Tag: alcohol

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Distilling Tradition: Anglo-Saxon Botany and the Beginning of Gin

Since moving to England, I’ve become very fond of gin, and the medievalist in me was thrilled when I was recently gifted a bottle of Ad Gefrin Distillery’s Thirlings Dry Gin. The gin is inspired by Northumbria’s Anglo-Saxon roots, what Ad Gefrin describes as “a time of welcome, celebration, and hospitality,” and it has been crafted with “a Northumbrian heart and Anglo-Saxon soul.”[1]  

The gin is gorgeous, both in its presentation and its finish. The bottle itself embodies the location’s Anglo-Saxon heritage: “Far from just being a vessel for the spirit, the bottle tells its own authentic story. The stepped punt reflects the 7th Century wooden Grandstand discovered on the ancient site and the holes/dimples in the glass represent the post holes which identified where the royal complex of buildings were and enabled archaeologists to calculate their size and height.”[2] Its botanical profile is comprised of “flavours inspired by Northumberland, heather and pine from the Cheviot hills, elderberry and dill from the hedgerows, and Irish moss and sea buckthorn from the coast.”[3] But the base of all gins, of course, is juniper.

In addition to its distillery that produces both gin and whisky, Ad Gefrin offers an impressive collection of Anglo-Saxon artefacts and an immersive experience of Northumberland’s Golden Age, including the richness and hospitality of the medieval hall. Photo courtesy of Ad Gefrin.

Juniper, a type of coniferous evergreen, is native to various parts of the northern hemisphere. There are approximately 30 species, but the common European species, Juniperus communis, is described as “a hardy spreading shrub or low tree, having awl-shaped prickly leaves and bluish-black or purple berries, with a pungent taste.”[4] These berries form the base of gin’s distinctive botanical flavor, which the Craft Gin Club aptly describes as “[r]esinous, piney and fresh on the palate and nose.”[5]

Juniper berries begin green but adopt a deeper blue to purple-black color as they mature. Common juniper is native to most of the northern hemisphere, including the United Kingdom. According to the Woodland Trust, the plant “thrives on chalk lowland, moorland, in rocky areas and old native-pine woodland” and functions as a source of food and shelter for a variety of birds.

The Anglo-Saxons recognized juniper primarily for its medicinal properties. Its Old English name was cwic-beam, which literally translates to “life-tree.”[6] In the Old English Herbarium, a popular medieval treatise dedicated to the identification and application of plants, juniper is listed as sabine or savine in accordance with its Latin name, Juniperus sabina. As a compilation and translation of originally separate Latin treatises, the Herbarium employs Latin alongside English, much in the same way modern medical textbooks maintain Latin terminology for conditions that are then described in English.

The treatise indicates that juniper can be used to treat “painful joints and foot swelling,” “headache,” and “carbuncles.”[7] In the first instance, the treatise advises that the plant be concocted into a drink; the entry reads: “For the king’s disease, which is called aurignem in Latin and means painful joints and foot swelling in our language, take this plant, which is called sabinam, and by another name like it, savine, give it to drink with honey. It will relieve the pain. It does the same thing mixed with wine.”[8] Here, the king’s disease – in Old English, “wiþ þa cynelican adle”– likely refers to jaundice related to gout.[9] For the treatment of headache, the plant was to be mixed into a kind of poultice and applied to the head and temples.[10] In the case of carbuncles, which refer to a cluster of boils, the plant would be made into a honey-based salve and applied to the infected area.[11]    

Entries for chamomile and heart clover in the only surviving illustrated Old English herbal, a book that primarily describes plants and their applications. As the British Library notes, “Remedies for poisonous bites were marked out with drawings of snakes and scorpions.” The manuscript, produced in England and dated 1000-1025, also contains information on animals and their medicinal properties, though not all of its contents are reliable. (British Library, Cotton MS Vitellius C III, f. 29v).

While juniper was available to the Anglo-Saxons, even in drinking form, distilling was not. In fact, distilled liquors were virtually unknown in medieval England.[12] Rather than spirits, the early medieval English drank beer and mead.

