Any member calling another names was fined a quart of honey.
For using abusive language to a non-member, one quart of honey.
A knight for waylaying a man, a sextarius of honey.
For setting a trap for any person’s injury, a sextarius of honey.
Any member neglecting when deputed to fetch a fellow-member who might have fallen sick, or died at a distance from home, forfeited a sextarius of honey. And so forth. No doubt this honey was turned into mead, and drunk on the gala days of the society.
Of ale three kinds are mentioned at this time: viz. clear ale, mild ale, and Welsh ale. Accordingly we find the Abbot of Medeshamstede letting certain land to Wulfrid upon this condition, that Wulfrid should each year deliver into the minster, among other items, two tuns full of pure ale and ten measures of Welsh ale, an agreement at which, adds the Saxon Chronicle, the king, archbishop, and several bishops were present. Welsh ale is mentioned at a much earlier date in the laws of Ine.
It was stated in a former section that cider became known to the Britons at an early date. The Anglo-Saxons knew it under the name of Æppelwin. Its origin is not fully substantiated. Africa has been suggested as its birthplace, probably because the fathers SS. Augustine and Tertullian mention it. St. Jerome, too, speaks of an intoxicating drink made of the juice of apples.
Lastly, the Saxons drank piment, but not generally. This was a mixture of acid wine, honey, sugar, and spices. We find it mentioned in the romance of Arthour and Merlin, in the lines—
There was piment and claré,
To heighe lordlinges and to meyne.
Piment and wine were both at this time imports. Thus in a volume of Saxon dialogues (Tib. A. iii.), one of the characters, a merchant, describes himself and his occupation. To the question ‘What do you bring us?’ he replies, ‘Skins, silks, costly gems, and gold; various garments, pigment, wine, &c.’