Tea and coffee had not yet been introduced into England, but wine was abundant and cheap. It is rather surprising to learn that from twenty to thirty thousand tuns of home-grown wine were then made in the country.
Of foreign wines, thirty kinds of strong and fifty-six of light were to be had in London. The price ranged from eightpence to a shilling a gallon. The drink of the common people, however, was beer, which was generally home-brewed and cheap withal.
Harrison, who was a country clergyman with forty pounds a year, tells how his good wife brewed two hundred gallons at a cost of twenty shillings, or less than three halfpence a gallon. When nobody drank water, and the only substitute for malt liquors was milk, the consumption of beer was of course enormous.
The meals were but two a day. Harrison says: "Heretofore there hath been much more time spent in eating and drinking than commonly is in these days, for whereas of old we had breakfasts in the forenoon, beverages or nuntions [luncheons] after dinner, and thereto rear-suppers [late or second suppers] generally when it was time to go to rest, now these odd repasts—thanked be God—are very well left, and each one in manner (except here and there some young hungry stomach that cannot fast till dinner time) contenteth himself with dinner and supper only."
OLD HOUSE IN HIGH STREET
Of the times of meals he says: "With us the nobility, gentry, and students do ordinarily go to dinner at eleven before noon, and to supper at five, or between five and six at afternoon. The merchants dine and sup seldom before twelve at noon and six at night, especially in London. The husbandmen dine also at high noon, as they call it, and sup at seven or eight; but out of the term in our universities the scholars dine at ten. As for the poorest sort, they generally dine and sup when they may, so that to talk of their order of repast it were but needless matter."
Rising at four or five in the morning, as was the custom with the common people, and going until ten or even noon without food must have been hard for other than the "young hungry stomachs" of which Harrison speaks so contemptuously.
THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN.
In the 16th century, children of the middle and upper classes were strictly brought up. The "Books of Nurture," published at that time, give minute directions for the behavior of boys like William at home, at school, at church, and elsewhere. These manuals were generally in doggerel verse, and several of them have been edited by Dr. F. J. Furnivall for the Early English Text Society.