Usually the wealthy of the Middle Ages are seen as having been healthier than their poorer counterparts, especially in terms of their eating habits. However, as a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports has found, all that glitters is not gold—because some of it was actually lead and mercury.
As it happens, the wealthy townspeople of the Middle Ages loved to eat and drink from cups and plates glazed in bright colors. These beautiful glazes, however, had an ugly secret: lead, which leeched from the glaze into certain foods and beverages.
“In those days lead oxide was used to glaze pottery. It was practical to clean the plates and looked beautiful, so it was understandably in high demand. But when they kept salty and acidic foods in glazed pots, the surface of the glaze would dissolve and the lead would leak into the food,” said Associate Professor Kaare Lund Rasmussen, Department of Physics and Chemistry, University of Southern Denmark (SDU), in a statement.
This naturally led to some deleterious side effects.
“Lead poisoning can be the consequence when ingesting lead, which is a heavy metal. In the Middle Ages you could almost not avoid ingesting lead, if you were wealthy or living in an urban environment. But what is perhaps more severe, is the fact that exposure to lead leads to lower intelligence of children,” said Rasmussen.
Rasmussen and other colleagues from SDU investigated the extent of this potential poisoning by analyzing the bones of 207 skeletons across northern Germany and Denmark.
“There really is a big difference in how much lead the individuals from the cemeteries had in their bodies. This depended on whether they lived in the country or in a town. We see almost no lead in the bones from rural individuals, while the levels of this toxic metal were high in urban individuals,” said Rasmussen.
The location of Danes and Germans of the time was an indication of status; wealthier people tended to live in towns, while the poor were much more isolated. However, even if a rich individual lived in the country, they had much less access to the glazed pottery—meaning less lead exposure. However, just because one lived in the country didn’t mean one was free from risk of contamination.
“The exposure was higher and more dangerous in the urban communities, but lead was not completely unknown in the country. We saw that 30 pct. of the rural individuals had been in contact with lead — although much less than the townspeople,” said Rasmussen.
Lead wasn’t just found in pottery, though. It was found in coins, stained glass windows, and lead tiles on the roofs of certain buildings—from which it often entered the water supply. And of course, lead wasn’t the only toxic chemical element poisoning the rich. Mercury was also found in the urban bones, thanks to its supposed medicinal properties.
—–
Feature Image: Thinkstock
Comments