From Wine to Beer:

Changing Patterns of Alcoholic Consumption and Living Standards in Late-Medieval Flanders, 1300 – 1550

by John Munro (Toronto)

From Wine to Beer in Late-Medieval Flanders: Introduction

• 1) Northern Europe: land of beer & butter; vs. southern Europe as land of wine and olive oil: not always so

• 2) Meagre evidence on this shift: declining per capita wine consumption and rising per capita beer consumption: from studies by: Margery James, Michael Postan, Hans Van Werveke, Jan Craeybeckx, Herman Van der Wee, Richard Unger

• 3) The Postan Thesis (CEH: 1952): technological:• - the crucial factor was the introduction of hops: in North

German (Hamburg) and Dutch towns, from the 1320s • ‘hop’ thesis basically endorsed by Craeybeckx, Van der

Wee, Unger (and many others): how valid is the thesis? • 4) Evidence on continued importance of wine: Antwerp

Brewing with hops• 1) The importance of hops: replacing gruit• a) Long Distance Trade: hops improved both the stability and

durability of brewed beers (as well as taste): stored for longer times, transported over longer distances

• b) Safety in ‘drinkability’: hops improved the sterilization process (not all bacteria killed by boiling: note that beer is 90% water)

• 2) Wine and Beer: in pre-modern societies, were not ‘sinful luxuries’ but vital necessities: because water and milk were generally unsafe to drink, especially in urban areas (pollution)

• - Koch (1876), Pasteur (1878): discovery of bacterial transmission of diseases sewage & water purification systems in NW Europe, North America rapid fall in mortalities

• 3) Nutritional Values of Beer (over wine):

Nutritional Values of Beer

• 1) Robert Allen’s consumer price index:• - Beer: 20.6% share: in his basket of consumer

expenditures (same for wine in southern Europe)• cf: Phelps Brown & Hopkins (England): 22.5% share;

Rappaport (London): 20.0%; Munro (Flanders): 20.43%; Van der Wee (Brabant): 17.08% (vs. 1% for wine)

• 2) Allen’s caloric quantification: for annual household budgets: in late-medieval, early-modern Europe

• a) northern budget: 182 litres of beer = 77,532 C.• b) Mediterranean budget: 68.5 litres wine = 58,035 C.

Problems with the Hop Thesis: the Flemish Urban Evidence

• 1) Basic problem with the ‘hop thesis’: major shift from wine to beer comes too late: not till 1430s

• 2) The Evidence the Treasurers’ accounts for Bruges and Aalst: annual sales of excise-tax farms on wine, beer, other foodstuffs (esp. grains, fish), textiles

• 3) excise tax-farms (on urban household consumption): urban revenues chiefly used to finance public debt payments: on rentes (annuities) sold primarily to finance warfare (European-wide).

• 4) Wine and Beer: principal taxes: on necessities that were also very addictive highly inelastic demand

• - very highly regressive taxes on all urban households

The Bruges Financial Accounts• 1) Especially valuable: in two respects:• a) only urban accounts extant from early 14th century: from 1308,

with few annual lacunae (unlike Ghent accounts; or Ypres – none extant until 1406): data in graphs and tables in this study to 1500

• b) evidence on consumption of foreign as well as domestic beers.• 2) Foreign beer imports:• a) Hamburg beers: from 1333 (possibly hop beers)• b) ‘Hop & Delft’ beers: from 1380: Dutch beers: initially much more

important than Hamburg beers, but sharply diminishing from 1411: • - 1430: Delft beers amalgamated with German beers• c) from 1430s: foreign beers decline in both absolute (‘real) &

relative importance predominance of Bruges beer• d) Why? Warfare with Hanseatic League and England – to 1470.

Aalst vs. Bruges Financial Accounts

• 1) Importance of the Aalst annual financial accounts:• - a) begin in 1395: but then virtually continuous (to 1550)• - b) provide wage data to 1550; Bruges: none from 1480• 2) Comparisons with the Bruges accounts on beer:• a) Aalst: primacy of beer established from the beginning: 63% of

total alcoholic excise farms in 1390s, but still only 67% ca. 1420• b) Bruges: beer: 34% of that total in 1308-10; only 33% in 1381-85;

37% in 1416-20• - note: Bruges wealthier, more mercantile, cosmopolitan town

greater retained preference for imported wines.• c) In both sets: more decisive shift to beer from 1430• - i) Bruges: 52% in 1431-35: almost continuous rise to 70% in 1490s• - ii) Aalst: 73% in 1431-35 to 83% in 1466-70; 80% in 1496-1500

Estimating the Burdens of Urban Excise Taxes (1)

• 1) Problem: the nominal money-of-account values of the excise-tax farms sales are otherwise useless in estimating tax burdens

• 2) Reason: the impact of coinage debasements (finance warfare) consequent inflations

• - grams silver in Flemish penny (groot): fell from 2.067 g in 1350 to 0.463 g in 1482 (0.479 in 1500)

• - Flemish CPI (1451-75=100): from 60.5 in 1351-56 to 184.5 in 1486-90: 3-fold inflationary rise

• 3) Note: periodic coinage debasements sharply reduced real incomes of wage-earners & those on fixed incomes (salaries, rents, pensions, etc.): RWI = NWI/CPI

• - BUT so did the rises in highly regressive excise taxes

Estimating the Burdens of Urban Excise Taxes (2)

• 4) Two statistical methods of estimating the ‘real’ burden of urban excise tax farms:

• a) Calculate the number of Flemish ‘commodity baskets’ (in the CPI) whose value = total revenues of the excise tax farms

• (Bruges: alcohol only; Aalst: all excise farms)• b) Calculate the number of years’ of a master

mason’s money-wage income whose value = total revenues of the excise tax farms (Aalst only: and for all excise tax farms)

Real Tax Burdens during the Golden Age of the Artisans

• 1) 15th-century ‘Golden Age of the Artisans’ (and labourers): concept based on evidence for real-wages of craftsmen in Flanders (and Brabant, and England):

• 2) Rise in real wage index (RWI = NWI/CPI) from ca. 1440 to ca. 1470: basically determined by deflation: when coinage debasements had ceased and other forces for monetary contraction fall in price level

Importance of the Aalst wage and excise-tax data

• 1) The real wage data for Aalst during the Golden Age: also show marked rise c. 1440 – c. 1470 (RWI = NW/CPI)

• 2) BUT the real value or burden of the excise tax farms, as measured in annual incomes of master mason: also rise in the very same period, offsetting rise in crude real wages

• 3) Rising urban excise tax burden: rising taxes to finance steep rise in public debts incurred to finance previous and current warfare

• - note England: no such excise taxes until 1640s (Civil War)• 4) Importance of the era from 1430s for Flanders:• a) rising excise-tax burdens: from warfare, which had also spawned

deleterious coinage debasements• b) more rapid decline in traditional woollen draperies• c) also period of more rapid shift from wine to beer• - was that more pronounced shift due to real income changes?

Demographic Questions• 1) Estimates of burdens of the urban excise taxes: based

on assumptions of stable populations• 2) But, did Flemish populations (urban & rural) continued

to decline, as in England? Evidence for Flanders is mixed: from 7% to 28% (Ypres); but some towns did not decline.

• 3) Significance of the question: if urban populations fell Δ per capita tax burden: i.e., increase in household taxes

• 4) For duchy of Brabant – just to east of Aalst, evidence of severe population decline, 1437 to 1496 – along with increased poverty, especially in small towns and villages

• 5) Golden Age in mid 15th century?: for the artisan or for bacteria (Thrupp): but beer is always golden

• except for those who prefer donker bier