47. Ibid., 536. A recent scholar, Edward Peters (Heresy and Authority, 66), translates this passage “was spreading [italics mine] its vicious and deadly poison through the provinces of Gaul . . .” from the original: “jamjamque per Galliarum provincias nefandi erroris venena exitialia propinantem.” However, the verb in question here, propinantem, means “to drink,” or more precisely, “to drink to one’s health,” which I take contextually to mean “in ceremony.” Peters translates propinantem as “to spread” (propago). My thanks to Boston University classicist Carl Ruck for reviewing this crucial passage with me.
48. Ibid., 537: “. . . ab eis debriatur mortifero nequitiae haustu . . . qui dementia errore diabolico irretitus”; “pollicens omnimodis in hac re suum auxilium . . .”
49. Ibid., 537–38: “Christum de Virgine Maria non esse natum, neque pro hominibus passum, nec vere in sepulchro posuum, nec a mortuis resurrexisse: addentes, in baptismo nullam esse scelerum ablutionem: neque Sacramentum corporis & sanguinis Christi in consecratione Sacerdotis. Sanctos Martyres atque Confessores implorare pro nihilo ducebant”; “per impositionem videlicet manuum nostrarum, ab omni peccati labe mundaberis, atque sancti Spiritus dono repleberis, qui Scripturarum omnium profunditatem ac veram dignitatem absque scrupulo te docebit. Deinde caelesti cibo pastus, interna satietate recreatus, videbis persaepe nobiscum visiones angelicas, quarum solatio sultus, cum eis quovis locorum sine mora vel difficultate, cum volueris, ire poteris; nihilque tibi deerit; quia Deus omnium tibi comes nunquam deerit, in quo sapientiae thesauri, atque divitiarum consistunt.”
50. Ibid., 538: “. . . de cibo illo, qui caelestis dicebatur, quali arte conficiebatur . . . ”; “. . . pro sanctitate & religione ejus concubitus . . . ”
51. Fichtenau, Heretics and Scholars, 31.
52. Frassetto, “Heresy at Orléans,” 1, fn. 2.
53. Stock, Implications of Literacy, 107–10.
54. Karras, Kaye, and Matter, Law and the Illicit, 35; Fichtenau, Heretics and Scholars, 31; Frassetto, “Heresy at Orléans,” 4, 6.
55. Bouquet, et al., Recueil des historiens, 159: “. . . et pulverem ex mortuis pueris secum deserebat; de quo si quem posset communicare, mox Manichæum faciebat . . .”
56. Frassetto, “Heresy at Orléans,” 5–6.
57. Quoted in Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 115–16.
58. Vieusseux, Archivio storico, book 2, part 1, 12–13: “Interrogatus que esset maior inter mulieres”; “Respondit quod de stercore predicti buffonis, ut dictum est, et quod fuit inculpata quod comburebat capillos suos et pillos pectinis in poculo predicto miscebat et hunc poculum faciebat in vigilia Epiphanie in sero circa ignem.”
59. Ibid., 13: “Quem potum apportabat in una fiola, et potus ille erat turpis aspectu, et si quis satis sumpsisset inflasset multum, ita quod unus, qui multum sumpsit, fere mortuus est; et de tali potu ipse et omnes alii sumebant totiens quociens initiabant dictam sinagogam.”
60. Miller, Encyclopedia of Addictive Drugs, 61.
61. Joseph Hansen, Quellen und untersuchungen, 161: “. . . et applicando incentiva in cibariis, aut per superius tactos provocancia partem sensitivam”; 149: “. . . Valdenses ydolatrae.”
