Surgery and Medical Treatment by a Royalist Surgeon at the Battle of Worcester 1651

In 1676 Serjeant-Chirurgeon Richard Wiseman published his Severall Chirurgicall Treatises. Richard Wiseman was a surgeon who served in the Royalist army during the English Civil War, then as a Navy surgeon, and after the Restoration, acted as one of Charles II’s surgeons. His book covers such topics as a treatise on tumours, a treatise on ulcers, haemorrhoids, the King’s Evill, a treatise on wounds, gun-shot wounds, fractures, and venereal disease. In this week blog we look at just a few of the cases which he encountered.

The battle of Worcester 1651. Photograph by David Morrison. Reproduced by permission of the Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

Just before the Battle of Worcester, Wiseman was treating soldiers wounded in skirmishes. One man had a musket ball lodged on the right side of his head. Wiseman’s servant assistant William Clarke, whilst dressing the wound, felt the musket ball in the skull. He called over Wiseman who noticed the man could not speak. They made a circular incision, allowing the trapped blood to escape. Having cleaned the wound with a sponge dipped in vinegar they filled the gap with lint. When the bleeding had stopped some time later, they tried unsuccessfully to get the bullet out. Using an instrument called a Trepan; they cut away another hole nearby, which again released more trapped blood. This enabled them to pull out the bullet and the depressed bone fragments. They now saw that there was a large wound in the Dura Mater (one of the outer layers surrounding the brain). Nevertheless they dressed the wounds in the skull and bandaged the head. Whilst they did this, the man suddenly regained consciousness, and asked where he was. He survived the operation, but after the chaos of the ensuing battle Wiseman never saw him again.    

An eighteenth century depiction of the battle of Worcester 1651. Photograph by David Morrison. Reproduced by permission of the Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

During the battle, a royalist garrison held Fort-Royal just outside the city. The next case is of a soldier in the fort, who during the fighting was using his bonnet to carry a fresh supply of gunpowder to his fellows on the ramparts. He was just refilling his bandoliers (ammunition pouches to hold the powder), when a fellow soldier fired his musket too close to him. A spark from the musket ignited the powder and both men were horribly burned. Wiseman and his assistants dressed the wounds as best they could, covering the burns with some sort of oil and egg white mixture. William Clark, managed to cure the first soldier, and the latter was bandaged enough to allow him to escape the city.

In a case of a musket ball entering a soldier through one side of his chest, which passed out between two ribs on the other side of his body, they cleaned the wounds, and kept the hole between the ribs open to allow discharge of any matter. The wound was later cleaned, and the patient attended to after the battle by Wiseman’s assistant William Clarke, who later lived in Bridgenorth. The soldier was concealed in the city until he could make his escape.

Richard Wiseman's book on surgery. Photograph by David Morrison. Reproduced by permission of the Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

During the battle, a soldier came to where Surgeon Wiseman was working. The soldier was still clutching his broken sword and was covered in wounds, particularly around the head. Wiseman saw that the hairy scalp of one side of his head was hanging down his neck, and calling over his colleague William Clarke, they cleaned the wound with a sponge. They noticed many fissures, and some fractures on the head caused by various weapons. They freed the scalp of some bone fragments, and dressed the wound, applying liniment. At this point the Parliamentarians broke into Worcester. Wiseman decided it was time to leave in the middle of treating the soldier. However his young assistant and servant William Clarke remained and carried on treating the wounded even after the fighting was over. He later wrote to Wiseman and told him about the case. Three days after treating him, the soldier seemed in good spirits, but the head wounds were causing discomfort, and Clarke loosened two of the stitches to vent the wounds. He dressed penetrating wounds, and discarded damaged bone fragments. The soldier eventually recovered, traveled to the Indies and then served in the Tower of London.

A 1616 book on anatomy Wiseman might have seen. Photograph by David Morrison. Reproduced by permossion of the Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

Meanwhile, Captain Smith, leading a Company of Dragoons, was pursuing Wiseman and the defeated Royalist soldiers as they fled from the battle.  In the ensuing skirmish Smith was wounded across the right Temporal Muscle (on the side of the head) and was bleeding to death. He was brought to surgeon Wiseman’s quarters. Wiseman stitched his wound and, lacking enough medicines, dressed it with a little wheat-flower and the white of an egg, applying over it a compress which he described as being pressed out of vinegar, and secured with a bandage. Three days later Wiseman took off the bandages and found the wound to be healing. By this time, he had managed to get medical supplies from an Apothecary and sprinkled the lips of the wound with these. Two days afterwards he cut the stitches and applied “epuloticks” and after a couple more sets of fresh dressings the man recovered.

