ENGLAND FROM THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY DOWN TO THE TIME OF THE REFORMATION.
In order not to weary the reader with reiterated accounts of the drinking
customs of our ancestors, which varied little in their character during
three or four centuries subsequent to the period of which we treated
in our last chapter, we propose to pass somewhat rapidly over the
ground until we come to the Reformation, and we will first refer to
the well-known merrymakings, gatherings of the people in various parts
of England, at which, amidst a lavish consumption of liquor, all the
important local business, both lay and clerical, was transacted. Those
meetings were known by the generic name of “ales,” from the drink which
was there provided, and they were called either after the season at which
they were held, as “Whitsun-ale,” “Easter-ale,” or after the object for
which they were convened, as “church-ales,” where the money was paid for
the support of the Church; “bid-ales” or “help-ales,” when charitable
contributions were required for some one in need; “bride-ales,” literally
wedding festivals, where the bride turned an honest penny by selling
ale at an exorbitant price; and numerous others of a like description.
At first those meetings were encouraged by the clergy, as is proved by
the fact that at one period they were actually held in the churches
themselves in certain places,[239] and also by the agreements to which
the clergy were parties for the benefit of the Church. Here is an example
of such agreements:—
“Memd. that this is the agreement betwixt the inhabitants of
the townes and parish of Elvaston, Thurlaston, and Ambaston,
of the one part, and the inhabitants of the town of Okebrooke,
within the parish of the said Elvaston, on the other parte,
by John, Abbot of the Dale.... That is to say, that the
inhabitants of the said towne of Okebrooke shall brew fowre
ales, and every ale of one quarter malt, and at their own cost
and charges, betwixt this and the Feast of St. John Baptist
next coming. And that every inhabitant of the said town of
Okebrooke shall be at the said ales, and every husband and
his wife shall pay 2d., and every cottyer 1d.; and all the
inhabitants of Elvaston, Thurlaston, and Ambaston shall come to
the said ales, and that every husband and his wife and cottyer
shall pay as is afore-rehearsed; and that the said inhabitants
of Elvaston, Thurlaston, and Ambaston shall have and retaine
all the profits and vantages coming of the said ales, to the
use and behoofe of the said Church of Elvaston. And the said
inhabitants of the said townes of Elvaston, Thurlaston, and
Ambaston shall brew viii. ales betwixt this and the said Feast
of St. John Baptist, at the which ales, and every each one
of them, the said inhabitants of the town of Okebrooke shall
come to and pay every husband and his wife and every cottyer
as it is above-rehearsed. And if hee bee away at one ale, to
pay at the toder ale for both, or else to send his money. And
the inhabitants of the said town of Okebrooke shall carry all
manner of timber being in the Dale Wood new felled, that the
said parishioners of the said towns of Elvaston, Thurlaston,
and Ambaston shall occupy to the use and profit of the said
church.”[240]
These “ales,” and other similar merrymakings, to which distance lends
such enchantment in the eyes of many Englishmen, soon became a public
nuisance, and they were conducted in such an unruly manner as to cause
great uneasiness to the civil authorities. Two of the most objectionable
features were, that they were often held in and about churches, as
already stated, and also that Sundays and feast-days were usually
selected for their celebration. Whatever has been said to the contrary,
it was the Church that encouraged them; not only the Roman Catholic
clergy,[241] but, for some time after the Reformation, the High Church
dignitaries of the Established Church, and chief amongst them was Laud,
Archbishop of Canterbury. They were the cause of bitter strife at the
period referred to. At first they were denounced by Puritan ministers of
all religions, and then, as the period of the Reformation approached,
efforts were made to suppress them. To those efforts Queen Elizabeth lent
her sanction, and in the 38th year of her reign the justices assembled at
Bridgewater ordered the total suppression of “church-ales,” “clerk-ales,”
and “bid-ales,” and the decree was signed by the Lord Chief-Justice.
