CHAPTER IV. 



EARLY GARDEN LITERATURE. 



1 And all was walled that wone thouj it wid were 

 'With posterns in pryuytie to pasen when hem list 

 Orchejardes and erberes eused well clene." 



Pierce the Ploughman s Crede, c. 1394. 



T3EFORE proceeding any further with the history of 

 gardening, it will be as well to pass in review the 

 literature on the subject relating to the periods which have 

 been traversed. The knowledge of herbs and flowers in Saxon 

 times, and for several centuries later, was all learnt from classical 

 authors. The works of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Galen, Pliny, 

 and Apuleius, formed the basis of Saxon plant-lore. The 

 Herbarium of Apuleius (who lived about the fourth century, 

 A.D.) was founded on the works of Dioscorides and Pliny, and it 

 is chiefly through Apuleius that these earlier writers were known. 

 This herbal was translated into Anglo-Saxon, and must have 

 been a very popular book, for no less than four MSS. of it exist, 

 which is a large proportion out of the scanty remains of books 

 of such early times.* The names of plants which are to be 

 found in these MSS. are most interesting, and are useful for 

 the identification of the names used in later herbals. Another 

 good list of herbs in Anglo-Saxon is to be found in ^Ifric's 



* Translations are to be found in Cockayne, Leechdom and Wortcunning 

 of Early England, 1864, notes in Early - English Plant Names, Earle, 1880 

 original MSS. Cotton Vitellius ciii. Brit. Mus. date circa 1000-1066. Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, O. 2. 48, I4th century. Also in Harleian 815, Liber 

 Medicinalis. (Harleian 5066, Herbarium Saxonicum. Thus described in the 

 Catalogue, is not in the MS. thus numbered, and a note to say it was not there 

 in 1804 is signed D.) 



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