SAXON PERIOD.
It is to the heroic songs of the day that we must at this period
mainly look for the history of manners and of convivial life. The
chieftains assembled on the mead-bench, and were diverted by the
literary genius of the ‘scóp’ or poet. Whether in the capacity of
household retainer or wandering minstrel, he commanded protection,
respect, and admiration. He was the popular exponent of the fashion of
the time, and from his productions we can form a tolerable estimate
of the prodigious part which drink played in the social life of the
Anglo-Saxon. In this respect it is not too much to say that we inherit
from the Saxons a perfect legacy of corruption; it is therefore with
considerable qualification that we can accept the eulogies passed upon
our forefathers by some historians, and notably by Sharon Turner,
who represents our Saxon ancestors as bringing with them a superior
domestic and moral character, as well as new political, juridical, and
intellectual blessings.
One record we have of the manners of the Saxons before they occupied
Britain; from it we are able to gather what were their essentially
individual usages, and thus are able to draw a definite line between
their native customs and those derived after their settlement amongst
us from the Romanised Britons.
This poem is the romance of _Beowulf_, the oldest specimen of
Anglo-Saxon literature--indeed, the oldest epic in any modern
language.[11] The scene is laid in the Cimbric Chersonese. A certain
king, Hrothgar by name, determined to build a palace, ‘a great
mead-hall.’ In the neighbourhood lived a giant monster who used to
make nightly incursions upon the palace during the ale-carouse; on
one occasion killing thirty of its inmates. Beowulf, the brother of
Hrothgar, resolved to deliver them from this scourge. With fifteen of
his followers he proceeded to his brother’s palace. Hrothgar and his
retainers were found drinking their ale and mead. The poem describes
the visit:--‘There was a bench cleared in the beer-hall.... The thane
observed his office. He that in his hand bare the twisted ale-cup, he
poured the bright, sweet liquor.’ Meanwhile the bard strikes up; the
queen enters the hall; she serves the liquor, first presenting the cup
to the king, then to the guests. Thus do the festivities continue till
nightfall. Beowulf and his company sleep in the hall, ‘the wine-hall,
the treasure house of men, studded with vessels.’ The giant appeared
in the night, and after a struggle was slain by Beowulf. The next
day there were great rejoicings at the death of the monster. ‘The
lay was sung, the song of the gleeman, the noise from the benches
grew loud; cupbearers gave the wine from wondrous vessels.’ The queen
again presented the cup to the king and to Beowulf; the festivities
were prolonged into the night. Soon, however, was vengeance on the
track; the mother of the giant appeared at the palace and carried
off a counsellor of Hrothgar, one of the ‘beer-drunken heroes of the
ale-wassail.’ Beowulf is again the deliverer, and subsequently ascends
the throne of his brother. A sketch of early manners like this, in
the general dearth of documentary evidence, is invaluable. It is an
outline, but one we can readily fill in.
From this same Cimbric peninsula came the Saxon leader Hengist, whose
feast in honour of the British king Vortigern is familiar to every
one, though it rests mainly on the very questionable authority of
Nennius.[12] This writer states that the Saxon chief prepared an
entertainment to which he invited the king, his officers, &c., having
previously enjoined his daughter to serve them so profusely with wine
and ale that they might soon become intoxicated. The plan succeeded;
Vortigern demanded the hand of the girl. The province of Kent was
the price paid. This account, as given by Nennius, is supplemented
by Geoffrey of Monmouth, a British historian, or rather romancer, of
the twelfth century. The story is always worth repeating. He says[13]
that when the feast was over, ‘the young lady came out of her chamber
bearing a golden cup full of wine, with which she approached the king,
and making a low courtesy, said to him: “Lauerd king wacht heil!” The
king, at the sight of the lady’s face, was on a sudden both surprised
and inflamed with her beauty; and calling to his interpreter, asked
him what she said, and what answer he should make her. “She called you
‘Lord King,’” said the interpreter, “and offered to drink your health.
