Herbals, Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany 1470-1670 — Themes and Context

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Authors: Arber, Agnes Robertson, 1879-1960 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2014 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Herbals -- Europe -- History; Botany -- Europe -- History Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 62,845

Reading time 274 min

Text sections 11

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Agnes Arber traces the evolution of printed herbals from 1470 to 1670, examining how botanical description and illustration developed through close analysis of key works by Fuchs, Cordus, Bauhin, and others.

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to have been largely based upon pre-existing manuscripts, representing a tradition of great antiquity.

The various forms of the Latin and German Herbarius, and of the Hortus Sanitatis are described under many titles, and the unravelling of the various editions is a matter of great difficulty. In the fifteenth century, before copyright existed, as soon as a popular work was published, pirated editions and translations sprang into existence. In the case of the German Herbarius, a new edition was printed at Augsburg only a few months after the appearance of the original at Mainz. Some such editions were dated, and some undated, and the sources from which they were derived were seldom acknowledged.

The passage of the earliest printed books through the press was naturally extremely slow, as compared with the rapid production of the present day. The result was that the printer had leisure to make occasional alterations, so that different copies belonging actually to the same edition sometimes show slight variations. The bibliographer has thus to deal with an additional element of confusion.

As far as the works now under consideration are concerned, however, much of the obscurity has been removed by the late Dr Payne, to whom we owe a very lucid memoir on the various editions of the Latin and German Herbarius and the Hortus Sanitatis, based in part upon the researches of Dr Ludwig Choulant. Free use has been made of his account in the present chapter.

3. THE LATIN HERBARIUS.

The work to which we may refer for convenience as the Latin Herbarius is also known under many other titles—‘Herbarius in Latino,’ ‘Aggregator de Simplicibus,’ ‘Herbarius Moguntinus,’ ‘Herbarius Patavinus,’ etc. It was originally printed at Mainz by Peter Schöffer in 1484, in the form of a small quarto. It is interesting to recall that the earliest specimen of printing from movable type known to exist was produced in the same town thirty years before.

Other early editions and translations of the Herbarius appeared in Bavaria, the Low Countries, Italy, and probably also in France. The work, like most of the early herbals, was anonymous, and was a compilation from mediæval writers, and from certain classical and Arabian authors. It seems to have no connection with the Herbarium of Apuleius, which is nowhere cited. The majority of the authorities quoted wrote before 1300 A.D. and no author is mentioned who might not have been known to a writer about the middle of the fourteenth century, that is to say, at least a hundred years before the Herbarius was published. It is quite possible that the work was not written at the time it was printed, but may have had a previous career in manuscript.

The wood-blocks of the first German edition are bold and decorative, but as a rule show little attempt at realism (Text-figs. 3, 4, 5 and 73). A different and better set of figures were used in Italy to illustrate the text (Text-figs. 6, 57, 65, 74, 75, 76). The authorship of this version of the Herbarius is sometimes erroneously attributed to Arnold de Nova Villa, a physician of the thirteenth century, a mistake which arose through the conspicuous citation of his name in the preface to the Venetian editions.

The descriptions and figures of the herbs are arranged alphabetically. All the plants discussed were natives of Germany or in cultivation there, and the object of the work seems to have been to help the reader to the use of cheap and easily obtained remedies, in cases of illness or accident.

4. THE GERMAN HERBARIUS AND RELATED WORKS.

Of even greater importance than the Latin Herbarius is the German Herbarius or ‘Herbarius zu Teutsch,’ sometimes also called the German Ortus Sanitatis, or the Smaller Ortus. This folio, which was the foundation of the later works called Hortus (or Ortus) Sanitatis, appeared at Mainz, also from the printing press of Peter Schöffer in 1485, the year following the publication of the Latin Herbarius. It has been mistakenly regarded by some authors as a mere translation of the latter. However, the two books are neither the same in the text nor in the illustrations. The German Herbarius appears to be an independent work except as regards the third part of the book—the index of drugs according to their uses—which may owe something to the Latin Herbarius.

It seems from the preface that the originator of the book was a rich man, who had travelled in the east, and that the medical portion was compiled under his direction by a physician. The latter was probably Dr Johann von Cube, who was town physician of Frankfort at the end of the fifteenth century.

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Agnes Arber’s study of herbals from 1470 to 1670 is grounded in the texts and images themselves, not in retrospective judgments. She examines how early botanists described plants—their diction, their attention to structure, and their struggle to balance precision with readability. The excerpts reveal a writer who values the exact wording of sixteenth-century naturalists, quoting Fuchs on the “thickness of a finger” and Bauhin on a “short tapering root.” Arber’s own prose is measured, letting the historical sources speak while she notes shifts in descriptive practice.

