PLANTAGENET PERIOD (_continued_).--EDWARD III. TO RICHARD III.
For a picture of the social life of the remainder of the fourteenth
century, we turn of necessity to one who was the ornament of two of
the most brilliant courts in the annals of England, viz. those of
Edward III. and his successor, Richard II. We are for ever indebted to
him for exquisite pictures of genuine English life and character in
its infinite phases. And it may be here noticed, as bearing upon our
subject, that this
_Geoffrey Chaucer_
was the son of a wine merchant; that by circumstance and ability he won
for himself the patronage of Edward III.; that he was made controller
of the customs of wine and wool in the port of London, and had a
pitcher of wine daily from the royal table. Towards the close of the
century he is supposed to have retired to pass the calm evening of
his active life at Woodstock, where he is said to have composed his
immortal _Canterbury Tales_.
The prologue, whether written by Chaucer or not, states that he was
going to pass the night at the Tabarde Inn, in Southwark, previous
to setting out on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas à Becket at
Canterbury. A number of pilgrims, twenty-nine _sundry folk_, meet at
this hostelry in good fellowship. There they sup together; after which
‘mine hoste’ proposes that they shall journey together to Canterbury;
that, in order to beguile the way, each shall tell a tale to and
fro, and whoever tells the best shall have a supper at the expense
of the rest; of course at his hostelry. The company assent. ‘Mine
hoste’ is appointed judge and reporter of the stories. The pilgrims,
or characters composing the social party, are, to all intents, an
inventory of English society as it existed at that day. We seem
actually to see the daily life of each reflected in the marvellous
mirror. Allusions to drink abound. Thus, in the prologue, he describes
a _Prioress_, and her delicacy of manners at table, as becomes a
gentlewoman:--
Hire overlippè wiped she so clene,
That in hire cuppe was no ferthing sene
Of gresè, whan she dronken hadde hire draught.
He describes the _Frankelein_ or country gentleman, who was ambitious
of showing his riches by the profusion of his table, but whose
hospitality often degenerated into excess.
For he was Epicure’s owen sone,
That held opinion, that plein delit
Was veraily felicite parfite.
An householder, and that a grete was he;
Seint Julian he was in his contree.
His brede, his ale, was alway after on;
A better envyned man was no wher non.
* * * * *
It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke.
London ale must have been then in repute, for among the
accomplishments of one of the party who was less a pilgrim than a cook,
it is noted:--
Well coude he knowe a draught of London ale.
Thomas Tyrwhitt, in a note on this line, remarks, ‘Whether this was a
different sort of ale from that of the provinces, or only better made,
I know not; but it appears to have been in request about a century
after Chaucer. In the account of the feast of Archbishop Warham, in
1504, we find that London ale was higher priced than Kentish by 5_s._ a
barrel.’
The true British sailor of Chaucer’s time exhibited nearly the same
strong traits as our own brave tars. That his conscience was not too
finely drawn appears in his conduct at Bordeaux, where he drew full
many a draught of wine while the chapman slept:--
The hote sommer hadde made his hewe al broun,
And certainly he was a good felaw.
Full many a draught of win he hadde draw
From Burdeux ward, while that the chapman slepe;
Of nice conscience toke he no kepe.
The description of the Sompnour, or Ecclesiastical Apparitor, is not an
inviting one. Church officials _temp._ Chaucer were not all they might
have been.
A sompnour was ther with us in that place, 625
That hadde a fire-red cherubinnés face,
For sausefleme he was, with eyen narwe;
As hote he was, and likerous as a sparwe,
With scalled browes blake, and pilled berd:
Of his visage children were sore aferd. 630
* * * * *
Wel loved he garlike, onions, and lekes, 636
And for to drinke strong win as rede as blood.
Than wolde he speke, and crie as he were wood.
And whan that he wel dronken had the win,
Than wold he speken no word but Latin. 640
A fewe termes coude he, two or three,
That he had lerned out of som decree;
No wonder is, he herd it all the day.
And eke ye knowen wel, how that a jay
Can clepen watte, as wel as can the pope. 645
But who so wolde in other thing him grope,
Than hadde he spent all his philosophie,
Ay, _Quæstio quid juris_, wolde he crie. 648
Among others of the Sompnour’s iniquities which the poet lashes was
his sale of silence. He would countenance the worst deviation from
rectitude for a quart of wine. Quotation is withheld.
Before the pilgrims started from the Tabarde Inn, they had well drunk,
as appears from Prologue, lines 749-752.
Gret chere made oure hoste us everich on,
And to the souper sette he us anon:
And served us with vitaille of the beste;
Strong was the win, and wel to drinke us leste.
Nor was this all. After some conversation with mine host, and certain
suggestions made by him as to their behaviour on the way, we read in
Prologue, lines 819-823:--
Thus by on assent
We ben accorded to his jugement,
And therupon the win was fette anon.
We dronken, and to reste wenten eche on,
Withouten any lenger tarying.
It was just as well they did.
Pass we on to the _Canterbury Tales_ themselves. There is nothing in
the Knighte’s Tale, as indeed we should have expected nothing from this
‘veray parfit gentil knight,’ apropos of our subject. But directly
the Knighte’s Tale was ended, and mine host had requested the Monk to
follow suit, the Miller strikes in, and insists on telling his tale, a
very improper one indeed. This is the description of the drunken miller
and his conduct--
The Miller that for-dronken was all pale, 3123
So that unethes upon his hors he sat,
He n’old avalen neither hood ne hat, 3125
Ne abiden no man for his curtesie,
But in Pilates vois he gan to crie,
And swore by armes, and by blood, and bones,
I can a noble tale for the nones,
With which I wol now quite the knightes tale. 3130
Our Hoste saw that he was dronken of ale,
And sayd; abide, Robin, my leve brother,
Som better man shall tell us first another:
Abide, and let us werken thriftily.
