[There are three sorts of the Service Tree cultivated in England, namely the cultivated Service; the Wild Service or Mountain Ash; and the Maple leaved Service. The first is a native of the warmer climes of Europe; and the other two grow wild in different parts of England.]
Strawberries.—The Romans had Strawberries, but do not appear to have prized them. The climate is too warm to produce this fruit in perfection unless in the hills.
[Tusser enumerates Strawberries, red and white, as being cultivated when he wrote.]
Vines.—The Romans had a multiplicity of Vines, both thick-skinned, (duracina,) and thin-skinned: one Vine growing at Rome produced 12 Amphoræ of juice, equal to 84 gallons. They had round-berried, and long-berried sorts, one so long that it was called dactilydes, the grapes being like the fingers on the hand. Martial (xiii. 22.) speaks favourably of the hard-skinned grape for eating.
[In Domesday Book, (1. p. 8. col 1.) there are said to be in the Bishop of Bayeux’s Manor of Chert, in the county of Kent, three arpents of Vineyard, and in the Manor of Leeds (1. p. 7. col. 4.) belonging to the same Bishop, two Arpents of Vineyard.
In several Charters in the “Registrum Roffensis” mention is made of the Vineyard belonging to the Monks of Rochester, wherein grew great quantities of grapes; and which is also, in much later days, said by Worlidge, to have produced excellent wines. Bishop Hamon presented some of the wine and grapes of his own growth, at Halling, near Rochester, to Edward the second, when at Bockinfold; and in some old leases of the bishoprick, mention has been found made, of considerable quantities of Blackberries being delivered to the Bishop of Rochester, by sundry of his Tenants, for the purpose of colouring the wine growing in his Vineyard. This gives us some idea of what sort the wine was, and also deserves well to be compared with that ancient usage of making wines in this country, the remembrance whereof is preserved by means of some records of the reign of Henry the third; amongst which are two precepts, the one (Claus. An. 34. Hen. III.) to the keepers of the king’s wines at York, to deliver out to one Robert (de Monte Pessulano) such wines, and as much as he pleased to make for the king’s use, against the feast of Christmas, (Claret) such drink, as he used to make in preceding years. The first record says, ad potus regis pretiosos delicatos inde faciendos. The second says, ad Claretum inde faciend.—Ad opus regis sicut annis preteritis facere consuevit. And both may be seen at length in Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. p. 11. Perhaps it may not be undeserving notice, that even to the beginning of the eighteenth Century, almost all red wine was, in this country, called Claret.
Honey and Mead, constituted a part of the mixture of the royal Norman Claret, and for several ages Claret was considered as belonging to the Materia Medica; and formed a part of the old English Apothecaries store of Medicines, preserved in white glazed earthern pitchers, with labelled inscriptions burnt in large blue letters in the ware; several of which are still preserved.
Several other Monasteries and Abbeys, had remarkable Vineyards, as well as Rochester; particularly that of St. Edmund’s Bury; that at Ely; that at Peterborough; and even that at Darley Abbey, in Derbyshire; And indeed most of the original Vineyards mentioned are found to have belonged to Abbeys. It is a curious circumstance, and elucidating the prices of the age, that in the time of Henry the third, a Dolium. or cask of the best wine, sold for forty shillings, and sometimes even for twenty.
For an enlarged account of Vineyards in England see Archæologia, vol. i. p. 821.; and vol. iii. p. 53. and 67.]
Walnuts.—The Romans had soft shelled, and hard shelled, as we have. In the golden age, when men lived upon acorns, the gods lived upon Walnuts, hence the name Juglans, that is Jovis glans.[[1]]