Medieval Gardens
- A changing Europe
- The rise of the Monasteries
- How do we know about medieval gardens?
- The complaints of a medieval gardener
- What did they grow?
- The Hortus Conclusus (walled garden)
A changing Europe
With the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe fell apart into lots of smaller states. Gradually they combined to make bigger units under powerful leaders like the Emperor Charlemagne (Charles the Great). The states of central Europe, including modern Germany and parts of France were, known as ‘Holy Roman’ or ‘Western’ Empire for most of this time. But it was the Catholic Church that gave the whole of Western Europe (including Britain) its cultural unity as they all saw themselves as part of ‘Christendom’. And it was the Christian monastic communities that carried forward our Story of Gardens into the next stage.
The rise of the Monasteries
Monasteries were self-supporting religious communities who grew very powerful with huge estates and extensive trade routes. They used their wealth to create beautiful buildings, books and treasures to glorify God and were also international centres of literacy and learning as well as the more practical skills of horticulture.
How do we know about medieval gardens?
The earliest written references to gardens came in 795, during Charlemagne’s reign. It is a list of 73 plants and fruit trees that had to be grown in each administrative region of the Empire. This shows that plants and their products were exchanged and were an important part of international trade, as well as the local economy.
We can learn a lot about gardens from medieval ‘Books of Hours’. These contained religious texts to be used at different times of the day and year, and were often richly illustrated with scenes from daily life, including gardens. Across Europe, garden styles were similar, showing that people and ideas moved around freely.
The complaints of a medieval gardener
Some gardening problems haven’t changed since medieval times! In 827 Walafried Strabo, a monk at Reichenau monastery in Germany, wrote ‘Hortulus’, a long Latin poem about gardening. He complains about the problems of killing nettles and asks ‘Quid Facerem?’-‘What shall I do?’ Most of his writings deal with the cultivation of herbs and vegetables. He describes ‘raised planting beds’, a gardening method that lasted into the 18th century.
What did they grow?
Many plants grown in medieval times had been introduced during the Roman period, and others were brought back during the Crusades. Plants had many uses, including:
- Medicinal: poppy for opium; lily for snakebite and corns;
- Culinary: vegetables, fruit and salads for eating; herbs for flavouring
- Practical: iris for starch; fennel for dye; hawthorn and oak for ink
- Religious: Flowers were used as chaplets for the clergy,(like the priests did in ancient Egypt and Rome)
- Symbolic: White lily for the Virgin Mary; Red rose for the Blood of Christ
The Hortus Conclusus (walled garden)
The structure of gardens was simple and geometric, like Roman and Persian gardens. They were rectangular, surrounded by stone or brick walls, (or trellis, wattle, or picket fences for the less well off) and contained many varieties of plants, grown for beauty and usefulness. Grass-covered Mounts (viewing mounds) were popular, and raised banks and flat lawns of wild flowers and grass. The gardens of the wealthy were places of pleasure, for games, reading, dining, and even holding court.
Towns were developing too, with open spaces for everyone: ponds, streams, orchards and gardens, as well as private gardens. Houses, often close to the street, had long gardens behind them for growing fruit and vegetables as well as keeping animals. This pattern can still be seen in the high streets of many old towns throughout Europe.
Queen Eleanor’s Garden, Winchester
A reconstructed medieval garden next to the Great Hall, with a fountain and water channel (rill), paths, flowery lawns and a trelliswork arbour of climbing roses and honeysuckle.
Image by kind permission of Hampshire County Council.
'Roman de la Rose'
A famous 15thc painting shows courtly men and women walking and relaxing in a walled garden. Water from the fountain is channelled under the wall, available to outsiders
(Click on the thumbnail image to view a larger version)
Mosteiro dos Jeronimos, Lisbon, Portugal
A monastic ‘ cloister’, is an enclosed garden, with a central fountain, surrounded by a covered walkway. This design is based on the Roman peristyle garden and was common throughout Europe.
Plan of a Benedictine monastery c900 AD
The plan shows a central cloister; herb gardens by the hospital and school; fruit trees growing in the cemetery and surrounding farmland for other crops.
