Part 3: Tools of the Trade


Leather flask in 2 oz dyed leather, sealed with brewer's pitch. Stopper of leather-wrapped wood. The flask rests on a handwoven towel.	Golden unguent for fresh wounds (colophony, olive oil, turpentine, beeswax, frankincense, mastic, and saffron).	Linen bandage rolls soaked in colophony.


Resin ingredients for medicinals. Included: colophony, beeswax, brewer's pitch, beeswax, frankincense, mastic and myrrh.	Oil to be applied to gunshot wounds. Egg yolks, turpentine, and oil of roses.	Simple 16th century remedies for common complaints.

Medicinals: An Overview

By the 16^th century, the advent of the printing press allowed for the publication and dissemination of many manuals of pharmacy. A few recipes for common complaints dating from earlier centuries were repeated in educational books aimed at householders, such as The English Housewife and Delightes for Ladies, both from the early 1700s. However, far more complicated recipes with more detailed indications were found in the surgical and medical texts of the time. John de Vigo’s Antidotarie (first published in English in 1543) provided a list of essentials “to furnyssh a Chirurgien that dwelleth in a village or town, wher no apotycary be, & also such as go to the sea.” Similarly, Hieronymus von Braunschweig’s The Boke of Distyllacyon of Herbes, published in 1527, provides extensive instructions on the distillation of the waters and essential oils of various plants for medicinal purposesThe range of medicinal compounds prescribed by these manuals is extremely broad. Pills, syrups, ointments, and oils were all described with varying numbers of ingredients and complexity of design. On the simplest end, a simple oil of poppy mixed with egg was prescribed for erysipelas (a superficial skin infection). On the other hand, ‘a good jewes plaster for fresh wounds’ consisted of nine foundation ingredients (oils, waxes and resins) plus a dozen herbs, and required two days of straining and melting to produce the final cooled medication that ‘will heal all wounds without tentes’ (bolsters used to keep wounds open). For the purposes of this display, I have chosen to display four medicinal items found in the wreck of the Mary Rose, and one medicinal taken from the work of Ambrose Paré, a sixteenth century French barber-surgeon whose treatise on the treatment of gunshot wounds remains a classic in early medical experimentation that is still quoted today.

Butter, Mustard Seeds & Peppercorns

The remnants of butter were found in a wooden canister in the Barber-Surgeon’s cabin. Application of butter was believed to relieve pain (Gardner 220).

Golden Unguent for Fresh Wounds

Among the pottery jars and wooden canisters found in the cabin were several containing trace remnants potentially consistent with the ‘golden unguent’ described by Hieronymus Braunschweig for application on fresh wounds. The original redaction reads:

“Yellow wax 12 oz, Good Olive Oil 1 ½ lbs, Turpentine 4oz, Greek Pitch, Resin (5 oz each), White Frankincense, Mastic (2 oz), Saffron (a dram). Melt the wax, oil, and Greek pitch together, add the turpentine and remove from the fire. Make the other parcelles into powder, add and stir till cold.” (Gardner 186)

Although olive oil, turpentine, frankincense, mastic, and saffron are fairly straightforward, the nature of the other ingredients is not entirely certain. Natural beeswax is a yellow color, and has the benefit of both being a very common ingredient in contemporary pharmacy manuals and of being found in trace quantities in multiple canisters on the Mary Rose. For these reasons I have chosen to use beeswax as the yellow wax. Greek pitch and resin are less certain. Colophony is the solid resin that remains after the distillation of turpentine from the raw oleoresin derived from pine trees, and most sources use the term synonymously with Greek pitch. Since the original recipe referred to both Greek pitch and resin, it is likely that they were subtly different products to the 16^th century medical practitioner. However, for this attempt I have chosen to substitute colophony for both ingredients. Frankincense and mastic are resins tapped from shrubs and trees in the Boswellia and Pistacia genuses, respectively. True turpentine is an oil distilled from the oleoresin of pine trees (which also produces solid colophony as a byproduct). In modern times, however, the much cheaper method of distilling terpenoid chemicals from petroleum products has become prevalent. As a result the majority of turpentine for sale today is not actually derived from pine trees (Haneke). To avoid this, I used true artist’s grade turpentine from Windsor & Newton.

