Medieval Inns, Taverns and Ale houses
*************************************

In the medieval period alehouses were ordinary dwellings where the householder served home-brewed ale 
and beer. If lodging for travellers was offered, this might be no more than bedding on the floor in 
the kitchen, or in a barn. 

This village brewing craft was so widely practised that it hardly belonged to craftsmen. Every village 
not only had its brewers, but had them all up and down the street selling to all who would buy. Many if 
not most of them were women. Ale was as necessary to life in an English medieval village as bread, but 
where flour-grinding and bread-baking were strictly guarded seigneurial monopolies, brewing was 
everywhere freely permitted and freely practised. How the lords came to overlook this active branch 
of industry is a mystery (though they found a way to profit from it by fining the brewers for weak 
ale or faulty measure). Not only barley (etymologically related to beer) but oats and wheat were used, 
along with malt, as principal ingredients. The procedure was to make a batch of ale, display a sign, 
and turn one's house into a temporary Alehouse. Some equipment was needed, principally a large cauldron, 
but this did not prevent poor women from brewing. All twenty-three persons indicted by Elton village 
ale tasters in 1279 were women. Seven were pardoned because they were poor.

Inns by contrast were generally purpose-built to accommodate travellers. They needed more bedrooms 
than the average house and substantial stabling. Some of the earliest known great inns were built by 
monasteries in centres of pilgrimage. Inns appeared in England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
and were apparently fairly common, especially in towns, by the fifteenth century. The earliest buildings 
still standing today, such as New Inn, Gloucester, or King's Head, Aylesbury, date from this time. 

While inns provided lodgings for travellers, taverns were drinking houses seeking to cater for the more 
prosperous levels of society. Taverns sold wine. Since wine was far more expensive than ale or beer, 
taverns catered to richer patrons who could afford it. They were restricted to towns and hugely 
outnumbered by alehouses. The leading tavern's in larger towns were themselves vintners or acted 
as agents for vintners. The Vintner's Company of London, for instance, secured an essential monopoly 
of the retail trade in the city in 1364. A tavern of the later Medieval period might be imagined as 
a fairly substantial building of several rooms and a generous cellar. Taverns had signs to advertise 
their presence to potential customers, and branches and leaves would be hung over the door to give 
notice that wine could be purchased. Some taverns sold wine as their only beverage, and a customer 
could also purchase food brought in from a convenient cook-shop. Taverns seldom offered lodgings or 
very elaborate feasting, such as would be expected at inns. Pastimes like gambling, singing, and 
seeking prostitutes were a more common part of the tavern scene.

Tavern life
***********

The favourite adult recreation of the villagers was undoubtedly drinking. Both men and women gathered 
in the "tavern," usually meaning the house of a neighbour who had recently brewed a batch of ale, cheap 
at the established price of three gallons for a penny. There they passed an evening or three like modern 
villagers visiting the local pub. Accidents, quarrels, and acts of violence sometimes followed a session
of drinking, in the thirteenth century as well as subsequent ones. Some misadventures may be deduced 
from the terse manorial court records. 

The rolls of the royal coroners, reporting fatal accidents, spell out many in graphic detail: In 1276 
in Elstow, Osbert le Wuayl, son of William Cristmasse, coming home at about midnight "Drunk and 
disgustingly over-fed," after an evening in Bedford, fell and struck his head fatally on a stone 
"breaking the whole of his head." 

One man stumbled off his horse riding home from the tavern; another fell into a well in the marketplace 
and drowned; a third, relieving himself in a pond, fell in; still another, carrying a pot of ale down 
the village street, was bitten by a dog, tripped while picking up a stone to throw, and struck his 
head against a wall; a child slipped from her drunken mother's lap into a pan of hot milk on the hearth.

All three drinking establishments, taverns, inns and ale houses, were social centres, but the larger 
inns had more scope for events. The type built with galleries around a courtyard provided an arena 
for plays or cockfights.

In common with other tradesmen of the time, inns, taverns and alehouses advertised their business with 
a sign hanging outside. A pole above the door, garlanded with foliage, signified an alehouse. From the 
14th century inns and taverns hung out a pictorial sign by which they could be identified in this 
illiterate age. In the 16th century many alehouses followed suit. The tradition has continued for 
licensed premises, since they were exempt from the Georgian restrictions on hanging signs. The earliest 
signs used motifs drawn from heraldry, but by Georgian times there was greater variety.

