Ok, ok, the title is perhaps a bit clickbaity, but there’s a reason. And sure, ask anyone what the national drink of Bavaria is, and the answer will probably be beer, and rightly so! Few parts of the world seem to have tied themselves so demonstrably to beer as the Bavarians (or the Franken, for that matter, but we’ll use the modern borders for now). But some recent finds in the annals of perry history give a keyhole view of another side of Bavarian drinking habits back in Medieval times.

Sadly, the nature of cider and perry making in history means that we often only have such keyholes to look through. Wine, and especially beer, seems to have had a lot more “official” attention. Thanks to the involvement of the Church, city councils or the nobility in controlling production or imposing taxes on these drinks, there is a much better formal record of what was produced, what was in it, and how much of it was made.

Around 1300 there was an important turning point in the spread of perry pears and apples, as well as in the expansion of cider and perry production. In the entire Bavarian tribal area, to which large parts of modern day Upper Austria also belonged, the peasantry at every level of dependency originally exercised the right to brew beer, at least for their domestic needs, at least until 1260. The Bierdienst [beer service] that farms owed to the various monasteries in the region of Upper Austria until the 14th century gives us a fairly good picture of the extent of peasant-based beer brewing. I suppose not every farmer was a gifted brewer, as at some stage the monks became self-sufficient for their own brewing needs and required only the delivery of the raw materials. As a result, from about 1350 or so, this “beer service” was eventually replaced by cash or crop tithes to the monasteries.

During the 13^th Century in this region, the peasants’ rights to brew beer were also increasingly restricted by the Meilenrecht, or “mile rights”, a kind of geographical monopoly intended to limit unwelcome competition and prevent the import of beers produced elsewhere. Innkeepers were forbidden to serve anything other than local beer under penalty of law. In the countryside, inns were subject to the monopoly of the breweries owned by the local lords or monasteries as brewing became more and more the prerogative of ecclesiastical and secular rulers. And we all know about the real reason behind the Reinheitsgebot: taxation and control by the nobility.

During all of this, perry and cider were already a popular Bavarian-Austrian drink. What could have been more natural than for the farmers to increasingly rely on the fruits that already grew on the land they worked, free of any tax, and which could provide for their home drinking needs? But as Most was not controlled or taxed, it was not recorded in the same level of detail; farmers in that period weren’t exactly going to be recording production levels and methods in writing.

This freedom of fruit from all taxes in the earliest times is probably the greatest difficulty in researching the history of cider and perry fruit and production based on formal documentary sources. As the fruit and its byproducts were free of any tithe in this region, appearing neither in rent rolls or tithe books, nor in any other written records of levies and services. This complete absence of the usual economic records also means that in these older periods we must rely on chance finds for the history of cider and perry production.

And this is where the keyhole comes in, as there are mentions of cider and perry sprinkled across documents and literature of the period and before. Usually mentions in passing, but sometimes they give you a flavour of how cider and perry were perceived.

A chance discovery I made while reading some older articles tracing the ancestry of Austrian perry pear varieties yielded one of the earliest definite mentions of perry in central Europe. The Bavarian-Austrian poet Neidhart von Reuental, probably one of the most famous Minnesänger or minstrels of the period, made a reference to perry in one song. Around 1240, after he had moved from Bavaria to the area near Melk in current day Austria, he added two verses to an existing song, written of course in Middle High German:

Do bat mich du̍ minnekliche singen
den minen sanc;
des was ich mit tru̍wen vil gemeit.
wan braht ir snuͤre: si begunde twingen
die runzen lanc.
ich was in dem halse niht bereit.
daz verstuͦnt du̍ guͦte vil gefuͦge,
daz ich mich schampt. si schanht mir mit dem kruͦge,
das mir du̍ kel
wider wurde heiter unde hel.

Ir pirnmost, den trank ich also swinde:
des was si fro.
do sang ich uns beiden gar genuͦc.
vil zu̍hteklich sprach si zuͦ ir gesinde,
vil liebe also:
›bring uns aber einen vollen kruͦc,
daz wir den tac hie mit froͤiden also verslîssen,
die brunen nusse mit ein ander bîssen!‹
do sprach du̍ dirn:
›dar zuͦ schenke ich miner teigen pirn.‹

Now, not being a scholor of medieval German, at first glance it looked like a completely different language, but I could understand enough to cobble together a rough translation. But even a Middle High German to modern German dictionary couldn’t solve all the questions! However, I was lucky to get in touch with German and Scandinavian medievalist (and copy writer!) Barbara Piontek. Barbara kindly gave me two translations, one for the literal word-for word translation in High German, and then a more figurative translation, as of course in songs and poems there are hidden meanings in everyday words and phrases.

