1 Introduction: the Exotic Ingredients of an Antidote
A âsacredâ antidote of colocynth. This is the recipe: eryngium roots, polypody 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 sufficient skimmed honey.1
The above ingredient list, found on f. 90r of bav pal. lat. 1088, names the substances (and their respective amounts) needed to prepare the Antidotum gira deacoloquintidis, âA âsacredâ antidote of colocynthâ. A fairly typical antidote, the scribe claims that it treats roughly two dozen different conditions, from head pains to goutâand seemingly everything in between. The scribe even asserts that, in addition to curing present infirmities, it will defend against future maladies: non solum presentes infirmitates curat, sed futuras egritudines defendit. While this catch-all approach to treatment raises important questions regarding 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 different ingredientsâtwenty-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
Ten of the twenty-eight products could have been grown or produced in northern and western Europe; these include eight plants native to the regionâeryngium (eringio), polypody (polopodiÄ), spignel (meu), gentian (gentiana), savin (brathea), rustyback fern (scolopendria), dodder (epithimo), and hazelwort (asarum)âas well as honey (mel) and the fungus agaric (agarico). Five plant ingredients, including sweet flag (agaro), colocynth (interiones), wall germander (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 growing in neighbouring regions or perhaps cultivated in protected gardens, though Walahfrid Strabo does not record them in his poem on his own âlittle gardenâ, 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), costus (costo), spikenard (spica), cassia (casia), camphor (cafora), aloe (aloe), saffron (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 localnessâor, 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 Riddleâs analysis of one of the recipe collections involved in the present study, the first collection in cod. sang. 44 (pp. 228â55), provides a useful example.4 Using Henry Sigeristâs 1923 transcription, he identified 361 different ingredients in the
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 Riddleâs study. Riddle and others, such as Michael McCormick, have highlighted 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 knowledge. 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 examining additional evidence concerning the trade of exotic substances, I present potential routes for the dissemination and spread of this pharmaceutical
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 materia 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 ingredientsâor 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, Lullâs predecessor as archbishop of Mainz, Boniface (c. 675â754), is recorded as having received similar gifts from Rome.8 Perhaps Cynehard knew ofâand wanted to partake inâthis 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. 700â89), 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
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 literate elite, the expensive nature of these items would suggest that any circulation 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 Bonifaceâs supplies would have lasted, perhaps the movement of such products from Rome into the missionariesâ territory helps to explain Lullâs access to frankincense, pepper, and cinnamon (his gifts to Cuneburg) as well as Cynehardâs letter to Lull requesting exotica. Did he know that such products had been sent to Mainz at an earlier date? Even if Bonifaceâs gifts were no longer present, it is possible that news of the (past) existence
A letter in the Collectio sangallensis from the second half of the ninth century suggests that access to these types of non-local substances increased in the years following Gemmulusâ 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: Salomonâs gifts contained a much more diverse spread.
However, predating Salomonâs 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 mentioned by Notker the Stammerer (c. 840â912), Harun al-Rashid, the Abbasid caliph (r. 786â809), 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, âperfumes and ointments and balsamâ (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
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 Cambraiâif 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
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 ingredients 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 Corbieâs âshopping listâ. 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
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 ânon-localâ presents a number of challenges.23 At the most fundamental level, given the size of the Frankish Empire, the variety of (micro-)climates within its borders, and its influence into neighbouring regions, where does âlocalâ end and ânon-localâ begin?24 A monk in St Gall
3.1 Whatâs in a Name? The Challenge of Identifying Ingredients and Their Origins
When attempting to understand the relative localness of materia medica, geographic descriptors attached to an ingredientâs name may seem to provide especially valuable insights. Attic honey, African snails, and Illyrian irisesâall recorded as ingredients in recipesâeach link a product to a particular location, but do they really indicate their source? It may be useful to consider modern parallels: French fries are not inherently French, nor are Belgian waffles necessarily Belgian, though these geographic labels may provide insights into consumersâ 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 âdiscrete varietiesâ, reflecting whence these products originated historically rather than at the time the authors were writing.25 Moreover, Becker cautions that this nomenclature may not convey the substancesâ actual points
