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Carolingian Medical Knowledge and Practice, c.775–​900

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 Nuncius Series
Studies and Sources in the Material and Visual History of Science Series

Editors

Marco Beretta (University of Bologna)

Sven Dupré (Utrecht University /​University of Amsterdam)

volume 14

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/​nuns

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Carolingian Medical
Knowledge and
Practice, c.775–​900
New Approaches to Recipe Literature

By

Claire Burridge

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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 This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the cc by 4.0 license, which permits
any non-​commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original
author(s) and source are credited. Further information and the complete license text can be
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The terms of the cc license apply only to the original material. The use of material from other sources
(indicated by a reference) such as diagrams, illustrations, photos and text samples may require further
permission from the respective copyright holder.

This book was brought to publication and made available Open Access with the generous assistance of the
Wellcome Trust via a Medical Humanities Doctoral Studentship [203431/​Z /​1 6/​Z ].

Cover illustration: St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 751, p. 499. A ninth-​century compendium of
medical texts (http://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.ch​/de​/csg​/0751​/499​/0)​. © St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, licensed under
cc by-​n c 4.0.

The Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data is available online at https://​cata​log​.loc​.gov

lc record available at https://​lccn​.loc​.gov​/2023057889

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/​brill-​typeface.

issn 2405-​5 077

isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​4 6616-​6 (hardback)
isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​4 6617-​3 (e-​book)
doi 10.1163/​9 789004466173

Copyright 2024 by Claire Burridge. Published by Koninklijke Brill bv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill bv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis,
Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress.
Koninklijke Brill bv reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use.

This book is printed on acid-​free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

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Contents


Acknowledgements xi

List of Illustrations xiv

Abbreviations xvii

Note on Transcription and Translation xix

Note on Weights, Measures, and Their Symbols xx

Map xxii

Introduction

1 
Practicality and Applicability
A Dual Approach to Carolingian Medical Knowledge and Practice 3
1 Introduction: The Case of Terenti(an)us 3
2 Definitions 7
3 Foundations 8
3.1  A Philological Underpinning 8
3.2  Histories of Early Medieval Medicine: From Negative Stereotypes
to Revisionist Approaches 13
3.3  New Directions in Early Medieval Medical Research 24
3.4  Summary 29
4 The Carolingian Context 30
5 Structuring the Dual Approach 33

Part 1
Practicality

2 
Setting the Scene
The Texts, Their Contexts, and the Need for a Re-​examination of
Practicality 37
1 Introduction: a Mixed Picture of (Im)practicality 37
2 Contextualising Medicine’s Place in Early Medieval Europe and the
Question of Practicality 39
2.1  Summary 54
3 Outlining the Recipe Literature 55
3.1  Recipes and Recipe Collections 57
3.2  The Manuscript Sample 64

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vi Contents

3 
Impossible Imports or Available Exotics?
A Study of Non-​local Materia Medica 69
1 Introduction: the Exotic Ingredients of an Antidote 69
2 Evidence for the Movement of Non-​local Materia Medica 72
3 Exotic Materia Medica 77
3.1  What’s in a Name? The Challenge of Identifying Ingredients and
Their Origins 78
3.2  From Ambergris to Zedoary 80
3.3  The Confectio Timiame: Camphor, Ambergris, and Other
Non-​local Materia Medica 82
3.4  The Recurrent Cluster: Parallels Among Incense Recipes 86
3.5  Moving Beyond Incense: the Spread of Knowledge 94
4 The Practicality of Non-​local Materia Medica: Putting the Case Study
in Perspective 100
5 Conclusion 102

4 
Medicine and the Mead Hall?
Using Alcoholic Beverages to Explore Potentially Local Materia
Medica 105
1 Introduction: a Snapshot From Cod. Sang. 752 105
2 Wine, Beer, and Mead in the Classical Mediterranean 108
3 Changing Tastes in Late Antiquity? 114
4 The Rise of Beer and Medus in the Early Middle Ages 116
4.1  Beer 117
4.2  Mead and Medus 120
4.3  Summary 124
5 Contextualising Beer and Mead in Early Medieval Europe 124
6 Beer, Mead, and the Question of Practicality 126
7 Conclusion 127

Evidence for Practicality Beyond Materia Medica 129

5 
1 Introduction: the Importance of Investigating Additional Elements
Within Recipes 129
2  Staupus: a Vernacular ‘Intrusion’ 131
2.1  Past Studies on Staupus 131
2.2  The Appearance of Staupus in the Recipe Sample 132
2.3  The Absence of Staupus in Texts on Weights and Measures 139
2.4  The Practicality of the Unit Staupus 142
3 Wild Versus Cultivated Rue: the Inclusion of an Ingredient
Substitution 143

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Contents vii

3.1 Instructions for Ingredient Substitutions in the Recipe

Sample 143
3.2 Ingredient Substitution in Earlier Sources 145
3.3 The Practicality of Substitution Instructions in Recipes 147
4 Conclusion 148

Part 2
Applicability

6 
Reading Recipes in the Light of Skeletal Remains
An Introduction to the Integration of Osteological Evidence 153
1 Introduction: Moving From Practicality to Practice, an Investigation
Into Applicability 153
2 Establishing the Framework of Part 2 154
2.1  Why Question the Relevance of Recipes? 154
2.2  Working With the Available Evidence 156
3 The Challenges of Using Osteological Evidence to Inform Textual
Analysis 159
3.1  Intrinsic Issues With Archaeological Evidence 159
3.2  Theoretical Challenges Related to the Integration of Skeletal
Evidence 162
4 Outlining the Analytical Approach to Chapters 7–​9 169
4.1  Overview of Sites 169
4.2  The Spectrum of Specificity 171

7 
Dental Disease
From Caries to Cosmetics 173
1 Introduction: a Monk From Lorsch 173
2 Oral Health in the Skeletal Evidence 175
2.1  Dental Disease in the Archaeological Record: an Overview 175
2.2  Skeletal Evidence for Oral Pathologies in Early Medieval
Europe 179
3 Recipes to Treat Dental Disease 187
3.1  Category 1: Toothache 190
3.2  Categories 2–​6: the Other Half of the Recipes Concerning Oral
Health 193
3.3  Summary 198
4 The Applicability of the Recipe Sample to Early Medieval
People 199

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viii Contents

4.1 Specific Types of Teeth 200

4.2 Specific Types of People 200
4.3 Cosmetics 201
4.4 Possible Sources for Dental Recipes 202
5 Conclusion 203

8 
Joint Disease
Problematising Podagra 205
1 Introduction: the Pains of Gout—​and the Problems of
Translation 205
2 The Appearance of Podagra in Medical Recipes 207
3 The Absence of Gout in Archaeological Contexts 211
4 Moving Beyond Gout: Evidence for Other Arthropathies in the
Osteological Record 213
4.1  The Spine 215
4.2  Large Joints and Limbs: Shoulders, Elbows, Hips, and Knees 217
4.3  Small Joints: Hands and Feet 218
4.4  Summary 220
5 Textual Evidence for Joint Pain Beyond Podagra 220
5.1  General Afflictions of the Joints 222
5.2  Named Joints and Joint Areas: the Back, Neck, Shoulders, Hips,
Knees, and Hands 229
6 Integrating the Evidence: a Return to the Gout-​Podagra Paradox and
the Question of Applicability 233
6.1  Gout Versus Podagra: Conflicting Evidence or a Modern
Misnomer? 234
6.2  The Question of Applicability 237
7 Conclusion 239

9 
Trauma and Surgery
Evidence of Undocumented Medical Practices? 241
1 Introduction: Interventions ‘Without Iron’ 241
2 Textual Evidence for Invasive Surgery and Trauma 244
2.1  Surgery 244
2.2  Trauma 245
3 Osteological Evidence for Trauma and Surgery 254
3.1  Identifying and Understanding Trauma in the Osteological
Record 254
3.2  Evidence for Trauma in Early Medieval Skeletal Remains 258

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Contents ix

4 Reading Recipes in the Light of Osteological Evidence for Trauma and

Surgery 264
4.1  Type of Injury: Conflicting Evidence? 265
4.2  The Question of Surgery 266
4.3  Evidence for Trauma Beyond Medical Texts 267
5 Conclusion 271

Conclusion

10 
Putting Knowledge Into Practice 275
1 Introduction: Revisiting the Case of Terenti(an)us 275
2 Bringing Together the Case Studies 277
3 Moving Forward: Final Remarks and Future Directions 283

Appendices

Appendix 1 The Manuscript Sample 289

Appendix 2 Recipe Transcriptions 303


Bibliography 356

Index 401

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Acknowledgements

With so many people to thank, the only way I can conceive of beginning these
acknowledgements is with the biggest and broadest of thank-​yous: I wish to
express a sincere thank you to everyone involved in the process of producing
this book as well as to anyone who gives it a read and builds on this research in
the future. And now on to a series of more specific thank-​yous:
This book has emerged out of my PhD research at Cambridge. First and
foremost, my heartfelt thanks go to Professor Rosamond McKitterick, who
supervised my MPhil and PhD and has remained a wonderfully supportive
mentor and source of guidance. The wider Cambridge academic community
also helped to shape my research, not least by providing me with training in
essential skills, from palaeography to palaeopathology. Within the Faculty
of History as well as the Departments of Archaeology and asnc, I should
especially like to thank Professor Lesley Abrams, Professor John Arnold, Dr
Debby Banham, Dr Jenna Dittmar, Professor Caroline Goodson, Dr Susanne
Hakenbeck, Dr Tom Lambert, Dr Piers Mitchell, Professor Tessa Webber, and Dr
Neil Wright as well as the early medievalist students with whom I overlapped,
including Dr Emma Brownlee, Dr Caitlin Ellis, Revd Dr Robert Evans, Dr Sam
Leggett, Dr Eleni Leontidou, Dr Fraser McNair, Dr Sam Ottewill-​Soulsby, and Dr
Arthur Westwell. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to the Wellcome Trust for
making this research possible via a Medical Humanities Doctoral Studentship
[203431/​Z/​16/​Z].
I feel incredibly fortunate to have received support and guidance from a
host of colleagues and friends in the years since my PhD as I have contin-
ued to develop and refine my research. I am extraordinarily grateful to the
British School at Rome for two years of postdoctoral fellowships during the
first years of the Covid pandemic (as well as to Sidney Sussex College for pro-
viding an emergency refuge when I was temporarily repatriated to the UK in
March 2020). The bsr community, including Dr Tom Brown, Professors Leslie
Brubaker, Stephen Milner, John Osborne, and Chris Wickham, has strongly
influenced my work. The Leverhulme Trust has since provided incredible sup-
port via an Early Career Fellowship at the University of Sheffield, and I have
benefitted from sharing work with my medievalist colleagues, and especially
my mentor Professor Charles West, as well as thinking across broader chro-
nologies and geographies with the wide-​ranging members of the Department
of History, including Dr Caroline Dodds Pennock, Professor Siobhan Lambert-​
Hurley, Dr Chris Millard, and Professor Phil Withington. The final stages of this
book were completed after joining Professor Ildar Garipzanov’s MINiTEXTS

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xii Acknowledgements

project at the University of Oslo, and I am very thankful for the warm welcome
and support I have received from my new colleagues.
Beyond my own research homes, I am extremely grateful for my network
of colleagues and academic friends around the world. In particular, Dr Jeffrey
Doolittle, Dr Anna Dorofeeva, Professor Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez, Professor
Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, Professor Peregrine Horden, Dr Meg Leja, Dr Zubin
Mistry, Professor James Palmer, Dr Raphaël Panhuysen, and Dr Carine van
Rhijn each deserve a heartfelt thank you for their support, suggestions, and
critiques. The ensuing book has benefitted immeasurably from their feedback,
whether via discussions at conferences, over Zoom, or by email, and, of course,
from their own extensive, path-​breaking bodies of work. Likewise, I owe my
thanks to the wider ‘medmed’ community for sharing their resources and
expertise spanning all areas of medieval medicine. In terms of conferences
and workshops, I am grateful to have been able to share and discuss elements
of the research underpinning the following chapters at Books and Bones
(Cambridge), Categorising the Church ii (Poitiers), Collecting Knowledge,
Creating Knowledge (Cambridge), the Graduate Early Medieval Seminar
(Cambridge), the International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo),
the International Medieval Congress (Leeds), the Medieval Archaeology
Group (Cambridge), the Medieval History Research Seminar (Cambridge), and
Wissen im Frühen Mittelalter (Göttingen). My thanks to all those involved,
organisers and attendees, alike. I must also express an enormous debt of grat-
itude to the anonymous reviewers selected by Brill for their insightful com-
ments and constructive feedback. All remaining errors are my own.
Numerous other institutions have been instrumental in making this research
possible, and foremost among them are the libraries which today hold the man-
uscripts analysed throughout the following chapters. My thanks to the staff
at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and
Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen for enabling me to work with their collections, and
especially to the entire team at the Stiftsbibliothek for facilitating my several
research stays and allowing me to reproduce images from multiple St. Galler
manuscripts. Likewise, I should like to thank Claus Kropp and Dr Hermann
Schefers for meeting with me in Lorsch (and later at the Books and Bones
workshop in Cambridge) to discuss the excavations at Lorsch and their oste-
ological collections as well as to permit me to use images of skeletal remains
from their collections. My sincere thanks, too, to Dr Erik Goosmann of Mappa
Mundi Cartography for creating the map seen in the opening pages. Finally,
I must also extend an enormous thank you to the team at Brill, including the
Nuncius Series’ editors, Professors Marco Beretta and Sven Dupré, as well as

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Acknowledgements xiii

Brill editors Rosanna Woensdregt, Simona Casadio, Alessandra Giliberto, and

Anita Opdam, for providing such a wonderful home for this book.
My last round of thanks goes to my friends and family, without whom none
of this would have been possible. I cannot begin to put my gratitude into words.
As a small token of my thanks, this book is dedicated to my biggest supporters
and greatest role models: my parents.

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Illustrations

Figures

1 
Potio ad podagra in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 759 (p. 60), a ninth-​
century manuscript with a collection of medical texts (https://​www​.e​-codi​
ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/csg​/0759​/60)​. © St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, licensed under cc
by-​n c 4.0. 4
2 
Antidotum podagricum in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 751 (p. 489), a
large compendium of medical texts produced in the ninth century (https:
//​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/csg​/0751​/489)​. © St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek,
licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0. 4
3 
Confectio timiame in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 44 (p. 247), an early
medieval composite manuscript, the second half of which contains medical
texts and was written in northern Italy in the ninth century (https://​www​.e​
-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/csg​/0044​/247)​. © St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, licensed
under cc by-​n c 4.0. 82
4 
Three incense recipes in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 899 (p. 137), a
poetry manuscript that also includes several sections of recipes (https://​www​
.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/csg​/0899​/137)​. © St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, licensed
under cc by-​n c 4.0. 90
5 
Two recipes in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 752 (p. 158), a manuscript
compilation with the Medicina Plinii, Gargilius Martialis’ Medicinae ex oleribus
et pomis, the Oxea et chronia passiones Yppocratis, Gallieni et Urani, etc. and
additional medical recipes, such as those pictured (https://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​
.ch​/de​/csg​/0752​/158)​. © St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, licensed under cc by-​n c
4.0. 106
6 
Infussio ad capud et ad colera in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 759
(p. 51), a ninth-​century manuscript with a collection of medical texts (https:
//​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/csg​/0759​/51)​. © St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek,
licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0. 135
7 
Ad glandolas siccandas in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 44 (p. 353),
an early medieval composite manuscript, the second half of which contains
medical texts and was written in northern Italy in the ninth century (https:
//​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/csg​/0044​/353)​. © St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek,
licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0. 137
8 
A skull from an individual buried in the monastic burial area at Lorsch.
© Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Hessen, licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0. 174

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Illustrations xv

9 Carious lesions visible on skeletal remains excavated at Lorsch. © Staatliche

Schlösser und Gärten Hessen, licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0. 174
10 
Dental calculus and deh visible on skeletal remains excavated at Lorsch.
© Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Hessen, licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0. 174
11 
A close-​up of carious lesions from skeletal remains excavated at Lorsch.
© Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Hessen, licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0. 180
12 
Evidence of calculus build-​up and a cyst seen on skeletal remains excavated at
Lorsch. © Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Hessen, licensed under cc by-​n c
4.0. 181
13 
Evidence of calculus deposits and an abscess on skeletal remains excavated at
Lorsch. © Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Hessen, licensed under cc by-​n c
4.0. 181
14 
Contrasting dental health visible in the skeletal remains excavated at Lorsch.
© Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Hessen, licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0. 182

Tables

1 Summary of manuscripts (including number of recipes in each

manuscript) 66
2 Incense recipes containing the ingredient cluster 88
3 Ingredients in incense recipes from cod. sang. 759 93
4 Newly introduced exotics outside of incense recipes 96
5 The appearance of beer as an ingredient (general) 118
6 The appearance of beer as an ingredient within the recipe sample under
analysis (ordered by %) 119
7 An overview of the appearance of the unit staupus 133
8 The treatises on weights and measures found within the manuscript
sample 140
9 Copies of De succedaneis liber found within the manuscript sample 146
10 
Categories of dental pathologies 188
11 
Specificity of dental pathologies 189
12 
Categories of dental pathologies with breakdown of specificity 190
13 
Specificity of dental pathologies with breakdown of categories 191
14 
Overview of the specificity of recipes that mention podagra 209
15 
Overview of the specificity of recipes for joint pain other than or in addition to
podagra 223
16 
Number and percentage of recipes for joint pain other than or in addition to
podagra presented by target area 224
17 
Recipes that target general joint afflictions by specificity 228

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xvi Illustrations

18 
Number and percentage of recipes for joint pain with references to neither
podagra nor general joint afflictions presented by specificity 231
19 
Recipes that mention fractures and traumatic injuries 245
20 
Categories and subcategories of highly specific recipes that name traumatic
injuries as the target of their treatment 247
21 
Breakdown of highly specific recipes that name a general type of traumatic
injury 248
22 
Breakdown of highly specific recipes that name a source/​cause of traumatic
injury 251

Maps

1 
This map highlights important intellectual centres in the Carolingian period
and shows the primary archaeological sites that feature in Part 2 xxii

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Abbreviations

amtl Ante-​mortem tooth loss

bav Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
bl British Library
BnF Bibliothèque nationale de France
btml Bibliographie des textes médicaux latins:
Antiquité et haut Moyen Âge
Sabbah, Corsetti, and Fischer, btml Guy Sabbah, Pierre-​Paul Corsetti, and Klaus-​
Dietrich Fischer, Bibliographie des textes médi-
caux latins: Antiquité et haut Moyen Âge (Saint-​
Étienne: Publications de l’Université de St.
Étienne, 1987)
Fischer, btml 1 Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, Bibliographie des textes
médicaux latins: Antiquité et haut Moyen Âge: pre-
mier supplement (Saint-​Étienne: Publications de
l’Université de St. Étienne, 2000)
Fischer, btml 2 Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, Bibliographie des textes
médicaux latins: Antiquité et haut Moyen Âge: sec-
ond supplement (Saint-​ Étienne: Bibliothèque
Interuniversitaire de Médecine, 2000), https:
// ​ w ww​. biusa ​ n te ​ . par ​ i sde ​ s car ​ tes​ . fr ​ / histo ​ i re
​/medic​ina​/docume​nts​/fisc​her​.php
Fischer, btml 3 Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, Bibliographie des textes
médicaux latins: Antiquité et haut Moyen Âge:
addendum 2002 (Saint-​ Étienne: Bibliothèque
Interuniversitaire de Médecine, 2002), https:
// ​ w ww​. biusa ​ n te ​ . par ​ i sde ​ s car ​ tes​ . fr ​ / histo ​ i re​
/medic​ina​/docume​nts​/fisc​her2​002​.php
cla Codices Latini antiquiores: a palaeographical
guide to Latin manuscripts prior to the ninth
century
cemlm Corpus of Early Medieval Latin Medicine
Cod. sang. Codex sangallensis
cmg Corpus Medicorum Graecorum
cml Corpus Medicorum Latinorum
deh Dental enamel hypoplasia
esf European Science Foundation
HSp Highly specific

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xviii Abbreviations

mgh Monumenta Germaniae Historica

Capit. Capitularia regum Francorum
Epp. kar. aevi Epistolae Karolini aevi
Formulae Formulae Merowingici et Karolini aevi
ll Leges (in folio)
Poet. Poetae Latini aevi Carolini
ss Scriptores (in folio)
ss rer. Germ. Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim
editi
ss rer. Germ. N. S. Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, Nova series
oa Osteoarthritis
önb Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
NSp Non-​specific
pg Patrologia Graeca
pl Patrologia Latina
pmtl Post-​mortem tooth loss
ra Rheumatoid arthritis
Settimane Settimane di Studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo
SSp Semi-​specific
ul University Library

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Note on Transcription and Translation

The following transcriptions and translations are my own unless otherwise

stated. When recipes are quoted in the text, I provide an edited version of the
relevant section of my transcription directly in the text or in the accompany-
ing footnote. Transcriptions of all the individual recipes to which I refer in the
text can be found in Appendix 2. For these transcriptions, I use the following
conventions:
–​ Script/​colour changes: I have indicated script and/​or colour changes (such
as titles) with bold text.
–​ Abbreviations: where I have supplied letters due to an abbreviation in the
manuscript, I have indicated this by underlining the letters I have added.
–​ Corrections/​insertions: I have used a back-​slash and forward-​slash to indi-
cate the corrected/​inserted material (i.e., \x/​).
–​ Deletions: I have used brackets to indicate material that has been deleted
(i.e., [x]‌).
–​ Accidental loss/​damage: I have used angle-​brackets to indicate the lost/​
damaged material (i.e., <…>), transcribing partially visible letters where
possible.

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Note on Weights, Measures, and Their Symbols

When recipes include information on weights and measures, I generally fol-

low the form given in the manuscript, whether that is recorded as a full word,
abbreviation, or symbol. Abbreviated forms are italicised in the transcriptions.
While there are many standard abbreviations and symbols (outlined below),
some can be challenging to interpret; where symbols are unclear or ambigu-
ous, I have recorded them as ‘(.)’. The symbols listed below are approximations
based on current Unicode characters. Finally, it must be remembered that
there is some degree of uncertainty and flexibility with respect to the precise
volumes and weights described by these metrological terms; while this is per-
haps obvious for certain measurements (e.g., one person’s manipulus, ‘handful’,
could be quite different from someone else’s), it should also be kept in mind for
the more technical vocabulary in use.
The abbreviations and symbols for weights and measures that appear in the
transcriptions are as follows:

Latin term Approximate English Common abbreviations

translation and symbols

calix cup cal

coclearium /​coclear spoon, spoonful cocl, coclr, etc.
denarius denarius (coin) denr, dir, dnr, dr, đa
drachma /​dragma drachma, dram drag, drg, z, ∠, ʒ
dimidium half dim
fasciculus bundle, bunch fascl, fasc, etc.
libra pound lib, lb, £
manipulus handful man, manp, manip, etc.;
rarely m
pondus pound (or ‘weight’ more pond, p
generally)
scripulus /​scrupulus scruple scrip, scrp, sc, ŏ,b ℈
semis and/​or semuncia half and/​or half ounce sem.un, s, ʃ, şc
sextarius sextarius (a liquid measure, s, ses, sex, ss, ƒƒ, ƒt, ℥
roughly half a litre)
solidus solidus (coin) sol
staupus cup stau
uncia ounce un, unc, ro,d ∻, ~, –​

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Note on Weights, Measures, and Their Symbols xxi

Notes:
a There is a potentially some ambiguity and/or overlap for the abbreviations and symbols used
to signify denarius and drachma.
b This is my approximation for one of the symbols that can represent a scruple; an image of
this symbol is also reproduced in Henry E. Sigerist, ‘Maße und Gewichte in den medizinis-
chen Texten des frühen Mittelalters’, Kyklos 3 (1930): 439–​44; see the table on pp. 442–​3.
c This is my approximation for a symbol that resembles an ‘s’ with an additional curved loop;
an image of this symbol is also reproduced in Sigerist, ‘Maße und Gewichte in den medizinis-
chen Texten des frühen Mittelalters’, 442–​3.
d This is my approximation for a symbol that looks like a minuscule ‘r’ or ‘s’ and ‘o’ joined
together; the symbol does not appear frequently, but is seen Appendix 2, entry 6.4.5; an image
of this symbol is also reproduced in Sigerist, ‘Maße und Gewichte in den medizinischen
Texten des frühen Mittelalters’, 442–​3.

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newgenprepdf

Map

map 1 
This map highlights important intellectual centres in the Carolingian period and
shows the primary archaeological sites that feature in Part 2
© mappa mundi cartography

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Introduction

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 ­c hapter 1

Practicality and Applicability

A Dual Approach to Carolingian Medical Knowledge and Practice

1 Introduction: The Case of Terenti(an)us

A potion for gout, which is called calapodia,

which I, Terentianus, received…1

So begins an entry within a collection of medical recipes found in an early

ninth-​century medical manuscript located in the Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen,
cod. sang. 759 (see Figure 1).2 This collection, covering roughly the second half
of the manuscript (pp. 58–​94), includes a vast range of material, from recipes
for scented ointments to treatments for blindness, skin conditions, and kidney
problems; the recipe in question presents a potion intended to alleviate the
agonising pains associated with gout. These opening lines appear to bring a
personal dimension to early medieval health and medicine. Terentianus’ auto-
biographical note illustrates the relationship between medical knowledge and
practice during this period: his written record not only plays a critical role in
the transmission of medical knowledge but testifies to his application of this
knowledge in the context of therapy.
An examination of a sample of eighth-​and ninth-​century manuscripts,
however, complicates this neat picture. Another early ninth-​century manu-
script also located in St Gall, cod. sang. 751, contains a nearly identical phrase
at the start of an antidote for gout: Antidotum podagricum quod dicitur calipo-
dium quod ego Terentius Eoticianus accepi (see Figure 2).3 There are intriguing
parallels between these two entries: both claim to treat gout, are from early

1 Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen, cod. sang. 759, p. 60: Potio ad podagra que dicitur calapodia quem
ego Terentianus accipi… Note: manuscripts held in St Gall are paginated not foliated. For a
transcription of the entire recipe, see Appendix 2, entry 11.8; on the textual evidence exam-
ined in this book, see Chapter 2. Although calopodium, καλοπόδιον, can mean ‘clog’, the word
recorded in the treatment, calapodium, is likely from κατάποτον, ‘pill’, and has undergone
some orthographic changes through the process of transmission.
2 On the identification of ‘medical manuscripts’ as a distinct genre, see Chapter 2; see also Meg
Leja, Embodying the Soul: Medicine and Religion in Carolingian Europe (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2022), 12–​13.
3 Cod. sang. 751, pp. 489–​90. For a transcription of the entire recipe, see Appendix 2, entry 9.38.

© Claire Burridge, 2024 | DOI:​1 0.1163/9789004466173_002

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4 Chapter 1

­f igure 1 
Potio ad podagra in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 759 (p. 60), a ninth-​
century manuscript with a collection of medical texts (https://​www​.e​-codi​
ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/csg​/0759​/60)
© st. gallen, stiftsbibliothek, licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0

ninth-​century medical manuscripts housed in St Gall, and were allegedly used

by someone with the name Terenti(an)us. These features demand a closer
look. Do the codicological contexts and histories of the two manuscripts indi-
cate that they were written by the same St Gall scribe, a certain Terenti(an)us?
Or is there evidence to suggest that these codices have different origins?
Palaeographical analysis supports the latter possibility: an investigation into
codd. sang. 751 and 759 indicates that the recipes in question were not written
by a single individual. First, it is unlikely that either manuscript originated in St
Gall, let alone in the same writing centre. According to Bernhard Bischoff, cod.
sang. 751 was probably written at a northern Italian site, whereas cod. sang. 759

­f igure 2 
Antidotum podagricum in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 751 (p. 489), a
large compendium of medical texts produced in the ninth century (https://​www​
.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/csg​/0751​/489)
© st. gallen, stiftsbibliothek, licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0

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Practicality and Applicability 5

was copied in Brittany (see the map for possible sites of manuscript production
in these regions).4 While the well-​documented movement of manuscripts and
individuals during this period does not rule out that a scribe such as the hypo-
thetical Terenti(an)us could have moved between multiple intellectual cen-
tres, the scripts employed in the two codices are entirely unlike one another,
indicating that different scribes were responsible for these compositions.5 As
seen in Figures 1 and 2, the Potio ad podagra of cod. sang. 759 is written in a pre-​
Caroline script with Insular influences, whereas the antidote in cod. sang. 751
is written in a regular, early Caroline hand. These features suggest that codd.
sang. 751 and 759 were composed in two different writing centres and by two
distinct scribes who copied similar, related recipes.
Indeed, the differences between the contexts in which these treatments are
situated—​two unique collections of recipes—​indicate that they are not based
on a single shared exemplar. The collection in cod. sang. 759 is immediately
preceded by a contents list on pp. 53–​8. While the list contains 446 entries,
many pages have been lost from the manuscript, such that only 199 of these
entries are extant. The Potio ad podagra, located on p. 60, is the seventeenth
entry. In contrast, the collection in cod. sang. 751 covers pp. 430–​96 and, accord-
ing to a list of recipe titles on pp. 424–​8, contains 319 entries. The Antidotum
podagricum, found on pp. 489–90, corresponds to entry 277. Although certain
individual entries in these collections share overlapping information, it is clear
that they represent distinct compilations of medical material.6
This example highlights some of the many challenges arising from an inves-
tigation into the practice of medicine and its relationship to recorded medical

4 Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (mit
Ausnahme der wisigotischen), 3 vols. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998–​2014), vol. 3, nos. 5844
and 5846.
5 Rosamond McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989). On the movement of early medieval manuscripts with medical texts
specifically, see Florence Eliza Glaze, ‘The Perforated Wall: The Ownership and Circulation
of Medical Books in Medieval Europe, ca. 800–​1200’ (PhD diss., Duke University, 1999), 73–​
5, 92–​8.
6 At least one additional example of a Terenti(an)us recipe survives: Ernest Wickersheimer
recorded another version of the recipe, in this case listed as Potio ad podagram quae dicitur
calapodia quem ego Terrentianus accepi, in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France (hereafter
BnF) lat. 11219. While a selection of recipes in this manuscript are also analysed in the present
book, its version of the Terenti(an)us recipe is located within a section of the manuscript
that does not form part of the textual sample under consideration; see Chapter 2 for further
details. Ernest Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits latins de médecine du haut Moyen Âge dans
les bibliothèques de France (Paris: Éditions du Centre national de la Recherche scientifique,
1966), no. 77.

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6 Chapter 1

knowledge in the early Middle Ages. At first glance, Terenti(an)us’ seemingly

personalised note might have appeared to provide a window into the use of
medical texts circulating during the Carolingian period, offering direct evi-
dence for the application of the medical knowledge contained within these
writings. Yet, as this case demonstrates, an analysis of individual examples
in isolation can easily lead to false conclusions. Since it remains unclear who
Terenti(an)us was and when he was writing (or even if he existed), his com-
mentary does not necessarily provide evidence of medical practice during the
Carolingian period.
So, what do these recipes tell us? While they can shed light on certain
aspects of the medical knowledge circulating in ninth-​century Francia, they
also indicate a) the dangers of drawing conclusions based on a limited textual
sample and reading texts in isolation, and b) the challenge of trying to under-
stand the relationship between medical knowledge and practice in this period.
The present book seeks to address both issues. First, this study is grounded in
a large and diverse sample of written material: over 5000 newly transcribed
and analysed recipes.7 These recipes are found outside of more established
textual traditions (i.e., pharmaceutical writings known from (late) Antiquity)

7 Note: three recipe collections included in this study, all located in cod. sang. 44, were tran-
scribed and published in the early twentieth century (see Studien und Texte zur frühmit-
telalterlichen Rezeptliteratur, ed. Henry E. Sigerist (Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1923),
78–​99; Frühmittelalterliche Rezeptarien, ed. Julius Jörimann (Zurich: Orell Füssli, 1925), 37–​
61), while Peter Köpp has published a transcription and translation of a recipe collection
I have included from cod. sang. 217 (Vademecum eines frühmittelalterlichen Arztes: Die gefal-
tete lateinische Handschrift medizinischen Inhalts im Codex 217 und der Fragmentensammlung
1396 der Stiftsbibliothek in St. Gallen, ed. and trans. Peter Köpp (Aarau: Sauerländer, 1980)).
I have produced new, revised transcriptions in all cases. More recently, material on one folio
(p. 392) within a recipe collection in cod. sang. 751 included in this study was published
by Rocío Martínez Prieto (Rocío Martínez Prieto, ‘A Short Approach to the Analysis of the
Textual Tradition of an Extract about Phytotherapy from the Codex Sangallensis 751’, in ii
Jornadas Predoctorales en Estudios de la Antigüedad y de la Edad Media. Κτῆμα ἐς αἰεὶ: el texto
como herramienta común para estudiar el pasado: Proceedings of the Second Postgraduate
Conference in Studies of Antiquity and Middle Ages, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 19–​
21st November 2014, ed. Núria Olaya Montero, Manuel Montoza Coca, Alba Aguilera Felipe,
and Roser Gómez Guiu (Oxford: bar, 2015), 115–​19) and an entire collection in bav pal. lat.
1088 was published by Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez after I completed my transcription and
analysis of this material (see Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez, ‘Un recetario médico altomedieval
(Città del Vaticano, bav, Pal. lat. 1088, ff. 50r-​66r): ensayo de edición crítica’, in ‘Cui tali cura
vel remedio subvenitur’: De animales y enfermedades en la Edad Media europea, ed. Gerardo
Pérez Barcala (Avellino: Edizioni Sinestesie, 2019), 41–​80), so these recipes are still included
in the present study. In sum, all analyses of the textual selection delineated in Chapter 2 are
based on my own transcriptions; see Appendix 2 for specific examples of recipes cited in
the text.

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Practicality and Applicability 7

and, consequently, have often been described as ‘miscellaneous’ collections of

recipes or as compilations of brief extracts, assorted recipes, and additional
material.8 That is, while some individual recipes or short sections of text found
in these collections are associated with specific sources, the collections as a
whole are not derived from a single earlier tradition. Given that past scholar-
ship has tended to focus on the reception and dissemination of classical med-
ical writings (as discussed below), the recipes analysed in this book were often
overlooked by earlier generations of philologists and historians. Secondly, by
combining investigations into the practicality and applicability of this recipe
literature, drawing on both textual and osteological evidence, this book casts
fresh light on the relationship between medical knowledge and practice. The
integration of multiple bodies of evidence in concert with the focus on under-
studied recipe literature offers new perspectives on medicine in the early
Middle Ages, situating the study of early medieval medical texts within the
world in which they were produced and read.
Building on the Terenti(an)us example, this opening chapter reviews the
existing scholarship on early medieval medicine, explaining the rationale for
analysing both the practicality and applicability of the treatments recorded in
eighth-​and ninth-​century manuscripts as well as the significance of setting
this work within the long ninth century.

2 Definitions

At the outset, it is essential to define the two key concepts of practicality and
applicability that underpin this book. The ‘practicality’ of recipes considers
whether the medical knowledge they present was practical with respect to both
intention and use in the context of therapy. To evaluate a recipe’s intention or
design, we can ask: does the text contain user-​friendly features suggesting that
it was intended to be consulted for therapeutic purposes? It might be possible
to identify, for example, changes in terminology reflecting adaptations made
to accommodate individuals from different linguistic backgrounds. To assess
a recipe’s potential useability in the context of treatment, it is important to
consider whether recipes rely on ingredients that could have been obtained in

8 For catalogue descriptions of ‘miscellaneous’ medical material, see Augusto Beccaria, I

codici di medicina del periodo presalernitano (secoli ix, x e xi) (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e
Letteratura, 1956) and Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits. See Chapter 2 for a more detailed dis-
cussion of recipe literature and the specific recipes under consideration in this book.

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8 Chapter 1

the Carolingian world. That is, would it have been possible to put the recorded
knowledge into practice?
The question of applicability, on the other hand, relates to the health needs
of individuals during this period. Are the conditions and symptoms described
by the texts reflected in the osteological evidence? In other words, did people
in early medieval Europe suffer from any of the ailments which the recipes
claim to treat? While limitations of both textual and skeletal evidence—​as well
as the challenges posed by bringing together these two bodies of evidence—​
complicate this question, it remains possible to investigate the applicability of
recipes. By taking account of these limitations and challenges from the start,
pursuing carefully selected case studies, and adopting a cautious approach
to data analysis and interpretation, we can productively reassess the written
record within the framework established by the osteological evidence.

3 Foundations

To explain the significance of this book’s aims and evidence base, it is neces-
sary to situate its focus on the questions of practicality and applicability in
relation to previous scholarship. Philological approaches to medical texts have
long formed the backbone of the study of early medieval medicine and remain
vitally important to the field. In addition to reflecting the continuing influence
of philological studies, the dual approach pursued over the following chapters
builds on and responds to a) the ways in which perceptions of and investiga-
tions into early medieval medicine dramatically shifted over the course of the
twentieth century, and b) more recent research directions and methodologies
in the histories of health and medicine.

3.1 A Philological Underpinning

Across many areas of study relating to the ancient and medieval past, philol-
ogists have been the pathbreakers: they have been the first scholars to iden-
tify and investigate the relevant texts, explore their relationships, and make
their content more accessible through the publication of critical editions and
commentaries.9 This is certainly the case for late antique and early medieval
medicine, though its current relationship with philological studies differs from
many subfields of premodern history. Broadly speaking, the nineteenth and

9 On the development of textual criticism, see Sebastiano Timpanaro, The Genesis of

Lachmann’s Method, trans. Glenn W. Most (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

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Practicality and Applicability 9

early twentieth centuries can be seen as a heyday of philologically-​centred

research; consider, for example, major undertakings such as the Monumenta
Germaniae Historica, the Rolls Series, or the Patrologia Latina and Patrologia
Graeca that have provided the essential foundations on which modern his-
torical research continues to build.10 While medieval medical writings were
studied and published during this period, they received comparatively less
attention than the written record of other subfields of medieval history, such
as legal texts, patristics, history writing, literature, hagiography, and so on.11
As a result, the work of transcribing, editing, and translating medical texts
remains fundamental to the study of early medieval medicine, and disentan-
gling the relationships between classical, late antique, and early medieval tra-
ditions continues to hold a central place. Recent decades have witnessed an
efflorescence of research in this area, with scholars such as Arsenio Ferraces
Rodríguez, Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, David R. Langslow, Brigitte Maire, María
Teresa Santamaría Hernández, and Manuel Enrique Vázquez Buján, among
others, producing many much-​needed critical editions and commentaries
while simultaneously exploring the transmission of (late) ancient texts in the
early Middle Ages through rigorous philological studies.12

10 Justin Lake, ‘Current Approaches to Medieval Historiography’, History Compass 13,

no. 3 (2015): 89–​109, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1111​/hic3​.12222, see especially pp. 89–​90. On the
mgh, see David Knowles, Great Historical Enterprises. Problems in Monastic History
(London: Nelson, 1963), 66–​97; on the Rolls Series, or Chronicles and Memorials of Great
Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, see M. D. Knowles, ‘Presidential Address: Great
Historical Enterprises iv. The Rolls Series’. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 11
(1961): 137–​59 (note: this is reprinted in Knowles, Great Historical Enterprises, 99–​134); and
on Jacques Paul Migne and his Patrologiae cursus completus, see R. Howard Bloch, God’s
Plagiarist: Being an Account of the Fabulous Industry and Irregular Commerce of the Abbé
Migne (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994).
11 Modern editorial and translation projects continue to play an important role in these
areas (e.g., the Corpus Christianorum is working to replace the less reliable editions of
the Patrologia Latina, and the mgh remains highly active), but they are less prominent
than in past generations of scholarship. In contrast, as Vivian Nutton highlights, some
of the early editorial enterprises that focused on medical writings, such as Karl Gottlob
Kühn’s monumental twenty-​volume edition of Galenic works, were medical in purpose
rather than philological; see Vivian Nutton, Galen: A Thinking Doctor in Imperial Rome
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2020) and Galen, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, ed. K. G. Kühn,
20 vols. (Leipzig: Carl Cnobloch, 1821–​33). However, other projects, including the still
active Corpus Medicorum Graecorum and Corpus Medicorum Latinorum series, have
always focused on philological research.
12 While it is impossible to do justice to these scholars’ extensive outputs in a single
footnote, significant contributions in recent years include Ars medicinalis de animal-
ibus: Estudio introductorio, edición crítica y traducción, ed. and trans. Arsenio Ferraces
Rodríguez (Santiago de Compostela: Andavira Editora, 2016); Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez,

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10  Chapter 1

Yet, paradoxically, as Faith Wallis has noted, the emphasis on producing edi-
tions of texts appears to have slowed the development of a broader early medi-
eval medical history due to the ways in which creating editions can generate

ed., Tradición griega y textos médicos latinos en el período presalernitano: actas del viii
Coloquio Internacional “Textos Médicos Latinos Antiguos” (A Coruña, 2–​4 septiembre
2004) (La Coruña: Servizio de Publicacións, Universidade da Coruña, 2007), includ-
ing chapters from Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez, Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, María Teresa
Santamaría Hernández, and Manuel Enrique Vázquez Buján; Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, ‘A
Most Sovereign Herb: Pseudo-​Antonius Musa on Betony’, Cuadernos de Filología Clásica.
Estudios griegos e indoeuropeos 30 (2020): 131–​48, https://​doi​.org​/10​.5209​/cfcg​.68480;
Klaus-​ Dietrich Fischer, ‘Die vorsalernitanischen lateinischen Galenübersetzungen’,
Medicina nei secoli 25, no. 3 (2013); 673–​714; Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, ‘Unbekannter und
seltener Wortschatz in den Pseudosoranischen Quaestiones medicinales’, Voces 23–​24
(2012–​13): 29–​74; Alexander of Tralles, Alexandri Tralliani Latini Liber tertius: De febribus
singulis. Introduction, Edition, Translation, Notes, Indices, ed. and trans. David R. Langslow
(Santiago de Compostela: Andavira Editora, 2020); David Langslow and Brigitte Maire,
eds., Body, Disease and Treatment in a Changing World: Latin Texts and Contexts in
Ancient and Medieval Medicine. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference
“Ancient Latin Medical Texts”, Hulme Hall, University of Manchester, 5–​8 September 2007
(Lausanne: Éditions bhms, 2010), including chapters from Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez,
Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, Brigitte Maire, and Manuel Enrique Vázquez Buján; Caelius
Aurelianus, Caelii Aureliani operum omnium quae exstant Concordantiae, ed. Brigitte
Maire and Olivier Bianchi, 4 vols. (Hildesheim: Olms-​Weidmann, 2003); Cassius Felix,
Cassii Felicis libri de medicina Concordantiae: Accedunt numeri, voces Graecae Graecis
Latinisque litteris scriptae, index nominum notabiliorum, index frequentiae decrescen-
tis formarum, ed. Brigitte Maire and Anne Fraisse (Hildesheim: Olms-​ Weidmann,
2003); María Teresa Santamaría Hernández, Estudios sobre Galeno Latino y sus fuentes
(Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-​La Mancha, 2021); and Manuel Enrique
Vázquez Buján, ed., Tradición e Innovación de la Medicina Latina de la Antigüedad y de
la Alta Edad Media: Actas del iv Coloquio Internacional sobre los “textos médicos latinos
antiguos” (Santiago de Compostela: Servicio de Publicacións e Intercambio Científico da
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 1994), including chapters from Arsenio Ferraces
Rodríguez, Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, David R. Langslow, Brigitte Maire, and María Teresa
Santamaría Hernández. For lists of editions, translations, commentaries, and lexicograph-
ical studies Guy Sabbah, Pierre-​Paul Corsetti, and Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, Bibliographie
des textes médicaux latins: Antiquité et haut Moyen Âge (Saint-​Étienne: Publications de
l’Université de St. Étienne, 1987); Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, Bibliographie des textes médicaux
latins. Antiquité et haut Moyen Âge: premier supplement (Saint-​Étienne: Publications de
l’Université de St. Étienne, 2000); Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, Bibliographie des textes médi-
caux latins: Antiquité et haut Moyen Âge: second supplement (Saint-​Étienne: Bibliothèque
Interuniversitaire de Médecine, 2000), https://​www​.biusa​nte​.par​isde​scar​tes​.fr​/histo​
ire​/medic​ina​/docume​nts​/fisc​her​.php; and Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, Bibliographie des textes
médicaux latins. Antiquité et haut Moyen Âge: addendum 2002 (Saint-​Étienne: Bibliothèque
Interuniversitaire de Médecine, 2002), https://​www​.biusa​nte​.par​isde​scar​tes​.fr​/histo​
ire​/medic​ina​/docume​nts​/fisc​her2​002​.php​.

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Practicality and Applicability 11

and reinforce assumptions about the texts themselves.13 The idea that texts are
stable constructs that maintain ‘a specific and definitive form from manuscript
to manuscript’, for example, or that ‘there is a single author whose intentions
the editor can intuit’ are problematic suppositions given the complexity, diver-
sity, and dynamism of early medieval medical literature.14 Moreover, editions
tend to focus on tracing a single source or family of texts, isolating the selected
material from its wider context, such as the other writings with which it was
transmitted.15 While editorial projects are crucial for understanding individual
texts, their relationships, and their linguistic evolution, it is important to build
on these studies by a) pursuing complementary types of research that take into
account the issues raised by Wallis, and b) expanding the research framework
to engage with broader questions of intellectual, social, and cultural history.16
By reading a text in isolation and without a full consideration of its manuscript
context, intended audience(s) and purpose(s), and use over time, we can lose
sight of how scribes and readers engaged with a manuscript and its contents
and the ways in which the knowledge it transmits was perceived.17 Ultimately,
as Anna Grotans, Julian Hendrix, and Bernice Kaczynski highlight, while edi-
tions remain invaluable tools, they are not ‘amenable’ to all types of research

13 Faith Wallis, ‘The Experience of the Book: Manuscripts, Texts, and the Role of Epistemology
in Early Medieval Medicine’, in Knowledge and the Scholarly Medical Traditions, ed. Don
G. Bates (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 101–​26, at p. 102.
14 Wallis, ‘The Experience of the Book’, 102.
15 Eric Knibbs, ‘How to Use Modern Critical Editions of Medieval Latin Texts’. History
Compass 5, no. 5 (2007): 1521–​49, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1111​/j​.1478​-0542​.2007​.00452​.x​. See
also Sabbah, Corsetti, and Fischer, btml; Fischer, btml 1; Fischer, btml 2; and Fischer,
btml 3.
16 Wallis, ‘The Experience of the Book’, 102; Monica H. Green, ‘Moving from Philology to
Social History: The Circulation and Uses of Albucasis’s Latin Surgery in the Middle Ages’,
in Between Text and Patient: The Medical Enterprise in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,
ed. Florence Eliza Glaze and Brian K. Nance (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo,
2011), 331–​72.
17 Indeed, a drive to centre manuscripts—​which has surely been augmented by the increas-
ing number of libraries and archives that are digitising and making their manuscript col-
lections freely available online—​can be felt across many subfields within early medieval
history. See, for example, Carine van Rhijn, Leading the Way to Heaven: Pastoral Care and
Salvation in the Carolingian Period (London: Routledge, 2022); Monique Goullet, Martin
Heinzelmann, and Christiane Veyrard-​Cosme, eds., L’hagiographie mérovingienne à travers
ses réécritures (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2010); Alice Rio, Legal Practice and the Written Word
in the Early Middle Ages: Frankish Formulae, 500–​1000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2009); and Rosamond McKitterick, History and Memory in the Carolingian World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). On the impact of digitisation projects,
see, for example, Benjamin Albritton, Georgia Henley, and Elaine Treharne, eds., Medieval
Manuscripts in the Digital Age (London: Routledge, 2021).

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12  Chapter 1

questions, including those regarding the presentation of material on the page

or the interpretation of the signs of how a manuscript was used or a text was
read and/​or adapted over time.18
Related to the emphasis on philological research within the traditional
approach to the study of early medieval medicine, there has been an under-
standable prioritisation of those writings that can be linked to a known clas-
sical or late antique tradition.19 Consequently, medical writings with clearer
(late) ancient pedigrees have typically received more focus than the many so-​
called ‘miscellaneous’ medical writings and compendia that draw on combi-
nations of sources, though there are a number of important early exceptions,
such as the early medieval recipe collections published by Henry Sigerist and
Julius Jörimann in the 1920s.20 The field’s interests, however, have shifted and
expanded over time, such that many studies in recent decades are now focus-
ing on precisely the type of material that was overlooked in the past. Much of
the recent work by scholars such as Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez and Klaus-​
Dietrich Fischer has recalibrated and enriched our understanding of the
composition of early medieval compilations, tracing the links between recipe
collections, extracts, or even individual recipes that appear across a range of
manuscripts. Their research emphasises the degree to which (late) ancient
medical knowledge underpinned the so-​called ‘miscellaneous’ and previously

18 Anna Grotans, Julian Hendrix, and Bernice Kaczynski. ‘Understanding Medieval

Manuscripts: St. Gall’s Virtual Library’. History Compass 7, no. 3 (2009): 955–​80, https:
//​doi​.org​/10​.1111​/j​.1478​-0542​.2009​.00603​.x, at p. 955–​6.
19 For editions and the categorisation of texts, see Sabbah, Corsetti, and Fischer, btml;
Fischer, btml 1; Fischer, btml 2; and Fischer, btml 3 as well as Beccaria, I codici and
Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits.
20 On the emphasis on classical and late antique medical writings in earlier research, see, for
example, the publications of the cml, including Celsus, A. Cornelii Celsii quae supersunt,
ed. Friedrich Marx, cml 1 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1915); Quintus Serenus, Liber medicinalis, ed.
F. Vollmer, cml 2 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1916); Plinii Secundi Iunioris qui feruntur De medicina
libri tres, ed. Alf Önnerfors, cml 3 (Berlin: Akademie-​Verlag, 1964); Antonii Musae De
herba vettonica liber. Pseudoapulei Herbarius. Anonymi De taxone liber. Sextii Placiti Liber
medicinae ex animalibus etc., ed. Ernst Howald and Henry E. Sigerist, cml 4 (Leipzig;
Teubner, 1927); Marcellus, De medicamentis liber, ed. Eduard Liechtenhan and Maximilian
Niedermann, trans. Jutta Kollesch and Diethard Nickel, cml 5, 2 vols. (Berlin: Akademie-​
Verlag, 1968); Caelius Aurelianus, Celerum Passionum Libri iii. Tardarum Passionum Libri
v, ed. Gerhard Bendz, trans. Ingeborg Pape, cml 6, 2 vols. (Berlin: Akademie-​Verlag,
1990–​93); and Anthimus, De observatione ciborum ad Theodoricum regem Francorum
epistula, ed. and trans. Eduard Liechtenhan, cml 8 (Berlin: Akademie-​Verlag, 1963). On
early exceptions, see Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist; Frühmittelalterliche Rezeptarien, ed.
Jörimann.

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Practicality and Applicability 13

unidentified material.21 At the same time, more work has turned to individual
manuscripts: Ulrich Stoll, for example, published an edition and translation
of the Lorscher Arzneibuch, while Peter Köpp and Monica Niederer have each
produced studies of distinct recipe collections in cod. sang. 217 (with the for-
mer including related fragments in cod. sang. 1396).22
By concentrating on material found outside the established corpus, such as
recipes in anonymous collections that appear to have been compiled in the
early Middle Ages as well as individual recipes added to manuscripts during
this period, this book builds on and contributes to these studies, continuing to
broaden the current discourse on early medieval recipe literature. These reci-
pes and their contexts will be discussed in Chapter 2 (and see Appendix 1 for a
more detailed review of the specific manuscripts involved in this study).

3.2 Histories of Early Medieval Medicine: From Negative Stereotypes to

Revisionist Approaches
Scholars of the early Middle Ages have been relatively slow to turn to the his-
tory of medicine: Loren MacKinney’s Early Medieval Medicine, With Special
Reference to France and Chartres, now over eighty years old, remains the only
general monograph on the topic, and discussions of health and medicine
have rarely featured in more general studies of the period.23 As Meg Leja has

21 Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez, ‘Reutilización de fuentes en recetarios médicos de la antigüe-

dad tardía: Teodoro Prisciano-​Teraupetica-​Tereoperica’, Acta Classica: Proceedings of the
Classical Association of South Africa 64, no. 1 (2021): 212–​36; Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez,
‘El recetario Ut pili evulsi non recrescant (Paris, bnf, Lat. 13955, ff. 146r-​147v)’, Galenos 5
(2011): 71–​90; Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, ‘Two Latin Pre-​Salernitan medical manuals, the
Liber passionalis and the Tereoperica (Ps. Petroncellus)’, in Medical Books in the Byzantine
World, ed. Barbara Zipser (Bologna: Università di Bologna, 2013), 35–​56; and Klaus-​
Dietrich Fischer, ‘Antidotum cui nomen est acharistum’, in Between Text and Patient: The
Medical Enterprise in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Florence Eliza Glaze and
Brian K. Nance (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2011), 173–​99.
22 Das ‘Lorscher Arzneibuch’: Ein medizinisches Kompendium des 8. Jahrhunderts (Codex
Bambergensis medicinalis 1): Text, Übersetzung und Fachglossar, ed. and trans. Ulrich
Stoll (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1992); Vademecum eines frühmittelalterlichen Arztes, ed.
and trans. Köpp; and Der St. Galler Botanicus: Ein frühmittelalterliches Herbar: Kritische
Edition, Übersetzung und Kommentar, ed. and trans. Monica Niederer (Bern: Peter
Lang, 2005).
23 Loren C. MacKinney, Early Medieval Medicine, With Special Reference to France and
Chartres (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1937). For overviews of Carolingian history
and culture, and the conspicuous absence of health and medicine from these works, see,
for example, Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, and Simon MacLean, The Carolingian
World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Rosamond McKitterick, ed., The
New Cambridge Medieval History ii, c. 700-​c. 900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1995); Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians,

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14  Chapter 1

suggested, perhaps Einhard’s claim that Charlemagne did not listen to his phy-
sicians has coloured modern historians’ approach to this area: ‘scholars have
followed Einhard’s lead—​unconsciously or not—​in discounting medicine as
an important aspect of the Carolingian renaissance’.24 Regardless of Einhard’s
influence, however, the realm of medicine has traditionally been seen as a field
comparatively unaffected by the Carolingian focus on learning and writing.
Although the copying of classical and late antique medical texts during this
period may seem to fit with the more general Carolingian interest in studying
writings from Antiquity, it has been shown that few of these medical texts were
actually rediscovered at this time.25 The surviving written record has thus been
interpreted as continuing late antique trends rather than marking a new phase
in relation to Carolingian cultural and intellectual developments. As a result,
the primary medical achievement of this period has often been characterised
as an increase in the production of manuscripts containing medical content
rather than as an increase in the production of new medical material.26
If early medievalists have, by and large, begun to engage with medical his-
tory only in relatively recent years (as discussed below), earlier generations
of historians of medicine often dismissed the early Middle Ages entirely. The
now outdated, though still influential, teleological approach to medical history
understood medicine to be on a path of inevitable progress from Antiquity to
the present day, excepting a period of stagnation coinciding with the ‘Dark
Ages’.27 These centuries—​the millennium or so between the heights of classi-
cal learning and the reintroduction of Greek medical knowledge in the central

751–​987 (London: Longman, 1983); and Joanna Story, ed., Charlemagne: Empire and Society
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005). Michael McCormick’s contribution to
The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Early Medieval Studies is a notable
exception: Michael McCormick, ‘Molecular Middle Ages: Early Medieval Economic History
in the Twenty-​First Century’, in The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in
Early Medieval Studies, ed. Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2008), 83–​97.
24 Meg Leja, ‘The Sacred Art: Medicine in the Carolingian Renaissance’, Viator 47, no. 2
(2016): 1–​34, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1484​/J​.VIA​TOR​.5​.111​224; see especially pp. 1–​2.
25 Vivian Nutton, ‘Early Medieval Medicine and Natural Science’, in The Cambridge
History of Science 2: Medieval Science, ed. David C. Lindberg and Michael H. Shank
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 323–​40, at p. 336.
26 MacKinney, Early Medieval Medicine, 99; Peregrine Horden, ‘What’s Wrong with Early
Medieval Medicine?’ Social History of Medicine 24, no. 1 (2011): 5–​25, https://​doi​.org​/10​
.1093​/shm​/hkp​052, at p. 17. For a reassessment of medicine’s place in the Carolingian
world, see Leja, Embodying the Soul.
27 See, for example, the general assessments of late antique medicine in Vivian Nutton,
‘From Galen to Alexander, Aspects of Medicine and Medical Practice in Late Antiquity’,
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 38 (1984): 1–​14, https://​doi​.org​/10​.2307​/1291​489, and for a more

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Practicality and Applicability 15

and later Middle Ages thanks to the translation of Arabic texts—​have been
described as a ‘refrigerator, in which the medical knowledge of antiquity [was]
merely preserved’.28 Early medieval medicine, therefore, was largely ignored
(or even ridiculed) by numerous earlier scholars.29 Accordingly, it remains less
well established than many other comparable subfields in both Carolingian
history and medical history.30
Already in the early twentieth century, however, a handful of researchers,
including Henry Sigerist and Loren MacKinney, bucked the general trends and
took seriously the study of early medieval medicine.31 Although their landmark

recent assessment, Vivian Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 2nd ed. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013),
299–​317.
28 Peter van Minnen, ‘Medical care in late antiquity’, in Ancient Medicine in Its Socio-​Cultural
Context, Volume 1: Papers Read at the Congress Held at Leiden University, 13–​15 April 1992,
ed. H. F. J. Horstmanshoff, Philip J. van der Eijk, and P. H. Schrijvers (Amsterdam: Rodopi,
1995), 153–​169, at p. 153.
29 While many earlier historians may have viewed medieval medical writings simply as wit-
nesses to the blind copying of older sources, others went further, comparing early medie-
val pharmacy to the potion produced by the witches in Macbeth and even labelling some
material as ‘absurd and childish’; Charles Singer, ‘A Review of the Medical Literature of
the Dark Ages, with a New Text of about 1110’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine
10 (1917): 107–​60, see especially pp. 158–​60. Similar views are espoused in J. H. G. Grattan
and Charles Singer, Anglo-​Saxon Magic and Medicine: Illustrated Specially from the Semi-​
Pagan Text Lacnunga (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952). On the development of
these perceptions, see Medieval Herbal Remedies: The Old English Herbarium and Anglo-​
Saxon Medicine, trans. Anne Van Arsdall (New York: Routledge, 2002), 35–​100.
30 On general Carolingian histories, see n. 23 above. For an overview of western medical
history, and the relatively limited space given to early medieval medicine, see Lawrence
I. Conrad, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton, Roy Porter, and Andrew Wear, The Western
Medical Tradition: 800 bc to ad 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). For
medicine in the ancient world, see especially Nutton, Ancient Medicine; and for later
medieval medicine, see, for example, Nancy G. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance
Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago, University of Chicago
Press, 1990); Monica H. Green, ‘Bodies, Gender, Health, Disease: Recent Work on Medieval
Women’s Medicine’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 3 (2005): 1–​46; Michael
R. McVaugh, Medicine before the Plague: Practitioners and their Patients in the Crown of
Aragon, 1285–​1345 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Michael McVaugh, The
Rational Surgery of the Middle Ages (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2006); and
Piers D. Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades: Warfare, Wounds and the Medieval Surgeon
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). These titles offer only a fraction of the
available scholarship on these topics.
31 See, for example, MacKinney, Early Medieval Medicine; Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist;
Henry E. Sigerist, ‘A Summer of Research in European Libraries’, Bulletin of the Institute
of the History of Medicine 2, no. 10 (1934): 559–​610; Henry E. Sigerist, ‘The Latin Medical
Literature of the Early Middle Ages’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
13, no. 2 (1958): 127–​45.

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16  Chapter 1

studies remain valuable today, they still perpetuated many of the prevailing
ideas about medical knowledge and practice during this period, such as its
perceived backwardness and superstitious nature. Consider how, on the one
hand, Sigerist’s opening remarks in Studien und Texte zur frühmittelalterlichen
Rezeptliteratur assumed medicine’s stagnation in the ‘Dark Ages’ while, on the
other hand, his concluding analyses recognized the production of new, origi-
nal compilations that reflected the needs and conditions of the communities
in which they were produced.32 Negative stereotypes of medieval medicine
may persist in popular culture but, thanks to these pioneering scholars, more
researchers began to question these assumptions.33
Expanding from this foundation, the study of early medieval medicine
experienced a significant swing of the historiographical pendulum in the sec-
ond half of the twentieth century. Led by historians such as John M. Riddle,
Jerry Stannard, and Linda Ehrsam Voigts, a wave of revisionist scholarship rad-
ically altered the field, and especially with respect to topics concerning the
relationship between medical knowledge and practice.34 Although Riddle and
Stannard concentrated on continental material, much of the research into
the practicality of medical texts has been rooted in the study of Old English
recipe literature.35 Voigts’s 1979 article, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Remedies and the
Anglo-​Saxons’, for example, provided one of the first in-​depth reassessments of
early English herbal medicine and contends that texts such as the Old English

32 Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist, iii-​v and 182–​95.

33 On medieval medicine and popular culture, see Lucy Barnhouse and Winston Black,
eds., Beyond Cadfael: Medieval Medicine and Medical Medievalism (Budapest: Trivent
Publishing, 2023).
34 See, for example, John M. Riddle, ‘The Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugs in the Early
Middle Ages’, Sudhoffs Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften 49,
no. 2 (1965): 185–​98; John M. Riddle, ‘Theory and Practice in Medieval Medicine’. Viator
5 (1974): 157–​84, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1484​/J​.VIA​TOR​.2​.301​620; John M. Riddle, ‘Pseudo-​
Dioscorides’ Ex herbis femininis and Early Medieval Medical Botany’, Journal of the History
of Biology 14, no. 1 (1981): 43–​81; Jerry Stannard, ‘The Herbal as a Medical Document’,
Bulletin of the History of Medicine’ 43, no. 3 (1969): 212–​20; Jerry Stannard, ‘Marcellus
of Bordeaux and the Beginnings of Medieval Materia Medica’, Pharmacy in History 15,
no. 2 (1973): 47–​53; Linda Ehrsam Voigts, ‘The Significance of the Name Apuleius to the
Herbarium Apulei’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 52, no. 2 (1978): 214–​27; and Linda
E. Voigts, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Remedies and the Anglo-​Saxons’, Isis 70, no. 2 (1979): 250–​68.
For collections of Riddle’s and Stannard’s groundbreaking articles, see John M. Riddle,
Quid pro quo: Studies in the History of Drugs (Aldershot: Variorum, 1992); Jerry Stannard,
Pristina Medicamenta: Ancient and Medieval Medical Botany (Aldershot: Ashgate,
1999); and Jerry Stannard, Herbs and Herbalism in the Middle Ages and Renaissance
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999).
35 Horden, ‘What’s Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?’, 6.

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Practicality and Applicability 17

Herbarium could have been used in practice.36 While arguments for the practi-
cality of early medieval recipes will be reviewed in more detail below, Voigts’s
analysis, alongside Riddle’s work on the evolving relationship between medi-
cal theory and practice, has proved pivotal. In particular, Malcolm L. Cameron,
Anne Van Arsdall, Maria Amalia D’Aronco, and Audrey Meaney, among oth-
ers, have built on Voigts’s arguments by exploring the transmission of medical
information, the processes involved in translating knowledge into practice, the
allegedly ‘magical’ or ‘superstitious’ elements within recipes, as well as their
potential efficacy.37
Although this significant body of scholarship has provided great insights into
early medieval medicine whilst simultaneously overturning the traditional,

36 Voigts, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Remedies’. On medieval herbals more generally, see Minta
Collins, Medieval Herbals: The Illustrative Traditions (London: British Library, 2000) and
on the Old English Herbarium, see Maria Amalia D’Aronco and Malcolm L. Cameron, The
Old English Illustrated Pharmacopoeia (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1998) and
Medieval Herbal Remedies, trans. Van Arsdall.
37 M. L. Cameron, Anglo-​Saxon Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993);
M. L. Cameron, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Medicine and Magic’, Anglo-​Saxon England 17 (1988): 191–​
215; Anne Van Arsdall, ‘Challenging the “Eye of Newt” Image of Medieval Medicine’, in The
Medieval Hospital and Medical Practice, ed. Barbara Bowers (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007),
195–​205; Anne Van Arsdall, ‘The Transmission of Knowledge in Early Medieval Medical
Texts: An Exploration’, in Between Text and Patient: The Medical Enterprise in Medieval
and Early Modern Europe, ed. Florence Eliza Glaze and Brian K. Nance (Florence: sismel
Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2011), 201–​15; Maria Amalia D’Aronco, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Pharmacy
and the Latin Medical Tradition’, in From Earth to Art: The Many Aspects of the Plant-​
World in Anglo-​Saxon England. Proceedings of the First aspns Symposium, University of
Glasgow, 5–​7 April 2000, ed. C. P. Biggam (Amsterdam: Rodopi: 2003), 133–​51; Maria Amalia
D’Aronco, ‘The Transmission of Medical Knowledge in Anglo-​Saxon England: The Voices
of Manuscripts’, in Form and Content of Instruction in Anglo-​Saxon England in the Light
of Contemporary Manuscript Evidence: Papers Presented at the International Conference,
Udine, 6–​8 April 2006, ed. Patrizia Lendinara, Loredana Lazzari, and Maria Amalia
D’Aronco (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 35–​58; Medieval Herbal Remedies, trans. Van Arsdall;
Audrey Meaney, ‘The Practice of Medicine in England about the Year 1000’, Social History
of Medicine 13, no. 2 (2000): 221–​37, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1093​/shm​/13​.2​.221; and Audrey
L. Meaney, ‘Extra-​Medical Elements in Anglo-​Saxon Medicine’, Social History of Medicine
24, no. 1 (2011): 41–​56, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1093​/shm​/hkq​105​. For more recent work on
efficacy since Cameron’s research, see Barbara Brennessel, Michael D. C. Drout, and
Robyn Gravel, ‘A Reassessment of the Efficacy of Anglo-​Saxon Medicine’, Anglo-​Saxon
England 34 (2005): 183–​95; Freya Harrison, Aled E. L. Roberts, Rebecca Gabrilska, Kendra
P. Rumbaugh, Christina Lee, and Stephen P. Diggle, ‘A 1,000-​Year-​Old Antimicrobial
Remedy with Antistaphylococcal Activity’, mBio 6, no. 4 (2015), https://​doi​.org​/10​.1128​
/mBio​.01129​-15; and Rebecca Brackmann, ‘“It Will Help Him Wonderfully”: Placebo and
Meaning Responses in Early Medieval English Medicine’, Speculum 97, no. 4 (2022): 1012–​
39, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1086​/721​680​.

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18  Chapter 1

disparaging stereotypes regarding the topic, there are certain limitations

with its scope as well as potential pitfalls in its approach. On the one hand,
the extensive focus on Insular material has yet to be replicated for continental
sources, though claims for the practicality of the latter are sometimes based on
extrapolating from analyses of the Old English texts. On the other hand, much
of the work investigating the relationship between medical knowledge and
practice has started with assumption that the texts were, by their very nature,
intended to be used in practice, creating a circular argument. The present book
aims to offer an intervention that addresses both points.
While the heightened focus on Insular recipe literature may stem largely
from the interest it has generated as medical knowledge recorded in the vernac-
ular, it has also been facilitated by its size. As Peregrine Horden explains, schol-
ars of Old English medicine ‘have to work with a substantial corpus of around
500 folios but embodying only five major works, three of which survive in
unique manuscripts. Many difficulties remain, but the focus is at least clear’.38
By comparison, the Latin continental material, with over one hundred extant
early medieval manuscripts containing medical texts, presents a rather differ-
ent picture than the handful of codices with Old English medical writings.39
Yet, despite the challenges raised by this considerably larger volume of recipe
literature, it deserves to be studied in its own right as well as in comparison with
the Old English corpus, (late) ancient texts, and later medieval writings.
Although earlier scholars’ emphasis on the distinctiveness of the Insular
medical texts has been revised and the significance of pan-​European medi-
cal traditions recognised, it is still dangerous to base claims for continental
recipe literature’s practicality primarily on the analyses of the Old English

38 Horden, ‘What’s Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?’, 6. The major surviving recipe
collections in Old English include three Leechbooks (Bald’s Leechbook i and ii as well as
Leechbook iii), the Lacnunga, and translations/​adaptations of several late antique Latin
recipe collections.
39 On the numbers of surviving manuscripts, see Beccaria, I codici and Wickersheimer, Les
manuscrits; the former includes 158 manuscripts produced between the ninth and elev-
enth centuries while the latter, which only focuses on manuscripts held in French collec-
tions, gives 119 manuscripts for the same period. Both catalogues, however, are in need of
revision and the Corpus of Early Medieval Latin Medicine (cemlm, formerly the Beyond
Beccaria Project (2020–​23)), a British Academy-​funded cataloging project (https://​cemlm​
.wp​.st​-andr​ews​.ac​.uk​/), is working to produce a new, expanded catalogue of early medie-
val manuscripts containing medical texts that includes manuscripts missed by Beccaria
and Wickersheimer. A preliminary handlist is in preparation that covers these additional
manuscripts (approximately 200 in number).

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Practicality and Applicability 19

corpus.40 In contrast to the evidence for practicality identified by Voigts and

others, Florence Eliza Glaze, in a critical study of Latin continental medical
manuscripts, challenges the idea that the texts in these codices were inher-
ently useable, writing, ‘after examining numerous manuscripts studded with
Greek anatomical terminology, much of it hopelessly corrupt, it has become
clear that in many cases, neither scribes nor readers had the critical linguistic
skills to grasp appreciably the meaning of the material in hand, to unlock the
obscurity of the Greek, and parse the texts before them’.41 Faith Wallis, too,
has questioned the utility of certain medieval medical writings, in her case
treatises on urine and pulse analysis, having identified corrupted passages that
would have changed their meaning.42 Wallis suggests that such treatises would
have had limited practical use in the context of therapy. These examples serve
as helpful cautions, reminders of not only the possible differences between the
Latin and Old English traditions but also the potential dangers of overempha-
sising signs of practicality in medical texts. Consequently, arguments regard-
ing recipe practicality that are built on extrapolations from Insular evidence
or that rely on the handful of early published Latin collections, such as the
works of Sigerist and Jörimann, are in need of reassessment and must take into
account a larger sample of the surviving recipe literature. This book, though
not comprehensive in its analysis of early medieval Latin recipes, examines a
much more extensive body of the extant recipes and thus begins the process of
re-​evaluating earlier scholarship while offering new insights.
The second issue raised above, namely, that much recent research on
the practicality of recipes begins with the assumption that pharmaceutical
writings were naturally intended to be used in therapy, reflects how far the
field has moved: this idea stands in stark contrast to the traditional view of
Mönchsmedizin, monastic medicine, in which medical writings were under-
stood to be the result of the blind copying of earlier texts. The number of sur-
viving early medieval manuscripts containing medical texts, for example, has

40 On pan-​European traditions, see Gundolf Keil and Paul Schnitzer, eds., Das Lorscher
Arzneibuch und die frühmittelalterliche Medizin: Verhandlungen des medizinhistor-
ischen Symposiums im September 1989 in Lorsch (Lorsch: Laurissa, 1991); Medieval Herbal
Remedies, trans. Van Arsdall, 68–​100; Riddle, ‘Theory and Practice’. On the Latin sources
of Old English medical writings, see Conan T. Doyle, The Reception of Latin Medicine in
Anglo-​Saxon England: Evidence from Old English Medical Texts (York: York Medieval Press,
forthcoming).
41 Glaze, ‘The Perforated Wall’, 5–​6.
42 Faith Wallis, ‘Signs and Senses: Diagnosis and Prognosis in Early Medieval Pulse and Urine
Texts’, Social History of Medicine 13, no. 2 (2000): 265–​78, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1093​/shm​/13​.2​
.265, at p. 273.

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20  Chapter 1

been interpreted as evidence for their practical value.43 Yet the sheer number
of extant manuscripts containing a certain genre of texts does not indicate
how these texts were used. Furthermore, these manuscripts actually comprise
a relatively small percentage of the total number of codices that survive from
this period. According to Vivian Nutton, ‘out of roughly 9,000 codices surviv-
ing from the ninth century, barely 100 can be classed as medical’.44 While the
full story of the manuscript evidence is more complicated—​not least because
hundreds of recipes have also been identified as additions to fly-​leaves, mar-
gins, and other blank spaces in early medieval manuscripts otherwise unre-
lated to medicine—​Nutton’s point still stands: medical writings make up but a
small percentage of the surviving textual record. The simple existence of med-
ical literature should not be read as evidence of its use in medical practice.
A variety of other features, including signs of wear and tear, the presence
of glosses, the lack of theoretical writings, and the size and shape of manu-
scripts, have also been employed as indications of the use of these texts in
medical practice.45 The dimensions and folds of several manuscripts contain-
ing recipes considered in this study, such as Paris, BnF lat. 11218 and cod. sang.
217, have been interpreted as evidence of their use by medical practitioners. In
the case of BnF lat. 11218, this small, rectangular manuscript dated to the late
eighth or early ninth centuries contains a diverse collection of medical and
pharmaceutical texts.46 Based on its proportions (23.2 cm x 13.3 cm) and lack of
writings on medical theory, it has been described as having ‘the appearance of
a manual [intended] for practical use’.47 While the portability of a manuscript
does indicate that it could have travelled with ease—​and thus could have
accompanied a Carolingian medicus—​its size cannot be conclusively linked
to its deployment in medical contexts. Small volumes may have been made for
many reasons entirely unrelated to their use in therapy, such as the constraints
of available parchment and other resources. The jump from portability to
practicality, moreover, assumes much about how medicine was practised and
imagines that a physician-​figure would have needed a portable medical guide

43 Van Arsdall, ‘The Transmission of Knowledge’, 210.

44 Nutton, ‘Early Medieval Medicine and Natural Science’, 336.
45 Voigts, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Remedies’; Riddle, ‘Theory and Practice’; Bernhard Bischoff,
‘Über gefaltete Handschriften, vornehmlich hagiographischen Inhalts’, in Mittelalterliche
Studien. Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und Literaturgeschichte, ed. Bernhard
Bischoff, vol. 1 (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1966), 93–​100, at p. 99; Horden, ‘What’s Wrong with
Early Medieval Medicine?’, 10 and 16.
46 See Chapter 2 for more information about this manuscript and the others under analysis.
47 Beccaria, I codici, no. 34: ‘Il volume, che nelle proporzioni ha l’aspetto di un manuale per
l’uso practico’ (p. 161).

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Practicality and Applicability 21

to assist in his or her practice.48 And what does this say about medical manu-
scripts with larger folia? Would the use of wider or longer pieces of parchment,
as seen in many of the manuscripts considered in this book, suggest that such
compendia were impractical with respect to medical practice?
Regarding glosses, consider, for example, those in cod. sang. 878, Walahfrid
Strabo’s vademecum, another manuscript analysed in this study. On p. 333, a
number of recipes have been glossed in Old High German, translating many
of the ingredients into the vernacular.49 In mixed linguistic communities,
this would have been a very practical addition for an individual who was less
familiar with Latin. Such glosses, however, could also reflect the manuscript’s
role in teaching vocabulary. Regardless, in this case, they date to the eleventh
century and therefore cannot be used to comment on the Carolingian use of
these texts. London, bl Harley ms 585, a manuscript containing the Lacnunga,
a copy of the Old English Herbarium, and other medical texts, provides a par-
allel from the Insular world. It has been described as ‘a complete manual for a
physician’s use’, which ‘has the aspect of a manuscript intended for use, study,
and/​or reference’.50 While its texts do include many recipes and other writ-
ings related to therapy, as Katharine Park highlights, the degree to which they
were intended for use in the practice of medicine remains unknown, even in
manuscripts that that appear ‘decidedly practical in orientation’ to a modern
reader.51 This final point is crucial: while it is tempting to assume that medical
texts that look practical were intended for medical practice—​and then to read
all evidence of practical features as supporting this conclusion—​it is a circular
argument and ignores the possibility that such texts may have been used in
other ways.52 While the evidence mobilised in these arguments does confirm
the use of these manuscripts, rarely does it pinpoint the specific contexts in
which they were read, handled, annotated, and otherwise used. In fact, with
respect to the glosses in London, bl Harley ms 585, the comments that most

48 All surviving records of a term for a professional medical practitioner are masculine
(medicus), though the possibility of female healers with access to medical texts should
not be automatically discounted. See also Leja, Embodying the Soul, 137.
49 Emil Elias von Steinmeyer and Eduard Sievers, Die althochdeutschen Glossen. 5 vols.
(Berlin: Weidmann, 1879–​1922), vol. 4, 455.
50 D’Aronco, ‘The Transmission of Medical Knowledge’, 50.
51 Katharine Park, ‘Medicine and Society in Medieval Europe, 500–​1500’, in Medicine in
Society: Historical Essays, ed. Andrew Wear (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992), 59–​90, at p. 66.
52 Peregrine Horden, ‘Prefatory Note: The Uses of Medical Manuscripts’, in Medical Books in
the Byzantine World, ed. Barbara Zipser (Bologna: Università di Bologna, 2013), 1–​6.

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22  Chapter 1

clearly connect the texts to the practice of medicine have been dated to the
fourteenth century, reinforcing the need for caution.53
Studies of cod. sang. 217 paint a similar picture. Based on its ‘very practi-
cal orientation and simple decoration’, it has been argued that the manuscript
served as the vademecum of an early medieval physician.54 A number of ele-
ments, including its a) shape, size, and folds, b) exclusive focus on recipes and
bloodletting treatises, c) lack of writings on medical theory, d) simplicity of
decoration, and e) signs of wear and tear, support this as a possibility. That
is, the evidence suggests that it could have been used in the context of ther-
apy and could have accompanied a practising early medieval medicus. Yet to
understand these features as proof of the manuscript’s use in medical practice
assumes that it was designed with this single purpose in mind: the argument
presupposes that any signs of use are indicative of its use by a medical practi-
tioner in the context of therapy.55
Instead, as Peregrine Horden emphasises, it is essential to recognise the
variety of ways in which medical texts could have been used.56 Although
the ‘simple preservation of a text for its own sake … should be automatically
suspect’, we should not entirely rule out the possible influence of antiquar-
ian impulses in the drive to copy certain texts.57 Alternatively, some surviving
medical manuscripts, such as the richly decorated Vienna Dioscorides, may
have been intended as markers of prestige and involved in elite gift exchange.58

53 D’Aronco, ‘The Transmission of Medical Knowledge’, 52.

54 Clare Pilsworth, Healthcare in Early Medieval Northern Italy: More to Life than Leeches?
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 81. On the interpretation of the manuscript’s use, see the studies
by Monica Niederer and Peter Köpp: Der St. Galler Botanicus, ed. and trans. Niederer (see
especially pp. 9–​23, 51–​61); Vademecum eines frühmittelalterlichen Arztes, ed. and trans.
Köpp (see especially pp. 12–​13). The manuscript itself is discussed further in Chapter 2.
55 Despite reiterating many of the standard views regarding the use of cod. sang. 217, Clare
Pilsworth also cautions against assuming that medical texts were intended exclusively for
use in therapy and extends the discussion of manuscripts’ potential to be used in multiple
ways based on her analysis of Modena, Archivio Capitolare, O.I.11: Pilsworth, Healthcare in
Early Medieval Northern Italy, 81–​93.
56 Horden, ‘Prefatory Note’, 1–​6. See also Horden, ‘What’s Wrong with Early Medieval
Medicine?’, 5–​25.
57 Horden, ‘Prefatory Note’, 4.
58 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Med. gr. 1. On this manuscript, see, for exam-
ple, Leslie Brubaker, ‘The Vienna Dioskorides and Anicia Juliana’, in Byzantine Garden
Culture, ed. Antony Robert Littlewood, Henry Maguire, and Joachim Wolschke-​Bulmahn
(Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2002), 189–​214 and Ernst Gamillscheg, ‘Das Geschenk
für Juliana Anicia: Überlegungen zur Struktur und Entstehung des Wiener Dioskurides’,
in Byzantina Mediterranea. Festschrift für Johannes Koder zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Klaus
Belke, Ewald Kislinger, Andreas Külzer, and Maria A. Stassinopoulou (Vienna: Böhlau,
2007), 187–​95. On illustrated herbals, see Collins, Medieval Herbals. See also Monica

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Practicality and Applicability 23

Medical texts also seemed to have a played an important role in scholarly

pursuits more broadly, ranging from literary models to works of scientific
information, thereby offering additional non-​therapeutic uses of medical writ-
ings.59 The presence of medical texts alongside works on the liberal arts and
technical subjects, such as computus, in a number of manuscripts involved in
this book, certainly supports the possibility that they were used in teaching,
whether they were intended to provide guidance for specific medical matters
or form part of the broader curriculum—​or both.60 Indeed, these varied pur-
poses should not be seen as mutually exclusive: a single medical text may have
been copied, read, and consulted for multiple reasons and its use(s) may have
evolved over time.
Overall, in the process of reclaiming the study of early medieval medicine,
historians have, at times, been overly positive in reading the evidence, falling
into circular arguments and reaching premature conclusions. Claims regard-
ing the relationship between knowledge and practice that have been built on
the idea that a text’s practical adaptations present proof of its consultation in
medical practice and, relatedly, that any signs of a manuscript’s use indicate its
use in medical practice, must be reassessed. Although medical texts could have
been used in the practice of medicine, it is inappropriate to jump to such a
finding without additional evidence. The relationship between knowledge and
practice must be interrogated more critically, and that investigation lies at the
heart of this book. At the same time, given the past focus on Old English med-
ical texts, further assessment of Carolingian material is particularly needed. As
this book demonstrates, a more thorough contextualisation of the manuscript
evidence and the analysis of a larger volume of data have significant implica-
tions for the question of practicality. The examination of an extensive sample
of understudied recipes and recipe collections enables a re-​evaluation of the
conclusions of earlier research. This investigation begins without presum-
ing that medical texts were exclusively intended for use in medical practice.
Rather, that is the question: do recipes provide evidence that can shed light on
not only whether they were used but also how they were used? Part 1 tackles

Green’s compelling argument regarding the advertising purposes of deluxe, illustrated

surgical treatises in Green, ‘Moving from Philology to Social History’.
59 Horden, ‘Prefatory Note’, 4; Glaze, ‘The Perforated Wall’, 103.
60 Horden, ‘Prefatory Note’, 1–​6. Faith Wallis also links the arrangement of manuscripts
to the context of education, connecting ‘the transmission of texts through florilegia’ to
medical training; Wallis, ‘The Experience of the Book’, 106. On medicine’s place within a
general education, see James T. Palmer, ‘Merovingian Medicine between Practical Art and
Philosophy’, Traditio (forthcoming).

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24  Chapter 1

these questions through the lens of practicality. In doing so, it takes the topic
in a new direction by distinguishing between general evidence for the use of
these texts and more specific signs suggesting that they were intended to be
used in medical practice.

3.3 New Directions in Early Medieval Medical Research

In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of
scholars studying early medieval Europe who either specialise in the history
of health and medicine or integrate this field into their work on other areas of
early medieval history. As a result, early medieval medical history is now being
productively connected to a wide range of different subfields, intersecting with
and contributing to research in social, cultural, intellectual, political, religious,
legal, and environmental history and beyond.61 Among the most important
developments have been the diversification of the types of evidence employed
in analyses and the drive to explore health as part of medical history.62 The
history of medicine, moreover, has traditionally taken a top-​down approach
that has primarily concentrated on practitioners—​and, more specifically, the
subset of practitioners who left a written record of their practice (or at least
appear in the surviving written record), thereby privileging an elite, western,
and male perspective. By concentrating on this limited group of individuals,
not only have other types of practitioners been largely ignored, but so, too,
have patients. In earlier generations of scholarship, the lack of attention given
to patients, their experiences, and the wider cultures of healing in which they

61 For connections between medicine and other subfields of Carolingian history, see, for
example, Leja, Embodying the Soul; Zubin Mistry, Abortion in the Early Middle Ages, c. 500–​
900 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2015); Palmer, ‘Merovingian Medicine’; and Faith
Wallis, ‘Medicine in Medieval Calendar Manuscripts’, in Manuscript Sources of Medieval
Medicine, ed. Margaret R. Schleissner (London: Garland, 1995), 105–​43. For more focused
assessments of health and disease, medicine, and medical practitioners in early medieval
Europe, see, for example, Timothy P. Newfield, ‘Malaria and Malaria-​like Disease in the
Early Middle Ages’, Early Medieval Europe 25, no. 3 (2017): 251–​300, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1111​
/emed​.12212; Pilsworth, Healthcare in Early Medieval Northern Italy; and Patricia Skinner,
Health and Medicine in Early Medieval Southern Italy (Leiden: Brill, 1997); and on the inte-
gration of medicine into the study of medieval history, see Monica H. Green, ‘Integrative
Medicine: Incorporating Medicine and Health into the Canon of Medieval European
History’, History Compass 7, no. 4 (2009): 1218–​45, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1111​/j​.1478​-0542​.2009​
.00618​.x​.
62 On the increasing range of evidence and methodologies available to historians, see
McCormick, ‘Molecular Middle Ages’. On the history of health vs. the history of medicine,
see, for example, Monica H. Green, ‘‘History of Medicine’ or ‘History of Health’?’, Past and
Future: The Magazine of the Institute of Historical Research 9 (2011): 7–​9.

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Practicality and Applicability 25

lived and died is striking.63 Indeed, the general dearth of named practitioners
and few glimpses of medici in the early medieval west may help to explain
why this period’s medical history has suffered neglect in comparison to earlier
and later periods: though medici occasionally appear as witnesses in charters
and their presence is alluded to in law codes, poems, and other documentary
evidence, only two royal medici, Wintar and Zedechias, are named in the sur-
viving sources.64 This book, through its examination of the lived experiences,
and especially the experiences of injury and disease, of individuals in early
medieval Europe, in concert with the textual record, thus expands on current
trends in the field by drawing together different types of evidence to investi-
gate questions of health alongside the transmission of medical knowledge.
Sources outside of the standard textual corpus are of particular interest
and relevance to the study of health and disease in past populations. Genetics,
for example, now provides previously unimaginable evidence for tracing the
histories of pathogens, while the integration of the osteological record can,
as Robin Fleming writes, help historians ‘to re-​animate the historical dead’.65
Indeed, combinations of multiple lines of written and archaeological evidence

63 Monica H. Green, ‘Gendering the History of Women’s Healthcare’, Gender & History 20,
no. 3 (2008): 487–​518, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1111​/j​.1468​-0424​.2008​.00534​.x, at p. 492. On the
framework of ‘cultures of healing’, see Peregrine Horden, Cultures of Healing: Medieval
and After (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), ix-​xi.
64 On Wintar, see Heiric of Auxerre, Miracula S. Germani 86, pl 124, cols. 1207–​72, at
col.1248B and Eigil of Fulda, Vita Sturmi 25, in Eigil of Fulda, Die Vita Sturmi des Eigil
von Fulda: Literarkritisch-​ historische Untersuchung und Edition, ed. Pius Engelbert
(Marburg: N. G. Elwert, 1968), 161. On Zedechias, see the Annales Bertiniani, ed. G. Waitz,
mgh ss Rer. Germ. 5 (Hanover: Hahn, 1883), 136–​7 (note: his name recorded as ‘Sedechias’)
and The Annals of St-​Bertin, trans. Janet L. Nelson (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1991), 202. For examples of medici named in charters, see Pilsworth, Healthcare in
Early Medieval Northern Italy and Skinner, Health and Medicine in Early Medieval Southern
Italy. On doctors in early medieval law codes, see Lisi Oliver, The Body Legal in Barbarian
Law (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011).
65 Maria A. Spyrou, Kirsten I. Bos, Alexander Herbig, and Johannes Krause, ‘Ancient patho-
gen genomics as an emerging tool for infectious disease research’, Nature Reviews Genetics
20 (2019): 323–​40, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1038​/s41​576​-019​-0119​-1; Monica H. Green, ‘Genetics
as a Historicist Discipline: A New Player in Disease History’, Perspectives on History 52,
no. 9 (1 December 2014), https://​www​.his​tori​ans​.org​/resea​rch​-and​-publi​cati​ons​/persp​ecti​
ves​-on​-hist​ory​/decem​ber​-2014​/genet​ics​-as​-a​-hist​oric​ist​-dis​cipl​ine; Monica H. Green, ed.,
Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death (Kalamazoo, MI: Arc
Humanities Press, 2015); Robin Fleming, ‘Bones for Historians: Putting the Body Back into
Biography’, in Writing Medieval Biography, 750–​1250: Essays in Honour of Frank Barlow, ed.
David Bates, Julia Crick, and Sarah Hamilton (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2006), 29–​
48 (note: quotation is from p. 29); and Robin Fleming, ‘Writing Biography at the Edge of
History’, The American Historical Review 114, no. 3 (2009): 606–​14.

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26  Chapter 1

have been productively incorporated in a growing number of social and cul-

tural histories of early medieval Europe, such as Paolo Squatriti’s studies of
chestnuts and weeds, Jamie Kreiner’s work on pigs, and Caroline Goodson’s
investigation of urban gardening.66 Human osteological material, however,
has not often been studied in these types of histories that effectively draw on
multidisciplinary evidence bases (though notable exceptions, such as Piers
Mitchell’s discipline-​bridging research, will be addressed below). Overall, as
Michael McCormick stresses, ‘the mortal remains of people are among the
most abundant yet least scrutinized archaeological remains to have survived
from the Middle Ages,’ despite their potential to enrich our understanding of
past population’s lived experiences.67
Osteological evidence can provide information about individuals’ diets, liv-
ing and working conditions, and experiences of injury and disease. Crucially,
this source material is not limited to those whose lives are recorded in the texts.
The possibility of investigating the health of people who lived in early medie-
val Europe therefore adds another angle to studying the practice of medicine
in this period, and especially the relationship between medical knowledge and
practice. Part 2 of this book surveys osteological evidence to gain insights into
the health of individuals who lived in the early Middle Ages and then recon-
siders the recipe literature from this new perpsective. As Jennifer Davis and
Michael McCormick underline, ‘in the light of archaeological results, the texts
must be reanalyzed, and our conventional wisdom, rewritten’.68 It is necessary
to ask whether skeletal remains preserve evidence of the conditions recorded
in the texts. To put it another way, were the treatments listed in eighth-​and
ninth-​century manuscripts applicable to individuals in this period?
It may seem surprising that this book questions the applicability of reci-
pes to the medical needs of individuals in early medieval Europe: a remedy

66 Paolo Squatriti, Landscape and Change in Early Medieval Italy: Chestnuts, Economy,
and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Paolo Squatriti, Weeds
and the Carolingians: Empire, Culture, and Nature in Frankish Europe, ad 750–​900
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022); Jamie Kreiner, Legions of Pigs in the
Early Medieval West (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020); and Caroline Goodson,
Cultivating the City in Early Medieval Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
67 McCormick, ‘Molecular Middle Ages’, 90. See also Raphaël G. A. M Panhuysen,
‘Demography and Health in Early Medieval Maastricht: Prosopographical Observations
on Two Cemeteries’ (Diss., Universiteit Maastricht, 2005), 10–​12.
68 Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick, ‘The Early Middle Ages: Europe’s Long
Morning’, in The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Early Medieval
Studies, ed. Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 1–​10,
at p. 5.

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Practicality and Applicability 27

for, say, gout must have been preserved because people suffered from gout.
Much scholarship has made this assumption, but there is little direct evidence
to indicate that the recording of recipes represented a response to the med-
ical concerns of individuals in early medieval Europe.69 There are no case
notes accompanying these texts and, as the opening example of Terenti(an)us
demonstrated, even seemingly personal comments should not be automati-
cally interpreted as a reflection of the scribe’s experience with a treatment. Just
as with the question of practicality (where it is tempting to assume that medi-
cal texts were, by definition, used in medical practice), the existence of medical
writings does not prove their applicability. Many of the recipes analysed in this
study, though they are not directly attributable to classical and late antique
writings, are related to this body of knowledge. As Peregrine Horden suc-
cinctly puts it, ‘early medieval medicine is ancient medicine’.70 Although there
are important developments in the recorded medical knowledge of the early
Middle Ages (on which, see Chapters 3–​5), the content is largely derived from
(late) ancient texts. The overarching influence of classical medical traditions
demands that we question the texts’ assumed applicability because the cli-
mate, living conditions, and lifestyles of the Mediterranean world of Antiquity
and of ninth-​century western Europe were different in many ways. These
fundamental differences may have resulted in vastly altered experiences of
disease, injury, and overall health between the original authors of these med-
ical writings and the scribes responsible for the manuscripts discussed in this
book. The question of a text’s relevance to contemporary individuals is there-
fore essential for understanding the relationship between medical knowledge
and practice, and recent research trends have laid the groundwork for such an
investigation.
Although there has traditionally been a ‘non-​relationship between histori-
ans and researchers in more scientific disciplines’, historical studies integrat-
ing evidence from the archaeological sciences have greatly increased in recent
years.71 Scholarship relating to past experiences of and responses to health and

69 Take, for example, Vivian Nutton’s comment on the content of early medieval medical
manuscripts: ‘most medical manuscripts before 1100 are largely recipe lists, often well
organized and well suited to the needs of the community’; Nutton, ‘Early Medieval
Medicine and Natural Science’, 335.
70 Horden, ‘What’s Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?’, 19.
71 Fleming, ‘Writing Biography’, 614. For an overview, see McCormick, ‘Molecular Middle
Ages’, and for a sample of the current diversity of research areas uniting evidence from
archaeological sciences with traditional historical sources, see, for example, A. Radini,
M. Tromp, A. Beach, E. Tong, C. Speller, M. McCormick, J. V. Dudgeon, et al., ‘Medieval
women’s early involvement in manuscript production suggested by lapis lazuli

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28  Chapter 1

disease has been particularly enriched by a number of historians’ multidisci-

plinary approaches incorporating various palaeo-​and archaeological sciences,
such as Monica Green’s pioneering work on plague genetics and Timothy
Newfield’s analyses of palaeoclimate data in relation to disease outbreaks.72
Turning to osteological evidence, as Piers Mitchell has demonstrated, the skel-
etal record can be effectively studied alongside the written record.73 Mitchell’s
work, however, concentrates on the central and later Middle Ages, and few of
the studies involving early medieval skeletal remains have assessed the oste-
ological record in concert with medical writings.74 Yet, some scholars, such

identification in dental calculus’, Science Advances 5, no. 1 (2019), https://​doi​.org​/10​.1126​

/sci​adv​.aau7​126; Sam Leggett, ‘A Hierarchical Meta-​Analytical Approach to Western
European Dietary Transitions in the First Millennium ad’, European Journal of Archaeology
25, no. 4 (2022): 523–​43, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1017​/eaa​.2022​.23; Tianyi Wang, Craig Cessford,
Jenna M. Dittmar, Sarah Inskip, Peter M. Jones, and Piers D. Mitchell, ‘Intestinal para-
site infection in the Augustinian friars and general population of medieval Cambridge,
UK’, International Journal of Paleopathology 39 (2022): 115–​21, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1016​/j​
.ijpp​.2022​.06​.001; and Sarah Fiddyment, Natalie J. Goodison, Elma Brenner, Stefania
Signorello, Kierri Price, and Matthew J. Collins, ‘Girding the loins? Direct evidence of the
use of a medieval English parchment birthing girdle from biomolecular analysis’, Royal
Society Open Science 8, no. 3 (2021), https://​doi​.org​/10​.1098​/rsos​.202​055​.
72 Monica H. Green, ‘A New Definition of the Black Death: Genetic Findings and Historical
Interpretations’, De Medio Aevo 11, no. 2 (2022): 139–​55, https://​doi​.org​/10​.5209​/dmae​
.83788; Robert Hymes and Monica H. Green, New Evidence for the Dating and Impact of
the Black Death in Asia, ed. Carol Symes (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2022); Monica
H. Green, ‘The Four Black Deaths’, American Historical Review 125, no. 5 (2020): 1601–​31,
https://​doi​.org​/10​.1093​/ahr​/rhaa​511; Joris Roosen and Monica H. Green, ‘The Mother of
All Pandemics: The State of Black Death Research in the Era of covid-​19—​Bibliography,’
last modified 26 February 2024, last accessed 3 March 2024, https://​drive​.goo​gle​.com​/file​
/d​/1x0D​_d​wyAw​p9xi​9sMC​W5Uv​pGfE​VH5J​2ZA​/view?usp=​shar​ing; Timothy P. Newfield,
‘Mysterious and Mortiferous Clouds: The Climate Cooling and Disease Burden of Late
Antiquity’, in Environment and Society in the Long Late Antiquity, ed. Adam Izdebski
and Michael Mulryan (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 271–​97; Newfield, ‘Malaria and Malaria-​like
Disease’; and Timothy P. Newfield, ‘Domesticates, Disease and Climate in Early Post-​
Classical Europe: The Cattle Plague of c.940 and its Environmental Context’, Postclassical
Archaeologies 5 (2015): 95–​126.
73 Piers D. Mitchell, ‘Palaeopathology of the Crusades’, in Crusader Landscapes in the
Medieval Levant: The Archaeology and History of the Latin East, ed. Micaela Sinibaldi,
Kevin J. Lewis, Balázs Major, and Jennifer A. Thompson (Cardiff: University of Wales
Press, 2016), 349–​59; Piers D. Mitchell, ‘Improving the Use of Historical Written Sources in
Paleopathology’, International Journal of Paleopathology 19 (2017): 88–​95, https://​doi​.org​
/10​.1016​/j​.ijpp​.2016​.02​.005; and Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades.
74 E.g., Simon Mays, ‘A Biomechanical Study of Activity Patterns in a Medieval Human
Skeletal Assemblage’, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 9, no. 1 (1999): 68–​73,
https://​doi​.org​/10​.1002​/(SICI)1099​-1212(199​901​/02)9:​1%3C68:​:​AID​- OA468%3E3​.0​.CO;2​
-M; Joanna R. Sofaer Derevenski, ‘Sex Differences in Activity-​related Osseous Change

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Practicality and Applicability 29

as Clare Pilsworth, have made initial moves in this direction, and these brief
investigations have served to emphasise that further research is desperately
needed to reassess recipes in the light of skeletal evidence.75 Part 2 responds
to this need, using osteological evidence to reinform our understanding of the
recipe literature and its potential applicability to early medieval individuals.

3.4 Summary
As the example of Terenti(an)us revealed, the relationship between medical
knowledge and practice in the Carolingian world is far from straightforward
and, as the preceding pages have demonstrated, requires further study and
critical re-​examination. This book’s dual investigation of the possible practi-
cality and applicability of the medical knowledge recorded in recipes bridge
the knowledge-​practice divide and provide new perspectives on early medie-
val medicine. This study, therefore, explores, first, the potential practicality of
the recorded knowledge, questioning its useability in the context of therapy
rather than presuming an intended use in therapy. That is, do recipes recom-
mend ingredients that could have been sourced in Carolingian Europe? Do rec-
ipe collections contain user-​friendly features suggestive of their application in
medical practice? And secondly, this book investigates whether there is a cor-
relation, a connection, or any overlap between the medical issues recorded in
the texts and those seen on skeletons dated to the same period. In other words,
is there evidence to suggest that individuals in the early medieval west suffered
from the conditions and symptoms described in the texts? These guiding ques-
tions consider whether it was possible that those individuals in possession of
the recorded medical knowledge could have used the texts in an attempt to
treat people during this period. The twin concepts of practicality and appli-
cability thus provide the analytical framework for the book and delineate its
use of evidence, with Part 1 a study of practicality and Part 2 an examination
of applicability. This dual approach, in conjunction with the examination of
a large sample of understudied material, breaks new ground in the field of
Carolingian medicine.

in the Spine and the Gendered Division of Labor at Ensay and Wharram Percy, UK’,
American Journal of Biological Anthropology 111, no. 3 (2000): 333–​54, https://​doi​.org​/10​
.1002​/(sici)1096​-8644(200​003)111:​3%3C333:​:​aid​-ajpa4%3E3​.0​.co;2​-k; Fleming, ‘Bones for
Historians’; and Fleming, ‘Writing Biography’.
75 Clare Pilsworth’s chapter on diet and health within her study of healthcare in early medi-
eval northern Italy offers one such exception: Pilsworth, Healthcare in Early Medieval
Northern Italy, 47–​72, see especially pp. 68–​71 for the section on joint diseases and frac-
tures, ‘Joint Conditions and Fractures in the Osteo-​Archaeological Evidence’.

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30  Chapter 1

4 The Carolingian Context

Before outlining the following chapters, it is essential to address the book’s

chronological positioning. The date range, c. 775–​900, covers the ‘long ninth
century’, from the late eighth century to the cusp of the tenth century. This
period has been selected on the basis of the manuscript evidence. While this
context is discussed in more detail in the following chapter (and the codices
themselves are reviewed in Appendix 1), there are several key features to note
with respect to the selection of this timeframe. First, based on the surviving
evidence, a burst of manuscript production followed the reforming legislation
promulgated by Charlemagne’s court in the late eighth and early ninth centu-
ries; this increase in the written record can be seen across many genres, and, as
noted above, medicine is no exception.76 While this intensification of manu-
script production has meant that a significantly larger number of codices con-
taining medical writings have survived from this period than the preceding
centuries, the selected dates are underpinned by more than the sheer number
of extant manuscripts.
Although the concept of a Carolingian ‘renaissance’ has been revised in
recent years, the intellectual culture that developed in the wake of the reforms
stemming from Charlemagne’s court provides the framework within which the
written sources must be understood.77 Despite the fact that, as noted above,

76 On the extant medical manuscripts see Beccaria, I codici and Wickersheimer, Les manu-
scrits. On medical texts listed in Carolingian library catalogues, see Glaze, ‘The Perforated
Wall’, 268–​71. On writing and manuscript production in the Carolingian period, see
McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word and Rosamond McKitterick, ‘Eighth-​
Century Foundations’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History ii, c. 700-​c. 900, ed.
Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 681–​94. James
Palmer, however, highlights the need for caution when comparing numbers of surviv-
ing manuscripts, especially with respect to medicine; see Palmer, ‘Merovingian Medicine’
and, on the shift from papyrus to parchment, see Dario Internullo, ‘Du papyrus au
parchemin. Les origines médiévales de la mémoire archivistique en Europe occidentale’,
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 74, nos. 3–​4 (2019): 523–​57, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1017​/ahss​
.2020​.52​.
77 Much has been written about the related topics of reform, manuscript production,
and literacy in the Carolingian world; for a sample of the range of assessments of
the Carolingian ‘renaissance’ in recent decades, see Giles Brown, ‘Introduction: The
Carolingian Renaissance’, in Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation, ed. Rosamond
McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 1–​51; Rosamond McKitterick,
‘The Carolingian Renaissance of Culture and Learning’, in Charlemagne: Empire and
Society, ed. Joanna Story (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), 151–​66; van
Rhijn, Leading the Way to Heaven; Carine van Rhijn, ‘Manuscripts for local priests and
the Carolingian Reforms’, in Men in the Middle: Local Priests in Early Medieval Europe, ed.
Steffen Patzold and Carine van Rhijn (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 177–​98; Carine van Rhijn,

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Practicality and Applicability 31

early medieval historians have not tended to see medical writing as affected by
or contributing to this evolving intellectual culture, Meg Leja has convincingly
argued for medicine’s direct engagement with these developments.78 Many
of the same impulses seen in other genres of writing, such as legal, liturgical,
exegetical, grammatical, and computistical texts, are likewise apparent in the
medical literature produced in this period. Recipe collections, for example,
bear witness to an interest in compiling and reordering knowledge from earlier
sources, a strong focus on the presentation and structure of texts, intersections
with other fields of learning, and engagement with contemporary theological
discourses.79 It is therefore essential to study the medical texts written at this
time within the particular intellectual and cultural climate in which they were
produced in order to grasp more fully their significance.
By beginning this study in c. 775, it captures the start of the major increase
in manuscript production.80 This upswing not only provides the sources of this
book but also documents the evolving intellectual and cultural environment
of the Carolingian world, an environment inherently linked to the ecclesiasti-
cal and elite networks of the period. The movement of manuscripts and dis-
semination of knowledge, themes that emerge in Part 1, were dependent on
the intellectual, socio-​cultural, ecclesiastical, and political dynamics of this
period. In the decades after c. 900, changes in these dynamics, including in the
intellectual culture of medicine, begin to emerge. Building on the increasing
number of medical texts in circulation, scribes and scholars started moving in
new directions. A growth in cathedral schools can be seen in France, with cen-
tres such as Laon, Chartres, and Reims recorded as places of medical teaching

‘Charlemagne’s correctio: A Local Perspective’, in Charlemagne: les temps, les espaces,

les hommes. Construction et déconstruction d’un règne, ed. Rolf Grosse and Michel Sot
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), 43–​59; Janet L. Nelson, ‘Revisiting the Carolingian Renaissance’,
in Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society in Honour of Peter
Brown, ed. Jamie Kreiner and Helmut Reimitz (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), 331–​46; Rutger
Kramer, ‘Monasticism, Reform, and Authority in the Carolingian Era’, in The Cambridge
History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, ed. Alison I. Beach and Isabelle
Cochelin, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 432–​49; and Rutger
Kramer, Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire: Ideals and Expectations during
the Reign of Louis the Pious (813–​828) (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019).
78 Leja, Embodying the Soul; Leja, ‘The Sacred Art’.
79 Leja, Embodying the Soul; Wallis, ‘Medicine in Medieval Calendar Manuscripts’; and Claire
Burridge, ‘Healing Body and Soul in Early Medieval Europe: Medical Remedies with
Christian Elements’, Studies in Church History 58 (2022): 46–​67, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1017​/stc​
.2022​.3​.
80 See n. 76 above.

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32  Chapter 1

in the tenth century.81 Around the same period, sites in southern Italy, includ-
ing Montecassino and Salerno, appear to have begun to reintroduce more the-
oretical elements into their medical writings.82 While the growth of a tenth-​
century ‘School of Salerno’ continues to be debated, recent work on Cassinese
and early Salernitan manuscripts has suggested that new impulses can be
seen in the medical literature produced in this period.83 Simultaneously, the
introduction of a basic vocabulary that differentiated between various kinds
of medical specialists (i.e., terminology that named physicians, surgeons, herb-
alists, and bleeders as distinct types of practitioners), reflects further changes
in the medical culture of the Latin west around the turn of the millennium.84
Determining c. 775 to c. 900 as the book’s chronological focus thus centres
the manuscript sample around the shared cultural and intellectual framework
of the Carolingian world while avoiding overlap with new developments in the
study and recording of medical knowledge that emerged in the wake of the
long ninth century. It must be remembered, however, that the selected dates
are guidelines rather than strict boundaries, and manuscripts whose dating
has been debated or that contain hands dated beyond this timeframe are dis-
cussed further in Appendix 1. The dating of archaeological sites, and the oste-
ological remains found within them, must likewise be approached with some
degree of flexibility given that a) many sites were used over a longer period
of time than the years considered in this book, and b) much dating is relative
rather than exact. The specific challenges presented by this material are con-
sidered in Chapter 6.

81 Loren C. MacKinney, ‘Tenth-​Century Medicine as Seen in the Historia of Richer of

Rheims’, Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine 2, no. 6 (1934): 347–​75; Park,
‘Medicine and Society’, 66–​7; Nutton, ‘Early Medieval Medicine and Natural Science’,
337; Florence Eliza Glaze, ‘Master-​Student Medical Dialogues: The Evidence of London,
British Library, Sloane 2839’, in Form and Content of Instruction in Anglo-​Saxon England
in the Light of Contemporary Manuscript Evidence: Papers Presented at the International
Conference, Udine, 6–​8 April 2006, ed. Patrizia Lendinara, Loredana Lazzari, and Maria
Amalia D’Aronco (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 467–​94.
82 Wallis, ‘The Experience of the Book’, 119.
83 Florence Eliza Glaze, ‘Gariopontus and the Salernitans: Textual Traditions in the Eleventh
and Twelfth Centuries’, in La Collectio Salernitana di Salvatore De Renzi. Convegno inter-
nazionale, Università degli Studi di Salerno, 18–​19 giugno 2007, ed. Danielle Jacquart and
Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2008), 149–​90;
regarding developments in Cassinese manuscripts, I have also benefitted from hearing
Glaze’s papers at several conferences, including ‘The Confluence of Latin, Byzantine,
and Arabic Pharmacy: Southern Italy c. 1050–​1150 ce’, a paper delivered at ‘Drugs in the
Medieval World (ca. 1050-​ca. 1400)’ (King’s College London, 7 December 2018).
84 Park, ‘Medicine and Society’, 70.

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Practicality and Applicability 33

5 Structuring the Dual Approach

As noted above, this book is divided into two parts, aligning with its dual
approach. Part 1 focuses on the textual evidence for practicality. Chapter 2
introduces the investigation into the question of the recipes’ practicality by
reviewing the relationship between medical knowledge and practice as doc-
umented by the written record and outlining the recipe literature under anal-
ysis. Chapters 3–​5 each explore a different aspect of the recipe literature’s
practicality, shedding light on these treatments’ potential useability in the con-
text of therapy from multiple directions. Chapter 3 traces the introduction (or,
in some cases, reintroduction) of materia medica from the east, following the
appearance of ingredients such as camphor, musk, and ambergris. Recipes that
include these types of exotic products highlight the dynamic nature of this
body of knowledge in the Carolingian world and may reflect the practicality
of these treatments—​if only for a very restricted and elite clientele. Chapter 4
then looks at the other end of the spectrum, turning to the appearance of beer
and mead (specifically as medus) in medical contexts. The assimilation of these
non-​classical beverages in medical texts points to the active adaptation of the
written record to meet local conditions. While Chapters 3 and 4 concentrate
on case studies of ingredients, Chapter 5 examines other features within rec-
ipes: units of measurement and the inclusion of instructions for substituting
ingredients. By considering how knowledge is presented in recipes, these two
aspects explore the practicality of their design, complementing the preceding
chapters’ focus on the possibility of their use via the availability of ingredients.
The combination of case studies thus addresses the potential practicality of
the recipe sample from a variety of perspectives to reconsider whether this
material was intended to be used in medical practice.
Part 2 unites the textual and skeletal evidence to investigate the potential
applicability of this body of knowledge. Chapter 6 introduces the process of
reconsidering the recipe literature in view of the evidence provided by the
osteological record, addressing key conceptual challenges, such as retrospec-
tive diagnosis, and outlining the analytical approach to the following case
studies. Chapters 7–​9 each concentrate on different types of pathologies that
have the potential to be recorded in skeletal remains, using palaeopathologi-
cal reports from excavations of early medieval burials to re-​evaluate the texts.
More specifically, Chapter 7 examines dental disease, Chapter 8 considers joint
diseases, and Chapter 9 focuses on surgery and trauma.
Bringing together the two approaches, Chapter 10 assesses the findings
from both Parts 1 and 2. This chapter concludes with a final reflection on the
practicality and applicability of the medical knowledge circulating during the

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34  Chapter 1

Carolingian period, the relationship between medical knowledge and prac-

tice, and the question of whether these texts may have been used in the prac-
tice of medicine. Ultimately, this book’s joint investigation of practicality and
applicability—​underpinned by analyses of traditionally understudied textual
sources in concert with osteological evidence—​results in the emergence of a
more nuanced picture of early medieval health and medicine.

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 pa rt 1
Practicality

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 ­c hapter 2

Setting the Scene

The Texts, Their Contexts, and the Need for a Re-​examination of Practicality

1 Introduction: a Mixed Picture of (Im)practicality

Linda Ehrsam Voigts’s pathbreaking article, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Remedies

and the Anglo-​Saxons’, focuses, as its title suggests, on recipe literature in
early medieval England.1 Latin, continental material, however, is never far
from view. When detailing the ways in which the Old English translations of
Pseudo-​Apuleius’ Herbarius adapted the Latin text and its structure, Voigts
makes a direct comparison to a herbal in cod. sang. 217, a ninth-​century man-
uscript produced on the continent and today held in the Stiftsbibliothek St.
Gallen.2 Building on Erhard Landgraf’s study of this recipe collection, the St.
Galler Botanicus, she notes that, of the sixty-​two plants it lists, just over half of
the entries ‘derive from the Herbarium Apulei, but twenty-​six have no known
source, and a number of those seem to be the addition of alpine plants. One
finds as well entries which vary from the Herbarium Apulei in the addition of
such details as nascitur in excelsis montis juxta aquas’, i.e., a note explaining
that the plant in question grows in high mountains.3 These features have been
used to argue that the herbal was composed in a centre of manuscript produc-
tion within an alpine environment, such as St Gall or a northern Italian site,
and by someone familiar with the added plants. Such an interpretation speaks
to the practical nature of the herbal and its recipes.4
At first glance, this might appear to strengthen the argument that the St.
Galler Botanicus, and other recipe collections like it, were intended to be used
for therapeutic purposes. A closer examination, however, reveals that the
evidence cannot provide a concrete foundation for such claims. As Monica

1 Voigts, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Remedies’. See Chapter 1 for further discussion of this piece and its
influence on the field.
2 Voigts, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Remedies’, 256. For an edition of Pseudo-​Apuleius’ Herbarius,
see Pseudo-​Apuleius. Herbarius, in Antonii Musae De herba vettonica liber. Pseudoapulei
Herbarius. Anonymi De taxone liber. Sexti Placiti Liber medicinae ex animalibus etc., ed. Ernst
Howald and Henry E. Sigerist. cml 4 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1927), 15–​225.
3 Voigts, ‘Anglo-​ Saxon Plant Remedies’, 256; Erhard Landgraf, ‘Ein frühmittelalterlicher
Botanicus’, Kyklos 1 (1928): 114–​46.
4 Ibid.

© Claire Burridge, 2024 | DOI:​1 0.1163/9789004466173_003

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38  Chapter 2

Niederer, who has more recently published a critical edition, translation, and
commentary of the St. Galler Botanicus, points out, it is dangerous to jump to
conclusions regarding the manuscript’s context of production and intended
use(s) based on this evidence alone since such textual adaptations could have
occurred for a host of reasons:

The only certainty is that some exotic, oriental plants are actually left out
of the work and that some of the newly added [plants] are said to grow
in the mountains. As the only argument, however, this is not enough
for localisation: exotic drugs were difficult to obtain and very expensive
throughout the Latin west and therefore could easily have been deleted
from the recipe texts. And ‘mountains’ as a way to localise the origin of
the text is far too imprecise: even if one assumes that the Alps are meant,
that is still a very large area.5

Niederer’s perceptive analysis offers an important counterbalance to many of

the arguments regarding the practicality of recipe literature—​and the assump-
tion, constructed partly on these arguments, that such writings were, by defini-
tion, intended to be used in practice (see Chapter 1). Likewise, as Florence Eliza
Glaze and Faith Wallis have highlighted, some medical texts, including recipes,
appear to have been so altered by the process of copying and re-​copying (result-
ing in, for example, changed meanings, Greek to Latin translation errors, and
other corruptions), that they would not have been useable in the context of
therapy.6 Peregrine Horden’s emphasis on the multiple ways in which medical
manuscripts could have been read is also essential to bear in mind: although a
recipe collection may have been recorded with the intention to use the recipes
in practice, this remains but one possibility.7
Overall, while many scholars have put forward compelling arguments for
the practical features exhibited by recipe collections and documented evi-
dence for the use of the manuscripts in which they are located, the cautionary

5 Der St. Galler Botanicus, ed. and trans. Niederer, 29: ‘Sicher ist nur, dass tatsächlich manche
exotischen, orientalischen Pflanzen aus der Vorlage weggelassen sind, und dass von man-
chen der neu hinzugefügten gesagt wird, sie wüchsen im Gebirge. Als einziges Argument
reicht das jedoch nicht aus zur Lokalisierung: Exotische Drogen waren im ganzen latein-
ischen Abendland schwer zu beschaffen und sehr teuer und hätten daher leicht aus den
Rezepttexten gestrichen werden können. Und ‘Gebirge’ als Lokalisierungshilfe für die
Entstehung des Textes ist viel zu ungenau: Selbst wenn man annimmt, dass damit die Alpen
gemeint sind, ist das immer noch ein sehr grosses Gebiet’.
6 Glaze, ‘The Perforated Wall’, 5–​6; Wallis, ‘Signs and Senses’, 273.
7 Horden, ‘Prefatory Note’.

