Transcriber's Note

This text uses some uncommon characters, in particular yogh (ȝ), apostrophus (Ɔ) and y, m and n with a macron (ȳ, m̄ and n̄ respectively). There are also some astronomical symbols (♄, ♃, ♂, ⊙, ♀, ☿, ☽). If these do not display correctly, you may need to adjust your browser settings.

There is also some Greek text, e.g. Περὶ Διδαξέων. A transliteration is included, and is indicated with a faint dotted red underline; hover your mouse over the word(s) to see it.

Tironian ampersands are indicated as [et]. A q with a small c above is indicated as [qui].

THE OLD
ENGLISH HERBALS

BY

ELEANOUR SINCLAIR ROHDE

AUTHOR OF “A GARDEN OF HERBS”

Illustration of the “lilie” from the Saxon translation of the Herbarium of Apuleius

Longmans, Green and Co.
1922

HERBS BEING DUG UP AND MADE INTO MEDICINES UNDER THE DIRECTION OF A SAGE

From a 12th century copy of the Herbarium of Apuleius, now in the Library of Eton College

TO
MY BROTHER

“The Lely is an herbe wyth a whyte floure. And though the levys of the floure be whyte: yet wythin shyneth the lykenesse of golde.”—Bartholomæus Anglicus (circ. 1260).

PREFACE

The writing of this book on that fascinating and somewhat neglected[1] branch of garden literature—the old English Herbals—has been a labour of love, but it could not have been done without all the kind help I have had. My grateful thanks are due to the authorities at the British Museum, to Professor Burkitt of Cambridge, and very specially to Mr. J. B. Capper for invaluable help. I am indebted to Dr. James, the Provost of Eton, for his kind permission to reproduce an illustration from a twelfth-century MS. in the Library of Eton College for the frontispiece. I find it difficult to express either my indebtedness or my gratitude to Dr. and Mrs. Charles Singer, the former for all his help and the latter for her generous permission to make use of her valuable bibliography of early scientific manuscripts. I am further indebted to Dr. Charles Singer for reading the chapter on the Anglo-Saxon herbals in proof. For their kind courtesy in answering my inquiries concerning the MS. herbals in the libraries of their respective cathedrals, I offer my grateful thanks to the Deans of Lincoln and Gloucester Cathedrals, and to the Rev. J. N. Needham for information concerning the herbals in the library of Durham Cathedral; to the librarians of the following colleges—All Souls’ College, Oxford; Balliol College, Oxford; Corpus Christi College, Oxford; Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; Emmanuel College, Cambridge; Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; Magdalene College, Cambridge; Peterhouse, Cambridge; Jesus College, Cambridge; St. John’s College, Oxford, and Trinity College, Cambridge; to the librarians of Durham University, Trinity College, Dublin, the Royal Irish Academy, and the National Library of Wales; to the Honble. Lady Cecil for information respecting MSS. in the library of the late Lord Amherst of Hackney; and to the following owners of private libraries—the Marquis of Bath, Lord Leconfield, Lord Clifden, Mr. T. Fitzroy Fenwick of Cheltenham, and Mr. Wynne of Peniarth, Merioneth. For information respecting incunabula herbals in American libraries I am indebted to Dr. Arnold Klebs and to Mr. Green of the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis.

No pains have been spared to make the bibliographies as complete as possible, but I should be glad to be told of any errors or omissions. There are certain editions of Banckes’s Herbal and The Grete Herball mentioned by authorities such as Ames, Hazlitt, etc., of which no copies can now be found in the chief British libraries (see p. [204] et seq.). If any copies of these editions are in private libraries I should be grateful to hear of them. The rarest printed herbal is “Arbolayre contenāt la qualitey et vertus proprietiez des herbes gōmes et simēces extraite de plusiers tratiers de medicine com̄ent davicene de rasis de constatin de ysaac et plateaire selon le con̄u usaige bien correct.” (Supposed to have been printed by M. Husz at Lyons.) It is believed that there are only two copies of this book now extant. One is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; the other was sold in London, March 23, 1898, but I have been unable to discover who is the present owner. For this or any other information I should be most grateful.

Eleanour Sinclair Rohde.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] It is a remarkable fact that even the eleventh edition of the omniscient Encyclopædia Britannica has no article on Herbals.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE OLD ENGLISH HERBALS

CHAPTER I
THE ANGLO-SAXON HERBALS

“Everything possible to be believ’d is an image of truth.”—William Blake.

There is a certain pathos attached to the fragments from any great wreck, and in studying the few Saxon manuscripts, treating of herbs, which have survived to our day, we find their primary fascination not so much in their beauty and interest as in the visions they conjure up of those still older manuscripts which perished during the terrible Danish invasions. That books on herbs were studied in England as early as the eighth century is certain, for we know that Boniface, “the Apostle of the Saxons,” received letters from England asking him for books on simples and complaining that it was difficult to obtain the foreign herbs mentioned in those we already possessed.[2] But of these manuscripts none have survived, the oldest we possess being of the tenth century, and for our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon plant lore we look chiefly to those four important manuscripts—the Leech Book of Bald, the Lacnunga and the Saxon translations of the Herbarium of Apuleius and the so-called Περὶ Διδαξέων.

Apart from their intrinsic fascination, there are certain considerations which give these manuscripts a peculiar importance. Herb lore and folk medicine lag not years, but centuries, behind the knowledge of their own day. Within living memory our peasants were using, and in the most remote parts of these islands they use still, the herbal and other remedies of our Saxon ancestors. They even use curiously similar charms. The herb lore recorded in these manuscripts is the herb lore, not of the century in which they were written, but of the dim past ages pictured in the oldest parts of Widsith and Beowulf. To the student of English plant lore, the Herbarium of Apuleius and the Περὶ Διδαξέων are less interesting because they are translations, but the more one studies the original Saxon writings on herbs and their uses, the more one realises that, just as in Beowulf there are suggestions and traces of an age far older than that in which the poem was written, so in these manuscripts are embedded beliefs which carry us back to the dawn of history. It is this which gives this plant lore its supreme interest. It is almost overwhelming to recognise that possibly we have here fragments of the plant lore of our ancestors who lived when Attila’s hordes were devastating Europe, and that in the charms and ceremonies connected with the picking and administering of herbs we are carried back to forms of religion so ancient that, compared to it, the worship of Woden is modern. Further, it is only in these manuscripts that we find this herb lore, for in the whole range of Saxon literature outside them there is remarkably little mention of plant life. The great world of nature, it is true, is ever present; the ocean is the background of the action in both Beowulf and Cynewulf, and the sound of the wind and the sea is in every line. One is conscious of vast trackless wastes of heath and moor, of impenetrable forests and terror-infested bogs; but of the details of plant life there is scarcely a word. In these manuscripts alone do we find what plant life meant to our ancestors, and, as with all primitive nations, their belief in the mystery of herbs is almost past our civilised understanding. Their plant lore, hoary with age, is redolent of a time when the tribes were still wandering on the mainland of Europe, and in these first records of this plant lore there is the breath of mighty forests, of marsh lands and of Nature in her wildest. We are swept back to an epoch when man fought with Nature, wresting from her the land, and when the unseen powers of evil resented this conquest of their domains. To the early Saxons those unseen powers were an everyday reality. A supernatural terror brooded over the trackless heaths, the dark mere pools were inhabited by the water elves. In the wreathing mists and driving storms of snow and hail they saw the uncouth “moor gangers,” “the muckle mark steppers who hold the moors,” or the stalking fiends of the lonely places, creatures whose baleful eyes shone like flames through the mist. To this day some of our place names in the more remote parts of these islands recall the memory of those evil terrors. In these manuscripts we are again in an atmosphere of eotens and trolls, there are traces of even older terrors, when the first Teuton settlers in Europe struggled with the aborigines who lived in caves, hints as elusive as the phantom heroes in the Saxon poems, and as unforgettable.

Still more remarkable is the fact that beneath the superstructure of Christian rites to be used when the herbs were being picked or administered we find traces not merely of the ancient heathen religion, but of a religion older than that of Woden. It has been emphasised by our most eminent authorities that in very early times our ancestors had but few chief gods, and it is a remarkable fact that there is no mention whatever of Woden in the whole range of Saxon literature before the time of Alfred. In those earlier centuries they seem to have worshipped a personification of Heaven, and Earth, the wife of Heaven, and the Son, whom after ages called Thor. There were also Nature deities, Hrede, the personification of the brightness of Summer, and Eostra, the radiant creature of the Dawn. It will be remembered that it was the worship, not of Balder, but of Eostra, which the Christian missionaries found so deeply imbedded that they adopted her name and transferred it to Easter. For this we have the authority of Bede. Separate from these beneficent powers were the destroying and harmful powers of Nature—darkness, storm, frost and the deadly vapours of moorland and fen, personified in the giants, the ogres, the furious witches that rode the winds and waves; in fact, the whole horde of demons of sea and land and sky. It is the traces of these most ancient forms of religion which give to the manuscripts their strongest fascination.

Many of us miss all that is most worth learning in old books through regarding anything in them that is unfamiliar as merely quaint, if not ridiculous. This attitude seals a book as effectually and as permanently as it seals a sensitive human being. There is only one way of understanding these old writers, and that is to forget ourselves entirely and to try to look at the world of nature as they did. It is not “much learning” that is required, but sympathy and imagination. In the case of these Saxon manuscripts we are repaid a thousandfold; for they transport us to an age far older than our own, and yet in some ways so young that we have lost its magic key. For we learn not only of herbs and the endless uses our forefathers made of them, but, if we try to read them with understanding, these books open for us a magic casement through which we look upon the past bathed in a glamour of romance. Our Saxon ancestors may have been a rude and hardy race, but they did not live in an age of materialism as we do. In their writings on herbs and their uses we see “as through a glass darkly” a time when grown men believed in elves and goblins as naturally as they believed in trees, an age when it was the belief of everyday folk that the air was peopled with unseen powers of evil against whose machinations definite remedies must be applied. They believed, as indeed the people of all ancient civilisations have believed, that natural forces and natural objects were endued with mysterious powers whom it was necessary to propitiate by special prayers. Not only the stars of heaven, but springs of water and the simple wayside herbs, were to them directly associated with unseen beings. There are times when one is reminded forcibly of that worship of Demeter, “nearer to the Earth which some have thought they could discern behind the definitely national mythology of Homer.” They believed that the sick could be cured by conjurations and charms, as firmly as we believe to-day in curing them by suggestion—is there any real difference between these methods?—and when one reads the charms which they used in administering their herbs one cannot help wondering whether these were handed down traditionally from the Sumerians, those ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia who five thousand years before Christ used charms for curing the sick which have now been partially deciphered from the cuneiform inscriptions. But before studying the plant lore therein contained, it may be as well to take a preliminary survey of the four most important manuscripts.

The oldest Saxon book dealing with the virtues of herbs which we possess is the Leech Book of Bald, dating from about A.D. 900-950. Unlike some other MS. herbals of which only a few tattered pages remain, this perfect specimen of Saxon work has nothing fragile about it. The vellum is as strong and in as good condition as when it first lay clean and untouched under the hand of the scribe—Cild by name—who penned it with such skill and loving care. One’s imagination runs riot when one handles this beautiful book, now over a thousand years old, and wonders who were its successive owners and how it has survived the wars and other destructive agencies through all these centuries. But we only know that, at least for a time, it was sheltered in that most romantic of all English monasteries, Glastonbury.[3] This Saxon manuscript has a dignity which is unique, for it is the oldest existing leech book written in the vernacular. In a lecture delivered before the Royal College of Physicians in 1903, Dr. J. F. Payne commented on the remarkable fact that the Anglo-Saxons had a much wider knowledge of herbs than the doctors of Salerno, the oldest school of medicine and oldest university in Europe. “No treatise,” he said, “of the School of Salerno contemporaneous with the Leech Book of Bald is known, so that the Anglo-Saxons had the credit of priority. Their Leech Book was the first medical treatise written in Western Europe which can be said to belong to modern history, that is, which was produced after the decadence and decline of the classical medicine, which belongs to ancient history.... It seems fair to regard it [the Leech Book], in a sense, as the embryo of modern English medicine, and at all events the earliest medical treatise produced by any of the modern nations of Europe.” The Anglo-Saxons created a vernacular literature to which the continental nations at that time could show no parallel, and in the branch of literature connected with medicine, in those days based on a knowledge of herbs (when it was not magic), their position was unique. Moreover, the fact that the Leech Book was written in the vernacular is in itself remarkable, for it points to the existence of a class of men who were not Latin scholars and yet were able and willing to read books. The Leech Book belongs to the literary period commonly known as the school of Alfred. It was probably written shortly after Alfred’s death, but it is more than probable that it is a copy of a much older manuscript, for what is known as the third book of the Leech Book is evidently a shorter and older work incorporated by the scribe when he had finished the Leech Book proper.

The book itself was written under the direction of one Bald, who, if he were not a personal friend of King Alfred’s, had at any rate access to the king’s correspondence; for one chapter consists of prescriptions sent by Helias, Patriarch of Jerusalem, to the king.[4] We learn the names of the first owner and scribe from lines in Latin verse at the end of the second part of the MS.

“Bald is the owner of this book, which he ordered Cild to write,
Earnestly I pray here all men, in the name of Christ,
That no treacherous person take this book from me,
Neither by force nor by theft nor by any false statement.
Why? Because the richest treasure is not so dear to me
As my dear books which the Grace of Christ attends.”

The book consists of 109 leaves and is written in a large, bold hand and one or two of the initial letters are very faintly illuminated. The writing is an exceptionally fine specimen of Saxon penmanship. On many of the pages there are mysterious marks, but it is impossible to conjecture their meaning. It has been suggested that they point to the sources from which the book was compiled and were inserted by the original owner.

The Leech Book of Bald was evidently the manual of a Saxon doctor, and he refers to two other doctors—Dun and Oxa by name—who had given him prescriptions. The position of the leech in those days must have been very trying, for he was subjected to the obviously unfair competition of the higher clergy, many of whom enjoyed a reputation for working miraculous cures.[5] The leech being so inferior in position, it is not surprising that his medical knowledge did not advance on scientific lines. He relied on the old heathen superstitions, probably from an instinctive feeling that in pagan religion, combined with the herb lore which had been handed down through the ages, the mass of the people had a deep-rooted faith. Nothing is more obvious in the Leech Book than the fact that the virtues ascribed to the different herbs are based not on the personal knowledge of the writer, but on the old herb lore. This gives the Leech Book its special fascination; for it is the oldest surviving manuscript in which we can learn the herb lore of our ancestors, handed down to them from what dim past ages we can only surmise. We have, therefore, to bear in mind that what may strike our modern minds as quaint, or even grotesque, is in the majority of instances a distorted form of lore which doubtless suffered many changes during the early centuries of our era. Nearly all that is most fascinating in the Leech Book is of very ancient Indo-Germanic or Eastern origin, but one cannot help wondering how much the Saxons incorporated of the herb lore of the ancient Britons. Does not Pliny tell us that the Britons gathered herbs with such striking ceremonies that it would seem as though the Britons had taught them to the Persians?

One cannot read Bald’s manuscript without being struck by his remarkable knowledge of native plants and garden herbs. We are inferior to our continental neighbours in so many arts that it is pleasant to find that in the ancient art of gardening and in their knowledge of herbs our Saxon forefathers excelled. It has been pointed out by eminent authorities that the Anglo-Saxons had names for, and used, a far larger number of plants than the continental nations. In the Herbarium of Apuleius, including the additions from Dioscorides, only 185 plants are mentioned, and this was one of the standard works of the early Middle Ages. In the Herbarius of 1484, the earliest herbal printed in Germany, only 150 plants are recorded, and in the German Herbarius of 1485 there are 380. But from various sources it has been computed that the Anglo-Saxons had names for, and used, at least 500 plants.[6] One feels instinctively that the love of flowers and gardens was as deep-rooted in our ancestors as it is in our nation to-day, and though we do not know exactly what they grew in their gardens—which they called wyrtȝerd (literally, herb-yard)—we do know that the marigolds, sunflowers, peonies, violets and gilly-flowers which make the cottage gardens of England so gay and full of colour to-day were also the commonest plants in the Saxon gardens. Fashions in large gardens have changed throughout the centuries, and there are stately gardens in this country famed the world over. But in regard to our cottage gardens we are staunchly conservative, and it is assuredly the cottage garden which is characteristically English. Incidentally, one cannot help regretting that so many of our old Saxon plant names have fallen into disuse. “Waybroad,” for instance, is much more descriptive than “plantain,” which is misleading.[7] “Maythen” also is surely preferable to “camomile,” and “wergulu” is more characteristic of that fierce weed than “nettle.” Those of us who are gardeners will certainly agree that “unfortraedde” is the right name for knotweed. And is not “joy of the ground” a delightful name for periwinkle?

The oldest illustrated herbal which has come down to us from Saxon times is the translation of the Latin Herbarium Apuleii Platonici.[8] The original Latin work is believed to date from the fifth century, though no copy so ancient as this is in existence now. The name Apuleius Platonicus is possibly fictitious and nothing is known of the writer, who was, of course, distinct from Apuleius Madaurensis, the author of the Golden Ass. The Saxon translation of this herbal (now in the British Museum) is supposed to date from A.D. 1000-1050, and belongs to the school of Ælfric of Canterbury. The frontispiece is a coloured picture in which Plato is represented holding a large volume which is being given him by Æsculapius and the Centaur, and on the other side of the page is a blue circle spotted with white and red, within which is the name of the book: “Herbarium Apuleii Platonici quod accepit ab Escolapio et Chirone centauro magistro Achillis.” The book consists of 132 chapters, in each of which a herb is described, and there are accompanying illustrations of the herbs. Throughout the book there are also remarkable pictures of snakes, scorpions and unknown winged creatures. It has been pointed out that the figures of herbs are obviously not from the original plants, but are copied from older figures, and these from others older still, and one wonders what the original pictures were like. It is interesting to think that perhaps the illustrations in this Saxon herbal are directly descended, so to speak, from the drawings of Cratevas,[9] Dionysius or Metrodorus, of whom Pliny tells us “They drew the likeness of herbs and wrote under them their effects.” The picture of the lily is very attractive in spite of the fact that the flowers are painted pale blue. The stamens in the figure stand out beyond the petals and look like rays of light, with a general effect that is curiously pleasing. One of the most interesting figures is that of the mandrake (painted in a deep madder), which embodies the old legend that it was death to dig up the root, and that therefore a dog was tied to a rope and made to drag it up. It is the opinion of some authorities that these figures show the influence of the school represented by the two splendid Vienna manuscripts of Dioscorides dating from the fifth and seventh centuries. There is no definite evidence of this, and though the illustrations in the Saxon manuscript show the influence of the classical tradition, they are poor compared with those in the Vienna manuscript. To some extent at least the drawings in this herbal must necessarily have been copies, for many of the plants are species unknown in this country.

ÆSCULAPIUS PLATO AND A CENTAUR

From the Saxon translation of the Herbarium of Apuleius (Cott. Vit., C. 3, folio 19a)

The Saxon translation of the Περὶ Διδαξέων (Harl. 6258) is a thin volume badly mutilated in parts. Herr Max Löwenbeck[10] has shown that this is in part translated from a treatise by an eleventh-century writer, Petrocellus or Petronius, of the School of Salerno—the original treatise being entitled Practica Petrocelli Salernitani.[11] As has been pointed out by many eminent authorities, the School of Salerno, being a survival of Greek medicine, was uncontaminated by superstitious medicine. Consequently there are striking differences between this and the other Saxon manuscripts. The large majority of the herbs mentioned are those of Southern Europe, and the pharmacy is very simple compared with the number of herbs in prescriptions of native origin. As Dr. J. F. Payne[12] has pointed out, Herr Löwenbeck’s important discovery does not account for the whole of the English book. The order of the chapters differs from that of the Salernitan writer; there are passages not to be found in the Practica, and in some places the English text gives a fuller reading. It is fairly evident that the Saxon treatise is at least in part indebted to the Passionarius by Gariopontus, another Salernitan writer of the same period.

The Lacnunga (Harl. 585), an original work, and one of the oldest and most interesting manuscripts, is a small, thick volume without any illustrations. Some of the letters are illuminated and some are rudely ornamented. At the top of the first page there is the inscription “Liber Humfredi Wanley,” and it is interesting, therefore, to realise that the British Museum owes this treasure to the zealous antiquarian whose efforts during the closing years of the seventeenth and early years of the eighteenth century rescued so many valuable Saxon and other MSS. from oblivion.[13]

To the student of folk lore and folk custom these sources of herb lore are of remarkable interest for the light they throw on the beliefs and customs of humble everyday people in Anglo-Saxon times. Of kings and warriors, of bards and of great ladies we can read in other Saxon literature, and all so vividly that we see their halls, the long hearths on which the fires were piled, the openings in the roof through which the smoke passed. We see the men with their “byrnies” of ring mail, their crested helmets, their leather-covered shields and deadly short swords. We see them and their womenkind wearing golden ornaments at their feasts, the tables laden with boars’ flesh and venison and chased cups of ale and mead. We see these same halls at night with the men sleeping, their “byrnies” and helmets hanging near them, and in the dim light we can make out also the trophies of the chase hanging on the walls. We read of their mighty deeds, and we know at least something of the ideals and the thoughts of their great men and heroes. But what of that vast number of the human kind who were always in the background? What of the hewers of wood and drawers of water, the swineherds, the shepherds, the carpenters, the hedgers and cobblers? Is it not wonderful to think that in these manuscripts we can learn, at least to some extent, what plant life meant to these everyday folk? And even in these days to understand what plant life means to the true countryman is to get into very close touch with him. Not only has suburban life separated the great concentrated masses of our people from their birthright of meadows, fields and woods; of Nature, in her untamed splendour and mystery, most of them have never had so much as a momentary glimpse. But in Saxon times even the towns were not far from the unreclaimed marshes and forests, and to the peasant in those days they were full not only of seen, but also of unseen perils. There was probably not a Saxon child who did not know something of the awe of waste places and impenetrable forests. Even the hamlets lay on the very edge of forests and moors, and to the peasant these were haunted by giant, elf and monster, as in the more inaccessible parts of these islands they are haunted still to those who retain something of primitive imagination. And when we study the plant lore of these people we realise that prince and peasant alike used the simple but mysterious herbs not only to cure them of both physical and mental ills, but to guard them from these unseen monsters. Of the reverence they paid to herbs we begin to have some dim apprehension when we read of the ceremonies connected with the picking and administering of them.

But, first, what can we learn of the beliefs as to the origin of disease? Concerning this the great bulk of the folk lore in these manuscripts is apparently of native Teutonic origin, or rather it would be more correct to speak of its origin as Indo-Germanic; for the same doctrines are to be found among all Indo-Germanic peoples, and even in the Vedas, notably the Atharva Veda. Of these beliefs, the doctrine of the “elf-shot” occupies a large space, the longest chapter in the third book of the Leech Book of Bald being entirely “against elf-disease.” We know from their literature that to our Saxon ancestors waste places of moor and forest and marshes were the resort of a host of supernatural creatures at enmity with mankind. In the Leech Book of Bald disease is largely ascribed to these elves, whose shafts produced illness in their victims. We read of beorg-ælfen, dun-ælfen, muntælfen. But our modern word “elf” feebly represents these creatures, who were more akin to the “mark-stalkers,” to the creatures of darkness with loathsome eyes, rather than to the fairies with whom we now associate the name. For the most part these elves of ancient times were joyless impersonations and creatures not of sun but of darkness and winter. In the gloom and solitude of the forest, “where the bitter wormwood stood pale grey” and where “the hoar stones lay thick,” the black, giant elves had their dwelling. They claimed the forest for their own and hated man because bit by bit he was wresting the forest from them. Yet they made for man those mystic swords of superhuman workmanship engraved with magic runes and dipped when red hot in blood or in a broth of poisonous herbs and twigs. We do not understand, we can only ask, why did they make them? What is the meaning of the myth? The water elves recall the sea monsters who attended Grendel’s dam, impersonations of the fury of the waves, akin to Hnikarr, and again other water elves of the cavernous bed of ocean, primeval deadly creatures, inhabiting alike the sea and the desolate fens, “where the elk-sedge waxed in the water.” If some were akin to the Formori of the baleful fogs in Irish mythic history and the Mallt-y-nos, those she-demons of marshy lands immortalised by the Welsh bards, creatures huge and uncouth “with grey and glaring eyes,” there were others who exceeded in beauty anything human. When Cædmon wrote of the beauty of Sarah, he described her as “sheen as an elf.” With the passing of the centuries we have well-nigh forgotten the black elves, though they are still realities to the Highlander and too real for him to speak of them. But have we not the descendants of the sheen bright elves in the works of Shakespeare, Milton and Shelley? One feels very sure that our Saxon ancestors would have understood that glittering elf Ariel as few of us are capable of understanding him. He is the old English bright elf. Did not Prospero subdue him with magic, as our ancestors used magic songs in administering herbs “to quell the elf”? Here is one such song from the Leech Book of Bald, and at the end a conjuration to bury the elf in the earth.

“I have wreathed round the wounds
The best of healing wreaths
That the baneful sores may
Neither burn nor burst,
Nor find their way further,
Nor turn foul and fallow.
Nor thump and throle on,
Nor be wicked wounds,
Nor dig deeply down;
But he himself may hold
In a way to health.
Let it ache thee no more
Than ear in Earth acheth.

“Sing also this many times, ‘May earth bear on thee with all her might and main.’”—Leech Book of Bald, III. 63.

This was for one “in the water elf disease,” and we read that a person so afflicted would have livid nails and tearful eyes, and would look downwards. Amongst the herbs to be administered when the charm was sung over him were a yew-berry, lupin, helenium, marsh mallow, dock elder, wormwood and strawberry leaves.

Goblins and nightmare were regarded as at least akin to elves, and we find the same herbs were to be used against them, betony being of peculiar efficacy against “monstrous nocturnal visions and against frightful visions and dreams.”[14] The malicious elves did not confine their attacks to human beings; references to elf-shot cattle are numerous. I quote the following from the chapter “against elf disease.”

“For that ilk [i. e. for one who is elf-shot].

“Go on Thursday evening when the sun is set where thou knowest that helenium stands, then sing the Benedicite and Pater Noster and a litany and stick thy knife into the wort, make it stick fast and go away; go again when day and night just divide; at the same period go first to church and cross thyself and commend thyself to God; then go in silence and, though anything soever of an awful sort or man meet thee, say not thou to him any word ere thou come to the wort which on the evening before thou markedst; then sing the Benedicite and the Pater Noster and a litany, delve up the wort, let the knife stick in it; go again as quickly as thou art able to church and let it lie under the altar with the knife; let it lie till the sun be up, wash it afterwards, and make into a drink with bishopwort and lichen off a crucifix; boil in milk thrice, thrice pour holy water upon it and sing over it the Pater Noster, the Credo and the Gloria in Excelsis Deo, and sing upon it a litany and score with a sword round about it on three sides a cross, and then after that let the man drink the wort; Soon it will be well with him.”—Leech Book, III. 62.

The instructions for a horse or cattle that are elf-shot runs thus:—

“If a horse or other neat be elf-shot take sorrel-seed or Scotch wax, let a man sing twelve Masses over it and put holy water on the horse or on whatsoever neat it be; have the worts always with thee. For the same take the eye of a broken needle, give the horse a prick with it, no harm shall come.”—Leech Book of Bald, I. 88.

Another prescription for an elf-shot horse runs thus:—

“If a horse be elf-shot, then take the knife of which the haft is the horn of a fallow ox and on which are three brass nails, then write upon the horse’s forehead Christ’s mark and on each of the limbs which thou mayst feel at: then take the left ear, prick a hole in it in silence, this thou shalt do; then strike the horse on the back, then will it be whole.—And write upon the handle of the knife these words—

“Benedicite omnia opera Domini dominum.

“Be the elf what it may, this is mighty for him to amend.”—Leech Book of Bald, I. 65.[15]

Closely allied to the doctrine of the elf-shot is that of “flying venom.” It is, of course, possible to regard the phrase as the graphic Anglo-Saxon way of describing infectious diseases; but the various synonymous phrases, “the on-flying things,” “the loathed things that rove through the land,” suggest something of more malignant activity. As a recent leading article in The Times shows, we are as a matter of fact not much wiser than our Saxon ancestors as to the origin of an epidemic such as influenza.[16] Indeed, to talk of “catching” a cold or any infectious disease would have struck an Anglo-Saxon as ludicrous, mankind being rather the victims of “flying venom.” In the alliterative lay in the Lacnunga, part of which is given below, the wind is described as blowing these venoms, which produced disease in the bodies on which they lighted, their evil effects being subsequently blown away by the magician’s song and the efficacy of salt and water and herbs. This is generally supposed to be in its origin a heathen lay of great antiquity preserved down to Christian times, when allusions to the new religion were inserted. It is written in the Wessex dialect and is believed to be of the tenth century, but it is undoubtedly a reminiscence of some far older lay. The lay or charm is in praise of nine sacred herbs (one a tree)—mugwort, waybroad (plantain), stime (watercress), atterlothe (?), maythen (camomile), wergulu (nettle), crab apple, chervil and fennel.

