The object of these various mixtures was naturally to obtain high-flavoured beers, which became so much in fashion, that to describe the want of merit of persons, or the lack of value in anything, no simile was more common than to compare them to “small beer.”  Nevertheless, more delicate and less blunted palates were to be found which could appreciate beer sweetened simply with honey, or scented with ambergris or raspberries.  It is possible, however, that these compositions refer to mixtures in which beer, the produce of fermented grain, was confounded with hydromel, or fermented honey.  Both these primitive drinks claim an origin equally remote, which is buried in the most distant periods of history, and they have been used in all parts of the world, being mentioned in the oldest historical records, in the Bible, the Edda, and in the sacred books of India.  In the thirteenth century, hydromel, which then bore the name of borgerafre, borgeraste, or bochet, was composed of one part of honey to twelve parts of water, scented with herbs, and allowed to ferment for a month or six weeks.  This beverage, which in the customs and statutes of the order of Cluny is termed potus dulcissimus (the sweetest beverage), and which must have been both agreeable in taste and smell, was specially appreciated by the monks, who feasted on it on the great anniversaries of the Church.  Besides this, an inferior quality of bochet was made for the consumption of the lower orders and peasants, out of the honeycomb after the honey had been drained away, or with the scum which rose during the fermentation of the better qualities.

[Illustration:  Fig. 106.—­The Vintagers, after a Miniature of the “Dialogues de Saint Gregoire” (Thirteenth Century).—­Manuscript of the Royal Library of Brussels.]

Cider (in Latin sicera) and perry can also both claim a very ancient origin, since they are mentioned by Pliny.  It does not appear, however, that the Gauls were acquainted with them.  The first historical mention of them is made with reference to a repast which Thierry II., King of Burgundy and Orleans (596-613), son of Childebert, and grandson of Queen Brunehaut, gave to St. Colomban, in which both cider and wine were used.  In the thirteenth century, a Latin poet (Guillaume le Breton) says that the inhabitants of the Auge and of Normandy made cider their daily drink; but it is not likely that this beverage was sent away from the localities where it was made; for, besides the fact that the “Menagier” only very curtly mentions a drink made of apples, we know that in the fifteenth century the Parisians were satisfied with pouring water on apples, and steeping them, so as to extract a sort of half-sour, half-sweet drink called depense.  Besides this, Paulmier de Grandmesnil, a Norman by birth, a famous doctor, and the author of a Latin treatise on wine and cider (1588), asserts that half a century before, cider was very scarce at Rouen, and that in all the districts of Caux the people only drank beer.  Duperron adds that the Normans brought cider from Biscay, when their crops of apples failed.