Your answer to her must be, ‘Drinc heil!’” Vortigern accordingly
answered, “Drinc heil!” and bade her drink; after which he took the cup
from her hand, kissed her, and drank himself. From that time to this
(says the chronicler) it has been the custom in Britain that he who
drinks to any one says, “Wacht heil!” and he who pledges him answers,
“Drinc heil!” Vortigern, being now drunk with the variety of liquors,
the devil took this opportunity to enter into his heart, and to make
him in love with the damsel, so that he became suitor to her father for
her.’[14]
We have seen that drink was a prominent link in the chain whereby Kent
passed from British into Saxon hands. If Nennius may be trusted, it
played an equally important part in the cession of East-Sex, South-Sex,
and Middle-Sex. The substance of the story as told by this chronicler
is, that Hengist proposed to ratify a treaty of peace with the British
king Vortigern, by a feast to which he invited him and his nobles. He
bade his Saxons who feasted with them, at a given signal, when the
Britons were sufficiently inebriated, each to draw his knife and kill
his man. The plot succeeded. Three hundred British nobles were slain in
a state of intoxication, while the captive king purchased his ransom
at the cost of the three above-mentioned provinces. The Welsh bard
evidently alludes to this in the lines:--
When they bargained for Thanet, with such scanty discretion,
With Hors and Hengys in their violent career,
Their aggrandisement was to us disgraceful,
After the consuming secret with the slaves at the confluent stream.
Conceive the intoxication at the great banquet of mead;
Conceive the deaths in the great hour of necessity.[15]
We can judge from the above incidents the kind of influence which
the Saxons would be likely to exercise upon the Romanised Briton.
Not that intemperance was a new plant of Saxon setting, for we have
already found that the seed sown of Roman debauchery was beginning
to yield the rank crop of excess in every grade of society. Ancient
British poetry affords ample proof of this indictment. One of the most
important fragments of ancient Cymric literature is _The Gododin_
of Aneurin, a poem of the sixth century, the first poem printed in
the Welsh Archæology. It recounts a mighty patriotic struggle of the
Britons under Mynyddawr with the Teutonic settlers in the district,
which may be loosely described as lying between the Tees and Forth. The
ever-recurring subject in this poem is the intoxication of the Britons
from excessive drinking of mead before the battle fought at Cattraeth.
A few quotations will suffice:--
The warriors marched to Cattraeth, full of words;
Bright mead gave them pleasure, their bliss was their bane.
* * * * *
The warriors marched to Cattraeth, full of mead;
Drunken, but firm in array; great the shame.
* * * * *
Just fate we deplore.
For the sweetness of mead,
In the day of our need,
Is our bitterness; blunts all our arms for the strife;
Is a friend to the lip and a foe to the life.
* * * * *
I drank the Mordei’s wine and mead,
I drank, and now for that I bleed.[16]
Unquestionable allusion to this poem of Aneurin is made in Owen
Cyveilioc’s _Hîrlas_, written in the twelfth century:--
Hear how with their portion of mead, went with their Lord to Cattraeth,
Faithful the purpose of their sharp weapons,
The host of Mynydauc, to their fatal rest.
To the sixth century are also to be referred the poems of Taliesin,
which tell of the battles between the Britons and Saxons. One is
preserved which is commonly called the _Mead Song_, which he wrote to
obtain Elphin’s release from prison. It is thus rendered[17]:--
I will implore the Sovereign, Supreme in every region,
The Being who supports the heavens, Lord of all space,
The Being who made the waters, to every body good;
The Being who sends every gift and prospers it,
That Maelgwyn of Mona be inspired with mead, and cheer us with it
From the mead horns--the foaming pure and shining liquor
Which the bees provide, but do not enjoy.
Mead distilled I praise--its eulogy is everywhere,
Precious to the creature whom the earth maintains.
God made it for man for his happiness;
The fierce and the mute, both enjoy it.
The Lord made both the wild and the gentle,
And has given them clothing for ornament,
And food and drink to last till judgment.
