What's the difference between medieval inns, taverns and alehouses? 

Wish you'd post more often. This is what I remember the history channel being like, before it turned into a reality show.

That's easy. Alehouses are frequented mostly by dwarf patrons and give a modest health buff; inns are run by halflings and frequented by adventurers on their way to their latest quest, in order to rest and stock up on healing food; and taverns is where adventurers gather to drink, level up and tell tales of how they finally defeated the Necromancer Lich Queen after 30 times of trying and dying and getting frustrated and ragequitting

I was born in 1952 in the southern Netherlands. Europe was bombed back to the Middle Ages then and people were poor. We had a small farm with lots of fruit trees and berry bushes. My mom made wine from everything. Apples, pears, raspberries, gooseberries, elder berries and even rhubarb. We had two or three big glass containers of 80 or 100 liters which were always fermenting something. The neighbours in the street would collect bottles to fill up and buy the wine for a few cents. My dad had an outside job, but in his spare time he kept chicken, rabbits, ducks. That's how people got through the fifties and early sixties. Best years of my life.

When I was in Brazil, in a small village, they didn't have restaurants. Some families would make a ton of food (beans, chicken, rice, veggies) and sell it to people. Everyone would just grab a plate and eat in that backyard on simple tables and chairs. It felt like a family pot luck or superbowl party and you got to meet a bunch of travelers. It was great!

Jason was born to be a history teacher. I could listen to him talking about medieval history all day.

There is still a similar custom to alehouses in southern Germany. The "Besenwirtschaft" (broom tavern) or short "Besen" (broom), which is basically a ad hoc Pub, typically by farmers with some vineyards. They serve wine from their own production and a very limited array of food (typically Schlachtplatte, slaughter plate, sauerkraut, blood and liver sausages, meat etc). And they advertise by hanging a broom outside to signal there's food available, hence the name

I recently passed through a small village in the Netherlands called Witte Paarden (white horses), named so because there used to be an inn there called white horses and it was the only thing around there so the name stuck around for the town that grew around it. Your story made me look it up on the map and it is indeed about a day's travel from two bigger cities.

When I was a kid, maybe 30 years ago, we were on holiday in Wales and stopped off at what looked like a pub. It was a room in a house with a serving hatch and an old lady stood at the hatch/bar serving only beer that she had in an enormous barrel behind her that she served the customers from a jug she had. We might have had a bottle of Vimto each but for Mum and Dad it was beer from the barrel or beer from the barrel. I don’t know what it tasted like but we didn’t stay for more than a drink! I’ve always thought it was a pocket of the Middle Ages caught in the valleys and I imagine what an old ale house would have looked like.

Funfact, in Germany, Cider is called literally "apple-wine" still

Sir Kingsley really knows how to tell a tale. And we need good talespinners more than ever, with everything that is going on. It's nice to be distracted for a few minutes!

My father being the youngest of 13, had the additional chore of walking the mile or so from the farm to the tavern to purchase a gallon pail of beer. I seem to remember that this was an end of week thing. Times were different back then I suppose, he'd talk about how the kids would take their hunting rifles to school so they could hunt after school.

I was in Lesotho about 15 years ago, and in the little mountain villages, they would have something very similar to the alehouses you described. Someone would hang a flag outside of their hut. The colour of the flag would indicate what type of 'beer' had been brewed. It was mostly maize, but other grains as well. A red flag meant that they had killed a cow and were selling meat. Sometimes they did it to make money. Sometimes they did it to attract a crowd for a working bee around the yard. Inside the hut, a group of people would be hanging out and relaxing, drinking until the vat was empty. They called it beer, but it was a drink unlike any other I have seen. It was a thick, floury kind of alcoholic sludge, and I imagine it was very similar in many ways to medieval ale.

I really enjoy how you explain medieval history. Closest thing to having a time machine.

Past time you got knighted for your efforts to educate us all, around the world, about England's medieval history. Sir Jason Kingsley has a nice sound to it.

