THE OLD ENGLISH HERBALS 



CHAPTER I 



THE ANGLO-SAXON HERBALS 



" Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth." 



WILLIAM BLAKE. 



THERE is a certain pathos attached to the fragments from 

 any great wreck, and in studying the few Saxon manuscripts, 

 treating of herbs, which have survived to our day, we find 

 their primary fascination not so much in their beauty and 

 interest as in the visions they conjure up of those still older 

 manuscripts which perished during the terrible Danish invasions. 

 That books on herbs were studied in England as early as the 

 eighth century is certain, for we know that Boniface, " the 

 Apostle of the Saxons," received letters from England asking 

 him for books on simples and complaining that it was difficult 

 to obtain the foreign herbs mentioned in those we already 

 possessed. 1 But of these manuscripts none have survived, the 

 oldest we possess being of the tenth century, and for our know- 

 ledge of Anglo-Saxon plant lore we look chiefty to those four 

 important manuscripts the Leech Book of Bald, the Lacnunga 

 and the Saxon translations of the Herbarium of Apuleius and 

 the so-called Ile/ol AiSatfewv. 



Apart from their intrinsic fascination, there are certain 

 considerations which give these manuscripts a peculiar import- 

 ance. Herb lore and folk medicine lag not years, but centuries, 



1 Nee non et si quos saecularis scientiae libros nobis ignotos adepturi sitis, 

 ut sunt de medicinalibus, quorum copia est aliqua apud nos, sed tamen seg- 

 menta ultra marina quae in eis scripta comperimus, ignota nobis sunt et 

 difficilia ad adipiscendum. Bonifac., EpistolcB, p. 102. 

 B 



