A similarly popular book of women’s medicines and cosmetics comes from a figure known only as Trotula of Salerno (ca. eleventh– twelfth centuries). A poplar ointment (unguentum populeon) used for “an acute fever and for those who are unable to sleep” is to be rubbed on the “temples and pulse points and the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet.” The unguent contained henbane, red poppy, mandrake, deadly nightshade (discussed later in this chapter), and pig fat.29 Similar actions can be taken with rambunctious children: wine infused with mandrake or dwarf elder “works in a wonderful way for children who are not able to sleep.”30
Closer to Matteuccia’s own time another medical book, Magister Santes de Ardoyni’s Opus de venenas (Book of Poisons, ca. 1430), described mandrake among other powerful drugs.31 Ardoyni lists a group of obscure names given to that plant by other writers, further commenting that all parts of the plant have virtue.32 Ardoyni’s caveats about the power and allure of mandrake seem to have come from personal observation. Regular folks partook of the plant for various magical means; indeed, Ardoyni writes that he once saw a woman drink the roots of mandrake (with wine) while bathing.33 Her skin turned red and bloated; these physiological effects evince that she had also succumbed to the drug’s other renowned effects: “drunkenness,” “vertigo,” “detachment from reality,” “lethargy,” and eventually, “profound sleep.”34
Come the Middle Ages, mandrake acquired a new magical function: as an antilust drug. We can get a feel for this use by way of two formulas handed down to us from both Hispanus and the Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179). Mandrake’s famously amorous powers had been eschewed in service of chastity; it was recommended as an effective way for men to extinguish their sexual promiscuity—a truly magical act indeed! Hispanus describes an unguent of mandrake, opium, and henbane seeds that men should anoint their testicles with; all licentious thoughts would be extinguished.35 Like all Hispanus’s formulas, this one is terse, practical, and uncomplicated by ritual; his faith resides in the action of the drugs themselves. On the other hand, the antilust formula handed down by Hildegard in a compendium of her earlier works that was titled Liber subtilitates diversarum natuarum creaturarum (Book on the Subtleties of Many Kinds of Creatures, ca. 1160),*36 can rightly be called psyche-magical. For those who “because of magical intervention” couldn’t contain their “sexual urges,” a mandrake root should be washed and bound to the abdomen for three days and nights. The user was then to remove the root, split it in two, and reattach it to her or his thighs for an additional three days, after which the user should “pulverize the right arm of the root and swallow the powder.” The man should use the female root for this ritual; women should use the male root. In this spell Hildegard innocently recommends washing the root to “cleanse it of its powers,” a thoughtful but fruitless caveat.36 Although Hildegard’s works comprise a hodgepodge of ideas that may not be wholly her own, authorship of the magic ritual is beside the point.37 The spell—whoever wrote it—advocates the deliberate ingestion of a well-known psychoactive in a magical ritual.
To Hildegard, mandrake’s psychoactive powers were secondary to God’s, the true source of all power.†37 38 She even alludes to the belief that holding the proper mindset while using such powerful drugs influences the experience. In her collected medical works, Subtilitates diversarum, Hildegard warns that “the influence of the devil is more present [in mandrake] than in other herbs; consequently man is stimulated by it according to his desires, whether they be good or bad.”39
Whether in pagan, Hebrew, or Islamic lore and writings, mandrake had been associated with sex, fertility, and recreation. The Christian empire inspired a radical reversal: it was to be used as a way to appease a prudish God. But Hispanus and Hildegard were clearly fighting against a deeply entrenched carnal mandrake paradigm. To assume that no one used mandrake for reasons outside prescribed medical ones is too big a stretch. The Renaissance alchemist Agrippa offers good evidence that the pagan use of psyche-sexual drugs still survived into the early modern period. While commenting on the “whorish arts” in De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum atque artium declamatio invectiva (Of the Uncertainties and Vanities of the Sciences and the Arts), a skeptical satire of the sad state of science written in 1526, he stated rather explicitly that after ingesting mandrake one could fulfill “Venus pleasure three score and ten times.”40
