Of Griffins, Lions, and Unicorns: Zymurgical Heraldry in Britain and Abroad
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Of Griffins, Lions, and Unicorns: Zymurgical Heraldry in Britain and Abroad by Lynn Pearson The histories of beer, brewing, and heraldry have many interconnections. Heraldic imagery concerned with beer and brewing is first seen in the medieval era and has continued to appear in literary, architectural, and artistic contexts right up to the present day, where it makes an important contribution to our visual culture. Beer-related architectural imagery also has a significant presence in the public realm, but despite this has generally passed unnoticed by researchers. The broad technical term for the heraldry of beer is zymurgical heraldry, from zymurgy, the branch of chemistry that deals with fermentation by yeast. Thus zymurgical heraldry is the heraldry of beer and brewing, although it can of course also refer to the heraldry of wine and vinification: some work on heraldic sources of wine bottle label imagery has recently been carried out in the USA (and its effectiveness is considered in Daniel McCabe’s essay in this volume).1 The term ‘zymurgical heraldry’ made its initial appearance in 2007, in a lecture given in New York which largely concentrated on beer-bottle label collecting (labology).2 The entry for zymurgical heraldry in the Oxford Companion to Beer (2012) promotes this interpretation and application.3 Along with work on inn signs and analysis of the arms of the Brewers’ Company, zymurgical heraldry has otherwise been little noticed. This is curious, since heraldic symbolism can be found throughout the brewing world, usually in the form of elements such as a supporter or crest, and sometimes a shield or motto, rather than a complete achievement. A brewery building might display an image derived from the local town’s coat of arms, or a supporter-like symbol relevant to the brewery’s name (Fig. 1). Beer-bottle labels and other advertising material carry similar images, while inn signs make even greater use of heraldry. This essay surveys the use of heraldry throughout the brewing industry in Britain, and compares its occurrence with zymurgical heraldry abroad. Early Inn and Brewery Signs In the medieval period, brewing was generally a domestic activity, although ale was occasionally sold by ale-wives to the public.4 Its availability was signalled externally by the presence of a projecting branch, an ale-stake, above the alehouse doorway. An ale-stake is visible in the lower margin of a manuscript known as the Smithfield Decretals, illuminated in England around 1340; the illustration shows a hermit outside an alehouse.5 Ale-stakes were the earliest external signs indicating an inn or brewery.6 By the early fifteenth century it was commonplace for shops to have some identifying badge, often related to the trade being carried out within, just as inns had their pictorial signboards.7 The origin of these signs is rather obscure. One source was the 1 John Shannon and Paul Campbell, ‘The Heraldry of Wine’,College of Arms Foundation, New York Genealogical and Biographical Society <http://www.coaf.us/activities13.html> [accessed 12 August 2015]. Paul Campbell and John Shannon, ‘Heraldry of Wine II’, College of Arms Foundation, New York Genealogical and Biographical Society <http://www.coaf.us/activities14.html> [accessed 12 August 2015]. 2 David L. Smisek, ‘Zymurgical Heraldry: The Heraldry of Beer and Brewing’, College of Arms Foundation, New York Genealogical and Biographical Society < http://www.coaf.us/beerheraldry.doc> [accessed 12 August 2015]. For the origin of the term ‘labology’, see the homepage of the website of the Labologists’ Society, < http://labology.org.uk> [accessed 15 July 2014]. 3 David L. Smisek, ‘Zymurgical Heraldry’, in The Oxford Companion to Beer, ed. by Garrett Oliver (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 867–8. 4 Judith M. Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300–1600 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 18–21. 5 London, British Library, Royal 10 E IV fol. 114v. 6 Geoff Brandwood, Andrew Davison, and Michael Slaughter, Licensed to Sell: The History and Heritage of the Public House (Swindon: English Heritage, 2011), pp. 2–4, 8. 7 Jacob Larwood and John Camden Hotten, English Inn Signs (Exeter: Blaketon Hall, 1985), pp. 2–4. 99 Semy-de-Lys: 2016 Fig. 1: The former Dorchester Brewery (1880–1, rebuilt 1923, now part of the Brewery Square development) displays the town’s coat of arms on its brewhouse. Fig. 2: The Black Lion (1974), Brighton, shows how a sixteenth-century brewhouse might have looked. 