David Morrison

John Calvin's Preface to the Institution of the Christian religion.

How did a book intended for sixteenth century Spanish humanists and Spanish reformers end up in Worcester? Still in its original binding, it is still uncertain who purchased it, or donated it here. 

John Calvin's Insitution of the Christian Religion in Spanish. Photograph by David Morrison by permission of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester (U.K.).

The Cathedral library has a copy of the second edition of John Calvin’s book entitled Institution of the Christian religion, comprising of four parts, each divided into chapters. It was published in 1597 by Ricardo del Campo after being translated into Spanish or the “Castilian tongue” by Cypriano de Valera.


Woodcut of John Calvin, from . Reproduced by the permission of the Dean and Chapter
of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

Calvin prefaced his book with two introductions addressed to “All the faithful of the Spanish nation” who desire the advancement of Christ’s Kingdom”. He was in a buoyant mood because his first book had been warmly received in other European countries and he was very optimistic of its success in Spain also. In the second, shorter introduction he is full of thanks to Almighty God for looking favourably on his first book and he believes that he is duly bound to serve Him and all converts to his new doctrine to bring more and more people to Christ with his new improved volume into which he has poured his “meagre god given talents”. He stresses how hard he has worked in God’s service, to the extent that he became seriously ill and almost died from quartan fever one winter, but did not rest until he had got his book into its desired shape. Now, whatever happens to its author, it will stand as testament to the power of God and the rightness of the teaching based on the close study of the text of the Bible and the strict observance in everyday life of its laws. 

He sets out his work as a lawyer might, illustrating his arguments with detailed references from the Old Testaments and the gospels, writing with fervour and convinced that his Protestant ideas on the Reform of the Christian church are the only valid ones; that he is a warrior of Christ combatting the corrupt practices of the Catholic Church with his teaching and preaching.

Calvin saw the Roman Catholic Church as in the power of Satan, and took every opportunity to condemn its way of worshipping Christ. In his Preface he mentioned the Diet of Augsburg, one of the conferences organized by the Catholic Church to promote the Counter Reformation and heaped scorn on the “lies” they published about him. His duty was, with God’s grace, “to so prepare and instruct those who wish to study theology that they might easily learn Holy Scripture, have a clear understanding of what they might read and walk a straight path from which they never depart.” The end of the shorter preface stresses that the book deals so fully and clearly with all matters of religion that every reader who perseveres will be given a very useful tool with which to live a godly life and refute the statements of “the Enemny”. Calvin wanted no praise for his achievement but to be remembered before God by those who found spiritual benefit in the pages of the book.

Like other reformers, Calvin was a product of ideas stemming from the Renaissance. Scholars prized the Greek and Roman civilizations and in their intensive study of Green and Latin discovered new ways of looking at the language and meaning of the Bible in its original tongues, and the enigma of human existence. Such men were called “humanists”. Unfortunately the different ways they interpreted what they found set in motion religious divisions which remain to this day.

Erasmus from a Worcester Cathedral Library book. Photograph by David Morrison, by permission of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

In Spain humanism began to take root in the very early sixteenth century, when Erasmus’ writings began to be read in Spain. Spanish universities began to study and discuss the new religious ideas. The Catholic Church, however, was quick to imprison even moderate thinkers like Luis de León whose statue stands facing the old university building of Salamanca today. By the time Erasmus died in 1536, the Inquisition had pounced upon any attempt at reform and religious humanism was sent underground, though in the plastic arts and in literature the study of Renaissance ideas brought about what is called in Spain “El Siglo de oro” (“The Golden Age”), which spanned two centuries and produced world class artists and authors, reflecting the influence and splendour of the Catholic Church.

Betty Eggby

A Medieval and an Elizabethan Maths Book

Love it or loathe it maths is a useful skill. This week I thought I’d seek out what the Cathedral library has in terms of historic maths books and found two gems. The first treasure is Anianus’ Computus cum commento (Computus with commentary), a late fifteenth-century arithmetic manual with instructions and demonstrative woodcuts. This short guide was printed in Paris by Guy Marchant in 1497, and the Worcester Cathedral library copy is the only one surviving in the UK.

Anianus, the author of the commentary, is a figure whom we know little about, but some believe he was a French Benedictine monk. He wrote his computus guide at the end of the fourteenth-century and numerous manuscript copies survive. It was so popular in the century that followed that the commentary was printed in Paris, Rouen, Lyon and Basel. The title page of Marchant’s 1497 edition opens with this splendid woodcut:

Photograph, Compotus cum commento. Reproduced by the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

This is just one of six woodcuts which link books to Marchant’s workshop. It depicts two shoe makers working and includes a central shield containing two hands holding open a book. At the top you can see an abbreviated form of his motto “Sola fides suficit” ,“faith alone suffices”.

