Itinerary Through Wales

Gerald of Wales (c.1146 - c.1223) provided us with extensive information on Ireland and Wales and England of his time. Serving several Plantagenet kings, he traveled in their service and wrote about what he saw and was told. Two of his several works were the Descriptio Cambriae ("Description of Wales") and the Itinerarium Cambriae ("Itinerary Through Wales"). He claims fairness in his treatment of the subject of his homeland, splitting the Descriptio into two parts, first the virtues of the Welsh, then their vices.

His writing for the Itinerarium through Wales is also better informed than his Topographia of Ireland, since he spent a little time in only a few Irish locations and gathered stories from men he deemed "reliable." He was more familiar with Wales, and he did in fact have an itinerary (see the illustration).

This tour took place while he was accompanying the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1188, preaching to raise a Third Crusade. Gerald writes the Itinerarium almost like a daily journal, recording sights and experiences as he came across them, so it is a more reliable account of day-to-day life in Wales in the last years of the 12th century, and the remnants of Roman Britain:

We went through Caerleon, passing far away on our left Monmouth Castle and the great Forest of Dean, which is across the Wye, but still on this side of the Severn, and which supplies Gloucester with venison and iron ore. We spent the night in Newport. We had to cross the River Usk three times. 

Caerleon is the modern name of the City of the Legions. In Welsh ‘caer’ means a city or encampment. The legions sent to this island by the Romans had the habit of wintering in this spot, and so it came to be called the City of the Legions. Caerleon is of unquestioned antiquity. It was constructed with great care by the Romans, the walls being built of brick. 

You can still see many vestiges of its one-time splendour. There are immense palaces, which, with the gilded gables of their roofs, once rivalled the magnificence of ancient Rome. They were set up in the first place by some of the most eminent men of the Roman state, and they were therefore embellished with every architectural conceit. There is a lofty tower, and beside it remarkable hot baths, the remains of temples and an amphitheatre. 

All this is enclosed within impressive walls, parts of which still remain standing. Wherever you look, both within and without the circuit of these walls, you can see constructions dug deep into the earth, conduits for water, underground passages and air-vents. Most remarkable of all to my mind are the stoves, which once transmitted heat through narrow pipes inserted in the side-walls and which are built with extraordinary skill. [Chapter 5]

But then comes the less reliable (but no less interesting) detail (especially since he says "in our days"):

It is worth relating that in our days there lived in the neighbourhood of this City of the Legions a certain Welshman called Meilyr who could explain the occult and foretell the future. He acquired his skill in the following way. One evening, and, to be precise, it was Palm Sunday, he happened to meet a girl whom he had loved for a long time. She was very beautiful, the spot was an attractive one, and it seemed too good an opportunity to be missed. 

He was enjoying himself in her arms and tasting her delights, when suddenly, instead of the beautiful girl, he found in his embrace a hairy creature, rough and shaggy, and, indeed, repulsive beyond words. As he stared at the monster his wits deserted him and he became quite mad. He remained in this condition for many years. Eventually he recovered his health in the church of St David’s, thanks to the virtues of the saintly men of that place. 

All the same, he retained a very close and most remarkable familiarity with unclean spirits, being able to see them, recognizing them, talking to them and calling them each by his own name, so that with their help he could often prophesy the future.

The story does not end there. He offered numerous instances of Meilyr's ability to see and speak to devils and demons and learn things from them.

Despite the more fanciful anecdotes, as a record of daily life among the Welsh and Normans, it is a valuable account for modern historians.

As I mentioned, he served several Plantagenets, and we'll take a look at what he thought of Henry II and his sons before we move on. See you tomorrow.

Funny Ireland

The Topography of Ireland by Gerald of Wales seems to have been designed to paint the Irish as an ungovernable, crude people in need of conquering, but it is also a collection of fanciful stories of what Gerald "saw" there, but of course were tales told to him by the Hibernians.

"I am aware that I shall describe some things that will seem to the reader to be either impossible or ridiculous.  But I protest solemnly that I have put down nothing in this book the truth of which I have not found out either by the testimony of my own eyes, or that of reliable men found worthy of credence and coming from the districts in which the events took place."

One of his tales about flora and fauna includes the explanation of the barnacle goose.

Another is of the bearded woman (see illustration):

Duvenald, king of Limerick, had a woman with a beard down to her navel, and also, a crest like a colt of a year old, which reached from the top of her neck down her backbone, and was covered with hair. The woman, thus remarkable for two monstrous deformities, was ... in other respects had the parts of a woman; and she constantly attended the court, an object of ridicule as well as of wonder. The fact of her spine being covered with hair, neither determined her gender to be male or female; and in wearing a long beard she followed the customs of her country, though it was unnatural in her. [Chapter 20]

He also tells the story—and this may have the ring of truth—of an island that appears and disappears:

One calm day, a large mass of earth rose to the surface of the sea, where no land had ever been seen before, to the great amazement of the islanders who observed it. Some of them said that it was a whale, or other immense sea-monster; others remarking that it continued motionless, said, "No, it is land". In order therefore to reduce their doubts to certainty, some picked young men of the island determined to approach near the spot in a boat. When however, they came so near to it that they thought they should go on shore, the island sank in the water and entirely vanished from sight. The next day it re-appeared, and again mocked the same youths with the like delusion. At length, upon their rowing towards it on the third day, they followed the advice of an older man and let fly an arrow, barbed with red-hot steel, against the island; and then landing, found it stationary and habitable. [Chapter XII]

The beginning of the story makes one think it will turn into another anecdote of Fastitocalon, but the tales of St. Brendan make me think it is possible that the seafaring Hibernians sailed far enough westward and northward to see a volcanic eruption forming an island, as the 20th century saw the new island of Surtsey form off the southern coast of Iceland.

Gerald had a more kindly attitude toward his homeland of Wales, and that will be our next topic.

The Topography of Ireland

This title is a joke, since Gerald of Wales' Topographia Hibernica ("Topography of Ireland") was mostly history.* It did include a map, seen here. To properly orient the map, you need to see it rotated 90° clockwise; the largest mass is England with Scotland at the top, the middle-sized mass is Ireland, and the small oval is Iceland.

Gerald visited Ireland twice between 1183 and 1186. Although his Welsh heritage put him at odds politically with the Norman kings of England, starting with Henry II, he was open to serving them in other matters. His trips to Ireland were official, serving the royal family as advisor. He used the experience to write two works on Ireland, the second being the Expugnatio Hibernica ("Conquest of Ireland"), the story of Henry's military campaign there. Both works were revised several times during Gerald's lifetime.

He did not travel extensively in Ireland, spending most of his time in Waterford and Cork during the time of the Topographia. Part one of this three-part work is about topography: landscaper, as well as flora and fauna. He is certainly describing things he has not witnessed personally, since he describes the Island of Inishglora, where corpses do not rot, and where you can find generations of people all in a state of perpetual "freshness."

