Although we will endeavour, for the sake of convenience, to divide the story of drink in England into something like epochs, the distinction between any two periods must by no means be considered arbitrary. The conquering Danes are said to have stimulated and intensified the passion for drink in the Anglo-Saxons, and those again, it is maintained by some writers, corrupted and debauched the Normans when they settled in England. So, again, modern writers amongst the Roman Catholic clergy declare that the Reformation deprived the Church of her due influence over the social habits of the people, and that drunkenness as a national vice increased materially after that event,[211] whereas numerous authors, both Protestant and Catholic, have drawn vivid pictures of the debaucheries practised by the monks themselves, and more than one eminent writer goes so far as to say that the whole tenor of mediæval popular and historical literature shows the clergy to have been the great corruptors of domestic virtue both in the burgher and agricultural classes.[212] It is quite possible, therefore, that one class of society may have indulged immoderately whilst another order was comparatively sober; and all we shall attempt to do will be to glance down the pages of history, and note any phases of our subject which we deem likely to interest the reader, and which bear upon our general conclusions. There can be little doubt that, in the matter of drink, the Anglo-Saxons resembled their congeners abroad, and that intemperance was one of their conspicuous vices. Their drinks were chiefly ale and mead, the latter being prepared from honey, which was very plentiful in England. They took their potations from horns and cups of various shapes, some of which are still preserved, and make considerable pretensions to art. That drinking was common in monasteries is shown by the fact that cups of various materials, and some of very large size, were often bestowed upon or left to religious houses by princes and nobles. Amongst many other instances of this, Lady Ethelgiva is said to have presented to the Abbey of Ramsey, among other things, “two silver cups for the use of the brethren in the refectory, in order that while drink is served in them to the brethren at their repast, my memory may be more firmly imprinted on their hearts.”[213] Nor need there be any doubt of the use to which such cups were often put. A Roman Catholic writer on temperance, whom we shall often have occasion to quote, and who is not at all disposed to exaggerate the vices of the priesthood, gives anything but a flattering picture of the habits of the Anglo-Saxon clergy.