Computus, for those wondering, was the major form of mathematical learning in the middle Ages. Put simply, it is the mathematical working out of the dates of Lent and Easter for any given year. In Western Christianity, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. Once this date has been calculated, the rest of the church’s moveable festivals and celebrations can be worked out in relation to this date. Historians of mathematics have stressed the overwhelming complexity of early computus manuals. Anianus’ compoutus manual was likely popular because it followed a much simpler format than others on the subject, such as those written by Bede and Arnold of Villanova. The commentary is written in prose, and explains how to use the hand as a mnemonic device on which to calculate. Here are some of the woodcuts from Marchant’s edition showing how to use the left hand:

Photograph, Compotus cum commento. Reproduced by the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

Fast forward around a hundred and fifty years and we find the second of the Cathedral library’s interesting maths books: A geometrical treatise named pantometria. This Elizabethan geometry book, written by Thomas Digges c. 1570 presents an array of technologies and tools developed in the Elizabethan era for the study of mathematics and topographical work. Pictured below is one such tool, called a Theodelitus, which is described as a “circle divided into 360 grades”, the diameter of which was 2 feet, meaning that the sizeable instrument had to be held down by some type of clamp.

                               Reproduced by the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

The tool is thought to have been invented by Digges’ father, Leonard. Leonard Digges’ died when his son was aged thirteen and left a partially completed manuscript copy of Pantometria to his son. Thomas Digges completed his father's work. As a child Thomas Digges became a ward of the renowned Elizabethan astronomer and mathematician, John Dee, who you can find out about by clicking here.

What’s most interesting about Pantometria is the consistent application of geometry to solving military problems and war-related scenarios. Though composed centuries apart, Pantometria is reminiscent of the military-style textbooks produced for young school children in Nazi Germany, which superimpose basic maths problems with militaristic images. If you look at the woodcut below you can see how one problem is put in the context of an observer trying to estimate how far two rather threatening looking, incoming ships are away.

Reproduced by the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

The woodcuts on folio 30 and 32 take on an even more militaristic framework, as you can see two warring parties firing canons at one another.

Photograph reproduced by the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

We might read this textbook, therefore, as more than simply an instructive manual, it’s constant references to spying, even in the more innocent peeping Tom scenario, conjures to mind the network of spies at home and abroad employed by Queen Elizabeth I during her reign. Many of the geometry problems, particularly in the first part of the book, are aimed at either seeing things you are usually unable to see, or visually penetrating fortified areas. There is even this excellent woodcut of a man using the reflection of a pond to spy on  his wife situated several stories above.

Photograph reproduced by the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

More broadly, the consistent references to sea faring and sea voyages mean the book is clearly a product of the age of exploration. This maths book then, might also be a useful source for military historians or Elizabethan enthusiasts as it clearly reflects national concerns in this period.

The coronation feast of James II and Queen Mary

One of the many printed books contained in the Cathedral library is a lavishly illustrated account of the coronation of James II and Queen Mary, which took place on Tuesday 23rd April, 1685.

This book was commissioned to commemorate James II's coronation and was given to his Majesty as a gift upon his visit to Worcester in 1687. It is a very detailed account of the preparations for the occasion; a description of the clothing, robes, crowns and sceptres, personnel, seating arrangements and menus for the day. As this is a very precise (and lengthy) account of the ceremony, I have chosen to discuss the coronation feast and menu, which visitors to the library often express interest in.

Below is an exquisite engraving depicting the feast in Westminster Hall, in which you can see the Lords and Ladies tucking into an array of foods, as well as the servers located at the sides of the halls.
 
 

James II's coronation feast (1685). Photograph reproduced by the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.).

 
 
Their Majesties table alone is described as containing "99 dishes of the most excellent and choicest of all sorts of cold meats, both flesh and fish, excellently well dressed and ordered all manner of ways, [...] brought up by the gentlemen who served at their majesties cupboards." The engraving certainly conveys the author's point that there was "little vacancy between the dishes, which were set upon stands of several heights, and all so equally mixed, that it made an extraordinary good appearance”. At feasts or banquets today, a table is rarely as fully laden with dishes as we see here. This coronation feast makes Christmas dinner look like a light snack!
 
Another engraving, pictured below, depicts the table layout of the 145 dishes served at the table of King James and Queen Mary. The King's table was located at the upper end of Westminster Hall.You can see that each dish has a small number on it. Below is a list of the dishes to which each number corresponds. Besides these 145 dishes, there were 30 more served up to their Majesties table at the second course, making 175 dishes in all…!!! 

