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Pub Crawl (British History)
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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Consider the post.

Consider also the tax man, the Domesday Book, court appearances, marriage banns, moot houses... and whatever other ways individuals were personally accountable to, recognised by, or otherwise plugged into the System.

Consider also dwile flonking, football clubs, music halls, travelling minstrels...

How did mail get around to country folk without an address?

Why did it need to?

Church, pub, employer, lord of the manor... Who gets to be individually distinguished from the 'hub'?

In which case the pub would need a name.

Not if there was only one pub per village.

b) it's a communal walk

What does that mean when you're talking about people not already living in villages?

Hence you live near the pub.

You mean villages 'coalesced' around the pubs?

That assumes a countryside scattered randomly with people. I don't think that's a valid picture of any period in human history. Don't forget: the previously-empty wilderness-turned-countryside was populated on purpose as agriculture was (literally) farmed out from the already-(infra)-structured network of cities/communities.

Pubs definitely do not precede cities, but they might well precede agriculture. Surely they will have been installed as part of the villages?
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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In some respects pubs are the cornerstone of local history... And they commemorate local events, like the Queen's Oak, the only pub with that name in the country, named after Queen Vic who planted an oak opposite (cf. 'The Adlington Arms' recently renamed after one of our Olympic gold medallists).

Which came first: being an institution or having a name?

Grand-scale things (airports, cities...) are named after grand-scale things... memorial halls after local figures... children after grand-parents... houses, fields, dells, wells after local features... There is a continuum, but it means pubs are institutions-in-their-own-right, somehow self-important, somehow 'worthy' of commemorating important people or events.

A brand is an abstract object, but it does have a life of its own and people are prepared to pay for the goodwill that attaches to it. It seems to me a named pub works much the same way; and, again, I can't see there being a time before entities-with-identities.

No need to walk far to a pub in a market town indeed but presumably the market town came first, pub(s) second.


How so?

Can anyone think of a pub-name that commemorates the other side?

Could a name be awarded (or imposed) for its 'brand value' (or 'brand burden')? Is it just towns that get charters and "Regis" and whatever? Were pubs closed down punitively?

---

Pubs didn't need pictures rather than words to identify them: the words would be recognised as the name by the locals just as surely as kids learn to 'read' Cadbury's, Nike or Ferrari before they can read. Unless going somewhere else -- in the normal way -- "That looks like a Half Moon: this must be the place."
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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Which came first: being an institution or having a name?

Well, according to received wisdom, the institution (Roman tavernas used vineleaves as 'pub signs' thus leaving no room for doubt): the brewer, often a "housewife", put up a sign in the form of a bush on a pole to announce when the brew was ready, a green light as it were. Names came after, fourteenth century, when ale inspectors made their rounds and bureaucrats needed to know which locales had passed or failed quality control.

No need to walk far to a pub in a market town indeed but presumably the market town came first, pub(s) second.

How so?

Well, presumably a market town's location developed due to its nearness to or from other towns not because there was a pub in situ; established market towns would provide an assured clientele also for hostelries catering for traders and pilgrims. Monasteries had a reputation for brewing (not just Benedictines), whether they catered for local people as well as those with a higher purpose is unclear but probably yes going by the proximity of pub to church in villages today, such as 'Ye Olde Fighting Cocks' in St. Albans, one of several "oldest pubs", bordering on the abbey, or 'Ye Olde Man & Scythe' (another contender) situated at Church Gate, etc. etc. Was there perhaps an upsurge in alehouses after the Dissolution?

Pubs didn't need pictures rather than words to identify them: the words would be recognised as the name by the locals just as surely as kids learn to 'read' Cadbury's, Nike or Ferrari before they can read.

Yet kids recognise certain colours and outlines without really spelling out the words; if they've been told what the word says they'll say it because they understand the connection between the object and the name, like toddlers pointing to a carton and demanding "juice". Doesn't matter if the picture on the side bears no obvious relation to the name.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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1. Hops were initially included as a 'preservative'
2. Hops were not introduced into English ale until 1500, seven hundred years after they were routine in Europe.

Hops were essential as a preservative as beer goes off very easily according to a friend who's tried home-brewing; they possess, more importantly, antiseptic qualities which makes sense of the premise that beer was indeed safer to drink than water.

