Abstract
Pharmaceutical knowledge in the early medieval Latin West has rarely been described as innovative. A number of studies, however, have noted the occasional recording of “new” ingredients from the East, such as camphor and ambergris, which appear to have been unknown to Classical and Late Antique authorities in the West. Are these few examples simply exceptions that prove the rule, or do they point to more significant developments? To investigate this question, the present article examines a more wide-ranging and diverse corpus of surviving recipe literature (including marginal additions located outside medical compendia) than has previously been possible. In doing so, it reveals a more complex picture regarding the introduction, adoption, and adaptation of nonlocal medical knowledge in the early medieval Latin West. In particular, the article not only highlights additional examples of the previously identified “new” ingredients but also recognizes the “newness” of several other substances. Moreover, it traces patterns that emerge in the manuscript evidence and argues that these patterns hold significant implications for understanding how Eastern pharmaceutical knowledge moved and was absorbed, as well as how, ultimately, it may have helped to facilitate the swift uptake of Latin translations of Arabic medical texts.
A spiced potion for all infirmities. Scammony, 12 denarii; spurge, 12 denarii; aloe, similarly; gum ammoniac, 1 semuncia and 2 drachmae; mastic, 1 semuncia and 2 drachmae; costus, 1 semuncia and 2 drachmae; cinnamon, 1 semuncia and 2 drachmae; ginger, 1 semuncia and 2 drachmae; spikenard, similarly; cloves, pellitory, zedoary, dittany, [laurel?] berries, coral, galangal, long pepper, black pepper, tragacanth, rhubarb, carpara roots, similarly; saffron, autumn crocus, birthwort, myrrh, 6 denarii; frankincense, 6 denarii; fennel seeds, 1 cup.1
This recipe, found in a ninth-century manuscript thought to have been produced at the Abbey of Saint-Amand (Laon, BM, MS 199), is at once both ordinary and extraordinary. On one hand, it has the appearance of a fairly standard prescription. Its title states that it offers a broad treatment, but not unusually so, that targets “all infirmities.” It then recommends a wide variety of ingredients, ranging from herbal products that likely could have been sourced locally in Western Europe (such as dittany, birthwort, and fennel) to substances from much farther afield (including cinnamon, ginger, and cloves). Although the recipe lists the necessary quantities of these ingredients, it offers no further instructions regarding the preparation, administration, or storage of the potion. Many prescriptions found in early medieval medical compendia likewise feature diverse mixes of materia medica and provide little guidance with respect to the production of the medicament in question.2
On the other hand, the Potio pigmentaria does not fit with the expected codicological context of such a recipe. Laon, BM, MS 199 contains the earliest surviving Latin version of the text of the Lateran Council of 649 and a number of related documents.3 The Potio pigmentaria is written on an inserted half-folio at the very end of the codex (fol. 138r) and represents the only medical material within this deluxe production. While the manuscript’s main script has been dated to the second quarter of the ninth century, this recipe appears to have been written a few generations later, probably between the late ninth and tenth centuries.4
Yet, it is not only the recipe’s unexpected location in a nonmedical manuscript that makes it extraordinary.5 Within the seemingly standard assemblage of both potentially local and highly nonlocal materia medica, two ingredients—zedoary (zadoar) and galangal (galenga)—stand out. Both belong to the ginger family (Zingiberaceae) and are native to Southeast Asia.6 Although a number of other plants in this family, including ginger itself, had long been known in the Latin West, neither galangal nor zedoary were recorded in Classical and Late Antique pharmaceutical writings, or at least not using these terms (or related orthographic variants).7 They do, however, appear in manuscripts produced in the early medieval Latin West, if only very rarely, and the Potio pigmentaria is one of these rare instances. Such witnesses document the introduction and circulation of previously unrecorded materia medica within the medical literature of the Latin West.
A number of scholars, such as John Riddle and Michael McCormick, have convincingly argued that several ingredients, including ambergris, camphor, galangal, musk, and zedoary, were introduced to the West in the early Middle Ages, drawing on the evidence provided by eighth- and ninth-century Latin recipes.8 The present article builds on their work in several ways. First, it involves a substantially larger corpus: in addition to examining the handful of published early medieval recipe collections to which previous scholars had access, the article analyzes not only a sample of previously unpublished early medieval recipe collections but also recipes added to nonmedical manuscripts by ca. 1000 (see the Appendix for an overview of the ninety-seven manuscripts consulted).9 By considering a much more extensive and diverse body of Latin recipe literature recorded between ca. 750–1000, the article thus brings previously overlooked sources to light and, crucially, into conversation with the recipes found in better known recipe collections. In doing so, it expands on earlier research by a) identifying more cases of the handful of ingredients that had already been highlighted, b) recognizing the “newness” of two other ingredients (confitum and cozumber), c) tracing patterns that emerge in the manuscript evidence, and d) exploring the significance of these findings in relation to the diffusion of pharmaceutical information and the evolution of recorded medical knowledge.
A review of the selected recipes has revealed two key patterns with respect to the distribution of these ingredients. First, newly recorded ingredients tend to be found together: in nearly three-quarters of the recipes with newly recorded ingredients, more than one is named. A deeper dive into these recipes reveals further patterning, and two clusters of ingredients emerge as regular groupings. Secondly, there is a notable increase in the inclusion of these materia medica over the roughly two-and-a-half centuries under consideration (ca. 750–1000). Less than a fifth of the examples identified date from before the mid-ninth century, meaning that the vast majority of newly recorded ingredients appear in recipes written in the second half of the ninth and the tenth centuries.
Based on these findings, it is evident that the pharmaceutical landscape of the early medieval Latin West was more dynamic than has traditionally been assumed. More specifically, I argue that the recurrence of distinct ingredient clusters, in concert with the appearance of these ingredients outside of their standard clusters, sheds light on the ways by which “new” medical knowledge was adopted and integrated into the corpus of Latin medicine. By contextualizing these patterns and considering additional documentary sources, it becomes clear that the movement of medical information was linked to the presence of these substances themselves and, as a corollary, the wider geopolitical dynamics of the period. Ultimately, I argue that this early influx of Eastern pharmaceutical knowledge helped to lay the groundwork for major developments in Western medicine over the following centuries.
After an introduction to the manuscript evidence, the article charts the occurrence of newly recorded materia medica, highlighting their distribution patterns. The next section turns to the significance of these patterns and their implications for a) understanding the ways in which Eastern pharmaceutical knowledge was absorbed, b) identifying how this spread of information was tied to networks of exchange across Eurasia, and c) considering whether this helped to facilitate the swift uptake of Latin translations of Arabic medical texts starting in the later eleventh century.
Setting the Scene: Contextualizing “New” Drugs from Afar
The manuscripts under consideration were produced in writing centers around Western, continental Europe between ca. 750 and ca. 1000.10 The majority date to the long ninth century (ca. 775–925), corresponding to a peak in manuscript production during the Carolingian period.11 This chronological focus is important to emphasize because considerably less medical material has survived from the Greek East in the eighth and ninth centuries, though it picks up again in the tenth and eleventh centuries.12 This article’s analyses may therefore help to shed more light (if only indirectly) on the pharmacological information that was circulating in the eastern Mediterranean in this same period. It must be noted, however, that although Latin is the primary language in all of the selected manuscripts, some contain short excerpts or additions, such as glosses, in Greek and various vernaculars.13
It is also necessary to outline this chapter’s geographical framework with respect to the drugs coming from “afar”; that is, which materia medica count as local, which as nonlocal, and where are the boundaries drawn? Given that the selected codices were composed at (and then generally continued to circulate within) Western, continental sites of manuscript production, there would have been a high degree of variation in terms of ingredient availability because this territory features a vast range of environments, not to mention varying levels of connectivity with its surrounding regions.14 A scribe working at the Abbey of St Gall in present-day Switzerland, for example, may have been able to access alpine plants with relative ease, whereas materia medica produced around the Mediterranean may have been more difficult and expensive to acquire. A monk at Lérins, located just off the French Riviera, on the other hand, may have experienced the opposite situation when attempting to source ingredients. With this potential ambiguity in mind, the previously unrecorded materia medica under analysis, unlike certain ingredients with a local, Western European flavor (such as beer), all represent substances that could not have been grown, foraged, hunted, or produced in Western Europe.15 Instead, these products, such as the aforementioned galangal and zedoary, originate further east, far beyond the peripheries of the Carolingian Empire, from Asia Minor to the Maluku Islands. As such, they represent unequivocally nonlocal substances that would have traveled over long distances (and likely through many hands) to reach the Latin West.