We'd love it if you could pick your favourite item and tell us which dish, if you could, you would order as part of your coronation dinner.


Table of dishes corresponding with numbers below. Photograph reproduced by the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)



The dishes served at the table of King James and Queen Mary:
 

1.Pistacio cream in glasses.                            

2.Anchoviz (anchovies)                                          

3.Custards        )                                                         

4.Collar Veal    )  Cold

5.Lamb – stones

6.Cocks-combs  )

7.Marrow patie  )  Hot

8.Jelly   )

9.Sallet )   Cold

10.Stags tongues.

11.Sweet-breads.

12.Patty pidgeon.

13.Petty-toes.

14.Cray Fish.

15.Blumange              )      

16.Bolonia Sausages  )  Cold

17.Collops and Eggs.

18.Frigase Chick   )

19.Rabbets Ragou )  Hot

20.Oysters pickled  )

21.Portugal Eggs    )  Cold

22Dutch Beef         )

23.Andolioes.

24.Mushrooms  )

25.Veal              )  Hot

26.Hogs tongues  )

27.Cheese cakes  )  Cold

28.Ciprus Birds.

29.Tansy.

30.Asparagus  )

31.A Pudding  )  Hot

32.Ragou of Oysters  )

33.Scallops                )  Cold

34.Salamagundy.

35.Three dozen glasses of lemon Jelly.

36.Five Neats Tongues  (Cold).

37.Four dozen wild Pidgeons,12 larded, (Hot).

38.A whole Salmon  (Cold).

39.Eight Pheasants,3 larded  (Cold).

40.Nine small Pidgeon Pies  (Cold).

41.Twenty Four fat Chickens,6 larded  (Hot).

42.Twelve Crabs  (Cold).

43.Twenty Four Partridges,6 larded, (Hot).

44.A dish of tarts.

45.Soles marinetted, (Cold).

46.Twenty Four Tame Pidgeons,6 larded, (Hot)

47.Four Fawns,2 larded, (Hot).

48.Four Pullets La Dobe.           )  

49.Twelve Quails                       )  (Hot)           

50.Four Partridges – Halved      )

51.Ten Oyster Pies, (Hot)                                                 

52.Sallet.

53.Pease.

54.Four Dozen of Puddings,(Hot)

55.Artichokes.

56.Beef a La Royal, (Hot).

57.An Oglio, (Hot).

58.Pease.

59.A Batalia Pie

60.Artichokes.

61.Sallet.

62.Three Turkeys a La Royal, (Hot).

63.Four Chicks        )     

64.Bacon Gammon  ) (Hot).

65.Spinage               )

66.Three Piggs (Hot)

67.Almond Puff.

68.Twelve Stump Pies, (Cold).

69.A square pyramide, rising from four large dishes on the angles, and four  lesser dishes on the sides, containing the several fruits in season, and all manner of sweet-meats.

70.A whole Lamb, larded, (Hot).

71.Twelve Ruffs.

72.Four dozen Egg –Pies, (Cold).

73.A very large circular pyramide in the middle of the table, rising from twelve dishes in the circumference, six of which were large, and the others six less, containing the several fruits in season, and all manner of sweet-meats.

74.Six Mullets, large souc’d.

75.Eight Godwits.

76.Eight Neats Tongues and Udders roasted, (Hot).

77.A square pyramide, rising from four large dishes on the angles, and four lesser on the sides, containing the several fruits in season, and all manner of sweet-meats.

78.Eighteen Minc’d Pies, (Cold).

79.Marrow Tofts.

80.Eight wild Ducks, marinated, (Hot).

81.Gooseberry Tarts   )

82.Lampreys               ) (Cold).

83.Shrimps                  )

84.Twenty Four Puffins, (Cold).

85.Smelts.

86.Trufles.

87Four Dozen of Petit-Paties, (Hot).

88.Morels.

89.Five Carps, (Cold).

90.Blewmange in shells, (Cold)

91.Mushrooms.

92.Four Dozen of Almond Puddings, (Hot).

93.Asparagus.

94.Eight Ortelans.

95.Lamb Sallet, (Cold).

96.Five Partridge Pies    )

97.Smelts marinated       )  (Cold)

98.Turt.de Moil              )

99.Eighteen Turkey Chicks, six larded, (Hot).

100.Twelve Lobsters, (Cold).

101.Nine Pullets, for larded, (Hot).

102.Bacon,two Gammons, (Cold).

