Yet more fascinating material from the BM...medieval gems

[Venusian Broon]

 

[The Judge]

That was interesting, thanks.

I was at a talk some years back where the lecturer mentioned, almost in passing, that in medieval times precious stones were used in cookery because of their perceived medicinal and magical powers. Like an idiot I didn’t think to corner him afterwards and insist on having more information about it — eg did they put them into the meals by shaving bits off, or just waft them over the food with some kind of blessing ceremony? I’ve never heard or read anything of the kind again, though, so I’m not even sure now whether he was having us all on!

One thing I do know about diamonds, though, is that they weren’t valued as much in Elizabethan times as you might expect given their pre-eminence as precious stones now, because the faceted cuts which give them their brilliance hadn’t been developed, so they weren’t as immediately striking. Elizabeth herself favoured pearls, I think, because of the purity idea, as befitted the Virgin Queen.

 

[Venusian Broon]

From a quick survey of the wisdom of the internet (!)

"Lapidaries listed the medical benefits of particular gems, with "the most common method of medical application" being wearing the stone on one's person in a jewellery setting, for example in a ring. Open-backed settings allowing direct contact between the skin and stone were encouraged; otherwise the stone might simply be held against the skin. Other forms of application included ointments containing ground stones or taking the stone internally in ground form, often as part of a cocktail of several different herbal, mineral and other ingredients; this seems to have become especially often mentioned in the 16th and 17th centuries"

 

[sknox]

I've read much the same as what Venusian Broon reports. I don't know how far back it goes. Much of this sort of thing that gets called medieval is really early modern, dating from the Renaissance (the great age of superstition) and later--the heyday of alchemy. Also, we tend not to get that sort of record surviving from earlier centuries. But by the time we do get documentation, it could very well be reporting ancient folk beliefs, so it's hard to draw reliable conclusions.

 

[Venusian Broon]

The first real documentation of the medicinal use of gemstones, at least in the West - I'm sure there must be other independent texts in Asia - is from Pliny the Elder (BOOK XXXVII. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS STONES.) and I believe it forms the basis for medieval medicinal 'lapidary' texts. See THE IDEA OF LAPIDARY MEDICINE: ITS CIRCULATION AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN ENGLAND: 1000-1750: https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/25823/PDF/1/play/

Pliny's texts - of course he did a great deal more - did survive the fall of Rome and were transmitted to medieval scholars (for example he is discussed in other works over a wide range of times, examples I've found were in the 5th, 7th, and 13th centuries) and could therefore be suggested to form part of the corpus of ancient knowledge that was discussed and used over the entire medieval period. However you want to define the medieval period.

I do not have enough time to ascertain how much of Pliny's knowledge remained intact in these renaissance lapidaries, which is, as you point out, our most documented period, but I think it is possible to argue that it has very ancient roots (at least to 77 CE *) and that some form of medicinal use of gems was practiced.

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*Actually there are hints from at least 315 BCE (see the PhD text I referenced above) in a text by Theophrastus that people ascribed medical properties to stones.

 

[Penny]

I did jewellery back in the day and remember some mention of the use of certain gems in food and medicine, Knowledge about this kind of thing is still around if you find the right people to ask. there are some very old families in the business.

My main interest was chainmail back then