*snaps a hempcloth towel at The Atlantic*

[bunnyjadwiga]

Apparently, a blogger for The Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan, has picked up on a couple of illustrations of cannabis plants from some medieval manuscripts:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/12/three-millenn-1.html
and injected them into the marijuana debate.

*rolls eyes* I wouldn't mind that-- decriminalizing industrial hemp would be a wonderful thing-- but both Sullivan and The Got Medieval author appear to not get that there may be difference between modern marijuana hemp and, well, medieval industrial hemp.
http://gotmedieval.blogspot.com/2008/12/hemp-and-hops-together-at-last.html

I'll quote/edit my comment to Got Medieval here:

I've spent a good deal of time looking for information about the medicinal use of hemp in pre-1650 Europe, because of course everyone giggles madly when hemp is mentioned.

Hemp as a industrial crop is widely described, and you can even find pre-1650 accounts of how to process it for fiber-- Gervase Markham, for instance.

I've had extreme difficulty documenting the use of hemp-smoke as an inhalant. The closest I've come so far is a note from Hildegarde of Bingen that consuming too much hemp (she appears to be talking about either hempseed or hemp leaf, cooked) may or may not be bad for people who have a 'vacant' head or mind... Pottage of hempseed, presumably with the hemp oil pressed out of it-- hemp oil was used for cooking and lubrication-- was mentioned by Maria Dembinska as being provided to guards in the Royal castle at Wawel (Food and Drink in Medieval Poland). There's a recipe for hemp pottage in Platina's On Right Pleasure and Good Health too.

The use of hashish in Arab countries and the controversy over it is well described in The Herb: Hashish versus Medieval Muslim Society by Franz Rosenthal which is the best source I've found on medieval period use of hemp-based intoxicants; hashish, specifically, does seem to appear from time to time in medieval medicaments, but obviously that's not the same as mere local hemp.

I've never been a hempsmoker myself; the smoke for some reason makes my throat close up, though the smoke of other plants that are supposed to smell like burning hemp-- tansy, oregano, etc. doesn't have the same effect-- but I understand that modern marijuana varietals are... more than somewhat different from even their Arabic forebears, let alone industrial hemp of the Middle Ages. Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire addresses the varietal manipulation of cannabis as one of his examples of complex interactions between plants and humans.

Anyway, if you want more detail, take a look at my article: "Hemp and Nettle:
Two Food/Fiber/Medical plants in use in Eastern Europe."
http://www.gallowglass.org/jadwiga/SCA/hempnettle.html
and bug me to update it with new stats. :)

Comments

Lovely...

[bytchearse.livejournal.com]

How about handing them some rope and telling them to smoke it, cuz there is of course no difference between that and marijunana...

Whatta putz!

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Of course, NORML will be happy to point out that two of the major lobbyists favoring the criminalization of cannabis in the USA in the 1930s were... the cotton industry, and DuPont (nylon, later various acrylics and polyesters). It's pretty obvious that those two were going after industrial (well, fabric-grade) hemp.

[lyanna-beth.livejournal.com]

These people are modern hemp product providers here in Nova Scotia.
http://www.atlantichealinghemp.com/

I have *incredibly* dry skin, and their 'Healing Hemp Cream' is the only product I've found so far that actually moistourises my skin and keeps it that way.

No, I'm not a "paid political advertiser", just someone who's finally found (after 60 years or so) something that works for me personally.

[snooness2]

Hemp grown for fiber that wasn't smoked goes back to at least 1500 (minimum) and probably a lot further back then that since a number of the European landraces are significantly lower enough in THC to not be worth smoking.

Hemp was originally used in China in XXXX BC (I can't recall if it's 1000 BC or 3000 BC off the top of my head), for lamp oil, so really it has three different varieties (Oil, Fiber, Medicinal).

The oil variety types are quite a bit different then the other two since they mature quite quickly and produce a lot of very large seeds. They are shorter and skinnier at maturation as well. The fiber types are tall, don't produce as many seeds and take a lot longer to grow. Medical varieties are shorter then fiber varieties, but larger then oil varieties, they produce a lot of buds (or so says the person who tests them here) - and mature faster then fiber types(I'm not sure how their maturation compares to the oil types).

I tried an oil variety for a comparison study with my fiber types at one point and it really didn't work since it matured about 4 weeks before the fiber variety, and it messed up my sampling.

It's use spread to Europe where it was primarily used for fiber, and the type of fiber you get from it can not be distinguished from flax unless you use a microscope that can determine the actual twist of the fiber cells (I have a paper on this if you want the reference). So anything designated as linen in a museum has as much chance of being hemp as it does flax.

There was also a spread of the crop into India where the drug varieties were developed (probably around 1000BC)... we know it was used medicinally in China and India at ~1000BC because there are both chinese and sanskrit medical texts on it. China also has written records of fiber usage from 2500BC. But it was probably cultivated earlier then that since it has been found in a number of neolithic digs.

It's use as a fiber goes probably just as far back, tho the earliest I could find evidence for it in Europe was 240-435 AD as a pollen sample at Loddigsee, Mecklenburg, Germany. We also know that the Romans cultivated it as both fiber and medicine and both uses are listed by Pliny (120BC), which is backed up by pollen records from Lago Albano and Lago di Nemi.

The fact that it makes your throat close up isn't to surprizing, it has the problem of being very allergy causing.... the pollen and also the aromatics the plant gives off is a large problem for the researchers.

I am in the process of completing my thesis on the developmental genetics of fiber hemp... I'll post the history of hemp section of the thesis and all the references at some point after I've graduated.

Also I have a paper somewhere that mentions that in Hungary there was a tax that was paid in hemp stalks (for fiber)... 1300AD or something like that (I can't find the paper at this moment).

(You'll just have to move somewhere that accepts industrial hemp as being somewhat normal.... Canada, Europe, etc.) - if you already have a graduate degree that is plant or molecular biology related, and are interested in studing the plant - we may have an opening since one of our scientists is moving on.
:)

[pearl]

This is completely off-topic, but I found an interesting online post about the Herjolfsnes burials, and how one of the women may have been wearing a sort of incontinence pad.
http://www.mail-archive.com/h-costume@mail.indra.com/msg04587.html

I think they're discussing "Buried Norsemen at Herjolfsnes", by Poul Nörlund. Bind LXVII - Meddelelser om Grønland (1924).

Anyway, I automatically thought of you, so am now commenting here. :)