According to John Burnett, “Beer was probably the first drink deliberately made by man.”[13] In his book, Liquid Pleasures: A Social History of Drinks in Modern Britain, Burnett explains that beer brewed from fermented barley has been recorded as far back as the third millennium B.C. in the Bronze Age civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and beer production became common across Europe during the Celtic Iron Age.[14] In its earliest use, the Old English beor, “beer,” likely referred to any type of alcohol produced through fermentation, though it appears have been distinct from the less frequently used ealu, “ale.”[15] Beor may have referred to drinks brewed from malt, while ealu may have been a sweeter and stronger drink.[16] These terms may also have been used interchangeably until hops were introduced much later in the medieval period.[17]

The introduction of hops to the brewing process distinguished ale from beer; it also displaced women as the primary producers of the beverage. As A. Lynn Martin explains, “In England ale brewing was a domestic industry dominated by alewives. Their brew was usually sweet, sometimes flavored with herbs and spices, and spoiled if not consumed within several days. The addition of hops created a bitter drink that was stronger and lasted longer than ale.”[18]

Mead, however, was the predominant drink of the Anglo-Saxons and was made by fermenting a mixture of honey and water. The Old English word for “mead” is the same for “meadow”: medu, effectively evoking the beverage’s connection to the flowers and bees essential for the production of honey and, in turn, mead. The plant now known as meadowsweet, or medu-wyrt in Old English, was also sometimes used to flavor the drink.[19]

Additionally, the Anglo-Saxon hall was commonly called the medu-hall, or “mead hall,” indicating not only a primary attribute of the hall but also the centrality of the drink to Anglo-Saxon culture. The hall was an integral part of early medieval English society and functioned as a space for social and political discourse, as well as communal gatherings and feasting celebrations. Indeed, the speaker of the Old English elegy known as The Seafarer describes his loneliness in relation to the absent sounds of the hall, which function as a synecdoche for the communal bonds he craves: “A seagull singing instead of men laughing, / A mew’s music instead of meadhall drinking.”[20]  

Dated to the 5th century, this glass Anglo-Saxon drinking vessel, known as the Castle Eden Claw Beaker, was found at Castle Eden in Durham, England. The object is currently on display at Ad Gefrin’s Wooler Museum, on loan from the British Museum, and returned to the North East after more than 30 years. Photo credit Sally Ann Norman, courtesy of Ad Gefrin.

Because honey was used for a variety of purposes, including the making of both mead and medicine, beekeeping was also an important part of Anglo-Saxon society. In fact, sugar was not produced in medieval England, so honey was the primary sweetener, which is why it appears so frequently in culinary and medical recipes alike. The Old English “Charm for a Swarm of Bees,” a metrical incantation, serves as evidence of honey’s necessity. Essentially, the charm is a magic spell meant to entice a swarm of bees to a keeper and encourage them to remain:  

Charm for a Swarm of Bees

For a swarm of bees, take earth and throw it down with your right
hand under your right foot, saying:

I catch it under foot—under foot I find it.
Look! Earth has power over all creatures,
Over grudges, over malice, over evil rites,
Over even the mighty, slanderous tongue of man.

Afterwards as they swarm, throw earth over them, saying:

Settle down, little victory-women, down on earth—
Stay home, never fly wild to the woods.
Be wise and mindful of my benefit,
As every man remembers his hearth and home,
His life and land, his meat and drink.[21]

Eventually, mead went by the wayside, and wine became the more popular drink near the end of the Anglo-Saxon period – at least among the wealthy. As Burnett points out, while the consumption of wine was relatively high throughout the Middle Ages, “it never rivalled beer as the drink of the masses.”[22] 

By the 16th century, distilled drinks were “beginning to be served together with sweetmeats at the end of banquets as pleasurable, stimulating aids to digestion.”[23] Distillation describes the process of heating a liquid into a vapor, which is then condensed into a pure essence, and the procedure may have been known to the Chinese as early as 1,000 B.C.[24] Burnett explains that the “the requisite knowledge was brought to the West either by the Cathars or by returning Crusaders, who had seen distillation practised by Arab alchemists. A coded recipe for ‘aqua ardens’ appeared in a French monastic tract about 1190 alongside one for artificial gold, and through the medieval world spirits were regarded as mysterious, even magical, substances, used only medicinally for their stimulating, reviving qualities.”[25]