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Setting the Scene 39

remarks of Niederer, Glaze, Wallis, and Horden underscore the need for more
critical analyses that approach the texts without assuming that they were nec-
essarily intended to be used in the practice of medicine. This chapter, there-
fore, provides an introduction to Part 1 by opening with the bigger picture: I
survey textual sources beyond the recipe literature to consider a wider range of
evidence for the potential practicality (or impracticality) of recipes and exam-
ine whether there are external signs that these texts were consulted for thera-
peutic purposes. I then turn to the recipes under analysis and their manuscript
contexts, reviewing the textual evidence that underpins this book.

2 Contextualising Medicine’s Place in Early Medieval Europe and the

Question of Practicality

Chapter 1 showcased how research into the corpus of surviving Old English
recipes has moved the study of the relationship between medical knowledge
and practice in new directions, often positing that these texts were not only
intended to be used in the context of therapy but that they were, in fact, useable
texts. Such arguments have offered direct challenges to the traditional view
that the presumed non-​local nature of many of the ingredients named in rec-
ipes would have rendered them useless in practice.8 Voigts’s aforementioned
landmark article challenges this assumption, among others; she contends that
a wider range of plants could have been growing in England than might have
been expected due to a combination of ‘auspicious climatic conditions’ and
careful cultivation. Voigts also suggests that other, non-​local materia medica
could have been acquired through trade.9 Regarding the latter possibility, how-
ever, a letter from the Insular world exchanged between Cynehard (d. c. 778),
bishop of Winchester, and Lull (d. 786), archbishop of Mainz (though origi-
nally from Wessex), presents a different scenario: it documents instead the
challenge posed by procuring particular ingredients and underlines that, for
all their practical features, recipes could still present impracticalities.
In his letter, Cynehard complains to Lull that many exotic ingredients
listed in medical texts ‘are unknown to us and difficult to come by’, asking his
continental colleague to send supplies.10 Despite coming from beyond the

8 E.g., Grattan and Singer, Anglo-​Saxon Magic and Medicine, 28.

9 Voigts, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Remedies’, 266.
10 Faith Wallis, Medieval Medicine: A Reader (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010),
110–​11; ‘Epistula 114’, in Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Michael Tangl, mgh
Epistulae selectae 1 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1916), 247 (see n. 13 below for the Latin text).

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40  Chapter 2

Carolingian world, this epistle has three significant implications for the present
study. First, Cynehard’s complaint indicates that some communities in eighth-​
century England were encountering challenges in sourcing all the ingredients
listed in recipes, raising the possibility that people in Carolingian Francia may
have experienced similar problems. This lack of access would have made cer-
tain recipes impractical since, at least in their recorded state, they would have
been unusable. Although Cynehard’s attempts to obtain the specified ingredi-
ents exhibit no signs of attempted substitutions, it remains possible that rec-
ipes could have been adapted in situ by replacing unavailable materia medica
with local products.11 Two chapters in Part 1 address these topics specifically,
with Chapter 3 investigating the potential practicality of recipes in relation
to their inclusion of non-​local materia medica and Chapter 5 considering the
presence of instructions for the substitution of ingredients.
On the other hand, Cynehard’s letter reflects that Lull, situated in the mid-
dle of the Frankish Empire, may have had better access to foreign products,
or at least that Cynehard expected (or hoped) this was the case. Indeed, Lull,
along with two other missionaries, Denehard and Burchard, is recorded as hav-
ing sent a gift of frankincense, pepper, and cinnamon to the English abbess
Cuneburg earlier in the eighth century—​did Cynehard know of this gift?12 Was
he, in effect, asking for a similar package to be sent in his direction? As will be
explored in Chapter 3, a number of records of elite gift exchange on the con-
tinent feature non-​local products that could have served as materia medica—​
was Cynehard trying to insert himself into this gift economy?
Finally, the letter indicates that Cynehard was, in fact, consulting the medi-
cal remedies listed in his codices with the intention of preparing them. In the
same letter, he also writes, ‘if you should come into the possession of any books
of secular learning unknown to us, for example, concerning medicines—​of
which we have a goodly quantity here … you might consider sharing them
[with us]’.13 Cynehard’s comments thus provide direct evidence for the desire

11 Voigts, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Remedies’, 250–​68.

12 ‘Epistula 49’, in Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Tangl, 78–​80. The gifts
are described on p. 80: Parva quoque munusculorum transmisio scedulam istam comitatur,
quae sunt tria, id est turis et piperis et cinnamomi permodi[c]‌a [x]enia, sed omni mentis
affectione destinata.
13 Wallis, Medieval Medicine, 110–​11; ‘Epistula 114’, in Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und
Lullus, ed. Tangl, 246–​7: Et hoc petimus, si qua apud vos solamina nobis necessaria vel
ignota, spiritalis quidem scientiae sive in libris antiquis, qui a nobis habentur, sive in aliis
ecclesiasticis administrationibus, ut nobis libenter participare non negetis. Nec non et, si
quos saecularis scientiae libros nobis ignotos adepturi sitis, ut sunt de medicinalibus, quo-
rum copia est aliqua apud nos, sed tamen [p]‌igmenta ultramarina, quae in eis scripta con-
perimus, ignota nobis sunt et difficilia adipiscendum, vel si qua in aliis quibuslibet negotiis

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Setting the Scene 41

to apply the medical knowledge recorded in the texts in practice. Crucially, this
letter highlights that an intention to follow a recipe does not necessarily reflect
its practicality with respect to use: Cynehard was unable to put his recorded
medical knowledge into practice because he lacked certain ingredients. The fol-
lowing sections review additional evidence from non-​medical texts that speak
to the potential (im)practicality of recipes. As Cynehard’s experience demon-
strates, it is essential to consider practicality at two levels: intention (i.e., were
recipes understood as being intended for therapeutic purposes?) and use (i.e.,
if they were intended to be used, could they be followed?). Cynehard’s une-
quivocal statement regarding his attempt to prepare treatments based on his
recipe collections provides a notable window onto the relationship between
medical knowledge and practice, especially because, as will become apparent
over the following pages, such clear evidence testifying to the use of recipes in
the context of therapy, whether intended or actualised, is exceedingly rare in
the Carolingian world.
Before reviewing non-​medical textual evidence for the perception and prac-
tice of medicine in Carolingian Francia, it is important to acknowledge some of
the major ways in which the general healthscape of the Latin west evolved over
the preceding centuries. The interrelated social, cultural, intellectual, political,
economic, and religious shifts of late Antiquity altered not only the medical
marketplace and approaches to healing, but also the study and transmission
of medical knowledge.14 Such changes likewise had major implications for the
survival of evidence relating to medicine, from the ways in which it was stud-
ied, practised, and perceived to the types of medical texts recorded, excerpted,
compiled, and (re)copied. Much has been written about these topics in recent
years and what follows presents a brief overview in relation to evidence that

vel speciebus nobis necessariis providetis, communicare dignemini, ut fecistis villosam

mittendo.
14 For broader overviews of late Antiquity and the transition to the early Middle Ages, see, for
example, Peter Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1978); Averil Cameron, The Mediterranean World of Late Antiquity, 395–​700 ad, 2nd
ed. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012); G. W. Bowersock, Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar, eds., Late
Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1999); and
the volumes stemming from the esf project ‘Transformation of the Roman World’ (1992–​
97), e.g., Inge Lyse Hansen and Chris Wickham, eds., The Long Eighth Century. Production,
Distribution and Demand (Leiden: Brill, 2000); Richard Corradini, Max Diesenberger, and
Helmut Reimitz, eds., The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages. Texts,
Resources and Artefacts (Leiden: Brill, 2003); and Frans Theuws and Janet L. Nelson, eds.,
Rituals of Power: From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 2000).

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42  Chapter 2

helps to elucidate how, why, and where medical texts, and especially those
concerning pharmacy, were read and written in the Latin west.15
Given medicine’s complex relationship with the Church, the spread of
Christianity, and its concomitant restructuring of communities and power
dynamics, is among the most significant developments to highlight during
this period. Notably, this evolving relationship is documented by a wealth of
non-​medical sources, ranging from hagiographies and histories to the writ-
ings of the Church Fathers.16 Some texts paint doctors and classical medical
traditions—​a ‘religion of Hippocrates’ as described by Owsei Temkin—​in a
negative light by recording the ineffectiveness of medicine in comparison with
divine healing or raising concerns with its pre-​Christian roots.17 A number of
Church authorities, including Gregory the Great (d. 604), even questioned the
appropriateness of human intervention in matters of health and disease, life
and death.18 Yet, as Peregrine Horden cautions, the apparent ‘tensions between
religion and medicine should not be overstressed’.19 Not only do diatribes
against doctors and medical practice underline their presence and perceived
efficacy among the general populace, but, more significantly, ‘secular’ medicine
was often viewed positively and as a divinely provided complement to spiritual
healing.20 Indeed, the Christian emphasis on charity made caring for the sick
a virtuous act and fostered the rise of hospitals, while theologians turned to

15 For more detailed accounts of the state of medicine in late Antiquity and the transition
to the early Middle Ages in relation to wider social, cultural, intellectual, political, eco-
nomic, and religious shifts, see, for example, Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 299–​317; Horden,
‘What’s Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?’; Peregrine Horden, ‘Sickness and Healing’,
in The Cambridge History of Christianity 3: Early Medieval Christianities, c. 600–​1100, ed.
Thomas F. X. Noble and Julia M. H. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008),
416–​32; Palmer, ‘Merovingian Medicine’.
16 Jonathan L. Zecher, Spiritual Direction as a Medical Art in Early Christian Monasticism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022); Andrew Crislip, Thorns in the Flesh: Illness and
Sanctity in Late Ancient Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2013); Gary B. Ferngren, Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2009).
17 Owsei Temkin, Hippocrates in a World of Pagans and Christians (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1995), 181. Healing miracles make frequent appearances in hagiograph-
ical writings; on Caesarius of Arles’ concerns about pagan influences, see Caesarius of
Arles, Sermons, trans. Mary Magdeleine Mueller, 3 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Catholic
University of America Press, 1956), vol. 1, Sermons 52 and 53, at pp. 259–​65.
18 Gregory the Great wrote that the ‘gift’ of sickness should be endured (though he does not
appear to have always heeded his own advice): Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral
Rule, trans. James Barmby (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895), 35.
19 Horden, ‘Sickness and Healing’, 101.
20 Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 312–​17; Horden, ‘Sickness and Healing’, 100–​3.

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Setting the Scene 43

medical imagery, such as the Christus medicus metaphor, and engaged with a
‘Galenic logic of practice’ to convey their interpretations of doctrine and pro-
vide guidance to their communities.21 The accommodation or appropriation
of classical and late antique medical knowledge had profound effects, marking
this body of scholarship as (largely) acceptable within a Christian intellectual
culture, if used with the acknowledgement that successful healing ultimately
depended on God.
With theologians in the Greek east presenting more (and more diverse)
examples of sustained engagement with medical writings in their works, the
relatively few Latin authorities, such as Cassiodorus (d. c. 585) and Isidore (d.
636), who offered explicit statements on the practice and study of medicine
became particularly impactful in shaping perspectives in the early medieval
west. Cassiodorus, a scholar and Roman civil servant of the Ostrogothic regime,
founded a monastery in southern Italy, Vivarium, and composed a text, the
Institutiones, to guide this community in their pursuit of both divine and sec-
ular learning.22 Medical matters feature within his guidance: in line with the
positive attitude towards healing evinced by many intellectuals of the period,
he admonished the monks to help those afflicted by illness and disease with
medicines and with hope in God, ‘emphasizing the eternal rewards granted to

21 Ferngren, Medicine and Health Care. On hospitals, see Andrew T. Crislip, From Monastery
to Hospital: Christian Monasticism & the Transformation of Health Care in Late Antiquity
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005); and especially the work of Peregrine
Horden, including, Peregrine Horden, ‘Alms and the Man: Hospital Founders in
Byzantium’, in The Impact of Hospitals, 300–​2000, ed. John Henderson, Peregrine Horden,
and Alessandro Pastore (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007), 59–​76; Peregrine Horden, ‘Poverty,
Charity, and the Invention of the Hospital’, in The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, ed.
Scott Fitzgerald Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 715–​43; and Peregrine
Horden, ‘Cities Within Cities: Early Hospital Foundations and Urban Space’, in Stiftungen
zwischen Politik und Wirtshaft. Ein Dialog zwischen Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Sitta
von Reden (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 157–​75. On the use of medical imagery and ideas in
theological writings, see, for example, Marie-​Anne Vannier, ‘L’image du Christ médecin
chez les pères’, in Les Pères de l’Église face à la science médicale de leur temps, ed. Véronique
Boudon-​ Millot and Bernard Pouderon (Paris: Beauchesne, 2005), 525–​ 34; Michael
Dörnemann, ‘Einer ist Arzt, Christus: Medizinales Verständnis von Erlösung in der
Theologie der griechischen Kirchenväter des zweiten bis vierten Jahrhunderts’, Zeitschrift
für antikes Christentum/​Journal of Ancient Christianity 17 (2013): 102–​24, https://​doi​.org​
/10​.1515​/zac​-2013​-0006; and, on the ‘Galenic logic of practice’, Zecher, Spiritual Direction,
23–​196, and especially at pp. 32–​3.
22 Cassiodorus, Cassiodori Senatoris Institutiones, ed. R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1937); for an English translation, see Cassiodorus, Institutions of Divine and Secular
Learning, in Cassiodorus, Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning and On the Soul,
trans. James W. Halporn (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004).

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44  Chapter 2

those who charitably heal the sick’.23 Carolingian theologians would build on
Cassiodorus’ instructions, framing the practice of medicine as a ‘sacred art’.24
In addition to articulating a general conception of medicine’s place in a
Christian community, Cassiodorus also provided very specific details for the
monks of Vivarium, recommending a selection of Greek medical writings in
Latin translations.25 This list reveals a group of treatises that were accessible
to a primarily Latin-​speaking community and that he considered acceptable
for a Christian audience. Cassiodorus included a herbal of Dioscorides, Latin
translations of Hippocrates and Galen, ‘a certain anonymous work that has
been collected from various authors’, Caelius Aurelius’ Medicine, and ‘various
other works … I have left to you’.26 Although Cassiodorus’ ambiguous phrasing
and nonstandard names of authors and their works have puzzled modern his-
torians (e.g., should ‘Caelius Aurelius’ be interpreted as ‘Caelius Aurelianus’?),
surviving Carolingian copies of the texts it is thought that he suggested, in con-
cert with evidence from extant ninth-​century library catalogues, illustrate that
these writings circulated in Carolingian Europe.27 Such findings not only bear
witness to his long-​term impact on the perception of medicine but also reflect
his influence on the transmission of medical knowledge itself.
Moreover, Cassiodorus’ practical approach to medicine aligns with com-
ments on medical care recorded in monastic rules, such as the Rule of St
Benedict. Chapter 36 of this rule, for example, instructs monastic communities
to care for their sick brothers, stipulating that there should be a designated

23 Cassiodorus, Cassiodori Senatoris Institutiones, 78; Leja, Embodying the Soul, 106.
24 Leja, Embodying the Soul; Leja, ‘The Sacred Art’.
25 Cassiodorus, Cassiodori Senatoris Institutiones, 78–​9.
26 Cassiodorus, Cassiodori Senatoris Institutiones, 78–​9: Quod si vobis non fuerit Graecarum
litterarum nota facundia, in primis habetis Herbarium Dioscoridis, qui herbas agrorum
mirabili proprietate disseruit atque depinxit; post haec legite Hippocratem atque Galienum
Latina lingua conversos, id est Tharapeutica Galieni ad philosophum Glauconem desti-
nata, et anonymum quendam, qui ex diversis auctoribus probatur esse collectus. Deinde
Caeli Aureli de Medicina et Hippocratis de Herbis et Curis diversosque alios medendi
arte compositos, quos vobis in bibliothecae nostrae sinibus reconditos Deo auxiliante der-
eliqui. Translation from: Cassiodorus, Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning, trans.
Halporn, 166.
27 On the question of identifying the texts, see Pierre Courcelle, Late Latin Writers and Their
Greek Sources, trans. Harry E. Wedeck (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969),
403. For mentions of medical texts in surviving early medieval library catalogues, see
Glaze, ‘The Perforated Wall’, 268–​91. On early medieval catalogues (with a focus on those
from Lorsch), see Angelika Häse, Mittelalterliche Bücherverzeichnisse aus Kloster Lorsch.
Einleitung, Edition und Kommentar (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002).

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Setting the Scene 45

room, complete with a ‘God-​fearing’ attendant, for the ill and infirm.28 Certain
regulations, such as the prohibition on meat consumption (or at least the meat
of four-​footed animals), were also relaxed for the sick.29 While recent schol-
arship has challenged the ‘misleadingly tidy picture’ presented by Benedict
of Aniane regarding the evolution of monastic rules as well as the immediate
impact of the series of councils at Aachen in the early ninth century that estab-
lished the Rule of St Benedict as the standard rule guiding monastic communi-
ties, the prescriptive perspective of such a text can illuminate common ideals
and underlying attitudes.30 In this case, it suggests that caring for a communi-
ty’s infirm and elderly members was an expected feature of monastic life.
However, just as with hospitals in this period, ‘care’ should not be con-
flated with ‘cure’. Furthermore, acts of both caring and curing could concern
the health of the soul rather than or alongside the body.31 In other words,
although the Rule of St Benedict supports caring for the sick, its instructions do
not refer to medical interventions as part of this care (aside from the possible
therapeutic benefits resulting from relaxed bathing and dietary rules). On this
point, the so-​called Plan of St Gall, cod. sang. 1092, offers further insights.32
While this manuscript, sent by the monks of Reichenau to Abbot Gozbert of
St Gall (816–​37), may look like an architectural blueprint, the diagram is now

28 rb 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict in Latin and English with Notes, ed. and trans. Timothy Fry
(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1981), Chapter 36.
29 rb 1980, ed. and trans. Fry, Chapters 36–​7, 39.
30 Felice Lifshitz, ‘The Historiography of Central Medieval Western Monasticism’, in The
Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, ed. Alison I. Beach and
Isabelle Cochelin, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 365–​81. For recent
approaches, see especially Albrecht Diem, ‘Inventing the Holy Rule: Some Observations
on the History of Monastic Normative Observance in the Early Medieval West’, in Western
Monasticism ante litteram: The Spaces of Monastic Observance in Late Antiquity and the
Early Middle Ages, ed. Hendrik Dey and Elizabeth Fentress (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011),
53–​84; Albrecht Diem and Claudia Rapp, ‘The Monastic Laboratory: Perspectives of
Research in Late Antique and Early Medieval Monasticism’, in The Cambridge History
of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, ed. Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin,
vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 19–​39; Albrecht Diem and Philip
Rousseau, ‘Monastic Rules (Fourth to Ninth Century)’, in The Cambridge History of
Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, ed. Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin, vol. 1
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 162–​94 (quotation at p. 163); and Kramer,
‘Monasticism, Reform, and Authority in the Carolingian Era’.
31 Horden, ‘Sickness and Healing’; Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 315.
32 Cod. sang. 1092. On the Plan, see Barbara Schedl, Der Plan von St. Gallen: Ein Modell
europäischer Klosterkultur (Vienna: Böhlau, 2014) and Walter Horn and Ernest Born, The
Plan of St. Gall: A Study of the Architecture and Economy of, and Life in a Paradigmatic
Carolingian Monastery, 3 vols. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979).

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46  Chapter 2

thought to represent an idealised vision of a monastic centre. The detailed

drawing provides a wealth of information, specifying even the plants grow-
ing in the diagram’s three gardens. Within the Plan, a substantial amount of
space is dedicated not simply to caring for the sick but also to therapeutic prac-
tices: in addition to separate quarters for the sick, as required by the Rule of St
Benedict, the Plan includes a bloodletting room, physician’s quarters, and even
a storeroom for the drugs involved in treatment (armarium pigmentorum).
Complementing these therapeutic spaces, one of the Plan’s gardens, appro-
priately located next to the infirmary, is designed to grow medicinal plants;
named herbs include costmary, mint, pennyroyal, rue, and sage—​all products
that feature as ingredients in medical recipes.33
Like the preceding examples, however, it is important recognise the norma-
tive nature of this remarkable source: it reflects an ideal rather than direct evi-
dence for medical practices on the ground. Yet, it remains noteworthy that this
diagram affords medical care so much space and depicts it in such detail. Even
though such a plan was never actualised in St Gall, it reveals a positive attitude
towards healing and healthcare. Nevertheless, despite the detailed nature of
the Plan, the manuscript does not shed light on the relationship between med-
ical knowledge and practice. Was there a space for books in the infirmary or
would the medical manuscripts of St Gall have been located in the monastery’s
main library? Given Cassiodorus’ general advice and list of works intended to
be used in the context of therapy, it seems likely that the community’s medical
and pharmaceutical writings—​some of which have survived and are central to
the following chapters’ analyses—​were expected to be consulted for therapeu-
tic purposes. The works of Isidore of Seville, however, offer a cogent reminder
that such a purpose was but one of many possible options and that, especially
within the Christian environments in which such material was copied and
read, texts could have multiple, layered functions.
Isidore’s Etymologiae, a twenty-​book encyclopaedia addressing all areas of
knowledge, represents one of the most influential works of the period: the
latest survey of early medieval manuscripts containing the text (including
fragments) has identified over 400 manuscript witnesses from before the year
1000.34 Significantly, medicine is allocated an entire book, De medicina, and

33 In cod. sang. 1092, these are listed as costo, menta, pulegio, ruta, and saluia; Horn and
Born, The Plan of St. Gall, 181–​3. See Chapter 4 for further discussion of gardens and local
materia medica.
34 Evina Steinová, ‘The Oldest Manuscript Tradition of the Etymologiae (Eighty Years after
A. E. Anspach)’, Visigothic Symposium 4 (2020–​21): 100–​43, https://​doi​.org​/10​.17613​/ehr8​
-5c39​. For the text, see Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive originum, libri xx, ed. W. M.
Lindsay, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911); and for an English translation, see

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Setting the Scene 47

appears immediately after the three opening books on the liberal arts, though
topics related to health and medicine can also be found throughout the entire
encyclopaedia.35 Book 11, ‘The human being and portents’ (De homine et por-
tentis), Book 17, ‘Rural matters’ (De rebus rusticis), and Book 20, ‘Provisions and
various implements’ (untitled in early manuscripts), for example, each con-
tain content with direct relevance to medical knowledge, such as a descrip-
tion of the human body as well as information regarding substances that could
have been used as materia medica. Within De medicina, Isidore reviews a wide
range of medical matters, including the history of medicine, the concept of
the four humours, acute and chronic diseases, types of remedies and medi-
cations, varieties of medical books, physicians’ instruments, and scents and
ointments, ending with a section on the ‘foundations of medicine’ (De initiis
medicinae), which outlines the basic educational requirements of this ‘Second
Philosophy’.36
While Isidore’s overview of medicine covers much ground, it is fairly super-
ficial and would have provided little in the way of practical guidance. Rather,
it demonstrates how medical knowledge could be redeployed for Christian
learning: the medical information he recorded was ‘intended to be studied as
words’.37 And, as Meg Leja points out, by focusing attention on the art of med-
icine and its various components, Isidore ‘implicitly classified it as something
essential for future Christian societies’; that is, medical knowledge, including
material derived from non-​Christian classical and late antique writers, had a
place within the pastoral and pedagogical project of the early medieval west.38
Moreover, as Jacques Fontaine has argued, the Carolingian reception of the
Etymologiae introduced new layers of allegorical interpretation.39 Hrabanus
Maurus (d. 856), archbishop of Mainz, for example, produced an encyclopae-
dia, De rerum naturis (also known as De universo) that reordered and adapted

Isidore of Seville, The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. Stephen A. Barney, W. J. Lewis,
J. A. Beach, and Oliver Berghof (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). On the
general reception of the Etymologiae, see Andrew T. Fear and Jamie Wood, eds., Isidore
of Seville and His Reception in the Early Middle Ages: Transmitting and Transforming
Knowledge (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016).
35 See Isidore, Etymologiae, Book 4. On Isidore and medicine, see especially Arsenio
Ferraces Rodríguez, ed., “Isidorus medicus”: Isidoro de Sevilla y los textos de medicina (A
Coruña: Servizio de Publicacións, Universidade da Coruña, 2005).
36 On De initiis medicinae, see Isidore, Etymologiae, 4.13.
37 Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 301.
38 Leja, Embodying the Soul, 105.
39 Jacques Fontaine, ‘Isidore de Séville et la mutation de l’encyclopédisme antique’, Cahiers
d’Histoire Mondiale 9, no. 1 (1966): 519–​38.

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48  Chapter 2

the Etymologiae, creating a new composition that was designed to be used as

‘a reference tool for the practice of biblical interpretation’.40 While Hrabanus
included comments on medicine within his work, he excerpted only a fraction
of the content covered by Isidore’s De medicina and, according to Frederick
Paxton, placed this material ‘in the least prominent position possible, at the
end of book eighteen, after a series of chapters on weights, measures, num-
bers, and music and its parts’.41 Hrabanus’ other writings that touch on med-
icine, such as his commentary on Ecclesiasticus, underscore his position on
the subject. Although Hrabanus concurred with this biblical book’s praise for
doctors—​praise rooted in the argument that earthly medicine was, after all,
created by God and thus inherently good—​he immediately reinterpreted the
passage, taking it as commentary on spiritual physicians: ‘Ben Sira’s praise for
doctors and medicine is read as praise for clerics and the methods they use to
cure sick souls’.42
While Hrabanus’ positive references to medicine have long been seen as
his support not only for medical practice but also medicine’s inclusion in the
standard curriculum, Paxton’s close readings of his metaphorical uses and
allegorical interpretations of the medical art suggest otherwise.43 Yet, even if
Hrabanus’ medical metaphors cannot be used as strong evidence for the sub-
ject’s integration within a general educational programme in the Carolingian
period, the frameworks provided by the writings of Cassiodorus and Isidore
still suggest that this was a possibility. In fact, until at least the seventh century,
there appears to have been a specialised medical school in Ravenna that fol-
lowed a curriculum based on the Galenic canon established at Alexandria.44

40 Frederick S. Paxton, ‘Curing Bodies—​Curing Souls: Hrabanus Maurus, Medical Education,

and the Clergy in Ninth-​Century Francia’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied
Sciences 50, no. 2 (1995): 230–​52, at p. 241.
41 Paxton, ‘Curing Bodies—​Curing Souls’, 247; Hrabanus Maurus, De universo 18.5, pl 111,
cols. 500–​4.
42 Paxton, ‘Curing Bodies—​Curing Souls’, 243.
43 Paxton, ‘Curing Bodies—​Curing Souls’. Cf. MacKinney, Early Medieval Medicine, 94–​5;
Loren C. MacKinney, ‘Medical Education in the Middle Ages’, Cahiers d’histoire mon-
diale 2, no. 4 (1955): 835–​61, at p. 846; Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 58.
44 On Ravenna’s medical school, see Nicoletta Palmieri, ‘Il galenismo alessandrino in Italia
tra antichità tarda e alto medioevo’, in La conoscenza scientifica nell’alto medioevo: Spoleto,
25 aprile-​1 maggio 2019, Settimane 67, vol. 1 (Spoleto: Fondazione Centro italiano di studi
sull’alto medioevo, 2020), 237–​70; Nicoletta Palmieri, ‘Nouvelles remarques sur les com-
mentaires à Galien de l’école médicale de Ravenne’, in «Docente natura». Mélanges de
médecine ancienne et médiévale offerts à Guy Sabbah, ed. Armelle Debru and Nicoletta
Palmieri (Saint-​Étienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-​Étienne, 2001), 209–​46; and,
for a summary of current scholarship, Judith Herrin, Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible

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Setting the Scene 49

However, while some scholars, such as Loren MacKinney and John Contreni,
have identified a handful of intellectual centres, such as Laon and Chartres,
as possible hubs of medical learning in the early medieval west, it would be
inappropriate to see these cathedral schools as continuations of the classical
and late antique medical schools.45 On the other hand, additional indirect evi-
dence, including the writings of individual Carolingian intellectuals, such as
Walahfrid Strabo (d. 849), Lupus of Ferrières (d. c. 862), and Pardulus of Laon
(d. c. 865), reveal that their authors acquired some level of medical knowledge,
supporting the idea that medicine did, in fact, feature within the general cur-
riculum in many communities.46
In a letter sent by Pardulus to Hincmar of Reims (d. 882), for example,
Pardulus shares dietary advice with his unwell superior, aiming to rebalance
his humours and restore his health. As part of his recommendations, he writes,
‘when rising from table, one should take a measure of beans that have been
thoroughly purged and cooked with very clear fat. Although according to the
philosophers this is said to dull the senses, it is nonetheless believed to evac-
uate and dry out phlegm’.47 While this epistle documents ecclesiastical elites
engaging with learned medicine in a practical, hands-​on way, Pardulus does
not comment on where he gained his medical knowledge. His references to
philosophers, descriptions of dietetic approaches to finding humoral balance,
and use of specific terminology (such as hygeia) imply a familiarity with the
types of writings circulating during this period. Pardulus’ letter is thus highly
suggestive that recipes and other medical texts were studied with the intent

of Europe (London: Allen Lane, 2020), 239–​44. On the Alexandrian curriculum, see, in
addition to Nicoletta Palmieri’s works cited above, Ivan Garofalo and Amneris Roselli,
eds., Galenismo e medicina tardoantica. Fonti greche, latine e arabe. Atti del Seminario
internazionale di Siena, Certosa di Pontignano, 9 e 10 settembre 2002 (Naples: Istituto
Universitario Orientale, 2003).
45 MacKinney, Early Medieval Medicine; MacKinney, ‘Tenth-​ Century Medicine’; John
J. Contreni, ‘Masters and Medicine in Northern France in the Reign of Charles the Bald’,
in Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom. Papers Based on a Colloquium Held in London in
April 1979, edited by Margaret T. Gibson and Janet Nelson, 2nd ed. (Aldershot: Variorum,
1990), 267–​82.
46 For examples of Carolingian intellectuals who demonstrate some degree of medical
learning in their surviving writings, see especially Contreni, ‘Masters and Medicine’. On
medicine as part of a general education, see Palmer, ‘Merovingian Medicine’.
47 Contreni, ‘Masters and Medicine’, 282: In ultimo, antequam surgatur a mensa, faba pur-
gatissima cum purissimo pingui ad mensuram decocta sumatur; quae licet secundum phi-
losophos sensum obtundere dicatur, tamen phlegmata et deponere et exsiccare creditur.
Translation from Wallis, Medieval Medicine, 111–​12.

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50  Chapter 2

of applying this knowledge in therapy, though it does not provide explicit evi-
dence of this practice.
In contrast, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the period immediately
following this study, the use of medical texts, and specifically pharmaceutical
prescriptions, for therapeutic purposes is clearly recorded in letters exchanged
among the ecclesiastical elite. The writings of Richer of Reims (d. after 998) or
Fulbert of Chartres (d. 1028), for instance, indicate that medical texts were stud-
ied and consulted to prepare medications.48 In a letter to Bishop Adalbero of
Laon, Fulbert writes that he is sending several medications to help treat Ebalus,
Adalbero’s secretary, who is suffering from an unnamed illness.49 Fulbert spe-
cifically recommends referring to the antidotaria (books of antidotes) in Laon
if Adalbero needs guidance on ‘what these [medications] are good for and how
to take or to administer them’.50 Yet, given the shifting landscape of medical
learning discussed in Chapter 1, the comments of Richer and Fulbert should
not be assumed to reflect the ways in which Carolingian scribes, readers, and
medical practitioners engaged with their medical texts.
Returning to the ninth century, Walahfrid Strabo’s poem Hortulus offers
a window onto the author’s first-​hand knowledge of gardening while also
showcasing his familiarity with possible medical uses for many of the plants
growing in his ‘little garden’. Significantly, Walahfrid begins the poem with a
comment on how he has learnt about gardening, listing his own experiences
in the garden alongside the knowledge he has acquired from books and picked
up from oral traditions:

A quiet life has many rewards: not least of these

Is the joy that comes to him who devotes himself to the art
They knew at Paestum, and learns the ancient skill of obscene
Priapus—​the joy that comes of devoting himself to a garden…
This I have learnt not only from common opinion
And searching about in old books, but from experience—​
Experience of hard work and sacrifice of many days
When I might have rested, but chose instead to labor.51

48 Richer of Reims, Histoire de France, ed. and trans. Robert Latouche, 2 vols. (Paris: H.
Champion, 1930), vol. 2, 224–​30; Fulbert of Chartres, The Letters and Poems of Fulbert
of Chartres, ed. and trans. Frederick Behrends (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), see, for
example, Letters 24, 47, 48, and 71 (at pp. 45–​7, 83–​4, 84–​5, and 119–​20, respectively).
49 Fulbert, The Letters and Poems of Fulbert of Chartres, Letter 47 (at pp. 83–​4).
50 Ibid, and translation from Wallis, Medieval Medicine, 15.
51 Walahfrid Strabo, De cultura hortorum, ed. Ernst Dümmler, mgh Poet. 2 (Berlin: Weidmann,
1884), 335–​49. Latin text and translation from Walahfrid Strabo, Hortulus, trans. Raef

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Setting the Scene 51

While it is noteworthy that Walahfrid mentions book learning, this comment

refers only to his knowledge of gardening rather than to the medical informa-
tion that follows. His recording of remedies in this text and others (see the
discussion of cod. sang. 878 in Appendix 1) is, as with the case of Pardulus,
particularly suggestive that he was well-​versed in the medical texts circulating
during this period, even if his autobiographical comments are not as explicit
as those found in the letters of Cynehard, Richer, or Fulbert.52 Ultimately, the
testimonies of the literate elite of Carolingian Francia do not provide direct
evidence for the application of practical medical texts in the context of ther-
apy though they strongly support this possibility.
Furthermore, although these leading Carolingian scholars appear to have
engaged with medical knowledge and practice, they are not described in the
surviving textual evidence as medici, i.e., professional practitioners. As Horden
laments, ‘we know more about the medicine of the period, for all its obscu-
rities, than we do about doctors’.53 Consider a reference to medici in a poem
composed by Alcuin (d. 804), Charlemagne’s famed Northumbrian scholar.
Describing the entrance of the medici at court, he writes:

Forthwith flock in the doctors [medici], disciples of Hippocrates:

This one opens veins, this one mixes herbs in a pot,
That one cooks up a poultice, another offers potions.54

Alcuin offers a tantalising glimpse into the practices of these largely invisible
professionals, noting what the medici do—​and these activities fit with those
recorded in the medical texts—​but he provides no further evidence regard-
ing their identity, training, sources of information, and so on.55 As noted in
Chapter 1, named medical practitioners are few and far between, though medici

Payne (Pittsburgh: Hunt Botanical Library, 1966), 24–​5: Plurima tranquillae cum sint insig-
nia vitae, /​Non minimum est, si quis Paestanae deditus artis /​Noverit obsceni curas tractare
Priapi. /​ … Haec non sola mihi patefecit opinio famae /​Vulgaris, quaesita libris nec lectio
priscis; /​Sed labor et studium, quibus otia longa dierum /​Postposui, expertum rebus docuere
probatis.
52 Voigts uses Walahfrid’s comments in the Hortulus as evidence of his use of medical texts
in the practice of medicine. Walahfrid’s references to book learning, however, do not
explicitly confirm this. See Voigts, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Remedies’, 268.
53 Horden, ‘Sickness and Healing’, 96.
54 Alcuin, Carmina, 26, ed. Ernst Dümmler, mgh Poet. 1 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1881),
245: Accurrunt medici mox, Hippocratica secta: /​ Hic venas fundit, herbas hic miscet in olla, /​
Ille coquit pultes, alter sed pocula praefert. Translation from Wallis, Medieval Medicine, 80.
55 For additional comments on medici by Alcuin, see Alcuin, Epistola, 213, ed. Ernst Dümmler,
mgh Epp. kar. aevi 2 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1895), 356–​7.

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52  Chapter 2

can be found in charters and law codes.56 Their appearance in these contexts,
however, offers little sense of their medical practice and no direct evidence
regarding their possible use of medical texts as part of this practice. On the
other hand, these sources shed light on certain aspects of their lives, such as
their position in society and apparent literacy, that are typically lacking in the
documentary evidence reviewed above.57 It seems plausible, therefore, that
these literate medical practitioners consulted medical writings during their
general education, training in medicine, and possibly in their practice, too.
It must also be remembered that the written record captures only a frac-
tion of the variety of medical practitioners active during this period.58 While
the textual evidence reveals the existence of elite male practitioners, it rarely
sheds light on ‘informal healthcare delivered by men and women in their
communities’.59 Yet, the general absence of evidence regarding the provi-
sion of healthcare beyond elite networks should not be read as evidence of
absence; as Patricia Skinner cautions, ‘we must remain alive to the possibility
that [informal healthcare] existed, and that the picture we build up from the
surviving sources may only be a small part of the whole’.60 When considering
the potential diversity of the medical marketplace, it is important to recognise
that many of the individuals involved in healing practices, and especially those
unrecorded by the texts, may not have had the skills or resources (including
access to the manuscripts) to incorporate medical texts in their practice or that
they worked within complementary healing systems (e.g., miraculous cures).61
The literate medici, who, given their connections and education, are more
likely to have consulted texts as part of their practice, may have represented
only a small percentage of the available practitioners during this period.
Consequently, their practices and potential engagement with the medical lit-
erature in circulation likely reflect just one of the many interwoven threads
within the complex web of healing traditions in early medieval Europe.
While acknowledging that the medical writings recorded in manuscripts
capture only a partial picture of the wider healthscape, as the other types
of documentary evidence surveyed above make clear, these texts remain

56 Skinner, Health and Medicine in Early Medieval Southern Italy; Pilsworth, Healthcare in
Early Medieval Northern Italy, 187–​209.
57 Pilsworth, Healthcare in Early Medieval Northern Italy, 187.
58 Horden, ‘Sickness and Healing’, 92–​3.
59 Skinner, Health and Medicine in Early Medieval Southern Italy, 83.
60 Ibid.
61 Valerie J. Flint, ‘The Early Medieval ‘Medicus’, the Saint—​and the Enchanter’, Social
History of Medicine 2, no. 2 (1989): 127–​45, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1093​/shm​/2​.2​.127; Park,
‘Medicine and Society’.

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Setting the Scene 53

fundamentally important for understanding medicine’s place in the early

medieval Latin west, and it is thus essential to consider the contexts in which
medical manuscripts were produced. According to Florence Eliza Glaze, all
extant early medieval medical manuscripts are ‘likely monastic products’.62
This monastic setting has helped to give rise to the problematic concept of
Mönchsmedizin, monastic medicine, i.e., the idea that ‘the medieval medical
literature … comes from and belongs in monasteries’.63 While this conclusion
may, at first glance, appear to be justified if all texts were written in monastic
contexts, it is an unhelpful and reductive assumption that has accumulated
negative connotations. The restriction of early medieval medical knowledge
and practice to monastic environments has limited the field’s understanding
of the texts and contexts in which they could have been used. Although there is
strong evidence for the production of these manuscripts in monastic scriptoria
and for their continued existence in these communities, there is also evidence
of their presence in lay households. The Carolingian counts Eberhard of Friuli
(d. 867) and Ekkehard of Mâcon (d. 876) are both recorded as owning one med-
ical manuscript.64 Therefore, although no surviving eighth-​and ninth-​century
medically-​focused codices appear to have been produced outside of monas-
tic centres, it is evident that the manuscripts themselves could have moved
beyond these cloistered communities.
That being said, given the large number of manuscripts that remained in
monastic contexts, such as the libraries of Lorsch, St Gall, Reichenau, and
Corbie, it is also important to reflect on this particular type of environment.
Under the influence of Mönchsmedizin, the inclusion of certain types of med-
ical writings, such as treatises on or including gynaecology, in these codices
was used to argue that ancient texts were blindly copied and had little practical
value. Countering this interpretation, Peregrine Horden has shown that texts
on such ‘problematic’ topics could have been used in multiple ways and in mul-
tiple settings—​even within the cloister.65 In a monastic environment without

62 Glaze, ‘The Perforated Wall’, 1.

63 Bernhard Schnell, ‘Prolegomena to a History of Medieval German Medical Literature: The
Twelfth Century’, in Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine: A Book of Essays, ed. Margaret
R. Schleissner (London: Garland, 1995), 3–​15, at p. 12. For early studies commenting on the
monastic context of early medieval medicine see Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist (espe-
cially p. 186) and Frühmittelalterliche Rezeptarien, ed. Jörimann (especially p. 1).
64 On the evidence for the circulation of medical manuscripts specifically, see Glaze, ‘The
Perforated Wall’, 69–​79; on lay medical book ownership, see Glaze, ‘The Perforated Wall’,
13–​14, n. 6. It is also useful to remember that in the early medieval Greek east, luxury or
display copies of medical writings, such as Vienna, önb, Med. gr. 1, appear to have circu-
lated within royal and aristocratic households.
65 Horden, ‘What’s Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?’, 12–​13.

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54  Chapter 2

childbearing community members, for example, a gynaecological treatise

could have been read as a work on natural history.66 Alternatively, given the
‘comings and goings of elite patronesses; of the mothers, sisters, daughters and
former wives of monks; of labourers on the monastery’s estates’, it is possible
that the texts were, in fact, studied in relation to therapy.67 Ultimately, it must
be remembered that, as Horden writes, ‘what has often been called monks’
medicine was not especially monastic. It simply comes to us from monastic
manuscripts’.68 The monastic context thus presents a setting in which early
medieval scribes, readers, and potentially even medical practitioners engaged
with medical writings for a number of different, potentially overlapping
reasons—​but, simultaneously, this was not the only possible environment in
which these activities could have occurred.

2.1 Summary
While past scholarship has uncovered evidence for a number of different ways
to practise medicine and pursue healing in the Carolingian world, there are
few clear signs that medical texts were consulted as part of this practice. That
is not to say that texts were ignored in the context of therapy, but rather to
remember that explicit evidence for this type of use, such as Cynehard’s letter,
is exceedingly rare. Therefore, although it may be tempting to extrapolate from
the evidence presented in the writings of Cassiodorus, the medical features
depicted in the Plan of St Gall, or the comments of later authors, and presume
that medical writings were used in medical practice, it would be inappropriate
to make such an assumption. Between the repurposing of medical knowledge
seen in the works of Isidore and Hrabanus, the ‘unintelligibility’ exhibited by
some medical texts, as well as Cynehard’s inability to access ingredients, it
becomes clear that medical writings, including seemingly practical recipe col-
lections, could be used in multiple ways or become unusable for therapeutic
purposes.69
An in-​depth reconsideration of recipe practicality, in terms of both inten-
tion/​design and use, is therefore much needed. Can the evidence for both
practicality and impracticality be reconciled? Cynehard’s letter documents
his experiences across the channel, but what was the situation in Carolingian
Francia? Before turning to case studies on the question of practicality

66 Horden, ‘What’s Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?’, 12; Horden, ‘Prefatory Note’.
67 Horden, ‘What’s Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?’, 13.
68 Ibid.
69 Horden, ‘Sickness and Healing’, 96: ‘other, lesser, texts often degenerate into unintelligibil-
ity through repeated copying’.

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Setting the Scene 55

(Chapters 3–​5), it is essential to provide an overview of the recipe literature

and sample of recipes involved in this study.

3 Outlining the Recipe Literature

Over 100 codices containing medical texts have survived from the eighth and
ninth centuries alone.70 Most of these can be termed ‘medical manuscripts’, i.e.,
their contents focus largely, if not entirely, on texts relating to health and medi-
cine. Given the vocabulary used in manuscript catalogues from the period, this
label parallels Carolingian descriptions of these codices.71 It must be remem-
bered, however, that although this terminology suggests that medical writings
were understood to belong to a distinct subject area, such writings could also
appear outside of strictly medical manuscripts. Medicine often travelled with
calendrical material, for example, due to the significant links between these
areas of learning.72 Medical texts also appear in seemingly unexpected con-
texts, such as the addition of medical material—​sometimes no more than a
single recipe—​to a blank space in a manuscript otherwise unconnected to
health, medicine, and related fields.73 While these finds are important, espe-
cially when considering the spread of medical knowledge, they provide only a
fraction of the total number of surviving texts, and the majority of the recipes
analysed in this book are located in medical manuscripts. It is therefore worth
pausing to highlight the complex, unstable nature of these codices before
reviewing the recipe literature contained within them, especially since many

70 On the numbers of surviving manuscripts, see Beccaria, I codici and Wickersheimer, Les
manuscrits; the former includes 158 manuscripts produced between the ninth and elev-
enth centuries while the latter, which only focuses on manuscripts held in French collec-
tions, gives 119 manuscripts for the same period. As noted in Chapter 1, the cemlm has
identified roughly 200 manuscripts missed by Beccaria and Wickersheimer.
71 Leja, Embodying the Soul, 12.
72 On the links between medicine and calendars, see Wallis, ‘Medicine in Medieval
Calendar Manuscripts’ and Faith Wallis, ‘Counting All the Bones: Measure, Number
and Weight in Early Medieval Texts About the Body’, in Was zählt Ordnungsangebote,
Gebrauchsformen und Erfahrungsmodalitäten des “numerus” im Mittelalter, ed. Moritz
Wedell (Cologne: Böhlau, 2012), 185–​208.
73 For examples of non-​medical manuscripts to which recipes have been added, see, for
example, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, ms 223, a ninth-​century codex containing a
variety of non-​medical texts, such as works by Prudentius, with recipes added to its open-
ing flyleaf, or Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms 199, a ninth-​century codex covering the
Lateran Council of 649 in which a recipe has been added to the final half folio.

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56  Chapter 2

of the manuscripts’ general characteristics likewise apply to their constituent

recipe collections.
While texts relating to pharmacy represent a substantial proportion of the
writings preserved within medical manuscripts, this area of medicine was one
of many that interested Carolingian compilers. Other popular topics include
phlebotomy, diagnosis and prognosis, and dietetics and preventative medi-
cine, to name but a few.74 Faith Wallis and Peregrine Horden, in particular,
have provided important and perceptive syntheses of the manuscript evidence
and the challenges it poses to modern researchers given its inconsistencies,
variability, and paradoxical ‘reverence for authority coincid[ing] with extraor-
dinary indifference to textual authenticity’.75 As Wallis recognises, ‘the more
important the text was for the early medieval reader … the more it was subject
to dismemberment, rearrangement, abbreviation, and so forth’.76 With texts
concerning pharmaceutical information comprising one of the most popular
areas of medical writing, the surviving recipe literature reflects this dismem-
berment, rearrangement, and abbreviation.
Since Antiquity, recipes have been gathered to form collections of various
sizes, structures, and thematic concentrations, as described below. Copies of
classical and late antique collections continued to circulate in the early medie-
val west, though often in ‘decanonised’ and adapted versions.77 Alongside these
established (if unstable) texts, new compilations were produced that brought
together multiple earlier sources as well as outside influences, combining and
recombining pharmaceutical information in novel ways. This book focuses on
recipes from these new compositions as well as ‘miscellaneous’ prescriptions
found outside of large collections. As described in Chapter 1, the relative lack
of engagement with these types of recipes in past scholarship, combined with
the field’s changing research trends, provides an ideal opportunity to analyse
a large sample of previously overlooked and/​or understudied material. These
recipes, moreover, are particularly useful for investigating questions of prac-
ticality and applicability given that they combine a variety of sources rather
than presenting the work of a single author or more established tradition. In

74 For a full breakdown of the genres of medical writing and number of texts associated with
each during this period, see Wallis, ‘The Experience of the Book’, 112, n. 30.
75 For particularly insightful syntheses of early medieval medicine in relation to the manu-
script evidence, see Wallis, ‘The Experience of the Book’ (quotation at p. 107) and Horden,
‘What’s Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?’, though these themes are also addressed
in their other work; see the bibliography for more examples.
76 Wallis, ‘The Experience of the Book’, 103–​4.
77 Wallis, ‘The Experience of the Book’.

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Setting the Scene 57

other words, while the recipes under analysis are intimately related to earlier
medical writings (and, in some cases, individual recipes can be traced to a par-
ticular classical or late antique source), additional influences from beyond the
classical corpus are also apparent (see Chapters 3 and 4).78 Early medieval rec-
ipe collections, each presenting a distinct blend of sources, thus present fertile
ground for exploring the evolution of medical knowledge during this period.
Over the following pages, I introduce the recipes under consideration, first
reviewing the typical ways in which prescriptions were presented and ordered
into collections. This starts with an emphasis on classical and late antique
traditions due to their influence on early medieval compilations. Indeed, the
shared manuscript contexts in which all these texts are located highlight both
the differences between collections as well as their innate entanglements and
commonalities. This leads, therefore, to an overview of the specific manu-
scripts involved in the present study.

3.1 Recipes and Recipe Collections

The recipes recorded in early medieval manuscripts—​whether in copies of
classical and late antique pharmaceutical treatises or in new compositions—​
appear in a range of formats and with varied levels of detail and complexity.
One of the most fundamental distinctions is that between simple and com-
pound medicines.79 The former, simplicia, offer treatments based on a single
primary ingredient (the active drug). Although the selected substance was
sometimes intended to be used completely alone (e.g., a treatment might sim-
ply advise that a herbal product should be ingested), many recipes provide
instructions that combine the primary ingredient with at least one additional
substance that served as a liquefying agent, binder, etc., and that was not per-
ceived as having a therapeutic effect. In contrast, compound medicines, com-
positiones, involve a mixture of materia medica and, rather than targeting a
single ailment, were often presented as treatments for multiple conditions.80
While compound medicines could include just a handful of active ingredients,

78 Horden, ‘What’s Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?’, 19. For examples of the identi-
fication of individual extracts and transmission of earlier sources within early medieval
recipe collections, see the work of Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez and Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer
highlighted in Chapter 1.
79 Ferraces Rodríguez, ‘Un recetario médico altomedieval’, 41.
80 Alain Touwaide, ‘Pharmaceutic Handbooks’, in Medieval Science, Technology and
Medicine: An Encyclopedia, ed. Thomas Glick, Steven J. Livesey, and Faith Wallis
(London: Routledge, 2005), 393–​4; Alain Touwaide, ‘Pharmacy and Materia medica’, in
Medieval Science, Technology and Medicine: An Encyclopedia, ed. Thomas Glick, Steven
J. Livesey, and Faith Wallis (London: Routledge, 2005), 397–​9.

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58  Chapter 2

recipe collections also contain many complicated recipes that feature long
lists of exotic ingredients and claim to treat a host of different diseases, from
common maladies (headaches, stomach pains, and the like) to more extreme
illnesses and injuries (including rabid dog bites, scorpion stings, and epilepsy, to
name but a few examples). Such sweeping panaceas often provide treatments
for poisons and encounters with venomous animals and appear to be derived
from and modelled on ancient compound medicines, such as Mithridates’
antidote, reflecting the influence of classical treatises on toxicology.81
Simples and compounds were traditionally associated with different types
of recipe collections, though these divisions and organising principles were
somewhat fluid, especially in early medieval compendia. Texts focused on
and ordered by materia medica, such as herbals and bestiaries, concentrate
on simplicia.82 In these collections, each chapter covers a different ingredient
and often provides some information about the substance in question (e.g.,
synonyms, instructions for collection and/​or preparation, etc.) in addition
to its medical uses. Dioscorides’ (c. 40–​90) De materia medica, an enormous
composition with individual chapters dedicated to nearly 800 plants and
over 100 animals and minerals, respectively, is the most comprehensive of the
ancient works following this general schematic and had a lasting impact.83
New compositions were created not only by following Dioscorides’ model but
also by directly excerpting, rearranging, and translating his text and, later, its
descendants.
In surviving manuscripts, the widespread circulation of recipe collections
ordered by materia medica suggests that they were a popular genre within
pharmaceutical writing.84 In particular, a group of late antique herbals and

81 Laurence M. V. Totelin, ‘Mithridates’ Antidote—​A Pharmacological Ghost’. Early Science

and Medicine 9, no. 1 (2004): 1–​19; Philip Wexler, ed., Toxicology in Antiquity, 2nd ed.
(London: Academic Press, 2019).
82 For more on the genre of herbals, see, for example, the collected essays of Jerry Stannard
and John Riddle: Stannard, Pristina Medicamenta; Stannard, Herbs and Herbalism in the
Middle Ages and Renaissance; and Riddle, Quid pro quo. On the illustrated traditions spe-
cifically, see Collins, Medieval Herbals.
83 Dioscorides, Pedanii Dioscuridis Anazarbei De materia medica libri quinque, ed.
Max Wellmann, 3 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1906–​14); for an English translation, see
Dioscorides, De materia medica, trans. Lily Y. Beck (Hildesheim: Olms-​Weidmann, 2005).
On Dioscorides’ reception, see John M. Riddle, Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985); Riddle, ‘Pseudo-​Dioscorides’ Ex herbis femininis’,
43–​81; Alain Touwaide, ‘Dioscorides’, in Medieval Science, Technology and Medicine: An
Encyclopedia, ed. Thomas Glick, Steven J. Livesey, and Faith Wallis (London: Routledge,
2005), 152–​4.
84 Beccaria, I codici; Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits.

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Setting the Scene 59

bestiaries, labelled the Herbariencorpus by Gerhard Baader, are often found

transmitted together; these texts include Pseudo-​Antonius Musa’s De herba
vettonica liber, Pseudo-​Apuleius’ Herbarius (noted in Chapter 1 in relation to its
translation into Old English), Pseudo-​Dioscorides’ Ex herbis femininis, Pseudo-​
Sextus Placitus’ Liber medicinae ex animalibus, pecoribus et bestiis, and the
anonymous De taxone liber.85 Baader has traced their connection to sixth-​or
seventh-​century Ravenna, a city already noted for its medical importance. In
addition to its school of medicine, Ravenna seems to have played an important
role in the translation of several Greek medical texts into Latin, cementing its
significance in relation to the transmission of medical knowledge during this
period.86 At the same time, the widespread popularity of herbal medicine can
also be seen through Isidore’s brief comments on different types of medical
books, as he included two terms for texts concerning plants in this section of
Book 4: dinamidia, collections of herbal remedies, and butanicum, a botanical
treatise.87
In contrast to simples, the multipart nature of compound medicines, such
as antidotes, is less suited to treatises ordered by individual materia medica;
instead, compositiones tend to be found in separate collections, antidotaria. In
these texts, prescriptions are typically named after a) a primary or notewor-
thy ingredient(s), b) their (alleged) creator or a famous user, or c) a principal

85 Gerhard Baader, ‘Die Anfänge der medizinischen Ausbildung im Abendland bis 1100’,
in La scuola nell’Occidente latino dell’alto medioevo, 15–​21 aprile 1971, Settimane 19, vol. 2
(Spoleto: Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1972), 669–​772. Voigts,
‘The Significance of the Name Apuleius’, 215; Riddle, ‘Pseudo-​Dioscorides’ Ex herbis femi-
ninis’, 43–​81. Ernst Howald and Henry Sigerist produced a cml volume (4) featuring many
of these texts: Antonii Musae De herba vettonica liber. Pseudoapulei Herbarius. Anonymi De
taxone liber. Sextii Placiti Liber medicinae ex animalibus etc.
86 Baader, ‘Die Anfange der medizinischen Ausbildung’. On Ravenna’s medical school, see
n. 44 above. On translation at Ravenna, see also Innocenzo Mazzini, ‘Les traductions
latines d’Oribase et d’Hippocrate’, in Les écoles médicales à Rome: Actes du 2ème Colloque
international sur les textes médicaux latins antiques, Lausanne, septembre 1986, ed.
Philippe Mudry and Jackie Pigeaud (Geneva: Droz, 1991), 286–​93.
87 For Isidore’s discussion of medical books, see Isidore, Etymologiae, 4.10.1–​4. On dyna-
midia, see Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez, ‘El Pseudo-​Dioscórides De herbis femininis, los
Dynamidia e Isidoro de Sevilla, Etym. xvii, 7–​11’, in Tradición e Innovación de la Medicina
Latina de la Antigüedad y de la Alta Edad Media: Actas del iv Coloquio Internacional
sobre los “textos medicos latinos antiguos”, ed. Manuel Enrique Vázquez Buján (Santiago
de Compostela: Servicio de Publicacións e Intercambio Científico da Universidade
de Santiago de Compostela, 1994), 183–​203; John M. Riddle, ‘The Pseudo-​Hippocratic
Dynamidia’, Sudhoffs Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften 27
(1989): 283–​311; and Loren C. MacKinney, ‘“Dynamidia” in Medieval Medical Literature’,
Isis 24, no. 2 (1936): 400–​14.

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60  Chapter 2

therapeutic property, and follow the precedent set by Galen’s (c. 129-​c. 216) On
Antidotes.88 The textual boundaries between simple and compound medicines
are blurred, however, in collections ordered by diseases (generally following
a head-​to-​toe, a capite ad calcem, arrangement) or by style/​method of treat-
ment. In the former, each chapter focuses on the treatment of a disease, con-
dition, or cluster of symptoms, presenting at least one prescription, though
multiple options are often listed. While simplicia comprise the core of these
collections, compound medicines also appear. In recipe collections ordered
by style/​method, following Galen’s On Medicines by Genres, the prescriptions
are arranged into different groups based on their final form, distinguishing
between, for example, oils, unguents, plasters, electuaries, pessaries, collyria,
and so on.89 While some of these preparations align with the simple model
and centre on a single active drug, many involve more complicated mixtures.
The a capite ad calcem arrangement can already be seen in some texts attrib-
uted to Galen and became a very popular ordering strategy in late antique
adaptations of earlier works. Consider, for example, the Plinian family of phar-
maceutical writings. Medical recipes are scattered throughout Pliny the Elder’s
(23–​79) monumental and unwieldy Natural History.90 Anonymous compilers
excerpted the medical sections and reordered them from head to toe, produc-
ing new texts, the Medicina Plinii and Physica Plinii, in the fourth and sixth
centuries, respectively.91 Similar processes of reworking, excerpting, condens-
ing, and translating ancient medical writings can be observed in the works
of numerous late antique authors, including Oribasius (c. 320–​400), Caelius

88 Touwaide, ‘Pharmaceutic Handbooks’, 393–​ 4. For work on specific antidote tradi-

tions, see, for example, Fischer, ‘Antidotum cui nomen est acharistum’ and Fischer, ‘Die
Antidotos des Zopyros und andere Fundstücke zu Scribonius Largus’, in Body, Disease
and Treatment in a Changing World: Latin Texts and Contexts in Ancient and Medieval
Medicine. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference “Ancient Latin Medical Texts”,
Hulme Hall, University of Manchester, 5–​8 September 2007, ed. David Langslow and Brigitte
Maire (Lausanne: Éditions bhms, 2010), 147-​60.
89 Touwaide, ‘Pharmaceutic Handbooks’, 393. See also Isidore, Etymologiae, 4.9.8–​11 for a list
of different types of preparations.
90 Pliny the Elder, Natural History, trans. Harris Rackham, William Henry Samuel Jones, and
D. E. Eichholz. 10 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938–​63).
91 Plinii Secundi Iunioris qui feruntur De medicina libri tres, ed. Önnerfors; The Medicina
Plinii: Latin Text, Translation, and Commentary, trans. Yvette Hunt (Abingdon: Routledge,
2020); Physica Plinii Bambergensis (Cod. Bamb. med. 2, fol. 93v-​232r), ed. Alf Önnerfors
(Hildesheim: Olms, 1975); Aude Doody, ‘Authority and Authorship in the Medicina Plinii’,
in Authorial Voices in Greco-​Roman Technical Writing, ed. Liba Taub and Aude Doody
(Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2009), 93–​105; Aude Doody, Pliny’s Encyclopedia: The
Reception of the Natural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

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Setting the Scene 61

Aurelianus (fl. c. 400), Marcellus of Bordeaux (fl. late fourth/​early fifth centu-
ries), Alexander of Tralles (c. 525–​605), and Paul of Aegina (c. 625–​90).92 While
such efforts were formerly seen as the unsophisticated repackaging and sim-
plification of earlier texts that resulted in the stagnation of medical progress,
more recent scholarship has viewed this work as indicative of an environment
in which the study of medicine flourished.93 In the context of the present
study, it is important to recognise how the reordering of texts, composition of
commentaries on existing works, and translations of Greek writings into Latin
suggest that late antique compilers, authors, and translators worked to make
this body of knowledge more user-​friendly: older texts were revised to create
more practical medical guidebooks.94
When producing new compilations, late antique authors did not simply
work from a single text, reordering or excerpting material in isolation; rather,
just like the ancient medical writers before them and the early medieval com-
pilers who would follow, they often brought together multiple sources. In these
late antique syntheses, as Nutton highlights, ‘extracts from earlier writers are
assembled, often verbatim and duly acknowledged, into a coherent mosaic
of opinions, ideas and remedies’.95 In some cases, the authorities cited were
near contemporaries: Marcellus, for example, refers to the ‘two Plinies’, i.e.,
Pliny the Elder and the anonymous compiler of the Medicina Plinii, as sources
for his extensive recipe collection, De medicamentis liber.96 The production
of new compendia in the early Middle Ages continued these practices of
excerpting and reordering earlier sources, if with certain differences. While
some trends appear amplified, such as the reduction of theoretical material
and emphasis on texts with a seemingly practical orientation, others speak to
evolving contexts of production: material unrecorded in the classical corpus,
ranging from the inclusion of Christian elements to new materia medica, also
comes into view.97 Overall, these developments suggest that broadly similar
impulses underpinned the creation of new compendia in both late Antiquity

92 Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 299–​308.

93 Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 300; Stannard, ‘Marcellus of Bordeaux’, 47–​53; Glaze, ‘The
Perforated Wall’, 18–​46.
94 Owsei Temkin, The Double Face of Janus and Other Essays in the History of Medicine
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 202.
95 Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 302.
96 Marcellus, De medicamentis liber, ed. Liechtenhan and Niedermann, trans. Kollesch and
Nickel; Stannard, ‘Marcellus of Bordeaux’; Doody, Pliny’s Encyclopedia, 138.
97 Horden, ‘Sickness and Healing’, 94–​6; Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 303. On Christian ele-
ments, see Burridge, ‘Healing Body and Soul’; on previously unrecorded ingredients, see
Chapters 3 and 4.

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62  Chapter 2

and the early Middle Ages, supporting the idea that many of these compila-
tions were intended to be used in the context of therapy—​just as Cassiodorus
recommended.
Significantly, although, like earlier compilations, many early medieval
compendia brought together material from classical and late antique recipe
collections that followed multiple organisational principles, in contrast to
earlier compilers, early medieval compilers did not necessarily impose a single
overarching structure on their new compositions.98 As a result, many of these
early medieval products only loosely follow one of the standard organisational
strategies or alternate between several approaches, suggesting that clusters of
information were derived from specific sources. For example, entries follow-
ing the herbal model (i.e., a section of text that names a plant, provides some
basic information about it, and lists a series of simples using it) sometimes
punctuate a collection in which recipes are more frequently listed under head-
ings reflecting the ailment they aim to treat, though the headings may not be
ordered a capite ad calcem.99 Although such varied assemblages might raise
questions about their potential usability in practice (how would a practitioner
know where to find a particular recipe within this assortment?), many com-
pendia begin with lists of their contents that would have helped readers to
navigate these multi-​layered collections.100
Furthermore, it is important to recognise that these compilations, like
the manuscripts in which they are found, often include more than recipes
alone. In addition to prescriptions, pharmaceutical collections commonly
incorporate supplementary, related material, such as brief tracts on weights
and measures, urine analysis, or phlebotomy.101 Such inclusions reinforce the

98 It must be remembered, however, that in cases where an organisational principle seems

to be lacking, it remains possible that the compilers’ strategy is simply unclear to modern
readers and that it followed a logical system that was recognised within the environment
in which the text was produced.
99 On the less uniform grouping of treatments, see, for example, Paris, BnF lat. 11218: although
it does not follow the a capite ad calcem pattern consistently, many types of similar treat-
ments are located in clusters, such as a notably gynaecological section on ff. 108r–​109r
that contains thirty-​four recipes entirely related to menstruation, conception, childbirth,
etc. Several folia later, there is a section that could be described as an antidotaria as it
contains mostly antidotes and complex, composite prescriptions (ff. 113v–​118v).
100 Extensive collections in codd. sang. 44, 751, 759, and Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (here-
after bav) pal. lat. 1088, for instance, are all preceded by contents lists. A list also survives
in BnF lat. 6882A, though the collection itself has been lost. With the exception of bav
pal. lat. 1088, where a duplication error in the list has confused the numbering, the con-
tents lists and collections are usually near perfect matches.
101 Beccaria, I codici; Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits.

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Setting the Scene 63

impression that they were conceived of as general handbooks for medical care,
and, notably, when lists of contents are recorded, they also include these extra-​
pharmaceutical elements, thereby indicating that they were understood as
integral parts of the collection rather than as unplanned addenda. Given the
comprehensiveness of these works, this book’s use of ‘recipe collection’ must
be clarified. Under this label, I include textual units that a) consist primarily of
recipes, and b) contain at least three recipes. Collections vary enormously in
size and scope: some feature hundreds of numbered entries, each containing
one or more recipes, and are accompanied by lists of contents, while others
list only a handful of recipes. Though the latter present a significant contrast
with the much larger collections, they still appear as a coherent textual unit
recording pharmaceutical information. Additionally, some collections involve
multiple hands and were corrected and/​or added to over time, whereas others
appear to have been the work of a single scribe.
Here, it is also necessary to elaborate on the term ‘recipe’. Excepting the
extra-​pharmaceutical extracts mentioned above, most of the entries within
recipe collections could be classified as ‘remedies’; that is, ‘a medicine or treat-
ment that promotes healing or alleviates symptoms’.102 Some, however, are
broader in scope, such as instructions for the preparation of composite ingre-
dients, including oxymel, various oils and unguents, and incense. Recipes for
these products can be found alongside remedies.103 Although such ingredients
may not have been intended to treat a disease or alleviate symptoms, they still
had a medical purpose, serving as components within remedies. Moreover,
some of these composite ingredients may have, in fact, been used both as the
constituent parts of a remedy and as treatments themselves. The term ‘recipe’,
therefore, more accurately describes the material at hand and, in the analyses
that follow, all recorded recipes have been considered, rather than exclusively
focusing those entries that can be clearly shown to be remedies, given the
potential ambiguities and overlap between categories.
Related to defining what constitutes a recipe within the context of this
study is the question of how to count recipes. In line with classical and late
antique pharmaceutical writings, titled entries within recipe collections often
represent discrete chapters, within which multiple recipes may be listed.
Contents lists record these titles, meaning that their numbering is based on
chapters rather than individual recipes. In the following analyses, all recipes

102 For a definition of the word, see the entry for ‘remedy, n.’, in oed Online, last modified
December 2023, last accessed 10 March 2024, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1093​/OED​/694​2526​268​.
103 Claire Burridge, ‘Incense in Medicine: An Early Medieval Perspective’, Early Medieval
Europe 28, no. 2 (2020): 219–​55, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1111​/emed​.12394​.

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64  Chapter 2

are counted; as a result, the total number of recipes in some manuscripts is

significantly higher than might be expected based on their recipe collections’
contents lists. When more than one recipe is listed under a single heading,
each recipe after the opening example tends to be prefaced by item, ‘likewise’,
marking the start of a distinct recipe for the same issue. There are, however,
several grey areas, such as whether to include material that has only partially
survived due to lost or damaged folia (e.g., a recipe might end prematurely due
to the loss of the following page). In cases of partial survival, I have incorpo-
rated these recipes in the analysis only when a substantial amount of informa-
tion has been preserved.
Finally, what information is recorded in the recipes themselves? As noted
above in relation to the differences between simple and compound medicines,
recipes can vary widely in their presentation, complexity, and level of detail.
The division between simplicia and compositiones, for example, highlights that
the number of active ingredients and targeted ailments ranges across a broad
spectrum: a simple recipe might involve a single substance and be intended to
treat one disease, whereas a complex antidote could list over fifty ingredients
and aim to help scores of different illnesses, wounds, aches, and pains. In addi-
tion to these basic differences, there is also great variation with respect to the
inclusion of instructions and, when included, level of detail. Some recipes pro-
vide guidance on the processes involved in the preparation, production, and
administration of the treatment in question, defining, for example, the best
time to collect the ingredient(s), specifying ingredient quantities or ratios, and
recommending when and how long to administer the treatment. Conversely,
other recipes record no more than a list of ingredients.
With this overview of recipes and recipe collections, it is possible to turn to
the present study’s selected manuscripts.

3.2 The Manuscript Sample104

The analyses in the following chapters are based on my transcriptions of reci-
pes from a sample of twenty-​four manuscripts (see Table 1 below for the list of
codices). These manuscripts are today located in the Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen
(eleven manuscripts), Bibliothèque nationale de France (eight manuscripts),
and Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (five manuscripts). These three libraries
not only house many of the most important collections of early medieval
manuscripts and charters but, within their collections, they each contain large
concentrations of early medieval medical manuscripts. Augusto Beccaria’s

104 For a more detailed review of the twenty-​four manuscripts, see Appendix 1.

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Setting the Scene 65

catalogue includes approximately eighty manuscripts containing medical

writings produced in the eighth and ninth centuries and Ernest Wickersheimer
identified a number of additional codices in French collections, bringing this
total to roughly 100 codices.105 As such, the twenty-​four manuscripts under
analysis represent a significant body of the surviving corpus of recipe lit-
erature. Moreover, not all of the manuscripts catalogued by Beccaria and
Wickersheimer contain the types of recipes analysed in this study: some of
the codices included in their catalogues do not contain any pharmaceutical
writings while others only feature texts more closely linked to the classical and
late antique canon. However, of the twenty-​four codices, three in St Gall (codd.
sang. 397, 550, and 899) and one in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (bav
pal. lat. 187), were not recorded in the earlier catalogues and it is important to
remember that new cataloguing initiatives are increasing the number of man-
uscripts known to contain medical texts.106 That being said, collectively, these
four manuscripts contributed less than fifty recipes to the analyses: three of
the four are not ‘medical manuscripts’, meaning that their contents primarily
cover non-​medical material, while the one predominantly medical codex of
the group, bav pal. lat. 187, is mostly dedicated to a known late antique phar-
maceutical treatise, the Alphabet of Galen, and only contains a single page of
‘miscellaneous’ recipes. Despite their relatively minor contributions to the
volume of surviving medical writings, these manuscripts do offer meaningful
insights into the extent to which the knowledge of medical texts was spread
and the ways in which it moved.
Overall, these twenty-​four codices under consideration thus present a sub-
stantial sample of the extant manuscript evidence concerning recipes outside
the established canon. Nevertheless, it is also essential to consider the selected
manuscripts’ representativity with respect to their chronological range, geo-
graphic distribution, and contents. In terms of dating, the earliest manuscripts
under analysis, including cod. sang. 217 and BnF lat. 11218, are thought to have
been produced in the late eighth or early ninth centuries, whereas the latest
manuscripts, such as codd. sang. 752 and 899, have been dated to c. 900.107
Recipes have also been added over time in many of the codices, including
those that can be described as ‘medical manuscripts’ as well as those which
focus on non-​medical material. Where recipe additions appear to have been
incorporated by c. 900, such as in the cases of bav reg. lat. 598 and BnF lat.

105 Beccaria, I codici; Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits.

106 The new research has been led by the cemlm cataloguing project; see Chapter 1, n. 39.
107 For more specific information and references regarding these manuscripts and those
described below, see Appendix 1.

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66  Chapter 2

table 1 Summary of manuscripts (including number of recipes in each manuscript)

Library Manuscript # of recipes

Bibliothèque nationale lat. 2849A 54

de France lat. 2858 2
lat. 5543 65
lat. 6882A 61
lat. 7021 1
lat. 9332 9
lat. 11218 803
lat. 11219 121
Library subtotal 1116

Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen cod. sang. 44 917

cod. sang. 217 316
cod. sang. 397 2
cod. sang. 550 3
cod. sang. 751 1187
cod. sang. 752 15
cod. sang. 759 451
cod. sang. 761 46
cod. sang. 878 17
cod. sang. 899 42
cod. sang. 1396 118
Library subtotal 3114

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana pal. lat. 187 2

pal. lat. 1088 835
reg. lat. 598 12
reg. lat. 1143 312
vat. lat. 5951 1
Library subtotal 1162

Total 5392

11219, this material has been included in the present study; later additions,
such as the eleventh-​and twelfth-​century Old High German material seen in
cod. sang. 878 and BnF lat. 11219, respectively, have not been considered in the
analysis (though they provide insights into the long-​term histories of several
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Setting the Scene 67

manuscripts). The majority of manuscripts, including codd. sang. 44, 751, and
bav pal. lat. 1088, have been dated to the ninth century, with some date ranges
fairly broad, i.e., to the first or second half of the ninth century, and others
more precise. For example, codd. sang. 397 and 878, the handbooks of Grimald,
Abbot of St Gall (841–​72), and Walahfrid Strabo, respectively, were produced
in the decades when these scholars were active, while BnF lat. 5543 has been
dated to around the year 847.
Regarding geographic distribution, these codices were written in centres of
manuscript production across continental western Europe, including in eccle-
siastical communities at the heart of Carolingian intellectual developments,
such as St Gall and Reichenau, as well as at sites on the peripheries of the
Frankish Empire, such as centres in northern Italy and Brittany (see the map
for sites with known connections to a number of individual manuscripts under
consideration as well as, in the cases where localisation remains regional, prob-
able locations of production). Many of the manuscripts located in St Gall today,
such as codd. sang. 752 and 899, appear to have originated within this commu-
nity, while others, including codd. sang. 217 and 751, appear to have arrived not
long after they were produced. These two codices, along with the medical half
of cod. sang. 44, are thought to have been written in northern Italy and illus-
trate the connections between northern Italian sites of manuscript production
and Alpine monastic centres. Indeed, despite their distance from the Frankish
heartlands, northern Italian writing centres, such as Bobbio, Nonantola, and
Verona, were deeply embedded within Carolingian ecclesiastical and intellec-
tual networks, and the movement of several of the manuscripts involved in
this study bears witness to these connections.108 Moreover, a general survey of
extant early medieval medical texts suggests that centres in northwest Francia
and northern Italy were especially active in the production and dissemination
of manuscripts containing medical writings during this period.109 With this in
mind, it is therefore worth noting that a significant proportion of the manu-
scripts in the sample are thought to have been produced and were circulating
in these regions; codices that can be linked to more western Frankish intellec-
tual centres include, for example, BnF lat. 2858, 5543, and 9332.
Lastly, the sample also contains a variety of manuscript types. Many of the
manuscripts, including codd. sang. 751, 759, bav pal. lat. 1088, reg. lat. 1143, BnF

108 On the movement of manuscripts and links between writing centres, including a number
of those featured in this review, see Bernhard Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries in the
Age of Charlemagne, trans. Michael M. Gorman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007), 33, 122, and 147–​8.
109 Leja, ‘The Sacred Art’, 4; Beccaria, I codici; Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits.

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68  Chapter 2

lat. 11218, and 11219, can be classed as medical manuscripts given their primary,
if not exclusive, focus on writings concerning health and medicine. However,
the sample also features more mixed manuscripts that contain texts on other
topics, such as the aforementioned handbooks codd. sang. 397 and 878; cod.
sang. 899, which is primarily a poetry anthology; and BnF lat. 2858, which con-
tains the letters of Lupus of Ferrières. This assortment thus centres on medical
manuscripts while also featuring codices in which medicine is but an element
within a wider assemblage, reflecting the diverse codicological contexts in
which medicine appears.
Based on the sample’s a) inclusion of multiple manuscript types, b) varied
geographic distribution that simultaneously emphasises regions associated
with the production of medical manuscripts, and c) chronological spectrum
spanning c. 775–​900, this study considers a representative selection of early
medieval Latin manuscripts that contain medical texts. The sample is also
particularly well-​suited, both chronologically and geographically, to the osteo-
logical evidence addressed in Part 2, a topic covered in Chapter 6. Table 1 sum-
marises the distribution of recipes within the manuscript sample; the total
number of recipes from the manuscript sample comes to 5392, with roughly
three-​fifths of the recipes found in the eleven manuscripts from St Gall and
one-​fifth found in the manuscripts of both the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
and Bibliothèque nationale de France, respectively. Given the uneven distri-
bution of recipes between manuscripts—​BnF lat. 7021 contains just one rec-
ipe whereas cod. sang. 751 includes over 1000—​certain codices are referred to
more frequently in the following chapters than others.
Building on this background to the texts and manuscripts, it is time to inves-
tigate the ingredients recorded in their folia.

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 ­c hapter 3

Impossible Imports or Available Exotics?

A Study of Non-​local Materia Medica

1 Introduction: the Exotic Ingredients of an Antidote

A ‘sacred’ antidote of colocynth. This is the recipe: eryngium roots, poly-

pody roots, balsam bark, Nepal cardamom, long pepper, spignel, ginger,
gentian, savin, costus, spikenard, cassia, agaric, sweet flag, colocynth: 2
drachmae each. Rustyback fern, wall germander, camphor: 1.5 ounces
each. Aloe, saffron, rhubarb, mastic, cinnamon, scammony, dodder,
hazelwort, peony: 1 ounce each. You make all this into a powder; add suf-
ficient skimmed honey.1

The above ingredient list, found on f. 90r of bav pal. lat. 1088, names the sub-
stances (and their respective amounts) needed to prepare the Antidotum gira
deacoloquintidis, ‘A ‘sacred’ antidote of colocynth’. A fairly typical antidote, the
scribe claims that it treats roughly two dozen different conditions, from head
pains to gout—​and seemingly everything in between. The scribe even asserts
that, in addition to curing present infirmities, it will defend against future mal-
adies: non solum presentes infirmitates curat, sed futuras egritudines defendit.
While this catch-​all approach to treatment raises important questions regard-
ing the practicality and applicability of antidotes more generally, here, I shall
explore the materia medica listed within the antidote. Like the large number
of conditions it supposedly treats, the recipe also incorporates a host of differ-
ent ingredients—​twenty-​eight to be specific. Nearly all of these ingredients
are derived from plants; honey (mel) and agaric (agarico), a mushroom, are
the only exceptions. Where did these twenty-​six different plants grow? Could a

1 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 90r: Antidotum gira deacoloquintidis… Recipit hęc eringio radices, polopo-
dię radices, sirobalsamo, amomo, piper longum, meu, gingiber, gentiana, brathea, costo, spico,
casia, agarico, agaro, interiones, ana dragmas II, scolopendria, camitrius, cafora, ana untia I et
dimidia, aloę, croco, reopontico, masticę, cinamo, diagridiu, epithimo, asaro, pionia, ana unt I,
omnia pulueraem facis, adde mel dispumatum quod sufficit. Only the recipe’s ingredient list
is included in the opening quotation; the full entry begins with the conditions the antidote
treats and ends with instructions for its preparation; for the entire recipe, see Appendix 2,
entry 16.26.

© Claire Burridge, 2024 | DOI:​1 0.1163/9789004466173_004

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70  Chapter 3

Carolingian individual, such as Walahfrid Strabo tending his monastic garden,

have produced or foraged for these ingredients?
Ten of the twenty-​eight products could have been grown or produced in
northern and western Europe; these include eight plants native to the region—​
eryngium (eringio), polypody (polopodię), spignel (meu), gentian (gentiana),
savin (brathea), rustyback fern (scolopendria), dodder (epithimo), and hazel-
wort (asarum)—​as well as honey (mel) and the fungus agaric (agarico). Five
plant ingredients, including sweet flag (agaro), colocynth (interiones), wall ger-
mander (camitrius), scammony (diagridiu), and peony (pionia), are generally
native to the southern and/​or eastern Mediterranean. Although these are not
endemic to the territories under Frankish control, they could have been grow-
ing in neighbouring regions or perhaps cultivated in protected gardens, though
Walahfrid Strabo does not record them in his poem on his own ‘little garden’,
nor are they included in the diagram of the medicinal garden within the Plan
of St Gall.2 The remaining thirteen ingredients, balsam bark (sirobalsamo),
Nepal cardamom (amomo), long pepper (piper longum), ginger (gingiber), cos-
tus (costo), spikenard (spica), cassia (casia), camphor (cafora), aloe (aloe), saf-
fron (croco), rhubarb (reopontico), mastic (mastice), and cinnamon (cinamo),
are from much further afield. While this three-​tiered classification system is
relative and some of the more Mediterranean plants may have been growing
within the Carolingian world (had sweet flag, for example, been introduced to
western European wetlands and riversides by this period? Were peonies being
cultivated in aristocratic and monastic gardens, even if they were unrecorded
by Walahfrid or the Plan?), it reveals that the antidote relies on ingredients of
varying levels of localness—​or, conversely, exoticness.3 Secondly, despite this
spectrum in localness/​exoticness, it is apparent that, if this antidote were used
in practice, a significant number of the ingredients, such as pepper, ginger, and
camphor, would have travelled very long distances to reach any part of the
Frankish Empire.
Many recipes present a picture similar to the antidote above, combining a
mixture of potentially local and definitely non-​local products. John Riddle’s
analysis of one of the recipe collections involved in the present study, the first
collection in cod. sang. 44 (pp. 228–​55), provides a useful example.4 Using
Henry Sigerist’s 1923 transcription, he identified 361 different ingredients in the

2 Voigts, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Remedies’; Walahfrid Strabo, Hortulus; Horn and Born, The Plan of
St. Gall, 181–​3.
3 Voigts, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Remedies’, 261–​3.
4 Riddle, ‘The Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugs’, 185–​98.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 71

recipes of this collection.5 Some of these ingredients, such as fennel and rose, are
also recorded in the texts relating to gardens mentioned in Chapter 2, whereas
others, including camphor and ambergris, appear to have been unknown to
classical physicians. After eliminating ingredients used largely as emollients,
flavouring agents, or solvents, such as honey, wine, and wax, Riddle delineates
the twenty most frequently recorded ingredients: aloe (aloes), gum ammoniac
(ammonicum), Nepal cardamom (amomum), parsley or celery seeds (apium
semen), cinnamon (cassia), cumin (ciminum), colophony resin (colofonia),
saffron (crocus), fenugreek (fenugrecum), frankincense (libanus), flax (linum),
mastic (mastice), myrrh (murra), parsley (petroselinum), pitch (picea), pepper
(piper), scammony (scamonia), storax (storace), terebinth (terebintina), and
ginger (zinziber).6 While seven of these ingredients could have grown locally,
the remaining thirteen, nearly two-​thirds of the ingredients in question, are
not native to northern and western Europe. Like the opening antidote, there is
a range of exoticness among the non-​local products; a number of these ingre-
dients, such as scammony and terebinth, can be found in the southern and
eastern Mediterranean, though others, including cinnamon, pepper, and gin-
ger, are grown in southeast Asia. Is it probable (or even possible) that such
non-​local ingredients were available in the Carolingian world? Is there evi-
dence that reflects the movement and trade of these particular spices, gums,
resins, and woods? Or are there signs suggesting that the Franks, like Cynehard,
encountered difficulties in obtaining exotic ingredients?
This chapter will explore the question of practicality through the lens of
non-​local materia medica. After first reviewing evidence for the movement of
exotic ingredients through gift exchange, trade, and even illicit means, I return
to Riddle’s study. Riddle and others, such as Michael McCormick, have high-
lighted the appearance of camphor, ambergris, and several other substances
from southeast Asia in early medieval recipes. They argue that their use as
materia medica in this period reflects the arrival of new pharmaceutical knowl-
edge. Using my significantly larger sample of recipes, I expand on their work,
identifying not only additional examples of camphor and ambergris, but also
the occurrence of a cluster of new products that, within the recipe literature,
appear to have travelled together as a distinct unit of information. By analysing
the manuscript contexts in which this ingredient cluster is located and exam-
ining additional evidence concerning the trade of exotic substances, I pres-
ent potential routes for the dissemination and spread of this pharmaceutical

5 Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist, 78–​99.

6 Riddle, ‘The Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugs’, 187–​9.

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72  Chapter 3

information and suggest that it was, in fact, linked to the movement of the
substances themselves. I argue that recipes incorporating such ingredients
offer a window into dynamic centres of manuscript production where scribes
integrated ‘cutting edge’ information and updated their recipe collections
with new pharmaceutical knowledge. It must be remembered, however, that
these non-​local products would have been available only sporadically, in lim-
ited quantities, and at great expense. Recipes including these substances were
not, therefore, practical in that they involved readily available ingredients
that suited local conditions, but their inclusion reflects a scribal environment
actively engaging with new ingredients and information. The findings of this
case study suggest that such recipes were intended to be used if and when the
necessary ingredients could be obtained.

2 Evidence for the Movement of Non-​local Materia Medica

The example of Cynehard presented in Chapter 2 indicates that access to non-​

local ingredients was a major challenge in some parts of northwest Europe in
the early Middle Ages. In this case, Cynehard, bishop of Winchester (d. c. 778),
asked Lull, archbishop of Mainz (d. 786), to send some of the more exotic mate-
ria medica listed in recipes since many of these products were unavailable (and
even unknown) in early medieval England.7 The fact that he asked his Frankish
colleague for help in supplying these ingredients does, however, suggest that
the Carolingian world had better access to these types of ingredients—​or at
least that Cynehard thought this was the case. Surviving epistolary evidence
supports this idea: as noted in Chapter 2, Lull, acting with two other English
missionaries, Denehard and Burchard, sent a small selection of exotica as a gift
to Abbess Cuneburg in England, and, as discussed below, Lull’s predecessor
as archbishop of Mainz, Boniface (c. 675–​754), is recorded as having received
similar gifts from Rome.8 Perhaps Cynehard knew of—​and wanted to partake
in—​this network of gift-​giving among the ecclesiastical elite.
The early medieval Insular world provides another example that highlights
the difficulty of procuring these types of non-​local substances. Willibald (c.
700–​89), an English missionary and later bishop of Eichstätt, travelled to the
Holy Land in the early eighth century. In the Hodoeporicon, the record of his life

7 Wallis, Medieval Medicine, 110–​11; ‘Epistula 114’, in Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus,
ed. Tangl, 247.
8 ‘Epistula 49’, in Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Tangl, 78–​80; ‘Epistula
62’, 127–​8.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 73

that, according to the preface, he dictated to the nun Huneberc, he describes

smuggling balsam out of Tyre by concealing it inside a reed plugged with petro-
leum hidden inside a calabash.9 Willibald and his companions were arrested
and their baggage examined, but they were eventually released when the
search turned up nothing more than a calabash smelling of petroleum.10 Had
the balsam been discovered, Willibald claims that the punishment for smug-
gling out such a valuable product was death. If the story is true, it reveals not
only the high price and difficulty of obtaining balsam, but also its importance
to Willibald: why else would he have risked his life for this substance? While it
is not recorded if this balsam was intended for medical, perfuming, or incense
purposes (or a combination of these functions), balsam (balsamum), as well as
its sap (opobalsamum), bark (xilobalsamum), and fruits (carpobalsamum), is
recorded with some frequency in recipes.11
Returning to the continent, there are a number of non-​medical texts that
record the exchange of some of the exotic substances listed in recipes within
elite networks. While the written sources introduce a bias towards the liter-
ate elite, the expensive nature of these items would suggest that any circula-
tion was limited to individuals operating within well-​endowed ecclesiastical,
aristocratic, and royal networks. As noted above, epistolary evidence indicates
that Boniface, archbishop of Mainz, was sent spices and resins as gifts from
Roman clergy on three occasions. In one case, Cardinal Deacon Gemmulus
sent four ounces of cinnamon, four ounces of costus, two pounds of pepper,
and one pound of cozumber (a derivative of storax detailed below).12 While
it is unknown how long Boniface’s supplies would have lasted, perhaps the
movement of such products from Rome into the missionaries’ territory helps
to explain Lull’s access to frankincense, pepper, and cinnamon (his gifts to
Cuneburg) as well as Cynehard’s letter to Lull requesting exotica. Did he know
that such products had been sent to Mainz at an earlier date? Even if Boniface’s
gifts were no longer present, it is possible that news of the (past) existence

9 Huneberc, Vitae Willibaldi et Wynnebaldi, ed. O. Holder-​Egger, mgh ss 14.1 (Hanover: Hahn,
1887), 80–​117; Huneberc, Hodoeporicon, in The Anglo-​Saxon Missionaries in Germany, trans.
Charles Hugh Talbot (London: Sheed and Ward, 1954), 170. On Huneberc, see Bernhard
Bischoff, ‘Wer ist die Nonne von Heidenheim?’ Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte
des Benediktinerordens und seiner Zweige 49 (1931): 387–​8; Peter Dronke, Women Writers of
the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (†203) to Marguerite Porete (†1310)
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 1–​35.
10 Huneberc, Hodoeporicon, 170.
11 Cf. entries for these products in Carmélia Opsomer, Index de la pharmacopée du Ier au Xe
siècle, 2 vols. (Hildesheim: Olms-​Weidmann, 1989).
12 ‘Epistula 62’, in Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Tangl, 127–​8.

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74  Chapter 3

of these substances in Mainz had spread and/​or that the networks between
Rome and Frankish ecclesiastical centres resulted in the sporadic distribution
of these ingredients in the Rhineland.
A letter in the Collectio sangallensis from the second half of the ninth cen-
tury suggests that access to these types of non-​local substances increased in
the years following Gemmulus’ gifts to Boniface. In this case, the letter records
that a bishop, probably Salomon ii of Constance, sent Louis the German exotic
goods, including fine textiles, an ivory comb, and foreign fruits and spices, in
an attempt to appease him.13 Although there is no reference to medicine,
many of the fruits, spices, gums, and resins listed in the letter, such as dates,
figs, pomegranates, cinnamon, galangal, pepper, cloves, and mastic, appear as
ingredients in medical recipes. Regardless, this text suggests that ecclesiastical
and aristocratic elites may have had access to a wider range of foreign products
by the middle of the ninth century: Salomon’s gifts contained a much more
diverse spread.
However, predating Salomon’s peace offerings to Louis the German, there
is also evidence for an even richer collection of eastern products entering the
Latin west. First described by the Royal Frankish Annals and then later men-
tioned by Notker the Stammerer (c. 840–​912), Harun al-​Rashid, the Abbasid
caliph (r. 786–​809), sent gifts to Charlemagne in 802 and 807.14 The largesse
displayed by Harun al-​Rashid was extraordinary, a clear signal of his wealth
and power; indeed, among the most remarkable of his gifts was an elephant,
the famous Abul Abbas. Other products named include luxurious linens and
silks, a water clock, two enormous brass candlesticks, and, most importantly
for this study, ‘perfumes and ointments and balsam’ (odores atque unguenta et
balsamum).15 While the Royal Frankish Annals do not describe the ingredients
of the perfumes and ointments, it is highly probable that they were composed

13 Collectio Sangallensis, ed. Karl Zeumer, mgh Formulae (Hanover: Hahn, 1886), 29, at
p. 415, lines 15–​19: Palliolum coloris prasini et aliud polimitum, spatulas palmarum cum suis
fructibus, cynamomi, calangani, cariofili, masticis et piperis fasciculum, Caricas ficorum,
malogranata, pectinem elefantinum, vermiculos, cicadas, aves psitacos, merulam albam
et longissimam spinam de pisce marino; Michael McCormick, Origins of the European
Economy: Communications and Commerce, A.D. 300–​900 (Cambridge, 2001), 710.
14 Annales regni Francorum inde ab a. 741 usque ad a. 829 qui dicuntur Annales laurissenses
maiores et Einhardi, ed. Friedrich Kurze, mgh ss Rer. Germ. 6 (Hanover: Hahn, 1895). Abul
Abbas is first mentioned in the entry for 801 (in transit); for the arrival of these gifts in
802, see p. 117; for 807, see pp. 122–​5. Notker, Gesta Karoli Magni Imperatoris, ed. Hans
F. Haefele. mgh ss Rer. Germ. N. S. 12. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1959), 62–​5.
15 Annales regni Francorum, ed. Kurze, 123–​4.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 75

of eastern resins, gums, and spices, including, perhaps, many of the individual
substances named in the examples above.
Although these records do not directly link the non-​local products involved
in elite gift-​giving to medical uses, the connection between exotic substances
and medicine is more explicit in other sources.16 The annual purchase of honey
and spices, pigmenta, for the treatment of sick monks recorded in the Gesta of
the Abbey of Fontenelle offers one such example. The abbot Ansegisus (c. 770-​
c. 833) allocated a pound of silver per year for this purpose.17 The use of the
term pigmenta is somewhat ambiguous as the word could refer to a range of
products including paints, pigments, and their composite parts as well as spices
and medicaments.18 In this case, it makes sense to read pigmenta as spices due
to the direct link with medical practice; these substances, however, may have
been intended for multiple purposes given that medical recipes share many
ingredients in common with paints and pigments.19 The particular products
the abbot intended to buy remains unknown.
A final example offers more specificity while continuing to blur the lines
between substances intended for medicinal, artisanal, and ecclesiastical uses: a
ninth-​century list from Corbie details various items the monks intended to buy
at the market in Cambrai—​if they had sufficient funds (si pretium habemus).20
A diverse range of products are named, from fairly humble goods, such as wax,
to imported spices and resins, including pepper and mastic. While many of
these items, such as bandages and leeches, were clearly destined for medical

16 The ointments recorded by the Royal Frankish Annals for the year 807 present a partial
exception: while their purpose is not stated, it seems likely that they were intended for
medical uses.
17 Chronique des Abbés de Fontenelle (Saint-​ Wandrille), ed. and trans. Pascal Pradié
(Paris: Belles Lettres, 1999), 13.8, at p. 188: Ad infirmorum curam mel et pigmenta libram I.
See also McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 709.
18 Jan Frederik Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 796.
19 For more on ink and paint production, see Dominique Cardon, Natural Dyes: Sources,
Tradition, Technology and Science (London: Archetype, 2007) and, for the early medieval
context, McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, 241–​6 and Adriano Caffaro,
Scrivere in oro: Ricettari medievali d’arte e artigianato (secoli ix–​x i). Codici di Lucca e Ivrea
(Naples: Liguori, 2003). For the multipurpose nature of these substances more generally,
see also Hilary Becker, ‘Pigment nomenclature in the ancient Near East, Greece, and
Rome’, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 14 (2022), https://​doi​.org​/10​.1007​/s12​
520​-021​-01394​-1; and Nicholas Everett, ‘The Manuscript Evidence for Pharmacy in the
Early Middle Ages’, in Writing the Early Medieval West, ed. Elina Screen and Charles West
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 115–​30.
20 Polyptyque de l’abbé Irminon ou dénombrement des manses, des serfs et des revenus de l’ab-
baye de Saint-​Germain-​des-​Prés sous le règne de Charlemagne, ed. Benjamin Edme Charles
Guérard, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1844), vol. 2, 336.

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76  Chapter 3

purposes, others could have served a variety functions. The mineral products
named, such as sulphur and orpiment, are often associated with the produc-
tion of inks and paints but are also listed as ingredients in recipes; likewise,
many of the exotic spices, resins, roots, and other plant products could have
been used to prepare incense or medications—​or the incense could have
been used for medical purposes, as it, too, appears as an ingredient in medical
recipes.21 Overall, nearly all of the goods recorded in this list could have been
used in a pharmaceutical context, thereby offering a glimpse into the range
of non-​local materia medica that was being commercially traded—​or at least
that the monks expected to be available for purchase—​at Cambrai in the ninth
century. Intriguingly, the quantities requested for each of the exotic products
vary significantly: some substances, such as pepper, were to be bought in bulk
(120 pounds), whereas much smaller amounts were named for others, includ-
ing galangal, spikenard, and cozumber (ten pounds for galangal, five for both
spikenard and cozumber). While this could reflect the volume of each product
needed by the monastic community, it may also relate to the prices of these
individual substances and/​or indicate that some products were circulating in
smaller quantities.
Before examining non-​local materia medica in recipes, it is important to
consider what these records suggest about the potential availability of exotic
ingredients in the Carolingian world. First, given that relatively few non-​
medical sources document these types of substances, it is likely that access to
such products, whether acquired through trade, gift exchange, or even illicit
means, would have been extremely limited. The handful of references reviewed
above do, however, indicate that at least a number of the many non-​local ingre-
dients listed in recipes did appear in the Frankish Empire during this period.
Nonetheless, although these items made appearances, the length of time
they would have lasted, in terms of both quantity and quality, also deserves
consideration. The texts suggest that exotic products did not typically move in
large volumes: take the ounces and pounds recorded in the letter to Boniface
or the five pounds of spikenard and cozumber in Corbie’s ‘shopping list’. The
large amount of pepper named in this source is an exception, but even 120
Carolingian pounds, roughly equivalent to forty kilograms today, is not a vast
sum, depending on how long it was intended to last and/​or how widely it was

21 For example, thymiama appears as an ingredient in Ad cadiuo homine of bav reg. lat.
1143 (f. 109r); see Appendix 2, entry 18.3. For more on the topic of incense in medicine,
see Burridge, ‘Incense in Medicine’. Also noted by Henry Sigerist in passing; see Henry
E. Sigerist, ‘“The Sphere of Life and Death” in Early Medieval Manuscripts’, Bulletin of the
History of Medicine 11, no. 3 (1942), 292–​303, at p. 296.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 77

expected to be distributed.22 While the record of gift-​giving among elites sug-

gests only the sporadic arrival of these items in the west, the ‘shopping list’
from Corbie and the annual supply of pigmenta documented by the Gesta of
the Abbey of Fontenelle point to more regular trade in spices. Moreover, as
noted above, these records only present evidence of elite communities—​royal,
aristocratic, and ecclesiastical—​partaking in the giving, receiving, and buying
of exotic substances. The presence of exotica at Cambrai’s market, however,
reveals that individuals outside of or on the peripheries of these elite networks
may have been able to acquire such products, too. Yet, even taking the biases
of the sources into account, it seems unlikely that these non-​local substances
circulated widely among the majority of the population given their expense
and relative rarity.
With this review of the general movement and potential availability of a
selection of foreign products, let us examine their appearance as ingredients
in recipes.

3 Exotic Materia Medica

Defining what constitutes ‘non-​local’ presents a number of challenges.23 At

the most fundamental level, given the size of the Frankish Empire, the vari-
ety of (micro-​)climates within its borders, and its influence into neighbour-
ing regions, where does ‘local’ end and ‘non-​local’ begin?24 A monk in St Gall

22 Jean Lestocquoy gives fifteen Carolingian pounds as roughly equivalent to five kilograms;
see Jean Lestocquoy, ‘Épices, médecine et abbayes’, in Études mérovingiennes. Actes des
journées de Poitiers, 1er-​3 mai 1952 (Paris: A. et J. Picard, 1953), 179–​86, at pp. 184–​5. On pep-
per’s comparatively ‘mundane’ nature among exotica, see, for example, Kasper Grønland
Evers’ study of ancient trade between the Indian subcontinent and Roman Empire, Worlds
Apart Trading Together: The Organisation of Long-​Distance Trade Between Rome and India
in Antiquity (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2017), 72–​4. Likewise, on pepper’s status as a ‘neces-
sary luxury’ (though focused on the later Middle Ages), see Paul Freedman, ‘Spices and
Late-​Medieval European Ideas of Scarcity and Value’, Speculum 80, no. 4 (2005): 1209–​27,
https://​doi​.org​/10​.1017​/S00387​1340​0001​391​. See also Zohar Amar and Efraim Lev, Arabian
Drugs in Early Medieval Mediterranean Medicine (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 2017).
23 On one approach to defining gradations of localness, see Bernhard Zeller, Charles West,
Francesca Tinti, Marco Stoffella, Nicolas Schroeder, Carine van Rhijn, Steffen Patzold,
Thomas Kohl, Wendy Davies, and Miriam Czock, Neighbours and Strangers: Local Societies
in Early Medieval Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), xiv-​xv.
24 As noted in Chapter 1, Linda Ehrsam Voigts has also considered the potential impact
of past climatic conditions on the cultivation of medicinal plants in the Insular world,
pointing to another important dimension to take into account when investigating this

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78  Chapter 3

would have had relatively easy access to alpine plants but perhaps encoun-
tered difficulties in procuring Mediterranean products. On the other hand,
an aristocratic household in Septimania might have experienced the oppo-
site situation. While this points to the difficulty of assessing ease of access
within the Carolingian world, what about products that would have been
imported from outside of the Empire? Would goods sent from the eastern
Mediterranean be considered exotic beyond the Alps but more readily avail-
able in Rome, Ravenna, and sites that maintained a greater level of contact
with the Byzantine world? Even non-​local substances, therefore, are subject
to varying degrees of accessibility and exoticness. That being said, non-​local
materia medica that were native to the lands beyond the Mediterranean basin,
such as southeast Asia, would have travelled extremely long distances—​and
required significant financial backing—​to reach any part of the Carolingian
world. These types of substances, including a number of the gums and resins
already noted, are unambiguously non-​local. This chapter therefore concen-
trates on materia medica that would have been grown or collected far beyond
north-​western Europe and the Mediterranean region, such as animal products
from the Himalayas and spices, resins, and woods from the Maluku Islands.

3.1 What’s in a Name? The Challenge of Identifying Ingredients and

Their Origins
When attempting to understand the relative localness of materia medica, geo-
graphic descriptors attached to an ingredient’s name may seem to provide
especially valuable insights. Attic honey, African snails, and Illyrian irises—​all
recorded as ingredients in recipes—​each link a product to a particular loca-
tion, but do they really indicate their source? It may be useful to consider
modern parallels: French fries are not inherently French, nor are Belgian waf-
fles necessarily Belgian, though these geographic labels may provide insights
into consumers’ perceptions. In some cases, such as fenugrecum or reopontico
(terms for fenugreek and rhubarb, respectively), the geographic descriptor
appears to have become integrated into the name of the product itself. On
the other hand, as Hilary Becker has noted with respect to the terminology
used for pigments in ancient sources, such labels could be used to differentiate
between ‘discrete varieties’, reflecting whence these products originated his-
torically rather than at the time the authors were writing.25 Moreover, Becker
cautions that this nomenclature may not convey the substances’ actual points

topic. Voigts, ‘Anglo-​Saxon Plant Remedies’, 261–​3. See also Pilsworth, Healthcare in Early
Medieval Northern Italy, 80.
25 Becker, ‘Pigment nomenclature in the ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome’.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 79

of origin and could instead document another location along the journey to
their final destination.26 Given these ambiguities, the ingredients selected for
analysis in the present chapter do not contain geographic descriptors as stand-
ard elements within their names.
More fundamentally, however, the identities of many ingredients continue
to be debated given the challenges posed by translating and interpreting
ancient and medieval terms for materia medica.27 Consider, for example, Jerry
Stannard’s thorough investigation into ‘the plant called Moly’ that unpacks the
many varied modern identifications (at least a dozen) that have been proposed
for the plant(s) in question and the convoluted textual puzzle presented by the
Greek and Latin sources involved in the ‘moly tradition’.28 Stannard’s detective
work revealed not only that ‘many of the attempts to identify moly have gone
astray’, but also that ‘in the Greek tradition, moly designates at least three dif-
ferent plants’, which resulted in further confusions in Latin translations and
the descendants of these texts.29 Stannard found that one of the major turning
points in this nomenclatural enigma stemmed from a misinterpretation of a
section of Dioscorides’ De materia medica: just before describing moly, which,
in Dioscorides’ case, most likely refers to an Allium species, the text addresses
wild rue.30 Dioscorides reports a resemblance between the two plants based
on their shared colours and explains that, as a result, the Cappadocians also
call the former ‘moly’.31 This mention of synonymy appears to have confused
later writers, who then interpreted moly as referring to both an Allium and wild
rue; simultaneously, some authors conflated moly with plants with similar-​
sounding names (e.g., Galen’s ‘mylē’), and the range of synonyms for each
these plants added further layers of complexity.32 Becker, too, highlights the
importance of regional name variation, while the multiple linguistic traditions
on which medical texts drew introduced additional variables.33
Yet, as Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin note, ‘despite all these difficulties,
scholars since Antiquity have attempted to identify plants named in ‘older’
authorities’, and, following the development of Linnaean binomial nomen-
clature, there has been a strong emphasis on species-​specific identification.34

26 Ibid.
27 Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, Ancient Botany (London: Routledge, 2016), 93–​104.
28 Jerry Stannard, ‘The Plant Called Moly’, Osiris 14 (1962): 254–​307.
29 Stannard, ‘The Plant Called Moly’, 254.
30 Stannard, ‘The Plant Called Moly’, 259–​63; Dioscorides, De materia medica, 3.46–​7.
31 Dioscorides, De materia medica, 3.46–​7.
32 Stannard, ‘The Plant Called Moly’, 263–​6.
33 Becker, ‘Pigment nomenclature in the ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome’.
34 Hardy and Totelin, Ancient Botany, 94–​5.

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80  Chapter 3

However, given that the terms for materia medica were unstable and variable
(across languages, time, and space), it is often necessary to take a broader and
more cautious approach to the identification of ingredients. In fact, it must be
remembered that multiple, distinct species can be used to produce a single
ingredient. The spice known as ‘cinnamon’, for example, can be harvested from
several different species within the Cinnamomum genus, including C. cassia,
C. burmannii, C. loureiroi, and C. verum.35 While the early medieval Latin terms
cinnamomum and cassia (and their orthographic variants) are each commonly
identified with only one species, it seems more appropriate to classify both
as plants potentially related to all those that are today considered to repre-
sent ‘cinnamon’. Although it may appear problematic that the various spe-
cies belonging to the Cinnamomum genus are native to a vast region, from Sri
Lanka to China to Indonesia, it is evident that, regardless of which species is
concerned, the tree would have grown in south, east, or southeast Asia and, for
the purposes of this study, fall into the category of unambiguously non-​local
ingredients.36 The following case study therefore focuses on a select group of
ingredients whose origins were, without question, extremely far from Francia.

3.2 From Ambergris to Zedoary

The aforementioned work of John Riddle and Michael McCormick offers a use-
ful entry point into an investigation of non-​local materia medica unrecorded
in classical and late antique medical writings. In the first recipe collection of
cod. sang. 44 (pp. 228–​55), Riddle highlights the appearance of two new prod-
ucts: camphor, an aromatic extract from the wood of the camphor laurel,
and ambergris, a pungent substance produced in the digestive tract of sperm
whales.37 In Riddle’s analysis of recipes from several manuscripts beyond
this study’s manuscript sample, he also notes galangal and zedoary, both

35 Pei Chen, Jianghao Sun, and Paul Ford, ‘Differentiation of the Four Major Species of
Cinnamons (C. burmannii, C. verum, C. cassia, and C. loureiroi) Using a Flow Injection
Mass Spectrometric (fims) Fingerprinting Method’, Journal of Agricultural and Food
Chemistry 62, no. 12 (2014): 2516–​21, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1021​/jf4055​80c​.
36 Chen, Sun, and Ford, ‘Differentiation of the Four Major Species of Cinnamons’. For a help-
ful visualisation, see Figure 9 in Weiwei Wang, Khanh Trung Kien Nguyen, Chunguang
Zhao, and Hsiao-​Chun Hung, ‘Earliest curry in Southeast Asia and the global spice trade
2000 years ago’. Science Advances 9, no. 29 (2023): https://​doi​.org​/10​.1126​/sci​adv​.adh5​517​.
37 Riddle, ‘The Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugs’, 190–​1. See also Bruno Laurioux,
‘Parfums d’Orient. La science des épices au Moyen Âge’, in Parfums et odeurs au Moyen
Âge. Science, usage, symboles, ed. Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (Florence: sismel Edizioni
del Galluzzo, 2015), 61–​87.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 81

rhizomes in the ginger family, as similarly newly recorded materia medica.38

McCormick comments on the appearance of azarum, camphor, and ambergris
in cod. sang. 44 and mentions further examples of camphor in the Lorscher
Arzneibuch; Glasgow, University Library, Hunter 96; and a section of cod.
sang. 217 that is not part of the sample of recipes involved in this study.39 Both
Riddle and McCormick argue that the appearances of camphor, ambergris,
and the other ingredients they each identified in the recipe literature reflect
the arrival of these products in the Latin west during this period.40 While it
is impossible to prove this without further evidence, such as archaeological
finds or additional textual sources (e.g., the record of gift exchanges noted
above) that directly confirm the importation of these substances, the linked
movement of knowledge and goods will be reconsidered below. The names of
these substances—​derived, in both medieval Latin and modern English, from

38 Riddle’s examples of zedoary and galangal (which he terms ‘galingale’) come from London,
British Library, Harley ms 585; Glasgow, University Library, Hunter 96 (olim T.4.13); and
Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, Aug. perg. 120. These findings are based on his
assessment of the published transcriptions of recipe collections in Studien und Texte, ed.
Sigerist, and Grattan and Singer, Anglo-​Saxon Magic and Medicine (note: the text of the
recipe collection analysed in London, bl Harley ms 585, the Lacnunga, is written not in
Latin but in Old English). It must also be noted that there is some debate regarding the
timing of zedoary’s arrival in the west: Heinrich Zörnig claims that it appears in the works
of Paul of Aegina and Aetius of Amida, but Riddle suggests that this is a later interpola-
tion. See Riddle, ‘The Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugs’, 191–​2 and Heinrich Zörnig,
Arzneidrogen als Nachschlagebuch für den Gebrauch der Apotheker, Ärzte, Veterinärärzte,
Drogisten und Studierenden der Pharmazie, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Klinkhardt, 1909), vol. 1, 558.
39 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 714, nn. 83–​4. For the manuscripts in
question, see Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Med. 1 and Glasgow, ul Hunter 96.
Although McCormick suggests that azarum was introduced to western Europe during the
Carolingian period, I suggest that azarum represents an alternative spelling of asarum,
hazelwort, a plant native to Europe and known in Antiquity. This seems to make more
sense in the contexts in which I have seen the term. In the recipes containing azarum
in cod. sang. 44 (all of which appear within a few folia of each other in one of the man-
uscript’s recipe collections: pp. 345, 351–​3), the other ingredients are all locally available
products, including beer, a substance highlighted in Chapter 4 in relation to adaptations
made to suit local conditions. In one of these recipes, the juice of the ingredient in ques-
tion (azari sucum) is recommended, strengthening an identification with hazelwort
rather than a resin. For examples, see Appendix 2, entries 5.18.3 and 5.22.
40 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 714–​15; Riddle, ‘The Introduction and
Use of Eastern Drugs’, 190–​6; Riddle also highlights zedoary and galangal as new ingre-
dients, though his references to these substances appear in other manuscripts, includ-
ing Glasgow, ul Hunter 96 and London, bl Harley ms 585. On camphor and ambergris,
see also Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs in Early Medieval Mediterranean Medicine, and
especially Chapter 3, ‘‘Arabian’ Substances’, 129–​227 (camphor is discussed in detail on
pp. 144–​8, and ambergris on pp. 148–​52).

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82  Chapter 3

­f igure 3 
Confectio timiame in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 44 (p. 247), an early
medieval composite manuscript, the second half of which contains medical
texts and was written in northern Italy in the ninth century (https://​www​.e​-codi​
ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/csg​/0044​/247)
© st. gallen, stiftsbibliothek, licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0

Arabic terms, though often originally stemming from other languages such as
Malay—​do point to their eastern origins and immediately support the idea
that Islamicate trade networks were central to their westward diffusion.41 Are
there additional examples of ambergris, camphor, galangal, or zedoary found
in within the manuscripts under analysis? Is there evidence to suggest that
knowledge of these products spread within the Frankish Empire?

3.3 The Confectio Timiame: Camphor, Ambergris, and Other Non-​local

Materia Medica
Despite highlighting the newness of camphor and ambergris and their appear-
ances in the same manuscript, cod. sang. 44, neither Riddle nor McCormick
point out that these two products actually appear in the very same recipe in this
manuscript, the Confectio timiame, as shown in Figure 3 and detailed below:

A preparation of incense. Cozumber, 1 pound; storax, 2 ounces and

2 denarii; confita, 3 ounces and 6 denarii; frankincense, 1 ounce and 2
denarii; myrrh, 6 denarii; mastic, ½ ounce; spikenard, 1 ounce and 6
denarii; saffron, 2 denarii; agarwood, 1 ounce and 6 denarii; camphor, 1
ounce and 1 denarius; musk, 4 denarii; ambergris, 1 denarius.42

41 Camphor, for example, can be traced to the Malay kāpūr; Hūšang A‘lam, ‘Camphor’,
in Encyclopædia Iranica, edited by Ahmad Ashraf, Nicholas Sims-​Williams, Mahnaz
Moazami, Mohsen Ashtiany, Christopher J. Brunner, Manouchehr Kasheff, and Habib
Borjian. Vol. 4/​7 (1990): 743–​7, https://​iranic​aonl​ine​.org​/artic​les​/camp​hor​-npers; Riddle,
‘The Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugs’, 190–​2. On camphor, see also Amar and Lev,
Arabian Drugs in Early Medieval Mediterranean Medicine, 144–​8.
42 Cod. sang. 44, p. 247: Confectio timiame. Cozumbrio lib I, storace ~ II et dr II, confiti ~ III et dr
VI, thus ~ I dr II, mirra dr VI, mastice ~ s, spica ~ I et dr VI, croco dr II, aloa ~ I et dr VI, cafora
~ I et dr I, musco dr IIII, ambar dr I. See Appendix 2, entry 5.7.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 83

Although this is a recipe for incense and does not include a list of ailments it
intends to treat, its appearance within a recipe collection and listing of many
ingredients that are frequently named in treatments suggest that it was intended
for use in a medical context. Its simple presentation is not unlike many of the
recipes for composite ingredients, such as oxymel (a mixture of vinegar, honey,
and sometimes additional components) or mixed oils (rose oil (oleo roseo),
cedar oil (oleo cedrinum), myrtle oil (oleo mirtino), and so on), that would have
required advance preparation before they could have been used in recipes.
Finally, as noted above, incense appears as an ingredient in recipes, confirming
that it could have been used for both pharmaceutical and liturgical functions.43
A review of this recipe’s twelve ingredients, cozumber (cozumbrio), storax
(storace), confita (confiti), frankincense (thus), myrrh (mirra), mastic (mas-
tice), spikenard (spica), saffron (croco), agarwood (aloa), camphor (cafora),
musk (musco), and ambergris (ambar), reveals its total reliance on non-​local
products: not a single ingredient is native to northern and/​or western Europe.
Most of the ingredients are aromatic gums and resins, although ambergris and
musk stand out as animal-​based substances.
While Riddle and McCormick emphasised the newness of only ambergris
and camphor, the appearance of three other ingredients in this incense recipe,
cozumber, confita, and musk, is similarly noteworthy. McCormick does make a
passing reference to cozumber, classifying it as an ‘exotic substance’ and noting
that its ‘derivation … is unclear’; confita, on the other hand, is mentioned by
neither author.44 According to Carmélia Opsomer’s Index de la pharmacopée
du Ier au Xe siècle, these ingredients do not occur in classical sources, though
both terms are listed in later medical texts, such as the Alphita, a thirteenth-​
century medico-​botanical glossary.45 This text records that the two substances
are related to each other (cozimbrum is described as fex confite) and repre-
sent derivatives of storax, an identification which fits within the context of an
incense recipe.46 In Alejandro García González’ commentary on this glossary,

43 Burridge, ‘Incense in medicine’; Henry E. Sigerist, ‘“The Sphere of Life and Death” in Early
Medieval Manuscripts’, 296.
44 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 708.
45 Cozimbrium is recorded six times in Index de la pharmacopée du Ier au Xe siècle (see
Opsomer, Index de la pharmacopée, vol. 1, 222) in non-​classical texts, while there is no
entry for confita. Alphita, ed. Alejandro García González (Florence: sismel Edizioni
del Galluzzo, 2007). Sigerist describes cozumber as a ‘precious kind of aromatic gum’
and notes that confita is usually found ‘in connection with gums’, although he was
‘not sure what it actually is’; Sigerist, ‘“The Sphere of Life and Death” in Early Medieval
Manuscripts’, 296.
46 Alphita, ed. García González: confita, entry C4 (at p. 174), and cozimbrum, C114 (at p. 184).