By Goddes soule (quod he) that wol not I, 3135
For I wol speke, or elles go my way.
Our Hoste answerd; Tell on a devil way;
Thou art a fool; thy wit is overcome.
Now herkeneth, quod the Miller, all and some:
But first I make a protestatioun, 3140
That I am dronke, I know it by my soun;
And therefore if that I misspeke or say,
Wite it the ale of Southwerk, I you pray. 3143
There is nothing very specially to the point in the Millere’s Tale,
but one or two facts show the universal part that drink played in the
period. Thus when Absalom, the parish clerk, wishes to ingratiate
himself with Alison, the carpenter’s wife,
He sent hire pinnes, methe, and spiced ale,
And wafres piping hot out of the glede:
And for she was of toun, he profered mede.
Lines 3378-3380.
or can the carpenter and his lodger carry on a conversation without
the introduction of ‘a large quart of mighty ale’ (line 3497).
The Reve’s Tale, which is probably founded upon a similar story in the
_Decameron_ of Boccaccio, largely turns upon drink--_e.g._, two Cantabs
are going to sup and sleep at the miller’s:--
The miller the toun his doughter send 4134
For ale and bred, and roasted hem a goos, 4135
* * * * *
They soupen, and they speken of solace, 4144
And drinken ever strong ale at the best. 4145
Abouten midnight wente they to rest.
But not, as we are told in a later verse, till ‘that dronken was all
in the crouke,’ by which time all of the party had had too much. Their
condition is described:--
Wel hath this miller vernished his hed,
Ful pale he was, for-dronken, and nought red.
He yoxeth, and he speketh thurgh the nose,
As he were on the quakke, or on the pose. 4150
To bed he goth, and with him goth his wif;
As any jay she light was and jolif,
So was hire joly whistle wel ywette. 4153
* * * * *
This miller hath so wisly bibbed ale, 4160
That as an hors he snorteth in his slepe.
In the Man of Lawes Tale we have the account of a messager being so
drunk that, ‘while he slept as a swine,’ his letters were stolen from
him by the king’s mother, and changed to spite her daughter-in-law. His
orgies are thus described:--
This messager drank sadly ale and wine, 5163
* * * * *
He dranke, and wel his girdel underfight. 5209
Our poet thus apostrophises the sorry fellow:--
O messager, fulfilled of dronkenesse, 5191
Strong is thy breth, thy limmes faltren ay,
And thou bewreiest alle secrenesse;
Thy mind is lorne, thou janglest as a jay;
Thy face is tourned in a new array; 5195
Ther dronkenesse regneth in any route,
Ther is no conseil hid withouten doute. 5197
A virtuous mediæval commentator has written in the margin of a MS.
copy of Chaucer in the Cambridge Library the following excellent Latin
remarks:--
_O messager._ ‘Quid turpius ebrioso, cui fœtor in ore, tremor in
corpore; qui promit stulta, prodit occulta; cui mens alienatur, facies
transformatur; nullum enim latet secretum ubi regnat ebrietas.’
_Query_--Are these words merely the commentator’s effusion and outcome,
or are they a quotation from some Latin writer? If the latter, they
would probably have been the basis of Chaucer’s lines here. They say a
good deal in a few words.
The ‘Wif of Bathe’ is one of Chaucer’s equivocal characters. Her
remarks are usually incisive. Her attainments, upon her own confession,
were mainly dependent on the brimming cup; as in the lines--
Tho coude I dancen to an harpe smale,
And sing ywis as any nightingale,
When I had dronke a draught of swete wine.
The same impression is produced in the engravings of the lady in
Knight’s _Old England_. Chaucer continues:--
Metellius, the foule cherle, the swine,
That with a staf beraft his wif hire lif,
For she drank wine, though I had been his wif,
Ne shuld he not have daunted me fro drinke.
The story about Metellius beating his wife for drinking is told by
Pliny (_Nat. Hist._ xiv. 13) of one Mecenius, but Chaucer probably
followed Valerius Maximus (vi. 3).
A little further on is a line full of truth--
In woman vinolent is no defence,
which may have been suggested by the couplet in _Romaunt de la Rose_:--
Car puisque femme est enyvrée
Et n’a point en soy de deffence.
The Sompnour, or, in other words, the summoner (so called from
delivering the summonses of the archdeacons), vows vengeance on
the Frere (friar) for telling a tale so palpably levelled at his
profession, and, giving him a Roland for his Oliver, thus describes the
Frere of the period:--
Fie on hir pompe, and on hir glotonie,
And on hir lewednesse; I hem defie. 7510
Me thinketh they ben like Jovinian,
Fat as a whale, and walken as a swan
Al vinolent as botel in the spence;
Hir praier is of ful gret reverence;
Whan they for soules say the Psalm of Davit, 7515
Lo, buf they say, _cor meum eructavit_.
Tyrwhitt informs us that Jovinian was ‘perhaps the supposed emperour
of that name in the _Gesta Romanorum_, c. lix., whose story was worked
up into a _Morality_, under the title of “_L’orgueil et présomption de
l’Empereur Jovinien_--à 19 Personages.”’
