The few authors who have turned their thoughts to this question have not been able, as far as I know, to answer it with certainty, nor even with probability. They have only repeated, without making any researches themselves, what Stypmann[1434] has said on the subject; and the latter refers to a passage of Hadrian Junius, which I shall here more particularly notice. Junius, speaking of the oldest families in the Netherlands, says that the family of Wassenaer had formerly a certain supremacy over the rivers in Rhineland, so that no one, without their permission, could keep swans on them, and that the brewers paid for the use of the water a certain tax called the gruyt-geld, from which arose the jus grutæ. The origin of this word he did not know; but he conjectured that it was derived either from gruta, which signifies duckweed (Lemna), a plant that grows in the water and covers its surface during the summer, or from grut, an ingredient used in making beer[1435]. It is certain that in the tenth, eleventh, and thirteenth centuries gruta, grutt, or gruit, signified a tax which brewers were obliged to pay[1436]; but the origin of the word has been sufficiently explained neither by Junius nor any other writer. I nowhere find that it was used in ancient times for a float-duty; and this meaning Junius himself has not so much as once mentioned.
The word gruit occurs under a quite different sense in a letter of investiture of the year 1593, by which the elector of Cologne gave as a fief to the countess of Moers, the gruit within the town of Berg, with all its rents, revenues, and appurtenances. “No other person was allowed to put grudt or any plant in beer, or to draw beer brought from other countries. On the other hand, the countess was to make good grutt, and to cause it to be sold at the price usual in the neighbouring parts; she was bound also to supply the elector gratis with what beer was necessary for family consumption; and if more was required than usual, on extraordinary occasions, she was to ask and receive money. If any one in the town did not deliver good gruidt, and should prove that he could not deliver better, as the fault was occasioned by the gruitte, the loss that might arise should fall upon the countess.” The word grut or gruitt seems to occur here under a double meaning; as an ingredient in the beer, and as the beer itself which was made from it. Of this difficulty I have in vain endeavoured to find an explanation. Grut, perhaps, may signify malt. In Dutch and other kindred languages grut means the small refuse which is separated from anything; and to which grusch bran, and grütze groats, have an affinity. May not ground malt be understood by it? I have thought likewise of a kind of herb-beer, which was much esteemed in the sixteenth century; and that grut might signify a mixture of herbs used for making that beer. It is probable that this word was confined within the boundaries of the Netherlands; and thence only, perhaps, is an explanation of it to be expected.
I am, however, still unable to comprehend how the float-duty obtained the name of jus grutiæ; and in our kindred languages I can find no derivation of it. The German word flosz, from fliessen, to flow or glide; flusz, a river, occurs in them all. The Dutch say vlot, vlothout; the Swedes, en flott, flotta, to float; flot-wed, float-wood; and the English, a float, to float, &c.
FOOTNOTES
[1417] Those who are desirous of particular information respecting everything that concerns the floating of wood may read Bergius, Polizey- und Camera-magazin, vol. iii. p. 156; Krunitz, Encylopedie, vol. xiv. p. 286; and the Forstmagazin, vol. viii. p. 1. To form an idea of the many laborious, expensive, and ingenious establishments and undertakings which are often necessary in this business, one may peruse Mémoire sur les Travaux qui ont Rapport à l’Exploitation de la Mâture dans les Pyrénées. Par M. Leroy. Londres et Paris, 1776, 4to. So early as the time of cardinal Richelieu the French began to bring from the Pyrenees timber for masts to their navy; but as the expense was very great, the attempt was abandoned, till it was resumed in the year 1758 by a private company, who entered into a contract with the minister for supplying the dock-yards with masts. After 1765 government took that business into their own hands; but it was attended with very great difficulties.
[1418] Plinius, lib. vi. cap. 56.—Strabo, lib. xvi. where he calls these rafts σχεδίαι.—Festus, p. 432.—Scheffer, De Militia Navali Veterum, lib. i. cap. 3.—Pitisci Lexicon Antiq. Rom. art. Rates.
[1419] “My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea: and I will convey them by sea in floats unto the place that thou shalt appoint me.”—1 Kings, chap. v. ver. 9. “And we will cut wood out of Lebanon, as much as thou shalt need: and we will bring it to thee in floats by sea to Joppa; and thou shalt carry it up to Jerusalem.”—2 Chronicles, chap. ii. v. 16. Pocock thinks that the wood was cut down near Tyre. The accounts given by travellers of Mount Lebanon, and the small remains of the ancient forests of cedar, have been collected by Busching in his Geography.
The following is the account given of these cedars by the abbé Binos, who visited them in the year 1778. “Here,” says he, “I first discovered the celebrated cedars, which grow in an oval plain, about an Italian mile in circumference. The largest stand at a considerable distance from each other, as if afraid that their branches might be entangled, or to afford room for their tender shoots to spring up, and to elevate themselves also in the course of time. These trees raise their proud summits to the height of sixty, eighty, and a hundred feet. Three or four, when young, grow up sometimes together, and form at length, by uniting their sap, a tree of a monstrous thickness. The trunk then assumes generally a square form. The thickest which I saw might be about thirty feet round; and this size was occasioned by several having been united when young. Six others, which were entirely insulated, and free from shoots, were much taller, and seemed to have been indebted for their height to the undivided effects of their sap.” These cedars, formerly so numerous, are now almost entirely destroyed. In the year 1575, Rauwolff found twenty-four that stood round about in a circle, and two others, the branches whereof are quite decayed with age; Bellon, in 1550, counted twenty-eight old trees; Fremenet, in 1630, counted twenty-two; La Roque, in 1688, twenty; Maundrell, in 1696, sixteen; Dr. Pococke, in 1738, fifteen; and Schulze, in 1755, counted twenty, besides some young ones; Burckhardt, in 1810, eleven or twelve; Dr. Richardson, in 1818, eight; Mr. Robinson, in 1830, seven; Lord Lindsay, in 1836, seven. Mr. Buckingham, in 1816, differs greatly from the other authorities, computing the whole number of trees at two hundred, of which he describes twenty as being very large.—Trans.
[1420] Antiquit. lib. viii. These letters have been printed by Fabricius in Codex Pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti, i. p. 1026.
[1421] Olymp. v. 29. Gesner, in explaining Pindar, translated φάος or φῶς by the word help, which Hebraism occurs in the New Testament, and also in Homer. The stream therefore assisted the inhabitants while under a great inconvenience.