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 Stannardâs thorough investigation into âthe plant called Molyâ 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 âmoly traditionâ.28 Stannardâs detective work revealed not only that âmany of the attempts to identify moly have gone astrayâ, but also that âin the Greek tradition, moly designates at least three different plantsâ, 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 Dioscoridesâ De materia medica: just before describing moly, which, in Dioscoridesâ 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 âmolyâ.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., Galenâs âmylÄâ), 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, âdespite all these difficulties, scholars since Antiquity have attempted to identify plants named in âolderâ authoritiesâ, and, following the development of Linnaean binomial nomenclature, there has been a strong emphasis on species-specific identification.34
3.2 From Ambergris to Zedoary
The aforementioned work of John Riddle and Michael McCormick offers a useful 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. 228â55), Riddle highlights the appearance of two new products: 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 Riddleâs analysis of recipes from several manuscripts beyond this studyâs manuscript sample, he also notes galangal and zedoary, both
3.3 The Confectio Timiame: Camphor, Ambergris, and Other Non-local Materia Medica
Despite highlighting the newness of camphor and ambergris and their appearances 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:
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-codices.unifr.ch/de/csg/0044/247 )
© st. gallen, stiftsbibliothek, licensed under cc by-nc 4.0
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
A review of this recipeâs twelve ingredients, cozumber (cozumbrio), storax (storace), confita (confiti), frankincense (thus), myrrh (mirra), mastic (mastice), 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 âexotic substanceâ and noting that its âderivation ⦠is unclearâ; confita, on the other hand, is mentioned by neither author.44 According to Carmélia Opsomerâs 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 represent derivatives of storax, an identification which fits within the context of an incense recipe.46 In Alejandro GarcÃa Gonzálezâ commentary on this glossary,
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 âshopping listâ 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 medical 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 substances in this context suggests that these products, and quite possibly other exotica, were circulating in the Latin west at this timeâif only in small quantities and at great expense. Indeed, since the abbotâs instructions only represent a pigmenta âwish listâ, it remains unknown what substances were actually available 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
The existence within a single recipe of a cluster of five newly introduced (or reintroduced) non-local ingredients is particularly striking. While the recipeâs exclusive reliance on foreign, imported substances adds to its overall exoticness, its listing of a variety of new products is most noteworthy. By incorporating 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 recipeâs inclusion within a recipe collection 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 segregated 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
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 recipes 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 chapterâs 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 traditionâa 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 preparation was rapidly disseminated. As shown in Table 2, I have identified variants 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
Incense recipes containing the ingredient cluster
| Ms | Cod. sang. 899 (a) | Cod. sang. 878 (b) | BnF lat. 11219 (h) | Cod. sang. 44 | BnF lat. 11219 (e) | BnF lat. 11219 (i) | BnF lat. 11219 (a) | Cod. sang. 899 (b) | BnF lat. 11219 (g) | BnF lat. 11219 (j) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recipe title | Confectio timiamatis | Item aliter | Confectio timiamatis | Confectio timiame | Confectio timiamatis ad gragantum | Item timiamatis confectio | Timiama | Item alia timiamatis confectio | [untitled] | Item |
| 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 |
Incense recipes containing the ingredient cluster (cont.)
| Ms | Cod. sang. 899 (c) | BnF lat. 11219 (c) | BnF lat. 11219 (f) | BnF lat. 11219 (d) | Cod. sang. 878 (a) | Cod. sang. 761 | Cod. sang. 752 | BnF lat. 11219 (l) | BnF lat. 11219 (k) | BnF lat. 11219 (b) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recipe title | Item alia | Item Alia | [untitled] | Alia | [untitled] | Thimiama | Thymiama paltgrimi | Confectio timiama | Item | Tymiamum |
| 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 spikenard |
storax | storax | |||||
| cloves | cloves | cloves | cloves | cloves | ||||||
| cinnamon | cinnamon | cinnamon | cinnamon | cinnamon | ||||||
| saffron |
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 âcod. sang. 878 (a)â in the tables, is missing a title, while the second recipe, âcod. sang. 878 (b)â, is listed as Item aliter, âlikewise in another wayâ. 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 combination 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
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-codices.unifr.ch/de/csg/0899/137 )
© st. gallen, stiftsbibliothek, licensed under cc by-nc 4.0
As seen in Table 2, the twenty recipes, despite containing a variety of different ingredients, centre around a primary group of five substances (i.e., ingredients 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 cozumber 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 cinnamon 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 identical; 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.
