Kill or Cure

Sometimes medieval medicines make sense, and show a good knowledge of herbs and their healing properties. But when they go bad, they really, really go wrong. Here are a few of my favorites from "The Good Housewife's Jewel", written in 1596 by Thomas Dawson:

"A SOVEREIGN OINTMENT FOR SHRUNKEN SINEWS AND ACHES
Take eight swallows ready to fly out of the nest. Drive away the breeders when you take them out, and let them not touch the earth. Stamp them until the feathers cannot be percieved in a stone mortar. Put to it lavender cotton, of the strings of strawberries, the tops of mother thyme, the tops of rosemary, of each a handful. Take all their weight of May butter, and a quart more. Then make it up in bales and put it into an earthen pot for eight days close stopped, that no air take them. Take it out, and on as soft a fire as maybe, seethe it so that it do but simmer. Then strain it and reserve it to your use"

"FOR SINEWS THAT BE BROKEN IN TWO
Take worms while they be nice, and look that they depart not. Stamp them, and lay it to the sore, and it will knit the sinew that be broken in two"

"A GOOD OINTMENT FOR SCABS; AND FOR ITCHING OF THE BODY
Take four ounces of oil de baye, and an ounce of frankincense, and two ounces of white whey, three ounces of swine's grease, and an ounce of quick silver that must be slaked with falling spittle, an ounce of great salt, as much of one as of the other. Of all these make an ointment [...]"

"A POWDER PEERLESS FOR WOUNDS
take orpiment [arsenic] and verdigris, of each an ounce, of vitriol burned till it be red, two ounces, bray each of them by it self in a brazen mortar, as small as flour. then mingle them altogether that they appear as one. Keep it in bags of leather, well bound, for it will last seven years with one virtue [...]"

I shouldn't have to say this, but don't try this at home!

Source: Dawson, Thomas. "The Good Housewife's Jewel (with an introduction by Maggie Black)". East Sussex: Southover Press. 2002.

Happy St. Valentine's

Charicature by Bartolomeo Passerotti

16th-17th century, private collection

Source: Eco, Umberto (ed.). "On Ugliness". Rizzoli International Publications, 2007. Milan, 2007. P. 130.

Waiting for the Sun

Today's featured items are three types of 16th century portable sundials, more specifically, the chalice dial, polyhedral dial, and ring dial. The first were, obviously, in the shape of chalices and could be used to tell the time of day, by rotating it until the pin matched the correct month. I seriously want one! Images can be found here:

http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=97084
and
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=81297

Polyhedral dials are essentially table-top sundials, and could be elaborately painted and decorated:
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=29766
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=22319
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=20011
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=54651
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=73212

Ring dials were really practical, the first one even had charts for telling the age of the moon, and the latitudes of different cities.
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=89914
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=84484

And finally, my personal favorite, a sundial-spoon!
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=14779

Call any Vegetable...

The whole idea of removing food with other food is fantastic. Here are two recipes from the Allerley Mackel. Last year I taught a 'Housewife Academy', where we tried various medieval laundry recipes, and these two worked very well. The peas need to be dried, not fresh, before you boil them, though!

"How to remove grease or oil spots from various clothing including white ones:
Take water from boiled peas, soak the spots therein, and wash thereupon with clean fresh running water; hang it then where the sun shines warmly.

To remove various stains from silken veils:
(Take) juice of chanterelles, soak the stains therein for two hours, wash it then with clear water and let it dry."


Source:
Allerley Mackel:To remove stains from cloth, velvet, silk, gold stuffs and clothing these stains being of grease, oil or wine stains or any other kinds, and how to do this easily without damage, with waters or lyes as will be taught in this booklet. Thereto also how to restore clothing which has lost its color, as well as how one dyes yarn and linen, and also wood and bone, in a variety of colors.
Printed in Mainz by Peter Jordanim, March 1532. Translation © 2005, Drea Leed
http://www.elizabethancostume.net/dyes/allerley.html

Home Improvements...

I laugh every single time I look at this :-) What I love is that someone had this painted on their house, and I'm thinking I might too!

Ochse spielt Trick-Track (An Ox Playing Backgammon)
Kunstwerk: Freskomalerei ; Wandmalerei profan ; Einzelbild ; Wien Dokumentation: 1500 ; 1525 ; Wien ; Österreich ; Wien ; Bäckerstraße Anmerkungen: Wien
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7006391.JPG

In Piss Somewhat Warme...

Call me conservative, but there just has to be a better way to clean your nice shirts... although I do see the merit in that, regardless of the medieval event, both piss and beer are always readily available. Go to the right party, and ask nicely enough, and you could probably even get both in one go :-)

"A good way to washe a shirt, and saue the Gold or silke thereon, from stayning. First take a new shirt and lay the coller and ruffs or silke in piss somewhat warme for half an hour. Then take it out and then wash it in hot scalding liquor, or seeth it, and it shall never stain silk. If ye have no piss, you may take grounds of strong beer or ale, and let the silk lie in it the night before you wash it. And this has been often proved very reliable. But always you must take care that you don’t hang your clothes in the hot sun after they are washed, but lay another cloth thereon between the sun and it, or else the sun will change both Gold, Silver and Silk. Therefore it is better to hang them in some place of shade after their washing, if you can. Also, to add too much soap to your water is a good way to stain both gold and silk. A verie good way is, first to melt your sope in the licour, and then let it coole, and so to wash your clothes therin."

Source:
“A Profitable Booke,declaring diuers approoued Remedies, to take out spots and staines in Silkes, Veluets, Linnen and Woollen Clothes: With diuers Colours how to die Veluets and Silkes, Linnenn and Woollen, Fustian and Thread: Also to dresse Leather, and to colour Felles. How to guild, graue, sowder, and Vernish. And to harden and make soft Yron and Steele. Verie necessarie for all men, specially for those which haue or shall haue any doing therein: with a perfect Table hereunto, to finde all things readie, not the like reuealed in English heretofore. Taken out of Dutch, and Englished by L. M. Imprinted at London by Thomas Purfoot, dwelling within the Rents, in S. Nicholas Shambles. 1605. Transcription by Drea Leed This book is transcribed from a copy currently at the National Art Library in London, England. Although this is the 1605 edition, the original edition was printed in 1586. http://www.elizabethancostume.net/dyes/profitable.html