The following lines, still from the Sompnour’s Tale, are not Chaucer’s
own, but a quotation or paraphrase from Seneca:--
A lord is lost if he be vicious 7630
And dronkennesse is eke a foule record
Of any man, and namely of a lord. 7632
* * * * *
For goddes love drinke more attemprely. 7635
Win maketh man to lesen wretchedly
His mind, and eke his limmes everich on. 7637
The Marchante’s Tale abounds with allusions. Wine played no unimportant
part at the marriage of January and May. It was not spared at the
wedding. As we read in line 9596:
Bacchus the win hem skinketh al aboute.
The aged bridegroom primed himself by its aid--
He drinketh Ipocras, clarré, and vernage
Of spices hot, to encresen his corage.
Lines 9681, 9682.
And in the morning when ‘that the day gan dawe,’ we read that ‘then he
taketh a sop in fine clarré’--line 9717.
All this, no doubt, is drawn from the marriage customs of Chaucer’s
days.
In these times of luxury and excess what an example does the ‘poure
widewe’ furnish in the Nonnes Prestes Tale. Truly idyllic!--
Full sooty was hire boure, and eke hire halle,
In which she ete many a slender mele.
Of poinant sauce ne knew she never a dele.
No deintee morsel passed thurgh hire throte;
Hire diete was accordant to hire cote.
Repletion ne made hire never sike;
Attempre diete was all hire physike,
And exercise, and hertes suffisance.
The goute let hire nothing for to dance,
No apoplexie shente not hire hed.
No win ne dranke she, neyther white ne red:
Hire bord was served most with white and black,
Milk and broun bred, in which she fond no lack,
Seinde bacon, and somtime an ey or twey;
For she was as it were a maner dey.
Could she have divined that one day Professor Mayor would give to the
world ‘Modicus cibi medicussibi’?
In the Manciple’s Prologue we find the following lines. The Manciple is
chaffing the ‘coke’ for having had too much to drink. _Inter alia_, he
remarks, lines 16993, 16994:--
I trow that ye have dronken win of ape,
And that is whan men playen with a straw.
These are worth quoting for the sake of Tyrwhitt’s note on 16993.
‘_Wine of ape_,’ he says, ‘I understood to mean the same as _vin
de singe_ in the old _Calendrier des Bergiers_. Sign 1. ii. b. The
author is treating of physiognomy, and in his description of the four
temperaments he mentions, among other circumstances, the different
effects of wine upon them. The choleric, he says, _a vin de Lyon;
cest a dire, quant a bien beu veult tanser, noyser et battre_. The
sanguine _a vin de singe; quant a plus beu tant est plus joyeux_. In
the same manner the phlegmatic is said to have _vin de mouton_, and the
melancholick _vin de porceau_.’
In the Manciple’s Prologue, lines 17043 to 17050, we have the following
praise of wine as a reconciler:--
Then gan our hoste to laughen wonder loude,
And sayd: I see wel it is necessary
Wher that we gon good drinke with us to cary;
For that wol turnen rancour and disese
To accord and love, and many a wrong apese.
O Bacchus, Bacchus, blessed be thy name,
That so canst turnen ernest into game:
Worship and thonke be to thy deitee.
If _Laudibus arguitur vini vinosus Homerus_ be a true rule, we might
say that Chaucer liked his glass.
In the Persones Tale, under heading _De Gulâ_, we read, ‘After avarice
cometh glotonie, which is expresse agenst the commandement of God.
Glotonie is unmesurable appetit to ete or to drinke.... This sinne hath
many spices. The first is dronkennesse, that is the horrible sepulture
of manne’s reson: and this is dedly sinne.’
The Rime of Sire Thopas is tantalising. It breaks off just as we are
assured that Sire Thopas
Himself drank water of the well,
As did the knight Sire Percivell
So worthy under wede,
Till on a day----
_Hiatus valde deflendus!_ Yet we find with strange inconsistency in
lines 13801-13803--
And ther he swore on ale and bred
How that the geaunt should be ded,
Betide what so betide.
Lines 13693, 13694 show the early use of the nutmeg with liquor--
And notemuge to put in ale,
Whether it be moist or stale:
as in the old song--
What gave thee that jolly red nose?
Nutmegs and cloves.
This ample history of manners from one of our greatest poets scarcely
needs to be supplemented. Indeed, little can be added even from that
withering satire of Robert Longlande, entitled the _Vision of Pierce
Plowman_, who, lashing everybody, did not spare the corruptions of
the Church. To this _vision_ has been commonly annexed a poem, called
‘Pierce the Plowman’s Crede,’ a satire on the Mendicant Friars. These
last had sprung up in the preceding century. They were, indeed, a
necessity of the time, so far had the monastic orders degenerated from
their primitive simplicity, so wholly were they abandoned to luxury
and indolence. In the following lines of the ‘Crede’ a Franciscan is
defending his order:--
Of al men upon mold we Minorites most sheweth
The pure Aposteles lif, with penance on erthe,
And suen [follow] hem in sanctite, and sufferen wel harde.
We haunten not tavernes, ne hobelen abonten
At marketes and miracles we medeley us never.
The Early English Text Society has done good service in publishing one
of the many mediæval handbooks of the same kind, called _Instructions
for Parish Priests_. The book is by John Myrk, a canon regular of St.
Austin. Amongst these instructions the priest is bidden to eschew
drunkenness, gluttony, pride, sloth, and envy. He must keep from
taverns, trading, wrestling, shooting, hunting, hawking, and dancing.
Dr. Cutts infers from Chaucer’s description of the poor parson of a
town, that these instructions were not thrown away upon the mediæval
parish priests.
