XXIII Daucus Carota L "Est et quartum genus in eadem similitudine Pastinacae, quam nostri Gallicani vocant, Graeco Daucon: cuius genera etiam quatuor fecere." (similar in likeness to pastinaca from France and Greece)

Translation - 23 Daucus Carota L. [i.e., Linnaei] "There is also a fourth kind/genus with the same similarity to the pastinaca  - (very roughly, a root vegetable that can mean many things in Latin), which our own French people call by the Greek "daucon": of which there are also four kinds/genera."

In 10th Century  carrot consumption is traced to the hill people of Afghanistan (ad 900), who were sun-worshippers and believed that eating orange or yellow coloured foods instilled a sense of righteousness. People also ate yellow and purple conical tap root varieties of carrots in Pakistan. At this time Arab merchants traversing the trade routes of Africa, Arabia, and Asia brought seeds of this purple carrot back home with them. From their villages and cities along the coast of North Africa, Moors brought the carrot up into Spain and to the rest of Europe, probably from Afghanistan. Yellow and purple carrots are first recorded in Asia Minor and the Byzantine Empire (now Turkey) in the 10th century. This was a mutation which effectively removed the anthocyanins which gives the red/purple colour.

In around 950, Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq's produced a cookbook, the most comprehensive work of its kind. This traditional cookbook with more than 600 recipes using medieval ingredients and dishes from the luxurious cuisine of medieval Islam is also a rare guide to the contemporary culinary culture. He described the carrots used in his recipes thus:

For more details on the cookbook and the 10th century recipes using carrots, there is a separate page in the Carrot museum. Here.

The Old English Herbarium (late10th C) takes its material from Pliny and other latin compilations and cites uses for carrot: 

This 10th century image shows Pastinaca Silvatica, which herbalists also knew as wild carrot or parsnip. (900-1000 a.d.) It taken from a version of the Pseudo-Apuleius the author of a Herbarium or De herbarum virtutibus, also referred as Herbarium Apuleii Platonici; which is a medical herbal of the 5th century, A.D. (see above) A 10th century manuscript of the work is in the Musee Meermanno Westreenianum, Holland. Den Haag, MMW, 10 D 7 (left) is an image from the 10th century version of the Pseudo Apulieus. (Reference: http://collecties.meermanno.nl/handschriften/showmanu?id=1524&page=0&page_size=40

It is known that purple or red and yellow carrots were cultivated in Iran and Arabia in the 10th century and in Syria in the 11th. By the 12th century carrots were reported in Spain, followed by Italy in the 13th, France, Germany and Holland by the 14th century.  English references occur in the 15th century.

Ninth and tenth century Viking  finds in Yorvik (modern York,UK) show carrots, parsnips and turnips. (source - http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikfood.html)

11th Century

In About 1086, Ibn al Bassal an Islamic Botanist and scholar who lived in Seville, Spain from wrote a lengthy treatise on agronomy (Diwan al-filaha) “Libro de Agricultura” - The Book on Agriculture, a treatise on agriculture.

It is full of information on the cultivation of plants and trees, pharmacological data and many items on botany. Very little is known about his life. However, judging from the meaning of his Arabic name Ibn Bassal (i.e. the Son of the Onion Grower), he seems to be a learned agriculturalist from a farming family.

The book, though not a cookbook per se, it contains information about the different kinds of foodstuff and how to produce them and preserve them, in addition to the agricultural methods in cultivation, irrigation, pets control and land tilling in Andalusia in the 11th century. The treatise by Ibn Bassal is singular in that it contains no reference to earlier agronomists; it appears to be based exclusively on the personal experiences of the author, who is revealed as the most original and objective of all the Hispano-Arabic specialists.

The treatise was lost for many years until a mediaeval Castilian translation of it was discovered by Prof. Millis in the Cathedral Library of Toledo and extracts of it were published by him in 1942.

