Bertram: Hildegard’s Forgotten Digestive Herb

Bertram is the herb Hildegard von Bingen could not stop recommending. Across the pages of her twelfth-century natural history, the Physica, the same modest root surfaces again and again, pressed on the sick and the well alike. Where many of the abbess’s remedies were reserved for specific complaints, Bertram—the pungent root the German Hildegard tradition still keeps in its spice tins—was treated almost as a daily staple, a seasoning she believed belonged in ordinary cooking. For a woman who catalogued hundreds of plants with a naturalist’s discipline, that kind of repeated, unqualified enthusiasm is worth pausing over.

If you have spent any time with Hildegard von Bingen’s herbs, you already know she did not hand out praise loosely. So why this one root, and what did she think it was doing? The answer turns out to sit surprisingly close to the logic behind every bottle of bitters on a modern apothecary shelf.

What Bertram Actually Is

Bertram is the German name for Anacyclus pyrethrum, a low-growing relative of chamomile known in English as pellitory of Spain. Native to the Mediterranean rim—Morocco, Spain, and Algeria—it produces a daisy-like flower above a slender, intensely flavored root. It is the root that matters here. Dried and ground to a pale powder, it carries a warming, tingling pungency that announces itself the moment it touches the tongue.

That sensation is not incidental. Pellitory of Spain owes its character to a family of compounds called N-alkylamides, chiefly pellitorine, which produce the root’s signature pungency and the faint, prickling numbness that herbalists have used as a kind of botanical signature for centuries. The plant also contains traces of essential oils and other constituents, but it is this pungent, saliva-summoning quality that made it a fixture of European apothecaries long before anyone could name a single molecule inside it.

Why a Bitter, Pungent Root Belongs at the Table

Here is where Bertram’s long reputation starts to make sense. Pellitory of Spain is what older herbals call a sialagogue—a plant that stimulates the flow of saliva. Place a pinch of the powder on the tongue and the mouth waters almost involuntarily. In traditional use, that watering was understood as the leading edge of a larger response: a body being readied to eat and to break food down.

This is the same principle that animates the entire category of digestive bitters. Bitter and pungent flavors are sensed in the mouth and, traditionally, are associated with priming the digestive sequence that follows—saliva first, then the cascade of secretions further down. Hildegard had no vocabulary for receptors or enzymes, but she was an unusually careful observer of cause and effect, and she clearly noticed that this particular root changed how a meal sat afterward. Pellitory of Spain has been traditionally used to encourage appetite and to ease the heavy, undigested feeling that follows a rich meal—the very territory where gentian root and other classic bitter herbs have long been put to work.

It is worth being precise about what this does and does not mean. Bertram is a food and a traditional seasoning, not a medicine, and the historical record describes culinary and customary use rather than clinical proof. What the tradition offers is a coherent, centuries-old rationale: a pungent root that wakes up the mouth may, in turn, support the ordinary work of digestion.

Modern eaters have, in their own way, circled back to this idea. The renewed interest in bitter aperitifs, in eating something sharp before a meal rather than something sweet after it, is really a rediscovery of a very old habit. Hildegard would have recognized the impulse immediately. She did not need a clinical trial to tell her that a vivid flavor on the tongue could change the way a meal was received; she had her own attentive palate and decades of watching what worked at the refectory table. Bertram was, in that sense, her everyday answer to a question modern wellness keeps rediscovering: how do you eat in a way that leaves you feeling lighter rather than heavier?

Bertram in the Physica: Hildegard’s Own Words

Hildegard devoted a chapter of the Physica to Bertram, and her language is strikingly practical. In the traditional German rendering of that passage, she advises that whether eaten dry or cooked into dishes, Bertram “is useful and good for a sick and a healthy person,” and that it “prepares good digestion and lets nothing remain undigested.” She framed it less as a treatment for illness than as a daily safeguard—something to fold into everyday eating so that food would be well used by the body rather than left to sit and spoil within it.

Two things are worth flagging for accuracy. First, these are translations and paraphrases of Hildegard’s medieval Latin and the later German Hildegard tradition that grew around it; they convey her sense, not a verbatim modern quotation. Second, Hildegard’s framework was the humoral medicine of her age, in which she classed Bertram as warm and balanced—a quality she prized because she believed warmth aided digestion. We need not adopt her medieval physiology to appreciate the observation underneath it: she ate this root, watched what happened, and recommended it with rare consistency. That same spirit—empirical, attentive, unhurried—runs through the rest of the herbs in Hildegard’s original bitters formula.

From the Cloister Garden to the European Apothecary

Bertram did not stay confined to Hildegard’s Rhineland. Pellitory of Spain traveled the length of medieval and early-modern Europe, and its root became a standard line in apothecary drawers from the Mediterranean to the north. Much of that reputation rested on the same tingling pungency Hildegard prized: the powdered root was a well-known remedy for waking up a sluggish mouth, and it was applied to aching gums and teeth precisely because it provoked such a vivid rush of saliva. Where Hildegard read that watering as a sign of good digestion to come, later herbalists simply trusted the sensation and kept the jar within reach.

It is a useful reminder that the line between kitchen and pharmacy was once far blurrier than it is today. A root could be a seasoning at supper and a remedy by the bedside, and no one thought the two uses were in tension. Hildegard sat at the headwaters of that European tradition, and her insistence on folding Bertram into daily food—rather than saving it for moments of illness—reflects a worldview in which eating well and staying well were the same project. For the curious cook today, that history is half the pleasure: to reach for Bertram is to reach for something that has been on European tables, in one form or another, for the better part of a millennium.

Bringing Bertram Into a Modern Kitchen

For the home cook, Bertram is approachable in a way many medieval remedies are not. In the German Hildegard kitchen it is used much like a pungent table spice: a small pinch stirred into soups, stews, egg dishes, spelt preparations, or a vinaigrette toward the end of cooking, where its warmth rounds out a dish without dominating it. A little goes a long way; the tingling potency that made it memorable to Hildegard also means restraint is the point. When sourcing it, look for finely milled Bertram root powder from a supplier that specializes in the Hildegard tradition, and store it as you would any potent spice—sealed, cool, and away from light, where its pungency keeps for months. Those drawn to the wider world of Hildegard’s seasonings will find Bertram keeping good company with the other bitter and warming spices she favored.

If you would rather meet these flavors in a form built for before a meal, the same family of bitter and pungent botanicals that Hildegard championed lives on in the Hildegard formula behind Hildegard’s Bitters—a modern bittering blend made in her tradition. It is a tidy way to bring the principle to the table without keeping a dozen apothecary jars in the cupboard.

What endures about Bertram is not a health claim but a habit of attention. Hildegard noticed that a sharp, saliva-summoning root seemed to make eating easier, and she built it into daily life. Nearly nine centuries later, that intuition—that flavor itself can prepare the body to eat well—remains the quiet idea at the heart of every good bitters.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The information in this article is provided for historical and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider.