PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
285 
introduction into England is very obscure. It is mentioned 
several times in the Anglo-Saxon Leech books: “When he bathes, 
let him smear himself with oil; mingle it with Saffron .”—Tenth 
Century Leech Book , ii. 37. “For dimness of eyes, thus 
one must heal it: take Celandine one spoonful, and Aloes, 
and Crocus (Saffron in French ).”—Schools of Medicine , tenth 
century, c. 22. In these instances it may be only the imported 
drug; but the name occurs in an English Vocabulary among 
the Nomina herbarum : “ Hie Crocus, A e Safurroun ; ” and in 
a Pictorial Vocabulary of the fourteenth century, “ Hie Crocus, 
An ce Safryn; ” so that I think the plant must have been in 
cultivation in England at that 
time. The usual statement, 
made by one writer after an¬ 
other, is that it was introduced 
by Sir Thomas Smith into the 
neighbourhood of Walden in the 
time of Edward III, but the 
original authority for this state¬ 
ment is unknown. The most 
authentic account is that by 
Hakluyt in 1582, and though 
it is rather long, it is worth 
extracting in full. It occurs in 
some instructions in “ Remem¬ 
brances for Master S.,” who was 
going into Turkey, giving him 
hints what to observe in his travels: “ Saffron, the best of 
the universall world, groweth in this realme. ... It is a spice 
that is cordiall, and may be used in meats, and that is excellent 
in dying of yellow silks. This commodity of Saffron groweth 
fifty miles from Tripoli, in Syria, on an high hyll, called in 
those parts Gasian, so as there you may learn at that part of 
Tripoli the value of the pound, the goodnesse of it, and the 
places of the vent. But it is said that from that hyll there 
passeth yerely of that commodity fifteen modes laden, and 
that those regions notwithstanding lacke sufficiency of that 
