Artifice, the first.

Things really never change...fake gems, disappearing-reappearing ink, painting roses red, it has all been done before. Since this is a topic I love, and because there is so much information out there, I'm going to do this in parts. Today I'm going to focus on the Bolognese Manuscript, a 15th century book on dyeing, ink making, painting techniques, gilding, among other things. There are also many many recipes for making fake jewels. Here is a selection. I have to say, I haven't tried any of these recipes yet, but am planning to! So if anyone succesfully makes any of these, I'd love to hear your tips!

"To make pearls just like natural pearls.--Take pearls and pound them fine, and then put them into the before-mentioned water [2lbs of sal-ammoniac distilled]; then place the vessel containing the water with the pearls dissolved in it on the hot ashes to dry; and when the water is nearly evaporated, and the pearls remain at the botom of the vase, take it out, and add to it white of egg well beaten as if for vermilion, and knead up the pearls with white of egg like smooth paste. then take moulds and make the paste into pearls, and let them dry; pierce them, and let them boil in linseed oil. Then take out and rub them in bran, and afterwards on linen cloth. And if, instead of pearls, you put mother-of-pearl, it is good, and will make good pearls, &c." p. 553-4

"To imitate precious stones with crystal.--Take roche alum, alum zucarino, Roman vitriol, and "salis copertum", of each equal quantities, and put these ingredients into clear and strained ley, and dissolve them, and you may colour the crystal. For a sapphire, add azure; for an emerald, add verdigris; for a ruby, add vermilion; for a balas ruby, add verzino or "stupio"; for hyacinth, sky-blue and a little azure; for amethyst, some oricella; and so you may imitate all stones by adding different colours. Remember, however, that the crystal and the colours must be dissolved like colours and coagulated. Then boil them till they become like stones." p. 518

"To make sapphire, and to refine and colour it.--Take a crystal, or a transparent stone, and whichever you take heat it strongly and then quench it several times in cold water; then pound it, and take an equal quantity of sal alkali, and melt them together. Aftrwards put them into a furnace, and add a little zaffirro. And if you wish to have the colour green, add a little minium, and note, that some say that "callamita femina" makes a transparent red. Note also, that these stones are found upon Mount St. Bernard, and are good and perfect crystals, as if they were really mineral." p.524

To make amber (beads).--Take the whites of hen's eggs, and whip them with a sponge till they cease to froth; dd a little roche alum, colophony well powdered, and some cherry gum. Strain the mixture through a cloth, and put it into a flask well closed and luted, and set the flask in a jar full of water.; boil it for an hour, and then put it to cool in the open air, and dry it, and afterwards wrap it up in a linen cloth and bury it in dung for 3 days, and it will then be liquid, so that you may work it in your hands, and make beads and whatever you please. While you are modelling them, anoint your hands with common oil, pierce the beads, and let them dry, and they will be done." pp.515-6

"To Make a stucco for making imitation corals.--Take the white horn of a cow, break it, and soak it in strong ley for the space of a fortnight; then make it boil over the fire until it becomes soft like glue, and so that you can strain it through a cloth or a strainer; and when it is strained, take vermilion in the finest powder, and mix it up with the strained liquid, so as to be like dough, and make paternosters of it in moulds like pearls as before; then boil them in linseed oil, and let them dry. And if you scrape the horn with a glass, and then soak it in the manner above mentioned, it will soften so that you may strain it more easily, and do with it as before, and you will have fine and beautiful imitation corals" p. 544

"To make a window of goat-skin parchment which will appear to be real glass.--Take the skin of a id or a sheep or a goat, macerate it, remove the hair without lime, and scrape it very fine; then take a drachm of clean and clarified honey, mix it with 8 or 10 whites of eggs well beaten together with the honey in the same way as white of egg is beaten up for vermilion. Put the skin to soak in the white of egg and honey, squeeze it with your hand while in composition, and let it remain in soak for 2 or 3 hours at the most; Then take it out and stretch it well on a frame, and let it dry. Then paint upon it what you please, and let the colours dry well. Afterwards varnish it on one side, that is, on the side which the colours are, and dry it in moderate sunshine, and it will appear like glass" p. 492



Source: Merrifield, Mary P. "Medieval and Renaissance Treatises on the Arts of Painting: Original Texts with English Translations". Dover Publications, Inc: New York. 1967. ISBN: 0-486-40440-4

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

Charmed!

Today I bring you some 10th-11th century Anglo-Saxon anti-elf recipes. In their culture, many diseases were attributed to elves, and this was, for the most part, accepted and supported by the church at the time. An interesting point is that when you have a sharp pain in your back the German word still used for it is "elf-shot". Another thing I personally find interesting is the inclusion of garlic in a preparation against "nightgoers"... looks like Bram Stoker didn't invent that much on his own:-) If any of you have more information on this, I'm all ears!

"Work a salve against elfkind and nightgoers [aelfcynne, nihtgengan], and the people with whom the Devil has intercourse. Take eowoumelan, wormwood, bishopwort, lupin, ashthroat, henbane, harewort, haransprecel, heathberry plants, cropleek, garlic, hedgerife grains, githrife, fennel. Put these herbs into one cup, set under the altar, sing over them nine masses; boil in butter and sheep's grease, add much holy salt, strain through a cloth; throw the herbs in running water. If any evil temptation, or an elf or nightgoers, happen to a man, smear his forehead with this salve, and put on his eyes, and where his body is sore, and cense him [with incense], and sign [the cross] often. His condition will soon be better"
Leechbook, book III

And one against nightmares:
"if a mare ride a man. Take lupin, and garlic, and betony, and frankincense. Bind them on a fawn's skin. Let a man have the herbs on him, and let him go inside.
Leechbook, book I

And one against Water Elves:
If a man is in the water elf disease [waeter aelfadle], then the nails of his hand are dark and the eyes teary, and he will look down. Give him this as a medicine [laecedome]: everthroat, hassok, the lower part of fane, yewberry, lupin, helenium, marshmallow head, fen mint, dill, lily, attorlathe, pulegium, marrubium, doch, elder, fel terre, wormwood, strawberry leaves, consolde. Soak with ale; add holy water to it. Sing this gealdor over it thrice:
I have bound on the wounds the best of war bandages, so the wounds neither burn nor burst, nor go further, nor spread, nor jump, nor the wounds increase [waco sian?], nor sores deepen. But may he himself keep in a healthy way [halewaege?] . May it not ache you more than it aches earth in ear [eare?]. Sing this many times, "May earth bear on you with all her might and main". These galdor a man may sing over the wound."
Leechbook III


Source: Joly, Karen Louise. "Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context". University of North Carolina Press, 1996. pp. 149, 159, 165

I really, really shouldn't have to say this, but please don't try these at home.

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