Museum A Font Of ‘Goodwife’ Remedies

To cure zits or skin problems such as “a sweaty and sluttish complexion,” the Elizabethan housewife had a range of remedies. She might first try snail water, or a lotion whose base ingredient was dried worms. For intractable cases there was always oil of vipers, which also eased hemorrhoids and childbirth.

The vast range and variety of knowledge and skills expected of the “goodwife” of Shakespeare’s time is the subject of a hearty, earthy and occasionally stomach-churning exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

The recipes, advice books and artifacts arrayed in the library’s Great Hall make the good old days seem rather grim and wearisome. Beside cooking, washing, cleaning and overseeing all other aspects of household management, the Tudor or Stuart goodwife was expected to brew beer, distill liquor and tend the sick, often with medicines concocted from herbs and creepy-crawlies.

Whether she was out to catch a man or a rat, the Englishwoman of the 16th and 17th centuries had her work cut out for her. In a day when frequent bathing was considered eccentric if not dangerous, ladies infused their clothing with sweet scents and pomanders.

“Pomander bracelets take men prisoners,” one contemporary author wrote. Spices were chewed to mask the odor of decaying teeth, which another writer compared to “old Saturn’s sweaty socks.”

When cats and dogs failed in their rat-catching duties, the goodwife could fall back on the designs and strategies contained in “The Compleat English and French Vermin Killer,” published in 1707, one of whose ingenious rat traps has been replicated for the exhibit.

The book, purchased by the Folger in 1989, was the inspiration for the exhibit. Curators Jean Miller, Francie Owens and Rachel Doggett combed the library’s vast store of literature relating to Shakespeare and his times for other examples of Elizabethan ingenuity.

The curators assure us that all the recipes and remedies on display are in earnest, including the cure for tender feet that calls for “breaking an egg, rather coarsely, in each sock,” burning old shoes to drive away snakes, and poultices made of, among other things, the dung of sheep, horse, cat, pigeon, stork, rat, goat, mouse, dove, peacock, hen and/or falcon. These were applied to such problems as weak sight, epilepsy, holes in the breast, bleeding, bruises, shingles, postpartum pain and gunshots.

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