Manus-Christi-msg – 12/10/05

A medieval confection of sugar, rosewater and possibly gold or pearls.

NOTE: See also the files: Manus-Christi-art, sugar-msg, comfits-msg, Roses-a-Sugar-art, sugar-paste-msg, sugar-sources-msg, 14C-Sweets-art, marzipan-msg, Gd-Huswfs-Jwl-msg.

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This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.

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Thank you,
    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 07:36:19 -0500
From: Robert Downie <rdownie at mts.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks]Manus Christi, was: Selene's Files
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
> On Sep 29, 2005, at 2:26 AM, Susan Fox wrote:
>
>> This has an interesting measurement!  You boil the apples and sugar as long
>> as it takes to say the prayer called "Manus Christi."  I’m not sure how 
>> long that is, but I let it get good and thick.
>
> FWIW, it's my vaguely recalled understanding that Manus Christi is
> not a prayer, per se, but rather another confection boiled to s
> specific temperature/density.

Peter Brears refers to the making of these from boiled sugar plate in
_All the King's Cooks_.  4 oz cane sugar plus 1/4 pint water boiled to
325*F then poured onto a marble slab dusted with rice flour, allowing it
to run into broad disks.  He says Manus Christi are just like this
sugarplate, except made with rosewater instead of regular water, and
dropped into small round cakes, then coated with gold leaf.

Faerisa

Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 08:39:36 -0400
From: "Lonnie D. Harvel" <ldh at ece.gatech.edu>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Manus Christi
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Recipe:
http://www.harvestfields.ca/CookBooks/003/07/01/095.htm

Also in here:
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-SWEETS/Candying-art.html

At least one version of the prayer begins "Ave dextera manus christi
perforata plaga tristi..." and recounts the five wounds of Christ at the
Crucifixion. There are many other prayers that do so as well.

It is worth knowing and reciting because "to him who each day will read
this prayer and consider the torments of our Lord Jesus Christ will Pope
Innocentius give as many days absolution as there are grains of sand on
the bottom of the ocean...".

The Manus Christi is also an award of service in the Catholic Church.

Sorry, no time now to dig out the books. The vision of Pope Gregory the
Great in the 7th century is probably the best starting point for the
adoration of The Five Sacred Wounds.

Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 08:42:36 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
	<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Manus Christi -- was, Re: [Sca-cooks] Selene's Files
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

On Sep 29, 2005, at 8:24 AM, Volker Bach wrote:
> IIRC 'Manus Christi' refers to a gesture - palm out, fingers together, thumb
> spread away from them - that is typical of Christ in medieval iconography and
> signifies what we'd call the 'thread' stage, tested between the thumb and
> forefinger.
>
> But I'm no sugar cook, I only know this by theory.
>
> Giano

This would make plenty of sense, but I'm pretty sure I've seen
references to a specific confection called Manus Christi. It might
easily be derived from that gesture, though.

I'll look for recipes. Somebody want to flag this sub-thread for Alys
K.? This is the kind of thing she'd know about, I suspect.

Adamantius

Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 09:03:39 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Manus Christi -- was, Re: [Sca-cooks] Selene's Files
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Karen Hess goes onto it and provides recipes in MWBof Cookery

Dawson has this recipe--

To make Manus Christi

   <>Take five spoonefull of Rosewater, and graines of Ambergreece, and 4
grains of Pearle beaten very fine, put these three together in a Saucer
and cover it close, and let it stande covered one houre, then take foure
ounces of very fine Suger, and beate it small, and search it through a
fine search, then take a little earthen pot glased, and put into it a
spoonefull of Suger, and a quarter of a spoonefull of Rosewater, and let
the Suger and the Rosewater boyle together softelye, till it doe rise
and fall againe three times.  Then take fine Rie flower, and sifte on a
smooth borde, and with a spoone take of the Suger, and the Rosewater,
and first make it all into a roundcake and then after into little Cakes,
and when they be halfe colde, wet them over with the same Rosewater, and
then laye on your golde, and so shall you make very good Manus Christi.
from the Florilegium file Gd-Huswfs-Jwl-msg - 7/29/02

Johnnae

Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 10:14:16 -0400
From: "Elise Fleming" <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Manus Christi:  Was Selene's Files
To: "sca-cooks at ansteorra.org" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Greetings.  Adamantius is correct that Manus Christi is not a prayer but a
confection.  In doing some early research on sugar boiling, I found that
Karen Hess in _Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery_, recipe S5, gives 215
decrees F. as "manus christi height".  This is, I believe, the same as the
"thread" or "lisse" stage of sugar boiling.  However, _Joy of Cooking_
gives the temperature of the "thread" stage as 230-234 degrees F.  It
probably would be something to experiment with.

