Posted on 07/31/2023 6:15:59 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Jason Kingsley, the Modern Knight, discusses three very popular medieval institutions, the Inn, the Tavern and the Alehouse. Many people think these are the same, but they're not really. Each had it's own place in medieval society.
What's the difference between medieval inns, taverns and alehouses? | 17:44
Modern History TV | 758K subscribers | 128,108 views | July 27, 2023
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Transcript 0:00 · what's the difference between a Tavern 0:02 · an inn and an ale house in the medieval 0:05 · period or are they the same thing 0:16 · [Music] 0:20 · [Applause] 0:29 · [Music] 0:35 · taverns Inns and Ale houses are three 0:38 · establishments where alcohol was served 0:40 · but what's the difference well taverns 0:43 · were introduced by the Romans comes from 0:46 · the Latin Taverna which is an inn 0:49 · but it has a bit of a specialist sort of 0:52 · connotation taverns in the medieval 0:54 · period were where you could drink wine 0:56 · and they were considered to be a little 0:58 · more up Market than your average 1:00 · drinking establishment although they 1:02 · varied as you can imagine they were 1:03 · really up Market taverns and really 1:05 · quite down and dirty taverns of course 1:08 · now wine in the medieval period is any 1:10 · alcoholic beverage which is brewed from 1:13 · fruit so obviously the fruit of the 1:15 · grape that's what we know as wine and 1:18 · most of the wine in this country that 1:20 · was imported was red but English wine 1:22 · did exist so the fruit of the grape but 1:27 · also technically cider and Perry cider 1:30 · being from apples and Perry being from 1:33 · pears were incredibly popular and were 1:35 · considered to be wines because it's a 1:36 · fruit we don't really think of them as 1:38 · wines anymore although people today do 1:41 · make Elderberry wine which I always 1:43 · thought was a bit strange but of course 1:44 · Elderberry is a fruit and therefore if 1:46 · you make wine from it then that's what 1:49 · it actually is it's literally a wine 1:51 · so wine was broadly served in taverns 1:55 · and possibly light meals but other forms 1:58 · of entertainment as well but possibly 1:59 · not the lower end of entertainment that 2:01 · might be expected in other places so 2:04 · they did consider themselves A Cut Above 2:05 · the other places in the medieval period 2:09 · London had a population about 80 000 2:12 · people and there were over 350 taverns 2:15 · within the city walls which means there 2:17 · was a Tavern for every roughly 250 2:19 · people it's quite a lot of taverns 2:21 · actually if you can imagine that now 2:23 · each Tavern was run by Vintner a 2:26 · purveyor of wines and often those 2:27 · Vintners would be wholesale wine 2:30 · salesmen as well they would keep a 2:32 · seller that wine would be sold on and 2:34 · off the premises and there was a guild 2:36 · of Vintners and the Guild of Vintners 2:37 · still exists today in London has been 2:40 · continuously there for uh hundreds of 2:43 · years since the medieval period the 2:45 · guilds tried to maintain a monopoly on 2:49 · the trade but also they tried to Main 2:51 · retain quality and you can be thrown out 2:53 · of the guild if you were serving bad 2:55 · wine and one of the interesting laws 2:57 · about taverns was that during opening 2:59 · hours the vintna were supposed to keep 3:02 · the seller unlocked and was supposed to 3:05 · allow a client 3:07 · to come visit the seller to see exactly 3:10 · what kind of wine was being served they 3:13 · could actually go and check the markings 3:15 · on the barrel and check that it was from 3:18 · the place it was supposed to be and 3:20 · Vintners that served bad wine or wine 3:23 · that was gone off gone sour or wine that 3:27 · was actually adulterated with water 3:29 · perhaps were punished by going into the 3:32 · stocks and sometimes the remains of what 3:35 · they were selling their bad wine was 3:36 · tipped all over their heads so 3:38 · occasionally 3:39 · you might see a vintna covered in wine 3:42 · sitting in the stocks well that means 3:44 · he's a bad person probably be thrown out 3:46 · of the guild as well and lose his job so 3:49 · the rules around owning a Tavern were 3:52 · fairly strict I'm sure they weren't 3:53 · always followed