THE ANGLO-SAXON HERBALS 7 



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.^ The leech being so inferior in position, it is 

 not surprising that his medical knowledge did not advance on 



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 " Httle flowers culled 

 on every side from all sorts of masters." " Flosculos undecunque collectos 

 a quibus Hbet magistris et in corpore unius Hbelli mixtim quamvis sicut tunc 

 suppetebat redigere." — Asser, p. 57. 



1 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." 



