Medieval gardening

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See also the history of gardening.

Medieval gardening, or gardening during the medieval period, was the chief method of providing food for households, but also encompassed orchards, cemeteries and pleasure gardens. For the purposes of this article, the European medieval era will be considered to span from 400 to 1400 CE, though appropriate references may be made to earlier and later times. Gardening is the deliberate cultivation of plants herbs, fruits, flowers, or vegetables. The gardening article discusses the differences and similarities between gardens and farms in greater detail.

Historical evidence

Humans' relationship with plants is almost as old as humans as a species. The majority of our knowledge about the methods and means of gardens in the Middle Ages comes through archaeology, surviving textual documentation, and surviving artworks such as paintings, tapestry and illumination. The early Middle Ages brings us a surprisingly clear snapshot of the European gardening situation at the time of Charlemagne with the survival of three important documentations: the Capitulare of Charlemagne, Walafrid Strabo's poem Hortulus, and the Plan of St Gall which depicts three garden areas and lists what was grown.

Types of Garden

  • Hortus conclusus-Enclosed garden
  • Vegetable or cottage -primarily for food production
  • herber -primarily for herbs, culinary medicinal and craft
  • pleasure -nobleman's garden
  • orchard -fruit trees
  • nuthey -an orchard of nut trees

Garden Features

  • Fencing
  • Seating
  • Fountains
  • Fishponds
  • Beds
  • Gates

Primary sources on gardening

  • Apuleius, Herbal 11th century
  • Charlemagne, Capitulare de Villis (c. 800): listing the plants and estate style to be established throughout his empire
  • Palladius, Palladius On husbondrie. c. 1420
  • Walahfrid Strabo, Hortulus
  • Jon Gardener, The Feate of Gardening. c. 1400: poem containing plant lists and outlining gardening practices, probably by a royal gardener
  • Friar Henry Daniel (14th century): compiled a list of plants
  • Albertus Magnus, De vegetabilibus et plantis (c. 1260): records design precepts on the continent
  • Piero de' Crescenzi, Ruralium Commodorum Liber (c. 1305): records designs precepts on the continent
  • 'Fromond List', original titled Herbys necessary for a gardyn (c. 1525): list of garden plants
  • Thomas Hill (born c. 1528).
  • Master Fitzherbert, The Booke of Husbandrie (1534): includes commentary on past horticultural practices
  • T. Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry (1580): another relevant commentary though written in the post medieval period[1]

Other sources on medieval gardening

  • Crisp, Frank; Mediaeval Gardens
  • Landsberg, Sylvia; The Medieval Garden 1995
  • Wright, Richardson; The Story of Gardening from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the Hanging Gardens of New York, 1934
  • John Harvey; Mediaeval Gardens

Citations

  1. ↑ Landsberg Sylvia, The Medieval Garden, The British Museum Press (ISBN 0-7141-0590-2), passim

External links

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