Some slight idea of a monastic feast in the thirteenth century may be gathered from the accompanying illustration. The presence of women is significant, and the quaint spit, and the round-bottomed glass which one of the monks holds in his hand and which cannot be set down until empty, are noteworthy.
What a gentleman’s cellar ought to contain is thus described by Alexander Neckam, a twelfth-century writer:—“In promptuario sive in celario,” he writes, “sunt cadi, utres,[28] dolea, ciphi,[29] cophini, . . . vina, scicera, cerevicia, sive celia, mustum, claretum, nectar,[30] medo { 53} sive ydromellum,[31] piretum, vinum rosetum, vinum feretum, vinum falernum, vinum girofilatum.” Some old scribe has noted this work in the same way as the annotator of the _Treatise of Walter de Biblesworth_, and taking up the hints he has given, the passage may be translated:—“In the cellar are barrels, leather bottles or wine skins, tuns, beakers, baskets, . . . wines, cyder, ale, new wine, claret, piment, meed or ydromellum, perry, Mount Rose wine, Falernian, garihofilac, &c. . . .” Not a bad assortment of liquors for an Early Englishman! Our cut, taken from the Roxburghe ballads, represents a well-stocked cellar of the olden times.
[29] Ciphi = anaps, cophini = anapers. On this word anaps, or hanaps, see page 395.
[30] Nectar or Piment was a luscious kind of drink compounded of wine, honey and spices; it was called after the pigmentarii, or apothecaries who prepared it, and was in fact a liqueur.
[31] Ydromellum is explained in the _Ortus_ as _potus ex aqua et melle_, _Anglice mede or growte_ (Growte = wort in an early stage of the brewing). In _Alfric’s Colloquy_, however, it is said to be _beor_, or _mulsum_. The true explanation of this discrepancy seems to be that ydromellum, while properly signifying an inferior sort of mead, was also used by analogy to denote the sweet liquor _wort_.
The requisites of a brewhouse of the fourteenth or fifteenth century are described in a Latin-English Vocabulary of the period:—
Brasiatrix, a brewster (a female brewer). Cima, a kymnelle (a mash tub). Fornax, a furnasse. Alveum, a trogh. Brasium, malte. Barzissa, wortte. Dragium, draf (grains). Calderium, a caldron. Taratantarum, a temse (sieve). Cuvella, a kunlion (small tub). Ydromellum, growte. Mola, a quern (handmill). Pruera, ling (a broom made of ling).