Here is my English translation based on her literal translation to modern German.

When the maiden asked me
to sing my minstrel song;
I complied with joyful confidence.
Ribbons were brought to her:
She began to press the folds of her long dress.
My throat was not yet able [to sing].
This the good woman understood with great empathy,
that I was ashamed. She poured for me from the jug,
that my throat would be bright and cheerful again.

I drank her perry very impetuously:
She was happy about that.
Then I sang for us both much too much.
Very politely and kindly she said to her servants:
“Bring us another full jug,
that we may spend the day with much joy,
Nibbling brown nuts together!”
Then the woman added:
“to this I will add my ripe pear”.

In the song, the minstrel is asked to sing, but he seems to get a bit flustered by the lady of the house fixing her skirts. To help him relax, and it’s suggested to maybe make him a bit more “compliant”, she serves him with a jug of perry, after which he’s more than able to sing. I know that feeling all too well. They spend the evening together, drinking more perry and nibbling nuts (which likely has some double meaning), and then with a massively suggestive end, the lady offers her ripe pear, which has quite a few symbolic meanings, certainly in terms of body parts!

But it’s a nice mention of perry in an everyday context in medieval Austria, written by a Bavarian. But how about an Austrian writing about the Bavarians?

According to Heinrich Werneck, writing about the history of Austrian perry pears in 1937 and 1962, perry was the most popular beverage among Medieval Bavarians, at least in the late 1200s. He quotes Seifried Helbling, a poet from Lower Austria from the Zwettl region, who later settled near Vienna, writing the following lines that are part of a much longer composition:

läz  Beier  trinken  birenmost,
schaefin  kürsen  für  den  frost
komen  uns  von  Tsechen.
die  läz  ouch  bier  zechen
mit  sant  den  Merhaeren;
wines  sie  enbseren
d^swär  sie  vil  gellch,
an  durch  daz  lieb  österrich. 
des  geniuzet  manic  lant.

Again, Barbara refined the modern German translation, so the English equivalent would be:

Let the Bavarians drink perry,
wearing sheepskin jackets against the frost,
They get that from the Czechs,
who also guzzle beer,
just like the Moravians,
but wines they spurn.
It’s true, they’re very similar to us
except for what I like so much about Austria
the best country in the world.

In the full text, Helbling also has things to say about other nationalities that he clearly doesn’t like. As well as the Bavarians, Bohemians and Moravians, he takes a swipe at the Poles, Hungarians and Styrians, all barbaric foreigners that swill beer and perry, not the fine wines that he associates with his homeland of Austria. Werneck contends that this is ultimately in praise of Austrian wines, but Barbara tells me that the traditionalist Helbling is probably more interested in dissing the perry and beer drinking animals next door. But isn’t it funny that he equites the Bavarians as being first and foremost perry drinkers?

As I said at the beginning of this article, these titbits are just a glance through a keyhole, and it might not be wise to extrapolate too much and declare that perry is the true drink of the Bavarians. Well, ok, I did that in the title, but I won’t ask forgiveness.

We know all too well even from relatively recent history, that centuries long perry traditions can disappear rather quickly. We saw that in Switzerland, that certainly had a perry culture going back to Medieval times, praised in neighbouring lands from the 1500s through to the 1850s, and now it’s all gone, even from common memory. I could well believe that there was a largely unrecorded, peasant-based perry (and cider!)  culture in what used to be Bavaria, and most of what is now southern Germany and northern Austria, with only hints remaining now. It’s one of my goals to try and discover more traces, but wouldn’t it be nice if more makers reintroduced perry to southern Germany? There are certainly enough perry pear trees!

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Bonus Song

Quite a lot of Neidhart’s musical notation was written down, meaning they can still be played today. Though sadly the one with the perry seems to be a rather forgotten one! But here’s an example of a recent recording of one of his more popular numbers, just to give you a flavour. It’s quite the jaunty ear worm!