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What connects: an army surgeon, a ceramic conical flask, cupboards in an alley near Byland Abbey's Chapter House, a 3rd century poem, a root that shrieks and a method for warding off mad dogs?
Scroll down to discover the answers!
The 'Mindful Meadows' are inspired by the Medieval monastic heritage of Byland, and herbs we have noticed occurring here naturally.
Take Feverfew: an 'enthusiastic' local herb today, once used to prevent migraines, reduce fever and treat arthritis. Then there's Herb Robert, Self Heal, Petty Spurge, Tutsan, Musk Mallow, Meadowsweet and St. John's Wort to name but a few.
We tapped into deep time, learning about the plants around in Medieval times and how they were used, unearthing a tale of medicine, magic and mysticism. A time when we were plugged in to plants and their value. We set about re-interpreting the landscape today drawing on knowledge and practices from the past, but with a modern twist for the future.
Digging Deeper (A Quick Overview)....
Digging Deeper (A Quick Overview)....
Plants have been used in healing across many cultures for many centuries. Ancient texts recorded their medical use based on experience from the battlefield to theories developed by Hippocrates and Galen.
Monasteries, such as Byland and nearby Cistercian settlements, played an important role in the Medieval health care spectrum. Caring for the sick was a core principle of monastic life.
Herbal medicine was the most widely practised form of care. Monasteries relied on 'simples'. Around 400 or so plant simples were known to be naturalised or established in Europe at the time. They were cultivated in medicinal herb (physic) gardens or collected from the wild and made into medicaments in a workshop called the 'officina'.
Herbs, such as rue, sage, mint, rosemary, betony and dill, were mixed with common ingredients including milk, ale, honey or wine. Treatments tackled common problems, such as bad breath or lice, 'evil hearing' (deafness), period pains, burns and broken limbs.
But cures were often curious, even horrific, by modern standards, some featuring gruesome animal simples - for instance, baked, ground-up owl to treat gout, and burnt ashes of hedgehog or sea horse mixed with goose grease to tackle bald patches. Whilst some herbs were attributed magical properties - attracting beautiful women for instance - through ritualistic and religious ceremonies.
Byland Herboretum is inspired by many of the fascinating herbs mentioned in Medieval healthcare reinterpreted with a modern-day 'mindfulness' twist, but we don't offer up any hope of magical powers!
Ancient Wisdom
Ancient Wisdom
From Theophrastus to Dioscorides and Pliny, poems from the 3rd -11th centuries, monastic grand designs and groundbreaking medical theories, this knowledge provided the backbone to Medieval medicine.
Click the arrows at the bottom of the photos to spot how we're bringing this ancient wisdom to life in the Herboretum.
Medieval medical knowledge and practices drew on ancient sources such as:
‘Historia Plantarum’ by Theophrastus (370-287 BC), who studied under Aristotle. He laid the foundations for modern botany, describing the morphology and natural history of plants, but also their medicinal uses.
'De Materia Medica' is a five-volume encyclopedia by Greek surgeon, pharmacognosist and botanist, Pedanius Dioscorides (40-90 CE). This listed around 600 herbs together with details of their medicinal properties, preparation, dosage and warnings. Described as "the best book on medical botany prior to the 17th century" (Keezer, 1963), it was copied relentlessly, such was its importance as a medical reference from the hospital field tents of the Romans to the monasteries of Medieval Europe.
Did you know?
Dioscorides' medicinal juices and herbs included rhubarb, liquorice, aloe, fennel, opium poppy and yarrow along with ‘pot herbs’: garlic, onion, mustard and nettles.
Among the more exotic mentions in the list of animal-based remedies were sea horse and hedgehog*. Both were used in recipes for treating baldness. Burnt ashes were mixed with ‘goose grease’ or ‘liquid pitch’ and applied to the bald patch.
Pliny the Elder (24-79 CE) was a prolific writer on natural history, producing 37 books ranging across cosmology, mineralogy, botany, zoology and medicinal products derived from plants and animals. He was a collector par excellence and provided detailed descriptions of around a thousand plants.
Did you know?
