The Curiosities of Ale & Beer: An Entertaining History / (Illustrated with over Fifty Quaint Cuts)

A beverage of still greater antiquity, but certainly a family connection, is Bragget or Bragot, which is, or was, until quite recently, drunk in Lancashire. The word, according to the writer of Cups and their {379} Customs, is of Northland origin, and derived from “Braga,” the name of a hero, one of the mythological Gods of the Edda. In its Welsh form of Bragawd, the drink is mentioned in a very ancient poem, The Hirlas or Drinking Horn of Owen, which has been thus rendered into English:—

We have been at no little trouble to discover the nature of the drink called bragot, bragawd, &c., and have come to the conclusion that the composition of the beverages bearing those names varied considerably. To define Bragot with any degree of preciseness would be as difficult as to give an accurate definition of “soup.” In the fourteenth century, according to a MS. quoted in Wright’s Provincial Dialects, “Bragotte” was made from this receipt:—

“Take to x galons of ale iij potell of fyne worte, and iij quartis of hony, and put thereto canell (cinnamon) oz: iiij, peper schort or long oz: iiij, galingale (a sort of rush) oz: i, and clowys (cloves) oz i, and gingiver oz ij.”

Halliwell tells us that Bragot was a kind of beverage formerly esteemed in Wales and the West of England, composed of wort, sugar and spices. It was customary to drink it in some parts of the country on Mothering Sunday.

Bracket must at one time have been a liquor in common use in London, for in Mary’s reign the constables were ordered to make weekly search at the houses of the Brewers and “typlers,” to see whether they sold any ale or beer or bracket above ½d. a quart without their houses, and above ½d. the “thyrdendeale”70 within. {380}

In the Haven of Health (1584) are directions for making bragot, which are similar to those in the fourteenth-century receipt. “Take three or four galons of good ale or more as you please, two dayes or three after it is cleansed, and put it into a pot by itselfe, then draw forth a pottle thereof and put to it a quart of good English hony, and sett them over the fire in a vessell, and let them boyle faire and softly, and alwayes as any froth ariseth skumme it away, and so clarifie it, and when it is well clarified, take it off the fire and let it coole, and put thereto of peper a pennyworth, cloves, mace, ginger, nutmegs, cinnamon, of each two pennyworth, stir them well together and sett them over the fire to boyle againe awhile, then being milke-warme put it to the rest and stirre all together, and let it stand two or three daies, and put barme upon it and drinke it at your pleasure.”

Harrison (1578), in his Preface to Holinshed’s Chronicles, relates that his wife made a composition called Brakwoort, which seems to have been rather used for flavouring ale than as a distinct beverage. It contained no honey.

In Oxford Nightcaps metheglin, mead, and Bragon, or Bragget, are all mentioned as being compounded of honey. Idromellum, which by-the-by did not always contain honey,71 was sometimes spoken of as Bragget. In Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale is mention of Braket:—

The Wassail Bowl, according to Warton, was the “Bowl” referred to in the Midsummer Night’s Dream:—

In Hamlet our great dramatist uses the word “wassail”:—

The chief ingredients of the ancient Wassail Bowl were, without doubt, strong ale, sugar, spices, and roasted apples. The following {381} receipt—the best of some half-dozen before us—is the one adopted at Jesus College, Oxford, where, on the festival of St. David, an immense silver-gilt bowl, which was presented to the college by Sir Watkin W. Wynne in 1732, is partly filled with this admirable composition, and passed round the festive board. Into the bowl is first placed half a pound of Lisbon sugar, on which is poured one pint of warm beer; a little nutmeg and ginger are then grated over the mixture, and four glasses of sherry and five pints of beer are added to it. It is then stirred, sweetened to taste, and allowed to stand covered up for two or three hours. Three or four slices of thin toast are then floated on the creaming mixture, and the wassail bowl is ready. Sometimes a couple or three slices of lemon and a few lumps of sugar rubbed on the peeling of a lemon are introduced. The slang term at Oxford for this beverage is “Swig.” In another receipt it is said that the liquor, when mixed, should be made hot (but not boiled), and the liquid poured over roasted apples laid in the bowl.

