The Old English Herbals. Eleanour Sinclair Rohde
to thee we return. Thou indeed art duly called great Mother of the gods; thou conquerest by thy divine name. Thou art the source of the strength of nations and of gods, without thee nothing can be brought to perfection or be born; thou art great queen of the gods. Goddess! I adore thee as divine; I call upon thy name; be pleased to grant that which I ask thee, so shall I give thanks to thee, goddess, with one faith.
“Hear, I beseech thee, and be favourable to my prayer. Whatsoever herb thy power dost produce, give, I pray, with goodwill to all nations to save them and grant me this my medicine. Come to me with thy powers, and howsoever I may use them may they have good success and to whomsoever I may give them. Whatever thou dost grant it may prosper. To thee all things return. Those who rightly receive these herbs from me, do thou make them whole. Goddess, I beseech thee; I pray thee as a suppliant that by thy majesty thou grant this to me.
“Now I make intercession to you all ye powers and herbs and to your majesty, ye whom Earth parent of all hath produced and given as a medicine of health to all nations and hath put majesty upon you, be, I pray you, the greatest help to the human race. This I pray and beseech from you, and be present here with your virtues, for she who created you hath herself promised that I may gather you into the goodwill of him on whom the art of medicine was bestowed, and grant for health’s sake good medicine by grace of your powers. I pray grant me through your virtues that whatsoe’er is wrought by me through you may in all its powers have a good and speedy effect and good success and that I may always be permitted with the favour of your majesty to gather you into my hands and to glean your fruits. So shall I give thanks to you in the name of that majesty which ordained your birth.”
FROM A SAXON HERBAL
(Harl. 1585, folio 19a)
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Nec non et si quos sæcularis scientiæ libros nobis ignotos adepturi sitis, ut sunt de medicinalibus, quorum copia est aliqua apud nos, sed tamen segmenta ultra marina quæ in eis scripta comperimus, ignota nobis sunt et difficilia ad adipiscendum.—Bonifac., Epistolæ, p. 102.
[3] A catalogue of the books of that foundation cited by Wanley (Hickes, Thesaur. Vol. II. Præf. ad Catalogum) contains the entry “Medicinale Anglicum,” and the MS. described above has on a fly-leaf the now almost illegible inscription “Medicinale Anglicum.” There is unfortunately no record as to the books which, on the dissolution of the monasteries, may possibly have found their way from Glastonbury to the royal library.
[4] This chapter consists of prescriptions containing drugs such as a resident in Syria would recommend. It is interesting to find this illustration of Asser’s statement, that he had seen and read the letters which the Patriarch of Jerusalem sent with presents to the king. From Asser also we learn that King Alfred kept a book in which he himself entered “little flowers culled on every side from all sorts of masters.” “Flosculos undecunque collectos a quibus libet magistris et in corpore unius libelli mixtim quamvis sicut tunc suppetebat redigere.”—Asser, p. 57.
[5] The stories of miraculous cures by famous Anglo-Saxon bishops and abbots are for the most part too well known to be worth quoting, but the unfair treatment of the leech is perhaps nowhere more clearly shown than in Bede’s tale of St. John of Beverley curing a boy with a diseased head. Although the leech effected the cure, the success was attributed to the bishop’s benediction, and the story ends, “the youth became of a clear countenance, ready in speech and with hair beautifully wavy.”
[6] A small but striking instance of Saxon knowledge, or rather close observation, of plants is to be found in the following description of wolf’s teazle in the Herbarium of Apuleius:—“This wort hath leaves reversed and thorny and it hath in its midst a round and thorny knob, and that is brown-headed in the blossoms and hath white seed and a white and very fragrant root.” The word “reversed” is not in the original and was therefore added by the Saxon translator, who had observed the fact that all the thistle tribe protect their leaves by thorns pointing backwards as well as forwards.
[7] It is interesting to remember that even as late as the sixteenth century plantain was called “waybroad.” See Turner’s Herbal.
[8] There are numerous Latin MSS. of this book, chiefly in Italian libraries, several being in the Laurentian Library at Florence. The book was first printed at Rome, probably soon after 1480, by Joh. Philippus de Lignamine, who was also the editor. De Lignamine, who was physician to Pope Sixtus IV., says that he found this MS. in the library of the monastery of Monte Cassino. In the first impression the book is dedicated to Cardinal de Gonzaga; in the second impression to Cardinal de Ruvere. (The copy in the British Museum is of the second impression.) In this small quarto volume the illustrations are rough cuts. It is interesting to remember that these are the earliest known printed figures of plants. The printed text contains a large number of Greek and Latin synonyms which do not appear in the Saxon translation. Subsequent editions were printed in 1528 (Paris) and in the Aldine Collection of Latin medical writers, 1547 (Venice).
[9] Cratevas is said to have lived in the first century B.C. Pliny, Dioscorides and Galen all quote him.
[10] Erlanger, Beiträge zur englischen Philologie, No. XII. (περὶ διδαξέων), eine Sammlung von Rezepten in englischer Sprache.
[11] Printed by De Renzi in Collectio Salernitana, Vol. IV. (Naples, 1856).
[12] English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times.
[13] On the preceding blank page there is an inscription in late seventeenth-century handwriting—
“This boucke with letters is wr [remainder of word illegible]
Of it you cane no languige make.
Ba C.
A happie end if thou dehre [dare] to make
Remember still thyn owne esstate,
If thou desire in Christ to die
Thenn well to lead thy lif applie
barbara crokker.”
It is at least probable that Wanley, who at this period was collecting Anglo-Saxon manuscripts for George Hickes, secured this MS. from “barbara crokker.” Her naïve avowal of her inability to read the MS. suggests that she probably had no idea of the value of the book, and when one remembers Wanley’s reputation for driving shrewd bargains one cannot help wondering what he paid for this treasure. Those must have been halcyon days for collectors, when a man who had been an assistant in the Bodleian Library with a salary of £12 a year could buy Saxon manuscripts!