The plant which perhaps has been chiefly considered as the hop is the Smilax aspera[918] of Dioscorides[919], the same no doubt as that described by Theophrastus under the name of smilax, without any epithet[920]. That the description agrees for the most part with our hops cannot be denied; but it is equally true that it might be applied, with no less propriety, to many other creeping plants, and certainly with the greatest probability to that which in the Linnæan system has retained the name Smilax aspera. What the Grecian writer says of the fruit is particularly applicable to this plant; but, on the other hand, it differs from the fruit of the hop.
One might with more probability conjecture that hops occur in Pliny[921], under the name Lupus salictarius. But the whole of what he says of this plant is, that it was esculent, and grew in the willow plantations. This is undoubtedly true of hops, for that the young shoots are eaten in spring as salad is well known; but the name lupus alone has induced the commentator to apply all this, though equally applicable to other plants, to our hop, which at present is called lupulus. Much more unfounded is the conjecture, that the hop is that wild plant which, according to the account of Cato, was used as fodder for cattle[922]. But the word in manuscripts is differently written, and consequently uncertain; besides, there are many plants which might be employed in the place of straw.
It is certainly possible that hops might have been in use among the northern nations, at the time of these writers, without their having any knowledge of them; for the Romans were acquainted with beer only from the accounts given of the Germans and their manners[923], and they considered that beverage merely as an unsuccessful imitation of their wine. But I agree in opinion with Conring, Meibomius, and others, that hops were not used till a much later period. The names humulus and lupulus also are of no great antiquity. The former is the oldest, and seems to belong to the people who first added this improvement to beer. The humble and humle of the Swedes and Danes, the chumel of the Bohemians, the houblon of the French and the Spanish, Hungarian and Persian appellations, all seem to be derived from the same origin, as well as the Latin names of later times, humelo, humolo, humulo, humlo[924]. Lupulus does not occur till a much later period. The German word, which the English also have adopted, appears first to have been written hoppe, from which was formed afterwards in High German Hopfen, by converting, as it commonly does, the double p into the harder pf. Thus from toppe it has made topf, and from koppe, kopf, &c. As far as I know, this word is found, for the first time, in a dictionary which seems to be of the tenth century[925], and which has Timalus, Hoppe and Brandigabo Feldhoppe. According to my conjecture, timalus has been erroneously printed for humulus; but in regard to brandigabo I can give no explanation. It is derived perhaps from brace or bracium. The former was known to Pliny[926]; and the latter occurs in the same dictionary along with the translation, malt.
No mention is made of hops either in Walafrid Strabo, who died in 849, or in Æmilius Macer, who cannot have lived earlier than the year 850; in the laws of the old Franks, in which beer and malt are often mentioned, or in the Capitulare de Villis Imperatoris, which are ascribed to Charles the Great. Had beer been then used and brewed in Germany, it would certainly have been at any rate mentioned by the emperor. Haller says[927] it is related by Isidorus that the experiment of adding hops to beer was first made in Italy. Were this the case, it would be the oldest mention of that circumstance, for Isidorus died in the year 636. It is however not only highly improbable that the use of hops should be discovered in Italy, which is a wine country, but it can be proved to be false. Not the smallest notice of it is to be found in the whole work of Isidorus; and in the Bibliotheca Botanica, when Haller had the book before him and extracted from it many things remarkable, he does not repeat this assertion[928]. The passage which has given rise perhaps to this error, appears to be that where the author describes a kind of beer called by him celia, and where the germination of corn, the shooting of malt, and the sweet wort made from it, together with its fermentation, are clearly mentioned, but not hops[929]. Some one perhaps thought that hops also ought to be supposed in this passage, else beer would not acquire that strong taste and intoxicating quality spoken of by Isidorus, who very properly ascribes both to fermentation. The same account has been repeated by Vincentius[930], without any change or addition. But as Isidorus scarcely contains anything which is not borrowed from earlier writers, I endeavoured to discover the source of that information, and at length found it in the history of Orosius[931], who, as is well known, lived in the fifth century.
In the Latin translation of the works of the Arabian physician Mesue[932] is a description, but as is commonly the case, a defective one, of a creeping plant, with rough indented leaves under the name of lupulus, which indeed corresponds exceedingly well with our hops. The cones in particular are exactly described. The author, however, speaks there only of the medicinal qualities of the plant, and makes no mention of its application to beer. Mesue lived about the year 845, consequently is the first who uses the term lupuli. But we have only a wretched old translation of the writings of this physician; it is probable that the word lupulus comes only from the translator. This passage therefore can prove nothing.