“These nine attack
against nine venoms.
A worm came creeping,
he tore asunder a man.
Then took Woden
nine magic twigs,
[&] then smote the serpent
that he in nine [bits] dispersed.
Now these nine herbs have power
against nine magic outcasts
against nine venoms
& against nine flying things
[& have might] against the loathed things
that over land rove.
Against the red venoms
against the runlan [?] venom
against the white venom
against the blue [?] venom
against the yellow venom
against the green venom
against the dusky venom
against the brown venom
against the purple venom.
Against worm blast
against water blast
against thorn blast
against thistle blast
Against ice blast
Against venom blast
. . . . . . .
if any venom come
flying from east
or any come from north
[or any from south]
or any from west
over mankind
I alone know a running river
and the nine serpents behold [it]
All weeds must
now to herbs give way,
Seas dissolve
[and] all salt water
when I this venom
from thee blow.”[17]

In the chapter in the Leech Book of Bald[18] containing the prescriptions sent by the Patriarch of Jerusalem to King Alfred, we find among the virtues of the “white stone” that it is “powerful against flying venom and against all uncouth things,” and in another passage[19] that these venoms are particularly dangerous “fifteen nights ere Lammas and after it for five and thirty nights: leeches who were wisest have taught that in that month no man should anywhere weaken his body except there were a necessity for it.” In the most ancient source of Anglo-Saxon medicine—the Lacnunga—we find the following “salve” for flying venom:—

“A salve for flying venom. Take a handful of hammer wort and a handful of maythe (camomile) and a handful of waybroad (plantain) and roots of water dock, seek those which will float, and one eggshell full of clean honey, then take clean butter, let him who will help to work up the salve melt it thrice: let one sing a mass over the worts, before they are put together and the salve is wrought up.”[20]

But it is in the doctrine of the worm as the ultimate source of disease that we are carried back to the most ancient of sagas. The dragon and the worm, the supreme enemy of man, which play so dominating a part in Saxon literature, are here set down as the source of all ill. In the alliterative lay in the Lacnunga the opening lines describe the war between Woden and the Serpent. Disease arose from the nine fragments into which he smote the serpent, and these diseases, blown by the wind, are counteracted by the nine magic twigs and salt water and herbs with which the disease is again blown away from the victim by the power of the magician’s song. This is the atmosphere of the great earth-worm Fafnir in the Volsunga Saga and the dragon in all folk tales, the great beast with whom the heroes of all nations have contended. Further, it is noteworthy that not only in Anglo-Saxon medicine, but for many centuries afterwards, even minor ailments were ascribed to the presence of a worm—notably toothache. In the Leech Book we find toothache ascribed to a worm in the tooth (see Leech Book, II. 121). It is impossible in a book of this size to deal with the comparative folk lore of this subject, but in passing it is interesting to recall an incantation for toothache from the Babylonian cuneiform texts[21] in which we find perhaps the oldest example of this belief.

“The Marshes created the Worm,
Came the Worm and wept before Shamash,
What wilt thou give me for my food?
What wilt thou give me to devour?
. . . . . . .
Let me drink among the teeth
And set me on the gums,
That I may devour the blood of the teeth
And of the gums destroy their strength.
Then shall I hold the bolt of the door.
. . . . . . .
So must thou say this, O Worm,
May Ea smite thee with the might of his fist.”

Closely interwoven with these elements of Indo-Germanic origin we find the ancient Eastern doctrine which ascribes disease to demoniac possession. The exorcisms were originally heathen charms, and even in the Leech Book there are many interesting survivals of these, although Christian rites have to a large extent been substituted for them. Both mandrake and periwinkle were supposed to be endowed with mysterious powers against demoniacal possession. At the end of the description of the mandrake in the Herbarium of Apuleius there is this prescription:—

“For witlessness, that is devil sickness or demoniacal possession, take from the body of this same wort mandrake by the weight of three pennies, administer to drink in warm water as he may find most convenient—soon he will be healed.”—Herb. Ap., 32.

Of periwinkle we read:—

“This wort is of good advantage for many purposes, that is to say first against devil sickness and demoniacal possessions and against snakes and wild beasts and against poisons and for various wishes and for envy and for terror and that thou mayst have grace, and if thou hast the wort with thee thou shalt be prosperous and ever acceptable. This wort thou shalt pluck thus, saying, ‘I pray thee, vinca pervinca, thee that art to be had for thy many useful qualities, that thou come to me glad blossoming with thy mainfulness, that thou outfit me so that I be shielded and ever prosperous and undamaged by poisons and by water;’ when thou shalt pluck this wort thou shalt be clean of every uncleanness, and thou shalt pick it when the moon is nine nights old and eleven nights and thirteen nights and thirty nights and when it is one night old.”—Herb. Ap.

MANDRAKE FROM A SAXON HERBAL

(Sloane 1975, folio 49a)

In the treatment of disease we find that the material remedies, by which I mean remedies devoid of any mystic meaning, are with few exceptions entirely herbal. The herb drinks were made up with ale, milk or vinegar, many of the potions were made of herbs mixed with honey, and ointments were made of herbs worked up with butter. The most scientific prescription is that for a vapour bath,[22] and there are suggestions for what may become fashionable once more—herb baths. The majority of the prescriptions are for common ailments, and one cannot help being struck by the number there are for broken heads, bleeding noses and bites of mad dogs. However ignorant one may be of medicine, it is impossible to read these old prescriptions without realising that our ancestors were an uncommonly hardy race, for the majority of the remedies would kill any of us modern weaklings, even if in robust health when they were administered. At times one cannot help wondering whether in those days, as not infrequently happens now, the bulletin was issued that “the operation was quite successful, but the patient died of shock!” And, as further evidence of the old truth that there is nothing new under the sun, it is pleasant to find that doctors, even in Saxon days, prescribed “carriage exercise,” and moreover endeavoured to sweeten it by allowing the patient to “lap up honey” first. This prescription runs thus:—

“Against want of appetite. Let them, after the night’s fast, lap up honey, and let them seek for themselves fatigue in riding on horseback or in a wain or such conveyance as they may endure.”—Leech Book, II. 7.

In the later herbals, “beauty” recipes are, as is well known, a conspicuous feature, but they find a place also in these old manuscripts. In the third book (the oldest part) of the Leech Book there is a prescription for sunburn which runs thus:—

“For sunburn boil in butter tender ivy twigs, smear therewith.”—Leech Book, III. 29.

And in Leech Book II. we find this prescription:—

“That all the body may be of a clean and glad and bright hue, take oil and dregs of old wine equally much, put them into a mortar, mingle well together and smear the body with this in the sun.”—Leech Book, II. 65.

Prescriptions for hair falling off are fairly numerous, and there are even two—somewhat drastic—prescriptions for hair which is too thick. Sowbread and watercress were both used to make hair grow, and in Leech Book I. there is this prescription:—

“If a man’s hair fall off, work him a salve. Take the mickle wolf’s bane and viper’s bugloss and the netherward part of burdock, work the salve out of that wort and out of all these and out of that butter of which no water hath come. If hair fall off, boil the polypody fern and foment the head with that so warm. In case that a man be bald, Plinius the mickle leech saith this leechdom: ‘Take dead bees, burn them to ashes, add oil upon that, seethe very long over gledes, then strain, wring out and take leaves of willow, pound them, pour the juice into the oil; boil again for a while on gledes, strain them, smear therewith after the bath.’”—Leech Book, I. 87.

The two prescriptions for hair which is too thick are in the same chapter:—

“In order that the hair may not wax, take emmets’ eggs, rub them up, smudge on the place, never will any hair come up there.” Again: “if hair be too thick, take a swallow, burn it to ashes under a tile and have the ashes shed on.”

There are more provisions against diseases of the eye than against any other complaint, and it is probably because of the prevalence of these in olden days that we still have so many of the superstitions connected with springs of water. Both maythen (camomile) and wild lettuce were used for the eyes. In the following for mistiness of eyes there is a touch of pathos:—

“For mistiness of eyes, many men, lest their eyes should suffer the disease, look into cold water and then are able to see far.... The eyes of an old man are not sharp of sight, then shall he wake up his eyes with rubbings, with walkings, with ridings, either so that a man bear him or convey him in a wain. And they shall use little and careful meats and comb their heads and drink wormwood before they take food. Then shall a salve be wrought for unsharpsighted eyes; take pepper and beat it and a somewhat of salt and wine; that will be a good salve.”

One prescription is unique, for the “herb” which one is directed to use is not to be found in any other herbal in existence. This is “rind from Paradise.” There is a grim humour about the scribe’s comment, and one cannot help wondering what was the origin of the prescription:—

“Some teach us against bite of adder, to speak one word ‘faul.’ It may not hurt him. Against bite of snake if the man procures and eateth rind which cometh out of Paradise, no venom will hurt him. Then said he that wrote this book that the rind was hard gotten.”

These manuscripts are so full of word pictures of the treatment of disease that one feels if one were transported back to those days it would in most cases be possible to tell at a glance the “cures” various people were undergoing. Let us visit a Saxon hamlet and go and see the sick folk in the cottages. On our way we meet a man with a fawn’s skin decorated with little bunches of herbs dangling from his shoulders, and we know that he is a sufferer from nightmare.[23] Another has a wreath of clove-wort tied with a red thread round his neck. He is a lunatic, but, as the moon is on the wane, his family hope that the wearing of these herbs will prove beneficial. We enter a dark one-roomed hut, the dwelling of one of the swineherds, but he is not at his work; for it seemed to him that his head turned about and that he was faring with turned brains. He had consulted the leech and, suggestion cures being then rather more common than now, the leech had advised him to sit calmly by his fireside with a linen cloth wrung out in spring water on his head and to wait till it was dry. He does so, and, to quote the words with which nearly all Saxon prescriptions end, we feel “it will soon be well with him.” Let us wend our way to the cobbler, a sullen, taciturn man who finds his lively young wife’s chatter unendurable. We find him looking more gloomy than usual, for he has eaten nothing all day and now sits moodily consuming a raw radish. But there is purpose in this. Does not the ancient leechdom say that, if a radish be eaten raw after fasting all day, no woman’s chatter the next day can annoy? In another cottage we find that a patient suffering from elf-shot is to be smoked with the fumes of herbs. A huge quern stone which has been in the fire on the hearth all day is dragged out, the prepared herbs—wallwort and mugwort—are scattered upon it and also underneath, then cold water is poured on and the patient is reeked with the steam “as hot as he can endure it.”[24] Smoking sick folk, especially for demoniac possession, is a world-wide practice and of very ancient origin. There is no space here to attempt to touch on the comparative folk lore of this subject. Moreover, fumigating the sick with herbs is closely akin to the burning of incense. Even in ancient Babylonian days fumigating with herbs was practised.[25] It was very common all through the Middle Ages in most parts of Europe, and that it has not even yet died out is shown by the extract from The Times given below.[26] I have purposely put in juxtaposition the translation of the ancient Babylonian tablet and the extract from The Times.

It is noteworthy that not only human beings, but cattle and swine were smoked with the fumes of herbs. In the Lacnunga, for sick cattle we find—“Take the wort, put it upon gledes and fennel and hassuck and ‘cotton’ and incense. Burn all together on the side on which the wind is. Make it reek upon the cattle. Make five crosses of hassuck grass, set them on four sides of the cattle and one in the middle. Sing about the cattle the Benedicite and some litanies and the Pater Noster. Sprinkle holy water upon them, burn about them incense and cotton and let someone set a value on the cattle, let the owner give the tenth penny in the Church for God, after that leave them to amend; do this thrice.”—Lacnunga, 79.

“To preserve swine from sudden death sing over them four masses, drive the swine to the fold, hang the worts upon the four sides and upon the door, also burn them, adding incense and make the reek stream over the swine.”—Lacnunga, 82.

Herbs used as amulets have always played a conspicuous part in folk medicine, and our Saxon ancestors used them, as all ancient races have used them, not merely to cure definite diseases but also as protection against the unseen powers of evil,[27] to preserve the eyesight, to cure lunacy, against weariness when going on a journey, against being barked at by dogs, for safety from robbers, and in one prescription even to restore a woman stricken with speechlessness. The use of herbs as amulets to cure diseases has almost died out in this country, but the use of them as charms to ensure good luck survives to this day—notably in the case of white heather and four-leaved clover.

There is occasionally the instruction to bind on the herb with red wool. For instance, a prescription against headache in the third book of the Leech Book enjoins binding waybroad, which has been dug up without iron before sunrise, round the head “with a red fillet.” Binding on with red wool is a very ancient and widespread custom.[28] Red was the colour sacred to Thor and it was also the colour abhorred not only by witches in particular but by all the powers of darkness and evil. An ancient Assyrian eye charm prescribes binding “pure strands of red wool which have been brought by the pure hand of ... on the right hand,” and down to quite recent times even in these islands tying on with red wool was a common custom.

Besides their use as amulets, we also find instructions for hanging herbs up over doors, etc., for the benefit not only of human beings but of cattle also. Of mugwort we read in the Herbarium of Apuleius, “And if a root of this wort be hung over the door of any house then may not any man damage the house.”

“Of Croton oil plant. For hail and rough weather to turn them away. If thou hast in thy possession this wort which is named ‘ricinus’ and which is not a native of England, if thou hangest some seed of it in thine house or have it or its seed in any place whatsoever, it turneth away the tempestuousness of hail, and if thou hangest its seed on a ship, to that degree wonderful it is, that it smootheth every tempest. This wort thou shalt take saying thus, ‘Wort ricinus I pray that thou be at my songs and that thou turn away hails and lightning bolts and all tempests through the name of Almighty God who hight thee to be produced’; and thou shalt be clean when thou pluckest this herb.”—Herb. Ap., 176.

“Against temptation of the fiend, a wort hight red niolin, red stalk, it waxeth by running water; if thou hast it on thee and under thy head and bolster and over thy house door the devil may not scathe thee within nor without.”—Leech Book, III. 58.

“To preserve swine from sudden death take the worts lupin, bishopwort, hassuck grass, tufty thorn, vipers bugloss, drive the swine to the fold, hang the worts upon the four sides and upon the door.”—Lacnunga, 82.

