As I have introduced the subject of the love of our forefathers for trees and flowers, some account of gardening in the middle ages will not be out of place, especially as what has hitherto been written on the history of gardening in England during this early period, has been very imperfect and incorrect. We have no direct information relating to the gardens of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers—in fact, our knowledge is limited to a few words gathered from the old vocabularies. The ordinary names for a garden, wyrt-tun and wyrt-geard, a plant-inclosure and a plant-yard, are entirely indefinite, for the word wyrt was applied to all plants whatever, and perhaps they indicate what we should call the kitchen-garden. The latter word, which was sometimes spelt ort-geard, orc-geard, and orcyrd, was the origin of our modern orchard, which is now limited to an inclosure of fruit-trees. Flowers were probably cultivated in the inclosed space round the houses. It would appear that the Saxons, before they became acquainted with the Romans, cultivated very few plants, if we may judge from the circumstance that throughout the Anglo-Saxon period the names by which these were known were nearly all derived from the Latin. The leek appears to have been the principal table vegetable among the Anglo-Saxons, as it was among the Welsh its name, leac, or leah, is pure Anglo-Saxon, and its importance was considered so much above that of any other vegetable, that leac-tun, the leek-garden, became the common name for the kitchen-garden, and leac-weard, a leek-keeper, was used to designate the gardener. The other alliaceous plants were considered as so many varieties of the leek, and were known by such names as enne-leac, or ynne-leac, supposed to be the onion, and gar-leac, or garlic. Bean is also an Anglo-Saxon word; but, singularly enough, the Anglo-Saxons seem not to have been originally acquainted with peas, for the only name they had for them was the Latin pisa, and pyse. Even for the cabbage tribe, the only Anglo-Saxon name we know is simply the Latin brassica; and the colewort, which was named cawl, and cawl-wyrt, was derived from the Latin caulis. So the turnip was called næpe, from the Latin napus; and rædic, or radish, is perhaps from raphanus.[29] Garden cresses, parsley, mint, sage, rue, and other herbs,[30] were in use, but mostly, except the cresses, with Latin names.
We have long lists of flowering plants in the Anglo-Saxon vocabularies, but as they are often difficult to identify, and, being chiefly enumerated for their medicinal qualities, are mostly wild plants, they throw little light on the character of the flower-garden. For the garden rose and the lily they used the Roman names rose and lilie; the latter appears to have been an especially favourite flower among the Anglo-Saxons. Among other plants, evidently belonging to the garden, are suthernwood, sutherne-wude, the turnsole or sunflower, called sigel-hwerfe (the gem-turned) or solsæce (which is merely the Latin solsequium), the violet (clæfre), the marigold, called read-clæfre, the gilliflower, hwit-clæfre, the periwinkle, pervincæ, the honeysuckle, hunig-sucle, the piony, for which the Anglo-Saxons had only the Latin word pionia, the daisy, dæges-eage, and the laur-beam, which was perhaps the bay-tree rather than the laurel.
