The silver Thames—very different then from the turbid noisome sewer of to-day—by reason of the excellence of its water, formed the ordinary source of supply for the old London Brewers, many of whom erected their breweries on or near its banks. As early as 1345, however, there seems to have been a tendency on the part of certain brewers to get their water elsewhere. In that year a complaint was made to the {123} authorities on behalf of the Commonalty of the City of London, “that whereas of old a certain conduit” (probably the Cheapside conduit constructed in Henry III.’s reign) “was built in the midst of the City of London, that so the rich and middling persons therein might there have water for preparing their food, and the poor for their drink; the water aforesaid was now so wasted by Brewers and persons keeping brewhouses and making malt, that in these modern times it will no longer suffice for the rich and middling, nor yet for the poor.” In consequence of this state of things, the brewers were forbidden to use the conduit water under penalty, for the first offence to forfeit the tankard or vessel in which the water was carried, on a second conviction to suffer fine, and on the third, imprisonment.
More than four hundred years ago the waters of the Thames were at some states of the tide too turbid for use, and accordingly in the reign of Henry VI., the Wardens of the Brewers’ Company were commanded not to take water for brewing from the Thames when it was disturbed, but to wait till low water and the turn of the tide. In Queen Elizabeth’s reign the Thames was beginning to acquire an evil repute, if we may believe the author of Pierce Penilesse, his supplication to the Deuill (1592), who refers to the London Brewers in terms of contempt. “Some” says he, “are raised by corrupt water, as gnats, to which we may liken brewers, that, by retayling filthie Thames water, come in a few yeres to be worth fortie or fiftie thousand pound.” Stow remarks of the London Brewers that “for the more part they remain near the friendly waters of the Thames.” In his time many brewhouses were gathered together in the parish of St. Catharine, near the Tower, and are distinguished on the map of London given in the Civitates Orbis by the name of “Beer Houses.”
Many years ago a canal led up from the Thames to the Stag Brewery at Pimlico, and provided that now famous brewhouse with water.
All through the reign of Elizabeth, and for some time afterwards, the Thames in the neighbourhood of the City, continued to afford the greater part of the water used by the London Brewers. Until the New River water was brought to London, an event which took place in the time of James I., the Thames would naturally furnish the chief supply.
The regulations in force touching the Thames water, had regard to the manner in which it was carried from the river to the Breweries, and did not in any way seek to restrict the use of the water as unfit for its purpose. For instance, in the third year of Elizabeth’s reign the Wardens of the Brewers were called before the Common Council and {124} charged not to fetch the water of the Thames in a “liquor-cart,”[43] but to make use of “boge” horses (horses carrying boges, i.e. water-barrels), according to the ancient laws and ordinances. The command was subsequently relaxed in favour of brewers living close to the River, and drawing water from “the Water-gate at the Tower Hill or at the Whitefriars.” The reason for this regulation is not stated, but the partial removal of the restriction would seem to show that it was intended to prevent the crowding of the narrow thoroughfares of the City with brewers’ carts passing and repassing. The horse with his “boge” would pass another horse with ease, while two “liquor carts” meeting would certainly block the way. This interpretation is rather confirmed by a subsequent regulation, made three years before the Great Fire cleared away many of the narrow lanes of the City, that brewers’ drays should not go abroad in the streets after 11 a.m. on account of the obstruction to traffic thereby occasioned.
[43] “Liquor” had then, and also at a far earlier date, the same technical sense as it now has, and meant water.
Turning now from the ingredients used in brewing to the actual brewers, it will not surprise any one who has read the chapter immediately preceding the present one, to be informed that in early times a great part of the brewing trade was in the hands of the gentler sex. Alreck, King of Hordoland, is said to have chosen Geirhild for his queen, in consequence of her proficiency in this necessary art, and what was not derogatory to the dignity of a queen might of course be performed by a subject. Accordingly, as has been already shown, even as late as the seventeenth century the brewing of ale and beer for the household was looked upon as belonging to the special province of the housewife and her female servants. Anciently the same custom prevailed in regard to the brewing of ale for sale, and the brewsters or ale-wives had at one time a great part of the trade, both in the country and the city. Mr. Riley, in his preface to the Liber Albus, goes so far as to say that even down to the close of the fifteenth century, if not later, the London brewing trade was almost entirely in the hands of women, and he states that Fleet Street was at that time nearly wholly tenanted by ale-wives and felt-cap makers. With all respect for Mr. Riley’s intimate knowledge of the ancient lore connected with London Town, it must be said that this view seems to be incorrect, for in a list of the London Brewers, made in the reign of Henry V., and still existing in the City Records, out of about three hundred names, only fifteen are those of women. {125} The ale-wives of Fleet Street were probably not brewers, but hucksters or retailers.
The first ale-wife deserving of special mention is the Chester “tapstere,” whose evil doings and fate are recorded in one of the Chester Misteries, or Miracle Plays, of the fourteenth century. The good folk of Chester seem to have had a peculiar dislike to being subjected to the tricks of dishonest brewers and taverners. Even in Saxon times it was a regulation of the City that one who brewed bad ale should be placed on a cucking-stool and plunged in a pool of muddy water. For the ale-wife of the old play a worse fate was reserved, and though she was a fictitious person, many of the audience would no doubt find little difficulty in fitting some of their acquaintances with the character depicted. With that mixture of the sacred and profane which to a modern ear is, to say the least, somewhat startling, the Mystery in question describes the descent of Christ into Hell and the final redemption of all men out of purgatory—all, save one. A criminal remains whose sins are of so deep a dye that she may not be forgiven. She thus confesses her guilt:—
Some time I was a tavernere, A gentel gossepp, and a tapstere Of wine and ale, a trusty brewer, Which woe hath me bewrought. Of cannes I kept no true measure, My cuppes I solde at my pleasure, Deceavinge many a creature, Tho’ my ale were nought.
