4 - ‘Joining and Fastening Together’: The Practice and Bonds of Good Fellowship

Summary

On a Wednesday evening in October 1604, in the Essex parish of Layer Marney, at around 6.00p.m. John Oultings entered a drinking establishment known locally as Turner’s alehouse. Oultings was in search of refreshment and accommodation, and in the course of his overnight stay witnessed some rather intriguing drinking antics. On his arrival he found John Lufkin, Thomas Marsh, and other unnamed men drinking together. It’s not entirely clear whether Oultings joined these men or watched them from across the room, but at around 9.00p.m. he witnessed John Lufkin call for ‘a huge great stone pot’ – ‘conteyneinge by his estemacon very nere two gallons’ of beer – a vessel that was apparently known to the drinkers by the name of ‘Fowler’, a rather odd nickname for a drinking vessel, the provenance of which will become clear. Oultings was not interested in participating in whatever drinking ritual was about to ensue, and retired to his bed chamber. He rose the next morning between 4.00 and 5.00a.m., only to find Lufkin and his fellow drinkers still ‘playing’, as he put it, with the great stone pot. But one of the company had apparently been defeated in the attempt to drain this mighty vessel, for Thomas Marsh was, as Oultings observed, ‘so drunk he fell fast asleep at the table, hanging down his head, foaming, slavering, and pissing as he sat’. He had, in short, got so drunk he had befouled himself. That was not the end of his indignity. One of the company fetched a sack, and placed it over Marsh’s head, whereupon John Lufkin, the ringleader of the drinking company, bellowed in Marsh’s ears that he too would forever after bear the nickname ‘Fowler’. Just to top off the shaming ritual, Lufkin undid Marsh’s codpiece, and left him sitting there, unconscious, soiled, and with what contemporaries would have referred to as his ‘carnal instrument’ publicly exposed. By 7.00a.m. Oultings was on his way, leaving the company to breakfast, but this was not the end of their bout of good fellowship: Oultings later heard reports that they had not left Turner’s alehouse until the following morning.