The chief fruit of the Anglo-Saxons was undoubtedly the apple, the name of which, æppel, belongs to their language. The tree was called an apulder, and the only varieties mentioned are the surmelst apulder, or souring apple-tree, and the swite apulder, or sweeting apple-tree. The Anglo-Saxons had orchards containing only apple-trees, to which they gave the name of an apulder-tun, or apple-tree garden; of the fruit of which they made what they called, and we still call, cider, and which they also called æppel-win, or apple-wine. They appear to have received the pear from the Romans, as its name pera, a pear, and piriga, a pear-tree, was evidently taken from pirus. They had also derived from the Roman gardens, no doubt, the cherry-tree (cyrs-treow, or ciris-beam, from the Latin cerasus), the peach (persoc-treow, from persicarius), the mulberry (mor-beam, from morus), the chestnut (cysten, cyst, or cystel-beam, from castaneus),[31] perhaps the almond (magdala-treow, from amigdalus), the fig (fic-beam, from ficus), and the pine (pin-treow, from pinus). The small kernels of the pine were used very extensively in the middle ages, in the same way as olives. We must add to these the plum (plum-treow), the name of which is Anglo-Saxon; the medlar, which was known in Anglo-Saxon by a very unexplainable name, but one which was preferred to a comparatively recent period; the quince, which was called a cod-æple, or bag-apple; the nut (hnutu), and the hazel-nut (hæsel-hnutu). They called the olive an oil-tree (ale-beam), which would seem to prove that they considered its principal utility to be for making oil. The vine was well-known to the Anglo-Saxons; they called it the win-treow, or wine-tree, its fruit, winberige, or wine berries, and a bunch of grapes, geclystre, a cluster. We find no Anglo-Saxon words for gooseberries or currants; but our forefathers were well acquainted with the strawberry (strea-berige) and the raspberry, which they called hynd-berige. Perhaps these last-mentioned fruits, which are known to be natives of Britain, were known only in their wild state.[32]
The earliest account of an English garden is given by Alexander Neckam, who flourished in the latter half of the twelfth century, in the sixty-sixth chapter of the second book of his treatise, De naturis rerum, which exists only in manuscripts (I quote from one in the British Museum, MS. Reg. 12 G. xi.). He introduces at least one plant, the mandrake, which was fabulous, and gives several names which I shall be obliged to leave in his original Latin, as, perhaps through corruption of the text, I cannot interpret them, but there can be little doubt that it is in general a correct enumeration of the plants and trees cultivated in a complete English garden of the period. “A garden,” he says, “should be adorned on this part with roses, lilies, the marigold, molis, and mandrakes, and on that part with parsley, cost, fennel, southernwood, coriander, sage, savery, hyssop, mint, rue, dittany, smallage, pellitory, lettuce, cresses, ortulano, and the piony. Let there also be beds (areæ) enriched with onions, leeks, garlic, melons, and scallions (hinnuilis). The garden is also ennobled by the cucumber which creeps on its belly, and by the soporiferous poppy, as well as by the daffodil and the acanthus. Nor let pot-herbs be wanting, if you can help it, such as beets, herb mercury, orache, the acedula, (sorrel?) and the mallow. It is useful also to the gardener to have anise, mustard, white pepper, and wormwood.” Neckam then goes on to the fruit-trees. “A noble garden,” he says, “will give you medlars, quinces, the pearmain (volema), peaches, pears of St. Regle, pomegranates, citrons (or lemons), oranges, almonds, dates, and figs.” When Neckam speaks of a “noble garden,” he of course speaks of that of a great baron or prince, and enumerates fruits of choice, and mostly above the common range. Medlars and quinces were formerly held in great esteem, and much used. I have ventured to interpret volema as meaning the pearmain, which was considered one of the choicest apples, as the apple is not mentioned in the list, and as in one of the early glossaries that meaning is attached to the word. Peaches were, as we have seen, known to the Anglo-Saxons; and in 1276 we find slips of peach-trees mentioned in an official record as planted in the king’s garden at Westminster. The pear of St. Regle was one of the choice kinds of pears brought from France, and it and several other kinds of pears are enumerated in the accounts of the earl of Lincoln’s garden in Holborn (London) in 1296. It is rather surprising that Mr. Hudson Turner, in his very valuable volume on domestic architecture, where he supposes that mala aurea in Neckam’s list were intended for the golden apples of the Hesperides, should not have known that the malum aureum of the middle ages was the orange. Pomegranates, citrons, oranges, almonds, dates, and figs, are known to have been cultivated in England at different periods, but it is not probable that the fruit came often to perfection. It may be remarked that Neckam gives a separate chapter to the cultivation of the vine, which belonged to the vineyard, and not to the garden. After an enumeration of plants which were not grown in Western Europe, Neckam gives a list of others, known for their medicinal qualities, some of which can hardly have been planted in a garden, unless it belonged to a physician; although it appears to have been the custom to devote a corner of the garden to the medicinal plants most in use, in order that they might be ready at hand when wanted. The gardener’s tools in the twelfth century, as enumerated by Neckam in his treatise De Utensilibus, were few and simple; he had an axe, or twibill, a knife for grafting, a spade, and a pruning-hook.
