Extremism

Featured on alibris.com
( 4.7/5.0 ★ | 192 downloads )
-- Click the link to download --

https://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=*C/UgjGtUZ8&offerid=1494105.26
539780262535878&type=15&murl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alibris.com%2Fsearch%2
Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780262535878
Extremism

ISBN: 9780262535878
Category: Media > Books
File Fomat: PDF, EPUB, DOC...
File Details: 6.2 MB
Language: English
Website: alibris.com
Short description: Good Used books may not include access codes or one
time use codes. Proven Seller with Excellent Customer Service. Choose
expedited shipping and get it FAST.

DOWNLOAD: https://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=*C/UgjGtUZ8&
offerid=1494105.26539780262535878&type=15&murl=http%3A%2F%2F
www.alibris.com%2Fsearch%2Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780262535878
 Extremism

• Click the link: https://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=*C/UgjGtUZ8&offerid=1494105.2653978026253587

8&type=15&murl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alibris.com%2Fsearch%2Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780262535878 to do
latest version of Extremism in multiple formats such as PDF, EPUB, and more.

• Don’t miss the chance to explore our extensive collection of high-quality resources, books, and guides on
our website. Visit us regularly to stay updated with new titles and gain access to even more valuable
materials.
.
He that buys land buys many stones,
He that buys flesh buys many bones,
He that buys eggs buys many shells,
But he that buys good ale buys nothing else .
 C HAPTER II.
“What hath been and now is used by the English, as well since the Conquest, as
in the days of the Britons, Saxons and Danes.”—Drinke and Welcome.—Taylor.

“Not of an age, but for all time.”—Ben Jonson.

ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF ALE AND BEER

E must go back several thousand years into the

past to trace the origin of our modern ale and
beer. The ancient Egyptians, as we learn from the
Book of the Dead , a treatise at least 5,000 years
old, understood the manufacture of an
intoxicating liquor from grain. This liquor they
called hek , and under the slightly modified form
hemki the name has been used in Egypt for beer
until comparatively modern times. An ancient Egyptian medical
manual, of about the same date as the Book of the Dead , contains
frequent mention of the use of Egyptian beer in medicine, and at a
period about 1,000 years later, the papyri afford conclusive evidence
of the existence even in that early age, of a burning liquor question
in Egypt, for it is recorded that intoxication had become so common
that many of the beer shops had to be suppressed.
Herodotus, after stating that the Egyptians used “wine made from
barley” because there were no vines in the country, mentions a
tradition that Osiris, the Egyptian Bacchus, first taught the Egyptians
how to brew, to compensate them for the natural deficiencies of
their native land. Herodotus, however, was frequently imposed upon
by the persons from whom he derived his narrative, and no trace of
any such tradition is to be found elsewhere. Wine was undoubtedly
made in Egypt two or three thousand years before his time. {26}
It is maintained by some that the Hebrew word sicera , which
occurs in the Bible and is in our version translated “strong drink,”
was none other than the barley-wine mentioned in Herodotus, and
that the Israelites brought from Egypt the knowledge of its use.
Certain it is that they understood the manufacture of sicera shortly
after the exodus, for we find in Leviticus that the priests are
forbidden to drink wine or “strong drink” before they go into the
tabernacle, and in the Book of Numbers the Nazarenes are required
not only to abstain from wine and “strong drink,” but even from
vinegar made from either; and in all the passages where the word
occurs it is formally distinguished from wine. It may be mentioned in
passing, that this word sicera has been regarded as being the
equivalent of the word cider. The passage in Numbers is translated
in Tyndale’s version, “They shall drink neither wyn ne sydyr,” and it is
this rendering that has earned for Tyndale’s translation the name of
the cider Bible.
It seems highly probable that the word sicera signified any
intoxicating liquor other than wine, whether made from corn, honey
or fruit.
In support of the theory that beer was known amongst the Jews,
may be mentioned the Rabbinical tradition that the Jews were free
from leprosy during the captivity in Babylon by reason of their
drinking “siceram veprium, id est, ex lupulis confectam ,” or sicera
made with hops, which one would think could be no other than
bitter beer.
Speaking of this old Egyptian barley-wine, Aeschylus seems to
imply that it was not held in very high esteem, for he says that only
the women-kind would drink it.5 Evidently the phrase, “to be learned
in all the learning of the Egyptians,” had no reference to a
competent knowledge of brewing. Before leaving the land of the
Pharaoh, it may be mentioned that in that country the labourers still
drink a kind of beer extracted from unmalted barley. A traveller in
Egypt some years ago recorded in one of the London daily papers
that his crew on the Nile made an intoxicating liquor from the
fermentation of bread in water; he says that it was called boozer ,
but whether by himself or crew is not clear. {27}
 A goodly number of instances may be found in various old Greek
writers of the mention of barley-wine under the various terms of
κρίθινον πεπωκότες οινον,6 ἐκ κριθῶν μεθυ, βρῦτον ἐκ τῶν κριθῶν,
but it does not appear that beer was ever a popular beverage in
Hellas. Further north, the Thracians, as Archilochus tells, brewed and
drank a good deal of beer.

