I have loved researching 17th
Century botany and herbs for my novels, The
Lady’s Slipper and The Gilded Lily.
For both of them I have had to research the botanical beliefs of a society that
relied on native plants for a good many things, including medicine, cleaning
agents, and home-manufactured goods such as cloth. One of my characters is a
“cunning woman”, a person skilled in folk medicine. She has no daughters and is
looking for someone to whom she can hand down her vast store of knowledge. Remedies
were passed down orally, and the plants used were readily and commonly
available to a populace which was mostly illiterate. Because little was written
about it, evidence of these remedies is most often to be found in kitchen
manuals because cooking and medicine were so closely related. (Pic1-
gentlewoman’s manual)
The difference between folk medicine and
the “official” medicine was largely that folk medicine used plants that occurred
naturally in Britain Arabia . Physicians could
charge more for their exotic-sounding imports, which by the dint of their
strangeness appeared to offer more appeal.
In the 17th century many Folk
remedies were “simples”, ie a single species of plants used as a cure or
palliative, whereas apothecaries mixed perhaps thirty or more of ingredients
for their “treacles”. Venice
wormwood, orange peel, angelica, nutmeg, horseradish,
scurvy grass, white horehound, centaury, camomile, and juniper berries. All
infused in 5 pints of sack!
And what was this medicine for? A headache.
Servants probably made do with feverfew
leaves, and were probably better off for it. So in one of my books the
middle-class Thomas Ibbetson is given a ‘drench’ (Pouring a vast quantity of
liquid medicine into the throat) which worsens rather than cures his condition.
In the 17th century, the richer you were, the more likely you were
to die of the treatment rather than the disease. Mercury and antimony were
common remedies, as was copious blood-letting to release stagnant humours.
17th century herbalists such as
Gerard, Pechy and the Puritan, Culpeper, were immensely influential in their
day, and there was much cross-over between the medicinal and the domestic. For example
Culpeper recommends the leaves of the Alder tree for burns, but also for
attracting fleas. The leaves were strewed on the ground to attract the fleas,
and then the whole lot could be swept out and disposed of. Culpeper’s Herbal is
one of the few 17th Century books still in print today. I can also recommend Nicholas Woolley’s book about Culpeper,
The Herbalist.
Napier’s
History of Herbal Healing says that nettles were
used as a pot herb in the Spring, but also its fibres were used in weaving instead
of flax, to make tablecloths, sheets and even shirts! It was used medicinally
to treat anaemia and as a general tonic, and also to dye the hair as it
produced an intense yellow dye. With interest in ‘green’ products today, nettle
fibre is again being used to make clothing such as the nettle blouse below.
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| Nettle Blouse! |
Along with the practical uses of plants was
a vast body of mythological lore, both superstitious and religious. Ideas such
as that making love under a Rowan Tree was a certain cure for infertility, were
common. So the herbs themselves were used in a broad rather than a narrow
context, embracing the physical, emotional and spiritual being of the user. Many
people believed in the “doctrine of signatures” of Paracelsus. This suggests
that each plant bears a physical sign, placed there by God, of what it should
be used for. So the small bulbs of celandines should be used for piles, because
that’s what they look like.
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| The lady's slipper |
In The
Lady’s Slipper, Alice Ibbetson is an artist fascinated by painting wild-flowers,
the lady’s slipper being a rare wildflower with medicinal properties. In The Gilded Lily
the plants are used as a beauty aid by Ella Appleby, a serving maid who becomes
obsessed with her appearance and the glitter and glamour of Regency London.
Many 17th century beauty preparations involved common plants. One
for a fair complexion is to “take wilde Tansy and lay it to soake in
buttermilke.” Anita Davison recently wrote a great post on this blog on 17th
century beauty preparations, so please scroll down for more about this.
For more information of The Lady’s Slipper or The Gilded Lily (Sept 2012) please visit my blog
'Top Pick!' RT Book Reviews 'Women's
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Killers' Riveting narrative' For the Love of Books 'a great
read’ Night Owl Reviews ‘Highly recommended.'The
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