Bassal’s ancient text deals with all the fundamentals of horticulture and propagation. In Chapter XIII he deals with Garden plants - Rapes, carrots, radishes, garlic, onions, leeks, parsnip, capsicum (pimento), madder. The interesting feature of it is its character. It is matter of fact, practical, didactic, concise; there is no nonsense in it and no digressions on materia medica, no magic and no astrology.

A grand prescription from the Arabian School of old physicians (based on the universal antidote of King Mithridates:

Bodleian Scripts  - 11th Century

The late 11th century witnessed an intriguing script from Bury St Edmonds in England - MS Bodley 130 - a handwritten manuscript containing a copy of a much earlier Latin text; its illustrations are similarly inherited. The original illustrated text had been compiled in the late Roman period (4th or 5th century) relying on Greek sources.

Known as "Pseudo.-Apuleius, Dioscorides, Herbals (extracts); De virtutibus bestiarum in arte medicinae, in Latin and English",  St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury; c. 1070-1100.  This apparently shows a diagram of an orange carrot, which, according to most other historical records did not appear until the 15th century. So another mystery in the origins of modern carrot. 

The script indicated that

 Further evidence of the use, by the ancients of Pastinaca for both carrot and parsnip.
 

Much more background information, including a full translation of the script together with a larger photo are included on a separate page here.   Important Copyright Notice: The image (left) appears with the kind permission of the Bodleian Library and is copyright and any use is restricted by law. Any unauthorised copying or reproduction will constitute an infringement of copyright. The script is held by the Bodleian Library of Oxford University as part of its collection of illuminated mediaeval manuscripts.

Similar scripts - MS. Ashmole 1462 and MS Ashmole 1431 contain the same Pseudo-Apuleian text as MS. Bodl. 130, though with some slight variations in wording.

You will notice a typo! "Pasnatica" instead of "Pastinaca" - a typical transcription error in such scripts.  This again gives a remedy for toothache. Otherwise the same recipes and place names as in the MS Bodley script referred to above.

The carrot leaves and flower do look quite accurate and no doubt orange is the root colour! Click on photos for full picture - note this a large file and will take a while to download.

Centuries passed before the carrot received additional mention in historical literature.

In the 12th century there was a period of Arab expansion into the Middle East and Asia.

Moorish invaders (from Morocco) and then Arabian traders brought seeds of purple and a mutants yellow carrots to the Mediterranean via the coast of North Africa, along with spinach and aubergines. They quickly spread across Europe from Spain, into Holland, France and finally England. 

During that period the carrot travelled westward into the Mediterranean countries. Arab writer, in Spain Ibn al-Awam, in the Kitab al-Filahah - his book on Agriculture - citing a much older work (probably Ibn al Bassal an Islamic Botanist mentioned above) gave a definitive description of two varieties of carrots he encountered in the early part of the 12th century: a red one (probably purple) he says is tasty and juicy and the other, a yellow and green carrot, he calls coarser and of inferior flavour. Al-Awam writes that carrots were served with a dressing of oil and vinegar or added to vegetable mixtures and cereals, probably grains.

By the 13th century scientific enquiry was returning and this was manifest through the production of encyclopaedias, those noted for their plant content included a treatise by Albertus Magnus (c.1193–1280) a Suabian educated at the University of Padua and a tutor to St Thomas Aquinas). It was called De vegetabilibus (c.1256 AD) and even though based on original observations and plant descriptions rather than questions than medicine it bore a close resemblance to the earlier Greek, Roman and Arabic herbals

Carrots were being grown in fields, orchards, gardens, and vineyards in Germany and France. At that time the plant was known also in China, where it was supposed to have come from Persia. Doctors in the Middle Ages prescribed carrots as a medicine for every possible affliction, from syphilis to dog bites! 

The curious carrot traversed the route eastward via European travellers and explorers to set its roots into India and the Far East during the 13th century.

