2 minute read
‘TAKE SAGE OF VIRTUE’
SE Á N M C MAHON
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DESCRIPTION Page from Booke of Soveraigne Medecines Against the Most Common and Known Deseases of Man and Women, copied 1665–75
MAKER / ARTIST John Feckenham (c. 1515–1584)
REFERENCE Donated by Royal Australasian College of Physicians History of Medicine Library, 1956 (MSX-3346-front-inside-cover; MSX-3346-001)
Global pandemics are not new. They have occurred sporadically around the world for centuries, with appalling death tolls and desperate searches for cures. Bubonic plague is a case in point—the Turnbull Library holds a rare manuscript detailing a sixteenth-century herbal remedy for the Black Death.
Bubonic plague killed as many as 200 million people in Europe between 1347 and 1351, and it took more than 200 years for the population to return to pre-plague levels. The Black Death, as it was known, remained at the forefront of many minds, including that of John Feckenham (c.1515–1584), an English monk and Doctor of Divinity, who became the last Abbot of Westminster. Known as an articulate, clear thinker, he served as confessor to Queen Mary I. As the religious tensions of the Tudor era played out, the abbot was sent to the Tower of London in 1560 and spent much of the remainder of his life imprisoned. During this time, he compiled a book of medical remedies, accumulated from various sources, including other manuscript texts.
Nearly a century after Feckenham’s death in prison, his book was copied by hand. The different handwriting throughout the volume indicates that it was written by different scribes at varying times. The period of writing is early modern English, with some examples of medieval English. The volume also includes an index. This copy is one of only five known to exist, and was placed into the Turnbull’s care by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians History of Medicine Library in 1956.
Feckenham’s remedies address a range of ailments, including stinking breath, broken limbs, wounds, yesking (the hiccups) and belching of the stomach. As for bubonic plague, here is his advice: ‘Take sage of virtue, herb-grace, elder leaves and red bramble leaves, of each one handful. Stamp them together and strain them through a cloth with a quart of white wine; and take a quantity of ginger and mingle them together, and drink thereof, evening and morning, a spoonful.’
Did the tonic work? Probably not, at least not for the plague. But the abbot’s Booke of Soveraigne Medecines offers a glimpse into centuries-old medicinal thinking in the wake of the darkest pandemic on record.
