The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

HERBALS

THEIR ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION

A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF BOTANY
1470-1670

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
C. F. CLAY, Manager

Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET
London: WILLIAM WESLEY & SON, 28, ESSEX STREET, STRAND
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Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.

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LEONHARD FUCHS (1501-1566).
[Engraving by Speckle in De historia stirpium, 1542.]

HERBALS
THEIR ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION
A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF BOTANY
1470-1670
BY
AGNES ARBER
(Mrs. E. A. NEWELL ARBER)
D.Sc., F.L.S., FELLOW OF NEWNHAM COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
AND OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1912
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

TO MY FATHER

H. R. ROBERTSON

“Wherefore it maye please your ... gentlenes to take these my labours in good worthe, not according unto their unworthines, but accordinge unto my good mind and will, offering and gevinge them unto you.”

William Turner’s Herbal, 1568.

PREFACE

To add a volume such as the present to the existing multitude of books about books calls for some apology. My excuse must be that many of the best herbals, especially the earlier ones, are not easily accessible, and after experiencing keen delight from them myself, I have felt that some account of these works, in connection with reproductions of typical illustrations, might be of interest to others. In the words of Henry Lyte, the translator of Dodoens, “I thinke it sufficient for any, whom reason may satisfie, by way of answeare to alleage this action and sententious position: Bonum, quo communius, eo melius et præstantius: a good thing the more common it is, the better it is.”

The main object of the present book is to trace in outline the evolution of the printed herbal in Europe between the years 1470 and 1670, primarily from a botanical, and secondarily from an artistic standpoint. The medical aspect, which could only be dealt with satisfactorily by a specialist in that science, I have practically left untouched, as also the gardening literature of the period. Bibliographical information is not given in detail, except in so far as it subserves the main objects of the book. Even within these limitations, the present account is far from being an exhaustive monograph. It aims merely at presenting a general sketch of the history of the herbal during a period of two hundred years. The titles of the principal botanical works, which were published between 1470 and 1670, are given in Appendix I.

The book is founded mainly upon a study of the herbals themselves. My attention was first directed to these works by reading a copy of Lyte’s translation of Dodoens’ Herbal, which happened to come into my hands in 1894, and at once aroused my interest in the subject. I have also drawn freely upon the historical and critical literature dealing with the period under consideration, to which full references will be found in Appendix II. The materials for this work have chiefly been obtained in the Printed Books Department of the British Museum, but I have also made use of a number of other libraries. I owe many thanks to Prof. Seward, F.R.S., who suggested that I should undertake this book, and gave me special facilities for the study of the fine collection of old botanical works in the Botany School, Cambridge. In addition I must record my gratitude to the University Librarian, Mr F. J. H. Jenkinson, M.A., and Mr C. E. Sayle, M.A., of the Cambridge University Library, and also to Dr Stapf, Keeper of the Kew Herbarium and Library. By the kindness of Dr Norman Moore, Harveian Librarian to the Royal College of Physicians, I have had access to that splendid library, and my best thanks are due to him, and to the Assistant-Librarian, Mr Barlow. To the latter I am especially indebted for information on bibliographical points. I have also to thank Mr Knapman of the Pharmaceutical Society, Dr Molhuizen, Keeper of the Manuscripts, University Library, Leyden, and the Librarian of the Teyler Institute, Haarlem, for giving me opportunities for examining the books under their charge.

The great majority of the illustrations are reproduced from photographs taken directly from the originals by Mr W. Tams of Cambridge, to whom I am greatly indebted for the skill and care with which he has overcome the difficulties incidental to photographing from old books, the pages of which are so often wrinkled, discoloured or worm-eaten. For the use of Plate [XVIII], which appeared in Leonardo da Vinci’s Note-Books, I am under obligations to the author, Mr Edward M^cCurdy, M.A., and to Messrs Duckworth & Co. Text-figs. [7], [18], [77], [78] and [112] are reproduced by the courtesy of the Council of the Bibliographical Society, from papers by the late Dr Payne, to which the references will be found in Appendix II, while, for the use of Text-fig. [108], I am indebted to the Royal Numismatic Society. For permission to utilise the modern facsimile of the famous Dioscorides manuscript of Juliana Anicia, from which Plates [I], [II], and [XV] are derived, I have to thank Prof. Dr Josef Ritter von Karabacek, of the k. k. Hofbibliothek at Vienna. In connection with the portraits of herbalists here reproduced, I wish to acknowledge the generous assistance which I have received from Sir Sidney Colvin, formerly Keeper of Prints and Drawings, British Museum.

I would also record my thanks to Mr A. W. Pollard, Secretary of the Bibliographical Society, Prof. Killermann of Regensburg, Signorina Adelaide Marchi of Florence, Mr C. D. Sherborn of the British Museum (Natural History) and Dr B. Daydon Jackson, General Secretary of the Linnean Society, all of whom have kindly given me information of great value. For help in the translation of certain German and Latin texts, I am indebted to Mr E. G. Tucker, B.A., Mr F. A. Scholfield, M.A., and to my brother, Mr D. S. Robertson, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

I wish, further, to express my gratitude to my father for advice and suggestions. Without his help, I should scarcely have felt myself competent to discuss the subject from the artistic standpoint. To my husband, also, I owe many thanks for assistance in various directions, more particularly in criticising the manuscript, and in seeing the volume through the press. I am indebted to my sister, Miss Janet Robertson, for the cover, the design for which is based upon a wood-cut in the Ortus Sanitatis of 1491.

A book of this kind, in the preparation of which many previous works have been laid under contribution, is doubtless open to a certain criticism which William Turner, “the Father of British Botany,” anticipated in the case of his own writings. I think I cannot do better than proffer my excuse in the very words of this sixteenth-century herbalist:

“For some of them will saye, seynge that I graunte that I have gathered this booke of so manye writers, that I offer unto you an heape of other mennis laboures, and nothinge of myne owne,... To whom I aunswere, that if the honye that the bees gather out of so manye floure of herbes, shrubbes, and trees, that are growing in other mennis medowes, feldes and closes: maye justelye be called the bees honye:... So maye I call it that I have learned and gathered of manye good autoures ... my booke.”

AGNES ARBER.

Balfour Laboratory, Cambridge,

26th July, 1912.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FRONTISPIECE
Leonhard Fuchs (1501-1566) [Engraving by Speckle in De historia stirpium, 1542]
PLATES

FIGURES IN THE TEXT[1]

[The initial letters, which will be found at the beginning of each chapter, are taken from Pierre Belon’s ‘Les Observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables, trouvées en Grece, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie, et autres pays estranges,...Imprimé à Paris par Benoist Prévost.’ 1553.]

CHAPTER I
THE EARLY HISTORY OF BOTANY

1. Introductory.

N the present book, the special subject treated is the evolution of the printed herbal, between the years 1470 and 1670, but it is impossible to arrive at clear ideas on this subject without some knowledge of the earlier stages in the history of Botany. The first chapter will therefore be devoted to the briefest possible sketch of the progress of Botany before the invention of printing, in order that the position occupied by the Herbal in the history of the science may be realised in its true perspective.

From the very beginning of its existence, the study of plants has been approached from two widely separated standpoints—the philosophical and the utilitarian. Regarded from the first point of view, Botany stands on its own merits, as an integral branch of natural philosophy, whereas, from the second, it is merely a by-product of medicine or agriculture. This distinction, however, is a somewhat arbitrary one; the more philosophical of botanists have not disdained at times to consider the uses of herbs, and those who entered upon the subject, with a purely medical intention, have often become students of plant life for its own sake. At different periods in the evolution of the science, one or other aspect has predominated, but from classical times onwards, it is possible to trace the development of these two distinct lines of inquiry, which have sometimes converged, but more often pursued parallel and unconnected paths.

Botany as a branch of philosophy may be said to have owed its inception to the wonderful mental activity of the finest period of Greek culture. It was at this time that the nature and life of plants first came definitely within the scope of inquiry and speculation.

2. Aristotelian Botany.

Aristotle, Plato’s pupil, concerned himself with the whole field of science, and his influence, especially during the Middle Ages, had a most profound effect on European thought. The greater part of his botanical writings, which belong to the fourth century before Christ, are unfortunately lost, but, from such fragments as remain, it is clear that his interest in plants was of an abstract nature. He held that all living bodies, those of plants as well as of animals, are organs of the soul, through which they exist. It was broad, general speculations, such as these, which chiefly attracted him. He asks why a grain of corn gives rise in its turn to a grain of corn and not to an olive, thus raising a plexus of problems, which, despite the progress of modern science, still baffle the acutest thinkers of the present day.

