NATURAL HISTORY LORE AND LEGEND
NATURAL HISTORY
LORE AND LEGEND
BEING SOME FEW EXAMPLES OF QUAINT AND BY-GONE BELIEFS
GATHERED IN FROM DIVERS AUTHORITIES, ANCIENT AND
MEDIÆVAL, OF VARYING DEGREES OF RELIABILITY
BY
F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A.
AUTHOR OF
“WAYSIDE SKETCHES,” “SUGGESTIONS IN FLORAL DESIGN,” “FAMILIAR
WILD FLOWERS,” AND DIVERS OTHER BOOKS THAT NEED NOT
HERE BE SET FORTH
“As some delighte moste to beholde
Eche newe devyse and guyse,
So some in workes of fathers olde
Their studies exercise.”
_“Historicall Expostulation” of John Halle,
Chyrurgeon_, A.D 1565
BERNARD QUARITCH
15 PICCADILLY, LONDON
1895
LONDON:
G. NORMAN AND SON, PRINTERS, FLORAL STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
CONTENTS.
PAGES
CHAPTER I.
Mediæval naturalists honest searchers after truth—Sir
Emerson Tennant thereupon—Recent discoveries confirm many
statements once contested—“Travellers’ tales”—Mediæval natural
history largely based upon ancient—Difference of aim between
modern and ancient and mediæval nature-study—The moral
treatment—Illustrations from the “Speculum Mundi”—Falsification
of natural facts justified by the ecclesiastics—Ready credulity
a mediæval characteristic—Two examples thereof—The love of the
marvellous—Astrological influences—The mental equipment of a
mediæval surgeon—Quaint book titles—The unchanging East—Suttee,
Juggernaut, &c. in the pages of mediæval writers—The “Mirabilia
descripta” of Bishop Jordanus—The “Voiage and Travaile” of
Maundevile—The coca plant—Burton’s “Miracles of Art and
Nature,”—The “Historia Mundi” of Pliny—English editions
of it—Herodotus—The writings of Aristotle—The sources of
information in the Middle Ages—The praise of books—Books of
travel—Munster’s “Cosmography”—The interest and beauty of
old title-pages—Elephants in lieu of towns in the old maps—A
tale of a tub—Herbert’s “Some Yeares Travels into Africa and
Asia the Great”—The travels of Marco Polo—Geography of Peter
Heylyn—Raleigh’s, Hakluyt’s, Purchas’, Struys’, Acosta’s books
of travels—Medical books—Potter’s “Booke of Physicke”—Cogan’s
“Haven of Health”—Indifference to animal suffering—“Bestiare
Divin” of Guillaume—The “Bestiary” of Philip de Thaun—The
Armories of Guillim, Legh, and Bossewell 1-53
CHAPTER II.
The pygmies—Ancient and modern writers thereon—Conflicts
with the cranes—Counterfeits—Modern travel, confirming
the statements of the ancient geographers—Pygmy races now
existing—The “Monstrorum Historia” of Aldrovandus—Crane-headed
men—Men with tails—The Gorilloi—The dog-headed people—The
canine king—The many-eyed men—The giants of Dondum—The
snake-eaters—The Ipotayne—Mermaids—Syren myth—Storm-raisers—The
mermaids of artists and poets—Shakespeare thereupon—As
heraldic device—The mermaids of voyagers—The seal and walrus
theory—Mermaids in captivity—Mermaids as food—Counterfeit
mermaids—Mermaid in Chancery—The “Pseudodoxia Epidemica” of
Browne—Oannes or Dagon—Mermaids and Matrimony—Lycanthropy—The
“Metamorphoses” of Ovid—The fate of Lykaon—Nine years of
wolfdom—Wehr-wolves—Mewing nuns—Olaus Magnus—The doctrine of
metempsychosis—Influence of enchantment—The dragon maiden—The
power of a kiss—Witchcraft—Scot and Glanvil, for and against
it—The good old times 54-114
CHAPTER III.
The lion, king of beasts—Unbelievers in him—Aldrovandus on the
lion—The lion of the heralds—The “Blazon of Gentrie”—Guillim
as an authority—The lion’s medicine—The lion’s antipathies—Why
some lions are maneless—De Thaun’s symbolic lion—Lion’s cubs
born dead—The theory of Creation held during the Middle
Ages—Degenerate lions of Barbary—The Leontophonos—Hostility
between lion and unicorn—Literary references to the
unicorn—Martin’s “Philosophical Grammar”—How to capture
the unicorn—The value of the horn—The elephant—The capture
thereof—Feud between elephant and dragon—Use of elephant
in war—Performing elephants—Moon-worshippers—Knowledge
of the value of their tusks—The first elephant
seen in England—Sagacity of the elephant—Kindliness
to lost travellers—Ethiopian huntresses—Difference
between the creations of Fancy and of Nature—Elephants
cold-blooded—Hippopotamus prescribing himself blood-letting—The
river-horse of Munster—The panther—Powers of fascination—Beauty
of coat—Fragrance—Red panthers of Cathay—Aromatic spices
as diet—Antipathies between various animals—Antipathetic
medicines—Porta’s “Natural Magick”—The hyæna—Counterfeiting
human speech—The wolf—Producing speechlessness—The dragon’s
parentage—Enmity between wolf and sheep—Value of wolf-skin
garments—The stag-wolf—The bear—Licking cubs into shape—Bees
and honey—The hare—Cruelty of many mediæval remedies—The
hedgehog—The deer—Stories with morals—The boar—Swine-stone—The
ermine—The goat—The malevolent shrew-mouse—The horse—Why
oxen should drink before horses—The donkey—The sparrow’s
aversion—The dog—The cat—Rats and mice 115-199
CHAPTER IV.
The phœnix—Various ancient and mediæval writers thereon—The
Bird of Paradise—The Museum of Tradescant—The roc—The
barnacle goose—The eagle—Its power of gazing upon the sun—Its
keenness of vision—The pelican—The swan and its death song—A
favourite idea with the poets—Hostility between the swan and
the eagle—The ostrich—Its digestive powers—How its eggs are
hatched—The cock—Antipathy between lion and cock—Cock-broth
and cock-ale for invalids—Incorporation in man of various
valued animal characteristics—The stone alectorius—Animals
haled before the judges for offence against man—The deadly
cockatrice—Cock-crow—The “Armonye of Byrdes”—The raven—How
it became black—The raven-stone—The owl—The swallow—Sight
to the blind—Oil of swallows as a remedy—The robin and the
wren—Their pious care of the dead—The nightingale—The
doctrine of signatures—Thorn-pierced breast—Philomela—The
cuckoo—His voice-restorer—The peacock—Its pride and its
shame—The kingfisher—As a weathercock—Sir Thomas Browne
thereon—Halcyone—Halcyone days—The filial stork—The cautious
cranes 200-263
CHAPTER V.
Forms reptilian and piscine—The basilisk—Shakespeare and
Spenser thereupon—King of serpents—The dragon—Aldrovandus
thereon—The dragon-stone—The griffin—The scorpion—The
“Newe Jewell of Healthe”—Toads—Antipathy between toad
and spider—The toad-stone—How to procure it—The weeping
crocodile—Cockeram’s Dictionary—The treacherous seal—The
salamander—Its potent venom—Its home in fire—Prester John
and his kingdom—Pyragones—The chamæleon—Its changing
colour—Serpents from air—The gift of invisibility—The
serpent-stone—Theriaca—Viper-Broth—Antidotal herbs—The soil of
Malta—The deaf adder—The two-headed Amphisbæna—Aldrovandus on
serpents—Hairy serpents—The deadly asp—Monstrous snails—Snail
and spider remedies—Bees—Virgil on their production—Glowworm
ink—Marine forms the counterparts of those on land—The
sea-monk—The sea-bishop—The sus marinus—The brewers of
the storm—The hog-fish—The sea-elephant—The sea-horse—The
sea-unicorn—The remora—The dolphin, its special fondness for
man—Its love of music—Its changeful colouring—The acipenser—The
loving ray—The sargon—The friendship between the oyster and the
prawn—The voracious swam-fish—Leviathan—Cause of the crooked
mouth of the flounder—The healing tench—Fish medicaments—The
vain cuttle-fish—The fish that came to be eaten—Conclusion 264-339
INDEX 341-350
NATURAL HISTORY
_LORE AND LEGEND_
CHAPTER I.
