Spice: The History of a Temptation

by Jack Turner

  Medieval and early modern works on the plague seldom fail to touch on the subject of aromatic self-defence. Some representative examples are J. Gouerot, The Regiment of Life, Whereunto is added a Treatise of the Pestilence (London: E. Allde, 1606); Francis Herring, Certaine Rules, Directions, Or Advertisements for This Time of Pestilential Contagion (London: Thomas Paine, 1636); Ambroise Paré, A Treatise on the Plague (London: Printed by R.Y. and R.C., 1630); J. Woodall, The Surgeons Mate (London: John Legate, 1617); William Bullein, Bullein’s Bulwark of Defence Againste All Sicknes (London: John Kingston, 1562). An indicative prescription may be found in Lynn Thorndike, ‘Advice from a Physician to his Sons’, Speculum, 6.1 (1931), 113. Frank P. Wilson, The Plague in Shakespeare’s London (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927) is a helpful study. For some Eastern parallels, see E.C. Sachau, Alberuni’s India (London: Kegan Paul, 1910) and Edward H. Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963). The Genoese death ship is mentioned by Philip Ziegler, The Black Death (London: Folio Society, 1997). 4.

  5: The Spice of Love

  WHAN TENDRE YOUTHE HATH WEDDED STOUPYNG AGE

  For a concise biography of Constantine and a discussion of his influence, see Maurice Bassan, ‘Chaucer’s “Cursed Monk”, Constantinus Africanus’, Medieval Studies, 24 (1962), 127–40. His work on sex has been edited by Enrique Montero Cartelle, Constantini liber de coita (Santiago de Compostela: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 1983). Pope Joan’s appetites are discussed by Cesare d’Onofrio, La papessa Giovanna. Roma e papato tra storia e leggenda (Rome: Romana Società Editrice, 1979), and M. Rinaldi and M. Vicini, Buon Appetito, Your Holiness, translated by A. Victor (London: Macmillan, 2001). For the opinions of Jean Auvray, see his Le banquet des muses ou Les divers satires du sieur Auvray (Rouen: D. Ferrand, 1636). Villon’s dedication is from his Poésies, edited by Jean Dufournet (Paris: Flammarion, 1993), 428.

  HOT STUFF

  There are several general works on medieval sexuality and aphrodisiacs. Among the best are Danielle Jacquart and Claude Thomasset, Sexualité et savoir médical au Moyen Age (Paris: Presse Universitaire de France, 1985); Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, edited by Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage (New York: Garland, 1996); J.-L. Flandrin, Sex in the Western World, translated by Sue Collins (Philadelphia: Harwood, 1991); Sex in the Middle Ages, edited by Joyce E. Salisbury (New York: Garland 1991); and Joyce E. Salisbury, Medieval Sexuality: A Research Guide (New York: Garland, 1990).

  Some representative examples of spiced aphrodisiacs I have cited are to be found in Medieval Woman’s Guide to Health, edited by Beryl Rowland (Kent: Kent State University Press, 1981), 147; Helen Rodnite Lemy, Women’s Secrets: A Translation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus’s De Secretis Mulierum (New York: State University of New York Press, 1992), 145; Cristóbal Acosta, Tratado de las drogas y medicinas de las Indias orientales (Burgos: Martín de Victoria, 1578), 414–15; Roger Bacon, De retardatione senectutis, edited by A.G. Little and E. Withington (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928); The Seven Books of Paulus of Aegineta, edited by Francis Adams (London: Sydenham Society, 1844), vol. 3, 47; Thomas Dawson, The good huswifes iewell (London: E. White, 1610). On the delicate topic of public humiliation, see Jacqueline Murray, ‘Hiding Behind the Universal Man: Male Sexuality in the Middle Ages’, in Bullough and Brundage, Hand-book, 139.

