Les plantes et l'imaginaire : entretien avec Audrey Dominguez

Audrey Dominguez is a doctorate holder in literature, associate researcher at the Laboratory of Literature and Arts at the University of Grenoble Alpes, specializing in theories of the imaginary with a thesis on the history of plant names and the medicinal garden of Antoine Mizauld, a French astrologer physician from the 16th century.

• Bachelor's degree in literature and management • License in modern letters with a course on the Petit Albert by Vignerons • First dissertation on the lily in the Middle Ages

CIFRE dissertation with Fleurs Vignerons, stimulated by internships in herbalism that provided insight into research beyond its classical structure.

Plants, imaginary, representation of plants in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, etymology, myths and symbolism of plants.

The fleur de lis is associated with the myth of Clovis who, having decided to become Christian and unite all the Franks, saw fleurs de lis appear on his shield which previously bore toads.

• Three symbolic axes refer to spiritual elevation • Representation of royalty and royal dignity • Strong symbol used to justify political stance and decision-making

The straight stem symbolizes the king's elevation toward heaven, the white petals represent purity, and their pointed shape evokes the warrior. The fleur de lis integrates botanical description elements that enable the development of literary symbols.

Guillaume de Titusville's romance of the fleur de lis was written during the war against the English, reflecting the need to justify royal dignity and the importance of a strong symbol to valorize France.

Mint comes from the myth of Menthe, a nymph loved by Hades. Persephone, enraged, transforms her into a plant that spreads everywhere on the hillside, explaining why mint grows abundantly and is difficult to eradicate.

• Mint resembles 'mental' and 'falsehood' • Association with treating headaches and mental problems • Link to moral virtue: better reasoning if one consumes mint

Plant of love, reserved for magical potions and aphrodisiac filters. A rebirth plant that revives easily and reproduces abundantly.

Highly known aromatic plant used in all forms, with particular emphasis on the aromatic quality for studying medicinal plants and associated myths.

Popular culture imagines that mandrake has a woman's body, but this belief was not systematically found in Middle Age medical treatises and encyclopedias. Some medieval authors were aware this interpretation was erroneous.

• Mandrake is the hanged man's herb: its sense fallen to earth • From this sense sprang a plant with incredible effects • A dog is needed to pull the plant from the earth safely

When mandrake is pulled from the earth, it screams and kills the dog. Only one who knows the ritual can use it afterward. This scream is the basis of the representation in Harry Potter.

Plant with incredible effects and virtues, requiring specific harvesting, become an emblematic figure of magic and medieval imaginary.

The link between women, plants and witches is a modern idea, even though historical reality is more nuanced and complex.

• In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, female knowledge about plants was challenged • Women had not studied formally, so they were denied the right to heal with plants • Medical treatises of the period present recipes created by men using plants

Natural magic involves secret knowledge of plants and requires deep academic training, reserved for a few learned men. Witchcraft falls under demonology and is a different concept.

A contrast was established between learned men mastering natural magic and witch women knowing plants but not authorized to freely transmit their knowledge. Healing women were often isolated cases with no generalization possible.

Pepper was known since Antiquity and made a sacred journey. It was not known exactly what it grew on. For a long time, it was thought to grow on a tree, when in reality it is a plant resembling more a vine.

• It was thought pepper was guarded by a dragon • One had to fight a fire-breathing reptilian beast to retrieve it • This creature burned the peppercorns, explaining their blackness upon arrival in the West

Merchants used this myth, because once the grain is burned, it can no longer be cultivated. There were nonetheless cultivation attempts, for example in Venice.

The pepper myth draws from that of the Hesperides, creating an aura of exoticism and danger around this sought-after product.

• At the end of the 15th century, questions arise between physicians and apothecaries • Disputes over who has the right to make medicines and prescribe them • Rivalries documented in prefaces of specialized writings of the era

Dragon's blood is charlatanism: it is not really a plant but a resin or substance transformed to create something else. Critical literature emerged from the Renaissance.

Physicians advise consuming only French products and verifying the origin of products for plants and medicines. Ancient writings must also be commented on critically and the utility of authorities like Galen genuinely evaluated.

