CHAPTER I.. Mediæval Naturalists Honest Searchers After Truth—Sir

Mediæval naturalists honest searchers after truth—Sir Emerson Tennant thereupon—Recent discoveries confirm many statements once contested—“Travellers’ tales”—Mediæval natural history largely based upon ancient—Difference of aim between modern and ancient and mediæval nature-study—The moral treatment—Illustrations from the “Speculum Mundi”—Falsification of natural facts justified by the ecclesiastics—Ready credulity a mediæval characteristic—Two examples thereof—The love of the marvellous—Astrological influences—The mental equipment of a mediæval surgeon—Quaint book titles—The unchanging East—Suttee, Juggernaut, &c. in the pages of mediæval writers—The “Mirabilia descripta” of Bishop Jordanus—The “Voiage and Travaile” of Maundevile—The coca plant—Burton’s “Miracles of Art and Nature,”—The “Historia Mundi” of Pliny—English editions of it—Herodotus—The writings of Aristotle—The sources of information in the Middle Ages—The praise of books—Books of travel—Munster’s “Cosmography”—The interest and beauty of old title-pages—Elephants in lieu of towns in the old maps—A tale of a tub—Herbert’s “Some Yeares Travels into Africa and Asia the Great”—The travels of Marco Polo—Geography of Peter Heylyn—Raleigh’s, Hakluyt’s, Purchas’, Struys’, Acosta’s books of travels—Medical books—Potter’s “Booke of Physicke”—Cogan’s “Haven of Health”—Indifference to animal suffering—“Bestiare Divin” of Guillaume—The “Bestiary” of Philip de Thaun—The Armories of Guillim, Legh, and Bossewell 1-53