In the seventeenth century there lived an interesting person named John Bigg, better known as the Dinton Hermit, who subsisted chiefly on bread and ale supplied him by his friends. He only begged one thing—leather—with which he patched his shoes in innumerable places. A portrait of him is to be seen in Lipscombe’s _History of Buckinghamshire_. Two leather bottles hang at his girdle, the one for ale, the other for small beer.
Many records are in existence illustrative of the custom of distributing ale for charitable purposes. The following instances are selected from a collection of _Old English Customs and various Bequests and Charities_.
“At Piddle Hinton, Dorsetshire. An ancient custom is for the Rector to give away, on Old Christmas Day, annually, a pound of bread, a pint of ale, and a mince pie to every poor person in the parish. This distribution is regularly made by the Rector to upwards of 300 persons.”
“At Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambridgeshire. Before the enclosure, the tenant of the Abbey Farm in this parish, during those years in which the open field land was under tillage, used to give a slice of cake and a glass of ale to all parishioners who applied for it.”
“At Giggleswick, Yorkshire. By the will of William Clapham (1603) 4s. 4d. was left towards a potation for the poor scholars of the Freeschool there on St. George’s Day; and the custom was formerly to give figs, bread, and ale.”
“At Edgcott, Buckinghamshire. Robert Marcham, Esq., pays the overseers £3 a year, a rent charge upon an acre of land.” This was formerly distributed to the tenants in the shape of two cakes each, and as much beer as they could drink at the time.
“At St. Giles’, Norwich. By the will of John Ballestin, 1584, the { 278} rent from three tenements was to be distributed to the poor in the following manner: viz., that in the week before Christmas, the week before Michaelmas, and the week after Easter, in the Church of St. Giles, the Minister should request the poor people, all that should receive or have need of alms, to come to Church, and pray for the preservation of the Prince, &c.; that the poor should place themselves four and four together, all that should be above the age of eleven years, and that every four of them should have set before them a twopenny wheat loaf, a gallon of best beer, and four pounds of beef and broth.”