The great Medieval water myth (2013)

Former Historical Theology Student. If this drives you nuts wait till you read primary sources of many different historical documents and than just heard how people corrupt history all the time.<p>Example Nicolaus Copernicus, was persecuted by the Catholic Church for writing his sun centered book and arrested. The book in fact was dedicated to the Pope. It wasn&#x27;t till 73 years after the book was written that anyone said anything against the theory. It wasn&#x27;t even a theological attack but was a difference in philosophical thought which was from Aristotle and his opposition to mathematical physics (AKA numbers does not equal reality).

Did this myth, at least partly, originate in the 1854 cholera outbreak in London?<p>&quot;There was one significant anomaly - none of the monks in the adjacent monastery contracted cholera. Investigation showed that this was not an anomaly, but further evidence, for they drank only beer, which they brewed themselves. Residents near or in the brewery on Broad Street were also not affected as a result of the fermentation of the contaminated water. The beer was safer to drink than the dirty water from the Broad Street Pump.&quot;<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outbreak" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outbr...</a>

Another old reference to drinking water over wine, Daniel 1:11-16<p>So Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days, and let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink. “Then let our appearance be examined before you, and the appearance of the young men who eat the portion of the king’s delicacies; and as you see fit, so deal with your servants.” So he consented with them in this matter, and tested them ten days. And at the end of ten days their features appeared better and fatter in flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king’s delicacies. Thus the steward took away their portion of delicacies and the wine that they were to drink, and gave them vegetables.

Is it just me or all the examples given in the article do, in fact, describe drinking water instead of beer or wine as a thing that was done but was (a) something unusual, (b) a sign of religious self-limitation (&quot;so abstemious that he ... drank water instead of wine&quot;) or (c) as a punishment (diet of bread and water).<p>So it only supports the thesis that people in medieval times did generally avoid drinking water to the best of their ability; it does say that the reasons for doing so aren&#x27;t so simple to avoid &#x27;bad water&#x27;.

I&#x27;m very grateful someone finally wrote an article like this, it&#x27;s so annoying having to constantly readjust people&#x27;s misconceptions on something so basic.<p>More so, the very idea almost refutes itself. &quot;Nobody drank water back then because everyone got sick all the time from drinking water&quot; has an almost Yogi Berra quality to it.

As someone mentioned in the comments (and the post author dismisses), a reasonable version of this myth might be constrained to sailing.<p>I found an okay discussion on it here: <a href="http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-200849.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;boards.straightdope.com&#x2F;sdmb&#x2F;archive&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;t-2008...</a><p>There&#x27;s a reference to &quot;Purser&#x27;s Instructions&quot;, where apparently it is mentioned that the Royal Navy sailors were allotted 1 gallon of beer per day. I tried finding it online, but couldn&#x27;t find the text. Kind of blows my mind that in 2015 I can&#x27;t just easily read any book that is more than 250 years old.

I think history is a lot more interesting and makes a lot more sense when you finally realize that people in the past were just as aware and smart as us, as opposed to the bumbling idiots we often assume them to be.

I&#x27;ve never heard it expressed as though people did not (as in ever) drink water, but that beer and wine were far more popular as casual, everyday drinks than they are now for purposes of sanitation.<p>Which makes some sense when you consider that the items mentioned - rainfall, melted snow, etc. - are not readily available all times of the year in all locales.<p>If anyone had said &quot;they didn&#x27;t drink water in the Medieval ages&quot; I think that, like stagnant water, it wouldn&#x27;t pass anyone&#x27;s sniff test.

Would beer and wine actually have significantly less contamination than water?<p>My understanding is that you need to refrigerate any opened alcohol of less than 15 or 20% because it will spoil. A quick reading of Wikipedia says that it is the hops, not the alcohol, which prevent spoilage, and hops were not mastered until the 13th century.

This just in: Humans almost certainly drink water, and have for at least the past two millennium.<p>haha, but in all seriousness, I always thought when people said &quot;medieval people didn&#x27;t drink water&quot; that they really meant &quot;medieval people didn&#x27;t drink as much water, or drank dirty water&quot;.<p>There was a lecture I watched from someone who explained the Medieval period as &quot;everyone drinking beer because the water was so filthy&quot; and the Enlightenment as &quot;everyone drinking tea because the beer was so intoxicating&quot; and the Industrial Revolution as &quot;everyone drinking coffee because tea wasn&#x27;t strong enough&quot;.<p>I laughed at that and considered the whole idea of Medieval peoples drinking beer instead of water as mostly hyperbole.

Not to attempt to reinforce the &quot;common knowledge&quot; that this article is challenging, but the author includes numerous references to Greeks and Romans drinking water. I thought the common assumption was that people in the <i>Dark Ages</i> avoided water in favor of wine due to poor sanitation practices. The Romans bathed frequently and had dedicated holes in their roofs with a bowl in the middle of their house to catch rainwater; I&#x27;ve never doubted that they could attain clean drinking water.