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84  Chapter 3

he identifies ‘confita’ as a ‘deformation of the Greek γομφίτης’, thereby linking

it more specifically to a gum resin derived from storax, Styrax officinalis.47 The
linguistic origins of cozumber, however, remain uncertain (though the Alphita’s
entry for storax again refers to this substance as a derivative product).48
Excepting medical contexts, I have seen cozumber mentioned in only two
other contemporary sources, both addressed at the beginning of this chapter: it
is recorded in a) the letter to Boniface as one of the gifts sent by Gemmulus, and
b) the Corbie ‘shopping list’ as one of the pigmenta the monks were expected
to buy at the Cambrai market.49 The lack of cozumber and confita in classical
texts, their appearance in early medieval recipes and, in the case of cozumber,
two non-​medical records, as well as their continued presence in later medi-
cal writings strongly support the argument that these two products, at least in
these specific forms, first arrived in western Europe in the eighth century. The
documentation of cozumber in non-​medical sources, moreover, adds weight to
the argument put forward by Riddle and McCormick that both the substances
themselves and information about them arrived in the Frankish world during
this period. While it should not be assumed that cozumber is representative of
all of the newly recorded ingredients, the Corbie list also includes galangal and
zedoary.50 The appearance of multiple previously unrecorded non-​local sub-
stances in this context suggests that these products, and quite possibly other
exotica, were circulating in the Latin west at this time—​if only in small quanti-
ties and at great expense. Indeed, since the abbot’s instructions only represent
a pigmenta ‘wish list’, it remains unknown what substances were actually avail-
able for purchase at the Cambrai market; that the Corbie monks expected to be
able to buy these products, however, is significant.
While galangal and zedoary are both named as new ingredients by Riddle
and McCormick, and while additional examples can be found in the present
recipe sample, neither appear in the Confectio timiame.51 Let us return to this

47 Ibid, 400–​1: ‘Confita < deformación del gr. γομφίτης … designa la gomorresina del
‘estoraque’, una planta identificada con la estiracácea Styrax officinalis L.’
48 Ibid, 403, 551. For the entry on storax, see S46 (at pp. 290–​1).
49 ‘Epistula 62’, in Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Tangl, 127–​8; Polyptyque de
l’abbé Irminon, ed. Guérard, vol. 2, 336.
50 Polyptyque de l’abbé Irminon, ed. Guérard, vol. 2, 336.
51 Galangal is listed as ingredient twice in BnF lat. 11218: first in the Pocio mirabilis contra
omnes infirmitates (f. 99r) and secondly in a recipe for which the title has faded and is
no longer legible (f. 124v, following the Antidotum de peretro and preceding the Pocio ad
apostema). Both galangal and zedoary are named as ingredients in BnF lat. 11219: galan-
gal appears in the Puluera ad epaticos (f. 221vb) and in a recipe for those who cannot
urinate, Ad eos qui urinam facere non possunt (f. 225va); zedoary is listed in the Potio ad

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 85

incense recipe and consider one final ingredient, musk, that appears to repre-
sent a reintroduced substance in the Latin west—​though likely entirely new to
the Frankish world. In Latin, the first attestation of this substance, a secretion
of the musk deer, occurs in Jerome’s (d. 419) Adversus Iovinianum.52 Musk then
disappears from the written record in the west, though it is mentioned by a
handful of Greek sources, such as Paul of Aegina (fl. seventh century), dur-
ing the following centuries.53 The next Latin references to musk come from
Carolingian medical texts, such as this incense recipe, suggesting that it was
reintroduced to western Europe during this period. Most significantly from a
medical perspective, musk appears in neither classical medical writings nor
late antique Latin medical texts, revealing that even if musk had been known
in earlier periods, it was not recorded in relation to medicine in the west.54
The existence within a single recipe of a cluster of five newly introduced (or
reintroduced) non-​local ingredients is particularly striking. While the recipe’s
exclusive reliance on foreign, imported substances adds to its overall exotic-
ness, its listing of a variety of new products is most noteworthy. By incorpo-
rating substances unrecorded in classical and late antique medical texts, it
becomes clear that not only were multiple sources used in the creation of this
recipe collection, but that some of these sources included information beyond
the classical canon. Furthermore, this recipe’s inclusion within a recipe col-
lection indicates that at least one site of manuscript production had access
to non-​classical medical information and, crucially, was open to recording it.
In this collection, the incense recipe appears to be fully integrated within the
composition; information from non-​classical and non-​local sources is not seg-
regated from the rest of the material or distinguished in any way.
Riddle and McCormick consulted transcriptions of recipe collections from
a number of other manuscripts not analysed in the present study, finding

carbunculum (ff. 223va–​233vb). For these recipes see Appendix 2, entries 3.10, 3.16, 4.1, 4.6,
and 4.2, respectively.
52 Anya H. King, Scent from the Garden of Paradise: Musk and the Medieval Islamic World
(Leiden: Brill, 2017); Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, again, see Chapter 3, ‘‘Arabian’
Substances’, 129–​227 (musk is discussed on pp. 157–​62).
53 King, Scent from the Garden of Paradise, see especially pp. 133–​6 for late antique refer-
ences to musk.
54 Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, 157–​62. Although galangal is generally thought to have been
newly introduced to the west during this period, it may have followed a similar trajectory;
cf. Dioscorides, De materia medica, 1.4–​5. For the standard interpretation, see Amar and
Lev, Arabian Drugs, 110–​12; for the idea that it was introduced in the thirteenth century, see
Carlo Battisti, ‘Ripercussioni lessicali del commercio orientale nel periodo giustinianeo’,
in Moneta e scambi nell’alto medioevo, 21–​27 aprile 1960, Settimane 8 (Spoleto: Fondazione
Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1961), 627–​82, at p. 639.

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86  Chapter 3

additional examples of recipes with their highlighted ingredients (ambergris,

camphor, galangal, and zedoary). This indicates that knowledge of these ingre-
dients was not limited to a single centre of manuscript production, namely,
the northern Italian site in which cod. sang. 44 was copied, but rather that this
information was spreading within the Latin west. Yet, given that the studies of
Riddle and McCormick were based on a more limited sample of recipe collec-
tions from the Carolingian period (i.e., the transcriptions of Sigerist, Jörimann,
and Stoll), their work only scratched the surface of the so-​called ‘miscellane-
ous’ recipe literature. Indeed, McCormick notes, ‘I have not had the leisure to
undertake the exhaustive philological and historical study these treatises—​
and their mss—​deserve: they may still hold some surprises’.55 By considering
a larger sample of recipes, what can now be said about the dissemination of
this knowledge?

3.4 The Recurrent Cluster: Parallels Among Incense Recipes

Each of the five newly introduced ingredients found in the Confectio timiame
(ambergris, camphor, confita, cozumber, and musk) appears in additional rec-
ipes within the sample. In nine recipes, one or two of these newly recorded
ingredients are listed alongside typical materia medica, both local and exotic.
This chapter’s opening example, the Antidotum gira deacoloquintidis, which
included camphor among its ingredients, represents one of these nine recipes.
Nineteen additional recipes, however, have been identified as closely related
variants within an incense recipe tradition—​a tradition to which the Confectio
timiame also belongs. I shall first review the spread of this family of incense
recipes with its unique group of ingredients before exploring the appearance of
these ingredients individually.
The manuscript evidence suggests that knowledge of this incense prepa-
ration was rapidly disseminated. As shown in Table 2, I have identified var-
iants of it in five other manuscripts. Four of these codices are today located
in the Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen (codd. sang. 752 and 761 each contain one
recipe, cod. sang. 878 preserves two, and cod. sang. 899 lists three), though
they were produced in several different, if closely connected, writing centres
(St Gall, Fulda, Reichenau, and St Gall, respectively).56 A manuscript in the
Bibliothèque nationale de France, BnF lat. 11219, adds a further twelve recipes

55 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 714, n. 84.

56 Cod. sang. 752, p. 82; Cod. sang. 761, p. 66; cod. sang. 878, p. 334; cod. sang. 899, p. 137; see
Appendix 2, entries, 10.3, 12.5, 13.2.1–​2, and 14.3.1–​3, respectively.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 87

that are also based on this core group of ingredients.57 These numerous recipe
variants and their constituent parts deserve a more detailed examination.
The titles of the recipes in codd. sang. 752 and 761, Thymiama paltgrimi
and Thimiama, respectively, leave no doubt that these, too, are preparations
for incense. The two recipes in cod. sang. 878, representing the only material
written on p. 334, lack such an obvious reference to incense: the first recipe,
labelled ‘cod. sang. 878 (a)’ in the tables, is missing a title, while the second rec-
ipe, ‘cod. sang. 878 (b)’, is listed as Item aliter, ‘likewise in another way’. It can be
assumed, however, that these recipes also concern incense given the parallels
they share with the other recipes and the absence of this particular combina-
tion of ingredients in other contexts. Like cod. sang. 878, the groups of incense
recipes in cod. sang. 899 (see Figure 4) and BnF lat. 11219 are clustered together
on individual folia and represent the only material on the pages in question. In
both manuscripts, titles explicitly link these recipes to incense.58
As seen in Table 2, the twenty recipes, despite containing a variety of differ-
ent ingredients, centre around a primary group of five substances (i.e., ingre-
dients that appear in at least ninety percent of the recipes), and these almost
perfectly parallel the five newly recorded ingredients. The five core ingredients
are agarwood, confita, cozumber, camphor, and musk, meaning that ambergris
is the only newly recorded product that is listed less consistently. Of the five
primary ingredients, agarwood appears in all twenty recipes, confita and coz-
umber in nineteen (ninety-​five percent), and camphor and musk in eighteen
(ninety percent). Notably, agarwood, the fragrant wood of aquilaria trees, is
both the only ingredient to appear in every recipe and, despite its similarly
exotic origins, the only ingredient within the core group that was already
recorded in the west in Antiquity.59 Table 2 reveals that, in addition to these
five most frequently named ingredients, frankincense, storax, cloves, and cin-
namon are listed in the majority of recipes, while ambergris, spikenard, saffron,
myrrh, mastic, and galingale appear in half of the recipes or less. Although
these twenty recipes are evidently related and share many similarities, very
few present exactly the same group of ingredients and none is perfectly iden-
tical; that is, even though several preparations, such the second recipe of cod.
sang. 899 and seventh recipe of BnF lat. 11219, contain the same ingredients,
they are arranged differently and/​or name varying quantities.

57 BnF lat. 11219, ff. 227r–​227v; see Appendix 2, entries 4.8–​19.

58 Note: while all twelve incense recipes in BnF lat. 11219 are found on f. 227v, the title of this
section occurs on the preceding page, f. 227r.
59 Arlene López-​Sampson and Tony Page, ‘History of Use and Trade of Agarwood’, Economic
Botany 72 (2018): 107–​29, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1007​/s12​231​-018​-9408​-4​.

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table 2 Incense recipes containing the ingredient cluster

Ms Cod. sang. Cod. sang. BnF lat. 11219 Cod. sang. 44 BnF lat. BnF lat. BnF lat. Cod. sang. BnF lat. BnF lat.
899 (a) 878 (b) (h) 11219 (e) 11219 (i) 11219 (a) 899 (b) 11219 (g) 11219 (j)

Recipe title Confectio Item aliter Confectio

Confectio Confectio Item Timiama Item alia [untitled] Item
timiamatis timiamatis
timiamatis timiame timiamatis timiamatis
ad confectio confectio
gragantum
Ingredients cozumber cozumber cozumber cozumber cozumber cozumber cozumber cozumber cozumber cozumber
confita confita confita confita confita confita confita confita confita confita
agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood
camphor camphor camphor camphor camphor camphor camphor camphor camphor camphor
musk musk musk musk musk musk musk musk musk musk
ambergris ambergris ambergris ambergris ambergris ambergris ambergris
frankincense frankincense frankincense frankincense frankincense frankincense frankincense frankincense frankincense frankincense
storax storax storax storax storax storax storax storax storax storax
cloves cloves cloves cloves cloves cloves cloves cloves cloves
cinnamon cinnamon cinnamon cinnamon cinnamon cinnamon cinnamon cinnamon
spikenard spikenard spikenard spikenard spikenard spikenard spikenard spikenard spikenard
saffron saffron saffron saffron saffron
myrrh myrrh myrrh myrrh
mastic mastic mastic mastic
galingale galingale galingale

Note: the order of the ingredients in each recipe has been rearranged to illustrate their parallels more clearly; recipes are ordered from most complex to simplest

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table 2 Incense recipes containing the ingredient cluster (cont.)

Ms Cod. sang. BnF lat. BnF lat. BnF lat. 11219 Cod. sang. Cod. sang. Cod. sang. BnF lat. BnF lat. 11219 BnF lat. 11219 (b)
899 (c) 11219 (c) 11219 (f) (d) 878 (a) 761 752 11219 (l) (k)

Recipe title Item alia Item Alia [untitled] Alia [untitled] Thimiama Thymiama Confectio Item Tymiamum
paltgrimi timiama
Ingredients cozumber cozumber cozumber cozumber cozumber cozumber cozumber cozumber confita cozumber
confita confita confita confita confita confita confita confita
agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood agarwood
camphor camphor camphor camphor camphor camphor camphor camphor
musk musk musk musk musk musk musk musk
ambergris ambergris ambergris
frankincense frankincense frankincense frankincense frankincense frankincense frankincense
storax storax storax storax storax storax
cloves cloves cloves spikenard cloves cloves
cinnamon cinnamon cinnamon cinnamon cinnamon
saffron

Note: the order of the ingredients in each recipe has been rearranged to illustrate their parallels more clearly; recipes are ordered from most complex to simplest

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90  Chapter 3

­f igure 4 Three incense recipes in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 899 (p. 137), a
poetry manuscript that also includes several sections of recipes (https://​www​.e​
-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/csg​/0899​/137)
© st. gallen, stiftsbibliothek, licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0

Overall, the consistency of the five core ingredients, all exotic and the major-
ity newly recorded in the west, suggests that an incense recipe tradition from
the east arrived in the west during this period. To investigate how this knowl-
edge spread, it is essential to consider when and where the manuscripts con-
taining these recipes were produced.60 Codd. sang. 761 and 878 represent the
earliest of the six manuscripts that contain this distinctive cluster of ingredi-
ents, with Bischoff dating both to the first half of the ninth century. Regarding
cod. sang. 878, Walahfrid Strabo’s vademecum, Bischoff has identified the
hand on p. 334 as Walahfrid’s own and has categorised it as belonging to his
penultimate script phase, thereby dating it to the second quarter of the ninth
century.61 In contrast, cod. sang. 44 was composed in the second half of the
ninth century and cod. sang. 752 has been dated to the very end of the century,

60 See Appendix 1 for full descriptions of the manuscripts.

61 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 5862; Bernhard Bischoff,
‘Eine Sammelhandschrift Walahfrid Strabos (Cod. Sangall. 878)’, in Mittelalterliche
Studien. Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und Literaturgeschichte, ed. Bernhard
Bischoff, vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1967), 34–​51.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 91

c. 900.62 Cod. sang. 899 and BnF lat. 11219 were traditionally dated to the late
ninth or early tenth centuries (with some individual hands dated even later),
but more recent analyses have dated the hands responsible for these recipes to
the late ninth century.63 The page of incense recipes in the latter codex, f. 227v,
is particularly striking: the varied scripts indicated that the twelve recipes were
written by at least six different individuals, the implications of which will be
revisited below.
Codd. sang. 752, 761, 878, 899, and BnF lat. 11219 were written at centres north
of the Alps (St Gall, Fulda, Reichenau, St Gall, and ‘western Francia’, respec-
tively), whereas the medical half of cod. sang. 44 was produced in northern
Italy and then moved to St Gall shortly after its composition.64 Despite being
among the later manuscripts in this group, the movement of cod. sang. 44
illustrates a possible route for the transmission of this recipe and parallels the
known movement of cozumber based on the gifts sent to Boniface. With this in
mind, I suggest that the new incense tradition may have been first included in
Latin medical texts in the Italian peninsula. Links between intellectual centres
in northern Italy and present-​day Switzerland and Germany, such as St Gall,
Reichenau, and Fulda, then resulted in the dissemination of this recipe within
the Carolingian world.65 Indeed, Florence Eliza Glaze has drawn attention to
the movement of manuscripts with medical texts between several monastic
centres in this region, including Reichenau, St Gall, and Murbach, though the
codices in which these incense recipes are located were not addressed.66
The high degree of subtle variation seen between all twenty incense recipes
suggests that individuals may have been experimenting with using these newly
introduced ingredients, learning what ratios produced the desired result, and
trialling with which other substances they worked well in combination. The
creation of variants may also reflect ad hoc adaptation responding to the

62 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, nos. 5530 and 5845; Bernhard
Bischoff, ‘Italienische Handschriften des neunten bis elften Jahrhunderts in frühmit-
telalterlichen Bibliotheken ausserhalb Italiens’, in Il libro e il testo: Atti del Convegno
Internazionale, Urbino, 20–​23 Settembre 1982, ed. Cesare Questa and Renato Raffaelli
(Urbino: Università degli Studi di Urbino, 1984), 169–​94.
63 My thanks to Rosamond McKitterick and Anna Dorofeeva for their reassessments of the
scripts in these manuscripts.
64 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, nos. 5845, 5847, 5862, 5865,
4670–​1, and 5530, respectively; Bischoff, ‘Eine Sammelhandschrift Walahfrid Strabos’,
pp. 34–​51; Bischoff, ‘Italienische Handschriften’, 177–​8.
65 Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, trans. Gorman, 33,
122, 147–​8.
66 Glaze, ‘The Perforated Wall’, 73–​5, 92–​8; Contreni, ‘Masters and Medicine’, 267–​82.

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92  Chapter 3

fluctuating availability of ingredients. Given that the vast majority of the sub-
stances listed in these recipes represent unambiguously non-​local products
(whether newly recorded or long known), ingredient access may have been
highly unstable and uncertain. The page of incense recipes in BnF lat. 11219
offers a remarkable window onto an evolving body of knowledge: as noted
above, a new palaeographical assessment of f. 227v suggests that these twelve
incense recipes were written by at least half a dozen different scribes.67 Most
significantly, the scripts appear to be closely related, possibly representing a
series of teachers and students. These scribal relationships suggest that the
individuals responsible for the different recipe variants were all working at the
same writing centre and added to the manuscript over the course of a few gen-
erations, building up a collection of distinct yet related incense recipes in the
decades around the year 900. Ultimately, this growing corpus of incense reci-
pes bears witness to an active scriptorium where scribes continued to engage
with and add to manuscripts over time, recording the latest iterations of this
incense tradition.
To contextualise this family of incense recipes, it is important to investigate
whether alternative, unrelated incense recipes circulated in the Carolingian
period. My analysis of the recipe sample uncovered two additional incense
recipes, the Conpositio thymiamatis and Tymiama simplex, both located in cod.
sang. 759.68 Despite sharing titles similar to those seen above, these two reci-
pes, as seen in Table 3, contain none of the core ingredients observed in the
twenty other incense recipes reviewed above and appear to derive from an
entirely distinct tradition. They do, however, share some ingredients with the
longer incense recipes, such as myrrh and storax, and generally rely on similar
types of substances—​namely, non-​local gums, resins, and spices—​but all of
their ingredients represent products that were recorded in the classical and
late antique west. It should also be noted that, although these two recipes in
cod. sang. 759 are the only other incense recipes found within the sample, the
contents list of a lost collection in BnF lat. 6882A parallels the list of the collec-
tion in which the two recipes occur in cod. sang. 759.69 Therefore, while BnF
lat. 6882A no longer includes incense recipes, its contents list indicates that
this alternative incense recipe group circulated more widely than the surviving
recipes would suggest.70

67 My thanks to Anna Dorofeeva for her palaeographical analysis of this material.

68 Cod. sang. 759, p. 89: Conpositio thymiamatis; and p. 91: Tymiama simplex; see Appendix 2,
entries 11.20–​1.
69 Cod. sang. 759, pp. 53–​8; BnF lat. 6882A, ff. 1v–​8v.
70 BnF lat. 6882A, f. 7r; the titles are listed here as Conpositio timiamatis and Timiama
simplex.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 93

table 3 Ingredients in incense recipes from cod. sang. 759

Recipe title Conpositio thymiamatis Tymiama simplex

Ingredients myrrh myrrh

storax storax
ungiculas marinas ungellas
bdellium
cinnamon
ladanum
iris
saffron
Nepal cardamom
wine
honey
mastic
rose

Several further points may help to shed light on how and why the incense
recipes containing newly introduced ingredients and those in cod. sang. 759
differ. First, the ingredients listed in the latter manuscript appear to have much
in common with biblical recipes for incense.71 Exodus xxx.34, for example,
offers the following instructions: ‘And the Lord said to Moses: Take unto thee
spices, stacte, and onycha, galbanum of sweet savour, and the clearest frank-
incense, all shall be of equal weight’.72 Although the recipes in cod. sang. 759
record neither galbanum nor frankincense, both list spices, myrrh (stacte), and
possibly onycha, paralleling the biblical incense recipe.73 Secondly, Bischoff
dated both manuscripts to the first half of the ninth century, suggesting that

71 On the reception of recipes in Exodus, see especially Béatrice Caseau, ‘La parfum de
Dieu’, in Parfums et odeurs au Moyen Âge. Science, usage, symboles, ed. Agostino Paravicini
Bagliani (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2015), 3–​22 and Iolanda Ventura,
‘“Sume tibi aromata prima”: Profumi ed aromi nell’esegesi ad Ex. 30’, in Parfums et odeurs
au Moyen Âge. Science, usage, symboles, ed. Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (Florence: sis-
mel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2015), 349–​428.
72 Exodus xxx.34: Dixitque Dominus ad Moysen: sume tibi aromata, stacten et onycha, galba-
nen boni odoris, et tus lucidissimum; aequalis ponderis erunt omnia.
73 The terms unguiculas and ungellas may be linked with onycha, but the interpretation
of all three words is debated; for more on this debate, see Harold J. Abrahams, ‘Onycha,

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94  Chapter 3

cod. sang. 759 was written in Brittany whereas BnF lat. 6882A was written in
southwest France.74 These origins not only place the manuscripts on the early
end of the spectrum of those considered in this study but also outside of the
northern Italian-​transalpine network noted above. While it is true that BnF
lat. 11219, the manuscript containing the largest number and range of incense
recipes with newly introduced ingredients, is also thought to have been pro-
duced at a site outside of this network, it represents one of the latest manu-
scripts included in the study. Taking these factors into consideration, it seems
plausible that knowledge of the ‘new’ incense recipe family (i.e., the recipes
containing the newly recorded ingredients) had not reached the centres that
produced cod. sang. 759 and BnF lat. 6882A by the early ninth century. The
gradual accumulation of recipes in BnF lat. 11219 demonstrates that this sit-
uation changed over time: the new tradition was widely diffused and further
expanded during the ninth century and beyond. Based on the evidence of the
manuscripts’ origins as well as the lack of newly recorded ingredients in the
recipes of cod. sang. 759, it appears that this codex preserved an older incense
tradition, and possibly one with biblical influences.75 Finally, that the recipe
collection in cod. sang. 759 was based on an earlier exemplar (since the same
collection was once part of BnF lat. 6882A, too) adds further weight to the age
of this incense recipe. Given that two early ninth-​century manuscripts pro-
duced in different (and distant) writing centres are known to derive from this
lost exemplar, it seems likely that the original collection was compiled no later
than c. 800, though it could be considerably earlier. As such, these recipes
could predate the earliest surviving recordings of the newly introduced ingre-
dients, such as the letters that document the eighth-​century gifts of cozumber
to Boniface, and their physical presence in the Latin west.
Before turning to evidence for the arrival of these substances in the
Carolingian world, and how this relates to the practicality of the recipes that
record them, the appearance of the newly introduced ingredients in recipes
independent of preparations for incense must also be considered.

3.5 Moving Beyond Incense: the Spread of Knowledge

As noted above, this chapter’s opening recipe, the Antidotum gira deacoloquin-
tidis of bav pal. lat. 1088, already confirms that at least one of these ingredi-
ents, camphor, can be found in other pharmaceutical prescriptions and was

Ingredient of the Ancient Jewish Incense: An Attempt at Identification’, Economic Botany

33, no. 2 (1979): 233–​6.
74 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, nos. 5846 and 4419, respectively.
75 Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, 129–​227.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 95

not exclusively associated with incense. In total, the sample contains a single
non-​incense recipe with ambergris, two with camphor (including the afore-
mentioned Antidotum gira deacoloquintidis), two with confita, three with coz-
umber, and three with musk (see Table 4).76 These eleven references represent
only nine recipes since two recipes, both in cod. sang. 44, include two newly
introduced ingredients: the Confectio saponi Constantini lists both confita and
musk and the second recipe under the entry titled Potio maniacis siue gutta
catiua contains confita and cozumber.77 While it must be recognised that the
appearance of these products within the recipe sample remains very limited
overall, it is significant that each of these substances are named in at least one
non-​incense recipe. In fact, as discussed below, I suggest that their limited dis-
tribution is central to understanding the dissemination of these eastern mate-
ria medica and the knowledge regarding their uses.
Although cod. sang. 44 and bav pal. lat. 1088 contain the bulk of the exam-
ples, with both including four instances of newly recorded ingredients, three
other manuscripts, cod. sang. 751, bav vat. lat. 5951, and bav reg. lat. 1143, each
include an additional example of one of these ingredients in a recipe.78 Musk
and cozumber appear most frequently and exhibit the widest spread among
manuscripts, each occurring three times and in three separate manuscripts.
Notably, only one of these manuscripts, cod. sang. 44, contains an incense rec-
ipe. This is also the only manuscript to record recipes that use multiple newly
introduced ingredients in a single preparation. Two recipes, the Potio muscata
ad omne infirmum of bav vat. lat. 5951 and the Medicamentum ad maculas ocu-
lorum et ad caliginem of bav pal. lat. 1088 have been inserted in the margins,
representing slightly later but near contemporary additions.79

76 While further examples of galangal and zedoary have also been identified (see above), the
following section concentrates on the appearances of the ingredient cluster connected to
the incense recipe tradition given the chapter’s primary focus.
77 Cod. sang. 44, p. 282: Confectio saponi Constantini; and p. 285: Potio maniacis siue gutta cat-
iua; see Appendix 2, entries 5.14 and 15. On the wider tradition of the Sapone Constantini,
see Innocenzo Mazzini, ‘Il sapone di Costantino’, in Costantino il grande: dall’Antichità
all’umanesimo: colloquio sul Cristianesimo nel mondo antico, Macerata, 18–​20 Dicembre
1990, ed. Giorgio Bonamente and Franca Fusco (Macerata: Università degli studi di
Macerata, 1992–​3), vol. 2, 693–​9. The recipes in the manuscripts Mazzini consulted do not
contain these ingredients.
78 In cod. sang. 44 and bav pal. lat. 1088, two ingredients are repeated, such that only three
different substances within the cluster are found in these manuscripts.
79 bav vat. lat. 5951, f. 1r: Potio muscata ad omne infirmum; bav pal. lat. 1088,
f. 34v: Medicamentum ad maculas oculorum et ad caliginem; see Appendix 2, entries 19.1
and 16.1, respectively.

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96  Chapter 3

table 4 Newly introduced exotics outside of incense recipes

Manuscripts

Cod. Cod. bav vat. bav pal. bav reg. Total

Ingredients sang. 44 sang. 751 lat. 5951 lat. 1088 lat. 1143

Ambergris -​ 1 -​ -​ -​ 1
Camphor -​ -​ -​ 2 -​ 2
Confita 2 -​ -​ -​ -​ 2
Cozumber 1 -​ -​ 1 1 3
Musk 1 -​ 1 1 -​ 3
Total 4 1 1 4 1 11

By reconsidering the origins of the five manuscripts containing examples

of newly introduced materia medica outside of (or in addition to) incense
recipes, it is possible to assess the spread of medical knowledge from another
perspective and compare these findings to the distribution of manuscripts
containing incense recipes. As noted above, cod. sang. 44 appears to have been
written in northern Italy in the second half of the ninth century, before moving
to St Gall shortly after its composition; cod. sang. 751 followed the same tra-
jectory.80 The early ninth-​century bav vat. lat. 5951 has been located to either
Italy or Burgundy while bav pal. lat. 1088 has been linked to Lyon in the middle
or second half of the ninth century.81 Finally, Bischoff suggested that bav reg.
lat. 1143 was written in Mainz in the early ninth century.82 With this context in
mind, three features stand out. First, codd. sang. 44 and 751 fit with the pattern
observed above: evidence such as the letter to Boniface indicates that, at least
in some cases, these eastern substances moved north into the Frankish Empire
from the Italian peninsula. These two manuscripts, which together contain
recipes listing ambergris, confita, cozumber, and musk (not to mention the full
suite of ingredients included in the incense recipe of cod. sang. 44), followed a

80 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 5844.

81 Ibid, nos. 6927 and 6574.
82 Ibid, nos. 6766–​7.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 97

similar path, moving from northern Italy to St Gall and helping to disseminate
information about these new products.
Secondly, the single instance of one of the newly recorded exotic products
in bav reg. lat. 1143 is particularly interesting when considered in view of its
origins. In this case, the recipe Ciraturiu artriticus opotatricus a parlasensis,
found on ff. 187r–​187v, records cozumber as its thirty-​fifth ingredient (out of
an astounding list of sixty-​four ingredients).83 This relatively early manuscript
was composed in Mainz, the seat of Boniface, who, as noted above, received
exotic gifts from Rome—​and these gifts included cozumber. While it may be
tempting to connect the existence of cozumber at Mainz to its subsequent
inclusion in a medical recipe, this is a fairly large leap to make given that the
manuscript was composed roughly two or three generations after Boniface’s
death. It should not be assumed, therefore, that there is a direct link between
the appearance of cozumber in a recipe and the gifts received by Boniface,
though this possibility, or that Mainz was known to have had access to these
products, is an attractive hypothesis, especially in the light of Lull’s gifts to
Cuneburg and Cynehard’s request for exotic materia medica.
The possible Burgundian origins of bav vat. lat. 5951 and bav pal. lat. 1088
suggest another direction in which this knowledge and these products trav-
elled. Like cod. sang. 44, bav pal. lat. 1088 contains four references to the newly
introduced products but, in contrast to cod. sang. 44, these represent four sep-
arate recipes (cod. sang. 44 only contains two recipes with new ingredients
since each recipe lists two of the substances in question).84 The relatively high
number of newly recorded ingredients listed in bav pal. lat. 1088, combined
with its later date, supports the idea that the number of available exotics, or at
least an awareness of them, increased throughout the Carolingian period. The
origins of this codex also call to mind BnF lat. 11219, the manuscript that con-
tains the highest number of incense recipe variants. As the latter manuscript is
thought to have been produced in western Francia at the very end of the ninth
century, it demonstrates that knowledge of these newly recorded products had
spread far beyond the northern Italian-​transalpine network by c. 900, extend-
ing into the heartlands of Frankish territories and beyond. It is also important
to remember that the Corbie monks’ shopping list for the Cambrai market
indicates that at least some of these substances themselves were circulating

83 bav reg. lat. 1143, ff. 187r–​187v: Ciraturiu artriticus opotatricus aparlasensis; see Appendix
2, entry 18.10.
84 As noted above, for both manuscripts, the four references to newly recorded ingredients
refer to three separate ingredients (confita is mentioned twice in cod. sang. 44 and cam-
phor is recorded twice in bav pal. lat. 1088).

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98  Chapter 3

in this part of the Empire in the ninth century. The individuals compiling the
recipes that contain references to these specific ingredients may have acquired
first-​hand knowledge of these products by this time (or were only a few steps
removed from first-​hand knowledge).
With this in mind, and by comparing the frequency of incense recipes to
non-​incense recipes with individual newly introduced ingredients, it becomes
possible to consider how pharmaceutical information about these materia
medica spread within the Carolingian world. Although cod. sang. 44—​the
only manuscript to contain both an incense recipe and unrelated recipes that
include newly introduced ingredients—​represents an exception, I suggest that
the dissemination of the incense recipe tradition and of pharmaceutical infor-
mation concerning the individual ingredients took separate, if at times inter-
secting and ultimately converging, paths.
The diffusion of the incense recipe appears to reflect a rapid process, and
one in which a core unit of knowledge—​the five primary ingredients—​was
consistently transmitted over time and between sites. Although I have focused
on the use of incense in medical contexts, its primary role was liturgical, and
I propose that this burst of incense recipe interest was underpinned by wider
developments in the Carolingian world, namely, that the legislation promul-
gated by the court brought about an increased use of incense in the liturgy.85
Although, as noted in Chapter 2, normative evidence does not necessarily
reflect smooth transitions on the ground, the liturgical use of incense does
appear to have expanded during this period.86 The provision of sufficient
quantities of incense thus became an urgent matter in terms of both spiritual
and corporeal health.87
The arrival of this new incense recipe tradition would have offered an alter-
native to the older, possibly biblical recipes, such as those recorded in cod.
sang. 759 and BnF lat. 6882A. By relying on different ingredients, the new recipe
would have provided more options for sourcing the components of incense,
thereby allowing for greater overall production or for the creation of a substi-
tute if certain ingredients were unavailable. The recording of so many variants

85 Burridge, ‘Incense in Medicine’. On the symbolic significance of incense, perfumes,

and odour, and especially in relation to the Church, see selected chapters in Agostino
Paravicini Bagliani, ed., Parfums et odeurs au Moyen Âge. Science, usage, symboles
(Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2015), including Rémi Corbineau and Patrice
Georges-​Zimmermann, ‘Le parfum de la mort. Plantes et aromates pour la préparation
des corps (Moyen Âge et période moderne)’, 161–​80 and Martine Ostorero, ‘L’odeur fétide
des démons: une preuve de leur présence corporelle au sabbat’, 259–​88.
86 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 716–​19.
87 Leja, Embodying the Soul.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 99

that use different combinations and/​or ratios of ingredients likewise would

have offered alternatives that could have augmented these monastic commu-
nities’ abilities to produce enough incense to satisfy both pharmaceutical and
ecclesiastical purposes.
Returning to the non-​incense recipes that incorporate individual newly
recorded ingredients, the introduction of these particular materia med-
ica seems to have occurred for different, though ultimately related, reasons.
Several key patterns emerge: first, these recipes do not appear in the same man-
uscripts as the incense recipes themselves, with the exception of cod. sang. 44.
Secondly, as noted initially, the spread of this knowledge seems to have been
fairly limited given that these ingredients are found in only nine recipes across
six manuscripts. That being said, it is diverse: unlike the incense recipes, none
of these recipes represents a variant of another, which is a particularly inter-
esting finding given that cod. sang. 44 and bav pal. lat. 1088 share a substantial
number of recipes. Critically, the recipes are often located in manuscripts that
were produced in areas (or even at specific sites, such as Mainz) in which these
ingredients appear to have circulated. This correlation between the recorded
knowledge and the appearance of the substances themselves suggests that
individuals within this milieu may have encountered some of these ingredi-
ents directly (or perhaps had heard of earlier gifts of the substances, knew
someone who saw the range of products available at the Cambrai market, etc.).
Taking account of these factors, I suggest that the individual inclusion of newly
recorded ingredients reflects these encounters: while the scribes responsible
for the surviving recipes may not have been the individuals who received,
purchased, and/​or used these substances, they have documented the experi-
ences of someone who did. This slow spread of knowledge—​a case-​by-​case
diffusion based on access to expensive, rare substances—​contrasts with the
rapid dissemination of the incense tradition, where a core unit of information
was transmitted with relative speed due to the urgency of incense production.
Both patterns of movement appear to be linked to the arrival of the substances
themselves and reveal that individuals in the Carolingian world were open to
adopting and adapting new sources of knowledge and novel materia medica to
suit their needs.
Due to the overarching importance of incense, this recipe tradition blos-
somed in an atmosphere receptive to new information about its production.
This openness to previously unknown substances, as well as the knowledge
of how to use them, laid the groundwork for the spread of these newly intro-
duced ingredients both alongside and independent of the incense recipe tra-
dition. The particular cultural and intellectual environment and the needs of

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100  Chapter 3

monastic communities thus links the two discrete patterns of dissemination

highlighted in this case study.

4 The Practicality of Non-​local Materia Medica: Putting the Case

Study in Perspective

On the basis of this analysis, what can now be said about the practicality of
these ingredients? And what are the implications of this case study for assess-
ing the recording of non-​local ingredients more generally?
The above review of a selection of newly recorded materia medica has high-
lighted the movement of both knowledge and ingredients. The correspondence
between the arrival of pharmaceutical information regarding these previously
unrecorded ingredients and the physical substances themselves points to the
practical nature of these recipes, though a number of important caveats must
be addressed. First, while it is true that sources beyond the medical literature
bear witness to the existence of exotic substances in the west in this period—​
and, of particular note, include several of the key ingredients analysed in this
chapter—​it must be remembered that much of this evidence, such as records
of diplomatic gifts, registers exceptions rather than norms. That is, not only
did such exchanges occur sporadically, but the surviving records emphasise
the movement of especially noteworthy goods within very elite networks.
Therefore, while this evidence remains immensely valuable, caution is needed.
On the other hand, the Abbey of Fontenelle’s annual supply of pigmenta
or the shopping list from Corbie do suggest more regular trade in these types
of imported substances. Still, these sources only paint a partial picture of the
situation on the ground. They reveal what these communities intended to buy
and not what was actually available. Ultimately, the documentary evidence
indicates that some unambiguously non-​local products, including newly intro-
duced materia medica, were circulating in the Carolingian world. This circula-
tion, however, was limited. Even if certain exotica were available at the market
at Cambrai, for example, it is likely that most non-​local items were present
in relatively small quantities (though the 120 pounds of pepper suggests that
larger amounts of some substances may have been available) and, given their
expense, restricted to an elite clientele. In short, evidence for the occasional
existence of these ingredients should not be read as evidence for their regular
availability.
Nevertheless, I would suggest that recipes including newly recorded ingredi-
ents were practical in a limited way. Although the ingredients in question would
have been far from local, the recipes that include them appear to demonstrate

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 101

some degree of familiarity with these substances, if only indirectly. Such rec-
ipes would have provided blueprints for possible preparations when these
ingredients were available. This is particularly relevant when considering the
rapid dissemination of the new incense recipe: its addition to existing western
incense traditions opened up multiple options for incense production depend-
ing on the availability of ingredients; having a range of options may have been
necessary for these communities given their increasing incense needs and the
variable availability of the ingredients involved. Overall, although the evidence
for the existence of these substances in the Latin west is sporadic and should
not be understood as reflecting their sustained presence, the sources reveal
the possibility of their availability within the Frankish Empire. The repeated
inclusion of the five newly recorded exotics in medical recipes can therefore be
seen as practical information that was ready to be deployed when a need arose
and when the ingredients were on hand: this is ‘latent knowledge’.
Finally, the wider implications of this case study must be considered: to
what extent can we extrapolate from these findings? Are these newly recorded
ingredients representative of non-​local materia medica more generally? While
it would be dangerous to use this case study as a proxy for all exotic ingredients,
it is notable that a significant number of non-​local ingredients that were known
in classical Antiquity, such as pepper, ginger, and cinnamon, not only continue
to appear in the recipe literature but are also named in the non-​medical sources
examined above. The monks of Corbie, for example, intended to buy these three
products, among a number of other foreign goods, at the Cambrai market. This
combination of medical and other documentary sources therefore suggests that
many exotic substances, not unlike the newly recorded ingredients, may have
been practical in that they stored this latent knowledge—​information that was
by no means always or even consistently useable, but that offered options when
the conditions were right. It must be noted, however, that previously known
ingredients present a more challenging group to study: since they have long
been recorded in pharmaceutical prescriptions, their individual appearance in
recipes, in contrast to the newly introduced ingredients, cannot be used to trace
the dissemination of knowledge and its possible connection with the presence
of the physical substances themselves.
Despite this general picture of practicality, there are counter examples that
challenge this finding. The case of silphium presents one such case: this plant is
thought to have become extinct during Antiquity and yet continues to appear
in later recipes.88 Within the sample analysed in this study, it is recorded over

88 Ken Parejko, ‘Pliny the Elder’s Silphium: First Recorded Species Extinction’, Conservation
Biology 17, no. 3 (2003): 925–​7.

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102  Chapter 3

twenty times. Although it is possible that the term may have been used to refer
to a different, related plant in the early Middle Ages or that scribes continued
to copy it without knowing it had gone extinct (or perhaps with the hope that it
might be identified in the future) or that they were simply unsure (and wanted
to record it, again, in case of possible future use), the surviving evidence does
not provide additional information. Instead, the inclusion of recipes that rely
on substances that would have been impossible to obtain suggests that, in
some cases, older authorities may have been copied without a consideration
of the possible practicality of the information they contained or that they were
preserved for other reasons.89 While the silphium example represents a very
small percentage of the total number of recipes, it is a useful reminder that,
despite the strong evidence for practicality on the basis of latent knowledge,
the situation remained highly complex and variable.

5 Conclusion

This chapter offers just a glimpse of the vast range of non-​local materia medica
recorded in early medieval recipes. The analysis of a cluster of newly intro-
duced ingredients speaks to the arrival and distribution of this knowledge
within northwest Europe. Tracing the distribution of incense recipes contain-
ing these core ingredients as well as the appearance of each of these ingredi-
ents individually has uncovered patterns in the diffusion of this information
and related this diffusion to the movement of the substances themselves. The
need for increasingly large amounts of incense appears to have been a key fac-
tor underpinning the spread of the new incense recipe. Simultaneously, the
entry of the substances themselves allowed for their gradual application in
medical contexts. While these patterns are grounded in the evidence provided
by the recipes and the manuscripts in which they are located, non-​medical
texts have offered important insights into the movement of the ingredients, as
well. By bringing together these varied types of evidence, it becomes possible
to see the potential practicality of recipes that incorporate non-​local materia
medica.

89 For example, a number of rough parallels can be found with treatments listed in Marcellus’
De medicamentis liber. A recipe for Sales catarticos in cod. sang. 751 (p. 418) that uses silfiu
is similar to several preparations in Book 30 of De medicamentis liber, including recipes 51
(Confectio salis cathartici) and 52 (Liquamen catharticum); see Marcellus, De medicamen-
tis liber, ed. Liechtenhan and Niedermann, trans. Kollesch and Nickel, 30.51–​2 (pp. 532–​5);
see Appendix 2, entry 9.21.

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Impossible Imports or Available Exotics? 103

The findings presented in this chapter connect to several major debates. In

particular, while some scholars argue that the Mediterranean (and beyond)
was still a zone of connectivity during this period, others hold a more minimal-
ist view.90 This debate has major implications for understanding the degree
to which, if at all, exotic goods were entering continental Europe and also
relates to the question of whether trade can be used as a more general proxy
for assessing networks of communication and exchange. The results of my
analyses support a middle ground: while it appears that such non-​local prod-
ucts were known in the west, they may not have been regularly available—​
and when they were available, these ingredients were probably only present in
small quantities and, given their expense, accessible to a select few. As stated
above, evidence for the existence of these substances should not be equated
with their regular presence and widespread availability. The recipes that
include such rare, expensive, non-​local materia medica therefore represent
latent knowledge: they offer additional options for treatments and/​or liturgical
incense use if and when the necessary ingredients were available.
Finally, although this chapter has focused on the spread of non-​local mate-
ria medica within the Carolingian world, these developments represent only
the very end point of movements on a much larger, global scale. While space
does not permit me to examine these movements in detail, ingredients coming
from as far away as the Himalayas and the Maluku Islands likely travelled west
via multiple, intersecting networks. The Abbasid Caliphate’s expanding power
and trading connections during this period, especially in the east, must have
played a particularly important role in introducing a greater range of products
from southeast Asia in western Europe. Indeed, diplomatic exchanges, such as
Harun al Rashid’s gifts, exemplify the potential for direct links between the two
empires. The Arabic origins of many of the terms for these substances (in both
Latin and English) confirm that the trade networks of the Islamicate world

90 McCormick provides a useful overview of the maximalist-​minimalist debate in the open-

ing chapter of Origins of the European Economy, see pp. 1–​24. Caroline Goodson has
presented convincing evidence for a more minimalist interpretation (personal commu-
nication and ‘Ingredients for Medicine in Early Medieval Italy’, Goodson’s paper at the
Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies’ 2019 Symposium, Blood in Byzantium
(1 April 2019)). For more on this debate, see also the work of Chris Wickham, Richard
Hodges, and Sauro Gelichi, including Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle
Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–​800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) and
Sauro Gelichi and Richard Hodges, eds., From One Sea to Another. Trading Places in
the European and Mediterranean Early Middle Ages: Proceedings of the International
Conference, Comacchio 27th-​29th March 2009 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), with chapters
from Gelichi, Hodges, McCormick, and Wickham.

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104  Chapter 3

were central to the movement of these products across Eurasia. Recent schol-
arship has also suggested the impact of simultaneous developments in Tang
China on the diffusion of both knowledge and materia medica.91
Meanwhile, within the Mediterranean world, the spread of non-​local
substances may have also been facilitated by Byzantine connections and
Radhanite traders.92 That some of the newly recorded ingredients, such as
confita, appear to reflect an evolving Latinisation of originally Greek terms
suggests that Byzantine networks were involved in the introduction and
spread of the incense recipe tradition. Considering the movement of informa-
tion and substances between sites in the Italian peninsula and communities
north of the Alps, intellectual, policital, and ecclesiastical centres with strong
Byzantine connections, such as Rome and Ravenna, likely represent key nodes
in the transmission of pharmaceutical knowledge and products, crucial gate-
ways linking east and west.93
Ultimately, a combination of all these networks may have been involved in
the introduction of the newly recorded ingredients, and further investigations
into the dynamics underpinning this long-​distance trade must be pursued in a
future study. This chapter confirms McCormick’s remark that the manuscripts
‘may still hold some surprises’.94 It is evident that these types of ‘miscellane-
ous’ recipes offer new insights into the evolution of medical knowledge and
practice in the Carolingian world. To develop a more complete understanding
of early medieval medicine, it is essential to explore this rich corpus in greater
depth within both global and local frameworks, and the next chapter turns to
the latter perspective.

91 Alain George, ‘Direct Sea Trade Between Early Islamic Iraq and Tang China: From the
Exchange of Goods to the Transmission of Ideas’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 25,
no. 4 (2015): 579–​624. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1017​/S13561​8631​5000​231​.
92 Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, 129–​227. On Byzantine connections in the west, see, for
example, T. S. Brown, ‘Byzantine Italy, c. 680-​c. 876’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History
ii, c. 700-​c. 900, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),
320–​48; Michael McCormick, ‘Byzantium and the West, 700–​900’, in The New Cambridge
Medieval History ii, c. 700-​c. 900, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995), 349–​80.
93 Thomas S. Brown, ‘Ravenna and Other Early Rivals of Venice: Comparative Urban and
Economic Development in the Upper Adriatic c.751–​1050’, in Byzantium, Venice and the
Medieval Adriatic: Spheres of Maritime Power and Influence, c. 700–​1453, ed. Magdalena
Skoblar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 173–​87.
94 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 714, n. 84.

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 ­c hapter 4

Medicine and the Mead Hall?

Using Alcoholic Beverages to Explore Potentially Local Materia Medica

1 Introduction: a Snapshot From Cod. Sang. 752

The frequency with which alcoholic beverages are mentioned in medical texts
is noteworthy. Various alcoholic drinks, including wine, beer, and mead, appear
in many dietetic works detailing the foods and drinks best suited to balancing
the humours or, conversely, those to be avoided. Recipes, too, make frequent
use of these beverages and others, such as mixtures of wine with honey or
water. Of the fifteen recipes from cod. sang. 752 included in this study, the first,
fifth, and fifteenth recipes each include wine as an ingredient, while the four-
teenth recipe notes both beer and mead (see Figure 5 for the fourteenth and
fifteenth recipes):

On Melancholy. To get rid of black bile, a purgative that purges cold and
dry humours: dodder, 10 denarii; dried mint, 10 pounds, 2 scruples; pep-
per, 1 ounce; grind these together finely and then give the entire potion,
10 scruples, or half potion, 5 scruples, with half a cup of old wine. Do this
frequently, it is most useful.1

For paralysis: juice of the herb sage, 6 denarii; juice of savin, 4 denarii;
skimmed honey, 2 denarii; wine, 1 ounce. The fasting [patient] should
drink [this]; it heals wonderfully.2

On improving haemorrhoids: take plantain and the sour herb, which

by another name is named gundereba, and tallow from mutton, this is
unslit, and these three ingredients should be beaten in a mortar and
then roasted in a small pan. And in this way, the fasting [patient] should

1 Cod. sang. 752, p. 5: De melancolicis ad fel nigrum deponendum purgatorium quod deponit
umores frigidos et siccos. Epitimo đ x, menta sicca lib x ℈ ii, piper ℈ i, hęc conteres subtilissime
et dabis exinde integra potione ℈ x et media potione ℈ v cum uino uetere medio calice. Faciat
hoc frequenter, utilissimum est. For a transcription of the recipe, see Appendix 2, entry 10.1.
2 Cod. sang. 752, p. 5: Ad paralisin. Sucum erbę saluie đ vi, sucum sauine đ iiii, mel dispumatum đ
ii, uino ℈ i. Ieiunus bibat, mirifice sanat. See Appendix 2, entry 10.2.

© Claire Burridge, 2024 | DOI:​1 0.1163/9789004466173_005

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106  Chapter 4

­f igure 5 Two recipes in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 752 (p. 158), a manuscript
compilation with the Medicina Plinii, Gargilius Martialis’ Medicinae ex oleribus
et pomis, the Oxea et chronia passiones Yppocratis, Gallieni et Urani, etc. and
additional medical recipes, such as those pictured (https://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​
.ch​/de​/csg​/0752​/158)
© st. gallen, stiftsbibliothek, licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0

eat [this] with bread. [They] should drink beer and mead but not water
before [they] are healed.3

If a tertian or quotidian fever strikes a person: [they] should collect a

handful of vervain, which in another way is called isarnina, and nine
grains of pepper, and mix them together with wine. [They] should drink
one staupus [of this mixture] before the onset of the fever.4

3 Cod. sang. 752, p. 158: De fico emendando. Accipe plantaginem et herbam acerem, quae alio
nomine gundereba nominatur, et seuum de multone, hoc est unslit, et ista tria tundantur in mor-
taliolo et fricantur in patella, et sic ieiunus comedat cum pane. Ceruisam et medum nec aquam
bibat antequam sanetur. See Appendix 2, entry 10.4.
4 Cod. sang. 752, p. 158: Si tertiana aut cottidiana febris hominem tangit. Colligat de ueruena
manipulum i, quae alio modo isarnina uocatur, et viiii grana de pipero, et cum uino mixtam
componat, et ante accessionem inde bibat staupum unum. See Appendix 2, entry 10.5.

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Medicine and the Mead Hall? 107

After the final recipe on p. 158, there is a short text that describes certain
foods and drinks from which to abstain if suffering from paralysis, Quibus cibis
abstinere debeant quem paralysin tangit. Bread, various meats (beef, pork, and
goat), fish, most legumes, and unrefined olive oil are to be avoided, as are all
drinks that have the potential to cause inebriation.5 The author of this pas-
sage, however, makes several exceptions, noting three alcoholic beverages that
would be acceptable to drink: thin white wine, thin mead, and thin, light beer.
Within this manuscript’s fifteen remedies under analysis in the present
study, four—​nearly a third of the total—​include alcoholic beverages. All three
of the alcohols that appear in these recipes are also noted in the dietary guide-
lines that follow one of the manuscript’s recipe clusters. The sheer prevalence
of alcohol in medical texts, and especially as ingredients in recipes (even if
their primary function was as a liquefying agent rather than an active phar-
macological component), demands a closer look. The traditional stereotypes
attached to each of these beverages, moreover, add another dimension to this
investigation into alcoholic drinks’ relationship(s) with medicine and connect
to this book’s core questions regarding practicality.
In this chapter, I shall first review the attitudes towards and roles played
by various alcohols in classical and late antique medicine before turning to
the early medieval evidence. In contrast to classical medical texts, which pro-
mote the use of wine but regard beer as unhealthy, my analysis of eighth-​and
ninth-​century recipes has uncovered treatments that list beer as an ingredi-
ent. Simultaneously, I have tracked the spread of a Germanic term for mead,
medus, in medical contexts. The appearance of these two alcohols in recipes
and related medical writings (such as accompanying dietary advice), often
listed together, indicates that classical and late antique medical knowledge
was not passively received; rather, early medieval scribes actively engaged with
and added to this material. Supported by non-​medical sources that document
beer and mead production in the Carolingian world, I argue that the inclu-
sion of beer and medus reveals adaptations made to suit local conditions. Such
changes reflect another aspect of the practicality of the recipes involved in this
study and bear witness to an evolving body of medical literature.

5 Cod. sang. 752, pp. 158–​9: Quibus cibis abstinere debeant quem paralysin tangit. See Appendix
2, entry 10.6.

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108  Chapter 4

2 Wine, Beer, and Mead in the Classical Mediterranean

Beer, ale, and mead tend to be portrayed as having northern European ori-
gins; these alcohols are seen in Germanic contexts and as drinks consumed by
rowdy barbarians. Wine, in contrast, is more often associated with the classical,
Mediterranean world. The stereotypes persist today: beer remains the every-
man’s drink while wine tends to be more expensive and perceived as more
sophisticated. These stereotypes depend, at least in part, on the narrative of
a ‘clash of cultures’ that resulted in a sharp break between classical Antiquity
and the barbaric ‘Dark Ages’. Modern scholarship has, thankfully, revised the
notion of decline and fall, highlighting instead the vibrant, flourishing intellec-
tual cultures of the early Middle Ages as well as many continuities between the
Roman Empire and its successors.6 Nevertheless, with the exception of craft
brewing, the contrasting images of less refined (barbarian) beer and sophis-
ticated (classical) wine have largely endured. The divide can be seen along
geographic lines, as well, with northern and western Europe known for its
production of beer whereas southern, Mediterranean Europe is famed for its
vines. Is this divide purely due to the environmental and climatic conditions
needed to produce each beverage or have cultural factors played a role? Is the
separation between beer-​and wine-​drinking areas a more modern concept
that has been inappropriately applied to the past?
The north-​south division of alcoholic beverages in a European context has
been explored extensively in recent scholarship.7 The fact that there were
(and are) many areas in Europe where both cereals and grapes can grow

6 See, for example, Rosamond McKitterick’s work on literacy, scholarship, and culture in
the Carolingian period, such as McKitterick, ‘The Carolingian Renaissance of Culture
and Learning’; McKitterick, ‘Eighth-​ Century Foundations’; Rosamond McKitterick, ed.,
Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994); or McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word. On the wider political, eco-
nomic, and social dynamics of this period, see also the outputs from the esf project
‘Transformation of the Roman World’ (mentioned in Chapter 2), including Hansen and
Wickham, eds., The Long Eighth Century; Corradini, Diesenberger, and Reimitz, eds., The
Construction of Communities; and Theuws and Nelson, eds., Rituals of Power.
7 Ruth C. Engs, ‘Do Traditional Western European Drinking Practices Have Origins in
Antiquity?’ Addiction Research 2, no. 3 (1995): 227–​39, https://​doi​.org​/10​.3109​/160663​5950​
9005​208, at pp. 228–​31; Max Nelson, ‘The Geography of Beer in Europe from 1000 bc to ad
1000’, in The Geography of Beer: Regions, Environments, and Societies, ed. Mark Patterson and
Nancy Hoalst-​Pullen (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014), 9–​21, at pp. 9–​10; Benjamin Wayens, Isabelle
van den Steen, and Marie-​Eve Ronveaux. ‘A Short Historical Geography of Beer’, in Food
and Environment: Geographies of Taste, ed. Armando Montanari (Rome: Società Geografica
Italiana, 2002), 93–​114, at pp. 93–​4.

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Medicine and the Mead Hall? 109

immediately challenges the strict partition of drinking cultures along geo-

graphic lines. North-​south theories are both misleading and outdated, reduc-
ing a highly complex situation to a simple dichotomy.8 Yet these stereotypes,
despite their inaccuracies, have a long history and understanding their devel-
opment is crucial to unpicking the changing roles of various alcohols in west-
ern medical traditions.
Both written sources and the archaeological record speak to the ancient
origins of humankind’s relationship with alcoholic substances. At present, the
earliest archaeological evidence for fermentation in Europe has been dated
to the Bronze Age.9 The alcoholic beverages produced at this time appear to
have been of a mixed nature, potentially combining fermented cereals, fruits,
and honey. This blend of substances blurs the distinctions between beer, wine,
and mead, providing no evidence to support a geographic divide in the initial
stages of alcohol production. Early textual sources, however, relate the devel-
opment of particular traditions in different regions, with winemaking centred
in the south, brewing in the north, and many areas of overlap between the two.
The information and biases passed down in these texts, at first largely written
by Greek authors, became orthodoxy, establishing the stereotypes on which
later writers would continue to build.
The earliest surviving negative depictions of beer in Greek sources come
from the plays of Aeschylus, written in the early fifth century bc. Further exam-
ples can be seen in the works of Cratinus (fifth century bc) and Antiphanes
(fourth century bc). By charting the portrayal of beer, zūthos (ζῦθος), in Greek
drama, Nelson shows that beer is repeatedly seen as an unmanly product of
Thrace and Egypt. He explains that ‘the drinking of beer continued to be made
fun of, particularly with regard to its effeminate qualities’.10 These negative ste-
reotypes were not restricted to the stage, but rather maintained and expanded
by writers in other fields, including medicine.
Although no references to beer appear in the Hippocratic corpus, Galen
comments on zūthos, mentioning it in relation to the ‘Alexandrian diet’, thereby
continuing to associate beer-​drinking with Egypt and to see it as a foreign

8 Nelson, ‘The Geography of Beer’, 10.

9 Andrew Sherratt, ‘Alcohol and its Alternatives: Symbol and Substance in Pre-​Industrial
Cultures’, in Consuming Habits: Global and Historical Perspectives on How Cultures
Define Drugs, ed. Jordan Goodman, Paul E. Lovejoy, and Andrew Sherratt, 2nd ed.
(London: Routledge, 2007), 11–​45, at p. 25.
10 Max Nelson, The Barbarian’s Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe (London:
Routledge, 2005), 25, 32.

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110  Chapter 4

peculiarity.11 He writes that the beverage causes flatulence and bad humours.12
These two qualities were also noted earlier by Dioscorides in De materia med-
ica. Dioscorides’ vast work, as mentioned in Chapter 2, addresses the medical
properties of roughly 1000 different substances, and he includes two entries
for beer, differentiating between zūthos and courmi (κοῦρμι). The former, made
from barley, is ‘especially hurtful to the membranes, it is apt to cause flatu-
lence, to engender an unhealthy state of humors, and to cause elephantiasis’.13
On courmi, made from either barley or wheat, he writes: it ‘causes headaches, is
unwholesome, and does damage to the sinewy parts’.14 Dioscorides specifically
links wheat beers to Spain and Britain.
In stark contrast, De materia medica contains roughly one hundred entries
for different types of wines and other fruit-​based alcohols, honey-​based alco-
hols, and alcohols made up of both honey and fruit, nearly all of which high-
light the potential medicinal values of these types of drinks. At this point, it is
important to note that the definitions of the various alcohols under consid-
eration have changed over time and the situation is more complicated than
a simple tripartite division between wine, beer, and mead. For the purposes
of this discussion, I use the term ‘wine’ to mean any fermented beverage pro-
duced from fruit. Grapes are generally, but by no means exclusively, the fruit in
question.15 The term ‘beer’ represents fermented beverages made from malted
cereals, including wheat, barley, and other grains. Finally, ‘mead’ refers to fer-
mented beverages produced from honey. As will be discussed below, there is
some overlap and ambiguity between the categories of wine and mead due to
blends of the two substances and mixtures of wine with honey. Many mod-
ern translations are perhaps overzealous in their use of ‘mead’, deploying it in
cases where a term like ‘honeyed-​wine’ might be more appropriate. However,
as Nelson notes, ‘the distinction between those substances which were meant
to ferment and those simply added to, or macerated in, a fermented bever-
age for flavour can rarely be determined either from archaeological remains
or from the information in our written sources’.16 I shall revisit the question

11 Galen, In Hippocratis Aphorismos, 2.20. In Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, ed. Karl Gottlob
Kühn, 20 vols. (Leipzig: Carl Cnobloch, 1821–​33), see specifically xviib.492.14–​493.5.
12 Galen, De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis ac facultatibus, 6.6.3. In Claudii
Galeni Opera Omnia, ed. Karl Gottlob Kühn, 20 vols. (Leipzig: Carl Cnobloch, 1821–​33),
xi.379–​892K and xii.1–​377K, see specifically xi.882.5–​8.
13 Dioscorides, De materia medica, 2.87.
14 Ibid, 2.88.
15 It will be noted if a fruit other than or in addition to grapes is used to produce a beverage.
16 Nelson, The Barbarian’s Beverage, 2.

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Medicine and the Mead Hall? 111

of terminology, especially with regard to mead, below, but first Dioscorides’

comments on wine(s) and mead(s) must be considered.
Of the 162 entries in Book 5 of De materia medica, seventy-​one of the first
seventy-​three entries concern grapes, wine, mead, and related products such
as honey and vinegar; the two exceptions are entries for water and sea water.
The rest of Book 5, excluding entry 114 on wine lees, addresses mineral prod-
ucts. While the entry on wine itself (entry 6), does mention some potentially
harmful effects caused by overindulging in the beverage, from flatulence to
drunkenness, the passage emphasises wine’s beneficial qualities: ‘its use is rec-
ommended both in health and in sickness’.17 According to Dioscorides, all pure
and unmixed wine is nutritious and wholesome; counters poisons, bites, and
stings; improves ‘distention and loosening of the stomach or bowel’; and helps
‘people who perspire and are weakened’.18
Moving to the blended beverages, wine prepared with honey, termed
melitites (μελιτίτης), ‘is given in cases of chronic fevers to those who have a
weak stomach … and it is suitable for arthritics, nephritics, and for those of
weak constitution’.19 Dioscorides defines melitites as a mixture of must, honey,
and salt, and differentiates this from oinomeli (οἰνόμελι), a combination of dry
wine and a little honey. On mead, known as either melicraton (μελἰκρατον) or
hydromeli (υδρόμελι), Dioscorides writes that it is useful for people ‘who are
sickly, who cough, who have lung inflammations, and who are weakened from
perspiration’ as well as ‘those with stomach problems or rheums or [those]
who have no appetite’.20 Dioscorides then continues with the descriptions of
wines made from a range of different fruits, including quinces, pears, pome-
granates, dates, and figs, and flavoured with various additives, such as resins,
pine cones, or particular herbs and spices. He provides instructions for their
preparation and information on their properties. Several entries focus on
wines made exclusively for a particular medical purpose, such as entries 55,
‘wine for headcolds’, and 67, ‘abortifacient wine’.21
Wine, mead, and combinations of the two were therefore seen as substances
fundamentally linked to health: while too much could result in unpleasant side
effects, these beverages, when consumed in moderation, were understood to
have many medicinal properties. Dioscorides’ prolix commentary on fruit-​and
honey-​based alcohols certainly contrasts with his brief and highly negative

17 Dioscorides, De materia medica, 5.6.

18 Ibid.
19 Ibid, 5.7.
20 Ibid, 5.9.
21 Ibid, 5.55 and 67.

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112  Chapter 4

presentation of the two types of beer noted above. His descriptions of all of
these beverages, and the general attitudes they represent, appear to have influ-
enced later Greek and Latin medical authors alike.
Prejudice against beer and beer-​drinkers can also be seen in other types of
writing, reinforcing and repackaging the stereotypes about foreigners and their
odd tastes. Tacitus, a Roman senator and historian active in the late first and
early second centuries, composed an ethnographic work on the Germanic peo-
ples living beyond the empire, Germania. In Chapter 23, Tacitus describes their
drinking habits, writing that ‘for drink they use the liquid distilled from barley
or wheat, after fermentation has given it a certain resemblance to wine’.22 He
also records that some tribes buy wine from their Roman neighbours and notes
their overindulgence when it comes to alcohol: ‘if you humour their drunken-
ness by supplying as much as they crave, they will be vanquished through their
vices as easily as on the battlefield’.23 While Tacitus’ comments on beer itself
are not overly negative, the barbarians’ intemperance is presented as inferior
to the ‘civilised’ Roman approach to alcohol.
Pliny, too, records information on beer and beer-​drinkers in his encyclopae-
dic Natural History. Noting that ‘the nations of the west also have their own
intoxicant, made from grain soaked in water’, he highlights Spain, Gaul, and
Egypt as specific regions that produced beer.24 Like Tacitus, his basic presenta-
tion of beer remains neutral, but the character of those who drink this alcohol
is again critiqued, noting that ‘in no part of the world is drunkenness ever out
of action, in fact they actually quaff liquors of this kind neat and do not temper
their strength by diluting them, as is done with wine … Alas, what wonderful
ingenuity vice possesses! A method has actually been discovered for making
even water intoxicated!’25 Thus, in contrast to the medical texts, which found
problems with the substance of beer itself, writings outside of the medical

22 Tacitus, Germania, in Agricola. Germania. Dialogue on Oratory, trans. M. Hutton and

W. Peterson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914), 166–​7: Potui humor ex
hordeo aut frumento, in quandam similitudinem vini corruptus.
23 Tacitus, Germania, trans. Hutton and Peterson, 166–​7: si indulseris ebrietati suggerendo
quantum concupiscunt, haud minus facile vitiis quam armis vincentur.
24 Pliny, Natural History, ed. Rackham, vol. 4, 14.149: Est et occidentis populis sua ebrietas e
fruge madida, pluribus modis per Gallias Hispaniasque, nominibus aliis sed ratione eadem.
Hispaniae iam et vetustatem ferre ea genera docuerunt. Aegyptus quoque e fruge sibi potus
similis excogitavit.
25 Pliny, Natural History, ed. Rackham, vol. 4, 14.149: nullaque in parte mundi cessat ebrietas;
meros quippe hauriunt tales sucos nec diluendo ut vina mitigant ... heu, mira vitiorum soller-
tia! inventum est quemadmodum aquae quoque inebriarent.

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Medicine and the Mead Hall? 113

arena instead seem to take issue with the beer-​drinkers, disapproving of their
apparent tendency to overindulge in alcohol.
As noted in Chapter 2, Pliny recorded a vast amount of medical advice,
including hundreds of recipes, in his encyclopaedia. Despite this extensive cor-
pus of medical material, he never refers to beer in a medical context, neither
addressing its potential medical properties nor including it as an ingredient in
recipes. Just as with Dioscorides, the treatment of beer starkly contrasts with
the information provided for wine, mead, and mixed alcoholic beverages. While
Pliny, like Dioscorides, does not hide the potential dangers of consuming these
drinks in excess, he frequently recommends their use in treatments, and there
are hundreds of references to mead and/​or honey-​wine in the Natural History.
The terms used by Pliny include mulsum, aqua mulsa, hydromel, melitites, and
thalassomeli (a mixture of seawater, rainwater, and honey, possibly fermented).
Most of these cases represent the use of these substances in recipes, though
some are full descriptions of the particular substance in question. In Book 24,
for example, Pliny writes that ‘if [fenugreek] is boiled down with mallows, and
honey wine [mulso] be afterwards added, a draught is praised as a preeminent
remedy for troubles of the uterus and intestines’.26 He advises that ‘for pain of
the kidneys or liver, [bugloss] is taken in hydromel [aqua mulsa], should there
be fever, otherwise in wine’.27
Notably, although beer was not deemed by Pliny to have medical properties,
other cereal-​based products were recorded in treatments. Regarding bread,
for example, he writes that ‘in hydromel [aqua mulsa], it is very soothing to
indurations’.28 Thus, in Pliny’s eyes, beer was seen to be useless, whereas other
cereal-​based products as well as alcohols derived from fruits and honey pos-
sessed beneficial medicinal properties or could serve as neutral components
within a recipe (e.g., as a liquefying agent). This particular disapproval of beer,
whether it was seen as an actively harmful substance or as related to uncouth
barbarians, left its mark for centuries and continues to influence the stereo-
types surrounding beer-​and wine-​drinking today.

26 Pliny, Natural History, ed. Jones, vol. 7, 24.187: si vero cum malva decoquatur postea addito
mulso, potus ante cetera vulvis interaneisque laudatur.
27 Pliny, Natural History, ed. Jones, vol. 6, 22.52: et in dolore renium aut iocineris ex aqua
mulsa, si febris sit, sin aliter, e vino bibitur.
28 Pliny, Natural History, ed. Jones, vol. 6, 22.138: ex aqua mulsa duritias valde mitigat.

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114  Chapter 4

3 Changing Tastes in Late Antiquity?

Although beer may have been looked down on as an inferior drink consumed
by foreigners, many of those ‘foreigners’, such as Gauls and Egyptians, actu-
ally lived within the bounds of the Roman Empire. The Germanic tribes men-
tioned by Tacitus, while they mostly remained beyond the limes for a few more
centuries, were a constant presence on the frontier and an increasing force
within the army. Romans certainly would have had contact with beer-​drinking
communities or, indeed, could have belonged to both drinking cultures. The
increasing visibility of beer appears to have resulted in a softening of some of
the extreme views of earlier writers, though some sources indicate that many
Romans continued to disapprove of it. To be clear, although beer seems to have
achieved some degree of acceptability in the provinces, it was not perceived
as on par with wine.29 Medicine is a field in which this changing attitude can
be discerned, if only slightly: in contrast to Dioscorides’ description of the
harmful properties of beer and Pliny’s disregard for the drink from a medical
perspective, a handful of late antique Latin authors do comment on beer in
medical contexts.
The Medicina Plinii, noted in Chapter 2 as an example of the late antique
reworking of existing texts, is made up of three books of recipes. As its name
suggests, much of the material is derived from Pliny’s Natural History, though
other influences can also be seen.30 Book 3 contains a chapter on scrofulous,
swollen glands; the tenth and final recipe of this chapter recommends that the
leaves of elder be ground up and mixed with the dregs of beer and then applied
with a linen cloth.31 It is important to remember the size of this work: the three
books making up the Medicina Plinii contain hundreds of recipes. The use of
beer dregs to help scrofulous swellings is the single reference to beer in the
entire text, meaning that beer appears in less than one percent of the text’s
remedies. Wine, in contrast, appears very regularly; it is one of the standard
liquifying agents recorded in recipes. Despite this seemingly insignificant
representation of beer, the sheer fact that it is included in a recipe is signifi-
cant, marking a departure from earlier Mediterranean medical writings and

29 Nelson, The Barbarian’s Beverage, 74.

30 Plinii Secundi Iunioris qui feruntur De medicina libri tres, ed. Önnerfors; The Medicina
Plinii, trans. Hunt; Doody, ‘Authority and Authorship in the Medicina Plinii’, 93–​105;
Doody, Pliny’s Encyclopedia.
31 Plinii Secundi Iunioris qui feruntur De medicina libri tres, ed. Önnerfors, 3.6.10: ebuli folia
conteruntur et mixta cum faece ceruisiae super additis foliis eiusdem ebuli in linteolo alli-
ga<n>tur. See also The Medicina Plinii, trans. Hunt, 3.6.10.

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Medicine and the Mead Hall? 115

confirming that sources other than Pliny’s Natural History were incorporated
in the Medicina Plinii.
Marcellus of Bordeaux, the Gallo-​Roman statesman active in the late fourth
and early fifth centuries, and his large pharmaceutical collection, De medica-
mentis liber, were also introduced in Chapter 2.32 While he cites both ‘Plinies’,
meaning Pliny the Elder’s Natural History and the Medicina Plinii, as sources
for his work, it is clear that a wider range of material influenced the text.33 In
particular, the local, Gallic environment appears to have left a strong imprint,
both in terms of Marcellus’ writing style and with respect to the medical infor-
mation he recorded.34 Remembering that many classical sources associated
beer-​drinking with Gaul, it is perhaps unsurprising to see this beverage appear
alongside wine, mead, and mixed alcohols. Beer is listed in two treatments,
and both are distinct from the single instance recorded in the Medicina Plinii.
First, in Chapter 16, on coughs and lung conditions, Marcellus suggests drink-
ing a potion of salt dissolved in beer.35 Chapter 28, on worms and intestinal
issues, provides the second example, where beer appears to be a liquefying
agent in which a compound medicine is soaked.36 Of particular note in the
second recipe is that Marcellus comments on what to do if the reader finds
him-​or herself in a province in which beer is not available: in this case, they
are instructed to use water in which myrtle has been cooked.37 While these
two recipes double the total seen in the Medicina Plinii, De medicamentis liber
contains over 2000 recipes. Consequently, beer appears in less than 0.1% of
recipes.
Given the extremely low frequencies with which beer is mentioned, these
examples of late antique medical authors recording beer in their recipes may
seem trivial, barely representing an increase over their classical predecessors.
Slight as this increase is, however, it still indicates a change, moving from

32 Marcellus, De medicamentis liber, ed. Liechtenhan and Niedermann, trans. Kollesch and
Nickel; Stannard, ‘Marcellus of Bordeaux’, 47–​53.
33 Doody, Pliny’s Encyclopedia, 138.
34 Stannard, ‘Marcellus of Bordeaux’, 49.
35 Marcellus, De medicamentis liber, ed. Liechtenhan and Niedermann, trans. Kollesch and
Nickel, 16.33: Salis quantum intra palmam tenere potest qui tussiet in potionem ceruisae
aut curmi mittat et calidum bibat, cum dormitum uadit, neque postea loquatur, sed tacitus
somnum capiat; cito sanabitur, si hoc uel triduo fecerit.
36 Ibid, 28.13: … Facies pilulas magnitudine ea, qua ano inici possint, ipsasque factas infundes
in ceruesiae nouae sextariis duobus et mellis cyatho.
37 Ibid: Quod si in ea prouincia faciendum fuerit hoc medicamentum, in qua ceruisia non est,
ex aqua dabis, in qua myrta cocta sit, ad sextarios duos aut cum sapae mixtae sextariis duo-
bus atque ex eo temperabis potionem et dabis bibendam.

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116  Chapter 4

the outright disapproval of beer to a (very) limited application. In the case

of Marcellus, the provincial environment in which he was writing may have
played an important role in his acceptance, however small, of the medici-
nal qualities of beer. These initial inclusions of beer in medical writings
appear to have paved the way for early medieval medical writers active in
the west.

4 The Rise of Beer and Medus in the Early Middle Ages

The opening examples from cod. sang. 752 suggest that the changing attitudes
towards alcohols seen in late Antiquity continued to develop over the follow-
ing centuries. Four aspects of this example stand out, marking a departure
from the classical and late antique medical writings reviewed above. First,
and perhaps most obviously, the increasing proportion of references to beer
is noteworthy: it is mentioned twice in this small selection of material. The
first example comes from the fourteenth remedy, where it is recommended
that beer and mead be consumed during the patient’s recovery. Beer is then
noted as an exception in the list of foods and drinks to avoid if suffering from
paralysis: light beer is considered acceptable. While beer is not recorded as
an ingredient in recipes in this manuscript, its appearance in two types of
dietary guidelines still places it within a medical environment. Secondly, the
references to beer, mead, and wine are presented neutrally and beer sits as
an equal with wine and mead. Furthermore, where mead is recorded in these
recipes, it is written as medus as opposed to any of the terms noted above,
such as mulsum, aqua mulsa, melicraton, or melitites. Finally, all of the refer-
ences to alcohols come from medical material found outside of established
classical and late antique pharmaceutical writings given the selection criteria
involved in this study. Therefore, although neither beer nor medus is named
as an ingredient in these recipes, the references to these beverages are highly
significant.
Turning to the rest of the manuscript sample, additional examples of beer
and medus, both in dietary guidelines and as ingredients within recipes, sug-
gest an increasing acceptance of beer as well as several other linked develop-
ments. In total, I have recorded forty references to beer and sixteen references
to medus within the texts under analysis. From these examples, beer appears
as an ingredient in twenty-​six recipes and as a drink recommended for con-
sumption or avoidance in fourteen dietary guidelines accompanying recipes,
while medus appears as an ingredient in five recipes and in dietary guidelines
eleven times. I shall review the beer examples first.

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Medicine and the Mead Hall? 117

4.1 Beer
Of the twenty-​six early medieval recipes that include beer as an ingredient
within the sample, none appears to have been derived from the few recipes
with beer found in the Medicina Plinii and De medicamentis liber. Within these
twenty-​six cases, however, several recipes are repeated, suggesting the exist-
ence of shared sources that have not survived or the inheritance of a common
tradition. Codd. sang. 44, 751, and bav pal. lat. 1088, for example, all present
a treatment intended to expel ‘serpents and other worms’ that uses the juice
of wild cucumber mixed with fresh beer.38 An earlier recipe in cod. sang. 751
offers the same instructions, too, but is labelled as a cure for haemorrhoids, Ad
fico; perhaps the combination of wild cucumber and beer was recorded as a
treatment for multiple maladies or perhaps the scribe added the wrong recipe
or title at this point in the manuscript (or was copying an exemplar in which
this error had already occurred).39 Another case of parallel treatments can be
seen in cod. sang. 44 and bav pal. lat. 1088: a recipe intended to help with
‘hardness of the stomach’ combines flax seeds and honey in beer.40 Taking the
repeated material into account, the manuscript sample features twenty-​one
distinct recipes that include beer as an ingredient. These twenty-​one recipes
are unknown in classical and late antique sources and represent a substantial
increase in the recording of beer in recipes when compared to the previous
periods.
These examples must be contextualised within the full sample of recipes.
The transcribed texts produced over five thousand individual recipes, meaning
that the twenty-​six prescriptions listing beer as an ingredient still form but
a very small percentage of the total. Indeed, the frequency with which beer
is mentioned may look fairly similar to the late antique examples addressed
above: as seen in Table 5, beer appears in less than one percent of the recipes

38 Cod. sang. 44, p. 364: Ad serpentes uel alios uermes de homine expellendos. Potio probata.
Ius de cocurbita saluatica, nuce plena cum nouella ceruisia, ieiuno dabis bibere luna decur-
rente. Cod. sang. 751, p. 423: Ad serpentes uel alios uerme de ominem expellendum, potio
probata. Ius de cocurbita siluatica, nucae plena cum nouella ceruisa, ieiuno bibere dabis
luna decurrente. bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 37r: Ad serpentes uel aliorum uermes de homine expel-
lendum, potio probata. Sucum de cucurbita siluatica, nuce plena cum nouella ceruisa, ieiuno
dabis bibere luna decursa. See Appendix 2, entries 5.28.1, 9.23.1, and 16.5.1, respectively.
39 Cod. sang. 751, p. 413: Item [Ad fico]. Cucurbita saluatica, nuce plena cum molle ceruisa,
dabis diebus supra dictis. See Appendix 2, entry 9.16.2.
40 Note: the recipe collections in which these two recipes are located, though not iden-
tical, are based on the same tradition; see Appendix 1 for more details. Cod. sang. 44,
p. 366: Item ad duritiam uentris. Lino semen cum mel tritum in ceruisa ieiunus bibat, mirum
est; bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 40v: Item ad duritiam uentris. Lini semen cum mel tritum in ceruisia
ieiunus bibat, mirum est. See Appendix 2, entries 5.30.6 and 16.7.5, respectively.

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118  Chapter 4

table 5 The appearance of beer as an ingredient (general)

# of recipes with beer % of recipes with beer

Classical medical writings 0 0.0%

Marcellus, De medicamentis 2 0.1%

liber

Medicina Plinii 1 0.2%

Recipe sample under 26 0.5%

analysis

in all cases, occurring in 0.5% of the recipes from the manuscript sample, 0.1%
of the recipes of Marcellus, and 0.2% of the recipes from the Medicina Plinii.
Yet, as insignificant as these numbers may seem, it is notable that the percent-
age of early medieval medical recipes mentioning beer more than doubles the
percentages seen in the late antique texts.
A more detailed examination of the distribution of recipes that list beer
nuances this general picture, revealing that, although beer is rarely recorded
overall, its appearance in recipes is often concentrated. As Table 6 illustrates,
the spread of the twenty-​six recipes that name beer as an ingredient is far from
uniform. Not only are these recipes found in only seven of the twenty-​four
manuscripts under analysis (codd. sang. 44, 751, 550, 759; bav pal. lat. 1088;
and BnF lat. 11218 and 11219), but the distribution is uneven even within these
manuscripts. Cod. sang. 44 contains just over forty percent of the recipes that
list beer as an ingredient (eleven of twenty-​six), while cod. sang. 550 and BnF
lat. 11219 each include a single instance of a recipe with beer. This analysis can
be taken further by looking at the spread of recipes within cod. sang. 44, a
manuscript with three separate large recipe collections. Do the individual texts
within this manuscript parallel the uneven distribution pattern seen among
the manuscript sample as a whole? This tendency is confirmed, with nine of
cod. sang. 44’s eleven recipes with beer located within the manuscript’s second
major recipe collection found on pp. 337–​54. More specifically, three recipes
with beer appear on p. 345, one on p. 347, two on p. 350, one on p. 351, and
two on p. 353, revealing the that the nine recipes form a fairly tight cluster
within the collection, too. Indeed, the three recipes on p. 345 all come under
the same heading, Potio ad nescia, ‘Potion for hip pain’, and, in each case, act

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Medicine and the Mead Hall? 119

table 6 The appearance of beer as an ingredient within the recipe sample under analysis
(ordered by %)

# of recipes with beer % of recipes with beer

Cod. sang. 550 1 N/​Aa

bav pal. lat. 1088 2 0.2%
Cod. sang. 751 4 0.3%
BnF lat. 11218 4 0.5%
Cod. sang. 759 3 0.7%
BnF lat. 11219 1 0.8%
Cod. sang. 44 11 1.3%

Note:
a Cod. sang. 550 does not provide a large enough sample of recipes for comparison (three total
for the manuscript). All of the other manuscripts containing recipes with beer include over
100 recipes and thus present comparable datasets.

as the potion’s liquefying agent.41 The nine recipes with beer in this collection
reflect a marked increase in the frequency with which beer appears: given that
the collection contains 247 recipes, beer occurs as an ingredient in 3.6% of
the recipes in the collection. This percentage is significantly higher than any
of those previously noted (again, see Tables 5 and 6), representing a roughly
twenty-​fold and fifty-​fold increase (by percentage) when compared to the
Medicina Plinii and De medicamentis liber, respectively.
What are the implications of this unequal distribution? The diversity of reci-
pes combined with their irregular spread within the sample suggests that these
recipes stem from multiple sources. That these recipes include beer already
indicates that they incorporate information from beyond the classical canon.
Yet, it is their distribution and diversity that signify that these recipes draw
on a variety of non-​classical sources: within this study’s recipe sample, unique
examples of treatments that list beer as an ingredient can be seen in five of the
seven different manuscripts. Moreover, even though all four instances of beer
in cod. sang. 751 have parallels in other manuscripts, the parallel recipes are
found in cod. sang. 44, bav pal. lat. 1088, and BnF lat. 11218, thereby revealing
that cod. sang. 751 could not have drawn exclusively on one of these others as an

41 Cod. sang. 44, p. 345: Potio ad nescia; see Appendix 2, entries 5.18.2–​4.

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120  Chapter 4

exemplar. On the other hand, the shared recipes of bav pal. lat. 1088 and cod.
sang. 44 are located in a collection of recipes linked to the Tereoperica family
of recipe collections that is found in both codices. Though not identical, these
collections are closely related, as these recipes that record beer illustrate.42 In
fact, in cod. sang. 44, these two recipes correspond to the only beer-​containing
recipes outside of its primary cluster of recipes that list beer as an ingredi-
ent on pp. 345–​53. Overall, given the varied origins of the manuscripts under
analysis, it is not surprising that their texts contain information from different
traditions and were shaped by multiple, if often shared, influences. Before con-
sidering these non-​classical sources, the availability of beer in the Carolingian
world, and how this information can shed light on the question of practicality,
it is useful to examine the evidence for medus in the recipe literature.

4.2 Mead and Medus

As noted above, all references to mead in the selected sections of cod. sang. 752
use the term medus, and classical Latin and Latinised Greek terms for various
potentially alcoholic honey-​based (or at least honey-​containing) beverages,
including mulsum, aqua mulsa, hydromel, oenomel, and melitites, are absent.
The Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville provides information on a variety of alco-
hols containing honey and represents one of the earliest written sources to use
the term medus.43 Isidore first distinguishes between hydromel and oenomel,
classifying the former as a combination of honey and water and the latter as a
mixture of honey and wine.44 Mulsum and melicratum, on the other hand, seem
to be more variable in their composition: mulsum, for example, is recorded as
both ‘wine mixed with honey’ and ‘a drink made from water and honey’.45 In
contrast, medus alone is said be made from honey with no comments referring
to the addition of other liquids.46 This suggests that, unlike many of the other
beverages listed above which may represent honey-​wine or mead-​wine mix-
tures, medus may have been a honey-​based alcohol more similar to a modern

42 Three versions of a series of recipes to expel serpents and other worms, Ad serpentes uel
alios uermes de homine expellendos, are found codd. sang. 44 (p. 364), 751 (p. 423), and bav
pal. lat. 1088 (ff. 37r–37v), while versions of a cluster of recipes under the heading Ad uen-
tris dolorem are found in cod. sang. 44 (p. 366) and bav pal. lat. 1088 (f. 40v). See Appendix
2, entries 5.28, 9.23, and 16.5 for the former; see entries 5.30 and 16.7 for the latter.
43 Additional early examples of the use of medus can be seen in the writings of Venantius
Fortunatus and Anthimus, both active in the sixth century; Anthimus’ letter on diet is
considered later in this chapter.
44 Isidore, Etymologiae, 20.3.11–​12.
45 Ibid, 20.3.10.
46 Ibid, 20.3.13.

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Medicine and the Mead Hall? 121

understanding of mead. Indeed, the word medus is related to the English

word ‘mead’, as both stem from a proto-​Germanic root; ‘mead’ was known as
me(o)du in Old English and metu in Old High German, while the modern
equivalents in Dutch and German are mee and Met, respectively.47 Thus, while
it is unclear if the term medus documents an alternative type of honey-​based
alcohol, the term itself can be connected to a Germanic linguistic tradition
distinct from the terms used in classical and late antique sources.
The presence of medus in medical contexts did not result in the disappear-
ance of the other terms for alcohols involving honey: I recorded twenty-​three
examples of hydromel, one example of melicratum, 150 examples of mulsum
or aqua mulsa, and two examples of oenomel in the recipe sample. Indeed,
the word for ‘mead’ in many Romance languages has descended from one of
the classical terms, hydromel.48 Eventually, however, this classical vocabulary
would be largely lost from Germanic languages, as the modern English, Dutch,
and German terminology reveals.
Within the sample under analysis, eleven of the sixteen references to medus
(68.7%) occur within dietary guidelines, such as the examples already seen in
cod. sang. 752, and only five recipes (32.2%) include medus as an ingredient.
This breakdown is roughly the opposite of what was found for beer: the latter
served as a recipe ingredient in two-​thirds of its recorded occurrences. Of the
five recipes where medus is listed as an ingredient, two are found in cod. sang.
751 while the remaining three are located in BnF lat. 11218. On p. 305 of cod.
sang. 751, for example, medus is recommended as part of a treatment for groin
or bladder pain and difficulty urinating; later in the same manuscript, it is also
listed as an ingredient in a potion intended to expel worms and other sources
of harm, maleficia.49 In BnF lat. 11218, the three recipes occur within just a few
folia (ff. 115v–​122v). In the first instance, mead is used in a treatment for jaun-
dice, whereas the final two examples are found in two different recipes under
the same heading, Ad ueretrum suscitandum, a treatment for what would prob-
ably be known today as erectile disfunction.50

47 Angus Stevenson, ed., Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2010).
48 Consider, for example, the terms used for ‘mead’ in Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese,
and Catalan: hidromiel, hydromel, idromele, hidromel, and hidromel, respectively.
49 Cod. sang. 751, p. 305: Item ad ilii dolorem uel uesicae et difficultatem urinae; p. 413: Potio ad
oua colobrina. See Appendix 2, entries 9.1.4 and 9.17, respectively.
50 BnF lat. 11218, ff. 115v–​116r: Ad prugine qui uocatur morbus regio; f. 122v: Ad ueretrum sus-
citandum; f. 122v: Item ad ipsum suscitandum. See Appendix 2, entries 3.13 and 3.15.1–​2,
respectively.

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122  Chapter 4

The relative frequency with which medus is included in dietary guidelines

(as opposed to its use as an ingredient in recipes) is noteworthy not only in
comparison to beer but also with respect to the other terms relating to honey-​
based beverages. In contrast to medus, these words—​mulsum, aqua mulsa,
melitites, oenomel, and hydromel—​are always listed as ingredients within rec-
ipes or, given that they represent complex ingredients that needed to be pre-
pared before they could be used, presented as recipes themselves. Cod. sang.
759, for example, provides two recipes that offer instructions on how to make
hydromel.51 The separate contexts in which these words are found suggest a
difference between their uses and/​or sources.
Also of note, medus is consistently recorded alongside beer. The two bever-
ages are paired in all eleven of the dietary guidelines with medus. In fact, the
five recipes that use medus are the only occasions in which it is mentioned
without a simultaneous reference to beer, and all but three of the dietary
guidelines involving beer, or nearly eighty percent, also include medus. While
some of these guides appear as part of treatments, such as the opening exam-
ple in cod. sang. 752 that lists the foods from which to abstain if suffering from
paralysis, other guides were of a more preventative nature and advocated for
the avoidance or consumption of specific foods and drinks at certain times of
the year in order to maintain health. Within the manuscript sample, calendri-
cal guides to diet linking beer and medus can be found in cod. sang. 759, BnF
lat. 2849A and 11218.52 In the entry for the month of May, BnF lat. 2849A sug-
gests that beer and medus should be avoided, but recommends drinking bev-
erages made from wormwood and fennel.53 For August, cod. sang. 759 likewise
instructs its readers to avoid beer and medus, though the text does not provide
alternatives.54 Cod. sang. 759 also includes one of the three instances in which
beer appears in a dietary guide without the accompanying medus, though
it must be noted that this recommendation (that beer should be avoided in
June), has been inserted into the text; given the tight spacing of the interlinear
addition, perhaps the scribe simply ran out of room to include a reference to
medus, as well.55

51 Cod. sang. 759, p. 66: Confectio ydromellis; pp. 88–​9: Confectio ydromellis. See Appendix 2,
entries 11.12 and 11.19, respectively.
52 On dietary calendars in the early medieval west, see ‘Die frühmittelalterlichen lateinis-
chen Monatskalendarien. Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar’, ed. and trans. Frank-​Dieter
Groenke (Diss., Freie Universität Berlin, 1986).
53 BnF lat. 2849A, f. 23v: Ceruisa nec metus non bibat, absentio et faniculo bibat.
54 Cod. sang. 759, p. 8: ceruissa et metus non bibat.
55 Cod. sang. 759, p. 8: aqua bibere \ceruissa non bibere/​nisi pusca usitare, lactucas mandu-
care, acetum bibere.

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Medicine and the Mead Hall? 123

The consistent pairing of the two beverages may reflect their original con-
nection in an earlier dietary treatise that has since been lost. Alternatively,
while classical texts offer no information on a possible link between the two
substances, a late antique letter on diet, Anthimus’ De observatione ciborum,
may shed light on the topic. Anthimus, a Byzantine physician active in the
sixth century, was exiled to the west during a period of political intrigue in
Constantinople. While acting as an ambassador of Theodoric, king of the
Ostrogoths (r. 493–​526), Anthimus composed a letter on diet in honour of his
host Theuderic, king of the Franks (r. 511–​34) in the area around Metz.56 The
letter fuses Greek, Roman, and Frankish cultural and dietary traditions, offer-
ing the reader advice on how to maintain good health through the observance
of a healthy diet. In Chapter 14, for example, Anthimus reports on the medic-
inal powers of raw bacon according to Frankish medical traditions. He writes,
‘as for raw bacon which, so I hear, the Franks have a habit of eating, I am full of
curiosity regarding the person who showed them such a medicine as to obviate
the need for other medicines … Look at what power there is in raw bacon, and
see how with it the Franks heal what doctors try to cure with drugs or with
potions’.57 While bacon may seem entirely unrelated to the beverages under
consideration, the location of this discussion is significant: the description
of the particularly Frankish bacon-​eating and medicating traditions occurs
immediately before the entry detailing beer and mead. On these beverages,
Anthimus comments that ‘beer, plain mead and spiced mead are absolutely
fine for drinking by almost everyone. Beer that is well brewed possesses good-
ness and surpasses expectation … Mead that is well brewed is very beneficial,
provided that the honey is good’.58 Like the references to mead in the dietary
guidelines assessed in the manuscript sample, Anthimus uses the term medus.
His use of the term also predates Isidore’s usage in the Etymologiae, offering
the earliest surviving witness and making it particularly meaningful that it
occurs within this Frankish context.

56 Mark Grant, ‘Introduction’, in Anthimus, On the Observance of Foods, ed. and trans. Mark
Grant, 2nd ed. (Totnes: Prospect, 2007), 12.
57 Anthimus, De observatione ciborum, ed. and trans. Liechtenhan, Chapter 14 (at pp. 9–​
10): De crudo uero laredo, quod solent, ut audio, domni Franci comedere, miror satis, quis illis
ostendit talem medicinam, ut non opus habeant alias medicinas … ecce quale beneficium in
laredo crudo, ut, quod medici in medicamentis uel potionibus temptant sanare uel inplastris
uulnera curare, de laredo crudo Franci sanantur.
58 Ibid, Chapter 15 (at p. 10): ceruisa bibendo uel medus et aloxinum quam maxime omni-
bus congruum est ex toto, quia ceruisa, qui bene facta fuerit, beneficium prestat et rationem
habet … Similiter et de medus bene factum, ut mel bene habeat, multum iuuat.

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124  Chapter 4

Indeed, De observatione ciborum, through its detailed depiction of certain

Frankish practices and references to oral traditions (such as the medicinal prop-
erties of bacon), indicates that Anthimus picked up this information through
personal experience. The paired description of beer and medus may therefore
reflect that these beverages were traditionally viewed as linked in Frankish cus-
toms and help to explain their continued coupling in Carolingian writings on
diet. On the other hand, Anthimus may have initiated the association of these
two alcohols, and their consistent linkage in later texts may simply reflect the
influence of De observatione ciborum on eighth-​and ninth-​century authors.59

4.3 Summary
Ultimately, these results suggest that a subtle but significant shift occurred
in the early medieval west. The recipes and other medical writings analysed
above document an increased presence of beer in medical contexts as well as
the use of the term medus for mead. That beer, mead (under any name), and
wine appear to be treated similarly, or at least without prejudice, also marks a
notable change. The medical knowledge recorded in eighth-​and ninth-​century
manuscripts must now be considered within the wider context and related to
the question of practicality.

5 Contextualising Beer and Mead in Early Medieval Europe

While classical sources suggest that beer was being produced in parts of west-
ern Europe in Antiquity, is there evidence confirming its continued production
in the Carolingian period? Writings like Isidore’s Etymologiae point to brewing
as an alternative to wine in regions that could not sustain viticulture.60 Since
much of the Frankish Empire covered areas that could support both grape and
cereal production, do non-​medical texts suggest that multiple beverages coex-
isted or that, just as in the classical world, a particular class of alcoholic bever-
ages was privileged over others? Documentary evidence, such as the Capitulare
de villis, can help to address these questions.

59 According to Beccaria’s catalogue, copies of or extracts from Anthimus’ letter have sur-
vived in eight early medieval manuscripts, including two involved in the present study,
codd. sang. 751 and 878; see Beccaria, I codici, nos. 133 and 139.
60 Isidore, Etymologiae, 20.3.17–​18.

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Medicine and the Mead Hall? 125

Composed in the late eighth century, the Capitulare de villis concerns the
management of royal estates.61 The seventy chapters of the text cover a wide
range of topics, from the administration of justice to the care of horses and
hounds, and the production of beer and wine is addressed in several places.
Chapter 8, for example, focuses exclusively on wine, detailing the care of vine-
yards as well as the production and shipping of wine and its general supply
on royal estates.62 The maintenance and cleanliness of wine-​presses is also
mentioned in Chapters 41 and 48. The significance of brewing is expressed in
Chapter 61, which states that master-​brewers should be attached to stewards,
following their movements while on service to ensure that good beer was read-
ily available.63 Brewers are also classed among the essential workmen to have
in each district; other professions listed include shoemakers, carpenters, black-
smiths, and fishermen.64 Although the production of mead and the keeping
of bees is not explicitly described by the capitulary, both mead and honey are
mentioned in several chapters, including Chapter 34, which asks that particu-
lar care is taken when making products to eat or drink, thereby confirming that
mead and honey were being produced, as well.65 Significantly, medus is the
term used to describe mead.

61 Capitulare de villis, ed. Alfred Boretius, mgh Capit. 1 (Hanover: Hahn, 1883), no. 32; H. R.
Loyn and John Percival, The Reign of Charlemagne. Documents on Carolingian Government
and Administration (London: Edward Arnold, 1975), 64–​73.
62 Capitulare de villis, ed. Boretius, no. 32, c. 8: Ut iudices nostri vineas recipiant nostras, quae
de eorum sunt ministerio, et bene eas faciant et ipsum vinum in bona mittant vascula et
diligenter praevidere faciant, quod nullo modo naufragatum sit; aliud vero vinum peculi-
are conparando emere faciant, unde villas dominicas condirigere possint. Et quandoquidem
plus de ipso vino conparatum fuerit quod ad villas nostras condirigendum mittendi opus sit,
nobis innotescat, ut nos commendemus qualiter nostra fuerit exinde voluntas. Cippaticos
enim de vineis nostris ad opus nostrum mittere faciant. Censa de villis nostris qui vinum
debent, in cellaria nostra mittat.
63 Ibid, no. 32, c. 61: Ut unusquisque iudex quando servierit suos bracios ad palatium ducere
faciat; et simul veniant magistri qui cervisam bonam ibidem facere debeant.
64 Ibid, no. 32, c. 45: Ut unusquisque iudex in suo ministerio bonos habeat artifices, id est fabros
ferrarios et aurifices vel argentarios, sutores, tornatores, carpentarios, scutarios, piscatores,
aucipites id est aucellatores, saponarios, siceratores, id est qui cervisam vel pomatium sive
piratium vel aliud quodcumque liquamen ad bibendum aptum fuerit facere sciant, pistores,
qui similam ad opus nostrum faciant, retiatores qui retia facere bene sciant, tam ad venan-
dum quam as piscandum sive ad aves capiendum, necnon et reliquos ministeriales quos ad
numerandum longum est.
65 Ibid, no. 32, c. 34: Omnino praevidendam est cum omni diligentia, ut quicquid manibus lab-
oraverint aut fecerint, id est lardum, siccamen, sulcia, niusaltus, vinum, acetum, moratum,
vinum coctum, garum, sinape, formaticum, butirum, bracios, cervisas, medum, mel, ceram,
farinam, omnia cum summo nitore sint facta vel parata.

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126  Chapter 4

The Plan of St Gall, a manuscript mentioned in Chapter 2 in relation to its

gardens and spaces of medical care, also contains information on the produc-
tion of alcohols in the Carolingian world. In particular, the diagram highlights
the centrality of brewing within a monastic complex. Three separate brew-
eries are depicted in the Plan, corresponding to individual brewing areas for
the monks, distinguished guests, and pilgrims.66 In the granary, storage areas
for cleaned and malted cereal are recorded, while a drying kiln, mortars, and
milling areas were all located nearby.67 Conveniently, this brewing area was
situated near the cooper, who would have been responsible for constructing
the barrels in which the beer would have been kept.
The Capitulare de villis and Plan of St Gall therefore provide evidence for not
only the presence of beer, mead, and wine during the Carolingian period but
also their production within its territories. This indicates that all of the bever-
ages addressed above could have been sourced within the Carolingian world.
Notably, beer and medus appear in recipes in manuscripts produced at writing
centres in the Frankish heartlands and in manuscripts written at sites newly
under Frankish control, such as those copied in northern Italian centres. As
discussed in Chapter 1, the movement of manuscripts and exchange of knowl-
edge testifies to the deep-​rooted connections between these areas despite the
relatively recent conquest of Lombardy in 778. The presence of beer and medus
in such manuscripts adds another dimension to this picture, confirming the
existence of strong cultural and intellectual links: the recipe literature records
shared cultural practices and medical knowledge.

6 Beer, Mead, and the Question of Practicality

The results presented above demonstrate several key features. First, a long-​
term transition towards the acceptance of beer for medical purposes can be
seen through the changing portrayal of the beverage and its gradual increase
in recipes. Secondly, the recipe literature documents the adoption of a new
term for mead, medus, in medical contexts, paralleling the term’s appearance
in other early medieval sources. Third, these two developments appear to
be linked, with beer and mead (specifically as medus) often found together.
The relationship between the two beverages is further strengthened by their
connections to Frankish traditions, highlighted by Anthimus’ De observatione

66 Nelson, The Barbarian’s Beverage, 103.

67 Ibid, 103–​4.

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Medicine and the Mead Hall? 127

ciborum. Fourth, although wine continues to occur more frequently than either
beer or mead, it is important to recognise that these beverages are presented
on equal terms: all three are recorded in recipes as well as in dietary guidelines.
In contrast to classical sources, beer is not dismissed as unhealthy, uncouth, or
otherwise unsuitable for medical purposes in this textual sample.
The significance of each of these changes must be considered in context.
Although the recipes under analysis are strongly related to classical and late
antique medical traditions, this chapter, like the previous one, reveals that they
also contain influences beyond these traditions. In this case, I have identified
ingredients that were unrecorded in classical and late antique recipes. The
similarities seen across many manuscripts suggest that these additions should
be viewed collectively as part of a larger pattern—​a pattern linked to ingredi-
ent availability. The inclusion of these non-​classical ingredients represents a
widespread, practical development, i.e., the use of locally produced and read-
ily available substances.
However, while non-​medical texts, such as the Capitulare de villis and Plan
of St Gall, support the idea that these beverages were expected to have been
locally available in early medieval western Europe, it is important to avoid
placing too much weight on the evidence of such normative texts. With this
in mind, the pairing of beer and medus in dietary guidelines takes on greater
significance: their frequent, linked appearance in the medical literature at this
time—​and specifically in the lists of substances that were either acceptable to
consume or best to avoid—​is noteworthy as these writings appear to reflect
contemporary dietary and drinking habits. As such, dietary guidelines offer
a more direct glimpse into Carolingian food and drink, highlighting the sub-
stances that likely featured in daily life. The evidence from a range of textual
sources therefore indicates that beer and mead formed part of the standard
‘dietary landscape’ and their inclusion as ingredients in recipes thus docu-
ments a practical shift in medicine: their use as liquefying agents reflects adap-
tations made to suit local conditions.

7 Conclusion

The appearance of beer and medus in the recipe literature demonstrates an

active engagement with and adaptation of medical knowledge during this
period. By tracing the occurrence of these ingredients within the sample of
recipes and comparing the results to classical and late antique texts, it has
been possible to chart a transformation in pharmaceutical writings over time.
In doing so, this chapter also showcases the importance of large sample sizes

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128  Chapter 4

and in-​depth textual analyses. Such detailed studies have the potential to
identify significant patterns in the data that could be missed in studies with
smaller textual samples, such as a single recipe collection. By analysing over
5000 recipes, it was possible to detect particularly significant data clusters.
Following the large-​scale analysis with more specific studies of the clusters
and then investigating the patterns that emerged within manuscripts and
their recipe collections accentuated the increasing frequency of references to
beer. While this beverage was listed roughly 0.5% of recipes from the entire
manuscript sample, it was included in nearly 2% of the recipes in cod. sang.
44. This percentage increased even further when its recipe collections were
considered separately: nine of the recipes that record beer can be found in the
collection on pp. 337–​54, representing close to 4% of the 247 treatments con-
tained within this collection. Therefore, as illustrated by, on the one hand, the
observation of a general increase in references to beer and medus, and, on the
other hand, the identification of a striking concentration of recipes involving
beer in cod. sang. 44, the recipe sample involved in this study has the potential
to reveal both large-​scale patterns as well as very specific information.
Finally, it must be remembered that the texts in which the examples of beer
and medus were identified continue to share many features with classical and
late antique medical writings. The introduction of these ingredients cannot
be said to mark a sharp break in intellectual traditions, but rather the gradual
evolution of the medical knowledge in circulation. The developments noted
above, though limited in scale, reflect two significant changes: a) that the com-
pilers of recipe collections were open to incorporating non-​classical informa-
tion and traditions, and b) that these changes were of a highly practical nature.
The supporting evidence, such as the Capitulare de villis and Plan of St Gall,
indicates that the alcoholic beverages listed in recipes were being produced in,
and therefore likely obtainable in, the Carolingian world. This picture is further
strengthened by the frequent linking of beer and mead in dietary guidelines.
Ultimately, the addition of such practical ingredients supports the idea that
these collections were intended to be used in the practice of medicine. The
texts document changes to recorded medical knowledge, and these changes
appear to reflect responses to the local environment, medical traditions, and/​
or available ingredients. While the individuals responsible for the composition
of these texts worked with a body of knowledge largely descended from classi-
cal traditions, their adaptations and additions to the recipe literature suggest
that they took into account practical considerations in an attempt to produce
recipe collections intended for use in practice.

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 ­c hapter 5

Evidence for Practicality Beyond Materia Medica

1 Introduction: the Importance of Investigating Additional Elements

Within Recipes

A proven potion for abdominal disease: Take three handfuls of agrimony

roots in a new bowl and add to it nine cups of wine. It should be cooked
until there is a third remaining. [The patient] drinks it when it is neces-
sary. [Also add] roots of butcher’s broom; roots of caltrops; roots of aspar-
agus; roots of angelica; roots of celery; roots of parsley; dried pennyroyal;
3 heads of garlic; dried seeds of mallow, 1 ounce; 4 leeks with their roots;
betony with its roots, either dried or fresh; roots of violets; garden cress;
wild rue or, if not available, cultivated; coriander; dill; and sufficient oil.1

The above potion recorded in bav reg. lat. 1143, the Potionem probata ad ilica
passio, offers an allegedly tried and tested treatment for those suffering from
abdominal pains. The recipe presents a number of different features that
argue for its practicality. The most eye-​catching of these is the bold claim in
the title: this is a potionem probata, a recipe that has been used. As seen in the
case of Terenti(an)us, however, such statements need more careful scrutiny.
Phrases that promote the ‘tried and tested’ nature of recipes appear frequently,
usually either in the title or, most often, at the recipe’s close. These efficacy
clauses are best understood as advertisements for the treatment, represent-
ing a recurrent trope rather than a clear indicator of contemporary use. While
it remains possible that the inclusion of a term like probata could reflect the
scribe’s personal experience (or knowledge of others’ experiences), it would be
inappropriate to assume this without further evidence. Indeed, as the example
of Terenti(an)us showed, even recipes with detailed descriptions of use and

1 bav reg. lat. 1143, ff. 185r–​185v: Potionem probata ad ilica passio. Agrimonia radices prinde
manipulos tres, mitte in ulla noua et addis ibidem uinum staupos nouem et coquatur usque ad
tertiam partem et bibit quando oporte fuerit. Radicem de rusco, radicem de tribulo, radicem de
sparago, radicem de olisatro, radicem appio, radicem de petroselino, puleio siccum, allii capiti-
nas iii, semen de malua sicca uncia una, porros iiii cum radicinas suas, bettonica cum radice sua
siue sicca siue uiride, radicem de uiola, nasturtium, ruta siluatica, et si non domestica, corian-
drum, anetum, oleum quod sufficit. The recipe continues with simple instructions for prepar-
ing the potion with these ingredients; for the full transcription, see Appendix 2, entry 18.9.

© Claire Burridge, 2024 | DOI:​1 0.1163/9789004466173_006

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130  Chapter 5

what might, at first glance, seem to be convincing signs of personal experience

may reflect information copied from an earlier source. Any first-​person com-
ments regarding the use of a recipe must always be read with great caution.
Three other aspects of this recipe, however, may offer more direct insights into
its potential practicality.
As seen in Chapters 3 and 4, an analysis of the materia medica listed in rec-
ipes offers a useful entry point into the question of practicality. In this case,
does the Potionem probata ad ilica passio rely on products that could have been
obtained within the Carolingian world? The recipe lists nearly twenty different
ingredients, all of which are entirely plant-​based and could have been grown or
found within northwest Europe. These include agrimony roots cooked in wine;
the roots of butcher’s broom, caltrops, asparagus, angelica, celery, parsley, and
violets; dried pennyroyal; three heads of garlic; one ounce of mallow seeds;
four leeks with roots; betony, with its roots either dried or fresh; cress; wild rue
or, if necessary, the cultivated variety; coriander; dill; and oil. The use of prod-
ucts that were likely available in Francia suggests that that this recipe was, at
least with respect to its ingredients, highly practical.
Moving beyond the materia medica, two other features of the recipe stand
out: a) the appearance of the term staupus, a unit roughly equivalent to a cup,
to measure wine, and b) the recording of an ingredient substitution. Both of
these topics deserve further analysis and will be addressed below. The use of
the Latinised vernacular term staupus points to a changing linguistic environ-
ment. Is its appearance in this recipe a unique occurrence, perhaps reflecting
a scribe unfamiliar with classical terminology, or is it part of a larger pattern?
Should its use be viewed as a practical adaptation, or does it reveal potential
linguistic barriers encountered by early medieval readers and writers attempt-
ing to engage with the pharmaceutical literature? Secondly, the substitution
suggestion (in this case, the use of cultivated rue if wild rue was unavailable)
offers a practical solution to sourcing ingredients, a backup plan if the desired
ingredient could not be obtained. Is such advice a record of contemporary
practices or, like the case of Terenti(an)us, information from an earlier source,
such as the late antique pseudo-​Galenic text, Περὶ ἀντεμβαλλομένων, On substi-
tute drugs? This chapter focuses first on the unit staupus, before returning to
the question of substitution instructions.
The exploration of these two features illustrates the importance of consid-
ering recipes in their entirety when investigating the question of practicality.
The Potionem probata ad ilica passio serves as a useful segue from the previous
chapters’ focus on materia medica to the present analysis of other elements
within recipes. In the former, practicality was considered with respect to usea-
bility, asking whether the recipes could have been put into practice based on

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Evidence for Practicality Beyond Materia Medica 131

their ingredients. This chapter turns to the question of design, considering

whether certain features within recipes would have made them more or less
useable—​or understandable—​to those engaging with the texts, and especially
within the context of therapy. In sum, moving beyond materia medica to the
additional information contained within recipes offers another perspective
on the potential practicality of pharmaceutical writings and, complement-
ing the findings of the preceding chapters, suggests that many recipes would
have offered practical, useable information to those individuals with access to
the texts.

2 Staupus: a Vernacular ‘Intrusion’2

2.1 Past Studies on Staupus

Near the start of the Potionem probata ad ilica passio, the reader is instructed
to cook agrimony roots in wine measured by the staupus. This unit, a Latinised
Germanic term, is roughly equivalent to a cup, beaker, or goblet. While the use
of this term has not been extensively studied, its appearance in early medieval
texts has been noted by a number of scholars, generating a range of interpre-
tations about its volume.3 Benjamin Guérard, for example, suggested that the
unit was just under a litre whereas Henry Sigerist interpreted it as a small cup
and equivalent to one cyathus, approximately 50 mL.4 More recently, Ulrich
Stoll has described one staupus as comparable to one hemina, roughly 300 mL.5
While these large differences indicate that a consensus has not been reached,
attempting to define the unit with such precision seems anachronistic and
inappropriate. For the present study, moreover, determining the exact volume
of a staupus is not of great importance; rather, the word’s origin is of interest as
this reveals that a Germanic term for a unit of measurement was incorporated
into Carolingian medical texts. Stemming from the proto-​Germanic *staupa,
the word is related to the modern, though now archaic, German Stauf (beaker,

2 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 713; McCormick’s comments on the unit stau-
pus are addressed below.
3 For more general studies of weights and measures, see Henry E. Sigerist, ‘Maße und Gewichte
in den medizinischen Texten des frühen Mittelalters’, Kyklos 3 (1930): 439–​44 and Bernhard
Bischoff, ‘Maße und Gewichte zur Zeit Papst Hadrians I. (772–​795)’, in Anecdota novissima.
Texte des vierten bis sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, ed. Bernhard Bischoff (Stuttgart: Hiersemann,
1984), 169–​70. See also Isidore’s sections on weights, measures, and their symbols in Book
16: Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, 16.15–​17.
4 Polyptyque de l’abbé Irminon, ed. Guérard, vol. 1, 188; Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist, 175.
5 Das Lorscher Arzneibuch, ed. and trans. Stoll, 40.

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132  Chapter 5

cup) and English ‘stoup’ (a basin for holy water) as well as to a variety of terms
for vessels in other Germanic languages, including Norwegian (staup), Swedish
(stop), Danish (støb), Middle High German (stouf), and Old High German
(stou(p)f).6
Moving beyond the debate regarding the volume of a staupus and its rela-
tionship to classical units, a number of scholars have also commented on its
linguistic significance. Julius Jörimann, for example, makes a special note of
its occurrence in the collections he transcribed and edited, despite the fact
that the term only appears twice in this material. He highlights the Germanic
influence indicated by the use of staupus when describing the practical nature
of many of the recipes’ measurements; other units he mentions as practical
include simple, comparative measurements such as a ‘handful’ or an ‘eggshell-​
full’.7 Michael McCormick similarly comments on the ‘intrusion of [this] ver-
nacular Frankish term’ in the Lorscher Arzneibuch, writing that the use of stau-
pus indicated that ‘the Lorsch physician composed or reformulated recipes
which he actually used’.8 While I agree with both scholars that the inclusion
of this unit is noteworthy, I have reached a different conclusion regarding its
significance based on the analysis of a much wider selection of material. If the
unit staupus were only to be found in the recipes of the Lorscher Arzneibuch,
the argument that it documents a medicus recording his own experiences of
practice would be stronger (though still debateable), but, as the opening exam-
ple of this chapter as well as Jörimann’s comments make clear, the Lorscher
Arzneibuch is not unique in its use of this unit. Instead, as the following analy-
sis demonstrates, it is part of a much larger trend, and I argue that it is, in fact,
the term’s widespread appearance that makes it particularly significant. That
is, the prevalence of the unit staupus—​rather than its uniqueness—​is not only
striking but also especially relevant to consider when exploring the question
of practicality.

2.2 The Appearance of Staupus in the Recipe Sample

The unit staupus occurs 139 times within the sample of recipes involved in
this study (see Table 7). As the term may appear multiple times within a sin-
gle recipe, this totals ninety-​five recipes. These recipes are widely distributed
among the manuscripts under analysis: the unit can be found in fifteen of the

6 Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, eds., Deutsches Wörterbuch. 32 vols. (Leipzig: S. Hirzel,
1854–​1961), vol. 17, 1169–​74. My thanks, too, to Rosamond McKitterick for alerting me to the
English term ‘stoup’.
7 Frühmittelalterliche Rezeptarien, ed. Jörimann, 90.
8 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 713.

