8 INTRODUCTION 



upon it, and begin to get ready a meal, when the 

 whale, awakened by the heat of the fire, plunges and 

 drowns them all ; that the eagle can look at the sun 

 when it is at the brightest; that aged eagles fly into 

 the east, dip three times into a certain fountain, 

 and become young again ; that the pelican, having 

 slain her own young, tears her body with her beak, 

 when the blood, falling upon the young birds, brings 

 them back to life. 



Even in the times when book-learning was well-nigh 

 extinct, some practical knowledge of plants survived. 

 Agriculture and horticulture were attentively pursued 

 wherever the authority of princes or the sanctity of 

 religious houses afforded protection against lawlessness. 

 From the age of Charlemagne, which some historians 

 have regarded as the nadir of learning and literature, 

 there have come down to us the great emperor's edicts 

 for the government of his dominions and estates.^ One 

 of these (Capitulare de villis imperialihus) enumerates 

 the fruit-trees, vegetables, medicinal herbs and flowers 

 which were ordered to be grown in the imperial gardens. 



Earle ^ has prepared a list of English names of garden 

 plants, which have come to us from the Latin, not 

 through French or any other modern Romance language, 

 but through intermediate Anglo-Saxon forms. Among 

 the examples are the following : — 



1 These are called capitviaria, because they were arranged under heads 

 (oapitula). They are printed in the Monumenta Germanice Historica, foL 

 Hanover, 1835 (Legum torn. i.). 



'English Plant Names, sm. 8vo. Oxford, 1880, pp. xlix, 1. 



