The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-09-29
WINES. ENGLAND. DRANK.
SWEETENED AND SPICED MIX
TURES OF THE MIDDLE AGES.


and Maivoisey-StrongW Waters Drive
Them Outflow Port Crushed Out
the Wines of France.
The old English drinking vessels
taken by explorers from the graves are
of small capacity and of the most de-
licate glass. The graceful stringed anu
lobed vases, the spirally stringed cups
perhaps the "hroden ealo Woege -
the twisted ale cups of BeoWulf-
the trumpets beakers, palm cups and
bowls, are all distinguished by total
absence of feet, Signifying that they
should not be set down unemptled, ana
implying rapid and dangerous tipping
out of small "tumblers, as contra
distinguished from copious draughts
from horns and portly wooden goblets.
The latter vessels We're for the phiml-
tive hydromel or mead, for the Anglo
Saxon "beor,' the ''eala" of the Danes
and for "braggot," a mixed beverage
which no one would drink now. The
little glasses served for the more potent
varieties of liquor, the heady metheglin,
and speaking, as the old saying went,
too much of the house it came from;
for mellicratum," "inomellum," and
for the rough red and white wine or
home growth, mingled with sweet wort,
or with metheglin, stuck with herbs
and boiled with spices, and recalling
the waxed, resined and spice-Stuck
classical cups of beechwood introduced
by the Romans into northern regions.
But from the period of the sheltering
graves to the middle of the sixteenth
century there is an almost total alb
sence of tangible evidence concerning
glass drinking vessels in England, and
the history of their manufacture is
wrapped In much obscurity.
The Vocabulary" of Archbishop Al
fric of the tenth century mentions
"gewyrtod win" (spiced wne), win
gemenged mid myrran" (wine mixed
with myrrh," gehluttrad win Gefined
wine, "gehlyttrod win" (pure wine),
and "gesweted win" (sweetened wine).
These, the choicest and strongest pro-
auctions of that age, Were certainly
drunk from the glass palm cups and
small bowls such as from the the pic
ture in the stitch work of the Conquer
or's banquet after the arrival of the
army at Hastings, we know were still
in use in the middle of the eleventh
century. The treatise DE Utenslibus"
Of Alexander Neckam of the twelfth
century mentions clare and nectar as
proper to be found in the cellar or in
the starehouse. Glare was a mixture
- 10 81. Il. 1T Il,
came from Guyenne, with honey, sugar
and spices, as distinguished from pi
ment or nectar, an amalgam of much
the same kind but with more sub
stance, being founded on the red wine
of Bourgogne, Dauphine, &c. These
were the two principal sweetened and
spiced wines made in England in the
middle ages.
The household accounts of Eleanor,
countess of Leicester, sister of Henry
III, and wife Of the great Simon de
Montfort, show clearly that the wine
drunk in England during the thirteenth
century came chiefly from Anjou, Poi
tou, Guyenne, Gascogne and Auvergne.
1t is certain that the bulk of French
wine in the time of Henry Ill, and for
nearly three centuries after, arrived
very immeture, rough and hard and
very different in character from the
Bordeaux and Burgundy of the present
day, brought as they have been to the
utmost limit of perfection. Accounts
have come down from the middle ages
of the poor wine distributed in liveries,
and In the hall, even In royal house,
holds: much of 1t, however, was trans
lated here into the popular connections
Clarete and Pyment, and into spurious
Bastard. not infrequently helped by
boiling and called In later times ISOLDE
wyne"-the vinum coctum Of the an
clients. In the fifteenth century the
wine from Bordeaux was known as
"cleroto wyne" to distinguish it from
that of Bourgogne
The two principal saccharine wines
were Bastard from Spain, and Malvoi-
sey from the Greek archipelago and It
ally. Both were "apparelled" in Eng
land in various ways, and with no
question Of refinement of palate. The
Of Bastard and Malmsey pro-
duced true Muscadine. AS with the
cookery in the middle ages, the wines
were strengthened and stimulated with
spices and aromatics, the sacks partc-
ularly from their first appearance in
in the second quarter of the
century, being burnt sweet
ened with honey and thickened by boil
ing. Thus was compounded hippocras
and ''vinum garofilatum," the "clare-
tum''-the ''potus delicatus' specially
ordered on the CLOSE Rolls by Henry
III. in the middle of the thirteenth CEN
fury. In this way Bastard Algrade,
Granarde, all sweet Spanish wines, as
well as Malvoisey and the blended Mus
cadine, were disguised until their fine
original characteristics were quite over
and "Ypocrasse" and Bias
turde" became mere generic terms for
a multitude of spiced nectarious COM
pounds. By the slow introduction into
England of the process of distillation,
early in the sixteenth century, the vi
cious and indigestible mixtures that
had been so long and 80 highly es-
teemed were gradually operated upon
and driven out, while Imperial Water,
Aqua Vita, Aqua Composite and a
world of other waters" cordial and
ardent, took their places by degrees in
the public taste.
In the meantime "Xeres See''-the
natural dry wine of Here's, as distin-
guished from the Greek and Spanish
saccharine wines-the "sherris sack"
and fertile sherris' of Falstaff, made
It's appearance somewhat later in the
same century. \ hundred years later
1a+ Y,n1i nc Nuir1