Medieval gardening
- See also the history of gardening.
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This article uses first-person ("I"; "we") or second-person ("you") inappropriately. Please rewrite it to use a more formal, encyclopedic tone. (January 2012) |
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.
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[edit] Historical evidence
Humans' relationship with plants is almost as old as humans as a species. The majority of our knowledge about the method 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, being 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.
[edit] 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
[edit] Garden Features
- Fencing
- Seating
- Fountains
- Fishponds
- Beds
- Gates
[edit] Primary sources on gardening
- Apuleius, Herbal 11th c.
- Charlemagne, Capitulare de Villis
- Palladius, Palladius On husbondrie. ~1420
- Walahfrid Strabo, Hortulus
- Jon Gardener, The Feate of Gardening. ~1400
- Friar Henry Daniel
- Albertus Magnus
- Thomas Hill (born ca. 1528) just after our period of focus but quite relevant.
[edit] 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
