- Caroline Boswell: And there
were different strengths
of drink at this time.
You had small beer, which would
be a weaker beer,
often brewed by pouring
additional hot water
on top of the original mash
from the first brew.
You had middle beer,
which would be, you know,
the first batch of relatively
strong beer.
And then you had strong beer.
And this was really what we
would call high-gravity beer.
And of course, people at the
time drank all three kinds
depending on the time of day
it was.
You probably drank small beer
in the morning,
and then maybe middle
and strong beer
over the course of your day.
And a lot of it depended
on your occupation.
For a long time, historians
assumed that poor people
and especially day laborers,
perhaps farmhands,
drank only small beer,
but in fact,
they often drank strong beer
because,
part of the reason drink was
an everyday necessity
was that it's, as we know,
high in calories, right.
And so, actually,
landowners would fight
for the best farmhands by
offering the strongest beer
because that would actually
be part of your pay.
And this would be, you know,
legendary
or it would be passed down by
rumor that such-and-such a farm,
if you labored there, had the
strongest beer on offer.
And now, people have asked me,
well, how exactly was it
that people were able
to be productive
if they were drinking
particularly strong beer?
And that is a question
that historians have not quite
answered yet.
[audience laughing]
Let's talk a little bit,
something about the name.
Public house, they weren't owned
by the state,
despite the fact they're called
public houses.
They were public houses because
they were open to the public.
Right, and so, therefore,
they had to provide
very specific services
to be licensed.
And that's where the name "pub"
comes from.
It's a short version
of "public house."
They very specifically had
three different types
of drinking establishments.
They had inns, they had taverns,
and they had ale houses.
Inns were large establishments.
Innkeepers were relatively
wealthy.
Sometimes they even participated
in local politics.
And they catered to
a wealthier clientele.
You're not gonna find your dukes
or kings here.
The toffs don't go to where
the ordinary people hang out.
But still, you're gonna be
talking about
relatively wealthy people.
And they're gonna be
attending inns
largely because they need
sustenance, right,
and they need a place to stay.
So inns, in order to be
licensed,
obviously had to offer
accommodations to people.
They had to have stables,
which again,
suggests they're wealthy
clientele
if you can afford a horse.
And, of course, you had
to have food.
But additionally,
what people wanted
was access to private rooms.
Not just to sleep,
but to socialize
because they didn't necessarily
want to mix
with the general population
that might be attending the inn
at any given time.
And so, they very much cater to
a specific, more elite class
and as such they offer
more beverages
than, say, an ale house.
They're gonna offer wine
in addition to beer,
ale, and potentially cider
and perry,
depending on what part of
England you're in.
Taverns, again, catered to
relatively well-to-do,
as they would call them, people
in the early modern period.
They specifically sold wine,
though you could, of course,
purchase beer there as well,
but you went to the tavern
to purchase wine.
And wine was more expensive
in England than beer
because it was not produced
there.
And so, it was again,
wealthier merchants
who would be able
to afford this.
So they're largely going there
to purchase their wine.
And in fact, sometimes
you would go
just to simply purchase it
and take it home, right,
because most people did not make
their own wine.
In fact, the vast majority
of people did not.
Taverns, much like inns,
also had to offer a degree
of accommodations,
though that wasn't their primary
purpose like an inn.
The lowest and most prolific
of all of these
kind of drinking establishments
was the ale house.
Ale houses were far less
permanent structures
than taverns or inns.
Oftentimes, they were simply
someone's house
that had opened up
as an ale house
in part to supplement income.
But they were definitely much
smaller, less affluent places.
Their primary purpose, of
course, was to offer beer.
Originally they offered ale,
but ale had more or less
been replaced,
since ale is unhopped beer
in England.
This is the Medieval image
and you can see
what's going on here,
is this woman,
who is an ale wife,
right, she runs an ale house,
is welcoming her new customer,
who is clearly a monk,
he's quite thirsty,
very happy to see
that she has ale available
for him.
And how does he know this?
Well, at this time, if you were
going to sell ale
and you didn't do it regularly,
the way in which you signaled
the fact
that you had a fresh brew ready
was that you put the ale stake
at the top of your house.
Which in this case is this
broom, so it's an ale stake,
hanging out to signal to
passersby:
"Hey, we're open
for business today.
"Come on in, we've got
a fresh brew."
And this, obviously, is the
precursor to the pub sign,
right, which becomes a more
permanent fixture in the future.
But this was how ale houses
tended to operate
in the Medieval era.
Eventually, they'll become more
permanent structures,
but the illegal ones, kind of in
and out, as you might imagine,
depending on when they were
unearthed
by the local authorities.