SC - ale wives

[Ian Gourdon]

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
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================