Mediæval naturalists honest searchers after truth—Sir
Emerson Tennant thereupon—Recent discoveries confirm many
statements once contested—“Travellers’ tales”—Mediæval natural
history largely based upon ancient—Difference of aim between
modern and ancient and mediæval nature-study—The moral
treatment—Illustrations from the “Speculum Mundi”—Falsification
of natural facts justified by the ecclesiastics—Ready credulity
a mediæval characteristic—Two examples thereof—The love of the
marvellous—Astrological influences—The mental equipment of a
mediæval surgeon—Quaint book titles—The unchanging East—Suttee,
Juggernaut, &c. in the pages of mediæval writers—The “Mirabilia
descripta” of Bishop Jordanus—The “Voiage and Travaile” of
Maundevile—The coca plant—Burton’s “Miracles of Art and
Nature”—The “Historia Mundi” of Pliny—English editions
of it—Herodotus—The writings of Aristotle—The sources of
information in the Middle Ages—The praise of books—Books of
travel—Munster’s “Cosmography”—The interest and beauty of
old title-pages—Elephants in lieu of towns in the old maps—A
tale of a tub—Herbert’s “Some Yeares Travels into Africa and
Asia the Great”—The travels of Marco Polo—Geography of Peter
Heylyn—Raleigh’s, Hakluyt’s, Purchas’, Strays’, Acosta’s books
of travels—Medical books—Potter’s “Booke of Physicke”—Cogan’s
“Haven of Health”—Indifference to animal suffering—“Bestiare
Divin” of Guillaume—The “Bestiary” of Philip de Thaun—The
Armories of Guillim, Legh, and Bossewell.
In the following pages we propose to consider at some little length
the state of zoological knowledge in the Middle Ages, and in so
doing we shall, we doubt not, discover much of interest. While we
shall undoubtedly find from time to time strange errors that greater
opportunity of observation has in these latter days rectified, and
encounter many things that may provoke a smile, we must in the forefront
of our remarks very definitely assert that much of the literary work of
our ancestors in this branch of study is worthy of high commendation,
and that anything approaching scorn or sneer is entirely out of place.
Strange, indeed, would it be if the modern man of science, with all the
advantages of travel now so freely available, with the microscope, with
the great facilities for the interchange of ideas or of specimens with
kindred spirits, had not made a marked advance, but we can never look
upon the works of the greater writers of the mediæval period without the
utmost respect. The common people of that day were eagerly searching
after knowledge and the huge folios and encyclopædias that were freely
published are a monument of the diligence and painstaking zeal, of the
courage and enthusiasm of their teachers. That they made mistakes goes
without saying, but to the full extent of their light they were honest
seekers after truth.
While the statements of these early writers have been too frequently
dismissed as fabulous and unreliable, it is only just to them to recall
the fact that some of the details that have come into reproach have after
all been found authentic. Sir Emerson Tennant in his work on Ceylon
very justly observes that “we ought not to be too hasty in casting
ridicule upon the narratives of ancient travellers. In a geographical
point of view they possess great value, and if sometimes they contain
statements which appear marvellous, the mystery is often explained away
by a more minute and careful enquiry.” The Troglodytes mentioned by
Pliny, Aristotle and Herodotus yet exist in the Bosjesmen of to-day and
still preserve many of the peculiarities and customs that those early
writers described. Du Chaillu rediscovered the gorillas that Hanno, the
ancient Carthaginian, endeavoured to capture, and Stanley encountered
the pigmy tribes that are mentioned by travellers of a thousand years
before. We accept in full faith the statements of such men as Captain
Cook and Dr. Livingstone, and we may reasonably conclude that there have
been many other and earlier travellers as scrupulously truthful. There
have, undoubtedly, been travellers who have too credulously accepted
mere hearsay in place of actual observation, and these, whether ancient,
mediæval, or modern, are responsible for the stigma that has at times
attached to “Travellers’ tales”: all that we are at present careful to
assert is that the great bulk of travellers and authors in the Middle
Ages—as in all other ages—were neither the fools nor the knaves that the
malicious or the hypercritical would sometimes fain represent them.
We speedily find, on opening any of the books on natural history that
were issued in the Middle Ages, that such ancient writers as Pliny,
Aristotle, or Herodotus, and other venerable authorities are held in
great reverence, and that the prefatory “as Pliny saith” gives at once
dignity and authenticity to any statement advanced. Mediæval zoology is
no more independent of the gatherings of previous centuries than the
dogmas of nineteenth century Christianity are independent of the writings
of Isaiah.
In comparing ancient or mediæval zoology with modern, we are conscious
of a difference of aim and treatment. The study of the present day
is largely devoted to the life-history of the creatures themselves,
their structure, and so forth; while in former times the writer strove
ordinarily after an entirely different aim, thinking much less of these
external facts, but dwelling upon the value of the animal to mankind in
one of two directions. While we occasionally in books of travels have the
more modern and descriptive treatment, the main bulk of the writings on
animals in mediæval days had ordinarily one of two objects: the healing
of the body, or the saving of the soul. Hence the medical writers sought
anxiously for “the vertues” that indicated their value to suffering
humanity, and the theologians sought with equal zeal to implant a moral,
and if the facts in this latter case did not lend themselves very happily
to this treatment so much the worse for the facts.
As an illustration of this moral-pointing treatment we find in one of
these old writers that “polypus is a fish with many feet, and a rounde
head neare unto them: it is a great enemy to the lobster, and they can
often change their colour, and by that project devoure other fishes.
Their use and custom is to be lurking closely by the sides and roots of
rocks, changing themselves into the colour of the same thing unto which
they cleave: insomuch that they seem as a part of the rock; whither
when the foolish fish swim they fall into danger, for whilst they dread
nothing these polypodes suddenly prey upon them and devoure them. And
indeede this is the constancie and unfeared treacherie which is often
found in many men, who will be anything for their own ends. And nothing
without them: sparing none for their own purposes, nor loving any but
to effect them. Their heads, indeed, may well be neare their feet; for
they prize the trash we trample on farre above the joyes of heaven; else
they would never work their fond purposes by deceitfull meanes and damage
others to help themselves.” Another illustration of the same kind states
that “although the mole be blinde all her lifetime, yet she beginneth
to open her eyes in dying: whiche is a prettie embleme. This serveth
to decypher the state of a worldly man, who neither seeth heaven nor
thinketh of hell in his lifetime, untill he be dying: and then beginning
to feel that which before he either not believed or not regarded, he
looketh up and seeth. For even against his will he is then compelled to
open his eyes and acknowledge his sinnes, although before he could not
see them.” We have taken these two passages from the “Speculum Mundi,
or a Glasse representing the Face of the World, whereunto is added a
Discourse of the Creation, together with a Consideration of such things
as are pertinent to each dayes Worke.” It was written by one John Swan,
and the copy before us as we write bears date 1635.[1] It is a good
typical example of the theological treatment of natural history that was
long so much in vogue. Many parables and fables in like manner deal with
animals as so much raw material to be shaped to such moral end as the
narrator or writer pleases.
The idea that it was permissible to sacrifice a lower truth to gain a
higher one, and to make whatever modification was needed to turn a good
moral into one still better was very frankly held, as the goodness of
the intention was considered ample justification for any aberration from
the actual facts. Thus Hippeau writes: “N’oublions pas que les pères
de l’Eglise se préoccupèrent toujours beaucoup plus de la pureté des
doctrines qu’ils avaient à développer, que de l’exactitude scientifique
des notions sur lesquelles ils les appuyaient. L’objet important pour
nous, dit Saint Augustin, àpropos de l’aigle, qui disait on brise contre
la pierre l’éxtrémité de son bec devenue trop long, est de considérer la
signification d’un fait et non d’en discuter l’authenticité.” This simple
principle runs through the whole series of “Bestiaries” published under
ecclesiastical influence, and, while it gives them a special interest of
their own, deprives them of any scientific value.
The zoological lore of the mediæval writers was based, to some degree,
upon actual observation, but was still more often largely borrowed
from earlier writers, and was greatly influenced by various external
influences, such as astrology. It was, moreover, a very credulous age,
and men in all good faith wrote or read statements of wild improbability
or of absolute impossibility; statements, too, that could so readily
be brought to the test of experiment that one would have thought it
impossible to gain a week’s credence for them, and yet which are gravely
transferred from one book to another for centuries. Numerous examples
of such statements will necessarily crop up throughout our pages, but
we may by way of immediate illustration quote a couple. These are both
taken from a work entitled “Alberti Parvi Lucii Libellus de Mirabilibus
Naturæ Arcanis,” which was once very popular, was translated into French
and English, and held in high repute. We merely quote these instances
as we find them in the first book that comes to our hand; it would be
easy from a score of other books to give a hundred of like character.