62. Passavanti, Lo Specchio della vera, 318–20: “Così si truova [reading “trova”] ch’ e’ dimonii prendendo similitudine d’ uomini e di femmine che sono vivi, e di cavagli e di somieri, vanno si notte in ischiera per certe contrade, dove veduti dalle genti, credono che sieno quelle persone la cui similitudine mostrano: e questa in alcuno paese si chiama la tregenda. E ciò fanno i demonii per seminare questo errore, e per mettere iscandalo, e per infamare quelle tali persone la cui similitutudine prendono, mostrando di fare nella tregenda alcune cose disoneste. Ben si truovano [reading “trovano”] alcune persone, e spezialmente femmine, che dicono di se medesime ch’elle vanno di notte in brigata con questa cotale tregenda, e compitano per nome molte di loro compagnia; e dicono che le donne della torma che guidano l’altre, sono Erodía che fece uccidere san Giovanni Batosta, e la Diana antica dea de’ Greci.”
63. Mormando, Preacher’s Demons, 66.
64. Orlandi, Saint Bernardine, 130.
65. Ibid., 131.
CHAPTER 4. ROOTS OF BEWITCHMENT
Epigraph 1. Agrippa, Of the Vanitie and Uncertaintie, 127.
Epigraph 2. Paracelsus, Hermetic and Alchemical Writings, 157.
1. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine.
2. Roberts and Wink, Alkaloids, 31–32; Atkinson, “Clinical Studies,” 102; Stephenson and Morss, Medical Botany, 86.
3. Kraemer, Rice, Maisch, et al., Belladonna, 5; also Dawson, Leechbook, 11.
4. Joseph Hansen, Quellen und untersuchungen, 228.
5. Arsdall, Klug, and Blanz, “Mandrake Plant,” 285–307.
6. Hort, Theophrastus, 259.
7. Ibid., 261.
8. White, Book of Beasts, 24–27.
9. Carter, “Myths and Mandrakes,” 144.
10. Dioscorides, De Materia Medica, book 4, 624; accessed via: http://panaceavera.com.
11. Ashton, “Mandrakes,” 84.
12. Quoted in Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts, 105. Despite Suetonius’s account, which clearly describes a hallucinogen, there is no way of knowing for certain what kind of drug was in Caligula’s drink.
13. Wright, Works of the Emperor Julian, vol. 3, 137. Although several sources assert that Emperor Julian took love philters nightly, the claim is unfounded. Nevertheless, for this claim see Calmet, Calmet’s Dictionary, 623. The letter that Calmet cites does mention the philters, but it is only in passing.
14. Lee, “Solanaceae II,” 279; Stol, Birth in Babylonia, 56.
15. Gassen and Minol, “Die Alraune oder die Sage,” 302–07.
16. Dioscorides, Pharmacorum simplicium, 238.
17. Simoons, Plants of Life, 128.
18. Adams, Genuine Works of Hippocrates, 77.
19. Zilboorg and George, History of Medical Psychology, 71; Carter, “Myths and Mandrakes,” 1630.
20. Simoons, Plants of Life, 118; Haggard, Devils, Drugs, and Doctors, 95–96.
21. Lee, “The Solanaceae II,” 280.
22. Fordham University, Medieval Sourcebook: “The Trial of Joan of Arc”; accessed via: www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/joanofarc-trial.html
23. Pollington, Leechcraft, 347–49.
24. Thorndike, History of Magic, 490–91. For its translation into German, which Thorndike does not mention, see Atkinson, Medical Bibliography, 188. See also Rider, Magic and Impotence, 166; and Major, History of Medicine, vol. 2, 315.
25. Hispanus, Thesaurus pauperum, accessed via bildsuche.digitale-sammlungen .de.
26. Ibid., 16: “De Phrenesi”; “Item, Recipiantur Mandragora, Crocus, Storax & Opij pars aliqua: pulvurisataq aspergantur capis patientis.”
27. Ibid., 19–20: “De Cura Vigilitarum”; “Item, Semen Mandragorae dolore quadem qualem tollis.”
28. Ibid., 19: “Opium, semen papueris, mandragorum, semen iusquiami, an. cum Oleo violato confice: fiat unguentum quo frons inungatur.”
