264 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
and refreshed himself with these fruits, but we cannot regard this as 
anything more than a valuable suggestion for an historical painter. 
In the " Capitularies " of Charlemagne {De Villis, cap. 70) there 
is an interesting list of fruits, but Red Currants are not mentioned, 
though of course this is no proof that they were not grown. 
During the Moorish occupation of Spain horticulture was kept 
alive when in other parts of Europe it had fallen into neglect under the 
invasion of the Northern barbarians, and in an interesting Arabic 
work of this period by Ibn El Awam, which has been translated into 
French by J. J. Clement Muller, we find the " Ribes " which has 
sometimes been mistaken for the Currant. 
This, however, is a species of Rheum, much valued by the Arabs as 
a drug. In the effort to identify plants with those described by the 
ancients, which was so common a feature of early Renaissance days, 
the wild Currant was thought to be the Ribes of the Arabs. This led 
to the use of the word Ribes, and the Swedish Risp, Danish Ribs, still 
remain the popular names in these countries. Of the Red Currant 
no trace is found in Ibn El Awam's treatise. According to Koch, de 
Candolle, Sturtevant, and other writers who have copied their 
statements, the Red Currant is not met with in European literature until 
the sixteenth century, Ruellius (1536) being usually quoted as the 
first writer to mention it. This, however, is demonstrably wrong, and 
it appears in a German MS. of the early fifteenth century as Ribes and 
Johannisdrubel. 
The first known drawing of a Red Currant appears in the "Mainz 
Herbarius " of 1484. This book was the first of the printed German 
Herbals, and was probably compiled from existing manuscripts. The 
name here given is Saint Johans Drub j in, and the description is as 
follows : — " Ribes is a bush, the fruit of which is red and sweet with 
an acid roughness, and therefore it follows that it cools the stomach 
and allays the thirst &c." The picture is naturally somewhat crude, 
but recognizable, and ohows a five-lobed leaf with fruits. A better 
illustration is found in the later " Gaerde der Suntheit," Lubeck, 
1492. 
These facts prove that the Red Currant was known some 136 years 
before the time of Ruellius; if cultivated in gardens or merely 
gathered from wild plants it is, of course, impossible to say, but it seems 
probable that, as in other fruits and herbs, its value once recognized, it 
would not be long before it would be introduced into the herb garden. 
In the early herbals of the sixteenth century we begin to find the 
Currant mentioned as a plant commonly cultivated. The French 
writer Jean Ruel, or Ruellius as he was more generally called, 
published his well-known " De Natura Stirpium " at Paris in 1536. 
In this work the Red Currant is recommended as a plant for borders 
or edgings, and it was used as an appetizer. A few years later Agricola 
(Ammonius) ( 6 ) speaks of it as " cherished in our gardens." It is 
therefore evident that the Red Currant was known in gardens in 
France and North Germany. We first meet in Ruellius a name 
