The Curiosities of Ale & Beer: An Entertaining History: (Illustrated with over Fifty Quaint Cuts)Bickerdyke, John
History
The Curiosities of Ale & Beer: An Entertaining History: (Illustrated with over Fifty Quaint Cuts)
Bickerdyke, John
Drinking customs; Drinking songs
Complaints of short measure were still common, and as it is shown that
the barrels were delivered to customers without being properly filled,
so that “thynhabitants of the City paye for more ale and bere than
they doo receive, which is agenst alle good reason and conscience,”
therefore the brewers were ordered to take round “filling ale” to fill
up their customers’ casks.
In the eighteenth year of Henry VIII. a striking instance of the
insubordination of the Brewers is recorded. The four Wardens of the
Company were ordered to produce their books of fines, “the whiche
to doo they utterly denyed.” Therefore the four Wardens and their
Clerk, Lawrence Anworth, “were comytted to the prisn of Newgate ther
to remayne.” This seems to have awakened the Wardens to a sense of
their duties, for on the same day they brought in “ij. boks inclosed
in a whytte bagge.” A committee was appointed to inspect the same,
“forasmuche as it is thought that mayne unreasonable fynes and other
ordynannces be conteyned in theym.”
It has been already mentioned (p. 68) that from the time of Henry VI.
beer had begun slowly to displace the old English ale. The Beer-brewers
had gathered themselves together into a “fellowship” for the protection
of their interests, and were quite distinct from the Ale-brewers,
who composed the Brewers’ Company. Whatever may have been the case
earlier, in the reign of Henry VIII. the Beer-brewers numbered in their
fellowship a certain proportion of Dutchmen. In the twenty-first year
of that reign it was ordained that “no maner Berebruer, _Ducheman or
other_, selling any bere shall, etc.” “Also that no maner of berebruer
_Englise_ or _straunger_, shall have and kepe in his house above the
nomber of two Coblers to amende their vessells.” Constant reference
is made to the Beer-brewers as being a fellowship separate from the
Ale-brewers until the reign of Edward VI., by which {144} time they
had united, apparently without obtaining the sanction of any authority
to the change. In the fifth year of that reign a resolution was passed
by the Court of Common Council that, “forasmoche as the beare-bruers
in the last commen counseyll here holden most dysobedyentlye,
stubborenelye, and arrogantlye behaved theymselfes toward this
honourable Courte,” the whole craft of the Beer-brewers are for ever
disqualified from being elected to serve upon the Common Council; if,
however, the Beer-brewers make humble submission, they may be restored
to their old status, “if your lordship and the wysdomes of this Citee
shall then thynke it mete.” And forasmuch as “most evydently yt hathe
apperyd that this notable stobernes of the beare-bruers hath rysen by
the counseyll and provocatioun of the ale-bruers, which have unyted
to theym all the beare-bruers,” it is ordered that for the future the
two crafts shall not unite, nor shall the Ale-brewers compel any one
to come into their Company. This state of things continued till the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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