CHAPTER II

THE EARLIEST PRINTED HERBALS

(FIFTEENTH CENTURY)

1. THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF BARTHOLOMÆUS ANGLICUS AND ‘THE BOOK OF NATURE.’

After the invention of printing, a very active period of book production followed, during which many works, which had previously passed a more or less lengthy existence in manuscript, were put into circulation 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 Encyclopædia of Bartholomæus Anglicus, and in Konrad von Megenberg’s ‘Das půch 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 proprietatibus 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 includes some theoretical considerations about plants, on Aristotelian lines. An English translation, which was printed by Wynkyn de Worde before the end of the fifteenth century, is interesting as containing the very primitive botanical wood-cut reproduced in Text-fig. 19.

‘Das půch der natur’ is slightly later as regards the date of publication, having been printed by Hanns Bämler at Augsburg in 1475. It seems to have been very popular, for it passed through six or seven editions before the end of the fifteenth century. A very large number of manuscripts of ‘The Book of Nature’ exist, as many as eighteen being preserved in the Vienna Library and seventeen at Munich. The text is a compilation from old Latin writings, and is said to have been translated into German as early as 1349. The portion dealing with plants consists of an account of the virtues of eighty-nine herbs with their Latin and German names. The chief interest of the work, from our present point of view, lies in the fact that it contains the earliest known botanical wood engraving (Plate III). We shall return to this subject in Chapter VII.

2. THE HERBARIUM OF APULEIUS PLATONICUS.

Another very early book based on classical writings, especially those of Dioscorides and Pliny, was the ‘Herbarium’ of Apuleius Platonicus. This little Latin work is among the earliest to which the term “Herbal” is generally applied. A herbal has been defined as a book containing the names and descriptions of herbs, or of plants in general, with their properties and virtues. The word is believed to have been derived from a mediæval Latin adjective “herbalis,” the substantive “liber” being understood. It is thus exactly comparable in origin with the word “manual” in the sense of a hand-book.

Four early printed editions of the Herbal of Apuleius Platonicus are known, all of which appear to have been based on different manuscripts. The earliest was published in Rome late in the fifteenth century, from a manuscript discovered by Joh. Philippus de Lignamine, physician to Pope Sixtus IV. Nothing is definitely known concerning the author, but it is conjectured that he was a native of Africa, and that his book may date from the fifth century, or possibly even the fourth. The work undoubtedly had a career of many centuries in manuscript before it was printed.

Various extant manuscripts of the Herbarium are illustrated with coloured drawings of the crudest description, which are found on comparison to be identical in many different examples, and to have been reproduced, in a degraded form, when the book was printed. The original figures, from which the drawings in the different manuscripts were copied, must date back to very early times. They probably represent, as Dr Payne has pointed out, a school of botanical draughtsmanship derived from late Roman art.

These illustrations, some of which are reproduced in Plates IV, V and XVI, and Text-figs. 1 and 2, will be discussed in greater detail in