Malt liquors have been from time immemorial the national drink of England, but the ale of medieval times was quite different from the liquor which now passes indifferently under the names ale or beer. It was more of a sweet wort, of about the consistency of barley water. Andrew Borde,[652] writing in the first half of the sixteenth century, says: 'Ale is made of malte and water; and they the which do put any other thynge to ale than is rehersed, except yest, barme or godesgood, doth sofysticat theyr ale. Ale for an Englysshe man is a naturall drynke. Ale must have these propertyes: it muste be fresshe and cleare, it muste not be ropy nor smoky, nor must it have no weft nor tayle. Ale should not be dronke under v dayes olde. Newe ale is unholsome for all men. And sowre ale, and dead ale the which doth stand a tylt, is good for no man. Barly malte maketh better ale then oten malte or any other corne doth: it doth ingendre grose humoures; but yette it maketh a man stronge.'

The supremacy of English ale was already established by the middle of the twelfth century, that of Canterbury being particularly famous,[653] and casks of ale were amongst the presents taken by Becket to the French court on the occasion of his embassy in 1157.[654] At this time it really deserved the title of 'the people's food in liquid form'; the consumption per head of population must have been enormous, the ordinary monastic corrody, or allowance of food, stipulating for a gallon of good ale a day, with very often a second gallon of weak ale. It must be borne in mind that it was drunk at all times, taking the place not only of such modern inventions as tea and coffee, but also of water, insomuch that a thirteenth-century writer describing the extreme poverty of the Franciscans when they first settled in London (A.D. 1224) exclaims, 'I have seen the brothers drink ale so sour that some would have preferred to drink water.'[655] Such was the importance attached to ale that it was coupled with bread for purposes of legal supervision, and the right to hold the 'assize of bread and ale' was one of the earliest justicial privileges asserted by municipal and other local courts. The Assize of Ale as recorded on the Statute Rolls in the time of Henry III. fixed the maximum price of ale throughout the kingdom on the basis of the price of malt, or rather of the corn from which malt was made.[656] When wheat stood at 3s. or 3s. 4d. the quarter, barley at 20d. to 2s., and oats at 16d., then brewers in towns were to sell two gallons of ale for a penny, and outside towns three or four gallons. And when three gallons were sold for a penny in a town then four gallons should be sold for a penny in the country. If corn rose a shilling the quarter, the price of ale might be raised a farthing the gallon.[657] A later ordinance, issued in 1283, set the price of the better quality of ale at 1½d.; and that of the weaker at 1d., and the commonalty of Bristol, fearing that they might be punished if the brewers of the town broke this regulation, issued stringent orders for its observance, infringement entailing the forfeiture of the offender's brewery.[658]

A very casual examination of court rolls and other local records is sufficient to convince the student that brewing was universal, every village supplying its own wants, and that infringements of the regulations by which the trade was supposed to be controlled were almost equally universal. The same names are found, where any series of rolls exists, presented at court after court for breaking the assize in one way or another, and it is clear that a strict observance of the laws was difficult, it being more profitable to break them and pay the small fines extorted practically as licensing dues. At Shoreham in the thirteenth century, the brewers, whose trade was particularly active because of the numbers of foreigners who visited the port, paid 2½ marks yearly to escape the vexations of the manorial court,[659] and in the same way the hundred of Shoyswell (in Sussex) paid a yearly fine in order that the ale-wives (trade was largely in the hands of women) might be excused attendance at the law-days.[660] In neither case, however, can we suppose that the manorial control over the brewing trade was appreciably relaxed, but rather that personal attendance at the court, with its interruption of business, was dispensed with. Besides these monetary payments, there were often payments in kind due to the lord of the manor or borough. At Marlborough every public brewery had to pay to the constable of the castle from each brew a measure, known as 'tolsester,' prior to 1232, when this render of ale was granted to the canons of St. Margaret's.[661] 'Tolsester' was also paid to the castle of Chester,[662] and in Newark and Fiskerton.[663] The 'sester' (sextarius) or 'cestron' was, in Coventry at any rate, 13 or 14 gallons.[664] Ale was always supposed to be sold, whether in gross or retail, in measures of which the capacity had been certified by the seal or stamp of the official appointed for the purpose.[665] The list of standard measures kept at Beverley in 1423 shows a potell, quart, pint, and gill of pewter, panyers, hopir, modius, firthindal, piece, and half-piece of wood and a gallon, potell, third and quart, also of wood.[666] Court Rolls, however, show that the use of unstamped measures and the retailing of ale in pitchers and jugs (per ciphos et discos) was of constant occurrence,[667] mainly, no doubt, for the convenience of customers who brought their own jugs, but also occasionally with intent to deceive, as in the case of Alice Causton,[668] who in 1364 filled up the bottom of a quart measure with pitch and cunningly sprinkled it with sprigs of rosemary,[669] for which she had to 'play bo pepe thorowe a pillery.' It is interesting to notice that at Torksey in 1345, if a woman was accused of selling ale 'against the assize,' she might clear herself by the oaths of two other women, preferably her next-door neighbours.[670]

