Further in what I hope will be occasional translations from Konrad von Megenberg’s Yconomia, the chapter on the brewer:
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The thirty-seventh chapter of the brewer (praxator)
The brewer of beer (praxator) is so named after the Greek word praxis which is operacio (effect, action) in Latin, which naming is due to the effect of drink. Also, it is called cervisia (beer) because it is made from cereals (ex cerere) and of ydor, that is water. It is made at times of wheat grain, and this is more flavourful and, all other things being equal, nourishes better, at other times of barley, which cools and purges better. This is for the reason that the grains are similar in their condition to a thysane, but the added flowers of hops and the exuded resins of fir or pine impart bad qualities to it, affecting the human body with heaviness. There are also vaporous elements (res fumose) that confound the brain and release the windiness of the belly because they are cooked this way in cereal water (aqua farinata). But the flowers of hops have this quality that they weigh down the body, are of sharp, strong odour and hot and dry in virtue, cutting and dissolving viscosity, and they preserve from putrefaction all humours with which they are mixed. For these reasons they are cooked in beer, and occasionally also in mead and for reason of the water and above all the decoction, vile harmful matter leave the body. Therefore sometimes, especially in the bellies of cholerics, beer opens the rear parts and promotes expulsion (secessus). But in frigid bellies, it excites colic, stimulates cramps, and when it rises up, the drink produces strangwineam (?). That is why it burdens the young less than the old.
The meadmaker (medonarius) is a brewer (praxator) of mead and is called this after the mead (medo) that is melydro, because it is made from honey (mel) and water (ydro). Therefore it is given to the sick in place of honey water (ydromellis) in some cases. Due to the honey, this drink heats the stomach because, as Platearius says, honey is warm in the first degree and dry in the second. Therefore it causes choleric cramps and gripes (torsiones et rociones) in the bellies of cholerics, because honey converts its nature to choler due to the ardour of hot bellies. Yet it helps the old and especially those with cold bellies miraculously; Thus mead is given against the frigid humours of the stomach. It expurges and dissolves internal phlegms and cleanses the chest by promoting screaciones (expectoration?) if it is drunk on an empty stomach, and moderately. It guards the old man against being assailed by the obstructions (opilaciones) and pains of the joints that usually afflict the aged. And this is what Avicenna posits with regard to the opening of the obstructions (constipation?) of old men. But after a bad meal and when a stomach is infected with evil humours, it is dangerous to drink mead because the honey, penetrating deep into the membranes of the body, attracts malicious matters to itself. Once in Vienna, a city in Austria, somebody ate fried mushrooms and a little later, drinking mead, died among his drinking vessels. The meadmaker (coctor medonis) must carefully remove the scum from the mead because if it is not scummed, it causes gas. For this reason, mead is more harmful to the young than to the old because old men are more strongly purged by digestion in the vessel (per digestionem in vasis – cooking process or fermentation?).
Some meadmakers also cook laserwort (here siler montanum, modernly Laserpitium siler) in the mead, that is a herb like fennel but its seed is superior to that of fennel, and is of the same nature and the same properties, as physicians say. It is warm and dry in the third degree, Platearius states. It is said of this herb that goats and other animals eat of it if they desire coition and that they immediately conceive. And this mead inebriates more strongly due to the vapours rising to the head. Meadmakers always strive for a good and salubrious decoction which alleviates the crudity of the humours and prevents the fumes rising.
Compared to the preceding chapter about the role of the cook in a noble household, this is much more technical and less concerned with personal qualities or responsibilities. By the lights of the time, this makes sense. Though we may see this differently, food and cooking was morally challenging in a way alcohol was not, and thus the character of a cook suspect, the profession in need of defending. Beer and mead were just facts of life.
Any deeper analysis of this piece will need to start with the realisation that its author probably knew little or nothing about actual brewing. Konrad von Megenberg is an educated man who has read medical texts and history, but it is unlikely he ever actually worked in a brewhouse. That said, we learn a few things about beer and mead in fourteenth-century Germany that are interesting and likely true. Mead was considered a warming drink suitable for the aged and apparently was popular enough to be produced regularly and in quantity in noble households. Beer, the more quotidian drink, was thought more suitable to the young, but enjoyed universally. It is brewed with hops and further flavoured with resin, likely from the casks rather than added intentionally. Interestingly, mead is also sometimes brewed with hops, which seems contrary to the flavour profile and not a good idea in humoral theory, either. Perhaps this was done to increase its shelf life. The more common addition to mead is laserwort, another herb of hot and dry qualities that would augment rather than balance the nature of the mead by contemporary lights. This suggests the author sees the beverage very much in medicinal terms.
As a small aside, people in early fourteenth century Vienna ate pan-fried mushrooms. That is a nice piece of information on a subject we do not often read about.
Konrad of Megenberg, a secular cleric and intellectual active in the mid- and late fourteenth century, produced some writings that look more and more interesting. This is an excerpt for his Yconomia, a book of managing a household. Unlike later writers on the subject, he envisions a large, courtly establishment with a variety of specialised servants.