HENBANE
(Hyoscyamus niger)
Dioscorides wrote of “three important different types” of henbane (Hyoscyamus niger), two of which cause “delirium and sleep.” The third kind of henbane, he said, was pounded into a liquid with seeds of opium, water, and honey “for suppositories to take away pain, for sharp hot mucus, ear pains, and the disorders of the womb. . . . Boiled like vegetables and a tryblium [plateful] eaten, they cause a mean disturbance of the senses.”41 Pliny the Elder, calling the plant herba Apollinaris, after Apollo, the god of music, intellectual pursuits, and prophecy, sounded similar sentiments in his Natural History: “[Henbane], like wine, has the property of flying to the head, and consequently of acting injuriously upon the mental faculties.” He further explained henbane’s dualistic nature: “It is a singular thing, but we find remedies mentioned for those who have taken this juice, as though for a poison, while at the same time we find it prescribed as a potion among the various remedies.”42
Historically, henbane went by many names and had many uses. Some names, like the Latin iusquiamus, derive from two Greek words, hus (pig) and kuamos (bean). The anglicanized terms refer to hens (and probably roosters, too) who ate the “baneful” seeds and became mad. Yet henbane’s Sanskrit name, aj’ amoda, means “goat’s joy.”43 Other common names for this plant were more straightforward. Insana was what Isidore of Seville called it in his Etymologies: “If it is eaten or drunk it causes insanity or torpid and vivid dreams,” he warned. “Commoners call it milimindrum because it caused mental disturbances.”44
As with mandrake the history of henbane also includes nonmedicinal, superstitious uses. For instance, Burchard of Worms, in “Corrector,” reveals a bizarre ritual involving henbane that makes it seem closer to weather magic than anything like veneficia. During droughts a young maiden should be stripped by other girls and brought out of the village “where they find the herb henbane which is called in German ‘belisa.’” Using the pinky on her right hand, the nude maiden should dig up the plant and tie it to the pinky toe of her right foot. The other girls then bring the henbane-wearer to a river and, using twigs, splash her with water. They are then to walk backward to their village.45 “Belinus” was a divinity of “heathen Britons and their Celtic kindred in Gaul” who smeared henbane juice over their arrows, which they called Bellenuncia.46
Another peculiar ritual for gathering henbane for medical use (though it is not ingested in this instance) is found in the writings of Greek physician Alexander of Tralles (ca. 525–605).
[Henbane], when the moon is in Aquarius or Pisces, before sunset, must be dug up with the thumb or third finger with the left hand, and must be said, I declare, I declare, holy wort, to thee; I invite thee tom-morrow [sic] to the house of Fileas, to stop the rheum of the feet of M. or N., and say I invoke thee, the great name, Jehovah, Sabaoth, the God who steadied the earth and stayed the sea.
The following day before sunrise the leech should use the bone from a dead animal to dig up the henbane root, which she or he then rubs with salt while saying incantations to angels. The root should then be worn around the patient’s neck as a charm.47
Other cases leave us wondering about a henbane possessor’s intentions. In Fyrkat, Denmark, a woman’s body was found in a Viking grave (date unknown). Among her meager possessions, including animal bones, a cup, a silver decorative pendant, and a cooking spit, excavators found a pouch containing around 100 henbane seeds. They may have been nothing more than a way of demonstrating “mastery of a poisonous plant” to her neighbors, or she may have used t
hem for some other superstitious reason that didn’t involve ingesting or inhaling them at all.48 However, if we accept the antiquity of henbane’s appearance in the archaeological record, its recorded hallucinogenic properties, its place in magical-medicinal folklore, and that the woman was a seeress based on her burial possessions, ingestion for its psychoactive effects cannot be entirely ruled out. We do, however, have specific examples of how henbane was used for its medicinal properties; many of the descriptions of henbane follow patterns already set up by its solanaceous sibling, mandrake.
