Gone Medieval - Medieval Booze with Eleanor Janega

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis welcomes his new co-host, historian Dr. Eleanor Janega. For her first episode, Eleanor and Matt kick off with a quick fire round about some of her favourite Medieval subjects, culminating in booze. How important was alcohol in the medieval world? Was it the only alternative to undrinkable water? What was the difference between beer and ale? How much did people drink, and why?This episode was edited by Joseph Knight and produced by Rob Weinberg.Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians including Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code MEDIEVAL. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up here > You can take part in our listener survey here. If you’re enjoying this podcast and are looking for more fascinating Medieval content then subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here: https://insights.historyhit.com/signup-form Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world,

to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this very special episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my immense pleasure to introduce you to the new co-host of Gone Medieval. She's no stranger to this podcast or to the History Hit family. If you're a History Hit TV subscriber, you'll have seen some of her amazing documentaries. And if you're not, stay behind after class to explain yourself. She's been coming, she's been going medieval for a while, and now she's here. She's gone medieval. A huge welcome to Gone Medieval to Dr. Eleanor Yenna.

Hi Matt. I'm laughing too hard already. So I think that's a great sign of things to come. Absolutely. So we thought we'd use this episode to let you all get to know Eleanor a little bit better and to learn a bit about what to expect from her and her episodes. So we're going to start off with some quickfire questions. We haven't got any dramatic mastermind music, but we'll just pretend there's some going on in the background.

So if you're ready, Eleanor? Yes. Born ready. 1066. Are you Harold G, Harold H, or William? I'm Harold H. First of all, my man had an invitation. He was supposed to be here now. Was that invitation by someone's hater brother?

Yes, but it was there nonetheless. Also, I think that it's just a fun alternative history. Like, what if the Viking Age had continued? So I'm Harold H. all the way. He is just a massive dude. I mean, apart from dying at Stamford Bridge. Before that, he's alleged. Kind of shocking to me that he died at Stamford Bridge.

All indications would be that he would make it through. So that's one of those ones where I would always love to know exactly what happened. But, hey-ho. Yeah, I kind of imagine it's pretty shocking to Harold H as well. Harold G., sorry. To Harold G., I meant. It's obviously pretty shocking to Harold H., but I imagine Harold Godwinson being a bit like, uh, did I just kill a massive Viking? It's such a, you know, what might have been kind of moment. What if our language had developed in a completely different direction? I'll always mourn him. I always going to mourn mourn Harold H on this one, yeah.

The anarchy, Team Stephen or Team Matilda? Oh, this is not even hard. This is Matilda all day, every day. Now, come on. First of all, her dad named her as his heir. Done. All those haters swore allegiance to her. So you're just going back on your own word, bit odd. I also don't think that it's a great precedent to let the church make claims about who gets to be king. I think that's a real dangerous one. If you're out here trying to say, oh, I've got royal authority, the Holy Roman emperors spend centuries trying to fight the idea that it's the church that gets to decide. who rules things and England's like, yeah, can you make a difficult call for me? So I don't like that. I also don't like establishing the idea that it's always going to have to be men that inherit. That's necessarily bad. I also think she was much smarter than Stephen and had better experience

for the role. So this is just like one of those times when she's the connoisseurist choice, but haters weren't ready for this level of expertise. So it's got to be Matilda. Gotta be Matilda. Easy. I'm going to slightly jump in on Stephen's side a little bit. When he took the throne, all he did was exactly what Matilda's dad had done. He overrode the line of succession to take it for himself. And I'd also say that I found Stephen to be one of those people who was possibly just too nice to be a good medieval king. He seems to be actually quite a good bloke. Yeah, I mean, the thing is he could have been worse, certainly, which is kind of the highest praise than anyone can have for a medieval king, I think.

Because they're all like monsters, aren't they? I just really am a huge fan of Matilda's work in the Holy Roman Empire and things. I'm such a Holy Roman Empire girl. And I find her so impressive on all those counts. So, I mean, it is true. We're coming out at this period when it is a bit of a free-for-all in terms of, I mean, the fact that the English throne is a bit of a free-for-all. That's just the story of medieval England, I think.

But, hey-ho, one way or another, I think that it is interesting to see someone really attempt to put a stop to that and then the anarchy occurring. Now, on the other hand, I just like the anarchy too. so it's a difficult one for me to say. I mean, the anarchy is the ultimate name for a civil war as well. I mean, you get the flowery little wars of the roses later, and then by the 17th century, because we're at the medieval period, they have no imagination.

