Category: Departments & Disciplines

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Distilling Tradition: Anglo-Saxon Botany and the Beginning of Gin

Since moving to England, I’ve become very fond of gin, and the medievalist in me was thrilled when I was gifted a bottle of Ad Gefrin Distillery’s Thirlings Dry Gin for my birthday. The gin is inspired by Northumbria’s Anglo-Saxon roots, what Ad Gefrin describes as “a time of welcome, celebration, and hospitality,” and it has been crafted with “a Northumbrian heart and Anglo-Saxon soul.”[1]  

The gin is gorgeous, both in its presentation and its finish. The bottle itself embodies the location’s Anglo-Saxon heritage: “Far from just being a vessel for the spirit, the bottle tells its own authentic story. The stepped punt reflects the 7th Century wooden Grandstand discovered on the ancient site and the holes/dimples in the glass represent the post holes which identified where the royal complex of buildings were and enabled archaeologists to calculate their size and height.”[2] Its botanical profile is comprised of “flavours inspired by Northumberland, heather and pine from the Cheviot hills, elderberry and dill from the hedgerows, and Irish moss and sea buckthorn from the coast.”[3] But the base of all gins, of course, is juniper.

In addition to its distillery that produces both gin and whisky, Ad Gefrin offers an impressive collection of Anglo-Saxon artefacts and an immersive experience of Northumberland’s Golden Age, including the richness and hospitality of the medieval hall. Photo courtesy of Ad Gefrin.

Juniper, a type of coniferous evergreen, is native to various parts of the northern hemisphere. There are approximately 30 species, but the common European species, Juniperus communis, is described as “a hardy spreading shrub or low tree, having awl-shaped prickly leaves and bluish-black or purple berries, with a pungent taste.”[4] These berries form the base of gin’s distinctive botanical flavor, which the Craft Gin Club aptly describes as “[r]esinous, piney and fresh on the palate and nose.”[5]

Juniper berries begin green but adopt a deeper blue to purple-black color as they mature. Common juniper is native to most of the northern hemisphere, including the United Kingdom. According to the Woodland Trust, the plant “thrives on chalk lowland, moorland, in rocky areas and old native-pine woodland” and functions as a source of food and shelter for a variety of birds.

The Anglo-Saxons recognized juniper primarily for its medicinal properties. Its Old English name was cwic-beam, which literally translates to “life-tree.”[6] In the Old English Herbarium, a popular medieval treatise dedicated to the identification and application of plants, juniper is listed as sabine or savine in accordance with its Latin name, Juniperus sabina. As a compilation and translation of originally separate Latin treatises, the Herbarium employs Latin alongside English, much in the same way modern medical textbooks maintain Latin terminology for conditions that are then described in English.

The treatise indicates that juniper can be used to treat “painful joints and foot swelling,” “headache,” and “carbuncles.”[7] In the first instance, the treatise advises that the plant be concocted into a drink; the entry reads: “For the king’s disease, which is called aurignem in Latin and means painful joints and foot swelling in our language, take this plant, which is called sabinam, and by another name like it, savine, give it to drink with honey. It will relieve the pain. It does the same thing mixed with wine.”[8] Here, the king’s disease – in Old English, “wiþ þa cynelican adle”– likely refers to jaundice related to gout.[9] For the treatment of headache, the plant was to be mixed into a kind of poultice and applied to the head and temples.[10] In the case of carbuncles, which refer to a cluster of boils, the plant would be made into a honey-based salve and applied to the infected area.[11]    

Entries for chamomile and heart clover in the only surviving illustrated Old English herbal, a book that primarily describes plants and their applications. As the British Library notes, “Remedies for poisonous bites were marked out with drawings of snakes and scorpions.” The manuscript, produced in England and dated 1000-1025, also contains information on animals and their medicinal properties, though not all of its contents are reliable. (British Library, Cotton MS Vitellius C III, f. 29v).

While juniper was available to the Anglo-Saxons, even in drinking form, distilling was not. In fact, distilled liquors were virtually unknown in medieval England.[12] Rather than spirits, the early medieval English drank beer and mead.