One anonymous fifteenth-century leechbook, referenced by its catalog number, M. 136, differs from others in its lack of magical prepwork; that is to say, it is almost completely free of any kind of superstitious accoutrements. M. 136 is practical, albeit pretentious, as its corrupted (though readable) use of Latin and Greek indicates an eager though superficial physician.49 But this also places the leech right where we want her: on the border between folk medicine and learned medicine, a kind of information junkie soaking up whatever prescriptions she could find. She writes of university-level medical pastes such as “Emplastrum bonum strutorium” [sic], which contains several known psychoactives including cannabis (marijuana), nightshade, and henbane.*38 50 She writes of other folk simples like “Henbane Oil” (Oleum Jusquiami), in which henbane is the only ingredient, and preparation involves burying the leaves in various holed pots for a year. Setting it apart from other recipes in the book, this one does not mention what the oil was used for.51 Yet the author was certainly aware of henbane’s soporific effects; she mentions another ointment made of henbane, smallage (a variety of wild celery), and mint, which should be rubbed on the forehead and temples, “[f]or him that may not sleep.”52 Another plaster used “to cease weeping” is made of henbane, egg whites, incense, vinegar, and women’s breast milk.53 One particularly popular remedy for toothache involved inhaling the fumes of burning henbane seeds, leed seed, and incense.54
Other leechbooks are equally forthcoming with medications that demonstrate that the author understood the soporific effects of henbane. The Lacnunga (Remedies), a collection of miscellaneous Anglo-Saxon medical texts and prayers written mainly in Old English and Latin and dating around the late tenth or early eleventh century, recommends a fusion of henbane and hemlock (an herb discussed later in this chapter) to mix into a “sleeping drink.”55 Another henbane ointment should be used “when a man cannot sleep.”56
Petrus Hispanus, whose Thesaurus pauperum we met earlier, also lists henbane (alongside mandrake) as a cure for “frenzy.” An ointment (rubbed on the eyes, nose, and lips of the patient) can be made from henbane, storax, myrrh, and opium juice boiled in honey.57 Hispanus curiously shies away from Isidore of Seville’s labeling of henbane as “insane”; indeed, he refers to this herb as “herbae sanae”—the healthy, or sane herb. Part of preparing one henbane remedy (for purposes unstated) involved placing it in the intestines (midbelly) of small animals or roosters or in the lungs of pigs.58 Knowledgeable of henbane’s soporific effects, Hispanus recommended two kinds of somnolent aids: the first, involving mandrake and henbane (mentioned above), should be used for a “deep sleep.” For a less powerful potion “opium, white henbane seeds, and woman’s milk, tempered with Albumin will result in a light sleep.”59 Henbane was believed to be so powerful that the leaves alone could merely be placed under a pillow to “cause a frantic individual to sleep.”60 But such purely sympathetic magical examples must be seen in conjunction with others that recommend cooking henbane in sweet wine to cast a person into a wondrous dreamland.61 Accessing the more priggish side of his temperament, Hispanus offered a henbane ointment that should be rubbed on the genitals for purposes of chastity.62 Henbane also appears as an antiaphrodisiac in English physician Gilbertus Anglicus’s (ca. 1180–1250) encyclopedic Compendium medicinae (Compendium of Medicine, ca. 1230). Anglicus, whose use of folk ideas in his Compendium demonstrates that some of his medical knowledge came from “unlearned medical practitioners and women,”63 offers a host of possibilities to “restrain sexual intercourse.” One method involved rubbing henbane juice all over the testicles to extinguish “heat, erection, and lust.”64
Ardoyni also gives us some interesting details pertaining to henbane, telling of some accidents that have come about as a result of its use: “It is of the coldest stupefiers. . . . [s]tirs breathing sensations . . . if allowed to penetrate the body it causes a sense of motion.” It also “causes drunkenness and synesthesia*39 when the hot vapors hit the brain.” Users could end up “uttering gibberish, braying like an ass, or whinnying like a horse.” It eventually leads to sleep and sometimes spasms.65 Perhaps we can get a feel for the kind of hallucinatory power unleashed by henbane through the experience of a twentieth-century German writer, Gustav Schenck, who burned and inhaled the seeds of this unholy root. After some initial physical discomfort (resulting in almost complete loss of motor function) and feelings of giddy drunkenness had subsided, the plant’s powerful hallucinatory effects overwhelmed him:
There were animals, which looked at me keenly with contorted grimaces and staring terrified eyes; there were flying stones and clouds of mist, all sweeping along in the same direction. They carried me irresistibly with them. . . . They were enveloped in a vague grey light which emitted a dull glow and rolled onwards and upwards into a black and smoky sky. . . . above my head water was flowing, dark and blood-red. The sky was filled with a whole herd of animals. Fluid, formless creatures emerged from the darkness. I heard words, but they were all wrong and nonsensical, and yet they possessed for me some hidden meaning . . . I know that I trembled in horror; but I also know that I was permeated by a peculiar sense of wellbeing connected with the crazy sensation that my feet were growing lighter . . . I was seized with the fear that I was falling apart. At the same time, I experienced an intoxicating sensation of flying.66
The famed doctor and religious reformer of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries Arnaldus de Villa Nova wrote of a physician who tended to a constipated patient who “had taken opium or henbane” to cure his intestinal problems.67 But digestive disorders weren’t the only reason for taking henbane. The thirteenth-century Dominican friar and Catholic saint Albertus Magnus commented on henbane, which he called Acharonis in his Book of Secrets (subtitled On the virtues of herbs, stones, and certain beasts, also a book of the marvels of the world), drawing on the usual medical properties of the plant while elaborating on its powers in another work, De vegetabilibus et plantis libri septem (Treatise on Vegetation and Plants in Seven Books, ca. 1250). Besides its use against hardened testicles, St. Anthony’s fire, and uterine pain, the leaves have somnolent effects, he noted, and when ingested “transform . . . one’s ability to reason . . . destroy memory, and make men crazy.” He says that poison is present in both the black and white henbane, yet white henbane is “often administered [to patients].”68
Henbane was also added to beer to make it more intoxicating.*40 In 1507, a brewer was fined five gulden for strengthening his beer with henbane and other “crazy-making things and plants.” Likewise, in the mid-seventeenth century, Jacobus Theodorus, known as Tabernaemontanus (his Latinized name represented a translation of his native town, Bergzabern)—a beer enthusiast of the finest order—was enthralled by the many additives that enhanced his preferred beverage: sugar, cinnamon, cloves, Dutch myrtle, ivy, and laurel. On the matter of one plant, however, he was unwilling to compromise, condemning those who added henbane to their beers.69 These people, he declared, should be “damned as enemies of the human race,” no different than a killer or a bandit.70
Henbane, like mandrake, also had superstitious and magical practices that involved ingesting its hallucinatory poisons. In some cases, ingested and imbibed henbane medications mixed with a kind of Christianized folklore. Bald’s Leechbook, an Old English medical text written in the ninth century, includes magical henbane ointment recipes for bizarre conditions indeed. Many of these recipes are a hodgepodge of drug agents, f
olk superstition, and Christian theology, such as one ointment that contains henbane and protects against “the elfin race, nocturnal goblin visitors, and for the women with whom the devil hath carnal commerce.”†41 71 The salve should be placed under an altar and the physician should sing nine Masses over it. If a person were struck by elves, the ointment would be rubbed on the forehead and in the eyes. The patient is then to be fumigated with incense as the leech makes signs of the cross over her or him. It is difficult to maintain that a person would not have some otherworldly, perhaps even entheogenic, experience with all these prompts in place—psychoactive medicine, spiritual-medical rituals, and an almost shamanistic healer tending the patient. Henbane also appears in another potion used to induce vomiting in “a fiend sick man, or demoniae.” It should be mixed with holy water and ale, other herbs, and should be drunk from a church bell. These two medical spells mingling Christian ideology with folk superstition are exactly the kinds of bastardization of the faith that ecclesiastics must have abhorred.72
DEADLY NIGHTSHADE
(Atropa belladonna)
Dr. Jeremias Brachelius rushed to the bedside of the son of local bookseller Servatus Sassen. The lad had last been seen playing in the garden of physician, philosopher, and instrument-maker Gemma Frisius. Now Frisius, as a physician, was well-known for growing “nightshade . . . along with several other exotic herbs” in his garden. Because of the boy’s “youthful impetuosity” he ate a single nightshade berry off the plant. He soon descended into insanity, grew “weak in body and spirit,” and could no longer remember who he or his family was. Eventually the hallucinatory phase passed and the boy crashed under the nightshade juice’s powerful soporific spell, remaining asleep for a full day. After the doctors applied a few “professional remedies” the boy fully recovered.73
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