Similar orders were issued and enforced in the reign of James I.; but
in the following reign, when Chief-Justice Richardson and Baron Denham
published an order to suppress Sunday revels, the former was told in
the most insulting manner by Laud, the Primate, that the justices had
exceeded their duties; that wakes and ales were religious institutions;
and that although some correction of their abuses might be required,
the lay tribunals had nothing to do with the matter, which was one of
spiritual jurisdiction.[242]
A violent controversy followed between the Puritans and the clergy of the
Church of England; and so long as they were allowed to last, the terrors
of the Star Chamber and High Commission were employed by the latter
to counteract any efforts that were made to suppress the scandalous
desecration of sacred days and sacred places. But the Commonwealth, which
purged the country of many abuses, at least corrected that one. An Act of
Parliament was passed forbidding the holding of “ales” and merrymakings
within the precincts of places of worship or on the Sabbaths, and from
that time they gradually lost their importance. Although the divorce
between religion and beer was not then completely effected, the open
recognition and support of the Church has not since been extended to the
liquor traffic.
In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries living became
more luxurious amongst the higher classes, especially the clergy, and
intemperance grosser amongst the lower orders and those who haunted
taverns. In the year 1466, when George Nevile was made Archbishop of
York, amongst the drink supplied at the feast of his installation there
were 300 tuns of ale and 100 tuns of wine; and in 1504, when William
Warham was enthroned Archbishop of Canterbury, there was a fish banquet
at which were provided 6 tuns of red wine, 4 of claret wine, 1 of choice
white wine, 1 of white wine for the kitchen, 1 butt of Malmsey, 1 pipe
of wine of Osey, 2 tierces of Rhenish wine, 4 tuns of London ale, 6 of
Kentish ale, and 20 of English beer.[243]
Amongst the upper classes generally there seems to have been greater
variety than in Norman and Saxon times both in eating and drinking, but
little more refinement, and certainly not any more sobriety. We learn
from the French “Romances” and “Moralities,” that both in France and
England drunkenness was very prevalent, and its evil consequences are
there often described in allegory. In the fifteenth century a French code
of morals was published, in which people were told not to get intoxicated
_during dinner_. One poem of the period, called the “Doctrinal des
Filles” warned young ladies against talking scandal and believing in
dreams, against drinking too much wine, and being too talkative at table;
and they were also cautioned by the writer, a good Catholic, against
being alone with a priest except at confession.
Dancing appears to have been carried to great excess, and to have been
accompanied by immodest gestures. Young ladies were advised, therefore,
to be modest in their bearing, lest they should be mistaken for what they
were not:—
“Fille, quant serez en karolle!
Dansez gentiment par mesure,
Car quant fille se desmesure,
Tel la voit qui la tient pour folle.”[244]
The women of the middle and lower classes were of low morals, and spent
much of their time in taverns. This practice grew, until there were
parties of them assembled there who took with them the solid food for a
meal.
“Ech of them brought forth ther dysch,
Sum brought flesh and sum fysh.”[245]
And this custom of each woman contributing her share to the feast was
the origin of our modern picnic.
Taverns had become very numerous, not only in towns and villages, but
also by the roadside. They were known by a garland or bush hanging
out—hence the saying, “Good wine needs no bush;” and the publicans do not
seem to have enjoyed a high reputation. The writer whom we have so often
quoted tells us that the taverns were the haunts of gamblers, and that
the “taverner” took articles of dress in pledge for drink.[246] (So there
has been a division of labour, it seems, in our day in this as in every
other branch of human industry!) There, too, indecent songs were sung,
and those who frequented them were made drunk by dissolute women and
plundered.
A manuscript of about the year 1460 warns the reader to—
“Use no tavernys where be jestis and fablis,
Syngyng of lewde ballettes, rondelettes, or virolais.”[247]
The female publicans or “alewives” were no better than the men, and we
are told that there is still a carving in a seat in Ludlow Church which
represents Satan carrying off the alewife, with her gay head-dress and
false measure; and in the same church there is another carving of a
mediæval tapster drawing ale.