According to John Burnett, “Beer was probably the first drink deliberately made by man.”[13] In his book, Liquid Pleasures: A Social History of Drinks in Modern Britain, Burnett explains that beer brewed from fermented barley has been recorded as far back as the third millennium B.C. in the Bronze Age civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and beer production became common across Europe during the Celtic Iron Age.[14] In its earliest use, the Old English beor, “beer,” likely referred to any type of alcohol produced through fermentation, though it appears have been distinct from the less frequently used ealu, “ale.”[15] Beor may have referred to drinks brewed from malt, while ealu may have been a sweeter and stronger drink.[16] These terms may also have been used interchangeably until hops were introduced much later in the medieval period.[17]

The introduction of hops to the brewing process distinguished ale from beer; it also displaced women as the primary producers of the beverage. As A. Lynn Martin explains, “In England ale brewing was a domestic industry dominated by alewives. Their brew was usually sweet, sometimes flavored with herbs and spices, and spoiled if not consumed within several days. The addition of hops created a bitter drink that was stronger and lasted longer than ale.”[18]

Mead, however, was the predominant drink of the Anglo-Saxons and was made by fermenting a mixture of honey and water. The Old English word for “mead” is the same for “meadow”: medu, effectively evoking the beverage’s connection to the flowers and bees essential for the production of honey and, in turn, mead. The plant now known as meadowsweet, or medu-wyrt in Old English, was also sometimes used to flavor the drink.[19]

Additionally, the Anglo-Saxon hall was commonly called the medu-hall, or “mead hall,” indicating not only a primary attribute of the hall but also the centrality of the drink to Anglo-Saxon culture. The hall was an integral part of early medieval English society and functioned as a space for social and political discourse, as well as communal gatherings and feasting celebrations. Indeed, the speaker of the Old English elegy known as The Seafarer describes his loneliness in relation to the absent sounds of the hall, which function as a synecdoche for the communal bonds he craves: “A seagull singing instead of men laughing, / A mew’s music instead of meadhall drinking.”[20]  

Dated to the 5th century, this glass Anglo-Saxon drinking vessel, known as the Castle Eden Claw Beaker, was found at Castle Eden in Durham, England. The object is currently on display at Ad Gefrin’s Wooler Museum, on loan from the British Museum, and returned to the North East after more than 30 years. Photo credit Sally Ann Norman, courtesy of Ad Gefrin.

Because honey was used for a variety of purposes, including the making of both mead and medicine, beekeeping was also an important part of Anglo-Saxon society. In fact, sugar was not produced in medieval England, so honey was the primary sweetener, which is why it appears so frequently in culinary and medical recipes alike. The Old English “Charm for a Swarm of Bees,” a metrical incantation, serves as evidence of honey’s necessity. Essentially, the charm is a magic spell meant to entice a swarm of bees to a keeper and encourage them to remain:  

Charm for a Swarm of Bees

For a swarm of bees, take earth and throw it down with your right
hand under your right foot, saying:

I catch it under foot—under foot I find it.
Look! Earth has power over all creatures,
Over grudges, over malice, over evil rites,
Over even the mighty, slanderous tongue of man.

Afterwards as they swarm, throw earth over them, saying:

Settle down, little victory-women, down on earth—
Stay home, never fly wild to the woods.
Be wise and mindful of my benefit,
As every man remembers his hearth and home,
His life and land, his meat and drink.[21]

Eventually, mead went by the wayside, and wine became the more popular drink near the end of the Anglo-Saxon period – at least among the wealthy. As Burnett points out, while the consumption of wine was relatively high throughout the Middle Ages, “it never rivalled beer as the drink of the masses.”[22] 

By the 16th century, distilled drinks were “beginning to be served together with sweetmeats at the end of banquets as pleasurable, stimulating aids to digestion.”[23] Distillation describes the process of heating a liquid into a vapor, which is then condensed into a pure essence, and the procedure may have been known to the Chinese as early as 1,000 B.C.[24] Burnett explains that the “the requisite knowledge was brought to the West either by the Cathars or by returning Crusaders, who had seen distillation practised by Arab alchemists. A coded recipe for ‘aqua ardens’ appeared in a French monastic tract about 1190 alongside one for artificial gold, and through the medieval world spirits were regarded as mysterious, even magical, substances, used only medicinally for their stimulating, reviving qualities.”[25]