They just call it the civil war. The anarchy is a proper name for a civil war. Absolutely. Although, ironically, I think it was probably being administered as a country better than possibly in the wars of the roses and certainly in the civil war. I mean, both Stephen and Matilda, in order to establish themselves as rightful rulers are like, here's my account. counselor of the X-checker. Here's my court. This is our petitions process. And so I think it's really

ironic that the really cool name that indicates that everything is all up in the air is actually anything but on the ground, isn't it? Yeah, I've written before that, you know, I don't think the anarchy was anarchic at all, because you get David coming down from Scotland as well. And so the north of England is pretty much under Scots command, but is also really well-administered. So you don't have anarchy. What you have is kind of three separate blocks of well-administered power. And give me that any day. That is much better than, I don't know, just getting bled, because two cadet branches of a family are fighting. For me, it's one of these interesting things

because I'm always going to go to Tim Matilda, knee-jerk reaction, but I just think that the country was actually getting run pretty well. That's just how I feel about it. Apart from a bit of scrapping around the edges. Well, yeah, quite. Yeah. If we move on a little bit, then, first barons war, I mean, I don't know if this is even a question,

but John or Louis and the rebel barons? This is a kind of silly one, because on the one hand, obviously you have to be like, hey, the rebel barons, but it's like the minute you say Louis, I'm like, oh, this guy. I think it's so funny. I love the French kings in this period. I love their absolute knee jerk hatred for the Angevins. I like that they're like, oh, I'm getting involved. It's like, Louie, what are you doing here? You and I have talked about this before in person. I think John gets a bad rap slightly. I think that he was doing his best in weird circumstances, and that in many ways the barons war is him taking advantage of this. I'm kind of like I'd sort of want

everyone to lose in the First Barron's War. So I'm like team the peasants as always, right? So I'm just kind of like, what good is this serving? I think that everyone is a little bit of a jerk, I guess is my answer here. So First Barron's War will go team Holy Roman Empire. That's right. We'll just go somewhere else. Obviously. And let them fight it out. And I suppose also with the First Barron's War, I've got this problem because I think that Magna Carta gets thrown around for really silly reasons all the time. And I'm like, I would just be so much happier if it had never existed and I didn't have to be like, Magna Carta does not mean that you can open your soft play area during lockdown, you know, things of this nature. So it's responsible for a lot of social

ills now, just shaking my head the minute the first Barron's War comes up at all, right? So from the first Barron's War, where else will we go? But the Second Barron's War, Henry III or Simon DeMontford? I'm going Henry the Third because I have a personal dislike of Simon de Montfort and I don't like the way that he weaponized anti-Saheufant. Semitism so intensely against Jewish communities in order to get what he wanted and also kind of stymie the flow of money being lent around. Now, to be clear, almost every medieval Christian is anti-Semitic, which is awful. But, oh, you don't go around weaponizing it. So I've got like a very niche beef with Simon DeMontfort where I can't let him pressing the little Hugh of Lincoln

sainthood stories go unanswered. It just always sticks in my craw the wrong way. So I'm going Henry III for that reason. Also, I wouldn't want Eleanor of Aquitaine looking down on me and hearing that I was dissing her grandson. So I'm frightened of her. He's still got enough of a link to Eleanor of Aquitaine for you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, I definitely agree. I think Henry III is one of the most underrated kings in medieval history because he wasn't massively warlike, but we had unprecedented lengths of peace with France and Scotland and everybody else in Wales. and today we would think that's a massive achievement, but we seem to be still looking for our medieval kings

to go and invade somewhere and fight someone. And I just don't understand why. I think we should have learned something from that. Did we learn absolutely nothing from everything that was happening under Henry II? Everyone always complains about that. Here's proof of Henry II's weakness as King because he's always distracted,

he's always doing all these things. So then when Henry III doesn't do that, then that's also a critique somehow. I think it's quite silly. Yeah. And I also think Simon, De Montfort was one of those who appears as an altruistic reforming baron, but then as soon as he gets power, he does everything that he's criticized Henry for doing. And then some, you know,

gives all his son's money and offices. Do not get me wrong. Do I think it's a good idea to not allow people to establish that their favorites have high up roles within court? Sure. Yes. Absolutely. But I suppose my other critique of it is like, oh, so you're going to have a council of barons. Well, guess what? I don't like barons either. I don't think that they're necessary. I don't better equipped to run the country just because the king doesn't like them. And I think this is certainly something that we see later when we get to, for example, Richard the Second, the peasants revolt and everything. I'm like, just because it's another group of barons, doesn't mean that things are going to go better, right?

