A BOTANIST OF THE NINTH CENTURY. 525 



on the duties of children to their parents, and afterward supported 

 the pretensions of the claimant, whom he considered the rightful heir, 

 without regard to the probable result of the contest. He laid aside his 

 office in 842 and retired to private life, where he employed his time in 

 the composition of his most important Avork, "De Universe" He was, 

 however, permitted to remain at this congenial pursuit only till 847, 

 when he was chosen Archbishop of Mayence, and was confirmed by 

 the Emperor Louis, notwithstanding he had been a steadfast adherent 

 of his brother and adversary Lothair. He died in the possession of 

 this office in 856, leaving his books to be divided between his beloved 

 Fulda and St. Alban's monastery at Mayence. 



It is now time to estimate the value of the life of Rabanus to sci- 

 ence, and especially to botany. In the long period between the irrup- 

 tion of the barbarians and the revival of learning in the fifteenth cen- 

 tury, three persons whose labors were independent of each other stand 

 especially prominent Rabanus Maurus, the Abbess Hildegard of Bin- 

 gen, and Albertus Magnus. The two latter were superior in origi- 

 nality to the other, but Rabanus was the first German who took the 

 pen and endeavored in his work, " De Universo," to make accessible 

 to his contemporaries what the ancients knew. 



Of course, he worked in the spirit of his times, and the theologian 

 is constantly appearing between his lines, endeavoring to keep what he 

 might write in accord with the Holy Scriptures. The principal au- 

 thority from which he drew was the " Origines " of Isidore of Seville, 

 who himself again drew chiefly from Pliny. His work considers in 

 twenty-two books the following subjects : 1-5. Theology ; 6. Man 

 and his parts ; 7. Kindred, longevity, marriage, death, monstrosities, 

 and beasts of burden ; 8. Other animals ; 9. Astronomy and meteorol- 

 ogy ; 10. Chronology and festivals; 11. Water; 12-14. Geography; 

 15. Philosophers, poets, sorcerers, and heathen ; 16. Languages, civic 

 and military ordinances ; 17. Mineralogy ; 18. Measures, weights, 

 music, and medicine ; 19. Agriculture and plants ; 20. War, armor, 

 and the theatre ; 21. Arts and trades ; 22. Household and farming 

 implements. After the fashion of his time, he gave more attention to 

 the mystic meaning of the objects of nature than to their real proper- 

 ties, and attached the greatest importance to the explanation of names, 

 in which so curious ingenuity was employed as to justify the quoting 

 of a few specimens : Death is called mors quod amara sit, or in Eng- 

 lish because it is bitter ; the horse is called equus, because only those 

 horses are harnessed together that are alike in size and color {cequare) ; 

 the panther has received that name because he is a friend of all {jxdv- 

 ro)v) animals ; the swan is called olor, because its feathers are entirely 

 (oXog) white ; the ivy is called Iledera, because it is given to kids 

 (hcedis) for food ; the willow is called Salix [quod ecleriter scdiat), 

 because it springs up or grows fast. Rabanus adhered quite closely 

 and uncritically to his originals, and it therefore gives us no surprise 