He continues: “English records of ‘aqua vitae’ distilled from wine appear in the fourteenth century, when it was made by monks and apothecaries, and became more widely known during the Black Death (1348-9) as a warming prophylactic. Spirits were also redistilled with herbs and flowers from the physic gardens of monasteries to make a variety of liqueurs with therapeutic properties, while in private households spirit-based ‘cordials’ were recommended for the treatment of palsey, the plague, smallpox, apoplexy, ague and other diseases.”[26]

Gin, from the Dutch genever, or “juniper,” because it was distilled with the plant’s berries, started being imported into England from the Netherlands during the late 16th century. The original product was “a highly flavoured, aromatic drink” that is still produced in the Netherlands and typically enjoyed neat.[27] By the mid-18th century, however, England had begun producing its own version in London, which was “less coarse and more subtly flavoured.”[28] By this time, spirits were being consumed largely for pleasurable, rather than medicinal, purposes.

While gin and distillation were not known to the Anglo-Saxons, juniper certainly was, and in this way, the spirit’s botanical roots are intertwined with medieval English history.

Emily McLemore, Ph.D.
Alumni Contributor, Department of English
Lecturer, Bishop Grosseteste University (U.K.)

[1] Ad Gefrin, https://adgefrin.co.uk/spirits/gin. Special thanks to Chris Ferguson and Claire Byers from Ad Gefrin for supplying additional information and wonderful photos.

[2] Ad Gefrin, https://adgefrin.co.uk/spirits/gin.

[3] Ad Gefrin, https://adgefrin.co.uk/spirits/gin.

[4] “juniper,” Oxford English Dictionary.

[5] Craft Gin Club, “The Gin Herbarium: A Guide to Herbal Gin Botanicals!,” https://www.craftginclub.co.uk/ginnedmagazine/guide-gin-herb-botanicals.

[6] “cwic-beam,” Bosworth Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.

[7] Anne Van Arsdall, Medieval Herbal Remedies: The Old English Herbarium and Early Medieval Medicine, Routledge (2023), p. 113.

[8] Van Arsdall, Medieval Herbal Remedies, p. 165.

[9] Van Arsdall, Medieval Herbal Remedies, p. 165.

[10] Van Arsdall, Medieval Herbal Remedies, p. 165.

[11] Van Arsdall, Medieval Herbal Remedies, p. 165.

[12] William Edward Mead, The English Medieval Feast, Routledge (2019), p. 123.

[13] John Burnett, Liquid Pleasures: A Social History of Drinks in Modern Britain, Routledge (1999), p. 112.

[14] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 112.

[15] “beer,” Oxford English Dictionary.

[16] “ale,” Oxford English Dictionary.

[17] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 112.

[18] A. Lynn Martin, Alcohol, Sex, and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Palgrave (2001), p. 7.

[19] Emma Kay, Fodder and Drincan: Anglo-Saxon Culinary History, Marion Boyars Publishers, Ltd. (2023), p. 153.

[20] Craig Williamson (translator), The Complete Old English Poems, University of Pennsylvania Press (2017), p. 468.

[21] Williamson (translator), The Complete Old English Poems, p. 1081.

[22] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 142.

[23] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 160.

[24] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 160.

[25] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 160.

[26] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 160.

[27] “gin,” Oxford English Dictionary.

[28] “gin,” Oxford English Dictionary.

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Alcohol and Alcoholism in the Middle Ages (Part 2)

Don't forget to check out Part 1 first!

Fifteenth-century German pastoral theology switched easily between classifying vices according to the Seven Deadly Sins and the Ten Commandments. Drunkenness was subsumed under gluttony in the first scheme, and often the First Commandment in the second (“those who turn their stomachs in God,” as Dietrich Coelde put it). [1] Fifteenth-century German pastoral theology also trended towards the remarkably uniform. But inebriety, its severity, and its solutions offered what Ian Siggins categorizes as a rare case for preachers to insert their own opinions based on what appears to be experience. (Observational experience, mind you!)

