CHAPTER IV 



THE BOTANICAL RENAISSANCE OF THE 

 SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CEN- 

 TURIES 



i. The Herbal in Germany. 



N his History of Botany, Kurt Sprengel 

 first used the honoured title, " The 

 German Fathers of Botany," to de- 

 scribe a group of herbalists — Brunfels, 

 Bock, Fuchs and Cordus — whose work 

 belongs principally to the first half of 

 the sixteenth century. 



The earliest of these was Otto 

 Brunfels [Otho Brunfelsius], who is said to have been born 

 in 1464. His surname is derived from the fact that 

 his father, who was a cooper, came from Schloss Brunfels, 

 near Mainz. When Otto grew up, he became a Carthusian 

 monk. We do not know how long his monastic career 

 lasted, but eventually his health appears to have broken 

 down, and, at the same time, his faith in the Roman Catholic 

 Church was undermined by the acquaintance which he 

 began to make with protestant doctrines. He fled from 

 the monastery, and took up his abode in Strasburg, where 

 he was for nine years headmaster of the grammar school. 

 He wrote various theological works, but ultimately turned 

 his attention to medicine, and, before his death in 1534, he 

 had become town physician at Bern. As evidence of his } 

 medical studies we have his fine herbal, which is still full 

 of interest, whereas his other works, which he probably 



