Raising toasts, sharing cups of cheer, and singing raucous songs while partaking of alcohol are customs which date back to the early Middle Ages in England. Several of the more formal customs persist today in public and private institutions that cherish traditions. Nowadays, glass dominates when landlords pull a pint, but this was not always so. From Peg tankards to Toby jugs, from tanned leather to pewter, landlords of the past were wont to serve beers and ales in all kinds of ingenious ways, encouraging overconsumption and raising a giggle amongst the revellers.
Toasts & Community
Drinking a toast dates back to antiquity, but the first record of the practice in England dates to a Saxon feast in the mid-5th century. Rowena, the daughter of Hengist, the Saxon chief, raised a toast to the good health of the guest of honour, Vortigern, the British king. Rowena's toast was: Liever Kyning Wass-hael!, meaning "Lord King, your health!" Vortigern must have appreciated the gesture since he later married Rowena.
The Saxon custom was to pass around a common drinking bowl, often called a wassail bowl. The tradition was adopted in England and eventually became a custom associated with Christmas festivities, particularly on New Year's Eve, when the content of the shared bowl was typically ale spiced with nutmeg, some apple added, and with toasted bread floating on the surface. The holiday wassail bowl was not drained at a private party, but carried by young women around the community, door to door. People were expected to give a few coins in return for the drink. The ritual was usually accompanied by singing such songs as:
Wassail, Wassail, Over the town,
Our toast it is white, our ale it is brown,
Our bowl it is made of the maplin tree,
We be good fellows all, I drink to thee.
(Haydon, 12)
Another form of toasting at communal drinking bouts was the pledge. This tradition had its origins in those parts of England taken over by the Danes from the 9th century (the Danelaw). Englishmen were forbidden to drink in the presence of the conquering Danes unless given permission, a faux pas that carried the death penalty. When they were allowed to drink, the Englishmen had to pledge their honour and allegiance to all of the Danes present. From here rose the custom of pledging a fellow drinker. A warrior was supposed to raise his sword in defence while his comrade seated next to him drank, he having both hands on the cup and so unable to defend himself.
Medieval monks were noted (or is that notorious?) for being partial to good wine or beer, and they are the origin of the 'loving cup', a sort of religious alternative to the wassail bowl and called in Latin the poculum charitalis ('cup of charity'). The custom spread outside monasteries, particularly in households where grace was said before a meal; indeed, this may have caught on precisely because guests were allowed to drink as much as they wished from the bowl but only after grace was said, hence the name of the bowl eventually changed to a grace cup. The handing around of the loving cup continues today as a feature of certain traditional ceremonies at universities and public banquets. As with the pledge tradition, two people should stand up together, one to drink and the other to 'protect' the drinker.
Drinking toasts at more formal events, but even in less formal settings attended by those keen on traditions, took on certain formulas or sequences of etiquette. First, the monarch was toasted, then a blessing from God was hoped for in the expression "Weale and worship," and then the good health of those present was wished for. In more formal settings, a person known as the toast-master was nominated to give the toast. The first person to drink from the common cup was the most important person present, and they then passed the cup to the next person on their right.
The contents of these communal cups could be wine (from grapes), beer (brewed with hops), ale (from malted grain), porter (a dark ale), or mead (from honey). Filled to the brim, a piece of toasted bread was floated on the surface, hence the term 'giving a toast'. Each drinker was meant to take the cup or bowl in both of their hands and lightly touch the bread with their lips before they took a sip. When the cup had finally returned to the first and most important drinker, they could drain it and eat the piece of bread.
Cups of Cheer
There have been many more variations in the drinking vessels than in the contents they were filled with. It was a custom of the Anglo-Saxons to knock two cups together before either party drank from them. It was also expected of the drinker that they drain the cup in one go. Here perhaps is the origin of the word 'tumbler' for a tall glass. The Anglo-Saxons drank from a drinking horn, and, although picturesque, these natural vessels could not be set down on the table again without spilling or 'tumbling' their contents. The problem was solved by weighting the base of the drinking horns with lead. So important was the drinking horn to the culture that ornate drinking horns were frequently buried with their former owner.
Bowls known as mazers remained popular drinking vessels. Most drinking cups were made of wood, maple being especially popular in medieval times, as were elm, box, and holly wood. A common alternative material was tanned leather. The hardened leather was used to make bottles with a wooden stopper, black-jacks, and bombards. A black-jack was a tankard that sometimes had a spout in the rim like a jug. The tankard had several layers of leather to make it robust and, for the same reason, had an interior glazed with pitch (a type of resin or tar). This type of tankard lent its name to a type of high leather boot, the 'jack-boot'. The bombard was a very large black-jack and so called because it resembled the huge cannons of that name.
