FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[49]Mr. Samuelson (History of Drink) observes that on the chessmen of the twelfth century the queen usually carries a drinking-horn.[50]Hist. Reg., § 245.[51]Sir Walter Scott defends the character of the Norman nobles from the charge of intemperance. SeeIvanhoe, p. 100.[52]Wright,Homes of other Days, p. 100.[53]Bridgett,Disc. of Drink, p. 102.[54]De Nugis Curialium, lib. viii.[55]Cutt’sScenes and Characters of the Middle Ages.[56]Canon ix. Cp. Johnson’sEnglish Canons, pt. ii. p. 26. Wilkins,Concil.I. 382. Concil. Londinens.a.d.1102, ap. Spelm. II. 24.

[49]Mr. Samuelson (History of Drink) observes that on the chessmen of the twelfth century the queen usually carries a drinking-horn.

[50]Hist. Reg., § 245.

[51]Sir Walter Scott defends the character of the Norman nobles from the charge of intemperance. SeeIvanhoe, p. 100.

[52]Wright,Homes of other Days, p. 100.

[53]Bridgett,Disc. of Drink, p. 102.

[54]De Nugis Curialium, lib. viii.

[55]Cutt’sScenes and Characters of the Middle Ages.

[56]Canon ix. Cp. Johnson’sEnglish Canons, pt. ii. p. 26. Wilkins,Concil.I. 382. Concil. Londinens.a.d.1102, ap. Spelm. II. 24.

PLANTAGENET PERIOD.—HENRY II. TO THE DEATH OF RICHARD I.

The period on which we now enter, called, in compliance with usage, thePlantagenet, might for our present purpose more strictly be namedThe Light Wine Period. And it is instructive; and might have served for instruction to certain of our legislators in the present reign, who first tried beer (houses) to put down spirit drinking, and then tried wine to put down spirits and beer. The facts of English history were disregarded, and theseremedialexpedients were adopted, in the light of which the irony of the Spartans pales, who to put down drunkenness made their slaves drunk, and then exhibited them as hideous examples.

We have seen that the traffic of wines with Bordeaux was brought about through the marriage of Henry II. with Eleanor of Aquitaine. That ‘great Provence dower,’ as Dante calls it, was the secret of the new trade with Guienne and Gascony, provinces which had both been erected into the dukedom of Aquitaine in the preceding century. The Normans were the great carriers. In the centre of the vessels that brought home the produce of the new English possessions in France were large fixed tanks (Pipæ gardæ), and right well did the sailors understand the process known as ‘sucking the monkey,’ or, in plain English, furtively drawing off the wine from its receptacle in course of transit. And they must have had plenty of choice, for amongst the wines importedwere Muscadell, Malmsey, Rhenish, Dele, Stum, Wormwood, Gascony, Alicant, Canary, Sack, Sherry, and Rumney.

At the very time that the English were enjoying the wines of France, our French neighbours were reciprocally appreciative. William FitzStephen, in hisLife of Thomas à Becket, states that when he went as chancellor into France to negotiate a royal marriage, two of the waggons which accompanied him were laden with beer in iron-bound casks for presents to the French, ‘who admire that kind of drink, for it is wholesome, clear, of the colour of wine, and of a better taste.’

To this period many writers refer the origin of

Distillation.

And, as in many other cases, when the inventors are unknown, the Arabians are at once accredited with the discovery. The argument probably runs thus—Alcohol,alchymy,alchymist,alembic, have all something in common; moreover, they all begin withal, andalis the Arabic article,thereforealcohol was invented by the Arabians. So high an authority as Gibbon (Decline and Fall) is of opinion that ‘theyfirst invented and named the alembic for the purpose of distillation.’ Indeed, it is the commonly received opinion that their visionary hope of finding an elixir of immortal health led them to the discovery of alcohol, and entailed upon mankind a beverage which has proved to some a blessing, but to millions a curse.

But the derivation of the words is the history of their origin.Alembicis the Greek ἄμβιξ, a beaker, with the Arabic prefixal, which is intensive.Alcoholis the HebrewKaal(Chaldaiccohal), with the same prefix, and signifies something highly subtilised, pure spirit.[57]The Arabians owed much to other countries; they were rather restorers and improvers than inventors. They formed the link which unites ancient and modern literature; but their superstitious reverence for antiquity checked originality of ideas and freedom of thought. In respect of the discovery in question, it is certain that the invention preceded the days of the Saracens. Pliny very nearly described the process. Thus, he details the mode of obtaining an artificial quicksilver by distillation; and in another book (xv.), he speaks of the vapour arising from boiling pitch being collected on fleeces of wool spread over pots, and afterwards extracted from them by expression. Galen, the famous medical writer of the second century, speaks of distillationper descensum; while Zosimus, a writer of the fifth century, has given figures of a distilling apparatus which Borrichius has copied in hisHermetis et Ægyptiorum Chemicorum Sapientia.