In some parts of the kingdom there are, it is to be hoped, some few persons who still adhere to the ancient custom of keeping Wassail on Twelfth Night and Christmas Eve; and these, if they are orthodox, should ignore the toast of the Oxford receipt in favour of the roasted crab. Not that there is much virtue in either apple or toast, the excellence of the drink being due to the spices, sack, and quality of the ale. It can easily be understood that when ale was for the most part brewed without hops, and consequently rather insipid in taste, many people would have a craving for something more highly flavoured, and would put nutmeg, ginger and other spices into their liquor. It is not unlikely that the introduction of hops was the cause which ultimately led to beer cups going out of fashion. At the present day they are but rarely compounded, even at the Universities. From experience we can say that, if skilfully made, they are excellent, and some of the receipts given in this chapter are well worthy a trial.

Lambs-wool is a variety of the Wassail Bowl. Formerly the first day of November was dedicated to the angel presiding over fruits, seeds, &c., and was called La Mas ubal (The Day of the Apple-fruit), pronounced lamasool. According to Vallancey these words soon became corrupted by the country people into Lambswool, the liquor appropriate to the day bearing the same name.

To make this beverage, mix the pulp of half a dozen roasted apples with some raw sugar, a grated nutmeg, and a small quantity of ginger; add one quart of strong ale made moderately warm. Stir the whole {382} together, and, if sweet enough, it is fit for use. This mixture is sometimes served up in a bowl, with sweet cakes floating in it.

In Ireland Lambswool used to be a constant ingredient at the merry-makings on Holy Eve, or the evening before All Saints’ Day, and milk was sometimes substituted for the ale. It is now rarely or never heard of in that country, having been superseded by more ardent potations.

The Miller of Mansfield contains a reference to Lambswool:—

Old writers frequently made allusion to the spicing of ale. In Chaucer’s Rime of Sir Thopas occur these lines:—

and again, in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, by Beaumont and Fletcher:—

The ale, apparently, had nothing to do with the colouration.

Even the sublime Milton condescended to make allusion to spiced ale in his L’Allegro:—

Wither, in Abuses Stript and Whipt (1613), says:—

The last quotation is only one out of the many to be found in our literature having reference to the toast with which the spiced ale was so often crowned. Perhaps the most curious is one from Greene’s Friar {383} Bacon (sixteenth century). The Devil and Miles are conversing on the pleasures of Hell, whence they soon afterwards proceed. “Faith ’tis a place,” says Miles, “I have desired long to see; have you not good tippling houses there?—May not a man have a lusty fire there, a pot of good ale, a pair of cards, a swinging piece of chalk, and a brown toast that will clap a white waistcoat on a cup of good drink?”

Even in the last century toast and spices were not uncommonly put into ale. Warton, in his Panegyric on Oxford Ale, wrote:—

The Anglo-Saxon custom of drinking healths and pledging has been, at any rate, since the eighteenth century, termed toasting. In the twenty-fourth number of The Tatler the word is connected with the toast put in ale cups. This is probably correct, though Wedgewood considers it a corruption of stoss an! knock (glasses), a German drinker’s cry. The explanation given in The Tatler of the connection between the two meanings of the word “toast” is, however, open to question. It runs thus: “It is said that while a celebrated beauty was indulging in her bath, one of the crowd of admirers who surrounded her took a glass of the water in which the fair one was dabbling and drank her health to the company, when a gay fellow offered to jump in, saying, ‘Though he liked not the liquor, he would have the toast.’”

In the reign of Charles II. Earl Rochester writes:—

A very ancient composition was ale-brue, called later ale-berry. It was composed of ale boiled with spice, sugar, and sops of bread. An old receipt (1420) for it is:—

Ale-brue was perhaps originally merely a brew of ale, but the word soon came to mean a peculiar beverage. It is mentioned in The Becon against Swearing (1543): “They would taste nothing, no not so much as a poor ale-berry until they had slain Paul,” and in Boorde’s Dyetary, “Ale brues, caudelles and collesses” are recommended for “weke men and feble stomackes.” The word also occurs in The High and Mightie Commendation of the Vertue of a Pot of Good Ale:—

Taylor, in Drinke and Welscome, says: “Alesbury (or Aylesbury), in Buckinghamshire, where the making of Aleberries, so excellent against Hecticks, was first invented.” This is probably only a punning allusion.