The first Public Houses
***********************

By the mid-18th century larger alehouses were becoming common, while inns beside the major highways 
grew in grandeur and new ones sprang up in this coaching era. The term alehouse was gradually replaced 
by public house during the 18th century. Taverns meanwhile were being replaced by or converted into 
coffee-houses as social centres for the wealthier classes. The first English hotel was built in Exeter 
in 1768, but the term was rare before 1800.

From the 1810s we find purpose-built public houses, starting in London and the larger provincial towns. 
The number of pubs grew with the population. The late Victorian era saw the creation of flamboyant pub 
interiors, notable for their sumptuously decorated mirrors, tiled walls and etched glass.

In 1830 the Beerhouse Act, passed to encourage the sale of beer, brought into being beer retailers who 
kept beer shops, or beer houses; they could only sell beer and cider (as against public houses which 
could also sell wine and spirits). Licence for these could be obtained on demand from the local excise 
office; beer retailers did not have to acquire a licence at the annual Brewster Sessions. The regulations 
were amended in 1834 and 1840 by which date a property qualification was required for new beer retailers 
and parish officers had to provide certificates as to the rateable value of the premises. These Beerhouse 
Acts were repealed in 1869, from which date new beer house licences were issued by the justices. Very 
few areas have licensing records relating to beer shops before 1872. 

With the coming of the railways, a number of hotels were built close to railway stations. Some of the 
grandest were beside the great London terminus's, such as the Midland Grand Hotel (1874), St Pancras 
Station, Euston Road, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878) in the Gothic Revival style.

Coaching inns declined, though some were able to mutate into public houses or hotels, which flourished 
in the later 20th century along with the motor car. So much modernisation has taken place over the 
last half-century that only some 200 pub interiors in Britain survive intact from any earlier era.

So many romantic legends have been woven around inns and pubs that the researcher needs to be especially 
wary. Ghosts, highwaymen, royal connections and tunnels are all popular elements in the mythology that
is designed to draw in trade, and is often just plucked out of the innkeepers imagination. 

Believe nothing that cannot be substantiated from primary sources.


Beer or Ale?
************

In 15th century England by the time of Henry VIII, an unhopped beer would have been known as an ale, 
while the use of hops would make it a beer. However, by the 16th century, "ale" had come to refer to 
any strong beer, and all ales and beers were hopped.

Beer was one of the most common drinks during the Middle Ages. It was consumed daily by all social 
classes in the northern and eastern parts of Europe where grape cultivation was difficult or impossible. 
Since the purity of water could seldom be guaranteed, alcoholic drinks were a popular choice, having 
been boiled as part of the brewing process. Beer also provided a considerable amount of the daily 
calories in the northern regions. In England and the Low Countries, the per capita consumption was 
275-300 litres (60-66 gallons) a year by the Late Middle Ages, and beer was drunk with every meal. 

The use of hops in beer was written of in 822 by a Carolingian Abbot. Flavouring beer with hops was 
known at least since the 9th century, but was only gradually adopted because of difficulties in 
establishing the right proportions of ingredients. This type of production reached England by the 
late 15th century.

English ale and beer brewing were carried out separately, no brewer being allowed to produce both. 
The Brewers Company of London stated "no hops, herbs, or other like thing be put into any ale or 
liquore wherof ale shall be made - but only liquor (water), malt, and yeast." This comment is 
sometimes misquoted as a prohibition on hopped beer.

In Europe, beer largely remained a homemaker's activity, made in the home in medieval times. By the 
14th and 15th centuries, beer making was gradually changing from a family-oriented activity to an 
artisan one, with pubs and monasteries brewing their own beer for mass consumption.

Following significant improvements in the efficiency of the steam engine in 1765, industrialisation 
of beer became a reality. Further innovations in the brewing process came about with the introduction 
of the thermometer in 1760 and hydrometer in 1770, which allowed brewers to increase efficiency and 
attenuation.

Prior to the late 18th century, malt was primarily dried over fires made from wood, charcoal, or straw, 
and after 1600, from coke. Louis Pasteur's 1857 discovery of yeast's role in fermentation led to brewers 
developing methods to prevent the souring of beer by undesirable microorganisms.


Cider
*****

Cider has a long and fascinating history in the UK. Although it had been assumed that cider was first 
introduced after the Norman Conquest, it is now thought to have been here long before that.

