1863 Cups and their customs

CUPS AND THEIR CUSTOMS.

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that the Saxons were in the habit of compounding drinks, and, beyond the fact of their pledging each other with the words "Drinc-hsel^^ and "Wsess-hsel/^ accompanying the words with a kiss, and that min- strelsy formed a conspicuous adjunct to their drinking- festivities, we can obtain but little knowledge of the customs they pursued. For further information on this point, much may be learnt from Mr. Wright^s excellent book of ^ Domestic Manners and Sentiments of the Middle Ages,^ where some good illustrations of Saxon drinking-scenes are sketched from the Harleian and other manuscripts. From the scarcity of materials descriptive of the social habits of the Normans, we glean but little as to their customs of drinking ; in all probability they differed , but slightly from those of the Saxons, though at this time wine became of more frequent use, the vessels from which it was quaffed being bowl-shaped, and generally made of glass. Will of Malmsbury, describing the customs of Glastonbury soon after the Conquest, says, that on particular occa- sions the monks had " mead in their cans, and wine in Excess in drinking appears to have been looked upon with leniency ; for, in the stories of Reginald of Durham, we read of a party drinking all night at the house of a priest ; and, in another, he mentions a youth passing the whole night drinking at a tavern with his monastic teacher, till the one cannot prevail on the other to go home. The qualities of good wine in the 12th century are thus singularly set forth : " It should be clear like the tears of a penitent, so that their grace-cup.^^