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Henry of Huntingdon as poet: the De herbis rediscovered.

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A major poetical work by Henry of Huntingdon, the De herbis, has been identified recently in two manuscripts: British Library, Sloane MS 3468, fols [31.sup.r]-[105.sup.v1] and Prague, Knihovna metropolitni kapituly M. VI (cat. 1359), fols [1.sup.r]-[47.sup.r]. In an important article, Professor George Rigg establishes that the author, 'Henricus' or 'Henricus poeta', is Henry of Huntingdon, whose De herbis was seen by John Leland at the abbey of St Benet Hulme in Norfolk but has long been regarded as 'lost'. Rigg also analyses the content of the Herbal, giving substantial extracts with translations. (2)

The Herbal consists of six books, giving a total of 3,359 lines. Henry's previously identified poetry, two books of Epigramata seria (amounting to 348 and 281 lines) and the occasional poems interspersed with prose in the Historia Anglorum (totalling 216 lines), contain together only 845 lines. The discovery of the Herbal therefore increases the surviving verse fivefold. Remarkable though this is, two-thirds of Henry's poetical output still remains lost: six books of Epigramata iocunda, eight books De amore, and two books which seem to have been shorn from the Herbal--De aromatibus and De gemmis. (3) Nevertheless, the scale of the new discovery reinforces my view that we should look at the author primarily as a poet, rather than as a historian. (4)

The Herbal confirms Henry's stature as a skilful and imaginative poet, confident in the use of unusual metres and subtle wordplay. Although about half the poems are based on Macer, De uiribus herbarum, there is considerable originality in many of Henry's reworkings. In the poems not based on Macer, Henry harmonizes classical mythology and Christian theology...

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