62 
NOTES TO THE 
“EARLY HISTORY OF THE APPLE AND PEAR.’ 
In the curious old Dictionary called “ Promptorium Parvulorum sive clericorum” which 
seems to be a work of the fifteenth century (1440), we read : Sydyr drynke — cisera. 
The reference here plainly is to the vulgate, which, in St. Luke I. 15, reads (speaking of St. 
John the Baptist), et vinum et siceram non bibet. So also in Judges XII. 14, it is said of Samson’s 
mother : “ vinum et siceram non bibat.” 
This seems to show that the word cider was originally equivalent to crirepa, and meant any 
intoxicating drink, but was afterwards appropriated to that made from the juice of the apple. 
In one of the earliest Law Reports known as the “ Year Book,” an Action which occurred at 
the Hereford Assizes, a.d. 1292, is reported in the following terms : 
“A man and his wife named Isabel, brought a writ of waste against B. and Joan his wife, and stated that they 
(Defendants) held certain lands as the dower of Joan, the reversion whereof belonged to Isabel and that they had wasted Oak, 
Pear-trees, and Apple-trees to the value of, &c., to the Plaintiffs’ damage of, &c. 
The Defendants pleaded that these premises had been for ten years in the occupation of Isabel and her 
husband, during which term they had dug round all the apple trees and pear trees, so that they fell down of themselves.” A 
jury was ordered for the decision of this complaint, the result of which is not recorded. 
(Hereford Iter. XX., Edv. I.) 
[The Woolhope Club is indebted to Mr. W. H. Cooke, Q.C., for this interesting notice, which 
proves that Apple Trees and Pear Trees were objects of sufficient value in Herefordshire in 1292 
to go to Law about. ] 
