ENGLAND, PAST AND PRESENT, LAY AND CLERICAL—THE ANGLO-SAXONS AND
DANES—THE NORMANS AND EARLY ENGLISH.
Although we will endeavour, for the sake of convenience, to divide the
story of drink in England into something like epochs, the distinction
between any two periods must by no means be considered arbitrary. The
conquering Danes are said to have stimulated and intensified the passion
for drink in the Anglo-Saxons, and those again, it is maintained by
some writers, corrupted and debauched the Normans when they settled in
England. So, again, modern writers amongst the Roman Catholic clergy
declare that the Reformation deprived the Church of her due influence
over the social habits of the people, and that drunkenness as a national
vice increased materially after that event,[211] whereas numerous
authors, both Protestant and Catholic, have drawn vivid pictures of the
debaucheries practised by the monks themselves, and more than one eminent
writer goes so far as to say that the whole tenor of mediæval popular and
historical literature shows the clergy to have been the great corruptors
of domestic virtue both in the burgher and agricultural classes.[212] It
is quite possible, therefore, that one class of society may have indulged
immoderately whilst another order was comparatively sober; and all we
shall attempt to do will be to glance down the pages of history, and note
any phases of our subject which we deem likely to interest the reader,
and which bear upon our general conclusions.
There can be little doubt that, in the matter of drink, the Anglo-Saxons
resembled their congeners abroad, and that intemperance was one of their
conspicuous vices. Their drinks were chiefly ale and mead, the latter
being prepared from honey, which was very plentiful in England. They
took their potations from horns and cups of various shapes, some of
which are still preserved, and make considerable pretensions to art.
That drinking was common in monasteries is shown by the fact that cups
of various materials, and some of very large size, were often bestowed
upon or left to religious houses by princes and nobles. Amongst many
other instances of this, Lady Ethelgiva is said to have presented to the
Abbey of Ramsey, among other things, “two silver cups for the use of the
brethren in the refectory, in order that while drink is served in them
to the brethren at their repast, my memory may be more firmly imprinted
on their hearts.”[213] Nor need there be any doubt of the use to which
such cups were often put. A Roman Catholic writer on temperance, whom we
shall often have occasion to quote, and who is not at all disposed to
exaggerate the vices of the priesthood, gives anything but a flattering
picture of the habits of the Anglo-Saxon clergy.
St. Boniface, he says, writes as follows in the eighth century to
Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury:—“It is reported that in your dioceses
the vice of drunkenness is too frequent, so that not only certain bishops
do not hinder it, but they themselves indulge in excess of drink, and
force others to drink till they are intoxicated. This is most certainly a
great crime for a servant of God to do or to have done, since the ancient
canons decree that a bishop or a priest given to drink should either
resign or be deposed.”[214] And the same writer gives us extracts from
the canons which determine the penances and punishments to be borne by
priests addicted to drunkenness, and which show plainly that the vice
was by no means exceptional, but was widely spread amongst the clergy.
We shall revert to this portion of the subject presently, and have only
to remark here, that, with such an example in their spiritual superiors,
it is no wonder the laity should be addicted to excess in drinking.
Their bouts were conducted pretty much in the style of those of other
nations. They pledged each other freely, the distinctive feature in their
case being that the ceremony was accompanied by a kiss; and from the
illuminated manuscripts which have been handed down to us,[215] we learn
that their entertainments were accompanied by such amusements as singing
the national poetry, recounting their own exploits, propounding riddles,
dancing, and rude instrumental music. Amongst the wealthier classes
professional minstrels were kept, but in humbler life each guest took
his turn in contributing to the joviality of the feast. As may be readily
imagined, when the liquor began to take effect, the guests usually became
noisy and quarrelsome, their disputes frequently terminating in strife
and bloodshed. As not every reader can be expected to follow these
accounts of Anglo-Saxon life to their source, it may be interesting
if we give a brief description of a scene represented upon one of the
illuminated manuscripts referred to, as it presents a vivid picture of
jollity in that day.
The guests are seated at a round table, near which stands a cupbearer,
who is pouring out some kind of drink from a large vase-shaped vessel,
resembling the Roman amphora. In the centre of the picture a man and
woman, evidently professionals, are dancing to music, which consists of
a harp (played by two men), two trumpet-shaped instruments, apparently
buffalo horns, and one of which appears to have stops or keys, and a
species of guitar. At one side of the picture is a person (of which sex
it is impossible to say) who, it is thought by the author of the work
which contains the picture, is about to join the players, but who seems
to us to be engaged in recitation.[216] It is not our province to enter
further into the amusements which were engaged in during these feasts,
but it may be mentioned in passing, that amongst them were gambling with
dice, witnessing sleight-of-hand performances, acrobatic exercises, &c.
