Ye Olde Good Inn Guide E-Book

James Moore

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Art thou in need of hearty ale and a bed safe from brigands as you ply the highways and byways of Britain? Then Ye Olde Good Inn Guide is for you – the essential handbook for the Tudor traveller. Packed with the finest hostelries to grace the 16th century and written with all the flavour of the language of the day, this witty and meticulously researched tome covers every county in the land and directs you to all the celebrated and charming pubs, many of which still exist today. With all the information you need, from the quality of the beer and accommodation, the merriment on offer and even the local etiquette of the day, Ye Olde Good Inn Guide is an invaluable aid to both the pub historian and the drinker who yearn for the lost age of the trusty tavern.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Title Page

Acknowledgements

A very merrie guide …

1. Ye alehouse, tavern or inn?

2. Whom shall thee meet?

3. What shall thee eat and drink?

4. How shall thee be entertained?

5. What shall thee say?

6. Ye county by county guide

London & Middlesex

Bedfordshire

Berkshire

Buckinghamshire

Cambridgeshire

Cheshire

Cornwall

Cumberland

Derbyshire

Devonshire

Dorset

Durham

Essex

Gloucestershire

Hampshire & the Isle of Wight

Herefordshire

Hertfordshire

Huntingdonshire

Kent

Lancashire

Leicestershire and Rutland

Lincolnshire

Norfolk

Northamptonshire

Northumberland

Nottinghamshire

Oxfordshire

Shropshire

Somerset

Staffordshire

Suffolk

Surrey

Sussex

Warwickshire

Westmorland

Wiltshire

Worcestershire

Yorkshire

Scotland

Wales

Appendix 1: A who’s who of Ye Olde Good Inn Guide

Appendix 2: A timeline of events

Bibliography

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people did a lot of ‘hands on’ research to help us put together this Tudor bible to drinking. So we’d like to thank the efforts of Felicity Hebditch in particular, as well as Philippa Moore, Geoffrey Moore, Dr Tom Moore, Dr Claire Nesbitt, Daniel Simister, Jim Addison, Pamela Smith, Jan Hebditch, Richard Hebditch, Peter Spurgeon, Sarah Sarkhel, William Poole, Fiona Poole, Sam Moore, Tamsin Moore, Alex Moore, Laurie Moore, Juliet Stuart, Tricia Hurle, Philip Martin, Amit Ummat, Melissa Watson, Charlie Dalton at Smart Garden Offices.

Disclaimer

In 1599 the truth was a slippery customer. We have endeavoured to make sure that each of the establishments we feature be correctly named and that the events ascribed to them are truthful. We do humbly apologise for any inaccuracies and will be sure to amend them in any future edition of Ye Olde Good Inn Guide. Any similarity to innkeepers, owners and goings on in times which come after this date, must be considered purely coincidental and unintentional.

A VERY MERRIE GUIDE …

They have long been both the scourge and the backbone of Merrie England and in this year of our Lord 1599, ’tis reckoned that there are some 20,000 alehouses, inns and taverns spread across our great nation. Indeed, a growing number of drinking places of all sorts abound. In the city of Canterbury alone the number hath doubled in a mere handful of years while in the town of Taunton, in the county of Somerset, they have risen by a third.

But how does the wary traveller know which of these establishments to seek out and which to avoid like the plague itself? Which of our ancient inns will offer the most comfort? And how can thee tell a bawdy brewhouse of ill repute from a cosy ale-lover’s paradise? This trusty guide be the first of its kind, a handbook of the best watering holes in the country. ’Tis destined as an aid to those who ply the great highways and byways of the land so that they may enjoy the pleasures of our great drinking establishments while remaining secure of both their purse … and their stomach. Covering each county in the land and all the most important towns and cities, we feature the best and oldest establishments, reveal their notable features and tell thee how they can be found. We also give guidance on the differing kinds of hostelry thee will encounter, who thee shall meet and where to find the celebrities of our time. We tell what thee will be able to eat and drink, what forms of entertainment might be provided and even what words and phrases to use.

Our service, it must be observed, comes none too soon. There are now some 4 million souls upon our island and, by our present calculations, one licensed drinking place for every 200 or so of the population. As the number of us English hath increased so hath concern for the laziness and disorder believed to be bred in the baser drinking dens, viewed by many as hotbeds of potential rebellion. The respected Justice William Lambarde of Kent was not far wrong when he recently described alehouses as ‘nurseries of naughtiness’.