Charlatanism develops alongside professional conflicts, requiring increased vigilance over sources and legitimate medical practices.

Florike Monde documented letters sent to Charles de Cruse, a botanist who gathered information on newly discovered plants. This correspondence shows an active exchange network.

• Physicians and botanists are also travelers who forage as much as possible • When direct travel is not possible, they appeal to other travelers or merchants • People simply enjoying plant study also participate in these exchanges

There were links between bourgeois women and botanists, with exchanges of seedlings. There was also an idea of exclusivity concerning certain rare plants.

Plant study was a timely subject that fascinated crowds, offering both didactic interest for self-care and entertainment around the latest novelties.

• Dried and ground plants, not always whole plants • Use of certain plant parts, not others • Attempts to bring seeds for local cultivation

Each plant had its own trade and transport modes, adapted to its characteristics and market value.

Marco Polo's book on the Description of the World mentions improbable plants from elsewhere, reflecting interest in plants from the other side of the world.

In the 16th century, herbals show new interest in exotic plants, with entire treatises created on new plants to valorize these discoveries.

The 16th century saw printing, enabling reliable information dissemination on many subjects. Medicine is an essential subject to communicate, generating many author publications.

• Reinterpretation of ancient writings • Attempts at new communication forms adapted to different audiences • Publication in Latin and French, with French gradually becoming valorized

Antoine Mizauld's medicinal garden is a small work 9 cm long that can slip into one's pocket and be taken while foraging. Poetic forms on medicinal plants explain their virtues in rhyme to aid learning and appeal.

The goal is to create books pleasant to learn and read, democratizing knowledge on plants and medical learning for a wider audience.

• Description section: physical representation of the plant • Virtues section: medicinal properties • Historical section: more or less mythified accounts of plants

The historical section includes either a physician's personal experience account or an experience lived by another physician. These narratives feed into plant imagination and justify their importance.

Mythical stories allow plants to be valorized by inscribing them in an incredible historical context, making information more memorable and pleasant to hear.

Mythology helps integrate practical and medicinal information by wrapping it in fascinating narratives, combining medical pragmatism and literature.

Cato uses a fresh fig before the Senate to prove Carthage's proximity, arguing that a freshly picked fig from the nearby camp justifies an attack. This rhetorical strategy launches the umpteenth Punic War.

Antoine Mizauld explains the importance of having fresh figs for proper nutrition and digestion aid.

The fig gains considerable importance through the historical context in which it is inscribed, combining medicinal virtues and political weight.

This story is pleasant to hear and tell to friends. It allows better integration of information on fig virtues by reinscribing them in a complementary mythified narrative.

Poseidon offers a horse to Athens, while Athena offers an olive tree that produces fruit. The Athenians choose the goddess who has granted them this wonderful gift to watch over them.

Before Hannibal, olive oil was not present in the Alps. To regain warrior strength and cross the Alps with warmth, Hannibal rubs himself with olive oil, though its efficacy is questionable compared to a quilt.

The olive is a tree with strong symbolism, associated with the goddess Athena and divine gifts. This valorization tints all subsequent representation of the tree and its products.

• Livia receives a hen with a laurel branch in its beak • A diviner explains this tree must be planted to ensure the city's prosperity • The olive becomes symbol of well-being and abundance

Siegfried of Nordic mythology was bathed in a bath making him invincible. However, a linden leaf settled on him between the shoulder blades during the bath.

It is exactly where the linden leaf settled that Siegfried remains mortal. An enemy exploits this flaw to kill him by striking at this precise point.

The linden leaf resembles a heart, showing how deeply affecting one's heart has strong symbolism and deadly consequences.

The linden has particularly important symbolism in Germanic and French regions, compared to other regions. It is a tree of the heart and meeting, dense in cultural significance.

Antoine Mizauld separates edible plants from those that are not. Many rustic treatises on fruits and vegetables exist to eat well and self-heal.

Nutrition and health are intrinsically linked according to medieval and renaissance medicine. Fruits and vegetables serve both to nourish and heal.

Around the apple exists highly developed symbolism. Its Latin name 'malum' means round fruit, so any round fruit can be called 'apple': pomegranate apple, orange apple, mandrake apple.

