Butt of malmsey

A butt of malmsey refers to an archaic measuring unit in Medieval England for the transportation of malmsey wine. First recorded in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales in the late 14th century, it was a vessel of varying size until it was standardised in the next century, when it was approximately 4 feet (1.2 m) wide, holding 126 imperial gallons (570 litres). Designed to transport and make available large quantities of drink at a time, it became an item of luxury trading, with political weight, and as a result was also used in both gift-giving by the nobility and as a unit of exchange; it could also be combined with other wines. Malmsey itself was particularly popular in Northern Europe as, having a higher sugar level meant that it was much stronger in alcohol than native wines; it could also withstand longer sea voyages than many other wines. The import of malmsey butts, particularly by London merchants, provided tax for national defence and on one occasion led to a trade war with Venice, its major importer.

It is probably culturally most well known as the alleged method used to execute George, Duke of Clarence—brother to King Edward IV—in the Tower of London in 1478, following the Duke's conviction for treason. Immortalised by William Shakespeare in Richard III, where the Duke is stabbed and then drowned in a butt of malmsey, the story is regarded by most modern scholars as ahistorical and apocryphal. Due to its rarity—such a method is not known to have been used before or since—doubt has been cast on its efficacy or the practicality of drowning in such a manner as a method of execution, although it has persisted in popular culture. Several writers and commentators have referenced it since, ranging from Shakespeare and Thomas Heywood in the 16th century, Gervase Markham in the 17th, Mikhail Lermontov and Charles Dickens in the 19th, and Raymond Chandler and Daniel Curzon in the 20th.