Finally, it must be remembered that the use of this article’s selected ingredients in pharmacy is not a new development. On the contrary, the individual substances under analysis were already being used for medicinal purposes outside of the Latin West.16 Moreover, in some cases, as discussed below, their newness in the Mediterranean world of Late Antiquity has been debated; in all cases, however, they seem to be new in the context of Latin medical writings. In short, while some Latin recipes provide evidence of adaptation and innovation, the use of these newly recorded substances as materia medica should not be seen as a pioneering development in itself but rather as the adoption of and expansion on earlier, non-Western traditions.
The Appearance of Newly Recorded Materia Medica in the Latin West
Just as the inclusion of galangal and zedoary in the Potio pigmentaria illustrates, ingredients that are not attested in Classical and Late Antique Latin recipes can be found in early medieval prescriptions, if only very rarely. This section centers on the appearance of seven such newly recorded ingredients: ambergris, camphor, confitum, cozumber, galangal, musk, and zedoary.17 While ambergris, a pungent substance produced in the digestive tract of sperm whales, and musk, a secretion of the musk deer, are animal products, the other five substances are plant-based. Although ambergris has the potential to be found washed up on shores around the world, its use in pharmacy (and related, often overlapping practices, such as cosmetics and perfuming) appears to have emerged as a tradition further east, perhaps first around the coasts of the Arabian Peninsula, before then being introduced to Persia and India.18 Musk, by contrast, can only be sourced from the foothills of the Himalayas, the territory of the musk deer. Unlike the other ingredients under consideration, it appears to represent a substance that was reintroduced to the West. The first recording of musk in Latin is found in Jerome’s (d. 419) Adversus Iovinianum. It then disappears from Latin sources until resurfacing in the recipes presented in this article, though it does occur in a number of Greek medical texts in the twilight of Late Antiquity.19
Camphor is an aromatic extract from the wood of the camphor laurel, a tree native to maritime Southeast Asia.20 Of the selected materia medica, it is probably the substance that continues to be most closely associated with medical practices today, as it is commonly found in topical ointments and nasal inhalers.21 Confitum and cozumber, however, are more obscure. According to later sources, such as the thirteenth-century Alphita, a medico-botanical glossary, these products are derivatives of storax, a resin obtained from the storax tree, Styrax officinalis.22 While storax has been used in Mediterranean medical, incense, and perfuming traditions since at least Antiquity (the tree is native to the Middle East), the specific terms “confitum” and “cozumber” only begin to appear in early medieval sources, and often in association with other newly recorded ingredients. This suggests that they, too, were introduced to the Latin West during this period (or at least in this particular form).23 Lastly, galangal and zedoary, described above in relation to the Potio pigmentaria, represent rhizomes in the Zingiberaceae family and grow in Southeast Asia.
Table 1 presents an overview of the appearance of these seven ingredients in Latin recipes. The sample of early medieval Latin recipes under analysis includes more than 6,000 individual recipes. Given that confitum, the most frequently recorded of these ingredients, appears in only thirty-four recipes, while ambergris, the least common, is listed just thirteen times, this group of materia medica is exceptionally rare. Moreover, since these newly recorded ingredients tend to cluster (as will be demonstrated below), the total number of recipes that these findings represent is even less than Table 1 might at first suggest. If each recipe with a newly recorded ingredient contained only one such ingredient, there would be a total of 183 recipes containing newly recorded substances (roughly 2 percent of the total number of recipes under analysis). Instead, the majority of recipes with a newly recorded ingredient contain more than one. As a result, the total number of recipes that include at least one of the seven newly recorded materia medica comes to just eighty-four recipes.24
An Overview of Newly Recorded Materia Medica under Analysis
A closer look at the ways in which these ingredients are combined reveals two distinct clusters of newly recorded ingredients; I shall refer to these as the incense family and the galangal-zedoary pairing. Let us first consider the recipes belonging to the incense family. To date, I have identified nearly thirty prescriptions for incense in early medieval manuscripts. Within this corpus, twenty-two recipes present variants stemming from a single tradition. That is, these recipes are distinct preparations for incense, yet, based on their shared ingredients (especially when compared to other recipes for incense outside of this tradition), they can be understood as individual variations on, or permutations of, a particular incense recipe tradition. These twenty-two surviving recipes are thus all part of a wider incense recipe family that differs from other types of incense, and strikingly, its core ingredients consist almost entirely of newly recorded materia medica (see Table 2).25
Incense Recipes
As Table 2 shows, five ingredients appear in nearly all of the twenty-two recipe variants: agarwood (100 percent), confitum (95 percent), cozumber (95 percent), camphor (91 percent), and musk (91 percent). Of these five core ingredients, four—camphor, confitum, cozumber, and musk—are newly recorded. One other newly recorded ingredient, ambergris, also appears in nearly half of the recipes (45 percent). In contrast, the remaining core ingredient, agarwood, was known since Antiquity, although references significantly increase in Late Antiquity.26 This wood (Aquilaria agallocha), native to India, China, and Southeast Asia, becomes aromatic when diseased.
Some recipes belonging to this incense tradition contain only a handful of ingredients centered on the core substances, whereas others incorporate many additional ingredients. Examples of the former include the variant titled Thimiama in St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 761 or the first (untitled) recipe listed in cod. sang. 878, both of which feature the five core ingredients, plus ambergris and, in the cod. sang. 878 recipe, storax, too.27 On the other end of the spectrum, the second recipe in cod. sang. 878 (titled Item aliter) and the first variant in cod. sang. 899 (Confectio timiamatis) contain the largest spread of materia medica, with fifteen ingredients.28 Overall, in addition to the five central substances, eleven other ingredients appear in at least one recipe within the twenty-two. While certain materia medica, such as frankincense and storax, are found in most recipes (82 percent and 77 percent, respectively), others occur much less often; galingale (a spurge not to be confused with galangal) appears in three variants, and sweetflag is included in just one.
As the presence of multiple variants in individual manuscripts makes clear, the twenty-two recipes belonging to this shared incense tradition are not found in twenty-two different manuscripts. Rather, these recipes are spread between eight codices, none of which contain incense recipes from other, unrelated incense traditions. While five of these manuscripts contain just one incense preparation apiece, three—Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF), lat. 11219 and St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, codd. sang. 878 and 899—feature multiple related incense recipes. Furthermore, in these three codices, the recipes in question are not scattered throughout the manuscript but are found clustered together as discrete incense sections.29 As such, they present a series of recipes that all build on the same core group of ingredients, each one exhibiting slight modifications to the specific list of materia medica involved and/or to their quantities or ratios.
St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, codd. sang. 878 and 899 list two and three recipes, respectively; in both cases, they were each written by a single scribe. It has been argued that the former manuscript was the vademecum of the Carolingian intellectual Walahfrid Strabo (d. 849), and Bernhard Bischoff suggested that Walahfrid himself was responsible for adding the small section of medical material on pages 331–4.30 The incense recipes, on page 334, complete this unit. In contrast, the three recipes in cod. sang. 899, a poetry anthology, were added to a blank space in this nonmedical manuscript by a tenth-century reader.31 However, the most remarkable group of incense recipes can be found in Paris, BnF, lat. 11219. In this manuscript, a single page, fol. 227v, presents a staggering twelve different incense recipes, all of which are closely related variants from the same tradition. Unlike the St Gall examples, these twelve recipes were written by at least six different scribes over several generations. Paris, BnF, lat. 11219, a medical compendium thought to have been produced at Saint-Denis in the mid-ninth century, thus appears to document the community of Saint-Denis expanding their collection of incense recipes over time. Their growing corpus testifies to an active scriptorium in which scribes continued to return to this specific folio in order to record new iterations of a common incense tradition, the significance of which will be considered below.
