CHAPTER VI.
BREWING AND MALTING IN EARLY TIMES. — THE ALE-WIVES. — THE BREWERS OF OLD LONDON AND THE BREWERS’ COMPANY. — ANECDOTES. — QUAINT EPITAPHS.
T seemeth well that before we record the doings of departed brewers, brewsters, and ale-wives, a page or so should be devoted to the two principal ingredients—malt and water—used by those ancient worthies in compounding their “merrie-goe-downe.”
Old Fuller thus moralizes on the art of malting:—“Though commonness causeth contempt, excellent the Art of first inventing thereof. I confesse it facile to make Barley Water, an invention which found out itself, with little more than the joyning of the ingredients together. But to make mault for Drink, was a masterpiece indeed. How much of Philosophy concurred to the first Kill of Mault, and before it was turned on the floor, how often was it toss’d in the brain of the first inventor thereof. First, to give it a new growth more than the earth had bestowed thereon. Swelling it in water to make it last the longer by breaking it, and taste the sweeter by corrupting it. Secondly, by making it to passe the fire, the grain (by Art fermented) {121} acquiring a lusciousnesse (which by nature it had not) whereby it doth both strengthen and sweeten the water wherein it is boyled.”
Those practically engaged in the production of our English national drink, whether maltsters or brewers, will no doubt be interested to compare the art of malting as it was carried on three hundred years ago in this country, with the more familiar processes of to-day. A description of malting in the sixteenth century is given by Harrison. “Our drinke,” he says, “whose force and continuance is partlie touched alreadie, is made of barleie, water and hops, sodden and mingled together, by the industrie of our bruers, in a certain exact proportion. But before our barleie doo come unto their hands, it susteineth great alteration, and is converted into malt, the making whereof I will here set downe in such order as my skill therein may extend unto. . . Our malt is made all the yeare long in some great townes, but in gentlemen’s and yeomen’s houses, who commenlie make sufficient for their owne expenses onelie, the winter half is thought most meet for that commoditie, howbeit the malt which is made when the willow doth bud, is commonlie worst of all, nevertheless each one indeuereth to make it of the best barleie, which is steeped in a cesterne, in greater or less quantitie, by the space of three daies and three nights, untill it be thoroughly soaked. This being doone, the water is drained from it by little and little, till it be quite gone. Afterward they take it out and laieng it upon the cleane floore on a round heape, it resteth so until it be readie to shoote at the roote end, which maltsters call ‘comming.’ When it beginneth, therefor, to shoote in this maner, they saie it is ‘come,’ and then foorthwith they spread it abroad, first thick and afterward thinner and thinner upon the said floore (as it commeth) and there it lieth (with turning every day foure or five times) by the space of one and twenty daies at the least, the workemen not suffering it in any wise to take any heat, whereby the bud end should spire, that bringeth foorth the blade, and by which oversight or hurt of the stuffe it selfe the malt would be spoiled, and turne small commoditie to the bruer. When it has gone or been turned so long upon the floore, they carie it to a kill covered with haire cloth, where they give it gentle heats (after they have spread it there verie thin abroad) till it be dry, in the meane while they turne it often that it may be uniformelie dried. For the more it be dried (yet must it be doone with soft fire) the sweeter and better the malt is, and the longer it will continue, whereas if it be not dried downe (as they call it) but slackelie handled, it will breed a kind of worme, called a wivell, which {122} groweth in the floure of the corne, and in processe of time will so eat out it selfe, that nothing shall remaine of the graine but even the verie rind or huske. The best malt is tried by hardnesse and colour for if it looke fresh with a yellow hew and thereto will write like a peece of chalke, after you have bitten a kirnell in sunder in the middest, then you may assure yourselfe that it is dried downe. In some places it is dried at leisure with wood alone, or strawe alone, in other with wood and straw together, but of all the straw dried is the most excellent. For the wood dried malt when it is brued, beside that the drinke is higher of colour, it dooth hurt and annoie the head of him that is not used thereto, bicause of the smoake. Such also as use both indifferentlie doo barke, cleave, and drie their wood in an oven, thereby to remove all moisture that should procure the fume, and this malt is in the second place, and with the same likewise, that which is made with dried firze, broome, &c.: whereas if they also be occupied greene, they are in a maner so prejudicial to the corne as is the moist wood. And thus much of our malts, in bruing whereof some grind the same somewhat groselie, and in seething well the liquor that shall be put unto it, they adde to everie nine quarters of mault one of headcorne, which consisteth of sundrie graine as wheate and otes groond . . .”