The herbs in commonest use as amulets were betony, vervain, peony, yarrow, mugwort and waybroad (plantain). With the exception of vervain, no herb was more highly prized than betony. The treatise on it in the Herbarium of Apuleius is supposed to be an abridged copy of a treatise on the virtues of this plant written by Antonius Musa, physician to the Emperor Augustus. No fewer than twenty-nine uses of it are given, and in the Saxon translation this herb is described as being “good whether for a man’s soul or his body.” Vervain was one of the herbs held most sacred by the Druids and, as the herbals of Gerard and Parkinson testify, it was in high repute even as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It has never been satisfactorily identified, though many authorities incline to the belief that it was verbena. In Druidical times libations of honey had to be offered to the earth from which it was dug, mystic ceremonies attended the digging of it and the plant was lifted out with the left hand. This uprooting had always to be performed at the rising of the dog star and when neither the sun nor the moon was shining. Why the humble waybroad should occupy so prominent a place in Saxon herb lore it is difficult to understand. It is one of the nine sacred herbs in the alliterative lay in the Lacnunga, and the epithets “mother of worts” and “open from eastwards” are applied to it. The latter curious epithet is also applied to it in Lacnunga 46,—“which spreadeth open towards the East.” Waybroad has certainly wonderfully curative powers, especially for bee-stings, but otherwise it has long since fallen from its high estate. Peony throughout the Middle Ages was held in high repute for its protective powers, and even during the closing years of the last century country folk hung beads made of its roots round children’s necks.[29] Yarrow is one of the aboriginal English plants, and from time immemorial it has been used in incantations and by witches. Country folk still regard it as one of our most valuable herbs, especially for rheumatism. Mugwort, which was held in repute throughout the Middle Ages for its efficacy against unseen powers of evil, is one of the nine sacred herbs in the alliterative lay in the Lacnunga, where it is described thus:—

“Eldest of worts
Thou hast might for three
And against thirty
For venom availest
For flying vile things,
Mighty against loathed ones
That through the land rove.”
Harleian MS. 585.

(1) ARTEMISIA AND (2) BLACKBERRY, FROM A SAXON HERBAL

(Sloane 1975, folio 37a)

With the notable exception of vervain, it is curious how little prominence is given in Saxon plant lore to the herbs which were held most sacred by the Druids, and yet it is scarcely credible that some of their wonderful lore should not have been assimilated. But in these manuscripts little or no importance attaches to mistletoe, holly, birch or ivy. There is no mention of mistletoe as a sacred herb.[30] We find some mention of selago, generally identified with lycopodium selago, of which Pliny tells us vaguely that it was “like savin.” The gathering of it had to be accompanied in Druid days with mystic ceremonies. The Druid had his feet bare and was clad in white, and the plant could not be cut with iron, nor touched with the naked hand. So great were its powers that it was called “the gift of God.” Nor is there any mention in Saxon plant lore of the use of sorbus aucuparia, which the Druids planted near their monolithic circles as protection against unseen powers of darkness. There is, however, one prescription which may date back to the Roman occupation of Britain. It runs thus: “Take nettles, and seethe them in oil, smear and rub all thy body therewith; the cold will depart away.”[31] It has always been believed that one of the varieties of nettle (Urtica pilulifera) was introduced into England by the Roman soldiers, who brought the seed of it with them. According to the tradition, they were told that the cold in England was unendurable; so they brought these seeds in order to have a plentiful supply of nettles wherewith to rub their bodies and thereby keep themselves warm. Possibly this prescription dates back to that time.

From what hoary antiquity the charms and incantations which we find in these manuscripts have come down to us we cannot say. Their atmosphere is that of palæolithic cave-drawings, for they are redolent of the craft of sorcerers and they suggest those strange cave markings which no one can decipher. Who can say what lost languages are embedded in these unintelligible words and single letters, or what is their meaning? To what ancient ceremonies do they pertain, and who were the initiated who alone understood them? At present it is all mysterious, though perhaps one day we shall discover both their sources and their meaning. They show no definite traces of the Scandinavian rune-lays concerning herbs, though one of the charms is in runic characters. It is noteworthy that in the third book, which is evidently much older than the first two parts of the Leech Book, the proportion of heathen charms is exceptionally large. In one prescription we find the names of two heathen idols, Tiecon and Leleloth, combined with a later Christian interpolation of the names of the four gospellers. The charm is in runic characters and is to be followed by a prayer. Many of the mystic sentences are wholly incomprehensible, in others we find heathen names such as Lilumenne, in others a string of words which may be a corrupt form of some very ancient language. Thus a lay to be sung in case a man or beast drinks an insect runs thus:—“Gonomil, orgomil, marbumil, marbsai, tofeth,” etc.[32]

If some of the charms have a malignant sound, others were probably as soothing in those days as those gems are still which have survived in our inimitable nursery rhymes.

For instance, the following has for us no meaning, but even in the translation it has something of the curious effect of the words in the original. A woman who cannot rear her child is instructed to say—“Everywhere I carried for me the famous kindred doughty one with this famous meat doughty one, so I will have it for me and go home.”

In the Lacnunga there is a counting-out charm which is a mixture of an ancient heathen charm combined with a Christian rite at the end.

“Nine were Noddes sisters, then the nine came to be eight, and the eight seven, and the seven six, and the six five, and the five four, and the four three, and the three two, and the two one, and the one none. This may be medicine for thee from scrofula and from worm and from every mischief. Sing also the Benedicite nine times.”—Lacnunga, 95.[33]

One of the most remarkable narrative charms is that for warts copied below from the Lacnunga. It is to be sung first into the left ear, then into the right ear, then above the man’s poll, then “let one who is a maiden go to him and hang it upon his neck, do so for three days, it will soon be well with him.”

“Here came entering
A spider wight.
He had his hands upon his hams.
He quoth that thou his hackney wert.
Lay thee against his neck.
They began to sail off the land.
As soon as they off the land came, then began they to cool.
Then came in a wild beast’s sister.
Then she ended
And oaths she swore that never could this harm the sick, nor him who could get at this charm, nor him who had skill to sing this charm. Amen. Fiat.”—Lacnunga, 56.

Of the world-wide custom of charming disease from the patient and transferring it to some inanimate object we find numerous examples. This custom is not only of very ancient origin, but persisted until recent times even in this country. As commonly practised in out-of-the-way parts of Great Britain it was believed that the disease transferred to an inanimate object would be contracted by the next person who picked it up, but in the Saxon herbals we find an apparently older custom of transferring the disease to “running water” (suggestive of the Israelitish scapegoat), and also that of throwing the blood from the wound across the wagon way. These charms for transferring disease seem originally to have been associated with a considerable amount of ceremonial. For instance, in those to cure the bite of a hunting spider we find that a certain number of scarifications are to be struck (and in both cases an odd number—three and five); in the case of the five scarifications, “one on the bite and four round about it,” the blood is to be caught in “a green spoon of hazel-wood,” and the blood is to be thrown “in silence” over a wagon way. In the Lacnunga there are traces of the actual ceremonial of transferring the disease, and the Christian prayer has obviously been substituted for an older heathen one. The charm is in unintelligible words and is followed by the instruction, “Sing this nine times and the Pater Noster nine times over a barley loaf and give it to the horse to eat.” In a “salve against the elfin race” it is noticeable that the herbs, after elaborate preparation, are not administered to the patient at all, but are thrown into running water.

“A salve against the elfin race and nocturnal goblin visitors: take wormwood, lupin.... Put these worts into a vessel, set them under the altar, sing over them nine masses, boil them in butter and sheep’s grease, add much holy salt, strain through a cloth, throw the worts into running water.”—Leech Book, III. 61.

One charm in the Lacnunga which is perhaps not too long to quote speaks of some long-lost tale. It appears to be a fragment of a popular lay, and one wonders how many countless generations of our ancestors sang it, and what it commemorates:—

“Loud were they loud, as over the land they rode,
Fierce of heart were they, as over the hill they rode.
Shield thee now thyself; from this spite thou mayst escape thee!
Out little spear if herein thou be!
Underneath the linden stood he, underneath the shining shield,
While the mighty women mustered up their strength;
And the spears they send screaming through the air!
Back again to them will I send another.
Arrow forth a-flying from the front against them;
Out little spear if herein thou be!
Sat the smith thereat, smoke a little seax out.
Out little spear if herein thou be!
Six the smiths that sat there— making slaughter-spears:
Out little spear, in be not spear!
If herein there hide flake of iron hard,
Of a witch the work, it shall melt away.
Wert thou shot into the skin, or shot into the flesh,
Wert thou shot into the blood, or shot into the bone,
Wert thou shot into the limb— never more thy life be teased!
If it were the shot of Esa, or it were of elves the shot
Or it were of hags the shot; help I bring to thee.
This to boot for Esa-shot, this to boot for elfin-shot.
This to boot for shot of hags! Help I bring to thee.
Flee witch to the wild hill top . . . . . .
But thou—be thou hale, and help thee the Lord.”

Who were these six smiths and who were the witches? One thinks of that mighty Smith Weyland in the palace of Nidad king of the Niars, of the queen’s fear of his flashing eyes and the maiming of him by her cruel orders, and of the cups he made from the skulls of her sons and gems from their eyes. We think of these as old tales, but instinct tells us that they are horribly real. We may not know how that semi-divine smith made himself wings, but that he flew over the palace and never returned we do not doubt for an instant. To the fairy stories which embody such myths children of unnumbered generations have listened, and they demand them over and over again because they, too, are sure that they are real.

Nor is the mystery of numbers lacking in these herbal prescriptions, particularly the numbers three and nine. In the alliterative lay of the nine healing herbs this is very conspicuous. Woden, we are told, smote the serpent with nine magic twigs, the serpent was broken into nine parts, from which the wind blew the nine flying venoms. There are numerous instances of the patient being directed to take nine of each of the ingredients or to take the herb potion itself for three or nine days. Or it is directed that an incantation is to be said or sung three or nine times, or that three or nine masses are to be sung over the herbs. This mystic use of three and nine is conspicuous in the following prescription:—

“Against dysentery, a bramble of which both ends are in the earth take the newer root, delve it up, cut up nine chips with the left hand and sing three times the Miserere mei Deus and nine times the Pater Noster, then take mugwort and everlasting, boil these three worts and the chips in milk till they get red, then let the man sip at night fasting a pound dish full ... let him rest himself soft and wrap himself up warm; if more need be let him do so again, if thou still need do it a third time, thou wilt not need oftener.”—Leech Book, II. 65.

The leechdom for the use of dwarf elder against a snake-bite runs thus:—[34]

“For rent by snake take this wort and ere thou carve it off hold it in thine hand and say thrice nine times Omnes malas bestias canto, that is in our language Enchant and overcome all evil wild deer; then carve it off with a very sharp knife into three parts.”—Herb. Ap., 93.

Some of the most remarkable passages in the manuscripts are those concerning the ceremonies to be observed both in the picking and in the administering of herbs. What the mystery of plant life which has so deeply affected the minds of men in all ages and of all civilisations meant to our ancestors, we can but dimly apprehend as we study these ceremonies. They carry us back to that worship of earth and the forces of Nature which prevailed when Woden was yet unborn. That Woden was the chief god of the tribes on the mainland is indisputable, but even in the hierarchy of ancestors reverenced as semi-divine the Saxons themselves looked to Sceaf rather than to Woden, who himself was descended from Sceaf. There are few more haunting legends than that of our mystic forefather, the little boy asleep on a sheaf of corn who, in a richly adorned vessel which moved neither by sails nor oars, came to our people out of the great deep and was hailed by them as their king. Did not Alfred himself claim him as his primeval progenitor, the founder of our race? There is no tangible link between his descendant Woden and the worship of earth, but the sheaf of corn, the symbol of Sceaf, carries us straight back to Nature worship. Sceaf takes his fitting place as the semi-divine ancestor with the lesser divinities such as Hrede and Eostra, goddess of the radiant dawn. It is to this age that the ceremonies in the picking of the herbs transport us, to the mystery of the virtues of herbs, the fertility of earth, the never-ceasing conflict between the beneficent forces of sun and summer and the evil powers of the long, dark northern winters. Closely intertwined with Nature worship we find the later Christian rites and ceremonies. For the new teaching did not oust the old, and for many centuries the mind of the average man halted half-way between the two faiths. If he accepted Christ he did not cease to fear the great hierarchy of unseen powers of Nature, the worship of which was bred in his very bone. The ancient festivals of Yule and Eostra continued under another guise and polytheism still held its sway. The devil became one with the gloomy and terrible in Nature, with the malignant elves and dwarfs. Even with the warfare between the beneficent powers of sun and the fertility of Nature and the malignant powers of winter, the devil became associated. Nor did men cease to believe in the Wyrd, that dark, ultimate fate goddess who, though obscure, lies at the back of all Saxon belief. It was in vain that the Church preached against superstitions. Egbert, Archbishop of York, in his Penitential, strictly forbade the gathering of herbs with incantations and enjoined the use of Christian rites, but it is probable that even when these manuscripts were written, the majority at least of the common folk in these islands, though nominally Christian, had not deserted their ancient ways of thought. [35] When the Saxon peasant went to gather his healing herbs he may have used Christian prayers[36] and ceremonies, but he did not forget the goddess of the dawn. It is noteworthy how frequently we find the injunction that the herbs must be picked at sunrise or when day and night divide, how often stress is laid upon looking towards the east, and turning “as the sun goeth from east to south and west.” In many there is the instruction that the herb is to be gathered “without use of iron” or “with gold and with hart’s horn” (emblems of the sun’s rays). It is curious how little there is of moon lore. In some cases the herbs are to be gathered in silence, in others the man who gathers them is not to look behind him—a prohibition which occurs frequently in ancient superstitions. The ceremonies are all mysterious and suggestive, but behind them always lies the ancient ineradicable worship of Nature. To what dim past does that cry, “Erce, Erce, Erce, Mother of Earth” carry us?

“Erce, Erce, Erce, Mother of Earth!
May the All-Wielder, Ever Lord grant thee
Acres a-waxing, upwards a-growing
Pregnant [with corn] and plenteous in strength;
Hosts of [grain] shafts and of glittering plants!
Of broad barley the blossoms
And of white wheat ears waxing,
Of the whole earth the harvest!
Let be guarded the grain against all the ills
That are sown o’er the land by the sorcery men,
Nor let cunning women change it nor a crafty man.”

And that other ancient verse:—

“Hail be thou, Earth, Mother of men!
In the lap of the God be thou a-growing!
Be filled with fodder for fare-need of men!”

It is of these two invocations that Stopford Brooke (whose translations I have used) writes: “These are very old heathen invocations used, I daresay, from century to century and from far prehistoric times by all the Teutonic farmers. Who ‘Erce’ is remains obscure. But the Mother of Earth seems to be here meant, and she is a person who greatly kindles our curiosity. To touch her is like touching empty space, so far away is she. At any rate some Godhead or other seems here set forth under her proper name. In the Northern Cosmogony, Night is the Mother of Earth. But Erce cannot be Night. She is (if Erce be a proper name) bound up with agriculture. Grimm suggests Eorce, connected with the Old High German ‘erchan’ = simplex. He also makes a bold guess that she may be the same as a divine dame in Low Saxon districts called Herke or Harke, who dispenses earthly goods in abundance, and acts in the same way as Berhta and Holda—an earth-goddess, the lady of the plougher and sower and reaper. In the Mark she is called Frau Harke. Montanus draws attention to the appearance of this charm in a convent at Corvei, in which this line begins—‘Eostar, Eostar, eordhan modor.’ ... The name remains mysterious. The song breathes the pleasure and worship of ancient tillers of the soil in the labours of the earth and in the goods the mother gave. It has grown, it seems, out of the breast of earth herself; earth is here the Mother of Men. The surface of earth is the lap of the Goddess; in her womb let all growth be plentiful. Food is in her for the needs of men. ‘Hail be thou, Earth!’ I daresay this hymn was sung ten thousand years ago by the early Aryans on the Baltic coast.”