Yet, the recurring group of four (or five, if including ambergris) newly recorded ingredients found in this family of incense recipes was not the only cluster to emerge in the sample. As seen in Table 3, I identified galangal in twenty-seven recipes and zedoary in eighteen. In thirteen recipes, nearly three-quarters of those featuring zedoary and almost half of those with galangal, both ingredients are listed. This article’s opening example, the Potio pigmentaria added to Laon, BM, MS 199, presents one such example: galangal and zedoary appear together and represent the only newly recorded ingredients within a diverse assortment of both nonlocal and (potentially) local materia medica. Other examples in which these ingredients appear together include a Potio probatissima ad omnem guttam that was added to Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, MS A 136 in the late ninth or tenth century, and an electuary that appears within a late-ninth- or early-tenth-century quire inserted into the ninth-century medical compendium Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, C 664.32 Within a short section of electuaries in Paris, BnF, lat. 7028, there are six different recipes that contain both galangal and zedoary, as well as three that include galangal without zedoary, and one that includes zedoary without galangal.33 In a handful of cases, recipes with the galangal-zedoary pairing also feature one or two other newly recorded ingredients; the Elactuarium diarodes Iulii of Paris, BnF, lat. 7028, for example, lists ambergris and musk in addition to galangal and zedoary.34
Recipes with Galangal and Zedoary
In contrast to the incense recipe family, the galangal-zedoary pairing shows a much greater diversity in terms of its content. That is, recipes containing these ingredients, whether paired or individually, are rarely variants belonging to a shared tradition, though there are a handful of recipes that reappear across several manuscripts, such as a potion intended to protect its recipient from all poisons that is found in Bern, Burgerbibliothek, cod. 109; Paris, BnF, lat. 2373; and, in a slightly condensed version, Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek (HAB), Cod. Guelf 56. 18. Aug. 8°.35 Intriguingly, all three of these recipes were inserted after the main text of the manuscript was completed, and the three codices were all produced in the Paris region, suggesting that a particular recipe was circulating in this area.36 Overall, however, when compared to the recipes of the incense family, there are many more unrelated prescriptions that feature these newly recorded ingredients: of the thirty-two recipes that contain references to at least one of these roots, twenty-nine represent distinct preparations; of the thirteen recipes in which they appear together, twelve are unique.37 The range displayed by recipes with galangal and/or zedoary differs markedly from those belonging to the incense family, recipes that contain a cluster of newly recorded ingredients which, to date, has only been observed in incense recipes.
Yet, as noted above, there are several recipes that feature galangal and/or zedoary that also include one or two of the newly recorded ingredients associated with the incense family. Indeed, the appearance of a handful of these additional newly recorded ingredients outside of incense recipes indicates that although these ingredients are often found together, they also occur independently of their cluster. As Table 4 shows, thirty-seven recipes that do not relate to incense contain one or two of these ingredients (namely, ambergris, camphor, confitum, cozumber, and/or musk). If galangal and/or zedoary are taken into consideration, too, then a total of five recipes have three or four newly recorded ingredients (including the aforementioned Elactuarium diarodes Iulii). When considering the appearance of incense-associated ingredients outside of incense recipes, confitum and musk appear most frequently, with the latter appearing in fifteen non-incense recipes and the former in thirteen. Camphor and cozumber are named in roughly half as many prescriptions (seven and eight, respectively), and ambergris is listed in only three recipes that do not concern incense. The infrequency with which ambergris appears in these recipes mirrors its relatively low incidence in incense recipes. Unlike the other newly recorded ingredients in the incense cluster—all of which represent core ingredients found in over 90 percent of recipes of the incense family—ambergris appears in just under half of these preparations.
References to the Newly Recorded Materia Medica Associated with Incense Recipes Found in Other Types of Recipes
The non-incense recipes in which the newly recorded ingredients associated with the incense family of recipes are found parallel the diversity of the recipes with galangal and/or zedoary. That is, these recipes are not variants of a shared recipe tradition, but rather, they represent distinct recipes comprising a range of different ingredients and targeting varied medical issues. There are, however, several exceptions. A recipe titled Antidotum gira diacoloquintidis, for instance, appears in both Vatican City, BAV, pal. lat. 1088 and Wolfenbüttel, HAB, Cod. Guelf. 56.18 Aug. 8°.38 These two recipes are nearly identical, illustrating that some of this material was being recopied and more widely circulated within the Carolingian world.
Perhaps surprisingly, of the sixteen different manuscripts that contain at least one recipe that features a newly recorded ingredient linked to the incense family, only one, St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 44, also includes an incense recipe that belongs to this tradition. To put it another way, none of the eight manuscripts in which variants of the incense family appear—with the exception of cod. sang. 44—simultaneously contain recipes that feature ambergris, camphor, confitum, cozumber, or musk. Paris, BnF, lat. 11219, the manuscript with the twelve incense recipe variants, does, however, include two recipes with galangal and one with zedoary. These three recipes, like the page of incense recipes, are found near the end of the manuscript and were added in the late ninth or tenth centuries, after the main text had been completed in the mid-ninth century.
The recipes containing newly recorded ingredients in Paris, BnF, lat. 11219 reflect the other major pattern that has emerged in the data: the number of recipes with newly recorded ingredients increases over time. It might be expected that evidence for these substances would expand between the eighth and tenth centuries due to a parallel increase in the number of surviving manuscripts. However, given that there is a ninth-century peak in extant manuscripts, a continued increase into the tenth century should not be automatically assumed; rather, the steady rise in the number of recipes that include these seven newly recorded ingredients under analysis is particularly noteworthy.39 In fact, only fourteen recipes (17 percent) with the selected ingredients, out of a total of eighty-four, can be confidently dated to before the middle of the ninth century. These include four of the twenty-two incense recipes (see Table 2), four of the thirty-two galangal-zedoary examples (see Table 3), and seven of the thirty-seven recipes containing newly recorded ingredients associated with the incense tradition yet found outside of incense recipes (see Table 4).40
Instead, the vast majority of the recipes within this sample that feature newly recorded ingredients were written in the late ninth and tenth centuries. While some of these recipes appear in tenth-century medical compendia, such as Paris, BnF, lat. 7028, many represent additions to ninth-century manuscripts that were made in the late ninth or tenth century. This article’s opening example, the Potio pigmentaria inserted into Laon, BM, MS 199, provides one such instance; in this case, in the tenth century, an unknown scribe added the recipe to a manuscript produced in the first half of the ninth century. Although most of these types of additions appear to have been written by a single individual at one moment in time—even when the addition comprises multiple recipes—the page of incense recipes in Paris, BnF, lat. 11219 presents a different picture.41
On fol. 227v, at least six different hands can be seen: some contributed a single incense recipe (e.g., the recipe in the top margin titled Timiama, one of the latest additions), while others recorded three (e.g., the three variants found at the start of fol. 227va: Tymiamam, Item alia, and Alia).42 The continued use of this page to record new incense recipe variants over several generations charts a different kind of growth with respect to knowledge about newly recorded materia medica. Whereas the overall increase in the recording of these substances—that is, the rise in the number of recipes containing newly recorded ingredients over time—documents a general diffusion of pharmaceutical knowledge between the eighth and tenth centuries, the Paris incense page provides evidence for the evolution of recipe traditions over time within a single community. It suggests that members of Saint-Denis may have been experimenting with the ingredients that were available and tweaking recipes according to what was on hand and which ratios of ingredients worked well together. The recipe titled Confectio timiamatis at the top of fol. 227vb, for example, calls for six pounds of cozumber, whereas most of the other recipes recommend two to six ounces.43 This long-term accumulation of additional incense recipes—the development of an incense recipe arsenal—would have offered the monks of Saint-Denis a variety of options when preparing incense, enabling them to adapt as necessary depending on the relative amounts of ingredients to which they had access.
Ultimately, by considering the incense recipes in Paris, BnF, lat. 11219 in context, it appears that it was not only information about a selection of newly recorded ingredients that was introduced into the Latin West during this period. Rather, there are signs that these products themselves were also circulating—if only rarely, in small quantities, and at great expense. In the following section, this topic will be probed further to explore the significance of these recipes and how they can help to shed fresh light on the movement of knowledge within and beyond the early medieval West.
The Transfer of Pharmaceutical Knowledge in the Early Middle Ages and Its Wider Implications
The preceding review of seven newly recorded ingredients illustrates that Eastern pharmaceutical traditions influenced early medieval Latin medicine. The surviving recipe literature testifies to an evolving body of knowledge that first adopted and then adapted information from sources far removed from the Classical corpus. I argue that the patterns discussed in the previous section can offer insights into the processes by which these Eastern influences were absorbed. Moreover, these patterns have the potential to provide a window onto the circulation of the newly recorded ingredients, if only indirectly.