The sobriety of the country can be tolerably gauged from a comparison of such contemporary writers as John of Salisbury, Giraldus Cambrensis, and Peter of Blois. The former of these, in a letter to a friend, writes:—‘You know that the constant habit of drinking has made the English famous among all foreign nations.’ In another letter, sent by him to this country: ‘Both nature and national customs make you drunkards. It is a strife between Ceres and Bacchus. But, in the beer which conquers, and reigns, and domineers with you, Ceres prevails.’ Again, in hisPolycraticus, he distinguishes between vulgar feasts, when the mightiest tippler is considered the best man, and polite feasts, where sobriety becomes joyous, and plenty does not lead to excess. Giraldus Cambrensis, Archdeacon of Brecknock at the close of the twelfth century, describes a dinner with the Prior of Canterbury where were a variety of wines such as piment and claret, besides mead, &c. Of the Irish clergy, he says, ‘you will not find one who, after all his rigorous observance of fasts and prayer, will not make up at night for the labours of the day, by drinking wine and other liquors beyond all bounds of decorum.’ Peter of Blois observes, in one of his letters:—‘When you behold our barons and knights going on a military expedition, you see their baggage horses loaded, not with iron but wine, not with lances but cheeses, not with swords but bottles, not with spears but spits. You would imagine they were going to prepare a great feast, rather than to make war.’

The greatest genius of the reign of Henry II. was Walter Mapes, the king’s chaplain, best known under the names of ‘Map,’ and the ‘jovial archdeacon.’ This last title is an anachronism, inasmuch as he was not made Archdeacon of Oxford till the reign of Henry’s son Richard, when he was no longer an author. His powerful satire was directed against the growing corruptions of the Church. Never were abuses more sweepingly exposed than in his famousApocalypse of Golias—Bishop Golias being an imaginary impersonation of ecclesiastical profligacy. In estimating the personal qualifications of Mapes to sit in judgment on his clerical brethren, itshould be remembered that he was the author of a celebrated drinking ode in Leonine verse, which has a singularly Bacchanalian ring about it. Camden alludes to the author as one who filled England with his merriments, and confessed his love to good liquor, with the causes, in this manner:—

Mihi est propositum in taberna mori;Vinum sit appositum morientis ori:Ut dicant, cum venerint, angelorum chori,Deus sit propitius huic potatori.Poculis accenditur animi lucerna,Cor imbutum nectare volat ad superna;Mihi sapit dulcius vinum in tabernaQuam quod aqua miscuit præsulis pincerna.Suum cuique proprium dat natura munus,Ego nunquam potui scribere jejunus;Me jejunum vincere posset puer unus,Sitim et jejunium, odi tanquam funus.Unicuique proprium dat natura donum,Ego versus faciens, vinum bibo bonum,Et quod habent melius dolia cauponum,Tale vinum generat copiam sermonum.Tales versus facio, quale vinum bibo,Nihil possum scribere, nisi sumpto cibo,Nihil valet penitus quod jejunus scribo,Nasonem post calices carmine præibo.Mihi nunquam spiritus prophetiæ datur,Nisi tunc cum fuerit venter bene satur,Cum in arce cerebri Bacchus dominatur,In me Phœbus irruit, ac miranda fatur.

Of which the following, by Robert Harrison, is an ‘Imitation.’

I’m fixed:—I’ll in some tavern lie,When I return to dust;And have the bottle at my month,To moisten my dry crust:That the choice spirits of the skies(Who know my soul is mellow)May say, Ye gods, propitious smile!Here comes an honest fellow.My lamp of life ‘I’ll’ kindle upWith spirits stout as Hector;Upon the flames of which I’ll riseAnd quaff celestial nectar.My lord invites me, and I starveOn water mix’d with wine;But atThe Grapes, I get it neat,And never fail to shine.To every man his proper giftDame Nature gives complete:My humour is—before I write,I always love to eat;For, when I’m scanty of good cheer,I’m but a boy at best:So hunger, thirst, and Tyburn-treeI equally detest.Give me good wine, my verses areAs good as man can make ‘em;But when I’ve none, or drink it small,You’ll say, The devil take ‘em!For how can anything that’s goodCome from an empty vessel?But I’ll out-sing even Ovid’s selfLet me but wet my whistle.With belly full, and heart at ease,And all the man at home,I grow prophetic, and can talkOf wondrous things to come.When, on my brain’s high citadel,StrongBacchussits in state,ThenPhœbusjoins the jolly god,And all I say is great.[58]

Others have tried their hand at a translation. S. R. Clarke (Vestigia Anglicana) thus renders the first stanza:—

Well, let me jovial in a tavern die,And bring to my expiring lips the bowl,That choirs of angels, when they come, may cry,Heaven be propitious to the toper’s soul.

The late Mr. Green gives the following version:—

Die I must, but let me die drinking in an inn!Hold the wine-cup to my lips sparkling from the bin!So, when angels flutter down to take me from my sin,‘Ah, God have mercy on this sot,’ the cherubs will begin![59]

It only remains to add that this enigmatical character well earned the title of ‘the Anacreon of his age.’

