Overview

The Art of Simpling was first published in 1656 -- more than twenty years after Thomas Johnson's corrected and amended edition of Gerard's herbal and twelve or so years after John Parkinson's monumental Theatrum Botanicum. It followed Nicholas Culpepper's well-known classic by just four years and came out the same year as the final edition of Parkinson's Paradisi, which added a fourth section on herbs and other useful plants for the kitchen garden. And yet, already Coles laments the waning regard for and knowledge of herbs, looking back a hundred years to the days of Mattioli when the art of simpling was well rewarded by the likes of royalty. Rather than attempting a comprehensive listing of plants, The Art of Simpling is organized by application for practical use. In addition to information on the use of herbs, it includes chapters on plant anatomy, cultivation and harvesting, and the doctrine of signatures. Coles also rails against the belief in the influence of the heavens on plants -- and muses on the pleasures and practical benefits of gardens. Popular in its time, The Art of Simpling may be the least known of the early English herbals today. Some of the content now seems quaint -- or even superstitious -- but look past the sometimes outdated or unsubstantiated and it contains a wealth of herbal lore and provides a fascinating insight into the customs, and religious and political life, of 17th century England.

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William Coles was born in 1626 in Adderbury, Oxfordshire and educated there at the Boys School. At the age of sixteen, he entered New College at University of Oxford and soon after was made a portionist, commonly called post master, of Merton College by his mother's brother, John French, one of the senior fellows of that house and public registrar of the university. While a student, Coles also became qualified as a public notary so that he could stand in for his uncle as registrar. Coles took his bachelor of arts degree in 1650, then left Oxford for London and lived for several years at Putney where he became a well-known simpler. Upon the king's restoration in 1660, he was made secretary to Dr. Brian Duppa, bishop of Winchester, in whose service he died in 1662.

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