian Archaiology of Wales, collected out of ancient MSS.[19]An incident in his life also illustrates the intemperance of the time. Fishing at sea in a skin coracle, he was seized by Irish pirates, who carried him off towards Ireland. Escaping from them in his coracle while they were engaged in drunken revelry, he was tossed about at the mercy of the waves till the coracle stuck to the point of a pole in the weir of the Prince of Cardigan, at whose court he remained till the time of the great inundation which formed Cardigan Bay.[20]MS. Cotton, Julius A. vi. inserted in Wright’sHomes of other Days.[21]The original is given in Thorp’sAnalecta Anglo-Saxonica, London, 1834.[22]Exeter MS. fol. 107, vo.[23]Prefixed toCollectanea, 1770, p. 75.[24]SeeChristmas Festivities, by the present writer.[25]Warner mentions this drink as in his days a speciality (1797). He says: ‘We now reached the Beaufort Arms (Crickhowel), where we refreshed ourselves with a bottle ofcwrrwor Welsh ale.... I cannot say that it proved agreeable to our palates, though the Cambrians seek it with avidity, and quaff it with the most patient perseverance. Their ancestors, you know, displayed a similar propensity eighteen hundred years ago, and the old Celt frequently sunk under the powerful influence of the ancientcwrrw. It was then, as now, made from barley, but the grain was dried in a peculiar way which gives it a smoky taste, and renders it glutinous, heady, and soporiferous.’ Cf. Pliny, lib. xiv.: ‘Est et occidentis populis sua ebrietas, fruge madida’; and Strabo, lib. iv.: ‘Ligures utuntur potu hordeaceo.’

[11]A translation of this poem by John Mitchell Kemble was published in 1837; one by Thomas Arnold in 1876; another more recently by Colonel Lumsden; another by Rev. S. Fox, 1864.

[12]A chapter is devoted to the question of the genuineness and chronology of Nennius in Wright’sBiographia Britannica Literaria.

[13]Geoffrey of Monmouth:British History, chap. xii.

[14]For Robert de Brunne’s metrical version of this story, cf. Warton,Hist. Poet., i. 73. For Robert of Gloucester’s account, see Knight,Old Eng., p. 70.

[15]Golyddan:Arymes Prydein Vawr, 2 (as rendered by Turner).

[16]Professor Morley’s rendering is here adopted. Part of theGododinwas translated by Gray. A version of the whole is to be found in Davies’sMythology of the Druids. It was translated by Probert in 1820, and by Rev. John Williams ap Ithel in 1858. It should be mentioned that Davies strangely maintains that the poem does not refer to the battle of Cattraeth, but to the massacre of the Welsh chieftains by Hengist’s command at a banquet at Stonehenge.

[17]Turner,Vindication of the Ancient British Poems.

[18]The poems of Taliesin are printed in theMyvyrian Archaiology of Wales, collected out of ancient MSS.

[19]An incident in his life also illustrates the intemperance of the time. Fishing at sea in a skin coracle, he was seized by Irish pirates, who carried him off towards Ireland. Escaping from them in his coracle while they were engaged in drunken revelry, he was tossed about at the mercy of the waves till the coracle stuck to the point of a pole in the weir of the Prince of Cardigan, at whose court he remained till the time of the great inundation which formed Cardigan Bay.

[20]MS. Cotton, Julius A. vi. inserted in Wright’sHomes of other Days.

[21]The original is given in Thorp’sAnalecta Anglo-Saxonica, London, 1834.

[22]Exeter MS. fol. 107, vo.

[23]Prefixed toCollectanea, 1770, p. 75.

[24]SeeChristmas Festivities, by the present writer.