The habits of the king were abstemious, an example which his sons disregarded. So dissolute and hot was Geoffrey in his youth, remarks Giraldus, that he was equally ensnared by allurements, and driven on to action by stimulants. The ‘nappy ale’ and the cup of ‘lambswool,’ well known to the readers of the pretty ballad entitled ‘King Henry II. and the Miller of Mansfield,’ were the ruin of the royal prince, so prematurely cut off. It might have been well for the three brothers, Geoffrey, Richard, and John, had the sumptuary laws of their father extended to drinks as well as meats. But in forming an estimate of individuals much is to be taken into account; and in the present instance, in addition to youth and, perhaps, propensity, it mustbe remembered that the surroundings of the court and the conviviality of the times acted and reacted. Everything that could was made to minister to appetite. Religion itself was made subservient to the vulgar taste. Its festivals were accommodated to the vulgar craving. The feast of the Saviour’s nativity was among the primitive Christians ushered in by the display of calm devotional feeling, unalloyed with the counterfeit of sensual enjoyment, but soon it degenerated into a scene of boisterous activity. Such it was during the Anglo-Saxon period. Such it continued under the line of Norman kings, with the one redeeming feature of the assembling of the prelates and nobles of the realm for deliberating upon the affairs of the country. As a relief, however, to these grave deliberations the guests were feasted with a series of banquets. The part played by Cœur de Lion at such entertainments is thus alluded to in one of the metrical romances of the period:—

Christmas is a time full honest;King Richard it honoured with great feast,All his clerks and baronsWere set in their pavilions,And served with great plentyOf meat, and drink, and each dainty.

In the same way the festival of St. Martin was degraded. The old calendars of the Church state, in the order of the day: ‘The Martinalia, a genial Feast; wines are tasted of, and drawn from the lees; Bacchus in the figure of Martin.’ While (says John Brady) it generally obtained the title of thesecond Bacchanalamong old ecclesiastical writers:—

Altera Martinus dein Bacchanalia præbet;Quem colit anseribus populus multoque Lyæo.

A little old ballad tells the same tale, which begins:—

It is the day of Martilmasse,Cuppes of ale should freelie passe.

Days spent in this medley of feast and deliberation gave place to nights of revelry, at which masques and mummings formed some of the features of the entertainments. A continual round of revelry was thus maintained during the whole of the twelve days forming the feast of Yule, and seldom until the expiration of the closing night’s debauch did they return to a more sober course. A capital insight into the manners of the times of the first Richard is supplied by Sir Walter Scott in his historical romanceIvanhoe. From it we gather the forms ofpledgingthen adopted: thus Cedric is represented as addressing Sir Templar:—‘Pledge me in a cup of wine, and fill another to the Abbot, while I look back some thirty years to tell you another tale.’ ‘To the memory of the brave who fought’ at Northallerton! ‘Pledge me, my guests.’ After ‘deep drinking’ a further toast is proposed:—‘Knave, fill the goblets—To the strong in arms, be their race or language what it will.’ On another occasion we find the hermit bringing forth ‘two large drinking-cups, made out of the horn of the urus, and hooped with silver. Having made this goodly provision for washing down the supper, he seemed to think no farther ceremonious scruple necessary on his part; but filling both cups, and saying in the Saxon fashion, ‘Waes Hael, Sir sluggish knight!’ he emptied his own at a draught. ‘Drink Hael, Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst!’ answered the warrior. Another story is given in which Cedric welcomes King Richard with the same salutation.

The heads of religious houses are probably caricatured with truth. There is exquisite satire in the letter which Conrad is made to read from Prior Aymer:—‘Aymer, by divine grace, Prior of the Cistercian house of St. Mary’s of Jorvaulx, to Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a knight of the holy order of the Temple, wisheth health, with the bounties of King Bacchus and my Lady of Venus.... I trust to have my part when we make merry together, as true brothers, not forgetting the wine cup. For, what saith the text?Vinum lætificat cor hominis.’ The capacity of Friar Tuck is gauged by the king (chap. xli.) at ‘a but of sack, a runlet of malvoisie, and three hogsheads of ale, of the first strike. If,’ says the king, ‘that will not quench thy thirst, thou must come to court, and be acquainted with my butler.’

The Chronicles of St. Edmundsbury abound with the irregularities of this time. For instance, we read of a tournament held near St. Edmund, after which eighty young men, sons of noblemen, were asked to dine with the Abbot. After dinner, the Abbot retiring to his chamber, they all arose and began to carol and sing, sending into the town for wine, drinking, screeching, depriving the Abbot and convent of sleep, and refusing to desist at the command of the superior. When the evening was come they broke open the town gates, and went out. The Abbot solemnly excommunicated them. Very few years after this (a.d.1197) we find the cellarer, at the same St. Edmundsbury, turned out for drunkenness. The next year his successor committed a crime, for which the Abbot restricted him to water. In the case of another official,[60]his goods were seized for gross irregularities.

The clergy seem to have needed public admonition. The eighteenth of Hubert Walter’s Legislative Canons at York enjoins: ‘Because, according to the Word of the Lord, if the priest offend he will cause the people to offend; and a wicked priest is the ruin of the people; therefore the eminence of their order requires that they abstain from public bouts and taverns.’

The tenth canon of the same archbishop, at Westminster,a.d.1200, ordained ‘that clerks go not to taverns or drinking bouts, for from thence come quarrels, and then laymen beat clergymen, and fall under the Canon.’