He continues: “English records of ‘aqua vitae’ distilled from wine appear in the fourteenth century, when it was made by monks and apothecaries, and became more widely known during the Black Death (1348-9) as a warming prophylactic. Spirits were also redistilled with herbs and flowers from the physic gardens of monasteries to make a variety of liqueurs with therapeutic properties, while in private households spirit-based ‘cordials’ were recommended for the treatment of palsey, the plague, smallpox, apoplexy, ague and other diseases.”[26]

Gin, from the Dutch genever, or “juniper,” because it was distilled with the plant’s berries, started being imported into England from the Netherlands during the late 16th century. The original product was “a highly flavoured, aromatic drink” that is still produced in the Netherlands and typically enjoyed neat.[27] By the mid-18th century, however, England had begun producing its own version in London, which was “less coarse and more subtly flavoured.”[28] By this time, spirits were being consumed largely for pleasurable, rather than medicinal, purposes.

While gin and distillation were not known to the Anglo-Saxons, juniper certainly was, and in this way, the spirit’s botanical roots are intertwined with medieval English history.

Emily McLemore, Ph.D.
Alumni Contributor, Department of English
Lecturer, Bishop Grosseteste University (U.K.)

[1] Ad Gefrin, https://adgefrin.co.uk/spirits/gin. Special thanks to Chris Ferguson and Claire Byers from Ad Gefrin for supplying additional information and wonderful photos.

[2] Ad Gefrin, https://adgefrin.co.uk/spirits/gin.

[3] Ad Gefrin, https://adgefrin.co.uk/spirits/gin.

[4] “juniper,” Oxford English Dictionary.

[5] Craft Gin Club, “The Gin Herbarium: A Guide to Herbal Gin Botanicals!,” https://www.craftginclub.co.uk/ginnedmagazine/guide-gin-herb-botanicals.

[6] “cwic-beam,” Bosworth Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.

[7] Anne Van Arsdall, Medieval Herbal Remedies: The Old English Herbarium and Early Medieval Medicine, Routledge (2023), p. 113.

[8] Van Arsdall, Medieval Herbal Remedies, p. 165.

[9] Van Arsdall, Medieval Herbal Remedies, p. 165.

[10] Van Arsdall, Medieval Herbal Remedies, p. 165.

[11] Van Arsdall, Medieval Herbal Remedies, p. 165.

[12] William Edward Mead, The English Medieval Feast, Routledge (2019), p. 123.

[13] John Burnett, Liquid Pleasures: A Social History of Drinks in Modern Britain, Routledge (1999), p. 112.

[14] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 112.

[15] “beer,” Oxford English Dictionary.

[16] “ale,” Oxford English Dictionary.

[17] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 112.

[18] A. Lynn Martin, Alcohol, Sex, and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Palgrave (2001), p. 7.

[19] Emma Kay, Fodder and Drincan: Anglo-Saxon Culinary History, Marion Boyars Publishers, Ltd. (2023), p. 153.

[20] Craig Williamson (translator), The Complete Old English Poems, University of Pennsylvania Press (2017), p. 468.

[21] Williamson (translator), The Complete Old English Poems, p. 1081.

[22] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 142.

[23] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 160.

[24] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 160.

[25] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 160.

[26] Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, p. 160.

[27] “gin,” Oxford English Dictionary.

[28] “gin,” Oxford English Dictionary.

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Why Fortify?  A Short Introduction to Four Byzantine Fortifications in the Maeander Valley

I chose these four fortresses as representations of the observable differences between Byzantine fortified sites.  Not all fortifications were made equal.  Differences lie not only in the choice of how walls and towers are constructed, but also in the placement of these fortified sites in the landscape.  Careful analysis of these features can reveal the underlying assumptions and motivations of the builders.  I have chosen among these four fortifications a military base, a refuge, a center for agricultural exploitation, and a fortified residence within the Maeander River valley.

The Locations of the Fortresses, made by author in QGIS.