As described above, the long-term accumulation of recipes exhibited by fol. 227v in Paris, BnF, lat. 11219 suggests that individuals at Saint-Denis were recording incense recipe variants based on actual practice. Their variation reflects the ways in which they adapted the recipe tradition, and they likely made adjustments in response to the availability of ingredients. In addition to this page of incense recipes, a number of other recipes in which newly recorded ingredients appear also show signs of adaptation in response to people’s experiences with these products.
For example, consider the plaster recipe titled Emplastrum apostolicon. Like the incense recipe family, this appears to represent a widely disseminated plaster tradition, and nearly identical recipe variants can be found in several of the manuscripts considered in this study, such as St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, codd. sang. 44, 751, and 761, as well as Vatican City, BAV, reg. lat. 1143 and Paris, BnF, lat. 7028. In this last manuscript, three variants of the Emplastrum apostolicon occur on fols. 182v–183v, and the second recipe in this group includes a newly recorded ingredient, cozumber.44 Notably, of the five manuscripts with variants belonging to the Emplastrum apostolicon family described here, only the Paris codex was produced in the tenth century; all others were composed in the ninth century and thus predate Paris, BnF, lat. 7028 by several generations. The recipe with cozumber, moreover, differs most widely from the other witnesses to this plaster. In contrast to its neighbors in the Paris codex as well as the variants seen in other manuscripts, it includes a second part, a separate powder to be prepared and then added to the plaster, and it is here that cozumber features. This suggests that new versions of the Emplastrum apostolicon were being developed over time, introducing elements of “cutting-edge” pharmacy into a long-standing recipe tradition.
Several similar cases have been identified in this sample: recipes for the Unguentum marciatum in Karlsruhe, BLB, Aug. perg. 120 and the Confectio saponi Constantini in St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 44, for example, both of which belong to larger families, likewise present individual recipe variants containing a newly recorded ingredient.45 All of these examples bear witness to not only the long-term dissemination of individual recipe families but also to signs of innovation within these established traditions. The adoption of several different newly recorded ingredients across individual recipe variants suggests that people were incorporating new information and experimenting with substances they had on hand—or at least that a scribe was recording someone else’s experiences with these newly introduced products.
In addition to providing indirect evidence for the presence of these ingredients, the varied distribution of newly recorded materia medica sheds light on how this pharmaceutical information was becoming integrated into Latin medical texts. The repeated occurrence of recipe variants stemming from a shared incense tradition documents not only the diffusion of this tradition but also its continued evolution. These recipes are found in eight different manuscripts that were produced at a range of scriptoria, from northern Italy (e.g., St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 44 and possibly Paris, BnF, nouv. acq. lat. 203) to the Paris basin (Paris, BnF, lat. 11219) and beyond.46 Indeed, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 223 was originally produced at Saint-Vaast but soon relocated to Saint-Bertin, where it is likely that an incense recipe was added to one of its initial flyleaves shortly before it was taken to England, while Bernhard Bischoff has suggested that St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 761 was written at Fulda.47 The remaining manuscripts—St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, codd. sang. 752, 878, and 899—all have links to the Lake Constance region.48
Given that St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, codd. sang. 44 is thought to have moved from northern Italy to St Gall soon after its completion, it seems plausible that this manuscript’s journey illustrates a key stage in this recipe family’s general diffusion. I suggest that an incense recipe drawing on Eastern ingredients could have first arrived in the West at ports in Sicily or the Italian Peninsula, such as Ravenna or Rome, sites that were comparatively well connected and multilingual hubs of trade. Links to the Byzantine East seem particularly important to consider given that, when incense recipes belonging to this tradition have titles, they consistently use a version of the Latinized Greek word for incense (thimiama, timiame, etc.). It is also possible that it entered the West at several times and places.
Regardless, since the movement of books from Italy into the Frankish Empire, including medical compendia (such as St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 44), has been well documented, as has their further circulation within the ecclesiastical and intellectual networks of the Carolingian world, it should come as no surprise to see that the incense recipe tradition spread beyond the Alps.49 Yet the rapidity with which this tradition was disseminated is noteworthy: within a few generations, it had reached all corners of the Frankish Empire of the Carolingians. I suggest that its speed of diffusion is linked to the Church’s increasing demand for incense during this period.50 Such practical needs would also help to explain the great proliferation of so many different recipe variants within a single manuscript: the varied combinations and ratios of ingredients would have allowed an institution to navigate a fluctuating supply of these precious imports. While it must be remembered that the total number of incense recipes (and manuscripts containing them) still remains small, their appearance, when considered in context, marks a significant development and testifies to the spread of the incense recipe family.
Despite its rapid dissemination and continued adaptation, the recipes within the incense family show a remarkable degree of consistency with respect to their core ingredients. Yet, while the production of new variants demonstrates that people were actively manipulating recipes for incense, it does not reflect a deeper integration of Eastern pharmaceutical knowledge. That is, when viewed as a cluster, these newly recorded materia medica remain a discrete and distinct unit that was only ever associated with incense. I argue, however, that the appearance of newly recorded ingredients outside of recipes within this tradition points to a more profound engagement with these ingredients and the information that was transmitted about them. As noted above, there is evidence that over time, earlier recipe traditions such as that of the Unguentum marciatum or the Emplastrum apostolicon, were updated to include one or two of the newly recorded ingredients. These types of individual adaptations suggest that an increasing number of people in the Latin West had heard about these substances and/or had encountered them. To be clear, the scribes who recorded the extant recipes may not have seen or used these ingredients themselves, but their writings bear witness to a growing pool of experience.
So far, the analysis and contextualization of recipes containing newly recorded materia medica has shown that Eastern pharmaceutical knowledge was picked up in several ways. On one hand, popular—or perhaps urgently needed—recipes, such as those belonging to the incense family, were widely shared, recopied, and further developed in a relatively short time frame. On the other hand, a deeper engagement with newly available materia medica was a more gradual process, but one for which the evidence increases over time as a growing number of recipes incorporate these products. While the recipe literature provides indirect evidence regarding the circulation of these substances, additional documentary sources confirm their presence, if only inconsistently and in limited quantities. These texts also reveal how their arrival fits into wider geopolitical dynamics of the period.
First, several of these ingredients, such as cozumber and galangal, are explicitly named in letters documenting gifts exchanged in elite circles. As early as the eighth century, Gemmulus, a Roman churchman, sent four ounces of cinnamon, four ounces of costus, two pounds of pepper, and one pound of cozumber to Boniface, archbishop of Mainz.51 A century later, Louis the German was sent a wide range of exotic goods, including cinnamon, pepper, cloves, mastic, and galangal, by a bishop.52 Neither of these letters mentions that these substances were destined for medicinal purposes, but they at least indicate that exotica, including some of the newly recorded materia medica, were present in the early medieval West.
Records of diplomatic exchanges, such as the Royal Frankish Annals’ account of the gifts that the Abbasid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (d. 809) sent to Charlemagne point to one of the routes by which such goods could have entered the Carolingian world: a direct link between East and West via the highest channels of diplomacy.53 Yet the survival of a “shopping list” prepared by the monks of Corbie reveals that certain spices, resins, and other precious exotics, including some of the newly recorded ingredients, were being commercially traded by the ninth century. Alongside well-known, imported materia medica such as pepper and spikenard, the monks’ list of goods to buy at the market in Cambrai, a town in northern France, features galangal and cozumber.54 This shows that newly recorded ingredients—and information about them—was entering the Latin West through multiple routes.55
Nevertheless, diplomatic gift-giving may explain the initial arrival of these products, and indeed, earlier parallels can be found further east: rulers in India and China sent the Sasanian kings Khosrow I (d. 579) and Khosrow II (d. 628) gifts of camphor, agarwood, and other perfume ingredients.56 Yet, even if elite gift exchange continued to be a pathway by which such substances entered the West, it is evident that, by the ninth century, traders also played a role in their wider distribution, and it is possible that others who have left no trace in the written record, such as pilgrims returning from the East, similarly contributed to this transmission of pharmaceutical knowledge and goods.57
Although documentary sources make clear that the newly recorded ingredients reviewed here were, in fact, circulating in the early medieval West, it must be remembered that the frequency with which such products were available and the quantities that arrived may have been very limited; relatedly, access was likely restricted to those involved in elite gift-giving networks and/or those with sufficient resources to afford these expensive goods. Likewise, it is also important to recognize that that the Carolingian Empire was on the periphery of a much larger system. As such, the introduction of these Eastern products, as well as information regarding their pharmaceutical uses, was the result of geopolitical dynamics far beyond their borders. Francia would have been one of the final links in a Eurasian chain that stretched across the continent, representing a relative backwater when compared to the Abbasid Caliphate and Tang Empire. In particular, the development of new trading routes and the great expansion of the Islamicate world in the eighth and ninth centuries created new economic conditions that facilitated an upsurge in the movement of products east and west.58
As the recipe literature documents, the introduction of previously unknown Eastern goods appears to have been accompanied by information about their uses in medicine, incense, and perfume. As a final point, and building on the work of Florence Eliza Glaze, I suggest that the arrival of this knowledge in the early Middle Ages may have played an important role in laying the groundwork for later developments in Latin medicine.59 On the heels of this small burst in newly recorded substances, much more dramatic changes occurred: starting in the late eleventh century, the translation of Arabic texts into Latin revolutionized Western medicine.60 This watershed moment may in part explain why the appearance of previously unrecorded substances in the eighth and ninth centuries (and their continued growth in the tenth) has received relatively little attention to date.