In his Praeceptum divine legis, which formed the basis for his vernacular preaching as well, Dominican reformer Johannes Nider actually classified drunkenness under the Sixth Commandment. [2] The appeal to him was the general emphasis of pastoral interpretation of the commandment as involving moderation or temperance. Nider’s concern, in other words, was to find ways to moderate drinking behavior.

Johann Herolt, for his part, even took inebriety as a chance to disagree with Thomas Aquinas. The thirteenth-century friar had enshrined into doctrine the idea of degrees of sinfulness in getting drunk. It is not a sin if the drinker does not realize the drink would get them drunk. It is a venial sin if the drinker knows a drink will get them drunk, but does not intend to be so. But it is indeed a mortal sin to drink in order to get drunk.

The fifteenth-century preacher stipulates this general outline. But he reaches into real-world experience to push a bit further: “I believe that inebriation is less of a sin in those who have weak heads and get drunk very quickly on a small amount of wine.” [3] The flip side of this assertion is that someone who knows they cannot “hold their liquor” and gets drunk anyway is probably committing an even worse sin.

The friars show sensitivity and specificity when considering alcohol use and abuse. It is no wonder, then, that devout Christians like Katharina Tucher turned to religion for solutions to drinking too much wine as well.

When preaching about excess wine consumption in German, as preserved in Die vierundzwanzig goldenen Harfen, Nider appropriated the standard solutions for gluttony that he had drawn from tradition for his Latin Praeceptum. He emphasized alternative ways to spend time. Listen to the Word of God. Stay busy with work. Meditate on the Passion, especially Christ on the cross being given bitter gall.

Nider emphasized alternative thought patterns, too. Contemplate that the body, and thus good sensations, is only temporary. Remember that there are poor people who do not have enough to eat or drink in the first place. And, excellently, keep in mind that being drunk means the wine will not taste as good. [4]

Medieval Germany had about thirteen times as much land devoted to viticulture as it does today but produced almost no wine for export. [5] So “not taste as good” might have been a bit subjective.

Tucher, who would not have been familiar with Nider’s preaching when she recorded her Offenbarungen in 1417-1421, nevertheless attempts to apply a solution to her drinking problem similar to one he suggests. Her visionary Christ exhorts her, “Observe how your God and Lord has drunk something bitter and vinegary and has trampled the winepress through your will. And if you break away from drinking, then I will be your helper.” [6] Tucher reiterates to herself the lesson to meditate on the Passion, and hopes that it will prove a long-term solution.

Tucher’s account of her struggles with wine present a case of someone—a lay person, no less—understanding excess alcohol consumption as a religious problem and seeking a religious solution. Oswald’s poem represents a counterpoint, although filtered by the search for satire. The interesting thing is that the clerical perspectives are also more complex than a straightforward assignment of inebriety as a branch of gluttony.

Herolt’s observation that different people got drunk at different rates is a rudimentary approximation of the idea of biological alcohol tolerance, which he does not relate to any kind of spiritual quality or weakness. Nider’s solutions are secular as often as they are religious—not the traditional opposition of vices with moral virtues.

Just as intriguingly, options like diving into work or listening to someone reading the Bible have two key traits in common. First, they take time. Second, they require, or at least suggest, being in the presence of someone who is not drinking at the time. The standard solutions that Nider draws on, in other words, seem to reflect an awareness of the desire to get drunk as a problem that sticks around for a duration of time—an awareness of an ongoing drinking problem, not just a problem with drinking on one occasion.

It’s important not to say “recognition of alcoholism,” because that word has a meaning specifically rooted in modern culture, science, and assumptions. Nevertheless, medieval attempts to address excessive wine consumption through the prism of the sin of gluttony show a definite awareness of a non-religious problem at work as well.

Cait Stevenson, PhD Candidate
University of Notre Dame

~~

[1] Dietrich Coelde (here Koelde), “A Fruitful Mirror, or, A Small Handbook for Christians,” trans. Robert B. Dewell, in Denis Janz, ed., Three Reformation Catechisms: Catholic, Anabaptist, Lutheran (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1982), 52.

[2] Johannes Nider, Praeceptum divinae legis (Strasbourg: Georg Husner, 1483), section 6.6.

[3] Trans. in Ian Siggins, A Harvest of Medieval Preaching: The Sermon Books of Johann Herolt, O.P. (Discipulus) (Bloomington, Ind.: Xlibris, 2009).

[4] Nider, Praeceptum divinae legis, 6.6; Stefan Abel, ed., Johannes Nider: “Die vierundzwanzig goldenen Harfen: Edition und Kommentar (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 227.

[5] Tom Scott, “Medieval Viticulture in the German-Speaking Lands,” German History 20, no. 1 (2002): 98.

[6] Katharina Tucher, Die Offenbarungen von Katharina Tucher, ed. Ulla Williams and Williams Werner-Krapp (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1998), 65. Translation mine.

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Alcohol and Alcoholism in the Middle Ages (Part 1)

It was December 1420, and Katherina Tucher had a problem.

The devout Nuremberg author and scribe was only two or three years into widowhood and the single mother of a daughter with problems of her own. But in that month, her problem had nothing to do with family. According to her own spiritual journal of visions and auditions, the Offenbarungen (Revelations), she had a conversation with Christ one day in church:

“Dear Lord, help me, that this [bad event] would never be shown to me.”
“How may I help you, unless you drink no more wine?”
“Dear Lord, then I would die.” [1]

Alcohol played a vital role in medieval society. In the Carmina Burana, the fearful forecasters of “O Fortuna” transform into the cheerful drinkers of “In taverna quando sumus.” People on the fringes of Cairo reportedly celebrated Muhammad’s birthday in 1388 by consuming 150 barrels of wine in an impromptu street festival. [2] Prescriptive sources are very clear that wine must be drunk watered down, that beer must be weak, that, no, wine must be drunk even more diluted than that. But as Tucher makes clear in her Offenbarungen, not everyone was listening.

In turning to Christ for help, Tucher shows a particular understanding of alcohol abuse: it is a religious problem with religious solutions. The easy link we make between inebriety and gluttony, not to mention our familiarity with the idea of twelve-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, obscures the importance of Tucher’s religious search for help. In fact, that view had competition already in the Middle Ages.

Tucher’s contemporary, politician and poet Oswald von Wolkenstein, wrote a poem classifying the twelve types of drunks. He lists the angry drunk, eager to fight; the happy drunk, who loves everyone and everything so much he gives away his family’s livelihood; and the drunk who drinks to the point of vomiting. The behaviors would have been as recognizable to Katharina Tucher as they are to us today. But Oswald’s final point might not:

With ordinary people
who are lacking in particular intellect I am not surprised
when drinking confuses their lame minds.
I am only distraught about the truly well-educated ones,
who belong to those who demand highest respect
but at meaningless drinking heat up without self-control,
causing noticeable damage to their reputation, body, and property,
their honor, soul, and mind.
(trans. Albrecht Classen) [3]

The joke is that a substantial number of Oswald’s other poems depict him (with a fantastic education and noble status) engaged in drunken escapades more colorful than what he describes here. Far more colorful. In simultaneously embracing and satirizing the idea that drunkenness results in loss of dignity and public reputation, that this is the important thing, Oswald indicates that it was not an uncommon perception.

Katharina Tucher actually portrays herself as quite concerned with public reputation elsewhere in the Offenbarungen. But when it comes to drinking too much wine, she is sharply focused: it is a problem and she wants to stop. For that, she turns to the Church.

She had surprisingly good reason. When it came to inebriety and its solutions, preachers and writers like Johann Herolt and Johannes Nider show a sensitivity to practical concerns in real life and a willingness to cure. But would their methods help?

Continue on to part 2!

Cait Stevenson, PhD Candidate
University of Notre Dame

~~

[1] Katharina Tucher, Die Offenbarungen von Katharina Tucher, ed. Ulla Williams and Williams Werner-Krapp (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1998), 64-65. Translation mine.

[2] Boaz Shoshan, Popular Culture in Medieval Cairo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 17.

[3] Albrecht Classen, ed. and trans., The Poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein:An English Translation of the Complete Works (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 214.