The Journal of Timothy Burrell, Esquire, of Ockenden House, Cuckfield,

Sussex, proves him to have been a true devotee of the rites of

Ceres. With what particularity he mentions his purchases of malt and

hops—“May 3, 1683. Quarter of malt, £1. . . . 23 July. For 28lbs.

of hops I gave 7s. . . . October. I paid Jo. Warden for 30 bushels

of malt, just 4 months, £4 3s.” Then with what care he notes the

day on which he brewed, as thus—“3 May, 1702, _Pandoxavi_” and with

what satisfaction the day on which he tapped the barrel,—“12 June

_Relinivi_”—illustrating his manuscript as he goes along with quaint

sketches of barrels, quart pots, pockets of hops and such-like. John

Coachman, who seems to have been worthy Timothy’s servant for many

years, frequently comes in for a remark by reason of his excessive

devotion to the barley bree:—“Oct. 8th, 1698. Payd John Coachman, in

full of his half year’s wages, to be spent in ale, £2 6s. 6d. I paid

him for his breeches (to be drunk,) in part of his wages, 6s.” “Paid

to John Coachman, in part of his wages, to be fooled away in syder or

lottery, 5s.” “March 26th, 1710, I paid the saddler for John Coachman

falling drunk off his box, when he was driving to Glynde, in part of

his wages, £1 7s. 6d.” Rest well, honest Timothy, thy quaint pen is

still, thy brewing days are over!

In Dean Swift’s _Polite Conversations_ we have the following amusing

dialogue on the subject of home-brew:—

_Lady Smart._ Pray, my lord, did you order the butler to bring {60} up

a tankard of our October to Sir John? I believe they stay to brew it.

_The butler brings up the tankard to Sir John._

_Sir John Linger._ Won’t your ladyship please to drink first?

_Lady S._ No, Sir John; ’tis in a very good hand; I’ll pledge you.

_Col. Atwit_ (to Lord Smart). My lord, I love October as well as Sir

John; and I hope you won’t make fish of one and flesh of another.

_Smart._ Colonel, you’re heartily welcome. Come, Sir John, take it by

word of mouth, and then give it to the Colonel.

_Sir John drinks._

_Smart._ Well, Sir John, how do you like it?

_Sir J._ Not as well as my own in Derbyshire; ’tis plaguy small.

_Lady S._ I never taste malt liquor: but they say it is well hopp’d.

_Sir J._ Hopp’d? why if it had hopp’d a little further it would have

hopp’d into the river. O, my lord, my ale is meat, drink, and cloth; it

will make a cat speak and a wise man dumb.

_Lady S._ I was told ours was very strong.

_Sir J._ Ay, madam, strong of the water; I believe the brewer forgot

the malt, or the river was too near him. Faith, it is mere whip-belly

vengeance; he that drinks most has the worst share.

_Col._ I believe, Sir John, ale is as plenty as water at your house.

_Sir J._ Why, faith, at Christmas we have many comers and goers; and

they must not be sent away without a cup of Christmas ale for fear they

should——

_Lady S._ I hear Sir John has the nicest garden in England; they say

’tis kept so clean that you can’t find a place where to spit.

_Sir J._ O, madam; you are pleased to say so.

_Lady S._ But, Sir John, your ale is terribly strong and heady in

Derbyshire, and will soon make one drunk or sick; what do you then?

_Sir J._ Why, indeed, it is apt to fox one; but our way is to take a

hair of the same dog next morning. I take a new-laid egg for breakfast;

and faith one should drink as much after an egg as after an ox.

Thompson, in his _Autumn_, makes reference to the strong October brew.

Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn

Mature and perfect from his dark retreat

Of thirty years; and now his honest front

Flames in the light refulgent, not afraid

Even with the vineyard’s best produce to vie.

{61}

Seldom, it may be imagined, even in the sphere of domestic brewing, has

so small a “browst” been brewed as that described by Hone in his _Table

Book_ as having been made by Widow Wood, of Beckenham Alms House. She

brewed with her ordinary cooking utensils, and the fireplace of her

little room; a tin kettle served her for boiler, she mashed in a common

butter-firkin, ran off the liquor in a “crock,” and tunned it in a

small beer barrel. She thought that poor folk might do a great deal for

themselves if they only knew how; “but,” said she, “where there’s a

will there’s a way.”

Among modern writers Christopher North has left perhaps the best

description of what a modern private brewhouse should be. “We dare

say,” he says, “that many personages who never in the whole course of

their polished existences dreamed or thought of dreaming of brewing

anything (except mischief), will shrug their shoulders at the idea of

being introduced like his Majesty George the Third, at Whitbread’s,

into an odorous brewhouse, redolent of wash, wort, grains, hops, yeast,

and carbonic acid gas; peeping into pumps—tumbling into vats. Silence,

good exquisite! and let us inform you—(but first take that cigar out

of your mouth, or you will infallibly burn the carpet)—let us inform

you that a _gentleman’s brewhouse_, like his greenhouse, his hothouse,

his dairy, or even his cellar, _is no such unpleasant place_. No place,

indeed, can be so that has anything of the rural about it. There is

our own brewhouse at Buchanan Lodge; it might pass for a summer-house.

We shall describe it to you. It stands, good reader (mark us well),

at the back of the house, just at the edge of the little ravine or

dell, and half hid by the laburnums. It is also separated from the

other offices by a lowish beech hedge. Around, below, and opposite are

growing the wild cherry, the tall chestnut, the sycamore, the fir, the

thorn, and the bramble, which clothe the sides of the deep glen. From

its chimneys, as soon as the soft March gales begin to blow, curls the

white smoke before the hour of dawn. The fire within burns brightly.

Everything is clean and ‘sweet as the newly-tedded hay.’ Precisely as

six o’clock strikes we march forth—ay, even we, Christopher North—with

our old fishing jacket and our apron on; our old velvet study-cap

close about our ears, and our thermometer in our hand. The primroses

are basking in the morning rays; the dewdrops are sparkling the last

upon the leaves; the unseen violets are breathing forth sweets; the

blackbird trills his mellow notes in the thicket; the wren twitters

in the hedge; and the redbreast hops round the door. We enter. All is

right. We try our heat. ‘Donald, a leetle more cold. That will do.

{62} In with the malt. Every grain, you hound.’ ‘Ech! Donald’s no the

man to pench the maut.’ ‘Now stir, for life;’ and the active stirrer

turns over and over the fragrant grain in the smoking liquid. All

is covered up close, and the important mash (twelve bushels to the

hogshead) is completed.

“But of what sort of malt? ‘Another question for the swordsmen,’ for

of ‘malts’ there are as many flavours, almost, as of vintages. They

who think that if malt be but sweet, mealy, and well crushed—that is

all—know, begging their pardons, little of the matter. We have heard

brewers, who thought themselves no fools, assert that the hops alone

give the ale its flavour; and that the difference between pale and

high dried malt is only in colour. They might as well have argued

that the lemon gives all the flavour to punch! We, Christopher North,

aver, that upon the degree of dryness which has been given to the

malt, the distinguishing flavour of malt liquor mainly depends. The

bitter principle of the hop is only the ground or substratum upon

which the skilful brewer builds his peculiar flavour of beer. As more

or less of hops is put in, no doubt the saccharine principle of the

malt is subdued, or is suffered to predominate. But in malt there is,

besides the mere sugar which it contains in common with so many other

vegetables, a flavour peculiar to itself: and this is brought out and

modified by the application of more or less of the great chemical

agent, heat, to the malted barley. In short, fire makes malt more or

less savoury, much as it makes a brandered fowl, or a mutton steak, or

a toasted oaten cake, more or less savoury.”

Countless receipts have been preserved for making, flavouring, and

keeping home-brew from the days of the Saxon Leechbooks down to the

present time. Some of the older ones were supposed to depend for their

efficacy on supernatural intervention. “If the ale be spoilt,” says an

old _Saxon Leechdom_, “take lupins, lay them on the four quarters of

the dwelling, and over the door, and under the threshold, and under the

ale-vat, put the wort (the herb) into the ale with holy water.”

In a Scotch brewer’s instructions for Scotch ale, dated 1793, may be

found a mystical note: “I throw a little dry malt, which is left on

purpose, on the top of the mash, with a handful of salt, _to keep the

witches from it_, and then cover it up.” Perhaps the idea that witches

could spoil the ale by their evil charms gave rise to the phrase “water

bewitched,” signifying very weak beer or other liquor.

The plant, ale-cost (ground ivy), was, during the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries, used for “dispatching the maturation” of ale and

beer. {63} Gerard, in his _Herball_ (1579), mentions the same plant

under the name of ale-houve. “The women of our northern parts,” he

says, “do tun the herb ale-houve into their ale, but the reason thereof

I know not.”

Our ancestors either must have had some means of very rapidly

“maturing” their ale, or they must have been content to drink it

unmatured; for it is recorded in the _Munimenta Academica Oxon._ that

a brewer of Oxford was, in 1444, compelled to solemnly swear before

the Chancellor that he would let his ale stand twelve hours to clear,

before he carried it to hall or college for sale; and in London it

was the custom to drink ale even newer, so much so, that on complaint

being made, in the fourteenth year of Queen Elizabeth, that the brewers

deliver ale and beer but two or three hours after it has been cleansed

and tunned, an ordinance was made that the brewers should not deliver

their liquors until eight hours after it had been tunned in the summer

months, and six hours in the winter.

Ivory shavings have been recommended for rapidly maturing beer,

and it is related that a woman, who lived at Leighton Buzzard, in

Bedfordshire, and had the best ale in the town, once told a gentleman

she had drink just done working in the barrel, and that she would wager

it was fine enough to drink out of a glass even before it was bunged.

It was as she said, and the ivory shavings, that she boiled in the

wort, were the cause of it.

Among the many receipts given in old works for “recovering” ale or

beer when it has turned sour, is one directing the housewife to put a

handful or two of ground malt into the beer, stir it well together,

which will make the beer work and become good again. In another receipt

the brewer is directed to put a handful of oatmeal into a barrel of

beer when first laid into the cellar, which will cause it to carry

with it a quick and lively taste. The root of flower-de-luce or iris

suspended in ale is said to be a specific against sourness.

Another plan is to calcine oyster shells, beat them to powder with a

like quantity of chalk, put them in a thin bag into the liquor, hanging

it almost to the bottom, and in twenty-four hours the work will be

effected. It may be suggested that in these cases prevention is better

than cure—drink your beer while it is good, and do not give it an

opportunity of getting sour. An old receipt for preserving small beer

without the help of hops, is to mix a small quantity of treacle with

a handful of wheat and bean flour and a little ginger, to knead the

mixture to a due consistence, and put it into the barrel. “It has been

a common observation,” said an old writer, “that both beer and ale are

{64} apt to be foul, disturbed, and flat in bean season; the same is

observed of wines in the vintage countries. Thunder is also a spoiler

of good malt liquor, to prevent the effects of which, laying a solid

piece of iron on each cask has hitherto been esteemed an effectual

prevention of the above injuries.” In some places, too, an iron pad

fitting closely over the bunghole is used, and in others an iron tray

answers the same purpose. An old receipt book contains the following

remarkable directions for making forty sorts of ale out of one barrel

of liquor.

“Have ale of good body, and when it has worked well bottle it off, but

fill not the bottles within three spoonfuls; then being ripe, as you

use it, fill it up with the syrup of any fruit, root, flower, or herb

you have by you for that purpose, or drop in chimical oyls or waters of

them, or of spices, and with a little shaking the whole mass will be

tinctured and taste pleasantly of what you put in; and so you may make

all sorts of physical ales with little trouble, and no incumbrance,

more healthful and proper than if herbs were soaked in it or drugs,

which in the pleasant entertainment will make your friends wonder how

you came by such variety on a sudden.”

Thus much then, of home-brew; the subject is almost inexhaustible and

pleasant withal, but the laws of space are inexorable, and forbid

further tarrying. As Walter de Biblesworth quaintly remarks:—

Ceste matyre cy repose,

Parlom ore de autre chose.

[Illustration]

{65}

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV.

Then long may here the ale-charged Tankards shine,

Long may the Hop plant triumph o’er the Vine.

_Brasenose College Shrovetide Poem._

The Hop for his profit I thus do exalt.

It strengtheneth drink, and it favoureth Malt;

And being well brewed, long kept it will last,

And drawing abide—if ye draw not too fast.

_Thomas Tusser._

_USE AND IMPORTANCE OF HOPS IN BEER: THEIR INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY.

— HOP-GROWERS’ TROUBLES. — MEDICINAL QUALITIES. — ECONOMICAL USES. —

HOP-PICKERS._

The hops used in beer-brewing are the female flowers of the hop

plant known to botanists as the _Humulus lupulus_ of Linnæus. At

first sight it may seem strange that hops and wolves should have

anything in common, but it has been explained that the word _lupulus_

comes from the name by which the Romans called the hop plant—_Lupus

Salictarius_—the idea being that the hop was as destructive among the

willows (where it grew) as a wolf among sheep. Though hops are now

staple articles of a large commerce, and largely cultivated in England,

America, Belgium, France, and our colonies, some few hundred years ago

their valuable qualities were little known in this country.

How, when, and where the flowers of the hop plant were first used to

give to beer its delicious flavour and keeping qualities, is not {66}

accurately known. Pliny, in his _Natural History_, states that the

Germans preserved ale with hops, and there is a Rabbinical tradition,

referring to still earlier times, to the effect that the Jews, during

their captivity in Babylon, found the use of hopped ale a protection

against their old enemy, leprosy. In a letter of donations, the great

King Pepin uses the word “Humuloria,” meaning hop gardens. Mesne, an

Arabian physician, who wrote about the year 845, also mentions hops;

and Basil Valentine, an alchemist of the 14th century, specifically

refers to the use of the hop in beer. Dr. Thudichum, in his pamphlet,

_Alcoholic Drinks_, tells us that in early days of beer production

wild hops only were used, as is the practice at the present day in

Styria, but that in some foreign countries the plant has been largely

cultivated for nearly a thousand years. It is a well-known fact that

in the eighth and ninth centuries, hop gardens, called Humuloria or

Humuleta, existed in France and Germany.