Alys Katharine

Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 10:19:39 -0400
From: "Elise Fleming" <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re:  Manus Christi
To: "sca-cooks at ansteorra.org" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Adamantius kindly wrote:
> Somebody want to flag this sub-thread for Alys
> K.? This is the kind of thing she'd know about, I suspect.

[grin]  By the time I get the digest version of the list, folk have already
popped in with really good answers!  It's interesting to see that Brears
and Joy of Cooking give the thread stage ("when the sugar is drawn out
between fingers and thumb) as close to the same temperature, but that Hess
has "manus christi height" as quite a bit cooler.  Maybe someone can
correct me, but I think that the one thing that separates manus christi
from boiled sugar drops is the addition of gold leaf which is stirred  
into the confection.

Alys Katharine

Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 11:27:09 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
	<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: Manus Christi -- was, Re: [Sca-cooks] Selene's Files
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

On Sep 29, 2005, at 9:03 AM, Johnna Holloway wrote:

> Karen Hess goes onto it and provides recipes in MWBof Cookery
>
> Dawson has this recipe--
>
> To make Manus Christi
>
> Take five spoonefull of Rosewater, and graines of Ambergreece, and 4
> grains of Pearle beaten very fine, put these three together in a Saucer
> and cover it close, and let it stande covered one houre, then take foure
> ounces of very fine Suger, and beate it small, and search it through a
> fine search, then take a little earthen pot glased, and put into it a
> spoonefull of Suger, and a quarter of a spoonefull of Rosewater, and let
> the Suger and the Rosewater boyle together softelye, till it doe rise
> and fall againe three times.  Then take fine Rie flower, and sifte on a
> smooth borde, and with a spoone take of the Suger, and the Rosewater,
> and first make it all into a roundcake and then after into little Cakes,
> and when they be halfe colde, wet them over with the same Rosewater, and
> then laye on your golde, and so shall you make very good Manus Christi.
>
> from the Florilegium file Gd-Huswfs-Jwl-msg - 7/29/02
>
> Johnnae

Thank you! So, if I'm reading this correctly, you're making a sort of
medicated rosewater with the ambergris and pearls, then boiling a
heavy syrup from it and the pounded and sieved sugar for three
"walms", then pouring a pool of the stuff out onto some sieved flour
(I suspect Rice, and not Rye, but I could be wrong). This is then
worked into a paste as it cools, and then cut and flattened into
smaller cakes, which are then moistened with more of the same
rosewater to make the cakes sticky again, and gilded with gold
leaf... presumably, then dried. And somehow, the specific gravity of
the syrup produced this way, using specific measurements for sugar
and rosewater, brought to a boil, allowed to cool from a boiling
state, then boiled and cooled twice more, and probably after
absorbing as much flour as it'll "soak up", approximates a fairly
consistent candy density, a.k.a. reproducible results. So, "Manus
Christi height" is a meaningful term.

We just need to make Manus Christi to figure out what it is ;-)

Adamantius

Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 15:26:04 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Manus Christi --
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

I pulled my facsimile of Dawson from the shelf and looked at the actual text from 1596.

There it's "Rie flower" which I suspect as you do is rice flour and not rye.  That combined edition that Southover Press put out in 1996 does
use the word rye in her transcription.

One of these days when the weather is not humid,
I am going to turn to candy making. I could do a batch of these
with what I have at hand except for the gold leaf. Think I am out of that.
Will they be Manus Christi without the gold? Have to see and compare.

Laura Mason also goes into Manus Christi in her Sugar-Plums and Sherbert
volume. I forgot to mention that earlier.

