medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Brenda M. Cook wrote:
... deals with such subject matter as bread, famine, hallucination, fantasy
...
>This is not such an arbitrary grouping as it looks. If the weather at
>harvest time is wet, rye has a nasty tendency to host a parasitical fungus
>called ERGOT. ... It causes cattle to abort. In humans it causes
>hallucinations and nerve damage ... sometimes even death. Some have
>suggested that the experiences of the notorious "bewitched" of Salem was
>the result of ergot poisoning. But its most ambiguous use is in the realm
>of midwifery. (presumably Salem did not have an experienced wise woman who
>could identify and warn about the infestation.)
And John Hall wrote:
The earliest reference I know is that given by Andrée Hayum in his
"The Isenheim Altarpiece: God's medicine and the painter's Vision",
Princeton University Press 1989, in which he says that Aymar Falco in his
1534 history of the Antonites says that the monastery was the care of those
afflicted
with St Anthony's Fire caused by ergot ...
Ergot posioning causes, depending on the severity, swelling of the joints
and even gangrene with the resultant loss of fingers, etc.; muscular tonus
which may lead to permanent contortions (these are often depicted in
connexion with St Antony the Desert Father, together with missing limbs,
etc, from the 1200's and on); severe loss of bodily fluids (I spare you the
details), madness, blindness and, finally, death.
Hallucinations are rarely described as a symptom, but it may be
worth noting that ergot is the raw material from which LSD is made.
As for midwifery, ergot ("sekale") was used also in modern times
against haemorrhages at birth; it contracts the uterus; it may still be in use.
A case - perhaps the earliest known - of "black bread" resulting in ergot
poisoning is described in several sources which tell of the Viking siege of
Paris in 845. Saxo "Grammaticus" tells of how Regnar Lothbroc's men were
upset because the bread was black; Regnar Lothbroc is a legendary figure
who had his historical model in the Regnar (Reginar, Ragenarius) who held
Walcheren as a fief and kicked Ansgar out of there and, in 845. besieged
Paris. The most detailed account is to be found in the Miracles of St
Gerrmain (des-Prés, that is), written in 850-58. The Annales Bertiniani,
the Miracles of St Riquier and the Chron. Fontan. also mention the events,
but with less detail.
The Miracles of St Germain relates in detail all the mishaps that
befell the Vikings when they desecrated the monastery of
St.-Germain-des-Prés (one of them shrunk to baby size, a loan from Ovid's
Metamorphoses, but also the origin of the legendary Lothbroc-son Ívarr
Beinlaus, who had no bones in his body); some fell gdown and were crushed,
but - oh holy bliss! - the whole buch finally went mad and died of
ergotism. The story does not, of course, relate the disease to the rye the
Vikings had robbed in the autumn and kept in too damp a place; it is the
revenge of the saint. The tale continues with information from a certain
Cobbo who professed to have witnessed Regnar's arrival back in Denmark;
there, the (invisible) saint beat him up and split him open in front of
king Horic (who is actually historical). The story is augmented in
Aimoinus' poem about the siege from the 870's.
The case is briefly discussed in N.C. Lukman, "Regnarr lođbrók,
Sigifrid and the saints of Flanders", Scandinavian Studies 1976:25 w. note 36.
Best
Lars
--------------------------
Lars Hemmingsen, Ph.D. of Folklore
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