Even in a twelfth-century herbal we find a prayer to Earth, and it is so beautiful that I close this chapter with it:—

“Earth,[37] divine goddess, Mother Nature who generatest all things and bringest forth anew the sun which thou hast given to the nations; Guardian of sky and sea and of all gods and powers and through thy power all nature falls silent and then sinks in sleep. And again thou bringest back the light and chasest away night and yet again thou coverest us most securely with thy shades. Thou dost contain chaos infinite, yea and winds and showers and storms; thou sendest them out when thou wilt and causest the seas to roar; thou chasest away the sun and arousest the storm. Again when thou wilt thou sendest forth the joyous day and givest the nourishment of life with thy eternal surety; and when the soul departs to thee we return. Thou indeed art duly called great Mother of the gods; thou conquerest by thy divine name. Thou art the source of the strength of nations and of gods, without thee nothing can be brought to perfection or be born; thou art great queen of the gods. Goddess! I adore thee as divine; I call upon thy name; be pleased to grant that which I ask thee, so shall I give thanks to thee, goddess, with one faith.

“Hear, I beseech thee, and be favourable to my prayer. Whatsoever herb thy power dost produce, give, I pray, with goodwill to all nations to save them and grant me this my medicine. Come to me with thy powers, and howsoever I may use them may they have good success and to whomsoever I may give them. Whatever thou dost grant it may prosper. To thee all things return. Those who rightly receive these herbs from me, do thou make them whole. Goddess, I beseech thee; I pray thee as a suppliant that by thy majesty thou grant this to me.

“Now I make intercession to you all ye powers and herbs and to your majesty, ye whom Earth parent of all hath produced and given as a medicine of health to all nations and hath put majesty upon you, be, I pray you, the greatest help to the human race. This I pray and beseech from you, and be present here with your virtues, for she who created you hath herself promised that I may gather you into the goodwill of him on whom the art of medicine was bestowed, and grant for health’s sake good medicine by grace of your powers. I pray grant me through your virtues that whatsoe’er is wrought by me through you may in all its powers have a good and speedy effect and good success and that I may always be permitted with the favour of your majesty to gather you into my hands and to glean your fruits. So shall I give thanks to you in the name of that majesty which ordained your birth.”

FROM A SAXON HERBAL

(Harl. 1585, folio 19a)

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Nec non et si quos sæcularis scientiæ libros nobis ignotos adepturi sitis, ut sunt de medicinalibus, quorum copia est aliqua apud nos, sed tamen segmenta ultra marina quæ in eis scripta comperimus, ignota nobis sunt et difficilia ad adipiscendum.—Bonifac., Epistolæ, p. 102.

[3] A catalogue of the books of that foundation cited by Wanley (Hickes, Thesaur. Vol. II. Præf. ad Catalogum) contains the entry “Medicinale Anglicum,” and the MS. described above has on a fly-leaf the now almost illegible inscription “Medicinale Anglicum.” There is unfortunately no record as to the books which, on the dissolution of the monasteries, may possibly have found their way from Glastonbury to the royal library.

[4] This chapter consists of prescriptions containing drugs such as a resident in Syria would recommend. It is interesting to find this illustration of Asser’s statement, that he had seen and read the letters which the Patriarch of Jerusalem sent with presents to the king. From Asser also we learn that King Alfred kept a book in which he himself entered “little flowers culled on every side from all sorts of masters.” “Flosculos undecunque collectos a quibus libet magistris et in corpore unius libelli mixtim quamvis sicut tunc suppetebat redigere.”—Asser, p. 57.

[5] The stories of miraculous cures by famous Anglo-Saxon bishops and abbots are for the most part too well known to be worth quoting, but the unfair treatment of the leech is perhaps nowhere more clearly shown than in Bede’s tale of St. John of Beverley curing a boy with a diseased head. Although the leech effected the cure, the success was attributed to the bishop’s benediction, and the story ends, “the youth became of a clear countenance, ready in speech and with hair beautifully wavy.”

[6] A small but striking instance of Saxon knowledge, or rather close observation, of plants is to be found in the following description of wolf’s teazle in the Herbarium of Apuleius:—“This wort hath leaves reversed and thorny and it hath in its midst a round and thorny knob, and that is brown-headed in the blossoms and hath white seed and a white and very fragrant root.” The word “reversed” is not in the original and was therefore added by the Saxon translator, who had observed the fact that all the thistle tribe protect their leaves by thorns pointing backwards as well as forwards.

[7] It is interesting to remember that even as late as the sixteenth century plantain was called “waybroad.” See [Turner’s Herbal].

[8] There are numerous Latin MSS. of this book, chiefly in Italian libraries, several being in the Laurentian Library at Florence. The book was first printed at Rome, probably soon after 1480, by Joh. Philippus de Lignamine, who was also the editor. De Lignamine, who was physician to Pope Sixtus IV., says that he found this MS. in the library of the monastery of Monte Cassino. In the first impression the book is dedicated to Cardinal de Gonzaga; in the second impression to Cardinal de Ruvere. (The copy in the British Museum is of the second impression.) In this small quarto volume the illustrations are rough cuts. It is interesting to remember that these are the earliest known printed figures of plants. The printed text contains a large number of Greek and Latin synonyms which do not appear in the Saxon translation. Subsequent editions were printed in 1528 (Paris) and in the Aldine Collection of Latin medical writers, 1547 (Venice).

[9] Cratevas is said to have lived in the first century B.C. Pliny, Dioscorides and Galen all quote him.

[10] Erlanger, Beiträge zur englischen Philologie, No. XII. (περὶ διδαξέων), eine Sammlung von Rezepten in englischer Sprache.

[11] Printed by De Renzi in Collectio Salernitana, Vol. IV. (Naples, 1856).

[12] English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times.

[13] On the preceding blank page there is an inscription in late seventeenth-century handwriting—

“This boucke with letters is wr [remainder of word illegible]
Of it you cane no languige make.
Ba C.
A happie end if thou dehre [dare] to make
Remember still thyn owne esstate,
If thou desire in Christ to die
Thenn well to lead thy lif applie
barbara crokker.”

It is at least probable that Wanley, who at this period was collecting Anglo-Saxon manuscripts for George Hickes, secured this MS. from “barbara crokker.” Her naïve avowal of her inability to read the MS. suggests that she probably had no idea of the value of the book, and when one remembers Wanley’s reputation for driving shrewd bargains one cannot help wondering what he paid for this treasure. Those must have been halcyon days for collectors, when a man who had been an assistant in the Bodleian Library with a salary of £12 a year could buy Saxon manuscripts!

[14] Herb. Ap., I.

[15] For “elf-shot” herbal remedies see also Leech Book, III. 1, 61, 64.

[16] “The visitation raises again questions which were so anxiously propounded three years ago. In what manner does an epidemic of this kind arise? How is it propagated? We are still to a great extent in the dark in regard to both these points. Indeed, it has recently been suggested that we do not ‘catch’ influenza at all, but that certain climatic or other conditions favour the multiplication on an important scale of micro-organisms normally present in the human air passages. It would be foolish to pretend to any opinion on a subject which is at present almost entirely speculative: yet the theory we have quoted may serve to show how complicated and difficult are the issues involved.”—The Times, January 13, 1922.

[17] Translation from Dr. Charles Singer’s Early English Magic and Medicine. Proceedings of the British Academy.

[18] Leech Book of Bald, Book II. 64.

[19] Id. Book I. 72. For other references to flying venom see Leech Book of Bald, I. 113; II. 65.

[20] Lacnunga, 6.

[21] Cuneiform Texts, Part XVII. pl. 50.

[22] The directions for the vapour bath are given in such a brief and yet forceful way that I cannot imagine anyone reading it without feeling at the end as though he had run breathlessly to collect the herbs, and then prepared the bath and finally made the ley of alder ashes to wash the unfortunate patient’s head. Like all these cheerful Saxon prescriptions, this one ends with the comforting assurance “it will soon be well with him,” and one wonders whether in this, as in many other cases, the patient got well in order to avoid his friends’ ministrations. The prescription for a vapour bath made with herbs runs thus:—

“Take bramble rind and elm rind, ash rind, sloethorn, rind of apple tree and ivy, all these from the nether part of the trees, and cucumber, smear wort, everfern, helenium, enchanters nightshade, betony, marrubium, radish, agrimony. Scrape the worts into a kettle and boil strongly. When it hath strongly boiled remove it off the fire and seat the man over it and wrap the man up that the vapour may get up nowhere, except only that the man may breathe; beathe him with these fomentations as long as he can bear it. Then have another bath ready for him, take an emmet bed all at once, a bed of those male emmets which at whiles fly, they are red ones, boil them in water, beathe him with it immoderately hot. Then make him a salve. Take worts of each kind of those above mentioned, boil them in butter, smear the sore limbs, they will soon quicken. Make him a ley of alder ashes, wash his head with this cold, it will soon be well with him, and let the man get bled every month when the moon is five and fifteen and twenty nights old.”

[23] Leech Book, I. 60.

[24] Lacnunga, 48.

[25] In an incantation against fever we find the instruction:—

“The sick man ... thou shalt place
... thou shalt cover his face
Burn cypress and herbs ...
That the great gods may remove the evil
That the evil spirit may stand aside
. . . . . . .
May a kindly spirit a kindly genius be present.”

R. Campbell Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, p. 29. See also p. 43. Cf. also Tobit vi. 7.

[26] A Pomeranian Rite.—An attempt was made a few days ago to cast a devil out of a woman living in a village of the Lauenberg district of Pomerania, on the Polish frontier. She appears to have been of a sour and somewhat hysterical temperament, and three of the village gossips came to the conclusion that she was a victim of diabolical possession and resolved to effect a cure by means of enchantment. They first of all gathered the herbs needed for the purpose in the forest at the proper conjunction of the stars. Then a tripod was formed of three chairs, and to these the patient was bound. Beneath her was fixed a pail of red-hot coal on which the herbs were scattered. As the fumes of the burning weeds veiled the victim the three neighbours crooned the prescribed exorcism. The louder the woman shrieked the louder they sang, and after the process had been continued long enough to prove effective, in their opinion, they ran away, believing that the devil would run out of the woman after them. She, however, continued to shriek. Her cries were heard by a man, who released her.—The Times, December 5, 1921.

[27] It is interesting to find the same beliefs amongst the ancient Babylonians.

“Fleabane on the lintel of the door I have hung
S. John’s wort, caper and wheatears
With a halter as a roving ass
Thy body I restrain.
O evil spirit get thee hence
Depart O evil Demon.
. . . . . . .
In the precincts of the house stand not nor circle round
‘In the house will I stand,’ say thou not,
‘In the neighbourhood will I stand,’ say thou not.
O evil spirit get thee forth to distant places
O evil Demon hie thee unto the ruins
Where thou standest is forbidden ground
A ruined desolate house is thy home
Be thou removed from before me, By Heaven be thou exorcised
By Earth be thou exorcised.”
Trans. of Utukke Limnûte Tablet “B.” R. C. Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia.

[28] Sonny (Arch. f. Rel., 1906, p. 525), in his article “Rote Farbe im Totenkulte,” considers the use of red to be in imitation of blood. The instruction to bind on with red is found even in the Grete Herball of 1526. “Apium is good for lunatyke Folke yf it be bounde to the pacyentes heed with a lynen clothe dyed reed,” etc.

[29] See W. G. Black, Folk Medicine.

[30] Even modern science has not yet succeeded in solving some of the mysteries connected with this remarkable plant. For instance, although the apple and the pear are closely related, mistletoe very rarely grows on the pear tree, and there is no case on record of mistletoe planted on a pear tree by human hands surviving the stage of germination. There are, it is true, two famous mistletoe pears in this country—one in the garden of Belvoir Castle and the other in the garden of Fern Lodge, Malvern, but in both cases the seed was sown naturally. It grows very rarely on the oak, and this possibly accounts for the special reverence accorded by the Druids to the mistletoe oak.

[31] Leech Book, I. 81.

[32] Lacnunga, 9.

[33] This closely resembles a Cornish charm for a tetter.

“Tetter, tetter, thou hast nine brothers,
God bless the flesh and preserve the bone;
Perish thou, tetter, and be thou gone.
Tetter, tetter, thou hast eight brothers.”

Thus the verses are continued until tetter having “no brother” is ordered to be gone.—R. Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England, p. 414.

[34] For further instances of the mystic use of three and nine see also Leech Book, I. 45, 47, 67.

[35] St. Eloy, in a sermon preached in A.D. 640, also forbade the enchanting of herbs:—

“Before all things I declare and testify to you that you shall observe none of the impious customs of the pagans, neither sorcerers, nor diviners, nor soothsayers, nor enchanters, nor must you presume for any cause to enquire of them.... Let none regulate the beginning of any piece of work by the day or by the moon. Let none trust in nor presume to invoke the names of dæmons, neither Neptune, nor Orcus, nor Diana, nor Minerva, nor Geniscus nor any other such follies.... Let no Christian place lights at the temples or the stones, or at fountains, or at trees, or at places where three ways meet.... Let none presume to hang amulets on the neck of man or beast.... Let no one presume to make lustrations, nor to enchant herbs, nor to make flocks pass through a hollow tree, or an aperture in the earth; for by so doing he seems to consecrate them to the devil. Let none on the kalends of January join in the wicked and ridiculous things, the dressing like old women or like stags, nor make feasts lasting all night, nor keep up the custom of gifts and intemperate drinking. Let no one on the festival of St. John or on any of the festivals join in the solstitia or dances or leaping or caraulas or diabolical songs.”—From a sermon preached by St. Eloy in A.D. 640.

[36] A Christian prayer for a blessing on herbs runs thus:—

“Omnipotens sempiterne deus qui ab initio mundi omnia instituisti et creasti tam arborum generibus quam herbarum seminibus quibus etiam benedictione tua benedicendo sanxisti eadem nunc benedictione olera aliosque fructus sanctificare ac benedicere digneris ut sumentibus ex eis sanitatem conferant mentis et corporis ac tutelam defensionis eternamque uitam per saluatorem animarum dominum nostrum iesum christum qui uiuit et regnat dominus in secula seculorum. Amen.”

[37] Translation from Early English Magic and Medicine by Dr. Charles Singer. Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. IV.

CHAPTER II
LATER MANUSCRIPT HERBALS AND THE EARLY PRINTED HERBALS

“Spryngynge tyme is the time of gladnesse and of love; for in Sprynging time all thynge semeth gladde; for the erthe wexeth grene, trees burgynne [burgeon] and sprede, medowes bring forth flowers, heven shyneth, the see resteth and is quyete, foules synge and make theyr nestes, and al thynge that semed deed in wynter and widdered, ben renewed, in Spryngyng time.”—Bartholomæus Anglicus, circ. 1260.