However untrustworthy his descriptions of Ireland may be, the work served an English political purpose by painting a picture of the Irish as primitive and in "need" of governance:

The Irish are a rude people, subsisting on the produce of their cattle only, and living themselves like beasts – a people that has not yet departed from the primitive habits of pastoral life. In the common course of things, mankind progresses from the forest to the field, from the field to the town and to the social conditions of citizens; but this nation, holding agricultural labour in contempt, and little coveting the wealth of towns, as well as being exceedingly averse to civil institutions – lead the same life their fathers did in the woods and open pastures, neither willing to abandon their old habits or learn anything new. They, therefore, only make patches of tillage; their pastures are short of herbage; cultivation is very rare and there is scarcely any land sown. This want of tilled fields arises from the neglect of those who should cultivate them; for theirs are large tracts which are naturally fertile and productive.

Very few sorts of fruit-trees are found in this country, a defect arising not from the nature of the soil, but from want of industry of planting them;

There are also veins of various kinds of metals ramifying in the bowels of the earth, which, from the same idle habits, are not worked and turned to account. Even gold, which the people require in large quantities and still covet in a way that speaks [to] their Spanish origin, is brought here by the merchants who traverse the ocean for the purposes of commerce. They neither employ themselves in the manufacture of flax or wool or in any kind of trade or mechanical art; but abandoning themselves to idleness, and immersed, in sloth, their greatest delight is to be exempt from toil, their richest possession, the enjoyment of liberty.

The Topographia was considered justification for England's treatment of the Irish for centuries.

Before moving on, next time we'll look at some of the more colorful reports he made of Ireland.

*You can see the manuscript online at the National Library of Ireland here.

Gerald of Wales

Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis, c.1146 - 1223) was a priest and a writer of history. That could be the introduction for many of the folk mentioned in this blog. Gerald was a bit different, however, in that he was the offspring of very prominent nobility and was employed by royalty for much of his life.

He was of both Norman and Welsh descent, a child of the conquerors and the conquered. Educated at the Benedictine house at Gloucester, he was employed by Becket's successor, Richard of Dover, and trusted to manage affairs in Wales such as abuses of consanguinity laws and Welsh church finances. After revealing the existence of a mistress of the archdeacon of Brecon, Gerald was appointed to replace him. The position had a small estate at Llanddew, allowing Gerald to collect tithes of wool and cheese.

His lifelong goal was to become Bishop of St. Davids in Pembrokeshire, Wales. When his uncle (then Bishop of St. David's) died in 1176, the chapter nominated Gerald. King Henry II rejected Gerald's appointment; he may have thought Gerald would be too independent—Wales was hoping to split from the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury—and Henry had just got over the troubles he had as a result of Becket's martyrdom. Henry appointed a loyal Norman retainer, Peter de Leia. Gerald was also cousin to Rhys ap Gruffydd, a Welsh lord who was understandably hostile to Norman rule. Peter de Leia's relationship with Gruffydd was less than amiable, and Henry liked it that way.

Gerald's historical account includes this (possible) statement from Henry:

It is neither necessary nor expedient for king or archbishop that a man of great honesty or vigor should become Bishop of St. Davids, for fear that the Crown and Canterbury should suffer thereby. Such an appointment would only give strength to the Welsh and increase their pride.

Gerald consoled himself by leaving the country. He spent a year at the University of Paris, studying and teaching canon law and philosophy. In 1180, back in England and continuing to study theology, Bishop Peter de Leia offered him a minor position in the Bishop's household, which he at first accepted but shortly gave up.

Where he becomes of greater interest to modern scholars is in 1184 when he was asked by King Henry to mediate between the Crown and Rhys ap Gruffydd. After, he was sent with Prince John to Ireland, which led to his first important writing: Topographia Hibernica ("Topography of Ireland," although it was mostly history). Not long after he wrote Expugnatio Hibernica ("Conquest of Ireland"), the story of Henry's military campaign there. Both works were revised several times during Gerald's lifetime. 

This was the start of both his writing career and his work with several kings. We'll pick up with his map of Ireland—and how his writings were influential right into Tudor times—tomorrow.

The Barnacle Goose Myth

One piece of evidence that supported the idea of Spontaneous Generation in the Middle Ages was the case of the barnacle goose. (See the third part of the triptych to the left.)

The barnacle goose (Branta leucopsis*) is a diving bird that flourishes in England and Northern Europe. It weighs from about three to five pounds, and is quite edible. The "myth" part springs from a riddle in the Exeter Book.

My nose was in a tight spot, and I beneath the water,

underflowed by the flood, sunk deep

into the ocean-waves, and in the sea grew

covered with waves from above, my body

touching a floating piece of wood.

I had living spirit, when I came out of the embrace

of water and wood in a black garment,

some of my trappings were white,

then the air lifted me, living, up,

wind from the water, then carried me far

over the seal's bath. Say what I am called.

The answer is, of course, the barnacle goose.

The belief was that the goose, observed coming out of the water after a dive for food, was actually being birthed from the barnacle (see the middle illustration above) which was attached to the "floating piece of wood" of the riddle and whose coloring seemed to be a precursor to the markings of the goose. Barnacles were formed on pilings of docks that were underwater, and no one saw anything creating them, so they must have arisen spontaneously from the rot experienced by wood exposed to water. This matched the theories about Spontaneous Generation.

I alluded in yesterday's post that a pope got involved in a case of Spontaneous Generation. Because the barnacle goose was thought to come from a barnacle that generated underwater, they were fair game (ha!) during Lent. Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales) recorded:

Bishops and religious men (viri religiosi) in some parts of Ireland do not scruple to dine off these birds at the time of fasting, because they are not flesh nor born of flesh... But in so doing they are led into sin. For if anyone were to eat of the leg of our first parent (Adam) although he was not born of flesh, that person could not be adjudged innocent of eating meat.

At the Fourth Lateran Council, Pope Innocent III forbade the eating of these geese during Lent, claiming that despite their generation they lived and fed like ducks and so were to be treated as other birds during Lent. (Was this the start of the phrase "If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck..."?)

There was also an idea that they could be born on trees (see the first part of the illustration). In Judaism, Rabbeinu Tam (1100 - 1171) declared that, even if born from trees, they were kosher and should be slaughtered properly like other animals.

I find that I have mentioned and quoted Gerald of Wales many times without giving him his due. We know a lot about his time period (late 12th - early 13th centuries) because of his reporting, which I'll talk about tomorrow. See you soon.

*Quick side note on the scientific name: branta is Latinized from the Old Norse Brandgás, "burnt (black) goose"; the Latin leucopsis = "white" + "faced."

Spontaneous Generation

In the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, Anaximander looked for an origin of life that did not rely on the gods. He theorized that life arose from the "wet" when acted on by the sun. The way that small life forms appeared in puddles gave him the idea that life—including human life—started as an aquatic form and progressed. This has caused some to claim he was a "prophet" of Darwin and others.

His student, Anaximenes, thought there was a primordial slime consisting of earth and water on which the sun worked to form plants and animals—including human beings.

