The Old English Herbals

"Come into the fields then, and as you come along the streets, cast your eyes upon the weeds as you call them that grow by the walls and under the hedge-sides."--W. COLES, _The...

There is a certain pathos attached to the fragments from any great wreck, and in studying the few Saxon manuscripts, treating of herbs, which have survived to our day, we find t...

"Spryngynge tyme is the time of gladnesse and of love; for in Sprynging time all thynge semeth gladde; for the erthe wexeth grene, trees burgynne [burgeon] and sprede, medowes b...

Like so many sixteenth-century notabilities, William Turner, commonly known as the father of English botany, was remarkably versatile, for he was a divine, a physician and a bot...

When one looks at the dingy, if picturesque, thoroughfare of Fetter Lane it is difficult to realise that it was once the site of Gerard's garden, and it is pleasant to remember...

"And I doe wish all Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, whom it may concerne, to bee as careful whom they trust with the planting and replanting of these fine flowers, as they would be w...

"For truly from all sorts of Herbes and Flowers we may draw matter at all times not only to magnifie the Creator that hath given them such diversities of formes sents and colour...

Later seventeenth-century Herbals--Revival of belief in astrological lore--Nicholas Culpeper--His character--Popularity in the East End of London--His Herbal--Coles's _Art of Si...

Evidence of the existence of books on herbs in the eighth century--Tenth-century manuscripts--Their importance as the first records of Anglo-Saxon plant lore and of folk medicin...

Herbals written in connection with the colonisation of America by the Spaniards and English--Early records of the plant lore of the Red Indians--English weeds introduced into Am...

Later manuscript herbals--Copies of Macer's herbal--Treatise on the virtues of rosemary sent by the Countess of Hainault to Queen Philippa of England--Bartholomæus Anglicus, _De...

Popularity of Gerard's Herbal--Its charm--Gerard's boyhood--Later life--His garden in Holborn--Friendship with Jean Robin, keeper of the royal gardens in Paris--Origin of Gerard...

William Turner--Cambridge with Nicholas Ridley--Travels abroad--Bologna--Luca Ghini--Conrad Gesner--Cologne--Appointed chaplain and physician to the Duke of Somerset--His early...

John Parkinson--The _Paradisus_--Myth of the vegetable lamb--Origin of the myth--Characteristics of the book--An Elizabethan flower-garden--Lilies, anemones, gilliflowers, cucko...