When a public brewer had made a fresh brew he had to send for the official 'ale-conner' or 'taster,' or to signify that his services were required by putting out in front of his house an 'ale stake,' a pole with a branch or bush at the end: this was also used as the universal sign of a tavern; and some of the London taverners, possibly recognising that their liquor was not sufficiently good to 'need no bush,' made their ale-stakes so long as to be dangerous to persons riding in the street.[671] No ale might be sold until it had been approved by the ale-conner. If the latter found the ale fit for consumption but not of full quality, he might fix the price at which it might be sold.[672] In Worcester the instructions to the ale-conner were, 'You shall resort to every brewer's house within this city on their tunning day and there to taste their ale, whether it be good and wholesome for man's body, and whether they make it from time to time according to the prices fixed. So help you God.'[673] There seems reason for the pious ejaculation when we find that in Coventry in 1520 there were in a total population of 6600 men, women, and children, 60 public brewers.[674] When the ale was good the task must have had its compensations, but when it was bad the taster must often have wished to make the punishment fit the crime, as was done in the case of a Londoner who sold bad wine, the offender being compelled to drink a draught of the wine, the rest of which was then poured over his head.[675] Our sympathy may in particular be extended to the ale-tasters of Cornwall, where 'ale is starke nought, lokinge whyte and thycke, as pygges had wrasteled in it.'[676] Oddly enough we find mention in Domesday Book of forty-three cervisiarii at Helstone in Cornwall; they are usually supposed to be tenants who paid dues of ale, but the term is clearly used in the description of Bury St. Edmunds for brewers. In the sixteenth century, however, Borde[677] in an unflattering dialect poem makes the Cornishman say:—

To ensure the purity of the ale not only was the finished product examined, but some care was taken to prevent the use of impure water, regulations to prevent the contamination of water used by brewers, or the use by them of water so contaminated, being common.[678] On the other hand, owing to the large quantities of water required for their business, they were forbidden in London,[679] Bristol,[680] and Coventry[681] to use the public conduits. For the actual brewing, rules were also laid down. In Oxford in 1449, in which year nine brewers were said to brew weak and unwholesome ale, not properly prepared, and not worth its price, but of little or no value, the brewers were made to swear that they would brew in wholesome manner so that they would continue to heat the water over the fire so long as it emitted froth, and would skim the froth off, and that after skimming the new ale should stand long enough for the dregs to settle before they sent it out, Richard Benet in particular undertaking that his ale should stand for at least twelve hours before he sent it to any hall or college.[682] In London also casks when filled in the brewery were to stand for a day and a night to work, so that when taken away the ale should be clear and good.[683] This explains the regulation at Coventry in 1421 that ale 'new under the here syve [hair sieve]' was to sell for 1¼d. the gallon, and that 'good and stale' for 1½d.[684] At Seaford there was a third state, 'in the hoffe,' or 'huff,' which sold for 2d.[685]

