What did women in medieval age drink?

storiesweaver

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I heard that in medieval age people only drink beer because the water is really bad. So, what did women drink at that time? Were they allowed to drink alcohol?
 

autumnleaf

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The Medieval period lasted for about a thousand years and even within Europe included a wide variety of cultures. Social class would also be a huge consideration. Have you a particular time and place in mind, or is this a Medieval-based Fantasy?

As a general rule, I would say that medieval women were "allowed" to drink alcohol, maybe not in public houses (if they were "respectable" women) but certainly at home. Some were even involved in brewing and serving it.

Attitudes depended also on type of alcohol. "Small beer" (very low in alcohol) was considered fine even for children, whereas hard spirits were for the more serious drinkers.
 

Bufty

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You answered part of your question yourself - if the water is bad..... If the water is not bad they drink water.

Probably more of an issue depending upon location and availability of fresh water. As for being allowed to drink alcohol - some brews were pretty high and others would be low. Who is to stop them drinking a brew?

And if ale or mead is widely available and drunk because the drinking water is dirty....

Plenty of folk here have studied medieval times and there should be more accurate responses than this one forthcoming. Google can turn up stacks of threads on the topic.
 
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benbenberi

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The answer depends enormously on time & place & social class. The very poor drank water, generally, even if the only water was bad, because they couldn't afford anything else. The very poor died in droves of the effects of bad water. Very poor children had shockingly high mortality around the time of weaning because of it.

In southern Europe the normal water-alternative was wine. (Often diluted with water.) No fine vintages -- wine was typically drunk within a year or 2 of the harvest. And it didn't come out of bottles either -- the technology of wine corks is really post-medieval. The means to keep wine drinkable for more than a few years were limited, & mostly involved fortifying it with more sugar to make it more alcoholic (like port or sherry), which also made it a lot more expensive because sugar was rare & costly & local sweeteners like honey didn't work as well for this purpose.

By-products of wine inc. vinegar & verjuice. Both might be used in making beverages of a sort.

In places where apples & pears were grown, cider (or perry) was a very common alternative to water. This was an alcoholic brew, not fruit juice. The nature of it varied widely, local versions might be more wine-like or beer-like depending on the way local people liked it & made it. Rarely very high alcohol content, though.

And of course there was beer and ale. Medieval beers were generally not filtered like modern styles, so the liquid was sometimes a lot soupier than we are used to, and it was a way to preserve the nutritional value of grain as well as a thing to drink -- it was a dietary alternative to bread. Small beer, very low alcohol, was the common daily drink. In parts northern Europe hops were added to the brew as a preservative, but not everywhere. Hops arrived in England in the early 16c; before then, unhopped ale was universal there, and the introduction of hops was viewed with some suspicion as a foreign innovation.

As for women being allowed to drink... in Europe at least that was never a question. Everybody drank whatever was on offer. Beer, ale and cider were made domestically, by the household for the household, and mostly made by women. In parts of England it was common that every household with a surplus of ale might do business as an alehouse, selling by the glass to the neighbors -- it was said in some villages that every house was an alehouse. Alehouses, of course, were operated by alewives.

Honey beer, aka mead, was pretty much exclusive to the north, and replaced by actual beer when grain or fruit production allowed. It was not as widespread or popular as medieval reenactors like to pretend.
 
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Ariella

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In medieval England, most of the brewing was done at home by women, but the situation changed at the end of the medieval period. There's an interesting book about the subject by Judith Bennett: https://books.google.ca/books?id=eYMRDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

On the subject of attitudes towards women drinking, Lynn A. Martin wrote a fun book chapter called "The Role of Drinking in the Male Construction of Unruly Women" in Medieval Sexuality: A Case Boook (Routledge, 2009). There are fragments of it on Google Books and someone with questionable ethics has posted the complete text on his blog without attribution.
 