Hundred years war, England or France? Oh, so I feel a complex type of way about this, because I feel that England is technically right, because, again, I do believe that you should be able to inherit through the women's line. And I think it's very funny how France is like, no, for the first time ever. But on the other hand, I do think that England doesn't really have any business ruling France, which is probably a very modern kind of conceit, right? We've only just begun to think of ourselves as English here or whatever. You know, they're pawns and around speaking French with the best of them. They're Norman in very many ways, obviously. But I think that especially by the end, when it's been 120 some years and these guys are over here in your backyard again, it's very difficult to feel any kind of justification can be made really for this. So the answer is yes. If the English had managed to put it to bed at the beginning of the war, I would have been like, hey, that's fine. Yep, great, done. I'm happy with this particular link. But towards the end, I think it's just getting ridiculous. That's all.

I kind of think there's a big way in which the Hundred Years War is responsible for the idea of Englishness, that idea of breaking from Europe altogether that we have to be different from the French because now we're going to rival them and try and take them over. So you almost get that emerging sense of what it is to be English as opposed to just being Anglo-Norman. Absolutely. And I think that you do get this kind of reaction, especially from the crowd, being like, well, I guess that we really just have to be English now and stop trying to be some nebulous idea of what Frenchness is, right? And that's quite interesting. And I suppose that we really do see that again at the end as well, because I'm not a monster. I'm a Joan of Arc fan.

and her kind of like really seeing how all this has played out and the devastation that's been happening over and over again for generations at this point in time and really kind of feeling a type of way about like here's some foreign people again they're here they're burning down your crops they're in your back garden and you would really react to that I think so it's a difficult one because I think that we would probably be better off if English people hadn't developed this real sense of being particularly different in many ways. And I do think the claim is there and the claim is incredibly strong, in my opinion. But it just depends on when you ask me at what point in the war. Am I completely exhausted by this yet?

That's the question. I mean, genuinely, I don't need to ask you this question. I'm going to ask it anyway for the benefit of everyone else. Peasants revolt, team government or team rebel? Rebels, thank you. Let's not be stupid, right? There is absolutely no point at which when a bunch of peasants are revolting that the rich guys in charge are not wrong. They are wrong every single time. It's immoral. These people are kept in absolutely degrading and grinding poverty for no good reason at all whatsoever, other than to prop up a bunch of people who've never done a day's work in their life. The poll taxes are absolutely abominable. Every single act to say that wages can't rise, disgusting. Yeah, you know what? There are

more rich guys where that came from. Kill a couple of them. Have a nice time. Burn down the Savoy. I love to see it. Watt Tyler, yes, tell them all, baby. I'd be out there on Blackheath, camping out along with them. What can I say? It's just a clear cut, morally right and wrong, not even slightly ambiguous team rebels. That's it. I have visions of you toasting marshmallows at the Savoy fire.

I would be there. And I have visions of you rushing out from the crowd as Wat Tyler's being stabbed, smacking the mayor of London over the head. I was having a breakfast out in front of the plaque to the Peasants Revolt yesterday out on Smithfield and just once again thinking about it. It's one of these real moments where we had a real opportunity here. And it's a shame. It's a shame. And just to throw it in there as well, Eleanor and I worked together on a Peasant Revolt documentary that you will hopefully be able to see by the end of this year. Hey. In which Eleanor expands on those views that the rich people are wrong and

the peasants are right in every situation. At length, yes, rather. Wars of the Roses, Lancaster or York. I'm York. That was the only question. I told you before we did this, there's one question to which there is a right or wrong answer. This is that question, and that is the right answer. I'm sorry, I think it's really obvious that York is correct here. I think Edward IV was a pretty good king, considering. I like how he's a wife guy. Big points for being a wife guy. And now maybe messing things up. Treaty of Picking-Y really nice bit of statecraft there. Like, yes, get the cash flowing in. Everybody liked Edward. It's confusing to me that we weren't done.

at this point in time. It genuinely, I don't understand why we didn't just calm down. And it's because I'm not a noble, right? So obviously, whatever. And I just think everyone would have been better off if we just said, and now we're done. Right. But here we are. So Richard the third is one of my real history passions. But Richard Duke of York, his dad, is the person I describe as my history man crush. I love him. He's so cool. Okay, so Richard Duke of York is so smart. And he is so good at reading people. This is the thing that I like about him, is that he really understands what people's motivations are and is able to insert himself at every level in these really incredibly clever ways. I love this man. House of York all day long. What is Lancaster even doing here?

