The east wall of Bolton Priory

We went to Bolton Abbey on Monday and, while the woodland and river banks around the Abbey contain a wealth of useful plantlife, I was especially interested in the east wall of the Priory:



We've been to Bolton Abbey many times in the past, but have never bothered to look inside the Priory. When we did on Monday I was taken aback by these huge plant pictures, which cover the whole of the east wall behind the altar. The shock, for me, was that somebody sometimes associated herbs with Christian religion to such an extent: the paintings totally dominate the small priory. I came home determined to find out more, and found this excellent site which breaks the image down into sections and explains each one.

But these 7 plants are useful and relevant in many more ways than their appearance in the Bible.

The Madonna Lily has the following uses, as identified here, in Mrs M. Grieve's brilliant Modern Herbal:

---Uses---The bulb, only, is now employed for medicinal purposes, having highly demulcent and also somewhat astringent properties.

Bulbs are collected in August, and used both dried and fresh.

Each bulb is composed of imbricated, fleshy scales, lanceolate and curved, about 1 1/2 inch long and rather less than 1/2 inch broad in the centre. It is without odour, but has a peculiar, disagreeable, somewhat bitter and mucilaginous taste.

To dry the scales, strip them off separately and spread them on shelves in a kitchen or other warm room for about ten days, then finish off more quickly in greater heat over a stove or gas fire, or in oven when the fire has just gone out.

The bulb contains a great deal of mucilage and a small proportion of an acrid principle, but the latter it loses by drying, roasting, or boiling; when cooked, the bulb is viscid, pulpy, sweet and sugary and is eaten by many people in the East. The Japanese are said to specially esteem the bulb of this species served with white sauce.

---Medicinal Action and Uses---Demulcent, as tringent. Owing to their highly mucilaginous properties, the bulbs are chiefly employed externally, boiled in milk or water, as emollient cataplasms for tumours, ulcers and external inflammation and have been much used for this purpose in popular practice. The fresh bulb, bruised and applied to hard tumours, softens and ripens them sooner than any other application.

Made into an ointment, the bulbs take away corns and remove the pain and inflammation arising from burns and scalds, which they cure without leaving any scar.
The ointment also had the reputation of being an excellent application to contracted tendons. Gerard tells us:
'The root of the Garden Lily stamped with honey gleweth together sinewes that be cut asunder. It bringeth the hairs again upon places which have been burned or scalded, if it be mingled with oil or grease. . . The root of a white Lily, stamped and strained with wine, and given to drink for two or three days together, expelleth the poison of the pestilence.'
In the fresh state, the bulb is also said to have been employed with advantage in dropsy, for Culpepper (1652), besides confirming the uses of the Lily bulb which Gerard gives, tells us 'the juice of it being tempered with barley meal baked is an excellent cure for the dropsy.'

Combined with Life Root (Senecio aureus), it is recommended in modern herbal practice for healing female complaints generally.

---Dosage---Of infusion, in water or milk, 3 tablespoonsful.

Country people sometimes steep the fresh blooms in spirit and use the liquid as a lotion for bruises in the same manner as Arnica or Calendula.

The bulbs of several other species of Lilies besides those of L. candidum are eaten, as those of L. Kamschatcense, L. Martagon, the Turk's Cap, and L. Pomponium, the Turban or Yellow Martagon, in Siberia. The Chinese and Japanese eat regularly the bulbs of L. tigrinum, the Tiger Lily and the Goldenrayed Lily of Japan, L. auratum.

Barley is a well-known staple crop of course, but it too has medicinal uses. Margaret Grieve again:

---Medicinal Action and Uses---Pearl Barley is used for the preparation of a decoction which is a nutritive and demulcent drink in febrile conditions and in catarrhal affections of the respiratory and urinary organs: barley water is used to dilute cows' milk for young infants, it prevents the formation of hard masses of curd in the stomach. Malt is produced from barley by a process of steeping and drying which develop a ferment 'diatase' needed for the production of alcoholic malt liquors, but in the form of Malt Extract it is largely used in medicine. Vinegar is an acid liquid produced by oxidation of fermented malt wort. Malt vinegar is the only vinegar that should be used medicinally.

---Dosage and Preparation---Barley water. Pearl Barley washed 10 parts, water to 100 parts, boil for 20 minutes, strain. Dose, 1 to 4 oz.

Olive is used in its distilled essence as one of Bach's Flower Remedies, in particular to treat

Those who have suffered much mentally or physically and are so exhausted and weary that they feel they have no more strength to make any effort. Daily life is hard work for them, without pleasure.

And, according to Mrs Grieve:

The leaves are astringent and antiseptic. Internally, a decoction of 2 handsful boiled in a quart of water until reduced to half a pint has been used in the Levant in obstinate fevers. Both leaves and bark have valuable febrifugal qualities.