Aristotle bequeathed his library to his pupil Theophrastus, whom he named as his successor. Theophrastus was well fitted to carry on the traditions of the school, since he had, in earlier years, studied under Plato himself. He produced a ‘History of Plants’ in which Botany is treated in a somewhat more concrete and definite fashion than is the case in Aristotle’s writings. Theophrastus mentions about 450 plants, whereas the number of species in Greece known at the present day is at least 3000. His descriptions, with few exceptions, are meagre, and the identification of the plants to which they refer is a matter of extreme difficulty.

In various points of observation, Theophrastus was in advance of his time. He noticed, for instance, the distinction between centripetal and centrifugal inflorescences—a distinction which does not seem to have again attracted the attention of botanists until the sixteenth century. He was interested in the germination of seeds, and was aware, though somewhat dimly, of the essential differences between the seedling of the Bean and that of the Wheat.

In the Middle Ages, knowledge of Aristotelian botany was brought into western Europe at two different periods,—the ninth and the thirteenth centuries. In the ninth century of the Christian era, Rhabanus Magnentius Maurus, a German writer, compiled an encyclopædia which contained information about plants, indirectly derived from the writings of Theophrastus. Rhabanus actually based his work upon the writings of Isidor of Seville, who lived in the sixth and seventh centuries—Isidor having obtained his botanical data from Pliny, whose knowledge of plants was in turn borrowed from Theophrastus.

The renewal of Aristotelian learning in the thirteenth century was derived less directly from classical writings than was the case with the earlier revival. From the time of Alexander onwards, various Greek schools had been founded in Syria. These schools were largely concerned with the teachings of Aristotle, which were thence handed on into Persia, Arabia and other countries. The Arabs translated the Syriac versions of Greek writers into their own language, and their physicians and philosophers kept alive the knowledge of science during the dark ages when Greece and Rome had ceased to be the homes of learning, and while culture was still in its infancy in Germany, France and England. The Arabic translations of classical writings were eventually rendered into Latin, or even sometimes into Greek again, and in this guise found their way to western Europe.

Amongst other books, which suffered these successive metamorphoses, was the pseudo-Aristotelian botany of Nicolaus of Damascus, which has acquired importance in the annals of western science, because it formed the basis of the botanical work of Albertus Magnus.

Albert of Bollstadt (1193-1280), Bishop of Ratisbon, was a famous scholastic philosopher. He was esteemed one of the most learned men of his age, and was called “Albertus Magnus” during his life-time, the title being conferred on him by the unanimous consent of the schools. The “Angelic Doctor,” St Thomas Aquinas, became one of his pupils. According to legendary lore the name of Albertus would have been unknown in science, but for divine intervention, which miraculously affected his career. As a boy, tradition says that he was singularly lacking in intelligence, so much so that it was feared that he would be compelled to abandon the hope of entering monastic life, since he seemed incapable even of the limited acquirements necessary. However, one night, the Blessed Virgin, touched by his fervour and piety, appeared before him in glory, and asked whether he would rather excel in philosophy or in theology. Albertus without hesitation chose philosophy. The Virgin granted his desire, but, being inwardly wounded at his choice, she added that, because he had preferred profane to divine knowledge, he should sink back, before the end of his life, into his pristine state of stupidity. According to the legend, this came to pass. Three years before his death he was suddenly struck down, in the presence of his students, and never regained his mental powers.

The botanical work of Albertus forms only a small fraction of his writings, but it is with that part alone that we are here concerned. As already mentioned, his knowledge of botany was based upon a mediæval Latin work, which he reverenced as Aristotle’s, but which is now attributed to Nicolaus Damascenus, who was, however, a follower of Aristotle and Theophrastus. Although Albertus undoubtedly drew his botanical inspiration from this book, a large proportion of his writings on the subject were original.

The ideas of Albertus were in many ways curiously advanced, especially in the suggestions which he gives as to the classification of plants, and in his observations of detailed structure in certain flowers. We shall return to his writings in future chapters dealing with these subjects. It will suffice now to mention his remarkable instinct for morphology, in which he was probably unsurpassed during the next four hundred years. He points out, for instance, that, in the vine, a tendril sometimes occurs in place of a bunch of grapes, and from this he concludes that the tendril is to be interpreted as a bunch of grapes incompletely developed. He distinguishes also between thorns and prickles, and realises that the former are stem structures, and the latter merely surface organs.

Plate I

‘Sonchos’ [Dioscorides, Codex Aniciæ Julianæ, circa A.D. 500]. Reduced.

Albertus seems to have had a fine scorn for that branch of the science now known as Systematic Botany. He considered that to catalogue all the species was too vast and detailed a task, and one altogether unsuited to the philosopher. However, in his Sixth Book he so far unbends as to give descriptions of a number of plants.

As regards abstract problems, the views of Albertus on plant life may be summed up as follows. The plant is a living being, and its life principle is the vegetable soul, whose function is limited to nourishment, growth and reproduction—feeling, desire, sleep, and sexuality, properly so called, being unknown in the plant world.

Albertus was troubled by many subtle problems connected with the souls of plants, such questions, for instance, as whether in the case of the material union of two individuals, such as the ivy and its supporting tree, their souls also united. Like Theophrastus, and other early writers, Albertus held the theory that species were mutable, and illustrated this view by pointing out that cultivated plants might run wild and become degenerate, while wild plants might be domesticated. Some of his ideas, however, on the possibility of changes from one species to another, were quite baseless. He stated, for instance, that, if a wood of oak or beech were razed to the ground, an actual transformation took place, aspens and poplars springing up in place of the previously existing trees.

The temperate tone of the remarks made by Albertus on the medical virtues of plants contrasts favourably with the puerilities of many later writers. Much of the criticism from which he has suffered at various times has been, in reality, directed against a book called ‘De virtutibus herbarum,’ the authorship of which was quite erroneously attributed to him. We shall refer to this work again in Chapter VIII.

After the time of Albertus, no great student of Aristotelian botany arose before Andrea Cesalpino, whose writings, which belong to the end of the sixteenth century, will be considered in a later chapter. The work of Cesalpino had great qualities, but, curiously enough, it had little influence on the science of his time. He may be regarded as perhaps the last important representative of Aristotelian botany.

3. Medicinal Botany.

With the Revival of Learning, the speculative botany of the ancients began to lose its hold upon thinking men. This may be attributed to the curious lack of vitality, and the absence of the power of active development, manifested in this aspect of the subject since its initiation at the hands of Aristotle. It had proved comparatively barren, because, though the minds which engaged in it were among the finest that have ever been concerned with the science, the basis of observed fact was inadequate in quality and quantity to sustain the philosophical superstructure built upon it. It might have been supposed a priori that accurate observation of natural phenomena needed a less highly evolved type of mind than that required to cope with metaphysical considerations, and hence that, in the development of any science, the epoch of observation would have preceded the epoch of speculation. In actual fact, however, the reverse appears to have been the case. The power of scientific observation seems to have lagged many centuries behind the power of reasoning, and to have reached its maturity at least two thousand years later.

Aristotle and Theophrastus arrived by the subtlest mental processes at a certain attitude towards the universe, and at certain ideas concerning the nature of things. They attempted a direct advance in scientific thought by extending these conceptions to include the plant world. It was an heroic effort, but one which could not ultimately form a basis for continued progress, because, in its inception, preconceived ideas had come first, and the facts of Nature second. It seems to be almost a law of thought, that it is the indirect advances which in the end prove to be the most fertile. The progress of a science, like that of a sailing boat, more often proceeds by means of “tacking” than by following a direct course.

In the case of botany, the path which was destined to lead furthest in the end was the apparently unpromising one of medicine. Various plants from very early times had been used as healing agents, and it became necessary to study them in detail, simply in order to discriminate the kinds employed for different purposes. It was from this purely utilitarian beginning that systematic botany for the most part originated. As we shall show in later chapters, nearly all the herbalists whose work is discussed in the present volume were medical men. The necessity for some means of recognising accurately the individual species of medicinal plants led in time to a sounder and more exact knowledge of their morphology than had ever been acquired under the influence of thinkers such as Albertus Magnus, who regarded with some contempt the idea of becoming acquainted in detail with the countless forms of plant life.

The mass of observations relating to herbs and flowers, accumulated during a period of many centuries, largely for medicinal purposes, is to-day serving as the basis for far-reaching biological theories, which could never have arisen without such a foundation.

It is not systematic botany alone that we owe in the first instance to medicine. Nehemiah Grew (1641-1712), one of the founders of the science of plant anatomy, was led to embark upon this subject because his anatomical studies as a physician suggested to him that plants, like animals, probably possessed an internal structure worthy of investigation, since they were the work of the same Creator.

