Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and Present Part 13

The great hop county of Kent produced better ale than any other; and the large quant.i.ty of ale found in the cellars of the Kentish gentry, had much to do with fomenting Jack Cade's rebellion, which arose in Kent.

Unhopped ale, having no bitter principle, would easily run into acetous fermentation. And this is the reason why, in old family receipt-books, we find that our great-grandmothers were in the habit of using alegar where, by the cooks of the present day, vinegar is employed.

In modern usage the distinction between _Ale_ and _Beer_ is different in various parts of the country. But originally, the distinction was very clearly marked: _Ale_ being a liquor brewed from _malt_, to be drunk fresh; _Beer_, a liquor brewed from _malt and hops_, intended to keep.

The above distinction is clearly observed in Johnson's _Dictionary_, where _ale_ is defined, "A liquor made by infusing _malt_ in hot water, and then fermenting the liquor:" _Beer_, "Liquor made _from malt and hops_;" "distinguished from ale either by being older or smaller." Ale thus defined answers to the description given by Tacitus of the drink of the ancient Germans. The ancient Spaniards had a somewhat similar drink, called by them _Celia_.

M. Alphonse Esquiros writes of our national drink thus amusingly:--"It was the favourite fluid of the Anglo-Saxons and Danes, whom we have seen descend in turn on Great Britain. Before their conversion to Christianity, they believed that one of the chief felicities the heroes admitted after death into Odin's paradise enjoyed, was to drink long draughts of ale from tall cups. Archaeologians have made learned and laborious researches to recover the history of beer in Great Britain: it will be sufficient for us to say, that in Wales, ale, even small, was formerly regarded as a luxury, and was only seen on the tables of the great. In England, about the middle of the sixteenth century, Harrison a.s.sures us that, when tradesmen and artisans had the good fortune to stumble on a haunch of venison and a gla.s.s of strong ale, they believed themselves as magnificently treated as the lord mayor. At the present day, what a change! Ale and porter flow into the pewter pots of the humblest taverns; rich and poor--the poor more frequently than the rich--refresh themselves with the national beverage, as the Israelites in the Desert slaked their thirst at the water leaping from the rock, to quote a minister of the English Church. This abundance compared with the old penury, rejoices the social economist from a certain point of view, for he sees in it the natural movement of science, trade and agriculture, which in time places within reach of the most numerous cla.s.s articles which, at the outset, were regarded as luxuries. Not only has beer become more available to the working cla.s.ses, but the quality has improved, and at the present day English beer knows no rival on the Continent."

The old compound of roasted apples, ale, and sugar, which our ancestors knew as "Lamb's Wool," is thought to have derived its name as follows:--The words La Mas Ubal are good Irish, signifying the Feast, or day, of the Apple, and, p.r.o.nounced _Lamasool_, soon pa.s.sed into Lamb's Wool. The mixture was drunk on the evening of the above day, which was supposed to be presided over by the guardian angel of fruits and seeds.

A less fanciful etymology points to the above drink being named from its smoothness and softness, resembling the wool of lambs. Herrick sings:

"Now crowne the bowle With gentle lambs-wooll, Add sugar, and nutmegs, and ginger;"

and in an old play we read of this addition: "Lay a crab in the fire to roast for lamb's-wool."

FOOTNOTES:

[51] In the Sandwich and many of the islands of the Pacific, every child has a piece of sugar-cane in its hand; while in our own sugar colonies the negro becomes fat in crop time on the abundant juice of the ripening cane. This mode of using the cane is, no doubt, the most ancient of all, and was well known to the Roman writers. Lucan (book iii. 237) speaks of the eaters of the cane, as "those who drink sweet juice from the tender reed."

[52] It is remarkable, that the first house at which Coffee was first sold in England, the Angel, Oxford, and the first house at which Tea was sold in England, Garraway's, in Change Alley, London, were both taken down in the same year--1866.

[53] _Things not Generally Known._ Second Series.

[54] Harrison's _Description of England_, c. vi.; Holinshed's _Chron._ ii. 171.

[55] Abridged from a paper by Mr. Albert Way, F.S.A.; _Archaeological Journal_, vol. ii. pp. 332-339.

[56] Dogget, the actor, who bequeathed the Coat and Badge, to be rowed for annually on the Thames, was noted for dancing the Ches.h.i.+re Round, as he is represented in his portrait.

IV. Peasant Life.[57]

Few inquiries of social interest better show the progress of the English people than glances at their condition at various periods of their history. Here we may trace the rise of the people from rude forms of civilization, through its various grades, to the blessings of industry and independence, which have so materially contributed to the character of our National Life. Commencing with the substratum of these social changes, we are reminded of the truth of Goldsmith's oft-quoted lines:

"Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroy'd, can never be supplied."