Apple trees were growing in the UK well before the Romans came but it was they who introduced organised 
cultivation. It is likely that the wandering peoples, who travelled through the countries which we 
now know as Spain and Northern France, introduced their 'shekar' (a word of Hebrew origin for strong 
drink) to the early Britons.

However, it is true to say that the Normans had the most positive effect on the history of cider making.  
Northern France was renowned for the volume and quality of its orchards and vineyards, as indeed was 
Southern England, but owing to climatic changes these areas became less suitable for the growing of 
grapes. Gradually cider began to replace wine. These combined factors of climate and history established 
the cider producing areas of England as we know them today.

After their conquest of England in 1066, the Normans introduced many changes. The popularity of cider 
grew steadily; new varieties of apples were introduced, and cider began to figure in the tax records.

It became the drink of the people, and production spread rapidly. By 1300, there were references to 
cider production in the counties now known as Buckinghamshire, Devonshire, Essex, Gloucestershire, 
Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Kent, Norfolk, Somerset, Suffolk, Surrey and Sussex and in most other 
counties as far north as Yorkshire.

Cider's heyday was the 17th and 18th century, where it became the most common drink overtaking ale. 
It was drunk by all sections of society from the labourer to the Royals, the latter enjoying the posh 
bottled keeved variety (naturally sweet sparkling cider) production methods.

Cider was produced in substantial quantities on farms; every farm would have a few cider apple trees 
as well as cooking and dessert apple trees in the orchard, and it became customary in the 18th Century 
to pay part of a farm labourer's wage in cider. A typical allowance on a farm would be 3 to 4 pints 
per day. Labourers were rated by the amount they drank; one comment was that a 2 gallon a day man was 
worth the extra he drank... 

The best farmer's cider could attract the cream of the labourers, conversely a farmer with ropey cider 
would have to pay more wages or have to buy in a better cider. In the western counties of England in 
particular, a farm worker could receive perhaps one-fifth of his wage in cider. 

In the latter part of the 19th Century, a campaign to stop payment in the form of alcoholic beverages 
brought about the addition of a clause to the Truck Act of 1887 which prohibited the payment of wages 
in this way.


Not forgetting London Gin
*************************

Binge drinking isn't anything new. The Gin Craze that swept 18th century London spawned as many social 
problems and fuelled as much public outcry as anything we read about in the papers today. In over-crowded, 
slum-ridden Georgian London, gin was the opium of the people. Gin in the 18th century was produced in 
pot stills, and was somewhat sweeter than the gin known today. For a few pennies, London's poor found 
entertainment and escapism from cold and hunger at the bottom of a glass. In 1730, around 10 million 
gallons of gin were being distilled in the Capital each year and sold from 7,000 dram shops. As brewers 
tried to protect their trade, the number of ale-houses also multiplied. By 1740 more than 15,000 of 
the 96,000 houses in the capital sold drink, about 9,000 were gin-shops.

The dominance of gin didn’t preclude other alcoholic beverages from being consumed in London’s gin 
palaces – brandy and rum were available and beer and porter would be cheaper there than at a tavern, 
if the customer brought their own jug in with them. But dropping in for a quick ‘flash of lightning’, 
as a serving of gin was referred to, was a popular precursor to a night at the theatre or to prepare 
workers for their evening journey home. Many of London’s gin palaces were centrally located in 
Bloomsbury or Covent Garden; in outlying, less well-to-do areas of the city smaller gin shops served 
local communities. 

In 1740 it's estimated that the average Londoner drank a staggering 14 gallons of gin a year.

Gin emerged in England in varying forms as of the early 17th century, and at the time of the Restoration, 
enjoyed a brief resurgence. Invented in Holland, gin only became popular in England when Dutch-born 
William of Orange took the English throne in 1688. By the end of the century, we were at war with France. 
So, to protect our economy and help the war effort, the government put a heavy duty on the import of 
spirits and lifted restrictions on domestic spirit production. In doing so, they created a healthy 
market for poor quality grain - which could only benefit the many landowners who sat in Parliament. 
The resulting trade also created a rich source of tax revenue.

The effects were devastating. Gin was blamed for misery, rising crime, prostitution, madness, higher 
death rates and falling birth rates. The vice-chamberlain Lord Hervey remarked that, "Drunkenness of 
the common people was universal, the whole town of London swarmed with drunken people from morning 
till night."

