Medieval Beekeeping: Mead, Medicine, & Morals

Beehive in the Luttrell Psalter

 While examining the Luttrell Psalter, filled with everything from monsters to windmills to farming, one lone beehive can be easy to miss. However, as Blackhorse noted, insects are not typically featured in psalters, making this beehive unique. Why include bees? While today we can chose from a wide array of artificial sweeteners, honey was the most common sweetener in the Middle Ages, making beekeeping an notable aspect of history. 

Bee-Keeping in a 14th century French Psalter 

In order to collect honey, however, the bees had to be housed somewhere accessible. Beehives could be constructed and maintained on a nobleman's property, but, more often, they were housed at monasteries. Not only did they provide sugar and wax, but the bees would also help to pollinate the surrounding plants, improving the quality and quantity of the flora. In addition to being a sweetener, honey was also used medicinally and in the production of mead. To make mead, honey had to be fermented along with spices to provide additional flavor. Honey was also used medicinally, serving as either part of the cure or to make the cure more palatable.While bee-keeping was common in Medieval Europe, procuring honey through merchants was easier than maintaining beehives. A few countries used trade routes to transport honey to distant markets to be purchased. Specifically, as Newman described, “the lands now within modern Spain, Russia, and Ukraine were leading producers of honey and exported it to markets in England and elsewhere,” (22). The importance of honey provides insight into the culinary history of Europe while also demonstrating the ever-growing popularity of trade.

Bees attacking a bear in a 15th century manuscript

One particularly interesting piece of literature that included bees was the Italian manuscript Florede virtu e de costumi (‘Flowers of Virtue and of Manners’). In this 14^th century manuscript, bees, along with other creatures, were used to explain morals to children using parables. As described on the website of the British Library, 

The vice of Anger (Ira), for example, is illustrated with the fable of the bear and the bees. The bear attempts to take honey from a beehive but is attacked and stung in its eyes by bees. In its rage, the bear turns its attention to killing its attackers. Other bees then come to sting the bear, which prompts him to chase them instead of the first swarm. In doing so, the bear is constantly chasing different bees but never successfully catches any of them. The text emphasises the moral of the story by citing authorities who note that anger consumes and ruins one’s life.

While beekeeping may not usually be associated with the Middle Ages, the practice was clearly a part of the culture, from mead to medicine to morals. 

Works Cited

Newman, Paul. Daily Life in the Middle Ages. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2001.

Blackhorse, Janet. Medieval Rural Life in the Luttrell Psalter. Toronto: University of Toronto Press Inc., 2000.

“Flowers of Virtues and of Manners” Medieval Collection Items, The British Library Board, https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/drawing-of-a-unicorn-from-the-flowers-of-virtue-and-of-custom 

Vinegar: The Cornerstone of Modernization

Vinegar: The Cornerstone of Modernization

Let me preface this blog by saying I am about to make a very bold, seemingly outlandish claim, but please hear me out… 

One of if not the most essential factor in the growth and development of cities and complex society across western Europe during the Middle Ages was vinegar.  In fact, I posit that if not for this sour commodity, the complex diversification and urban development between the 1100s and the 1400s would not have happened in that part of the world. 

Since the dawn of time, mankind’s battle for survival was predicated on food. To quote scholar Thomas Robert Malthus, “Food is necessary for the existence of man” (Malthus 2012). For centuries man searched for ways to make cheap, abundant food. The Agricultural Revolution that fostered the development of civilization and growth that lead up to the Middle Ages was connected to animal domestication and husbandry, fishing and hunting, and the development of agriculture. Most crops grew in a cyclical pattern where they were planted in the spring and harvested in the fall, or vice versa, while hunting and fishing followed a similar pattern.  These cycles produced an abundance of food during harvest season, thus the next big hurdle for the development of society was the preservation of the food to last year round.  

Medieval Preservative Production

In Europe during the Middle Ages, there were four effective ways to preserve food: smoking, salting, fermenting, and pickling. Smoking was fairly popular but had very specific drawbacks.  It could only be done with meat and was a labor/time intensive effort. It required custom facilities, specific woods, and excessive manpower. These issues relegated it as a preservation method primarily for the rich. Salting was by far the most effective way to preserve all kinds of foods, however, there were problems with this method as well.  It took an excessive amount of salt to properly preserve the food, and salt was very expensive at this time.1 Fermentation was never popular in most of Europe. While it was a fairly economical and an effective method of food preservation, it carried a social stigma and an acquired taste for the distinct flavor.2  That just left pickling as a viable preservation method.  

