CHAPTER II 



THE EARLIEST PRINTED HERBALS 



(Fifteenth Century) 



The Encvclop/edia of Bartholom^us Anglicus 

 AND 'The Book of Nature.' 



FTER the invention of printing, a 

 very active period of book pro- 

 duction followed, during which many 

 works, which had previously passed 

 a more or less lengthy existence in 

 manuscript, were put into circula- 

 tion in print, contemporaneously with 

 . books actually written at the time. 

 The result is that a number of the 

 " incunabula," as printed books of the fifteenth century are 

 technically called, are far more ancient, as regards the 

 matter which they contain, than the date of their publication 

 would seem to suggest. 



This characteristic is illustrated in the Encyclopaedia of 

 Bartholomaeus Anglicus, and in Konrad von Megenberg's 

 ' Das puch der natur,' which were perhaps the earliest 

 printed books containing strictly botanical information. 

 The former work, which was first printed about 1470, was 

 compiled by a monk, sometimes called Bartholomew de 

 Glanville, who flourished in the thirteenth century. The 

 title by which it is generally known is ' Liber de pro- 

 prietatibus rerum.' One of the sections of which it is 

 composed is concerned with an account of a large number 

 of trees and herbs, arranged in alphabetical order, and is 

 chiefly occupied with their medicinal properties. It also 



