HERB - soap and the Mappae Clavicula

[Gaylin Walli]

Raisya wrote:

>I haven't been able to find any other period soap recipes, at least not any
>with inclusions.  Sorry!

I actually spent a lot of time this weekend looking through the
period references I recently got through interlibrary loan. While
looking through Markham's "The English Housewife" (M.R. Best's edition)
I found indications that additions to soap were made for soap done
in the style of rebatched soap many of us make today. I had missed
these recipes on a cursory glance through the book. The soap
recipe that I found was actually in a goofball place, like the
chapter on distillation (which really isn't all that goofy when
you think about the relation ship of distillation to perfumery and
the realtion of that to cleaning).

I get the impression that additions to homemade soap were done for the
sake  of washing items, not humans. This could, of course, be my 20th
century bias towards the words he uses. I'm going to go back and
read it tonight again.

Jasmine
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