@Sheril Sadly, all too familiar.

@Sheril Why, she turned me into a newt!

@Sheril
Oh come off it! Nobody stood around selling beer in a pointy hat at an English market in the Middle Ages. Women brewed ALE in farmhouses and manor houses, and distributed it to servants and workers. If you went to a market you would buy and drink ale in an inn. Most male brewers were monks, and they were not in competition with female brewers. The "pointy hats" in the picture look like traditional Welsh dress, not medieval costume. Associating female brewers with witchcraft is fantasy.

@Sheril fascinating post, but all throughout history it's the same sad old story of toxic masculinity and the fragile male ego.

@Sheril The history is fascinating, but I think the photo shows women dressed in traditional Welsh costumes, not as alewives of the middle-ages. Here's another pic of three women in traditional Welsh clothing.

@Sheril BEER WITCHERY! :blobwizard:

@Sheril Mercantilism led to increasing assets for some in late medieval Europe. This growing inequality and increasing competition, in turn, led businessmen to push women out of guilds.

This, together with misogynistic ideas accompanying the 'Enlightenment', pushed women into less-profitable parts of the economy from which women are, largely, still struggling to escape.

@Sheril @LordKinbote witchcraft!

@Sheril

I love Judith Bennett's scholarship!:

_Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600_ is seminal piece of historical and feminist scholarship.

And then she applied what she had learned from studying late medieval/early modern England to broader historical patterns - the idea of the "patriarchal equilibrium" is brilliant!

https://bookshop.org/p/books/history-matters-patriarchy-and-the-challenge-of-feminism-judith-m-bennett/12488103

@Sheril talking about witches is a good way to get a follow from some people, idk what kinds not me, why are you looking at me.

@Sheril they portray "gossip" as a female trait, but men have been taking down women with whispers for centuries

@Sheril This article is almost entirely fiction. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/c8nkep/were_female_brewers_persecuted_as_witches_in_the/esojmzu/

@Sheril hey 👋

@Sheril
Holy shit, it’s a friggen conspiracy.

@Sheril I just knew there was another amazing reason to love women that like beer! 🍻

@Sheril When I'm drunk from beer, everything seems like witchcraft!

@Sheril Love this!

@Sheril brewers paddle morphs into the witches broom as well.

@Sheril spurious correlation. Women were already subject to suspicion, subjugation and persecution (and now too, I think). Pointy hats aren’t usually associated with brewing. Neither are cauldrons.

@Sheril Hmm, not buying most of this or, really, any of it, apart from the move to male control of brewing, though that happened much later and more unevenly than suggested here.

@Sheril

Beer drinking goes a long way towards explaining dancing by the light of the moon.😁

@Sheril Fascinating!

@Sheril you just wanted to get us drunk so u could cast yer spell on us.

Bwahhhahahahahahahahahahahaha

@Sheril what I really want to know is how did that article writer get the photograph from Middle Ages? 🤨

@Sheril Umqombothi (African Beer) was also traditionally made by women as part of cooking/food preparation. Once the beer is brewed, it’s stored in decorated clay pots (Ukhamba ). Decorations (beads of clay pressed into pot or patterns etched). This is placed around the waist of the pot, (easier to grip) the pot when it is slippery with beer. Decor around the pot waist represent the female body and may signify the protection of female fertility. #woman #africa #tradition

@Sheril it is interesting that the decline in woman dominated brewing coincided with the rise of industrial brewing. similar to women's participation in computer science

@Sheril cheers!

@Sheril Mallory O’Meara talks about it in her book Girly Drinks.

@Sheril I love it. Witches were beer-lovers. Because of course they were.

@Sheril Hrm. There seem to be very few independent sources corroborating this (I was able to trace everything here back to a 2018 article and a theory by a Waterloo historian) and most of the academic resources around witch hats suggest other sources. Has anyone been able to find any reviewed publications concerning this theory?

@Sheril Hmmm. Same thing happened with women healers, when men wanted to take over the profession the women were suddenly "witches"

@Sheril LOL Great photo !! 🌹💙👍

@Sheril

Very interesting.

But, you know, recipe, brewing, cauldron, probably murmering... 😉

Brewing was the domain of men (mostly) for thousands of years, though, first in #Mesopotamia and #China and then in #Egypt, starting at least 9000 (#Chinese kui), possibly more than 10000 years ago.

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/223/beer-in-the-ancient-world/

@Sheril I have long known of this history. In fact, where I live is the same place that the last woman ever to be tried and found guilty of witchcraft lived. Her name was Jayne Wenham. She was pardoned and sent to live out her days in a monastery in Hertingfordbury if my memory serves me right.

