SC - Re: Gerard's Herbal

[Gaylin Walli]

Lord Akim asked Lord Frederich:

>Did you get the full bells and whistles Dover edition (10 pounds or so
>& $100) or just the little Dover abridged version?

I think the bells and whistles edition weighs more than 10 pounds.
I know for a fact that a misbalanced copy can adequately flatten an
overweight cat when dropped from the height of a standard queen
sized mattress and boxspring. :)

Incidently, my copy only cost 60 dollars US including shipping
from Barnes and Noble online. Regrettably, not available at
their website at this time. However, copies do appear in a
quick search of the www.bookfinder.com site.

Frederich asked and Akim responded:

>  >>>>Question:  Are the Latin names he has given correct.  IE, could I start
>looking for modern plants my the family name?Subject: SC - Gerald's
>Herbal<<<<
>
>No, they are not at all accurate, or at least dependably accurate
>in a consistant manner.  Even contemporary taxonomy is still reclassifying
>and renaming species and reassigning families.  Any modern plant
>book over 10 years old is partially obsolete.

Keep in mind that the taxonomic difficulties may not have
been the problem of Gerard. The edition most commonly
used and quoted from and printed or abridged today is not
the edition written by Gerard. It is typically the 1636
edition of Thomas Johnson's expansion and edited version
of Gerard. A very large difference indeed. And the weighty
tome mentioned above does have some elaborate methods
of indicating exactly which pieces are original Gerard and
which pieces are those of Johnson's change or addition.

However, that having been said, I think all hope is not lost.
Take a copy of Gerard, a copy of Maude Grieve's Herbal
(out of period, but much closer to mundania) and a good
herbal written within the last 7 years and you're on your
way to a first draft taxonomic map. I would peronally add
Culpepper to that list between Gerard and Grieve just for
an added point of reference. (Note I'm only listing easily
accessible documents...)

Akim went on to say:

>The illustrations are often the
>only way to guess what they are talking about as they often are
>describing non-existant amd imaginary species based on legend and
>rumour.

I don't personally think Johnson's edition of Gerard is quite that
bad. Older herbals, yes.

Frederich further asked and Akim responded:

>  >>>>Has anyone ever gone through and listed his multi lingual references to
>things?  Looks like a good project if it has not been done.  Or looked up
>what modern equivalents are.<<<<
>
>I doubt that anyone has done so,

If you mean has anyone taken just that bit of the document out
and set it down with modern taxonimic classifications, then I
can give you a resounding "no" unless someone has managed
to sneak it by me. This statement of course puts me on
dangerous grounds, but I have been actively searching for it
for 15 years. It could have slipped by, but I've not seen it.
SO if anyone has seen it, I BEG YOU to allow me a peek at it.
*grin*

Akim stated:

>One must remember that Gerard
>plagurized the bulk of the work in The Herbal from translations
>of another work by another person.

More than one person (cf. the Agnus Castus manuscript and
its English translation from the University of Uppsula, as
well as the admittedly out of date work done by Agnes Arber
tracing early printed manuscript stemma and their sources).

>I have downloaded
>Stephen's files on herbs and have attempted to get some of those volumes to
>review.  My lady says I tend to over research things.   I welcome any
>further comments.

Both of you need to join us over on the herb list then like
Magdelena suggested. :)

>I have
>spent at least 15 years researching period sources and have
>compliled a rather lengthy (700-800 species) listing by Latin
>names and modern names of period trees, fruits, flowers
>and  vegetables.  [....] Regretably, the list is on my ancient Mac 
>hard drive and I have
>never transfered the data to my PC.

As a Machead who still owns one of the first 100 macs
ever made, let me be the first to very selfishly offer you
any and all help you will need transfering this information
into a format readible for Mac IBM/clone or Unix workstation.

>I have a hard copy around
>here somewhere, but I would have to photocopy it and send
>it to you via US Snail.

I suppose abject begging for an additional copy might
be unladylike, eh? :)

Cheers,

Iasmin "Who Pushed My Verbose Button?" de Cordoba
gwalli at infoengine.com

PS: Papa Gunther I'm horrible sorry about swinging
this off cooking, but my reasoning is that if a cook wanted
to use a plant, researching it in Gerard might be a good
place to go, and knowing Gerard's foibles would make
that research eversomuch stronger. :)