Healing A Medieval Headache

Medieval medicine was often either brutal and barbaric, or herbal in origin.  However, it was not herbal in the sense that we think of today.

Here is a recipe for the treatment of headaches and joint pains.

"Take equal amounts of radish, bishopwort, garlic, wormwood, helenium, cropleek and hollowleek.

Pound them up, and boil them in butter with celandine and red nettle.

Keep the mixture in a brass pot until it is a dark red colour.

Strain it through a cloth and smear on the forehead or aching joints."

I don't even know what some of those herbs are, but I assume that they were easily available growing wild around towns and villages.

Monks believed in the Christian Doctrine of Signature which said that God would provide some kind of relief for every disease, and that each substance had a signature which indicated how effective it might be. For example, some seeds that looked like miniature skulls, such as the skullcap, were used to treat headache.

Head Pains were also often treated with sweet-smelling herbs such as rose, lavender, sage, and bay. A mixture of henbane and hemlock were applied to aching joints. Coriander was used to reduce a fever.

Some of those sound quite pleasant.  I am not sure how effective they were, however.  But at least they didn't involve leeches or bleeding the patient!

St. Hildegard of Bingen is considered the first German woman physician and is called the mother of German botany.  Her book Physica was well known throughout Europe and used in many Monasteries.  She focused on balancing the humors which is very similar to the practice of Oriental Medicine today.  
Her Causae et Curae catalogues forty seven diseases according to causes, symptoms and treatments. St. Hildegard lists more than 300 plants in it, emphasizing medical and physiological theory as well as herbal treatments.





Remarkably, her books are still on sale and revered today.

Click here to read more about St. Hildegard's work.

Here is a link to an excellent site to find out more on Medieval Medicine. 

Gilbertine Monks

As I embark on this fascinating journey towards the publication of my first novel, I will share with you some of the insights and discoveries I have made along the way.

The Gilbertine Order was founded in approximately 1130 by Saint Gilbert in Sempringham, Lincolnshire, England.  St. Gilbert was the parish priest of Sempringham. Quite interestingly, it was the only completely English religious order, and came to an end in the 16th century at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Another interesting fact is that the Gilbertine Order allowed Monasteries and Convents to be built near each other or together and to make use of the same church.  This came about after St Gilbert of Sempringham, who originally wished to found a men's order, found that to be impossible to do. Instead, he accepted seven women whom he had taught in the village school.  In 1131 he founded an order of nuns based on the Cistercian Rule.

Eventually, Gilbert added lay sisters to do the daily chores of his religious house, so that the nuns could attend to their duties, and lay brothers to work in the fields. 

In 1139 the small order opened its first new foundation on the island of Haverholm, a gift from Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln. New foundations were established over the years, and Gilbert became overwhelmed with his task. 
In 1147 he left England for France to seek assistance from the Cistercian Order Cîteaux.  He asked them to take on the running of his foundations. The Cistercians declined because they felt unable to administer houses for both men and women, but Pope Eugenius III, (who was also a Cistercian) intervened to ask the abbot, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, to assist Gilbert in drawing up Institutes for a new Order. Pope Eugenius then appointed Gilbert as the first Master of the Order of Sempringham or Gilbertines.

They wore black cassocks with white hood and scapular, believing that from heaven they would appear as white crosses on black backgrounds.

Interestingly in a time of male dominance, the Gilbertine churches were divided into two parts and shared - with the nuns taking the larger half.

There were 26 Gilbertine 'houses' by the time of the dissolution.

In 1983, after the celebrations for the nine hundredth anniversary of St. Gilbert's birth, a number of lay people in the East Midlands of England undertook to sustain the memory and work of Gilbert and the Gilbertine Order by establishing a new secular Order. The Oblates of St Gilbert exist to promote the Gilbertine contemplative spirit and to foster interest in the study of Gilbert and his Order. They are supported by the Cistercian monastery of Mount St Bernard Abbey in Leicestershire, England.