I will implore the Sovereign, Supreme in the land of peace,
To liberate Elphin from banishment,
The man that gave me wine, ale, and mead,
And the great princely steeds of gay appearance,
And to me yet would give as usual:
With the will of God, he would bestow from respect
Innumerable festivities in the course of peace.
Knight of Mead, relation of Elphin, distant be thy period of
inaction.[18]
A satire is also preserved of the same Taliesin, upon the wandering
minstrels of his time. He imputes to them all kinds of vice:--
In the night they carouse, in the day they sleep;
Idle, they get food without labour;
They hate the churches, but seek the liquor houses;
From every gluttony they refrain not;
Excesses of eating and drinking is what they desire.[19]
Another early British poet, Llywarch Hên, who flourished in both the
sixth and seventh centuries, affords further proof that strong drink,
ale or mead, was the one thing needful. In his elegy on Urien of Reged
we find--
He was a shield to his country;
His course was a wheel in battle.
Better to me would be his life than his mead.
And again--
This hearth; no shout of heroes now adheres to it:
More usual on its floor
Was the mead; and the inebriated warriors.
And here we naturally pause to inquire whether it is fair to gauge
the habits of the day from extracts such as these. May they not have
been the heated effusions of the moment? May not these bards have cast
the shadows of their own excited brains on all around? Alas! the pages
of contemporary history, and the censures of the Church, too surely
confirm the impressions of the poet. Thus, Gildas, the British monk,
writing in the latter half of the sixth century (_Epist. De Excid.
Britann._), laments (§ 21) that ‘not only the laity, but our Lord’s
own flock, and its shepherds, who ought to have been an example to the
people, slumbered away their time in drunkenness, as if they had been
dipped in wine.’ Again (§ 83), ‘Little do ye put in execution that
which the holy prophet Joel hath spoken in admonishment of slothful
priests, saying, Awake ye who are drunk from your wine, and weep and
bewail ye all, who have drunk wine even to drunkenness, because joy
and delight are taken away from your mouths.’ And once more (§ 109),
‘These are the words, that with apparent effect should be made good and
approved--deacons in like manner, that they should be not overgiven to
much wine.... And now, trembling truly to make any longer stay on these
matters, I can, for a conclusion, affirm one thing certainly, which is,
that all these are changed into contrary actions, insomuch that clerks
are shameless and deceitful in their speeches, given to drinking.’
Do we wonder that this state of things was condemned? The British
Church could no longer keep silent. Decrees respecting intemperance
were issued in the Synod held by St. David (A.D. 569), interesting as
the only legislative relic of the British Church upon this subject;
unless, as Mr. Bridgett remarks in his useful little book, _The
Discipline of Drink_, we admit the monastic penance of St. Gildas the
Wise (A.D. 570): ‘If any monk through drinking too freely gets thick of
speech so that he cannot join in the psalmody, he is to be deprived of
his supper.’
The following are among the canons of St. David:--
(1) Priests about to minister in the temple of God and drinking
wine or strong drink through negligence, and not ignorance, must
do penance three days. If they have been warned, and despise, then
forty days.
(2) Those who get drunk through ignorance must do penance fifteen
days; if through negligence, forty days; if through contempt, three
quarantains.
(3) He who forces another to get drunk out of hospitality must do
penance as if he had got drunk himself.
(4) But he who out of hatred or wickedness, in order to disgrace
or mock at others, forces them to get drunk, if he has not already
sufficiently done penance, must do penance as a murderer of souls.
Enough has been adduced to prove that the lovers of debauch among the
Anglo-Saxons could have found no uncongenial soil in Britain. But
their settlement in our island did not tend to any moral millennium.