In Ancient Greece there was considerable traffic in medicinal plants. The herbalists[2] and druggists[3] who made a regular business of collecting, preparing and selling them, do not appear however to have been held in good repute. Lucian makes Hercules address Æsculapius as “a root-digger and a wandering quack[4].”

The herbalists seem to have attempted to keep their business select by fencing it about with all manner of superstitions, most of which have for their moral that herb-collecting is too dangerous an occupation for the uninitiated. Theophrastus draws attention to the absurdity of some of the root-diggers’ directions for gathering medicinal plants. For instance he quotes with ridicule the idea that the Peony should be gathered at night, since, if the fruit is collected in the daytime, and a wood-pecker happens to witness the act, the eyes of the herbalist are endangered. He also points out that it is folly to suppose that an offering of a honey-cake must be made when Iris fœtidissima is rooted up, or to believe that if an eagle comes near when Hellebore is being collected, anyone who is engaged in the work is fated to die within the year.

The herbalists’ knowledge of plants must have been in the first place transmitted from generation to generation entirely by word of mouth, but as time went on, written records began to replace the oral tradition. The earliest extant European work dealing with medicinal plants is the famous Materia Medica of Dioscorides, which was accepted as an almost infallible authority as late as the Renaissance period.

Dioscorides Anazarbeus was a medical man who probably flourished in the first century of the Christian era, in the time of Nero and Vespasian. Tradition has, however, sometimes assigned to him the post of physician to Antony and Cleopatra. His native land was Asia Minor, but he appears to have travelled widely. In his Materia Medica he described about five hundred plants, with some attempt at an orderly scheme, though, naturally, the result is seldom successful when judged by our modern standards of classification. The actual descriptions of the plants are very slight, and it is only those with particularly salient characteristics which can be recognised with any ease. Careful research on the part of later writers has however led to the identification of a number of the plants to which he refers.

There is a famous manuscript of Dioscorides at Vienna, which is said to have been copied at the expense of Juliana Anicia, the daughter of the Emperor Flavius Anicius, about the end of the fifth, or the beginning of the sixth century. The character of the script settles the age within narrow limits. Juliana lived into the reign of Justinian, and was renowned for her ardent Christian faith, and for the churches which she built. The manuscript which bears her name is illustrated by a number of drawings, which are in some cases remarkably beautiful, and very naturalistic. A facsimile reproduction of this manuscript was published in 1906, and it is thus rendered accessible to students. Examples of the figures are shown on a reduced scale in Plates [I], [II] and [XV].

Plate II

‘Stratiotes’ [Dioscorides, Codex Aniciæ Julianæ, circa A.D. 500]. Reduced.

The botanists of the Renaissance devoted a great deal of time and energy to the consideration of the writings of Dioscorides. The chief of the many commentators who dealt with the subject were Matthiolus, Ruellius and Amatus Lusitanus, and a discussion of the botany of Dioscorides formed an integral part of almost every sixteenth-century herbal.

One of the contemporaries of Dioscorides, Gaius Plinius Secundus, commonly called the Elder Pliny, should perhaps be mentioned at this point, although he was not a physician, nor does he deserve the name of a philosopher. In the course of his ‘Natural History,’ which is an encyclopædic account of the knowledge of his time, he treats of the vegetable world. He refers to a far larger number of plants than Dioscorides, probably because the latter confined himself to those which were of importance from a medicinal point of view, whereas Pliny mentioned indiscriminately any plant to which he found a reference in any previous book. Pliny’s work was chiefly of the nature of a compilation, and indeed it would scarcely be reasonable to expect much original observation of nature from a man who was so devoted to books that it was recorded of him that he considered even a walk to be a waste of time!

The writings of the classical authors, especially Theophrastus and Dioscorides, dominated European botany completely until, in the sixteenth century, other influences began to make themselves felt. As we shall see in the following chapter, the earliest printed herbals adhered closely to the classical tradition.

CHAPTER II
THE EARLIEST PRINTED HERBALS

(Fifteenth Century)

1. The Encyclopædia of Bartholomæus Anglicus and ‘The Book of Nature.’

FTER the invention of printing, a very active period of book production followed, during which many works, which had previously passed a more or less lengthy existence in manuscript, were put into circulation in print, contemporaneously with books actually written at the time. The result is that a number of the “incunabula,” as printed books of the fifteenth century are technically called, are far more ancient, as regards the matter which they contain, than the date of their publication would seem to suggest.

This characteristic is illustrated in the Encyclopædia of Bartholomæus Anglicus, and in Konrad von Megenberg’s ‘Das půch der natur,’ which were perhaps the earliest printed books containing strictly botanical information. The former work, which was first printed about 1470, was compiled by a monk, sometimes called Bartholomew de Glanville, who flourished in the thirteenth century. The title by which it is generally known is ‘Liber de proprietatibus rerum.’ One of the sections of which it is composed is concerned with an account of a large number of trees and herbs, arranged in alphabetical order, and is chiefly occupied with their medicinal properties. It also includes some theoretical considerations about plants, on Aristotelian lines. An English translation, which was printed by Wynkyn de Worde before the end of the fifteenth century, is interesting as containing the very primitive botanical wood-cut reproduced in Text-fig. [19].

Plate III

Wood-cut of Plants [Konrad von Megenberg, Das půch der natur, 1475]. Reduced.

‘Das půch der natur’ is slightly later as regards the date of publication, having been printed by Hanns Bämler at Augsburg in 1475. It seems to have been very popular, for it passed through six or seven editions before the end of the fifteenth century. A very large number of manuscripts of ‘The Book of Nature’ exist, as many as eighteen being preserved in the Vienna Library and seventeen at Munich. The text is a compilation from old Latin writings, and is said to have been translated into German as early as 1349. The portion dealing with plants consists of an account of the virtues of eighty-nine herbs with their Latin and German names. The chief interest of the work, from our present point of view, lies in the fact that it contains the earliest known botanical wood engraving (Plate [III]). We shall return to this subject in Chapter VII.

2. The Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus.

Another very early book based on classical writings, especially those of Dioscorides and Pliny, was the ‘Herbarium’ of Apuleius Platonicus. This little Latin work is among the earliest to which the term “Herbal” is generally applied. A herbal has been defined as a book containing the names and descriptions of herbs, or of plants in general, with their properties and virtues. The word is believed to have been derived from a mediæval Latin adjective “herbalis,” the substantive “liber” being understood. It is thus exactly comparable in origin with the word “manual” in the sense of a hand-book.

Four early printed editions of the Herbal of Apuleius Platonicus are known, all of which appear to have been based on different manuscripts. The earliest was published in Rome late in the fifteenth century, from a manuscript discovered by Joh. Philippus de Lignamine, physician to Pope Sixtus IV. Nothing is definitely known concerning the author, but it is conjectured that he was a native of Africa, and that his book may date from the fifth century, or possibly even the fourth. The work undoubtedly had a career of many centuries in manuscript before it was printed.

Text-fig. 1: “Plantago” = Plantain [Herbarium Apuleii Platonici, ? 1484].

Various extant manuscripts of the Herbarium are illustrated with coloured drawings of the crudest description, which are found on comparison to be identical in many different examples, and to have been reproduced, in a degraded form, when the book was printed. The original figures, from which the drawings in the different manuscripts were copied, must date back to very early times. They probably represent, as Dr Payne has pointed out, a school of botanical draughtsmanship derived from late Roman art.

Plate IV

‘Orbicularis’ [Herbarium Apuleii Platonici, ? 1484]. The tint represents colouring, which was probably contemporary.

These illustrations, some of which are reproduced in Plates [IV], [V] and [XVI], and Text-figs. [1] and [2], will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter VII. One of their peculiarities is that, if a herb has the power of healing the bite or sting of any animal, that animal is drawn with the plant on the same block.

Text-fig. 2. “Artemisia” [Herbarium Apuleii Platonici, ? 1484].

Soon after the appearance in Italy of the earliest printed editions of the Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus, three works of great importance were published at Mainz in Germany. These were the Latin ‘Herbarius’ (1484), the German ‘Herbarius’ (1485), and derived from the latter, the ‘Hortus Sanitatis’ (1491). The Latin and the German Herbarius, together with the Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus, may be regarded as the doyens amongst printed herbals. All three seem to have been largely based upon pre-existing manuscripts, representing a tradition of great antiquity.

Text-fig. 3. “Lilium” [Herbarius Moguntinus, 1484].

The various forms of the Latin and German Herbarius, and of the Hortus Sanitatis are described under many titles, and the unravelling of the various editions is a matter of great difficulty. In the fifteenth century, before copyright existed, as soon as a popular work was published, pirated editions and translations sprang into existence. In the case of the German Herbarius, a new edition was printed at Augsburg only a few months after the appearance of the original at Mainz. Some such editions were dated, and some undated, and the sources from which they were derived were seldom acknowledged.