  Maimonides’ work on sex was been edited and translated by Morris Gorlin, Maimonides ‘On Sexual Intercourse: Fi ’l-kima’ (Brooklyn: Rambash, 1961). The study of Arab influence on Western sexual practice is still fragmentary. Some useful studies are Radhi Jazi, ‘Aphrodisiaques et médicaments de la reproduction chez Ibn al-Jazzar, médecin et pharmacien maghrébin du Xe siècle’, Revue de l’Histoire de la Pharmacie, 34, no. 273 (June 1987), 155–70; Norman Roth, ‘A Research Note on Sexuality and Muslim Civilization’, in Bullough and Brundage, Handbook, 319–28. See also Il Liber de Ferculis et Condimentis of Giambonino de Cremona, a late-fourteenth-century translation of the Minhāj al-bayān of the Baghdad doctor ibn Jazla (ob. 1100), edited by Anna Martellotti (Brindisi: Schena Editore, 2000), 211. Some modern works with suggestive parallels in the Western tradition are Paul de Régla, El ktab des lois secrètes de l’amour, d’après le Khôdja Omer Haleby, Abou Othmân (Paris: Georges Carré, 1893), and Sehban-ul-Hind, Prophetic Medical Sciences (Darul Ishaat Urdu Bazar: Karachi, 1989). Al-Tifashi’s work was translated by the pseudonymous ‘English Bohemian’ under the title of Old Man Young Again, Or, Age-rejuvenescence in the Power of Concupiscence (Paris: C. Carrington, 1898).

  On clerical disapproval, some representative samples may be found in Instructions for Parish Priests by John Myrc, edited by Edward Peacock, Early English Text Society, Original Series 31 (1902); Thomas Wright, The Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the Twelfth Century (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1872); Richard Lavynham, A Litil Tretys on the Seven Deadly Sins, edited by Johannes P.W.M. Van Zuitphen (Rome: Institutum Carmelitanum, 1956).

  As I have suggested, spices have remained a fruitful source of sexual inspiration through more recent times. Some revealing sources are Paul Lacroix, Secrets magiques de l’amour: octante et trois charmes, conjurations, sortilèges et talismans (Paris: Académie des bibliophiles, 1868); Pierre Pomet, A Compleat History of Druggs, written in French by Monsieur Pomet, Chief Druggist to the late French King Lewis XIV (London: John Walthoe and Tho. Ward, 1725), 122; M. Toussaint-Samat, History of Food, translated by A. Bell (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), 497; Nicolas Venette, Tableau de l’amour conjugal (Paris: Georges-Anquetil, 1926); John Davenport, Aphrodisiacs and Anaphrodisiacs (London: Privately Printed, 1869); Marcel Rouet, Le Paradis sexuel des aphrodisiaques (Paris: N.O.E, 1971). The incident in Naestved is recounted by Swahn, Lore, 97. The curious case of Ambon’s enthusiastic tree-huggers comes from J.G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (London: Macmillan, 1931), vol. 1, part 2, 100, citing Baron van Hoëvell, Ambon en meer bepaaldelijk de Oliasers (Dordrecht, 1875), 62.

  SPICE GIRLS

  For a discussion of the ancient attractions of spices see Paul Fauré, Parfums et Aromates de l’Antiquité (Paris: Éditions Fayard, 1987) and Saara Lilja, The Treatment of Odours in the Poetry of Antiquity, Commentationes Humanarum litterarum no. 49 (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1972). The technology is discussed by R.J. Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology III, 2nd edn (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1965); Domínguez García and García Ballester, Johannis Aegidii Zamorensis, vol. 3, 1540–4.