@Sheril I was just talking to a co-worker about that last week! The persecution of witches was also a response to the "threat" of financially independent women.

Give the Pink Boots Society some love! 👢💕🍺

@Sheril This article was also picked up by The Smithsonian Magazine!

Smithsonian then added a, well, not a retraction, but corrections of several factual inaccuracies and general back-pedalling.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/women-used-dominate-beer-industry-until-witch-accusations-started-pouring-180977171/

@Sheril
Nanny Ogg wouldn't be doing with that!

@Sheril I think I watched an episode of QI recently that touched upon this subject.

@Sheril For those who want to read more about alewives: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alewife_(trade)

@Sheril thus the term witch’s brew?

@Sheril never knew this. Thanks for posting.

@Sheril

CONFIRMED: Brett Kavanaugh is in league with #witches

@Sheril In case anyone else is also wondering, this is the image of the female brewer that is the source of the claim that they dressed like witches:

@Sheril Alright, I'm gonna look into this. It just...strikes me as a folk interpretation, and the article has to go back and say that they got the wrong time period for witch persecution. This is a tell that makes medievalists very irritable. (I'm thinking specifically of linking the Dark Ages to witch persecution, which really was more of a Renaissance/ Reformation thing. Such. A. Tired. Trope.) It just sounds debunkable. :)

I'm going to get to look at cat persecutions.

@Sheril #thankyou

@Sheril Yeah this is bullshit.

@Sheril

@Sheril
Wonderful tidbit of new information. Made me smile.

@Sheril The truth behind!

@Sheril Judith M. Bennett wrote a super interesting historical account of female beer brewers in England and how once hops increased shelf life (and profitability) of beer, women were increasingly prohibited from practicing one of the few lucrative trades available to single/widowed women. Title is Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England.

@Sheril #TIL

@Sheril This was one of my favourite facts to turn into a quiz question for the 'Feministisch Biertrinken' ("Feminist beer drinking") pubquiz I used to do with a couple of friends. Perfect fit. 😊

@Sheril Human history: Men feel threatened by strong women. Men suppress strong women by marginalizing or vilifying (or just killing them for good measure) them. Rinse and repeat. We must break this cycle!

@Sheril that’s how pubs came into being. Public Houses were houses where the (mostly) women opened their doors to their neighbours who came to drink their brews which could be beer, cider, tea and coffee. Literally, houses which were open to the public.

It’s exciting to watch what feels like the first viral article I’ve seen. And one that was filled with interesting new knowledge.

@Sheril

@Sheril How nice the world could be if men weren't always frightened of women🙄🙄🙄 But thanks for the information!👍

@Sheril isn't it true that across much of europe, the monasteries were running the brewing industry long before the reformation? 🤔 and luther at least was very happy with his wife's beer 🍺

@Sheril

If I remember the article, its conclusion was "well, actually we don't know anything for sure, but I thought it would make for a good story".
So, not sure that it's worth sharing ?

@cstross

@Sheril Fascinating! Thanks for this.
(This tragic, historic misogynism--witches?--always fills me with anger.)

@Sheril new understanding to witches' brew

@Sheril The surname 'Brewster' was originally occupational and meant exactly that, female brewer - in the same way that spinsters were female spinners, before the word acquired its modern connotations

@Sheril Not sure this iconography has basis in historical sources. Moreover, witchcraft trials across Europe included men as well as women of different social backgrounds.

@Sheril is that where the phrase witches brew originated?

@Sheril. I missed it yesterday! 👎😦
I don't understand why men felt jealous and threatened by women in every field? 🤔
Women are the best creation of God! 👍🏼🌹❤️👏🙏
A Society that doesn't give women their due place in Society can never progress.😦😡
I hope, things will change faster to give women their due place in the World. 👍🏼🌹❤️👏🙏

@Sheril https://braciatrix.com/2017/10/27/nope-medieval-alewives-arent-the-archetype-for-the-modern-pop-culture-witch/

@Sheril anyone know why I get toots as a notification? This came in like that. #notifications

@Sheril

Brewing and the sale of beer pre-dated the invention of signs and flags. Brewsters sold their excess beer, but it would go bad quickly, so it wasn’t always available. Simply posting a stick or post outside, or attached above the door, was a way of saying you had something “for sale” right now. Decorating the stick was a way of showing what you had for sale, and in some regions, a bundle of barley stalks tied to the pole meant you had beer available. It resembled a broom.

hmmmm….

@Sheril love this Sheril - do you mind if I share it on Twitter etc?