To concoct the golden unguent, the recipe was divided in half. The beeswax (JA Townsend & Sons), olive oil, and colophony (Scents of Earth, Sun City, CA) were heated over a double boiler, stirring intermittently until the entire mixture was liquid. The turpentine was then carefully added to the mixture. After turning off the flame, the mastic, frankincense and saffron were added and the mixture was stirred constantly until it cooled. Just before reaching room temperature, the entire liquid mass coalesced into a soft unguent. Notably, the mastic did not fully dissolve in the mixture and may have required reduction into even finer pieces before addition to the hot liquid.

Linen Bandages Soaked in Colophony

Modern surgeons are currently attempting to create “off-the-shelf” medicated bandages to stop catastrophic bleeding. In a curious twist of history, this concept was actually pioneered by Renaissance medical practitioners. Several degraded, amorphous clumps of material found in the Barber-Surgeon’s cabin on the Mary Rose were determined during analysis to actually be ‘premade’ rolled linen bandages soaked in medications (Gardner 221). These bandages would be ready to apply to a fresh wound immediately. A one inch long wooden needle found with these objects were probably used in conjunction with linen thread (which has not survived) to secure the ends of the bandages together after application, as this era of course far predates surgical tape, ace wraps, and other modern methods of securing a dressing. All of the Mary Rose bandages appear to have been soaked in colophony or colophony and oil. The bandages displayed here are linen rolls in colophony, with waxed linen thread on a wooden needle (in this case carved from walnut instead of the original boxwood) to secure the ends.

Ambrose Paré's Oil for Treating Gunshot Wounds

John de Vigo in 1514 described the ‘poisonous’ nature of gunshot wounds, and strongly recommended hot oil cauterization of the wound as treatment. Although it is unclear whether this advice was followed in England, hot oil was definitely the continental barber-surgeon’s treatment of choice. In a classic 1537 treatise, French military surgeon Ambrose Paré described an alarming night of battle when he ran out of the specified hot oil for cauterization:

“At last my oil ran short, and I was forced instead thereof to apply a digestive made of the yolks of eggs, oil of roses, and turpentine. In the night I could not sleep in quiet, fearing some default in not cauterizing, that I should find the wounded to whom I had not used the said oil dead from the poison of their wounds; which made me rise very early to visit them, where beyond my expectation I found that those to whom I had applied my digestive medicament had but little pain, and their wounds without inflammation or swelling, having rested fairly well that night; the others, to whom the boiling oil was used, I found feverish, with great pain and swelling about the edges of their wounds. Then I resolved never more to burn thus cruelly poor men with gunshot wounds.” (Pusatieri, Delgado, and Dick 555-62)

This represents one of the first ‘empirical’ experiments documented in the medical literature and is still discussed today. Despite the objections of several contemporaries, Paré’s views soon became the standard of care and cauterization for gunshot wounds fell out of common practice. Paré’s oil of roses as displayed here consists of egg yolks and pure turpentine, with several drops of rose attar (essential oil of roses) added, whisked together to a uniform consistency.

Leather Flask

Leather flasks and bottles were used throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance to carry water and other liquids. The barber-surgeon’s quarters contained a leather bottle probably used to carry either water or wine for washing off wounds, although it might possibly have been for personal use. The leather flasks and bottles found in the Mary Rose shipwreck were generally dyed black or brown, with tabs built in at the neck of the bottle to accommodate a carry strap. The stoppers were made of wood wrapped in leather.

