Apothecaries in Seventeenth-Century Dublin
Oil painting of ‘An alchemist in his laboratory’ by a follower of David Teniers the younger. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Dublin in 1600 was little more than a port town of perhaps 5,000 inhabitants. However, throughout the seventeenth century it grew rapidly through immigration because it was seen as a place of comparative safety and relative security during a century of turbulence; immigrants came from all over Ireland, from England, Scotland and Wales – and, in smaller numbers, from France, Flanders, The Netherlands and Germany, fleeing from the wars of religion in Europe. Thus, though small, it was dynamic, expanding and cosmopolitan. The government of the day encouraged this immigration, particularly during the 1630s when Thomas Wentworth (1593–1641), the first earl of Strafford, was Lord Deputy of Ireland. Resistance came from the established élite and from the medieval guilds; during the century’s early decades, the Dublin guilds worked strenuously to limit the arrival of artisans and tradesmen from Europe, but their authority did not extend to the four Liberties of Dublin where the new immigrants were encouraged to operate freely. For example, many English weavers settled in the Earl of Meath’s liberty in the area around St Patrick’s Cathedral.[1]
Johan Isaäc Hollandus, Opera mineralia, et vegetabilia, sive de lapide philosophico, quæ reperire potuimus, omnia. Nunquam antehac edita, ac nunc primum ex optimis manuscriptis ex Teutonicis exemplaribus fidelissime in Latinum sermonem conversa (Arnhem, 1616), p. 25: image of alembics.
It was here, in the shadow of St Patrick’s, that in 2017 archaeological excavations uncovered a seventeenth-century cesspit containing pots, glassware, earthenware, oyster shells, bentwood boxes and other items that have now been accepted as coming from an apothecary’s shop in a unique find of international significance. There was no evidence of domestic activity, or of metal work characteristic of true alchemists who still practiced in the early seventeenth century (Image 1). What allowed the archaeologists of the Kevin Street dig to be certain they were dealing with an apothecary rather than an alchemist was the absence of this metalworking apparatus.[2]
Dr Alan Hayden and his team of archaeologists were able to identify the material as Dutch in origin. Part of the find included the remains of small bentwood boxes used for storing herbs and spices. At this time the Dutch were establishing their east Indian colonies and the Kevin Street apothecary would have been able to import a wide range of exotic spices to entice his wealthy clients. Earlier research by Brian McCuarta had already identified a Dutch apothecary called Jacob Ryckman who was practicing in Dublin at this time.[3] Ryckman supplied Sir Matthew De Renzi (1577–1634), another European immigrant, with luxury items, some of which were listed in his will when he died in 1634. These included nutmeg, cinnamon, isinglass, sugar, almonds, raisins, various cordials, and even 12 bottles of dyett drink![4] Adrian Huyberts, a contemporary, has left a written record dated from 1653 that having spent seven years apprenticed to Ryckman, he considered him ‘the ablest’ apothecary in the city.[5]
Composite image depicting a cucurbit (the basal vessel of an alembic), and an alembic. On the left is an image of a cucurbit found at Kevin Street, Dublin, courtesy of Alan R. Hayden, Archaeological Projects Ltd. On the right is ‘A Glass Alembick all of one piece’, Figure 3 (detail), in Worth’s copy of Moyse Charas’, The royal pharmacopoea, Galenical and chymical, according to the practice of the most eminent and learned physitians of France, and publish’d with their several approbations. By Moses Charras … Faithfully Englished. Illustrated with several copper plates (London, 1678).
Because the items had been tipped, possibly in haste, into the cesspit, most of the more delicate glassware was broken, but careful work by Hayden’s team restored much of it, including a fine tapered basal vessel of an alembic assembly, used for distillation. This is remarkably similar both to the basal vessel in the fifteenth-century Dutch alchemist Johan Isaäc Hollandus’ image of the whole assemblage in Image 2, and to an alembic depicted in Worth’s copy of The royal pharmacopoea, Galenical and chymical, according to the practice of the most eminent and learned physitians of France, and publish’d with their several approbations. By Moses Charras … Faithfully Englished. Illustrated with several copper plates (London, 1678), by the famous seventeenth-century French apothecary, Moyse Charas (1619–98).
Earthenware dish found at the Kevin Street archaeological dig of 2017. Courtesy of Alan R. Hayden, Archaeological Projects Ltd.
A number of items from Kevin Street are similar to those illustrated in the painting of ‘The Alchemist’ attributed to a follower of David Tenniers the Younger (1610–90), visible in Image 1. For example, there are a variety of boxes of different shapes and sizes on the table in the foreground. These are similar to the bentwood remains found in Kevin Street. Again, beside the wooden bucket containing earthenware flagons between the figures at the back of the shop, we can see a flat earthenware dish remarkably like the vessel in the image above, which was found at Kevin Street.
Salve or ointment pot found at the Kevin Street archaeological dig of 2017. Courtesy of Alan R. Hayden, Archaeological Projects Ltd.