[25]Warner mentions this drink as in his days a speciality (1797). He says: ‘We now reached the Beaufort Arms (Crickhowel), where we refreshed ourselves with a bottle ofcwrrwor Welsh ale.... I cannot say that it proved agreeable to our palates, though the Cambrians seek it with avidity, and quaff it with the most patient perseverance. Their ancestors, you know, displayed a similar propensity eighteen hundred years ago, and the old Celt frequently sunk under the powerful influence of the ancientcwrrw. It was then, as now, made from barley, but the grain was dried in a peculiar way which gives it a smoky taste, and renders it glutinous, heady, and soporiferous.’ Cf. Pliny, lib. xiv.: ‘Est et occidentis populis sua ebrietas, fruge madida’; and Strabo, lib. iv.: ‘Ligures utuntur potu hordeaceo.’

SAXON PERIOD—continued.

Amongst the kings who, in the seventh century, governed parts of Anglia, Edwin stands out prominently as a beacon of beneficent rule. Two stories concerning him are treasured from childhood, viz. his conversion to Christianity, through the bringing back to his recollection a mysterious vision by Paulinus, and the speech of the royal counsellor, who compared human life to the flitting of a sparrow through a festal hall. But one of his philanthropic measures is of special interest in the present connection. Edwin had been by compulsion a wanderer. He knew the trials of a fugitive’s life. He had experienced the hardships of long journeys on tedious roads which lacked accommodation for travellers; so, with a heart full of sympathy, he caused to be set up in the highways stakes, and ladles chained to them, wherever he had observed a pure spring. Bede remarks that he carried a tufa before him; he deserves that it be never displaced.

The entertaining of strangers seems in these times to have fallen to the clergy: hence the constant injunction to them to attend to hospitality. It is in this sense that Mr. Soames is justified in saying (Anglo-Saxon Church) that clergymen were in fact the innkeepers of those ancient times. One of the Excerpts of Ecgbright enjoins ‘that bishops and priests have an house for the entertainment of strangers, not far from the church.’

It would be naturally expected that the Church should have made some effort to stem the wide-spread inebriety of the Saxon population. And such was the case. We have on record an almost continuous series of ecclesiastical canons, decrees, and anathemas bearing upon the national intemperance. Theodore, seventh Archbishop of Canterbury (668-693), decrees that if a Christian layman drink to excess, he must do a fifteen days’ penance. In the following century, Bede, in a letter to Egbert, Archbishop of York, writes: ‘It is commonly reported of certain bishops that the way they serve Christ is this—They have no one near them of any religious spirit or continence, but only such as are given to laughter, jokes, amusing stories, feasting, drunkenness, and the other snares of a sensual life—men who feed their belly with meats, rather than their souls with the heavenly sacrifice.’

In the middle of the same century, Winfrid, Archbishop of the Germans (upon whom the Pope conferred the name of Boniface), writes to Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘It is reported that in your dioceses the vice of drunkenness is too frequent; so that not only certain bishops do not hinder it, but they themselves indulge in excess of drink, and force others to drink till they are intoxicated. This is most certainly a great crime for a servant of God to do or to have done, since the ancient canons decree that a bishop or a priest given to drink should either resign or be deposed. And Truth itself has said: “Take heed to yourselves lest at any time your heart be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness;” and St. Paul, “Be not drunk with wine wherein is luxury;” and the Prophet Isaias, “Woe to you that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strengthat drunkenness.” This is an evil peculiar to pagans, and to our race. Neither the Franks, nor the Gauls, nor the Lombards, nor the Romans, nor the Greeks commit it. Let us then repress this iniquity by decrees of synods and the prohibitions of the Scriptures, if we are able. If we fail, at least, by avoiding and denouncing it, let us clear our own souls from the blood of the reprobate.’

This great Anglo-Saxon missionary not only preached but practised. His Benedictine monks he describes as men of strict abstinence, who used neither flesh, wine, nor strong drink.

The Excerptions of Ecgbright date about the middle of this century. Johnson,English Canons, assigns them to 740; Sir H. Spelman to 750.

Amongst these are several sayings and canons of the fathers respecting intemperance. Thus (No. 14)—‘That none who is numbered among the priests cherish the vice of drunkenness; nor force others to be drunk by his importunity.’ (No. 18)—‘That no priest go to eat or drink in taverns.’

