Nineteen Centuries of Drink in England: A HistoryFrench, Richard Valpy
History
Nineteen Centuries of Drink in England: A History
French, Richard Valpy
Drinking customs -- England; Drinking of alcoholic beverages -- Great Britain; England -- Social life and customs
A good idea of the proportionate consumption of meats and drinks can be
obtained from the sales and gifts of provisions to the monasteries. For
instance, as has been already alluded to, we find from the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle that in the year 852, Ceolred, Abbot of Medeshamstede
(Peterborough), and the monks let to Wulfred the land of Sempringham,
on the condition that, after his decease, the land should return to
the minster, and that Wulfred should give the land of Sleaford to
Medeshamstede, and each year should deliver into the minster sixty
loads of wood, twelve of coal, six of faggots, and two tuns full of
pure ale, and two beasts fit for slaughter, and six hundred loaves, and
ten measures of Welsh ale.
But the regulations of the various monasteries widely differed, as did
the regulations of each monastery at different periods. It would appear
that at one time the use of wine was prohibited in the monastic houses;
thus, in the year 738, wine was _permitted_ to the monks of England by
a decree of Bishop Aidan, founder of Lindisfarne monastery. Sometimes
a large allowance was granted; thus Ethelwold allowed his monastery a
great bowl from which the _obbæ_ of the monks were filled twice a day
for their dinner and supper. On their festivals he allowed them at
dinner a sextarium of mead between six of the brethren, the same at
supper between twelve of them. On certain great feasts he gave them a
measure of wine.
It will be necessary when dealing with the times of King Edgar to
advert at some length to Benedictine Monachism, so we may postpone for
the present an estimate of conventual morality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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