"Spontaneous Generation" was accepted in the Middle Ages, especially after Aristotle became widely available. His History of Animals explained that animals were generated directly from the elements. Here are some translations of his thinking:

...and of these instances of spontaneous generation some come from putrefying earth or vegetable matter, as is the case with a number of insects, while others are spontaneously generated in the inside of animals out of the secretions of their several organs.

 ...

...all testaceans [creatures having a shell] grow by spontaneous generation in mud, differing from one another according to the differences of the material; oysters growing in slime, and cockles and the other testaceans above mentioned on sandy bottoms;

... 

Other insects ... are generated spontaneously: some out of dew falling on leaves, ordinarily in spring-time...; others grow in decaying mud or dung; others in timber, green or dry; some in the hair of animals; some in the flesh of animals; some in excrements: and some from excrement after it has been voided, and some from excrement yet within the living animal, like the helminthes or intestinal worms. 

(See the illustration, where flies spring from the corpse of a quadruped.)

Some writers actually aver that mullet all grow spontaneously. In this assertion they are mistaken, for the female of the fish is found provided with spawn, and the male with milt. However, there is a species of mullet that grows spontaneously out of mud and sand.

Shakespeare refers to spontaneous generation as if it were still a known and accepted occurrence in the Elizabethan Era. "Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the/operation of your sun. So is your crocodile." [Antony and Cleopatra]

Spontaneous Generation was eventually supplanted by the understanding that animals could be extremely tiny (and cause infection, leading to germ theory) and that small eggs or larvae could explain creatures arising from corpses or puddles or slime.

There was one anecdote about the generation of life that required the intervention of a pope to help set people straight. Next time I'll tell you about the barnacle goose myth.

Medieval Germ Theory?

It was Ignaz Semmelweis in the 1840s in Vienna who noticed a link between illness (and death) and unsanitary conditions, specifically a link between women dying during childbirth who were aided by people who also were performing autopsies. He spent years trying to implement a universal handwashing policy. He did not know what was causing the deaths, but he saw a link to something.

Figuring out the cause of disease was a goal for anyone practicing medicine from the beginning of the discipline. Long before germ theory was developed, the miasma theory was proposed by Hippocrates (c. 460 – c. 370 BC): that some form of "bad air" or even "bad water" arising from rotting matter caused diseases like the Black Death, cholera, and other infections. This was an important move away from the theory of supernatural causes of illness. (There was also the idea of an imbalance in the body's natural humors.) The miasma theory allowed infection to pass through a population because of the environment, not from personal contact.

To counter bad air, you would naturally want "good air."  medical faculty of the University of Paris, writing in 1348 to explain the causes of the Black Death, said "The present epidemic or pest comes directly from air corrupted in its substance" and recommends incense which "hampers putrefaction of the air, and removes the stench of the air and the corruption [caused by] the stench."

Earlier, however, there were counters to the miasma theory.

The Classical Era and Middle Ages did have theories of person-to-person contact. Thucydides (c.460BCE - c.400CE) believed that the plague of Athens was being spread by personal contact. Galen (129 - c.200CE) referred to "seeds of plague" in the air. Isidore of Seville also mentioned "plague-bearing seeds." Avicenna (c.980-1037) was widely studied, and he linked the miasma theory with personal contact, believing an ill person could infect others by transmitting the "bad air" through breathing. His example was tuberculosis, and he believed that disease could also be transmitted through dirt and water, anticipating Semmelweis by 800 years.

Recent posts have mentioned Bologna as an important center for medical study, so it is not surprising that it was a professor of Bologna, Tommaso del Garbo (c. 1305–1370), who in 1345 promoted Galen's "seeds of plague" idea in his works

It took Girolamo Fracastoro in 1546, however, to publish De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis ("On Contagion and Contagious Diseases"), three volumes on different diseases and their avoidance and treatment. He believed that there were particles that could travel through the air or by direct contact.

The idea that these "seeds of disease" were living things (what we call "germs") and traveling from one person to another was not being entertained, simply because there was a long-standing theory that living matter could arise spontaneously from putrefaction, and no one believed in invisible living things floating in the air. The belief that life could spring from rotting organic matter hindered understanding of bacteria already existing in the air around us. As it turns out, there were plenty of examples of Spontaneous Generation; let's talk about those tomorrow.

Theodoric Borgognoni

Speaking of surgery recently, we need to take a look at Theodoric Borgognoni, who pioneered some practices that were ahead of their time. Born in Lucca in 1205 to a physician and teacher, Hugo Borgognoni, he was destined for a medical career. He studied medicine at the University of Bologna. He also became a Dominican, then the personal physician to Pope Innocent IV, was made Bishop of Bitonto, and eventually became Bishop of Cervia.

Although he had ecclesiastical duties, he still practiced medicine and taught. One of his students was later the "father of French surgery," Henri de Mondeville. Borgognoni wrote the Chirurgia ("Surgery") in the mid-13th century, four volumes that cover what was known about surgery at the time, with his own additions. (A copy of the work created c.1300 on vellum was auctioned at Christie's a few years ago; a sample page is illustrated above.)

In the Chirurgia, he advocates many interesting techniques. Broken bones were a serious problem, and Borgognoni explained how to re-align the bones and tie them together with gold or silver wire. He also advocated post-operative massage of the area to aid proper healing.

Much of Chirurgia is similar to a work written 15 years earlier by Bruno da Longoburgo, but since both of them were students of Hugo Borgognoni, that can be expected. Borgognoni the younger, however, has plenty of ideas not found in the other work.

He departed from standard medical beliefs about pus. For centuries, pus bonum et laudabile ("good and laudable pus") in a wound was considered a sign of proper healing. There was some sense to this, because severe infection led to necrotizing tissue, which and looked very different was much worse. Pus was a different symptom, and looked to early doctors much better than the other option. Wounds that showed pus, therefore, would be left open to suppurate to support the healing process.

Borgognoni did not believe that pus in the wound was proper: he advocated cleaning and drying the wound, then suturing it:

"For it is not necessary that bloody matter (pus) be generated in wounds -- for there can be no error greater than this, and nothing else which impedes nature so much, and prolongs the sickness."

He also (which was not a unique idea) used wine to treat a wound. Now we know, of course, that alcohol in wine would help to kill harmful bacteria. Of course, wine for treating wounds did not automatically lead to the idea that a substance in wine was "killing" something in the wound. Wine was a good thing, and its goodness had healing properties—that was the thinking. It would take centuries to develop germ theory. There were, however, small steps in that direction, and I'll explain those tomorrow.

Medicine Men

In the middle of the 14th century, the centers of medical knowledge were the universities at Bologna, Montpellier, and Paris. One of the professors linked to Bologna who trained several future doctors was Taddeo Alderotti.

Alderotti was born in Florence but moved to Bologna where he taught several men like Gentile da Cingoli, the emperor's doctor Bartolomeo da Varignana, and the anatomist Mondino de Luzzi.

