Skip to main content
SearchLoginLogin or Signup

Women’s Continuation of Natural Remedies Through the Enlightenment Period

Despite the Enlightenment period bringing forth new ideas of skepticism, reason, and scientific knowledge, women and individuals continued to cling to natural remedies passed down in recipe books from generation to generation.

Published onApr 25, 2023
Women’s Continuation of Natural Remedies Through the Enlightenment Period
·

Introduction

In early modern Europe, much of women’s knowledge, not just of cooking but of natural remedies, was recorded in recipe books and passed down from generation to generation to continue passing this learned knowledge along. During the witch trials that swept across the age of the Enlightenment Europe however, things such as natural remedies managed to fall under the umbrella of witchcraft. Within this respect, it could be assumed that after the era of witch trials began to subside, women and others would stop practicing as well as recording natural recipes and remedies that could fall under the category of witchcraft. Even more so, one would imagine that during the period of the Enlightenment- which quickly followed the witch craze of this time and placed incredible emphasis on reasoning and knowledge for which to prove observations- would begin to place practices such as natural remedies as more obsolete. This, however, is not what an analysis of a broad range of information demonstrates. Instead, the opposite can be seen after looking at a comprehensive array of both primary and secondary sources.

While some originally framed the Enlightenment as “the disenchantment of the world,”1 disregarding passed down ideas of natural remedies such as healing magic, the opposite can in fact be stated. While traditional ideas of witchcraft and demonology did eventually start to wane under the Enlightenment and this period of reason and skepticism, there was a “continuation of magical belief.”2 This demonstrated that the Enlightenment period did not force the stopping of shared knowledge from women and families to other individuals, women, and generations through the use of natural remedies, particularly through recipe books where they stored and passed down their knowledge. Even through the Enlightenment when a new ideology of reason and scientific knowledge was sweeping across Europe, women and other individuals clung to older practices and ideas that placed emphasis on shared knowledge and natural remedies.

Natural Remedies in Connection with the Witch Crisis

To begin with, there were classical ideas of magical healing and love magic which can be considered natural remedies now, but during the witch crisis, they ultimately were seen as forms of witchcraft. One healing ritual that was meant to help a child was recorded as needing to split a tree and then pass the child through three times while reading out loud from a specific Gospel text. 3 This ultimately ended with the suspect being found guilty of witchcraft. Another example placed an older woman that was charged with witchcraft as she had been performing multiple natural remedies that involved herbs, ointments, as well as more religious aspects, however she was eventually determined to be a “superstitious healer.”4 Both of these examples help to demonstrate the deeply suspicious nature that was rooted during this period in Europe even regarding such natural, herbal remedies like these.

In the case of love magic, while these types of “remedies” and charms were passed down and could still be considered a natural remedy, they were quite often connected to more of a religious ideology as some people conducting love magic drew on orthodox ceremonies or powers from saints through baptisms or masses.5 This was particularly prevalent during the Inquisition, in many of these previously stated cases in the late sixteenth century leading up to the Enlightenment period. These types of natural remedies/witchcraft were started to be rooted out and were seen either as witchcraft or just plain superstition. It is important to note however, that these remedies were not particularly magical in any way or “witchcraft” but were instead just simple herbal and natural remedies that people had been accustomed to using. As research will begin to demonstrate, the Enlightenment period ultimately failed at completely rooting out these classical herbal and natural medicinal ideas and practices. 

The Continuation of Natural Remedies Through Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was focused on concepts of reasoning emphasizing rationality, scientific knowledge, and understanding. However, Michael Lynn argues that,

“intellectual justification for natural and judicial magic faded over the course of the seventeenth century, practices and ideas about magic did not subsequently disappear during the eighteenth century simply to be rediscovered in the nineteenth century by those interested in reviving and romanticizing the past.”6

While the witch craze was over, natural traditions- whether through recipes, superstitions, or actions- were still very much present in Europe. Despite these new ideas being presented through the Enlightenment, individuals were still deeply rooted to the traditions and knowledge of the past.

In one instance, Scotland demonstrated this very idea as they were a community, particularly in the Highlands, that held very superstitious ideals and beliefs. People relied on more natural, magical recipes such as pouring water on a certain crystal to prevent cows from getting diseases or binding a woman's leg with the skin of a snake once she is in labor to help it go quickly.7 Magical/natural remedies such as these were being recorded well into the Enlightenment period and beyond it, which helps to establish that “magic and witchcraft therefore constituted the scenery… of everyone’s life during the eighteenth century as much as it had ever done in the seventeenth or sixteenth.”8 While there was an overwhelming change and focus towards more rationality of knowledge with the Enlightenment period, this information helps to demonstrate that it was impossible to completely remove the influence of ideas and beliefs of magic. This connection with the natural and spiritual world continued to remain deeply rooted in people’s everyday life. 

