Alcohol: A History

4. THE MIDDLE AGES, 1000–1500: The Birth of an Industry

66 4 TheMiddleAges 1000–1500 the birth of an industry From about AD 1000, changes in the political, economic, and cultural landscapes of Europe brought about significant shifts in the social position of alcohol and in drinking cultures. After the four or five centuries of turmoil that followed the migrations of easterners into western Europe and the disintegration of the Roman Empire, there was a period of relative peace and political stability. Both fostered economic development and the growth of trade. Europe’s population began to increase steadily, doubling from about 40 to 80 million between 1000 and 1300, and there was a burst of urbanization in northern Europe and the north of Italy. These cities (such as Antwerp, Bruges, Florence, and Milan) embodied new cultures and markets for alcohol, and their merchants, professionals, and artisans developed new ways of doing business—including the business of alcohol. Such social and economic developments , together with the arrival of a warmer phase in Europe’s climate that stimulated agriculture and made viticulture viable in more northerly regions, had profound and lasting influences on patterns of alcohol consumption and on the organization of the alcohol industry. It might seem inappropriate to think of an “alcohol industry” this early, but significant changes in the organization of ale and wine production and trade appear to justify it. Right through the Middle Ages, ale was brewed in households in rural areas, although even in these places there was likely some commercial production . Making ale took time and required equipment, and integrating brewing into the daily agricultural work was not always easy, especially during periods (such as harvesttime) when all hands were needed in the fields. the middle ages, 1000–1500 67 The result was that many peasants purchased or bartered goods and produce for ale. In addition, some religious houses in rural areas made far more ale than their members consumed, and large landowners also made ale for sale to their tenants. The conditions in the cities that began to appear and grow from the eleventh century onward worked against small-scale ale production and made commercial brewing more practical. The single most important development was the creation of a concentrated market of urban consumers. City dwellers were less and less likely to grow or otherwise produce their own food and drink, and retailers—bakers, butchers, and vendors of fresh produce and cooked food—began to crowd urban centers. As far as brewing was concerned , most of the urban population, the poor and workers, lived in cramped conditions with no room for the equipment and barrels that were needed for brewing, even if they could have afforded them. These people, many of whom were migrants from the countryside, ceased being producers and consumers of ale and became exclusively consumers. While brewing continued in the large urban and rural houses of the wello ff, where ale was produced for family and servants, more and more common people purchased ale made in the commercial breweries that grew in number and size during the Middle Ages. These breweries appeared in response to the growing demand for ale, and their appearance, growth, and distribution were fostered by a number of other conditions, apart from the simple economies of scale from which they benefited. As city administrations became more active in regulating economic life, they began to intervene in many aspects of brewing. The risk of fire, which devastated numerous towns in this period, led some municipalities to require brewers to use wood for their fires rather than the traditional straw and stubble that tended to produce clouds of dangerous sparks. To reduce fire hazards even more, some cities stipulated that breweries should be built of stone rather than wood.1 In the Netherlands, urban governments controlled the sale of gruit (the herbs used for bittering and flavoring ale), which they sold at inflated prices. There were savings in bulk purchases, but only commercial brewers could take advantage of them. Good ale also needed plenty of fresh, clean water, but brewers also polluted water with their refuse, to the extent that some English towns (like London, Bristol, and Coventry ) forbade brewers access to sources of public drinking water.2 Regulations such as these, many imposing considerable costs on brewers, made the survival of small-scale, domestic brewing in the medieval city increasingly difficult. There was also a major, expensive technological innovation: the gradual replacement by copper kettles of the pottery vessels that were used for boiling...