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Evidence for Practicality Beyond Materia Medica 133

table 7 An overview of the appearance of the unit staupus

Manuscript Total # of staupus Total # of recipes

references including staupus

Cod. sang. 44 6 5
Cod. sang. 397 1 1
Cod. sang. 550 2 1
Cod. sang. 751 60 38
Cod. sang. 752 1 1
Cod. sang. 759 12 9
Cod. sang. 761 1 1
Cod. sang. 899 1 1
bav pal. lat. 1088 2 2
bav reg. lat. 1143 3 3
BnF lat. 2849A 14 9
BnF lat. 5543 3 2
BnF lat. 9332 1 1
BnF lat. 11218 30 19
BnF lat. 11219 2 2
Total 139 95

twenty-​four codices. While the relative prevalence of staupus confirms that its
use in the Lorscher Arzneibuch should not be read as a distinctive addition
by the ‘Lorsch physician’, these findings may appear to be somewhat insignif-
icant when considered against the backdrop of the entire recipe sample. The
ninety-​five recipes that record the unit staupus represent only about two per-
cent (1.8%) of the recipes under analysis. It is, however, important to remem-
ber that many recipes do not specify any units, or any detailed instructions
for that matter, offering only lists of materia medica. With this in mind, the
appearance of staupus nearly 150 times is highly significant. Building on this
general perspective, it is essential to examine the contexts in which staupus is
found in more detail.
A recipe in BnF lat. 5543 offers a useful example to begin reviewing how
staupus is deployed and what it is used to measure. In this manuscript, the
sixth entry within a group of recipes titled Cura ad omnes apostomas, a cure for
all abscesses, offers the following instructions:

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134  Chapter 5

Likewise [a cure for all abscesses]: horehound juice, 3 cups; celery, 3

[cups]; betony, similarly; honey, similarly; old wine, 9 cups [glossed with
staupos]; cook on a fire slowly in an earthen pot until 12 cups [remain].9

The first ingredient, horehound juice (marrubio ius), is given as three cups,
using the classical Latin word calyx. The next three ingredients do not list a
unit as they all involve the same amount: celery (apio) is paired simply with
‘iii’, while betony (betonica) and honey (mel) are listed as similiter. Nine cups
of the final ingredient, old wine (uinum uetus), is written out again with the
classical term. An interlinear gloss above calices, however, adds staupos, indi-
cating that this word is a synonym for calices. Crucially, unlike many of the
glosses seen in the manuscripts under analysis, it is written in the same hand as
the main text and is not a later addition. Indeed, the scribe may have thought
that glossing calyx at this point was necessary since the recipe then ends with
the newly introduced unit: the mixture should be cooked until twelve stau-
pos remain. Was the switch from calyx to staupus made to help readers who
were less familiar with the classical unit? Was the gloss added by the scribe for
Latin/​Romance speakers who might not know the Germanic staupus? Or was
it simply to clarify that the two units should be read as equivalent in this recipe
since the scribe changed words, whether intentionally or accidentally, in the
middle of the recipe?
Regardless of the underlying rationale for providing the gloss, it represents a
user-​friendly addition to the text that would have helped readers to understand
the instructions. Such a clarification, though it could be linked to an educa-
tional context and the study of vocabulary, is also particularly suited to a prac-
tical setting. The ingredients in this recipe may be fairly safe and an incorrect
measurement would have been unlikely to do much harm; many other treat-
ments, however, involve highly toxic substances and, if they were consulted in
practice, a misunderstanding regarding the amount of an ingredient to use or
a dose to administer could have had serious consequences.
This recipe in BnF lat. 5543 also illustrates two of the three main types of
liquids with which staupus is paired. This unit is most often recorded as meas-
uring: a) unsurprisingly, the most common liquid ingredients, such as the stand-
ard liquefying agents wine, water, and vinegar; b) the final liquid product of a
recipe (or a liquid mixture at some stage in the preparation process); and c)
notably local liquid ingredients. In BnF lat. 5543, the unit is first used with old

9 BnF lat. 5543, f. 2r: Item [Cura ad omnes apostomas]. Marrubio ius calices III, apio III, betonica
similiter, mel similiter, uinum uetus calices \staupos/​VIIII, coque lento igne in olla rude usque
ad staupos XII. See Appendix 2, entry 2.1.6.

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Evidence for Practicality Beyond Materia Medica 135

­f igure 6 
Infussio ad capud et ad colera in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 759 (p. 51), a
ninth-​century manuscript with a collection of medical texts (https://​www​.e​-codi​
ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/csg​/0759​/51)
© st. gallen, stiftsbibliothek, licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0

wine, one of the most frequently recorded liquid ingredients, and then used as
the measurement for the recipe’s end result, the volume of the cooked potion.10
The chapter’s opening example, the Potionem probata ad ilica passio of bav reg.
lat. 1143, also measures wine by the staupus, as does the only other recipe in
BnF lat. 5543 that includes the unit. In the latter recipe, a treatment for joint
pain, a substantial volume of wine, fifty cups, is required, though it should be
noted that this large quantity was intended to last for several weeks: the patient
is instructed to drink the potion for fifty days.11 Turning to examples of other
common liquid ingredients, a potion intended to combat paralysis in BnF lat.
11219, for example, includes a full staupus of hot water (plenum staupum de aqua
calida) while an infusion for the head and for jaundice in cod. sang. 759 uses a
third of a staupus of vinegar (aceto tertia parte de staupo; see Figure 6).12
In addition to these typical liquefying agents, staupus often appears as a
liquid measure for a recipe’s end product or during the process of preparation,
as demonstrated by the second appearance of the unit in the Cura ad omnes
apostomas of BnF lat. 5543. Similarly, a potion to kill worms in cod. sang. 751
uses staupus twice: once to measure an ingredient (three staupus of strong
vinegar, tres staupus de aceto uehementi) and once to measure the potion being
prepared.13 A two-​recipe unit found in codd. sang. 397, 752, and 899 contains
a striking cluster of ingredients named in the vernacular and explained in
Latin.14 The recipes in cod. sang. 752 were included in the opening example of

10 Cf. Opsomer, Index de la pharmacopée.

11 BnF lat. 5543, f. 2v: Item alia eiusdem [Contra artetricos]. See Appendix 2, entry 2.2.2.
12 BnF lat. 11219, ff. 226va–​226vb: Potio contra paralesin; cod. sang. 759, p. 51: Infussio ad
capud et ad colera. See Appendix 2, entries 4.7 and 11.5.
13 Cod. sang. 751, p. 416: Pocio ad podalo uermo occidere. See Appendix 2, entry 9.18.
14 The recipes are located in cod. sang. 397, p. 22; cod. sang. 752, p. 158; and cod. sang. 899,
p. 131. See Appendix 2, entries 7.1–​2, 10.4–​5, and 14.1–​2.

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136  Chapter 5

the previous chapter in relation to their comments on wine, beer, and mead
(see Figure 5). Within this recurring two-​recipe cluster, the treatment for fevers
includes the unit staupus, fitting with this unusual, vernacular-​heavy context:

On improving haemorrhoids: take plantain and the sour herb, which

by another name is named gundereba, and tallow from mutton, this is
unslit, and these three ingredients should be beaten in a mortar and
then roasted in a small pan. And in this way, the fasting [patient] should
eat [this] with bread. [They] should drink beer and mead but not water
before [they] are healed.
If a tertian or quotidian fever strikes a person: [they] should collect
a handful of vervain, which in another way is called isarnina, and nine
grains of pepper, and mix them together with wine. [They] should drink
one staupus [of this mixture] before the onset of the fever.15

Given the linguistic origins of the term staupus, it may, at first, seem surpris-
ing that it is not used to measure any of the notably local ingredients, namely,
those listed in the vernacular. These ingredients, however, are not liquid prod-
ucts, so the use of staupus, should not be expected. Indeed, in the first recipe,
no units of measurement are given and, in the second, vervain is measured by
the handful, manipulus.
Yet, in many of the other recipes in which the unit staupus is found, it is
paired with liquid substances of a local flavour, the third primary category.
A recipe to dry out swellings, Ad glandolas siccandas, in cod. sang. 44, for
example, ends with six cups of beer, sex staupos de ceruisa (see Figure 7).16
The use of this latinised vernacular unit alongside, as argued in Chapter 4, a
locally produced and consumed beverage that was newly introduced into the
recorded medical literature is especially noteworthy. Beer is also measured by

15 The above translation represents the recipes titled De fico emendando and Si tertiana aut
cottidiana febris hominem tangit in codd. sang. 397 (p. 22), 752 (p. 158), and 899 (p. 131);
as an example of the Latin text (which is nearly identical across the three recipes), the
following is from cod. sang. 752: De fico emendando. Accipe plantaginem et herbam acerem,
quae alio nomine gundereba nominatur, et seuum de multone, hoc est unslit, et ista tria
tundantur in mortario et fricantur in patella et sic ieiunus comedat cum pane. Ceruisam
et medum nec aquam bibat antequam sanetur. Si tertiana aut cottidiana febris hominem
tangit. Colligat de ueruena manipulum i, quae alio modo isarnina uocatur, et viiii grana
de pipero, et cum uino mixtam componat, et ante accessionem inde bibat staupum unum.
See Appendix 2, entries 7.1–​2, 10.4–​5, and 14.1–​2. Note that the order of the two recipes is
reversed in cod. sang. 752.
16 Cod. sang. 44, p. 353; Ad glandolas siccandas. See Appendix 2, entry 5.23.

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Evidence for Practicality Beyond Materia Medica 137

­f igure 7 
Ad glandolas siccandas in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 44 (p. 353), an
early medieval composite manuscript, the second half of which contains medical
texts and was written in northern Italy in the ninth century (https://​www​.e​-codi​
ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/csg​/0044​/353)
© st. gallen, stiftsbibliothek, licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0

the staupus in recipes in codd. sang. 550, 751, and BnF 11218.17 In addition to
beer, the unit’s frequent pairing with local ingredients can be seen in its use
to measure the juices of a number of different herbs, vegetables, and weeds
that were growing in northern and western Europe, such as plantains, cabbage,
savory, betony, fennel, coriander, feverfew, and horehound. Like the additional
documentary evidence for beer in the Carolingian world, it is worth highlight-
ing that many of these plants are named in other non-​medical texts, including
the Plan of St Gall’s garden of medicinal plants, Walahfrid Strabo’s Hortulus,
as well as the final chapter of the Capitulare de villis, which lists nearly one
hundred plants to be cultivated in gardens, reinforcing their particularly local
feel.18 Two treatments for lung problems in cod. sang. 751, for example, call for
a full staupus of white horehound juice as well as two of vinegar and one of
honey.19
In this review of the contexts in which the unit staupus is used, two further
trends have emerged with respect to the recipes in which the term appears.
First, in the majority of cases, these recipes rely primarily, if not exclusively, on
local ingredients, such as those named in the final category addressed above.
The chapter’s opening example, the recipe for abdominal problems in bav reg.
lat. 1143, exemplifies this focus on local materia medica: all eighteen ingredients

17 Cod. sang. 550, p. 54: Istam causa facias contra morbum qui dicitur nesse; cod. sang. 751,
p. 447: Potione ad ebrugine; and BnF lat. 11218, f. 102r: Pucione ad ebrugine. See Appendix 2,
entries 8.1, 9.31, and 3.11.
18 See Schedl, Der Plan von St. Gallen; Horn and Born, The Plan of St. Gall, 181–​3; Walahfrid
Strabo, Hortulus; and Capitulare de villis, ed. Boretius, no. 32.
19 Cod. sang. 751, p. 417, Ad pulmones curandum (and note that the same recipe is repeated
on p. 430). See Appendix 2, entry 9.19.

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138  Chapter 5

listed in the recipe could have been grown or found in northern and/​or west-
ern Europe.20 Many of the other recipes seen so far also follow this pattern,
such as the two recipes from BnF lat. 5543. The first, a treatment for abscesses,
combines the juices of horehound, celery, and betony with honey and wine,
while the second, a cure for joint pain, lists a wide range of local plants, includ-
ing wormwood, plantain, ivy, nettles, and sage. Pepper is the sole exception,
the only non-​local item within the list of nearly twenty different ingredients.
Secondly, ‘simple’ measurements, as labelled by Jörimann, such as a ‘hand-
ful’ (manipulus) or an ‘eggshell-​ful’ (ouum plenum), often appear in recipes
that use the unit staupus.21 Turning again to BnF lat. 5543, the recipe for joint
pain mentioned above begins with a call for handfuls of dittany roots, centaury
leaves, and basil.22 Likewise, the recipe in cod. sang. 44 intended to dry out
swellings begins by measuring ingredients by the ‘handful’, manipulus, switch-
ing to ‘similarly’, similiter, after the first three ingredients, and ends with the
unit staupus to measure beer.23 Like the preceding example, this recipe also
relies entirely on local products with the exception of pepper. The infusion
for the head and for jaundice in cod. sang. 759 (noted above for its use of a
third of a staupus of vinegar) uses pugnata, ‘fistful’, as its main measurement
for its predominantly local herbal ingredients.24 Although classical units can
also be found in these recipes, such as the use of calyx in the first recipe of BnF
lat. 5543, the frequent appearance of non-​technical language for measuring
ingredients alongside the use of staupus is striking, revealing a strong tendency
within these recipes to communicate information in a straightforward, easily
understood manner.
There are, however, some other exceptions to the trends noted above.
A treatment in BnF lat. 11219 for those with problems urinating, which includes
the unit staupus to measure wine, relies on ingredients that cover the full spec-
trum of ‘localness’.25 Some, such as parsley, celery, and fennel, could have been
growing in northern and western Europe, while others were far from local.

20 See Appendix 2, entry 18.9 for the full transcription from bav reg. lat. 1143; the ingredients
are: agrimony roots cooked in wine; the roots of butcher’s broom, caltrops, asparagus,
angelica, celery, parsley, and violets; dried pennyroyal; three heads of garlic; one ounce
of marshmallow seeds; four leeks with roots; betony, with its roots either dried or fresh;
cress; wild rue or, if necessary, the cultivated variety; coriander; dill; and oil.
21 Frühmittelalterliche Rezeptarien, ed. Jörimann, 90.
22 BnF lat. 5543, f. 2v: Item alia eiusdem [Contra artetricos]. Diptamnum radices manipulum i,
centaurea folia manipulum i, basilisca similiter… See Appendix 2, entry 2.2.2.
23 Cod. sang. 44, p. 353: Ad glandolas siccandas. See Appendix 2, entry 5.23.
24 Cod. sang. 759, p. 51: Infussio ad capud et ad colera. See Appendix 2, entry 11.5.
25 BnF lat. 11219, f. 225va, Ad eos qui urinam facere non possunt. See Appendix 2, entry 4.6.

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Evidence for Practicality Beyond Materia Medica 139

Most notably, the recipe incorporates one of the newly recorded ingredients
mentioned in Chapter 3, galinga, galangal. A recipe for a jaundice treatment
in cod. sang. 759, Ad yctericus, offers another example at odds with the general
findings presented above.26 In this case, however, it is one of the two ingre-
dients with which staupus has been paired that is exceptional. In the first
instance, it is used to measure water—​a full staupus is to be drunk, fitting with
one of the usual uses of staupus. The term is then used with garum, the famous
Roman fish sauce: half a staupus should be drunk and then the patient’s blood
should be let. The use of this term to measure such a conspicuously classical
ingredient stands in stark contrast to the largely local, simple, and common
liquids with which staupus is most frequently paired.27 The significance of
these exceptions will be considered below.

2.3 The Absence of Staupus in Texts on Weights and Measures

As noted in Chapter 2, brief treatises on weights and measures often circulated
alongside (or even within) recipe collections. Augusto Beccaria identified over
thirty such texts within the manuscripts included in his catalogue.28 Of the
twenty-​four manuscripts under analysis in the present study, seven contain
at least one text on weights and measures: codd. sang. 44, 759, bav pal. lat.
1088, BnF lat. 6882A, and 11218 each include one; bav reg. lat. 1143 has two;
and cod. sang. 751 contains five (see Table 8).29 Although each text is distinct,
they all offer similar information, conveying the volume or weight of each
named unit represented and the relationships between these different units.
Indeed, in some cases the distinctions between texts are largely in relation to
orthographic variation; the two brief texts in bav reg. lat. 1143, for example, are
nearly identical. While they tend to be very short texts, usually taking up less
than a full page (and in some cases only a few lines), several, such as the first
and fourth examples in cod. sang. 751, extend over multiple folia. The first of

26 Cod. sang. 759, p. 93: Ad yctericus; see Appendix 2, entry 11.23.1.

27 Robert I. Curtis, Garum and Salsamenta: Production and Commerce in Materia Medica
(Leiden: Brill, 1991).
28 Beccaria, I codici, 477.
29 The treatises are as follows: cod. sang. 44, p. 279, De ponderibus et mensuris; cod. sang. 751,
pp. 35–​7, De ponderibus, p. 39, De mensuris uel numeris, p. 395, De mensura et ponderibus,
pp. 429–​30, De ponderibus et mensuris, p. 492, Incipit de ponderibus et mensuris; cod. sang.
759, p. 46, De ponderibus et mensuris medicinalibus; bav pal. lat. 1088, ff. 115r–​115v, De pon-
deribus et mensuris; bav reg. lat. 1143, f. 81r, Incipit pensum obuli, f. 189v, Incepit pensum
obuli; BnF lat. 6882A, f. 24r, De ponderibus et mensuris medicinalis; BnF lat. 11218, ff. 42r–​42v,
Incipit racio ponderum uel mensurarum diuersorum medicinalium.

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140  Chapter 5

table 8 The treatises on weights and measures found within the manuscript sample

Manuscript Treatise

Cod. sang. 44 De ponderibus et mensuris

Cod. sang. 751 De ponderibus
De mensuris uel numeris
De mensura et ponderibus
De ponderibus et mensuris
Incipit de ponderibus et mensuris
Cod. sang. 759 De ponderibus et mensuris medicinalibus
bav pal. lat. 1088 De ponderibus et mensuris
bav reg. lat. 1143 Incipit pensum obuli
Incepit pensum obuli
BnF lat. 6882A De ponderibus et mensuris medicinalis
BnF lat. 11218 Incipit racio ponderum uel mensurarum
diuersorum medicinalium

these treatises in the manuscript (pp. 35–​7) also ends with a list of the many
different symbols used to represent these units.
The weights and measures described in these texts are, with few exceptions,
those inherited from Antiquity. For measurements of volume, these often
include amphora, congius (an eighth of an amphora), sextarius (roughly a pint,
a sixth of a congius), hemina and cotyla (both equal to half a sextarius), ace-
tabulum (a quarter of a hemina/​cotyla), and cyathus (a twelfth of a sextarius).
Measurements of weight include libra (pound), uncia (ounce), and then the
many subdivisions of the uncia, such as semuncia (a half ounce), sicilicus (a
quarter ounce), drachma (a dram, or an eighth of an ounce), scrupulum (scru-
ple, or a twenty-​fourth of an ounce), obolus (a forty-​eighth of an ounce), and
siliqua (carat).30 Weights based on coins, such as the denarius or the solidus,
are also sometimes listed, and many of the measurements are grounded in

30 As cautioned in the opening ‘Note on Weights, Measures, and Their Symbols’, the transla-
tion of these terms is approximate; that is, a libra is not identical to a modern pound, nor
is an uncia equivalent to an ounce, but they provide a general sense of the amount under
consideration. For a review of texts on weights and measures, see also Sigerist, ‘Maße und
Gewichte’, 439–​44 and Bischoff, ‘Maße und Gewichte’, 169–​70. Cf. Isidore, Etymologiae,
16.15–​17.

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Evidence for Practicality Beyond Materia Medica 141

comparisons to products in the natural world, such as a barley grains (grana

ordei) or various types of beans. Despite the variety of weights and measures
named in these texts, none features the unit staupus. While this absence likely
reflects the classical origins of these treatises, the preceding chapters have
demonstrated that scribes actively updated pharmaceutical writings in rela-
tion to their circumstances and with the latest information. This suggests that,
if the term staupus regularly needed clarification, it, too, would be found in
texts defining the various weights and measures that appear in recipes. The
lack of staupus in these contexts implies that explanations of its volume were
seen as unnecessary.
Relatedly, it is also striking that the term staupus is often used either mul-
tiplied or as a fraction, such as the fifty cups of wine needed for the potion
against joint pain or the third of a cup of vinegar recorded in the infusion of
cod. sang. 759. In contrast, the classical vocabulary uses a range of different
terms to describe such varied amounts. If one staupus is understood as roughly
equivalent to one hemina (this is the classical unit with which it has most
recently been associated and, at approximately 300mL, is between the two
extremes posited by Guérard and Sigerist), fifty heminae would be equivalent
to twenty-​five sextarii or just over four congii.31 Similarly, a third of a staupus
would be fairly close to one acetabulum. Classical units thus present more spe-
cialised terminology that covers a full spectrum of sizes. This range, however,
creates a rather complicated vocabulary. The adaptation of staupus to suit a
variety of volumes further supports its user-​friendly nature: it offers a single
unit that can be increased or decreased by simple multiplication or division
as needed rather than exchanged for an entirely new term. Such adaptability
suggests that it was in more common parlance—​a unit used in everyday life
instead of a highly technical term. Moreover, the relatively widespread use of
staupus and the seemingly accepted, if somewhat vaguely defined, sense of
its volume also fits with the other units with which it is often seen alongside,
such as ‘handful’ or ‘eggshell-​full’ (and may help to explain why past attempts
to define its precise volume have varied so greatly).
With this understanding of where and how the unit is used, what can now
be said about its practicality?

31 Das Lorscher Arzneibuch, ed. and trans. Stoll, 40; Polyptyque de l’abbé Irminon, ed. Guérard,
vol. 1, 188; Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist, 175.

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142  Chapter 5

2.4 The Practicality of the Unit Staupus

The relative prevalence and widespread distribution of the unit staupus as
well as its frequent pairing with local ingredients, absence from texts defining
weights and measures, and sense of flexible, everyday usage all suggest that the
inclusion of this term in recipes was highly practical. Its appearance should
not be read as cause for confusion or as evidence of impracticality due to lan-
guage barriers; rather, as an adaptation made to address a changing linguis-
tic environment, it represents the very opposite. The introduction of the term
would have aided in readers’ comprehension, which, if the recipes were being
formulated, would have been vitally important.
Paradoxically, the exceptions to the general trends highlighted above add
further weight to the argument for this unit’s practicality. In particular, the
garum example indicates that the unit staupus had become fully integrated
into the medical vocabulary circulating in early medieval western Europe.
Given the classical origins of this fish sauce, the recipe likely derives from
an ancient text. Although I have yet to identify a specific source for this rec-
ipe, garum is recorded as an ingredient in earlier pharmaceutical writings. It
appears in five prescriptions of the Medicina Plinii, for example. In the first
recipe, a treatment for ears, one cyathus of garum is used.32 If the garum recipe
of cod. sang. 759 is descended, directly or indirectly, from another classical or
late antique recipe collection, the original instructions likely used a different
term, such as sextarius, hemina, cotyla, acetabulum, or, as in the Medicina Plinii,
cyathus, to describe the volume of garum. This suggests that the ninth-​century
recipe has been modified: staupus has replaced a classical unit of measure-
ment, rendering the instructions more user-​friendly.
Finally, while the individual garum example illustrates the adaptation of
earlier written sources, the particularly local nature of many of the ingredients
with which staupus is paired may reflect a different, if related, development.
As noted in the previous chapter, the appearance of beer in recipes suggests
that medical knowledge was updated to suit local conditions and/​or that
pharmaceutical information that was previously transmitted orally was now
being recorded. The inclusion of a Latinised vernacular unit fits this context
of local use and supports the idea that these recipes, though not indicative of
the work of a specific medicus, do reflect knowledge circulating on the ground.
This, in turn, points very strongly to the use of these texts in the context of

32 Plinii Secundi Iunioris qui feruntur De medicina libri tres, ed. Önnerfors, 1.6.2: Gari excellen-
tis cyathus, aceti cyathus unus, mellis cyathus et dimidius: in calice nouo sensim decoquitur,
spuma subinde penna tollitur, et cum spuma resederit, remouetur et ex eo tepidum infundi-
tur. See also The Medicina Plinii, trans. Hunt, 1.6.2.

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Evidence for Practicality Beyond Materia Medica 143

therapy: they capture and transmit the medical knowledge that was in use dur-
ing this period. The recipes that incorporate the unit staupus thus bear witness
to scribes’ active engagement with a variety of sources, both textual and oral,
and their drive to make the texts understandable to their readers. Overall, the
inclusion of staupus in recipes appears to have been very practical adaptation
and is highly suggestive that they were intended for use in medical practice.

3 Wild Versus Cultivated Rue: the Inclusion of an Ingredient

Substitution

Near the end of the Potionem probata ad ilica passio, this chapter’s opening rec-
ipe, there is a comment on the type of rue to include: wild rue is preferred but,
if not available, cultivated rue would be an acceptable alternative (ruta siluat-
ica, et si non domestica). These instructions provide practical advice for what to
do if wild rue is not obtainable and recommend a nearly identical plant with
which to replace it. Whatever the reason for preferring wild rue (perhaps the
wild type was thought to be stronger than the domesticated variety and thus
favoured), this note implies that it was not always available. This is a useful
reminder that even theoretically local substances were not necessarily accessi-
ble; an ingredient’s localness might make it more likely to be available, but this
is no guarantee that the product in question was on hand.
Does the inclusion of information regarding a substitution suggest that this
recipe incorporates knowledge gained through experience? Was this recom-
mendation included in reaction to difficulties encountered when attempting
to obtain wild rue? Or, like the Terenti(an)us example, might this recipe trans-
mit knowledge from older sources without necessarily addressing Carolingian
experiences? In this final case study of Part 1, I examine the presence of infor-
mation regarding ingredient substitutions within recipes as another possible
perspective on the question of practicality: while such notes within prescrip-
tions offer practical solutions if certain ingredients were unavailable, does this
information appear to be related to contemporary practices?

3.1 Instructions for Ingredient Substitutions in the Recipe Sample

Within the recipe sample, I have identified twenty-​six examples of substitu-
tions recorded as part of the recipe’s main text (following the model of the
opening example) and one instance of a marginal gloss next to the recipe it
concerns. Like the Potionem probata ad ilica passio, some substitutions suggest
replacing wild-​type ingredients with their cultivated equivalent, such as the
substitution recorded in a recipe to treat spreading ulcers in cod. Sang. 44: ‘it is

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144  Chapter 5

better to use the leaves of wild parsnip than the cultivated type. If you cannot
find wild parsnip, use the cultivated one’.33 In other cases, closely related plant
species are listed as substitutes. Two parallel antidotes for stomach problems
and various other ailments, the Antidotum ad stomaco frigido qui dicitur climax
of cod. sang. 751 and Antidotum ad stomachum frigidum qui dicitur climax of
BnF lat. 11218, for example, recommend using mustard seeds (senapi semen) if
rocket seeds (erucae semen) are unavailable, thereby substituting one member
of the Brassicaceae family for another.34 Alternatively, where multiple parts of
the ingredient in question may be used, such as its leaves, seeds, fruits, roots,
and/​or wood, one part of the plant may be listed as a possible replacement for
another. A recipe for expelling various creatures found in codd. Sang. 44, 751,
and bav pal. Lat. 1088, for instance, suggests substituting hemp leaves (folia de
cannabe) for hemp seeds (semen de cannabe) if necessary.35 The recipes in cod.

33 Cod. sang. 44, pp. 330–​1: Item aliud ad fagidinica…melior enim est pastinace siluestris folia
quam domestice, si non inuenis agrestem, domesticam uteris. See Appendix 2, entry 5.17.2.
On the evolving terminology used for certain ‘eating diseases’, including phagedaena, see
Luke Demaitre, ‘“Is It Lupus?”—​The Wolf in a Disease, from Metaphor to Medicine’, in
Beyond Cadfael: Medieval Medicine and Medical Medievalism, ed. Lucy Barnhouse and
Winston Black (Budapest: Trivent Publishing, 2023), 31–​56.
34 Cod. sang. 751, p. 448: Antidotum ad stomaco frigido qui dicitur climax; BnF lat. 11218, ff.
98v–​99r: Antidotum ad sthomachum frigidum qui dicitur climax. See Appendix 2, entries
9.32 and 3.9, respectively.
35 Cod. sang. 44, p. 350: Ranas et craxantos haec potio expellere solet [although this title might
suggest otherwise, this is part of a group of recipes found under the heading Item ad ipsum
potio bibenda contra ipsos uermes eiciendos aut quacumque maleficio in se habuerit]. Et si
de hac potione non exierint, bibat alia potione ad occidendos. Ius de mora campestria teris
et exprimis et teris folia cannapi manu plena, et si folia non fuerint semen ipsius, dabis ei
potione calice pleno, et si ius more non habuerint aut cannapo inuenire non potuerit lacte
caprino calido bibat; cod. sang. 751, p. 423: Item [Ad serpentes uel alios uerme de ominem
expellendum potio probata]. Ius de mura campestria expremis et teris folia de canepa, miscis
simul et dabis bibere calicę pleno, si folia non habes semen mitte, ipsum ualet uel [note: the
instructions appear to end abruptly mid-​recipe]; bav pal. lat. 1088, ff. 37r–​37v: Item [Ad
serpentes uel aliorum uermes de homine expellendum]. Ius de mora campestria exprimis et
teris folia de cannabe, miscis simul et dabis bibere calice pleno, et si folia non habes semen
mitte, ipsum ualet, si mora non est lacte caprino calidum facit. For full transcriptions of
these recipes, see Appendix 2, entries 5.21.2, 9.23.3, and 16.5.3, respectively. On hemp pro-
duction, see Marie-​Pierre Ruas, ‘Productions agricoles en Auvergne carolingienne d’après
un dépotoir découvert à Saint-​Germain-​des-​Fossés (Allier)’, Revue archéologique du centre
de la France 39 (2000): 137–​60, https://​doi​.org​/10​.3406​/racf​.2000​.2849; Corrie C. Bakels,
‘Crops produced in the southern Netherlands and northern France during the early medi-
eval period: a comparison’, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 14, no. 4 (2005): 394–​9,
https://​doi​.org​/10​.1007​/s00​334​-005​-0067​-x; and Robert C. Clarke and Mark D. Merlin,
Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013).

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Evidence for Practicality Beyond Materia Medica 145

sang. 44 and bav pal. lat. 1088 also note that goat’s milk can be used as alterna-
tive if mulberry juice is unavailable.36
Thirteen of the substitutions concern exotic ingredients. In some cases, the
recommended replacements are similar products, such as the substitution
of cassia (cassia) for cinnamon (cinamomum) in the Anthidotus Teodori of
bav reg. lat. 1143, though the recipe specifies that if cassia is used the amount
should be increased from eight scruples to eighteen.37 Similarly, the Antidotum
qui dicitur acharistus of BnF lat. 11218 records that if cassia is used in place
of cinnamon, it should be doubled: cinamomum uncia I aut casiae duplum.38
Other substitutions concerning exotica are not so clearly related, or at least not
to a modern reader. Take, for example, the substitution listed in a treatment
for incontinence in cod. Sang. 761: if pepper (piper) is not available, use natron
(nitri).39 Regardless of the efficacy of the substitution in question, the inclusion
of instructions for how to proceed when the desired ingredient is not available
represents a very practical, problem-​solving addition to a recipe. Unlike the
appearance of the newly recorded unit staupus, however, the degree to which
these types of substitution instructions reflect early medieval contexts is less
clear. Do they offer advice from early medieval practitioners who attempted to
use the recipes or was this information was copied from earlier sources?

3.2 Ingredient Substitution in Earlier Sources

Instructions for replacing ingredients must be considered in relation to a late
antique pseudo-​Galenic text, Περὶ ἀντεμβαλλομένων, On substitute drugs, that
addresses this very topic. The treatise contains a list of 369 ingredient substi-
tutions.40 Latin versions of the text have circulated under a variety of names;
the titles Antemballomena or Antebalumina, based on a direct transliteration
of the Greek title into Latin, are most frequently seen in the surviving early

36 Given the abrupt ending of the recipe in cod. sang. 751 (the next recipe begins immedi-
ately after uel), it seems that the recipe in its current form is incomplete, and it is thus
possible that this second substitution information should have been included.
37 bav reg. lat. 1143, ff. 81r–​82r: Anthidotus Teodori. See Appendix 2, entry 18.1.
38 BnF lat. 11218, ff. 57v–​58r: Antidotum qui dicitur acharistus. See Appendix 2, entry 3.4.
39 Cod. sang. 761, p. 56: Item [Ad incontinentiam hurinae] … piper ∻ I aut si piper nolueris,
nitri ∻ II. See Appendix 2, entry 12.1.8.
40 Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, ‘Drugs to Declare. Two Pharmaceutical Works Attributed to Galen’,
Cuadernos de Filología Clásica. Estudios griegos e indoeuropeos 28 (2018): 225–​41, https:
//​doi​.org​/10​.5209​/CFCG​.59395, at pp. 233–​9; Alain Touwaide, ‘Quid pro Quo: Revisiting
the Practice of Substitution in Ancient Pharmacy’, in Herbs and Healers from the Ancient
Mediterranean through the Medieval West: Essays in Honor of John M. Riddle, ed. Anne Van
Arsdall and Timothy Graham (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 19–​61.

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146  Chapter 5

table 9 Copies of De succedaneis liber found within the manuscript sample

Manuscript Treatise

Cod. sang. 759 Antebalumina Galieni

BnF lat. 6882A Incipit antebalumina Galieni
BnF lat. 11219 Incipit prologus antebalumina Galieni medici

medieval texts, though the manuscripts showcase a high level of orthographic

variation.41 Early printed editions of the text were given the name De succeda-
neis liber and this remains what is most frequently associated with the trea-
tise despite the popularity of Quid pro quo in the later Middle Ages.42 Beccaria
identified thirteen copies or fragments of the text in early medieval manu-
scripts, three of which can be found in codices included in the present study
(see Table 9). While the lists of substitutions in BnF lat. 6882A and BnF lat.
11219 cover several folia, only the title of the text survives in an index in cod.
sang. 759; the pages containing the substitutions themselves have been lost.43
A comparison of the twenty-​six substitutions found within this study’s rec-
ipe sample to those listed in De succedaneis liber offers some direct parallels.
For example, the replacement of cinnamon with cassia, recorded as pro cina-
mum, casia duplu aut bratheos dublo in a version of De succedaneis liber in BnF
lat. 6882A, is consistent with the information provided within recipes, even
noting that the quantity of cassia should be doubled.44 Other substitutions in
De succedaneis liber, though not identical, present similar recommendations.
Instead of replacing mustard seeds with rocket seeds as was noted in two reci-
pes, the text suggests similarly peppery watercress seeds as an alternative: pro
sinape, cardamomi semen.45
Some types of substitution, such as the substitution of cultivated plants for
their wild-​type or vice versa, however, seem to be more common in recipes

41 Beccaria, I codici, 456.

42 Touwaide, ‘Quid pro Quo’, 19.
43 Cod. sang. 759, p. 58, Antebalumina Galieni; BnF lat. 6882A, ff. 11v–​15r, Incipit antebalumina
Galieni; and BnF lat. 11219, ff. 230ra–​233vb, Incipit prologus antebalumina Galieni medici.
44 BnF lat. 6882A, f. 12r, pro cinamum, casia duplu aut bratheos dublo; BnF lat. 11219, f. 231ra,
pro cinnamomo, casia duplum aut brateu duplum; Touwaide, ‘Quid pro Quo’, 37; for
Touwaide’s tables, see pp. 34–​60. The text also offers bratheos, savin, as an alternative.
45 BnF lat. 6882A, f. 14v, pro senape, cardamomum; BnF lat. 11219, f. 231va, pro sinape, carda­
momi semen.

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Evidence for Practicality Beyond Materia Medica 147

than in the pseudo-​Galenic text.46 There are no close parallels, for example,
to the suggested substitutions seen in the Potionem probata ad ilica passio of
bav reg. lat. 1143 or Item aliud ad fagidinica ulcera of cod. sang. 44. The for-
mer recommended replacing wild rue with a cultivated variety if the wild type
was unavailable and the latter suggested that domesticated parsnips could be
swapped for wild parsnips if necessary.47 That these unparalleled instances
of suggested substitutions involve common plant products that could have
been grown in Carolingian Francia, whether wild or cultivated, indicates that
these recommendations may reflect experience on the ground. Nevertheless,
the large amount of overlapping and generally similar information shared
between De succedaneis liber and individual recipes suggests that this treatise
may be the underlying source for many of the substitution instructions seen in
the recipe sample.

3.3 The Practicality of Substitution Instructions in Recipes

While some of the instructions regarding ingredient substitutions located
within recipes, and especially those that replace a wild plant with a domesti-
cated version, might reflect personal experience or local knowledge networks,
much of this information appears to descend from classical and late antique
traditions. That is not to say that the substitution instructions were not prac-
tical, but that their existence within recipes should not be taken as evidence
for the use of these recipes in early medieval medical practice. This distinc-
tion is key and highlights the importance of a cautious approach to the written
record: just as not all signs of a text’s use should be interpreted as evidence of
its use in the practice of medicine, a text’s practical features are not automati-
cally indicative of whether it was intended to be used in practice.
Overall, it seems likely that the substitution instructions included within rec-
ipes combine earlier traditions with local knowledge and practice. The record-
ing of some potentially new substitutions as well as the substitutions that offer
similar but not identical advice (such as mustard being replaced with rocket
instead of watercress) points to the incorporation of information outside of
the classical canon. The broad similarities between the instructions in these
recipes and those presented in De succedaneis liber, however, suggests that the
information included in early medieval recipes, even in cases where they dif-
fer, may be building on these earlier traditions. Ultimately, these substitution

46 For the full texts in the two Paris manuscripts involved in the present study, see BnF lat.
6882A, ff. 11v–​15r; BnF lat. 11219, ff. 230ra–​233vb.
47 bav reg. lat. 1143, ff. 185r–​185v, Potionem probata ad ilica passio; cod. sang. 44, pp. 330–​1:
Item aliud ad fagidinica ulcera; see Appendix 2, entries 18.9 and 5.17.2.

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148  Chapter 5

instructions can be said to offer potentially practical information—​alternative

ideas if certain ingredients were unavailable—​but, unlike the other case stud-
ies examined in Part 1, they should not be taken as signs that these texts were
intended to be consulted in the context of practice.

4 Conclusion

While Chapters 3 and 4 explored practicality by investigating examples of

newly recorded materia medica, both local and exotic, this chapter reveals
that additional features within recipes can also offer valuable insights into
this topic.
The inclusion of a vernacular unit and substitution instructions both rep-
resent practical features within recipes, yet they have different implications
for the question of practicality. First, with respect to staupus, the introduction
of a Latinised vernacular term in Carolingian medical texts indicates that the
recipe literature was an evolving body of knowledge and suggests that scribes
actively adapted recipes to make them more accessible to their readers. While
earlier studies highlighted singular examples of staupus and drew conclusions
from these isolated instances, I argue that it is the repeated occurrence of
this unit that is even more noteworthy. The analysis of its use, highlighting
its connection to local ingredients and adaptability, indicates that the term
would have made recipes more understandable—​and thus useable—​for their
potential readers. If these recipes were being consulted in practice, a correct
understanding of measurements would have been fundamentally important.
Yet the appearance of staupus in recipes not only suggests that this material
was intended to be used in medical practice, but that it was likely derived
from local practice. That is not to say that recipes including staupus directly
document the activities of a Carolingian medicus; rather, such prescriptions
may offer a window onto medical knowledge that had traditionally circulated
orally. The recording of this unit thus provides strong evidence that these texts
were intended to be used in the context of therapy.
In contrast, the inclusion of instructions for ingredient substitutions, though
also practical, has significant parallels to the case of Terenti(an)us: these sug-
gestions should not be interpreted as direct evidence for the use of recipes in
contemporary medical practice. By offering alternative ingredients if a particu-
lar substance was unavailable, they are inherently practical instructions; their
similarities with the late antique text De succedaneis liber, however, indicate
that they may be linked to this tradition. Without further evidence it is impos-
sible to know if such information reflects an individual’s personal experiences,

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Evidence for Practicality Beyond Materia Medica 149

a copy of an earlier source, or a combination of the two. I end with this case
study not to reduce the weight of the evidence from the preceding studies,
but to highlight the complexity of investigating the question of practicality.
It is often tempting to interpret all signs of a manuscript’s use as indicative of
their use in medical practice and, as in this case, all practical elements within
recipes as further corroboration of their intention to be used in a therapeu-
tic context. A more cautious and critical approach to the sources, however,
must be taken. Ultimately, as analyses of materia medica and the unit staupus
have demonstrated, it is the ‘new’ elements in the recipe literature, such as the
appearance of newly recorded ingredients, that provide the most compelling
evidence for the ways in which these recipes offered practical information that
was likely intended for, and could have been used in, medical practice.

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 pa rt 2
Applicability

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 ­c hapter 6

Reading Recipes in the Light of Skeletal Remains

An Introduction to the Integration of Osteological Evidence

1 Introduction: Moving From Practicality to Practice, an

Investigation Into Applicability

The following chapters, building on the exploration of the practicality of reci-

pes in Part 1, now investigate the question of applicability.1 While the preced-
ing case studies showcased the practical nature of many of these recipes,
including evidence for whether they could have been used, the degree to which
this information was potentially relevant to the individuals with access to the
texts was not considered. Although many recipes appear to have been practi-
cal, is there evidence suggesting that they were relevant to populations in this
period? A recipe’s usability (i.e., its practicality) and utility (i.e., its applicabil-
ity) should not be conflated. As discussed in Chapter 2, examples of individu-
als who sought to apply medical writings, such as Bishop Cynehard (though he
was presumably somewhat unsuccessful in his use of the texts given his com-
plaints about lacking some of the ingredients listed in the recipes), are few and
far between.2 The second part of this book, therefore, asks: were these recipes
applicable to individuals in early medieval Europe? Are there signs that they
address health concerns that affected people during this period?
As noted in Chapter 1, the question of applicability may seem surprising
since it is generally assumed that medical knowledge, due to its very nature, has
direct relevance. This assumption must be questioned. The situation is more
complex because, as Peregrine Horden has explained, medical knowledge may
have been recorded, preserved, studied, and passed on for a multitude of rea-
sons, and its use in the context of therapy represents just one of these rea-
sons.3 Moreover, modern scholarship has highlighted that a variety of options
were available in the ‘medical marketplace’, but many of these approaches to
healing did not necessarily involve medical writings, whether as teaching texts

1 For this study’s definitions of practicality and applicability, see Chapter 1.

2 Wallis, Medieval Medicine, 110–​11; ‘Epistula 114’, in Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus,
ed. Tangl, 247: sed tamen [p]‌igmenta ultramarina, quae in eis scripta conperimus, ignota nobis
sunt et difficilia adipiscendum.
3 Horden, ‘Prefatory Note’, 1–​6.

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154  Chapter 6

or guides to be consulted in practice.4 An examination of the applicability

of these recipes thus has the potential to cast fresh light on the relationship
between recorded medical knowledge and the practice of medicine.
The present chapter introduces this investigation of applicability, first out-
lining in greater detail why the medical texts’ relevance to populations in the
Carolingian world deserves a deeper examination. This discussion delineates
how the following chapters use the osteological record to re-​evaluate the evi-
dence presented by the recipe literature. I then address some of the challenges
inherent in bringing together these two bodies of evidence and how they have
helped to determine the foci of the case study-​based chapters (Chapters 7–​9).
This introduction ends with an overview of the following chapters’ analytical
framework, including a review of the archaeological sites considered in the
case studies.

2 Establishing the Framework of Part 2

2.1 Why Question the Relevance of Recipes?

Although the textual analyses of Part 1 identified the influence of sources
beyond the classical canon, the continued significance of classical and late
antique medical traditions in the Carolingian period, both as texts themselves
and as sources for the recipes analysed in this book, cannot be downplayed.5
The impact of classical knowledge is important to consider since the ‘health-
scape’ of Mediterranean Antiquity was not the same as that of early medieval
Europe. Not only is it likely that diseases would have differed to some degree,
but so, too, would individuals’ experiences of disease. As Faith Wallis affirms,
experiences of health, wellness, and disease are culturally conditioned: ‘what
human beings—​medieval or modern—​see in the human body, or in the pat-
terns of disease, is shaped not only by the possibilities and limitations of their
experience, but by the structures and meanings that their culture bestows on
this experience’.6

4 Flint, ‘The Early Medieval ‘Medicus’’, 127–​45; Skinner, Health and Medicine in Early Medieval
Southern Italy, see especially Chapter 5 (pp. 79–​107); Clare Pilsworth, ‘Could you just sign
this for me John? Doctors, charters and occupational identity in early medieval northern
and central Italy’, Early Medieval Europe 17, no. 4 (2009): 363–​88, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1111​/j​
.1468​-0254​.2009​.00282​.x; David Knipp, ‘The Chapel of Physicians at Santa Maria Antiqua’,
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 56 (2002): 1–​23, https://​doi​.org​/10​.2307​/1291​851​.
5 Again, see the discussion of this topic in Chapters 1 and 2.
6 Wallis, Medieval Medicine, xxv-​xxvii.

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Reading Recipes in the Light of Skeletal Remains 155

The ‘possibilities of experience’ that every individual encounters are influ-

enced by external forces, including a region’s climate and endemic pathogens,
as well as internal factors, such as lifestyle, working conditions, hygiene prac-
tices, systems of belief, and other socio-​cultural features. When addressing
crusader medicine, Piers Mitchell considers a similar geographic shift, that of
western European crusaders moving to the Middle East, and highlights poten-
tial differences in the health experiences of the two regions: ‘an individual
with a culture and an immune system developed for cooler northern Europe
might have been at considerable risk … He would encounter new diseases to
which he might have little immunity, such as the parasites dracunculiasis and
schistosomiasis’.7 While the situation Mitchell describes represents the inverse
of this study (Mitchell considers the movement of people between different
regions rather than the redeployment of knowledge in a different time and
location), it remains instructive. Most importantly, Mitchell explains that the
crusaders’ place of origin, northwest Europe (loosely paralleling the territories
of the Carolingian world), and their destination, the eastern Mediterranean
(corresponding to an area where many classical and late antique medical
authors were active), would have had major biological and cultural differences.
It is essential to remember that medical knowledge recorded in the classical
Mediterranean world had been developed in order to treat the needs of the
people living in this region. As a result, some of the medical issues described
by classical authors may have been less relevant to Carolingian scribes living in
cooler, damper environments.
Despite the potentially stark differences that Mitchell describes, it is also
important to recognise that changes to the external forces that shape an indi-
vidual’s healthscape tend to accumulate gradually. Furthermore, this study
contains a number of grey areas, such as the Italian peninsula, where the
conditions experienced by classical authors may have been similar to those
encountered by early medieval individuals. Consider, for example, the climate
and living conditions experienced by a monk in St Gall, a courtier at Aachen,
or a scribe in San Vincenzo al Volturno. Many of the external forces acting
on the latter individual may have been fairly similar to those encountered by
Pliny, Dioscorides, and Galen. The health experiences of physicians writing in
Antiquity and of early medieval scribes compiling collections of recipes in the
eighth and ninth centuries should therefore be viewed along a spectrum.
Finally, it might be expected that there are certain conditions that were
as likely to afflict medieval monks as they were classical physicians, such as

7 Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades, 1.

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156  Chapter 6

toothache and joint pain. But did they? An individual’s health is intrinsically
related to social and environmental factors such as diet, lifestyle, and living
conditions, so even seemingly universal conditions must be examined without
preconceptions. Indeed, the examples of toothache and joint disease will be
addressed in Chapters 7 and 8, respectively.

2.2 Working With the Available Evidence

My approach to investigating the relationship between medical knowledge and
practice has been shaped by the surviving evidence. While Mitchell’s work on
medicine in the Crusades draws in part on the medical information recorded
in surgical texts and chronicles, the early medieval written record is generally
lacking such testimony. In later periods, medical treatments are discussed in a
wider range of sources. Chroniclers, for example, often document conditions
in camps, episodes of disease, and even some specific medical cases, ranging
from trauma (such as injuries sustained while fighting, hunting, or horseback-​
riding) and infectious disease (including the famous case of Baldwin iv’s lep-
rosy) to vitamin and mineral deficiencies (such as scurvy).8 Although these
writings were not intended as case reports in the modern sense, medical
professionals such as Mitchell can analyse their descriptions and assess the
information they record. In some cases, chronicles and histories have provided
pathognomonic details or have constructed a sufficiently clear overall picture
of a condition for a modern medical diagnosis; this is, however, fairly rare, and
the issue of retrospective diagnosis will be discussed below. Evidence from
legal texts, such as penalties for malpractice, also provides insights into the
types of procedures that were undertaken during this period. Comparable tex-
tual sources for the early medieval period, such as annals and law codes, tend
to present less medical information, though as Chapter 9 demonstrates, they
can still offer important evidence.
Secondly, while early medieval medical texts primarily focused on dietary
and pharmaceutical treatments and avoided surgery (with bloodletting repre-
senting a significant exception), surgical writings feature prominently within
the medical literature of the later Middle Ages. Again, Mitchell’s research on
medicine in the Crusades offers a useful comparison: he writes that ‘sometimes
the wording of a medical text uses practical examples that give the impres-
sion that it was written primarily to be used to treat the injured and at other

8 Piers D. Mitchell, ‘An Evaluation of the Leprosy of King Baldwin iv of Jerusalem in the Context
of the Medieval World’, in The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin iv and the Crusader Kingdom
of Jerusalem, ed. Bernard Hamilton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 245–​58;
Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades, 185–​6, 188–​90.

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Reading Recipes in the Light of Skeletal Remains 157

times the inclusion of new techniques suggests that they were practised by
the author who recommended their use’.9 Such detailed, first-​hand accounts,
especially for surgical procedures, are unknown in Carolingian medical writ-
ings; instead, the vast majority of references to the use of texts, such as the
case of Terenti(an)us, appear to be part of efficacy clauses—​stock phrases that
should not be used as direct evidence for a text’s use in therapy. Although sim-
ilar phrases continue to be found in later writings, the textual landscape had
changed dramatically.
In addition to using the textual record, Mitchell’s work on medicine in the
Crusades integrates archaeological evidence. His analyses of written sources,
skeletal remains, and the results from excavations of hospitals, latrines, and
other sites that may produce information regarding health and medicine pro-
vide a more comprehensive picture, demonstrating the importance of bring-
ing together complementary types of evidence. Consider, for example, the
evidence for surgical interventions. While some surgeries only concern soft tis-
sue, others affect the skeleton and would therefore leave indications of surgical
intervention, such as cutmarks, in an individual’s remains. Skeletal evidence
and surgical tools found in excavations can then be compared to surgical texts
to assess whether particular treatments were put into practice. While this com-
bined approach works for the central and later Middle Ages, the relative lack
of early medieval Latin surgical writings combined with the absence of med-
ical equipment, such as surgical tools or pharmacy jars, among the material
remains found in early medieval excavations makes this type of comparison
impossible for the Carolingian period.10
Yet, although early medieval written sources and material finds, when com-
pared to both earlier and later periods, provide more limited evidence for

9 Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades, 138.

10 In contrast, excavations at a number of later medieval sites, such as the monastic hos-
pital of Skriðuklaustur, have uncovered a variety of medical tools, including lancets and
scalpels: Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir, ‘The Tip of the Iceberg: The Material of Skriðuklaustur
Monastery and Hospital’, Norwegian Archaeological Review 43, no. 1 (2010): 44–​62, https:
//​doi​.org​/10​.1080​/002936​5100​3798​796, at p. 52. On surviving surgical texts, see, for exam-
ple, Klaus-​Dietrich Fischer, ‘Universorum ferramentorum nomina. Frühmittelalterliche
Listen chirurgischer Instrumente und ihr griechisches Vorbild’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch
22 (1987): 28–​44 and Lawrence J. Bliquez, ‘Two Lists of Greek Surgical Instruments and the
State of Surgery in Byzantine Times’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 38 (1984): 187–​204, https:
//​doi​.org​/10​.2307​/1291​505​. Cf. the roughly contemporary and much richer tradition of
surgical writing in Arabic, e.g., Abū al-​Qāsim Khalaf ibn ʻAbbās al-​Zahrāwī, Albucasis On
Surgery and Instruments: A Definitive Edition of the Arabic Text With English Translation
and Commentary, trans. M. S. Spink and G. L. Lewis (Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1973).

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158  Chapter 6

medical practice, the skeletal record can still be examined. Palaeopathology,

the study of disease in the past, thus offers another avenue to explore health
and medicine in early medieval Europe.11 Since many diseases, injuries, and
other aspects of health have the potential to leave traces in the skeleton, oste-
ological evidence can provide insights into individuals’ lived experiences, and
especially their experiences of health, disease, and injury.12 The following
investigation into the question of applicability is therefore grounded in both
skeletal remains from early medieval sites in western Europe and the recipe
sample at the centre of Part 1: I re-​evaluate these recipes in the light of the
osteological evidence.
So, what can a skeleton tell us? Bones and teeth react to various stresses
and age-​related processes, including infection, injury, surgery, and repeated
use, and, in some cases, these changes leave indicators on the skeleton. An
evaluation of an individual’s remains can also reveal information regarding
their health and living conditions at various stages of their life: teeth, formed in
infancy and childhood, provide information about an individual’s early years
whereas bones, which continue to remodel throughout life, can shed light on
the final decades of an individual’s life.13 Palaeopathological reports from exca-
vations with early medieval remains can therefore offer insights into the appli-
cability of the medical knowledge in circulation: does the osteological record
preserve evidence of the conditions described in the texts? Would the recipes
under analysis have been sought by individuals in early medieval Europe?
While the osteological evidence provides a wealth of information, there are,
as explained below, a number of challenges that must be considered when
studying the skeletal record alongside written sources. Many of these chal-
lenges, however, are not insurmountable obstacles and instead have helped to
shape the parameters of this book’s approach. In the following section, I shall
address some of the intrinsic issues with archaeological research and theoreti-
cal challenges related to the integration of skeletal evidence.

11 Charlotte A. Roberts, Human Remains in Archaeology: A Handbook, rev. ed. (York: Council
for British Archaeology, 2012), 6; Piers D. Mitchell, ‘Retrospective Diagnosis and the
Use of Historical Texts for Investigating Disease in the Past’, International Journal of
Paleopathology 1, no. 2 (2011): 81–​8, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1016​/j​.ijpp​.2011​.04​.002, at p. 81.
12 Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades, 10; Fleming, ‘Bones for Historians’, 29–​48; Fleming,
‘Writing Biography’, 606–​14.
13 Donald J. Ortner, ‘What Skeletons Tell Us: The Story of Human Paleopathology’, Virchows
Archiv 459 (2011): 247–​54, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1007​/s00​428​-011​-1122​-x, at p. 247.

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Reading Recipes in the Light of Skeletal Remains 159

3 The Challenges of Using Osteological Evidence to Inform Textual

Analysis14

3.1 Intrinsic Issues With Archaeological Evidence

At the most basic level, it is important to recognise that the underlying organ-
isation of archaeological research affects its work in various ways, including
influencing (or determining) where an excavation will occur, its scope, and its
duration. In academic research archaeology, excavation size and timing may
be dictated by funding, resources, and the seasonal limitations of fieldwork
scheduled around academic calendars. Emergency or rescue archaeology that
occurs as a result of construction and development may be more constrained
by the requirements and urgency of the project in question. In recent decades,
the number of emergency excavations (especially of cemeteries) has grown, a
by-​product of roadworks, land development, and the redevelopment of urban
spaces.15 While this has greatly increased the number of excavated cemetery
sites, these projects are, necessarily, carried out under major financial and
time pressures, limiting their size, duration, and, in terms of analysing skeletal
material, level of detail.16 Although the constraints felt in research archaeology,
such as limited funding or fieldwork seasons, may stem from different origins,
they often produce similar results. These fundamental restrictions, combined
with the potential physical constraints caused by existing structures above
ground, often result in only partial excavations of larger sites. This is especially
important to bear in mind with excavations of cemeteries, as it makes it diffi-
cult to know the extent to which the excavated sample is representative of the
site as a whole.17
While the inherent nature of rescue archaeology determines where the
excavations occur, research archaeology has more latitude in site selection—​at
least in theory. These types of excavations, however, have often concentrated
on elite sites, such as religious institutions, royal settlements, or urban centres,
based on the research interests of the investigators, the research interests of

14 This review of challenges focuses on those specific to my use of the osteological evidence,
such as the location of excavations. For more information on the physical challenges of
studying human remains, such as the impact of disposal and decay on skeletal material
or the effect of excavation and conservation on its preservation, see Roberts, Human
Remains in Archaeology.
15 John Pearce, ‘Beyond the Grave: Excavating the Dead in the Late Roman Provinces’, in
Field Methods and Post-​Excavation Techniques in Late Antique Archaeology, ed. Luke Lavan
and Michael Mulryan (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 441–​82, at p. 445.
16 Pearce, ‘Beyond the Grave’, 445, 461.
17 Ibid, 444.

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160  Chapter 6

the project’s funding body, or simply because the location of these sites might
be better known. While the individuals buried in these contexts may not have
been privileged themselves or may have experienced a variety of conditions
throughout their life (consider, for example, some of the Carolingian eccle-
siastical elite who, despite humble origins, became bishops and courtiers),
excavations in these sites are not likely to represent an even cross-​section of
society and are instead biased towards more privileged individuals. Emergency
archaeology often presents a similar picture since many of the excavated cem-
eteries are in urban contexts.18 Given the elite environments in which the man-
uscripts containing medical texts were generally produced and housed, a bias
towards elite sites is not a disadvantage. Indeed, excavations of monastic com-
munities, and especially those known to have had medical texts in their librar-
ies, are particularly relevant to this study, as will be detailed below. It must
be remembered, however, that some degree of healthcare provision may have
been made available to the wider communities attached to these sites, such as
the familia who worked the lands, as well as visitors passing through, including
missi dominici and pilgrims.19 Notably, some of the sites under consideration,
such as Lorsch, appear to contain multiple cemeteries, including separate bur-
ial areas for the monks, familia, and pilgrims.20
It must also be remembered that the geographic distribution of excavations
is not evenly spread across western Europe, and certain areas are better rep-
resented than others. This is particularly noticeable in northern Italy, where
large numbers of Lombard necropoli have been excavated due to the regional
interest in Lombard migration and settlement.21 Some of these sites continued
to be used in the generations following the Carolingian conquest of Lombard

18 Ibid, 445–​8.
19 As noted in Chapter 2, the level of medical practice available within and beyond monastic
centres continues to be debated. See, for example, Glaze, ‘The Perforated Wall’, 13–​14, 69–​
79; Horden, ‘What’s Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?’, 8, 10–​13, and 16; Nutton, ‘Early
Medieval Medicine and Natural Science’, 326; Park, ‘Medicine and Society’, 65–​6.
20 Claus Kropp, Anne-​Karin Kirsch, Wilfried Rosendahl, Jörg Orschiedt, and Lukas Fischer,
Begraben und Vergessen? Knochen erzählen Geschichte: Anthropologische Ausstellung
im Schaudepot Zehntscheune des unesco Welterbe Kloster Lorsch (Bad Homburg v. d.
Höhe: Verwaltung der Staatlichen Schlösser und Gärten, 2017). My thanks, too, to mem-
bers of the scientific board of Lorsch, including Claus Kropp and Hermann Schefers,
for sharing their insights into the cemeteries and discussing unpublished data from the
excavations.
21 Alexandra Chavarría and Maurizio Marinato, ‘Frammentazione e complessità nelle
pratiche funerarie altomedievali in Italia settentrionale’, in vii Congresso Nazionale di
Archeologia Medievale. Palazzo Turrisi. Lecce, 9–​12 settembre 2015, ed. Paul Arthur and
Marco Leo Imperiale, vol. 2 (Florence: All’Insegna del Giglio, 2015), 61–​8.

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Reading Recipes in the Light of Skeletal Remains 161

Italy and are therefore considered in the case studies of Part 2. While I shall
return to the representativity of this concentration of sites below, significantly,
as mentioned in Chapter 2, the inclusion of a northern Italian cluster aligns
well with the surviving manuscript evidence since a number of the codices
involved in the present study appear to have been produced in this region,
moving north soon after their composition.
Moreover, many of the recent, well-​documented northern Italian exca-
vations under consideration have published analyses of skeletal remains,
something essential to this investigation and that is often lacking in older
archaeological reports due to funerary archaeology’s traditional focus on the
study of burial contexts and grave goods rather than the osteological material
itself.22 While it is important to recognise that skeletal remains are not always
available to study (perhaps a result of cremation—​a practice that continued in
the Rhineland into the eighth and, in some cases, even the ninth centuries—​or
later disturbances of the burial site),23 there has been a significant increase in
research on osteological evidence in recent decades, coinciding with the devel-
opment of new techniques and methodologies, such as stable isotope analysis,
that are producing alternative approaches to studying the skeletal record.24
The growing number of publications from excavations across the Carolingian
world that not only examine burials but also address their skeletal remains has
made this study’s dual approach possible.

22 Roberts, Human Remains in Archaeology, 11, 40.

23 Willem A. van Es and Willem J. H. Verwers, Excavations at Dorestad 4: The Settlement on
the River Bank Area (Amersfoort: Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, 2015),
227: ‘in Groningen and further eastwards [cremation] continues until after 800’. For
more on early Frankish burial practices, see the work of Guy Halsall, such as Guy Halsall,
Cemeteries and Society in Merovingian Gaul: Selected Studies in History and Archaeology,
1992–​2009 (Leiden: Brill, 2010) and Guy Halsall, Settlement and Social Organization: The
Merovingian Region of Metz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
24 Fleming, ‘Writing Biography’, 611–​ 13. On stable isotope analysis, see, for example,
Susanne Hakenbeck, ‘Potentials and Limitations of Isotope Analysis in Early Medieval
Archaeology’, European Journal of Post-​Classical Archaeologies 3 (2013): 95–​111. On the rel-
evance of stable isotope analysis to specific questions of past population health, such as
dietary practices or age of weaning, see Sam Leggett and Tom Lambert, ‘Food and Power
in Early Medieval England: A Lack of (Isotopic) Enrichment’, Anglo-​Saxon England 49
(2020): 155–​96, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1017​/S02636​7512​2000​072; Takumi Tsutaya and Minoru
Yoneda, ‘Reconstruction of breastfeeding and weaning practices using stable isotope and
trace element analyses: A review’, American Journal of Biological Anthropology 156, sup-
plement 59 (2015): 2–​21, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1002​/ajpa​.22657​.

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162  Chapter 6

3.2 Theoretical Challenges Related to the Integration of Skeletal

Evidence
3.2.1 Retrospective Diagnosis
Retrospective diagnosis, the identification of ‘an individual case of illness or
a disease in history by a modern name or diagnostic category’, can be highly
problematic for a wide variety of reasons.25 In particular, there are extensive
debates regarding the potential utility of retrospective diagnosis (what is
gained from applying a modern medical diagnosis to a past disease experi-
ence?), its accuracy (if modern medicine sometimes makes errors in diagnosis,
what is the likelihood of correctly diagnosing individuals in the past?), appro-
priateness from an intellectual standpoint (can a modern diagnosis be applied
given the cultural and environmental differences between the diagnosing phy-
sician and diagnosed individual?), and potential ethical problems (have the
individuals in question given consent?). The following section will review the
debates involving retrospective diagnosis, the responses to these issues, and
how this study fits into the discussion.
In many cases, retrospective diagnoses have been pursued by physicians
interested in the health of a famous individual. Studies of this kind, sometimes
labelled ‘anachronistic diagnoses’, are often criticised for their modern medi-
cal approach to a historical question combined with their less rigorous study
of the appropriate historical evidence.26 Axel Karenberg, a physician-​turned-​
historian, explains that retrospective diagnosis ‘runs the risk of restricting
the understanding of history to a biologic process’; this is particularly true if
the cases are not adequately contextualised within their historical period.27
Osamu Muramoto expands on these concerns, noting that retrospective diag-
noses rarely address ‘the possibility that different diseases might have existed
in historical time, or [that] the same disease might have been described
through different illness experiences that are bound by a particular historical
time and place’.28 This raises the question, is retrospective diagnosis useful?
And does applying a modern medical label on a past disease experience make
sense? Andrew Cunningham takes a hard-​line against retrospective diagno-
sis, arguing that it is neither legitimate nor possible to diagnose diseases from

25 Axel Karenberg, ‘Retrospective Diagnosis: Use and Abuse in Medical Historiography’,

Prague Medical Report 110, no. 2 (2009): 140–​5, at p. 140.
26 Osamu Muramoto, ‘Retrospective Diagnosis of a Famous Historical Figure: Ontological,
Epistemic, and Ethical Considerations’, Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 9
(2014), https://​doi​.org​/10​.1186​/1747​-5341​-9​-10​.
27 Karenberg, ‘Retrospective Diagnosis’, 144–​5.
28 Muramoto, ‘Retrospective Diagnosis of a Famous Historical Figure’.

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Reading Recipes in the Light of Skeletal Remains 163

historical evidence given the differences between past experiences and under-
standings of disease and our own.29 Instead, he suggests that past disease, as
experienced and identified by the people who were affected by it, should be
understood in the past as exclusively historical studies without the introduc-
tion of modern medical concepts.30 Mitchell and Muramoto, despite agreeing
with aspects of Cunningham’s argument, have shown how retrospective diag-
nosis can provide valuable insights into understanding past populations. More
specifically, Muramoto has advanced an effective counter argument from a
theoretical perspective while Mitchell has shared constructive guidance on the
best practices for incorporating textual evidence in the study of past disease.31
In addressing the ontological challenge presented by making a diagnosis in
the past, Muramoto uses the example of tuberculosis, or rather a Mycobacterium
tuberculosis infection. Many retrospective diagnoses are interested in asking
‘whether Disease X which we recognise as tuberculosis today is the same and
identical disease as “phthisis”, “consumption”, or whatever they called [it] in
historical time’.32 This, he argues, is not an appropriate way to investigate a
past disease because it does not account for changing environmental, biologi-
cal, and cultural differences. Instead, he suggests framing the investigation by
questioning the ontology of a disease, its persistence and existence through
time: ‘consider modern tuberculosis representing Disease X, while historical
tuberculosis Disease X1. Diseases X and X1 may be related to each other, but
they are not identical, or may be clinically similar but may be different entities
with different aetiology and pathophysiology’.33 Accepting both the difference
and similarity or relatability between Diseases X and X1 is crucial to the pres-
ent study. Continuing with the tuberculosis example, although in a modern
medical setting tuberculosis is understood to be caused by Mycobacterium
tuberculosis, historical tuberculosis (‘consumption’, ‘phthisis’, etc.) may have
been caused by other pathogens (such as Mycobacterium bovis) that produced
a similar result.
Given the underlying questions of this book, thinking about a range of
related or similar diseases is more fitting: when considering the potential appli-
cability of medical remedies, I am interested in the symptoms that diseases

29 Andrew Cunningham, ‘Identifying Disease in the Past: Cutting the Gordian Knot’, Asclepio
54, no. 1 (2002): 13–​34, https://​doi​.org​/10​.3989​/ascle​pio​.2002​.v54 ​.i1​.133​.
30 Cunningham, ‘Identifying Disease in the Past’, 16.
31 Muramoto, ‘Retrospective Diagnosis of a Famous Historical Figure’; Mitchell, ‘Improving
the Use of Historical Written Sources’, 88–​95.
32 Muramoto, ‘Retrospective Diagnosis of a Famous Historical Figure’.
33 Ibid.

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164  Chapter 6

produced rather than a specific disease label. Although tuberculosis is not one
of the selected conditions addressed in the following chapters, it provides a
useful example. It would be inappropriate to take the medieval Latin medi-
cal term phthisis, which is commonly translated as ‘consumption’ or ‘tuber-
culosis’, to mean an infection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and to look for
skeletal indicators of this particular disease exclusively. Instead, it would be
more appropriate to read phthisis as a collection of symptoms that loosely cor-
respond to diseases like tuberculosis, such as coughing and weight loss. With
a group of symptoms in mind, it is then possible to consider whether skeletal
indicators might be present.
Although retrospective diagnosis continues to be debated, this type of
non-​specific, conservative approach is generally accepted by many historians
of medicine. Faith Wallis, for example, writes, ‘it can sometimes be useful for
the purposes of historical analysis to try to determine what modern disease
category might match a medieval description; indeed, it can actually enhance
our understanding of what the medieval writer is attempting to convey’.34 This
fits with what the following chapters aim to do: by thinking about the ‘disease
categories’ suggested by the texts with respect to the osteological evidence, it
is possible to re-​evaluate whether the texts might have been applicable—​that
is, whether they record treatments for conditions (or rather the symptoms of
conditions) that, based on skeletal remains, individuals experienced in this
period.
Returning to Muramoto’s in-​depth examination of retrospective diagnosis,
he also takes issue with one of the standard approaches to the question ‘how
do we know what disease a person had?’ Many opponents of retrospective
diagnosis point out that modern researchers can never know the full medi-
cal ‘reality’ of an individual in the past since historical evidence, whether tex-
tual, art historical, or archaeological, does not represent medical data, or at
least not the type of medical data recorded today for the purpose of diagnosis.
Yet, fundamentally, ‘medical diagnosis is a process of hypothesis-​making and
hypothesis-​adjustment’ as well as ‘a probabilistic judgment under uncertainty
rather than an apodictic judgement under certainty’.35 If modern diagnoses
are not given with complete certainty, then retrospective diagnoses should not
be held to a higher, impossible standard. Additionally, Muramoto explains that
‘a clinician is not a natural scientist whose task is to uncover a hidden state
of affairs of nature; she is only applying natural sciences to more pragmatic

34 Wallis, Medieval Medicine, xxvii.

35 Muramoto, ‘Retrospective Diagnosis of a Famous Historical Figure’.

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Reading Recipes in the Light of Skeletal Remains 165

tasks of caring and treating a sick patient, explaining the condition, and prog-
nosticating the future course of his suffering’.36 Understanding diagnosis as
an explanatory device is critical: it is less about defining a patient’s exact, cer-
tain, and total disease reality, and instead concerned with determining the
next course of action and possible long term expectations. This can be easy
to forget since modern medical diagnoses involving advanced laboratory tests
and imaging are often seen as the definition of an individual’s condition rather
than as an explanatory device based on probability and subject to revision.
Recognising that diagnosis, whether modern or medieval, is intended to pro-
vide a framework for treatment and care is essential for understanding the tex-
tual evidence under consideration.37
Muramoto tackles one further epistemological point: the methodolo-
gies involved in diagnosis. Modern medicine can diagnose conditions from
a number of different approaches: ‘by clinical signs and symptoms (clinical
diagnosis); by laboratory tests (laboratory diagnosis); by genetic tests (genetic
diagnosis); by identifying aetiology (aetiological diagnosis); [and] by patho-
logical examination (pathological diagnosis)’.38 Although the study of skeletal
remains makes possible the examination of pathologies and even some med-
ical tests, many of the above methods are not available when making diagno-
ses in the past, adding a further degree of uncertainty. An assessment of the
evidence should therefore take these methodological limitations into account,
framing the possible diagnosis cautiously, such as ‘X and Y symptoms or mark-
ers are consistent with Z disease’.39 Mitchell similarly advocates a cautious
approach to the identification of past disease and suggests using phrases such
as ‘possible example of’, ‘is compatible with’, ‘a probable example of’, or ‘very
likely to represent’ Disease X.40
Finally, with this theoretical framework in mind, the question of medical
ethics must be addressed. Since this book examines general trends and pat-
terns in the palaeopathological data regarding a selection of conditions, many
of the ethical concerns related to retrospective diagnosis pose less of an issue.
First, the selected conditions, such as joint disease and oral pathologies, are
not diseases that could damage someone’s reputation posthumously (i.e.,
reveal information that someone would want to conceal), and secondly, given

36 Ibid.
37 This take on diagnosis also aligns more closely to the early medieval focus on prognosti-
cation. See Wallis, ‘Signs and Senses’, 265–​78.
38 Muramoto, ‘Retrospective Diagnosis of a Famous Historical Figure’.
39 Ibid.
40 Mitchell, ‘Improving the Use of Historical Written Sources’, 89.

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166  Chapter 6

the nature of the sample, the individuals are nearly always anonymous (the
discovery of Abbot Talaricus’ grave representing a rare exception) and not
linked to any living people.41

3.2.2 The Osteological Paradox

In 1992, James Wood, George Milner, Henry Harpending, and Kenneth Weiss
presented the osteological paradox, a series of conceptual challenges that have
had a significant impact on the study of palaeopathology.42 While elements of
their landmark report have been debated and revised, the points they origi-
nally outlined remain essential to consider when analysing the skeletal record
in relation to health and disease in the past.43 They identified three major
problems: demographic nonstationarity (populations are not stationary but in
a constant state of flux), selective mortality (a skeletal sample is inherently
biased because it only represents the dead and only represents them at their
age of death), and hidden heterogeneity in risks (an individual’s ‘underlying
frailty or susceptibility to disease and death’ is unknown).44 The combination
of these problems results in the paradox that skeletal remains with evidence of
pathologies may actually represent the healthier individuals of the population.
To clarify, those individuals with signs of ‘disease X’ lived long enough with
disease X for signs of its presence to be recorded in their bones. Individuals
from the same burial group without indicators of disease X may have also suf-
fered from disease X but died before it could be recorded in their skeleton.
Consequently, individuals who appear healthy based on an assessment of their
skeletal remains may actually have been frailer than those with evidence of
disease.
While the osteological paradox remains an important collection of con-
cepts with which to engage given the integration of skeletal evidence in the

41 Richard Hodges, John Mitchell, and Lucy Watson, ‘The discovery of Abbot Talaricus’ (817–​
3 October 823) tomb at San Vincenzo al Volturno’, Antiquity 71 (1997): 453–​6, https://​doi​
.org​/10​.1017​/S00035​98X0​0085​082​.
42 James W. Wood, George R. Milner, Henry C. Harpending, and Kenneth M. Weiss, ‘The
Osteological Paradox: Problems of Inferring Prehistoric Health from Skeletal Samples’,
Current Anthropology 33, no. 4 (1992), 343–​70.
43 Consider, for example, the twelve pages of responses to the original article (Wood, Milner,
Harpending, and Weiss, ‘The Osteological Paradox’, 358–​70) and later responses such as
Mark Nathan Cohen, James W. Wood, and George R. Milner, ‘The Osteological Paradox
Reconsidered’, Current Anthropology 35, no. 5 (1994): 629–​37; Sharon N. DeWitte and
Christopher M. Stojanowski, ‘The Osteological Paradox 20 Years Later: Past Perspectives,
Future Directions’, Journal of Archaeological Research 23 (2015): 397–​450, https://​doi​.org​
/10​.1007​/s10​814​-015​-9084​-1​.
44 Wood, Milner, Harpending, and Weiss, ‘The Osteological Paradox’, 344–​5.

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Reading Recipes in the Light of Skeletal Remains 167

following chapters, the aspects of health and disease under investigation

in Part 2—​dental health, joint disease, and surgery and trauma (elaborated
below)—​are comparatively less affected by the problems raised by the paradox
than many other areas of death and disease. Consider, for example, a traumatic
injury sustained from falling off a horse: whether a person was more or less
susceptible to disease would likely have had a relatively low impact on their
exposure to the traumatic incident. That is, although their underlying level
of health and living conditions could have affected their recovery from such
an injury, the skeletal evidence bearing witness to the initial traumatic injury
would be unchanged. The other groups of conditions analysed in the following
chapters, oral pathologies and joint diseases, tend to increase in severity and/​
or extent over time. The skeletal changes under consideration in these cases
are mostly the result of gradual processes rather than fast-​acting pathogens
that could have killed an individual without leaving a trace in their remains.
The osteological paradox thus presents less of a conceptual challenge in the
case studies addressed in Chapters 7–​9.

3.2.3 Selection of Conditions

Palaeopathological evidence for disease, injury, and treatment is grounded in
what can be seen on an individual’s remains. That not all medical conditions
leave marks on the skeleton restricts the comparison of textual and skeletal evi-
dence to conditions that have the potential to be recorded in teeth and bones.
As a result, there are many medical issues that, though they are mentioned
by medical texts, cannot be investigated with this approach, including condi-
tions affecting soft tissues (such as stomachaches, liver and spleen pain, and
eye problems), external areas (such as hair loss and skin diseases), and mental
health. There are, of course, some exceptions. A limited number of conditions
affecting soft tissues may be revealed through palaeopathological analysis, but
they are often challenging to identify and can go unnoticed fairly easily.45 In
the case of cardiovascular disease, for example, abnormal, enlarged blood ves-
sels may leave an impression of their expansion in certain areas of the skeleton,
especially around the heart.46 Mummified remains present another exception
because soft tissues may be preserved and analysed; the archaeological mate-
rial under consideration, however, does not contain remains preserved in this

45 Tony Waldron, Palaeopathology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 224–​35.

46 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 224.

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168  Chapter 6

manner.47 Given the challenges of identifying soft tissue conditions in skeletal

assemblages and lack of suitable remains, soft tissue diseases have not been
included in the present study.
Similarly, some conditions that may at first appear to be unable to leave
any skeletal indicators, such as head pain or vision changes, could, in fact, be
related to pathologies observable in skeletal remains. For example, an osteoma,
a type of benign tumour that can be found in the skull and frontal sinus, could
explain these two symptoms, head pain and vision changes.48 A criterion in
selecting the conditions to investigate in Part 2 has therefore been the likeli-
hood of a probable correspondence between, on the one hand, a pain or prob-
lem described in the texts and, on the other hand, evidence that can be seen on
skeletal remains. In the case of an osteoma, it would be impossible to compare
these two bodies of evidence given all the possible causes of head pain and
vision changes. In contrast, an issue such as tooth pain, loose teeth, and related
descriptions can be more meaningfully compared to dental remains from early
medieval individuals.
Despite the various limitations outlined above, many conditions can be
studied through palaeopathological analyses of human remains. Primary
research areas include joint diseases, infectious diseases, metabolic diseases,
trauma, disorders of growth and development, dental diseases, and certain
cancers.49 Taking the methodological challenges into account and using my
knowledge of the recipe literature, the following chapters focus on three of
these categories: dental diseases (Chapter 7), joint diseases (Chapter 8), and
surgery and trauma (Chapter 9).

3.2.4 Absence of Evidence as Evidence of Absence?

One additional theoretical challenge to consider is the potential absence of
osteological evidence for conditions recorded in the texts. If symptoms relating
to ‘Disease X’ are described in the recipes but unidentified in skeletal remains,
does this indicate that the texts were, at least with respect to this disease, irrel-
evant to early medieval populations? While such a case could suggest that the

47 Michael R. Zimmerman, ‘The Analysis and Interpretation of Mummified Remains’, in A

Companion to Paleopathology, ed. Anne L. Grauer (Chichester: Wiley-​Blackwell, 2012),
152–​69; Waldron, Palaeopathology, 221–​3.
48 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 170–​2.
49 Arthur C. Aufderheide and Conrado Rodríguez-​Martín, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of
Human Paleopathology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Anne L. Grauer,
ed., A Companion to Paleopathology (Chichester: Wiley-​ Blackwell, 2012); Waldron,
Palaeopathology.

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Reading Recipes in the Light of Skeletal Remains 169

recorded treatments preserved information that was not applicable to com-

munities in Carolingian Europe, the absence of osteological evidence must not
be interpreted as simply the evidence of absence. There are many reasons why
a condition that could be preserved in skeletal material has not been identified
(or recorded), including a number of the challenges highlighted above, such as
the potentially incomplete nature of excavations, the skeletal material’s state
of preservation, and the variation in the degree to which skeletal remains are
analysed and recorded. This book, therefore, is most concerned with the pos-
itive evidence, that is, the cases where the osteological evidence parallels the
treatments recorded in the texts, as this correlation indicates that the medical
knowledge in question could have been used in the practice of medicine.

4 Outlining the Analytical Approach to Chapters 7–​9

4.1 Overview of Sites

The osteological evidence consulted in the following chapters comes from
excavations of early medieval sites found across the Carolingian world, and,
like the manuscript evidence, represents communities from both the Frankish
heartlands as well as more peripheral areas. In total, Chapters 7–​9 have consid-
ered reports on skeletal material from twenty-​one different sites located within
the Carolingian Empire and one on the very southern edge, San Vincenzo al
Volturno (see the map). The selected sites are located in present-​day Germany,
the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, and Italy and include excavations from
Acqui Terme, Biel, Bolgare, Cairate, Campione d’Italia, Caravate, Cherbourg,
Cremona, Desenzano, Kirchheim am Ries, Lorsch, Maastricht, Neresheim,
Nusplingen, Ovaro, Quingentole, Rivoli, San Cassiano, Schretzheim,
Seckenheim, and Tolmezzo. References are also made to skeletal evidence
from contemporary sites in the British Isles (Chapters 8 and 9) as well as to
excavations of early Frankish burials (Chapter 9) for comparative purposes.
Paralleling the manuscript review of Chapter 2, it is important to comment on
the representativity of these sites, especially in relation to their chronological
range and geographical distribution.
In many cases, the dates of a site’s occupation and/​or the use of a burial
area are only known with relative precision based on stratigraphic evidence
or material remains. Occasionally, more exact dating methods, such as radi-
ocarbon dating, are used on osteological remains, providing a date typically
within the range of two to three generations. Many of the dates for early medi-
eval skeletal assemblages must therefore be interpreted as approximate rather
than absolute. Rarely, however, the existence of complementary documentary

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170  Chapter 6

evidence can provide a more precise date for site occupation or burial; the
excavation of Abbot Talaricus’ tomb at San Vincenzo al Volturno presents one
such example.50
The duration with which a site was used also deserves mention since many
sites were active over a relatively long period of time, often spanning several
centuries, and may have been used for multiple purposes over this period (set-
tlement, cemetery, quarry, disposal area, etc.), complicating the establishment
of a firm chronology.51 As a result, although the sites involved in this study
were in use during the Carolingian period, many pre-​and/​or post-​date it, too.
This chronological breadth means that some of the skeletal material consulted
in the following case studies does not align perfectly with the chronologically
narrower textual record. Yet, as noted above, the external and internal factors
affecting health and disease, such as the environment and culture, tend to
change gradually, thereby allowing for some flexibility with respect to dating.
Cemeteries that contain remains pre-​or post-​dating the Carolingian period
by a few generations should, in the majority of cases, still be comparable and
relevant to this study. Consider, for example, the cemetery areas of the Abbey
of Lorsch. Although they may contain burials spanning the entire period in
which the monastery was active (i.e., up to the sixteenth century), radiocar-
bon dating has provided definite evidence of Carolingian burials within the
so-​called Mönchsfriedhof, the cemetery that is thought to have contained the
monks.52 Additional archaeological evidence, including the cemetery area’s
size and uniformity, suggests that many of the un-​dated individuals also lived
during the Carolingian period (or at least within a few generations of it) rather
than the later Middle Ages. The Lorsch skeletal material, moreover, represents
a particularly interesting reference point given its connections with medical
texts in the late eighth and ninth centuries: surviving library catalogues indi-
cate that its library housed several medical manuscripts during this period and
its scriptorium produced the Lorscher Arzneibuch in c. 800.53 As this codex

50 Hodges, Mitchell, and Watson, ‘The discovery of Abbot Talaricus’, 453–​6.

51 Pearce, ‘Beyond the Grave’, 467.
52 Kropp, Kirsch, Rosendahl, Orschiedt, and Fischer, Begraben und Vergessen?, 38–​9 and
personal communications with members of the scientific board of Lorsch, including
Claus Kropp and Hermann Schefers. See Figures 8–​14 for a selection of images of skeletal
remains from the Mönchsfriedhof.
53 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Med. 1; Das Lorscher Arzneibuch, ed. and trans.
Stoll; Bernhard Bischoff, Die Abtei Lorsch im Spiegel ihrer Handschriften, 2nd ed.
(Lorsch: Laurissa, 1989); Keil and Schnitzer, eds., Das Lorscher Arzneibuch und die
frühmittelalterliche Medizin; Adelheid Platte and Karlheinz Platte, eds., Das Lorscher
Arzneibuch: Klostermedizin in der Karolingerzeit (Lorsch: Laurissa, 1990); Klaus-​Dietrich

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Reading Recipes in the Light of Skeletal Remains 171

contains recipe collections comparable to many of those involved in the pres-

ent study, it is especially important to consider osteological evidence from
Lorsch in relation to the treatments recorded in the texts.54
Lorsch, situated in the Rhineland, represents a site at the heart of the
Frankish Empire. Likewise, excavations from sites in the Netherlands, southern
Germany, and Switzerland come from core territories within the Carolingian
world. On the other hand, some of the skeletal material considered in Part 2
was excavated on the fringes of Carolingian Francia, such as the burials from
Cherbourg. As discussed above, there is also a strong focus on sites from north-
ern Italy. Given Charlemagne’s conquest of the Lombard Kingdom in 774,
I have consulted palaeopathological reports from sites in northern Italy which
have evidence of continued use during this period. Crucially, these sites not
only overlap with the period of Carolingian control of northern Italy but, like
Lorsch, they present a particularly relevant sample to study since several of
the core manuscripts involved in this study were produced in northern Italian
writing centres. The movement of many codices to communities in the Alps
and beyond, such as St Gall, Reichenau, and Fulda, speaks to the intercon-
nectedness of these sites and a shared intellectual culture, thus indicating
the importance of considering skeletal remains from both sides of the Alps.
Finally, I have also included evidence from San Vincenzo al Volturno, a site just
on the edge of the Carolingian Empire at its greatest extent, given the known
links between this important ecclesiastical centre and others further north.

4.2 The Spectrum of Specificity

Returning to the texts, it is essential to outline a central feature of my assess-
ment of the recipes in the light of the osteological record. As mentioned in
Chapter 2, recipes vary enormously in their specificity: an antidote may claim
to treat over fifty different conditions, while a simple may intend to heal a sin-
gle ailment. This variety is important to bear in mind when considering the
question of applicability as there is a difference between, on the one hand,
a reference to tooth pain in a very general antidote and, on the other hand,
a highly targeted remedy for toothache. In the former, tooth pain is one of
many conditions that the antidote intends to treat, whereas it is the primary
focus of the latter. These examples represent the two ends of the spectrum of

Fischer, ‘Das Lorscher Arzneibuch im Widerstreit der Meinungen’, Medizinhistorisches

Journal 45, no. 2 (2010): 165–​88.
54 Note: the recipe books of the Lorscher Arzneibuch do not form part of the present study’s
textual sample since they have received extensive scholarly attention in recent decades.
On the Lorscher Arzneibuch, see the references in the preceding note.

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172  Chapter 6

specificity: the first is a catch-​all panacea while the second is a highly specific
treatment. I have used this variable, i.e., the specificity of a recipe’s approach to
treatment, in the following analyses to differentiate recipes, identify patterns
in the information they present, and assess how the textual evidence compares
to the osteological record. It has been especially useful to combine an analysis
of specificity with other features, such as target area(s) of treatment.
In the following chapters, I shall classify recipes as belonging to one of three
levels of specificity: a) non-​specific, b) semi-​specific, and c) highly specific.55
Generally, antidotes and other recipes that claim to treat a large variety of
seemingly unrelated conditions, ranging from snake bites to fevers to stom-
ach pains to gout, fall into the non-​specific group; recipes that target a range
of similar conditions are considered semi-​specific; and recipes that intend to
treat a single condition have been classified as highly specific. While the dif-
ference between these levels of specificity is subjective, their divisions become
easier to see when mapped onto the recipe literature. Consider, for example,
recipes that target joint pain: when joint pain is listed as one of a host of dif-
ferent conditions, the recipe is classified as non-​specific, but when it is found
alongside a more limited number of other symptoms, such as dislocations
and fractures, the recipe is considered semi-​specific (all of the conditions the
recipe intends to treat involve pain management). In contrast, a remedy that
only targets joint pain, whether general arthritic pains or a named joint area,
falls under the highly specific category. Given the particularly focused nature
of highly specific treatments, the following case studies tend to concentrate on
this category of recipes in relation to the skeletal evidence.
Having reviewed the significance of the question of applicability and out-
lined my approach to re-​evaluating the recipe literature, it is now possible to
turn to the first case study, an investigation into the applicability of early medi-
eval treatments for dental problems.

55 In the tables of Chapters 7–​9, these categories are generally abbreviated as: NSp, SSp, and
HSp, respectively.

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 ­c hapter 7

Dental Disease
From Caries to Cosmetics

1 Introduction: a Monk From Lorsch

When considering human health in the past, few sights are more compelling
than a skeleton that shows clear signs of disease. Figure 8 offers one such
encounter, presenting a skull with evidence of a variety of dental problems,
including caries, deposits of dental calculus, and periodontal disease. Figures 9
and 10 provide a closer look at the state of this individual’s dentition, high-
lighting carious lesions (pointed out by arrows in Figure 9), deposits of calcu-
lus (seen as the deposits on the surface of the teeth in Figure 10), and dental
enamel hypoplasia, deh (evidenced by the horizontal bands across the teeth
in Figure 10). This individual, a male aged thirty-​five to forty years old at the
time of his death, was uncovered in excavations at Lorsch in 1999.1 His burial
was part of the so-​called Mönchsfriedhof, a cemetery within the Abbey com-
plex that is thought to have been used primarily by the monastic community.
Radiocarbon dating indicates that he lived during the late Carolingian period.2
What can be learnt about early medieval dental health by studying this monk
and other individuals from this period? And how do their teeth compare to the
descriptions of dental problems recorded in recipes?
Teeth provide a wealth of information. The oral pathologies recorded in the
Lorsch monk’s dentition, for example, do not present a straightforward case of
disease but can offer a much more nuanced picture of the state of his health,
both at the time of his death and in earlier phases of his life. Unlike bones,
which remodel throughout an individual’s life, teeth can provide a snapshot
of the period in which their growth occurred, generally infancy or childhood,
while simultaneously recording later dietary and disease experiences. Thus,
the presence of carious lesions and calculus point to poor dental hygiene as
an adult and illustrate the state of his oral health at the time of his death. The
existence of deh, on the other hand, reveals that he may have suffered from
malnutrition or serious, growth-​interrupting disease(s) at a young age.

1 Kropp, Kirsch, Rosendahl, Orschiedt, and Fischer, Begraben und Vergessen?, 38–​9.
2 The date range given by radiocarbon dating is 888–​966. Kropp, Kirsch, Rosendahl, Orschiedt,
and Fischer, Begraben und Vergessen?, 38–​9.

© Claire Burridge, 2024 | DOI:​1 0.1163/9789004466173_008

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174  Chapter 7

­f igure 8
A skull from an individual buried in the monastic burial
area at Lorsch
© staatliche schlösser und gärten hessen,
licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0

­f igure 9
Carious lesions visible on skeletal remains excavated
at Lorsch
© staatliche schlösser und gärten hessen,
licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0

­f igure 10
Dental calculus and deh visible on skeletal remains
excavated at Lorsch
© staatliche schlösser und gärten hessen,
licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0

In this chapter, I shall concentrate on dental disease, first reviewing evi-

dence from early medieval skeletal remains and then analysing recipes that
concern treatments for toothaches, lost teeth, mouth sores, and other aspects
of oral health. With both bodies of evidence in mind, I then consider the
question of applicability. Overall, many of the symptoms listed in the texts
appear to have a high degree of overlap with conditions seen in the osteolog-
ical record: treatments for toothache, mouth sores, lost/​loose teeth, putridity,
and gum problems fit with the pathologies observed in the skeletal remains

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Dental Disease 175

in essentially all of the sites consulted. I argue, therefore, that the treatments
for dental problems recorded in the texts would have been highly applicable
to many individuals in early medieval Europe. A consideration of several cat-
egories of recipes, such as treatments that target specific types of teeth, adds
further weight to this argument.

2 Oral Health in the Skeletal Evidence

Dental remains represent one of the best materials to study when investigating
health and disease in the past, and not simply because of the range of informa-
tion they can provide as noted above. Crucially, teeth tend to ‘resist destruction
and taphonomic conditions better than any other body tissue’ due to their pro-
tective layer of enamel.3 Before examining the state of dental health as seen
in early medieval skeletal assemblages, I shall provide a brief review of dental
anatomy and common conditions and address several tooth-​specific method-
ological challenges.

2.1 Dental Disease in the Archaeological Record: an Overview

All mammals have two sets of teeth: a set of primary, deciduous teeth that are
lost after weaning and a set of secondary, permanent teeth; in humans, the
primary dentition contains twenty teeth while the secondary has thirty-​two.4
The permanent dentition is made up of four types of teeth (incisors, canines,
pre-​molars, and molars), each with a different function related to processing
food.5 Teeth consist of four primary tissues: enamel, dentine, cementum, and

3 Luis Pezo Lanfranco and Sabine Eggers, ‘Caries Through Time: An Anthropological
Overview’, in Contemporary Approach to Dental Caries, ed. Ming-​Yu Li (Rijeka: IntechOpen,
2012), 3–​34, https://​doi​.org​/10​.5772​/38059; Odin M. Langsjoen, ‘Diseases of the Dentition’,
in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Paleopathology, ed. Arthur C. Aufderheide and
Conrado Rodríguez-​Martín (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 393–​412, at
p. 393; Waldron, Palaeopathology, 236–​48.
4 Langsjoen, ‘Diseases of the Dentition’, 394.
5 Langsjoen, ‘Diseases of the Dentition’, 395. As this chapter focuses on the state of dental
health generally, I shall not detail the nomenclature and annotation used to describe each
tooth and tooth area, but it is important to note that there are several systems used to record
the state of teeth uncovered in excavations, including the International Coding System (rec-
ommended by the Fédération dentaire internationale) and the Standards System (similar
to the ics but with a visual format); differences in recording and analysing teeth and asso-
ciated pathologies may account for some of the variation observed when comparing results
from multiple sites. For more information on tooth anatomy, see Simon Hillson, Dental
Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6–​105.

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176  Chapter 7

dental pulp. Enamel, the outer-​most protective layer, is almost entirely made
up of mineral content (96%), making it among the hardest substances in
the body.6 The second layer, dentine, also called the root of the tooth, forms
another layer of protection for the pulp, though it is less hard than enamel.
Cementum, a bony connective tissue, links the root of the tooth to the perio-
dontal ligament.7 Finally, the pulp, the inner-​most part of the tooth, contains
the soft tissue. Collectively, the tissues supporting and affixing a tooth to the
alveolar bone are called the periodontium.8 While this study concentrates on
teeth, an analysis of dental health cannot ignore the surrounding tissues, such
as the gingiva (gums) and alveolar bone.
Turning to the types of pathologies recorded in the skeletal remains, car-
ies, a term derived from the Latin caries, meaning decay or rottenness, is ‘the
most common cause of oral pain and tooth loss’ and ‘one of the few conditions
which has been recorded unfailingly in almost all reports on human remains
from archaeological sites’.9 As seen in Figure 9, the Carolingian monk from
Lorsch was suffering from multiple carious lesions when he died. The disease is
a progressive bacterial condition that affects the calcified dental tissues, dem-
ineralising the inorganic material and destroying the organic components.10
Caries tend to occur at two different locations on the tooth surface, either at
the crown or the root, resulting in several types of lesions with differing aetiol-
ogies.11 Coronal caries begin with the destruction of the enamel, then the den-
tine, and eventually penetrate the pulp chamber; molars and pre-​molars tend
to be the most affected by this type of lesion due to their complex network of
fissures, fossae and groves.12 Root caries occur more frequently in later life due
to the effects of periodontal disease (addressed below), whereby the recession
of the gingivae and underlying supporting tissues exposes a tooth’s cementum
and roots, making them susceptible to infection.13
In their review of evidence for caries from prehistory to the present day,
Luis Pezo Lanfranco and Sabine Eggers reported that the disease reached a

6 Langsjoen, ‘Diseases of the Dentition’, 396.

7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 First quotation from Waldron, Palaeopathology, 236; second quotation from Simon
Hillson, ‘Recording Dental Caries in Archaeological Human Remains’, International
Journal of Osteoarchaeology 11, no. 4 (2001): 249–​89, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1002​/oa​.538, at
p. 249. Note that the term ‘caries’ remains the same whether singular or plural.
10 Langsjoen, ‘Diseases of the Dentition’, 402.
11 Hillson, ‘Recording Dental Caries’, 250.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.

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Dental Disease 177

peak in the early Middle Ages, having increased steadily from c. 1200 bc.14 This
peak was followed by a period of relative stability for several centuries, before
rising dramatically with the largescale introduction of sugar in the early mod-
ern period.15 Although skeletal evidence indicates that both sexes were heavily
affected by carious lesions, males tend to exhibit a lower prevalence of car-
ies than females. While the cause of this difference continues to be debated,
females may be predisposed to the development of caries due to earlier tooth
eruptions and hormonal fluctuations as well as ‘culturally regulated’ differ-
ences, such as gendered access to certain foods in some populations.16 The
recording and analysis of caries in the archaeological record is complicated
other pathologies, such as the effects of abrasion or the accumulation of dental
calculus.
The aging process has been linked to a number of degenerative changes in
the dentition, including attrition (wear), erosion, and abrasion.17 Paradoxically,
the rate of attrition and abrasiveness of an individual’s diet have been tied to
both the development and inhibition of caries.18 On the one hand, abrasive
foods and extensive wear may increase the risk of chipping teeth, creating
spaces in which dental plaque can collect while simultaneously exposing lines
of weakness and/​or areas of dentine.19 On the other hand, a high level of den-
tal wear and abrasion can erode the carious tissue and dislodge plaque, pro-
tecting the teeth from the accumulation of bacteria.20 The degree to which
these processes support or inhibit the initiation of caries remains a conten-
tious issue in the field.
Dental calculus also presents a complex relationship with caries. Deposits
of calculus are formed over time as plaque, a biofilm made up of bacteria and
fragments of food particles, accumulates on the surface of a tooth and even-
tually mineralises.21 In theory, there is an inverse relationship between the
development of caries and the build-​up of calculus since the latter requires an
alkaline environment (resulting in net mineralisation) while the former
requires an acidic environment (resulting in net demineralisation).22 Both

14 Pezo Lanfranco and Eggers, ‘Caries through Time’, 8.

15 Ibid, 8–​9.
16 Ibid, 17.
17 Langsjoen, ‘Diseases of the Dentition’, 398.
18 Hillson, ‘Recording Dental Caries’, 263–​5.
19 Ibid, 263.
20 Ibid.
21 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 240–​1.
22 Ibid.

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178  Chapter 7

pathologies, however, are often found together, indicating that other factors
play a role in the development of both caries and calculus.23
Periodontal disease, or periodontitis, is a chronic, destructive inflammatory
process that affects the tissues of the periodontium over time.24 This occurs as
plaque accumulates at the gum margin and is one of the main causes of ante-​
mortem tooth loss (amtl), a topic addressed in more detail below.25 In the
archaeological record, the condition is identified by a receded alveolar margin
and the bone often exhibits signs of inflammation and remodelling.26
Cysts, abscesses, and granulomas are three different types of lesions found
at the apex of the tooth that are caused by an infection of the dental pulp.27 If
the infected tooth is not removed, the infection induces an immune response
in the periapical tissue, a cavity.28 While acute abscesses and granulomas tend
to be less than 3 mm, cysts and chronic abscesses can be much larger, making
them easily recognisable in the archaeological record (as seen in Figures 12 and
13 below).29
Tooth loss, though not necessarily pathological, must also be mentioned
since many teeth may be missing from excavated skeletal remains. It is often
possible to determine whether teeth were lost before or after death based on
the appearance of the tooth’s socket. Post-​mortem tooth loss (pmtl), which
can occur as a result of taphonomic processes or during excavation and con-
servation, leaves a ‘pristine’ tooth socket with no signs of remodelling.30 In the
case of amtl, the alveolar bone will ‘show some degree of remodelling’ and the
socket will eventually smooth over (an example of a jaw with extensive amtl
can be seen below in Figure 14a).31 amtl is a useful measure of dental health
since teeth tend to be lost as a result of carious lesions, periodontal disease,
and/​or intentional extraction due to these causes, though it must be remem-
bered that they can also be lost due to trauma, non-​medical extraction (e.g.,
ritual or cosmetic extractions), and other diseases (such as scurvy).32 Although

23 Hillson, ‘Recording Dental Caries’, 265; Waldron, Palaeopathology, 241.

24 Langsjoen, ‘Diseases of the Dentition’, 398–​9.
25 John R. Lukacs, ‘Oral Health in Past Populations: Context, Concepts and Controversies’, in
A Companion to Paleopathology, ed. Anne L. Grauer (Chichester: Wiley-​Blackwell, 2012),
553–​81, at p. 560.
26 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 240.
27 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 241–​3; Lukacs, ‘Oral Health in Past Populations’, 560.
28 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 241–​3; Langsjoen, ‘Diseases of the Dentition’, 408.
29 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 241–​3.
30 Ibid, 238–​9.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.

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Dental Disease 179

it is often possible to differentiate amtl from pmtl, it remains largely impos-

sible to determine the cause of amtl. That being said, since some cases of
amtl were almost certainly caused by caries, it is important to remember
that the reported incidence of carious lesions in archaeological contexts most
probably under-​reports their actual incidence. In terms of recording caries, the
biases created by attrition and dental calculus must also be mentioned: heavy
attrition and calculus build-​up may erase or obscure the existence of carious
lesions.33
Finally, temporomandibular joint disease and deh will not be discussed in
this chapter. Temporomandibular joint disease, or osteoarthritis of the jaw, is
less concerned with oral health, though it occurs in the same area of the body,
and more reflective of osteoarthritic changes over time.34 deh, mentioned in
relation to the Lorsch monk pictured above (see especially Figure 10), docu-
ments periods of stunted growth that coincided with the time at which the
tooth was developing. The disruption of growth in infancy and childhood is
generally due to poor nutrition, starvation, or disease at a ‘life-​threatening
magnitude of severity’.35 As such, deh is understood as a non-​specific indi-
cator of stress and is studied in relation to diet, nutrition, and overall disease
load. Although the striations caused by enamel hypoplasia create areas that
are more prone to developing caries, the condition is not otherwise linked to
dental disease and will therefore be omitted from the following analysis.36

2.2 Skeletal Evidence for Oral Pathologies in Early Medieval Europe

Stereotypes of medieval dentition are often extremely negative. Caricatures of
medieval people have ensured that the popular image of pre-​modern teeth is
one of decay, disease, and poor hygiene. Is this picture an accurate portrayal
of the situation or a gross exaggeration? The review of caries over time con-
ducted by Pezo Lanfranco and Eggers noted that carious lesions, as recorded by
archaeological evidence, increased throughout Antiquity and then peaked in
roughly 750 ad.37 Their findings suggest that common assumptions about the
state of medieval oral health may not be far from the truth.

33 Hillson, ‘Recording Dental Caries’, 264.

34 Langsjoen, ‘Diseases of the Dentition’, 399–​ 400; Lukacs, ‘Oral Health in Past
Populations’, 560.
35 Langsjoen, ‘Diseases of the Dentition’, 405–​7.
36 Hillson, ‘Recording Dental Caries’, 265; Waldron, Palaeopathology, 265–​7.
37 Pezo Lanfranco and Eggers, ‘Caries through Time’, 8–​9.

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180  Chapter 7

­f igure 11 
A close-​up of carious lesions from skeletal remains excavated
at Lorsch
© staatliche schlösser und gärten hessen, licensed
under cc by-​n c 4.0

The dental health of the individual from Lorsch highlighted above, how-
ever, might not have been as bad as popular stereotypes suggest. Although he
clearly suffered from carious lesions, was missing teeth, and exhibited depos-
its of calculus, these features must be examined in more detail. The missing
teeth, for example, appear to have been lost post-​mortem (see Figure 9) and
the build-​up of calculus is relatively light (see Figure 10). While it cannot be
said that his dental health was good, it was also not extremely poor. How does
his dental record fit with the rest of the sample from Lorsch?
Overall, the dental remains excavated at Lorsch contain a relatively high
percentage of teeth affected by caries.38 Figure 11, for example, illustrates two
teeth excavated at Lorsch that have been severely damaged by carious lesions.
Many teeth also exhibit calculus deposits, and often of a higher degree than
that seen in the opening example. Compare the relatively light presence of cal-
culus seen in Figure 10 with the much heavier accumulation seen in Figure 12.
The deposits of calculus are clearly visible in the three remaining molars of
the maxilla. A large cyst in the mandible is also observable in Figure 12. It is
likely that this stemmed from a carious lesion in the molar, now missing, under
which it is located. Similarly, Figure 13 provides evidence of both extensive cal-
culus deposits (best seen on the left-​most tooth) and a deep abscess in the

38 Kropp, Kirsch, Rosendahl, Orschiedt, and Fischer, Begraben und Vergessen?, and supple-
mented by personal communications with members of the scientific board of Lorsch,
including Claus Kropp and Hermann Schefers.

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Dental Disease 181

­f igure 12
Evidence of calculus build-​up and a cyst seen on
skeletal remains excavated at Lorsch
© staatliche schlösser und gärten hessen,
licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0

­f igure 13
Evidence of calculus deposits and an abscess on
skeletal remains excavated at Lorsch
© staatliche schlösser und gärten hessen,
licensed under cc by-​n c 4.0

mandible. In this case, the abscess has exposed the root of a tooth affected by
a carious lesion. These images, combined with the general assessments made
by the researchers at Lorsch, illustrate the overall poor state of dental health
in medieval Lorsch.
Despite these general signs of dental disease, it must be stressed that the
sample from Lorsch displays a high degree of variability. Consider, for exam-
ple, the two jaws pictured in Figure 14. The image on the left shows clear signs
of extensive amtl: not a single tooth remains in this mandible and nearly all
sockets appear to have been fully remodelled, suggesting that the vast majority
of teeth were lost at least several years before the individual died. This example
fits with the evidence highlighted above, adding further weight to the picture
of poor dental health. The image on the right, however, provides a stark con-
trast. In this case, all of the teeth are present and intact; none exhibits signs of
caries, major calculus build-​up, or periodontal disease; and there is little evi-
dence of attrition. This serves as a valuable reminder, demonstrating that, even

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182  Chapter 7

­f igure 14 
Contrasting dental health visible in the skeletal remains excavated
at Lorsch
© staatliche schlösser und gärten hessen, licensed
under cc by-​n c 4.0

at sites with many examples of dental pathologies, there is often a spectrum

of oral health.
The Lorsch assemblage offers a visual entry point into this overview of evi-
dence for early medieval dental disease, and one that is particularly significant
given that the monastic centre is known to have produced medical texts con-
taining recipe collections during this period. Yet, just as the skeletal remains
excavated at a single site can vary immensely, so, too, can there be major dif-
ferences between sites. While, in some cases, this may be due to differing exca-
vation and recording systems, on the other hand, variation may arise due to
differences in diet and other health factors. So, how do the findings at Lorsch
compare to other sites in early medieval Europe?
To illustrate the potential for variation between sites, consider the dispar-
ities between the results of the excavations of Biel-​Mett and San Lorenzo di
Desenzano. The report from Biel-​Mett, a cemetery in the present-​day Canton
of Bern used from the late sixth or early seventh centuries to the late eighth
or early ninth centuries, included an assessment of the dentitions from forty-​
three skulls. The authors noted that ‘most of the individuals had suffered from
periodontal disease’ and that the population exhibited a high degree of abra-
sion as well as a relatively high frequency of caries (30% of recovered teeth
were affected) and amtl (23%).39 In contrast, archaeologists working at San
Lorenzo di Desenzano, a northern Italian site whose second phase of use has
been dated to the Carolingian period, recorded significantly fewer incidences

39 Jean-​François Roulet and Susi Ulrich-​Bochsler, ‘Zahnärztliche Untersuchung frühmit-

telalterlicher Schädel aus Biel-​Mett’, Schweizerische Monatsschrift für Zahnheilkunde 89,
no. 6 (1979): 526–​40, at p. 526.

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Dental Disease 183

of oral pathologies. Caries were noted in only 6.1% of teeth, amtl accounted
for just 10.8% of teeth, and very few abscesses were observed.40 While the sig-
nificant differences between these two sites could be due, at least in part, to
differences in the excavation and data recording methods employed by the
research teams responsible for this work, it is likely that these populations
experienced different living conditions and/​or variations in diet. Regardless,
even though individuals buried at San Lorenzo di Desenzano appear to have
enjoyed relatively good dental health overall, some people still suffered from
caries, amtl, and abscesses.
Age is another factor that sometimes helps to explain the high level of var-
iation between sites. Excavations at a Merovingian-​Carolingian cemetery in
Cherbourg, for example, uncovered 111 subadult individuals dating from the
seventh to eleventh centuries.41 Within this sample, there was no evidence of
carious lesions on permanent teeth, while only 1.3% of deciduous teeth were
affected by the disease.42 This is a strikingly low incidence of caries and unlike
any other site involved in the present study: barely any carious lesions were
reported despite the relatively large sample size. The results appear less unu-
sual, however, when the age of the individuals is considered. This study focused
on a sample of subadults, meaning that, at the time of their death, their teeth
had been exposed to cariogenic environments for only a short period of time.
Since caries is an age-​linked disease that progresses over time, this very low
frequency would be expected.
Excepting cases such as Cherbourg, the evidence from most sites looks more
like that from Lorsch or Biel-​Mett, exhibiting some intra-​site variation but, on
the whole, moderate to high levels of caries and amtl. The excavation report
of the cemetery at Santa Maria Assunta di Cairate, a rural monastic site used
from the late sixth to ninth centuries, provides a detailed assessment of the

40 Alessandro Canci, Alexandra Chavarría Arnau, and Maurizio Marinato, ‘Il cimitero
della chiesa altomedievale di San Lorenzo di Desenzano (bs): note di bioarcheologia’,
in vi Congresso Nazionale di Archeologia Medievale. Sala Conferenze “E. Sericchi”, Centro
Direzionale CARISPAQ “Strinella 88”. L’Aquila, 12–​15 settembre 2012, ed. Fabio Redi and
Alfonso Forgione (Florence: All’Insegna del Giglio, 2012), 452–​5.
41 V. Garcin, P. Velemínsky, P. Trefny, A. Alduc-​Le Bagousse, A. Lefebvre, and J. Bruzek,
‘Dental Health and Lifestyle in Four Early Mediaeval Juvenile Populations: Comparisons
between Urban and Rural Individuals, and between Coastal and Inland Settlements’,
homo—​Journal of Comparative Human Biology 61, no. 6 (2010): 421–​39, https://​doi​.org​/10​
.1016​/j​.jchb​.2010​.06​.004, at pp. 423–​4.
42 Garcin, Velemínsky, Trefny, Alduc-​Le Bagousse, Lefebvre, and Bruzek, ‘Dental Health and
Lifestyle’, 430.

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184  Chapter 7

dental remains recovered from three distinct burial areas.43 The dental mate-
rial from Group A, which included sixteen individuals, nearly all of whom were
female, were relatively poorly preserved: only fifty-​two teeth (out of a possible
512) were identified and all maxillae and mandibles were fragmentary.44 Given
this state of preservation, it is not surprising that only three individuals exhib-
ited signs of caries. However, the carious lesions of one of these individuals
were very severe and, despite the fragmentary nature of the jaw bones, exten-
sive amtl was also noted.45 Group B, which appears to have been used as the
burial area for an elite family, included eight individuals.46 Although only one
individual exhibited evidence of caries, this was another particularly severe
case: thirteen teeth, mostly pre-molars and molars, were affected.47 Finally,
the dental remains of Group C, representing the population of the surround-
ing area, also experienced relatively poor preservation, and only fifteen of the
sixty-​eight individuals uncovered were analysed.48 Yet within this sample,
eight individuals exhibited carious lesions (five of whom were female), repre-
senting a higher frequency of caries than what was reported in Groups A and
B. Again, pre-molars and molars were the most affected teeth.49
In the excavation reports of early medieval cemeteries in Acqui Terme and
Rivoli, the former in use between the seventh and ninth centuries and the lat-
ter between the sixth and eighth centuries, it was noted that individuals exhib-
ited high levels of amtl and caries.50 Indeed, at least one carious lesion was
recorded on all of the female individuals studied and nearly two-​thirds of the
males.51 Likewise, a higher incidence of caries was noted among females exca-
vated at the Saint Servatius complex in Maastricht, a site from which eighty-​
three individuals have been dated to the so-​called ‘Basilica Phase’ of its use,

43 Anny Mattucci, Cristina Ravedoni, and Elena Rettore, ‘Analisi antropologica e paleopa-
tologica della popolazione rinvenuta nel monastero dell’Assunta di Cairate’, in Un mon-
astero nei secoli. Santa Maria Assunta di Cairate: scavi e ricerche, ed. Valeria Mariotti
(Mantua: sap, 2014), 519–​32.
44 Mattucci, Ravedoni, and Rettore, ‘Analisi antropologica e paleopatologica’, 520, 524–​5.
45 Ibid, 524–​5.
46 Ibid, 520–​1.
47 Ibid, 524–​5.
48 Ibid, 521–​3, 525.
49 Ibid, 525.
50 Francesco Mallegni, Elena Bedini, Angelica Vitiello, Laura Paglialunga, and Fulvio Bartoli,
‘Su alcuni gruppi umani del territorio piemontese dal iv al xviii secolo: aspetti di pale-
obiologia’, in Archeologia in Piemonte, ed. Liliana Mercando, Marica Venturino Gambari,
and Egle Micheletto, vol. 3 (Turin: Allemandi, 1998), 233–​61.
51 Mallegni, Bedini, Vitiello, Paglialunga, and Bartoli, ‘Su alcuni gruppi umani’, 233–​61.

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Dental Disease 185

which roughly overlaps with the Carolingian period.52 Overall, of the thirty-​
two adults with sufficiently preserved dental remains, over half exhibited evi-
dence of caries and amtl.53
Other sites present a similar picture. Caries were reported for approximately
two-​thirds of the fifty-​eight adults excavated at San Lorenzo di Quingentole,
a cemetery used from the late sixth or early seventh to eighth centuries.54 At
Bolgare, a late Lombard necropolis containing the remains of over 400 indi-
viduals, the widespread presence of carious lesions was also noted.55 However,
in contrast to these particularly high frequencies, only two out of eleven indi-
viduals (18.2%) uncovered at the Church of San Zeno, Campione d’Italia, a
site thought to have been used by the descendants of the Lombard merchant
Totone, exhibited signs of caries.56 One of these individuals, however, a male
aged roughly fifty years old at the time of his death, presented numerous cari-
ous lesions, reflecting the progressive nature of the disease.57
While caries are typically the dental pathology most thoroughly addressed
in archaeological reports, other aspects of dental health, such as patterns of
attrition, evidence of periodontal disease, and the presence of calculus and
abscesses are often noted, as well. The dental remains of the single burial
found in the church of San Vito di Illegio in Tolmezzo, Udine, for example, were

52 Panhuysen, ‘Demography and Health in Early Medieval Maastricht’, 206. In total, the
excavations of the Saint Servatius site identified 244 individuals buried in and around the
church complex dated between c. 350 and c. 950; the ‘Basilica Phase’ covers the third and
final period of use within this date range (pp. 120–​1).
53 Ibid, 206–​8.
54 Marco Dal Poz, Francesca Ricci, Bruno Reale, Maddalena Malvone, Loretana Salvadei,
and Giorgio Manzi, ‘Paleobiologia della popolazione altomedievale di San Lorenzo di
Quingentole, Mantova’, in San Lorenzo di Quingentole: archeologia, storia ed antropologia,
ed. Alberto Manicardi (Mantua: sap, 2001), 151–​98.
55 Cristina Cattaneo and Andrea Mazzucchi, ‘Popolazioni tardo antiche e dell’alto medioevo
narrate dai resti ossei: il progetto di una banca dati lombarda’, in La via Carolingia: uomini
e idee sulle strade d’Europa. Dal sistema viario al sistema informativo, ed. Paola Marina De
Marchi and Stefano Pilato (Mantua: sap, 2013), 87–​98.
56 Note: this site contains many more individuals when all phases of use are considered;
Phase 2, with eleven individuals, was the most relevant period of use to include in this
study. Paul Blockley, Roberto Caimi, Donatella Caporusso, Cristina Cattaneo, Paola Marina
De Marchi, Lucia Miazzo, Davide Porta, and Cristina Ravedoni, ‘Campione d’Italia. Scavi
archeologici nella ex chiesa di San Zeno’, in Carte di famiglia. Strategie, rappresentazione
e memoria del gruppo familiare di Totone di Campione (721–​877), ed. Stefano Gasparri and
Cristina La Rocca (Rome: Viella, 2005), 29–​80.
57 Blockley, Caimi, Caporusso, Cattaneo, De Marchi, Miazzo, Porta, and Ravedoni, ‘Campione
d’Italia’, 56–​8.

