Behaving in a Golden Age Tavern

[Red_Dawn]

I'd like to know about how to behave in a Caribbean tavern so I can get my characters in trouble. Specifically, I need to know the tolerance for fighting and necking, but any information on tavern behavior (good or bad) is welcome and wanted. Thanks!

[Fox]

No fighting, but some lewdness in the back left. Jan Steen, 1670

And more of the same. Cornelis Bega, mid 17thC

Good general scene. Cornelis Dusart, late 17thC

And of course, there's Hogarth. Tavern Scene from the Rake's Progress, 1735

[Bos'n Cross]

MINE EEYYEESSSS....they burn! petticoat breeches eeeewww............also can anyone spot that artists (hogarth) portrayal of a "working woman"....may it be known that it supports that most women wore stays...even the gals that had to get out of them..........often..........

Edited October 21, 2010 by Bos'n Cross

[Will Fiddle]

MINE EEYYEESSSS....they burn! petticoat breeches eeeewww............also can anyone spot that artists (hogarth) portrayal of a "working woman"....may it be known that it supports that most women wore stays...even the gals that had to get out of them..........often..........

Well Lad, technically, they didn't have to get out of their stays... That just made things comfy.

Women folk don't wear pants in their nether regions until after the French start that inconvenient fashion around 1750.

[Silkie McDonough]

True Will but they do make getting to the girls a little complicated.

[Bos'n Cross]

indeed sir, they wouldnt have to get out of them all the time......but in this particular image hogarth used the discarded stays to show she was a prostitute(Costume Close-up:1750-1790 CW Foundation). Though used as an artistic cue to the observer, i do wonder if it had some basis in common prostitutional (i think i just made up a word lol) practice. i wasnt alluding to women wearing pants.........i do...but im a sailor............yaaarr

[Grymm]

A quiet pint whilst out fowling

[Hawkyns]

Unfortunately, most of the behaviour pictured, that which was common in the dockside taverns, would not be tolerated, even in our nonpublic, recreated taverns. Sad to say, many (most?) of our brothers and sisters bring their modern hangups and, yes, prudishness, with them when they enter the pirate realm.

It's been a long fight of mine to show more of the reality and less of the glorified version of piracy, and reenacting in general. Where are the whores, the drunks, the criminals, when we portray an encampment or town scene? We focus mostly on the idea of pirates as jolly rogues, rebels against conformity, yet we are unable, as a group, to drop the conformity of the 21st century and deal with those subjects that "one does not speak of in polite society". Too damn proper for pirates, we are.

Hawkyns

[Mission]

What?! It's already time to bring up the "It ain't real enough!" discussion again? It seems like just a few months since the last one...

Meh. You still all that in bars today if you look. You see people carousing a la the paintings above in the Taverns at events, too. You definitely see lewd, lascivious and (mock) thieving behavior. (At least I have. I could link to photos of all of this in my Surgeon's Journals, but that would be a lot of work. But feel free to do the heavy lifting for yourself - focus on the PiP journals.) There are often prostiteers at pirate events, who are dressed far more lewdly than the folks in those paintings. It's all there if you look for it - in some ways we're not so different from that time period.

[wes1761]

Hawkyns said:

"It's been a long fight of mine to show more of the reality and less of the glorified version of piracy, and reenacting in general. Where are the whores, the drunks, the criminals, when we portray an encampment or town scene? We focus mostly on the idea of pirates as jolly rogues, rebels against conformity, yet we are unable, as a group, to drop the conformity of the 21st century and deal with those subjects that "one does not speak of in polite society". Too damn proper for pirates, we are.

"

Pick me!!! I'll be the drunken rum sot!!!!

[blackjohn]

I don't own a copy, but this might have a few answers to your question.

http://books.google.com/books?id=tZxaDhb71gcC&lpg=PP1&ots=GZnVJEZoyY&dq=taverns%20and%20drinking%20in%20early%20america&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

[Hawkyns]

Sorry, Mission. Every so often somebody hits the big red candy coloured button. But if you know of taverns that look anything like Hogarth's taverns, do let me know. I have the distinct impression, though, if we turned the tavern at PIP into that, half of our own people would complain.

Hawkyns

[Red_Dawn]

Thanks, guys! This helps a bit.

No fighting, but some lewdness in the back left. Jan Steen, 1670

Oh my, naughty pictures!

So necking at least was tolerated. Would it have been a "just ignore it" thing or a "kick back and enjoy the show" thing? Or would that depend on the nationality of the tavern?

And of course, there's Hogarth. Tavern Scene from the Rake's Progress, 1735

If that's a tavern scene, I'd hate to see him do a brothel scene! Certainly not the place where the vicar gets a pint.

