(26-03-2017, 01:25 PM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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.

I don't know how available they were in relation to each other. I know that alchemists and painters used the toxic cinnabar in the middle ages, but so far I don't have the impression that it was cheap or easy to get.

Vegetable cinnabar, dragon's blood, may have come from a variety of sources, since quite a number of plants give red sap and medieval merchants frequently made substitutions (e.g., false saffron for the more expensive real saffron), but the ancient cinnabar was Dracaena draco, which they may have imported into Spain via Morocco.


Mercury was a very common medicine until fairly recently. Even in the early 20th century, they were using it to treat syphilis, so it's very hard to know, when a recipe calls for a toxic substance, whether they mean one that is toxic or a nontoxic substance by the same name.
 
Vegetable cinnabar (Dracaena resin) isn't benign either. It contains a couple of substances that one probably shouldn't put in one's body and the seeds of the plant are toxic.

There is still no agreement, whether the "miltos" is red ochre, minium, cinnabar or a generic term for them.
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(26-03-2017, 07:38 PM)Searcher Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is still no agreement, whether the "miltos" is red ochre, minium, cinnabar or a generic term for them.

What red ochre, "minium", and "cinnabar" have in common is that they are hard reddish substances that are ground into powder in preparation for use, usually as pigments and medicinal concoctions.

So... the term "miltos" may have been used somewhat generically in much the same way as we use the word "curry" to describe a wide range of spice mixtures.

Why should we search for "miltos", while what is written is not "miltos"? There are simply too many strokes for it to be "miltos", are not there?

(27-03-2017, 09:04 AM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why should we search for "miltos", while what is written is not "miltos"? There are simply too many strokes for it to be "miltos", are not there?

I could be wrong, but I think that extra tick at the beginning of the "m" might be a joining stroke between the plus sign and the m. The letter between the first letter and the ell looks more like an "i" than a "u" (the scribe doesn't always dot the "i"). It might be "multos", I've even interpreted it that way sometimes, but I'm leaning slightly toward miltos:


   

Note how the "m" in morix has the long extra beginning stroke. And how the "i" in anchiton and morix leans back (like the i-shape in miltos) and has a long beginning stroke at the top-left. Anchiton barely has a dot on the "i" and morix doesn't have one. It could also be "milcos". One can never be certain about "t" and "c" except by context in many medieval documents.

If there is a "u" in there (it doesn't really look like a "u", but if it is...), then mulcos is also possible, which is also a Latin word.

If you play with contrast and tone you'll see that it is not an extra tick, but a full featured stroke extending downwards to the baseline.

(27-03-2017, 03:05 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If you play with contrast and tone you'll see that it is not an extra tick, but a full featured stroke extending downwards to the baseline.

Looking at it that way, and considering the way he writes an "i", it looks more like imiltos imil tos or imilcos imil cos which... I can't make any sense of.

Dioscorides mentions  Amiantos, Asbe(s)tos and Miltos in his You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Amiantos and Asbe(s)tos here are different stones.
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p. 106 Amiantos - Alumen plume, Salamandra lapis, Alumbre de pluma.
p. 91 Asbetos - Calx viva, Orach, Cal viva, Chaul viva
p.69 Miltos - Terra Lemnie, Miltos tectonici, Rubrica Sinopica, Almagre, Almanguena

(21-04-2016, 10:50 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
Of course, this deserves a serious study, and I agree that a true paleographer would save us a lot of trouble!

...

Paleographers disagree with each other almost as often as researchers on this forum. And not every paleographer is good at languages (or knows a specific language).

Also, it's such a broad field (thousands of years, thousands of regional styles)—they have to specialize. Many paleographers who can read Carolingian struggle with Gothic cursive, especially if it's heavily abbreviated.


It gets even more complicated when it's macaronic language with constant context-switching, especially if there aren't enough letters in each word or phrase to know which language is meant.

(27-03-2017, 03:05 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If you play with contrast and tone you'll see that it is not an extra tick, but a full featured stroke extending downwards to the baseline.

Anton, I've been going through my sample library and I've found an example of a hand that writes a u/v in the normal way at the beginnings of words, but sometimes (not always) writes them like an "n" or "m" (with the loops at the top rather than the bottom) when it's near the end of a word (and inconsistently dots or doesn't dot the "i").

This isn't especially common, which is why I was not considering it a strong possibility on 116v but... I mention it because it means "n" or "m" in a Gothic cursive hand can sometimes be "u".