  King Henry VII’s wife-hunt is recounted by G.G. Coulton, Life in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), part 3, 155–63. For representative concerns over aromatic sensuousness, see Richard Sennett, Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton, 1994), 223; An Alphabet of Tales, edited by M.M. Banks, part I, Early English Text Society, Original Series 126 (1904); MacNutt, De orbe novo, vol. 2, 287. Moçailama’s success is recounted in The Perfumed Garden of the Shaykh Nefzawi, translated by Richard Burton (St Albans: Panther, The name derives from Portuguese wine (vinho) and garlic (d’alho): wine and garlic sauce. The dish is effectively Portuguese India on a plate, the pork and vinegar of Europe married to the ginger and cardamom of India. 1976). McCary’s article on Aphrodisiacs and Anaphrodisiacs is cited by Philippa Pullar, Consuming Passions (London: Penguin, 2001), 236. On Dr Graham, see Amanda Foreman, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (London: HarperCollins, 1998), 70. On the subject of smell and sexual attraction see K. Larsson, ‘Impaired Mating Performance in Male Rats after Anosmia Induced Peripherally or Centrally’, Brain, Behaviour and Evolution, 4 (1971), 463–71; for a less scientific approach see Henriette Touillier-Feyrabend, ‘Odeurs de séduction’, Ethnologie française, 19, no. 2 (1989), 123–9; also Alan Hirsch, Scentsational Sex: The Secret to Using Aroma for Arousal (Boston: Element, 1998). For cinnamon-charged sperm see A.H. Shah, A.H. Al-Shareef, A.M. Ageel, S. Qureshi, ‘Toxicity Studies in Mice of Common Spices, Cinnamomum zeylanicum Bark and Piper longum Fruits’, Plant Foods and Human Nu
trition, 52, no. 3 (1998), 231–9.

  6: Food of the Gods

  Flaubert was taken with the idea of worship and aromatics. In The Temptation of Saint Antony there is a fanciful description of a rite in which the goddess Cybele is honoured with pepper and all the perfumes of Arabia: Flaubert, Tentation, in Oeuvres complètes de Gustave Flaubert (Paris: L. Conard, 1920), vol. 4, 258, 470. The quotation from Madame Bovary is found at part 2, chap. 13. The best general treatment of aromas and ancient religion is Marcel Detienne, The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology, translated by Janet Lloyd (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1977). Some relevant sources and discussion may be found in James Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1906–07); Agatharchides of Cnidus on the Erythraean Sea, translated and edited by S.M. Burnstein (London: Hakluyt Society, 1989), 162; Publii Ovidii Nasonis, Fastorum Libri Sex, edited by James G. Frazer (London: Macmillan, 1929); E. Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London: Folio Society, 1995), vol. 1, 147. On the Near Eastern use of aromatics, see Nigel Groom, Frankincense and Myrrh: A Study of the Arabian Incense Trade (London: Longman, 1981); Kjeld Nielsen, Incense in Ancient Israel (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1986); E. Rimmel, The Book of Perfumes (London: Chapman and Hall, 1867), 72–3. On Punt, see M. Liverani, International Relations in the Ancient Near East, 1600–1100 B.C. (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 240–6; E. Naville, The Temple of Deir el Bahari (London: Offices of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1898). The identification of Punt’s aromatics is discussed by Casson, Ancient Trade, 244–5.

  For a discussion of similar Greek practices, see Cynthia W. Shelmerdine, The Perfume Industry of Mycenaean Pylos (Göteborg: Paul Åströms Förlag, 1985); Saul Levin, ‘The Etymology of: Exotic Scents in Early Greece’, Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolia, vol. 46 (1971); Michel Wylock, ‘Les aromates dans les tablettes Ge de Mycenes’, Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolia, vol. 15 (1972), 105–46. Lyall Watson speculates on a possible physiological basis for these beliefs in Jacobsons Organ (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000).

  GOD’S NOSTRILS

  The standard treatment of aromas and incense in the Judaeo-Christian tradition is E.G.C.F. Atchley, A History of the Use of Incense in Divine Worship (London: Longmans, Green, 1909). On spice-boxes, see Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, ‘Die Havdalah’, in Eine gute Woche!: jüdische Türme aus Schwäbisch Gmünd (Schwäbisch Gmünd: Einhorn-Verlag, 2001), 97; F. Landsberger, ‘The Origin of the Ritual Implements for the Sabbath’, in Beauty in Holiness, edited by J. Guttman (New York: Ktav, 1970), 167–205; M. Narkiss, ‘Origins of the Spice Box’, Journal of Jewish Art, 8 (1981), 28–41; Marilyn Gold Koolik, The Tower-Shape Tradition in Havdalah Spiceboxes (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1982). For speculation on spices’ mystical associations, see J.-C. Picard, ‘Trajet du corps, trajets célestes: Elements d’une cosmologie mystique juive’, in Moïse géographe, edited by E. Desreumaux and F. Schmidt (Paris: Vrin, 1986); Daniel C. Harlow, The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch) (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), 14.

