HERB - Period pest control

[Roos cc]

I haven't turned up many herb uses for pest control in
medieval sources. For example, Tania Bayard,
*A Medieval Home Companion: Housekeeping in the
Fourteenth Century* (New York: HarperCollins, 1992)
gives six methods of dealing with fleas, none
relying on pesticides or repellants.

This book only has selected sections of the treatise
by the Goodman of Paris which exists in three 15th c.
manuscripts. There is a critical edition, *Le Menagier
de Paris* ed. Georgine E. Brereton and Janet M. Ferrier 
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), which is of 
course not in English and I've not tried to get it. It may
have herbal uses.

In the Bayard, the main object seems to be trapping
the fleas: on alder leaves, with birdlime or turpentine,
with unfinished cloth or sheepskin, having white sheets
so you can see the fleas to kill them, and compressing
covers, furs, clothes in an airless and dark place like
a trunk. (Note these are human fleas, not dog and cat
fleas.) 

For mosquitoes, there was driving them from the room
with smoking hay and using mosquito netting.

For flies, there were poisonous baits: milk and hare's
gall or raw red onion juice. Flies might be collected by
hanging little bunches of ferns or a cord soaked in honey
--the flies settle on these in the evening and are
then disposed of. Or trap them: "Fasten linen cloth to 
the bottom of a pot that has a hole in the base. Put 
this pot in a place where flies gather, and smear the 
inside with honey, apples, or pears. When it is 
thoroughly full of flies, put a trencher over the 
mouth and shake it."

Other suggestions include a paddle to kill flies 
(flyswatter); seal windows with waxed cloth, 
parchment, or something else (window screen 
technique), or float limed twigs in a basin of water 
(flypaper).

Alysoun de Ros
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