The legislation of the fourteenth century, so far as it concerns our
subject, was of an in-and-out character. It enacted and repealed,
repealed and enacted. In 1330 it was ordained: ‘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,’ that wine must be sold at reasonable prices, and that the
wines should be tested twice a year--at Easter and Michaelmas, oftener
if needful--and corrupt wines poured out, and the vessels broken.
In 1338 wine was taxed, on a great emergency. Edward III. wanted a
vast sum to pay the subsidies which he had granted to his foreign
allies. The great men granted him a moiety of their wool, which sold
for 400,000_l._; besides a duty of 2_s._ a tun upon wine, added to the
usual customs paid by all foreign merchants.
The preamble of the Act of 1365 deserves special attention:--‘The King
wills of his grace and sufferance that all merchant denizens that be
not artificers, shall pass into Gascoign to fetch wines thence, to the
end and intent that by this general licence greater liberty may come,
and greater market may be of wines within the realm; and that the
Gascoigns and other aliens may come into the realm with their wines,
and freely sell them without any disturbance or impeachment.’
By the 42nd Edward III., c. 8, rigour was again imposed, and wines
forbidden to be brought into England save by Gascons and other aliens.
In the next year the previous Act was renewed at the request of his son
the Prince, who found the subsidies and customs of wines diminished in
his principality of Aquitaine, by reason of the falling off of the wine
trade with England. A revival of the trade ensued. Froissart states
that in 1372 a fleet arrived at Bordeaux from England of not less than
two hundred sail of merchantmen in quest of wines.
In 1378 foreigners were allowed to sell wine in gross but not in retail.
The same contradictions manifest themselves in the Acts of Richard
II.’s reign as in those of his predecessor; _e.g._--
In 1381 no sweet wines or claret could be sold retail. In the following
year the price of foreign wines was again regulated. It was enacted
that the best wines of Gascony, Osey, and Spain, and Rhenish wines
should be sold for 100 shillings, and the best Rochelle wines at 6
marks the tun; and by retail, the former at 6_d._, the latter at 4_d._,
a gallon. Marvellous to relate, Holinshed states that, before the close
of the reign, so abundant was the article that it was sold at the
maximum price of 20_s._ a tun.
In 1387, it was enacted that no wine be carried _out_ of the realm.
It is curious to observe how our sumptuary laws recognised certain
seasons, and exempted them from their operation. Christmas, for
example, had not only been set apart for sacred observance, but had
become a time of feasting and revelry. When Edward III., in his tenth
year, tried to restrain his subjects from over luxury, exception was
made in the case of the great feasts of the year--‘La veile et le jour
de Noel, le jour de Saint Estiephne, le jour de l’an renoef [New Year’s
Day], les jours de la Tiphaynei et de la Purification de Notre Dame.’
We have already found that attention was drawn to taverns in the time
of Edward I. In the reign of Edward III. only three taverns were
allowed in the metropolis. Publicans were already compelled by law to
put up a sign. Thus, in 1393, Florence North, a Chelsea brewer, was
‘presented’ for not putting up the usual sign. The penalty was the
forfeiture of their ale. With other trades it was optional. Conversely,
the taking away of a publican’s licence was accompanied by the removal
of his sign--
For this gross fault I here do damn thy licence,
Forbidding thee ever to tap or draw;
For instantly I will in mine own person
Command the constables to pull down thy sign.[77]
By the gradual institution of _inns_, where travellers could obtain
food and lodging, the old methods of hospitality began to pass away.
‘The convenient chamber for guests,’ which we find in the inventories
of a country parson’s house in the middle ages, was becoming a relic of
the past. This, and the more public _hospitium_, or guest-house, within
the walls of the monasteries, had for ages furnished the shelter and
provender which could only thus be gotten.
In the time of Richard II. the Little Park at Windsor was used as a
vineyard for home consumption. Thus Stowe (_Chronicle_, p. 143) says
that among the archives of the Court of Pleas of the Forest and Honours
at Windsor, is to be seen the ‘yearly account of the charges of the
planting of the vines that in the time of Richard II. grew in great
plenty within the Little Park, as also the making of the wine itself,
whereof some part was spent in the king’s house, and some part sold to
his profit, the tithes whereof were paid to the Abbot of Waltham.’
But the inutility of home vineyards is demonstrated from the cheapness
of foreign wines at this time. In 1342 the price of Gascon wines in
London was 4_d._, and that of Rhenish, 6_d._ per gallon; and in 1389,
foreign wine was only 20_s._ per tun for the best, and 13_s._ 4_d._ for
the second--that is, about three halfpence a dozen.
But to turn to the king himself. The pageant, or royal entertainment,
on the accession of Richard II. is described by the chronicler
Walsingham. The city was most richly adorned, and the conduits ran
with wine for three hours. In the upper end of the Cheap was erected
a castle with four towers, on two sides of which ran forth wine
abundantly. In the towers were placed four beautiful girls dressed
in white, who, on the king’s approach, blew in his face leaves of
gold, and filling cups of gold with wine at the spouts of the castle,
presented them to the king and his nobles.
The citizens had signified their joy in much the same way before, when
Edward I. returned from the Holy Land. Maitland, in his _London_,
seems to have regarded with wonder the fact that the very conduits
in the streets through which the cavalcade passed ran with wine; but
it happened before, and happened very often afterwards. Mr. Morewood
(_Hist. Ineb. Liq._) fell into the same error, and exclaims, ‘To this
extravagance there are few parallels, except that of Polemkin, when he
gave a magnificent feast to the Empress Catherine, at his palace in the
Taurida, when the conservatory fountains were filled with champagne and
claret, and served to the company by means of silver pumps applied to
those reservoirs.’
