CHAPTER VIII. 



ON THE PRICE OF HOPS. 



HOPS were cultivated and employed to flavour beer in 

 Flanders long before they were used or planted in England. 

 When they were introduced, it was first into the Eastern 

 counties; and all my earlier entries in the third volume, page 

 254, are from Norfolk. In 1527, more than forty years after 

 their first use in Norfolk, they are bought for Sion, that is 

 virtually in London. In the same year they are returned 

 from some place in Wilts, and are spoken of as purchased at 

 Frome, Bristol and London, i. e. were most likely foreign. A 

 little later and they are found at Lewes. In 1541, King's 

 College, Cambridge, begins to buy them, and from 1577 uses 

 them regularly, at first almost certainly from foreign sources. 

 As the King's College accounts are almost perfect, the entries 

 scarcely fail for this place, which regularly brewed its own 

 beer. Eton too gives information for nearly every year in 

 which its accounts are preserved. Some other places too 

 give prices. Unfortunately, King's College gives no entry 

 under 1642, and the accounts of Eton are lost for 1641-42. 



The cultivation of the hop was naturalised before 1576 

 (probably at a recent date, and no doubt introduced by the 

 Flemings who fled into England to escape Alva's persecution), 

 c know by a work of Reynold Scot, published in that year. 

 That this branch of agriculture had been traditional in Flanders 

 is illustrated by the name Houblon, one of the persons so 

 named having fled from Flanders and settled in England, 



VOL. v. u 



