When the Mayflower landed on the Massachusetts coast in 1620, on board was a botanical book belonging to Elder Brewster, A Brief Epitomy of the New Herbal etc. written in Dutch by Rembert Dodoens (1517-1585), a Flemish physician & botanist. In English, the herbal was popularly known as " Lyte's Herbal." This edition was probably the popularly known Flemish Herbal or " Cruydtboeck" Dodoens published at Antwerp, 1554. (A new herball, or, Historie of plants: wherein is contained the whole discourse and perfect description of all sorts of herbes and plants ... their names, natures, operations and vertues ...by Rembert Dodoens.) In those days, Cruydeboeck was the most translated book after the Bible. It became a work of worldwide renown, used as a reference book in Europe & the North American colonies for 2 centuries.
William Brewster (1568 –1644) was an English official & Mayflower passenger in 1620. In Plymouth Colony, by virtue of his education & existing stature with those immigrating from the Netherlands, Brewster, a Puritan Separatist, became senior elder & the leader of the community. As the only university educated member of the colony, Brewster took the part of the colony's religious leader until a pastor, Ralph Smith, arrived in 1629. Thereafter, Brewster continued to preach irregularly until his death in April 1644. "He was tenderhearted and compassionate of such as were in misery," William Bradford wrote, "but especially of such as had been of good estate and rank and fallen unto want and poverty."
After William Brewster's death in 1644, this book or one like it, turns up in the death inventory of another Mayflower passenger from the Netherlands, Myles Standish. In Massachusetts, Myles Standish owned A new herball, or, Historie of plants: wherein is contained the whole discourse and perfect description of all sorts of herbes and plants ... their names, natures, operations and vertues ... by Rembert Dodoens. Myles Standish (1593-1656), commander of the Plymouth colony's militia, had served as a soldier in the Netherlands prior to his passage to America. He was the governor's assistant in Plymouth, as well as the colony's treasurer. He moved to Duxbury in the mid-1630s. Married first Rose --, who died early in 1621, and second Barbara --, with whom he had seven children. Standish's library is documented in the probate inventory of his estate, taken 8 December 1656 and presented 4 May 1657.
In the late 15C & early 16C, Renaissance commentators "‘rediscovered" ancient botany. They produced editions of the works of some of the most famous ancient writers on botany: Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny the Elder, & Galen. Dodoens' great herbal, " Stirpium historice pemptades sex," in which were gathered all his writings on this subject, together with the additional matter he had accumulated, became the foundation of the most popular of English herbals, that of Gerard, 1597.
Dodoens was the foremost botanist of his own country, he was born at Malines about 1517, and after studies at Louvain and the universities and medical schools of France, Italy, and Germany, he graduated M.D., and became physician to the Emperors Maximilian II and Rudolf II. Later he was Professor of Medicine at Leyden. His interest in the science of botany, and the opportunities he enjoyed for its study, made him one of the most industrious of European botanists.
