TURNERO . MEDICO . AC . THEOLOGICO . PERITISSI | MO .
DECANO . WELLENSI . PER . ANNOS . TRIGINTA . IN . VTRAQUE |
SCIENTIA . EXERCITATISSIMVS . ECCLESIAE . ET . REI . PUBLICAE |
PROFVIT . ET . CONTRA . VTRIVSQUE . PERNITIOSISSIMOS . HOS |
TES . MAXIME . VERO . ROMANUM . ANTICHRISTVM . FORTISSIMUS |
JESU . CHRISTI . MILES . ACERRIME . DIMICAVIT . AC . TANDEM .
COR | PUS . SENIO . ET . LABORIBUS . CONFECTVM . IN . SPEM .
BEATISSIM : |
RESVRRECTIONIS . HIC . DEPOSVIT . ANIMAM . IMMORTALEM |
CHARISSIMO . EIVSQUE . SANCTISSIMO . DEO . REDDIDIT . ET .
DEVICTIS . CHRISTI . VIRTUTE . MVNDI . CARNISQUE . VIRIBUS .
TRIUMPHAT IN AETERNUM .
MAGNVS . APOLLINEA . QVONDAM . TVRNERVS . IN . ARTE
MAGNUS . ET . IN . VERA . RELIGIONE . FVIT .
MORS . TAMEN . OBREPENS . MAIOREM . REDDIDIT ILLVM .
CIVIS . ENIM . CAELI . REGNA . SVPERNA . TENET
OBIIT . 7 DIE . IVLII . AN . DOM . 1568 .
In his will, which is too long to quote here, Turner bequeathed to his wife[65] “his best pece or syluer vessell and halfe dozen of syluer spones,” and to his nephew “my lyttell furred gowne.” Peter, the son to whom he left “all my writen bookes and if he be a preacher all my diuinitie bookes, & yf he practise Phisicke all my physicke bookes,” had some knowledge of plants, for in a copy of Turner’s Herbal in the Linnean Society’s Library there is a long list of errata for which Peter Turner apologised in an Address to the Reader. There is something very naïve and charming about Peter’s admiration for his father’s “fame and estimation.” He tells us that he has diligently compared the printed book with his father’s “owne hande copie,” and refrains from having the whole book printed again because “I should have done against Charitie to have caused the Printer by that meanes to lose all his labor and cost which he hath bestowed in printing hereof. Wherefore, gentle Reader, beare a little with the Printer that never was much accustomed to the printing of Englishe and afore thou reade over this booke correct it as I haue appointed and then the profit thereof will abundantly recompense thy paynes. In the meane time vse this Herbale in stede of a better and give all laude and prayse unto the Lorde.”
Turner was the first Englishman who studied plants scientifically, and his herbal marks the beginning of the science of botany in England. Like most writers of any value, he impressed his personality upon his books, and these show him to have been a man of indomitable character, caustic wit and independent thought. “Vir solidae eruditionis judicii” he is called by John Ray. His first botanical work was the Libellus de re herbaria novus (1538), printed by John Byddell in London. This little book is particularly interesting, because it is the first in which localities of native British plants are given. In 1548 he published another small book entitled The names of herbes in Greke, Latin, Englishe, Duche, and Frenche wyth the commone names that Herbaries and Apotecaries use, gathered by William Turner. In the preface he tells us that he had begun to “set furth an herbal in latyn,” but that when he asked the advice of physicians, “their advise was that I shoulde cease from settynge out of this boke in latin till I had sene those places of Englande, wherein is moste plentie of herbes, that I might in my herbal declare to the greate honoure of our countre what numbre of sovereine and strang herbes were in England, that were not in other nations, whose counsell I have folowed, deferrying to set out my herbal in latyn, tyl that I have sene the west countrey, which I never sawe yet in al my lyfe, which countrey of al places of England, as I heare say, is moste richely replenished wyth al kindes of straunge and wonderfull workes and giftes of nature as are stones, herbes, fishes and metalles, when as they that moued me to the settyng furth of my latin herbal, hearde this so reasonable an excuse, they moved me to set out an herbal in Englishe as Fuchsius dyd in latine wyth the discriptions, figures and properties of as many herbes, as I had sene and knewe, to whom I could make no other answere but that I had no such leasure in this vocation and place that I am nowe in, as is neccessary for a man that shoulde take in hande suche an interprise. But thys excuse coulde not be admitted for both certeine scholars, poticaries, and also surgeons, required of me if that I woulde not set furth my latin herbal, before I have sene the west partes, and have no leasure in thys place and vocation to write so great a worke, at the least to set furth my judgement of the names of so many herbes as I knew, whose request I have accomplished, and have made a litle boke, which is no more but a table or regestre of suche bokes as I intende by the grace of God to set furth hereafter; if that I may obteine by your graces healp such libertie and leasure with convenient place, as shall be necessary for suche a purpose.”
Turner’s notable work, his Herbal, is the only original work on botany written by any Englishman in the sixteenth century. The first part of it was printed in London by Steven Mierdman, a Protestant refugee from Antwerp, in 1551. The second part was printed by Arnold Birckman, at Cologne, in 1561, during Turner’s enforced exile. Birckman also printed the edition of 1568, which contained all three parts. (For the full title, etc., see [Bibliography of Herbals], p. [208].)
