Did you celebrate Braggot Sunday?

The history of the word “braggot” goes back to pre-Norman times in Britain. The origin was likely brackwort, bragwort, etc., possibly indicating a malt held over from a previous malting.

We have something of an early description of it in Geoffrey Chaucer's “Miller's Tale”:

[Her] mouth was swete as braket or the me[e]th,

Or hord of apples, laid in hay or he[a]th.¹

“Braket” is braggot, “meeth,” mead. Early on, braggot also was a fermented honey alcohol. This remained the case in some recipes as late as the 1590s as evidenced by the recipe given in the highly popular Haven of Health (1596).

Take three or four galons of good ale, or more as you please, two dayes or three after it is clensed, and put it into a pot by itselfe; then draw forth a pottle thereof, and put to it a quart of good English honey, and set them over the fire in a vessell, and let them boyle faire and softly, and alwayes as any froth ariseth skumme it away, and so clarifie it, and when it is well clarified, take it off the fire and let it coole, and put thereto of pepper a pennyworth, cloves, mace, ginger, nutmegs, cinamon, of each two pennyworth, beaten to powder, stir them well together, and set them over the fire to boyle againe awhile, then bring milke warme, put it to the reste, and stirre alltogether, and let it stand two or three daies, and put barme upon it, and drink it at your pleasure.

Few of the spices mentioned were available in pre-Norman (or even early Norman) times. It is possible that removing them leaves us with the basic original recipe sweetened only by honey.

At some point, and various places, in England, Mid-Lent Sunday became an observed day of the season. It has been suggested, based upon the Catholic liturgy, that it was first called some variation upon “Mother Sunday” because, in pre-Anglican times, members returned to their mother church to lay offerings before the altar.

Once the Catholic liturgy was gone it seems that most parishes were convinced by the name to convert the day into a kind of proto-Mothers' Day. Others just celebrated the day as Mid-Lent Sunday: a day when Lenten restrictions were loosened and folks allowed to take a break. Somewhere in all of this many parishes celebrated the day as Braggot Sunday filled with quantities of the local recipe of sweet ale.

By the time William Harrison's 1577 Description of England appeared, his wife was one of many serious brewers of beer. She added brackwort to give the beer an ale-like quality and color. Regardless of the brack, her sweetening ingredients did not include honey or expensive sugar.

Finallie, when the setteth hir drinke togither, the addeth to hir brackwoort or charwoort halfe an ounce of arras, and halfe a quarterne of an ounce of baiberries finelie powdered, and then putting the same into hir woort, with an handfull of wheat flowre, the proceedeth in such usuall order as common bruing requireth. Some, in steed of arras & baies, adde to much long pepper onelie,...²

The arras mentioned refers to orris an exotic extract from Iris pallida or Iris germanica still much sought after as a unique flavor experience and herbal remedy.

Harrison mentions more in passing metheglin and “a kind of swish swash made also in Essex, and diverse other places, with honicombs and water, which the [homelie] countrie wives, putting some pepper and a little other spice among, call mead,...”. His survey does not mention what was drunk on Mid-Lent Sunday or Braggot Sunday but does give a feel for how the recipes had changed over the centuries.

Whatever exactly was imbibed, Ben Jonson tells us, in his Masque of the Metamorphosed Gipsies (1621), that some version of Braggot was still available and popular.

And we have serv'd there, armed all in ale,

With the brown bowl, and charg'd in bruggat stale.

1“Miller's Tale,” 3263.

2 Harrison, William. Description of England, Frederick Furnivall ed. (1577, 1587, 1887) I.159.

Keyword spellings: Braggot, Bragget, Braggat, Bruggat, Brackwoort

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