Pseudo-Apuleius is the name given in modern scholarship to the author of a 4th-century herbal known as Pseudo-Apuleius Herbarius or Herbarium Apuleii Platonici. The author of the text apparently wished readers to think that it was by Apuleius of Madaura (124–170 CE), the Roman poet and philosopher, but modern scholars do not believe this attribution. Little or nothing else is known of Pseudo-Apuleius.
The oldest surviving manuscript of the Herbarium is the 6th-century Leiden, MS. Voss. Q.9. Until the 12th century it was the most influential herbal in Europe, with numerous extant copies surviving into the modern era, along with several copies of an Old English translation. Thereafter, it was more or less displaced by the Circa instans, a herbal produced at the school of Salerno. "Pseudo-Apuleius" is also used as a shorthand generic term to refer to the manuscripts and derived works.
The text of Pseudo-Apuleius Herbarius is based on late antique sources, especially Pliny's Historia naturalis and Discorides'sDe materia medica. Scholars agree that it was compiled in the 4th century, according to Sigerist (1930, p. 200) from Latin, according to Singer (1927, p. 37) from Greek sources. Each of the 128 to 131 chapters (the number varying between manuscripts) deals with one medical plant. In these chapters the name of the plant is followed by the enumeration of indications in the form of recipes and by synonyms of the plant's name.
For example: Chapter 89, Herba millefolium (Edition of Howald/Sigerist 1927):
1. Ad dentium dolorem. Herbae millefolium radicem ieiunus conmanducet.
1. For toothache. The root of the herb millefolium should be chewed before breakfast.
2. Ad uulnera de ferro facta. Herba millefolium cum axungia pistata et inposita uulnera purgat et sanat.
2. For wounds inflicted by iron. If you put on the herb millefolium crushed in fat, so it cleans and heals wounds.
3. Ad tumores. Herbam millefolium contusam cum butiro inpone.
3. For tumours. Put on the herb millefolium crushed in butter.
4. Ad urinae difficultatem. Herbae millefolium sucus cum aceto bibitur, mire sanat.
4. For difficulties of urination. The juice of the herb millefolium drunk mixed with wine vinegar, heals wonderfully.
Nomina herbae. A Graecis dicitur miriofillon, alii ambrosiam, alii ciliofillon, alii crisitis, Galli mulicandos, alii uigentia, Daci diodela, Itali millefolium, alii militaris, alii Achillion, alii supercilium Veneris, alii cereum siluaticum. Hanc herbam Achilles inuenit, unde ferro percussus sanabat, quae ob id Achillea uocatur, de hac sanasse Telephium dicitur.
Names of the herb. The Greeks call it miriofillon, others ambrosia, others ciliofillon, others crisitis. The Gauls [call it] mulicandos, others vigentia. The Dacians [call it] diodela. The Italians [call it] millefolium, others militaris, others Achillion, others supercilium Veneris, others cereum silvaticum. This herb was discovered by Achilles because it healed wounds, beaten by iron. It was therefore named Achillea.
[Interpolationes ex Diosc.] Nascitur in palustris locis …
(Pseudo-)Dioscorides de herbis femininis. According to Riddle[2] written before the 6th century in Southern Europe.[3]
Precatio terrae matris (Incantation of the mother of earth) and Precatio omnium herbarum (Incantation of all herbs).[4]
Manuscripts
Howald and Sigerist (edition 1927, V–XVI) divided the codices into 3 classes (α, β and γ) according to the varying mixture of associated texts in the codices:
α-class containing parts 1, 2, 3, 4a and 5, moreover better synonyms than in the β-class-texts and no interpolations. The α-class is considered to be the class with the best text-tradition.
β-class containing parts 1, 2, 3, 4b, 5 and 6, moreover interpolations. The ß-class is considered to be the class with the best illustrations.
γ-class containing parts 1, 2 and 6, without the interpolations of the β-class. γ-class contains the oldest manuscripts.
Turin, Bibliotheca Universitaria, MS. K IV 3, 11th century, destroyed by fire.
Several more manuscripts can be added (see Mylène Pradel-Baquerre 2013 and Claudine
Chavannes-Mazel 2016):
Leiden, University Library, MS BPL 1283, c 1300 (related to Lucca)
Leiden, University Library, MS Voss.Lat.Qu. 13, 10th century (Anglo-Saxon group)
Leiden, University Library, MS Voss.Lat.Qu. 40, 11th century (German group)
Montpellier, Bibliothèque de l'Ecole de Médecine, MS 277, 15th century
The Hague, Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum MS 10 D 7, 10th century (alpha group)
Translation: the Old English Herbarium
A version of the Pseudo-Apuleius Herbarius was translated into Old English, surviving now in four manuscripts:
London, British Library, Cotton MS Vitellius C III (illustrated)
Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Hatton 76
London, British Library, Harley MS 585
London, British Library, Harley MS 6258 B (updated into early Middle English)
Like many of the Latin manuscripts, it includes the Herbarium of Pseudo-Apuleius, De herba vetonica, De taxone, medicina de quadrupedibus, and the Liber medicinae ex herbis feminis.[26] It was first edited and translated by Oswald Cockayne,[27] re-edited in 1984 by Jan de Vriend,[28] re-translated in 2002 by Anne Van Arsdall,[26] and again re-edited and re-translated in 2023 by John D. Niles and Maria A. D'Aronco.[29] A variety of dates and places have been suggested for the production of this translation, ranging from eighth-century Northumbria to late-tenth-century Winchester, with recent scholarship tending towards tenth-century Wessex.[30]
Incunabula and early printings
Based on a 9th-century manuscript of Monte Cassino the first incunable of Pseudo-Apuleius Herbarius was printed in Rome in 1481.[31][32][33]
The first printing in northern Europe was done in 1537 in Zürich.[34]
Editions
Howald, Ernst; Sigerist, Henry E. (1927). Antonii Musae De herba vettonica, Liber Pseudo-Apulei her-barius, Anonymi De taxone liber, Sexti Placiti Liber medicinae ex animalibus. Corpus medicorum latinorum (in Latin). Vol. IV. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.
