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Did Vikings actually drink more ale than water ? Scandinavia has some of the cleanest sources of water in the world.
To echo all the responses so far that the water was not as clean as you may think, in Italy an ancient expression goes something like, "I'd rather have a bad glass of wine than a good glass of water", meaning that the former was safer.
Someone mentioned drinking beer at breakfast, and I remember someone told me only about 25 years ago that people in Ukraine take a shot of vodka every morning to kill microbes that they may drink in the regular water supply.
Ale, wine, vodka, whatever.
Make of it what you will, but even today bottled water is popular for a reason.
American colonists also drank beer as the routine and safest drink — for breakfast, and for children as well.
Even the "cleanest" brightest bluest most picturesque babbling Swedish brook can have fecal, tubercular or other contamination.
I’ve drank Lake Huron water raw while hiking a long distance. It was refreshing and I never had any odd reactions. I’m sure I can handle a clear babbling brook in Sweden.
Like others said, plumbing may be the reason. Vikings were mostly sea people and you can’t drink ocean water.
In Viking age Scandinavia, virtually the entire population lived side-by-side with their animals. Even byres (cow sheds) were directly attached to houses, often sharing the same main entrance.
Which is to say, that the water in proximity to habitation was anything but pure, clean water.
Low alcohol content ales were a safe way to consume water and stay hydrated.
While it is true that alcohol is a diuretic, beer is mostly water. Studies [see below] have demonstrated no diuretic effect for beverages of less than 2% ABV, and they suggest that the threshold is even higher.
People need to understand that there was a difference between table beer (small beer), which was consumed as part of a person's dietary needs, and recreational ales and meads and ciders and wines and liquors. Table beer would have had an ABV below 3%, sometimes below 1%.
It sure dehydrates me. I simply don't believe it. Nor do I even think such a thing could be proven.
It sure dehydrates me. I simply don't believe it. Nor do I even think such a thing could be proven.
When do you ever drink alcohol that's less than 2%? I don't know that I've ever even seen it. Light beer is usually about 4%. You don't think it can be proven? Great, another denier of science...
To echo all the responses so far that the water was not as clean as you may think, in Italy an ancient expression goes something like, "I'd rather have a bad glass of wine than a good glass of water", meaning that the former was safer.
Someone mentioned drinking beer at breakfast, and I remember someone told me only about 25 years ago that people in Ukraine take a shot of vodka every morning to kill microbes that they may drink in the regular water supply.
Ale, wine, vodka, whatever.
Make of it what you will, but even today bottled water is popular for a reason.
No one is saying low quantity alcohol wasn't often a safer alternative to water, only that it's untrue that water was never consumed, or never considered safe to drink. People drank both water, when a clean source was available, and when it wasn't, a low quantity alcohol as a substitute. They are not mutually exclusive.
In Daily Life of the Middle Ages, Paul B Newman writes:
"Water was a popular thirst quencher in the Middle Ages. However, as with liquid milk, medieval people were well aware of the health risks from exposure to water from contaminated sources. In fact, as discussed in Chapter IV,*" [see below] "they had numerous sanitary regulations to protect water quality. Thus, as a serious health measure and not just as a fad or status symbol, spring water, cool and straight out of the ground, was recognized as the best possible water to use for drinking and cooking. Water from clear running streams was a poor second. Obviously, relatively few people had access to water from either of these preferred sources and had to make do with well water or river water. [...] But beer and wine could not entirely replace water. Despite its sometimes dubious quality, water was still essential as a beverage and in the preparation of food. Dishes and cooking utensils still had to be washed. Ingredients like vegetables and freshly slaughtered livestock and poultry still needed to be rinsed. And broths and soups simply couldn't be made without water for the stock. So the only solution was for them to make do and use the purest water available to them, regardless of its source, just as their ancestors did and just as their descendants would do until water purification treatments were developed centuries later."