All who have been at City festivities have tasted the Loving Cup, which, so it is stated in Cups and their Customs, is identical with the Grace Cup, a beverage the drinking of which has been from time immemorial a great feature at Corporation dinners both in London and elsewhere. Mr. Timbs, in Walks and Talks about London, says the Loving Cups are filled with “a delicious composition immemorially termed sack, consisting of sweetened and exquisitely flavoured white wine,” and Will of Malmsbury, describing the customs of Glastonbury soon after the Conquest, says that on certain occasions the monks had “mead in their cans, and wine in their Grace Cup.” The Oxford Grace Cup, however, according to Oxford Nightcaps (1835), contains ale. The receipt runs thus: “Extract the juice from the peeling of a lemon and cut the remainder into thin slices; put it into a jug or bowl, and pour on it three half pints of strong home-brewed beer and a bottle of mountain wine: grate a nutmeg into it; sweeten it to your taste; stir it till the sugar is dissolved, and then add three or four slices of bread toasted brown. Let it stand two hours, and then strain it off into the Grace Cup.”

Many of the cups drunk by our forefathers had medicinal qualities attributed to them, and did in fact, often contain drugs of various descriptions. The famous Hypocras, for instance, was flavoured with an infusion of brandy, pepper, ginger, cloves, grains of paradise, ambergris, and musk. A Duchess of St. Albans has left us a receipt for making “The Ale of health and strength,” which, it sufficeth to say, was a {385} decoction of nearly all the herbs in the garden (agreeable and otherwise) boiled up in small beer. Old worthies, when induced to give up their receipts for the public good, described these drinks under the head of “Kitchen physic.” “I allowed him medicated broths, Posset Ale and pearl julep,” writes Wiseman in his book on surgery.

The name of the unfortunate Sir Walter Raleigh is dear to Britons in connection with tobacco and potatoes. He has yet another claim on our sympathy as the inventor of an excellent receipt for Sack Posset, which a high authority has declared to show full well the propriety of taste in its compounder. It runs thus:—“Boil a quart of cream with quantum sufficit of sugar, mace and nutmeg; take half a pint of sack72” (sherry), “and the same quantity of ale, and boil them well together, adding sugar; these being boiled separately are now to be added. Heat a pewter dish very hot, and cover your basin with it, and let it stand by the fire for two or three hours.”

“We’ll have a posset at the latter end of a sea-coal fire,” wrote Shakspere.

A favourite drink of the seventeenth century was Buttered Ale. It was composed of ale (brewed without hops), butter, sugar and cinnamon. In Pepys’ Diary for December 5th, 1662, “a morning draught of buttered ale,” is mentioned. There is also reference to it in The Convivial Songster:—

At the beginning of the eighteenth century Beer Cups were much in vogue. Cuthbert Bede specifies, but does not describe, cups bearing the following names: Humpty-dumpty, Clamber-clown, Hugmatee, Stick-back, Cock Ale and Knock-me-down, and there were others called Foxcomb, Stiffle, Blind Pinneaux, Stephony and Northdown. Cock Ale was supposed to be, and no doubt was, a very strengthening and restorative compound. The receipt runs thus:—“Take a cock of half a year old, kill him and truss him well, and put into a cask twelve gallons of Ale to which add four pounds of raisins of the sun well picked, stoned, washed and dryed; sliced Dates, half a pound; nutmegs and mace two {386} ounces: Infuse the dates and spices in a quart of canary twenty-four hours, then boil the cock in a manner to a jelly, till a gallon of water is reduced to two quarts; then press the body of him extremely well, and put the liquor into the cask where the Ale is, with the spices and fruit, adding a few blades of mace; then put to it a pint of new Ale yeast, and let it work well for a day, and, in two days, you may broach it for use or, in hot weather, the second day; and if it proves too strong, you may add more plain Ale to palliate this restorative drink, which contributes much to the invigorating of nature.”

Among the various beverages which good house-wives deemed it their duty to brew were Elderberry Beer, or Ebulon, Cowslip Ale, Blackberry Ale, China Ale and Apricot Ale. Their names indicate to a great extent their composition. China Ale, however, was not a term applied by wits to tea, as has been suggested, but was composed of ale flavoured with China root and bruised coriander seed, which were tied up in a linen bag, and left in the liquor until it had done working. The ale then stood fourteen days, and was afterwards bottled. This was the proper China Ale, but, according to an old cookery book, “the common sort vended about Town is nothing more (at best) than ten-shilling beer, put up in small stone bottles, with a little spice, lemon peel, and raisins or sugar.”

