The Early Modern Commons

distillatio

Recent Posts

Review of “The experimental Fire” by Jennifer Rampling

8 October 2022

I am afraid that this review is 18 months late, due to running out of spoons in 2021 after moving house whilst also work being very busy and the ongoing pandemic running as a stressful...

A dyeing recipe that parallels an alchemical quintessence recipe

9 February 2022

At the weekend I was browsing page 298 of Clarke’s The crafte of Lymming etc.. published by the Early English Text Society a few years ago and found this interesting recipe. From...

On what alchemy was and the gap in public knowledge of alchemy

13 January 2020

My friend Ted put up a bit of a mischeivous twitter poll before Christmas, that asked: Let’s settle this once and for all. Alchemy was a 1. Vain pursuit of lead into gold with...

Aqua Lunaris and Oleum Solis – by Richard Stanihurst

30 December 2018

I was recently given a copy of a transcription and translation of the above named MS, done by Conleth Loonan. The work is probably by Stanihurst, but it hasn’t exactly been signed...