Herbs of the Fifteenth Century

f What they grew in the fifteenth-century herb gardens can easily be ascertained, The earliest original English treatise on gardening extant is a manuscript now in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It’ is called The Feate of Gardening, and was written by Mayster Jon Gardener in 1440. Miss Amherst gives a complete list of the herbs which Mayster Jon Gardener directs to be grown. They include strawberries (wild strawberries, of course), hyssop, woodruff, betony, borage, henbane, lavender, southernwood, tansy, thyme, violets, waterliles, hollyhocks, yarrow, mint, Tue, roses, saffron, camomile, foxgloves, centaury, agrimony, Herb Robert, lily candidum, wormwood, sage, horehound, groundsel, hart’s tongue fern, pimpernel, clary, comfrey, valerian and cowslips, besides many others. There is in the British Museum a fifteenth-century manuscript (Sloane MS. 1201) which is a book of cookery receipts, and this gives a complete list of herbs used in cooking, and in addition to those mentioned in Mayster Jon Gardener's enumeration ; this list includes Alexanders, mugwort, basil, bugloss, burnet, chervil, caraway, chives, daises, dittany, dandelion, dill, elecampane, eyebright, agrimony, fennel, marigold, gilly- flowers, germander, borage, mercury, mallow, mint, mar- joram, nettles, orage, parsley, primroses, rocket, savory, smallage, sorrel, sow-thistle, vervain, rosemary and roses. These two lists give a very fair idea of the herbs grown in an ordinary fourteenth or fifteenth-century garden, and tne vision of the sweet, homely flowers with their delicious scents rises before one, when one reads Chaucer’s description in the Romaunt of the Rose. : “ Ful gay wis al the ground, and queynt And poudred as men had it peynt, ‘With many a fresh and sundry flour That casten up a ful good savour,” 8 A GARDEN OF HERBS Of the earlier herb gardens we have, alas, very little definite knowledge. We know from Pliny that the Druids used large numbers of medicinal herbs, and we gather from his account that the knowledge of herbal medicine was confined to the priesthood. He tells us, moreover, that they gathered herbs with such striking ceremonies that it might seem as if the British had taught them to the Persians, whose country was supposed to be the home of superstitious medicine. All the written lore on herbs previous to Alfred’s reign has been lost, and any books there were, were probably destroyed during the terrible Danish invasion, when so many valuable monastic libraries were burnt. That these books on herbs existed is almost certain, for we know that in the eighth century, Boniface, ‘“‘ the Apostle of the Saxons,” received letters from various persons in England asking him for books on simples. The oldest herbal in England is an MS. in the British Museum which was written under the direction of one, Bald, who, if he was not a personal friend of King Alfred’s, had at any rate access to the king’s corre- spondence, for he gives certain prescriptions sent by Helias, Patriarch of Jerusalem, to the king. In a lecture delivered before the Royal College of Physicians in 1903, Doctor J. F. Payne commented on the remarkable fact that this and several other Saxon manuscripts on herbs were written in the vernacular, and thus they were unique in Europe at that time. ‘In no other European country was there at that time any scientific literature written in the vernacular. The Saxons had a much wider knowledge of herbs than the doctors of Salerno, the oldest school of medicine in Europe and also the oldest European university. No treatise of the school of Salerno contemporaneous with the Leach book of Bald is known, so that the Anglo-Saxons had the credit of priority. ...The Leach book of Bald was the first medical treatise written in Western Europe which can be said to belong to modern history, that is produced after the decadence and decline of the classical medicine. . . . In fact it is the earliest medical treatise produced by any of the modern nations of Europe.” This old manuscript to which OF HERB GARDENS 9 Doctor Payne referred is supposed to have been written under the direction of some one called Bald, who is described in the manuscript } as the owner of the book, the name of the actual scribe being Cild. It is evident that Bald was a leech, and he was probably a monk, for at that time very few books were written except in monasteries. Bald had a remarkably wide knowledge of native plants and garden herbs, but though he gives exact prescriptions for the giving of these herbs in drinks, with ale, vinegar or milk and honey, and how to make them into ointments with butter, it is quite impossible to ascertain exactly what cultivated and wild herbs were included in the herb gardens of those days. We only know that they called their herb gardens wyrtzerd, or wyrttun, and that they certainly grew sunflowers, peonies, gillyflowers, marigolds, violets and periwinkles, to which last they gave the delightful name “ Joy of the Ground.” In Norman days the principal herb gardens were those attached to the monasteries, and it is interesting to remember that the present little cloister of Westminster Abbey and the College garden once formed part of the old Infirmary garden, where the herbs for the healing of the sick and for Church decorations were grown. But if the monks main- tained the knowledge of herbs in one way, it must also be remembered that, on the other hand, they were largely responsible for the loss of what remained of the Druidical knowledge of plants, which was discountenanced by the Church, because much of it had become associated with witch- craft. The seventh book of Alexander Neckham’s poem, “De laudibus divine Sapientie ” (ciyca 1200) is on herbs, and in his De Naturis Rerum he gives a description of what a “noble garden” should be. His list of herbs includes 1 At the end of the second part of the MS. is written in Latin ‘verse :— 2 “Bald is the owner of this book which he ordered Cild to write, Ernestly I pray here all men, in the name of Christ That no treacherous person take this book from me, Neither by force nor by theft nor by any false statement. Why? Because the richest treasure is not so dear to me As my dear books which the grace of Christ attends.” ro A GARDEN OF HERBS roses, lilies, violets, mandrakes, parsley, fennel, southern- wood, coriander, sage, savory, hyssop, mint, rue, dittany, smallage, lettuce, garden cress, peonies, onions, garlic, leeks, beets, herb mercury, orach, sorrel and mallows. But it is not till we come to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries that we have any definite knowledge of what the gardens looked like and what they grew in them. From the Tudor days onwards began the separation of the flowers from the herbs. As new vegetables were intro- duced, the modern kitchen garden was gradually established, and the herb garden decreased in size; but in importance not for another two centuries at least. It became the special province of the housewife, and in it she grew all the herbs she needed for the kitchen: for teas, ointments and simple medicines, for making distilled waters, for sweet bags to scent the linen, for washing-balls and pomanders. The post of still-room maid in those days was not a sinecure. There was no lack of books to guide the housewife of Tudor and Stewart days: the most notable being Hill’s Art of Gardening, William Lawson’s The Country Housewife’s Garden, and Gervase Markham’s various works. Gervase Markham gives a delightful description of the ideal gardener who should be “ religious, honest and skilful.” ‘‘ Religious,” he proceeds to explain (‘‘ because many thinke religion but a fashion or custome to goe to Church”’), to be one “ who cherishes above all God’s word and the Preachers thereof” (so much as he is able), and by “honest ” he means “ one who will not hinder your pleasures in the garden,” and he adds that he must not be a “ lazy lubber.’”” When he comes to gillyflowers (why have we given up this delightful name for carnations?) in his list of herbs he gives one of those personal touches, which are so irresistibly charming in the old writers. With a childlike faith in his readers’ sympathy he tells us, “‘I have of them nine or ten severall colours and divers of them as bigge as Roses. Of all flowers (save the Damaske Rose) they are the most pleasant to smell. There use is much in ornament and comforting the spirits by the sense of smelling.” Biographies full of facts and OF HERB GARDENS Ir dates sometimes leave one cold, but those few words bridge the centuries in a flash, and one sees the old gardener in the glory of the July sunshine working happily amongst his gillyflowers. It is Lawson also who gives the sage advice to the housewife, that if her maids help her with the weeding she must teach them the difference between herbs and weeds. Thomas Hill (who adopted the nom de plume of “‘ Didymus Mountain” for one of his books!) is in some ways the quaintest of these three writers ; but one cannot help feeling that like most Tudor authorities on gardening he did not mean to be taken quite literally, and it is pleasant to find that in those days, as now, between book gardening and practical gardening there was a great. gulf fixed! It is doubtful whether any one could suggest a more appropriate hedge for the herb garden than his idea of young elder trees at intervals. There should, of course, be an elder tree in every herb garden ; for have not herbs since time immemorial been under the protection of the spirit of the elder tree? A hedge of briars, as Hill truly observes, ‘‘ within three years would well defend out both thefe and beaste, nor would it be in danger of the wanton wayfairing man’s firebrand passinge by, although he should put fire to it.” Time apparently was of no object, for he suggests that the briars should be grown from seed. Like the majority of gardeners and herbalists in those days, Hill believed firmly that the sowing of seeds should be done whilst the moon was waxing, and all cutting back when the moon was waning. He also gives us this astonishing secret, ‘‘ That many savours and tastes may be felte in one herb: take first of the lettuce two or three seeds, of the endive so many, of the smallage the lyke, of the Basil, the Leek and the Parsley. Put altogether into a hole and there will spring up a plant having so many savours or tastes.’ He cautions one to.pay respect to the stars, ‘‘ whose Beames of lighte and influence boothe quicken, comforte, preserve and mayntayne or ells nippe, drye, wyther, consume and destroye by sundrye ways the tender seedes.” After a lengthy and confusing astrological dis- course, he adds apologetically that perchance “ the most 12 A GARDEN OF HERBS part of the common sort of his readers will think these things above their capacity, but his conscience bounde him some- what to put such matter into their heades.” When one reads the curious instructions in these old books one cannot help wondering whether any anxious learner took them seriously. Did they ever sprinkle seeds with wine to strengthen them, and drag speckled toads about the garden to safeguard the young herbs? Did they hang hyena and crocodile skins in the alleys to protect them from lightning, and hippopotamus’ skins or owls’ wings outspread. against tempests? Were eagles’ feathers planted in the four corners and in the middle to ward off mists and frosts ? And to avert disease in the plants did they burn the left horn of an ox? Was any one ever seen