Although the extraordinary rapidity of the translation movement has been well documented, it has been difficult to explain: how were these newly translated texts absorbed into Latin medicine so quickly?61 Based on this study’s findings, it seems that the rapid dissemination of translated Arabic treatises, especially those concerning pharmacy, may have been helped by the foundations laid by preceding generations. The surviving early medieval recipe literature not only documents that some pharmaceutical information from Eastern sources was already circulating in the West but, more significantly, indicates that newly recorded ingredients were growing in popularity and/or becoming increasingly available. This background could have helped to create ideal communities of knowledge and practice into which Constantine the African’s translations landed, facilitating the rapid uptake and continued diffusion of translated texts.62 The idea that an early, though small, influx of Eastern materia medica eventually contributed to the reception and spread of Arabic texts in translation should not reduce the impact of the translation movement; nor does it explain the especially notable increase in the interest in theoretical writings (as opposed to practical, pharmaceutically oriented texts). Instead, I argue that the introduction of pharmaceutical knowledge in the eighth and ninth centuries—a trickle in comparison to the following watershed—may have helped to facilitate the latter’s impact by creating a receptive audience. The recipes under analysis have demonstrated that individuals in the Carolingian world were not only open to adding Eastern pharmaceutical knowledge and ingredients, but also to adapting their existing material in the light of these previously unfamiliar influences.
Conclusion
Early medieval pharmacy has traditionally been associated with stagnation and decline, the nadir in a low point in the history of Western medicine.63 Although the Latin of many surviving texts may deviate from Classical grammar and orthography, this corpus shows many signs of life. On the one hand, earlier writings continued to be excerpted, expanded, combined, and reconfigured, while on the other hand, influences from beyond Classical and Late Antique Mediterranean medicine can be felt. The newly recorded ingredients analyzed in this article testify to the impact of Eastern pharmaceutical knowledge in this period. The recipes reviewed above demonstrate that individuals in the early medieval West not only adopted particular traditions wholesale (as exhibited by the incense recipes) but also began to incorporate Eastern materia medica within preexisting recipes. This evolution in early medieval medicine was connected to the introduction of the products themselves, a development that, in turn, depended on the expansion of trade networks further east. While the total number of surviving recipes that include these newly recorded products may be small, the fact that Latin medical traditions began to use these items and absorbed Eastern pharmaceutical knowledge had a significant long-term impact and may have played a role in helping to facilitate the much larger-scale adoption and integration of translated Arabic medical texts over the following centuries.
Acknowledgments
I thank Petros Bouras-Vallianatos for organizing the conference “Premodern Pharmacological Approaches: Europe and China,” and for coordinating this resulting special issue. For their helpful feedback, I thank my fellow conference participants, MINiTEXTS and CEMLM project members, and the anonymous reviewers. This publication has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement no. 101018645).
Appendix: Manuscripts Consulted
List of Manuscripts Consulted
Footnotes
↵1. Laon, Bibliothèque municipale (BM), MS 199, fol. 138r. My lightly edited transcription is as follows: “Potio pigmentaria ad omnes infirmitates. Scamonia, denarios XII; euforbio, denarios XII; alon, similiter; amoniaco, (symbol); granomastice, (symbol); costo, (symbol); cinnamo, (symbol); gingiber, (symbol); spico, similiter; cariofile, peretro, zadoar, diptamno, bagas, corale, galenga, piper longum, piper nigrum, draganto, reupontico, carpara radices, similiter; croco, ermodactila, aristolozia, mirra, denarios VI; tus, denarios VI; feniculum sementia, calicem I.” Compare John Contreni’s transcription and discussion of this recipe in “Masters and Medicine in Northern France in the Reign of Charles the Bald,” in Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom, ed. Margaret T. Gibson and Janet Nelson, 2nd ed. (Aldershot: Variorum, 1990), 267–82, n.41. Unlike Contreni, I have understood the abbreviation “dr” to mean denarius and the measurement symbol to mean 1 semuncia and 2 drachmae. I thank Ildar Garipzanov for sharing his insights into measurement abbreviations and symbols. I am not certain how to interpret carpara and suggest that it could have been understood as capparis, caper, or cappara, which is listed as a synonym for portulaca, purslain, in the Herbarius of Pseudo-Apuleius. See Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarius, in Antonii Musae De herba vettonica liber. Pseudoapulei Herbarius. Anonymi De taxone liber. Sexti Placiti Liber medicinae ex animalibus etc., ed. Ernst Howald and Henry E. Sigerist (Leipzig: Teubner, 1927), no. 104.
↵2. For examples of published editions of early medieval recipe collections, see Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez, “Un recetario médico altomedieval (Città del Vaticano, BAV, Pal. lat. 1088, ff. 50r–66r): ensayo de edición crítica,” in “Cui tali cura vel remedio subvenitur”: De animales y enfermedades en la Edad Media europea, ed. Gerardo Pérez Barcala (Avellino: Edizioni Sinestesie, 2019), 41–80; Das ‘Lorscher Arzneibuch’: Ein medizinisches Kompendium des 8. Jahrhunderts (Codex Bambergensis medicinalis 1): Text, Übersetzung und Fachglossar, ed. and trans. Ulrich Stoll (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1992); and Der St. Galler Botanicus: Ein frühmittelalterliches Herbar: Kritische Edition, Übersetzung und Kommentar, ed. and trans. Monica Niederer (Bern: Peter Lang, 2005).
↵3. On this manuscript and council, see Rosamond McKitterick, Rome and the Invention of the Papacy: The Liber pontificalis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 178; The Acts of the Lateran Synod of 649, trans. Richard Price, Phil Booth, and Catherine Cubitt (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014).
↵4. Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (mit Ausnahme der wisigotischen) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998–2014), vol. 2, no. 2089.
↵5. On the appearance of medical texts, especially recipes, in nonmedical manuscripts, see Claire Burridge, Jeffrey Doolittle, Meg Leja, James T. Palmer, and Carine van Rhijn, “Early Medieval Medicine: How a New Corpus of Manuscripts is Transforming the Field,” Early Science and Medicine (forthcoming). The British Academy–funded Corpus of Early Medieval Latin Medicine (CEMLM) and the ERC-funded MINiTEXTS project are currently pursuing more research in this direction.
↵6. Zohar Amar and Efraim Lev, Arabian Drugs in Early Medieval Mediterranean Medicine (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 110–12, 116.
↵7. Although galangal is generally thought to have been newly introduced to the West during this period, there is some debate regarding when various plants in the ginger family entered Greek and Latin traditions. Lily Y. Beck suggests that what Dioscorides describes as “another kind of galingale” (Dioscorides, De materia medica, I.5, ἕτɛρον ɛἶδος κυπέρου) should be interpreted as turmeric; see Dioscordes, De materia medica, trans. Lily Y. Beck, 4th ed. (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 2005), 8, n.20. Confusingly, this galingale refers to κύπɛρος, a sedge, and is entirely unrelated to “galangal.” On the other hand, it has also been argued that galangal was only introduced in the thirteenth century; see Carlo Battisti, “Ripercussioni lessicali del commercio orientale nel periodo giustinianeo,” in Moneta e scambi nell’alto medioevo, 21–27 aprile 1960, Settimane di Studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 8 (Spoleto: Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1961), 639. See also Petros Bouras-Vallianatos’s remarks on the introduction of galangal in his contribution to this special issue, “Pharmacological Substances from Asia in Late Antique Medical Works: Myths and Facts,” History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals 67, no. 1 (2025): 87–120, esp. 109–17.