Pliny noted that plants of 'wild' origin were medicinally more potent than cultivated ones (Book XXIV of his Naturalis Historia).
Most of the seeds we have sown in the Herboretum are of wild origin. Wild seeds are generally considered better than commercially grown mono-cultures as they have greater genetic diversity and are more resilient to environmental stresses, such as variations in local climate and soil conditions. As Pliny alluded to, they can also have comparable/ better nutritional/medicinal value.
*Hedgehogs are now a 'near threatened' species, a step closer to extinction. For how you can help, see Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's 'Meet your Wild Neighbour'.
Yarrow
Yarrow
Yarrow, which is present across the plantings before you today in white or pink forms, was a critical herb for a military surgeon attached to the Roman legions - Dioscorides. He used it to treat battlefield trauma. It turned out to be a supreme ‘vulnerary’ (wound healer): a poultice of crushed leaves was applied to the wound. Modern analysis confirms that yarrow contains alkaloids and flavonoids with anti-inflammatory and astringent properties.
Magical Poetry
Magical Poetry
'Carmen De Viribus Herbarum' is a 3rd century Greek poem preserved in the ‘Vienna Dioscorides’ (manuscript reference ‘GDRK 64’). It centres on the medicinal properties of fifteen different roots or plants.
Featured are: chamomile ("those suffering from fever chamomile heals ...."), sage and yarrow.
This poem can be distinguished from earlier pharmacological or didactic poems because it "repeatedly alludes to magic". In doing so it "aims to provide aids against magical practices or to fend off evil" (Overduin, 2021).
Local Notes:
Sage and yarrow are in the plantings before you.
Grand Designs (9th Century)
Grand Designs (9th Century)
A 9th century parchment manuscript (reference: 'Cod. Sang. 1092', ca. 819-830, St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliotek) is the oldest surviving Western architectural drawing. It depicts plans (although not executed) for a medicinal herb garden for the Abbey of St. Gall in Switzerland situated around a 'Cloister for the Sick' with facilities for the critically ill and for bloodletting.
Rectangular plots are labelled with herbs such as sage, rosemary, rue, mint, fennel, dill, lovage, chervil, garlic and parsley.
The 'Capitulari de Villis' (ca. 770-800) contained an extensive list of medicinal herbs, fruit trees and other plants prescribed by Carolingian emperor, Charlemagne, for growing on Royal estates.
Species included yarrow*, agrimony*, garlic, marshmallow, dill, chervil, fennel, mint, parsley, opium poppy, rosemary, rue*, sage*, clary sage* and apple, pear and plum trees, together with vegetables we consider 'superfoods' today, such as kale and beetroot. Those marked * are amongst the avenues between our apple (Malus) and pear (Pyrus) trees.
'Liber de Cultura Hortum' (a 9th century text on medical botany) and 'Hortulus' (a Latin poem about the medical plants grown in the district of Reichenau) were both written by Wahalfri(e)d Strabo, Abbot of Reichenau on Lake Constance. These too list sage, clary sage, rue, poppy and mint as well as betony, agrimony and stinging nettle.
Local Notes:
Water- and spear- mints occur naturally along the banks of the raised, artificial watercourse around our Orchards - part of the wider Byland monastic water management system.
Stinging nettle occurs alongside the footpath to Byland, perhaps rather too prolifically. Its roots and leaves are reported in modern literature as containing therapeutic compounds that may help with a benign but common disorder associated with the male reproductive system and ageing.
Humours, Opposites & the Galenicals
Humours, Opposites & the Galenicals
Hippocrates, a Greek medical doctor, is known as the 'father of Western medicine'. He was the first in a series of authors producing the 'Corpus Hippocraticum', a collection of works on medical practice. Significantly, the Hippocratic authors began to differentiate food from medicine.
The Hippocratic school of medicine posited that the human body was influenced by the four elements: earth, air, water and fire. In turn, these governed four 'humours', respectively: black bile, blood, phlegm and yellow bile. Each humour was associated with a characteristic personality, temperature (hot or cold), degree of moisture (wet or dry) and a specific pulse and tongue. A 'blood' humour, for example, indicated a sanguine demeanour, hot and damp characteristics, a strong pulse and a red tongue.