  ODOURS OF SANCTITY

  Two standard works concerning medieval notions of the odour of sanctity are J.P. Albert, Odeurs de sainteté: la mythologie chrétienne des aromates (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1990) and W. Deonna, Croyances antiques et modernes: l’odeur suave des dieux et des élus (Geneva: Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, 1939). The dead King Henry’s stench is mentioned by Henry of Huntingdon, The History of the English People, 1000–1154, translated by Diana Greenway (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), and discussed by Ruth Morse, Truth and Convention in the Middle Ages: Rhetoric, Representation and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Some suitably aromatic saints may be found in The Eight Feasts (Festivals) of the Church: Legends of the Holy Rood, edited by R. Morris, Early English Text Society, Original Series 46 (1871), 22; see also Acta Sanctorum. Aprilis, Collecta, Digesta, Illustrata, a Godefrido Henschenio et Daniele Pepbrochio (Antwerp: Apud Michaelem Cnobarum, 1675), vol. 2, 283; and A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans, 1964), 2nd series, vol. 13, 135.

  OLD AGE, NEW AGE

  On Hawkins, see John B. Broadbent, Some Graver Subject: An Essay on ‘Paradise Lost’ (London: Chatto and Windus, 1960), 183. On d’Oresme, see Thorndike, A History, vol. 3, 431. The Sax Rohmer quote is from The Romance of Sorcery (New York: Causeway Books, 1973), 299–301. His source is apparently Lodovico Maria Sinistrari’s Demoniality, available in English translation by Montague Summers (London: Fortune Press, 1927). For Yemen and the early medieval spice trade see Roger Collins, Early Medieval Europe, 300–1000, 2nd edn (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1999), 139. On the chrism in the early Greek Church, see Jacques Goar, Euchologion, sive rituale Graecorum (Paris, 1647), 627. Concerning the anointing of kings, see C.A. Bouman, Sacring and Crowning … Anointing of Kings and the Coronation of the Emperor Before the 11th Century (Groningen: J.B. Wolters, 1957); René Poupardin, ‘L’onction impériale’, le Moyen Age, 2nd series, vol. 9 (1905), 113–26; Gesta Berengarii imperatoris, edited by Ernst L. Dümmler (Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisen-hauses, 1871), I.iv. v, 178–80. For instances of the exchange of spices between clerics in the early Middle Ages, see P. Jaffé, Bibliotheca rerum germanicum (Berlin: Weidmannos, 1864–73), vol 3, 110, 156, 199, 214, 218.

  A discussion of the use of spices in the chrism in the Eastern Churches can be found in O. Burmester, ‘A Coptic Tradition Concerning the Holy Myron (Chrism)’, in Publications de l’Institut d’études orientales de la Bibliothèque patriarchate d’Alexandrie, 3 (1954), 52–8; A. van Lanschoot, ‘Le MS Vatican Copte 44 et le Livre du Chrème (ms Paris arabe 100)’, Le Muséon, 45 (1932), 181–234; Archimandrite Agafador, ‘Preparation of the Holy Chrism in Moscow’, Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 9 (1987), 25–7.

  For a representative illustration of the New Age faith in aromatics, see Richard Alan Miller and Iona Miller, The Magical and Ritual Use of Perfumes (Rochester: Destiny Books, 1990).

  7: Some Like it Bland

  ST Bernard’s FAMILY TIFF

  Bernard’s letter to his nephew may be found in Migne, vol. 185. On the circumstances of its creation, see Irénée Vallery-Radot, Bernard de Fontaines, abbé de Clairvaux (Paris: Critérion, 1962), 178; Life and Works of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, edited by Dom John Mabillon and translated by Samuel J. Eales (London: John Hodges, 1889).

