Chapter I

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