Did medieval people drink beer because water was unsafe?

The popular claim is that medieval water was filthy, so everyone, children included, drank weak beer all day. Most of the sources here reject that. Ale was an everyday drink, valued as food as well as refreshment, but water was also drunk, especially by the poor, the young and servants, and it was used in every kitchen. Medieval writers did know that some water was bad, but that is different from avoiding water altogether. [1] [2]

Medical texts and health manuals often praise water from good sources. The seventh-century physician Paul of Aegina wrote that the best water is tasteless, odorless and clear. The Regimen Sanitatis Salerni said cool spring water quenches thirst and rainwater is better still, though it preferred wine with meals because water chills the stomach. Ælfric's tenth-century Colloquy has a speaker say he drinks ale if he has it, or water if he has none. [2]

Medieval people also knew that marshy or standing water was risky. London's conduits were reportedly built in part so that, in a 1345 account, the poor might have water for their drink. A study by Max Nelson likewise argues that water was widely drunk, often after boiling, and that beer was more a luxury than a necessity. [2] [1] [3]

The myth's usual witness is Andrew Boorde, who wrote in the 1540s, well after the medieval period. He called water unwholesome for an Englishman on its own, but his reasons were habit and the medicine of his day, which held water to be cold and slow to digest. In the same chapter he ranked kinds of water, with rainwater best, and explained how to strain standing water. He also noted that German youth and servants drank water. Mainly, he disliked it himself. [1]

Many modern historians reject the myth. Eleanor Janega calls it an old myth and argues country people had good water, and Martyn Cornell estimates the average English adult got only about a third of a pint of ale a day, too little to replace water. The Ianvisits article adds that people could smell bad water and would simply not drink it. [1] [4]

Not all agree. Judith Bennett, as quoted by JSTOR Daily, wrote that ale was virtually the only liquid peasants drank and that water was considered unhealthy. Richard Unger's study describes beer as a daily necessity and the usual choice of towns without secure potable water, and as a safe, cheaper alternative to wine. Lars Marius Garshol notes that old Norwegian wells sat below farmyards, so the risk was real, though he finds evidence of contemporary attitudes thin. Part of the gap may be whom each writer has in mind: brewing households versus the poor, who often could not brew. [1] [5]

A Sheffield student article concludes that the question is hard to settle firmly, while noting that medieval people chose alcohol as a drink yet understood the importance of water to survival. [6]