Cups and Their Customs E-Book

Roberts

• Herausgeber: Science & Technology Publishing
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 86

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Cups and Their Customs is a fascinating exploration into the rich history, traditions, and social significance of drinking vessels and the beverages they contain. First published in the 19th century, this book delves into the customs surrounding cups, goblets, and other drinking vessels across various cultures and eras. The authors, George Edwin Roberts and Henry Porter, take readers on a journey from ancient times to their contemporary Victorian society, examining how cups have played a central role in rituals, celebrations, and daily life. The book opens with an engaging overview of the earliest known drinking vessels, tracing their evolution from simple shells and horns to elaborately crafted goblets made of precious metals and adorned with intricate designs. It discusses the symbolic meanings attached to different types of cups, such as the loving cup, the wassail bowl, and the chalice, and how these objects have been used in religious ceremonies, royal banquets, and communal gatherings. Cups and Their Customs also provides a detailed account of the beverages traditionally consumed from these vessels, including wine, ale, mead, tea, and coffee. The authors recount the origins and spread of these drinks, sharing anecdotes and historical tidbits about their role in shaping social customs and etiquette. The book is rich with references to literature, folklore, and historical events, illustrating how the act of drinking together has fostered camaraderie, hospitality, and even political alliances. Throughout its pages, the book is enlivened by descriptions of famous feasts, toasts, and drinking games, as well as the superstitions and taboos associated with cups and drinking. It also touches on the craftsmanship involved in creating beautiful and functional vessels, highlighting the artistry of silversmiths, potters, and glassmakers. With its blend of historical research, cultural commentary, and engaging storytelling, Cups and Their Customs offers readers a unique perspective on the everyday objects that have shaped human interaction for centuries. It is an essential read for anyone interested in social history, material culture, or the timeless rituals that bring people together over a shared cup.

Leseprobe

SPRIG OF BORAGE IN GLASS CUP OF THE THIRD OR FOURTH CENTURY. London Published by John Van Voorst Paternoster Row.

CUPS AND THEIR CUSTOMS

"Touch brim! touch foot! the wine is red,

And leaps to the lips of the free;

Our wassail true is quickly said,—

Comrade! I drink to thee!

"Touch foot! touch brim! who cares? who cares?

Brothers in sorrow or glee,

Glory or danger each gallantly shares:

Comrade! I drink to thee!

"Touch brim! touch foot! once again, old friend,

Though the present our last draught be;

We were boys—we are men—we'll be true to the end:

Brother! I drink to thee!"

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:

JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW.

MDCCCLXIX.

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.

PREFACE.

The principal object of these pages is to furnish a collection of recipes for the brewing of compound drinks, technically called "Cups," all of which have been selected with the most scrupulous attention to the rules of gastronomy, and their virtues tested and approved by repeated trials. These we are inclined to put into type, from a belief that, if they were more generally adopted, it would be the means of getting rid of a great deal of that stereotyped drinking which at present holds sway at the festive boards of England. In doing this, we have endeavoured to simplify the matter as much as possible, adding such hints and remarks as may prove serviceable to the uninitiated, whilst we have discarded a goodly number of modern compounds as unpalatable and unscientific. As, in this age of progress, most things are raised to the position of a science, we see no reason why Bacchanology, if the term please our readers, should not hold a respectable place, and be entitled to its due mead of praise; so, by way of introduction, we have ventured to take a cursory glance at the customs which have been attached to drinking from the earliest periods to the present time. This, however, we set forth as no elaborate history, but only as an arrangement of such scraps as have from time to time fallen in our way, and have helped us to form ideas of the social manners of bygone times.

We have selected a sprig of Borage for our frontispiece, by reason of the usefulness of that pleasant herb in the flavouring of cups. Elsewhere than in England, plants for flavouring are accounted of rare virtue. So much are they esteemed in the East, that an anti-Brahminical writer, showing the worthlessness of Hindu superstitions, says, "They command you to cut down a living and sweet basil-plant, that you may crown a lifeless stone." Our use of flavouring-herbs is the reverse of this justly condemned one; for we crop them that hearts may be warmed and life lengthened.

And here we would remark that, although our endeavours are directed towards the resuscitation of better times than those we live in, times of heartier customs and of more genial ways, we raise no lamentation for the departure of the golden age, in the spirit of Hoffmann von Fallersleben, who sings:—

"Would our bottles but grow deeper,

Did our wine but once get cheaper,

Then on earth there might unfold

The golden times, the age of gold!

"But not for us; we are commanded

To go with temperance even-handed.

The golden age is for the dead:

We've got the paper age instead!

"For, ah! our bottles still decline,

And daily dearer grows our wine,

And flat and void our pockets fall;

Faith! soon there'll be no times at all!"