Pickling was a method of preserving food in vinegar through an anaerobic chemical process.  The use of vinegar as a preservative dated back to the times of ancient Babylon and Egypt. In the early Middle Ages in Europe, however, it was difficult to produce large amounts of vinegar.  This was due to an unrefined process and the lack of plants needed to produce the product. This changed in the late 1100s in the French city of Orleans, when a group of vintners accidentally stumbled upon a simple process to make vinegar, known as the “Orleans Method” (cite).  Shortly after this, the “Solera Method” or sherry vinegar was discovered in Northern Italy and the men of the Crusades brought back from the Levant ways to make vinegar out of raisins and pomegranates. With all of these cost effective preservative innovations during the Middle Ages, Europe was full of vinegar. 

The Orleans Method of Vinegar Production

So, why was vinegar so important and how did this sour condiment lead to the growth of cities in the Middle Ages? 

First, malt vinegar was at the time the most effective pesticide known to man and some scholars estimated that it increased grain production up to twenty percent (Smith-Fiola and Gill 2017). Next, vegetables, fruits, meats, and grains were preserved economically and efficiently with the use of vinegar. Even dairy became easier to store over long periods of time when vinegar was used as a curdling agent and milk was made into cheese. 

Medieval Store Selling Vinegar

So, with the abundance and longer shelf-life of food, fewer people needed to work on farms. Thus, more people diversified their trades. This diversification of jobs lead to a growth in commerce which promoted societal development. This increase in commerce prompted urbanization. With all of these factors added together, we saw the rise of modernizing European cities and the complex cultural structures of the Middle Ages.  All of this growth and development was largely thanks to the most humble of commodities… vinegar!

Notes

1. There were two kinds of natural salt available for this process, sea salt and rock salt.  Sea salt prior to the Industrial Revolution required much time and effort to gather and produced very small yields.  Because sea salt lacked the ionization process, it was not fully effective in preservation. That left rock salt as the preservation option.  There were very few salt mines in Europe with the major exception being the Salina Turda in Romania. Due to its depth, this area was not a major salt producer until the 19th Century when the advent of better drilling and mining methods. Most of the salt used in Medieval Europe came from the Arabian and Sahara Deserts and the cost of importation made it too expensive for most people to use.  According to the paper entitled, “British Economic Growth 1270-1870,” which was published by the University of Warwick’s Centre on Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy, the average income in England from 1270 to 1600 was between $400 and $800 in today's relative market (Broadberry et al. 2010).  While a similar study conducted by the University of Toronto valued salt at roughly $4.00 per gram (today’s relative market) in the 1348 Venetian market (Wee 1963).  With the price of salt growing farther from the Italian ports, this was not an economically viable option for most. 
2. Fermenting food was a popular method of preserving meats, fruits, vegetables, and grains for centuries across East and Central Asia as well as in Northern Eurasia.  However, it never really became popular in the majority of Europe with the exception of the Scandinavian countries. Many believe it was only popular in Scandinavia because of the harsh natural conditions.  Scandinavia had the coldest European winters and the shortest crop growing season. Thus, fermentation was used out of necessity to preserve mostly fish and dairy products. This was further supported by the fact that Danish cuisine generally contained the least amount of fermentation, whereas, Iclandic cuisine was full of fermented foods.  Side note: The Iclandic national dish is called “hakarl” which is fermented sleeper shark meat.  If you ever get the chance to try it, I highly suggest you do so. It is a unique delicacy with a deliciously strong flavor.  

Work Cited:

Broadberry, Stephen, et al. Collaborative Project HI-POD, 19 Aug. 2010, 

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/sbroadberry/wp/britishgdplongrun8a.pdf.

Campbell, Bruce M. S. Before the Black Death: Studies in the "Crisis" of the Early Fourteenth 

Century:”Demographic Developments in Rural England, 1300-1348: A Survey”. Manchester University Press, 1992.

Malthus, Thomas. “CHAPTER 1.” An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus,       

             2012, https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/malthus/ch01.htm.

