Today is the second-to-last day of January, and by my calculations it
is the last day of Æftera Giuli in a reconstructed
Anglo-Saxon calendar. Before we start a new month on either calendar, I
want to turn attention to what sort of duties would have kept an Anglo-Saxon
physician busy in the winter time.
According to Bede, winter has been underway for some time now. According
to Bede’s The Reckoning of Time
(translation by Faith Wallis), the earliest Anglo-Saxons may have recognized
only two seasons, with winter (starting around the time of the fall equinox) the
half year during which the night was longer than the day.
Rather than think about what the treatments were for illnesses we know
to be most common in winter, I searched the extant Anglo-Saxon medical texts
for references to winter or specific months of winter (such as January). I will
not catalogue all the instances I found, but will provide one or two examples
from each of the major texts: the Old
English Herbarium, Bald’s Leechbook 1,
Bald’s Leechbook 2, Leechbook III, and Lacnunga. All quotations are from Cockayne’s translation. This
translation contains language that was archaic even when it was published in
the nineteenth century, but it is the only public domain translation currently
available. More readable translations include those by Pollington (Herbarium, Leechbook III, Lacnunga),
Grattan and Singer (Lacnunga), and van
Arsdall (Herbarium). As far as I can
tell, Cockayne’s edition remains the only translation of Bald’s Leechbook 1 and 2 available
in modern English, though “modern” is hardly the best word to describe his
translation.
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| Navelwort, from the Pseudo-Apuleius Herbarium section of the codex Vossianus Latinus Quarto No. 9 (VLQ 9), folio 62v, Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden. This Latin manuscript dates from sixth-century Italy and is the oldest surviving text of the Pseudo-Apuleius herbarium complex. Based on the later Anglo-Saxon edition of the Herbarium, D’Aronco identifies navelwort (cotyledon) as Umbilicus pendulinus DC. or Cotyledon umbilicus L. |
A survey of the texts quickly reveals a wide variety of tasks for the
Anglo-Saxon leech during the winter. Although most herbs would have been
gathered in late summer or early fall, a few were specifically recommended for
collection during the winter. The Old
English Herbarium (Chapter 44; pp. 147, 149 of Cockayne, Volume 1)
recommended that a plant used in a poultice for swelling, identified by
D’Aronco in the Old English Herbarium facsimile edition as navelwort
(Umbilicus pendulinus DC. or Cotyledon umbilicus L.), should be
collected in winter. Bald’s Leechbook 2
(Chapter 24; p. 215 of Cockayne, Volume 2) included the following remedy for
liver disease: “five and
twenty bunches of ivy berries, gathered in the month which we hight in Latin
Januarius, and in English the second Yule, and of pepper as much, rub
these up with the best wine and heat it; give it to the sick man, after his
nights fasting, to drink.” The reference to Æftera Giuli is the only example I
have found of an Old English month name being used in one of the Anglo-Saxon
medical texts; the Latin names are used in all other cases where months are
specified.
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| Ivy, from Liber II of De Materia Medica by Dioscorides, Manuscrit Grec 2179 (MS Grec 2179), folio 2v, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Plant identifications for this ninth-century manuscript in Greek are taken from Bonnet, Edmond. 1903. Essai d'identification des plantes médicinales mentionnées par Dioscoride: d'après les peintures d'un manuscrit de la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris (Ms. Grec No. 2179). Janus 8: 169-77, 225-32, 281-85. Bonnet identifies this image as lierre (ivy), Hedera helix L. |
Apart from the few herbs that could be gathered fresh during winter,
the Anglo-Saxon healer would have had an extensive collection of medicinal
herbs that were collected earlier and preserved for use during the winter. With
their ease of storage, seeds were often recommended for use during winter.
Remedies with seeds sometimes were highly complex, including seeds of many
different native or imported plants and recommended for a wide variety of
conditions, as in the following jaundice remedy from Leechbook III (Ch. 12; Cockayne Volume 2, pp. 315, 317):
Work thus a good dust drink for the yellow disease. Take seed of
marche, and seed of fennel, seed of dill, seed of everthroat, seed of
fieldmore, seed of satureia, savory, seed of parsley, seed of alexanders, seed
of lovage, seed of betony, seed of colewort, seed of costmary, seed of cumin,
and of pepper most, of the others equal quantities; rub all well to dust, take
a good spoon full of the dust, put it into strong dear ale, let the man drink a
cup full at night fasting. This drink is also good for every ailment of limb,
and for head ache, and for want of memory, and for eye wark, and for dull
hearing, and for breast wark, and lung disease, loin wark, and for every
temptation of the fiend. Work thyself dust enough in harvest, when thou hast
the worts, use it when thou hast need.
Another remedy from Lacnunga (Chapter 111, Cockayne Volume
3, pp. 71, 73; the same remedy is Chapter 178 in Pollington translation and
Grattan and Singer translation) contains even more herb seeds and is suggested
for even more health conditions. The “dry” disease included in the list of
maladies is þeór, thought to be some kind of inflammation.
