Cannabis sativa from antiquity to the Middle Ages

I wrote this as a bit of a giggle for my local SCA newsletter. I am not advocating for the use of Cannabis sativa for psychotropic purposes, but I do believe that we should be using the fibre in place of wood. It also makes pretty good shirts.

Mead again

I took my mead to an SCA arts and sciences event to get some feedback, and it didn't totally suck. The night before the event I took half the mead and 'backsweetened' it with 500g of really nice honey that I got out of my hives a month ago, right on the cusp of wrapping them up for the winter.

The original mead was very watery, and not terribly flavourful, but someone suggested that I could use it to make extracts. That's a fantastic idea, and I'll be doing that. The sweetened mead was a little bit watery, and it didn't meet the standards of the master brewer who tried it, but everyone else thought it was perfectly fine. Also, it had a kick like a mule. I don't know what the alcohol content is, but it's definitely over 10%.

I'll be giving a jar of mead and a jar of honey as 'rent' at the place where I keep my hives. I hope they like it.

My next brewing adventure will be more controlled. I bought a couple cider kits, and I'll be starting them soon. I want to have some good beverages to share for the SCA summer camping season, in good Anglo-Saxon mead-hall fashion.

Medieval plant dyes (and modern)

As long as you have red, yellow and blue you can mix and match to make almost any colour. Some of these dye plants are more resistant to fading in sunlight or getting washed out of the fibre than others.

Any plant name that is in bold is a perennial (or biennial).

Red - 

Medieval European- Madder (Rubia tinctoria), Lady's Bedstraw/Cleavers (Galium verum)

Other- Amaranth (Hopi red dye), Dyer's Alkanet, Henna (Lawsonia inermis) (shrub), Joe Pye Weed, Dyer's Woodruff (Asperula tinctoria), Brazilwood (tree)

Orange - 

Medieval European- any yellow + Madder, or just Madder itself

Other- Dyer's Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria), Orange Cosmos, Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldstrum') (edges into dull yellow)

Dye, you fool!

Madder and dyer's chamomile. Dyer's chamomile smells just like chamomile tea, so my daughter didn't hate this as much as weld. Thank goodness she wasn't around for the woad.

I always used to get orange out of madder, but I've got the hang of it now. This is the madder with dyer's chamomile. The picture doesn't do the colour any justice. It's a quite nice tangerine.

More mead thoughts

As is usually the case I'm not the first person to have thought about the medieval way of making mead. I came across a great post in a forum recently that really clears up all my questions. This is the kind of mead that I'm going to be making at the end of the week-

My Love/Hate Affair with Weaving

This picture (above) is my latest project. I'm trading handwoven fabric for seamstress-ing. I am not very good at sewing, and my daughter will only come to medieval events with me if a) there is archery, and b) she can wear an Italian Ren dress. Archery is easy. We have the supplies and lots of events have the opportunity. However. I cannot sew. Working flat and trying to imagine 3D is pretty much impossible for my brain. If I had a dress dummy I could drape it, but alas. So, enough 18" wide twill to make a Norse apron dress here we go!

I love the repetitive action of weaving. It's very meditative. I find it difficult to weave in the summer, but in the winter I love it. I'm also a total dork, and I like to put on the Lord of the Rings movies (not the Hobbit- those movies were designed to sell video games and toys, especially the first one), and sit there and pretend I'm an elf. I have to say that the new tv series which has been announced is like Schrodinger's Catastrophe... Anyways.

Linden trees are extra-ordinarily useful

This tree is also commonly called basswood and lime wood (possible corruption of the Old English and Proto-Indo-European word lind (flexible). It is not related to citrus trees). The N. American version (Tilia americana) can be found from Mexico to Alaska, and there are two genus in Europe (little leaf- Tilia cordata, and large leaf- Tilia platyphyllos), which can be found in southern Norway and Sweden, down into Italy and as far east as the Black Sea. The little leaf genus is far more widespread, and can be found up into Russia and North-eastern Turkey as well as Spain.

Betony- the 'detoxing cure' of the middle ages

I bought two betony plants from Vesey's last year, and put them in a nice, sunny place in my garden, thinking that herbs like sun. Obviously. Unfortunately, I nearly killed the poor plants through lack of education. Betony is a forest plant that enjoys shade. When I realized that the plants were looking beaten down, and just weren't thriving I finally did the research on them that I should have done in the first place.
Ah, well. They survived.
And this year they're looking extremely perky already, and much more like the illustrations of the plant that I've seen in medieval herbals. The next plan is to be my own guinea pig and make some tea. From everything I've read there doesn't seem to be any toxicity problems, unlike angelica which you apparently really shouldn't eat if you're pregnant because it might possibly cause uterine contractions, so it's not allowed to be in any commercially sold food in Canada... Who knew?

In the SCA my current persona is sort of nebulously Anglo-Saxon/Norse, and about the year 900-ish. Really, I just like the comfy clothing, the bling styles, and the history is interesting. Also, I am very interested in the history of medicine and gardening. It's a fascinating period where information of all kinds was becoming much more freely available through the networks of the monasteries and increasing trade. The Anglo-Saxon (Old English) herbals are an interesting mixture of fact and folklore.

I just hope that this herb tastes better than horehound...


http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2011/06/24/beneficent-betony/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stachys_officinalis

Natural dyes

I've been experimenting with natural dyes this week. I bought a 100% lambswool twill blanket at a thrift store for $6 and made it into a Skjolenham hood and an Anglo-Saxon jacket. Unfortunately, it was beige. I dislike beige. Intensely. So, I thought that I could try re-dyeing it.

That was this week's experiment.

I tried the hood first because it was smaller, and I would be less unhappy if it failed horribly. I used powdered weld extract, and it came out a gorgeous dark spring green. Considering I used weld to colour and alum as a mordant it should have come out yellow. I suspect that the original mordant on the blanket was copper (which turns weld green).

Next was the jacket, and it wasn't as much of a success. I suspect that the larger volume of cloth in my kettle (ie. canning pot) made the movement of both mordant and dye a bit more constricted. As well, I was using ground up madder root, and I possibly didn't let it 'extract itself' long enough before putting in the cloth on the first attempt. So, it came out a bit motley. I washed it thoroughly in the washing machine and tried again. It came out a much more uniform colour. It may have gotten a bit too warm as it has an orange-ish tinge to it, also, the probably use of copper as the first dye mordant would have done that as well. I did find my dye thermometer afterwards, though, which is good. I won't have to guess at any future temperatures for dyeing.

The joys of moving.

With this warm weather my saffron popped up. I hope they can weather this weather and last until fall... *sigh* I've nick-named that grey squirrel that lives in my backyard 'Stew'... Because that's what I'm going to make him into eventually when I snap because he's eating my saffron bulbs and other things that he likes... The chicken wire is slowing him down a bit, thankfully.

Anglo-Saxon Herbal Remedies- class notes

A class given by Muirenn ingen Morgair at War of the Trillium, A.S. 50

 

Egypt, Greece, and the Classical Tradition of Medicine In Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia 

 

Illness was seen as a manifestation of a god’s anger or possession by demons or ghosts, as shown by the Ebers and Hearst papyri. The goal of the healer was to appease the god through sacrifices or drive out the possessing demon by applying or getting the patient to ingest substances which the demon found repugnant (like feces).