Though the reasons which caused one kind of water to be more suitable than another for brewing, were not so well understood in olden days as they are at present, our ancestors had learned in the school of experience that the quality of the water had much to do with the quality of the ale and beer brewed from it. Speaking of brewing, Harrison says: “In this trade also our Bruers observe verie diligentlie the nature of the water, which they dailie occupy, and soile through which it passeth, for all waters are not of like goodnesse, sith the fattest standing water is alwaies the best; for although the waters that run by chalke and cledgie soiles be good, and next unto the Thames water which is the most excellent, yet the water that standeth in either of these is the best for us that dwell in the countrie, as whereon the sunne lyeth longest, and fattest fish are bred. But of all other the fennie and morish is the worst, and the clerist spring water next unto it.”
The silver Thames—very different then from the turbid noisome sewer of to-day—by reason of the excellence of its water, formed the ordinary source of supply for the old London Brewers, many of whom erected their breweries on or near its banks. As early as 1345, however, there seems to have been a tendency on the part of certain brewers to get their water elsewhere. In that year a complaint was made to the {123} authorities on behalf of the Commonalty of the City of London, “that whereas of old a certain conduit” (probably the Cheapside conduit constructed in Henry III.’s reign) “was built in the midst of the City of London, that so the rich and middling persons therein might there have water for preparing their food, and the poor for their drink; the water aforesaid was now so wasted by Brewers and persons keeping brewhouses and making malt, that in these modern times it will no longer suffice for the rich and middling, nor yet for the poor.” In consequence of this state of things, the brewers were forbidden to use the conduit water under penalty, for the first offence to forfeit the tankard or vessel in which the water was carried, on a second conviction to suffer fine, and on the third, imprisonment.
More than four hundred years ago the waters of the Thames were at some states of the tide too turbid for use, and accordingly in the reign of Henry VI., the Wardens of the Brewers’ Company were commanded not to take water for brewing from the Thames when it was disturbed, but to wait till low water and the turn of the tide. In Queen Elizabeth’s reign the Thames was beginning to acquire an evil repute, if we may believe the author of Pierce Penilesse, his supplication to the Deuill (1592), who refers to the London Brewers in terms of contempt. “Some” says he, “are raised by corrupt water, as gnats, to which we may liken brewers, that, by retayling filthie Thames water, come in a few yeres to be worth fortie or fiftie thousand pound.” Stow remarks of the London Brewers that “for the more part they remain near the friendly waters of the Thames.” In his time many brewhouses were gathered together in the parish of St. Catharine, near the Tower, and are distinguished on the map of London given in the Civitates Orbis by the name of “Beer Houses.”
Many years ago a canal led up from the Thames to the Stag Brewery at Pimlico, and provided that now famous brewhouse with water.
All through the reign of Elizabeth, and for some time afterwards, the Thames in the neighbourhood of the City, continued to afford the greater part of the water used by the London Brewers. Until the New River water was brought to London, an event which took place in the time of James I., the Thames would naturally furnish the chief supply.
The regulations in force touching the Thames water, had regard to the manner in which it was carried from the river to the Breweries, and did not in any way seek to restrict the use of the water as unfit for its purpose. For instance, in the third year of Elizabeth’s reign the Wardens of the Brewers were called before the Common Council and {124} charged not to fetch the water of the Thames in a “liquor-cart,”43 but to make use of “boge” horses (horses carrying boges, i.e. water-barrels), according to the ancient laws and ordinances. The command was subsequently relaxed in favour of brewers living close to the River, and drawing water from “the Water-gate at the Tower Hill or at the Whitefriars.” The reason for this regulation is not stated, but the partial removal of the restriction would seem to show that it was intended to prevent the crowding of the narrow thoroughfares of the City with brewers’ carts passing and repassing. The horse with his “boge” would pass another horse with ease, while two “liquor carts” meeting would certainly block the way. This interpretation is rather confirmed by a subsequent regulation, made three years before the Great Fire cleared away many of the narrow lanes of the City, that brewers’ drays should not go abroad in the streets after 11 a.m. on account of the obstruction to traffic thereby occasioned.
