Isn’t
it strange? Dudley Castle is renowned world wide for
something discovered during the excavations of the 1980s, yet that discovery is
very rarely mentioned…
I
am, of course, referring to the world’s oldest condoms. They were found
in the Garderobe of the keep
and made from either pig or sheep intestine. They date from the Castle’s
occupation by Royalist officers during the Civil War from 1642 to 1646 who may
have brought them from Europe. They were reusable and would be tied on with ribbons,
but they were not cheap given their production method. A Nineteenth century
recipe gives an idea of how much work went into their production:
“Take the caecum of the sheep; soak it first in water, turn it
on both sides, then repeat the operation in a weak ley [solution] of soda,
which must be changed every four or five hours, for five or six successive
times; then remove the mucous membrane
with the nail; sulphur, wash in clean
water, and then in soap and water; rinse, inflate and dry. Next, cut it
to the required length and attach a piece of ribbon to the open end”
Linen and leather condoms
were also
used in the Sixteenth century. Condoms,
however, were not only used as contraception but also as protection against “The French Pox” or Syphilis.
Syphilis
arrived in England around 1493. The term ‘French
Pox’ was derived from the belief that the
disease originally travelled from the New World and through France before
arriving in England’. It was also believed to be Christopher Columbus’
own ship that brought
it to Europe from the Americas but this
was not suggested until several decades after the event. Other nicknames
included: Hot Piss, The Clap, The French Disease, The French Embrace,
and the Infinite Malady.
Today we know that syphilis
is caused by the bacterium Treponema
Pallidum, however, in the past it was believed to
be caused by an imbalance in the four humours, (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and
black bile) which made up the body and as a punishment from God as retribution
for the “licentious and beastly disorder” of the morally
degenerate. Sufferers in history include Cesare Borgia
(1475-1507) and Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley (1545 -1567) Mary Queen of Scots’
second husband.
Today it can be cured using antibiotics; treatment for syphilis in Tudor
times involved the use of mercury. For example,
Gervase Markham, in the late sixteenth century, wrote in his book, The English Housewife:
“Take quicksilver
and kill it with fasting spittle, then take verdigris, Arabic, turpentine, oil
olive, and populeon, and mix them together to one entire ointment, and anoint
the sores therewith, and keep the party exceeding warm. Or otherwise, take of
alum burned, of resin, frankincense, populeon, oil of roses, oil de bay, oil
olive, green copperas, verdigris, white lead, mercury sublimate, of each a
pretty quantity but of alum most, then beat to powder the simples that are
hard, and melt your oils, and cast in your powders and stir all well together,
then strain them through a cloth, and apply it warm to the sores; or else take
of capon’s grease that hath touched no water, the juice of rue and the fine
powder of pepper, and mix them together to an ointment, and apply it round
about the sores, but let it not come into the sores, and it will dry them up”.
Unfortunately, Lead
and Mercury also prove lethal.
Bibliography
Hemingway, J. (2006) An Illustrated
Chronicle of the Castle and Barony of Dudley. Friends of Dudley Castle.
Tannahill, R. (1989) Sex in History.
Abacus