Between the Anglo-Saxon herbals and the early printed herbals there is a great gulf. After the Norman Conquest the old Anglo-Saxon lore naturally fell into disrepute, although the Normans were inferior to the Saxons in their knowledge of herbs. The learned books of the conquerors were written exclusively in Latin, and it is sad to think of the number of beautiful Saxon books which must have been destroyed, for when the Saxons were turned out of their own monasteries the Normans who supplanted them probably regarded books written in a language they did not understand as mere rubbish. Much of the old Saxon herb lore is to be found in the leech books of the Middle Ages, but, with one notable exception, no important original treatise on herbs by an English writer has come down to us from that period. The vast majority of the herbal MSS. are merely transcriptions of Macer’s herbal, a mediæval Latin poem on the virtues of seventy-seven plants, which is believed to have been written in the tenth century. The popularity of this poem is shown by the number of MSS. still extant. It was translated into English as early as the twelfth century with the addition of “A fewe herbes wyche Macer tretyth not.”[38] In 1373 it was translated by John Lelamoure, a schoolmaster of Hertford. On folio 55 of the MS. of this translation is the inscription, “God gracious of grauntis havythe yyeue and ygrauted vertuys in woodys stonys and herbes of the whiche erbis Macer the philosofure made a boke in Latyne the whiche boke Johannes Lelamoure scolemaistre of Herforde est, they he unworthy was in the yere of oure Lorde a. m. ccc. lxxiij tournyd in to Ynglis.” Macer’s herbal is also the basis of a treatise in rhyme of which there are several copies in England and one in the Royal Library at Stockholm. This treatise, which deals with twenty-four herbs, begins thus quaintly—

“Of erbs xxiiij I woll you tell by and by
Als I fond wryten in a boke at I in boroyng toke
Of a gret ladys preste of gret name she barest.”

The poem begins with a description of betony, powerful against “wykked sperytis,” and then treats, amongst other herbs, of the virtues of centaury, marigold, celandine, pimpernel, motherwort, vervain, periwinkle, rose, lily, henbane, agrimony, sage, rue, fennel and violet. It is pleasant to find the belief that only to look on marigolds will draw evil humours out of the head and strengthen the eyesight.

“Golde [marigold] is bitter in savour
Fayr and ȝelw [yellow] is his flowur
Ye golde flour is good to sene
It makyth ye syth bryth and clene
Wyscely to lokyn on his flowris
Drawyth owt of ye heed wikked hirores [humours].
. . . . . . .
Loke wyscely on golde erly at morwe [morning]
Yat day fro feueres it schall ye borwe:
Ye odour of ye golde is good to smelle.”

The instructions for the picking of this joyous flower are given at length. It must be taken only when the moon is in the sign of the Virgin, and not when Jupiter is in the ascendant, for then the herb loses its virtue. And the gatherer, who must be out of deadly sin, must say three Pater Nosters and three Aves. Amongst its many virtues we find that it gives the wearer a vision of anyone who has robbed him. The virtues of vervain also are many; it must be picked “at Spring of day” in “ye monyth of May.” Periwinkle is given its beautiful old name “joy of the ground” (“men calle it ye Juy of Grownde”) and the description runs thus:—

“Parwynke is an erbe grene of colour
In tyme of May he beryth blo flour,
His stalkys ain [are] so feynt [weak] and feye
Yet never more growyth he heye [high].”

Under sage we find the old proverb—“How can a man die who has sage in his garden?”

“Why of seknesse deyeth man
Whill sawge [sage] in gardeyn he may han.”

A manuscript of exceptional interest is one describing the virtues of rosemary which was sent by the Countess of Hainault to her daughter Philippa, Queen of England, and apart from its intrinsic interest it is important from the fact that it is obviously the original of the very poetical discourse on rosemary in the first printed English herbal, commonly known as Banckes’s herbal. Moreover, in this MS. there is recorded an old tradition which I have not found in any other herbal, but which is still current amongst old-fashioned country folk, namely, that rosemary “passeth not commonly in highte the highte of Criste whill he was man on Erthe,” and that when the plant attains the age of thirty-three years it will increase in breadth but not in height. It is the oldest MS. in which we find many other beliefs about rosemary that still survive in England. There is a tradition that Queen Philippa’s mother sent the first plants of rosemary to England, and in a copy of this MS. in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, the translator, “danyel bain,” says that rosemary was unknown in England until the Countess of Hainault sent some to her daughter.

The only original treatise on herbs written by an Englishman during the Middle Ages was that by Bartholomæus Anglicus, and on the plant-lover there are probably few of the mediæval writers who exercise so potent a spell. Even in the thirteenth century, that age of great men, Bartholomew the Englishman ranked with thinkers such as Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus. He was accounted one of the greatest theologians of his day, and if his lectures on theology were as simple as his writings on herbs, it is easy to understand why they were thronged and why his writings were so eagerly studied, not only in his lifetime but for nearly three centuries afterwards. A child could understand his book on herbs, for, being great, he was simple. But although his work De Proprietatibus Rerum (which contains nineteen books) was the source of common information on Natural History throughout the Middle Ages, and was one of the books hired out at a regulated price by the scholars of Paris, we know very little of the writer. He spent the greater part of his life in France and Saxony, but he was English born and was always known as Bartholomæus Anglicus.[39] We know that he studied in Paris and entered the French province of the Minorite Order, and later he became one of the most renowned professors of theology in Paris. In 1230 a letter was received from the general of the Friars Minor in the new province of Saxony asking the provincial of France to send Bartholomew and another Englishman to help in the work of that province, and the former subsequently went there. We do not know the exact date of De Proprietatibus Rerum, but it must have been written about the middle of the thirteenth century; for, though it cites Albertus Magnus, who was teaching in Paris in 1248, there is no mention of any of the later authorities, such as Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon and Vincent de Beauvais. It was certainly known in England as early as 1296, for there is a copy of that date at Oxford, and there still exist both in France and in England a considerable number of other manuscript copies, most of which date from the latter part of the thirteenth century and the early part of the fourteenth. The book was translated into English in 1398 by John de Trevisa,[40] chaplain to Lord Berkeley and vicar of Berkeley, and Bartholomew could scarcely have been more fortunate in his translator. At the end of his translation, Trevisa writes thus:—

“Endlesse grace blysse thankyng and praysyng unto our Lorde God Omnipotent be gyuen, by whoos ayde and helpe this translacon was endyd at Berkeleye the syxte daye of Feuerer the yere of our Lorde MCCCLXXXXVIII the yere of y^e reyne of Kynge Rycharde the seconde after the Conqueste of Englonde XXII. The yere of my lordes aege, syre Thomas, Lorde of Berkeleye that made me to make this Translacōn XLVII.”

Salimbene shows that the book was known in Italy in 1283, and there are two MS. copies in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, of which the earliest is dated 1297. Before Trevisa made his English translation, it had been translated into French by Jehan Corbichon, in 1372, for Charles V. of France.

The book was first printed at Basle about 1470, and the esteem in which it was held may be judged from the fact that it went through at least fourteen editions before 1500, and besides the English and French translations it was also translated into Spanish and Dutch. The English translation was first printed by Caxton’s famous apprentice, Wynken de Worde.[41] The translator in a naïve little introductory poem says that, just as he had looked as a child to God to help him in his games, so now he prays Him to help him in this book.

“C[?]Rosse was made all of red .
In the begynning of my boke .
That is called, god me sped .
In the fyrste lesson that j toke .
Thenne I learned a and b .
And other letters by her names .
But alway God spede me .
Thought me nedefull in all games .
Yf I played in felde, other medes .
Stylle other wyth noyse .
I prayed help in all my dedes .
Of him that deyed upon the croys .
Now dyuerse playes in his name .
I shall lette passe forth and far .
And aventure to play so long game .
Also I shall spare .
Wodes, medes and feldes .
Place that I have played inne .
And in his name that all thīg weldes .
This game j shall begynne. .
And praye helpe conseyle and rede .
To me that he wolde sende .
And this game rule and lede .
And brynge it to a good ende. .”

And in the preface Trevisa addresses his readers thus: “Merveyle not, ye witty and eloquent reders, that I thȳne of wytte and voyde of cunning have translatid this boke from latin to our vulgayre language as a thynge profitable to me and peradventure to many other, whych understonde not latyn nor have not the knowledge of the proprytees of thynges.”

The seventeenth book of De Proprietatibus Rerum is on herbs and their uses, and it is full of allusions to the classical writers on herbs—Aristotle, Dioscorides and Galen—but the descriptions of the plants themselves are original and charming.

There is no record to show that Bartholomew the Englishman was a gardener, but we can hardly doubt that the man who described flowers with such loving care possessed a garden and worked in it. The Herbarius zu Teutsch might have been written in a study, but there is fresh air and the beauty of the living flowers in Bartholomew’s writings. Of the lily he says: “The Lely is an herbe wyth a whyte floure. And though the levys of the floure be whyte yet wythen shyneth the lyknesse of golde.” Bartholomew may have known nothing of the modern science of botany, but he knew how to describe not only the lily, but also the atmosphere of the lily, in a word-picture of inimitable simplicity and beauty. One feels instinctively that only a child or a great man could have written those lines. And is there not something unforgettable in these few words on the unfolding of a rose—“And whāne they [the petals] ben full growen they sprede theymselues ayenst the sonne rysynge”?

The chapter on the rose is longer than most, and is so delightful that I quote a considerable part of it. “The rose of gardens is planted and sette and tylthed as a vyne. And if it is forgendred and not shred and pared and not clensed of superfluyte: thēne it gooth out of kynde and chaungeth in to a wylde rose. And by oft chaunging and tylthing the wylde rose torneth and chaūgith into a very rose. And the rose of ye garden and the wylde rose ben dyuers in multitude of floures: smelle and colour: and also in vertue. For the leves of the wylde rose ben fewe and brode and whytyssh: meddlyd wyth lytyll rednesse: and smellyth not so wel as the tame rose, nother is so vertuous in medicyn. The tame rose hath many leuys sette nye togyder: and ben all red, other almost white: w^t wonder good smell.... And the more they ben brused and broken: the vertuoūser they ben and the better smellynge. And springeth out of a thorne that is harde and rough: netheles the Rose folowyth not the kynde of the thorne: But she arayeth her thorn wyth fayr colour and good smell. Whan ye rose begynneth to sprynge it is closed in a knoppe wyth grenes: and that knoppe is grene. And whan̄e it swellyth thenne spryngeth out harde leuys and sharpe.... And whāne they ben full growen they sprede theymselues ayenst the sonne rysynge. And for they ben tendre and feble to holde togyder in the begynnynge; theyfore about those smale grene leuys ben nyghe the red and tendre leuys ... and ben sette all aboute. And in the mydill thereof is seen the sede small and yellow wyth full gode smell.”

WOODCUT OF TREES AND HERBS FROM THE SEVENTEENTH BOOK OF “DE PROPRIETATIBUS RERUM”

Printed by Wynkyn de Worde (1495)

There follows a description, too long to quote here, of the growth of the rose hip, which ends with the remark: “But they ben not ful good to ete for roughnesse that is hyd wythin. And greuyth [grieveth] wythin his throte that ete thereof.” ... “Among all floures of the worlde,” he continues, “the floure of the rose is cheyf and beeryth ye pryse. And by cause of vertues and swete smelle and savour. For by fayrnesse they fede the syghte: and playseth the smelle by odour, the touche by softe handlynge. And wythstondeth and socouryth by vertue ayenst many syknesses and euylles.” A delicious recipe is given for Rose honey. “Rose shreede smalle and sod in hony makyth that hony medycynable wyth gode smelle: And this comfortyeth and clenseth and defyeth gleymy humours.”

Of the violet we read: “Violet is a lytyll herbe in substaunce and is better fresshe and newe than whan it is olde. And the floure thereof smellyth moost.... And the more vertuous the floure thereof is, ye more it bendyth the heed thereof doūwarde. Also floures of spryngynge tyme spryngeth fyrste and sheweth somer. The lytylnes thereof in substaunce is nobly rewarded in gretnesse of sauour and of vertue.”

Bartholomew’s descriptions of flowers are usually brief, and there is a clarity and vividness about them which give them a charm peculiarly their own. How fresh and English, for instance, is his chapter on the apple. I have never before seen the taste of an apple described as “merry,” but how true the description is! “Malus the Appyll tree is a tree yt bereth apples and is a grete tree in itself ... it is more short than other trees of the wood wyth knottes and rinelyd Rynde. And makyth shadowe wythe thycke bowes and braunches: and fayr with dyuers blossomes, and floures of swetnesse and lykynge: with goode fruyte and noble. And is gracious in syght and in taste and vertuous in medecyne ... some beryth sourysh fruyte and harde and some ryght soure and some ryght swete, with a good savoure and mery.” The descriptions of celandine and broom are also characteristic. “Celidonia is an herbe w^t yelowe floures, the frute smorcheth them that it towchyth. And hyghte Celidonia for it spryngeth, other blomyth, in the comynge of swalowes.... It hyȝt celidonia for it helpith swallowes birdes yf their eyen be hurte other (or) blynde.” “Genesta hath that name of bytterness for it is full of bytter to mannes taste. And is a shrubbe that growyth in a place that is forsaken, stony and untylthed. Presence thereof is wytnesse that the grounde is bareyne and drye that it groweth in. And hath many braunches knotty and hard. Grene in wynter and yelowe floures in somer thyche [the which] wrapped with heuy smell and bitter sauour. And ben netheles moost of vertue.” Bartholomew gives the old mandrake legend in full, though he adds, “it is so feynd of churles others of wytches,” and he also writes of its use as an anæsthetic.[42] Further, he records two other beliefs about the mandrake which I have never found in any other English herbal—namely, that while uprooting it one must beware of contrary winds, and that one must go on digging for it until sunset. “They that dygge mandragora be besy to beware of contrary wyndes whyle they digge. And maken circles abowte with a swerder and abyde with the dyggynge unto the sonne goynge downe.”