103.Twelve Leverets, four larded, (Hot).

104,Sturgeon, (Cold).

105.Twenty Four Ducklings, six larded, (Hot).

106.Collar’d Beef, (Cold).

107.Eight Capons, three larded, (Hot).

108.Five Pullet Pies, (Cold).

109.Eight Geese, three larded, (Hot).

110.Three souc’d Pigs, (Cold).

111.Three Dozen glasses of Jelly.

112.Botargo            )

113.Gerkins            ) (Cold)     

114.Souc’d Trout   )

115.Sheeps Tongues.      )

116.Skirrets                     )  (Hot)

117.Cabbadge Pudding   )

118.Eight Teals Marin    )

119.French Beans           )  (Cold).

120.Leveret Pie               )

121.Lemon Sallet          )

122.Smelts Pickled        )  (Cold).

123.Periwinkles             )

124.Chicks marl’d     )

125.Cavear                 ) (Cold)

126.Olives                  )

127.Prawns            )

128.Samphire         )  (Cold)

129.Trotter Pie       )

130.Taffata Tarts     )

131.Razor Fish        )  (Cold)

132.Broom Buds     )

133.Collar’d Pigs.

134.Parmazan   )

135.Capers       )  (Cold).

136.Spinage Tart.

137.Whitings marinated   )

138.Cockles                      )  (Cold).

139.Pickled Mushrooms  )

140.Prawns                      )  (Cold).

141.Mangoes                   )

142.Bacon Pie           )

143.Cardoons            )  (Cold)

144.Souc’d Tench     )

145.Three Dozen Glasses of Blumange, (Cold).

 

As you can see, many of the items are familiar to us to-day, although some, if not many, have gone out of fashion. Others are not so recognizable. All in all this was not a table for the faint hearted….!!!

Clarification of a number of the menu items may well be required. I hope that the following will help with this; if some are wrong then please feel free to advise the correct explanation.

There is also a record, of the dishes served at the other  tables. They do differ in some cases to that of their Majesties, but in general they are a large number of common dishes.
 

Some spellings are different to what we are familiar with now, and these I have left in their traditional form.

The more, possibly obscure items, I have attempted to translate;

Item 4: Collar Veal – Meat that is rolled up and tied with string, also to cut up and press into a roll.

Item 5: Lambs-stones  (Testicles)

Item 6: Cocks-combs  - the red fleshy crest on the head of the domestic fowl.

Item 7: Marrow Patie – (Bone Marrow pate.)                                   

Item 9: Sallet – (Salad.)

Item 11: Sweet-breads – (the pancreas or thymus gland of an animal – heart, stomach, belly, throat, gullet or neck, - looked upon as a delicacy.)

Item 13: Petty –toes  (pigs feet).

Item 17: Collops and Eggs  (an egg fried on bacon).

Item 21: Portugal Eggs  (egg tart pastry, similar to custard tart).

Item 23: Andolioes  (ANDOLIANS – the guts of a hog, cooked with salt, pepper, cloves, mace and coriander).

Item 28: Ciprus Birds  (Preserved Fig Peckers-Beccafico – considered a dainty when it was fattened on figs and grapes)

Item 29: Tansy  (a pudding, omelette, or the like, flavoured with juice of tansy (an Herbaceous plant).

Item 34: Salamagundy (a type of salad, made with lettuce, finely chopped chicken and anchovies, garnished with small poached onions and scalded grapes.)

Item 36: Neats Tongues  (an Ox or Bullock,a Cow or Heifer).

Item 37,39,41,43,46,47,70,99,101,103,105,107 & 109  (Larded – to insert small strips of bacon into, before cooking.)

Item 48: Pullets la Dobe  (Chicken Stew)

Item 57:Oglio  (a very large stew with extensive ingredients)

Item 59:Batalia Pie  (a Fish pie)

Item 68: Stump Pies  (Mutton/Lamb Pie)  [ ]

Item 71: Ruffs  (either a small freshwater fish or a male bird of the sandpiper family)

Item 74,110,114 & 144: Souc’d  (Meat, Fish – prepared or preserved in vinegar/pickle.

Item 75: Godwits  (A type of marshland bird)

Item 79: Marrow Tofts  (Toasts)

Item 82: Lampreys (An eel like sucker fish)

Item 85:Smelts  (small fish)

Item 88: Morels  (type of mushroom)

Item 90: Blewmange: (probably a chicken meat dish served in pastry shells)

Item 94: Ortelans:  (a small bird of the bunting family: they were captured alive, force fed, then drowned in armagnac, roasted, then eaten whole, bones and all..!!).