That the hop was known to the English before the Conquest in some form

or other, is proved by the reference to the hymele, or hop plant, in

the Anglo-Saxon version of the _Herbarium_, of Apuleius. Although no

trace of the word hymele now remains in our every-day language, it is

found in Danish as “humle,” and is only the English form of the Latin

_humulus_. The _Herbarium_ just mentioned contains a remarkable passage

with reference to “hymele.” “This wort,” it says, “is to that degree

laudable that men mix it with their usual drinks.” The usual drinks

of the English were undoubtedly malt liquors, and this passage would

go far to show that even in Saxon times the hop was used in English

brewing. Cockayne, the learned editor of _Saxon Leechdoms_, is inclined

to this opinion, and he instances in confirmation of it that special

mention is made of the hedge-hymele, as though there existed at that

time a cultivated hop from which it had to be distinguished; he also

cites the name Hymel-tun, in Worcestershire (now Himbleton), which he

states is mentioned in Anglo-Saxon deeds, and which could hardly have

signified anything less than hop yard. The word _hopu_ (_i.e._, hops)

also occurs in Saxon documents. _Ewe-hymele_ is mentioned in _Saxon

Leechdoms_, and would probably signify the female hop. In the year 822

there is a record that the millers of Corbay were freed by the abbot

from all labours relating to hops, and a few years later hops are

mentioned by Ludovicus Germanicus.

The introduction of hops into England has been generally assigned

to the early part of the sixteenth century. The old but unreliable

distich, {67}

Hops, Reformation, bays and beer

Came into England all in one year,[35]

points to a period subsequent to 1520 as the time when the great

improvement of adding hops to malt liquors was first practised in this

country. This rhyme probably refers to the settling of certain Flemings

in Kent, to be mentioned anon, which no doubt gave a great impulse to

the use of hops; it cannot well refer to their first introduction, as

they were known in England for many years previously and were used in

beer-brewing nearly a century before the Reformation.

[35] Two other versions are to be found:

“Hops and turkeys, carp and beer

Came into England all in one year;”

and

“Turkeys, carps, hops, pickerel, and beer

Came into England all in one year.”

The couplets also err as to pickerel, which are mentioned in

mediæval glossaries at a date long before the Reformation.

In that curious old work the _Promptorium Parvulorum_ (1440), which is,

in fact, an old English-Latin dictionary, occur some passages which,

when taken in conjunction with the London Records of a slightly later

date, seem to show that the introduction of hops into English brewing

(excepting their possible use in Saxon times) should be assigned to a

period a little before the middle of the fifteenth century.

The word “hoppe” is defined as “sede for beyre. Humulus secundum

extraneos.” “Bere” is defined as “a drynke. Humulina, vel humuli

potus, aut cervisia hummulina.” The inference to be drawn from these

passages is that hops and beer, in the sense of hopped ale, were

known in England some time previous to the year 1440. The compiler,

however, shows by his definition of “bere” as a “drynke,” that the

word required some explanation, for when he mentions “ale,” he simply

gives the Latin equivalent, “cervisia.” He certainly regarded beer

as an interloper, as shown by his note on ale, “Et nota bene quod

est _potus Anglorum_.” Four years after the date of the publication

of the Promptorium, William Lounde and Richard Veysey were appointed

inspectors or surveyors of the “bere-bruers” of the City of London,

as distinguished from the ale-brewers who were at this time a company

governed by a master and wardens. Ten years later an {68} ordinance

for the government of the beer-brewers was sanctioned by the Lord

Mayor. From this date the City Records contain frequent mention of the

beer-brewers as distinct from the ale-brewers. However, beer, “the son

of ale,” as an old writer calls it, did not rapidly attain popularity.

Ten years after the date last referred to, the beer-brewers petitioned

the Lord Mayor and “Worshipfull soveraignes the Aldermen” of the City

of London, in these terms:—“To the full honourable Lord the Maire,

etc. Shewen mekely unto youre good Lordshipp and maistershippes, the

goode folke of this famous citee the which usen Bere-bruyng within

the same, that where all mistiers and craftys of the sd citee have

rules and ordenances by youre grete auctoritees for the common wele

of this honourable citee made, and profite of the same craftys,” but

the petitioners have none such rules, and therefore the citizens

are liable to be imposed upon “in measure of barell, kilderkyns and

firkyns, _and in hoppes and other greynes_ the which to the said

mistiere apperteynen. . . . It is surmysed upon them that often tymes

they make their bere of unseasonable malt the which is of little prise

and unholsome for mannes body for their singular availe, forasmuch as

the comon peple _for lacke of experience cannot know the perfitnesse

of bere as wele as of the ale_,” the petitioners pray that certain

regulations of the trade may be established by authority. Passing

over another period of twenty years, during which the City Records

contain nothing to show whether hops and beer advanced or declined in

popularity, we find that in the first year of Richard III. a petition

was presented to Lord Mayor Billesdon, by the Brewers’ Company, showing

“that whereas by the sotill and crafty means of foreyns[36] dwelling

withoute the franchises . . . . . a deceivable and unholsome fete

in bruyng of ale within the said citee nowe of late is founde and

practised, that is to say, in occupying and puttyng of hoppes and other

things in the said ale, contrary to the good and holesome manner of

bruynge of ale of old tyme used, . . . to the great deceite and hurt

of the King’s liege people. . . . Pleas it therefore your saide good

lordshyppe to forbid the putting into ale of any hops, herbs, or any

other like thing, but onely licour, malte and yeste.” The petition is

granted and a penalty of 6s. 8d. is laid on every barrel of ale so

brewed contrary to the ancient use. This early use of the technical

{69} term “licour,” or liquor, instead of water is noteworthy. We

learn by a note in the Letter-book that the fine on putting hops into

ale was shortly afterwards reduced to 3s. 4d. the barrel, while any

other kind of adulteration is still to subject the offender to the

full fine of 6s. 8d. It will have been observed that it is not the

making of _beer_ which is forbidden, but the putting of hops into

_ale_, and selling the drink as ale. There is abundant evidence to

show that beer continued to be made and sold with the sanction of the

authorities, and that the beer-brewers, many of whom at this time were

Dutchmen, practised a separate craft from that of the ale-brewers. Two

years after the date of the last petition a regulation was made that

no beer-brewer is to be “affered” (fined) more than 6s. 8d., nor

an ale-brewer more than two shillings, for breaking the assize. The

oath of the ale-searchers contains the following passage:—“Ye shall

swear . . . to search and assay . . . that the ale be holsom, weell

soden and able for mannes body, and made with none other stuff but

only with holsom and clere ale-yest, watyr and malt, and such as you

find unholsom for mannes body or brewed with any other thing except

with watyr and malt, be it with rosen, _hoppes_, _bere-yest_, or any

other craft, . . .” you shall duly report for punishment. In the

same year it is recorded that the _beer-brewers_ were ordered to use

“gode clene, sweete, holsom greyne and _hoppes_,” and the rulers of

the _beer-brewers_ are to have powers of inspection of hops and other

grains.

[36] A “foreyn” was one who was not a freeman of the City—no

reference to nationality.

Prosecutions for the use of hops were frequent, but they were for

putting hops into _ale_, and not for brewing beer. In the twelfth

year of Henry VII., John Barowe was presented by the wardens of the

brewers because he brewed _ale_ with _beer-yeast_, “_quod est corpori

humano insalubre_.” Nine years later Robert Dodworth, brewer’s servant,

confessed that he had brewed “a burthen of _ale_ in the house of his

master in Fleet Street with hops, contrary to the laws and laudable

acts and customs of the city.” In the tenth year of Henry VIII.,

William Shepherd, brewer’s servant to Philip Cooper, “occupying the

feat of bruing,” made a deposition that he had “once since Michaelmas

last brewed _ale_ with hops, but that his master knew not of it,”

but that he had heard that other servants had brewed with hops, “and

that was the cause why he brewed with hoppes, and more he would not

say.” Philip Cooper, however, was evidently suspected, for in the

same records we find that he was compelled to bring into the Court “a

standing cup with a cover of gylt with three red hearts in the bottom

of the cup to stand to the order of the Court touching the brewing

with hoppes.” On {70} payment of a fine of five shillings, his gage

is ordered to be returned to him. Many other passages could be quoted

from the City Records in support of the view that beer-brewing was

not forbidden, but only the adulteration, as it was considered, of

the old English ale with an admixture of hops. We have dwelt somewhat

fully upon this part of the subject, as there appears to be an almost

universal misconception as to the date of the introduction of hops

into England, and as to their use having been for some time altogether

prohibited by the law of the land. The only authority for this last

mentioned idea, seems to be the statement of Fuller, in his _Worthies

of England_, that hops were forbidden as the result of a petition

which was presented in the time of Henry VI. against “the wicked weed

called hops.” No statute to this effect is in existence, no record is

to be found in the rolls of Parliament of any such petition, and the

statement is in opposition to the evidence we have been able to collect

on the subject.

About the year 1524 a large number of Flemish immigrants settled in

Kent, cultivated hops and brewed beer, and soon caused that county

to become famous for its hop gardens and the excellence of their

produce. To these strangers is perhaps due the chief credit of having

enlightened the British mind on the subject of bitter beer, and their

advent is probably the event pointed to in the old couplet already

quoted.

Among the numerous officials appointed to enforce the regulations of

the City, were persons called hop-searchers, whose duty it was to

search for defective hops, which, when found were burnt. Wriothesley’s

Chronicle mentions that “on the 10th daie of September, 1551, was

burned in Finsburie Field XXXI sacke and pokettes of hopps in the

afternoune, being nought, and not holsome for man’s bodie, and

condemned by an Act made by my Lord Maior and his bretheren the

aldermen the 10th daie of September, at which court six comeners of the

Cittie of London were apoynted to be serchers for a hole yeare for the

said hopps; and they were sworne the fifth daie of this moneth and made

search ymediatlie for the same.”

The popular taste is not a thing to be changed in a day, and at that

happy period of history when railways, penny posts, newspapers, stump

orators and other nineteenth-century methods of enlightenment were

unknown and undreamt of, it may well be understood that the knowledge

of this great improvement spread but slowly. Not only were the

English slow to appreciate what the Flemings had done for them, but

they believed that they were like to be poisoned by the new-fangled

drink which was not in their eyes to be compared to the sweet and

{71} thick, but honest and unsophisticated English ale. The writers

of the day are loud in their abuse of beer. In the passages from

Andrew Boorde’s _Dyetary_ (1542), quoted in Chapter I. (p. 6), ale is

described as being the natural drink of Englishmen, and made of malt

and water, while beer, which is composed of malt, hops, and water, is

the natural drink of a Dutchman, and of late is much used in England,

to the great detriment of many Englishmen. There is a truly insular

ring about this. We should like to enlighten old Andrew’s darkness by a

draught of sparkling Burton. Boorde undoubtedly expresses the popular

opinion of the period, for from Rastall’s _Book of Entries_ we learn

that an ale-man brought his action against his Brewer for spoiling his

ale, by putting in it a certain _weed_ called a _hopp_, and recovered

damages. Even Harry the Eighth, who of all our kings was the greatest

lover of good things—and a few bad ones—was blind to the merits of the

hop, and enjoined the Royal brewer of Eltham that he put neither hops

nor brimstone into the ale. Possibly sulphuring, of which a word or

two anon, was then in use; we cannot otherwise account for the mention

of brimstone. This was in 1530, only six years after the Flemings had

settled in Kent.

Abused by medical writers as drink only fit for Dutchmen, objected

to by the king, and disliked by the majority of the people, the

song-writers of the day, of course, had a good deal to say against the

new drink. In the _High and Mightie Commendation of the Virtue of a Pot

of Good Ale_, it is hardly surprising to find the following lines:—

And in very deed, the hops but a weed

Brought over ’gainst law, and here set to sale,

Would the law were removed, and no more Beer brewed,

But all good men betake them to a pot of good ale.

* * * * *

But to speak of killing, that am I not willing,

For that in a manner were but to rail,

But Beer hath its name ’cause it brings to the Bier,

Therefore well fare, say I, to a pot of good ale.

Too many, I wis, with their deaths proved this,

And therefore (if ancient records do not fail)

He that first brewed the hop, was rewarded with a rope,

And found his Beer far more bitter than Ale.

{72}

The ale-wives and brewers, however, were wiser than their customers,

and, induced also by the fact that their hopped ale went not sour as of

yore, stuck to their colours—nailed to a hop pole no doubt—and slowly

but surely educated the taste of the people. It was, however, a long

process.

Henry, in his _History of England_, vol. 6, referring to the Scottish

diet about the end of the sixteenth century, writes:—

“_Ale_ and gascony wines were the principal liquors; but mead, cyder,

and perry were not uncommon. Hops were still scarce, and seldom

employed in _Ale_, which was brewed therefore in small quantities, to

be drunk while new. At the King’s table _Ale_ was prohibited as unfit

for use till _five days old_.”

From a whimsical old book, entitled _Wine, Beer, Ale, and Tobacco, a

dialogue_, in which the two leading malt liquors of the day (1630)

converse, and give their own views on the subject, it appears that even

as late as the seventeenth century beer was little known in country

districts, though popular in London.

Beer is introduced making a pun on his own name; he says to Wine,

“Beere leave, sir.” The chief points in Ale’s argument, which

is better than that of any of the others, are contained in the

following passage:—“You, Wine and Beer, are fain to take up a corner

anywhere—your ambition goes no farther than a cellar; the whole house

where I am goes by my name, and is called Ale-house. Who ever heard

of a Wine-house, or a Beer-house? My name, too, is, of a stately

etymology—you must bring forth your latin. Ale, so please you, from

alo, which signifieth nourish—I am the choicest and most luscious of

potations.” Wine, Beer, and Ale at last compose their differences, each

having a certain dominion assigned to him, and join in singing these

lines:—

Wine.—I, generous Wine am for the court.

Beer.—The citie call for Beere.