The passage of the earliest printed books through the press was naturally extremely slow, as compared with the rapid production of the present day. The result was that the printer had leisure to make occasional alterations, so that different copies belonging actually to the same edition sometimes show slight variations. The bibliographer has thus to deal with an additional element of confusion.

Text-fig. 4. “Aristolochia longa” [Herbarius Moguntinus, 1484].

As far as the works now under consideration are concerned, however, much of the obscurity has been removed by the late Dr Payne, to whom we owe a very lucid memoir on the various editions of the Latin and German Herbarius and the Hortus Sanitatis, based in part upon the researches of Dr Ludwig Choulant. Free use has been made of his account in the present chapter.

3. The Latin Herbarius.

The work to which we may refer for convenience as the Latin Herbarius is also known under many other titles—‘Herbarius in Latino,’ ‘Aggregator de Simplicibus,’ ‘Herbarius Moguntinus,’ ‘Herbarius Patavinus,’ etc. It was originally printed at Mainz by Peter Schöffer in 1484, in the form of a small quarto. It is interesting to recall that the earliest specimen of printing from movable type known to exist was produced in the same town thirty years before.

Text-fig. 5. “Serpentaria” [Herbarius Moguntinus, 1484].

Other early editions and translations of the Herbarius appeared in Bavaria, the Low Countries, Italy, and probably also in France. The work, like most of the early herbals, was anonymous, and was a compilation from mediæval writers, and from certain classical and Arabian authors. It seems to have no connection with the Herbarium of Apuleius, which is nowhere cited. The majority of the authorities quoted wrote before 1300 A.D. and no author is mentioned who might not have been known to a writer about the middle of the fourteenth century, that is to say, at least a hundred years before the Herbarius was published. It is quite possible that the work was not written at the time it was printed, but may have had a previous career in manuscript.

Text-fig. 6. “Brionia” [Arnaldus de Villa Nova, Tractatus de virtutibus herbarum, 1499].

The wood-blocks of the first German edition are bold and decorative, but as a rule show little attempt at realism (Text-figs. [3], [4], [5] and [73]). A different and better set of figures were used in Italy to illustrate the text (Text-figs. [6], [57], [65], [74], [75], [76]). The authorship of this version of the Herbarius is sometimes erroneously attributed to Arnold de Nova Villa, a physician of the thirteenth century, a mistake which arose through the conspicuous citation of his name in the preface to the Venetian editions.

The descriptions and figures of the herbs are arranged alphabetically. All the plants discussed were natives of Germany or in cultivation there, and the object of the work seems to have been to help the reader to the use of cheap and easily obtained remedies, in cases of illness or accident.

4. The German Herbarius and related Works.

Of even greater importance than the Latin Herbarius is the German Herbarius or ‘Herbarius zu Teutsch,’ sometimes also called the German Ortus Sanitatis, or the Smaller Ortus. This folio, which was the foundation of the later works called Hortus (or Ortus) Sanitatis, appeared at Mainz, also from the printing press of Peter Schöffer in 1485, the year following the publication of the Latin Herbarius. It has been mistakenly regarded by some authors as a mere translation of the latter. However, the two books are neither the same in the text nor in the illustrations. The German Herbarius appears to be an independent work except as regards the third part of the book—the index of drugs according to their uses—which may owe something to the Latin Herbarius.

It seems from the preface that the originator of the book was a rich man, who had travelled in the east, and that the medical portion was compiled under his direction by a physician. The latter was probably Dr Johann von Cube, who was town physician of Frankfort at the end of the fifteenth century.

The preface to the Herbarius zu Teutsch begins with the words, “Offt und vil habe ich by mir selbst betracht die wundersam werck des schepfers der natuer.” Similar words are found in all the different German editions, and in the later Hortus Sanitatis they are translated into Latin. The preface reveals so clearly and so delightfully the spirit in which the work was undertaken that it seems worth while to translate it almost in extenso.

It is impossible, however, to grasp the medical ideas characteristic of the earlier herbals, such as those presented in the preface which follows, unless one understands the special terminology, in which the “four elements” and the “four principles” or “natures” play a great part. The ideas expressed by these terms had begun to dominate medical and physiological notions five or six hundred years before the birth of Christ, and they held their own for a period of more than two thousand years. As an instance of their constant occurrence in literature we may recall Sir Toby’s remark in ‘Twelfth Night,’ “Do not our lives consist of the four elements?” In Aristotle’s time these conceptions must have been already quite familiar to his pupils. Like, his predecessors he distinguished four elements, Fire, Water, Earth and Air, and to these he added a fifth—the Ether. In the four elements, the four principles are combined in pairs—fire being characterised by heat and dryness, air by heat and moisture, water by cold and moisture, and earth by cold and dryness. According to Aristotle, heat and cold are active, while dryness and moisture are passive in their nature. By the “temperament” of a man is understood the balance or proportion maintained between these conflicting tendencies. The particular “virtues” of each plant, in other words the power of restoring lost health or “temperament,” are determined by the “principles” which it contains, and the proportions in which these occur. With this introduction we may pass on to the preface of the Herbarius zu Teutsch[5]:

“Many a time and oft have I contemplated inwardly the wondrous works of the Creator of the universe: how in the beginning He formed the heavens and adorned them with goodly, shining stars, to which He gave power and might to influence everything under heaven. Also how He afterwards formed the four elements: fire, hot and dry—air, hot and moist—water, cold and moist—earth, dry and cold—and gave to each a nature of its own; and how after this the same Great Master of Nature made and formed herbs of many sorts and animals of all kinds, and last of all Man, the noblest of all created things. Thereupon I thought on the wondrous order which the Creator gave these same creatures of His, so that everything which has its being under heaven receives it from the stars, and keeps it by their help. I considered further how that in everything which arises, grows, lives or soars in the four elements named, be it metal, stone, herb or animal, the four natures of the elements, heat, cold, moistness and dryness are mingled. It is also to be noted that the four natures in question are also mixed and blended in the human body in a measure and temperament suitable to the life and nature of man. While man keeps within this measure, proportion or temperament, he is strong and healthy, but as soon as he steps or falls beyond the temperament or measure of the four natures, which happens when heat takes the upper hand and strives to stifle cold, or, on the contrary, when cold begins to suppress heat, or man becomes full of cold moisture, or again is deprived of the due measure of moisture, he falls of necessity into sickness, and draws nigh unto death. There are many causes of disturbances, such as I have mentioned, in the measure of the four elements which is essential to man’s health and life. In some cases it is the poisonous and hidden influence of the heavens acting against man’s nature, for from this arise impurity and poisoning of the air; in other cases the food and drink are unsuitable, or suitable but not taken in the right quantities, or at the right time. Of a truth I would as soon count thee the leaves on the trees, or the grains of sand in the sea, as the things which are the causes of a relapse from the temperament of the four natures, and a beginning of man’s sickness. It is for this reason that so many thousands and thousands of perils and dangers beset man. He is not fully sure of his health or his life for one moment. While considering these matters, I also remembered how the Creator of Nature, Who has placed us amid such dangers, has mercifully provided us with a remedy, that is with all kinds of herbs, animals and other created things to which He has given power and might to restore, produce, give and temper the four natures mentioned above. One herb is heating, another is cooling, each after the degree of its nature and complexion. In the same manner many other created things on the earth and in the water preserve man’s life, through the Creator of Nature. By virtue of these herbs and created things the sick man may recover the temperament of the four elements and the health of his body. Since, then, man can have no greater nor nobler treasure on earth than bodily health, I came to the conclusion that I could not perform any more honourable, useful or holy work or labour than to compile a book in which should be contained the virtue and nature of many herbs and other created things, together with their true colours and form, for the help of all the world and the common good. Thereupon I caused this praiseworthy work to be begun by a Master learned in physic, who, at my request, gathered into a book the virtue and nature of many herbs out of the acknowledged masters of physic, Galen, Avicenna, Serapio, Dioscorides, Pandectarius, Platearius and others. But when, in the process of the work, I turned to the drawing and depicting of the herbs, I marked that there are many precious herbs which do not grow here in these German lands, so that I could not draw them with their true colours and form, except from hearsay. Therefore I left unfinished the work which I had begun, and laid aside my pen, until such time as I had received grace and dispensation to visit the Holy Sepulchre, and also Mount Sinai, where the body of the Blessed Virgin, Saint Catherine, rests in peace. Then, in order that the noble work I had begun and left incomplete should not come to nought, and also that my journey should benefit not my soul alone, but the whole world, I took with me a painter ready of wit, and cunning and subtle of hand. And so we journeyed from Germany through Italy, Istria, and then by way of Slavonia or the Windisch land, Croatia, Albania, Dalmatia, Greece, Corfu, Morea, Candia, Rhodes and Cyprus to the Promised Land and the Holy City, Jerusalem, and thence through Arabia Minor to Mount Sinai, from Mount Sinai towards the Red Sea in the direction of Cairo, Babylonia, and also Alexandria in Egypt, whence I returned to Candia. In wandering through these kingdoms and lands, I diligently sought after the herbs there, and had them depicted and drawn, with their true colour and form. And after I had, by God’s grace, returned to Germany and home, the great love which I bore this work impelled me to finish it, and now, with the help of God, it is accomplished. And this book is called in Latin, Ortus Sanitatis, and in German, gart d’gesuntheyt[6]. In this garden are to be found the power and virtues of 435 plants and other created things, which serve for the health of man, and are commonly used in apothecaries’ shops for medicine. Of these, about 350 appear here as they are, with their true colours and form. And, so that it might be useful to all the world, learned and unlearned, I had it compiled in the German tongue.

