This fall I harvested some dried mullein stalks to coat with flammables and attempt to use as torches.  I read in several "articles" online that mullein torches were used by the Romans.  Why the quotes?  Because not a one of those actually cite a viable source for that information.  I do not know whether it is legit or not (Roman period is not my research thing), but folklore also refers to these as "witch candles" so I thought I would give it a test regardless.  I will note that in On Simples, attributed to Dioscorides there is a reference to Mullein being used as lamp wicks and it is also called "lampwick", so that I will definitely be checking out in the future as well.

So last month I coated some of the stalks with wax.  Because of the cost of beeswax and my desire not to waste any, I chose not to fill a tall vessel and dip the stalks.  Rather, I melted a small portion and dipped the tip and just ladled the liquid wax over the rest and watched it soak in to the very dry material.  Modernly you can find mullein candles from neopagan vendors who very heavily coat them, truly making them candle-like in appearance.  They sell them as a less appropriative replacement for white sage for smudging (not a bad thing at all).

The initial test had a 3 inch flower head that gave me 5.5 minutes of well-lit burn time.  I used approximately 1.75 ounces of wax to coat the 4 stalks I had (3-4ish inches).

​Because wax likely had better uses than a quick burning torch in period, I decided to look at other viable options for this process and purchased some beef tallow and used up some expired olive oil and also vegetable (soybean) oil that was left over from frying schnitzel.

For this round I used 4 inch plants, all dressed in the same fashion (with the tip held in the oil and oil ladled down the stalk until it was well coated).  I labeled them and stood them up as I did before, lit the tops and timed them.

While the lengths of the flower heads on these were all similar, they were not exact down to the millimeter and I had no way to check for density, so some might have been heavier than others.  So this truly is not scientific, but still gave me a feel for how well the different fats performed.

In the image below, the wax is on the left, tallow, then olive oil and the vegetable oil on the far right.  The wax caught most readily and produced the most light for the duration of it's burn.  It is the only one that really acted as a "torch" for the entire duration.

The tallow performed well, but the bright light it started with settled down to something a bit better than a really good candle.  The two plant oils were more candle like until the last 5 minutes of their burn time.

At the end of ithe beeswax burned brightly for 18:42 (18 minutes, 42 seconds).  The tallow burned for 27:26 and the vegetable oil burned for 25:38.  The olive oil was burned for 21:01, but I also had to relight it at one point because it was very much struggling to really get going.

Also, I had a helper, because of course I did.  He feels that I finally have set the appropriate alter for his divine presence.

This is the next part of the preparations section from Mirfield's Breviarium Bartholomei, part 13, as found in Popular Medicine in the Thirteenth-Century England, by Tony Hunt.  This is my very rudimentary translation from Latin for the section on Oils.  Note, despite translation as "essential oils" at the start, these are essential oils as we think of them today.  Syrups, electuaries, pills, waters and powders are all covered in previous entries here.

​As with the previous translations, headers that are in parentheses are notes from Tony Hunt, while parentheses contained within the copy usually contain my own notes, whether it is clarification of a term or uncertainty of the translation.

(Plasters)

Of Plasters in General

Plaster is called from en, which is 'in', and plasters, 'form', that which is introduced over the form of the disease. Likewise, a plaster is called when many simple substances of different natures, such as powders, gums, fats, are boiled to perfection with wax, sap, and oil, and preserved in magdaleonibus (‘small cylindrical roll of plaster or other medical substance’ also ‘pill or tablet’, from Dictionary of Medical Vocabulary in English, 1375–1550). Afterwards it is stretched over the leather and applied to the place where it is needed, as the diaquilon (‘Plaster containing plant mucilages and juices, herbal oils, litharge, lanoleum, bird lime, gums, beeswax; attributed to Mesue’ Dictionary of Medical Vocabulary in English, 1375–1550) and the apostolicon (‘Apostles’ ointment containing c. 20 ingredients including litharge, colophony, beeswax, herbs, gums; used for wounds, Dictionary of Medical Vocabulary in English, 1375–1550) and many other things. In other words, a plaster is called a hard composition made of different things and put together that can be mixed with the hands. But plaster and poultice are often used for something else. And note that plasters can be kept until they lose their smell.

