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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
Gilbertus Anglicus breath freshener
UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Making and testing recipes for skincare and health from medieval manuscripts.

A breath freshening powder to chew and then swallow from Gilbertus Anglicus

GILBERTUS ANGLICUS,
Compendium of Medicine,
Wellcome MS 537
England. about 1400 A.D.

"And let him use this powder:

Take of pepper, one ounce;
and of mint, as much;
and of rock salt, as much.

And make him to chew this powder a good while in his mouth,
and then swallow it down."

 

I have recreated this powder 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 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?

What you need: Ingredients 1 oz Rock Salt 1 oz Pepper 1 oz Mint Kitchen things Spoon Bowl for mixing Mortar and pestle for powdering
	Rock Salt 1 ounce This is easy to find and purchase and is very cheap. Rock salt is easy to get, if not chunky salt or, at a pinch, table salt can be bought everywhere.
	Pepper 1 ounce Another easy ingrediant to acquire. This can be bought straight from any supermarket. Gilbertus doesn't specify what type of pepper to use, so it's a bit open ended here. Both long pepper and black pepper were used in Roman Britain, so I've chosen black pepper for this. this is cracked already, although I did also have whole black pepper.
	Mint 1 ounce Fresh leaves or dried leaves? The recipe doesn't say, but I feel like dried leaves would powder down better, so I am using dried mint leaves from a supermarket. I have fresh mint growing in my heb garden, but not enough to dry and powder to made an ounce just yet. Future attempts will trial home dried from my garden mint.
	Mortar and pestle I have a really great stone set which is sturdy enough to work well on most substances.

Step by step :

The results:

The taste really is indescribable. I'll need to make this agan so I can write it up straight away while the taste is fresh and make a note of how long it lasts.This was a journey of great discovery, where I discovered: Less is more of some things. I checked some of the properties attributed to the plants. Mint is used in toothpaste today as is well known as a breath freshener.The salt is an abrasive and the pepper ... hmm [more to come]

The audience results:
Being of a scientific mind, I asked re-enactors to try this. A diverse range of ages were polled, and of -- number of people questioned, the responses were as follows:

This has yet to be tested in my circle of friends. Results will follow.