66 THE OLD ENGLISH HERBALS 



works of " many noble doctoures and experte maysters in 

 medecines, as Auicenna, Pandecta, Constantinus, Wilhelmus, 

 Platearius, Rabbi Moyses, Johannes Mesne, Haly, Albertus, 

 Bartholomeus and more other." But with the exception of 

 the preface the Crete Herhall is a translation of the well-known 

 French herbal, Le Grant Herhier. Until about 1886 Le Grant 

 Herhier was supposed to be a translation of the Herbarius zu 

 Teutsch, pubhshed at Mainz in 1485, or of the Ortus Sanitatis, 

 printed also at Mainz in 1491. The Herbarius zu Teutsch, which 

 was probably compiled by a Frankfort physician, is a fine herbal 

 beautifully illustrated, and the later Ortus Sanitatis is by some 

 authorities supposed to be a Latin translation of it. To judge from 

 the preface to the German Herbarius it was a labour of love, 

 undertaken by a man who apparently was possessed of ample 

 wealth and leisure ; for in his preface he tells us that he " caused 

 this praiseworthy work to be begun by a Master learned in 

 physic," and then, finding that as many of the herbs did not 

 grow in his native land he could not draw them " with their 

 true colours and form," he left the work unfinished and journeyed 

 through many lands — Italy, Croatia, Albania, Dalmatia, Greece, 

 Corfu, Candia, Rhodes, Cyprus, the Holy Land, Arabia, Babylonia 

 and Egypt. He was accompanied by "a painter ready of 

 wit and cunning and subtle of hand," and was thus able to have 

 the herbs " truly drawn." The book he compiled on his return 

 was long regarded as the original of the French herbal, Le Grant 

 Herbier, but in 1866 Professor Giulio Camus found two fifteenth- 

 century manuscripts in the Biblioteca Estense at Modena, one 

 the Latin work commonly known from the opening words 

 as Circa Instans, and the other a French translation of the same 

 manuscript. It was always supposed by medical historians 

 that the Circa Instans was written by Matthaeus Platearius of 

 Salerno in the twelfth century, but in Professor Camus's memoir, 

 U Opera Saleritana " Circa Instans " ed il testo primitive del 



^ For fuller bibliographical details of the Herbarius zu Teutsch and the 

 Ortus Sanitatis see Bibliography of Foreign Herbals. 



