Johnston R.A. All Things Medieval: An Encyclopedia of the Medieval World

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Bells

The individual shape and sound of each bell was part of its value. People

learned to recognize the voices of individual bells in their city. Moderate-

sized towns usually had three bells—the great bell, the council bell, and the

gate bell. Larger cities used more bells for other messages, such as bells for

alms, bells to remind people to sweep the streets, bells for universities and

schools to signal their opening and closing, and individual bells for opening

and closing speciﬁ c markets and gates. The largest bells hung high in the

cathedral and could be heard for miles around. Bells developed names, in

some cases. Venice’s Cathedral of San Marco had four bells: the Marangona,

the Nona, the Mezza-Terza, and the Trottiera. By the 14th century, the bells

rang individually according to a set schedule to regulate the commercial

day. Signals were differentiated further by different patterns of ringing for

different kinds of alarms or announcements.

Large towns had to regulate the proliferation of bells. Town governments

needed to keep just a few bells as the loudest so they could be counted on

to signal alarms. The largest, most established churches wanted to maintain

their monopoly on having the largest bells that could be heard the farthest

away. Every new belfry required a charter and provided an opportunity for

restrictions. In 13th-century Arras, churches built by the new mendicant fri-

ars were restricted to small bells that could be managed by just one man pull-

ing on the rope. Their belfries had to be wooden and much shorter than the

main churches’ stone belfries, since tall towers permitted sound to carry.

The traditional lost-wax technique began with a clay form made in the

shape of the inside of the bell. Using warm wax, the bellfounder then built

Most medieval bells have been

melted and recast, but the Torre del

Mangia tower in Siena, Italy, still has

a 14th-century bell. It is narrower

than modern bells. (Alex Gore/

StockphotoPro)

Bells

up the shape of the bell over this form. For a large bell, many pounds of

wax were required. Then, very ﬁ ne clay was applied over the wax bell, fol-

lowed by coarser clay to form a strong mold. When the clay had dried, the

bellfounder needed a very large oven to bake it. The wax melted and ran

out holes that had been left in the bottom of the mold.

When the clay mold was baked, the laborers dug a pit large enough to

hold the bell mold; often there was more than one mold. Brass, an alloy of

copper and tin, had to be melted in a crucible. Using some kind of crane,

the bellfounder poured the melted brass into the hole left at the top of each

mold. After the brass had cooled, the clay was cracked and broken off. The

brass bell could be lifted out of the pit and polished. Toward the late Middle

Ages, bellfounders began to develop ways to carve the inside of the bell to

improve its tone.

The bell had to be ﬁ tted with a way to hang it and a way to ring it. Me-

dieval bells had brass loops called canons welded on top so that iron straps

could nail them to timbers in the roof of the bell tower. Inside the bell,

there had to be a loop to attach the clapper, which was usually made with

a hook at the top. The clapper had a ball of some kind at the bottom that

rang the bell by striking it. Toward the later Middle Ages, bells were usually

fastened to a portion of a specially made wheel. When bells were mounted,

ropes over the tops of the wheels allowed a bell ringer below them to sway

the bells back and forth.

Early bellfounding was often carried out in monasteries. Some early

monks became expert bell-founders, and early saints such as England’s Saint

Dunstan were known to have cast bells. In cities and large towns, brass

founders could set up permanent bell foundries, but even in cities, bells

alone could not keep brass foundries in business. They usually cast brass

pots as well, and, with the introduction of gunpowder, bellfounders were

the ﬁ rst to make brass cannons. In the country, itinerant bellfounders came

by appointment and organized peasants and townsmen to carry clay, dig

pits, and do other chores as the bellfounder directed.

Smiths made small jingle bells from copper and tin. They were round

and trapped a ball inside with spokes at the bottom bent to keep the ball in-

side. Bells like this hung from horse harness and minstrels’ hats or belts.

Illustrations suggest a fad during the 14th century for people at court to

wear bells on their girdles.

See also: Cathedrals, Holidays, Lead and Copper, Monasteries.

Further Reading

Cattermole, P. Church Bells and Bellringing. London: Boydell and Brewer, 1991.

Dohrn-van Rossum, Gerhard. History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal

Orders. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Beverages

Jennings, Trevor S. Bellfounding. Princes Risborough, UK: Shire Publications,

1992.