That the feasts very often terminated in deadly strife is certain from
the accounts that are still extant. Here is the translation of part of an
Anglo-Saxon legend in which the Evil Spirit describes the influence which
he exercises over the festive board:—
“Some I by wiles have drawn
To strife prepared,
That they suddenly
Old grudges
Have renewed,
Drunken with beer;
I to them poured
Discord from the cup,
So that in the social hall,
Through gripe of sword,
The soul let forth
From the body.”[217]
Women joined the men in their feasts; but it is said that, as in recent
times, they retired from the table before the heavy drinking began,
and the blood of the company was roused. The lower classes, both men
and women, frequented taverns, of which there were many all over the
country, and there they were joined by the more dissolute of the clergy,
who were always welcome guests at such parties. Inns were very rare,
and the result was, that, as in all primitive races or sparsely peopled
countries, travellers were received in private and religious houses, and
the practice of hospitality was universal.
But whilst it is beyond doubt that in Anglo-Saxon times both laity and
clergy drank to excess, it is only due to the latter to say that the
great preachers denounced drunkenness, and visited it with more or less
severe punishment. We have referred to the canons that were framed
against it, extracts from a few of which, accompanied by references to
the cause of their promulgation, may be found interesting, and will save
the necessity of repetition at a later period, for they were promulgated
time after time in a modified form by the Councils of the Church.
St. Gildas the Wise (A.D. 570) decreed, “If any one (that is, a 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.”[218] No very severe
penalty that; for he would probably be all the better for the abstinence.
The year previously (A.D. 569), synods were held by St. David, and
amongst the decrees we find the following, which refers to priests:—“He
that forces another to get drunk out of hospitality must do penance as
if 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.”[219]
The reverend author whom we are quoting explains that the Anglo-Saxon
monasteries were sometimes villages or towns with many hundred inmates,
many of whom were laymen, and to them he is disposed to attribute the
drunkenness. Besides, of the monks he says, that after their days
in which long fasting was joined to manual labour, “it is no wonder
that, when the refreshment hour came, the beer got into the heads of
some.”[220] Other very conscientious writers do not, however, endorse
this view, and, as we have already said, they charge the monastic orders
with great excesses. One of these says that in early Anglo-Saxon times
both nunneries and convents were places in which the worst vices were
practised. It was the fashion, he says, for nobles and others to purchase
crown lands upon pretence of founding a monastery; upon which they made
themselves abbots, collected a convent out of expelled monks (a proof
that in some monasteries at least dissolute monks were not tolerated),
and led a life perfectly secular, bringing their wives into the
monastery, and being husbands and abbots at the same time. Nor were the
nunneries, at least some of them, any better. The nuns of Coldingham are
said to have spent their time in feasting, drinking, and gossiping. “They
also employed themselves in working fine clothes, dressing themselves
like brides, and acquiring the favour of strange men.”[221]
Against such places the Anglo-Saxon synods preached and remonstrated.
They forbade all the practices referred to, and advised the abbots and
monks to set a good example themselves, to be vigilant against theft,
and to inculcate reading both in monks and nuns; monasteries were not to
be made the receptacles of ludicrous arts, of poets, harpers, fiddlers,
and buffoons, such as we have described in connection with the festivals
of the laity. “They were not to be houses of gossiping and drunkenness;”
and “abbots and abbesses were to be chosen of approved life, not stained
with the crimes of child-getting, homicide, or theft, but leading regular
lives in their cloisters.”[222]
Still the use of wine and beer was not by any means forbidden in
religious houses. Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury (A.D. 925-988), limited
the supply of wine as follows:—After mass the officiating ministers
received a quarter of a pound of bread and a quarter of a pint of wine;
this was called _mixtus_. After collations (which did not mean lunch, as
nowadays, but reading of Lives of the Fathers) on feast days, each monk
received a cup of wine, which was followed by a few words of thanksgiving
by the abbot; and both there and in other well-regulated monasteries
drinking does not appear to have been excessive.[223] With time, however,
as we shall see presently, great changes for the worse supervened.
The Danes are said to have been much heavier drinkers than the Saxons,
and from the stories which are told of them in the old chronicles, the
soldiers seem to have set no bounds upon their intemperance. More than
one anecdote is related of guards being overcome by drink;[224] and every
child knows the story of King Alfred introducing himself in the disguise
of a minstrel into the camp of Guthrum the Danish general, and finding
his soldiers steeped in drunkenness and dissipation. The last Danish
king, Hardicanute, was a great drunkard; in fact, his death is said to
have resulted in 1042 from a debauch at Lambeth.
