SC - Re: cordials
Daniel W Stratton
agincort at juno.com
Wed Apr 11 16:42:36 PDT 2001
One of the Tunners Guild members, Ld. Nigel FitzMaurice, has done
some really interesting research on the history and development of
Cordials in the Middle Ages; his work is:
Precious Waters - A miscellany of early cordials by Forester Nigel
FitzMaurice
Mundanely Bruce Gordon, his manuscript is available online at
http://web.raex.com/~obsidian/precwat.html
A few excerpts relating to his cordial research follow:
"...a number of recipes are transcribed from various common books
dating
from the late 14th century.
... all taken from four different manuscripts (Harleian 2378, the
Johnstone
Manuscript, Sloane 521, and Sloane 2584).
Each of these works are privately produced formularies describing a
wide
variety of medicinal preparations, presenting several hundred leaves
each
both in Latin and Middle English.
...They were selected as clear examples of medicines on their way to
becoming liqueurs."
The (secondary) source for the Manuscripts:
Henslow, G. Medical Works of the Fourteenth Century. Burt Franklin,
N.Y., N.Y. 1972 (reprint of the 1899 edn.). This work is a compilation
of four Mediaeval formulary manuscripts (Johnstone Mss., Harl. 2378,
Sloane 2584, and Sloane 521). Each is an extract, being those recipes
which were written in English, rather than Latin or French. Original
spelling, grammar, and syntax is preserved throughout. An appendix,
listing all the botanics mentioned in the works together with
supplementary information, is included.
..................................
Commentary that Cordials were distilled:
from #5: Harl. 2378 p.278
"A precious water to clear a mans sight and destroy the pain in a mans
eye.
- Take red rose, wood-sage (which some call capillus vereris), fennel,
ivy,
vervain, eyebright, endive, and betony; of each equal amounts, so that
you
have in all 6 handfuls; and let them rest in wine a day and a night.
The
second day still them in a distillator; the first water that you
produce shall
be the color of gold, the next of silver, the 3rd of balm; this
precious water
may serve to ladies instead of balm." (further:) "Another point which
we shall
see repeated in all these recipes is that, for the most part, the part
of the plant to
be used is not specified, and we are left to guess whether the root,
the stalk, the
seeds, or the flowers are meant."
........................................
Commentary about the distilling process itself:
#9. Johnstone Ms. P. 258. (probably 1400-1450, as it is the last entry)
Trans: "For to make aqua vitae. - Take sage, and fennel-rotes
and persley-rotes and rosemaryne and tyme and lavender, each
in equal amounts. Wash them and dry them, and then grind
them a little in a mortar and add a little salt. Then put it
in the body of the distillator and pour in wine (red or
white), then place it in a pot of ashes over the furnace and
make a gentle enough fire underneath that when the
distillator begins to drip, look that it drips no faster
than you can say "one-two-three" between the drops. And so
distill it all together, then take the water that is
distilled, and distill again if you like, and take a little
spoonful every day while fasting."
..........................
Other research: Sugar and it's development:
"The sugarcane plant, indigenous to southern Asia, was first used
for the
production of sugar between the 7th and 4th century B.C. in northern
India.
Cane cultivation eventually spread westward to the Near East and was
introduced to the Mediterranean region by the Arabs, giving rise to a
cane
sugar industry that flourished there until the late 1500's.
Columbus introduced sugarcane to the New World on his second voyage
in 1493, when it was first planted on the island of Hispaniola. Soon,
it seems,
Isabel and her children became very fond of cane sugar and ate it
seemingly at every meal.
Within the first ten years of the 16th century, (1509) a sugar cane
processing factory was established in the New World.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish, English, and
French all
established sugar production in their Caribbean island colonies."
-1996 Louisiana State University
Libraries, etc.
...........................
Rawcliffe, Carole. Medicine & Society in Later Medieval England. Alan
Sutton Publishing Ltd., United Kingdom, 1995. ISBN 0 86299 598
Chapter: The Apothecary, p. 150. "The use of sugar in pharmacy had
been pioneered by the Arabs, who were thus able to extend the Greek
pharmacopoeia by mixing different combinations of herbs, spices and
animal products with a sweet-tasting powder or syrup base."
- M. Levey, _Early Arab Pharmacoloogy_, Leiden, 1973, pp. 52-3. G. E.
Trease, 'The Spicers and Apothecaries of the Royal Household in the
Reigns
of Henry III, Edward I and Edward II', Notingham Medieval Studies, III,
1959,
p. 22.
.................................................
Ian Gourdon of Glen Awe
OP, Midrealm Forester
"Well done is better than well said"
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