A word can refer to a general idea rather than a specific fruit, creating diverse and sometimes confused associations between cultures and periods.

The apple symbolizes perfection through its round shape. This roundness creates a complete microcosm around a single fruit.

Destroying this microcosm through the bite of the apple contributes to creating the myth of the fall and an irreversible loss.

The apple is a widely distributed fruit, allowing many ideas to be associated with this accessible and universal symbol in Western culture.

• Apple of the Garden of Avalon with its apple tree • Multiple connections to varied myths • Round fruit symbolizing wholeness and knowledge

Knowledge and beliefs about plants and their symbolism are transmitted to our days, particularly through art history and folk practices.

Céline Signorini's thesis on semantic demotivation shows that names assigned to plants and their virtues vary by region and change over time.

Some knowledge falls under highly localized folklore, not applying universally but relevant in specific geographical or cultural contexts.

Knowledge about plants is not fixed but constantly evolving, influenced by local cultures, medical uses and social transformations.

There is an appealing revival of medicinal plants that allows reconnection to nature and oneself, relearning botanical knowledge basics.

• Store logos are recognized more easily than certain plants or tree leaves • Need to return to basics and care for oneself through simple things • Aspiration for ecological and personal reconnection

The current medical system does not support physicians, placing them in an uncomfortable position. The patient-doctor relationship has deteriorated, pushing some people to seek other approaches.

People turn away from the established medical system to find a different relationship with health, seeking a more holistic approach combining physical well-being and symbolism.

Plant names differ between Latin, French and Anglo-Saxon. Each culture does not name plants the same way depending on periods, highlighting different characteristics.

• Tooth-of-lion in English (lion's tooth) • Dandelion in French, from the verb urinate due to diuretic virtues • Toothed leaf for English vs. medicinal action for French

Plant names are influenced by medical practices and reference works of the era, creating spelling and terminological variability.

Eggplant has complex etymology. In English, it is called eggplant because it resembles a small egg. This resemblance to mandrake long attributed harmful virtues to it.

• St. John's Wort (St. John's lyre) • Mugwort • Other plants reputed for medicinal and magical virtues

Saint John's plants are used before, during and after this religious festival. Harvesting becomes particularly interesting at summer solstice, close to the equinox.

The Christian feast of Saint John corresponds to an important natural period, allowing harvests and cultures linked to ancient astronomical cycles.

These practices move away from formal knowledge to approach folklore and popular cultures, less documented in learned medical treatises.

The Voynich Manuscript potentially dates to the 15th century. It is written in an unknown alphabet, raising the fundamental question: what is written and what advice is given?

• Drawings of plants as potential herbal types • Illustrations linked to astronomy • Particular connections difficult to establish with certainty

Articles regularly appear claiming to have deciphered the manuscript, but we never reach very clear conclusions on its actual content.

Parallels can be drawn with the Book of Simples and other medieval treatises, suggesting Voynich may have been influenced by these works while remaining largely mysterious.

The Book of Simples groups simple recipes and proposes plant-based remedies that are easily accessible.

• Simple: single plant or remedy easy to make from two barely modified materials • Compound: complicated preparations created by apothecaries • Simples: popular remedies vs. complicated learned preparations

Simples are based on easy-to-find plants and do not require elaborate or expensive preparations, making them accessible to most of the population.

• Medicine with simples: few plants to mix • Drinks like herbed wine and medicinal wines easily integrated into patient regimens • Alternative to learned and expensive medicine

Sage (salvia) is etymologically linked to 'salvus' which means to save. From the 16th century, the idea that having sage in one's garden allows one to be saved.

Sage is often considered a panacea, a plant possessing curative properties for almost all ailments.

It is still used in modern herbalism, though generally with fewer properties than historically attributed.

The idea that sage saves and heals persists in collective memory, even if actual properties are more limited than popular belief suggests.

First step: gather all available dictionaries and list all plant names with their meanings and significations to identify potential myths and developed images.

Assemble a corpus of plants from Antiquity to the 18th century, representing Jacques Le Goff's 'long Middle Ages' to track the appearance of meanings in widely distributed writings.