Claudius Galen of Rome (130-210 CE), also a medical doctor, based his system of rules and classifications on Hippocratic medicine. He wrote over 600 papers that became authoritative medical references through to the 16th/17th centuries. Galen developed the 'Theory of Opposites', believing illness was a result of an imbalance in the humours.
The 'Galenicals' comprised an extensive classification of herbal and vegetable extracts that went on to form the basis to pharmacies for centuries.
A 'galenical' is a medicine made by extracting active constituents from plant (or animal) raw materials rather than from chemical synthesis.
Degrees of 'Hot' for a 'Cold'
Degrees of 'Hot' for a 'Cold'
‘De Viribus Herbarum’ is an 11th century herbal poem by French cleric and physician Odo de Meung, writing under the pseudonym 'Macer Florib(d)us' (frequently referred to as the title of the work). It is a work of rational, humoral medicine notable for assigning ‘degrees’ to the hot, cold, dry or wet qualities associated with the humours.
A second degree medicine had noticeable but not offensive effects. Betony, considered 'hot' in the 2nd degree, could be used to treat a 'cold' illness, including headaches.
A fourth degree medicine was the most potent. An extreme 'hot' imbalance could be addressed using a 'cold' herb in small doses, such as opium poppy.
Odo’s work discusses seventy seven herbs that were commonly found in European fields and gardens. Plaintain (shown opposite) was one such herb. Click on the arrow on the picture for more herbs.
Local Notes:
Plaintain (plantago), above, is a plant you can find today in the Byland area. It was regarded by Odo as having both cooling and drying properties. Chewing the root of the herb was advised as a treatment for swollen gums.
Wormwood’s intense bitterness and heat led to its recommendation as a fumigant - when burnt the smell drove midges and ‘harmful small creatures’ away. It was also steeped in wine then added to ink to prevent mice gnawing away at manuscripts!
Nettle (urtica) when drunk with wine, honey and pepper was said to ‘provoke the seed of Venus’, reflecting the connection between heat, blood flow and fertility in Medieval physiology.
Medieval Monastic Medicine
Medieval Monastic Medicine
Caring for the sick was a key principle of the Cistercian way of life at Byland and other Yorkshire monasteries. Monks were among the literate and their scholars were able to produce copies of key medical and herbal manuscripts. An understanding of diagnosis, treatment and prognosis had also been developed through practical experience. They grew their own medicines and sourced them from the wild. They were able to prepare medications and administer them alongside spiritual care, rituals and charms. A powerful mix of Medieval medical alchemy and magic.
A Cupboard of Clues
A Cupboard of Clues
Clues to the herbs and other plants cultivated in the Medieval period for medicine and food are found among surviving medical and botanical manuscripts, texts by monastic healers and horticulturalists, leech books, recipe collections ('receptaria') and herbals.
Monasteries depended on the Greco-Roman tradition for much of their theoretical understanding of medicine. Monastic medical manuscripts therefore included humoral theory along with Christian religious texts and magical charms - short poems, spells or songs to be said out loud or written in a special way (e.g. on butter or an apple). They often included nonsense words, like 'abracadabra'.
Monastic scholars and clergy prepared the texts by hand in the 'scriptorium', a room dedicated to writing and illuminating manuscripts. At Byland, the north alley around the cloister was adapted for this purpose. It was sub-divided into carrels - small private studies - for reading or copying manuscripts.
Manuscripts and other reference materials used in the church, refectory, infirmary and cloister were kept in the monastery library, often a modest space, or in a cupboard known as the 'armarium'. At Byland, the 'armarium' comprised a couple of recesses in the wall of the eastern Cloister alley, adjacent to the library and Chapter House.
Causes & Cures
Causes & Cures
The 'Physica' and 'Causae et Curae' are two seminal texts by the 11th/12th century healer, mysticist and Abbess, Hildegard von Bingen, in which she describes nine categories of healing systems, among them plants and trees, and their medicinal uses.
