The same idea, formerly so prevalent, that persons ought to be compelled by the strong hand to pursue their avocations, and the arbitrary manner in which the authorities acted in obtaining a supply of victuals, may be illustrated from the _Annals of Dunstaple_ (1294), in which it is { 134} recorded that the King’s long stay at St. Albans and Langley “enormously injured the market of Dunstaple and all the country round. . . The servants of the King seized all victual coming to the market, even cheese and eggs; they went into the houses of the citizens and carried away even what was not for sale, and scarce left a tally with any one. They took bread and ale from the ale-wives, and if they had none _they made them make bread and ale_.” In 1297 the Sheriffs of Notts and Derby are ordered by Edward I. (Rymer R. 1. 883) to proclaim in every town that the bakers and brewers should bake and brew a sufficient store of bread and ale for certain Welshmen, who were marching to chastise the Scots, “because the King is unwilling that, by reason of such victuals failing, the men of those parts should suffer damage at the hands of the sd Welshmen.”
The persons employed in the malt liquor trade, whether as manufacturers or retailers, are specified in an ordinance of the reign of Henry IV. to be Brewers, Brewsters, Hostillers (_i.e._, Innkeepers), Kewes (_i.e._, Cooks), Pyebakers, and Hucksters. The hucksters were undoubtedly at one time accustomed to sell their ale in the streets of London. In 1320 they were prohibited by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen from selling ale on London Bridge. In the sixth year of Richard II. Juliana atte Vane, huckster, was charged with selling her ale in “hukkesterie;” she is asked from whom she bought the ale, and replies that she bought the said ale, viz., one barrel of 30 gallons, from Benedicta (brewster), who lived at “Crepulgate.” It was accordingly adjudged that Juliana had broken the City regulations, and the ale was forfeited. The brewers were forbidden at this time to sell to hucksters under pain of forfeiture and imprisonment _at the will of the Mayor_, the intention apparently being that only a brewer should be a vendor of ale.
By the reign of Henry IV. the brewers, although they had as yet no royal charter, had joined themselves together for purposes of mutual protection and social intercourse. They are mentioned in an ordinance of the seventh year of that reign as the Mystery (_i.e._, trade or craft) of Free Brewers within the City, and a constitution is ordained for them by the City Fathers. The freemen of the Mystery are yearly to elect eight persons, four of the part of the City east of Walbrook, viz., two masters and two wardens, and four like persons of the part west of Walbrook. These eight are to make regulations for those using the mystery of brewing, as to the hiring of servants, the sale of ale, and such like matters, as they should be charged by the Mayor and Aldermen; they are also to see “that the good men of the mystery may { 135} have a proper place to go to to transact their own business,” and are called together upon the proper occasions “by summons of their beadle in such a manner as other mysteries are;” they are to supervise those who make and supply ale, and to see that “good, able and seyn (sound) ale” is brewed according to the legal price, and to report offenders to the Chamberlain of the City.