Brewsters - The Medieval Women who made Ale.

 

Brewsters – The Medieval Women who made Ale.

 

 

“Brewster” used to mean a female brewer of ale. In the early 1300s brewsters were common. As water was rarely safe to drink, ale, created by a barley or oat mash, boiling water, yeast and herbs, was a staple. Everyone, men, women and children, drank it. Larger medieval houses made their own, so in 1333 Elizabeth de Burgh, Lady Clare, brewed 8 quarters each week, around 60 gallons of ale. Since a household of 5 might drink 1 ¼ gallons a day, this output needed to be ongoing, especially as ale soured quickly, within a few days. The plus side was that once made, ale was quickly ready to drink, within a day.

Brewing of ale was done at home, using everyday tools – a large tub, a brush, a ladle, forks. Women did it in tandem with other household tasks. Any excess a brewster might sell to her neighbours. Locals would be alerted that ale was available by the sign of a branch or bush pinned over the household door. Neighbour sold to neighbour and customers brought their own pails to collect the fresh ale. Another way womenfolk were employed were as Tipplers, who carried the freshly brewed ale in vessels on their backs to various household clients. Overall it was a small-scale business, with modest profits. Married women, widows and unmarried spinsters all brewed and it was a means of independence. In 1379, in Howden, 9 single women supported themselves by brewing. In Norwich, women of the chief families all brewed ale and sold it to their friends.

Barley water could be made by boiling a small quantity of fresh barley in a volume of water and then the liquid strained off. Herbs used in the ale included briar, rosemary, coltsfoot and balm. Water from different wells produced different flavours of ale. “Dredge”, a mix of oats and barley, was in as common use in the production of ale as it was of bread.

Ale was sweeter in taste than beer, since the hops in beer preserve the drink for longer but also make it more bitter.  Modern beers in the “Gruit” style, where hops are not used and herbs are used as flavouring, give an idea what such ales tasted like. An ale called “Mycria”, flavoured with sweet gale, used to be produced by Hanlons in Devon.

Hops, introduced from Europe, was used to brew beer. Beer lasts longer than ale and so can be transported greater distances and made in larger batches. After the Black Death, beer began to be drunk and produced in England as well as ale, though female brewers were gradually pushed out of the trade by men, who had greater access to capital. The Brewers’ Guild was closed to women. The laws favoured men over women in brewing, although women often had more practical experience. Brewsters began to be seen as sinful, wanton and unclean. In 1413 brewster Christine Colmere in Canterbury lost her trade when Simon Daniel falsely told her neighbours that she was leprous.

See “Ale, Beer and Brewsters In England” by Judith Bennett for more details.

 

For myself, I am sorry the more bitter beer took over from ale, and sorry that women were thrust out of a business where they had thrived for many years. One day, I may write a story where a brewster is my heroine, but in the meantime, if you are interested in learning a bit about medieval feasts, medieval sweets, cooks and menus, please see my novel “The Master Cook and the Maiden” and my novella, “Amice and the Mercenary.” Both are published by Prairie Rose Publications and both are free to read with Kindle Unlimited.

The Master Cook and the Maiden.

Amice and the Mercenary

Lindsay Townsend 

Nicknames and Endearments.

 

Nicknames and Endearments.

Nicknames can help readers identify with characters, give a small clue to their personalities or appearance. Or nicknames can be deliberately misleading and at the same time appropriate, say where “Generous Eddie” turns out to be a brutal miser, generous only in the beatings he administers, or “Big Meg” is a small and dainty creature, perhaps with a large heart. Nicknames can also be wrong, revealing perhaps a character labouring under the mistaken opinions of those around her/him, and something that the reader and main viewpoint characters in the story can gradually discover.

 In history, King Edward the First of England was nicknamed “Longshanks” for his height and “Hammer of the Scots” for his campaigns against Scotland. An example of a nickname giving a flattering impression that was not, in my opinion matched by reality is King Richard I, the “Lionheart.” Brave perhaps but also cruel, as shown by his killing of the Muslim captives of Acre – all 2700 of them. By contrast, Richard’s opponent on the crusades, Saladin, was a man whose epithet, “Salah ad-Din” means “Righteousness of the Faith”, a title he appears to have lived by.

A more endearing nickname is that of “Greedy-Guts” for the famous medieval champion and knight William Marshal, an epithet he acquired during his teenage years.