In Causae et Curae, she refers to the four 'humours' (see Humours, Opposites & the Galenicals above), diseases that arose from a 'humoral imbalance' (insanity, dementia, paralysis, gout, leprosy and fevers) and using 'non-naturals' for treatment (including food and drink and rest and exercise). Bloodletting and other purging techniques were also mentioned along with sections on diagnosis and prognosis.
Toothache in the 11th Century
Toothache in the 11th Century
Hildegard identified toothache as a consequence of a "purging of noxious humours from the brain". She prescribed the taking of herbs "Absinthe and Verbena" which were to be cooked in wine, sugar added, then placed on the painful tooth before the patient went to sleep (Sweet, 1999).
Today, 'Absinthe' is a very strong anise-tasting spirit, taken with water, originally distilled in Switzerland in the 18th century as a medicinal tonic. It is also known as 'La Fée Verte' ('the Green Fairy') as one variant develops a natural green hue from chlorophyll in the fermentation. It achieved cultural fame among 19th century French artists, but was banned from sale at one point due to concerns about its thujone content, a chemical in one of its constituent herbs which was linked to madness.
Healthcare, Horticulture, the Weather - and the Magic of Plants!
Healthcare, Horticulture, the Weather - and the Magic of Plants!
Click the arrows at the bottom of the pictures ....
Infirmarians, Growers & Herbalists ....
Infirmarians, Growers & Herbalists ....
Following the Rule of St. Benedict, which prioritised care for the sick, monasteries in particular played a significant role in local healthcare in Medieval times, extending their help to the poor, pilgrims and travellers, as well as those recovering from their quarterly bleeding.
Every monastery that adhered to the Regula Benedicti (a stricter interpretation of which was followed by the Cistercians at Byland, Rievaulx and Jervaulx), had an infirmarian. Amongst the infirmarian’s patients were those suffering cuts, strains, broken limbs and burns from working on the monastery farms.
More often than not, infirmarians had been in the monastery since their youth and had received hands-on training from a senior infirmarian. Responsibilities extended to diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. Greco-Roman ideas were practised, including Galen’s Principle of Opposites - e.g. using ‘cold and wet’ medicines to treat ‘hot and dry’ conditions - and the Principle of Repletion/ Depletion - e.g. bleeding and purging to remove excess humours.
Infirmarians produced many of their medicines from plants cultivated in the monastery 'physic' garden (herbarium) or growing wild in surrounding fields and woodland. Some ingredients were, however, purchased - such as cinnamon, liquorice and ginger. Therapeutic formulations included tinctures, ointments and salves, enemas and fumigants together with ‘medicinal’ wine and ales made in situ in the monastery officina. (Sweet, 1999).
Sin, Wrong Living .... or just the Weather?
Sin, Wrong Living .... or just the Weather?
Monastic healthcare focused not only on physical needs but also on spiritual wellbeing. Some interpret the influential ‘Causae et Curae’ as meaning Abbess Hildegard understood disease as a ‘wrong’ relationship of the human to the divine, a kind of sin that could only be treated successfully as a religious problem.
Another school of thought ....
Another school of thought ....
is that Hildegard did not consider sin as the only or predominant cause of disease, but just as likely were ‘bad humors, wrong living and the weather’, the ‘usual methods of a spiritual paradigm - prayer, penitence and pilgrimage’ being absent (Sweet, 1999).
Magic and mysticism played a significant part in Medieval treatments. Demons were thought to invade the soul and certain herbs were believed to have the power to chase them away (Silberman, 1996).
Of all the illustrations of plants representing mythological beliefs, superstitions or witchcraft, the mandrake root (mandragora) is one of the most vivid. The root is represented as a person. In one example, a person is shown kneeling next to the plant, praying with a hoe and a bag. An angel floats above the mandrake. Gerard (1545-1611) described the plant as never occurring naturally, but only beneath the gallows 'where the matter that hath fallen from the dead body hath given it to the shape of a man'.
The ritual surrounding its digging up required a dog to be tied to the plant with a rope. A treat of some kind was then dangled before the dog, who leapt for it, thereby uprooting the plant, which let out a 'gret shreeke'. The dog fell dead, saving the man, who, according to Gerard, would otherwise ‘surely die in a short space of after'‘ (Silberman, 1996).
