The Role of Religious Actors in the Circulation of Academic Knowledge

From the early modern period onwards, the discovery of new trade routes, the establishment of printing presses, the enthusiasm for collecting plants and herbaria and the availability of eyewitness accounts created an ideal situation for the circulation of knowledge about plants. This chapter explores the important role played by religious actors in systematising and circulating botanical knowledge at the global level. Indigenous physicians who were deeply shaped by their own religious traditions and the Catholic and Protestant missionaries who were long-term residents in foreign lands were important cogs in the network of knowledge transmission.