Koen, I don't know what this scribe specifically means, but at the time, "barbaria" was a general designation for uncultured people living outside of cities that had opportunities for education and a certain amount of literacy—much the same as what it means today. But since it was also used to describe specific nations/tribes of people (as we sometimes do today), it's hard to know. It could be so many things... grows in rural places/grows in rough uncultivated places/grows in the place where the "barbarians" live. It would take some time to trace it back through previous sources to figure out what it means here, but if I come across anything I'll post it.
Thank you, Koen. The list of exotic plants is very interesting. It seems to cover only about 10% of the plants, but I would say that many only have a generic indication of habitat. How many of the plants not in your list do you estimate have an indication of a geographic origin?
In addition to the regions of Southern Italy you mentioned, I think I have also seen "Calabria". Another non-exotic place I have seen is "Gallia". I am sorry I didn't take note of where they are.
About "Barbaria", I think it might be the land of the You are not allowed to view links.
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(30-04-2017, 06:31 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
About "Barbaria", I think it might be the land of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Northern Africa).
Haha, yes, it might refer to the land of the Berbers. I was just going to edit my post to add it and then saw that you had posted.
I agree with Rene's saying
Quote:merlons (i.e. at least with V-shaped incisions) in a german MS is so unusual, that it may be reason to be sceptical about this proposed origin
though we have to be constantly aware that cataloguers are chiefly concerned with manufacture of the artefact so 'origin' here means only the place it was made.
Origin for the content looks to me fairly obviously in a formerly Byzantine region and from a time when the clean-shaven northerners took over: my guess would be that the content (not manufacture) derives from a basis in early Norman Sicily, but such material was rapidly disseminated through the Norman network - along the via Francigena through France - sideways into northern Italy, and to as far as England.
What interests me is that mention of names among the Tatars. This puts a reasonable limit on the current recension of the text and I think we should ask which glossaries or other sources were available which included not only Arabic and Hebrew but Tatar names for plants.
On the point of 'Barbary' - as well as the older pirates of the Barbary coast who tended to gather around the strait of Sicily - we have record of the 'Barbara' in eastern Africa. Hourani refers to an old chant to quell unruly seas in which they are called upon to tame them.
And regarding Ethiopia - it was not so distant a place as one would imagine. For example, as preparation for his travels east, John of Montecorvino went both to Armenia and to Ethiopia, and there was a hostel for Ethiopian pilgrims established in Rome, although I can't recall the date it was formally assigned them. I'll look up the old blog-post if anyone's interested. It was called 'St.Stephen of Abyssinia' and for all I know may still exist.
Interesting to see a manuscript of such pronouncedly Latin character including these faint hints of some common roots with what is in the Vms. Thanks to Rene and to Marco for bringing it to general notice, and of course to Koen and all who have shared their observations.
Berbers, of course. That makes 52
I can only offer a very rough estimation of the amount of plants with European place names. I'd say it's another 10 percent. A similar amount has no phrase at all, or is damaged or otherwise illegible.
That would leave 70 percent, definitely the vast majority, with only an indication of the type of terrain. The terrain types are varied and appear very accurate. Vines are said to grow on trees or walls, plants which grow in the shade often have darker leaves and so on. I really got the impression that the origin part was well informed, despite the confusing plant names.
I was surprised at the amounts of plants that grow on high mountains. Lots of climbing for herb collectors. There were also some words I was unable to read, though these were usually preceded by something like 'loci'.and looked like indications of terrain types. A common abbreviation was also "ub" which I took to mean "everywhere".
Daine: note that both the words Ethiopia and Tartar appear in the section before the one I studied. The final plant section, which is the largest, always gives the name, the Greek name and the Hebrew name.
Something else I noticed is that the names of the plants in this section generally vary wildly between the three languages. This while the names of exotic plants tend to be similar because they are passed from one region to the next and people adopt the name from the other language...
(01-05-2017, 02:49 AM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
And regarding Ethiopia - it was not so distant a place as one would imagine. For example, as preparation for his travels east, John of Montecorvino went both to Armenia and to Ethiopia, and there was a hostel for Ethiopian pilgrims established in Rome, although I can't recall the date it was formally assigned them. I'll look up the old blog-post if anyone's interested. It was called 'St.Stephen of Abyssinia' and for all I know may still exist.
...
The old maps typically include a corridor of European castle icons stretching into Ethiopia.
Marco: you were right, there is a plant from Gallia, bottom right:
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(30-04-2017, 11:04 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.From what I have seen so far:
The Pseudo-Apuleius part of the MS is from folio 3v to folio 39r. Folio 14 (r+v) appears to be a dislocated page.
There should have been 4 herbs here, which I haven't yet found elsewhere in the MS.
Almost all herbs are easily identified with the standard set of herbs from this tradition, and most if not all names are standard.
The 'Ex Herbis Femininis' part is from folio 39v to folio 61r. The order is disturbed in several places, and a number of herbs have non-standard names, but the drawings are easy to match. The folio Marco has transcribed (54v) is in the middle of this sequence, but it does not belong to the 'Ex Herbis Femininis' list of herbs.
After this it gets more complicated.
Largely speaking, the herbs on folios 61 to about 106 or so tend to have recognisable names, but the drawings are different from those in the few herbals I compared them with.
From 107 onwards, the names all look as if they have been invented.
In addition, the Greek names aren't Greek if you ask me.
Even if it's obvious, I will add that the final "bestiary" section (starting at You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.. One can see that the first recipe is basically identical ("Ad maculas de facie tollendas" / "Ad maculas tollendas").
I think that the very last pages in the Trinity ms (including You are not allowed to view links.
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(06-05-2017, 07:25 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
There are lots more intriguing herbs in the same part of the MS and I have not yet had time to look at all of them.
On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (top), for example, is a herb with the very distinctive name 'Tetrahit Yudaica'. This herb is also found in the Tractatus tradition, sometimes without and sometimes with the 'Yudaica'. However, the illustration does not look like these.
The description of the herb also refers to Centaurea Minor, and the illustration looks quite similar to that. Now that does not help us a lot, since this herb is common in essentially all herbal traditions that I know of.
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Yes, that's an interesting one. I haven't had a chance to look into it yet, but my detective work so far on "tetrahit" in general suggests that tetrahit from the 15th century may be Anthyllis (possibly A. cretica). It is usually depicted with slender, medium-short odd pinnate branches, smooth-margined leaves, and puffs of pinkish flowers, which would fit well with kidney-vetch.
But... I don't have enough examples yet to be sure and the Trinity tetrahit doesn't have odd-pinnate leaves and the leaves are serrated, so it seems out of step with other plants with the same name. There are a few Anthyllis species that have elliptical leaves growing up the stock, but they tend to be short and rounded, not long and pointed. The Trinity plant leaves are a good match for hemp-nettle (Galeopsis tetrahit), but then the flowers don't match. If I have time to look at it further and come across anything helpful, I'll post it.