The &quot;Clean&quot; episode [1] of PBS&#x27;s &quot;How We got to now&quot; explored how in one particular case drinking beer was preferred over drinking water. If I recall correctly (the video is no longer available for streaming) drinking water became contaminated and it was observed that regulars to a bar fared better health-wise, leading to the assumption that beer&#x2F;alcohol was safer.<p>Whether that story fed the myth discussed in the above article or not, I don&#x27;t know, but maybe it wasn&#x27;t entirely baseless as it suggests.<p>[1] <a href="http://video.pbs.org/video/2365323193/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;video.pbs.org&#x2F;video&#x2F;2365323193&#x2F;</a>

I don&#x27;t see the revelation here. The reality always had to be much more nuanced than a simple &quot;they always drank short beer, never water.&quot; That&#x27;s silly. Of course people would be able to recognize clean water, and would not hesitate to drink water they felt was clean. It was, after all, probably the second liquid every human ever born became familiar with. However, sources of clean water were much harder to come by in historical times than they are now. A short beer, with alcohol content low enough not to cause inebriation, but high enough to make bad bugs uncomfortable, was a reliable alternative.

I was taught this in my college history classes in reference to cholera outbreaks in the USA in the 1800s. We were taught people use &quot;half beer&quot; which was 50&#x2F;50 mixed with water, as a safety measure.<p>I have no idea if it is real. It was just what the book and professor said.

I&#x27;m not sure how &quot;great&quot; this myth is, considering that I learned about it just from this article. Could be a cultural thing, of course, since I grew up and was educated in Russia&#x2F;USSR. We had our share of myths I&#x27;m sure.

I&#x27;m not so sure about this, I have done some research on the topic for a book I am working on and it appears that in some cities at certain times, safe water was hard to come by and for that and other reasons people consumed beer&#x2F;wine as their primary beverage and with nearly every meal. I have studied this in the context of the effects on society of coffee and coffee houses that came with displacing beer and taverns as the main beverages and gathering points of society in 17th and 18th century England.<p>Here is an excerpt from James Howell in 1660:<p>&quot;Tis found already, that this coffee drink hath caused a greater sobriety among the Nations. Whereas formerly Apprentices and clerks with others used to take a morning draught of Ale, Beer or Wine, which, by the dizziness they cause in the Brain, made many unfit for business, they use now to play the Good-fellows in this wakeful and civil drink&quot;<p>And another from the historian Michelet:<p>...For at length the tavern has been dethroned, the detestable tavern where, half a century ago, our young folks rioted among wine-tubs and harlots. Fewer drunken songs o&#x27; night time, fewer nobles lying in the gutter... Coffee the sobering beverage, a mighty nutriment of the brain, unlike spirituous liquors, increases purity and clarify; coffee, which clears the imagination of fogs and heavy vapours, which illumines the reality of things with the white light of truth; anti-erotic coffee, which at length substitutes stimulation of the mind for stimulation of the sexual faculties!&quot;<p>[1] <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Gbmhwpxe9usC&amp;pg=PA10&amp;lpg=PA10&amp;dq=hath+caused+a+greater+sobriety+among+the+Nations.+Whereas+formerly+Apprentices+and+clerks+with+others+used+to+take+a+morning+draught+of+Ale,+Beer+or+Wine,+which,+by+the+dizziness+they+cause+in+the+Brain,+made+many+unfit+for+business,+they+use+now+to+play+the+Good-fellows+in+this+wakeful+and+civil+drink&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=rPgKd9fknG&amp;sig=mVVqFbrC4KEv71lLqstfnag-BKg&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=nfXbVKjCMY_ooASQqYKYCQ&amp;ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=hath%20caused%20a%20greater%20sobriety%20among%20the%20Nations.%20Whereas%20formerly%20Apprentices%20and%20clerks%20with%20others%20used%20to%20take%20a%20morning%20draught%20of%20Ale%2C%20Beer%20or%20Wine%2C%20which%2C%20by%20the%20dizziness%20they%20cause%20in%20the%20Brain%2C%20made%20many%20unfit%20for%20business%2C%20they%20use%20now%20to%20play%20the%20Good-fellows%20in%20this%20wakeful%20and%20civil%20drink&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.com&#x2F;books?id=Gbmhwpxe9usC&amp;pg=PA10&amp;lpg=P...</a>

Interesting to see that people in medieval times seem to have had actually more environmental problems than we have now.

&quot;Unfortunately, long-standing myths are not displaced by anything so flimsy as documentation.&quot;<p>I like this guy.

I was literally actually thinking of this just the other day. Alcohol now gives me intestinal liquidity, possibly a result of too many years of 3-4 beer a night. And I couldn&#x27;t figure out how an entire populace raised on the stuff wouldn&#x27;t have had larger issues with beer than with water. I was thinking there had to be something I was missing about what I was taught (and I was taught it in college).