SC - ale wives

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

and Margery Kemp, the famous nutcase who wanted to be a saint when she grew
up in the early 15th century attempted to run a business as an alewife...

(it failed miserably, by the way. what a suprise! :))
- --AM


At 09:36 AM 12/13/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Subject: SC - ale/brewing
>
>>women often brewed beer and ale, is this true?  did they do everything,
as in the whole process, >or just parts of it?
>>mattie
>>buttercup1126 at aol.com
>
>Sure, they did indeed, or so the following suggests:
>
>...A comment on Alewives: 
>             "Come who so wyll To Elynour on the hyll, 
>           Wyth, "Fyll the cup, fyll," And syt there by styll, 
>                Erly and late: Thyther cometh Kate, 
>              Cysly, and Sare, With theyr legges bare, 
>             And also theyr fete, Hardely, full unswete; 
>        Wyth theyr heles dagged, Theyr kyrtelles all to-jagged, 
>                   Theyr smockes all to-ragged, 
>        Wyth titters and tatters, Brynge dysshes and platters, 
>        Wyth all theyr myght runnynge To Elynour Rummynge, 
>                    To have of her tunnynge: 
>                   She leneth them on the same. 
>                  And thus begynneth the game." 
>                 ---John Skelton
>....................
>"Material copied directly from the book "Uppity Women of Medieval Times" 
>written by Vicki Leon, published by Conari Press, Berkeley, CA - All
>Rights Reserved. 
>
>Chapter One:  Making Hay in the Middle Ages 
>Section Four:  Katharina Johans & Alewives 
>
>    Whether you called them typelers, gannokers, hostelers, tapsters,
>or just plain alewives, women dominated the bed-and-brew field in
>medieval times. From making it to selling it, beer was a female -
>dominated occupation, and long has been. Brewmasters like
>Lisebette de Hond, a prosperous citizen of Ghent, Belgium, appear
>often in the municipal records.  This lady came from a beer-making
>dynasty, married a brewster, made beer herself after he died, trained
>workers, and later rented out her brewery when she wanted to sit
>back and sip in the late 1300's. 
>
>    Another bold brewster and innkeeper named Katharina Johans
>juggled a variety of jobs.  In the Germany of her day, inns served as
>much more than places for food, drink and lodging.  Innkeepers
>acted as information centers and mediators, provided entertainment
>and medical services, arranged credit for their customers, and even
>served as pawnbrokers.  Obviously that system broke down on
>occasion.  Katharina had to get ugly with one of her regulars,
>writing him nasty letters to pay up his bar tab.  Although this plucky
>alewife was within her rights, Mr. Accounts Way Overdue was a
>local figure and took the matter to the Erfurt city council -
>whereupon poor Katherina had to apologize to him at a council
>meeting.  (It's not recorded when - or whether - she got her money.) 
>
>    Vikings loved ale as much as the English; women as well as men
>were judged on their ability to down huge quantities of the stuff. 
>English alewives were often immortalized in print and portrait.  During
>the
>time of Hery VIII, a pub at Leatherhead run by Eleanor Rummynge
>became the favorite watering place for John Skeleton, poet laureate
>of England and Henry's first tutor.  A thirsty man with a cruelly
>witty pen, John caricatured the owner's unforgettable mug and wrote
>a ditty about her, called "The Tunning of Eleanor Rummynge." 
>(Composition Date: before 1523.)"
>-- 
>Ian Gourdon of Glen Awe, OP, CGC
>- "Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small,
> large or petty,  never give in except to convictions of honour and good
>sense.
> Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might
>of the enemy.''
> Winston Churchill
>- 29 October 1941 to the boys at Harrow - - - - - - -
>http://web.raex.com/~agincort
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