On an OT Op note, I will mention that the reason spurring us onto to do candy
is this just drop dead gorgeous candy book that's just mouthwatering.
A Baker’s Field Guide to Holiday Candy and Confections by Dede Wilson.
http://www.dedewilson.com/
It's the first cookbook that Patrick has ever gone through page by page and marked which ones we will be making. The pictures are just that tempting.

Johnnae

Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 18:07:27 -0400
From: "Elise Fleming" <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Manus Christi
To: "sca-cooks at ansteorra.org" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Johnnae asked:
> Will they be Manus Christi without the gold? Have to see and compare.

I _think_ manus christi is defined by containing gold.  I don't recall
seeing a manus christi recipe without the gold, but I haven't seen
everything that exists and my memory is weakening!  But, I believe a
defining factor of a sugar gobbet - or rather, that which changes a  
sugar gobbet into manus christi - is the use of gold.

Alys K.

Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 19:01:44 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Manus Christi
To: alysk at ix.netcom.com, Cooks within the SCA
	<sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Hess suggests that pearls were used at times and not gold. Recipe
S110 is the same recipe as the S107 To Make Manus Christi except it has
no gold in it. So I suppose they might be Aromaticum Lozenges, if I
make them without gold.

I think however there are different kinds of confections that share the same name. Laura Mason when quoting that elusive York archival document says
that one gets manus Christi if one omits the honey from the paste ryall recipe
and cuts the mixture into gobbets. It's a mixture of sugar and egg
whites flavored by spices.
That might be its earliest appearance in a manuscript in fact. That one
doesn't contain gold.
So when did gold become a needed part of the recipe?
I'll try and run a search on the term through some online collections
in the am. Right now it's not connecting.

Johnnae

======== Might want to replace with article later but hold here for now ========

Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2005 17:46:24 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Manus Christi with pearls
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

I started this but am only about halfway through all the citations.
I realized it was going to be one huge document so I shall split it up
a bit into smaller postings and then combine it into a file for
Stefan.

Here's a mid 16th century source. Note the use of pearls here.
Gold isn't mentioned. These recipes are coming out of more medical texts
than culinary which may the reason that Countess Alys
never encountered them in the past. Also this database
is relatively new.

Hope this helps   Johnnae llyn Lewis

------------------------------------------

Bullein, William, d. 1576.

Title: Bulleins bulwarke of defence against all sicknesse, soarenesse,
and vvoundes that doe dayly assaulte mankinde: which bulwarke is kept
with Hilarius the gardener, [and] Health the phisicion, with the
chirurgian, to helpe the wounded soldiours. Gathered and practised from
the most worthy learned, both olde and new: to the great comfort of
mankinde: by VVilliam Bullein, Doctor of Phisicke. 1562.  This edition
published in 1579. It dates from 1562.

Page numbers not given for every page which makes it hard to cite
exactly where in the text the quote comes from. This is a work on cures
and medicines that is
now up on EEBO Full Text. It's written in the form of a Q&A session.

----------------
Sickenes.: How make you Manus Christi?

Health.:

FIrst take of Suger claryfied and melted in the Water of Roses. l i.ss.
seeth these two tyll the water be consumed and the Suger hard, in the
end of your decoction put in. &dram;.ss. of Perles or precious stones,
made in fyne pouder, then lay it vpon a Marbell stone anoynted wyth oyle
of Ro|ses or Uyolets, or Rose water. Page 14

------------
Later it says

Marcellus.: What say you of Pearle called the Margarite?

Hilarius:

THe Pearle is not only riche and pleasant to behold, but also holsome
and good in medicine. Plinie. lib. 9. cap. 35. sayth, that there be
plen|ty of Pearles in Arabia, in the mouth of the Red sea, growing
with|in the shelles, called the mother of Pearle, in whych they are
conueyed: the vnion which is cleane, bryght, whyte, round, and heauy, is
the richest. The pouder of Pearle is good to be put in cordialles, as
Manus Christi, and the same pouder with the white of an Egge, will
clense the eyes. About thys Realme many Pearles be gathered in Muscels,
and other Shell fishe, but not the most orient.
--------------------------

<snip. See the rest of Johnnae’s references in the Manus-Christi-art file. –Stefan>

<the end>