Cabinet of Curiosities by Charlotte Wightwick - Gingerbreadmen, women, angels and more...

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Mine was spent, as appears to be traditional for me, either in a food-related stupor, or watching TV programmes about food (and often both). Now I have to admit to a certain amount of perplexity when watching some of these (seriously, how complicated can it be to roast a turkey?) but I did come across one real gem, and the inspiration for this month’s entry into the History Girls’ Cabinet of Curiosities. Naturally I can’t remember which programme it was on, so I can’t just point you in the direction of the telly and get back to lazing around – although that is probably no bad thing.

What caught my eye on TV was a demonstration of how gingerbread was made in the medieval and early modern period, and in particular showcased the variety of stunning moulds that were used to make it.

Gingerbread mould, C17th

Gingerbread mould, C17th

Not for our forebears a clumsy, vaguely humanoid shape with raisins for eyes and smarties for buttons: originally, gingerbread was beautiful, elaborate and, to top it all off, often gilded. Of course, as spices such as ginger were luxury items, gold just added to the bling effect…

It also seems to explain (although this is only my guess) why gingerbread is called bread, given that we think of as gingerbread is more of a cake or a biscuit: originally, recipes featured breadcrumbs rather than flour. Mixed with spices and wet ingredients, the mixture was then pressed into the elaborate moulds and left to dry next to the fire (not baked in an oven). Other recipes used almond paste to make white gingerbread.

More details (and recipes) can be found at http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2006/12/through-ages-with-gingerbread.html or http://www.historicfood.com/Gingerbread%20Recipe.html.

Alternatively you could of course just watch rolling Christmas food telly for hours on end to find the right TV programme. It would be a sacrifice to historical research worth making!

Gingerbread mould of an angel from Aachen. All images from Wikimedia Commons

THIS LITTLE PIGGY by Karen Maitland

I don’t know about you, but pigs are the last animals I ever expect to encounter as ghosts. They seem such solid, down-to-earth creatures. But there are a surprising number of accounts of ghostly pigs who appear around about this time of the year. At Andover, Hampshire, a ghost or demon pig appears at New Year, but is also seen whenever there is a bad thunderstorm. (Perhaps because pigs are supposed to be able to predict a storm and run around with straw hanging from their mouths when they sense it coming.) A litter of ghostly piglets are said to run across the road on Christmas Eve at Culcutt, Wiltshire and ghostly sow and piglets appear on All Souls Eve in Bransby, Lincolnshire and also at Merripit in Devon.

The Isle of Man has several legends of faery pigs, while both the church of Winwick and Burnley occupy their present sites because of demon pigs. According to legend, while they were being built, a pig kept moving them during the night to a new location, until eventually the villagers surrendered and left the churches where the pig had put them. The origin of these legends maybe the carvings of pigs on the walls of these two churches which may indicate the churches were built on an ancient sacred site. The boar was the most frequently sacrificed animal among the pagan Saxons. It was seen as a fitting gift for the gods because of its strength, bravery and fearlessness. In Viking, Celtic and Saxon cultures it symbolised strength and resolution.

Salted or smoked pork and bacon were the vital food that enabled peasant families to survive winter in the Middle Ages. It was food for free. In summer pigs, were fed on food scraps, waste from crops and even seaweed, and in autumn they were let loose in forest to fatten on the ‘mast’ which included beechnuts, acorns and roots. When the Normans prevented Saxon pannage by closing the forests to keep them just for hunting, they were condemning many families to starvation. The impression we get from Robin Hood movies is that it was being banned from hunting in the forest that the Saxons resented, but this was minor irritation compared to the life or death issue of the Normans preventing domestic pigs foraging in the forest. Not surprisingly the villagers’ right to pannage was bitterly contested right up to the reign of King John and with good reason.

Even in medieval towns, pigs would roam the streets feeding off the middens and market waste. There were attempts from time to time control this, but, after every crack down, the pigs would end up back on the streets. Officially, the only pigs which were allowed to forage freely in towns were St Antony’s pigs.

St Antony. Photographer: Andreas Praefcke

Around 1100, an Order of Hospitallers was founded at La Motte and named after St Antony of Egypt who died in 356. The mother house became a place of pilgrimage for those suffering from St Antony’s Fire which we know today as ergot poisoning. But the order soon spread. The Hospitallers, wearing distinctive black robes and the blue Tau (T-shaped cross), rode around ringing bells to collect alms. The pig was the saint’s emblem, because according to legend either St Antony was once a swineherd or a pig kept him company during his life as a hermit.

Householders would give the Hospitallers the runts of their litters, in exchange for their blessing for the health of the rest of their pigs. A runt became known as a tantony. These pigs were hung with a small bell, like their masters, and legally allowed to roam the streets of the towns being fattened by the scraps from the community. (Tantony also became the name given to the smallest bell in a peal.)

A tantony pig. Photographer: Wolfgang Sauber

So important were pigs in the Middle Ages that many laws were brought in to safeguard the meat, for example, it was illegal to drive pigs using a holly stick because, being inflexible it could bruise the flesh, which then would not take up the salt when being cured.

