P a s t   P l a n t i n g s

Chapter Three

Flowery Meads and Turf Seats

"The flowers appear on the earth;

 the time of the singing of birds is come"

                                                Song of Songs Canto 2 v 12


The twelfth century has been described by academics as a time when civilizations all over the world took a quantum leap in advancement. This was most noticeable in the West.

In those days it was a civilization with energy. It, after the Viking threat had subsided, was no longer on the defensive. It could and did go on the offensive. It had confidence for the future and belief in its self.

After the long Dark Age winter, the flowers of its springtime were now

appearing:-

The flowers of chivalry: Knightly ideals and courtly love acting as a civilizing, though not always successful, check to the darker side of human nature: The hydra headed monster that ever is a challenge and a spur to civilization's growth.

The flowers of education: Early universities, such as Oxford, creating centres for study and debate. Scholastic philosophy and other subjects growing strong: minds being enlivened.

The flowers of architecture: In magnificent cathedrals and stout castles.

The flowers of the other arts: Poetic works of allegorical literature; musical polyphony; early drama in the mystery plays; improved paintings; tapestry etc and, making a long awaited comeback, gardening as an art form.

Gardening was being done for art and pleasure once more in Britain and the West. On the continent there had been gardening for pleasure before, as at the court of Charlemagne. However the High Middle Ages (roughly mid 11^th - mid 14^th century.) was when it took off on a more permanent basis.

In the last chapter we considered the possible civilizing and contemplative effects of the Garden of Eden story on monks' minds.

Much more, from the Bible, was influential on gardens. 

For illustration, a Hortus conclusus is Latin for enclosed garden. It refers to a secret garden often enclosed within another garden. Sometimes with spiritual symbolisms associated especially, in the medieval mind, with the Old Testament book "Song of Songs."

Especially well loved in medieval times, "Song of Songs" (variously referred to as "Song"; "Canticles"; "Canticle of Canticles" and "Song of Solomon") is the most lyrical book in the bible. In its verses there are references to gardens. It emphasizes beauty, joy and yearning desire, being also quite sensual in places.

The latter was played down by the medieval church. In those days the book was interpreted as an allegory of Christ's deep love for his church. Also, especially in the latter medieval period, the woman in the text (who partially narrates the lyrics) was seen as symbolizing the Virgin Mary.

Flowers of virtue, like the daisy, were grown in a Hortus conclusus. The enclosed garden represented Mary's intact virginity. 
 
Many flowers and other plants became associated with her at this period. Amongst them:

Daisy: Her purity and innocence.

Marigold: Mary's gold.

Periwinkle: The Virgin's flower. Its blue star shaped flowers were

associated with Mary's title "Stella Maris" - star of the sea. 

Primrose: In May, "the month of Mary", used to decorate church altars.

Foxglove: Our Lady's gloves.

Lady's Mantle: Our Lady's mantle (cloak).

Another name for a Hortus conclusus when associated with the Virgin Mary was, and still is, a Mary Garden. Plants identified with her were and still are grown in them.

The rose had a special connection with Mary. She was known as the "Mystic Rose". Indeed the associated rose windows became a feature of church architecture at this period.

Other symbolic meanings that a Hortus Conclusus stood for were the body of the faithful within the church and the soul within the body. No doubt the monks would find much food for meditation and contemplation in the gardens on those themes.

However a Hortus conclusus was not always associated with the spiritual.  Gardens in the High Middle Ages were no longer exclusive to the church. A Hortus conclusus in the secular world was a place of entertainment and delectation.

Many in both the ecclesiastical and secular sphere were rose gardens. They had fountains, walks and arbours (rose arbours were indeed very popular) inside a perimeter hedge or wall. Flower beds were usually raised to help with drainage. Some had mounds for visitors to see over the wall and /or down into the garden.  Others boasted those famous icons of medieval gardens so often depicted in the paintings (especially the miniatures) of the period: - Flowery meads and turf seats.

Flowery Meads were the medieval precursors of grass lawns, being clover lawns or rich meadows sown with a variety of flowers.

Turf seats were, as the name suggests, seats and benches overlaid with turf. In medieval gardens they were situated either by the central tree or fountain or against a wall. Flowers, sometimes, were planted in the turf.  No doubt attractive to look at, the downside would be that they would have needed a lot of attention.

Holker hall

A few miles to the south of our Ambleside centre are the famous House and gardens of Holker Hall. As one of Cumbria's major horticultural attractions the gardens are well worth a visit. However my interest in bringing attention to them here is to mention that they have a meadow purposely planted with wild flowers there: The modern equivalent of the medieval flowery mead.