Item 98: Turt de Moil: (a puff pastry dish containing bone marrow, butter, sweet-meats, cream, eggs, orange-flower-water and sweetened with sugar.)

Item 103: Leverets (young Hares)

Item 107: Capon  (castrated domestic cock).

Item 112: Botargo (a relish made of Mullet roe or Tunny).

Item 116: Skirrets: (a species of water parsnip).

Item 118: Teals:  (species of wild duck).

Item 128: Samphire:  (sea shore plant, growing on rocks, who’s aromatic, saline, fleshy leaves were used in pickles).

Item 130: Taffata Tart: ( was a word  applied for a cream dish i.e. a cream tart/pie).

Item 131: Razor Fish: (a mollusc having a long narrow shell like the handle of a razor).

Item 143: Cardoons:  (edible part of the artichoke).

Item 15 & 145: Blumange:  (a meat concoction)  [  ].

Item 8,35 & 111: Jelly:  (dishes of Jelly – probably refer to gelatine, flavoured with either Lemon or Orange).

by Adrian Skipp.

Monastic maladies and cures for the plague

Magazine and newspaper articles are forever telling us to stop smoking, start exercising, eat “superfoods”, cut out bread, drink less coffee and so on. This week I take a look at some late medieval dietary advice and cures for diseases scribbled by the monks of Worcester Cathedral priory in a sixteenth-century register.  These snippets on  monastic diet and medicine feature as part of the library’s current exhibition, ‘Life in a Benedictine monastery’, so be sure to call to the North and West cloisters of Worcester Cathedral to see photographs and full transcriptions.

Poster for the library's exhibition, 'Life in a Benedictine monastery', located in the north and West cloisters until October 16th 2013. Copyright © Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

 

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”.

 

Recipes: "meates whiche hurteth the tethe", "meates ingendryng flewme", and "meates whiche dothe hurte the eyes". Photograph of AXII, fol. 166 v. Reproduced by the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)


 

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”.

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.  

"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 16^th of October, 09:00-17:00.

Victorian women's fashion and debates on dressmaking

A Cathedral library and archive is not the usual place you'd head to learn about women's fashion. This week in our store room, however, we made a discovery that may be of interest to enthusiasts of women's history and fashion alike. We came across four pages of a December 1^st, 1888 edition of The Queen, The Lady’s Newspaper. Presumably, these pages were kept because they had fine engravings of Yorkshire's ruined monastic abbeys. Until now, though, no one seems to have noticed that the periodical contains a magnificent engraving of ladies having "'5 o'clock tea" (see below), and a range of articles on Victorian women's clothing and accessories.

The Lady’s Newspaper was created in 1847 and joined with The Queen, a more popular women’s paper, in 1863. Published weekly, this paper takes the form of a broadsheet, featuring articles thought to be of particular interest to women published in three columns. Pitching itself at the wealthiest ladies of England’s upper echelons, The Queen, The Lady’s Newspaper is packed full of lavish illustrations of contemporary fashions and advertisements.

 

Photograph, "5 o'clock tea". Reproduced by the permission of the Dean & Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

 

DIY dressmaking: a heated debate.

The pages of December 1st 1888 edition we found in our store contain a series of intriguing articles that debate whether upper-class women should make their own dresses or employ professionals to do so. The first article on page 725 seems, to the modern reader, overly didactic. Titled “Dress at the leading dressmakers”, the article provides an overview of the best materials, colours and cuts to be styled in, and explains exactly where to go to buy them. Apparently “Woolen garments are well suited to our climate, and to British faces, figures and habits” because “We are an energetic people, taking much outdoor exercise”. Petticoats are described as being “very tempting this season” with Mademoiselle Carroll’s store in New Bond Street stocking “a new kind, with beautiful borders in real lace attached to a spotted centre; a most becoming and really a ladylike appendage to a hat or bonnet”.

The two articles that follow (“New fans of the season” and “New costumes and trimmings”) similarly dazzle the female consumer with an array of choice, emphasizing her purchasing power. “New fans of the season” seems to say that if you are a young woman, you will undoubtedly want a fan as a Christmas present; if you are a more mature lady, then you should buy a fan for a younger relative this Christmas, because they cost on average less than £2 each, making them an excellent gift.   To your blogger it sounds like a nightmarish present my uncle would give me for Christmas, but one of the most desirable fans of the season is described as having:

“cats’ heads of every kind and colour nestled close together over the gauze or fine muslin surface. The effect is extremely quaint, and the heads are about the size of furry toy cats that babies love to fondle”.

