34<8 THE HOP CROP. 



giving a peculiar flavour or other property to the article 

 they prepare. 



In this country we have no evidence of the use of 

 hops until a much later period. Although some German 

 authorities state that they were in use about the middle 

 of the fifteenth century, and that a statute of Henry VI. 

 forbade their growth as a dangerous introduction j 1 still 

 the balance of evidence is that they were not known in 

 England until the reign of Henry VIII., or about the 

 year 1524, when they were first introduced by some cul- 

 tivators from Artois. It is nevertheless true that this 

 sovereign, in an ordinance respecting the servants of 

 the royal household, issued in the twenty-second year of 

 his reign (1530), forbade brewers to put either hops or 

 sulphur into the ale. This, however, may be reconciled 

 with the use of hops for brewing at that period by the 

 difference in the ingredients used between ale and beer. 

 At the present time, the proportion of hops used is different, 

 and at that period probably the newly introduced plant 

 was only used when a keeping beverage was required, and 

 not in brewing for ordinary everyday consumption. 



In several of our old writers upon the early customs 

 and practices of the people, we find reference made to the 

 popular beverage of the particular period. The fermented 

 liquor, says one, 2 anciently in use in this country is usu- 

 ally termed ale, but we have in fact no certain account of 

 its composition, and all that is now known with anything 

 like certainty is, that it was a pleasant but intoxicating 

 liquor. Our Saxon ancestors were so far addicted to its 

 use, that so far back as the time of King Edgar it was 



1 Tins is asserted in the Gottingen Gel. Anzeigen, 1778, p. 323, but is not 

 confirmed by any documentary evidence ; whereas in the " Statutes at Large," 

 vol. i. p. 591, referring to the period, directions are given as to the use of 

 " malt" in brewing, without mention being made of hops at all. 



2 Husbandry and Trade Improved. By J. Houghton. London, 1727. Book 

 i. p. 457. 