43 “Liquor” had then, and also at a far earlier date, the same technical sense as it now has, and meant water.
Turning now from the ingredients used in brewing to the actual brewers, it will not surprise any one who has read the chapter immediately preceding the present one, to be informed that in early times a great part of the brewing trade was in the hands of the gentler sex. Alreck, King of Hordoland, is said to have chosen Geirhild for his queen, in consequence of her proficiency in this necessary art, and what was not derogatory to the dignity of a queen might of course be performed by a subject. Accordingly, as has been already shown, even as late as the seventeenth century the brewing of ale and beer for the household was looked upon as belonging to the special province of the housewife and her female servants. Anciently the same custom prevailed in regard to the brewing of ale for sale, and the brewsters or ale-wives had at one time a great part of the trade, both in the country and the city. Mr. Riley, in his preface to the Liber Albus, goes so far as to say that even down to the close of the fifteenth century, if not later, the London brewing trade was almost entirely in the hands of women, and he states that Fleet Street was at that time nearly wholly tenanted by ale-wives and felt-cap makers. With all respect for Mr. Riley’s intimate knowledge of the ancient lore connected with London Town, it must be said that this view seems to be incorrect, for in a list of the London Brewers, made in the reign of Henry V., and still existing in the City Records, out of about three hundred names, only fifteen are those of women. {125} The ale-wives of Fleet Street were probably not brewers, but hucksters or retailers.
The first ale-wife deserving of special mention is the Chester “tapstere,” whose evil doings and fate are recorded in one of the Chester Misteries, or Miracle Plays, of the fourteenth century. The good folk of Chester seem to have had a peculiar dislike to being subjected to the tricks of dishonest brewers and taverners. Even in Saxon times it was a regulation of the City that one who brewed bad ale should be placed on a cucking-stool and plunged in a pool of muddy water. For the ale-wife of the old play a worse fate was reserved, and though she was a fictitious person, many of the audience would no doubt find little difficulty in fitting some of their acquaintances with the character depicted. With that mixture of the sacred and profane which to a modern ear is, to say the least, somewhat startling, the Mystery in question describes the descent of Christ into Hell and the final redemption of all men out of purgatory—all, save one. A criminal remains whose sins are of so deep a dye that she may not be forgiven. She thus confesses her guilt:—
The ale-wife is then carried off into Hell’s mouth by the attendant demons, and the play closes.
The illustration is taken from a miserere seat in Ludlow Church. The scene is a very similar one to that just described. A demon is about to cast the deceitful ale-wife into Hell’s mouth. She carries her gay head attire and her false measure. Another demon reads the roll of her offences, and a third is playing on the pipes by way of accompaniment.
Elynour Rummynge, the celebrated ale-wife of Leatherhead in the reign of Henry VIII., has been handed down to fame by the pen of Skelton, the Poet Laureate of the day. It may be, as Mr. Dalloway, one of Skelton’s editors, suggests, that the poet made the acquaintance of Elynour while in attendance upon the Court at Nonsuch Palace, which was only eight miles from her abode. That the Laureate had a very intimate knowledge of this lady, may be gathered from his minute description of her unprepossessing person:—
Thus, and with many more unpleasing qualities, does the poet garnish the subject of his verse, going on to describe how—
So fond are many of her customers of her ale, that they will come to it, even though they cannot pay in coin of the realm.
The writers of the Elizabethan age make frequent reference to the ale-wives. “Ask Marian Hacket, the ale-wife of Wincot,” says Christopher Sly, “if she know me not; if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom.” One would think that the ale-wife mentioned in The Knight of the Burning Pestle would have a large, if not a very lucrative, trade:—
All ale-wives, however, had not so good a repute as Jillian of Berry. Harrison, whose knowledge of ale was indisputable, speaking of the fraudulent ale-wives of his time, says: “Such sleights have they for the utterance of this drink (ale) that they will mire it with resin and salt, but if you heat a knife red-hot, and quench it in the ale, so near the {129} bottom of the pot as you can put it, you shall see the rosen come forth hanging on the knife. As for the force of salt, it is well known by the effect; for the more the drinker tipleth, the more he may, and so dooth he carry oft a drie drunken noll to bed with him, except his luck be the better.”