Kadıkalesi[1]

Kadıkalesi is a great example of a military fortress likely built and used by the Byzantine armed forces.  The entrances, not just the main one but the two postern entrances too, had a bent gate, which denies an attacker a good view inside the fortress (see Figure 2).  The towers project from the walls and include a larger circular tower which is more resilient to projectiles than a square tower.  Throughout the entire circuit of walls, platforms known as battlements were built for soldiers to be able to view the landscape.  The walls were caped with crenulations, which provided coverage for those soldiers from fire from below (see Figure 3).  This fortress was found on a small hill above a road, about 50 meters above sea level.  On the one hand, this elevation gave the soldiers good visibility of the surrounding countryside, but, on the other, it was low enough that the soldiers could quickly do something about a threat (see Figure 2). 

The Bent Gate of Kadıkalesi, photo by author.
The Battlements of Kadıkalesi, photo by author.

Fındıklı Kalesi[2]

Fındıklı Kalesi was a large fortress on the top of a mountain, enclosing an area of seven hectares at an elevation higher than 600 meters above sea level.  Like Kadıkalesi, the walls were built with military concerns in mind; a series of towers and periodic battlements defend the portions of wall spanning the gaps between rocks, while a double gate fortifies the most vulnerable part of the fortress in the southeast.  The size of the fortress was partly determined by geology; the walls follow the edges of a massive rock outcropping.  Unlike Kadıkalesi, however, the fortress was isolated from the Byzantine roads that cross the mountain and unable to serve in the policing of routes.  I agree with scholars who see Fındıklı Kalesi as a refuge for times of invasion with only a small permanent peacetime population.[3]  This was a fortress, not of lords or soldiers, but of farmers and shepherds, who needed its great size to house flocks of sheep and its isolated location to keep just far enough away from any potential raiders that this ‘bluff in stone’ may appear like a formidable military fortress. 

View North from Inside Fındıklı Kalesi, photo by author.

Mersinet İskelesi[4]

The impressive fortress found on the southern coast of Lake Bafa appears to be a military fort like Kadıkalesi.  The use of blind arches to support the battlements even shows an improvement over the thick walls of Kadıkalesi.  However, I argue that military effectiveness was not the main concern of this fortress.  The defining element of the fortress is a great tower bisected by the enceinte wall.  However, there is no communication between the walls and the tower; anyone stationed in the tower could not advance into the battlements in response to a threat.  Second, the tower does not protrude from the wall, which decreased its visibility and potential range of fire.  While Mersinet İskelesi’s position does provide a good view of the eastern half of Lake Bafa, nearby hills could provide a better view.  Instead, this fortress has more in common with the isolated towers found around Lake Bafa and in the wider Maeander Valley.  Mersinet İskelesi is an isolated tower with an increased budget.  I suspect that this fortress and the other towers have something to do with the exploitation of agricultural estates as these towers lie at the edge of the most plentiful area of farmable land adjacent to Lake Bafa, even if this fortress is usually interpreted as a fortified monastery[5] or military base.[6] 

View of Tower of Mersinet İskelesi from Lake Bafa, photo by author.
Central Tower of Mersinet İskelesi from inside the Fortress, photo by author.

The Monastery of Stylos[7]

The final fortress is the monastery of Stylos.  Its walls aided the defense of a community which resided in isolated places like a type of fortified residence.  However, this monastery was never intended to operate like a military fortress.  For instance, the battlements were limited to walls located at known entrances on the north and south side.  They were only interested in watching visitors who intended to use a proper gate and not in observing the wider region.  Nor was it a refuge.  While the monastery was deep in its mountain like Fındıklı Kalesi, Stylos is near a branch of an ancient road network, which gives the monastery a greater ability to interact with others on and off the mountain.  Finally, the division of interior fortification betrays a uniquely monastic concern: the proper veneration of the founder of the monastery.  The inner bastion of the monastery contains the hermitage of Saint Paul the Younger cut in a tower of rock and decorated with a painted program of religious images (see Figures 6 and 7).  I suspect the fortification of the hermitage likely served to encourage the veneration of their founder and to connect that founder with the builder of the walls, likely Christodoulos of Latros who would go on to found the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos.  Whatever the purpose of the inner gate was, it is hard to imagine it served the defense of the monastery. 