Symes, Carol. A Common Stage: Theater and Public Life in Medieval Arras. Ithaca,

NY: Cornell University Press, 2007.

Woolgar, C. M. The Senses in Late Medieval England. New Haven, CT: Yale Uni-

versity Press, 2006.

Beverages

Water was not much used except by monks and the poor, mostly because

it was often contaminated. It could be mixed into wine to disinfect it, but

water was rarely drunk plain by anyone who could afford ale. Tea, coffee,

and juice did not exist yet; tea and coffee came from exotic plants that had

not yet been imported to Europe. Milk was used to make butter and cheese,

and while farmers, children, and the sick may have drunk it, it was not a

common table beverage. In the Middle Ages, drinks were almost always

alcoholic, even if the alcohol content was low. Even babies drank weak alco-

holic beverages.

Mead, made of fermented honey and water, was a universal drink for

those who could get the honey. It was easy to make, requiring only honey,

water, and yeast. A 15th-century French recipe described its simple produc-

tion: boil honey, water it down with four parts water to one part honey,

and put it into a cask with brewer’s or baker’s yeast. Spices could improve

the taste and were also thought to be healthful. Mead had always been

popular among the Germanic tribes, and it became the national drink of

Anglo-Saxon England. Mead was also made in Poland and in Russia, where

it remained the drink of the poor when vodka replaced it in the habits of

the wealthy. Mead was also popular in medieval Wales. Because honey was

not plentiful everywhere, ale replaced mead among the common people of

England and Germany. It remained in use as a medicinal drink.

Cider, sidre in medieval French, was a common drink. Cider is made from

pressing apples for their juice, which is steeped in water and pressed again.

The cider ferments in casks. William, duke of Normandy, took casks of cider

along in 1066 when he invaded and conquered England. In coastal Kent,

the area of England that was ﬁ rst held by the Normans, traditional drink-

ers still prefer cider. Some other fruit juices can make fermented drinks, but

they were only consumed locally. Pear juice made perry, while plum juice

made prunellé and black mulberries or blackberries made murrey.

Ale and Beer

Ale was the most common drink in the Germanic regions from the ear-

liest times. It was made from yeast, barley malt, and water but did not in-

clude the preservative hops. The brewer soaked barley (or oats, for a cheaper

Beverages

and worse product) for several days, until it began to sprout. This sprouted

grain was called malt, and it was dried to stop it from growing real roots.

Dried, ground malt went into hot water to make mash, and the liquid

drained from the mash was called wort. It was very high in carbohydrates

leached from the grain. ( The discarded grain mash, when dried, was fed

to animals. ) The wort was then boiled with added herbs. This sterilized

the wort, killing all bacteria so the brewer’s yeast could thrive once it had

cooled. Once brewer’s yeast was added to the cooled liquid, it fermented

into ale by producing carbon dioxide and alcohol from the natural sugars.

If it had too much contact with air, it would spoil into vinegar. Finally, the

ale was strained and could be served or put into oak barrels to age or to

be taken to market.

Herbal additives to ale varied in different regions. One common herb,

bog myrtle, probably gave the ale a very bitter, strong taste. Norwegian

brewers added juniper, caraway, and yarrow. Anglo-Saxon ale herbs in-

cluded rosemary, sycamore sap, and ivy. In Germany, mint, marjoram, sage,

and acorns might be used. These herbs gave it a distinctive taste and may

have helped to preserve it from spoiling as quickly. Wealthier brewers added

purchased spices, such as cumin, ginger, and anise. Herbal additives were

known as gruit, and the trade in gruit ingredients was controlled by various

counts ( Flanders, Westphalia, and Rhine) and bishops. This allowed their

quality to be controlled, but it also amounted to a tax, since these rulers

could grant rights to brewers to use these herbs.

In a large, late medieval brewery, ale

went through several stages of boiling,

fermenting, and straining. Large oak

barrels stored the ﬁ nished product.

(Paul Lacroix, Moeurs, Usage et

Costumes au Moyen Age et a l’Epoque

de la Renaissance , 1878)

Beverages

Brewers were aware that the water they started with had to be good or

the ale would be undrinkable. They built near streams where the water was

relatively clean, but they also polluted the water for those downstream. Riv-

ers in the Middle Ages were not only a source of washing and cooking wa-

ter but were also used to get rid of all garbage. Over the years, towns

began to regulate breweries more, stipulating that they must be located

in certain places.

