CHAPTER III 



THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE HERBAL IN 



ENGLAND 



i. The Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus. 



ONCERNING the Herbarium of 

 Apuleius Platonicus, a few remarks 

 have been already made. This herbal 

 was perhaps the first through which 

 any kind of systematic knowledge of 

 medicinal plants was brought into 

 Britain. For this reason it may be 

 mentioned here, although manuscript 

 herbals do not, strictly, come within our province. In the 

 Bodleian Library there is an Anglo-Saxon translation of 

 the work, which is said to have been made for King Alfred. 

 Another Anglo-Saxon manuscript of later date, probably 

 transcribed between a.d. iooo and the Norman Conquest, 

 has been rendered into modern English by Dr Cockayne. 

 The classical and Anglo-Saxon plant-names are given in 

 the herbal, and, although there is scarcely any attempt at 

 description, the localities where the plants may be found 

 are-sometimes mentioned. 



\ The greater part of the manuscript is concerned with 

 the virtues of herbs. The plants were regarded in this, 

 as in most early works, merely as "simples," that is, the 

 simple constituents of compound medicines. Hieronymus 

 Bock in 1551 described his herbal as being an account 

 of "die Einfache erd Gewachs, Simplicia genant 1 ." The 

 term " simple," now almost obsolete, was a household word 



1 " The individual herbs of the earth, called simples." 



3—2 