The king was young when he came to the throne, extravagant, and fond of
luxury. His Christmases seem to have been kept with especial splendour,
and this to the very close of his unfortunate reign. In 1399 there was
a royal Christmas at Westminster, when the consumption was prodigious.
In the previous Christmas, at Lichfield, where the pope’s nuncio and
other foreigners were present, they got rid of two hundred tuns of wine
and two thousand oxen. But the king had a profligate set about him--De
la Pole, De Vere, &c.; while he was grossly misled by the advice of
Robert Tresylian, his Chief Justice of the King’s Bench; and no better
epitome of the king’s ill star can be given than a stanza from the
tragedy of _The Fall of Robert Tresylian_ (1388):
Thus the king, outleaping the limits of his law,
Not reigning but raging, as youth did him entice,
Wise and worthy persons from court did daily draw,
Sage counsel set at nought, proud vaunters were in price,
And roisters bear the rule, which wasted all in vice:
Of riot and excess grew scarcity and lack,
Of lacking came taxing, and so went wealth to rack.
Henry IV. came to the throne in 1399. A pageant of the kind already
mentioned was held. Froissart notices that there were seven fountains
in Cheapside, and other streets he passed through, which perpetually
ran with white and red wines. Profusion reigned supreme in high
quarters; among the articles which furnished the breakfast table of
the nobility were--for a gentleman and his lady, in Lent, a quart of
beer and the same quantity of wine. And a gallon of beer and a quart of
wine at their _liveries_, a repast taken in their bedrooms immediately
before going to roost.
In looking through bills of entertainments at this period, one cannot
help observing the contrast between the relative costs of the meats and
drinks then and now. Then, the wine, ale, &c., were about one third of
the entire cost, now the drink is oftener much the heavier item. This
would be misleading, did we not take into consideration how much strong
drink is made to yield to the revenue. The relative price of meats and
drinks at that time wholly differ from the present relation. But wine
was gradually becoming a dearer commodity. Malmsey in the reign of
Henry IV. used to fetch the average price of 280 gallons for 5_l._ That
sum would scarcely have bought half the amount in the reign of Richard
III.
The dissipated life led by the youth of the time appears in the
reminiscences of the poet Occleve of his own conduct. If youth needs
a warning against folly, he can do little better than study _La male
regie de T. Hoccleve_, or _Occleve’s Misrule_. The tavern sign was to
him an irresistible temptation. Westminster Gate was then noted for its
taverns and cook-shops, at which the lavishness of Occleve made him a
welcome guest. To this he alludes--
Wher was a greater maister eek than Y,
Or bet acqweynted at Westmynster Gate,
Among the taverners namely (especially)
And cookes? Whan I cam, eerly or late,
I pynchid nat at hem in mine acate (purchase of provisions),
But paied hem as they axe wolde;
Wherfore I was the welcomer algate (always),
And for a verray gentilman yholde (regarded).
And again--
The outward sign of Bacchus and his lure
That at his doore hangeth day by day,
Exciteth folks to taste of his moisture
So often that men cannot well say nay.
Of him that haunteth tavern of custume,
In shorte wordes the profit is this,
In double wise: His bag it shall consume,
And make his tonge speak of folk amis;
For in the cuppe seldom founden is
That any wight his neighbour commendeth.
Behold and see what avantage is his
That God, his friend, and eke himself offendeth
* * * * *
Now let this smart warninge to thee be,
And if thou mayst hereafter be relieved
Of body and pursé, so thou guidé thee
By wit that thou no moré thus be grieved.
What riot is, thou tasted hast and preeved.
The fire, men sayn, he dreadeth that is brent;
And if thou so do, thou art well y--meeved (moved),
Be now no longer fool, by mine assent.
Notwithstanding the arguments adduced by a modern historian to the
contrary, the weight of evidence is overwhelming that the early life
of Henry V. was a course of dissipation. His active spirit (in the
language of Hume) broke out in extravagances of every kind; and the
riot of pleasure, the frolic of debauchery, the outrage of the wine,
filled the vacancies of a mind better adapted to the pursuits of
ambition and the cares of government. Shakespeare puts into the mouth
of Henry IV. the reflection upon his son--
Whilst I ...
See riot and dishonor stain the brow
Of my young Harry.
The abandoned Falstaff looked at the matter from another point of view,
of course. He is represented as saying, ‘Hereof comes it, that Prince
Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his
father, he hath, like lean, steril, and bare land, manured, husbanded,
and tilled with excellent endeavor of drinking good, and good store
of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had
a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should
be, to forswear their potations, and addict themselves to sack.’ Yet
even Falstaff could tell the truth sometimes, for in the early part of
the same sentence, amidst a hurricane of rubbish, he tells that wine
makes the blood ‘course from the inwards to the parts extreme.’ One
fancies one is reading Dr. B. W. Richardson as he tells, ‘wine propels
the blood violently _from the heart_ to the extremities.’ But Henry
V. found place for repentance. His life as king was widely different
from his life as prince. Among his troops at Agincourt drunkenness was
counted a disgrace. So impressed was he with the bane of it, that he
would gladly have cut down all the vines in France.
In the _Liber Albus_, compiled in this reign by John Carpenter, common
clerk, and Richard Whittington, mayor, appears in full the oath of the
_ale-conners_. These were officers appointed to look after the quality
of ale, beer, and bread, to whom allusion is made in the _Cobler of
Canterburie_:--
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_.
