Gyllofre gentyle, mageroum gentyle, brasyle, palma Christi, stycadose, meloncez, arcachaffe, scalacely[45], philyppendula[46], popy royalle, germaundre, cowsloppus of Jerusalem, verveyne, dylle, seynt Mare, garlek.
Also rotys (roots) for a gardyne.
Parsenepez, turnepez, radyche, karettes, galyngale, eryngez[47], saffrone.
Also for an herbere.
Vynes, rosers, lylés, thewberies[48], almondez, bay-trees, gourdes, date-trese, peche-trese, pyneappulle, pyany romain, rose campy, cartabus, seliane, columbyne gentyle, elabre.
The processes of gardening were simple and easy, and the gardener’s skill consisted chiefly in the knowledge of the seasons for sowing and planting different herbs and trees, and of the astrological circumstances under which these processes could be performed most advantageously. The great ambition of the mediæval horticulturist was to excel in the various mysteries of grafting, and he entertained theories on this subject of the most visionary character, many of which were founded on the writings of the ancients; for the mediæval theories were accustomed to select from the doctrines of antiquity that which was most visionary, and it usually became still more visionary in their hands. Two English treatises on gardening were current in the fifteenth century, one founded upon the Latin treatise of Palladius, and entitled “Godfrey upon Palladie de Agricultura,” the other by Nicholas Bollarde, a monk of Westminster—the monks were great gardeners. These treatises occur not unfrequently in manuscripts, and both are found in the British Museum, in the Sloane MS., No. 7. An abridgment of them was edited by Mr. Halliwell, from the Porkington manuscript, in a collection of “Early English Miscellanies,” printed for the Warton Club. In these treatises, cherry-trees appear to have been more than any others the subjects of experiment, and to have been favourite stocks for grafting. Among the receipts given in these treatises we may mention those for making cherries grow without stones, and other fruit without cores; for making the fruit of trees bear any colour you like; for making old trees young; for making sour fruit sweet; and “to have grapes ripe as soon as pears or cherries.” This was to be brought about by grafting the vine on a cherry-tree, according to the following directions, the spelling of which I modernise:—“Set a vine by a cherry till it grow, and at the beginning of February when time is, make a hole through the cherry-tree at what height thou wilt, and draw through the vine branch so that it fill the hole, and shave away the old bark of the vine as much as shall be in the hole, and put it in so that the part shaven fill the hole full, and let it stand a year till they be ‘souded’ together, then cut away the root end of the vine, and lap it with clay round about, and keep it so after other graftings aforesaid.” This is from Nicholas Bollarde. Godfrey upon Palladius tells us how “to have many roses. Take the hard pepins that be right ripe, and sow them in February or March, and when they spring, water them well, and after a year complete thou mayst transplant them; and if thou wilt have timely (early) roses, delve about the roots one or two handbreadths, and water their scions with warm water; and for to keep them long, put them in honeycombs.” According to the receipts edited by Mr. Halliwell, “If thou wilt that in the stone of a peach-apple (this was the ordinary name for a peach) be found a nut-kernel, graft a spring (sprout) of a peach-tree on the stock of a nut-tree. Also a peach-tree shall bring forth pomegranates, if it be sprong (sprinkled) oft times with goat’s milk three days when it beginneth to flower. Also the apples of a peach-tree shall wax red, if its scion be grafted on a playne tree.” Such were the intellectual vagaries of “superstitious eld.”
Peaches are frequently mentioned among the fruit of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; but nectarines or apricots are not met with before the fifteenth century. The latter were called in old English by their French name of abricots, and subsequently, and still more frequently, apricocks.
CHAPTER XIV.
AMUSEMENTS.—PERFORMING BEARS.—HAWKING AND HUNTING.—RIDING.—CARRIAGES.—TRAVELLING.—INNS AND TAVERNS.—HOSPITALITY.
During the period of which we are treating, the same rough sports were in vogue among the uneducated classes that had existed for ages before, and which continued for ages after. Many of these were trials of strength, such as wrestling and throwing weights, with archery, and other exercises of that description; others were of a less civilised character, such as cockfighting and bear and bull-baiting. These latter were favourite amusements, and there was scarcely a town or village of any magnitude which had not its bull-ring. It was a municipal enactment in all towns and cities that no butcher should be allowed to kill a bull until it had been baited. The bear was an animal in great favour in the middle ages, and was not only used for baiting, but was tamed and taught various performances. I have already, in a former chapter, given an example of a dancing bear under the Anglo-Saxons; the accompanying cut ([No. 199]) is another, taken from a manuscript of the beginning of the thirteenth century, in the British Museum (MS. Arundel. No. 91).