Herbal - Western Europe

Western Europe

Perhaps the best known herbals were produced in Europe between 1470 and 1670. The invention in Germany of printing from movable type in a printing press c. 1440 was a great stimulus to herbalism. The new herbals were more detailed with greater general appeal and often with Gothic script and the addition of woodcut illustrations that more closely resembled the plants being described.

Three important herbals, all appearing before 1500, were printed in Mainz, Germany. Two of these were by Peter Schoeffer, his Latin Herbarius in 1484, followed by an updated and enlarged German version in 1485, these being followed in 1491 by the Hortus Sanitatis printed by Jacob Meyderbach. Other early printed herbals include the Kreuterbuch of Hieronymus Tragus from Germany in 1539 and, in England, the New Herball of William Turner in 1551 were arranged, like the classical herbals, either alphabetically, according to their medicinal properties, or as "herbs, shrubs, trees". Arrangement of plants in later herbals such as Cruydboeck of Dodoens and John Gerard’s Herball of 1597 became more related to their physical similarities and this heralded the beginnings of scientific classification. By 1640 a herbal had been printed that included about 3800 plants – nearly all the plants of the day that were known.

In the Modern Age and Renaissance, European herbals diversified and innovated, and came to rely more on direct observation than being mere adaptations of traditional models. Typical examples from the period are the fully illustrated De Historia Stirpium Commentarii Insignes by Leonhart Fuchs (1542, with over 400 plants), the astrologically themed Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper (1653), and the Curious Herbal by Elizabeth Blackwell (1737).