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Donkey milk knowledge archive · Historical source
The she-ass dyed black: donkey milk in a rogue’s tale printed in 1627
In the 1627 German edition of the “thieves’ histories”, a Parisian rogue dyes a grey she-ass black and sells her to a Spaniard who will only drink the milk of black she-asses. Along the way, the story shows that donkey milk was traded in Paris and could fetch a high price.
- Author
- François de Calvi (French original); translator not named
- Work
- Beutelschneider, Oder Neue, warhaffte, vnd eigentliche Beschreibung Der Diebs Historien, second part
- Passage
- Book II, chapter XII, pp. 280–286 (Frankfurt 1627; German Text Archive, images 290–296)
- Time & place
- 1627 (German edition) · Frankfurt am Main / story set in Paris
- Type of source
- Rogue tale (translated from French)
In the original words
What the original says
Dann wer diesem Spanier die Eselmilch hette abgesprochen/ der hette jhm zugleich sein Leben genommen: Dann von seiner Kindheit an/ ware er gewohnet Eselsmilch zu trincken
Whoever had denied this Spaniard his donkey milk would have taken his life along with it, for he had been used to drinking donkey milk since childhood.
Vnd hatte er auch die Sachen so wol bestellet/ daß das alte Weib zu jhme kommet/ vnd bittet jhn/ er wolle jhr ein halbe Maß Eselsmilch geben
And he had arranged matters so well that the old woman comes up to him and asks him to give her half a measure of donkey milk.
so viel hielte er von fünff Schilling schwärtze/ welche dieser Beutelschneider angewendet hatte das grawe Haar an seiner Eselinne damit zu färben
So highly did he value five shillings’ worth of blacking, which this cutpurse had used to dye the grey coat of his she-ass.
English rendering: our own translation by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, following the sense of the text.
Background
Who, when, what kind of text
The “Beutelschneider” (cutpurse) is the German translation of a French collection of tales about thieves and tricksters attributed to François de Calvi. The second part was printed in Frankfurt am Main in 1627; its title page states that it was translated “from the French into High German”. The stories are mostly set in Paris and, according to the title, were meant both to warn and to entertain readers.
Collections like this are literary entertainment with a moral veneer, not court records. Characters bear invented names; the narrator himself calls the Spaniard only “Don Richardo” so as to offend nobody. For the history of donkey milk the text is still revealing, because it takes for granted everyday details its readers must have recognised.
Content
What the source reports about donkey milk
According to the story, a distinguished Spaniard in Paris drinks donkey milk “at all times”, either out of habit since childhood or because of an “inner weakness”. His servants have to search the villages around Paris for it. Above all he wants the milk of black she-asses, which the narrator says are hard to find in France.
The rogue Filemon buys a grey, half-bald she-ass at the market for 50 shillings, blackens her for eight days and, dressed as a peasant, leads her past the Spaniard’s house. There a female accomplice haggles loudly over “half a measure of donkey milk”: she offers 10 shillings, the Spaniard’s cook pays 40.
In the end the Spaniard buys the animal for 25 pistoles. The narrator mocks him for valuing “five shillings’ worth of blacking” so highly. Donkey milk here is a prop in a swindle; whether black she-asses were really preferred cannot be concluded from this text alone. Donkey milk is not a substitute for breast milk or infant formula; infant feeding belongs in medical hands.
At a glance
Figures & facts from the source
Critical assessment
How reliable is this source?
Source value
The text is available page by page with facsimile in the German Text Archive. It is a translation; the German print does not identify the French original or the translator in detail. The attribution to François de Calvi follows the bibliographic record.
A story, not a report
Characters, prices and plot serve the punchline. What can be relied on is only what the story assumes readers knew: donkey milk was supplied fresh from the animal in and around Paris, sold by measure, and could be expensive for wealthy customers.
Today’s assessment
The health ideas of the characters reflect the 17th century and cannot be applied to today. The remark that the Spaniard drank donkey milk while still at the breast is itself ridiculed in the text.
Our assessment
Few 17th-century sources show the trade in donkey milk so vividly: servants scour the villages for milking she-asses, and half a measure is haggled over in the street. Precisely because the tale may be invented, it reveals what readers of the time took for granted about donkey milk.
References
Sources to check
- Primary sourceBeutelschneider, second part, Frankfurt 1627, p. 280 (German Text Archive, full text with facsimile, copy ULB Halle); the story runs to p. 286
https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/book/view/calvi_beutelschneider02_1627?p=290 - Work recordBibliographic record and download of the DTA edition (title page: “translated from the French into High German”)
https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/calvi_beutelschneider02_1627
More sources and studies in the research archive. Summarised by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, as of November 2026.