(against poison), a practice not unknown in modern times, was much more common in antiquity and was notably visible at the tables of royal or other powerful personages in the Middle Ages. The annals of the 14th- and 15th-century European countries are full of instances where troublesome nobles were neatly disposed of by the agency of poison. Several potent drops expressed from monkshood or wolfsbane, or from hemlock—the umbelliferous plant, not our innocent evergreen tree—or black hyoscyamus, yielded by the herb henbane, could be depended upon to make quick and relatively quiet work of an enemy. Likewise the lethal effects of mercury, arsenic, or antimony sulphide were well understood by the pharmacists—and others—of the day. Besides, the chances to instil a poison in food abounded: the formal procedures followed for serving food in noble households meant that numerous individuals handled a multiplicity of prepared dishes as they made their long way between a distant kitchen and the dining hall. The determined assassin with a proclivity to poison had a remarkably good range of choice, in the areas both of means and of opportunity.
It is entirely understandable then, that the aristocrats and even royalty of the period were usually anxious about the wholesomeness of all the dishes that were set before them to eat. Yet so great was the apprehension about deliberate poisoning that a whole system of checks and counter-checks had evolved and was continuously in place in noble households, to ensure that none of the foods served to the high table were in any way tainted. In no other area of a prince's life did the security of his person give rise to such a complex series of formal tests than in the matter of his food. Everything he ate was subject to two sorts of assays: by a piece of unicorn horn, and by a sample being consumed by one of his trusted officers. (In the first case the presence of poison in the food might cause the unicorn horn—usually a piece of narwhal tusk, of dubious provenance—to change colour or tremble or even exude a sort of sweat; in the second case, the poison's effect upon the ‘human guinea pig’ would be adequately manifest.) At some courts these tests were regularly carried out several times during the process of dishing out and serving.
The above, which is based on Scully (1995), refers to Europe in the Middle Ages. Procedures in other parts of the world and in other epochs were similar in principle although different in detail and in the degree of elaboration which was thought necessary or found feasible.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
