Macer floridus

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Macer Floridus, De viribus herbarum (14th century)

Macer floridus , also De viribus herbarum , is a didactic poem about the most common medicinal herbs in the form of the Latin hexameter , writtenby Odo Magdunensis (= Odo von Meung) and formerlynamedafter Aemilius Macer . It was created around 1065 and was considered thestandard work of herbal medicine in Central Europein the Middle Ages .

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Odo Magdunensis from Meung on the Loire described 60 plants in a first version around 1070 and also named their primary qualities (see humoral pathology ). He used the texts of Pliny the Elder , Pedanios Dioscurides , Galenus and Walahfrid Strabo as sources . A little later, another version was created with a total of 77 plants, the additions being taken from the Liber graduum, which comes from a drug lore of Ibn al-Jazzar , by the translator Constantinus Africanicus from the school of Salerno .

Contrary to the well-known Liber de cultura hortorum by Walahfrid, which artfully treats horticulture as well as medicine , Odo's work is a purely pharmacographic didactic poem based on the models Virgil ( Georgica ) and Lucretius ( De rerum natura ). Although Odo mentions the name Walahfrids and takes over all 24 plants of the Hortulus , he criticizes this clearly, for example in the chapter on the lovage . Only the chapter on fennel shows similarities. Pliny is in the chapters on white hellebore and verbena criticized, even in the latter the magic accused, although the chapter on ragwort magic is taken directly from the Roman source of toothache a kind.

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middle Ages

Manuscript from the late 15th century with the “fathers of medicine”: In addition to Hippocrates , Avicenna , Aristotle , Galen , Albertus Magnus and Dioscurides , a “Macer” is also shown at the bottom right.

The Macer floridus is first mentioned around 1100 in De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis by Sigebertus Gemblacensis . At this time the final version with 77 chapters was already available. It is disputed when exactly the shorter original version was created. A fairly broad time window of around 840 (creation of the Hortulus ) and 1100 (mentioned in De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis ) can be given here. Manuscripts from the 12th century are available for this original version . Later, however, only the extended version caught on. In addition, the work can have two authors in addition to two titles - in addition to Odo, Aemilius Macer from Verona , a contemporary and friend of Virgil, Ovid and Vitruvius , who lived in 16 BC. Died. In the Middle Ages it was assumed that the poem at least refers to this Macer and his lost work De Herbis . This is the reason for the better-known name Macer floridus , which is still used today . Odo's authorship has been undisputed since William Crossgrove researched the original version of the poem in 1994 and was able to clearly prove that it was written by a cleric in the tradition of monastic medicine .

In the late Middle Ages, the Macer floridus was widespread in German-speaking countries, was used in school lessons and was available in about every second library worth mentioning. The work has been translated into numerous vernacular languages ​​such as English, Spanish, Danish, French and Italian. At the beginning of the 13th century, the first German translation in prose form , the "Older German Macer" , was created in the area of ​​the Thuringian or Silesian court . This version is considered to be one of the sources for the Garden of Health (1485), one of the first printed herbal books that greatly influenced subsequent works. A second German prose adaptation, the so-called Younger German Macer , was created in Central Germany in the 14th century at the latest.

A first print (with 86 chapters) of the Macer took place in 1477 in Naples , in 1482 there was also an edition from Milan .

Early modern age

About the early prints, the Gart health followed, such as from Rößlin 1533 and Lonitzer 1551 and Tabernaemontanus 1588 were parts of Macers in the Universal Lexicon by Johann Heinrich Zedler one (published 1732-1754).

Thus, for more than 500 years , the Macer floridus , alongside the Circa instans from Salerno and the Materia medica from Dioscurides, was a defining work of phytotherapy . Even today, “popular applications” can be found in Hager's handbook , which can be traced back to the didactic poem in the case of mugwort , wild boar , garlic or nettle .

In 1590, in the 7th volume of the Huser edition of the works of Paracelsus , a commentary by Paracelsus on Macer floridus was printed, which Johannes Oporinus (1527–1528 / 1529 Secretary of Paracelsus) had compiled from his memoirs.