Ale.—But Ale, bonnie Ale, like a lord of the soile.

In the country shall domineere.

Chorus.—Then let us be merry, wash sorry away,

Wine, Beer and Ale shall be drunk this day.

In the end Tobacco appears—He arrogates an equality with Wine—“You and

I both come out of a pipe.” The reply is, “Prithee go smoke elsewhere.”

“Don’t incense me, don’t inflame Tobacco,” he retorts; but is told, “No

one fears your puffing—turn over a new _leaf_, Tobacco, most high and

mighty Trinidado.” {73}

In an old play printed a few years later (1659) it is indicated that

ale was still generally made without hops:—

Ale is immortal:

And, be there no stops

In bonny lads quaffing,

Can live without hops.

If Defoe’s statement on the subject, in his _Tour Through Great

Britain_, is correct, it must, indeed, have been many years before the

use of hops made any headway in the northern portions of the kingdom.

“As to the North of England,” he writes, “they formerly used but few

Hops there, their Drink being chiefly pale smooth ale, which required

no hops; and consequently they planted no hops in all that part of

England North of Trent. . . . But as for some years past, they not only

brew great quantities of Beer in the North, but also use hops in the

brewing of their ale, much more than they did before, so they all come

south of Trent to buy their hops.”

In the reign of Edward VI., by the Statute 5 and 6 Ed. VI. c. 5

(repealed 5 Eliz. c. 2), it was enacted that all land formerly in

tillage should again be cultivated, excepting “land set with saffron

or hops.” This is, we believe, the first mention of hops in the

Statute book. The next Act on the subject was one passed in 1603, by

which regulations were made for the curing of hops, which process had

thenceforward to be carried out under the inspection of the officers

of excise. From a petition presented by the Brewers’ Company to Lord

Burleigh, a few years previously (1591), we learn that the price of

hops was then £3 16s. 8d. to £4 10s. 6d. per cwt., instead of

6s. 8d. as formerly, and was, the Brewers said, in quality well worth

three hundredweight of those sold at that time. Hops were evidently

coming into favour. We gather from an old receipt that about the end

of the century, Beer was made with “40 lbs. of hoppeys to 40 qrs. of

grain.”

[Illustration: A Perfite Platform of a Hoppe Garden.

Of ramming of Poales.

“Then with a peece of woode as bigge belowe as the great ende of one

of youre Poales, ramme the earth that lieth at the outsyde of the

Poale.”

Cutting Hoppe Rootes.

“When you pull downe your hylles . . . you should undermine them round

about.”

Of Tying of Hoppes to the Poales.

“When your hoppes are growne about one or two foote high, bynde up

(with a rushe or grasse) such as decline from the Poales, wynding them

as often about the same Poales as you can, and directing them alwayes

according to the course of the Sunne.”

]

About the earliest English work on the culture of hops is an old

black-letter pamphlet published in 1574 “at the Signe of the Starre,

in Paternoster Rowe.” It is entitled, “_A Perfite Platforme of a Hoppe

Garden_, and necessarie instructions for the making and mayntenance

thereof, with notes and rules for reformation of all abuses, commonly

practised therein, very necessary and expedient for all men to have,

which in any wise have to doe with hops.” The author was one Reynolde

Scot, and the little volume is adorned with quaint illustrations, and

tastefully designed initial letters. The work is dedicated to {75}

“Willyam Lovelace Esquire, Sergeaunt at the Lawe,” whom the author

desires to accompany him in a consideration of “a matter of profite,

or rather with a poynt of good Husbandrie, (in aparance base and

tedious, but in use necessarie and commodious, and in effect pleasant

and profitable) (that is to saye) to look downe into the bowels of your

grounde, and to seeke about your house at Beddersden (which I see you

desire to garnish with many costly commodities) for a convenient plot

to be applyed to a Hoppe Garden, to the furtherance and accomplishing

whereof, I promyse and assure you, the labour of my handes, the

assistance of my advise, and the effect of myne experience.”

This little work is recommended to the reader (the recommendation

covers four pages) more particularly “as a recompence to the labourer,

as a commoditie to the house-keeper, as a comfort to the poor, and as

a benefite to the Countrie or Commonwealth, adding thus much hereunto,

that there cannot lightly be employed grounde to more profitable use,

nor labour to more certain gaynes; howbeit, with this note, that no

mysterie is so perfect, no floure so sweete, no scripture so holy,

but by abuse a corrupt body, ascending to his venomous nature, may

draw poyson out of the same, and therefore blame not this poore trade

for that it maketh men riche in yielding double profite.” The author

goes on to say that it grieves him to see how “the Flemings envie our

practise herein” and declare English hops to be bad, so that they may

send the more into England. From this it would seem clear that at all

events foreign hops were extensively used in English beer at that date,

and English hop gardens by no means common. Scot, who must have been

a man of common sense, gives good advice to intending hop growers.

They are to consider three things: “First, whether you have, or can

procure unto yourself, any grounde good for that purpose” (_i.e._, the

cultivation of hops). “Secondly, of the convenient standing thereof.

Thirdly, of the quantitie. And this I saye by the way, if the grounde

you deale withall, be not your own enheritance, procure unto your selfe

some certayne terme therein, least another man reape the fruite of your

traveyle and charge.”

From the epilogue, which concludes with a tremendous denunciation

of those who allow strangers from beyond the seas to bring into the

country that which we ought to grow ourselves, we cull the following

quaint passage:

“There will some smell out the profitable savour of this herbe, some

wyll gather the fruit thereof, some will make a sallet therewith (which

is good in one respect for the bellye, and in another for the {76}

Purse), and when the grace and sweetenesse hereof conceived, some will

dippe their fingers therein up to the knuckles, and some will be glad

to licke the Dishe, and they that disdayne to be partakers hereof,

commonly prove to be such as have mountaynes in fantasie, and beggary

in possession.”

Reynolde Scot’s pamphlet is most complete in the directions it gives

concerning hop-growing, and, strange to say, the system of cultivation

seems little changed since then. The author levels the following

remarks at the heads of those who might, yet will not, grow hops:—

“Methinks I might aptlye compare such men as have grounde fitte

for this purpose, and will not employ it accordingly, to ale-house

knightes, partly for the small devotion which both the one and the

other have unto Hoppes, but especially for that many of these ale

knights havyng good drinke at home of their owne, can be content to

drinke moore abroade at an ale-house, so they may sit close by it. Let

them expounde this comparison that buy their hoppes at Poppering, and

may have them at home with more ease, and lesse charge.”

Honest old Thomas Tusser, in his “_Five Hundred Points of Good

Husbandry_” (1580), has a good deal to say about hops. He gives a

charmingly quaint but very practical “lesson where and when to plant a

good hop-yard.”

Whom fancy persuadeth among other cropps

To have for his spending, sufficient of hopps,

Must willingly follow, of choyses to chuse;

Such lessons approved, as skilful do use.

Ground gravely, sandly, and mixed with clay

Is naughty for hops, any maner of way,

Or if it be mingled with rubbish and stone,

For drienes and barrennes, let it alone.

Chuse soile for the hop of the rottenest mould

Well donged and wrought as a garden plot should,

Not far from the water (but not overflowne)

This lesson well noted is meete to be knowne.

The Sunne in the South, or els southly by west,

Is joye to the hop as a welcomed gest,

But wind in the North, or els northely and east,

To hop is as ill as fray in a feast. {77}

Meete plot for a hopyard, once found as is told,

Make thereof accompt, as of jewell of gold,

Now dig it, and leave it the sunne for to burne,

And afterwards fence it to serve for that turn.

Among the directions for good husbandry for the various months, Tusser

advises that—

In March at the furdest, drye season or wet,

Hope rootes so well chosen, let skilful go set,

The goeler[37] and younger, the better I love

Wel gutted[38] and pared, the better they prove.

Some layeth them crosewise, along in the ground,

As high as the knee, they do come up round.

Some pricke up a sticke, in the midds of the same:

That little round hillocke, the better to frame!

Some maketh a hollownes, halfe a foote deepe,

With fower sets in it, set slant wise a steepe

One foote from another, in order to lye,

And thereon a hillock, as round as a pye.

* * * * *

By willows that groweth, thy hopyard without,

And also by hedges, thy meadowes about,

Good hop hath a pleasure, to climbe and to spread:

If sonne may have passage to comfort her hed.

[37] goeler = goodlier.

[38] gutted = taken off from the old roots.

The process of setting the hop-poles is thus described:—

Get into thy hopyard with plentie of poles,

Amongst those same hillocks deuide them by doles,

Three poles to a hillock (I pas not how long)

Shall yield thee more profit, set deeplie and strong.

Care must be taken to weed and to fence the hop garden:—

Grasse, thistle and mustard seede, hemlock and bur,

Tine, mallow and nettle, that keepe such a stur,

With peacock and turkie, that nibbles off top,

Are verie ill neighbors to seelie poore hop.

* * * * * {78}

If hops do looke brownish, then are ye to slow,

If longer ye suffer, those hops for to growe.

Now, sooner ye gather, more profite is found,

If weather be faier, and deaw of ye ground.

Not break of, but cut of, from hop the hop string,

Leave growing a little, again for to spring.

Whos hil about pared, and therewith new clad,

That nurrish more sets, against March to be had.

Hop hillock discharged, of every set

See then without breaking, ecche poll ye out get,

Which being betangled, above in the tops:

Go carry to such, as are plucking of hops.

We have quoted rather largely from Tusser’s poem, thinking that it may

interest hop-growers of the present day.

Reynolde Scot’s appeal was not in vain, for in 1608 there is no doubt

that hop plantations were fairly abundant, though the plant was not

sufficiently cultivated for home consumption. In that year an Act was

passed against the importation of spoilt hops. Until 1690, however, the

greater part of supply was drawn from abroad, and then, to encourage

home production, a duty of twenty shillings per cwt. over and above

all other charges, was put upon those imported. Walter Blith, writing

in 1643, speaks of hops as a “national commoditie.” In 1710, the duty

of a penny per lb. was imposed upon all hops reared in England, and

threepence on foreign hops. In subsequent years slight variations were

made in the amount of the duty, and finally it was abolished, when

hop-grounds at once began to increase.

When the duty was high, and hops scarce, substitutes for _Humulus

lupulus_ were experimented with, among others, pine and willow bark,

cascarilla bark, quassia, gentian, colocynth, walnut leaf, wormwood

bitter, extract of aloes, cocculus indicus berries, capsicum, and

others too numerous to mention, picric acid being perhaps the most

modern. None of these have been found to be an equivalent for the hop,

lacking its distinct and independent elements of activity.

So far we have treated solely of the somewhat chequered history of the

hop. Let us now consider its merits and uses. Thus sang the poet:—

Lo! on auxiliary Poles, the Hops

Ascending spiral, rang’d in meet array: {80}

Lo! how the arable with Barley-Grain

Stands thick, o’er-shadow’d to the thirsty hind

Transporting prospect!—_These,———_

_————infus’d an auburn Drink compose_

_Wholesome of Deathless Fame._

[Illustration: A Perfite Platform of a Hoppe Garden.

Training the Hoppe.

“It shall not be amisse nowe and then to passe through your Garden,

having in eche Hande a forked wande, directyng aright such Hoppes as

decline from the Poales.”

Gathering the Hoppe.

“Cutte them” (the hop stalkes) “a sunder wyth a sharpe hooke, and wyth

a forked staffe take them from the Poales.”

]

But from poets we do not, as a rule, gather much practical information,

except from such as worthy old Tusser. Harrison, in his description

of England, says: “The continuance of the drinke is alwaie determined

after the quantitie of the hops, so that being well hopped it lasteth

longer.” A modern writer puts it thus: “The principal use of hops in

brewing is for the preservation of malt liquor, and to communicate to

it an agreeably aromatic bitter flavour. The best are used for ale and

the finer kinds of malt liquor, and inferior kinds are used for porter.”

“Brew in October and hop it for long keeping,” was the excellent advice

given by Mortimer. Dr. Luke Booker, in his sequel poem to the Hop

Garden, of course devotes some lines to this subject:—

Hop’s potent essence, Ale.——bring hither, Boy!

That smiling goblet, from the cask just brimmed

Where floats a pearly star. By it inspired,

No purple wine—no Muse’s aid I ask,

To nerve my lines and bid them smoothly flow.

And in another place:—

Then whencesoever the Hop,

That flavouring zest and spirit to my cask

Imparts, preservative—a needless truth

’Twere to reveal. There are, whose accurate taste

Will tell the region where it mantling grew.

In relation to his allusion to a “pearly star,” Dr. Booker tells

us that, “When ale is of sufficient strength and freshness, there

will always float a small cluster of minute pearl-like globules in

the centre of the drinking vessel, till the spirit of the liquor is

evaporated.”

Hops are an essential to the brewer, not only keeping the beer and

giving it an exquisite flavour, but also assisting, if we may be

pardoned for using a technical term in a work intended to be anything

but technical, to break down the fermentation.

Hops are valuable according as they contain much or little of a yellow

powder called lupuline, and technically known as “condition,” which

is deposited in minute yellow adhesive globules underneath the {81}

bracts of the flower tops, and amounts to from 20 per cent. to 30

per cent. of the dry hops. This powder has a powerful aromatic smell,

and is bitter to the taste. It contains hop resin, bitter acid of

hops (flavour familiar to bitter beer drinkers), tannic acid, and

hop oils, the chemical composition of which is not accurately known.

Hops contain most lupuline when the flower is fully matured. Year-old

hops only command about half the price of new. Those two years old

are called “old-olds,” and are still less valuable. After having been

five years in store they are worthless to brewers. Nearly all hops

intended to be kept are more or less (the less the better) subjected

to the fumes of sulphur, which, oxidising the essential oil, converts

it into valerianic acid, and combines with the sulphur to form a solid

body. Thus the oil, which would otherwise be the cause of mould, is

destroyed, and the hops can be kept. We believe it is the practice of

the best brewers to use a mixture of new and old hops, the latter being

slightly sulphured, so slightly, indeed, that the smell of the sulphur

cannot be detected.

