A very casual examination of court rolls and other local records is sufficient to convince the student that brewing was universal, every village supplying its own wants, and that infringements of the regulations by which the trade was supposed to be controlled were almost equally universal. The same names are found, where any series of rolls exists, presented at court after court for breaking the assize in one way or another, and it is clear that a strict observance of the laws was difficult, it being more profitable to break them and pay the small fines extorted practically as licensing dues. At Shoreham in the thirteenth century, the brewers, whose trade was particularly active because of the numbers of foreigners who visited the port, paid 2½ marks yearly to escape the vexations of the manorial court,[659] and in the same way the hundred of Shoyswell (in Sussex) paid a yearly fine in order that the ale-wives (trade was largely in the hands of women) might be excused attendance at the law-days.[660] In neither case, however, can we suppose that the manorial control over the brewing trade was appreciably relaxed, but rather that personal attendance at the court, with its interruption of business, was dispensed with. Besides these monetary payments, there were often payments in kind due to the lord of the manor or borough. At Marlborough every public brewery had to pay to the constable of the castle from each brew a measure, known as 'tolsester,' prior to 1232, when this render of ale was granted to the canons of St. Margaret's.[661] 'Tolsester' was also paid to the castle of Chester,[662] and in Newark and Fiskerton.[663] The 'sester' (sextarius) or 'cestron' was, in Coventry at any rate, 13 or 14 gallons.[664] Ale was always supposed to be sold, whether in gross or retail, in measures of which the capacity had been certified by the seal or stamp of the official appointed for the purpose.[665] The list of standard measures kept at Beverley in 1423 shows a potell, quart, pint, and gill of pewter, panyers, hopir, modius, firthindal, piece, and half-piece of wood and a gallon, potell, third and quart, also of wood.[666] Court Rolls, however, show that the use of unstamped measures and the retailing of ale in pitchers and jugs (per ciphos et discos) was of constant occurrence,[667] mainly, no doubt, for the convenience of customers who brought their own jugs, but also occasionally with intent to deceive, as in the case of Alice Causton,[668] who in 1364 filled up the bottom of a quart measure with pitch and cunningly sprinkled it with sprigs of rosemary,[669] for which she had to 'play bo pepe thorowe a pillery.' It is interesting to notice that at Torksey in 1345, if a woman was accused of selling ale 'against the assize,' she might clear herself by the oaths of two other women, preferably her next-door neighbours.[670]
When a public brewer had made a fresh brew he had to send for the official 'ale-conner' or 'taster,' or to signify that his services were required by putting out in front of his house an 'ale stake,' a pole with a branch or bush at the end: this was also used as the universal sign of a tavern; and some of the London taverners, possibly recognising that their liquor was not sufficiently good to 'need no bush,' made their ale-stakes so long as to be dangerous to persons riding in the street.[671] No ale might be sold until it had been approved by the ale-conner. If the latter found the ale fit for consumption but not of full quality, he might fix the price at which it might be sold.[672] In Worcester the instructions to the ale-conner were, 'You shall resort to every brewer's house within this city on their tunning day and there to taste their ale, whether it be good and wholesome for man's body, and whether they make it from time to time according to the prices fixed. So help you God.'[673] There seems reason for the pious ejaculation when we find that in Coventry in 1520 there were in a total population of 6600 men, women, and children, 60 public brewers.[674] When the ale was good the task must have had its compensations, but when it was bad the taster must often have wished to make the punishment fit the crime, as was done in the case of a Londoner who sold bad wine, the offender being compelled to drink a draught of the wine, the rest of which was then poured over his head.[675] Our sympathy may in particular be extended to the ale-tasters of Cornwall, where 'ale is starke nought, lokinge whyte and thycke, as pygges had wrasteled in it.'[676] Oddly enough we find mention in Domesday Book of forty-three cervisiarii at Helstone in Cornwall; they are usually supposed to be tenants who paid dues of ale, but the term is clearly used in the description of Bury St. Edmunds for brewers. In the sixteenth century, however, Borde[677] in an unflattering dialect poem makes the Cornishman say:—
'Iche cam a Cornyshe man, ale che can brew;
It wyll make one to kacke, also to spew;
It is dycke and smoky, and also it is dyn;
It is lyke wash as pygges had wrestled dryn.'
