medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On 09/09/13, Marjorie Burghart wrote:
> For a little speech I must deliver, I am trying to find the virtues attributed to crystal in the Middle Ages. I have read that it was thought to be petrified ice, and that it healed some sort of abdominal pains.
> But I have also found mentions, without clear reference, of crystal facilitating the delivery at childbirth. Would you know of medieval references for this virtue?
>
In very limited searching on the Web I was unable to find a medieval reference to crystal as a facilitator of delivery at childbirth. But it does appear that from at least the earlier thirteenth century through the late fifteenth that drinking ground crystal mixed with honey was said to promote lactation (literally, to fill breasts with milk). So Thomas of Cantimpré, _Liber de natura rerum_ (ca. 1230-1245), 14. 19 (_De cristallo_), _Hic lapis tritus et cum melle mixtus atque potatus ubera lacte replet._ (ed. Helmut Boese [Berlin, etc., W. de Gruyter, 1973], p. 360; in Google Books (if you can access this) at <http://tinyurl.com/o22hy46>); also Camillo Leonardi (late C15), _De lapidibus_ (ed. Claude Lecouteux), 2. 7. 25, at <http://tinyurl.com/p58nqhg>: _Cristallum dormientibus appensum mala depelli
somnia,
solvit fascinatos, ore retentum sitim mitigat. Et cum melle tritum
ubera lacte
replet._
For a modern text in which crystal instead is said to lead to malformations of the fetus and to miscarriages, see <http://www.partyprojekt-odyssee.de/substanzinfos/crystal>: "Der Konsum von Crystal kann den Monatszyklus stören und die Fruchtbarkeit beeinträchtigen. Dennoch kannst Du schwanger werden. Praktiziere also Safer-Sex, auch um Dich vor möglichen sexuell übertragbaren Krankheiten zu schützen. Durch Crystal-Konsum in den ersten Wochen der Schwangerschaft kann es zu Fehlbildungen kommen. Außerdem wird die Wahrscheinlichkeit von Missbildungen und Fehlgeburten bei dem Gebrauch von Crystal erhöht." Here, though, the crystal in question is the metamphetamine popularly known in English as crystal meth. Whether in your proposed speech you can use such information for an ironic aside on different sorts of crystal having -- or being said to have -- rather different properties may depend on your audience's capacity to process mentally a quick change of context.
Best,
John Dillon
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