Kings and governments have been trying to regulate drinking for many centuries. The alehouse began with the Romans and their wayside tabernae. By Saxon times they had become so popular that by the year 965 King Edgar ordered that they be limited to only one per village and even set out to standardise drinking horns. In 1215 that great document, Magna Carta, set out to establish a standard measure for ‘wine, ale and corn’. Then, in 1267, came the first attempt to set the price of drink in the Assize of Bread and Ale. Ale-conners, still used today, were also appointed by local court leets to assess the quality of the beer and the measures in which ’twas served. Indeed, William Shakespeare’s father, John, was appointed ale-conner in Stratford in the 1550s. The common method for testing the brews may amuse, but ’tis said to be rather effective. Before passing judgement the ale-conner dons a pair of leather breeches, pours some of the beer on a bench or stool and promptly sits in it for some minutes. If their bottoms do not stick to the wood, then the liquor be deemed passable. If the brew be deemed unfit the brewer responsible was likely to be made to drink his own concoction until he be overcome or may simply have it poured over his head.

In Edward III’s time (1327–1377) measures were brought in to stop innkeepers charging too much for their food, ending the great and outrageous cost ‘kept up in all the realm by innkeepers and other retailers of victuals to the great detriment of the people travelling through the realm’. Subsequently, King Henry VIII gave powers for the closing of alehouses if they interfered with local men’s archery practice, though he well understood the importance of beer to his soldiers, taking great breweries on wheels when on campaign with his army abroad. In 1544, whilst on such manoeuvres in Picardy, one of Henry’s military commanders noted that his soldiers had no beer ‘these last ten days’ which be ‘strange for English men to do, with so little grudging’.

’Twas not until the year 1552, in the reign of King Edward VI, that alehouses had to be licensed by local justices of the peace. This act was passed ‘as intolerable hurts and troubles to the common wealth of this realm doth daily grow and increase through such abuses and disorders as are had and used in common alehouses and other houses called tippling-houses’. Though we must note that, to this day, thee do not need a said licence to set up a beer stall at a fair and that those upmarket places, known as inns, do not require such a licence at all, though there are attempts to regulate their numbers. Ensuing measures have given local authorities the power to close or fine any house which steps out of line, and have banned the playing of illegal games like dice and cards and have endeavoured to impose specific drinking hours upon tipplers.

While exceedingly common, drunkenness be also punishable, sometimes by the imbiber being made to parade through the streets wearing a hollow beer barrel known as the ‘drunkards cloak’, sometimes by being put in the stocks or pillory. Thee do not have to be rendered unconscious to feel the full force of the law; be warned that thee can be brought up on a charge for merely wetting thy bed through over indulgence or simply sleeping off the effect of booze somewhere thee shouldn’t. In Manchester, a growing town, persons found drunk shall be ‘punished all nighte in the donngeon and moreover paie presently whene they be released to the constables to be geven to the pore’.

One very sensible edict, recently introduced, instructs that those who make the beer should not also be the ones who make the barrels in which ’tis kept, in a bid to curb dishonesty in the sphere of weights and measures.

Having told all this ’tis fair to say that, in general, efforts to curb and regulate drinking through this, the sixteenth century after our Lord’s birth, have largely failed. Beer be now simply too good and the alehouses, taverns and inns of the land too useful as places of relaxation, commerce, debate and profit to be crushed. There be fierce competition between them and very sizeable fortunes to be made and lost. In fact, during the present dynasty, London brewers have been under obligation to keep on making beer, even if the raw commodities are too costly, as they have oft been of late because of bad harvests. Their business be considered so important to peace and economic life that if they ‘shall at any time sodenly forbere and absteyne from bruynge, wherby the King’s subject should bee destitute or unprovided of drynke’ their property can be requisitioned by Her Majesty.

Given the hardships of the time, the situation described by the writer Philip Stubbes as recently as 1583 in his book, Anatomie of Abuses, be unlikely to alter any time soon. He tells us that:

Every county, city, town, and village and other place hath abundance of ale houses, taverns, inns which are so fraught with malt worms [drunkards] night and day that thee would wonder to see them. Thee shall have them sitting at the wine and good ale all day long, yea, all night too, peradventure a whole week together, so long as any money be left; swilling, gulling and carousing from one to another, till never a one can speak a ready word.

1

YE ALEHOUSE, TAVERN OR INN?

An old drinking ballad …

Who that drynketh well, mych be he the gladder;

Who that drynketh to moch, more be he the madder;

When he goth to his bed, his slepe be the sadder.

At morowe, when he waketh, his brayne be the bradder;

Whan he loketh in his purce, his sorowe be the sadder.

On thy travels around the kingdom thee will find that drinking places break down into three basic sorts – the alehouse, tavern and inn. Which of these thee patronise will largely reflect thy standing in the present social order. In 1577 the government conducted the first ever survey of hostelries, asking local magistrates ‘to inquire what number of inns, taverns and alehouses are in every shire’. This remarkable investigation was primarily undertaken in order to levy a tax which would be used to pay for repairs to Dover harbour, with the intention that each licensee would pay 2 shillings and fourpence. The tax, when finally introduced in 1580, was, we learn, short-lived and difficult to collect. However, while Dover harbour may still be in some state of dilapidation, the survey gives us a wonderful window into the drinking habits of our age. When the reports came in from all over England they suggested that there were upwards of 19,000 establishments in the country. More than eight out of ten were alehouses, one out of ten were inns and no more than 340 were classed as taverns across the whole of England.

