Materia Medica of Baptism: Holy Salt in Old English Medicine and Liturgy

Salt was a multi-faceted early medieval material. It appears as a miraculous curative in Insular miracle stories as well as a substance that healed the body in Old English medical literature. When medieval infants and adults first joined the Christian community at baptism, it was with the taste of salt on their lips. In many of the preliminary rites of baptism, in addition to the water of baptism itself, salt (Latin sal, OE sealt) was exorcised and placed in the mouths of recipients to symbolize divine food and a sharp taste of wisdom. Salt cleansed the body of the baptismal candidate and prepared it for interaction with the Holy Spirit, just as it was associated with fasting. Salt appears frequently throughout in the tenth-century medical Leechbooks as salves combined with other ingredients to anoint eyes and ears to heal blotches, swellings, and burns. The medical texts describe salt as burnt, pure, carved, white, and even sacred “holy salt” (halig sealt) in these curative recipes. This paper will explore the overlaps between the sacred and secular meanings of salt in early medieval England. The taste of salt during the preliminary rites of initiation was a sensory experience that immediately linked the foundational ritual of Christianity to wider food and medical cultures of early medieval England; the baptismal rubrics in the liturgical handbook of the Leofric Missal were not so distant from the lucrative craft of the salter in Ælfric’s Colloquy describing contemporary imports and occupations. Using the material of salt as the focus, this paper will show how the consumption of salt at key ritual and routine moments in the early English lifecourse defined both medical and sacramental experiences in medieval Europe and drew similar understandings of healing between body and soul in the lives of recipients.