The lady, whose tall hat and large white frill appear upon the next page, went by the unpleasant name of Mother Louse. She is mentioned by Anthony Wood, in 1673, as an ale-wife of Hedington Hill, and was supposed to be the last woman who wore a ruff in England. The verses under the engraving indicate that the dun hat and ruff had gone out of vogue, and were objects of merriment.
From the Accounts of the Lord Treasurer of Scotland (fifteenth century) it may be gathered that the customs and regulations respecting the brewing and sale of ale were much the same in Scotland as in this country. The price of ale was fixed from time to time “efter the imposicioune of the worthi men of the toune,” who regulated it according to the price of malt. “Browster wives” brewed the greater part of the ale, and kept most of the ale-houses. Their ale was frequently made from a barley and oat malt, as was the practice in England at the same date. As in this country, the lack of piquant flavour, afterwards supplied by the hop, was in those days compensated by the addition of ginger, pepper, spices, and aromatic herbs. Though the use of hops spread but slowly into Scotland, a considerable import trade in beer (hopped ale) was carried on with Germany. In 1455 the accounts already quoted show a payment for German beer supplied to the garrison at Dunbar. Some curious entries also appear for the years 1497–8: “Item, to Andrew Bertoune, for ten pipe of cider and beir, the price of all IX li; item, for aill that the Kinges horse drank, viiijd.; item, for the King’s ships, xij barrellis of ail; for ilk barrell xiiijs. iiijd.”
The following extracts from old Scotch laws show the similarity of the old English and Scotch usages:—“All women quha brewes aill to be sould, sall brew conforme to the use and consuetude of the burgh all the yeare. And ilk Browster sall put forth ane signe of her aill, without her house, be the window or be the dure, that it may be sene as common to all men; quhilk gif she does not, she sall pay ane unlaw (fine) of foure pennies.” “It is statute that na woman sel the gallon of aill fra Pasch until Michaelmes, dearer nor twa pennies; and fra Michaelmas untill Pasch, dearer nor ane pennie.” A verse or two of the “Ale-wife’s Supplication; or, the Humble Address of the Scotch Brewers to his Majesty King George III., for taking away the License and charging some less {131} duty on Malt and Ale,” must close this reference to the old Scotch brewing trade:—
Returning now to London, it is proposed to give some account of the brewing trade in olden times, and of the Brewers’ Company.
The first differences that strike one in contrasting the ancient and modern breweries are that the former were on a very small scale compared with the huge establishments of to-day, and that originally nearly every brewer was also a retailer. In Chaucer’s time a brewhouse was often synonymous with an ale-house:—
We have no knowledge of any representations of brewhouses at this early period. The interesting picture of a sixteenth-century brewery is taken from a rare work by Hartman Schopper, entitled, “Πανοπλια, omnium illiberalium, mechanicarum, aut sedentariarun artium genera continens, carminibus expressa, cum venustissimis imaginibus omnium artificum negociationes ad vivum representantibus,” published at Frankfort-on-Main, 1568. The illustration would no doubt stand as well for a brewhouse of a much earlier period, judging from the written descriptions which we possess. The engraver of Der Bierbreuwer was Jost Ammon, and the engraving is considered one of the best examples {133} of the art at this very early period. A plate taken from the same work, representing a cooperage, will be found on page 334.
The old German lines under the engraving of the Beer-brewer may be thus rendered into English: From barley I boil good beer, rich and sweet and bitter fashion. In a wide and big copper I then cast the hops. Then [after boiling the wort] I leave it to cool, and therewith I straightway fill the well-hooped and well-pitched [fermenting] vat; then it [the wort] ferments, and [the beer] is ready.