Much has been written on the injurious effects of sulphuring, both to

the fermentation and the health of beer-drinkers, and some people have

very strong views on the subject. In 1855 a commission, which included

Liebig among its members, was appointed by the Bavarian Government to

inquire into the matter. After experiments which lasted over a period

of two years, a report was issued in which it was stated that in the

opinion of the commissioners, sulphuring was beneficial to the hops,

and in no way prejudicial to the fermentation. In 1877, a method was

made known of preserving hops without sulphur. The oil which prevents

the hops from keeping was separated from them by a chemical process,

and bottled. The hops were then pressed and kept in the usual way. When

required for brewing, the hops and oil could again be united by adding

ten or twelve drops of the latter to every twenty-two gallons of beer.

This system does not seem to have found favour with hop merchants.

Aloes have occasionally been used to restore decayed hops, though

with such poor success that we should hardly think the experiment was

often repeated. Professor Bradly, a Cambridge professor of botany,

wrote as follows:—“I cannot help taking notice here of a method which

has been used to stale and decayed hops, to make them recover their

bitterness, which is to unbag them, and sprinkle them with aloes and

water, which, I have known, has spoiled great quantities of drink about

London; for even where the water, the malt, the brewer, {82} and the

cellars are each good, a bad hop will spoil all: so that every one of

these particulars should be well chosen before brewing, or else we must

expect a bad account of our labour.”

The age of hops is known by their appearance, odour, and feel. New

unsulphured hops, for instance, when rubbed through the hand feel oily.

In their first year they are of a bright green colour, have an aromatic

smell and the lupuline is a bright yellow. In the second year they get

darker, have a slightly cheesy odour, and the lupuline becomes a golden

yellow. In the third year the lupuline is a dark yellow, the smell

being about the same as in the second year.

In the hedges about Canton is found a variety of hop growing wild. It

has been named the _Humulus Japonicus_. “Although this species,” says

Seemann, in his _Botany of the Voyage of H.M.S. Herald_, “was published

many years ago by Von Siebold and Zuccarini, we still find nearly

all our systematic works asserting that there is only _one_ species

of Humulus, as there seems to be only one species of Cannabis. This,

however, is a very good species, at once distinguished from the common

Hop by the entire absence of those resinous spherical glands, with

which the scales of the imbricated heads of the latter are scattered,

and to which they owe their value in the preparation of beer, making

the substitution of the one for the other for economical purposes an

impossibility.”

So much then for the first and principal use of hops—and yet a few

lines more on the same subject; from Christopher Smart’s poem of the

_Hop Garden_:—

Be it so.

But Ceres, rural Goddess, at the best

Meanly supports her vot’ry, enough for her

If ill-persuading hunger she repell,

And keep the soul from fainting: to enlarge,

To glad the heart, to sublimate the mind

And wing the flagging spirits to the sky,

Require the united influence and aid

Of Bacchus, God of Hops, with Ceres joined,

’Tis he shall generate the buxom beer.

But hops have other uses than the generation of “the buxom beer.” The

discovery, which we consider an important one, was made a few years

back that hop-bine makes excellent ensilage. The subject was {83}

first mentioned, so far as we know, in a letter to _The Field_ of

December 6th, 1884, from A. L., probably, agent to H. A. Brassey, Esq.,

of Aylesford. The writer gave an account of the opening of a silo, in

one compartment of which had been placed eight tons of hop-bines, in

the beginning of the previous September. An account of the experiment

was also sent by a visitor at the farm, from whose letter the following

extract seems to us well worth perusal:—“The hop-bine is at present an

entirely waste material, except for littering purposes; and not a few

of the local farmers were anxious to see how it would turn out, and

whether stock would eat the hop-bine ensilage or not. No experiment

could be more satisfactory. The apparent condition and smell of a great

deal of it was even superior to that of several of the other varieties;

and when a bag of it was taken to the homestead and offered to some

fattening steers, which had been well fed just before, and were not

in the least hungry, they devoured it with great alacrity, and seemed

heartily to enjoy the new food; consequently this will be good news to

hop-growers.”

Early in ’85, the following important letter on the subject appeared in

the _Kentish Gazette_, from Mr. T. M. Hopkins, Lower Wick, Worcester:—

“Having learnt from Mr. Seymour, agent to H. A. Brassey, Esq., that

hop-bine made first-rate ensilage, last Oct. I made two stacks of it

16ft. by 16ft., and 18ft. high. After letting it ferment freely, I

pressed down with Reynolds and Co.’s patent screw press, and next day

filled up again; and, when sufficiently fermented, again pressed down,

and this lasted all through the hop-picking. I have now used nearly the

whole of it, and calculate that it has saved me some 80 tons of hay; no

more hop-bine do I waste in future as I have hitherto done. My horses

have had nothing else for two months, excepting their usual allowance

of corn, and I never had them looking better. I have also had 100 head

of cattle, stores, cows, and calves feeding on it for a fortnight, and

they do well. Dr. Voelcker, chemist to the R.A.S.E., who has analysed

it, says: ‘It has plenty of good material in it, and is decidedly rich

in nitrogen, nor is the amount of acid excessive or likely to harm

cattle.’ Another analyst, Mr. W. E. Porter, F.C.S., says: ‘It contains

more flesh-forming matter and less indigestible fibre than hay dried at

212.’ Planters should leave off growing hops to sell at present average

prices, 40s. to 50s., which is a dead loss. Let the plant run wild,

and they may every season cut two or three immense crops of material

that will make ensilage of unexceptionable quality.” {84}

To this there is little we can add.[39] The importance of the subject

is evident. We may, however, express a hope that hop-growers will not

act on Mr. Hopkins’ suggestion, and only grow hops for the sake of the

bine—English hops are too good for that. We have spoken of hop-bine

ensilage as a discovery, but French farmers have for years mixed green

hop-leaves with their cows’ food, under the belief, rightly or wrongly

we know not, that it increases the flow of milk. Possibly in the far

past hops were cultivated as fodder, and even used as ensilage. Silos

we know were used anciently, though only recently re-introduced owing

principally to the attention called to them in _The Field_ and the

agricultural journals.

[39] In a letter with which we have recently been favoured by Mr.

Hopkins, that gentleman says: “I have every reason to believe in the

great value of Hop-Bine Ensilage . . . milking-cows do well with it,

and it does not affect the flavour of the milk.”

The stem of the hop contains a vegetable wax, and sap from which can

be made a durable reddish brown. Its ash is used in the manufacture

of Bohemian glass; and it also makes excellent pulp for paper. From

its fibres ropes and coarse textile fabrics of considerable strength

have been made. The Van de Schelldon process of cloth-making from the

stem of the hop, invented, we believe, in 1866, is shortly as follows:

The stalks are cut, done up in bundles, and steeped like hemp. After

steeping they are dried in the sun. They are then beaten with mallets

to loosen the fibres, which are afterwards carded and woven in the

usual way. It is from the thicker stems that ropes can be made.

Several patents have been taken out for manufacturing paper from hops.

One taken out by a Mr. Henry Dyer was for paper made of fresh or spent

hops, or spent malt, alone or combined with other materials. In 1873 a

meeting of paper-makers was held in France, before whom was exhibited

a textile material made from the bark of the hop-stalk, the outer skin

being removed and subjected to chemical treatment. It was in long

pieces, and supple and delicate of texture.

About ten years ago it was announced, in a journal devoted to

photography, that an infusion of hops, mixed with pyrogallic acid,

albumen of eggs, and filtered in the ordinary way, could be used as

a preservative for the plates then in use by photographers. Plates

preserved with this, dried hard with a fine gloss, and yielded

negatives of very high quality. A mixture of beer and albumen was

formerly used {85} for the same purpose, but owing to the varying

quality and properties of the beer, was very uncertain in its action.

The root of the hop is not without its uses, containing starchy

substances which can be made into glucose and alcohol. It also contains

a certain amount of tannin, which, it has been suggested, might be used

with advantage in tanneries.

Until recently trumpeted forth in the advertisements of a certain

patent medicine, it was not generally known outside the medical

profession that hops possessed medicinal qualities of considerable

value. Old medical writers, however, must have changed their views on

the subject within a hundred years after the time of Andrew Boorde,

from whose works we have already quoted a few lines. Wm. Coles,

Herbalist, in his _History of Plants_, published in 1657, states that

certain preparations of hops are cures for about half the ills that

flesh is heir to. Another old writer declares the young shoots of the

hop, eaten like asparagus, to be very wholesome and effectual to loosen

the body (the poorer classes in some parts of Europe still eat the

young hops as a vegetable); the head and tendrils good to purify the

blood in the scurvy and most other cutaneous diseases (which scurvy is

not), and the decoctions of the flower and syrup thereof useful against

pestilential fevers. Juleps and apozems are also prepared with hops for

hypochondriacal and hysterical affections; and a pillow stuffed with

hops is used to induce sleep. This last method, by the way, was taken

advantage of by the medical advisers of George III. That unfortunate

king, when in a demented condition, always slept on a pillow so

prepared. Another writer tells us that the Spaniards were in the habit

of boiling a pound of hop roots in a gallon of water, reducing it to

six pints, and drinking half a pint when in bed of a morning, under

the belief that it possessed the same qualities as sarsaparilla. Dr.

Brooks, in his _Dispensatory_, published in 1753, concurs with the

older writers on the subject.

_Observations and Experiments on the Humulus Lupulus of Linnæus, with

an account of its use in Gout and other Diseases_, is the title of a

pamphlet by a Mr. Freake, of Tottenham Court Road, published in 1806.

The author states that a patient of his, who was in want of a bitter

tincture, found all the usual remedies disagree with him, and after

numerous unsatisfactory experiments, fell back upon a preparation of

hops, which appeared to answer its purpose. This led Mr. Freake to try

further experiments with the hop, when he came to the conclusion that

it was an excellent remedy for relieving the pains of gout, acting

sometimes when opium failed. {86}

Hops have also been employed with good effect in poultices. Dr.

Trotter, in one of his medical works, quotes a letter from an assistant

of Dr. Geach, once senior surgeon of the Royal Hospital at Plymouth, in

which the writer says that he had during six months experimented with

hops, and found that a poultice made of a strong decoction of hops,

oatmeal, and water was an excellent remedy for ulcers, which should

first be fomented with the decoction.

Dr. Paris, writing of the hop about the year 1820, says, “It is now

generally admitted that they constitute the most valuable ingredient in

malt liquors. Independently of the flavour and tonic virtues which they

communicate, they precipitate, by means of their astringent principle,

the vegetable mucilage, and thus remove from the beer the active

principle of its fermentation; without hops, therefore, we must either

drink our malt liquors new and ropy, or old and sour.”

In the introduction to Murray’s _Handbook of Kent_ it is stated that

invalids are occasionally recommended to pass whole days in hop grounds

as a substitute for the usual exhibition of Bass or Allsopp. In hop

gardens the air is no doubt impregnated with lupuline, so there may be

something in this.

At the present day lupuline is often used in medicine. Lupuline was

the name given by Ives to the yellow dust covering the female flower

of hops. Later, Ives, Chevallier, and Pellatau gave that name, not

to the dust, but to the bitter principle it contains. The recognized

preparations of hops are an infusion, a tincture, and an extract. They

are stomachic, tonic, and soporific. Dr. John Gardner, in one of his

works on medicine, says that “bitter ale, or the lupuline in pills

which it forms by simply rubbing between the fingers and warming, are

the best forms for using hops in dyspepsia and feeble appetite, which

they will often relieve.” The lupuline powder is easily separated

from the hops by means of a sieve. A hop bath to relieve pain is also

recommended by Dr. Gardner for certain painful internal diseases. It is

made thus: two pounds of hops are boiled in two gallons of water for

half an hour, then strained and pressed, and the fluid added to about

thirty gallons of water. This bath has been much praised. Hop beer

(without alcohol) is another preparation of the plant which has been

recommended.

In America the hop is highly appreciated for medicinal purposes. There

are three preparations of it in the authorized code: a tincture, a

liquid extract, and an oleo-resin.

So much, then, for the history and economic and medicinal uses of {87}

the hop. Before we close this chapter it is our intention to give a

short account of the hop-growing countries and districts, of hopfields,

of hop-growers’ multifarious troubles, and some description of what are

perhaps the greatest curiosities of the subject—the hop-pickers.

The European hop-growing countries stand in the following order:

Germany takes the lead with about 477,000 acres of hop gardens,

England following, and then Belgium, Austria, France, and other

states (Denmark, Greece, Portugal, &c.), in which the acreage is

insignificant. According to Dr. Thudichum, 53,000,000 kilogrammes of

hops are produced annually in Europe, and in good years production may

rise to over 80,000,000. In America hops have been cultivated for more

than two centuries, having been introduced into the New Netherlands in

1629 and into Virginia in 1648. Hop-culture is now common in most of

the northern states.

We believe we are correct in saying that the best hop years America

has ever known, were 1866 to 1868, when the amount produced was from

2,400 lbs. to 2,500 lbs. per acre. In 1870 the total production was

25,456,669 lbs. In Australia hops are extensively cultivated; they are

also grown in China and India. In the latter place they have not been

introduced many years, but beer of a fair quality is made in some of

the hill stations. The following table shows approximately the acreage

of hops in England at the present time:

District. Acreage.

Mid Kent 17,150

Weald of Kent 12,601

East Kent 11,885

Sussex 9,501

Hereford 6,087

Hampshire 2,938

Worcester 2,767

Surrey 2,439

Other Counties 251

From the eastern limits of the hop gardens at Sandwich to the western

boundary in Hereford, hard by the borders of Wales, there are, then,

about 65,619 acres of hop gardens, or hop “yards,” as they are called

in some districts, _e.g._, Worcester and Hereford. North Cray, in

Nottinghamshire, formerly grew a good quantity of hops, but the

plantations are now considerably reduced, and this applies also to the

Stowmarket district, in Suffolk, and to Essex. The number of acres

devoted to the cultivation of hops has always been subject to great

{88} fluctuations; thus in 1807 they numbered 38,218; in 1819, 51,000;

in 1830, 46,727; and in 1875, 70,000.