Unfortunately, most of the behaviour pictured, that which was common in the dockside taverns, would not be tolerated, even in our nonpublic, recreated taverns. Sad to say, many (most?) of our brothers and sisters bring their modern hangups and, yes, prudishness, with them when they enter the pirate realm.

Actually, those make out scenes in the Steen and Bega paintings look kind of tame compared to what happens on network TV.

I don't own a copy, but this might have a few answers to your question.

Thanks! I'll check it out.

Anything else I should know about tavern behavior?

[Mission]

Sorry, Mission. Every so often somebody hits the big red candy coloured button. But if you know of taverns that look anything like Hogarth's taverns, do let me know. I have the distinct impression, though, if we turned the tavern at PIP into that, half of our own people would complain.

Hawkyns

Hogarth was a satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist; his pictures were exaggerated on purpose. Although the things they show us may have existed to some degree, it would not likely be as he has shown them.

For this reason, I never look to Hogarth when I'm seeking factual period info. It's like using Ned Ward's The Wooden World Dissected (1706) to back you up because it ain't fact, it's hyperbole. (Well, in Hogarth's case pictorial hyperbole which is something I just made up.)

[Hawkyns]

Paging Hurricane. Hurricane to the white courtesy phone.....

You are our Port Royal expert. Are there any primary source descriptions of the Port Royal taverns and the common behaviour? It's not my area, so my library is lacking.

Got to wonder what things were like in the Wickedest City in Christendom.

Hawkyns

[Silkie McDonough]

Red Dawn, thanks for asking. I have a related question of my own.

How would a proprietor of a working class inn/tavern/ordinary/public house look upon these things? I would think whores were common, in fact desirable. I would also think there would be a distinction between a courtesan and a cheap whore and which would be permitted to do business at ones establishment. Can anyone suggest research material to help develop the history and behavior of the proprietress of "The Sealchie's Hide"?

[Red_Dawn]

Paging Hurricane. Hurricane to the white courtesy phone.....

You are our Port Royal expert. Are there any primary source descriptions of the Port Royal taverns and the common behaviour? It's not my area, so my library is lacking.

It doesn't have to be Port Royal (unless Port Royal was typical). It doesn't necessarily have to be English/British, either, I've got French colonials in my fictional crew, too.

Red Dawn, thanks for asking. I have a related question of my own.

How would a proprietor of a working class inn/tavern/ordinary/public house look upon these things?

You're welcome. And that's a good question. I'd like to know that, too, for the sake of my long suffering port tavernkeepers.

[Hawkyns]

Not sure how typical Port Royal might be, hence the question to Hurricane. From what I've heard, though, it might be analagous to what shows in Hogarths etchings. That's what I want to find out, if it really was that wild.

OK, 'splanations. One of the reasons I got into living history was to escape the 21st, then 20th, century. Getting far away from the comfortable, politically correct, family friendly world was the target destination. So my reenactment 'homes' are Carlisle and Southwark in the 1590's; France, as a English Routier in 1453; England, 1643 in the middle of the war, and the low dives of the Eastern Seaboard and the Carib in the GAOP. Basically places that law and respectability do not exist. So when Mission tweaks me about things 'not being real enough', it's 'cause I'm still fighting to find the lowest level of Society and hoping enough comrades will descend with me. Ergo, the obvious interest in this topic and wondering how far people are prepared to go.

Hawkyns

[Silkie McDonough]

Point taken Hawkyns.

I fall more into the family friendly but want to be somewhat realistic. With this in mind I think I should make the Hide a upper working class establishment. What I need to find out is what were the norms of the day.

I want to have whores there but they have to keep it PG 13. Same with the drunks and thieves. The drunks would need to filter foul language and thieves can steal, although I would drunks to drink no alcohol when there is public about and I like my thieves to set up the thievery in advance and return whatever is stolen so they can steal it the next day. lol

[Mission]

You are our Port Royal expert. Are there any primary source descriptions of the Port Royal taverns and the common behaviour? It's not my area, so my library is lacking.

It doesn't have to be Port Royal (unless Port Royal was typical). It doesn't necessarily have to be English/British, either, I've got French colonials in my fictional crew, too.

So this is for a fictional account?

On the one hand, I would think - as Hawkins hints - that behavior in bars would vary as widely as the people who populated them. As a modern day example, you're going to get one feeling walking into the local downtown hangout for executives leaving work and very different one at the local motorcycle gang hole-in-the-wall. Ditto period. Sailor's bars have long held a reputation for being more rough and tumble than the ones not quite so near the city port.

OTOH, if you want something that is "undeniably" historically provable (inasmuch as that is possible), I have lately learned that the litmus test for such is three independent sources saying or showing the same thing.

So I guess you have to decide where you want to rest on that continuum. If you're closer to the first idea, I would just assume artistic license and write what you need to move your story forward. The points earned in the public eye for being 100% accurate (which is pretty much impossible) are minuscule anyhow.

