Tag: medieval england

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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 gifted a bottle of Ad Gefrin Distillery’s Thirlings Dry Gin for my birthday. 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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From Chariots to Chaucer: Mastiffs in Medieval England

As a medievalist and a mastiff owner, it seems fitting that I first found my beloved dogs in the pages of medieval literature, specifically in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

In Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, Palamon and Arcite are pitted against one another in a tournament to determine which knight will win Emelye’s hand in marriage. The contestants are given a year to prepare, during which time they each assemble an entourage of men to accompany them into the melee. When the Knight introduces Lycurgus, “the grete king of Trace” [the great king of Thrace] (Chaucer 2129) who sides with Palamon, he describes the dogs circling his chariot as part of the tournament’s pageantry:

Aboute his chaar ther wenten white alauntz,
Twenty and mo, as grete as any steer,
To hunten at the leoun or the deer,
And folwed hym with mosel faste ybounde,
Colered of gold, and tourettes fyled rounde. (Chaucer 2148-2152)[1]

[About his chariot there went white alaunts,
More than twenty, each as great as any steer,
To hunt the lion or the deer,
And followed him with muzzles securely bound,
Wearing collars of gold and rings for leashes filed round.] (My translation)

The term alaunt, now archaic and historical, refers to a type of dog, though exactly what kind of dog remains at least somewhat ambiguous. Although Harvard’s interlinear text translates “alauntz” as “wolfhounds,” it is far more likely that these alaunts are mastiffs.

Mastiffs are one of the oldest recorded dog breeds. Revered for their size and strength, the breed was used for hunting, fighting, and guarding for thousands of years. The massive dogs are physically characterized by their imposing size, broad heads, and powerful necks, qualities that have defined them from their earliest appearances in art and literature.

Image of a warrior holding a mastiff-type dog on a leash from an expansive Assyrian relief depicting a lion hunt, dated 645-640 BCE and housed at the British Museum.

It is unclear where the mastiff originated, but the English Mastiff has ties to ancient Greece and Rome, where the narrator of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale sets his story. According to The Kennel Club, “[w]hen the Romans invaded Britain in 55 BC they found the inhabitants already had a mastiff-type dog, huge and courageous and which defeated the Romans’ own dogs in organised fights. The Romans took some of these mastiff types home with them and used them for fighting wild animals in the Colosseum.”[2]

The English Mastiff, as we know it today, descends from the Molossus, a formidable war dog from ancient Greece. The British Museum reports that the Molossus is depicted battling lions and gladiators in murals dating as far back as 2500 BC. The dogs also served in the Roman army, as guard dogs stationed within encampments or as soldiers, with the largest and most ferocious dogs strapped with armor and sent into battle. Both Aristotle and Ovid mention the Molussus in their work.[3]

The Dog of Alcibiades, marble statue depicting a Molussus, probably produced in Rome between 100 and 200 AD, British Museum.  

The term mastiff does not appear in English until the 14th century,[4] but this does not mean that mastiffs were not present in England during the Middle Ages. When the Normans introduced bull baiting to Britain in the 12th century, they used mastiffs to torment bulls for sport long before the appearance of the bulldog.[5] The bulldog was actually developed from the mastiff and looked quite different from the bulldog as we recognize it today.

Sketch of a bulldog by Thomas Brown, from Biographical Sketches and Authentic Anecdotes of Dogs, published in 1829.

Alaunt referred to any ‘large fierce dog or mastiff of a breed valued for its use in hunting and fighting,’ and indeed, the term’s first appearance in English is attributed to Chaucer.[6] The “alaunts” he describes as “great as any steer” would certainly suggest the stature of a mastiff with their massive bodies, heads, and necks and the power conveyed by the ratio of mass and muscle much similar to that of a bull. Their presence in a stadium setting within the Classical world recalls the Mollosus of the Colosseum, while their accompaniment of a Thracian warrior and their ability to hunt lions invokes the image of the Assyrian reliefs pictured above.

Admittedly, modern mastiffs are no match for deer with respect to their speed, and greyhounds would have been the preferred breed for deer hunting in medieval England, such as those described in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. But it’s possible that earlier mastiffs may have been capable of the chase, as their speed and endurance would have also been needed in battle. It’s also possible that mastiffs provided a hunting party with protection from animals that could pose serious threats such as boars and wolves – and in fact, mastiffs were used to hunt both.