The alehouse

On the lowest social rung of our drinking hierarchy be the humble alehouse, kept mostly by poor folk. Once ’twas the alewife, oft a widow, who had fallen on hard times, who was likely to be in charge, brewing her own ale on the premises. Today, in the age of Elizabeth, many more men are in charge of the nation’s hostelries, partly because of the economic difficulties of late. Finding employment isn’t easy, yet making ale and beer be reasonably straightforward and open to almost any person. As Henry Chettle observed as recently as 1592, ‘I came up to London, and fall to be some tapster, hostler, or chamberlaine in an inn. Well, I get mee a wife; with her a little money; when we are married, seeke a house we must; no other occupation have I but to be an ale-draper.’

The alehouse keeper, or tippler, may be the salt of the earth but can also be the swine of the land, for while some are good, honest folk, many will be in league with highway robbers and receive stolen goods. Others will be happy to trade with thee, taking something in kind for the ale they serve. If thee are known to the alehouse keeper he may allow thee to put thy drinks on the slate. Equally, take care to examine thy change for clipped or counterfeit coins.

The ancient sign of an alehouse was a bush on the end of a pole – the ale-stake. This tradition be kept up, though wooden signs are now coming in. These are most oft simple carvings or pictures, without any words, for how many customers can read? In the north of the country a wooden hand on a pole may be the sign that drink can be had.

Inside, the entire property be likely to consist of fewer than five rooms, usually including a parlour for drinking and most probably a fireplace at which to warm thyself. Furniture be for the most part simple: a couple of benches, a few stools, a trestle table, perhaps a pew from a dissolved monastery. Chairs are status symbols and much cherished; any occupant (probably a regular) will most likely use his knife before surrendering it. Windows are unlikely to have glass, more likely wooden shutters, so watch thy purse as hooking them away on a line be common, a practice known as angling. Thee are likely to be served through a hatch or direct to thy table rather than at any sort of bar. Though small, alehouses are oft bustling places which can be selling a weighty 35 gallons of beer every week.

Alehouses have little proper accommodation, though taking in travellers and itinerant workers be encouraged by local authorities who wish to curb the burgeoning number of vagabonds who tramp the streets.

Be advised that thee should not be proud about where thee sleep if thee are allowed to stay. Thee might well end up bedding down with a stranger. Indeed, in 1584 one tippler, Evan ap Rice, was reprimanded for ‘lodging strange men in his bed with him and his wife’. More likely thee will be sleeping on a table, bench or on the rush-strewn floor along with the dog – oft a fearsome beast to keep away thieves. There may be a common privy, running into an even more common ditch. Some tipplers may keep tidy houses but others are very shabby indeed. One alehouse keeper in Cheshire was recently found to be running a house with so many gaps in the walls that ’twas possible to see the inhabitants a-bed through the walls.

As we have seen, the alehouse ought, by law, to be licensed. But nearly half a century on perhaps half are not and many spring up, then close down again as fast. Indeed, many may not be alehouses alone; there be a strong tradition of the blacksmith serving customers a brew while their horses are shod.

The tavern

After the alehouse we come to the tavern, a rare and more upmarket establishment. Since 1533 alehouses have been banned from selling wine, while taverns may serve both wine and ale and offer food. As the writer Robert Copland told us, ‘Wine was not made for every haskard, but beer and ale for every dastard.’ ’Tis the sort of place thee are likely to find William Shakespeare’s rumbustious character Sir John Falstaff, from his recent celebrated play Henry IV. Thee might find a painted bunch of wooden grapes or vine leaves to indicate that the place be a tavern rather than an alehouse. But beware; just because the clientele may be wealthier, the tavern can still be a tawdry, battered old place. One in London was recently told to shut up a window as it looked into a gentleman’s ‘fairest room’.

The selling of wine hath been treated with some suspicion by the upper echelons, who no doubt know how good it be. Edward VI restricted the sale of wine and the number of taverns hath also been strictly limited these past years. In general, only two taverns per town are allowed, apart from in a very few places. In 1553 London was allowed forty, York nine and Bristol six, with Norwich, Chester, Hull, Exeter, Gloucester, Canterbury, Cambridge and Newcastle four each, but a smattering more have been permitted since 1570.

While ale or beer be a daily drink, wine be certainly considered something special and the price be quite strictly controlled. The grapes for wine are rarely grown in England in these times, so wines must be imported, making it an expensive commodity. Those who drink at taverns are oft connoisseurs of its quality. As the scholar Sir Thomas Elyot observed, ‘neither ale or biere is to be compared to wyne’. Taverns frequently have partitions so drinkers can enjoy some privacy but accommodation be scarce – these are places for meeting and showing off.