Alderotti was a highly reputed doctor in his own right, and patients came from all over Italy to see him, making him a very wealthy man.

Another student at Bologna was Henri de Mondeville. Mondeville (c.1260 - 1320) was French, and studied at Montpellier and Paris before moving to Bologna to study under the prominent surgeon Theodoric Borgognoni, who had some new ideas about treating wounds. After studying under Borgognoni, he went back to the University of Montpellier as a professor of anatomy and surgery. He became royal surgeon to King Philip IV and his son King Louis X.

Mondeville wrote the first French surgical treatise, La Chirurgie ("Surgery"). Intending to write it in five sections, he only completed two from 1306, when he started, to his death in 1320. Some of his statements were opposed to current "wisdom," and it wasn't until centuries later that it was rediscovered in 1892 and Mondeville's ideas were justified.

What was so controversial? His approach to treating wounds, which he learned from Borgognoni. I'll explain the radical ideas of Theodore Borgognoni next time.

Mondino de Luzzi, Anatomist

Successful surgery benefits from knowledge of the body's interior, and the study of anatomy was not always easy to come by. Dissecting human bodies fell out of favor after the Classical Era. One Italian physician did extensive research in anatomy and restored the study of it. His name was Mondino de Luzzi, and he lived and worked in Bologna from c.1270 - 1326.

His father and grandfather were pharmacists, and his uncle taught medicine. Mondino himself taught medicine and surgery at the University of Bologna from 1306 to 1324. In 1316 he published an illustrated manual of details of the inside of the human body (sample to the left). The Anathomia corporis humani ("Anatomy of the human body") was the first of its kind.

He theorized a hierarchy of body parts based on what he considered most important. The abdomen was the "least noble" part of the body, and so should be dissected first. The thorax came next, and last was the head with its "higher and better organized" structures (the organs of the senses: eyes, ears, mouth). He also discussed different methods of dissection between simple versus complex structures, like muscles and arteries versus eyes. When dissecting muscles, he suggested letting the cadaver desiccate, rather than mess with a decaying cadaver. The Anathomia was a manual to explain Mondino's proper methods for dissection.

That doesn't mean he was right about everything. He claims the liver has five lobes, the stomach is round and its internal lining is where sensation happens and the external layer is where digestion takes place. He apparently never found an appendix in a cavern, even though he examined many intestines. He says the heart has three chambers, not four. Still, the text became a standard in medical knowledge for 300 years.

Mondino wasn't much interested in pathology of disease, which is just as important to medicine as understanding how the physical; body works, if not more so. Fortunately, there were others—contemporaries of Mondino's, in fact—of whom we shall speak...tomorrow.

Surgery in the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages saw illness as an imbalance in the humors of the body. Sometimes that could be treated by changing the diet. In the case of some illnesses, it might be determined that the body had too much of the "hot, wet" humor, blood, for which the treatment was to drain some of it.

Blood-letting was the simplest surgical procedure, but medieval surgeons were eager to accomplish more. Part of the history of surgery in Western Europe was tied to the needs of warfare. Consider John Bradmore's efforts to remove an arrow from Henry V. Another surgeon connected to royalty was John Arderne, the expert on a very particular and painful physical problem that he treated with surgery.

Monasteries and other religious organizations were more educated than the general population, and their access to books meant knowing more about medicine. There was one branch of medicine they avoided, however, even though the Egyptian and Greeks practiced it: dissection and surgery. The church was squeamish about surgery because it shed blood (and could lead to infection and death). The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 prohibited clerics from surgery or any practice that shed blood. Dissection of corpses was also frowned on.

Lay people, however, continued to expand knowledge of anatomy. The Italian Cronica of Salimbene di Adam (1221 - c.1290) tells the story of an epidemic that was killing men and chickens. A physician of Cremona discovered through dissection that the chickens had abcesses in their hearts. The corpse of a human victim was dissected; the same abcesses were found. The physician put out a pamphlet warning people against eating chicken or eggs, assuming that they were causing the spread of the disease.

Italy was where great strides in anatomy and surgery took place. The Anatomical Theatre of Padua, begun in 1595, was the first permanent anatomical theater in the world, where students watched their teachers dissect bodies to learn human anatomy. Anatomical dissection in Italy had begun long before that, however. For that story, we have to look at Italian physician Mondino de Luzzi (c.1270 - 1326), and the Anathomia corporis humani of 1316. We'll look into him next time.

Humorism

Trying to understand biology had many false starts. You probably have some idea of "humors" and the adjectives cold, hot, wet, and dry. These four provided a nice symmetry, and as you can see in the illustration, they also fit with the foursome of elements.

Other cultures came up with different paradigms. Indian Ayurveda medicine believed in three humors (tissues, waste, and dosha, "that which can cause problems") and five elements (adding "space" to the four seen here).

These qualities were supposed to explain the functioning of the body as a balanced mixture. An unhealthy state was the result of the balance being thrown off, the excess or absence of one of the humors.

The arrangement familiar to the West likely started with Hippocrates (although there were others around his time who also expressed ideas about the four elements), who systematized the idea of different substances being balanced in humans:

The Human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. These are the things that make up its constitution and cause its pains and health. Health is primarily that state in which these constituent substances are in the correct proportion to each other, both in strength and quantity, and are well mixed. Pain occurs when one of the substances presents either a deficiency or an excess, or is separated in the body and not mixed with others. [On the Nature of Man, attributed to either Hippocrates or his son-in-law, Polybus]

Galen furthered this theory, tying it to seasons and stages of life. For instance, a child corresponded to spring. Blood was hot and wet, which corresponded to spring. Yellow bile, hot and dry, corresponded to summer, corresponding with the life stage of a young man, and so on.

The humors could also influence personalities; one Greek text put it thusly:

• The people who have red blood are friendly. They joke and laugh about their bodies, and they are rose tinted, slightly red, and have pretty skin.
• The people who have yellow bile are bitter, short tempered, and daring. They appear greenish and have yellow skin.
• The people who are composed of black bile are lazy, fearful, and sickly. They have black hair and black eyes.
• Those who have phlegm are low spirited, forgetful, and have white hair. [from link]

These attributes were not predictive, like astrology. If a person's manner changed, it could be because the mix of humors in him had changed.

Humorism, or humoral theory, "explained" so much about physical health and temperament for 2000 years. The 1600s brought more exploration via surgery and the use of microscopes to better understand the function of the organs of the body and the fluids inside it. With the advent of germ theory, proposed in 1546 and expanded in the 18th century, the idea of humors fell by the wayside. 

Of course, there was much more to medical treatment in the Middle Ages than just fiddling with the balance of humors. Sometimes you had to get out the knives. Let's talk about medieval surgery tomorrow.

The Maintenance of Health

The modern Italian word for a notebook is taccuino. It comes from the medieval (and later) popularity of the Tacuinum Sanitatis. That name is a Latinized version of the Arabic Taqwīm aṣ‑Ṣiḥḥa ("Maintenance of Health"). It was written in the 11th century by Ibn Butlan of Baghdad, a physician and Christian theologian during the Abbasid Era.

