​The Old English Herbarium has Mullien having such properties as rendering someone carrying it fearless in face of terror or if approached by wild beasts (Medieval Herbal Remedies, p181).  Another use is as a cure for gout that is rendered by bruising the leaves and placing the plant on the sore spot whereafter the patient will be able to walk in a few hours.  


This leads me to something I have been wondering since the outset of this project.  Often there is nothing to distinguish whether a plant might be needed fresh or dried for it to be deemed useful. This has led me to wonder if some remedies were only available in the summer.  For this example, that the leaves need to be bruised is key.  That indicates a fresh plant.  Fortunately for medieval people, the leaves of the first year plants often remain green in the winter (second year will dry up after flowering).

n her work, Hildegard notes that Mullien cooked with meat and “no other seasoning” and eaten often will strengthen the heart and make one happy.  For a hoarse voice or soar throat with pain in the chest, cook the Mullien with an equal amount of fennel in good wine, straining through a cloth and drinking often. (p115)

As mentioned before, the book Leechcraft discusses possible confusion with this plan an a variety of others.  It notes that an early English plant named “molin” is another item that could be our modern Mullien, and that this plant had sedative properties and was used widely for centuries for coughs and diarrhea and as lamp wicks.  (P142)

That last is one thing that I have read over and over in folklore or entries online for this plant.  This fascinates me.  I have seen references to it being used by miners in the US as torches, by ancient Roman’s to light the way in funeral processions and it being supposedly used by witches.  None of these sources were particularly academic, but I still am very intrigued.  I have seen it mentioned that they are dipped in tallow, wax or oil to produce the Mullien torch.  I have collected some stalks and plan to test them with both beeswax and olive oil.  The hope is to test these out at some point this week.

I also have gathered some leaves and will be drying them to add to the apothecary that I am building.
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Persona Summary:

• This plant existed in 14th Century England, though the English sources are ambiguous as to which plant is which where this is concerned.  It was used and noted elsewhere so it is quite possibly something that would have been known
• Plausible foraged or cultivated medicinal source (add to my personal apothecary)

Projects:

• Test out how well the flower stalks work as torches
• Test out Hildegard's recipes for both sore throat and as an additive to meat merely to see how the concoctions taste: COMPLETE.  You can see the post about this HERE. 

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List of Resources can be found HERE

I am continuing to build out my Forester kit.  As I read more about the 14th Century, I am fleshing out bits of the persona, and have chosen 1450ish as my time period.  Initially I thought I would go a little earlier, but I didn’t want the first round of the Great Plague to land on me (given that I am still living the current plague), so am opting for just past that catastrophe.

As noted before, my location will the the Forest of Galtres in Yorkshire.  My persona is educated and had studied with an uncle in London to be an apothecary before opening a shop in York.  He was recalled to the family manor in the forest to take up the work of Forester there as the other male members of the family were taken by the plague.  The family is not noble, but has a well-to-do estate and also owns an apothecary in York.

So far for my kit I have created wool tunic and undertunic which you can read more about HERE.  Because I was originally planning to be a little earlier, I am now going to bring up the hemline just a touch on this tunic, as well as the cobalt linen one that I made for warmer weather.

As you can see here the Chausses are finished and I have made two pairs of braies and purchased third.  I am not entirely happy with the two I made, so will need to revise those.  

After wearing the chausses for an evening, the thick stretched out immensely, so I want to alter those and properly add eyelets for the points.

I made a linen hood as a prototype and have wool to make another that will be lined with linen.  I dyed some additional cloth to make a Bocksten cloak as well.

The next tunic will have set-in sleeves, but will otherwise be very similar.  I want another set of chausses as well, and I might pattern them a bit differently too. 

At Pennsic I purchased 14th century boots that you can see here.  Next up will be a belt (I am wearing my Viking one here), for which I have already purchased the hardware.  Eventually a pouch will be made or purchased.  And I need to research proper garters.  These are merely wool twill tape.  I do love the red against the green though, so might stick with that color for this item.

I also have a passable drinking cup.  I am going to start collecting some appropriate cookware as well, and am working on building out a period fire-starting kit.

And yes, still more herbs!  I have projects planned and the research is ongoing and I have to say that I am immensely enjoying all of this!

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Bramble shoots and leaves can produce yellow, tan and light olive dyes, with there is enough tannin to use them without alum as a mordant (or they can be used as a source of tannin for mordant).  Supposedly, using alum will yield a more yellow dye.  (Heritage of color, 124). I think I might want to test dyeing with brambles (and also checking for colorfastness).
 
