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
All that I know of Inns I learned from The Lord of the Rings.
thanx a lot for the link up
Bttt
Alehouses had dartboards, taverns had pool tables, medievals had jousting matches.
Hobitses:
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.