The original was organized in synoptic tables: a way to present data in a simple and condensed manner, previously used for astrological tables. Ibn Butlan used them to present not just ways to treat illness and to maintain health, but also ways to prepare food and how and what to grow for health. Later manuscripts were lavishly illustrated, especially after the 14th century. (The illustration is of a facsimile edition made in 1986.)

Ibn Butlan set out the essential elements of health and well-being:

• sufficient food and drink in moderation
• fresh air
• alternations of activity and rest
• alternations of sleep and wakefulness
• secretions and excretions of humors
• the effects of states of mind

If one is not paying attention to these elements, illness occurs.

The Tacuinum includes lists of many vegetables, fruits, nuts, and herbs that are good for treating certain conditions. It also includes the dangers of excess consumption. As the manuscript was copied and distributed, changes were made, and not every copy includes every list. Some added remedies that were not in the original.

The word "humors" was italicized in Ibn Butlan's list because I wanted to draw attention to it. I've ignored discussing the medieval idea of humors for over a decade because I assumed people have already heard of them and I want this blog to focus on all the things that are not generally known. Of course, the details of humors are probably worth talking about. See you tomorrow.

Sugar!

Our teeth would no doubt be better off if this had never been discovered, but Pandora's box was opened long ago. Different species of sugarcane were being harvested in the Indian subcontinent, New Guinea, Southeast Asia, and other places long before the Common Era.

An admiral of Alexander the Great learned of sugar on a campaign in India, so it was inevitable that sugar would make it to the Mediterranean area by traders. Pliny the Elder describes it in his Natural History, but not as a food:

Sugar is made in Arabia as well, but Indian sugar is better. It is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth. It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut. Sugar is used only for medical purposes.

Crusaders brought sugar back to Europe from the Middle East, calling it "sweet salt." It was a common sweetener during the reign of Henry II, and Edward I imported a lot. Until the 1300s, it was affordable only by the wealthiest.

Venice saw its value and set up manufacturing in Lebanon, becoming the chief sugar distributor in 15th century Europe. Sugar was introduced to the Canary Islands and Madeira, after which Europe could get it more easily (but not necessarily cheaply). In the same year that Columbus sailed westward on his maiden voyage to the New World, Madeira produced 3,000,000 pounds of sugar.

Part of the allure of sugar was its reputed health properties. The Tacuinum sanitatis ("Maintenance of Health") of the 11th century has this advice about sugar:

Ask the grocer for refined sugar which is hard, white as salt, and brittle.  It has a cleansing effect on the body and benefits the chest, kidneys and bladder...It is good for the blood and therefore suitable for every temperament, age, season and place.

If it's that good for ill bodies, imagine what it could do for a body already healthy? There was plenty of inducement to enjoy sugar for its "healthful" effects.

You might guess that the Tacuinum sanitatis—considering its early provenance—was not a European text, and you'd be right. Let me tell you more about it tomorrow.

Medieval Treats

Besides sweet concoctions like dragges, medieval cooks prepared things like mincemeat and apple pie. Some cook books survive from early on, such as the Forme of Cury from the kitchens of Richard II.

For desserts, common ingredients were fruits, ginger, honey, spices and wine to sweeten things, but sweet and savory were often mixed. The Forme of Cury has a recipe for pork tartletts that includes currants. Fabulous Feasts, a collection of updated recipes from old manuscripts by Madeleine Palmer Cosman, offers a recipe for quince sauce with almonds, cloves, ginger, sugar, and wine starts with beef broth. A plum and currant tart from the same book starts with the marrow of four large beef bones! Here is one of the more intriguing combinations:

Perys Cofyns ("Pear Coffins")

This has three distinct steps: making the pears into "coffins" or "coffers" to hold the filling, cooking lentils (!) to supplement the berry filling, steaming the berries.

Step 1 — Start with 10 fresh hard pears, the juice of a lemon, and 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon. Cut the pears lengthwise, scoop out the core leaving about 1/2 inch pear wall. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake at 3508° for 5-10 minutes; do not let them get too soft. Set aside to cool.

Step 2 — Prepare the lentils. Rinse the dried lentils and place in a pot of water with a stalk of finely chopped celery, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 cup finely chopped dates, 1/2 teaspoon dried basil. Cover with beef broth. Bring to boil and cook 15-20 minutes until lentils are just tender but doubled in size.

Step 3 — Steam the berries. Rinse 1 cup raw cranberries, remove stems.* In pot with water, bring berries and 2 tablespoons sugar or honey to boil. When 1/3 of berries have popped open, remove from heat.** Cool the berries.

Put 1 tablespoon of lentil mixture into pears and top with the cranberries.

An interesting use of lentils to supplement the berry filling, but of course the lentils also include dates for additional sweetness.

As mentioned above, there were several ways to introduce sweetness into food, honey being very popular. Was sugar difficult to come by? Let's talk about then history of sugar in Medieval England tomorrow.

*The original recipe calls for "bog berries"; not being sure what was meant, Cosman substitutes New World cranberries.

**The medieval manuscript warns that the berries popping can spurt boiling water upwards, so do not lean over the pot too closely.

Dragges

When Margery Kempe (c.1373 - c.1438) dictated the story of her mystic experiences, she had no idea that someone would append a recipe to the end of it. The recipe was illegible when the manuscript was found in 1934 until multispectral-imaging technology was used to make the words clear. The reason for adding this recipe to this manuscript has caused some furrowed brows, and there are two theories. Here is a translation:

For Phlegm take –

Sugar candy, sugar plate*, sugar with

Aniseed, fennel seed, nutmeg, cinnamon,

Ginger [...] and licorice. Beat them

together in a mortar and make them in all

manner of food and drinks and dry first and last eat it.

The "For Phlegm" seems clear: this is a recipe for dragges, a sweet mixture intended to be medicinal. At one point in her life, Margery came down with the "flux"; this was probably dysentery. She was so ill that a priest was summoned to give her Last Rites because she feared she was near death. Dragges was intended to be a cure for many ills. A well-meaning scribe may have decided to add this recipe to help people avoid her illness in the future.

There is another credible theory, however, put forth in 2018 by Laura Kalas.

Dr. Kalas' argument is that the reason for the existence of this particular confection becomes clear when you look at the references to "sweetness" in her writing (and the writings of other mystics). Besides her conversations with God, she describes the sensations she experiences during her mystic episodes, which include sensations of sweetness. She asks God how she might make her love of God as swet to þe as me thynkyth þat thy loue is vn-to me ("as sweet to you as I think your love is to me"). She describes her experience with God as "sweet dalliance."