This is some of the discussion in Chapter IV referenced above:
"Authorities used a variety of methods to bring clean, fresh water into the cities. The choice of methods depended upon the resources available, including finances and transportation as well as the location of the water sources. Often, cities would use a combination of methods. For example, in some cases, immense casks of spring water were shipped in by barge or cart and then emptied into public cisterns which filled pipes that ran to public fountains from which residents could draw water. A more preferable method was to build permanent water mains or re-use earlier Roman ones to connect the city directly to the spring. This method was more economical than shipping and created a more reliable supply but it had several prerequisites. First it required locating springs large enough to meet the city's needs. Second, the springs had to be at a higher elevation than the city (more on this later). Third and last, the springs had to be located within a distance that could be spanned using the technology then available. Authorities fortunate enough to have springs that met these three conditions (and to have cities wealthy enough to afford the construction) built conduits of leaden and wooden pipe to carry the water, just as the monasteries did."
"London also strove to keep its water supplies drinkable by occasionally flushing the conduit as well by prohibiting dumping into its rivers. This latter point may sound odd given how polluted parts of the Thames were even by the early part of the Middle Ages but citizens continued to draw water from the Thames for drinking and cleaning long after the Middle Ages ended. These anti-dumping laws also served to keep river channels open and navigable, an important consideration for any port city. The city-states of northern Italy had comparable legislation to protect their water supplies and Paris imposed similar protections on the Seine."
Why would they go to such lengths to at least attempt to provide clean water, even if they weren't always successful, if people weren't consuming it?
And again, as others have said, the everyday drinking alcohol was just high enough in alcohol content to kill off harmless bacteria, but not really enough to get one drunk or dehydrate. It's not like people in history were all stumbling around drunk 24/7. In "Mistress of the Vatican", Eleanor Herman says it was generally about 2%.
Scandinavia has some of the cleanest sources of water in the world. So I imagine there would not have been a reason to use ale as a substitute for water. But some historical texts do mention that their men drank more alcohol than water as part of their culture. Of course, I do imagine they had a drinking feast after winning a war against the Scots or Franks, but a drinking feast after victory was commonplace in the medieval world.
At one time, people thought that water was so bad for their health they did not bathe in it, let alone drink no matter how clean and clear it was.
Wine and ale, mead and cider were for drinking. The wine was little more than fruit juice
made for drinking in stead of water.
No one is saying low quantity alcohol wasn't often a safer alternative to water, only that it's untrue that water was never consumed, or never considered safe to drink. People drank both water, when a clean source was available, and when it wasn't, a low quantity alcohol as a substitute. They are not mutually exclusive.
And no one ever said they are mutually exclusive. Quite the contrary, just look at the two examples I cited above ...
... both ... and ... both ... and ... both ... and ... both ... and ... both ... and ... both ... and ... ...
Obviously there can be no alcoholic beverage without water, they go hand-in-hand. You can't even have bread without some kind of fermentation. It's in the air and all over the soil.
And this goes way further back than the Vikings, as far back as the written records of the Sumerians and Egyptians at least. There must be a reason for it.
In fact, the news for most people is what we consider the "pure" drinking water of today.
I’ve drank Lake Huron water raw while hiking a long distance. It was refreshing and I never had any odd reactions. I’m sure I can handle a clear babbling brook in Sweden.
Clear babbling brooks are good until an animal dies further up the brook.
And no one ever said they are mutually exclusive. Quite the contrary, just look at the two examples I cited above ...
... both ... and ... both ... and ... both ... and ... both ... and ... both ... and ... both ... and ... ...
What are you talking about, literally no one said the word "both" except for me. No one specifically said they were mutually exclusive, no, but it was suggested and implied by several responses - if you didn't intend yours to be among them, you should have been more clear. Several people suggested people drank little to no water during this era.
In fact, just after my post, kitty said
Quote:
Originally Posted by kitty61
At one time, people thought that water was so bad for their health they did not bathe in it, let alone drink no matter how clean and clear it was.
Which is also inaccurate. Not only did people drink water when a clean source was available, they also bathed in it. I would quote my sources again to prove that the myth about people not bathing or not bathing in water is just that, a myth, but apparently no one is reading them anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bale002
Obviously there can be no alcoholic beverage without water, they go hand-in-hand.
That's not even what I said.
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