Ebulon, which is said to have been preferred by some people to port, was made thus: In a hogshead of the first and strongest wort was boiled one bushel of ripe elderberries. The wort was then strained and, when cold, worked (i.e. fermented) in a hogshead (not an open tun or tub). Having lain in cask for about a year it was bottled. Some persons added an infusion of hops by way of preservative and relish, and some likewise hung a small bag of bruised spices in the vessel. White Ebulon was made with pale malt and white elderberries.

Blackberry Ale was composed of a strong wort made from two bushels of malt and ¼lb. hops. To this was added the juice of a peck of ripe blackberries and a little yeast. After fermentation the cask was stopped up close for six weeks, the ale was then bottled, and was fit to drink at the end of another fortnight.

In the London and County Brewer (1744), is this receipt for Cowslip Ale: Take, to a barrel of ale a bushel of the flowers of cowslip pick’d out of the husks, and when your ale hath done working put them loose in the barrel without bruising. Let it stand a fortnight before you bottle it, and, when you bottle it, put a lump of sugar in each bottle. {387}

The same book enlightens us as to the composition of “an ale that will taste like Apricot Ale”:—“Take to every gallon of ale one ounce and a half of wild carrot seed bruised a little, and hang them in a leathern bag in your barrel until it is ready to drink, which will be in three weeks; then bottle it with a little sugar in every bottle.”

Egg Ale was a somewhat remarkable composition, and was doubtless highly nutritious. To twelve gallons of ale was added the gravy of eight pounds of beef. Twelve eggs, the gravy beef, a pound of raisins, oranges and spice, were then placed in a linen bag and left in the barrel until the ale had ceased fermenting. Even then an addition was made in the shape of two quarts of Malaga sack. After three weeks in cask the ale was bottled, a little sugar being added. A monstrously potent liquor truly! Can this have been one of the cups with which “our ancestors robust with liberal cups usher’d the morn”?

Coming now to beverages more familiar, a word or two as to Purl, once, and not so long ago either, the common morning draught of Londoners. Tom Hood, in The Epping Hunt, thus puns upon the word:—

According to one receipt, common Purl contained the following ingredients:—Roman wormwood, gentian root, calamus aromaticus snake root, horse radish, dried orange peel, juniper berries, seeds or kernels of Seville oranges, all placed in beer, and allowed to stand for some months. The writer who gives this receipt says a pound or two of galingale improves it—as if anything could improve such a perfect combination! According to an anecdote told of George III., a somewhat simpler beverage in his day went by the name of Purl. One morning the King, when visiting his stables, heard one of his grooms say to another: “I don’t care what you say, Robert, but the man at the Three Tuns makes the best purl in Windsor.”

“Purl, purl,” said the King; “Robert, what’s Purl?”

The groom explaining that purl was hot beer with a dash of gin in it, in fact, the compound now known to ’bus conductors as “dogsnose,” the King remarked:—

“Yes, yes; I daresay very good drink; but too strong for the morning; never drink in the morning.” {388}

A mixture of warmed ale and spirits is called Hot-Pot in Norfolk and Suffolk, and a similar compound, to which is added sugar and lemon-peel, used to be called Ruddle.

A somewhat remote ancestor of Purl, Dogsnose, Ruddle and other mixtures of ale or beer and spirits, was Hum, to which Ben Jonson refers in The Devil is an Ass:—

And it is also mentioned in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Wildgoose Chase: “What a cold I have over my stomack; would I’d some hum.” In Shirley’s Wedding is a reference to hum glasses, the small size being indicative of the potency of the liquor:—

Flip, once a popular drink, and not altogether without its patrons in the present day, is made in a variety of ways. The following receipt is a good one. Place in a saucepan one quart of strong ale together with lumps of sugar which have been well rubbed over the rind of a lemon, and a small piece of cinnamon. Take the mixture off the fire when boiling and add one glass of cold ale. Have ready in a jug the yolks of six or eight eggs well beaten up with powdered sugar and grated nutmeg. Pour the hot ale from the saucepan on to the eggs, stirring them while so doing. Have another jug at hand and pour the mixture as swiftly as possible from one vessel to the other until a white froth appears, when the flip is ready. One or two wine glasses of gin or rum are often added. This beverage made without spirits is sometimes called Egg-hot, and Sailor’s Flip contains no ale. A quart of Flip is styled in the Cook’s Oracle a “Yard of Flannel.”

