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Fact check: where did gruit occur?

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Recently someone added me to a gruit chat group on Facebook, called The Gruit Guild. That meant many
pictures of brews and of people picking herbs out on the heath. After all, gruit was a herb mix added to beer in Recent comments
the Middle Ages, before people started using hops. But recently, someone asked a historical question, so I was Albert on The original 17th century Tripel Karmeliet recipe
happy to interfere. The question was: where did gruit actually occur? A fact check! Tim in Albion on Fact check: where did gruit occur?
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Lately I had already been studying gruit, for an article in the Brewery History journal. There, I summarised the Leon van den Bosch on Was John of Brabant a beer god?
basic facts, and debunked a few odd claims made by others (read the article here).[1] And now at The Gruit Guild (2)
someone wanted to know: where exactly did gruit exist? Because this is what American beer historian Richard
Unger writes about it, in his book Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance from 2004:

The state had the power to control the use of gruit, which was, by far, the most popular additive for ale
throughout the early and the high Middle Ages in most of northwestern Europe. Brewers commonly used
it in the Low Countries, the lower Rhine Valley, Scandinavia, and even in northern France. The term, in its
many forms, appears all the way from Bayonne on the Bay of Biscay, along the coast, and in coastal
regions to Gdansk in Poland.[2]

Gruit from Basque Country to Poland? That made me frown a little. So what do you do in such a case? You look at
the footnote to check where Unger got it from. And, ouch. His source turned out to be a German article from 1908,
by one Aloys Schulte. Schulte talks about the various herbs gruit contained, one of which was bog myrtle (myrica
gale). But was exactly does Schulte write? The herb bog myrtle surfaces near Biarritz and Bayonne, and follows
the North Sea coast until beyond Danzig.[3] In other words, Schulte is talking about where the herb bog myrtle
occurs in nature. That means Unger didnt read it properly: he thought not bog myrtle, but gruit, the herb mix to
be put in beer, occurred in that vast area!

Well yeah, thats how things become a mess. But then, if gruit didnt occur all the way from Bayonne tot Gdansk,
where did it? In Scandinavia? Not according to the Norwegian (?) guy who asked me on Facebook. Northern
France? Ungers sources say hardly anything on that country. So thats no help either.[4]

There is some danger of confusion about the definition of gruit. It has been established that in various areas,
including Scandinavia, France and England, herbs were added to beer in the Middle Ages. In England this was optional, there ale could be brewed without any flavouring
whatsoever.[5]

Herbs in beer occurred more often, but when do we speak of gruit? We do when its mix of various herbs on which the local authorities had a monopoly, which resulted in an
artificially high price. In that way it was a de facto tax on beer. The composition of gruit could be secret and could differ from place to place. It has been argued, not successfully in
my opinion, that gruit wasnt a flavouring agent made of herbs, but a grain porridge that speeded up mashing, or a wort syrup that could serve as a yeast starter. The ease with
which gruit was eventually replaced by hops from the fourteenth century onwards, seems to prove that gruit, like hops, really was added mainly for its taste.[6]

That brings us back to the question: where did gruit really occur? In his 1955 book, Dutch engineer Gerard Doorman gave a wonderful survey of what the sources tell us about
gruit. Next, Hans Ebbing made a critical analysis of Doormans work in his thesis Gruytgeld ende hoppenbier . By combining these publications, Schultes article mentioned above
and some more literature, we get an idea of where gruit was known. [7]

That gives us these places, sorted by which country theyre in nowadays:

The Netherlands Belgium Germany France

Aardenburg Leiden Bruges Aachen Cambrai
Alkmaar Lochem Diest Beckum Crespin
Alphen Maasbommel Dinant Bocholt
Ameide Maastricht Tournai Dortmund
Amersfoort Nijmegen Fosses-la-Ville Duisburg
Amsterdam Ootmarsum Gembloux Emmerich
Arnhem Ouddorp Gent Goch
Breda Rhenen Herentals Kln (Cologne)
Delft Roermond Huy Kempen
Den Bosch Rotterdam Ieper Kleve
Deventer Utrecht Leuven Mnchengladbach
Doesburg Venlo Lier Monheim
Dordrecht Vollenhove Lombardsijde Mnster
Goor Wijk bij Duurstede Lige Neuss
Groenlo Woudrichem Nieuwpoort Osnabrck
Haarlem Yde Nivelles Ratingen
Harderwijk Zaltbommel Rodenburg Rees
Helmond Zutphen Sint-Truiden Tecklenburg
Kampen Zwolle Turnhout Vreden
Wesel