Hops were introduced by the Romans into Britain. They give beer a bitter taste (hence our 'Bitter') and are used in both ale and lager; the difference between ale and lager is whether fermentation takes place at the top or bottom of the vat, can't remember which way round it is.

Incidentally, whisky like other spirits such as vodka was clear, or water-coloured; the amber liquid we know was a relatively recent (eighteenth century?) innovation resulting from the barrels (originally for wine and sherry) in which the whisky was stored. This also makes sense of the 'water of life' epithet.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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Names came after, fourteenth century, when ale inspectors made their rounds and bureaucrats needed to know which locales had passed or failed quality control.

Interesting. Do the records say in so many words that names had to be conjured up; or is it the same with tax records and personal names: there is by definition no evidence of the names before the records of them, so the guess that the names were given in order to complete the records is necessarily unevidenced.

'Course, they could hand out 'kite marks' without taking home a list of them...

Well, presumably a market town's location developed due to its nearness to or from other towns not because there was a pub in situ

Sounds like you're suffering from Agriculture First Syndrome, Hatty: as if market towns, being larger and more sophisticated (and clearly part of a collective economy, as opposed to individual subsistence, supposedly the State of Nature) spring up when local conditions permit/dictate.

But if people cluster together with a certain natural (to some extent, local) level of "granularity" and build pubs everywhere (i.e. wherever they can be sustained), and this is the very same process as the evolution of cities, towns and villages, then the "well, we've got our market town, now what do we need? -- I know - there's no pub" situation will not occur.

like toddlers pointing to a carton and demanding "juice". Doesn't matter if the picture on the side bears no obvious relation to the name.

Exactly. So the fact that pub signs were ubiquitous probably means their names go back to before the written version was even an option: quite possibly before anyone (here) was literate.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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2. Hops were not introduced into English ale until 1500, seven hundred years after they were routine in Europe.

...Hops were introduced by the Romans into Britain.

What were we doing with them if it took several centuries, or several more centuries, to find their way into beer?

(They used to say the Romans introduced nettles, too. But they now say nettle fibre survives from the Stone Age.)

the amber liquid... resulting from the barrels in which the whisky was stored.

What was it stored in before, then?

Barrels are swapped about from wine to sherry (or whatever), etc. and sometimes charred on the inside. Whiskey is also affected by peaty and granity and everything in betweeny water.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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But if people cluster together with a certain natural (to some extent, local) level of "granularity" and build pubs everywhere (i.e. wherever they can be sustained), and this is the very same process as the evolution of cities, towns and villages, then the "well, we've got our market town, now what do we need? -- I know - there's no pub" situation will not occur.

If pubs are a lucrative business (my aunt did very well out of running one), then not just any old person would get the franchise; could it not be the case that the local landowner or the (nearby) monastery is the 'institution' controlling the trade, before the village expands into, say, a market town?

Do the records say in so many words that names had to be conjured up; or is it the same with tax records and personal names: there is by definition no evidence of the names before the records of them, so the guess that the names were given in order to complete the records is necessarily unevidenced.

In small towns there are sometimes two concurrent names, the official one and the traditional one known only to the inhabitants perhaps relating to a particular landlord's trade or a local 'incident'. An official name is only necessary for outsiders, or when there's 'competition'.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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Hops were introduced by the Romans into Britain.

What were we doing with them if it took several centuries, or several more centuries, to find their way into beer?

Hops have the advantage of being a preservative and the disadvantage of having a bitter taste; there's no particular need to preserve the beer if it's purely for local consumption and doesn't have to travel far. It may be connected to colonisation and sea voyages, providing beer, rum or whathaveyou for sailors/settlers, which took off in late Tudor/early Stuart times.

What was it stored in before, then?

Barrels are swapped about from wine to sherry (or whatever), etc. and sometimes charred on the inside. Whiskey is also affected by peaty and granity and everything in betweeny water.