There is no doubt that the brewers’ trade was originally held in little esteem, and was considered as mean and sordid (de vile juggement). The ignominious punishments and restrictions (some of which have been already mentioned) to which the old London brewers were subjected, prove that their status only slowly improved. In the time of Henry VIII., however, their position had so far advanced in repute that in the grant of arms then made to them, they are specified as “the Worshipful Occupation of the Brewars of the City.”
The Records of the City of London are particularly full of details concerning the brewers and the brewing trade, and it will probably give the best idea of the conditions under which the business was carried on in former days to mention a few of the principal regulations gathered from that valuable body of information, and to supplement them by extracts from the records of the Brewers’ Company. Truth to say, the brewers and the City authorities were never the best of friends, and long accounts are to be found from time to time of disputes between them as to the legal price and quality of the liquor with which the lieges were to be supplied—struggles in which the action of the authorities seems, according to our modern notions, to have been arbitrary in the extreme. An instance of this tyranny over a trade is given in the Liber Aldus, from which it appears that not only was a brewer compelled to brew ale of a specified price and quality, but he was not even allowed to leave off brewing in case he found it did not pay him to continue. The regulation runs thus: “If any shall refuse to brew, or shall brew a less quantity than he or she used to brew, in consequence of this ordinance, he or she shall be held to be a withdrawer of victual from this city and shall be punished by imprisonment, and shall forswear his trade as a brewer within the liberties of the City for ever.”
The same idea, formerly so prevalent, that persons ought to be compelled by the strong hand to pursue their avocations, and the arbitrary manner in which the authorities acted in obtaining a supply of victuals, may be illustrated from the Annals of Dunstaple (1294), in which it is {134} recorded that the King’s long stay at St. Albans and Langley “enormously injured the market of Dunstaple and all the country round. . . The servants of the King seized all victual coming to the market, even cheese and eggs; they went into the houses of the citizens and carried away even what was not for sale, and scarce left a tally with any one. They took bread and ale from the ale-wives, and if they had none they made them make bread and ale.” In 1297 the Sheriffs of Notts and Derby are ordered by Edward I. (Rymer R. 1. 883) to proclaim in every town that the bakers and brewers should bake and brew a sufficient store of bread and ale for certain Welshmen, who were marching to chastise the Scots, “because the King is unwilling that, by reason of such victuals failing, the men of those parts should suffer damage at the hands of the sd Welshmen.”
The persons employed in the malt liquor trade, whether as manufacturers or retailers, are specified in an ordinance of the reign of Henry IV. to be Brewers, Brewsters, Hostillers (i.e., Innkeepers), Kewes (i.e., Cooks), Pyebakers, and Hucksters. The hucksters were undoubtedly at one time accustomed to sell their ale in the streets of London. In 1320 they were prohibited by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen from selling ale on London Bridge. In the sixth year of Richard II. Juliana atte Vane, huckster, was charged with selling her ale in “hukkesterie;” she is asked from whom she bought the ale, and replies that she bought the said ale, viz., one barrel of 30 gallons, from Benedicta (brewster), who lived at “Crepulgate.” It was accordingly adjudged that Juliana had broken the City regulations, and the ale was forfeited. The brewers were forbidden at this time to sell to hucksters under pain of forfeiture and imprisonment at the will of the Mayor, the intention apparently being that only a brewer should be a vendor of ale.
By the reign of Henry IV. the brewers, although they had as yet no royal charter, had joined themselves together for purposes of mutual protection and social intercourse. They are mentioned in an ordinance of the seventh year of that reign as the Mystery (i.e., trade or craft) of Free Brewers within the City, and a constitution is ordained for them by the City Fathers. The freemen of the Mystery are yearly to elect eight persons, four of the part of the City east of Walbrook, viz., two masters and two wardens, and four like persons of the part west of Walbrook. These eight are to make regulations for those using the mystery of brewing, as to the hiring of servants, the sale of ale, and such like matters, as they should be charged by the Mayor and Aldermen; they are also to see “that the good men of the mystery may {135} have a proper place to go to to transact their own business,” and are called together upon the proper occasions “by summons of their beadle in such a manner as other mysteries are;” they are to supervise those who make and supply ale, and to see that “good, able and seyn (sound) ale” is brewed according to the legal price, and to report offenders to the Chamberlain of the City.