5 Aesch. Supp. 953.

6 Hipp. 395. 1, Athen. 1 & 10, Aesch. Fr. 116, Archil. 28.

Among the Greek writers, Xenophon gives the most interesting

and complete account of beer in the year 401 B.C. In describing the
retreat of the Ten Thousand, he tells how, on approaching a certain
village in Armenia which had been allotted to him, he selected the
most active of his troops, and making a sudden descent upon the
place captured all the villagers and their headman. One man alone
escaped—the bridegroom of the headman’s daughter, who had been
married nine days, and was gone out to hunt hares. The snow was
six feet deep at the time. Xenophon goes on to describe the
dwellings of this singular people. Their houses were under ground,
the entrance like that of a well, but wide below. There were
entrances dug out for the cattle, but the men used to get down by a
ladder. And in the houses were goats, sheep, oxen, fowls and their
young ones, and all the animals were fed inside with fodder. And
there was wheat, and barley, and pulse, and barley-wine (οἶνος
κρίθινος) in bowls. And the malt, too, itself was in the bowl, and
level with the brim. And reeds lay in it, some long, some short, with
no joints, and when anyone was thirsty he had to take a reed in his
hand and suck. The liquor was very strong, says Xenophon, unless
one poured water into it, and the drink was pleasant to one
accustomed to it. And whenever anyone in friendliness wished to
drink to his comrade, he used to drag him to the bowl, where he
must stoop down and drink, gulping it down like an ox. The
inhabitants of the Khanns district of Armenia, through which
Xenophon’s world-famed march was made, still pursue much the
same life as they did more than two thousand years ago. They live
in these curious subterranean dwellings with all their live stock about
them, but, alas! modern travellers aver that they have lost the art of
making barley-wine.
Enough has been said as to the use of beer among Eastern
nations to disprove the theory of the old author of the Haven of
Health , who asserts, quoting “Master Eliote” as his authority, that
ale was never used as a common drink in any other country than in
“England, Scotland, Ireland, and Poile.” {28}
Ale or beer was in common use in Germany in the time of Tacitus,
and Pliny, who may have tasted beer while serving in the army in
Germany, says, “All the nations who inhabit the west of Europe have
a liquor with which they intoxicate themselves, made of corn and
water (fruge madida ). The manner of making this liquor is
somewhat different in Gaul, Spain, and other countries, and it is
called by various names; but its nature and properties are
everywhere the same. The people of Spain in particular brew this
liquor so well that it will keep good for a long time. So exquisite is
the ingenuity of mankind in gratifying their vicious appetites, that
they have thus invented a method of making water itself intoxicate.”
Among the many various kinds of drink so made were zythum ,
cœlia , ceria , Cereris vinum , curmi , and cerevisia . All these names,
except zythum , are probably merely local variations of one word,
whose British representative may be found in the Welsh cwrw .
Turning to the earliest records of the use of malt liquors in this
country, we find that, according to Diodorus Siculus, the Britons
made use of a very simple diet which consisted chiefly of milk and
venison. Their usual drink was water; but upon festive occasions
they drank a kind of fermented liquor, made of barley, honey, or
apples, and were very quarrelsome in their cups. Dioscorides wrote
in the first century that the Britons, instead of wine, use “curmi,” a
liquor made from barley. Pytheas (300 B.C. ) said a fermented grain
liquor was made in Thule.
The drinks in use in this island at the time of its conquest by the
Romans seem to have been metheglin, cider, and ale. Metheglin, or
mead, was probably the most ancient and universally used of all
intoxicating drinks among European nations. Cider is in all probability
the next in order of antiquity of the drinks in use amongst our Celtic
predecessors. It was made from wild apples, but its use was
probably not so wide-spread as that of either mead or ale.
The two drinks, mead and cider, are appropriate to nations who