Valuable metal vessels were a sign of a host's general success in life. Tankards made of pewter (a metal alloy, mostly of tin), which typically had a hinged lid, became especially popular in England, introduced from the Netherlands in the late 15th century. Tankards could be inscribed with illustrations such as biblical scenes, people, and animals, or carry lines from drinking songs or religious inscriptions. Multiple handles facilitated the passing around of larger mugs. Peg tankards (originally called pottles) had up to eight small pegs set at regular intervals to measure out the contents and allow the holder to regulate their consumption. This was important since the tankard, which held up to four imperial pints (2.27 litres), was communal, with each person expected to drink the contents one peg down before passing it along. Naturally, many drinkers saw the pegs as a challenge, and so the expression 'to take someone down a peg or two' meant drink more pegs' worth than a rival could manage.
Tygs were multihandled mugs of earthenware. Some tygs had from three to as many as ten handles, and, again, were designed to be passed around a group of drinkers. The etiquette (or challenge) was to drink from a part of the lip nobody else had. In the 18th century, Toby jugs became popular. These were large ceramic mugs in the shape of a elderly seated gentleman, often smoking a pipe, and with the top of his three-cornered hat forming the rim of the mug. The Toby jug was often brightly coloured and the very opposite of the plain 'little brown jug' used to drink ale in more modest inns.
Drinking and merriment have always been mutually dependent. Skilled potters sometimes liked to play a little joke on drinkers by having a life-like toad or other such disagreeable animal set into the bottom of jugs and mugs, only to be revealed when the drinker had emptied the vessel. The potters reached their greatest heights of mystery with puzzle jugs, large mugs or jugs that had concealed holes which would allow the liquid to escape if not held in a particular way.
The small and nowadays silver 'stirrup cup' derives from the tradition that a good host should send their guest home with one final drink, enjoyed while the guest was on their horse and in the stirrup. This tradition was extended to hunting parties and still continues today as a final refreshment before the horse riders set off after their hounds.
Drinking Songs
Song sung in praise of alcohol and hollered while drinking in convivial surroundings are as old as time. In Britain, ale, which was brewed without hops through the Middle Ages, long held the highest position in people's esteem, as this traditional song captures:
All history gathers
From ancient forefathers
That Ale's the true liquor of life;
Men lived long in health
And preserved their wealth
Whilst barley-broth only was rife.Chorus
Sack is but single broth;
Ale is meat, drink, and cloth.Ale is not so costly
Although that the most lie
Too long in the oil of barley,
Yet may they part late
At a reasonable rate,
Though they come in the morning early.
(Hackwood, 332)
Britons still preferred beer and ales to wine and spirits in the early modern period. This preference was often cited as a point of difference regarding foreigners, as this mid-18th century song remarks upon:
Ye true honest Britons who love your own land
Whose sires were so brave, so victorious, so free,
Who always beat France when they took her in hand –
Come join honest Britons in chorus with me.
Let us sing our own treasures, old England's good cheer,
The profits and pleasures of stout British beer;
Your wine-tippling, dram-sipping fellows retreat,
But your beer-drinking Britons can never be beat.The French with their vineyards are meagre and pale,
They drink of the squeezings of half-ripened fruit;
But we, who have hop-yards to mellow our ale,
Are rosy and plump, and have freedom to boot.Should the French dare invade us, thus armed with our poles,
We'll bang their bare ribs, make their lantern jaws ring;
For your beef-eating, beer-drinking Britons are souls
Who will shed their last blood for their country and King.
(ibid, 334-5)
Not just the drink but also the vessel could be worthy of songs of praise, as here where the humble and hard-to-spill leather bottle is lauded not only over tankards but also glassware, the material which today dominates England's bartops:
What say ye, to these glasses fine?
Faith! they shall have no praise of mine;
For if you touch your glass on the brim,
The liquor falls out and leaves none therein,
And though your table-cloth be ever so fine,
There lies your beer, your ale, your wine;
Whereas had it been the leather bottel,
And the stopper been in, it had been well.
So I hope in heaven his soul may dwell.
That first devised the leather bottel.What say ye to these tankards fine?
Faith! they shall have no praise of mine,
For when the master doth send his man
To fill it with liquor as fast as he can,
The bearer thereof then runneth away
And is ne'er heard again for many a day.
Whereas had it been the leather bottel,
And the stopper been in, why all had been well.
So I hope his soul in heaven dwell
That first devised the leather bottel.
(ibid, 335)