I fractured my neck after falling trying to climb a fence while going home drunk. Picked myself up, climbed the fence successfully and went home to bed. Glad I've done my bit to keep an old tradition alive.

My late grandfather told me as a young boy, that in the early 20th century in Chicago, it was common to bring home a small bucket of draft beer from the tavern. Almost all homes had these beer buckets. So perhaps bringing home a pot of ale was common also back then.

Cider was considered a wine because it used to be fermented that strong, according to the Mill House Cider Museum down in Dorset. They also make and sell their own cider in traditional methods with antique equipment, and it is DELICIOUS. Doesn't keep once opened, though, because they don't kill the yeast.

Appreciate the descriptive explanations of terms we think we understand, but don't. Particularly in this timeframe. Love your channel AND your book. Mine is tabbed with markers in many places, but one of my favorites is "The more you travel away from your own time and space, the more you see not just the differences between those worlds and yours but also the similarities too: or, perhaps more precisely the way things transform, change, yet somehow also stay the same over time..."

5:24 just a note on Mead. Mead is honey, water, and yeast. Metheglyn is a mead with herbs and/or spices added. Mellomel is mead with fruit added. Popular mellomels were: cyser (Apple) and pyment (grape).

History is the best adventure ever written. Better than any fantasy tale in literature. If there were more teachers who tell it instead of imposing it, there would be more people who know where they come from. Thank you

Got a local history book concerning my village. It states, before the advent of the railway in my area, around 1830, my village in Cambridgeshire had a population of @ 1100 and had 39 drinking establishments, mostly Ale Houses and a few Inns. I'm led to believe it was a popular first watering hole when Coaches turned off of the "Great North Road" to head towards the Port of King Lynn. I remember going to an "Ale House" in Old Stevenage back in the Seventies. Not quite a home brew house, looked like a normal pub but didn't have a licence to sell spirits even then.

Good video. Considering cider as wine does not seem strange in Germany. It is literally called apple wine here. There is a special jug for bringing it to the table and pour into glasses. It´s called "Bembel".

In some towns in Franconia/Germany it is still a tradition to put up a sign or a broom on the house when the beer is ready to be poured. And in my region of southwest Germany, a small pub that is licenced by the town council for a limited number of weeks is called a "Besen", which literally means "broom" or "Besenwirtschaft" - "broom pub". A “broom pup” is usually used to sell home-made wine or cider along with hearty food.

At it again with incredible insights into our medieval heritage. It always blows my mind that my great-whatever direct ancestors lived in that world, survived and thrived in that culture and time, and carried on all the way to me. We're not so far from them. Please keep it up!

We still had Alehouses in my parents village until the 1950's. It's remarkable that at one point this small village of roughly 200-300 people had a church, two chapels, three ales houses and two pubs during the late 1800's.

I'm shocked at the brief shelf life of ale. Not doubting, just shocked. I always wondered why anyone would intentionally add "bitters" to anything, but shelf life answers at least part of it. As always, great content!

Love you Jason - Your passion for History is so Infectious to me as a Young man . Keep doing what you do - I love it

Around here it's bar, dive bar, club, or brew pub/tap room. Our family home was once a stagecoach stop and inn with a tap room where travelers could get a simple meal and drink while the horses were being changed out. When dark fell, there were common rooms up top on each side (two 2-story cabins with a dog trot between them), one for men and one for women, with cots for sleeping. The family lived in the lower floor of the smaller cabin, and the kitchen was out back and separate from the house (fires were a common thing back then). The food was all grown or raised on site, as was the wine, ale, and whiskey sold in the tap room. There is a trap door in the floor of the tap room, leading down to a small cellar where the kegs were stored. A blacksmith shop was across the road by the creek. That is long gone, but the barn still stands, and both house and barn were built of hewn American chestnut logs that average 18 inches thick, with the foundation joists being more than 2 ft thick. I remember that women were originally the main brewers in most of medieval England, but were then pegged as witches by men who wanted the money and rights to brewing ale. Rather sad, and those ladies certainly didn't deserve being persecuted and executed.