The Inner Gate of Stylos Leading to the Hermitage, photo by author.
View of the Hermitage of Saint Paul the Younger, photo by author.

Tyler Wolford, PhD
Byzantine Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship
Medieval Institute
University of Notre Dame

[1] Wolfgang Müller-Wiener, “Mittelalterliche Befestigungen im südlichen Jonien,” IstMitt 11 (1961): 19-23.

[2] Hans Lohmann et al., Survey in der Mykale 1, Bonn: Rudolf Habelt, 2014-2017, II.510-513 (MYK 65).

[3] Jesko Fildhuth, Das byzantinische Priene, Berlin: DAI, 2017, 96-98; for an opposing view see Lohmann et al., Survey in der Mykale, I.284-290.

[4] Müller-Wiener, “Mittelalterliche Befestigungen,” 17-19.

[5] Urs Peschlow, “Latmos,” Reallexikon zur byzantinischen Kunst 5 (1995): 695-696.  

[6] Müller-Wiener, “Mittelalterliche Befestigungen,” 18-19.

[7] Theodor Wiegand, Der Latmos, Milet III.1, Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1913, 61-72.

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Notaries in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland

In June of 2023, I arranged to meet my friend and fellow historian Caoimhe Whelan for a short breakfast during one of my rare trips to Ireland. I had given the rest of the day over to research, a concession of one day in what was supposed to be a family holiday. At breakfast, Caoimhe introduced me to Stuart Kinsella, Christ Church Cathedral’s Research Advisor; he was chasing down the scribes and notaries of the Cathedral’s later medieval manuscripts, and had run across a few pages at the back of my dissertation – an appendix cataloguing all of the notaries I had found in the process of investigating the life and career of Anglo-Irish author and notary James Yonge. In introducing me to Stuart, Caoimhe inadvertently cancelled my vacation. Breakfast was consumed. We talked. We ordered coffee. Stuart got out his carefully compiled list of notaries. We talked some more. Soon we were ordering lunch. We compared images, debated the merits of early 20th-century drawings of documents lost in a catastrophic 1922 fire a half mile from where we sat, and began making plans. By the end of the morning, we had explored several possibilities for a project far wider than my study of James Yonge or Stuart’s study of Christ Church scribes and notaries. Every spare moment I could get for the rest of my time in Ireland was given over to notaries. (Caoimhe would go on to destroy my summer holidays the following year with a grainy image of a notarial signum taken at Sarah Graham’s lecture at Leeds, but that is a tale for another time.)

            Notaries were specialized legal scribes used principally by the ecclesiastical courts to record proceedings and produce official documents. Notaries could be found in every corner of medieval and early modern Europe, and were particularly prevalent on the Italian and Iberian peninsulas where they also played a role in civil courts. In England and English-controlled Ireland, English civil law did not provide for notaries, and as a result they were far fewer in number. Notaries found their way, however, into civil procedures, particularly in cases where an official witness was needed. Notaries not associated with the church were paid by laypeople to produce documents that might be helpful in future cases in the ecclesiastical courts, particularly those regarding marriage or legitimacy.[1] In Anglo-Ireland, these specialized scribes also created new, authenticated copies of documents that had become faded or damaged. Notaries also served as official witnesses in disputes, creating documents functioning similarly to a sworn deposition; their instruments record in a matter-of-fact way dramatic moments in the lives of ordinary people. For instance, a 1406 instrument of James Yonge records that Robert Burnell wanted John Lytill to place his seal on some documents; Lytill refused, and Burnell responded by seizing Lytill in a Dublin street and holding him hostage until he acquiesced.[2] Another instrument by Thomas Baghill records an attempt to interfere in a will. On his deathbed, William Moenes was approached by his brother, Robert, who attempted to claim William’s property, despite the objections of William himself, who even in his extremity protested that he wished his property to go to his uncle’s daughters.[3] Both of these instruments were probably intended for later use in civil cases regarding the disposition of property.

