HERBS CHIEFLY USED IN THE PAST 93 



pepper as usual is more incisive. He first gives the same 

 reason that Coles does for eating Tansies in the spring ; 

 then : " At last the world being over-run with Popery, 

 a monster called superstition pecks up his head, and . . . 

 obscures the bright beams of knowledge by his dismal 

 looks ; (physicians seeing the Pope and his imps, selfish, 

 began to do so too), and now, forsooth. Tansies must be 

 eaten only on Palm and Easter Sundays and their neigh- 

 bour days. At last superstition being too hot to hold, and 

 the selfishness of physicians walking in the clouds ; after 

 the friars and monks had made the people ignorant, the 

 superstition of the time, was found out by the virtue of 

 the herb hidden and now is almost, if not altogether left 

 off. Scarcely any physicians are beholden to none so 

 much as they are to monks and friars ; for wanting of 

 eating this herb in spring, maketh people sickly in 

 summer, and that makes work for the physician. If 

 it be against any man or woman's conscience to eat 

 Tansey in the spring, I am as unwilling to burthen their 

 conscience, as I am that they should burthen mine ; they 

 may boil it in wine and drink the decoction, it will work 

 the same effect." " The Pope and his imps " is a grand 

 phrase ! A more militant Protestant than Culpepper it 

 would be difficult to find, even in these days. 



From other writers, it seems that the phase of associ- 

 ating Tansies exclusively with Easter, must have worn 

 itself out, for we find many descriptions of them on 

 distinctly secular occasions. At the Coronation Feast of 

 James II. and his Queen, a Tansie was served among the 

 1445 "Dishes of delicious Viands" provided for it, and 

 I must quote some of the others: — "Stag's tongues, 

 cold ; Andolioes ; Cyprus Birds, cold and Asparagus ; a 

 pudding, hot; Salamagundy ; 4 Fawns; 10 Oyster 

 pyes, hot ; Artichokes ; an Oglio, hot ; Bacon, Gam- 

 mon and Spinnage ; 12 Stump Pyes; 8 Godwits ; 

 Morels ; 24 Puffins ; 4 dozen Almond Puddings, hot ; 