Thus, gruit occurred roughly in the Low Countries, the lower Rhine area in Germany, and
Westphalia. Interestingly, this area more or less corresponds to Lower Lorraine, which by the
time gruit was first mentioned (from 974 onwards) was a German duchy. Flanders (mostly
part of France) and Westphalia (part of Saxony) however werent part of it. As far as we know,
in the Low Countries gruit disappeared during the 15th century, in westernmost Germany
often only in the 16th century, and Osnabrck and Tecklenburg are supposed to have known
gruit beer into the 17th century.[8]

The name gruit is interesting too. In the part of the gruit area where Germanic languages
were spoken, it was called gruit, grut or grssink, the latter being a mostly Westphalian
term for the beer that was made with it. In the area where Romance languages were spoken,
its name was usually materia, maceria or maire. It is tempting to connect the word gruit to
Dutch words like grut, grutten, gort and gruis (or English words like groat, grit, grits, grind,
etc.), which indicate a finely ground matter. Materia then simply means matter or
substance.[9]
It is however confusing that
in most of this period Latin
was the only language used
for writing. Latin, originating
from the wine-drinking
Southern part of Europe,
did not have a word for
gruit and so writers came
up with the word
fermentum, after which
often was added the word
in the local language as an
explanation (for those who
known Latin: for instance
fermenti cervisiarum, quod
maiera vulgo dicitur,
fermentatae cervisiae,
quod vulgo grut
nuncupatur).[10]

The word fermentum comes from the Latin fermentare which originally meant to ferment. Because of this, it
has been argued that Medieval people thought gruit stimulated fermentation. I dont really believe that. Im
inclined to think that in Medieval Latin fermentare could also simply mean to brew; after all, brewing is
another thing that Latin didnt really have a word for. For instance, in 1364 emperor Charles IV wrote of a novus
modus fermentandi cervisiam, or a new method of brewing beer, which was with hops. And of hops we are
certain that it wasnt seen as something that stimulated fermentation. Thus, for a Medieval person fermentum
simply meant brewing substance.[11]

The next time, Ill have a look at an even more burning question: what did gruit actually contain? Because it is
much less of a riddle than some people claim.

[1] R. Mulder, Further notes on the essence of gruit: an alternative view, in: Brewery History 169 (2017), p. 73-76.
[2] Richard W. Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance , Philadelphia 2004, p. 30.
[3] Aloys Schulte, Vom Grutbiere. Eine Studie zur Wirtschafts- und Verfassungsgeschichte, in: Annalen des historischen Vereins fr den Niederrhein insbesondere die alte Erzdizese Kln , nr. 85 (1908), p.
118-146, here p. 120.
[4] J. Deckers, Recherches sur lhistoire des brasseries dans la rgion mosane au moyen ge, in: Le moyen ge 1970, p.445-491, here p. 458.
[5] Raymond van Uytven, Geschiedenis van de dorst. Twintig eeuwen drinken in de Lage Landen , Leuven 2007, p. 63; Ian S. Hornsey, A history of beer and brewing, Cambridge 2003, p. 318-320.
[6] Vgl. Mulder, Further notes.
[7] G. Doorman, De Middeleeuwse brouwerij en de gruit, Den Haag 1955; Hans Ebbing, Gruytgeld ende hoppenbier. Een onderzoek naar de samensteling van de gruit en de opkomst van de Hollandse
bierbrouwerij van circa 1000-1500 , thesis Universiteit van Amsterdam 1994; Schulte, Vom Grutbiere; Raymond Van Uytven, Haarlemmer hop, Goudse kuit en Leuvense Peterman, in: Arca Lovaniensis,
jaarboek 1975, p. 334-351; Deckers, Brasseries dans la rgion mosane; Paul de Commer, De brouwindustrie te Gent, 1505-1622, in: Handelingen der Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te
Gent , XXXV (1981), p. 81-114, here p. 86. In France Schulte also mentions Abbeville, but that looks like a reference to a building torn down in 1795, which belonged to the Lords of Gruuthuse from Bruge,
and not an actual gruit house.
[8] Mulder, Further notes p. 74-75; Schulte, Vom Grutbiere, p. 140-141.
[9] Schulte, Vom Grutbiere, p. 144-146; Ebbing, Gruytgeld ende hoppenbier, p. 23, 25.
[10] Ebbing, Gruytgeld ende hoppenbier, p. 10, 28.
[11] John Beckmann, A History of Inventions and Discoveries, volume IV, Londen 1814, p. 337.

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Posted in Blog - Tags: Belgium, Fact check, Germany, gruit

One response to Fact check: where did gruit occur?

Tim in Albion says:

4th November 2017 at 4:02 am
Excellent article, thanks for the details. Now Im glad someone added me to that FB group too!

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