So far were the brewers regarded as the servants of the people that not only was their brewing strictly regulated, but they were compelled to brew even when they considered that new ordinances[686] or a rise in the price of malt would make their trade unprofitable;[687] and in 1434 the brewers of Oxford were summoned to St. Mary's Church and there ordered to provide malt, and to see to it that two or three brewers brewed twice or thrice every week, and sent out their ale.[688] At Gloucester,[689] in the sixteenth century, the brewers were expected to give some kind of weak wort, possibly the scum or dregs of their brew, to the poor to make up into a kind of very small beer, which must have been something like the 'second washing of the tuns,' which formed the perquisite of the under brewers at Rochester Priory.[690] At Norwich barm or yeast was a similar subject of charity, and in 1468 it was set forth that 'wheras berme otherwise clepid goddisgood, without tyme of mynde hath frely be yoven or delyvered for brede whete malte egges or othir honest rewarde to the value only of a farthyng at the uttermost and noon warned [i.e. denied], because it cometh of the grete grace of God; certeyn ... comon brewers ... for ther singler lucre and avayle have nowe newely begonne to take monye for their seid goddisgood,' charging a halfpenny or a penny for the least amount, therefore the brewers were to swear that 'for the time ye or your wife exercise comon brewing ye shall graunte and delyver to any person axyng berme called goddisgood takyng for as moche goddisgood as shall be sufficient for the brewe of a quarter malte a ferthyng at the moost,' provided that they have enough for their own use, and that this do not apply to any 'old custom' between the brewers and bakers.[691]

About the end of the fourteenth century a new variety of malt liquor, beer, was introduced from Flanders. It seems to have been imported into Winchelsea as early as 1400,[692] but for the best part of a century its use was mainly, and its manufacture entirely, confined to foreigners. Andrew Borde,[693] who disapproved of it, says, 'Bere is made of malte, of hoppes and water: it is a naturall drynke for a Dutche man. And nowe of late dayes it is moche used in Englande to the detryment of many Englysshe men; specyally it kylleth them the which be troubled with the colycke and the stone and the strangulion; for the drynke is a colde drynke; yet it doth make a man fat, and doth inflate the bely, as it dothe appeare by the Dutche mens faces and belyes. If the bere be well served and be fyned and not new it doth qualify the heat of the lyver.' That, thanks to the large foreign settlement in London, beer brewing soon attained considerable dimensions in the city is evident from the fact that in 1418, when provisions were sent to Henry V. at the siege of Rouen, 300 tuns of 'ber' were sent from London, and only 200 tuns of ale, but the beer was valued at only 13s. 4d. the tun, while the ale was 20s.[694] About the middle of the fifteenth century large quantities of hops were being imported at Rye and Winchelsea, and in the church of the neighbouring village of Playden may still be seen the grave of Cornelius Zoetmann, ornamented with two beer barrels and a crossed mash-stick and fork.[695] A little later we find beer being exported from the Sussex ports and also from Poole,[696] which had long done a large trade in ale to the Channel Islands.

Such beer brewers as occur during the fifteenth century almost all bear foreign names. For instance, in 1473, Thomas Seyntleger and John Goryng of Southwark recovered heavy damages for theft against John Doys of St. Botolph's-outside-Aldgate and Gerard Sconeburgh of Southwark, 'berebruers,' whose sureties were Godfrey Speryng and Edward Dewysse, also 'berebruers.'[697] Probably in this case the theft was an illegal seizure or distraint of goods for a debt for beer supplied, as although most of the goods said to be stolen were armour and objects of value, such as a book of Gower's poems and an illuminated Sege of Troye, there were also ten barrels of 'sengilbere,' thirty-five barrels of 'dowblebere,' ten lastys of barrels and kilderkins, and two great sacks for 'hoppys.' There was still a prejudice against beer, and in 1471, at Norwich, the use of hops and 'gawle' in brewing was forbidden,[698] while in 1519 the authorities at Shrewsbury prohibited the employment of the 'wicked and pernicious weed, hops.'[699] In the same way, in 1531, the royal brewer was forbidden to use hops or brimstone, but an Act of Parliament passed in the same year bore testimony to the establishment of the industry by exempting alien brewers from the penal statutes against foreigners practising their trades in England, and also by allowing beer brewers to employ two coopers while ale brewers might only employ one.[700] At the same time the barrel of beer was fixed at thirty-six gallons, and that of ale at thirty-two, the kilderkin and firkin being respectively half and quarter of those amounts.