[Grymm]

Meanwhile, outside the tavern/inn/pub/tippling house

[Red_Dawn]

Thanks again, guys!

So this is for a fictional account?

[snip]

So I guess you have to decide where you want to rest on that continuum. If you're closer to the first idea, I would just assume artistic license and write what you need to move your story forward. The points earned in the public eye for being 100% accurate (which is pretty much impossible) are minuscule anyhow.

Sorry, I should've stated that more clearly in the OP. Yes, it's for fiction, though I do like to get the basics right at least.

On the one hand, I would think - as Hawkins hints - that behavior in bars would vary as widely as the people who populated them. As a modern day example, you're going to get one feeling walking into the local downtown hangout for executives leaving work and very different one at the local motorcycle gang hole-in-the-wall. Ditto period. Sailor's bars have long held a reputation for being more rough and tumble than the ones not quite so near the city port.

So as long as nothing became a police matter, the dockside taverns didn't care what you did.

[hurricane]

Sorry I'm late Hawkyns. :)

I don't have my pirate library with me at the moment here in Oregon, but if I recall, there was a tavern, inn or pub for every 70 people or so in Port Royal at its height. The women had a mouth on them that was far fouler than any truck driver you could imagine in our times. They were brash, bold and complete, well whores. Drinking was to regular excess and the town didn't hold to the same standards of London at the time. It was in its entirety a seaport in its mores and activities. Again, bare with me, recalling this from my rum soaked mind at the time. There was constant crime in the streets, brawls in the taverns, gambling and thievery. There was no standing law there. The militia (in the town's prime) were a few regulars with the rest townfolk. It would have made the Wild West look like a day in Disneyland.

And no, there's no way to re-create this environment. We can't have garbage piling up, have puke on the streets and the floor of a re-enactment bar, the stench of stale beer and poor hygiene, or the years of neglect and abuse.

But, of course, we want to think we can come close, just as we think we're close singing chanteys from the whaling area and calling civil war tents "period tents". I'm not slamming this interpretation, mind you, but these too are either sanitations of the true historical record or are simply accommodations to the mainstream of re-enacting events. It does amuse me that on one hand some hold fast to quoting from original sources only but then bend rules all the time to suit our own needs or the rules and restrictions society has placed on us. How many times have we heard Rolling Down to Old Maui in a "period pub" though its origins are believed to be from around 1858 and no one is really sure of its melody.

The book Hubbub has a great discussion (if I recall) on inns and drinking establishments.

http://www.amazon.com/Hubbub-Filth-Stench-England-1600-1770/dp/0300137567/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287878836&sr=8-1

Very well done and an enjoyable read, even if you aren't into re-enacting.

I am still waiting for the famed moment in Port Royal when the buccaneer tapped the keg of red wine in the center of the street and invited others to partake. And if they didn't he threw tankards of wine at them, even if they were of the upper station of society. Now there's a moment to re-enact.

[Fox]

They were brash, bold and complete, well whores.

I'm not sure whether you meant it in the way I read it, but I think it would be wrong to assume that brash and bold women (even in seaport towns) were necessarily whores. There's quite an interesting study of indictments for assault amongst the women of Portsmouth in the 18thC which suggests that Port Royal was far from exceptional in the prevalence of tough-as-old-boots bitches, but they certainly weren't all prostitutes.

Drinking was to regular excess and the town didn't hold to the same standards of London at the time. It was in its entirety a seaport in its mores and activities.

Sounds exactlty like London to me, which was, of course, the largest seaport in the world. If you can get hold of a copy of Pepys' diary which hasn't been bowdlerised by the Victorians you'll get quite an interesting picture of the activities of London, even amongst the higher echelons, and Gerald Howson's book Thief-taker General: the rise and fall of Jonathan Wils is quite eye-opening in terms of metropolitan crime.

How many times have we heard Rolling Down to Old Maui in a "period pub" though its origins...

Agreed. Come to this side of the pond Hurricane, I'll see your Old Maui and raise you Hanging Johnny...

[Mission]

The book Hubbub has a great discussion (if I recall) on inns and drinking establishments.

http://www.amazon.com/Hubbub-Filth-Stench-England-1600-1770/dp/0300137567/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287878836&sr=8-1

Very well done and an enjoyable read, even if you aren't into re-enacting.

I don't recall it talking about drinking establishments (but, then again, I don't not recall it talking about them either.) However, I heartily second Hurricane's suggestion. He put me on to this book a year or two ago and it does a really fantastic job of highlighting and portraying (and, best of all, giving period sources for) some of the things you don't read about in most accounts. It's a really terrific resource for our hobby, even if it will probably not be one that you will want to emulate. (And that includes Hawkyns. )