Her focus is not on the medicinal uses of plants, which she deliberately sets aside, but on the botanical and artistic choices made by herbalists. She treats each work as a document of evolving scientific observation, from the lengthy accounts of Valerius Cordus to the terse accuracy of Bauhin’s Prodromos. The result is a history of a genre told through its internal developments.

Descriptive Precision and Its Limits

Arber highlights how herbalists refined their descriptive language over two centuries. She quotes Fuchs’s account of Sedum majus, where he notes leaves “fat and full of juice, and shaped like a tongue, and slightly serrated round the edge.” Such details reveal a methodical eye for texture, shape, and arrangement. Later, she contrasts this with Bauhin’s description of Beta Cretica, which is more concise: “from a short tapering root, by no means fibrous, spring several stalks about 18 inches long.” The shift from Fuchs’s flowing sentences to Bauhin’s compressed observations marks a move toward modern botanical description.

Yet Arber also notes the limitations of the period. She observes that before 1682, when Nehemiah Grew identified stamens as male organs, herbalists lacked a functional understanding of floral parts. This constraint shaped how they described flowers—often focusing on color and form rather than reproductive function. Gerard’s account of the potato flower, for instance, dwells on its “light purple color, stripped down the middle of every folde or welt, with a light shew of yellownes.” The description is vivid but anatomically imprecise.

Illustration as Evidence

Arber treats illustrations not as decorations but as primary evidence of botanical knowledge. She reproduces figures from de l’Écluse, Gerard, and Bauhin, and discusses how woodcuts and engravings conveyed plant structure. In the excerpt, she refers to Text-fig. 59 (“Sedum majus”) and Text-fig. 60 (“Battata Virginiana,” the potato), using them to anchor her analysis of descriptive accuracy. The potato illustration is particularly notable because Gerard’s portrait shows him holding a spray of the plant, emphasizing its novelty.

Arber’s method is to compare image and text, noting when they align or diverge. She does not assume that illustrations are objective; instead, she examines how artists and authors collaborated to produce recognizable plant portraits. The engravings by Speckle for Fuchs’s De historia stirpium are singled out for their quality, while Gerard’s illustrations are described as derivative. This attention to the material production of herbals—the interplay of word and image—is central to her argument.

The Role of Translation and Compilation

Arber shows that many herbals were compilations or translations rather than original works. She quotes Henry Lyte, translator of Dodoens, who justifies his work with the maxim “Bonum, quo communius, eo melius et præstantius” (a good thing the more common it is, the better it is). This attitude shaped the herbal tradition: authors freely borrowed from earlier texts, often without attribution. Gerard’s Herball, for example, is described as seldom original in its descriptions, yet it became influential through its compilation and illustrations.

Arber herself adopts a similar stance, acknowledging that her book is “far from being an exhaustive monograph” and aims only to present a general sketch. She relies on the herbals themselves, not secondary sources, and includes an appendix listing principal botanical works from 1470 to 1670. This bibliographic rigor underscores her argument that the herbal evolved through a collective, cumulative process of borrowing and refinement.

The Botanical Gaze: From Fuchs to Bauhin

Arber traces a trajectory from Fuchs’s expansive descriptions to Bauhin’s compressed ones. Fuchs, writing in 1542, describes a plant’s “rays of the thickness of a finger” and leaves that “press inwards all together and overlapping.” His prose is sensory and detailed, aiming to evoke the plant’s appearance. Bauhin, by contrast, in 1620, uses measured phrases: “the plant has but few leaves, similar to those of Beta nigra, except that they are smaller.” The difference reflects a shift from a literary to a scientific mode of observation.

Arber also notes that the best descriptions of the sixteenth century came from Valerius Cordus, whose posthumously published work she praises but does not quote at length due to its length. This choice itself is telling: she prioritizes excerpts that illustrate her argument about evolving standards of accuracy. The climax of this development is Bauhin’s Prodromos, which Arber calls “the zenith of plant description” for its period, achieving “a high level of terseness and accuracy.”

Arber’s book is best read as a companion to the herbals themselves. She provides a framework for understanding how botanical description changed, but her evidence comes from the original texts and images. Readers interested in the history of scientific observation will find her attention to diction and structure instructive. The excerpts here offer a sample of her method, but the full work rewards those who follow her through the two centuries of printed herbals she surveys.

Sometimes I think of Agnes Arber’s patient tracing of old woodcuts, how each new edition quietly revised the last. It reminded me of sitting with a certain older book, Among the Trees at Elmridge — Reading Notes, where the same quiet attention to detail lives. There is a gentleness in noticing small changes, in letting observation settle slowly into understanding. It feels like a familiar kind of companionship.