If this was any kind of job interview to be a host of God medieval, you've just passed and you're hired, and we can stop there. So, yeah, we are good. That's good. I was sweating it out. I was wondering if this was John or the Rebel Barrens. I was wondering if that was the one. And I was like, oh, I'm going to come up with the complex. No, no, no. Okay, great. Wars of the Roses, Team York. All right.

That was the one. Favorite medieval king of anywhere during the medieval period? I guess my question is, can I have an emperor? Yeah, absolutely. Maybe I should have gone ruler, but yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's a ruler. I think he's the king of Sicily. I really like Holy Roman Emperor Frederick the second,

and I like him because absolute madman he is. What's he doing? Having baths, making extensive friends with the Muslim population of Sicily. my favorite thing about Frederick the second is when the Pope is writing to him and being like, I think you need to go do something about like Temujin, please, please get on a horse

and go fight the Mongols. And Frederick the second gets this letter from the Mongols and says, hey, bro, we're coming over to Europe, we're going to mess you all up, I'm going to be the king of this. And Frederick is the second writes back and goes, yeah, can I be your falconer? I love birds. He's like, I just want to be so clear I am not doing a holy war.

I don't care. I am chilling. I'm chilling hard. And I love this about him because, in my opinion, he's got the real idea of what one should do if one is a medieval ruler, which is chill out. You have the best possible life. Why wouldn't you just be kicking it in Palermo? Why wouldn't you just be building a complex series of palaces? And actually, by all accounts, administering Sicily pretty well. So fair play. But just living this incredibly luxe life and being like, no, Pope, I'm afraid I'm not going to do that. I just think it's so funny. He is such a weird guy. He's got his specific things, speaks like five languages. It's like whenever I see a billionaire now doing something completely incomprehensible instead of just sitting on a beach and enjoying their life, I think about Frederick the second. As far as I'm concerned, he is the answer. We should all be living like that if we have unlimited resources.

Fine. Thank you. So Frederick the second, that's my answer. Because if I had to hang out with one, it would be him. I don't know very much about him, but he sounds very, very interesting. He's a fun guy. He's an interesting guy. Like obviously, he's also a monster, like every medieval ruler. Do not get me wrong. But he at least

seems to have like a personal charisma and an ability to enjoy life that I really like. Perfect. So favorite medieval queen or queen consort of anywhere during the medieval period? My favorite queen is the queen of Bohemia, Eljibchabha Shemislid, who is the mother of my second favorite ruler, the emperor Charles VIII or King of Bohemia Charles the Fourth. King John the Blind of Bohemia, his father, the one that went into the Battle of Cressy blindfolded. And he's not a good guy. This man is a bad man. So they established the Luxembourg line, though, at the head of the Czech throne. And John the Blind basically checks refer to him as John Sizniz. Or John the foreigner because he just basically was like, well, here's the bank account that I

established from Bohemia, which has the largest silver mine in Europe. And I'll be at tournaments. I'll see you guys later, right? And he... His wife stays home and is like, I am sorry, this is just not going to cut it. And so she does one of these really great mum with a smart kid things. And she aligns with all the nobles and they were about to do a civil war to try to put Charles on the throne early. Unfortunately, John finds out and basically kidnaps Charles and then sends him off to the French court to get fancified and made a little bit less check. But I think that she is really interesting because she's representative of this very old check line, which is just going to extinct and ideas of what it means to be bohemian and how you can place yourself against foreign influences,

right? So we're in the 14th century with this. Well, what does it mean to be anybody, right? Do we have an idea of a contiguous nation state or group of people? Do we have cultures and languages and what does it mean? And this is one of those cases where she's like, no, there's a way to be Czech. And I will show you all how. So I find her really interesting. She is the bohemian rhapsody. Exactly, exactly, right? And I guess to end this kind of series of questions, who would be your favorite non-royal person in the medieval area? This is a tricky one because there's so many. I've written down Eloise of Montreal because I really love Eloise.

And I think that oftentimes Eloise is overlooked because everyone's busy looking at Abalard. On the one hand, you've got Abalard, who's very difficult to stop looking at. right, because he's such a jerk. I always say that Peter Abelard is the Kanye West of the medieval period in that he's certainly a genius, but he's also just a jerk, right? He's just a jerk and he can't help being awful to everyone around him. And Eloise is just this quiet genius. Her greatest fault is being in love with Peter Avald, but the way that she is able to

really advocate for herself and be incredibly clear about what it is. wants out of life, I think is very impressive. In her letters back and forth to Peter Abelard, and she's the one saying, I don't actually want to be someone's little wife and mother. That's not something that I'm interested in. I am interested in you promoting your career and you still having the life of the mind. I'm not going to behave in these particularized ways that everyone is expecting me to. And I think I feel really strongly about her because since we have these letters back and forth, you really see some force of her character. And, something about her as an individual person, which we don't get to have a lot of the time in the

middle ages. So I feel a personal connection to her. But she's just so smart. She is able to kind of steer everything to get the life that she ultimately wants by the end. And I'll forgive her for naming her son Astrolabe, which is an absolutely bonkers thing to do. It's like naming your kid Apple now or whatever. People have always been doing it, right? Yeah. It's very much a celebrity power couple of today strange name for your child. kind of thing. I know, it's so funny. A calculator.

