Drinks of the world / by James Mew and John Ashton.

  • Mew, James.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Drinks of the world / by James Mew and John Ashton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    78/390 (page 70)
    There was, however, another Claret, a compounded wine, resembling hypocras, which Giraldus Cambrensis, who lived in the twelfth century, classes thus : “ Clare- turn, mustum, et medonem ” (Claret, must, and mead). And the venerable Franciscan, Bartholomew Glan- ville,1 says : “ Claretum, ex vino et melle et speciebus aromaticis est confectum ” (Claret is made from wine, honey, and aromatic spices). It makes a marked feature in a curious tenure.2 “John de Roches holds the Manor of Winterslew, in the county of Wilts, by the Service, that when our Lord the King should abide at Clarendon, he should come to the Palace of the King there, and go into the Butlery, and draw out of any vessel he should find in the said Butlery at his choice, as much Wine as should be needful for making [pro factura) a Pitcher of Claret (unius Picheri Claretti), which he should make at the King’s charge, and that he should serve the King with a Cup, and should have the vessel from whence he took the Wine, with all the Remainder of the Wine left in the Vessel, together with the Cup from whence the King should drink that Claret.” This refers to a roll of 50 Ed. IIP, or 1376. But this is not the Claret of our days, which is the wine produced in the countries watered by the rivers Dordogne and Garonne and the Gironde, at least it should be so; but, in truth, owing to the good railway communication, wine comes to Bordeaux from every 1 De Proprietatibus Rerum. Argent. 1485, lib. xix. cap. 56. 2 Blount’s Fragmenta Antiquitatis. Sec. “ Grand Serjeantry,’ No. IV.