A History of Herbalism: Cure, Cook and Conjure

226 Pages·2022·3.331 MB·English

by  Emma Kay

A History of
Herbalism
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A History of
Herbalism
Cure, Cook and Conjure
Emma Kay
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First published in Great Britain in 2022 by
Pen & Sword History
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
Yorkshire – Philadelphia
Copyright © Emma Kay 2022
ISBN 978 1 39900 895 2
The right of Emma Kay to be identified as Author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
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available from the British Library.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction vii
Chapter 1 From ‘Witches’ to Botanists: British Pioneers,
Popularists and Everyday Herbalists 1
Herbalists of the Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries 10
Herbalists of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 24
Quackery and Hazardous Herbology 33
Strewers and Sellers 38
Herb Sellers 40
Hospitals, Gardens and Stores 46
Herb Illustrators 51
Chapter 2 Magic and Medicine 57
Herbs and Magic A–Z 64
Medicinal Herbs A–Z 85
Chapter 3 Culinary Transition 110
Soups and Stews 111
Salads 117
Sauces 120
Vegetable Dishes 123
Pies, Tarts and Puddings 127
Fish Dishes 138
Egg Dishes 141
Meat Dishes 145
Sweet Dishes 152
Biscuits and Confection 155
Drinks 161
Notes 168
Bibliography 184
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Acknowledgements
hanks go out to Alan Murphy at Pen & Sword for having faith in
Tthis idea and editor Laura Hirst, as well as all the other staff who
work tirelessly putting the proofs together and designing jacket
covers and layouts.
Special appreciation to my old and dear friend Rachel Dingsdale for
spending a delightful day with me at the Botanical Gardens, Oxford, and
sharing in the delights of their wonderful herbarium.
To my gorgeous son and patient husband – thank you both for all your
continued support, as ever.
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Introduction
The gentian’s bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.1
t is quite hard to define a herb; Rosalind Northcote described them
Ithus: ‘a herb is a plant, green and aromatic and fit to eat, but it is
impossible to deny that there are several undoubted herbs that are
not aromatic, a few more grey than green, and one or two unpalatable,
if not unwholesome.’2 So there you have it – the definition, if somewhat
vague and incomplete, of a herb in its simplest terms. Many books about
Blue gentians.
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viii A History of Herbalism
herbs tend to include a myriad of miscellaneous plants and all the spices
as well. This is probably because spices are often traditionally lumped
together with herbs as generic medicines or culinary additions. Whilst
you may find reference to some plants and roots which are not strictly
herbs in this book, you will not find any information relating to spices.
I wanted this to be a book that focused specifically on the properties of
herbs where possible.
The World Health Organization (WHO) refers to herbs as ‘herbal
materials, herbal preparations, and finished herbal products that contain
whole plants, parts of plants, or other plant materials, including leaves,
bark, berries, flowers, and roots, and/or their extracts as active ingredients
intended for human therapeutic use or for other benefits in humans and
sometimes animals’.3
I find classifying is essential to understanding herbs and throughout
this book you will discover the wide and complex use of plants in magic,
cooking and medicine, the three areas that made the most sense to me in
terms of herbology.
In 1895 a remarkable thing happened. Alicia Amherst published a
list of herbs that she cited as belonging to the fifteenth century, from
a manuscript unearthed within the pages of an old cookery book. Since
then, several researchers have identified this comprehensive list as likely
to have been compiled around the beginning of the 1500s, with the
handwriting consistent of that used within the reign of Henry VIII.
They also identified a potential author, as one Thomas Fourmond, or
Fromond, who was the owner of land in both Carshalton and Cheam. He
died around 1542.4 The ‘Fromond list’ was reclassified by John Harvey in
1989, according to Alicia’s original list, which was then comprehensively
reformatted by the historic gardener and author Sylvia Landsberg in 2003.
To me this list provides a useful guide to English medieval herb
classification, representing a timeless approach to indexing the various
properties of herbs, their uses and character.
Herbs for pottage
Agrimony, Alexanders, astrologia longa, A. rotunda, avens, basil,
beet, betony, borage, cabbage, caraway, chervil, chives, clary, colewort,
columbine, coriander, daisy, dandelion, dill, dittander, fennel, good king
henry, hart’s-tongue, langdebeef, leek, lettuce, lupin, mallow, marigold
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Introduction ix
Valerian at
Oxford Botanic
Garden and
Arboretum.
(Emma Kay)
(pot), marjoram, mint, nepp, nettle (red), oculus Christi, orach, parsley,
patience, pepperwort, radish, rape, safflower, sage, spinach, thistle, milk,
thyme, valerian, violet, wood sorrel, (sowthistle).
Herbs for sauce
Dittander, harts-tongue, masterwort, mints, parsley, pellitory, sorrel,
violet, (garlic mustard), (wood sorrel).
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