It's like calling your kid iPhone or something, isn't it? Because one of the most interesting things about Eloise is that given that we're in the 12th century, she's the one who's like, we're in love, let's get married. And she's like, no, let's not get married. And then she's pregnant. And she's like, oh my God, you're pregnant. Let's get married. And she's like, no, I don't want to get married.

She's quite happy to be completely outside those norms of society and say, this is my life. I'll live it my way. Thank you. Just imagine the force of work. will that it takes to do that when all of society is literally screaming at you, that the thing that you have to do now is get married and be a mom and to be able to be like, no. And when your uncle is castrating your boyfriend.

I know, right? And just be like, nope, I'm fine. Even though, again, it should be about her and not him. I do think one of the funniest things that ever happened in medieval history is Peter Abelard claiming that the citizens of Paris were out in the streets rending their garments over him being castrated. Like, sure, bro. Yep.

It's that important to everyone in Paris. cool. Yeah, he's definitely a genius who knows he's a genius and obsessed by his own genius. What an unpleasant man, but Eloy's a great woman. Love her. And a brilliant love story. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And again, because it's unexpected. And I think it's quite funny because Abelard, when he targets Eloise as girlfriend Material, does it because she's incredibly clever and she's very beautiful and all these things. And I don't think that he really understood what he was getting himself into. I do think that he really thought that this is someone who I can cow and someone that I'm going to be able to call the shots with. And he finds out later that that is

absolutely not the case, you know. So I mean, that's it for the, there weren't quite fire questions, were they? Some really nice discussions in there. But I wonder if you could give us a sense of what listeners can expect from your episodes. What kind of topics are you really keen to get into? Well, I suppose that one of the things, and I think everyone will have understood this already from how I yelled about the rebels. I really enjoy focusing on ordinary people and how interesting they are. So anytime I can find a regular person and I've got their name and a story about them, I'm afraid everyone's going out to hear about it. Because of course, royalty are very important. Of course, the papacy is incredibly important. But we focus on these people who are sort of

0.000,000, 1.1% of the population, right? I think to the real detriment of everybody else. And we have all of these real opportunities to understand medieval society by looking at regular people that I think we often missed. I think also by the fact that I've named dropped some checks and also some Holy Roman emperors, another thing we're going to see is a little bit more Holy Roman imperial chat, because that's where my heart lies. And I think that this is a great thing because oftentimes, weirdly, we forget about the Holy Roman Empire in, I think, the English historiography. When it's people speaking English, you can be forgiven for thinking that the entire European

world is just France and England. And the Holy Roman Empire is the largest political body in the medieval period. And it's really interesting because it has all sorts of different laws and customs varying from where you go. It's got lots of languages. It's got lots of regional ways of figuring things out. And that's often seen, I think, from a modern context as meaning that it's chaotic and bad. But I would argue that it is incredibly interesting and actually a really great way to run a big political body.

So there's going to be a lot more Holy Roman imperial chat. There's going to be a lot more peasant chat. But the same sort of focus on interesting royal people as always because, oh, they are interesting, aren't they? Like a little bit of a soap opera. Even if you love to hate them, they're still interesting. I mean, I'm utterly conscious. we did a episode recently that was kind of just on generally Eastern Europe because we haven't covered it very well before. We've done an episode before on Jan Jiske, but that kind of central

and Eastern European stuff is still a big hole for gone medieval. So I think it'd be really great for listeners to have some of that filled in. Yeah, well, worry no longer. I hope you like check people everybody. You'll be able to say Jizska, which very good pronunciation there, Matt, very impressive in no time. Don't worry about this. By the end of this, I'll have you all knowing who a young milch of Kermarjee's is. It's going to be fine. Just let it happen. I'm looking forward to it. Massive holding my knowledge, so I'm definitely don't have listened to some of that. I'm Tristan Hughes, host of the ancients from history hit, where twice a week, every week, we delve into our ancient past. I'm joined by leading experts, academics, and authors who share incredible

stories from our distant history and shine a light on some of antiquity's great questions. Was the Oracle of Delphi really able to see into the future? The Oracle certainly operated, certainly gave many thousands these prophecies, and they were taken seriously in most cases. What can be discovered from lost civilizations? There was a lot of volcanic activity, and in one of these sites called Quicoco actually got covered with volcanic flows. And the early archaeologists, they used dynamite, you know, to get at this archaeology. And was King Arthur actually real? Ambrose is far less well known.