The first of these would be invaluable to athletes if only it would bear
the test of experience. “Gather some of the herb called motherwort, when
the sun is entering the first degree of the sign of Capricorn: let it
dry a little in the shade, and make some garters of the skin of a young
hare; that is to say, having cut the skin of the hare into strips two
inches wide, double them, sew the before-mentioned herb between, and wear
them on your legs. No horse can long keep up with a man on foot who is
furnished with those garters.” There is evidently here an idea that the
speed of the hare can be somehow bestowed on the man who wears its skin,
and this notion of transfer crops up repeatedly in these old recipes.
Our next extract points to a time of some little peril, and gives
welcome means of avoiding the evils that might befall the traveller.
“Gather, on the morrow of All Saints, a strong branch of willow, of
which you will make a staff, fashioned to your liking. Hollow it out,
by removing the pith from within, after having furnished the lower end
with an iron ferrule. Put into the bottom of the staff the two eyes of a
young wolf, the tongue and heart of a dog, three green lizards, and the
hearts of two young swallows. These must all be dried in the sun between
two papers, having been first sprinkled with finely ground saltpetre.
Besides all these, put into the staff seven leaves of vervain, gathered
on the eve of St. John the Baptist, with a stone of divers colours,
which you will find in the nest of the lapwing, and stop the end of the
staff with a panel of box, or of any other material you please, and be
assured that this staff will preserve you from the perils which befall
the traveller, either from robbers, wild beasts, mad dogs, or venomous
animals. It will also procure you the goodwill of those with whom you
lodge.” The dread of mad dogs, of scorpions and other venomous creatures
seems to have been extreme in the Middle Ages, every medical book and
herbal abounding in preservatives from, and antidotes for, such perils
to the traveller. It will be noted in these and such like receipts that
no little amount of trouble was necessarily entailed in providing the
necessary ingredients, and in providing them at the special season that
increased their efficacy. The necessary items in the foregoing receipt,
a calendar to tell when the Saints’ days come round, a willow stick, a
wolf, two swallows, and a dog to be slain, lizards to be captured, paper,
saltpetre, iron ferrule and plug of box to be procured, vervain leaves
to be gathered, and lapwing’s nest to be found and ransacked, are really
few in number and easy of attainment compared to those required in many
preparations. In the famous vermifuge and antidote to all animal poisons
that was known as “Venice treacle,” there were seventy-three ingredients.
This was retained in the London Pharmacopeia up to little more than a
century ago. The fourteenth-century equivalent of the well-known legend
of the nineteenth-century chemist, “prescriptions carefully prepared,”
must have carried with it a tremendous responsibility in mediæval days.
Another potent influence with the older writers was the delight in what
is abnormal and wonderful, and here again a ready credulity found ample
material. The love of the marvellous is deeply engraved in human nature.
We may see abundant proof of this in such classic myths as the Sirens,
in the monstrous forms carved or depicted in the temples of Egypt or
Mexico, in the popularity of such books as the Arabian Nights’ Tales,
or the adventures of Gulliver or Munchausen down to the fearful joy of
the youngsters in the nursery in the sanguinary giant whose food was the
blood of Englishmen.
“Far away in the twilight time
Of every people, in every clime,
Dragons and griffins and monsters dire,
Born of water, or air, or fire,
Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage,
Through dark tradition and ballad age.”
The fell harpies, the monstrous roc, the death-dealing basilisk, the
phœnix, the chimæra, the monstrous kraken, the deadly cockatrice, the
fire-drake, dragon, half-man half-fish, the vulture-headed Nisroch, the
treacherous Lorelei, sweet Queen Mab of Fairyland, fiery dragons, ghastly
wehr-wolves, mermaids, centaurs, together with the great sea-serpent, the
toad embedded for countless centuries in the rock, and other wonders that
still turn up from time to time during the dull season in the newspapers,
are but a few examples that at once occur to one’s thoughts. Ovid and
Pliny in their day went to very considerable lengths to satisfy this
love of the marvellous; in the Middle Ages writers not a few discoursed
of dog-headed men, of pigmies, of “the anthropophagi, and men whose heads
do grow beneath their shoulders,” while no country fair in this present
year of grace would be considered by its patrons at all up to date unless
it included a giant and a dwarf, together with a two-headed calf, or some
such monstrosity.
The writings of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and other poets abound in allusions
to the folk-lore of the time. Thus in the lines—
“When beggars die there are no comets seen,
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes,”
we have an interesting reference to the old belief that all things,
terrestrial or celestial, were created for the service of man and were
profitable in some way or other to him. Much of the early medical
treatment was a strange mixture of astrological, zoological and botanical
lore. Thus Chaucer tells us of his Doctour of Phisik that—
“In al this world ne was ther non him lyk
To speke of phisik and of surgerye:
For he was grounded in astronomye.”
Not only did he put his trust in “drugges and letuaries,” but—
“He kepte his pacient wonderfully wel
In houres by his magik naturel.
Wel coude be fortunen the ascendent
Of his ymages for his pacient.”
We have seen that it was a necessary condition in the preparation of
the receipt that we have given that the sun should be in a particular
position in the heavens prior to gathering one of the ingredients,
and the saturnine, jovial, martial, or mercurial qualities of various
substances employed in the healing art owed their potency to a due regard
to the starry influences.
In a quaint old book “Imprinted in London at Flete Streate, nyghe unto
Saint Dunstones Churche,” by one Thomas Marshe, and published by him in
the year 1565, we have “goodlye Doctrine and Instruction necessarye to
be marked and folowed of all true chirurgeons, gathered and diligently
set forth by John Halle, Chyrurgeon,” under the title of “An Historicall
Expostulation against the Beastlye Abuses, both of Chyrurgerie
and Physicke in oure tyme.”[2] He sums up the requirements of the
“chyrurgeon” properly equipped for his work in the following lines—
“Not onlye in chirurgery
Thou oughtest to be experte,
But also in astronomye
Bothe prevye and aperte.
In naturall philosophye
Thy studye shoulde be bente:
To knowe eche herbe, shrubbe, root, and tree,
Muste be thy good intente.
Eche beaste and foule, wyth worme and fishe,
And all that beareth lyfe:
Their vertues and their natures bothe
With thee oughte to be rife.”
The acquisition of this varied fund of knowledge shall prove itself
enjoyable, helpful, and profitable, for—
“Whereby of knowledge and greate skill
Thou shalt obteine the fruit:
And men to thee in generall,
For helpe shall make their sute.”
One interesting result of searching in these old tomes is that amidst
much that the world has now outlived one often finds interesting
references that show how unchanging some customs are, and how some of the
things that we have regarded as recent discoveries were, after all, well
known centuries ago. It is somewhat startling, for instance, to see the
great African lakes—the Victoria and Albert Nyanza, and others that have
only comparatively lately been rediscovered—quite clearly marked in some
ancient maps; and the whole course of the Nile, from source to sea, as
definitely given as that of Thames or Tiber.
We speak of the “unchanging East,” and adopt the phrase with more or
less of thoughtful acquiescence, but it is distinctly interesting in the
pages of Jordanus, for example, to find the Parsee funeral customs and
the Tower of Silence thus referred to:—“There be pagan folk in this
India who worship fire; they bury not their dead, neither do they burn
them, but cast them into the midst of a certain roofless tower, and there
expose them totally uncovered to the fowls of heaven.” He was present
also at Suttee, for he says:—“I have sometimes seen for one dead man who
was burnt, five living women take their places on the fire with their
dead, and for the love of their husbands and for eternal life burn along
with them, with as much joy as if they were going to be wedded.”
This Jordanus was a missionary bishop in India. He was appointed to
the bishopric of Columbum by Pope John XXII., by a Bull bearing date
April 5th, 1330. There are indications that there was at that time a
considerable body of Christians at Columbum, but the locality is now
entirely unknown. Many conflicting theories have been held, and each
one demolished as hopeless by the holders of the others. His book,
entitled “Mirabilia descripta,” was written in Latin. “Like many other
old writers,” very justly observes Colonel Henry Yule, who published an
English translation of his book from which we quote, “whilst endeavouring
to speak only truth of what he had seen, Jordanus retails fables enough
from hearsay. What he did see in his travels was so marvellous to him
that he was quite ready to accept what was told him of regions more
remote from Christendom, when it seemed but in reasonable proportion more
marvellous.” Of the truth of this we shall doubtless find illustration
in subsequent references to his book.
