[36] A “foreyn” was one who was not a freeman of the City—no reference to nationality.
Prosecutions for the use of hops were frequent, but they were for putting hops into _ale_, and not for brewing beer. In the twelfth year of Henry VII., John Barowe was presented by the wardens of the brewers because he brewed _ale_ with _beer-yeast_, “_quod est corpori humano insalubre_.” Nine years later Robert Dodworth, brewer’s servant, confessed that he had brewed “a burthen of _ale_ in the house of his master in Fleet Street with hops, contrary to the laws and laudable acts and customs of the city.” In the tenth year of Henry VIII., William Shepherd, brewer’s servant to Philip Cooper, “occupying the feat of bruing,” made a deposition that he had “once since Michaelmas last brewed _ale_ with hops, but that his master knew not of it,” but that he had heard that other servants had brewed with hops, “and that was the cause why he brewed with hoppes, and more he would not say.” Philip Cooper, however, was evidently suspected, for in the same records we find that he was compelled to bring into the Court “a standing cup with a cover of gylt with three red hearts in the bottom of the cup to stand to the order of the Court touching the brewing with hoppes.” On { 70} payment of a fine of five shillings, his gage is ordered to be returned to him. Many other passages could be quoted from the City Records in support of the view that beer-brewing was not forbidden, but only the adulteration, as it was considered, of the old English ale with an admixture of hops. We have dwelt somewhat fully upon this part of the subject, as there appears to be an almost universal misconception as to the date of the introduction of hops into England, and as to their use having been for some time altogether prohibited by the law of the land. The only authority for this last mentioned idea, seems to be the statement of Fuller, in his _Worthies of England_, that hops were forbidden as the result of a petition which was presented in the time of Henry VI. against “the wicked weed called hops.” No statute to this effect is in existence, no record is to be found in the rolls of Parliament of any such petition, and the statement is in opposition to the evidence we have been able to collect on the subject.