have made but slight advances on the path of civilisation. Tribes of
nomads, or of hunters, would find the wherewithal for their
manufacture—the honey in the hollow tree, the crabs growing wild
in the woods. The manufacture of ale, however, indicates another
step forward; it implies the settlement in particular districts, and the
knowledge and practice of agriculture. It is, therefore, not surprising
to find that the Celtic inhabitants of the midland and northern parts
of this country, at the time of the first Roman attack, knew no drink
but mead and cider; while, in the southern districts, where contact
with {29} the outer world had brought about a somewhat more
advanced civilisation and a more settled mode of life, agriculture was
practised, and cerevisia , or ale, was added to the list of beverages.
Given below is a metrical version of the origin of ale. It is put in
this place between the account of the use of ale by the Britons and
its use by the Saxons, because our anonymous poet does not seem
to have quite made up his mind whether he is recording a British or
a Saxon myth. The name of the king would seem to point to a British
origin, whilst some of the gods on whom he calls are Teutonic.
 THE ORIGIN OF BEER.
In a jolly field of barley good King Cambrinus slept,
And dreaming of his thirsty realm the merry monarch wept,
“In all my land of Netherland there grows no mead or wine,
And water I could never coax adown this throat of mine.
“Now list to me, ye heathen gods, and eke ye Christian too,
Both Zernebock and Jupiter, and Mary clad in blue;
And mighty Thor the Thunderer, and any else that be,
The one who aids me in my need his servant I will be.”
And as this sinful heathen all in the barley lay,
There came in dreams an angel bright who soft these words did
say—
“Arise, thou poor Cambrinus, for even all around,
In the barley where thou sleepest a nectar may be found.
“In the barley where thou sleepest there hides a nectar clear,
Which men shall know in later times as porter , ale or beer .”
Then in terms the most explicit he “put the monarch through,”
And gave him ere the dream was out the recipe to brew.
Uprose good King Cambrinus and shook him in the sun.
“Away, ye wretched heathen gods—with you I’m quit and done!
Ye’ve left me with my subjects in error and in thirst;
Till in our dreadful dryness we scarce know which is worst.”
It was the good Cambrinus unto his palace went,
And messengers through all the land unto his lords he sent,
“Leave Odin, under pain of death!”—his orders were severe,
Yet touched with mildness—for he sent the recipe for beer. {30}
 Oh, then a merry sound was heard of building through the land,
And the churches and the breweries went up on every hand;
For the masons they were hard at work where’er a spot seemed
pat,
And some had bricks within their hods, and some within their
hats.
In the sister Island are to be found very early references to ale.
The Senchus Mor , which contains some of the oldest and most
important of the ancient laws of Ireland, has the following passages
in which mention of this drink occurs:―
“What is a human banquet? The banquet of each one’s feasting-
house to his chief according to his due (i.e. , the chief’s), to which
his (i.e. , the tenant’s) deserts entitle him; viz., a supper with ale, a
feast without ale, a feast by day. The feast without ale is divided; it
is distributed according to dignity; the feeding of the assembly of the
forces of a territory, assembled for the purpose of demanding proof
and law, and answering to illegality. Suppers with ale, feasts without
ale, are the fellowship of the Feini.” It is difficult to understand the
ideas contained in these old Erse laws and customs, but the main
thing for the present purpose is the evidence they give that ale was
known and commonly used in Ireland as early as the fifth century.7
From the Brehon law tracts it may be gathered that the privileges
of an Irish king included the right to have his ale supplied him with
food;8 he was also to have a brave army and an inebriating ale-
house . The Irish chief is always to have two casks in his house, one
of ale, another of milk; he should also have three sacks—a sack of
malt, a sack of salt, and a sack of charcoal.

