CHAPTER II 



LATER MANUSCRIPT HERBALS AND THE EARLY PRINTED HERBALS 



" Spryngynge t3mie 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." — 

 Bartholom^us 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." ^ 

 In 1373 it was translated by John Lelamoure, a schoolmaster 



1 See BibHography of English MS. Herbals. 

 42 