​

For the SCA Foresters' Guild there are requirements to progress from one rank to the next.  Æthelmearc currently is falling under the East Kingdom and the Checklist, as well as other pertinent documents with rules and regulations, can be found HERE.  

Once you swear the Forester's oath, you can work towards different goals within the guild.  This is one thing I love about some of the guilds within the SCA.  They give you tangible goals, AND have people willing to jump in and help you along the way.  (Another great guild with goals is the Company of the Silver Spindle in Atlantia.

 I took the Oath at Pennsic and now am starting on working towards Underforester.  For this you need to start a fire, cook a meal for one, have some green garb and participate in camping (yes, Pennsic camping counts).  Most of my garb is green, but the Forester kit I am building out has that goal in mind.  Currently I have green chausses and hood, along with a brown wool and blue linen tunic.  Eventually I will have a green wool and a green linen tunic as well.  I have cloth for two green cloaks as well, I just need to get them cut out.  

The next rank is Forester.  For this you need period gear and equipment (working on it).  Period shoes (have them).  Full forester garb (technically have that except that cloak that needs cut out, BUT I want to revise the garb I made this year already).  You need to be helpful and cook for a group over a fire.  And you need to start a fire with a period method.  I have done this in the past several times with flint and steel, but my technique is, um, rusty.  I also started a fire with charcloth and a magnifying glass at the Shire Day in the Park this past June.  I tried to do it today, and got the charcloth to catch and started to get my nest going but the flax that I was using as the base of the nest was not catching.  Like, it was REALLY, not catching.  It came from a very damp room and I think that it might have taken on moisture?  I used this same flax years ago with no issues but it honestly did not want to take right away even with a lighter (which I ended up using just to keep things moving.

So, enough about what went wrong, lets talk about what went right!  I had a great time.  I chose a semi-flat spot near a fallen tree in an area where there is no grass or other growth to worry about burning.  I also opted for Safety First and had a can of water and a fire extinguisher stashed nearby.  We live in the woods, it is autumn so leaves are falling, and we have not had rain in several days.  I also used some stones to build a small firebreak on the downhill side from where I was working.  

​You can see my staged area below, as well as the stages of my fire.  I had wood ready, and yes, I did use a few sticks of fatwood.  I currently do not have period cooking pots, but did use a small dutchoven, griddle and a little clay vessel I made myself (it is actually a pinch pot for early Celtic stuff, but it is what I have).  I have two trivets from Rabenwald Metalsmything but only needed the shorter one for this project.  I used a tent stake for lifting the pot around and removing and replacing the lid.

So, what was I going to make?  I wanted to do more than just make random food to fill a checklist.  I wanted something period appropriate to my persona.  So, my assumption here is that I would actually be traveling from London where my persona's uncle lives, back to his own home in York, and realistically, I was not traveling alone as that was very much asking for trouble.  We would have more than bare minimum gear with us.

So my personal checklist is:

• Period food items for my persona
• At least somewhat period methods of cooking/compiling them
• Ingredients that would be in season at the same time

​
In the end I opted for a:

• Dish of parsnips and onions
• Apples with cinnamon and honey
• Flat breads (rye and oat)
• Cheese (for this I opted for Brie that I had at home already)
• I choose to go vegetarian for this as, in additional to Lenten Fridays, there were many days during the 14th Century in England where meat was not allowed

My foodstuffs can be seen below.  Most of these vessels are NOT period to my persona, and while some are close (the glass containers), I would not be slinging those around during travel.  I would also definitely not be traveling with two heavy mortar and pestle sets, but I needed to grind the cinnamon for the apples so took them outside to work on while the fire was reducing to coals.

While the fire was making coals for me, I went ahead and started the onions in the pot with butter.  This is a modern sweet onion as I have serious sensitivity to onion and do not react to this type IF it is cooked until completely dead.  I also have some apple and butter in the earthenware pot.  I have not fire tested my own pottery yet, so did not want to sit this directly in a bed of coals at this time.

When my onions cooked down some, I added the chopped parsnips and continued to cook those close to the fire, stirring often.  When the fire died down enough, I moved the Dutch Oven to sit directly over coals.

Once the parsnips started to soften a little and the onions were VERY cooked, I added white wine, water and a bit of salt.

While this was cooking I mixed up a little olive oil into the rye and oat flour with a touch of salt and a small amount of honey.  I formed these into little patties and put them on the griddle that I had preheated with butter.  For the griddle I am using the low trivet and it is placed directly over coals.