Rogers, James E. Thorold.A History of Agriculture and Prices in England. Kraus, 1963.

Smith-Fiola, Deborah, and Stanton Gill. Central Maryland Research and Education Center, 2017, 

https://www.extension.umd.edu/sites/extension.umd.edu/files/_docs/programs/ipmnet/Vinegar-AnAlternativeToGlyphosate-UMD-Smith-Fiola-and-Gill.pdf.

Wee, Hermann Van Der.The Growth of the Antwerp Market and the European Economy: 

(Fourteenth-Sixteenth Centuries). M. Nijhoff, 1963.

Longbow Lineage and the Luttrell Psalter

The Luttrell Psalter, created in fourteenth century England under the rule of Sir Geoffrey Luttrell is filled with beautiful manuscripts and illuminations.  However, its significance comes from the unmatched depictions of everyday medieval life in the estate, such as Sir Geoffrey Luttrell's estate.  It depicts life not only from the view of the elite "Lords", but from children, women, and peasants (British Library).  Amongst the depictions of everyday life on the estate is several images of longbows. Such images depict a group of archers in target practice, an archer on horseback, and archery in hunting.  The famous medieval longbows, often times taller than the men wielding them, were made from yew wood, waxed string, and shot arrows with goose feather fletchings (Backhouse 41).  The archers depicted represent a necessity for the ability to protect the estate, that was so clearly prized through the creation of the Luttrell Psalter.

The timing of the creation of the Luttrell Psalter makes perfect sense with the reoccurring depictions of archers.  The fourteenth century contained the bulk of the Hundred Years War between English and Frankish rulers.  The longbow was a pivotal militaristic innovation for England.  The longbow has been proven to have the ability to shoot between six and twelve arrows in sixty seconds, devastating tightly knit opponents with enough force to penetrate armor and break bones (Newman 231).  Not only were these bows extremely effective in battle, but the bowmen firing them were extremely skilled, as the Luttrell Psalter depicts how these bows demanded practice.  Practice would have been essential as the longbows often had draw-weights up to 180 pounds (Newman 231).  In comparison, the average hunting bow used today has a draw-weight of about 70 pounds, and that strength requires adults who have practiced the movement for years.

The Luttrell Psalter depicts many new technological implementations in its daily account of estate life in England, such as the heavy plough, bloodletting, and horse collars.  Many of these technologies shaped the world we see today, but the longbow was the most integral in protecting those technologies.  Medieval Rural Life in the Luttrell Psalter tells of bowmen, saying "their expertise was fundamental to such renowned victories as Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, so practice was a serious obligation rather than a pastime of choice" (Backhouse 42).  Not only did the longbow protect the estate, but it protected history, as the Luttrell Psalter might not exist today without the practicing archers it depicts.


Sources:
Backhouse, Janet. Medieval Rural Life in the Luttrell Psalter. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2000.
Luttrell Psalter. British Library Collection Items. British Library. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-luttrell-psalter.
Newman, Paul B. Daily Life in the Middle Ages. Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland, 2001.

The Heavy Plow: Making Agriculture Not So Heavy After All

During the time between 1000 and 1300, the medieval world saw a wealth of changes, whether social, economical, or political. Between the First Crusade in 1096 and the Magna Carta in 1215, these crucial 300 years were an exciting time to be alive in the middle ages. Perhaps one of the biggest changes during this time, however, was the agricultural revolution. Various factors contributed to this agricultural revolution, which had a profound impact on the economic prosperity of the common man in the middle ages. Expansion and clearing of land for agricultural purposes, as well as new techniques and better management both helped further the agricultural revolution. On top of these improvements stands one major advancement as well: technology. Various technological improvements and inventions came around this time, such as the horse collar and horseshoes. Arguably the most important, however, was the heavy plow.


The heavy plow was a replacement for the existing scratch plow. This plow was more popular and practical in southern Europe, where the light and dry soils allowed the plows to work correctly. Further north in Europe, however, the soils were heavier, making the scratch plow fairly impractical. A number of improvements made the heavy plow more suited to this thicker, heavier soil of the north. For example, the heavy plow’s extra weight helped it to dig into the soil better. Additionally, the heavy plow included wheels not found on the scratch plow, which made the heavy plow much more easily maneuverable. Finally, the heavy plow included a metal blade, allowing more uses in the heavy, thick soil than one could get out of the old scratch plow (Bennett 140-141). In 1962, Lynn White Jr. hypothesized that the adoption of the heavy plow was one of the biggest contributing factors of increased population density and urbanization in the middle ages, in part because it allowed farmers to better utilize the more fertile clay soils. In late 2013, a group of researchers from the University of Southern Denmark investigated this hypothesis and found that the heavy plow alone was responsible for around 10% of the population increase and urbanization of the middle ages (Andersen).


