[6] A small but striking instance of Saxon knowledge, or rather close observation, of plants is to be found in the following description of wolf’s teazle in the Herbarium of Apuleius:—“This wort hath leaves reversed and thorny and it hath in its midst a round and thorny knob, and that is brown-headed in the blossoms and hath white seed and a white and very fragrant root.” The word “reversed” is not in the original and was therefore added by the Saxon translator, who had observed the fact that all the thistle tribe protect their leaves by thorns pointing backwards as well as forwards.
[7] It is interesting to remember that even as late as the sixteenth century plantain was called “waybroad.” See [Turner’s Herbal].
[8] There are numerous Latin MSS. of this book, chiefly in Italian libraries, several being in the Laurentian Library at Florence. The book was first printed at Rome, probably soon after 1480, by Joh. Philippus de Lignamine, who was also the editor. De Lignamine, who was physician to Pope Sixtus IV., says that he found this MS. in the library of the monastery of Monte Cassino. In the first impression the book is dedicated to Cardinal de Gonzaga; in the second impression to Cardinal de Ruvere. (The copy in the British Museum is of the second impression.) In this small quarto volume the illustrations are rough cuts. It is interesting to remember that these are the earliest known printed figures of plants. The printed text contains a large number of Greek and Latin synonyms which do not appear in the Saxon translation. Subsequent editions were printed in 1528 (Paris) and in the Aldine Collection of Latin medical writers, 1547 (Venice).
[9] Cratevas is said to have lived in the first century B.C. Pliny, Dioscorides and Galen all quote him.
[10] Erlanger, Beiträge zur englischen Philologie, No. XII. (περὶ διδαξέων), eine Sammlung von Rezepten in englischer Sprache.
[11] Printed by De Renzi in Collectio Salernitana, Vol. IV. (Naples, 1856).
[12] English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times.
[13] On the preceding blank page there is an inscription in late seventeenth-century handwriting—
“This boucke with letters is wr [remainder of word illegible]
Of it you cane no languige make.
Ba C.
A happie end if thou dehre [dare] to make
Remember still thyn owne esstate,
If thou desire in Christ to die
Thenn well to lead thy lif applie
barbara crokker.”
It is at least probable that Wanley, who at this period was collecting Anglo-Saxon manuscripts for George Hickes, secured this MS. from “barbara crokker.” Her naïve avowal of her inability to read the MS. suggests that she probably had no idea of the value of the book, and when one remembers Wanley’s reputation for driving shrewd bargains one cannot help wondering what he paid for this treasure. Those must have been halcyon days for collectors, when a man who had been an assistant in the Bodleian Library with a salary of £12 a year could buy Saxon manuscripts!