Maundevile in like manner in his “Voiage and Travaile” gives us another
insight into the unchangeable nature of the customs of the East. We
recognize at once the sacrifice made to Juggernaut when we read that “at
the thronynge of the Ydole all the Contree aboute meten there to gidere:
and thei setten this Ydole upon a Chare with gret reverence, wel arranged
with Clothes of gold, of riche Clothes of Tartarye and other precyous
Clothes: and thei leden him aboute the Cytee with gret solempnytee. And
before the Chare gon first in processioun alle the Maydennes of the
Contree two and two to gidere, fulle ordynately. Aftre the Maydennes gon
the Pilgrymes. And sume of hem falle down undre the Wheles of the Chare
and let the Chare gon over hem, so that thei ben dede anon. And sume hav
here Armes or here Lymes alle to broken and sume the sydes: and alle this
done thei for love of hire God, in gret Dovocioun. And he thinkethe that
the more peyne, and the more tribulacioun that thei suffren for love of
here God the more ioye thei schulle have in an other World.” We read
also of the snake charmers, of the small misshapen feet of the Chinese
ladies, the talon-like nails of their lords and masters. He tells us too
of the incubation by artificial means, “withouten Henne, Goos or Doke
or ony other Foul,” of eggs “at Cayre,” which our readers will readily
recognize as Cairo. It will no doubt be remembered by many who may scan
these pages, how large a use the French made of pigeons, when, during the
siege of Paris in the Franco-German war, they desired to communicate with
the outside world, and this is clearly no new thing under the sun, for
Maundevile tells us that “in Judæa and other Contrees beyonde thei hav a
Custom, whan thei schulle usen Werre, and whan men holden Sege abouten
Cytee or Castelle, and thei with innen dur not senden out Messagers with
Letters for to aske Sokour thei bynden here Lettres to the Nekke of a
Colver[3] and leten the Colver flee, and the Colveren ben so taughte that
thei fleen with the Lettres to the verry place that Men wolde sende hem
to.”
As we shall from time to time have occasion to refer to Maundevile’s
book, we may, on this first mention of it, very advantageously introduce
some few details respecting it. The “Voiage and Travaile” of Sir John
Maundevile was professedly a book for the guidance of pilgrims and
travellers journeying to Jerusalem, but on the same principle that it
has been asserted that all roads lead to Rome so all seemed to have
centred in the capital of Judæa; hence his book is comprehensive enough
to include the “Marvayles of Inde,” and a very full description of China.
The book was one of the most popular works of the Middle Ages, and
passed through many editions both in England and on the continent,[4]
first in manuscript form and afterwards as a printed book. Of no book,
with the exception of the Scriptures, can more MSS. be found of the
end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century. Nineteen
manuscript copies of it, four being in Latin and nine in French, are in
the library of the British Museum, and others at Oxford, Cambridge, and
in various other libraries. In one of the copies in the British Museum, a
small vellum folio of the fourteenth century, its _raison d’être_ is thus
defined—“Here bygynneth the book of John Maundevile, Knyght of Inglelond,
that was y-bore in the toun of Seynt Albons, and travelide aboute in
the worlde in manye diverse countreis to se mervailes and customes of
countreis and diversiteis of folkys and diverse shap of men and of
beistis, and all the mervaill that he say he wrot and tellitte in this
book.” The book is made up from his personal experiences, supplemented by
gossip and hearsay, while at times he appropriated freely from the works
of other authors. Much of what he tells of China and India is markedly
similar, for instance, to the narrative of Friar Odoric, the narration
of whose travels in those lands was given to the world in the year 1331.
When Maundevile has an exceptionally improbable story to narrate he
evades personal responsibility by prefacing it with the formula, “thei
seyn.” He set out on his travels on Michaelmas day in 1322, and was
absent from England for thirty-four years, being “ravished with a mightie
desire to see the greater part of the world,” and in that lengthened
period of absence going far towards the attainment of his ideal.
As regards the mention by various old authors of divers things that we
have a way of considering quite recent discoveries we may give as an
illustration the coca plant. This has been within the last few years
brought to the front and highly commended as a stimulant, from its
undoubted power of enabling one to sustain strength and endurance during
any exceptional bodily exertion, but on taking down Burton’s “Miracles
of Art and Nature” from our bookshelf, we find that over two hundred
years ago (our copy is dated 1678) all this was as thoroughly known as it
is to-day. After mentioning in his description of Peru, divers curious
animals, he goes on to say—“Some as deservedly account the coca for a
wonder, the leaves whereof being dried and formed into Lozenges, or
little pellets, are exceedingly useful in a Journey: for melting in the
mouth, they satisfie both hunger and thirst, and preserve a man in his
strength and his Spirits in vigour: and are generally esteemed of such
Soveraign use that it is thought no less than 100,000 Baskets full of the
leaves of this tree are sold yearly at the Mines of Potosi only, each of
which at some other places would yield 12_d_ or 18_d_ apiece.”
Burton’s book, “Miracles of Art and Nature, or a Brief Description of
the several varieties of Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Plants, and Fruits of
other Countreys, Together with Severall Remarkable Things in the World,”
contains much curious and interesting matter, and we shall find occasion
to quote from it from time to time in our subsequent pages. The scope
and aim of the book may be very well gathered from the following extract
from the preface—“Candid Reader, what thou findest herein are Collections
out of severall Antient Authors, which (with no small trouble) I have
carefully and diligently Collected and Comprised into this small Book
at some vacant hours, for the divertisement of such as thyself, who are
disposed to read it: For the several Climates of the World, have not only
influenced the Inhabitants, but the very Beasts, with Natures different
from one another: So hast thou here, not only a Description of the
several Shapes and Natures of Variety of Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Plants,
and Fruits: but also of the Dispositions and Customs (though some of them
Barbarous and Inhuman) of severall People, who Inhabit many pleasing
and other parts of the World. I think there is not a Chapter wherein
thou wilt not find various and remarkable things worth thy observation:
and such (take the Book throughout) that thou canst not have in any one
Author, at least Modern, and of this Volume. ’Tis probable they are not
so Methodically dispos’d as some hands might have done: Yet for Variety
and Pleasure-sake, they are (I hope) pleasingly enough intermixed. And as
I find this accepted so I shall proceed. Farewel.” That the disposition
is not altogether methodical is speedily evident, as opening the book at
random we find chapters following each other on “Norwey, Assiria, Quivira
in California, Germany, Nova Zelina.”
The influence of Pliny is of immense weight with the writers of mediæval
days, and even when the well-used formula “as Pliny saith,” is not given,
anyone who is familiar with his labours will have no difficulty in
recognizing the utilization of his material by his successors. Thus Pliny
tells us that many wonderful things which he specifies are to be found in
Ethiopia, hence Ethiopia has been discovered by many subsequent writers
to be a marvellous land, and the wondrous things they detail of it have
strange similarity with those of the older writer. This need not in all
cases imply plagiarism; if a writer five hundred years ago, in describing
the Bay of Naples, introduced a volcano into his description, we do not
resent all subsequent writers on the subject also seeing it, but when an
ancient writer introduces a rank impossibility, and subsequent writers
see that too, we may reasonably assume that they have been borrowing.
As an illustration we may mention that we read in the pages of Pliny of
single-footed men who possess this solitary feature of so gigantic a size
that its owner utilizes it as a sunshade. Hence these people appear from
time to time in the pages of divers travellers. Maundevile, for instance,
without acknowledgment of the source of his information, which he allows
us to think is the result of his personal observation, tells us that “in
Ethiope ben many dyverse folk,” and goes on to specify that “in that
Contree ben folk that have but on foot: and thei gon so fast that it is
marvayle, and the foot is so large that it schademethe all the Body agen
the Sonne whanne thei wole lye and reste hem.”
That Pliny was at times imposed upon by his informants is sufficiently
obvious from the illustration that we have given, but when all deductions
have been made his work was a very wonderful and valuable one, and
a monument of painstaking industry, intellectual power and enormous
erudition. The great naturalist Cuvier, no mean authority, calls it “one
of the most precious monuments that have come down to us from ancient
times.” Buffon, no mean authority either, writes: “It is, so to say, a
compilation from all that had been written before his time: a record of
all that was excellent or useful: but his record has in it features so
grand, this compilation contains matter grouped in a manner so novel,
that it is preferable to most of the original works that treat upon
similar subjects.”
Seeing that it is the _fons et origo_ of so much subsequent work, we
may well devote some little space to its consideration, for mediæval
natural history is largely Pliny, either frankly acknowledged, boldly
appropriated without acknowledgment, or at least the nucleus around
which other observations of more or less value are gathered.
Pliny’s book is of the most comprehensive character, and even his table
of contents runs into many pages. This table would appear at the time of
its issue to have been almost a literary curiosity, as he prefaces it
by saying that “as you[5] should be spared as far as possible from all
trouble, I have subjoined the contents of the following books, and have
used my best endeavours to prevent your being obliged to read them all
through. And this, which was done for your benefit, will also serve the
same purpose for others, so that anyone may search for what he wishes,
and may know where to find it. This has been done before amongst us by
Valerius Soranus, in his book which he entitled ‘On Mysteries.’”