This account of the taverns is quite borne out by the religious records
of the period. Priests are warned, time after time, not to frequent such
places, which are spoken of as being unfit for respectable people to
visit. And yet it would appear that they were sometimes kept by priests
themselves; for in 1255, Walter, Bishop of Durham, forbids “those in
holy orders that they be not drunkards nor keep taverns, lest they die
an eternal death.”[248] And, finally, if Shakspeare is to be considered
a trustworthy authority concerning the manners of the times of which
he treats, the frequenters of taverns were by no means confined to the
lower classes; and those institutions in the Middle Ages (for we shall
have occasion to refer to them as they exist to-day) must have reached
their full growth and perfection when Prince Hal resented the rudeness of
the “sweet knight” Falstaff in the presence of that “honest, virtuous,
civil gentlewoman,” Doll Tear-Sheet, at the Boar’s Head Tavern in
Eastcheap![249]
And now we must direct our attention once more to the religious houses,
which, after all, occupied the most prominent place in the society of the
Middle Ages. With the exception of the universities, they were almost the
only centres of learning and the fine arts, which they kept alive during
the dark ages, whilst the country was either distracted by civil war or
depopulated to raise armies for foreign conquest. They were refuges,
too, from the tyranny of the feudal lords, many of whom they awed and
controlled by the threat of the Church’s displeasure; and whilst the
clang of arms resounded through the land, and robbery and violence were
the order of the day in the secular world, in their cloisters the hymn
of praise ascended on high, and round about their sacred precincts the
arts and industry continued to flourish. But all human institutions are
liable to debasement, and even those devoted to the noblest ends and
sanctioned by the highest authority did not escape the general corruption.
As in the present day in mountainous and thinly peopled countries, so
in the Middle Ages the monasteries were the chief inns for travellers.
But they were _hospices_ in the true sense of the term, no charge being
made to wayfarers during their sojourn, which was, however, limited to a
certain number of days. Each convent had attached to it a guest-house,
which was under the superintendence of a guest-master, whose duty it was
to provide wayfarers with food and to economise the expenses. So we find,
for example, that “Abbot Sampson found the cellarer in debt £50” (a very
large sum at that time, A.D. 1197), “and he said the debt was incurred
through excess in feasting in the prior’s inn by the assent of the
prior and cellarer, and superfluous expenses in the guest-house by the
carelessness of the hospitaller [guest-master]; and he took the cellary
and charge of the guests into his own hands, appointing two monks to act
for him.”[250] Thus it will be seen that at a very early period already
the guest-houses and other places attached to the convents were made the
resorts of drinking; this soon extended to the refectory or dining-hall,
and at length to every part of the convent and its surroundings.
Guests were hospitably received, especially if they were persons of
distinction; and when there was a tendency to intemperance on the part
of the monks, they were tempted to indulge in excesses in which the
latter joined, and drinking is said in some cases to have been kept up
until midnight. The refectory itself was adorned with a great variety of
drinking vessels, amongst which the most prominent was the “grace-cup,”
out of which the monks drank all round, “and another larger one, with
smaller within, where stood the mazers, of which each monk had his
peculiar one.”[251]
The monks were proverbially _bon vivants_ both in eating and drinking, as
is shown by the records and illuminated manuscripts. One of the latter of
the fourteenth century, which is to be found in the Arundel collection in
the British Museum, depicts a monk cramming himself with pasties supplied
to him by a naked imp, and another of about the same date represents a
cellarer drawing wine or ale into a large jug with one hand, and carrying
a cup to his mouth with the other.[252] Several of the illuminations and
carvings of the period prove also that drunkenness was not the only vice
practised by the monks; and in one of them a monk and a lady are seen
together suffering the penalty of their sins in the stocks, whilst the
public is represented by a small boy jeering at them and enjoying their
shame.
As might naturally be supposed, the higher officers of the convents took
better care of the morals of their inferiors than they did of their own.
We have already given instances of lavish extravagance in the abbots, and
amongst many similar cases, “Thomas Pennant, Abbot of Basingstoke, is
said to have given twice the treasure of a king in wine.”[253] But the
best pictures of monastic life have been handed down to us in the satires
written by the monks and clerics themselves, in which is shown the
difference of treatment experienced by the various degrees in a convent.
The following is an extract from one of these satires:—
“The abbot and prior of Gloucester and suite,
Were lately invited to share a good treat;
The first seat took the abbot, the prior hard by;
With the rag, tag, and bobtail below was poor I.