They found matters bad; they made them ten times worse. At meals,
after meals, by day, by night, the brimming tankard foamed. When all
were satisfied with their dinner, says the chronicler, they continued
drinking till the evening. Drinking was, in short, the occupation
of the after part of the day. A cut taken from the Anglo-Saxon
calendar[20] represents a drinking party. The lord and the two
principal guests are sitting at the high seat, or daïs, drinking after
dinner. The excess to which they yielded at banquets may be illustrated
from a fragment of an Anglo-Saxon poem, entitled ‘Judith,’ which is
thus translated[21]:--
There were deep bowls
Carried along the benches often,
So likewise cups and pitchers
Full to the people who were sitting on couches:
The renowned shielded warriors
Were fated, while they partook thereof....
Then was Holofernes,
The munificent patron of men,
In the guest hall;
He laughed and rioted,
Made tumult and noise,
That the children of men
Might hear afar,
How the stern one
Stormed and shouted.
Moody and drunk with mead,
Thus this wicked man
During the whole day
His followers
Drenched with wine,
The haughty dispenser of treasure,
Until they lay down intoxicated,
He over-drenched all his followers
Like as though they were struck with death,
Exhausted of every good.
An important collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry is still preserved under
the title of the _Exeter Book_, the original MS. of which is kept at
Exeter: being a portion of the gift of books to the Church at Exeter
by Bishop Leofric in the eleventh century. It is a medley of legends,
religious songs, apophthegms, riddles, &c. These riddles, commonly
called _Symposii Ænigmata_, were very popular among the Saxons,
whether the meaning of the title be ‘Riddles composed by Symposius,’ or
‘Nuts to crack after dinner.’ Two specimens will suffice. The first,
probably taken from the story of Lot--
There sat a man at his wine
With his two wives,
And his two sons,
And his two daughters,
Own sisters,
And their two sons,
Comely first-born children;
The father was there
Of each one
Of the noble ones,
With the uncle and the nephew:
There were five in all
Men and women
Sitting there.
The second is a very ancient specimen of that kind of ballad of which
the modern _John Barleycorn_ is the anti-type:--
A part of the earth is
Prepared beautifully,
With the hardest,
And with the sharpest,
And with the grimmest
Of the productions of men,
Cut and ...
Turned and dried,
Bound and twisted,
Bleached and awakened,
Ornamented and poured out,
Carried afar
To the doors of people,
It is joy in the inside
Of living creatures,
It knocks and slights
Those, of whom before while alive
A long while
It obeys the will,
And expostulateth not,
And then after death
It takes upon it to judge,
To talk variously.
It is greatly to seek
By the wisest man,
What this creature is.[22]
The principal drinks which the Saxons adopted were wine, mead, ale,
cider, and piment.
The permission granted by the Emperor Probus to plant vines has already
been mentioned, as well as the testimony to their existence by the
historian Bede. John Bagford, a book collector and antiquary of the
seventeenth century, says:--
I have often thought, and am now fully persuaded, that the planting
of vines in the adjacent parts about this city was first of all
begun by the Romans, an industrious people, and famous for their
skill in agriculture and gardening, as may appear from their _rei
agrariæ scriptores_, as well as from Pliny and other authors.
We had a vineyard in East Smithfield, another in Hatton Garden
(which at this time is called Vine Street), and a third in St.
Giles-in-the-Fields. Many places in the country bear the name of
the _Vineyard_ to this day, especially in the ancient monasteries,
as Canterbury, Ely, Abingdon, &c., which were left as such by the
Romans.[23]
But whatever amount of evidence be forthcoming that vineyards existed
in the time of the Saxons, though there is no doubt that they were in
the main attached to the monasteries, still it is certain that wine was
not a common drink among them; but when introduced into their feasts
it usually led to intemperance. It may also be added that Bede mentions
_warm wine_ as a drink. But their most common beverage was _mead_.
The extent to which this drink prevailed amongst them is curiously
indicated by the nature of the _fine_ that was imposed upon the members
of their friendly societies whose conduct was called in question. It
appears that for seven out of thirteen descriptions of offence, the
members were fined a quantity of honey, varying in measure with the
nature of the offence, _e.g._--
Any member calling another names was fined a _quart of honey_.