Ale had to be brewed frequently, since its shelf life was about ﬁ ve days.

Countless women made ale in small batches, enough for their family and

some to sell; they were called alewives. On days when their own ale was

brewing, they could buy ﬁ nished ale from other alewives. Because water

was often unsafe to drink, people drank ale whenever possible—as much as

a gallon per day. When ale soured, most people could not afford to throw

it away and replace it, so they spiced it with nutmeg to make it palatable

or used it as vinegar in recipes.

Although most ale brewing was done on a small scale in private homes,

there were larger ale breweries. Some private brewers supplied ale to tav-

erns in towns, and monasteries brewed ale in large quantities. When a

large monastery brewed ale or beer, it supplied its own monks, but also

guests, pilgrims, and the poor. The brewery and bakery were usually in the

same building, since the warmth of the baking ovens could help maintain

the brewing temperatures. During the medieval period, bread was not yet

made with yeast, but perhaps the nearby yeast brewing gave the ﬁ rst baker

of yeast bread his ideas.

The scale of ale brewing was mostly limited by the size of the vessels a

brewer could obtain. Early brewing used large pottery vessels for the fer-

menting stage, but since they needed to have a spout at the bottom to draw

the ﬁ nished ale out, they were not strong and could not be made very large.

By the 13th century, metalworkers could make very large copper kettles

for brewing so the mash could be boiled and fermented in the same vessel.

Some late medieval ale kettles were very large, more than 1,000 liters. They

were ﬂ at bottomed and sat on ﬁ replace grates. The purchase of a copper

kettle was the chief investment for a brewer.

During the course of the period, towns regulated the brewing process

more and more, until it became difﬁ cult for small home brewers. Brewing

was never a trade with a guild or a trained profession with apprenticeships.

It was a home craft like spinning. But as cities created fees and licenses,

fewer people brewed. By the close of the period, fees on brewing had killed

off the craft, and some towns banned home brewing. Their concern was

public safety; brewing required large ﬁ res, as did baking. Professional brew-

ers in cities tended to produce a better product than rural home brewers,

but they also charged a much higher fee.

Beverages

The brewing process for beer is the same as for ale, but we reserve the

word beer for a brewing process that uses hops for ﬂ avor and preservation.

Hops is a climbing vine that grows male and female ﬂ owers; the female

ﬂ owers are used as a ﬂ avoring in cooking. In Roman times, they were used

as seasoning. During the time of Charlemagne, hops were grown in gar-

dens, and they may have been used for ﬂ avoring ale, like any other herb.

The growth and trade in hops increased during the Middle Ages, and it

was often grown in monastery gardens. In the 9th century, some Frank-

ish bishops wrote about the use of hops in brewing ale. However, its use

remained local and undifferentiated from other herbs until the 12th cen-

tury. When used in brewing, the hops were added to the boiling wort in

a bag so they could be removed cleanly. If not, they had to be ﬁ ltered out

with any other vegetable matter.

Hopped beer did not spoil as readily, as the hops prevented the growth of

bacteria. Hopped beer could be more widely sold and imported out of its

region, unlike other ales, which had to be quickly consumed locally. Hopped

beer could be made with lower alcohol content, so it could be made in

greater quantity and more cheaply. However, its taste was dramatically dif-

ferent from traditional ale ﬂ avored with bog myrtle or rosemary. Consum-

ers did not immediately take to it. Beer was most often made from barley,

like traditional ale, but it could also be made from oats, wheat, or rye. The

taste of different beers began to vary widely, since each grain made a differ-

ent taste, and other herbs such as mint were still added with the hops. Each

brewery guarded its recipe.

Hopped beer became a big export from northern Germany after 1200.

The Hanseatic League, centered in Hamburg, began to ship both beer

and hops. Since the Hanseatic League already had a marketing network

for herring and codﬁ sh, it was easy for them to incorporate international

beer sales. Beer from Bremen, Hamburg, and Wismar sold well in the mar-

kets of Flanders and Holland. Hopped beer was also a boon to sailors on

ships, since it would not spoil during a voyage. As consumers adjusted

to its taste, beer was in more demand than traditional ale, and brewers in

Holland began to make hopped beer.

In a city of reasonable size, there might be over 100 small brewers.

