Note 51 — Chapter II · LATER MANUSCRIPT HERBALS AND THE EARLY PRINTED HERBALS
Reading edition
The popular belief in the power of sweet-smelling herbs to ward off infection of the much-dreaded plague rose to its height in Charles II.’s reign, when bunches of rosemary were sold for six and eightpence. Till recently there were at least two survivals of this belief in herbal scents—the doctor’s gold-headed cane (formerly a pomander carried at the end of a cane) and the little bouquets carried by the clergy at the distribution of the Maundy Money in Westminster Abbey.