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186  Chapter 7

described in detail.58 Dated to the Carolingian period, this individual, another

male aged approximately fifty, exhibited evidence of mild periodontitis and
deposits of dental calculus. Notably, his teeth were very worn, and this high
degree of attrition may explain the relatively low levels of caries reported.59
Returning to the Saint Servatius complex, periapical abscesses were observed
in over half of the assessed individuals (seventeen of thirty-​two), while dental
calculus was seen in nearly all cases (twenty-​eight of thirty-​two).60
The three groups at Santa Maria Assunta di Cairate display some differences
in the degree to which they were affected by the long-​term processes of wear
as well as their level of calculus accumulation. It was recorded that individuals
from Group A, despite their relatively poor preservation, exhibited evidence of
periodontitis and a significant build-​up of calculus, especially on the canines
and pre-molars.61 Moderate levels of attrition and two cases of abscesses were
also recorded. In Group B, all recovered teeth exhibited evidence of wear,
though it was fairly light, and, in one case, a large amount of calculus had accu-
mulated.62 Attrition was greater in Group C, with most individuals exhibiting a
moderate level of wear; four individuals, however, showed signs of exception-
ally intense wear, resulting in the erosion of the dental crown to the dentine
in some teeth.63 Calculus was noted on the teeth of many individuals, with a
particularly large amount reported on two males. Four severe abscesses were
recorded, three of which affected females.
An extraordinary case from Seckenheim, a cemetery used from the sixth to
eighth centuries, deserves special mention.64 The individual buried in grave
595 exhibited dental calculus on seven of nine recovered teeth, with two teeth
displaying an extremely large build-​up of calculus, ‘almost dwarfing the teeth

58 Valeria Amoretti, Aurora Cagnana, Paola Greppi, and Andrea Saccocci, ‘Lo scavo della
chiesa di San Vito di Illegio (Tolmezzo, UD). Una “Eigenkirche” carolingia nelle Alpi
Carniche’, in v Congresso Nazionale di Archeologia Medievale. Palazzo della Dogana, Salone
del Tribunale (Foggia); Palazzo dei Celestini, Auditorium (Manfredonia); 30 settembre-​
3 ottobre 2009, ed. Giuliano Volpe and Pasquale Favia (Florence: All’Insegna del Giglio,
2009), 487–​91.
59 Amoretti, Cagnana, Greppi, and Saccocci, ‘Lo scavo della chiesa di San Vito di Illegio’,
487–​91.
60 Panhuysen, ‘Demography and Health in Early Medieval Maastricht’, 210.
61 Mattucci, Ravedoni, and Rettore, ‘Analisi antropologica e paleopatologica’, 524–​5.
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid, 525.
64 J. L. Hansen and K. W. Alt, ‘An Exceptional Case of Dental Calculus in a Merovingian
Skeleton from Mannheim-​ Seckenheim’, Bulletin of the International Association for
Paleodontology 6, no. 2 (2012): 70–​6.

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Dental Disease 187

themselves’.65 Five periapical lesions were also noted in the sockets of teeth
that were lost ante-​mortem and caries were present on one of the remaining
teeth, revealing that this individual suffered from very poor dental health.66
Yet it is the size of the calculus deposits that are the most striking feature: their
dimensions ‘indicate that the teeth were not used for mastication for some
time before death’, suggesting that this individual must have consumed a par-
ticularly liquid diet in the final years of their life.67
The findings reviewed above indicate that many early medieval individuals
suffered from a number of different oral health problems. Although there are
large variations between sites, it is evident that dental disease would have been
a serious concern for all populations: carious lesions were recorded at all sites
involved in the present study and are a common cause of amtl. The loss of
teeth in life was probably not only a very painful process, but also potentially
debilitating, affecting an individual’s ability to eat as well as their appearance.
Although most reports did not comment on sex-​based differences, at several
sites, such as Saint Servatius, Acqui Terme, and Rivoli, it appears that females
were more frequently affected by caries, a result that fits with studies from other
periods.68 Molars and pre-molars were often noted as being particularly affected
by carious lesions in several reports (and illustrated by Figures 9 and 11), findings
that also correspond with the scientific literature on the disease.69 Although
many excavation reports focus more on caries, there is still an extensive record
of periodontal disease, abscesses, and calculus build-​up within the literature.
Overall, the generally high frequency of caries and amtl, combined with the
presence of a number of other pathologies reported at some sites, suggests that
dental disease took a significant toll on many individuals during this period.

3 Recipes to Treat Dental Disease

As might be expected based on the osteological record, early medieval medical

texts preserve many examples of treatments for dental problems. An in-​depth

65 Hansen and Alt, ‘An Exceptional Case of Dental Calculus’, 72.

66 Ibid.
67 Ibid.
68 Pezo Lanfranco and Eggers, ‘Caries through Time’, 17. See also Belén López Martínez,
Antonio Fernández Pardiñas, Eva García Vázquez, and Eduardo Dopico Rodríguez, ‘Socio-​
Cultural Factors in Dental Diseases in the Medieval and Early Modern Age of Northern
Spain’, homo—​Journal of Comparative Human Biology 63, no. 1 (2012): 21–​42, https://​doi​
.org​/10​.1016​/j​.jchb​.2011​.12​.001​.
69 Hillson, ‘Recording Dental Caries’, 250.

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188  Chapter 7

review of the recipe literature may provide deeper insights into the nature of
this overlap: do treatments comment on particular symptoms or describe the
specific problems they target? To what extent does the evidence presented
by the osteological remains align with or reshape how the texts have been
understood?
Within the recipe sample, 248 recipes are presented as treatments for condi-
tions of the teeth and mouth, such as tooth pain, cavities, and ulcers. In other
words, approximately five percent of all recipes analysed in this study address
dental disease and related concerns. While many other recipes concern con-
ditions near the mouth, such as those intended to treat sore throats, inflamed
tonsils, and cracked lips, only recipes that clearly indicate that they were
intended to treat symptoms that can be linked to dental conditions have been
selected for analysis (this includes recipes in which dental conditions are the
only treatment target named as well as recipes in which dental conditions are
one of multiple possible targets). A number of prescriptions with ambiguous
phrasing that could potentially treat problems of the teeth and mouth have
been excluded given their uncertainty.
As seen in Table 10, the recipes can be divided into six general categories
according to the information they record. That is, if an early medieval reader
came across this text, what would the recipe seem to be intended to treat? Or
if an individual were seeking a treatment for a particular condition, such as
toothache or putrid breath, what key words would they look for in a recipe
collection? As a result, this categorisation is often based on the titles of rec-
ipes, though, where applicable, any additional information provided within
recipes is also taken into account. The categories are: 1) toothache, 2) ulcers,
sores, wounds, and burns, 3) cavities and tooth loss, 4) putridity and cosmetics,
5) general, unspecified mouth complaints, and 6) gum problems.

table 10 Categories of dental pathologies

Categories # of recipes % of total (248)

Toothache 121 48.8%

Ulcers, sores, etc. 33 13.4%
Cavities and tooth loss 31 12.5%
Putridity and cosmetics 26 10.5%
Mouth complaints (unspecified) 20 8.1%
Gum problems 17 6.9%

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Dental Disease 189

table 11 Specificity of dental pathologies

Specificity # of recipes % of total (248)

NSp 22 8.9%
SSp 34 13.7%
HSp 192 77.4%

Naturally, there is some overlap between these categories—​ulcers or sores of

the mouth, ulcera oris, could be due to an underlying cavity, for example, and
putrid breath was surely a result of generally poor dental hygiene and related
to other oral health problems. Some recipes also mention multiple conditions
and could therefore be classified in more than one of the categories. In many
of these cases, the recipe’s title may present a single (primary) condition/​
symptom it is intended to treat with additional (secondary) conditions/​symp-
toms listed at the end of the recipe. A recipe to treat bloody gums, Ad gengiuas
plenas sanguinem, in cod. sang. 751, for instance, ends with a note stating that
it is not only a useful treatment for the gums but also for the teeth, throat,
and uvula.70 Similarly, where a series of recipes is listed under a single heading
with a primary treatment aim, individual recipes within the series may pres-
ent extra conditions and symptoms for which these recipes can also be used.
Consider a group of nine recipes in BnF lat. 11218 listed under the title Ad oris
uicia.71 While this heading indicates that the following recipes are intended to
treat unspecified mouth problems, several also record more targeted applica-
tions. For example, the sixth recipe in this series, titled Item ad gingiuas qui
reumatizant, is aimed at treating the gums in addition to more general mouth
complaints.72 When applicable, I have grouped recipes according to their pri-
mary treatment target (generally the condition/​symptom named in the title),
though it is important to remember that some recipes were recorded as treat-
ments for multiple aspects of dental health.
Before considering each category, the specificity of these recipes must be
mentioned (see Table 11). As discussed in Chapter 6, it can be helpful to sort reci-
pes into non-​specific, semi-​specific, and highly specific categories. Non-​specific
recipes represent very broad, cure-​all treatments (typically antidotes) whereas

70 Cod. sang. 751, p. 473: Ad gengiuas plenas sanguinem … non solum gengiuas cumtetiris utile
est, sed a dentes et faucis et uuam oportum est. See Appendix 2, entry 9.37.1.
71 BnF lat. 11218, ff. 89r–​89v, Ad oris uicia. See Appendix 2, entry 3.5.
72 BnF lat. 11218, f. 89v, Item ad gingiuas qui reumatizant. See Appendix 2, entry 3.5.6.

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190  Chapter 7

table 12 Categories of dental pathologies with breakdown of specificity

Categories Total NSp SSp HSp

# of recipes # of recipes # of recipes # of recipes

% of 248 % of 22 % of 34 % of 192
Toothache 121 11 27 83
49.1% 50.0% 79.4% 43.2%

Ulcers, sores, etc. 33 1 2 30

13.3% 4.5% 5.9% 15.6%

Cavities and tooth 31 5 1 25

loss 12.5% 22.7% 2.9% 13.0%

Putridity and 26 2 2 22
cosmetics 10.5% 9.1% 5.9% 11.5%

Mouth complaints 20 2 2 16
(unspecified) 8.1% 9.1% 5.9% 8.3%

Gum problems 17 1 0 16
6.9% 4.5% 8.3%

semi-​specific recipes treat multiple, potentially related issues, such as general

head pain and toothache (i.e., a narrowed range of conditions rather a complete
panacea). All recipes that target oral pathologies exclusively have been classi-
fied as highly specific, including those listing several oral pathologies. Overall,
there are very few non-​and semi-​specific recipes: out of the 248 dental recipes,
only twenty-​two (8.9%) and thirty-​four (13.7%) can be categorised as non-​and
semi-​specific, respectively. The vast majority, 192 (77.4%), are highly specific
treatments. Tables 12 and 13 provide a more detailed breakdown, visualising
how the specificity of the recipes maps onto the six primary areas of dental
health as recorded in recipe titles and descriptions. In the following sections,
I consider each of these six categories in more detail before exploring the col-
lective implications of this analysis with respect to the question of applicability.

3.1 Category 1: Toothache

As seen in Table 10, 121 recipes mention toothache, dentium dolorem. That is,
roughly half (48.8%) of all of the recipes within the sample that claim to treat
dental conditions fall into this category. Eleven non-​specific recipes include
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 newgenrtpdf

Dental Disease

table 13 Specificity of dental pathologies with breakdown of categories

Specificity Toothache Ulcers, sores, Cavities and Putridity and Mouth complaints Gum problems
etc. tooth loss cosmetics (unspecified)

# of recipes # of recipes # of recipes # of recipes # of recipes # of recipes

% of 121 % of 33 % of 31 % of 26 % of 20 % of 17

NSp 11 1 5 2 2 1
9.1% 3.0% 16.1% 7.7% 10.0% 5.9%
SSp 27 2 1 2 2 0
22.3% 6.1% 3.2% 7.7% 10.0%
HSp 83 30 25 22 16 16
68.6% 90.9% 80.7% 84.6% 80.0% 94.1%
191

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192  Chapter 7

toothache as one of many, unrelated conditions they are intended to treat,

such as the Antidotus Atrianus of cod. sang. 217, where dentium dolorem is
listed alongside over a dozen other ailments, from epilepsy to stomach prob-
lems to fevers.73 Ten of the eleven recipes are explicitly named antidotes.74
Like the Antidotus Atrianus, they each list tooth pain as one of many ailments
they claim to cure; these include the Antidotum sotira of cod. sang. 44, the
Antidotum Theodosion also of cod. sang. 217, four antidotes in bav pal. lat. 1088
(the Antidotum panchristum and Antidotum gera Galieni fortissimo as well as
the Antidotum Adrianum and Antidotum sotira, variants of two of those already
mentioned), the Antidotum Sancti Paulini of bav reg. lat. 598, the Antidotus
polichristus of bav reg. lat. 1143, and another version of the Antidotum sotira in
BnF lat. 11218 (here, titled Antidotum sotirie).75 A preparation for rose oil in cod.
sang. 44 represents the only other non-​specific recipe that mentions toothache
in the sample; although it is not an antidote, it opens with a similarly wide-​
ranging list of its possible uses and should therefore be grouped with the other
catch-​all recipes.76 While these eleven recipes represent a small proportion of
the treatments that name toothache (9.1%), they make up half (50.0%) of all
non-​specific dental recipes within the sample.
Twenty-​seven toothache recipes can be considered semi-​specific, all of
which are intended for a more general condition (or range of conditions) relat-
ing to the head and include toothache as part of this broader treatment pack-
age. On pp. 257a–​258b of cod. sang. 217, for example, a cluster of ten recipes can
be found under the heading Ad capitis, though the first recipe immediately clar-
ifies that it is intended to treat not only head pain but also problems of the ears,
nose, mouth, and, more specifically, long-​standing tooth pain, dentem diutius
dolentibus.77 Additional examples of recipes aimed at treating head problems
and tooth pain jointly can also be found in cod. sang. 217 as well as cod. sang.

73 Cod. sang. 217, p. 262: Antidotus Atrianus; see Appendix 2, entry 6.2.
74 On the genre of complex, composite recipes known as antidotes, see Chapter 2.
75 Cod. sang. 44, pp. 234–​6: Antidotum sotira; cod. sang. 217, pp. 263b–​264b: Antidotum
Theodosion; bav pal. lat. 1088, ff. 52v–​53r: Antidotum Adrianum; ff. 53r–​53v: Antidotum pan-
christum; ff. 55v–​56r: Antidotum gera Galieni fortissima, and ff. 59r–​59v: Antidotum sotira;
bav reg. lat. 598, f. 124r: Antidotum sancti Paulini; bav reg. lat. 1143, ff. 161v–162v: Antidotus
polichristus; and BnF lat. 11218, ff. 113v–​114v: Antidotum sotirie. For transcriptions of each of
these recipes, see Appendix 2, entries 5.1, 6.3, 16.19–​22, 17.1, 18.6, and 3.12, respectively. As
seen in the entries of Appendix 2, even when multiple prescriptions share a title and may
be related, their ingredients, aims, and overall presentation can vary enormously.
76 Cod. sang. 44, pp. 256–​7: Oleo roseo. See Appendix 2, entry 5.11.
77 Cod. sang. 217, pp. 257a–​258b: Ad capitis. See Appendix 2, entry 6.1.

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Dental Disease 193

751, bav reg. lat. 1143, and BnF lat. 11218.78 Although these twenty-​seven reci-
pes represent less than a quarter of those concerning toothache, they make up
approximately eighty percent of all semi-​specific recipes.
With the aforementioned non-​and semi-​specific toothache recipes collec-
tively comprising less than a third of the total toothache recipes identified in
the sample, the majority of this category of recipes (68.6%) are highly specific.
Of these eighty-​three recipes, essentially all are titled Ad dentium dolorem or
present very similar variants. Consider, for example, three different two-​recipe
clusters in cod. sang. 759: Ad dentes dolorem trociscus (‘A pill for pain of the
teeth’, p. 48), Ad dentes ut numquam doleant (‘So that the teeth never hurt’,
p. 73), and Ad dentium dolorem (‘For pain of the teeth’, pp. 75–​6).79 A recipe
titled De dentes dolores in BnF lat. 2849A provides a simple treatment using ivy
juice and ‘the roots [of a plant] called spana’ (de illa radice que dicitur spana).80
In addition to these individual recipes or small groupings, toothache treat-
ments can be found in larger clusters. In cod. sang. 217, for example, a group
of fourteen recipes for tooth pain is listed under the heading Item ad dentium
dolorem.81
Paradoxically, although there are many more highly specific toothache
recipes than non-​or semi-​specific recipes (eighty-​three compared to eleven
and twenty-​seven, respectively), they comprise a smaller percentage of their
specificity category (43.2% as opposed to 50.0% and 79.4%, respectively). The
remaining five categories, making up just over half of the dental disease-​related
treatments in the sample (51.2%), present a somewhat different picture, and
I shall return to the significance of these different trends after reviewing the
findings from Categories 2–​6.

3.2 Categories 2–​6: the Other Half of the Recipes Concerning Oral Health
Categories 2–​6 share a number of features. First, in contrast to the very large
number of treatments that fall under Category 1, each of the remaining five

78 Cod. sang. 217, p. 267: Item ad emigranium seu ad dentium dolorem; and lower on the same
folio, the fourth entry under the heading Ad dolorem auricule uel aque ingressu; cod. sang.
751, p. 457: Purgaturium capitis; bav reg. lat. 1143, f. 99r: Ad emigranium siue dentium dolo-
rem; and BnF lat. 11218, ff. 50r–​50v: De capite dicit. See Appendix 2, entries 6.4.11, 6.5.4, 9.34,
18.2, and 3.3, respectively.
79 Cod. sang. 759, p. 48: Ad dentes dolorem trociscus; p. 73: Ad dentes ut numquam doleant;
pp. 75–​6: Ad dentium dolorem. See Appendix 2, entries 11.4, 16, and 18.
80 BnF lat. 2849A, f. 19r: De dentes dolores. See Appendix 2, entry 1.1.
81 Cod. sang. 217, p. 335: Item ad dentium dolorem. See Appendix 2, entry 6.9.

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194  Chapter 7

categories includes a much smaller number of recipes (see Table 10), since,
taken together, they represent approximately half of the recipes relating to
dental conditions within the sample (127 recipes). They also have a relatively
even distribution of recipes, ranging from thirty-​three to seventeen recipes
(13.4% to 6.9%) each.
Furthermore, while the majority of the recipes in Category 1 can be clas-
sified as highly specific (68.6%), the percentages of highly specific recipes
in Categories 2–​6 is—​without exception—​even higher. Collectively, nearly
ninety percent of these recipes are highly specific (109 out of 127 recipes),
while non-​and semi-​specific recipes (with eleven and seven recipes, respec-
tively) comprise less than ten percent each. To put it another way, although the
toothache recipes of Category 1 are predominantly highly specific, non-​and
semi-​specific recipes still represent a sizeable minority. In contrast, nearly all
recipes in Categories 2–​6 are highly specific, with only eighteen recipes catego-
rised as either non-​or semi-​specific. These trends will be reconsidered below.

3.2.1 Category 2: Ulcers, Sores, Wounds, and Burns

In contrast to the consistent Latin phrase seen in Category 1, dentium dolo-
rem, several different terms are frequently paired with the standard word for
‘mouth’, os (genitive oris), such as ulcus (ulcer, sore), uulnus (wound, injury),
and ustio (burn), that suggest various types of mouth sores. The words ulcus
and uulnus have a wide range of meanings, so I have tended to take a broad and
flexible approach to interpreting their use in recipes and translate accordingly.
Ulcers or sores, ulcera, occur most frequently, appearing in nineteen of the
thirty-​three recipes. Examples include Ad ulcera oris, ‘For sores of the mouth’,
in bav pal. lat. 1088; Ad ulcera quae in ore nascuntur, ‘For sores that grow in
the mouth’, in cod. sang. 751; and Ad ulcera oris uel quicquid in labia fuerint,
‘For sores of the mouth or that are in the lips’, in cod. sang. 44.82 Treatments
that mention wounds appear in codd. sang. 217 and 759, such as Ad uulnera in
ore, ‘For wounds in the mouth’, in the latter manuscript.83 All but three of the
thirty-​three recipes that mention these different types of mouth sores (90.9%)
are highly specific treatments. Two treatments found in BnF lat. 11219, includ-
ing the Puluis ad uuam leuandam uel oris ulcera, a powder intended to lift the
uvula and treat ulcers of the mouth, align with the semi-​specific category,

82 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 35v: Ad ulcera oris uel quidquid intra labiis fuerit; cod. sang. 751,
p. 435: Ad ulcera quae in ore nascuntur; cod. sang. 44, p. 361: Ad ulcera oris uel quicquid in
labia fuerint. See Appendix 2, entries 16.4, 9.26, and 5.26, respectively.
83 Cod. sang. 217, p. 273: Ad uulnera oris siue tumores gingiuarum; cod. sang. 759, p. 5: Ad
uulnera in ore. See Appendix 2, entries 6.7 and 11.2, respectively.

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Dental Disease 195

while a panacea-​type plaster in BnF lat. 11218 provides the sole example of a
non-​specific treatment.84

3.2.2 Category 3: Cavities and Tooth Loss

The thirty-​one recipes making up Category 3 all concern various aspects of
tooth loss, including cavities, lost teeth, and loose teeth. Like the varied vocab-
ulary seen in Category 2, an assortment of terms is used to describe to these
related issues, associated symptoms, and approaches to treatment. As exam-
ples in codd. sang. 44, 751, and bav pal. lat. 1088 demonstrate, some recipes
bear the title Ad dentem cauum, offering treatments for cavities.85 In other
cases, teeth are described as moving. Cod. sang. 751, for example, contains a
recipe for teeth that move labelled Item ad dentes qui mouentur, while bav pal.
lat. 1088 includes a ‘Powder for movement of the teeth’ titled Puluis ad dentium
commotionem.86 Loose teeth are also described, as seen in treatments in cod.
sang. 759 and bav reg. lat. 1143 titled Ad dentes laxos.87 While many of these
recipes mention putridity, confirming that there is often overlap between
categories, it appears that for all recipes grouped in Category 3, the primary
concerns are cavities, tooth loss, and/​or tooth mobility whereas putridity is
secondary to, or dependent on, the cavities and lost/​loose teeth. Consider, for
example, the recipe titled Ad dentes stringendos uel si dolent uel putriscunt aut
sanguinant: keeping or stabilising the teeth is the first stated aim of the treat-
ment, while it also addresses tooth pain and putrid or bleeding teeth.88
Twenty-​five of the thirty recipes, including all those highlighted so far, rep-
resent highly specific treatments; of the remaining six, five are non-​specific
panaceas while one is a semi-​specific recipe. Three of the non-​specific recipes
are found together in BnF lat. 11218: the first in this group is a plaster titled
Inplastrum Afrodites and the following two recipes, both beginning with Item,

84 BnF lat. 11219, f. 225rb: Puluis ad uuam leuandam uel oris ulcera. See Appendix 2, entry 4.5.
85 Cod. sang. 44, p. 360: Ad dentem cauum; cod. sang. 751, p. 472: Item ad dentem cauam; and
bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 35v: Item ad dentem cauum. See Appendix 2, entries 5.24, 9.36.3, and
16.2.7, respectively.
86 Cod. sang. 751, p. 472: Item ad dentes qui mouentur; bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 50r: Puluis ad den-
tium commotionem. See Appendix 2, entries 9.36.6 and 16.14, respectively.
87 Cod. sang. 759, p. 5: Ad dentis laxos; bav reg. lat. 1143, f. 148v: Ad dentes laxos. See Appendix
2, entries 11.3 and 18.5, respectively.
88 Cod. sang. 759, p. 92: Ad dentes stringendos uel si dolent uel putriscunt aut sanguinant.
For similar examples, see also cod. sang. 751, p. 472: Ad dentes ne cadent neque putriscant;
cod. sang. 899, p. 141: Ne cadant dentes neque putrescant; BnF lat. 11218, f. 122r: Ad dentes
stringendas uel si dolent uel putrescunt. See Appendix 2, entries 11.22, 9.36, 14.6, and 3.14,
respectively.

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196  Chapter 7

‘likewise’, are thus linked to it.89 The plaster names over thirty different condi-
tions it is intended to help, ranging from stomach problems to the bites of var-
ious animals (rabid dogs, snakes, and even humans), thereby fitting the model
of an antidote despite not being named as such.90 Within this list, it is noted
that the plaster is effective in treating various types of wounds and injuries,
including those of the dentition. Since it seems that teeth are mentioned here
in relation to being lost (or at least needing to be ‘corrected’ or ‘straightened’)
as a result of a head injury, I have classified the recipe as fitting with Category
2.91 The one example of a semi-​specific treatment comes from cod. sang. 217.
Within a five-​recipe cluster intended to treat ‘throat constraint’, Ad synances,
the fourth entry notes that this recipe is also intended to help teeth remain in
place (ad dentes constringit).92

3.2.3 Category 4: Putridity and Cosmetics

As seen in Category 3, putridity is noted with some frequency as a secondary
or linked dental issue. In other recipes, however, it is named as the primary
concern, as illustrated by a cluster of recipes titled Ad fetorem oris (‘For foul
smells of the mouth’) in cod. sang. 217.93 Also included in this category are
recipes that seem to put a more positive spin on the attempts to mask rotten
teeth and bad breath, such as dentifrices intended to whiten the teeth and/​
or improve the breath. bav pal. lat. 1088, for example, includes a ‘Dentifrice
for brightness of the teeth’, Dentifricium ad dentium splendorem, followed by
one to counteract bad smells emerging from the mouth, Dentifricium odoris
fetorem.94
While the vast majority (84.6%) of these treatments are highly specific, this
category also includes two semi-​specific and two non-​specific recipes. The
aforemetioned Dentifricium odoris fetorem speculare as well as another denti-
frice in cod. sang. 44, Dentisfritium bonum et salubrem, can both be considered
semi-​specific since, in addition to treating bad breath, the recipes address a
wider range of issues; although these conditions are largely in the same area

89 BnF lat. 11218, ff. 45v–​46r, Inplastrum Afrodites, f. 46r, Item de Afroditis, ff. 46r–​46v, Item
catapodias Eufimie. See Appendix 2, entries 3.1.1–​2 and 3.2, respectively.
90 BnF lat. 11218, ff. 45v–​46r, Inplastrum Afrodites. See Appendix 2, entry 3.1.1.
91 BnF lat. 11218, ff. 45v–46r, Inplastrum Afrodites. E.g., statim curat et recte dentis capitis pla-
gas. For the full transcription, see Appendix 2, entry 3.1.1.
92 Cod. sang. 217, p. 338: for the fourth entry of Ad synances. See Appendix 2, entry 6.12.4.
93 Cod. sang. 217, p. 274: Ad fetorem oris. See Appendix 2, entry 6.8.
94 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 50r: Dentifricium ad dentium splendorem; f. 50r: Dentifricium odoris
fetorem. See Appendix 2, entries 16.15–​16.

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Dental Disease 197

of the body (e.g., in the mouth, throat, and uvula), there are a few exceptions,
such as frigorem, chills.95 Although neither of the two remaining recipes, such
as the Sales ieraticas of cod. sang. 751, are named antidotes, they are both clas-
sified as non-​specific given the wide array of different conditions they claim
to treat, ranging from eye problems to breathing difficulties, alongside rotten
teeth.96

3.2.4 Category 5: General, Unspecified Mouth Complaints

While the types of tooth and mouth problems listed in some of the preceding
categories, such as ‘wound’ or ‘ulcer’, usually do not provide much, if any, detail
regarding the nature of these ailments, other recipes are even broader in their
approach. Category 5 includes all recipes that list oris uitia, ‘complaints of the
mouth’, as their intended target. Nineteen such recipes appear in the sample,
as does a single recipe for unspecified tooth complaints, Ad dentium uitiae.97
Like the cluster of recipes in BnF lat. 11218 listed under the title Ad oris uicia
noted above, codd. sang. 217 and 751 also contain small groups of treatments
under the headings Ad uitium oris and Ad uitia oris, respectively.98 Despite
their broad remit, eighty percent (sixteen of the twenty recipes) are classified
as highly specific treatments because their only named purpose relates to heal-
ing these general afflictions of the mouth.
In addition to these sixteen highly specific recipes, four recipes represent
non-​and semi-​specific treatments. Two recipes, the Oleo lentisscinum of cod.
sang. 44 and Emplastrum somato filax of cod. sang. 761, are catch-​all panaceas.
Like the aforementioned rose oil preparation, the Oleo lentisscinum (mastic oil)
is said to be applicable for a wide-​ranging list of different ailments, including
uterine pain, hardness of the stomach, dysentery, and mouth problems.99 The
Emplastrum somato filax claims to treat an even more detailed and diverse list
of conditions, opening with dog bites—​rabid or otherwise—​and also includ-
ing problems of the eyes, ears, and parotid glands; kidney stones; coughs; gout;
etc. The phrase oris uitia curat, ‘it cures complaints of the mouth’, is found near

95 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 50r: Dentifricium odoris fetorem; cod. sang. 44, p. 248: Dentisfritium
bonum et salubrem. See Appendix 2, entries 16.16 and 5.8.
96 Cod. sang. 751, p. 418: Sales ieraticas qui faciunt ad acies oculorum usque senectutę et
flegma impetum deducit et suspirium relaxat et dentes putresce non sinit. See Appendix 2,
entry 9.20.
97 Cod. sang. 751, p. 409: Ad dentium uitiae. See Appendix 2, entry 9.15.
98 BnF lat. 11218, ff. 89r–​89v: Ad oris uicia; cod. sang. 217, p. 273: Ad uitium oris; cod. sang. 751,
p. 435: Ad uitia oris. See Appendix 2, entries 3.5, 6.6, and 9.27, respectively.
99 Cod. sang. 44, p. 258: Oleo lentisscinum. See Appendix 2, entry 5.12.

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198  Chapter 7

the end of this extensive list.100 A recipe in BnF lat. 11219 with a narrower treat-
ment focus falls into the semi-​specific category. Like the Puluis ad uuam leuan-
dam uel oris ulcera mentioned in Category 2 (and, in fact, located on the same
folio in BnF lat. 11219), the Puluis uera ad faucium tumorem et omnis oris uitia
siue sordicia, a powder for throat swellings as well as all mouth complaints
and unpleasantness, targets a range of problems in the same general area of
the body.101 Another dentifrice found in bav pal. lat. 1088, the Dentifritium qui
omnem humorem exsiccat, is similarly semi-​specific: its title mentions drying
out the humours, and it then opens by claiming to treat all diseases of the
mouth before listing more specific applications that extend to the throat.102

3.2.5 Category 6: Gum Problems

Seventeen recipes present gum problems as their primary target, such as the
several recipes titled Ad gengiuas, treatments for the gums, in cod. sang. 751 or
those under the heading Ad exasperationem gingiuarum, treatments for irrita-
tion of the gums, in cod. sang. 44 and bav pal. lat. 1088.103 A dentifrice in cod.
sang. 44, Dentisfritium ad gingiuas confortandas et dissicandas, is more specifi-
cally intended to heal and dry out the gums, while a treatment in cod. sang. 217
tackles swollen gums.104 All but one of the recipes (94.1%) are highly specific;
the one exception, the non-​specific Trociscus Eraclio, is presented as a cure
for a diverse assortment of conditions, from ear complaints to various wounds
and sores, and problems of the gums are included in this mix.105

3.3 Summary
With treatments for dental disease and related conditions appearing in nearly
five percent of all recipes analysed in this study, oral health represents a signifi-
cant area of interest within the sampled recipe literature. Treatments intended
to combat toothache represent about half of these recipes, while treatments

100 Cod. sang. 761, pp. 62–​3: Emplastrum somato filax. See Appendix 2, entry 12.3.
101 BnF lat. 11219, f. 225ra: Puluis uera ad faucium tumorem et omnis oris uitia siue sordicia. See
Appendix 2, entry 4.4.
102 bav pal. lat. 1088, ff. 50r–​50v: Dentifritium qui omnem humorem exsiccat. See Appendix 2,
entry 16.17.
103 Cod. sang. 751, p. 473: Ad gengiuas plenas sanguinem; cod. sang. 44, p. 361: Ad exaspera-
tione gingiuarum; bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 35v: Ad experatione gingiuarum. See Appendix 2,
entries 9.37, 5.25, and 16.3, respectively.
104 Cod. sang. 44, p. 248: Dentisfritium ad gingiuas confortandas et dissicandas; cod. sang. 217,
p. 337: Item ad uuam reprimendum et gingiuas tumentes. See Appendix 2, entries 5.9 and
6.11.3, respectively.
105 Cod. sang. 751, p. 364, Item trociscus Eraclio; see Appendix 2, entry 9.4.

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Dental Disease 199

for tooth loss and cavities, gum problems and sores affecting the soft tissues, as
well as rottenness and putridity (in terms of both odour and appearance) also
occur. The vast majority of these treatments are restricted to the oral cavity: in
total, 77.4% of the dental health-​related recipes can be considered highly spe-
cific. In some of these highly specific recipes, multiple dental issues are named,
such as cavities and foul smells or tooth loss and gum problems. The thirty-​
four semi-​specific treatments (representing 13.7% of the recipes) target a lim-
ited range of additional conditions, and generally those in the vicinity of the
mouth, such as problems with the throat. Less than ten percent of the recipes
(8.9%) represent cure-​all panaceas, revealing that, when a recipe names an
aspect (or aspects) of dental health as its intended use, this is consistently—​
nearly four times out of five—​its only intended use. In other words, treatments
for dental problems often list dental problems exclusively, offering a very tar-
geted approach. Having now reviewed the recipes, it is possible to consider
their applicability in the light of the osteological evidence presented above.

4 The Applicability of the Recipe Sample to Early Medieval People

The evidence analysed in this chapter indicates that there is a significant degree
of overlap between the skeletal remains and the textual record: the conditions
and symptoms that dental remedies claim to treat largely fit with what is
observed in the osteological evidence. The early medieval dental remains show
clear evidence of dental disease, and this was most often manifested by carious
lesions and amtl, though signs of periodontal disease, calculus build-​up, and
abscesses were also noted. The recipes, meanwhile, target standard issues that
would have arisen from poor dental hygiene, such as toothache, mouth sores,
loose or lost teeth, gum problems, and foul-​smelling breath. Some of these
treatment targets, such as those for cavities and lost or loose teeth, mirror the
skeletal remains. Others, including the many recipes for toothache or the den-
tifrices intended to improve bad breath, treat symptoms that are impossible to
see in the osteological record directly. However, the surviving skeletal evidence
makes clear that such symptoms would have been pressing concerns for many
individuals. Indeed, the regular occurrence of dental disease and its ensuing
symptoms may help to explain why the vast majority of the recipes offer fairly
simple and relatively focused treatments. Ultimately, the parallels between the
textual and archaeological evidence indicate that many of the recipes would
have been relevant to the individuals who had access to these texts and suggest
that these treatments could have been written with the intention of being used
in the context of therapy.

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200  Chapter 7

While the general picture created by the evidence is thus one of applicabil-
ity, a closer look at several trends and types of recipes can push this analysis
further.

4.1 Specific Types of Teeth

As noted above, molars and pre-molars, due to their fissured surfaces and less
accessible location at the back of the mouth, are the teeth most susceptible to
the development of carious lesions. This fact is not only illustrated by Figures 9
and 11 but was also emphasised in a number of reports; at Santa Maria Assunta
di Cairate, for example, molars and pre-molars were recorded as being particu-
larly affected in the second and third burial groups. If, then, these teeth were
typically the ones most frequently and severely affected by caries, it is particu-
larly notable that several recipes within Category 1, toothache, mention the
molars explicitly. A total of six recipes, such as Ad dentes molares of codd. sang.
217 and 1396, are named as molar-​specific treatments.106 Intriguingly, these are
the only recipes to target an individual type of tooth. Overall, the osteological
evidence suggests that treatments intended for the molars would have been
highly relevant, adding further weight the argument that many of the dental
recipes would have been applicable to individuals in early medieval Europe.

4.2 Specific Types of People

The skeletal evidence at some sites, such as Acqui Terme, Rivoli, and the Saint
Servatius complex in Maastricht, suggests that females were more prone to
developing carious lesions. These results fit with known, though not fully
understood, sex-​linked differences regarding the experience and severity of
dental disease: certain biological and cultural factors may predispose females
to developing caries. Given the direct parallel seen above in the case of molars,
it might have been expected that the textual evidence would reflect this differ-
ence, as well. However, no treatments are presented as being intended to treat
women specifically, and there is no apparent gender-​based division of recipes.
While the listing of uterine issues in a number of non-​specific recipes could be
seen as a possible exception to this general finding, gynaecological problems
are often included in panaceas, and I would therefore suggest that a gendered
reading of these recipes is inappropriate.
While treatments for women are not recorded, a different person-​based
category did emerge: age. Four recipes targeted teething infants, such as the

106 Cod. sang. 217, p. 336: Ad dentes molares; cod. sang. 1396, p. 19: Ad dentes molares. See
Appendix 2, entries 6.10 and 15.1.

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Dental Disease 201

treatment titled Ut infantibus dentes sine dolore exeant in cod. sang. 44.107 With
this age-​based differentiation, it is perhaps surprising that there were no reci-
pes intended for the aging population given that, as confirmed by the osteolog-
ical evidence, the frequency and severity of dental disease increases with age.
It could be argued, however, that most treatments would have simply become
more applicable with age, thereby making separate recipes that target the
tooth conditions of older adults unnecessary. In other words, once an individ-
ual’s teeth had developed, recipes for toothache, mouth sores, and tooth loss
would have been relevant regardless of their age, and senility would not have
resulted in new types of oral health problems but rather in higher frequencies
of their occurrence and/​or increasing severity. In contrast, the teething process
is a distinct issue and requires a different treatment. The inclusion of such reci-
pes thus fits with the overall picture of applicability presented by the evidence.
When considering whether different types of patients are recorded in the
recipes, it is also important to reflect on another group of people: the poten-
tial practitioners (if, of course, these treatments were being consulted in the
context of practice). Given that the treatment of dental conditions is found
alongside all other types of health concerns rather than separated into distinct
treatises focused exclusively on dentistry, there is no sign of specialisation in
this respect. Such a finding fits with the general observation that the termi-
nology used to distinguish between different types of medical practitioners
expanded in later centuries and was less specialised during the early Middle
Ages.108 It remains possible, however, that the medical marketplace included
more specialised practitioners whose activities were not recorded in the sur-
viving written record.

4.3 Cosmetics
Given the evidence for severe dental disease, it may seem that dentifrices
and tooth whitening treatments are somewhat frivolous: why worry about
the whiteness of teeth if they have already been lost or are on their way out?
A consideration of the contexts in which these recipes were produced, how-
ever, suggests the opposite. As discussed in Chapter 2, the locations in which
medical texts were written and housed, whether monastic centres or courtly
libraries, were generally elite sites that involved the upper-​most strata of soci-
ety. The privileged circles of the court, aristocratic households, and the eccle-
siastical elite represent groups of individuals who may have been especially

107 Cod. sang. 44, p. 304, Ut infantibus dentes sine dolore exeant. See Appendix 2, entry 5.16.
108 Park, ‘Medicine and Society’, 70.

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202  Chapter 7

interested in whitening their teeth and avoiding putrid breath. Monica Green
has highlighted the ‘continuity between “medical” and “cosmetic” concerns’
in the context of women’s medicine, and I suggest that an interest in cosmetic
recipes, such as these dental treatments, should also be read in this light, and
with the potential to appeal to men and women alike.109 Furthermore, Patricia
Skinner has argued that the emphasis on injuries (and their penalties) seen in
many early medieval law codes reflects not only the practicality of maintaining
law and order, but also the significance of an ‘unblemished personal appear-
ance’ in relation to an individual’s honour.110 While physical injuries, includ-
ing, notably, dental trauma, are often listed in the law codes, more superficial
damage, such as the cutting of hair, can also be found. This focus on appear-
ance and presentation helps to explain the inclusion of cosmetic preparations
alongside seemingly more serious issues, from chronic pain to open sores, in
early medieval recipe collections. Accordingly, the inclusion of recipes for cos-
metic purposes should not be seen to counter their potential applicability.

4.4 Possible Sources for Dental Recipes

As mentioned above, it has been suggested that dental health declined
between c. 1200 bc and c. 750 ad.111 With this in mind, it is important to think
about how these recipes compare to classical texts and to reflect on the origins
of these treatments. Do many recipes derive from classical and late antique
medical writings? Or does a wave of new material appear to have been intro-
duced, coinciding with increasing demands for dental care? As the case studies
of Part 1 have shown, both of these patterns, that of preservation and that of
addition, have been identified in the recipes under analysis. Within newly com-
piled recipe collections, some entire clusters of recipes can be traced to known
sources while, in other cases, single recipes appear to have been selected from
earlier texts individually. A recipe titled Ad dentium uitiae noted in Category
5, for example, is located in a short section of recipes derived from Pseudo-​
Antonius Musa’s De herba vettonica liber in cod. sang. 751.112 Here, in the middle
of an enormous recipe collection, two groups of recipes on pp. 408–​9 present

109 Green, ‘Bodies, Gender, Health, Disease’, 4.

110 Patricia Skinner, ‘Visible Prowess?: Reading Men’s Head and Face Wounds in Early
Medieval Europe to 1000 ce’, in Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval Culture, ed. Larissa
Tracy and Kelly DeVries (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 81–​101, at pp. 85–​9.
111 Pezo Lanfranco and Eggers, ‘Caries through Time’, 8.
112 Cod. sang. 751, p. 409: Ad dentium uitiae. See Appendix 2, entry 9.15.

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Dental Disease 203

a selection of material from this late antique herbal. The recipe in question
parallels the seventh entry in De herba vettonica liber, Ad dentium uitia.113
For many recipes, however, a direct link a classical or late antique trea-
tise has yet to be identified and their origins remain unknown. In fact, in a
handful of cases, some of the new developments in pharmaceutical literature
discussed in Part 1 can be seen: the second recipe within a cluster titled Ad
dentium dolorem, ‘for tooth pain’, in cod. sang. 759, for example, includes beer
in its ingredients.114 The overall range of recipes relating to dental health—​i.e.,
that many have a basis in classical and late antique traditions, while others
reflect new influences—​documents an active process of selection. Carolingian
scribes engaged with a variety of sources and brought together this assortment
of information in new and different ways. As demonstrated in Part 1, the hybrid
nature of recipe collections further supports the idea that they were intended
to be used in practice.

5 Conclusion

The early medieval skeletal evidence reveals that treatments for tooth prob-
lems would have been necessary in the Carolingian world: poor dental health,
while not universal, was frequent. All sites reviewed in this chapter provided
evidence of dental disease. The recipe literature displays many examples of
overlap with the skeletal remains, such as treatments for toothache, tooth loss,
and/​or mouth sores. Based on the undeniable parallels between the textual and
osteological evidence, I argue that the medical knowledge in circulation would
have been highly applicable to contemporary populations. Furthermore, cer-
tain types of recipes, such as those concerning appearance, suggest that these
recipes may have been particularly relevant to the individuals with access to
these manuscripts, such as members of royal, aristocratic, or ecclesiastical
communities.
This opening case study of Part 2 thus offers a fairly straightforward example
of overlap between the two bodies of evidence under analysis: by reading the
recipes in the light of the osteological record, it reinforces the idea that these
treatments were intended to be put into practice. While this conclusion may
not come as a surprise, the process of reaching it has involved a non-​traditional

113 Pseudo-​Antonius Musa, De herba vettonica liber, in Antonii Musae De herba vettonica liber.
Pseudoapulei Herbarius. Anonymi De taxone liber. Sextii Placiti Liber medicinae ex animali-
bus etc., ed. Ernst Howald and Henry E. Sigerist, cml 4 (Leipzig; Teubner, 1927), 3–​11, no. 7.
114 Cod. sang. 759, pp. 75–​6: Ad dentium dolorem; see Appendix 2, entry 11.18.

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204  Chapter 7

approach that avoids circular arguments regarding the relationship between

medical knowledge and practice. This approach, therefore, enhances our
understanding of whether the recipes could have been applied in practice. In
the next chapter, I shall employ the same approach to investigate the topic of
joint diseases.

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 ­c hapter 8

Joint Disease
Problematising Podagra

1 Introduction: the Pains of Gout—​and the Problems of Translation

Gout, an erosive arthropathy most commonly manifested by excruciating pain

in the big toe caused by a build-​up of uric acid crystals, is a disease with bag-
gage. Historically, gout has been linked to elites, people with access to rich food
and alcohol; today, it is on the rise, affecting between one and four percent of
the population in the west.1 As early as the fifth century bc, there was thought
to be a connection between gout and wealth, with Hippocrates describing the
condition as the ‘arthritis of the rich’.2 The link between wealth—​often inter-
preted more specifically as dissolute overindulgence—​and gout stems from
the realisation that those with a meat-​and alcohol-​heavy diet, i.e., the elite,
were more susceptible to developing the disease. Galen agreed with his pre-
decessor, but also posited that there was a hereditary aspect to the condition.3
Modern medical studies have since confirmed that diet, sex, age, and genetics
all play a role in the onset of the disease: males are more prone to developing
gout, and risk factors include obesity and weight gain, increasing age, a genetic
predisposition, and a diet involving foods and drinks rich in purines, such as
meat, seafood, and alcohol.4 The stereotype that it tends to be seen in older,
elite males is not without reason.5
How does this stereotype fit with the experience of individuals in early
medieval Europe? Do the textual and osteological records provide evidence
for the occurrence of gout during this period? And, if so, do they suggest any
variation in the prevalence of gout between different populations? A diet rich
in meat and alcohol and a more sedentary lifestyle could have been available

1 Gaafar Ragab, Mohsen Elshahaly, and Thomas Bardin, ‘Gout: An old disease in new
perspective—​A review’, Journal of Advanced Research 8, no. 5 (2017): 495–​511, https://​doi​.org​
/10​.1016​/j​.jare​.2017​.04​.008, at p. 496.
2 George Nuki and Peter A. Simkin, ‘A concise history of gout and hyperuricemia and their
treatment’, Arthritis Research and Therapy 8 (2006), https://​doi​.org​/10​.1186​/ar1​906​.
3 Ibid.
4 Ragab, Elshahaly, and Bardin, ‘Gout: An old disease in new perspective’, 496.
5 Nuki and Simkin, ‘A concise history of gout’.

© Claire Burridge, 2024 | DOI:​1 0.1163/9789004466173_009

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206  Chapter 8

to males in the most privileged strata of society, such as members of royal and
aristocratic households and, depending on the strictness with which dietary
rules were enforced, ecclesiastical communities, or at least certain members
within them.6 On the other hand, fasting has also been linked to the onset
of acute gout attacks, suggesting that members of male ecclesiastical com-
munities may have been particularly susceptible to developing the disease.7
This subset of the population, as discussed in Chapter 2, overlaps with those
individuals who would have been among the most likely to have had access to
the medical texts. With these factors in mind, an investigation into gout that
brings together written sources and the osteological record is much needed.
Moreover, although female religious houses cannot be discounted as centres
of manuscript production, the majority of the individuals in royal, aristocratic,
and ecclesiastical settings with access to medical texts were probably male,
adding further weight to the idea that treatments for gout may have been
highly relevant to individuals in these communities.8
The evidence for gout is strong in the recipe literature. The Latin term
podagra (from the Greek ποδάγρα) is typically understood to refer to gout in
the big toe. I identified podagra, related terms (e.g., podagricum, as in the
Antidotum podagricum), and their orthographic variants in nearly 150 recipes
within the sample, examples of which will be reviewed below. Indeed, recipes
intended to help those suffering from gout have already been seen in several
chapters, including the two treatments with which this book opened, the Potio
ad podagra of cod. sang. 759 and Antidotum podagricum of cod. sang. 751. Both
provide instructions for a potion involving birthwort, myrrh, laurel berries, and
centaury (the treatment in cod. sang. 759 also includes cardamom and parsley)
and claim that drinking this mixture for a year will cure the patient of gout.9
The prevalence of podagra in the written sources fits with the idea that the

6 Dietary rules were relaxed, for example, for the ill and elderly; see, for example, rb 1980, ed.
and trans. Fry, especially C ­ hapters 36–​41; Saint Columban: His Life, Rule, and Legacy, trans.
Terrence G. Kardong (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017), especially C ­ hapters 10 and 15.
7 Leo A. B. Joosten, Mihai G. Netea, Eleni Mylona, Marije I. Koenders, R. K. Subbarao Malireddi,
Marije Oosting, Rinke Stienstra, et al., ‘Engagement of Fatty Acids with Toll-​like Receptor
2 Drives Interleukin-​1β Production via the asc/​Caspase 1 Pathway in Monosodium Urate
Monohydrate Crystal-​Induced Gouty Arthritis’, Arthritis & Rheumatism 62, no. 11 (2010): 3237–​
48, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1002​/art​.27667, at p. 3246.
8 See Chapter 2 for more on the environments in which manuscripts were produced. On
gynaecological texts in medieval medical writings, see Horden, ‘What’s Wrong with Early
Medieval Medicine?’, 11–​13; and on female medical practitioners within monastic contexts,
see Green, ‘Bodies, Gender, Health, Disease’, 13–​14.
9 Cod. sang. 759, p. 60: Potio ad podagra; cod. sang. 751, pp. 489–​90: Antidotum podagricum. See
Appendix 2, entries 11.8 and 9.38, respectively.

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Joint Disease 207

individuals most likely to have engaged with the manuscripts in which these
recipes are recorded may have been at a higher risk of developing gout. Does
the osteological evidence support this idea? Given the underlying assumptions
about the potential users of these texts and their possible elevated risk factors
for the disease, it is crucial to look beyond the written sources in order to avoid
a circular argument.
The evidence for gout in early medieval skeletal remains, addressed below,
provides a stark contrast to the rich textual record of podagra: osteological evi-
dence for gout is almost entirely lacking in this period. A simple comparison
of these two bodies of evidence suggests that the large number of podagra-​
related recipes would have been irrelevant to early medieval populations—​can
this disconnect be explained? I return to this question after analysing the skel-
etal and textual evidence for joint disease in other areas of the body. A more
general study of joint disease provides a fuller picture of the arthropathies
observed in early medieval skeletal remains as well as the treatments for joint
pains and related problems recorded in the recipes. Informed by the wider
context, it is then possible to revisit the gout-​podagra paradox. I argue that
the apparent incongruence between the textual and osteological evidence can
be resolved by recalibrating our interpretation of the term podagra. Reading
podagra as equivalent to a modern medical definition of gout inappropriately
restricts our analysis of the Carolingian texts to a contemporary understanding
of this disease and its effects. A broader interpretation of podagra, however,
fits with the textual and osteological evidence. I therefore suggest that the term
should often be understood as referring to a collection of symptoms relating
to toe and foot joint pain. Such an interpretation could include true gout but is
not restricted to this meaning alone. This re-​evaluation of podagra highlights
the danger of understanding a medieval Latin medical term as aligning with a
single, clinically defined modern medical condition and contributes to current
discussions in the field concerning medieval medical terminology and lexicog-
raphy. Secondly, the new interpretation of podagra has major implications for
the question of applicability, indicating that, despite the initially conflicting
evidence, many of the treatments recorded in the recipe collections would
have been highly relevant to individuals in early medieval Europe.

2 The Appearance of Podagra in Medical Recipes

The textual evidence from eighth-​and ninth-​century recipe collections appears

to support the idea that gout was a fairly common condition and a pressing
concern among those who compiled and had access to the texts: 140 recipes

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208  Chapter 8

within the sample of recipes involved in this study (roughly 2.5%) claim to
cure podagra and/​or to alleviate the pain linked to the disease.10 This relative
frequency seems to fit with the aforementioned idea that those individuals,
whether writing in monastic centres or active at the royal court, were most
probably members of the elite and enjoyed a more privileged lifestyle associ-
ated with a number of the risk factors for gout.
As with the other case studies in Part 2, the following review of recipes takes
into account their specificity. With respect to podagra, recipes that list podagra
as one of many unrelated conditions, such as antidotes, are considered non-​
specific; recipes that treat a small number of conditions presenting potentially
similar or related symptoms, such as those that treat both podagra and artrit-
icus (‘afflictions of the joints’, discussed below), are classified as semi-​specific;
and those that only refer to podagra are considered highly specific. The distri-
bution of recipe specificity will be important to keep in mind when comparing
podagra-​related treatments to those of other joint diseases later in this chapter.
Nearly fifty percent of the recipes that mention podagra (sixty-​seven of
the 140 recipes) are non-​specific treatments (see Table 14). Unlike the den-
tal conditions considered in the previous chapter, podagra and related terms
are frequently named as one of the many ailments targeted by antidotes. The
Antidotum gera Galieni fortissimo of bav pal. lat. 1088, for example, presents
a list of just under fifty different conditions it is intended to treat, including
epilepsy, paralysis, eye problems, gynaecological conditions, fevers, breathing
problems, and skin conditions; in the middle of the list, it is noted that the
antidote provides relief to those suffering from podagra.11 Other examples of
non-​specific treatments include the Antidotum gira deacoloquintidis (noted in
Chapter 3 for its use of camphor, cafora), which is also found in bav pal. lat.
1088. This antidote claims to help individuals suffering from approximately
twenty-​five different ailments, ranging from vertigo to liver pain, and, like the
Antidotum gera Galieni fortissimo, includes those afflicted with podagra.12 As
mentioned in Chapter 3, the list ends with the particularly bold claim that,
in addition to curing present infirmities, this potion will also defend against
future ills (non solum presentes infirmitates curat, sed futuras egritudines defen-
dit). The Anteditum Teodoritum of cod. sang. 759, offers another cure-​all treat-
ment; the term podagricis can be found near the end of a long list of maladies.
In line with the Antidotum gira deacoloquintidis, this antidote not only claims

10 As noted above, I include recipes using the terms podagra, podagricis, etc. as well as their
orthographic variants.
11 bav pal. lat. 1088, ff. 55v–​56r: Antidotum gera Galieni fortissima. See Appendix 2, entry 16.21.
12 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 90r: Antidotum gira deacoloquintidis. See Appendix 2, entry 16.26.

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Joint Disease 209

table 14 Overview of the specificity of recipes that mention podagra

Specificity NSp SSp HSp Total

# of Recipes 67 31 42 140
% of total 47.9% 22.1% 30.0% 100%

to take care of a host of different diseases in the present, but also to repel the
onset of future infirmities.13
Not all non-​specific antidotes, however, aim to treat scores of different con-
ditions: the Antidotum pigra Gallieni optimum and Antidotum filantropum,
both of cod. sang. 44, for example, only list about a dozen different afflictions.14
While these antidotes may appear to be more specific due to the reduced num-
ber of diseases they are intended to treat, they continue to list a wide range
of unrelated ailments, from stomach pain to epilepsy, and both, importantly,
include podagra, within this mix.15 These ‘simplified’ antidotes, therefore, rep-
resent abridged versions of comprehensive cures rather than more specialised
treatments.
In contrast to the frequent appearance of podagra within the antidotes seen
above, only thirty-​one recipes, or 22.1% of the recipes that target podagra, rep-
resent semi-​specific treatments. These preparations continue to treat multiple
conditions, but they do not cover the full range of health problems seen in the
non-​specific reicpes. The Oxira podagricis of cod. sang. 751, for example, is pre-
sented as a treatment for sufferers of gout as well as omnem dolorem, all pain.16
While the inclusion of omnem dolorem makes the scope of this treatment very
broad, it relates entirely to pain management. As such, the Oxira podagricis is
intended for one type of medical issue—​admittedly, one very wide-​ranging

13 Cod. sang. 759, p. 2: Anteditum Teodoritum. Not unlike the Antidotum gera Galieni fortis-
sima (above), this antidote includes the phrase: non solum presentibus curat egritudines
sunt et futuris aduenientis infirmitates repellit. See Appendix 2, entry 11.1.
14 Cod. sang. 44, p. 238: Antidotum pigra Gallieni optimum and Antidotum filantropum. See
Appendix 2, entries 5.2–​3.
15 The Antidotum pigra Gallieni optimum begins by listing the following conditions: Qui facit
stomaicis, epilenticis, melancolicis, freneticis, epaticis, spleneticis, podacricis, uertigines,
caligines, typus subito, metus saltus, membrorum neruorum contractiones, perfrictiones, et
quod liber stupor, uel mulieris uitia, et ad omnes causas quę subito ueniunt emendant. The
Antidotum filantropum lists the following conditions: Facit tissicis, dipnoicis, cefalargicis,
stomaticis, ad toraces, limosotis dissolutis, epaticis, spleneticis, colicis, aliis doloribus, nefret-
icis, podacricis. For full transcriptions, see Appendix 2, entries 5.2–​3.
16 Cod. sang. 751, p. 419: Oxira podagricis. See Appendix 2, entry 9.22.

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210  Chapter 8

issue—​and not the full spectrum of conditions and concerns listed in the
panaceas.
Some semi-​specific recipes, however, are narrower in their focus. An earlier
recipe in cod. sang. 751, the Unguentum acupo galastico, is intended to cure
gouty or arthritic pains and swellings, for example.17 In this case, although the
treatment targets more than podagra alone, the range of conditions it claims to
cover is limited to a cluster of potentially related issues. Similarly, the Malagma
aduersus dolores fracturas et podagra ad luxum of cod. sang. 759 treats pain
from fractures, gout, and dislocations.18 bav pal. lat. 1088 offers a compara-
ble treatment on f. 65v, the Potio contra artreticam siue nesciam uel podagram,
which combats gout, hip pain, and arthritis.19 While none of these recipes tar-
gets gout exclusively, each one is intended to treat a range of ailments that
would have had somewhat similar symptoms, especially with respect to pain.
Finally, out of the 140 remedies that mention gout, forty-​two (30.0%) offer
treatments highly specific to podagra (again, see Table 14). Cod. sang. 44, for
example, records the following recipe:

For gout: take equal measures of birthwort, centaury, and acacia powder
and mix with cyclamen juice; apply this on [the toe].20

The Potio ad podagra of cod. sang. 759 and Antidotum podagricum of cod. sang.
751, the two Terenti(an)us recipes noted above, also fall into the specific cate-
gory as they target podagra exclusively. Intriguingly, their recipes contain some
parallels to the previous example, Ad podacra of cod. sang. 44, with all three
prescriptions listing birthwort and centaury among their ingredients.21 Cod.
sang. 751 presents another treatment titled Antidotum podacricum forty-​five
pages earlier; this Antidotum podacricum, however, offers an unrelated recipe
involving pepper, cumin, and ginger.22 This entry also specifies that the treat-
ment helps to reduce foot pain (ad pedis dolorem sedatur).

17 Cod. sang. 751, p. 319: Unguentum acupo galastico ad omnem dolorem uel tumorem tam
podagricis quam artetricis. See Appendix 2, entry 9.2.
18 Cod. sang. 759, p. 63: Malagma aduersus dolores uel fracturas et podagra ad luxum. See
Appendix 2, entry 11.11.
19 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 65v: Potio contra artreticam siue nesciam uel podagram. See Appendix
2, entry 16.25.
20 Cod. sang. 44, p. 260: Ad podacra. Aristologia rotunda, centauria, agatia puluis ęquali pon-
dere, cum succu ciclaminis distemperas et superpone proficit. See Appendix 2, entry 5.13.
21 Cod. sang. 759, p. 60: Potio ad podagra; cod. sang. 751, pp. 489–​90: Antidotum podagricum.
See Appendix 2, entries 11.8 and 9.38, respectively.
22 Cod. sang. 751, p. 444: Antidotum podacricum ad pedis dolorem sedatur. See Appendix 2,
entry 9.30.

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Joint Disease 211

Having now reviewed recipes in which podagra is mentioned, the evidence

for gout in the skeletal remains must be considered.

3 The Absence of Gout in Archaeological Contexts

In contrast to the prevalence with which podagra is named in textual sources,

osteological evidence for gout is extremely limited in this period. Analyses of
early medieval skeletal remains have produced very few examples of probable
cases of gout, though it is important to recognise that preservation biases may
have contributed to the lack of evidence for this erosive arthropathy. Since the
metatarsal-​phalangeal joint at the base of the big toe is the most common and
well-​known site of an acute inflammatory gout attack, this is the most useful
skeletal element to assess, but small bones, such as the phalanges, are more
fragile and susceptible to decay. Male skeletal remains, however, tend to be
found more often and in a better state of preservation due to both excavation
biases and biological factors.23 Since males are more predisposed to devel-
oping gout, these particular excavation and preservation biases work in this
study’s favour, offering a greater chance of recovering sufficiently preserved
skeletal material from the individuals who would have been more likely to suf-
fer from this condition. With this in mind, the relative absence of gout is even
more striking.
It must also be noted that a number of other conditions can present similar
destructive arthropathies on the bones of the feet, including leprosy, rheuma-
toid arthritis (ra), and osteomyelitis, but each one has distinguishing features
which, if there is sufficient preservation of skeletal material, would allow for
a differential diagnosis.24 ra and leprosy, for example, would typically present
pathologies in other parts of the skeleton: ra tends to affect multiple joints in
addition to the feet and toes (most notably the hands), while leprosy results in
necrosis of the face and hands alongside the feet and toes. It is therefore pos-
sible that the actual incidence of gout is higher than reported, but, due to the
state of preservation, such a specific diagnosis has not been given.

23 For biases of preservation, see Roberts, Human Remains in Archaeology (see especially
Chapter 3, ‘Resting Places for the Dead, and Factors Affecting Preservation of Bodies’).
24 Gaspare Baggieri and Francesco Mallegni, ‘A Probable Case of Gout’, Medicina Historica
1, no. 1 (2017): 23–​8, at pp. 25–​7; Jenna M. Dittmar, Piers D. Mitchell, Peter M. Jones, Bram
Mulder, Sarah A. Inskip, Craig Cessford, and John E. Robb, ‘Gout and ‘Podagra’ in medieval
Cambridge, England’, International Journal of Paleopathology 33 (2021): 170–​81, https://​doi​
.org​/10​.1016​/j​.ijpp​.2021​.04​.007​.

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212  Chapter 8

At present, probable cases of gout have only been identified among individ-
uals buried at two early medieval sites within the Carolingian Empire (both
in northern Italy), though additional cases have been recorded in both ear-
lier and later periods as well as in other geographic areas, such as the British
Isles.25 The urban cemetery of Piazza Marconi in Cremona, in use from the
seventh to the tenth centuries, contained 141 individuals, while the burial area
in Bolgare, with over 400 individuals, was used in the seventh and eighth cen-
turies.26 The sheer size of these cemeteries may help to explain why gout was
observed: given that the disease only affects one to four percent of the pop-
ulation today (a population with a diet relatively high in purines), a higher
frequency of gout should not be expected in the past.27
A number of the other excavations considered in this study, however,
uncovered large cemeteries comparable to Cremona and Bolgare and yet
yielded no skeletons with evidence suggestive of probable cases of gout. The
burial area excavated at Santa Maria Assunta di Cairate, for example, produced
ninety-​two individuals, and the excavations at Seckenheim, a site in use from
the sixth to the late eighth centuries, analysed 112 skeletons; evidence of gout
was reported from neither excavation.28 It is worth remarking that the skele-
tal remains at Seckenheim have been noted for their exceptionally good pres-
ervation. Furthermore, many of the sites under consideration are thought to
have contained elite burials, such as Lorsch, where separate burial areas for
the monks, familia of the monastery, and possibly pilgrims have been uncov-
ered, and Campione d’Italia, which appears to have contained the remains of
a privileged merchant family, the descendants of a certain Totone.29 Overall,
the lack of evidence for gout at many different sites around the Carolingian

25 Baggieri and Mallegni, ‘A Probable Case of Gout’, 23–​8; Juliet Rogers, Iain Watt, and
Paul Dieppe, ‘Arthritis in Saxon and Mediaeval Skeletons’, British Medical Journal 283
(1981): 1668–​70, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1136​/bmj​.283​.6307​.1668; Dittmar, Mitchell, Jones,
Mulder, Inskip, Cessford, and Robb, ‘Gout and ‘Podagra’’.
26 Cattaneo and Mazzucchi, ‘Popolazioni tardo antiche e dell’alto medioevo’, 87–​98.
27 Ragab, Elshahaly, and Bardin, ‘Gout: An old disease in new perspective’, 496.
28 Valeria Mariotti, ed., Un monastero nei secoli. Santa Maria Assunta di Cairate: scavi e ricerche
(Mantua: sap, 2014); Denise Navitainuck, Christian Meyer, and Kurt W. Alt, ‘Degenerative
Alterations of the Spine in an Early Mediaeval Population from Mannheim-​Seckenheim,
Germany’, homo—​Journal of Comparative Human Biology 64, no. 3 (2013): 179–​89, https:
//​doi​.org​/10​.1016​/j​.jchb​.2013​.03​.007; and Hansen and Alt, ‘An Exceptional Case of Dental
Calculus’, 70–​1.
29 Kropp, Kirsch, Rosendahl, Orschiedt, and Fischer, Begraben und Vergessen?, and personal
communications with members of the scientific board of Lorsch, including Claus Kropp
and Hermann Schefers; Blockley, Caimi, Caporusso, Cattaneo, De Marchi, Miazzo, Porta,
and Ravedoni, ‘Campione d’Italia’, 29–​80.

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Joint Disease 213

world, combined with its low frequency in large burial complexes, suggests
that this disease was not a significant medical problem for many people during
this period.
The absence of gout in the skeletal remains may seem puzzling given the
relatively high frequency with which podagra is mentioned in medical recipes.
Can the gap between the written sources and osteological record be recon-
ciled? Or does the lack of overlap between these two bodies of evidence sug-
gest that some of the medical knowledge circulating in the eighth and ninth
centuries did not, in fact, relate to the needs of contemporary individuals? To
answer these questions, it is necessary to assess the textual and osteological
evidence for other joint diseases to build a more complete picture of arthrop-
athic conditions in the Carolingian world. The gout-​podagra paradox can then
be re-​evaluated against this background.

4 Moving Beyond Gout: Evidence for Other Arthropathies in the

Osteological Record

Although gout has been recorded very rarely, many other forms of arthritis
have been consistently noted in skeletal assemblages from early medieval sites.
Fundamentally, joint diseases tend to be separated into two categories, pro-
liferative and erosive, based on their pathology. Osteoarthritis (oa), the bony
reaction to the degeneration of articular cartilage, is the ‘archetypical prolif-
erative joint disease’ and the most commonly seen pathology overall, often
affecting the vertebrae, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles, and feet.30 Gout repre-
sents a classic erosive arthropathy: well-​defined round or oval erosions of the
bone are caused by ‘the precipitation of uric acid crystals in structures either
in or around a joint’, most frequently the metatarsal-​phalangeal joint of the big
toe.31 Other erosive joint diseases include ra, psoriatic arthritis, and ankylos-
ing spondylitis. Like gout, these conditions only affect a small percentage of
the total population and would therefore be expected to be found in archae-
ological contexts only relatively rarely. Unlike gout, however, descriptions of
these diseases are fairly recent (no earlier than the seventeenth century), and

30 Tony Waldron, ‘Joint Disease’, in A Companion to Paleopathology, ed. Anne L. Grauer

(Chichester: Wiley-​Blackwell, 2012), 513–​30, at p. 513; Waldron, Palaeopathology, 24–​
71; Adelaide Tosi, Paola Badino, Barbara Pezzoni, ‘Medical Conditions Observed in
Osteoarchaeological Remains: Arthropathies, Traumatic Lesions, Tumours, Metabolic
Diseases and Dental Pathologies’, Medicina Historica 1, no. 1 (2017): 29–​34, at p. 30.
31 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 68.

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214  Chapter 8

their diagnostic features are not recorded in pre-​modern texts.32 With this in
mind, I shall concentrate primarily on osteological evidence for oa.
Changes that occur on the surface of a bone as a result of oa include the
formation of new bone, often seen as bone spurs; pitting on the surface of
the joint; alterations of the joint contour, such as widening or flattening; and
the development of an eburnated, highly polished area on the surface of the
joint.33 According to Tony Waldron, oa can only be said to be present if ebur-
nation is apparent or if at least two of the other changes noted above exist.34 It
is necessary to take a conservative approach to the diagnosis of oa since there
can be a ‘difference between skeletal appearances and clinical experiences’,
and palaeopathological analyses will lack information about pain as reported
by a patient.35 Similarly, when considering joint disease in the vertebrae, the
development of Schmorl’s nodes (protrusions formed as a result of damage
to the vertebral endplate) does not necessarily cause back pain.36 Schmorl’s
nodes are, however, often linked to other spondyloarthropathies (joint dis-
eases of the spine) and seen in association with bio-​mechanical stress on the
lower back.37 Therefore, if evidence of these nodes is found alongside other
spinal pathologies, it can be assumed that the populations under considera-
tion would have experienced back pain to some degree.
The development of oa is primarily linked to the aging process and the
long-​term wear on joints through daily activity, though metabolic and genetic
factors as well as injuries, obesity, and sex also have an impact on the preva-
lence and severity of this pathology.38 The natural effects of aging and phys-
ical activity, especially among populations involved in heavy labour, such as
agricultural work, help to explain the pervasiveness of these conditions. I shall
elaborate on the evidence for oa and joint stress in the following categories: 1)

32 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 46–​74; Waldron, ‘Joint Disease’, 521–​9.

33 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 27–​8.
34 Ibid, 33.
35 Ibid, 31.
36 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 45; Tosi, Badino, Pezzoni, ‘Medical Conditions Observed in
Osteoarchaeological Remains’, 30. See, too, the discussion on ‘clinical correlation’ in Robert
D. Jurmain and Lynn Kilgore, ‘Skeletal Evidence of Osteoarthritis: A Palaeopathological
Perspective’, Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 54 (1995): 443–​50, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1136​
/ard​.54​.6​.443, at p. 446.
37 Ibid.
38 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 28; Tosi, Badino, Pezzoni, ‘Medical Conditions Observed in
Osteoarchaeological Remains’, 29–​30; Mattucci, Ravedoni, and Rettore, ‘Analisi antropo-
logica e paleopatologica’, 523–​4.

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Joint Disease 215

the spine, 2) large joints and limbs: shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees, and
3) small joints: hands and feet.

4.1 The Spine

In the palaeopathological reports consulted in this study, the spine tends to
be recorded as the area most frequently and severely affected by arthropa-
thies.39 At the site of Seckenheim, 112 adults with largely complete and well-​
preserved spines were analysed. This sample yielded 2599 vertebrae and 106
sacral bones, allowing for a particularly detailed analysis.40 Evidence of stress
and arthritis of the spinal column was present in 111 individuals (99.1%), and
the frequency and severity with which individuals were affected by arthritic
changes increased with age.41 Furthermore, nearly three-​quarters (73.2%) of
these individuals presented at least one vertebra with evidence of Schmorl’s
nodes.42 While this site has recorded exceptionally high frequencies of oa and
signs of associated pathologies, it must be noted that, in many cases, these
arthropathic changes were not very severe. The high prevalence of spondy-
loarthritis within the Seckenheim sample may therefore be explained by their
unusually good state of preservation. Indeed, the authors of this report suggest
that the lower frequencies of oa recorded at other sites are due to their less-​
well preserved skeletal remains.43 This interpretation fits with the contrasting
results from the excavation of the La Perosa site in Rivoli, a rural cemetery
used from the sixth to eighth centuries.44 Here, just under ten percent of the
sample of thirty-​four adults presented evidence of joint diseases. As a corollary
to the Seckenheim report, this study’s authors acknowledge that such a low
incidence of joint disease is probably due to the poor state of preservation of
the skeletal remains.45
Most sites report evidence of joint disease, and especially oa of the verte-
brae, at frequencies between the two extremes of Seckenheim and La Perosa,
often affecting between thirty and forty percent of individuals. This interme-
diate level of joint disease reporting is probably due in large part to the more
moderate degree of preservation seen at many of the sites under consideration.
While the extremely good preservation seen at Seckenheim is uncommon,

39 Mallegni, Bedini, Vitiello, Paglialunga, and Bartoli, ‘Su alcuni gruppi umani’, 233–​61.
40 Navitainuck, Meyer, and Alt, ‘Degenerative Alterations of the Spine’, 179–​83.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid, 183.
43 Ibid, 185.
44 Mallegni, Bedini, Vitiello, Paglialunga, and Bartoli, ‘Su alcuni gruppi umani’, 233–​61.
45 Ibid.

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216  Chapter 8

in-​depth palaeopathological studies are rarely pursued when preservation is

very poor. At the rural cemetery excavated at Corso Roma in Acqui Terme, in
use from the seventh to ninth centuries, roughly thirty percent of the sample of
twenty-​nine adults presented evidence of joint disease, with spondyloarthritis
the most commonly recorded condition.46 Similarly, of the ninety individuals
uncovered at San Lorenzo di Quingentole, a rural church with a surrounding
burial area dated to the eighth century, 38.4% exhibited signs of stress in their
vertebrae.47
Although the vertebral column is almost universally the most severely
affected area of the skeleton (an exception to this will be discussed below),
particular areas of the back exhibit varying levels of severity at different sites.
For instance, all adult males from Campione d’Italia (three individuals out of a
group of eleven skeletons) present evidence of spinal arthritis, with the lumbar
vertebrae the most affected area.48 Similarly, among the individuals dated to
the ‘Basilica Phase’ of the Saint Servatius site, the lower back tended to exhibit
more signs of degenetive disc disease than the cervical and upper thoracic
vertebrae.49 These findings contrast with the rural cemetery excavated at San
Martino di Ovaro. This cemetery was in use from the sixth to early eleventh
centuries and included thirty-​one individuals, thirteen of whom can be more
precisely dated between the seventh and ninth centuries. The individuals dated
to this period exhibited a greater degree of degeneration in their thoracic ver-
tebrae.50 Not unlike the population buried at Seckenheim, spondyloarthrop-
athies were seen in nearly all individuals. Certain patterns of wear are often
related to particular activities, working conditions, and walking surfaces, and
therefore suggest that individuals at the sites under examination experienced
different lifestyles and/​or engaged in a variety of different activities, some of
which stressed specific parts of the back more than others. Overall, however, it
is evident that joint diseases of the spine were very prevalent in these popula-
tions. Given the diversity of sites under analysis, the relatively high frequencies
with which these conditions are seen reflect the great extent with which indi-
viduals in early medieval Europe were affected by spondyloarthritis.

46 Ibid.
47 Dal Poz, Ricci, Reale, Malvone, Salvadei, and Manzi, ‘Paleobiologia della popolazione
altomedievale di San Lorenzo di Quingentole’, 171–​6.
48 Blockley, Caimi, Caporusso, Cattaneo, De Marchi, Miazzo, Porta, and Ravedoni, ‘Campione
d’Italia’, 56–​8.
49 Panhuysen, ‘Demography and Health in Early Medieval Maastricht’, pp. 191–​3.
50 Valeria Amoretti, ‘Analisi paleobiologiche dei resti scheletrici’, in Lo scavo di San Martino
di Ovaro (sec. v–​x ii). Archeologia della cristianizzazione nel territorio di Aquileia, ed.
Aurora Cagnana (Mantua: sap, 2011), 481–​536.

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Joint Disease 217

4.2 Large Joints and Limbs: Shoulders, Elbows, Hips, and Knees
While the spine often appears to be the most frequently and severely affected
area of the skeleton, there is extensive evidence for arthropathies in other
joints. Regular physical activity engages the large joints of the shoulders, hips,
knees, and elbows, leading to wear and tear over time. The intense physical
labour associated with agricultural work, blacksmithing, horseback-​riding,
carrying heavy objects, etc., would put these joints under even more signifi-
cant bio-​mechanical stress, and the skeletal remains from early medieval cem-
eteries confirm the active living and working conditions experienced by most
people during this period. For many individuals who lived long enough, this
intense physical activity has been documented by their skeletal remains.
Although the excavation of San Lorenzo di Quingentole recorded typical
levels of spinal arthropathies (with approximately forty percent of the popu-
lation exhibiting signs of stress on their vertebrae), it is exceptional in that the
spine was not the most severely affected part of the body. Unlike all other sites
considered in this study, the skeletal remains from San Lorenzo di Quingentole
display more evidence of arthropathies affecting the shoulder.51 Signs of stress
were also recorded in the elbows and extremities, though the severity of stress
decreased along the upper limbs.52 That is, while the shoulder was the most
acutely affected area of the body, evidence of joint disease in the elbows was
not as severe and the hands even less so. In-​depth analyses of the patholo-
gies of several individuals at this site were highlighted as case studies in the
excavation report. The skeleton buried in Tomb 33, for example, a male aged
between forty and fifty years old, presented evidence of oa in the shoulders,
hips, and knees based on eburnation and signs of bone formation.53 Although
the shoulders exhibited more signs of oa than the spine at this site, the authors
of the report do not interpret this atypical finding as suggestive of particularly
unusual or distinctive labour, such as mining, but regard it as evidence of fairly
standard activities, such as agricultural work, wood chopping, and fishing. It
is, however, noted that the heavy, clay-​rich soil may have played a role in the
accumulation of shoulder-​stress in relation to agricultural activities and land
reclamation.54
The excavation of the large, rural monastic cemetery at Santa Maria Assunta
di Cairate produced over two hundred skeletons, and the third phase of its

51 Dal Poz, Ricci, Reale, Malvone, Salvadei, and Manzi, ‘Paleobiologia della popolazione
altomedievale di San Lorenzo di Quingentole’, 171–​6.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.

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218  Chapter 8

use, dated between the sixth and ninth centuries, included ninety-​two indi-
viduals. While the spine was the area most affected by oa, signs of arthritic
changes were present on the bones of the shoulders, hips, and knees of many
individuals.55 Similarly, at Acqui Terme, three of the twenty-​nine adults, over
ten percent, had markers of oa in their hips; the sacroiliac joints of two indi-
viduals and coxofemoral joint of the third were particularly affected.56 Looking
to comparative sites beyond the Carolingian world, cemeteries from the British
Isles paint a similar picture. Juliet Rogers, Iain Watt, and Paul Dieppe’s study of
arthritis in medieval English skeletons, for example, noted that ‘hip and shoul-
der osteoarthritis were both common’ in the seven cemeteries analysed.57 Of
the fifty skeletons dated to the early medieval period involved in their study,
roughly a quarter presented evidence of advanced osteoarthritic changes in
the shoulders and nearly thirty percent in the hips.58 Overall, the skeletal evi-
dence indicates that oa was a common condition during this period, affect-
ing not only the spine but also the large joints, and especially the shoulders
and hips.

4.3 Small Joints: Hands and Feet

Although evidence for gout was very limited at the sites involved in this study,
signs of oa in the small joints of the extremities have been noted in many
reports. At Bolgare, for example, arthritis and other foot problems were fre-
quent: roughly thirty percent of the population exhibited small fractures in
their feet and toes due to repeated microtraumata that resulted from the accu-
mulation of bio-​mechanical stress and injuries.59 Two males from Acqui Terme
showed signs of oa in their feet: the left calcaneus and talus of one individual
was particularly affected, while the phalanges of the right foot of the other
individual recorded bony changes associated with the condition.60 At Lorsch,
an individual buried in the cemetery area associated with pilgrims and dated
to the ninth or tenth centuries presented similar pathologies in his right ankle,
including osteophytic growth around the calcaneus.61 One of the three males
from Campione d’Italia with spondyloarthritis also exhibited severe oa in his

55 Mattucci, Ravedoni, and Rettore, ‘Analisi antropologica e paleopatologica’, 523–​4.

56 Mallegni, Bedini, Vitiello, Paglialunga, and Bartoli, ‘Su alcuni gruppi umani’, 233–​61.
57 Rogers, Watt, and Dieppe, ‘Arthritis in Saxon and Mediaeval Skeletons’, 1669.
58 Ibid.
59 Cattaneo and Mazzucchi, ‘Popolazioni tardo antiche e dell’alto medioevo’, 88–​90.
60 Mallegni, Bedini, Vitiello, Paglialunga, and Bartoli, ‘Su alcuni gruppi umani’, 233–​61.
61 Personal communications with Claus Kropp and unpublished notes from the 1990 exca-
vation season at Lorsch.

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Joint Disease 219

feet; this individual died at a relatively advanced age (fifty to sixty years old),
fitting the severity of his arthritis.62 As noted above, the excavation report of
San Lorenzo di Quingentole concentrated on a handful of skeletons (out of the
ninety-​two excavated), providing detailed analyses of their pathologies.63 One
of these individuals, a male aged between forty and fifty, exhibited major signs
of stress in a variety of joints: in addition to evidence of oa in the vertebrae,
shoulder, elbow, hips, and knees, extensive osteophytic growth was observed
in the ankles as well as roughness around the surfaces of these joints.64 These
types of developments suggest that the affected individuals either experienced
prolonged periods of walking or running and/​or carried substantial weight
that resulted in significant stress on the ankles and feet.65
Arthropathies of the hands were less frequently recorded, though still noted
at a number of sites. Individuals at Santa Maria Assunta di Cairate, for exam-
ple, displayed evidence of oa in their hands.66 At San Lorenzo di Quingentole,
males exhibited significantly more stress in their hands than females.67 Most
notably, evidence suggestive of ra was recorded at the site of Piazza Marconi
in Cremona and possibly also at San Lorenzo di Desenzano, a rural cemetery
with twenty-​eight individuals dating from the seventh to eleventh centuries.68
At the latter site, an arthropathy observed on the left ring finger of one indi-
vidual could be due to ra or several other causes, including trauma.69 The
evidence from Cremona, on the other hand, is very convincing, in large part
because it is seen repeatedly within the site, and the onset of ra is strongly
linked to genetic and environmental factors.70 These two sites present the only
possible examples of erosive arthropathies (in addition to the cases of gout
noted above) identified within the sites under consideration.
The general trend seen in the skeletal evidence suggests that oa and minor
traumata of the ankles, feet, toes, and, to a slightly lesser extent, hands, were

62 Blockley, Caimi, Caporusso, Cattaneo, De Marchi, Miazzo, Porta, and Ravedoni, ‘Campione
d’Italia’, 54–​5.
63 Dal Poz, Ricci, Reale, Malvone, Salvadei, and Manzi, ‘Paleobiologia della popolazione
altomedievale di San Lorenzo di Quingentole’, 151–​95.
64 Ibid, 171–​6.
65 Ibid.
66 Mattucci, Ravedoni, and Rettore, ‘Analisi antropologica e paleopatologica’, 523–​4.
67 Dal Poz, Ricci, Reale, Malvone, Salvadei, and Manzi, ‘Paleobiologia della popolazione
altomedievale di San Lorenzo di Quingentole’, 171–​6.
68 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 46–​53.
69 Canci, Chavarría Arnau, and Marinato, ‘Il cimitero della chiesa altomedievale di San
Lorenzo di Desenzano (bs)’, 452–​5.
70 Cattaneo and Mazzucchi, ‘Popolazioni tardo antiche e dell’alto medioevo’, 91–​2.

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220  Chapter 8

widespread issues, affecting a sizable proportion of the population. In con-

trast, evidence of erosive arthropathies was extremely limited. Crucially, that
evidence of various types of arthritic changes in the hands and especially the
feet were observed and recorded with regularity—​while signs of gout were
not—​indicates that evidence suggestive of gout has not been simply over-
looked or underreported but that it is, in fact, lacking.

4.4 Summary
The skeletal evidence reveals that joint disease affected a significant percent-
age of the population. oa was the most prevalent condition reported, although
possible cases of ra were also recorded at two sites. While the spinal column
was almost always recorded as the most frequently affected area of the body,
both large and small joints also exhibited signs of oa, testifying to the active life-
styles and physically demanding living conditions of many individuals. Before
reassessing the relationship between gout and podagra with respect to this
evidence, the treatments recorded for other arthropathies must be surveyed to
provide the full picture of joint disease.

5 Textual Evidence for Joint Pain Beyond Podagra

In contrast to the big toe, pains associated with most other joints and joint areas,
such as the back, shoulders, neck, elbows, and knees, have not been linked to a
particular disease concept. Relatedly, and also unlike the case of podagra, a dis-
tinct, localised vocabulary has not emerged to address most other joint aches.
That is, when pains related to the knees or shoulders, for example, are noted
in recipes, they tend to be recorded in a simple, straightforward fashion, using
phrases such as ad geniculorum dolorem (‘for pain of the knees’) and ad scapu-
larum dolorem (‘for pain of the shoulders’).
The hips, however, present an important exception with some parallels to
podagra. On the one hand, the use of the standard Latin term for hip, coxa,
mirrors that of the aforementioned joints, appearing in expressions such as
ad coxarum dolorem (‘for pain of the hips’). On the other hand, two additional
terms, sciatica and nescia, also refer to problems associated with the hips. Like
podagra, these words a) have a Greek origin (in this case, both are Latinised
descendents of ἰσχία (ischia), meaning ‘hips’ or ‘hip joint’), and b) gave rise to a
wider vocabulary of related words (e.g., sciaticus, describing someone suffering

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Joint Disease 221

from sciatica).71 Notably, in modern translations of classical and late antique

medical texts, sciatica and nescia are often given as loosely defined hip condi-
tions, with translators opting for broader interpretations of these terms rather
than identifying them with a specific ailment.72 A more open-​ended interpre-
tation recognises not only the complexity of past understandings of pain and
disease, but also how they may differ from modern medical understandings—​
even when certain individual terms, such as ‘sciatica’, remain in use today.
These more cautious translations highlight the need for a critical re-​evaluation
of podagra. The following analysis of the ways in which pain in joints beyond
(or in addition to) the big toe appears in the recipe literature provides a
framework for contextualising podagra and, ultimately, re-​assessing the gout-​
podagra paradox.
Before reviewing the textual evidence, it is important to outline the terms
and joints/​joint areas under consideration. In this analysis, I consider major
joints and joint areas that are linked to pain in recipes, including the neck,
shoulders, lower back, hips, knees, and hands. I also consider recipes that refer
to unlocalised joint aches and pains, tracing the appearance of terms such as
articulus, ‘joint’, and artriticus, a condition defined by Isidore of Seville as ‘an
affliction of the joints’.73 Rather than reading this term as ‘arthritis’ in a mod-
ern medical sense, I use Isidore’s description of artriticus as ‘an affliction of the
joints’, following the broader interpretations of nescia and sciatica noted above.
Likewise, this investigation takes an inclusive approach to the recipe liter-
ature.74 While many treatments are explicitly focused on managing the aches

71 Isidore, Etymologiae, 4.7.29: Sciasis vocata a parte corporis, quam vexat. Nam vertebrorum
ossa, quorum summitas iliorum initio terminator, Graeci ἰσχία vocant. See also: Isidore, The
Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. Barney, Lewis, Beach, and Berghof, 112.
72 Yvette Hunt, for example, translates sciaticis as ‘sufferers of hip-​disease’, and notes that
the condition is ‘variously translated as hip-​gout, hip-​disease, and even sciatica despite its
modern use relating to the sciatic nerve. It has been translated as “hip-​disease” to allow the
broadest possible understanding’; see The Medicina Plinii, trans. Hunt, 2.3 (and commen-
tary at p. 176). Jutta Kollesch and Diethard Nickel translate sciatica as ‘Hüftschmerzen’,
hip pain; for many examples, see Book 25 (on cures for lower back and hip pain) of
Marcellus, De medicamentis liber, ed. Liechtenhan and Niedermann, trans. Kollesch and
Nickel. Unusually, Hunt is similarly cautious with the term podagra; see The Medicina
Plinii, trans. Hunt, 2.27 (and commentary at p. 215). Cf. Marcellus, De medicamentis liber,
ed. Liechtenhan and Niedermann, trans. Kollesch and Nickel, Book 34, and Isidore, The
Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. Barney, Lewis, Beach, and Berghof, 4.7.31 (at p. 112).
73 Isidore, Etymologiae, 4.7.31: Artriticus morbus ab articulorum passione vocabulum sumpsit;
translation from: Isidore, The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. Barney, Lewis, Beach,
and Berghof, 112.
74 It is impossible to be entirely comprehensive in this analysis given the differences in how
individuals feel, understand, and describe pain (and its causes). I have not, for example,

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222  Chapter 8

and pains of specific joints, the phrasing of some recipes can be more ambig-
uous. Consider, for example, recipes titled Ad ceruicis dolorem, ‘For pain of the
neck’, and Ad renum dolorem uel coxarum, ‘For pain of the kidneys or hips’.75
The former is intended to treat neck pain and thus offers a remedy for a gen-
eral joint area, the cervical spine. The latter, in contrast, claims to treat kidney
and hip pain, a combination that raises the following question: should it be
understood as a treatment for internal pains in the lower abdomen and pelvic
region (including the kidneys, bladder, urinary tract, and so on) or a treatment
for kidney pain as well as hip joint pain? In these types of cases, recipe titles
(and any extra details contained within the recipes themselves) rarely provide
a conclusive answer, and I include such recipes in the analysis if it appears
possible that they were intended as treatments for joint pains alongside or in
concert with other aims.
On this basis, I have identified 218 recipes that could be interpreted as tar-
geting joint afflictions or pain other than or in addition to podagra. As in the
preceding analyses, I have categorised these treatments by specificity, using
the same parameters to divide them into non-​specific, semi-​specific, and
highly specific groups (see Table 15). I have also investigated the distribution
of target joint(s) and joint area(s) (see Table 16). The results of these analy-
ses present both parallels to and divergences from the opening case study on
podagra; I shall review how nonlocalised joint afflictions appear in the recipes
before turning to individual joints and joint areas.

5.1 General Afflictions of the Joints

Within the sample, eighty-​four recipes offer treatments intended for general
‘joint afflictions’ and joint pain. These recipes cover the full spectrum of spec-
ificity, and the non-​and semi-​specific treatments often target multiple joint
issues, including podagra. In this discussion, I shall use ‘general joint afflic-
tions’ as shorthand for recipes that mention either artriticus or problems affect-
ing the articuli.76 Of these eighty-​four references to general joint afflictions,

included treatments for omnem dolorem (‘all pain’) in this study given that such a descrip-
tion is entirely open-​ended, but it is, of course, possible that such recipes were intended
to treat joint pains as part of their comprehensive coverage.
75 Examples of recipes entitled Ad ceruicis dolorem or Ad dolorem ceruicis can be found in
codd. sang. 751, 759, and bav pal. lat. 1088, while Ad renum dolorem uel coxarum is located
in cod. sang. 44, p. 345. For an example of the former, see Appendix 2, entry 9.33; for the
latter, see entry 5.19.
76 While the term artriticus appears more often, general problems with and pains of the
articuli are sometimes mentioned, too; see, for example, cod. sang. 751, p. 404: Ad uicia
articulorum. For the transcription, see Appendix 2, entry 9.11.

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Joint Disease 223

table 15 Overview of the specificity of recipes for joint pain other than or in addition to
podagra

Specificity NSp SSp HSp Total

# of Recipes 68 49 101 218
% of Total 31.2% 22.5% 46.3% 100%

thirty-​six instances (42.9%) occur in non-​specific panaceas, twenty-​six (31.0%)

represent semi-​specific treatments targeting a range of similar conditions, and
twenty-​two (26.2%) are highly specific recipes focused exclusively on nonlo-
calised joint afflictions (see Table 17). These findings are fairly similar to the
analysis of podagra recipes: in both cases, non-​specific recipes make up the
largest category, while the number of semi-​specific and highly specific recipes
represent between a quarter and third of the recipes.
By taking this analysis further and considering the specificity of treatments
in relation to the different types of joint conditions named alongside general
joint afflictions, a more nuanced picture emerges. In thirty-​seven recipes, as
shown in Table 16, artriticus and articulus are the only joint-​related terms
mentioned. To clarify, this is not to say that these are all highly specific recipes
(according to the levels of specificity used in these analyses); rather, these are
recipes in which the only joint-​related condition listed concerns general joint
afflictions, no matter the total number of conditions they claim to treat. The
number of recipes in this category, therefore, is nearly twice that of specific rec-
ipes in this category (twenty-​two, as seen in Table 17) because, although artrit-
icus might be the only joint disease mentioned in some non-​specific recipes, it
is found alongside a host of other conditions, such as epilepsy, stomachache,
and skin problems. On the other hand, over half of the recipes that include
general joint afflictions as a target (forty-​seven recipes, 56.0%) aim to treat
additional, named joints and joint areas: podagra is included thirty-​five times,
while sixteen recipes list at least three different joints or joint areas. Of the
thirty-​five recipes that refer to both artriticus and podagra, nineteen (54.3%)
are found in panaceas, whereas sixteen (45.7%) are semi-​specific treatments,
such as the Potio contra artreticam siue nesciam uel podagram of bav pal. lat.
1088 or the Unguentum acupo galastico of cod. sang. 751, both noted above.77

77 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 65v: Potio contra artreticam siue nesciam uel podagram; cod. sang. 751,
p. 319: Unguentum acupo galastico ad omnem dolorem uel tumorem tam podagricis quam
artetricis. See Appendix 2, entries 16.25 and 9.2, respectively.

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table 16 Number and percentage of recipes for joint pain other than or in addition to podagra presented by target areaa
224 

a. General ‘joint afflictions’ (artriticus, articulus)

Total # of recipes # of recipes in which # of recipes in which # of recipes in

with general ‘joint general ‘joint afflictions’ general ‘joint afflictions’ which general ‘joint
afflications’ as a is the only joint pain & podagra are the only afflications’ are
target mentioned joint pain mentioned named with ≥ 2
other joint areas
# 84 37 35 16
% of 218 38.5% 17.0% 16.1% 7.3%
% of 83 100% 44.0% 41.7% 19.1%

b. Neck (ceruix)
Total # of recipes # of recipes in which # of recipes in which # of recipes in which
with the neck as a the neck is the only the neck & shoulders the neck is named
target joint area mentioned are the only joint areas with ≥ 2 other joint
mentioned areas
# 21 12 4 5
% of 218 9.6% 5.5% 1.8% 2.3%
% of 21 100% 57.1% 19.1% 23.8%
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table 16 Number and percentage of recipes for joint pain other than or in addition to podagra presented by target area (cont.)

c. Shoulders (scapulae)
Joint Disease

Total # of recipes # of recipes in which # of recipes in which

with the shoulders as the shoulders are the neck & shoulders
a target the only joint area are the only joint areas
mentioned mentioned
# 18 16 4
% of 218 8.3% 7.3% 1.8%
% of 18 100% 88.9% 22.2%

d. Lower back area (lumbus)

Total # of recipes # of recipes in which # of recipes in which the
with the lower back the lower back is back & hips are the only
area as a target the only joint area joint areas mentioned
mentioned
# 15 6 10
% of 218 6.9% 2.8% 4.6%
% of 15 100% 37.5% 66.7%
225

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table 16 Number and percentage of recipes for joint pain other than or in addition to podagra presented by target area (cont.)
226 

e. Hips (coxae, nescia, sciatica)

Total # of recipes # of recipes in which # of recipes in which # of recipes in which # of recipes in
with the hips as a the hips are the only coxae is used nescia is used which sciatica
target joint area mentioned is used
# 107 68 25 41 43
% of 218 49.1% 31.2% 11.5% 18.8% 19.7%
% of 107 100% 63.6% 23.4% 38.3% 40.2%

f. Knees (genua, genicula)

Total # of recipes # of recipes in which # of recipes in which the
with the knees as a the knees are the only knees are named with ≥
target joint area mentioned 2 other joint areas
# 18 9 5
% of 218 8.3% 4.1% 2.3%
% of 18 100% 50.0% 27.8%
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table 16 Number and percentage of recipes for joint pain other than or in addition to podagra presented by target area (cont.)

g. Hands (manus)
Joint Disease

Total # of recipes # of recipes in which # of recipes in which the

with the hands as a the hands are the only hands are named with ≥
target joint area mentioned 2 other joint areas
# 5 1 4
% of 218 2.3% 0.5% 1.8%
% of 5 100% 20.0% 80.0%

h. Multiple targets (≥ 3 joints/​joint areas)

Total # of recipes
targeting ≥ 3 joints/​
joint areas
# 22
% of 218 10.1%
% of 22 100%

Note:
a The numbers of recipes in individual categories do not add up to their respective totals because a) the table presents a selection of the most important
combinations of targeted joints/​joint areas, and b) under ‘e. hips’, several individual recipes use two of the three terms, thereby elevating their totals.
227

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228  Chapter 8

table 17 Recipes that target general joint afflictions by specificity

Specificity NSp SSp HSp Total

# of Recipes 36 26 22 84
(% of Total) (42.9%) (31.0%) (26.2%) (100%)

Thirteen of the sixteen recipes that claim to treat at least three different joints
and joint areas are non-​specific, while just three are semi-​specific. Thus, when
general joint afflictions are listed alongside podagra or listed with multiple
named joints and joint areas, the recipes tend to be non-​specific panaceas,
though semi-​specific treatments that pair the pains of podagrici and artritici
represent a significant minority within the sample.
When general joint afflictions are the only joint-​related condition men-
tioned in a recipe, a different picture emerges: roughly three-​fifths of the
treatments are highly specific (twenty-​two out of thirty-​seven recipes, 59.5%).
Examples include the Unguentum ad artiticus of bav reg. lat. 1143 and Gyma
artreticis of cod. sang. 759.78 Five recipes (13.9%) are semi-​specific, including
two versions of a recipe entitled Catarticum artreticis et ydropicis intended to
treat general joint pains and dropsy, while nine (25.0%) are non-​specific, such
as the Oxira crocira of bav pal. lat. 1088, which claims to cure over fifteen dif-
ferent conditions, including general joint afflictions but also spleen, liver, and
kidney problems, the bites of snakes and rabid dogs, and so on.79 The ratio
of these recipes’ specificity contrasts with the podagra study, as illustrated in
Table 14, where roughly half of the recipes are classified as non-​specific and
just thirty percent are highly specific.
Within the semi-​specific treatments, the pairing of general joint afflic-
tions with knee pain stands out as a recurring cluster. In three different treat-
ments, these two joint issues—​one general and one localised to a particular

78 bav reg. lat. 1143, f. 169r: Unguentum ad artiticus; cod. sang. 759, p. 61: Gyma artreticis. See
Appendix 2, entries 18.7 and 11.9, respectively.
79 Cod. sang. 44, p. 250: Catarticum artriticis et idropicis; cod. sang. 759, p. 58: Catarticum
artreticis ydropicis; bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 60r: Oxira crocira facit epaticis, spleneticis, ad
ypocondria, tensiones nefreticis, ad omnem neruorum tensiones, pleureticis, peripleumon-
icis, artriticis, sciaticis, et omnem neruorum contractiones, et luxas, et fracturas, et incisos
neruos soluit, autem et omnes duritias, et ad serpentium morsus, et canis rabii morsum. See
Appendix 2, entries 5.10, 11.7, and 16.23, respectively.

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Joint Disease 229

joint—​are grouped together. Consider, for example, the Unguentum artitricis

uel geniculorum dolorem of cod. sang. 751, an ointment for those suffering from
afflictions of the joints or knee pain, or the Unguentum ad febrientes of bav
pal. lat. 1088.80 Although the latter recipe may not appear to offer a treatment
for joint pain, the following phrase appears after its instructions for preparing
the ointment: similiter a genibus usque ad summum articulorum (‘similarly for
knees and for all joints’), suggesting that the same preparation can also be used
to alleviate afflictions of the knees and other joints.81
Recipes that target general joint afflictions thus present a complex pic-
ture: when this is the only type of joint issue recorded in a recipe, the treat-
ment is often highly specific, presenting a recipe targeted at alleviating
nonlocalised joint complaints. When paired with podagra, however, it is
entirely non-​or semi-​specific, with many examples of cure-​all panaceas. On
the other hand, in the handful of cases where knee pain is the only other joint
issue mentioned, the recipes tend to take a more targeted approach, claiming
to offer both general and localised pain relief. Looking at this another way, out
of the 218 recipes that may target joint diseases other than or in addition to
podagra, sixty-​eight are non-​specific, and thirty-​five of these (51.5%) involve
general joint afflictions. Nonlocalised joint pains are thus mentioned in just
over half of the non-​specific remedies that treat joint disease other than or in
addition to podagra. As seen in Table 15, I have classed forty-​nine of the 218
recipes as semi-​specific and 101 as highly specific. General joint afflictions are
recorded in twenty-​six and twenty-​two recipes, respectively (53.1% and 21.8%),
revealing that, broadly, as specificity increases, references to general joint
afflictions decrease. There are still recipes that claim to target general joint
issues exclusively, but, in the wider context, catch-​all terms such as artriticus
appear more frequently in non-​and semi-​specific treatments.

5.2 Named Joints and Joint Areas: the Back, Neck, Shoulders, Hips, Knees,
and Hands
The back, neck, shoulders, hips, knees, and hands are mentioned as target
areas in many recipes, whether individually or in combination with each other
as well as the other joint-​related terms discussed above. Having considered
how nonlocalised joint afflictions appear in recipes, I shall now concentrate
on the occurrence and distribution of aches and pains linked to these named

80 Cod. sang. 751, p. 320: Unguentum artitricis uel geniculorum dolorem; bav pal. lat. 1088,
f. 62r: Unguentum ad febrientes. See Appendix 2, entries 9.3 and 16.24.1.
81 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 62r: Unguentum ad febrientes. See Appendix 2, entry 16.24.1.

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230  Chapter 8

joints and joint areas. Out of the 313 recipes within the sample that appear to
be intended to treat named joint aches and pains, 124 recipes remain when
references to podagra and general joint afflictions are excluded (see Table 18).
This selection presents a number of striking differences when compared to the
previous analyses.
First, while nearly half of the recipes targeting podagra and over forty per-
cent of those for general joint afflictions are classified as non-​specific treat-
ments, only twenty percent of these 124 recipes fall into the same category. The
vast majority, approximately four-​fifths, of these treatments are more specific
in their focus.82 Although these twenty-​five non-​specific recipes are much like
the other non-​specific treatments addressed above in that they claim to treat
a vast range of ailments and are typically based on a large number of primarily
exotic ingredients, they are unusual in one respect: in place of podagra and/​or
artriticus (terms seen so frequently in general antidotes and other panaceas),
a specific joint area is named. The Antidotus polichristus of bav reg. lat. 1143,
for example, is recorded as a cure for hip pain as well as tooth pain, paralysis,
vomiting blood, and so on.83 As Table 18 illustrates, in all but one joint category,
non-​specific recipes comprise less than twenty percent of each group. The one
exception, recipes that include the term sciatica (and related words), reverses
this trend: nearly eighty percent of recipes that offer treatments for ‘hip dis-
ease’ using this word are non-​specific. Indeed, if all recipes featuring sciatica
and its related terms (twenty-​three recipes) are removed from the sample,
only seven of the remaining 101 recipes, or about five percent, are non-​specific
panaceas, highlighting the much more targeted nature of this recipe selection
overall. That is, catch-​all antidotes that list scores of individual diseases and
ailments rarely list joint conditions other than podagra, artriticus, and sciatica.
When other joints and joint areas are named in recipes, the treatments tend to
be directed specifically at remedying the named joint(s) or joint area(s).
Semi-​and highly specific recipes have been grouped together in Table 18
because many of the semi-​specific treatments pair two neighbouring joints or
joint areas, such as the neck and shoulders or the lower back and hips. Despite
listing multiple areas, these recipes present very targeted treatments. Indeed,
of the ten recipes that claim to offer relief for pain in the lower back and hips,
for example, nine target this combination alone. The one exception is found in

82 As seen in Table 18, I have combined semi-​and highly specific recipes in these cases
because the semi-​specific recipes generally present treatments that target two, nearby
joint areas, such as the hips and lower back (as discussed below), and thus essentially
offer highly specific treatments, even though two different joints or joint areas are named.
83 bav reg. lat. 1143, ff. 161v–​162v: Antidotus polichristus. See Appendix 2, entry 18.6.

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Joint Disease 231

table 18 Number and percentage of recipes for joint pain with references to neither
podagra nor general joint afflictions presented by specificity

a. Total number of recipes that mention joints without also referring to

podagra and general joint afflictions (artriticus, articulus)
Specificity NSp SSp/​HSp Total
# of Recipes 25 99 124
% of Total 20.2% 79.8% 100%
b. Neck (ceruix)
Specificity NSp SSp/​HSp Total
# of Recipes 1 17 18
% of Total 5.6% 94.4% 100%
c. Shoulders (scapulae)
Specificity NSp SSp/​HSp Total
# of Recipes 0 18 18
% of Total 0% 100% 100%
d. Lower back area (lumbus)
Specificity NSp SSp/​HSp Total
# of Recipes 2 12 14
% of Total 14.3% 85.7% 100%
e. Hips (coxae)
Specificity NSp SSp/​HSp Total
# of Recipes 2 18 20
% of Total 10.0% 90.0% 100%
f. Hips (nescia)
Specificity NSp SSp/​HSp Total
# of Recipes 3 34 37
% of Total 8.1% 91.9% 100%
g. Hips (sciatica)
Specificity NSp SSp/​HSp Total
# of Recipes 18 5 23
% of Total 78.3% 21.7% 100%
h. Knees (genua, genicula)
Specificity NSp SSp/​HSp Total
# of Recipes 2 9 11
% of Total 18.2% 81.8% 100%
i. Hands (manus)
Specificity NSp SSp/​HSp Total
# of Recipes 0 2 2
% of Total 0% 100% 100%

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232  Chapter 8

a small cluster of recipes in cod. sang. 751 under the heading Ad laterum dolore,
‘For side pain’. The second treatment in this group extends to the hip and lower
back: ‘Likewise, burnt cabbage with grease, applied to the sides or the hips and
lower back, heals wonderfully’.84
Moreover, when recipes are ordered according to the a capite ad calcem
structure (‘from head to heel’), there can be some ambiguity regarding the
treatment targets. Consider, for instance, a group of recipes in bav pal. lat. 1088
with the title, Ad lumborum dolores, ‘For pain of the lower back’.85 While the
first recipe is limited to the lower back, the following treatment begins Item ad
lumborum uel coxarum dolores, ‘Likewise, for pains of the lower back or hips’,
while the third and final entry of the cluster is simply titled Item. In this case,
I would suggest that the third recipe also targets both lower back and hip pain,
though it is possible that it was intended just for lower back pain, the aim iden-
tified by this group’s main title. A parallel case can be found in cod. sang. 44,
while, in cod. sang. 751, a group of recipes located under the heading Ad dolo-
rem ceruicis, ‘For pain of the neck’, are similarly expanded to include shoulder
pain.86 In line with the lower back examples, the second recipe starts Item si
escapulas doluerint, ‘Likewise, if the shoulders hurt’, and the next two simply
start with Item, ‘Likewise’.87
While the pairing of individual joints and joint areas can thus be some-
what ambiguous, the majority of these recipes (sixty-​nine of 101, 68.3%) rep-
resent highly specific treatments exclusively focused on a single joint/​joint
area. Of the eighteen recipes for shoulder pain, for instance, eight are semi-​
specific (including recipes that pair neck and shoulder pain) and ten are highly
specific. Examples include three recipes under the heading Ad scapularum
dolorem, ‘For pain of the shoulders’, in cod. sang. 44 and a recipe titled Ad scab-
ule dolorem in BnF lat. 11218.88 Intriguingly, the second recipe of the cluster
in cod. sang. 44 has close parallels to the recipe in BnF lat. 11218, highlighting
the shared sources of these different collections and the movement of medical

84 Cod. sang. 751, p. 461: Item [Ad laterum dolore]. Caulae cumbustae cum exungia lateribus
uel coxis et lumbis adpositus mire sanat. See Appendix 2, entry 9.35.2.
85 bav pal. lat. 1088, ff. 41r–​41v: Ad lumborum dolores; Item ad lumborum uel coxarum; Item.
See Appendix 2, entries 16.8.1–​3.
86 Cod. sang. 44, p. 367: Item ad lumborum uel coxarum dolorem; cod. sang. 751, p. 457: Ad
dolorem ceruicis. See Appendix 2, entries 5.31.2 and 9.33.1, respectively.
87 Cod. sang. 751, p. 457: Item si escapulas doluerint; Item; Item. See Appendix 2, entry
9.33.2–​4.
88 Cod. sang. 44, pp. 361–​2: Ad scapularum dolorem; BnF lat. 11218, f. 96v: Ad scabule dolorem.
See Appendix 2, entries 5.27 and 3.6, respectively.

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Joint Disease 233

knowledge. Though not identical, both recommend applying a mixture of ver-

vain and fresh beans cooked in wine with fat.
As noted above, recipes that claim to alleviate hip problems present a more
complicated picture with respect to specificity. Treatments that include sciat-
ica and related terms are exceptional among the subset of recipes that target
named joints and joint areas: this particular terminology is seen much more
often in wide-​ranging antidotes and only rarely in highly specific remedies. On
the other hand, as seen in Table 18, recipes that describe hip issues with words
related to coxa and nescia are precisely the opposite: within the sample, no
less than ninety percent of these recipes are semi-​or highly specific. Notably,
the recipes that include coxa-​based words are fairly evenly split between semi-​
and highly specific treatments and include all instances of the lower back-​
hip pairing. In contrast, treatments for nescia, such as the Potio ad nesciam in
bav pal. lat. 1088, are almost entirely highly specific recipes that exclusively
target this condition (thirty-​two out of thirty-​seven, 86.5%).89 The different
ways in which these three hip terms appear within the sample suggests some
underlying distinctions in their use, including differences in how the terms
were understood. The variation in vocabulary could also be linked to different
sources, and tracing the transmission of each term may help to shed light on
the movement of particular texts and traditions as well as the construction of
new recipe collections in the early medieval west.
Overall, although each individual joint category examined in this section
contains a lower number of recipes when compared to treatments for podagra
or general joint afflictions, when viewed together, they indicate that treatments
for named joints are often very targeted. While there are important exceptions,
many of these recipes are intended exclusively for just one or two joints and/​or
joint areas in the same part of the body. These recipes and their contexts must
now be reconsidered in the light of the skeletal evidence presented above.

6 Integrating the Evidence: a Return to the Gout-​Podagra Paradox

and the Question of Applicability

Having now reviewed the textual evidence for joint afflictions and pain in a
variety of joints and examined the skeletal evidence for arthropathies in early
medieval populations, it is possible to return to the gout-​podagra paradox.
Crucially, the following reappraisal is based on a comparative approach that

89 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 90r: Potio ad nesciam. See Appendix 2, entry 16.27.

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234  Chapter 8

employs looser, more flexible translations. This enables a broader approach to

their interpretation, contrasting with the standard identification of podagra as
‘gout’. After re-​evaluating the relationship between gout and podagra with this
new perspective on the appropriateness of this direct, one-​for-​one translation,
I shall turn to the question of applicability, reflecting on all of the joints and
joint areas addressed in this chapter.

6.1 Gout Versus Podagra: Conflicting Evidence or a Modern Misnomer?

This chapter’s opening study presented a paradox: podagra is well-​represented
by textual sources, yet gout, according to current palaeopathological evidence,
is nearly invisible in the osteological record. Does this disjuncture indicate that
the medical recipes circulating in Carolingian manuscripts were, at least in this
case, largely irrelevant to the populations who possessed them? As cautioned
in Chapter 6, such a conclusion should not be automatically assumed since
there are many reasons why probable cases of gout have not been observed in
the osteological record. However, the fact that evidence for other types of joint
diseases, including in the feet, is so frequently observed indicates that the lack
of skeletal indicators suggestive of gout likely reflects that it was not a common
condition—​indeed, a low incidence of gout in the past, even at sites thought
to have relatively high-​risk populations, should not be surprising given that the
disease only affects between one and four percent of people in the west today.
Why, then, is podagra so frequently seen in pharmaceutical writings?
Instead of reading the disparity between the two bodies of evidence as a
sign that recipes claiming to treat podagra were not widely applicable, I argue
that, by considering the wider context, i.e., the evidence for arthropathies in
other joints, a different conclusion should be drawn. Although podagra has
traditionally been translated directly as gout, such a simple, one-​for-​one trans-
lation seems inappropriate on the basis of this chapter’s findings—​are the
texts really describing a single condition? If the interpretation of podagra is
broadened to include more generalised toe and foot joint pain, the skeletal
evidence and written record begin to align. While it may be tempting to accept
this broader understanding of podagra simply because it resolves the apparent
mismatch in the data, a deeper analysis of the recipes that name podagra as
well as other joints and joint areas alongside the osteological evidence sup-
ports this more flexible interpretation.
Unlike the assumed equivalence between the term podagra and the med-
ical condition known today as gout, the descriptions of joint pain in most
other areas of the body, such as the neck, shoulders, or knees, have not been
linked to a single, distinctive disease entity, whether historically or in modern
medicine. In other words, although podagra is consistently translated as gout,

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Joint Disease 235

lumborum dolores is not read as a description of a particular pathology defined

by modern medicine, such as spondyloarthritis affecting the lumbar vertebrae.
Moreover, in cases where it might be tempting to link a Latin term to a modern
medical condition, e.g., sciatica and sciatica, much scholarship today insists on
more cautious, open-​ended translations given the uncertainties of how these
concepts were understood in the past.90 The examples beyond big toe thus
suggest that it would be useful to consider the potential breadth and flexibility
of the term podagra. That is not to say that podagra could not have meant gout,
a topic to which I shall return below, but that it may be misguided to assume
that all references to podagra are equivalent to a modern medical definition
of gout.
The prevalence of signs of other joint diseases in the lower extremities seen
at many of the excavations under consideration strengthens this argument,
suggesting that many podagra recipes may have been intended for a range of
conditions and pains. More general joint pain due to the aging process and
build-​up of bio-​mechanical stress represents one significant alternative given
the extent to which oa is seen in the skeletal remains of individuals from this
period. Furthermore, trauma, nerve pain, and other diseases can also cause
pain in the joints of the feet and toes. The skeletal record thus suggests that a
direct translation of podagra as gout may be too restrictive and that a variety of
similar aches and pains could have been grouped under this term.
This more general understanding is further supported by the contexts in
which the term podagra is found. Consider, for example, recipes where the
term is listed alongside somewhat comparable conditions, such as the pain
of artriticus or even joint dislocations and broken bones as recorded in the
Malagma aduersus dolores uel fracturas et podagra ad luxum of cod. sang.
759.91 Taking podagra to mean toe and foot joint pain, therefore, corresponds
to many of the settings in which the term is found: treatments focused on pain
management in the lower extremities more generally. At the same time, the
relatively large number of highly specific recipes also fits a broader under-
standing of podagra. The prevalence of foot and toe pathologies in the archae-
ological record suggests that recipes targeting pain in these areas would always
be in demand: the evidence reveals that essentially everyone who lived long
enough would ultimately suffer from joint problems, much like populations
today. Recipes claiming to treat a cluster of related symptoms concerning toe

90 For Hunt’s comments on sciatica, see The Medicina Plinii, trans. Hunt, 176.
91 Cod. sang. 759, p. 63: Malagma aduersus dolores uel fracturas et podagra ad luxum. See
Appendix 2, entry 11.11.