Mastiffs today are no less powerful than their predecessors, even if their modern status as pets has mostly replaced their previous responsibilities in medieval England. The English Mastiff is still considered the largest dog breed and certainly the heaviest, if not always the tallest, with males easily reaching 240 pounds and standing upward of 30 inches at the shoulder. The world’s heaviest and longest dog ever recorded was a male English Mastiff from London named Aicama Zorba of La-Susa, who weighed 343 pounds, stood 37 inches at the shoulder, and measured 8 feet 3 inches from nose to tail in September 1987.[7]  

An English Mastiff named Aicama Zorba of La-Susa remains the largest dog ever recorded.

The second mastiff associated with England is the Bullmastiff, developed as a guard dog during the 19th century to assist gamekeepers in their efforts to stop poachers. The Bullmastiff descends from the breeding of English Mastiffs and Bulldogs, at a ratio of 60 to 40 percent respectively, to produce a dog that exhibited size, courage, and athleticism. They were trained to pin and hold poachers, rather than maul them. As the American Kennel Club puts it, the Bullmastiff was “smart enough to work on command, tractable enough to hold but not maul a poacher, and big enough to scare the bejesus out of any intruder.”[8]

During the Victorian era, gamekeepers preferred Bullmastiffs with brindle coats, which worked to camouflage the dogs in the dark, but dogs with fawn colored coats and black masks are contemporarily more common.[9] Smaller than English Mastiffs, large Bullmastiff males can reach 140 pounds and stand 27 inches at the shoulder.

My first Bullmastiff, Beorn, lost unexpectedly and much too early to illness in November 2023.

Mastiffs, of course, are not limited to the British varieties. There is a plethora of types that extend to the Americas, across Europe, and into Asia. They also come in a variety of colors and coat lengths, hence the probability of white mastiffs loping alongside a chariot in the Classical world that Chaucer’s Knight creates.

My boys have been the very best dogs for me, but mastiffs of any kind are not for inexperienced or inattentive dog owners, nor are they good matches for the faint of heart. My Bullmastiffs are affectionate and intelligent, sweet and silly. They are big and slobbery and prefer to be with their people. They are extremely friendly because they have been properly trained and socialized since they were tiny babies. They are still incredibly strong and fiercely protective of me and anyone else they perceive as members of their pack.  

My second Bullmastiff, Sebastian, adopted in 2024.

As a medievalist, I love seeing my dogs’ legacy in the literature I study, but I chose my dogs because they are the perfect breed for my personality and my lifestyle, not because they appear in Chaucer’s poetry. It’s a happy coincidence that I initially crossed paths with my canine companions in a text that paved the way for my academic career — and since it’s Thanksgiving week, it’s fitting to say I’m grateful that I get to be their person.

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

[1] Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Knight’s Tale. Harvard’s Geoffrey Chaucer Website.

[2] “Mastiff,” The Kennel Club.

[3] “Beware of the dog!,” British Museum.

[4] “Mastiff,” Oxford English Dictionary.

[5] “Bulldog,” The Kennel Club.

[6] “Alaunt,” Oxford English Dictionary.

[7] “Longest dog ever,” Guiness World Records.

[8] “Bullmastiff,” American Kennel Club.

[9] “Bullmastiff,” The Kennel Club.

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Glitter and Gore: Skull Cups in Early Britain and Gower’s Confessio Amantis

In preparation for the V International Congress of the John Gower Society in Scotland this summer, I’ve been exploring a twisted little tale from John Gower’s Confessio Amantis known as the “Tale of Albinus and Rosemund.” The story sees Albinus, the newly crowned king of Lombardy, married to Rosemund, daughter of the previous king whom Albinus has slain. Despite the couple’s love for each other, Albinus tricks his wife into drinking from a cup that has been fashioned from the skull of her late father.

Painting by Pietro della Vecchia (1602/1603—1678) portraying Rosamund being forced to drink from the skull of her father by her husband, King Alboin, the 6th-century historical figures that inform Gower’s tale. Rosamund was not a willing bride, and Alboin did not disguise the skull from which he ordered her to drink.

Having been so elaborately adorned with precious stones atop a gold pedestal, the vessel no longer resembles a skull, and Albinus bids his bride, “Drink with thi father, Dame.”[1] Rosemund drinks. Albinus then reveals his cruelty, and Rosemund proceeds to have him murdered.

The tale made me wonder about the extent to which skulls have been used as drinking cups and whether the practice existed in the medieval period, perhaps even in Britain. I wondered, too, whether any remnants remained, particularly any as dazzling as the one Albinus debuts to Rosemund’s horror.