Did I mention the apples were taking forever?  I was not quite ready to explode my drinking cup with high heat, so I ended up finishing the apples on the griddle with the flat breads.

Before dumping them from the cup onto the griddle I stirred in a bit of the cinnamon I ground.  Part of my research on medieval apothecary revealed that the cinnamon sold in the US is typically cassia, a similar plant, but not true cinnamon.  I do, however, keep celyon cinnamon sticks in the house as I have a friend who is allergic to cassia, and I ground one of those for this project.

To finish off my main course, I added the foraged sorrel as well as the harvested chives and parsley to the pot, along with a little more water and wine.  Then I did a very period thing and thickened the whole thing with bread crumbs (from old bread that I foraged in my kitchen).  I believe that bread, a staple of the medieval diet, could easily be bought in towns we would pass through, and eventually one might have an older hunk not really suitable for a meal, even while traveling. 

The photo to the right shows the veggie dish right before I added the lid and set the whole thing over coals to finish it off.

So how was it all?

Honestly?  It was excellent.  I forgot to add the honey to the apples so drizzled it on at the end.  (My persona, as an apothecary, would have ready access to both honey and several types of sugar, so sweetening a dish is not unreasonable.)

The parsnips and onions were quite savory and had an almost lemony twang with the addition of the sorrel (locally called "sour grass").  The bread crumbs thickened the broth so that it clung to the vegetables making it more "main course" to me than it would have as a soup.

The flat breads were good, but a bit crumbly.  They might be made better with a different source of fat (butter, tallow or lard), which is something I can experiment with later.  I went with the olive oil because I had it handy here.

And yes, I had help from local wildlife with my meal prep and with helping eat the rind from the Brie!

​Also, I did this in garb!

This is the next part of the preparations section from Mirfield's Breviarium Bartholomei, part 13, as found in Popular Medicine in the Thirteenth-Century England, by Tony Hunt.  This is my very rudimentary translation from Latin for the section on Ointments.  Syrups, electuaries, pills, waters, powders and oils are all covered in previous entries here.

​As with the previous translations, headers that are in parentheses are notes from Tony Hunt, while parentheses contained within the copy usually contain my own notes, whether it is clarification of a term or uncertainty of the translation.

I will greatly be expanding on this section later.  Here Mirfield mentions many different ointments and I have been sourcing the recipes for these from various sources to be shared later.  One such example is the the Agrippa ointment as described by Culpepper:

"Take of Briony roots two pounds, the roots of wild Cucumbers one pound, Squills half a pound, fresh English Orris roots, three ounces, the roots of male Fern, dwarf Elder, water Caltrops, or Aaron, of each two ounces, bruise them all, being fresh, and steep them six or seven days in four pounds of old oil, the whitest, not rank, then boil them and press them out, and in the oil melt fifteen ounces of white Wax, and make it into an ointment according to art.

It purges exceedingly, and is good to anoint the bellies of such as have dropsies, and if there be any humour or flegm in any part of the body that you know not how to remove (provided the part be not too tender) you may anoint it with this; but yet be not too busy with it, for I tell you plainly it is not very safe."

What recipes such as these really hammers home is the volume of ingredients that go into making of some of these items.  The medieval apothecaries were not crafting cures for a single person, but producing (or sourcing) in bulk the items they would need to sell.

As I have been harvesting wild plants for my own kit, I have noticed the level of work just to fill one small glass jar with dried, powdered plant matter, and then I consider how much my persona would have had on hand at a time and the level of effort involved (whether from the apothecary, the herb women, or another source) was staggering.  


​

(Ointments)

On Ointments in General

There are some warm and some cold ointments. They are warm, such as dialtea (ointment made from marshmallow root), Agrippa, golden ointment, Arrogon ointment, marciaton (Anglo Normon dictionary lists this as an ointment for the bones/joints; another source mentions that it has wax, fats and 50 other ingredients), brown ointment (ointment for wounds), ointment for salty phlegm, and the like. But they are cold, such as popileon (ointment for wounds or burns of poplar leaves or buds, animal fat and leaves of narcotic plants such as henbane or poppy, the recipes vary, information from  Dictionary of Medical Vocabulary in English, 1375–1550, Norri), unguentum citrinum (yellow ointment, possibly involving citrus), unguentum album (white ointment - there are numerous variations of this recipe throughout history, often for removing blemishes, freckles or for sores), and the like.

