Paleobotanical studies have discovered that hemp was cultivated, mainly to obtain fibre from it, in the south-east of England approximately since the year 400. The Anglo-Saxons migrated to the British Isles and brought the cannabis around the 5th century. Samples of cannabis, in clothes, ropes or nets in Britain were made outside the country (Rudgley, 1999:91). It is also in the British Isles that the term'hanf' is beginning to be used to designate hemp. Hemp was also included in his medical texts. In the book of Trivialities (LXIII C. folio 147) there is a "rite for the sage, partially Irish" that contains hemp, as sacred plaster:"(you will serve) betonic and wild carnation and hemp, raspberry, sage and juniper, bishop's grass and rosemary" (Robinson, 1999:122).
The Merovingian queen Arnegunda (killed in 570) was found surrounded by a spectacular treasure. The limestone tomb was in the Basilica of Saint Denis in Paris. She was dressed in a silk suit and gold jewelry. The body was wrapped in a thick hemp cloth, showing the high esteem in which this fiber was held (Rudgley, 1999:91).
In the 6th century (around 500-570), Constantinopolitanus, a botanical book, was written, including a drawing of the cannabis plant (the oldest known drawing of the plant on an old book) and Aetius of Amida, a native of Mesopotamia, also wrote a 16-volume medical encyclopaedia in Constantinople: the Tetrabibloi in which he names hemp (Conrad, 1998:29).
Hemp ropes have also been found in Iceland that were carried by the Vikings. Along with remains of cloth and hemp nets in Viking tombs in Norway and cannabis seeds in Viking ships of the year 850 (Rudgley, 1999:91). But it appears that the Vikings did not use cannabis as a recreational drug. In the Viking Eddas there is more talk of mead, which was a drink of the gods' own.
The first written law concerning hemp was promulgated by Charlemagne (742-814) in the year 800. In the work "Capitulare" he forced his subjects to grow hemp and the farmers could pay their taxes with hemp seed. In the ninth-century book'Medicina Antiqua', hemp ('canapé') is recommended for the treatment of nipple soreness and for cooling. And also in Germany, the nun, healer and visionary Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), cultivates the "cannabus" in her garden and recommended it for stomachaches and nausea (Broeckers, 2002:128, 136). Hildegard documented in detail that cannabis relieved headache. Nine hundred years later, cannabinoids are still considered a future treatment for migraines. Cannabis was rediscovered by the Crusaders when they returned from the Holy Land because after the fall of the Roman Empire and the consolidation of Christianity, hemp disappeared from the European pharmacopoeia.
In medieval botanical treatises such as those of William Turner, Mattiolli and Dioscobas Taberamontanus, cannabis was considered worthy of honorable mention as a healing plant (Robinson, 1999: 122).
In the Middle Ages hemp was used to obtain fibre but the use of its buds was strictly forbidden by the clergy. The population that was not in direct contact with cannabis forgot the psychic effects it produced. Only the alchemists continued to use it but they were extremely protectionist and silent for obvious reasons. The alchemists were the protégés of kings and emperors, nobles and princes as they were looking for the formula of the Philosopher's Stone. This was a perfect cover for collecting rare and forbidden plants while operating in extravagant laboratories to conduct their experiments.