The following is the oath--
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 [thereof] 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 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 said 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 pertain to do, you shall well and lawfully
do.--So God you help, and the saints.
So it is to be feared that there were some black sheep in the trade
then, as now. Others certainly not so, for in this same fifteenth
century we find that a licence was granted to John Calcot, landlord of
the ‘Chequers,’ a tavern in Calcot’s Alley, Lambeth, to have an oratory
in the house, and a chaplain for the use of his family and guests, so
long as the house should continue orderly and respectable, and _adapted
to the celebration of Divine service_.[78]
The jurisdiction of the ale-conners extended to offences of omission as
well as commission. Thus we find them presenting one Thomas Cokesale,
for refusing to sell ale to his neighbours while he had some on sale,
and even while the sign (the ale-stake) was out. He was fined 4_d._
On the other hand, in 1461, one Lentroppe was presented for having,
contrary to the order, brewed three times under one display of the
sign or ale-stake. For this he had to pay 6_d._ The man offended by
brewing three times, and only making one signal of brewing. This, if
he had not been detected, would have enabled him to sell two brewings
without the liquor having been tasted by the proper officers, and the
public might have had ale sold to them ‘not sufficiently mighty of the
corn, or wholesome for man’s body.’[79] Another local law, mentioned in
Scrope’s _History of Castle Combe_, was that no one was to brew in 1461
at the same time as the Churchwardens were brewing the church-ale for
the profit of the church, under pain of 13_s._ 4_d._; nor to brew or
sell till all the ale brewed for the church was entirely sold. This was
brewed for the benefit of the common fund for the _relief_ of the poor
in 1590. We pause here to consider the institution known as a
_Church-ale_,
of which _Easter-ales_ and _Whitsun-ales_ are simply species. And
first, their origin. The idea is without any doubt taken from the
_Agapæ_, or Love Feasts, so famous in the early Church. Many of the
features of these feasts were revived in the _wakes_ of the middle
ages, of which such was the popularity that the officers of parishes
conceived that some things novel in name and character, but preserving
the elements which made the wakes so popular, would answer the purpose
and promote the objects they had in view.
There is an old pre-Reformation indenture in Dodsworth’s MSS.,
which not only shows the design of the church-ale, but explains the
particular use and application of the word _ale_. The parishioners of
Elveston and Okebrook in Derbyshire agree jointly ‘to brew four ales,
and every ale of one quarter of malt, betwixt this and the feast of
St. John Baptist next coming. And that every inhabitant of the said
town of Okebrook shall be at the several ales. And every husband and
his wife shall pay two pence, every cottager one penny, and all the
inhabitants of Elveston shall have and receive all the profits and
advantages coming of the said ales, to the use and behoof of the said
church of Elveston, and the inhabitants of Elveston shall brew eight
ales between this and the feast of St. John Baptist, at the which ales
the inhabitants of Okebrook shall come and pay as before rehersed, and
if he be away at one ale to pay at the other ale for both.’[80]
Before the Reformation there were no poor rates. In their place
were the charitable dole given at the religious houses, voluntary
assessments towards church repairs, and the church-ale. The latter fell
in best with the humour of the people; for a time it was tolerated
because probably innocent, and in it a ready method was discovered for
maintaining the fabric of the church, and furnishing its necessary
ornaments. Stubbs, in his _Anatomie of Abuses_ (1585), thus describes
them:--
In certaine townes where dronken Bacchus beares swaie, against
Christmas and Easter, Whitsondaie or some other tyme, the
churchwardens of every parishe, with the consent of the whole
parishe, provide halfe a score, or twentie quarters of mault,
whereof some they buy of the churche stocke, and some is given them
of the parishioners themselves, every one conferring somewhat,
according to his abilitie; whiche maulte being made into very
strong ale or bere, is sette to sale, either in the churche or
some other place assigned to that purpose. Then when this is set
abroche, well is he that can gete the soonest to it, and spend the
most at it. In this kinde of practice they continue sixe weekes,
a quarter of a yeare, yea, halfe a yeare together. That money,
they say, is to repaire their churches and chappels with, to buy
bookes for service, cuppes for the celebration of the sacrament,
surplesses for Sir John, and such other necessaries, and they
maintaine other extraordinarie charges in their parish besides.
That these ales were eminently productive, the churchwardens’ accounts
of many parishes attest. Thus in Kingston-upon-Thames, the proceeds of
the church-ale in 1526 are entered as 7_l._ 15_s._, not much short of
100_l._ as money goes now.
We find them satirised in _Pierce Plowman_ thus:--
I am occupied everie daye, holye daye, and other,
With idle tales at the ale, and other while in churches.
_In churches._ Though they were not usually, if ever, held there,
but in a place called the _church-house_. Thus Carew (_Survey of
Cornwall_) says: ‘Whitsontide, upon which holidays the neighbours meet
at the church-house, and there merily feed on their owne victuals,
contributing some petty portion to the stock, which, by many smells,
growth to a meetly greatness.’
In process of time of course they degenerated. The pulpits of the
sixteenth century freely denounced them. A typical sermon on the abuses
of the day is that of William Kethe, preached at Blandford in 1570, at
which time ales must have been kept in his neighbourhood on Sunday,
‘which holy day the multitude call their revelyng day, which day is
spent in bul-beatings, beare-beatings, bowlings, dicyng, cardyng,
daunsynges, drunkenness, and whoredome.’ And when we remember that it
is recorded of an old song, that
It hath been sung at festivals,
On ember eves and _holy ales_,
we shall the better appreciate the nature of the fall. ‘Desinit in
piscem mulier formosa supernè.’