It looks as if he has got a significant impact on the creation of the Arthur story itself. You can expect all of this and more from the ancients on history hit wherever you get to your podcasts. We had a little bit of a chat before this about what topic we could talk about a little bit more just to expand this. And I don't know if it's because we were sitting in a restaurant at the time and Eleanor's glass was empty, but she just said booze. I'm not sure if it was an order to the waiter or if it was an answer to this question, but I've gone with an answer to the rest of this episode. So we're going to talk about booze a little bit. You did a documentary or part of a series of documentaries for history about medieval pleasures, and part of that was about booze.

But there were maybe some things missing from that that people might like to hear a little bit more about, because who doesn't like a bit of booze? My first question on this is, how important was alcohol to the medieval work? Because I think some people have this image of all peasants off their faces on ale all the time. See, this is an interesting one, right? Because the answer is, if what we're saying is that is alcohol important, The answer is yes, but not in the way that people think, right? Because there is this, oh, look how much ale they drank thing that happens all the time. And this is something that we really know a lot about because we can look at household records and we can see, oh, there's this many people in the household and they're getting through this much ale every day. And it's incredible amounts. So there's two myths that prop up around this. The first is that they're completely off their face all the time, which is not the case because they're drinking small ale or small beer if you're on the continent more often. and earlier, which means that it's incredibly low in alcohol percentage. So the second myth from this

is, oh, yes, and they're drinking alcohol all the time because the water is undrinkable, and that's completely untrue. This idea that all water is going to give you cholera immediately, and so you have to drink alcohol in order to make sure that it's sanitized isn't the case either. Usually water is of pretty good quality, actually. They understand sanitation pretty well. The only time that isn't really the cases sometimes in cities. And even then, it's something that people are really clear all and they need to fix. But you're not drinking beer all the time because of this issue with sanitation. They're drinking beer all the time because they work really hard, backbreaking labor jobs

out in the sun all day. And it's the equivalent of having kind of an energy drink. It's the equivalent of having leukazade or Gatorade, something like that, where they're kind of just trying to get their calories up and get a little bit of something. into the system while they plow a field or mend a fence or run around after cattle all day. If we consider that 85% of the population is doing nothing but farming, these are people who need some calories in their lives, and that is where ale comes in. So really, this is actually a story about how hard medieval people work.

It's not really a story about how hard they party, unfortunately. I read a paper a while ago that suggested that probably most medieval peasants were having to take in about 8,000 or 9,000 calories a day just to do the physical work that they're carrying out. So today, when we talk about maybe 2,000, 2 and a half being quite a lot, and you need to do a bit of exercise with that. These guys are taking in four times that every day just to do their jobs. And it's quite incredible. When you think about how much land people are farming and just the walking to it, walking to

your sheep, where are your sheep, get those guys in, walking to your cows, moving about these things. Every time I think about doing laundry, it makes me just shes. shudder because think about carting huge baskets full of wet clothing here there and everywhere. Absolutely backbreaking labor. And none of this can be automated. None of this can be shipped out to somebody else. So there's just work happening all the bloody time.

And it's a really difficult thing to imagine without having rather a lot of calories. And this is where beer comes in because you can walk and drink small beer. You can walk and drink small ale. But you can't necessarily be sitting down to a nice bit of bread. and cheese otherwise. You mentioned it a couple of times there that there is a difference between beer and ale. What is the difference? Hops is the answer. And I find this really interesting, because hops first start getting incorporated into ale, especially in Central Europe. Now we know why you're obsessed with Central Europe. You're welcome, everybody. And it's initially done as a

flavoring agent because, you know, hops taste rather good when they're put in beer. I think most of us can agree. There are limitations to this. West Coast of America, I'm looking at you right now. This has been IPH at. Anyway, the way that you would flavor beer in the Middle Ages or ale more specifically is that you would just go get whatever herbs are growing around you. So you're putting in a bit of mugwort, maybe some heather or some lavender, whatever's going on. You go, oh, yeah, throw that into the mash. We're flavoring this up right now. And then somebody does that with hops one day. But it turns out that hops also is this really excellent way of preserving ale, which makes it beer. It gives it a little bit more effervescence as well as a result of it, and it lasts longer.