When such was the condition of the clergy, it would be vain to look for a high standard of morality among the people. Richard of Devizes, the chronicler of the acts of Richard I., exposes the intemperance of the king’s troops engaged in Palestine, and its influence upon their allies. He remarks: ‘The nations of the French and English, so long as their resources lasted, no matter at what cost, feasted every day in common sumptuously, and, with deference to the French, to something more than satiety; andpreserving ever the remarkable custom of the English, at the notes of clarions, or the clanging of the trumpet or horn, applied themselves with due devotion to drain the goblets to the dregs. The merchants of the country, who brought the victuals into the camp, unaccustomed to the wonderful consumption, could hardly credit that what they saw was true, that a single people, and that small in number, should consume three times as much bread, and a hundred times as much wine, as that on which many nations of the heathen, and each of them innumerable, lived. The hand of the Lorddeservedly fell upon these enervated soldiers.’[61]

Allusion has already been made to the personal habits of King Richard I. The immediate cause of his death was an arrow which pierced his shoulder upon the occasion of his laying siege to the castle of Limosin. Some have blamed the unskilfulness of the surgeon in attendance; others have said, the king himself by his intemperance did not a little help to inflame the wound.[62]

The Edwardian romance, entitled ‘Richard Cœur de Lion,’ contains abundant allusions to conviviality. In the following quotation, the occurrence of the termcostrel, by which is intended an earthen or wooden flask, is the occasion of a paragraph in Chaffer’s valuable work on pottery.[63]

Now, steward, I warn thee,Buy us vessel great plente,Dishes, cuppes and saucers,Bowls, trays and platters,Vats, tuns, and costrel.

The same romance tells that it was a female minstrel, an Englishwoman, who betrayed the knight-errant king on his return from the Holy Land. It is worth quoting as illustrative of minstrel life which in these times formed so prominent a feature:—

When they had drunken well a fin,A minstralle com therein,And said, ‘Gentlemen, wittily,Will ye have any minstrelsey?’Richard bade that she should go.The minstralle took in mind,And saith, ‘Ye are men unkind;And if I may, ye shall for-thinkYe gave neither meat nor drink,For gentlemen should bedeTo minstrels that abandon yede,Of their meat, wine, and ale.’[64]

In the reign of King John occurs

The Earliest Statute on the Foreign Wine Trade.

It was enacted (1200) that the wines of Anjou should not be sold for more than 24s.a tun, and that the wines of Poitou should not be higher than 20s.The other wines of France were limited to 25s.a tun, ‘unless they were so good as to induce any one to give for them two marks or more.’ Twelve honest men in every town were to superintend this assize. This ordinance, Holinshed says, could not last long, for the merchants could not bear it; and so they fell to, and sold white wine for eightpence the gallon, and red, or claret, for sixpence. The king claimed, out of every imported cargo, one tun before the mast, and another behind it, under the name ofprisaorprisa recta, and officers were appointed to collect and account for the same. From the entries of this reign we discover that the principal wines then consumed in England were—those of Anjou, chiefly white and sweet; Gascon wine, wine of Saxony, and wine of Auxerre, which came from the territory of the Duke of Burgundy.[65]

The introduction of these wines soon began to manifest its effects. Roger de Hoveden, whose annals date as far as the third year of John, says: ‘By this means the land was filled with drink and drinkers.’

That the English had a wide-spread fame for heavy drinking we incidentally learn from anon-ditof Pope Innocent III. When the case of the exemption of the Abbey of Evesham from the Bishop of Worcester was being argued before the pope, the bishop’s counsel said, ‘Holy father, we have learnt in the schools, and this is the opinion of our masters, that there is no prescription against the rights of bishops.’ The pope replied, ‘Certainly, both you and your masters had drunk too much English beer when you learnt this.’

King John founded the Abbey of Beaulieu, which had a famous vineyard. Possibly the imported wines did not please the palate of the monks. Their standard may have been that of a writer of the period who has given the world an enumeration of the qualities of good wine, which he says should be as ‘clear as the tears of a penitent, so that a man may see distinctly to the bottom of his glass. Its colour should represent the greenness of a buffalo’s horn. When drunk, it should descend impetuously like thunder, sweet-tasted as an almond, creeping like a squirrel, leaping like a roebuck, strong, like the building of a Cistercian monastery, glittering like a spark of fire, subtle as the logic of the schools of Paris, delicate as fine silk, and colder than crystal.’[66]

FOOTNOTES:[57]‘Le mot en effet paraît être de l’ancienne Chaldée, où il signifiait “brûler.” En trouve-t-on des rudiments chez les peuples d’où nous vint d’abord cet “esprit” des liqueurs fermentées? On a cru longtemps que c’étaient les Arabes, mais nous pensons, avec Mongez et Pauw, que ce sont les Tartares qui en auraient appris la fabrication par les Chaldéens. Certaines liqueurs importées de Perse en Egypte semblent avoir été alcooliques.’ Edouard Fournier,Mélanges, vol. iii. p. 517.[58]From Ritson’sAncient Songs and Ballads.[59]Short History of the English People.‘The Latin poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes,’ form a volume edited by the laborious Mr. Thomas Wright for the Camden Society in 1841.[60]Cf. Tomline and Rokewode,Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century.[61]Rapin,History of England, vol. i. p. 256.[62]The old metrical romance ofRichard Cœur de Lyonhas a similar reference to the Holy Land expedition—‘The cuppes fast abouten yede,With good wyn, pyement and clarré.’[63]Marks and Monograms, p. 58.[64]Took in mind = was offended.For-think = repent.Bede = give.Yede = travel.[65]See Aspin’sManners and Customs of the Inhabitants of England; Maddox:History of the Exchequer; Burton:Annals.[66]Neckam.