↵8. John M. Riddle, “The Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugs in the Early Middle Ages,” Sudhoffs Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften 49, no. 2 (1965): 185–98; Michael McCormick, Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, A.D. 300–900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 696–728 (esp. 708–19). McCormick also suggests that the ingredient azarum represents a similarly newly recorded resin. I argue, however, that the examples he cites (all from a single recipe collection in St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 44) should instead be read as an alternative spelling of asarum, “hazelwort”; Claire Burridge, Carolingian Medical Knowledge and Practice, c. 775–900: New Approaches to Recipe Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2024), 81, n.39.
↵9. Of the ninety-seven early medieval manuscripts under consideration, roughly a third can be considered medical compendia and often contain large recipe collections (that is, collections with more than 100 recipes). The rest, which represent nonmedical manuscripts to which recipes were added, contain one to several dozen recipes. Previously published recipe collections that Riddle or McCormick consulted include a selection of those in Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Med. 1 and 2; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. Phill. 1790; Glasgow, University Library, Hunter 96; Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek (BLB), MS Aug. Perg. 120; London, British Library (BL), MS Harley 5792; St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, codd. sang. 44 and 217.
↵10. Information regarding the dating and production of the manuscripts under analysis primarily comes from Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften. Where relevant, it has been supplemented by Augusto Beccaria, I codici di medicina del periodo presalernitano (secoli ix, x e xi) (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1956), Ernest Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits latins de médecine du haut Moyen Âge dans les bibliothèques de France (Paris: Éditions du Centre national de la Recherche scientifique, 1966), and/or updated according to the findings of the MINiTEXTS project.
↵11. On manuscript production in the Carolingian period, see Rosamond McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). James Palmer argues that the shift from papyrus to parchment, and the related dearth of earlier medieval texts written on papyrus, may obscure continuities with the Merovingian period, especially with respect to medicine; see James T. Palmer, “Merovingian Medicine between Practical Art and Philosophy,” Traditio 78 (2023): 17–45.
↵12. Consider Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. Phill. 1538, a tenth-century copy of the Hippiatrika that was updated to include some of the same ingredients under analysis in this article, or Symeon Seth’s eleventh-century Πɛρὶ τροφῶν δυνάμɛων, which likewise integrates a number of these products. On the latter, see Symeon Seth, Das A und O vom Essen und Trinken, trans. Kai Brodersen (Wiesbaden: Marixverlag, 2022); Georg Harig, “Von den arabischen Quellen des Simeon Seth,” Medizinhistorisches Journal 2 (1967): 248–68; Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, ‘Medieval Mediterranean Pharmacology,” in Drugs in the Medieval Mediterranean: Transmission and Circulation of Pharmacological Knowledge, ed. Petros Bouras-Vallianatos and Dionysios Stathakopoulos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024), 1–33, esp. 7–8.
↵13. In terms of Greek, many medical compendia contain, for example, Latin–Latinized Greek glossaries of words related to medicine. With respect to vernaculars, recipe ingredients are occasionally glossed in Old High German, a phenomenon that can be seen in several places in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV), pal. lat. 1088 and St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 878. Likewise, there are a few cases of recipes with Old English glosses, such as those inserted between the lines of a recipe added to a flyleaf in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 223.
↵14. Burridge, Carolingian Medical Knowledge and Practice, 77–80. On defining ‘localness’ within an early medieval context, see Bernhard Zeller, Charles West, Francesca Tinti, Marco Stoffella, Nicolas Schroeder, Carine van Rhijn, Steffen Patzold, Thomas Kohl, Wendy Davies, and Miriam Czock, Neighbours and Strangers: Local Societies in Early Medieval Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), xiv–xv.
↵15. Ambergris presents an exception since, given sperm whales’ extensive range, this substance can wash up on coastlines around the world, including the North Atlantic. Its use in pharmacy seems to be a distinctly Eastern development. See note 17.
↵16. Camphor’s use in earlier Indian and Chinese medical traditions, for example, is well attested; see R. A. Donkin, Dragon’s Brain Perfume: An Historical Geography of Camphor (Leiden: Brill, 1999).
↵17. Although several of these substances, including ambergris, camphor, and galangal, can be found in various editions of the works of Aetios of Amida (see Aetios of Amida, Aetii Amideni Libri medicinales, ed. Alessandro Olivieri, 2 vols. [Berlin: Tuebner, 1950] and Aetios of Amida, Aetii Sermo sextidecimus et ultimus, ed. Skévos Zervòs [Leipzig: Mangkos, 1901]), their appearance is likely due to later interpolations. See Antonio Garzya, “Problèmes relatifs à l’édition des livres IV–XVI du Tétrabiblon d’Aétios d’Amida,” Revue des Études Anciennes, 86 (1984): 245–57; Anne McCabe, “Imported Materia Medica, 4th–12th Centuries, and Byzantine Pharmacology,” in Byzantine Trade, 4th–12th Centuries: The Archaeology of Local, Regional and International Exchange: Papers of the Thirty-Eighth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, St John’s College, University of Oxford, March 2004, ed. Marlia Mundell Mungo (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), 280, n.38; Riddle, “The Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugs,” 191–2, n.10; and now, most convincingly, Bouras-Vallianatos, “Pharmacological Substances from Asia.” Regardless, no surviving Latin medical texts bear witness to their use in pharmacy in the West.
↵18. Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, 148–52; Krishna P. Gode, “History of Ambergris in India between about 700 and 1900 AD,” Chymia 2 (1949): 51–6.
↵19. Anya H. King, Scent from the Garden of Paradise: Musk and the Medieval Islamic World (Leiden: Brill, 2017), see esp. 133–6. See also Bouras-Vallianatos, “Pharmacological Substances from Asia,” 105–6.
↵20. Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, 144–8; Donkin, Dragon’s Brain Perfume. See also Bouras-Vallianatos, “Pharmacological Substances from Asia,” 115–17.
↵21. Weiyang Chen, Ilze Vermaak, and Alvaro Viljoen, “Camphor—A Fumigant during the Black Death and a Coveted Fragrant Wood in Ancient Egypt and Babylon—A Review,” Molecules 18, no. 5 (2013): 5434–54.
↵22. Alphita, ed. Alejandro García González (Florence: SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2007); on “confitum” (confita), see entry C4 (174, commentary on 400–401), and on cozumber (cozimbrum), C114 (184, commentary on 403). Significantly, confita is linked to thimiama, incense.
↵23. Confitum and cozumber remain somewhat ambiguous substances. Henry Sigerist was “not sure what [confitum] actually is,” but he noted that it is usually found “in connection with gums”; Henry E. Sigerist, “‘The Sphere of Life and Death’ in Early Medieval Manuscripts,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 11, no. 3 (1942): 296. More recently, it has been convincingly explained as deriving from the Greek γομφίτης, thereby fitting with its proposed identification as a gum resin related to storax (Alphita, 400–401). Regarding cozumber, Michael McCormick writes that its “derivation . . . is unclear” (McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 708), and its varied spellings in early medieval manuscripts share some similarities with the Persian and Arabic words for bitter ginger (Zingiber zerumbet), zoronbâd and zurunbād, respectively (see Paul of Aegina, The Seven Books of Paulus Aegineta, Translated from the Greek with a Commentary Embracing a Complete View of the Knowledge Possessed by the Greeks, Romans, and Arabians on All Subjects Connected with Medicine and Surgery, ed. and trans. Francis Adams [London: Printed for the Sydenham Society, 1844–7], 3:434–6). Given the context in which it appears, however, as well as comments in later medieval sources, such as the Alphita glossary, it appears to be a derivative of storax (Alphita, 403). See also Bouras-Vallianatos, “Pharmacological Substances from Asia,” 104–5.
↵24. When considered against the backdrop of the thousands of recipes that have survived from the early medieval Latin West, the number of prescriptions containing newly recorded ingredients may seem inconsequential at first glance. Their relative rarity, however, should not detract from their significance: given that these ingredients were previously unknown to scribes in Western Europe, any record of them is highly significant. Moreover, as detailed below, the manuscript evidence documents an increase in recipes featuring such ingredients over time, a trend that is important to explore further, especially in relation to later developments in Western medicine.