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236  Chapter 8

and foot pain, listed under the umbrella term podagra, would have been appli-
cable to many individuals and could have been used in an attempt to help
those suffering from oa, ra, gout, and other conditions.
Another angle strengthening this argument comes from recent research
into other disease terms, such as Alessandra Foscati’s work on ignis sacer.92
This ‘holy fire’ has long been understood as the medieval Latin term for ergo-
tism, ‘Saint Anthony’s fire’, a fungal disease that results from the ingestion of
rye, a common food product in medieval Europe, infected with Claviceps pur-
purea. As Foscati has convincingly argued, the unquestioning assumption that
ignis sacer can be simply equated with ergotism misses ‘the underlying com-
plexity and semantic richness of the nosographic terms in question’.93 Indeed,
the ‘polysemantic nature of the lexicon’ that Foscati so clearly unpacks in
the context of Saint Anthony’s fire shares much in common with the gout-​
podagra paradox.94 Most significantly, Foscati’s framing of individual medical
terms as ‘semantic basins’ in which multiple, changing, and often overlapping
meanings accumulate has many resonances with the textual and osteological
evidence presented in this chapter. I suggest that podagra, too, should be
understood as a ‘semantic basin’ that has the potential to account for a wider
range of aches and pains than those caused exclusively by gout.95
To be clear, this argument for breadth is not to say that references to podagra
could not also represent true gout. As cited above, earlier sources, such as
Hippocrates and Galen, did, in fact, provide accounts of a condition that fit
extremely well with a modern medical description of the symptoms associated
with gout, revealing that the disease was known as a distinct entity. Moreover, a
handful of probable cases of gout have been identified in early medieval skele-
tal remains, indicating that recipes claiming to offer treatments for podagra in
the more limited sense would still have been applicable, if only to a very small
number of individuals. The presence and acknowledgement of true gout may
help to explain the frequent inclusion of podagra in non-​specific panaceas—​it
routinely appears as one of the standard, set pieces in cure-​all antidotes. As
seen in the examples above and discussed in Chapter 2, these cure-​alls tend to
name a large and varied set of conditions that they are intended to treat. Some

92 Alessandra Foscati, Ignis sacer. Una storia culturale del ‘fuoco sacro’ dall’antichità al
Settecento (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2013); with an updated edition in
English translation: Alessandra Foscati, Saint Anthony’s Fire from Antiquity to the Eighteenth
Century, trans. Francis Gordon (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020).
93 Foscati, Saint Anthony’s Fire, 17.
94 Ibid, 18; for the shifting terminology over time, see Part I, 33–​123.
95 Ibid, 20.

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Joint Disease 237

of these conditions are fairly generic, such as stomach pains and headaches,
but many are extreme, ranging from snake bites to paralysis. Podagra, if inter-
preted broadly, could fit the former type of general condition, or, if taken to
mean gout according to a modern definition of the disease, could fall into the
latter category of rare, serious, and extreme conditions. That is, depending on
how it is understood, the term could cover the entire spectrum of severity and/​
or urgency: on one hand, it could concern achy, arthritic joints (painful and
problematic but ordinary), while on the other hand, it could refer to true gout,
an excruciating, debilitating, and rare condition. In both cases, treatments
would be highly desired.
Ultimately, while the prevalence of podagra in the texts contrasts with
the general absence of gout in the skeletal remains, it does fit with the wider
context: toe and foot joint pain would have been common issues. Moreover,
contextualising recipes for podagra within their textual environment (i.e.,
observing the appearance of podagra in association with somewhat similar
descriptions of foot, leg, and joint pain) supports a more general reading of the
term and finds parallels with other recent research into the complex, ‘polyse-
mantic nature’ of past disease lexicon.96 Therefore, by reassessing the written
record in the light of the osteological evidence, I argue that podagra should
generally be interpreted as a collection of symptoms rather than a specific,
modern diagnosis, potentially referring to gout but not limited to this disease
exclusively. With this reframing of podagra, it is possible to return to the orig-
inal question of applicability with respect to the chapter’s entire textual and
osteological sample.

6.2 The Question of Applicability

The variety of recipe styles, and especially their range in terms of specificity,
demands an analysis of applicability at multiple levels. In particular, the divide
between non-​specific treatments and more targeted semi-​or highly specific
recipes must be considered separately. At first glance, non-​specific panaceas
may seem irrelevant, impractical, and inapplicable—​and not simply based on
their use of expensive, exotic ingredients (though this aspect was challenged
in Chapter 3). These treatments’ lack of a specific target raises the question,
would anyone seek to use such recipes? The cure-​all approach, however, seems
not unlike certain modern ‘home remedies’, such as the heavy use of aspirin,
acetaminophen, ibuprofen, or even antibiotics to treat a range of conditions
that may or may not respond to the selected drug: a supposed panacea can

96 Ibid, 18.

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238  Chapter 8

offer an effective placebo.97 The foreignness and expense of the ingredients

involved in these complex recipes may have made them especially desirable,
too: the higher the expense of the ingredients, the greater the perceived medi-
cal value. In fact, that antidotes such as the Antidotum gira deacoloquintidis of
bav pal. lat. 1088 incorporated exotic ingredients that were newly available in
the west (in this case, camphor) suggests that these complex recipes were not
simply for show but were actively integrating the latest pharmaceutical knowl-
edge and substances (on which, see Chapter 3).98 These features indicate that
non-​specific recipes may have been highly sought after, and especially in the
elite contexts in which the surviving medical manuscripts are associated. The
large number of panaceas in the literature must not, therefore, be automati-
cally discounted as irrelevant to individuals in early medieval Europe.
The more specific recipes offer a different perspective on treatment. There is
a high degree of overlap between the joints and joint areas named in texts and
the areas of the body affected by oa, stress, and joint degeneration as observed
in skeletal remains. The archaeological evidence revealed that the spine, from
the neck to the lower back, often exhibited the most severe signs of arthritis,
while the shoulders, hips, knees, elbows, feet, and hands were also affected.
Indeed, at Seckenheim, a site with particularly good preservation, over 99% of
the analysed individuals presented signs of spinal degeneration, and the fre-
quency and severity with which individuals were affected by arthritic changes
increased with age.99 The skeletal evidence therefore suggests that the recipes
intended to treat these specific joint areas, as well as treatments for ‘general
joint afflictions’, would have been highly relevant to early medieval popula-
tions. Significantly, even burials at elite and/​or monastic sites recorded evi-
dence of arthritis and the accumulation of bio-​mechanical stress, indicating
that these conditions affected essentially everyone who lived long enough
and not only those involved in tough agricultural labour or other physically
demanding activities.
It is, however, interesting to note that foot-​and toe-​specific treatments
are listed with much greater frequency than other joint-​specific treatments.
Consider, for example, that the sample includes 140 recipes that target podagra,

97 On the placebo effect in the context of early medieval English recipes, see Brackmann,
‘“It Will Help Him Wonderfully”’. On current trends in self-​medication, see, for exam-
ple, Rajasree K. Rajamma, Audhesh K. Paswan, and Lou E. Pelton, ‘Flipping the
script: Consumers’ propensity for self-​medication’, Journal of Marketing Theory and
Practice 29, no. 4 (2021): 448–​62, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1080​/10696​679​.2020​.1870​240​.
98 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 90r: Antidotum gira deacoloquintidis. See Appendix 2, 16.26.
99 Navitainuck, Meyer, and Alt, ‘Degenerative Alterations of the Spine’, 179–​83.

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Joint Disease 239

whereas pains of the neck are only named in twenty-​one treatments. The lower
back and shoulders, areas of the body that were often noted as showing signs
of stress and degradation in the osteological evidence, appear at similarly low
levels within the recipe sample. This may suggest that more general treatments
for artriticus were intended for arthritic pains in most joints while pains in
the lower extremities were conceived of as a separate entity, perhaps linked to
the knowledge that these joints could experience different types of joint pain,
such as that of true gout. Indeed, if the number of treatments targeting gen-
eral joint afflictions are added to each of the other individual joint treatment
categories, their recipe totals become much closer to the number of podagra-​
specific remedies. The hips are, again, an exception to the general pattern if all
three terms are counted together; however, when each of the three hip terms
is assessed individually, they present only slightly elevated numbers in com-
parison to other named joints and joint areas. The varied vocabulary used to
describe hip ailments is certainly deserving of further study.
On the basis of these analyses, the overall picture is one of applicability. The
skeletal remains of early medieval individuals reveal that joint pain would have
been an issue for many people and suggest that the recipes examined in this
chapter, whether intended to treat a specific sore, aching joint or more gen-
eral joint pain, would have been highly relevant to communities in Carolingian
Europe.

7 Conclusion

This chapter’s reappraisal of recipes intended to alleviate the pains of podagra

and analysis of treatments for other joints offers a more nuanced reading of
the recipe literature reinformed by the osteological record. It underlines the
importance of being cautious in interpreting early medieval medical terminol-
ogy, especially when a certain word has been consistently and unquestioningly
translated as a modern medical term. Moreover, the standard associations
readers have with gout today, such as the stereotypes of who would have been
affected by the disease in the past (namely, older, wealthy males—​the royal,
aristocratic, and ecclesiastical elite), have tended to reinforce the assumed
equivalence between podagra and true gout when considering past popula-
tions. Yet, as the evidence discussed in this chapter illustrates, such a restricted
interpretation of podagra may, in many cases, be inappropriate. Rather, it can
be more helpful to understand podagra as a term that encompasses a wider
collection of related symptoms relating to pain in the joints of the feet and
toes. This wider interpretation does not exclude true gout but moves away from

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240  Chapter 8

reading podagra exclusively as gout according to a modern medical definition

of the disease. This chapter is not, therefore, arguing that true gout did not
exist in the Carolingian world, but that podagra should not be solely equated
with this definition.
In addition to highlighting the need for caution when analysing and inter-
preting the textual evidence, this chapter also confirms that reading recipes
in combination with the osteological evidence offers valuable insights. If the
recipe literature had been studied in isolation, the frequency to which podagra
is referred could have been interpreted as a confirmation of the underlying
assumptions about the prevalence of gout in potentially high-​risk early medi-
eval populations, reinforcing a circular argument. Similarly, given that other
joints are recorded less frequently in recipes, a researcher working exclusively
with textual evidence might have assumed that other arthropathies were less
prevalent. Comparing the two sides of the story, the written record and the
skeletal material, has thus helped to expose the complexity of the situation,
casting fresh light on the health and lived experiences of individuals from the
Carolingian period.
With this expanded understanding of the recipe literature and its applica-
bility to joint diseases, the final case study of Part 2 now moves to the topics of
trauma and surgery.

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 ­c hapter 9

Trauma and Surgery

Evidence of Undocumented Medical Practices?

1 Introduction: Interventions ‘Without Iron’

A plaster that breaks and opens wounds and scrofulous swellings without
iron: Sal ammoniac, 1 pound; galena, 1 pound; oil, 1 pound; ashes of twigs,
1 pound; dove droppings, 3 ounces. Prepare [it] and use [it].1

The above recipe, a topical application made of various mineral, vegetable,

and animal substances, claims to offer a non-​surgical alternative to opening
a wound or swelling: it presents a treatment that reputedly breaks them open
sine ferro, ‘without iron’. In a period before antibiotics and hygienic operating
facilities, it is understandable that a substitute to surgical intervention would
have been sought. Whether such a plaster would rupture a swelling or break
open a wound is, of course, another matter and an investigation into the reci-
pe’s efficacy is beyond the scope of this book.
In pre-​modern medicine, dietary and pharmaceutical treatments were
generally preferred to surgical intervention. In most cases, surgery would
have been the last resort, turned to when non-​invasive treatments had failed
or if surgery was the only possible course of action, as might have been the
case with traumatic injuries that occurred in battle.2 The general absence of
early medieval surgical texts supports the idea that surgery was a rarity in this
period, though exceptions, such as writings on the relatively minor surgical
procedures of bloodletting, cautery, and scarification, are recorded. In contrast

1 Cod. sang. 44, p. 243: Emplastrum qui sine ferro rumpit uulnera et scrofas et aperit. Salis ammo-
niaci lib I, mollibdine lib I, oleo lib I, cineris sarmentorum lib I, femus columbino ~ III, conficis et
uteris. See Appendix 2, entry 5.5.
2 Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades, 184. The topic of wounds received in battle will be consid-
ered in more detail below; for more on wounds generally in the medieval period, see Larissa
Tracy and Kelly DeVries, eds., Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval Culture (Leiden: Brill,
2015). ‘Periodic bloodletting’, i.e., regular, and highly regulated, bloodletting, represents an
important exception whereby a (minor) surgical procedure was actively sought; see Mary
K. K. Yearl, ‘Bloodletting as Recreation in the Monasteries of Medieval Europe’, in Between
Text and Patient: The Medical Enterprise in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Florence
Eliza Glaze and Brian K. Nance (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2011), 217–​43.

© Claire Burridge, 2024 | DOI:​1 0.1163/9789004466173_010

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242  Chapter 9

to the early medieval Latin evidence, treatises on more invasive surgeries did
circulate in Antiquity, the medieval Islamicate world, and the later medieval
west. Yet, just as the existence of dietary and pharmaceutical recipes is not, in
itself, proof of their use in therapy, the inverse is true regarding surgery. That
is, the lack of major surgical texts does not necessarily indicate that invasive
surgery was not occurring in the early medieval west, but rather that, if such
procedures were happening, knowledge of them was transmitted through
non-​textual means.3 However, the recording of a non-​invasive alternative to
surgical intervention that emphasises this very feature suggests that surgery
was to be avoided when possible. Do skeletal remains reveal signs of surgical
practices unrecorded by the texts?
An investigation into whether evidence of surgical procedures can be
observed in the osteological record is inherently linked to signs of weapon
injuries, falls, and other trauma. Skeletal remains may provide indicators of the
types of treatments that occurred during this period other than, or in addition
to, surgery based on signs of healing (or lack thereof) recorded in the bones. It
is necessary, therefore, to consider the evidence of more general traumata in
both the written sources and osteological record. Accordingly, this chapter’s
recipe analysis explores the extent to which these texts attempted to heal and/​
or provide care for serious injuries, such as broken bones, rather than focusing
on the examples of minor surgeries, including bloodletting and cautery, that
occasionally appear alongside recipes or as part of treatments. The latter, given
their superficial nature, are not recorded in the osteological record, whereas
more significant injuries can be considered from both textual and skeletal
perspectives.
In contrast to the conditions addressed in Chapters 7 and 8, trauma is usu-
ally the immediate result of a sudden event, such as a fall or blow. This direct
cause and effect relationship has given rise to a fairly consistent understand-
ing of the aetiology of traumatic injuries from Antiquity to the present day.4
Despite this unusually high degree of consistency between the modern and
medieval identification of the underlying mechanisms responsible for these
types of pathologies, trauma remains a notoriously difficult concept to define.
The Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary, providing a modern clinical perspec-
tive, defines trauma as ‘a physical wound or injury, such as a fracture or blow’,

3 Debby Banham and Christine Voth, ‘The Diagnosis and Treatment of Wounds in the Old
English Medical Collections: Anglo-​Saxon Surgery?’, in Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval
Culture, ed. Larissa Tracy and Kelly DeVries (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 153–​74.
4 Margaret A. Judd and Rebecca Redfern, ‘Trauma’, in A Companion to Paleopathology, ed. Anne
L. Grauer (Chichester: Wiley-​Blackwell, 2012), 359–​79, at p. 359.

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Trauma and Surgery 243

taking a wide range of potential pathologies into account.5 For palaeotrauma,

however, there is neither a standardised definition of the concept nor an agree-
ment on what exactly it covers. Margaret Judd and Rebecca Redfern’s review
of palaeopathology textbooks highlights ‘that considerable variation exists
in what conditions are regarded as having a traumatic origin or association,
reflecting both changes within the discipline as a whole and the development
of forensic anthropology’.6 Among the main areas of debate are whether to
differentiate between trauma and treatment; how to classify certain patholo-
gies that may result from trauma but may also stem from other causes, such as
osteomyelitis or repetitive microtraumata; and whether to include body mod-
ification, such as cranial deformation or foot binding, as trauma.7 Given the
complexities of defining palaeotrauma and the variations seen within existing
classification systems, this study focuses on a subset of pathologies that are
typically understood within the context of trauma, including fractures, dislo-
cations, and signs of surgical intervention preserved in the skeletal record.8
Although evidence for invasive surgical procedures is lacking in the recipe
literature, my analysis of this material indicates that non-​invasive treatments
for traumatic injuries are frequently recorded. The subsequent review of oste-
ological evidence does, however, highlight a number of notable examples
of major surgical procedures, such as trepanations. More generally, the high
degree of healing observed in fairly standard traumata, such as broken bones,
without signs of surgical intervention confirms the existence of non-​invasive
medical care. Re-​evaluating the texts on the basis of the skeletal evidence,
I argue that the non-​invasive therapies presented in recipes would have been
highly applicable to individuals in this period, and that they accord with the
evidence preserved in the osteological record. At the same time, the limited
evidence for more invasive surgeries seen in the skeletal remains provides a
window onto medical knowledge that was transmitted through non-​textual
means during this period.

5 See ‘trauma, n.’ in Elizabeth A. Martin, ed., Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary, 9th ed.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), https://​doi​.org​/10​.1093​/acref​/978019​9687​817​.001​
.0001​.
6 Judd and Redfern, ‘Trauma’, 360.
7 Ibid, 359–​62.
8 While the inclusion of surgery as a type of trauma has, as noted above, been debated, it is
usually categorised as such.

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244  Chapter 9

2 Textual Evidence for Invasive Surgery and Trauma

2.1 Surgery
Given the ancient precedent of describing surgical procedures separately from
pharmaceutical and dietary prescriptions, it might seem strange to look for
evidence of surgery alongside recipes.9 Yet, as explained in Chapter 2, the var-
ied nature of early medieval medical compendia blurs such neat distinctions,
and short, non-​recipe excerpts and writings can be found in recipe collections.
In a small recipe collection in cod. sang. 44, for example, entries such as De uul-
neribus putridis and De cautere, focus on superficial surgical procedures rather
than recipes.10 Moreover, as noted above, recipes occasionally mention fairly
minor, superficial procedures, such as phlebotomy, cautery, and scarification,
as a component of treatment—​or even record treatments for the aftermath of
these procedures. A poultice in cod. sang. 899 titled Cataplasma ad tumorem
brachii que ex fleubotomo contingit, for example, is intended to combat swell-
ings in the arm after bloodletting.11 Old English recipe collections, too, record
a handful of fairly superficial surgeries, such as the lancing and draining of
an abscess and the removal of gangrenous flesh.12 It therefore seems possi-
ble that if surgical techniques beyond the aforementioned minor procedures
were recorded in the Carolingian world, they could have been located within
this textual environment, either mentioned in recipes as part of a treatment or
found as a discrete section of supplementary information within a larger col-
lection. This, however, is not the case, and more complex surgical procedures
are absent in the surviving texts.13 These findings suggest that knowledge of
more invasive surgeries, if in circulation, was transferred through non-​textual
means, such as apprenticeships and oral traditions. However, many treatments
for open wounds and/​or broken bones involved bandaging and suggest that
the injury was protected and possibly immobilised, splinted, and/​or manipu-
lated; depending on the complexity of the injury, these processes could have
involved some minor surgical procedures, though explicit details are absent.

9 Skinner, ‘Visible Prowess’, 92.

10 Cod. sang. 44, pp. 332–​3: lxii. De uulneribus putridis; lxiii. De cautere.
11 Cod. sang. 899, p. 141: Cataplasma ad tumorem brachii que ex fleubotomo contingit. See
Appendix 2, entry 14.4.
12 Banham and Voth, ‘The Diagnosis and Treatment of Wounds’, 154–​6.
13 A small number of texts related to surgery, such as a list of surgical instruments, have
survived. See Bliquez, ‘Two Lists of Greek Surgical Instruments’ and Fischer, ‘Universorum
ferramentorum nomina’.

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Trauma and Surgery 245

table 19 Recipes that mention fractures and traumatic injuries

Specificity Total NSp SSp HSp

# of Recipes 184 26 17 141

% of Total 100% 14.1% 9.2% 76.6%

Exploring the broader category of trauma can offer more insights into the
types of care recorded in the recipe literature for serious injuries.

2.2 Trauma
Despite the lack of references to invasive surgeries, serious traumatic injuries
do appear with some frequency in the textual record. I have identified 193
recipes that claim to treat fractures, dislocations, cut tendons, and/​or injuries
caused by a specific type of trauma, such as a blow, puncture wound, fall, or
named weapon. Recipes that only include general terms for wounds, ulcers,
and sores, such as uulnus and ulcus, without further contextualisation are
excluded from this chapter’s analysis because they could not be linked to a
traumatic injury. Likewise, recipes that use the non-​specific tumor, which can
range in meaning from swelling to tumour, without further clarification are
not included. It should be noted, however, that three recipes for poultices in
cod. sang. 899 combine this term with more details and suggest that they are
treatments for swellings with bruising, and thus possibly linked to traumatic
injuries. Two of these occur within a cluster of recipes under the heading
Cataplasma ad tumorem; while the group of recipes cannot be taken as refer-
ring to bruising overall, these two recipes also include the words liuor (bruise)
and contusio (contusion, bruise), pinpointing their target.14 Finally, treatments
for animal bites and stings as well as the trauma of childbirth are also excluded
because signs of these injuries are often more difficult to see in the osteological
evidence.
As seen in Table 19, the majority of these recipes (76.6%) are highly spe-
cific, while non-​and semi-​specific recipes only account for twenty-​six (14.1%)
and seventeen (9.2%) recipes, respectively. The non-​and semi-​specific cate-
gories follow the same criteria outlined in previous chapters, although I have

14 Cod. sang. 899, p. 141: Item ad tumores, liuores, contusiones; Item ad liuorem tollendum. See
Appendix 2, entries 14.5.2–​3.

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246  Chapter 9

classified any recipes that only concern traumatic injuries as highly specific,
even in cases where multiple types of traumata are mentioned, such as frac-
tures and dislocations. I shall briefly review the non-​and semi-​specific recipes
before concentrating on those that target trauma exclusively.
The twenty-​six non-​specific recipes represent wide-​ranging panaceas, eight
of which correspond to just two antidotes that reoccur in multiple manuscripts.
The Oxira crocira is found in codd. sang. 44, 761, bav pal. lat. 1088, and reg. lat.
1143, and in each case the treatment claims to heal luxum et fracturas, ‘dislo-
cations and fractures’ (the example in cod. sang. 761 also adds that it draws
out thorns, extrahit spinas), alongside a host of other maladies.15 Similarly, the
Apostolicon plaster is seen in four manuscripts (codd. sang. 44, 751, 761, and bav
reg. lat. 1143) and consistently includes a phrase noting that it was intended to
treat wounds caused by iron, glass, and other materials as well as embedded
arrows.16 The lengthy list of medical problems this plaster claims to treat then
continues with the bites and stings of venomous animals before moving on to
a range of other ailments. The non-​specific recipes, as these two cases illus-
trate (and as has been noted in previous chapters), tend to treat a mixture of
extreme and general medical issues; in this hybrid context, it is not surprising
to see life-​threatening wounds caused by traumatic injuries, such as arrows or
sword blows, alongside serious and urgent (if also unusual) health problems,
such as poisoning and snake bites.
Seventeen semi-​specific recipes list traumatic injuries with or secondarily
to other potentially related conditions. Several recipes, for instance, mention
fractures while also noting wounds, pains, and/​or infections. These other ail-
ments could stem from a traumatic event and thus be directly connected with
the fractures but, equally, they could represent unrelated conditions. As an
example, cod. sang. 751 records a recipe that claims to heal putrid shins and
all blows, Qui facit ad tibias putridas et ad omnes plagas sanandas.17 While the
putrid shins could reflect an open, infected sore that developed as a result of
trauma, the limited description given in the recipe does not address whether

15 Cod. sang. 44, pp. 243–​4: Oxira crucira emplastrum; cod. sang. 761, pp. 59–​60: Oxyra cro-
cira; bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 60r: Oxira crocira; and bav reg. lat. 1143, ff. 172r–​172v: Oxyra gro-
cira. See Appendix 2, entries 5.6, 12.2, 16.23, and 18.8, respectively.
16 Cod. sang. 44, pp. 238–​9: Emplastrum apostolicon; cod. sang. 751, pp. 423–​4: Inplastrum
apostolicon; cod. sang. 761, pp. 65–​6: Emplastrum apostolicum; and bav reg. lat. 1143, ff.
133r–​134r: Apostolicon. The shared phrase, with some variation between recipes, is: ad …
omnes plaga quae a ferro inciditur siue [sudibus] siue uitro siue canna, sagittas educendas
infixas corpori. See Appendix 2, entries 5.4, 9.24, 12.4, and 18.4, respectively.
17 Cod. sang. 751, pp. 367–​8: Qui facit ad tibias putridas et ad omnes plagas sanandas. See
Appendix 2, entry 9.5.

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Trauma and Surgery 247

table 20 Categories and subcategories of highly specific recipes that name traumatic
injuries as the target of their treatment

Category Subcategory Number % of HSp recipes (141)

Recipes Fractures 26 18.4%

that name a Dislocations 15 10.6%
general type Fractures & dislocations 1 0.7%
of traumatic Cut tendons 6 4.3%
injury Total 48 34.0%

Recipes Blows 61 43.3%

that name a Punctures 22 15.6%
source/​cause Blows & punctures 1 0.7%
of traumatic Falls 2 1.4%
injury Total 86 60.1%

Recipes that name both types and 7 5.0%

sources of trauma

the conditions might be linked. Sores on the shins could also fit with hae-
matogenous osteomyelitis, for example, and have no relation to a traumatic
injury. Three of these recipes, such as the Malagma aduersus dolores fracturas
et podagra ad luxum of cod. sang. 759, include podagra alongside fractures and
dislocations and, as elaborated in Chapter 8, may be linked to more general
joint and/​or pain treatments of the lower extremities.18 Given these ambigui-
ties, the following analysis concentrates on the 141 highly specific recipes.
As shown in Table 20, the highly specific recipes can be divided into two
main categories: forty-​eight recipes (34.0%) name a general type of traumatic
injury, such as fractures and dislocations, as the target of their treatment, while
eighty-​six (61.0%) note the source or cause of a traumatic injury, such as a blow
or puncture. There are also seven recipes (5.0%) that mention both injury
type(s) and cause(s) of trauma. I have further divided the two primary catego-
ries into more specific subunits, as seen in Tables 20–​22, based on the recipes’
titles and any additional information contained within them.

18 Cod. sang. 759, p. 63: Malagma aduersus dolores uel fracturas et podagra ad luxum. See
Appendix 2, entry 11.11.

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248  Chapter 9

table 21 Breakdown of highly specific recipes that name a general type of traumatic injury

Category Total Fracture Dislocation Fracture & Cut

dislocation tendons

# of recipes 48 26 15 1 6
% of total 100% 61.4% 15.9% 2.3% 13.6%
(48)

Of the forty-​eight highly specific recipes that are intended to treat general
injuries, twenty-​six (54.2%) focus exclusively on fractures (see Table 21). Twenty
of these recipes provide treatments for broken bones generally, bearing titles
such as Ad fracturas ossorum, Ad osa fracta in corpore, and Ad osso fracto across
a variety of manuscripts, including codd. sang. 751, 759, BnF lat. 11218, and bav
pal. lat. 1088. Two of the entries in cod. sang. 751 reveal the extent of variation
seen among the trauma treatments recorded in the texts: on the one hand, the
recipe entitled Ad osso fracto, ‘for a broken bone’, recommends that the patient
drink sulphur with wine and water for nine days, whereas the preparation Ad
ossa si fuerint fracta in testa provides instructions for treating broken bones of
the skull that involve the application of a powder directly on the injured area
and, if the skin is broken, washing and bandaging.19 In cod. sang. 759, the two
recipes listed under the heading Ad fracturas ossorum, ‘for fractures of bones’,
likewise present multiple approaches: the first suggests both a topical applica-
tion as well as a drink, while the second offers only a topical treatment.20
Six recipes intended for fractures, like the treatment for fractures of the
skull seen in cod. sang. 751, name specific areas of the body. One treatment in
BnF lat. 11218 titled Ad costas fractas, ‘For broken ribs’, recommends a prepara-
tion made of glass, pitch, and vinegar.21 The other five recipes are all intended
exclusively for cranial fractures, two of which, De simplices uulneribus ad capitis

19 Cod. sang. 751, p. 378: Ad osso fracto. Solfor bibat per die VIIII terciam partem dinarium
pinsantem ieiunus cum uino et aqua; p. 432: Ad ossa si fuerint fracta in testa. De pipinella
puluis facis super teola exsiccas et super puluere ponis, si reticolus fuerit ruptus lana de
papiro super reticulo ponis, et inde aceto et mel lauabis. See Appendix 2, entries 9.6 and
9.25, respectively.
20 Cod. sang. 759, p. 52: Ad fracturas ossorum. See Appendix 2, entry 11.6.
21 BnF lat. 11218, f. 97r: Ad costas fractas. Uitro, pice, acito resoluis in patena, bene adiuuat. See
Appendix 2, entry 3.7.

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Trauma and Surgery 249

fracturam of bav pal. lat. 1088 and Ad capitis fractura of cod. sang. 751, appear
to be derived from a treatment found in De herba vettonica liber, though the
recipe of cod. sang. 751 is somewhat abbreviated.22 Notably, the longer recipe
in bav pal. lat. 1088 (as well as the original in De herba vettonica liber) includes
a comment on removing bone fragments: ossa fractura extrahit. While it may
be tempting to read this as evidence for some degree of surgical intervention,
perhaps even linked to trepanation (a technique which, as discussed below,
has been observed in early medieval skeletal remains), it would be inappropri-
ate to jump to such a conclusion based on the recipe’s limited description. The
other recipes addressing cranial fractures, also found in cod. sang. 751, do not
belong to the De herba vettonica liber tradition and make no reference to bone
fragment removal: the remedy Ad capitis fractura offers fairly detailed instruc-
tions for the preparation of an ointment that contains exotic, aromatic ingre-
dients, such as mastic and colophony resin, whereas a treatment titled Ossa in
capite si fracta fuerint, ‘Bones in the head, if they were broken’, recommends a
simple topical application made from agrimony and old grease.23
As shown in Table 21, fifteen recipes target dislocations, such as the recipes
titled Ad luxum, ‘For a dislocation’, in cod. sang. 751 or Ad luxatura, also mean-
ing ‘For a dislocation’, in cod. sang. 44.24 The ankle, talus, is specifically men-
tioned in several treatments, such as a recipe under the heading Ad talorem
dolorem quis luxauerit ut dolor pausit in cod. sang. 759, suggestive of a sprained
ankle.25 Moreover, one recipe in cod. sang. 1396 and six in bav pal. lat. 1088 pair
dislocation with bruising; this coupling is very fitting since discolouration and
swelling often complement injuries such as sprains and dislocations. The six
treatments in bav pal. lat. 1088 are found under the heading Ad contussionem

22 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 44v: De simplices uulneribus ad capitis fracturam. Uittonica contussa et
super uulnus inposita mira celeritate gluttinat eo quide sanabis si tertio quoque die recenti-
orem frequentius inposueris donec sanescat etiam et ossa fractura extrahit; cod. sang. 751,
p. 408: Ad capitis fractura. Uerba uittonica contusa in capitę in plaga inpositam rase celeri-
tate gluttinatur. For full transcriptions, see Appendix 2, entries 16.9 and 9.14, respectively.
Cf. Pseudo-​Antonius Musa, De herba vettonica liber, ed. Howald and Sigerist, no. 1: Ad capi-
tis fracturam. Herba uettonica contusa et super capitis ictum inposita uulnus mira celeritate
glutinatum sanabit; eo quidem efficacius, si tertio quoque die refectam, id est recentiorem,
frequentius inposueris, donec sanat. Eius potestas tantam habere fertur utilitatem, ut ossa
quoque fracta ui sua extrahat.
23 Cod. sang. 751, pp. 405–​6: Ad capitis fractura; p. 437: Ossa in capite si fracta fuerint. See
Appendix 2, entries 9.13 and 9.28.
24 Cod. sang. 751, p. 405: Ad luxum; p. 440: Ad luxum; cod. sang. 44, p. 348: Ad luxatura. See
Appendix 2, entries 9.12, 9.29, and 5.20, respectively.
25 Cod. sang. 759, p. 72: Ad talorem dolorem quis luxauerit ut dolor pausit. See Appendix 2,
entry 11.15.

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250  Chapter 9

uel luxatura de praesenti, ‘For bruising or dislocation of the present’, while the
one in cod. sang. 1396 is titled Ad luxum uel contussim; all provide instruc-
tions for topical applications.26 Just over half of the recipes that are intended
to treat dislocations provide more information about the injury, such as the
presence of bruising or that the ankle is the area concerned. This contrasts
with the fracture treatments, where the majority of recipes (twenty out of
twenty-​six) do not supply additional details about the nature of the break or
its location. Furthermore, although the treatments for fractures and disloca-
tions are usually separate, one recipe, the Unguentum ad fractura uel luxatura,
mentions both types of injuries. Located in cod. sang. 759, this ointment uses
the fat of a wether, wax, old olive oil, laurel oil, and flax seeds to create a topical
application.27
Finally, ‘cut tendons’ are the focus of six recipes, four of which are found
together in bav pal. lat. 1088 under the heading Ad neruos incisos.28 All four of
these present simple topical applications: the first two recommend a prepara-
tion made with earthworms, the third sage, and the fourth a mixture of snails
(with their shells) and frankincense. Intriguingly, although this general type
of injury appears much less frequently in the recipe sample under analysis
than either fractures or dislocations, cut tendons receive comparatively more
coverage in classical and late antique sources. The Medicina Plinii, for exam-
ple, devotes a fairly substantial chapter to Recentibus vulneribus et nervis inci-
sis (‘For recent wounds and cut tendons’) that features over twice as many
prescriptions as its later chapter on broken bones, Ossibus fractis.29 Indeed,
the first and last of the four recipes for cut tendons in bav pal. lat. 1088 share
much in common with two of the opening treatments found in the Medicina
Plinii.30
Unlike the previous examples of recipes that name a general type of trau-
matic injury, eighty-​six recipes name a source or cause of trauma that resulted
in the injury. As seen in Tables 20 and 22, I have grouped these treatments
into four subcategories: a) recipes for wounds sustained by blows or strikes,

26 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 45v: Ad contussione uel luxatura de praesenti; cod. sang. 1396, p. 20: Ad
luxum uel contussim. See Appendix 2, entries 16.12 and 15.2, respectively.
27 Cod. sang. 759, p. 75: Unguentum ad fractura uel luxatura. See Appendix 2, entry 11.17.
28 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 45r: Ad neruos incisos. See Appendix 2, entry 16.11.
29 Plinii Secundi Iunioris qui feruntur De medicina libri tres, ed. Önnerfors, 3.3 and 3.25. For
the English translation, see The Medicina Plinii, trans. Hunt, 72–​5, 94–​5.
30 Plinii Secundi Iunioris qui feruntur De medicina libri tres, ed. Önnerfors, 3.3.1–​2: Vermes
terreni triti conglutinant, adeo ut etiam neruos incisos solident die septimo … cochleae cum
suis testis tusae cum myrrha et ture pari pondere etiam praecisos neruos sanant.

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Trauma and Surgery 251

table 22 Breakdown of highly specific recipes that name a source/​cause of

traumatic injury

Category Total Blows Punctures Blows & Falls

punctures
# of recipes 86 61 22 1 2
% of total (86) 100% 70.9% 25.6% 1.2% 2.3%

b) puncture wounds, c) wounds caused by both blows and punctures, and d)

injuries that occurred due to a fall. The majority of these recipes concern inju-
ries related to general physical violence, including those caused by unspecified
blows and strikes (plaga, percussus, etc.) as well as those caused by weapons,
such as swords or arrows. Very few of the named traumata are related to non-​
violent incidents, such as falls or puncture wounds caused by something other
than a weapon. It must be remembered, however, that a weapon injury does
not necessarily indicate intentional violence but could have been the result
of a hunting accident or even ‘horseplay’. The Annals of St. Bertin record, for
example, that in the year 864 Charles the Child, the grandson of Louis the
Pious, ‘was struck in the head with a sword by a youth named Albuin. The blow
penetrated almost as far as the brain, reaching from his left temple to his right
cheekbone and jaw’, though ‘he only meant to enjoy some horseplay with other
young men of his own age’.31
Sixty-​one recipes mention blows and strikes of various kinds, totalling over
two-​thirds (70.9%) of the treatments that name a source of trauma. Most of
these recipes provide only general descriptions of the cause of the injury they
intend to heal, using terms such as plaga or percussus, as noted above. Cod.
sang. 751, for example, contains ten general treatments for blows in which
forms of the word plaga are given and three with percussus and related terms,
bav pal. lat. 1088 includes thirteen and eight, respectively, and so on.32 Several
of the recipes in cod. sang. 751, such as the three entitled Potio ad plaga, provide

31 Annales Bertiniani, ed. Waitz, entry for 864 (at p. 67): Karolus iuvenis … noctu rediens de
venatione in silva Cotia, iocari cum aliis iuvenibus et coaevis suis putans, operante diabolo
ab Albuio iuvene in capite spatha percutitur pene usque ad cerebrum; translation from The
Annals of St Bertin, trans. Nelson, 111–​12.
32 Cod. sang. 751, recipes with plaga: pp. 39 (two cases), 392, 399, 405, 407, 410, 435, 451 (two
cases); recipes with percussus: pp. 404, 439, 471; bav pal. lat. 1088, recipes with plaga: ff.
39r, 44r–​45r (one cluster of five recipes, one cluster of six recipes), 50v.

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252  Chapter 9

instructions for producing a potion that would be drunk. As might be expected

for these kinds of injuries, others suggest topical applications, such as an entry
contained within De mandragora, a small cluster of recipes that use mandrake
as the primary ingredient. The instructions state: ‘grind up mandrake root and
boil [it] with oil and apply [it] on the wound; it heals wonderfully’.33 While
none of the recipes in cod. sang. 751 is identical, a number of ingredients, such
as agrimony, betony, and milfoil, are named repeatedly. In contrast to these
preparations that tend to use fairly common and potentially local plant prod-
ucts, a powder for healing wounds in bav pal. lat. 1088 incorporates a range of
non-​local aromatics, including myrrh, frankincense, and mastic.34 Although
this recipe provides little guidance on how to administer the powder, others
supply more detail about the context of the injury and the treatment process.
A cluster of five treatments in bav pal. lat. 1088, for example, describe the
wounds as being caused by iron (a ferro).35 Recipes for powders found in cod.
sang. 759 and BnF lat. 11219 refer to injuries that may involve shattered bones
(si ossa habet minuata).36
Puncture wounds alone are mentioned on twenty-​two occasions, as seen
in Table 22. While most of the recipes offer general treatments for puncture
wounds (punctas), one recipe in bav pal. lat. 1088 is intended to treat wounds
caused by poisoned arrows, Ad eos qui cum toxicata sagittasi sunt, and a rec-
ipe in cod. sang. 751 offers a cure for a foot (or any other body part) pierced
by a thorn, Si spina in pede uel in alico membro fuerit.37 Clusters of five and
three recipes to treat puncture wounds of the side can be found in bav pal.
lat. 1088 and cod. sang. 44, respectively, while another recipe for side punc-
tures, Ad puncta que in lateribus superuenit, is located in BnF lat. 11218.38 The
three recipes of cod. sang. 44 parallel the first three recipes of those listed in
bav pal. lat. 1088, and the recipe in BnF lat. 11218 also appears to be loosely

33 Cod. sang. 751, p. 392: De mandragora … Ipsa radice teris et dequoquis cum oleo et super
plaga pone mirum sanat. See Appendix 2, entry 9.7.1.
34 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 50v: Puluera ad plagam assucandam et stringendam et celerius sanan-
dam et carnem mortuam manducat. See Appendix 2, entry 16.18.
35 bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 44v: Ad alia uulnera uel plagas ubicumque a ferro aut quolibet. See
Appendix 2, entry 16.10.
36 Cod. sang. 759, p. 61: Puluis qui facit ad implire placas etiam et si ossa minuta habuerit
excutit; BnF lat. 11219, f. 225ra: Puluis ad implere plagas et si ossa habet minuata discutit. See
Appendix 2, entries 11.10 and 4.3, respectively.
37 bav pal. lat. 1088, ff. 46v–​47r: Ad eos qui cum toxicata sagittasi sunt; cod. sang. 751, p. 396: Si
spina in pede uel in alico membro fuerit. See Appendix 2, entries 16.13 and 9.9, respectively.
38 Cod. sang. 44, pp. 364–​5: Ad punctas qui in latere superueniunt; bav pal. lat. 1088, ff. 39v–​
40r: Ad punctas que lateribus superueniunt; BnF lat. 11218, f. 97r: Ad puncta que in lateribus
superuenit. See Appendix 2, entries 5.29, 16.6, and 3.8, respectively.

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Trauma and Surgery 253

related to the first recipes in these clusters as all three treatments name south-
ernwood (abrotano) as their primary ingredient.39 Like some of the examples
seen above, the overlapping information presented in different manuscripts
illustrates not only the shared sources of pharmaceutical information that cir-
culated in early medieval Europe, but also their individuality. That is, although
two of the recipe collections in which these particular examples are found
belong to the Teraupetica-​Tereoperica family of texts, they contain many dif-
ferences that point to a complex process of transmission and adaptation over
time.40 A recipe in cod. sang. 759, Remedium ad punctas, likewise highlights
how recorded medical knowledge was shifting during this period; in this case,
beer is listed as an ingredient, suggesting that the recipe may have been influ-
enced by local knowledge and/​or adapted to suit readily available products (on
which, see Chapter 4).41
The single example of a highly specific recipe that refers to both blows
and punctures, Medicamen mirabile ad placas ad sagita percusso, is found in
cod. sang. 759.42 Unlike most other subcategories, the majority of recipes that
mention multiple forms of named trauma are non-​specific recipes. The only
other grouping in which non-​specific recipes predominate is the ‘fractures
and dislocations’ subcategory, suggesting that antidotes and other panaceas,
in their tendency to list particularly extreme medical problems, feature mul-
tiple weapon-​based injuries—​if such injuries are listed at all—​rather than an
arrow wound or a sword blow individually. Recipes that mention falls are only
recorded twice (see Table 22); along with treatments for thorns, these recipes
are unusual in naming traumatic injuries that do not necessarily stem from a
violent act (whether intentional or accidental). These two recipes are found
under the title Si homo de arbore uel de equo ceciderit, ‘If a person has fallen

39 The first recipes of the clusters and the single recipe in BnF lat. 11218 are as follows: bav
pal. lat. 1088, f. 39v: Ad punctas que lateribus superueniunt. Aprotano trito in aqua colatum
medium calicem tepidum bibat, admiscis modicum sal; cod. sang. 44, p. 364: Ad punctas qui
in latere superueniunt. Abrotano trito in aqua colato medio calice tepidum bibat, admiscis
modicum sal; BnF lat. 11218, f. 97r: Ad puncta que in lateribus superuenit, hoc est defecciones
se in febre acute superuenit. Abrotanum in aqua tritum et euaporacione ne adhibeatur
propere omnia et agriamen uetandum est. For full transcriptions, see Appendix 2, entries
16.6.1, 5.29.1, and 3.8, respectively.
40 Ferraces Rodríguez, ‘Un recetario médico altomedieval’; Ferraces Rodríguez, ‘Reutilización
de fuentes en recetarios medicos de la antigüedad tardía’.
41 Cod. sang. 759, p. 68: Remedium ad punctas lias de ceruisa recentis colas n<…> das et alio
tando buter simul miscis et bibe dabis statim sanabitur. See Appendix 2, entry 11.14 for the
full transcription.
42 Cod. sang. 759, p. 67: Medicamen mirabile ad placas ad sagita percusso. See Appendix 2,
entry 11.13.

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254  Chapter 9

from a tree or a horse’, in cod. sang. 751.43 The first provides instructions for
a topical application and linen wrap, while the second produces a potion
to drink.
The final category, recipes that mention both general injuries as well as a
named source of trauma, includes seven highly specific treatments. Although
two recipes from cod. sang. 751 have titles that would suggest a single target, Ad
luxum, ‘For a dislocation’, and Potio ad plaga, ‘A potion for blows’, additional
information appears within the recipe itself. In the first, Ad luxum is written in
red capitals and then followed by ad luxum uel quolibet casum si percussum fue-
rit ut liuorem faciat, a phrase that reveals that the recipe is intended to treat not
only dislocations but also cases in which a strike has caused bruising.44 While
this is similar to the dislocation recipes that mentioned bruising noted above,
it differs in specifying that a blow, percussum, was involved. In contrast, a rec-
ipe from cod. sang. 878, Walahfrid Strabo’s vademecum, titled Ad fracturam uel
uulnera ferri, ‘For a fracture or wounds of iron’, more clearly indicates the mul-
tipurpose nature of the treatment in its title and recommends a mixture of
‘barley flour, boar fat, and stinging nettle’ with no further instructions regard-
ing the preparation or administration fo the treatment.45 Unusually, each of
the ingredients in this recipe has been glossed in Old High German.46 These
additions, however, date to the eleventh century and therefore cannot be taken
as evidence for how this recipe was read in the Carolingian period.

3 Osteological Evidence for Trauma and Surgery

3.1 Identifying and Understanding Trauma in the Osteological Record

When assessing evidence for palaeotrauma, the nature of the wound and
extent of bone remodelling can provide important information about the
trauma that caused the injury, whether medical intervention occurred, and
whether the patient survived the incident. Fractures are the primary source
of evidence for trauma in the skeletal record, though dislocations, especially
of the shoulder, may also be observable in some cases. The type of break and
its location on the body provide a framework for understanding the injury

43 Cod. sang. 751, p. 395: Si homo de arbore uel de equo ceciderit. See Appendix 2, entry 9.8.
44 Cod. sang. 751, p. 400: Ad luxum. See Appendix 2, entry 9.10.
45 Cod. sang. 878, p. 333: Ad fracturam uel uulnera ferri. Farina ordeacia, adeps aprinus uel
uerrinus, urtica minor. See Appendix 2, entry 13.1.
46 For the glosses, see von Steinmeyer and Sievers, Die althochdeutschen Glossen, vol. 4, 455.

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Trauma and Surgery 255

and may suggest whether the traumatic event was accidental or intentional.47
A fall, for example, could result in a crush fracture (a fracture of a vertebra
due to compression) or a Colles fracture (a fracture of the distal radius due to
landing on an outstretched hand). A blow to the head often causes a depressed
fracture (a fracture of the skull where the bone is forced inwards), whereas
a strike to a long bone may result in a linear cutmark (due to a sharp, slicing
weapon, such as a sword) or a transverse fracture (a fracture at right angles to
the bone’s long axis).48
Although the latter example, a transverse fracture, can be caused by many
different types of traumata and should not be automatically interpreted as the
result of interpersonal violence, the location of the injury can be instructive.
Fractures that occur on the shaft of the radius and/​or ulna, for example, are
often referred to as ‘parry fractures’ since it is plausible ‘that the individual
was using his or her arm to ward off a blow aimed at the head’.49 Yet, despite
the information provided by the injury’s location and form, it must be remem-
bered that the interpretation of the traumatic incident always remains a case
of speculation.50 While a ‘parry fracture’ is suggestive of an individual parrying
a blow to the head, it is possible that this was not the case. Furthermore, as
noted above with the example of ‘horseplay’ from the Annals of St. Bertin, it is
important to keep in mind that some weapon-​based injuries in the past may
have been accidental.51
Regardless of the question of intent, it may still be possible to deduce the
means by which certain fractures occurred: cranial injuries located in the left
frontoparietal region, for instance, suggest a ‘face-​to-​face encounter’ where
‘the weapon inflicting these wounds [was] held in the right hand’.52 When
considering trauma due to weapons, the appearance of the fracture may also

47 Tosi, Badino, and Pezzoni, ‘Medical Conditions Observed in Osteoarchaeological

Remains’, 29–​34.
48 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 139–​41.
49 Ibid, 151.
50 For a discussion of the need for caution when interpreting signs of violence in the past
(and examples of overzealous readings of the skeletal evidence), see M. R. Geldof, ‘“And
to describe the shapes of the dead”: Making Sense of the Archaeology of Armed Violence’,
in Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval Culture, ed. Larissa Tracy and Kelly DeVries
(Leiden: Brill, 2015), 57–​80.
51 Annales Bertiniani, ed. Waitz, entry for 864 (at p. 67); translation from The Annals of St
Bertin, trans. Nelson, 111–​12.
52 Jochen Weber and Alfred Czarnetzki, ‘Brief Communication: Neurotraumatological
Aspects of Head Injuries Resulting from Sharp and Blunt Force in the Early Medieval
Period of Southwestern Germany’, American Journal of Biological Anthropology 114, no. 4
(2001): 352–​6, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1002​/ajpa​.1047, at p. 354.

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256  Chapter 9

offer insights into the type of weapon used. Swords or knives tend to leave a
distinct cutmark whereas a projectile, such as an arrow or spear, results in a
small piercing or indentation.53 Sticks, stones, maces, and other large items
will typically result in a blunt force trauma, such as a depressed fracture.54
The presence or absence (and, if present, extent) of remodelled bone at the
site of injury can shed light on the timing of the traumatic event and healing
process. If there is no sign of remodelling, then the injury occurred at or very
near to the individual’s death.55 In some cases, it can be difficult to distinguish
between peri-​and post-​mortem trauma, though the fragmentation of bones
due to soil weight or any damage incurred during the excavation process are
often recognisable based on the appearance of the fracture edge.56 If the indi-
vidual survived the initial trauma, bone repair begins almost immediately (evi-
dence of remodelling can be seen within roughly two days of the incident) and
may continue for several years.57 The gradation of remodelling seen at the site
of injury can therefore provide a timeframe for understanding the healing pro-
cess: did the individual make a full recovery or die within a few days or weeks
after sustaining the trauma? If there are only early signs of bone repair, it sug-
gests that the individual survived the initial traumatic incident but died rela-
tively soon after, perhaps due to complications associated with the injury.58
When an individual survives a traumatic incident, it may also be possible
to see evidence of treatment. The successful healing of a broken bone requires
immobilisation and, depending on the location and type of fracture, returning
the bone to its normal anatomical position.59 A number of complications may
result if this does not occur, if it is done poorly, or if the individual begins to use
the injured bone before it is fully healed, such as non-​union, shortening, and/​or
angulation.60 Broken bones, and especially open fractures where the skin has
also been broken, are susceptible to infection, and the development of osteo-
myelitis may be visible in the skeletal remains.61 The complete remodelling

53 Tosi, Badino, and Pezzoni, ‘Medical Conditions Observed in Osteoarchaeological

Remains’, 30; Weber and Czarnetzki, ‘Neurotraumatological Aspects of Head Injuries’, 352.
54 Tosi, Badino, and Pezzoni, ‘Medical Conditions Observed in Osteoarchaeological
Remains’, 30; Weber and Czarnetzki, ‘Neurotraumatological Aspects of Head Injuries’, 352.
55 Tosi, Badino, and Pezzoni, ‘Medical Conditions Observed in Osteoarchaeological
Remains’, 30.
56 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 138; Tosi, Badino, and Pezzoni, ‘Medical Conditions Observed
in Osteoarchaeological Remains’, 30.
57 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 148.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid, 142.
60 Ibid, 143.
61 Ibid, 143–​4.

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Trauma and Surgery 257

of bone at the site of injury would indicate that the individual survived for at
least several years after the trauma occurred and suggests that some type of
medical care was involved in their recovery. Poorly healed fractures, such as
those exhibiting a pseudoarthrosis (‘a fibrous joint formed between the broken
ends of the bones’ resulting from non-​union), do not necessarily indicate that
medical care was absent since this bone formation may have resulted from the
use of the injured bone before healing was complete.62
Finally, the limits of osteological evidence must be remembered. Skeletal
remains will only record evidence of traumatic injuries that have affected the
skeleton, meaning that many forms of trauma will not be preserved in the
archaeological record: while a sword blow might produce an obvious cutmark
in a bone, a dagger might only pierce the soft tissue and leave no trace of the
injury. The resulting underrepresentation of traumatic injuries in the skeletal
record is therefore essential to keep in mind in the following review of skele-
tal evidence and will be revisited in the discussion that follows. Similarly, the
lack of evidence for soft tissue trauma is also important to note in relation to
the limited textual evidence for surgical intervention. Although, as mentioned
above, surgery is rarely seen in the early medieval written record, a number
of superficial procedures, most frequently bloodletting, do appear in medical
texts as well as other documentary evidence. The Plan of St Gall, for exam-
ple, includes a room in the medical area specifically designated as the mon-
astery’s site for phlebotomy.63 Information regarding certain times to avoid
bloodletting, such as lists of Egyptian Days (days thought to be unlucky, espe-
cially with respect to phlebotomy), also appears in and alongside calendrical
texts.64 While the practice is occasionally mentioned in medical recipes as a
component of a treatment, there are also writings that focus specifically on
bloodletting, including epistles and other treatises that provide guidance on
the best (or worst) days and times to phlebotomise, describe the different veins
involved, and so on.65 Within the manuscript sample involved in this book,
examples of calendars that include information on bloodletting can be seen
in codd. sang. 751 and 878, while BnF lat. 11218, bav reg. lat. 1143, codd. sang. 44,

62 Ibid, 144.
63 Cod. sang. 1092. The label reads: fleotomatis hic gustandum uel potionariis; see Horn and
Born, The Plan of St. Gall, 184–​8.
64 On the relationship between calendars and medicine, see Wallis, ‘Medicine in Medieval
Calendar Manuscripts’; on Egyptian Days, see Don C. Skemer, ‘Armis Gunfe: Remembering
Egyptian Days’, Traditio 65 (2010): 75–​106.
65 For a list of texts on bloodletting, see Beccaria, I codici; see also Sabbah, Corsetti, and
Fischer, btml, nos. 185–​8, 234–​41; Fischer, btml 1, no. A-​100.

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258  Chapter 9

217, and 751 all contain versions of an Epistula de phlebotomia.66 These types
of superficial surgical procedures, however, are not investigated in the present
study since they only affect soft tissues and thus leave no skeletal indicators.

3.2 Evidence for Trauma in Early Medieval Skeletal Remains

Although fractures, wounds, and other injuries appear less frequently in the
skeletal record than the oral pathologies and joint diseases addressed in pre-
vious chapters, there is still extensive evidence of trauma. Based on the crite-
ria for assessing fractures outlined above, such as the type and location of the
wound or degree of bone remodelling, it is also possible to consider the types
of traumatic incidents that caused these injuries and whether the individuals
survived. In some cases, these variables can shed light on the wider context
in which the trauma occurred. At the northern Italian site of San Martino di
Ovaro, a cemetery containing thirty-​one individuals, skeletons exhibited evi-
dence of a variety of types of injuries, including fractures suggestive of both
accidental traumata and intentional violence. Radial fractures typical of a
fall can be seen on two individuals, for example, whereas signs of a signifi-
cant attack were observed on another skeleton.67 The skull of this individ-
ual showed evidence of two major peri-​mortem blows with a heavy cutting
weapon (probably a sword), one across the jawbone and one from above.68
Roughly a fifth of this population also exhibited signs of osteomyelitis. While
the development of an infection of the bone could stem from an open wound,
it is also possible that these cases resulted from an existing infection that
spread haematogenously.69 At the Corso Roma cemetery in Acqui Terme, a site
in use from the seventh to ninth centuries that contained thirty-​three individ-
uals, fractures were observed in three skeletons: one male and one female had
ulnar fractures, while another individual had broken their fifth metatarsal.70
Periostitis, inflammation of the periosteum, was also recorded in the humerus

66 Cod. sang. 751, p. 428: untitled lunar calendar; cod. sang. 878, pp. 366–​7: Conservatio fleoto-
miae et dies caniculares. BnF lat. 11218, ff. 34v–​37r: Epistola fleobotomie; bav reg. lat. 1143, ff.
94v–​96v: Epistola fleopotomiae; cod. sang. 44, pp. 191–​4: Epistula de phlebotomia; cod. sang.
217, pp. 252a–​252b, 255a–​255b; cod. sang. 751, pp. 359–​61: Epistula de fleotomia Gallieni,
pp. 455–​6: Epistula de phlebotomia, and pp. 456–​8: Epistula de phlebotomia.
67 Amoretti, ‘Analisi paleobiologiche dei resti scheletrici’, 513–​15.
68 Ibid.
69 Aufderheide and Rodríguez-​ Martín, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Paleo­
pathology, 172.
70 Mallegni, Bedini, Vitiello, Paglialunga, and Bartoli, ‘Su alcuni gruppi umani’, 233–​61.

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Trauma and Surgery 259

of one individual and can, like osteomyelitis, result from either an existing
infection or an injury that became infected.71
A mixture of traumatic injuries was also reported at the cemetery excavated
at La Perosa in Rivoli. This cemetery includes thirty-​seven individuals and
dates from the sixth to eighth centuries.72 A radial fracture was seen on one
male, while another male exhibited cranial injuries.73 Although the fracture
of the radius is not described in detail, the authors note that the fractured cra-
nium showed no signs of remodelling and that this blow was almost certainly
the direct cause of the individual’s death.74 Traumatic injuries were observed
on a number of the individuals uncovered during restoration work at the
Carolingian church of Sant’Agostino in Caravate.75 For example, a ‘small quad-
rangular perforation’ was observed on the skull of one individual, a female aged
approximately forty to fifty years old at death, and interpreted as the result of a
blow from ‘a pointed weapon with a pyramidal trunk head’, such as an arrow.76
Bone remodelling was present at the site of the injury, indicating that this
individual survived the incident.77 A second individual, a male of roughly the
same age, exhibited a fractured fibula, depressed cranial fracture, and deviated
septum. While the direct cause of the fibular fracture is unclear, the depressed
fracture was the result of blunt force trauma. According to the authors, the
deviated septum ‘is probably the result of a traumatic event’, though a con-
genital origin is also possible.78 In the case of both fractures, complete bone

71 Mallegni, Bedini, Vitiello, Paglialunga, and Bartoli, ‘Su alcuni gruppi umani’, 233–​61;
Aufderheide and Rodríguez-​ Martín, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Paleo­
pathology, 179.
72 Mallegni, Bedini, Vitiello, Paglialunga, and Bartoli, ‘Su alcuni gruppi umani’, 233–​61.
73 Ibid.
74 Ibid.
75 Marta Licata, Mario Ronga, Paolo Cherubino, and Giuseppe Armocida, ‘Different Types
of Traumatic Lesions on Mediaeval Skeletons from Archaeological Sites in Varese
(North Italy): Diagnosis on ante mortal Fractures Using Macroscopic, Radiological and
ct Analysis’, Injury 45, no. 2 (2014): 457–​9, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1016​/j​.inj​ury​.2013​.10​.013;
Marta Licata, Melania Borgo, Giuseppe Armocida, Luca Nicosia, and Elena Ferioli, ‘New
Paleoradiological Investigations of Ancient Human Remains from North West Lombardy
Archaeological Excavations’, Skeletal Radiology 45 (2016): 323–​31, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1007​
/s00​256​-015​-2266​-6​.
76 Licata, Ronga, Cherubino, and Armocida, ‘Different Types of Traumatic Lesions’, quota-
tion from p. 458; further discussion in Licata, Borgo, Armocida, Nicosia, and Ferioli, ‘New
Paleoradiological Investigations’, 327.
77 Licata, Ronga, Cherubino, and Armocida, ‘Different Types of Traumatic Lesions’, 458.
78 Ibid, 458–​9.

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260  Chapter 9

remodelling was evident, revealing that the individual made a full recovery (at
least in terms of the skeletal processes involved in healing).79
At the rural monastic site of Santa Maria Assunta di Cairate, which includes
three distinct burial areas, relatively little trauma was recorded in the more
privileged burial groups found within the church (Groups A and B), though it
must be noted that the majority of these individuals were female and thus per-
haps less likely to participate in the types of activities that tend to result in trau-
matic injuries, such as hunting or fighting.80 One exception, however, stands
out: a particularly tall female found in Group B (which, as noted in Chapter 7,
has been interpreted as an elite family unit) suffered a compound fracture of
her left tibia.81 Evidence of extensive bone remodelling is visible, suggesting
that this individual lived for at least several years after the traumatic incident
occurred. In contrast, many more injuries are observed in Group C, a collec-
tion of sixty-​eight individuals thought to represent the general population who
lived in the surrounding area during this period. Fractures of the clavicle, ribs,
ulna, and tibia were recorded.82 While the presence of remodelled bone in
these cases indicates that the injured individuals survived the traumatic inci-
dents that caused these injuries, evidence of periostitis, especially in the bones
of the lower limbs (the femur, tibia, and fibula), was also frequently noted.83
Although it often remains unclear if this inflammation was due to an infected
wound or the spread of an existing infection, in some of these cases, such as
the female with the compound tibial fracture, the periosteal reaction can be
convincingly linked to a traumatic injury.
Similarly, at the Saint Servatius complex in Maastricht, one instance of
osteomyelitis observed on a skeleton dated to the site’s final phase of use
‘was most likely secondary to a fracture of the femur’.84 Among the individ-
uals dated to this period, nearly twenty percent exhibit evidence of fractures,
all of which show signs of healing.85 This is not the case, however, for trauma
caused by sharp-​bladed or pointed objects. In a study of a larger sample of

79 Licata, Ronga, Cherubino, and Armocida, ‘Different Types of Traumatic Lesions’, 458–​9;
Licata, Borgo, Armocida, Nicosia, and Ferioli, New Paleoradiological Investigations’, 327.
80 Monica Motto, ‘Sepolture nel monastero di Cairate: tipologia e organizzazione delle
aree cimiteriali, uno sguardo di sintesi’, in Un monastero nei secoli. Santa Maria Assunta
di Cairate: scavi e ricerche, ed. Valeria Mariotti (Mantua: sap, 2014), 501–​17; Mattucci,
Ravedoni, and Rettore, ‘Analisi antropologica e paleopatologica’, 519–​32.
81 Ibid, 523.
82 Ibid, 521–​4.
83 Ibid, 523.
84 Panhuysen, ‘Demography and Health in Early Medieval Maastricht’, 197.
85 Ibid, 181.

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Trauma and Surgery 261

early medieval skeletons from Maastricht, 228 individuals dated from the fifth
to tenth centuries were analysed, and seven individuals displayed evidence of
violent wounds due to sharp-​edged weapons.86 One individual showed signs
of multiple blows (to the skull, torso, and hand), five had cranial fractures, and
one exhibited a blow to the tibia.87 In three cases, no evidence of bone remod-
elling was present, indicating that these were peri-​mortem injuries and proba-
bly the cause of death.88
Both the urban cemetery excavated at Piazza Marconi in Cremona (in use
from the seventh to tenth centuries) and the rural necropolis excavated at
Bolgare (in use during the seventh and eighth centuries) contain large skeletal
assemblages exhibiting evidence of traumatic injuries. Some of these skeletal
markers, such as radial fractures, suggest episodes of interpersonal violence or
injuries derived from occupational activities, not unlike many of the other sites
reviewed above.89 Yet, in contrast with other excavations, trauma was most
frequently noted in the lower limbs of individuals buried in these cemeteries;
this prevalence, however, appears to be linked to the use of a broad definition
of trauma at these sites.90 For example, fractures are recorded primarily on leg
bones at Cremona, a result heightened by the inclusion of osteochondritis dis-
secans, a type of fracture ‘caused by direct trauma or repetitive microtrauma’,
while small fractures in the phalanges due to repeated microtraumata were
often reported at Bolgare.91 Overall, this evidence for lower limb and foot inju-
ries inclusive of microtraumata, relates more to long-​term processes of wear
and tear (see Chapter 8) than to a sudden traumatic incident.
A somewhat similar combination of fractures and signs of stress was
observed among adult males at San Cassiano.92 The eight tombs found inside
the church contained seven adult males and one child; although these burials,
dated to the late sixth or seventh centuries, predate the Carolingian period,

86 Raphaël G. A. M. Panhuysen, ‘Het scherp van de snede: Sporen van geweld in vroegmid-
deleeuws Maastricht’, Archeologie in Limburg 92 (2002): 2–​7; Robert C. Woosnam-​Savage
and Kelly DeVries, ‘Battle Trauma in Medieval Warfare: Wounds, Weapons and Armor’,
on Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval Culture, ed. Larissa Tracy and Kelly DeVries
(Leiden: Brill, 2015), 27–​56, at p. 35.
87 Panhuysen, ‘Het scherp van de snede’, 2–​7; Woosnam-​Savage and DeVries, ‘Battle Trauma
in Medieval Warfare’, 35.
88 Ibid.
89 Cattaneo and Mazzucchi, ‘Popolazioni tardo antiche e dell’alto medioevo’, 87–​98.
90 Ibid.
91 Cattaneo and Mazzucchi, ‘Popolazioni tardo antiche e dell’alto medioevo’, 87–​ 98;
Waldron, Palaeopathology, 153–​4.
92 Chavarría and Marinato, ‘Frammentazione e complessità’, 61–​8.

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262  Chapter 9

it is useful to consider these skeletons from a comparative perspective. The

signs of trauma at San Cassiano, both micro and macro, have been connected
with horseback-​riding and the use of weapons. The legs, for example, revealed
evidence of repeated stress linked to habitual horseback-​riding, while the loca-
tion and types of fractures observed within this small burial group are sugges-
tive of injuries sustained from falling off a horse.93 These findings suggest that
the males buried at San Cassiano were a fairly elite group and contrast with
the pattern of leg fractures and stress indicators seen at Cremona and Bolgare,
pathologies linked to labour that repeatedly over-​loaded the back and legs,
such as hard agricultural work and heavy lifting.94
Moving to southwest Germany, Jochen Weber and Alfred Czarnetzki con-
ducted a study of head injuries based on the skeletal remains found in four
early medieval cemeteries (Kirchheim am Ries, Neresheim, Nusplingen, and
Schretzheim) that were in use from the sixth to the eighth centuries.95 Thirty-​
three of the 304 skulls analysed (11%) exhibited cranial fractures, twenty-​nine
of which were judged to be male and four female.96 Twenty-​one skulls had
linear fractures caused by a strike from a sharp-​edged weapon, such as a sword,
whereas depressed fractures due to blunt force were observed on nine skulls;
three skulls show evidence of both types of fractures.97 Of the twenty-​one
skulls with evidence of sword blows, six recorded multiple fractures, and in
all six of these cases, no sign of bone remodelling was present, suggesting that
these individuals probably died as a result of their injuries.98 Two of the skulls
exhibiting sharp fractures also showed no signs of healing, but some degree
of bone remodelling was observed on the remaining twenty-​five skulls.99 In
other words, over three-​quarters of the individuals with cranial fractures sur-
vived the initial traumatic incident. Furthermore, three skulls exhibited signs
of trepanation, ‘the deliberate removal of pieces of bone from the skull’, evi-
denced by scratching or cutmarks around a circular opening, and, incredibly,
all of these wounds showed signs of healing.100 While the evidence of healed

93 Ibid.
94 Chavarría and Marinato, ‘Frammentazione e complessità’, 61–​8; Cattaneo and Mazzucchi,
‘Popolazioni tardo antiche e dell’alto medioevo’, 87–​98.
95 Weber and Czarnetzki, ‘Neurotraumatological Aspects of Head Injuries’, 352–​6.
96 Ibid, 353.
97 Ibid.
98 Ibid.
99 Ibid.
100 Waldron, Palaeopathology, 161; Weber and Czarnetzki, ‘Neurotraumatological Aspects of
Head Injuries’, 353.

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Trauma and Surgery 263

fractures at many sites speaks to some level of medical care, these three cases
of trepanation present definite evidence of surgical intervention.
Comparative evidence from earlier sites in continental Europe as well as
contemporary sites in the British Isles provide additional examples of surgery.
Charlotte Roberts and Jacqueline McKinley, for example, highlighted nine-
teen cases of trepanation in Insular contexts from the fifth to ninth centuries,
while more recent studies have identified further examples.101 An excavation
from Hemmaberg, Austria, has produced one of the most remarkable cases
of early medieval surgery and medical intervention. Twenty-​nine individuals
dated to the sixth century were found in a small cemetery associated with
the early medieval church of St Hemma and Dorothea; though pre-​dating the
Carolingian period, stratigraphic evidence combined with grave goods and
burial customs ‘place [these individuals] firmly within the Frankish cultural
sphere’.102 One of the skeletons, a male aged 35 to 50 years old at death, was
missing the left foot and distal joints of the left tibia and fibula. While it might
be assumed that this was due to poor preservation, the skeleton was otherwise
well-​preserved and the point where the tibia and fibula ended was marked by
extensive bone remodelling.103 Furthermore, ‘a sub-​circular iron band with a
diameter of 6.8–​7.3 cm’ was found in place of the lower leg and foot, highly
suggestive of a prosthetic attachment.104 Ultimately, the osteological analysis
of the tibia and fibula indicated that the foot and distal portion of the tibia and
fibula had been amputated and that, despite suffering from osteomyelitis, this
individual eventually recovered. Full remodelling of the bones indicates that
the wound completely healed and the individual survived for at least some
years after the surgery.105 Although there is not enough evidence to deduce the
cause of the amputation, the existence of this case of surgical intervention fol-
lowed by long-​term medical care—​as illustrated by the individual’s survival of

101 Charlotte A. Roberts and Jacqueline McKinley, ‘A Review of Trepanations in

British Antiquity Focusing on Funerary Context to Explain Their Occurrence’, in
Trepanation: History, Discovery, Theory, ed. Robert Arnott, Stanley Finger, and C. U.
M. Smith (Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers, 2003), 55–​78; S. A. Mays, ‘A Possible Case
of Surgical Treatment of Cranial Blunt Force Injury from Medieval England’, International
Journal of Osteoarchaeology 16, no. 2 (2006): 95–​103, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1002​/oa​.806​.
102 M. Binder, J. Eitler, J. Deutschmann, S. Ladstätter, F. Glaser, and D. Fiedler, ‘Prosthetics
in Antiquity—​An Early Medieval Wearer of a Foot Prosthesis (6th Century ad) from
Hemmaberg/​Austria’, International Journal of Paleopathology 12 (2016): 29–​40, https://​doi​
.org​/10​.1016​/j​.ijpp​.2015​.11​.003, at pp. 30–​1.
103 Binder, Eitler, Deutschmann, Ladstätter, Glaser, and Fiedler, ‘Prosthetics in Antiquity’, 31–​2.
104 Ibid, 32.
105 Ibid, 33–​9.

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264  Chapter 9

the initial surgery and the resulting infection as well as his use of a prosthetic
lower leg after recovery—​is noteworthy, not least because this cemetery has
been linked to an early Frankish context.
Overall, the above examples indicate that standard traumatic injuries, such
as broken bones, were not infrequent; while some may have been caused by
interpersonal violence, others could have been due to accidents, such as a fall.
There are, however, a number of spectacular cases that bear witness to surgical
inventions, such as multiple trepanations and the Hemmaberg amputation.
Most significantly, the evidence of healing in many examples reflects effective
(and often long-​term) medical care.

4 Reading Recipes in the Light of Osteological Evidence for Trauma

and Surgery

The skeletal evidence presented above preserves signs of trauma from a variety
of sources, including violent incidents involving weapons, injuries caused by
falls or occupational hazards, and, rarely, examples of surgical intervention.
Bone remodelling indicates that large numbers of early medieval individuals
survived not only an initial traumatic incident but also made full recoveries (at
least in terms of the skeletal healing process). Evidence of healed fractures is
highly suggestive of medical care, even if this care remains otherwise invisible
in the skeletal record. Although many of the examples of surgery listed above,
such as the trepanations from early medieval England, are from sites beyond the
Frankish Empire or, as in the case of the amputation, pre-​date the Carolingian
period, there are occasional signs of surgery in potentially Carolingian con-
texts, including the handful of trepanations in southwest Germany which may
date to the eighth century.
While the textual evidence lists treatments for a similar range of traumatic
injuries, there are no clear signs of trepanation, amputation, or other surgical
procedures beyond superficial surgeries, such as bloodletting and cautery, in
the recipes under analysis. The reference to the removal of bone fragments
comes closest to providing a possible hint of more complex and potentially
invasive surgical practices (and is especially intriguing given that it occurred
in the context of cranial fractures), yet it offers no direct comments on surgery.
Reassessing the recipe literature in view of the skeletal evidence thus indicates
that the surviving written sources do not provide a complete picture of con-
temporary medical approaches since surgical procedures, as documented by
the skeletal remains, were clearly performed—​if only rarely.

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Trauma and Surgery 265

This finding, however, should not diminish the significant parallels observed
between the osteological record and the recipes with respect to fractures, dis-
locations, and various wounds inflicted by weapons. Indeed, these parallels
take on increasing significance given that signs of healing were observed in
skeletal remains with some frequency. Overall, the evidence for traumatic
injuries, whether general (such as fractures) or more specific (such as wounds
caused by particular weapons), corresponds with the types of injuries named
in recipes, thereby indicating that much of the recorded knowledge would
have been applicable to early medieval populations. The osteological evidence,
moreover, suggests that surgical intervention may not have been needed in
many cases: immobilisation of the injured bone, reduction of inflammation,
and pain management would have often been the necessary course of action.
These more basic, non-​invasive treatments fit with the information offered by
recipes. Although I cannot begin to address the possible efficacy of these treat-
ments with regard to inflammation reduction or pain management, the large
number of healed fractures in the skeletal record is striking. The inclusion
of instructions for bandaging in some recipes suggests that these treatments
could have been used in conjunction with knowledge passed on through alter-
native means, such as oral traditions, regarding bone setting or splinting tech-
niques. Like the preceding chapters, the skeletal evidence provides a crucial
counterbalance to the written record, offering a means to reassess the recipe
literature and dig deeper into the recipes’ potential applicability to individuals
in early medieval Europe.
With these two bodies of evidence in mind, several areas of analysis can be
pressed further in relation to the question of applicability.

4.1 Type of Injury: Conflicting Evidence?

Puncture wounds appear with some frequency in the recipe sample, with
arrows (sagittae), thorns (spinae), and other non-​specified punctures (punc-
tae) mentioned on over twenty occasions. The skeletal remains, however,
provide relatively little evidence of such injuries: the vast majority of weapon
injuries appear to be linked to either sharp-​edged weapons or blunt force
trauma. The female skull with a probable arrow wound as well as a male exca-
vated at Saint Servatius with evidence of a similar injury represent some of the
few exceptions.106 Does this disjuncture suggest that the textual record, at least
with respect to this type of injury, had little relevance to early medieval popu-
lations? While this could be the case, like the example of gout in the preceding

106 Panhuysen, ‘Demography and Health in Early Medieval Maastricht’, 183–​4.

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266  Chapter 9

chapter, the absence of evidence should not be read as evidence of absence.

Instead, it is highly probable that the archaeological record provides a very
skewed picture of puncture wounds because these types of injuries are much
less likely to leave a trace of their impact on skeletal remains. Consider, for
example, a stab wound in the viscera: major traumatic injuries need not affect
the skeleton. Therefore, despite the few cases of puncture wounds observed in
the archaeological record, the medical texts’ focus on puncture wounds should
not be dismissed as irrelevant.
Injuries that could be classified as ‘non-​violent’, such as falls, seem to pres-
ent the opposite situation with respect to the two bodies of evidence. Among
the recipes that named specific causes of traumatic injuries, over ninety-​five
percent listed a violent action or weapon as responsible for the wound in ques-
tion.107 The two recipes for falling off a horse or out of a tree and two treat-
ments for punctures from thorns represent the only exceptions. Surely falls and
injuries from occupational hazards occurred more frequently than this record
suggests; indeed, some of the reports consulted in this study argued that the
osteological evidence exhibited not only markers of horseback-​riding but also
injuries related to falls. While this could represent a disconnect between the
textual and skeletal evidence, again, I argue that a deeper analysis of the texts
reveals a different story. Unlike an arrow wound or a sword blow, which may
need fairly specialised treatments, a fall could result in a broken bone, a dislo-
cation, a sprain, major bruising, and so on. Many of the recipes for general inju-
ries, such as fractures, dislocations, and bruising, could apply to these types of
general accidents. Given the varied nature of the resulting injuries, it would be
more appropriate to treat the specific issue with which the patient presents
rather than ‘a fall’. With this in mind, the lack of recipes explicitly intended for
falls and other accidents makes more sense and supports the applicability of
the general injury treatments to individuals in the Carolingian world.

4.2 The Question of Surgery

As noted in the textual analysis, several parts of the body, including the head,
were mentioned repeatedly. The recipes’ emphasis on this area fits with the
archaeological evidence: cranial fractures were among the most frequently
observed traumatic injuries in the skeletal record. While the trepanations
observed in the osteological record reveal that some surgical methods were
used to treat head conditions (though it is often unclear if the underlying

107 Although it must be remembered that some of these injuries may have been accidental,
the method of inflicting damage (blows, strikes, cuts, etc.) can be described as violent.

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Trauma and Surgery 267

cause(s) of a trepanation were related to trauma), the majority of healed head

injuries seen in the osteological record appear to have healed as a result of
non-​invasive medical treatment. This finding further strengthens the argu-
ment that the recipe literature was highly applicable to individuals in early
medieval Europe since not only do the types of trauma recorded on the skel-
etons and in the texts consistently overlap, but the methods of treatment also
appear to have a high degree of correspondence. That is, the skeletal evidence
suggests that, although surgical procedures were practised, non-​invasive treat-
ments were preferred—​a finding that is not unexpected in an age without
modern antibiotics and anaesthetics.
Yet, some invasive, complex surgeries did occur, if only rarely. Given the
relative pausity of surgical information in the texts, especially with respect
to complex, invasive surgeries, such as amputation and trepanation, where
did the individuals who performed these surgeries acquire their knowledge?
Debby Banham and Christine Voth have argued that oral traditions and prac-
tical training may have played a significant role in the transmission of surgi-
cal knowledge in the Insular world, and it appears that continental Europe
experienced a similar phenomenon.108 This is not to say that much surgery was
occurring during this period, but to acknowledge that texts were certainly not
the exclusive source of medical knowledge at this time. Here, it is important
to remember that the Hemmaberg amputation as well as several trepanations
occurred within a Frankish context. Though largely pre-​dating the Carolingian
period, these cases of surgical intervention offer a glimpse into earlier Frankish
medical practices, suggesting that knowledge of surgery, perhaps drawing
on Frankish traditions or medical practices picked up through contact with
the Roman military, was passed on outside of the written record. The poten-
tial links between military medicine and surgical practice in relation to the
particularly violent traumata of warfare will be considered in the following
section.

4.3 Evidence for Trauma Beyond Medical Texts

Finally, a comment must be made on the wider context and the evidence for
trauma as documented by textual sources beyond the medical manuscripts,
such as capitularies, law codes, annals, histories, and poetry. Records of war-
fare and violence represent perhaps the most obvious source of information
regarding traumatic injuries recorded by non-​medical texts. Einhard’s Life
of Charlemagne, for example, emphasised the brutality of the Saxon Wars,

108 Banham and Voth, ‘The Diagnosis and Treatment of Wounds’, 153–​74.

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268  Chapter 9

noting that Charlemagne would repeatedly ‘avenge [the Saxon’s] treachery

and demand a fitting punishment until everyone who was accustomed to resist
was crushed and brought back under his control’.109 In addition to territorial
expansion and defence, internal conflicts, such as the civil wars of the early
840s fought between Charlemagne’s grandsons, were another source of larg-
escale violence. The Battle of Fontenoy (841) was famously memorialised by
Angelbert, a follower of Lothar who survived the battle. While his verses do
not provide details about the specific injuries sustained in battle, the general
description of the death toll and suffering of survivors paints a vivid picture of
the carnage: ‘There has been no worse massacre on the field of battle. /​Christian
law is violated; blood flows in waves; /​and in hell the maw of Cerberus opens
with glee’.110 Although such emotionally charged lines may have an element
of dramatisation, it certainly suggests that much blood was shed. The epic
Waltharius, despite presenting an even more theatrical perspective, depicts
scenes of hand-​to-​hand combat. When battling a series of Franks, the hero
Walter killed Eleuthir by splitting his ‘brain in two and, cutting through the
neck itself, opened up his chest’.111 Soon he ‘turned his anger toward [Tanastus]
and tore his shoulder from its joint and sliced through his side with iron, spill-
ing his guts’.112 While the historical accuracy of the Waltharius cannot be taken
at face value, its portrayal of the characters’ attitudes towards violence and
illustration of the type of trauma that might have been expected in combat
provide a useful cultural framework in which to understand warfare and injury
in the Carolingian period.113

109 Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, ed. O. Holder-​Egger, mgh ss Rer. Germ. 25 (Hanover: Hahn,
1911), Chapter 7 (at p. 10): Nam numquam eos huiuscemodi aliquid perpetrantes inpune
ferre passus est, quin aut ipse per se ducto aut per comites suos misso exercitu perfidiam
ulcisceretur et dignam ab eis poenam exigeret, usque dum, omnibus qui resistere solebant
profligatis et in suam potestatem redactis. Translation from Einhard, Life of Charlemagne,
in Two Lives of Charlemagne, trans. David Ganz (London: Penguin Books, 2008), Chapter 7
(at p. 23).
110 Angelbert, Versus de bella quae fuit acta Fontaneto, ed. Ernst Dümmler, mgh Poet. 2
(Berlin: Weidmann, 1884), 138: Caedes nulla peior fuit campo nec in Marcio; /​fracta est
lex christianorum; sanguinis proluvio, /​unde manus; inferorum, gaudet gula Cerberi.
Translation from Angelbert, The Battle of Fontenoy, in Poetry of the Carolingian
Renaissance, trans. Peter Godman (London: Duckworth, 1985), 263.
111 Ekkehard I of St. Gall, Waltharius, ed. and trans. Abram Ring (Leuven: Peeters, 2016), 124–​
5: Huic galeam findens cerebrum diffudit et ipsam /​Cervicem resecans pectus patefecit, at
aegrum.
112 Ekkehard, Waltharius, ed. and trans. Ring, 128–​9: Hinc indignatus iram convertit in ipsum /​
Waltharius humerumque eius de cardine vellit /​Perque latus ducto suffudit viscera ferro.
113 Jan M. Ziolkowski, ‘Fighting Words: Wordplay and Swordplay in the Waltharius’, in
Germanic Texts and Latin Models: Medieval Reconstructions, ed. Karin E. Olsen, Antonina

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Trauma and Surgery 269

Studies of Carolingian arms and armour based on documentary, icono-

graphic, and archaeological evidence offer another perspective on the nature
of the wounds sustained in battle. Simon Coupland’s analysis of military equip-
ment, for example, has confirmed the importance of mounted warfare and the
use of lances, swords, and bows in battle, fitting with the signs of horseback-
riding seen in the osteological record and suggesting that treatments for inju-
ries due to falls would have been readily applicable.114 Coupland also highlights
that Carolingian swords were highly sought-​after by the Franks’ neighbours
and that, despite the court’s attempts to prevent them from falling into the
wrong hands, ‘archaeological evidence suggests that export embargoes were
unsuccessful’.115 Significantly for this discussion, the use of similar weapons
across a range of contexts (internecine wars, borderland conflicts, Viking raids,
etc.) would have resulted in comparable injuries. Despite this varied body of
evidence on Carolingian warfare derived from literary, documentary, icono-
graphic, or archaeological sources, evidence for medical practice and practi-
tioners in such military environments remains very limited. The extent of this
lacuna is striking when compared to the surviving evidence for military med-
icine in classical and late antique Rome as well as later medieval Europe.116
On the basis of this comparative evidence and taking into consideration the
severity and urgency of the medical care needed on the battlefield, it seems
likely that surgical procedures would have also been practised in context of
combat in the Carolingian world.
The frequency with which Carolingian rulers attempted to regulate violence
beyond the battlefield, however, reveals that traumatic injuries due to inter-
personal violence could occur outside of warfare. In the Capitulary of Herstal
of 779, for example, counts and bishops acting as judges were prohibited ‘from
maiming men through hatred or ill-​intent’, while the Admonitio generalis of
789 banned revenge killings.117 Notably, Charlemagne’s capitularies specifically

Harbus, and Tette Hofstra (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 29–​51; Jan M. Ziolkowski, ‘Blood, Sweat
and Tears in the Waltharius’, in Insignis Sophiae Arcator: Medieval Latin Studies in Honour
of Michael Herren on his 65th Birthday, ed. Gernot R. Wieland, Carin Ruff, and Ross
G. Arthur (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 149–​64.
114 Simon Coupland, ‘Carolingian Arms and Armor in the Ninth Century’, Viator 21
(1990): 29–​50.
115 Coupland, ‘Carolingian Arms and Armour in the Ninth Century’, 44.
116 On Roman military medicine, see, for example, Ido Israelowich, ‘Medical Care in
the Roman Army during the High Empire’, in Popular Medicine in Graeco-​Roman
Antiquity: Explorations, ed. William V. Harris (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 215–​30. For medicine in
the Crusades, see Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades.
117 Warren C. Brown, Violence in Medieval Europe (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2011),
71–​8; Capitulare Haristallense, ed. Alfred Boretius, mgh Capit. 1, no. 20 (Hanover: Hahn,

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270  Chapter 9

targeted eliminating violence in ecclesiastical communities on a number of

occasions: pronouncements in 802 and 811 forbad the clergy from bearing
arms and maintaining armed followers.118 Perhaps the potential for violent
encounters helps to explain Walahfrid’s inclusion of a treatment for ‘fractures
and wounds from iron’ in his vademecum, cod. sang. 878.119 On the other hand,
early medieval law codes shed light on the use of legitimised violence, such
as corporal punishment. Take, for example, Rothair’s Edict from the Lombard
Kingdom in the middle of the seventh century.120 While the majority of the 388
laws offer financial penalties, some present physical punishments, such as the
amputation of a hand:

242. Concerning the illegal minting of coins: He who mints gold or

strikes money without the king’s command shall have his hand
cut off.
243. On forged charters: He who forges a charter or other kind of docu-
ment shall have his hand cut off.121

An understanding of the wider Carolingian context in which violence occurred

helps to situate the evidence of trauma preserved in the archaeological record
as well as approaches to traumatic injuries seen in the recipe literature. The
archaeological sites reviewed above do not appear to represent battlegrounds
given that, although trauma was evident, it was not recorded in the majority
of individuals, as might be the case with a mass grave of war dead. Similarly,
there is no evidence to suggest that the collections of recipes under considera-
tion were written with either warfare or judicial punishments in mind. Instead,

1883), c. 1; Admonitio generalis, ed. Alfred Boretius, mgh Capit. 1, no. 22 (Hanover: Hahn,
1883), c. 8.
118 Brown, Violence in Medieval Europe, 75; Capitula a sacerdotibus proposita, ed. Alfred
Boretius, mgh Capit. 1, no. 36 (Hanover: Hahn, 1883), c. 18; Capitulare missorum item
speciale, ed. Alfred Boretius, mgh Capit. 1, no. 35 (Hanover: Hahn, 1883), c. 37; Capitula
de causis cum episcopis et abbatibus tractandis, ed. Alfred Boretius, mgh Capit. 1, no. 72
(Hanover: Hahn, 1883), c. 4.
119 Cod. sang. 878, p. 333: Ad fracturam uel uulnera ferri; see Appendix 2, entry 13.1.
120 Edictus Rothari, in Leges Langobardorum, ed. Friedrich Bluhme, mgh ll 4
(Hanover: Hahn, 1868), 1–​90; Rothair’s Edict, in The Lombard Laws, trans. Katherine
Fischer Drew (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1973), 39–​130; on early
medieval law codes more generally, see Katherine Fischer Drew, Law and Society in Early
Medieval Europe: Studies in Legal History (London: Variorum, 1988).
121 Edictus Rothari, ed. Bluhme, 242 (at p. 60): Si quis sine iussionem regis aurum figuraverit
aut moneta confinxerit, manus ei incidatur; 243 (at p. 60): De cartola falsa. Si quis cartolam
falsam scripserit aut quodlibet membranum, manus ei incidatur. Translation from Rothair’s
Edict, trans. Fischer Drew, 100.

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Trauma and Surgery 271

given the parallels seen in the osteological and textual evidence, I suggest that
these collections would have been applicable to the day-​to-​day healthscapes
of many individuals in early medieval Europe—​not so relevant to those on
military campaigns, but highly relevant to those in, for example, a monastic
community or an aristocratic household. The non-​medical written sources,
and especially Charlemagne’s capitularies, indicate that violence occurred
not simply in military settings but also in these domestic environments, if at a
lower level. This finding fits with the degree and frequency of injuries seen in
the skeletal remains. It must also be remembered that some individuals may
have survived the injuries they sustained in warfare and these wounds may
account for some of the cases of trauma observed in the archaeological record.
Overall, the types of recipes recorded in the medical texts appear to have
been highly applicable to many individuals in the Carolingian world, offering
basic treatments for standard injuries. Indeed, the recipe literature seems par-
ticularly suited to those individuals who would have had access to the texts,
such as the members of ecclesiastical communities and elite households.
Warfare, however, represents violence on a different scale given the severity,
urgency, and sheer number of injuries that would have occurred in battle.122
When entire limbs could be removed in a single blow, a topical plaster could
only do so much.123 I suggest, therefore, that medical practitioners involved in
military campaigns relied on an additional body of knowledge unrecorded by
the written sources, and one that quite possibly included surgery. This infor-
mation must have been primarily transmitted through non-​textual knowledge
exchange, such as oral traditions and practical experience.

5 Conclusion

Traumatic injuries, despite their seemingly straightforward cause-​and-​effect

relationship, remain a challenging subject to investigate in past populations.
This chapter has revealed that there is a fairly high degree of overlap between
the textual evidence and skeletal record, especially with respect to fractures
and wounds sustained from various types of blows. This suggests that much

122 Banham and Voth, ‘The Diagnosis and Treatment of Wounds’, 169.
123 As illustrated by Walter’s attack on Gunther: Walter ‘pried Gunther’s shield away on the
right, made a mighty and amazing blow, and tore off his leg up to the knee, all of it below
the thigh’ (Impetit et scuto dextra de parte revulso /​Ictum praevalidum ac mirandum fecit
eique /​Crus cum poplite adusque femur decerpserat omne); Ekkehard, Waltharius, trans.
Ring, 152–​3.

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272  Chapter 9

of the knowledge recorded in the texts was applicable to early medieval pop-
ulations, at least in certain contexts. Warfare, however, would have resulted
in traumata on an entirely different level, and the treatments recorded in the
recipes analysed in this study would not have suited such an environment.
Despite the general parallels between the two bodies of evidence, there are
particular areas that might, at first glance, seem to present conflicting results.
Yet, an in-​depth analysis of the evidence has revealed that these more chal-
lenging topics are not necessarily incompatible with the bigger picture: with
respect to puncture wounds or non-​violent traumatic injuries, by contextualis-
ing the evidence, the seemingly contradictory results were reconciled. Surgery
and warfare, however, are special cases, offering an important reminder that,
although there is much evidence to support the use of the recipes recorded
in Carolingian manuscripts in the practice of medicine, alternative sources of
medical knowledge, such as oral traditions, remained vitally important during
this period.

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Conclusion

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 ­c hapter 10

Putting Knowledge Into Practice

1 Introduction: Revisiting the Case of Terenti(an)us

In view of the evidence presented in the preceding chapters, I shall return to

the case of Terenti(an)us with which this book opened and reconsider these
two recipes, the Antidotum podagricum of cod. sang. 751 and the Potio ad
podagra of cod. sang. 759.1 These recipes served as a useful entry point into
the question of whether medical knowledge recorded in eighth-​and ninth-​
century manuscripts was used in the practice of medicine given their inclusion
of Terenti(an)us’ seemingly personal comments regarding his experience of
using this treatment. The recipes’ codicological contexts radically alters the
picture: the different scripts seen in codd. sang. 751 and 759, combined with
the distinct textual environments in which the recipes are found, indicates
that the two treatments were based on an earlier source. Terenti(an)us’ claims
cannot be read, therefore, as direct evidence linking medical knowledge and
practice in the Carolingian period. Most importantly, this example illustrates
how the written record can be over-​interpreted when individual texts are ana-
lysed in isolation, highlighting the need for new approaches to the study of the
relationship between medical knowledge and practice. Having explored this
relationship through the prisms of practicality and applicability and consid-
ered both textual and osteological evidence, what can now be said about the
potential use of these two recipes?
While it remains impossible to be certain if either one of these treatments
was consulted in the context of therapy, the evidence examined throughout
the preceding chapters suggests that, broadly, the recipe literature recorded in
the early medieval Latin west was intended to be used in medical practice. In
reassessing the particularities of the Terenti(an)us case, the findings from sev-
eral of this book’s case studies are especially relevant. First, consider the prac-
ticality of these treatments with respect to the materia medica they name. The
detailed instructions of both recipes list a mixture of ingredients that could have
been growing locally, such as centaury (centauria) and birthwort (aristolocia
rotunda), as well as exotic products, including myrrh (mirra) and cardamom

1 Cod. sang. 751, pp. 489–​90: Antidotum podagricum; cod. sang. 759, p. 60: Potio ad podagra.
See Chapter 1 for a more detailed review of the recipes and Appendix 2, entries 9.38 and 11.8,
respectively.

© Claire Burridge, 2024 | DOI:​1 0.1163/9789004466173_011

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276  Chapter 10

(cardamomo, only listed in cod. sang. 759).2 Although the recipes include nei-
ther the newly recorded non-​local substances discussed in Chapter 3 nor any
of the notably local alcohols highlighted in Chapter 4, similar combinations of
local and imported ingredients have been seen repeatedly. While the inclusion
of exotic ingredients has historically raised red flags regarding recipes’ practi-
cality, the evidence presented in Chapter 3 demonstrates that these types of
non-​local substances were periodically available in the Frankish Empire—​if
only in limited quantities and restricted to the elite. Other aspects of these
recipes’ instructions, however, appear to be less practical: Terenti(an)us
reports that he used the potion for 365 days and suggests that longer may be
necessary. The daily consumption of such a potion over the course of an entire
year does not seem viable. In sum, although the use of the ingredients named
in these recipes does not make them inherently impractical, the treatments’
recommended long-​term use would certainly pose challenges and suggests
that the recipes would have been exceedingly difficult to use in practice.
The recipes’ applicability, however, is more promising. As shown in
Chapter 8, few cases of gout have been recorded in skeletal remains dated to
the Carolingian period. Yet, the relatively high frequencies of more general
foot and ankle arthropathies suggest that treatments claiming to help podagra
should often be interpreted more broadly. If the Terenti(an)us recipes are
therefore taken to address foot and toe joint pain, including oa, ra, gout, and
other diseases or injuries affecting the toes and feet, the treatments appear to
be highly applicable.
This re-​evaluation of the opening recipes reflects the mixed picture of the
recipes overall: while the case studies pursued in the preceding chapters have
highlighted examples of practical and applicable treatments, there remain
counterexamples, i.e., recipes that would have been difficult, if not impossible,
to put into practice and/​or that would not have been applicable to individuals
in early medieval Europe. Collectively, however, the findings presented in this
book point to a general picture of practicality and applicability, suggesting that
pharmaceutical information was often recorded with the intention of being
used in the context of therapy—​though such a use may have been combined
with others. The analysis of a large sample of recipes, in conjunction with the
integration of osteological evidence, has made these conclusions possible.

2 Note: while cardamomum is often interpreted as ‘cardamom’, it is sometimes taken to mean

‘cress’ (which could have been a potentially local product); see, for example, Monica Green’s
comments in The Trotula: A Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine, ed. and trans.
Monica H. Green (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 275.

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Putting Knowledge Into Practice 277

I shall briefly review the results of Parts 1 and 2 to flesh out and expand on
these findings and their implications.

2 Bringing Together the Case Studies

As seen in this book’s opening chapters, although there is only limited evidence
documenting the existence of medical practitioners in early medieval Europe,
there is even less evidence regarding the specifics of their practices, and espe-
cially the degree to which—​if at all—​these practices relied on the pharmaceu-
tical knowledge recorded in the manuscripts of the period.3 The present study
has therefore investigated the relationship between medical knowledge and
practice in the Carolingian world from a new angle, taking a dual approach that
brings together both textual and osteological evidence. Chapter 1 established
the conceptual framework that underpins this book. A review of early work in
the field showed that, traditionally, many scholars have worked on individual
texts (or families of texts) in isolation and prioritised writings tied to classical
and late antique traditions. Although the field is changing, the longstanding
lack of scholarship on recipes located outside of the established texts demands
more analyses of this material. Simultaneously, the potential pitfalls of studying
such texts in isolation, highlighted by the opening example of Terenti(an)us,
contributed to the selection of a large sample of understudied recipes from
twenty-​four manuscripts. Although a revisionist wave of scholarship over-
turned many negative stereotypes concerning early medieval medicine, it has
also led to the generation (and repetition) of new assumptions regarding the
use of medical texts. My reassessment of the question of practicality has aimed
to move beyond the circular arguments seen in some of this work. Finally, by
focusing on the potential applicability of pharmaceutical writings to individu-
als in early medieval Europe, this book also draws on evidence from the osteo-
logical record, building on and contributing to scholarship that has called for
an investigation into past population health alongside traditional studies of
the history of medicine.
Chapter 2 opened Part 1 with an introduction to and contextualisation of
the recipe literature under analysis. This chapter laid the groundwork for the
following three chapters that explored the question of practicality. Chapters 3
and 4 analysed a selection of the materia medica listed in recipes, asking if

3 Flint, ‘The Early Medieval ‘Medicus’’, 127–​45; Skinner, Health and Medicine in Early Medieval
Southern Italy; Pilsworth, Healthcare in Early Medieval Northern Italy; Pilsworth, ‘Could you
just sign this for me John?’, 363–​88; Park, ‘Medicine and Society’, 67–​9; Leja, Embodying the Soul.

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278  Chapter 10

these substances could have been obtained in the Frankish world during the
eighth and ninth centuries. Chapter 3 initiated the case studies by analysing
the introduction of a cluster of ingredients from the east, tracing their inclu-
sion in recipes individually, and considering evidence for the movement of
these substances (in addition to the arrival of pharmaceutical information per-
taining to them). I argued that recipes involving these non-​local ingredients
were practical, even if the ways in which they were practical differ from typical
perceptions of practicality (as exemplified by the local materia medica exam-
ined in the following chapter). The evidence indicates that the substances in
question would have been available, but only sporadically, in small quantities,
and at great expense. I suggest, therefore, that recipes listing these types of
ingredients store ‘latent knowledge’, offering information that could be used
when the necessary substances were available. This may help to explain why
there are so many different recipes that claim to treat the same symptom(s)
or condition(s): each recipe provides a treatment option and could have been
used depending on what ingredients were on hand. Based on these findings,
I also argued that the inclusion of newly introduced eastern materia medica
revealed that scribes were adapting the recipe literature and incorporating
‘cutting-​edge’ information. These modifications—​that is, the integration of
the latest pharmaceutical information—​strengthen the idea that this body of
knowledge was intended to be used in the practice of medicine.
Turning to the opposite end of the ‘localness’ spectrum, Chapter 4 con-
centrated on the appearance of beer and mead (medus) in eighth-​and ninth-​
century recipes. When considered alongside evidence for the production of
these beverages in the Frankish Empire, it suggests that the scribes responsible
for these recipe collections incorporated ingredients suited to local conditions.
I argued that the inclusion of these alcohols represents a practical addition to
the recipe literature and indicates that scribes were actively engaging with this
body of knowledge, updating it to rely on more accessible ingredients. These
features likewise support the idea that many recipes were recorded with the
intention of being used in therapy.
Chapter 5 then moved from an examination of ingredients to an analysis
of other features within recipes. I investigated the appearance of a vernacular
unit and the inclusion of instructions for substituting ingredients if a desired
substance was unavailable. The use of the Latinised vernacular unit staupus
and the addition of information on substituting materia medica represent two
highly practical features. The former points to user-​friendly adaptations made
to suit a changing linguistic landscape. While the latter is similarly practical, it
should not be overemphasised since, in many cases, it may reflect information

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Putting Knowledge Into Practice 279

derived from earlier sources rather than the experiences of Carolingian medi-
cal practitioners.
Collectively, the three chapters connected different yet complementary per-
spectives on the practicality of the recipe literature. Based on this combina-
tion of evidence, I argued that many recipes were practical in terms of both
their design and potential useability: on the one hand, they contain modifi-
cations that would have aided an individual consulting the texts and, on the
other hand, they often present several treatment options that would have ena-
bled a reader to select a recipe based on their available ingredients and other
variables.
Building on the assessment of practicality, Part 2 turned to the question
of applicability. Chapter 6 provided the foundation for the case studies of
Chapters 7–​9, outlining the challenges of bringing together textual and oste-
ological evidence and reviewing the sites involved in the following chapters.
Chapter 7’s focus on dental disease exhibited many examples of overlap
between the two bodies of evidence: the signs of poor dental health seen in the
skeletal remains, such as cavities, tooth loss, and the accumulation of dental cal-
culus, corresponded to many of the descriptions of dental problems recorded
in the recipes. These treatments thus appear to have been highly applicable to
individuals in early medieval Europe. Moreover, while the potential utility of
a number of treatment subcategories, such as cosmetic dentifrices, may have
seemed questionable at first, a more detailed examination suggested that such
recipes would have been particularly relevant to the individuals who likely had
access to these texts, namely, elite members of aristocratic households and
ecclesiastical communities.
Chapter 8 concentrated on joint diseases, beginning with a study on gout.
Although I identified many examples of recipes claiming to treat podagra, few
cases of gout have been observed in early medieval skeletal remains. In con-
trast to the relative absence of gout, evidence for general arthropathies, such
as oa, was frequently noted. After reviewing recipes for more general joint
disease in the light of the osteological record, I reassessed the gout-​podagra
paradox and argued that the apparent lack of correspondence between the evi-
dence for gout and podagra reflects an inappropriately rigid translation of the
medieval Latin terminology rather than a simple mismatch in the evidence.
Understanding the medieval usage of podagra as more generalised foot pain
instead of the modern medical definition of gout not only aligns more closely
with the osteological evidence, but also demonstrates the dangers of applying
modern medical definitions to medieval medical terms. Overall, based on the
frequency with which arthritis and signs of stress were observed in the skeletal
remains, recipes intended to treat joint pain—​from the cervical spine to the

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280  Chapter 10

big toe—​would have been applicable to essentially everyone who lived long
enough to develop these pathologies.
Lastly, Chapter 9 investigated surgical intervention and trauma. Given the
relative lack of treatises on surgery in the early medieval west, this chapter
assessed how the non-​invasive treatments recorded in the recipes compared
to the evidence seen in the osteological record and explored whether there
is evidence to suggest that surgical practices unrecorded by written sources
were being practised during this period. While signs of surgery, such as trep-
anation, were observed in skeletal remains, these types of invasive practices
were reported very rarely. Meanwhile, given the evidence for healed fractures
and other injuries that do not bear signs of surgical intervention, the recipe
literature’s non-​invasive treatments for traumatic injuries seem to fit with
the osteological record. An examination of texts beyond the medical corpus,
however, revealed that the skeletal evidence considered in this study did not
appear to record the extremely severe injuries of warfare. Although the recipes
under analysis would not have suited the context of military medicine, it does
appear that they would have been highly applicable in other settings, such as
an elite household or monastery.
While it must be remembered that each of these case studies represents
a single type of condition, all three chapters provided evidence that broadly
supports the applicability of the recipe literature to individuals in early medi-
eval Europe. Bringing Parts 1 and 2 together, it appears that a large proportion
of these treatments were both practical and applicable, though, as the case
of Terenti(an)us illustrates, this assessment is far from universal. The individ-
ual factors relating to a recipe’s practicality and applicability remain highly
complex and often context specific. Thus, in arguing that the recipe literature
was largely practical and applicable, I do not mean that recipes were always
and/​or uniformly practical and applicable, but rather that they were poten-
tially practical and applicable given the right circumstances. These recipes
offer treatments that, though they might not have been consistently useful or
usable, could have been used when an individual presented with Disease X or
Injury Y and when Ingredient A, B, and C were available. Consider, for exam-
ple, the injuries discussed in Chapter 9: the osteological evidence suggests that
fractures were not an exceedingly common problem but that they did occur.
It would therefore make sense to have information regarding potential treat-
ments ready to be deployed when such an injury happened, even if the need for
these treatments was relatively rare. Likewise, the frequency with which mul-
tiple treatment options were recorded suggests that a recipe could be selected
on the basis of the available ingredients. Cynehard’s complaints about his lack
of non-​local materia medica clearly illustrates that certain ingredients were

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Putting Knowledge Into Practice 281

difficult to source during this period. Yet, since many of these types of ingre-
dients appear to have been occasionally available, if only in limited quantities
and at a high price, a recipe incorporating such ingredients stored knowledge
that had the potential to be used in practice. Ultimately, even if many recipes
were not (or only rarely) consulted in therapy, it is their potential for use in this
context that is a key conclusion of this book’s analyses.
The question of the recipes’ intended use(s) is inherently linked to this find-
ing. As discussed in Chapter 1, medical texts could have been used in a variety
of different, if often overlapping, ways.4 That many recipes were potentially
practical and applicable in early medieval Europe does not necessarily mean
that they were recorded with the intention of being used in medical practice,
but simply that they could have been used in this context. The addition of user-​
friendly features in many recipes’ instructions, the increasing appearance of
locally producible ingredients, as well as, paradoxically, the inclusion of previ-
ously unrecorded products from the far east all suggest, however, that recipes,
on the whole, were recorded with the intention of being used in therapy. These
particular elements reveal not only that recipes were adapted in ways that
would have facilitated their use in treatment but also that scribes incorporated
the latest pharmaceutical knowledge.
Even if the recipes’ potential useability in medical practice was often the
primary motivation that lay behind their collection and documentation, it is
important to emphasise that this was by no means the only motivation. BnF
lat. 13955, a manuscript not considered in the present study, contains an assort-
ment of texts related to the liberal and mechanical arts as well as recipes and
was, therefore, perhaps intended primarily for educational purposes. That
being said, it could have served both pedagogical and therapeutic functions;
indeed, many of the recipes examined in this study could have had multiple
purposes and/​or their uses could have changed over time.
A consideration of the ways in which the recipes were used necessitates
a comment on the environments in which these uses occurred. As argued in
Chapter 9, the recipe literature analysed in this study is unlikely to have been
suitable for the extreme conditions of warfare. It appears, however, that the
monastic setting in which many of these manuscripts were produced would
have had a better fit. Yet, the osteological evidence indicates that many recipes
would have been applicable to individuals living in a wide range of commu-
nities, so the potential for medical practice must be considered in additional
contexts. Given that there is evidence documenting the existence of medical

4 Horden, ‘Prefatory Note’, 1–​6.

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282  Chapter 10

texts in both monastic and lay libraries, royal and aristocratic households also
represent likely locations for the practice of medicine related to the informa-
tion contained in these medical texts.5 But what can be said about the poten-
tial use of these writings outside of the most privileged strata of society? Based
on the skeletal record, it appears that the recipe literature would have been
widely applicable in non-​elite contexts, as well. Despite the relevance of the
treatments to individuals from all levels of society, however, I suggest that the
use of these texts in relation to medical practice would have been largely lim-
ited to elite communities since the consultation of medical writings is pred-
icated on literacy. There is, however, evidence of monks practising medicine
beyond the cloister walls and the possibility that local communities surround-
ing elite sites or pilgrims passing through ecclesiastical institutions could have
benefitted from medical care at these locations.6 Furthermore, the addition
of medical recipes to a number of ‘priests’ handbooks’, a phenomenon noted
by Carine van Rhijn in a selection of manuscripts not considered in the pres-
ent study, likewise suggests that medical knowledge was moving beyond the
cloister and circulating in local communities.7 The application of the texts in
non-​elite contexts should not, therefore, be ruled out, though, given the need
for literacy, the individuals using such material are likely to have come from an
elite establishment.
The cost of treatments must also be considered when addressing the con-
texts of medical practice—​could people with more limited resources have
afforded the ingredients listed in recipes or would their high prices suggest a
very restricted clientele? Although some recipes rely on expensive, imported
materia medica, others combine a mixture of local and non-​local substances.
A significant proportion, moreover, tend to use only a handful of products—​if
not a single ingredient—​that could have been obtained locally, whether grown
(such as the many plants also listed in texts on gardens and gardening), foraged
(including berries, mushrooms, and ferns), or produced (such as beer, medus,
and cheese). This range in ingredients suggests that the use of certain recipes
is likely to have been restricted to individuals within those communities which
had sufficient wealth to import exotica and/​or the necessary connections to
be involved in the gift-​giving economy that operated within royal, aristocratic,
and ecclesiastical networks. The ‘shopping list’ from Corbie, however, shows

5 On the evidence for the circulation of medical manuscripts, see Glaze, ‘The Perforated Wall’,
69–​79; on lay medical book ownership, see Glaze, ‘The Perforated Wall’, 13–​14, n. 6.
6 Horden, ‘What’s Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?’, 12–​ 13; Park, ‘Medicine and
Society’, 68–​9.
7 van Rhijn, Leading the Way to Heaven, 195–​202.

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Putting Knowledge Into Practice 283

that some non-​local imports, at least by the second half of the ninth century,
might have been within the reach of a wider proportion of the population. On
the other hand, many recipes may have been more generally accessible due
to their reliance on ‘kitchen table medicine’, i.e., ingredients that could have
been growing or produced locally and would have been more easily obtainable
across all levels of society.8 In fact, with respect to recipes that rely on local
products, and especially newly recorded local products, the texts may offer a
glimpse into the medical practices beyond the literate elite by documenting
previously unrecorded pharmaceutical knowledge. Taking these factors into
account, I maintain that the texts were used primarily in elite contexts, such
as the royal court, aristocratic households, and monastic communities given a)
the literacy needed to engage with this material, b) the resources required to
source certain ingredients, and c) the intellectual environments and networks
necessary to produce or obtain the manuscripts in which this information was
recorded. The knowledge they transmit, however, was likely circulating more
widely.

3 Moving Forward: Final Remarks and Future Directions

Ultimately, this book has offered an innovative approach to investigating the

relationship between early medieval medical knowledge and practice, provid-
ing insights into this topic with implications for understanding how and by
whom these texts may have been used. This research underlines the valuable
contribution that ‘miscellaneous’ recipes may make to the study of early medi-
eval medicine as well as the benefits of reading this material in conjunction
with evidence from skeletal remains. Further work in both of these areas—​
and, of course, their integration—​is much needed. While this book has ana-
lysed a substantial number of relatively understudied recipes, thousands more
have yet to be explored. Based on the case studies analysed in this book, addi-
tional research into such recipes is likely to uncover further influences on the
medical knowledge recorded in eighth-​and ninth-​century manuscripts. This
work is therefore intrinsically linked to both the local and global Middle Ages,
and the history of health and medicine is ideally suited to participate in dis-
courses surrounding global, regional, and local knowledge networks and their
points of intersection.

8 My thanks to Carine van Rhijn for the phrase ‘kitchen table medicine’.

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284  Chapter 10

Part 1 has also drawn attention to a variety of other medical texts, and espe-
cially those that are often found within recipe collections, such as treatises on
weights and measures and substitution lists, that remain chronically under-
studied. A better understanding of these types of writings would help to con-
textualise the recipe literature more generally. Similarly, medical glossaries and
hermeneumata are deserving of more research, presenting additional entry
points into the question of practicality. Are any of the newly recorded exotic
substances explained in glossaries or hermeneumata, for example? Were these
complementary texts being updated alongside the recipes, keeping up with the
expansion of pharmaceutical knowledge?
Looking beyond the texts, excavations of additional sites, the increasing
number of publications that address skeletal remains, and the development of
new techniques provide many exciting directions for future work incorporat-
ing osteological evidence. In particular, as noted by Piers Mitchell, alongside
the study of larger samples due to growing numbers of excavated and pub-
lished burial sites, ‘we can also improve the way we study [skeletal remains].
Progressive use of bioarchaeological techniques in partnership with other sci-
entific specialisms allows much greater information to be gleaned from mod-
ern excavations’.9 Recent advances in proteomics and genomics, for example,
are revolutionising the study of health in the past and offering new points of
intersection with historical research. Consider the emerging field of biocodi-
cology, the study of biological information contained within manuscripts. This
new research area has revealed the importance of studying a manuscript’s
biological record as a means to gain insights into both the physical object
itself (its materials, production, and conservation) as well as its users and the
environments in which it was used. The development of non-​invasive biomo-
lecular sampling techniques is making such research increasingly feasible by
reducing costs and complementing conservation work.10 Protein analyses can
reveal substances on the surface of parchment leaves while an examination of
ancient dna (aDNA) can uncover pathogens.11 This has immense potential for
helping to elucidate the specific contexts in which manuscripts were handled

9 Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades, 243.

10 Sarah Fiddyment, Matthew D. Teasdale, Jirí Vnouček, Élodie Lévêque, Annelise Binois,
and Matthew J. Collins, ‘So you want to do biocodicology? A field guide to the biological
analysis of parchment’, Heritage Science 7 (2019), https://​doi​.org​/10​.1186​/s40​494​-019​-0278​
-6; Matthew D. Teasdale, Sarah Fiddyment, Jirí Vnouček, Valeria Mattiangeli, Camilla
Speller, Annelise Binois, Martin Carver, et al., ‘The York Gospels: A 1000-​year biological
palimpsest’, Royal Society Open Science 4, no. 10 (2017), https://​doi​.org​/10​.1098​/rsos​.170​988​.
11 See, for example, M. D. Teasdale, N. L. van Doorn, S. Fiddyment, C. C. Webb, T. O’Connor,
M. Hofreiter, M. J. Collins, and D. G. Bradley, ‘Paging through history: parchment as a

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Putting Knowledge Into Practice 285

and, crucially, could provide more definitive answers to some of the questions
underpinning this book. Indeed, a recent study of an early modern birthing
girdle has identified proteins found in cervico-​vaginal fluid, thereby confirm-
ing the use of this girdle as part of the birthing process.12 With respect to the
early medieval manuscripts analysed in this book, is there evidence, for exam-
ple, of any of the ingredients listed in the recipes on the pages in which they are
recorded? While this question must be saved for a future study, it reveals one
of the many new doors that are opening in this field and the ever-​increasing
potential for interdisciplinary research: the study of Carolingian medical
knowledge and practice has a bright future.

reservoir of ancient dna for next generation sequencing’, Philosophical Transactions of

the Royal Society B 370 (2015), https://​doi​.org​/10​.1098​/rstb​.2013​.0379​.
12 Fiddyment, Goodison, Brenner, Signorello, Price, and Collins, ‘Girding the loins?’.

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Appendices

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 Appendix 1

The Manuscript Sample

This appendix provides a general overview of each of the twenty-​four manuscripts that
contributed recipes to the analysis, including information on their dating, origins, and
contents.

Manuscripts from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France

Paris, BnF lat. 2849A

BnF lat. 2849A is a composite manuscript made up of two distinct codicological units
later bound together; medical material is only found in the first section.1 Bernhard
Bischoff has suggested that this part of the manuscript, ff. 1r–​23v, can be dated to the
third quarter of the ninth century, but he was not certain where to place the manu-
script’s origins, noting that it was most likely produced in France or Italy.2 Medical
texts, including a cluster of unattributed recipes and a monthly regimen, occur on ff.
16v–​23v; the small recipe collection (ff. 18v–​23v) yielded fifty-​four recipes.