de Vriend, Hubert Jan (ed.), The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de Quadrupedibus, The Early English Text Society, 286 (London: Oxford University Press, 1984). (Contains a Latin text alongside the Old English.)
Niles, John D. and Maria A. D'Aronco (ed. and trans.), Medical Writings from Early Medieval England, Volume I: The Old English Herbal, Lacnunga, and Other Texts, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 81 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023). Old English and Modern English translation.
Sources
Claudine A. Chavannes-Mazel, L. IJpelaar (eds), The Green Middle Ages. The Depiction and Use of Plants in the Western World, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2022. ISBN 978 94 6372 619 1. Dutch edition Lecturis 2016 and 2019. ISBN 978-94-6226-297-3
Collins, Minta (September 2000). Medieval Herbals. The Illustrative Traditions. British Library Studies in Medieval Culture. London: University of Toronto Press. pp. 165–220. ISBN9780802083135.
Grape-Albers, Heide (1977). Spätantike Bilder aus der Welt des Arztes. Medizinische Bilderhandschriften der Spätantike und ihre mittelalterliche Überlieferung [Late Antiquity images from the world of the physician. Medical illuminated manuscripts of the late antiquity and medieval tradition] (in German). Wiesbaden: Guido Pressler. ISBN9783876460376.
Sudhoff, Karl (1916). "Szenen aus der Sprechstunde und bei Krankenbesuchen des Arztes in mittelalterlichen Handschriften". Sudhoffs Archiv (in German). 10: 71–90.
^Edition: H. F. Kästner. Pseudo-Dioscorides de herbis feminis. In: Hermes, Bd. 31 (1896), S. 578-636 Archive.org
^In English translation according to Harley MS 1585 (London, British Library, previously British Museum, 12. Jh.) in: Singer 1927, p. 48.
^Hunger, F. W. T. (1935). The Herbal of Pseudo-Apuleius. From the ninth-century manuscript in the abbey of Monte Cassino (Codex Casinensis 97) together with the first printed edition of Joh. Philippus de Lignamine (Edition princeps Romae 1481) both in facsimile, described and annotated. Leyden: Brill.
^Spengel, Leonhard v. (1864). "III". Codex Monac. Emer. E XLIII. Philologus (in German). Vol. XXI. Göttingen: Ernst von Leutsch. pp. 119ff.
^Sudhoff, Karl (1915), "Die Fragmenta Emmeranensia des Pseudo-Apuleius in München und der Leidener Sammelkodex Cod. Voss. Lat. Q. 9.", Sudhoffs Archiv (in German), vol. 8, pp. 446–450
^Mancini, Augustus (1904). "Pseudo Apulei Libellum de medicaminibus herbarum ex codice Lucensi 296, descripsit, prolegomenis auxit Augustus Mancini". Atti della Reale Accademia Lucchese di Science, Lettere ed Arti. (in Italian). XXII: 251–301.
^Reiche, Rainer (1973). "Deutsche Pflanzenglossen aus Codex Vindobonensis 187 und Codex Stuttgart HB XI 46". Sudhoffs Archiv. 57: 1–14.
^Lehmann, Paul (1914). "Apuleiusfragmente". Hermes. 49: 612–620 (616).
^Gunther, R. T. (1925). The herbal of Apuleius Barbarus, from the 12th-century manuscript formerly in the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds (Oxford, MS. Bodl. 130). Oxford: The Roxburgh Club.
^Landgraf, E. (1928). "Ein frühmittelalterlicher Botanikus. Diss. med. Leipzig". Kyklos (in German). 1: 1–35.
^Niederer, Monica (2005). Der St. Galler Botanicus. Ein frühmittelalterliches Herbar. Kritische Edition, Übersetzung und Kommentar (in German). Bern: Peter Lang. ISBN9783039101955.
^Hubert Jan de Vriend (ed.), The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de Quadrupedibus, The Early English Text Society, 286 (London: Oxford University Press, 1984).
^John D. Niles and Maria A. D'Aronco (ed. and trans.), Medical Writings from Early Medieval England, Volume I, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 81 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023).
^Hunger, F. W. T. (1935). The Herbal of Pseudo-Apuleius. From the ninth-century manuscript in the abbey of Monte Cassino (Codex Casinensis 97) together with the first printed edition of Joh. Philippus de Lignamine (Edition princeps Romae 1481) both in facsimile, described and annotated. Leyden: Brill.