So one difference between beer and ale is ale is what you would make at home and be able to drink very quickly, but it's harder to sell at quantity because you need to really get through it. Beer you can make and you can rack it up for a while, and then you can sell it. And that kind of allows us to move more into commercial brewing, which is really interesting. So the difference between ale and beer is this preservation technique and this inclusion of hops. But very hilariously, here in England, there was a real resistance to the introduction of hops and changing from ale to beer. And it was seen as this kind of nefarious foreign influence in the late medieval period kind of 15th century onward. A bit like the metric system still is now.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. We don't change much, do we? It's just like always something's coming. and it's definitely degrading society. And the idea here is that they would say that like hops make people gareless and more willing to fight and that hops have all of these debilitating influences all of people. So whereas ale is a wholesome and very natural, they use the term natural, way of making alcohol, beer and the hops are nefarious. Got to watch out for those hops.

And I find that incredibly funny. Because definitely the English didn't want to fight before beer arrived, did we? Oh, no. They were just chilling out. No one ever did anything. A hundred years wore, who's she? Don't know. It is interesting because you do kind of see these same sort of knee-jerk reactions to anything new and quote-unquote foreign coming in at the time.

And it's just like, man, I just want the ale to not go off so quickly. Just drink it faster. There is kind of also, I think, possibly some objection to larger businesses taking over everything. think is one of the things that this does allow for is for rich people to have huge brewhouses and make rather a lot of money on beer because it can travel further. But also, say you are the peasant who's having to brew your own ale every day. This is not a hobby. This is not someone occasionally making beer in their spare time now. This is one more thing like baking the bread and feeding the animals and milking the cows, you know, to get through in the day. And if you can

say, all right, well, I don't need to brew my own ale. That can actually be a huge boon, especially if the price isn't too high, and the prices can be lower if people are making huge quantities of beer. So that's the beer ale dichotomy, but beer doesn't come in until the later medieval period. You would expect ale most places before there. And you mentioned as well small beer and small ale. Is that just simply a lower alcohol? How do they make it lower alcohol? Do they brew it or? Yeah, bang on. This is just an alcohol content thing. Essentially what it means is that you just don't let it ferment for quite as long. So you just take it out as quickly as possible.

You put the mash in, you let it ferment. And the minute you get a good ferment on, then you pull it so that it's got the flavor but not the alcohol content. And part of the reason that you do this is, again, you're just trying to get through it, right? This is one more chore. You don't have time to layer everything up and let it sit for quite some time. But they would make stronger ails and things, especially for holidays or festivals. So at Christmas, the good ale's coming out. Don't worry about that.

You got a wedding, the ale is going to be much stronger. But there's just going to be kind of like your morning ale, which you have with breakfast in order to get you going. And then later in the day, when you get back in and you're completely exhausted, you might have a glass or two of the stronger stuff, which, God bless them, they really deserve it. I'll tell you what. No one's working harder than medieval peasants. And if they want an ale, give it to them. That's what I say. And where does wine sit in all of this?

Is that really just for the elite? See, it really depends on what part of Europe you're in. Because here in England, yeah, the elite kind of meaning rich people. Don't worry. If you are really high up, like a Glover or something like that, you'll be drinking wine. That's fine. You can make that happen. You live in London and you're a member of a guild.

You've got wine. That's fine. But because we're not really in a particularly wine-growing climate, that isn't to say that wine wasn't grown here. wine absolutely was grown in England, but largely by the church for ceremonial purposes. It is a ranked thing. Now, in what is now Spain or what is now Italy, wine is much easier to come by, right? It's much easier to have your own vineyard. You're probably working to bring in the grain harvest. Green harvest, grape harvest. And so a part of that is that often you get some of the wine as a result. You get a share. So the way the alcohol shakes out is really different depending on what your proximity. is to it. If you're living in what is now Norway and you are a peasant, you are not getting wine. One of the big criticisms that the church gets, especially later in the medieval period, is that when you get to do communion and people do communion maybe six times in their life at the time,

it's not a kind of everyday activity. Oftentimes, regular people aren't given the wine. They're only given the bread because the wine is for highfalutin people. And people really react to that and dislike it. But again, that's less true in Southern New York. Europe, where wine is more common. So it really depends on where we're talking about and who we're talking about. But certainly, if you are in Northern Europe, this is something for rich people. And we really can't leave out Mead. Mead is big in my house. How big was Mead in the medieval world? So, Mead is not as big as I want it to be, is the answer. And we kind of have an outsized idea of the importance of Beed very specifically, I think, from Norse myths. And since we have all these great Norse myths,

that are still alive in the medieval period. One of the things that happens all the time is that the gods are constantly drinking meat, aren't they? Odin's constantly trying to, no, it's Thor, isn't it? Who tries to drink the ocean through a mead cup? Someone's drinking mead, there's a drinking contest, there's meat. But the thing to remember there is that these are gods, right? And this is a story about, well, if I was a god, what would I be drinking?