The oil is a nourishing demulcent and laxative. Externally, it relieves pruritis, the effects of stings or burns, and is a good vehicle for liniments. With alcohol it is a good hair-tonic. As a lubricant it is valuable in skin, muscular, joint, kidney and chest complaints, or abdominal chill, typhoid and scarlet fevers, plague and dropsies. Delicate babies absorb its nourishing properties well through the skin. Its value in worms or gallstones is uncertain.

Internally, it is a laxative and disperser of acids, and a mechanical antidote to irritant poisons. It is often used in enemas. It is the best fat for cooking, and a valuable article of diet for both sick and healthy of all ages. It can easily be taken with milk, orange or lemon juice, etc.

---Dosage---As a laxative, 1 to 2 fluid ounces.

Vine is another Bach Flower Remedy, for:

Very capable people, certain of their own ability, confident of success. Being so assured, they think that it would be for the benefit of others if they could be persuaded to do things as they themselves do, or as they are certain is right. Even in illness they will direct their attendants. They may be of great value in emergency.

And Mrs Grieve has this to say about the medicinal uses of the vine:

Grape sugar differs from other sugars chemically. It enters the circulation without any action of the saliva. The warming and fattening action of grape sugar is thus more rapid in increasing strength and repairing waste in fevers but is unsuitable for inflammatory or gouty conditions.

The seeds and leaves are astringent, the leaves being formerly used to stop haemorrhages and bleeding. They are used dried and powdered as a cure for dysentery in cattle.

The sap, termed a tear or lachryma, forms an excellent lotion for weak eyes and specks on the cornea.

Ripe grapes in quantity influence the kidneys producing a free flow of urine and are apt to cause palpitation in excitable and full-blooded people. Dyspeptic subjects should avoid them.

In cases of anaemia and a state of exhaustion the restorative power of grapes is striking, especially when taken in conjunction with a light nourishing diet.

In cases of small-pox grapes have proved useful owing to their bi-tartrate of potash content; they are also said to be of benefit in cases of neuralgia, sleeplessness, etc.

Three to 6 lb. of grapes a day are taken by people undergoing the 'grape cure,' sufferers from torpid liver and sluggish biliary functions should take them not quite fully ripe, whilst those who require animal heat to support waste of tissue should eat fully ripe and sweet grapes.

Dried grapes; the raisins of commerce, are largely used in the manufacture of galencials, the seeds being separated and rejected as they give a very bitter taste. Raisins are demulcent, nutritive and slightly laxative.

Of the Passionflower, she has this to tell us:

---Medicinal Action and Uses---The drug is known to be a depressant to the motor side of the spinal cord, slightly reducing arterial pressure, though affecting circulation but little, while increasing the rate of respiration. It is official in homoeopathic medicine and used with bromides, it is said to be of great service in epilepsy. Its narcotic properties cause it to be used in diarrhoea and dysentery, neuralgia, sleeplessness and dysmenorrhoea.

---Dosages---3 to 10 grains. Of Fluid extract, 10 to 20 minims.

I've written about the Rose before here, but its medicinal uses are well-known.

The rose also forms a Bach Remedy, for:

Those who without apparently sufficient reason become resigned to all that happens, and just glide through life, take it as it is, without any effort to improve things and find some joy. They have surrendered to the struggle of life without complaint.

According to Wikipedia, the Palm is mentioned more than 30 times in the Bible, and at least 22 times in the Quran, and:

Arecaceae [palm] has great economic importance including coconut products, oils, dates, ivory nuts, carnauba wax, rattan cane, raffia, etc..

The type member of Arecaceae is the Areca palm, the fruit of which, the betel nut, is chewed with the betel leaf for intoxicating effects. Also belonging to the family of the Arecaceae are the Date Palm, harvested for its edible fruit; Rattans, whose stems are used extensively in furniture and baskets; and the Coconut. Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil produced by the oil palms in the genus Elaeis. Several species are harvested for heart of palm, a vegetable eaten in salads. Palm sap is sometimes fermented to produce palm wine or toddy, an alcoholic beverage common in parts of Africa, India, and the Philippines. The Palm Sunday festival uses palm leaves, usually from the Date Palm, hence the name. Dragon's blood, a red resin used traditionally in medicine, varnish, and dyes, may be obtained from the fruit of Daemonorops species. Coir is a coarse water-resistant fiber extracted from the outer shell of coconuts, used in doormats, brushes, mattresses, and ropes. Some indigenous groups living in palm-rich areas use palms to make many of their necessary items and food. Sago, for example, a starch made from the pith of the trunk of the Sago Palm Metroxylon sagu, is a major staple food for lowland peoples of New Guinea and the Moluccas. Palm leaves are also valuable to some peoples as a material for thatching or clothing.

It's hard to know about how much of the above mural artist Thomas Bottomley was aware when he decorated the Priory altar wall in 1880, but for centuries, the inhabitants of Bolton Abbey derived their income from sales of wool and from tithes and rents of farm land, mines and mills given to or purchased by them. They would have grown and used herbs for medicinal purposes - in fact the Priory housed an infirmary within its grounds.