CHAPTER IV
THE BOTANICAL RENAISSANCE OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
1. The Herbal in Germany.
N his History of Botany, Kurt Sprengel first used the honoured title, “The German Fathers of Botany,” to describe a group of herbalists—Brunfels, Bock, Fuchs and Cordus—whose work belongs principally to the first half of the sixteenth century.
The earliest of these was Otto Brunfels [Otho Brunfelsius], who is said to have been born in 1464. His surname is derived from the fact that his father, who was a cooper, came from Schloss Brunfels, near Mainz. When Otto grew up, he became a Carthusian monk. We do not know how long his monastic career lasted, but eventually his health appears to have broken down, and, at the same time, his faith in the Roman Catholic Church was undermined by the acquaintance which he began to make with protestant doctrines. He fled from the monastery, and took up his abode in Strasburg, where he was for nine years headmaster of the grammar school. He wrote various theological works, but ultimately turned his attention to medicine, and, before his death in 1534, he had become town physician at Bern. As evidence of his medical studies we have his fine herbal, which is still full of interest, whereas his other works, which he probably regarded as much more serious contributions, have fallen into oblivion.
Text-fig. 22. “Walwurtz männlin” = Symphytum, Comfrey [Brunfels, Herbarum vivæ eicones, Vol. I. 1530]. Reduced.