Abstract
Plant remains from the 15th century drains at Paisley Abbey, Scotland include medicinal plants which may have grown in the abbey's physic garden. They are Chelidonium majus, Conium maculatum, Euphorbia lathyris, and Papaver somniferum. Plants with both medicinal and culinary uses are Rumex pseudoalpinus and cf Armoracia rusticana. Other vegetables are represented by Allium sp. and Brassica spp. Malus domestica and Prunus domestica ssp. insititia would have been grown in the abbey's orchard. Juglans regia, represented by nut and wood fragments, was either grown in the orchard or imported. Ficus carica was certainly imported as dried fruit from the Mediterranean region. Myristica fragrans as mace came from Indonesia. Locally grown plants are Avena strigosa, Hordeum, Triticum/Secale, Linum usitatissimum and the dye plant Reseda luteola. It is known that spices and other foodstuffs were purchased at fairs at Berry, Bruges and Antwerp and imported into Scotland at the end of the 15th century.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Austin T (ed) (1888) Two fifteenth century cookery-books. The Early English Text Society 91, London
Comrie JD (1932) History of Scottish medicine, vol 1, 2nd ed. The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, London
Čulíková V (1994) Nález zbytku plodu muškátovníku vonnégho (Myristica fragrans Houtt.) V Berouné. Archaeol Rozhledy 46: 252–254
Dawson WR (1934) A leechbook or collection of medical recipes of the 15th century. Macmillan, London
Dickson C (1990) Experimental processing and cooking of emmer and spelt wheats and the Roman army diet. In: Robinson D (ed) Experimentation and reconstruction in environmental archaeology. Oxbow, Oxford, pp 33–39
Dickson C (1994) Macroscopic fossils of garden plants from British Roman and medieval Deposits. In: Moe D, Dickson JH, Jørgensen PM (eds) Garden history: species, forms and varieties from Pompeii to 1800. PACT 42: 47–72
Dickson JH, Gauld WJ (1987) Mark Jameson's physic plants, a sixteenth century garden for gynaecology in Glasgow? Scott Med J 32: 60–62
Duncan AMM (1975) Scotland: The making of the kingdom. vol 1. Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh
Fraser MJ (1981) A study of the botanical material from three medieval Scottish sites. Master of Science Thesis, University of Glasgow
Gerard J (1633) The Herbal: or, general history of plants. Enlarged and amended by T Johnson, (facsimile edition 1975, Dover, New York)
Hajlanová E (1985) New palaeobotanical finds from medieval towns in Slovakia. Slovensk Archaeol 32: 399–438
Harvey J (1981) Mediaeval gardens. Batsford, London
Harvey JH (1992) Westminster Abbey: the infirmarer's garden. Garden Hist 20(2): 97–119
Innes C (1860) Scotland in the middle ages. Edmonston and Douglas, Edinburgh
Jensen HA (1985) Catalogue of late- and post-glacial macrofossils of Spermatophyta from Denmark, Schleswig, Scania, Halland and Blekinge dated 13,000 BP to 1536 A.D. Danmarks Geol Unders Række A 6: 1–95
Jensen HA (1986) Seeds and other diaspores in soil samples from Danish town and monastery excavations, dated 700–1536 A.D. Biol Skrift 26: 1–107
Kenward HK and Hall AR (1995) Biological evidence from Anglo-Scandinavian deposits at 16–22 Coppergate. Archaeol York 14(7)
Lees JC (1978) The Abbey of Paisley. Gardner, Paisley
Lousley JE and Kent DH (1981) Docks and knotweeds of the British Isles. Botanical Society of the British Isles, London
Moffat B (1992) The fourth report on researches into the medieval hospital at Soutra, Lothian/Borders region, Scotland. Sharp Practice 4, Moffat, Edinburgh
Robinson DE (1987) The botanical remains. In: Holdsworth P (ed) Excavations in the medieval burgh of Perth 1979–1981, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Edinburgh
Robinson D, Krongaard Kristensen H and Boldsen I (1992) Botanical analyses from Viborg Sondersø: a waterlogged urban site from the Viking period. Acta Archaeol 62 (for 1991): 59–87
Robinson M (1985) Plant and invertebrate remains from the priory drains. In: Lambrick G, Further excavations on the second site of the Dominican Priory. Oxoniensia 50: 196–201
Smith AJE (1978) The moss flora of Britain and Ireland. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Stace CA (1991) New flora of the British Isles. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Tomlinson P (1991) Vegetative plant remains from waterlogged deposits identified at York. In: Renfrew JM (ed) New light on early farming. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp 109–119
Wiethold J (1995) Plant remains from town-moats and cesspits of medieval and post-Medieval Kiel (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany). In: Kroll H, Pasternak R (eds) Res Archaeobotanicae, 9th Symposium IWGP. Oetke-Voge, Kiel, pp 359–384
Winton AL (1916) Microscopy of vegetable foods. 2nd edn. Wiley, London
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dickson, C. Food, medicinal and other plants from the 15th century drains of Paisley Abbey, Scotland. Veget Hist Archaebot 5, 25–31 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00189432
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00189432