            Notarial instruments are most easily identified by their signa. Each notary developed his own unique signum manuale, a pen-and-ink drawing that he used to authenticate the documents he created. These frequently looked like altar crosses. During the Tudor period, notarial signa became panels of knotwork.

Signum manuale of William Walch (fl. 1525-1538) on a document created in 1525 in the Waterford area and now housed at the National Library of Ireland, D.2129. Image courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.

Once developed, a notary’s signum remained fixed; he would use the same signum for the rest of his career. On an instrument, the signum manuale is also accompanied by an eschatocol, a formulaic attestation that the notary has heard and witnessed what is recorded in the document and that the contents are true to the best of the notary’s knowledge. Eschatocols frequently begin with an E that can be quite plain or highly ornamented, depending on the notary. Again, notaries’ Es tended to remain somewhat fixed. The signum and eschatocol provide a key to identifying a notary’s handwriting in other contexts. For instance, James Yonge was also the scribe of over one hundred surviving documents, signed and unsigned. Notary William Somerwell, who worked for the archbishops of Armagh, was also one of the principal contributors to the registers of archbishops Nicholas Fleming (1404-1416), John Swayne (1418-1439), John Prene (1449-1453), and John Mey (1443-1456).

Signum manuale of William Somerwell (fl.1422-1459), on a document bound into the Registrum Iohannis Mey, PRONI DIO 4/2/6, Book 3, fol. 393, reproduced by permission of the Deputy Keeper of Records, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI).

Signa have also been instrumental in identifying groups of notaries. For instance, James Yonge’s student Thomas Baghill borrowed portions of his master’s signum when developing his own.[4]

Signum manuale of James Yonge (fl. 1404-1438), deeds of the Guild of St. Anne, Royal Irish Academy 12.S.22–31, no. 343 (12 December 1432). By permission of the Royal Irish Academy © RIA.
Signum manuale of Thomas Baghill (fl.1419-1439). Note Baghill’s imitation of Yonge’s cross outline. Deeds of the Guild of St. Anne, Royal Irish Academy 12.S.22-31, no. 253 (27 January 1431). By permission of the Royal Irish Academy © RIA.

We’ve also discovered signa in contexts outside of notarial instruments. Of particular note is the signum of an as-yet-unidentified notary in the margins of a Hiberno English translation of Gerald of Wales’ Expugnatio Hibernica.[5]

Our survey of Anglo-Irish notaries is still in its infancy, and we are seeking sources of funding. We are currently trying to document as many notaries from medieval and early modern Ireland as possible as an entry into a larger exploration of notaries’ training, scribal networks, and documents. We hope to create a searchable online database of notarial marks and scribal hands for Ireland as a starting point for a more extensive resource cataloging the marks of medieval and early modern notaries of the British Isles. We would also love to see a future collaborative database of European notaries.

            Ian Doyle once wrote of palaeography that “the jigsaw puzzle we are all working on is so big that it may need the help of every eye to try to fit a piece in it.”[6] We believe the same is true of medieval and early modern notaries. This is where you, dear reader, come in. We heartily invite researchers in any area of medieval and early modern Europe to let us know about any notaries or notarial signa you encounter in your own research. The project’s email address is notarius.ie@gmail.com. We welcome your comments and contributions!

Theresa O’Byrne

Associate Researcher, Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland

Latin and history instructor, Delbarton School

[1] C.R. Cheney, Notaries Public in England in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972, p. 56; Patrick Zutshi, “Notaries Public in England in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” Historia, Instituciones, Documentos 23 (1996), pp. 421-33, at p. 426.

[2] Trinity College Dublin MS 1477, no. 69, 16 March 1406.

[3] Royal Irish Academy 12.S.22-31, no. 826, 17 April 1434.

[4] Theresa O’Byrne, “Notarial Signs and Scribal Training in the Fifteenth Century: The Case of James Yonge and Thomas Baghill,” Journal of the Early Book Society 15 (2012): 305–18.

[5] Trinity College Dublin MS 592, fol. 6v.

[6] A.I. Doyle, ‘Retrospect and Prospect’, in Manuscripts and Readers in Fifteenth-Century England, ed. D. Pearsall (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 142–6 (pp. 145–6).