A London apothecary in 1649 could not read Latin. The city’s physicians wrote their remedies in Latin, and the poor died as a result. Nicholas Culpeper’s Complete Herbal (first published in 1653 as The English Physitian) was the first full guide to medicinal plants written in English, pairing botany with astrology to make healing accessible to anyone who could gather herbs from a hedgerow. It remains the most reprinted herbal in the English language and a foundational text of folk medicine.
Where did Culpeper’s Complete Herbal come from?
Nicholas Culpeper was born in 1616 to a Sussex clergyman, studied briefly at Cambridge, then apprenticed to an apothecary in London. He saw firsthand how the College of Physicians guarded its knowledge. The official drug manual, the London Pharmacopoeia, was printed only in Latin. A common person could not buy a copy even if they could read it.
In 1649, during the English Civil War, Culpeper translated that pharmacopoeia into English as A Physicall Directory. The College of Physicians denounced it. Physicians called him a “shameless impostor.” Culpeper responded that medicine belonged to the people, not to guilds.
Four years later, in 1653, he published The English Physitian, a guide to 369 native British plants, each described with its habitat, appearance, preparation, and astrological ruler. The full title continued: containing a compleat method of physick, whereby a man may preserve his body in health or cure himself, being sick. That book, later expanded and renamed Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, went through dozens of editions after his death in 1654.
What is the astrological system in the Complete Herbal?
Culpeper did not believe plants were random. Every herb answered to a planet, a zodiac sign, and a humor. “What makes the healing property of an herb?” he asked. “It is the signature of the celestial body that rules it.”
The system worked like this. A plant was “under” a planet that governed its action. Saturn ruled cold, dry herbs like comfrey and horsetail, good for bones and wounds. Jupiter ruled warm, moist herbs like agrimony, for the liver. Mars ruled hot, sharp herbs like nettle, for fevers and bleeding. Venus ruled soft, sweet herbs like mugwort, for the womb and love. Mercury gave plants that affected the brain and nerves, such as fennel. The Moon governed watery plants that moved with the tides, like chickweed.
Each plant also answered to a zodiac sign that indicated which body part it treated. Culpeper wrote: “Herbs of Aries help the head, of Taurus the neck, of Gemini the arms.” The Doctrine of Signatures reinforced this: a plant that looked like a body part was presumed to heal it. Walnuts looked like brains, so Culpeper assigned them to Mercury and said they “help the brain and head.” Lungwort’s spotted leaves resembled diseased lungs; he gave it to Jupiter and prescribed it for coughs.
How did people actually use Culpeper’s Complete Herbal?
The book was not meant for a shelf. It was a field manual. A farmer with a fever would identify the plant by the woodcut illustration, read its planetary hour, and prepare a decoction or ointment at the correct moon phase.
Culpeper gave specific instructions. For a simple headache: “Take the herb that is under the planet that causes the disease, and the herb that is under the planet that is opposite.” He called this the astrological cure — using the plant of the opposing planet to balance the excess humor. A hot, choleric illness of Mars would be treated with a cooling Venus herb like violet.
He also gave practical recipes. Syrup of violets for inflammation. Oil of St. John’s Wort for wounds. Elderflower ointment for burns. He insisted that the gathering time mattered: “The herb must be gathered when the planet that rules it is in its exaltation.” That meant the planet had to be in the zodiac sign where it was strongest — for Jupiter, Sagittarius; for Venus, Pisces.
The book contained a table of planetary hours for each day of the week, so the reader could calculate the correct moment. If you wanted to make a Jupiter remedy, you gathered the plant on a Thursday (Jupiter’s day) during the hour of Jupiter. You then dried it by that same planetary influence.
How does Culpeper compare to other herbals?
Culpeper stands apart. Earlier herbals, like John Gerard’s Herball (1597) or John Parkinson’s Theatrum Botanicum (1640), were written in English but were dense, costly volumes aimed at physicians and wealthy gardeners. Gerard included mythological lore but no consistent astrological framework. Culpeper’s was the first to give every plant a planetary ruler and a zodiac ruler, and to teach the reader how to use that information.
Dioscorides, the Greek physician of the first century, had written De Materia Medica, which was the basis of all European herbals. His system was observational: “This plant stops bleeding. This one purges.” Culpeper added a cosmic layer. He believed that disease was a celestial imbalance, and herbs were the earthly counterpart of the stars.
Modern herbalists often note that Culpeper’s astrological assignments were not entirely original. He drew on the older tradition of astrological botany rooted in Hermetic and Paracelsian medicine. Paracelsus (1493–1541) had already argued that “the stars incline, they do not compel,” and that the plant’s signature revealed its planetary lord. Culpeper made that idea systematic and accessible.
What do people get wrong about the Complete Herbal?
The first myth is that the book is pure superstition. Many of Culpeper’s plant recommendations have been verified by modern pharmacology. Willow bark (under the Moon in his system) contains salicin, the precursor to aspirin. Foxglove (under Venus) yields digitalis, still used for heart conditions. Culpeper did not know the chemistry, but he knew the effect.
The second myth is that Culpeper invented the astrological correspondences. He formalized them, but he drew from the Doctrine of Signatures, medieval planetary hours, and the humoral theory of Galen. His originality lay in combining them into a single, usable handbook.
The third myth is that the Complete Herbal is a single stable text. It was constantly expanded after his death. Later editors added plants Culpeper never saw, including American species like sassafras and tobacco. The 1810 edition included a “Herbal of the New World.” The original 1653 book covered only British plants.
FAQ
Was Nicholas Culpeper a physician? No. He was an apothecary and astrologer. He never received a medical degree because he could not afford the fees and refused to study in Latin.
Did the College of Physicians persecute him? Yes. They called him “a liar and a fool,” and after his translation of the pharmacopoeia, they tried to have him prosecuted. He died before any formal action concluded.
Is Culpeper’s Complete Herbal still used today? Yes, especially in folk medicine, herbalism, and magical traditions. Modern editions are still in print. Many Wiccan and hedge witch practices reference his planetary correspondences.
Can you really cure yourself with Culpeper’s recipes? Some are dangerous if misidentified or used incorrectly. Foxglove can kill. Culpeper himself warned that “the virtue of the herb is according to the planet that rules it; if you mistake the planet, you err in the cure.”
Where to go from here
Culpeper’s approach is one thread in a much older tradition of astrological medicine. To understand the signs and signatures he used, read our guide to the Doctrine of Signatures. For the planetary hours that governed his gathering times, see Astrological Plant Cycles. And for the full context of how folk medicine evolved alongside formal medicine, visit our Herbs and Materia Medica hub. The hedge is still there. The herbs still grow.