Medieval Plants and Their Uses by Michael Brown;

Author:Michael Brown;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: NATURE / Plants / General
Publisher: Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC
Published: 2023-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

Primroses have long been known as a harbinger of spring and all parts of the plant are edible, making them a useful food plant early in the year. The medieval English song, Maid in the Moor Lay, tells of a maiden who slept out on a moor for a week and a day. She was sustained by primroses and violet flowers with cold spring water as her drink. Protection from the cold was provided by a bower of red roses and lilies. All of the flowers are associated with the Virgin Mary, but the song may be about a humble maiden lost on a moor.

Many plants that we consider to be weeds are simply those plants for which we no longer have a use, and some of them have common names that date from medieval times. Shepherd’s purse gets its name from the shape of the seed cases which resemble a medieval shepherd’s purse; so much so that the name was contemporary even in the medieval period. If you hold the seed stalk at the bottom, the seedcase is similar to the medieval purses shown in illustrations. There are only two seeds, which represent the money in the purse, because shepherds were not wealthy! The main use of the plant was to staunch blood flow. As it is a common weed in fields and gardens, and can be found during most of the year, it was easily found if you were suffering from a bad cut when working in the fields. It also has a medieval name of toothwort to cure toothache, probably because the seedcases also appear vaguely like a tooth.

The primrose heralded the arrival of spring.

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