Considerable difficulty was at this time experienced in compelling the sellers of ale to keep to the lawful measures of barrel, kilderkin, and lesser vessels. On a complaint being made to the Common Council in the ninth year of Henry IV., that whereas “each barrel ought to contain thirty gallons of just measure, but each is deficient by two gallons or more . . . if the dregs are reckoned as clear ale, and that the brewers will make no rebate in the price on that account to the great deceit and damage of the Lords, Gentles and Citizens,” therefore the deputies of the Chamberlain are ordered to mark every barrel as containing 27 gallons, and the half barrel as containing 14 gallons by reason of the aforesaid dregs. Five years later further evil doings are recorded. The Brewers and brewsters, “to the displeasure of God and contrary to the profit of the City, sell their ale three quarts for a gallon, one quart and a half for a potell (i.e., a two-quart measure); and one hanap (i.e. a two-handled tankard), for a half quart of which six or seven hanaps scarcely make a gallon,” and they are therefore ordered for the future to sell only by sealed measure and not by hanap, tankard, or any such vessel.
In the reign of Henry V. the famous Lord Mayor, Richard Whitington, and the Brewers seem to have been perpetually at daggers drawn.
The records of the Brewers’ Company contain a quaint account of an information laid against them for selling dear ale; the complainant in the case being Sir Richard, whose mayoralty had then expired. The substance of it, translated from the original Norman French, is as follows:—
“On Thursday, July 30th, 1422, Robert Chichele, the Mayor, sent for the masters and twelve of the most worthy of our company to appear at the Guildhall; to whom John Fray, the recorder, objected a breach of government, for which £20 should be forfeited, for selling dear ale. After much dispute about the price and quality of malt, wherein Whityngton, the late mayor, declared that the brewers had ridden into the country and forestalled the malt, to raise its price, they were convicted in the penalty of £20; which objecting to, the masters were ordered to be kept in prison in the Chamberlain’s company, until they {136} should pay it, or find security for payment thereof.” Whereupon, the Mayor and Court of Aldermen, having “gone homeward to their meat,” the masters, who remained in durance vile, “asked the Chamberlain and clerk what they should do; who bade them go home, and promised that no harm should come to them; for all this proceeding had been done but to please Richard Whityngton, for he was the cause of all the aforesaid judgment.” The record proceeds to state that “the offence taken by Richard Whityngton against them was for their having fat swans at their feast on the morrow of St. Martin.” Whether this unctuous dish had offended the famous Mayor’s mind by way of his digestion, does not appear.
The same Robert Chichele is recorded to have issued the following curious regulation in 1423:—“That retailers of ale should sell the same in their houses in pots of “peutre,” sealed and open; and that whoever carried ale to the buyer should hold the pot in one hand and a cup in the other; and that all who had cups unsealed should be fined.”
Many other complaints of the “oppressive” acts of Whitington towards the Company are also recorded. {137}
The Company, as appears from these records, had the power of fining its members for breach of discipline. In 1421 one William Payne, at the sign of the Swan, by St. Anthony’s Hospital, Threadneedle Street, was fined 3s. 4d., to be expended in a swan for the masters’ breakfast, for having refused to supply a barrel of ale to the King when he was in France. Simon Potkin, of the Key, Aldgate, was fined for selling short measure, whereupon he alleged that he had given money to the masters of the Brewers’ Company, that he might sell ale at his will. This excuse embroiled him with the Company, who were not to be appeased until he had paid 3s. 4d. for a swan to be eaten by the masters, but of which, it is added, “he was allowed his own share.”