The archaeologists at the Kevin Street dig also found a number of salve or ointment pots of different sizes, which are almost identical to the small pot beside a much larger one on the left hand side of the round table in the ‘Alchemist’ painting. Crucially one cream salve ointment pot found at the Kevin Street dig, about 5cm wide, had the date 1639 scratched on its surface. This date places the shop that once used these vessels exactly at the time Ryckman was plying his apothecary’s trade in the liberties of Dublin. Finally, in the ‘Alchemist’ painting we can see a small collection of six or seven brown flattish objects on the same table. Could these be oyster shells, which were also found in Kevin Street? Evidence from contemporary English miniaturists Nicholas Hilliard (1547?–1619), and Edward Norgate (d. 1650), tells us that they used oyster and mussel shells for mixing their paint because they were cheap and kept their paint particularly clean.[6] All this is in keeping with what we know about these early apothecaries; they sold a wide variety of luxury products that included specialist products for painters and furniture makers. (A century later, a notice placed in the Dublin News-Letter by a young apothecary called James Woodroffe of Skinner Row included ‘all kinds of Oyls, colours, gums, spirits, varnishes, for Painters and Japanners’).[7]
Image of ‘The Apothecary’s Shop opened’ from The expert doctors dispensatory. The whole art of physick restored to practice. The apothecaries shop, and chyrurgions closet open’d … Together with a strict survey of the dispensatories of the most renowned colledges of the world, which … are here epitomized … / To which is added by Jacob a Brunn … a compendium of the body of physick. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Many of the objects found at Kevin Street in 2017 are represented in an almost contemporary engraving of an apothecary’s shop, which forms part of the frontispiece of the 1657 English translation of Pierre Morel’s Methodus praescribendi formulas remediorum elegantissima, which had originally been published at Basle in 1630. The title page of the 1657 translation announced that Morel was ‘chief Physitian to the King of France, and Chancellour of the University of Monpellier’ and certainly his book of prescriptions proved popular. As the famous English physician Nicholas Culpeper (1616–54), noted in his approbation of the 1657 English translation, he had decided to have the work translated into English and ‘presented it to my Country-men, as the most useful, compendious, and exact Dispensatory that in all my reading I ever met with’.[8] This depiction of a mid-seventeenth-century apothecary’s shop gives us some indication of how Jacob Ryckman’s shop in Kevin Street, in mid-seventeenth-century Dublin might have looked like in practice. We thus have, in this wonderful archaeological recovery of the contents of a seventeenth-century apothecary’s shop, a find unique in Europe in its scale and variety. By a careful study of paintings and engravings such as these we can see many of these objects set in their contemporary surroundings and by searching contemporary documentary evidence we can even hazard an educated guess at who might have been the proprietor.
Text: Mr Michael V. Hanna, M.A. University College Cork.
Sources
Hayden, Alan R., ‘Pots, Phials and Potions’, Archaeology Ireland, 32, no. 2 (Summer 2018), 15–18.
Hayden, Alan R, ‘Excavating a 17th century Dublin apothecary shop: archaeology and art history combined’. This lecture was presented at ‘Dig! The value of archaeology for society and the economy’, which was a conference held at The Hugh Lane Gallery on 9 November 2018. ‘Dig’ was a collaboration between the Heritage Council, Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Department for Communities NI, Fáilte Ireland, Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, and Dublin City Council. It was project managed by the Irish Walled Towns Network and is receiving support from Creative Ireland. Dig was a key part of the programme of events for the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018.
Hanna, Michael V., Irish General Practice: The long story, in press.
MacCuarta, Brian, ‘A planter’s funeral, legacies, and inventory: Sir Matthew de Renzy (1577–1634)’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 127 (1997), 18–33.
Morel, Pierre, The expert doctors dispensatory. The whole art of physick restored to practice. The apothecaries shop, and chyrurgions closet open’d … Together with a strict survey of the dispensatories of the most renowned colledges of the world, which … are here epitomized … / To which is added by Jacob a Brunn … a compendium of the body of physick (London, 1657).
Whelan, Edward, ‘Native versus newcomer: Intolerance and harassment of foreign immigrants in Dublin, 1600–1800’, Dublin Historical Record, 63, no. 1 (Spring 2010), 68–80.
[1] Whelan, Edward, ‘Native versus newcomer: Intolerance and harassment of foreign immigrants in Dublin, 1600-1800’, Dublin Historical Record, 63, no. 1 (Spring 2010), 68–80.
[2] Hayden, Alan R., ‘Pots, Phials and Potions’, Archaeology Ireland, 32, no. 2 (Summer 2018), 15.
[3] MacCuarta, Brian, ‘A planter’s funeral, legacies, and inventory: Sir Matthew de Renzy (1577–1634)’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 127 (1997), 18–33.
[4] Ibid., 28.
[5] Hayden, ‘Pots, Phials and Potions’, 18.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Hanna, Michael V., Irish General Practice: The long story, in press.
[8] Morel, Pierre, The expert doctors dispensatory. The whole art of physick restored to practice. The apothecaries shop, and chyrurgions closet open’d … Together with a strict survey of the dispensatories of the most renowned colledges of the world, which … are here epitomized … / To which is added by Jacob a Brunn … a compendium of the body of physick (London, 1657), Sig. A3v.