The precise method of construction for these flasks is unclear. Arguments have been made both for filling the bottle with sand or other substance to fill its shape, and for molding the leather in a fixed mold. I have chosen to broadly follow instructions outlined online (Jackson), and in the Compleat Anachronist. The bottle was made from 2 oz vegetable tanned leather (Tandy Leather, Essex, MD). 2 oz leather is quite light for this sort of item; however I was concerned about my ability to puncture heavier leather with the sewing awl. After creating a pattern for the bottle from the Mary Rose drawings, the leather pieces were cut out using a rotary cutter. The two pieces were held together with contact cement, and the seam lines were marked with an edge gouger and an overstitch wheel. The pieces were sewn together with a two needle lockstitch using artificial sinew, backstitching at the end of the threads. The edges of the leather were then beveled for a cleaner appearance, and the holes in the tabs were excised with a sharp knife.

The sewn bottle was soaked in water for 30 minutes, then packed with sand. A dowel was used to pack the bottle firmly and support the neck of the bottle. The bottle was allowed to dry for three days and then the sand was poured and scraped out. Using a paintbrush, black leather dye (Fiebling’s Industrial Dye, Tandy Leather, Essex MD) was applied in three coats to the entire outer surface and allowed to dry. Leather balm (Fiebling’s Leather Balm) was applied to the outside and buffed to finish. The last step was to seal the inside with a mixture of brewer’s pitch (pine resin) and a small amount of beeswax (J.A. Townsend & Sons). The pitch/beeswax mixture was melted over the stove and the liquid rapidly poured and swirled around in the bottle, then poured back into the pan. This process was repeated several times until the inside of the bottle was adequately covered.

The stopper for the bottle is made of boxwood turned on a powered lathe. It is unclear whether the original stoppers were carved or turned. Foot-powered lathes are known to at least the 15^th century, and for ease of manufacture I chose to turn the stopper. Because of my minimal skills on the lathe, it is more conical than the original stopper depicted in Figure 7. It is wrapped in the leather used to make the bottle. The leather was soaked and stretched over the stopper, then cut to fit and overhand stitched to secure it. It was then dyed to match the bottle.

In the future, I would make the bottle out of slightly heavier leather to improve its resistance to being crushed. I also found that it is easier to handle larger quantities of the hot liquid pitch instead of small amounts I used initially, since the larger volume holds heat better. This allows it to remain fluid for a greater period, facilitating more even spreading over the inside of the bottle.

Linen Towel

Linen towels were ubiquitous items for general use in cleaning. Barber-surgeons would have need of simple linen towels to wipe off equipment and surfaces, although the modern notion of antisepsis remained three hundred years in the future. By the 16^th century, the weaving of fabric was a task usually undertaken by professional artisans, not by individual householders. In Gervase Markham’s 1615 treatise that teaches the necessary skills of a proper wife, The English Housewife, he follows an extensive section on the cleaning of linens with a comment on warping and weaving of fabric:

“After your yarn is wound and weighed, you shall carry it to the weavers…as for the action of weaving itself, it is the workman’s occupation, and therefore to him I refer it.” (Markham 164)

Thus the barber-surgeon of this era would likely purchase his table linens from a professional craftsman. Lozenge patterned (also known as diapered) plain white table linens grew in popularity over the Middle Ages, and remained popular until the end of the 16^th century (Cambridge History of Western Textiles 634). Diapered table linen is evident in a number of Italian paintings and mauscripts depicting domestic scenes (Thornton).

This towel is based on a published drawdown of a medieval linen fragment held at the Vatican. The fragment is a diapered twill, with a complete repeat in 35 warp threads (Priest-Dorman 1-5). The towel is woven in 20/2 cottolin (Halcyon Yarn, Bath ME), a 50-50% cotton linen blend. Although pure linen would be a more appropriate choice, the cottolin handles more easily during weaving and thus was more appropriate for a first attempt at a new style of weaving. Linen-cotton blend fabrics (fustian) were definitely known in this period, however these generally consisted of a linen warp and cotton weft instead of a warp and weft both composed of blended fibers. The warp was set at 30 epi, and sleyed 3 per dent in a 10 dent reed. The completed towel was wet finished with commercial detergent and then hemmed with 80/2 white linen thread (Londonderry Linen, Hedgehog Handworks).