29. Green, Trotula, 130.
30. Ibid., 133.
31. I have consulted two editions of Opus de venenas: Theodor Zwinger’s Basel edition, which has no date of publication, was probably copied after 1559 when he joined the teaching staff at the University of Basel. He recounts in the introduction that Ardonyis wrote his Opus “ante annos plus minus centū triginta” (more or less 130 years ago), which coincides with the date given by the other edition consulted, one from 1492 on hold at the Universidade de Coimbra. The Universidade dates the original Opus to ca. 1430. As for Ardoynis’s birth and death year, I can find nothing.
32. Zwinger, Opus de venenas, 194: “Mandragorum auctores aliqui nominant iabroch, aibrol, iabroha, ieberue, [and] ieberuan”; “Virtutis habens radicem, satis magnam & fructus, & foila.”
33. Ibid., 195: “Et vidi muliere radicum eius bibere ad impregnandum . . . qui ingreditur balneum . . . in rubedine & inflatione faciei.”
35. Hispanus, Thesaurus pauperum, 67: “Quae venerem prohibent & extiguunt”; “Item, Opium, semen hyoscyami, and mandragora coquantur in oleo & cum cera fiat unguentum, quo ungantur & emplastrentur testiculi.”
36. Quoted in Milis, Pagan Middle Ages, 112.
37. Flanagan, Hildegard of Bingen, 77.
38. Ibid., 142.
39. Quoted in Thorndike, History of Magic, vol. 2, 135.
40. Agrippa, On the vanities, 203.
41. Dioscorides, De Materia Medica, Book 4, 615; accessed via http://panaceavera.com.
42. Riley and Bostock, Natural History, vol. 5, book 25, chapter 17; accessed via www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Nat.+toc&redirect=true.
43. Folkard, Plantlore, Legends, and Lyrics, 372.
44. Tertias, Sancti Isodri, 629: “Haec herba et insana vocatur, quia ejus usus periculosus est. Denique si bibatur, vel edatur, insaniam facit, vel somni imaginem torpidam. Hanc vulgus milimindrum dicit, propter quod alienationem mentis inducis.” “Milimindrum” might have been an obscure way of saying “thousand minds,” mille mentes. See also Throop, Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies, vol. 2, book 17, chapter 9.41.
45. McNeill and Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance, 341.
46. Forbes, Early Races of Scotland, 110. Gregory of Tours speaks of this in History of the Franks, book 2, chapter 9: “And the enemy appeared here and there, and sheltered by trunks of trees or standing on the abattis as if on the summit of towers, they sent as if from engines a shower of arrows poisoned by the juices of herbs, so that sure death followed even superficial wounds inflicted in places that were not mortal”; “. . . hostium rare apparuere, qui coniuncti arborum truncis vel concidibus superstantes, velut e fastigiis turrium sagittas turmentorum ritu effudere inlitas herbarum venenis, ut summe cutis neque letalibuse inflicta locis vulnera aut dubiae mortis sequerentur.”
47. Quoted in Cockayne, Leechdoms, wortcunning, and starcraft, vol. 1, xviii–xix.
48. Letcher, Shroom, 34.
49. Dawson, Leechbook or Collection of Medical Recipes, 3, 5.
50. Ibid., 107.
51. Ibid., 213.
52. Ibid., 261–62.
53. Ibid., 295.
54. Ibid., 283.
55. Pollington, Leechcraft, 201.
56. Ibid., 233.
57. Hispanus, Thesaurus pauperum, 16: “Item, ocoli, nares, & labia ungentur cum Myrrha, storace & lacte papaueris, Opio, & iusquiamo decoctis in mulsa.”
58. Ibid., 16: “Iusquiami & co. vel catulus fissus per medium ventrem, vel gallus, vel pulmo porci.”
59. Ibid., 16: “Papauver album, semen iusquiami, distemperata cum ablumine oui, & lacte mulieris somnum leuiter inducit.”
60. Ibid., 16: “Folia iusuiami sub ceruicali posita, phreneticum dormire cogit.”
61. Ibid., 16: “Iusquiamum coque in vino dulci, & cum hoc unge labia, nares, & aures, & statim cum magna admiratione dormiet.”
