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 5s. 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:—

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 400,000l.; besides a duty of 2s. 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 6d., the latter at 4d., 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 20s. 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 4d., and that of Rhenish, 6d. per gallon; and in 1389, foreign wine was only 20s. per tun for the best, and 13s. 4d. 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 5l. 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—

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 4d.

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 6d. 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 13s. 4d.; 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:—

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 7l. 15s., not much short of 100l. 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 6s. 8d. for sellers, and 3s. 4d. 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 1d.; whereas a tariff of 1464 shows an extraordinary advance.

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:—

In an ordinance for the household of George, Duke of Clarence (Dec. 9, 1469), the sum of 20l. 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 (??e ?as?a, 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.

[77] Massinger: A New Way to Pay Old Debts.