Церковные гуляния и пивоварения в средневековой Англии

Feast in an English parishThe Parish ale or church ale was a party or festivity in an English parish at which ale was the chief drink. It was typically a fundraising occasion for the parish that might include music and dancing. Very common in the later Middle Ages, parish ales encountered some opposition after the English Reformation, though some survived until modern times in some form.

The word "ale", in the sense of an ale drinking party, was part of many compound terms for types of party or festivity based on the consumption of ale or beer. Thus there was the leet ale (held on "leet", the manorial court day); the lamb ale (held at lamb shearing); the Whitsun ale (held at Whitsun), the clerk ale, the church ale etc. The word "bridal" originally derives from bride ale, the wedding feast organised to raise money for the couple. The bid ale, once very common throughout England, was a benefit feast to which a general invitation was given, and all those attending were expected to make some contribution to help the object of the benefit, usually a poor person or family or some other charitable cause. Morris dancing used to be common entertainment at parish ales, and a meeting of Morris dancers today is still called a Morris Ale.

These parish festivals were of much ecclesiastical and social importance in medieval England. The chief purpose of the church ale (which was originally instituted to honour the church saint) and the clerk ale, was to facilitate the collection of parish dues and to make a profit for the church from the sale of ale by the church wardens. These profits kept the parish church in repair, or were distributed as alms to the poor. On the beam of a screen in the church of Thorpe le Soken, Essex, is the following inscription in raised blackletter on a scroll held by two angels: "This cost is the bachelers made by ales thesn be ther med." The date is about 1480.