↵25. For initial work on the appearance of this family of incense recipes, see Claire Burridge, “Incense in Medicine: An Early Medieval Perspective,” Early Medieval Europe 28, no. 2 (2020): 219–55, and Burridge, Carolingian Medical Knowledge and Practice, 69–104.
↵26. Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, 140–44; McCabe, “Imported Materia Medica,” 277. Isidore of Seville, for example, includes agarwood, aloa, in his Etymologiae (Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive originum, libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911], 17.8.9). See also Bouras-Vallianatos, “Pharmacological Substances from Asia,” 94–6.
↵27. St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 761, p. 66: “Thimiama. Cozzunbar, uncias III; aloa, arbor (lege: ambar) denarios III; confitum, cafora denarium I; musico denarium I.” Cod. sang. 878, p. 334: “(No title) Cotzubri, libras VI; storace calamite, uncias VIII; gumfiti, uncias XVIII; aloa, uncias XVIII; cafora, uncias II; musco, denarios XVIII; amber, denarios IIII.”
↵28. St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 878, p. 334: “Item aliter. Cotzubri, libras VI; storacis ysaurici, uncias VIIII; confiti, uncias XVIII; cariofili, uncias III; cinnamomi, uncias VI; ciperi, uncias VI; turis, uncias V; myrrae, uncias III ς; masticis, uncias II ς; spici, uncias VI; croci, uncias I ς; aloa, uncias VII; cafora, uncias II, denarios V; musco, denarios XVIII; ambar, denarios IIII.” Cod. sang. 899, p. 137: “Confectio timiamatis. Cotsumber, libras VI; rasina stirax, storacę calamite, uncias VIIII; gumfiti, uncias XVIII; gariofile, uncias III; cinamo, uncias VI; ciferus ciperum, uncias V; thus, uncias V; mirra, III; masticae, uncias II; spica, uncias VII; croco, unciam I; aloa, uncias VI; cafora, uncias II et dinarios II; musico dinarios XVIII; ambar dinarios IIII.”
↵29. Paris, BnF, lat. 11219, fol. 227v (note: the title of this section of recipes is found on the previous page, fol. 227r); St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 878, p. 334; and cod. sang. 899, p. 137.
↵30. Bernhard Bischoff, “Eine Sammelhandschrift Walahfrid Strabos (Cod. Sangall. 878),” in Mittelalterliche Studien. Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und Literaturgeschichte, ed. Bernhard Bischoff (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1967), 2:34–51.
↵31. Bernhard Bischoff, “Bücher am Hofe Ludwigs des Deutschen und die Privatbibliothek des Kanzlers Grimalt,” in Mittelalterliche Studien. Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und Literaturgeschichte, ed. Bernhard Bischoff (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1981), 3:187–212.
↵32. Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, MS A 136, fol. 2r: “Potio probatissima ad omnem guttam. Zedoar, unciam I; galinga, unciam I; ca[rofilo] masculo, unciam I; pos . . . bene integra; salici folia, . . . ris similiter; folia . . . trefora de radices, manipul . . . ; urtice grosse, manipulum [I]; piper [grana] . . . X; mellis cocti, staupum I; vino optimo, staupos . . . ” Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, C 664, p. 89b: Electuarium. Iste sunt speties qui in conditam. Ziziber, ingrediunter in primis predictam, ziziber, xylobalsamo, cinnamomum, gariofalos, zaduara, galanga, peletro, costo, stachos, semen maratri, semen pigani, folium, et carpobalsamo. Mixte omnia simul cum melle spumato quod sufficit que probatissima erit ad stomachum, et ad cardiacum sive ad omnem corporis vitium.” On these manuscripts, see Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, nos. 6013 and 6318, respectively.
↵33. Paris, BnF, lat. 7028, fols. 184r–191v.
↵34. Paris, BnF, lat. 7028, fols. 186r–v: “Elactuarium diarodes Iulii, qui facit ad stomachi dolorem et omnem duritiam stomachi tollit, vertiginem capitis aufert, gravedinem relevat, faucium tumorem mitigat, suspirium compescit, vocis proclusionem reformat, anelitum tollit, stridorem et dolorem pectoris lenit, tussem aufert, duritiam iecoris spargit, splen desiccat, punctas et tortiones intestinorum sedat, renum dolorem aufert, stranguria et vessice passionem tollit, disintericis in vino datus prodest, et cardiacis. Emendat autem qui colorem pallidum habet, cui epar, cui splen, vel cui stomachum doluerit. Recipit haec. Amomu, spica nardi, costu, piper album, anacardi, anisu, galanga, galbano, rasura eboris, ysopo, prassiu, ana uncias II; cassia fistula, storace calamite, piretrum, zaduara, xylobalsamum, carpobalsamum, satureia, basilisca, nitru, puleiu, diptamu, aneti semen, blacta, amber, balsamum, muscu, margarite, ossa dactuli, carne eius, aaron, ana unciam I; dragaganto, liquiritia, piper longum, careu, libistici, ameos, maratri semen, yreos, cortice capparis, reuponticu, origanu, ermodactuli, peonia, vince toxicu, ana uncias III; cinnamu, gariofoli, zinziber, piper nigrum, meu, selinus, ossa de cor de cervi, saxifraga, xyloaloa, cardamomu, petroselinu macedonicum, corallum rubeum, semen nepite, ciminu, squinantu, mastice, synonus, ana uncias IIII; amigdale purgate, uncias III; nucleos pineae purgatae, mel quod sufficit. Qui autem hoc electuarium usus fuerit a multis conservabitur morbis et non ledetur a bali quis malignis nec a nebula nec paludes nec frigores montium vel vallium ut supra.”
↵35. Bern, Burgerbibliothek, cod. 109, fol. 156r: “Pulvera ad omnia venena resistendaque ad cor. De venium, id est zaduar, unciam I; dictamno, unciam I; torella, unciam I. Haec omnia in pulvere redigis, et quantum necessitas fuerit exinde dabis bibere modicum aqua frigida.” Paris, BnF, lat. 2373, fol. 2r: “Pulvera ad omnia venena resistendaque ad c[or]. De [ven]ium, id est zaduar, uncia I; dictamno, uncia I; torella radices, uncia I; haec omnia in [pu]lvere redigis et quantum necessitas fuerint exinde dabis bibere modicum aqua frigida.” Wolfenbüttel, HAB, Cod. Guelf 56. 18. Aug. 8°, fol. 120v: “Pulvera ad omnia venena. Zatduar, unciam I; dictamnum, unciam I; torella, unciam I, et quan<tum> necessitas fuerit da bibere.”
↵36. Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, nos. 536, 4179, and 7299. See also Beccaria, I codici, nos. 121 and 68 (Paris, BnF, lat. 2373 was not catalogued by Beccaria).
↵37. It must be emphasized that these examples are unique at present, but parallels may be uncovered in the future.
↵38. Vatican City, BAV, pal. lat. 1088, fol. 90r: “Antidotum gira deacoloquintidis. Facit ad vertiginem et dolorem capitis, epilenticis qui subito angustia incurrit, ad dolorem pectoris et qui de nigra colera laborant, pleoreticis et ad malas humores indegestibiles, stomaticis, epaticis, et ventris dolorem colicis et qui longam egritudinem habent, eruginosis, et qui malam colorem habent neufreticis, et qui gravitudine corporum habent, idropicis et qui subito grauantur, tisicis, podagricis, incipientis mulieribus vitia, et corruptela ventris intrinsecas rupturas curat sine molestia solvit, omni tempore accipienda est, non solum presentes infirmitates curat, sed futuras egritudines defendit. Recipit hęc. Eringio radices, polopodiae radices, sirobalsamo, amomo, piper longum, meu, gingiber, gentiana, brathea, costo, spico, casia, agarico, agaro, interiones, ana dragmas II; scolopendria, camitrius, cafora, ana untia I et dimidia; aloę, croco, reopontico, masticae, cinamo, diagridiu, epithimo, asaro, pionia, ana untia I. Omnia pulveraem facis. Adde mel dispumatum quod sufficit. Terendo commiscis, in buxtea reponis. Da exinde prima die cum aqua calida scripulos III, alia die scribulos II, tertia die scripulum I. Si velis ventrem bene purgare da exinde dragma I, scamunia scripulum I. Ista gira est aloetica et est maior et melior et suavior in omnibus utilior quia per hanc antidotum omnes egritudines minuantur.”