creeping stealthily into his neighbour’s garden to purloin caterpillars, in order to seethe them with the herb dill and sprinkle the mixture in order to abolish caterpillars for ever from his own garden? (‘ Take very dilegent hede,” Hill thoughtfully adds, “ that none of this water fall neither on your face, nor hands.’’) Did they put a solitary mole into a pot so that when “he crieth out the others minding to help him forth will also fall into the pot’? Were mice frightened away by the beds being sprinkled with water in which the cat had been washed, or by a mixture of wild cucumber, henbane and bitter almonds? ‘‘No adder,” says Hill, ‘will come into a garden in which grow wormwood, mugwort and southern- wood, and therefore it should be aptly planted in the corners or round about the garden.” Did any one follow the advice to run after adders and throw green oak leaves on them that they might die forthwith? Adders it seems love fennel “as toads love sage and snakes rocket.” And if after a strenuous day the croaking of the frogs disquieted the gardener, did he go and hang up lanterns to make them think the sun was shining? In the sixteenth century the fashion for growing herbs in “knots’”’ and “mazes” came in, and I have included some of the old designs in this book, and, though artificial, at least they are not so ugly as the survivals one still sees OF HERB GARDENS 13 of the geometrical flower-beds of Victorian days! The Tudor garden of any pretension also included a wild part where the herbs could be trodden on, and of such a garden there is the well-known description in Bacon’s essay. The idea of a wild garden where the sweet-smelling herbs might be trodden on survived into the eighteenth century. In the English Housewife of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, there is a description of one of the few genuine old herb gardens still to be seen in England. It is at St. Anne’s Hill near Chertsey-on-Thames, originally the home of Charles James Fox, and now the property of Sir Albert K. Rollit, and the herb garden is left very much as it was in Charles James Fox’s days. ‘‘ The herbs are in no particular order and are not raised above the level of the turf walks and offer themselves to be trodden on. There are rosemary, borage, thyme, sage, fennel, mint, parsley, rue, lavender, chives, southernwood, tarragon, savory, hyssop, chervil and marjoram growing in charming confusion enclosed by the thick old-world beech and yew hedges which are probably older than the Georgian house.”’ One well-known eighteenth- century herb garden must have been unique in its fencing, for this was made entirely of sword-blades picked up on the field of Culloden. One of the most famous eighteenth- century herb gardens was Sir John Hill’s in Bayswater. This great doctor advocated that there should be public herb gardens in various parts of England planted with every herb useful in medicine, in the arts or Husbandry, that they should be open always free of expense to all people, and that there should be “‘ some person present to show what was deserved to be seen and explain what was necessary.” Till such gardens were made he generously invited any one who was interested to come to his garden at Bayswater— “let none fear to apply, the plants are there and every one is welcome.” At the end of his Virtues of British Herbs there is a note: “ If any one entertain a doubt concerning the plant he would use after comparing it with the figure and description, the gardener at Bayswater shall give a sample of it for asking, and all persons can command the 14 A GARDEN OF HERBS farther opinion and directions of the author when they please.” Sir John Hill’s works on herbs are so learned that it is refreshing in the middle of one of them to light on this remark: “I was introduced in Yorkshire to one Brewer, who has contrived a Dress on Purpose for Herbalising, and had a mask for his face and pads to his knees that he might creep into the thickets.” This, alas, is all he tells us of this enthusiast. But whether fashioned on the old-world model or made just according to the fancy of the owner, a herb garden should be essentially a garden enclosed; a sanctuary of a sweet and placid pleasure; a garden of peace and of sweet scents, filled with all the humble, lovable old plants one so rarely sees, and which never look really happy in company with showy modern plants. A modern herb garden might be made surrounded by banks (such as one sees round Devonshire cottage gardens), and these could be smothered with herbs—violets, cowslips, borage, wild strawberries, germander, betony, yarrow, centaury, wild thyme, and so on. Ifthere was room on one bank even nettles, dandelions, lesser celandine, daisies, etc., might be allowed to grow, not with the abashed furtive air they assume in the presence of that terribly grand and merciless person the gardener, but spreading themselves cheerfully and comfortably in the sun, happy in the knowledge that even if the aforesaid gardener rejects them, their owner realises they have virtues not to be found amongst the inhabitants of the largest and tidiest kitchen garden. And how beautiful the garden itself could be with every variety of lavender, rosemary, bergamot, hyssop, thyme, fennel, rue, marjoram, lad’s love, sweetbriar, and all the old sweet-scented cabbage and Provence roses; even if these were the only inhabitants of the old-fashioned herb garden included in it. There should be nothing of the “grand air” in a herb garden. As Rousseau wisely observed: ‘‘ The ‘grand air’ is always melancholy in a garden, it makes one think of the miseries of the man who affects it. . . . The two sides of the alleys will not be always exactly parallel, its direction will not be always in a straight