[57]‘Le mot en effet paraît être de l’ancienne Chaldée, où il signifiait “brûler.” En trouve-t-on des rudiments chez les peuples d’où nous vint d’abord cet “esprit” des liqueurs fermentées? On a cru longtemps que c’étaient les Arabes, mais nous pensons, avec Mongez et Pauw, que ce sont les Tartares qui en auraient appris la fabrication par les Chaldéens. Certaines liqueurs importées de Perse en Egypte semblent avoir été alcooliques.’ Edouard Fournier,Mélanges, vol. iii. p. 517.

[58]From Ritson’sAncient Songs and Ballads.

[59]Short History of the English People.‘The Latin poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes,’ form a volume edited by the laborious Mr. Thomas Wright for the Camden Society in 1841.

[60]Cf. Tomline and Rokewode,Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century.

[61]Rapin,History of England, vol. i. p. 256.

[62]The old metrical romance ofRichard Cœur de Lyonhas a similar reference to the Holy Land expedition—‘The cuppes fast abouten yede,With good wyn, pyement and clarré.’

[62]The old metrical romance ofRichard Cœur de Lyonhas a similar reference to the Holy Land expedition—

‘The cuppes fast abouten yede,With good wyn, pyement and clarré.’

[63]Marks and Monograms, p. 58.

[64]Took in mind = was offended.For-think = repent.Bede = give.Yede = travel.

[65]See Aspin’sManners and Customs of the Inhabitants of England; Maddox:History of the Exchequer; Burton:Annals.

[66]Neckam.

PLANTAGENET PERIOD (continued).—JOHN, TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD II.

A curious anecdote is told of King John in a book of anecdote,[67]that upon his last visit to Nottingham he called at the house of the mayor, and at the residence of the priest of St. Mary’s. Finding neither ale in the cellar of one, nor bread in the cupboard of the other, his majesty ordered every publican in the town to contribute sixpennyworth of ale to the mayor yearly, and that every baker should give a halfpenny loaf weekly to the priest. This custom was continued in the time of Blackner, the Nottingham historian, who wrote in 1815. The king, like his brothers, was fond of drink. Sir Walter in hisIvanhoe, while pleading for the general manners of his subjects, admits that John, and those who courted his pleasure by imitating his foibles, were apt to indulge to excess in the pleasures of the trencher and the goblet, and adds, ‘indeed, it is well known that his death was occasioned by a surfeit upon peaches and new ale.’ D’Aubigné, in hisHistory of the Reformation, referring to this king, says that he drank copiously of cider, and died of drunkenness and fright. As his authority for this, he gives in a footnote a Latin extract from Matthew Paris to the effect that his sickness was increased by his pernicious gluttony; he surfeited himself with peaches and new cider, which greatly aggravated the fever in him.

The action of the Church in this reign to suppress intemperance brings us into contact with one in particular of many kindred species of sources of excess, namely,

Scot Ales.

First of all, what is the derivation of this compound term? ‘Scot’ (Saxonsceat, a part) signifies a portion of money assessed or paid—hence any payment. Thus ‘scot-free’ means no payment. ‘Ale’ signifies a merry gathering, a feast, a merry-making. We find it variously combined with prefixes which mostly explain themselves, as bid-ale, bride-ale, church-ale, clerk-ale, Easter-ale, give-ale, help-ale, lamb-ale, leet-ale, Midsummer-ale, scot-ale, tithe-ale, weddyn-ale, Whitsun-ale. In each of these a festival is denoted, at which ale was the predominant drink. In this sense Ben Jonson uses the term in the lines:—

And all the neighbourhood, from old recordsOf antique proverbs, drawn from Whitsun lords,And their authorities at wakes and ales.

And again:—

And then satten some and songe at theale![68]

Scot-ales accordingly denote a gathering at which the companysharethe drinking expenses. But the first act of legislation on the subject presents to us the expression with a narrowed, but none the less definite, sense. In the year 1213 King John in his absence had appointed Fitzpiers, and Peter (the Bishop of Winchester), regents of the kingdom. They summoned a council at St. Albans, in which, among other matters, it was proclaimed to the sheriffs,foresters, and others, as theyloved their life and limbs, not to make any violent extortions, nor dare to injure any one, or to holdscot-alesanywhere in the kingdom, as they had been wont to do. This legislation was clearly levelled at the foresters, or officers of the forests, who kept ale-houses and drew customers by intimidation. Mr. Bridgett has clearly exposed their oppression. He says, ‘It will be remembered that royal forests, or uncultivated lands, formed, at that time, no small part of England, and that they were not subject to common law. The king’s officers took advantage of this immunity to exercise great tyranny over the people, and, previous to this period, sought to raise money by setting up taverns and drinking assemblies, which the country people were compelled to frequent for fear of incurring the displeasure of their petty tyrants. Modes of raising money, different in form, though similar in their nature and consequences, are by no means unknown to publicans at the present day; and labouring men, in order to get hired, have sometimes to purchase the good-will of the master of the beer or gin shop in which workmen assemble and wages are paid. It will be a happy day when a new Magna Charta shall rescue the nation from the tyranny of the “liquor interest,” whether it be that of the great brewers and distillers, or of the petty vendors.’[69]

But scot-ales were by no means confined to the foresters. The evil spread; the country was infested with them, and of this the language of councils and synods throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is ample evidence.