7 The Senchus Mor was composed in the time of Lœghaire, son of Niall, King
of Erin, about A.D. 430, a few years after the arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland.

8 Doubtless an allusion to the old food rents once common in Ireland.

Wales was also to some extent an ale-producing country, and we

find in Anglo-Saxon times Welsh ale frequently alluded to as a
luxury. When Offa renders the lands at Westbury and Stanbury to
the church of Worcester, he accepts at Westbury these services : 2
tunne full of clear Ale, and a cumbe (16 quarts ) full of smaller Ale,
and a cumbe of Welsh Ale, besides other services. There was a
payment to the said church also out of the lands at Breodune of 3
cuppes full of Ale, 111 dolea Brytannicæ cervissiæ (i.e. , casks of
British Ale), and 3 hogsheads of {31} Welsh Ale, quorum unum fit
melle dulcoratum (i.e. , of which one was to be sweetened with
honey). Henry, in his History of England , in treating of the drinks
used in England and Wales during five centuries before the Norman
Conquest, remarks on the rarity of the use of ale in Wales at that
time. “Mead,” he says, “was still one of their favourite liquors, and
bore a high price; for a cask of mead, by the laws of Wales, was
valued at 120 pence, equal in quantity of silver to thirty shillings of
our present money, and in efficacy to fifteen pounds. The
dimensions of a cask of mead must be nine palms in height, and so
capacious as to serve the King and one of his counsellors for a
bathing tub.” By another law its diameter is fixed at eighteen palms.
The Welsh had also two kinds of ale, called common ale and spiced
ale , and their value was thus ascertained by law—“If a farmer hath
no mead (to pay part of his rent) he shall pay two casks of spiced
ale , or four casks of common ale for one cask of mead.” By the
same law, a cask of spiced ale , nine palms in height and eighteen
palms in diameter, was valued at a sum equal in efficacy to seven
pounds ten shillings of our present money; and a cask of common
ale , of the same dimensions, at a sum equal to three pounds fifteen
shillings. This is a sufficient proof that even common ale at this
period was an article of luxury among the Welsh which could only be
obtained by the great and opulent. Wine seems to have been quite
unknown even to the Kings of Wales at this period, as it is not so
much as once mentioned in their laws; though Giraldus Cambrensis,
who flourished about a century after the Conquest, acquaints us that
there was a vineyard in his time, at Maenarper, near Pembroke, in
South Wales.
Before leaving the subject of the British use of ale, it will perhaps
amuse some of our readers to find that the very name of Britain has
been derived by some from the word βρῡτον, the Greek for beer.
The following extract from Hearne’s Discourses is a good instance of
that reckless ingenuity in guessing derivations, for which our older
school of philologists was ever so justly famed:—“There is one
thing,” he says, “which upon this occasion the antiquaries should
have observed, and that is our Mault Liquor, called βρῡτον in
Athenæus. Which being so, it is humbly offered to the consideration
of more judicious persons whether our Britannia might not be
denominated from βρῡτον, the whole nation being famous for such
sort of drink. ’Tis true, Athenæus does not mention the Britains
among those that drunk mault drink; and the reason is, because he
had not met with any writer that had {32} celebrated them upon that
account, whereas the others that he mentions to drink it were put
down in his Authors. Nor will it seem a wonder, that even those
people he speaks of were not called Britaines from the said liquor,
since it was not their constant and common drink, but was only used
by them upon occasion, whereas it was always made use of in
Britain, and it was looked upon as peculiar to this Island, and other
liquors were esteemed as foreign, and not so agreeable to the
nature of the country. And I have some reason to think that those
few other people that drunk it abroad did it only in imitation of the
Britains, though we have no records remaining upon which to
ground this opinion.”
It is rather unfortunate that, in the cause of science, our author
did not inform us what that “some reason to think” of his in fact
was. However, let us honour his patriotism if we may not his
learning.
It would appear that ale and beer were different words signifying
the same thing, ale being the Saxon ealu and Danish öl , probably
connected with our word oil, and beer being the Saxon beor . Horne
Tooke, in his Diversions of Purley , says that “ale” is derived from a
Saxon verb ælan , which signifies to inflame.
The word “beer” has been the occasion of some ingenuity and not
a little diversity of opinion among the philologists. Goldast derived it
a pyris , because (he asserts) beer was first made from pears;
Vossius from the Latin bibere , to drink, thus: Bibere , Biber and
(extrito b ) Bier ; Somner from the Hebrew Bar , corn. Probably the
true derivation is that which connects the word with the root of the
verb, to brew . However this may be, the connection of the word
barley with the word beere —denoting a coarse kind of barley—is
unmistakeable. Beer was originally used to denote the beverage and
also the plant from which it was brewed. Beere or bigge is still to be
found growing in some parts of Scotland and Ireland, but in England
it has given place to the more refined barley (i.e. , beer-lec or beer
plant).
The attempt to connect the word “yule” with “ale” is probably
fanciful, and may have originated from the use of the word “ale” as
denoting not only the liquor, but also any festival at which it formed
the principal beverage (e.g. the Whitsun Ale). Yule or Jule is
probably derived, along with the festival it represents, from the
Celts. It was a feast in honour of the sun, the Celtic name for which
was heol or houl and was designed to celebrate the time when the
Sun-god, after sinking to his lowest point in the heavens in mid-
winter, begins again to ascend the sky, ushering in a period of
warmth and plenty. When the Saxons {33} were converted to
Christianity, their teachers, instead of entirely doing away with the
older forms of religion, allowed them to remain, adapting them to
the new faith. This was very usual in early days of Christianity, and
thus we find the heathen “Yule” merged in the great Christian
festival of Christmas.
The very ancient Anglo-Saxon poem entitled Beowulf , a poem
which may be said to be the earliest considerable fragment of our
language now extant, shows that ale was the chief drink amongst
our Anglo-Saxon ancestors in the far-off days, before they had
seized upon this land of England. It contains a mythological account
of the rescue by the hero Beowulf of his friends from the Grendel, a
monster who was constantly slaughtering and carrying some of
them away. The feast is thus described: “Then was for the sons of
the Geats, altogether, a bench cleared in the beer-hall; there the
bold in spirit went to sit; the thane observed his office, he that in his
hand bare the twisted ale-cup; he poured the bright sweet liquor.”
Further on, the Danish queen comes in to greet the victors. “There
was laughter of heroes, the noise was modulated, words were
winsome; Wealtheow, Hrothgar’s queen, went forth; mindful of their
races, she, hung round with gold, greeted the men in the hall; and
the freeborn lady gave the cup first to the prince of the East Danes;
she bade him be blithe at the service of beer, dear to his people. He,
the king, proud of victory, joyfully received the feast and hall-cup
. . .”
That it was customary among our ancestors for the lady of the
house herself to fill the guests’ cups after dinner, may be gathered
from the poem called the Geste of Kyng Horn , which in its present
form is of thirteenth century date, but is probably founded upon a
much earlier work. The poem thus describes Rymenhild, the queen
and wife of King Horn, performing this duty:―