Dr. Booker wrote that for quality of hops, Herefordshire stood first

Worcestershire second, Kent third, and North Cray fourth; but he was

probably mistaken, for the hops of East Kent have always been held

to be the best in all England, pre-eminent alike for strength and

flavour; those of Farnham, however, run them very closely. Our English

hops, indeed, are far superior to most of those imported, and the

foreigners are rarely used in beer without an admixture of home-grown

hops. Immense quantities now come from abroad; in 1828 only 4 cwt. were

imported!

Until quite recently, the whole of the hops in this country were poled

upon much the same system as that described in Reynolde Scot’s old

pamphlet—that is, three or four plants would be grown on a hillock,

each having a pole to climb. Now, the poles are largely supplemented

by wires arranged in various ways, sometimes, when covered with bine,

forming bell-tents of hops; and sometimes running from pole to pole.

Other wires leaving them at right angles are attached to pegs in the

ground. The aspect of the gardens is greatly changed, but they are not

less beautiful than of yore. Train the hop as you will, you cannot

make it unlovely. The vines twist lovingly round the slender wires and

tall poles, the former bending under their weight and swaying to and

fro in the breeze. From pole to pole run the topmost shoots, and the

whole field is one large arbour, roofed, if it be autumn, with verdant

foliage and golden green fruit. Then, may be, the sunlight here and

there touches the glorious clusters, giving them still richer colours.

“The hop for his profit I thus do exalt,” wrote old Tusser, “and for

his grace and beauty,” he might have added, but the worthy Thomas was

nothing if not practical. Howitt, in his _Year Book of the Country_

thus writes of the hop country in autumn: “But all is not sombre and

meditative in September. The hopfield and the nutwood are often scenes

of much jolly old English humour and enjoyment. In Kent and Sussex the

whole country is odorous with the aroma of hop, as it is breathed from

the drying kilns and huge wagons filled with towering loads of hops,

thronging the road to London. But not only is the atmosphere perfumed

with hops, but the very atmosphere of the drawing-room and dining-room

too. Hops are the grand flavour of conversation as well as of beer.

Gentlemen, ladies, clergymen, noblemen, all are growers of hops, and

deeply interested in the state of the crop and the market.” {89}

The use of wires is a serious matter for hop-pole growers if the

following calculation, made by some ingenious person, be correct.

Suppose that 45,000 acres of hops are under cultivation, and each acre

annually requires 800 new poles, the total annual requirement will

be 36,000,000 poles. Each acre of underwood from which poles are cut

produces about 3,000. Every year, therefore, 12,000 acres of underwood

must be cut to supply the demand. If each acre produces on an average

2,000 poles, which is nearer the truth than 3,000, then 18,000 acres

must be cut annually to supply the hop-gardens with poles.

Poets, in their search for similes, have not overlooked hops and hop

poles. In Gay’s _A New Song of New Similes_ occur the following lines:—

Hard is her heart as flint or stone,

She laughs to see me pale;

And merry as a grig is grown,

And brisk as _bottled ale_.

* * * * *

Ah me! as thick as _hops_ or hail

The fine men crowd about her.

Then Cotton, in his verses to John Bradshaw, Esq., writes:—

Mustachios looked like heroes’ trophies

Behind their arms in th’ Herald’s office;

The perpendicular beard appeared

Like _hop-poles_ in a _hopyard_ reared.

Hop-growers’ troubles, furnish a theme of which, were we hop-growers,

we fear our readers would weary, for a volume might very well be

filled with a relation of them. Not being hop-growers, and having much

to write about ere we inscribe the sad word “finis,” we must content

ourselves only with such an account as will give our readers a general

idea of the subject. To begin with, the annual outlay per acre in the

gardens is very great, being about £36. A hop acre, be it observed,

is not an ordinary acre, but contains a thousand hop plants in rows,

six or seven feet apart, and is equal to about two-thirds the statutory

acre.

No crops are more precarious than the _humulus lupulus_. How said Dr.

Booker?—

The spiral hop, high mantling, how to train

_No common care_ to Britain’s gen’rous sons,

Lovers of “nut-brown ale”—sing fav’ring Muse!

{90}

A glance at statistics will show the truth of our statement. In 1882

the return per acre did not average more than 1½ cwt. on account of a

perfect plague of aphides; while in 1859, which is about the best hop

year of the century, the return was 13¼ cwt. per acre. The average

yield during the last seventy-six years is about 6¾ cwt. per acre; not

a very large return for the outlay. In 1839 a certain hop plantation

in Kent of about 21½ acres, produced 15 cwt. per acre, and in the

following year only 1 cwt. per acre.

These extraordinary variations in the production of hop gardens are

caused by insects and the weather. Early in the year, when the vines

appear well grown and sturdy, the hop-grower may with a light heart,

perhaps, prophesy a good crop. In May a few aphides—winged females—are

noticed, and in August the silvery brightness of the delicate bracts

is blackened and spoilt by the filth of the lice—larvæ of the hop

aphis. About September a mighty wind comes; poles are blown down in all

directions, the ground is strewn with the cones blown from the vines,

and branches are bruised, causing the cones on them to wither and

decay before picking-time. Just as the hops are ripening two or three

cold nights perhaps occur, which throw them back and materially reduce

the value of the crop. Then they may be attacked with mildew, or even

when all evils have in most part been avoided, picking-time has all

but arrived, and the hop-grower is congratulating himself on his good

fortune, a shower of hail may happen, stripping the vines and reducing

the value of the crop by three-fourths.

Miss Ormerod, consulting entomologist to the Royal Agricultural

Society, has given much study to, and thrown considerable light upon,

the hop aphis. The course of the attack upon the hop she has discovered

to be as follows:—The aphis first comes upon the hop in the spring in

the form of wingless females (depositing young), which ascend the bine

from the ground. The great attack, however, which usually occurs in the

form of “fly” about the end of May, comes from damson and sloe bushes

as well as from the hop; the hop aphis and the damson aphis being, in

Miss Ormerod’s opinion, very slight varieties of one species, and so

similar in habits that for all practical purposes of inquiry they may

be considered one.

From experiments made on hop grounds in Hereford, the use of various

applications round the hills in the late autumn or about the beginning

of April, completely prevented attacks to the vines of those hills

until the summer attack came on the wing. Paraffin in any dry material

spread on the hills, proved serviceable both as a preventive {91} and

a remedy, and petroleum and kerosine were also used with advantage.

Among the methods of washing, the application of steam power opens up

a possibility of carrying out these operations with rapidity and at

less cost. When the fly is very bad, the common practice is, after

the picking is over, to clear the land of bine and weeds and to place

quicklime round the hills or plant centres.

When the hop is fully formed, shortly before picking, if the weather

be hot and close, almost the whole crop may be destroyed in a few

days. The aphides penetrate the hop and suck from the tender bracts

the juice, some of which exudes; this, the moist weather retarding

evaporation, produces decay at the point of puncture, and a black spot

shows, technically called “mould.” The great enemies to the lice are

the ladybirds, which devour them greedily, and a hop-grower would as

soon destroy a ladybird as a herring fisherman a seagull.

It has been recently suggested that the suitability or not of soil for

hop-growing, depends upon the presence or absence of sulphur, which

is an essential ingredient of hops. There is more than one instance

on record where hops treated with gypsum (sulphate of lime) were free

from mould, while in adjoining gardens the hops not so treated suffered

severely. The hops least liable to blight and mould contain the largest

amount of sulphur. A curious fact has been proved in Germany by careful

analysis. In plants attacked by the hop bug the proportion of sulphur

is much greater in the healthy and unattacked leaves than in those

infested with the bug. This subject hardly comes within the range

of our work, and we merely mention it to bring it into notice among

hop-growers, whom further experiments with gypsum may possibly benefit.

It is obvious that as the chief attack is made by aphis on the wing,

dressings put on the ground with a view to kill the aphides in the soil

are of little avail, for from a neighbouring or even a distant garden

where the hills have been not so treated, may come a flight of aphides

causing desolation in their track. If, however, sulphur can be imported

into the live plant, and such plants are untouched by the fly, it would

seem that we are near a solution of this very vexed problem. We know

of an instance where the hops on one side of a valley were totally

destroyed by the fly, while on the other side they were untouched. The

wind setting in one direction during the flight, had carried the fly

over the sheltered side, and deposited them on the exposed side of the

valley.

Not to mention extraordinary tithes in this portion of our subject

would be a serious omission. Formerly our worthy pastors were paid

{92} with a tenth of the actual produce of the land, now they receive

what are in theory equivalent money payments. As orchards, market

gardens, and hop gardens were deemed to yield much greater returns than

other land, the tithe on them was fixed at a much greater rate than

on pasture and arable land. While the tithe on these latter is but

trifling, the tithe on the former is about thirty shillings per acre.

When few foreign hops were imported, these very extraordinary tithes

could be paid, but now they are a most serious, not to say unjust,

tax on the hop-grower who in very bad years may not make thirty or

even twenty shillings per acre. It is common knowledge that a great

agitation is on foot to obtain their abolition, and there appears to

be a very general feeling that no land ought in the future to become

subject to extraordinary tithe by reason of any crop which may be grown

on it. At present the extraordinary tithes are a check on production

and the most advantageous cultivation of land. Being thus prejudicial

to the welfare of the State, they should have been abolished long

ago, and no doubt would have been, but for the circumstance that the

immediate sufferers are comparatively few in number.

The hop gardens of Kent not only provide the brewer with the best hops,

but, as each autumn comes round, afford to some thirty thousand or so

of the poorer classes living in the densely-populated districts of the

east of London a few weeks of country life. The East-Enders, indeed,

look upon hop-picking in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex as their particular

prerogative, and mix but little with the “home” pickers, who, however,

are almost equal to them in numbers.

“When the plants are laden with beautiful bloom

And the air breathes around us its rich perfume,”

the grower sends word to the pickers, most of whom have had their names

down for a bin, or a basket, for weeks or even months previously. In

Mid Kent “bins” are used. These consist of an oblong framework of wood

supported on legs, and to which a piece of sackcloth is fastened. The

bins are divided down the centres, so that two families may pick into

one bin. At certain times in the day the hops in each bin are measured

and the number of bushels credited to the pickers. In East Kent baskets

are used; these contain distinct marks for each bushel, so that the

labour of measuring is dispensed with. From the baskets the hops are

emptied into sacks and carried to the oast house to be dried. This is

a simple operation. The oast house is a square brick building with a

chimney of large size in the centre of the roof. The hops are {93}

laid on cloths stretched between beams. The necessary heat is obtained

from a brick fireplace which is open at the top. After having been

sufficiently baked, the hops are allowed to cool, and are then put into

pockets, _i.e._, long sacks, stamped down as tightly as possible, and

are ready for the market.

As in Chaucer’s time pilgrims wound their way through the garden of

England, so now do pilgrims, but with different object, tramp along the

dusty highway or shady lane into that beautiful country. In Chaucer’s

time the monasteries provided food and shelter for the pilgrims; but

now they in most part are content with the blue sky or spreading

branch of tree as a roof, and hedge-row for a wall. If the weather

be but reasonably fine, the life of these latter-day pilgrims is not

a hard one, for the balmy country air, the soft turf and beautiful

surroundings must seem to these poor creatures a kind of paradise after

the dens of filth, disease, and darkness from which they have come.

Not pleasant company are these pilgrims. As a rule they are uncleanly,

their habits coarse, their language foul, and their morality doubtful.

Many persons in Kent prefer to lose several pounds rather than let

their children go into the fields and associate with the mixed

company from the East-End. Poor people! they are after all what their

circumstances have made them; a sweep can hardly be blamed for having

a black face. A few years since men, women, and children all slept

together indiscriminately in barns and outhouses. Now, as regards

sleeping accommodation, there have been changes for the better,

“And far and near

With accent clear

The hop-picker’s song salutes the glad ear:

The old and the young

Unite in the throng,

And echo re-echoes their jocund song,

The hop-picking time is a time of glee,

So merrily, merrily now sing we:

For the bloom of the hop is the secret spell

Of the bright pale ale that we love so well;

So gather it quickly with tender care,

And off to the wagons the treasure bear.”

The high road from London to the hopfields of Kent presents a curious

appearance immediately before the hop-picking season. A stranger

might imagine that the poorer classes of a big city were flying {94}

before an invading army. Grey-haired, decrepit old men and women

are to be seen crawling painfully along, their stronger sons and

daughters pressing on impatiently. Children by the dozens, some fresh

and leaping for very joy at the green fields and sunshine, others

crying from fatigue, for the road is long and dusty. Nearly all these

people carry sacks or baskets, or bundles, and some even push hand

carts laden with clothing, rags, and odds and ends. Most of these

folk are careless, merry people, and beguile the way as did Chaucer’s

pilgrims, with many a coarse jest, but here and there will be seen some

hang-dog bloated-faced ruffian tramping doggedly along, a discontented

weary woman dragging slowly a few yards in his rear, as likely as

not carrying a half-starved sickly child in her shawl. Such as these

cause the coming of the hop-pickers to be regarded with anything but

satisfaction in country districts, and at such time householders are

doubly careful to see that their windows and doors are properly barred.

But the majority of the pickers are well-behaved according to their

lights, and guilty at most of a little rough horseplay towards the

solitary traveller or among themselves.

Towards evening the pickers cease their tramp, and take up their

quarters for the night in woodland copse, or under hedge-row or

sheltering bank. Baskets, sacks, and hand carts are unpacked, and here

and there will be seen a whole family seated round a blazing wood fire,

over which boils the family kettle. Others, less fortunate in having no

family circle to join, betake themselves to more secluded quarters to

munch the lump of bread of which their supper consists.