One disagreement: the Tabard Inn was destroyed in 1676 by fire (or being pulled down to create a fire break). It was replaced by a new building, renamed the Talbot which was demolished in 1873.

I'am living testament to that particular fact! After overdoing it somewhat whilst celebrating my daughters 18th birthday and upon making my way home, I fell into some roadworks, toppled over a barrier and fell into a small pit. Luckily I was so relaxed I never injured myself, my daughter thought this was hysterical but the event could have ended badly. At 50 years of age I'm thinking it's time to ease off a bit, however breaking bad habits are never easy.

Before any explanation, my guess for the difference between the three was that: (1) Inns offered a place to sleep (2) Taverns offered food ; and (3) Alehouses offered only beverages Love the video. Thank you.

In Germany around the Region of Frankfurt am Main and especially Hesse State, we drink a lot of cider. The german word for it is "Apfelwein" (wine made of apples). But even more interestenig is that we call liquor distilled from any sort of fruit (be it pear or even peaches) "weinbrand" which means something like burned wine.

So basically: Alehouse = Pub/off-license Tavern = Wine bar / Gastro pub Inn = Motel/Hotel

Medieval shorts by a real-life Knight! Amazing! I rarely get this channel in recommendations, even though a long time subscriber - i fear on clicking bcz i tend to get sucked in a lot and I don't have the so much time nowadays. But when i do click, it's like in a company of a good friend with sense of humour, soothing voice and kindness in the air telling me interesting stories and curiosities, surrounded by this soothing nature. When Jason is filming in the woods or on the nature, i feel as am back to my childhood in Ukraine - random trees, tall grass, cosy wilderness

Jason, in the Southern US wines made from watermelon or strawberry is still (somewhat) common. I know someone (in Kentucky) who recently made some wine from mulberries.

Love the background with the leafs whistling in the breeze 😌 Please make more videos like this about how people's lifes were back then. You are amazing Sir.

Important to note that fermentation doesn't make ale safe to drink but boiling the brew does and the alcohol helps a bit later but then becomes food for the souring acetobacter. Ale used to be flavored with spices or herbs but the herb combination would be called "gruit" which was controlled by the monks or monasteries. It tended to make people jolly and was a bit psychoactive. Hops, on the other hand help sanitize the beer and keep it from spoiling for longer. However, hops tend to have a sedative effect and some say a more controlling effect upon the population.

Very well researched. Good video. I had the pleasure of having a cousin show me around Hampstead Heath in the early 1990s. He took me to a (i think) an Medieval pub. I mostly recall how low the ceiling was (I’m 6’1”) so had to stoop over to enter and move around. It was cosy, nice rough hewn wooden beam ceiling. It had some charm. I’m in Alberta, Canada and in my youth as a oil worker I spent a lot of time (and money) in what we call bars. Taverns were just small bars… (or maybe we just used the terms interchangeably.). In those days we had some very large bars that could accommodate hundreds of drinkers at one time. A glass of draft beer was $.25 and they usually had a live band. The largest bar I have been in was in Edmonton. It was called the Kingsway. When you entered you literally could not see the other side of the bar. It was the size of an airplane hanger! Just a sea of round red terry cloth tables. It was known for a lot of fights happening. Anyway, just thought I’d some things from the other side of the Pond😊

I've done a fair amount of mead research and mead making (and consumption!) And it's my understanding that metheglin was flavored with herbs and spices, though fruit can still be used. But melomel is mead made with various fruits. The word Metheglin derives in part from the old welsh word medd-something or other(sorry I forget the details). Meaning medicinal, as it was at the time used medicinally depending on the formula.

These brief glimpses into our shared past are wonderful. Very accessible and enjoyable. They are not lessons they are interesting tales about things, perhaps at first glance mundane, that suddenly become interesting as we connect the dots as the story unfolds. Jason Kingsley OBE, you are a modern-day raconteur in the best sense of the word.