But apart from herbs and their uses, the book De herbis is full of fleeting yet vigorous pictures of the homely everyday side of mediæval life. Bartholomew, being one of the greatest men of his century, writes of matters in which the simplest of us are interested. He tells us of the feeding of swine with acorns. Of the making and baking of bread (including the thrifty custom of mixing cooked beans with the flour “to make the brede the more hevy”). Incidentally, and with all due respect, it may be remarked that he had no practical knowledge of this subject, his vivid description being obviously that of an interested spectator. There is an airy masculine vagueness about the conclusion of the whole matter of bread-making—“and at last after many travailes, man’s lyfe is fedde and sustained therewith.” He tells us of the use of laurel leaves to heal bee and wasp stings and to keep books and clothes from “moths and other worms,” of the making of “fayre images” and of boxes wherein to keep “spycery” from the wood of the box-tree. Of the making of trestle tables “areared and set upon feet,” of playing boards “that men playe on at the dyes [dice] and other gamys. And this maner of table is double and arrayd wyth dyerse colours.” Of the making of writing tables, of wood used for flooring that “set in solar floors serue all men and bestys y^t ben therein, and ben treden of alle men and beestys that come therein,” and so strong that “they bende not nor croke [crack] whan they ben pressyd w^t heuy thynges layd on them.” And also of boards used for ships, bridges, hulks and coffers, and “in shypbreche [shipwreck] men fle to bordes and ben ofte sauyd in peryll.” Of the building of houses with roofs of “trees stretchyd from the walles up to the toppe of ye house,” with rafters “stronge and square and hewen playne,” and of “the covering of strawe and thetche [thatch].” Of the making of linen from the soaking of the flax in water till it is dried and turned in the sun and then bound in “praty bundels” and “afterward knockyd, beten and brayd and carflyd, rodded and gnodded; ribbyd and heklyd and at the laste sponne,” of the bleaching, and finally of its many uses for making clothing, and for sails, and fish nets, and thread, and ropes, and strings (“for bows”), and measuring lines, and sheets (“to reste in”), and sackes, and bagges, and purses (“to put and to kepe thynges in”). Of the making of tow “uneven and full of knobs,” used for stuffing into the cracks in ships, and “for bonds and byndynges and matches for candelles, for it is full drye and takyth sone fyre and brenneth.” “And so,” he concludes somewhat breathlessly, “none herbe is so nedefull to so many dyurrse uses to mankynde as is the flexe.” Of the vineyard “closyd about wyth walles and wyth hegges, with a wayte [watch] set in an hyghe place to kepe the vynyerde that the fruyte be not dystroyed.” Of the desolation of the vineyard in winter, “but in harueste tyme many comyth and haunteth the vynyerde.” Of the delicious smell of a vineyard. Of the damage done by foxes and swine and “tame hounds.” “A few hounds,” Bartholomew tells us, “wasten and dystroye moo grapes that cometh and eteth therof theuylly [thievishly].” “A vineyard,” he concludes, “maye not be kepte nother sauyd but by his socour and helpe that all thynge hath and possesseth in his power and myghte. And kepyth and sauyth all lordly and myghtily.” And is there any other writer who in so few words tells us of the woods in those days? Of the “beestis and foulis” therein as well as the herbs, of the woods in summer-time, of the hunting therein, of the robbers and the difficulty of finding one’s way? Of the birds and the bees and the wild honey and the delicious coolness of the deep shade in summer, and the “wery wayfarynge trauelynge men”? And the final brief suggestion of the time when forests were veritable boundaries? I believe also that this is the only book in which we are told of the interesting old custom of tying knots to the trees “in token and marke of ye highe waye,” and of robbers deliberately removing them. The picture is so perfect that I give it in full:—

“Woods ben wide places wast and desolate y^t many trees growe in w^toute fruyte and also few hauyinge fruyte. And those trees whyche ben bareyne and beereth noo manere fruyte alwaye ben generally more and hygher than̄e y^t wyth fruyte, fewe out taken as Oke and Beche. In thyse wodes ben ofte wylde beestes and foulis. Therein growyth herbes, grasse, lees and pasture, and namely medycynall herbes in wodes foūde. In somer wodes ben bewtyed [beautied] wyth bowes and braunches, w^t herbes and grasse. In wode is place of disceyte [deceit] and of huntynge. For therin wylde beest ben hunted: and watches and disceytes [deceits] ben ordenyd and lette of houndes and of hunters. There is place of hidynge and of lurkyng. For ofte in wodes theuys ben hyd, and oft in their awaytes and disceytes passyng men cometh and ben spoylled and robbed and ofte slayne. And soo for many and dyuerse wayes and uncerten strange men ofte erre and goo out of the waye. And take uncerten waye and the waye that is unknowen before the waye that is knowen and come oft to the place these theues lye in awayte and not wythout peryll. Therefore ben ofte knottes made on trees and in busshes in bowes and in braunches of trees; in token and marke of ye highe waye; to shewe the certen and sure waye to wayefareynge men. But oft theuys in tornynge and metyng of wayes chaunge suche knottes and signes and begyle many men and brynge them out of the ryght waye by false tokens and sygnes. Byrdes, foules and bein [bees] fleeth to wode, byrdes to make nestes and bein [bees] to gadre hony. Byrdes to kepe themself from foulers and bein [bees] to hyde themself to make honycombes preuely in holowe trees and stockes. Also wodes for thyknesse of trees ben colde with shadowe. And in hete of the sonne wery wayfarynge and trauelynge men haue lykynge to have reste and to hele themself in the shadow. Many wodes ben betwyne dyuers coūtrees and londes: and departyth theym asondre. And by weuynge and castyng togyder of trees often men kepeth and defendyth themself from enymies.”[43]

Bartholomew’s book on herbs ends thus: “And here we shall fynysshe and ende in treatyng of the XVII boke whyche hath treated as ye may openly knowe of suche thynges as the Maker of all thyng hath ordered and brought forth by his myghty power to embelyssh and araye the erthe wyth and most specyally for ye fode of man and beast.”

At the end of the book is the poem which has caused so much controversy amongst bibliographers. In this Wynken de Worde definitely states that Caxton had a share in the first printing of this book at Cologne:—

“And also of your charyte call to remembraunce
The soule of William Caxton first prȳter of this boke.
In laten tonge at Coleyn hyself to auauce
That every well disposed man may therein loke.”

In spite of this, modern bibliographers are of opinion that Caxton could not have played even a subordinate part in the printing of this book at Cologne.

De Worde also refers to the maker of the paper[44]:—

“... John Tate the yonger ...
Which late hathe in England doo make this paper thynne
That now in our Englysh this boke is prynted Inne.”

There is charm as well as pathos in the verses on the reproduction of manuscripts in book form, showing us vividly what the recent discovery of the art of printing meant to the scholars of that day. The simile of Phœbus “repairing” the moon is very apt.

“For yf one thyng myght laste a M yere
Full sone comyth aege that frettyth all away;
But like as Phebus wyth his bemes clere
The mone repeyreth as bryght as ony day
Whan she is wasted ryght; so may we say
Thise bokes old and blynde whan we renewe
By goodly pryntyng they ben bryght of hewe.”

The last verse of the poem is as follows:—

“Nowe gloryous god that regnest one in thre
And thre in one graunte vertu myght and grace
Unto the prynter of this werke that he
May be rewarded in thy heuenly place
And whan the worlde shall come before thy face
There to receue accordyng to desert
Of grace and mercy make hym then expert.”

The treatise on herbs formed, as we have seen, only a part of Bartholomew’s De Proprietatibus Rerum, and, to speak strictly, the first printed English herbal was the small quarto volume published by Richard Banckes in 1525. It was the beginning of a series of small books[45] chiefly in black letter. All of them, though issued from different presses, have nearly the same title, and they vary only slightly from the original Banckes’s Herbal. The title of this Herbal is—

“Here begynneth a new mater / the whiche sheweth and | treateth of ye vertues & proprytes of her- | bes / the whiche is called | an Herball ˙.˙ | ¶ Cum gratia & priuilegio | a rege indulto |

“(Colophon) ¶ Imprynted by me Rycharde Banckes / dwellynge in | Lōdō / a lytel fro ye Stockes in ye Pultry / ye XXV day of | Marche. The yere of our Lorde MCCCCC. & XXV.”

We do not know who the author of this book was, and it has been suggested that it is based on some mediæval English manuscript now lost. Certainly when one reads this anonymous work known as Banckes’s Herbal one is struck not only by its superiority to the later and more famous Grete Herball, but also by its greater charm. It gives the impression of being a compilation from various sources, the author having made his own selection from what pleased him most in the older English manuscript herbals. It seems to have been a labour of love, whereas the Grete Herball is merely a translation. It is almost certain that the writer made use of one of the numerous manuscript versions of Macer’s Herbal, which in parts Banckes’s Herbal resembles very closely, and the chapter on rosemary shows that he had access to one of the copies of the manuscript on the virtues of rosemary which was sent by the Countess of Hainault to Queen Philippa. He does not give the beautiful old tradition preserved in that manuscript,[46] but he ascribes wonderful virtues to this herb, with the same loving enthusiasm and almost in the same words. Of rosemary in Banckes’s Herbal we read:—

“Take the flowers thereof and make powder thereof and binde it to thy right arme in a linnen cloath and it shale make thee light and merrie.

“Take the flowers and put them in thy chest among thy clothes or among thy Bookes and Mothes shall not destroy them.

“Boyle the leaves in white wine and washe thy face therewith and thy browes and thou shalt have a faire face.

“Also put the leaves under thy bedde and thou shalt be delivered of all evill dreames.

“Take the leaves and put them into wine and it shall keep the wine from all sourness and evill savours and if thou wilt sell thy wine thou shalt have goode speede.

“Also if thou be feeble boyle the leaves in cleane water and washe thyself and thou shalt wax shiny.

“Also if thou have lost appetite of eating boyle well these leaves in cleane water and when the water is colde put thereunto as much of white wine and then make sops, eat them thereof wel and thou shalt restore thy appetite againe.

“If thy legges be blowen with gowte boyle the leaves in water and binde them in a linnen cloath and winde it about thy legges and it shall do thee much good.

“If thou have a cough drink the water of the leaves boyld in white wine and ye shall be whole.

INITIAL LETTERS FROM “BANCKES’S HERBAL”

“Take the Timber thereof and burn it to coales and make powder thereof and rubbe thy teeth thereof and it shall keep thy teeth from all evils. Smell it oft and it shall keep thee youngly.

“Also if a man have lost his smellyng of the ayre that he may not draw his breath make a fire of the wood and bake his bread therewith, eate it and it shall keepe him well.

“Make thee a box of the wood of rosemary and smell to it and it shall preserve thy youth.”

That Banckes’s Herbal achieved immediate popularity is attested by the fact that the following year another edition of it was issued, and during the next thirty years various London printers issued the same book under different titles.[47] Robert Wyer[48] ascribed the authorship of those he issued to Macer, and in the edition of 1530 he added, after “Macer’s Herbal,” “Practysed by Dr. Lynacro.” Whether this statement is true it is impossible to discover, but we know that the great doctor died some years before Wyer set up as a printer, and his name does not appear in any of the subsequent editions of the herbal issued by other printers. In Wyer’s edition there are some good initial letters very similar to those used by Wynkyn de Worde.

The most interesting edition of the herbal is that printed by William Copland, in which first appear the additional chapters on “The virtues of waters stylled,” “The tyme of gathering of sedes” and “A general rule of all maner of herbes.” He issued two editions bearing the same title and differing only in the woodcuts and the colophon. The title is “A boke of the | propreties of Herbes called an her- | ball, whereunto is added the tyme y^e | herbes, floures and Sedes shold | be gathered to be kept the whole, ye- | re, with the vertue of ye Herbes whē | they are stylled. Al- | so a generall rule of all ma- | ner of Herbes drawen | out of an auncyent | booke of Phisyck | by W. C.” The woodcut in the first edition is three “Tudor” roses in a double circle with a crown over one of the roses and across the riband “Kȳge of floures.” In the second edition the woodcut is a quaint little representation of a lady seated in a garden. One man standing behind her is holding her and another is walking towards her. The three figures are near a wall, on the other side of which several men are apparently conversing. Who W. C. was is uncertain. In the Dictionary of National Biography William Copland is said to be both the author and the printer of the book, but in many catalogues (notably in that of the British Museum) Walter Cary figures as the author. In a lengthy account of the Carys in Notes and Queries (March 29, 1913) Mr. A. L. Humphreys disposes conclusively of the supposition that W. C. can stand for Walter Cary.

“A Boke of the Properties of Herbes bears on the title-page the initials W. C., which may stand either for Copland or Cary. This was one of several editions of Banckes’s Herbal, then very popular, and although it may have been edited or promoted in some way by a Walter Cary, it could not have been by the one who wrote The Hammer for the Stone. The ‘Herball’ was issued somewhere about 1550 and various editions of it exist, but all these appeared when the Walter Cary we are considering was a child. There is, however, a connection between the Carys and herbals, because it is well known that Henry Lyte (1529-1607) of Lytes Cary was the famous translator of Dodoens’s Herball (1578), and he had a herbal garden at Lytes Cary.”

Ames in his Typographical Antiquities describes the two editions, which are identical, as though they were two different books, and ascribes one to Walter Cary and the other to William Copland. We have only Ames’s authority for the supposition that Copland was the compiler as well as the printer. The herbal in question is merely another edition of Banckes’s Herbal, but it is quite possible that the three additional chapters at the end were “drawen out of an auncyent booke of Physick” by Copland.[49]

Two editions of Banckes’s Herbal are ascribed, on account of the wording of the title, to Antony Askham, and the title is so attractive that it is a disappointment to find that the astrological additions “declaryng what herbes hath influence of certain sterres and constellations,” etc., do not appear in any known copy of the herbal. This astrological lore from the famous man who combined the professions of priest, physician and astrologer in the reign of Edward VI. would be of remarkable interest. But it has been pointed out by Mr. H. M. Barlow[50] that, if the bibliographers who have attributed the work to Askham had examined the title of the work with greater care, they would have observed that the phrase “by Anthonye Askham” refers not to the substance of the book itself (which is merely another edition of Banckes’s Herbal) but to the “Almanacke” from which the additions were intended to be taken, though apparently they were never printed. The title of “Askham’s” Herbal is—

“A lytel | herball of the | properties of her- | bes newely amended and corrected, | with certayne addicions at the ende | of the boke, declarying what herbes | hath influence of certaine Sterres | and constellations, whereby may be | chosen the beast and most luckye | tymes and dayes of their mini- | stracion, accordyinge to the | Moone being in the sig- | nes of heauen, the | which is dayly | appoynted | in the | Almanacke; made and gathered | in the yere of our Lorde god | M.D.L. the XII. day of Fe- | bruary by Anthonye | Askham Phi- | sycyon.

“(Colophon.) Imprynted at | London in Flete- | strete at the signe of the George | next to Saynte Dunstones | Churche by Wylly- | am Powell. | In the yeare of oure Lorde | M.D.L. the twelfe day of Marche.”

There are some charming prescriptions to be found in “Askham’s” Herbal. Under “rose,” for instance, we have recipes for “melroset,” “sugar roset,” “syrope of Rooses,” “oyle of roses” and “rose water.”

“Melrosette is made thus. Take faire purified honye and new read rooses, the whyte endes of them clypped awaye, thā chop theym smal and put thē into the Hony and boyl thē menely together; to know whan it is boyled ynoughe, ye shal know it by the swete odour and the colour read. Fyve yeares he may be kept in his vertue; by the Roses he hath vertue of comfortinge and by the hony he hath vertu of clensinge.