19th and 20th centuries

In 1832 Johann Ludwig Choulant edited a version in Dresden based on an on-site manuscript from the late 12th century. However, he incorrectly dated it to the 14th century and gave the abbot Otto von Morimond as an alternative author .

In the late 20th century, Bernhard Schnell and William Crossgrove in particular researched the history of the work. A first New High German version of the “Macer floridus seu redivivus” (so called by Ernst Meyer ) was presented in 2001 by the medical historians Johannes Gottfried Mayer and Konrad Goehl .

Editions of works and translations

  • Johann Ludwig Choulant (Ed.): Macer Floridus' De viribus herbarum 'una cum Walafridi Strabonis, Othonis Cremonensis et Ioannis Folcz' carminibus similis argumenti secundum codices manuscriptos et veteres editiones recensuit, supplevit et adnotatione critica instruxit. Ludovicus Choulant. Leopold Voss, Leipzig 1832 (edition with 77 chapters).
  • Bernhard Schnell , William Crossgrove: The German "Macer": Vulgate version. Critically edited with an impression of the Latin Macer floridus 'De viribus herbarum'. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2003 (= texts and text history. Würzburg research. Volume 50). ISBN 978-3-484-36050-1 (reprinting pages 28 to 123 of Choulant's 1832 edition, excluding the critical apparatus).
  • Aemilius Macer [sic!]: De herbarum virtutibus cum verris figuris herbarum […]. Edited and provided with glossaries by Simon de Lowitz [= the doctor and botanist Syreniusz Symon, Szymon from Lowicz], Cracow (Officina Ungleriana: Florian Ungler ) undated (1532); Reprint Warsaw 1979.
  • Johannes Gottfried Mayer, Konrad Goehl: Highlights of monastery medicine: The “Macer floridus” and the herbarium of Vitus Auslasser. Edited with an introduction and German translation. Reprint-Verlag Leipzig, Holzminden 2001, ISBN 3-8262-1120-0 (with facsimile of pages 28 to 123 of Choulant's 1832 edition and five detailed registers).
  • Johannes Gottfried Mayer, Konrad Goehl: Herbal book of monastery medicine: The "Macer floridus" - medicine of the Middle Ages. Reprint-Verlag Leipzig, Holzminden 2003, ISBN 978-3-8262-1130-0 (revised version of the German translation); Reprint ibid 2013, ISBN 978-3-8262-3057-8 .

literature

  • William C. Crossgrove: Macer. In: Author's Lexicon . 2nd Edition. Volume 5, Col. 1109-1116.
  • William Crossgrove: 'Macer' miscells. In: “gelêrter der arzeniê, ouch apotêker”. Contributions to the history of science. Festschrift for the 70th birthday of Willem F. Daems. Edited by Gundolf Keil, Horst Wellm Verlag, Pattensen / Hanover, now Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1982 (= Würzburg medical-historical research. Volume 24), ISBN 3-921456-35-5 , pp. 403-409.
  • Bernhard D. Haage, Wolfgang Wegner: 'Macer floridus'. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte . De Gruyter, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 877.
  • Gundolf Keil: Odo von Meung. In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages . Metzler, Stuttgart 1999, Volume VI, Column 1360.
  • Gundolf Keil: Odo von Meung, doctor or school author. In: Werner E. Gerabek et al. (Ed.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. 2005, p. 1064.
  • Johannes Gottfried Mayer , Konrad Goehl : The standard work of monastery medicine: the 'Macer floridus'. in Zeitschrift für Phytotherapie , Issue 5, 2001. ISSN  0722-348X