For using abusive language to a non-member, _one quart of honey_.
A knight for waylaying a man, a _sextarius of honey_.
For setting a trap for any person’s injury, _a sextarius of honey_.
Any member neglecting when deputed to fetch a fellow-member who
might have fallen sick, or died at a distance from home, forfeited a
_sextarius of honey_. And so forth. No doubt this honey was turned into
mead, and drunk on the gala days of the society.
Of _ale_ three kinds are mentioned at this time: viz. clear ale, mild
ale, and Welsh ale. Accordingly we find the Abbot of Medeshamstede
letting certain land to Wulfrid upon this condition, that Wulfrid
should each year deliver into the minster, among other items, two tuns
full of pure ale and ten measures of Welsh ale, an agreement at which,
adds the Saxon Chronicle, the king, archbishop, and several bishops
were present. _Welsh ale_ is mentioned at a much earlier date in the
laws of Ine.
It was stated in a former section that _cider_ became known to the
Britons at an early date. The Anglo-Saxons knew it under the name of
_Æppelwin_. Its origin is not fully substantiated. Africa has been
suggested as its birthplace, probably because the fathers SS. Augustine
and Tertullian mention it. St. Jerome, too, speaks of an intoxicating
drink made of the juice of apples.
Lastly, the Saxons drank _piment_, but not generally. This was a
mixture of acid wine, honey, sugar, and spices. We find it mentioned in
the romance of _Arthour and Merlin_, in the lines--
There was piment and claré,
To heighe lordlinges and to meyne.
Piment and wine were both at this time imports. Thus in a volume of
Saxon dialogues (_Tib. A._ iii.), one of the characters, a merchant,
describes himself and his occupation. To the question ‘What do you
bring us?’ he replies, ‘Skins, silks, costly gems, and gold; various
garments, pigment, wine, &c.’
Of Saxon festivals none were more celebrated than their _Jule_ or
_Yule_ (to which corresponds our Christmas), a strange combination of
conviviality and religion. It appears to be a Saxon adaptation of an
ancient Celtic festival. The Celts worshipped the sun. At the winter
solstice the people testified their joy that the ‘greater light’ had
returned to this part of the heavens, by celebrating a festival or
sun-feast, which took its name from _Heol_, _Hiaul_, _Houl_, dialectic
varieties of the Celtic expression for ‘sun.’ The prefix of the
article will account for the Gothic forms _Gehul_, _Juul_, and hence
again the softened forms, _Jul_, _Yule_. Upon this heathen festival
the Christians engrafted their great festival, the anniversary of the
rising of the Sun of Righteousness upon a dark world.[24]
Before leaving this subject notice should be taken of the _grafol_,
or rent, paid upon lands. It furnishes some incidental details of the
social life of our ancestors. Upon a certain estate in Lincolnshire
we find that the following yearly rent was reserved:--(1) To the
monastery, two tuns of bright ale, two oxen fit for slaughter, two
_mittan_, or measures, of Welsh ale,[25] and six hundred loaves. (2) To
the abbot’s private estate, one horse, thirty shillings of silver, or
half a pound, one night’s pastus, fifteen mittan of bright and five of
Welsh ale, fifteen sesters of mild ale.
Anglo-Saxon guilds, or social confederations, were associated with
drink. Every member was compelled to bring a certain amount of malt
or honey. The fines they imposed also imply that the materials of
conviviality were not forgotten.
Amidst such surroundings it is scarcely matter for surprise that we
occasionally read of profuseness in the high places of the Church
as well as the State. Some of the leading ecclesiastics had been
brought up in the lap of plenty. Wilfrid (consecrated Archbishop of
York, A.D. 669) is described by his biographer, Eddius, as the most
luxurious prelate of his age, but it should be remembered that he was
the son of a Bernician noble, taught in his childhood to serve the
cup in the mead-hall. His fame, however, for sanctity is abundantly
attested. He has been called the first patron of architecture among the
Anglo-Saxons. Hexham and Ripon owe to him their sacred piles. At the
dedication of the latter was a disgraceful scene of riotous festivity
in which the kings Ecgfrid and Aelwin with the principal nobles were
engaged. Such a scene upon such an occasion would now happily be
impossible. And it is by comparisons of this kind that one is able
definitely to estimate the improvement or retrogression of moral tone.