In these ecclesiastical prohibitions the word ‘scotallum’ isscot-aledog-latinised, a nut which many a foreign reader has failed to crack.

In the year 1220, Richard de Marisco, Bishop of Durham, decreed: ‘We forbid announcements of scot-ales to be made by a priest or any one else in the church. If priest or cleric do this, or take part in a scot-ale, he will be punished canonically.’

In 1223, Richard, Bishop of Sarum, orders, ‘that no announcement of scot-ales be made by laymen in the church, and neither in the churches nor out of the churches by priests or by clergymen.’

In 1230, Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, writes to his archdeacons: ‘We strictly command that you prohibit in your synods and chapters those drinking assemblies which are commonly called scot-ales; and every year, in every church of your archdeaconries, this prohibition must be several times made known; and if any presume to violate this prohibition, canonically made, you must admonish them canonically, and proceed against them by ecclesiastical censures.’

In 1237, Alexander Stavenby, Bishop of Coventry, forbids under penalty any priest to go to a tavern, or to keep a tavern or scot-ale.

In 1240, Walter of Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, decreed: ‘We forbid the clergy to take part in those drinking parties called scot-ales, or to keep taverns. They must also deter their flocks from them, forbidding by God’s authority and ours the aforesaid scot-ales, and other meetings for drinking.’

In 1255, Walter de Kirkham, Bishop of Durham, wrote: ‘We adjure all priests, by Him who lives for ever, and all the ministers of the Church, especially those in holy orders, that they be not drunkards, norkeep taverns, lest they die an eternal death; moreover, we forbid scot-ales and games in sacred places.’

In 1256, Giles of Bridport, Bishop of Salisbury, decreed: ‘We confirm the prohibition of scot-ales, which has been made for the good both of souls and bodies; and we command rectors, vicars, and other parochial priests that, by frequent exhortations, they earnestly induce their parishioners not rashly to violate the prohibition.’

For another century occasional decrees are issued upon the same subject. One of the last admonitions respecting scot-ales is to be found proceeding from the Synod of Ely in 1364.

It will have been observed how vigorous was the action of the Church in the reign of Henry III. But all is not yet told. Archbishop Langton, in his Constitutions, 1222, decrees (canon 30) that archdeacons, deans, rural deans, and priests abstain from immoderate eating and drinking. Again (canon 47), that neither monks nor canons regular spend time in eating or drinking, save at the stated hours. They may by leave quench their thirst in the refectory, but not indulge.

In the Constitutions of Archbishop Edmund, 1236, the sixth canon forbids clergymen ‘the ill practice by which all that drink together are obliged to equal draughts, and he carries away the credit who hath made most drunk, and taken off the largest cups; therefore, we forbid all forcing to drink.’

Bishop Grosseteste, to whom reference has lately been made, turned his attention to the indirect as well as the direct occasions of excess. He suppressed the May games in his diocese of Lincoln, from which date the practices of the day have gradually changed. The nature of thefestivities may be guessed from the fact that the Maypole used to be calledale-stake.[70]

The action of the civil power was still limited in its scope. Regulation of tariff was among the most prominent of its efforts. Thus in the fifty-first year of Henry III. (1266), it was enacted that when a quarter of wheat is sold for 3s.or 3s.4d., and a quarter of barley for 1s.8d., and a quarter of oats for 1s.4d., then brewers in cities ought and may well afford to sell two gallons of beer or ale for a penny; and out of cities to sell three or four gallons for a penny. These regulations are indicative that the manufacture of ale had become of much consequence.

The quality of this drink was questionable. Matthew Paris describes it as very weak.

Henry of Avranches, a Norman poet of the period, has some coarse banter upon it. The lines as translated begin thus:—

Of this strange drink, so like the Stygian lake,Men call itale, I know not what to make.

The criticism of the barons of Snowdon on London ale counts for what it is worth, for nothing satisfied them. Quartered at Islington, when they accompanied Llewellyn to England, they could neither drink the wine nor ale of London; neither mead nor Welsh ale could be obtained; the English bread they refused to eat, and all London could not afford milk enough for their daily requirement. Hard to please they clearly were; nevertheless, their complaint of the ale was justifiable. It was made indiscriminately of barley, wheat, and oats, sometimes of all combined. Without the hop, the alemust have been insipid. To remove its mawkish flatness, they flavoured it with spices and other ingredients, especially long pepper.

