medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
At 10:11 PM 07/11/2002 +0100, you wrote:
>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval
religion and culture
>
>[It] 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 is
characterised by "black spurs" on the grain. If this gets
into food, it has a very nasty effect. It causes cattle to
abort. In humans it causes hallucinations and nerve damage
(depending on the amount ingested), sometimes even death.
Ergot is not pleasant stuff: it was one of the original
sources for the development of LSD. As I recall, the
thesis has been put forth that ergot poisoning is one of
the factors to be considered in the color scheme and
imagery of the paintings of Matthias Grunewald.
Unfortunately, I can't remember the exact source of this
argument. Can anyone out there help me clear this
particular area of my ignorance?
Stephen A. Allen
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