******

“Now fare forth into all lands, thou noble and beautiful Garden, thou delight of the healthy, thou comfort and life of the sick. There is no man living who can fully declare thy use and thy fruit. I thank Thee, O Creator of heaven and earth, Who hast given power to the plants, and other created things contained in this book, that Thou hast granted me the grace to reveal this treasure, which until now has lain buried and hid from the sight of common men. To Thee be glory and honour, now and for ever. Amen.”

Passing from the preface to the botanical part of the German Herbarius, we find that it is divided into chapters, each of which deals with a herb, except in a comparatively small number of cases in which an animal, or a substance useful to man such as butter or lime, forms the subject. The chapters are arranged in alphabetical order.

The Herbarius zu Teutsch represents a notable advance upon the Latin Herbarius in the matter of the figures. Its publication, according to Dr Payne, “forms an important land-mark in the history of botanical illustration, and marks perhaps the greatest single step ever made in that art.” This estimate seems to the present writer to be somewhat exaggerated, but it must at least be conceded that the figures in question are, on the whole, drawn with greater freedom and realism than those of the Latin Herbarius, and are often remarkably beautiful (Text-figs. [7], [77], [78]). The most attractive is perhaps that of the Dodder climbing on a plant with flowers and pods (Text-fig. [77]), which is drawn in a masterly fashion. These wood-cuts form the basis of nearly all botanical illustrations for the next half-century, being copied and recopied from book to book. No work which excelled, or even equalled them was produced until a new period of botanical illustration began with the Herbal of Brunfels, published in 1530.

Text-fig. 7. “Acorus” = Iris [Herbarius zu Teutsch, Mainz, 1485].

The German Herbarius was much copied and translated into other languages, the original set of figures being, as a rule, reproduced on a smaller scale. According to Dr Payne, the earliest French edition called ‘Arbolayre’ (derived from the Latin, herbolarium) is now an exceedingly rare book. It is said to differ little from the original except in the fact that the French translator declined to believe the myth that the Mandrake root has human form.

Another early French herbal, very similar to the Arbolayre, was published under the name of ‘Le Grant Herbier.’ The origin of the text of this book has been the subject of some discussion. Choulant regarded it as derived from the Ortus Sanitatis, but an Italian authority, Signor Giulio Camus, has discovered two fifteenth-century manuscripts in the Biblioteca Estense at Modena, which have thrown a different light on the subject. One of these is the work commonly called ‘Circa instans,’ while the other is a version of the Grant Herbier; on comparing the two, Signor Camus concluded that the French manuscript was obviously derived from Circa instans. A version of the latter, differing somewhat from the Modena manuscript, was printed at Ferrara in 1488, and other editions appeared later.

The figures which illustrate the Grant Herbier seem to have been derived from those of the Ortus Sanitatis rather than those of the Herbarius. The work is of special interest to British botanists, since it was translated into English and published, in 1526, as the ‘Grete Herball,’ a book which will be discussed at length in the following chapter.

Another work, which appeared with reduced copies of the familiar illustrations from the German Herbarius, was the ‘Liber de arte distillandi de Simplicibus’ of Hieronymus Braunschweig (1500). In this book, the method of distilling herbs, in order to make use of their virtues, was described in considerable detail, with drawings of the apparatus employed.

Text-fig. 8. “Leopardus” [Ortus Sanitatis, Mainz, 1491].

5. The Hortus Sanitatis.

The third of the fundamental botanical works, produced at Mainz towards the close of the fifteenth century, was the ‘Hortus,’ or as it is more commonly called ‘Ortus Sanitatis,’ printed by Jacob Meydenbach in 1491. It is in part a modified Latin translation of the German Herbarius, but it is not merely this, for it contains treatises on animals, birds, fishes and stones, which are almost unrepresented in the Herbarius. Nearly one-third of the figures of herbs are new. The rest are copied on a reduced scale from the German Herbarius, and the drawing, which is by no means improved, often shows that the copyist did not fully understand the nature of the object he was attempting to portray. As an example of a wood-cut, which has lost much of its character in copying, we may take the Dodder (cf. Text-figs. 80 and 77).

Text-fig. 9. “Daucus”=Carrot [Ortus Sanitatis, Mainz, 1491].

The Ortus Sanitatis is very rich in pictures. The first edition opens with a full-page wood-cut, modified from that at the beginning of the German Herbarius, and representing a group of figures, who appear to be engaged in discussing some medical or botanical problem. Before the treatise on Animals, there is another large engraving of three figures with a number of beasts at their feet, and before that on Birds, there is a lively picture with an architectural background, showing a scene which swarms with innumerable birds of all kinds, whose peculiarities are apparently being discussed by two savants in the foreground. The treatise on Fishes begins with a landscape with water, enlivened by shipping. There are two figures in the foreground, and in the water, fishes, crabs and mythical monsters such as mermen, are seen disporting themselves. Before the treatise on Stones, there is a very spirited scene representing a number of figures in a jeweller’s shop, and two large wood-cuts of doctors and their patients illustrate the medical portion with which the book concludes.

Text-fig. 10. “Passer” = Sparrow [Ortus Sanitatis, Mainz, 1491].

Text-fig. 11. “Pavo” = Peacock [Ortus Sanitatis, Mainz, 1491].

Text-fig. 12. “Arbor vel lignum vite paradisi” = Tree of Paradise [Ortus Sanitatis, Mainz, 1491].

The treatise on Plants is considerably modified from the German Herbarius, and the virtues of the herbs described are dealt with at greater length. The Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus is more than once quoted, though not by name. A number of new illustrations are added, some of which are highly imaginative. The Tree of Life (Text-fig. 12) and the Tree of Knowledge are dealt with amongst other botanical objects, a woman-headed serpent being introduced in the first case, and Adam and Eve in the second. There is a beautiful description of the virtues of the Tree of Life, in which we read that he who should eat of the fruit “should be clothed with blessed immortality, and should not be fatigued with infirmity, or anxiety, or lassitude, or weariness of trouble.” The engraving which is named Narcissus (Text-fig. [13]) has diminutive figures emerging from the flowers, like a transformation scene at a pantomime! It is probably, however, intended to represent the conversion of the beautiful youth, Narcissus, into a flower. Apart from these mythological subjects, there are a number of very curious engravings. A tree called “Bausor,” for instance, which was believed to exhale a narcotic poison, like the fabulous Upas tree, has two men lying beneath its shade, apparently in the sleep of death (Text-fig. [14]).

Text-fig. 13. “Narcissus” [Ortus Sanitatis, Mainz, 1491].

Text-fig. 14. “Bauser vel Bausor” [Ortus Sanitatis, Mainz, 1491].

Among the herbs, substances such as starch, vinegar, cheese, soap, etc., are included, and as these do not lend themselves to direct representation, they become the excuse for a delightful set of genre pictures. “Wine” is illustrated by a man gazing at a glass; “Bread,” by a housewife with loaves on the table before her (Text-fig. [15]); “Water,” by a fountain; “Honey,” by a boy who seems to be extracting it from the comb; and “Milk,” by a woman milking a cow. The picture which appears under the heading of Amber shows great ingenuity (Text-fig. [16]). The writer points out that this substance, according to some authors, is the fruit or gum of a tree growing by the sea, while according to others it is produced by a fish or by sea foam. In order to represent all these possibilities, the figure shows the sea, indicated in a conventional fashion, with a tree growing out of it, and a fish swimming in it. The writer of the Ortus Sanitatis, on the other hand, holds the opinion that Amber is generated under the sea, after the manner of the Fungi which arise on land.

Text-fig. 15. “Panis” = Bread [Ortus Sanitatis, Mainz, 1491].