As a recipe for digestive dragges, or dragées, it is rich with sugar and spice, suggesting a wealthy site of monastic holiness and health. It thus offers a lens through which to explore the sweetness of confection and divine love in the Book. The hot spices, used to correct a cold and moist physiological constitution, are at the same time a means of stoking the hot fire of love that is played out in the Book. But the recipe imbues more than metaphorical signification. In the Middle Ages, the moral properties of food were imbricated with its ingestion. In consuming a foodstuff, one would take on some of its associated properties (the Eucharistic wafer as an obvious example). [Link to her article]

So...recipe for flux/phlegm, or reminder of the sweetness connected to spiritual revelation? In a nod to social media memes, "why not both?"

Now I'm thinking of sweet things, and since we are on the leading edge of the holiday season (some would say we are fully embroiled in it), let's look at some sweet medieval recipes for holiday entertaining...next time.

*"sugar plate" was a moldable form of sugar paste. I found an Elizabethan recipe here.

The Book of Margery Kempe

Margery Kempe (c.1373 - c.1438) was a middle-class woman who went through a traumatic eight months after bearing her first child, after which she devoted herself to a life of pilgrimages and mystic experience. In her own words, she describes "the onset of her spiritual quest, her recovery from the ghostly aftermath of her first child-bearing." Unable to read or write (so far as we know), she dictated her experiences in order to leave a record of her marvelous conversations with God. She may also have been influenced by the Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden, which had been read to her earlier in life.

A copy was made of the manuscript prior to 1450 with "Salthows" signed at the end. It then largely disappeared from public view. Excerpts appeared in 1501 in pamphlets published by Wynkyn de Worde, a prominent London publisher, and again in 1521 by Henry Pepwell, who printed English mystical treatises.

The manuscript turned up in a private library in 1934 and is now in the possession of the British Library. The name at the end was identified as (likely being) Richard Salthouse, a monk at the Norwich cathedral priory. There are notes in different handwriting, and the first page includes Liber Montis Gracie ("Book of Mountegrace"), so it seems that the manuscript passed through the Carthusian priory of Mount Grace in Yorkshire.

The book is interesting as the first medieval autobiography written in English. Some have questioned whether Margery was using this as an attempt at self-aggrandizement, but she refers to herself in the third person, which suggests an attempt at humility rather than celebrity. Unlike other accounts written by mystics, this book is not by a nun or monk or otherwise typical religious member of society. It is a glimpse into a middle-class woman's perceptions of the world and of religious mysticism.

You can read it, digitized, in the original Medieval English, here.

But now for something completely different: appended to the end of the manuscript (not found in the above digitized link) is a recipe. It seems to be a recipe for a sweet medicine. Tomorrow I'll tell you about it, and dragges.

Margery's Travels

Once Margery Kempe decided to dedicate her life fully to religious devotion, she decided a pilgrimage to the Holy Land was in order, inspired by hearing the English translation of the Revelations of Bridget of Sweden. Bridget's work promoted the purchase of indulgences, papal-approved pieces of paper that were intended to reduce your time in Purgatory. Margery bought several indulgences (available at pilgrimage sites) for herself and friends.

Although she spent three months in Venice along the way as well as time in Jerusalem, she records very little of what she saw; she was more interested in telling about conversations she had with Jesus along the way (well, she did mention falling off her donkey because she was so overcome with emotion at the sight of Jerusalem). She stayed in Assisi on the way home, visiting many churches. When she got home, she decided on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

On these trips (and when home in England) she had several negative reactions to her manner. She engaged in loud prayer and wild gesticulating, and her tears flowed constantly. Some found her actions the symptoms of a madwoman, or simply a public nuisance. The mayor of Leicester called her a cheap whore. accused her of Lollardy, and put her in prison for three weeks. She was later accused of heresy in York, but the archbishop of York cleared her.

She visited many religious figures, such as Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Arundel, and the female mystic Julian of Norwich, where she stayed for several days. Margery claims that Julian supported her and assured Margery that her visions were real and valid and that her tears were a sign of real devotion.

Later in life she made another pilgrimage, this time to Prussia in 1433. Specifically, she went to Danzig to see the Holy Blood of Wilsnack relic, three hosts that survived a fire in 1383 that burned down a church and whole village.

We know all this because in the 1420s she asked a priest to take down her story, producing the Book of Margery Kempe (you can read it on the website of my hometown university here). She continued to have the manuscript amended. A copy was made of it just before 1450 by a monk, after which it disappeared. Margery Kempe died some time after 1438, and was quickly forgotten.

Five centuries later, the manuscript...well, let's wrap this up tomorrow when the 20th century discovered Margery Kempe.

Margery Kempe

Margery Brunham was born about 1373 in Bishop's (now King's) Lynn, Norfolk. Her father was mayor for a short time and a member of Parliament. We do not know anything about her upbringing, but later events suggest clearly that she never learned to read or write. Around the age of 20 she married John Kempe. What we know of her comes from The Book of Margery Kempe, which she dictated later in life. It may be the first autobiography.

After her eldest was born (a son named John), postpartum depression seems to have set in. She went through eight very difficult months in which she imagined herself being attacked by devils who wanted her to abandon her faith; she was even urged to suicide, which sounds like deep depression.

Along with these demonic visions, she had one of Jesus asking her why she had forsaken him? She began to have conversations with Jesus, Mary, God, and other religious figures. She also had visions of being present at both Jesus' birth and Crucifixion. One modern scholar claims she looked for ways to live a chaste life. The definition of "chaste" would have to be very flexible, since she had 13 additional children.

Having finally escaped whatever disturbed state she was in, she got busy. First she began to brew beer, referring to herself later as one of the greatest brewers in town. That business eventually failed when her employees all left her. She then bought two horses and started a grain-grinding business. The horses, however, refused to cooperate, and that business failed.

That is when she decided to devote herself to a more religious life. This would include sexual chastity, but her husband had some thoughts about that. They finally negotiated a chaste marriage, but he had conditions:

1. They share a bed still
2. Margery had to pay all his debts
3. Margery had to make him a fish supper every Friday

This was sufficient for her. #1 was okay, so long as there was no sex (but remember all the children? Yeah, chastity is tough and temptation is easy). #2 must have been possible with Brunham family money, since she was no longer running a business. #3...well, she had to eat supper, too.

She then engaged in her own form of public worship which involved loud wailing. This was very off-putting for onlookers, but at least it made an impression of someone who was in the grip of a powerful religious experience.

She started to "spread the word" in England and on pilgrimages; I'll talk more about that phase of her life tomorrow.

Saint Bridget's Visions

St. Bridget of Sweden (c.1303 - 23 July 1373) began her life as Birgitta Birgersdotter. Her childhood might have been quite normal as the daughter of an upper-class knight and law speaker, until she was 10 years old. That was when she had her first vision.

She saw a vision of Jesus hanging on the cross. She asked the vision who did this to him, and he replied "They who despise me, and spurn my love for them." She became devoted to studying the suffering and crucifixion of Christ.

She received visions throughout her life, which were recorded by her and translated into Latin in Revelationes coelestes ("Celestial revelations") by her confessor. The sharing of these revelations increased her celebrity and put her in good company with Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe.