62. Ibid., 67: “Hyoscyami succus genitalibus inunctas libidinem prorsus extinguit.”
63. Rider, Magic and Impotence, 164.
64. Canitz and Wieland, From Arabye to Engelond, 63.
65. Zwinger, Opus de venenas, 197: “Causa ebrietatis & permistionis rationis, sunt vapores & praecipue calidi ad cerebrum eleuati”; “Causa locutionis vocibus diversis, ita ut aliquando rugiat & aliquando hinniat ut equus & aliquando vocem emittat, ut mulus vel mula.”
66. Schenk, Book of Poisons, 36–37.
67. Quoted in Wallis, Medieval Medicine, 214.
68. Magnus, De vegetabiblius, book 6, tract 2, chapters 10, 11, 526: “Resolvit duritiem testiculorum, et confert erysipelae . . . dolori matricis . . .”; “Folia dormire faciunt comesta, et permutant rationem.”; “. . . sed tamen aliquando ministratur.”
69. Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 144–45.
70. Quted in Müller, “Love Potions,” 623.
71. Quoted in Cockayne, Leechdoms, wortcunning, and starcraft, vol. 2, 345.
72. Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials, 56.
73. Weyer, Witches, Devils, and Doctors, 227–28.
74. Roberts and Wink, Alkaloids, 20–21.
75. Forbes, Early Races of Scotland, 329–31.
76. Holzman, “Legacy of Atropos,” 242.
77. Bever, Realities of Witchcraft, 130.
78. Holzman, “Legacy of Atropos,” 242.
79. Pollington, Leechcraft, 323.
80. Dawson, Leechbook or Collection of Medical Recipes, 44–45.
81. Ibid., 133. Here and in several others, the Latin morel is used for “nightshade.”
82. Ibid., 185: “morel.”
83. Ibid., 263.
84. Ibid., 277.
85. Ibid., 283: “morel.”
86. Cockayne, Leechdoms, wortcunning, and starcraft, vol. 2, 347–49.
87. Zwinger, Opus de venenas, 200: “. . . aut corticis radicis eius assumptionem in notabili quantitate sunt insania, seu permistio rationis, & quasi fatuitas, ofuscation coloris, impedimentum & exiccatio [reading “excitare”] lingue, singultus, & vomitus plurimus . . . angina, & spasmus . . . mortification.”
88. Hispanus, Thesaurus pauperum, 67.
89. Flood, “Medieval Herbal Tradition,” 62.
90. Choulant, Macer floridus, 107–08: “Egilopis [reading “Aegilops”; Aegilops is an ulcer of the inner cornea] Strigni dieunt cataplasma mederi, Istud idem dicunt capitis prodesse dolori; ignas sacer et herpeta mordax.”
91. Lea, History of the Inquisition, vol. 3, 384.
92. Woodward, Gerard’s Herbal, 74–75.
93. Salverte, The Occult Sciences, 15.
94. Della Porta, Natural Magick, 197–98.
95. Quoted in Lewin, Phantastica, 110–11.
96. Rugdley, Encyclopedia, 76.
97. Safford, “Synopsis,” 173–89.
98. Šeškauskaite and Gliwa, “Some Lithuanian ethnobotanical taxa,” 2.
99. Fortenbaugh, Theophrastus of Ersus, 79; Woodward, Gerard’s Herbal, 82.
100. Geeta and Gharaibeth, “Historical evidence,” 1230–35.
101. Ayuba, “Toxicities and Sedative Effects,” 22–23.
102. Quoted in Safford, “Datura of the Old World,” 551.
103. Von Megenberg, Buch der natur, 396. Some of Von Megenberg’s creatures resemble those outlined in Herodotus’s Histories.
