University of Virginia Library

From Babylon and Egypt to St. Columban

Beer is a malted beverage that was brewed in Babylon and
Egypt from primordial times[572] but it was held in low esteem
by the wine-loving Greeks and Romans, and because of
this deeply rooted cultural aversion made no imprint whatsoever
on early monastic life, from the literature of which
the terms cerevisa or celia are wholly absent. The drink
acquired significance, however, as monachism spread into
the north and west of Europe where beer has been a
traditional beverage since the remotest times and where wine
was as yet not made in sufficient quantities to take care of
all of the needs of the monks.

Pliny describes caelia, cerea and cerevisia as words of
Celtic origin denoting beverages drunk in his days in
Spain and in Gaul and remarks that its froth was used by
the women of these countries as a cosmetic for the face.[573]
The terms do not occur at any place in the Rule of St.
Benedict. The earliest evidence of the consumption of beer
in a monastic context, to the best of my knowledge, is a
passage in the Life of St. Columban, (543-615) written by
the monk Jonas of Bobbio (ca. 665) which relates that in the
days of Columban, beer was served in the refectory of the
monastery of Luxeuil (founded by St. Columban ca. 590).
In this account cervisia is referred to as a beverage "which
is boiled down from the juice of corn or barley, and which
is used in preference to other beverages by all the nations
in the world—except the Scottish and barbarian nations who
inhabit the ocean—that is in Gaul, Britain, Ireland, Germany
and the other nations, who do not deviate from the
custom of the above."[574]

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