In the supplemental Excerptions of the same Ecgbright (MS. marked K.2, in the CCCC. Library), we have (No. 74) ‘A canon of the fathers. If a bishop, or one in orders, be an habitual drunkard, let him either desist or be deposed.’

In the same Excerpts, penal intoxication is defined—‘This is drunkenness, when the state of the mind is changed, the tongue stammers, the eyes are disturbed, the head is giddy, the belly is swelled, and pain follows.’

In 747 a council was convened by Cuthbert at Cloves-hoo. The 9th canon bids priests ‘by all means take care, as becomes the ministers of God, that they do not give to the seculars or monastics an example ofridiculous or wicked conversation; that is, by drunkenness, love of filthy lucre, obscene talking, and the like.’

The 21st canon ordains ‘that monastics and ecclesiastics do not follow nor affect the vice of drunkenness, but avoid it as deadly poison.... Nor let them force others to drink intemperately, but let their entertainments be cleanly and sober, not luxuries, ... and that, unless some necessary infirmity compel them, they do not, like common tipplers, help themselves or others to drink, till the canonical, that is the ninth hour, be fully come.’

Canon 20 enacts: ‘Let not nunneries be places of secret rendezvous for filthy talk, junketing, drunkenness, and luxury, but habitations for such as live in continence and sobriety.’

In the year 793 Alcuin gave good advice to the brethren at Jarrow: ‘Absconditas comessationes et furtivas ebrietates quasi foveam inferni vitate.’

One of the Saxon drinks to which reference has been made, viz.piment, seems to have been drunk to excess in the eighth and ninth centuries. Piment was a fascinating compound; it was in fact a liqueur. The word is probably derived frompigmentarii, apothecaries who originally prepared it. The most common varieties of it were hippocras and clarry. In the year 817, the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle forbad the use of piment to the regular clergy, except on solemn festival days.

In the eighth century, taverns or ale-houses where liquor was sold had been established, and very soon fell into disrepute. Hence the injunction of Ecgbright that no priest go to eat or drink at a tavern (ceapealethelum).

A good idea of the proportionate consumption ofmeats and drinks can be obtained from the sales and gifts of provisions to the monasteries. For instance, as has been already alluded to, we find from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that in the year 852, Ceolred, Abbot of Medeshamstede (Peterborough), and the monks let to Wulfred the land of Sempringham, on the condition that, after his decease, the land should return to the minster, and that Wulfred should give the land of Sleaford to Medeshamstede, and each year should deliver into the minster sixty loads of wood, twelve of coal, six of faggots, and two tuns full of pure ale, and two beasts fit for slaughter, and six hundred loaves, and ten measures of Welsh ale.

But the regulations of the various monasteries widely differed, as did the regulations of each monastery at different periods. It would appear that at one time the use of wine was prohibited in the monastic houses; thus, in the year 738, wine waspermittedto the monks of England by a decree of Bishop Aidan, founder of Lindisfarne monastery. Sometimes a large allowance was granted; thus Ethelwold allowed his monastery a great bowl from which theobbæof the monks were filled twice a day for their dinner and supper. On their festivals he allowed them at dinner a sextarium of mead between six of the brethren, the same at supper between twelve of them. On certain great feasts he gave them a measure of wine.

It will be necessary when dealing with the times of King Edgar to advert at some length to Benedictine Monachism, so we may postpone for the present an estimate of conventual morality.