The inn

At the top end of our drinking scale be the inn. Many were once pilgrims’ hostels – also known as hospices – owned by great monasteries, for the Church was once the biggest brewer in the land. Many churches still make their own ale, but, since their Dissolution in King Henry VIII’s time, most of the aforementioned lodging places have been transformed into secular places for travellers to stay, providing food and drink as well as income for a whole new class of business-minded men who have become rich on the proceeds. The number of inns hath also increased in line with the growth of the merchant class, especially the boom in the wool and cloth trade which requires merchants to travel great distances to markets and to make deals.

Inns can oft be very large indeed, accommodating scores of persons and with stabling for their steeds. Built of stone or sturdy timber, perhaps even with a tiled roof, the inn be, in many small towns, the most important building after the local church and manor house. In architectural style there are generally two sorts: the courtyard inn, perhaps with a gabled front that faces directly on to the street and hath an archway through to the courtyard with galleries on the flanks and stairs leading to the bedchambers; alternatively there may be a large building at the front housing all the accommodation and a yard at the back with stables.

Inside, the decor be much more lavish than in the alehouse or tavern. Thee may find fine glass windows with latticed lead, panelled rooms, great inglenook fireplaces where a whole throng of men may warm themselves, even lavish paintings and murals on the plaster walls and chambers with individual playful names such as the Sun, Moon, Rose or Dolphin. Throughout there may be oak furniture, with perhaps a four-poster bed to lie in and certainly a trunk in which to put thy clothes and belongings. As thee will guess, most inns cater for the most well-to-do travellers, with one observer, William Harrison, noting, in his Description of England, first published in 1577 as part of Holinshed’s Chronicles, that a person who stayed in one ‘may use an inn as his own house’. He tells us that the rooms are well furnished with ‘bedding and tapestry … for beside the linen used at the tables which be commonly washed daily … each comer be sure to lie in clean sheets’. Levinus Lemnius, a doctor from the Low Countries who visited our fair isle recently, remarked on ‘the nosegays finely intermingled with sundry sorts of fragrant flowers in the bedchambers and the privy rooms [which] entirely delighted my senses’.

Beds at inns are indeed likely to be quite comfortable, perhaps even coming with their own damask or linen curtains. In 1578 the authorities in York even ordered that each inn should have at least six comely and honest beds. However, even in the best establishment there be still a risk of being molested by fleas or bedbugs. There be most likely a ‘pysse pot’ but certainly no bath. Thee may be offered a pail of water to wash in but are more likely to be expected to follow the usual practice of cleaning thyself with linen. Bringing thy own tooth-cleaning device be essential. Reading Ye Olde Good Inn Guide late into the night will be difficult as candles, oft shoddily made, will offer the only light.

There may be a central hall for communal eating, or food may be brought to thy room. A meal will cost between 4d and 6d, while lodging thy horse might cost as much as 12d. Thee will get a key for thy chamber and if thee lose anything Harrison tells us that ‘the host be bound by a general custom to restore the damage’. Thee may even be able to retire to a garden full of herbs or indulge in games played on a lawn. Some inns are now divided into separate chambers and rooms, which denote the social background of the patron. Thee will oft find the inn catering to large parties of men sat at long tables with servants attending to their needs.

The grandest inns will have lavish signs. They are usually a carving or painting, perhaps of a boar’s head, swan, star, crown or bull. The queen’s head be a common sign, though she be said to be displeased with some of the likenesses she hath witnessed on her travels through the realm, condemning ‘unskilful and common painters’. Yet some inns have garnered royal patronage. Down the centuries kings and queens have been prepared to stay in them, particularly Queen Elizabeth on some of her stately ‘progresses’ around the kingdom.

Running an inn can be a profitable business and they are oft owned by local lords and men of a better sort. Canterbury innkeepers, for example, are drawn from the top of the local elite. Inns are not only used for accommodation but as meeting places for the whole local community. They are oft used as the venue for courts while trade be, in many parts, moving away from the open market place to the inn.

All inns will have a yard with stabling and oft host packhorse trains transporting goods around the kingdom. In charge of this be the ostler, who will look after thy horse and make sure thy bags are taken to thy chamber. He may not be an honest type, so be careful how much thee tell him about thy belongings and travel plans. Dogs, especially Talbot hunting dogs, are oft a feature, and a hazard, in the yards. This breed hath even given its name to some inns around the land. Be assured that, if need be, thee should be able to hire carts or a new horse and even buy pasture for animals.