Some of her visions described scenes that influenced art for years to come. One was of the baby Jesus lying on swaddling clothes with light coming from him, with the Virgin Mary kneeling next to him in prayer. Another vision with both Joseph and Mary kneeling to either side of the babe—first described by her—is now a very common Christmas tableau.

Another vision came to her after she deliberately prayed hard and long over time to know the answer to the question "how many blows did Jesus receive during the Passion?" He appeared to her and said "I received 5480 blows upon My Body. If you wish to honor them in some way, recite fifteen Our Fathers and fifteen Hail Marys with the following Prayers, which I Myself shall teach you, for an entire year. When the year is finished, you will have honored each of My Wounds." Because the prayers in Latin would begin with "O Jesu" or "O Domine Jesu Christi," they were referred to as the "Fifteen Os" and became part of medieval prayer books.

She even engaged in prophecy. She predicted the existence of a Vatican State. When Mussolini created the boundaries of Vatican City in 1921 they matched almost exactly the borders she foretold. Interesting how Birgitta's life influenced much of religious art and practice.

Now, however, I have mentioned another woman who saw visions as if everyone knew who she was. Tomorrow we finally look into the life of Margery Kempe: medieval, middle-class, and mystic.

Bridget of Sweden

Sweden's most celebrated saint was Birgitta Birgersdotter, the daughter of a magnate, knight, privy councilor, and the first law speaker of Uppland, Birger Persson, and Ingeborg Bengtsdotter, who was connected to the family of the kings of Sweden. Birgitta was born in 1303, and was married at 13 to Ulf Gudmarsson, with whom she had four sons and four daughters.

In her 30s, she was made the chief lady-in-waiting to Blanche of Namur, the new queen of Sweden, wife of King Magnus IV.

Birgitta was known for her charitable works and her piety. In 1341 she and Ulf went on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Ulf died shortly after their return; Birgitta then joined the Third Order of St. Francis, devoting herself to caring for those less fortunate.

She also, as was common for many devout and wealthy women at the time, decided to found a religious order, the order of the Most Holy Saviour. Their monastery at Vadstena was supported by King Magnus and Queen Blanche. This was a double monastery, with accommodation for both men and women (although they lived separately). A requirement for joining was to give to the poor all your surplus income, but you were allowed to keep any and all books you owned.

In 1350 she went to Rome with her daughter Catherine to seek permission from the Pope to make her new order official. Rome, however, was no longer the seat of the papacy, it having been removed to Avignon some years earlier. Birgitta stayed in Rome, waiting for a pope, and continuing to perform good works, making herself so beloved that when Pope Urban V tried to restore the papacy to Rome, his confirmation of her new order was a foregone conclusion. She stayed in Rome until her death in 1373, making the occasional pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Her directions sent to Sweden to set up the monastery was for an abbess symbolizing the Virgin Mary to rule over both men and women.

She was canonized in 1391 by Pope Boniface IX, confirmed by the Council of Constance in 1415.

There is more to the story of how Birgitta Birgersdotter became Saint Bridget, including visions and prophecies. We'll look at the mystical side of her life tomorrow.

Double Monasteries

Double monasteries, such as the one mentioned in this post, was a monastery that combined two communities, one of men and one of women. They would live separately, but they might share some facilities, such as the church. They were often created by wealthy women who wished to rule a community of nuns but would also create a separate-but-equal community of men. The community of men might include priests who would celebrate mass for the entire community.

The practice began as early as the 4th century in Eastern Christianity (Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Western Asia, the Middle East); John Cassian founded one, and Caesarius of Arles created one for his sister and women attached to his own. Columbanus brought the idea of the double (or dual) monastery to Britain, after which it became popular in Gaul and Anglo-Saxon England. Hilda of Whitby was going to attend Chelles, but was trained in. monasticism by Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne and stayed in England and started Whitby Abbey.

The Second Council of Nicaea forbade double monasteries in Canon 20 "because this becomes a cause of scandal and a stumbling block for ordinary folk." Although they allowed existing dual monasteries to be "grandfathered," no new ones should be created, but 

Monks and nuns should not live in one monastic building, because adultery takes advantage of such cohabitation. No monk should have the licence to speak in private with a nun, nor any nun with a monk. A monk should not sleep in a female monastery, nor should he eat alone with a nun. When the necessary nourishment is being carried from the male area for the nuns, the female superior, accompanied by one of the older nuns, should receive it outside the door. And if it should happen that a monk wishes to pay a visit to one of his female relatives, let him speak with her in the presence of the female superior, but briefly and rapidly, and let him leave her quickly.

After the 12th century, dual monasteries became popular briefly, although eventually most monasteries evolved into wholly separate communities. In Sweden, however, the idea of a double monastery experienced a revival in the 14th century, especially due to the Bridgettines. I'll tell you who they were next time.

Walpurgis Night

“There is a mountain very high and bare…whereon it is given out that witches hold their dance on Walpurgis night.” (Jacob Grimm, 1883)

There is a legend in Germany that witches have an annual meeting on the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz Mountains. In fear of the witches, the inhabitants of the area would light bonfires and ring church bells. This took place at the end of the year, on the night of April 30th: some culturally significant ways of looking at the annual cycle started the year on May 1st.

Into this likely very old practice we fold the extra ingredient of St. Walburga. Walburga came to Germany in the 8th century and founded a double monastery at Heidenheim. Her work converted many in Germany from heathenism to Christianity. She was considered a powerful deterrent to witchcraft. Her feast day was May 1st, the day that she was canonized (in 870) as well as the day her relics were transferred from Heidenheim to Eichstätt.

So the night of lighting bonfires, ringing church bells, and group gatherings to ward off witchcraft were celebrated on the eve of Walburga's Day, so the night of April 30th. In Germany this is called Walpurgisnacht. This is of course similar to the Gaelic festival of Beltane, celebrated on May 1st. Beltane and Samhain (which we call Halloween) divided the year neatly into two halves.

Walpurgisnacht is observed outside of Germany as well, and has become a time of merry gatherings with food and entertainment as well as bonfires. It is also called Valborgsmässoafton ("Valborg's Mass Eve", Swedish, which is more about the arrival of spring than averting witches), Vappen (Finland Swedish), Vappu (Finnish), Volbriöö (Estonian), Valpurgijos naktis (Lithuanian), Valpurģu nakts or Valpurģi (Latvian), and čarodějnice ("witch burning") or Valpuržina noc (Czech).

Goethe wrote a poem he called die erste Walpurgisnacht ("The First Walpurgis Night"); it is brief, and you can read it here. Felix Mendelssohn wrote a cantata based on it, which can be heard here.

For something quite different, I want to look at Walburga's founding of a "double monastery." What made it double, and was that significant? Let's delve into that next time.

St. Walburga's Abbey

In the 1930s, two Benedictine abbeys were formed from the original in Eichstätt, Bavaria. One was in Thanet, where the nuns of Eichstätt bought and renovated the original 7th century complex founded by Domne Eafe. The other was in Colorado, where three nuns from Eichstätt purchased land considered by the monks that owned it to be un-farmable. With help from m ore nuns, they turned the land into a working farm; 60 years later they relocated (see illustration) to Virginia Dale, Colorado, where they remain a thriving community.