100 Lynn Pearson practice of medieval merchants taking in paying guests: the arms of regular noble visitors would then be displayed outside the house.8 Indeed Francis Russell, second Earl of Bedford (1526/7– 85), carried with him several dozen ‘logyng skochyons’ (lodging escutcheons) when travelling to France in January 1561.9 Another source of imagery was the location of the inn; the sign might show the arms of the relevant Lord of the Manor. At this point most of the population was illiterate, so a sign was necessary to distinguish one inn from another. It was normally fixed directly to the building, or suspended from an iron bar protruding from the inn. For the purpose of identification, early commercial breweries also had individual badges or emblems. One of the first to be named was the Hour Glass Brewery in London, founded before 1431; by the early nineteenth century its brewhouse weather vane included an hourglass.10 The first explicitly heraldic (albeit vernacular) brewery name was the Red Lion Brewery (later Hoare & Co) at St Katherine’s, London, just east of Tower Hill, which was founded in the later fifteenth century as a riverside beerhouse.11 The Red Lion was already widely popular as an inn name, probably because of its ubiquity as an heraldic badge in armigerous families.12 There are few images of these early breweries, although what is now the Black Lion public house in Brighton was rebuilt in 1974 as a facsimile of the original mid-sixteenth-century Black Lion Brewery; it displays a black lion both as a weather vane and as a hanging signboard (Fig. 2). The Brewers’ Company The guild of London’s brewers was incorporated as the Brewers’ Company in 1437, and was first granted arms in 1468.13 Its arms comprised the traditional brewers’ garbs and casks, together with the arms of the See of Canterbury and Thomas Becket (1120?–70), the unofficial patron saint of British brewers.14 In 1544 its heraldically incorrect coat of arms was replaced, largely to avoid the previous display of colour on colour. The new grant dispensed with the overt references to Canterbury and Becket, but retained the garbs and casks, and is blazoned as: Gules on a chevron engrailed argent three kilderkins sable hooped or between three pairs of barley garbs in saltire of the same. A crest was also granted (Fig. 3) in the form of a dark-skinned woman holding ears of barley; a subtle reference to Becket whose mother was said to have been a Saracen.15 The Company’s new coat of arms was used when their early fifteenth-century Hall was rebuilt between 1670 and 1673, although in an incorrect form above the main entrance: the chevron had straight rather than engrailed borders.16 Their modern Hall (erected between 1958 and 1960), however, displays the arms and crest prominently and correctly (Figs 4–5).17 The arms also appear correctly on Brewers’ Buildings, a set of model dwellings erected by the 8 Robert Saunders, ‘Innsignia’, The Coat of Arms, 2 (1953), p. 220. 9 The Diary of Henry Machyn Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London (1550–1563),ed. by J. G. Nichols (London: Camden Society, 1848), p. 248. The Diary of Henry Machyn <http://www.british-history.ac.uk/camden-record-soc/ vol42/pp247-262> [accessed 5 February 2015]. 10 The Brewing Industry: A Guide to Historical Records, ed. by Lesley Richmond and Alison Turton (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), p. 103. 11 Victoria Hutchings, The Red Lion Brewery: Hoare & Co (London: Umbria Press, 2013), pp. 11, 129. 12 Martyn Cornell, 5 December 2007, ‘The inn-significance of the Red Lion’,Zythophile Blog, <http://zythophile. wordpress.com/2007/12/05/the-inn-significance-of-the-red-lion/> [accessed 6 April 2014]. 13 Terence Paul Smith, ‘A Confusion of Arms: the Shield of the Brewers’ Company’, The Coat of Arms, 1 (2005), pp. 37–8. 14 Smith, ‘A Confusion of Arms’, pp. 38–9. 15 Jonathan Good, ‘London Guild and Diocesan Heraldry during the Reformation’, The Coat of Arms, 12 (1997), 96–102. 16 Smith, ‘A Confusion of Arms’, p. 44. 17 Philip Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of the City of London (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003), p. 3. Brewers’ Hall stands on Aldermanbury Square. To the east, on Devonshire Square, is the late seventeenth-century Coopers’ Hall, home of the Worshipful Company of Coopers. Above its entrance is the coat of arms of the company, which includes elements used in the trade. The Coopers’ arms may also be seen as a stained glass roundel, dating from about 1950, in the Church of St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney High Street; the Mercers’ and Vintners’ arms are also represented in the church. 101 Semy-de-Lys: 2016 Fig. 3: A Wills’s cigarette card issued in 1913 Fig. 4: The arms of the Brewers’ Company by Imperial Tobacco depicting at Brewers’ Hall, London. the Brewers’ Company arms. Fig. 5: The Brewers’ Company crest at Brewers’ Hall, in the form of the 60cm (2ft) high Maiden Keystone, carved by Charles Wheeler (1892–1974). 102 Lynn Pearson Fig. 6: One of the three blocks of model dwellings forming Brewers Buildings in Fig.