From this time the brewing of beer steadily prospered, the Leakes of Southwark[701] and other alien brewers amassing great riches, English brewers following in their footsteps, and the taste for beer spreading through the country so rapidly that in 1577 Harrison in his Description of England could speak contemptuously of the old ale as thick and fulsome and no longer popular except with a few.

William Harrison, writing about 1577, says: 'In some places of England there is a kind of drinke made of apples, which they call cider or pomage, but that of peares is named pirrie, and both are ground and pressed in presses made for the nonce. Certes, these two are verie common in Sussex, Kent, Worcester, and other steads where these sorts of fruits do abound, howbeit they are not their onelie drinke at all times, but referred unto the delicate sorts of drinke.'[702] A generation earlier Andrew Borde, whom we have already quoted for ale and beer, wrote: 'Cyder is made of the juce of peeres, or of the juce of apples; and other whyle cyder is made of both; but the best cyder is made of cleane peeres, the which be dulcet; but the beste is not praysed in physycke, for cyder is colde of operacyon, and is full of ventosyte, wherfore it doth ingendre evyll humours and doth swage to moche the naturall heate of man and doth let dygestyon and doth hurte the stomacke; but they the whych be used to it, yf it be dronken in harvyst it doth lytell harme.'

Andrew Borde makes no distinction between cider and perry. We find mention of the latter in 1505, when a foreign ship entered Poole with a cargo of apples, pears, etc., and '3 poncheons de pery,' valued at 10s.,[703] but references to perry are not numerous. Cider, on the other hand, we find in constant demand from the middle of the twelfth century onwards. It figures on the Pipe Rolls of Henry II.,[704] and the contemporary historian and journalist, Gerald de Barri, alleged its use by the monks of Canterbury instead of Kentish ale as an instance of their luxury.[705] A little later, in 1212, the sale of cider is one of the numerous sources of the income of the Abbey of Battle;[706] part of this cider may have come from its estates at Wye, which produced a good deal of cider during the fourteenth century.[707]

Possibly the industry was introduced from Normandy, from which district large quantities of cider were imported into Winchelsea about 1270,[708] and this might account for the hold which it took upon Sussex. In the western part of the county, at Pagham, we find mention of an apple mill and press having been wrongfully seized by the escheator's officer in 1275,[709] and at the same place in 1313 the farmer of the archbishop's estates accounted for 12s. spent on buying four casks in which to put cider, on repairing a ciderpress, and on the wages of men hired to make cider.[710] It is, however, in the Nonae Rolls of 1341 that the extent of the cider industry in Sussex is most noticeable.[711] In no fewer than eighty parishes, of which seventy-four were in West Sussex, the tithes of cider are mentioned as part of the endowment of the church, and in another twenty-eight cases the tithes of apples are entered. Moreover the value of these tithes was very considerable, reaching 100s. in Easebourne, and as much as 10 marks (£6, 13s. 4d.) at Wisborough. In the last-named parish in 1385, William Threle granted to John Pakenham and his wife certain gardens and orchards, reserving to himself half the trees bearing fruit either for eating or for cider (mangable et ciserable), in return for which they were to render yearly a pipe of cider and a quarter of store apples (hordapplen); he also retained the right of access to the 'wringehouse,' or building containing the press, and the right to use their ciderpress for his fruit.[712]

Beyond an abundance of casual references to cider presses and to the purchases and sale of cider, there is little to record of the industry in medieval times; nor need we devote much attention to the manufacture of wine in England. Domesday Book shows us that the great Norman lords in many cases planted vines near their chief seats, and not many years later William of Malmesbury spoke of the Vale of Gloucester as planted more thickly with vineyards than any other part of England, and producing the best grapes, from which a wine little inferior to those of France was made. Vines continued to be grown by the great lords and monasteries, but the wine was used entirely for their own consumption, and in decreasing quantities. About 1500 an Italian visitor speaks of having eaten English grapes, and adds 'wine might be made in the southern parts, but it would be harsh,'[713] from which we may judge that such wine making as had existed was at an end by the sixteenth century.