The treatises on animals and fishes are full of pictures of mythical creatures, such as a unicorn being caressed by a lady as though it were a little dog (Text-fig. [17]), recalling the “Lady and Unicorn” tapestry in the Musée Cluny—a fight between a man and hydras—the phœnix in the flames—and a harpy with its claws in a man’s body. Other monsters which are figured include a dragon, the Basilisk, Pegasus, and a bird with a long neck which is tied in an ornamental knot.

Text-fig. 16. “Ambra” = Amber [Ortus Sanitatis, Mainz, 1491].

Later Latin editions of the Ortus Sanitatis were printed in Germany and Italy, and translations were also popular. The part of the book dealing with animals and stones was produced in German under the name of ‘Gart der Gesuntheit; zu Latin Ortus Sanitatis,’ so as to form a supplement to the German Herbarius, which dealt, as we have seen, almost exclusively with herbs. No really complete translation of the Hortus was ever published, except that printed by Antoine Vérard in Paris about the year 1500, under the title, ‘Ortus sanitatis translate de latin en francois.’ Henry VII was one of Vérard’s patrons, and in the account books of John Heron, Treasurer of the Chamber, which are preserved at the Record Office, there is an entry (1501-2) which runs, “Item to Anthony Vérard for two bokes called the gardyn of helth ... £6.” This refers to a copy, in two parts, of Vérard’s translation of the Ortus Sanitatis, which is still preserved in the British Museum.

Text-fig. 17. “Unicornus” [Ortus Sanitatis, Mainz, 1491].

The complete Ortus Sanitatis made its appearance for the last time as ‘Le Jardin de Santé,’ printed by Philippe le Noir about 1539, and sold in Paris, “a lenseigne de la Rose blanche couronnee.” Text-fig. [18], taken from this book, shows how the artist of the period represented a “Garden of Health.”

Text-fig. 18. A Herbalist’s Garden [Le Jardin de Santé, ? 1539].

The title-pages of the early herbals were often decorated with such pictures. A more ambitious example is reproduced in Text-fig. [113]. In this case the apothecary’s store-room is also depicted, and a housewife is portrayed, laying fragrant herbs among linen. The small garden scene on the title-page of the ‘Grete Herball’ (1526) is of special interest, since it includes representations of the male and female Mandrake (Text-fig. [112]).

Plate V

‘Mandragora’ = Mandrake [Herbarium Apuleii Platonici, ? 1484].
The tint represents colouring, which was probably contemporary.

CHAPTER III
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE HERBAL IN ENGLAND

1. The Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus.

oncerning the Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus, a few remarks have been already made. This herbal was perhaps the first through which any kind of systematic knowledge of medicinal plants was brought into Britain. For this reason it may be mentioned here, although manuscript herbals do not, strictly, come within our province. In the Bodleian Library there is an Anglo-Saxon translation of the work, which is said to have been made for King Alfred. Another Anglo-Saxon manuscript of later date, probably transcribed between A.D. 1000 and the Norman Conquest, has been rendered into modern English by Dr Cockayne. The classical and Anglo-Saxon plant-names are given in the herbal, and, although there is scarcely any attempt at description, the localities where the plants may be found are sometimes mentioned.

The greater part of the manuscript is concerned with the virtues of herbs. The plants were regarded in this, as in most early works, merely as “simples,” that is, the simple constituents of compound medicines. Hieronymus Bock in 1551 described his herbal as being an account of “die Einfache erd Gewächs, Simplicia genant[7].” The term “simple,” now almost obsolete, was a household word in earlier times, when most remedies were manufactured at home in the stillroom. The expression of Jaques in ‘As You Like It’—“a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects”—would not have seemed in the least far-fetched to an audience of that day. It is interesting that, although the word “simple,” used in this sense, has vanished from our common speech, its antithesis “compound” has held its place in the language of pharmacy.

The southern source of the Herbal of Apuleius is suggested by the fact that the origin of the healing art is attributed to Æsculapius and Chiron. We are told, also, that the Wormwoods were discovered by Diana, who “delivered their powers and leechdom to Chiron, the centaur, who first from these worts set forth a leechdom.” The Lily-of-the-Valley, on the other hand, is said to have been found by Apollo and given by him “to Æsculapius, the leech.”

Many of the accounts of the virtues of the plants are of the nature of spells or charms rather than of medical recipes. For instance it is recommended that “if any propose a journey, then let him take to him in hand this wort artemisia, ... then he will not feel much toil in his journey.” As is usually the case in the older herbals, the proper mode of uprooting the Mandrake is described with much gusto. “This wort ... is mickle and illustrious of aspect, and it is beneficial. Thou shalt in this manner take it, when thou comest to it, then thou understandest it by this, that it shineth at night altogether like a lamp. When first thou seest its head, then inscribe thou it instantly with iron, lest it fly from thee; its virtue is so mickle and so famous, that it will immediately flee from an unclean man, when he cometh to it; hence as we before said, do thou inscribe it with iron, and so shalt thou delve about it, as that thou touch it not with the iron, but thou shalt earnestly with an ivory staff delve the earth. And when thou seest its hands and its feet, then tie thou it up. Then take the other end and tie it to a dog’s neck, so that the hound be hungry; next cast meat before him, so that he may not reach it, except he jerk up the wort with him. Of this wort it is said, that it hath so mickle might, that what thing soever tuggeth it up, that it shall soon in the same manner be deceived. Therefore, as soon as thou see that it be jerked up, and have possession of it, take it immediately in hand, and twist it, and wring the ooze out of its leaves into a glass ampulla.”

Text-fig. 19. Wood-cut of Plants [Bartholomæus Anglicus, Liber de proprietatibus rerum, Wynkyn de Worde, ? 1495]. Reduced.

The writer of the herbal evidently fully accepted the mythical notion that the Mandrake was furnished with human limbs. Plate [V] shows how this plant was depicted in an early printed edition of the Herbarium of Apuleius, but much more spirited and sensational treatments of the same subject are to be found in some of the manuscripts dealing with herbs. Sixteenth-century representations are shown in Text-figs. 107 and 112.

The earliest English printed book containing information of a definitely botanical character is probably the translation of the ‘Liber de proprietatibus rerum’ of Bartholomæus Anglicus, which was printed by Wynkyn de Worde before the end of the fifteenth century. This has been briefly mentioned in the last chapter (pp. 10 and 11) and a wood-cut from it is shown in Text-fig. [19].

2. Banckes’ Herbal.

The first book printed in England, which can really be called a herbal, is an anonymous quarto volume, without illustrations, published in 1525. The title-page runs, “Here begynneth a newe mater, the whiche sheweth and treateth of ye vertues and proprytes of herbes, the whiche is called an Herball.” On the last page we find the words “Imprynted by me Rycharde Banckes, dwellynge in London, a lytel fro ye Stockes in ye Pultry.” I have not been able to satisfy myself that this work is directly derived from any pre-existing book, and it seems possible that it may really have some claim to originality. Dr Payne suggests that it is probably an abridgement of some mediæval English manuscript on herbs. It is certainly quite a different work from the much more famous Grete Herball, printed in the succeeding year, and, although there are no figures, it is in some ways a better book. Distinctly less space, in proportion, is devoted to the virtues of the plants, and, on the whole, more botanical information is given. For instance, under the heading “Capillus veneris,” we find the following description: “This herbe is called Mayden heere or waterworte. This herbe hathe leves lyke to Ferne, but the leves be smaller, and it groweth on walles and stones, and in ye myddes of ye lefe is as it were blacke heere.” The Grete Herball, on the other hand, vouchsafes only the meagre information, “Capillus veneris is an herbe so named”!

In cases where the virtues of the herbs are not strictly medicinal, they are described in Banckes’ herbal with more than a touch of poetry. Rosemary has perhaps the most charming list of attributes, some of which are worth quoting. The reader is directed to “take the flowres and make powder therof and bynde it to the ryght arme in a lynen clothe, and it shall make the lyght and mery.... Also take the flowres and put them in a chest amonge youre clothes or amonge bokes and moughtes shall not hurte them.... Also boyle the leves in whyte wyne and wasshe thy face therwith ... thou shall have a fayre face. Also put the leves under thy beddes heed, and thou shalbe delyvered of all evyll dremes.... Also take the leves and put them into a vessel of wyne ... yf thou sell that wyne, thou shall have good lucke and spede in the sale.... Also make the a box of the wood and smell to it and it shall preserne [preserve] thy youthe. Also put therof in thy doores or in thy howse and thou shalbe without daunger of Adders and other venymous serpentes. Also make the a barell therof and drynke thou of the drynke that standeth therin and thou nedes to fere no poyson that shall hurte ye, and yf thou set it in thy garden kepe it honestly for it is moche profytable.”

The popularity of Banckes’ Herbal is attested by the fact that a large number of editions appeared from different presses, although their identity has been obscured by the various names under which they were published. To consider these editions in detail is a task for the bibliographer rather than the botanist, and it will not be attempted here. We may, however, mention a few typical examples.