The following shortened list gives a notion of the general character
of the various sections of this _magnum opus_. After the first book,
which is occupied entirely by the elaborate preface to the Emperor, the
author plunges at once into his subject, and devotes the second book to
a general treatise on the elements and on the world and the heavenly
bodies. The third and fourth books describe the great bays of Europe,
while the fifth and sixth deal with Africa and Asia respectively. The
seventh book is entirely devoted to man, and the eighth and ninth are on
land and aquatic animals. The tenth treats of birds, and the eleventh
of insects. The attention of the author and reader is then turned to
matters botanical, and the twelfth book dwells upon odoriferous plants.
The thirteenth is occupied with the consideration of the various exotic
trees then known, while the fourteenth is devoted entirely to the vine,
and the fifteenth to fruit trees generally. In the next book, the
sixteenth, the author passes to a consideration of the various kinds of
forest trees, and in the following, the seventeenth, to the plants raised
in nurseries and gardens. The eighteenth book deals with the cultivation
of corn and the general pursuits of the husbandman. The treatise then
turns to economic and medicinal considerations, section nineteen taking
up flax and other commercial plants, and twenty dealing with the herbs
cultivated for food or medicine. The twenty-first and twenty-second are
somewhat æsthetic, and dwell upon the flowers and plants proper for
garlands. The twenty-third and twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth are devoted
to the medicines made from cultivated trees, forest trees, and wild
plants respectively. The twenty-sixth deals with new diseases and their
appropriate treatment by herbs, and the twenty-seventh is a continuation
and amplification of the twentieth. The twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth
are devoted to the medicines derived from animals, and the thirtieth
chapter deals with magic and the proper medicines for various parts of
the body. The thirty-first and thirty-second sections are given up to
the economic uses of various aquatic animals, one being entirely devoted
to their medicinal value, and the next to their general commercial
adaptability. The remaining chapters deal with the mineral kingdom, the
thirty-third chapter being given up wholly to gold and silver, and the
thirty-fourth to lead and copper. The thirty-fifth division is given
up to pictures and colours and the painters and users thereof. The
thirty-sixth chapter is occupied with marbles and various kinds of stone,
while the concluding section deals with gems.
It will thus be seen that the work is of the most comprehensive
character, and however far the world may since have travelled, and in its
revolutions disproved much that when this book was written was held to be
undoubted, the book nevertheless remains a noble monument of the zeal,
energy, and thirst after knowledge of its author.
Caius Plinius Secundus, ordinarily called the Elder to distinguish
him from his nephew, who was also an eminent man of letters, was born
at Verona or Como, A.D. 23. As the son of a Roman of noble family,
he was early devoted to a military career, and spent a considerable
portion of his life in the army, where he gained distinction in various
campaigns; and on his retirement from actual service, was appointed
by the Emperor Procurator of Spain. Though much occupied in public
work he was an enthusiastic student, and devoted all his intervals of
relaxation to literature. During dinner he was either being read to or
was busily engaged in taking notes, and when travelling his secretary
was in constant attendance upon him. Even while enjoying his bath, he
was busy dictating or imbibing knowledge. He was a tremendous worker,
and besides the “Natural History,” wrote a voluminous treatise on the
German Campaign and various other books. He fell a victim to his love
of science, as while commanding the fleet he was witness of the great
eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum, and while
making observations ashore he was overwhelmed in thick sulphurous vapour.
Pliny had an intense love of nature, and to his own researches he
added those of a great body of other observers, sifting with infinite
patience from their labours whatever he deemed of value, and accumulating
vast stores of observation. That he at times drew false conclusions
is sufficiently evident, but it is clearly not just to apply a
nineteenth-century standard to his labours. He gave credence to many
stories that have since been proved erroneous, but he always honestly
strove after truth. When he tells us, for example, that the appearance
of an owl is a portent of misfortune, he adds, “but I myself know that
it hath perched upon many houses of private men and yet hath no evil
followed.”
At the beginning of each book Pliny is careful to give the names of the
authors that he has consulted for it.[6] As the subjects that he treats
of are very varied the total list of authorities is very large. Some of
the names, such as Virgil, Archimedes, and others, are those of men still
held in reverence; while many are naturally now but little known, their
works having perished. As an illustration of the thoroughness of Pliny
in the matter we will give an illustrative list—that which precedes his
eighth book, dealing with land animals. He divides his lists always into
two sections, and commences with the authors of his own country. These
in this particular instance are Mutianus, Procilius, Verrius Flaccus, L.
Piso, Cornelius Valerianus, Cato the Censor, Fenestella, Trogus, Actius,
Columella, Virgil, Varro, Metellus Scipio, Cornelius Celsus, Nigidius,
Trebius Niger, Pomponius Mela, and Manlius Sura. His foreign authorities
are considerably more numerous, and are, naturally, most of them
Greek writers: Polybius, Onesicritus, Isidorus, Antipater, Aristotle,
Demetrius, Democritus, Theophrastus, Euanthes, Hiero, Duris, Ctesias,
Philistus, Architas, Philarchus, Amphilochus the Athenian, Anaxipolis the
Thasian, Apollodorus of Lemnos, Aristophanes the Milesian, Antigonus the
Cymæan, and twenty-three others, whom it is needless to add to the list,
as it is already quite long enough to illustrate the care with which
Pliny fortified his own knowledge with the best aid that he could procure.
Though, doubtless, in some cases, the bearers of these names were
travellers and others who contributed but one or two items to the store
of knowledge, the greater portion of the names are those of men who, to
the best of their ability, were endeavouring to penetrate the secrets of
nature. It is a striking fact that at this early period there should be
such a body of scientific opinion to draw upon. Pliny tells us that he
has dealt with twenty thousand subjects and that this has necessitated
the perusal of over two thousand books.
Though the quaintness of some of the ideas we encounter in Pliny raises
a smile, yet the real wonder is that he was able to produce a book so
excellent, and the more one reads of it the more this truth is impressed
upon one’s mind. In many of his ideas he appears to have been far in
advance of his age. Thus he distinctly declares that the world is round,
and gives lucid reasons for his statement, and in an age of abounding
polytheism, when temples innumerable each enshrined the image of some
deity, he had the courage to declare that “to seek after any shape of God
and to assign a form or image to him is a proof of man’s folly. For God,
wheresoever he be and in what part soever resident, all sense he is, all
sight, all hearing. He is the whole of the life and of the soul, and
to believe that there be gods innumerable, and those according to man’s
virtues, as chastity, concord, understanding, hope, honour, clemency,
faith, these conceits render men’s negligence the greater.”
The unchanging nature of the East that we have, already seen illustrated
by extracts from mediæval writers is even visible in the work of this
author of nearly two thousand years ago, for Pliny mentions the people
called Seres, beyond Scythia, who fly the company of other people and
who are famous for the fine silk that their woods yield. There can be
no reasonable doubt but that these exclusive folk were the Chinese. He
tells us that they collect this silk from the leaves of the trees, and,
having steeped it in water, card it: it being a very pardonable error to
conclude that this silk was the product of the tree itself rather than of
the silkworm that spun its cocoon amongst its foliage. The men have feet
of natural size, while the women’s are so small that Pliny’s informant
described them as ostrich-footed. Here we can scarcely doubt that the
strange custom of the Chinese in binding up the feet of the women is
referred to, and granting this it is an interesting proof of the great
antiquity of this barbarous proceeding.
In India, too, it was reported to Pliny that there were certain
philosophers who from sunrise to sunset persevere in gazing upon the
sun without once removing their eyes, and from morn to eve stand upon
one leg on the burning sand. It is remarkable to observe how exactly
these austerities and others of like severity and uselessness are still
practised by the Fakirs of India. He tells us too of others who had
strange influence over venomous serpents, doubtless the snake-charmers
whose descendants still exhibit their skill, and refers to the people
of India hunting and taming the elephants and using them as beasts of
burden, as valuable aids to locomotion and for purposes of war.
Pliny’s book has gone through many editions and translations. Of these we
need but mention that of Dalecamp in 1599; De Laet in 1635, Gronovius,
1669; Pinet, 1566; and Poinsinet de Sivri, 1771. An English version of
delightful quaintness of language and expression is the translation
issued by Dr. Philemon Holland in the year 1601. He is the only writer
who has given a complete rendering of Pliny’s book in English.[7] Bostock
also, in 1828, began a translation and issued the first and thirty-third
books as a specimen of a proposed rendering of the whole work. His death
prevented the accomplishment of the task. The reader in subsequent
passages will readily detect for himself from which source any quotation
we give is derived, as the diction of Holland is far more quaint and
old-fashioned than that of the later translator.