Acorn Bank

Another Cumbrian garden, which is again well worth a visit and with a historical link to the medieval period, is "Acorn bank". Situated near Temple Sowerby between Penrith and Appleby it is has the distinction of having within its grounds a widely acclaimed herb garden. This is walled and boasts the largest number of medicinal and culinary plants in the North of England.

The house in medieval times was a base for the historically famous Knights Templar: with their occult repute.

Most of the evidence we have about medieval gardens comes form literary sources and as alluded to above, illustrations. Amongst the types known to exist were:

Kitchen gardens; herb gardens; orchards; parks, physic gardens where medicinal plants were grown and, believe it or not, window boxes.

In design gardens were laid out in strict geometrical form.

Monasteries not only had gardens but (and remember these were the days when they were at the height of their economic power) some also had prosperous enterprises selling seeds and plants. You could say they were the medieval ancestors of garden centres like ours.

Castles often had small courtyard gardens.  Though there is some fairly recent archaeological evidence from Whittington castle in Shropshire that they may have had bigger gardens than we believed. A subject which is quite controversial, causing disagreement between archaeologists.

Whatever the case it all goes to remind us that the past is past and histories are merely interpretive reconstructions which are always open to argument and revaluation.

One historical fact we do know about is that the largest medieval garden, in England acted as the pantry for Westminster Abbey.  Its name was "Convent Garden." (Later corrupted to "Covent Garden")

It began in the reign of King John, in the early 13^th century. In the previous century the wheel barrow first made its appearance in England.

Enclosed medieval gardens with their flowery meads, turf seats and rose arbours are illustrative of a growing class division in society. Gardens were playgrounds for the rich. Somewhere they could relax amongst their own kind undisturbed by the coarser folk outside.

In the 13^th century French medieval epic poem "La Roman de la Rose" (The Romance of the Rose) the God of love tells the narrator, in a garden, to wear tight fitting shoes so that peasants will wonder in amazement how he got them on.

Be that as it may the book gives us a great insight into gardens of the period.

It is an epic poem written by two successive authors, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun: De Lorris telling a dream allegory of courtly love. It is with his version rather than the longer, more scholastic, continuance of the misogynist de Meun, that we are presently concerned with.

De Lorris uses as a narrator a young man who tells of a dream he had five years previously, in which he found in a garden - The garden of love.

In this garden he meets many allegoric characters such as Idleness. She is an attractive lady who greets him when he first gets into the garden.

Accordingly to be a player, in the game of courtly love, a good deal of leisure time is advantageous.

Not only are the characters allegoric but so are the plants and the inanimate décor in the garden: Such as the fountain of Narcissus and the rose that is the object of the dreamer's affection.

We do not need to stray into the realms of literary criticism here. For our purposes of garden history the book is an excellent way of looking at medieval gardens through a medieval mind. It inspired other literary works and many medieval miniatures of gardens.

De Lorris would need to use imagery familiar to his readers even if the story is allegorical. As reading pre -printing press days was done aloud and in company, the audience for literary works was much wider than we might anticipate when mistakenly considering them acting from the private reading habits of the 16^th century onwards.

Perhaps the book was as influential on garden design as that was influential on the book.

Enclosed gardens meant a class enclosed, protected somewhat the world's harshness. A situation reinforced by religious imagery such as medieval paintings which depict Mary, Jesus angels or other heavenly figures in an enclosed garden. The walls, of which, shielded them from the eyes of the profane.

Exclusiveness had both a sacred and temporal advantage.

Chaucer translated the "Romance of the Rose" into English in the 14^th century: A period when the upper echelons of society were changing their main language from French to English.  Here is a sort piece from a later version of that translation.

 "There sprang the violet all new,

And fresh pervinke, rich of hue,

And flowers yellow, white, and red-

Such plenty grew there never in mead.

Full gay was all the ground, and quaint,

And powdered, as men had it paint,

With many a fresh and sundry flower

That casten up full good savour."

                             Chaucer's Romance of the Rose (1360 tys)

Gardens had certainly come a long way since the dark ages and so had civilization. However nature strengthens through adversity. The ease of the leisured classes sitting in their walled gardens on their flowery meads and turf seats, supported by the feudal system, was to be painfully disturbed, in mid 14^th century Britain and Europe by the pestilence known to history as the Black Death.