In my own fiction, I use nicknames to reveal character. So, in ‘The Master Cook and the Maiden,’ my hero Swain, is known to his brothers as “Ram,” because of his great size and battle habits.

Excerpt.

 

One more thing is needed... an entourage," said a new

t

voice, issuing from the out of the apple tree by the garden

wall. Even as Alfwen struggled to pick out the stranger in the

shadows and foliage, Swein was darting forward.

“Gideon, by all that’s holy! Well met, brother!”

He smacked into the newcomer, knocking the shorter man

to the ground while Mistress Glover scolded, “The tunic,

Swein, careful of the tunic!”

Somehow, the smaller man flung Swein off him, leapt to

his feet and enveloped his brother in a bear hug. “Well met,

Ram!

“After Battering-Ram, when he would charge into things

as a lad,” Gideon explained, nodding to Alfwen and the

widow. “Will you introduce me, Ram?”

Grinning, Swein detached himself from Gideon and

bowed. “May I present Mistress Glover and my wife, Alfwen.”

He beamed at Alfwen, a look of pride and love together.

“My bride, Alfwen.”

The shorter man stepped closer and Alfwen’s breath

stopped.

 

Endearments in fiction, especially romance fiction, can show a developing romantic interest and tension and suggest a growing closeness. Individual and apt endearments are particularly satisfying and can be used in banter between couples in both fiction and life. They can also show a regional flavour.

So, for Cornwall, “Lover” and “My handsome man,” can be used as pet names for both sexes. (I was called “My handsome man” by an elderly Cornish lady, straight after she commented on my looks to my mum, “It don’t look twenty-one, do it?”) Devon folk also use “Lover,” – I always smile when my husband, who comes from Exeter, uses it to me.

Scots can use “Hen” as a pet name for a young woman. Annwyl in Welsh means "dear, darling, beloved,” and anwylyd means dearest. For a boy: “fy ngwas bach I” (my little lad) or “fy 'mach del I” (my little pretty one). Hinny, Pet, Bonny lass/lad are all expressions I’ve heard in Northumbria.

‘”Sweeting,” has been popular since the Middle Ages, or “dear heart.”, though “piggesnie” (“Pig’s eye”) may not be well received today. How about the lovely, “My heart’s gleam” or “My best beloved,” that are also medieval?

Have you any favourite nicknames or endearments?

Lindsay

 

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Crowning Glories - a blog about my love of hair, plus how I use hair in my writing.

I admit it. I have a 'thing' about hair in my writing.

Not in real life. My hair is brown going grey and tough. It goes its own way and if it's cut 'wrong' then it will spike. I have it cut short and leave it alone. We get along fine. But in my romance novels, I love hair.

What colour will the herone's hair be? How long? Wavy? Curly? I always like to imagine my main female character's hair.

Many romance novels have blond or auburn haired heroines. Isabella, my heroine from my novella "Mistress Angel" is a spectacular blonde, with colouring that both attracts and also makes others eager to prey on her. I showed off her hair with a scene drawn from the historical records - in May 1357, the King of France was brought as a prisoner to London and paraded through the city in style. The goldsmiths, eager to be part of the show, positioned twelve beautiful maidens in golden cages above the street for them to toss flowers. I made my Isabella one of the maidens.

The gaudy troop of soldiers and knights, already shifting at a slow canter, settled into a meandering amble as the road through Cheapside broadened between the grander houses belonging to the members of the goldsmith's guild.
“Ici, là!” cried Prince Edward, sweeping a bejeweled gloved arm toward the upper storeys. Beside him, on his taller horse, the French king looked up and softly applauded. Stephen scanned the ridge tiles of the freshly-painted, gilded houses and glanced where the prince was pointing.
There she is. He smiled.
He recognized her instantly by the proud tilt of her head, her sweetly handsome profile and those glowing eyes, more compelling even than the luxuriant gold of her hair or her sumptuous costume.
Goldsmith’s garb and no glover’s girl for sure, he thought, reining in his horse and slowing to admire her the more as she shimmered above him like the evening star. Encased in a narrow cage of gold suspended above the cobbles, he saw that she was one of twelve maidens positioned high above the street, all caged, all lovely, but his gaze returned to her alone. Already the others seemed pale shadows, water ripples, echoes. But she is stunning. Above the roar of  blood in his ears he heard the ribald comments of Prince Edward and knew he also approved of her. 
By a mighty effort of will Stephen tore his attention away from this bewitching, naughty beauty and returned to scanning roofscapes. Still his eyes kept flitting back as he silently willed her to turn within her cage, to look out, to look back, to see him.
Know me, girl. Wonder at me, as I do at you. He was torn between admiration and a longing to kiss her thoroughly for her deception. Kissing you will be a sweet revenge.
She was tossing flowers, delicate metal posies of gold and silver that streaked the cobbles like flashing dewdrops or sun-flashed rain, pretty trinkets that the populace would certainly scramble for as soon as the nobles had passed. Still staring toward Westminster, although she must surely know by the mutter of the crowd that the foremost Prince of England and King of France rode right beneath her cage, she scattered another handful of golden petals, seemingly oblivious to the gasps of admiration. Silhouetted against the dark, smoke-stained jetty of the house, her slim body made a pleasing, subtle curve.
****