About half the pickers are taken into Kent by special trains, a larger

number, as might be expected, returning that way. The secretaries of

the South Eastern and London and Chatham Railway Companies have very

kindly furnished us with a few figures on the subject. In 1882—_the_

bad year for hops—the S.E.R. Company only carried 173 pickers to the

fields, and 3,094 on the return journeys; but in previous years the

numbers varied from 6,000 to 17,000 on the outgoing journey, and 9,000

to 19,000 on the return journey. Last year the L.C. & D.R. Company

carried 1,785 pickers to the fields, and brought back 4,035.

But if the pickers are light-hearted and merry on the way to the

fields, with empty pockets, what are they on their return, after work

is over and wages paid? Everything is then the height of merriment,

and of such an uproarious kind as the people of the East End delight

in. Young men and girls, invigorated by their sojourn in the bracing

country air, alike garland themselves with hops, and decorate

themselves with gay ribbons. Laughing, dancing, and singing, they hurry

{95} to the station, or along the road to London. Practical jokes are

played by the score, the railway officials are distracted, the police

look the other way. As train after train full of shouting people leaves

the station, the crowd gradually becomes less thick. Night comes on,

and many return to their barns, obliged to put off their return home

for another day. In a few days this lively throng of humanity has

disappeared; the hopfields, robbed of their bright crops, are again

quiet; and the more nervous of the dwellers in Kent again breathe

freely.

[Illustration]

{96}

[Illustration]

CHAPTER V.

JACK CADE—“There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a

penny, the three hooped pot shall have seven hoops, and I will make it

felony to drink small beer.”—_Hen._ VI., Part II. Act iv. Scene 2.

_ANCIENT AND CURIOUS LAWS RELATING TO THE MANUFACTURE AND SALE OF ALE

AND BEER._

Kings, Parliaments and Local Authorities have, from very early times up

to the present, more or less interfered with the production and sale of

alcoholic liquors. As a rule, the laws and regulations made by them had

the benevolent object of preserving the public health and pocket, but

to modern notions they appear for the most part arbitrary and vexatious

enactments which unduly oppressed an important industry.

Before dealing with the many early references to laws concerning the

brewing and sale of ale, it will be interesting to notice a few of the

curious regulations to be found in the Canons of ancient religious

orders enjoining sobriety on the members of their communities. Almost,

if not quite, the earliest of the kind is attributed to St. Gildas the

Wise, who lived towards the close of the sixth century, and is to the

effect that, 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 Canons of St. David’s contain further rules on the same matter.

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.

Those who get drunk from ignorance must do penance fifteen days;

if through negligence, forty days; if through contempt, three {97}

quarantains. He who forces another to get drunk out of hospitality,

must do penance as though he had got drunk himself. 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.

That these restrictions were not confined to clerics may be seen

from the decree of Theodore, seventh Archbishop of Canterbury (A.D.

668–693), that if a Christian layman drink to excess, he must do a

fifteen-days’ penance.

King Edgar seems to have gone nearer to the programme of the United

Kingdom Alliance. Strutt says of him that under the guidance of

Dunstan he put down many alehouses, suffering only one to exist in a

village. He also ordered that pegs should be fastened in the drinking

horns at intervals, that whosoever drank beyond these marks at one

draught should be liable to punishment. We find, however, that this

last-mentioned device defeated its own end, and became a provocative

of drinking, so that in 1102, Anselm decreed, “Let no priest go to

drinking bouts, nor drink to pegs (ad pinnas).” The custom was called

pin-drinking or pin-nicking, and is the origin of the phrase, “He is in

a merry pin,” and, doubtless, also of the expression, “Taking him down

a peg.”

The peg-tankards, as they were called, contained two quarts, and were

divided into eight draughts by means of these pegs; they passed from

hand to hand, and each must drink it down one peg, no more, no less,

under pain of fine.

In a code of Dunstan, for the regulation of the religious orders, were

further injunctions to the priesthood, in which it was enjoined that no

drinking be allowed _in the Church_, that men should be temperate at

Church-wakes, that a priest should beware of drunkenness, and should in

no wise be an ale-scop (_i.e._, a reciter at an ale-house). If we may

believe the strange story of St. Dunstan, as recorded by the graphic

pen of the author of the _Ingoldsby Legends_, we shall have little

difficulty in accounting for the Saint’s abhorrence of strong drink.

The legend is a good illustration of the maxim, “A little knowledge

is a dangerous thing.” Lay-brother Peter discovers that the Saint’s

miraculous powers are due to his magical control over a broomstick, and

that, on his uttering certain mystic words, the broomstick is compelled

to do his bidding. Lay-brother Peter determines to apply his knowledge

of the broomstick’s powers to his own temporal advantage. Having spoken

the mystic words, {98}

Peter, full of his fun,

Cries, “Broomstick! you lubberly son of a gun!

Bring ale!—bring a flagon—a hogshead—a tun!

’Tis the same thing to you; I have nothing to do;

And, ’fore George, I’ll sit here, and I’ll drink till all’s blue.”

Alas! too literally the broomstick obeys the command; and the poor

lay-brother, not having at command the spell that may compel the

broomstick to desist, “after floating a while like a toast in a

tankard,” is at last overwhelmed, and perishes in the brown flood he

has so incautiously called up.

In vain did St. Dunstan exclaim, “Vade retro

Strongbeerum! discede a Lay-fratre Petro!”

However, the impression made upon the good Saint’s mind was indelible,

and has left its traces in the regulations made by him relating to

drunkenness.

Elfric’s Canons, also, are directed towards putting down the custom of

drinking in churches. They lay down that men ought not to drink and eat

immoderately in churches, for “men often act so absurdly as to sit up

by night, and drink to madness in God’s house.”

Some of the earliest laws directed against a particular custom in

which ale figured as the principal beverage, were the prohibitions to

be met with in the records of the 13th century with regard to what

were called scot-ales. A scot-ale was a meeting for the purpose of

consuming ale, and its name was derived from the fact that the drinkers

_divided_[40] the expenses of the entertainment amongst them. These

feasts were forbidden in the reign of King John by Fitz-piers and Peter

of Winchester, the regents of the kingdom, on the ground that they

were made occasions for extortion. The forests, which then spread over

great tracts of country, were not subject to the common law, but to the

laws of the forest only, and we are told that the foresters and their

minions not only set up ale-houses, but even compelled people living

near to come in and join in scot-ales, for the sake of the revenue

accruing therefrom. In 1256 Giles of Bridport, Bishop of Salisbury,

{99} interdicted scot-ales, and commanded rectors, vicars, and other

parish priests to exhort their parishioners that they violate not

rashly the prohibition. In certain places the term scot-ale was used to

denote one of the services paid by tenants to the lord or his bailiff

on the periodical tour of inspection, and Bracton mentions that the

Itinerant Justices were directed to inquire whether any viscounts or

bailiffs brew their own ale, “which they call scot-ale or filct-ale,”

for the purpose of extorting money from the tenants.

[40] _Cf._ The modern expressions _scot free_ and _paying the shot_.

Somewhat similar in practice, though distinct in origin and in the

purpose of their institution, were the festivals called Bede-ales.

These curious celebrations are described in Prynne’s _Canterburie’s

Doome_ (1646) as public meetings, “when an honest man decayed in his

fortune is set up again by the liberal benevolence and contribution

of friends at a feast; but this is laid aside at almost every place.”

The custom somewhat reminds one of the saying that the British are

wont to drink themselves out of debt, an allusion, of course, to the

enormous revenue collected on malt and other liquors. We must suppose,

however, that the practice of bede-ale was abused; the more generous

and kindly-hearted a man might be, the more tipsy he would have to

make himself in order to help his unfortunate “decayed” friend in the

manner prescribed. Accordingly we find in ancient records prohibitions

of this custom. One such may be cited from the records of the Borough

of Newport, Isle of Wight: “Atte the Lawday holden here in the 8th day

of October, the second yeare of the Reigne of King Edward the iiijth in

the time of William Bokett and Henry Pryer, Bayliffs, Thomas Capford

and William Spring, Constables, it is enacted furthermore that none

hereafter, whether Burgesse or any other dweller or inhabitant, within

this Towne aforesaid, shall make or procure to bee made, any Ale,

commonly called Bede-Ale, within the liberty, nor within this Towne or

without, upon payne of looseing xxd. to be payde to the Keeper of the

Common Box.”

[Illustration: The Tumbrel.]

About the time of Henry III., we begin to find mention in the records

of the period, of persistent attempts to fix the prices of bread and

ale. Laws made with this end in view were termed collectively the

_Assisa Panis et Cervisiæ_ (_i.e._, The Assize of Bread and Ale). In

the fifty-first year of that reign, we find it enacted that when a

quarter of wheat is sold for iiis. or iiis. ivd., and a quarter of

barley for xxd. or iis., and a quarter of oats for xvid., then brewers

(_braciatores_) in cities ought, and may well afford, to sell two

gallons of ale for a penny, and out of cities to sell three or four

gallons for the same sum. By a statute {100} passed in the same year

it is enacted that if a baker or a brewster[41] (_braciatrix_) be

convicted, because he or she hath not observed the Assise of Bread

and Ale, the first, second, or third time, he or she shall be amerced

according to the offence, if it be not over grievous; but if the

offence be grievous and often, and will not be corrected, then he or

she shall suffer corporal punishment, to wit, the Baker to the pillory,

the brewster to the tumbrel (a cart for ignominious punishment), or

to flogging. (The illustration represents a woman undergoing the

punishment of the tumbrel, and is taken from the MS. _Cent Nouvelles_

in the Hunterian Library.) A jury of six lawful men is to be summoned

in every township, who are to be sworn faithfully to collect all

measures of the town, to wit, bushels, half and quarter bushels,

gallons, pottles and quarts, as well from taverns as from other places.

The jurymen are to inquire how the assise of bread has been kept, and

adjudge accordingly; they are then to inquire of the assise of Ale in

the Court of the Town, what it is, and whether it has been observed;

and if {101} not, they are to inquire what brewsters have sold

contrary to the assises and they shall present their names distinctly

and openly, and adjudge them to be fined or to the tumbrel.

[41] The old word brewster is here used in its proper signification

of a female brewer. The Brewster Sessions, as Licensing Sessions are

called in many parts of the country, preserve the name, though the

original feminine signification has disappeared. For an account of

the early brewsters and ale-wives the reader is referred to Chapter

VI.

By another statute, of rather uncertain date, but passed about this

period, it is enacted that the standard of bushels, gallons, and ells

(_standardum busselli galonis et ulne_) is to be marked with an Iron

Seale of our Lord the King, and safe kept, under pain of £100, and no

measure is to be used in any town unless it do agree with the King’s

measure, and be marked with the seal of the shire town; and if any do

sell or buy by measures unsealed, and not examined by the Mayor or

Bailiffs, he shall be grievously amerced and all the measures of every

Town, both great and small, shall be viewed and examined twice in the

year; and if any be convict for a double measure, to wit, a greater for

to buy with, and a lesser for to sell with, he shall be imprisoned for

his falsehood (_tanquam falsarius_) and shall be grievously punished.

The manner in which the various standard measures of capacity were

arrived at is worthy of mention. It is enacted that: “One English

penny, called a stirling, round and without any clipping, shall weigh

twenty-two wheat corns in the midst of the ear, and twenty pence shall

make an ounce, and twelve ounces a pound, and eight pounds shall make a

gallon of wine, and eight gallons of wine shall make one bushel London,

and eight bushels one quarter.”

We are glad to observe that a subsequent statute was passed which

provided that both the pillory, or stretch-neck (_collistrigium_) as it

was called, and also the tumbrel, must be of suitable strength, so that

offenders might be punished without bodily peril.

The _collistrigium_ given below is taken from an old drawing in the

City Records, temp. Ed. III.

[Illustration: The Pillory.]

In the City of London the comparative severity of the punishments of

the fraudulent baker and brewer seems to have been the reverse of that

ordained by statute; the baker suffered the heavier penalty, being

condemned to what was called the “_judicium claye_,” or condemnation

to the hurdle, which, as described in the Liber Albus, was certainly

a most unpleasant form of punishment. On conviction for selling short

weight the defaulting baker was to be drawn upon a hurdle from the

Guildhall to his own house, “through the great streets where there be

most people {102} assembled, and through the great streets _that are

most dirty_.” The illustration is taken from the _Assissa Panis_ (temp.

Edw. I.), preserved among the City Records. The defaulting brewer or

brewster, in the reign of Edw. III., for the first offence was to

forfeit the ale, for the second to forswear the mistier (the mystery

or art of brewing), and on the third offence to forswear the City for

ever. However, the penalties varied from time to time, for in the reign

of Henry V., when the Liber Albus was compiled, the punishment of a

brewster convicted of selling ale contrary to the assize was, that for

the first offence she was to be fined 10s., for the second 20s., and

for the third that she should suffer the “punishment provided for her

in Westchepe,” which would probably be the tumbrel or the pillory.

Some confusion as to the appropriate punishment occasionally arose. In

1257, Sir Hugh Bygot, as Grafton’s Chronicle tells us, “came to the

Guylde-hall, and kept his Court and Plees there, without all order of

law, and contrary to the libertyes of the citie, and there punished the

bakers for lack of size by the tombrell, where beforetymes they were

punished by the Pillorye.”

[Illustration: Punishment of the Hurdle.]

Offending brewers and bakers, in some places, suffered on the Cucking

Stool. In the Borrow Lawes of Scotland, speaking of Browsters (“Wemen

quha brewes aill to be sauld,”) it is said, “Gif she makes gude ail,

that is sufficient. Bot gif she makes euel ail, contrair to the use

and consuetude of the burg, and is convict thereof, she sall pay ane

unlaw of aucht shillinges, or sal suffer the justice of the brugh,

that is, _she sall_ be put upon the Cock- stule, _and the aill sall be

distributed to the pure folke_.”

In April, 1745, an ale-wife of Kingston-on-Thames was ducked in the

river, for scolding, in the presence of two thousand or more people.

The following extracts from the old Assembly Books of Great {103}

Yarmouth give some idea of the powers possessed by corporate bodies

for the regulation of trade in olden times:—

“Friday before Palm Sunday, 7 Edwd. VI. Agreed that no inhabitant shall

buy any beer to sell again but such as was brewed in the town, under

pain of 6s. 8d. a barrel.