In one notorious case of 1734, a woman named Judith Dufour collected her two-year-old child from the 
workhouse, strangled him, dumped the body in a ditch and sold the child's new set of clothes for 1s 
and 4d to buy gin. In 1735, a commission of Middlesex justices reported: "Unhappy mothers habituate 
themselves to these distilled liquors, whose children are born weak and sickly, and often look 
shrivel'd and old, as though they numbered many years. Others again give it to their children... 
and learn them even before they can go to taste and approve this certain destroyer.

As public outcry grew, the government was forced to take action. The 1736 Gin Act taxed retail sales 
at 20 shillings a gallon and made selling gin without a £50 annual licence illegal. This legislation
led to riots in the streets and the gin trade simply went underground. In the next seven years, only 
two licences were taken out. Whereas reputable sellers were put out of business, much gin was now 
distilled illegally in residential houses (there were estimated to be 1,500 residential stills in 1726), 
and the bootleggers thrived. Their gin, which went by colourful names such as 'Ladies Delight',
'Knock me down' and 'Cuckold's Comfort', was more likely to be flavoured with turpentine than juniper.
At best it was watered down, at worst, it was poisonous, containing horrifying ingredients such as 
sulphuric acid.

The prohibitive duty was gradually reduced and finally abolished in 1742. 

In 1751, artist William Hogarth published his famous satirical print 'Gin Lane', which depicted such 
disturbing scenes as a gin-crazed mother, covered in syphilitic sores, unwittingly dropping her baby 
to its death down some cellar stairs while she takes a pinch of snuff. Aided by powerful propaganda 
such as this, the 1751 Gin Act was passed. This Act was more successful. It forced distillers to sell 
only to licensed retailers and brought gin shops under the jurisdiction of local magistrates. 

A change in the economy also helped turn the tide. A series of bad harvests forced grain prices up, 
making landowners less dependent on income from gin production. They also forced food prices up and 
wages down, so the poor were less able to afford their drug of choice. 

By 1757, the Gin Craze was all but dead. Long live beer!


Alcohol Licensing
*****************

1872
The Intoxicating Liquor (Licensing) Bill of 1872 first introduced restrictions on opening hours and 
was universally reviled. 800,000 people petitioned against the Bill. The Bill was eventually passed and 
became known as the Aberdare Act. The Act sought to put an end to gin-palace-type premises and was 
designed to make life difficult for landlords.

1914 - 1918
Licensing changes introduced. In August 1914 powers to close public houses and to restrict pub opening 
hours were given to military and naval authorities. This power was extended to civil authorities shortly 
afterwards.

1914 
Evening closing time in London became 10.00pm instead of 12.30am.

1915
Opening hours were reduced from 16-17 hours (19.5 hours in London) to 5.5 hours and evening closing 
was 9-9.30pm.

1916 
The Government, via the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic), took over the four breweries in 
Carlisle as well as 235 pubs in the Carlisle, Gretna and Annan area. The next year pubs in the Enfield 
Lock area of London and Invergordon in Scotland were taken over. In all these areas there were worries 
that the effectiveness of the munitions factories were being endangered by drunkenness amongst the 
workers.

The State Management System, as it was called, banned Sunday drinking, the consumption of spirits on 
a Saturday and the use of spirit chasers. Food, soft drinks and facilities for women were introduced 
to pubs. There was even a call for the Nationalisation of the brewing industry and pubs.

1921
The 1921 Licensing Act transferred the assets of the Control Board to The Home Office and The Scottish 
Office. The State Management system carried on until it was abolished by Harold Wilson in the 1970s. 
The 1921 Act also set opening hours at 8-9 hours a day, with afternoon closing. And 5 hours on a Sunday.

The 1964 Licensing Act replaced the 1921 Licensing Act and other subsequent amendments. Since 1964 
there have been at least a dozen separate Acts and Deregulation Orders making certain amendments and 
adjustments to licensing law. These include all day opening on weekdays (1988); all day opening on 
Sundays (1995) and recent New Years Eve Orders.

The 1964 Act runs to 155 pages; 204 sections and 15 schedules. It includes regulations for seamen's 
canteens, licences in the Carlisle district and Sunday closing in Wales and Monmouth.




Sources:
Compton Reeves, "Pleasures and Pastimes in Medieval England"
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)
Frances & Joseph Gies, "Life in a Medieval Village"
(New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990)
CAMRA
www.umich.edu
Steve Bulman
www.buildinghistory.org
www.cambridge-camra.org.uk
cideruk.com
www.artble.com
en.Wikipedia.org
www.history.co.uk
pompeycider.com