26-03-2017, 01:25 PM
(This post was last modified: 26-03-2017, 01:26 PM by Diane.
Edit Reason: clarity
)
-JKP-
Mineral cinnabar was toxic; the vegetable cinnabar not. The latter was true 'minim' as well as being used in medicine and came from C.cinnabaris - or should have. Shonky salesmen aren't a new thing.
We get classical texts already talking about how second-grade physicians are getting the two sorts confused, and poisoning their patients, but there's no doubt it was possible to get the real thing even in the earlier medieval centuries, and even as far as England, even if supply seems to have been intermittent.
What we can't always be sure of, in the medieval recipes, is what is meant by cinnabar at any given time or in any given region. I mean - you can't be sure from the recipes unless they specify, though cross-referencing with the pigments being used in manuscripts at that time gives a better indication.
Mineral cinnabar was toxic; the vegetable cinnabar not. The latter was true 'minim' as well as being used in medicine and came from C.cinnabaris - or should have. Shonky salesmen aren't a new thing.
We get classical texts already talking about how second-grade physicians are getting the two sorts confused, and poisoning their patients, but there's no doubt it was possible to get the real thing even in the earlier medieval centuries, and even as far as England, even if supply seems to have been intermittent.
What we can't always be sure of, in the medieval recipes, is what is meant by cinnabar at any given time or in any given region. I mean - you can't be sure from the recipes unless they specify, though cross-referencing with the pigments being used in manuscripts at that time gives a better indication.