A king was hight
Arestolobius, he was wise and good at leechcraft, he arranged also a good
morning drink against all infirmities, which stir throughout mans body, within
or without; the drink is good for head ache and for giddiness and fever of the
brain, for a flowing armpit, for lung disease and liver wark, for flowing gall
and the yellow disease, for dimness of eyes, for singing in the ears, and
defective hearing, and for heaviness of the breast and puffing of the visceral
cavity, for pain of milt and of small guts, for unhealthy fæcal discharge, and
in case a man is not able to pass water, against the ache of the
"dry" disease and spasm of sinews, against knee wark, and foot
swelling, for elephantiasis, and for other itching blotches, and spasms of the
"dry" disease, and every poison, for every infirmity and every
temptation of the fiend. Work thyself dust enough in harvest and use when need
be. Work moreover, a drink of these worts, take seed of marche, dry, and seed
of fennel, of parsley, of fieldmore and earthgall, of dill and rue, of colewort
and celandine and feverfue, and two mints, that is garden mint and horse mint,
and seed of betony, of lovage and alexanders and sage and sclarea and wormwood
and savory and bishopwort and elecampane and henbane and agrimony and stonecrop
and horehound and nepeta and woodroffe and sanicle and carline thistle; put
equal quantities of all these worts; then take of these worts, that follow, of
each one as much as two of the others, that is to say, cummin and costmary and
pepper and ginger and gum mastich; work all these worts to a very small dust;
and put of the dust a good spoon full in a drinking cup full of cold wine, and
give to drink at night, fasting; make use of this drink, when need be to thee.
Other plants were dried and crumbled for winter remedies. In its fresh
form, various parts of water dock (identified by D’Aronco as red dock (Rumex aquaticus L.) or great water dock
(Rumex hydrolapathum L.)) were
recommended for mouth sores, tooth pain, upset stomach, and pain of the side of
the body. For mouth sores and tooth ache, the dry form was also said to be
equally effective: “if thou have it not green, take it
dry … it will have the same good effect … its ooze and its dust is to be
preserved in winter, since it does not appear at every time; its ooze thou
shalt hold in a rams horn; dry also the dust, and keep it” (Old English Herbarium, Ch. 30; Cockayne,
Volume 1, p. 127). A five-herb remedy for gout (Lacnunga, Ch 9 in Cockayne Volume 3, p. 9; Ch. 23 in Pollington
translation and Grattan and Singer translation) could be prepared around
harvest time and used later as needed: “For
the wrist drop, ivy and cinqfoil, adderwort and ladderwort and earth gall; work
up the worts at harvest and scrape them small and dry them, and keep them over
winter and use them; when thou hast need of them boil them in ale.”
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| Water dock, from the Pseudo-Apuleius Herbarius section of the Manuscrit Latin 6862 (MS Lat. 6862), folio 43v, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. This Latin manuscript is a ninth-century example of the Pseudo-Apuleius herbal complex. Based on the Anglo-Saxon edition of the Herbarium, D’Aronco identifies water dock (brittanica) as red dock (Rumex aquaticus L.) or great water dock (Rumex hydrolapathum L.). |
Not all winter remedies relied on native plants or even on any type of
plant. A few herbs and plant products included in the remedies cited above,
such as pepper, cumin, costmary, ginger, and gum mastic, are not native to
England and some of them do not grow well in England. They were most likely imported
at some point during the Anglo-Saxon period. In Bald’s Leechbook 2 (Ch. 64; Cockayne Volume 2, p. 289), the
following remedy using an imported non-herbal product is included in the
section of remedies said to be sent by Patriarch Helias of Jerusalem to King
Alfred: “Similarly also
petroleum is good to drink simple for inward tenderness, and to smear on
outwardly on a winters day, since it hath very much heat; hence one shall drink
it in winter.”
In some cases, different remedies or treatment approaches were
recommended for the same condition depending on whether the patient presented
in summer or in winter. A remedy in Bald’s
Leechbook 1 (Ch. 17; Cockayne Volume 2, p. 25), possibly for congestion,
provided alternate versions for summer and winter:
Work thus a swilling
or lotion for cleansing of the head … then the flegm runneth out. Again,
another swilling in summer; mingle together a good bowl full of wine boiled
down with herbs and a moderate one of vinegar, and hyssop, so the wort hight,
its leaves and blossoms, and let the mixture stand for a night, and in the
morning boil it over again in a crock (or earthen pot), and let him sup it
lukewarm and swill his jowl and wash his mouth. For the same in winter, put in
a chalice a spoon full of the dust of mustard and half a spoon full of honey,
then after that mingle this with water, and heat it and strain it through a
linen cloth and swill the jowl with it; after that leechdom frequently swill
the throat with oil.
Although the Anglo-Saxon healer would not have had many herbs to gather
in winter time, he or she would have kept busy compounding remedies and
treating patients for a variety of conditions. It would take some space to
prepare and store the herbs, so it seems likely that dedicated herb workshops
and still rooms would have developed at some point, for healers inside and
outside of monastery walls.