To ensure the purity of the ale not only was the finished product examined, but some care was taken to prevent the use of impure water, regulations to prevent the contamination of water used by brewers, or the use by them of water so contaminated, being common.[678] On the other hand, owing to the large quantities of water required for their business, they were forbidden in London,[679] Bristol,[680] and Coventry[681] to use the public conduits. For the actual brewing, rules were also laid down. In Oxford in 1449, in which year nine brewers were said to brew weak and unwholesome ale, not properly prepared, and not worth its price, but of little or no value, the brewers were made to swear that they would brew in wholesome manner so that they would continue to heat the water over the fire so long as it emitted froth, and would skim the froth off, and that after skimming the new ale should stand long enough for the dregs to settle before they sent it out, Richard Benet in particular undertaking that his ale should stand for at least twelve hours before he sent it to any hall or college.[682] In London also casks when filled in the brewery were to stand for a day and a night to work, so that when taken away the ale should be clear and good.[683] This explains the regulation at Coventry in 1421 that ale 'new under the here syve [hair sieve]' was to sell for 1¼d. the gallon, and that 'good and stale' for 1½d.[684] At Seaford there was a third state, 'in the hoffe,' or 'huff,' which sold for 2d.[685]
So far were the brewers regarded as the servants of the people that not only was their brewing strictly regulated, but they were compelled to brew even when they considered that new ordinances[686] or a rise in the price of malt would make their trade unprofitable;[687] and in 1434 the brewers of Oxford were summoned to St. Mary's Church and there ordered to provide malt, and to see to it that two or three brewers brewed twice or thrice every week, and sent out their ale.[688] At Gloucester,[689] in the sixteenth century, the brewers were expected to give some kind of weak wort, possibly the scum or dregs of their brew, to the poor to make up into a kind of very small beer, which must have been something like the 'second washing of the tuns,' which formed the perquisite of the under brewers at Rochester Priory.[690] At Norwich barm or yeast was a similar subject of charity, and in 1468 it was set forth that 'wheras berme otherwise clepid goddisgood, without tyme of mynde hath frely be yoven or delyvered for brede whete malte egges or othir honest rewarde to the value only of a farthyng at the uttermost and noon warned [i.e. denied], because it cometh of the grete grace of God; certeyn ... comon brewers ... for ther singler lucre and avayle have nowe newely begonne to take monye for their seid goddisgood,' charging a halfpenny or a penny for the least amount, therefore the brewers were to swear that 'for the time ye or your wife exercise comon brewing ye shall graunte and delyver to any person axyng berme called goddisgood takyng for as moche goddisgood as shall be sufficient for the brewe of a quarter malte a ferthyng at the moost,' provided that they have enough for their own use, and that this do not apply to any 'old custom' between the brewers and bakers.[691]
About the end of the fourteenth century a new variety of malt liquor, beer, was introduced from Flanders. It seems to have been imported into Winchelsea as early as 1400,[692] but for the best part of a century its use was mainly, and its manufacture entirely, confined to foreigners. Andrew Borde,[693] who disapproved of it, says, 'Bere is made of malte, of hoppes and water: it is a naturall drynke for a Dutche man. And nowe of late dayes it is moche used in Englande to the detryment of many Englysshe men; specyally it kylleth them the which be troubled with the colycke and the stone and the strangulion; for the drynke is a colde drynke; yet it doth make a man fat, and doth inflate the bely, as it dothe appeare by the Dutche mens faces and belyes. If the bere be well served and be fyned and not new it doth qualify the heat of the lyver.' That, thanks to the large foreign settlement in London, beer brewing soon attained considerable dimensions in the city is evident from the fact that in 1418, when provisions were sent to Henry V. at the siege of Rouen, 300 tuns of 'ber' were sent from London, and only 200 tuns of ale, but the beer was valued at only 13s. 4d. the tun, while the ale was 20s.[694] About the middle of the fifteenth century large quantities of hops were being imported at Rye and Winchelsea, and in the church of the neighbouring village of Playden may still be seen the grave of Cornelius Zoetmann, ornamented with two beer barrels and a crossed mash-stick and fork.[695] A little later we find beer being exported from the Sussex ports and also from Poole,[696] which had long done a large trade in ale to the Channel Islands.