This old English requires some little explanation, and may be rendered thus:—Therefore man may not renounce (his sins) through christening in wine, in cider, nor in perry, nor in anything that never was water, nor yet in ale, for though this (i.e., ale) was water first, it is acounted water no longer. {39}
Whilst Christmas, as far as eating was concerned, always had its specialities, its liquor carte seems even in the thirteenth century to have been of a very varied character. An old carolist of the period thus sings (we follow Douce’s translation):—
Lordlings, Christmas loves good drinking, Wines of Gascoigne, France, Anjou, English ale that drives out thinking, Prince of liquors, old or new, Every neighbour shares the bowl, Drinks of the spicy liquor deep; Drinks his fill without control, Till he drowns his care in sleep.
Piers the Ploughman, a poem by William Longland, written towards the close of the fourteenth century, contains a curious confession of the tricks played by the ale-sellers upon their customers:—
I boughte hire Barly heo breuh hit to sulle; Peni-ale and piriwhit heo pourede to-gedere For laborers and louh folk that liuen be hem-seluen. The Beste in the Bed-chaumbre lay bi the wowe, Hose Bummede therof Boughte hit ther-after, A galoun for a grote, God wot, no lasse, Whon hit com in Cuppemel; such craftes me usede.
This, being interpreted, in modern English would read somewhat as follows:—I bought her barley they brew it to sell; Peny ale (i.e., ale at a penny a gallon) and small perry she poured together for labourers and poor folk that live by themselves. The best lay in the bed chamber by the wall, whoso drank thereof bought it (i.e., the penny ale) by the sample (i.e., of the best) a gallon for a groat, God knows, no less, when it came in by cupfulls; such craft I used.
Piers the Ploughman, in describing the scarcity of labour after the great plague in the fourteenth century and the independence of the labouring men that arose from the high wages they were enabled to demand, says that after harvest they would eat none but the finest bread,
Ne non half-penny Ale In none wyse drynke, Bote of the Beste and the Brouneste that Brewesters sullen.
Mai no peny-Ale hem paye ne no pece of Bacun, {40} Bote hit weore Fresch Flesch or elles Fisch y-Friyet, Both chaud and plus chaud for chele of heore mawe.[15]