And note that when about powders with oil, etc. if you want to make an ointment, then to one ounce of powder put four ounces of oil, one ounce of wax in summer, an ounce of seeds in winter (“yeme” clarified in the Middle English Dictionary online).

But if the ointment receives gums which are dissolved and not worn, the gums should not be counted in the aforesaid measure of weight, since they do not add to the thickness or to the softness. But if the ointment receives the fat of pig, chicken, goose, or other such things which are dissolved into an oily substance, then the dissolved fat must be counted as oil, and you must put the aforementioned amount of powders and wax.

(Preparation)

Now the method of making ointments from any herbs [if] you choose: first put the herbs in a pot or in a cauldron and let it be filled to the top with water. Then the mouth of the pot should be covered with a strong linen cloth and sealed with clay so that the smoke does not escape, and it should be placed on the fire until the water is consumed. And then let the pot be filled again with water and once again add the chopped herbs before boiling. Then put that herb with the whole decoction in a strong linen cloth and express the juice and use that juice in making ointments. And if you wish to reserve that decoction, make it with wax and reserve it in a box.

And note that all of them can be reduced to ointments by medicine, if they are cold, medicine with cold oils, if they are mixed hot with warm oils. And let a little wax be added, and let it bubble a little, and thus the ointment is made. This is how we work with perfumes, and especially hot ones. The ointment is placed in an egg shell and dissolved on the fire. And then, with that ointment, the patient's member should be exposed to the fire or to the sun. And then, after the anointing, some skin or something similar should be placed over the anointed member (membrum can also be member, limb organ or  “section”)  so that the power of the ointment is preserved.

​

As I have mentioned before, we live in the woods in Appalachia.  The property is loaded with all sorts of animals, including white-tailed deer, opossums, raccoons, gray squirrels, a variety of mice and other small rodents.  We also have many types of songbirds, ravens, barred-owls, and red-shouldered hawks.  American Black Ducks sometimes nest in the field as well and Canadian Geese have raised their young in the stream on the property.  In addition to that, the property has a feral cat colony that we TNR and support as we can (you can follow the feline adventures HERE).
 

The creek itself has small fish such as minnows.  It also is a state-stocked stream for trout from February through May.  We also have crawdads, loads of them, and occasionally they are large enough to get claw meat out of!
 
This summer when family was here fishing for crawdads, I had an idea that I would try to assemble a primitive trap and catch some myself.  I finally had time to do it this weekend to test this out.
 
First though, crayfish are period for my persona.  Not this species (apparently American ones are invasive in England and they practically beg people to catch and eat them, article HERE), but they were a viable food source.  The Medieval Histories blog has a nice article that lead me to an early 16th century painting of crawfish catching in Austria as well as a stellar image of a clay trap that I hope to replicate this winter.

In the painting, which comes from the Fishing Book of Maximilian I, you can see a trap in one area of it, it is similar in shape to commercial traps you can buy today and I believe it works similarly to the style I opted to construct, even if it looks far more refined than mine.
 

​A fifteenth century painting from Lombardy possibly shows people dining on crayfish.  Unfortunately, the article that discusses this painting, “The Cultural History of Crayfish”, is not one I have been yet able to access by any means.  I do, however, wonder if these are actually meant to be lobsters?
 
And most importantly, it is detailed in Tacuinum Sanitatis, a commonplace book from Italy that was based on an 11th century Arabic medical work.  The book was reproduced in Latin from the 13th century onward and first printed in the 16th century.  This text notes that the nature of the crayfish is warm and dry in the second degree, with the optimal ones being fresh and yellow colored.  For uses?  They increase coitus (lol)! Danger in them is sleeping, but this can be neutralized by sprinkling them with almonds and olive oil.

​Typical of myself, I had another great reference for crayfish in the Middle Ages, but I was plowing through books at the time and not really taking notes.  When I find that again, I will amend this entry with the information.
 