↵39. Beccaria, I codici; Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits.
↵40. The numbers here add up to fifteen because there is one overlapping recipe in this group in Tables 3 and 4, the collyrium in Glasgow, University Library, Hunter 96.
↵41. A series of recipes added to a flyleaf (fol. 2r) in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 223 shows a similar process of long-term accumulation involving multiple hands. In this case, however, the incense recipe in which newly recorded materia medica appears was written first, and two later scribes added several other recipes unrelated to incense, so it does not reflect precisely the same type of augmentative process seen on fol. 227v of Paris, BnF, lat. 11219.
↵42. Paris, BnF, lat. 11219, fol. 227v: “Timiama. Cotsumber, libram I, unciam I; cumfiti, uncias III, denarii V; aloa, uncias IIII; cinamo, uncias II; ambar, denarii II ς; storace, unciam I; tus, denarii XV; gariofilo, unciam I; muscho, unciam I, denarii II; cafora, unciam I, denarium I. Fol 227va: Tymiamam. Guzuber, uncias V, denarii II; aloa, uncias II et denarii XVIII; cinamomum, pensante III unciam I et denarii XVIIII; thus, pensante denarii III, solidum I; gariofile, pensante denarii II, solidum I. Item alia. Cotsuber uncias II; tus, ς; cynamo, denarii VI; storace, unciam I; gariofile, denarii IIII; aloa, unciam I et ς; gumfiti, similiter; musco, denarii III; caffora, denarii II. Alia. Cotsuber, denarii X; tus, drachmam ς; spica, denarium ς; aloa, denarii V; gunfiti, denarii III; musco, denarium I; caffora, denarium ς; storace calamitei, denarii II.”
↵43. Paris, BnF, lat. 11219, fol. 227vb: “Confectio timiamatis. Cotzuber, libras VI; storace calamite, uncias VIIII; gumfiti, uncias XVIII; cariofile uncias III; cinamo, uncias VI; ciperum, uncias V; tus, uncias V; myrra, uncias III; mastice, uncias II; spica, uncias VII; croco, unciam I; aloa, uncias VII; cafora, uncias II et denarii II; musco, denarii XVIII; ambar, denarii IIII.”
↵44. Paris, BnF, lat. 7028, fols. 182v–183v. The second variant, found on fol. 183r, contains cozumber: “Emplastrum apostolicon, qui facit sicut supra scriptum est. Qui recipit: pice rubea, colofonia, cera, viscu, ana uncias VI; galbanu, terbentina, ana unciam I; oleum nardinum, uncias I et ς; medulla cervi, assungia porci, ana unciam I; butirum, drachmas IIII; hec omnia ad igne resolve et cola in vas ereo per pannum rarum. Hubi mitte subtilissimam pulverem: turis, aloe, mastice, ana drachmas IIII; murra, cozzumbru, ana unciam I; sugia, zinziber, ana drachmas XII, puleiu, origanu, lauri bacas, ammoniacu, ana unciam I; storace, uncias I et ς; ysopu, gallas cypressi, iuniperi vacas, ana uncias IIII; aneti semen, appii semen, calce viva, ana drachmas IIII; ciminu tilin, lini semen, ana unciam I. Omnia hec in pulvere redacta. In supra vase cum alias species misce.” For comparison of the recipes, see St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, codd. sang. 44, pp. 238–9; 751, pp. 423–4; 761, pp. 65–6; and Vatican City, BAV, reg. lat. 1143, fols. 133r–134r.
↵45. Karlsruhe, BLB, Aug. perg. 120, fol. 16r; St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 44, p. 282. For additional variants of the “Soap of Constantine,” see Innocenzo Mazzini, “Il sapone di Costantino,” in Costantino il grande: dall’Antichità all’umanesimo: colloquio sul Cristianesimo nel mondo antico, Macerata, 18–20 Dicembre 1990, ed. Giorgio Bonamente and Franca Fusco (Macerata: Università degli studi di Macerata, 1992–3), 2:693–9.
↵46. Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, nos. 5530 and 5063.
↵47. M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912), 1:521–5; N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), no. 52; Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, nos. 816 and 5847.
↵48. Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften, nos. 5845, 5862, and 5865.
↵49. On the movement of medical manuscripts in the early Middle Ages, see Florence Eliza Glaze, “The Perforated Wall: The Ownership and Circulation of Medical Books in Medieval Europe, ca. 800–1200,” PhD diss., Duke University, 1999.
↵50. Burridge, Carolingian Medical Knowledge and Practice, 98–9; Burridge, “Incense in Medicine.”
↵51. “Epistula 62,” in Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Michael Tangl (Berlin: Weidmann, 1916), 127–8.
↵52. Collectio Sangallensis, ed. Karl Zeumer (Hanover: Hahn, 1886), 29, at 415, lines 15–19.
↵53. Annales regni Francorum inde ab a. 741 usque ad a. 829 qui dicuntur Annales laurissenses maiores et Einhardi, ed. Friedrich Kurze (Hanover: Hahn, 1895); for the arrival of Hārūn al-Rashīd ‘s gifts in 802, see 117; for 807, see 122–5.
↵54. Polyptyque de l’abbé Irminon ou dénombrement des manses, des serfs et des revenus de l’abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés sous le règne de Charlemagne, ed. Benjamin Edme Charles Guérard (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1844), 2:336.
↵55. It at least appears to document the arrival of these substances; given their exotic nature, and that they likely traveled as dried products, if not in powdered form, we must consider the possibility that some of these ingredients were adulterated to varying degrees, or even that they could have been replaced by cheaper, easier-to-source alternatives. Yet, regardless of the actual products in circulation, these textual records indicate that some individuals in the early medieval West thought that they had encountered these substances (as documented by sources such as letters detailing gifts sent or received) or expected to be able to acquire them (as seen with the Corbie shopping list).
↵56. Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, 136.
↵57. Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, 111, 231.
↵58. Alain George, “Direct Sea Trade between Early Islamic Iraq and Tang China: From the Exchange of Goods to the Transmission of Ideas,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 25, no. 4 (2015): 579–624; Amar and Lev, Arabian Drugs, 231.
↵59. See Florence Eliza Glaze, “Salerno’s Lombard Prince: Johannes ‘Abbas de Curte’ as Medical Practitioner,” Early Science and Medicine 23, no. 3 (2018): 177–216.
↵60. For an introduction to the translation of Arabic medical texts into Latin, see Brian Long, “Arabic-Latin Translations: Transmission and Transformation,” in Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Galen, ed. Petros Bouras-Vallianatos and Barbara Zipser (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 343–58.
↵61. Winston Black, “‘I Will Add What the Arab Once Taught’: Constantine the African in Northern European Medical Verse,” in Herbs and Healers from the Ancient Mediterranean through the Medieval West: Essays in Honor of John M. Riddle, ed. Anne Van Arsdall and Timothy Graham (Abingdon: Ashgate, 2012), 153–85; Monica H. Green, “Medicine in France and England in the Long Twelfth Century: Inheritors and Creators of European Medicine,” in France et Angleterre. Manuscrits médiévaux entre 700 et 1200, ed. Charlotte Denoël and Francesco Siri (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), 363–88. On the reception of Galenic medicine in the newly established universities in the Latin West, see, for example, Michael McVaugh, “Galen in the Medieval Universities, 1200-1400,” in Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Galen, ed. Petros Bouras-Vallianatos and Barbara Zipser (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 381–90, and Luis García Ballester, “The New Galen: A Challenge to Latin Galenism in Thirteenth-Century Montpellier,” in Text and Tradition: Studies in Ancient Medicine and Its Transmission, Presented to Jutta Kollesch, ed. Klaus-Dietrich Fischer, Diethard Nickel, and Paul Potter (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 55–83.
↵62. On Constantine the African’s “team” and early manuscripts, see Erik Kwakkel and Francis Newton, Medicine at Montecassino: Constantine the African and the Oldest Manuscript of His Pantegni (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019).
↵63. For a historiographical review, see Burridge, Carolingian Medical Knowledge and Practice, 8–29.
This open access article is distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) and is freely available online at: https://hopp.uwpress.org.
In this issue
Jump to section
Related Articles
Cited By...
- No citing articles found.