Imagine having toothache a thousand years ago. The agony of having the offending item pulled out might ultimately have been unavoidable but there were, in fact, a number of remedies that you could try to forestall this fate.
Among the more plausible tooth treatments of the time were herbal recipes using chervil, whose roots were believed to have antiseptic properties, and bishopwort, now more commonly known as wood betony and still used by herbalists for easing headaches and neuralgia.
These were some of the Anglo-Saxon health treatments I came across when writing a book about an extraordinary 11th-century queen: Emma was married consecutively to Aethelred the Unready and King Cnut (Canute) as well as being the mother of two more kings of England — Harthacnut and Edward the Confessor.
As part of my research I browsed through Anglo-Saxon health remedies: Latin books of herbal lore translated into Old English; medical literature compiled in the 10th century; and, particularly, three volumes of treatments entitled Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England, translated by the Victorian priest Oswald Cockayne. This was not simply an absorbing diversion from the power play just before the Norman Conquest, the medical texts of Emma’s day give a rich insight into an England that for all its chronological remoteness seems, at times, endearingly familiar.
The collections of cures suggest that people then suffered from many of the same conditions that we still have today, with some of the more superficial complaints revealing a similar preoccupation with personal appearance.
Dandruff, for example, was apparently treated with a mixture of watercress seeds and goose grease, while pimples on a woman’s face would be seen off with a salve of “great wort”, probably autumn crocus. A more serious complaint was diarrhoea, cured (or not) through a number of plants, including horsetail and knotgrass.
For constipation, by contrast, you could drink a potion of wood betony, the plant being regarded as an invaluable cure-all, not only used against toothache but also hangovers, nose- bleeds and “foot disease”, a condition that remains unexplained but that might be anything from athlete’s foot to foot-and-mouth disease. Meanwhile, foxglove, or digitalis purpura, a plant now often used in cardiac medication, was the basis of a treatment for inflammatory sores and boils. Hemp, or cannabis, seems also to have been employed as an anti-inflammatory, pounded up as a poultice for sore breasts.
Yet not all complaints would seem commonplace now. Horsemint leaves were used to treat leprosy, while numerous herbs were regarded as an antidote to snake bite, among them melilot, or sweet clover, and common vervain.
All these herbal remedies were drawn from Greek and Roman texts and although they incorporate the odd reference to goose grease or animal dung that sits at odds with modern requirements of sanitation, they are for the most part reasonably plausible treatments.
Anglo-Saxon medicines were by no means all so rational, however. Spiritual beliefs and magic also played a large part in health treatments of the time. Generally, the more bizarre instructions existed for conditions over which the early physicians would have had little control. Although by the 11th century witchcraft was banned by law, there is written evidence that some remedies bordered on the supernatural and involved the muttering of chants and charms. Meanwhile, gynaecological troubles, fertility and pregnancy problems appear to have been addressed in an almost occult manner.Hares, which were associated with the black arts, were often part of the remedies. For a woman whose foetus had died, the prescription for her future health was a dried hare’s heart pounded to dust, to which was added frankincense dust. The mixture was then combined with wine (wine was a luxury and much of it was imported), which the woman had to drink over a seven-day period.
Hares also feature in the recipe for ensuring that a boy will be conceived — attempts to choose the gender of a child being, of course, by no means new. The instructions are fairly simple: take a hare’s belly, dry it, cut it into small pieces and add them to a drink (not specified). This should be consumed by both partners. The recipe says that if only the woman drinks it she will conceive a hermaphrodite.
Historical records are, of course, immensely fickle. The fact that such treatments were written down does not prove that they were ever used, nor is it a guarantee that the conditions described were common or even occasional complaints.
In a period when literacy was more or less confined to monasteries and convents, it is slightly puzzling as to who the records were made for. Could the early physicians and herbalists read? Most of the surviving records are from the mid-10th century when a series of books attributed to a man named Bald was complied.
Yet the documentary evidence is to some extent borne out and even complemented by archaeology and, in particular, palaeopathology, the study of diseases shown in the ancient remains of people. This indicates that leprosy was increasingly prevalent in England during the Anglo-Saxon period; tuberculosis, too, for which remedies such as the juice of knotgrass and of horsetail are documented.
By the 11th century there is evidence, also, of rheumatoid arthritis, which was treated, according to Bald, with horehound, autumn crocus and bramble.
Against this general indication of disease and decay is the somewhat surprising indication that by the 11th century and the end of the Anglo-Saxon period people did not necessarily die young. However, you needed to be wealthy to remain healthy. Aristocratic men who survived youth and their fighting years had a good chance of reaching a venerable 55 or more. For women, childbirth was a big killer. Thereafter the outlook for the rich was quite good.
Queen Emma died at the ripe old age of 70 or thereabouts, as did her contemporary, Lady Godgifu, or Godiva, of Coventry.
Queen Emma and the Vikings, by Harriet O’Brien, published by Bloomsbury (£16.99) is available from Times Books First at £15.29 post free. Call 0870 1608080 or visit www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy
Medieval medicine
Two remedies for “racking pain in the joint”, presumably arthritis
Pound up lithwort, or dwarf elder, and add it to honey, then eat. Alternatively, burn the skull of a wolf and pound it thoroughly. Sift this through a cloth and then apply to the joint.
A cure for warts and swellings
Take a handful of crowfoot (probably “celery-leaved” or “marsh” crowfoot, since this plant is described as growing in watery places). Pound it well with pigs’ droppings and then lay this mixture on the swelling or warts. After a few hours it drives out the badness and may draw out pus. (Note that marsh crowfoot and other members of the buttercup family can inflame and blister the skin.)
Anglo-Saxon fertility treatment
“To make a woman pregnant give to drink in wine a hare’s runnet (probably rennet) by weight of four pennies to the woman from a female hare, the male from a male hare and then let them do their concubitus and after that let them forbear; then quickly she will be pregnant; and for meat she shall for some while use mushrooms and, instead of a bath, smearing (anointing with oils).”
