Spring is often considered to be the season of growth and new life. This would also be the view held by my persona in the northern coastal city of Coruña in the northwestern state of Galicia, Spain. The climate of this area is considered temperate, making it ideal for the cultivation and natural growing of mint (Mentha). As the plant shrivels in the winter, any remedies throughout the season would need to be made with dried mint. As my persona would prepare for the new mint plants spring would bring, she would seek to make room in her stores by using the last of her preserved herb. One of the best ways to use this herb was to make a decoction, a strong tea, but is there more than meets the eye with this simple preparation?
The process of making a decoction consists of bringing fresh water to a boil then adding herbs, either fresh or dried to it. Simmering the herbs and water for 10 to 15 minutes and then straining the herbs from the water. This preparation is stronger then merely steeping the herbs in boiling water, thus making an infusion. Throughout my studies, I have yet to find an herb that could not be used a decoction. I have made decoctions of lavender (for respiratory issues), dill, fennel and horehound (for a cold/cough remedy).
Such an decoction was used to assist in the treatment of: a bleeding nose, fortifying the stomach, curing the hiccoughs, enhancing sexual desires, combating bad breath, and skin eruptions (especially on the head) inducing menstruation or causing a miscarriage. It could rouse one who had fainted and when taken with honey, according to Culpeper, could ease pains of the ear and roughness of the tongue1. Hildegard of Bingen suggests “[eating] watermint [bachmyntza], either raw or cooked with meats, or in a broth, or can be cooked as a puree”2 when the stomach was stuffed. Mint, or its decoction, could also be added to pomegranate wine for the same result. Adding the mint to milk, it is unclear if it was boiled within it or not, would stop a bleeding nose from coagulating3. This use could have been used if the patient was being bled to equalize the humours.
The Mint family, Lamiaceae, is extensive and is used to identify a large variety of plants, not limited to: basil, savory, lavender, sage and rosemary. Its earliest documentation comes from Pliny4. It was well-known throughout the medieval era, as it had been carried throughout the Roman Empire. When searching for the medicinal uses of mint, the specific kind is not always identified, it is merely called “mint”. Hildegard of Bingen clearly mentioned curled, field and water mints, but the majority of other herbal writers make no distinction between the various species. In my stores, I had peppermint (Mentha piperita) specifically, which for the duration of this presentation will take the place of unspecified mint.
In order to understand how mint worked, it becomes necessary to look at the beliefs held by those of the era. Middle Ages beliefs about the body, its ailments and how to cure them were centered around the four humours: black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm. Balance of these within the body meant good health, while an imbalance lead to sickness. The hot/cold/dry/wet qualities of the humours gave healers clues how to best return the body's equilibrium. Galen, a Greek in the early part of the first century, further defined the aspects of plants and gave them degrees; one being the weakest and four being the strongest. Mint is said to be both hot and dry in the second degree, which means that it is of middling potency.
'Hot' herbs were generally used to stave off chills and stimulate metabolism. Many of the herbs that fall into this category are strong in both aroma and taste. 'Dry' herbs were best used to purge the body of moisture, such as phlegm. All of the cures were determined by opposites. If you had an ailment that was cold and wet, an example being an upset or cold stomach, mint with its hot and dry properties would encourage the production of yellow bile to correct an excess of black bile. An overabundance of black bile was thought to because of sadness, melancholia.
1 Nicholas Culpeper. Culpeper's Medicine: A Practice of Western Holistic Medicine.Page 244.
2 Dr. Wighard Strehlow and Gottfried Hertzka. M.D. Hildegard of Bingen's Medicine.Page 107.
3 Ibn Buṭlān. The four seasons of the House of Cerruti.
4 Lev Efrayim and Zohar 'Amar. Practical Materia Medica of the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean According to the Cairo Genizah. Page 449.
Works Cited
Buṭlān, Ibn. The four seasons of the House of Cerruti.
Cosman, Madeleine Pelner and Linda Gale Jones. Handbook to Life in the Medieval World. Infobase Publishing, 2008.
Culpeper, Nicholas. Culpeper's Medicine: A Practice of Western Holistic Medicine.
Daisley, Gilda. Herbs International & Illustrated. Chevprime Ltd, 1989.
Discorides. De Materia Medica.
Lev, Efrayim and Zohar 'Amar. Practical Materia Medica of the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean According to the Cairo Genizah. Brill, 2008.
Pazzini, Adalberto and Emma Pirani. Herbarium: Natural Remedies from a Medieval Manuscript. New York: Rizooli, 1980.
Van Arsdall, Anne. Medieval Herbal Remedies: The Old English Herbarium and Anglo-Saxon Medicine. Routledge: New York, 2002.
The Good Wife's Guide (Le Ménagier de Paris): A Medieval Household Book. Cornell University Press, 2012
Strehlow, Dr. Wighard and Gottfried Hertzka. M.D. Hildegard of Bingen's Medicine. Santa Fe: Bear and Company Inc., 1998.