A large amount of the harvested grain went to beer, since water was not

safe to drink. Even as the population of Northern Europe fell during the

14th century, the import of grain increased because beer became more

popular.

Beer was always considered inferior to wine, but it was less expensive,

and it became the most common drink outside the major wine-growing

regions of France. Some considered it a healthful beverage, and some did

not. The Black Death plague also helped beer catch on. Fewer people

Beverages

meant that the price of grain fell dramatically, and brewers could afford

to make more beer for the smaller population. Diet generally improved,

and beer as a daily drink was among the changes.

Hopped beer came to England latest, but it never caught on to the ex-

clusion of ale. Ale continued to be made in traditional ﬂ avors, especially

at Christmas with spices and roasted apples. The transition to hopped

beer came during the Renaissance, as breweries around London began us-

ing hops.

Ale and beer did not have high alcohol content in the Middle Ages. It

was possible to increase the alcohol content by two methods. The ale or

beer mash could be set to ferment not in water, but in ale or beer, so that

its alcohol content doubled. It could also be distilled, removing water

from the ale to form a more concentrated alcoholic drink. Medieval Irish

monasteries began to distill ale into a harder liquor sometimes called, in

Latin, aqua vitae —the water of life. The English ﬁ rst encountered it when

Henry II invaded Ireland in 1170, and the Celtic word entered English as

whiskey . Henry II taxed and licensed distilleries. Scotland also had distilleries

at this time. Distilled whiskey did not become a common drink until after

the Middle Ages.

Wine

The technology of wine was well developed in Greek and Roman times

throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East. During the Middle Ages,

wine making spread north into Europe but decreased in the Middle East.

Christian Rome needed wine for the sacrament of the Mass to represent

the blood of Jesus. Jesus’s use of wine at the Last Supper was part of the

Jewish tradition, which used wine at Passover and other rituals. Everywhere

that Jews and Christians colonized, they planted vineyards.

Although some Muslims, especially the privileged, continued to drink

wine, part of the Koran forbade alcohol. Some caliphs tried to stamp out

the wine industry, and although some survived, the craft faded under Islam.

Jews and Christians continued to make and sell wine in Muslim regions by

paying a high tax, but the most famous wines of Persia and Syria were

no longer made. Muslim Spain was not as much affected by these rules

and continued to cultivate the vineyards that had been there since Ro-

man times.

Under the Roman Empire, grape vines had moved into southern France,

but with the spread of the Christian religion, more vineyards were needed.

Wine making expanded quickly under Charlemagne. Grapes did not grow

too far north or east, but the best wine came from the outer margins where

grapes could ﬂ ourish. Alsace, on the border of France and Germany, be-

came a large wine-producing region. Most of France, except for the regions

Beverages

of Brittany and Normandy, was able to grow good wine grapes. Even as

far north as England, some grape varieties could thrive. Monasteries culti-

vated grapes for their own sacramental use, but also for sale. Secular land-

owners also rented land to peasants with viticulture skills. In areas such as

Burgundy, wine became the sole export crop, and nearly all arable land was

devoted to it.

One method of creating new vines was to bend a branch down to the

ground until it rooted and then either cut the new root stock (marcotte)

free to plant elsewhere or allow it to grow in the same place. Provinage, the

practice of leaving the rooted branches in place, resulted in a thick over-

growth of new and old vines but allowed the new vines to bear grapes in

only two or three years. The best way to plant new vines was to grow roots

on cuttings in a nursery and transplant the ones that thrived. The cheaper

method was to plant cuttings in a furrow in a ﬁ eld and hope for the best.

Medieval vineyards shown in pictures are not usually organized in neat

rows. Pruning was done with hatchets.

The Bible story in which Noah made wine after the great ﬂ ood allowed medieval

artists a chance to draw another scene of daily life. The grapes arrived in wicker

baskets. Trampling the grapes in a vat was the basic juice-removing method, although

vats in real life were large enough for more than one person to be at work. The large

vat was not set on the ground, as in the painting; it was set on a platform, so that a

hole near the bottom could let the fresh juice drain into a barrel on the ground.