Home-made cider was evidently in repute, since we find in this reign of Henry III. a gentleman holding his manor in Norfolk on condition of supplying the king, annually, at his exchequer, with twomitesof wine, made of pearmains (a species of apple).

Again, before the close of this thirteenth century, Edward I. orders the Sheriff of Southamptonshire to provide 400 quarters of wheat, and to convey the same in good ships from Portsmouth to Winchelsea. Also to put on board the said ships 200 tuns of cider.

Still, whatever were the merits of the home vineyards and breweries, historians began to observe the growing fondness for foreign wines. They accounted for it in various ways: the listlessness of the people, home and foreign wars, crusades, and that ever-recurring cause of new phenomena, ‘change of circumstances.’ So argues Twyne, a man, according to history, of extraordinary knowledge in the antiquities of England.[71]

A new custom of one penny for every tun, calledguage, was levied on all wines imported. From the duty collected between a given date in 1272 and 1273, at the ports of London, Portsmouth, Southampton, and Sandwich, we find that there were imported 8,846 tuns, in addition to theprisanot liable to the new impost.

Vinous preparations of a fancy character were much in use. We read of an order for the delivery of two tuns of white and one of red wine to make garhiofilac and clarry for the king’s table at York. The namesof some of these preparations are painfully significant. Recipes are found for makingBishop,Cardinal,Pope.

Whether in consequence of the royal statute upon ale, or for some other reason, the first mention I can find of theCrownas an inn sign occurs in this reign. The tavern was in that part of Cheapside called, after the inn, Crown Field. The king was evidently a moderate, plain-living man; the only festivities that he seemed to care for being those at Christmastide.

Inns, even at this time, were uncommon. In the time of Edward I. Lord Berkeley’s farmhouses were used instead. Travellers would not only inquire for hospitable persons, but even go to the king’s palaces for refreshment. Knights were known to lodge in barns. But, though few in number, they had already proved a nuisance. In the statutes for the regulation of the city of London in the time of Edward I., it is stated that ‘divers persons do resort unto the city:’ some who had been banished, or who had fled from their own country, also foreigners and others, many of them suspicious characters; and ‘of these, some do become brokers, hostlers, and innkeepers, within the city, as freely as though they were good and lawful men of the franchise of the city; and some do nothing but run up and down through the streets, more by night than by day, and are well attired in clothing and array, and have their food of delicate meats and costly; neither do they use any craft or merchandise; nor have they any lands or tenements whereof to live, nor any friend to find them; and through such persons many perils do often happen inthe city.’ In addition to this, it was complained that ‘offenders, going about by night, do commonly resort and have their meetings, and evil talk in taverns more than elsewhere, and there do seek for shelter, lying in wait and watching their time to do mischief.’ To do away with this grievance, taverns were not allowed to be opened for the sale of wine and ale after the tolling of the curfew.

In the first year of Edward I.’s reign was abolished the old impost calledPrisage, and in its place a duty imposed of 2s.on every tun of wine imported. This tax afterwards obtained the name ofButlerage, because it was paid to the king’s butler. It was abolished in 1311, in consequence of a petition urged upon Edward II. for the redress of this and many other grievances.

It was stated above that ale was made of various cereals. In 1302, barley-malt was rated at 3s.4d.per quarter, and from the cheapness of wheat the brewers malted that grain also. The beer made from barley was 3d.or 4d.a gallon, while that from wheat was only 1½d., wheat being then only about 2s.the quarter.[72]This caused a proclamation prohibiting the malting of wheat, lest it should prevent the encouragement of its growth for bread, and give the advantage to corn and other grain.

The Church made herself heard during the long reign of Edward I. in the Constitutions of Archbishop Peckham, 1281, and in a synod at Exeter, 1287. In the former, immoderate love of the pleasures of the table, both in eating and drinking, was condemned. In the latter, instructions were issued against the keeping or frequenting of taverns by the priesthood; and such instructions were doubtless needed. Nor did the satirists spare the clergy. One of these, writing at the close of the thirteenth century, thus exposes a new order to which is attached the name of ‘Fair-Ease.’ Speaking of the particulars in which this new order imitated other orders, he adds: ‘Of Beverly they have taken a point, which shall be kept well and accurately; to drink well at their meat, and then afterwards until supper; and afterwards at the collation each must have a piece of candle as long as the arm below the elbow, and as long as there shall remain a morsel of the candle to burn, the brethren must continue their drinking.’ And again: ‘A point they have taken from the Black Monks, that they love drinking, forsooth, and are drunk every day, for they do not know any other way of living.... Also it is provided that each brother drink before dinner and after;’ and much more to the same effect.

At a visitation at St. Swithin’s Priory at Winchester, it appears that the monks claimed to have, among other articles of luxury, ‘vinum tam album quam rubeum, claretum, medonem, burgurastrum.’ This was in the year 1285. In the following year a benefactor grants to the said convent ‘unam pipam vini’ for their refection.[73]

Another satire on the corruptions in the Church, entitled ‘The Land of Cockaigne,’ is assigned to the latter part of the thirteenth century. The name signifies ‘kitchen-land.’ In this popular poem the land of animal delights is painted as the happy land of monks who had turned their backs upon the higher life towhich they were devoted. A line or two will give an idea.