Paris, BnF lat. 2858

BnF lat. 2858, a manuscript dated to the third quarter of the ninth century, contains
the only surviving copy of the letters of Lupus of Ferrières.3 Bischoff considered this
manuscript to be a product of Lupus’ circle and located its origins to either Fleury or
Auxerre.4 While Lupus’ letters make up the majority of the manuscript (ff. 1r–​63v),
two recipes appear in the final section of the volume (on f. 67v and f. 68r, respectively)
alongside an excerpt from Boethius and various other letters.5 Given the unexpected
context of this medical material, the manuscript appears to have been unknown to
Augusto Beccaria, though Ernest Wickersheimer included it in his catalogue.6

1 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 4253; Beccaria, I codici, no. 19;
Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits, no. 49.
2 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 4253.
3 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 4255; Bernhard Bischoff,
‘Caritas-​Leider’, in Mittelalterliche Studien. Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und
Literaturgeschichte, ed. Bernhard Bischoff (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1967), vol. 2, 56–​76,
at p. 66.
4 Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, trans. Gorman, 123.
5 Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits, no. 50.
6 Ibid.

© Claire Burridge, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/​9 789004466173_​0 12

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290  Appendix 1

Paris, BnF lat. 5543

According to Bischoff, BnF lat. 5543 was produced in a writing centre in France; its
appearance in Fleury by the tenth century may suggest that it was written at this site.7
Although the manuscript’s place of origin is somewhat uncertain, Bischoff pinpointed
its production to the year 847.8 The manuscript contains a diverse mixture of texts
that primarily focus on computistical, calendrical, and astronomical themes, including
computus tables and calendars, an illustrated catalogue of stars, and a selection of
writings by Bede and Isidore of Seville.9 While some medical material can be found
within this textual environment (for example, Egyptian Days (dies aegyptiaci), or
particular days of the year that were thought to be unlucky and often noted as days
to avoid bloodletting, are included in some of the calendars), the manuscript opens
with a small section of recipes on ff. 1r–​3r. It appears, however, that some pages have
been lost, since it begins in the middle of a prescription. Although Beccaria did not
include BnF lat. 5543 in his catalogue, like the preceding manuscript, it was known to
Wickersheimer.10 In total, the surviving folia yielded sixty-​five recipes.

Paris, BnF lat. 6882A

BnF lat. 6882A is a composite manuscript made up of medical texts written in the
ninth, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries.11 The ninth-​century material, dated more spe-
cifically to the first half of the ninth century by Bischoff, is situated at the beginning
of the manuscript (ff. 1–​26). Bischoff suggested that it may have been composed in
southwest France.12 Within this section of the manuscript, excerpts from the Pseudo-​
Galenic De succedaneis liber and Isidore’s Etymologiae can be found alongside infor-
mation on weights and measures, instructions for phlebotomy, hermeneumata, and,
according to Beccaria, miscellaneous recipes and extracts (‘miscellanea di estratti e
di ricette’).13 A contents list on ff. 1v–​8v suggests that the manuscript once included
a large, early medieval pharmaceutical compilation, but the collection itself has not
survived. A number of individual recipes, however, were added to the margins of the

7 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 4367; Marco Mostert, The
Library of Fleury. A Provisional List of Manuscripts (Hilversum: Verloren, 1989), no. 1058f.
8 Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits, no. 56; Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften,
vol. 3, no. 4367.
9 On links between calendars, computus, and medicine, see Wallis, ‘Medicine in Medieval
Calendar Manuscripts’.
10 Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits, no. 56.
11 Beccaria, I codici, no. 26; Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits, no. 63.
12 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 4419; Wickersheimer, Les
manuscrits, no. 63.
13 Beccaria, I codici, no. 26.

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The Manuscript Sample 291

contents list and are also found in small groups on ff. 11r–​11v, 18r–​18v, 19r–​19v, and 21r–​
24r. My transcription of these folia resulted in a total of sixty-​one recipes.

Paris, BnF lat. 7021

According to Bischoff, BnF lat. 7021 can be dated to the first or possibly second quarter
of the ninth century and may have been written at a centre in the vicinity of Paris.14
Hippocrates’ Aphorisms represents the primary text of this manuscript, covering ff. 1r–​
118r out of 119 folia.15 I transcribed the only other text found within the codex, a single
antidote located on ff. 118v–​119r.16

Paris, BnF lat. 9332

BnF lat. 9332, an early ninth-​century manuscript from western France (most probably
Fleury), contains excerpts from three well-​known classical and late antique medical
texts: Oribasius’ Synopsis (ff. 1va–​138va), Alexander of Tralles’ Therapeutica (ff. 138vb–​
242vb), and Dioscorides’s De materia medica (ff. 243ra–​321va).17 The earliest surviving
copy of the Epistula vulturis, a short treatise on the medico-​magical uses of vulture
body parts, was inserted into the text of De materia medica on f. 251va–​251vb.18 In addi-
tion to these writings, unattributed recipes are located on ff. 69rb, 233vb, and 321va. My
transcriptions of the material added to these pages produced nine recipes.

Paris, BnF lat. 11218

Bischoff noted a number of early Caroline hands in BnF lat. 11218, dating the 126-​folia
manuscript to the late eighth or early ninth centuries and suggesting Burgundy as a
possible location for its composition.19 Its contents are entirely medical, and include
a diverse range of texts, such as excerpts from the Hippocratic and Galenic corpora,
several texts by Vindicianus (fl. fourth century), a selection of Isidore’s Etymologiae,
instructions on phlebotomy, a variety of prognostic and calendrical works, as well as
many groups of recipes that have not been associated with an individual classical or
late antique source.20 Regarding the latter, these are listed by Beccaria as miscellaneous

14 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 4420; Wickersheimer, Les
manuscrits, no. 64.
15 Beccaria, I codici, no. 27.
16 Cf. Wickersheimer’s transcription of this recipe in Les manuscrits, no. 64.
17 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 4569; Bischoff, Manuscripts
and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, trans. Gorman, 31, 144; Beccaria, I codici,
no. 31; Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits, no. 71. Note: this manuscript is also linked to Bern,
Burgerbibliothek, A 91.7, a manuscript not under analysis in the present study.
18 Loren C. MacKinney, ‘An Unpublished Treatise on Medicine and Magic from the Age of
Charlemagne’, Speculum 18, no. 4 (1943): 494–​6, https://​doi​.org​/10​.2307​/2853​665, at p. 494.
19 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 4669.
20 Beccaria, I codici, no. 34; Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits, no. 76.

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292  Appendix 1

recipes and extracts (again, ‘miscellanea di estratti e di ricette’) or as series of recipes

lacking any order (‘una serie di ricette senza ordine’).21 In total, the sections of the
manuscript I transcribed, ff. Av, 10v–​12r, 15v, 24r–​26r, 32v, 43r–​52r, 56r–​100r, 101r, 102r,
107v–​110v, and 113r–​126r, produced 803 individual recipes.

Paris, BnF lat. 11219

BnF lat. 11219 is thought to have been produced at Saint-​Denis.22 Like BnF lat. 11218,
its texts are entirely focused on medicine and cover a wide range of medical writings.
These include a number of epistolary texts and excerpts from classical and late antique
authors, a series of treatises on phlebotomy, several hermeneumata, a dietetic calen-
dar, writings on prognostication, as well as collections of recipes.23 While a primary
hand, dated to the middle of the ninth century, is responsible for the majority of these
texts, a series of other hands can be found throughout the manuscript. Many of these,
such as those responsible for glosses in Old High German, have been dated to the
tenth century and later; Bischoff dates these vernacular additions, for example, to the
twelfth century.24
Near the end of the manuscript, ff. 221va–​229vb contain unattributed recipes and
present a complex mixture of these different hands. Past scholarship has tended to
interpret this material as a series of later additions.25 A close palaeographical study
and re-​examination of the order in which the hands appear, however, suggests that, at
least in this section of the manuscript, the various hands date to the very end of the
present study’s date range.26 It is particularly noteworthy that many of these individ-
ual hands appear to be closely related, possibly representing teachers and students.
As such, the manuscript bears witness to the addition of material over time and to the
continued engagement with the manuscript itself over several generations of scribes.
While its latest hands in the sections of recipes relevant to this study may extend into

21 Beccaria, I codici, no. 34.

22 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 4670; Jean Vezin, ‘Le point
d’interrogation, un élément de datation et de localisation des manuscrits. L’exemple de
Saint-​Denis au ixe siècle’, Scriptorium 34, no. 2 (1980): 181–​96, at pp. 191–​2; Jean Vezin, ‘Les
manuscrits copiés à Saint-​Denis en France pendant l’époque carolingienne’, Paris et Île-​
de-​France. Mémoires 32 (1981): 273–​87, at p. 283.
23 Beccaria, I codici, no. 35; Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits, no. 77. See also Sabbah,
Corsetti, and Fischer, btml; Fischer, btml 1; and Fischer, btml 2, entries on ‘Dynamidia
(Hippocratis)’ and ‘Pseudo-​Galenus: Prognostica (Inc. Frons rubet)’.
24 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 4670.
25 Beccaria, I codici, no. 35.
26 My thanks to Rosamond McKitterick and Anna Dorofeeva for their assessments of these
folia. While McKitterick posits that the folia in question contain hands primarily from the
mid-​to late ninth century, Dorofeeva suggests a slightly later dating, moving into the tenth
century but emphasises the relatedness of the hands.

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The Manuscript Sample 293

the tenth century, their close relationship to the earlier material and the overall ambi-
guity of the manuscript’s date range make it appropriate to include these recipes in the
following analyses. My transcriptions produced 121 recipes.

Manuscripts from the Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen27

Cod. sang. 44
Cod. sang. 44 is a composite manuscript made up of two distinct halves. A bible given
to St Gall in c. 780 covers pp. 1–​184 while a compilation of over twenty individual
medical texts can be found on pp. 186–​368.28 The medical half of the manuscript, a
distinct ‘medical manuscript’ prior to its union with the bible, has been dated to the
second half of the ninth century, and Bischoff has suggested that it was written in
northern Italy.29 Its texts include a wide range of medical topics and genres of writing,
such as excerpts from the Hippocratic and Galenic corpora, letters of Vindicianus, the
Herbariencorpus, and prognostic and calendrical texts.30 Three major early medieval
recipe collections can also be found within the manuscript, covering pp. 228–​60, 337–​
54, and 354–​68, each of which were transcribed and published in the early twentieth
century: Henry Sigerist included the first in Studien und Texte zur frühmittelalterlichen
Rezeptliteratur and Julius Jörimann addressed the second two in Frühmittelalterliche
Rezeptarien.31
While some research into their content has been pursued (John Riddle’s study of
non-​local materia medica, for example, uses Sigerist’s transcriptions), rarely have the
three recipe collections been discussed together or with other texts within the medical
half of the manuscript.32 Some of these individual components, however, have been
recognised as related to material in other codices; the third of the large early medieval
recipe collections (pp. 354–​68), for example, has been noted as sharing much in com-
mon with a recipe collection in bav pal. lat. 1088 (also part of this study’s sample), and
Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez has linked both to the Teraupetica-​Tereoperica tradition

27 Manuscripts held in St Gall are paginated not foliated.

28 Beccaria, I codici, no. 129; Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, nos.
5529a-​30.
29 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, nos. 5529a-​ 30; Bischoff,
‘Italienische Handschriften’, 177–​8.
30 Beccaria, I codici, no. 129. Meg Leja considered this manuscript in relation to her analysis
of the Lorscher Arzneibuch, see Leja, ‘The Sacred Art’, 17–​18.
31 Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist, 78–​99; Frühmittelalterliche Rezeptarien, ed. Jörimann, 37–​61.
32 Riddle, ‘The Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugs’.

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294  Appendix 1

that ultimately descends from Theodorus Priscianus’ (fl. fourth century) Euporista.33
These two collections, though clearly related, appear to be several steps removed from
each other and earlier texts (and, crucially, contain numerous entirely distinct reci-
pes), and thereby merit inclusion in this study.
Overall, I take a more comprehensive approach to the manuscript’s ‘miscellaneous’
and unattributed recipes, considering not only the early medieval recipe collections
(for which I have produced new, revised transcriptions), but also including individual
marginal remedies noted by Beccaria (pp. 195, 197, and 215), as well as small groups of
recipes either unmentioned by Beccaria or labelled ‘miscellaneous’ (pp. 186, 276–​80,
282–​6, 304, and 330–​6), in my analyses. In total, the manuscript contributed 917 reci-
pes to the study, and a selection of these recipes can be seen in Figures 3 and 7.

Cod. sang. 217

Cod. sang. 217 is thought to have been written in northern Italy and has been dated
to the early ninth century by Bischoff.34 This is a particularly complex manuscript,
containing at least two distinct works that were later bound together. This subsequent
binding has resulted in the reordering of quires as well as the loss of certain sections,
some of which are also still held in St Gall and will be addressed below in the discus-
sion of cod. sang. 1396.35
While the Stiftsbibliothek’s earliest surviving copy of Gregory’s Regula pastoralis
comprises much of the manuscript (pp. 1–​249), a varied collection of medical texts
makes up the final quarter of the codex (pp. 252–​341). Small groups of recipes are inter-
spersed between the St. Galler Botanicus and St. Galler Bestiarius, neither of which fol-
low their intended order. Monica Niederer has published an edition and translation of
the Botanicus, a text that stems from the classical and late antique herbal tradition.36
Within this re-​bound environment, I transcribed the recipes found on pp. 253–​74 and
332–​8, putting the pages in the following order: 255, 256, 253, 254, 259, 260, 257, 258,
261–​74, 335–​8, and 332–​4. Although Peter Köpp has also published a transcription of
these pages, a revised transcription was needed. Furthermore, in my transcriptions of
recipes from cod. sang. 217, just as in cod. sang. 44, I have included not only material

33 Ferraces Rodríguez, ‘Un recetario médico altomedieval’; Ferraces Rodríguez, ‘Reutilización

de fuentes en recetarios medicos de la antigüedad tardía’.
34 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, nos. 5662a-​63; E. A. Lowe, Codices
Latini antiquiores: A Palaeographical Guide to Latin Manuscripts Prior to the Ninth Century,
11 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934–​66), vol. 8, no. 926; Beccaria, I codici, no. 131. Both
Clare Pilsworth and Meg Leja have considered this manuscript in their analyses of med-
ical manuscripts, see Pilsworth, Healthcare in Early Medieval Northern Italy, 78–​81 and
Leja, ‘The Sacred Art’, 16–​17.
35 Vademecum eines frühmittelalterlichen Arztes, ed. and trans. Köpp, 15.
36 Der St. Galler Botanicus, ed. and trans. Niederer.

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The Manuscript Sample 295

from recipe collections, but also individual recipes or small clusters found between the
primary textual units.37 In total, the manuscript contributed 316 recipes to the study.

Cod. sang. 397

Although it contains the hands of approximately forty different scribes, cod. sang. 397
has been identified as the vademecum of Grimald, Abbot of St Gall (841–​72). As such,
it can be dated to the middle of the ninth century, specifically from the 830s to the
860s, and tied to locations where Grimald was active, such as Aachen and St Gall.38
Grimald’s connections to the court (as Louis the German’s arch-​chaplain, chancellor,
and a missus Dominicus) resulted in his movement around the Frankish Empire, so
it is likely that the manuscript was added to over time and at a number of different
locations.39
The codex consists of a vast and varied assemblage of different texts, such as infor-
mation about the St Gall area, poems, liturgical writings, and material relating to
many different branches of the natural world, including medicine. Given the relatively
minor role played by medical writings within the vademecum as a whole, it is not sur-
prising that Beccaria appears to have been unaware of this manuscript and thus did
not describe it in his catalogue. The short texts concerning medicine and healthcare,
which range from a list of Egyptian Days to a word list defining places of care (such
as xenodochium and nosochomium), occur throughout the manuscript.40 Within this
mixture of medical material, I identified and transcribed two recipes on p. 22.

Cod. sang. 550

Dated to the second and third quarters of the ninth century (with some later additions,
too), Bischoff has suggested that cod. sang. 550 was likely produced in a Swiss writing
centre.41 The manuscript contains hagiographical texts, the formulae of Reichenau and
Murbach, a penitential of Pseudo-​Cummean, and ends with a series of grammatical

37 Vademecum eines frühmittelalterlichen Arztes, ed. and trans. Köpp.

38 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 5741. The manuscript is also
linked with a series of folia in bav reg. lat. 421 (ff. 21–​25), a manuscript not under analysis
in the present study.
39 Bernhard Bischoff, ‘Bücher am Hofe Ludwigs des Deutschen und die Privatbibliothek des
Kanzlers Grimalt’, in Mittelalterliche Studien. Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und
Literaturgeschichte, edited by Bernhard Bischoff (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1981), vol. 3, 187–​
212, at pp. 199–​201.
40 For the Egyptian Days, see cod. sang. 397, p. 26; on Egyptian Days more generally, see,
for example, Skemer, ‘Armis Gunfe’. For the list of places of care, see p. 38; the terms
include: xenodochium, ptochotrophium, nosochomium, orphanotrophium, gerontochom-
ium, and brephotrophium.
41 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 5761; Bischoff, ‘Bücher am
Hofe Ludwigs des Deutschen’, 194–​5.

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296  Appendix 1

exercises. A small medical section appears on pp. 54–​5, representing a single folio
separating the Inventio Michaelis archangeli (pp. 39–​53) and the following formulae
(pp. 56–​161). My transcription of these pages produced three recipes. Like the preced-
ing example, Beccaria does not include this manuscript in his catalogue.

Cod. sang. 751

A massive codex primarily focused on medical writings, cod. sang. 751 consists of
several dozen different texts within its 500 pages.42 This manuscript, first noted in
Chapter 1 in relation to the case of Terenti(an)us, appears to have been produced in
a northern Italian writing centre, though it probably arrived in St Gall soon after its
compilation.43 Dated to the first half of the ninth century, the compendium contains
medical glossaries, the Liber Esculapii, prognostic and calendrical texts, a version of
the Physica Plinii, passages from the Herbariencorpus, Galenic and Hippocratic texts,
selections from Vindicianus’ writings, instructions for bloodletting, and works on
diet.44
Beccaria described many of the short sections of text between these better known
medical writings and excerpts simply as ‘various recipes’, ‘other recipes and extracts’,
or ‘miscellaneous recipes and extracts’ (e.g., pp. 37–​9, 172–​5, 304–​8, 318–​24, 362–​9, 377–​
414, 414–​24, and 430). Furthermore, a significant number of folia in the final one hun-
dred pages of the manuscript (namely, pp. 431–​45, 448–​52, 455–​63, 467–​75, 478–​91, and
494) are unmentioned in the catalogue.45 However, two numbered contents lists indi-
cate the planned nature of the assortment of texts included within the manuscript.
The first contents list, found on pp. 341–​7, corresponds to the material on pp. 355–​414
(which includes the ‘miscellaneous’ sections on pp. 362–​9 and 377–​414), while the sec-
ond, found on pp. 424–​28, outlines much of the rest of the manuscript. Both of these
discrete compilations contain hundreds of individual recipes, though they also con-
tain additional texts largely orientated around pharmacy (e.g., on weights and meas-
ures). In total, the manuscript contributed 1187 recipes to the study, and a selection of
these treatments can be seen in the book’s cover image as well as in Figure 2.

42 Beccaria, I codici, no. 133.

43 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 5844.
44 Beccaria, I codici, no. 133. See also Sabbah, Corsetti, and Fischer, btml; Fischer, btml 1;
and Fischer, btml 2 (entry on ‘Dynamidia (Hippocratis)’) regarding material on pp. 339–​
40, 365, 416–​17.
45 Beccaria, I codici, no. 133: ‘ricette varie’, ‘altre ricette ed altri estratti’, or ‘miscellanea di
ricette e di estratti’.

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The Manuscript Sample 297

Cod. sang. 752

Cod. sang. 752 is thought to have been composed at St Gall itself.46 Paralleling codd.
sang. 44 and 217, the codex represents a composite manuscript made up of two dis-
tinct units. In this case, both textual units focus on medicine and have been dated to c.
900.47 The first section of the manuscript, pp. 1–​80, contains the Medicina Plinii.48 In
the several pages between the end of this text and the start of Gargilius Martialis’ (fl.
third century) Medicinae ex oleribus et pomis (which is often found together with the
Medicina Plinii), a diverse group of medical writings appears. These include a dietetic
calendar, a group of recipes for darkening the hair, and the Spera Apulei Platonici, a
medico-​mathematical prognostic device used to predict the outcome of an illness.49
The second half of the manuscript, pp. 161–​326, contains an excerpt from Isidore of
Seville’s Etymologiae and one of the few surviving copies of the Oxea et chronia pas-
siones Yppocratis, Gallieni et Urani. I transcribed material on pp. 5, 81–​82, and 158–​9,
totalling fifteen recipes. Two of these recipes can be seen in Figure 5.

Cod. sang. 759

The opening Terenti(an)us example also features cod. sang. 759. Bischoff suggests that
this early ninth-​century manuscript was composed in Brittany; the text is written in
an Insular script that shows continental influences.50 The 94-​page codex contains a
variety of medical texts, such as extracts of Oribasius and Galen, dietetic calendars,
and information on weights and measures.51
The second half of the manuscript, pp. 53–​94, contains a large recipe collection,
although a number of pages of the collection have been lost. While its contents list
records 446 entries, only entries 1–​137 and 271–​353 survive, or roughly half of the col-
lection (220 out of a possible 446 entries). I transcribed the surviving portions of this
collection as well as two smaller groups of recipes on pp. 1–​8 and 45–​6. In total, the
manuscript contributed 451 recipes, a selection of which can be seen in Figures 1 and 6.

46 Beccaria, I codici, no. 134; Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3,
no. 5845.
47 Beccaria, I codici, no. 134; Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3,
no. 5845.
48 For a recent English translation, see The Medicina Plinii, trans. Hunt.
49 Roy Michael Liuzza, ‘The Sphere of Life and Death: Time, Medicine, and the Visual
Imagination’, in Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-​Saxon Literature for
Michael Lapidge, ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe and Andy Orchard (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 2005), vol. 2, 28–​52, at p. 29. For a transcription of the Spera (both text and
image), see Sigerist, ‘“The Sphere of Life and Death” in Early Medieval Manuscripts’, 294–​6.
50 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 5846; Bischoff, Manuscripts
and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, trans. Gorman, 30.
51 Beccaria, I codici, no. 135.

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298  Appendix 1

Cod. sang. 761

Cod. sang. 761, another manuscript written in an Insular script, appears to have been
composed in the early ninth century.52 Bischoff located the manuscript’s origins to
Fulda, a writing centre known to have had scribes writing in a ‘continental Insular’
script until the middle of the ninth century.53 The codex contains extensive selections
of Oribasius’ Synopsis and Euporista as well as excerpts from the Hippocratic and
Galenic corpora.54 In addition to these established textual traditions, the manuscript
contains a relatively small collection of recipes on pp. 51–​66 that are unattributed to
a single classical or late antique source. From this collection, I transcribed forty-​six
recipes.

Cod. sang. 878

Cod. sang. 878, a manuscript thought to have been Walahfrid Strabo’s vademecum,
contains a wide variety of writings, ranging from works on computus to Priscian’s (fl.
c. 500) Institutiones grammaticae.55 Texts relating to health and medicine are inter-
spersed throughout the codex. In particular, Hippocrates’ Epistula ad Antiochum
regem, Anthimus’ De observatione ciborum, a treatise on phlebotomy, and several
pages of ‘miscellaneous recipes and extracts’ (‘miscellanea di ricette e di estratti’) are
found in clusters over pp. 327–​93.56 I transcribed the so-​called miscellaneous sections
(pp. 331–​4, 372–​7, and 392–​3), resulting in seventeen recipes.
Although the manuscript has been linked to Walahfrid, a number of different hands
can be seen within its pages. The Old High German glosses on p. 333, for example,
certainly cannot be attributed to Walahfrid since they appear to date to the eleventh

52 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 5847.

53 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 5847; Bischoff, Manuscripts
and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, trans. Gorman, 118, 149; Herrad Spilling,
‘Angelsächsische Schrift in Fulda’, in Von der Klosterbibliothek zur Landesbibliothek.
Beiträge zum zweihundertjährigen Bestehen der Hessischen Landesbibliothek Fulda, ed.
Artur Brall (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1978), 47–​98.
54 Beccaria, I codici, no. 136.
55 Cod. sang. 878; Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 5862.
For more on cod. sang. 878 and its connection to Walahfrid Strabo, see Bischoff, ‘Eine
Sammelhandschrift Walahfrid Strabos’, 34–​51; Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries in
the Age of Charlemagne, 101; Richard Corradini, ‘Pieces of a Puzzle: Time and History
in Walahfrid’s Vademecum’, Early Medieval Europe 22, no. 4 (2014): 476–​ 91, https:
//​doi​.org​/10​.1111​/emed​.12083; and Richard Corradini, ‘Wissenschaft und Zeitdiagnose.
Zur Transformation antiken Wissens in Walahfrid Strabos Vademecum’, in Neue Wege
der Frühmittelalterforschung: Bilanz und Perspektiven, ed. Walter Pohl, Maximilian
Diesenberger, and Bernhard Zeller (Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 2018), 287–​308.
56 Beccaria, I codici, no. 139.

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The Manuscript Sample 299

century.57 Regarding the three medical sections I transcribed, Bischoff has suggested
that Walahfrid was responsible for the ninth-​century material on pp. 331–​4 and 372–​7,
though the text on pp. 392–​3, a collection of antidotes, belongs to a different, roughly
contemporary hand (named scribe ‘P’ by Bischoff).58

Cod. sang. 899

According to Bischoff, cod. sang. 899 was produced at St Gall at the very end of the
ninth century.59 Largely a poetry anthology, it includes works such as Ausonius’ (fl.
fourth century) Mosella and Walahfrid Strabo’s Versus Strabi de beati Blaithmaic vita et
fine as well as poems by Paul the Deacon (d. before 800), Peter of Pisa (d. before 800),
and Theodulf of Orléans (d. 821).60 The codex also contains writings on the liberal arts,
a notable number of Greek and latinised Greek words, and several medical sections.61
Given this mixture of genres, largely non-​medical in their areas of focus, the manu-
script appears to have been unknown to Beccaria. My transcriptions of the medical
writings on pp. 83–​4, 131, and 137–​42 produced a total of forty-​two recipes, a selection
of which can be seen in Figure 4.
It is significant to note a link between this manuscript and two others in the pres-
ent study, codd. sang. 397 and 752, all of which can be directly associated with St Gall.
These three codices share a distinct unit of medical information: two recipes that con-
tain an unusual (and hence highly recognisable) cluster of ingredients named in the
vernacular and explained in Latin (the version of these recipes in cod. sang. 752 can be
seen in Figure 5).62 In cod. sang. 899, the second recipe ends with the phrase de libro

57 von Steinmeyer and Sievers, Die althochdeutschen Glossen, vol. 4, 455.

58 More specifically, Bischoff considers the writing on pp. 331–​4 to represent ‘w iii’, the
penultimate phase of Walahfrid’s script, whereas he has labelled the text on pp. 372–​7 as
‘w iv’, thereby dating this section of the manuscript to the final years of Walahfrid’s life.
Bischoff, ‘Eine Sammelhandschrift Walahfrid Strabos’, 34–​51; my thanks also to Richard
Corradini for discussing these sections of the manuscript.
59 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 5865. Like cod. sang. 397,
the manuscript is also connected to a series of folia in bav reg. lat. 421 (ff. 20, 27–​8, and
possibly 33), a manuscript not under analysis in the present study.
60 Bernhard Bischoff, ‘Übersicht über die nichtdiplomatischen Geheimschriften des
Mittelalters’, in Mittelalterliche Studien. Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und
Literaturgeschichte, ed. Bernhard Bischoff (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1981), vol. 3, 120–​48, at
p. 138; Bischoff, ‘Bücher am Hofe Ludwigs des Deutschen’, 201, 210.
61 Significant sections of Greek words can be found on pp. 57, 83–​4, and 107, for exam-
ple. Bernhard Bischoff, ‘Das griechische Element in der abendländischen Bildung des
Mittelalters’, in Mittelalterliche Studien. Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und
Literaturgeschichte, ed. Bernhard Bischoff (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1967), vol. 2, 246–​74, at
pp. 256, 268.
62 The recipes are located in cod. sang. 397, p. 22; cod. sang. 752, p. 158; and cod. sang. 899,
p. 131; see Chapter 5.

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300  Appendix 1

grim tuli; a mark of abbreviation above the ‘m’ in grim suggests that this should be
expanded to ‘Grimald’, thereby indicating that this material was copied from cod. sang.
397, Grimald’s vademecum.

Cod. sang. 1396

Cod. sang. 1396, unlike the manuscripts reviewed above, represents a collection of
fragments that the Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen keeps together as a single unit.63 Within
this diverse assemblage, there is a section of fragmentary medical writings, several of
which date to the Carolingian period. A number of these folia have been linked with
cod. sang. 217. As noted above, during a later binding of cod. sang. 217, several sections
of text were lost from the original manuscript, some of which remain in St Gall and
now form part of cod. sang. 1396; the pages in question are labelled pp. 9–​16 and 19–​22
in cod. sang. 1396.64 These folia belong to the same group of recipes I transcribed from
cod. sang. 217, meaning they, too, originated in a northern Italian centre in the early
ninth century. My transcription of these fragments produced an additional 118 recipes.

Manuscripts from the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

bav pal. lat. 187

Although bav pal. lat. 187 begins with a psalter (ff. 1v–​6v, incomplete), the majority
of the manuscript is medical in focus: f. 7r contains two unattributed recipes and ff.
8r–​66v represents the oldest surviving (though incomplete) copy of The Alphabet
of Galen.65 Surprisingly, the manuscript is not featured in Beccaria’s catalogue. The
places of origin and dates of the manuscript’s three constituent parts are still debated.
While E. A. Lowe dated all three units to the eighth century and suggested that it was
produced in northern Italy on the basis of the cursive seen on f. 7r, Bischoff revised the
dating to the late eighth and early ninth centuries and identified eastern France as a
possible area of origin.66 Nicholas Everett has proposed an earlier dating of all parts of

63 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, nos. 5886–​93 (note that the
medical sections under consideration here are covered by no. 5889); Beccaria, I codici,
no. 140.
64 On the original order of the pages in cod. sang. 217, see Vademecum eines frühmittelalter-
lichen Arztes, ed. and trans. Köpp, 15.
65 Lowe, cla, vol. 1, nos. 80–​1; Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3,
no. 6474; The Alphabet of Galen: Pharmacy from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, ed. and
trans. Nicholas Everett (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 121–​3.
66 Lowe, cla, vol. 1, nos. 80–​1; Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3,
no. 6474; Bischoff, Die Abtei Lorsch im Spiegel ihrer Handschriften, 60, 118–​19.

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The Manuscript Sample 301

the manuscript, pointing to parallels with sixth-​and seventh-​century medical writings

in terms of both content and palaeography, and supports its production at an northern
Italian centre.67 While I am inclined to follow Bischoff’s dating, and have therefore
included the two recipes from f. 7r in the present study, like Everett and Lowe, I suggest
that a northern Italian origin (and then subsequent move north) seems most plausible.

bav pal. lat. 1088

bav pal. lat. 1088, a medical manuscript written in the area of Lyon in the middle or
third quarter of the ninth century, consists entirely of medical texts.68 Excerpts of
Galen, Quintus Serenus (fl. second century), and Vindicianus, several groups of rec-
ipes unattributed to a particular source, as well as two larger early medieval recipe
collections are contained within its 121 folia.69 Glosses in Old High German can be seen
in some of the recipes.70 As noted above, the recipe collection on ff. 31r–​50r, which
includes a contents list on 31r–​33rc, has many parallels to the third recipe collection of
cod. sang. 44 (pp. 354–​68). While their similarities highlight the movement of knowl-
edge and dissemination of shared of sources during this period, the ways in which
the individual compilations differ simultaneously speak to the fluidity of such collec-
tions: scribes could add, remove, and adapt material as their conditions allowed.
In addition to transcribing the collection on ff. 31r–​50r, I also transcribed the smaller
recipe collection on ff. 50r–​66r since, according to Beccaria, it represents another
example of a ‘miscellanea di ricette e di estratti’.71 An edition of this recipe collection
has recently been published by Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez, but this was not available
when I transcribed and analysed the text.72 Taking into account these two recipe col-
lections as well as a number of individual recipes inserted on ff. 94r–​95r and 107v, the
manuscript contributed 835 recipes to the analysis.

bav reg. lat. 598

bav reg. lat. 598 represents a collection of fragments written at different times and
covering a variety of topics.73 Two sections of the manuscript concern medicine and
have been dated to the Carolingian period: ff. 26r–​33r and 124r–​125r. While the first
section contains a selection of excerpts from known texts, such as Quintus Serenus’
Liber medicinalis and Hippocrates’ Epistula ad Antiochum regem, the second medical

67 The Alphabet of Galen, ed. and trans. Everett, 121–​3.

68 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 6574; Beccaria, I codici,
no. 103.
69 Beccaria, I codici, no. 103.
70 von Steinmeyer and Sievers, Die althochdeutschen Glossen, vol. 4, 363–​5 and 367–​8.
71 Beccaria, I codici, no. 103.
72 Ferraces Rodríguez, ‘Un recetario médico altomedieval’, 41–​80.
73 Beccaria, I codici, no. 104.

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302  Appendix 1

section (ff. 124r–​125r), consists of a brief collection of unattributed recipes written in

c. 900. This cluster produced twelve individual recipes. Intriguingly, these folia appear
to be particularly understudied; although Bischoff addressed the other codicological
units of the manuscript in his Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, he did not
comment on this passage.74

bav reg. lat. 1143

bav reg. lat. 1143 is an early ninth-​century manuscript made up of three codicological
sections: a) ff. 1–​85 and 201–​202, b) ff. 86–​189, and c) ff. 190–​200.75 At least four quires
are missing (v–​v i and xiii–​x iv), and the manuscript has been damaged by humid-
ity. Bischoff has suggested that the codex was composed in the area around Mainz.76
The surviving texts are entirely related to health and medicine and include a selec-
tion of Theodorus Priscianus’ Euporista, the end of book iii of Alexander of Tralles’
Therapeutica, Vindicianus’ Epistula ad Pentadium, Hippocrates’ Epistula ad Antiochum
regem, as well as a large number of recipes and extracts labelled ‘miscellaneous’ by
Beccaria (e.g., ff. 80v–​86r, 105v–​109v, 118r–​125r, 129v–​134v, 141r–​187v, 188r–​189r, 190r–​
193r, and 196r–​200r).77 In total, the manuscript contributed 312 recipes to the study.

bav vat. lat. 5951

Dated to the first quarter of the ninth century, Bischoff has suggested that bav vat. lat.
5951 was produced in Italy or possibly southern Burgundy.78 Certain elements in the
script and particular notes might reflect a connection to Nonantola.79 The manuscript
mostly consists of Celsus’ (fl. second century) De Medicina, although Book I of Muscio’s
Gynaecia (c. 500) was inserted on ff. 65r–​65v in the twelfth century. In addition to these
two texts, recipes have been added as marginal notes on ff. 1r, 1v, 2r, 66v, and 68v. These
additions have been written by several different hands, some of which appear to date
to the ninth century, while others, including the cough recipe on f. 68v added by a cer-
tain ‘Iohannes Calabri’ (quite possibly John Philagathos, the tenth-​century antipope
John xvi), were added in the tenth century and later.80 Unfortunately, some of the
manuscript’s margins have sustained damage, such that, of the ninth-​century addi-
tions, only a single recipe could be transcribed.

74 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, nos. 6718–​22.

75 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, nos. 6766–​7.
76 Ibid.
77 Beccaria, I codici, no. 106.
78 Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 6927.
79 Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, trans. Gorman, 151;
Beccaria, I codici, no. 102.
80 My thanks to Silvia Maria Marchiori for sharing unpublished work on the early medieval
Latin tradition of Celsus’ De medicina and John Philagathos.

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 Appendix 2

Recipe Transcriptions

The following appendix includes full transcriptions of the individual recipes which are
named in the text. As noted in Chapter 2, some manuscripts contain many more recipes
than others and thus contributed more material to the study (e.g., codd. sang. 44, 751,
bav pal. lat. 1088, and BnF lat. 11218). Individual recipes from five manuscripts (BnF lat.
2858, 6882A, 7021, and 9332 as well as bav pal. lat. 187) were not used as specific exam-
ples in the above chapters and are therefore absent from this appendix, though the rec-
ipes were part of the general analyses. The recipe numbering is structured as follows:

–​ The first number corresponds to a particular manuscript, starting with the first man-
uscript involved from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (i.e., 1 is BnF lat. 2849A)
and ending with the final manuscript from the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (i.e.,
19 is bav vat. lat. 5951). The order is outlined below.
–​ The second number corresponds to the order in which the recipe appears in the
manuscript. For example, entry 3.5 addresses the antidote titled Antidotum qui dici-
tur acharistus found on ff. 57v–​58r of BnF lat. 11218 and entry 3.6 addresses the next
recipe in this manuscript that is also discussed in the present study, which, in this
case, is the recipe titled Ad oris uicia found on ff. 89r–​89v.
–​ Some entries have a third number; this is to signify the different, individual recipes
that are sometimes found under a single title. The recipes of entry 2.2 provide one
such example: entry 2.2 corresponds to a recipe group titled Contra artetricos; this
heading covers two recipes on f. 2v of BnF lat. 5534. These two recipes are labelled
2.2.1 and 2.2.2.

For transcription conventions, see the ‘Note on Transcription and Translation’; for
metrological conventions, see the ‘Note on Weights, Measures, and Their Symbols’.
Manuscript order:

Bibliothèque nationale de France

1. Lat. 2849A
2. Lat. 5543
3. Lat. 11218
4. Lat. 11219

Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen

5. Cod. sang. 44

© Claire Burridge, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/​9 789004466173_​0 13

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304  Appendix 2

6. Cod. sang. 217

7. Cod. sang. 397
8. Cod. sang. 550
9. Cod. sang. 751
10. Cod. sang. 752
11. Cod. sang. 759
12. Cod. sang. 761
13. Cod. sang. 878
14. Cod. sang. 899
15. Cod. sang. 1396

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

16. Pal. lat. 1088
17. Reg. lat. 598
18. Reg. lat. 1143
19. Vat. lat. 5951

Bibliothèque Nationale de France

1 Lat. 2849A

1.1 De dentes dolores, f. 19r

De dentes dolores . Ius de edre frequenter in nare inponat de illa parte ubi indolit et de
illa radice que dicitur spana inter duas dentes qui dolent ibidem mittat cum cira cludat
ipso pertuso quod illa radices exinde non exeat et haec per dies tres facere debes.

2 Lat. 5543

2.1 Cura ad omnes apostomas, ff. 1v–​2r

2.1.1 Cura ad omnes apostomas . mel (.) ii . butiro (.) i . uino uetere . (.) i . marrubio fasc
i . felterre . similiter . betonica . similiter . hec omnia mitte in olla rude . et coquis
lente igne . ut ueniat ad (.) ii . cum refrigerauerit . tepidum linteo extorques addes
piper puluerem ∻ i . exinde ieiunus accipiat coclearia v . aut vii . post cenam iii.
2.1.2 Item <….….> (.) iii . coliandro ∻ i . piper grana . c . marrubio fascl i . ruta . si<mi-
liter> in olla rude coque ut adsunt . perueniat . et cum oleo bibat.
2.1.3 Item . cinere de uite alba . exinde lixiuia calices viiii . de uino uetere commisces .
bibat cum oleo.
2.1.4 Item ex rafano . galoxinas . iii . in uino uetere mitte et cum oleo bibat.
2.1.5 Item aloxinum cum melle et absintio . sufficienter bene compositum ex uino
uetere . coque . usque ad ii . partes.

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Recipe Transcriptions 305

2.1.6 Item marrubio . ius calices iii . apio . iii . betonica . similiter . mel . similiter .
uinum uetus calices \staupos/​viiii . coque . lento igne in olla rude . usque ad
staupos xii.
2.1.7 Item uite betonica . et gamandrea . et apio . ius cal vi . per triduo bibat cum oleo.
2.1.8 Item adipe porcino cal i . oleo . cal i . apio . ius cal i . per triduo bibat.
2.1.9 Item marrubio fascl iii . apio foliis et radicibus . leuestico radice . costo radices
. sclareia . serpullum . ruta . sauina . senetionem . uuismalua . satureia italica .
ysopo . betonica . agrimonia . caulo crispo . plantagine . ueruena . artemisia . elna
. ane<t>o . tanaceta . feniculi radice . brusalzinatia . saluia . nepta . ambrosia .
coliandro . a<b>satureia . uino uetere s iii . mel . libram i . butiro libram i . oleo
cocler iii . coque <usque> ad medietatem colas . exinde . tepid<e> accipiat coclr i .
in as balneo . mane . et uespere . s<au>res permiserint . Postea facis . calidum . ex
cenamo . costo . gariofilo . spico piper . bagas lauri . gingiber . cum uino et melle
calide bibat.

2.2 Contra artetricos, f. 2v

2.2.1 Contra artetricos . peretro . pens\an/​t . dnr . ii . saluia tenerrima . manplm . i .
ieiunus bibe.
2.2.2 Item alia eiusdem . diptamno radice . m . i . centaurea folio . m. i . basilisca . sim-
iliter . frasica . iua . artemisia . ambrosia . caprifolio \similiter folio/​ calcatrippa
radice . lupopectino radice . caprahulso . similiter radice . plantagine folio sim-
iliter . edere terrestre . grossa urtica . saluia similiter . piper grana . ccc . uinum
staupos . l . quos debes bibere per dies . l.

3 Lat. 11218

3.1 Inplastrum Afrodites, ff. 45v–​46r

3.1.1 Inplastrum afrodites . facit ad capitis dolorem et temporum uel fronte in aluta
inductum et inpostum statim curat et recte dentis capitis plagas . aui . rupturas
cum cruorem adpositum sine fibolas glutinant aurium uerum uulnenera emiten-
tis resoluis medicamen in oleo roseo . et tepefactum adicies in auriter in diem
istatim curat facit ad scouolas . ad panocolas et ad apostimas et ad duricias et ad
ordiola in cilia et ad neruorem dolores . sed contraccionis . aut incisionem et ad
ignis agro et ad fluxum sanguis stagnan . uiris . aut feminis et ad stuporem neruo-
rum facit ad epaticis . et ad spleneticus et ad stomachum debile . et balneom uel
terso inductum inponis hoc tercius credas quia omnia super memoratas passionis
non surgant nisi curarent facit et ad tumorem et ad inflamacionem stomachi . et
ad uulnus curat eum cancrum et fistolas humurosas . et percussus scorpionis et ad
morsum humanum et ad canis rapidi morsum uel ad cuiuslibet morsum serpen-
cium tolitum in eiusdem inplastrum inuenies ad magnitudinem auelane mor-
tifero uenino inde tersum superinponis . facit ad omnem mammillorum dolorem

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306  Appendix 2

et ad nescia et ad renium dolorem et ad articulorum dolorem et ad steroni per-

cussum superinpositum sed ad sterpe et producit foras et ad ragadias et ad si . qua
ibi aliena tisunt facit et ad podacrius mirifice . et ad ceparcius cum oleo mirtino
conficis sic litargiro ~ ii . đ ii galbano ~ ii đ ii . eruginem ~ ii . amoniaco nittido ~
x . mirra ~ i . cera pontica ~ x . colofania lb i s . oleo dulce uetere mittis per statem
lb i . et per hieme lb . ii . conficis autem sic primo oleo cum tebidauerit mittis
litargiro et moues . et quoqus lento ignem ad pauorem et semper agitas quousque
ad molentem fiat . et digito . non quo in qui nentur postea cera et amoniaco . et
risina deinde mirra postea galbano cumtundis cum parte cera macera birbene et
in tebido mittis similiter et eruginem et agitas dum refrigidant mandalionis.
3.1.2 Item de afroditis . ad ipsas passionis . Galbano ~ . i . spuma argenti ~ . i . et dinar-
ius vi . et dimedio . erugine cupria ~. i . amoniago ~ iiii . mirra dinarius . vii . cera
pomica dinarius . xiiii . colofania ~ . i . oleo uetere dulce quod sufficit.

3.2 Item catapodias Eufimie, ff. 46r–​46v

Item catapodias eufimie qui facit ad tussem qui de presenti mitigant causa storaci ~ . i .
mirra ~ i . croco ~ i . opio ~ i gabbano ~ . nuce pineus purgatus ~ i . teris omnia galbano
uero relequauis et miscis facis catapodias ad magnitudinem proue in ouo aut cum
uino ieiuno <e>t post cena binas aut ternas dabis.

3.3 De capite dicit, ff. 50r–​50v

De capite dicit . cum ad capite morbus oretur solet capites dolor timtare supercilia
grauantur . Tempo erapsallunt aures sonant uel molestantur . Oculi mane lacrimantur
uel ad somno et caligenantur . Naris obcluduntur . et odorem non senciunt.
De cura dicit . cum his aliquid accederit . oportit capitis purgacionem adhibere isopi
coma uel poleie . tur . igane macerato in dulce disri de mensura . emina . et acito tan-
tum . tepefacto gargaridiatur expedit ab homine ieiuno . aut colerato senape . in mulsa
tepida similiter ieiuno <s>upinato capite ad sole caledo calefacto cerebro gargaridiare
et naribus infundere sucus radicis bitarum p[.]‌artes duas . mellis . parte una . in se
mixtum ut dixi tepidum naribus infundere . quare conuenit iam humor hominis qui in
capite consistit . ut ieratur et cycli cura . adibeat . uel ciborum . quam qui se negliunt
. Cade ante pyforis . oculorum . et tragomata . palpebrorum et emigranium aurium .
dolores et erupciones . interdum et pariotidas . post aures . et glandolas fiunt uel iscrofe
et uicia circum fauces . et ceruicis doloris . ori se solent . et strumas . et in facia scabies
. et distillacionum faucium tumoris . uel grauido interdum ulcera in capite nascuntur
eciam et capilli difluunt et dencium doloris et adiutacionem et in cerebro uertiginis .
et suffocaciones in guttere.

3.4 Antidotum qui dicitur acharistus, ff. 57v–​58r

Antidotum qui dicitur acharistus . Facit ad tipus ante ora accessionis ex mulsa aut
ex uino facit et ad desenthericos . mirrae croci casiae spica nardi (.) singulas . cinamo-
mum . ~ . i . aut casiae duplum . piperis longi piperis albi . castoreum galbani . costi .
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Recipe Transcriptions 307

opii . storacis . ~ . singulas . mel dispumatum quod sufficit . dabis in modo faue ita ut
in singulis pocionibus aque et mellis coclearius . iii . adas et aceti boni digito guttas xii.

3.5 Ad oris uicia, ff. 89r–​89v

3.5.1 Ad oris uicia . apii radix cum mel cocta ulcera oris caelerius sanat.
3.5.2 Item lapacium in uino coctam gargalidias umorem dencium dolorem tollit rau-
cam uocem et tussiculas purgat.
3.5.3 Item ficus nigra sicca adque conbusta cum tot eadem <t>enerem solsorem capi-
tibus in uas fictile conbustis et in puluerem redactis in melle collectis uulneribus
ex quacumquae causa infantibus in ore natis et peruersantibus sanati.
3.5.4 Item alumen iscisum . sem . un . i . mirra trocliten penso . sem un . cupe drag . una
trita puluere spars<o> ceri dencium sanat.
3.5.5 Item oliastri uiridi . cimas . lauri folias . iii . inflamatas . aprotani uiridi cimas . iii
. piper grana . xvii . carofoli . granas . iii . lasari gemma . i . bettuminis pars una .
sardinarum capita . iii . mastice granas . iii . teris in acito emina . i.
3.5.6 Item ad gingiuas qui reumatizant . id est lenteum nouum in melle modefactum
conburis et pulueris ipsas gingibas . adponis.
3.5.7 Item folia oliastri lentisci et alaterni mastice folium piper factis simul unum tes-
tum conbustum cardi radicis ustum omni aequaliter teris et ponis prius tamen
de uino optimo os labit cancrum sanat.
3.5.8 Item ad omnia oris uicia uel rane siue uulnera rossiricum un . ii . gallas drag . ii .
alumen scisum drag . i . factis pulueribus inponis.
3.5.9 Item ad cironico uel cicatricem . expertum ferruginem ferri qui de includi ne
cadit . tritum cum melle et acito inpone.

3.6 Ad scabule dolorem, f. 96v

Ad scabule dolorem . herba sanguinaria et uerbina tunsa in coc<l>us menu<…> faua
farisa cocta in uino infusa et exungia uetus contundis unum corpore facis in panno et
ponis calido.

3.7 Ad costas fractas, f. 97r

Ad costas fractas . uitro pice acito resoluis in patena bene adiuuat.

3.8 Ad puncta que in lateribus superuenit, f. 97r

Ad puncta que in lateribus superuenit hoc est defecciones se in febre acute superuenit
. abrotanum in aqua tritum et euaporacione ne adhibeatur propere omnia et agriamen
uetandum est.

3.9 Antidotum ad sthomachum frigidum qui dicitur climax, ff. 98v–​99r

Antidotum . ad sthomachum frigidum . qui dicitur climax . Recepit ec enula ~ . v .
fenuculi semen . ~ . iii . piper ~ ii . gingiber ~ . i . mel attico crudo . lib . ii . aut qualem
inuenis dispumato . eruci semen ~ . i . si eruci non habes mitte senape semen ~ . i .
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308  Appendix 2

sicionus siriacus hoc est nigella ~ ii . sili . ~ i . apii . ~ i . petrosilino ~ i . in omnibus enim
melior uisum est magnificus et in multis rebus . ad inflacionibus stomachi et inde-
gescione pacientibus sic in mulieribus minstrua . perducit . et ad modicus mirabiliter
operatus est . facit ruptus suauis datus et ad omnem tussem . et quibus est capite in
torace reuma fluit et ad omnes pectoris dolores . mirabiliter effectus est.

3.10 Pocio mirabilis contra omnes infirmitates, f. 99r

Pocio mirabilis contra omnes infirmitates . gariofilo grana . xxx . piper grana . xl . gin-
giber peciolas iiii . spico iuxta consideracione myrra drg . i . amoniaco drg . ʃ galanga
tercia parte de dinario cynamo dir . ii . capparo dir . i . agarico dir . ʃ . saluia manipulo .
i . abrotano . manp . i . quinquefolia . manp . i . triscalamo . manp . i . gamendrea manp
. i uermiculosa manp . i . et parum saturegia hec omnia tere cum mel dispumatum .
parum et cum uino uetus . staupus viiii.

3.11 Pucione ad ebrugine, f. 102r

<P>ucione ad ebrugine herba ebula . college radices . iiii . <.>ribus ante sole leuante in
contra oriente ipsas college . feno<g>rego grana . v . lauro folia . iii . piper grana . xxx .
cum ceruisa leuan<t>e facias staupo pleno . et dabis ei bibere . et cum ipso bibet abeat
<.>no ouo fricto dabis ei ad comedendum et in lecto . sic coperes <.a>ledo usque ad
uesperum.

3.12 Antidotum sotirie, ff. 113v–​114v

Antidotum . sotirie qui interpretatur saluatrix tocius corporis qui omnes . causas
pagat qui sunt . intrinsecus constitute capitis anticum dolorem soluet . escotomate-
cus et epelempticus . et post accessionem aurium dolores cessat . oculorum . impe-
tus cessat . dencium dolorem sanat . tussem antiquam . et recentem tollet . pleorisem
et perepleomonia pectorum . et eparis tensionem desoluit siccat enim et pulmonum
humorum sic cum mul<..> aut calida aqua . bibatur . ad sanguinem ex<c>re<an>tibus .
cum oximelle dabis . singultum tollet et qui cibum non continent . degescionem parat
et uomitum constringet . et omnem uentositatem istomachi uel aquali . coli dissoluit
ictericus et habundancia fellis ruffi dissoluit et ad pristinam colorem reuocat melen-
conia isplenus . graui dolores . releuat fleoma per interiora reduc<it> reniculorum
causas sanat sablonis de uisica ad exitum deducit quiliacus uero . grande adiutorium
prestat brachiorum solucionem uel dor et coxarum ad pristinam sanitatem reducit .
feminarum . uero . causas uel omnes . matricis molestis sanat . et eos qui per dolorem
. somnium \non/​capiunt . membra uero . resoluta suo calore ad pristina sanitatem
reducit necessarium uero est podagricis . et contra omne uenena et serpencium mor-
sum mirifice prodest . ut non solum cum mulsa . donetur . sed ut antidotum mor­sibus
apponatur ad tipus ante ora uel duas oras . accessionis cum aqua calida dabis . et quar-
tanariis hoc propter longinquas infirmitatis hutilem est . nam si quis sanus frequencius
cum mulsa bibatur numquuam infirmi<tates> das antidutum istum iuxta uiris . uel

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Recipe Transcriptions 309

etatis dabis <i>n modo abila\i/​ne . Recipit . hec mirra troclite drs . xviii . castoreo . drs
. viiii . opio . drs . xviiii <pet>rosilino . drs . xviiii . aniso . drs . xii . apii . semen . drs . xx
. isquinoantus . drs . xv . piper . drs . xv . senenus drs . xv . cenamo . drs . xii . costo . drs
. xviii . ispica drs . xiii asaro . drs . vii . croco maucma . drs . vi . seselleus . dr . vi . cassia
dr vi . istorace dr . vi . croco . dr xvi . piper albo dr . xii . amonio dr . iiii . piper longo
iscriptulum . i s . mel discumato . quod sufficit.

3.13 Ad prugine qui uocatur morbus regio, ff. 115v–​116r

Ad prugine qui uocatur morbus regio . In primis cum illam infirmitatem cognoueris
statim fleugumare debis de uena epatica qui subtus brachio iacet . et minimas ei san-
guinem usque libras . iii . et post tercio uero die aut iiii . in assu balneo faceas ducere
et ibi fortiter sudet et antequam sudare ceperit das ei bibere sucum de rafani cum oleo
mixto dimedio . staupo et postea egressus de balneo duces eum in lecto et fortiter
cooperis illum ut et ibidem sudet et exterges illam sudorem et mittis in uas et inuenies
ipsam eruginem supernatantem In alia die ducis eum in balneo et antequam sudare
aperit das ei plenam cocleariam de rasuram eburnei cum mel et uino staupo pleno .
tercio uero die duces eum in balneo et antequam sudare ceperit das ei bibere liues-
tico radices cum apio et piper mel et uino staupo pleno . quarta uero die ducis eum
in balneo et antequam sudare ceperit das ei bibere sauinam et adriplicem cum uino
et mel et piper stau . i . v uero die ducis eum in balneo et antequam sudare ceperit
das ei bibere centauream et cardonem cum uino et mel et piper stau . i . vi . uero die
ducis eum in balneo et antequam sudare ceperit das ei bibere rutam saluaticam et
camitriam et liuestico saluatico cum uino et mel et piper stau . i . vii . uero die ducis
eum in balneo et antequam sudare ceperit das ei bibere . radices et folia de erba apol-
lonia et sarpullo minore cum uino et mel et piper . viii . uero die ducis eum in balneo
et antequam sudare ceperit das ei manducare . radicis de \<c>/​rud[.]‌i nape in melle
co<nsectas> viiii uero ducis eum in balneo et antequam sudare ceperit das ei bibere
sucum de celedonia cum uino et melle et piper staupo . i . ista aut ad<iuto>ria ad pres-
ens sunt . et cib<i> eorum talis erit uetus lardum manducet et bucc<in>am carnem aut
multon<inam> et pisces et oleo et aceto et panem <tenerum> et abstineat se de oua de
lacte de casio et de omnia a<g[r]en>ti se abstineat appio et liuestico et ruta campana
et faciat metus et istas erbas ibidem mittat bullire et das ei bibere.

3.14 Ad dentes stringendas uel si dolent uel putrescunt, f. 122r

Ad dentes stringendas . uel si dolent uel putrescunt . uini austero ƒƒ . i . porrorum sucus
~ i . usque ad medias decoquis et tepido diu in ore <teneat>.

3.15 Ad ueretrum suscitandum, f. 122v

3.15.1 Ad ueretrum suscitandum . Tincum in cute fricet et destellatam gut<tam> bibat
cum uino et quando iterum uolueris <et non> dare refriga ipsum tincum in aqua
modice aut in metus et bibat.

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310  Appendix 2

3.15.2 Item ad ipsum suscitandum . de persicis nucleos viiii . in medus aut in melle
tinctos comedat ante altare et deum omnipotentem precare debet qui omnes
sementes et corporibus . et hominibus et herbis dedit ut ei det semen bonum ad
uoluntate dei <f>acit.

3.16 [Title faded and no longer legible], f. 124v

petrosile . [….] liuesti pastenace . bitonica . pipenella agrimonia milfolia . apio saluia
poleio . ruta millo saluatice . galanga . auerio . lasari . ortica flores . bagas edere . bagas
lauri bagas iuniperi piper elebyro grano mastice pulpodia casia fistula.

4 Lat. 11219

4.1 Puluera ad epaticos,1 f. 221vb

Puluera ad epaticos recipit haec .
piper ∻ i .
cinamomo ∻ i .
spico ∻ i .
costo ∻ i .
gingiber ∻ i .
galinga ∻ i .
reopontico ∻ ii .
aloen ∻ i .
granomastice ∻ i .
gariofilo ∻ i .
peretrum ∻ i .
bagas lauri ∻ i .
genciana ∻ i .
apio ∻ i .
satureia ∻ i .
absentio ∻ i .
centaurea ∻ i .
marrubio ∻ i .
nepta ∻ i .
feniculo ∻ i .
polipodia ∻ i .
anetum ∻ i .
ermodactulo ∻ i .

1 This recipe is recorded as a list with each ingredient on a new line, so I have replicated the
structure in my transcription.

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Recipe Transcriptions 311

aristolicia rotunda ∻ i .
lupino ∻ i .
fenogreco ∻ i .
Haec omnia puluera facis dabis ex <bibere> <eu>ndi dormitum denr iii <pensante>.

4.2 Potio ad carbunculum, ff. 223va–​223vb

Potio ad carbunculum quod clao uocatur et omnia uenenata potione siue ictus serpen-
tium uel bestiarum morso probatissimum est id est zedoar cum aqua trita bibat . utilis
et ualedissimum adiutorium est.

4.3 Puluis ad implere plagas et si ossa habet minuata discutit, p. 225ra

Puluis ad implere plagas . et si ossa habet minuata discutit . id est . irius . aristologia
longa . panacus regius ana unc . i . manna turis un iiii . puluerem facis et uteris.

4.4 Puluis uera ad faucium tumorem et omnis oris uitia siue sordicia,
f. 225ra
Puluis uera ad faucium tumorem et omnis oris uitia siue sordicia . Id est irius alumen
. scise . myrre . ana un . s . puluerem facis . addis mel et uino sufficienter conmiscis et
uteris.

4.5 Puluis ad uuam leuandam uel oris ulcera, f. 225rb

Puluis ad uuam leuandam uel oris ulcera galla non forata drag iii . costo . croco . irius
. myrra . alumen scisse . cortice i malagranate . strucio ana drag ii teris cernis et uteris.

4.6 Ad eos qui urinam facere non possunt, f. 225va

Ad eos qui urinam facere non possunt petrosilino semen ∻ i apii semen ∻ i fenicoli
semen ∻ i olisandri ∻ i saxifrica ∠ galinga ∻ i reopontico ∠ piper grana xx . uino stau-
pos iiii . per quattuor dies bibere dabis in balneo.

4.7 Potio contra paralesin ff. 226va–​226vb

Potio contra paralesin ad confectum faciendum . debet habere myrra lib . i . \bacas lib
i/​petrisilino macedonico similiter . centaurea similiter . nasturci semen similiter Istas
v . causas denominatas siccas unamquamque ex parte in mortario tribulare faciat .
et postea ad unam pensam coaequare debet . et cum melle mundo misce dare debet
usque perducat ad confectum . et postea quando ipsum confectum accipere debet per
diem cotidie . non amplius accipiat nisi quantum unus mancosus pensat . et multi-
tudine eum tribulare faciat . et quando ipsum debet accipere . debet habere plenum
staupum de aqua calida . et sic ipsum distemperat uel tepidum bibat . et aliam causam
cum istis mittere non presumat . et si ista omnia impleuerat . pro certo sciat . quia de
ipsa infirmitate sanus erit.

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312  Appendix 2

4.8 Timiama, f. 227v

Timiama . Cotsumber lib i . unc i . Cumfiti unci iii . dr v . Aloa unc iiii . Cinamo unc ii .
Ambar dr ii s . Storace unc i . Tus dr xv . Gariofilo unc i . Muscho unc i . dr ii . Cafora .
unc i . dr i.

4.9 Tymiamam, f. 227va

Tymiamam . guzuber ∻ . v . đ . ii . aloa . unc . ii . et đ . xviii . cinamomum . per iii ∻ . i .
et dr . xviiii . thus per . đ . iii . sol . i . gariofile . per đ . ii . sol . i.

4.10 Item alia, f. 227va

Cotsuber ∻ . ii . tus . s . cynamo . dr . vi storace . ∻ i . gariofile dr . iiii . aloa ∻ i et s .
gumfiti similiter musco . đ . iii . caffora . đ . ii.

4.11 Alia, f. 227va

Cotsuber . đ . x . tus . der . s . spica dr . s . Aloa . dr . v . gunfiti dr . iii . musco dr . i . caffora
dr . s . storace calamitei . dr . ii.

4.12 Confectio timiamatis adgragantum, f. 227va

Confectio timiamatis adgragantum cozzuber . unc . v . den . ii . aloa . unc . iiii . storace
calamite . unc . ii . cinamo . unc . ii . tus . solidum . i . gariophile . sol . i . gumfiti . unc . i .
spico . sol . <i> . cafora den . ii . amber . den . ii . musco . đ . ii<ii>.

4.13 [untitled recipe], f. 227va

Cozzuber . unc . ii . tus . dim . unc . cinamo . đ . vi . gariophile . đ . iiii . aloa . unc . i . gum-
fiti . similiter . storace calamite . similiter . cafora đ . ii . musco . đ . iii.

4.14 [untitled recipe], f. 227va

Cozzuber . đ . x . tus . đ . ii . cinamo . đ . ii . gariophile . đ . i . s . spico . đ . i . s . aloa . đ . v
. gumfiti . đ . iii . storace calamite . đ . ii . cafora . đ . i . s . musco . đ . ii.

4.15 Confectio timiamatis, f. 227vb

Confectio timiamatis . cotzuber lib vi . storace calamite ∻ viiii . gumfiti ∻ xviii . cari-
ofile ∻ iii cinamo ∻ v<i> ciperum ∻ v . tus ∻ v . myrra ∻ iii . mastice ∻ ii . spica ∻ vii
croco ∻ i aloa ∻ vii . cafora ∻ ii et denr ii . musco denr xviii ambar dr iiii.

4.16 Item, f. 227vb

Item Timiamatis confecis . cotzumber lib i storacem calamitem ∻ i cariofile sol . ii .
cinamomum ∻ i tus (.) gunfiti ∻ iiii spico ∻ i amber sol i aloa ∻ iiii cafora sol i . musco
sol . i.

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Recipe Transcriptions 313

4.17 Item, f. 227vb

Item Aloa ∻ ii gunfiti ∻ ii . croco duas partes denr . cafora similiter . musco similiter .
spico denr . it us . duas partes de denr et dim storace . calamite similiter gariofile simi-
liter . cotsumber <∻> vi.

4.18 Item, f. 227vb

Item . gumfiti . aloa . tus lucidissimum . musco . ambar.

4.19 Confectio timiama, f. 227vb

Confectio Timiama . [g]‌cotzuber ∻ vi . aloa . ∻ ii . gumfiti ∻ ii . cenamo ∻ i tus . ∻ s .
storace ∻ s gariofilo ∻ s . caffora ∻ s.

Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen

5 Cod. sang. 44

5.1 Antidotum sotira, pp. 234–​6:

Antidotum Sotira antidotum quod dictum est saluatio . conficitur . sic . murra . ʒ2 . xviii
. croco ʒ . xv . opio . ʒ . xviii . anisu . ʒ . xii . squinantu . ʒ . xvii . piper longo ʒ . xiiii . sinonus
ʒ . xi . amomu ʒ iiii . nardo statio ʒ xiii . castoreo ʒ viiii . petrosilino ʒ xv . semen appii
ʒ xx . cassia ʒ iiii . piper nigrum ʒ xv . storace ʒ vi . ydrococumaum ʒ vi . cinnamomum
ʒ iiii . quod sufficit mel . facit autem his causis ad omnem corpus cum mulsa bibantur
caput dolentibus soluit stomaticis epilenticis . et accessiones mania compescit insom-
nietas ad somnum perducit . et freneticis somnum prestat . et aurium dolores soluit .
et nimium dolorem in pessimum oculorum et reuma constringit . et paracintidiatos
sine dolore punctum soluit dentium dolore compescit anelitum nimium pausare facit
et omnem causam corporis extinguit tussem antiquam peripleomonia . et uiscerum
tensiones et partes omnes causas reuelat dessicat de pulmonem uomicationem flecma
uel saluia cito reiectare facit . cum mulsa bibat . si aliquem sanguinem resceat cum
oximelle dabitur aut sucu policoni ad mensura egrotantis siue addere stomachi est
magnum adiutorium lesum constringit . et non delectantes cibum uomica stomachi
et uentris tollit acciditas indigestionem et uiscerum morsus soluit epaticis punctiones

2 The symbol in this recipe fluctuates but appears to reflect variations on the same character.
While it does not quite fit the ‘ʒ’ symbol, it looks closest to this; there is, however, some uncer-
tainty given that it is glossed with dr in the preceding recipe. In Sigerist’s transcription, ‘Z’ is
used to represent the symbol in question, a symbol/​unit he does not address in his comments
on weights and measures; see Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist, 80–​81 (Antidotum sotira) and 175
(weights and measures).

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314  Appendix 2

et dolores mitigat et in morbum regium colera refusa in corpore in bonum colorem et

naturalem perducit et prouocat . et malencoba multum cogitantes et asperitatem
eorum pulmonis tollit grauitudinem . et colorem malum in antiquum reuocat reuma
uel colera per stentinas ponit mediocrem febrem per stentinas . et urinam prouocat
. et statim in rene sanat facit per […] diureticus perducit in uissicam constrictiones
uel lumbi renum et uisi[c]‌cę purget disuriam malam \in/​iunctam etiam in naturam
uirorum paralisis eius curat . et reuocat in usum uenerium . Quando iam et tentica
nihil profecerit ciliacę causę [i] uehementer curat uentositatem tollit et uentrem
stercus . et humorem eorum soluit torquimina mitigat te[r.]nsione intestinorum et
spasmum finit paralisis brachiorum et femorum tollit silentium facit . non oppres-
sionem sed exponit naturalem somnum . Illis autem qui per hos non possunt bibere
per clisterem datur . cum succo fenogreci matricis omnem causam et dolorem et
insomnietatem eorum soluit et tentionem eorum uel duritiam commalaxat sanguinis
fluxum uel humorem si bibat constringit . et cum uino calido inculpidiata constringit
. Dabis autem matricis podacricis sciaticis in doloribus magnis uirtutem huius medic-
amenti non solum per os soluat . sed et illi[s] faciens lixopiritum . est autem in maior-
ibus . febribus . et in tipicis modum abellane ante hora accessionis dabis . Quartanis
autem plus dabis medicamentum et in tres potiones dabis . haec autem omnia in
nomine domini.

5.2 Antidotum pigra Gallieni optimum, p. 238

Incipit antidotum pigra Gallieni optimum Qui facit stomaicis epilenticis melancol-
icis freneticis epaticis spleneticis podacricis uertigines caligines typus subito metus
saltus membrorum neruorum contractiones perfrictiones . et quod liber stupor uel
mulieris uitia . et ad omnes causas quę subito ueniunt emendant . Recipit hęc . aloen
lib . i . costo amomu axentio rosa ficca . ana ~ v . xilobalsamo cinnamomum . spica
mastice . croco cassia fistola squinuantus ameu ~ ana . v . exinde puluere fac addis mel
quod sufficit . da exinde . ∠ i . si febr[u]‌\i/​erit cum mulsa si non febrierit cum uino ad
pullorum cantus.

5.3 Antidotum filantropum, p. 238

Incipit antidotum filantropum Facit tissicis dipnoicis cefalargicis stomaticis ad tora-
ces limosotis dissolutis epaticis spleneticis colicis . aliis doloribus nefreticis podacricis
. recipit hęc petrosilino ʒ ii . cipero squino\antum/​indico [cesaro] \asarum/​ eufurbio
ana ʒ i . dispumatum mel dabis cum aqua frida.

5.4 Inplastrum apostolicon, pp. 238–​9

Incipiunt emplastra singularia infirmis in primo[m]‌ inplastrum apostolicon.
Apostolicon facit ad omnes causas . et ad omnia uulnera antiqua siue recentia ad pleu-
mones ad neruos pręcisos ad musculos et omnes plagas quę a ferro inciditur siue utres

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Recipe Transcriptions 315

siue uitro siue canna sagittas educendas infixas corpori uel ad morsum et ad punctus
anima uenerorum terrena et maritima et uenena trahendo foras quę in alto sunt oculta
facit etiam apostematicis ad cancros ad ignis agr[a]um ad ceruicis dolorem nimium
ad sacrofas rumpendas et per modico foramine omnia trahit et sanat ut catrix non
pereat et qui inter costas apostemas habent in epate in splene a foris inponis et intus
rumpitur per egestione et cyros in splenis soluit et sanat . facit autem arteriacis ad
percussuras uel cironia quę in genua uel in pedes et meliceridas rumpit et sanat . facit
autem ad reuma uel quacumque dolore et tumore coxas genua et ad talos descendit ut
ad cataplasmas inponas . facit etiam ad fistolas . Recipit autem hęc . Ligargi\r/​o . lib . i
. et ~ i . s . galbano ~ i . dr . i . gutta ammoniaci . ~ iiii dr . i . cera ~ vi . mirra ~ . erugine
campano ~ i dr . i . bdellio ~ i . et s et manna turis ~ i . et s opopanace ~ i . aristologia
quale uolueris . ~ i . oleo uetere lib . i . et s . quę tuenda sunt cribellas . deinde cera
colofonia et oleo solues in foco et miscis litargirum . et postea miscis residuas species
et tamdiu coques dum mutet colorem.

5.5 Emplastrum qui sine ferro rumpit uulnera et scrofas et aperit, p. 243
Emplastrum qui sine ferro rumpit uulnera et scrofas et aperit salis ammoniaci lib . i .
mollibdine lib i . oleo lib . i . cineris sarmentorum lib . i . femus columbino ~ iii . conficis
et uteris.

5.6 Oxira crucira emplastrum, pp. 243–​4

Oxira crucira emplastrum qui facit epaticis spleneticis ad ipocondria tensione nefret-
ici . et omnes neruorum passiones . pleuretici peripleomonici artitici podacrici sciatici
neruorum contractiones ad luxu ad fracturas et incisus neruus soluet ad serpentem
ad canes rapidi morsum ad omnia recipit hęc . pice sicca lib . ii . cera lib . i . amoniaco
. lib . i . arisenum galbano ana ~ iiii . croco ~ ii . aceto fortiter ser . iii . teris ammoniaco
et libano cum aceto ad mellis cocti pinguedinem et teris <cum> pice autem . mittis in
cacaposteo . et supermittis aceto et coquis agitando semper . postea mittis galbum et
cum fuerit solutum mittis et effundis in altero mortario et conficis manibus.

5.7 Confectio timiame, p. 247

Confectio timiame . cozumbrio lib . i . storace ~ ii . et dr . ii . confiti . ~ iii . et dr vi . thus ~
i dr . ii mirra dr vi mastice ~ s spica ~ i et dr vi croco dr . ii . alo[e]‌\a/​~ i et dr . vi . cafora
~ i et dr i . musco dr iiii . ambar dr . i.

5.8 Dentisfritium bonum et salubrem, p. 248

Dentisfritium bonum et salubrem qui recipit multas species costu ad bonum odorem
cipero ad fauces linendo cardamo ad [h]‌oris uulnera bratheum et piper et pro pessi-
mum humorem illirica ad dolorem iusquiami ad prurigine scisti ad uuam . bacas lauri

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316  Appendix 2

ad frigorem . samsucu ad suauitatem thus ad ginguia tumida piretrum et stafidagria ad

humorem sicandum . de hęc omnia ana ʒ i et perbelle3 utis.

5.9 Dentisfritium ad gingiuas confortandas et dissicandas, p. 248

Dentisfritium ad gingiuas confortandas et dissicandas . mastice ~ i . stipteria scut4 ~ i .
yreus iliricis ~ i . perfoliu ~ i . salis frixus ~ i s cornus ceruunus ∠ iiii.

5.10 Catarticum artriticis et idropicis, p. 250

Catarticum artriticis et idropicis . lacteridia ʒ ii . ermodactilo . ~ iiii . gingiber ℈ viii
cimino etiopicum . piper ana ℈ viii . teris et cernis piper album ℈ viii . mittis et reponis
et cum opus fuerit tollis de puluere . ss5 pensum sol i . et ℈ iiii . et admiscis diacridium
sub ora tritum ʒ i . dabis sera eunti dormito tamen ipso calice ubi sunt pigmenta soluta
in calida aqua deponas donec tepefiat . sed hoc ieiuno dabis . expertum est.

5.11 Oleo roseo, pp. 256–​7

Oleo roseo uirtutem habet scipticam reprimit et refricdat et potatus soluet stoma-
chum et causos stringet . est autem ulcerum nutritor et cectica uulnera tegat et capi-
tis dolorem tollit . et ad dentium dolorem in os missus facit et ad palpebras duras ut
mollis fiat intestinarum dolores et matricis sanat in inchoatione . Conficitur autem sic
. rosa rubea exungulata et in umbra exsucata die et nocte mittis . ~ iii oleo umfacium
italicum . ses . ii . mittis in ampulla uitrea . et ligas diligenter linteo et desuper pellem
cooperis propter pluuiam aut solem et ponis ad solem diebus xl . et postea tollis et
ponis sub tectum in locum temperatum . Alii non ponuntur ad solem . sed in puteum
aut in fontana mittunt diebus . xl . et postea sic reponunt . sed prima confectio qui ad
sol<em> ponunt . omni cura expediens est subtilios . et miticantium . frigidiorem est
ex aqua et spissior . de terra autem grauior est . ergo his qui ad solem ponuntur facit ex
capitis dolore qui ex nimia febre fuerint exsiccati aut solis ardore accensus et pro aliis
causis mitigat dolorem et somnum adducit . Qui autem in aqua conponitur ad nimium
sudorem capiti uel ardorem potest adhiberi ad omnia nimia ardentia adhibitum mit-
igat ad ardorem in uisceribus quod per de coleribus accenditur potatur cum aqua cal-
ida aut frigida refrigerat et dolorem stomachi tollit etiam si cum nimia modacitate fiat

3 The abbreviation ‘pbl’ remains puzzling and is entirely absent from Sigerist’s transcription
(see Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist, 89); my thanks to Conan Doyle for suggesting perbelle as
a possible way to expand this.
4 It is unclear what ‘scut’ is abbreviating (mark of abbreviation over ‘u’); with stipteria meaning
‘alum’, I suggest that it possibly was intended to mean a word such as schistum or scissum that
are often descriptors of another word for ‘alum’, alumen.
5 It is unclear what ‘ss’ is abbreviating; given the measuresments that follow, it appears to be
an ingredient (rather than an alternate abbreviation of sextarius), but there are a variety
of possible ingredients that could work with this abbreviation (e.g., samsucus, sisimbrium,
solsequia, etc.).

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Recipe Transcriptions 317

. ad lumbricos similiter datur . colum laborantibus ita datur et sanat . ad omnia calida
adhibendus est interius et exterius.

5.12 Oleo lentisscinum, p. 258

Oleo \lentis/​scinum fit de semen lentisci . cum autem maturauerit . facis sicut de lauri
bacas . facit autem ad omnes matricis dolorem uirtutem habet calefacturiam et stipti-
cam malaxaturiam facit ad omnem duritiam stomachi et ad ciliacum et disentericus
. et ad oris uitia . et de facię omnia purgat et colorem bonum et furfures et ordeola
capitis facit.

5.13 Ad podacra, p. 260

Ad podacra aristologia rotunda centauria agatia puluis ęquali pondere cum succu
ciclaminis distemperas et superpone proficit.

5.14 Confectio saponi Constantini, p. 282

Confectio saponi constantini recipit hęc . blaustia . rodon . cerussa . nitru mastice .
thus aloen . mirta amoniaco . pumix stafidacria . gariofilo . spica indica . folio sarcocla
. croco . licio . calcantu . alumen . scissum . alumen rotundum . ossa sipię . et ostrię
costo amomu ana ~ i . s . ca\r/​pobalsami confiti . xilobalsami . squinoantus afronitro
dracantu sandaraca nardo celtico ana ~ i . balsamo . ~ s musco dr iii s ouarum uetella .
ii . albumen . iii . sapone gallico . lib elixatura lupini quod suficit . optimum est nimis.

5.15 Potio maniacis siue gutta catiua, p. 285

Potio maniacis siue gutta catiua lasar . stupio . opopanace . castoreo . amiantu . pionica
lucia . fel ursinum fel taurinum . byro martira . canta psalmo nono . et missa super et
lege passionem domini . tres cime elene . iii . cime de rubo . iii . cime ortica . iii . cime
de fusago . iii.

5.16 Ut infantibus dentes sine dolore exeant, p. 304

Ut infantibus dentes sine dolore exeant cerebrum leporis coctum gingiuas fricas.

5.17 Ad fagidinica, pp. 330–​1

5.17.1 Ad fagidinica ad amantium ad diuturnas quę dificile cicatricant uulnera . bulbus
scillis quod mollis est in oleo ℥ is mittis coquis donec ad tertias reuertatur et de
hoc oleo uteris perunguis ulcus cum pinna absque mutario haec purgat carnem
nutrit et cicatricem ducit uide ne morcare redeat super ulcus ex hoc in noto.
5.17.2 Item aliud ad fagidinica ulcera . pastinace folia trita cum mel superpone . melior
enim est pastinace siluestris folia quam domestice . si non inuenis agrestem
domesticam uteris.

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5.18 Potio ad nescia, p. 345

5.18.1 Potio . ad nescia Sauina . manip . iii . piper grana . xviii teris cum uino et mel .
qui patitur dolorem in balneo bibat . postea super ipsa coxa que dolet iaceat et
in ipsa potione tres staupos uini mittat . ut per triduum hoc bibat.
5.18.2 Item ad ipsum . Ebolo qui solus nascit radicem ipsius tere in acetum . cum
nouella ceruisia bibat . et ambulet . ut sudet.
5.18.3 Item ad ipsum . Azaro . libra . i . piper . grana . xv . in uino . aut in ceruisia
nouella bibat.
5.18.4 Item ad ipsum . Brasia . et agrimonia . et caballopeia teris . in nouella ceruisia
maneat cooperta . et crastinum bibat . sanus erit.
5.18.5 Item ad ipsum . Fenuculi semen quantum in tres digitas . leuas . bibat . sanat.

5.19 Ad renum dolorem uel coxarum, p. 345

Ad renum dolorem uel coxarum . Flos feni in aqua coquis . tepefactum superliga et
dulce potione bibat . sanat.

5.20 Ad luxatura, p. 348

Ad luxatura . Agrimonia tusa superponis . et uena incidere debes sanat.

5.21 Item ad ipsum potio bibenda contra ipsos uermes eiciendos, p. 350
5.21.1 Item ad ipsum . Potio bibenda contra ipsos uermes eiciendos . aut quacumque
maleficio in se habuerit Herba basilerica quae nascitur per montes . in loca
arida ubi petras minutas sunt . folia simili porro . radix eius crispa . et fistolas .
colligis eam mense septembre luna decurrente die martis aut iouis . aut sabbati
. herba ipsa teris diligenter . miscis cum nouella ceruisia calice pleno das ei
ieiuno bibere . et ante die abstineat se a cibo die iouis luna uetere debet bibere
. si uermes ipsa die iactauerit . priusquam manducet calido bibat aut exouera.
5.21.2 Ranas et craxantos . haec potio expellere solet . et si de ha[n]‌c potione . non
exierint . bibat . alia potione . ad occidendos . ius de mora campestria teris et
exprimis . et teris folia cannapi manu plena . et si folia non fuerint semen ipsius
dabis ei potione calice pleno . et si ius more non habuerint aut cannapo inue-
nire non potuerit . lacte caprino calido bibat . mortuos uermes proiciet.

5.22 Ad flegma curandum, p. 351

Ad flegma curandum . Marrubii sucum . Mente sucum . Matresilue sucum . Azari
sucum . Agrimoniae sucum . Betonicę sucum . [Agrimonię sucum] aequali mensura
. de aceto . et aloen . et apii semen . de uino calice pleno . piper grana . c haec omnia
simul miscis . et in olla noua coquis . ad tertias . sic per tres mane . ieiunus bibat . sanat.

5.23 Ad glandolas siccandas, p. 353

Ad glandolas . siccandas . celidonia radice . manipulo . i . bladonna . radice . manip-
ulo . i . Rodenapo radice . manipulo . i . polipodia . similiter . ebolo similiter . mater
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Recipe Transcriptions 319

herbarum similiter frafolio . similiter . azaro . similiter . betonica . similiter . agrimonia

similiter uermiculo folia similiter . plantagine similiter . edera siluester similiter . pico
lingua similiter . gamandrea similiter . quinquefolia similiter . herba benedicta simi-
liter . piper grana . xxxiii . haec omnia simul teris et in sex staupos de ceruisa distem-
peras et das bibere . sanat.

5.24 Ad dentem cauum, p. 360

5.24.1 Ad dentem . cauum . Stercus corbino . ibidem inponis . dentem rumpit . et
dolorem tollit.
5.24.2 Item . Plantagin[e]‌\is/​radix commasticetur . dolorem tollit.
5.24.3 Item . Farina de negella . intus in dentem cauum mitte sanat.

5.25 Ad exasperatione gingiuarum, p. 361

5.25.1 Ad exasperatione gingiuarum . Folia rose . teris cum mel diligenter . inde gin-
giuas inunguis . et oleo crudo . non manducet nec nullum agramen . sed salsa-
menta . manducet.
5.25.2 Item . Oleo uetere . naribus infundatur . frequenter.
5.25.3 Item . Quinquefolia radices gargarizet sucum cum aqua.

5.26 Ad ulcera oris uel quicquid in labia fuerint, p. 361

Ad ulcera oris . uel quicquid in labia . fuerint Rumice . et pampinis folia . tenenter[er]
ad tertias in uino decoquis . et ipsum uinum . ore teneatur.

5.27 Ad scapularum dolorem, pp. 361–​2

5.27.1 Ad scapularum dolorem . Betonica scripulos . iiii . cum mulsa . ciatos . iiii .
dabis bibere.
5.27.2 Item . herba berbena . et faua fresa . coquis in uino cum axungia contundis
inducis in linteo . et calido superpone.
5.27.3 Item . uino uetus . cum axungia ferue simul . quousque soluatur . Postea lana
succida carpinata intinguis . et exprimis fortiter . ut omne sucus dimittat . sic
ipsa lana ponis super ubi dolet.

5.28 Ad serpentes uel alios uermes de homine expellendos, p. 364

5.28.1 Ad serpentes . uel alios uermes . de homine . expellendos . Potio probata . ius
de cocurbita saluatica . nuce plena cum nouella ceruisia ieiuno dabis bibere
luna decurrente.
5.28.2 Item . Medulla ceruina . aut de osso . aut de corno ipsius . cum lacte
caprino bibat.
5.28.3 Item . Ius de mora campestra exprimis . et teris folia canapi miscis simul et
bibat calice pleno . semen mitte s\i/​mora non est . lacte caprino calidum mittis
. haec potio . herbas uel omnia maleficia . et omnia uermes proiciet.

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5.28.4 Item . Ad uermes de infantes eiciendos pingue de lardo porcino cocla . iii . iei-
unus bibat.

5.29 Ad punctas qui in latere superueniunt, pp. 364–​5

5.29.1 Ad punctas qui in latere superueniunt . Abrotano trito in aqua colato medio
calice . tepidum bibat . admiscis modicum sal.
5.29.2 Item . herba . antola manipulo . i . teris cum uino . calice . i . ieiuno das bibere .
superiaceat ubi dolet.
5.29.3 Item . Amoniaco . sol . pensum . oleo . aceto . et sal . singulo cocleario insimul
teris . et ieiunus bibat . et tamdiu super ipso latus iaceat . usque . dum sudet.

5.30 Ad uentris dolorem uel tumores stintinarum, p. 366

5.30.1 Ad ventris dolorem . uel tumores stintinarum . Sementis bete decocta ex
aq<ua> fomentas uent<…..> . et tumorem tollit si per triduum hoc feceris.
5.30.2 Item . Herba quinquefolii sucu[s]‌m dabis bibere . cocl . ii . sine mora dolorem
tollit.
5.30.3 Item . Si tumor fuerit . Herba plantagine sucum eius tepefactum fomentando
dolorem tollit . et ipsa tunsa . et inposita dolorem tollit . et sucum eius bibitum
et toracem . et uentrem sanat.
5.30.4 Item . Betonica . drag . i . in aqua calida . ciatos . ii . bibat . his autem apta erit
fomentando . dolorem tollit . ipsa tusa . et inposita tumorem tollit . ius eius
bibitum . et toracem . et uentrem sanat.
5.30.5 Item . Ad intestinarum dolorem . Herba nepta cum uino bibat . sanat.
5.30.6 Item . Ad duritiam uentris . Lino semen cum mel tritum . in ceruisa . ieiunus
bibat mirum . est.

5.31 Ad lumborum dolores, pp. 367

5.31.1 <Ad> lumborum dolores . Betonica drag . iii . uino rubeo . ciatos iii piper grana
xviii tritum et calefactum ieiunus bibat.
5.31.2 Item ad lumborum uel coxarum dolorem . Betonica drag . ii . ex mulsa dabis
bibere.
5.31.3 Item . Herba senicion per se trita potui data mirum prodest.
5.31.4 Item . Alium non mundatum . cum axungia contusum in panno superposito
mire sanat.

6 Cod. sang. 217

6.1 Ad capitis, pp. 257a–​258b

6.1.1 Ad capitis . Oportet diu permanere capitis . dolore precipuae . sine febri
matheriam . detrahere per nares . uel per os . quaeres . etiam aures . uel dentem
diutius dolentibus . prode est . brasice sucus naribus . infusus . capud expurgat
dolorem mitigat.
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Recipe Transcriptions 321

6.1.2 Item . Bete nigre radicis sucus minus quam dimidium et mellis . mixtum in
nares infundes ita ut palatum non transeat . pituita omnes . defluit et cum his
cessare oleum in os accipiat.
6.1.3 Item . caerefolium in aqua decoctum . et \e/​aqua potui data . pituitas extrahis.
6.1.4 Item [R]‌Sinapis . ∻ i . rape seminis . ∻ i . piper . grana . xx . nasturcii semen ∻ i
. erucae origani . ∻ i . apii . seminis . ∻ i . tantumdem ex aceto et melle . colligis
. et ex ea . aqua calida . per dies vii . gargarizauit.
6.1.5 Item . origani . comam . uel ysopi herbam conelam in mellitissima mulsa triduo
macerabis . De hinc coqui facies . et sereno . celo tepidum ieiunus per triduum
gargarigaes.
6.1.6 Item . Senapis . cocleario . ii . et aque mulsa cyatum . i . miscebis . calefacias.
6.1.7 Item . malue semen . ex uino nigro . contrito . gargarizato . tepidum . pituitas .
capitis . extrahis.
6.1.8 Item . mellis . semina sape . aemina . aceti acerimi [m]‌. ƒƒ . i . sinapis triti . ∻ i
. ysopi . tusi et creti . ∻ i . origani tusi . et cribrati ∻ i simul omnia coquis . ita
ut pinguinem . aquatioris melli . asum<.>t . et colatum diligiter . gargarizet . ad
solem quamdiu potest.
6.1.9 Item . ysopi ∻ i . origani . ∻ i . timi . ∻ i . istafidosagrias . ∻ i . pulei . ∻ i . sape
optime ƒƒ i . aceti acerimi aemina omnia infusa tertia die coques carbonibus
lentis donec . una parte decocta dua remaneant hinc quartam . partem contra
solem hora tertia . gargarizet . postea . recentem in ore teneat ut humoris abun-
cia restringatur et ieiun<a> usque hora viii.
6.1.10 Item . ad dolorem . capitis et insaniam . quamquam plurime sint . cause .
dolorem capitis . tamen si sol acerimus . celebrum. percusserit . subito mens .
auferetur . et uelut insanus . differtur homo aliena . loquens . et nullum agnus-
cens . hoc cum uideris statim eum in obscuro loco et conlocari . et conprimi
faties . uinum autem . uel poscam nęc ipse odoretur hec . quia ei . ministrant
bibant . post hec . faties ex quo qui anetum . in aqua et ex ipsa calida capud ei
fouebis . septies in die . et iter in nocte . lumen uero nec diei . uideat . nec ignis .
ad hubi ceperit resipiscere . offeres ei lumen . lucernam postea oleum . roseum
calidum . inpones ęi in cerebrum cum lana . et ligas . hoc die . et nocte sepius
mutabis . cum iam ceperit . conualescere tunc ęum producis ad lumen et dilo-
tum . uinum bibat ante rodomeli in aqua calida . accipiat . post rosatum . et sic
uinum hoc modo quasi de morte suscitabis hominem . res est enim saluberis
na experimentata.

6.2 Antidotus Atrianus, p. 262

Antidotus atrianus . faciens . . ad multas . passiones colocis dabis . in calda quam agdu-
tinis . hebis . aepatiois . in ino melle similiter . epilemticis . epistotonicis . calda aqua
. pleureticis . in mulsa . stomaticis . in pusca . quiatiter . ex c<rudi>ditate<m> conpel-
luntur . humoris . in aqua frigida . quiatos tres . n<on> freneticis in aqua calida . ad
prefocationis . matricis . tisicis . ac nocte datur . et qui frigus . patiuntur . curat autem
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. et dolorem dent<i>um . et pausat . inpositum in dentum . et orto non o[c]‌cisi tubat

datum in pusca . sciaticis . cum uino . dulce . quiatos . iii . est lexopiritur . Recipit hec .
amomu budro id est dracmas . iii . costu đ ii . euforuiu . đ i . opiu tiuaicu . đ xii . grocu . đ
. v. foliu đ i . murra . troclide đ i spica nardi đ i . ruta sicca . đ i aloę epatite . đ i . maratre
semen . đ iiii . piper . albo . granas . xx . apii . semen . đ i . Iosquiamum . semen đ xx .
piretru . đ . i . dauco semen . đ i . cassia . đ. i . petrosilino . đ ii . rosa sicca đ . i . cassamu
đ iii . mel . dispumato . quod sufficit.

6.3 Antidotum Theodosion, pp. 263b–​264b

Antidotum theodosion . faciens . ad multas . pasiones . accipitur . uernum . et autum-
num . qui facit . ad dolorem . et ad uertiginem . capitis . et epilemticis . et ad c\u/​aleri
nigra . et ad pectoris . siue laterum . dolorem . a digescionem . ciperum quibus . accessit
. ad dolorem . uentris . siue . sthomaci . et longa egritudinem lauorant . et minime conu-
aliscunt . auriginosis . uero . ydropicis . tisicis . et ad neruorum dolorem et ad colum
et ad eos qui corpus grauem habent extrasordinariis uel longas egritudinis sudores
incongruos et incipiaentes dolores podagricos et mulierum . uitia stomaci . aciscentis
sub haec autem uentris sine molestiam que intus sunt producunt non autem presentis
sed future preuenit necessitatis . Recepit hec aloae dr iiii groco ℈ xii reuponticu ℈
xii mastice ℈ xii . cenamum ℈ xii . agaricu ∻ ii . scamonia ℈ xii xilobalsamum . ℈ vii
piper . albo . ℈ viii piper nigro . ℈ vi piper longo . ℈ vi meu . ℈ vi squinuantos ℈ vi .
gingiber . ℈ vi gentiana . ℈ vi amomu . ℈ vi interiones coloquintidos ℈ xii costu ℈ vi
acoru ℈ vi asaru ℈ . xii spica nardi ℈ vi cassia . ℈ . vi . camedrios . ℈ xxxvii mel dispu-
matum quantum sufficit.

6.4 Ad dolorem aemigranii, pp. 266–7

6.4.1 Ad dolorem aemigranii . stercus . suricis . cum aceto . inpone.
6.4.2 Item corni cerbini . cinis . aceto et roseo . mixtos fronti inpositus . magnifice .
uitia . emundat.
6.4.3 Item sucum de radice bete purpareae mittis . cum modico . lasa\i/​ris . et in
modum trium guttarum . mittis in narem . ex ea parte que dolet . et statim
sedabitur.
6.4.4 Item lasar cum lacte mulieris . resolutum . et in alteram partem auris . infusum
. tepefactum . sine que dolet . agittans mandubula cubet . emigranii dolorem
careuit.
6.4.5 Item opii . ℈ . dimidium . groci . ℈ dimidium murre . ro dimidium . iosquiami
erbe . sucum . apii seminis . ℈ . i . aneti . seminis ℈ dimidium . grocum seorsum
. tundes . et in mortario . simul conteris . diutissime . ex aceto . optimo . con-
spargis . et formabis colliria . cum uero opus fuerit . in cute . ex aceto conteris .
et spissum fronti \uel/​. temporibus inducis.
6.4.6 Item . iii . grana . alei . et viii . grana piperis . trita fronti inlines uel in ea . parte
qua dolet.

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Recipe Transcriptions 323

6.4.7 Item . iii . \a/​grana alei . tundes ex quorum sucus infundes lana et utraque
aures claudis.
6.4.8 Item . ut spiritus . uel cerebri . mundas aleum et teris diligenter et facis pastillos
. ex eo et pones in cerebro siue in migranio et desuperligabis . donec ustulet .
uessicam faciet . quam decoperies ut hude currat.
6.4.9 Item bace lauris puluerem et senapis puluerem . cum aceto acro . temperabis .
et linis . partem que dolet.
6.4.10 Item agacie puluerem cum oui album . permisces et uteris.
6.4.11 Item ad emigranium . seu ad dentium dolorem croci . ℈ vi . maligran<…> cor-
tices . ∻ vi . yreos . ℈ . xi . aluminis scissi ℈ vi has omnes . spe<…> cum uino
uetere . in unum permisces . et in mel temperabis . ut colliria si de<ntes> dolent
. uel mouentur . in melle resolues . et inde gingiuas tangis si emigraneum est
. qui celestis . cesterne in cuticula . resolues et fr<on>tem linis . effectum
miraueris.
6.4.12 Item fisicum . ad emigraneum . p<…> yreos et stercus columbinum in oleo et
melle decoctum fronti inposi<tum> conpescit . dolorem . fisicum est.
6.4.13 Item fisicum ad emigraneum . farina lolii cum amoniaco . equaliter . aceto
mixto . anacollema facta . emigranio in de<…>.

6.5 Ad dolorem auricule uel aque ingressu, p. 267

6.5.1 Ad dolorem . auricule uel aque ingressu coriandri sucum lacte mulieris mix-
tus et auricule infusus dolorem efficaciter . tolet.
6.5.2 Item. ad auris doloris siue quae uermes hab<ent> sucum calamente . permix-
tus cum cedria . et infusus prodest.
6.5.3 Item lasaris . granum modicum . aurem inicies . statim dolorem paus<at>.
6.5.4 Item cardamomi sucus . auribus instillatis dolorem aurium et moli<a>riorum .
dentium sedat.
6.5.5 Item porri uirginis sucum . sanat.
6.5.6 Item adeps . galinaceus . ad ora solutus . tepidus . auri infusus plurimum prodest.
6.5.7 Item rute sucus . si mittas . curabitur.
6.5.8 Item si aqua in aurem introierit . et dolorem fecerit . solus sucus coriandri . in
aure expressus sine dubitatione liberat . ac sanat.

6.6 Ad uitium oris, p. 273

6.6.1 Ad uitium oris . Sepiarum ossa in cinere redacta . et ori sparsa uitia emendat.
6.6.2 Item coclearum uacuarum cinis cum murra tritus adsparsus uicia emendat.

6.7 Ad uulnera oris siue tumores gingiuarum, p. 273

6.7.1 Ad uulnera . oris siue tumores gingiuarum . aprotanum uiridem . teris diligiter
. cum melle misces . tangis loca deintus que dolent . et deforis ubi tumor est .
apponis et mirabilater curat.

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6.7.2 Item ad oris uulnera . uel gingiuarum . in mustum dulcem recens . mittens
malum granatum siccum plenum et alterum uiridem cum cortice . et coques
. in stagnato ad carbones ut spissitudinem mel adsumat . et leuas de foco et
addis murre et stiptiriae . scistis puluerem . tenuissimum conmisces et ex eo
uulnera linis.

6.8 Ad fetorem oris, p. 274

6.8.1 Ad fetorem oris . Puleium et serpillum siccum commanducatum benefacit.
6.8.2 Item uades dormitum acetum bonum os labet.
6.8.3 Item mastice commaesticet et uino suauios colluat.
6.8.4 Item mur<i>nus cinis cum mel dentibus infregatu<r>.
6.8.5 Item foliam myrte et lentisci pari pondere et galle siriac<em> dimid<i..> pond
simul tere . et asparsa uino uetusto matutin[o]‌\i/​s mand<…>.
6.8.6 Item si alitus f<..>et cum dormitu uadit aceti boni ciatum per partes sorb<.nt>
hoc et in coctionem faciat . et mane sero inde sorbe . prodest quod si spleneti-
cis hoc dederis in paucis diebus sanus erit.
6.8.7 Item hedere uace cum casia et myrra pari pondere ex uino.
6.8.8 Item s<…> herba que gallice lauria dicitur ieiunus commanducet et gl<…>.
6.8.9 Item ad eos quibus subitus humor fetorem facit siue putridinem gingiuas ita ut
dentes cadunt quod grece helpe dicitur . hiu ∻ i cum <mel> ∻ vi coquis bene
tritum et curabis.

6.9 Item ad dentium dolorem, p. 335

6.9.1 Item ad dentium . dolorem . aspar<a>gis siluaticis radix in uino decoquet et in
ore tenitus et dolor<.> sedat . sucus eius similiter facit.
6.9.2 Item hedere . radicem coques in uin<.> puro quod in ore tenes et transit dolor.
6.9.3 Item brasica . coma<s>tica dolorem statim sedat.
6.9.4 Item . secum hedere cum aceto et paru<.> sale in diuersam narem mittis.
6.9.5 Item timum et piretrum . pare pondere . tusum denti adices.
6.9.6 Item piretri radix . et posca . et melle gargarizetur et tenetur in ea parte . qua
qua dolet.
6.9.7 Item ciperi puluerem dentes et gingiuas rep<…>.
6.9.8 Item . pentafilon . cum radice sua . in aceto . aut uino . decocta in ore continetur.
6.9.9 Item . adicies in olla acetum satureia<m> et sale in uno feruentem et maxilla
continebis.
6.9.10 Item fen<.>culum uiridem . masticet . et sucum contineat.
6.9.11 Item . tus et uace lauri . in uino deferueant . et in ore deteneat quamdiu potuerit.
6.9.12 Item uiolam si\c/​cam ex uino coques et calidum ori continebis.
6.9.13 Item . uinum et piper misces et tepidum ori continebis.
6.9.14 Item urtices [e]‌minores . radices . commasticet . s<.>cum eius . in aceto . ore
continebit aut gargarizet.

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6.10 Ad dentes molares, p. 336

6.10.1 <A>d dentes molares uel ad omnes . ut sint . incorrupti . et inpassibiles
inmouiles . que magnum remedium uitis albe burionis sucum cotilis duabus
mori radices . cortices coques ad tercias . et in ore teneat ac diluat per dies . vii .
numquam dentes dolebit.
6.10.2 Item inuiolati prestantur . dentes . in si quis cotidie . mane ieiunus . habeat sub
lingua salis granum donec linquiscat.

6.11 Ad uuam distillantem et ad fauces tumentes, p. 337

6.11.1 Ad uuam . distillantem . et ad fauces tumentes . corium de nuce u<…>de tundes
et expremis hinc mittis ∻ vi . et mellis ∻ i . coques do<…> spissetur ex eo cocl .
i . ieiunus gargarizet.
6.11.2 Item . cimas . de oliua <…> coques in aqua fontana ad medietatem . et gargarizet.
6.11.3 Item . ad <u…> reprimendam . et gingiuas <t>umentes . betonica ex aceto .
decoqu<..> et ore conteneat . diu que calido . gargarizet.
6.11.4 Item ad uam iacentem uel distillantem . sucum herbe absentii . subleuas.
6.11.5 Item . cinis testa<r..> ostrearum . addito melle inlinitur.
6.11.6 Item . gari optimi cl subici<t..>.
6.11.7 Item senapem . gargarizetur cum aceto . et melle.
6.11.8 Item . ad uuam n<.> molesta sit . brasice folium . crudum liuisime terito . ex eo
suco . uuam tangito . continuo silit.
6.11.9 Item ad ubam reprimendam pruni silu<.>tici . folia decoques . ex uino . austeri
et subinde gargarizas.
6.11.10 Item confeccio . antere . pulueris . ad ubam subleuandam . qui ad o<m>nes
reuma facit . ciperum . ∻ iiii . murrae ∻ ii . aluminis scisi . <…> sandaraca . ∻ iiii
. grocu . ℈ vi . hec omnia trita . et cribrata in unum puluerem . rediges.

6.12 Ad synances, p. 338

6.12.1 <A>d synances . costu alumen . scisu . spica nardi . grocu . <fl>os rose . et gal-
lam . equis po\n/​deribus . in puluerem mollisimum . redigis . et cum <m>el
dispumato . uteris . Si autem uulnera . intra os quasi alba nata fuerint <..>imum
de uinum foueas et sic puluerem inponis.
6.12.2 Item . apii semen . stafidasagrias <…> numero xii . lasar primum piper. spungie.
noue . in cacauo rudi conbusti . omnia contri<..> miscentur melle et pinna uel
digito inducis.
6.12.3 Item . lupinorum crudorum . fari<..m> . similiter . et costi . admixto suco . nas-
turcii . teris in modum mellis . et uteris.
6.12.4 <I>tem . murra . et casia sulfor . uiuum . et melle et menta uiridem . comisces
omnia <i>nsimul puluerem facta murra et casia . et sulfor . et postea . commis-
cis . et fri<.>atum ore faucium . et humidum . dentes constringit.
6.12.5 Item . sal frixum cum aceto <o>leo et mel . utere.

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326  Appendix 2

7 Cod. sang. 397

7.1 Si tertiana aut cottidiana febris hominem tangit, p. 22

Si tertiana aut cottidiana febris hominem tangit colligat de ueruena manipulum . i .
quae alio modo isarnina uocatur et viiii grana de pipero . et cum uino mixtam com-
ponat . et ante accessionem inde bibat staupum . i.

7.2 De fico emendando, p. 22

De fico emendando . Accipe plantaginem et herbam acerem quae alio nomine gun-
dereba nominatur . et seuum de multone . hoc est unslit . et ista tria tundantur in
mortario . et fricantur in patella et sic ieiunus comedat cum pane . Ceruisam et medum
nec aquam bibat . antequam sanetur.

8 Cod. sang. 550

8.1 Istam causa facias contra morbum qui dicitur nesse, p. 54

Istam causa facias contra morbum qui dicitur nesse . tollat unum modium de amar
bene uersum et faciat eum in bracium duas ebdomadas et faciat illud ad ceruisam
et tollat de uuisto sicut inter duos manus posses capere et pluet illud et tollat de illo
ceruisa . xii . stoupas et uuistun miscit et simul et illud scias quando castum fuerit
descendit intus adfetes et tollat viiii . stoupas et lxxxx piperes cortices et minuet usque
ad puluerem et discuciet inter duos uasculos et viiii manes bibet illud antequam quic-
quam custasset et si <titiu> nihil bibet nisi quod superfuit de ceruisa illa et non man-
ducet ane<tam nec augam> nec crudum carnem nullum nisi de ouibus nec alem nec
barbum nec <vinum> rufum et de illis abstineat se u<…> unum annum.

9 Cod. sang. 751

9.1 Ad ilii dolorem, pp. 304–​6

9.1.1 Ad ilii dolorem urinam ircinam singulas potiones per triduo ieiunus bibat .
femum ircinum primo die pilolas . iii . tritas ex uino bibat . alia dię v bibat .
tertia die . viii . ieiunus bibat.
9.1.2 Item ad ilii dolorem Saxifraga unc . ii . uettonica unc . i . ispica nardi . unc . vi
. casia un vi . piper . unc . i . piper albo unc . i . zinziber . unc . i . costo unc . i .
isopo unc . i . uinci radices . unc . i . timu unc . i . apii semen unc . i . asaro uncia
. i . triblas et dabis bibere ieiuno.
9.1.3 Item ad ilii dolorem Et ad cauculosis et istraguiriam patientibus et corum
urina retinetur piper . iscrip . vi . lauri bacas . iscrip . iii . uisicularia unc . ii . erba
istrumus sucus haec omnia teris in uino uetere et obtimo calices viiii . admiscis
mel quantum extimas in modum conditi facies et ieiunus tepefacto bibat cal-
ice pleno et suspendis eiusdem cibos graues et alius usque ad ora tertia.

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9.1.4 Item ad ilii dolorem uel uesicae et difficultatem urinae nucleus pineus purg-
atus . xxx . amendolas . xx . tracant . unc . i . dactulus . xiiii . teris in mortario
quomodo medulla nucleus pineus . et amendolas extra et tracanto infundis
si mutae in mellę et in mortario teres et admisces cum illas alias et dabis de
ipsum medicamen quantum medium cocliare in careno aut in medus bibere.
9.1.5 Item ad ilii dolorem apii radices coquis cum dulce apiato aut condito qui lapi-
des habent lini semen bene tritum quantum solidus pensat et addis de condito
. et ceres ipsa farina bene et facis potione et dabis bibere.
9.1.6 Item ad ilii dolorem anetum siccum et uiridem et ruta equaliter teres et colas
cum uno et das bibere una cum oleo bono cocliarem unum prendis paritales
uiuos et mittis in ulla rudę et coperis illa ulla cum coperculo et lotas et potiones
in foco et tandiu quoquis ut perustulent illi passares toti ut cinis fiant et de ipso
puluere dabis bibere qui patitur.
9.1.7 Item ad ilii dolorem Erba c[i]‌\a/​pilli ueneris et papauer et nitru teres omnia
equaliter pensas et cum aqua aut uino calido dabis bibere.
9.1.8 Item ad ilii dolorem Remedium bonum leporem uiuum prendis et laterem de
luto facis . unde fabricant domus siccus facis in medio fassam et ponis super
tripede ut calefiat quomodo caletilli lateris occidis leporem . et ibi fundis san-
guinem ipsius super ipso latere in ipsa fossa ita ut pedes ipsius . ad retro sursum
teneat ut sanguis illi bene decurrat super illum lateris fossam . et cum bene
colauerit leuas illum laterem de foco et ponis usque quę refrigerit bene et sic
tollis illum sanguinem coagolatum.
9.1.9 Item pellem illius decorias et ustulas super latere usque bene ustulet ut fiat
puluer et de ambas res ęquali pensas et teres diligenter et das ad illum qui lab-
orat cocliare pleno cum uino calido bona . et si uis expermenta rem . istam rem
mittis in calice de ipsas pulueres cocliarium unum . et petra . i . aut duas in
modum fabę aut cicer et mittis aqua tepida ut copenas bene et alia die requires
et inuenias solutum lapidem.
9.1.10 Item ad ilii dolorem Saxifrage radicęs petrosileno radices . isparagi radices elene
radices . libistici radices [isparagi radices] fenugreco apii radices aneto cento
capitis radices bacas lauri . unc . iii . orticę semen unc . iii . trita da bibere in uino.
9.1.11 Item ad ilii dolorem origano hoc est illaris saxifragia poleio apio petrosileno
tere cum uino bono da bibere.

9.2 Unguentum acupo galastico ad omnem dolorem uel tumorem tam

podagricis quam artetricis, p. 319
Unguentum acupo galastico ad omnem dolorem uel tumorem tam podagricis quam
artetricis . axungia purcina uetere . unc . i . cera unc . ii . sapone unc . ii . oleo laurino
unc . i . conficis et uteris quia utilis . est.

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9.3 Unguentum artitricis uel geniculorum dolorem, p. 320

Unguentum artitricis uel geniculorum dolorem terebentina . (.) i . amoniaco . ş . iiii .
mastice . (.) ii seuo arietum . (.) vi . lardo elexum . (.) \v/​iii . cera alba . (.) iiii . conficis et
uteris expertissimam habet medicinam.

9.4 Item trociscus Eraclio, p. 364

Item trocis\c/​us Eraclio Ad auris uitia ad gengiuas ad fistolas ad uulnera uerandarum
digitorum ad usquiones ad igni agrum ad uulnera canciriosa superponis ad uitiorum
iniurias frontem lenis melagranatę . unc . iii . aristolicia ciatos . v . murra troclitus dr . iii
. sisti et facis trociscum dabis quando opus . est.

9.5 Qui facit ad tibias putridas et ad omnes plagas sanandas, pp. 367–​8
In christi nomine qu<i m... c….. et p…> qui facit ad tibias putridas et ad omnes plagas
sanandas . Picae carsetane<a> lib . iiii . amoniaco lib . i . sinopido unc . iii . uitro uirgine
. s iii . cera uirgine . lib . i litio bonum . i . croco . unc . i . tus masculi . s . iiii . masticae . s .
vi . aloę . s . ii . rasina molle . lib . ii . smirra . s . iii . spuma argentea . s . iii . sabo orientale
. vi . haec omnia mittis in buccola requoquis et postea maceras et omnes plagas sanat.

9.6 Ad osso fracto, p. 378

Ad osso fracto Solfor bibat per die . viiii . terciam partem dinarium pinsantem ieiunus
cum uino et aqua.

9.7 De mandragora, p. 392

De mandragora . Dicitur ipsa mandragora habet similitudinem hominem iacentem .
9.7.1 Ipsa radice teris et dequoquis cum oleo et super plaga pone mirum sanat.
9.7.2 Ipsa teris cum uino albo et mel dabis bibere matricis uel cauculorum dolorem
tollit et ad mulieres qui partum uolit habere ipsa radicina ad mulie ipsa poma
dabis biberere concepit.
9.7.3 Ipsa trita cum garo dabis bibere profluuium sanat.
9.7.4 Ipsa trita cum ficos edropicos curat.
9.7.5 Ipsa trita epelenticos et lunaticos dabis bibere remedium est diodis probauit.

9.8 Si homo de arbore uel de equo ceciderit, p. 395

9.8.1 Si <homo de arbore uel de equo> \ceciderit/​Recipis illa pastera sumen de
illam aut de ebisteris cum aceto et albumen oua in linteo superpone.
9.8.2 Item sulfor bibat et mater erbarum bibat.

9.9 Si spina in pede uel in alico membro fuerit, p. 396

Si spina in pede uel in alico membro fuerit unctum leporis superinpone.

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9.10 Ad luxum, p. 400

Ad luxum Ad luxum uel quolibet casum si percussum fuerit ut liuorem faciat . calce
uiua et sinopitę cum mel conspargis et ad locum lesum ponis miraueris effectum.

9.11 Ad uicia articulorum, p. 404

Ad uici\a/​. articulorum . Erba quinquefolia tunsa cum exungia ueteri sine sale inposita
sanabitur.

9.12 Ad luxum, p. 405

Ad luxum . Erba agrimonia contrita et opposita mirae doloribus et tumoribus ex luxo
tollit.

9.13 Ad capitis fractura, pp. 405–​6

Ad capitis fractura In primo battę lardo et [……] de lino simul inpone et muta mane
et sero si uideris ossa fractam diu inpone usque quod fractum fuerit eicias inde foris
postea mittis mel aput carpia ad curandum deinde ad sanandum facias medicamen de
cera et oleo et mel pauco resina de pino grano masticae et colofonia simul in unum
misces et quoq\u/​is uno corpore drapicello mundo inledas et in plaga inpone.

9.14 Ad capitis fractura, p. 408

Ad capitis fractura Verba uittonica contusa in capitę in plaga inpositam rase celeritate
gluttinatur.

9.15 Ad dentium uitiae, p. 409

Ad dentium uit<iae> Herba uittonica cum uino uetere aut aceto ad tertias decoctae
gargarizata . dolorem dentium tollit.

9.16 Ad fico, p. 413

9.16.1 Ad fico que dicitur quiliacus d<m>ittis in lapidia ouo . i . cum uitello suo et alio
tanto de oleo et tertio de mel tepęfactum das ei bibere et sanabitur.
9.16.2 Item cucurbita saluatica nuce plena cum molle ceruisa dabis diebus supra
dictis.

9.17 Potio ad oua colobrina, p. 413

Potio ad oua colobrina . Collegis radices de erba dosinatia et de ipsis radicis inuenis
nudiculus quasi nuces auillania si satis infirmus <a lasu sunt> fuerit usque tria grana
dabis bibere in nouello medus per dies septem et intermittis die . i . ipsa potio pro-
bata ad uermis qui in stomaco iacient . uel ad omnia maleficia intra hominem ad
expellendos.

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9.18 Pocio ad podalo uermo occidere, p. 416

Pocio . ad podalo uermo occidere . accipe radicinas de callilada . iii . et tres staupus de
aceto uehementi et mitte in olla noua et coquis illas . ii . partes ut ad unum staupum
. ueniat et tunc mitte piper grana . viiii . et bibat tantum qui hac infirmitate patitur et
bibat in luna decurrente.

9.19 Ad pulmones curandum, p. 417

Ad pulmones curandum ius de marubio albo staupo pleno aceto staupus duos . mel
staupo . i . qui omnia bulliat in unum corpus ita ut sit spissum sicut mel et per singulos
dies singula cocliaria accipiat et curat pulmones.

9.20 Sales ieraticas qui faciunt ad acies oculorum usque senectutę et

flegma impetum deducit et suspirium relaxat et dentes putresce non
sinit, p. 418
Sales ieraticas qui faciunt ad acies oculorum usque senectutę et flegma impetum . dedu-
cit et suspirium . relaxat et dentes putresce non sinit ameos . ∻ i s cimino thebaico . ∻ s
poleiu . ∻ i . s . ysopi semen . ∻ iiii . sales frixas . ∻ xx . dabis supra.

9.21 Sales catarticos, p. 418

Sales catarticos qui faciunt podagricis in omni feruore et artitricis . et asmaticis . gin-
giber . dr . iii . petrusilenu . dr . iiii . epitemu . dr . iiii . silfiu . dra . iiii . ameos . dr . iiii . apii
semen . dr . iiii . ciminu . dr . iiii . liuestico . dr iiii . piper dr . iiii . dacridiu dr . iiii . sales
amoniacus . ∻ vii . dabis dose sold . i . semis secundum uires unius pullis in oua uel in
idrogarum aut in calida aqua.

9.22 Oxira podagricis, p. 419

Oxira podagricis ad omnem dolorem picae bitria libras . ii . cera lib . i . amoniaco . ∻ \iii/​
tormenella . ∻ ii . libano . ∻ i . galbano . ∻ i . aceto dr . i . et dimidia.

9.23 Ad serpentes uel alios uerme de omine expellendum potio

probata, p. 423
9.23.1 Ad serpentes uel alios uerme de ominem expellendum potio probata Ius de
cocurbita siluatica nucae plena cum nouella ceruisa ieiuno bibere dabis luna
decurrente.
9.23.2 Item de medulla ceruuna aut de osso aut de corno ipsius cum lacte
capruno bibat.
9.23.3 Item ius de mura campestria expremis et teris foli\a/​de canepa miscis sim\u/​l
et dabis bibere calicę pleno si folia non habes semen mitte ipsum ualet uel.