Andersen, Thomas Barnebeck, et al. “The Heavy Plough and the Agricultural Revolution in Medieval Europe.” Discussion Papers on Business and Economics, University of Southern Denmark, 5 Dec. 2013, doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2362894.

Bennett, Judith M. Medieval Europe: A Short History. Langara College, 2016.

San Gimignano a Stair Lovers Dream

San Gimignano is located near Florence Italy in the Tuscan region and is one of three medieval towns in the area the other two towns are Lucca and Volterra. The town of San Gimignano was first mentioned in writing in 929, however, there is a legend that says in 63 B.C. two brothers built two castles that later formed San Gimignano. The town has been built upon itself for hundreds of years and between the 11^th and 13^th century wealthy Italians built magnificent towers to live and work in. The kitchen was often built above the last bedroom because of fire reasons and the first floor was usually a workshop or a store. The more money a family had the higher they built the towers. There were 72 towers built in the medieval times and even though the town is built on top of a hill most of the towers were destroyed because of wars. Only 13 towers are left standing. There remains beautiful artwork still in the town it comes in the form of Fresco’s on the ceilings of the cathedral. They depict religious significance interpreted from the scripture and took over fifty years to complete. Every major town in Italy has a central piazza and San Gimignano is no exception, however instead of having only one they have two piazzas. The largest piazza has a public well in the center of it and the second is in front of the Duomo. San Gimignano suffered a population decrease over time due to plagues and famine and the smallest known census of inhabitants was just three.

"Art and Culture - The Town's History." History of San Gimignano and its Famous Towers, www.sangimignano.com/en/art-and-culture/town-history.asp. Accessed 14 Oct. 2019

"Historic Centre of San Gimignano." UNESCO World Heritage ..., 1990, http:// whc.unesco.org/en/list/550/. Accessed 14 Oct. 2019.

“Top 25 Medieval Cities In Europe: Best Preserved Towns To Visit.” BigBoyTravel.com, https://www.bigboytravel.com/europe/topmedievalcities/. Accessed 14 Oct. 2019.

A Dangerous Cure

While the Luttrell Psalter harbors many illustrations regarding the medieval daily life, it also brings to light a certain type of healing that becomes the standard treatment for many conditions. This healing technique illustrated is known as bloodletting or bleeding. As Backhouse mentions, this procedure was originally used as a way of ridding the body of ‘corruptive humors’ and anyone could have been a patient to this procedure whether they were ill or not.

Bloodletting was a small piece of the humoral theory established by Hippocrates and the practice dates to the early Roman and Greek empires. It was thought that by extracting small amounts of blood they would be able to correct the balance of humors within the body. For this form of treatment, the method used was venesection, which involved creating a small incision along the forearm- typically the right- and draining the blood into a small bowl, as pictured in the Luttrell Psalter. The instruments that were used for bloodletting were known as lancets and fleams, both of which consisted of sharp blades that could be easily and safely transported by the physician.

One would think that only educated physicians were able to perform this procedure, but that’s not the case. Common barbers would fill the role of surgeon when one wasn’t available. These barbers in turn became known as “barber- surgeons” and it was common for them to perform this procedure more often than actual physicians. So the man illustrated in the Luttrell Psalter could easily have been a barber instead of a physician.

Works Cited:

Newman, Paul. Daily Life in the Middle Ages. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2001 

Backhouse, Janet. Medieval Rural Life in the Luttrell Psalter. Toronto: University of Toronto Press Inc., 2000 

Cohen, Jennie. "A Brief History of Bloodletting." History, 29 August 2018, https://www.history.com/news/a-brief-history-of-bloodletting

Greenstone, Gerry. "The History of Bloodletting." BC Medical Journal, February, 2010, https://www.bcmj.org/premise/history-bloodletting