The practice seems to have prevailed here as elsewhere of compelling a brewer to put out his sign or ale-stake when he had brewed, as a signal to the local ale-conner that his services were required. In 1402 we find that John Lautroppe was presented to the court “quia brasiavit iij vicibus sub uno signo,” _i.e._, he had brewed three times but had only displayed the legal signal once. The only penalties recorded as being imposed for drunkenness appear to be one in 1618 and one in 1631; but it would hardly be safe to argue that the inhabitants of the district were an exceptionally sober race, for though the manor rolls of Castle Coombe date from 1346, no legislative effort to restrain excess in drinking was made till the reign of James I., and such laws were always highly unpopular, and were very sparingly or not at all enforced.
Tierney, in his _History of Sussex_, gives the following extract from the rolls of Arundel: “John Barbs, Roger Shadyngden, and others, brewers, refuse to sell a gallon of ale for one farthing according to the proclamation of the mayor, and are consequently fined twopence each.” The passage in the _Taming of the Shrew_, in which the servant, seeking to convince Christopher Sly that his former life is nothing but the delusion of a crazy brain, tells him how he would
. . . rail upon the mistress of the house, And say you would present her at the leet, Because she brought stone jugs and no sealed quarts,
shows that this jurisdiction of the manor courts was still in full force in Shakspere’s day. { 109}
Kitchen, in his work on _Courts_ (1663), in writing of courts leet, says:—“Also if tapsters sell by cups and dishes, or measures, sealed or unsealed, is enquirable.” It is noted in Dr. Langbaine’s collections, under January 23, 1617, that John Shurle had a patent from Arthur Lake, Bishop of Bath and Wells and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, for the office of ale-taster (to the University). The office required “that he go to every ale-brewer that day they brew, according to their courses, and taste their ale; for which his ancient fee is one gallon of strong ale, and two gallons of less strong worth a penny.”
In some places the office of ale-conner still survives. The appointment of four ale-conners for the City of London is said to date as far back as the first charter of William the Conqueror. Originally they were elected by the folkesmote, afterwards at the wardmote, and from the time of Henry V. till the present day by the livery. We have before us an extract from a daily paper of the 16th September, 1884, in which is recorded the appointment of an ale-taster for the ancient borough of Christchurch.