There is a tale told of a Frenchman, who, stopping at an inn, asked for Jacob.

“There’s no such person here,” said the landlord.

“’Tis not a person I want, sare, but de beer warmed with de poker.”

“Well,” said mine host, “that is flip.” {389}

“Ah! yes,” exclaimed the Frenchman, “you have right; I mean Philip.”

Purl, Flip, and Dog’s Nose have been immortalised by Dickens in his description of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. The tap and parlour of this hostel were provided with “comfortable fireside tin utensils, like models of sugar-loaf hats, made in that shape that they might, with their pointed ends, seek out for themselves glowing nooks in the depths of the red coals when they mulled your ale, or heated for you those delectable drinks, Purl, Flip, and Dog’s Nose. The first of these humming compounds was a speciality of the Porters, which, through an inscription on its door-posts, gently appealed to your feelings as ‘The Early Purl House.’ For it would seem that Purl must always be taken early; though whether for any more distinctly stomachic reason than that, as the early bird catches the worm, so the early purl catches the customer, cannot here be resolved.”

Of other receipts for beer cups there are many—too many, indeed, to be given here; most of them differ from one another more in name than anything else. Brown Betty, an Oxford cup, deriving its name from its inventor, a bedmaker, is similar to the Oxford Wassail Bowl. The famous Brasenose Ale, which is by no means a modern institution and is introduced at Brasenose College on Shrove Tuesday, immediately after dinner, consists merely of ale sweetened with pounded sugar, and served with roasted apples floating on it.

Thus wrote an undergraduate of Brasenose Ale.

A cup bearing the euphonious name of Tewahdiddle had the reputation of being most excellent tipple. It consists of a pint of beer, a tablespoonful of brandy, a teaspoonful of brown sugar, a little grated nutmeg or ginger, and a roll or very thinly-cut lemon-peel.

Among beverages which hold a high place as cool summer drinks is The Parting Cup, which is made thus: Place in a bowl two slices of very brown toast, a little nutmeg, a quart of mild ale, and two-thirds of a bottle of sherry; sweeten the liquor with syrup, and immediately before drinking add a bottle of soda-water. Another good cup is made with two quarts of light draught beer, the juice of five lemons, and about three-quarters of a pound of sugar. The mixture should then be {390} strained and allowed to stand for a short time. If flat, a little carbonate of soda should be added.

A very favourite summer drink at Oxford was Cold Tankard; and a certain fair damsel, who was skilful in the preparation of this pleasant beverage, was so honoured by the undergraduates that songs were written in her praise by the boating men and other frequenters of the riverside inn where she presided. She was, according to one poet, cheerful, blithe, merry, neat, comely, gay and obliging, and above all she excelled in making Cold Tankard.

Though “perry” is mentioned in the verse, Cold Tankard is also made with Ale or Cider. The ingredients are the juice from the peeling of one lemon, extracted by rubbing loaf sugar on it; two lemons cut into thin slices; the rind of one lemon cut thin, a quarter of a pound of loaf sugar, and a half pint of brandy. To make the cup, put the foregoing into a large jug, mix them well together, and add one quart of cold spring water. Grate a nutmeg into the jug, add one pint of white wine, and a quart of strong beer, ale, perry or cider, sweeten the mixture to taste with capillaire or sugar, put a handful of balm and the same quantity of borage in flower (borago officinalis) into it, stalk downwards. Then put the jug containing this liquor into a tub of ice, and when it has remained there one hour it is fit for use. The balm and borage should be fresh gathered.

The use of Borage in cups is very ancient, and old writers have ascribed to the flower many virtues. In Evelyn’s Acetaria it is said “to revive the hypochondriac, and cheer the hard student.” In Salmon’s Household Companion (1710) Borage is mentioned as one of the four cordial flowers; “it comforts the heart, cheers melancholy, and revives the fainting spirits.” It may be doubted whether the comforting effects {391} of this inward application were rightly attributed to the borage alone. A modern writer has gone so far as to say that he never found any benefit apparent from the presence of Borage at Lord Mayor’s feasts and other such festive gatherings, beyond that of so stinging the noses of those other persons who have desired to drink deeply that the cup undrained has been. Though granting this undeniable advantage, we cannot concur that Borage possesses no other qualities, for it gives to cups a peculiarly refreshing flavour which cannot be imitated.