104. Weyer, Witches, Devils, and Doctors, 230.
105. Quoted in Ayuba, “Toxicities,” 24.
106. Quoted in Safford, “Synopsis,” 540.
107. Pollington, Leechcraft, 161.
108. Zwinger, Opus de venenas, 193: “nuce methel Indicae.”
109. Ibid.: “vertiginis,” “rubedo oclorum,” “ebrietas & profunditas somni & and anhelitus.”
110. Foley, “Bean, Roots and Leaves,” 147, 179.
111. Della Porta, Natural Magick, 197–98.
112. Quoted in Duerr, Dreamtime, 7.
113. Lewin, Phantastica, 32.
114. Belon, Les observations, 14–15.
115. Lewin, Phantastica, 30.
116. Scarborough, “Opium Poppy,” 5.
117. Riley and Bostock, Natural History, vol. 4, book 19, chapter 53, 196.
118. Scarborough, “Opium Poppy,” 5–6.
119. Dioscorides, De Materia Medica, book 4, 608.
120. Davenport-Hines, Pursuit of Oblivion, 32.
121. Weyer, Witches, Devils, and Doctors, 229.
122. Collection of Voyages and Travels, 605.
123. Ibid., 797.
124. Acosta, Tractado de las drogas, 415. The scans I have are corrupted in some areas and are delineated by [. . . ]: “ . . . y por cuanto los que comen este opio, esta medio enagenados [reading ‘enajenar’], y casi priudos de juvzio [?], y razon, por falta de la imaginativa acaban este acto venereo mas tarde . . . exercita ella [. . . ] obra, y exercita ella [. . . ] obra, y assisuccede [reading ‘asi sucede’] por la
mayor parte [. . . ] el venereo acto los dos juntamente . . .”
125. Quoted in Dormandy, Opium, 33.
126. Kapoor, Opium Poppy, 3.
127. Quoted in Dormandy, Opium, 32–33.
128. Hispanus, Thesaurus pauperum, 16–18.
129. Ibid., 19–20.
130. Dawson, Leechbook, 145.
131. Zwinger, Opus de venenas, 185–86: “hic est venenum, seu venen osa medicina, inter venena ab auctoribus numeratur . . .”; “. . . consequentia assumptione opij, praecipue cum modico boni vini”; “. . . stuporis . . . vertigo” . . . “singultus & tenebrositas oculorū . . . submersio oculorum” . . . “causa pruritus in corpore” . . . “profunditas somni” . . . “Causa permistionis rationis . . .”
132. Weyer, Witches, Devils, and Doctors, 401.
133. Plato, Last Days, 182, 199.
134. Laertius, Lives and Opinions, 72–73.
135. Pliny, Natural History, 242.
136. Ibid., 192.
137. Ibid., 242.
138. Wellcome, “Anaesthetics,” 22.
139. Goffe, “Wine of the Condemned,” 501.
140. Quoted in Withington, Medical History, 209.
141. Juvin and Desmonts, “Ancestors of Inhalational Anesthesia,” 267.
142. Quoted in Goffe, “Wine of the Condemned,” 501: “Opium, succus morellae, hyoscyami, cicutae . . .”
143. Pollington, Leechcraft, 201.
144. Ibid., 227.
145. Ibid., 399.
146. Dawson, Leechbook or Collection, 263.
147. Hispanus, Thesaurus pauperum, 16.
148. Zwinger, Opus de venenas, 206: “. . . stuporis membrorum corporas . . .”; “. . . permistionis rationis . . .”
149. Van Dongen and De Groot, “History of Ergot Alkaloids,” 109.
150. Besides countless epidemics that probably went unreported, a small catalog of examples can be found in Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome’s From Ergot, 61. Some of the more notable outbreaks occurred in 857 and 944 (Aquitaine, Limousin, Angoumois, Perigord); in 957 (Paris); in 1039 (Metz); in 1089 (Lorraine); in 1129 (Paris); from 1648 to 1675 (Voigtland); from 1660 to 1674 (Aquitaine, Gattinais, Sologne); in 1702 (Freiburg); in 1709 (Bern, Lucerne, Zurich); and in 1716 (Saxony, Lusatia).
151. Quoted in Wellcome, From Ergot, 34.
152. Weyer, Witches, Devils, and Doctors, 227.
The Witches' Ointment Page 26
