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Botany (Greek Βοτάνη (botanē) meaning "pasture", "herbs" "grass", or "fodder"; [2] Medieval Latin botanicus – herb, plant) [3] and zoology are, historically, the core disciplines of biology whose history is closely associated with the natural sciences chemistry, physics and geology.
Botany originated in prehistory as herbalism with the efforts of early humans to identify – and later cultivate – plants that were edible, poisonous, and possibly medicinal, making it one of the first endeavours of human investigation. Medieval physic gardens, often attached to monasteries, contained plants possibly having medicinal benefit.
At that time both botany and the art of gardening stressed the utility of plants for man; the popular herbal, described the medical uses of plants. [37] During the Middle Ages, there was an expansion of book culture that spread through the medieval world.
The use of plants for medicinal purposes, and their descriptions, dates back two to three thousand years. [10] [11] The word herbal is derived from the mediaeval Latin liber herbalis ("book of herbs"): [2] it is sometimes used in contrast to the word florilegium, which is a treatise on flowers [12] with emphasis on their beauty and enjoyment rather than the herbal emphasis on their utility. [13]
The early Middle Ages brings a surprisingly clear snapshot of gardening at the time of Charlemagne with the survival of three important documents: the Capitulare de villis, Walafrid Strabo's poem Hortulus, and the plan of St Gall which depicts three garden areas and lists what was grown. Further evidence can be found in dilapidated ruins of old ...
During the Middle Ages, when humoral theory guided medicine, it was posited that foodstuffs, possessing their own humoral qualities, could alter the humoral temperaments of people. Parsley and sage were often used together in medieval cookery, for example in chicken broth , which had developed a reputation as a therapeutic food by the 14th century.
The 1597 Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes by herbalist John Gerard was said to be the catalogue raisonné of physic gardens, both public and private, which were instituted throughout Europe. [5] It listed 1,030 plants found in his physic garden at Holborn, and was the first such catalogue printed. [1]
In antiquity, "natural history" covered essentially anything connected with nature, or used materials drawn from nature, such as Pliny the Elder's encyclopedia of this title, published c. 77 to 79 AD, which covers astronomy, geography, humans and their technology, medicine, and superstition, as well as animals and plants. [3] Medieval European ...