[946] This document is in Matthæi Analecta Vet. Ævi, iii. p. 260. See also Du Cange, under the word Grutt, and its derivatives.
[947] St. Hildegard in Physicæ, lib. ii. cap. 74. Petro Crescentio d’Agricoltura, lib. vi. cap. 56. This writer lived in the thirteenth century.
[948] A celebrated female saint of the eighth century, said to have been a native of England, but canonised in Germany, where she was abbess of a nunnery at Heidensheim in Thuringia.—Trans.
[949] This is asserted in the Götting. Gel. Anzeigen, 1778, p. 323.
[950] Statutes at Large, vol. i. p. 591.
[951] Husbandry and Trade Improved, by J. Houghton. Lond. 1727, 8vo. ii. p. 457.—Anderson’s Hist. of Commerce. [The fermented liquor anciently in use in this country is usually termed ale, but we have in fact no certain account of its composition, and all that is now known respecting it is, that it was a pleasant but intoxicating liquor. Our Saxon ancestors were so far addicted to its use, that so far back as the time of king Edgar, it was found necessary to order marks to be made in their cups at a certain height, beyond which they were forbidden to fill, under a severe penalty. This probably gave rise to the peg tankard, of which there are a few still remaining. It held two quarts, and had on the inside a row of eight pegs, one above the other, from top to bottom, so that the space between each contained half a pint. The law of compotation was, that every one who drank was to empty the exact space between peg and peg, and if he either exceeded or fell short of his measure, he was bound to drink down to the next. In archbishop Anselm’s canons, made in the council of London, A.D. 1102, we find an order, by which priests were enjoined not to go to drinking bouts, nor to drink to pegs.]
[952] Archæologia, vol. iii. p. 157. [Indeed, at a much later period, the common council of the city of London petitioned parliament against the use of hops, “in regard that they would spoyl the taste of drinks and endanger the people.”—See Walter Blithe in his Improver Improved, published in 1649.]
[953] Hamburgisches Magazin, xxxiii. p. 465.
[954] Instead of this plant, which grows wild in Sweden, another wild plant in Germany called post, and by botanists Ledum palustre, was in old times used for beer by poor people in its stead; but it occasioned violent headaches.—See Linnæi Amœnitat. Acad. viii. p. 270. [This plant is still extensively used in the northern parts of Germany for imparting a bitter flavour to beer, although, owing to its deleterious nature, it is strictly forbidden by the laws. In this country Cocculus indicus is sometimes employed for a like purpose.]
[955] This law is said to have been made as early as the reign of Magnus Smeek; but it was confirmed by king Christopher in 1440, and by the command of Charles IX. was printed at Stockholm, in folio, in 1608, in a work entitled Swerikes Rijkes Landz-lagh. The passage which belongs to this subject stands in Bygninga Balker, cap. 49 and 50, p. xl. a.