Festive Ale

As the Christmas season begins and the Company looks forward to a festive Court Luncheon, our Archivist has been delving into a book on the library shelves called In Praise of Ale, which has the explanatory subtitle “or Songs, ballads, epigrams & anecdotes relating to beer, malt and hops with some curious particulars concerning ale-wives and brewers, drinking-clubs and customs”.

Published in 1888, the 600-plus pages of (mostly) verse were collected and arranged by W T Marchant. As well as spending hours as a reader at the British Museum he acknowledges the “courteous sub-librarian of the Guildhall Library” which is, of course, where the Company’s historic archives are held now.

“Time out of mind, Beer has been the National Beverage, and its history, as embodied in songs and stories, will give a fair reflex of the manners and customs of the various periods at which they were written.” His chapter on Carols and Wassail Songs includes the following song from Derbyshire. As well as standing the test of time extremely well, it could almost describe Brewers’ Hall:

The morrow when Mass had been said in the Chappell,

Six tables were cover’d in the Hall;

And in comes the Squire and makes a short speech:

It was, ‘Neighbours, you are welcome all;

But not a Man here shall taste my March Beer

Till Christmas Carroll be sung.’ 

Then all clapt their Hands and they shouted and sung

Till the Hall and the Parlour did ring.

Now Mustard, Brawn, Roast Beef, and Plumb Pies

Were set upon every Table;

And noble George Gamwell said, ‘Eat and be merry,

And drink as long as you’re able.’

When dinner was ended his Chaplain said grace,

And ‘Be merry, my Friends,’ said the ‘Squire;

It rains and it blows, but call for more Ale,

And lay some more wood on the fire.

Words taken from A New Ballad of Robin Hood, broadsheet printed by Raikes and Dicey, Northampton, in the first half of the eighteenth century and printed in full by Llewellynn Jewitt in The ballads and songs of Derbyshire, 1867.