In 1420 Thomas Greene, master, and the wardens of the Company agreed that they should meet at “Brewershalle” every Monday for the transaction of their business. It would appear that the first Hall had then been recently erected, for, as we have seen, the Brewers had in the preceding reign no fixed place to which “the good men of the mystery” might resort. Many curious accounts are to be found of election feasts. The presence of females was allowed. The brothers of the Company paid 12d., and the sisters 8d., and a brother and his wife 20d. A menu of one of these feasts, given in the ninth year of Henry V., is subjoined. It shows the nature of these entertainments at that period.
| La premier Cours | The First Course |
|---|---|
| Brawne one le mustarde | Brawn with mustard |
| Caboch à le potage | Cabbage soup |
| Swan standard | Swan standard |
| Capons rostez | Roast capons |
| Graundez Costades. | Great costard apples. |
| La seconde Cours | The Second Course |
| Venyson en broth one | Venison in broth |
| Blanche mortrewes44 | Mortreux soup {138} |
| Cony standard | Rabbit standard |
| Pertriches on cokkez rostez | Partridges with roasted cocks |
| Leche Lombard45 | Leche Lombard |
| Dowsettes one pettiz parneux. | Sweetmeats and pastry. |
| La troisme Cours | The Third Course |
| Poires en serope | Pears in syrup |
| Graundezbriddes one | Great birds and |
| Petitz ensemblez | Little ones together |
| Fretours | Fritters |
| Payne puff one | Bread puff |
| Un cold bakemete. | A cold baked meat. |
44 Mortreux was a kind of white soup. Chaucer says of the Cook that:—
45 An old receipt for leche lombard describes it as made of pork pounded with eggs; sugar, salt, raisins, currants, dates, pepper, and cloves were added; the mixture was put in a bladder and boiled; raisins, wine and more spices were added, and the whole was served in a wine gravy.
It will be gathered from a study of this bill of fare that, though the Brewers frequently alluded to themselves in petitions as “the poor men of the Mystery of Brewers,” “your poor neighbours the Berebruers,” and such like, they nevertheless fared rather sumptuously than otherwise. Here is their drink bill for a similar entertainment:—
| item for xxii galons of red wine | xiiijs. viijd. |
| item for iij kilderkyns of good ale at ijs. iiijd. | viis. |
| item for ij kilderkyn of iij halfpeny Ale at xxij | iijs. viijd. |
| item for j kilderkyn of peny ale | xijd. |
In 1422 Parliament ordered that all the weirs or “kydells” in the Thames from Staines to Gravesend should be destroyed, and the Lord Mayor and Aldermen ordained that two men from each of the City Companies should assist in the work. Thomas Grene and Robert Swannefeld were accordingly chosen on behalf of the Brewers to go to Kingston. The expenses were defrayed by a general contribution by the members of the Company. “These be the names,” says the old {139} writer, “of Brewers of London, the wheche dede paien diverse somes of monye for to helpe to destruye the weres yn Tempse for the comynalte of the Cite of London shulde have the more plente of fissh.” The names of some two hundred and fifty subscribers are subjoined to the record.
In 1424 the Brewers had a Lord Mayor to their mind in John Michelle, who was “a good man, and meek and soft to speak with.” When he was sworn-in, the Brewers gave him an ox, that cost 21s. 2d., and a boar valued at 30s. 1d.; “so that he did no harm to the Brewers, and advised them to make good ale, that he might not have any complaint against them.”
Returning to the ordinances of the City, we find that about this time (7 Hen. V.) there were some three hundred brewers in the City and liberties. In that year another precaution was taken to ensure a proper measure of cask. The coopers were ordered by Whitington to mark with an iron brand all casks made by them. Each cooper was to have his own brand, and the marks were to be entered of record. This regulation was carried into effect, and the mark chosen by each cooper appears on the City Records with his name annexed, as thus:—
In the sixteenth year of the reign of Henry VI. the first charter was granted to the Brewers’ Company. It empowered the freemen of the Mystery of Brewers of the City of London thenceforward to be a corporate body, with a common seal and powers of taking and holding land. The Company was yearly to elect four of their number as wardens, who were to have power to regulate the members of the Mystery and their brewing operations, and also to govern and rule all men employed in, and all processes connected with, the brewing of any kind of liquor from malt within the City and suburbs for ever. This last provision was probably intended to extend the power of the Company to the Fellowship of the Beer-brewers, then beginning to come into existence. Some years afterwards a coat-of-arms was granted to the Company by William Hawkeslowe, Clarencieux King of Arms of the South Marches of Ingelond. It is thus described in the grant: {140} “They beren asure thre barly sheues gold, bound of the same, a cheveron, gowles, in the cheveron thre barels, Sylvir, garnyshed with sable.”