* * * * *
With the advent of the Normans new phases of social life were introduced
into England, and at first there may have been a little less coarseness
in the drinking customs of the conquerors than in those of the vanquished
race. The former did not, however, long enjoy even that qualified
reputation for sobriety, and they are said soon to have excelled the
Saxons in their feats of debauchery. Our information regarding their
ways and customs is derived from other sources besides those which we
have hitherto examined. The French illuminated manuscripts as well as our
own give us considerable insight into the habits of the time, and show
that similar customs obtained in both countries. The chief sources of
information are, however, the French and Anglo-Norman Fabliaux or tales
in verse, written chiefly in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and
the Bayeux tapestry. We learn a good deal from the wood carvings of the
period still preserved in churches, and from the “men” which were used in
the favourite game of chess; the chronicles of the monasteries, too, are
a fertile source of instruction. Our attention will naturally be turned
first to the nobles and knights, and along with them we shall consider
the clerics, many of them priests-militant, and the monastic orders.
In the early Norman times we have little else than accounts of knightly
debauchery. Here are two of them, anything but edifying, but both
remarkably characteristic of a victorious and dominant race of soldiers.
The first is taken from the Life of Hereward.[225] “The new Lord of
Brunne (a Norman baron) was surrounded by his knights, who were scattered
about helpless from the extent of their potations, and reclining on
the laps of their women. In the midst of them stood a jongleur or
minstrel, alternately singing and exciting their mirth with coarse and
brutal jests.” It is, says the writer, a first rough sketch of a part
of mediæval manners which we shall find more fully developed at a later
period. The same author says that in the reign of Stephen “we find the
amusements of the hall varied with the torture of captured enemies.”
The other account referred to is taken from the Chronicles of St.
Edmundsbury, and relates to a time (A.D. 1194) when the monastery was
under the rule of a good and sober abbot, Sampson by name. A tournament
was held near St. Edmund, after which eighty young men with their
followers, sons of noblemen, were invited to dine with the abbot; “but,”
says the chronicle, “after dinner, the abbot retiring to his chamber,
they all arose and began to carol and sing, sending into the town for
wine, drinking and then screeching, depriving the abbot and convent of
their sleep, and doing everything in scorn of the abbot, and spending
the day, until the evening, in this manner,[226] and refused to desist
even when the abbot commanded them. But when the evening was come, they
broke open the gates of the town and went forth bodily. The abbot indeed
solemnly excommunicated them, yet not without first consulting Hubert, at
that time Justiciar,[227] and many of them came promising amendment and
seeking absolution.”[228]
As an amusing contrast to this example of knightly misconduct and
ecclesiastical reproof, we propose to describe a similar breach of the
peace committed by the lower classes, taken from the same chronicles, and
the reader will see the difference in the mode of dealing with the rich
and the poor in those days, as well as in the influence exercised by the
Church over the two classes of society. “On the morrow of the Nativity
of our Lord, there took place in the churchyard meetings, wrestlings, and
matches between the servants of the abbot and the burgesses of the town,
and from words it came to blows, and from cuffs to wounds and to shedding
of blood. The rioters were obliged to do penance by stripping themselves
altogether naked except their drawers, to prostrate themselves before the
door of the church; and when the abbot saw more than a hundred men lying
down naked he wept. They were then sharply whipped and absolved.”[229]
Of course the propensity to over-indulgence was not universal, even in
the race of warriors who had quartered themselves upon the forest lands
of Britain. The Normans were always more polished in their manners than
the Anglo-Saxons, and their dwellings were much more commodious. This we
learn not only from the appearance of the remains of those buildings,
but also from the statements of the learned men of the period. William
of Malmesbury, who wrote about the year 1130, says that “the Saxon
nobility passed entire nights and days in drinking, and consumed their
whole substance in mean and despicable houses; that they had their hair
cropped, their beards shaven, their arms laden with golden bracelets,
and their skin adorned with punctured designs; that they were accustomed
to eat till they became surfeited, and to drink till they were sick. And
these latter qualities,” adds the candid Norman historian, “they imparted
to their conquerors.”[230]
In well-regulated Norman households, the dinner, which was partaken
of early in the forenoon, was not accompanied by excessive drinking.
After it was removed, and the ceremony of washing performed, the
wine-cup was passed round once, and the guests retired. Sometimes wine
and sweetmeats were served in an adjoining apartment, and on grand
occasions the after-dinner entertainment comprised not only drinking, but
story-telling and performances by jongleurs, which, we are told, were
often very obscene, even in the presence of the ladies. It was customary,
by the way, for the lady of the house, however high her rank might be,
occasionally to fill the cups of the guests, and on the chessmen of the
twelfth century the “queen” usually carries a drinking horn. Some of
these chessmen are still preserved.
We need not be surprised that the performances of the jongleurs before
ladies were indecent, for the ladies themselves were by no means refined.