In 1550, a book was printed by “Jhon kynge” with the title ‘A litle Herball of the properties of Herbes newly amended and corrected, wyth certayn Additions at the ende of the boke, declaring what Herbes hath influence of certain Sterres and constellations, wherby maye be chosen the best and most lucky tymes and dayes of their ministracion, according to the Moone beyng in the signes of heaven, the which is daily appointed in the Almanacke, made and gathered in the yeare of our Lorde God. MDL the XII daye of February, by Anthony Askham, Physycyon.’ This work, which is generally called Askham’s Herbal, is directly derived from Banckes’ Herbal, with the addition of some astrological lore.

The book known as Cary’s or Copland’s Herbal, which was probably first published about the same time as Askham’s Herbal, is simply a later edition of the herbal of Rycharde Banckes, and another closely similar edition with an almost identical title was published by Kynge.

Another version of the same work, undated, and printed by Robert Wyer, appeared under an even more deceptive title—‘A newe Herball of Macer, Translated out of Laten in to Englysshe.’ There was, as a matter of fact, a certain Æmilius Macer, a contemporary of Virgil and Ovid, who wrote about plants in Latin verse, and there is also a herbal which was first printed in the fifteenth century, and which is known by the name of ‘Macer Floridus de viribus herbarum.’ Macer Floridus or Æmilius Macer is supposed to have been the pseudonym of a physician whose real name was Odo. ‘De viribus herbarum’ deals with seventy-seven plants in alphabetical order, and describes their virtues in mediæval Latin verse, which is believed to date back to the tenth century. It is illustrated with wood-cuts which are apparently copied from those of the Herbarius zu Teutsch.

There seems to be no justification whatever for the use of Macer’s name on the title-page of ‘A newe Herball of Macer.’ Except for some slight verbal differences, it is identical with Banckes’ herbal of 1525. Another closely similar edition, also undated, was published under the name of ‘Macers Herbal. Practysd by Doctor Lynacro.’ Macer’s name was probably merely borrowed in each case, in order to give the books a well-sounding title, and thus to increase the chances of sale.

3. The Grete Herball.

Among the earlier English herbals, the greater reputation belongs, not to Banckes’ Herbal in any of its forms, but to the ‘Grete Herball’ printed by Peter Treveris in 1526, and again in 1529. This was admittedly a translation from the French, namely from the work known as ‘Le Grant Herbier,’ whose origin we have discussed on p. 24. In the preface and supplement, however, it also shows some indebtedness to the Ortus Sanitatis. The figures in the Grete Herball are degraded copies of the series which first appeared in the Herbarius zu Teutsch (see Text-figs. 20 and 21).

The introduction to the Grete Herball, though it is less naïve and charming than the corresponding part of the German Herbarius, may yet be quoted, in part, as giving a very lucid idea of the utilitarian point of view of the herbalist of the period, and also as bringing home to the reader the immense influence of the theory of the four elements:

“Consyderynge the grete goodnesse of almyghty god creatour of heven and erthe, and al thynge therin comprehended to whom be eternall laude and prays, etc. Consyderynge the cours and nature of the foure elementes and qualytees where to ye nature of man is inclyned, out of the whiche elementes issueth dyvers qualytees infyrmytees and dyseases in the corporate body of man, but god of his goodnesse that is creatour of all thynges hath ordeyned for mankynde (whiche he hath created to his owne lykenesse) for the grete and tender love, which he hath unto hym to whom all thinges erthely he hath ordeyned to be obeysant, for the sustentacyon and helthe of his lovynge creature mankynde whiche is onely made egally of the foure elementes and qualitees of the same, and whan any of these foure habounde or hath more domynacyon, the one than the other it constrayneth ye body of man to grete infyrmytees or dyseases, for the whiche ye eternall god hath gyven of his haboundante grace, vertues in all maner of herbes to cure and heale all maner of sekenesses or infyrmytes to hym befallyng thrugh the influent course of the foure elementes beforesayd, and of the corrupcyons and ye venymous ayres contrarye ye helthe of man. Also of onholsam meates or drynkes, or holsam meates or drynkes taken ontemperatly whiche be called surfetes that brengeth a man sone to grete dyseases or sekenesse, whiche dyseases ben of nombre and ompossyble to be rehersed, and fortune as well in vilages where as nother surgeons nor phisicians be dwellyng nygh by many a myle, as it dooth in good townes where they be redy at hande. Wherfore brotherly love compelleth me to wryte thrugh ye gyftes of the holy gost shewynge and enformynge how man may be holpen with grene herbes of the gardyn and wedys of ye feldys as well as by costly receptes of the potycarys prepayred.”

The conclusion of the whole matter, which is set forth immediately before the index, is in these words:

“O ye worthy reders or practicyens to whome this noble volume is present I beseche yow take intellygence and beholde ye workes and operacyons of almyghty god which hath endewed his symple creature mankynde with the graces of ye holy goost to have parfyte knowlege and understandynge of the vertue of all maner of herbes and trees in this booke comprehendyd.”

Text-fig. 20. “Yvery” = Ivory [The Grete Herball, 1529].

From a twentieth-century point of view, the Grete Herball contains much that is curious, especially in relation to medical matters. Bathing was evidently regarded as a strange fad. We learn, on the authority of Galen, that “many folke that hath bathed them in colde wa[ter] have dyed or they came home.” Water drinking seems to have been thought almost equally pernicious, for we are told, “mayster Isaac sayth that it is unpossyble for them that drynketh overmoche water in theyr youth to come to ye aege that god ordeyned them.” A period when men were more prone than they are to-day to settle their differences by the use of their own strong right arms is reflected in the various remedies proposed for such afflictions as “blackenesse or brusinge comynge of strypes, specyally yf they be in the face.”

Turning to less concrete ailments, it is rather striking to find what a large number of prescriptions against melancholy are considered necessary. For instance, “To make folke mery at ye table,” one is recommended to “take foure leves and foure rotes of vervayn in wyne, than spryncle the wyne all about the hous where the eatynge is and they shall be all mery.” The smoke of Aristolochia “maketh the pacyent mery mervaylously,” and also “dryveth all devyllsshnesse and all trouble out of ye house.” Bugloss and Mugwort are also recommended to produce merriment, and it is suggested that the lesser Mugwort should be laid under the door of the house, for, if this is done, “man nor womann can not anoy in that hous[8].” The number of specifics proposed as a cure for baldness is somewhat surprising, when one remembers that this condition is often attributed to the nervous stress and strain of modern life! Hair-dyes and stains for the nails also receive their share of attention.

Very remarkable powers were ascribed to products of the ocean, such as coral and pearls. The former is described as being “a maner of stony substaunce that is founde in partyes of the see, and specyally in holowe, and cavy hylles that ben in ye see, and groweth as a maner of a glewy humour, and cleveth to the stones.” The writer mentions that “some say that the reed corall kepeth the hous that it is in fro lyghtnynge, thondre, and tempest.” Pearls were regarded as of great value in medicine, and, for weakness of the heart, the patient is recommended to “Take the powdre of perles with sugre of roses,” which suggests a remedy worthy of a poet! Many travellers’ tales are incorporated in the herbal; we find, for instance, a most thrilling description of the lodestone. “Lapis magnetis is the adamant stone that draweth yren. It ... is founde in the brymmes of the occyan see. And there be hylles of it, and these hylles drawe ye shyppes that have nayles of yren to them, and breke the shyppes up drawynge of the nayles out.” This description is illustrated by a picture of a rocky pinnacle and a ship going to pieces; one man is already in the water, and two others are on the point of losing their lives.

Many of the remedies for different ailments strike the modern reader as being violent in a terrifying degree, and adapted to a more robust age than the present; they incline one to echo the words, “There were giants in the earth in those days.” But apparently the sixteenth century held an exactly corresponding view of its predecessors, for under the heading of “whyte elebore” we read, “In olde tyme it was commely used in medycyns as we use squamony. For the body of man was stronger than it is now, and myght better endure the vyolence of elebore, for man is weyker at this time of nature.”

Text-fig. 21. “Nenufar” = Waterlily [The Grete Herball, 1529].

It is somewhat remarkable that both Christianity and Greek mythology find a place in the Grete Herball. The discovery of Artemisia and its virtues is attributed to Diana and the Centaurs, but in the event of being bitten by a mad dog, the sufferer is recommended to appeal to the Virgin Mary before employing any remedy. “As sone as ye be byten go to the chyrche, and make thy offrynge to our lady, and pray here to helpe and heale thee. Than rubbe ye sore with a newe clothe,” etc.