It is instructive to observe how a courageous and virtuous soul may maintain its purity unsullied amidst surroundings the most calculated to tarnish it. To live in any century of Saxon times was a moral ordeal. Topossess certain tastes was to enhance the probation. The life of King Alfred furnishes us with a lesson of the type intended. His intellectual powers and tastes would have strewn the path of most men with briars, if not precipitated them into pitfalls. The love of music and poetry, the concomitants of which were the ruin of so many of his contemporaries, was conscientiously treasured by him as a talent to be occupied. At a time when the horn of mead circulated at a festival as freely as the harp; at a time when the song of the Northmen too often became the pretext for intoxication and its kindred vices, Alfred was seeking wisdom from its true source; his life was an embodiment of temperance, soberness, and chastity. Many of his renderings of the Roman philosopher Boethius, whose work,De Consolatione Philosophiæ, he translated, or rather paraphrased, display his own sentiments on such matters. In transmitting them, he has transmitted himself. In some cases the thoughts of his author are widely expanded. His description, for instance, of the golden age: ‘Oh! how happy was the first age of this world, when every man thought he had enough in the fruits of the earth. There were no rich homes, nor various sweet dainties, nor drinks. They required no expensive garments, because there were none then; they saw no such things nor heard of them. They cared not for luxury; but they lived naturally and temperately. They always ate but once a day, and that was in the evening. They ate the fruits of trees and herbs. They drank no pure wine. They knew not to mix liquor with their honey. They required not silken clothing with varied colours. They always slept out under the shade of trees. The water of the clear spring they drank.’ Such is theparaphrase of the king. The following is the language of Boethius:—‘Too happy was the prior age, contented with their faithful ploughs, nor lost in sluggish luxury; it was accustomed to end its late fasts with the ready acorn; nor knew how to confuse the present of Bacchus with liquid honey; nor to mingle the bright fleece of the Seres with the Tyrian poison. The grass gave them healthful slumbers. The gliding river their drink.’

One more example may be given; the passage which treats of tyrannical kings: ‘If men should divest them of their clothes, and withdraw from them their retinue and their power, then might thou see that they be very like some of their thegns that serve them, except that they be worse. And if it was now to happen to them, that their retinue was for a while taken away, and their dress and their power, they would think that they were brought into a prison, or were in bondage; because from their excessive and unreasonable apparel, from their sweetmeats, and from the various drinks of their cup, the raging course of their luxury is excited, and would very powerfully torment their minds.’

What other king would thus have caricatured his own order? What other man would have treated his own surroundings with such persiflage? Surely here he must have blindly adhered to the text of his author. Is it so? The English of Boethius is, ‘If from the proud kings whom you see sitting on the lofty summit of the throne ... any one should draw aside the coverings of a vain dress, you would see the lord loaded with strong chains within. For here greedy lust pours venom on their hearts; here turbid anger, raising its waves, lashes the mind; or sorrow wearies her captives, or deceitful hope torments them.’

And yet the life of Alfred, so full of achievement as well as purpose, was brought to a premature close. He died at the age of fifty-two. The disease which had clung to him in boyhood was replaced in manhood by another, equally grievous. The protracted banquets, ‘day and night,’ of his nuptial festivities are assigned as the probable cause. His biographer, Asser, remarks:—‘His nuptials were honourably celebrated in Mercia, among innumerable multitudes of people of both sexes; and after continual feasts, both by night and by day, he was immediately seized, in presence of all the people, by sudden and overwhelming pain, as yet unknown to all the physicians.’ We further learn that this complaint attached to him for more than twenty years. If this historian intends that the king’s malady was the result of debauchery, the whole tenor of his life is a flat contradiction. The panegyric of the poet Thomson in hisSeasonsis unimpeachable:—

Whose hallow’d name the virtues saint,And his own Muses love; the best of kings!

Allusion has been made to native vineyards. The vine is mentioned in the laws of Alfred, ‘Si quis damnum intulerit vineæ vel agro, vel alicui ejus terræ, compenset sicut ejus illud æstimet’ (cap. xxvi.). In the Saxon Calendar there is a set of drawings illustrating the various employments and pastimes of the year; the one attached to the month of February gives some men pruning trees, vines apparently among them. However, this proves little, for the cuts appended to the months for gathering in the vintage represent scenes of hawkings and boar-huntings; the labours of the husbandmen being evidentlysubordinate. (A copy of this is inserted in Strutt’sHorda, vol. i. pl. xi.)