Villagers’ cottages and byres were often built so low that a pig carcass was too long to hang from the beams, so in many villages, the bloody dripping pig carcasses were hung in the church porch after slaughter.

As well as being used to cover jars, the bladder of the pig was one of the earliest emergency pluming tools at a time when many pipes were wooden. It would be floated down the pipe to the site of the leak, then blown out to inflate and seal the bore hole. Centuries later, the pig’s bladder was used for the same purpose in the early days of gas pipes.

But to end with another tale of ghostly pigs – most of us are familiar with the legends of a hell-wain drawn by black horses and driven by a headless coachman being an omen of impending death. But in Durham, John Burrow was said to have been warned of his death when he saw a black coach drawn by six black pigs. Maybe the pigs were finally getting their own back.

'Return of the Medieval Beast' by Karen Maitland

‘Sorry I’m late,’ a family member said, rushing breathlessly into the train station late the other night. ‘I was held up by a wallaby on the road.’

If you're reading this post in Australia, this is probably an excuse you hear regularly, but we were in the middle of Devon, a rural English county not noted for its wild wallabies.

‘Are you sure it wasn’t a large squirrel?’ I asked, somewhat testily.

When we reported the sighting to the local police, I thought they might take the same sceptical line. But no, they had already had several reports of a wallaby hopping long the perilously narrow Devon lanes that evening. ‘But we don't know what we can do about it,’ they said, leafing through a copy of 'The Dangerous Dog Act' which, thanks to a Government oversight, singularly fails to cover marsupials, dangerous or not.

Devon has its fair share of strange animals, not least the fictional Hound of the Baskervilles, said to be based on the legend of the great spectral dog, the black shuck. And then there have long been rumours of the mysterious big black cats roaming across the moors, More recently warnings have been posted in several areas of Devon about what do if you encounter wild boar on walk, as they are now breeding in the forests.

But more controversially wild beavers have mysteriously returned to Devon and established a family, causing much debate about whether these creatures, should be removed before they start to change the landscape. One side argue they will cause flooding by damming streams, while others say that they will help to stop flooding by bringing back the wetlands that used to protect us.

But unlike the wallaby, beavers were native to Britain. The town of Beverley in Yorkshire derives its name from ‘beaver stream’, while Beavercoates in Nottinghamshire means ‘beaver huts’. But during the Middle Ages beavers were driven to extinction in Britain through hunting. They were killed for their scent gland which produced the valuable castoreum and also for food, because the Church declared that their tails were ‘fish’ and could therefore be eaten in Lent and on other fast days, when meat was prohibited. Recipes of the period suggest stewing their tails with ginger. After beavers were wiped out in England, a huge market grew up importing the glands and tails into England from the rest of Europe, through ports such as Bishop’s Lynn

Medieval Beaver shown with 'fish' tail

(now known as King’s Lynn) on The Wash.

The castoreum or castor extracted from the beaver gland was burned by the Romans to bring about abortions and used to help suffers of epilepsy. (This is not to be confused with the oil called castor that comes from Castor oil plant, which is used today as a food additive) In the Middle Ages, they believed castoreum from the beaver could increase the honey production of bees. There may have been some truth behind this since it has been found to have strong antibiotic properties and might have protected the bees from disease or acted as deterrent to bee-mites.

Medieval physicians also used beaver castoreum to relieve headaches, hysteria and impotency. In later centuries, it was used a basis for perfume making and often found in the bottles of quack medicine sold by peddlers in the America who would mix American beaver castor with alcohol or spices and claim it was an elixir which could cure just about anything.

Hunted Beaver biting off its own testicles

There is curious legend about beavers to be found the medieval bestiaries which is also recorded in ancient Greece. In Medieval times both the animal and its oil were known as castor meaning ‘castrated’. It was believed that this oil was to be found in the beaver’s testicles. If hunted, the beaver would chew off its own testicles and fling them at the huntsman to save its life. Thereafter, the castrated beaver would turn round, stand up and expose itself to any huntsman, so that he could see its testicles were missing and it was not worth pursuing.

In fact the castoreum doesn’t come from the testicles but from a gland near base of the tail which is used for scent marking. But the beaver’s testicles are internal so it would appear to our ancestors to have been castrated. And it is interesting that the legend not only persisted down through the centuries, but was employed by the Church who used the beaver as a symbol of chastity.

Beaver exposing himself to the huntsman to show he is castrated.

‘Every man who would live chastely must cut himself off from all vices and lewdness as does the castor and fling them in the face of the Devil. Thereupon the devil shall depart from him.

Perhaps the next wild animal that might return to Devon will be the wolf. Though last time he lived in England he fared no better than the beaver.

'If a woman does not desire you and you would arouse her and make her lust after you, take the genitals of a wolf together with the hair on its cheeks and eyebrows and burn them together. Then give the ashes to the woman to drink in such a manner that she does not suspect. Then she will desire you and no other man.'

But that’s another story.