Whereas the articles described thus far have encouraged women’s spending, the final article of the third column of page 725 takes an outwardly political stance against women making their own dresses, claiming that this work should be confined to the lower classes. Written by Irene, an occasional correspondent, the article is titled “Home Dressmaking- a caution” and condemns young, middle to upper-class women for making their own dresses, because it supposedly puts working-class seamstresses out of pocket, and even out of work. According to Irene, “the really poor lady may be compelled to make her own clothes, but it is not so with the majority who are taking up this craze”. Irene concludes with a rather loaded statement: “Let them reflect that they are thoughtlessly sacrificing others, driving others to starvation and to perhaps sin in the mere pursuit of personal vanity, whilst at the same time squandering God’s own gifts of time and intellect on one of the least of ennobling tastes”.

The editor responds briefly at the bottom of this article, stating that “manual skill is so valuable at the present time that we cannot agree with our correspondent in wishing to discourage young ladies from making their own dresses”.  Despite this, one can’t help but notice that these seem like empty words. The Lady, The Queen’s Newsletter, as historians of the Victorian era often comment, is jam packed full of advertisements for commercial dressmakers, tailors, chemists, and so forth. Indeed the illustration above demonstrates the publication’s tendency toward lavish and exuberant fashions, and naming the who’s who in the dressmaking industry. When The Lady’s Newsletter amalgamated with The Queen in 1863, it branded itself as addressing the 10,000 of Britain’s upper class women. Despite including articles on women’s education, legislative reform and employment, it was never openly an advocate of any of these issues.

Exemplifying this aloof attitude toward women's politics, the penultimate article on page 725 is on the meeting of the Rational Dress Society in London. The Rational Dress Society was formed in 1881 and was dedicated to reforming the impractical and uncomfortable items of Victorian women's clothing, such as corsets. At the meeting described in this article we hear of how a series of speeches were given by Viscountess Harberton, Mrs Taylor on "the moral side of the question", and Miss Sharman on "the tortures women had gone through at the hands of fashion within the last 30 years".

 Written in the third person, the author of the article comments passively on the proceedings of the meeting of the Rational Dress Society in London, and carefully avoids openly encouraging the development of fashion away from the tightfitting corsets and voluminous skirts to a more practical garb for women. The article ends by stating that “a depot for the sale of hygienic clothing and patterns of rational costumes approved of by the society would shortly be opened in Sloane Street”. Little glitz and glamour surrounds this collection by comparison to the dresses described in the “Dress at the leading dressmakers” article. The reader is not urged to rush to Sloane street, cash-in-hand to buy these new, more comfortable designs.

The penultimate article on the meeting of the Rational Dress society complains of how, in a carriage, a woman could take up as much space as three men due to impractical fashions and also warns of the health issues (“chronic indigestion” and “shortness of breath” that servant girls experience whilst doing manual labour in such tight-fitting clothing. These are said to result from serving girls having foolishly adopted the fashions of the elite. Yet as impractical as the layers of skirts and petticoats are described for the elite ladies’ daily chores of travel, packing, shopping, it ultimately seems to be this very style of dress that the illustration of the “5 o’clock tea party” depicts as the height of fashion and, indeed, encourages readers to emulate when carefully choosing their tea gowns.

To conclude, it is interesting to consider that this edition of The Queen articulates a somewhat outdated view, one at odds with other contemporary publications for women. With paper tax being removed in the mid nineteenth-century there was an unprecedented growth of women's magazines and papers at this time, many of which printed paper patterns for home dressmaking. We might best understand "Home Dressmaking- A caution" as a reactionary article against an already popular women's hobby to which few women probably paid any attention.

 

 

George Hickes, Dean of Worcester (1683-91)

George Hickes the most famous of the 17^th century Deans of Worcester, was born in 1642 at Newsham near Thirsk in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Hickes was the fourth of seven children and the second of three brothers.  He was educated at the grammar school at Northallerton, where he absorbed the conviction of the sacred status of Kings as representatives of God on earth, then studied first at St John’s College, Oxford, and later at Magdalen College.   In 1664 he became a Fellow of Lincoln College, where he served as a tutor for seven years and made the acquaintance of Thomas Marshall, a leading scholar of Anglo-Saxon, who stimulated Hickes’ own interest in the Nordic languages.

Portrait of George Hickes. Photograph by Mr Christopher Guy, Worcester Cathedral archaeologist. Reproduced by the permission of the Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

Hickes was ordained in 1666.  In 1676 he met John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale, the secretary of state for Scotland, who had considerable influence with Charles II and offered Hickes a chaplaincy.   The Duke took him with him to Scotland and commissioned from him “Ravaillac Redivivus”,  an account of the trial of the covenanter James Mitchell who had attempted to assassinate the Archbishop of St Andrews.  Besides his official duties, which involved reporting to the English court on Scottish ecclesiastical affairs, he continued to pursue his philological interests. 