Rymenhild ros of benche

Wyn for to schenche;9
After mete in sale,10
Bothe wyn and ale.
On horn he bar in honde.
So laye was in londe,11 {34}
Knightes and squier
Alle dronken of the ber.

9 Schenche = to pour out.

10 Sale = hall.

11
A horn she bare in her hand,
So was the custom in the land.

These lines also show that ale and beer were used at that time as
interchangeable words.
 Our Saxon ancestors seem to have made use of several kinds of
beverage; they had wine and mead, cider, which they called
æppelwin , and piment, which was a compound of wine, honey, and
spices. Ale and beer, however, seem, to use the quaint words of old
Harrison, to have “borne the brunt in drincking,” and to have formed
the national beverage of the English people from the earliest times
to the present day. Ale, honest English ale, was the general drink,
and wine was a luxury of the rich, as may be gathered from the old
Anglo-Saxon dialogue, entitled Alfric’s Colloquy , in which a lad, on
being asked what his drink is, replies, “Ale, if I have it, water, if I
have it not.” To the question why he does not drink wine his answer
is, “I am not so rich that I can buy me wine; and wine is not the
drink of children or the weak-minded, but of the elders and the
wise.”
The Exeter Book , which contains a collection of Anglo-Saxon
songs and poems, and was presented to the church at Exeter by
Bishop Leofric in the eleventh century, contains one of those curious
rhyming riddles so popular among the Saxons, which were known as
Symposii Ænigmata . It is as follows:―
 A part of the earth is
Prepared beautifully,
With the hardest,
And with the sharpest,
And with the grimmest
Of the productions of men,
Cut and . . . .
Turned and dried,
Bound and twisted,
Bleached and awakened,
Ornamented and poured out,
Carried afar
To the doors of the people,
It is joy in the inside
Of living creatures,
It knocks and slights
Those, of whom while alive {35}
A long while
It obeys the will,
And expostulateth not,
And then after death
It takes upon it to judge,
To talk variously.
It is greatly to seek,
By the wisest man,
What this creature is.
Those who remember the more elaborate legend of John
Barleycorn will not have far to seek for the solution of this
somewhat ponderous riddle.
The Anglo-Saxons, before their conversion to Christianity, believed
that some of the chief blessings to be enjoyed by departed heroes
were the frequent and copious draughts of ale served round to them
in the halls of Odin. Even after the spread of Christianity had
dispelled this heathen notion, all the evidence available seems to
point rather to an enlarged than a diminished consumption of malt
liquors. Whether our forefathers, practically-minded like their
descendants, resolved to make up here upon earth for the loss of
the expected joys of which their new creed had robbed them, it is
impossible at this distance of time to determine; but certain it is that
the popularity of our national beverage has gone on increasing from
that day to this.
In these early days rents were not infrequently paid in ale. In 852
the Abbot of Medeshampstede (Peterborough) let certain lands at
Sempringham to one Wulfred, on this condition, amongst others,
that he should each year deliver to the minster two tuns of pure ale
and ten mittans (measures) of Welsh ale. The ale-gafol mentioned
in the laws of Ine was a tribute or rent of ale paid by the tenant to
the lord of the manor. By an ancient charter granted in the time of
King Alfred, the tenants of Hysseburne, amongst other services,
rendered six church-mittans of ale.
Ale was also in olden days frequently liable to the payment of a
toll (tollester ) to the lord of the manor. In a Gloucestershire manor it
was customary for a tenant holding in villeinage to pay as toll to the
lord gallons of ale, whenever he brewed ale to sell. At Fiskerton, in
Notts, if {36} an ale-wife brews ale to sell she is to satisfy the lord for
tollester . In the manor of Tidenham, in Saxon times the villein is to
pay to the lord at the Martinmass six sesters of malt; and in the
same manor, in the reign of Edward I., we find the rent changed into
a toll, the tenant at the later period being bound to render to the
lord 8 gallons of beer at every brewing.
Similarly, wages were in some manors paid in kind. At
Brissingham, Norfolk, the tenants, amongst other services, might
perform 125 ale-beeves in the year, i.e. , carting-days, on which
attendance was not compulsory, but on which the tenants, if they
did attend, were entitled to bread and ale in lieu of wages. The word
“bever” still occurs in some places, denoting a harvest-man’s drink
between breakfast and dinner.
The Saxons and Danes were of a social disposition, and delighted
in forming themselves into fraternities or guilds. An important
feature of these institutions was the meeting for convivial purposes,
and their object was to promote good fellowship among the
members. The laws for the regulation of some of these bodies are
still in existence, and it seems were enforced by fines of honey, or
malt, to be used in the making of mead or ale for the use of the
members of the confraternity. It seems that both clergy and laity
were members of certain of the guilds, at any rate at one period of
their history, and allusion is probably made to these mixed
fraternities in the Canons of Archbishop Walter, A.D. 1200, in which
he directs “that clerks go not to taverns and drinking bouts, for from
thence come quarrels, and then laymen beat clergymen, and fall
under the Canon.”
During the Middle Ages ale was the usual drink of all classes of
Englishmen, and the wines of France were a luxury, in general only
consumed by the upper classes. In France, however, wine was the
common drink, and ale a luxury. William Fitz-Stephen, in his Life of
Thomas à Becket, states that when the latter went on an embassy to
France, he took with him two waggons laden with beer in iron-bound
casks, as a present to the French, “who admire that kind of drink,
for it is wholesome, clear, of the colour of wine, and of a better
taste.”
As an instance of the fame which English ale had attained abroad
in the twelfth century, may be cited the reply of Pope Innocent III.
to those who were arguing before him the case of the Bishop of
Worcester’s claims against the Abbey of Evesham. “Holy father,” said
they, “we have learnt in the schools, and this is the opinion of our
masters, that there is no prescription against the rights of bishops.”
His Holiness’s reply was blunt and somewhat personal: “Certainly,
both you and your masters had drunk too much English ale when
you learnt this.” {37}
A curious extract may here be added as indicative of the fame of
English ale amongst foreigners in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. It is taken from a work entitled “A Relation; or rather a
true account of the Island of England , A.D. 1500, translated from the
Italian by C. A. Sneyd.” “The deficiency of wine, however,” says our
author, “is amply supplied by the abundance of ale and beer, to the
use of which these people have become so habituated, that at an
entertainment where there is plenty of wine, they will drink them in
preference to it, and in great quantities. Like discreet people,
however, they do not offer them to Italians, unless they should ask
for them, and they think that no greater honour can be conferred, or
received, than to invite others to eat with them, or be invited
themselves; and they would sooner give five or six ducats to provide
an entertainment for a person, than a groat to assist him in any
distress. They are not without vines; and I have eaten grapes from
one, and wine might be made in Southern parts, but it would
probably be harsh. The natural deficiency of the country is supplied
by a great quantity of excellent wines from Candia, Germany,
France, and Spain; besides which, the common people make two
beverages from Wheat, Barley, and Oats, one of which is called beer,
and the other Ale; and these liquors are much liked by them, nor are
they disliked by foreigners, after they have drank them four or six
times; they are most agreeable to the palate, when a person is by
some chance rather heated.”
The regulations of the religious houses nearly always make
reference to ale; and it may be inferred from the evidence we
possess, that the holy fathers, who were always strong sticklers for
the rights and privileges of their order, would brook no interference
either with the quantity or quality of their liquor. In the Institutes of
the Abbey of Evesham, drawn up by Abbot Randulf about the year
1223, the directions as to the diet of the inmates of the Abbey, are
of great particularity. The Prior is to have one measure of ale at
supper (except when he shall sup with the Abbot). Each of the
fraternity shall every day receive two measures of ale, each of which
shall contain two pittances, of which pittances six make up a
“sextarium regis.” In the same rules it is laid down that the monks
are to have “two semes of beans from Huniburne, to make puddings
throughout all Lent.” Bean-pudding seems indeed a mortification of
the flesh! Further on we find: “On every day every two brethren
shall have one measure of ale from the cellar, but after being let
blood they shall have one for dinner and another for supper. The
servant who shall let the monks’ blood shall have bread and ale {38}
from the cellar, if he have blooded more than one.” A further account
of the monks as brewers will be found in the succeeding chapter.
The Proverbs of Hendyng (thirteenth century) give good advice as
of the duties of charity and hospitality:―

