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Medieval
Herbals
 f
you have ever had the privilege to hold in your hand a
thousand year old medieval manuscript book, if you have
felt the weight of its calfskin covers and vellum pages,
and if you have ever been allowed to turn (very carefully)
the leaves of its beautifully illustrated pages, then
you can understand the thrall these books can exert. Medieval
monks often took years to craft a book, spent weeks on
a single page, and their skill was astounding and as highly
valued then as it is now.
Medieval
herbals - treatises on the properties of medicinal plants
- are among the most beautiful of medieval manuscript
volumes. A typical herbal contained lists or chapters
of plants, each chapter detailing the name of the plant,
its characteristics, where it could be found and under
what conditions it grew, how and when it should be gathered,
how it should be prepared (dried, powdered, distilled
etc.), listed recipes for medicines that could be made
from the prepared plant, listed what the plant could be
used to cure, and also listed what its dangerous indications
were - to whom it should not be given and various other
contra-indications. If the herbal had been produced in
one of the richer monasteries with a large and experienced
scriptorium, then the herbal would usually also have beautifully
drawn and coloured illustrations of the plants at the
head of each chapter - very useful for us today when the
names of so many plants have changed completely. Even
so, many of the plants mentioned in medieval herbals remain
completely unidentifiable today.
 erbals
have a long and illustrious history - they are one of
western culture's oldest literary traditions and have
been in production for at least three thousand years,
being common in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean.
Herbals are based on books of 'simples', medications composed
of only one constituent, or plant. The herbals of the
ancient Egyptians and Greeks were a compilation of plant
descriptions and uses, folk medicine and a wealth of accumulated
knowledge. The tradition was taken up and furthered by
the Arabs during the Dark Ages, particularly encouraged
by the patronage of the Abbasid caliphs at Baghdad. (Interestingly,
most of the scribes who translated the ancient Hebrew
and Greek herbals into Arabic were Christians). Herbals
existed in medieval Europe, but were very rare until the
thirteenth century (although many early herbals may well
have been lost due to the extent of their daily use and
the ravages of time).
 any
of the medieval herbals came from the Italian towns and
states, and one of the most famous and well known is the
Tractatus de herbis which originally formed part
of a collection of pharmacological texts written in southern
England about 1300. The Tractatus contains a
vast amount of knowledge and information about plants,
their virtues and medicinal uses, that is directly descended
from the Greek, Roman and Arabic herbal tradition. The
Tractatus now rests within the British Library,
catalogued as British Library, Egerton MS 747. it is one
of the most celebrated medieval herbals because, for the
first time in centuries, the scribe who produced it actually
drew the plants from living examples, rather than reproducing
the often flat and unlife-like illustrations of the Greeks
and Arabics. For the first time in many centuries, the
illustrations contained within the Tractatus
were helpful, rather than misleading.
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five hundred entries fill the Tractatus, most of which
relate to plants, but some fifty relate to animal and mineral substances.
The information given about each plant follows tradition: an illustration,
its place of origin, the distinguishing properties of the plant,
when to gather and how to prepare the plant, its virtues and healing
properties, and the form in which it could be used to treat various
ailments (there might be up to forty or fifty such items for a single
herb).
For
instance, the information given on the rose stated where it might
be found, and how and when it could be gathered (preferably when
the petals were open and red, and under no circumstance whatever
should petals be gathered when they were colourless or blackened).
If they were then dried properly in the sun they could be kept for
three years. It was always dried roses used in medicinal preparations,
as they were so easily ground into a powder.
 oots,
leaves and seeds were the most commonly used parts of a plant, the
bark and flowers being used less often. Generally herbs were used
dried and powdered, and they might be prescribed to be mixed with
water or wine, or as a syrup (mixed with sugar, honey, wine, rosewater
or vinegar). Powders could also be made into pills or suppositories
by being mixed with animal fats or honey, or they might be applied
as poultices in a looser concoction. Crushed and/or dried herbs
could also be placed into linen sachets and wrapped about the painful
area, or even ingested by being baked into cakes or tarts.
Just
as one example of the many and varied uses to which
a single plant could be put, the Chamomile flower, whether
fresh or dried, could be used:
-
mixed
with water or wine for urinary problems, stones, blockages
of the liver and spleen, pain and swelling of the
stomach and to prevent premature birth;
- steeped
in bath water to aid menstruation;
- as
a compound mixed with oil to relieve daily fevers, the
headaches of colds, and to aid in the healing of wounds;
- mixed
with honey to remove scabs and scaly skin from the face;
- taken
with wine for forty days to relieve and cure ills of
the spleen;
- chewed
into a compress for swollen eyelids;
- mixed
with a vinegar to cure scalp disease;
- mixed
with other herbs in hot water to produce a vapour for
diarrhoea;
- mixed
with wine (yet again) to protect against poisonous bites.
ost
medieval herbals contained a vast amount of remedies for
women's gynaecological problems, as well also insomnia,
headaches and leprosy, as also recipes for simple cosmetics.
Here are a few items found in a middle English treatise
written by Gilbertus Angelicus in the fifteenth century.
- The
smoke of henbane was useful for worms in the teeth,
although if the worms grew too vicious the tooth should
be pulled;
- Vomiting
could be stopped by applying a plaster to the stomach
composed of mint, aloe, and wormwood, all mixed with
oil of roses.
- Frenzy
(defined as much falling down and much waking and lacking
of good wit) might be eased by rubbing a lotion of vinegar,
wine and salt onto the soles of the sufferer's feet.
If this didn't work, then he might take a preparation
of hollyhock, wax, fennel, salt and mercury steeped
in water (please do not try this at home as
it is highly poisonous!). Afterwards the head should
be completely shaved and a warm plaster of cold pressed
herbs applied. If the frenzy still persisted, then a
concoction composed of opium an henbane mixed with the
breast milk of a woman suckling a female baby should
do the trick.
erbals
rarely circulated within general society. They were kept
within monasteries to be used within their infirmaries,
or in noble households or university libraries. By the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with the advent of
the printing press, many physicians and surgeons also
owned and consulted them. They remain today as extraordinary
windows into medieval life, disease, and the plants and
herbs commonly used in treatments. To some extent they
reflected common herbal lore (Nicholas Culpeper's Herbal,
first published in the seventeenth century, does include
much regional herbal lore), but more particularly they
reflected the knowledge and experience of the monasteries,
drawing on a tradition of centuries of ancient Greek and
Arabic herbals.
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Please
also visit Old London Maps
on the web as many of the maps
and views available there have plans and depictions of gardens
from
the medieval period through to the late nineteenth century.
Copyright
© Sara Douglass Enterprises Pty Ltd 2006
No material may be reproduced without permission
unless
specifically stated otherwise
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