Several other writers of antiquity influenced the mediæval authors, but
it is scarcely necessary to detail their labours at any length, since
if they lived before Pliny he borrowed from them, and if they lived
afterwards they borrowed from him, so that we practically in Pliny get
the pith and cream of all. Herodotus, the “Historiarum parens,” as
Cicero terms him, was, we read, scarcely a historian, but one finds
divers passages from time to time in his descriptions of Egypt and other
lands that throw an interesting side-light on the natural history of the
country under consideration, and these have a certain value. A writer
of greater direct importance is Aristotle, one of the most illustrious
naturalists of antiquity. It will be remembered that his works supplanted
the love of gold, of sumptuous apparel, even the charms of music in the
breast of Chaucer’s philosopher, and formed an all-sufficient solace for
a light cash box, a sparse wardrobe, and the missing “fidel.” The passage
is interesting as it indicates the repute in which the works of the
ancient writer were held in the days of the poet:—
“For him was lever han at his beddes hed
A twenty bokes, clothed in black and red,
Of Aristotle, and his philosophie,
Than robes rich, or fidel, or sautrie,
But all be that he was a philosopher
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre.”
Aristotle had very exceptional opportunities of acquiring knowledge, as
his royal patron and friend, the potent Alexander the Great, was able
and willing to afford him aid that was invaluable to him. Thousands
of men, huntsmen, fishermen, soldiers in distant garrisons of his
far-stretching realm, by royal command were instructed to keep a keen
outlook, and to forward to Aristotle anything that was curious or rare,
or to procure him, if possible, any specimen he desired to possess. His
book “De animalibus,” though naturally not free from a certain amount of
error, and the intrusion of second-hand hearsay, is a mine of industry
and research and not unworthy of the special opportunities that gave it
birth.
In the study of our subject during the Middle Ages, several sources of
information are open to us. Of hooks on natural history, pure and simple,
there are none; their day was not yet. The love of nature for its own
sake was a later birth, but the books of travels often detail the zoology
and botany of the lands journeyed through. Then there are the medical
books, containing the most extraordinary remedies, or perhaps it would
be safer to say, prescriptions, for the ills of suffering humanity, and
which more or less fully describe the source and origin of the various
ingredients in their gruesome pharmacopœia, and with these we may class
the books on social economics, dealing with gastronomy, gardening, the
distillation of essences, and so forth, and which necessarily deal in
some degree with the life-history of the materials that are introduced.
In addition to these we have what are termed bestiaries, books that treat
the animals and plants as so many lay figures to be clothed upon with
any moral that, with often scant regard to facts, will serve to enforce
a dogma. To these must be added the armories or books on heraldry,
where the lions, elephants, bears, and other devices of blazonry, are
often very quaintly and graphically described for the benefit of those,
doubtless a considerable majority, to whom they were little more than a
name; or to whom, if they had seen them at the Tower of London in the
royal collection, further information on creatures so strange was of
great interest. In addition to these sources of instruction of more or
less value we may fitly refer to the writings of the poets, since in the
pages of Chaucer, Shakespeare and the lesser lights of poesy are abundant
allusions to the beliefs of the time, in this as in other directions, and
many of these are of great interest and value.
“Oh for a booke and a shady nooke
Eyther in doore or out,
With the greene leaves whispering overhead,
Or the streete cryes all about;
Where I maie reade all at my ease,
Both of the newe and old,
For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke
Is better to me than golde.”[8]
It must surely have been of some quaint book of travel that this old
English song-writer was thinking when he thus discoursed on the pleasant
debt we owe to books, when in the stirring days of Frobisher, Drake and
Raleigh, men’s minds were expanding to all sorts of possibilities, and
they read with avidity of the Eldorado of the west, and of the headless
men, or those whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. Such as were
in all good faith held to be fairly represented by our illustration (fig.
1) from one of these old books. The writers of the day described too the
wondrous creatures that peopled the torrid plains of Africa or India, or
the lands of Prester John, or far Cathay; where so many things were new
and true and wonderful that it seemed as if all things were possible, and
a mermaid no more an unreasonable probability than a milkmaid.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
Of Maundevile we have already made mention. It would be manifestly
undesirable to dwell at the length that the ample materials to hand would
permit. We will mention but one or two other books as samples of the bulk.
Munster’s “Cosmography” is a book that all bibliophiles whose
tastes incline in this direction should see. Sebastian Munster, the
learned author, died of the plague at Basel in the year 1552, at the
comparatively early age of sixty-three, almost immediately after he had
completed his book. The copy before us we see was published at Basel in
the year of his death. Everyone consulting such a book should always
begin at the very beginning, as the old titles, as we have already
indicated, are often full of interest and beauty. In the instance before
us the centre of the page is filled up with the title, given with that
elaborate fulness that is so characteristic of early books. The upper
part of the page is devoted to the secular and spiritual princes of the
Roman Empire, the former crowned, the latter wearing their mitres, and
each having a shield of arms. Amongst the secular princes we find those
of Cyprus, Ungar, Sicilia, Bohem, Neapol and Polon. The sides of the page
are taken up with panels containing the rulers of Turkey, Tartary and
such-like outlandish places, and at the bottom is a very comprehensive
picture indeed. In the foreground, resting against a tree, is a man in
grievous extremity, naked and forlorn, and to him advances a warlike
savage with bow and arrow and, worse still, a manifest inclination to
use them to the detriment of the traveller. Behind the prostrate figure
is an elephant, while in rear of the savage are three trees, marked
respectively Piper, Muscata and Gariofili. In the background is a river,
or arm of the sea, from which dolphins emerge, and on the further shore
are two towns and a range of mountains.
The book is very freely illustrated with maps, portraits, pictures of
towns, animals, plants, and so forth. Some of the figures are really
very good; there is one of the Moufflon, for instance, that is full
of character and truth, while others are hopelessly wrong. The same
pictures come over and over again at intervals in the text, thus a man
with a great sword going to chop off the head of a man kneeling before
him, stands for martyrdom or the doom of the traitor, and reappears
impartially on all occasions where the text suggests such ideas. The
same battle-scene often crops up to illustrate the various conflicts
described, and there is a standard figure of a bishop with mitre and
pastoral crook that serves as a portrait of divers ecclesiastics. The
same lantern tower that does duty for Lucerne reappears for Alexandria.
It argues a quaint simplicity all round when the author could gravely
furnish and his readers as gravely accept these few stock illustrations
for all the varying conditions.
It is very interesting to see that in the map of Africa[9] the Nile takes
its rise from three large lakes far south of the equator, but the map
of the world is an extraordinary production, and shows, sources of the
Nile notwithstanding, a strange ignorance of elementary facts. The South
Atlantic is almost entirely filled up from Brazil to Africa by a great
sea monster. In the map of Africa a gigantic elephant is introduced, a
proceeding that was rather popular with these older writers, and which
is satirized in the well-known lines of Swift—
“So geographers, in Afric maps,
With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o’er inhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.”
Even in the days of Plutarch a kindred device was not unknown, as we
find him in the “Theseus” writing, “as geographers crowd into the edges
of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding
notes in the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but
sandy deserts full of wild beasts and unapproachable bogs.” Elsewhere in
this map of Africa we see trees with enormous parrots (miles long if we
judge them by the general scale of the map) perched in their branches,
and the reputed home of the monoculi, the one-eyed men, is indicated
by the introduction of one of them. In South America in the same way
the home of the Canibali is marked by a hut of tree trunks and branches
from which hang suspended, as in a larder, a human leg and a man’s head.
Many old beliefs obtain curious illustration, thus in one of the quaint
pictures we see a man using the divining rod to detect subterranean
water. That Swift knew the book seems probable from his happy allusion
to the elephants in lieu of towns, and this probability grows almost
into a certainty, when we read, in his “Tale of a Tub,” his assertion
that sea-men have a custom, when they meet a whale, of flinging him out
an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from doing damage to
the ship. In the “Cosmography” there is the picture of a ship to which a
whale is approaching somewhat too closely for the nerves of the crew, and
they are, therefore, represented as throwing a tub overboard for it to
play with. Neither the substitution of elephants for towns nor the notion
of the ship-preserving tub are, however, the exclusive copyright of the
Munster limners. The former are seen in various other old maps and the
tub incident is introduced into the “Ship of Fools” and other old books.