I have brewed a few medieval ales, several of the herbs slowed the spoilage especially heather and hops

One thing I find so fascinating is best summed up in the old saying "the more things change, the more they stay the same". In so many ways, people back then weren't as different as us as we sometimes think.

Your channel teaches more than most Histoty channnels and University. You provide history without the modern political agenda

You probably hear this all the time but I've subscribed to this channel for quite a while now and I've only just realized that you're the author of Steeleye and the Lost Magic which has lived rent free in my head ever since I was a kid. So much so that only only a few months ago I purchased an old copy of the book! When can I expect family holiday to the USA? 😂 Quite a remarkable, creative and wonderful career.

These are the questions we want answers to! Great stuff Jason! Love the channel!

Fun fact about exposing a branch. In Friuli (the region in the North-East of Italy, bordering with Austria and Slovenia) a place tavern-like (where you could get some wine and, I guess, some simple food) was called "frasca" which actually means "branch." I think it was a way to advertise the place. Nowadays "frasca" is mainly used for fancy "enoteche," wine shop where you can buy expensive wines, but also have a glass of something together with canape. More or less like old taverns, just way fancier... 😁

There's a winery in Miami that makes wine from tropical fruits. They're most famous for avocado wine, but they also make wine from passion fruit, star fruit, mango, coconut, and lychee to name a few. They're absolutely delicious.

I’m loving this! I never thought about that there were differences. I thought they were different names for the same thing. Cool!

I offer the sincerest of "thank you" for your time, effort, and money in making this video and all the others offered on your fantastic channel. Asolutely fantastic video! Please if you can, do more quality content like this. I know the research is difficult and it takes time, especially since this is your hobby and not your job. But man these videos you make, your passion project, are better than anything on the television. Better then whats on History and similar channels. Better then all of "entertainment" and what Hollywood has to offer. Keep up the amazing work, especially on retelling the everyday life of our ancestors in medieval England. Just chiefs kiss, i cannot compliment you ebough. And again thank you. Truly educational.

Love the dedication you have to the time period... I assume everyone noticed and appreciated the wardrobe changes

My parents made wine from just about anything. Sloes, blackberries, gorse flowers, carrots, etc. The only thing that was totally undrinkable was Sprout wine which reeked. 😂

Have you considered a video on what it was like being a castle guard in medieval times? I've always wondered how it was they knew when to wake up and start their day when they didn't have clocks and whether or not they all lived within the castle walls or even what gate duty was like or how they went about enforcing the rules of the castle etc.

BRAVO, information on differences between medieval ale and the beginning of "beer" with the addition of hops, and the fact it was considered "foreign" was quite accurate !!

Hello from Crete! The place where the most exquisite amber malmsey came from into england. The English and the Dutch where very fond of it way into the 17th century, and there's a few stories of people drowning in butts of the stuff 😂! Malmsey never really made it to the table of the locals interestingly enough, they preferred the quite strong and rough "Roman" red wine, also considerably cheaper!

To this day, beer in the Czech Republic is known as 'liquid bread'. Also, you can still take your own jug to some pubs and get a few litres to take home. And, slivovice, the local plum brandy, often made in small batches in farms and vinyards, is still drunk as a 'medicine' or pick-me-up...I guess we are still stuck in the mediaeval period here...at least in the best ways ;-)

According to Wikipedia the Tabard Inn was destroyed in 1676 to create a fire break when a fire broke out all over Southwark. They demolished it with a bunch of other buildings that hadn't burned yet to stop the spread of the fire. It was rebuilt and renamed the Talbot, but that went out of business in the 19th century and was converted into stores and the building itself was demolished in 1873. There is a neighboring inn, the George Inn that is still standing today, but it also was torn down because of the 1676 fire and was rebuilt so it's not an original medieval building.

