My impression is that the craftspeople worked things out very well by trial and error, but did not know why certain combinations worked. This could show in the inclusion of superfluous items, ingredients with no apparent use; for instance juice of celandine has no cleaning properties as far as modern chemistry is aware. And in the addition of specific combinations of ingredients (chemicals) which would react with each other (chemistry) to create a new ingredient, which would significantly boost the workings of the recipe, without knowing why it worked more effectively. For instance, the combination of alum feces (potassium carbonate) with crude tartar (dipotassium tartrate) would chemically react and precipitate cream of tartar (potassium bitartrate), a more effective stain cleaner than tartar itself. While it is not difficult to crystallize cream of tartar out of crude tartar and use as a straight ingredient, the question is: were the medieval craftsmen aware of this chemical and did they find it easier to produced it in situ, or did they use the round-about way as they did not know, aside from, this works?
Naturally occurring winestone from white wine, untreated.
From working with soap recipes I had come across the mentions of tartar, alum feces and alum catini multiple times, and as part of my soap research I wanted to learn how to make these from scratch. While it took me about two years to find a reference to alum feces to mean burnt lees of wine by way of a Pennsic workshop on laundry (I tracked down the bibliography), I only recently found the final piece of the puzzle.
Alum feces and alum catini are often mentioned in the same context in similar or the same recipes. I assumed them to be of a similar background and when I found that alum feces was burnt tartar I made a leap and assumed alum catini to be the ashes of burnt cream of tartar. It made sense at the time! Unfortunately, after doing lots of digging into the chemistry of tartar and finding out that ashing tartar and cream of tartar ends up with the same chemical (but they might not have known that! my little devil went…) I finally found a reference in the wonderful book The Art of Dyeing in the History of Mankind which translates alum catini - and mentions quite a number of other alums which are also not, technically, alum - to soda, or soda ash. Which makes perfect sense, as alum feces actually is potash… With my background in soap making I could have anticipated this, but it never even occurred to me. What I did wonder about is why I did not find any mention to soda ash in any of my medieval soap recipes… Now, not only did I solve one small mystery of identification, I actually ended up solving a much larger one on technique.
For more background & chemistry on Tartrates, please check my IceDragon documentation at:
https://www.academia.edu/32370309/Alumen_faecis_An_unusual_Medieval_Ingredient._Includes_some_thoughts_on_the_production_of_Tartar_and_Cream_of_Tartar
The word alumen faecis occurs in many books of secrets written in the sixteenth century on chemical technology and is described as the burnt remains of tartar, indicating potassium carbonate. An exact translation of this word would mean the dregs or refuse of alum. In the French The secrets of the master Alexis of Piemont it appears as "alum de fece"; in the English Alexis as "alumen fecis," and, of course, in the German Alexis as "alun de feta." Cesalpino, the well known authority of the sixteenth century in his De Metallicis, Rome, 1596, says, “Alumen faecis, quae fex vini est combusta” or "Alumen faecis is the dregs of wine that is burned." Gargiolli in L’Arte Della Seta in Florence, 1868, says of allume di feccia that “Cotesto allume non e altro che cenera cavata dale vinacce bruciate” – “This alum is nothing other that the ashes derived from burnt wine lees.”
The word tartar comes to English via Medieval Latin from the Medieval Greek tartaron. This crude form of tartar, also known as winestone, argol and beeswing, is collected and purified to produce the white, odorless acidic powder known as cream of tartar, or potassium bitartrate. As a food additive, tartar shares the E number E336 with cream of tartar, which does not help the confusion between dipotassium tartrate (tartar) and potassium bitartrate (cream of tartar). Alum feces or potassium carbonate can be made by igniting and ashing tartrates (natural winestone or commercial cream of tartar) to produce pearl ash. This salt (alkali) of tartar was deemed stronger than almost any that is obtained from other matters. Potash could also be purified by baking it in a kiln or oven until all the carbon impurities are burned off, which would also resulting in pearl ash (sometimes called fly ash, as it easily blows away). The same technique works to make alum catini by ashing calcined marine plants in a kiln - or you could buy a box of washing soda, which is also pure sodium carbonate. The production of potash and pearl ash from wood were of such importance to Britain that these commodities could not be exported by the American Colonies to ports outside of the British Realm. High quality potassium carbonate was used in glass making, soap making, fiber cleaning & dyeing and as a medicinal ingredient. Tartrates were used in fiber cleaning & dyeing and as a medicinal ingredient.
