The Voynich Ninja

Mainly for people who have heard about bathing literature and the 'Salernitan' school but not seen much of the texts. 

In about c.1474, a work credited to Arnauld of Villanova is known as the  Salernitan Rule of Health (often called 'Flos medicinae' or 'Lilium medicinae' ) and has a bit about bathing in it. An early print edition of the Latin text, entitled Regimen sanitatis ad regem Aragonum is available (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. )

This Regimen... is supposed to be that of the Salerno Medical School but in the parallel translation, at least, the paragraph about bathing is preceded by a curious paragraph about coffee -  "curious" because in 1474  coffee wasn't called coffee yet and was unknown in Europe.  A parallel translation of that paragraph (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

In about the thirteenth century coffee was being drunk in the Yemen as stimulant, much as soma (ephedra) had earlier been used around the border of Persia and northern India; but it would be fully four hundred years more until coffee was used in Europe - according to the Cambridge World History of Food (Vol.2).

Quoting the Oxford English Dictionary , the wiki article says:

Quote:The word "coffee" entered the English language in 1582 via the Dutch koffie,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. borrowed from the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. kahve, in turn borrowed from the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. qahwah (قهوة).

So what does that imply about the source and date for the work attributed to Villanova, and for the same work's 'bathing' section? 

It's easy to think of excuses/reasons/theories.. e.g.

*the nineteenth-century translator misread/misunderstood the Latin;  * the coffee paragraph was interpolated from Rhazes (not so likely because he called it bunchum  which a Latin of Europe wouldn't have known meant coffee, even in 1474);  *the coffee paragraph was included by Arnaud on the advice of immigrants who had come from somewhere a good deal further to the east than Salerno;  

The last is certainly posssible, given a number of other works (including the Vms) which reveal a line of transmission between the Yemen and Spain or southern France.  

But then, if an east-to-west transmission might (maybe) bring knowledge of coffee westwards by 1474 - if the paragraph is original - then should be suppose the same for the 'ladies'? 

Does that mean the word 'coffee' was known to Arnauld? Really? 

Here's the  bathing section of the work - not much to it.

Old maps of the world often show a line of European castles stretching into Ethiopia and concerted exploration of the area was occurring by the mid-1400s.

I suspect that coffee, which is native to Ethiopia, probably came into Europe via this route before it was regularly imported from the Yemen regions. It probably wasn't roasted coffee (I think the Arabs may have originated the roasting process, but I haven't looked into it).


I am almost certain I have seen the coffee plant, labeled, in at least one or two of the 15th-century herbal manuscripts, but I can't remember the exact dates—I would have to look them up—it might be later in the century rather than earlier.

There are many theories about the origin of the name, probably because the word is somewhat similar in many languages. Some say it comes from the Arabic, others that it comes from the name of one of the coffee regions in Ethiopia (Kaffa). Interestingly, it is pronounced "kaffa" (or close to that) in some languages.

Interesting.
I did not know much about the history of coffee (drinking).

It seems indeed that the effects of coffee were already known to the Salernitan school.

However, this description:

Quote:§ 8. Coffaeum.

Impedit atque facit somnos, capitisque dolores

Tollere Coffaeum novit, stomachiquo vapores;

Urinare facit; crebro muliebria movit;

Hoc cape selectum validum, mediocriter ustum

is not to be found anywhere near the descriptions of the advantages of bathing.
The preceding section says:

Quote:§ 7. Cerevisia

Non sit acetosa cerevisia, sed bene clara,

De validis cocta granis satis ac veterata,

De qua potetur, stomachus non inde gravetur.

Grossos humores nutrit cerevisia, virces,

Praestat, et augmentat carnem, generatque cruorem,

Provocat urinam, ventrem quoque mollit et inflat.

The description of coffee follows the description of beer.

The following sections are about "Acetum" and "Liquores e pomo et e piro".