In 1255, Walter de Kirkham, Bishop of Durham, wrote: ‘We adjure all priests, by Him who lives for ever, and all the ministers of the Church, especially those in holy orders, that they be not drunkards, nor keep taverns, lest they die an eternal death; moreover, we forbid scot-ales and games in sacred places.’
In 1256, Giles of Bridport, Bishop of Salisbury, decreed: ‘We confirm the prohibition of scot-ales, which has been made for the good both of souls and bodies; and we command rectors, vicars, and other parochial priests that, by frequent exhortations, they earnestly induce their parishioners not rashly to violate the prohibition.’
For another century occasional decrees are issued upon the same subject. One of the last admonitions respecting scot-ales is to be found proceeding from the Synod of Ely in 1364.
It will have been observed how vigorous was the action of the Church in the reign of Henry III. But all is not yet told. Archbishop Langton, in his Constitutions, 1222, decrees (canon 30) that archdeacons, deans, rural deans, and priests abstain from immoderate eating and drinking. Again (canon 47), that neither monks nor canons regular spend time in eating or drinking, save at the stated hours. They may by leave quench their thirst in the refectory, but not indulge.
In the Constitutions of Archbishop Edmund, 1236, the sixth canon forbids clergymen ‘the ill practice by which all that drink together are obliged to equal draughts, and he carries away the credit who hath made most drunk, and taken off the largest cups; therefore, we forbid all forcing to drink.’
Bishop Grosseteste, to whom reference has lately been made, turned his attention to the indirect as well as the direct occasions of excess. He suppressed the May games in his diocese of Lincoln, from which date the practices of the day have gradually changed. The nature of the festivities may be guessed from the fact that the Maypole used to be called ale-stake.[70]
The action of the civil power was still limited in its scope. Regulation of tariff was among the most prominent of its efforts. Thus in the fifty-first year of Henry III. (1266), it was enacted that when a quarter of wheat is sold for 3s. or 3s. 4d., and a quarter of barley for 1s. 8d., and a quarter of oats for 1s. 4d., then brewers in cities ought and may well afford to sell two gallons of beer or ale for a penny; and out of cities to sell three or four gallons for a penny. These regulations are indicative that the manufacture of ale had become of much consequence.
The quality of this drink was questionable. Matthew Paris describes it as very weak.
Henry of Avranches, a Norman poet of the period, has some coarse banter upon it. The lines as translated begin thus:—
Of this strange drink, so like the Stygian lake,
Men call it ale, I know not what to make.