(The British Library/StockphotoPro)

Beverages

Early medieval wine was probably not good by today’s standards. Vine-

yards could have several varieties planted in the same ﬁ eld, in case one

variety failed that year. The grapes were not separated, and all kinds went

into the wine. White wine was most commonly made because it was not

fermented with its dark-colored skins and therefore ripened faster. It could

be used right away and did not take up storage space. Wine was usually

stored in oak barrels, but it soured fast and could not be stored long. Six

months old was probably the peak of a medieval wine’s quality. It was un-

usual for wine to keep as long as four years; most of it was gone within a

year, either soured to vinegar or consumed at table. Certain varieties of

grapes made ﬁ ne wine, which was less sweet and made a smaller quantity,

while others made large amounts of cheaper wine. Most wine consumed by

average drinkers had no more than 5 percent alcohol and a fair amount of

sediment.

Wine was still usually trampled by foot in large vats. In the Mediterra-

nean region, these wine vats were usually made of stone, but in Northern

Europe, they were wooden, like large squat barrels. A hole in the bottom

allowed the juice to run off. A rule of Charlemagne prohibited the use

of foot trampling on hygienic grounds, but there were few other ways to

handle the task. Large monasteries or other large wine-making operations

bought winepresses that screwed a tight-ﬁ tting lid onto the grapes in a vat,

pressing the grapes into the bottom. A larger quantity of juice came out

this way, but its ﬂ avor was not as good. The grapes could be pressed three

times; the ﬁ rst pressing made the best wine, while the third had water added

to the crushed grapes and made cheap, poor wine.

In the early Middle Ages, there was limited knowledge of what kinds of

grapes to plant where. Certain varieties did not grow at some elevations

or climates, but beyond this, all varieties could be mixed together. Cister-

cian monasteries became pioneers for the scientiﬁ c study of varieties, soil,

and climate. A large number of Cistercian monasteries in central France

were making use of wasteland they had to clear on the edge of more valu-

able farmland. In one of these areas, the Côte d’Or, hilly rock faces created

shelves of land at different elevations along the bank of the Saône River.

The lay brothers who worked the Cistercian farms took notes on the types

of soil and grapes and began to build walls to separate ﬁ elds with certain

varieties so the wine could be controlled. An enclosed ﬁ eld was called a

clos, and French monastic wineries had names like Clos de Bèze or Clos

St. Jean. The wine produced in these enclosed ﬁ elds tasted the same, year

after year.

The distinctive wines of today have their origins in the late medieval

period, when regions began to specialize. Most famous French wines de-

veloped from the medieval monastic vineyards, such as the Cistercian win-

ery at Chablis. The wines of Burgundy were made from very dark grapes,

Beverages

and the quality was strictly controlled. Burgundy wine was most com-

monly known as Beaune at the time, and it was the preferred wine of the

Popes at Avignon. The Cistercian Abbey at Eberbach, in Germany, was

the largest winegrower of its time. The monks found that white grapes

grew best there, so they produced a white wine that became the Riesling

of today. The region of Bordeaux, under English control, traded large

amounts of wine to England. The growers developed a light-colored wine

that fermented in the vat with its skins for one day and then was poured

off to ﬁ nish. It came to be called claret because of its transparency and

light color.

Mediterranean wines were sweeter because the grapes had a longer

growing season. The wine was often made from raisins; not only were the

grapes left on the vine as long as possible, they were then dried in the sun

for a few days. The wine, known in England as malmsey, was both sweeter

and much higher in alcohol than northern wines. Traders from Venice

brought the wine to northern markets. Their galleys—with many rows

of oars, like the old Roman ships—could travel swiftly and bring wine to

markets before it spoiled.

At the close of the Middle Ages, perhaps in Germany, winemakers ﬁ rst

learned how to burn sulfur inside a wine barrel before ﬁ lling it. This steril-

ized the barrel and kept the wine from souring as fast. German wines were

sweeter and soured more quickly.

At the table, the most popular way to serve red wine was spiced, with

dessert. Spiced wine was called hippocras, named for the “Hippocrene’s

sleeve” straining cloth that removed sediment and whole spices before

serving. Spiced wine was usually sweetened with extra honey (or even sugar,

in a royal household), and then cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, mace, grains

of paradise, nutmeg, and other spices were added. Each cook had his

hippocras recipe, and spices were often ground and mixed in bulk and

kept ready for use in wine. Spicers also sold hippocras spice blends.

See also: Barrels and Buckets, Spices and Sugar, Taverns and Inns, Water,

Women.