Strong beer, such as we now buy for eighteenpence a gallon, was then a penny a gallon;[1] and table-beer
- ↑ 'When the brewer buyeth a quarter of malt for two shillings, then he shall sell a gallon of the best ale for two farthings; when he buyeth a quarter malt for four shillings, the gallon shall be four farthings, and so forth ... and that he sell a quart of ale upon his table for a farthing.'—Assize of Brewers: from a MS. in Balliol College, Oxford.By an order of the Lord Mayor and Council of the City of London, in September, 1529, the price of a kilderkin of single beer was fixed at a shilling, the kilderkin of double beer at two shillings; but this included the cask; and the London brewers replied with a remonstrance saying that the casks were often destroyed or made away with, and that an allowance had to be made for bad debts. 'Your beseechers,' they said, 'have many city debtors, for many of them which
dinners of the London companies were sometimes provided at a shilling apiece. Fresh fish was also extravagantly dear, and when two days a week were observed strictly as fasting days, it becomes a curious question to know how the supply was kept up. The inland counties were dependent entirely on ponds and rivers. London was provided either from the Thames or from the coast of Sussex. An officer of the Fishmongers' Company resided at each of the Cinque Ports, whose business it was to buy the fish wholesale from the boats and to forward it on horseback. Three hundred horses were kept for this service at Rye alone. And when an adventurous fisherman, taking advantage of a fair wind, sailed up the Thames with his catch and sold it first hand at London Bridge, the innovation was considered dangerous, and the Mayor of Rye petitioned against it.
Salmon, sturgeon, porpoise, roach, dace, flounders, eels, &c., were caught in considerable quantities in the Thames, below London Bridge, 'and further up, pike and trout. The fishermen had great nets that stretched all across Limehousereach four fathoms deep.Fresh fish, however, remained the luxury of the rich, and the poor were left to the salt cod, ling, and herring brought in annually by the Iceland fleet.Fresh herrings sold for five or six a penny in the time of Henry VIII., and. were never cheaper. Fresh salmon five and six shillings apiece. Roach, dace, and flounders, from two to four shillings a hundred. Pike and barbel varied with their length. The barbel a foot long sold for fivepence, and twopence was added for each additional inch: a pike a foot long sold for sixteen pence, and increased a penny an inch. Guildhall MS. Journals 12, 13, 14, 15.