though of course 3:55 · otherwise the laws wouldn't be needed 3:58 · now the most expensive wine was called 4:00 · reddish wine which comes from the 4:02 · Germanic areas that was imported a long 4:05 · way that was supposedly quite sweet and 4:08 · the value of wine in the medieval period 4:11 · really depended on its sweetness so the 4:13 · sweeter the wine 4:15 · the more expensive it would be a lot of 4:18 · the wines came from gascony in northern 4:20 · France and those were roughly four times 4:22 · as expensive as an equivalent amount of 4:25 · Ale they were sold by the cup so wine 4:28 · was 4:29 · available if you had a reasonable amount 4:31 · of money it wasn't particularly 4:33 · expensive but it was a lot more 4:34 · expensive than ale and typically ale was 4:36 · drunk by the working classes as well as 4:38 · the the Tradesmen there was a type of 4:40 · wine grown in England as well which is 4:42 · typically white wine which is 4:43 · interesting but a lot of that didn't 4:45 · really get sold in the taverns as such 4:48 · because it was often grown by the clergy 4:49 · and grown by the nobility and consumed 4:53 · on their own premises so they grew their 4:55 · own wine effectively which is kind of 4:57 · interesting and today there's a little 4:59 · bit of English wine grown in the 5:01 · southern parts of England two other 5:03 · drinks which I haven't mentioned yet are 5:05 · Mead and methaglin Mead is honey is is 5:08 · fermented honey methylene is fermented 5:11 · honey and fruit juice as well combined 5:13 · now those appear to have been available 5:15 · at taverns but were not particularly 5:17 · popular as far as I can tell 5:19 · they seem to have been reserved for 5:22 · special events they seem to be those 5:23 · sort of drinks that you would drink at a 5:25 · feast or at a wedding and of course 5:27 · weddings give us the term honeymoon 5:29 · where the couple would often drink a lot 5:32 · of Honey a lot of mead for a month after 5:36 · their wedding and 5:38 · um I guess that was a form of luxury 5:40 · that wouldn't be available to them later 5:42 · and also you've had cider and Perry 5:45 · available in the west of England quite a 5:47 · lot and in the west of England there 5:49 · seems to be so much of that that it was 5:51 · roughly half the price of ale so cider 5:54 · and Perry were stronger in alcohol but 5:57 · also half the price and certainly a lot 6:00 · cheaper than Wine 6:01 · [Music] 6:11 · Inns are really associated with 6:14 · Travelers the idea of it in was that 6:17 · it's a place to sleep overnight a place 6:20 · to rest to get some food stable your 6:23 · horse if you've got a horse look after 6:24 · your mule if you've got a mule your pack 6:26 · ponies whatever it might be they could 6:28 · be safe and looked after and you could 6:31 · get a little bit of r r you'd get a bed 6:33 · for the night might be in a communal bed 6:35 · by the way people slept sometimes 12 to 6:37 · a bed or you might just get a corner or 6:39 · if you're really cheap you might be 6:40 · sleeping in the Stables but it was 6:42 · somewhere associated with it was a 6:44 · little bit organized a little bit safe 6:45 · you could meet fellow Travelers you 6:47 · could sort of recharge and then you go 6:49 · on your way again 6:51 · lots of Inns were based at the gates to 6:55 · big cities or towns they're a place 6:57 · that's convenient so if you're a 6:59 · traveler well you get to the place 7:00 · you're going to and you think I'm really 7:02 · knackered I need to have a rest so the 7:06 · closest place is the gate and therefore 7:09 · you go to the easiest Inn you can find 7:11 · and that was the one that you you saw 7:14 · when you first got to the place you're 7:16 · going to other sorts of Inns were placed 7:19 · at convenient 7:21 · distances from one place to another 7:24 · roughly a day's comfortable travel and 7:28 · maybe not a day's ride exactly but three 7:30 · quarters of a day's ride maybe a whole 7:31 · day's walk 7:33 · sometimes at Crossroads but on major 7:35 · major roads and you'll see these in 7:37 · England as well there's one in 7:39 · particular that I remember passing it's 7:41 · close to the Foss way and it's in the 7:44 · middle of nowhere really except if you 7:46 · look at it on a map it's about 20 miles 7:48 · from one town and 20 miles to the other 7:52 · in the middle of nowhere but a good 7:54 · place for everybody to stop so it was 7:55 · good for business because everybody was 7:57 · going to stop there basically so they 7:59 · were melting pots for all sorts of types 8:02 · of people you would also have people 8:04 · from all walks of life so there were a 8:06 · variety of different qualities of 8:07 · accommodation often available in the 8:09 · Canterbury Tales Chaucer talks about 8:12 · little more than a journey from one Inn 8:15 · all the way through various other Inns 8:17 · to the eventual Canterbury and it starts 8:21 · at an inn called The Tabard Inn now 8:23 · tabard is associated with a type of 8:25 · clothing used to go over armor often had 8:28 · heraldry on it so it's a very nightly 8:30 · thing it was south of the river in a 8:33 · place called Southwark now Southwark 8:35 · back then was fairly notorious it was 8:37 · Notorious because it was out of the 8:39 · bounds of the city walls it was out of 8:42 · the bounds of the city Lords as well so 8:44 · you could just cross the river you'd get 8:46 · to southwark and it was Notorious for 8:48 · Bare baiting fighting prostitution 8:51 · gambling all sorts of Nefarious 8:55 · activities which is presumably why 8:57 · Chaucer started his journey there 9:00 · emphasizing 9:01 · perhaps the lack of religious 9:03 · seriousness of these uh of these 9:06 · pilgrims on their way to Canterbury 9:08 · you might not realize but the tabbardin 9:11 · still exists you can actually go and 9:13 · have a pint there to this day 9:15 · ale houses were little more than 9:18 · somebody's accommodation somebody's 9:20 · house 9:22 · open to the public hence Public Public 9:24 · House which is what we use in Britain to 9:26 · this day to describe pubs public house 9:28 · that's what it means really what that 9:30 · amounted to was a woman it was usually a 9:33 · woman of the household Brewing 9:35 · sufficient beer for more than her family 9:38 · so she had excess and it was an easy way 9:41 · to make some money they brewed ale not 9:44 · beer at this stage but ale which is 9:46 · barley malted barley sometimes oats take 9:49 · the juice from that and you ferment it 9:52 · sometimes you can add spices if you want 9:55 · to change the flavor but broadly 9:57 · speaking you don't it's barely sweet 9:58 · compared to Modern beer 10:01 · and it has a very high nutritional value 10:03 · so people effectively use this as liquid 10:06 · bread it was a very important component 10:08 · of the peasant diet of the ordinary 10:10 · person's diet and remember at this stage 10:13 · in history in medieval England 10:15 · 95 of the population were peasants they 10:19 · were farmers subsistence plus farmers in 10:22 · times of Plenty they could sell excess 10:25 · food but sometimes they went a little 10:26 · bit without 10:28 · but ale houses and sometimes there were 10:30 · quite a lot of these there are Villages 10:32 · and towns rather than cities as such run 10:35 · by women and people would go in there 10:38 · drink the ale until it ran out 10:41 · ale doesn't keep for very long either so 10:43 · you have to really encourage people to 10:45 · drink the whole Brew today maybe 10:47 · tomorrow third fourth day probably it's 10:50 · starting to go sour there's some 10:52 · suggestion that some of the spices and 10:56 · herbs that could be added could extend 10:58 · the life and hops the bittering agent 11:01 · that makes beer from ale effectively 11:03 · that bittering agent really didn't start 11:05 · to be used extensively until 11:08 · the very end of the Middle Ages the the 11:10 · it was really a Renaissance drink b as a 11:12 · Renaissance drink and Ale is a medieval 11:14 · drink it was used a little bit it was 11:16 · introduced and it caused a little bit of 11:18 · controversy because this sort of 11:19 · newfangled bitter drink was considered 11:22 · to be a bit foreign and so some people 11:25 · thought it was a bit dodgy but it became 11:27 · very popular very quickly and hops have 11:30 · the effect of lengthening the life of 11:33 · the beer it makes it last longer in the 11:36 · vat so you could make a brew and it 11:39 · would be drinkable for a couple of weeks 11:41 · possibly possibly only a week depends on 11:43 · the temperature at this time period it's 11:45 · unlikely that ale was sold in sort of 11:48 · regulated 11:49 · volumes the wholesale price was 11:51 · regulated Magna