CHAPTER II 



OF PHYSIC GARDENS 



THROUGHOUT Anglo-Saxon times, and well on- 

 wards to the Middle Ages, these monasteries of 

 Britain remained the storehouses of much of the 

 herb-lore of which the world could then boast ; 

 but the art of gardening made little progress, for 

 the times were turbulent. As the centuries drew 

 on, the piety of the older age grew less and less 

 simple and fervent. To this day there are extant 

 in black-letter volumes of the fifteenth century, 

 preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford and 

 elsewhere, strange prescriptions, quaintly worded, 

 and intermingled with directions for many religious 

 rites, which are superstitious enough, and show 

 the trend of the times. One of these orders for 

 a "fiend-sick" man that the concoction should 

 be drunk out of a church bell ; and others savour 

 still more strongly of magic incantations; but 

 their ingredients include such plant-names as yar- 

 row and betony, garlic, lupin, and others no less 

 familiar. 



In times beyond all memory, the art of healing 

 was almost wholly wrapped up in the study of 

 plants. The doctrine of signatures had early im- 

 pressed the minds of the thoughtful, and it was 



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