The man was then left with a valuable possession, as the uprooted plant was believed to ward off evil spirits and attract beautiful women!
Dioscorides, in contrast with later Medieval herbals, which were obsessed with the ‘shriek’ of the root, prioritises its drug application over demonology, addressing the surgical application of its bark and root. He considered it an anaesthetic, saying the patient ‘will not feel pain’ because they are ‘overborn with dead sleep’. The species is now regarded as highly toxic and hallucinogenic and it is not grown here!
Magical Medicine?
Magical Medicine?
Vervain was considered a Medieval ‘wonder drug’. On the authority of Macer Floridus, it was said to have as many virtues as it did branches.
But the plant had to be gathered in accordance with a precise ritual: this required the gatherer to come to the plant’s location at night, alone. The plant then had to be surrounded by pure gold and silver, left there overnight, to then be extracted before sunrise but without using an iron implement so as ‘not to break the magic’. The extraction had to be accompanied by reciting the Pater Noster, the creed, a prayer over the plant in the name of the Trinity, the seventy-two names of God, the angels and the evangelists. The plant then had to be commanded ‘not to leave behind any of its god-given healing powers in the earth’. Finally, it had to be washed in wine and blessed by a Priest on August 15th, the day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Only at this point did the plant possess its therapeutic and magical properties - the ability to turn away evil or deflect misfortune (Brevart, 2008).
St. John’s Wort (Hypericum Perforatum), formerly known as the Star of Bethlehem, is however among the herbs being cultivated here today. It was named as St. John’s Wort during the period of monastery medicine when it was intended to keep the devil at a safe distance, as well as being used as a form of ‘truth drug’ for witches. The dark red spots that mottle the flowers and leaves of the herb were thought to represent the blood of St. John as the red spots appear around the 29th August, the anniversary of St. John’s execution. A drop of the red oil found at the tip of the root smeared over your shirt across your heart was believed to keep you safe from being bitten by mad dogs! (Keezer, 1963).
Medieval Growing Habits
Medieval Growing Habits
Extensive research into plants grown and used in Medieval times formed the basis to the replanting of a reconstructed monk’s cell with its own herb garden at nearby former Carthusian monastery, Mount Grace Priory (Powell, ca. 2002; The Dalesman, 2005). Many of the herbs we are growing at Byland today were identified in the study ....
Strewing herbs, such as meadowsweet and tansy, were widely used to mask the unpleasant odours common in Medieval times; they released a wave of fragrance when stood upon.
Parsley was eaten alongside garlic to mask what we know today as odours mostly due to allyl-methyl-sulphide.
Mint was known to be hated by mice so it was planted around food stores.
Herbs we use today for flavouring food (rosemary, thyme, marjoram, fennel, lavender etc.), were similarly used to enliven an otherwise bland diet, but many also having important medicinal applications in Medieval times - thyme, for example, was used to expel worms and southernwood to cure dandruff!
Rue, St. John’s Wort, angelica, hyssop, feverfew, chamomile and corn-field annuals all featured in the Medieval gardens and fields, and are in the plantings before you.
It's Officinalis!
It's Officinalis!
The modern binomial (the genus and species name) of a herb provides a further clue to its former monastic cultivation and medicinal application.
The species 'officinalis' is a reference to the 'officina'. This was usually an outbuilding/ workshop, often linked to the monastic herb garden and within the precinct, where the infirmarian would prepare medications to treat the sick. The officina would have been equipped with pestles and mortars, weighing equipment, even distillation apparatus, such as the ceramic 'aludel' , a medieval distillation flask which is on display at Byland Abbey.
The 18th century Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus, later adopted 'officinalis' in his taxonomy to refer to plants with established medicinal, culinary or herbal uses. Wood betony (betonica officinalis/ stachys officinalis), sage (salvia officinalis) and hyssop (hyssopus officinalis), for example, would have been grown for monastic medicinal use. They are amongst the herbs being cultivated today in the 'Mindful Meadows' at Byland Herboretum.
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