A fantastic answer to a question I didn't realise I needed answering. Never knew alehouses where actual peoples houses just opened to the public, or that ale didn't keep very long. I'd always imagined ale casks lasting months. The best part is the inns and taverns that are still there, a link to drinkers past!

Love the video. I personally would like to learn from you how royalty or the common person would have interacted with foreigners. What would they even consider a foreigner?

Pretty fascinating stuff! I'm going to keep these distinctions in mind while running my new D&D campaign. Happy to report that the first (and thus far only) such establishment they've visited was accurately described as an inn, despite not knowing any of these distinctions until now. My players will never know I was clueless. 😂

A fascinating presentation on a subject we take for granted today. I had no idea how interesting this topic would be.

14:25 I think it's fascinating enough to do a whole video on signs and streets. I remember being in Chzesky Krumlov once and the guide pointed out the signs and paintings on the old buildings, and explained how they worked like house numbers.

We have local wineries that specialize in apple, blueberry, and strawberry wines in my area. Some are mixed with grape, but some aren't, and they taste absolutely fabulous.

I never knew the difference. This so informative, and explains such a lot of terms we still use today.

I love how you've been adding an animal to your videos lately, and it's not necessarily a horse 😀 In the previous video there was a cute bumblebee, this time it's a hare. You have a lot of them ?

Glad to see I'm (occasionally) continuing an age old tradition of falling over after drinking too much. Cheers. Some years back, I heard about one of the very few remaining parlour pubs left in England (specifically, The Sun Inn in Leintwardine). As I recall this meant that it didn't have a bar and the beer was served in jugs rather than pints and the whole place felt much more like someone's living room rather than a business. As I understand, it's no longer like this but I've not been there myself to verify, despite having been through Leintwardine many times.

This channel is just so brilliant… Makes me remember the deep feeling I get when I relate to something so far in the past. Such human details

This was a very interesting telling. Love the details and anecdotes you went into. And good to see Gossamer, even only briefly. I like how you chose to film in different locations and wearing different medieval clothes. It sure adds to the production value. (Video suggestion: An episode about those outfits would be interesting!)

Seriously, you could easily be in movies. You are crazy likeable, you smile like a good person and you have awesome canines. You make me miss my canines. It's funny how you start to pay attention to things you took for granted when you had them. Since I lost my teeth a good set always gets my attention now. There's nothing like a good set of teeth. Be proud of them while you have them. Don't take them for granted like I did.

You make it so easy to imagine the sort of scenes you could expect in these places, and all the examples you bring in like the Tabard Inn to give a wider look at society back them. Ale being sort of a drink of carbs reminds me of those modern protein drinks that are marketed to stand in for a meal lol. Wonder if ale at least actually tastes good...

Ah, I love these videos! So atmospheric, so informative, like listening to your favorite history teacher and going on a walk in the woods at the same time! :)

This is the most underrated channel on RU-vid.

In New England (U.S.A.) We have routes to this day called the Kings Highway. Along the routes there were Toll Houses I.E. Inns where you could stay the night plus of course pay your Toll for using the Kings Highway! The most famous in my area was the Toll House in Whitman Massachusetts. Made famous for inventing the Toll House cookie!.....The chocolate chip cookie! I use the Kings Highway every week! My Family is from Norfolk. Calthorpe...There is a place called the Saracens Head Pub.

I love that you both are having the time of your life making these videos. But also continue to show the extremely relevant historical point, that anything said from the back of a horse just sounds more amazing.

I always enjoy your videos. It's stuff like this that makes history fun. And helps with my dming.

So far, I've liked everything Jason has presented in his videos. He is interesting and entertaining, and shares his passion for history in a great way.

I have a feeling yours is one of those channels I'll enjoy catching up on a couple, few times a week until I've watched everything and then get really bummed when I have to wait for a new video.

I forgot to mention that many Neolithic longbarrow burial mounds had a large bowl placed inside them. When the residue in the bowl was tested they found it had been full of mead

Enjoyed that as much as I enjoy beer! There was an "alehouse" near where I grew up in Nottingham called the Friar Tuck, won't say what it's nickname was, (partial anagram). Keep posting, very educational 😊

I wrote a dwarf tavern for D&D which turned into my partys main location. Its run by mostly dwarf women. Basic foods like bread, soups or meat was served along side a large mug of ale, beer or mead along with special drinks that are very pricy. It can house up to over thousand people with lots tables and chairs in one massive hall. There is a stage where performers do varies shows or songs. The Tavern makes most of its drinks and food but is suppled meat, grains and honey. Above the guest area is the rooms where the workers sleep, relax and bath and most but the boss lady named Reddirth have to share a room with 4-10 others. The tavern has fallen on hard times recently, as our last game ended with its roof on fire and the front entrance collasped under rumble. This is the after math of a massive battle inside.

I was half expecting Jason to be going around various taverns, inns and alehouses, slowly getting drunk as the video goes on.

In the US (prior to Prohibition) most neighborhoods had a local bar/brewery. You could get literal "buckets of beer" to bring home or to the jobsite.

I really enjoying listening to your history of medieval Ale houses inns and taverns

Fascinating. Great video. Love our rich English history. Very proud 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

As someone looking to bring realism to a game I'm making.... ok, a couple games (both video game that evolves thru the ages, and tabletop role-playing campaign) and who writes stories..... having this breakdown of what each similar type of establishment is.... essential, highly appreciated and loved.

One of my favorite history channels! The info here is top notch and presented in such a practical way. You could teach a class on medieval England from this channel

I really enjoyed this video. I like these history heavy topics. I’d be interested in hearing about what pubs, inns and taverns would be like inside. I suspect they would be very different from todays establishments. More a group of locals sharing a common table rather than lots of little tables. I think it’s worth emphasising just how communal most life was.

I only recently googled the channel but have been watching the videos on and off for some years now and only just found out that there's a TV show and our Mr Jason Kingsley is also the co-founder of a video games development company of whose games I've played many. I knew this was a good bloke, now I've extra reason to believe it. Love the vids and the games, keep em coming and a whole hearted salute to you, sir

Seamlessly educational and entertaining. If only the BBC were like this.

Interesting about ale (malt, barley) and beer (ale plus hops). Hopping ales happened late in Britain compared to continental Europe, but before hops, there was something called 'gruit' - the herb mixture used to flavour and extend the life of ale. Gruit was replaced by hops, but if you google it, you can find several craft breweries using gruit to make their ales.

I learned quite a bit from this video. More so than I was expecting. Such a fun and engaging presentation. I could listen for hours

This man’s genuine happiness is contagious as hell. I’m interested, engaged, and surprisingly uplifted by watching and listening to him. Wow 🤩

This crisp, concise and accurate narration should stand as an example for all future informational videos.

Interesting to hear that most of the people who died of drinking too much in the medieval period died because of falling into bad spots--as opposed to today, where you can quite literally drink yourself to death from alcohol poisoning.

Terrific new video! Loved all the information. On my first trip to England I discovered how great pubs were. Then there was a law about how much head a beer should have when served. Maybe you still have it. We sure need a law like that in the US. 😊

Really digging Jason's outfit. Looks like a medieval guide.

Up to this very day, the Hessian equivalent to cider over here in Germany is literally called "apple wine". Also, as someone who actually likes sweet wine and often gets sneered at nowadays for that by wine connoisseurs, I really like the fact that back then the sweet wine was the one that was appreciated more. I did NOT know that stuff about ale and beer! Thank you, I learned something very fascinating today!

Thank you, as a fiction writer these sources of factual information help bring a foundation of historical reality to the fantasy worlds I create.

What a fascinating video, thank you so much for making it.

Love listening to these episodes! Always learn something cool from this channel. Thank you!

Man, I love your content! This reminds me of the informative shows PBS over here in America used to show back in the 90s, but in an updated modern way! Thank you very much.