Ricart’s _Kalendar of the City of Bristol_ contains the following record: “Item, hit hath be usid, in semblable wyse, the seid maire anon aftir Mighelmas, to do calle byfore theym in the seide Counseill hous, all the Brewers of Bristowe; and yf the case require that malt be scant and dere, then to commen there for the reformacion of the same, and to bryng malte to a lower price, and that such price as shall be sette by the maier upon malte, that no brewer breke it, upon payne of XLs. forfeitable { 104} to the Chambre of the Toune. And the shyftyng[42] daies of the woke, specially the Wensdaies and Satirdaies, the mair hath be used to walke in the morenynges to the Brewers howses, to oversee thym in servyng of theire ale to the pouere commens of the toune, and that they have theire trewe mesures; and his Ale-konner with hym to taste and undirstand that the ale be gode, able, and sety keeping their sise, or to be punyshed for the same, aftir the constitucion of the Toune.”
[42] The days when the ale was being moved to customers’ houses.
Sometimes a whole township was fined for the default of some of its members. In 1275 the township of Dunstable was fined 40s., because the brewers had not kept the assize.
Some curious and amusing entries are to be found in the _Munimenta Academica_ of the University of Oxford, as to the regulations for the brewing trade in the fifteenth century. In the year 1434 we find it recorded that, “Seeing how great evils arise both to the clerks and to the townsmen of the City of Oxford, owing to the negligence and dishonesty of the brewers of ale,” Christopher Knollys, commissary, assembles the brewers together in the church of the Blessed Mary the Virgin, and commands them to provide sufficient malt for brewing; and that two or three shall twice or thrice in the week carry round their ale for public sale, under a penalty of 40s.; and John Weskew and Nicholas Core, two of their number, are appointed supervisors of the brewers. Each brewer is then made to swear on the Blessed Evangelists to brew good ale and wholesome, and according to the assize, “so far as his ability and _human frailty permits_.”
It would appear that very considerable disorders prevailed in that ancient seat of learning at this period. The Warden of Canterbury College, for instance, is accused of having incited his scholars to make a raid upon the ale of other scholars of the town, which they accordingly did, and carried off ale to the value of 12d.