The only important books Treveris published besides the Grete Herball were the two English translations of Hieronymus Braunschweig’s works (The noble experyence of the virtuous Handy-worke of Surgeri and The vertuouse Book of the Dystillacion of the Waters of all maner of Herbes) and the handsome edition of Trevisa’s translation of Higden’s Polychronicon. The vertuouse Book of the Dystillacion of the Waters of all maner of Herbes is well printed, but the illustrations are from the same inferior German cuts as those in the Grete Herball. The book was translated into English by Laurence Andrew and, though strictly it does not come within the category of herbals, part of the preface is too beautiful to omit. “Lerne the hygh and meruelous vertue of herbes. Knowe how inestimable a preservative to the helth of man god hath provyded growying euery daye at our hande, use the effectes with reverence, and give thankes to the maker celestyall. Beholde how moch it excedeth to use medecyne of efycacye naturall by God ordeyned then wicked wordes or charmes of efycacye unnaturall by the dyuell enuented, whiche yf thou doste well marke, thou shalt have occasyon to gyue the more louynges and praise to oure sauyour, by redynge this boke and knowlegying his benyfites innumerable. To whose prayse, and helthe of all my crysten bretherne, I have taken upon me this symple translacyon, with all humble reverence ever redy to submit me to the correccion of the lerned reder.”
FOOTNOTES:
[38] See [Bibliography of English MS. Herbals].
[39] He is sometimes erroneously called Bartholomew de Glanville. Leland, without citing any authority, called him de Glanville. Bale copied Leland in 1557 and added a list of writings wrongly attributed to Bartholomew. Quétif and Echard give detailed reasons in pointing out Leland’s error. The Parmese chronicler, Salimbene, writing in 1283, refers to him as Bartholomæus Anglicus, and John de Trittenheim, Abbot of Sparheim (end of fifteenth century), speaks of him as “Bartholomeus natione Anglicus.” M. Leopold Delisle endeavoured to claim him as a Frenchman, but although he spent the greater part of his life abroad, he was always distinguished as “Bartholomæus Anglicus.” That he was a Minorite “de provincia Francia” is no proof that he was a Frenchman. Batman (1582), on the authority of Bale, describes Bartholomæus as being “of the noble familie of the Earles of Suffolk.”
[40] John de Trevisa, a Cornishman, was a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, and subsequently of Queen’s College. He afterwards became chaplain to Lord Berkeley and vicar of Berkeley.
[41] Wynkyn de Worde’s real name was Jan van Wynkyn (de Worde being merely a place-name), and in the sacrist’s rolls of Westminster Abbey, 1491-1500, he figures as Johannes Wynkyn.
[42] “The rind thereof medled with wine ... gene to them to drink that shall be cut in their body for they should slepe and not fele the sore knitting.”
[43] Under “Birch” there is another touch of life in the woods in the Middle Ages. “Wylde men of wodes and forestes useth that sede instede of breede [bread]. And this tree hath moche soure juys and somwhat bytynge. And men useth therfore in spryngynge tyme and in haruest to slyt the ryndes and to gader ye humour that comyth oute therof and drynkyth in stede of wyn. And such drynke quencheth thurste. But it fedyth not nother nourryssheth not, nother makyth men dronke.”
[44] In regard to this paper (probably the first made in England for printing) see [Bibliography], p. [204].
[45] For dates, full titles, etc., of all the editions of Banckes’s Herbal see [Bibliography of English Herbals].