Vikings might seem the likely culprits, but Vikings did not, it seems, drink from the skulls of their enemies despite how deeply ingrained the association has become in popular culture. That said, the Poetic Edda contains a reference to cups created from skulls in the story of Wayland the Smith, who seeks vengeance against the king for his violent imprisonment. In the Old Norse narrative, Wayland kills the king’s two young sons and gifts their silver-gilded skulls to him, their eyes gruesomely replaced with glittering jewels.

The Frank’s Casket, a small Anglo-Saxon chest made from whale bone dated to the early 8th century and housed at the British Museum in London, depicts elements from the legend of Wayland the Smith as seen here on the left side of the panel. The figure on the far left is Wayland, whom King Niðhad has enslaved and disabled via the severing of his hamstrings. The headless body of the king’s sons lies at Wayland’s feet, his skull-turned-goblet held by the tongs in Wayland’s hands.  

Early Britons, however, did use skulls as crockery.

In 1987, researchers discovered cups crafted from human skulls in a cave in Somerset, England. The three cups, made from the skulls of two adults and a three-year-old child, were re-examined in 2011 and dated to 14,700 BP. As reported in The Guardian, “Detailed examination of 37 skull fragments and four pieces of jaw using a 3D microscope revealed a common pattern of hard strikes followed by more finessed stone tool work that turned a freshly decapitated head into a functional cup or bowl.”[2]

Markings on the bones suggest that the bodies were butchered for meat before the heads were severed, but there is no physical evidence to suggest that the skulls served as trophies for those who repurposed them. Rather than being enemies, they may have died of natural causes, and it’s possible those who survived them intentionally preserved their skulls as a way of honoring them in death. But it is also possible that the skulls belonged to enemies according to Dr. Bruno Boulestin, an archaeologist at the University of Bordeaux in France, who stated that “in ‘nine out of 10’ societies known from historical or ethnographic records, skulls were removed as trophies for the purpose of humiliating the enemy.”[3]

One of the skull cups recovered from Gough’s Cave in Somerset, England. Photo credit: Natural History Museum. 

Whatever the circumstances, the cups were by no means haphazardly made, and the physical evidence, including engraving on the bones, appears to be ritualistic, rather than simply cannibalistic. Based on research by scientist Dr. Silvia Bello, the Natural History Museum in London explains, “The painstaking preparation of the skull-cups suggests that they were prepared for a special purpose rather than just for nutrition. After all, it would have been much quicker and easier to just smash the skull the access the fatty brain inside.”[4] The craftmanship, therefore, is deliberate and thorough, even if the goblets themselves are not as glamorous as the one depicted in Gower’s tale.   

At nearly 15,000 years old, the cups found in Gough’s Cave obviously predate the medieval period, but Wales, in fact, retains a skull cup originating in the Middle Ages, as it was made from the remains of a 6th-century monk and bishop known as Saint Teilo. Set in silver atop a silver stand, the cup now sealed behind glass at Llandaf Cathedral was once used for healing purposes, apparently as recently as the 1940s. The water from Saint Teilo’s well, also located in Wales, was said to be most effective against chest ailments, especially when drunk from Saint Teilo’s skull and even more so if distributed to the sick by the hands of the skull’s keeper. Like other saintly relics, the cup is attributed with healing properties, largely separating it from the gore associated with dismemberment.

Close up of the features of Saint Teilo’s skull cup, housed at Llfandaf Cathedral in Cardiff, Wales. Photo credit: Holy and Healing Wells via Bill Walden-Jones. 

Returning to the skull cup from which Rosemund drinks, I have yet to render my verdict on the vessel’s meaning but see it as a vehicle signifying both consumption and catharsis not unlike these others from early Britain. After drinking from the body of her father, Rosemund releases her rage in retaliation against her husband’s tyranny, embodying the conqueror and effectively ending Albinus’s reign.

Emily McLemore, Ph.D.
Department of English
University of Notre Dame

[1] John Gower, Confessio Amantis, The Project Gutenberg eBook of Confessio Amantis, line 2551, 11 Aug 2022.

[2] Ian Sample, Cheddar cave dwellers ate their dead and turned their skulls into cups, The Guardian, 16 Feb 2011.

[3] Michael Balter, Ancient Britons Used Skulls as Cups, Science, 16 Feb 2011.

[4] Lisa Hendry, The Cannibals of Gough’s Cave, Natural History Museum, accessed 23 May 2023.