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 âwestern Franciaâ, respectively), 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
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 recipes, 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 substancesânamely, non-local gums, resins, and spicesâbut 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 collection 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
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 |
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 chapterâs opening recipe, the Antidotum gira deacoloquintidis of bav pal. lat. 1088, already confirms that at least one of these ingredients, camphor, can be found in other pharmaceutical prescriptions and was
Newly introduced exotics outside of incense recipes
| Ingredients | Manuscripts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cod. sang. 44 | Cod. sang. 751 | bav vat. lat. 5951 | bav pal. lat. 1088 | bav reg. lat. 1143 | Total | |
| 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 |
Although cod. sang. 44 and bav pal. lat. 1088 contain the bulk of the examples, 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 recipe. 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 oculorum et ad caliginem of bav pal. lat. 1088 have been inserted in the margins, representing slightly later but near contemporary additions.79
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. 187râ187v, 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 Romeâand 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 Bonifaceâs 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 Lullâs gifts to Cuneburg and Cynehardâs 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 travelled. 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 separate 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 contains 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, extending into the heartlands of Frankish territories and beyond. It is also important to remember that the Corbie monksâ shopping list for the Cambrai market indicates that at least some of these substances themselves were circulating
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. 44âthe only manuscript to contain both an incense recipe and unrelated recipes that include newly introduced ingredientsârepresents an exception, I suggest that the dissemination of the incense recipe tradition and of pharmaceutical information concerning the individual ingredients took separate, if at times intersecting and ultimately converging, paths.
The diffusion of the incense recipe appears to reflect a rapid process, and one in which a core unit of knowledgeâthe five primary ingredientsâwas 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 promulgated 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 alternative 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 substitute if certain ingredients were unavailable. The recording of so many variants
Returning to the non-incense recipes that incorporate individual newly recorded ingredients, the introduction of these particular materia medica seems to have occurred for different, though ultimately related, reasons. Several key patterns emerge: first, these recipes do not appear in the same manuscripts 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 interesting 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 ingredients 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 experiences of someone who did. This slow spread of knowledgeâa case-by-case diffusion based on access to expensive, rare substancesâcontrasts 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 blossomed 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 introduced ingredients both alongside and independent of the incense recipe tradition. The particular cultural and intellectual environment and the needs of
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 assessing the recording of non-local ingredients more generally?
The above review of a selection of newly recorded materia medica has highlighted 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 periodâand, of particular note, include several of the key ingredients analysed in this chapterâit 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 Fontenelleâs 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 introduced materia medica, were circulating in the Carolingian world. This circulation, 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 ingredients 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
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 knowledgeâinformation 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
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 introduced ingredients speaks to the arrival and distribution of this knowledge within northwest Europe. Tracing the distribution of incense recipes containing these core ingredients as well as the appearance of each of these ingredients 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 factor 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.
Finally, although this chapter has focused on the spread of non-local materia 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 Caliphateâs 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 Rashidâs 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
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 information 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 gateways 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 McCormickâs remark that the manuscripts âmay still hold some surprisesâ.94 It is evident that these types of âmiscellaneousâ 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.
bav pal. lat. 1088, f. 90r: Antidotum gira deacoloquintidis⦠Recipit hÄc eringio radices, polopodiÄ 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, aloÄ, croco, reopontico, masticÄ, cinamo, diagridiu, epithimo, asaro, pionia, ana unt I, omnia pulueraem facis, adde mel dispumatum quod sufficit. Only the recipeâs 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.
Voigts, âAnglo-Saxon Plant Remediesâ; Walahfrid Strabo, Hortulus; Horn and Born, The Plan of St. Gall, 181â3.
Voigts, âAnglo-Saxon Plant Remediesâ, 261â3.
Riddle, âThe Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugsâ, 185â98.
Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist, 78â99.
Riddle, âThe Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugsâ, 187â9.
Wallis, Medieval Medicine, 110â11; âEpistula 114â, in Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Tangl, 247.
âEpistula 49â, in Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Tangl, 78â80; âEpistula 62â, 127â8.
Huneberc, Vitae Willibaldi et Wynnebaldi, ed. O. Holder-Egger, mgh ss 14.1 (Hanover: Hahn, 1887), 80â117; Huneberc, Hodoeporicon, in The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, trans. Charles Hugh Talbot (London: Sheed and Ward, 1954), 170. On Huneberc, see Bernhard Bischoff, âWer ist die Nonne von Heidenheim?â Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens und seiner Zweige 49 (1931): 387â8; Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (â 203) to Marguerite Porete (â 1310) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 1â35.
Huneberc, Hodoeporicon, 170.