In Cokaygne is met and drinkWithout care, how, and swink.The met is trie, the drink is clere,To none, russin, and sopper.

Which Professor Morley interprets:—

In Cockaigne is meat and drinkWithout care, trouble, and toil.The meat is choice, the drink is clear,At dinner, draught, and supper,

and explainsrussinto be wine between meals, often condemned of old; and connects with it the termsrouseandcarouse, which, says he, denote emptying of the wine-cup, quoting, ‘The queencarousesto thy fortune, Hamlet.’ But the words are generally referred togar aus, all out. ‘Russin,’ in the eastern counties, still denotes drink at odd hours.

The household roll of the Countess of Leicester, widow of Simon de Montfort, reveals some secrets of the private life of the English towards the end of this thirteenth century. Among the wines in use in that family,GasconandBastardare prominent. Bastard was a sweet Spanish wine, of which there were two sorts, white and brown. Little is told in the roll of the price of wine. Nine shillings and twopence was paid for twenty-two gallons.

We are able to get a comparative view of the prices of food at this time from a list of articles supplied by his tenants when the Archbishop of Canterbury visited his lands at Tarrings in Sussex, about 1277. The prices seem very low.

The quantity of beer consumed in the household of the countess was immense. On April 18, they brewed five quarters of barley and four of oats; on the 25th of the same month they bought 188 gallons of beer, and on the 29th brewed again. Cider is mentioned once, but was not especially relished. One tun was distributed among 800 paupers. Cordials were in demand.[74]

In the ‘Squire of Low Degree,’ probably of early fourteenth century date, the King of Hungary offers to provide for his daughter wines from all manners of countries—

Ye shall have Rumney and Malmesyne,Both Hippocras and Vernage wine,Mount Rose and wine of Greke,Both Algrade and despice eke,Antioche and Bastarde,Pyment also and garnarde;Wine of Greek and Muscadell,Both claré, pyment, and Rochell,The reed your stomake to defye,And pottes of Osey sett you bye.[75]

The constant mention about this time of Hippocras (Ipocras, Ypocrasse) demands some notice. It was a most favourite drink of the middle ages, a compound of wine and aromatics. A curious recipe for it is given in Pegge’sForm of Cury—‘Ypocrasse for lords with gynger, synamon, and graynes, sugour, and turesoll; and forcomyn pepull, gynger, canell, longe peper, and claryffyed hony.’ Another recipe is found, much in vogue at wedding festivals, ‘introduced at the commencement of the banquet, served hot; of so comforting and generous a nature that the stomach would be at once put into good temper.’ It was constantly served with comfits; thus we find Elizabeth Woodville ordering up ‘green ginger, comfits, and ipocras.’ Katharine of Arragon gave ipocras and comfits for thevoide. In a satire upon Wolsey, entitled, ‘Why come ye not to the Court?’ we find it in the company of sweetmeat—

Welcome, dame Simonia,With dame Castimergia,To drynke and for to eate,Swete ipocras, and swete meate.

It is strange that Pepys should have thought it unintoxicating. Thus October 9, 1663, he went to Guildhall, met there some friends; wine was offered, ‘and they drunk, I only drinking some hypocras, which do not break my vowe, it being, to the best of my present judgment, only a mixed compound drink, and not any wine. If I am mistaken, God forgive me! But I hope and do think I am not.’ It differed from clarry (claré), wine mixed withhoneyand spice. Hence Fournier mistakes in thinking that hippocras was wine spiced ‘ou édulcoré avec le miel’ (Le Vieux-Neuf, vol. ii.).

We hear very little of home vineyards at this time, and, but for incidental allusions, it might be imagined that the foreign trade was a monopoly. At the same time, such allusions as we have are convincing that native wine was a rarity. Lambarde states that the Bishop of Rochester sent to King Edward II. when he was at Bockingfield ‘a present of his drinks, andwithal both wines and grapes,of his own growth, in his vineyard at Hallings.’

The days when bishops were identified with the contents of the cellar are buried in the sepulchre of the long past, but we are now speaking of a time when a bishop’s induction to his see was often a disgrace to civilisation. It is incredible, remarks Godwin, in his notice of the installation of Bishop Stapleton to the See of Exeter (1308), how many oxen, tuns of ale and wine, are said to have been usually spent at this kind of solemnity.

We have already mentioned that the duty on wine was taken off in the year 1311. Four years later, a proclamation was issued prohibiting the malting of wheat.[76]In 1317, merchants who were not of the freedom of the city were forbidden to retail wines or other wares within its precincts or suburbs. Thus much for the legislation of the reign.

The hospitality of the time must have been unbounded. Stowe gives a curious instance, taken from the accounts of the Earl of Lancaster’s steward for the year 1313. The items, which included 369 pipes of red wine, amounted to 7,309l., which is more than 20,000l.of our money, and, making the due allowance for the relative prices of food, would represent something like 100,000l.sterling.

The terrible fate of Edward II. almost forbids harsh criticism of his life. He was certainly fond of the pleasures of the table, and is said to have given way to intemperance. Had not the banqueting-room been oftener employed than the council-chamber, opportunities might not have occurred for the rebellion of favourites, for which the festal board was answerable.

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