Top Magna Carta drinks

To commemorate the 800th birthday of the charter that gave life to the notion of modern democracy, we take a look at the medieval drinks that may well have been used to toast the occasion.

A copy of the Magna Carta held by the British Library (Photo: Wiki)

The Magna Carta, or “Great Charter”, that spelled out the basic freedoms of religion, fair justice, fair taxation and the rule of law for the first time in the post-classical world, was signed on the 15 June 1215 by the besieged King John of England.

The King was under pressure to sign the charter from a group of rebellious barons in a bid to end what at the time would have been viewed as little more than a localised and isolated period of strife between the monarchy and landowners.

However, the document is now, 800 years later, championed across the Western world as a symbol of the liberty of the many against the despotism of the few.

“No free man shall be taken or imprisoned, or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go or send against him except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land,” it emphatically reads.

In this celebration of freedom and independence, what better way is there to get into the spirit of things than by having a look at the hodge-podge assortment of beers, wines and distillates that featured in the taverns, peasant kitchens, and aristocratic banquets of medieval Europe.

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All information gleaned from verified sources. Have we missed something? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Red wine

A medieval illustration of red grapes being harvested and pressed (Photo: Wiki)

Common especially throughout Mediterranean Europe among all classes in the medieval age, red wine was trumpeted by physicians of the time for its supposed health qualities, especially when it came to digestion and improving the “quality” of one’s blood.

Much like today, medieval winemakers appreciated the importance of vintage when it came to the quality of wine, and they also adhered to the practice of saving first pressings for the wealthiest drinkers, going down to second and even third pressings for the peasant classes.

Fully aware of the benefits of ageing wine where appropriate, efforts were taken to develop methods of effectively preserving wine. Detailed in cookbooks of the time were techniques including, among others, mixing the ash of burnt lees into barrels of wine.

Such was the compulsion to add ingredients to wine in the hope of preserving it for longer that drinks containing wine mixed with fruits and spices became popular tipples in themselves…

Spiced wines

A modern interpretation of spiced wine (Photo: Wiki)

Again lauded by physicians for reputedly helping to defeat all manner of diseases and ailments, wine was meant to be the perfect delivery system for beneficial herbs and spices into the body.

Popular spices included ginger, cardamom, pepper, nutmeg, cloves and sugar – all of which are still included in modern interpretations of mulled wine. These spices would be contained in small bags which were either steeped in wine or had liquid poured over them (unlike many contemporary creators of mulled wine, as pictured).

By the 14th century, bagged spice mixes could be bought ready-made from spice merchants, according to Terence Scully in his book The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages.

Beer

A medieval monk brewing beer

Although wine permeated all social classes in the southern stretches of Europe, further north it was only the preserve of aristocratic families who could afford to import their own supplies from winemaking regions.

Instead, for the lower classes in northern Europe and England, beers and ales were the drinks of choice for people of all ages, and was much preferred to disease-carrying water.

Made using grains and cereals unsuited to general cooking and bread making, the flavouring of the beers used a wide variety of ingredients before the widespread use of hops.

For example, “gruit”, a mix of various herbs, had been commonly used to flavour beer. Increasing the alcoholic content was also a technique for enhancing flavour, although this led to the widespread perception that beer was generally worse for the body and more suited to uncouth peasants than wine and other alcoholic drinks.

According to contemporary sources, the level of beer drinking greatly exceeds that of today. For example, sailors in 16th century England and Denmark reportedly received a ration of 1 imperial gallon, or 4.5 litres of beer per day.

Beer variants

A posset jug from the 17th century (Photo: Wiki)

Due to the popularity of beer throughout northern Europe, it is unsurprising that there were any number of strange variants consumed in the medieval period.

For example, there is the Braggot, which is of Welsh origin and was initially brewed with honey and hops, but later with honey and malt with or without hops.

Stranger than this mead-like drink was the Posset, a hot drink of milk curdled with ale, often spiced, which was popular from medieval times right up to the 19th century. It was considered a specific remedy for some minor illnesses, such as a cold, and a general remedy for others like insomnia.

Spirits

An example of a medieval still

Distillation for the purpose of producing drinkable spirits didn’t begin the take hold until the medieval period in Europe, when the term aqua vitae or “water of life” was first coined in relation to the belief that distilling a liquid revealed its “essence”.

As has been the case with all of our medieval drinks, distilled spirits were first prescribed as medical treatments, but such a taste was developed for them that moonshine began to be made throughout the continent for general consumption around the 12th and 13th centuries. The world’s first brandies were produced and consumed during this period.

Sales restrictions swiftly followed in the 15th century, when the consumption of spirits went hand-in-hand with daily life for populations across Europe, with whiskies being tending to be made in Britain and Ireland, brandies dominating western, southern and central Europe, and vodkas finding a home in the east and the north of the continent.