We find them satirised in Pierce Plowman thus:—
I am occupied everie daye, holye daye, and other,
With idle tales at the ale, and other while in churches.
In churches. Though they were not usually, if ever, held there, but in a place called the church-house. Thus Carew (Survey of Cornwall) says: ‘Whitsontide, upon which holidays the neighbours meet at the church-house, and there merily feed on their owne victuals, contributing some petty portion to the stock, which, by many smells, growth to a meetly greatness.’
In process of time of course they degenerated. The pulpits of the sixteenth century freely denounced them. A typical sermon on the abuses of the day is that of William Kethe, preached at Blandford in 1570, at which time ales must have been kept in his neighbourhood on Sunday, ‘which holy day the multitude call their revelyng day, which day is spent in bul-beatings, beare-beatings, bowlings, dicyng, cardyng, daunsynges, drunkenness, and whoredome.’ And when we remember that it is recorded of an old song, that
It hath been sung at festivals,
On ember eves and holy ales,
we shall the better appreciate the nature of the fall. ‘Desinit in piscem mulier formosa supernè.’
Efforts were made in this reign of Henry VI. for the better observance of Sunday; and, here and there, there are indications that efforts were made locally to bring about ‘Sunday closing.’ Mr. Bridgett has adduced a few examples. In 1428 the corporation of Hull made an order for the observance of the Sunday. No market was to be kept, under penalty of 6s. 8d. for sellers, and 3s. 4d. for buyers; no butchers were to expose meat for sale, nor cooks to dress or sell except to strangers, and to them only before seven o’clock; no tradesmen to keep shops open; no vintners nor ale-house keepers to deliver or sell ale, under the same penalties. London made an attempt to suppress Sunday trading, but it was ineffectual. In the year 1444 ‘an Act was made, by authority of the Common Council of London, that upon the Sunday should no manner of thing, within the franchise of the city, be bought or sold, neither victual nor other things; nor none artificer should bring his ware to any man to be worn or occupied that day, as tailor’s garments or cordwainer’s shoes; and so likewise of all other occupations; the which ordinance held but a while.’
There was very little legislation upon these matters in Henry VI.’s reign. The planting of hops was prohibited. They were used by the brewers in the Netherlands early in the fourteenth century; and the use of them in beer was brought into England from Artois. But there will be more occasion to speak of them later on, when we shall find that privileges were granted to hop-grounds. In this reign the Brewery Company was incorporated, and we can readily believe that its brew was duly appreciated by John Lydgate, the monk of Bury.
Beer had risen immensely in price from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. When the Archbishop of Canterbury visited his land at Tarring, in Sussex, in 1277, four gallons of the best beer were to be charged only 1d.; whereas a tariff of 1464 shows an extraordinary advance.
| Best beer, per gallon | 2d. |
| Second ” | 1d. |
| Third ” | 0½d. |