Observe how mental trends and representations persist or disappear throughout history, allowing detection of what has been valorized or forgotten.

Examine how historically positive trends reappear in modern brands or political and literary projects that reactivate this imaginary.

While researching pepper, discovery of the story of the guardian dragon. This tale resembles the Hesperides myth but the connecting thread had not yet been drawn.

• Draconian plants: described according to serpent characteristics • Serpent herb: for herbaceous plants • Dragon tree: for trees with serpent or dragon virtues

Serpent virtues attributed to plants: serpent herb allows beautiful skin and fights venom. Draco (to stare fixedly) links plants to eye care.

Some connections seem incredible then prove to have no real basis. It is a bias one wanted to confirm but which may or may not lead to a valid discovery.

Today roses are red, lilies white, yellow means deceit. But these associations are not always fixed in the Middle Ages and vary by period.

• The white lily valorized for purity becomes symbolic late • The red rose is fixed only toward the end of the Middle Ages • The violet can be white or purple depending on descriptions

Mint can have a black (darker) or white (lighter) leaf depending on variety. We do not see plants the same way depending on periods and traditions.

It is important to note these color plays as they influence plant description and imaginary, creating variations in symbolism.

Also called bee leaf, it creates a complete landscape around the plant. It is an interesting plant for describing its environment and natural associations.

• Used in Carmelite water, a medicinal drink • Assembly of plants including lemon balm, anise and fennel • Recipe with variations between the original secret recipe and derivatives

Despite herbal use, lemon balm is little known and rarely mentioned, but possesses potentially developable imaginary around it.

A lemon-balm-based product or specific infusion could be created by exploiting literary and cultural imaginary associated with this herb.

• Oranges: fruits evoking exoticism and distance • Linden: tree without fruit but with different centers of interest • Linden wood and leaf at the heart of its symbolism

When a plant or tree interests us, other centers of interest naturally develop around the wood, the leaf or other characteristics.

Links are created and myths establish themselves around plants, more or less firmly rooted in tradition.

Each plant accumulates meanings that can reinforce one another or enter into tension, creating complex imaginative richness.

Pliny the Elder in the 1st century mentions mistletoe while discussing specific cults. It is one of the rare literary mentions in medical texts of that period.

Unlike many plants, there are no other descriptions of mistletoe in 16th-century medical works studied by Audrey.

Although mistletoe was likely used at the time for certain purposes, it is not addressed or very rarely mentioned in the sources studied.

The relative silence of renaissance medical texts on mistletoe contrasts with its place in collective consciousness and its long cultural history.

Cabbage grows well on dry land and grows easily. It is an ordinary vegetable, often mentioned at the end of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Cabbage is a common food for hungry people, simple and accessible, unlike exotic or rare plants.

The story of children born in cabbages appears only in the 19th century in mothers' journals explaining life to children in an original way.

Unlike more prestigious plants, cabbage does not develop important mythic literature in medieval or renaissance medical texts.

All of Audrey Dominguez's work on plant representation is available online, with references that can clarify some points poorly worded during the interview.

• Michel Pastoureau: history of heraldry and colors • Michel Billé: 'Inquiry into Magical Plants' • Critical Dictionary of the Imaginary by Bernard Saint-Jean and Jean-Loïc Le Quellec

• Jacques Le Goff: Long Middle Ages • Philippe Walter: medieval popular beliefs • Pauline Le Plougeon: symbolism of the linden

• Marianne Closson: online conference on the imaginary of the witch • Céline Signorini: thesis on semantic demotivation of plants • Theories of the imaginary and structures of myths

The study of plants and the imaginary surrounding them reveals the interconnection between medicine, literature, history, symbolism and popular beliefs.

Understanding plant symbolism allows us to decipher modern communication strategies, particularly in marketing, by valorizing certain objects through their symbolic associations.

Myths and symbolism associated with plants are transmitted through the centuries, evolving according to periods and cultures, creating a rich and complex imaginary landscape.

The interview encourages listeners to explore these resources to deepen their understanding of plants, of medieval and renaissance imaginary, and of structures of contemporary myths.