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| Poster for the library's exhibition, 'Life in a Benedictine monastery', located in the north and West cloisters until October 16th 2013. Copyright © |
The
collection of cures and dietary advice in a sixteenth-century monastic
register is a mere four folios in length, written by one scribe in middle English, dating to
around 1540. At the bottom of the first of the four folios (pictured below) is a rather amusing list of foods “which
dothe hurte the eyes”. The list of foods that hurt the eyes include some obvious candidates, such as onions (a
nemesis of your blogger), and garlic. The list also warns that reading
immediately after supper is bad for the eyes, as is “drunkenness, lechery […]
sweet wynes and thycke wynes”.
The
thickness of wine, how watered down it should be, and the implications that
this would have on health was a matter of debate in the middle ages. The
Dominican General Chapter regulations from Narbonne (1243), for example, stated
that the infirm and young members of the Order should only drink watered down wine.
The Fransiscan Minister-Gerald of Odone was perhaps too well acquainted with
the problems of consuming thick wines; he wrote in 1331 of the headaches,
digestive problems, and corruption to the four humours that could be caused by drinking
wine. Written in a fifteenth-century hand in the margin of a manuscript held in
the Cathedral Library is the below recipe for a hangover cure, suggesting that the
monks at Worcester similarly had experience of the damage potent wines could
do. Titled “A medicine for drunken men”, the author advises:
“Give to him that is prone to drunkenness the lung of a sheep or a ram for meat. Afterwards, however much he drinks, he shall feel no drunkenness. Similarly give to him that is drunk the burnt ashes of a swallow and he shall never be drunk. Experience says that it is certain.”
Whilst the author claims “experience says that
it is certain” that upon consuming the above a person will be cured of
drunkenness, I wouldn’t recommend trying this one at home. I would recommend
pizza as my preferred cure for drunkenness.
In addition
to foods that damage the eyes, the sixteenth-century monastic register also
contains lists of foods that hurt the teeth and engender phlegm (see above), and you can see
transcriptions of these too in the current exhibition in the Cathedral’s north and west cloister.
Of particular interest to your blogger, who curated the exhibition, were the recipes on the last two of the four folios, aimed at curing specific diseases. One recipe is described as “a medcyne for the gowt”.
Of particular interest to your blogger, who curated the exhibition, were the recipes on the last two of the four folios, aimed at curing specific diseases. One recipe is described as “a medcyne for the gowt”.
Gout or
podagra was a common medieval ailment, linked to the overconsumption of luxury
foods, sugars and beers. Given the variety of spices, meats, fish and so forth
that made up the Benedictine diet over the course of a year, it is unsurprising
that the monks would have sought out a cure for gout. Here is a modernized
transcription of the remedy (cat owners- BE WARNED)
“Take good grains and sit in them up to the knees for the space of an hour and a half and then after […] dry your legs clean and for one day and knight sit your legs before the fire and after that take a wild cat’s skin and lay the flesh-side to the sore”.
Gout was
similar to rheumatism in terms of pain and so sitting by a fire, warming the inflamed
skin and soothing it with a soft material like cat’s skin, was probably fairly comforting
to the sufferer. If anyone has knowledge of the use of catskin or other skins
in medieval medicine, I’d be interested to know what the healing properties of
these skins were thought to be, and to how widely they were used.
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| "Yf a man be stryken w[t] the plage". Photograph of AXII, fol. 170 r. Reproduced by the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.) |
Finally, the
register also includes two “cures” for the plague, pictured above. Neither of the two plague
cures refer to sores on the skin, nor to swellings, making it likely that they
were intended to treat pneumonic plague rather than the bubonic strand of the
disease. The author of the first of the plague cures is Dr. Bentley, who was the physician
to King Henry VIII. The language of the instructions is typical of medieval cures,
in so far as they provide rather vague measurements of quantity and time: “take
a handful of sage and a handful of rue and a handful of elder leaves and a handful
of red brier leaves and stamp them all together in a mortar and strain them
through a linen cloth” etc.
This first
plague cure tells us that over the course of a fortnight you should drink one
spoonful of the cure daily after a period of fasting. Yet somewhat worryingly,
as soon as you take the first spoonful, the author kindly informs us that you
will come down with a fever for the next 33 days! Apparently, things don’t get
any better with this “cure” as, after you’ve taken the fifteenth and presumably
final spoonful, you come down with a fever for the rest of the year.
Phew, these
recipes make me rather appreciative of lemsip. If you want to find out more
about these medieval recipes or read them up-close, pop into the cloisters of
Worcester Cathedral where you will see them on the exhibition board entitled, “Caring
for the sick”. Please leave your comments in the visitor comments book. ‘Life
in a Benedictine monastery’ is free to view until the 16th of
October, 09:00-17:00.
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