It is however certain that hops were known in the time of the Carolingian dynasty, for a letter of donation by King Pepin speaks of humolariæ, which without doubt must have been hop-gardens[933]. In like manner Adelard, abbot of Corbey, in the year 822, freed the millers belonging to his district from all labour relating to hops, and on this occasion employed the words humlo and brace, by which is to be understood corn and malt used for beer. In the Frisingen collection of ancient documents, there are many which were written in the time of Ludovicus Germanicus, consequently in the middle of the ninth century; and in some of these, hop-gardens, which were then called humularia, are mentioned[934]. In the tax registers of the two following centuries, among the articles delivered to churches and monasteries, modii and moldera humuli are very often named[935]. Hop-fields and the delivery of hops occur much oftener in the thirteenth century, under the appellations humuleta, humileta, and humularia[936]. In the Sachsenspiegel[937] and the municipal law of Magdeburg (Weichbildsrechte[938]), there is an order in regard to the hop-plants which grew over hedges. I shall omit the still more numerous instances where they occur in the fourteenth century as well as the proofs that hops were then cultivated in many parts of Germany; and it is perhaps true, as said by Möhsen, and after him by Fischer, on whose bare word however I do not entirely rely, that many towns in Germany were indebted for the great sale of their beer to the use of hops (which undoubtedly appears to be a German discovery), and to their peculiar goodness. However, it is certain that this method of seasoning beer was adopted at a much later period by our neighbours the English, Dutch, Swedes, and others.
If the two passages above quoted, where the word lupuli occurs, be rejected because they are doubtful, I must consider this name of hops to be more modern than the word humulus; and if this be true, it is impossible to believe, with Du Cange, that the latter was formed from the first by throwing away the initial letter. As yet I had not found the name lupulus given to hops earlier than the thirteenth century.
About this time lived Simon of Genoa, commonly called Johannes de Janua or Januensis, who also had the surname of Cordus. He was physician to Pope Nicholas IV.; afterwards chaplain and sub-deacon to Pope Boniface VIII.; and therefore flourished at the end of the thirteenth century. Of his writings none is better known, or was formerly more esteemed, than his Catholicon, a book in which he describes, in alphabetical order, all the substances then used in medicine, and on which, as he says himself, he was employed thirty years. In this dictionary, which is commonly considered as the first of the Materia medica, there is an article under the head lupulus, copied however from the before-mentioned Latin translation of Mesue, but with the addition, that this plant by the French and Germans is named humilis, and that the flowers of it were used in a beverage which he calls medo[939]. This Italian, however, does not seem to have been properly acquainted with the subject; for he tells us himself[940], that under the name medo or mead, is understood a beverage made of diluted honey, for which hops are never employed. In Italy also, at that time, hops were not in use. About the same period, Arnold de Villanova, in his commentary on the work on Regimen, published by John of Milan, in the name of the celebrated school of Salerno, mentions lupuli, and the use of them in brewing beer[941].
Professor Tychsen, to whose friendship I have been frequently indebted for assistance in my researches, suggested to me the conjecture that lupulus perhaps is derived from lupinus, because Columella says that the bitter seeds of this plant were added, in Egypt, to beer in order to moderate its sweetness[942]. This use is confirmed also by G. W. Lorsbach, from the Arabic historian Ebn Chalican[943]. At any rate, this proves that in Egypt at that time bitter things began to be added to beer. It is also well known that in Italy lupines were rendered fit for the use of man as well as of animals, by macerating them in water[944]; and I am of opinion, that on this account Varro required water to be in the neighbourhood of a farm-yard[945]. Lupines softened in water are still employed for making dough. But if lupulus was formed from lupinus, it must however be proved that the use of it for beer was common beyond the boundaries of Egypt. Even if we admit with Schöttgen, that the poet employs zythum for beer in general, this beverage was never used in Italy, and I have met with no other mention of lupines in brewing.
In the breweries of the Netherlands, hops seem to have been first known in the beginning of the fourteenth century; for about this time we find many complaints that the new method of brewing with hops lessened the consumption of gruit, and also the income arising from gruitgeld. The word gruit seems to have many meanings: in the first place it signifies malt; but though I formerly considered this as the proper meaning, and though some approved my opinion, I must confess that on further examination I am not able fully to prove it. In the second place, it signified a certain tax paid at each time of brewing: thirdly, a certain addition of herbs used for beer in the fourteenth century: and in the last place, the beer brewed with it was itself sometimes called gruit.