The great value of these monsters, terrestrial or marine, in filling up
bare spaces, and in giving an additional interest and reality, may be
very well seen in the accompanying illustration (fig. 2)—a view of the
Azores, where the strange water-monster fills up very adequately indeed
a space where Nature failed to deposit an island. It is impossible to
decide its species; at first sight it suggests the notion of a sawfish or
water-unicorn. The old draughtsman was unwilling that any of it should
be lost to us, so instead of placing it in the water, it, with perhaps
the exception of the missing lower jaw, is entirely on the surface. The
mysterious something that crosses it suggests the idea that the creature
is going bathing, and has thrown its towel, schoolboy-fashion, over its
back; but on fuller reflection we take it that that is meant to indicate
the wave and turmoil that the creature makes in the otherwise placid sea
as it rushes through it, or rather over it.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
The figure is a facsimile of a drawing of a portion of the Azores, St.
George and Flores being omitted by us. It is extracted from Sir Thomas
Herbert’s book, “Some Yeares Travels into Africa and Asia the Great,
especially the famous Empires of Persia and Industant.” The edition
we consult was printed in London in the year 1677. After the usual
dedicatory letter we find the following appeal to the reader:—
“Here thou at greater ease than he
Mayst behold what he did see;
Thou participat’st his gains,
But he alone reserves the pains.
He travell’d not with lucre sotted,
He went for knowledge, and he got it.
Then thank the Author: thanks is light,
Who hath presented to thy sight
Seas, Lands, Men, Beasts, Fishes, and Birds,
The rarest that the world affords.”
Personally we have much pleasure in paying the suggested tribute of
courteous thanks, and we think that any of our readers who may encounter
the book will in like manner confess their obligations to the old writer
for his labours. We would fain hope that the trip had many brighter spots
in it than he seems quite willing to allow.
It has been the custom with many writers to depreciate the labours of
Marco Polo,[10] and to impute to him a lack of trustworthiness; but it
appears to us, after a careful perusal of his book, that such censure
is scarcely deserved. He made mistakes, but he is poles asunder from
such writers as Maundevile or Pinto.[11] His travels in the east are
narrated with much fidelity, and are almost entirely free from the gross
misstatements that are met with so freely in many books of travel, not
only at this early date but for centuries afterwards. The original was
probably written in the Venetian dialect, but the earliest manuscript now
known, that of 1320, is in Latin. A copy of this is in the magnificent
library of the British Museum, another is in the Royal Berlin Library,
another in the Paris Library, and some few others are in private
collections. Other MSS. of it exist, and it was also freely printed on
the advent of the printing press, as for instance, at Basle in 1522; in
Venice in 1496, 1508, 1597, and 1611; in Brescia in 1500; Paris, 1556;
Nuremberg, 1477; Strasburg, 1534; Leipzig, 1611; Lisbon, 1502; Seville,
1520; London, 1597, 1625; Amsterdam, 1664. As these various editions were
in the languages of the respective places of publication it indicates
a widespread interest, and it may be taken as a proof, too, that the
book was held to possess solid value: no book of the Munchausen type can
show such a record as this. An excellent English edition, very freely
illustrated by notes, is that of William Marsden, published in 1818: to
this the editor prefixes a very complete biography of the old author.
Master Peter Heylyn, geographer, who flourished during the reigns of
Charles I., Cromwell, and Charles II., tells us of many marvellous
journeys in his volume, and introduces much that is curious in his notes
of the natural history of the countries visited. India was in those days
an inscrutable and little-known land, where the wildest imagination had
full play and was in but little danger of being dispossessed by cold
reality. Wonderful, however, as the tales were that came to Heylyn’s
ears he found some of them almost beyond credit, and after telling us
of “men with dogges heads: of men with one legge onely, of such as live
by sent; of men that had but one eye, and that in their foreheads; and
of others whose eares did reach unto the ground,” he is careful to
add—“But of these relations and the rest of this straine I doubt not
but the understanding reader knoweth how to judge and what to believe.”
He tells us, too, of an Indian people that by eating dragon’s heart and
liver attain to the understanding of the languages of beasts, who can
make themselves, when they will, invisible, and who have “two tubbes,
whereof the one opened yields winde, and the other raine,” but here, too,
he hesitates to take the responsibility of these tales and leaves their
credence or rejection to the faith or scepticism of his readers. In the
Moluccas, too, he hears of many wonders: a river, for instance, that is
plentifully stored with fish, yet the water so hot that it immediately
scalds the skin off any beast that is thrown into it; of men with
“tayles”; of fruit, that whosoever eateth shall for the space of twelve
hours be out of his wits; of “a tree which all the day-time hath not a
floure on it, but within half an hour after sunne-set is full of them.”
These, however, and several other wonders of the land, he concludes by
embracing in one simple category—“All huge and monstrous lies.” He tells
of a people of Libya, the Psylli, so venomous in themselves that they
could poison a snake! One can fancy the immense disgust of some poisonous
reptile of death dealing powers when he found that he had at length met
more than his match, and that his attempt on the life of one of these
very objectionable Libyans was recoiling with fatal effect upon himself.
The America of those days was a very different place from the America of
to day. Primeval forest covered much of the land, the red man and the
buffalo were in full possession, and the pilgrim fathers had but lately
landed on its shores from the little “Mayflower.” As the remote is always
associated with the wonderful, and monstrosities and marvels flourish in
such congenial soil, Heylyn finds in America no less than in Asia and
Africa a rich crop of marvels. Into these we need not, however, go; those
who care to seek out this old author will find much of quaint interest,
tradition blending with solid history and fable with fact in his pages.
Sir Walter Raleigh’s book on Guiana—“The discoverie of the large,
rich and bewtiful Empire of Gviana, with a relation of the great and
golden City of Manoa, which the Spaniards call El Dorado, performed
in the year 1595,” gives much curious information, and should not be
overlooked. We may read in it of the Amazons, the Cannibals, the headless
people, and other strange creatures of this wondrous land. Hakluyt’s
blackletter folio, “The Principal Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries
of the English Nation, made by Sea or over Land to the most remote and
farthest distant Quarters of the earth at any time within the compasse
of these fifteen hundred yeeres,” published in 1589, and “Purchas his
Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World, Asia, Africa, and America, and
the Hands adiacent,” published in London in the year 1614, are both
quaint and interesting old books. Struys’ “Perillous and most Unhappy
Voiages through Moscovia, Tartary, Italy, Greece, Persia, and Japan,” is
another delightful old volume. It was published in the year 1638, and is
illustrated by divers curious plates. To this list we need only add the
“Natvrall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies,” by Joseph
Acosta, published in 1604, and “Intreating of the Remarkable things of
Heaven, of the Elements, Mettalls, Plants, and Beasts which are proper
to that Country.” Where we have given a date it is simply that of the
copy that has come under our own cognisance; many of those works were of
sufficient popularity to run through several editions, sometimes several
years apart; still the dates we give will afford an approximate notion
of the age of the books in question. This slight sketch of mediæval books
of travel might very readily be extended; we do but introduce them as
illustrations and samples of the mass of material available.
The medical treatises of our forefathers were very numerous. Such books
as Potter’s “Booke of Phisicke and Chirurgery,” or Cogan’s “Haven of
Health,” may advantageously be consulted. The copy of the first of these
that lies open before us as we write is dated “the yeare of our Lorde
God, 1610,” and like almost all these old books is more or less of a
compilation, full of divers interesting matters “necessary to be knowne
and collected out of sundry olde written bookes.” Cogan is very frank
on this point. He says, “Yet one thing I desire of all them that shall
reade this booke; if they finde whole sentences taken out of Master
Eliot his Castle of Heath, or out of Schola Salerni, or any other author
whatsoever, that they will not condemne me of vaine glorie, as if I meant
to set forth for mine owne workes that which other men have devised; for
I confess that I have taken verbatim out of other wher it served for my
purpose, but I have so interlaced it with mine owne, that (as I think)
it may be the better perceived, and therefore seeing all my travaile
tendeth to common commodity I trust every man will interpret all to the
best.” His statement that his ingenious interweaving of other men’s work
with his own makes the plagiarism and appropriation the more readily
detected, is somewhat difficult to follow.
Cogan did, however, plagiarism notwithstanding, take up a somewhat
special ground that supplied the _raison d’être_ of his book, since he
tells us that “it was chiefly gathered for the comfort of students, and
consequently of all those that have a care for their health.” There
are repeated references to the Oxford scholars: thus, under the head
of quinces he gives a receipt for marmalade, “because the making of
marmalade is a pretty conceit, and may perhaps delight some painefull
student that will be his own Apothecarie.” Elsewhere we are told of
“Cinamon-water” that “it hath innumerable vertues, wherefore I reckon it
a great treasure for a student to have by him in his closet, to take now
and then a spoonfull.” One gets some interesting side-light thrown on the
University life of that day—Cogan’s book we may mention was published
in 1636,—as for instance when we are told that “when foure houres bee
past after breakefast a man may safely take his dinner, and the most
convenient time for dinner is aboute eleaven of the clocke before noone.