Quite a number of medicines enumerated in the Grete Herball still hold their own in modern practice. Liquorice is recommended for coughs; laudanum, henbane, opium and lettuces as narcotics; olive oil and slaked lime for scalds; cuttle-fish bone for whitening the teeth, and borax and rose water for the complexion.

This book throws an interesting light on the early names of British plants. The Primrose is called “Prymerolles” or “saynt peterworte.” The “devylles bytte” is said to be “so called by cause the rote is blacke and semeth that it is iagged with bytynge, and some say that the devyll had envy at the vertue therof and bete the rote so for to have destroyed it.” Duckweed is called “Lentylles of the water” or “frogges fote,” while Cuckoo-pint is known by the picturesque name of “prestes hode,” and Wood-sorrel is called “Alleluya” or “cukowes meate.”

One of the most noticeable features of the herbal is the exposure of methods of “faking” drugs, for the protection of the public, “to eschew ye frawde of them that selleth it.” This is a great step in advance from the days of the old Greek herbalists, when secrecy was part of the stock-in-trade of a druggist, and, as we have pointed out in a previous chapter, the credulous public was warned off by threats of the miraculous and fearful ills, which would follow any unskilled meddling with the subject.

Another work, which was illustrated with the same figures as those of the Grete Herball, was ‘The vertuose boke of Distillacyon of the waters of all maner of Herbes,’ which appeared in 1527. This was a translation by Laurence Andrew from the ‘Liber de arte distillandi’ of Hieronymus Braunschweig, to which we have already referred. It was almost entirely occupied with an account of methods of distillation, but occasionally there is a picturesque touch of description. For example, in speaking of the Mistletoe, the author says, “This herbe hath a longe slender lefe nother full grene, nor ful yelowe, and bereth a small whyte berye.” The book was printed “in the flete strete by me Laurens Andrewe, in the sygne of the golden Crosse.”

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.

Text-fig. 23. “Helleborus Niger” = Helleborus viridis L., Green Hellebore [Brunfels, Herbarum vivæ eicones, Vol. I. 1530]. Reduced.

A new era in the history of the herbal may be said to date from the year 1530, when the first part of Brunfels’ work, the ‘Herbarum vivæ eicones,’ was published by Schott of Strasburg. In this book, with its beautiful and naturalistic illustrations, there is, as the title indicates, a real return to nature; the plants are represented as they are, and not in the conventionalised aspect which had become traditional in the earlier herbals, through successive copying by one artist from another, without reference to the plants themselves. The blocks for the ‘Herbarum vivæ eicones’ were executed by Hans Weiditz, who was probably also the draughtsman. Examples are shown in Text-figs. [22], [23], [24], [25], [82], [83] and [84.]

The illustrations of Brunfels’ herbal are incomparably better than the text, which is very poor, and largely borrowed from previous writers. Brunfels’ knowledge of botany was chiefly derived from the study of certain Italian authors, Manardus and others, who spent their time in trying to identify the plants they saw growing around them with those described by Dioscorides. This was by no means unreasonable in their case, since it was the plants of the Mediterranean region that Dioscorides had enumerated. When, however, Brunfels attempted to employ the same methods in his examination of the flora of the Strasburg district, and the left bank of the Rhine, many difficulties and discrepancies arose. He had no understanding of the geographical distribution of plants, and did not realise that different regions have dissimilar floras. It is curious that this should have been so, when we remember that Theophrastus, more than eighteen hundred years earlier, had clearly pointed out that the provinces of Asia have each their own characteristic plants, and that some, which occur in one region, are absent from another.

Hieronymus Bock, who in his Latin writings called himself Tragus (Text-fig. [26]), was a contemporary of Brunfels, though his botanical work was somewhat later in date. He was born in 1498, and destined by his parents for the cloister. But he proved to have no vocation for the monastic life, and, having passed through a university course, he obtained, by favour of the Count Palatine Ludwig, the post of school teacher at Zweibrücken, and overseer of the Count’s garden. After his patron’s death he removed to Hornbach, where he preached the gospel, and also had an extensive medical practice, devoting his spare time to botany. But he got into some trouble, apparently owing to his protestantism, and was obliged to leave Hornbach. He was in serious straits until Count Philip of Nassau, whom he had previously cured of a severe illness, gave him shelter and support in his own castle. He was eventually able to return to Hornbach, where he filled the office of preacher until his death in 1554.

Text-fig. 24. “Synnaw” = Alchemilla, Ladies’ Mantle [Brunfels, Herbarum vivæ eicones, Vol. II. 1531]. Reduced.

Text-fig. 25. “Caryophyllata” = Geum, Avens [Brunfels, Herbarum vivæ eicones, Vol. III. 1540]. Reduced.

Text-fig. 26. Hieronymus Bock or Tragus, 1498-1554 [Engraving by David Kandel. Kreuter Bůch, 1551].

Text-fig. 27. “Erdberen” = Fragaria, Strawberry [Bock, Kreuter Bůch, 1546].

Bock’s great work is the ‘New Kreutterbuch,’ a herbal which first appeared in 1539, printed at Strasburg by Wendel Rihel. In subsequent editions the title was abbreviated to ‘Kreuter Bůch.’ The first edition was without illustrations, but a second, containing many wood-cuts, followed in 1546. The majority of the figures are said to have been copied on a reduced scale from those in Fuchs’ magnificent herbal, which appeared in 1542, between the first and second editions of Bock’s work. Fuchs’ figures must have been used with great discretion, for the plagiarism is often not obvious (see Text-figs. [27], [90], [91]). A considerable number of the figures are new, being drawn and engraved by David Kandel, whose initials appear on the portrait of Bock, reproduced in Text-fig. [26]. The wood-cuts of trees in the third part of the book are particularly noticeable (see Text-figs. 28 and 92) and are often made more interesting by the introduction of figures of men and animals.

Bock’s chief claim to remembrance, however, does not lie in his figures, but in his descriptions, which were a great advance on those previously published. He was careful also to note the mode of occurrence and localities of the plants mentioned, and in this feature his work showed some approach to a flora in the modern sense of the word. Bock seems to have been a keen collector, although hampered by ill-health, and a great point in his favour is that he described only those plants which had come under his own personal observation. The Royal Fern (Osmunda) was traditionally supposed to bear seed upon St. John’s Eve, though ferns were generally believed at that time to have no organs of fructification. To test this statement, Bock four times spent the night in the forest. He found “small black seed like poppy seed,” in spite of the fact that he “used no charm, incantation or magic character,” but went upon his search without superstition.

Text-fig. 28. “Pimpernuss” = Pistacia, Pistachio-nut [Bock, Kreuter Bůch, 1546].

Text-fig. 29. “Tribulus aquaticus” = Trapa natans L., Bull-nut [Bock, De stirpium, 1552].

Bock’s freedom from the credulity which permeated the work of so many of the early botanists is one of his most remarkable characteristics. His chapters on Verbena and Artemisia reflect clearly the independence of his thought. He points out that the former plant is collected rather for purposes of magic than for medicine, and he can hardly contain his scorn at the “monkey tricks and ceremonies” connected with the use of the latter.

Leonhard Fuchs [or Fuchsius], the third of the Fathers of German Botany (see Frontispiece), belonged to the same generation as Hieronymus Bock, though he was a little younger and produced his chief work three years later. He was born in 1501 at Membdingen in Bavaria, and at an early age he became a student of the University of Erfurt, where he is said to have taken a bachelor’s degree in his thirteenth year! After a period of school teaching, he resumed his studies, this time at the University of Ingolstadt, where he devoted himself chiefly to classics, and became a Master of Arts. After this he turned his attention to medicine, and took a doctor’s degree. At Ingolstadt he came under the influence of Luther’s writings, which won him over to the reformed faith.

Fuchs began to practise as a physician at Munich, but in 1526 he returned to Ingolstadt as Professor of Medicine. He seems to have been of a restless temperament, which was probably accentuated by the persecution to which his protestant opinions exposed him. His career for more than forty years consisted of periods of active practice, alternating with periods of university teaching. In 1535 he was appointed to a professorship at Tübingen, and, while he held this post, he declined a call to the University of Pisa, and also an invitation to become physician to the King of Denmark. It is clear that, both as a physician and a teacher, he was in great demand. He acquired a widespread reputation by his successful treatment of a terrible epidemic disease, which swept over Germany in 1529. A little book of medical instructions and prayers against the plague, which was published in London in the latter half of the sixteenth century, shows that his fame had extended to England. It is entitled, ‘A worthy practise of the moste learned Phisition Maister Leonerd Fuchsius, Doctor in Phisicke, most necessary in this needfull tyme of our visitation, for the comforte of all good and faythfull people, both olde and yonge, both for the sicke and for them that woulde avoyde the daunger of contagion.’