And the answer then is mead. And mead definitely gets around, but it's like a way-ha-ha-ha-ha. we made meat kind of thing because think about it again you need a lot of excess honey so you've got to be a real beekeeper like not just keeping a hive because it's good for pollination and you use the honey occasionally you need to have several many hives being very serious about beekeeping in order to have an excess to make meat and some people do very obviously it's more common in northern europe less so in southern europe we don't see tons of evidence for it although it gets about. And it's an interesting one too because mead can mean so many different things. You can have more

of a beery type mead that's slower in alcohol that even gets a bit petty on gets a little fizzy, sometimes depending on how you're doing it. Or you can have mead that is a bit more like we would expect a whiskey to be or something like that where you can lay it down in barrels. So there's also a really wide range of what that means. And I really love mead. I've got a local mead place by near where I live in London. And I'm always in there, just giving it the big one and being way too enthusiastic. And I come in and these people are just like, oh, she's back, but she's going to start saying things about medieval history at any moment. And it's true. It's true. But I think that meat is like one of these real unsung drinks. And if you have an opportunity to try it, you really

should. Because look at this amazing life we're living in the modern period. This is what medieval people could only dream of. They're like, you are living like an actual God. And I think that's a nice thing to think about anytime you enjoy mead. Absolutely. And I say it's big in my house. At the moment, my wife and one of my sons are currently competitively mead brewing. We've got two tubs of mead on the go, plop plopping away in the kitchen. Oh, my gosh.

And they're in a competition to see which one tastes the best. Oh, I love this. I'm so excited. Please report back. As soon as I sober up and I can stand again. Going into the kitchen is just kind of like your alcohol blood percentage goes up by 0.025. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

You know, they got those things in the top that like, plop, plot, plot, plot as they're brewing. Every time it does that, you just get a whiff of like honey and alcohol. Oh, that is so nice. When can I have some? I'm not allowed it yet. Oh. It's coming soon and then you probably won't see me for a couple of weeks.

So if we're off to the medieval tavern this afternoon, or this morning or any time, what would be your tipple of choice? What are you ordering from the bar? I am actually a really big ale drinker. I love the pub, all right? This is the thing about me. Half of the reason that we did the medieval boo. episode was that I just wanted to go sit in pubs. Thank you very much. But I love ale. And it's something

growing up on the West Coast of America that we didn't really get much more beer-focused place. And when I moved to England and I had the opportunity to drink it all the time, I was just done. This is delicious. This is wonderful. And I like all of the things that are inconvenient about it. I like that you have to drink it really fresh and that it goes off very quickly. I like that it doesn't travel very well. I like all of these things about it because it reminds me of medieval people. And it reminds me a bit about what the world used to be like before. So genuinely, if you find me in a pub, I am usually drinking ale, although if it's really hot out and they have Czech Lager on, I will drink check logger on.

I will drink check logger, but I'm picky in it. A little bit more of a beer girl than a wine girl. But hey, if you're buying the bottle, that's fine. Well, next time you're down this way at all, there's a, camera pub of the year just down the road from here. So I'll take you down there for a point. Thank you. And they brew their own there as well, I think.

That's the best. Right. Well, I think we're going to have to wrap it up there because all this talk of drink is making me thirsty. And it's probably too early to be getting down the pub and drinking just yet. Yep. But thank you so much for joining us, Eleanor. And I can't tell you how excited I am for you to get going with Gone Medieval.

Thank you so much, Matt. I'm just absolutely delighted beyond what I can say to be here. It's a pleasure for us, not you. There are new episodes of Gone Medieval with Eleanor, every Tuesday and I'll be back on Friday. So please do join us next time for more on the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcast from and to tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. If you get a moment, please do drop us a review anywhere or rate us where you listen to your podcasts. It really does

help new listeners to find us out. If you're enjoying this and you'd like a bit more medieval goodness in your life, you can subscribe to our Medieval Monday's newsletter by following the links in the show notes below. Anyway, I'd better let you go. We'll We've been Matt Lewis and Ellen Eunegger, your hosts, and you've just gone medieval with history hits.