Thy travels

In general, travel be either on foot, horse, or waggon, usually pulled by oxen. A goodly second-hand horse will cost thee £1 to £2 to purchase. Thee will be glad to hear that saddles have lately become more comfortable. Very occasionally will thee see a coach, ferrying the well-to-do, though they are uncomfortable as they have no springs. These wealthy types may also be carried on the shoulders of their servants in a ‘litter’. Thee are certainly destined to arrive muddy, perhaps worse, as even town streets are full of potholes and strewn with faeces, as well as the blood from butchers’ stalls and general muck of all manner. Also note that thee should be wary of robbers who lurk near inns at night, hoping to rob the rich; open cellar hatches have done for many a traveller in the largely unlit night-time streets.

Some highways, such as the Great North Road, are well made up and there are a few stone bridges and paved streets in London and the bigger towns. But the country roads are rough, especially in winter, despite new laws stating that men of each parish should spend several days a year working at bettering them. On a steed thee might cover up to 40 miles in a day, though royal messengers can travel up to 100 miles a day using relays of horses kept at certain, specified, inns. Since the time of Henry VIII innkeepers have been given a penny a mile for the horses used for this. On foot there be little chance of making much more than 15 miles a day, though this should be enough to get thee betwixt lodging places.

The countryside be mostly large open fields, with some enclosed. There will be much wasteland too, but not as much woodland as thee might expect as these are being thinned, thanks to the demand of shipbuilding and other trades. If thee need directions thee may have to rely on locals, not always the most trustworthy folk. And, frankly, ’tis worth treating their estimations of distance with a pinch of salt since the statute mile was only introduced in 1593 and its exact measure be almost entirely unknown to the general populace.

Behold! Saxton’s Unique Atlas of England and Wales

Available since 1570, this great atlas by the celebrated cartographer Christopher Saxton for the first time lays out maps of every county in one volume. It shows each of the most important towns and cities of our realm and also the rivers, hills and boundaries which the traveller will encounter. An invaluable aid to those who wish to explore this great nation and which any wise reader will want to own for himself.

2

WHOM SHALL THEE MEET?

Eight kinds of drunkard

The first be ape-drunk, and he leaps and sings and hollows, and danceth for the heavens; the second be lion-drunk, and he flings the pots about the house, calls his hostess whore, breaks the glass windows with his dagger, and be apt to quarrel with any man that speaks to him; the third be swine-drunk, heavy, lumpish and sleepy, and cries for a little more drink and a few more clothes; the fourth be sheep-drunk, wise in his own conceit, when he cannot bring forth a right word; the fifth be maudlin-drunk, when a fellow will weep for kindness in the midst of his ale, and kiss thee, saying By God, captain, I love thee; go thy ways, thou dost not think so oft of me as I do of thee; I would (if it pleased God) I could not love thee so well as I do, and then he puts his finger in his eye, and cries; the sixth be martin-drunk, when a man be drunk, and drinks himself sober ere he stir; the seventh be goat-drunk, when in his drunkenness he hath no mind but on lechery; the eighth be fox-drunk, when he be crafty-drunk, as many of the Dutchmen be, that will never bargain but when they are drunk.

(Thomas Nashe, poet)

Slumming it at the alehouse

A place both of strangers and regulars, the local alehouse be a melting pot of trades and people from all walks of life. Here thee will find labourers, drovers, tinkers, carriers, bakers, hawkers, shipwrights, itinerant weavers, butchers, colliers, shepherds, foreigners, perhaps men at arms or even the local clergyman. In these times there are many beggars tramping the highways and alehouses are also places where such people go to seek work. While rare, ’tis not unknown for a gentleman to enjoy the charms of an alehouse too. The Dover magistrate John Godwin, for instance, be a well-known fan of local tippling houses.

Women may frequent alehouses, but usually only with their husbands or a group of other ladies. They are a particularly popular place for unwedded couples to cavort on fair days and thee may encounter groups enjoying impromptu, illicit marriages, post-church wedding feasts or those who have repaired to the alehouse after a funeral to drink to the memory of the departed. Alehouses can also sometimes play host to unmarried couples, seeking a place where they can enjoy an illicit encounter away from their spouses.

At this point we should advise that alehouses are also the haunt of many a woman who be no better than she ought. Thomas Platter, a visitor to our country from Switzerland, wrote recently that he found ‘great swarms’ of prostitutes at London’s alehouses. Some are employed not only to service thy sexual needs but to draw thee into gambling games where thee may be beguiled of thy purse.

The reviving nature of drink also makes our alehouses convivial places in which drinking each other’s health and, of course, the queen’s, be commonplace. Indeed, there are many drinking customs. Some drinking pots have hoops marked upon them which can be used for drinking games, of which there are many sorts. There also be puzzle jugs where thee must put all thy fingers on the right holes, or the beer shall pour out.