Efforts were made in this reign of Henry VI. for the better observance
of Sunday; and, here and there, there are indications that efforts were
made locally to bring about ‘Sunday closing.’ Mr. Bridgett has adduced
a few examples. In 1428 the corporation of Hull made an order for
the observance of the Sunday. No market was to be kept, under penalty
of 6_s._ 8_d._ for sellers, and 3_s._ 4_d._ for buyers; no butchers
were to expose meat for sale, nor cooks to dress or sell except to
strangers, and to them only before seven o’clock; no tradesmen to
keep shops open; no vintners nor ale-house keepers to deliver or sell
ale, under the same penalties. London made an attempt to suppress
Sunday trading, but it was ineffectual. In the year 1444 ‘an Act was
made, by authority of 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; nor none artificer
should bring his ware to any man to be worn or occupied that day, as
tailor’s garments or cordwainer’s shoes; and so likewise of all other
occupations; the which ordinance held but a while.’
There was very little legislation upon these matters in Henry VI.’s
reign. The planting of _hops_ was prohibited. They were used by the
brewers in the Netherlands early in the fourteenth century; and the use
of them in beer was brought into England from Artois. But there will
be more occasion to speak of them later on, when we shall find that
privileges were granted to _hop-grounds_. In this reign the Brewery
Company was incorporated, and we can readily believe that its brew was
duly appreciated by John Lydgate, the monk of Bury.
Beer had risen immensely in price from the thirteenth to the fifteenth
century. When the Archbishop of Canterbury visited his land at Tarring,
in Sussex, in 1277, four gallons of the best beer were to be charged
only 1_d._; whereas a tariff of 1464 shows an extraordinary advance.
Best beer, per gallon 2_d._
Second ” ” 1_d._
Third ” ” 0½_d._
A century later it had again risen fifty per cent.
In the archives of Ely Cathedral we have the following account of the
produce of a vineyard:--
£ _s._ _d._
Exitus vineti 2 15 3½
Exitus vineæ 10 12 2½
Ten bushels of grapes from the vineyard 0 7 6
Seven dolia musti from the vineyard 12th
Edward II. 15 1 0
Wine sold for 1 12 0
Verjuice 1 7 0
For wine out of this vineyard 1 2 2
For verjuice from thence 0 16 0
No wine but verjuice made 9th Edward IV.[81]
In an ordinance for the household of George, Duke of Clarence (Dec. 9,
1469), the sum of 20_l._ is allowed for the purveying of ‘Malvesie,
Romenay, Osey, Bastard, Muscadelle, and other sweete wynes.’ This
Romenay or Rumney has nothing to do with Rome or the Romagna, but was
probably made from Greek vines, as Henderson suggests, derived from
Rum-ili, a name given by the Saracens to Greece. The _Osey_ above
mentioned, or Auxois, was in old time a name for Alsace. It was richly
and highly flavoured.
The mention of the Duke of Clarence brings up the spectre of his
untimely end. A shroud of mystery veils its entire circumstances.
He was charged with high treason and condemned to death. Ten days
afterwards it was announced that he had died in the Tower. Was he first
murdered and then drowned, as Shakespeare thought,[82] or is the old
story to be believed, that he was drowned in a butt of malmsey? Since
the death of his dearly loved wife, Isabel of Warwick, he had abandoned
himself to intemperance, to drown his grief. With such a habit
contracted, with vexed conscience, in the despair of condemnation, and
with a butt of his favourite drink by his side, what more natural than
to suppose him to have been a miserable suicide? However, the weight of
testimony leans to the other theory--that he was stabbed by Richard’s
order, and the body thrown into the malmsey to make believe that he had
unwittingly drowned himself under the influence of drink.
Mr. Martin Leake gives the origin of the term _Malmsey_: Monemvasia,
now an island connected with the coast of Laconia by a bridge. This
name, derived from its position (μόνε ἐμβασία, _single entrance_),
was corrupted by the Italians to Malvasia; this place, celebrated for
its fine wines, had its name changed to Malvoisie in French, and
Malmsey in English, and came to be applied to many of the rich wines
of Greece, the Archipelago, &c.[83]
The consumption of strong drink at public entertainments was something
prodigious in the fifteenth century. At the banquet upon the occasion
of the installation of George Neville, Archbishop of York, in 1464, no
less than 300 tuns of ale and 100 tuns of wine were consumed. In the
household of Archbishop Booth, his predecessor, it is stated that about
80 tuns of claret were consumed annually.
The usages of _assay_ were at this time remarkable. Every cup of drink
served to the great man of the house was assayed twice, once in the
buttery and again in the hall. In the buttery the butler was required
to drink, under the marshal’s eye, some of every vessel of liquor sent
to the high table; and at the same time the marshal covered with its
lid every cup, before committing it to the lord’s cupbearer. It was
treason for a cupbearer to raise the lid of a vessel thus confided to
him, on his way from the buttery to the table; but he sipped it before
his lord took a draught. On serving his master the cupbearer knelt,
removed the lid, and poured some of the drink into the inverted cover.