At Oxford in my time they used commonly at dinner boyled beefe[12] with
pottage, bread, and beere and no more. The quantitie of beefe was in
value one halfepenny for one man, and sometimes if hunger constrained
they would double their commons.” Judging by the “battels” we have had
the felicity of paying we may take it that this tariff has undergone
considerable alteration since 1636.
The working and superintendence of the printing press has up to
comparatively recent years been considered such essentially masculine
labour that it is rather curious to find on the title-page of Cogan’s
book that it was “printed by Anna Griffin for Roger Ball, and are to be
sold at his shop without Temple-Barre at the Golden Anchor.”
As the ingredients used as remedies by our ancestors came largely from
the animal and vegetable kingdoms, we get in these medical works a good
deal, indirectly, of natural history lore. Thus Cogan strongly commends
the eating of cabbage leaves as a “preservative of the stomache from
surfetting and the head from drunkennesse.” “Raw Cabage with Vinegar so
much as he list.” The philosophy of the thing is that “the Vine and the
Coleworts be so contrarie by Nature that if you plant Coleworts neare to
the rootes of the Vine of it selfe it will flee from them, therefore it
is no maruaile if Coleworts be of such force against drunkennesse.” Macer
tells of the virtue of fennel as a restorative of youth, and bases his
treatment on the assertion that “Serpentis whan thei are olde and willing
to wexe stronge, myghty, and yongly agean thei gon and eten ofte fenel
and thei become yongliche and myghty.” Coles, in his “Adam in Eden,”
commends the Eyebright as a remedy for weak eyes, on the all-sufficient
ground that goldfinches, linnets, and other birds eat of this plant to
strengthen their sight.
Many of these prescriptions of our grandfathers’ great-grandfathers would
have supplied ample justification for action on the part of the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, had so invaluable a society
been extant in those good old times of bull-baiting, cock-throwing
brutality. Thus, in one remedy, the first step is to “take a red cock,
pluck him alive, and bruise him in a mortar,” in another we must take a
cat, cut off her ears and tail and mix the blood thereof with a little
new milk, while the victim to tight boots must find relief for his
blistered heel by skinning a mouse alive and laying the skin, while
still warm, upon the injured spot. Scores of such instances of selfish
indifference to suffering could readily be adduced.
We need scarcely pause to dwell on books dealing with cookery,
distillation, gardening, and such like household economics, though it
will be readily seen how in these again the natural history knowledge—or
want of it—of our ancestors finds room for its display, but pass on to
the books that deal with animals and the works of nature generally, from
the theological point of view.
The “Bestiare Divin” of Guillaume, a Norman priest, is a very good
example of the attempts that were made by the ecclesiastics to show that
all the works of Nature were symbols and teachers of great Divine truths.
The MS. of Guillaume dates from the thirteenth century, and is at present
preserved in the National Library in Paris. The work has been very well
reproduced in a French dress by Hippeau, a compatriot of the author
of it. The statements of the compiler of such a book as the one under
consideration are essentially unreliable, since it was very difficult for
him to ascertain the truth, and he had in addition no great desire to be
literally exact, and was at any moment prepared to sacrifice the actual
facts for what he would consider a higher stratum of truth. He could
not be accurate if he would, and would not if he could. Hence Hippeau,
in estimating the value of the book, very justly says: “N’oublions pas
que les pères de l’Eglise se préoccupèrent toujours beaucoup plus de la
pureté des doctrines qu’ils avaient à développer, que de l’exactitude
scientifique des notions sur lesquelles ils les appuyaient;” and we have
already seen that Augustine considered the significance that could be
wrung out of a statement of very much more importance than any adherence
to the facts of the case. “Dans la vaste étendue des Cieux, au sien des
mers profondes, sur tous les points du globe terrestre, il n’est par un
phénomène, pas une étoile, pas un quadrupède, pas un oiseau, pas une
plante, pas une pierre, qui n’éveille quelque souvenir biblique, qui
ne fournisse la matière d’un enseignement moral, qui ne donne lieu à
quelqu’effusion du cœur, qui n’ait à révéler quelque secret de Dieu.”
It is evident that whatever of value or interest may be evolved on the
strength of such sentiments, the result can hardly be called natural
history—a decision that we have already arrived at in our consideration
of the “Speculum Mundi.”
The “Bestiary” of De Thaun is a book of like nature. Only one copy of the
MS. is known, that in the Cottonian collection. Of another of his books,
the “Livre des Creatures,” seven copies are extant. The author had as
his great patron Adelaide of Louvain, the second queen of Henry I. of
England, and to her he dedicated his books. The language in which they
are written is very archaic, but an excellent reproduction of the book
for English readers has been made by Thomas Wright, F.S.A. We give six
lines as an illustration of the original MS., and of its rendering into
the rugged English that best gives its character:—
“En un livre divin, que apelum Genesim,
Iloc lisant truvum que Dés fist par raisun
Le soleil e la lune, e estoile chescune.
Pur cel me plaist à dire, d’ico est ma materie,
Que demusterai e à clers e à lai,
Chi grant busuin en unt, e pur mei perierunt.”
“In a divine book, which is called Genesis,
There reading, we find that God made by reason
The sun and the moon, and every star.
On this account it pleases me to speak, of this is my matter,
Which I will show both to clerks and to laics,
Who have great need of it, and will perish without it.”
As an example of moral-making we may instance “the ylio, a little beast
made like a lizard,” and which we imagine must be the salamander. De
Thaun says that “it is of such a nature that if it come by chance where
there shall be burning fire it will immediately extinguish it. The beast
is so cold and of such a quality that fire will not be able to burn where
it shall enter, nor will trouble happen in the place where it shall be. A
beast of such quality signifies such men as was Ananias, as was Azarias,
as was Misael: these three issued from the fire praising God. He who has
faith only will never have hurt from fire.” Of the Aspis he tells us
that “it is a serpent cunning, sly and aware of evil. When it perceives
people who make enchantment, who want to take and snare it, it will stop
very well the ears it has. It will press one against the earth: in the
other it will stuff its tail firmly, so that it hears nothing. In this
manner do the rich people of the world: one ear they have on earth to
obtain riches, the other Sin stops up: yet they will see a day, the day
of Judgment. This is the signification of the Aspis without doubt.” In
like manner a moral is tacked on to every creature, and all creation is
shown to be a text-book wherein man may read to some little degree of the
mercy, but much more fully of the penal judgments, of the God the writer
thus blindly professes to honour.
The old Armories are a very happy hunting ground for the student
who would learn somewhat of the beliefs of our ancestors on matters
zoological and botanical, as the writers while introducing the various
creatures and plants as charges often take the opportunity to add a few
explanatory details for the benefit of those to whom they were unknown.
Guillim’s book, “A Display of Heraldrie, manifesting a more easie accesse
to the knowledge thereof than has beene hitherto published by any,” is a
mine of wealth on this score. The original edition appeared in the year
1611, but it was a very popular work for a long time, and other copies
bear the dates 1632, 1638, 1660, 1679, and 1724. Another interesting
book of the same class was the “Accedence of Armorie” of Legh, a
considerably earlier work, as it first appeared in 1562. This also was a
very favourite book and was very frequently reprinted, as for instance
in 1568, 1576, 1591, 1597, &c. It is nevertheless now a rare book.
Bossewell’s “Works of Armorie,” and many other quaint old volumes of
this character might readily be dwelt on, but our aim is but to mention
some few books in each section, and we care not to make our list either
exhaustive or exhausting.
Having then dwelt at some little length upon various books from which
we shall have occasion later on to draw illustrations, we propose now
to deal with some few of the creatures more or less familiar to these
old writers, commencing with mankind and touching successively upon
beasts, birds, fishes, and, finally, reptiles. Guillim in his book
before mentioned greatly prides himself upon his “method.” For this he
claims credit over and over again. “Whosoever,” he says, for example,
“shall address himself to write of Matters of Instruction, or of any
other Argument of Importance, it behoveth him that he should resolutely
determine with himself in what Order he will handle the same, so shall he
best accomplish that he hath undertaken, and inform the Understanding and
help the Memory of the Reader.” In the spirit of this teaching we would
humbly desire to walk, and having quite resolutely determined the order
of our going we will endeavour so far as in us lies to make our labour a
profit to those who honour us with their perusal.