Blaggards abound at alehouses too. One report from Netherbury in Dorset tells that in a row of cottages: ‘in which poore people dwell … they take the liberty to themselves to keep unlicensed alehouses and have divers disorderly meetings where manie stolen goods are consumed to the great griefe and losse of their honest neighbours.’ Note too, in a time when everyone carries a knife it’s important to be wary of getting into fights, which can flare up at any time. This be not helped by the fact that there are many youths; the average age of people in our nation be just 22 years.

Living it up at the tavern or inn

As we have mentioned, moneyed folk are rarely to be found at an alehouse, sticking to the tavern and the inn. Here thee will find royal messengers, servants of the government, constables taking wrongdoers to trial, merchants hawking their wares and perhaps a physician travelling to see a patient. In London thee will meet many lawyers. There may be rich farmers too, taking their produce to the big markets in the towns. There also be every chance that thee may rub shoulders with some people of celebrity too. The playwright William Shakespeare be a lover of taverns and inns – even setting the opening of his recent comedy, The Taming of the Shrew, at an hostelry upon a heath. Among other famous people of our age, who are known to partake of their charms, are the likes of writer Ben Jonson and the great explorer Sir Walter Raleigh.

As well as providing inspiration for creative works and places where new colonies and adventures are planned, inns are more oft venues where trade business deals are hammered out. Beware what thee say, however; they are also the haunt of spies both of foreign and domestic governments. Also be advised that thy horse can be requisitioned at a moment’s notice by a royal official. And while the pilgrims may have gone, since Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the some 600 monasteries and religious houses, senior clergy will be found in the inn though it may be better to avoid the topic of religion; a slip of the tongue can still get thee executed.

If thee are staying in one of the finer inns thee may also, if thee are very lucky indeed, have the opportunity to meet the aristocracy and even royalty. King Henry be known to have used inns, not only on his travels, but for some of his romantic liaisons and Queen Elizabeth be well known for her stately progresses around the kingdom, having visited twenty-five counties to date. She hath slept in some 240 different places during her reign and while she oft stays with local dignitaries, many inns number among her lodging places too. With more than 500 people to feed in her retinue, we imagine local innkeepers are overjoyed to hear of her imminent arrival though also fearful they will not be found up to scratch.

A ruff crowd?

If unsure whether thee will fit in at a particular drinking establishment look at how the customers are dressed. Working folk in the alehouse will typically be clothed in a linen shirt, woollen doublet, loose-fitting tunic or perhaps a leather jerkin with a woollen hat atop their head and either woollen trousers or hose on their legs. Some shall have shoes or boots; others will be shod in wooden clogs. Better off men may also wear breeches above their stockings, a doublet of fine material over their shirt, a felt hat with a feather and perhaps a gown or cape if they be very important. Flashy codpieces, favoured in earlier decades of the century, are now rarely seen. Beards, however, are in trend, as are earrings. Beware that there are laws to stop unworthy types wearing certain garment and cloth. Even if thee are a middling sort, only a lord or lord’s progeny may wear velvet.

For women a linen smock or shift and woollen gown be most common, with posher ladies wearing elaborate hooped skirts called farthingales. Note that if a woman be showing a good deal of cleavage, not uncommon even for the queen, she be likely to be unmarried. Ruffs, for well-to-do folk of both sexes, are seen around the neck, mostly made of linen, but of lace among the very wealthy. Size doth matter – the bigger the ruff, the more important thy drinking or lodging partner be, though if yours be not so big thee can always allow thyself a smirk at the weight of the other’s cleaning bill.

Beware the buboes

At any establishment thee may be shocked at the sight of unfortunate folk who have been the victim of agricultural or archery accidents, which are both common. More troubling are those who are carrying deadly disease. Wherever thee imbibe beware those who perspire too readily. They may have the dreaded sweating sickness, a disease said to take life swiftly. In 1517 it killed half of Oxford’s population. It goes without saying that thee should avoid those who appear to be harbouring buboes in their armpits and swellings elsewhere about their body. The plague be still a regular visitor to these shores and may break out in any given town, at any time.

3

WHAT SHALL THEE EAT AND DRINK?

A little bread shall do me stead,

Much bread I not desire.

No frost nor snow, no wind, I trow,

Can hurt me if I would,

I am so wrapt, and thoroughly lapt

Of jolly good ale and old.

Back and side go bare, go bare,

Both foot and hand go cold;

But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,

Whether it be new or old.

(William Stevenson)

Prithee, will it be ale or beer sire?

‘Ale for an Englishman be a natural drink’, the writer Andrew Boorde exclaimed in the 1540s. Indeed, it hath long been a daily drink for every inhabitant of this land, consumed with every meal. Ale be the general substitute for water, considered a dangerous commodity which be perhaps drawn from a local well at an alehouse or a pump at an inn. Water be considered a better drink for horses than for people. Indeed, Boorde warns us that ’tis ‘not holesome sole by it selfe’.

