[43] “Liquor” had then, and also at a far earlier date, the same technical sense as it now has, and meant water. Turning now from the ingredients used in brewing to the actual brewers, it will not surprise any one who has read the chapter immediately preceding the present one, to be informed that in early times a great part of the brewing trade was in the hands of the gentler sex. Alreck, King of Hordoland, is said to have chosen Geirhild for his queen, in consequence of her proficiency in this necessary art, and what was not derogatory to the dignity of a queen might of course be performed by a subject. Accordingly, as has been already shown, even as late as the seventeenth century the brewing of ale and beer for the household was looked upon as belonging to the special province of the housewife and her female servants. Anciently the same custom prevailed in regard to the brewing of ale for sale, and the brewsters or ale-wives had at one time a great part of the trade, both in the country and the city. Mr. Riley, in his preface to the _Liber Albus_, goes so far as to say that even down to the close of the fifteenth century, if not later, the London brewing trade was almost entirely in the hands of women, and he states that Fleet Street was at that time nearly wholly tenanted by ale-wives and felt-cap makers. With all respect for Mr. Riley’s intimate knowledge of the ancient lore connected with London Town, it must be said that this view seems to be incorrect, for in a list of the London Brewers, made in the reign of Henry V., and still existing in the City Records, out of about three hundred names, only fifteen are those of women. {125} The ale-wives of Fleet Street were probably not brewers, but hucksters or retailers. The first ale-wife deserving of special mention is the Chester “tapstere,” whose evil doings and fate are recorded in one of the Chester Misteries, or Miracle Plays, of the fourteenth century. The good folk of Chester seem to have had a peculiar dislike to being subjected to the tricks of dishonest brewers and taverners. Even in Saxon times it was a regulation of the City that one who brewed bad ale should be placed on a cucking-stool and plunged in a pool of muddy water. For the ale-wife of the old play a worse fate was reserved, and though she was a fictitious person, many of the audience would no doubt find little difficulty in fitting some of their acquaintances with the character depicted. With that mixture of the sacred and profane which to a modern ear is, to say the least, somewhat startling, the Mystery in question describes the descent of Christ into Hell and the final redemption of all men out of purgatory—all, save one. A criminal remains whose sins are of so deep a dye that she may not be forgiven. She thus confesses her guilt:—