Early Modern Scholarship: John Gerard's The herball, or, Generall historie of plantes (1633)

Scholarly Collaboration, Visual Literacy, and Circulation of Knowledge

The herball, or, Generall historie of plantes by John Gerard (1545-1612) catalogues the names, descriptions, and medicinal properties of plants. The first edition of The herball was published 1597. The edition on exhibit was published thirty-six years later. This digital exhibit seeks to answer the following questions: what does Gerard's text reveal about the role of the herbal in the development of science and how did print culture influence works of natural history? This exhibit focuses on three aspects of Gerard’s herbal: poetic epigrams, lack of written marginalia, and unoriginal illustrations. These features demonstrate the scholarly collaboration essential to the creation of a natural history text. They also convey the heightened visual literacy and the circulation of knowledge promulgated by Early Modern print culture.

Poetic epigrams by celebrated physicians in the preliminary matter of The herball (1633) 

Epigrams: Early Modern Peer Review

Although Gerard authored the majority of this work, he did not compose its entirety. The introduction of The herball includes a series of letters and epigrams in verse written by celebrated physicians such as Matthias De L’Obel, a Flemish physician who published an herbal and personally treated two monarchs; Anthony Hunton, who matriculated from Christ’s College, Cambridge in 1575 [1]; Francis Herring, whose later writings centred around the plague and anti-Catholic propaganda [2]; Thomas Newton, a schoolmaster and clergyman appointed to the rectory of Little Ilford, Essex [3]; and Stephen Bredwell, a physician who practiced in Oxfordshire from 1585-1611. [4] Their poetry marvels at the magnitude, precision, and practicality of Gerard’s research. However, not all of the commentary is positive. This edition was “very much” amended by Thomas Johnson, an apothecary and botanist from Yorkshire who practiced in London. Johnson criticizes Gerard for performing “therein more than he could well accomplish” in his dedication to the reader. Johnson highlights several inaccuracies in Gerard’s work with his own findings. He adds a table of contents, an appendix, and several indices to The herball.

Depending on the tone of these reviews, these scholars strengthened or challenged the authority of the text. One can liken their influence to modern-day peer review. Peer reviews currently exist as separate works so as to comment upon new scholarship with clinical detachment. However, science textbooks regularly include forewords or introductory essays that praise the research. Those endorsements (though rarely in verse) bear striking resemblance to The herball’s epigrams and dedications to the reader.

Chapter 83: "Of Rubarb" 

Lack of Marginalia: Visual Literacy in the Early Modern Period

Gerard divides The herball into three books. Each book contains hundreds of entries on plants that share similar physical or medicinal characteristics. Entries provide Latin and English plant names in addition to detailed illustrations of well-known and lesser-known cultivars. Entries also explain how to prepare plants into remedies to treat ailments as superficial as a mild cough or as severe as a stroke. For example, the chapter on “Rubarb” distinguishes the “Turky Rubarb” from the “other bastard Rubarb” and the “Rubarb of the Antients”. [5] Rhubarb can ameliorate swellings about the heart, shortness of breath, and spitting of blood. [6] These pages are dense with printed information, but void of marginalia. 

Specimens in the entry, "Of the Great Skarlet Oke" 

The lack of written marginalia suggests the owners of Gerard’s text likely did not study the work from front to back. One can expect this reading method. Herbals do not contain overarching arguments or logical flow from one entry to the next. This edition compensates for the lack of written marginalia with a plethora of plant specimens. There are several plant specimens pressed between pages, many of which correspond to their chapters. The pressings along with the captivating illustrations convey the importance of visual literacy in the Early Modern period. Given the lower literacy rates, it would have been far more efficient for readers to compare herbs to images than to consult lengthy written descriptions. Natural history texts depended on eye-catching illustrations. The herball’s illustrious woodcuts were just as prized as the text.

Unoriginal Illustrations: Plagiarism or Circulation of Knowledge?

In his entry on rhubarb, Gerard accuses Matthiolus (a naturalist from Siena) of falsifying botanical illustrations. Ironically, most of the woodcuts in The herball are not original to Gerard. Nearly eighteen hundred prints come from Jacobus Theodorus’s Eicones Plantarum (1590). [7] 

Gerard was not the only one to borrow these illustrations. Many of the eminent botanists whom Gerard cites in his text (Matthiolus, Clusius, and Matthias De L’Obel) included Theodorus’s images in their own herbals. One of the only woodcuts Gerard does not borrow from Theodorus is that of the “Virginian Potato” or the common white potato. In fact, The herball is the first English text to document and illustrate the potato. [8]

The authority and expertise behind a work of natural history emerged out of scholarly collaboration. Renaissance scholars did not recognize “borrowing” as plagiarism to the same degree as modern-day academics. The first edition of Gerard’s work inherently depended on the research of other naturalists, both from England and Continental Europe. Gerard could not have compiled such an extensive herbal if he had to commission someone to carve nearly two thousand original woodcuts. Pragmatically, it made sense for Gerard to repurpose Theodorus’s prints.

Greek physicians, Theophrastus and Dioscorides, on The herball's frontispiece

The Influence of Print Culture on Works of Natural History  

Early Modern print culture was responsible for popularizing the herbal. Although herbals existed well before the Renaissance, the genre exploded in popularity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Bursting with illustrations of familiar and exotic specimens alike, herbals became reference textbooks for those interested in humeral theory and Galenic medicine. Because recommendations by fellow experts boost sales and readership, printers allowed prototype reviews in the forms of epigrams and dedications to be appended to primary publications. Without the existence of print culture, academic peer review would not have flourished into the field it is today. Print also prompted a proliferation of woodcuts. The frequent reproduction of diagrams reflected the visual literacy in Early Modern scholarship. It would have been almost impossible (and rather pointless) to publish visually-appealing herbals at a steady rate without relying on previous texts. Print allowed natural historians to collaborate with their peers and circulate their findings on domestic and international stages. While herbals are no longer popular today, they were critical to the development of modern scientific scholarship. Scientific findings may appear to exist on their own. However, Gerard’s herbal demonstrates they are in open discourse with longstanding and newly-emerging theories.

Works Cited 

Barlow, T. Worthington. Cheshire: Its Historical and Literary Associations, Illustrated in a Series of Biographical Sketches. Manchester: John Gray Bell, 1855.

Cooper, Charles Henry and Thompson Cooper. Athenae Cantabrigienses Vol. II: 1586-1609. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, and Co., 1861.

Gerard. John. The herball, or, Generall historie of plantes. London: A. Islip, J. Norton, R. Whittakers, 1633.

Goodwin, Gordon. “Herring, Francis (d. 1628), physician.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. September 23, 2004. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 13 February 2019.        http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-13095?rskey=juFxdx&result=1.

Pelling, Margaret, and Frances White. "BREDWELL, Stephen (Sen)." Physicians and Irregular Medical Practitioners in London 1550-1640 Database. London: Centre for Metropolitan History, 2004. British History Online. 24 March 2019. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/london-physicians/1550-1640/bredwell-stephen-sen. 

Raven, Charles E. John Ray: Naturalist, His Life and Works. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950.

Reader, John. Potato: A History of the Propitious Esculent. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.