I wondered about storage too. Could be a fortuitous accident that whisky looked and tasted better after being stored in a particular kind of (wine?) barrel and that it was originally stored in a water barrel (was wine introduced to Scots later than in England?). Smokiness is a wine trait, Rioja for instance, which presumably came about as a result of charring the inside of the container to make the wood more hard-wearing?
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Komorikid


In: Gold Coast, Australia
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It's interesting to note that pubs are one of the first things to be built in new settlements after the roof over your head and the veggie gardens out the back were established. This from the record of the Sydney's first settlement:

After the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, Tallawoladah became the convicts' side of the town. While the governor and civil personnel lived on the more orderly easterm slopes of the Tank Stream, convict women and men appropriated land on the west. Some had leases, but most did not. They built traditional vernacular houses, first of wattle and daub, with thatched roofs, later of weatherboards or rubble stone, roofed with timber shingles. They fenced off gardens and yards, established trades and businesses, built bread ovens and forges, opened shops and pubs
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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could it not be the case that the local landowner or the (nearby) monastery is the 'institution' controlling the trade, before the village expands into, say, a market town?

I'm not sure that 'controlling' is the right word, but it'd be interesting if it could be shown that pre-monastery pubs were run by pre-monastic institutions.

Anyway, you've conceded the point that you don't get towns and then pubs, but the original question was whether a pub can "be something" without a name, before some bureaucrat comes up with the idea of unique-ish-ly naming them.

I think not. Your idea that they might be known by association with landowners or monastery-breweries still suggests they went by names (especially if there were multiple pubs in the "parish").

Do the records say in so many words that names had to be conjured up...?

In small towns there are sometimes two concurrent names, the official one and the traditional one known only to the inhabitants perhaps relating to a particular landlord's trade or a local 'incident'. An official name is only necessary for outsiders, or when there's 'competition'.

I'll take that as a 'no' then.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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Hops have the advantage of being a preservative and the disadvantage of having a bitter taste; there's no particular need to preserve the beer if it's purely for local consumption and doesn't have to travel far. It may be connected to colonisation and sea voyages, providing beer, rum or whathaveyou for sailors/settlers, which took off in late Tudor/early Stuart times.

Interesting... but why were the continentals into it long before us then?

-- No hops means they don't want our beer on the continent; and it wouldn't survive the trip anyway.
-- With hops, they might want it and it can be delivered.

Did we break out from one (virtuous?) circle into the other? If so, why just then?

Smokiness is a wine trait, Rioja for instance, which presumably came about as a result of charring the inside of the container to make the wood more hard-wearing?

Well, charring food is a culinary technique. Perhaps putting alcohol into selected wooden barrels, 'raw' or charred, was a herbal infusion technique. (You can't make a container out of hops or juniper berries, but you can make one out of willow.) What's the traditional fate of spent barrels?
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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It's interesting to note that pubs are one of the first things to be built in new settlements after the roof over your head and the veggie gardens out the back were established.

'Course, even professional anthropologists would have to agree that everyone has public houses. Ours are associated especially with alcohol, but literally-communal buildings can be found in the jungles of Borneo. And this is considered by the experts the State of Nature.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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but why were the continentals into it long before us then?

Since it is unquestionably the case that hops enhance the taste of beer there is at least the theoretical possibility that hops were banned in England to discourage drinking alcohol (beer being a necessary drink for medical reasons as discussed above).

We had Druids, remember, and religious ruling groups are notorious for disapproving of enjoyment. This remnds us not to take orthodoxy's view of hop'n'beer timetables very seriously.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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'Course, even professional anthropologists would have to agree that everyone has public houses. Ours are associated especially with alcohol, but literally-communal buildings can be found in the jungles of Borneo. And this is considered by the experts the State of Nature.

It seems to be to do with the (artificial) separation between sacred and profane. In a culture where it's traditionally frowned upon to engage in unseemly activities in a religious setting or consume intoxicating liquor you need a(nother) location to be in a State of Nature as opposed to a State of Grace.

Did we break out from one (virtuous?) circle into the other? If so, why just then?

Then was when English claims to French territory were wellnigh finished. The best, or less bitter, hop varieties are Czech and German.
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Mick Harper
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Driving through Poole at the weekend I spotted a run-down pub called The Queen Mary. That's a first, I thought, what's on the pub-sign? It was a portrait of Mary I, Bloody Mary. What next, The Adolf Hitler?
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