Silva

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Do a google search on "brewsters", "alewives" and "brew witches." Brewing is one of those things that was taken over by men towards the end of the medieval period until it was eventually deemed "unwomanly."
 
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Roxxsmom

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As far as I know, it's a myth that medieval people never drank water, or that they drank alcoholic beverages to avoid drinking water.

http://www.medievalists.net/2014/07/people-drink-water-middle-ages/

http://leslefts.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/the-great-medieval-water-myth.html

This myth is up there with Primae noctis, chastity belts, and with the notions that medieval people thought the world was flat, the myth that medieval girls always (or usually) married in their teens, and that no one ever bathed in the middle ages.

http://www.medievalists.net/2014/06/15-myths-middle-ages/

While women didn't have all the same rights and privileges as men throughout much of history (however, they had more rights than many people realize), I seriously doubt there was any proscription against their drinking beer or wine. In fact, historically, women were often the brewers of beer and the ones who sold ale to passersby and ran ale halls (this became less true in Europe after the 14th century).

It's hard to imagine that they never indulged in their wares.

And the assertion that women (aside from the owners, anyway) didn't go to ale halls before the 20th century seems overstated too, since there are many paintings that show women partaking in these settings, even in the early modern era (when the role of women in brewing had diminished).

https://www.nortonsimon.org/art/detail/M.1969.05.P/

http://www.leicestergalleries.com/19th-20th-century-paintings/d/james-collinson/12714

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/12/80/f8/1280f80500717048035377b5c91d9940--medieval-life-medieval-art.jpg

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/131730357830163711/

Rural inns sometimes hosted weddings, and presumably "reputable women" attended these and drank there.

This article is probably dealing with a later period than the OP's story has in mind, but it might answer some questions about attitudes about alehouses, drinking, and women in the early modern era.

http://www.breweryhistory.com/journal/archive/135/Women.pdf
 
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AW Admin

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Women drank beer, and women brewed beer. Both small beers and those more like modern stouts or porters.

Beer was pretty common as a beverage for everyone; every neighborhood had someone who was known for her (and sometimes his) ability to brew.

Beer was potentially offered at any meal at all, or as a general beverage. People used beer as an item for barter or exchange as well; a housewife who could brew good beer was highly regarded by her neighbors.

Regarding the quality of water, people knew about keeping wells clean, and not dumping animal waste into a water supply, etc, and there were laws to protect water supplies.

Water in towns could be a problem if the supply became contaminated, but precautions were taken.
 
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lonestarlibrarian

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From William Cobbett's 1821 "Cottage Economy", he talks about the history of brewing. It's post-medieval, of course, but the important bit is that the English commonly brewed their own beer pre-1781, but it fell out of favor during that 40-year period between 1781 and the time of his writing in 1821. He has a good deal to say about wasting money at the baker's and the public-house by not doing your own baking and brewing, and wasting your time with something as fussy as tea. It also talks about how the laborer and his family would drink beer, but that little children who are too young to work need to consume broth of porridge.

Before I proceed to give any directions about brewing, let me mentionsome of the inducements to do the thing. In former times, to set about to
show to Englishmen that it was good for them to brew beer in their houses
would have been as impertinent as gravely to insist, that they ought to
endeavour not to lose their breath; for, in those times, (only forty years
ago,) to have a _house_ and not to brew was a rare thing indeed. Mr.
ELLMAN, an old man and a large farmer, in Sussex, has recently given in
evidence, before a Committee of the House of Commons, this fact; that,
_forty years ago_, there was not a labourer in his parish that did not
_brew his own beer_; and that _now_ there is _not one that does it_,
except by chance the malt be given him. The causes of this change have
been the lowering of the wages of labour, compared with the price of
provisions, by the means of the paper-money; the enormous tax upon the
barley when made into _malt_; and the increased tax upon _hops_. These
have quite changed the customs of the English people as to their drink.
They still drink _beer_, but, in general, it is of the brewing of _common
brewers_, and in public-houses, of which the common brewers have become
the owners, and have thus, by the aid of paper-money, obtained a
_monopoly_ in the supplying of the great body of the people with one of
those things which, to the hard-working man, is almost a necessary of
life.