Turning then from simply the continuation of the ideas of magic and witchcraft persevering past the witch crisis and through the Enlightenment period, there is a connection one can draw then towards women and the continuation of their own natural recipes which could often be equated with witchcraft. Despite the Enlightenment bringing forth a host of new scientific knowledge that was then used to propel modern medicine forwards, women and families still often carried out the tradition of more natural remedies which more often than not, had been passed along through the use of recipe/receit books. These books, while very rooted in cookery and household knowledge, also contained extensive medical knowledge that combined their natural knowledge and understanding of cooking recipes. These recipe books “can be considered the first genre of women's medical writing [and] presented a major shift in the role that literacy played within domestic medical traditions.”9  

What is most interesting however, is that even while what was considered medical knowledge during this time was expanding and becoming much more rational and scientific, the recipes within these recipe books were mostly rooted in more natural remedies. While these remedies were no less “medical” than a surgical or rational approach such as what was becoming more common throughout the Enlightenment period, they could be seen as much more natural- much like the natural healing remedies that people had been previously used which led them to be accused of witchcraft. 

Representation of Natural Remedies through Recipe Books

One such example of a natural remedy being presented in a recipe book during this period of the Enlightenment comes from an early 18th century English recipe book. The natural recipe is titled “a receit to cure a cough of the lungs.”10 The recipe includes ingredients such as fox lungs, root liquorish powder, and grated nutmegs as it states to take: 

“Too ounces of fox lungs in powder too ounces of alicompain roots in powder 4 ounces of whight Sugar Candy in powder six peny worth of lyquorish powder & grated nutmegs mix them together & take a spoonfull in [...] of bear & take every morning and fast an hour.”11

This recipe (pictured above) originated from a recipe book from the 18th century during and perhaps after the height of the Enlightenment period. Yet, it is just a simple natural remedy that a woman had experimented with and written down so as to keep passing down or potentially, had already received this recipe as a pass down from another woman or family member and decided to keep it due to its effectiveness. 

These ingredients in the recipe are also important to note as they can be distinctly connected to classical ideas of herbal and natural medicine that fell more under ideas of healing magic. Much of the medicinal recipes recorded in these recipe books included herbs and natural sources. Many of these were considered old wives' remedies “but some of them did find their way into the physicians’, and particularly apothecaries.”12 These recipes were not magical or witchcraft, but simple herbal and natural remedies that had been passed down from generation to generation. Recipes such as the one above contained natural herbs and animals that were used more traditionally under the category of healing magic. Yet, instead of magic they were simply medicinal, and were recorded and passed down among women and their families.

“Cures that must have been old-fashioned or superstitious even in the seventeenth century were put pell-mell with sensible herbal medicines, cookery recipes, the family doctor’s recommendations, and items from books and friends.”13

So despite the Enlightenment period, people were still connected to these more natural recipes even if they were old fashioned, as they were passed down from generations, families, and friends who they were connected to. Again, these remedies weren’t particularly witchcraft or superstitious recipes, but were more natural recipes that people were connected to.

In another recipe that was found describing a type of “bitters to be drank with wine,”14 the reflection in the recipes on its uses and successfulness read:

“This is good to tak a glass, to keep any disorder from the Stomach and a Glass taken at going to rest will sweat Out any disorder from cold, & with it I have cured seueral Agues, given it 3 times in a day, at going to rest being always One of the times of takeing it.”15

natural recipe to aid a cold

This image above provides another example of an herbal, natural healing remedy in a woman’s personal recipe book. In this particular recipe, she also uniquely offers her own experience in using this recipe and its effects in medicinal healing. This recipe also included natural herbs such as wormwood, saffron, roots, and others. Once again, even during this period of Enlightenment, this woman, Dorothy, was still relying on this more natural healing method which she had recorded or had received from someone else. 

In another recipe book that was documented as a family book being passed down from the mother and then to following generations, there is one recipe that is titled a “cure for the toothache,”16 which uses natural techniques to cure something as medicinal as a toothache. While this was a document that was clearly passed down amongst generations, one can imagine that even as this recipe book was passed down and used within a new generation existing during the Enlightenment period, they were still adding on and using natural healing recipes that had long been used and sworn by their family members and other close relations. Once again, despite new ideas of rationality emerging in the Enlightenment period, individuals were still very connected to the recipes of their past that were particularly rooted in natural healing methods.

Conclusion

Overall, while the Enlightenment period did bring about new ideas of rationality and understanding in regards to scientific knowledge, deep rooted traditions of natural remedies, which could be classified as healing magic, managed to endure in daily lives through the continuation of recipe books. While it is safe to say that these recipes which are not truly witchcraft or magical, they were herbal, natural, and much older in comparison to new types of medicine that was beginning to be introduced in the Enlightenment period. Through reflection on multiple recipes that emerged from recipe books from the Enlightenment period, it is clear that throughout this time, people were still connected to these more traditional medicinal recipes and continued to perpetuate the use, documentation, and sharing of them throughout this era of rationality and logic. Shared knowledge of women and families persisted even as the world of science and rationality around them developed.


Comments
0
comment
No comments here
Why not start the discussion?