The Old English Herbals Part 4

[32] _Lacnunga_, 9.

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

"Tetter, tetter, thou hast nine brothers, G.o.d 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 daemons, 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 l.u.s.trations, nor to enchant herbs, nor to make flocks pa.s.s 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 solst.i.tia 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 inst.i.tuisti 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 Ma.n.u.sCRIPT 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."--BARTHOLOMaeUS 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 mediaeval 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, "G.o.d 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 ?elw [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 ma.n.u.script 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-fas.h.i.+oned country folk, namely, that rosemary "pa.s.seth 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 Bartholomaeus Anglicus, and on the plant-lover there are probably few of the mediaeval 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 Bartholomaeus 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 ma.n.u.script 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 G.o.d Omnipotent be gyuen, by whoos ayde and helpe this translacon was endyd at Berkeleye the syxte daye of Feuerer the yere of our Lorde MCCCLx.x.xXVIII 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 Translacon XLVII."

Salimbene shows that the book was known in Italy in 1283, and there are two MS. copies in the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, of which the earliest is dated 1297. Before Trevisa made his English translation, it had been translated into French by Jehan Corb.i.+.c.hon, 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 nave little introductory poem says that, just as he had looked as a child to G.o.d 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, G.o.d me sped .

In the fyrste lesson that j toke .

Thenne I learned a and b .

And other letters by her names .

But alway G.o.d 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 pa.s.se 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 thig 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 th?ne 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 cla.s.sical 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 whane 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: thene it gooth out of kynde and chaungeth in to a wylde rose. And by oft chaunging and tylthing the wylde rose torneth and chaugith into a very rose. And the rose of ye garden and the wylde rose ben dyuers in mult.i.tude 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 vertuouser 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 whane it swellyth thenne spryngeth out harde leuys and sharpe.... And whane 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 G.o.de smell."

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOODCUT OF TREES AND HERBS FROM THE SEVENTEENTH BOOK OF "DE PROPRIETATIBUS RERUM"

Printed by Wynkyn de Worde (1495)]