Made from fermented malted barley and water, ale be sweetish or spicy, thick and fulsome and must be drunk quickly, perhaps as speedily as a few days, for it does not travel well. Happily, in the last hundred years, there hath been a revolution in our drinking habits, thanks to the introduction of hops from the Low Countries, now grown across the southern counties of the kingdom. This new form of bitter-tasting ale be known as beer, from the Old English ‘beor’. Though at first unpopular, and famously banned by King Henry VIII as an evil, ’tis now the fashionable drink of choice. The key difference with ale be that for beer hops are added and boiled with the wort, that magical liquid made from malt. Beer hath the benefit that brews can be kept for longer, thanks to the acids and tannins. Indeed, this hath made it popular with seafaring types because it can last for many weeks. A navy ship must carry some 56 tonnes of beer on an average voyage to keep its crew well oiled.

Barley be the usual grain used for beer, though in some areas where ’tis not available rye and oats be used. The quality of ales and beer can vary greatly. Nottinghamshire ’tis famed for good ales, but Cornish ale does not have such a fine reputation. Andrew Boorde may have been a little harsh when he said that: ‘It wyll make thee to kacke, also to spew, it be like wash that pigs have wrestled in,’ but the lack of good malt in this region may be the culprit.

Heady brews

Beer be oft stronger than ale, which, in recent years, hath caused much worry to the authorities and Puritan folk, especially in the towns, where idleness and troublemaking are oft ascribed to these new brews. In fact, there be now a trend for very strong beers, oft called March or October beers – so named because these months have the best temperatures for good brewing. Some beers come with names that suggest their potency, such as double double, mad dog, dagger ale, huf cap and pharaoh – and they come with a goodly price tag too. Perhaps the strength of these brews account for the fact that people are known to pawn their belongings just to get a draught.

Small beer, made using the malt for a second time, be a weaker, cheaper beer much appreciated by the masses. It be damned by Prince Hal in William Shakespeare’s play Henry IV Part II as a ‘poor creature’ while the rebel Jack Cade in Henry VI, Part II vows to make ‘it felony to drink small beer’.

In his Macbeth, Mister Shakespeare does appear to damn double beer too – which be made by pouring the first brew back through the grain. Watch carefully next time thee frequent a playhouse or admire the travelling players in an inn courtyard. Shakespeare favours ale and sack.

The strength of beer be certainly of concern to today’s royalty. In 1560 Good Queen Bess complained that ‘a kynde of very strong bere calling the same doble doble beer which they do commonly utter and sell at very grate and excessive pryce’. She ordered that it be banned. We fear this edict hath not been greatly observed, though in 1588, fourteen personages were brought before the mayor in St Albans and reprimanded for strong brews, selling them ‘against all good law and order’.

Royal brews

King Henry VIII enjoyed a pot of ale and had his own brewhouse at Eltham Palace in Kent. Queen Elizabeth sups ‘common’ beer, favouring that which be aged one month. In 1593 alone her court washed down 600,000 gallons of the refreshing liquid. But, as we have already mentioned, she frowns upon anything too potent and ’tis said to get very grumpy indeed if her beer be served too strong. Whilst visiting Grafton, Oxfordshire, on her way to Kenilworth Castle, she encountered beer, an observer noted, ‘so strong as there was no man able to drink it … it did put her far out of temper’. Mary, Queen of the Scots, liked her ale too, served with beef, for breakfast.

Of costs and quantities

While costs vary the price of a draught remains relatively cheap, yet ’tis rising thanks to poor harvests. Expect to pay upward of halfpenny for a quart of ale, which be two pints. Beer be usually more expensive. The average daily wage for a labourer be about 2 shillings a week, for a skilled worker it can be 12d a day.

Three or four pints are commonly taken during a session in the alehouse, unless the drinkers are engaged in one of the legendary drinking bouts that have recently become popular. In Coventry we learn that the average consumption be some seventeen pints of ale per week. But ’tis not uncommon for a whole gallon of ale or small beer to be the common daily consumption; ’tis certainly the typical allowance for a servant in a large household and beer forms part of the pay packet of many workers in the land.

There be presently, nowhere in the realm, a Queen’s levy upon ale or beer.

Where thy beer be made

Though beer be transported on waggons to the big cities, most brews thee will come across, especially those in the alehouse, are likely to be made on site or in a nearby brewhouse. However, the advent of beer hath seen brewing become more commercial as it needs more equipment, for the longer heating process. The alewife may now buy her beer and sell it at a premium rather than brew it herself.

Bigger brewing concerns are certainly becoming more common thanks to wily merchants, especially in southern counties. London hath more than twenty large brewers and many smaller ones, the chronicler John Stow tells us that Southwark hath twenty-six. Norwich hath five ale brewers and nine beer brewers. Many brewers have formed trade associations. Indeed, since 1550 the Brewer’s Company of London hath united both ale and beer brewers, which remain distinctly separate, within its ranks.