Enough background, I decided to make a trap.  I did not really plan anything or research beyond anything mentioned above, and decided to go with a primitive trap style that I had vaguely seen on TV during one of the thousand episodes of reality survival shows that are a huge hit with my partner.  I understood the basic concept of using a cone within a cone that allows them to easily swim in to find the bait, but it makes it difficult for them to get back out.  I gave myself the parameter of using all foraged material, with the exception of some nettle yarn that I had in my stash.  Nettle is a bast fibre (along with things like linen and hemp) and these are very strong when wet.  This yarn is one that I had purchased some time ago for weaving but it is too coarse for most of the weaving I do, something which made it a great candidate for this (and it helps bust-the-stash). 

The uprights for both the inner and outer basket were harvested when I felled a dying lilac tree in the yard.  There were new shoots coming up that were delightfully straight and still pliable so I made use of those.  These were all cut out with modern loppers during the process of yardwork.

​For the woven pieces, I started foraging with just a knife (a modern survival type knife as I do not yet have a larger period one), but I have issues with my hands that forced me to resort to modern tools after about an hour of cutting branches.  I used the loppers (cannot find my pruners yet again) and scissors to finish the task.
 
I started by fashioning four hoops to fix the uprights too (two for each cone).  I used long, thin lilac shoots for these.  I tied heavier lilac shoots to those to form the base of the structure. 

I started weaving in the rest of the small lilac shoots in and out of the uprights until the whole basket was filled in.  I quickly ran out of lilac and tried several other types of plants on the property.  There is some type of young honeysuckle branches that worked fabulously as long as I harvested the newer ones (the older were too ‘woody’ and broke easily). Autumn Olive/Silverberry also worked well, provided, again, that I used only the younger branches.  Some things did not work at all, and those being the stems from Staghorn Sumac.  They were straight and pliable, but bend sharply with very little pressure.

Eventually I had raided all the viable honeysuckle and I had to quest a bit further and found a bit of vine from wild grapes.  Only a little of this was still pliable enough to work, but the moonseed vines were amazing, and the small inner basket was almost entirely comprised of that plant.
 
The inner basket fit well into the outer one but I was worried that smaller critters could slip out, so I stuffed in twists of invasive stiltgrass to fill in the gap between the two.

After baiting it with cat food (I had planned to use dinner leftovers but there were none), I took the trap to the creek last night and chose a somewhat deep (if you can call it that at this time of year) area and laid down the trap, using stones to hold the tail end down and a stick wedged under a log to keep it submerged. 
 
This morning, I dashed down to check my work, and I was delighted to find I had 5 decent sized (for this area) crawdads in the trap!  I initially thought it was four, but saw the fifth hiding in the bottom of it as I was getting ready to release the little guys back to the stream.
 

I am absolutely going to call this trap a success!  I doubt I will make another, it was very, very hard on my hands winding in all of those vines and branches, and construction took about 10 hours.  But I am drying this trap to test out again in the future.

Also, check out this weirdo crawfish (lobster?) from the Medieval Sketches of Villard de Honnecourt, from 13th Century France found on the Medievalist.net. 
​

(Oils)

Of Oils in General

Essential oils can be used for many purposes. For oils are made sometimes from flowers, sometimes from seeds, sometimes from fruits, sometimes from trees, sometimes from roots, and sometimes from other things, as will be shown below.

(Flowers)

Oil is made from the flowers in this way: one pound of flowers is taken, three pounds of olive oil are taken. Grind the flowers a little, then mix well with the oil. And then the flowers float together in a glass vase and put it on the rim in the hot sun. And so they were exposed to the sun for nine days. And this may be done a second time or a third time if you wish. Then the strain is reserved for use.

It can also be done in another way: take one pound of flowers, three pounds of oil. Let it boil for a long time in a double boiler, then strain through a cloth. And with the thrown flowers, add others if you wish, and do as before.

(Fruit)

Oil is made from the fruits as follows: grind them and let them be ground for several days. Then add the water, kneaded with your hands, and the oil. And let it boil for a very long time in a double vessel. And strain through a cloth. When it has cooled, collect what has been left behind.

(Seeds)

Oil is made from the seeds in this way: take a mustard seed or something else and put it in a yellow vessel and put a cloth over it and dig it in the moist earth and leave it there for nine days. Then grind it vigorously and put it in the chapel and strain it through a sieve and collect what comes out and reserve it.

But oil is made in a different way from the seeds and berries: reduce it to powder and make it boil in wine and strain. And after straining, add one pound of oil. And let it boil for the consumption of the wine and reserve it.

