50 THE OLD ENGLISH HERBALS 



than other trees of the wood wyth knottes and rinelyd Rynde. 

 And makyth shadowe wythe thycke bowes and braunches : 

 and fayr with dyuers blossomes, and floures of swetnesse and 

 lykynge : with goode fruyte and noble. And is gracious in syght 

 and in taste and vertuous in medecyne . . . some beryth 

 sourysh fruyte and harde and some ryght soure and some ryght 

 swete, with a good savoure and mery." The descriptions of 

 celandine and broom are also characteristic. " Celidonia is an 

 herbe w 1 yelowe floures, the frute smorcheth them that it 

 towchyth. And hyghte Celidonia for it spryngeth, other 

 blomyth, in the comynge of swalowes. ... It hy5t celidonia 

 for it helpith swallowes birdes yf their eyen be hurte other (or) 

 blynde." " Genesta hath that name of bytterness for it is full 

 of bytter to mannes taste. And is a shrubbe that growyth in a 

 place that is forsaken, stony and untylthed. Presence thereof 

 is wytnesse that the grounde is bareyne and drye that it groweth 

 in. And hath many braunches knotty and hard. Grene in 

 wynter and yelowe floures in somer thyche [the which] wrapped 

 with heuy smell and bitter sauour. And ben netheles moost of 

 vertue." Bartholomew gives the old mandrake legend in full, 

 though he adds, " it is so feynd of churles others of wytches," 

 and he also writes of its use as an anaesthetic. 1 Further, he 

 records two other beliefs about the mandrake which I have 

 never found in any other English herbal namely, that while 

 uprooting it one must beware of contrary winds, and that one 

 must go on digging for it until sunset. " They that dygge 

 mandragora be besy to beware of contrary wyndes whyle they 

 digge. And maken circles abowte with a swerder and abyde 

 with the dyggynge unto the sonne goynge downe." 



But apart from herbs and their uses, the book De herbis is 

 full of fleeting yet vigorous pictures of the homely everyday 

 side of mediaeval life. Bartholomew, being one of the greatest 

 men of his century, writes of matters in which the simplest 



1 " The rind thereof medled with wine . . . gene to them to drink that 

 shall be cut in their body for they should slepe and not fele the sore knitting." 



