Herbs for the Mediaeval Household for Cooking, Healing and Divers Uses

64 Pages·2016·16.8 MB·English

by  Freeman M.B.

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FOR THE MEDIAEVAL HOUSEHOLD
BY MARGARET B. FREEMAN
THE METROPOUTAN MUSEUM OF ART
NEW YORK
A Mediae'Yal Garden of Herbs from Brunschwig's LIBER. DE AR.TE DISTll..LANDI, Strassburg,
Groninger, 1500
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FOR THE MEDIAEVAL HOUSEHOLD
FOR COOKING, HEALING
AND DIVERS USES
BY MARGARET B. FREEMAN
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
NEW YORK MCMXLIII
Copyright by
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1943
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9cknol\ll(dym(nt me to study his fine collection of mediaeval
herbals; to the staffs of the Pierpont Mor
gan Library and the Library of the New
I should like to express my grateful thanks York Academy of Medicine for their gen
to Mr. E. J. Alexander of the New York erous assistance; and to my colleague Mrs.
Botanical Garden for checking the list of Hildegard Schneider, Gardener at The
herbs; to Mr. Lathrop Harper for allowing Cloisters, for help beyond the call of duty.
A Discourse on the Virtues of the Rose from Champier's ROSA GALLICA, Paris, Jodocus Badius,
1514
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<ronccrning the 3llustrations
The single herbs illustrated in this book are Spurge are from the HERBARIUS published
for the most part from the HORTUS SANI in Mainz by Peter Schoeffer in 1484. From
TATIS or GART DER GESUNDHEIT published Crescentius's IN COMMODU RURALIUM
by Peter Schoeffer at Mainz in 1485 (see [Speyer, Peter Drach, 1490-1495] are Ele
Introduction). The woodcuts of Sweet Bay, campane, Saffron Crocus, Agrimony, and
Rue, Savory, Celandine, Stavesacre, and Cuckoo-Pint. The mediaeval gardeners
Sweet Woodruff are from the HORTUS shown in the Introduction on pages x-xii
SANITATIS printed at Lubeck by Steffen are also from the edition of Crescentius
Arndes in 1492. Coriander, Hyssop, and mentioned above.
fauttatis
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iei~ ill cin 'l\(gimcnt bcr gtftmtbtit ~ urd)
gaut;cn
~lc \Ptna~tbc9 ']arc~/tt'tC
man fKb l)altcfol mit.:ffen ~nt\
,;ucb mittrt'ncttu
~ii fa~ct
Au'~~~,. ~~ertfiftcu.
"A Bathe Medicinable" from REGIMEN SANITATIS, Strassburg, Mathias Hupfuff, 1513
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Gathering Herbs from the title-page of the GRETE HERBALL, London, Peter Treveris, 1526
ilntroduction
in the imperial gardens. The list has survived
as a part of the CAPITULARE DE VILLIS
«What is an herb?" the scholar Alcuin is and has been widely published in recent
said to have inquired of his pupil Charle times. This is only a list, however, with no
magne. The reply was «The friend of phy indication of the uses to which the various
sicians and the praise of cooks~' This con· herbs were put. One must turn to the cook
versation may be apocryphal and not very books and housebooks and herbals to dis
profound and perhaps even a little ungram· cover what the mediaeval housewife did with
matical but nevertheless Charlemagne's hyssop and fennel and feverfew, with roses
definition of mediaeval herbs is as succinctly and rosemary and rue. ((The FORME OF
true as any that can be found in the herb CURY (Cookery], edited by S(amuel]
books today. Charlemagne must have known Pegge and printed in London in 1780, is a
quite a lot about herbs-or at least one of good example of the mediaeval cookbook.
his advisers did-for he included among his Compiled by the chief master cooks of King
instructions to the royal stewards a list of Richard II of England in 1390, it explains
seventy-four herbs which were to be planted how to prepare spinach and cabbage as well
iflcrbs • ix
as the more royal delicacies such as roasted ttthe assent and advisement of the masters
peacock, apple-blossom fritters, and hippo of physic and philosophy that dwell in the
eras wine. Among the innumerable recipes King's Court~' The colophon asserts: Ex
which call for herbs, uDouce Ame" is a fair plicit coquina que est optima medicina [Here
concludes the art of cookery which is the
best medicine]. (!(Although cookbookS may
claim that a good cuisine is the best insur
ance for health, it was to the herbals that
the housewife turned for advice on what to
do for t<feet gouts" and uitching in the seat;'
for ttbotches on the face" and ttdimness of
the eyes;' for ttdrunkenness" and ttyexing"
and ttwicked unchaste dreams!' Of the herb
als quoted in the following pages, that by
the Greek author Dioscorides is the earli
est, having been written in the first century
A.D. This work includes about five hundred
medicinal plants and was accepted as an
almost infallible authority throughout the
entire Middle Ages. The edition used here
is that ttenglished by John Goodyear A. D.
1655" and edited by Robert T. Gunther,
Oxford, 1934. Sometime before the sixth
century A. D. an unknown writer usually
called Pseudo-Apuleius, who regarded phy
sicians with complete distrust, set down tta
few powers of plants and some cures of the
body'' for his compatriots, so that if any bod
ily vexation should befall them they might
sample. uTake good cow milk and do it in be cured by his science ttin spite of the doc
a pot. Take parsley, sage, hyssop, savoury, tors!' This herbal was translated into Anglo
and other good herbs and hew them and do Saxon in the eleventh century and rendered
them in the milk and seethe them. Take ca into modern English by T. 0. Cockayne in
pons half roasted and smite them in pieces LEECHDOMS WORTCUNNING AND STAR·
and do thereto pyn and honey clarified. CRAFT OF EARLY ENGLAND, 1864. Its
Salt it and color it with saffron and serve popularity is shown by the number of man
it forth!' For a ttsalat" take ttparsley, sage, uscripts and printed editions produced in
garlic, chibolls [small onions], onions, leek, the Middle Ages. (l( Two English herbals
borage, mint, porrette [greens], fennel and valuable for the study of mediaeval herb
cresses, rue, rosemary, purslane. Lave and lore are the GRETE HERBALL, printed by
wash them clean, pick them, pluck them Peter Treveris in 1526, and the so-called
small with thine hand and mingle them BANCKES'S HERBAL, printed by Richard
well with raw oil, lay on vinegar and salt Banckes, London [ 1525]. A modern edition,
and serve it forth~' The foreword of this edited by Sanford V. Larkey, M.D., and
cookbook states that it was written with Thomas Pyles, was published by the New