The most heavily used culinary source is also one of the oldest: the Kitab al-tabikh, otherwise known as the Baghdad cookery book. It was written down in 1226, although internal evidence clearly indicates that the material was compiled from several much earlier sources, some of which were not Arabic. This ambiguity is one of the difficulties in using cookbooks to pinpoint the introduction of new vegetables. The book also makes ample reference to fava beans, cardoons, rhubarb, leeks, the ridged cucumber, carrots, gourds, taro, cultivated purslane, turnips, sweet fennel, and spinach.

Around 1287 a relatively unknown and forgotten botanist Valgius Rufinus wrote "Of the Virtues of Herbs and of their Compositions"
The prologue to the work states:

He almost doubles in length the account of dittany and adds to nearly a page from authorities on daucus the statement that there are three kinds: " Daucus asininus and it is called pastinata and likewise baucia. And there is daucus Creticus which is called cartuge and there is another noble daucus which is called affanaria. Furthermore there is a daucus which is called pastumcellus. Its seeds cling to one's clothes. It is
given for cricks,-detur pando ( ?)." Albertus has only four lines on dittany and his account of daucus seems limited to the Cretan variety.

Al-Awam who lived in Andalusia, a region in southern Spain, noted that Arab travellers brought carrots from their homeland to the European continent. The curious carrot traversed the route eastward via European travellers and explorers to set its roots into India and the Far East during the 13th century. By the 14th century the Netherlands, France and Germany were introduced to the carrot. It took another century to reach England's shores during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

An anonymous Andalusian Cook Book gives recipes including for the Great Drink of Roots, Syrup of Carrots and Carrot Paste (jam) and a stew with carrots. Read full detail here - pdf.  (Source: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian10.htm#Heading516)

The 14th century  -  Tacuinum Sanitatis Lavishly illustrated manuscripts known as the Tacuinum Sanitatis were first commissioned by northern Italian nobility during the last decades of the 14th century.

These manuscripts were based on an 11th century Arabic manuscript known as the Taqwim al-Sihha bi al-Ashab al- Sitta (Rectifying Health by Six Causes), which was a guide for healthy living written by the Christian physician and philosopher Abu al- Hasan al-Mukhtar ibn al-Hasan ibn ‘Abdun ibn Sa’dun Ibn Butlan (d. 1063), who was born and educated in Baghdad and whose travels took him to localities that are today in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Israel, and Turkey. The Taqwim was a guide for healthy living, based on ancient philosophical concepts of Greek sciences. It summarized in tabular form information on some 280 health-related items, in particular food and especially vegetables and fruits.

(picture right - (E) parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) from Vienna 2644 folio 28r; (F) carrot (Daucus carota) from Roma 4182 folio 49r.)

Henry Daniel 1315 (approx) - 1385 Although little is known of Daniel's life, a good deal can be deduced from his surviving works, which include translations of medical treatises from the Latin and an extensive herbal, De re Herbaria (1375). He must originally have been comparatively well-to-do, but later became poor and joined the Dominican Order.  It was probably after entering religion that he was able to get access to the many authorities which he consulted in the compilation of his herbal.

Daniel was a scholar of distinction and a student of medicine. He sought out works which, in many cases, must have been rare in English libraries, and his surviving translations are correct, clear, and forcibly expressed.  In his youth Daniel studied medicine for seven years and in his later life had a large garden at Stepney, London, in which he grew 252 different kinds of plants, a very large number for the period.

Carrots were named by Daniel in the list of habitats as - "growing in dry places, and in meers."

In approx 1350 it is known from archaeological evidence that they consumed a variety of vegetables, both grown in gardens and gathered in the wild in the British Isles. Vegetables known from Jorvík (modern York) or Dublin include carrots, parsnips, turnips, celery, spinach, wild celery, cabbage, radishes, fava beans, and peas.

In the Netherlands, France and Germany were introduced to the carrot. It took another century to reach England's shores during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. carrots had spread across north-western Europe. Poor country dwelling folk used the roots for soups that formed the main staple diet.