I kept in mind those aspects all the time I wrote of Isabella - and her hair.

Elfrida, the witch in my "The Snow Bride" is a red-head. This shows her supernatural and inner

passion and fire, both of which she uses to lure a dangerous adverary closer.

She would not dwell on what could go wrong, and she fought down her night terrors over Christina, lest they become real through her thoughts. She lifted up her head and stared above the webbing of treetops to the bright stars beyond, reciting a praise chant to herself. She was a warrior of magic, ready to ensnare and defeat the beast.
“I have loosened my hair as a virgin. I am dressed in a green gown, unworn before today. My shoes are made of the softest fur, my veil and sleeves are edged with gold, and my waist is belted in silver. There is mutton for my feast, and dates and ginger, wine and mead and honey. I am a willing sacrifice. I am the forest bride, waiting for my lord—” 
Her voice broke. Advent was meant to be a time of fasting, and she had no lord. None of the menfolk of Yarr would dare to take Elfrida the wisewoman and witch to be his wife. She knew the rumors—men always gossiped more than women—and all were depressing in their petty spitefulness. They called her a scold because she answered back.
“I need no man,” she said aloud, but the hurt remained. Was she not young enough, fertile enough, pretty enough?
Keep to your task, Elfrida reminded herself. You are the forest bride, a willing virgin sacrifice.
She had tied herself between two tall lime trees, sometimes struggling against her loose bonds as if she could not break free. She could, of course, but any approaching monster would not know that, and she wanted to bait the creature to come close—close enough to drink her drugged flask of wine and eat her drugged “wedding” cakes. Let him come near so she could prick him with her knife and tell him, in exquisite detail, how she could bewitch him. He would fear her, oh yes, he would...
She heard a blackbird caroling alarms and knew that something was coming, closing steadily, with the stealth of a hunter. She strained on her false bonds, peering into the semidarkness, aware that the fire would keep wild creatures away. Her back chilled as she sensed an approach from downwind, behind her, and as she listened to a tumble of snow from a nearby birch tree, she heard a second fall of snow from a pine closer by. Whoever, whatever, was creeping up was somehow shaking the trees, using the snowfalls as cover to disguise its own movement.
A cunning brute, then, but she was bold. In one hand she clutched her small dagger, ready. In her other, she had the tiny packet of inflammables that she now hurled into the fire.
“Come, husband!” she challenged, as the fire erupted into white-hot dragon tongues of leaping flame, illuminating half the clearing like a noonday sun. “Come now!” 
She thrust her breasts and then her hips forward, aping the actions that wives had sometimes described to her when they visited her to ask for a love philter. She shook her long, red hair and kissed the sooty, icy air. “Come to me!”
She saw it at the very edge of her sight—black, huge, a shadow against the flames, off to her side, and now a real form, swooping around from the tree line to her left to face her directly. She stared across the crackling fire at the shape and bit down on the shriek rising up her throat.
The beast stepped through the fire, and she saw its claw reaching for her. She heard a click, off to her right, but still kept watching the claw, even as the fire was suddenly gutted and dead, all light extinguished.
Darkness, absolute and terrifying, smothered her, and she was lost.

Of course, the battered crusader knight Sir Magnus, hero of "The Snow Bride" is entranced by Elfrida and by her hair.

It's a sweet vice but I have to be careful. Sometimes I have have my characters spending too much time 'fiddling' with their own or others' hair - stroking, patting, tweaking, adding flowers. My heroes are usually as hair-fixated as I am and sometimes I need to remove some of their petting.

Why a dark-haired hero? I've never quite understood that romance 'guide'. Randal in my story Unicorn Summer (One of the novellas in One Midsummer Knight) is blond, a sunshine lad. (Again, I use the colouring as my own reminder and key to character, both for Randal and the Unicorn who is also an important part of this story.  I've written dark-haired heroes but to me it's not an essential.


Ffion shook herself.  “I care not for such trifles as looks,” she answered, in her head, “Though he is handsome.” He was sinewy and lean and his rough-cut yellow hair was as lush as summer butter,  flowing over his broad shoulders as Unicorn’s mane had spilled down his flanks. Catching glimpses of a green tunic and dark leggings beneath his chain mail, she noted the good quality cloth, of older dyes, she thought, but well maintained. Overall he seemed honest and open, and he had a very shapely mouth.
What do I care about his lips! He is clean-shaven, what of it? Aloud, she added, “Will you come with me, for company?”
It was a grudging invitation but Sir Randal smiled and said, “We shall discover how these feathers work.”  He tied his ancient helmet to his belt and offered her his arm.

In my latest novel, "The Master Cook and the Maiden" I have the hero, Swein, wearing a cap for quite a while, teasing the heroine and the reader as to what colour is hair is, a small, sweet mystery.

No one will bother looking for me, Alfwen almost confessed, but the night drew close and she did not want to admit she was friendless, powerless. “I can ride in your waggon?” she asked, spotting the same less than a sword’s length from her. I must have been deep in shock to have missed that and a mule arriving.
“I have some old pottage for your dog, too,” came the genial reply.
He swept her onto the back of the waggon, handed her Teazel and warned, “Stay away from the firebox, or the crocks therein. I have hot food going.”
“My thanks,” Alfwen whispered, praying her belly did not rumble at the thought of more dumplings. She met his bright eyes again, briefly wondering what colour his hair might be under his close-fitting cap. “Might I know your name, sir?”

Later, to show their developing closeness, Alfwen washes Swein's hair and she finally discovers its colour, length and texture.

To celebrate brown hair, in "Dark Maiden" my female exorcist Yolande has long, brown hair:

He saw her face change, becoming as still as a mask. Then she blinked. “I do understand it.  My thanks to you, master Geraint. How may I aid you in return? Are you thirsty or hungry?”
“Ale is always welcome,” he answered quickly, “but for now the pleasure of your company on the road will be more than payment.”
She raised her pretty eyebrows at that. The rest of her was  pretty too , if such a plain word could be used for such exotic looks. By “dark” he had expected black hair, which Yolande had—long, shimmering waves of the stuff, very clean but caught in a simple clasp at the back of her slender neck as if she had no time for any fuss. Her eyes were either brown or black—he could not be sure—but they were clear and steady as if she looked straight to the heart of things.
To the heart of me, for sure. Geraint liked women, loved their smell and feel and their cockeyed way of looking at the world. For all her man’s clothing, Yolande was very much a woman, and a love worthy of Solomon. Her skin was a beautiful shade of bronze, smooth as polished wood, and her eyelashes were double-lashed. She had a narrow face and elegant bones but there was a strength in her, character and soul together. He could imagine her besting devils.
For the rest…the performer in him knew at once that she should be in bright colors, reds and yellows and blues, not the drab serge of a thatcher. If she was in his company for long—and he intended she would be—he would tempt her into a brighter manner of dress.
For she has the glory of the evening in her. She wins me already and does not know it.
“I do not chatter,” she said, unaware of his inner tumult. “I have a way to go.”
Better still. He admired how she did not admit where she was headed. “For today then?” He lifted his hands, palms up. “To the nearest house of honest folk, who will let you sleep by their hearth and me in their hayloft?”
“You wish to squire me to safety?”
“For the pleasure of—”
“For the pleasure of  my company. Yes, Geraint the Welshman, you said that already.” But she was smiling as she spoke and he knew she would agree.
“Shall I carry this?” He motioned to the cross. “You have your bow and bag already, and it will be no trouble.”
After a moment she strode out like a youth, leaving him to catch up. Geraint admired her graceful gait and did not hurry. He wanted their day to last.
By then I may have won another day in her company.

I like to use hair to confound stereotypes. One of my heroines, is blonde - but she would never have a "blonde" moment. She is a dangerous, calculating, kindly, devious.

So I have fun with hair. I've had curly haired heroes and heroines, long haired heroes and heroines, shorn heroes. I've had heroines caught by their hair - one is trapped by her long hair while trying to escape.

Next time (maybe) I will have to celebrate the naked scalp. That, for me, would be a challenge.

(Photograph by courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

The Inspiration behind my "Master Cook and the Maiden". Plus a new excerpt

THE MASTER COOK AND THE MAIDEN
 

Vengeance…or love? Will Alfwen have to choose between them? And what part will the handsome Master Cook, Swein, play in her life?


People sometimes ask me: "Where do you get your ideas from?" In the case of my Master Cook and the Maiden, it came from a real historical event.

In the early 14th century, a nun called Joan of Leeds "crafted a dummy... to mislead...She had no shame in procuring its burial in a sacred space" according to the Archbishop of York, William Melton.

By means of the dummy, she faked her own death and fled the convent of Saint Clement by York. Later gossip placed her in the city of Beverley and she was ordered to return to the monastic life by her Archbishop.

Joan's absconding from the convent is not the only one recorded. In 1301 another nun, called Cecily, stripped off her habit, disguised herself and rode off to live with one Gregory de Thornton. 

Clearly, the relgious life was not for everyone. 

In the case of my heroine Alfwen, she is not yet a nun. She fakes her death by drowning, a fate that could happen all too easily to laundresses who had to deal with heavy, waterlogged sheets and clothes in their local rivers. She gambles that the church authorities will consider her body swept away and so makes her escape.

Why she does so forms the catalyst of the story.

#NEW THE MASTER COOK AND THE MAIDEN

Vengeance…or love? Will Alfwen have to choose between them? And what part will the handsome Master Cook, Swein, play in her life? https://amazon.com/dp/B088RJNYJ4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=lindsay+The+master+cook+and+the+maiden&qid=1589871083&s=digital-text&sr=1-1… UK https://amazon.co.uk/dp/B088RJNYJ4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+master+cook+and+the+maiden&qid=1589871416&s=books&sr=1-1… #Romance #MedievalRomance #RomanceNovel

New Excerpt

They made good time now to a moated manor house where Swein had agreed, via messages and parchment delivered by a very condescending herald, that he would interrupt his Lent to cook for a knight and lady. As Nutmeg clattered the waggon over the drawbridge, Swein took in a sharp breath and looked at her. “Take care here. It feels amiss.” “Then I am glad I am with you and left Teazel safely back at home,” Alfwen replied, with a calm she did not feel, but wanting to support this man who had rescued and always helped her. Rewarded by a flare of light in his amber eyes and a quick rumble of laughter she turned to face whatever trouble they found. “Will you call me Alf?” she ventured. “It is a part of my name.” He snorted, his humour restored. “If I must!” Alf was certainly better than “You, boy!” which Alfwen endured from the moment she stepped down from the waggon. “You, boy!” yelled a sweating, bearded giant of a man in a filthy tunic as Swein handed her a new leather apron, “Since you are finally here to work get to the well and fetch water, and then rake out the ovens, and then—” Further orders were stopped by Swein stepping up to the taller man so close their boots collided. “Stay, please,” he said to Alfwen, adding in the same breath, “Where is the head cook?” He smacked the letter of introduction against the giant’s chest, allowing all in the kitchen yard to see the lord’s seal. The bearded giant lost his ruddy colour and his bluster, pointing back at the windowless soot-stained building he had just emerged from. “I will introduce us,” Swein went on, glancing at the giant’s meaty fists. “You should get to the well and wash your hands.” He deliberately pushed by the cook and slammed open the door, ignoring the yowl of “Shut it!” from within. Instead he held it wider, allowing Alfwen to see what looked to be a scene from hell. By the light of flickering torches, half-naked, sweating bodies tended glowing orange fires and turned pieces of some kind of flesh on smoking griddles. In the middle of the kitchen, sitting on a bench that was raised to be almost a throne, a dumpy man with a cloth cap similar to Swein’s punched the air, cursed and exhorted “any of you bastards” to close the door. Swein did so and guided her away. “We need to see the lord,” was all he said, followed by “No wonder the lady is sick and needs special dishes made,” and “I hate bullies,” a few moments later. He offered Alfwen his arm, exactly as she dimly recalled Walter offering Enid his, and swept her away, clearly not caring if the round-eyed onlookers thought she was a lad.  

Lindsay Townsend

PS. Swein is the great-grandson of Magnus and Elfrida, (The Knight and the Witch Series) and has inherited his size and honour from Magnus and his talent in forms of magic from Elfrida