One of the most attractive features of this Herbal is the number of beautiful woodcuts with which it is illustrated. A few were specially drawn and cut for the author, but the great majority are reproductions of the exquisite drawings in Fuchs’s herbals (De historia Stirpium, 1545; and Neue Kreüterbuch, 1543). Nearly all the illustrations in the famous sixteenth-century Flemish, English and Swiss herbals were printed from the actual wood-blocks or copied from the illustrations in Fuchs’s works. Notably in Hieronymus Bock’s Kreüter Buch (1546), Rembert Dodoens’s Cruÿdtboeck (1554), Henry Lyte’s Niewe Herball (1578), and Jean Bauhin’s Historia plantarum universalis (1651). It is a remarkable fact that so far as wood-engraving is concerned this country has contributed nothing to the art of plant illustration. In the first English illustrated Herbal, the Grete Herball of 1526, the figures are merely copies of the inferior cuts in the later editions of the Herbarius zu Teutsch, and, with the exception of Parkinson’s Paradisus, all the English sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century herbals borrowed their illustrations from Flemish or German sources. Fuchs had two sets of blocks for his Herbal, one for the folio edition of 1542 and the other for the octavo edition of 1545. It was the blocks for the latter which were borrowed by Turner’s printer, and it has been suggested that it was his desire to secure these beautiful illustrations which led him to have his herbal printed at Cologne.[66] Over 400 of Fuchs’s blocks were used in the complete edition of Turner’s Herbal, and, of the rest, some are copied from the smaller figures in Mattioli’s[67] commentary on Dioscorides.
Turner dedicated the first part of his Herbal (1551) to the Duke of Somerset, uncle to Edward VI., and at that time Lord Protector. The preface is delightful and I quote a part of it:—
“To the mighty and christiane Prince Edward, Duke of Summerset, Erle of Herford, Lorde Beauchampe, and Uncle unto the Kynges maiesty, Wyllyam Turner his servant wysheth increase in the knowledge of Goddes holy worde and grace to lyue thereafter. Although (most myghty and Christian Prince) there be many noble and excellent actes and sciences, which no man douteth but that almyghty God, the author of all goodness, hath gyuen unto us by the hands of the Hethen, as necessary unto the use of Mankynd: yet is there none among them all, whych is so openly cōmended by the verdit of any holy writer in the Bible, as is ye knowledge of plantes, herbes, and trees and of Phisick. I do not remembre that I have red anye expressed commendations of Grammer, Logick, Philosophie, naturall or morall, Astronomie, Arithmetyke, Geometry, Cosmographie, Musycke, Perspectiue or any other such lyke science. But I rede amonge the commendatyons and prayses of Kyng Salomon, that he was sene in herbes shrubbes and trees and so perfectly that he disputed wysely of them from the hyghest to the lowest, that is from the Cedre tre in Mount Liban unto the Hysop that groweth furth of the wall. If the Knowledge of Herbes, shrubbes and trees which is not the lest necessary thynge unto the knowledge of Phisicke were not greatly commendable it shulde never have bene set among Salomon’s commendacyons and amongst the singular giftes of God. Therefor whereas Salomon was commended for the Knowledge of Herbes the same Knowledge was expressedly ynough com̄ended there also.” Continuing, he speaks of learned Englishmen “Doctor Clement, Doctor Wendy and Doctor Owen, Doctor Wolton and Maister Falconer”[68] which “have as much knowledge in herbes yea and more than diuerse Italianes and Germanes whyche have set forth in prynte Herballes and bokes of simples. Yet hath none of al these set furth any thyng other to the generall profit of hole Christendome in latin and to the honor of thys realme, nether in Englysh to the proper profit of their naturall countre.” After slyly observing that perhaps they do not care to jeopardise their estimation, he compares himself, for having ventured to write this book, with the soldier “who is more frendly unto the commonwealth, which adventurously runneth among the myddes of hys enemyes, both gyuyng and takyng blowes, then he that, whilse other men feight, standeth in the top of a tre iudging how other men do, he beynge without the danger of gonne shot himself.”
To those who may object that it is too small, he explains that he will write more fully when he has “travelled diverse shyres in England to learn more of the herbs that grow there.” Others may condemn him for writing in English, “for now (say they) every man without any study of necessary artes unto the knowledge of Phisick will become a Phisician ... euery man nay euery old wyfe will presume, not without the mordre of many, to practyse Phisick.” To these he succinctly replies, “How many surgianes and apothecaries are there in England which can understand Plini in Latin or Galen and Dioscorides?” The English physicians, he says, rely on the apothecaries, and they in turn on the old wives who gather the herbs. Moreover, since the physicians are not present when their prescriptions are made up, “many a good mā by ignorance is put in jeopardy of his life, or good medecine is marred to the great dishonesty both of the Phisician and of Goddes worthy creatures.” All this can be avoided by having a herbal written in English. Dioscorides and Galen, he points out, wrote in their native tongue, Greek. “Dyd Dioscorides and Galen give occasion for every old wyfe to take in hād the practise of Phisick? Did they giue any iust occasion of murther? If they gaue no occasyon unto every old wyfe to practise physike then give I none. If they gave no occasion of murther then gyue I none ... then am I no hynderer wryting unto the English my countremen an English herball.”