Gef thou havest bred and ale

Ne put thou nout al in thy male12,
Thou del hit sum aboute.
Be thou fre of thy meeles,
Wherso me eny mete deles,
Gest thou nout with-oute.13
“Betere is appel y-geve then y-ete, ”
Quoth Hendyng .
In the fourteenth century taxes seem to have been occasionally
levied on ale for certain specific purposes. In 1363 the inhabitants of
Abbeville were granted a tax on ale for the purpose of repairing their
fortifications. For each lotus of ale of gramville the tax was one
penny Parisien ; for each lotus of god-ale the tax was ½d. (Rhymer
2. 712.).
In a curious old poem of the early part of the fourteenth century
entitled De Baptismo , by William of Shoreham, it appears to the
poet, necessary to lay down that ale must not be used for purposes
of baptism, but “kende water” (i.e. , natural water) only. The verse is
as follows:―
Therefore ine wine me ne may,
Inne sithere ne inne pereye,
Ne inne thing that neuere water nes
Thory cristning man may reneye,
Ne inne ale;
For thei hight were water ferst,
Of water neth hit tale.14
 12 Male = bag or wallet.

13
Whether men give any meat away or no,
Go thou not without (giving).

14 See p. 401.

This old English requires some little explanation, and may be

rendered thus:—Therefore man may not renounce (his sins) through
christening in wine, in cider, nor in perry, nor in anything that never
was water, nor yet in ale, for though this (i.e. , ale) was water first, it
is acounted water no longer. {39}
Whilst Christmas, as far as eating was concerned, always had its
specialities, its liquor carte seems even in the thirteenth century to
have been of a very varied character. An old carolist of the period
thus sings (we follow Douce’s translation):―
Lordlings, Christmas loves good drinking,
Wines of Gascoigne, France, Anjou,
English ale that drives out thinking,
Prince of liquors, old or new,
Every neighbour shares the bowl,
Drinks of the spicy liquor deep;
Drinks his fill without control,
Till he drowns his care in sleep.
Piers the Ploughman , a poem by William Longland, written
towards the close of the fourteenth century, contains a curious
confession of the tricks played by the ale-sellers upon their
customers:―
 I boughte hire Barly heo breuh hit to sulle;
Peni-ale and piriwhit heo pourede to-gedere
For laborers and louh folk that liuen be hem-seluen.
The Beste in the Bed-chaumbre lay bi the wowe,
Hose Bummede therof Boughte hit ther-after,
A galoun for a grote, God wot, no lasse,
Whon hit com in Cuppemel; such craftes me usede.
This, being interpreted, in modern English would read somewhat
as follows:—I bought her barley they brew it to sell; Peny ale (i.e. ,
ale at a penny a gallon) and small perry she poured together for
labourers and poor folk that live by themselves. The best lay in the
bed chamber by the wall, whoso drank thereof bought it (i.e. , the
penny ale) by the sample (i.e. , of the best) a gallon for a groat, God
knows, no less, when it came in by cupfulls; such craft I used.
Piers the Ploughman, in describing the scarcity of labour after the
great plague in the fourteenth century and the independence of the
labouring men that arose from the high wages they were enabled to
demand, says that after harvest they would eat none but the finest
bread,
Ne non half-penny Ale In none wyse drynke,
Bote of the Beste and the Brouneste that Brewesters sullen.

Mai no peny-Ale hem paye ne no pece of Bacun, {40}

Bote hit weore Fresch Flesch or elles Fisch y-Friyet,
Both chaud and plus chaud for chele of heore mawe.15

15 As we should say, “hot and hot,” for chill of their stomach.

 Chaucer has many references to ale. The Cook, who was no mean
proficient in his proper art, was a judge of ale as well:―
A coke thei hadde with them for the nones,
To boyle the chickens, and the marrie bones,
And pouder marchaunt tarte, and galengale,
Well coude he know a pot of London ale.
The Miller prepares himself to tell his tale aright by swallowing
mighty draughts of the same liquor. He knows he is drunk, and is not
ashamed, thinking it quite sufficient excuse to lay the blame upon
that seductive fluid, “the ale of Southwerk”:―
Now herkeneth, quod the miller, all and some
But first I make a protestatioun,
That I am dronke, I know it by my soun;
And therefore if that I misspeke or say,
Wite it the ale of Southwerk, I you pray.
The two Cambridge students who lodge a night at the miller of
Trompington’s are feasted by their host in this wise:―
The miller the toun his daughter sent
For ale and bred, and roasted hem a goos,

They soupen and they speken of solace,

And drinken ever strong ale at the best.
Abouten midnight wente they to rest.
Before they went, however, they had “dronken all that was in
crouke,” and the miller, who appears to have had the lion’s share,
had decidedly imbibed too much.
Well hath this miller vernished his hed,
Full pale he was, for-dronken, and nought red.

