OF HERB GARDENS 9 



Doctor Payne referred is supposed to have been written 

 under the direction of some one called Bald, who is described 

 in the manuscript x as the owner of the book, the name of 

 the actual scribe being Cild. It is evident that Bald was a 

 leech, and he was probably a monk, for at that time very 

 few books were written except in monasteries. Bald had a 

 remarkably wide knowledge of native plants and garden 

 herbs, but though he gives exact prescriptions for the giving 

 of these herbs in drinks, with ale, vinegar or milk and honey, 

 and how to make them into ointments with butter, it is 

 quite impossible to ascertain exactly what cultivated and 

 wild herbs were included in the herb gardens of those days. 

 We only know that they called their herb gardens wyrtzerd, 

 or wyrttun, and that they certainly grew sunflowers, peonies, 

 gillyflowers, marigolds, violets and periwinkles, to which 

 last they gave the delightful name " Joy of the Ground." 



In Norman days the principal herb gardens were those 

 attached to the monasteries, and it is interesting to remember 

 that the present little cloister of Westminster Abbey and 

 the College garden once formed part of the old Infirmary 

 garden, where the herbs for the healing of the sick and for 

 Church decorations were grown. But if the monks main- 

 tained the knowledge of herbs in one way, it must also be 

 remembered that, on the other hand, they were largely 

 responsible for the loss of what remained of the Druidical 

 knowledge of plants, which was discountenanced by the 

 Church, because much of it had become associated with witch- 

 craft. The seventh book of Alexander Neckham's poem, 

 " De laudibus divinae Sapientiae " (circa 1200) is on herbs, 

 and in his De Naturis Rerum he gives a description of what 

 a " noble garden " should be. His list of herbs includes 



1 At the end of the second part of the MS. is written in Latin 

 verse : 



" Bald is the owner of this book which he ordered Cild to write, 

 Ernestly 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." 