In Cups and their Customs are three Beer Cups which have not yet been mentioned. The first of these is Copus Cup. It consists of two quarts of hot ale, to which are added four wine glasses of brandy, three wine glasses of noyau, a pound of lump sugar, the juice of one lemon, a piece of toast, a dozen cloves, and a little nutmeg. Was it of such a cup as this that the lines were written?—

Donaldson’s Beer Cup is of a more simple and lighter character. To a pint of ale is added the peel of half a lemon, half a liquor-glass of noyau, a bottle of seltzer-water, a little nutmeg and sugar, and some ice.

“Hungerford Park” is an excellent beverage, and is especially suitable for shooting parties in hot weather. To make it—cut into slices three good-flavoured apples, which put into a jug; add the peel and juice of one lemon, a very little grated nutmeg, three bottles of ginger-beer, half a pint of sherry, two and a quarter pints of good draught ale, sweeten to taste with sifted loaf sugar, stir a little to melt the sugar, and let the jug stand in ice. “The addition of half a bottle of champagne makes it awfully good,” wrote a certain Colonel B., in the Field, a few years ago.

Freemasons’ Cup, which may be drank either hot or cold, is of a very potent character, and consists of a pint of Scotch ale, a similar quantity of mild beer, half a pint of brandy, a pint of sherry, half a pound of loaf sugar, and plenty of grated nutmeg. Freemasons must have strong heads.

It will, no doubt, have been noted ere this that between mulled ale and the majority of hot beer-cups the distinction is rather in name than composition, and the various receipts for mulling ale so closely resemble the Wassail Bowl, Flip, &c., that it is quite unnecessary to quote any of {392} them. A word or two on cup making. Cups are easily made and easily marred. All the ingredients must be of good quality, and the vessels used sweet and clean. Everything required should be at hand before the mixing commences, and that important process should proceed as quickly as possible. Few servants can be trusted to brew cups, but if the matter is placed in their hands you cannot do better than caution them in terms similar to those addressed by Dr. King to his maid Margaret:—

Yet two more beverages compounded of ale or beer, and then this portion of the subject is completed. First, Shandy Gaff, the very writing of which word brings to us visions of a shining river, of shady backwaters, of sunny days, of two-handled tankards, and of deep cool draughts well earned. For the sake of the unfortunate few who are unacquainted with the beverage, the receipt is given: One pint of bitter beer, one bottle of the old-fashioned ginger-beer mixed together, and imbibed only on the hottest summer days, after rowing. Why, we cannot say; but Shandy Gaff always seems to us out of place anywhere but on the river.

Secondly and lastly—Mother-in-law, which, also, to some of us may bring visions—but of another kind. The drink of this name is composed of equal proportions of “old and bitter.”

If there is one season of the year more appropriate than another to hot beer-cups, be they Wassail Bowls, Lambswool, Flip or Mulled Ale, it is Christmas. Edward Moxon, a poet who flourished about the commencement of this century, presents in his Christmas a charming picture of the merry circle gathered round the crackling yule log, regaling themselves with mulled ale:—

From the excellent beverages compounded of ale or beer, concerning which so much has been said in this chapter, let us turn to the cups, flagons, horns, bowls and other vessels used by ale drinkers, and in some of which these beverages were compounded.

A few pages must suffice for a very short notice of this interesting part of our subject.

Mr. Sharon Turner, in his His­tory of the An­glo-Sax­ons, gives many in­stances of the high estimation in which cups and drink­ing ves­sels were held by our Teu­tonic fore­fathers. Even in very early times the precious metals were large­ly used in their con­struc­tion, and gold and silver cups are fre­quent­ly the sub­jects of Anglo-Saxon be­quests. In the old poem Beowulf evi­dence may be found bear­ing upon this point. One of the trea­sures in the ancient bar­row guarded by the dragon Gren­del is “The solid cup, the costly drinking ves­sel (drync fœt deore).” Drink­ing ves­sels are fre­quent­ly found in Anglo-Saxon tombs. The cups rep­re­sent­ed in the cut are made of glass, and were found chief­ly in bar­rows in Kent. They are of the “tum­bler” species, i.e., on being filled they must be emptied at a draught, and can­not be set down with any liquor in them. Mr. Wright sug­gests that the example to the left represents the “twisted” pat­tern men­tioned in Beowulf.

