It is to Christianity, or at least to its professors, that the credit belongs of having caused the growth of the grape and the consumption of wine to extend in Germany, and in the neighbouring countries of the West.[181] The holy sacrament necessitated its use, and so we find that the first vineyards of any importance were planted around the great monasteries, such as those in the neighbourhood of Mayence and Würzburg,[182] of which, amongst others, special mention was made about the middle of the ninth century. Beer and mead were, however, the national drinks of the ancient German tribes,[183] and their drinking habits affected their whole character as well as the destinies of their descendants. They held counsel on matters of importance over their potations, and verified the adage which was referred to by Pliny, and has descended to us, that “in wine” (or, with them, in beer) “there is truth.” So there were no diplomats, no Bismarcks nor Gortschakoffs, in that age; the warriors were outspoken and frank in their expressions, hasty and daring in their subsequent undertakings. Drinking to excess soon gained a firm hold upon the whole nation, and took the form of healths and toasts, of drinking for wagers, and pledging strangers and wayfarers. These customs at once stamped the Germans as an hospitable people, and although “guest-friendship,” as it is still called, was a conspicuous characteristic of the Middle Ages all over Europe, it seems to have been pre-eminently the quality of the Germans.