“Feb. 14. 1 Philip and Mary, 1554. M. Swansey, of Hickling, being a

foreigner, bought of a merchant stranger certain hopps—the buyer to

forfeit the Hopps, and he may buy them again of the Chamberlain.

“March 19. 1 Mary, 1554. No inhabitant shall buy nor no ship shall

receive any beer brewed out of the town, under a penalty of 3s. 4d.

per gallon.

“July 2. 1 Philip and Mary, 1554. No baker or brewer to bake or brewe

in the town unless appointed by the bailiffs.

“Apl. 8. 15 Eliz., 1573. That brewers be ordered to brew with coals

instead of wood, from the latter’s exhorbitant price.”

The Articles of the Free Fair (1658) held at Great Yarmouth, contain

the following regulation:—

“Also that no brewer selle nor doe to be solde, a gallon of the beste

ale above _two pence_: a gallon of the second ale above one pennye

uppon the payne and perrille above sayde.”

The records of the old municipal corporations of England that have

survived the destroying hand of time are very few, but it can hardly

be doubted that they contained very similar regulations to those given

above. In the _Domesday Book of Ipswich_ an order of the reign of

Edward I. provides as to Brewsters, that “after Michelmesse moneth,

whan men may have barlych of newe greyn, the ballyves of the forseid

toun doo cryen assize of ale by all the toun, after that the sellyng of

the corn be. And gif ther be founden ony that selle or brewe a geyns

the assise and the crye, be he punysshed be the forseyed ballyves and

by the court for the trespas, after the form conteyned in the Statute

of merchaundise (13 Edw. I., s. 3) of oure lord the kyng, and after law

and usage of the same toun.”

Ricart’s _Kalendar of the City of Bristol_ contains the following

record: “Item, hit hath be usid, in semblable wyse, the seid maire

anon aftir Mighelmas, to do calle byfore theym in the seide Counseill

hous, all the Brewers of Bristowe; and yf the case require that malt

be scant and dere, then to commen there for the reformacion of the

same, and to bryng malte to a lower price, and that such price as

shall be sette by the maier upon malte, that no brewer breke it, upon

payne of XLs. forfeitable {104} to the Chambre of the Toune. And the

shyftyng[42] daies of the woke, specially the Wensdaies and Satirdaies,

the mair hath be used to walke in the morenynges to the Brewers howses,

to oversee thym in servyng of theire ale to the pouere commens of the

toune, and that they have theire trewe mesures; and his Ale-konner

with hym to taste and undirstand that the ale be gode, able, and

sety keeping their sise, or to be punyshed for the same, aftir the

constitucion of the Toune.”

[42] The days when the ale was being moved to customers’ houses.

Sometimes a whole township was fined for the default of some of its

members. In 1275 the township of Dunstable was fined 40s., because the

brewers had not kept the assize.

Some curious and amusing entries are to be found in the _Munimenta

Academica_ of the University of Oxford, as to the regulations for the

brewing trade in the fifteenth century. In the year 1434 we find it

recorded that, “Seeing how great evils arise both to the clerks and

to the townsmen of the City of Oxford, owing to the negligence and

dishonesty of the brewers of ale,” Christopher Knollys, commissary,

assembles the brewers together in the church of the Blessed Mary the

Virgin, and commands them to provide sufficient malt for brewing; and

that two or three shall twice or thrice in the week carry round their

ale for public sale, under a penalty of 40s.; and John Weskew and

Nicholas Core, two of their number, are appointed supervisors of the

brewers. Each brewer is then made to swear on the Blessed Evangelists

to brew good ale and wholesome, and according to the assize, “so far as

his ability and _human frailty permits_.”

It would appear that very considerable disorders prevailed in that

ancient seat of learning at this period. The Warden of Canterbury

College, for instance, is accused of having incited his scholars to

make a raid upon the ale of other scholars of the town, which they

accordingly did, and carried off ale to the value of 12d.

The fair brewsters of the period seem to have held much the same ideas

as to the relative importance of the patronage of Town and Gown as

a fashionable Oxford tailor of the present day may be supposed to

entertain. In 1439 Alice Everarde is suspended “ab arte pandoxandi”

(from practising brewing) for ever, because she refused to brew ale for

sale for the common people of Oxford.

In 1444 the brewers were made to swear before the Chancellor that they

would brew wholesome ale, and in such manner that the water {105}

should boil until it emitted a froth, that they would skim the froth

away, and that they would give the ale sufficient time to settle before

they sold it in the University; and Richard Benet swore that he would

let his ale stand twelve hours to clear, before he carried it to hall

or college, and that he would not mix the dregs with the ale when he

carried it for sale within the University.

In 1449 the stewards and manciples of the college swear that nine of

the brewers have broken the assize and have brewed “an ale of little

or no strength, to the grave and no mean damage of the University and

Town, and that they are obstinate and rebels and refuse to serve the

Principals and others of the Halls with ale.” In 1464 John Janyn is

ordered by the Commissary to refund to Anisia Barbour, without the east

gate of Oxford, the sum of 8d., because he had sold her a cask of ale

for 20d., and “in our opinion and that of others who have just tasted

it, it is not worth more than 12d.”

The sister University exercised a similar jurisdiction over the brewing

trade, and it is mentioned in Rymer’s _Fœdera_ (R. 2. 934) that in

the year 1336, on a petition of the Chancellor and scholars of the

University of Cambridge, the _ancient_ privilege of the University,

that, on the demand of the Chancellor, the Mayor and bailiffs should

make trial or assize of the bread or ale, was restored. A curious

survival of the municipal jurisdiction over the vendors of Cambridge

ale is recorded in Hone’s _Every-Day Book_, as existing at the annual

fair on Stourbridge Common during the latter half of last century:

“Besides the eight servants called _red coats_, who are employed as

constables attendant upon the Mayor of Cambridge, who held a court of

justice during the fair, there was another person dressed in similar

clothing, with a string over his shoulders, from whence were suspended

spigots and fossets, and also round each arm many more were fastened.

He was called _Lord of the Tap_, and his duty consisted in visiting all

the booths in which ale was sold, to determine whether it was a fit and

proper beverage for the persons attending the fair.”

In making the ale of Old England, wheat was frequently malted and used

with barley malt. In times of scarcity this practice was now and again

forbidden as tending to unduly enhance the price of bread. In 1316,

ground malt having risen during the preceding fourteen years from 3s.

4d. to 13s. 4d. the quarter, a proclamation was issued prohibiting

the malting of wheat. The regulation, however, was unpopular and

difficult to enforce, and wheat continued to be malted and mixed with

the more appropriate grain. Receipts of more recent times frequently

{106} mention this use of wheat malt. One of these of the sixteenth

century is as follows:—

“To brewe beer. 10 quarters of malte, 2 quarters of wheete, 2 quarters

of oates, 40 pound weight of hoppys—to make 60 barellys of sengyll

beer; the barel of aell contains 32 galones, and the barell of beer 36

gallons.”

The restrictive legislation was not confined to ale, for in 1330 we

find it enacted: “Because there are more taverners in the realm than

were wont to be, selling as well corrupt wines as wholesome, and have

sold the gallon at such price as they themselves would, because there

was no punishment ordained for them, as hath been for them that sell

bread and ale, to the great hurt of the people,” therefore wine must

be sold at a reasonable price. No sum, however, appears to have been

fixed, and we can well imagine that the ideas of the innkeeper and

his customer might not altogether agree on the question of what was a

_reasonable_ price.

Not only was the price of ale fixed, but its strength and quality

were also subjected to the experienced taste of the ale-conner, an

officer appointed to test the goodness of the brew. The ale-conner’s

appellation appears to be derived from his power of conning, _i.e._,

knowing of or judging the liquor, and reminds one of Chaucer’s line:—

“Well coude he knowe a draught of London ale.”

The ale-conners were appointed annually in the courts leet of every

manor; also in boroughs and towns corporate; and in many places, in

compliance with charters and ancient custom, appointments to this

office are still made, though the duties have fallen into disuse.

The following is the oath of this ale official, taken from the _Liber

Albus_, compiled in the reign of Henry V. by John Carpenter, clerk,

and Richard Whittington, mayor:—“You shall swear, that you shall know

of no brewer, or brewster, cook, or pie-baker, in your ward, who sells

the gallon of best ale for more than one penny halfpenny, or the gallon

of second for more than one penny, or otherwise than by measure sealed

and full of clear ale; or who brews less than he used to do before this

cry, by reason hereof, or withdraws himself from following his trade

the rather by reason of this cry; or if any persons shall do contrary

to any one of these points, you shall certify the Alderman of your ward

and of their names. And that you, so soon as you shall be required to

taste any ale of a brewer or brewster, shall be ready to do the same;

and in case that it be less good than it used to be before this cry,

you, by assent {107} of your Alderman, shall set a reasonable price

thereon, according to your discretion; and if any one shall afterwards

sell the same above the said price, unto your Alderman you shall

certify the same. And that for gift, promise, knowledge, hate or other

cause whatsoever, no brewer, brewster, huckster, cook, or pie-baker,

who acts against any one of the points aforesaid, you shall conceal,

spare or tortuously aggrieve; nor when you are required to taste ale,

shall absent yourself without reasonable cause and true; but all things

which unto your office pertains to do, you shall well and lawfully do.

So God you help, and the saints.” No doubt this oath was regularly

repeated with due solemnity, but we can imagine with what a subtle

irony the official described in _The Cobler of Canterburie_ would have

repeated the part of the oath having reference to absenting himself

when required to taste ale.

A nose he had that gan show,

What liquor he loved I trow;

For he had before long seven yeare,

Beene of the towne the ale-conner.

Absent himself—not if he knew it!

The ale-conners also had the power of presenting, _i.e._, accusing at

the court leet, any brewer who refused to sell ale to his neighbours

though he had some for sale.

The officials who tested ale bore various appellations. At the Court

Leet of the Manor of New Buckenham, in Norfolk, the name under which

this person was known was the _ale-founder_. In rolls of the same

Manor of earlier date he is called Gustator Cervisiæ. In the records

of the Manor Court of Hale in the 15th century, in a list of persons

fined, occurs the entry, “Thomas Layet, quia pandocavit semel iid., et

quia concelavit le fowndynge pot iiid.;” that is, a fine of 2d. was

inflicted because he brewed in some manner contrary to the custom of

the manor; as by not putting out his sign when he brewed, or by not

summoning the ale-founder to taste the brew as soon as he had finished;

and a fine of 3d. because he concealed the “fowndynge” pot, the

vessel, probably, in which he had brewed.

In Scrope’s _History of Castle Coombe_ we are told that the rules of

that place in reference to the making and sale of ale were numerous and

perplexing. No one was permitted to brew ale so long as any church-ale

lasted, nor so long as the keeper of the park had any to sell, nor

at {108} any time without licence of the lord or court; nor to sell

without a sign, or, during the fair, without an ale-stake hung out, nor

to ask a higher price for ale than that fixed by the jury of assize,

nor to lower the quality below what the ale-tasters approved, nor to

sell at times of Divine service, nor after nine o’clock at night, nor

to sell at all without entering into a bond for £10, with a surety of

£5, to keep orderly houses. The frequent changes in the price allowed

show the difficulty the authorities had in settling the problem, how

to have good liquor cheap. In the reign of Elizabeth all systematic

attempts to set the price of ale seem to have been discontinued. At

a court held in May in the tenth year of that queen, the tithing-man

reported that “the ale-wyves had broken all the orders of the last

laweday.” The court received the announcement in silence, and made no

order. The ale-wives had conquered; let us hope they used their victory

with discretion.

The practice seems to have prevailed here as elsewhere of compelling a

brewer to put out his sign or ale-stake when he had brewed, as a signal

to the local ale-conner that his services were required. In 1402 we

find that John Lautroppe was presented to the court “quia brasiavit iij

vicibus sub uno signo,” _i.e._, he had brewed three times but had only

displayed the legal signal once. The only penalties recorded as being

imposed for drunkenness appear to be one in 1618 and one in 1631; but

it would hardly be safe to argue that the inhabitants of the district

were an exceptionally sober race, for though the manor rolls of Castle

Coombe date from 1346, no legislative effort to restrain excess in

drinking was made till the reign of James I., and such laws were always

highly unpopular, and were very sparingly or not at all enforced.

Tierney, in his _History of Sussex_, gives the following extract from

the rolls of Arundel: “John Barbs, Roger Shadyngden, and others,

brewers, refuse to sell a gallon of ale for one farthing according to

the proclamation of the mayor, and are consequently fined twopence

each.” The passage in the _Taming of the Shrew_, in which the servant,

seeking to convince Christopher Sly that his former life is nothing but

the delusion of a crazy brain, tells him how he would

. . . rail upon the mistress of the house,

And say you would present her at the leet,

Because she brought stone jugs and no sealed quarts,

shows that this jurisdiction of the manor courts was still in full

force in Shakspere’s day. {109}

Kitchen, in his work on _Courts_ (1663), in writing of courts leet,

says:—“Also if tapsters sell by cups and dishes, or measures, sealed or

unsealed, is enquirable.” It is noted in Dr. Langbaine’s collections,

under January 23, 1617, that John Shurle had a patent from Arthur Lake,

Bishop of Bath and Wells and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, for the office

of ale-taster (to the University). The office required “that he go to

every ale-brewer that day they brew, according to their courses, and

taste their ale; for which his ancient fee is one gallon of strong ale,

and two gallons of less strong worth a penny.”

In some places the office of ale-conner still survives. The appointment

of four ale-conners for the City of London is said to date as far back

as the first charter of William the Conqueror. Originally they were

elected by the folkesmote, afterwards at the wardmote, and from the

time of Henry V. till the present day by the livery. We have before us

an extract from a daily paper of the 16th September, 1884, in which is

recorded the appointment of an ale-taster for the ancient borough of

Christchurch.

