e impious customs of the pagans, neither sorcerers, nor
diviners, nor soothsayers, nor enchanters, nor must you presume for
any cause to enquire of them.... Let none regulate the beginning of
any piece of work by the day or by the moon. Let none trust in nor
presume to invoke the names of daemons, neither Neptune, nor Orcus, nor
Diana, nor Minerva, nor Geniscus nor any other such follies.... Let no
Christian place lights at the temples or the stones, or at fountains,
or at trees, or at places where three ways meet.... Let none presume
to hang amulets on the neck of man or beast.... Let no one presume to
make lustrations, nor to enchant herbs, nor to make flocks pass
through a hollow tree, or an aperture in the earth; for by so doing he
seems to consecrate them to the devil. Let none on the kalends of
January join in the wicked and ridiculous things, the dressing like
old women or like stags, nor make feasts lasting all night, nor keep
up the custom of gifts and intemperate drinking. Let no one on the
festival of St. John or on any of the festivals join in the solstitia
or dances or leaping or caraulas or diabolical songs."--From a sermon
preached by St. Eloy in A.D. 640.

[36] A Christian prayer for a blessing on herbs runs thus:--

"Omnipotens sempiterne deus qui ab initio mundi omnia instituisti et
creasti tam arborum generibus quam herbarum seminibus quibus etiam
benedictione tua benedicendo sanxisti eadem nunc benedictione olera
aliosque fructus sanctificare ac benedicere digneris ut sumentibus ex
eis sanitatem conferant mentis et corporis ac tutelam defensionis
eternamque uitam per saluatorem animarum dominum nostrum iesum
christum qui uiuit et regnat dominus in secula seculorum. Amen."

[37] Translation from _Early English Magic and Medicine_ by Dr.
Charles Singer. Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. IV.

CHAPTER II

LATER MANUSCRIPT HERBALS AND THE EARLY PRINTED HERBALS

"Spryngynge tyme is the time of gladnesse and of love; for
in Sprynging time all thynge semeth gladde; for the erthe
wexeth grene, trees burgynne [burgeon] and sprede, medowes
bring forth flowers, heven shyneth, the see resteth and is
quyete, foules synge and make theyr nestes, and al thynge
that semed deed in wynter and widdered, ben renewed, in
Spryngyng time."--BARTHOLOMAEUS ANGLICUS, _circ._ 1260.

Between the Anglo-Saxon herbals and the early printed herbals there is
a great gulf. After the No