The Brewers had taken for their patron saints St. Mary and St. Thomas the Martyr, and bore the arms of Thomas à Becket impaled with their own, until Henry VIII., discovering that St. Thomas was no saint after all, desecrated his tomb, scattered his dust to the four winds of heaven, and compelled the Brewers to adopt another escutcheon. The new coat, discarding the obnoxious saint’s insignia, was a good deal like the old one, and is borne by the Company to this day. It is described in the grant as follows: “Geules on a Cheueron engrailed silver three kilderkyns sable hoped golde between syx barly sheues in saultre of the same, upon the Helme on a torse siluer and asur a demy Morien in her proper couler, vestid asur, fretid siluer, the here golde, holding in either hande thre barley eres of the same manteled sable, dobled siluer.”
With regard to the old Hall of the Brewers’ Company, it occupied the site of the present Hall, and is described by Stowe as a “faire house;” it was destroyed in the Great Fire. Of the present edifice, which sprang Phœnix-like from the ashes of the yet smoking City—it bears date 1666—suffice it to say that it is a fine building, characteristic of the architectural style of the period, and that for lovers of old oak carvings its interior is worthy a visit.
This notice of the Brewers’ Company, its foundation, its feasts, and {141} its troubles has taken us rather in advance of our tale, and we must hark back to the middle of the fifteenth century.
To judge from an entry in the City Records of the sixteenth year of Edward IV. the Brewers were sometimes openly resisted by force of arms. The actual occasion on which this was done is not specified, but it is recorded that Richard Geddeney was committed to prison for having said that the Brewers had made new ordinances, and that it would be well to oppose them, as had formerly been done, with swords and daggers, when they were assembled in their Hall.
Six years afterwards a petition was presented to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen by the Brewers, which is so good a specimen of the usual style of their supplications that some portions of it are given. It begins by “petieously compleynyng that where in tyme passed thei have honestly lyved by the meanes of bruyng, and utteryng of their chaffer as well within the fraunchises of the saide Citee as withoute. And hath ben able to bere charges of the same citee after their havours and powers as other freemen of the saide citee. Where now it is so that for lak of Reules and other directions in the saide Crafte they ben disordered and none obedience nor goode Rule and Guydyng is hadd within the saide Crafte to the distruction thereof.” It is therefore prayed—“That eny persone occupying the Craft or feat of bruying within the franchise or the saide citee make or do to be made good and hable ale and holesome for mannys body. . . and that no manner ale after it be clensed and set on yeyst be put to sale or borne oute to eny custumers hous till that it have fully spourged (worked).” That no brewer shall occupy a house or a “seler” apart from his own dwelling-house for the sale of his ale. That no brewer shall “entice or labour to taak awey eny custumer from a brother brewer,” or “serve or do to be served any typler (i.e., retailer of ale) or huxster as to hym anewe be comen custumer of any manner ale for to be retailed till he have verrey knowlage that the saide typler or huxster be clerely oute of dett and daunger for ale to any other person” . . . . . That every person keeping a house and being a brother of Bruers do pay to the Wardens of the Company a sum of 4s. yearly. “That no manner persone of the said crafte . . . presume to goo to the feeste of the Maior or the Sherriff unless he be invited . . that members of the crafte shall appear in livery when so commanded that is to sey gowne and hode . . . That the livery of the crafte be changed and renewed every third year agenst the day of the Election of the newe Wardeyns of the crafte . . .” That once a quarter the ordinances of the Company shall be read to the assembled brewers in {142} their common hall. That no brewer is to buy malt except in the market. That malt brought to market must not be “capped in the sakke, nor raw-dried malte, dank or wete malte or made of mowe brent barly, belyed malt, Edgrove malte, acre-spired malte, wyvell eten malte or meddled46, in the deceite of the goode people of the saide citee, upon payn of forfaiture of the same.” No one is to buy his own malt or corn in the market, “to high the price of corn in the Market,” under pain of the pillory. No one is to sell malt “at the Market of Gracechurch or Greyfreres before 9 of the clock till market bell therfor ordeigned be rongen,” and at one o’clock all the unsold malt is to be cleared away.