The following curious application was made in the year 1864 to the

manorial court of the Duke of Buccleuch:—“To the Manorial Court of the

Right Hon. Walter Francis, Duke of Buccleuch and Queensbury, sitting

at Haslingden, this 18th day of October, 1864.—This is to give notice

to your honourable court, that I, Richard Taylor, by appointment for

the last five years Ale-taster for that part of her Majesty’s dominions

called Rossendale, do hereby tender my resignation to hold that office

after this day, as I am wishful, while young and active, and as my

talents are required in another sphere of usefulness, to devote them to

that purpose. For five successive years your honourable court has done

me the honour of electing me to the above office, which I have held,

and performed the duties thereof efficiently, and without disgrace.

Having won your confidence by holding this office, at a late sitting of

your honourable court it pleased you to appoint me bellman for Bacup,

and while I resign the former office, am wishful to hold my connexion

with his Grace the Duke Francis Walter, to continue to cry aloud as

bellman for Bacup, and, as heretofore, to cry for nothing for those

who have nothing to pay with. Given under our hand and seal this 18th

day of October, in the year of our Lord 1864. Signed, Richard Taylor,

Ale-taster for Rossendale. God save the Queen.”

As early as the days of Edward I. attempts were made to bring about the

early closing of taverns; but the authorities seem to have moved rather

in the interests of peace than of temperance. {110}

In a preamble to a statute passed in that reign it is stated that

“offenders, going about during the night, do commonly resort and have

their meetings and evil talk in taverns more than elsewhere, lying in

wait and watching their time to do mischief.” It is therefore enacted

that taverns are to be closed at the tolling of the curfew bell. And if

any taverner does otherwise, he shall be put on his surety, the first

time by the hanap (a two-handled tankard, sometimes of silver) of his

tavern, or by some other good pledge therein found, and fined 40d.,

with various cumulative punishments for successive offences until on

the fifth conviction he shall forswear such trade in the City for ever.

In the year 1455 it was enacted “that no person that in the County of

Kent shall commonly brew any ale or beer to sell, shall make nor do to

be made any malt in his house, or in any other place to his own use, at

his costs and expences above an C quarters in the year, under penalty

of x li., and this statute is to be in force for the space of 5 years.”

This act appears to have been passed to protect the maltsters of other

places from the competition of the Kentish men. An act was passed in

1496 “against vacabonds and beggars,” which directs two justices of the

peace to “rejecte and put away comen ale-selling in townes and places

where they shall think convenyent, and to take suertie of the keepers

of ale-houses of their gode behavyng, by the discrecion of the seid

justices, and in the same to be avysed and aggreed at the time of their

sessions.”

In 1531 brewers were forbidden to take more than such prices and rates

as should be thought sufficient, at the discretion of the justices of

the peace within every shire, or by the mayor and sheriffs in a city.

By 5 and 6 Edward VI. c. 25, entitled “An Act for Keepers of Ale-houses

to be bounde by Recognizances,” it is enacted that “forasmuch as

intolerable hurts and troubles to the commonwealth do daily grow and

increase through such abuses and disorders as are had and used in

common ale-houses, the Justices of the Peace are authorized to close

such houses at their discretion.” And we find later, in Elizabeth’s

time, that Lord Keeper Egerton, in his charge to the judges when going

on circuit, bade them ascertain, for the Queen’s information, how

many ale-houses the justices of the peace had _pulled down_, so that

the good justices might be rewarded and the evil removed. Surely the

advocates for total suppression of the sale of alcoholic drinks were

born some two or three centuries too late! A quaint jingle, entitled

“Skelton’s Ghost,” which may be attributed to some post-Elizabethan

rhymer, contains an allusion to the legal price of ale. {111}

To all tapsters and tiplers,

And all ale-house vitlers,

Inne-keepers and cookes,

That for pot-sale lookes,

And will not give measure,

But at your owne pleasure,

Contrary to law,

Scant measure will draw

In pot and in canne,

To cozen a man

Of his full quart a penny,

Of you there’s too many.

For in King Harry’s time,

When I made this rime

Of Elynor Rumming,

With her good ale tunning,

Our pots were full quarted,

We were not thus thwarted

With froth canne and neck pot

And such nimble quick shot,

That a dowzen will score

For twelve pints and no more.

The views of a cozening hostess of the period are amusingly set forth

in a quaint old ballad taken from the Roxburghe collection, a portion

of which finds place on the following page.

The varying prices and qualities of ale and beer, as sanctioned by

legal authority, have been so fully treated of in another part of this

work (Chapter VIII.) that it is not necessary to dwell further upon the

subject.

[Illustration: All is ours and our Huſbands, or the Country Hoſtelles

Vindication.

To the tune of _The Carman’s Whiſtle, or High Boys up go we_.

* * * * *

For if any honeſt company

Of boon good fellows come,

And call for liquor merrily

In any private room,

Then I fill the Jugs with Froth,

Or cheat them of one or two,

If I can ſwear them out of both

The reckoning is my due.

* * * * *

_Roxburghe Ballads._

]

In the year 1531, brewers were forbidden to make the barrels in which

their ale was sold. The reason for this extraordinary prohibition is

thus given in the quaint words of the preamble of the act:—“Whereas

the ale-brewers and beer-brewers of this realm of England have used,

and daily do use, for their own singular lucre, profit, and gain, to

make in their own houses their barrels, kilderkins, and firkins, of

much less quantity than they ought to be, to the great hurt, prejudice,

and damage of the King’s liege people, and contrary to divers acts,

statutes, ancient laws and customs heretofore made, had, and used, and

to the destruction of the poor craft and mystery of coopers,” therefore

no beer-brewer or {113} ale-brewer is to “occupy . . . the mystery

or craft of coopers.” The coopers are commanded to make every barrel,

which is intended to contain beer for sale, of the capacity of xxxvi.

gallons; ale barrels, however, are to contain but xxxii. gallons, and

so in proportion for smaller vessels. The wardens of the coopers are

empowered to search for illegal vessels, and to mark every correct

vessel with “the sign and token of St. Anthony’s cross.” This cross is

possibly the origin of the X, double X and treble X now in use upon

casks. A correspondent of _Notes and Queries_, however, thinks that the

letter X on brewers’ casks is probably thus derived:—Simplex—single

X or X. Duplex—double X or XX. Triplex—treble X or XXX. This was

suggested by Owen’s epigram, _lib._ xii. 34.

Laudatur vinum simplex, cerevisia duplex

Est bona duplicitas, optima simplicitas.

From early times laws concerning our exports and imports were

considered as specially appertaining to the royal prerogative. Corn and

malt, ale and beer, could only be exported by royal licence. This is

instanced by the order of Edward III., in 1366, to the ports of London,

Sandwich, Bristol, Southampton, and eight other places:—

“The King, to the collectors of customs in the port of London, Greeting.

“We command you, that all merchants and others, who wish to export

corn, malt, ale, and other victuals, be allowed, after first taking

an oath or some other sufficient security from them, to export such

things to our town of Calais and to other of our possessions, but not

elsewhere.”

In later times a considerable revenue was raised for the Crown by the

profits of these export licences. In the reign of Edward VI. the export

of beer was regulated by an act (1543) which provides that no larger

vessel than a barrel was to be used for export purposes, under fine of

6s. 8d., and that every exporter should give security for importing

so much “clapboard” as would be an equivalent for the barrels he took

out of the country. Queen Elizabeth jealously guarded the prerogative

in this matter, and in her thrifty way seems to have made a pretty

penny from the licences. English beer had at that time become widely

famed, and could be obtained in foreign parts, as may be learnt by a

letter from Charles Paget to Walsingham (1582), in which he announces

that he is going to Rouen for his health, and intends to drink _English

beer_. {114}

In 1572, Thomas Cantata, a Venetian, sought permission to export 200

tuns of beer, on condition of his making known to her Majesty certain

inventions useful for the defence of the realm. In the same year one

Th. Smith had licence to export 4,000 tuns of beer.

In 1586, Th. Cullen, of Maldon, Essex, applies to the Council by letter

in which he asks, as a recompense for having discovered Mr. Mantell, a

traitor, that he may have a licence as a free victualler for twenty-one

years, or a licence to transport 400 tuns of beer, or else to have

£40 in money. Even noblemen engaged in the export trade, for in 1603,

licence was granted to Lord Aubigny to export 6,000 tuns of double beer.

The power of granting licences to inns and ale-houses in the days of

Elizabeth and her immediate successors, was frequently given by letters

patent to favourites or to persons prepared to pay for the privilege.

In 1590 Wm. Carr received a licence for seven years, to give leave to

any persons in London and Westminster to brew beer for sale. The abuses

that grew out of this system formed one of the grievances examined into

by Parliament in 1621.

A statute was passed in the fourth year of James I. enacting that

“whereas the loathsome and odious sin of drunkenness is of late

grown into common use, being the root and foundation of many other

enormous sins, as bloodshed, etc., to the great dishonour of God and

of our nation, the overthrow of many good arts, and manual trades,

the disabling of divers good workmen, and the general impoverishment

of many good subjects, abusively wasting the good creatures of God,”

a fine of five shillings is imposed for drunkenness, together with

six hours in the stocks. Some attempt had been previously made at

legislation in this direction. In Townsend’s _Historical Collections_

(1680) an account is found under date Tuesday, November 3rd, 1601, of a

debate on a Bill to restrain the Excess and Abuse used in Victualling

Houses. Mr. Johnson moved, that “bodily punishment might be inflicted

on Alehouse keepers that should be offenders, and that provision be

made to restrain Resort to Alehouses.” In the same bill Sir George

Moore spoke against drunkenness, and desired “some special provision

should be made against it;” and, “touching the Authority of Justices

of the Assize and of the Peace, given by this bill, That they shall

assign Inns, and Inn Keepers. I think that inconvenient: for _an

Inn is a man’s inheritance_, and they are set at great rates, _and

therefore, not to be taken away from any particular man_.” The attempt

of James who, to tell the truth, was himself not by any means free

from “the loathsome and hideous sin,” to {115} make his subjects

sober by compulsion, seems to have met with but poor success, for

in 1609 another statute was passed which, while confessing that,

“notwithstanding all former laws and provisions already made, the

inordinate and extreme vice of excessive drinking and drunkenness doth

more and more abound,” enacts that a person convicted under the former

act shall be deprived of his licence for the space of three years. In

1627 a fine of twenty shillings and a whipping is imposed for keeping

an ale-house without a licence.

Drunkenness seems to have been prosecuted with some severity during

the Commonwealth time, and the entries in the records of convictions

for being “drunk in my view” would seem to point to the fact that the

offenders were haled before the judgment seat ere the effects of their

debauches had passed away.

As early as the middle of the fifteenth century some attempts were made

to bring about “Sunday closing.” They seem to have taken the form, for

the most part, of bye-laws of corporations, and to have been generally

unsuccessful. In 1428 the corporation of Hull prohibited the vintners

and ale-house keepers from delivering or selling ale upon the Sunday,

under penalty of 6s. 8d. for sellers and 3s. 4d. for buyers. In

1444 an act was made by the Common Council of London “that upon the

Sunday should no manner of thing within the franchise of the City be

bought or sold, neither victual nor other things.” The attempt was

apparently unsuccessful, as we are told that “it held but a while,”

but it was renewed from time to time in some form or other. In 1555 an

order was made by the Privy Council of Queen Mary, and directed to the

Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, whereby taverns, ale

or beer houses, &c., are directed to be closed on “Sondaye, or other

festeyvall or hollye daye duringe all the severall tymes of mattyns,

highe masse, and evynsonge, or of eny sermon to be songe or sayde

within their severall parishe Churches upon payne of ymprysonmente,

as well of the boddyes of every suche howseholder, as also of the

boddyes of every suche persone as shall so presume to eate or drynke.”

A hundred years later many entries occur in parish and other records of

penalties for Sunday drinking.

* * * * *

The books of St. Giles’ parish furnish the following extracts:—

1641. Received of the Vintner at the Catt in Queene

Streete, for p’mitting of tipling on the Lord’s

day £1 10 0 {116}

1644. Received of three poor men, for drinking on the

Sabbath daie at Tottenham Court £0 4 0

1646. Received of Mr. Hooker, for brewing on a Fast day 0 2 6

1648. Received from Isabel Johnson, at the Cole Yard, for

drinking on the sabbath day 0 4 0

1655. Received of a Mayd taken in Mrs. Jackson’s Ale-house

on the sabbath day 0 5 0

Received of a Scotchman drinking at Robert Owen’s

on the Sabbath 0 2 0

1658. Received of Joseph Piers, for refusing to open his

doores to have his house searched on the Lord’s

daie 0 10 0

In 1641, an amusing pamphlet was published on the subject of Sunday

closing. Its title, frontispiece, and an extract from its contents are

given on the opposite page.

About this period was in vogue that curious old form of punishment

which was known as the drunkard’s, or Newcastle, cloak. This garment

was nothing more nor less than a beer barrel, worn in the manner shown

in the accompanying illustration. Possibly the inventor of sandwich men

derived his idea from this source.

[Illustration]

Locke, in his second letter on Toleration, informs us that the

intolerance of the age with regard to Dissent was carried to such

length that hardly any walk in life was free from obstacles thrown in

the way of Dissenters pursuing it. Amongst other things he mentions

that those who had licences to sell ale were compelled to receive the

Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. We are

unable to find in contemporary records any confirmation of this alleged

regulation.

[Illustration: The Lamentable Complaints of Nick Froth the Tapſter, and

Ruleroſt the Cooke, concerning the reſtraint lately ſet forth, againſt

drinking, potting, and piping on the Sabbath day and againſt ſelling

meat.

_Cook._—“There is ſuch news in the world will anger thee to heare of,

it is as bad, as bad may be.”

_Froth._—“Is there ſo? I pray thee what is it, tell me whatever it be.”

_Cook._—“Have you not heard of the reſtraint lately come out againſt

us, from the higher powers; whereby we are commanded not to ſell

meat nor draw drink upon Sundays, as will anſwer the contrary at our

perils.”

* * * * *

_Froth._—“I much wonder, Maſter Ruleroſt, why my trade ſhould be put

downe, it being ſo neceſſary in a Commonwealth.”

]