(Herbs)

Likewise, oil can be made from herbs and roots in this way: let common oil be heated and the herbs and roots are left there for at least a week. And let the grass and the roots be moved every day. Then bring the whole thing to a boil in a double boiler. And strain and reserve for use.

(Woods)

In general, oils are made from wood, so the wood is divided into very small pieces and placed in a pot with a hole in the bottom. And a covering of reborn earth, that is, clay, is placed on top of it, and it is sealed with paste so that the smoke does not escape. And let there be a trench in the ground, in which another unperforated pot is placed. And let a fire be made around the sides of the upper pot, and what will burn from the wood will fall into the lower pot, and it will be reserved for use.

(Roots & Herbs)

Oils can be made from roots and herbs: they are boiled in water and wine with a little shaking, and after it is seen that their virtue is a liquid, it is worshiped (prescribed?). And the oil is added to the filter. And so the whole boils until it is consumed, and the oil is reserved for use. Or boil the oil with the juice of roots or herbs until the juice is consumed. Then it is cultivated and reserved for use.

(Spices)

Similarly, we can boil any pulverized species in wine or water and after boiling it is cultivated. And the filter is boiled with added oil until it is consumed, filtered and reserved for use.

(Powders)

Likewise, we boil the powders mixed together with wine and oil, and when the wine is boiled and consumed, we strain it, and what comes out through the straining will be oil.

​

This is part three and four of the Preparation of Compound Medicines.  For more background and to see Part 1 - Syrups, please check out the post HERE or part 2 on electuaries HERE, part 3 - Pills can be found HERE. This is my (rudimentary) translation from Latin the Pills section of John Mirfield's Breviarium Bartholomei, part 13, as found in Popular Medicine in the Thirteenth-Century England, by Tony Hunt.

​As with the previous translation of Syrups, headers that are in parentheses are notes from Tony Hunt, while parentheses contained within the copy usually contain my own notes, whether it is clarification of a term or uncertainty of the translation.

(Powders)

Of Powders in General

First of all, it must be understood that any medicine that is prepared in the manner of an electuary or in pills can be given as a powder, but if necessary, scammony (‘scamonia’, the plant scammony which is a purgative - need better translation for this as it comes up several times) is added in the proper portion. Some, however, are so disgusted with ready-made medicines that they do not want to take them in any way, to whom we give a powder that is strong for this purpose and perhaps a laxative, and we offer them unwary at the beginning of the meal in some food or drink. And when they have received the laxative powder, they must abstain from food, lest the power of the medicine be suffocated by an excessive quantity of it. And note that medicine given in powder is more effective against the vices of parts removed from the stomach than pills or suppositories. For dust penetrates deeply by its subtlety. Especially diuretics and the like need a fine powdering, so that they penetrate more quickly to the members. Therefore, whatever medicine has reference to the remote parts must be finely powdered; but, as some say, laxative medicine quickly loses its power when powdered. Wherefore it is better that they be made with honey or sugar, or at least with a juice of their own competence, to be bound together and formed into pieces. And when you wish to use them, they should be diluted with some liquid of sufficient strength and taken by mouth. But the laxative powder should be given to those who have a fever with water, not to those who have a fever with wine. For dust quickly loses its power because of its fineness. Therefore, at least the laxative powder should not be used for a fortnight or a month longer unless it is prepared as aforesaid. Moreover, when a bird or other animal is to be pulverized, they are first placed in a crude pot with a lid and lined with clay in a boiling oven - not to burn them, but to dry them so that they can be pulverized.

(Waters)

Of Waters in General

Against different diseases, they find different medicinal waters, some from leaves, some from flowers, some from roots, and from many other things in different ways, as will be evident from the inside, about some for example. And you must know that all herbal waters have the same virtues as the herb from which they are extracted.

(Preparation)

But when you want to draw water from flowers or leaves or the like, they are collected in the morning and thrown away with sticks, cut a little and are broken a little in a mortar. And from there the lower vessel of the distiller is filled up to the middle and covered with another part of the distiller. And then those vessels are bound well round the lip with clay, and then they are placed on an earthen furnace which has a narrow opening. And then the coals are placed without smoke, and the water drips through the mouth of the dropper, which is received in a glass vial, and reserved for use.

​
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