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Of the 85 plants that were treated in the Macer floridus , the Paracelsus-Oporinus Comment 35: 237-238: de Artemisia contains. 238-240: de Abrotano. 240-243: de Absinthio. 243-244: de Urtica. 244-246: de Allio. 247-249: de Plantagine. 249-250: de Ruta. 251-252: de Apio. 252-253: de Althea vel Malva. 254-256: de Anetho. 256-258: de Betonica. 258-259: de Savina. 259-260: de Porro. 260-262: de Chamomilla. 262: de Nepita. 263: de Pulegio. 263-264: de Foeniculo. 265-266: de Acedula. 266: de Portulaca. 266-267: de Lactuca. 267: de Rosa. 267-268: de Liliis. 268: de Satureia. 269: de Salvia. 269-270: de Ligustico. 270-271: de Ostrutio. 271-272: de Cerefolio. 272: de Atriplice. 272-273: de Coriandro. 273-274: de Nasturtio. 274: de Eruca. 274-275: de Papavere. 275-276: de Cepis. 276: de Buglossa. 276: de Sinapio (not carried out). 276-277: de Caule. 277: de Pastinaca. Ulterius non scripserat Oporinus.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cyrill Resak (ed.): Odo Magdunensis, the author of "Macer Floridus", and the German Leipzig Macer text. Medical dissertation Leipzig 1917.
  2. ^ Gundolf Keil: Odo von Meung. In: Encyclopedia of Medical History. 2005, p. 1064.
  3. ^ Bernhard D. Haage, Wolfgang Wegner: 'Macer floridus'. In: Encyclopedia of Medical History. 2005, p. 877.
  4. ^ Gundolf Keil: The German Isaak Judäus reception from the 13th to the 15th century. Shaker, Aachen 2015 (European Science Relations, Supplement 2), pp. 23–24, 39–40.
  5. ^ William C. Crossgrove: On the dating of the "Macer Floridus". In: light of nature. Medicine in specialist literature and poetry: Festschrift for Gundolf Keil on his 60th birthday. Edited by Josef Domes, Werner E. Gerabek, Bernhard Dietrich Haage, Christoph Weißer and Volker Zimmermann, Göppingen 1994 (Göppingen works on German studies, vol. 585), pp. 55–63.
  6. ^ Rudolf Blum : Original form and source of the German Macer. In: Communications on the history of medicine, natural sciences and technology. Volume 34, 1935, pp. 1-14.
  7. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Müller-Jahncke , Werner Dressendörfer, Gundolf Keil: Older German 'Macer' - Ortolf von Baierland: 'Pharmacopoeia' - 'Herbarium' by Bernhard von Breidenbach - Dye and painter recipes: The Upper Rhine medical composite manuscript of the Berleburg Codex. Color microfiche edition with an introduction to the texts, description of the plant images and the handwriting. Munich 1991 (= Codices illuminati medii aevi. Volume 13).
  8. ↑ See also Walter Lawrence Wardale: Albrecht van Borgunnien's Treatise on Medicine (Sloane Ms. 3002, British Museum). Edinburgh / Glasgow / London / New York a. a. 1936 (= St. Andrews University Publication. Volume 38).
  9. ^ Gösta Frisk: A Middle English translation of Macer Floridus De viribus herbarum. Upsala 1949.
  10. ^ Gundolf Keil : Gart der Gesundheit. In: Burghart Wachinger et al. (Hrsg.): The German literature of the Middle Ages. Author Lexicon . 2nd, completely revised edition, Volume 2 ( Comitis, Gerhard - Gerstenberg, Wigand ). De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1980, ISBN 3-11-007264-5 , Sp. 1072-1092; here: Col. 1077 f.
  11. ^ Arnold Carl Klebs . Incunabula scientifica et medica. (Osiris, Bruges 1938, Vol. IV. 8. 1-359) Reprint Olms, Hildesheim 2004, p. 210.
  12. ↑ Scholia & Observationes quaedam perutiles in Macri Poemata de Virtutibus Herbarum, & c. quas Ioh. Oporinus (dum per triennium aut ultra Theophrasti esset Amanuensis) ex ore dictantis studiose exceperat. (Useful comments and observations on the Macer poems about the powers of medicinal plants, which Johannes Oporinus , Paracelsus's scribe for three years or more , eagerly selected from the heard.) Huser edition of the works of Paracelsus, Basel 1590, part 7, p 237-277.
  13. ↑ Mayer / Goehl (2013), p. 17.