The peg-tankards of the Anglo-Saxons have been already referred to in Chapter V. The Glastonbury Peg Tankard, illustrated in the cut, is made of oak. On the lid is a representation of the Crucifixion, and round the sides are the figures of the Apostles. It contains two quarts, and is divided with eight pegs. {395}
While engaged on this subject of measured drinks, it may also be mentioned that hoops were used as well as pegs by the old topers, and hence the promise of Jack Cade that “the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops.” From the same fact is derived the old phrase, “carousing the hunter’s hoop,” signifying a prolonged drinking bout. In certain parts of Essex it has been customary, until quite recently, for topers to drink out a pot of ale in three equal draughts, and with some ceremony; the first draught was called neckum, the second sinkum, and the third swankum.
Passing on to mediæval times, We find, as might have been expected, a great increase of variety in the drinking vessels in common use. The tankard, which was one of the chief vessels used for ordinary drinking purposes, was originally a vessel containing three gallons, and used, not to drink out of, but to carry water in. Before Sir Hugh Middleton brought the New River water into London, the inhabitants were supplied by the tankard bearers. The tankard was usually made of metal and the common use of pewter in the fifteenth century is shown by an extract from a letter of that period, in which the recipient is reminded, that “If ye be at home this Christmas, it were well done ye should do purvey a garnish or twain of pewter vessel.” The hanap was a kind of first cousin to the tankard, it came down from Saxon times, and the name is found in old Vocabularies under the form hnæp. The minds of the learned have been greatly exercised as to the connection of this word hanap with our word hamper, and with the older form still found in the term, the Hanaper Office. We would humbly suggest that the old work of Alexander Neckam, to which we have already had occasion to refer, makes the matter tolerably clear. The writer, in describing the contents of a cellar, mentions ciphi and cophini, which of course mean cups and baskets. An ancient annotator, however, gives us just the hint we want by writing in the MS. over the word ciphi “anaps,” and over cophini “anapers.” The hanap therefore was the cup, the hanaper or hamper was the basket in which the cups were carried.
As an example of the number and value of the various drinking vessels in use, the following extracts are given from an inventory of the goods of Sir John Fastolfe, who died in 1459:
- Item j payre galon Bottels of one sorte.
- — j payre of potell Bottellys one sorte.
- — j nother potell Bottell—Item 1 payre Quartletts of one sorte.
- Item iiij galon pottis of lether—Item iij Pottelers of lether.
- Item j grete tankard. {396}
- Item ij grete and hoge botellis.
- — ij Pottis of silver, percell gilte and enameled with violetts and dayseys.
- — ij Pottes of sylver, of the facion of goods enamelyd on the toppys withe hys armys.
Leather was a very usual material for drinking vessels in former times, and black-jacks were to be seen in every village alehouse. Many such are still to be found in various parts of the country, though they are not now used.
The venerable song the Leather Bottel is too well known to bear repetition, but a verse or two of Time’s Alterations or the Old Man’s Rehersal, an ancient black-letter ballad, may be given to show the common use of the leather drinking vessel:—
Black jacks to every man Were filled with wine and beer; No pewter pot nor can In those days did appear: Good cheer in a nobleman’s house Was counted a seemly shew; We wanted no brawn nor souse, When this old cap was new.
We took not such delight In cups of silver wine; None under the degree of a Knight In plate drunk beer or wine: Now each mechanical man Hath a cupboard of plate for a shew; Which was a rare thing then, When this old cap was new.
Taylor, the water poet, in his Jack a Lent, makes mention of these vessels (A.D. 1630):—