1393 - Le Ménagier de Paris (a medieval manuscript dated to circa 1393),  contained an enormous chapter containing 197 pages of recipes, menus, and general cookery and household instructions. In the section dealing with "Other small and unnecessary things", where it is advised to cook them like turnip, and where the author directs his wife how to find carrots (the root may have been rare at that time and place) they are described as red roots which are sold at the Halles in baskets, and each basket contains one blanc (a white bunch). The script also included a recipe for carrots in honey - basically boiled and then cooked in honey! There are various sorts of jams, mostly made with honey; in the Middle Ages vegetables were evidently much prepared in this way, for the Menagier speaks of turnip, carrot, and pumpkin jam.

Another reference says "One of the earliest references to the orange carrot in Europe comes from the Menagier of Paris who, in the 14th century, writes a series of instructions for his wife. The carrot at this time was apparently fairly new to the market for he feels it is necessary to describes for her how one may recognize the carrot and adds that they are either white or orange. This is carrot would probably be considered yellow today."

1400  - Another orange rooted illustration of Pastinaca appeared, this time in an Italian herbal, Herbarium Apuleii, Lombardy.(right)

(Source  :Yale Medical Library. Manuscript. 18 [Herbarium Apuleii and other works]. [ca. 1400] MS 18 fol. [33v] )

In the 15th century the early orange varieties were introduced to England by Flemish refugees who grew them in quantity mainly in Kent and Surrey.  Several Herbalists mention "karettes" in their lists of roots for a garden. A separate page in the Carrot Museum details what the herbalists said. Here.

One of the most famous physicians of this period was MasterJohn Arderne, Surgeon of Newark (England), who wrote De Arte Phisicali (c.1412) ("The Art of Medecine) and who treated royalty.  He wrote about medical complaints and their remedies and was considered a master in his field but his cure for kidney stones was a hot plaster smeared with honey and pigeon dung!

Arderne was essentially an operating surgeon whose practice lay amongst the nobility, wealthy landowners and the higher clergy. He was himself well educated though a layman and he met his patients on terms of equality. He is how he used carrot seeds.

"Against constipation when it is due to deformity of the liver and hot materies morbi. Digest the materies morbi thus : R. endive, scolopendrium, maidenhair aa. one handful ; the four lesser cold seeds and fennel aa. Bj ; sandals Bi- Make a syrup of them and purge the patient with rhubarb. If it be from a cold cause he must by no means eat butcher's meat, but he may have the flesh of fowls. Let him sometimes drink poor man's broth and sometimes rich man's, but if he is a pauper let him drink his own urine. If, for any reason he will not drink it let him wash the region of the liver or collect his water for 4 or 5 days and then make a decoction. Distil it and clear it with white of egg and of that water make a syrup with these seeds, smallage, carrot, parsley, caraway, fennel and the four cold seeds not cleansed, &c. aa. 31/2, a handful of .... and an ounce of red saunders. Make a syrup with honey and sugar q.s. and give it with 3iii of benedict in a decoction of polypody, anise and fennel seed.

The greater cold seeds were Citrul, Cucumber, Gourd and Melon.  The lesser cold seeds were Endive, Succory, Lettuce and Purslain.

The greater hot seeds were Anise, Caraway, Cumin and Fennel.

The lesser hot seeds were Bishop's weed [Ammi majus], Amomum, Smallage and Wild Carrot"

(Above from the Replica of the Stockholm Manuscript in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. Drawing of Aherne from 15th Century manuscript in the British Museum, Sloane MS. 2002 ).

Carrot is also mentioned by Italian cook Bartolomeo Sacchi (a.k.a Platina) in his dish "Cariota" - Here are some words and, and recipes of sorts, for both the carrot and the parsnip. He considers them simply variations of the same medicinally useful vegetable.

(From De Honesta Voluptate (On Honest Indulgence and Good Health), Bartolomeo Platina,  - On Right Pleasure and Good Health; Platina 1475, from the Milham translation).
 

Carrot also appeared frequently in several Islamic cookery books of the 15th century including a famous on written by Ibn al-Mabrad. Here is one reference: