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Anglice , or chief justice of England.—Aldermen were firstappointed to cities in the year 882.

ALE. The art of making an infusion of corn, and particu-larly of barley, similar to our Ale, was known and practisedin very ancient times, among the Egyptians. Diodorus Siculus notices the early introduction of this beverage among theGauls , who, he says, made a strong liquor of barley, whichthey called Zyphus. The natives also of Spain , France , andof Britain , were acquainted with this liquor under the differentappellations of cerea, cerevisia, and cumi. Pliny mentions,in his natural history, that all the nations who inhabit thewest of Europe have a liquor with which they intoxieatethemselves, made with corn and water, and which is brewedso well that it will keep good for a long time. “ So exquisiteis the ingenuity of mankind in gratifying their vicious appe-tites, that they have thus invented a method to make evenwater itself intoxicate.” After the introduction of agricultureinto Britain , Ale or beer was substituted for mead, and be-came the general drink of its inhabitants ; it was also thefavourite liquor of the Anglo-Saxons and Danes, and is ofsuch antiquity in England, that we find mention of it in thelaws of Ina, king of Wessex. The beer used at the noble-men’s tables was commonly of a year or two old, brewed inMarch, and the price of it in London in the time of Edward II .was a penny a gallon.—The first assize of Ale was fixed bystatute, 31 Hen. III.

Ale, or public-houses, are noticed in the Saxon period underthe names of Eala-hus, Cumen-hus, and Win-hus—Ale-house,Inn, and Wine-house, they generally assumed the sign of thechequer-board, some say to intimate that the game of draughtsmight be there played ; also, from the colour of the board,which was red, and its similarity to a lattice, the term, redlattice, i3 frequently made use of by our ancient writers, tosignify an Ale-house.—Ale-houses were first licensed in 155 L