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9.24 Emplastrum apostolicon, pp. 423–​4

Emplastrum . apostolicon qui facit ad omnes causas et ad omnia uulnera antiqua siue
recentia ad pleomones ad neruia precisa ad musculos et omnes plagas quae a ferro
incidetur siue de uitru carne sagittas educendas infixas corporis uel ad morsum . et
pugtus anima uenenorum terrena et maritimas et uenena trahenda facis et qui in
altum occulta sunt facit etiam apostematicis ad cancros ad igne agrum . ad ceruicę
dolore nimium ad iscrofarum penda et per modico foramine omnia traet sanat . et cic-
atrix non pereat et qui intercosta apostema habent in epatę et in splene a foris inponis
. et intro rumpe egestione et sciros in splenis soluet et sanat . Facit autem arteriaces
ad percussuras uel cirronias que in genua uel in pedes et meliciridas rumpes et sanat
. facit autem ad reumam quecumque dolore et tumore et coxas a genuas et ad talos
descendit ut captaplasma inponet facit etiam . ad fistolas litargirum dr . g . viii . galba-
num dr . viiii . gutta amoniaci . dr . xxvii . cera . dr . lvi . panum dicitur6 . viiii . bidellium
dr . xii . manna turi . dr xii . opopanace dr . viii . aristolocia quale uolueris . dr viii . oleo
uetere lib . i . que tundenda sunt criuellas deinde cera colofonia et oleo solues in foco
et miscis litargirum et postea inmisces . residuas species et tamdiu coques quam mutet
colore.

9.25 Ad ossa si fuerint fracta in testa, p. 432

Ad ossa si fuerint fracta in testa de pipinella [s]‌puluis facis super teola exsiccas et super
puluere ponis si ret[e]\i/​colus fuerit ruptus . lana de pap[a.r]\i/​ro super reticulo ponis
et [a]\i/​nde aceto et mel lauabis.

9.26 Ad ulcera quae in ore nascuntur, p. 435

Ad ulcera quae in ore nascuntur mentastri sucu in uino inmixto collectione hore fre-
quentium facta.

9.27 Ad uitia oris, p. 435

9.27.1 Ad uitia oris apii . radidicis \cum/​mel dequoquis olla . ore sanat.
9.27.2 Item lafasio ex uino decoctum gargarizet ore sanat.

9.28 Ossa in capite si fracta fuerint, p. 437

Ossa in capite si fracta fuerint erba agrimonia contusa cum exungia ueteri fractis
oponis solidat.

6 It looks like a dr abbreviation for denarius was misinterpreted as dicitur at some stage in the
transmission of this recipe.

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9.29 Ad luxum, p. 440

Ad luxum erba agrimonia contusa et inposita super legata sanati fermentum cum acito
lenissimo trito . inposito sanat.

9.30 Antidotum podacricum ad pedis dolorem sedatur, p. 444

Antidotum podacricum ad pedis dolorem sedatur piper album . ℈ viiii . filo armatico .
viiii cimino ℈ viii . gingiber . ℈ viii . hermodictalus . ℈ viiii . isui id est eoforbio ℈ viii
. tundis cribras et reponis cum opus fuerit dabis cum aqua calida aut cum uino . ℈ vii.

9.31 Potione ad ebrugine, p. 447

Potione ad ebrugine erba qui dicitur ebulae college radices ante sole leuante in con-
tra oriente ipsas colleges fenogreco grana . v . lauro folia . iii . piper grana xxx . cum
ceruesa leuante facias staupo pleno et dabis ei bibere et cum ipso bibes habeas uno
ouo fricto dabis ei ad comedendum et in lecto sic coperes calido et usque ad uesperum
ipse custodiat.

9.32 Antidotum ad stomaco frigido qui dicitur climax, p. 448

Antidotum ad stomaco frigido qui dicitur climax recepit haec euulo . ∻ v . fenuculi
semen . ∻ iii . piper . ∻ iii . gingiber . v . mel atico croco . lib . i . aut qualem inuenis
dispumato . erucae semen . ∻ i . si erucae non fuerit . senapi semen . ∻ i . siciopurciri .
hoc est nigella . ∻ ii . sili . ∻ ii . apio ∻ i . petrosilino ∻ . i . in omnibus melior uisus . est
. magnificus et in multis rebus ad inflationibus stomaci et indegentio pacientibus sic
in mulieribus menstrua producet ad madicus mirabiliter operatus . est . facit a ruptus
suauis dattus . et ad omni tussę . et quibus capite in toracę reuma fluit . ad omnis pec-
toris doloris mirabiliter effectus . est.

9.33 Ad dolorem ceruicis, p. 457

9.33.1 Ad dolorem ceruicis artimissia contundus et sucum eius expremis et adis oleo
quantum sucus est pones cera et facis cerotum simplice . haec permiscae et
unguę dolorem.
9.33.2 Item si escapulas doluerint ruta in aceto coquis et in linteo infunde et pedum
inpone.
9.33.3 Item uinum uetus oleo aut exungia uetere ita ut solu[a]‌etur bulliat . et postea
lana sucida carpenata intinguis et expremis fortiter ita ut omnem sua cumque
acciperat emittat quantum fiere potest et sic lana ipsa inponis in aqua cumque
parte dolor . est . mirificae sanat.
9.33.4 Item si tormentos post aurem natus fuerit rutae sucum cum oleo miscis et
cocliare in aure mittis et iaceat in ipsa.

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Recipe Transcriptions 333

9.34 Purgaturium capitis, p. 457

Purgaturium . capitis porcia ad uipus mamentum capitis dolore precipuerit sine febri
materia detrahere per mane res uel per hos que res uel dentibus diucius dolentibus
prodest.

9.35 Ad laterum dolore, p. 461

9.35.1 Ad laterum dolore artemisia cum uino bibat.
9.35.2 Item caulae cumbustae cum exungia lateribus uel coxis et lumbis adpositus
mire sanat.

9.36 Ad dentes ne cadent neque putriscant, p. 472

9.36.1 Ad dentes ne cadent neque putriscant sal granis ieiunus sublingua opponatur
donec liquiscat.
9.36.2 Item ad dentes confirmandos et dolorem cessat et dentes confirmat.
9.36.3 Item ad dentem cauam piper in ipsa partę conmastica.
9.36.4 Item ad dente cum dolore erba centauria ieiunus masticem dentes firmat.
9.36.5 Item rosmarino masticet et inter dentes teneat.
9.36.6 Item ad dentes qui mouentur cornum ceruinum conbustum dentesfricium
utatur confirmat.
9.36.7 Item ad dentium dolore erba simphoniaca radix cocta in uino austeri teneat in
dente qui dolit mox sanatur.

9.37 Ad gengiuas plenas sanguinem, p. 473

9.37.1 Ad gengiuas plenas sanguinem murae agrestae sucus sextarias tres croco uncia
. i . \a/​lumen optimum \∻ i/​mel sestario . i . in suam orę mel admiscis et lento
ignis coquis donec ad spissitudinem mellis ueniat et si cum croto et \a/​lumen
mittis et sic diu igita non solum gengiuas cumtetiris utile est . sed a dentes . et
faucis et uuam . oportum est.
9.37.2 Item ad siccandas gengiuas et stringendos dentes alumen liquendum in carta
nuda inuoluis et carbonibus conburis tundis adquę triuelas uncias tres sal
tostata et trito uncias sex et sic diustissimę in mortario mortario paretur tere
donec tenuissimae estinguae.
9.37.3 Item ad hoc et ad renas qui sub lingua nascuntur alumen ci barbarica . et piper
omnia quod sufficiat tere pariter misee et sic abundantur omnem intrinsecus
os et paletum et ubicumque puteris cum digito tangere etiam ipsam uuam
perfricabis.
9.37.4 Item ad pinnolas que iusta uuam nascuntur que aliquando electum intrare aut
egere de re non sinunt super dicta medicina et hec eas delent si frequenter
perfrecentur cum digito alon triton . cum mel mixtum prodest probatum.

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9.37.5 Item ad exasperationem gengiuarum . folia de rosa tritum cum mel diligenter
et inde gengiuas tanges adsta uero gengiuarum exasperationem alium crudum
non expedit manducare nec alia agraminas et salsidumen debet usare.
9.37.6 Item ad gengiuas si ipsa carnes super dentes creuerit anguistia paciuntur ut
cibum glutire non possunt adsiduę ruptantur dolore in dorso uel in scabolas et
renibus patiuntur his uirtus non de est fleotomandi sunt et post hoc fomento ei
sunt talem facis oleo in quo infusum est mellilotum . et absentio masticę et cas-
toreo dequoquis et ut super diximus stomacum foues aut mellido stomacum
ungues et aspargis desuper pu[c]‌\l/​uerem talem masticae trito ale<m> . et
piper uetella et desuper pagella inponis calida aut lane sucidum floaum et fecit
desuper et epitemacium post expoliarcion aut diespermatum aut [a]sapaptae-
nos aut milion . absentio pontico in calda infuso.

9.38 Antidotum podagricum, pp. 489–​90

Antidotum podagricum quod dicitur calipodium . quod ego terentius eoticianus
accepi post annos sex dolui . fortiter quod in aetate in uani annorum xxxvi . Cum uino
lenter fuissem adflictus ista potionem usus sum per dies . ccclxvi . Ad omnem aut
podagram facit potio haec quem podagrae sunt septem . id est tarda cidata frigidal-
ida contractiosa uulnerosa et lapidosa sic lapidosa curant . ita ut a uiciis p<o>dagrae
sit recessum lapides pedis postea nascuntur et exeunt et mureor lapidum orum loca
medici quomodo non uulnerant non morbo podagreado est [a]‌quo est haec potionem
liberatus . Uirtus autem podagricae pontionis talis . est . ut cum moueat sic nimietatem
per ipsam orina inmittat cuius confectio talis . est . et qualiter sit utendum uel a quibus
rebus sit abstinendum quousque conpleantur numerum ccclxvi . dierum . Id est ergo
aristolocium rotundum lib . i . mirra troclitae lib . i . bacas lauri lib . i . centauria lib . i .
tundis et cribellas postea mittis mellis atici uel distillatio dispumati quantum sufficiat
. confectio seruabis in doleo uitreo dabis ex eo uno sol pondus diurnam in aqua calida
uatis tribus.

10 Cod. sang. 752

10.1 De melancolicis ad fel nigrum deponendum purgatorium quod

deponit umores frigidos et siccos, p. 5
De melancolicis ad fel nigrum deponendu<m> <purga>torium quod deponit . umores
frigidos et <siccos> epitimo . đ . x . menta sicca . lib . x . ℈ ii . piper ∻ . i . hęc conteres
subtilissime et dabis exinde int<egra> potione . ℈ . x . et media potione ℈ v . cum uino
uetere medio calice . faciat hoc frequenter . utilissimum est.

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Recipe Transcriptions 335

10.2 Ad paralisin, p. 5
Ad paralis<in> . sucum erbę salu<[u]‌\i/​>e . đ vi . sucum <sauine> . đ . iiii . mel dispu-
matum đ . ii . uino ∻ i . ieiunus bibat <mirifice> sanat.

10.3 Thymiama Paltgrimi, p. 82

Thymiama Paltgrimi . Gozumbri –​iii . Gumfiti . –​i . Aloa den vi . Musci den . ii . Cafforę
den . ii . Haec omnia terendo miscentur.

10.4 De fico emendando, p. 158

De fico emendando . Accipe plantaginem . et herbam acerem . quae alio nomine gun-
dereba nominatur . et seuum de multone . hoc est unslit . et ista tria tundantur . in mor-
taliolo . et fricantur in patella . et sic ieiunus comedat cum pane . ceruisam et medum
. nec aquam bibat antequam sanetur.

10.5 Si tertiana aut cottidiana febris hominem tangit, p. 158

Si tertiana . aut cottidiana febris hominem tangit . colligat de ueruena manipulum . i .
quae alio modo isarnina uocatur . et viiii . grana de pipero . et cum uino mixtam com-
ponat . et ante accessionem inde bibat staupum unum.

10.6 Quibus cibis abstinere debeant quem paralysin tangit, pp. 158–​9
Quibus cibis abstinere debeant . quem paralysin tangit A pane hordeatio et omni
pane azimo . A carne boum et porcina et caprina . Ab omni aue aquatili . Ab omni
pisce squammam non habente . Ab omni legumine pręter lentem . et foenumgrecum
. Ab omni olere crudo . Ab omni fungo . Ab omni potione quae inebriat pręter uinum
album tenue . et medum tenue et ceruisam tenuam ac leuem . Utatur autem in cibis
. panem de speltu . et frumento bene leuato . Carnem birbicinam . ceruinam . edat et
omne genus uenationis . omnem auem domesticam . et agrestem . et siluestrem . prae-
ter aquatiles . Omnes pisces squamam habentes excepto sal[o]‌mone . De legumine
lenticulam et foenumgręcum . De oleribus porrum coctum . et omnia olera cocta . et
oua sorbilia . Bibat uinum album et tenue . Medum leue . et ceruisam leuem . Crebro
sanguinem minuet . In stuba non lauet . et saluiam assidue bibat gagarismum sumat .
Piretrum masticet . et saliuam proiciat . sternutamentum sibi moueat.

11 Cod. sang. 759

11.1 Anteditum Teodoritum, p. 2

Anteditum teodoritum ad omnia ut celissimo purgaturio qui facit ad dolorem capiti-
tis stomaticis epilemticis melancolicis maniaticis ad pectoris ad lateris dolorem ad
malus humoris coniectus quibus esca acedis contra in estomacho ad tisecus ad eos
qui reumaticas passionis patiuntur et ad eos qui in magrosia ueniunt hoc est in longa

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336  Appendix 2

egritudinem ad hictericus ad itropicus ad neufriticus et qui graue corpus habent ad

colum per hunc anteditum repletus et sane fiunt ad pedes plurimum dolentes ad
incipientem dolore podagricis et mulieris aborsum et ad eos corruptillam uentris
patiuntur uel stomacho ad epaticus ad spleniticus soluit autem uentrem sine molestia
acipiendum est uernum et autumnum uel statem simel aut bis non solum presentibus
curat egritudines sunt et futuris aduenientis infirmitates repellit Si quis autem sanus
usitauerit numquam infirmatur cuius confecis hec est aloe patiti ∻ i croco s∻ reup-
ontico s∻ mastice s∻ cenamo s∻ scamonia s∻ \epitemo s∻/​ asaro s∻ pionie radices
s∻ interionis s∻ <er>ingio hoc est cardo pane ∻ i polipodia ∻ i escolopendrio ∻ i
camitrius ∻ i s exilobalsemo ∻ ii s piper albo ∻ ii s piper nig[e]‌\i/​r\o/​ ∻ ii s meu ∻ i .
brateus ∻ ii scinoentos ∻ ii . gingiber ∻ ii . gentiana ∻ ii . amonto ∻ ii costo ∻ ii . aguro
∻ ii . capare ∻ i mel quod sufficit.

11.2 Ad uulnera in ore, p. 5

Ad uulnera in ore <n>ata costo tundis et criblas ulceribus quae in ore sunt fretas
sanant.

11.3 Ad dentis laxos, p. 5

Ad dentis laxos galla sulpor iudaico carta usta equale mensura \in/​ puluerem redigis et
ex ea dentis fricas et gingibas.

11.4 Ad dentes dolorem trociscus, p. 48

11.4.1 Ad dentes dolorem trociscus murra teris et in dentis ponis.
11.4.2 Item nitrum teris ex uino aceto in pultario deferueat tepefactum dentibus
teneat.

11.5 Infussio ad capud et ad colera, p. 51

Infussio ad capud et ad colera agrimonia uitonica frafolio benedicta gamendrea absen-
tio edera terestria cardone radices menta sisimbrium ortolanum apii folia petrosileno
ruta celedonia iouis barba caulo sauina nepta cerifolia tanacita saluia sal nigro pug-
nata aceto tertia parte de staupo oleo tertia parte de lib califactum et super capud
inponis edera nigra cum oleo roseo et cum sucu eius mixtum cum uino tempera et
freta in fronte.

11.6 Ad fracturas ossorum, p. 52

11.6.1 Ad fracturas ossorum margile alba puluis lib . i . sal lib . ii . conmiscis cum aceto
et album ouarum ponis super non soluis usque vii . dies et bibat uiola cum uino
et piper et sal uiola.
11.6.2 Item farina de faua miscis cum aceto et albumen de ouas et bolo et superponis
dies . vii . et ipsa pocione.

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Recipe Transcriptions 337

11.7 Catarticum artreticis ydropicis, p. 58

Catarticum artreticis ydropicis lacteredas . ∻ ii . ermodactulo ∻ ii . cum oximelle
datum miro est.

11.8 Potio ad podagra, p. 60

Potio ad podagra qui dicitur calapodia qu[a]‌/​e\m ego terentianus accipi et post annus
ex dolui cum in etate iuuenile annorum xxxvi . essem in omne aut podogra[s] facit
quem podagri sunt . vii . id est tarda citata frigida et calida constrictiua uulnerosa et
lapidosa ista potio curat omnes podagras omnem enim morbum per urinas deponit
post mens uel iiii . urina ualde adsidue mouet per mensis . ii . bibatur ergo ista potio
per ccclxvi dies et si propter aliqua necessitate numerus de ipso anno dierum non
fuerit conpletus in alterum annum conpleatur et tamen anno absteneat se a bubula
caprina ueruicina ceruina lactuca beta rafano [cum] curbita cucumere et mellone alio
cybas et de porrus crudos aceto crudo senape piper et si potest fieri a mulieri si non
uel rarius curabus stomachum conficis autem sic aristolocia rotunda cardamom[a]\o/​
petrosileno macedonico murra tr[i]\o/​clite bagas lauri centauria ana lib . i . omnes
tricoci<na.> mellatico quod sufficit reponis in dolio dosis ∻ i . in aqua ciatus iiii.

11.9 Gyma artreticis, p. 61

Gyma artreticis radices euoli subtilioris lib s . mel lib . i . aqua ƒƒ iii . cimino ∻ i . bullis
in aqua usque ad tertias reddatur et dabis bibere die intermisso.

11.10 Puluis qui facit ad implire placas etiam et si ossa minuta habuerit
excutit, p. 61
Pul7 qui facit ad implire placas etiam et si ossa minuta habuerit excutit yrius ∻ i . aris-
tolotia longa ∻ i . panacus rigius ∻ i . mannis ∻ iiii . omnia in puluere redacta sic uteris.

11.11 Malagma aduersus dolores uel fracturas et podagra ad luxum, p. 63

Malagma aduersus dolores uel fracturas et podagra ad luxum pice lib . i . colofonia lib
i . cera lib i . sulfol uiuo lib . i . nitro lib . i . pice liquida ∻ vi . fenogreci puluere ∻ iiii.

11.12 Confectio ydromellis, p. 66

Confectio ydromellis malorum cidoniorum suci ƒƒ v . mellis optimi lib xx aqua pluuialis
ƒƒ xv omnia misci diligenter et in sole esse pondere dies xl postea in uaso recondis.

7 There is no mark of abbreviation around pul, but it can be assumed that puluis was meant,
hence the edited title I have used.

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11.13 Medicamen mirabile ad placas ad sagita percusso, p. 67

Medicamen mirabile ad placas ad sagita percusso oleo roseo et cera et ouarum medio-
lus coctus insimul conmiscis cera uero ante remitis et facis medicamen et uteris.

11.14 Remedium ad punctas, p. 68

Remedium ad punctas lias de ceruisa recentis colas n<..tri> das et alio tando buter
simul miscis et bibe dabis statim sanabitur.

11.15 Ad talorem dolorem quis luxauerit ut dolor pausit, p. 72

Ad talorem dolorem quis luxauerit ut dolor pausit uirgas de rubo haec rumice facis
cinus et oleo conmiscis bene et ubi dolet inponis.

11.16 Ad dentes ut numquam doleant, p. 73

11.16.1 Ad dentes ut numquam doleant rasumus de corium ceruinum in olla rude ad
tertias quoquis et ipsa aqua in ore tenis una iactas alia mitis sanat mox.
11.16.2 Item spina nigra fodis cum oratione dominica scorcia mediana de ipsa radice
man . iii et col . iii . de uino decoquis ad tertias in olla rude et ipso uino in ore
tenis una iactas et alia mitis mox sanat.

11.17 Unguentum ad fractura uel luxatura, p. 75

Unguentum ad fractura uel luxatura buterum berbicino lib i . cera ∻ ii . oleo uetus lib
. i . oleo laurino lib . i . lini semen sucus ∻ i miscis omnia et inungues mire adiuuat.

11.18 Ad dentium dolorem, pp. 75–​6

11.18.1 Ad dentium dolorem plantagine radices turnelle radices manipula singula
coquis in uino ƒƒ i . ad tertias et gargalicit ad solem aut ad foco subinde usque-
dum sanat.
11.18.2 Item milfolio bucco mellis lupopectine scorcia de nogario ana insimul teris et
cum modice ceruisa mis[cus]\cis/​colas mitis ubi dentes dolent apud hoc dor-
miat si potit tempore uiesue dentes numquam dolent.

11.19 Confectio ydromellis, pp. 88–​9

Confectio ydromellis hoc et pro uino usui essę potest \mellis optimi/​aqua fontis . p . xl
. utrumque [mellis optimi dispumato . p xx .] miscebis diligenter in uas fictili tenue et
petito recondis et claudis et mitis ad sole sub tecto diebus xlv . hoc est ex die kalendae
iulio in . ii . o id est agusto Ita ut inter quinque dies uas conuertas ut partis que quinque
diebus <ini>e fuerint superioris fiant . hoc genus poculi ut uinum uetustati melius red-
itur et nescientes si bibant putant se uino obtimo bibere.

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11.20 Conpositio thymiamatis, p. 89

Conpositio thymiamatis myrrae ∻ ii . bidellio ∻ ii . casia fistola ∻ vii . storacis ∻ vi .
ladane . ∻ ii . yrinilirici ∻ ii croci ∻ vi . ungiculas marinas . iii . amomi ∻ vi . uino uet-
eris ƒƒ . i . mellis optimi ƒƒ i . hec omnia miscebis pastillus ex eo facias quos in umbra
siccabis.

11.21 Tymiama simplex, p. 91

Tymiama si[n]‌/​m\plex . storace ∻ ii . mastice ∻ ii myrnę ∻ i . onecus <id est> ungellas
∻ ii . rose uiridis ∻ i . het omnia minute tundis et miscebis et facies pastellus.

11.22 Ad dentes stringendos uel si dolent uel putriscunt aut

sanguinant, p. 92
11.22.1 Ad dentes stri\n/​gendos uel si dolent uel putriscunt aut sanguinant uino aus-
ter\o <. i> porri sucum . ∻ i . usque ./​ad medias decoquis et tepido in ore <diu
\t/​enis>.
11.22.2 Item ad dentis dolorem ad ea parte que dolunt de summa auricula <sang>uinem
auferis cum fleotimum hoc probatum a multis hominibus.

11.23 Ad yctericus, p. 93
11.23.1 Ad yctericus collegis atriplicis satis et in enio mittis ut . diutissime bulliant
postea in tina mittis et quomodo refrigerat ibidem balneare debit et antequam
ibidem intret de ipsa aqua pleno staupo bibere debit facis hoc per triduum et
in quarto die bibat garo staupo dimedio et postea fleotomas.
11.23.2 Item add ictericus ut inter triduum sanus sit croco ∻ i s . nardo ∻ x . cassia
fistola ∻ x . scinuantus ∻ v . amomum ∻ v . piper longo ∻ viii . interionis ∻ viii
. cucumeris similis ∻ i s . murra ∻ xii . ex melle actico conficis et das cum aqua
mulsa in modum auellane maioris.

12 Cod. sang. 761

12.1 Ad incontinentiam hurinae, pp. 55–​6

12.1.1 Ad incontinentiam hurinae ungularum apri . uel suis cinis potione spargitur.
12.1.2 Item leporis cerebrum in uino bibitur . et eiusdem testiculi cocti eduntur.
12.1.3 Item anserum trium linguae asse in cibo sumuntur.
12.1.4 Item cocleae africanę cum sua carnę conburuntur . cinis que earum ex uino
signino bibitur.
12.1.5 Item uisica suis sterelis cinere redacta ex uino bibitur.
12.1.6 Item uisica capraeę assata manducatur.
12.1.7 Item ciminum quantum tribus digitis leuatur conterito . et adiectis uini quiatis
. duabus totidem que aque ieiunus bibito.

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12.1.8 Item olei nardi . lib . i . terbentina . lib . i . cera ∻ viii . piper ∻ i . aut si piper
nolueris . nitri . ∻ ii . mittis et facto cerotario uteris supra pectinem quamdiu
sentias beneficium.

12.2 Oxyra crocira, pp. 59–​60

Oxyra crocira facit epaticis . spleneticis . et ad ypocondriae tensiones . nefreneticis . et
ad omnes neruorum passiones . pleureticis . peripleumonicis . sciaticis . et ad luxus . ad
fracturas et incisos neruos sanat . soluit autem et omnem duritiam . et ad serpentium
morsum . uel ad morsum canis rapidi . extrahit spinas . aut quecumque infixa fuerint
corpori . expurgat ulcera malitiora . pice sicca brutia . lib ii . cera lib . i . amoniacum
timiamatum ∻ iiii . libanum arrinum ∻ iiii . galbanum ∻ iiii . croco . ∻ ii . acetum
acerrimum ss . iii . teris amoniacum . libanum cum aceto ad mellis cocti pinguidinem
et in alio mortario teris c\r/​ocum . picem autem mittis in cacabo testeo non in aereo et
supermittis quod superauerit acetum et coquis agitas frequenter . et cum acetus fuerit
consumptus . supermittis amoni\ac/​um et libanum . agitas frequenter ne foras exeat .
et postea mittis crocum effundis in mortario bene et uteris.

12.3 Emplastrum somato filax, pp. 62–​3

Emplastrum somato filax qui facit ad canis morsum . curat etiam si sit rabidus uulnera
uetera sanat sciradas parotidas furunculas et omnia apostema curat oculorum rup-
turas uel percussuras sanat . Neruis prodest . podagricos paragorizat dolorem aurium
leuat . si ex hoc emplastrum inponatur . condilomata et omnia soluit . et quicquid circa
caput uicii nasci potest . qui cauculum patiuntur si ex hoc [pa] emplastrum accipiat
ab umbilico pub<is> tenus per urinam lapides exyre compellit . oris uitia curat . si buc-
cis fuerit inpositum syringia sanat . tussientibus et tisicis adiuuat . in stomacho uitia
omnia mala curat . conficis sic . lupini uiridis sucum . ∻ ii . maratri sucum ∻ ii . nepite
sucum ∻ ii . lapatii sucum ∻ ii . arnoglose sucum ∻ ii . iusquiami sucum ∻ ii . prassii
sucum ∻ ii . medullae ceruunae . ∻ viii . resina pituina ∻ v . seu taurino lib v . gipsu spe-
claris ƒƒ i . omnia cum fuerint diligenter soluta mitte sucos et agita diutissime ut totum
misceatur et postea mittis gypsum et ad ea quę suprascripta sunt utere.

12.4 Emplastrum apostolicum, pp. 65–​6

Emplastrum . apostolicum qui facit ad omnes causas et ad omnia uulnera antiqua siue
recentia ad flegmonas . ad neruos pretiosos . ad musculos . et ad omnes plagas ferro
incisas . siue sordidas . uitro canna sagittas educendas infixas corpori . uel ad morsus
et punctas animantium uenenosorum [neruorum] terrenorum uel maritimorum et ad
uenena extrahenda foris que . in alto occulta sunt . facit etiam apostematicis ad cancros
ad ignem acrum . ad ceruicis dolorem nimium ad scrofas rumpendas . et per modicum
feramen omnia adtrahit . sanat ut cicatrix non appareat . et qui intercostas aposte-
mas habent in epate et in splene a foris et intus rumpuntur . per gestionem et scirosin

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Recipe Transcriptions 341

splenis soluit et sanat . facit artriticis . facit ad percussuras uel cironia quae in genibus
uel in pedibus et meliceridas rumpit et sanat . facit autem ad reumam quecumque
cum dolore et tumore ad coxas ad genua uel ad talos discendit ut cataplasma inposita .
facit etiam ad fistolas . litargirum . lib i s . galbano ∠ viiii . gutta moniaci ∠ xxvi . cera ∠
vi . colofonia ∠ lvi . myrra ∠ viii . eruginis campane ∠ viii . bidellui ∠ xii . manna turis ∠
xii . opopanace ∠ viii . iii ∻ i . aristolocia ∠ viii . oleo uetere lib ii . quae tundendas uel
cribellas . et deinde colofoniam ceram et oleum soluis in foco . et miscis lytargirum et
postea miscis residuas species . et tamdiu coquis quamdiu mittitur colorem.

12.5 Thimiama, p. 66
Thimiama . cozzunbar ∻ iii . aloa arbor den iii . confitum . cafora den . i . musico den . i.

13 Cod. sang. 878

13.1 Ad fracturam uel uulnera ferri,8 p. 333

Ad fracturam uel uulnera ferri . Farina \melo/​ordeacia \hirstan/​. Adeps \smero/​ apri-
nus uel uerrinus . urtica minor \nezzela/​.

13.2 [Recipes for incense],9 p. 334

13.2.1 [Untitled recipe]
Cotzubri . lib . vi .
Storace calamite . unc . viii .
Gumfiti . unc . xviii .
Aloa . unc . xviii .
Cafora . unc . ii .
Musco . denar . xviii .
Amber . denar . iiii.
13.2.2 Item aliter
Cotzubri . lib . vi .
Storacis ysaurici . unc . viiii .
Confiti . unc . xviii .
Cariofili . unc . iii .
Cinnamomi . unc . vi .
Ciperi . unc . vi .
Turis . unc . v .

8 Inserted, italicised words are interlinear glosses in Old High German that were added by a
later scribe.
9 These recipes are recorded as lists with each ingredient on a new line, so I have replicated
this structure in my transcriptions.

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342  Appendix 2

Myrrae . unc . iii s

Masticis . unc . ii s
Spici . unc . vi .
Croci . unc . i s
Aloa . unc . xvii .
Cafora . unc . ii . den . v .
Musco . den . xviii .
Ambar . den . iiii.

14 Cod. sang. 899

14.1 Si tertiana aut cottidiana febris hominem tangit, p. 131

Si tertiana aut cottidiana febris hominem ta\n/​git colligat de ueruena manipulum . i
. quę alio modo isarnina uocatur . et viiii grana de pipero et cum uino mixtam com-
ponat . et ante accessionem inde bibat staupum . i.

14.2 De fico emendando, p. 131

De fico emendando . Accipe plantaginem et herbam acerem que alio nomine gunder-
eba nominatur et seuum de multone hoc est unslit et ista tria tundantur in mortariolo
. et fricantur in patella et sic ieiunus comedat . cum pane . ceruisam et medum nec
aquam bibat antequam sanetur . De libro Grimaldi tuli.

14.3 Confectio timiamatis, p. 137

14.3.1 Confectio timiamatis . Cotsumber . lib vi . rasina stiru\a/​x stora\c/​ę calamite ∻
viiii . gumfiti ∻ xviii . gariofile unc iii . cinamo ∻ vi . ciferus ciperum unc v . thus
unc v . mirra iii . mastic ∻ ii . spica ∻ vii . croco ∻ . i . aloa ∻ vi . cafora ∻ ii et din
ii . musico din xviii . ambar dinr iiii.
14.3.2 Item alia . Timiamatis confectio cotsumber lib . i . stora\cę/​calamite ∻ i . gari-
ofile sol ii . cinamum ∻ i . tus ∠ gumfiti ∻ iiii . spica unc i <ca> sol i . aloa ∻ iiii .
cafora sol i . musico sol i.
14.3.3 Item alia . Aloa (.) ii . gumfiti (.) ii . croco duas partes de dr . caphora similiter
. musico similiter . spico din i . tus duas partes de dr . cynamo dir i s . stora\cę/​
calamite similiter cariofilo similiter cotsumber (.) vi.

14.4 Cataplasma ad tumorem brachii que ex fleubotomo contingit, p. 141

Cataplasma ad tumorem brachii que ex fleubotomo contingit . farina tritici cum ouo et
lacte conpastas et superpone per triduum.

14.5 Cataplasma ad tumorem, p. 141

14.5.1 Cataplasma ad tumorem . stercus caprinum cum aceto teris inpone sub
nocte sanat.

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Recipe Transcriptions 343

14.5.2 Item ad tumores liuores . contusiones lenticula cum aceto et mel coquis . et sic
cataplasma.
14.5.3 Item ad liuorem tollendum absinthium tere cum mel et fac cataplasma in lin-
teo inducis et inponis.

14.6 Ne cadant dentes neque putrescant, p. 141

Ne cadant dentes neque putrescant . salis granum sub lingua ieiunus oppone donec
liquiscat . confirmat dentes nec putrescant sinit.

15 Cod. sang. 1396

15.1 Ad dentes molares, p. 19

Ad <dentes> molares uel ad omnes <..e........nupi/​t... n.. pasib..um in uino uiles qui
m..g..m nome d..........is albe burionis suco cotilis duabus in oc...ul..s... cordices coquis
ad ter...s et...ore ........dil...t per dies vii num...de....ol.....>.

15.2 Ad luxum uel contussim, p. 20

Ad luxum uel <con>tussim origanum cum aceto et oleo cum lana sucida superponitur.

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

16 Pal. lat. 1088

16.1 Medicamentum ad maculas oculorum et ad caliginem, p. 34v

Medicamentum \a/​d maculas oculorum et ad caliginem . licio . ∠ i aloe . ∠ i . caffora .
∠ ii . teris cum uino uetere albo . licio . et aloe . insimul teris caffora uero . puluera facta
postea . super ipsum . medicamentum . adiungis . et miscis insimul . et repones in uas
uitreo . aut in ęreo et cum opus fuerit . mittas in oculo guttas ii . mane et uespere.

16.2 Ad dentium dolorem,10 ff. 35r–​35v

16.2.1 Ad dentium dolorem radices fraxini uino calices . iii . decoquis ad tertias et
sic inde in os dentis qui dolet diu ibidem teneat . frequenter faciat et mitigat
dolorem.
16.2.2 Item herba ueruena radices ex uino uetere decoquis et exinde frequentius
dentes lauet qui dolorem infra biduum tollit.
16.2.3 Item alium cum aceto in dentes qui dolet intus teneat frequenter.

10 The inserted, italicised word in 16.2.5 is an interlinear gloss in Old High German that was
added by a later scribe.

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344  Appendix 2

16.2.4 Item herba millefolia ieiunus frequenter masticet.

16.2.5 Item he\r/​ba simphoniace \<oss...zunge>/​in uino fortissimo cocta et sic ipsum
ius in os mittit et teneat diutius super dentes qui dolet et sanabitur.
16.2.6 Item uittonica ex uino uetus et aceto a tertias decocta gargarizata dolorem
dentium discutit.
16.2.7 Item ad dentem cauum stercus coruinus ibidem inponis dentem rumpit et
dolorem tollit.
16.2.8 Item plantaginem radice masticetur.
16.2.9 Item farina de nocella in cauum dentem mittat sanabitur.
16.2.10 Item larice in dentem mittis super noctem sanat.

16.3 Ad experatione gingiuarum, f. 35v

16.3.1 Ad experatione gingiuarum olia rosę teres cum mel diligenter inde tangis gingi-
uas et oleo cru<dum> non manducet nec ullum agrumen sed menta manducet
. et sanus fit.
16.3.2 Item oleo uetus nares infundat frequenter.
16.3.3 Item qui\n/​quefolia radices sucus cum aqua gargarizetur.

16.4 Ad ulcera oris uel quidquid intra labiis fuerit,11 f. 35v

16.4.1 Ad ulcera oris uel quidquid intra labiis fuerit rumicis \<ebeohowe>/​et pamp-
inis folia tenere a tertias . in uino reteneat.
16.4.2 Item plantaginis sucum in ore teneat.
16.4.3 Item porri folia sine pane manducat.
16.4.4 Item ad asperitudinem lingue sucum mente cum mel mixtum mistificat.

16.5 Ad serpentes uel aliorum uermes de homine expellendum potio

probata, ff. 37r–​37v
16.5.1 Ad serpentes uel aliorum uermes de \h/​omine expellendum potio probata
sucum de cucurbita siluatica . nuce plena cum nouella ceruisa ieiuno dabis
bibere . luna decursa.
16.5.2 Item medulla ceruina aut de ossum aut de cornu ipsius cum lacte caprino bibat.
16.5.3 Item ius de mora campestria exprimis et teris folia de cannabe miscis simul et
dabis bibere calice pleno et si folia non habes semen mitte ipsum ualet si mora
non est lacte caprino calidum facis . Haec potio herba uel omnia malefitia aut
uermes omnes prohicit.
16.5.4 Item Ad uermes de infantes prohiciendos pingue de lardo porcino cocleares .
iii . ieiunus bibat.

11 The inserted, italicised word in 16.4.1 is an interlinear gloss in Old High German that was
added by a later scribe.

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Recipe Transcriptions 345

16.6 Ad punctas que lateribus superueniunt, ff. 39v–​40r

16.6.1 Ad punctas que lateribus superueniunt aprotano trito in aqua colatum medium
calicem tepidum bibat admiscis modicum sal.
16.6.2 Item herba candula manipulum . i . teres cum uino calice . i . dabis bibere iei-
uno et sic iaceat super dolorem.
16.6.3 Item gutta ammoniaci siue pannace . sold . pensante aloę aceto sale singula
coclearia omnia insimul teres et dabis bibere ieiuno et tamdiu . super ipsum
latus iaceat quousque sudat.
16.6.4 Item sanapidos distemperas cum aqua frigida mirum est.
16.6.5 Item flores de cardos qui dicitur caletrepa siue radices eius cum tres nucleos de
persico diliter teris et cum aqua dabis bibere et iaceat super ipsum latus proba-
tum est.

16.7 Ad uentris dolorem uel tumores uel intestinarum, f. 40v

16.7.1 Ad uentris dolorem uel t[o]‌\u/​mores uel intestinarum sementis uitae decoc-
tum ex aqua fumentabis uentrem dolores et tumores tollit si per triduum hoc
feceris.
16.7.2 Item erba quinquefolia sucum dabis bibere cocleare ii . sine mora dolor tollitur
et ipsa tunsa inposita dolorem tollit et sucum eius bibat et toracem et uen-
trem sanat.
16.7.3 Item uittonica . ʒ . i . in aqua calida ciatos . ii . bibat . his autem <a\p/​ta\r/​[i]‌>
potio si non cruditate ciborum intestinarum quiebunt.
16.7.4 Item ad testinarum dolorem herba nepita sucum bibat et sanat.
16.7.5 Item ad duritiam uentris lini semen cum mel tritum in ceruisia ieiunus bibat
mirum est.

16.8 Ad lumborum dolores, ff. 41r–​41v

16.8.1 Ad lumborum dolores uittonica . ʒ . iii . uino rubeo ciatos iii . piper grana . xvii
tritum et calefactum ieiunus bibat.
16.8.2 Item ad lumborum uel coxarum dolores . herba sinicionem per se trita
potui data.
16.8.3 Item alium non mundatum cum axungia contusso in panno superposit[o]‌\
um/​ resanat.

16.9 De simplices uulneribus ad capitis fracturam, f. 44v

De simplices uulneribus ad capitis fracturam uittonica contussa et super uulnus inpos-
ita mira celeritate gluttinat . eo quide sanabis si tertio quoque die recentiorem fre-
quentius inposueris donec sanescat etiam et ossa fractura extrahit.

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16.10 Ad alia uulnera uel plagas ubicumque a ferro aut quolibet, f. 44v
16.10.1 Ad alia uulnera uel plagas ubicumque a ferro aut quolibet facta menta per se
inposita uulnera recentia glutinat.
16.10.2 Item herba plantago tunsa cum axungia uetere sine sale inponitur.
16.10.3 Item herba millefolium cum axungia pistata inponis.
16.10.4 Item ad plaga recente porri folia in quantum super terra esse uidetur . pista et
exprimis sucum . et iterum pistas coque usque non habeat sucum et ponis ipso
pistato super plagam et die tertio soluis et inuenies eum sanum probatum est.
16.10.5 Item potiones ad ipsas plagas sanandas uel fistulas uel quecumque uulnera ubi-
cumque uittonica . agrimonia fragisfolia consoldas minores . ii . maiores . iii .
ptron\i/​ola siue fastidiosa tribulos . ii . haec omnia manipulos xxii mel coclearia
. ii . et si uelis addis grano mastice . facis potionem dabis bibere cum necesse
fuerit probatum est.

16.11 Ad neruos incisos, f. 45r

16.11.1 Ad neruos incisos lumbricos terrenos combures teres leniter cum mel permis-
cis et inponis superconglutinat.
16.11.2 Item et ipsos uiuos cum mel superponis.
16.11.3 Item saluiae folia tunsa sucum eius expręssum desuper stillatum et quod
remanet ponis super.
16.11.4 Item cocleas uiuas cum testa sua combustas et tonsas adiecto libano pari pon-
dere inponis praecisos neruos sanat.

16.12 Ad contussione uel luxatura de praesenti, f. 45v

16.12.1 Ad contussione uel luxatura de praesenti cineres et sale ponis in bo<c>colare
calefac et cum aceto bono fermentabis et ligas super.
16.12.2 Item ad luxaturas aut talorum dolorem stercus caprinus in aceto solutum
coquis ut cataplasma . inponis.
16.12.3 Item herba origanum cum aceto et cum sucida lana inponis.
16.12.4 Item agrimonia contussa superponis sanat.
16.12.5 Item lili folia tunsa et superposita sanat et tumorem tollit.
16.12.6 Item femus uituli recente calidum adpositum sanat.

16.13 Ad eos qui cum toxicata sagittasi sunt, ff. 46v–​47r

Ad eos qui cum toxicata sagittasi sunt beta domestica et saturegia aequaliter teres et
cum uino dabis bibere et in ipsa plaga mittis sale et sputas.

16.14 Puluis ad dentium commotionem, f. 50r

Puluis ad dentium commotionem . costu . gallas . piper uaca cipressi in furno coc-
tas corticem panis ordeacii combusti . yris ylirica foliu sale scammoniacu aequis
ponderibus.

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Recipe Transcriptions 347

16.15 Dentifricium ad dentium splendorem, f. 50r

dentifricium . ad dentium splendorem ordeum et sal commixto mel dispumatum
donec sibi cohibeant . mitte omnia in linteolum conbures terito hoc dentifricium usus
nigros dentes ad candorem rediis et oris graue molestiam corrigis.

16.16 Dentifricium odoris fetorem, f. 50r

Dentifricium odoris fetorem speculare coctu . piper puleiu contere cribella et in unum
commisces et utere . Usu ergo cottidiano dentes confirmat gingiuas essiccat . uuam loco
suo reuocat oris fetorem tollit . Uim pridiani . uel acriitio . iiii . odorem aufert . quamdiu
quo usus fuerit . nullum dentes perdent . conficitur ergo huius dentifritii . siue medic-
aminis sic costum ad bonum odorem ciperum ad fauces deliniendas . cardamomum ad
oris uulnera . erba sabina propter elefantiam yris illirica ad dentium . yusquiamum ad
pruriginem . alumen scisum ad uuam bacas lauri . ad frigdorem . piretrum et stafidoag-
ria propter umorem capitis exsiccandos . mastice propter suauitatem tus ad gingi.

16.17 Dentifritium qui omnem humorem exsiccat, ff. 50r–​50v

Dentifritium qui omnem humorem exsiccat . ad omnia quae in ore sunt passiones .
quod obtime curat dentes nigros candidos facit . agitantes solidat . dolentes saluat .
reumaticos densat humestos constringit . uulneratos soluit . putrida expurget . uuam
reumaticam siccat . Sed odorem bonum dat ori . cum melle uteris ad uulnera sordida .
Recipit haec sales cammoniacos . lib . i . sales communes . lib . i . pumice combusta . ∻ vi
. corni cerbini combusti . ∻ vi . specularia uirgine ∻ vi . testa ostreae . ∻ vi . sippie testas
. ∻ iii . amomu . ∻ ii . piper . ∻ ii . radices arga ∻ ii . galba . ∻ ii . yreos yllirice . ∻ iii acoru
. ∻ iii . lentisci folia . ∻ iii . iunci radices . ∻ iii . alumen scissum . ∻ iii . spicana nardi . ∻
iii . flores rose . ∻ iii . cassia fistula . ∻ ii . masticae . ∻ ii . myrra . ∻ ii . foliu . ∻ ii . costu .
∻ ii . semen balsami . ∻ . i . corallu . ∻ . ii . haec omnia separatim combusta miscebis ea
. quae combusta sunt . cum his quae contundis cribellas et uteris ad omnia suprascripta.

16.18 Puluera ad plagam assucandam et stringendam et celerius

sanandam et carnem mortuam manducat, f. 50v
Puluera ad plagam assucandam et stringendam et celerius sanandam et carnem mor-
tuam manducat . et confectio eius haec est mirra . \li/​banum masticae colofonia pice
nigra . Auropigmentum . bolorminum . galla . aloę . gipsu cornu ceruinu incensu .
Aristolocia rotunda . Omnia aequis ponderibus trita cribata puluerem factum et cum
opus fuerit uteris ad supra scriptas causas.

16.19 Antidotum Adrianum, f. 52v–​53r

16.19.1 Antidotum adrianum cuius uirtus est ammirabilis fatigatis aduersus uires
dabis omnibus tamen in modum fabe aegiptiae . facit autem ad has causas
aepaticis in uino et mel . frebricitantibus in hidromelle . epilenticis similiter
opistotonicis in mulsa tepida pleureticis in hydromelli . ciatis . iii . stomachum

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348  Appendix 2

dolentibus in pusca ciatis . iii . Eis qui de fluxu uentris laborant id est . eis qui
de fluxu corporis laborant in frigida ciatis . iii . Ad renum dolorem cum calida
. cauculosis id est ad morbum regium cum ydromelli ydropicis cum mulsa eis
qui perfrictionem patiuntur ieiunis periodicis . typicis ante a\cc/​essionem . Ad
dentium dolorem in gargarismo uel modice exinde in ipsum dentem adposi-
tum . et orem apertum habeat ut omnis umor de capite in terram decurrat .
Eis qui sanguinem uoment in pusca . disintericis cum pusca . s[.]‌ciatis cum
mulsa speneticis cum pusca paraliticis cum mulsa . Eis qui precordia in feruore
habent uel inflantur . aut ex dolore conpunguntur . et ad secundas mulierum
cum ydromelli uel cum sucum fenigreci purgat uero apostoma in interiora lab-
orantibus Tisicis ad noctem in ydromelli . eis qui tussem patiuntur addito mel
cum idromelli . Eis qui a serpente mordentur cum mel eis \qui/​a spallangione
mordentur id est qui a mure cecum mordentur cum pusca . Eis qui uenenum
acceperint cum suco tipsane uel oleo cuius antidoti uirtutem si cognosceris
includis gallum et serpentem uenenosum serpis uero occidet gallum postea
ponis de antido\to/​huius granum in ore uel in aure galli et mox reuiuescet de
quo antidoto nihil dubites quia ex ultima morte reducit homines [d]ad pris-
tinam sanitatem . quia frequenter probatus est in omnibus passionibus Recipit
hęc calamum arromaticum . ʒ . vi costu . ʒ vi daucu . \id est semen pastinace/​
ʒ ii . castoreu . ʒ . ii . siseleos ʒ xii . cardamomum . ʒ . iii . ameos . ʒ iii . carpo-
balsamu . ʒ vi . sagapinu . ʒ iii . piper albu ʒ iii piretru . ʒ iii . crocu . ʒ xliiii .
ciperu \id est iunco triangolo radix ./​. ʒ vi . e\u/​forbiu . ʒ. iii . amomum . ʒ iii .
spica nardi . ʒ . iii . rute ag\r/​este semen . ʒ . iii . mirra . ʒ . viii . opiu . ʒ xxx . cas-
sia . ʒ viii . appii semen . ʒ iii . y[o]\u/​squiami semen \id est canilata/​. ʒ xxxiii
. rosa sicca . ʒ . iii . petrosilinu . ʒ vi opobalsamo . ʒ viii . gentiane radices . ʒ iiii
. gamedreos . ʒ ii . aristolotia ʒ ii . bacas lauri . ʒ ii . mel acticum sufficienter .
uteris ad omnes causas supra scripta nihil dubites.
16.19.2 Item adrianum ad eadem quod supra . Recipit haec . opiu . ʒ x . piper album ʒ
xx . crocu . ʒ v . amomum . ʒ . i . piretru . ʒ . i . foliu . ʒ . i daucu . ʒ . i . cassia . ʒ .
i . petrosilenum . ʒ . ii . sagapinu . ʒ ii . ciperu . ʒ ii costu . ʒ ii . yosquiamu . ʒ xx
eu\for/​biu . ʒ . i . spica nardi . ʒ . i . \ruta/​piganu . ʒ i . apii semen . ʒ i . castoreu
. ʒ i rosa sicca ʒ ii . anissu . ʒ i . ci\n/​namomu . ∠ . xilobalsamu \lignum ipsum/​ .
ʒ ii . nitru . opobalsam[o]‌\u/​ana . ʒ ii . mel dispumatu quod sufficiat.

16.20 Antidotum panchristum, ff. 53r–​53v

Antidotum panchristum qui ad omnes aegritudines necessarium est qui sic accipitur
in similitudine fabe aegiptiae colligis in aqua calida pensu sold . i . in ciatis . iii . epaticis
cum uino calido . epilempticis caducis cum aqua calida ipsa mensura . stomaticis cum
pusca calida . renes dolentibus cum aqua calida ictericis cum uino obtimo . febric-
itantibus cum aqua calida cauculosis et stranguiriosis similiter dabis et qui tipum
patiuntur . cum ydromelle quartani siue tertianis ea hora sanantur . dentes dolentibus

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Recipe Transcriptions 349

caraxatis de ferro exinde fricentur et aperto ore umor decurrat . sanguinem excrean-
tibus cum pusca frigida ipsa mensura desintericis catapotias per nocte accipiant cum
uino aut cum calda aqua aut cum cond<it>o detur . Tortiones iuxta uires cum aqua
calida detur inflationes habentur ut supra datur menstrua mulieribus prouoca\n/​
t\tes/​ cum idromelle aut cum suco fenigrece et cum omni celeritate parebunt . Ad
morsum serpentis cum melle bibatur et de ipso medicamine in plaga inponis . et ad
uenenum mirifice prodest . cum suco gentiane . Recipit haec calamu aromatico car-
damomum costu . ana . ʒ v . castoreu ae\u/​forbiu amomu piretrum spica nardi . dauci
cretici semen . rute agresti\s/​semen . cassia rosa sicca fenuculi semen . ana . ʒ iiii .
siseleos . ʒ xii . opiu . ʒ xxx crocu . ʒ . xv . zimziber ʒ iiii . apii semen yosquiamu ana .
ʒ iiii petroselinum dragmas . v . opobalsamo ʒ vii carpobalsamo . ʒ v . sagapinu . ʒ iiii .
meu piper albu . ana . ʒ iiii . mel acticum quantum opus fuerit misces haec omnia simul
tritas diligentissime et sic ammiscis postea mel.

16.21 Antidotum gera Galieni fortissima, ff. 55v–​56r

Antidotum gera galieni fortissima quae facit cefalargicis . scotomaticis epilempticis
colericis melancolicis fleumaticis quartanariis . stomacis emitritaicis ydropicis pleu-
reticis . diaforeticis elefantiacis podagricis artriticis siadicis disintericis ciriacis apo-
plecticis paraliticis et qui maniam patiuntur . ydrofobicis hictericis colicis epaticis
spleniticis ambliopiasis litargicis nefreticis facit et ad oculorum passiones . id est sem-
osin extenuat oculis uisum cerebro medetur auribus auditum prebet fauces et arteria
purgat dentium dolorem conpescit renibus est ammirabilis mulieribus salubris uocem
claram restituet asmaticis et suspiriosis medetur et longinquas aegritudines sine mora
curat . strumaticos sanat febres omnes auertit omnes malos dolores curat . lepras
omnes permundat cancros curat et si quis uenenum biberit omnia curat quae confec-
tio prima est omnibus Recipit haec aloę . ∻ iii . petrosilinum absintium piper nigrum
ana . ∻ iiii coloquintidos \cucumera agrestis/​interioris squilla cocta in pane agaricu \
bollidus larice/​ammoniaco . diagridium \scamonia/​gariofiri . ipericu \. triscalamo ./​.
ana . ∻ x . epithimum polipodius siccu bdelliu camedreos prassius siccu cassia ana ∻
viii . smirna \mirra/​sagapinu aristolotia longa p\i/​per album piper longum cinnamo-
mum opopanace . castoreum ana ∻ iiii . mel quod sufficit . dosis est . ∠ dabis cum
mulsa et addis salis tri\ti/​coclearium . i . est autem potio haec \ni/​mis admirabilis
dabis ad omnia supra scripta nihil dubites.

16.22 Antidotum sotira, ff. 59r–​59v

Antidotum sotira facit ad omnes causas inuisibiles post autem cum aqua calida bibitum
capitis dolorem soluit stomachi umorem desiccat in accessionibus et diebus aneticis
uigilias in somnum perducere ad frenetico dolorem oculi mitigat et reumatismum ocu-
lorum constringit superinuntum cum lac mulieris dentium dolore conpescere anelitum
nimium pausare facit omnem causam corporis extinguit . tussienti quam et pleuresim
p[l]‌eripleumonia et uiscerum tensionem aepaticis et omnem causam releuat desiccat

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350  Appendix 2

etiam de pulmone umectationem flegmam uel saliuam pinguem cito reiactare facit si
cum mulsa detur . et emoptoicis cum suco poligoni et aceto datur . uel arnoglosse suco
uirtutem aegrotanti praestat non delectantibus cibos manducare facit . uomitum strin-
git hictericos sanat melancolia et qui multum cogitant . et uigilias in somnum reuocat
. pulmonis grauitudinem sanat . colorem bonum facit . flecma de corpore per intestina
deponit . urina prouocat et poros ureticos perducit conscriptiones uel trobos renum
et uesice purgat . dissinteria sanat . paraliticis medetur . maxime si in ueretrum fuerit .
ciliacos firmiter curat . spa\s/​mos sanat . paralisin omnibus curat . illis autem qui non
possunt per os accipere per clistere iniciatur . Adiecto suco fenigreci . matricis impetus
soluit . sanguinis fluxum . uel humorum uicia constringit . enconpilmauis ad artriticis .
podagricis . sciati\ci/​s in doloribus magnam uirtutem ostendit . non solum per os saluat
. sed in illis locis inunctus lixoperitu autem est . In maioribus febribus dabis ad omnem
tipus quartanis plus dabis . me uero de quartana febre in tres potiones liberauit . Recipit
hec murra ∻ ii . ∠ . i . anissum ∻ i . ∠ i castoreu ∻ i . ∠ i . opiu . ∻ ii . ∠ . ii . cassia . fistula ş .
petrosilini . ∻ ii . apii semen ∻ ii ∠ ii . piper longum . ş . piper nigru ∻ ii sinonu suriac<ci>
∻ i ş . cinnamomum ş . storace ∠ . vi . siseleos . ş . idiocrocomagmatos . ∠ . vi . amomum
ş . squinantu ∻ i . ş . costu . ∠ . vi asaru . ∠ . vi spica indica ∻ i . ∠ . v . crocu . ∻ ii . mel
dispumatum quod sufficit . datis . ut supra dictum est . et miraberis.

16.23 Oxira crocira, f. 60r

Oxira crocira facit epaticis spleneticis ad [i]‌ypocondria tensiones nefreticis ad omnem
neruorum tensiones . pleureticis peripleumonicis artriticis sciaticis et omnem neruo-
rum contractiones . et luxas et fracturas et incisos neruos soluit autem et omnes duri-
tias et ad serpentium morsus et canis rabii morsum . Recipit hec . pi[s]ce sicca brittia
lib . ii . cera lib . i . ammoniacam ∻ iiii . galbanum ∻ iiii . libanu ∻ iiii . crocu ∻ ii .
acetum fortem sextarios . iii . teris ammoniacam et libanum cum aceto . ad mellis spis-
situdinem cocti . et in alio mortario teris crocum . pice autem mittis . et quod superauit
acetum in cacabo et coques et agitas frequenter . et cum acetum fuerit consumatum .
supermittis ceram . et cum se soluerit supermittis ammoniacam . et libanum et agitas
frequenter adtende ne foris exeat de olla et posthec mittis . galbanum . et cum fue-
rit resolutum et ammolentum sic supermittis crocum et fundes in mortario et miscis
bene et fac magdaliones et uteris.

16.24 Unguentum ad febrientes, ff. 62r–​62v

16.24.1 Unguentum ad febrientes . nepte suco partes . ii . oleo partem . i . commisces
calidum . a cubitis usque ad summitatem digitorum perunges . similiter a geni-
bus usque ad summum articulorum . et modicum in uertice capit[e]‌\i/​s id est
coclearia . inungues . et miraberis uirtutem eius.
16.24.2 Item . unguentum absinthio sext[e]‌\a/​rium . i . oleo sex . i . aceto sex . i . com-
misces et coques donec ad mensuram olei ueniat . addes ceram facies cerotum
. in li\n/​teum induces . super stomachum impones . cum sudare ceperit tolles.

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Recipe Transcriptions 351

16.24.3 Item unguentum . ius ueruenę . et oleo roseo ana mensura misces . et quamli-
bet febrem inunges expertum est.
16.24.4 Item unguentum rasura de \cu/​curbita exprimis sucum eius . cum oleo roseo
admisces ana mensura frigidum totum corpus perungues . et si hiems fuerit
calidum appones certum est.
16.24.5 Item unguentum iusquiami radices tritis lib . i . nepte suco bibat . ii . oleo lib i .
medulla ceruina unc . iii . cęra unc . i . mittes in ollam rude[s]‌m . coques lento
igne semper agitando donec ad medium ueniat . et sic calidum per linte[o]\u/​
m excolabis . et cum refrigerauerit . quod super est induratum mitte in mor-
tario cum modico aceto . bene conteres et repones in buxta et uteris.
16.24.6 Item artemisię suco cum oleo perungues mirum est.

16.25 Potio contra artreticam siue nesciam uel podagram, f. 65v

Potio contra artreticam . siue nesciam uel podagram . Aloę dr . iii . pensante . Centauria
. manps . iii . Absintio . manps . ii . Aqua calices . vi . quoquis in olla rude usque ad
quatuor uenies et sic utere.

16.26 Antidotum gira deacoloquintidis, f. 90r

Antidotum . gira . deacoloquintidis . facit . ad uertiginem . et dolorem capitis . epilen-
ticis qui subito angustia incurrit ad dolorem . pectoris et qui de nigra colera laborant
pleoreticis et ad malas humores indegestibiles stomaticis . epaticis . et uentris dolorem
colicis et qui longam egritudinem habent . eruginosis . et qui malam colorem habent
neufreticis . et qui grauitudine corporum habent . idropicis et qui subito grauantur .
tisicis . podagricis . incipientis mulieribus uitia . et corruptela uentris intrinsecas rup-
turas curat . sine molestia soluit . omni tempore . accipienda est . non solum presentes
infirmitates curat . sed futuras egritudines defendit . Recipit hęc . eringio radices . pol-
opodię radices . sirobalsamo amomo . piper longum . meu . gingiber . gentiana . brat-
hea . costo . spico . \casia ./​agarico . agaro . interiones . ana . dragmas . ii . scolopendria .
camitrius . cafora . ana untia . i . et dimidia . aloę . croco . reopontico . masticę . cinamo
. diagridiu . epithimo . asaro . pionia . ana unt . i . omnia pulueraem facis adde mel
dispumatum quod sufficit . terendo commiscis in buxtea reponis . da exinde prima die
cum aqua calida scripulos . iii . alia die . scrbl . ii . tertia die scrpl i . si uelis uentrem bene
purgare da exinde dragma . i . scamunia scrpl . i . ista gira . est aloetica . et est maior
et melior et suauior in omnibus utilior quia per hanc antidotum omnes egritudines
minuantur.

16.27 Potio ad nesciam, f. 90r

Potio ad nesciam . Ueruena . manipulum . i . artemisia . manipulum . i . Bledonne .
radices rotellas nouem . Lupopectine radices . similiter . piper . grana . viiii.

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352  Appendix 2

17 Reg. lat. 598

17.1 Antidotum sancti Paulini, f. 124r

Antidotum sancti paulini Quod facit [ad] ydropic[o]‌\i/​s . dissentericis tisicis . febri-
bus . melancolicis . spleneticis . epaticis . tussientibus . sciaticis . humorem bonum
nutrit . colorem bonum facit . fastidientibus uomitum . et distemperantiam distringit
. facit ad omnem dolorem corporis . urinam prouocat dęmoniacis bonum . facit ad
os fetidum . ad albulas oculorum . super tempora imponis . et in tercio die sanabit
. si super carbunculo<ri> aut nascentia mala impositum fuerit . rumpit dolorem et
tumorem tollit et sanat . Et sanat plagam mirifice absque uicio . super epar aut splen
impositum . sanat . Intussuram et tumorem mitigat . dentium dolorem tollit si inter
[posueris] \miseris/​aut si super pulsum qui iuxta auriculam . posueris . Quid dicam .
medicamen melius non inuenies . potes ex ipso omni tepefacit quo uoleris accipere .
quia multum calefacit et calorem detergit . colera . satis minuit . cardiacam passionem
de quarta . aut de . quinta . potione curat et sanat . dabis cardiacis . et ad dolorem siue
ad tussem ad dissinteriam . tisicis . ydropicis . cum mulsa calida . aut cum melle ciato .
dęmoniacis cum uino caldo . sine febribus mire sanat . Recipit hęc . Aloe . ∻ v . Mirram .
Amo<ni>acum . Terebintinam . Galbanum . ana . ∻ iii . Serapino . Opopanace . Crocum
. Corallum . ana . ∻ ii . Libanum . Mastice . Bdellium . Storace . Agaricum . anacard[ce]
ium . Costum . Yreos . Opium . ana . ∻ i . Balsamum . Folium . ana . z . i<iii> . hęc omnia
teris cribras . Opium solue in mortario ad carbones cum terebintina . et galbano . et
balsamo modice tepefacto . Et si non habueris balsamum . m<itte> oleum laurinum .
et postea cum tepida . misce et conficis diligenter . et sic reponis . Quando uolueris fac
catapocias in mo<d>um piperis . et exinde dabis . vii . ad dolorem . ad cardiacos uel uit-
ium pectoris . ad ultera in stomacho potes dare cum melle . et miraberis eius effectum.

18 Reg. lat. 1143

18.1 Anthidotus Teodori, ff. 81r–​82r

Anthidotus teodori qui facit ad omnes doloris capitis et his qui pectoris doloris pati-
untur pleureticis et quibus indegestio escarum preuenit et qui suspirium patiuntur
epaticis uel spleniticis et quibus dolor uentris aut stomachi et eis qui de post longa
egritudine uix reparantur et malum colorem habentes et eis qui morbo regio <…>is
et per totum corpus se <..fu...t> et soluta membra habentes et ad renum dolorem et
podagricis dandum sed priusquam eis dolor accedat mirabiliter occurat . Incipit eius-
dem confec\tio/​Aloe . scip . x . agaricu scrip . xxxvi . crocu . scrip . viiii mastice . scrip-
ulos . viii . cassia fistula scrip . viii . cinamomum . scrip . viii . sed qui a cinamomum
non inuenis mittis cassia . scrip . xviii . absque illos scrip . viiii . iam quod pensatum
ligno balsamis . scrip . vii . costus scrip . xii . anacardia scrip . xii . mellis quod sufficiat
omnes supra dictas species redigis mercis cum melle et das cum uino cuius aduersus

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Recipe Transcriptions 353

faba egiptiaga . uel abellane qui uult ante <acciper.. rarum> quae egrotant nec dolores
patiuntur accipiant semel in septimana aut in quindecim dies semel . si enim uolueris
ut purget adauges in una dolose hoc est grana fabae aegiptiace aut abellane diacridius
siliquas . viii . et purgat quomodo catharricus si enim uolueris in tota confectionem
anthethiti . adicies dicridiu ∻ una que est habet scrip . xxiiii . ita est accipiendum ueris
semel si necessitas non ex\i/​gerit sin uero quod absit causa poposcerit sepe accipies
sicut scriptura continet autumno . frequenter usque ad initium hyemis.

18.2 Ad emigranium siue dentium dolorem, f. 99r

18.2.1 Ad emigranium siue dentium dolorem laseris gemmam in aqua soluta in
aurem et partem quam dolet tres guttas de digito expremis ipsa quidem hora
grauauitur sed in perpetuum sanus erit.
18.2.2 Item gulbano semuntia inducis in carta et inponis in ea parte qua dolet
remediabitur.
18.2.3 Item balsamum guttas quinque in aurem stillat prodest.

18.3 Ad cadiuo homine, f. 109r

Ad cadiuo homine potionem probatam aut in pectus sit . aut in caput . uertiginem
mittit . tus . myrra . et opio . et gingiuer . et euforbio . et reupontico . et spaltro . et custo
. et piper et cynamo . et gariofoli . et timiama . et petroselino . saxifica cassia sigilada .
pulegio . non fumicato . rosmarino . uetonica et agrimonia . et saturegia . et luuestici .
et apio . haec omnia puluerem facis et cummiscis cum uino . potui dabis bibere et ad
sanitatem perducat mirifice prodest.

18.4 Apostolicon, ff. 133r–​134r

Apostolicon qui facit ad omnes causas et ad omnia uulnera antiqua siue rentia ad
fleumones ad nerbia praecisa ad mysculos et omnes plagas quae a ferro inciditur siue
sudes uitro cannas sagittas educendas infixis corpori et punctus anima uenenorum
frena et maritima et uenena trahenda quae in alto foris occulta sunt facit etiam aposto-
maticis ad cancros ad igne sacrum ad ceruicis dolorem nimium ad scrufas rumpendas
et permodico foramine omnia trahet sanat ut cicatrix non pareat et qui inter costas
apostemas habet in epate in splene in foris inponis et intus rumpuntur per egestionem
et sciros in \s/​plenis soluit et sanat facit autem arteria ad percussuras uelitronia quae
in ienua uel in pedes et melicedas rumpet . et sanat autem facit ad reuma quaecum-
que dolore et tumore a coxas ad genuas et ad talos discendes et cataplasma inponet
facit etiam ad fistulas recipit li\tar/​girum . dr cviiii galbanum dr viii gutta ammoniaci
dr xxvii cera dr lxi colofania dr lvi . myrra dr viii . erugine campane dr viii \be/​dellium
dr xii manna turis dr xi opopanece dr viii aristologia dr viii . oleo uetere lib ii . quae
tundenda sunt cribellas deinde cera colof[a]‌\o/​nia et oleo solues in foco et miscis litar-
girum et postea inmiscis re\si/​duas et tamdiu coques quam mutet colorem.

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354  Appendix 2

18.5 Ad dentes laxos, f. 148v

Ad dentes laxos id est lupini xii . castaneas siccas ueteres cum scortia non tres incen-
dis ut fiant carbones et facis exinde puluere subtilis et mittis modicum sale bedica
mittis in aceto faciens fiolas tres ut ferueat et tertiam et posteum facis puluerem de
pipe grana uiginti et . vii . mittis in ipso aceto et quomodo potest durare mittis in os
et per totos dentes diffundes et facis per tres dies in aere sereno aut in balneo aut in
caminata.

18.6 Antidotus polichristus, ff. 161v–​162v

Antidotus policristus a marcello accepta melius operatur . quam illa quae ex multis
migmatibus conficitur uel illa mitridatica croci sc . v . opii sc ii eurforbii sc . i . piperis ∻
i pyretri sc . i . spicae nardi . sc . i dauci sc i . petroselini sc ii yosciami sc ii opobalsami
sc . ii cassiae fistulae sc ii . omnia tunsa creta melli optimo admiscentur et bene malax-
antur et ex hoc fabe magnitudine singulis passionibus ministratur ad colum cum aque
cyathis tribus epaticis cum uino mulso frebricitanti cum aqua . lateris dolori cum aqua
mulsa sthoma\ci/​cis cum posca indigestis similiter . Disintericis cum aquae frigidae
cyatis duobus renibus laborantibus ante hora accessionis si ex eo gluttiant releuabun-
tur . Dolorem dentium conpescit si loco dolenti inponatur . Sanguinem uomentibus
cum posca frigida ministrabis cyatis tribus . Coxas dolentibus cum passo cretico prae-
bebis . paraliticis similiter in passo dormitum euntibus iuxta uires dabis . Tumores
praecordiorum uel qui tortiones patiuntur ut supra dabis secunda seducit si cum aqua
mulsa bibatur et uulnera quae intra torace nasci possunt si cum uino bibatur ptisicis
prodest si cum melicrato sumatur . morsibus serpentium resistit si cum uini cyatis
tribus bibatur . et ipsum uulnus medicamine more emplastri contegatur.

18.7 Unguentum ad artiticus, f. 169r

Unguentum ad artiticus Eoforuio ∻ i . gitter ∻ i . sinape ∻ i anithino aut commune
oleo quod sufficit.

18.8 Oxyra grocira, ff. 172r–​172v

18.8.1 Oxyra grocira . facii epaticis pleneticis ad ipocondrias tensiones nefreticis et ad
omnes neruorum passione pleureticis peripneumonicis artriticis sciaticis et ad neruo-
rum contritiones et luxus et fracturas et incisus nerouus soluit autem et omnem duri-
tiam et serpentem morsus et ad canis rabidi morsum . pice sicca brutia £ . [li .] cera £ .
i . amoniaco ∻ iiii liuano ∻ iiii . galuana . ∻ iiii . crogo ∻ ii . aceto agro ƒt . iii teris amo-
niaco liuano cum aceto ad mellis cocti pinguidinem et in alio mortario teris c\r/​oco
picem autem mittis in caccabo testeo non in ereo et supermittis quod sup[er]erauit
acetum et coquis agittas frequenter et cum acetus fuerit consumm\at/​us supermittis
cera et cum resolserit supermittis samoniaco et liuano agitas frequenter et atende ne

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Recipe Transcriptions 355

foras exeat de ulla et posthaec mittis galuana . et cum fuerit resoluta et cum lentum fit
supermittis crocum effundis in mortario miscis bene et uteris.
18.8.2 Item oxyra qui facit podacricis artriticis et ad omnem dolorem et luxatis pice
brutia £ . ii . cera £ . i . amoniaco ∻ iii . tereuentina ∻ ii aceto . s . i . i s.
18.8.3 Item aliuo oxyra afrodesi . amoniaco ∻ iiii . colofonia ∻ ii . boellius ∻ vi .
medulla ceruina ∻ ii . tereuentina ∻ iii senopedem . s ii . resina pitoina pensante ŏ ii .
mannis ∻ i . confecis et uteris.

18.9 Potionem probata ad ilica passio, ff. 185r–​185v

Potionem probata ad ilica passio agrimonia radices prinde manipulos tres mitte in ulla
noua et addis ibidem uinum staupos nouem et coquatur usque ad tertiam partem et
bibit quando oporte fuerit radicem de rusco radicem de tribulo radicem de sparago
radicem de olisatro radicem appio radicem de petroselino puleio siccum allii capiti-
nas . iii . semen de malua sicca uncia una porros iiii . cum radicinas suas bettonica
cum radice sua siue sicca siue uiride radicem de uiola nasturtium ruta siluatica et si
non domestica coriandrum anetum oleum quod sufficit. Haec omnia coques insimul
et bulliat usque ad tertium postea mitte ciminum et fricas panem et bibe cum uino
ieiunos.

18.10 Ciraturiu artriticus opotatricus aparlasensis, ff. 187r–​187v

Ciraturiu artriticus opotatricus A<p>arlasensis . Recipit haec teruentina . unc . ii . col-
fonia ∻ iii . galbano ∻ iii bedelio ∻ i . amoniacu ∻ iii . agatio ∻ i aloae ∻ iii . thus . ∻
iii . mirra ∻ iii mastice ∻ iii . croco ∻ i spicu ∻ i sal<ui>ola ∻ i gingiber . ∻ iii cariofola
∻ iii cynamo ∻ iii . piper ∻ i . steteria ∻ i cerosa ∻ i . litazero ∻ iii . sarampinon ∻ i
reopontico ∻ i . opio ∻ i . traganto fistriolo ∻ i . staratio calamitis i baca lores ∻ iii ras-
telogo rotundo ∻ iii elebro albo ∻ ii . elebro nigro ∻ iii gentiano ∻ iii . coconidio ∻ iii .
aspaltro unc . iii . sarcocola ∻ iii . licio ∻ iii . cozumbra . ∻ iii . opopanice ∻ ii adarcio .
unc . i . uisco malba lib iii . pastinacu lib iii olmo scortia mediana lib . iii . malba ortensa
lib i . medulla ceruina ∻ ii uino uetus sexterios . iii . uncto portino lib ii . seuo lib ii .
butero lib ii . cera lib ii . oleo lib i . simul quoquis Lupino ∻ iii . fenogreco . ∻ iii . aniso
∻ ii ameu ∻ iii . taridio ∻ iii . gipto ∻ ii pastinaces semen . ∻ iii . caulas semen ∻ iii .
anetu ∻ iii . ratoregia ∻ iii leuestice ∻ ii . olesera ∻ iii . anito ∻ iii . ruta . ∻ ii . micon ∻
iii . fenoculo ∻ iii.

19 Vat. lat. 5951

19.1 Potio muscata ad omne infirmum, f. 1r

Potio <m>uscata ad omne infirmum . Recipit . muscu <ʒ i> libanu ma<… m>ittes mod-
icas . ʒ . viii . cinnamomum ʒ . iii . mel et uinum uetus quod sufficit.

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Bibliography

List of Manuscripts

Note: the following is a list of all manuscripts mentioned in the text; see Appendix 1 for
more information on the primary manuscripts involved in this study.

Bamberg
Staatsbibliothek
Msc. Med. 1
Digital facsimile: http://​digi​tal​.bib​-bvb​.de​/view​/bvb​_m​ets​/vie​wer​.0​.6​.5​.jsp?-
folder​_id=​0&dvs=​170886​2996​938~573&pid=​4685​473&loc​ale=​en​_US&useP​id1=​
true&useP​id2=​true​.

Bern
Burgerbibliothek
Cod. A 91.7
Digital facsimile: http://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.ch​/en​/list​/one​/bbb​/A0091​-07​.

Cambridge
Corpus Christi College
ms 223
Digital facsimile: https://​par​ker​.stanf​ord​.edu​/par​ker​/cata​log​/th95​3kw1​763​.

Glasgow
University Library (ul)
Hunter 96 (olim T.4.13)
A digital facsimile is not currently available online.

Karlsruhe
Badische Landesbibliothek
Aug. perg. 120
Digital facsimile: https://​digi​tal​.blb​-karlsr​uhe​.de​/blbhs​/Handsc​hrif​ten​/cont​ent​
/titlei​nfo​/64141​.

Laon
Bibliothèque Municipale
ms 199
Digital facsimile: https://​initi​ale​.irht​.cnrs​.fr​/codex​/12831​.

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Bibliography 357

London
British Library (bl)
Harley ms 585
A digital facsimile is not currently available due to the cyber attack; previously,
it was accessible at: http://​www​.bl​.uk​/manu​scri​pts​/Full​Disp​lay​.aspx?ref=​Harley
​_MS​_​585&index=​1​.

Modena
Archivio Capitolare
O.I.11
Digital facsimile: https://​archiv​iodi​oces​ano​.mo​.it​/opere​-digita​lizz​ate​/cat​/15​-o​-i​
-11​-san​cti​-isid​ori​-episc​opi​-chroni​con​.

Paris
Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)
lat. 2849A
Digital facsimile: https://​gall​ica​.bnf​.fr​/ark:​/12148​/btv1b9​0676​47m​/f4​.image​.
lat. 2858
Digital facsimile: https://​gall​ica​.bnf​.fr​/ark:​/12148​/btv​1b10​3186​25w​.r=​%22La​tin
%202​858%22?rk=​21459;2​.
lat. 5543
Digital facsimile: https://​gall​ica​.bnf​.fr​/ark:​/12148​/btv​1b10​5020​52p​/f5​.image​.r
=​cale​ndar​ium​.
lat. 6882A
Digital facsimile: https://​gall​ica​.bnf​.fr​/ark:​/12148​/btv1b9​0767​579​/f1​.image​.
lat. 7021
Digital facsimile: https://​gall​ica​.bnf​.fr​/ark:​/12148​/btv​1b10​0352​360​/f1​.image​.
lat. 9332
Digital facsimile: https://​gall​ica​.bnf​.fr​/ark:​/12148​/btv1b6​0004​321​/f2​.image​.
lat. 11218
Digital facsimile: https://​gall​ica​.bnf​.fr​/ark:​/12148​/btv1b9​0669​36j​/f1​.image​.
lat. 11219
Digital facsimile: https://​gall​ica​.bnf​.fr​/ark:​/12148​/btv1b8​4386​62j​.r=​lat​.%2011​219
%20lat​.%2011​219?rk=​21459;2​.
lat. 13955
Digital facsimile: https://​gall​ica​.bnf​.fr​/ark:​/12148​/btv1b9​0669​78w?rk=​21459;2​.

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358 Bibliography

St Gall
Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen
cod. sang. 44
Digital facsimile: https://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/list​/one​/csg​/0044​.
cod. sang. 217
Digital facsimile: https://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/list​/one​/csg​/0217​.
cod. sang. 397
Digital facsimile: https://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/en​/list​/one​/csg​/0397​.
cod. sang. 550
Digital facsimile: https://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/en​/list​/one​/csg​/0550​.
cod. sang. 751
Digital facsimile: https://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/list​/one​/csg​/0751​.
cod. sang. 752
Digital facsimile: https://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/list​/one​/csg​/0752​.
cod. sang. 759
Digital facsimile: https://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/list​/one​/csg​/0759​.
cod. sang. 761
Digital facsimile: https://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/list​/one​/csg​/0761​.
cod. sang. 878
Digital facsimile: https://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/list​/one​/csg​/0878​.
cod. sang. 899
Digital facsimile: https://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/en​/list​/one​/csg​/0899​.
cod. sang. 1092
Digital facsimile: https://​www​.e​-codi​ces​.unifr​.ch​/de​/list​/one​/csg​/1092​.
cod. sang. 1396
A digital facsimile is not currently available online.

Vatican City
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (bav)
pal. lat. 187
Digital facsimile: https://​digi​.vat​lib​.it​/view​/bav​_​pal​_​lat​_​187​.
pal. lat. 1088
Digital facsimile: https://​digi​.vat​lib​.it​/view​/MSS​_​Pal​.lat​.1088​.
reg. lat. 421
Digital facsimile: https://​digi​.vat​lib​.it​/view​/MSS​_​Reg​.lat​.421​.
reg. lat. 598
Digital facsimile: https://​digi​.vat​lib​.it​/view​/MSS​_​Reg​.lat​.598​.
reg. lat. 1143
Digital facsimile: https://​digi​.vat​lib​.it​/view​/MSS​_​Reg​.lat​.1143​.
vat. lat. 5951
Digital facsimile: https://​digi​.vat​lib​.it​/view​/MSS​_​Vat​.lat​.5951​.

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Bibliography 359

Vienna
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (önb)
Med. gr. 1
A digital facsimile is not currently available online.

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Index

Aachen 45, 155, 295 Antiquity 14–​15, 27, 87, 92–​94, 101, 108–​113,
Abbasid Caliphate 74–​75, 103 123–​124, 139–​142, 154–​156, 179, 205
Abbey of Fontenelle 75, 77, 100 classical learning 47
abortion 111 classical medicine 6–​9, 12, 14–​15, 18, 27,
abscess 133–​135, 138, 244. See also dental 42–​44, 56–​65, 65, 71, 79–​80, 83–​85,
health, abscess 93, 107, 109–​121, 123, 127–​128, 139–​141,
Abul Abbas 74 145–​148, 154–​156, 202–​203, 205, 221, 242,
Acqui Terme 169, 184, 187, 200, 216, 218, 258 244, 250, 269, 277, 289–​302
Adalbero of Laon 50 classical vocabulary 139–​141
Aeschylus 109 medical education 49
Aetius of Amida 81n38 Roman Empire 77n22, 108, 114, 267
age 205 applicability 7–​8, 26–​29, 33–​34, 56, 69,
aging process 177, 214–​215, 235, 238 153–​154, 158, 163, 174–​175, 190, 199–​203,
infancy and childhood 158, 173, 179, 183, 207, 233–​240, 243, 265–​272, 275–​277,
200–​201 279–​283
adulthood 173 Arabic
old age/​senility 200–​201, 219, 239 terminology 82, 103
youth/​adolescence 251 medical texts 15
Albuin 251 arms and armour. See Trauma, weapons;
alcohol. See individual entries under warfare
materia medica Asia, southeast 71, 78, 80, 103
Alcuin 51 astronomy 290
Alexander of Tralles 61, 291, 302 Ausonius 299
Therapeutica 291, 302 Mosella 299
Alexandria Auxerre 289
curriculum of 48
diet 109 Baldwin iv 156
Alphabet of Galen 65, 300 balsam 73–​74. See also materia
Alphita 83–​84 medica, balsam
Alps 37–​38, 67, 78, 91, 94, 96–​98, 104, 171 bathing 45
Angelbert 268 Battle of Fontenoy 268
annals 156, 267 Bede 290
Annals of St. Bertin 251, 255 bee-​keeping 125
Royal Frankish Annals 74–​75 beer. See materia medica, beer
Ansegisus 75 Benedict of Aniane 45
Antebalumina. See Pseudo-​Galen, De Bern 182
succedaneis liber bestiary 58–​59
Anthimus 123–​124, 127, 298 Biel 169, 182–​183
De observatione ciborum 123–​124, 127, 298 biocodicology 284
antidotes 3–​5, 50, 58, 62n99, 64, 69–​71, 86, birthing girdle 285
94, 144–​145, 171–​172, 190–​192, 196–​197, bites 245–​246
206, 208–​210, 230, 233, 236–​238, 246, dogs 197
253, 275, 291, 299 rabid dogs 196–​197, 228
antidotaria 50, 59–​60, 62n99 humans 196
Antiphanes 109 snakes 172, 196, 228, 237, 246

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402 Index

bladder problems 121, 222. See also medical practice 6, 20–​24, 29, 34, 41,
incontinence and urination problems 51–​52, 132–​134, 142–​143, 148, 201, 241–​
blindness 3 244, 249, 256–​257, 262–​267, 271, 278,
bloodletting. See surgery, phlebotomy 280–​283
Bobbio 67 networks 31, 40, 52, 67, 73–​74, 77, 91, 94,
body modification 243 96–​100, 103–​104, 126, 160, 171, 283
Boethius 289 movement of manuscripts 5, 31, 44,
Bolgare 169, 185, 212, 218, 261–​262 67, 91, 94, 126, 295, 301
Boniface 72–​74, 76, 84, 91, 94, 96–​97 reception of classical learning 47
bread 106–​107, 113, 136. See also materia reforms 14, 30–​32, 98–​100
medica, bread territorial expansion 171
brewing 107–​109, 124–​126 See also Francia
Brittany 5, 67, 94, 297 Cassiodorus 43–​44, 46, 48, 54, 62
Bronze Age 109 Institutiones 43–​44
Burchard 40, 72 cautery 241–​242, 244, 264
Burgundy 96–​97, 291, 302 Celsus 302
Byzantium 43, 78, 104, 123–​124 De medicina 302
central Middle Ages 14–​15, 28, 50
Caelius Aurelianus 44, 60–​61 cereals 108–​110, 112–​113
Cairate 169, 183–​184, 186, 200, 212, 217–​ barley 110, 112
219, 260 milling 126
calabash 73 production of 108–​109, 124
calendrical writing 55, 122, 257, 290–​291, wheat 110, 112
293, 296–​298 Charlemagne 14, 30, 51, 74–​75, 171, 268–​
Cambrai 75–​77, 84, 97, 99–​101 269, 271
Campione d’Italia 169, 185, 212, 216, 218 Charles the Child 251
capitularies 124–​128, 137, 267, 269–​271 charters 25, 52, 64, 270
Admonitio generalis 269 Chartres 31, 49–​50
Capitulare de villis 124–​128, 137 Cherbourg 169, 171, 183
Capitulary of Herstal 269 chestnuts 26
Cappadocians 79 chills. See fever
Caravate 169, 259 China 80, 104
Carolingian world Christianity 42–​48
education, training 23, 48–​52, 134, 281 bible 48, 93–​94, 98, 293
medical 48–​52 Ecclesiasticus 48
elites 31, 33, 40, 49, 51, 73–​4, 100, 160, 184, Exodus 93
201–​203, 205–​6, 212, 238–​239, 260, 262, charity 42, 44
271, 276, 279–​280, 282–​283 Christian elements in recipes 61
aristocratic 53, 70, 73–​74, 77–​78, Church fathers 42
201–​203, 205–​206, 239, 269–​271, medical metaphors 43, 48
278, 282–​283 Christus medicus 43
ecclesiastical 31, 49–​50, 67, 72–​75, 77, negative attitudes towards medicine 42
99, 160, 201–​203, 205–​206, 208, 239, chronicles 156
269–​271, 279, 282 codicology 4–​5, 275, 289–​302
royal 53, 73, 77, 125, 160, 201–​203, Collectio sangallensis 74
205–​206, 208, 239–​40, 269–​271, collyrium 60
282–​283 comb 74
manuscript production 30–​31, 53 computus 23, 31, 290, 298

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Index 403

Constantinople 123 granuloma 178

consumption. See tuberculosis gums 174, 176, 178, 188–​191, 198–​199
Corbie 53, 75–​77, 84, 97, 100–​101, 282 hygiene 173, 179, 189, 199
cosmetics 202, 279, 297. See also dental periodontitis 173, 176, 178, 181–​183, 186–​
health, cosmetics 187, 199
coughing, breathing difficulties, and lung putridity 174, 188–​191, 195–​197, 199, 202
problems 111, 115, 137, 164, 197, teething 200–​201
208, 302 temporomandibular joint disease 179
Cratinus 109 tooth loss 168, 174, 176, 178–​180, 188, 190–​
cremation 161 191, 195–​196, 199, 201, 203, 279
Cremona 169, 212, 219, 261–​262 ante-​mortem tooth loss (amtl) 178–​
Crusades 155–​157 179, 181–​187, 199
Cuneburg 40, 72–​73, 97 post-​mortem tooth loss
Cynehard 39–​41, 51, 54, 71–​73, 97, 153, 280 (pmtl) 178–​180
tooth type
Danish 132 canines 175, 186
De taxone liber 59 incisors 175
definitions molars 175–​176, 180, 184, 187, 200
applicability 8 pre-​molars 175–​176, 184, 186–​187, 200
localness 77–​78 toothache/​pain 156, 168, 171, 174, 176,
palaeopathology 158 187–​188, 190–​195, 198–​203, 230
palaeotrauma 243 ulcers and sores 174, 188–​191, 194–​195,
practicality 7 199, 201–​203
recipes 57–​64 unspecified mouth complaints 188–​191,
recipe collections 63–​64 197–​198, 202
retrospective diagnosis 162 Desenzano 169, 182–​183, 219
spectrum of specificity 171–​172 diet 26, 45, 123, 128, 156, 173, 177, 179, 182–​183,
trauma 242–​243 186–​187, 205–​206, 212, 236
Denehard 40, 72 Alexandrian 109
dental health 33, 167–​168, 173–​204, 258 279 dietary regulations 45
abrasion 177, 182–​183, 186 fasting 206
abscess 178, 180–​183, 186–​187, 199 dietetics 49, 56, 105, 107, 116, 121–​124, 126–​
attrition 177, 179, 181, 186 128, 156, 241–​242, 244, 292, 296–​298
caries 173–​174, 176–​191, 195–​196, 199–​ regimina (dietary calendars) 289,
200, 279 292, 297
sex-​linked differences 177, 184, Dioscorides 44, 58, 79, 110–​114, 155, 291
187, 200 De materia medica 58, 79, 110–​114, 291
cosmetics 178, 188, 190–​191, 196–​197, 199, Vienna Dioscorides, the 22, 53n64
201–​203, 279 doctors. See medical practitioners
cyst 178, 180 dogs 125, 196–​197, 228, 245–​246
dental calculus 173–​174, 177–​181, 186–​187, dropsy 228
199, 279 drunkenness 111–​113
dental enamel hypoplasia (deh) 173–​ Dutch 121
174, 179 dysentery 197
dental trauma 178, 202
dentifrices 196–​199, 201, 279 early modern period 177
dentists 201 ear conditions 142, 192, 197–​198
erosion 177, 186 Ebalus 50

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404 Index

Eberhard of Friuli 53 See also materia medica (individual

efficacy (of therapies) 17, 145, 241, 265 entries)
efficacy phrases 129, 157 Fulbert of Chartres 50–​51
Egypt 109, 112, 114 Fulda 86, 91, 171, 298
Egyptian Days 257, 290, 295. See also
prognostics Galen 44, 48, 60, 79, 109, 155, 205, 236, 291,
Eichstätt 72 293, 296–​298, 301
Einhard 14, 267 Galenic corpus 109
Life of Charlemagne 267 On Antidotes 60
Ekkehard of Mâcon 53 On medicines by Genres 60
electuary 60 gardens 26, 46, 50–​51, 70–​71, 126, 137, 282
elephant. See Abul Abbas Gargilius Martialis 297
elephantiasis 110 Medicinae ex oleribus et pomis 297
Eleuthir 268 Gaul 112, 114–​115
encyclopaedias 46–​47, 60, 112 Gemmulus 73–​74, 84
epilepsy 58, 192, 208–​209, 223 genetics 25, 28, 205, 214, 219, 284
Epistula vulturis 291 German 121, 131
erectile disfunction 121 Germany 91, 169
ergotism. See ignis sacer southern 171
eyes problems 167–​168, 197, 208 southwest 262–​264
gift-​giving 22, 40, 71–​77, 81, 84, 91, 94, 96–​
Ferrières 49, 68 100, 103, 282
fever 106, 113, 136, 172, 192, 197, 208, 229 glosses 20–​22, 134–​135, 143, 254, 292, 298, 301
flatulence 110–​111 glossaries 83, 284, 296
Fleury 289–​291 gout. See joint disease, gout
formulae 295–​296 Gozbert of St Gall 45
France 31, 169, 289–​291 grammar 31, 295–​296, 298
eastern 300 Greek
southwest 94, 290 dietary traditions 123
western 291 literature 109
Francia 6, 40–​41, 51, 54, 67, 70, 73–​74, 76–​77, medical texts 14–​15, 19, 38, 44, 59,
80, 82, 84–​85, 91, 96–​98, 101, 123–​127, 61, 79, 85
130, 147, 154–​156, 169, 171, 263–​264, 267, translation of 38, 44, 59, 61, 79, 84, 104,
276, 278, 295 120, 145, 299
western 67, 91, 97 Gregory the Great 42, 294
See also Carolingian world Regula pastoralis 294
Franks, early (pre-​Carolingian) 169, 263–​ Grimald of St Gall 67, 295, 299–​300
264, 267 groin pain 121
dietary traditions 123–​124, 126 gynaecology. See women’s medicine
Merovingians 183
fruit 74, 108–​113 haemorrhoids 105, 117, 136
berries 282 hagiography 9, 42, 295
date 74, 111 hair 167, 202, 297
fig 74, 111 Harun al-​Rashid 74–​75, 103
grapes 108, 110–​111, 124 head
pear 111 headache 69, 110, 135, 168, 190, 192, 237
pomegranate 74, 111 injuries. See trauma, head injuries
quince 111 other problems 138, 192

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Index 405

heart conditions 167 Old English Herbarium 16–​17, 21

Hemmaberg 263–​264, 267 script 5, 297–​298
herbal 16–​17, 37–​38, 44, 58–​59, 62, 203, 293–​ intestinal problems 113, 115
294, 296 Inventio Michaelis archangeli 296
Herbariencorpus 59, 293, 296 Isidore of Seville 43, 46–​48, 54, 59, 120–​121,
hermeneumata 284, 290, 292 123–​124, 221, 290–​291, 297
Himalayas 78, 103 Etymologiae 46–​48, 54, 59, 120–​121, 123–​
Hincmar of Reims 49 124, 290–​291, 297
Hippocrates 42, 44, 51, 205, 236, 291, 293, Islamicate medicine 242
296, 298, 301–​302 Italy 104, 155, 169, 289, 302
Aphorisms 291 northern 4, 37, 67, 86, 91, 94, 96–​97, 126,
Epistula ad Antiochum regem 298, 160–​161, 171, 182, 212, 258, 293–​294, 296,
301–​302 300–​301
Hippocratic corpus 109 southern 32, 43
hips. See joint disease, hips
history writing 9, 42, 74–​75, 156, 251, 255, 267 jaundice 121, 135, 138–​139
Holy Land 72 Jerome 85
honey. See materia medica, honey Adversus Iovinianum 85
horses 125, 167, 254, 262 John Philagathos 302
horseback-​riding 156, 217, 261–​262, joint disease 33, 135, 138, 156, 167–​168, 172,
266, 269 205–​240, 258, 276, 279–​280
falls from 167, 262, 266, 269 ankles 213, 218–​219, 276
horseplay 255 ankylosing spondylitis 213
hospitals and places of care 42, 45, 157, 295 arthritis 111, 172, 205, 210, 213, 215–​216,
Hrabanus Maurus 47, 54 218–​219, 221, 237–​239, 279
De rerum naturis 47 elbows 217, 215, 219–​220, 238
humoralism and humours 47, 49, 105, feet 210–​211, 213, 215, 218–​220, 233–​239,
110, 198 276, 279
bile, black 105 general afflictions of the joints
melancholy 105 (artriticus) 208, 221–​222, 228–​231,
phlegm 49 233, 235, 238–​239
Huneberc 73 gout 3–​5, 27, 69, 172, 197, 205–​213,
Hodoeporicon 72–​73 218–​221, 233–​237, 239–​240, 265, 276,
hunting 156 279–​280
hygiene 155, 179, 241 gout-​podagra paradox 207, 213, 221,
233–​237, 279
ignis sacer 236 hands 211, 215, 217, 219–​221, 227, 229,
incense 63, 73, 76, 82–​96, 98–​99, 101–​103. 231, 238
See also materia medica, incense hips 118, 210, 215, 213, 217–​222, 225–​226,
incontinence and urination problems 121, 229, 232, 235, 238–​239
138, 145. See also bladder problems coxae 220–​221, 226, 231–​233
Indonesia 80 nescia 118, 210, 220–​221, 223, 226,
Ink and paint 75–​76 231, 233
Insular world/​early medieval British sciatica 220–​221, 223, 226, 230–​231,
Isles 16–​19, 37, 39–​41, 54, 72–​73, 110, 233, 235
169, 212, 218, 263–​264, 267 joint pain 118, 135, 141, 156, 172, 207–​208,
medicine 16–​19, 21, 23, 37, 39–​41, 244, 263 210, 214, 222, 228–​230, 232–​237, 239,
Lacnunga 21 247, 276, 279

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406 Index

joint disease (cont.) corporal punishment 202, 270

knees 213, 215, 217–​221, 225, 228–​229, 231, Rothair’s Edict 270
234, 238 leeches 75
lower back 214, 221, 225, 230–​233, leprosy 156, 211
238–​239 Liber Esculapii 296
neck 216, 222, 224–​225, 229–​232, 234, liberal arts 23, 47, 281, 299
238–​239 libraries 46, 53, 160, 170, 201, 282
osteoarthritis (oa) 179, 213–​220, 235–​ lips, sores of the 194
236, 238, 276, 279 literacy 51–​52, 73, 282–​283
podagra 3–​5, 205–​211, 213, 220–​231, 233–​ liturgy 31, 83, 98–​100, 103, 295
240, 247, 275–​277, 279–​280 liver pains and problems 113, 167, 208, 228
psoriatic arthritis 213 living conditions 26–​27, 155–​156, 158, 182–​
rheumatoid arthritis (ra) 211, 213, 219–​ 183, 217, 220
220, 236, 276 Lombardy 126, 160–​161, 171, 185, 261–​262, 270
Schmorl’s nodes 214–​215 Lorsch 53, 132–​133, 160, 169–​171, 173–​174, 176,
shoulders 213, 215, 217–​221, 224–​225, 179–​183, 212, 218
229–​232, 234, 238–​239 Lorscher Arzneibuch 13, 81, 132–​133, 170
spine/​vertebrae, 238 213–​220, 229, 231–​ Lothar 268
232, 235 Louis the German 74, 295
cervical 216, 222, 229–​230, 232, 234, Louis the Pious 251
238–​239, 279 Lull 39–​40, 72–​73, 97
lumbar 216, 221, 225, 231–​232, 235, Lupus of Ferrières 49, 68, 289
238–​239 Lyon 96, 301
thoracic 216
temporomandibular joint disease 179 Maastricht 169, 184–​187, 200, 216, 260–​
toes 205, 207, 210–​211, 213, 218–​220, 233–​ 261, 265
239, 276, 280 Mainz 39, 47, 72–​74, 96–​97, 99, 302
Malay 82
kidneys Maluku Islands 78, 103
problems and pain 3, 113, 222, 228 manuscript catalogues
stones 197 early medieval 44, 55, 170
Kirchheim am Ries 169, 262–​263 modern 18n39, 55, 65
Marcellus of Bordeaux 61, 115–​119
Laon 31, 49–​50 De medicamentis liber 61, 115–​119
late Antiquity 8, 41, 47, 92–​94, 114–​116, 123–​ markets 75–​77, 84, 97, 99–​101
124, 142, 154–​156 materia medica 33, 39–​41, 46–​47, 57–​59, 61,
late antique medicine 6–​9, 12, 14, 18, 69–​131, 133–​139, 143–​149, 232–​233, 248–​
43–​44, 56–​65, 80, 83–​85, 93, 107, 109–​ 250, 252–​254, 275–​283, 293
121, 123, 127–​128, 130, 145–​148, 154–​156, acacia 210
202–​203, 221, 242, 244, 250, 269, 277, accessibility of 33, 39–​40, 54, 72–​78, 92,
289–​302 115, 127–​128, 130, 143–​149, 278–​281, 283
medical education 49 agaric 69–​70
Roman Empire 114 agarwood 82–​91, 94–​100
late Middle Ages 15, 18, 28, 146, 156–​157, 170, agrimony 129–​131, 249, 252
242, 269 aloe 69–​71
latent knowledge 101–​103, 278 ambergris 33, 71, 80–​91, 95–​100
latrines 157 angelica 129–​130
law and law codes 9, 25, 31, 52, 156, 202, aqua mulsa 113, 116, 120–​122
267, 270 ash 241

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Index 407

materia medica (cont.) earthworms 250

asparagus 129–​130 elder 114
azarum 81 eryngium 69–​70
bacon 123–​124 fat 49, 233, 250, 254
balsam 69–​70, 73–​74 fennel 71, 122, 137–​138
barley 254 fenugreek 71, 78, 113
basil 138 fern 282
bdellium 93 feverfew 137
beans 49, 233 figs 74, 111
beer 33, 81n39, 105–​128, 136–​138, 142, 203, flax 71, 117, 250
253, 278, 282 frankincense 40, 71, 73, 82–​96, 250, 252
courmi 110 galangal 74, 76, 80, 82, 84, 139
dregs 114 galbanum 93
zūthos 109–​110 galena 241
berries 282 galingale 87–​88
blackberries 145 garlic 129–​130
betony 129–​130, 134–​135, 137–​138, 252 garum 139, 142
birthwort 206, 210, 275 gentian 69–​70
bread 106, 113 ginger 69–​71, 81, 101, 210
bugloss 113 glass 248
butcher’s broom 129–​130 grease 232, 249
cabbage 137, 232 gums 74–​75, 78, 82–​100
caltrops 129–​130 gum ammoniac 71
camphor 33, 69–​71, 80–​91, 94–​100, gundereba 105, 136
208, 238 hazelwort 69–​70, 81n39
cardamom 206, 276 hemp 144
Nepal 69–​71, 93 honey 69–​71, 75, 78, 83, 93, 105–​107, 109–​
cassia 69–​70, 80, 145–​146 111, 117, 120–​125, 134–​135, 137–​138
celery 71, 129–​130, 134–​135, 138 honeyed-​wine 110
centaury 138, 206, 210, 275 horehound 134–​135, 137–​138
cheese 282 hydromel 111, 113, 120–​122
cinnamon 40, 69–​71, 73–​74, 80, 87–​89, identification of 78–​80
93, 101, 145–​146 incense 63, 73, 76, 82–​104
cloves 74, 87–​89 iris 78, 93
colocynth 69–​70 isarnina 106, 136
confita 82–​91, 95–​100, 104 ivy 138, 193
coriander 129–​130, 137 ladanum 93
costmary 46 laurel 206
costus 69–​70, 73 leeks 129–​130
cozumber 73, 76, 82–​91, 94–​100 mallow 113, 129–​130
cress 129–​130, 146–​147 mandrake 252
cucumber 117 mastic 69–​71, 74–​76, 87–​88, 93, 249, 252
cumin 71, 210 mead 33, 105–​116, 120–​128, 136, 278, 282
cyclamen 210 medus 33, 107, 116, 120–​128, 278, 282
dates 74, 111 melicratum 111, 116, 120–​121
dill 129–​130 melitites 111, 113, 116, 120–​122
dittany 138 milfoil 252
dodder 69–​70, 105 milk, goat 145
dove droppings 241 minerals 111

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408 Index

materia medica (cont.) savin 69–​70, 105

mint 46, 105 savory 137
moly 79 scammony 69–​71
mulberry 145 silphium 101–​102
mulsum 113, 116, 120–​122 snails 78, 250
mushroom 282 southernwood 253
musk 33, 82–​91, 95–​100 spana 193
mustard 144, 146–​147 spices 74–​78, 86–​94, 111
mylē 79 spignel 69–​70
myrrh 71, 82–​83, 87–​88, 92–​93, 206, spikenard 69–​70, 76, 82–​83, 87–​89
252, 275 stacte 92–​94
natron 145 stinging nettle 254
nettles 138, 254 storax 71, 73, 82–​89, 92–​93
nomenclature of 78–​80 substitution of 33, 40, 130, 143–​149,
oenomel 111, 120–​122 278, 284. See also Pseudo-​Galen, De
oil 63, 83, 129–​130, 241, 252 succedaneis liber
cedar 83 sulphur 76, 248
laurel 250 sweet flag 69–​70
mastic 197 tallow 105, 136
myrtle 83, 115 terebinth 71
olive 107, 250 thalassomeli 113
rose 83, 192, 197 ungiculas marinas/​ungellas 93
onycha 93 unslit 105, 136
orpiment 76 vervain 106, 136, 233
oxymel 63, 83 vinegar 83, 134–​135, 137–​138, 141, 248
parsley 71, 129–​130, 138, 206 violets 129–​130
parsnip 144, 147 wall germander 69–​70
pears 111 water 105–​107, 111–​113, 115, 120–​124, 134–​
pennyroyal 46, 129–​130 136, 139, 248
peony 69–​70 rain 113
pepper 40, 69–​71, 73–​76, 100–​101, 105–​ sea 111, 113
106, 136, 138, 145, 210 wax 71, 75
pigmenta 75, 77–​78, 84, 100 wine 71, 93, 105–​116, 120–​127, 129–​130,
pitch 71, 248 134–​136, 138, 141, 233, 248
plantain 105, 136–​138 lees 111
polypody 69–​70 must 111
pomegranates 74, 111 wormwood 122, 138
quince 111 zedoary 80, 82, 84
resins 74–​76, 78, 82–​100, 111 medical
colophony 71, 249 education 32, 47–​52, 153
rhubarb 69–​70, 78 ethics
rocket 144, 146–​147 malpractice 156
rose 71, 93 marketplace 41, 52, 153
rue 46, 79, 129–​130, 143, 147 metaphors 43, 48
rustyback fern 69–​70 practitioners 14, 20–​25, 32, 42, 46–​48,
saffron 69–​71, 82–​83, 87–​89, 93 51–​52, 54, 123, 132–​133, 142, 145, 148, 155,
sage 46, 105, 138, 250 269, 271, 277, 279
sal ammoniac 241 dentists 201
salt 111, 115 Medicina Plinii 60–​61, 114–​119, 142, 250, 297

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Index 409

medicus. See medical practitioners osteoma 168

Mediterranean 27, 70–​71, 78, 103–​104, 108–​ osteomyelitis 211, 243, 247, 256, 258–​260,
114, 154–​156 263–​264
mental health 167 Ostrogoths 43, 123
Metz 123 Ovaro 169, 216, 258
Middle East 155 Oxea et chronia passiones Yppocratis, Gallieni
Middle High German 132 et Urani 297
missi dominici 160, 295
Mithridates 58 palaeography 4–​5, 90–​92, 134, 254, 275, 291–​
monastic communities 43–​46, 52–​54, 67, 293, 295, 297–​302
75–​77, 98–​100, 126, 160, 173, 180, 183, paralysis 105, 107, 116, 122, 135, 208, 230, 237
201–​202, 205–​206, 208, 212, 217, 238, parasites 155. See also worms
257, 260, 269–​271, 280–​283 Pardulus of Laon 49–​51
Benedictine Rule 44–​46 Paris 291
dietary rules 45, 128, 205–​206 parotid glands 197
familia of 160, 212 Paul of Aegina 61, 85
libraries within 46, 53, 160, 170, 201, 282 Paul the Deacon 299
Mönchsmedizin (monastic penitential 295
medicine) 19, 46, 54 Excarpsus Cummeani 295
Montecassino 32 perfume 73–​74
mummified remains 167–​168 periostitis 258, 260
Murbach 91, 295 pessary 60
Muscio 302 Peter of Pisa 299
Gynaecia 302 petroleum 73
music 48 philology 8–​13
Mycobacterium tuberculosis. See tuberculosis; phlebotomy. See surgery, phlebotomy
retrospective diagnosis phthisis. See tuberculosis
Physica Plinii 60, 296
Neresheim 169, 262–​263 pigs 26
Netherlands, the 169, 171 pigmenta 75, 77–​78, 84, 100. See also materia
Nonantola 67, 302 medica, pigmenta
Northumbria 51 pilgrims 126, 160, 212, 218, 282
Norwegian 132 pills 193
nose problems 192 pine cones 111
Notker the Stammerer 74 placebo 238
Nusplingen 169, 262–​263 plague 28
nutritional deficiency 156, 173, 179 Plan of St Gall 45–​46, 54, 70, 126–​128,
137, 257
obesity 205, 214 plaster 60, 195–​196, 198, 241, 271
oils 60, 63, 97. See also materia medica, oil Pliny the Elder 60–​61, 112–​114, 155
Old English 16–​19, 39–​41, 121, 244. See also Natural History 60, 112–​114
Insular world podagra. See joint disease, podagra
Old High German 21, 66, 121, 131, 254, 292, poetry 25, 68, 267, 295, 299
298, 301 poisoning 246
Oribasius 60, 291, 297–​298 potions 3–​5, 51, 105, 118–​119, 123, 129–​130,
Euporista 298 135, 141, 143, 147, 206, 210, 223, 233, 248,
Synopsis 291, 298 252, 254, 275–​276
osteological paradox 166–​167 powder 194–​195, 198, 248, 252

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410 Index

practicality 7–​8, 16–​24, 27, 29, 33–​34, 37–​41, Alexandria 48

51, 54–​56, 62, 69, 72, 94, 100–​104, 107, cathedral 31, 49
120, 124, 126–​132, 141–​143, 145, 147–​149, Ravenna 48, 59
153, 275–​284 Salerno 32
priests’ handbooks 282 Schretzheim 169, 262–​263
Priscian 298 sciatica (modern) 221, 235
Institutiones grammaticae 298 scurvy 156, 178
prognostics 56, 291–​293, 296–​297 Seckenheim 169, 186–​187, 212, 215–​216, 238
Egyptian Days 257, 290, 295 Septimania 78
Spera Apulei Platonici 297 skin, conditions of the 3, 167, 208, 223
proteomics 284 smuggling 72–​73
psalter 300 Spain 110, 112
Pseudo-​Antonius Musa 59, 202 spleen problems 167, 228, 279
De herba vettonica liber 59, 202–​203, 249 Sri Lanka 80
Pseudo-​Apuleius 37, 59 St Gall 3–​4, 37, 45–​46, 53, 67, 77–​78, 86, 91,
Herbarius 37, 59 96–​97, 155, 171, 293–​297, 299–​300
Pseudo-​Dioscorides 59 St Galler Bestarius 294
Ex herbis femininis 59 St Galler Botanicus 37–​38, 294
Pseudo-​Galen 130, 145–​148, 290 stable isotope analysis 161
De succedaneis liber 130, 145–​148, 290 stings 245–​246
Pseudo-​Sextus Placitus 59 stomach
Liber medicinae ex animalibus, pecoribus et hardness 117, 197
bestiis 59 general problems 111, 117, 129–​130, 137,
pulse analysis 19 144, 192, 196
stomachache 167, 172, 209, 223, 237
Quid pro quo. See Pseudo-​Galen, De superstitions 16–​17
succedaneis liber surgery 33, 156–​158, 167–​168, 241–​245, 249,
Quingentole 169, 185, 216–​217, 219 257, 264–​267, 271–​272, 280
Quintus Serenus 301 amputation 263–​264, 267, 270
Liber medicinalis 301 bandaging 75, 244, 265
cautery 241–​242, 244, 246, 264
Radhanites 104 cutmarks 157, 262
radiocarbon dating 169–​170, 173 evidence of healing 242, 262–​265,
Ravenna 48, 59, 78, 104 267, 280
Reichenau 45, 53, 67, 86, 91, 171, 295 lancing 244
Reims 31, 49–​50 military medicine 241, 267, 269, 280
rescue archaeology 159–​160 non-​invasive alternatives 241–​243,
retrospective diagnosis 33, 156, 162–​166 265, 267
Rhineland 74, 161, 171 phlebotomy 22, 46, 51, 56, 62, 139, 156,
Richer of Reims 50–​51 241–​245, 257–​258, 264, 290–​292,
Rivoli 169, 184, 187, 200, 215, 259 296, 298
Rome 72–​74, 78, 97, 104, 269 prosthesis 263–​264
scarification 241, 244
Saint Anthony’s fire. See ignis sacer surgical tools 157
Saint-​Denis 292 surgical treatises 156–​157, 241–​245, 257–​
Salerno 32 258, 264, 280
Salomon ii of Constance 74 trepanation 243, 249, 262–​264, 266–​
San Cassiano 169, 261–​262 267, 280
San Vincenzo al Volturno 155, 169–​171 Swedish 132
Saxon Wars 267–​268 swellings 114, 136, 138, 198, 210, 241, 244–​
schools 245, 249
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Index 411

Switzerland 91, 169, 171, 295 ribs 248, 260

tibia 260–​261, 263
Tacitus 112, 114 ulna 255, 258, 260
Germania 112 vertebrae 255
Talaricus 166, 170 head injuries 196, 248–​249, 251, 255–​256,
Tanastus 268 258–​259, 262–​263, 266–​267
Tang Empire 104 horseplay 251, 255
Teraupetica 253, 293 interpersonal violence 255–​256, 258,
Terenti(an)us 3–​7, 27, 29, 129–​130, 143, 148, 260–​261, 264, 266–​271
157, 210, 275–​277, 280, 296–​297 microtrauma 218–​219, 243, 261
Tereoperica 120, 253, 293 military medicine 241, 267, 269, 280
textiles 74 open wounds 244, 248, 251–​252, 256, 258
Theodoric 123 shins 247
Theodorus Priscianus 294, 302 puncture wounds 245, 247, 251–​253, 259,
Euporista 294, 302 265, 272
Theodulf of Orléans 299 arrows 246, 251–​253, 255–​256, 259,
Theuderic 123 265–​266
Thrace 109 thorns 246, 252–​253, 255–​256, 259,
throat problem 189, 196–​199 265–​267
Tolmezzo 169, 185–​186 weapons 242, 245, 251, 255, 260–​262,
Totone 185, 212 264–​265, 268–​270
toxicology 58 arrows 246, 251–​253, 255–​256, 259,
trade 39, 71–​72, 75–​77, 82, 100, 103–​104 265–​266
trauma 33, 156, 167–​168, 178, 219, 235, 241–​ knives 256
243, 245–​272, 280 “iron” 246, 252, 254, 270
bandaging 75, 244, 248, 254, 265 spears 256
blows 242, 245–​247, 250–​255, 257–​ swords 246, 251, 253, 255–​258, 262–​
262, 271 263, 265–​266, 269
blunt force trauma 256, 259, 262–​263, tuberculosis 163–​164
265–​266 Tyre 73
bruising 245, 249–​250, 254, 266
cutmarks 157, 255–​258 ulcers 143
cut tendons 245, 247–​248, 250 unguents/​ointments 47, 60, 63, 74, 223, 228–​
dental 178, 202 229, 249–​250
dislocations 172, 210, 235, 243, 245–​247, uric acid 205, 213
249–​250, 253–​254, 265–​266 urine analysis 19, 62
evidence of healing 242, 254, 256–​265, uvula 189, 194, 197
267, 280
falls 167, 242, 245, 247, 251, 254, 258, 261–​ vademecum 21–​22, 67–​68, 90, 254, 270, 295,
262, 264, 266, 269 298–​300
fractures 172, 210, 218, 235, 242–​250, 252–​ vernacular, Latinised 130–​132, 136, 142,
256, 258–​266, 270–​271, 280 148, 278
clavicle 260 Verona 67
cranium 248–​249, 255–​256, 258–​264, vertigo 208
266–​267 Vikings 269
femur 260 Vindicianus 291, 293, 296, 301–​302
fibula 259–​260, 263 Epistula ad Pentadium 302
metatarsals and phalanges 258, 261 viticulture 108–​109, 124–​126
radius 255, 258–​259, 261 Vivarium 43–​44

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412 Index

Walahfrid Strabo 21, 49–​51, 67, 70, 90, 137, obolus 139–​141
254, 270, 298–​299 scrupulum/​scruple 105, 139–​141, 145
Hortulus 50–​51, 137 semuncia 139–​141
Versus Strabi de beati Blaithmaic vita et sextarius 139–​142
fine 299 sicilicus 139–​141
Walter 268 siliqua 139–​141
Waltharius 268 solidus 139–​141
warfare 156, 241, 267–​272, 280–​281 staupus 106, 129–​143, 145,
wax 75. See also materia medica, wax 148–​149, 278
weeds 26, 137 treatises on 139–​141
weights and measures 48, 62, 77, 131, 133, uncia/​ounce 69, 73, 76, 82, 129, 139–​
284, 290, 296–​297 141, 241
acetabulum 139–​142 Wessex 39
amphora 139–​141 Willibald 72–​73
calyx 105, 133–​135, 138 Winchester 39, 72
congius 139–​141 Wintar 25
cotyla 139–​142 women’s health and medicine 200–​202
cyathus 131, 139–​142 abortion 111
denarius 82, 105, 139–​141 childbirth 245
drachma 69, 139–​141 gynaecology 53–​54, 62n99, 200, 208
eggshell-​ful 132, 138 uterine pain and problems 113, 197
fistful 138 working conditions 26, 155, 214, 216–​
handful 129, 132, 136, 138 217, 238
hemina 131, 139–​142 worms 115, 117, 121, 135
libra/​pound 73, 76, 82, 100, 105, 139–​
141, 241 Zedechias 25

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