In early times freemen formed a mere section of the people, and the bulk of the English population were in a servile condition. Some of the bondmen were captives, or the children of captives; others had been reduced to servitude by distress, by debts, or crimes; but they were not all of them absolute slaves, for even amongst the convicts there were some who were not slaves, but serfs. Now, in acquiring the use of land, a slave made the first step towards freedom. In this manner a _thrall-bred_ man became _boor-bred_, and although still a bondman--he might hope, by good conduct or by the lord's bounty, to rise to the higher condition of a geneatman, or free farmer, and even to become a freeman, and a freeholder,--to become the absolute owner of his little croft.

In Anglo-Saxon times, the political station of a freeman was determined by his _were_--it was his worth or value; and the _wergyld_ was the fine paid in compensation of his life. The abolition or disuse of this fine was an encouragement of liberty, since it removed the strongest mark of distinction between freemen and non-freemen.

The free or unfree condition of a man descended to his posterity. At the close of the thirteenth century, many peasants in England were still affected by the crimes or the misfortunes of their remote ancestors. By that time there was an end of absolute slavery, and the bondsmen were all serfs, or the children of serfs.

OPERATIVE TENANTS.

Villenage and operative tenancy were almost extinct at the time of the Reformation. The few villeins, or operative tenants, then remaining, were in the occupation of small plots of land, or were, in fact, agricultural labourers, working for wages, rather than tenants _paying their rent in labour_. They were scarcely to be found except upon Church-lands, or upon lands which had lately belonged to the Church.

An operative tenant of five acres usually worked once a week for the lord. We learn from Domesday that bordars were tenants of five acres, and that the bordars under the Castle of Ewias worked once a week: the Saxon cottar held at least five acres, and was accustomed to work for the lord every Monday. This custom prevailed in later times. If a tenant worked for the lord once a week, the working-day was commonly Monday.

The Monday-men at East Brent, in Somerset, had the following customs in the year 1517:--Each of them, by ancient usage, should annually, in forty days selected by the lord's steward, do forty works of summer and winter husbandry, called Monday-works, working and labouring well each day for six whole hours; each of them receiving, while at work, a halfpenny, the sum of which is twenty pence per annum: and each of them who should do eight autumnal works, working well six hours a day as before said, should receive one penny a day. At the same time there were Monday-men at Limpesham in the same county; and they are noticed in earlier rentals at Castle Combe in Wilts.h.i.+re, at Leighton in Huntingdons.h.i.+re, in East Kent, and at Bocking and Hadleigh in the eastern counties.

At Bury St. Edmund's anciently, there were humble servitors called Lancetts, who were bound by their tenure to clean the chambers of the monastery. A tenant of the abbey at c.o.kefield, whose tenure is not called lancettage, was obliged to thatch, to wattle and daub, to do carpenter's work, to collect compost, to clean houses, &c.--but was not required to clean out the lord's _latrines_.

Although villeins were said to hold their land at the will of the lord, their position was not really precarious; they did not hold at the lord's arbitrary will, but at the will of the lord subject to the custom of the manor. While they paid their dues and performed their services, the lord could not molest them; if the lord ejected a sick villein, the villein was emanc.i.p.ated. For trivial offences the villein was amerced, or was at the lord's mercy; that is, was obliged to pay a fine a.s.sessed by a jury who were sworn to spare no one for love or fear, and to punish no one too severely; for disobedience and disloyalty the lord could set his villein in the stocks; if others then came and broke the stocks to let the villein out, the lord could have an action of trespa.s.s: the stocks were chiefly designed for vagrants and unruly servants.

At one time the ties which bound a peasant to his landlord were like those which bound a soldier to his martial chief. Dependence on a lord was thought no degradation, and the state of society made independence impossible. The feudal system was exhausted as soon as the law became strong enough to protect an independent man.

SERVICES OF TILLAGE.

We now proceed to the several services. _Gra.s.s-erth_, or the service of Tillage, was in return for the privilege of feeding cattle in the lord's open pastures. The Saxon boor ploughed two acres, and might be allowed to plough more if he required more pasture.

At Sturminster Newton in Dorsets.h.i.+re, certain tenants came upon the lord's gra.s.s-land on the morrow of St. Martin's Day with as many teams of oxen as they could bring, and they ploughed four acres of the land with each team; they brought seed from the hall to sow the land, and afterwards harrowed it. This service ent.i.tled them to feed their oxen with the lord's oxen, from the time that the meadows were mown until the cattle were housed. The lord might, in the meantime, raise no hedge, and might make no several pasture in the fallow-field, to exclude the cattle of the tenantry.

The Saxon boor, in addition to gra.s.s-erth, ploughed three acres of gafolyrthe: that is, ploughing alone in satisfaction of his gayfol, or rent; as well as three acres of benyrthe, or optional tillage, done as a _boon_ to the lord,--done out of grace and kindness, not in the way of duty.

A large part of the lord's arable land was entirely cultivated by the tenantry. The customary tenants at c.o.kefield, near Bury, ploughed 200 acres; or rather, they ploughed each acre more than once, and their labour was equal to the single tillage of 200 acres.