Something less than half a century from the death of Alfred brings us to the tragical end of King Edmund the Elder, for which unquestionably strong drink has to answer. Amidst much variety of statement on the part of the chroniclers, certain details seem fairly established. The day of the occurrence was the anniversary or Mass-day of St. Augustine (May 26), a day always observed among the Anglo-Saxons whose apostle he was. A banquet was held at which Leof, a noted outlaw, was present. While the cup was circulating the king observed the intruder. Heated with wine he started from his seat, seized the outlaw, and felled him to the ground. Leof grappled with the king, and with his concealed dagger stabbed his royal antagonist,a.d.946. The event is said to have happened at Pukelechirche (Pucklechurch), in Gloucestershire, where was a palace of the Saxon kings.

Hard indeed it was for a king to escape such surroundings if even his disposition so prompted him. Of this the narrative of King Edwy affords abundant proof. On his coronation day, he retired from the revels of the banquet (linquens læta convivia), to his own apartments, much to the chagrin of the guests, who peremptorily sent to fetch him back. Dunstan and Cynesius were the agents employed. The king, probably loathing the drunkenness of a Saxon debauch, declined to return, upon which he was dragged by Dunstan from his seat to the hall of revelry. We may wonder that so distinguished an ecclesiastic should thus have urged the king to a scene of intemperance, but it is not wholly inconsistent with other details of his actions, of which thefollowing narrative will serve as an illustration. King Athelstan dined with his relative Ethelfleda. The royal providers came to see if all was ready and suitable. Having inspected all, they told her, ‘you have plenty of everything, provided your mead holds out.’ The king came with numerous attendants. In the first salutation the mead ran short. Dunstan’s sagacity had foreseen the event, and provided against it. Though the cupbearers, as is the custom at royal feasts, were all the day serving it up in cut horns and other vessels, the liquor held out. This delighted the king, and much credit redounded to Dunstan (Turn.A. S., lib. vii. c. iii. who cites MS. Cott. Cleop. B. 13).

But the very name of Dunstan at once conveys us to the arcana of Monachism, and to the consideration of some of its alleged vices. Our business is to confine ourselves to the aspersions cast upon it on the score of intemperance. Two cautions are here necessary. First, in estimating the morality of the monks, it must be remembered that in the tenth century the monastic system had acquired a vast development, some of the monasteries containing several hundred inmates, many of whom were laymen. To these latter the intemperance is attributed by some Roman Catholic writers, whilst others do not hesitate to charge the monastic orders with excesses. In the next place it was the interest of Dunstan and his party to expose the irregularities of thesecularpriests, whom he hated as much as he despised, and whose ejection he compassed to make room for theregularmonks, his pets. The harangue of King Edgar to the council convened by Dunstan may be taken as the saint’s indictment of the clergy, of whom the king says:—‘They spend their days in diversions, entertainments, drunkenness, and debauchery. Their houses may be said to be so many sinks of lewdness. There they pass the night in rioting and drunkenness.’[26]

Verily, King Edgar nearly anticipated by a thousand years the legislation proposed by the United Kingdom Alliance. Strutt says of him that, by the advice of Dunstan, he put down many ale-houses, suffering only one to exist in a village or small town; and he also further ordained that pins or nails should be fastened into the drinking-cups or horns, at stated distances, so that whosoever should drink beyond these marks at one draught should be liable to a severe punishment.[27]We shall have occasion to notice, when discussing the canons of Anselm, how this very pin-drinking, devised as a prohibitive measure, became a source of drunkenness.

Bad as was Edgar in some respects, we must clear him from a charge preferred against him by Palgrave, and to some extent by Lappenberg—that the vices of the foreigners who were incorporating themselves received encouragement from the king. Whatever countenance he gave to the Danes, it was not through them that the English became drunkards; that vice they had been already schooled in, and independently. The imputation, however, of these modern writers is readilytraceable to the chronicles of Henry of Huntingdon and William of Malmesbury.

The Church certainly in this reign vied with the throne in checking intemperance. Thus the following canons occur in a code drawn up by Dunstan:—

Back to Index Next