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Donkey milk knowledge archive · Historical source
Konrad von Megenberg, Book of Nature: donkey milk in the first German natural history
Around 1350 the Regensburg canon Konrad von Megenberg wrote the first comprehensive work on nature in German. The chapter on the ass says that ass’s milk whitens, strengthens the teeth when warm and takes the sighing from the heart.
- Author
- Konrad von Megenberg (1309–1374), canon of Regensburg cathedral
- Work
- Das Buch der Natur (The Book of Nature), ed. Franz Pfeiffer, Stuttgart 1861
- Passage
- Part III, section A “Von den tiern in ainer gemain” (on animals), chap. 1 “Von dem esel”, pp. 119–120; ass’s milk on p. 120, lines 2–10
- Time & place
- c. 1348–1350; edition Stuttgart 1861 · Regensburg
- Type of source
- Natural history in German
In the original words
What the original says
Plinius spricht, daz der eselinne milch gar weiz sei und daz si auch helf der menschen weizen, und dâ von list man, daz des kaisers Nerônis hausfraw sich padet in esels milch.
Pliny says that the milk of the she-ass is very white and also helps to make people white; and thus one reads that the wife of the emperor Nero bathed in ass’s milk.
esels milch alsô warm sterkt die zend und sänftigt irn smerzen und aller maist wenne man si dâ mit reibt.
Ass’s milk, warm as it is, strengthens [according to Konrad] the teeth and soothes their pain, above all when one rubs them with it.
si benimt auch daz sêr säufzigen dem herzen.
It also takes the painful sighing from the heart.
English rendering: our own translation by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, following the sense of the text.
A look at the original
What the passage looks like
Konrad von Megenberg, Das Buch der Natur, Pfeiffer edition, Stuttgart 1861, p. 120: the sentences on ass’s milk are in lines 2 to 10.
The page comes from a freely accessible digitised copy. Click to open the passage at the library.
Harvard University, Digitalisat über Google Books / Internet Archive; gemeinfrei
Background
Who, when, what kind of text
Konrad von Megenberg came from Franconia, studied and taught in Paris and Vienna and worked in Regensburg from 1348, finally as a cathedral canon. Around 1348–1350 he translated and reworked the Liber de natura rerum of Thomas of Cantimpré into German there. The result was the Book of Nature, the first comprehensive natural history in German, with books on man, the heavens, animals, trees, herbs, stones, metals and remarkable springs.
The work survives in more than a hundred manuscripts and was printed several times in Augsburg from 1475. Franz Pfeiffer’s critical edition (1861) gives the Bavarian text with line numbers. The chapter on the ass opens the alphabetically ordered land animals because the Latin name Asinus begins with A. Konrad combines natural history with spiritual interpretation.
Content
What the source reports about donkey milk
Konrad begins with the ass’s virtues, its peacefulness and patience, and its vices. He then quotes Pliny: she-ass’s milk is very white and helps to make people white; this is why the wife of the emperor Nero bathed in ass’s milk. Ass’s meat, by contrast, makes bad blood.
A sentence follows that is rare in this form in the ancient sources: warm ass’s milk strengthens the teeth and soothes their pain, above all when rubbed on, and takes the painful sighing from the heart. The rest of the chapter deals with the she-ass’s breeding and lifespan, which Konrad interprets as an image of a fruitful life in good works.
At a glance
Figures & facts from the source
Timeline
Where this source stands in the history of donkey milk
Each dot is a source from our knowledge archive – from Greek antiquity to the present day.
Fact check
Recorded or just told?
Poppaea, wife of the emperor Nero, bathed daily in the milk of hundreds of she-asses, and this was common knowledge in the Middle Ages.
Konrad only writes that one reads that Nero’s wife bathed in ass’s milk, citing Pliny. He gives no numbers; for him the story is a piece of learned reading, not his own report.
Critical assessment
How reliable is this source?
Source value
Pfeiffer’s edition can be checked page by page with line numbers. It presents a critically established text, not a single manuscript; the spelling (for example ô, â) is normalised. In content Konrad largely follows Thomas of Cantimpré.
Knowledge for lay readers
What is new is less the content than the language: Konrad makes Latin learned knowledge about ass’s milk available to German-speaking readers for the first time and links it with a spiritual reading of the animal.
Today’s assessment
The remarks on teeth and heart are medieval tradition, not health statements valid today. The link between ass’s milk and pale skin is a historical ideal of beauty that Konrad takes over from Pliny.
Our assessment
With Konrad von Megenberg the history of donkey milk speaks German at length for the first time. His sentences show how the tale of the empress’s bath and practical home remedies stood side by side in the fourteenth century.
References
Sources to check
- Primary sourceKonrad von Megenberg, Das Buch der Natur. Die erste Naturgeschichte in deutscher Sprache, ed. Franz Pfeiffer, Stuttgart: Karl Aue 1861, book III, section A, chap. 1 “Von dem esel”, p. 120 (archive.org, copy of Harvard University)
https://archive.org/details/dasbuchdernatur00pfeigoog/page/n188/mode/1up - SupplementarySame edition, p. 119: beginning of the chapter “Von dem esel”
https://archive.org/details/dasbuchdernatur00pfeigoog/page/n187/mode/1up
More sources and studies in the research archive. Summarised by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, as of November 2026.