It should be added by way of extenuation that such festivities were
continuations of the heathen paganalia, were countenanced--indeed, with
certain modifications commanded--by order of Gregory the Great (A.D.
601), to Mellitus, the abbot, who accompanied Augustine to England.
His words, as given by Bede (_Eccl. Hist._ i. 30), are--‘On the day of
dedication, or the birthday of holy martyrs, whose relics are there
deposited, let the people build themselves booths of the boughs of
trees, round about those churches which have been turned to that use
from temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting....
For there is no doubt that it is impossible to efface every thing at
once from their obdurate minds.’
FOOTNOTES:
[11] A translation of this poem by John Mitchell Kemble was published
in 1837; one by Thomas Arnold in 1876; another more recently by Colonel
Lumsden; another by Rev. S. Fox, 1864.
[12] A chapter is devoted to the question of the genuineness and
chronology of Nennius in Wright’s _Biographia Britannica Literaria_.
[13] Geoffrey of Monmouth: _British History_, chap. xii.
[14] For Robert de Brunne’s metrical version of this story, cf. Warton,
_Hist. Poet._, i. 73. For Robert of Gloucester’s account, see Knight,
_Old Eng._, p. 70.
[15] Golyddan: _Arymes Prydein Vawr_, 2 (as rendered by Turner).
[16] Professor Morley’s rendering is here adopted. Part of the
_Gododin_ was translated by Gray. A version of the whole is to be found
in Davies’s _Mythology of the Druids_. It was translated by Probert
in 1820, and by Rev. John Williams ap Ithel in 1858. It should be
mentioned that Davies strangely maintains that the poem does not refer
to the battle of Cattraeth, but to the massacre of the Welsh chieftains
by Hengist’s command at a banquet at Stonehenge.
[17] Turner, _Vindication of the Ancient British Poems_.
[18] The poems of Taliesin are printed in the _Myvyrian Archaiology of
Wales_, collected out of ancient MSS.
[19] An incident in his life also illustrates the intemperance of the
time. Fishing at sea in a skin coracle, he was seized by Irish pirates,
who carried him off towards Ireland. Escaping from them in his coracle
while they were engaged in drunken revelry, he was tossed about at the
mercy of the waves till the coracle stuck to the point of a pole in the
weir of the Prince of Cardigan, at whose court he remained till the
time of the great inundation which formed Cardigan Bay.
[20] MS. Cotton, Julius A. vi. inserted in Wright’s _Homes of other
Days_.
[21] The original is given in Thorp’s _Analecta Anglo-Saxonica_,
London, 1834.
[22] Exeter MS. fol. 107, vo.
[23] Prefixed to _Collectanea_, 1770, p. 75.
[24] See _Christmas Festivities_, by the present writer.
[25] Warner mentions this drink as in his days a speciality (1797).
He says: ‘We now reached the Beaufort Arms (Crickhowel), where we
refreshed ourselves with a bottle of _cwrrw_ or Welsh ale.... I cannot
say that it proved agreeable to our palates, though the Cambrians seek
it with avidity, and quaff it with the most patient perseverance.
Their ancestors, you know, displayed a similar propensity eighteen
hundred years ago, and the old Celt frequently sunk under the powerful
influence of the ancient _cwrrw_. It was then, as now, made from
barley, but the grain was dried in a peculiar way which gives it a
smoky taste, and renders it glutinous, heady, and soporiferous.’ Cf.
Pliny, lib. xiv.: ‘Est et occidentis populis sua ebrietas, fruge
madida’; and Strabo, lib. iv.: ‘Ligures utuntur potu hordeaceo.’