In 1679 Hickes married Mrs Frances Marshall, a widow, and later that year he was created an Oxford Doctor of Divinity.  In 1680 he was named a Canon of Worcester and was preferred by Archbishop Sancroft to the vicarage of All Hallows Barking,  where he became acquainted with Samuel Pepys, who later accompanying James II on a visit to Worcester presented a couple of volumes to the Cathedral.  In 1681 Hickes gave up his fellowship and became a chaplain to King Charles II, and in 1683 he was promoted to the Deanery of Worcester.  Upon the death of the Bishop of Bristol in 1684 the King was asked to confer that bishopric on Hickes, but Charles is reputed to have said that it was too mean a bishopric for such a man, saying that he could hold the see in commendam with his deanery if he so wished, but Hickes declined the offer.  Had the King lived longer he would no doubt have considered him for a more important bishopric.

Dean George Hickes' portrait pride of place in the Cathedral Library. Photograph by David Morrison, Worcester Cathedral librarian/ archivist. Reproduced by the permission of the Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.)

In many ways Hickes’ churchmanship proved to be somewhat complex.  His father had been an adherent of Cromwell, while Hickes was always an ardent royalist.  Remarkably his elder brother, John, was a dissenting minister who became involved in the Monmouth rebellion and as a result was tried and executed despite his brother’s efforts to procure him a pardon.  Hickes was himself a strong supporter of the claims of the Church of England to legitimacy and was firmly anti-catholic.  However, after the exile of James II as a result of his loyalty to the Stuarts he became a non-juror, that is he felt unable to swear an oath of loyalty to William and Mary in contradiction of his oath to King James.  Ironically many of the non-jurors had earlier, like Hickes, crossed swords with James in opposition to his Declaration of Indulgence to catholics and non-conformists, but to them it was a matter of conscience.  There were a good many non-jurors in Worcestershire, among whom the best known, after Hickes, was Thomas Morris, a minor canon of the Cathedral, whose burial place in the cloisters is marked by a stone bearing the one word “Miserrimus”, so sad was he to have lost his position.     

George Hickes was deprived of office in February 1690, although he remained in possession for a further year.   Upon reading of the appointment of his successor, William Talbot, he affixed to the entrance of the Quire a statement of his right to the Deanery but withdrew to London and lived in seclusion for many years, moving about the country as an outlaw.  However, in 1699 Lord Somers, the Lord Chancellor, a Worcestershire man, convinced of Hickes’worth, procured an Act in Council ensuring that all legal proceedings against him should be stopped.

Photograph of George Hickes' Literaturae Septentrionalis. Anglo-Saxon script. Photograph by Mr. Christopher Guy, Worcester Cathedral Archaeologist. Reproduced by the permission of the Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.).

During these years Hickes continued his philological studies to include Old Icelandic as well as the Old English and Moeso-Gothic languages, culminating in the production of his major work, the Thesaurus Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium, and was in contact with many English, Danish and Swedish scholars.  He did not however turn his back on the Church but was intent on leading what he considered was the surviving remnant of the true apostolic church.  In 1693 he was sent to France by Archbishop William Sancroft to confer with the exiled James II about a continuation of the Episcopal Succession among those who shared their views.  He had several audiences with James, who readily agreed to all that was proposed.  On his return to England he was secretly consecrated Bishop of Thetford as suffragan to the Archbishop of Canterbury by Sancroft and the Bishops of Norwich, Ely and  Peterborough, all of whom had been deprived of office as non-jurors.  Eventually Hickes became the only surviving non-juring bishop, and he secured the aid of two Scottish Bishops in consecrating three new Bishops,  bur his branch of the Church did not really develop and was eventually absorbed into the regular church body.

Photograph of George Hickes' Literaturae Septentrionalis. Scandinavian runes. Photograph by Mr. Christopher Guy, Worcester Cathedral Archaeologist. Reproduced by the permission of the Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.).

Hickes, who died in 1715, was generally regarded as an affable and courteous person.  His importance lies in the combination of religious and theological thought on the one hand with high principled antiquarian scholarship on the other.  There is a fine portrait in oils in the Library of Worcester Cathedral.  

Photograph of George Hickes' Literaturae Septentrionalis. Runic alphabet. Photograph by Mr. Christopher Guy, Worcester Cathedral Archaeologist. Reproduced by the permission of the Chapter of Worcester Cathedral (U.K.).