When he had drunk this, the servant handed the cup to his master, who,
when he saw the liquor assayed before his eyes, accepted it as a liquor
of _credence_ which he might drink trustfully.[84]
But here we must stay for a while and inquire what action the Church
had been taking for the past century to check intemperance. In the
year 1359, Archbishop Islep, in his Constitution, informs Michael de
Northburg, Bishop of London, that though it is provided by sanctions
of law and canon that all Lord’s days be venerably observed from eve
to eve, so that neither markets, negotiations, nor courts be kept, nor
any country work done, that so every faithful man may go to his parish
church to worship and pray, yet ‘we are, to our great heart’s grief,
informed that a detestable, nay damnable, perverseness has prevailed,
insomuch that in many places, markets, unlawful meetings of men who
neglect their churches, various tumults and other occasions of evil are
committed, revels and drunkenness, and many other dishonest doings are
practised, ... wherefore we strictly command you that ye without delay
canonically admonish, and effectually persuade in virtue of obedience,
those of your subjects whom ye find culpable, that they do wholly
abstain from markets, courts, and the other unlawful practices for the
future,’ &c.
In a constitution held three years later, the same Archbishop Islep
lays intemperance to the charge of some of the priests, and imposes
strenuous penalties in default of amendment.[85] In 1363 Archbishop
Thoresby complains that it had become common for persons to meet in
churches on the vigils of saints, and offend against God by their
practices; that in the exequies of the dead, some turned the house of
mourning and prayer into the house of laughter and excess to the great
peril of their own souls. These were strictly forbidden to continue
such practices.
In the year 1468 the Prior of Canterbury and the commissaries
made a visitation (the see being then vacant); and it was ordered
that potations made in the churches, commonly called _give-ales_
or _bride-ales_, should be discontinued, under penalty of
excommunication.[86]
_Bride-ale_
was so called from the bride’s selling ale on the wedding day, and
friends contributing what they liked in payment of it. Brand imagines
that the expense was defrayed by the friends of the married pair
when circumstances were such as to need help. It was also called
_bride-stake_, _bride-wain_, and _bride-bush_; the bush sufficiently
signifying the nature of the gathering, inasmuch as it was the ancient
badge of a country ale-house. Before the festivities proper began on
the return from the bridal ceremony, it appears that a curious drinking
custom prevailed in the church. Wine, with sops immersed, was there
drunk, and bowls were kept in the church for this purpose. Thus, in
an inventory of goods belonging to Wilsdon church in the sixteenth
century, occurs the item, ‘two masers (mazers) that were appointed
to remayne in the church for to drink in at bride-ales.’ Shakespeare
alludes to this custom in his _Taming of the Shrew_, where Petruchio
Calls for wine:--‘A health,’ quoth he ...
... Quaff’d off the muscadel,
And threw the _sops_ all in the sexton’s face.
The practice continued in force for a long time, for we find allusion
to the same custom in the year 1720 in the _Compleat Vintner_:--
What priest can join two lovers’ hands,
But wine must seal the marriage-bands?
As if celestial wine was thought
Essential to the sacred knot,
And that each bridegroom and his bride
Believ’d they were not firmly ty’d
Till Bacchus with his bleeding tvn,
Had finished what the priest begun.
The wine thus drunk is called by Ben Jonson a ‘knitting cup.’ After the
ceremony they retired to a tavern or went home, and then the orgies
begun. In the words of an old writer, ‘When they come home from the
church, then beginneth excess of eatyng and drynking, and as much is
waisted in one daye as were sufficient for the two newe-maried folkes
halfe a year to lyve on.’
But these customs are not peculiar to England only. The Scotch have
their ‘penny bride-ale’ to help those who cannot pay the expense of
the wedding feast. In Germany, when a window was put in or altered,
was the _fenster-bier_ (window-beer). At the churchings of women
was the _kark-bier_ (church-beer). At funerals was the _grab-bier_
(grave-beer), beer forming an essential part of all such observances.
Edward IV. died in 1488, the victim of mortified ambition. His habits
of life were licentious and intemperate. He died under a violent fever
aggravated by excess. We can only hope that he died, as it is reported,
a penitent. An account is given in the Paston Letters (cccxliv.)
of an intended _progress_ of the king, probably to facilitate his
benevolences. In this, Sir John Paston is urged to warn William Gogney
and his fellows ‘to purvey them of wine enough, for every man beareth
me in hand that the town shall be drank dry, as York was when the king
was there.’
In this reign the Earls of Warenne and Surrey possessed the privilege
of licensing ale-houses. Mention has already been made of the ‘Crown,’
in Cheapside. In 1467 this house was kept by one Walter Walters, who in
harmless pleasantry gave it out that he would make his son ‘heir to the
“Crown.”’ This so displeased his Majesty Edward IV. that he ordered the
man to be put to death for high treason.
One piece of legislation remains to be told before closing the period.
In the first year of Richard III. (c. 13), it was enacted that malmsey
should in future be imported only in butts of 126 gallons. This measure
was for the prevention of frauds on the revenue. It was repealed by an
Act of George IV.
FOOTNOTES:
[77] Massinger: _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_.
[78] Allen, _History of Lambeth_.
[79] Roberts: _Social History of the Southern Counties_.
[80] Dodsworth’s MSS., Bibl. Bod., vol. 148, p. 97.
[81] Speechly: _Treatise on Culture of Wine_, 2nd ed. p. 270.
[82] Richard III., act i. scene 4.
[83] _Researches in Greece_, p. 197.
[84] Jeaffreson: _A Book about the Table_.
[85] For a terrible account of the _glutton-masses_ of the secular
clergy, see Henry, _Hist. Great Britain_, book v. ch. 7.
[86] Warton (_Hist. Poetry_, iii. 414) cites the above from Archbishop
Tanner’s manuscript _Additions to Cowell’s Law Glossary_.