As a kitchen spice, and possibly also for medicinal purposes, lovage was cultivated and used by the Romans.7) Its cultivation north of the Alps was no doubt caused by Charlemagne's Capi-tulare of 812. About the same time, the utility of the plant was praised by Walafried Strabo and Macer Floridus.8) The German medical treatises of the middle ages, beginning with that of the abbess Hildegard of the 12. century, make mention of lovage under various, partly corrupted names. In the treatises on distillation, the distillates of lovage are likewise mentioned.9)

1) Giov. Baptistae Portae De destillatione libri IX. Romae 1563. p. 379.

1) Crell's Chem. Journ. 3 (1780), 102.

3) Gottling's Almanach fur Scheidekiinstler und Apotheker 14 (1793), 149.

4) Buchner's Repert. f. die Pharm. 15 (1823), 163.

5) Liebig's Annalen 6 (1833), 287.

6) Liebig's Annalen 41 (1842), 74; and Journ. fur prakt. Chem. 24 (1841), 359.

7) Dioscoridis, De materia medica libri quinque. Editio Kuhn-Sprengel. 1829. Vol. 1, p. 400. - Columellae De re rustica libri XII. Lib. XII. 51. - Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik. 1855. Vol. 2, p. 74.

8) Walafridi Strabonis Hortulus. In Choulant's Macer Floridus, De viribus herbarum una cum Walafridi Strabonis, Othonis Cremonensis et Joannis Folcz carminibus similis argumenti. Lipsia; 1832. pp. 141 - 156. - Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik. 1855. Vol. 3, p. 425.

9) Hieron. Brunschwig, Liber de arte destillandi. De simplicibus. 1500. fol. 70.

The oil distilled from the root appears to have come into use about the middle of the 16. century. It is mentioned as Oleum Levistici in the price ordinance of Frankfurt-on-the-Main of 1587, and as Oleum Ligustici in the 1589 edition of the Dispensatorium Nor/cum.