Today I’m sharing a post written by my mom. I thought it would be fun to show you how interesting a little historical sleuthing can be.
Rudyard Kipling had this little couplet in Puck of Pook’s Hill that I was reading Sunday night:
“Turkeys, heresy, hops, and beer
Came into England all in one year.”
Of course I had to find out what that meant, and here’s what the research turned up.
The ditty was quoted in a number of publications during the 1600s, and the understanding then was that the year in question was 1524.
The turkey was indeed introduced to England from the New World by a merchant named William Strickland around that time. Mr Strickland become a member of Parliament, and in 1550 was granted a coat of arms with a depiction of a “turkey-cock in his pride proper”. Apparently his compatriots appreciated the turkey. The sketch of his crest that is kept in the heraldry office is said to be the oldest European drawing of a turkey.
As for heresy, no doubt the reference is to Protestantism. Perhaps Luther’s writings first arrived in England in 1524. Certainly that year was not the origin of non-Catholic belief, since John Wycliffe was preaching “heresy” in the 1300s.
Now, the “hops” part is an interesting story. The flavouring for ale all during the Middle Ages was a mixture of herbs called “gruit”, including mugwort and yarrow and other stuff you never heard of. The recipe/production/trade of gruit was wholly owned and operated by Catholic monasteries in Europe and England. The idea to use hops instead of gruit, to make a different brew called “beer”, began in south Europe and spread gradually north to Germany and the Netherlands in the late 15th century.
Here’s where the bonus for Protestants comes in. Anyone wishing to boycott the gruit monopoly and cut off its income to monasteries would welcome the idea of making beer with hops. It was the principle of the thing more than the (bitter) flavour. (But also, hops is a better preservative than gruit.) And so it was that Dutch Protestant merchants brought hoppy beer to England, and the fad really took off when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1536-9.
Cheers to turkeys, heresy, hops and beer.