“Syrope of Rooses is made thus. Some do take roses dyght as it is sayd and boyle them in water and in the water strayned thei put suger and make a sirope thereof; and some do make it better, for they put roses in a vessell, hauing a strayght mouthe, and they put to the roses hote water and thei let it stande a day and a night and of that water, putting to it suger, thei do make sirope, and some doe put more of Roses in the forsaid vessel and more of hote water, and let it stande as is beforesaide, and so they make a read water and make the rose syrope. And some do stāpe new Roses and then strayne out the joyce of it and suger therwyth, they make sirope: and this is the best making of sirope. In Wynter and in Somer it maye be geuen competently to feble sicke melācoly and colorike people.

“Sugar Roset is made thus—Take newe gathered roses and stāpe them righte smal with sugar, thā put in a glasse XXX. dayes, let it stande in ye sunne and stirre it wel, and medle it well together so it may be kept three yeares in his vertue. The quātitie of sugar and roses should be thus. In IIII. pound of sugar a pounde of roses.

“Oyle of roses is made thus. Some boyle roses in oyle and kepe it, some do fyll a glasse with roses and oyle and they boyle it in a caudron full of water and this oyle is good. Some stampe fresh roses with oyle and they put it in a vessel of glasse and set it in the sūne IIII. dais and this oyle is good.

“Rose water. Some do put rose water in a glass and they put roses with their dew therto and they make it to boile in water thā thei set it in the sune tyll it be readde and this water is beste.”

Under the same flower we find this fragrant example of the widespread mediæval belief in the efficacy of good smells:—

“Also drye roses put to ye nose to smell do cōforte the braine and the harte and quencheth sprite.”

The herbalists were never weary of teaching the value of sweet scents.[51] “If odours may worke satisfaction,” wrote Gerard in his Herball, “they are so soveraigne in plants and so comfortable that no confection of the apothecaries can equall their excellent vertue.” One of the most delicious “scent” prescriptions in Askham is to be found under Violet—“For thē that may not slepe for sickness seeth this herb in water and at euen let him soke well hys feete in the water to the ancles, whā he goeth to bed, bind of this herbe to his temples and he shall slepe wel by the grace of God.”

The most curious recipe is that under “woodbinde.” “Go to the roote of woodbinde and make a hole in the middes of the roote, than cover it well againe y^t no ayre go out nor that no rayne go in, no water, nor earth nor the sune come not to much to it, let it stande so a night and a day, thā after that go to it and thou shalt fynde therein a certayne lycoure. Take out that lycoure with a spone and put it into a clean glas and do so every day as long as thou fyndest ought in the hole, and this must be done in the moneth of April or Maye, than anoynt the sore therwith against the fyre, thā wete a lynnen clothe in the same lycoure and lappe it about the sore and it shal be hole in shorte space on warrantyse by the Grace of God.”

Unlike the later Grete Herball, Askham gives some descriptions of the herbs themselves, notably in the case of alleluia (wood-sorrel), water crowfoot, and asterion.

“This herbe alleluia mē call it Wodsour or Stubwort, this herbe hath thre leaves ye which be roūd a litel departed aboue and it hath a whyte flour, but it hath no lōge stalkes and it is Woodsoure and it is like thre leued grasse. The vertue of this herbe is thus, if it be rosted in the ashes in red docke leaves or in red wort leaves it fretteth awai dead flesh of a wounde. This herbe groweth much in woodes.”

Water crowfoot: “This herb that men call water crowfoot hath yelow floures, as hath crowfoot and of the same shap, but the leves are more departed as it were Rammes fete, and it hath a long stalke and out of that one stalke groweth many stalkes smal by ye sides. This herb groweth in watery places.”

“Asterion or Lunary groweth among stoones and in high places, this herb shyneth by night and he bringeth forth purple floures hole and rounde as a knockebell or else lyke to foxgloves, the leves of this herbe be rounde and blew and they have the mark of the Moone in the myddes as it were thre leved grasse, but the leaves therof be more and they be round as a peny. And the stalk of this herb is red and thyse herb semeth as it were musk and the joyce therof is yelow and this groweth in the new Moone without leve and euery day spryngeth a newe leaue to the ende of fyftene dayes and after fyftene dayes it looseth euery day a leaue as the Moone waneth and it springeth and waneth as doth the Moone and where that it groweth there groweth great quantitie.

“The vertue of this herbe is thus—thei that eat of the beris or of the herbe in waning of the moone, whā he is in signo virginis if he have the falling euell he shal be hole thereof or if he beare thys about his neck he shal be holpen without doute. And it hath many more vertues than I can tell at this tyme.”

One of the unidentified herbs is called “sene,” and we are given the somewhat vague geographical information, “It groweth in the other syde the sea and moste aboute Babilon.”

Another small book printed by William Copland must be mentioned, for, although it is not a herbal, it contains a great deal of curious herb lore not to be found elsewhere. This is The boke of secretes of Albartus Magnus of the vertues of Herbes, Stones, and certaine beastes. Who the author was is unknown, but he was certainly not Albert of Bollstadt (1193-1280), Bishop of Ratisbon, the scholastic philosopher to whom it was ascribed, probably in order to increase its sale. There is one philosophical remark which is not unworthy of the famous Bishop: “Every man despiseth ye thyng whereof he knoweth nothynge and that hath done no pleasure to him.” But for the most part it deals with the popular beliefs concerning the mystical properties of herbs, stones and animals.

Of celandine the writer tells us: “This hearbe springeth in the time in ye which the swallowes and also ye Eagles maketh theyr nestes. If any man shal have this herbe with ye harte of a Molle (mole) he shall overcome all his enemies.... And if the before named hearbe be put upon the headde of a sycke man if he should dye he shal syng anone with a loud voyce, if not he shall weep.”

“Perwynke when it is beatē unto pouder with wormes of ye earth wrapped aboute it and with an herbe called houslyke it induceth love between man and wyfe if it bee used in their meales ... if the sayde confection be put in the fyre it shall be turned anone unto blue coloure.”

Of the herb which, he tells us, “the men of Chaldea called roybra,” he says: “He that holdeth this herbe in hys hāde with an herbe called Mylfoyle or yarowe or noseblede is sure from all feare and fantasye or vysion. And yf it be put with the juyce of houselyke and the bearers hands be anoynted with it and the residue be put in water if he entre in ye water where fyshes be they wil gather together to hys handes ... and if hys hande be drawē forth they will leape agayne to theyre owne places where they were before.”

Of hound’s tongue: “If ye shall have the aforenamed herbe under thy formost toe al the dogges shall kepe silence and shall not have power to bark. And if thou shalt put the aforesayde thinge in the necke of any dogge so y^t he maye not touche it with his mouthe he shalbe turned always round about lyke a turning whele untill he fall unto the grounde as dead and this hath bene proved in our tyme.”

Of centaury: “If it be joyned with the bloude of a female lapwing or black plover and be put with oyle in a lampe, all they that compasse it aboute shal beleue themselves to be witches so that one shall beleve of an other that his head is in heaven and his fete in the earth. And if the aforesaid thynge be put in the fire whan the starres shine it shall appeare y^t the sterres runne one agaynste another and fyght.”

Of vervain: “This herbe (as witches say) gathered, the sunne beyng in the signe of the Ram, and put with grayne or corne of pyonie of one yeare olde healeth them y^t be sicke of ye falling sykenes.”

Of powder of roses: “If the aforesayde poulder be put in a lampe and after be kindled all men shall appeare blacke as the deuell. And if the aforesaid poulder be mixed with oyle of the olyue tree and with quycke brymstone and the house anointed wyth it, the Sunne shyning, it shall appeare all inflamed.”

WOODCUT FROM THE TITLE-PAGE OF THE “GRETE HERBALL” (1526)

Of verbena: “Infants bearing it shalbe very apte to learne and louing learnynge and they shalbe glad and joyous.”

It is the only book on the virtues of herbs in which I have found a recipe to revive drowning flies and bees! This is to be done by placing them in warm ashes of pennyroyal, and then “they shall recover their lyfe after a little tyme as by ye space of one houre.” The book ends with a curious philosophical dissertation, “Of the mervels of the worlde,” which is followed by a series of charms—to stop a cock crowing, to make men look as though they had no heads, to obtain rule over all birds, to keep flies away from a house, to write letters which can only be read at night, to make men look as though they had “the countenance of a dog,” to make men seem as though they had three heads, to understand the language of birds, to make men seem like angels, and to put things in the fire without their being consumed.

Though lacking in the charm of the quaint and typically English Banckes’s Herbal, the most famous of the early printed herbals was the Grete Herball printed by Peter Treveris in 1526.[52]

“The grete herball | whiche geueth parfyt knowlege and under- | standyng of all maner of herbes & there gracyous vertues whiche god hath | ordeyned for our prosperous welfare and helth, for they hele & cure all maner | of dyseases and sekenesses that fall or mysfortune to all maner of creatoures | of god created, practysed by many expert and wyse maysters, as Auicenna and | other &c. Also it geueth full parfyte understandynge of the booke lately pryn | ted by me (Peter treveris) named the noble experiens of the vertuous hand | warke of surgery.”

(Colophon.) “Imprentyd at London in South- | warke by me peter Treueris, dwel- | lynge in the sygne of the wodows | In the yere of our Lorde god M.D. | XXVI the XXVII day of July.”

According to the introduction it was compiled from the works of “many noble doctoures and experte maysters in medecines, as Auicenna, Pandecta, Constantinus, Wilhelmus, Platearius, Rabbi Moyses, Johannes Mesue, Haly, Albertus, Bartholomeus and more other.” But with the exception of the preface the Grete Herball is a translation of the well-known French herbal, Le Grant Herbier. Until about 1886 Le Grant Herbier was supposed to be a translation of the Herbarius zu Teutsch, published at Mainz in 1485, or of the Ortus Sanitatis, printed also at Mainz in 1491.[53] The Herbarius zu Teutsch, which was probably compiled by a Frankfort physician, is a fine herbal beautifully illustrated, and the later Ortus Sanitatis is by some authorities supposed to be a Latin translation of it. To judge from the preface to the German Herbarius it was a labour of love, undertaken by a man who apparently was possessed of ample wealth and leisure; for in his preface he tells us that he “caused this praiseworthy work to be begun by a Master learned in physic,” and then, finding that as many of the herbs did not grow in his native land he could not draw them “with their true colours and form,” he left the work unfinished and journeyed through many lands—Italy, Croatia, Albania, Dalmatia, Greece, Corfu, Candia, Rhodes, Cyprus, the Holy Land, Arabia, Babylonia and Egypt. He was accompanied by “a painter ready of wit and cunning and subtle of hand,” and was thus able to have the herbs “truly drawn.” The book he compiled on his return was long regarded as the original of the French herbal, Le Grant Herbier, but in 1866 Professor Giulio Camus found two fifteenth-century manuscripts in the Biblioteca Estense at Modena, one the Latin work commonly known from the opening words as Circa Instans, and the other a French translation of the same manuscript. It was always supposed by medical historians that the Circa Instans was written by Matthaeus Platearius of Salerno in the twelfth century, but in Professor Camus’s memoir, L’Opéra Saleritana “Circa Instans” ed il testo primitivo del “Grand Herbier in Francoys” secundo duo codici del secolo XV conservati nella Regia Biblioteca Estense, there are reproduced the French verses in which occurs the line, “Il a esté escript Millccc cinquante et huit,” and Mr. H. M. Barlow[54] supports the deduction that Circa Instans was not written by a Salernitan physician, but by a writer described in the verses as “Bartholomaeus minid’ senis” in 1458. Le Grant Herbier, of which the English Grete Herball is a translation, is a version of the French manuscript translation of Circa Instans, and therefore, as Circa Instans is older than either the Herbarius zu Teutsch or the Latin Ortus Sanitatis, it would seem that it is the real original of our Grete Herball. The preface to the Grete Herball, however, bears a strong resemblance to that of the German Herbarius, of which I quote a part from Dr. Arber’s translation, made from the second (Augsburg) edition of 1485. They have been placed in parallel columns to show how closely the English preface follows that of the German Herbarius.

The illustrations in the Grete Herball are poor, being merely inferior copies of those in the later editions of the Herbarius zu Teutsch.[55] In the majority of cases it is impossible to identify the plant from the figure, and the same figure is sometimes prefixed to different plants. But if the illustrations are poor and dull the frontispiece and the full-page woodcut of the printer’s mark are very much the reverse. The frontispiece is a charming woodcut of a man holding a spade in his right hand and gathering grapes, and a woman throwing flowers and herbs out of her apron into a basket. There are two figures in the lower corners, the one of a male and the other of a female mandrake. The woodcut of the printer’s mark at the end sheds an interesting ray of light on the Peter Treveris who issued the two first editions of this Herball.[56] The woodcut represents two wodows[57] (savages), a man and a woman, on either side of a tree, from which is suspended a shield with Peter Treveris’s initials. Ames supposes that Treveris was a native of Trèves and took his name from that city, but it is more likely that he was a member of the Cornish family of Treffry, which is sometimes spelt Treveris. A Sir John Treffry, who fought at Poitiers, took as supporters to his arms a wild man and woman, and one likes to find that one of his descendants perpetuated the memory of his gallant ancestor by adopting the same sign for his trade device.

The Grete Herball is alphabetically arranged, for the idea of the natural relationship of plants was unknown at that time. But we find a “classification” of fungi. “Fungi ben musherons. There be two maners of them, one maner is deadly and sleeth them that eateth of them and the other dooth not”! As in most sixteenth- and seventeenth-century herbals, there are quaint descriptions of a good many things besides herbs. The most gruesome of these is a substance briefly described as “mummy,” and the accompanying illustration is of a man digging beside a tomb. “Mummy,” one reads, “is a maner of spyces or confectyons that is founde in the sepulchres or tombes of dead bodyes that haue be confyct with spyces. And it is to wyte that in olde tyme men were wont to confyct the deed corpses and anoynte them with bawme and myre smellynge swete. And yet ye paynims about babylon kepe that custome for there is grete quantity of bawme. And this mummye is specially founde about the brayne and about the maronge in the rydge bone. For the blode by reason of the bawme draweth to the brayne and thereabout is chauffed. And lykewise is the brayne brent and parched and is the quantyte of mommye and so the blode is mroeued in the rydge of the backe. That mommye is to be chosen that is bryght blacke stynkynge and styffe. And that y^t is whyt and draweth to a dymme colour and that is not stynkynge nor styffe, and that powdreth lightly is naught. It hath vertue to restrayne or staunche.”[58]

WOODCUT OF PETER TREVERIS’ SIGN OF THE “WODOWS” FROM THE “GRETE HERBALL” (1529)