Much lamented these past years, especially by the poor, are the church ales once brewed by each parish, for they raised much money for alms as well as for the repair of the nation’s churches. Thee may still find them here and there but ’tis felt that ale and the Good Book should see a parting of the ways. Yet the Church complains that the demise of church ale hath left them short of money. One bishop of the land quoth: ‘Some ministers have complained unto me, that they are afraid they shall have no Parish Clerks for want of maintenance for them.’

Thy drinking vessel

In the alehouse beer be likely to be served in jugs from a barrel and thence to an earthenware or wooden pot, which may or may not have a handle. Sometimes it will be hooped to show how much be inside and will typically hold a pint or two. At some establishments drink may be poured from a leather black jack sealed with pitch or thee may even be given, as a novelty, a horn to quaff from. At the better sort of inn thee may be served thy drink in a wooden or pewter tankard, perhaps with a lid to keep out foreign bodies. While at the alehouse thee may even take away thy ale in a bucket to consume in the comfort of thy own home. Whatever the vessel, there be many an argument about short measure. Seek out a quart-pot stamped with an official seal. Beware though that thee may even find thyself partaking in communal drinking supping from one great pot. Of late, even bottled beer be becoming known. Feeling queasy? Ask for an egg yolk to be served in thy beer, a well-known remedy.

Take comfort in a Campion’s: The beer of Queen Bess

Tis time to purchase a barrel of Campion’s and toast the queen. For Henry Campion’s London brewerie be much admired by Her Majestye and made her official supplier. Ditch thee the strange brews made by the foreigner brewers who come lately to this city like Jacob Wittewrongle of Grantham Lane, who, we do attest add obnoxious weeds of all sort to their liquors. Seek out the best at our brewhouse in Hay’s Wharf Lane, where, to gentlemen, a sample of the goods will be provideth.

A drop of wine?

Though English wines have been tried they are not known for their quality – as the chancellor to Henry II observed they had to be drunk with ‘closed eyes and tense jaws’. So, wine be generally imported, and therefore more expensive than beer; it may cost thee dearly, especially away from the capital city. In Norwich in 1587, for instance, a gallon of claret cost a weighty 2s 4d.

The price of the best wines also reflect that, being placed in casks which let the air in, they are difficult to keep, especially given their long journeys from the vineyards in Germany and France and sometimes even further afield in the Mediterranean.

But both red and white wine are available and, sometimes to disguise wine that be going off, it may also be served warm, sugared or spiced with cloves or nutmeg. Spiced wine be oft called hippocras. Sweet wines are thought better than others. Malmsey, a sweet wine, comes from as far away as Crete. Bastard, from Burgundy, be thought of as an excellent red wine. Sack be fortified wine. There are some eighty kinds of wine available and the trade in them be run, in London at least, by the vintners company.

Be careful how much thee take. We recall Sir Thomas Elyot’s warning in The Castle of Health that ‘deep red and sweet wines cause melancholia and are hurtfull to the eyes’. William Turner’s tome, A New Boke of the Natures and Properties of all Wines that are Commonlye used here in England, may now be forty years old, but he hath advice for those with a tendency to gallstones saying that ‘red wines breed the stone more than whyte Rhennish and whyte French wines doe’.

Just as there be the ale-conner, whose duty it be to test the beer, the quality of wine be also closely monitored as are each of the casks to make sure they contain the correct quantity before leaving port for the rest of our land. Who knows, if thee be very lucky, thy wine might even be served in a glass.

On what other drinks may thee sup?

As well as ale, beer and wine thee may, particularly in the west of the kingdom, be served cider or perry. And in some rare establishments, particularly one in Barking, near London and several in Salisbury, thee may want to try a kind of rough ‘aqua vitae’ spirit, oft made from the dregs of ale. In Scotland a similar type of liquid, made from malted grain and known as usquebaugh, be so popular that attempts have been introduced to control the trade. A new strong drink called gin be also becoming known, introduced from the Low Countries. Most of these spirits are used for medicinal purposes.

And so to eat

As we all know, wine and beer increase the appetite, so what shall thee eat? What be not always realised, by humble folk, be that beer be actually an important source of energy for the ordinary Englishman in itself. And in the alehouse other food be scant and meagre; there are sometimes buns doused in ale or perhaps a savoury or sweet pie, but little else. In taverns and inns, however, the food can be sumptuous.

Bread be staple fare. In the north the climate be considered too cold for wheat and rye tends to be used in the bread instead. In the counties of Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Middlesex a cherry tart might be provided; in the Somerset levels a duck may grace the table. In Gloucestershire, Cheshire and Leicestershire the cheese be considered very good. The famous farmer’s lunch of bread, cheese and an onion be not unknown in a better alehouse.