CHAPTER IV 
EARLY GARDEN LITERATURE 
“ And all was walled that wone thou% it wid were 
With posterns in pryuytie to pasen when hem list 
Orche3ardes and erberes eused well clene.” 
Piers Plowman's Crede, C. 1394. 
B EFORE proceeding any farther with the history of 
gardening, it will be as well to pass in review the litera¬ 
ture on the subject relating to the periods which have been 
traversed. The knowledge of herbs and flowers in Saxon 
times, and for several centuries later, was all learnt from 
classical authors. The works of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, 
Galen, Pliny, and Apuleius, formed the basis of Saxon plant- 
lore. The Herbarium of Apuleius (who lived about the fourth 
century a.d.) was founded on the works of Dioscorides and 
Pliny, and it is chiefly through Apuleius that these earlier 
writers were known. This herbal was translated into Anglo- 
Saxon, and must have been a very popular book, for no less 
than four MSS. of it exist, which is a large proportion out of the 
scanty remains of books of such early times . 1 The names of 
plants which are to be found in these MSS. are most interesting, 
and are useful for the identification of the names used in later 
herbals. Another good list of herbs in Anglo-Saxon is to be 
1 Translations are to be found in Cockayne, Leechdom and Wort¬ 
cunning of Early England , 1864, notes in Early-English Plant Names, 
Earle, 1880—original MSS. Cotton Vitellius ciii. Brit. Mus. date circa 
1000-1066. Trinity College, Cambridge, O. 2. 48, 14th century. Also 
in Harleian 815, Liber Medicinalis. (Harleian 5066, Herbarium 
Saxonicum. Thus described in the Catalogue, is not in the MS. 
thus numbered, and a note to say it was not there in 1804 is 
signed “ D.”) 
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