ALE AND BEER.
The virtues of Saxon ale have already been commemorated, at pp. [66-68]. We return to the subject, at a later period.
"It may be remarked," says Mr. Hudson Turner, "that in the thirteenth century the English had no certain principle as to the grain best suited for brewing. A roll of household expenses of the Countess of Leicester shows that Beer was made indiscriminately of barley, wheat, and oats, and sometimes of a mixture of all. As the Hop was not used we may conjecture that the produce of their brewing was rather insipid, and not calculated for long keeping: it was drunk as soon as made. To remove the mawkish flatness of such beer it was customary to flavour it with spices and other strong ingredients: long pepper continued to be used for this purpose some time after the introduction of hops. The period at which the last-named plant became an ingredient of English beer is not precisely known. It was cultivated from a very early date in Flanders and Belgium, where it was both employed in brewing, and eaten in salads; and from those countries it was imported into England while the produce of our own hop-grounds was inconsiderable. It would appear, however, that Hops were used in this country for brewing, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, as Gilbert Kymer, in his Dietary, pronounces beer brewed from barley, and well hopped, also of middling strength, thin and clear, well fined, well boiled, and neither too new or too old, to be a sound and wholesome beverage. It is pretty certain, nevertheless, that in his time the hop was not grown in England. In ancient days brewing was almost solely managed by women, and till the close of the fifteenth century the greater part of the beer-houses in London were kept by females who brewed what they sold."
Ale, the favourite drink of our Saxon forefathers, has been described as a thick, sweet, unhopped liquor, and as such distinguished from our modern hopped "beer." Gerard says: "The manifold virtues in hops do manifestly argue the wholesomeness of beer above ale;" and conjectures that the origin of this distinction may be due to the use of the word beer in the Low Countries, from which hops were introduced. It would appear, however, that beer was known in this country, and specified as such, before the use of hops; which were not imported till 1524, other bitters having supplied their place.
There is an ancient rhyme which says,—
"Turkeys, Carps, Hops, Piccarel, and Beer,
Came into England all in one year."
The year when all these good things are supposed to have been introduced, was somewhere in the early part of the reign of King Henry VIII. But it is evident that as early as 1440, when the Parvulorum Promptorium was compiled, the use of hops was not altogether unknown. Mr. Albert Way supposes that at that time hopped beer was either imported from abroad or brewed by foreigners. And this supposition is certainly supported by the Promptorium.
The great hop county of Kent produced better ale than any other; and the large quantity of ale found in the cellars of the Kentish gentry, had much to do with fomenting Jack Cade's rebellion, which arose in Kent.
Unhopped ale, having no bitter principle, would easily run into acetous fermentation. And this is the reason why, in old family receipt-books, we find that our great-grandmothers were in the habit of using alegar where, by the cooks of the present day, vinegar is employed.
In modern usage the distinction between Ale and Beer is different in various parts of the country. But originally, the distinction was very clearly marked: Ale being a liquor brewed from malt, to be drunk fresh; Beer, a liquor brewed from malt and hops, intended to keep.
The above distinction is clearly observed in Johnson's Dictionary, where ale is defined, "A liquor made by infusing malt in hot water, and then fermenting the liquor:" Beer, "Liquor made from malt and hops;" "distinguished from ale either by being older or smaller." Ale thus defined answers to the description given by Tacitus of the drink of the ancient Germans. The ancient Spaniards had a somewhat similar drink, called by them Celia.
M. Alphonse Esquiros writes of our national drink thus amusingly:—"It was the favourite fluid of the Anglo-Saxons and Danes, whom we have seen descend in turn on Great Britain. Before their conversion to Christianity, they believed that one of the chief felicities the heroes admitted after death into Odin's paradise enjoyed, was to drink long draughts of ale from tall cups. Archæologians have made learned and laborious researches to recover the history of beer in Great Britain: it will be sufficient for us to say, that in Wales, ale, even small, was formerly regarded as a luxury, and was only seen on the tables of the great. In England, about the middle of the sixteenth century, Harrison assures us that, when tradesmen and artisans had the good fortune to stumble on a haunch of venison and a glass of strong ale, they believed themselves as magnificently treated as the lord mayor. At the present day, what a change! Ale and porter flow into the pewter pots of the humblest taverns; rich and poor—the poor more frequently than the rich—refresh themselves with the national beverage, as the Israelites in the Desert slaked their thirst at the water leaping from the rock, to quote a minister of the English Church. This abundance compared with the old penury, rejoices the social economist from a certain point of view, for he sees in it the natural movement of science, trade and agriculture, which in time places within reach of the most numerous class articles which, at the outset, were regarded as luxuries. Not only has beer become more available to the working classes, but the quality has improved, and at the present day English beer knows no rival on the Continent."
The old compound of roasted apples, ale, and sugar, which our ancestors knew as "Lamb's Wool," is thought to have derived its name as follows:—The words La Mas Ubal are good Irish, signifying the Feast, or day, of the Apple, and, pronounced Lamasool, soon passed into Lamb's Wool. The mixture was drunk on the evening of the above day, which was supposed to be presided over by the guardian angel of fruits and seeds.
A less fanciful etymology points to the above drink being named from its smoothness and softness, resembling the wool of lambs. Herrick sings:
"Now crowne the bowle
With gentle lambs-wooll,
Add sugar, and nutmegs, and ginger;"
and in an old play we read of this addition: "Lay a crab in the fire to roast for lamb's-wool."
[IV. Peasant Life.][57]
ew inquiries of social interest better show the progress of the English people than glances at their condition at various periods of their history. Here we may trace the rise of the people from rude forms of civilization, through its various grades, to the blessings of industry and independence, which have so materially contributed to the character of our National Life. Commencing with the substratum of these social changes, we are reminded of the truth of Goldsmith's oft-quoted lines:
"Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied."
In early times freemen formed a mere section of the people, and the bulk of the English population were in a servile condition. Some of the bondmen were captives, or the children of captives; others had been reduced to servitude by distress, by debts, or crimes; but they were not all of them absolute slaves, for even amongst the convicts there were some who were not slaves, but serfs. Now, in acquiring the use of land, a slave made the first step towards freedom. In this manner a thrall-bred man became boor-bred, and although still a bondman—he might hope, by good conduct or by the lord's bounty, to rise to the higher condition of a geneatman, or free farmer, and even to become a freeman, and a freeholder,—to become the absolute owner of his little croft.
In Anglo-Saxon times, the political station of a freeman was determined by his were—it was his worth or value; and the wergyld was the fine paid in compensation of his life. The abolition or disuse of this fine was an encouragement of liberty, since it removed the strongest mark of distinction between freemen and non-freemen.
The free or unfree condition of a man descended to his posterity. At the close of the thirteenth century, many peasants in England were still affected by the crimes or the misfortunes of their remote ancestors. By that time there was an end of absolute slavery, and the bondsmen were all serfs, or the children of serfs.