  The medieval monastic diet has been well studied, but the objection to spices has been almost entirely overlooked. Some useful studies are A. de Vogüé, ‘Travail et alimentation dans les règles de Saint Benoît et du Maître’, Revue Bénédictine, 74 (1964), 242–51; C.V. Franklin, I. Havener and J.A. Francis, Early Monastic Rules: The Rules of the Fathers and the Regula Orientalis (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1982). Joan Evans, Monastic Life at Cluny 910–1157 (London: Oxford University Press, 1931) contains much useful information. Migne’s Patrologia latina is the indispensable source on the subject. For instances of clerical parody of dietary lapses, and hostile comment on spices in particular, see Migne, vol. 100, col. 465; Migne, vol. 20, col. 242; Migne, vol. 181, col. 1735; Giraldus Cambrensis, Opera, edited by J.S. Brewer (London: Longman, 1873), vol. 4, 41; also his Speculum Ecclesiae, in Rolls Series, Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, no. 21 (London: Longman, 1873), vol. 4, 59. On Ligugé, see Léo Moulin, Vie quotidienne des Religieux au Moyen Age (Paris: Hachette, 1978), 95. Monkish hypochondria is touched upon by G.G. Coulton, Five Centuries of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923–36), vol. 3, 413, and in his Medieval Panorama, 445–8; see also M.B. Salu, The Ancren Riwle (London: Bums and Oates, 1955), 163. Secular variations on the same theme may be found in T. Wright, Poems of W. Mapes (Camden Society, 1841), 13; and Thomas Wright, The Latin Poems Commonly Attributed to Walter Maps (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1968), xl-xliv. For the spice-quaffing pontiff see Celestin und Susanna, edited by C. Horstmann, in Anglia, 1 (18
78), 67–85. On Ralf de Born see Bishop William Fleetwood, Chronicon Preciosum (London: C. Harper, 1707), 83. On the evolution of dietary norms, see André Vaquier, ‘Une réforme de Cluny in 1428’, Revue Bénédictine, 35 (1923), 157–98.

  FILTHY LUCRE

  The critique of spices as wasteful and luxurious fripperies is one that recurs over several centuries and crops up across practically the entire literary spectrum. Some useful sources are The Book of Vices and Virtues: A Fourteenth Century Translation of the Somme le Roi of Lorens d’Orléans, edited by W. Nelson Francis, Early English Text Society, Original Series 217 (1942), 47; Jacob’s Well. An Englisht [sic] Treatise on the Cleansing of Man’s Conscience, ca. 1440, edited by Arthur Brandeis, Early English Text Society, Original Series 115 (1900), 144; Mum and the Sothsegger, edited by Mabel Day and Robert Steele, Early English Text Society, Original Series 199 (1936), 20; Archithrenius, 2.6, in Wright, Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets, 266; Three Treatises by John Wycklyffe, edited by James H. Todd (Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1851), 130; The English Works of Wyclif, edited by F.D. Matthew, Early English Text Society, Original Series 74 (1880), 13–14; Pierce the Ploughmans Crede, edited by W.W. Skeat, Early English Text Society, Original Series 30 (1867, repr. 1895), 12; Political Poems and Songs Relating to English History, composed during the accession of Edw. ¡11 to that of Rich. III, vol. 14, pan 1, edited by T. Wright (London: Rolls Series, 1859), 265–6; Anonimo Genovese, in Cocito, Poesie, 474. On lawyerly greed, see Molière’s Les Fourberies de Scapin and Racine’s Les Plaideurs; also Villon’s ‘Testament’ in Poésies, edited by Jean Dufournet (Paris: Flammarion, 1993), 214. Some representative samples of the mercantilist aversion to spices may be found in The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye, A Poem on the Use of Sea-Power, edited by George Warner (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926), 18–19; Juan Sempere y Guarinos, Historia del luxo y de las leyes suntuarias de España (Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1788), vol. 2, 2; Francisco de Sá de Miranda, in Obras completas (Lisbon: Libraria Sá de Costa, 1937), vol. 2, 81. On the subject of the East India Company’s purported profligacy see the pamphlet by Thomas Mun, A Discourse of Trade, from England unto the East-Indies: Answering to Diverse Objections Which Are Usually Made Against the Same (London: Nicholas Okes, 1621).