With the possible exception of the Herbarium of the Pseudo-Apuleius, probably the best known single and distinct treatment of the virtues of herbs produced during the middle ages was the poem De viribus herbarum which circulated under the name of Macer Floridus.[2495] It was often cited by the medieval encyclopedists and other writers on nature and medicine in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.[2496] It is found in an Anglo-Saxon version[2497] and was even translated into Danish in the early thirteenth century.[2498] Manuscripts of it are very numerous[2499] and there are many early printed editions.[2500] Even as recently as the first half of the nineteenth century a historian of medicine and natural science, in the preface of his edition of Macer, stated as one argument for the modern study of medieval medicine that much might be learned from writings of that period concerning the virtues of herbs.[2501]
Problem of date and author
The poem was certainly not written by the classical poet, Aemilius Macer, who was a friend of Vergil and Ovid, and whose descriptions of plants, birds, and reptiles are cited by Pliny in his Natural History and also preserved in some extracts by the grammarians. Proof of this is that our poem cites Pliny; in fact, it cites him more frequently than any other author. It also cites Galen six times, Dioscorides four, and as late an author as Oribasius twice.[2502] But Oribasius is not the latest author cited since Walafrid Strabo is also used.[2503] Strabo was born about 806, became abbot of Reichenau in 842, and died in 849. In his Hortulus, a poem dedicated to Grimoald, the abbot of St. Gall, he described twenty-three herbs in 444 hexameters.[2504] Indeed Stadler holds that the Pseudo-Macer uses the De gradibus of Constantinus Africanus who did not die until 1087.[2505] The true author of our poem ascribed to Macer is said on the authority of certain manuscripts to have been an Odo of Meung on the Loire, apparently the same town as the birthplace of Jean Clopinel or de Meun, the learned author of the latter portion of The Romance of the Rose. Choulant, however, did not regard this as sufficiently proved, and Stadler has recently noted that some manuscripts ascribe the poem to a physician, Odo of Verona; and others to the Cistercian, Odo of Morimont, who died in 1161.[2506] In any case, unless the mentions of Strabo are later interpolations, the author must be regarded as post-Carolingian, while he cannot be later than the eleventh century in view of a remark of Sigebertus Gemblacensis in 1112,[2507] the Anglo-Saxon version, the many twelfth century manuscripts, and the frequent use of his poem in the Regimen Salernitanum.[2508] Although Macer seems a pseudonym to begin with, the original poem, consisting of 2269 lines in which 77 herbs are discussed, is sometimes accompanied by additional lines regarded as spurious.[2509]
Virtues ascribed to herbs.
Our poet does not appear to have much of his own to offer on the subject of the virtues of herbs. When he does not cite his authority by name, he usually qualifies the statement made by a vaguer “they say” or “it is said.” He does not connect certain herbs with certain stars or otherwise introduce anything that can be called astrological. He repeats Pliny’s statement of the powers ascribed to vervain by the magi, such as to gain one’s desires, win the friendship of the powerful, and dispel disease and fever. Pliny had spoken of the magi as “raving about this herb”; our poet says:
“Although potent Nature can grant such virtues,
Yet they really seem to us idle old-wives’ tales.”[2510]
Nevertheless he himself about fifteen lines before had said of the vervain:
“If, holding this herb in the hand, you ask the patient,
‘Say, brother, how are you?’ and the patient answers, ‘Well,’