A Belch is as good as a butler

"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous,
There shall be no more cakes and ale?"

                                                   Twelfth Night         (II, iii)

Sir Toby Belch is giving the irredeemably pompous Malvolio a piece of his mind: how dare he spoil all the fun, day after day and night after night? So what if Malvolio is Olivia's steward of the household, in charge of keeping everyone in line? Sir Toby believes the wee hours of the morning were meant for bibulous riot and window-rattling odes to John Barleycorn; there will be plenty of time to sleep in the graveyard.

His words might have looked appropriate carved over the door of every pub in England.

The mid-17th century English pewter flagon pictured above is one among several drinking vessels in the collection of Agecroft Hall, virtually all of a type that would not have been unfamiliar to Shakespeare, although the playwright passed away in the second decade of that century. This one is fairly hefty, standing a bit over eleven inches tall, with a domed cover and vertical thumbpiece. The cover kept foreign matter, from dirt and bugs to the additives of practical jokers or Machiavellian plotters, out of the brew. Theories abounded as to what carried plague: laws were enacted in Germany requiring drinking vessels to have covers to hinder the spread of disease.

It also helped prevent excessive flattening of the ale's taste. Wine was also drunk from such flagons, and some of these vessels had spouts. We have to bear in mind that our modern-day association of certain styles of glassware with particular types of liquid spirits didn't apply back then. Glassware on the meal table was far less common in Shakespeare's day, and generally regarded as a luxury. Many an honest yeoman was perfectly content drinking out of a leather flagon if that's what held his refreshment. Agecroft Hall has one of those, too (see the posting of May 10, 2012).

Archival material at Agecroft Hall indicates that the earliest uses of flagons might well have been ecclesiastical. A pewter flagon, called a cruet, is mentioned in English church records that date to the year 812. Such cruets often had a shape like an hourglass and were of liturgical use.

It's a reasonably safe bet that Sir Toby Belch was rarely concerned with the shape of a pewter flagon, but rather with its contents.