This miller hath so wisely bibbed ale,

That as an hors he snorteth in his slepe.
 Geoffrey Chaucer, along with other poets and writers of his times,
was unsparing in his denunciations of the vices of the clergy, their
sloth, gluttony, drunkenness and other grievous lapses.
Thei side of many manir metes,
With song and solas sitting long; {41}
And filleth their wombe, and fast fretes,
And after mete with harp and song,
And hot spices ever among;
And fille their wombe with wine and ale.
Piers the Ploughman, in his Crede , which is a satire upon the
clergy, makes the Franciscan say, in contrasting his own order with
other religious bodies:―
We haunten not tavernes, ne hobelen abouten
At merketes and miracles we medeley us never.
The frequent directions to the monks and clergy to abstain from
taverns, from drinking bouts and revels, all point to the necessity
then felt of tightening the bonds of church discipline, and show the
laxity that had prevailed.
John Taylor, the Water Poet, frequently selected ale as his theme,
and, when once mounted on his favourite hobby, soon travelled into
such realms of marvellous history and miraculous philology, that it
almost takes away one’s breath to follow him. The chief work in
which he glorifies our English Ale has for its full title,
 DRINKE AND WELCOME
OR THE
FAMOUS HISTORIE
OF THE MOST PART OF D RINKS IN USE NOW IN THE K INGDOMES
OF G REAT B RITTAINE AND I RELAND , WITH AN ESPECIALL
DECLARATION OF THE POTENCY , VERTUE AND OPERATION OF
OUR E NGLISH A LE ,
WITH A DESCRIPTION OF ALL S ORTS OF W ATERS , FROM THE
O CEAN S EA , TO THE TEARES OF A WOMAN.
AS ALSO,
THE CAUSES OF ALL S ORTES OF W EATHER , FAIRE OR FOULE,
S LEET , R AINE , H AILE , F ROST , S NOWE , F OGGES , M ISTS ,
V APOURS , C LOUDS , S TORMES , W INDES , T HUNDER AND
L IGHTNING
C OMPILED FIRST IN THE H IGH D UTCH T ONGUE BY THE
PAINEFULL AND INDUSTRIOUS “H ULDRICKE V AN S PEAGLE , A
GRAMMATICALL B REWER OF L UBECK , AND NOW MOST
LEARNEDLY ENLARGED, AMPLIFIED, AND TRANSLATED INTO
E NGLISH P ROSE AND V ERSE
B Y JOHN TAYLOR.
LONDON
P RINTED BY A NNE G RIFFIN 1637.

{42}

After speaking of cider, perry, &c., the author goes on to speak of

ale, which “hath been and now is used by the English, as well since
the Conquest as in the times of the Brittains, Saxons, and Danes (for
the former-recited drinks are to this day confined to the Principality)
so as we enjoy them onely by a Statute called the courtesie of
Wales. And to perfect any discourse in this I shall onely induce them
into two heads, viz., the unparalleled liquor called Ale with his
abstract Beere; whose antiquity amongst a sort of Northerne pated
fellowes, is, if not altogether contemptible, of very little esteeme;
this humour served the scurrilous pen of a shamelesse writer16 in
the raigne of King Henry the third; detractingly to inveigh against
this unequal’d liquor. Thus
 ‘For muddy, foggy, fulsome, puddle, stinking,
For all of these, Ale is the onely drinking.’

16 Henry D’Avranches.

“Of all the Authors that I have ever yet read, this is the only one
that hath attempted to brand the glorious splendour of that Ale-
beloved decoction; but observe this fellow, by the perpetuall use of
water (which was his accustomed drinke) he fell into such
convulsions and lethargick diseases, that he remained in opinion a
dead man; however, the knowing Physicians of that time, by the
frequent and inward application of Ale , not onely recouvered him to
his pristine state of health, but also enabled him in body and braine
for the future, that he became famous in his writings, which for the
most part were afterwards spent with most Aleoquent and
Alaborate commendation of that admired and most superexcellent
Imbrewage.”
“Some there are,” he says, “that affirme that Ale was first invened
by Alexander the Great , and that in his conquests this liquor did
infuse such vigour and valour into his souldiers. Others say that
famous Physician of Piemont (named Don Alexis ) was the founder of
it. But it is knowne that it was of that singular use in the time of the
Saxons that none were allowed to brewe it but such whose places
and qualities were most Eminent , insomuch that we finde that one
of them had the credit to give the name of a Saxon Prince, who in
honour of that rare quality, he called Alle . Some ale adge that it
being our drinke when our land was called Albion , that it had the
name of the countrey; Twiscus in his Euphorbinum will have it from
Albanta or Epirus , Wolfgang Plashendorph of Gustenburg , saies
that Alecto (one of the three furies) gave the receipt of it to
Albumazar , a Magician, and he (having Aliance {43} with Aladine , the
Soldan at Aleppo ) first brew’d it there, whereto may be Aleuded ,
the story how Alphonsus of Scicily , sent it from thence to the battell
of Alcazar . My Authour is of Anaxagoras’ opinion, that Ale is to be