The savage custom, observed both by the Celts and Saxons, of drinking ale or mead from {394} a cup made out of the skull of a fallen foe, has left a trace in mediæval times in the word “scole,” signifying a cup or bowl, and may probably still be recognised in the provincial word “skillet,” which has the same meaning.

Henry, in his History of England, relates that the Celtic inhabitants of the Western Islands of Scotland spoke in their poetical way of intoxicating liquors as “the strength of the shell,” from the fact that they used shells as drinking vessels.

Returning to the Anglo-Saxons—besides metal and glass cups, they used drinking horns, and cups or bowls of wood, and in some respects the horn was the most important of their drinking vessels. Investiture of lands was frequently made by the horn both among the Saxons and Danes. The celebrated Horn of Ulphus, kept in the Sacristy of York Minster, was, according to Camden, given to the Cathedral by a noble Dane named Ulphus, who, when his sons quarrelled as to the succession to his estate, cut short the dispute by repairing to the Minster, and there enfeoffed the Cathedral with all his lands and revenues, draining the horn before the high altar as a pledge and evidence of the gift. The Mercian King Witlaf gave a drinking horn to the Abbey of Croyland “that the elder monks may drink from it on feast days, and remember the soul of the donor.”

The peg-tankards of the Anglo-Saxons have been already referred to in Chapter V. The Glastonbury Peg Tankard, illustrated in the cut, is made of oak. On the lid is a representation of the Crucifixion, and round the sides are the figures of the Apostles. It contains two quarts, and is divided with eight pegs. {395}

While engaged on this subject of measured drinks, it may also be mentioned that hoops were used as well as pegs by the old topers, and hence the promise of Jack Cade that “the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops.” From the same fact is derived the old phrase, “carousing the hunter’s hoop,” signifying a prolonged drinking bout. In certain parts of Essex it has been customary, until quite recently, for topers to drink out a pot of ale in three equal draughts, and with some ceremony; the first draught was called neckum, the second sinkum, and the third swankum.

Passing on to mediæval times, We find, as might have been expected, a great increase of variety in the drinking vessels in common use. The tankard, which was one of the chief vessels used for ordinary drinking purposes, was originally a vessel containing three gallons, and used, not to drink out of, but to carry water in. Before Sir Hugh Middleton brought the New River water into London, the inhabitants were supplied by the tankard bearers. The tankard was usually made of metal and the common use of pewter in the fifteenth century is shown by an extract from a letter of that period, in which the recipient is reminded, that “If ye be at home this Christmas, it were well done ye should do purvey a garnish or twain of pewter vessel.” The hanap was a kind of first cousin to the tankard, it came down from Saxon times, and the name is found in old Vocabularies under the form hnæp. The minds of the learned have been greatly exercised as to the connection of this word hanap with our word hamper, and with the older form still found in the term, the Hanaper Office. We would humbly suggest that the old work of Alexander Neckam, to which we have already had occasion to refer, makes the matter tolerably clear. The writer, in describing the contents of a cellar, mentions ciphi and cophini, which of course mean cups and baskets. An ancient annotator, however, gives us just the hint we want by writing in the MS. over the word ciphi “anaps,” and over cophini “anapers.” The hanap therefore was the cup, the hanaper or hamper was the basket in which the cups were carried.

As an example of the number and value of the various drinking vessels in use, the following extracts are given from an inventory of the goods of Sir John Fastolfe, who died in 1459:

• Item j payre galon Bottels of one sorte.
• — j payre of potell Bottellys one sorte.
• — j nother potell Bottell—Item 1 payre Quartletts of one sorte.
• Item iiij galon pottis of lether—Item iij Pottelers of lether.
• Item j grete tankard. {396}
• Item ij grete and hoge botellis.
• — ij Pottis of silver, percell gilte and enameled with violetts and dayseys.
• — ij Pottes of sylver, of the facion of goods enamelyd on the toppys withe hys armys.

Leather was a very usual material for drinking vessels in former times, and black-jacks were to be seen in every village alehouse. Many such are still to be found in various parts of the country, though they are not now used.

The venerable song the Leather Bottel is too well known to bear repetition, but a verse or two of Time’s Alterations or the Old Man’s Rehersal, an ancient black-letter ballad, may be given to show the common use of the leather drinking vessel:—