The different chemicals made from natural winestone.
Wine stone is crude tartar.
Refined crude tartar becomes tartar or argol (dipotassium tartrate).
Refined tartar becomes cream of tartar (potassium bitartrate).
Burnt tartar & cream of tartar becomes alum feces (potassium carbonate)
In cleaning solutions and recipes, tartrates and carbonates have specific functions:
Tartrates are buffering agents.
Tartar (sometimes in the form of wine lees), was a common ingredient in both lye-based and non-lye-based cleaning solutions. Tartar’s acidic qualities somewhat neutralize the harshness of an alkaline solution , which greatly helps protein based fabrics like woolen cloth.
Tartrates are acidic, and act as sequestrants.
As well as providing buffering action, the acidity of tartar and cream of tartar makes these substances useful in removing inorganic stains. They have some ability to act as sequestrants, by interrupting the oxidation of metals, making it possible to dissolve and removing metal and iron oxidation. It is taken from the Latin word “sequestrare” meaning to remove from use. Cream of tartar is an effective and still in use household remedy against iron stains and fruit stains on linen.
Carbonates are alkalis.
In solution with water carbonates (CO3) react to produce hydroxides (OH); for instance potassium carbonate (K2CO3) plus water (H2O) produces potassium hydroxide (KOH), which is alkaline. Alkaline solutions are common cleaning agent of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Alkalis are best at removing stains of a fatty nature and some proteins. When applied to grease and oil stains, the saponification that occurs is an additional aid to stain removal. Alkaline solutions were also made from boiling potash (including hearth ashes), a common source of potassium carbonates, but depending on the quality of the source is often significantly less pure (due to incomplete burn) than burnt tartar, or alum feces.
A near period mention on the making of tartar and cream of tartar, from The charitable physitian with the Charitable apothecary, 1639:
CHAP. XL. To make Creame and Salt of Tartar.
TAke a pound of Tartar, beate it in a morter and searce it through a course sieve, then put it into a pipkin, and cover it with water, and make it boyle a walme or two, then passe it two or three times through a hippocras bagge with a bason underneath to receive the liquor, then set it to settle the space of twenty foure houres, at the end of which, you shall take of the Creame which swimmeth one the top, with a trencher or silver spoone, and poure the water softly away by inclination, and scrape the salt away which sticketh one the sides with a spoone, and make it fall to the bottome, then wash them, dry them, and prepare them, and keepe them by themselves.
This would indeed make both tartar and cream of tartar, although with only one cycle of heating it would not produce very much cream of tartar.
Photo Essays on how to make Tartar and Alum faces can be found here:
https://bookeofsecretes.blogspot.com/2017/06/photo-essay-to-make-alumen-faecis.html
https://bookeofsecretes.blogspot.com/2017/06/photo-journal-to-make-tartar.html
Bibliography:
-- (1771) Encyclopedia Brittanica. Vol. II. Edinburgh: Colin Macfarquhar, Society of Gentlemen in Scotland.
Brunello, Franco. The Art of Dyeing in the History of Mankind. Neri Pozza, 1973.
Edelstein, Sidney M. (1964) The Allerley Matkel (1532) Technology and Culture, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Summer, 1964). The Johns Hopkins University Press. p.313
Ellis, Marietta (2015?) Colonial Soapmaking – Its History and Techniques. Spadét.
Guibert, Philbert. The Charitable Physitian, Shewing the manner to make and prepare in the house with ease and little paines all those remedies which are proper to all sorts of diseases, according to the advice of the best and ordinariest Physitians. Serving as well for the rich as the poor. Translated into English, by I. W. London: Printed by Thomas Harper, 1639.
http://tei.it.ox.ac.uk/tcp/Texts-HTML/free/A02/A02327.html
Leed, Drea (2006) “Ye Shall Have It Clean”. Medieval Clothing and Textiles, Vol 2, the Boydell Press, NY.
Lémery, Nicolas & Harris, Walter (1686) A course of chemistry. London: R.N. for Walter Kettilby, p.433
Ruscelli, Girolamo. A verye excellent and profitable booke conteining sixe hundred foure score and odde experienced medicines apperteyning unto phisick and surgerie, long tyme practysed of the expert and Reuerend Mayster Alexis, which he termeth the fourth and finall booke of his secretes ... Translated out of Italian into Englishe by Richard Androse. 1569 .
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+tartar&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
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