John de Garlande lived during the first half of the thirteenth century. He was an Englishman, but had established himself as a scholar in the university of Paris, so that the description of his garden which he gives in his “Dictionarius” may be considered as that of a garden in the neighbourhood of Paris, which, however, probably hardly differed from a garden in England. It may be considered as the garden of a respectable burgher. “In master John’s garden are these plants, sage, parsley, dittany, hyssop, celandine, fennel, pellitory, the rose, the lily, and the violet; and at the side (i. e. in the hedge), the nettle, the thistle, and foxgloves. His garden also contains medicinal herbs, namely, mercury and the mallow, agrimony, with nightshade, and the marigold.” Master John’s gardener had also a garden for his potherbs, in which grew borage, leeks, garlic, mustard, onions, cibols, and scallions; and in his shrubbery grew pimpernel, mouseare, selfheal, buglos, adderstongue, and “other herbs good for men’s bodies.”[33] Master John had in his fruit-garden, cherry-trees, pear-trees, apple-trees, plum-trees, quinces, medlars, peaches, chestnuts, nuts, wallnuts, figs, and grapes. Walter de Bibblesworth, writing in England towards the close of the thirteenth century, enumerates as the principal fruit-trees in a common garden, apples, pears, and cherries— Pomere, perere, e cerecer;
and adds the plum-tree (pruner), and the quince-tree (coingner).
The cherry, indeed, appears to have been one of the most popular of fruits in England, during the mediæval period. The records of the time contain purchases of cherry-trees for the king’s garden in Westminster in 1238 and 1277, and cherries and cherry-trees are enumerated in all the glossaries from the times of the Anglo-Saxons to the sixteenth century. The earl of Lincoln had cherry-trees in his garden in Holborn towards the close of the thirteenth century, and during the same century we have allusions to the cultivation of the cherry in other parts of the kingdom. The allusions to cherries in the early poetry are not at all unfrequent, and they were closely mixed up with popular manners and feelings. It appears to have been the custom, from a rather early period, to have fairs or feasts, probably in the cherry orchards, during the period that the fruit was ripe, which were called cherry-fairs, and sometimes cherry-feasts; and these are remembered, if they do not still exist, in our great cherry districts, such as Worcestershire and Kent. They were brief moments of great gaiety and enjoyment, and the poets loved to quote them as emblems of the transitory character of all worldly things. In the latter part of the fourteenth century, the poet Gower, speaking of the teachers of religion and morality, says:— They prechen us in audience
That no man schalle his soule empeyre (impair),
For alle is but a cherye-fayre.
And the same writer again:— Sumtyme I drawe into memoyre,
How sorow may not ever laste,
And so cometh hope in at laste,
Whan I non other foode knowe;
And that endureth but a throwe,
Ryght as it were a chery-feste.
So again, under the reign of Henry IV., about the year 1411, Occleve, in his poem “De regimine principum,” recently printed for the Roxburgh Club, says (p. 47),—
Thy lyfe, my sone, is but a chery-feire.
During the rest of the fifteenth century, the allusions to the cherry-fairs are very frequent.[34] Yet in face of all this, and still more, abundant evidence, Loudon (“Encyclopædia of Gardening,” edition of 1850) says, “Some suppose that the cherries introduced by the Romans into Britain were lost, and that they were re-introduced in the time of Henry VIII. by Richard Haines (it should be Harris), the fruiterer to that monarch. But though we have no proof that cherries were in England at the time of the Norman conquest, or for some centuries after it, yet Warton has proved, by a quotation from Lidgate, a poet who wrote about or before 1415, that the hawkers in London were wont to expose cherries for sale, in the same manner as is now done early in the season.”
To turn from the fruit-garden to the flower-garden, modern writers have fallen into many similar mistakes as to the supposed recent date of the introduction of various plants into this country. Loudon, for instance, says that we owe the introduction of the gilliflower, or clove-pink (dianthus caryophyllus), to the Flemings, who took refuge on our shores from the savage persecutions of the duke of Alva, in the latter half of the sixteenth century; whereas this flower was certainly well known, under the name of gillofres, ages before. Roses, lilies, violets, and periwinkles, seem to have continued to be the favourite garden-flowers. A manuscript of the fifteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Sloane, No. 1201) furnishes us with a list of plants then considered necessary for a garden, arranged first alphabetically, and then in classes, of which I will here give verbatim the latter part, as the best illustration of the mediæval notion of a garden, and as being, at the same time, a very complete list. After the alphabetical list, the manuscript goes on:—