KING CHRISTIAN IV. AND HIS BEER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 547, 27 December 1928, Page 2

KING CHRISTIAN IV. AND HIS BEER

WARNINGS TO CLERGYMEN A vivid picture of rude and unpolished times is given by M. John A Gade in his biographical study of the seventeenth century Scandinavian King •Christian IV." When Christian was born Tycho Brahe, the famous astronomer and astrologer, predicted that he would die “owing to exaggerated dissipation and too great indulgence in food and drink." As an indication that the fortune was founded in probability, here is an illuminating indication of the social conditions under which Christian lived. Even temperate and economical Queen Sophia drank her two gallons of Rhine wine a day, and the nuns in the cloister under her protection grumbled at their yearly rations of fourteen barrels of beer, two pounds of malt and five bushels of hops apiece. The physicians gave such advice in the matter as they believed might help. One of them declared. It is good for people to drink themselves unconscious once a month.”

There was one place, however if only one, where Christian forbade intoxication. That was in the pulpit. As several of his warnings to clergymen went unheeded, he issued an edict stating that any preacher would be dismissed who had twice preached while drunk!.