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experimental
archaeology

the Trotula's
hair powder

Bancke's
tooth
powder

Hildegarde von Bingen's
mouthwash

the Trotula's
tooth powder

Gilbertus Anglicus's breath freshener

Experimental Archaeology
Hildegard's Mouthwash
Making a medieval mouth wash and breath freshener
using the recipe from Hildegard von Bingen.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Hildegard von Bingen's book Physica deals with the properties of things; animals, stones, minerals, plants and elements of the earth. She looks at what these things may be good for and offers remedies for health concerns. One of these is dealing with bad breath.

It reads:

 

"Anyone... who has stinking breath,
should cook sage in wine,
strain it through a cloth,
and drink it often."

I have recreated this mouthwash to use in my MEDIEVAL BATH DISPLAY and have included a step by step guide to my approach, including my expectations and how it really worked out.

The overall verdict? It certainly does what it's supposed to. You'll never get the taste out of your mouth.

The prep:

There were a number of things to think about before I started.

- Where can I get the ingrediants?
- Drying the ingredients or buying them pre-powdered or using them fresh?
- Air dry or oven dry the grown ingredients?
- How much of which ingredients should I use?
- Will it actually make any real difference?
- How long will it last?
- Do any of the plants have benefits associated with them which make them particularly useful?
- Which wine should I use?
- How long should I steep the wine and sage together?
- How much of the sage do I add to the wine?
- Does sage have benefits associated with it which makes them particularly useful for a mouthwash?

What you need: Ingrediants Wine Sage Kitchen things Spoon Bowl for mixing Glass jar Mortar and pestle for bruising the leaves
	Sage fresh or dried? I made this with dried sage, but i will have another go using fresh sage. It's very unclear whether it's some or a lot, but I feel if the sage is not for flavouring, and is there for its medicinal properties, it needs to be fairly strong, or there would be little benefit. So, this time around, dried leaves, and about a quarter of a cup.
	Wine. what kind of wine. Hildegard doesn't specify in this recipe what wine to use, but in a previous chapter, she says that a good, white wine is the best kind to use for this sort of thing. I used a white cooking wine, not top shelf but not bottom shelf either. I used half a litre of wine.
	Glass jar Something to put the concoction in after it was cooked.

Method:

	[text to follow] measure out the ingrediants Rather unhelpfully, Hildegard doesn't say how much sage should be used. The wine sage ratio was guesswork on my part.
	[text to follow] simmer the sage in the wine This is tricky as it doesn't say for how long to simmer the wine, of whether it should be left to stand for any amount of time before the leaves are strained out to use. This was especially tricky as I wasn't testing it until the following morning, so it would be stronger if I left it stand.

The results:

product: The mouthwash & breath freshener.
I really feel that this legitimately works. The initial taste in the mouth is strong , although that may be becuase this steeped overnight and was actually too strong. After swallowing it, it did give sage-breath for an extended period of time, so much so, that I decided to not wash my mouth out and see how long it would linger. It survived the entire day, including after dinner and drinks. I did not clean my teeth that night in an effort to see whether it would still be sagey in the morning.

The following morning I could still taste the sage in my mouth, so any bad breath I might have had would have been improved by the sage. By lunch time, it has disapated, more or less.

The final verdict. It was a bit unpleasant straight away for a few minutes, but it did do what it was suppoed to do and it was long-lasting.

This was a journey of great discovery, where I discovered:

• Less is more of some things. Sage.
• Sage left overnight is very strong.
• Perhaps made freshly and used straight away would be better?
• It sure did work.

The test subjects results:

Being of a scientific mind, I asked re-enactors, some of the responses were as follows:

• OMG (spits out)
• That's very... intense!
• Well, not the worst thing I've ever tasted...
• burns a bit on an empty stomach, but not offensive.

As a general trend, no one really liked it, with one or two saying it wasn't that bad once the taste had gone a bit, but it sure did linger. Possibly it was far too strong after steeping or I used far too much sage. I'm keen to have a few more goes at this to find a nice balance. The strong stuff worked well for hours and a weaker solution may not last as long.