[Illustration: Fig. 107.--Interior of an Hostelry.--Fac-simile of a
Woodcut in a folio edition of Virgil, published at Lyons in 1517.]
Although the trade of a wine-merchant is one of the oldest established in
Paris, it does not follow that the retail sale of wine was exclusively
carried on by special tradesmen. On the contrary, for a long time the
owner of the vineyard retailed the wine which he had not been able to sell
in the cask. A broom, a laurel-wreath, or some other sign of the sort hung
over a door, denoted that any one passing could purchase or drink wine
within. When the wine-growers did not have the quality and price of their
wine announced in the village or town by the public crier, they placed a
man before the door of their cellar, who enticed the public to enter and
taste the new wines. Other proprietors, instead of selling for people to
take away in their own vessels, established a tavern in some room of their
house, where they retailed drink (Fig. 107). The monks, who made wine
extensively, also opened these taverns in the monasteries, as they only
consumed part of their wine themselves; and this system was universally
adopted by wine-growers, and even by the king and the nobles. The latter,
however, had this advantage, that, whilst they were retailing their wines,
no one in the district was allowed to enter into competition with them.
This prescriptive right, which was called _droit de ban-vin_, was still in
force in the seventeenth century.
|