This is rather the cry of those who live that they may drink, than of our wiser selves, who drink that we may live. In truth, we are not dead to the charms of other drinks, in moderation. The apple has had a share of our favour, being recommended to our literary notice by an olden poet—

"Praised and caress'd, the tuneful Phillips sung

Of cyder famed, whence first his laurels sprung;"

and we have looked with a friendly eye upon the wool of a porter-pot, and involuntarily apostrophized it in the words of the old stanza,

"Rise then, my Muse, and to the world proclaim

The mighty charms of porter's potent name,"

without the least jealous feeling being aroused at the employment of a Muse whose labours ought to be secured solely for humanity; but a cup-drink, little and good, will, for its social and moral qualities, ever hold the chief place in our likings.

Lastly, although we know many of our friends to be first-rate judges of pleasant beverages, yet we believe that but few of them are acquainted with their composition or history in times past. Should, therefore, any hints we may have thrown out assist in adding to the conviviality of the festive board, we feel we shall not have scribbled in vain; and we beg especially to dedicate this bagatelle to all those good souls who have been taught by experience that a firm adhesion to the "pigskin," and a rattling galopade to the music of the twanging horn and the melody of the merry Pack, is the best incentive to the enjoyment of all good things, especially good appetite, good fellowship, and

Good Health.

...... And, although alone,

We'll drain one draught in

Memory of many a joyous

Banquet past.

PREFACE TOTHE SECOND EDITION.

The Second Edition of this book contains much additional matter, all of which has been derived from notes collected by one of the original authors of the work, whose untimely death is mourned, and whose genial hospitality is remembered, by very many friends. The compiler believes that the additions made will greatly increase the usefulness of the book to all compounders of Cups.

CUPS AND THEIR CUSTOMS.

.... "Then shall our names,

Familiar in their mouths as household words,

Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd."

As in all countries and in all ages drinking has existed as a necessary institution, so we find it has been invariably accompanied by its peculiar forms and ceremonies. But in endeavouring to trace these, we are at once beset with the difficulty of fixing a starting-point. If we were inclined to treat the subject in a rollicking fashion, we could find a high antiquity ready-made to our hands in the apocryphal doings of mythology, and might quote the nectar of the gods as the first of all potations; for we are told that

"When Mars, the God of War, of Venus first did think,

He laid aside his helm and shield, and mix'd a drop of drink."

But it is our intention, at the risk of being considered pedantic, to discourse on customs more tangible and real. If we are believers in the existence of pre-Adamite man, the records he has left us, in the shape of flint and stone implements, are far too difficult of solution to be rendered available for drinking-purposes, or to assist us in forming any idea of his inner life: we must therefore commence our history at the time

...... "when God made choice to rear

His mighty champion, strong above compare,

Whose drink was only from the limpid brook."

Nor need we pause to dilate on the quality of this primæval draught; for "Adam's ale" has always been an accepted world-wide beverage, even before drinking-fountains were invented, and will continue till the end of time to form the foundation of every other drinkable compound. Neither was it necessary for the historian to inform us of the vessel from which our grand progenitor quaffed his limpid potion, since our common sense would tell us that the hollowed palm of his hand would serve as the readiest and most probable means. To trace the origin of drinking-vessels, and apply it to our modern word "cup," we must introduce a singular historical fact, which, though leading us to it by rather a circuitous route, it would not be proper to omit. We must go back to a high antiquity if we would seek the derivation of the word, inasmuch as its Celtic root is nearly in a mythologic age, so far as the written history of the Celts is concerned—though the barbarous custom from which the signification of our cups or goblets is taken (that of drinking mead from the skull of a slain enemy) is proved by chronicles to have been in use up to the eleventh century. From this, a cup or goblet for containing liquor was called the Skull or Skoll, a root-word nearly retained in the Icelandic Skal, Skaal, and Skyllde, the German Schale, the Danish Skaal, and, coming to our own shores, in the Cornish Skala. So ale-goblets in Celtic were termed Kalt-skaal; and, though applied in other ways, the word lingers in the Highland Scotch as Skiel (a tub), and in the Orkneys the same word does duty for a flagon. From this root, though more immediately derived from Scutella, a concave vessel, through the Italian Scodella and the French Ecuelle (a porringer), we have the homestead word Skillet still used in England. There is no lack, in old chronicles, of examples illustrative of that most barbarous practice of converting the skull of an enemy into a drinking-cup. Warnefrid, in his work 'De Gestis Longobard.,' says, "Albin slew Cuminum, and having carried away his head, converted it into a drinking-vessel, which kind of cup with us is called Schala." The same thing is said of the Boii by Livy, of the Scythians by Herodotus, of the Scordisci by Rufus Festus, of the Gauls by Diodorus Siculus, and of the Celts by Silius Italicus. Hence it is that Ragnar Lodbrog, in his death-song, consoles himself with the reflection, "I shall soon drink beer from hollow cups made of skulls."

In more modern times, the middle ages for example, we find historic illustration of a new use of the word, where Skoll was applied in another though allied sense. Thus it is said of one of the leaders in the Gowryan conspiracy "that he did drink his skoll to my Lord Duke," meaning that the health of that nobleman was pledged; and again, at a festive table, we read that the scoll passed about; and, as a still better illustration, Calderwood says that drinking the king's