Carta talks about a 11:54 · London quarter being the unit of selling 11:57 · of wholesale ale but the individual 12:00 · person probably just brought their own 12:02 · cup probably their own pots they talk 12:04 · about having pots of beer uh or mazes 12:07 · mazes are bowls not really flagons in 12:10 · the way you might imagine from a later 12:12 · period some kind of drinking vessel but 12:15 · I guess you tried to have the biggest 12:16 · drinking vessel possible I don't know 12:18 · whether you got charged more if you had 12:19 · a particularly big drinking vessel we 12:21 · just don't know about that I haven't 12:22 · seen any evidence whatsoever how do you 12:25 · advertise the fact you've got a brew on 12:27 · if it's just a public house well the 12:29 · answer is you put a Branch or a broom 12:32 · outside something to indicate that there 12:34 · is a brew on that everybody in the local 12:36 · area would know it's like oh Mrs miggins 12:38 · has got a brew on right we'll go around 12:40 · there and we'll have a bit of a booze up 12:42 · and a bit of a party not really a party 12:44 · I suppose but a but a bit of a social 12:46 · event uh and she's very good at brewing 12:49 · beer so her beer is excellent 12:51 · the price of beer was controlled by 12:54 · Statute law so it was one penny for four 12:57 · gallons of beer now that does slightly 13:00 · vary if the price of Bali changes a bit 13:03 · but broadly speaking it was one penny 13:05 · for four gallons that gives you an idea 13:07 · the ale wasn't that strong necessarily 13:10 · it's probably a bit more like light beer 13:12 · today so two percent three percent not 13:16 · really compared to the strong ciders 13:19 · certainly not as strong as wine of the 13:21 · of the period so it could be drunk 13:23 · without too much 13:25 · inebriation although as the coroner's 13:28 · reports a test people did get absolutely 13:31 · plastered and sometimes kill themselves 13:33 · as a result of falling over 13:35 · the ale houses started to become a bit 13:37 · more professional and the sign outside 13:41 · started to get more Gordy so in an 13:44 · environment where people weren't 13:45 · necessarily very strong readers 13:47 · illiteracy is another topic but people 13:50 · could read but not very well what you 13:52 · needed is a way of saying 13:55 · the house four doors down with the red 13:58 · door has got a good Ale on uh go there 14:01 · and have a drink what they started to do 14:03 · is put painted signs outside so rather 14:05 · than saying the house four doors down 14:07 · with a red door you would say the house 14:09 · with a painted sign of a red lion 14:12 · outside it go to the Red Lion everybody 14:15 · would know where it was go to the 14:17 · prince's arms go to the king's head 14:19 · these are all recognizable symbols often 14:22 · of a medieval period if you look into it 14:25 · and they help to identify the location 14:27 · of the Ale House which I think is 14:29 · fascinating now sometimes these signs 14:32 · got a bit awkward they stuck out too far 14:35 · into the road and they caused them 14:37 · well they caused a nuisance so from the 14:39 · period we have rules about how big these 14:41 · signs are allowed to be and how heavy 14:44 · they could be as well because obviously 14:45 · if they fell down and fell onto people 14:47 · that would be an issue so they couldn't 14:49 · be over a certain set size uh which is 14:53 · really interesting it shows you that 14:54 · people were probably breaking those 14:55 · rules and having massive sizes outside 14:57 · to say come and get your ale here very 15:00 · useful source of extra income for the 15:02 · woman of the household too 15:04 · you may have noticed I've not spoken 15:05 · about spirits very much in terms of 15:07 · drinking and that's because they weren't 15:09 · widely drunk at all in fact they really 15:11 · weren't known particularly as a drink in 15:14 · the medieval period 15:16 · distillation of perfumes and oils was 15:19 · known about since Antiquity and it was 15:21 · also known about in the medieval period 15:22 · we have a record of 13th century Italy 15:25 · of people distilling alcohol from wine 15:28 · and producing very strong substance but 15:31 · it wasn't used to drink it was 15:34 · specifically used to treat smallpox so 15:36 · it was considered to be a medicine as 15:39 · opposed to a drink