In both cases, the reason from branching out from Eichstätt was to flee from spreading Nazism.

This was not the first time nuns from the Eichstätt abbey took on a mission to America, however. A missionary monk from Bavaria challenged the nuns of St. Walburga's in 1851 to go to America to provide proper religious instruction to German immigrants. Three nuns took a steamer a year later, arriving in New York during the July 4th celebrations. They settled in St. Marys, PA. Not longer after, joined by reinforcements from Eichstätt, they created communities in the northwest territory that would soon become the state of Minnesota.

The origin of these nuns was the Abbey of St. Walburga, founded in 1055 to properly house the relics of Walburga (c.710-779). Her tomb in her last home of the abbey of Heidenheim had originally fallen to neglect. During renovations by Bishop Otkar of Eichstätt, she appeared to him in a dream and asked him why her remains were being “trampled upon by the dirty feet of builders.” He had her remains transferred to a new building which became the current Abbey of St. Walburga, populated by Benedictine nuns. This is where her bones started to exude miraculous Oil of Saints.

"Walburga" sounds like "Walpurgis"; is there a connection? Let's find out tomorrow.

Domne Eafe, Mother & Saint

The mother of Saint Mildred was Domne Eafe—also Domneva, or Lady Eva—a great-granddaughter of King Æthelbert of Kent. She married King Merewalh of Mercia. They had at least three children, three daughters who all became abbesses and saints. There was supposedly a son who died early (called Merlin in some later legends).

Domneva had two brothers— Æthelbert and Æthelred who were being raised by King Eorcenbert of Kent, —a grandson of Æthelbert through Eadbald. When he died, Eorcenbert's son Ecgbert killed Æthelbert and Æthelred. Feeling guilty, Ecgbert gave Domneva land in Thanet as wergild to build an abbey.

A later legend goes into detail about the land granted by King Ecgbert: she was to be given as much land as her pet deer could run around in a single lap. The result was 80 sulungs of land. A sulung was a local Kentish unit of measurement, the amount that could be ploughed by four ox-pairs. Put another way, a sulung was two hides, and a hide was the equivalent of 120 acres, the amount a household needed to thrive. To the Anglo-Saxons, a hide was also the unit on which public obligations (taxes, supporting the lord in times of war, etc.) were based.

So she got an enormous space to use. To be fair, it is unlikely that the legend is true and she got that much (19,200 acres), but there was enough land to give her standing in the wider community as well as the status that being an abbess offers. Her name appears in many charters of the time as a witness, as well as the beneficiary of grants.

Domneva ran the abbey along Benedictine rules. She was succeeded by her daughter, St. Mildred. Mildred was followed as abbess about 733 by Eadburga, a friend and student of Mildred who also became a saint. You can see Domneva in the illustration, flanked by her two successors. By Eadburga's time the abbey had 70 nuns. She secured some royal charters to ensure its growth and continuation, and built a new church dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, which housed the relics of St. Mildred.

Although the abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII and had various uses over the years, it was bought in 1937 by Benedictine nuns from St.Walburga's Abbey in Eichstätt in Bavaria. Why did Benedictine nuns in Bavaria want to revive an abbey in England? This was not just a 20th century story, nor just a European story. I'll explain that tomorrow.

Saint Mildred

Well, that is what a modern world would call her. To the Anglo-Saxons, she was Mildrith (also Mildthryth or Mildryth). Her father was a king: King Merewalh of Magonsaete (a sub-kingdom of Mercia, in modern Hereford; his father might have been Penda). A great-great-granddaughter of Æthelbert (through his and Bertha's son, Eadbald), she was born about 660 and lived about 70 years.

A hagiography in the 11th century says that she was educated at the Abbey at Chelles, suggesting that she was linked to the Merovingian royal line, probably through her mother, Domne Eafe. While there, a young nobleman asked for her hand in marriage, but she replied that she was there to learn, not be married. The abbess tried to persuade her by every possible means to be married, but Mildred refused. The frustrated abbess threw her into a hot oven, but after three hours Mildred was unscathed.

The abbess then beat her and tore out a hank of her hair. Mildred wrote to her mother, enclosing the hair that had been torn out, and her mother immediately sent ships to rescue her. Mildred escaped the abbess on her own and found passage back to England, leaving her footprint embedded in a stone at the place where she first disembarked from the ship. She then joined her mother at Minster-in-Thanet  (which her mother had established). Mildred became abbess in 694.

She was popular on the continent: there are several shrines/mentions of her in the Pas-de-Calais area of northern France. She died in Minster-in-Thanet some time after 732 after a lingering illness and was buried at the Abbey's Church of St. Mary.

Mildred's remains were moved to a new abbey church of Saints Peter and Paul, built by her successor as abbess, Edburga, by 748. She was a very popular saint and her relics drew attention from worshippers and pilgrims.

When the Danes invaded England they captured Minster-in-Thanet in 1011. The abbey was abandoned and the church downgraded to a parish church. Mildred's relics were transferred to Canterbury and the Church of St. Augustine.

Her sisters (Milburga of Much Wenlock and Mildgyth) were also saints, but it was her mother who was really interesting. We'll look into her next time. 

St. Augustine's Abbey

When Augustine came to England in 597 to begin the process of turning its inhabitants to Christianity, one of his first acts was to found (in 598) the Monastery of Saints Peter and Paul.

The land and building (formerly a temple) was given to Augustine by King Æthelbert, whose wife (Queen Bertha) was Christian. The king gave it so that Augustine and his followers had a place to live, and gave gifts to the endeavor. They also intended it to be a special place where important people (kings, abbots, bishops) would be buried. Initially it would have been built of wood, like most Saxon buildings. A stone building, such as Augustine was accustomed to in Rome, took longer, and the stone church (whose remains can be seen in the illustration) was dedicated by Æthelbert about 613.

It was the only important religious house in Kent for two centuries following its founding, and was a missionary school where classical learning was taught. It became known over time for an extensive library of both religious and secular texts, many of them produced in its own scriptorium.

In the mid-10th century, Archbishop Dunstan of Canterbury (959 - 988), reorganized the abbey along strict Benedictine rules and renamed it for St. Augustine. Another rebuilding plan was put in place after the Norman Conquest, when William had churches enlarged as imposing Romanesque structures. Unfortunately, a fire in 1168 destroyed a lot of the abbey's records, but another rebuilding campaign restored it.

After that, the complex expanded to include a great hall, a lady chapel, a brewhouse and bakehouse, land for a vineyard, and more. It succumbed to the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, who appropriated all their land and assets.

The abbey was treated better by the invading Danes: King Cnut in 1027 spared the place and granted it the possessions of the town Minster-in-Thanet, including the body of Saint Mildred. Mildred's body had miraculous powers and brought even more attention to the abbey. She was a great-great-granddaughter of Æthelbert, and I'll tell you more tomorrow.