Black berries appear in a recipe for Pears in a Greek-Wine Syrup in The Medieval Kitchen as a recipe from Italy.  I wish I had seen this earlier when I still had plenty here, but I might opt to get some frozen ones to test this out!


The Old English Herbarium lists a tea of blackberry leaves to stop diarrhea.  In addition to that, it recommends pounding the plant (when soft) and pound it, then drip juice into the ear to heal it and lessen pain.  Another recipe is for taking 3 times 7 ripe berries and simmer it down in water by 2/3rds and give it to a woman to drink on an empty stomach for three days to help her menstrual flow.  There is also a rather interesting one for heart pain, where one takes the leaves and pounds them and yes, lay them on the left nipple to relieve pain. (It’s no wonder that mortality rates were so high!).  Flowers could be used on fresh wounds to allow them to heal.  Joint pain is soothed by simmering the plant down in wine by 2/3rds and bathing the joints.  And because we always need to know how to cure snakebites, pound the leaves and lay them on the bite.  (Medieval Herbal Remedies, 187)

Hildegarde (p146) has a rather interesting cure for a ulcer of the tongue, where one lances it with a bramble to let the bile flow out.  This also was believed to work by lanching the gums near a sore tooth.  If worms are eating the flesh, brambles can be pulverized and placed where the worms are active.
 
More exciting, I read that Hildegard had a recipe for chest cough or pain of the lungs.  “take feverfew, a little less bramble, less hyssop than bramble, and even less oregano add honey and cook in good strong wine, strain and drink moderately after eating.  After they are full of food, drink more.  Do this often to carry mucus away from the chest.”  These plants are safe enough that I plan to brew up this concoction to see how it tastes.  She also notes that they berry does no harm, but has no medicine. 
 
Lacununga has a recipe that involves the leaves of the bramble in curing of black blain (a blain being some sort of infection or pustule).  From Leechcraft (p101):
 
“If the black blain ails a man, then coarse salt shall be taken; burn it on a linen cloth, as much as an eff, then grind the salt very small; then take three eggs’s yolk; whip it strongly together and lay it on for six nights; then take earthnavel, and groundsel, and cabbage leaf, and old fat; pound it all together and lay it on for three nights; then take yarrow and groundself and bramble leaf and clean bacon; pound them together and lay them on; it shall soon be better for him, until he be healthy; and no liquid must come to it, except that from those plants themselves.” (p217)
 
This work also gives us a recipe involving the berries:
“The illness when one sweats greatly is called cardiacus: for that one must make purgative drinks, and make poultices on the front of the head and on his chest: take rue’s green leaves, shred them small and pound them greatly; and sift barley meal and add to it, and sweetened vinegar, make it into a poultice and put it in a thick cloth and bind it on {the patient} for three nights and three days; then put a fresh one on; and let the sick man drink often of the crushed bramble berries.” (p185) 

Of course, I ate many examples of these berries this summer.  There is some overlap in season so at one point I was able to grab three types all at once.

I also experimented with a plausible medievalish "pancake" that I made for a vigil at Pennsic.  This was an oat and barley honey pancake, topped with honeyed yogurt (I could not get plain skyr at War), and for my test batch I made a reduction of mixed berries with wine.  At Pennsic I served cloudberry jam on the pancakes for a more Scandinavian style of dessert.  Cloudberries are another type of lobed berries that grow further north that are quite wonderful!
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Persona Summary:

• Some types of brambles and berries would very likely be known to a 14th Century Forester in England
• The understood properties in period might have been something that person had come across
• Plausible foraged food source, could be gathered for cooking or just to eat as one comes across them

Projects:

• Consume on sight (ongoing while they last)
• Test out Hildegard's recipe for cough medication

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List of Resources can be found HERE

This year I finally managed to attend the Weed Walk!  It was lovely and very informative.  I knew many of the plants but got to learn about many new ones as well.  The tour of Pennsic plants included several types of clover, bird's foot trefoil, soapwort, broadleaf plaintain, wood sorrel, poke berry, crown vetch, thistle, golden rod, milkweed, coltsfoot, creeping charlie, elderberry, red dock, jewelweed, swamp vervain, boneset, white clover, iron weed, yarrow, golden rod, horsetail, heal all, skunk cabbage, Indian pipe and a few I am likely forgetting.

I love learning how to better identify plants in the wild, and hope over this next year to learn more about their uses in the Middle Ages.  I want to see these bits of nature as a 14th century person would have viewed them and better understand their value from that respect.  Hoping to start building out my own database of information from various sources that my persona might have studied in period.