Cf. entries for these products in Carmélia Opsomer, Index de la pharmacopée du Ier au Xe siècle, 2 vols. (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1989).
âEpistula 62â, in Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Tangl, 127â8.
Collectio Sangallensis, ed. Karl Zeumer, mgh Formulae (Hanover: Hahn, 1886), 29, at p. 415, lines 15â19: 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. 300â900 (Cambridge, 2001), 710.
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. 122â5. Notker, Gesta Karoli Magni Imperatoris, ed. Hans F. Haefele. mgh ss Rer. Germ. N. S. 12. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1959), 62â5.
Annales regni Francorum, ed. Kurze, 123â4.
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.
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.
Jan Frederik Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 796.
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, 241â6 and Adriano Caffaro, Scrivere in oro: Ricettari medievali dâarte e artigianato (secoli ixâxi). Codici di Lucca e Ivrea (Naples: Liguori, 2003). For the multipurpose nature of these substances more generally, see also Hilary Becker, âPigment nomenclature in the ancient Near East, Greece, and Romeâ, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 14 (2022),
Polyptyque de lâabbé Irminon ou dénombrement des manses, des serfs et des revenus de lâabbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés sous le règne de Charlemagne, ed. Benjamin Edme Charles Guérard, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1844), vol. 2, 336.
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, âIncense in Medicineâ. Also noted by Henry Sigerist in passing; see Henry E. Sigerist, ââThe Sphere of Life and Deathâ in Early Medieval Manuscriptsâ, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 11, no. 3 (1942), 292â303, at p. 296.
Jean Lestocquoy gives fifteen Carolingian pounds as roughly equivalent to five kilograms; see Jean Lestocquoy, âÃpices, médecine et abbayesâ, in Ãtudes mérovingiennes. Actes des journées de Poitiers, 1er-3 mai 1952 (Paris: A. et J. Picard, 1953), 179â86, at pp. 184â5. On pepperâs comparatively âmundaneâ nature among exotica, see, for example, Kasper Grønland Eversâ 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), 72â4. Likewise, on pepperâs status as a ânecessary luxuryâ (though focused on the later Middle Ages), see Paul Freedman, âSpices and Late-Medieval European Ideas of Scarcity and Valueâ, Speculum 80, no. 4 (2005): 1209â27,
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.
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 topic. Voigts, âAnglo-Saxon Plant Remediesâ, 261â3. See also Pilsworth, Healthcare in Early Medieval Northern Italy, 80.
Becker, âPigment nomenclature in the ancient Near East, Greece, and Romeâ.
Ibid.
Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, Ancient Botany (London: Routledge, 2016), 93â104.
Jerry Stannard, âThe Plant Called Molyâ, Osiris 14 (1962): 254â307.
Stannard, âThe Plant Called Molyâ, 254.
Stannard, âThe Plant Called Molyâ, 259â63; Dioscorides, De materia medica, 3.46â7.
Dioscorides, De materia medica, 3.46â7.
Stannard, âThe Plant Called Molyâ, 263â6.
Becker, âPigment nomenclature in the ancient Near East, Greece, and Romeâ.
Hardy and Totelin, Ancient Botany, 94â5.
Pei Chen, Jianghao Sun, and Paul Ford, âDifferentiation of the Four Major Species of Cinnamons (C. burmannii, C. verum, C. cassia, and C. loureiroi) Using a Flow Injection Mass Spectrometric (fims) Fingerprinting Methodâ, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 62, no. 12 (2014): 2516â21,
Chen, Sun, and Ford, âDifferentiation of the Four Major Species of Cinnamonsâ. For a helpful visualisation, see Figure 9 in Weiwei Wang, Khanh Trung Kien Nguyen, Chunguang Zhao, and Hsiao-Chun Hung, âEarliest curry in Southeast Asia and the global spice trade 2000 years agoâ. Science Advances 9, no. 29 (2023):
Riddle, âThe Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugsâ, 190â1. See also Bruno Laurioux, âParfums dâOrient. La science des épices au Moyen Ãgeâ, in Parfums et odeurs au Moyen Ãge. Science, usage, symboles, ed. Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2015), 61â87.
Riddleâs examples of zedoary and galangal (which he terms âgalingaleâ) 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 zedoaryâs 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 interpolation. See Riddle, âThe Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugsâ, 191â2 and Heinrich Zörnig, Arzneidrogen als Nachschlagebuch für den Gebrauch der Apotheker, Ãrzte, Veterinärärzte, Drogisten und Studierenden der Pharmazie, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Klinkhardt, 1909), vol. 1, 558.
McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 714, nn. 83â4. 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 manuscriptâs recipe collections: pp. 345, 351â3), 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 question (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.
McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 714â15; Riddle, âThe Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugsâ, 190â6; Riddle also highlights zedoary and galangal as new ingredients, though his references to these substances appear in other manuscripts, including 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, ââArabianâ Substancesâ, 129â227 (camphor is discussed in detail on pp. 144â8, and ambergris on pp. 148â52).
Camphor, for example, can be traced to the Malay kÄpÅ«r; HÅ«Å¡ang Aâlam, âCamphorâ, 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): 743â7,
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.
Burridge, âIncense in medicineâ; Henry E. Sigerist, ââThe Sphere of Life and Deathâ in Early Medieval Manuscriptsâ, 296.
McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 708.
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 GarcÃa González (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2007). Sigerist describes cozumber as a âprecious kind of aromatic gumâ and notes that confita is usually found âin connection with gumsâ, although he was ânot sure what it actually isâ; Sigerist, ââThe Sphere of Life and Deathâ in Early Medieval Manuscriptsâ, 296.
Alphita, ed. GarcÃa González: confita, entry C4 (at p. 174), and cozimbrum, C114 (at p. 184).
Ibid, 400â1: âConfita < deformación del gr. γομÏίÏÎ·Ï â¦ designa la gomorresina del âestoraqueâ, una planta identificada con la estiracácea Styrax officinalis L.â
Ibid, 403, 551. For the entry on storax, see S46 (at pp. 290â1).
âEpistula 62â, in Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Tangl, 127â8; Polyptyque de lâabbé Irminon, ed. Guérard, vol. 2, 336.
Polyptyque de lâabbé Irminon, ed. Guérard, vol. 2, 336.
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: galangal 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 carbunculum (ff. 223vaâ233vb). For these recipes see Appendix 2, entries 3.10, 3.16, 4.1, 4.6, and 4.2, respectively.
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, ââArabianâ Substancesâ, 129â227 (musk is discussed on pp. 157â62).
King, Scent from the Garden of Paradise, see especially pp. 133â6 for late antique references to musk.
Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, 157â62. 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, 1.4â5. For the standard interpretation, see Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, 110â12; for the idea that it was introduced in the thirteenth century, see Carlo Battisti, âRipercussioni lessicali del commercio orientale nel periodo giustinianeoâ, in Moneta e scambi nellâalto medioevo, 21â27 aprile 1960, Settimane 8 (Spoleto: Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sullâalto medioevo, 1961), 627â82, at p. 639.
McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 714, n. 84.
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, 13.2.1â2, and 14.3.1â3, respectively.
BnF lat. 11219, ff. 227râ227v; see Appendix 2, entries 4.8â19.
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.
Arlene López-Sampson and Tony Page, âHistory of Use and Trade of Agarwoodâ, Economic Botany 72 (2018): 107â29,
See Appendix 1 for full descriptions of the manuscripts.
Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 5862; Bernhard Bischoff, âEine Sammelhandschrift Walahfrid Strabos (Cod. Sangall. 878)â, in Mittelalterliche Studien. Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und Literaturgeschichte, ed. Bernhard Bischoff, vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1967), 34â51.
Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, nos. 5530 and 5845; Bernhard Bischoff, âItalienische Handschriften des neunten bis elften Jahrhunderts in frühmittelalterlichen Bibliotheken ausserhalb Italiensâ, in Il libro e il testo: Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Urbino, 20â23 Settembre 1982, ed. Cesare Questa and Renato Raffaelli (Urbino: Università degli Studi di Urbino, 1984), 169â94.
My thanks to Rosamond McKitterick and Anna Dorofeeva for their reassessments of the scripts in these manuscripts.
Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, nos. 5845, 5847, 5862, 5865, 4670â1, and 5530, respectively; Bischoff, âEine Sammelhandschrift Walahfrid Strabosâ, pp. 34â51; Bischoff, âItalienische Handschriftenâ, 177â8.
Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, trans. Gorman, 33, 122, 147â8.
Glaze, âThe Perforated Wallâ, 73â5, 92â8; Contreni, âMasters and Medicineâ, 267â82.
My thanks to Anna Dorofeeva for her palaeographical analysis of this material.