now we do in the end 15:42 · of the medieval Period start to hear 15:43 · stories of people dying tragically 15:46 · through drinking too much or what they 15:48 · called aqua Vitae this is the the Water 15:51 · of Life this was distilled alcohol but 15:54 · right at the very end of it and it 15:55 · appears that drinking it was fairly 15:57 · unusual it certainly wasn't served in 16:00 · taverns Inns and Ale houses at all and 16:03 · everybody thought of it as a medicine 16:05 · rather than a type of drink whiskey 16:08 · being distilled from beer doesn't really 16:11 · appear until after the medieval period 16:13 · and distilled drinks in general our 16:17 · post-medieval in fact in the 17th 16:19 · century gin was so cheap that it caused 16:22 · a lot of societal problems it was sold 16:24 · to people in pints so imagine drinking a 16:26 · pint of gin and what that does to you 16:28 · well it was a that was a big problem 16:30 · actually and they had to bring in quite 16:32 · a lot of laws for that did Medieval 16:34 · people drink to excess yes of course 16:36 · they did just as today some people drink 16:39 · too much of whatever it is their 16:41 · favorite booze might be and the 16:44 · coroner's records which we have show an 16:46 · extensive number of deaths by accidents 16:49 · number of cases one in particular a 16:51 · gentleman was pissing in the local pond 16:54 · and over balanced fell in and drowned 16:57 · another one was going home after 17:00 · visiting the Ale House with a pot of ale 17:03 · so that's interesting that sort of 17:04 · off-market um taking the booze back home 17:07 · with you so there's a little bit of 17:08 · evidence but he was taking a pot of Ale 17:10 · home with him when he was bitten by a 17:13 · dog he stooped to try and pick up a 17:15 · stone and throw it at that dog whereupon 17:18 · he tumbled over and smashed his head 17:20 · open on on a wall it's pretty bad and 17:24 · one unfortunate chap was going home 17:26 · after drinking far too much in the local 17:29 · Ale House and fell in the town well and 17:32 · drowned 17:33 · really unpleasant deaths I suppose but 17:36 · people fall over when they're drunk they 17:38 · did back then still doing it today 17:41 · [Music] 17:43 · foreign
BTW, contrary to the script, the Tabard Inn does not exist any longer, it was torn down in 1873, during the reign of Queen Vickie. The inn where Shakespeare used to drink was also torn down during her reign.
All that I know of Inns I learned from The Lord of the Rings.
That was enjoyable. I subscribed to his channel.
thanx a lot for the link up
My pleasure.
Yes. It was well done. I learned quite a bit.
Good production. Distinct speech, no obnoxious background music or disorienting graphics. His teeth are way too good for a medieval British person, though ;-).
I watched his video on medieval pigs, too. Feral hogs are a significant environmental issue in much of the U.S. now.
I wholeheartedly agree. No padding of the video as is so common (there’s a bias toward 8+ minute YT vids to get monetized, but YT I think changes the rules as it suits them) and the intro is a humane length.
“Feral hogs are a significant environmental issue in much of the U.S. now.”
The local yahoos release them in the National Forest in Spring to hunt in the fall.
Bttt
The horse in the intro is really pretty.
Oy.
Alehouses had dartboards, taverns had pool tables, medievals had jousting matches.
Hobitses:
It comes in pints.
My interpretation and what I use for DnD campaigns:
Inn - sells meals, alcohol and rooms. The modern equivalent of a hotel that has a restaurant and a bar. Rooms by the night.
Wayhouse - sells rooms, no meals. The modern equivalent of a Motel. Rooms by the night or longer period. Often has a Tavern nearby.
Tavern - sells meals and alcohol. The modern equivalent of a restaurant. When it closes, all patrons leave.
Alehouse - sells mostly alcohol (mostly beer but some wine) but also some food. The modern equivalent of a Bar / Grill / Pub.
Neat article thx
My pleasure. Joust seemed like a good idea for the GGG.
A wench could mean a serving girl in an inn. Could also mean prostitute.
The two terms are not necessarily exclusive. I could see an inn for travelers offering food, bed, and company in bed using the same staff.
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/wench
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