hang out a green branch to signify that small quantities of wines could be bought there.
The taverns’ reputation as centers of crime and violence, if court records can be believed,
was well deserved. Communities also regulated the retail trade in wines, supervising
measures, requiring proper labeling, and, in some of the larger communities, regulating
the prices. In Paris, for example, a herald proclaimed pub-licly the prices charged in the
taverns and received a few pennies from each taverner for his pains.
With the availability of commercial supplies of wine, areas that produced substandard
grades could transform the land to more suitable crops. In the late Middle Ages, with the
decline of the population associated with the Black Death and other social catastrophes,
even some of the better vineyards were abandoned for lack of labor.
In the late 14th century, a new varietal type of grape, the Gamay, made its appearance
in the back hills of Bur-gundy. At first, the duke of Burgundy sought to outlaw its use,
but since it produced twice the quantity of wine in the same area as the Pinot grape it
spread rapidly. With the introduction of the Gamay grape into the hills of the Beaujolais,
one is on the threshold of the modern era of wine production in France, marked by the
commercial development of table-quality wines in large quantities for the mass markets
in Paris and other urban centers.
Rosalind K.Berlow
[See also: BEVERAGES; TRADE ROUTES; VITICULTURE]
Berlow, Rosalind Kent. ‘The ‘Disloyal’ Grape: The Agrarian Crisis of Late Fourteenth-Century
Burgundy.” Agricultural History 56(1982):426–38.
Dion, Roger. Histoire de la vigne et du vin en France des origines au XIXe siècle. Paris: The
Author, 1959.
James, Margery K. “The Medieval Wine Dealer.” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History
10(1957):45–53.
Seward, Desmond. Monks and Wine. New York: Crown, 1979.
WITASSE LE MOINE
. Only one extant manuscript (B.N. fr. 1553) tells the story of this 13th-century French
Robin Hood. The anonymous author recounts, in some 2,300 octosyllabic lines, the
comic pranks and adventures of Witasse, who confounds his enemy, the Count of
Boulogne, notably by his use of disguises. It presents a mixture of folk motifs, internal
history of the Boulonnais, and the relations among England, France, and the county of
Boulogne in the period 1200–17.
Wendy E.Pfeffer
Conlon, Denis Joseph, ed. Li romans de Witasse le Moine. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1972.
The Encyclopedia 1855