In large manors, it was the duty of the reeve to ascertain whether a tenant intended to do the service, or chose rather to pay for a subst.i.tute. The reeve had to deal with persons of both s.e.xes, and of all conditions. Some of the contributors of labour were knights, and gentlemen, and ladies of quality; others were independent yeomen, surly farmers, and poor widows. This arrangement was called an _arable precation_. The _gathering of the ploughs_ must have been a remarkable sight. Soon after dawn, on the appointed day the tenants met the lord's officers in the field. Tenants who came without oxen, were employed in delving and in making fences; tenants who came with single oxen or with less than an entire team, were a.s.sociated with others; and thus all the oxen and cart-horses present were sorted in teams of about eight animals. The teams were marshalled by a beadle, who carried his wand of office, not quite a bare symbol of authority, for, we dare say, it was used upon inert husbandmen as well as upon inert oxen. The reeve took care that each team did its full work: that the ploughmen worked as well for the lord as they would work for themselves; and that the teams were not unyoked until the work had been fairly done. The day's work was supposed to be completed at the ninth hour,--three in the afternoon, according to our reckoning. This hour was called high noon, and the meal then taken was called a noonshun or nuncheon. Some of the ploughmen had a meal from the lord, but there was no regular feast; a tenant employed in the lord's service was not usually ent.i.tled to a meal, unless the service kept him occupied an entire day. A boon-harrowing, with horses, succeeded; each horse that harrowed was allowed two or three handfuls of oats. In due time there followed a bedweding, or weeding boon.

There were small services, such as thres.h.i.+ng, thatching, delving, building, and enclosing. A tenant made two perches, or eleven yards, of d.y.k.e. A tenant at Darent, near Rochester, in the thirteenth century, did two perches of enclosure around the court, and seven perches of Racheie around the lord's corn. Then there was the service of enclosing the hall-garth or courtyard. The tenants are still obliged to keep up a stone wall round the site of the manor-house at Brotherton, in Norfolk; the mansion itself disappeared long ago. The fencing of a park was in some places distributed among a number of towns.h.i.+ps, each undertaking to maintain so many rods of paling; this was the custom at Pilton, in Somerset, where there was a deer-park belonging to the Abbot of Glas...o...b..ry. The churchyard at Bradley, in Staffords.h.i.+re, is said to be still enclosed by the paris.h.i.+oners a.s.sociated in this manner,--that is, each person is bound to finish a certain portion of paling. The tenants also made or maintained the lord's sheepfold. Each hyde at Thorpe in Ess.e.x had to make a certain number of rods for the fold out of the lord's wood.

At times, the tenants had to spread composts in the lord's field. They also collected stubble out of the corn-fields, and reeds out of the marsh; reeds and straw were strewn in apartments, and used for thatching or fuel. In many places they were required to gather nuts in the woods for the lord; the nuts were for making oil, and a quarter of nuts answered to a gallon of oil. Nutting was rather a pastime, or holiday task, than a service. The nutting expeditions at Wickham, in Ess.e.x, were to be made on three feast days, which are not named, but Holyrood Day, the 14th of September, may have been one of them:

"This day, they say, is called Holy-Rood Day, And all the youth are now a nutting gone."

_Grim, the Collier of Croydon._

To make malt for the lord was usually the chief service of the poorer tenants in the immediate neighbourhood of a monastery, as at Darent and other places near Rochester, and at Battle; tenants at a distance, instead of making malt, in some places paid a tax called _malt-silver_.

The cottagers carried their lord's malt to the flour mill to be crushed, for they were not allowed to keep hand-mills or mortars, which might be used in grinding corn. The malt might be dried at home, for kilns were common in old houses; but in some manors the lord had a public kiln, which the tenants were bound to make use of.

OLDEN HARVEST.

A _bedrip_, _reaping boon_, or _autumnal precation_, was a more pompous festival than an _arable precation_. In old times, as in our own, the Harvest was made a season of merriment, if not of thanksgiving:

"In tyme of harvest mery it is ynough; The hayward bloweth mery his horn, In eueryche felde ripe is corn."

_Romance of King Alexander._

In the ill.u.s.trations of an old Saxon Calendar, in the Cotton Library, the hayward is shown standing on a hillock, cheering the reapers with his horn. Slumbering reapers were roused by the sound of a horn in Tusser's time; and the custom of blowing horns at harvest-time endured until the end of the last century, for it is noticed by John Scott, of Amwell. In the thirteenth century, when the rentals were mostly compiled, the lord was aided in harvest, as in seed-time, by tenants of all ranks. A superior tenant rarely sent more than two men to the bedrip, or two men and an _overman_, that is a foreman.

The kindly services rendered to the lord in seed-time and harvest were otherwise called precations, gifel-works, and love-boons. The days on which they were rendered used to be called boon-days, and occasionally love-days: a love-day more commonly meant a law-day, a day set apart for a leet or manorial court, a day of final concord and reconciliation; as we read in the _Coventry Mysteries_:

"Now is the love-day mad of us foure fynially Now may we leve in pes as we were wonte."