There has been no attempt, that we know of, to edit the English “_Jus
potandi_” of the Middle Ages, but it is certain that about the thirteenth
century a genuine code of rules for good behaviour was published for the
guidance of the fair sex. They were cautioned to avoid certain offences
against morality which we could not even venture to repeat here; and in
regard to drinking, they were warned not to get drunk, “that being a
practice from which much mischief might arise.” “Each time you drink,”
wrote their mentor, “wipe your mouth well, that no grease may go into the
wine, which is very unpleasant to the person who drinks after you.”[231]
From this it would appear that there was a partnership in cups in those
days—at least, that each guest was not provided with a drinking vessel
for his sole use.
After the Anglo-Saxon and Norman races became amalgamated, the lower
classes were no better than their superiors. What the latter did in the
hall, the former accomplished in the tavern, where the women are said to
have spent much time idling and gossiping. The men, too, often wasted
their whole substance in such haunts, drinking, and gambling with dice;
and cases occurred in which one or other of the players gambled away his
last garment, and was left in a state of complete nudity. The wealthy
ecclesiastics lived in still greater luxury than the lay nobles and
knights, for their revenues were protected by their sacred calling even
in times of great commotion, and they never found it necessary to make
a raid upon their neighbours’ cattle for a meal. Giraldus Cambrensis,
or Gerald Barry, Archdeacon of Brecknock (1175-1200) describes a dinner
with the Prior of Canterbury, where there were wines of various kinds,
“piment, claret, mead, and others;” and at which, moreover, there was
“licentious discourse.”[232] The same writer speaks of the Irish clergy,
and after lauding their zealous preaching, fasting, and chastity, he
concludes by saying that, “amongst so many thousands, you will not find
one who, after all his rigorous observance of fasts and prayer, will not
make up at night for the labours of the day, by drinking wine and other
liquors beyond all bounds of decorum.”[233] The latter statement, indeed,
seems incredible to the Catholic author who quotes it; but there need not
be much hesitation in giving it credence, for it is completely confirmed
by the other records of the period. These tell us that the monks ate
and drank very intemperately, and that they selected the strongest
wines; and one published bill of fare contains twenty-seven different
dishes—fish, flesh, fowl, &c.—along with a variety of liquors.[234]
Every reader has heard of the cellarer, who managed the commissariat, and
whose emoluments and powers were very great, not only within the convent,
but even outside its precincts. At St. Edmundsbury he held a court, and
had a prison in which he confined wrong-doers. Yet these officials were
often guilty of great excesses. In 1197 the cellarer at St. Edmundsbury
was displaced for drunkenness, and the following year his successor,
Jocell, committed an offence for which the abbot forbade him to drink
anything but water; and he still remaining contumacious, his superior
forbade him both meat and drink until he repented.[235] About the same
time another official (not the cellarer) had been sent to look after
some of the estates of the convent, when it came to the abbot’s ears
that he was “deporting himself in somewhat too secular a manner,” as the
chronicle mildly puts it; but as he was serviceable to the community, the
abbot winked at his irregularities. Eventually, however, they became so
gross that the abbot could “wink” no longer, and his effects were ordered
to be seized. To the astonishment of the brotherhood, they were found to
comprise “a mighty deal of gold and silver, to the value of two hundred
marks.”[236]
Nor were the opportunities for over-indulgence in drink very rare.
Besides the sacred feasts, Christmas, Easter, &c., when the monks were
not so closely restricted, and were allowed to take a little more wine
than usual “in excess of joy,” we presume, there were other occasions
which were made the excuse for “a drop extra.” On the admission of an
abbot it was customary to allow every man a gallon of wine, a whole
loaf, and three handsome dishes of fish.[237] As already stated, the
abbots themselves fared very sumptuously. At one period they lived apart
from the monks, but in the ninth century the Council of Aix (and others
afterwards) ordered them to dine in the common refectory, to put bounds
upon their indulgence. After that, wine was brought to them in their
chamber when dinner was over. The prior, too, was allowed more wine than
the monks; he might send his cup to the cellarer to be filled once or
twice, and that officer had no power to refuse him. Much more has been
written concerning the drinking habits of the monks, but, as we shall
have to revert to them at a period when the whole system had become much
more corrupt, we must stop here, and will close the present chapter with
a brief mention of the kinds of intoxicating drinks which were consumed
in Anglo-Saxon and Norman times.
These were beer and ale (Welsh ale is mentioned at a very early period),
which varied very much in price, several gallons being at one time
obtainable for a penny, whilst later on they were much dearer.[238] Mead
or hydromel was a fermented drink produced from honey and flavoured with
herbs and spices. Wines also were coming into use. They were produced
either from grapes grown in England, those being very poor in quality,
or were imported from France, Italy, Spain, and Greece; and amongst them
we find mention made of claret, muscadelle, malmsey, &c. The wine called
“piment” in a feast referred to in the present chapter was a sour thin
wine, sweetened and flavoured with sugar, honey, and spices.