Text and Images in Herbal Trinity College MS O.2.48
Cambridge, Trinity College MS O.2.48 is a manuscript herbal that was probably created in Southern Italy in the XIII or XIV Century (for a slightly longer introduction, see this post).
Together with other texts that also appear in other manuscripts, the Trinity ms contains an extensive herbal in which plants are described according to a more or less fixed format:
- Common name of the plant, Hebrew name and Greek name. Until now, I have been unable to make much sense of these names. One would expect the common names to be Latin or Italian, but they are not. The Greek names do not look like Greek either. I know too little of Hebrew to say anything about these names, but I suspect they are problematic as well.
- Description of various parts of the plant: leaves, flowers and root (usually in this order), sometimes seeds and fruits. Each part is often described with reference to another plant — e.g. “leaves similar to Apium.” Some descriptions mention abstract geometrical shapes or non-vegetable analogues: e.g. “triangular leaves”, “root shaped like a scorpion”.
- Medical and magical recipes.
- The time of the year when to collect the plant.
For instance, the following is the text in the bottom half of f155r:
Transcription: Nomen herbae Acolumbir, Graeci Ereth, Ebrayci Vanas. Nascitur in Modinia[?] et Arabia. […] Caules tenues, violacei, in summo florem violaceum formatum in modo corniolae […]. Semen parvum, inclusum, nigrum, lucidum, rotundum. Folia similia apio aquatico. Radicem […] croceam formatam in modo scorpionis. In qua radice invenitur quidam vermiculus parvus similis musce grosse et est viridis. Illud vero in collo in suspensum ab omni terrore[?] bestiarum erit tutus. Radix vero in collo similiter[?] suspensa lunaticum sanat. In domo suspensa demones fugat. Et commesta trita in cibis scrupulus i omnem crepaturam sanat in dies iii. Semen vero tritum et cum vino sumptum drachmas i hominem iucundum et hilarem reddit et canum non permittit esse. […] Lege eam mense Octobre et Novembre.
Translation: The name of the plant is Acolumbir, Ereth in Greek, Vanas in Hebrew. It grows in Medina[?] and in Arabia. The stems are thin, purple, having at the tip a violet flower shaped like a small horn [or an “autumn rose” — coroniola?]. The seed is small, enclosed, black, shiny and rounded. The leaves are like those of water Apium. The root is yellow and shaped like a scorpion; inside it, you can find a green worm, similar to a large fly. Wearing it at your neck, you will be safe from all fearful beasts. Similarly, wearing the root at your neck, heals lunacy. If hang up inside a house, it puts daemons to flight. One scruple ground and eaten mixed with food heals all ulcers[?] in three days. One dram of the seed, ground and taken with wine, makes a man pleasant and cheerful and does not allow [hair] to whiten. Collect it in the months of October and November.
In this case, the flower is compared with that of a plant named “corniola”. This could be a plant whose flower has a small horn (“cornu” in Latin), like Delphinium in the Naples Dioscorides), or a reference to some kind of autumn rose that Pliny called “coroniola”. The flowers in the illustration do feature a “small horn” in one of the lower petals.
The leaves are described as similar to Apium. In the illustration, they are represented as green flowers with dentate petals.
The root is described as similar to a scorpion. The illustration represents it as a lizard (which in the middle-ages was believed to belong to the same family as scorpions).
Searching through the manuscript for other plants described as having Apium-like leaves shows that the illustrations use exactly the same “green flower” in several cases (the following only are a few examples).
In addition to “corniola” in 155r, the paragraphs corresponding to the above illustrations describe the flowers as similar to:
154r top: a panicle (“panax”), or the flower of millet (“panicum”).
157r top: lily (“lilium”)
249r top: wild sage (“centumgalli”)
Similarly, the millet-panicle shape occurs in several plants.
In addition to Apium in 154r, here the leaves that accompany the panicle are described as:
130r: star-shaped (“stella”). This is an example of a non-botanical description for a leaf-shape. Interestingly, the common name of the plant is also given as “Stella”. The Greek is similar (“Stilis”) and could possibly be related with στίλβω (glitter).
137v: similar to the dock-plant (“lapacium”);
158v: similar to oregano (“origanum”); these are illustrated similarly to the leaves of “lapacium”, but smaller.
The flower of wild-sage (“centumgalli”) is also referenced several times.
The leaves in these illustrations are described as:
159r: similar to the dock-plant (“lapacium”)
162v: similar to oregano (“origanum”)
163r: rounded (“rotunda”)
249r: similar to Apium
For dock and oregano leaves, also compare with the set of details for the millet motive.
Hedge bindweed (“volubilis”) is another recurring flower description and shape.
Leaves are described as:
184v: similar to oregano (“origanum”)
188v: rounded (“rotunda”)
190v: similar to clover (“trifolium”)
191r: similar to Apium (but here the leaves have a slightly different shape than in the examples above)
Lily (“lilium”) appears in combination with a series of particularly unrealistic leaf shapes.
157r: the already mentioned Apium
201v: rounded and three coloured (“foliis rotundis ... tres colores habentes”)
211v: new-moon shaped (“similis lunae novae”)
235v: squared (“quadrata”)
Finally, here are some combinations with leaves described as similar to clover (“trifolium”):
143v: “corniola”(see above)
180v: dove’s-foot geranium (“pes columbinus”)
189v: here fruits are represented and they are described as similar to strawberries (“fragrarie”)
190v: the already mentioned hedge bindweed (“volubilis”)
These examples illustrate the combinatorial nature of a large part of the Trinity herbal, where hundreds of different plant drawings are assembled with only a few shapes for leaves, flowers, fruits and roots. One can guess that the illustrations were created on the basis of the text by someone who had never seen the plants discussed here. Also, by describing roots as scorpion-like or flowers as similar to priest heads, the author of the text promoted the creation of interesting hybrids.