He also addresses the different types of beer, including...
36. The _kind of beer_, for a labourer's family, that is to say, the_degree of strength_, must depend on circumstances; on the numerousness of
the family; on the season of the year, and various other things. But,
generally speaking, beer _half_ the strength of that mentioned in
paragraph 25 will be quite strong enough; for that is, at least, one-third
stronger than the farm-house "_small beer_," which, however, as long
experience has proved, is best suited to the purpose. A judicious labourer
would probably always have some _ale_ in his house, and have small beer
for the general drink. There is no reason why he should not keep
_Christmas_ as well as the farmer; and when he is _mowing_, _reaping_, or
is at any other hard work, a quart, or three pints, of _really good fat
ale_ a-day is by no means too much. However, circumstances vary so much
with different labourers, that as to the _sort_ of beer, and the number of
brewings, and the times of brewing, no general rule can be laid down.

Cobbett was very fond of his italics...

Anyhow, it's post-your-medieval-period (the early modern period actually started in 1485), but Cobbett gives a good insight into how people traditionally brewed for themselves for generations past, versus the more commercial brewers.
 

eqb

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The answer depends enormously on time & place & social class. The very poor drank water, generally, even if the only water was bad, because they couldn't afford anything else. The very poor died in droves of the effects of bad water. Very poor children had shockingly high mortality around the time of weaning because of it.

In southern Europe the normal water-alternative was wine. (Often diluted with water.) No fine vintages -- wine was typically drunk within a year or 2 of the harvest. And it didn't come out of bottles either -- the technology of wine corks is really post-medieval. The means to keep wine drinkable for more than a few years were limited, & mostly involved fortifying it with more sugar to make it more alcoholic (like port or sherry), which also made it a lot more expensive because sugar was rare & costly & local sweeteners like honey didn't work as well for this purpose.

By-products of wine inc. vinegar & verjuice. Both might be used in making beverages of a sort.

In places where apples & pears were grown, cider (or perry) was a very common alternative to water. This was an alcoholic brew, not fruit juice. The nature of it varied widely, local versions might be more wine-like or beer-like depending on the way local people liked it & made it. Rarely very high alcohol content, though.

And of course there was beer and ale. Medieval beers were generally not filtered like modern styles, so the liquid was sometimes a lot soupier than we are used to, and it was a way to preserve the nutritional value of grain as well as a thing to drink -- it was a dietary alternative to bread. Small beer, very low alcohol, was the common daily drink. In parts northern Europe hops were added to the brew as a preservative, but not everywhere. Hops arrived in England in the early 16c; before then, unhopped ale was universal there, and the introduction of hops was viewed with some suspicion as a foreign innovation.

As for women being allowed to drink... in Europe at least that was never a question. Everybody drank whatever was on offer. Beer, ale and cider were made domestically, by the household for the household, and mostly made by women. In parts of England it was common that every household with a surplus of ale might do business as an alehouse, selling by the glass to the neighbors -- it was said in some villages that every house was an alehouse. Alehouses, of course, were operated by alewives.

Honey beer, aka mead, was pretty much exclusive to the north, and replaced by actual beer when grain or fruit production allowed. It was not as widespread or popular as medieval reenactors like to pretend.

Oooo, this is very useful for me. Thank you, Dr. Benbenberi.
 

Twick

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Again, not medieval but Victorian, but I recall the Dickens portrayal of a working-class family all having their own beermugs, assorted by size down to the tiny tin cups of the toddlers. Beer tended to be seen more as a staple than a vice (whereas gin was much more associated with drunkenness).
 

Bolero

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I seem to remember (no reference) that there was a ration of beer in the workhouse - could be wrong on that.