What can now an enemy do to us?
What can the malice of any mortal effect
Against thee and us, O! thou immortal God?"
For further information on this and other points, much may be learnt from Mr. Wright's excellent book of 'Domestic Manners and Sentiments of the Middle Ages,' where some good illustrations of Saxon drinking-scenes are sketched from the Harleian and other manuscripts. From the scarcity of materials descriptive of the social habits of the Normans, we glean but little as to their customs of drinking; in all probability they differed but slightly from those of the Saxons, though at this time wine became of more frequent use, the vessels from which it was quaffed being bowl-shaped, and generally made of glass. Will of Malmsbury, describing the customs of Glastonbury soon after the Conquest, says, that on particular occasions the monks had "mead in their cans, and wine in their grace-cup." Excess in drinking appears to have been looked upon with leniency; for, in the stories of Reginald of Durham, we read of a party drinking all night at the house of a priest; and in another he mentions a youth passing the whole night drinking at a tavern with his monastic teacher, till the one cannot prevail on the other to go home. The qualities of good wine in the 12th century are thus singularly set forth:—"It should be clear like the tears of a penitent, so that a man may see distinctly to the bottom of the glass; its colour should represent the greenness of a buffalo's horn; when drunk, it should descend impetuously like thunder; sweet-tasted as an almond; creeping like a squirrel; leaping like a roebuck; strong like the building of a Cistercian monastery; glittering like a spark of fire; subtle like the logic of the schools of Paris; delicate as fine silk; and colder than crystal." If we pursue our theme through the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, we find but little to edify us, those times being distinguished more by their excess and riot than by superiority of beverages or the customs attached to them. It would be neither profitable nor interesting to descant on scenes of brawling drunkenness, which ended not unfrequently in fierce battles—or pause to admire the congregation of female gossips at the taverns, where the overhanging sign was either the branch of a tree, from which we derive the saying that "good wine needs no bush," or the equally common appendage of a besom hanging from the window, which has supplied us with the idea of "hanging out the broom." The chief wine drank at this period was Malmsey, first imported into England in the 13th century, when its average price was about 50s. a butt; this wine, however, attained its greatest popularity in the 15th century. There is a story in connexion with this wine which makes it familiar to every schoolboy; and that is, the part it played in the death of the Duke of Clarence. Whether that nobleman did choose a butt of Malmsey, and thus carry out the idea of drowning his cares in wine, as well as his body, matters but little, we think, to our readers. We may however mention that although great suspicion has been thrown on the truth of the story, the only two contemporary writers who mention his death, Fabyan and Comines, appear to have had no doubt that the Duke of Clarence was actually drowned in a butt of Malmsey. In the records kept of the expenses of Mary, Queen of Scots, during her captivity at Tutbury, we find a weekly allowance of Malmsey granted to her for a bath. In a somewhat scarce French book, written in the 15th century, entitled 'La Légende de Maître Pierre Faiferi,' we find the following verse relating to the death of the Duke of Clarence:—
"I have seen the Duke of Clarence
(So his wayward fate had will'd),
By his special order, drown'd
In a cask with Malmsey fill'd.
That that death should strike his fancy,
This the reason, I suppose;