For wine for the abbot and prior they call;
To us poor devils nothing, but to the rich all.
The blustering abbot drinks health to the prior;
Give wine to my lordship, who am of rank higher;
If people below us but wisely behave,
They are sure from so doing advantage to have;
We’ll have all, and leave nought for our brothers to take,
For which shocking complaints in the chapter they’ll make.
Says the prior, ‘My lord, let’s be jogging away,
And to keep up appearances, now go and pray.’
‘You’re a man of good habits, and give good advice.’
The abbot replies;— they returned in a trice,
And then without flinching stuck to it amain,
Till out of their eyes ran the liquor again.”[254]
Another brief extract from a satirical song composed by a monk at a
somewhat later date illustrates the situation admirably:—
“One law for our rulers, another for us.
To us wretches the smell ev’n of wine is unknown;
The vinegar’s ours—the wine all their own.
Not a peg from the cloister must we dare to roam,
While the lords of a dwelling withdraw to their home,
To a smoking good fire, then set themselves down,
And with nectar of heaven their best moments crown.”
The inquiry into the condition of religious houses under Henry VIII.,
which led to the suppression of 376 of those establishments, and the
transfer of their revenues to the crown, revealed a state of affairs
which some Catholics of to-day are reluctant to credit. But, as one
of our most accurate and unprejudiced historians has said, the reports
of those visitors were so minute and specific, that it is rather a
preposterous degree of incredulity to reject their testimony when it
bears hard upon the regulars; and the commendation bestowed upon some
religious houses as pure and unexceptionable affords a presumption that
the censure upon others was not an indiscriminate prejudging of their
merits.[255]
The abbots were found to keep mistresses, to be the fathers of grown-up
sons, who lived with them openly; and the inferior officers were shown to
be dishonest men, who obtained their posts by flattery or purchase, and
whose vices, when once they were in office, were of the worst kind. They
oppressed people with violence and unfair exactions, frequented taverns
and other indecorous places, had the company of women in private places
and to eat and drink with them.[256]
The monks themselves were accused of the gravest breaches of the
law—treason, perjury, gambling, drunkenness, “swearing by the body of
Christ,” murderous assaults upon each other when they were gambling or in
their cups, and even deliberate murder for gain. “A certain knight,” we
are told, “had left a hundred marks by will to a certain house, and lay
there sick; upon getting well, the monks, that they might not lose the
money, plotted his death by poison or suffocation.”[257]
Nor were the nuns much better. Amongst the injunctions to the convent
of Appleton, A.D. 1489, is one: “Item, that none of your sisters use
the alehouse, nor the waterside, where course of strangers dayly
resorte.” And in another case the question was asked: “Item, whether
any of the sisters be comenly drunke.” They were accused of avarice,
brawling, voluptuousness, and sloth; and one of them, the Prioress of
Rumsey, was a notorious drunkard.[258] What the monks and nuns did in
and about the convents, the wandering friars performed throughout the
length and breadth of the land. They were vowed to poverty, and many of
them were bright examples of virtue and holiness, going about preaching
and ministering to the poor, healing dissensions, and, as well as they
were able, protecting the oppressed. But others accumulated property by
the most detestable means—some even by procuring pardon for murderers;
they were great liars, fraudulent, luxurious, and debauched. “They knew
all the taverns, hostelers, and tapsters in every town, but shunned
the beggars.” Their time was often spent in intrigues with women,
interference with families, and idle and useless gossip.[259]
But worst of all appear to have been the “clerics” or hired lay writers,
who hung about the convents, and were chiefly engaged in copying or
multiplying manuscripts. They are described as very low, profligate,
disorderly people. The kind of esteem in which they were held is shown by
the following lines from a mediæval ballad:—
“But if thou begin for drink to call or crave,
Thou for thy calling such good reward shalt have,
That none shall call thee malapert or dronke,
Or an abbey lowne _or limner of a monke_.”[260]
With this extract we must bid adieu to the drinking practices of “Merrie
England in the olden time.” So far we have witnessed the state of affairs
whilst the Roman Catholic Church held sway over the land, and in our next
chapter we shall see whether there was any improvement under Protestant
rule, and bring our inquiry down to the present day.