Cod. sang. 759, p. 89: Conpositio thymiamatis; and p. 91: Tymiama simplex; see Appendix 2, entries 11.20â1.
Cod. sang. 759, pp. 53â8; BnF lat. 6882A, ff. 1vâ8v.
BnF lat. 6882A, f. 7r; the titles are listed here as Conpositio timiamatis and Timiama simplex.
On the reception of recipes in Exodus, see especially Béatrice Caseau, âLa parfum de Dieuâ, in Parfums et odeurs au Moyen Ãge. Science, usage, symboles, ed. Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2015), 3â22 and Iolanda Ventura, ââSume tibi aromata primaâ: Profumi ed aromi nellâesegesi ad Ex. 30â, in Parfums et odeurs au Moyen Ãge. Science, usage, symboles, ed. Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2015), 349â428.
Exodus xxx.34: Dixitque Dominus ad Moysen: sume tibi aromata, stacten et onycha, galbanen boni odoris, et tus lucidissimum; aequalis ponderis erunt omnia.
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, âOnycha, Ingredient of the Ancient Jewish Incense: An Attempt at Identificationâ, Economic Botany 33, no. 2 (1979): 233â6.
Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, nos. 5846 and 4419, respectively.
Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, 129â227.
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 chapterâs primary focus.
Cod. sang. 44, p. 282: Confectio saponi Constantini; and p. 285: Potio maniacis siue gutta catiua; see Appendix 2, entries 5.14 and 15. On the wider tradition of the Sapone Constantini, see Innocenzo Mazzini, âIl sapone di Costantinoâ, in Costantino il grande: dallâAntichità allâumanesimo: colloquio sul Cristianesimo nel mondo antico, Macerata, 18â20 Dicembre 1990, ed. Giorgio Bonamente and Franca Fusco (Macerata: Università degli studi di Macerata, 1992â3), vol. 2, 693â9. The recipes in the manuscripts Mazzini consulted do not contain these ingredients.
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.
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.
Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, vol. 3, no. 5844.
Ibid, nos. 6927 and 6574.
Ibid, nos. 6766â7.
bav reg. lat. 1143, ff. 187râ187v: Ciraturiu artriticus opotatricus aparlasensis; see Appendix 2, entry 18.10.
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 camphor is recorded twice in bav pal. lat. 1088).
Burridge, âIncense in Medicineâ. 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 Ãge. Science, usage, symboles (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2015), including Rémi Corbineau and Patrice Georges-Zimmermann, âLe parfum de la mort. Plantes et aromates pour la préparation des corps (Moyen Ãge et période moderne)â, 161â80 and Martine Ostorero, âLâodeur fétide des démons: une preuve de leur présence corporelle au sabbatâ, 259â88.
McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 716â19.
Leja, Embodying the Soul.
Ken Parejko, âPliny the Elderâs Silphium: First Recorded Species Extinctionâ, Conservation Biology 17, no. 3 (2003): 925â7.
For example, a number of rough parallels can be found with treatments listed in Marcellusâ 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 medicamentis liber, ed. Liechtenhan and Niedermann, trans. Kollesch and Nickel, 30.51â2 (pp. 532â5); see Appendix 2, entry 9.21.
McCormick provides a useful overview of the maximalist-minimalist debate in the opening chapter of Origins of the European Economy, see pp. 1â24. Caroline Goodson has presented convincing evidence for a more minimalist interpretation (personal communication and âIngredients for Medicine in Early Medieval Italyâ, Goodsonâs paper at the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studiesâ 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, 400â800 (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.
Alain George, âDirect Sea Trade Between Early Islamic Iraq and Tang China: From the Exchange of Goods to the Transmission of Ideasâ, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 25, no. 4 (2015): 579â624.
Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, 129â227. On Byzantine connections in the west, see, for example, T. S. Brown, âByzantine Italy, c. 680-c. 876â, in The New Cambridge Medieval History ii, c. 700-c. 900, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 320â48; Michael McCormick, âByzantium and the West, 700â900â, in The New Cambridge Medieval History ii, c. 700-c. 900, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 349â80.
Thomas S. Brown, âRavenna and Other Early Rivals of Venice: Comparative Urban and Economic Development in the Upper Adriatic c.751â1050â, in Byzantium, Venice and the Medieval Adriatic: Spheres of Maritime Power and Influence, c. 700â1453, ed. Magdalena Skoblar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 173â87.
McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 714, n. 84.