Alcohol, Violence, and Disorder in Traditional Europe

Traditional Europe had high levels of violence and of alcohol consumption, both higher than they are in modern Western societies, where studies demonstrate a link between violence and alcohol. A Lynn Martin attempts to determine if this link can also explain the violence and disorder of traditional Europe, from about 1300 to 1700, by using an anthropological approach to examine drinking, drinking establishments, violence, and disorder, and comparing the wine-producing south with the beer-drinking north and Catholic France and Italy with Protestant England. Both Catholic and Protestant moralists believed in the link, and they condemned drunkenness and drinking establishments for causing violence and disorder. They did not advocate complete abstinence, however, for alcoholic beverages had an important role in most people's diets. Less appreciated by the moralists was alcohol's function as the ubiquitous social lubricant and the increasing importance of alehouses and taverns as centres of popular recreation. The study utilises both quantitative and qualitative evidence from a wide variety of sources to question the beliefs of the moralists and the assumptions of modern scholars about the role of alcohol and drinking establishments in causing violence and disorder. It ends by analysing the often-conflicting regulations of local, regional, and national governments that attempted to ensure that their citizens had a reliable supply of good drink at a reasonable cost but also to control who drank what, where, when, and how. No other comparable book examines the relationship of alcohol to violence and disorder during this period.